In your opinion what would be too scary? I tend to have higher thresholds and limits than most people to what I call appropriate so I am curious.

My first thought was Never Alone

It is a puzzle platform adventure and the main character is a little girl probably around your daughter’s age who befriends an arctic fox. It’s an educational game about the Iñupiat people and their culture.

I dont know if there’s any scary scenes but since the main character is a child and the main focus of the game is to be educational, I doubt there will be anything too inappropriate. There will probably be things that she won’t understand but just about everything will have things here and there she wont understand - she’s 5.

And the line to cross may as well be a 1,000,000ft wall for right wingers since nothing seems to shake their faith no matter how awful their politicians are

Wyll, the warlock.

As fun as the Witcher is, the world may have been too big. Not every location had a quest, not every quest was necessary… some side quests were kinda bad. And it had a lot of collection bloat. The first zone wasn’t too bad. Small and focused, with collection stuff. It’s pretty nice. But trying to 100% everything after that is a nightmare.

Skyrim is a weird one, the main game is not the main story, but rather all the side stuff. It had collection bloat, but in the form of dungeons and quests. It didn’t really do the whole “legendary gear is in this obscure chest on the top of this random mountain that you have to visit on the 3rd Tuesday at 5am” thing. So while Skyrim is pretty big, it doesn’t feel like nightmarish, collection bloat that’s overwhelming.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was able to take both these approaches and make it work. It has a tone of secrets and things to collect. But it was done in a way that It didn’t feel mandatory. You feel satisfied doing the main story, but also by just going around and doing the side content like in Skyrim. But like Skyrim, sometimes people just want to stop the msq at certain places and just chill in the game doing random whatevers. However, like Witcher all the random collections and side content does feel overwhelmingly impossible to complete in its scope. I found a few YouTube channels dedicated to secrets and obscure side content in this game and its insane how much there is. And a lot of it is missable after certain points in the story. There is no way to 100% this game without a guide. With Witcher and Skyrim its at least possible without a guide.

The thing is, most of the accounts participating this year were bots made specifically for this. Yes it’s a burst of traffic, but it’s a burst of traffic that will drop off a cliff as soon as it’s over.

The botting was so bad this year that a small community or a single person couldn’t do anything, I tried to mess around with an 8 pixel space and as soon as I put a pixel down, it was undone.

The Germans had something like 50k or more bots set up for this. That’s why there were so many German flags everywhere.

Their little newsletter thing promises reflect support but it’s depressing that there’s a lot of games that just haven’t been converted. Neopets fan sites have managed to convert some, in fact Grundo’s cafe might have more working games than the official site at this point. =/

Little differences add up! I’m glad you have the ability to have a homestead. We can do a garden and in theory we have the space to raise chickens or rabbits for meat/eggs but we’d probably get too attached to the chickens/rabbits to get them butchered. We do have a garden but I think most of our crop is going to fail. It’s been so hot and rainy here. Our back garden flooded again yesterday. Our upper garden is fine but there’s less space.

Canada and US have different food and safety laws. Milk is quite a bit different, the laws are pretty strict that US cannot export their milk to Canada. There’s hormones and such the US inject their cows with (in order to produce more milk) that are illegal in Canada. It affects the flavour and how healthy the milk is.

Canada has higher standards of what is acceptable to eat. I believe during covid they did not reduce their standards to meet demands. In the US, if the animal was sick it’s not supposed to be suitable for consumption. But in order to meet demands, they loosened that restriction. Meat quality went down during covid. In Canada the price of meat went up.

The US is also more likely to use fillers and such to cut costs. Like how back in the medieval age, they would cut their flour with saw dust. Basically that. But it isn’t necessarily the law to put that anywhere or what the filler is. There are many products in the US that cannot be sold as that product in other countries. Example: wonder bread can not be sold as bread due to all the sugar. Subway has to be classed as a desert place due to all the sugar, a specific brand of ice cream cannot be classed as ice cream due to lack of cream (and because of all the sugar), so on and so fourth.

