Deep Forest

Deep Forest by Small is Beautiful
https://small.itch.io/deep-forest

Deep Forest is a free GB Studio adventure game that takes about 45 minutes to play. There's no combat, but the game features legitimate exploration and puzzle-solving gameplay elements. You play as a forest witch tasked with helping three trees that have become cursed. To purify a tree, you must first find it by exploring the forest. You then enter its nightmare, which functions as a dungeon. Once the tree's curse is lifted, its thorny roots vanish, thereby allowing you to explore more of the forest.

This is the basic gameplay cycle of the Legend of Zelda series, and the simple puzzles reminded me of Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, wherein you:

(1) Use an animal to procure a seed.
(2) Find a patch of soil to plant the seed,
(3) which sprouts into a vine
(4) that allows you to climb a cliff.

If this similarity is intentional, it's a lovely homage to the debut work of the director of Breath of the Wild. In addition, I had a nice "Legend of Zelda" moment when I found Deep Forest's one secret. Specifically, I was delighted when I realized that you can water the single square of roots in front of an otherwise unremarkable cave in order to discover a hidden spring. This moment of discovery gave me a spark of excitement that reminded me of exploring Hyrule for the first time.

In terms of its visual style, Deep Forest is reminiscent of the Game Boy games that were released in the West under the "Final Fantasy" logo, which include the first Secret of Mana game and the first three games in the SaGa series. This style feels extremely nostalgic, and it's cool to see it used to depict a thriving forest.

Deep Forest is fairly linear, and the gameplay mechanics are beautifully intuitive. It's exactly the perfect length, and I really enjoyed the exploration elements and wholesome story. The interactive postgame credits sequence is lovely and genuinely feels like a reward for playing. I would have loved this game as a kid, and I'm extremely fond of it as an adult.

Peer Review is Racist and Sexist

Dispirited Away: The Peer Review Process
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/plar.12479

Peer review is racist and sexist! Who would have thought that allowing academics to say anything they want behind a veil of anonymity would result in misbehavior? Shocking.

And who would have thought that publishing something like this would result in such a strong backlash against the author that she would have to lock her Twitter account? It's almost as if anonymous peer review selects for a certain type of person whose career is advanced by how hateful they can be to their colleagues.

Yeah. Anyway. This is extremely depressing. Content warning for everything. What the author is saying is absolutely true, but please be aware that you read it at the risk of your own mental health.

"Toots" is a stupid word and people should admit it

An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon
https://github.com/joyeusenoelle/GuideToMastodon#readme

On one hand, cool.

On the other hand, I don't need another social media profile, especially not one spread across multiple servers. I can barely keep up with Discord as it is. Meanwhile, my approach to Reddit and various other forums is to join with a new account every time I forget the password to the old one because I can't be bothered.

But idk, there are some artists and writers I just really like a lot and will follow anywhere they go. This is why - no joke! - I am still on DeviantArt and actually very happy to be there. Honestly DeviantArt is surprisingly well-curated, friendly, and easy to use these days, but please don't tell anyone.