See https://alexbarry.net for projects I’m working on, and contact info.

Also check out github.com/alexbarry

  • 3 Posts
  • 52 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Grazie mille! Ecco il mio primo tentativo di supporto per le traduzioni. Ho suddiviso le traduzioni italiane generate dalla macchina in un commit separato. Per ora ho tradotto solo l’applicazione web e le stringhe nel gioco Solitaire. Sentiti libero di aggiungere qualsiasi miglioramento, su github o qui o via email/matrix/qualunque cosa ti faccia comodo:

    https://github.com/alexbarry/AlexGames/pull/15/commits/9e8d244998e79831ac1d3d0bcac1b9d19474f8f2

    Le stringhe comuni dell’app web sono in data/strings/it.yaml, questo potrebbe non essere molto importante e ce ne sono molte di più di quanto pensassi. Le stringhe solitaire in src/lua_scripts/games/solitaire/solitaire_strings.lua sono più gestibili e potrebbero probabilmente trarre maggior beneficio dalla revisione umana (perché mancano di contesto perché sono stringhe più corte come “draw type” (“one”, “three”)).

    Potrebbe essere più semplice dare un’occhiata veloce all’applicazione funzionante con le nuove stringhe, l’ho ospitata qui: https://alexbarry.net/dev/games/i18n/it.html

    Probabilmente sarò impegnato per la prossima settimana o forse due, quindi non sentirti obbligato a guardarli tanto presto. Potrei anche unirli al ramo principale, ma non mostrarli automaticamente agli utenti a meno che non accettino, o almeno con un disclaimer che li traduca automaticamente.

    Inglese (Originale)

    Thanks so much! Here is my first attempt at support for translations. I split the machine generated Italian translations into a separate commit. I only translated the web application and the strings in the Solitaire game for now. Feel free to add any improvements, on github or here or email/matrix/whatever is convenient:

    https://github.com/alexbarry/AlexGames/pull/15/commits/9e8d244998e79831ac1d3d0bcac1b9d19474f8f2

    The web app’s common strings are in data/strings/it.yaml, this may not be very important, and there are way more of tham than I realized. The solitaire strings in src/lua_scripts/games/solitaire/solitaire_strings.lua are more manageable, and could probably benefit more from human review (because they lack context due to being shorter strings like “draw type” (“one”, “three”)).

    It might be easier to just skim the working application with the new strings, I hosted it here: https://alexbarry.net/dev/games/i18n/it.html

    I am likely busy over the next week or maybe two, so don’t feel obligated to look at these any time soon. I could even merge these into the main branch, but just not automatically show them to users unless they opt-in, or at least with a disclaimer that they are machine translated.


  • Vorrei anche aggiungere a questa frase:

    I giochi presenti sono diversi e, come detto, è possibile su alcuni è anche giocarci con altre persone all’interno della stessa rete.

    Ciò è vero per la versione Android, in cui stai ospitando una versione websocket sul tuo telefono. (Questa era per lo più una bella funzionalità demo, ma è raramente utile).

    Ma nella versione web, si connette a un server websocket su Internet pubblico. Chiunque abbia accesso a Internet dovrebbe essere in grado di accedervi. Quindi se apri semplicemente l’URL del sito normale, scegli un gioco, dovrebbe generare un ID casuale nel parametro URL. Quindi puoi semplicemente copiare e incollare l’URL per condividerlo con un amico e dovresti essere in grado di giocare insieme. Non devi essere sulla stessa rete. (Mi rendo conto che non è intuitivo e dovrei migliorare l’interfaccia utente, almeno mostrando l’ID multigiocatore).

    E se non vuoi affidarti al mio server websocket (o anche all’HTML statico sulle pagine GitHub), sei libero di ospitarlo tu stesso, ho fornito un’immagine docker, vedi https://github.com/alexbarry/AlexGames per maggiori informazioni. (Mi dispiace che sia solo in inglese, spero che i file Docker siano abbastanza chiari)

    Parte del motivo per cui ho lavorato a questo era per non dover dipendere indefinitamente da un software di hosting di terze parti e non introdurre modifiche che non mi piacciono, quindi ovviamente altri sono benvenuti alla stessa libertà :)

    Inglese (Originale)

    I would also like to add to this sentence:

    The games present are different and, as mentioned, it is possible on some of them to play with other people within the same network.

    That is true for the Android version, where you are hosting a websocket version on your phone. (This was mostly a cool demo feature, but it is rarely useful).

    But on the web version, it connects to a websocket server on the public internet. Anyone with internet access should be able to access it. So if you just open the normal site URL, pick a game, it should generate a random ID in the URL parameter. Then you can just copy and paste the URL to share with a friend, and you should be able to play together. You don’t need to be on the same network. (I realize this is not intuitive and I should improve the UI, at least showing the multiplayer ID).

