Per the Star Trek On Paramount+ Twitter account, this week’s episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks will feature...

We have another GIANT list of games this season for the Fall 2024 Steam Next Fest! We're looking forward to a ton of these, and have compiled as many as we could find with animals and/or anthropomorphic characters featured in them! Be sure to let us know of any others you find by commenting below!

We'll be playing some of these demos this week and next, and hopefully providing some previews and progress updates throughout development! Additionally, we have an actively updated Furry & Animal Games List over at @GamingFurever that you can follow and get updates for lots of indie titles with TONS of lovely furry characters!

If you're a developer of any of these games, feel free to hit us up on email over on our Contact Us page!

We're sure everyone will find at least a couple games that strike their fancy during this Next Fest!

Check out the full October list here!

In this episode!

• This episode can hold so much charities!Breaking last years record! But by how much?
• Animations from around the web
• An interview with Labb Rat, known for her commentary videos, about the importance of caring about mental health and escaping toxic environments.

But first, the latest charity news from the fandom in this October edition of Digging Up Positivity and boy are here a lot of them! Do keep in mind, all amounts are converted to US dollars.

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Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and Rakuen Growlithe.

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How has Doctor Sleep fared 5 years since its release?

REVIEW – There seems to be a number of different form factors popping up with projectors recently. Very slim projectors, portable cubes, and today’s variation which looks more like a spotlight than a projector at first glance. The XGODY Gimbal 3 projector looked like a fun projector to try out and looked very portable. Read […]

I had a board game first this summer: I read an entire series of novels in preparation for playing a board game. When Jamey Stegmaier announced he was designing a new game with Alex Schmidt based on the award winning Red Rising  series by Pierce Brown, his excitement was so palpable that I wanted to understand the draw of the saga held for him. I checked my local library and the first book was already reserved, with a long waiting list in line before me. So I took the plunge and purchased the whole series from Amazon, hoping it would captivate me as it seemed to have done for Jamey.

Start with a narrative universe politically ordered by a tightly controlled color coded caste system;  pull in the concept of a boarding school with quirky teachers (like Hogwarts from Harry Potter) but introduce some structural changes to the school so that only the most socioeconomic elite in the caste system are permitted to attend; have the students compete in fight to the death brutal competitions (evocative of The Hunger Games but more violent and rape-y); explore the dynamic of class struggles and the penchant for revolution the lower castes foment; and you’ve got a good understanding of the Red Rising series that details the life and times of our protagonist, Darrow O’Lykos. To be honest, it’s an intense and difficult read due to the graphic nature of the violence (definitely not a story I want to see acted out on the big screen). But it’s well written literature and it makes you think.

Once I finished the book series, I was emotionally charged and ready to play Red Rising. I unboxed my review copy, invited over a few friends, and sat down for my first game. Jacqui Davis, Miles Bensky, and Justin Wong designed the artwork for the game and I’d describe it overall as futuristic, with a cartoonish bent when it comes to the character cards.

Before we get into the mechanics of the game, the components for Red Rising  Collector’s Edition warrant a discussion. I loved the weight of the metal influence cubes and fleet tokens handed out to each player. Likewise, the start player token, sovereign token, central board, and house cards are well constructed. And I appreciated the gold foil on the character cards. However, our first group of players gathered around our game table (and subsequent groups I played with) identified nuisance problems with some of the components. Each player’s set of metal influence cubes is  a different color and the yellow and gold sets are difficult to distinguish from across the table. The card holders included exclusively in the Collector’s edition are a disaster.

Every single person I played with managed to accidentally knock over their holder several times during a game, spilling out their hand for all to see repeatedly. Finally, the character cards reveal some questionable graphic design and font choices. For example, it was very difficult for all of us in the middle age cohort to read “obsidian” printed on the black cards.  None of these issues are significant enough to downvote the game, but I hope to see them corrected in future print runs.    

