🚨🚨🚨Alert add - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-01-23/summers-says-markets-will-survive-reddit-traders-video - Crony Capitalism at its finest. They don’t want the competition on market forces or adapt to new technology for better researching and information sharing so now, they will lobby Congress to change the laws and they will do it quickly because they have the money to do it.
Add 1 - please upvote and pin, make sure every retard reads this!!! It’s like a poker game, never show your cards, have poker face, and don’t ever count your money at the table. (Kenny Rogers i fucked up the quote but I’m retarded so whatever)
Add 2- No to going “underground” either. We are an OPEN forum. People can come and go as they please just like a SIDEWALK OR STREET CORNER. Underground suggests organization lol.
Fellow retards, many of you may not realize it but, the corporate world is fucking brutal and basically animalistic warfare. Don’t believe me? Read “Barbarians at the Gate” or watch the movie if you’re too retarded and you can’t read TV Movie Here. We made Citron and Melvin Bleed this week (Melvin had to get $1billion money loan Citron did it in 2018 on Tesla Loss) and they don’t like that. If you saw the letter they tweeted out you’d see why we gotta watch out Citron getting defensive laying the groundwork for a counter.. They are already setting up the groundwork to get law enforcement and SEC involved. They’ve alleged that some idiots allegedly sent death threats, harassed and spammed there office email and phones, etc. As of now, there is no proof that it happened but even so this is a forum and it’s not responsible for individual being assholes. Boomer old money will get dirty and ethically dubious to maintain power rather than innovate and compete. I promise you, They are already meeting with one another to figure a way to turn this forum off. Corporate espionage, hostile takeovers, and crowd-outs...all’s fair in love and war I guess.
We’re a forum, not an organization or a firm, and we need to make that painfully clear to every fucker who says otherwise (boomers looking in and newbies here). Optics and a paper trail to boot will ensure WSB stays a forum for all to come and yell out their yolos, give DD, view loss porn, and brag about gains! This isn’t a firm, we’re basically a bunch of retards yelling on the street corner or at the NY Stock Exchange floor yelling to buy waffles (family guy scene - buy waffles aka this is us ) that’s not illegal, that’s actually how stocks have been in the past, where where one retard says “I hear business x has new shit, buy x!” Then everyone joins in the feeding frenzy to buy (or sell) x. We’re just a digital version. None of this twitter account bs that we thankfully shit them up ( we really need them to shut it down completely). Members here, do not go and poke the beehive. If a new member does this shit they may be an infiltrator from the firm trying to sabotage us from within so be on the lookout for other people’s behavior. Let’s play this smart, keep comments and shut here and let’s all go to infinite and beyond! 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

Hello everyone! I have only been on Reddit for a few months but I learned so much from it that I figured I should try and give back to the community. English is my second language and this is the first time I ever write a full-length article, I hope you will enjoy reading it and I would be very thankful if you could provide some feedback about my writing, about the topic, or about anything else really… So here goes!
Why you should learn poker and game theory:
My story is similar to that of many: I learned about the game 10 years ago (during the golden age of online poker) when some friends of mine invited me to play a home game. Although I initially thought of poker as just another game of chance akin to playing slots or roulette in a casino, I quickly came to realize that there is a lot more to it as my more experienced friends would repeatedly get the best of me during these home games, which led me to start watching videos and reading strategy books to improve my skill… Little did I know it’d be the start of a journey that would impact many different aspects of my life way beyond the game itself, as most of the fundamental principles learned through poker can be applied to your decision-making outside of the game, especially when it comes to money management and investing. Now, let’s dive into a few of these principles:

- Risk management (i.e. Bankroll management)
When learning about how to be successful playing poker, the first big piece of advice most people come across is bankroll management or BRM. To understand BRM, you must first realize that poker has a lot of variance: you might be vastly ahead in a given hand but there is almost always a slim chance that you will lose in the end if one specific card hits. This implies that you will sometimes lose even though you were a 99% favorite, and that you will sometimes get unlucky and lose 2, 5 or maybe even 20 such encounters in a row. THIS is variance. It doesn’t mean that you played bad or that you made bad decisions, but rather that you got unlucky. Over time you will have lucky streaks and unlucky streaks, and these will average out in the long term… It’s just the way the game goes.
