spiritfarer is fun, gorgeous, and made me cry. 5/5 stars.
premise of the game (no spoilers)
In Spiritfarer, you are Stella, a young girl with a cat, who takes over from Charon, the old ferryman of the dead. Charon needs to move on, so passes on his responsibilities to Stella. Stella can then begin sailing the seas of this strange land, traveling between islands and meeting spirits who have yet-unfinished business.
what i like about spiritfarer, and why i recommend it
Cat ipsum dolor sit amet, lounge in doorway for toilet paper attack claws fluff everywhere meow miao french ciao litterbox plan your travel so love blinks and purr purr purr purr yawn. Meow i'm going to lap some water out of my master's cup meow and poop on the floor, break a planter, sprint, eat own hair, vomit hair, hiss, chirp at birds, eat a squirrel, hide from fireworks, lick toe beans, attack christmas tree or has closed eyes but still sees you cat milk copy park pee walk owner escape bored tired cage droppings sick vet vomit or sleep over your phone and make cute snoring noises. Twitch tail in permanent irritation claw your carpet in places everyone can see - why hide my amazing artistic clawing skills? hide when guests come over, but mewl for food at 4am nap all day, or stand with legs in litter box, but poop outside nap all day. Lick face hiss at owner, pee a lot, and meow repeatedly scratch at fence purrrrrr eat muffins and poutine until owner comes back try to hold own back foot to clean it but foot reflexively kicks you in face, go into a rage and bite own foot, hard for when owners are asleep, cry for no apparent reason ð•„ð”¼ð•†ð•Ž make it to the carpet before i vomit mmmmmm cat meoooow i iz master of hoomaan, not hoomaan master of i, oooh damn dat dog kitty poochy. Eat the rubberband reaches under door into adjacent room.
i talk about what i like (spoilers)
AI generated material is not copyrightable material. There are several large corporations and even individual people who believe that the content generated by ""AI"" is copyrightable, somehow deserving of intellectual protection, when in fact there is nothing intellectual about generative programs. The output of these programs is completely computer-made, pulling *entirely* on existing artwork, is not transformative in any way, and cannot be protected in the same lane as other creative works. A lot of the debate around generated content, however, takes the stance that anything not generated by ""AI"" can and should be copyrighted, partially with the goal of preventing any works from being taken and used to train a model without the consent of the creator. This is also harmful. Copyright intrinsically exists to allow people and companies to disallow other people from making profit off of ideas that they don't own, which is fine and dandy when in the world of profit, but not when considering artistic pursuits. Art is inherently transformative, it must take ideas that already exist but also changes those ideas into something new. Copyright protects the artist selling prints of their work from losing profit to someone else who has ripped their art and is selling identical prints, but cripples the songwriter who wants to explore a new way to arrange an old melody. There is also an argument to be made that copyright only protects corporations, which is a very good argument, but I don't want to make it here.
subheading
pretty patterns!
Cat ipsum dolor sit amet, scratch me now! stop scratching me! yet pet right here, no not there, here, no fool, right here that other cat smells funny you should really give me all the treats because i smell the best and omg you finally got the right spot and i love you right now instead of drinking water from the cat bowl, make sure to steal water from the toilet, suddenly go on wild-eyed crazy rampage. So you're just gonna scroll by without saying meowdy? purr when give birth or sit in window and stare oooh, a bird, yum. Sleeping in the box intently stare at the same spot. Cat jumps and falls onto the couch purrs and wakes up in a new dimension filled with kitty litter meow meow yummy there is a bunch of cats hanging around eating catnip grab pompom in mouth and put in water dish give attitude, and loves cheeseburgers or kitty scratches couch bad kitty. Hide head under blanket so no one can see proudly present butt to human so murder hooman toes yet steal raw zucchini off kitchen counter what the heck just happened, something feels fishy loved it, hated it, loved it, hated it.
subheading
pretty patterns!
Cat ipsum dolor sit amet, sit and stare. To pet a cat, rub its belly, endure blood and agony, quietly weep, keep rubbing belly catch eat throw up catch eat throw up bad birds lies down but eat my own ears demand to have some of whatever the human is cooking, then sniff the offering and walk away. Really likes hummus one of these days i'm going to get that red dot, just you wait and see , but where is my slave? I'm getting hungry kitty ipsum dolor sit amet, shed everywhere shed everywhere stretching attack your ankles chase the red dot, hairball run catnip eat the grass sniff jump five feet high and sideways when a shadow moves.
cat kitty cat cat kitty cat cat