    And if you do not want to rely on my websocket server (or even the static HTML on GitHub pages), you are free to host it yourself, I provided a docker image, see https://github.com/alexbarry/AlexGames for more information. (Sorry that it’s in English only, hopefully the Docker files are clear enough)

    Part of the reason I worked on this was to not have to rely on some third party hosting software indefinitely and not introducing changes that I don’t like, so of course others are welcome to the same freedom :)


  • (Non parlo molto italiano, quindi sto usando Google Translate. Versione inglese qui sotto se la traduzione non ha senso)

    Ciao, sono lo sviluppatore di questi giochi. Per favore, fatemi sapere se ci sono miglioramenti o nuovi giochi su cui vorreste che lavorassi! Ho provato a creare molti giochi come esempio e ad aggiungere una versione Android, ma non ero sicuro di quali giochi o piattaforme sarebbero stati più interessanti per le persone. Alcuni dei giochi sono incompiuti e potrebbero tutti usare una grafica migliore.

    Inoltre, sarei felice di aggiungere traduzioni in italiano e in altre lingue, se fosse gradito! Almeno per i giochi più popolari, potrei aggiungere un’API per ottenere l’impostazione della lingua del browser e mostrare le stringhe appropriate.

    Grazie anche all’autore per aver pubblicato questo! Non so davvero come condividere i miei progetti software, molti posti su Internet non accolgono con favore l’autopromozione.

    Inglese (Originale)

    Hi, I am the developer of these games. Please let me know if there are any improvements or new games that you would like me to work on! I tried making many games as an example, and adding an Android version, but I wasn’t sure what games or platforms would be most interesting to people. Some of the games are unfinished, and they could all use better graphics.

    Also, I’d be happy to add Italian and other translations if that would be appreciated! At least for whatever games are most popular, I could add an API to get the browser language setting and show the appropriate strings.

    And thanks to the author for publishing this! I don’t really know how to share my software projects, many places on the internet are not welcoming of self promotion.





  • This is actually what I did when I was in school, and overall it was quite pleasant. There was some WYSIWYG LaTeX program too that I shared with some colleagues when we were working on a document together, I remember it working okay.

    But I don’t see the average student, especially studying non technical stuff, to pick up LaTeX just for normal sort of essays. Even I am fairly rusty now. And honestly I don’t even know if I could have managed it during high school, where I had to write English essays and stuff with specific formatting for references. (I am grateful that my engineering education was less strict about that sort of thing).

    I was hoping that someone would suggest a self hosted web document suite, I think “Nextcloud” is a popular one. Then it should work on any OS, and you don’t have to worry about syncing files. Even if you can pay to have someone else host an instance (not sure if this exists), and ideally a program that can keep a local backup synced to your PCs would be a big step in the right direction. Syncthing seems pretty great, though I haven’t used it much, and on iOS it doesn’t seem to be able to run in the background.

    edit: I just read another comment that recommended OnlyOffice, this seems like another good option (source: this reply: https://lemmy.ca/comment/9415293). Aside: is there a proper way to link to a comment on lemmy that will go through your own homeserver?





  • Thanks for posting this (I’m the original author). It’s not clear to me where to share my projects like this, many places on the internet don’t seem to welcome any form of self promotion, even if it is open source / ad free / etc.

    My original post was directed towards the self hosting community, but it should still be completely useable with the github pages version (linked in the post). And stay tuned for an Android app (and maybe iOS some day), most games are great offline. I’d love to add multiplayer over bluetooth, the main time I play games like this on my phone is when I’m on a flight or when physically with someone else.

    I’d love to hear feedback, especially constructive criticism! There are some other features and new games that I’d like to add, but I’d love to hear what people actually want, instead of just what I enjoy working on.





  • TL;DR: I may be mistaken about how playable it is, I’ll have to give it another try. Thanks for the reassurance. I haven’t tried it myself in many years, and have only relied on articles like this to hear about the progress. Perhaps I’m biased since the comments always love to hate on Star Citizen and few people are defending it. RE single investor: if everyone who paid money for it was happy then yeah there would be no difference. But I think a lot of people paid money expecting a longer gaming experience within a few years, and instead it’s taken a long time and they’re still focusing a lot on cosmetic things rather than gameplay and content. IMO gameplay and content should be the top priority, and cool visual stuff can come later. But if piracy/mining/exploring planets/missions can actually provide ~10 hours of enjoyment without being seriously hindered by bugs, then I’m totally wrong and should update my comment.