Onto the mechanics… Red Rising  is a mid-weight board game with a primary focus on cards and hand management. At the start of the game, each player is dealt 5 character cards and a house card (which grants a special ability). One of the primary goals is to build a hand of highly valued character cards (tabulated at the end of the game using the interaction formulas printed on the bottom of each card). To build this hand, players will use most of their turns to discard a character card from their hand to the board (called deploying) and then pick up a character card from a different column of the board. 

To spice things up, each card has a deploy ability that is triggered when the card is deployed (for example, a card might let you banish another card, move a card from one column to another on the board, immediately choose another card on the board to redeploy, etc). And each time you pick up a character card, you get a bonus immediately that edges you closer to victory along the path of one of the other strategic goals established in the game – either the receipt of helium tokens (worth 3 VPs each), forward movement along the fleet track (increasing VPs for each step forward), the possession of the sovereign token (10VPs if held at end of game), or influence cube placement on the influence area of the board (worth 4/2/1 VPs each, depending on your player’s rank in the influence cube area population). Instead of discarding+picking up on your turn,  there’s also an option, called scouting, to simply draw from the deck, place the drawn card on a column on the board, and then gain the bonus for that column. This option might be used when you are completely satisfied with your hand and can’t bear to part with any of it, or when you’re trying to pad the columns with cards of certain colors (some cards give you end game points per card of X color on the board) and crossing your fingers you can draw them.  It should be used sparingly since you miss out on the deploy ability when scouting.

I didn’t encounter a lot of analysis paralysis when playing this game, and it plays in under an hour (maybe 90 minutes for your very first time at higher player counts).  There’s plenty of replayability in the box given the large assortment of cards, but I do wonder if they’re going to eventually release an expansion for Red Rising  to keep things fresh for experienced players with different character card abilities or new point tallying interaction rules.

Jamey and Alex have hit on an accessible and winning combination by supporting a large spectrum of player counts (1-6), providing mid-weight complexity, keeping the gameplay tight enough to finish in under an hour, and selling it for under $60 at launch. And perhaps most importantly for players who worship theme and backstory, playing the game feels incredibly personal after you’ve read the books. I felt connected to the characters as they were revealed from the deck because of my experience reading the series. I was delighted to have the Sevro card in my hand, giddy to be given the House of Mars player role, and I flushed with anger when the Jackal card appeared on the board. I spent a lot of the game explaining the highlights of each character to my friends as new cards were laid down. Pretty sure I had to fight back tears when Eo’s card came up. In one of our games, my friend Malinda played Apollo and probably didn’t understand why I worked so tirelessly to thwart her efforts. Red Rising  is a solid OUI! OUI! OUI! from me for those who have read the series (and a OUI! OUI! for those who haven’t). Get the Red Rising  book series and read it and then get the game and play it. In that order. And consider pairing  the series with the game as a generous present for someone you love who loves board games and great dystopian novels.

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Players: 1-6
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 45 minutes per game
Game type: hand management

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

John Pesutto chalks up a first-time victory over Jacinta Allan in latest Resolve poll  The AgeView Full coverage on Google News

1. Legitimacy of two Victorian local government elections in question after duplicate votes detected  ABC News
2. Victorian council election results 2024 LIVE updates: Suspected postal vote tampering in council elections  Sydney Morning Herald
3. VEC investigates potential vote tampering in two Melbourne councils  The Age

Wow, this month sure went by fast. I'm sure I say that every October, as this is the busiest time of year at work, and stuff like football and Maybe The Last Nice Day This Year keep me busy.

I've been plugging away at this math/programming project, currently porting some numerical code that I don't fully understand and finding bugs in it and improving its performance. It's relaxing, at least, but there's nothing good to share here yet and I'm not sure it'll ever make an interesting story. I did make some version-2 circuit boards for a project I've been working on in parallel, too, but the next step in that one is going to be annoying ("Why won't it boot?") so I've been putting it off.

