Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Also my partner was just asking me what Bonhomme translates to in English and I was like... I've never considered this, but I guess the closest equivalent I can think of is like, "dude"? "Carnival dude"? 102
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 24/08/2026One of my childhood friends had a collection of every Bonhomme yearly keychain-sized doll since the 1950s, passed down the generations. The primal Bonhommes were misshapen and painted blotchily 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 08/08/2026A man after my own heart. I had this wood-paneled phone back in 2013. Not a single person ever commented on it 020
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Note that even though I had to "try every wall" to solve them, that didn't feel onerous because I only had to check the rooms I had already access to without spending resources during the daytime. That was key to the game design not feeling frustrating, in retrospect. 120
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026I found the right-facing passage while probing the horizon room, then I found the upward-facing passage by finding the "mysterious wall" message and that motivating me to sweep the library at length. I only recognized the hints for those after I didn't need them anymore. 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026I found the left-facing passage very early on my first day. (I saw the "drafty closet" message and entered it from there.) Then I mentally checked off the library as "secret found" and didn't check it again until I was in try-every-wall mode. 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Yeah I was "lucky" to not have entered from the bottom left on my first daytime so I came in with no assumptions about what was impossible 020
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026FWIW I had found the storage room path before beating the game for the first time. (The first time I entered from the bottom left, it was natural to probe every square.) The additional puzzles I needed to solve to get 0/0/0 were vines and library (especially library -- I had found neither passage) 210
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 24/07/2026I feel like odds are it's still true, but I understand not wanting to risk big engine problems based on "I feel like odds are". Maybe on your first change, go out of your way to ask them how dirty the oil looks to get concrete evidence about your specific car. 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 24/07/2026If it helps, when your manual says your oil should be changed every 6-12 months even if you have low mileage, that's CYA overcautious advice unchanged from the days of non-synthetic oil. The first time I went for an oil change the guy was like, your oil is perfectly clean why are you here? 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 24/07/2026You calibrated it nicely IMO! Felt "hard and mysterious, as a true end should be" but not a grind. I liked how the flavor worked with the gameplay: "mysterious atmosphere" as a cue to search carefully, and all the NPC comedy events meant even when not progressing the puzzle, I was still discovering 120
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Got em. This felt impossible --- I was pretty sure I already found everything. You just gotta magic a few locks and murder a sentry or two. Right??? Really inspired level design and atmosphere. I loved the minor characters like the hulking bodyguard who breaks the 'rules' of the phase you're in. 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Nice! I like how it leaves more breathing room around the drawing too. 000
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Looks great! I realize this would be a bigger change than just the title screen, but have you considered shortening the title to "Where Light Shines"? Personally, I like the rhythm of that better, and it doesn't seem to sacrifice much if any meaning. 100
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 16/06/2026Reading NPC dialogue: Locked in Fighting a boss: Time to relax 040
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 05/06/2026So yeah I tend to agree with you, and I've even started to think chaos in the US might be a good reason to hang tight onto the back of the beast, instead of fleeing to some other country liable to suddenly get stomped by it. 100
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 05/06/2026And the rest of the world gets harmed much more severely by the same problems the US can shrug off. $5 gasoline here, run out of cooking gas in India. 100
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 03/06/2026The enemy groups have a lot of personality in this one! Is save scumming a sin according to the Six Testaments? I am torn between the virtues of patience and constancy and the Church's urgent need for funds... 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 03/06/2026the White Lady. NOT her flagrantly immodest sister Quelaag 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 16/05/2026There's a special atmosphere to this one. The other guests at the inn seemed to promise companionship in the midst of the struggle, but I left it with the creeping sense that even when we're all huddling together for warmth at the same dinner table, each of us is still fundamentally alone. 140
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Thoughtful post on a game about the beauty of human imperfection: "routing in platforming levels becomes a great deal more improvisational, playful, and prone to edge-case disasters–prone to greater mind-bodily inhabitance, even–when there exists a greater delay between an idea and its expression" 072
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Weird necro-reply, but I wasn't quite satisfied with my recs and I thought you might be interested in another: I'm currently reading *Resonance: A Sociology of our Relationship of the World* by Hartmut Rosa. It gets to the heart of the matter the best I've found. I might blog about it later 120
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 28/04/2026Hi all! I've been working on a new English translation of Camus's classic 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus, famous for "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" I just blogged about one of my favorite chapters. It's about stage actors, who chose an art that cannot outlast them: bluquark.net/posts/camus-...bluquark.netHe puts on a mask and three hours later he must dieAlbert Camus and life on the absurd stage 070
