Thanks to the viral influence of Survivors-slop and its disastrous damage to the indie space, what constitutes a "roguelike" makes literally no sense anymore.
Thus allowing anyone with just a bit of technical know-how to use generative-AI and recycle from 15 other titles for so cheap, even 1k copies are enough to make profit. Whatever it is you're showing us could've easily passed as a chinese mobile game dataminer made back when durkestdungeon was all the craze.
Also
>npc entertainment
come on now

>>735610792
>Make something
>It makes money

What's the issue?

>>735610974
this was an issue long before survivors bro. it's been a plague since the first slay the spire, and it had been fermenting since spelunky, ftl, and binding of isaac

>>735610792
>Cute fog girl protagonist
Thank you for advertising this OP, I WILL be buying

>>735610792
So make your own game then

>>735611012
It's generic

No, it's just that you people are retarded and literally don't have the faintest clue what is coming out. /v/ is at this point LITERALLY too casual to discuss indies unless they have been endorsed by some major outlet or epic twitch content creator.

Pretty much 99% of everything I play these last few years has been indie. I've never played a rogue-like or a game with card-based mechanics. The last thing I can complain about is lack of mechanical variety.
It's genuinely, literally just that you have no fucking clue what is going on.
Go play something like Heart of the Machine or Pathologic 3 for fuck sake.

>>735611219
I see what you're saying but I disagree.
We're literally seeing autobattlers with a couple of buttons and mouse aim flood the roguelike tag nowadays, and those buttons you can set to autocast anyways. They're using AI-generated slop in the hopes that a streamer plays their garbage while queueing up for a match. Even a 5% translation to purchases from someone who has 5 thousand viewers is enough to make buck when you had literally no costs to pay.

ps. type properly you fucking nigger or don't type at all

>>735611303
you are generic
should we get rid of you as well?

>>735611305
/v/ is filled with normalfags that pull out steamcharts and going popular=good for the past few years now, all hope is lost.

>>735611305
The only good post in this shitty board today.

>>735611385
Yes, me and every roguelite, hades, survivors, balatro slop on steam.

>>735610792
Top right art is sloppiest AI sloppa

>>735610792
People loves doing the same shit. Especailly rouge likes faggots.
This genra itself is doing the same shit over and over again to get slightly boost.
Same shit with ARPG like Diablo or Path of exiles.HELL even souls-like
But those 2 you need to make actually decent game.

>>735611376
whats ur point exactly? people shouldn't make games because they are lazy or a made up vague genre is too vague and it's annoying for u to find stuff you personally want to play on steam?

>>735611496
I do not fucking understand roguelikefags, I have one guy on my steam friends list who only plays either binding of isaac or mewgenics ALL DAY (1200 hours in the former and 200 in the latter), and I just don't get it because doing NG+ in an actual game is boring as fuck, now imagine playing the same game over and over and over, no wonder roguelikes are correlated with being a tranny

>bro why aren't you buying indie games?
>every indie game is just a worse looking version of something that's already a major success
But surely YOUR pixelart platformer or card builder will be great!

>735611538
I'm not giving (You)s to a ragebaiting tourist
Better luck next time, midwit

>>735610792
Looks more like chinaslop to me. They make more than 5 games but what they do instead is carbon copy steal it and then align it to bugmen sensibilities. Of course this will counteractively repel most people.

>>735610792
gamers keep playing the same five games they see their favorite youtubers playing
youtubers keep playing the same five games because they're optimized for reliable content production
roguelikes = lots of content = lots of views = gamer mindshare occupied

>>735611597
I don't understand that either. I guess people just love doing the same shit like they learn one game and they don't want to learn more shit so they play same shit over and over again.
Honestly the same shit is playing LOL, WOW, DOTA 2, CS ect.
People are just lazy.

