I'm in the speedrunning community[0] for NOLF and just want to chime in on the amazing work that haekb did (I believe the "community-driven project" is only them) for these games[1]. They made both NOLF and NOLF2 a lot more accessible to people casually picking up the game, as there was a lot of jank and configuration needed otherwise to get the games running in a good way on modern systems. In addition to fixing jank, they actually fixed tons of bugs and added other QoL and fun stuff like a jukebox in the menus to listen to the (great) soundtrack. Some stuff - like how if you have certain USB devices connected, the game will just flip out - still remains, but that's just a part of the _voodoo_ with old games like these.
Fixing bugs and stuff is nice, but a lot of the fun speedrunning tech we depend on was also fixed, and they were kind enough to create a separate "lithfix" that only made the games playable on modern systems and left the in-game bugs intact. Not only that, but they also added a dev console and fixed some of the old cheat codes, which made it so that we could finally noclip around to inspect the maps properly and toggle on hitboxes, etc.
It's incredible the impact a single individual can have. They never asked for anything back, and now their work is even included by default on the "unofficial" download page. Even though I don't speedrun anymore (maybe one day!) I'll always be grateful for that :)
The game holds up incredibly well - beautiful scenery, fun story, some of the best and most humorous dialogue in any game ever[2], and a really strong and well-written female main character. Would strongly recommend anyone to pick it up, just know that some parts struggle a bit with the "stealth", and expect (and embrace) "going loud" at times. But do try to stealth a lot, as you're nicely rewarded with brilliant dialogue! NOLF2 is fun too, but very different - definitely worth a play through though!
They're also very fun speedrun games, and the community is very helpful to anyone, even if you're just wanting to play it casually :)
Edit: Forgot to mention that they also fixed the multiplayer in NOLF2, and some people still play sometimes! More info on this page[3]
We're seeing success with giving journalists better tools to create engaging journalism (which HN hates :). Many outlets are now seeing that they have to once more prove their value, and there exists some really great subscription-only media here in the Nordics and France.
You can easily embed stories into existing websites without any problem. As long as you can add script tags you should be good to go. You’ll find the embed code by going to the publish dialog -> publish -> embed. Better docs are coming
I seem to recall what the parent describes when taking your course on redux @ Egghead long, long ago, where I think you went through creating a simplified version of redux? Such a great way to gain a deeper understanding of something that, on the surface, seems very complex. Thank you for making that course free :)
From the discord: > They already have been paged and acknowledged the issue, unfortunately there is delay putting up a statuspage but it should be there soon
Edit: Status message was added right as I posted this.
> Going forward, even if a game is no longer available for sale on GOG, as part of the GOG Preservation Program, it will continue to be maintained and updated by us, ensuring it remains compatible with modern and future systems.
That's not worth much. They don't even maintain the games that are still for sale on GOG. Try playing Tales of Monkey Island; most of the cutscenes won't run.
> They have another policy specifying that they maintain the games they sell. They don't sell as-is, they warrant that the game will run appropriately.
Would be helpful if you've linked to that policy :)
They do update some of the classics, that's true. Expecting them to fix bugs in every single game on the store is madness. They do have tech support that you can reach out to and they refund games if they don't work for you. That's as much as one can expect.
> Even if the game is older than you are, we test it thoroughly, fix all the bugs, and apply patches so it runs flawlessly on your next-gen PC and on modern OSs.
Not a good look to be sure, but it's hardly a policy, is it? It's a single marketing blurb (with "Upgrading classics for present-day" blurb atop of it BTW, so even there it's not claiming to fix __every single game__, but it does align with the preservation program)
I can't put much faith in any technical promise from GOG.
My GOG account broke somehow almost 10 years ago, and over the years and several attempts they have been unable to recover it. They can't even establish why it's broken or what games I owned or if the whole thing has been irrecoverably lost.
To my knowledge you can still download all offline installers without needing to ever use their launcher.
That being said, their launcher, GOG Galaxy[0] is amazing, and allows you to get a full overview of your games library across several services like GOG, Steam, Epic, etc. all in one place.
There's a spreadsheet[0] named "Games that treat GOG customers as 2nd Class" that is being semi-regularly updated where you can find out about this. I've also made a Firefox Add-On[1] that uses this spreadsheet to add the data while browsing GOG.com.
Fixing bugs and stuff is nice, but a lot of the fun speedrunning tech we depend on was also fixed, and they were kind enough to create a separate "lithfix" that only made the games playable on modern systems and left the in-game bugs intact. Not only that, but they also added a dev console and fixed some of the old cheat codes, which made it so that we could finally noclip around to inspect the maps properly and toggle on hitboxes, etc.
It's incredible the impact a single individual can have. They never asked for anything back, and now their work is even included by default on the "unofficial" download page. Even though I don't speedrun anymore (maybe one day!) I'll always be grateful for that :)
The game holds up incredibly well - beautiful scenery, fun story, some of the best and most humorous dialogue in any game ever[2], and a really strong and well-written female main character. Would strongly recommend anyone to pick it up, just know that some parts struggle a bit with the "stealth", and expect (and embrace) "going loud" at times. But do try to stealth a lot, as you're nicely rewarded with brilliant dialogue! NOLF2 is fun too, but very different - definitely worth a play through though!
They're also very fun speedrun games, and the community is very helpful to anyone, even if you're just wanting to play it casually :)
Edit: Forgot to mention that they also fixed the multiplayer in NOLF2, and some people still play sometimes! More info on this page[3]
[0]: https://www.speedrun.com/nolf <-- you'll find a link to the game here as well
[1]: https://haekb.itch.io/ <-- here you'll find all the lithtech stuff they made
[2]: https://youtu.be/q2PxxbJydBU <-- this is just one of many examples
[3]: https://spawnsite.net/