Now that we understand variance, let’s get back to BRM. What is it exactly? Let’s say you are the best poker player in the world but you only have 1000$ that you can EVER use to play with. Taking your whole 1000$ on one table and multiplying your stack at an exponential rate might seem like a good idea. Surely nothing can go wrong since you’re the best player in the world right? But variance can be a bitch ;) Even if you’re the best you will lose regularly and you will sometimes get unlucky, it’s just part of the game. The correct move here is to apply BRM, which means only using a small % of your available capital for each game you play in order to reduce the risk of going broke. Using only 100$ per game would already be a lot safer, but you still run the risk of going under on a streak of bad luck. If you only allocate 10$ per game you play, then it becomes virtually impossible for you to ever go broke, even on a huge streak of bad luck. Sure it’s not as exciting and you won’t be making money quite as fast as you could, but this is the way to go to make sure you don’t go broke…
This approach to risk management translates very well to investing:
- Only invest what you can afford to lose. Once the money is on the table it’s as good as gone, which is why you should only use your “spare” cash and never invest with your living expenses or worse, borrow money to invest.
- Diversify your investments. There is always a chance, however slim it might be, that you will lose most of your investment. This is why going all-in on a specific investment is generally a bad idea (this applies particularly well in the crypto space).
Proper BRM allows you to make sure that you will come out ahead in the long run if you play well, which basically comes down to making more good decisions than bad ones. But that’s assuming you don’t let emotions come in the way of your decision-making, which brings us to our next point…

- Emotional management (i.e. Handling tilt/Positive mindset)
Nobody likes losing… In the same way we enjoy winning because of the dopamine rush, we feel bad when we lose which is totally natural. Overcoming this and avoiding tilt (irrational decisions made out of angefrustration) is an essential skill for any successful poker player. You might play a sound game of poker and apply good BRM, but you will still lose if you let your emotions get the best of you.
After a loss, rather than being angry and frustrated, you should evaluate your decision-making. If your decision-making was good, you just got unlucky and you shouldn’t worry about it since you are playing for the long run (remember that variance teaches us that anything can happen in the short-term). If your decision-making was bad, you need to learn from your mistakes and move on. The key here is to always have a positive mindset: making mistakes is part of the learning process and should be seen as an occasion to improve. Being angry and ranting, on the other hand, rarely result in anything positive.
Again, this translates very well to investing:
- Don’t be impulsive, don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should not FOMO because the price is pumping, nor should you sell because of FUD or price corrections. If you believe in a project, short-term price changes (did I hear someone say “variance”?) shouldn’t bother you.
- Don’t get stuck up on losses. You bought the top and it crashed immediately after? You sold the bottom right before a huge rally? Don’t let this bother you: what’s done is done and you just need to move on and make the best of your current situation.
- Have a positive mindset. Anger and frustration lead to nothing. Yes you could have bought in 2009 when you first heard about it, hindsight is always 20/20. Stay positive and keep learning/improving yourself.
