LAN Party Games that Run on a Potato and Any Platform

October 1, 2023

When I picture a typical land party, I imagine a bunch of passionate geek gamers bringing in their massive desktop weapons or laptop desktop replacements. Machines with powerful GPUs enough to run NASA spacecraft and cost as much as one.

An AI-generated image of a LAN Party on the Highway

However, what if your peers only have modest machines with an integrated GPU? Essentially, a 'normal' laptop. Imagine hosting a party with those, no one will be able to run these modern demanding games and no one will be enjoying the slideshow and crashes in their games.

So I'm including here a bunch of games that can run on a potato but still provide a fun experience without the need of a 20-pound computer. Of course, no one is going to be wowed by the presentation, but fun will ensue anyways.

I came up with a few arbitrary criteria that these games should have. First, the game must be less than 25$ CAD and easy to procure online. It must run on my mule netbook Latitude 3190 that only has an Intel UHD Graphics 600 as the iGPU reasonably well and be playable. Also, it needs to run on Windows, macOS and Linux either natively or via some compatibility layer like Wine or Proton.

Finally, I won't try to make the list exhaustive, however, I do want to try and make some variety with some genres. Not every party game needs to be a first person shooter. One more rule is that I will only include one game per genre. But, I will leave a list of games that are similar without description.

Quake Live - First Person Shooter

Classic FPS arena shooters games I find to be an enjoyable because of how easy and accessible they are. No fiddly mechanics or complicated rules. However, it still comes with a ton of customization options and almost a hundred maps. Several games modes like Free-for-All and Capture-The-Flag will keep the replayability high. A game that will easily take over even the longest marathon LAN parties.

It is available on Steam for 10.99$ CAD and I've been able to run it even on my backup 10 year old desktop that runs Linux through Valve's Proton.

Live for Speed - Racing Simulator

I've never been to a session where people were playing racing games, apparently the genre isn't popular with the typical comic-book geek. However, they provide a very difficult challenge of keeping a car on the road and for some hilarity on turn one T1 where everything goes wrong.

Live for Speed has been in development for over 20 years and the developer has maintained its modest graphical style so it runs even on lower-spec systems Scawen even tests that his game runs on Wine.

While it works pretty well with a mouse and keyboard, a gamepad is recommended for more precise control.

LFS comes free as demo version which includes, in my opinion, the best track in the game, Blackwood, and two very well-balanced road cars. The full game is a bit expensive at ₤36 but I'm including it here because the demo has enough content to keep the fun going for hours.

Similar Games: Speed Dreams, rFactor 1

0 A.D. - Real-Time Strategy

I know almost nothing about Real-Time Strategy games because I have no idea how to play them. However, I know that they are extremely popular, especially in Asia. Player of these types of games are extremely competitive and parties all over the world are hosted just to fight for the win.

Unfortunately, I don't play RTS games but I totally understand the appeal so my experience is a bit shallow and heavily relied on research to find some of the best games.

0 A.D. is completely open-source and free, and runs on multiple platforms including Windows, macOS and Linux. Amazingly, it is still being developed to this day.

Tabletop Simulator - Board Games

Board games can be a fun way to spend some quality time with friends but you need the actual set. Also, you can't play with people across the world. This is where Tabletop Simulator comes in, a physics sandbox designed to emulate board games.

The game has so much expandability with a massive repository on Steam's Workshop so you'll be hard pressed to not find a board game that you and your friends will like. Remember, however, it is up to you to implement the rules and TTS doesn't have an engine that keeps track of the rules. So that means, you can flip the board out of anger with no consequence.

Tabletop Simulator sells at 21.99$ CAD on Steam but you can buy four copies for 66.49$ CAD. It runs natively on all three major platforms.

Similar Games: Zillion of Games 2

Garry's Mod - Physics Sandbox

What happens when you take a masterpiece game like Half-Life and remove all the rules and story from it. You end up with an incredibly entertaining sandbox where you can do whatever you want.

This is the kind of game where you create your own fun whether you want to blow things up, make a Rube Goldberg machine or set fire to wooden structures. Of course, it comes with full Steam Workshop support where you can find thousands of props, maps and weapons limiting things to only your imagination.

Garry's Mod is available on Steam for 10.99$ though I also recommend getting Counter-Strike Source along with it because some of the props and addons need them. It runs natively on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Similar Games: Minecraft

open.mp (GTA: San Andreas) - Open-World

Grant Theft Auto, for those who lived under a rock, is a open-world game that combines multiple elements from different genres such as FPS, beat-em-up and driving. Essentially, you're a criminal that is yielded weapons and have the ability to steal cars and drive. Most people play in a sandbox mode where they do whatever they want such as wrecking havoc in the city while there is also a story mode which follows an action-adventure style playing essentially as a criminal.

