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Note: I brought the guestbook back to life with some improved anti-spam measures and a much prettier comment form. We’ll see how it works…
I’m so thankful for your “Pacman (Linux) Update Issue” post. I haven’t checked on my old pc in a long time and your observation saved me hours of troubleshooting.
Thank you for taking the time to write in. It is great to hear my little anecdote was helpful. Aside: I noticed that a second computer I have EndeavourOS on did not have the same issue — I suspect because I set that one up last year and the original installation did not have the now-defunct repositories. (Original Post: https://thenewleafjournal.com/pacman-arch-linux-update-issue/)
I am excited to learn about your Pokémon Red novel project:
https://thenewleafjournal.com/introducing-pokemon-red-novel-project/
Please post more updates soon! Or, if you are not inclined to provide updates in detail (this seems unlikely), consider this an encouragement to stick with your playthrough and story. There was a time I tried my hand at writing something similar, for the original Prince of Persia. I was eight and the game does not lend itself to an evolving plot or expansive world the way Pokémon does. But the concept of story-as-strategy-guide, or perhaps game-as-novel, still appeals.
Thank you much for reading and for the encouragement — it’s very neat to see that someone is looking forward to it. The project is still on, but I haven’t had time to finish my play-through yet (I ultimately started in July/August). You can see one early quasi-update here on my difficulty finding a Caterpie (https://thenewleafjournal.com/searching-for-caterpie-in-viridian-forest/).
Since you asked, I will give a small update. I have 4/8 badges at the moment. I left off a few weeks ago at the door of Silph Co. I am planning to do that followed by Sabrina (before Koga) to demonstrate in the guide that you can tackle gyms 3-7 out of order. I spent a couple of play-throughs obtaining a Poliwhirl to trade for “Lola” the Jynx to demonstrate trade mechanics. Still debating the last member of my roster (5 are more or less set). Other than just finishing, I’m still undecided whether to do Power Plant and Seafoam Islands before or after Elite Four. Once I’m done, I’ll sit down and start hammering out the story. One additional point is how to separate some “strategy” elements and explanations from the main guide.
Your youthful Prince of Persia project idea sounds fun. Back when I was 8 I was into Sonic games, comics, and cartoons, and Kirby. I had an imagination for it but never thought of making a strategy guide back then (not least because I wasn’t actually good at Sonic). It does seem better suited to RPGs such as Pokemon, but I will venture one could do some interesting things with pro sports games.
118 attempts to catch a Caterpie, that’s rough. In situations like that one I will usually turn down the game’s volume and put on an album or podcast. Imagine the exhaustion of poor Justin (appears to be your character’s name from a screenshot), tramping through the tall grass late into the evening, refusing to rest until he has found that one bug type that somebody told him of glimpsing there.
But can I throw any stones (or Pokéballs)? Certainly not, because when in the mood for comfortable repetition within a familiar game I fire up Ratchet & Clank on my PS3 and farm bolts (the game’s currency). I have long since acquired more bolts than Ratchet could possibly need in a single playthrough. But there is a trophy for collecting one million of them. (The number you’re required to spend for 100% completion is about 650,000 – I added it up – and while an unlimited amount can be spent on ammo, its cost is paltry.) There is no in-game reason for collecting one million bolts.
My trophy is your Caterpie. For Ratchet & Clank, no novel idea of a novel (pun intended) awaits for 100% trophy completion. But some satisfaction does. Anyway, the game is fun to play and holds up extremely well.
I like that you are intentionally demonstrating less well-known possibilities like playing gyms out of order and detailed trade mechanics. On occasion in my story I would have the Prince take a wrong turn in order to visit a screen or two that would otherwise be unexplored. A perfect playthrough is impressive, but a perfect protagonist is dull.
I never played Ratchet and Clank, but do remember some of the collect-a-thon style platformers from the late 90s and early 2000s. It is nice they give you a trophy for collecting more than you can actually use. Caterpie was infuriating, but I did find another (non-novel playthrough) struggle to capture a level 15 Dragonair in the PKMN Yellow Safari Zone to be oddly peaceful (https://thenewleafjournal.com/b/5xV).
Thanks for some interesting insights at https://thenewleafjournal.com/my-default-apps-as-of-december-2023
I am always looking for alternatives or better apps compared to the mainstream. foss ftw..
Thank you for reading and taking the time to leave a message. I thought about writing an update, but most of the list is the same. A few changes: (1) I use F-Droid Basic for Android apps instead of Obtainium and Droid-ify; (2) I use Fennec as my main Android browser instead of Mull and Syncthing-Fork instead of Syncthing (due to my 2023 picks being discontinued); (3) No Omnivore (discontinued); (4) Miniflux instead of Handy Reading for feeds (that was a very recent switch); (5) LocalSend instead of Warpinator (it works better for me).
Hi Nicholas
Thanks for the great article on alternative search engines.
Just an update for you – startpage now uses Bing as well as Google – see their page: https:// support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/4522435533844-What-is-the-relationship-between-Startpage-and-your-search-partners-like-Google-and-Microsoft-Bing
Thank you for reading and taking the time to highlight the Startpage source update in a Guestbook comment. I confess I had not noticed Startpage’s incorporating Bing into its results — it seems to still draw from Google’s index (or, at a minimum, is distinguishable from Bing-based DuckDuckGo) in my experience. I also noticed its update is vague — it gives no indication how it decides whether to use Google or Bing or whether it is mixing them (which I doubt). Contrast with Ecosia which allows searchers to decide whether they want Google-index or Bing-index results in the settings. I incorporated your comment with credit in my 2021 search engine review (https://thenewleafjournal.com/b/1fE) and in an article from last August (https://thenewleafjournal.com/b/6j0) which also discussed Startpage. Your uBlacklist repository in your comment link looks interesting. I will go through it since I also use uBlacklist.