>>735611654
you forgot to quote the post newfriend
>>735611538
fixed it for you :^)

>>735611654
all you've done is arbitrarily moan about the state of some indie stuff. i don't know how you expect people to respond to you with outside of confusion because you don't like the impact of vampire survivors and you don't like that lazy people can make stuff with ai (lazy people have always made shit games) and you don't like that streamers make games popular? what the fuck am i meant to do for you
yeah some stuff sucks, ok great. great point

>>735611496
>>735611756
I've been playing Diablo 2 (D2R, PD2, smaller mods) and WoW private servers almost exclusively for the past, dunno 5-7 years? Those are just endless games. I can grab some indie game, but that's 20-30 hours tops and done. Nothing AAA really caught my eye in years. If you have good games already, why force yourself to stop playing?

>>735611305
Nah.
You're right that there are good and interesting indie games. You're right that most of /v/ are retards who just watch streams. But the OP is about how most indie releases are just derivatives, which is true. Steam is flooded with shitty games from comp sci majors who got fired from Ubisoft or wherever.

>roguelike/lites
>soulslikes
>survival crafting
>farming
>metroidvania
>scrimblo bimblo
And they're all in early access

>>735610792
Indieslop is more common and diluted slop than "AAAslop", but it is tolerated by "gamers" because it is cheap and not $70+. That's all there is to it.

>>735613023
metroidBRAINias is the latest trend

>>735613023
No Vacation for an Executioner just came out today, doesn't fit in your retard list
>look for thing that fits in your dumbfuck list
>i am very upset
you do it to yourself.

>>735610792
>survivors slop
>card slop
>turn slop
Yeah I'll stick with AAA

>>735610974
>anymore
it didn't make sense ever since Binding of Isaac came out and you retards decided yo call literally anything with meta progression "roguelike". You get no sympathy from me, faggot. Eat shit.

>>735613023
>Banish-likes
>Factorio-likes
>OTTD-likes
>Anno-likes
>They-Are-Billon-likes
>Impression-likes
>X-com-likes
>KSP-likes
>Space Engineer-likes
>IPL-likes
>Timberborn-likes
>KSP-likes
etc... etc... etc...
All of is a retarded exercise of retarded people who don't play games. The fact is, there is not only an incredibly vibrant scene out there, but quite fucking literally GENRE-DEFINING titles come out every year or two, from the indie scene itself. That is on par with the variety that we had during the god-damn PC golden era.
But it only matters to - or is even known to - people who ACTUALLY FUCKING PLAY GAMES, which quite obviously, none of you here actually do.

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>>735610792
I've got a game that doesn't fall into any of the tropes you could come up with, it might reach 400 wishlists before it releases.
inb4
-it's shit
-no advertising
-looks like guano

All of the above is correct, but above all else, people don't stray far from their favorite tags, if there's your game ain't in some convention, it won't pop up in 'More like this', and thus the death by omission.

>>735613193
Like Outer Wilds? There are other Metroidbrainias?

>>735613352
>All of is a retarded exercise of retarded people who don't play games
>people who don't play games
And that's why they're so popular on /v/eddit.

>>735610792
Just browse through market places of popular engines and then browse steam. It's spooky. You see assets everywhere. Even really easy to code assets, like health bars. Glued together asset flips.
>game descriptions
Barely qualifies as description.

>>735611303
Unfortunately by design. Generic is often the optimal way to approach product design. Sheep like generic.
>>735611385
>doesn't understand meaning of words, yet talks.
Another illiterate anon.

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>>735613372
It's a tongue in cheek name. Pseuds love inventing elite sounding terms for their normal brained midwit activities just to pat themselves on the back for how smart they are.

>>735611305
>>735611403
Rogue~ are extremely popular mechanics, higher demand then ever. You can't deny that. Funny, to think it stems form one or a few games.

>>735613490
When did this happen on a broader scale

>>735611305
>Go play something like Heart of the Machine or Pathologic 3 for fuck sake
Both shit

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>>735610792
Rogue-like have become the Chucks of the indies sphere

>>735610792
This game has better art and is more fun than Hades though

>>735611679
Most mother-clones, doomlikes, yomawari-lites are made by western dev who posts on twitter every day. What are you on about?

>>735610792
>Indie devs make a game that they know will sell.
Why are indie devs smart enough to do this, but major firms keep making concords and highguards?

