It only winds up being suicide by border guard if someone is trying to escape, not so much so if someone is trying to get in. Not too many people want to go to North Korea if they can help it.

I wonder if his angle is to be taken in by North Korea in the hopes of being used as a poster child for North Korean propaganda. Considering he was on his way to getting flown back to the states for further disciplinary action after getting out of a Korean prison, he might assume that’s his best bet for a decent life since he might be assuming North Korea will pamper him so that they can use him to talk about how terrible the U.S. And South Korea are.

Back when I was in Korea, people that wound up in a Korean jail usually didn’t get shipped back to the states; it was more likely they’d be stripped of rank, locked down to the military base, and put on permanent detail for the rest of their time there (think "spending any free time scrubbing toilets and picking up trash around the base).

Things like serious assaults on local nationals could land someone a flight back though, so it’s very possible that whatever he did was bad enough that he thinks his life would be over if he went back to the states, so I guess that might be his play. How it’s going to pan out for him is another matter though - he may be treated well by the North Korean government (from what I’ve heard they tend to pamper their foreign mouthpieces to keep them placated and compliant), or he may wind up a bargaining chip for foreign aid from the U.S. depending on how low their resources are.

Mind you, I’m hardly an expert on the relations and current situation in North Korea, just a guy that was stationed over in South Korea for a few years in a non-intelligence capacity, so take all of this as idle speculation.

A beeing

If you and your partner enjoy RPG’s, I highly recommend Divinity: Original Sin (and Divinity: Original Sin 2, though we haven’t finished that one yet). Very story-driven, the tactical combat is a blast when you get into strategizing and collaborating, and there are all sorts of non-combat shenanigans you can get up to as well (the second even more so than the first).

I did a small write-up off my understanding here, but that’s coming from someone that’s only dabbled in both and I may have missed some stuff.

Yeah, I’ve been there. It’s just so aggravating, but I try to find comfort in knowing that at least I wasted a small bit of their precious bandwidth!

I hadn’t even considered the quantity of ads on those sites… Any time I accidentally find one, it’s a long column of text that starts off with a bunch of filler roughly related to whatever I was searching for, maybe a couple of lines with an answer (right or wrong is a different matter), then breaks down into a bunch of self-contradicting nonsense. I just don’t see the ads because of uBlock Origin, so I never see how bad they are. AI generated sites are completely aggravating.

From an admitted non-expert, the way I understand it is this: A roguelike is turn based, procedurally generated to some extent, has some form of time/turn crunch tied to a carried resource (food/hunger is pretty common), and has leveling involved as part of the core gameplay loop. The idea being that you try to balance out luck (with the items/equipment you find, enemies that spawn, how well you’re doing in a particular combat, etc) with skill (knowledge of the game systems, knowing how to build, knowing when to cut your losses and run, when you have enough resources to gain some levels, etc.). There is also perma-death: Once you die, your run is over and you have to start fresh.

A roguelite involves some of these aspects, but plays things much looser. Typically there’s some level of perma-death in that a run is over when you die, but there’s also a meta-currency to allow for progress/power upgrades between runs (like increasing starting health per run by using items that have a chance to drop during a run). They are often not turn-based, and don’t necessarily have the same time crunch. The similarities lie in the fundamental idea: balance luck introduced by randomization/procedural generation and skill from game mastery, and if you fail then you have to start a new run. Different folks will have different criteria for the two terms (I saw a purist say that it’s not a real roguelike if it has anything other than ASCII graphics), but that’s how I summarize them.

Just wanted to chime in at the end here and say thanks for mentioning us. I literally live a 20-minute drive from the nearest grocery store, out in the country, so bikes aren’t exactly practical like they were when I lived in denser areas. What I try to do (to try adding to the conversation) is accommodate where I’m able. I have an electric car (2018 Bolt) that I use as my daily driver (my pickup is strictly for situations that the Bolt can’t handle), I’m setting up a homestead to help eat as locally as I can, and I eventually plan on getting solar and switching off of heating oil. However, even my situation isn’t feasible for everyone - my income is higher than the median in my state and I have the land to accommodate a homestead, so the only thing that can be done from my perspective is try to implement policies and infrastructure where it’ll have the biggest impact to help offset the impact of those that can’t take advantage of it, and see if there are ways to help those who live in rural areas even if they can’t be applied to urban areas.