The good thing about all this is that it goes way beyond poker or investing. Being aware of your emotions and how they affect you, learning how to handle losing even when you were “supposed” to win, etc… All this can tremendously help you in all aspects of life by making you less impulsive and more rational in your decision-making. Now, this leaves us with our last fundamental principle of a sound poker strategy:

- Basic stats and probabilities (i.e. Expected value/Odds)
To become an accomplished player, you will inevitably have to learn about these simple mathematical tools that poker players use all the time in their decision-making process, such as odds and expected value. To make it very simple, the expected value (EV) of any bet is (REWARD \ WinRate - RISK), meaning that if you can bet 1000$ with a chance to win 10k$ half of the time, your EV is *(10000\0.5)-1000 = +4000$**. Obviously these are great odds to take as long as you have enough capital to overcome variance. But things would be very different if the odds of winning were only 5% as your EV would then be negative *(10000\0.05)-1000 = -500$.*** Now this is clearly a bet you should not take…
Now that you know probabilities, statistics and game theory are useful decision-making tools in poker, guess what? They are also extremely useful in investing! Even better, the study of game theory with problems such as the “Byzantine generals” or the “Three prisoners” has been, along with cryptography, the foundation on which blockchain technology was built, enabling the trustless and decentralized services that are about to revolutionize our world…
Assuming this was enough to pique your interest and make you want to dig deeper, I’ll just add that just like the other topics we discussed and as you might have guessed, this translates very well to investing and also to pretty much anything in your life:
- Learn how to break down complex situations. Logical thinking paired with a statistical approach will help you break down any complex problem into several easier problems, making the whole thing a lot easier to approach/comprehend.
- Base your decisions on a methodical and rational approach. List every possible outcome along with its associated upside/downside, estimate the probability of each outcome to occur and make the best decision based on the information available.
My point here is that risk management, emotional management and statistics/game theory are all awesome tools that you should definitely add to your arsenal. Not only will it improve your money-management and investing, it will also be beneficial to your decision-making and to your life in general. Of course poker is not the only way to learn about these, but I personally found it to be the best practice ground to refine and improve them, which is why I strongly encourage you all to try it out and study the game.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and I wish you all a happy 2021 bull run! May we all come closer to retirement and financial independence!

TL;DR: more than a game, poker is a school of thought. It teaches you to be reasonable, to assess the risk of every single choice you make, to overcome you emotions, to play the long game rather than the short game, to make informed decisions, etc… This has made me a lot wiser in every aspect of my life, which is why I strongly encourage to try it out and read about poker strategy.

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Alright Cosmonaut I have no hate for at all, I used to watch his channel and I just drifted away gradually, for no reason really I just did. I checked out this video because I love Jojo's and my god I didn't like this one. I know its been a while since its release but I just need to get my thoughts out there (I think MangaKamen also did a video about it but I haven't seen it yet). There are so many weird things he says, stuff that's blatantly wrong etc. Remember there's no hate here he seems like a cool dude, he just made a bad video imo. I love this series and I am aware of its flaws but I do feel a lot of his points also is shared with a lot of people and I want to disprove many of the ones I think are unfair and untrue to the series and give Jojos its deserved credit as I feel its a much better series than many think. Like people say its overrated and I disagree, a lot of people just kinda see it as a meme series and even a guilty pleasure, it doesn't really have that prestigious aura around it like series like One Piece and Hunter X Hunter.
Parts 1+2 Section:
"I don't like the way Araki writes his side characters. While I love Joseph, I cant say I feel anything for anybody else." Now I don't really mind this statement and this is during Part 2 (he improved massively with each part eventually getting to the point where in Part 5 the main cast was full of memorable and great characters) and I agree that Araki's character writing especially side characters was pretty weak back then aside from a few notable exceptions like Jonathan, Rio Zeppeli, Dio, Wham, Stroheim and Joseph.
Part 3 Section:
"Part 3 is kinda stinky. Its bloated, its very long for no reason" There is a reason though. Its a monster of the week road trip spanning across 50 days and the timeline is pretty much that. But this I also feel is a pretty popular opinion which I heavily disagree with, so many people call Part 3 repetitive and bloated but its a monster of the week and very episodic, its not really meant to be binged especially the manga and for its time it was very creative as anyone could be a threat like a baby, a doll, a dog, etc where many other shonen where if you werent an alien or a martial artist you were useless. Also Part 3 I feel has so many fun fights that are really different from each other to like Ebony Devil's clash with Polnareff, Hanged Man, Death 13, and most of the Egyptian Gods were fantastic like both Darbys, Pet Shop, Bastet and Geb. I feel Part 3 gets too much flak and not many realise just how many good fights are in there.