Just like in every other industry, there are lots of people who think that they can earn lots of money by copying what is already selling.
Of course they fail.
On steam alone, thousands of games were released during last year.

at least rhythm games still have variety...
>twenty different keyboard and mouse games
nvm

That reminds me a bit of Ravenswatch.

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>roguelite
At least it looks cute I guess.

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What do you want from an indie developer?
They can't be expected to invent new genres or have novel ideas to implement into established formulas with every game.

I think retreading old ideas is fine so long as the end product does it well.

>>735615289
There are some good games like Cairn but most of them are trash.

>>735613490
Metroidbrania makes sense: metroidvania, but progression is gated behind gaining knowledge of the game's world/mechanics (as opposed to combat or gaining abilities). In that pic, probably only Outer Wilds and Void Stranger count as Metroidbrainias.

>>735613490
Puzzlevania

>>735610792
One thing I absolutely hate about indie devs nowadays is that 99% of them make this "cute/anime/friendslop" art games, literally cannot tell a difference between them. You know what I'm tlaking about.
Meanwhile, RPG genre is barely touched by indie devs. There are some hidden gems with unique graphics, but other than that 80% are just rougelike / darksouls / comfy farming / sim type games.

>>735613459
>generic reply

>>735615467
There were so many rpg maker games for a time that it's not even funny.
Thankfully that trend stopped since then.

>>735615467
i honestly don't know what you're talking about

>>735615289
>They can't be expected to invent new genres or have novel ideas to implement into established formulas with every game.
That's was a thing back in the 80s and 90s. In their defense, going the generic way is the economically sound strategy. Unfortunately it is bad for gaming or at least gamers.

>>735615683
Glad someone noticed the irony

>>735615467
Do you mean streamerbait stuff?
>RPG genre is barely touched by indie devs.
I'd be surprised if it wasn't the single genre most represented in indie dev. It's just most is rpgmaker shit.

>>735615289
I think the game I'm helping out on has a very novel idea but it's gone under the radar so far. Might have to rethink the marketing strategy, cause it's really hard to market something that hasn't really been done yet.

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>>735615467
The problem is that most other styles faded out of fashion. What else do we have? Realism doesn't fly well within indie sphere. Western cartoon graphics mostly devolved to pixar-looking or tumblr-esque horrors, also often associated with furshit. Surrealist stuff requires some actual artistry that your average dev does not have. Generic anime style is the only one that both has a worldwide appeal and is easily accessible.

>>735616341
It is not a sound strategy because most of the games that do this end up failing.

>>735611305
this post got them bubblin'

>>735610792
Don't buy it?
I play demos or pirate. If they pass the test I buy it.

Most recent pirate to purchase game: Under the island.

>>735617440
I already stopped buying games ages ago, doesn't stop shitty games from coming out.

>>735610792
I love these games and usually put 30+ hours into each roguelike slop that drops. It just has to be one of those 20 minute run, level up instantly not at the end of a 30 second round, kind of roguelike. My current one is Reincarnation Insurance Program, my favorite would have to be Soulstone Survivors though.

Oh no a company chasing a trend? This has never in the history of the world ever happened before.

>>735617495
they have the right to try.

wishlisted

>>735617376
I doubt they do. Plenty of indie devs release multiple games. Then again, we have nearly 20k games on steam, most obviously fail in some form. Let's talk about legitimate games here, of a certain production value.

>>735610792
>>735613352
Any Manifold Garden - likes?

>>735610792
gamers keep buying buying the same games. how is this the devs fault?

>>735618187
Antichamber maybe? Though arguably, Manifold Garden got inspiration off Antichamber rather than the other way around.

>>735610792
Sounds like SOMEONE doesn't know how to CONSUME CONTENT. Wrongthink detected!

>>735611305
Yup /v/ is filled to the brim with retarded normalfags too dumb to click on a tag on heir drm botnet of choice. I play so much stuff on itchio and have more installed that would make the average phoneslopping /v/tardos head explode just seeing it.
And when I do go for a mass advertised algorithm hit it is a coin toss if it is actually god or a steaming turd like Dread Delusion.

