On mobile, when everyone was releasing their new voice assistant technologies, Cortana outperformed them all. On desktop I agree that Cortana was a waste of space.

I’ve been a MS products fan since Windows Phone, Cortana, and OneNote stole my heart. I loved the great features that Windows 10 and Edge provided out-of-the box. Bing provided better results than Google for some time.

But Phone was never accepted by the market, and with it, Cortana faded away. OneNote hasn’t kept up with the market, and they somehow broke the cursor on mobile. Sticky Notes lost compatibility with Dark Mode. They started pushing ads to Windows start menu, and embedded ads in Edge Collections.

Microsoft makes great software, then fuck it all up. Oh well, back to Linux.

Yes. I think it’s especially important for attracting (or perhaps more accurately, maintaining) new users to the fediverse.

Context?

You lost me with all the ads baked into the OS. You’re not gonna win me back with… checks notes Notepad.

Dark mode and live widgets.

Edit to add: https://www.howtogeek.com/809114/5-ways-windows-phone-was-ahead-of-its-time/

Windows phone was the best phone OS I ever experienced. Features were years ahead of iOS and Android.

Trophy Loom is a setting book. It’s not required; just like you don’t need a Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance book to play D&D 5e.

Trophy Dark is a system for one-shots. The book includes a bunch of adventures. The PCs are expected to be irrevocably changed, “lost” to the horrors of the world, or dead by the end of the session.

Trophy Gold is for campaign style play. The PCs are more likely to survive and return to town at the end of a session. There’s a few more mechanics than Dark, but both are rules-lite. The book comes with a few adventures.

The tone and genre for both games (and the setting book) is dark, gritty, dangerous low-magic, late-medieval/early-renaissance fantasy.

Edit to add a content warning: horror is a main theme. And body horror is a big part of many of published adventures.

Thanks for sharing this! I’ve refereed Trophy Dark and loved it. I have yet to try Gold.

I’m doing my part!