While GTA V is one most of the popular multiplayer games according to the Steam statistics, it still needs a pretty decent machine to run. However, GTA multiplayer experiences did exist before for San Andreas with the SA:MP mod. The mod was left stagnant eventually but fortunately a group of open-source developers came up with open.mp as a drop-in replacement to continue these tantalizing multiplayer experiences.

Unfortunately, San Andreas isn't available through the normal means anymore so you either need to buy a physical copy off eBay or get it through other means. It runs well under Wine on macOS and Linux. In fact, the game is so modest in it's requirements that there are versions for mobile.

Alternatives: Midtown Madness 2

RetroArch Netplay - Classic Games

For your classic gaming fix, you can still enjoy an amazing multiplayer experience with friends. And since emulators run classic systems, you don't have to worry about performance. There's a huge selection of great games for various consoles. I'm plugging in my TopRoms Collection to get you started.

RetroArch and other emulators like Dolphin have made it extremely easy to set up Netplay, a multiplayer program for emulators, as easy as picking a room from a lobby interface just like many other multiplayer games. This used to be incredibly complicated but now its headache free.

The emulator is available here for free and it's fully open-source. Not only does it run on Windows, macOS and Linux but also mobile platforms like Android and dozens of other systems.

Armagetron Advanced - Snake Game

What happens when you take Tron and turn into a fast-paced arcade snake game? You get Armagetron Advanced, where you play in a 3D arena driving futuristic bicycles leave a trail of walls behind you. Try to trap your opponents into them and don't crash into yours or that of others.

There's not much to say about the game due to its simplicity. It comes with excellent netcode so it will run even on poor networks. The game is open-source and free, running on all three major platforms.

OpenRCT2 - Tycoon

This is a game that has a special place in my heart mostly due to the nostalgia factor. However, building a theme park is quite an enjoyable experience for me. There are so many types of props that you can make your park as fanciful or simple as you want.

OpenRCT2 is a reimplementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 with multi-platform support, increased stability and a neat multiplayer feature.

In order to run OpenRCT2, you need a copy of the original game that you can get from Steam for 10.99$ or DRM-free from GOG for 8.13$. Of course, it runs on all three major platforms.

Alternatives: OpenTTD

YSFlight - Flight and Combat Simulator

Flight simulators are typically games that need a ton of horsepower to run due to their amazing graphics and complex and realistic gameplay. However, one developer, Soji Yamakawa, in the very late 90s, thought that there should be something more accessible.

Enter YSFlight, a combat flight simulator that has very simple graphics and sound but still provides the same kind of fun of flying in the air in addition to its combat mechanics. Setup is minimal, simply requiring you to pick your plane and map, and you’re good to go. It will also recognize your joystick quite quickly too!

YSFlight is available for all three major platforms and has been recently open-sourced. You can get many addons from here.

Alternatives: FlightGear, IL-2, Falcon

OpenLieroX - Artillery

Imagine the Worms game, but in real-time. This is what you get, OpenLieroX. It is based on the original Liero game but with a ton of extra maps and weapons.

Dig your way through a sand trap or use your weapons to make a big opening with a bomb explosion. Frag the other players in the free-for-all mode or play in teams. It is fun that will last for a really long time.

OpenLieroX is open-source and free, running on all three major platforms.

Alternatives: Teeworlds, Warmux, Worms Series

tetr.io - Falling Puzzle Game

I still have memories of the flash game Tetris Friends, an official version of the game with multiplayer support and a ton of single-player challenges. The controls were very solid generating some very exhilarating and exciting gameplay. Unfortunately, a few years ago, it was shut down.

The spiritual resurrection came out a few years ago as tetr.io bringing back essentially most of the gameplay of the defunct Tetris Friends. The presentation is excellent with your choice of relaxing or intense music and so much customization. It features excellent single player modes that keep track of your progress while also allowing you playing the game with other people on the Internet. The dynamics follow the official Tetris guidelines.

Tetr.io runs on the browser though there is a desktop version that again, runs on all major platforms.

Alternative: A List of a ton of Tetris Clones

Conclusion

So there you have it, a list of games to consider for your next friendly LAN party. However, since these games are not demanding, your party room won't turn into a sauna and people can bring in their regular laptops with the platform of their choice.

I tested all the games on my mule that I mentioned earlier. It runs a derivative of Arch Linux and was able to play all the games on it pretty smoothly. On my actually daily driver, which still has an integrated GPU, it doesn't break a sweat.

I hope you enjoyed this list and inspired you to run your own casual people friendly LAN party! If you have some suggestions of your own, feel free to leave a comment below and share with the community!

I finally found my daily driver. A quick review of the HP Spectre x360 13.5

September 13, 2023

After dumping my ThinkPad P16 for a refund, I felt like I was going to have to give up on the laptop world. It seems that the issue of portability always leads to a story of compromise. I never purchased the best laptop, but rather felt like I was picking the least worst one. My new machine is still a tale of sacrifices but at least the papercuts don't hurt as much this time.