"There isn't enough traits or characteristics to get me interested in Jotaro as a main character"
Like ok he isn't the most complex or anything but this is underselling him a bit. He's introduced as a seemingly generic tough guy but then you realize he locked himself up just so he wouldn't hurt anyone else because of his stand, notices when his mum is pale and asks about it, goes on a death defying journey for her and actually develops from being really anti social to opening up a lot more. He really seems to become more comfortable with the crew as he goes on as Araki stated that Jotaro doesn't really express much as he thinks other people will just get it from his body language which could explain social awkwardness. And also for most people that watched the anime they missed all the scenes where Jotaro was really expressive in the manga as Star Platinum is smiling all the damn time and shows how pumped up Jotaro is behind his facade and he usually smiles and laughs a ton with them. I honestly don't get why the anime did this. Also he states he didnt care for the side characters again which...alright but i mean I loved Polnareff who I feel is one of Araki's best characters due to his fun personality, development, exciting fights and creativity and has a really tragic end in the part which is weird that Cosmonaut never mentions as I thought this is what he wanted from the previous side characters.
He calls Polnareff a Funny Coward...yeah. The guy who goes out to the world and fights many battles where he will most likely die just to avenge his sister, is shown to be so honorable he would rather let himself burn than stab himself and fights stand users countless times with no fear like when he instantly knew Anubis was following him and was ready to fight. Also the Vanilla Ice fight. Just that whole fight. Both Iggy and Avdol died and Polnareff was wrecked. But what did he do? He got back up and walked to DIO who to his knowledge is way more powerful than the guy that slaughtered two of his friends and almost beat him and he is all alone while doing it. Yeah sorry Cosmonaut but that was a stupid statement and not true in the slightest.
Also he calls Speedwagon a crazy murderer that turns into a funny coward and this is also hilariously wrong. Speedwagon grew up in the roughest part of London and sees a man who is really honorable and actually spares him and so dedicates himself to protecting Jonathan and helping him on his quest against Dio. You know? The journey full of vampires and monsters that Speedwagon never once opted to get out of?
"Character arcs do not exist in this series"
Dio, Wham, Jotaro, Polnareff, Iggy, Koichi, Yukako, Rohan, Okuyasu, Fungami, Abbachio, Narancia, Mista, Bruno, Trish, Jolyne, Foo Fighters, Weather and Annasui and that's just the parts he read.
"Goku and Luffy stay relatively the same throughout but change little bits whenever they encounter different situations and parts of the story" You mean like when Jonathan tried to be nice and a push over to Dio but eventually couldn't take it and beat the shit out of him? You mean like when Joseph started thinking of others other than himself for once after the Wham fight? You mean like how Jotaro becomes more comfortable and open? Also Goku and Luffy are both from very very long shonen where they have way more time to grow than an average Jojo who just has one part
"the only thing you'll get is an evil character becoming nice" Once again my previous listing of all the characters that developed disprove this.
"Most of the characters die unceremoniously. A lot of Jojo deaths are there for shock value"
Ok this was one of the few points that actually annoyed especially since he played Avdol's death while he said this. Every death in Jojos that's important is well important and means something and just because a lot of them happen quickly isn't a bad thing like he states it is. Danny really saddened Jonathan and showed how far Dio would go, George's and Rio's deaths had a profound impact on Jonathan, Jonathan's death even hit Dio quite hard, Caesar goes without saying, Wham had a nice death showing his kinder side and Joseph's respect, Avdol sacrificed himself for Polnareff directly going against his own orders and in his last moments of life chose to let Polnareff live instead of himself. And you got Iggy. This dog who is so selfish and hates that hes forced along this journey, he barely works with them and constantly acts rudely but after defeating Pet Shop in one of the most brutal fights (he lost a paw) of the series is now determined to fight Dio but as the weakens and loses blood Polnareff a guy he fought with constantly chooses to let Iggy go on without him and accepts his death. Iggy then saves Polnareff using all of his energy and for the first time thinks for someone other than himself and realizes that Polnareff has a much better chance at winning and cant let himself live and selflessly sacrifices himself for Polnareff. He made the mature decision to sacrifice himself for Polnareff.
