Alternative way to think about it: 10% of people are insufferable assholes. Do you want them to be happy with what you say?
The guy’s name was David. In the game, you’re chasing after an inventor who crossed different parts of the world, building giant pinball games on fields. You’re following in his footsteps, fixing the pinball games that have fallen into disarray using the lessons you learned.
Googling a little, it seems like that was a different game called Pinball Science, also by David Macaulay. So I definitely had both, probably got them both around the same time. I vaguely remember the setting for TNWTW being an island with different buildings with different themes of things to discover.
Those disks were super hard to get where I was, too. I live in Lebanon. My parents moved heaven and earth to get me quality entertainment, and the older I get the more I realize how much effort they put into making me a cultured kid.
Now I really need to spin up a VM! I also want to waltz around Beaumaris Castle in Encarta, and check out all the stuff in Encarta that I didn’t know to appreciate when I was a kid.
Oh yeah. I remember this. You learn lessons and then apply them to build a pinball system, at least in the sequel, creatively named The New Way Things Work. I spent years on all kinds of edutainment software made by these guys.
I genuinely believe that our generation got some kind of golden age for interactive educational stuff. DK/GSK were releasing banger after banger, I believe I’d still enjoy these as an adult! The virtual museums just speak to me, conceptually. I don’t know what similar stuff came after, but all the software I see young kids interacting with now is ad riddled digital nonsense sludge. Even the stuff that should be more than just entertainment.
All those old DK CDs should be available on the Internet Archive, by the way. Just need to finally get around to setting up a damn Windows XP VM and I’ll be looking through a lot of these with fresh adult eyes.
I picked up Dinkum. I thought maybe it will be the Minecrafty Animal Crossing-like that I hoped would be made one day. I didn’t play it yet, but it looks like what I want out of a Deck game (besides the Deck<->Switch thing). I also got Necesse, a game with similar themes.
I picked up The Rewinder as well, which looks like my idea of a quintessential indie game.
Besides, after a decade of only buying things on deep [1] after they’re out of the zeitgeist, I think it’s about time I play things that are a bit earlier in their lifecycle. Especially indie stuff, where the money isn’t going to some exec’s yacht polish.
While I bought it some time ago, I finally got around to playing Grim Fandango Remastered, which has been delightful on the Deck. I love how the game was conceived for a totally different type of machine than what I’m playing it on.
[1] it appears this community auto-removes the word for “reduction in price”. I guess there’s good reasons for that, but this is a Steam Sale thread lol
How is Sleeping Dogs on the Deck? I played it a bit a few years ago on desktop, so it might be worth downloading onto the Deck so I can restart and take it in. I remember being really engrossed in the world. I think I ended up not playing it because I started Saints Row 2 and that game grabbed my attention like nothing else. I was particularly nostalgic for the classic early 2000s GTA games, so SR2 was like an undiscovered fourth one.
I use Windows with an audio interface on my PC, and I think that caused some audio routing issues when it came to remote play. I haven’t tried it again, might have been fixed