I had to teach myself a lesson of being less impulsive and do much more extensive research to pick my new daily driver. Eventually, I settled on a HP Spectre x360 13.5 and generally pleased with the choice that I've made. No, I haven't found computing heaven, but this piece of equipment has successfully proved itself useful for 95% of my use cases.

When I went for the ThinkPad, I was in impulse buying mode and maxed out the machine unnecessarily. I mean, I configured it with 128 GB of RAM that I've historically never filled. The 'just in case' mentality that permeated me limited my choices quite a bit. It seems that workstation laptop is an oxymoron. Spending a premium did not lead to a premium experience.

Eventually, I decided to take a step back and review my actual use cases. Thankfully, I've been keeping track of my computer usage for years using ManicTime and HWInfo. What revealed itself was that I was overbuilding my machine. Most of the demanding applications that I use can now run on affordable and efficient processors and on average, I was using 24 GB of RAM.

Realizing that I needed to put my arrogance aside and downsize opened up the opportunity for many more laptops but it still wasn't an easy task finding something that I'd be happy with. The HP machine ended up opening opportunities for me rather than limiting despite the more limited power.

I ended up gaining a few perks but there are still a few quirks here and there. This is a summary of what I gained and what I lost.

1. Battery life was the biggest game changer for me because I was no longer tethered to a wall outlet anymore. My previous workstation laptops could barely hold for an hour before shutting down. If I really had to squeeze in a little bit more, I had to close down as many applications as possible to minimize CPU and GPU usage. Now, I don't have to worry about that anymore and enjoy several hours of battery life. I can be a bit more nomadic now.

2. When at home or at work, my laptop is connected to a docking station for a desktop like setup. Plugging in my previous laptops into a Thunderbolt docking station was like playing Russian roulette. I'd pray that all the displays would come to life and often they wouldn't. Unplugging it to get going out was a risk in having the machine crash. Now, with the docking station I have at home, and the one at work, the displays come to life every single time and unplugging is painless knowing that the machine will still be alive.

3. I've had really bad luck with thermals in all my past laptops with overheating being common and no amount of repasting and clever placement of thermal pads would save the laptop from throttling under heavy load. It didn't help that the laptop was too hot to touch nor was the loud noise a pleasant thing to hear. Because of the more efficient CPU and integrated GPU, I haven't had a single throttling incident and even when pushing the machine hard, the whirr of the fan is tolerable. Otherwise, while using it casually, the fan never spins up.

4. It's a convertible therefore it can fold into a tablet form factor. I don't need to carry both an eBook reader and a laptop anymore. When folded, I can read books to my heart's content. I'll admit I miss the eInk screen from a proper eBook reader but adjusting the colours to a sepia tone and bringing down the brightness makes it an acceptable experience.

5. I can finally look at a beautiful OLED screen because workstation laptops for some reason come with terrible TN panels, low resolution and impractical 16:9 aspect ratio. Now, with a resolution of 3000x2000, I get an incredibly crisp and vibrant image and using fractional scaling to make sure I have just the right amount of screen real-estate. The 3:2 aspect ratio takes the cake.

6. The build quality is vastly superior to what felt like plastic in my previous machines. The aluminum construction feels solid with no flex or give. It really feels like a premium product that will last for a while.

7. Unlike my previous purchases, the laptop didn't cost the price of a used Miata. I still wasn't that cheap but it's less than half the price of what I paid before.

8. Unfortunately, I have lost the behemoth GPU power that my previous laptops had and it has limited the games I can play. While I usually use the HTPC connected to the TV to play more demanding games, I still want to play on the small screen sometimes. However, the games that I often play are pretty old and run fine with the integrated graphics. For example, my simulator of choice is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, which I still use because I invested a ton into it. It runs well and looks great. I'm considering an eGPU setup but it seems like there might be headaches associated with it.

9. LatencyMon revealed some DPC latency issues and explains why I get some skipped frames while watching 4K YouTube videos and for games that claim a smooth 60 FPS framerate. I suspect it's a combination of power management settings and Windows Defender. I have not investigated this yet.

10. The operating system was filled with a ton of bloatware and unnecessary applications. It took a while to uninstall everything and clean up the mess that the uninstallers didn't completely get rid of. I could have gone for a clean OS install but I felt like setting up the machine like that would take more time. This is the unfortunate part as having Windows as your operating system of choice.

11. HP's support is quite lacking compared to Dell and Lenovo. They only offer drop-off depot service which means I can be without my machine for several days. Dell and Lenovo offer excellent warranty with next business-day onsite repair service.