Same exact situation for me, down to putting Jerboa where RIF used to be. I think the appeal to Beehaw for me is its emphasis on community. I’ve been on the internet for a hot minute, and I didn’t realize that I actually missed having a sense of community online. Reddit was basically a source of content for me, and I would lurk almost exclusively. With Lemmy, I’m finding myself commenting and responding far more often. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is here, but I just feel more inclined to actually participate here.

Hollow Knight is a solid contender for my favorite game, so good choice! I’m going to try to keep things spoiler-free as much as I can since a huge part of the experience is exploring and slowly unraveling things. Here’s a list of (hopefully spoiler-free) tips that I think might help.

Not much will make sense at first.

Hollow Knight follows the Dark Souls school of lore: You don’t get an exposition dump in the beginning giving you the whole background behind what’s going on. It’s perfectly fine to be confused about what you are doing and why. In fact, I’d say that’s an intentional choice that winds up making a ton of sense after a certain point in the game.

Careful looking up info

Because of this fact and how long it’s been out (as well as how popular it is), it’s unfortunately very easy to spoil things. Be careful with that, and make sure to tag on “spoiler free” to any searches you do on the game.

It’s difficult, but fair

You’re likely going to die a lot, that’s true. That being said, there aren’t really any situations that I can think of where I had no way to avoid dying. The nice thing is, the game sort of sets itself up in a way that you (hopefully) learn different techniques over time, and the fact that it’s a metroidvania means you get upgrades drip-fed to you, so you don’t have a million things to try to learn at once. I’m not great at games nowadays, but I did still manage to beat the game. I never completed the boss rush stuff, but that’s more because I’ve never been a huge fan of boss rushes in general.

It’s methodical

You don’t have a time limit during fights. Feel free to take your time learning an enemy’s attacks; there are generally tells you can keep an eye out for so you can prepare to react appropriately. Don’t be afraid to keep your distance as much as you can while in a fight.

Don’t forget your Soul

Soul is the game’s “magic” system, and it’s a pretty big help in keeping you from dying. You recharge it a bit each time you hit an enemy, so as long as you’re able to run in, hit an enemy, and get away without getting hit, you can recharge enough for another use. There are also generally minor enemies in each area that are relatively easy to deal with - these are basically prime candidates for recharging Soul if you’re low.

Be sure to explore

There are going to be quite a few dead ends during your journey. These are usually places you just don’t have the tools to deal with yet, so if it seems like you can’t progress, try somewhere else and come back later! Another thing to keep in mind is you’ll sometimes hear or see weird stuff on your journeys - it can be worth putting in some extra effort to see what the source is. Something that I would say is important for this is the map and quill you can buy in the shop in the first town. It updates when you sit down at a bench, so don’t worry if it doesn’t seem to “work” right away.

If you’re having money troubles…

Grab the “Gathering Swarm” charm from the store in the first town, go sit on a bench, and equip it. It won’t make your money problems disappear, but it’ll help.

Enemy spawn mechanics

Enemies only respawn when you sit on a bench. Yes, that goes for the entire map. Yes, I have cleared a significant number of enemies across multiple zones without sitting on a bench and verified this (it was to help me finish a specific side quest). No, bosses will not respawn.

Hopefully this gives you a decent set of tips to get you started! I hope you enjoy your journey as much as I did when I played the first time!

This was the moment that cemented my choice to move away from Reddit. My plan initially was to see how the blackouts would play out, but this showed even more clearly than the initial thread about Apollo’s woes with Reddit just how garbage the decision-making at Reddit is.