SeeingRed [he/him]

So the utility I used was called “winutil” by Chris Titus

https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

There are a few YouTube videos which can help walk you through the process. If you get stuck feel free to send me a message. I remember my laptop gave me a really hard time with installing windows due to driver issues, but that shouldn’t be the case for most installations.

Honestly, I usually dual boot windows and Linux, then if the game I want to play doesn’t work on Linux, I just switch to Windows. But recently I’ve had very few games not work out of the box on Ubuntu. So I wouldn’t stress about it too much.

If you want to mostly use Windows, you can trim out all the telemetry and garbage using installation utilities. ( Win Util is the one I used, I think) This makes a much lighter and cleaner windows without the bloat and garbage and spying. (You’ll never truly be free of it, but it helps). If you are curious I can try to dig up the method I used.

I find I usually gravitate back to Ubuntu as my default system because I am familiar with it, but I wouldn’t say it is the best.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing Microtopia which is a game about ants that are microprocessors/mechanical. It is a factory simulator, but the base components are the ants and production buildings.

The ants have a lifespan, so you are managing them as a resources that is also required to make more of themselves. And there are not any belts or inserters as in most games, but instead the ants act as the logistics system, the resource gathering system, and the productive system.

It’s a slightly fresh take on the genre, and it was fun to learn the novel systems. However, it really could use some QOL and some options for lower graphics settings.

These sorts of games are fun for me because they allow me to solve small problems that slowly lead to complex systems. I really enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from building something complex like this.

It is definitely heavier on the tower defense side. I also usually turn biters off in Factorio, but I found that Mindustry to be well balanced between the logistics and tower defense aspects. You have to build up both constantly, unlike Factorio where you just over build defense and then wait for that to fail before thinking about it again. In Factorio, defense is a nuisance mostly, but Mindustry it’s integral to the gameplay loop. Not sure if that answers it for you. I don’t think I’d recommend it unless you wanted that aspect of the game.

Mostly I play factory management style games. Top 3 being Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, and Mindustry. Though they’ve been more mental effort than Ive been able to muster recently.

Then I am also playing Last Epoch as a co-op game because it’s been a way to connect with an old friend from school (since we live in different cities it’s hard to connect in person).

So nothing too exciting or new.