They brought the small neighborhood race called "Run Shadyside" back this year. This is a 5k course that I can easily walk to the start of, and Shadyside is about as flat as it gets in Pittsburgh, so it's a nice race to try to PR in. I've been keeping in pretty good shape (despite the setback due to illness mentioned previously), but that morning I was having some burning lungs so I didn't push myself too hard. (Could have been mold? Bad air quality? Slightly sick?) I finished in 20m19s, which is probably my third best official 5K time, although a bit disappointing since I ran several unofficial treadmill 5Ks under 19 minutes this summer. I finished 3rd in my age group. The results feature a new capitalization of my name, the elusive Stegosaurus CasE: "Tom Murphy ViI"

Craving a game that would make proper use of the GeForce 4090, I installed Call Of Duty: Cold War. Actually this game is a couple years old, and graphically it's not anything particularly special. I am liking the single-player campaign more than usual for these kinds of games, and avoiding getting sucked into multiplayer. I gave the "zombies" mode a shot and I think I finally understand it, like playing a roguelike on a single seed. I think I'm at the point where I need to set myself some kind of challenge and complete it and retire to more artful things, though.

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever.

The game isn't without flaw, but I think most of those flaws are not interesting to talk about. I do have one petty but important criticism, which is mildly spoilerful and anyway will only be interesting if you played the game. There is an object called the Somersloop ("cool S") which allows you to double the output of a machine. Canonically this item is some kind of "loop" and the flavor text talks about how it is able to create more energy than you put into it. So when I'm out hunting for Korok seeds I have this thought that maybe I could create a loop of factories whereby it would create infinite resources by repeatedly doubling. And I'm thinking about it but the crafting tree doesn't have any notable loops in it, but I remember the "packager" which allows you to put a fluid in a container or the converse, and I'm like: Yes, that's great! So I get back to base and I am doing this, just for fun to create an infinite fuel factory or whatever, and I realize that the packager just doesn't have a slot for a Somersloop. They must just hate fun, elegant twists. It would not break the game to allow this (you can always get infinite resources lots of other ways) or cause any other problem I can think of. Hmph!

The thing about constructing a factory and watching it churn is that it's basically the same thing as a programming project that you invented for yourself, and it's probably better to do the programming project. Here's progress on my mysterious rectangle:

With all the advances in private space exploration, why do taxpayers still pay for space science missions?

 New projects: 

