If you want to double down on the puzzle aspect, check out Toki Tori 2. It's a metroidvania side scrolling puzzle game. The wild part of it is you basically only have 2 moves, but you have to figure out how to use those moves to solve puzzles in the environment to progress. There are no actual hard walls like in a regular metroidvania, it's just your understanding of how you can manipulate and influence objects in the world that gates you from getting to new places.

I'll show my ignorance here, too, because I thought crystal was a similar flavor. That's actually why I said southern style.

Noted, thanks! What do I call that style then? I thought it was southern style.

My invented dish I call "Scrumpy". You take fries or fried potatoes, equal amount lettuce broken up like for a salad, chicken, then top it with chicken or beef gravy and chopped green onions. To really take up the indulgence level you can add southern hot sauce like Frank's, and some Cajun seasoning.

It started because of my great love of poutine, and wondering how I could make it into a healthier full meal. I've done a million variations on it, too. Stir fried cabbage and onion instead of lettuce. Corned beef instead of chicken. Adding a fried egg on top... Very flexible weeknight meal.

I would absolutely serve this to someone if it ever came up, but it never has.

They mean the start of 2026, right?.... Right?

So what tips it over the edge into losing the trademark? Cause many of those things on the at risk list are completely generic in common parlance already.

Are you talking about Canva? You keep saying canvas so I'm not sure.

Doesn't seem to be working considering this is a post about a major article about it.

👏

Wait, are you telling me marvel isn't thought through all the way?

People like that really aren't fair, are they? Save some talent for the rest of us. 😅

It's worth noting the dude worked his ass off and had financial support to pay living expenses from his partner:

For four years, he says, he worked an average of ten hours a day, seven days a week, on Stardew Valley. Luckily, he was living with his girlfriend, a graduate student in, appropriately, plant biology, and to help stay afloat he worked part-time as an usher at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre

Not diminishing his accomplishments at all, but I think it's always good to compare effort to effort, resources to resources, rather than simply team size. Most people can't spend 4 years with that pace without investment backing.

One thing I'll throw out there is while there are rare cases where a solo dev really does everything themselves, when you see a really ambitious looking result from a supposedly solo dev, it's very likely they either contracted things out, bought/found assets, or had on and off help from people. It's only solo in the sense it's their vision and they get to put things together/make all the final calls on the game.

Making stuff solo is hard. I'm doing it right now and I'm purposely trying to use a lot of stock assets for art and music because the game alone is already a massive task by itself. Don't be afraid to use what's out there. If your game feels good to play most people will never worry about whether you hand built every blade of grass. In other words, go for as small a scope as you can, and don't be afraid to cut corners.

Nice call out on rice milk straight. I do think it has a nice subtle sweetness to it the others don't.

It has a long way to go but it's a good start. The community is very homogenous right now (maybe excluding some of the mainly politically focused servers). It's predominantly male tech people right now and it shows in what is active and the general vibes of discussions. My hope is not only for more niche communities to grow, but also for a lot more diversity of interests and of people in general. We need more women's voices on here for sure. I miss that diversity from reddit. Things have been steadily, if slowly, growing so far from what I can tell, so hopefully over time all this will improve.

Really interesting reading your follow up post in here. It's so incredible to hear about how differently people can think.

I imagined the scene in detail, but to pay attention to all the details I had to think back to it and examine each part of what I imagined, if that makes any sense.

I pictured a side camera angle with a white metal table and a light blue wall behind. The ball was a soccer ball, and it was pushed by a woman's hand wearing a gray knit sweater. Only the hand and forearm are "in frame". Her arm comes in from the right side and pushes the ball to the left, rolling it across the table.

North A-scare-ica (I'm sorry)

Exactly. Even if you've seen it before it doesn't mean everyone has.

I think if moderation is so intense that it has a chilling effect on the community, that's a big red flag. Sounds like you did it just right.

Wow, those were some impressive effects!

Repost policing is so ridiculous. Like yeah, of course we'd rather not have the same thing multiple times a day, but it's totally ridiculous to expect people to look through the entire sub's history to make sure you're good. If you saw it before, just move on. No need to shit on people for trying to contribute.