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 19/04/2026Yeah I just ran into that exact problem last week. I wanted my Node project to be on NTFS so I could access it from normal Windows software, but it was just so glacial. I ended up symlinking just the node_modules directory to the ext4 partition 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 19/04/2026I use TickTick. It's one of the few todo apps that treat Android as a first-class platform. 130
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 11/04/2026I mean on the overall direction yes, but on the other hand it also sounds like a classic example of waterfall IT leadership. Where officials completely unfamiliar with the problems faced by agencies on the ground suddenly poop a gigantic new unfunded mandate with an arbitrary 4-month deadline 230
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 16/03/2026I prefer PMincho because the spacing between the letters looks much more natural. 000
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 20/02/2026Another thought is that while I'm reassured that a scientist AI won't take over the world, I'm actually more worried now that a military AI will. Not only would it already control the weapons, the rationality of warfare is the one you're criticizing (ends justify the means, limited by thin rules). 020
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 19/02/2026More seriously, in addition to the AI angle, this also helped me understand how eudaimonic rationality works in a human life, thanks! I have been sympathetic to the idea, but have found it challenging to get a handle on it. 220
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 19/02/2026I laughed at the parallel between rogue AIs and mathematicians hopped up on amphetamines 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 03/02/2026I watched Fate in Japanese first and when I learned they translated 宝具 as "Noble Phantasm" I was like... wat? (I eventually understood it's because the original Japanese game calls them "Noble Phantasm" in katakana like 5% of the time for flavor.) 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 30/01/2026The Trump admin finally made a staffing decision that is less wacky than most people expected 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 18/01/2026The first standalone smurfs comic featured this trope: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pur... 150
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 15/01/2026First attempt my idea for how to open the door was proven right immediately but then I had no mouth but I must scream Second attempt I just couldn't get it anymore at all and I wandered around in case there was a hidden flag condition. Eventually died from recklessness and bad RNG. 10/10 no notes 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 14/01/2026Great post. All I would add is a rec to watch anime with Japanese-language subtitles from kitsunekko.net, when available. When I recognized only a word's kanji, I learned how it's pronounced, and when I knew only the sound I learned its kanji. Also, this enabled the Yomitan one-click dictionary.kitsunekko.netkitsuneko.net - Japanese and English anime subtitles 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 14/01/2026I'm using Hubitat for my smarthome controls, a system designed for power user customization, but the main way to program it is with extremely complicated GUI wizards. So LLMs hallucinate how it works and I wind up in the dark ages of googling for forum posts with screenshots 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 14/01/2026Witch Hat Atelier has gorgeous art! For readers closer to N1, my favorite no-furigana fantasy manga is Dungeon Meshi: 040
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 06/01/2026Audiobooks are great for times when you can't read, like driving or walking. And personally, I do not find them easier than reading at all. It's harder to guess the meaning of a new word from sound than kanji, and they keep going even when I'm still trying to figure out the last sentence 010
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 23/12/2025The Final Fantasy influence is really strong. I mean it's a better FF than any Square has made in decades, but if FF isn't your favorite RPG style in the first place... 000
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 20/12/2025It's some of the text that shows up on the bottom left of the screen as you walk. If you're seeing mojibake there, make sure you're running the game in the Japanese locale (for example using Locale Emulator) 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 20/12/2025The quoted text in the memos you find on the ground sometimes. For example 焦げろ and 己ならざるのぬくもりよ 110
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 20/12/2025It's one of the obvious ideas you probably tried, but what threw me off is it has to be typed in kana/kanji and the textbox seemed to only accept ASCII characters. Probably a bug on newer versions of windows. The trick I found is to type Japanese in another window and copy-paste it. 120
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 17/12/2025Cool, I'm glad you like it! Would be cool if I happened to help come up with the title :). But I won't mind if you decide to go with "sandbox" after all: that's a very defensible choice as well IMO. 020
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 17/12/2025Another idea for your consideration is "plaything". Loses the "box" connotation, but fully captures the careless domination aspect. Works well in the line "Is this world nothing more than his plaything?". Less confident it works in the title, but "Dogma's Playthings" is one option. 210
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 17/12/2025As usual, there is also the option of going with a longer or strange-looking phrase, for example writing 'garden-in-a-box' or even 'hakoniwa'. Might be more justified than usual in this case, in order to draw attention to the title drop 100
Bluquark @bluquark.bsky.social · 17/12/2025"Garden" doesn't fully work for this line because living gardens aren't fully under human domination. I can't do better than "Sandbox", even though it's one of those regrettable best choices that alters many secondary connotations. (Including making it hard to perceive the title drop in this case) 110