12. I can no longer brag that I have as much RAM as some storage devices anymore.

I've had my system since June now, about to reach the 4 months mark. The experience has been quite pleasant so far save for a few minor hiccups. A story of compromise still remains but I'm quite satisfied with the machine. The machine has proved to be pretty practical fitting my lifestyle well and it looks like I'll be keeping it as a daily driver for years to come.

The HP Spectre x360 gets my recommendation and approval.

Lenovo ThinkPad P Series (P52, P53, P16 Gen 1, P16 Gen 2) - Don't Even Think About It + Funny Warranty Service Tale

May 10, 2023

Last week, I got a refund for my Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 1. On paper, it sounded like a dream machine, with insane specifications ready to tackle any computing task. It was also a good way to flex your choice of 128 GB of RAM which I actually did use.

You’d think spending thousands of dollars on a machine would grant you a premium experience, this post will make you think again about that. Consider buying a used car instead.

Now, after using it for a while, I started to notice some flaws that simply could not be fixed. Yes, there were hardware and software problems that could be tweaked or dealt with precise fiddling. However, other issues were due to the design of the machine and some of the bad decisions that Lenovo made. I constantly felt like I was wrestling with it to get it to do what I want, but even then it didn’t listen to me.

I have the impression that Lenovo never really stress tested their machines when designing them to go through the quality control process. It was a bit bewildering when I started to see oversights that even a layman would notice. I’m no hardware engineer, but even with my puny brain, I could tell some decisions were just not right.

Keep in mind that these issues are very anecdotal but I do have some technical analysis to prove that I’m not making this stuff up.

Thermals

I’ve had quite some bad luck when it comes to thermals for pretty much every laptop I’ve owned. I often pushed these machines to the limits and quickly realized that they weren’t designed for endurance.

Processors temperatures would shoot up, the laptop would become noisier than a 727 on takeoff and it would become so hot that you could cook breakfast on the keyboard.

Once the laptop started to turn orange from the heat, the CPU and GPU would give up and downclock until even solitaire ran at slideshow speeds. The P16 I’ve had was built with a really thick chassis and a gigantic heatsink, so you’d expect it to handle stress tests but it kept failing as the processors were saying good bye to their performance and dropping their TDP. Or in some cases, just shutting off the machine.

Under load, the CPU and GPU cannot maintain their maximum frequency for a very long time, having the core clocks go down dramatically on a regular basis. Specialized software reveals that the system is doing that in response to high temperatures and lack of power from the supply. Rarely can the CPU and GPU reach their maximum TDP when at load.

Here, the video card is under heavy usage. Notice how it never achieves it's maximum design frequency of 1500.0 MHz. The chart shows the GPU clock constantly fluctuating. (from a tool GPU-Z)

Here, the CPU and GPU are having their performance capped due to not having enough power from the AC supply. (from the CPU-Z and GPU-Z tools)

This creates stutters and frame rate drops, generating a very inconsistent experience with 3D applications or GPU heavy programs.

Not only do the internals get very hot, but the heat transfers to the case. Hot spots of over 60C were measured on top of the keyboard using a laser thermometer.

This is a reading from a laser thermometer after running some software intensive tasks. Although increased case temperatures are expected, this is the temperature on the keyboard surface. It is hot to the touch at 60C. The keyboard becomes very uncomfortable to use.

One solution that helped slightly was putting the laptop on a stand, but that ruined the ergonomics and usability of the system. It only delayed the heat issues by a few minutes, it did not solve them.

Temperatures for both the CPU and GPU hit 100C, which is their maximum design limits. Sometimes the temperatures exceeds those and the laptop shuts down suddenly to protect these components.

This is the temperature of the CPU (monitored using a tool HWInfo) after running some hardware intensive tasks, exceeding 100C, the safe design limit for the CPU.

Setting the "Ultra Performance Mode" in ThinkPad Vantage and ensuring that the Windows Power Management is set to "High Performance" does not solve the problem at all.

For something that is "workstation" grade, I'd expect that stress testing was done during the design process and quality control, but it doesn't seem like it.

I have not been able to find a reliable solution for these issues and simply had to endure poor performance and high temperatures. Neither via hardware fixes or software adjustments.

Power Supply Issues

The laptop cannot draw enough power to sustain the CPU and GPU at high loads. As a result, it will start draining the battery to be able to power the laptop. This is because the power adapter can only provide up to 230W of power.

It’s really embarrassing that no one did the simple math of calculating the total TDP of the CPU and GPU and designing an adapter with enough wattage to feed the machine enough power to keep the components alive.

However, even using a 300W adapter does not solve the issue. Using an external electricity usage monitor, only up to 230W is drawn despite the more powerful adapter.

As a result, after running under load for about an hour, the battery charge is fully depleted and the laptop shuts off suddenly and automatically.

