Quick Recommendation #6: Arco (video game)
Original, Tactical, Recreational
Last year, Panic published a terrific indie game I’d like to recommend: Arco. I’ve only played the first two acts, but I like it a lot so far.
It has great pixel art, music, writing, and story.
It also has a genuinely innovative turn-based combat, and guilt system, which makes in-game choices interesting.
It’s available on PC, Mac, and Switch. I’m playing it on Mac, with a controller – and it works flawlessly. (If you want to get it for desktop, I recommend getting it through Epic, as the dev gets a larger piece of the pie.)
Click here to see all my quick recommendations!
App review: Tot
Yesterday, I wrote about Iconfactory’s newest app, Tapestry. Today, I want to do a little review of another great app of theirs, Tot.
“Your tiny text companion”
Tot is a scratchpad app, for fleeting notes. It was inspired by Tyke, which explains the need for this well:
I made Tyke because when I’m working I often need a little bit of scratch paper to jot something down.
Sometimes it’s because I need to paste it someplace or other times it’s because I just want to clear the formatting and edit it.
I used to use a new text editor window for that job. Now I don’t have to.
I use Tot for things like writing down everyone’s take-away orders. I also use it when I need to keep some text in a small Mac window that stays on top, or small pieces of info I might want to look up from time-to-time.1
The business model is also both clever and fair: It’s totally free on Mac, and then you pay once for iOS (€20) and Apple Watch (€2).
My favourite part of it, is that it allows you to store 7 notes. It’s more than 1, but still limited. You swipe between them, and they are beautifully colour coded.2 This makes it so you don’t fall into the trap of wanting to name your notes, or keep them forever. You’re supposed to move on.
These 7 notes are synced between Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with great apps for each.
Purposeful limitations
✉️ My Issues With the Tapestry Design
The 1.0 of Iconfactory’s latest app, Tapestry, just landed. Like the new Reeder, it’s a “unified timeline app”, that collects feeds from many different sources, like RSS, Reddit, YouTube, Mastodon, and more.
Some really like this idea (for instance for collecting Bluesky, Mastodon and Micro.blog in one place), while others don’t. I’m not yet sure where I stand.
I backed the Tapestry kickstarter way-back-when, so I’ve been able to beta test it. I like a lot of the ideas – and the way it handles feeds/connectors and default apps seems fascinating and robust. But due to some issues with the visual design, I’ve never been able to get into it… This post is my feedback letter to the devs, which might also be interesting to others.
Edit:
I got some feedback from Iconfactory on this post. That, and my response back, can be read in this blog post.
Great designers
I spent €40 on the Kickstarter – but even if I’ll never get into the app, I won’t call it a complete waste. Because Iconfactory is a cool company, that I don’t mind supporting.
And they are excellent designers! So when I disagree with things about their work, I’m, of course, a bit nervous, heh.
Mini Gang, unite ✊🏻
I’m still rocking my trusty ol' iPhone 13 Mini. And I think part of my issues stem from me using a phone that’s probably smaller than what they’ve optimised for. I also get that it’s a 1.0, and that much of the work has gone into some really cool tech on the backend. So I hope it’s possible to see that this feedback comes from a place of love, and hope for the future!
And I get that many might like the things I don’t. So I think the answer is more customisation – like this settings screen from Mona:
Messy and cramped
I like colourful designs. And Tapestry has this neat idea, where it gives timeline entries different colours depending on the type.
It might not come across perfectly in screenshots, but with my Mini phone in hand, I find a combination of things here unpleasant.
Quick Recommendation #5: The Mad Max Video Game
It’s not often I finish video games… One of the reasons, is that I often play games you can’t finish – like Europa Universalis and The Bazaar 🖇️. But I actually just finished, an r/patientgamers favourite: the Mad Max game, from 2015.
And it’s actually at 80% off on GOG at the moment!
It’s not a fantastic game – but if you like Mad Max (like me), I can recommend it. I saw someone on Reddit call it “the perfect mid-budget game”, and I agree.
It’s an open-world game, with a world of great flavour. The car-combat is especially good and unique.
But one piece of advice, if you decide to check it out: Exploring the open world gets quite repetitive – so it’s not worth it to approach the game with a completionist’s mindset. Just treat it as a bite-sized little treat, and do the stuff you find fun and run through the story. If you buy it for like €4, just try to get that amount of money’s worth.
I played in through Steam, and on my Mac Mini. It says it’s not available for Mac, but installing it still works, for some reason. (Not 100% sure about the GOG version, though.)
Quick Recommendation #4: Ultima Retrospective (YouTube)
I have no prior nostalgia for the CRPG series Ultima. I’ve always known about the series, but never played any of the games. Still, I’ve loved a series by the YouTube channel Majuular: Ultima Retrospective
The videos are long – but well-made, with a combination of story behind the development and reception, plus a complete run-down of the gameplay and story. It’s also not done, so I assume there’ll be more content down the line! (You know, if you’re done with the 14 hours made up until now.)
Let's Try to Always Provide a Dignified Way Forward
And a Message to My Fellow Straight, White, Cis Men
It’s been a rough couple of days over at my part of the internett…1 And this has made me think about something I learned on a teacher seminar once: While dealing with tough student situations, always provide a way for them to come out of the situation with their dignity intact, while still achieving the goal behind the intervention.
It’s not an easy exercise, I can assure you! But I think it’s an important principle, that can be applied to many other situations as well.
We can disagree and still love each other – unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.
— James Baldwin (via Patrick Rhone)
It’s a time for vigilance.
Especially for straight, white, cis men like myself. Because, people not like me are under attack (so they’re vigilant whether they want to be or not) – not because of what they do, but who they are. And we can’t let them fight this battle alone.
So here’s a little message to my brethren (and I’ll try my best to do my part):