"Atleast in Parts 1 and 2 the Zeppeli's deaths motivated the characters to keep going while in Part 3 they drop like flies" as I stated Avdol and Iggy had a profound impact on Polnareff and motivated him heavily to keep going even against Dio. And Kakyoin's deaths was very important as Kakyoin in his dying breaths gave Joseph the clue to Dio's power (you know, the ability they've been wondering for and desperately wanted the whole time!?) which helped Jotaro.
"the middle section of Stardust Crusaders is goddamn boring. Most of the stands are lame and too simple"
I don't get this either. In the middle of SC you get stands like Justice a fog like stand that controls people through their wounds, Lovers an insect stand that controls your nerves and attaches your pain to your opponent, The Sun which while comedic definitely wasn't boring, Death 13 which is a dream stand that makes you forget its existence when you wake up and is also controlled by a baby, Judgement a literal corrupt genie, High Priestess a small stand that can turn into any metal object like even minerals in the ocean and then you get great ones like Geb which is one of the best fights in the series, Oingo Boingo which was hilarious, Bastet a plug stand that makes you a giant magnet, Set a shadow stand that makes you way younger in like a second and of course Darby which is a fantastically suspenseful game of poker which is some of Araki's best writing ever. He also states that compared to a lot of the villains the mcs stands weren't that creative which alright fine I guess but how the stands were used is why they are great and fun to watch especially Polnareff's fights.
"The end shows that this part didn't need to be so long."
The length and amount of fights and screen time of the characters makes the Vanilla Ice fight and ending hit way harder though.
"In Part 2 everything was there for a purpose. Nothing wasted your time like Part 3" Once again they are different types of story. Part 2 is a serialized story and Part 3 is a monster of the week road trip story. Part 3 isn't meant to be binged, you're just meant to chill and watch each fight and enjoy spending time with their characters on their fun roadtrip.
Part 4 Section:
"Part 4 is the perfect balance of mundane with the strange which is what Jojo's needs"
...Why?
"Part 4 has the most consistent art up to this point"
Yeah its very consistent. Joking aside I still kinda disagree as I feel Part 2 had the most consistent art. Part 1 started out looking really weird and janky but ended looking really clean (late art style) and Part 3 started out with weird designs for Jotaro, Kakyoin and Avdol and grew to be way more clean, stylish and nice to look at (late stardust crusaders + early diu is probably my favorite era of jojos art).

The Golden Wind Section: (oh boy)
"Part 4 is still good with bad translations."
Yeah no. That's blind favoritism because you already read the part's actual translations I'm guessing and Part 5 had extremely bad translations where the story and even characters were changed a lot for the worse and were made way less understandable. There is a reason why people used to be so negative on it and now with the anime making it a lot clearer and with much improved translations why the critical outlook on this part has changed.
He calls Fugo a calm cool guy...the guy who stabbed someone in the face with a fork because of him getting a maths question wrong. The guy who beat a professor half to death with a dictionary. The guy who has so much pent up anger that his stand is literally a demon that kills anything that comes near it.
Also Bruno is so much more than a calm cool guy. Thats a really superficial look at one of Araki's best characters. He's a guy who chose his father to live it even though living with his mum would've been way better but did it anyways because he felt bad for his dad and wanted to be there for him. Almost lost that dad to crime which involved drugs and has for his whole life wanted to stop the drug trade but had to keep his head down. Bruno's kindness later went on to help bring in many social rejects like Narancia, Fugo, Mista and Abbachio a previous cop who is now left suicidal and depressed and Bruno accepts everyone of them and they all grow to care about each other. They all actually feel like real friends even when we see them for the first time. They know each other's quirks, have good chemistry and Fugo stabbing Narancia isnt really seen as a big deal which could also show the abuse they have went though in their daily lives. Anyways Bruno wanted to stop the drug trade as it was killing and ruining many innocent families but couldn't find an opportunity until Giorno came and of course you all know what happened afterwards where the man gave up his own life just so Giorno can finish the job.
