I’m just on a break from working on a game for a PhD student’s research project in psychology.

It’s a sort of work simulator where you play as an internet fact checker for an old county music artist looking to make a comeback. The goal is to stop him from posting things online that are misinformed or blatantly wrong.

The whole thing takes place in a sort of remote login desktop running an operating system called Howdy OS, and you interact with the artist through an instant message interface, so naturally I’ve been having the most fun designing the UI and the interactions.

The messages are constructed similarly to Obra Dinn - you collect evidence and populate a template, then send it. The artist responds depending on what’s right or wrong about what you send. It’s not AI or anything, it’s just very very written 😅

The purpose of it is to teach criticality to people, try and help them understand how to evaluate and verify information online instead of just taking things for granted. We completed the first pre alpha testing before Christmas and it’s been received well so far! Excited to get into the next steps now.

Congratulations! You’ll both do incredible!

If you’re into the vibe but not the singers, you might like And So I Watch You From Afar, Earth, Pomegranate Tiger, Plini, Polyphia, The Algorithm, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, If These Trees Could Talk, Pelican, and Polarization. All instrumental metal/rock at different levels of heavy.

That’s kind of a long list but I hope you find something in it 😅

Nah it’s not new, Claypool said it on stage once in the late 90s or early 2000s but it just sticks with me, haha. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing them, unfortunately. Someday I hope!

I think the dude uses 2 strings actually, I’d forgotten that particular detail! Generally kind of plays them both at once too, little power chords. Delighted to hear you know them, I feel like they’re one of those acts that you feel like nobody knows until you discover them and suddenly everyone knows them

This thread is a scorcher. Excellent recommendations.

I could do this all evening but I’ve picked a few favourites. These are artist recommendations rather than just tracks.

Here’s some accessible ones (Spotify links):

• Primordial - Empire Falls
• Ghost Brigade - Suffocated
• Leprous - The Flood
• *shels - Butterfly (on Luci’s Way)
• Sólstafir - Necrologue
• Sleep Token - The Summoning
• Saor - Monadh
• Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God

And some slightly less accessible ones (Also Spotify links):

• Alter of Plagues - Found, Oval and Final
• Behemoth - Messe Noire
• The Angelic Process - Burning in the a Undertow of God
• Ihsahn - Arcana Imperii
• Bell Witch - Beneath the Mask
• or if you’re feeling brave enough to listen to a single, album length sludge/doom track, Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

I will also strongly second the already recommend Chelsea Wolfe, Opeth, Alcest, Orbit Culture and 3TEETH!

No no, we don’t say that anymore.

Now we say “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”

Incidental recommendation for Morphine - far from a metal band, but a 3 piece bass/sax/drums unit that inspired Primus.