• adp-github — ADP extension to generate github markdown files. — MIT
• adp-plain — Add Documentation, Please... using plain text. An extension of ADP to generate files with barely additional features. — MIT
• allioli — Alliolification — MIT
• alternate-asdf-system-connections — Allows for ASDF system to be connected so that auto-loading may occur. This is a fork of asdf-system-connections and incorporates a load-system-driven mechanism for loading dependencies and also loads the dependencies of the connections. — MIT
• cbor — CBOR encoder/decoder — MIT
• charje.documentation — Documentation is an opinionated yet customizable docstring parsing library. — AGPL V3 or any later version
• chipi — House automation bus in Common Lisp — Apache-2
• cl-aseprite — Aseprite file format parser — GPLv3
• cl-astar — A heavily optimized yet flexible A* pathfinding algorithm implementation — MIT
• cl-ceigen-lite — A Common Lisp wrapper around CEIGEN-LITE - which is itself a C wrapper around the C++ Eigen library. — MIT
• cl-cf — Computations using continued fractions — GPL-3
• cl-concord — CONCORD implementation based on Common Lisp — LGPL
• cl-duckdb — CFFI wrapper around the DuckDB C API — MIT License
• cl-fastcgi — FastCGI wrapper for Common Lisp — BSD License
• cl-flx — Rewrite emacs-flx in Common Lisp — MIT
• cl-frugal-uuid — Common Lisp UUID library with zero dependencies — MIT License
• cl-gog-galaxy — A wrapper for the GOG Galaxy SDK — zlib
• cl-lc — List comprehensions — MIT
• cl-naive-ptrees — Functions to make it easier to work with plist(s) and plist trees. Works with plist(s) pairs as units and not as individual list items. — MIT
• cl-qoa — An implementation of the Quite Okay Audio format. — zlib
• cl-reddit — Reddit client api library — BSD
• cl-resvg — An up-to-date bindings library for the resvg SVG rendering library — zlib
• cl-trivial-clock — Common Lisp library to get accurate wall-clock times on multiple platforms — MIT License
• clack-cors — A Clack middleware to set CORS related HTTP headers. — Unlicense
• clack-prometheus — Clack middleware to serve stats in Prometheus format. — Unlicense
• clith — Common Lisp wITH macro. A general WITH macro. — MIT
• clj-arrows — Implements Clojure-styled threading/transformation macros. — MIT
• clos-encounters — A collection of OOP patterns benefiting from the CLOS MOP. — Unlicense
• coalton — An efficient, statically typed functional programming language that supercharges Common Lisp. — MIT
• cocoas — A toolkit library to help deal with CoreFoundation, Cocoa, and objc — zlib
• com.danielkeogh.graph — A fast an reliable graph library. — MIT
• fast-mpsc-queue — Multi-Producer Single-Consumer queue implementation. — MIT
• file-finder — File finder. Enable rapid file search, inspection and manipulation. — GPL3+
• golden-utils — A utility library. — MIT
• hiccl — HTML generator for Common Lisp — MIT
• hsx — Hypertext S-expression — MIT
• hunchentoot-stuck-connection-monitor — Monitors hunchentoot connections and logs the connections stuck in the same state for a long time (due to slow or inactive clients and network stream timeouts that hunchentoot tries to utilize not working properly). Offers an option to shutdown the stuck connections sockets manually or automatically, thus unblocking the connection threads and preventing thread and socket leak. See https://github.com/edicl/hunchentoot/issues/189 — BSD-2-Clause
• incless — A portable and extensible Common Lisp printer implementation (core) — BSD
• inravina — A portable and extensible Common Lisp pretty printer. — MIT
• invistra — A portable and extensible Common Lisp FORMAT implementation — BSD
• knx-conn — KNXnet/IP implementation in Common Lisp — GNU GPL, version 3
• machine-state — Retrieve machine state information about CPU time, memory usage, etc. — zlib
• myweb — simple web server written in common lisp for educational reasons — LGPLv3
• noisy — Perlin noise for arbitrary numbers of dimensions. — MIT
• nontrivial-gray-streams — A compatibility layer for Gray streams including extensions — MIT
• open-with — Open a file in a suitable external program — zlib
• openai-openapi-client — Openai API client — AGPLv3+
• openrpc — CI for Common Lisp OpenRPC library. — BSD
• parse-number-range — Parses LOOP's convenient "for-as-arithmetic" syntax into 5 simple values: from, to, limit-kind (:inclusive, :exclusive or nil if unbounded), by (step) and direction (+ or -)). Further related utilities are provided. Intended for easy implementation of analogous functionality in other constructs. — Public Domain
• precise-time — Precise time measurements — zlib
• pregexp — Portable regular expressions for Common Lisp — MIT-like
• progressons — Display a progress bar on one line. — MIT
• quaviver — A portable and extensible floating point string library — MIT
• quilc — A CLI front-end for the Quil compiler — Apache License 2.0 (See LICENSE.txt)
• qvm — An implementation of the Quantum Abstract Machine. — Apache License 2.0 (See LICENSE.txt)
• random-sampling — Functions to generate random samples with various distributions — zlib
• rs-dlx — Knuth's Algorithm X with dancing links. — Modified BSD License
• scrapycl — The web scraping framework for writing crawlers in Common Lisp. — Unlicense
• smoothers — Statistical methods to create approximating functions that attempt to capture important patterns in the data, while leaving out noise or other fine-scale structures/rapid phenomena. — MS-PL
• trivial-adjust-simple-array — A tiny utility to change array size ensuring it is simple. — MIT
• trivial-system-loader — A system installation/loading abstraction for Common Lisp — MIT
• trivial-toplevel-commands — Trivial Toplevel Commands allows to define toplevel commands available on most implementations in a portable fashion. — BSD-3 Clause
• trivial-toplevel-prompt — Portability library to customize REPL prompts. — BSD-3 Clause
• utf8-input-stream — A UTF-8 string input stream over a binary stream for Common Lisp — MIT
• whereiseveryone.command-line-args — Automatically create a command-line-argument parser for a given Common Lisp function definition. — AGPL v3 or any later version

