u/gregoryatmanan

Hello Chironians!
I play the gog version of the game through Crossover (with Thinker mode – once again kudos to u/induktio). Works good, but when a secret project video starts playing – the screen turns black, audio is working, and after its finished the screen stuck. UI sounds and game itself are working but the screen is not.

I tried to install windows VLC into SMACX bottle and play videos from it when they appear – but the problem stays the same. VLC opens, audio is working, but an error pops up about incompatible video format.

I would appreciate any help and inputs!
All the best.

And probably just to be heard.

I'm 31 years old, have no background in programming, and currently work at a profitable but not super successful startup in a support role, where I've been the only one handling all user-related operations for 5+ years. I got into it accidentally and don't like it. I'm not a job hopper, and I need to make more money.

Programming is something I've been thinking about for years but was always afraid to start. Then I started, abandoned it for a couple of years, and for almost a year now I've managed to stick with it. I decided to go with React JS Frontend.

I'm very bad at learning things I have no inner motivation to master. I got through high school purely on soft skills — I just didn't want to learn. I didn't go to college and went to work after mandatory army service. I love guitar and learned it myself, I'm into weightlifting, drawing, reading, and psychology. I guess I'm more of a humanities guy. I'm only now learning how to actually learn — and I've noticed that everything I've eventually gotten good at was deeply frustrating at the start.

My main motivation to learn Frontend is money and freedom — remote work, flexible schedule. Very important to me. But I have so many doubts. Also, I feel I want to be good at something professionally, I want to capable in something.

My learning process is sometimes terrible. I'm on a Scrimba React course now, and some of the simplest tasks I can't do without Google or GPT can send me to a dark place fast. I'm talking fist smashing the table — happened just recently. But when I manage to solve something, I feel genuine happiness from it.

But I just feel so stupid. I just finished a Tenzies game from the course — I can read and understand all the code I wrote, rewrote it a few times to memorize it, but there's no way I could recreate it from scratch without help. (I ask GPT for instructions only, not code.) This is really depressing.

And now I'm afraid of all the AI stuff that's happening. I get that it's a tool to be a better developer. But knowing how bad the job market is even for experienced developers — I can't help asking myself: "What the fuck am I thinking?"

I also know the best way to learn is your own projects. But I have no ideas. And I always think "someone already did this better" — which is funny, because I consider myself a creative person.

here it is. I've been thinking about creating this post for some time. I'm a very introverted guy full of self-doubt, not an active Reddit poster. I'm not even sure what I want from this — "forget about it" or "stick with it." Which is itself something I'm working on: taking responsibility without seeking outside approval.

Thanks for reading, I will appreciate any input.