ystael

@ystael@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone up for a game of Cartan?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The equation shown is a type of decomposition of a Lie algebra g that was introduced by Élie Cartan in his doctoral thesis. h is called a Cartan subalgebra of g.

  To answer what a Lie algebra is, an extremely hand-wavy description might be: a Lie group is a continuous group of symmetries of some geometric object (for example, the group SO(3) of rotations of three-dimensional space), and the corresponding Lie algebra is the “tangent space” to the group, that is, the space of tiny changes you can make that lie “along” the group.

  A lot of things in Lie theory and differential geometry are named after Élie Cartan, or sometimes after his son Henri.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Eurogamer 100 - 100 best games to play right now⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  … did they really put dodonpachi dai-ou-jou on a general audience top 100 list?! in the top 20!!! mind blown

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Supein sama⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Isobritannia? Is that regular Britannia with the hydroxyl group attached in the middle instead of the end?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: 8-bit Era Games⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Elementary school ystael spent a lot of time on Pinball Construction Set on the C64. I think I always turned the physics up to max speed minimum friction, so scoring on my tables was more about flailing and blind luck.

  My favorite C64 game, though, was one I didn’t get to play often because I had to borrow it from a friend. (Didn’t know about cracking yet.) That was Ultimate Wizard. The platform physics were kind of terrible compared to Mario, but I loved the way each level was a tiny puzzle-maze, with different treasures moving different blocks when you grabbed them, and one magic spell - just one on each level, out of ten or so - to help you deal with the enemies. And my favorite thing in every game: a level editor! No, my levels weren’t good, they were awful. But I loved laying out the little bricks and skulls and fires anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 26th⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Put a shocking amount of time into Unicorn Overlord last week.

  I think they executed the cross between Fire Emblem and Ogre Battle very well. Squad composition makes up for the lack of individual customization that is typical of the FE lineage of strategy RPGs (as opposed to the FFT/Tactics Ogre line). The overworld management is a fun exploration side activity that isn’t as time-consuming as Three Houses’s social stuff. Basiscape brought its usual excellent soundtrack, and Vanillaware their usual impressively detailed art. Plot is whatever, I don’t play these games for the plot, I play them to make anime sprites stab each other so numbers go up. So, yeah, it’s fun.

  (No, I don’t actually like Disgaea that much, mostly because “figuring out how to break the game is the game” doesn’t appeal to me.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What difficult games/game challenges did you give up on?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Baba Is You is fantastic, and I think its difficulty curve is much, much more reasonable in the beginning than Stephen’s Sausage Roll. I haven’t finished it, but I didn’t utterly bounce off it either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What difficult games/game challenges did you give up on?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Stephen’s Sausage Roll.

  I play a lot of puzzle games. Some of them are pretty hard (the later levels of Tametsi take quite a while to crack).

  But this one is on a completely different level. If there is a more brutally punishing sokoban-family game on existence, I have no idea what it might be.

  Stephen, if he exists, is most likely condemned to roll sausages eternally in hell, for the sin of making this game.