Goldkin @Goldkin@awoo.space

I mean, the game is good, I think? But this specific thing feels so completely alien to me somehow.

The weird thing about scaling up the Dark Souls model of "everything wants you dead" to a larger continent is it produces this weird uncanny valley in which absolutely nothing else is happening in the setting until you arrive.

No one is knitting, or writing, or just generally thinking about what to do with their long existence; they're just shambling along until you somehow happen to arrive, and their only response beyond brief snatches of dialog is to choose carefully practiced violence.

And I mean, that made sense when we're talking about a cursed undead kingdom in which everyone, including the castle guard, is slowly losing their sapience to carnal instincts subservient to a primal power. But in this setting, it... really does not make much sense, and it feels off in a significant way.

It's like going to Disney World, except all of the attractions specifically want to kill you, and your only agency in the experience is Y to talk or any other face button to violence. And even with playing most of the other games in the series to date, I find myself having trouble relating to this experience.

4. Everything in this is user-replaceable and buildable from first principles (including, technically, the sensors and IC, but sourcing those is waaaay easier), meaning if a component fails or a manufacturer closes shop, the thing will continue to be serviceable with small repairs.

Wish I could say the same about most of my other hardware, tbh.

When the sensor is activated (and its resistance is lowered), electricity follows down that path. Otherwise, it terminates to ground.

It works pretty well on a breadboard, but a PCB that parallelizes these better would make for a tidier build.

3. The code provided by teejusb/fsr supports an arbitrary number of sensors. You can scale this up as far as your controller has analog pins and build some absolutely complex sensing kit with this.

The pad now works, and it's been super comfy to use (even compared to rev 1).

Some build observations:

1. The keeyees pro micro we used only has 9 analog pins, and 8 of them were purposed for the build. My wiring shorted two together somehow, but the build continues to work happily despite it.

2. The build guide doesn't tell you this, but each circuit is very simple. Each analog pin is connected to two circuits. (more)

Revision 2 of the pad, which supports doubles, is coming along well.

It's smaller than a regulation pad on the edges, but should be super comfy for exercise once we connect it up.

Watching back through the Mega Man games I missed (most of the late NES/early SNES games, later X games, and Zero series), I'm impressed how many of the filler enemies look like soft friends.

Also by how well entries like Battle Network seem like halfway believable versions of reality now, by integrating tech that's equal parts boring and unintelligible.

Inadvertently giving my mentee at work the advice I wish I'd gotten when I started my career.

Particularly the part where I might sound authoritative, but half the time I literally don't know what I'm doing and am just consulting primary sources and other folks to make an informed opinion. Not knowing stuff is normal, especially in fields that are highly technical.

I think it helped, and damn, I wish someone had told me that early on to help with imposter syndrome.

Pad is closed up for now. There are changes we'll make in revision 2 to make this wire together better, but it works!

Also realizing I called this PMD Arceus earlier, when it's PLA. Which... isn't wrong, since it's still an isekai.

Hisuian Typhlosion is incredibly friend-shaped 💜

... I admit to thoroughly having no idea what I'm doing when it comes to electrical circuits, so the fact this works at all is kind of a relief. @..@

So after using through our old hard pads and being constantly frustrated at nothing being available, we decided to build our own from this guide: https://youtu.be/y6wGYLE0YI4

Turns out this thing is way easier than expected once we got the materials assembled. Each sensor converts physical force into electrical resistance, and each analog channel reads that in and converts it to button presses at a given threshold.

And it works! Next is finish wiring and close it up.