Narancia and Mista are funny cowards apparently? Of course this is obviously bull. Narancia had plenty of dangerous fights and he was nowhere near scared. Remember when he stabbed out his own tongue against an enemy? Remember when he was literally shrinking and still fought off an enemy straight away and even bloody fought off a big spider? Also Mista is like the bravest dude ever. Dude constantly puts himself out there like did you even read the White Album fight and Kraftwerk?
"Giorno and Bruno should be merged into one character. Giorno has no traits. He is just a guy."
This makes no sense at all. They both serve completely different things to the story of Golden Wind. Giorno is the guy who comes in and inspires the whole gang to become better people and to become braver and move on against Diavolo and sacrifice themselves for the greater good because of his charisma and coolness. Remind you of anyone? DIO! Bruno is one of those who is inspired as he clearly states after his fight with Giorno, his fight against Diavolo and his second death.
"Araki's writing becomes garbage here. He abandons a character because he is too op."
This is also blatantly false. In Bunko Volume 10, Araki explains that the plot originally had Fugo working as a spy for Diavolo that Giorno would have eventually been forced to kill. Having gone through grim feelings at the time, Araki couldn't handle the thought of betrayal of a dear friend and felt that the readers would have been disappointed had he followed through, thus the goodbye scene at the quay of San Giorgio Maggiore happened. This was just one Google search. Would it kill you to research Marcus? And I like the fact that Fugo stays behind. It makes sense for his character who is very logical and obviously wouldn't wanna go on what was essentially a suicide mission against the boss of many powerful stand users who himself owns one. Also Fugo's stand wouldn't have helped matters and would've been killed off first by Diavolo. Purple Haze is nothing to King Crimson, its not because he was op. Fugo staying behind brought more stakes to the story and made the gang's decision feel like even more of a big deal.
"Why is the main villain introduced halfway through the story? We don't have enough time to develop him. Dio is the best villain because he have the most time dedicated to fleshing him out."
N O. Diavolo's whole point was to be a mystery. His birth, childhood, personality, body, even his stand is full of contradictions and its all meant to be creepy and weird. His name means the devil and there have been many theories on what he is (King Crimson coming to life and taking over Doppio? Diavolo is his evil personality? Diavolo is the devil?) and thats the whole point of Diavolo. To make you think and question his existence. His whole point was that he wanted to hide from society, get all the money, live an isolated and lonely existence with no relationships as he would risk heartbreak and other painful emotions like that which goes against the theme of the gang who through their friendship, comradery and sacrifice win against many obstacles and protect Trish. Also his stand shows how he goes against fate and cheats unlike Giorno who uses his fate to his best advantage and inspires everyone to better themselves to achieve something great and that's why the arrow chooses Giorno at the end. Also man that's cool and all that you like DIO a lot but Yoshikage Kira from Part 4 (the part that you really liked) is widely seen as better and Jojo's best villain next to Pucci and Valentine and we didnt even see him until the second half. Sure he had a lot of screen time but he wasn't meant to be as mysterious or as much as an anomaly as Diavolo.
"How many times does Mista die in Part 5?"
Like twice I think? Not even? First time against Prosciutto which I'll give you. He clearly got shot in the head and was treated as a death scene until Mista was surprise revealed to be alive. I agree with you on that. The second time was against White Album when he got shot lots of the times at the end but this one is fine because we clearly see from the last bullet that Giorno saves him. So yeah. 155 chapters and Mista has one fakeout death and a second close call one. It's nowhere near as bad as you say man.
"Why does Polnareff turn into a turtle?"