Three official and certified Lenovo 230W Power Adapters were tested resulting in the same behaviour. The combined TB4 and AC port from the Lenovo ThinkPad Workstation Dock results in the same behaviour as well. Using a 300W adapter also from Lenovo causes the same issues.

A review by NotebookCheck.net for the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1 RTX A5500 confirmed similar behaviour under the same conditions.

Here, a reviewer notes the battery level drop after running some benchmarks while the laptop was plugged in

Here, using the BatteryMon tool, you can see the laptop battery discharging even though it is connected to A/C power.

If you think Lenovo has learned a lesson from this design, don’t worry, the upcoming Gen 2 model still has a 230W adapter.

USB Connectivity Issues

USB connectivity is unreliable especially when multiple devices are connected at once. After a USB device is plugged for a few minutes, they sometimes disconnect partially causing data corruption or completely. The devices are gone from Windows Device Manager. The problem is compounded when using USB Hubs (even powered ones) or a docking station. When the laptop is under heavy load, the time for the devices to disconnect is even less.

This happens with any USB slot whether USB-A or USB-C or Thunderbolt.

Enabling "Always On USB" and disabling "DMA Protection" does not solve the issue. Restoring BIOS settings to defaults didn't help either. Various versions of Windows were tested included 10, 11 and Insider Previews. Both the factory reset reimaging and clean format did not help.

These same devices function normally on other computers without any issues.

A full replacement of the mainboard did not fix the problem.

Here is the output of a USB Webcam after the USB connection failed. Again, this issue does not happen if the same device is plugged into another computer

Bluetooth Audio Issues

Bluetooth audio devices which combine output (such as a speaker) and input (such as a microphone) have an odd quirk. If the input is enabled, the audio through the output either cuts off completely or the quality of the audio is lowered dramatically.

Notice the output stream on the top and the input stream on the bottom. When input is enabled (such as a microphone in this case), the output cuts out.

This is because the built-in Bluetooth does not support the LC3 codec despite being officially Bluetooth 5.2.

These devices don't have issues when connected to other computers or mobile phones.

Docking Station

The Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Workstation Dock has issues connecting and disconnecting reliably. Often, when connecting the laptop to the dock, not all displays get a video signal, and the only solution is to power cycle the dock by unplugging and plugging power back in.

Sometimes, the USB and Audio connectors do not function at all or disconnect at random times. Sometimes power cycling doesn't work and the computer needs to be restarted.

Updating the Docking Station Firmware did not solve or improve any issues.

Suspend and Sleep Issues

When closing the lid or pressing the "Sleep" button on the keyboard, the laptop will appear to enter a suspended state. The screen will turn off and the ThinkPad LED indicator will slowly flash. However, the laptop is clearly still on, as the fans are still running. This also results in the battery being drained. This happens in both Windows 10 and 11.

Battery Life and Throttling

Although the Lenovo website claims that the laptop can have up to about 5 hours of battery life, I've never been able to exceed 2. This is even making sure only the minimum of software is running, minimizing CPU usage and lowering brightness. This was both the case with the P53 and P16.

Even under ideal conditions, battery life can be quite poor. The battery is nearly full, but only has a little more than an hour of available run time

In addition, when the laptop is on battery power, the CPU is heavily downclocked generating an unusable experience. Software runs extremely slowly. There are some utilties that can disable this but I didn't use as it can damage the components on the mainboard.

Although it's normal for Intel SpeedStep to lower CPU clocks under light loads to save power, this is the maximum frequency recorded (by HWInfo) when under battery power

The only solution is to always keep the laptop plugged into an outlet thus tethering me to a power outlet.

Bonus Story: A Funny Tale About a Motherboard Replacement

There was an issue with the USB ports on the machine and they determined that the solution would be the replace the mainboard. I spent an inordinate amount of money to have premier warranty support. This story happened when the technician inspected the motherboard replacement. We both had quite a laugh and it made his day. I was supposed to be angry but I found it funny instead.

The original motherboard is on the left, the replacement motherboard is on the right. Pay close attention to the DIMM heat shields.

The first thing that caught my attention is that the heatshield in the replacement motherboard wouldn't fit over the DIMMs.

However, I noticed that they both look very different. The obvious difference is the missing serial number and black tape, but that can happen with replacement parts, this is normal.

Take a closer look at the two pieces, I put them side by side for comparison.

The right one is from the original motherboard, the one that shipped with the new machine. The left one is from the replacement motherboard that was delivered. Notice the size difference? The new one is too small.

However, look even closer, there are creases, it almost looks like it was taped together. Turns out, it's not a heat shield, it's actually improvised from tape.

This isn't the worst part yet, the tape is actually aluminum foil. I tested it for conductivity and it's actually conductive.

This means that this piece, that was touching the pins and the DIMMs, would cause an electrical short, which is obviously dangerous. If I didn't have an eye for this, and left this odd piece, it would have damaged the laptop permanently.