It doesn’t surprise me that it’s so different. About 15 years ago I had a burger at a McDonald’s Donald’s in Mexico and it was so different, it was so good. It was like eating at an actual higher end burger joint. The lettuce and tomatoes were fresh, the patties were juicy, the buns weren’t a sweet, wet mess. And it was bigger, too.

My condolences. Perhaps a reptile or a rodent then, some are friendly and like to chill but are not for everyone.

Recently, I was at the grocery store and the family in front of me at at a minimum of 9 tubs of ice cream. (2L ones). Turns out they are from Connecticut visiting Canada. According to the check out lady, people from the states load up on our local ice cream and cheeses. It seems to be quite common.

The brand of ice cream that they got has a factory + store front about 10 minutes away from me. We drive past it all the time, it’s been extremely busy with these hot temps. With lines going out the door and into the parking lot just to have an ice cream cone.

Sure, it’s anecdotal, but there’s still plenty of people in love with ice cream.

How about cats? As a rule they tend to bean easier pet and happier to be purely indoors if you live somewhere that isn’t safe to let them out/have a catio. I find having cats help my mental health.

Sorry to hear you were with someone who abused animals though, that’s awful.

But I can’t mod games on consoles that you plug into the TV. Also my specs are better. :C

What a world we live in where people are recommending what used to be Internet Explorer or Chrome.

There are, but it might not be called so and at the bottom they might write “(may) contain: soy”

I’m talking about pre-made whatever. Salad dressings, sauces, etc. They all have corn or soy in them, sometimes both. It’s hard to avoid it entirely. People with a soy allergy probably have to get specialty brands and/or go to specialty shops since food in North America is so corporate. Many of the food safety laws are a joke. And Canada is stricter than USA. In USA food safety is the whole clown show when compared with the EU.

I have had my own insulated steel water bottle for a few years now. I have bought a couple water bottles since, but it only happens when I forget it and it’s a hot day. I still try to avoid Nestlé when that happens.

Nestlé chocolates are bad too, though. They use palm oil in all of it. However, most chocolate companies do. And it isn’t limited to chocolates. Oreos, which are vegan, use palm oil as well, which is why some vegans and vegetarians boycott oreos. Unfortunately there aren’t many alternatives to go to for this issue. The only viable solution for this one is to “stop eating chocolates/etc” rather than finding alternate brands and companies. Unfortunately this one is rather difficult because palm oil is one of those ingredients that has like 50 different names because companies KNOW that palm oil is one of those issues people feel strongly about and try to avoid. So every company will call it something else, or something very, very vague. Avoiding palm oil is like trying to avoid corn or soy.

I avoid Nestlé as much as I can, I mostly… I just buy a coffee crisp once or twice a year. It’s one of my favorites and I have not found an alternative I like as much/better.

Nestle isn’t exactly making bank off me, that’s enough.

They also cancel just about all their good series while keeping the shit ones. :')

Completely understandable, thank you for responding to the comment and not just deleting it in the first place! AI is a pretty contentious topic but most of it was trained on art where the artist didn’t consent on having their art used for training or being synthed. I see so many people that take commissions and make money of this, but don’t disclose they are using AI. Some people care, many don’t.

I am inspired to make an Icon, so we’ll see. =)

This is such a fun and cool idea, but.

Please, absolutely do not choose an AI generated piece. If people have to prove the piece is genuine via sending in a PSD, SAI file, etc (any file that shows layers) or sketches. So be it.

An AI piece would take away from the fun and authenticity from this. Artists, writers, voice actors, and other creative are having a hard time as it is with the rise of AI. And the AI bros defending it. A person who uses AI and calls themselves an artist is the same energy as someone taking a frozen meal and heating it up a microwave calling themselves a chef.

AI Is an interesting tool and has its uses, but people are abusing it right now and it’s getting harder and harder to tell what is authentic.