It was explained? Chariot Requiem makes you switch bodies. Polnareff and Coco Jumbo were both at the Colosseum and were pretty close to each other and...yeah that's it really.
"Its not cute anymore. It's not a feature to be weird, it is now a bug." I mean if you gave a couple of examples your point would be better. All you mentioned was fake out deaths which Mista only had one and Bruno to but he did die he was just kept as a zombie and that was actually explored and added to as it helped him in his fight with Secco when he blew out his eardrums and Polnareff turning into a turtle which was clearly explained. That's it. Are you not going to mention any of the stands maybe? The users? The turtle that has a small room in him? Giorno making infinite Coco Jumbos? The clothes?
"Araki's art takes a nosedive near the end of the part. I can't understand what the hell is going on most of the time"
I'll agree with this actually. Araki's art in this part especially in black and white is pretty messy near the end but he could have shown off better panels to illustrate this point. Like he showed Mista and Ghiaccio shooting each other but that looks pretty clear to me?
"Why should I care about the fights if I don't care about the characters and the story!?"
I mean tbf you generalized the characters a lot to pretty unfair superficial levels. I already explained why Fugo, Bruno and Giorno didn't deserve that and even Mista, Abbachio and Narancia are pretty great. My favorite thing about Part 5 is the main cast. They all have vastly different personalities, motivations, and backstories that greatly explain them like Narancia being abandoned and lonely, Abbachio's idealism being crushed and loss of trust and Mista just guiding through life and trying to find a purpose. All great stuff and even then the fights are at their best in Part 5 for me. The story is really fast paced and each fight is important to the plot. I don't want to get too in depth so I'll be quick.
Giorno vs Bruno - establishes their characters and gets Giorno closer to Passione
Giorno vs Black Sabbath - Giorno gets into Passione and Polpo dies and we see Giorno's kinder side as he wants to avenge the janitor
Bruno and Abbachio vs Soft Machine - establishes Abbachio's character and issue of trust and Bruno's way of leading and makes them realizes that assassins are after them
Mista vs Kraftwerk - shows off Mista's character and quirks and plays with his stand in really fun ways
Narancia vs Little Feet - Narancia having to prove himself, showing how far he'll go to win and not fail the mission and his sheer bravery and of course introduces La Squadra (best villain group in Jojos btw)
Man in the Mirror - establishes Abbachio and Giorno's dynamic better, gives Fugo some shine and they all work together and grow better as a team
Grateful Dead and Beach Boy - I mean this fight is fantastic on it's own. It develops Pesci well as a villain and shows his growth as an assassin, Prosciutto is a really cool older brother and mentor figure, its on a train so its automatically exciting and of course cements Bruno as the leader of the group and his care for them
Babyface - this one isn't too important but it does give Giorno his own fight and shows him develop his ability more as he learns from Babyface who also grows during the fight
White Album - I mean this is one of the series best fights ever. And it also shows off Giorno and Mista's dynamic and actually perfectly encapsulates Giorno's role in the story as he inspires Mista through his resolve which pushes him on to sacrifice himself and win the day
King Crimson - introduces Diavolo and his ability. And it steers the story in the next direction as everyone turns traitor (except Fugo)
Talking Head and Clash - develops Narancia into a braver figure and helps his trust in Giorno
Notorious B.I.G. - gives Trish much needed development and her own stand and crashes a plane
Metallica - this is my personal favorite Jojo fight possibly ever. The two stands at play, Risotto's character, the strategies used and how the stands are used, I love it so goddamn much. It just works and it finishes off La Squadra, shows off Doppio and Diavolo's deal and kills off Abbachio and gives him some nice development before he dies as trusts Giorno to figure out what he leaves behind and meets his partner in heaven
Green Day - shows off how depraved Diavolo's forces are and gets us the 7 page muda.