Updated projects: 3b-bmfont, 3bgl-shader, 3bmd, 3d-math, 3d-spaces, 40ants-asdf-system, 40ants-slynk, access, acclimation, action-list, adhoc, adopt, adp, agnostic-lizard, alexandria, alexandria-plus, anatevka, anypool, april, arc-compat, architecture.builder-protocol, array-utils, arrow-macros, assoc-utils, async-process, atomics, auto-restart, aws-sdk-lisp, babel, bdef, bike, binary-structures, binding-arrows, birch, blackbird, bordeaux-threads, calm, carrier, caveman, ccldoc, cephes.cl, cepl, cerberus, cffi, cffi-object, cffi-ops, chanl, chunga, ci, ci-utils, ciao, cl-6502, cl-algebraic-data-type, cl-all, cl-ansi-term, cl-async, cl-atelier, cl-autowrap, cl-base32, cl-bmas, cl-bmp, cl-bnf, cl-brewer, cl-buchberger, cl-cmark, cl-collider, cl-colors2, cl-confidence, cl-containers, cl-cookie, cl-csv, cl-custom-hash-table, cl-cxx-jit, cl-data-structures, cl-dbi, cl-digraph, cl-dot, cl-enchant, cl-environments, cl-fast-ecs, cl-fbx, cl-fluent-logger, cl-form-types, cl-forms, cl-freetype2, cl-gamepad, cl-github-v3, cl-gltf, cl-gobject-introspection, cl-graph, cl-grip, cl-gserver, cl-hamcrest, cl-hash-util, cl-html-readme, cl-i18n, cl-info, cl-ini, cl-ipfs-api2, cl-kanren, cl-lib-helper, cl-liballegro, cl-liballegro-nuklear, cl-log, cl-markless, cl-marshal, cl-migratum, cl-mixed, cl-modio, cl-mount-info, cl-mpg123, cl-mssql, cl-mustache, cl-mysql, cl-neovim, cl-netpbm, cl-oju, cl-opengl, cl-opensearch-query-builder, cl-opus, cl-patterns, cl-plus-ssl-osx-fix, cl-ppcre, cl-project, cl-protobufs, cl-pslib, cl-pslib-barcode, cl-rashell, cl-readline, cl-sat.minisat, cl-sdl2-image, cl-sdl2-mixer, cl-sdl2-ttf, cl-sendgrid, cl-sentry-client, cl-skkserv, cl-smtp, cl-ssh-keys, cl-steamworks, cl-str, cl-svg, cl-telegram-bot, cl-threadpool, cl-tiled, cl-torrents, cl-tqdm, cl-transducers, cl-transit, cl-unicode, cl-unification, cl-unix-sockets, cl-utils, cl-vectors, cl-vorbis, cl-wavefront, cl-webdriver-client, cl-webkit, cl-webmachine, cl-who, clack, clack-pretend, clad, classimp, clast, clath, clavier, clazy, clerk, clgplot, climacs, clingon, clip, clj-con, clj-re, clobber, clog, clog-ace, clog-collection, clog-plotly, clog-terminal, clohost, closer-mop, clss, cluffer, clunit2, clx, cmd, codata-recommended-values, codex, coleslaw, collectors, colored, com-on, common-lisp-jupyter, commondoc-markdown, compiler-macro-notes, conduit-packages, consfigurator, contextl, croatoan, ctype, cytoscape-clj, damn-fast-priority-queue, dartscluuid, data-frame, data-lens, datafly, dbus, decompress, defenum, definer, definitions, deflate, defmain, deploy, depot, deptree, dexador, dissect, djula, dns-client, doc, docs-builder, dsm, dufy, easter-gauss, easy-audio, easy-macros, easy-routes, eclector, equals, erjoalgo-webutil, erudite, esrap, event-emitter, external-program, external-symbol-not-found, fare-csv, fare-scripts, fast-http, fast-websocket, file-attributes, file-notify, file-select, filesystem-utils, fiveam, fiveam-matchers, flexi-streams, float-features, flow, fn, fset, functional-trees, fuzzy-dates, gadgets, generic-cl, github