This is the best setup I've tried as well. Syncthing works so well I just often forget about it / take it for granted. I used to just deal with plugging our Kobo devices in, but now I can just distribute the relevant media by dropping a file somewhere.
The Kobo devices are truly worth every penny and we've got 4 of them in our household at this point. These are some of the best devices to put in the hands of kids.
If the assertion here is that Kobo devices are fragile: they're not.
Our first two Kobo were purchased in 2018 and both have been on every business / personal trip since. I don't particularly go out of my way to protect mine, I have the stock magnetic cover. Other than the edges of it wearing, that's the only visible "damage". My kids have had Kobo since 2019 and they take them everywhere. The Kobo devices are not fragile in the least. I worry more about them being left behind than breaking them.
I played a similar game (Rise of Kingdoms) for three years, and I agree that the sense of community is a compelling reason to continue to play. When you're in a top alliance, the shared commitment—both money and time—creates an environment where relationships can really flourish. It also drives a great deal of drama and creates great stories. There are certain conditions created in pay-to-win games that can't be replicated in games with fairer monetization models, and those can be a real draw for some people.
> There are certain conditions created in pay-to-win games that can't be replicated in games with fairer monetization models, and those can be a real draw for some people.
Doesn't need to be "pay to win". It might be free, but reward the time commitment or regularity. But it has to matter to the player in some way.
Back in high school, we felt the similar draw and had some similar stories wrt. OGame - a space-themed browser MMO (kind of like dumbed down Stellaris, but with no animation and everything taking hours of real time to happen). There were "alliances", formal and informal. There was exploiting game mechanics to gain the upper hand. Scheduling attacks so that the fleet arrives in the middle of victim's night, hoping they aren't crazy enough to be logged in then (not like us). We paid with nothing, except our own time and attention.
I imagine there's a lot of former OGame & Planetarion players who still dread hearing an IRC tone in the night knowing it'll be someone either waking you up to say "you've got incoming!" or "send your fleet!". Planetarion still has quite an active community but unsurprisingly they've geared it to making sure people don't need to survive on 3 hours sleep now.
Yeah I remember a similar game around 2000-4(hazy on timing) called EmpireQuest[0]. All text, ticks happened every few hours. Planets, ships and alliances. Similar time investment.
One project I use on a daily basis that isn't well known (and is by a Chinese developer) is Vimium C (https://github.com/gdh1995/vimium-c). It has similar functionality to Vimium, cVim, Vimperator, Pentadactyl and the like—browser navigation using vim-like shortcuts. Vimium C is quite customizable, offers great functionality, and the developer seems quite responsive to issues. The code is written in TypeScript and I found it easy to read. Highly recommended.
The default tooling isn't great. Tools like CrowdAnki [0] and Anki Deck Manager [1] make it possible to manage decks in plain text. It's also helpful for collaborative deck development. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find many examples of decks managed this way online, but there is a relatively high quality geography deck worth looking at [2].
I have visited theatres that perfectly match your description in Taiwan, with the exception that the film has to be out on DVD. You choose the size of room you would like (some rooms are large enough for parties, some are comfortable for two), pay for the amount of time you would like to book the room (with discounts for longer amounts of time or late night bookings), and choose from their library of DVDs. You are shown to your room and the movie is played. There is a phone to call the front desk and you can order food and drinks to be brought to your room. The chain I visited a few times is called U2MTV [1].
