Morning bite - FsPickler and Inspiration

Well - it looks like Json.NET isn't going to work for F#, at least in my case, as I make use of Single Case Unions as Map keys. This doesn't look like something the maintainer is interested in supporting, so I decided to use FsPickler instead. It's not designed for long-term storage or cross-platform use - so there are going to be problems down the road here too but it works pretty much OOTB for my current F# serialization use.

On another note, I saw an ad for Masterclass featuring Will Wright and immediately got a subscription. The Sims, and Sim City, are major inspirations for me. I consider this game somewhere in-between in terms of how personal it is - not quite zoomed in to the person and family level of The Sims, but not quite zoomed out to where people can be modeled statistically like in earlier Sim City's. It's closer to the level of The Guild, but from the perspective of managing the whole village rather than a single dynasty.

I grew up on The Sims and Sim City, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Pharoah (and friends). These games got me into programming in the first place as a kid - finally getting to try my hand at it for realsies is a bit of a dream come true. Dwarf Fortress and it's briefly existing economy system is a major source of inspiration. I waited for a long time for the return of economy in Dwarf Fortress, but he decided to focus more on the storytelling aspect (which is, of course, also awesome) but since that itch has been left unscratched - I gotta scratch it!