I'd like to know how can someone improvise something like this, and then have it pass QC? This isn't even a manufacturing defect, not even shoddy workmanship.

So it looks like Lenovo is so cheap that they’re ready to put aluminum foil as a replacement for a supposedly brand new part.

Conclusion

I’m not the only one to think this, but many agree that ThinkPad laptops have gone down in workmanship and quality since Lenovo bought the series from IBM (well actually it was the other way around, IBM sold it to them).

The problem with laptops, I always felt like that I was picking the least worst laptop rather than the best laptop. Laptops seem to be a story of compromise and you’ll always be losing somewhere. If I didn’t need to take my work with me and wasn’t a nomad, a desktop would have been a no-brainer. It’s half the cost and easy to modify and upgrade.

Now, I’m desperately looking everywhere for a replacement that will hopefully work well enough to help me get things done, even if there are a few bugs and papercuts. And of course, last me more than a couple of months.

Bracing myself to overdraw my account!

My biggest failure, the FreeBASE console...

January 13, 2023

It’s been almost 10 years since the FreeBASE idea was initiated. However, it was a massive failure due to realizing that we were competing in the wrong field and honestly being afraid of our shadow.

The biggest problem that I didn’t understand back in my university days is that good ideas don’t make good products. I mean, how great of a proposition is it? A game and media console that would play free content with thousands of freeware and open-source games and popular online series that were viewable at no cost.

We had a great team each with their own speciality me being software, someone else doing research for the free content, a web developer, a DevOps (before the term was even coined) expert but still looking for more. Several times, we even had amateur investors meeting with us because they were interested in taking the idea even further though all of them, at the end of the day, were skeptical of the idea and threw us out of the window.

At the time, the landscape was shaping up to be a quite competitive one and I was slightly scared of them. I mean, the giants Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo had a foothold on the market and we realized that we could never compete with them. But we had a bit of hope because other players tried to enter the market such as Boxer8’s OUYA and Valve’s Steam Machine made us feel like we can squeeze into the market too.

However, in retrospect several years later, after the project was canned, we saw Boxer8 and Valve fall flat on their faces with disastrous results. We were naïve at the time and couldn’t see the faults in our ‘competitors’. But, just like us, they were short-sighted, and failed to understand the market. Julie Uhrman, the founder of the OUYA project, had no idea what she was doing. For example, she claimed that the OUYA controller was the first to have a touchpad while she was oblivious to the fact that Sony’s Dual Shock controller beat them to it. What an embarrassment!

Valve’s idea fell on it’s face after selling so few Steam Machines that many people ended up buying them because they were cheap computers installing Windows on them to get rid of the subpar SteamOS. OUYA was even more embarrassing. The best selling game was TowerFall, but the developers revealed that only 7000 copies were sold. It was ported to PC and become a massive hit there.

At this point, I have to give up on insulting the other projects because ours was a much bigger failure. I was so confident that we would get somewhere but I began to feel fear and the whole team got disillusioned and split apart shortly after. The only evidence left is an idiotic YouTube video that looked like a teaser, for a teaser.

Our proposition brought challenges that our much larger competitors didn’t have to face.

First, we couldn’t build or design our own hardware, we decided to use off-the-shelf components but building such a machine was very expensive. We tried to make tiers to create multiple markets but it was as confusing as Windows Vista’s swath of editions. Our projections showed that our systems would be at least twice as expensive of current consoles with much less horsepower.

Second, we had to make money on hardware, we couldn’t sell it at a loss like the others. Since the games were free, we couldn’t make the creators pay licensing fees to have their game featured on the console. We saw Microsoft try this business model with making money on the console but they had to take so much shortcuts that the rings of death became a meme. In other words, these companies had such deep pockets that they could recuperate their losses with licensing fees, and that made their products make millions and billions of dollars.

Third, we made no market analysis at all. We didn’t know if anyone was actually interested in playing shoddy indie games made by someone in their free time. The quality of the games didn’t even touch the ones made by AAA publishers.

My main partner, who was helping me with building the software, put it so elegantly that we hit emotional walls and still haven’t learned our lessons from the failed project. It became really obvious that we didn’t have our shit together.

To this day, I still ruminate about the project because I wish it would be alive and successful. I did consider turning the hardware idea into just a Linux distro. There are already some poorly polished ideas such as Lutris which handles pretty much everything up to even installing patched versions of Wine for better compatibility.

The project still left a legend or legacy behind it, so here’s some images that invoked what we thought the FreeBASE interface would be like.

Leave some notes in the comments sections on your opinions and ideas on this failed project, or similar ideas you had, or even if you want to bring it back again.

I Want To Be A Generalist

March 5, 2022

I decided to become a generalist.