    Thanks for the info, perhaps I should update my comment. It was barely beyond a tech demo when I tried it so many years ago, but it does seem like it’s added a lot since then (and I’ve only learned about it after digging in more today). I’ve seen some comments in this post that said there isn’t much to do besides walk around and look at stuff, which matches my experience many years ago, but perhaps it’s not really accurate anymore. Some articles have talked about piracy and mining actually being viable as ways to make money to get a better ship. If those are enjoyable and not severely limited in content and so buggy that progress is hard, then I’m totally wrong and can maybe say that 10 years later my return on investment is adequate :) , and maybe in another few years there will be even more content and give me something more like ~10+ hours of enjoyment.

    I know people who play several hours a week and say they’re having a great time. There’s definitely a full game in the alpha, but it’s far from polished or finished.

    This is actually really reassuring to me, I’ll have to give it another try.

    Every person I know who’s spent money on star citizen seems happy with their RoI.

    Perhaps the people you’re talking to about it now are somewhat skewed towards people who still enjoy it for what it is now. I’ve almost forgotten and wouldn’t think to mention it to most people, but I paid $40 for it around 9 years ago, because a friend mentioned it to me and it seemed like such an amazing idea. It showed so much promise, the racing seemed fun and complex, and later I tried Squadron 42 and felt like I could see the vision coming together. But then after not trying it for a few years, I keep hearing more of the same thing: new cool superficial feature, but still lacking in significant enjoyable gameplay. I am actually kind of scared to try it again and be disappointed in the lack of content.

    I realize too that Squadron 42 is apparently a fairly long and mostly finished experience? That alone might be worth $40, though I do think 10 years is a little long to wait for that. I’ll concede that they do seem to be delivering on some of the hype, it just takes way too long, and I’d rather they prioritize on something simple but playable for long periods, versus cool immersion and fancy animations and concepts.

    Perhaps a lot of the people who enjoy it now enjoy the kind of role playing aspect of getting in a ship with friends and walking around exploring? I would enjoy that somewhat too, every few years, almost like a really advanced VR chat, I guess. But my friends have lost interest in this due to the never ending development cycle. And I would hate to be the one to say “hey guys let’s try this out again, it’s way better now”, and then have everyone be disappointed when someone gets stuck in a wall or the content seems really limited.

    Anyway to summarize: perhaps I’m wrong, maybe the game is worth $40 now and I’ve just been biased from people loving to hate on a game that they haven’t even tried. I’ll have to give it another try.


  • I agree with you for most games, people are picky and don’t understand the challenges. But this game solicited donations 10 years ago, people bought into the vision, and they were wildly successful, I think they raised $600M, which is like the most money any game has ever raised?

    And despite that, 10 years later, it’s still mostly just a tech demo (edit: perhaps I’m wrong? Maybe there is $40 worth of playable content. See discussion in child comments, I haven’t tried this myself in many years, out of fear of being disappointed again). They are focused on adding cool but superficial animation things, rather than just making a fun playable experience.

    If they were focused on making a fun playable (but possibly buggy and limited) game then it would be different. But instead they seem to be chasing random superficial features like projecting your face from your web cam onto your character. It feels like they are not seriously committed to making even an early access game in a reasonable timeline.

    If this project was funded by some billionaire who wanted to spend 30 years to make the most amazing MMO ever with a ton of never before seen features, then that would be fine. But instead normal people chipped in $40+ to fund this game, and the developers don’t seem to be prioritizing actually making a fun playable game. It’s barely beyond a tech demo even 10 years later (edit: maybe this is not completely accurate). It is reasonable to assume that the management of this project does not care about making a playable game, they can work on whatever fun features they want, they’ve already made a ton of money.

    edits: perhaps I’m wrong about the state of the game. I haven’t tried it in a while. I’ll have to give it another try.




  • thanks, how did you do this? Did you just download it and add a background yourself (and upload via lemmy) or is there some cool markdown/lemmy trick?

    I was going to say that I was on my phone and couldn’t do that, but I guess I probably could have. (edit: also I forgot that Lemmy even supports image uploading, let alone that I could link to it) I mostly just wanted to see if Lemmy supported the embedded image markdown syntax of ![description](URL to image). (It does!) I found online that some markdown variants support adding CSS at the end of the image, but it doesn’t look like lemmy supports them.




  • You may know this, but my understanding is that they randomly stop either to do another delivery on a different app, or to get gas/etc. (edit: I don’t think this justifies it to the customer, hence why I’ve stopped using these apps. I do have some sympathy for the driver, I have heard that the companies incentivize them to maintain a streak and take fewer breaks between drives, and somehow it seems like long unnecessary pauses aren’t penalized (perhaps because they’re hard to distinguish from traffic))

    I haven’t used delivery apps in a while due to cold food and outrageous prices.