-api-cl, glfw, glsl-toolkit, harmony, hashtrie, helambdap, http2, hunchentoot, imago, in-nomine, inferior-shell, introspect-environment, ironclad, jose, js, json-mop, jsonrpc, jzon, khazern, lack, lass, lemmy-api, letv, lichat-protocol, lichat-tcp-client, linear-programming, lisp-binary, lisp-chat, lisp-critic, lisp-pay, lisp-stat, lispcord, lla, local-time, log4cl-extras, logging, lru-cache, magicl, maiden, maidenhead, manifolds, math, mcclim, memory-regions, messagebox, method-combination-utilities, mgl-pax, misc-extensions, mito, mk-defsystem, mmap, mnas-package, mnas-string, moira, multiposter, mutility, mutils, named-closure, ndebug, neural-classifier, new-op, nibbles, nibbles-streams, ningle, nodgui, north, numerical-utilities, nytpu.lisp-utils, omglib, ook, open-location-code, openapi-generator, orizuru-orm, overlord, papyrus, parachute, parse-number, pathname-utils, petalisp, phos, picl, plot, plump, plump-sexp, pngload, policy-cond, polymorphic-functions, postmodern, ppath, prometheus-gc, psychiq, purgatory, py4cl, py4cl2, py4cl2-cffi, qlot, qoi, query-fs, quick-patch, quickhull, quri, random-state, reblocks, reblocks-auth, reblocks-file-server, reblocks-lass, reblocks-navigation-widget, reblocks-parenscript, reblocks-prometheus, reblocks-typeahead, reblocks-ui, reblocks-websocket, rove, s-dot2, sandalphon.lambda-list, sb-fastcgi, sc-extensions, sel, select, serapeum, shasht, shop3, si-kanren, sketch, slime, slite, sly, snooze, spinneret, staple, static-vectors, statistics, stepster, stmx, stripe, swank-crew, swank-protocol, sxql, symath, system-locale, taglib, teddy, ten, testiere, tfeb-lisp-hax, tfm, tiny-routes, tooter, trivia, trivial-arguments, trivial-clipboard, trivial-file-size, trivial-gray-streams, trivial-main-thread, trivial-octet-streams, trivial-package-locks, trivial-package-manager, trivial-sanitize, trivial-shell, type-templates, typo, uax-15, uiop, usocket, vellum, vellum-binary, vellum-csv, vellum-postmodern, verbose, vernacular, vom, websocket-driver, winhttp, with-branching, with-contexts, woo, xhtmlambda, xml-emitter, yason, zippy, zpb-ttf.

Removed projects: abstract-arrays, ahungry-fleece, cl-cheshire-cat, cl-darksky, cl-epoch, cl-naive-store, convolution-kernel, dense-arrays, extensible-compound-types, extensible-optimizing-coerce, fast-generic-functions, flac-metadata, freebsd-ffi, listoflist, luckless, one-more-re-nightmare, postmodern-localtime, stumpwm-dynamic-float, stumpwm-sndioctl, unicly.

To get this update, use:

 (ql:update-dist "quicklisp")

Sorry this update took so long. My goal is to resume monthly releases.

Enjoy!

1. Chennai doctor stabbed by assilants posing as patients  The Times of India
2. Chennai Doctor Stabbed 7 Times By Son Of Woman Who Had Cancer  NDTV
3. Doctor stabbed by patient’s attendant at Kalaignar Centenary Super Speciality Hospital in Chennai  The Hindu
4. Patient's son stabs doctor 7 times in Chennai hospital, arrested  India Today
5. Doctor stabbed multiple times in Tamil Nadu government hospital by patient’s relative  Deccan Herald