>>735613352
>which quite obviously, none of you here actually do
I stopped playing vidya years ago, but I love shitposting, yes indeedy.

>>735610792
Blame gaymers for only wanting to play the same 5 games

>>735611305
/v/ has been gutted so much that the main people who still use it are just redditors who want to be racist

>>735610974
In general genre tags are completely fucked because niggers don't know how to describe things so they just pick surface level explanations of other genres and think "close enough"
People genuinely call VS like games bullet hell and it's beyond fucking retarded

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I'm genuinely tempted to AI vibecode art gen my dream game /v/ since there's nothing like it on the market

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Any Goonervania games like Kotama and Academy Citadel?

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>>735615289
>What do you want from an indie developer?

>>735610792
Niggers will do anything but play good indie games

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>>735610792
name me another rhythm fishing game
https://files.catbox.moe/b8e4wh.webm

>>735612665
>But the OP is about how most indie releases are just derivatives, which is true
So is literally everything. Most AAA games, movies, books, music, etc. fact remains that indie games are the only ones taking risks and trying new ideas that sometimes don't work. Big games and other media are afraid of losing money so they just do the same shit over and over

>>735619476
I'm learning gdscript myself and it is just impossible for me to make progress without consulting AI first.

>>735611305
You need to understand that /v/ turned into a lesser version of twitter since like 2021. These people are slaves to algorithms

>>735619664
Ai does help a lot for code, you'd be foolish to not use it, but it should be used to learn, not copy paste code.

Also, AI still doesn't know gdscript very well, it's always fucking up.

Execution is and will always be far more important than originality and you’re a retard if you think otherwise.

>>735619814
>Execution is and will always be far more important than originality
true, that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 game is one of those proofs

>>735615289
I don't expect new genres or incredible new mechanics. I just want less fucking roguelikes. There's tons of games with fun gameplay that are roguelikes because it's the easiest genre to make when you don't know how to design a level without making it a box with enemies and a few traps.

>>735619664
treat AI as a better search engine, It'll help get you examples but they wont always be right and you still have to understand what shit does

>>735619914
Funny thing is that I like roguelikes kind of, but 99% of them are pure shit

>>735615289
Post too smart for retarded /v/ dwellers
The people screaming the loudest about a lack of originality are the ones who haven't created anything and could never come up with a good idea of their own when prompted.

>>735610792
Outcomes of the "free market" in action. The investment is large enough that a dev looks for proven ideas to follow, that don't cost too much in time, money or complexity.
So instead of new innovations (which requires capital input due to the base costs) you end up with people copying proven ideas and attempting to innovate within smaller and smaller niches.

>>735615289
I just want to see some different games.

How come I have never seen an indie game do something like Freedom Force? Why is it always the exact same copy cat of other games?

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>>735619664
I honestly wouldn't mind abusing AI since the game would just be a hobby project, I have clear vision of the control scheme, UI, gameplay and details that make it engaging to play. I think the main reason no one has created such game before is that the idea appears uneconomical, the idea that majority, 95% of the players could not clear the story due to increasing difficulty is something nobody will take a risk on. Not because of artificial difficulty mind you but because this type of game would require incredible dexterity. You'd be playing a single player version of Rocket League.

I think a lot of people are missing the incoming indie renaissance. AI will make niche games more economical, you can start making single player games that actually filter players, types of games which only few people can beat and that's fine because the costs are so low.

>>735619954
99% really sounds like an exaggeration but there's literally dozens of them coming out every single day.
Instead of making a roguelike and wasting time making reskins of 500 items and skill trees from other games just make a linear game with a more interesting story and level design and incorporate the items and mechanics you find to be the most enjoyable into the progression of the game

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>>735620362

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>>735611305
It's so over

>>735619645
game name?