Discovering My Interests

It took a while to discover a very important aspect of my life. I didn’t want to have laser focus on only one aspect of the world, something that I was stuck in for a long time. I realized that I want to do a bit of everything and that was being more honest with myself. I felt like I escaped this illusion of life that I had and everything became so much more interesting.

Looking Back Into the Past and Now

The Past of Polymaths

If you search some notable persons on Wikipedia, you’ll notice that they hold multiple denominations such as scientist, philosopher, inventor, artist and so on. What you realize, these people have been from the deep past where being a polymath, someone who’s an expert in many areas, was actually quite standard. Despite the limited access to knowledge and no Interest, these people travelled far and wide to expand their knowledge eventually writing about it in exquisite texts that are so insightful that they are still canon and reference material today.

Our Present Of Specialization

In the past few hundred years, academia has developed a ride towards specializations. We are thought from elementary school that our way to success will involve picking a narrow field, mastering it and finding a job in that area. Although our school adventures starts with a balance of several subjects, as we progress through the grades, things start to narrow down. Once you reach the PhD level, your worldview seems really narrow and it’s seems that your subject is all you can talk about. As our modern times go by, it seems that the specializations are becoming even narrower to the point of making our views on aspect of life very binary and shallow.

Losing Your Advantage

The biggest disadvantage of specializing becomes the fact that what you learn might be irrelevant in just a few years in our fast paced world. If you studied about fourth-generation programming languages, well guess what, today it’s almost irrelevant and few career opportunities will allow you to use this out of date skill.

Leaving My Comfort Zone

Just like many, I was brainwashed to believe that the only way to success and fame was through university. As time progressed, I felt like I wasn’t being squished into a really narrow corridor. The illusions provided by past school became disillusionment.

I went to lounges for graduate students to learn more about their lives. Technically I wasn’t allowed to be there but the people I met were friendly and very open. I started to realize that their entire lives were dedicated to something very narrow. I tried to initiate discussions about something else but it would be awkward and unnatural. It wasn’t until I discussed their favourite subject. They lit up and had so much to say.

Exiting the Path of Specialization

The diplomas handed out at a long party started to seem irrelevant to me. It didn’t even mean I was good at something. I was just complacent ready to be obedient at some job. As one of my physics professors said “when you get a diploma, it just means congratulations! you've memorized fifteen books”.

This whole idea started to become a nightmare for me but for some reason I kept soldering on. The culmination of finishing my courses lead to a very anti-climatic event when I was handed my piece of paper. It was the result of 5 years of boredom that I spent so much money on.

After a long of only doing one thing in my life as a software developer, the shallow perspective of life made me feel incomplete. The world seems so full and colourful, good and bad, things. I left the shackles of my tiny little field and decide that I would like to know a bit more about this planet we live on.

New Careers and Hobbies

I decided to leave the software engineering to try other things. I wanted to do a bit of everything. After trying to bud myself into a field that I had no credentials, I’ve become a technical and content writer, as a freelancer. I left myself to do technology gigs despite my departure from programming doing mostly IT services. I’ve even started driving for Uber with a 10 hour shift every Saturday.

Volunteering was something I took on. I explored taking part in humanitarian efforts, animal conservation and even eccentric meetups. I’ve managed to start my own social club that’s been solid for more than two years with weekly meetings and over 600 members.

Many of these activities took much of my time and didn’t pay near as much as my old software consulting career, maybe even half. However, I feel more content with what I’m doing not only because of the enhanced freedom these opportunities provided but also erasing boredom due to the fact that I was doing something different all the time.

I’m not done yet on seeing what other things I can do. I have on my mind things like real estate and home decoration. Another thing that tickles my mind has a big stigma behind it. Becoming a cuddle therapist…

Fear

I didn’t know how to face my desires and the changes required to move on to something else. The risk was really big and the uncertainty uncomfortable. I was trying to hold something full-time while I looked but I was started to focus less and less on it. Instead, I was exploring the other avenues and doing many interviews that lead to failure. I felt like I had to go back to software but I eventually got my first writing gig. It was a roller-coaster because I was doing something I wasn’t qualified in but after finishing the projects, I was proud of what I did. The impact on the company was obvious.

Irrelevancy

This is a purely anecdotal experience. I noticed that many people worked in fields that have nothing to do with their diploma. Theologians becoming software developers. Electrical engineers doing sales for life insurance. Mathematicians stuck in a job filing tickets for a broken payroll system. Social scientists feeding city hall with wasted time. Uber drivers with advanced diplomas in mechanical engineering. And so on.

Job search has become so difficult that finding something that exactly matches your studies is really difficult. No matter your level of education, there’s a high chance that your intelligence won’t count compared to another candidate who’s less qualified but has more charisma and cheat his way through the interviews.