>>735610792
Buy an ad

>>735620340
other than having a visceral hatred of roguelites, this is the big thing for me as well. during a typical next fest I play around 50 demos, and there are still a lot of fairly unique, inventive, or at least games that are clones of less popular games out there. but holy fuck, there are so many low effort clones of whatever got big in the last 2 years, it's insane
this last next fest had a clone of parasite eve, and for the last couple fests I've seen a few clones of classic resident evil. they're not really doing anything unique, but we're also not inundated with clones of those games (yet) so I don't mind.

>>735621449
Its funny because they are just chasing trends to try and be successful, but they don't realize that if you want to hit big you need to either be really lucky or be the one that sets the trend.
There's a much higher chance your game will be successful if you try and make something exciting and "new" rather than releasing Vampire Survivor clone #53252 and somehow think people will play that over the thousands of other clones.

I hope that hybrid tower defense games like Dungeon Defenders will become popular again sometime soon.

So any metroidvania besides Crownsworn coming up? Maharachi seems like it's looking good and nothing else. The last 15 or so anticipated mvs where all shit. Like mio or mandragora.
I loved chronicles of the wolf. Right mix of gamey, arcade and castlevania clone.

>>735611219
>it's been a plague since the first slay the spire
fucking this, I can't even count the amount of times I've seen something mildly interesting on steam only to be disappointed by the "roguelike + deckbuilder" tags, survivors slop only added to the pile, we also cannot forget the countless """metroidvanias""", the early access crafting survival slop, and the friendslop trying to replicate the success of lethal company or phasmophobia, that already accounts for 95% of indie output

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>>735619518
There is Bloodroot which is a full-on h-game.

>>735610792
People will bitch about this, but when you shill them an actually new game they refuse to play it because uhhh uhhh uhh

>>735621064
sinker sound. it's very janky

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>Linear action-adventure
>Compelling story
>Unique art style
>14 weapons to master
>40 unique enemies to kill
>Four computer-controlled allies to fight by your side
>Five suits of armor to collect and use to modify gameplay
>Seven areas to explore
>No rollslop
>No Rogue-like/lite/shite elements
>No pixel art
>No gay shit
Behold: the best game ever made.

>>735622697
Only 10 years in the making and roughly 10000 humiliation rituals daily, maybe more. Well, here they say shilling comes free. Frydarian knows, it doesnt
Does your lore allow for time travel?

Anyone who bitches about indie games doesn't really like games, they're just bitter fags trying to relive their childhood.

I just got to the first ending in Void Stranger, that was fucking soulful and truly art.

>>735622837
Some have the ability to master life and death itself, but neither magic nor technology can be used to travel the ever-flowing current of time. The Powers That Be, of whom we never see, are said to have the ability to control time, but they live in the heavens and have no reason to come to the earth.

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>Twitter "gamedevs": Durr my game is a cozy roguelike soulslike game with ps1 graphics and pixel art
>Me: Spinning and Winning

>>735619361
Steam is also partly to blame for not having moderation for tags, not helping devs with the tags and not keeping up with trends so there's no new tags for shit. We still don't have incremental or bullet heaven as tags and it's been years since those types of games got popular.

Retards calling everything a roguelike when roguelite has been in use for years is also extremely retarded.

>>735611219
>Im currently making my own spelunky ripoff
Fuck, i guess its time to switch to plan B and continue my highfleet ripoff

>>735611303
>good art
>plays well
>has interesting build systems
It is better than 98% of the games released in Steam.

>>735623776
Looks worse than what chatgpt 3 would've shat out two years ago

>>735619287
why wouldn't you want to be racist?

>>735615351
>There are some good games like Cairn
Cool opinion, which game journalist gave it to you?

>>735611376
post one such AI-generated slop game that has more than 10 reviews

>>735611305
>Pretty much 99% of everything I play these last few years has been indie
NPC behavior

What do old school real rogue and roguelikes players think about nu-roguelieks?

>>735610792
>Anon enters the 5 games store
>What the fuck there is only 5 games in here

>>735619645
Is she fishing in the sky? What the fuck

>>735611305
/thread

>>735624324
That they can be good or bad games.