Learning and Learning to Learn

Academia

While some people want to collect diplomas like Pokémon cards, I thought that academia was probably the worst way to learn. The main problem is cost but also the outdated nature of the form of education. Most of your time was swallowed by boring lectures and endless assignments. Even worse, it cost so much money to the point where in some places around the world, you need a mortgage to study.

Unfortunately, depending on your field and work arrangements, some might be still asked to provide that magic piece of paper. Apparently, it’s a right of passage proving that you learned and mastered something. Nothing could be further than the truth however. Most students worked for grades rather than learning. Cheating is abundant. Professors are incredibly incompetent because they have no experience in the real world. When you escape university after a grueling four to five years, you realize that you’re not ready for the real world.

Self-Learning And Curiosity

This is a path that I’ve taken a decade ago. We live in a blessed age where knowledge is so accessible. Book stores and libraries everywhere with resources ready to have explore the world outside yours. Our biggest blessing is probably the Internet. Content for all sort of interests and often cheap to take part in, in fact sometimes free. You can pick your learning style whether it’s reading a book, doing exercises online or even boring lectures if that what suits you.

It takes much motivation and discipline to learn something. However, once you get into it, it becomes an addiction. Your thirst for knowledge grows and grows.

What will fuel your learning adventure the most is your curiosity. Sometimes you look at something as simple clock and start wondering how a quartz stone can accurately measure seconds. What about the intricate workings of a society you’ve never heard of? Do you want to memorize pi to a thousand places or be a fact machine for the capitals of each country in the world? The possibilities are endless.

Best part is that you can use this knowledge to teach others and make yourself a nice career with some variety. Maybe you won’t have diploma or anything but you just need to sell yourself well. If you’re lucky, some online courses provide certificates which can be added to your portfolio.

Learning on my own has opened my eyes to so many things teaching me so many facts. My sense of culture grew massively and suddenly I was more qualified in something that I didn’t even know existed as a skill a few moments before.

I can’t let go of that anymore. As one of my managers put it so well, I’m stuck in learning mode.

Time Investment

This desire to learn on the other hand required so much time from me. I had to push myself so hard to read Wikipedia all the time and feeding myself with books. I’m entranced with books now reading one or two books every week. I’m a non-fiction lunatic that will read anything (except for biographies). I let my impulsive nature pick the book for me.

My main method of learning is definitely reading. I am a faster than average reader peaking at 700 words per minute so that speeds me up a bit. However, I spend at least two hours everyday reading.

Other people prefer documentaries, lectures, audio books and so on. It doesn’t really matter what you do as long (as you feel that) you’re benefiting. See what you’re willing to invest time in.

Don’t worry about retention but focus more on comprehension. We all forget so easily but an experience will stay with us forever.

Practicing A Skill

Much knowledge requires another huge piece of time investment. If you’re learning about a musical instrument you probably want to practice often. Personally, I’m infatuated with flight and aviation. Learning procedures in a flight simulator can take some time and so much knowledge about the plane. The quirks of landing a plane need to be measured so you can successfully put the plane on the ground.

Of course, the best part is you get to choose how much time you want to spend on something.

Critical Thinking and Creativity

Having been exposed to many subjects, you develop new ways of thinking. Your perspectives are much wider and have new ideas that came to mind that you never even imagined. This sharpens your thinking skills. In fact, you probably just start to think more often instead of being bored staring at the wall. Eventually, that forces to change your perspective all the time and think from many different angles. This fuels your critical thinking skills and you might even become a better debater.

When it comes to creativity, this is really obvious. Having many ideas presented to you on a consistent basis, you develop more curiosity. As you have more ideas in your head, they can become a catalyst for new concepts. You will activate many parts of your brain and link things together that were seemed irrelevant on their own.

Combining Many Subjects

Specialists have rarely explored other subjects in detail. They never get a chance to combine multiple perspectives in one so they miss the chance for innovative thinking and freedom.

For example, if you are familiar with Toyota’s KANBAN methodology, you might fight that it is a good software development methodology as well. Perhaps your knowledge of Non-Euclidean geometry can help with that machine learning algorithm that you are developing.

Conclusion

Learning what I wanted to learn has changed my perspective drastically. I was finally starting to discover myself just a bit more and what my desires and aspirations actually are.

I really wanted to become good at things. Many things in fact. Nothing left as a black box opening things and analyzing their internal mechanisms. I need to be balanced so I can have interesting conversations and debates with all sorts of people. As a result, I became more comfortable with myself and even enjoy my own company.

The biggest change for me is the amount of activities that I can do now. I’m never bored and always have something to explore. I do multiple and different kinds of jobs now. I volunteer and host my own things.

For those who read my blog regularly, you will notice that I’m directionless (unlike many more popular bloggers focusing on a single niche) and quite haphazard sometimes. The subjects I cover are all over the place and this is due to my unending curiosity for learning and practicing a new art. When I learn, I want to share that experience and teach it to other people.