>>735624271
npcs exclusively play big budget aaa slop thoughever
>>735623934
honestly, as long as you do something interesting and you're not just making spelunky but with a worse feel and different art, you're fine. spelunky codified what makes a game a roguelite while also poisoning the term roguelike, but it didn't spawn a billion clones. it's not like slay the spire, hades, vampire survivors, or balatro

>>735615289
>>735616341
>>735617376
With the barrier to entry for gamedev getting much lower the real issue is that Steam allows everything in it. At the very least they should increase the Steam Direct fee so that turd worlders and babby's first games are priced out from Steam.

If Valve changed it to $1000 it would mean that the developer would have to believe in their game that much more to risk it. It would lead to an immediate raise in the average quality of future games on Steam.

>>735610792
Indies make all sorts of games. The issue is that people only ever play the same five games, so that's all you ever hear about. This has been a problem for decades. That's why most popular games in the 90s were all Mario clones or beat em ups. Or why everything in the 2000s was modern military shooters and sports games, with the occasional ARPG or 3d beat em up.

stop buying them then

>>735616812
>cause it's really hard to market something that hasn't really been done yet.
You do it with visual appeal. It is important for basically all games to sell but especially so for games that are weird or do things different. If the audience doesn't understand what they're seeing at a first glance they need to be lured to try it out. That's usually done through enticing visuals.

>>735623781
Have you ever talked toa normalfag? When I bring up to a streamer that roguelikes are its own unique and old genre and that the shallow action cookie clicker statgrinds named roguelites are very different they just screech and yell in anger.
It's a hell that people make liking a thing their personality and then any perceived negative talk about it gets seen as a personal attack.
>>735624324
It's fine that they exist. It's just annoying how people refuse to learn meaning of words.

>>735624705
The filter is that that shit doesn't get 10 reviews and gets thrown into the algo-abyss.
Most games don't even make that $100 back, so whats the point in increasing it?

>>735611303
Go back to your horizons, god of wars, concords, and marathons. Let the gamers enjoy themselves

It's really funny to see retarded gamers cry about the results of their own purchasing habits. You remove yourself out of the market as an audience, or only buy games for cheap on sales - you end up getting only cheap games being made that satisfy an audience that isn't you.
For a board that staunchly defends the "free market" and capitalism, I thought this would've been obvious.

>>735619914
>>735620439
While I do agree that many games could have been made as not-roguelites, there are also games that are good because they're using that model.

It is also a budget/time constraint issue. Making a game with a dedicated story takes massive amounts of time. Every bit of story and linear level progression you put in is one and done type of consumable. Most players will never experience it more than once. To have a game length in hours it takes hundreds if not thousands of hours to make that content on the developer's side. There's a reason indie devs go for the "easy" path of repeatable, replayable design.

>>735624081
Don't engage the schizo

>>735624271
Maybe on opposite day LMAO!

>>735611305
while it is true that the good stuff exists, the PROBLEM is needing to dig through all of the shit like a major excavation in order to even FIND it.

>>735610792
Not really. I still don't see any e33 clone

is this a Hades clone? is it pozzed? what is its country of origin? thank you for your attention to this matter and no i won't read beyond the op to see if these were already answered

>>735627665
for a game like that it'll take some time to see true indies copy it, if they even do. it's not as easy as survivors or balatro, so it might only be copied by the chinese
https://youtu.be/QQvzOqYJ6ec?t=125

>>735624824
I think it looks nice visually, but I dunno. Maybe I'm deluded or maybe I'm not marketing right.

There are good new roguelites and deckbuilders too. At this point roguelike is like "shooter".
It says something about the game, but there's a lot of space for those games to be different and unique.
Banning the tags is shit solution.

>>735610792
It's more like indie games have replaced flash games and just like flash games only a few kinds are played a lot and unique ones have to be really good to be noticed outside the mainstream games.

Indie - Flash comparison is really good imo

>>735611305
>never played rougelite
>plays every streamerbait horrorgame
you really showed em

>>735611305
>Pathologic 3
Ah yes. Combat ignorance of what games are out there by playing storyslop that e-celebs spoonfed you about.