Oasis - Bruno uses his new zombie powers to his advantage
The Arrow - this is of course the final battle so its obviously important. Narancia dies young and its very tragic as he deserved a better life, Diavolo gets punished for cheating fate as Bruno leaves this world and GER takes care of business.
Rolling Stones - finishes off the story in a really nicely told and themed story and explains why this story was fated to happen and Giorno's impact.
So yeah. Every fight is indeed important and uses the story and characters well.
"Part 5 is basically Part 3 again." HOW!? The only similarity is that its Jojos and its monster of the week but its executed differently. Part 3 is a massive roadtrip, very comedic and each stand user has little to do with each other and are largely seperate while in Part 5 its one long continuing narrative that's really fast paced and the main villains of the first half are a group of assassins are La Squadra and second half is Diavolo and the story constantly changes to keep fresh and its overall much darker, more character rich and more thematically complex than Part 3.
"It ends with some bull Deux ex Machina."
Except GER isn't a deux ex machina. The arrow was built up and explained to give you the power you wanted and needed. Kira got Bites the Dust to protect his identity, Chariot Requiem was to keep the arrow away from Diavolo and GER was to counter Diavolo's time skip. They all are really powerful and get the user what they most want and need.
Ending Section:
He then goes on to say he binged through the series in two months which is a shame since Jojos isnt really a series thats meant to be binged especially after Part 2. If you get burned out, just take a break man. Don't finish a whole part out of spite man. No wonder it turned you off the series. Which is a shame I feel like he's kinda being unfair because he goes on to say he didn't really care about Part 6 and read it when he's feeling bored and exhausted of the series and of course reading it still would ruin your experience and I feel he should've taken a break for a while. Like I love One Piece but eventually you get a bit worn out from a series and take a break (for me it was Fishman Island. Took a few weeks off and came back and continued to love it again) so it will remain fresh as I feel Part 6 is a pretty fun part to. It has a great Jojo, great main villain and a pretty fun story with some creative as hell stands and my favorite ending of any Jojo part.
He then shows a screenshot of a person not liking an anime because of a weird trope and a guy recommends Jojo as well its a pretty unique series and not all anime are the same but Cosmonaut gets the impression that they're recommending Jojos to newbies to anime and even then I don't get the problem. Anime is weird. Jojos is a pretty fun anime. Watch/read it. You might enjoy it.
And thats about it really. And what I find a massive shame is Cosmonaut quitting the series. I mean he enjoyed Phantom Blood, really enjoyed Battle Tendency, really liked Stardust Crusaders from Pet Shop onwards, loved DIU (which is the longest shonen manga part yet complains about SC and GW being too long) and he might really enjoy SBR and Jojolion. Those two are fantastic imo and Araki has really grown and improved as a writer and artist and SBR is genuinely a fantastic manga full of arcs, a good story, great characters and a good ending which is a lot of the stuff that Cosmonaut felt was missing. And hey Part 8 is set in Morioh and is just as crazy and as fun as Part 4 was so he might actually like Part 8 a lot more than most of the other parts. Like the quality of SBR and Jojolion is pretty high most of the time and much higher than the shonen parts.
It would be nice if Cosmonaut saw this (most likely won't though) and tried out Parts 7 and 8 especially 8 i think he'll like that one a lot and its a shame he got really burned out of it and he got turned off by the fanbase which happens to a lot of popular series. Usually fanbases are really annoying and its usually the vocal minority and you shouldn't judge series based on them and I do feel Parts 7 and 8 are a massive improvement and he did really enjoy parts 1+2+4 like I said before.
So yeah, that's it

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Melee and Chess have been on a collision course for quite some time, and folks, it’s happening tomorrow. With the combination of Slippi, Metagame, Queen’s Gambit, Pogchamps, and general lockdown-induced boredom, chess and Melee are both experiencing unprecedented booms. And on Feb 6-7, we will have the pleasure of watching our favorites go toe to toe in chess.
The Smasher’s Gambit is a chess tournament which will feature Leffen, Mang0, IBDW, HugS, Ludwig, Esam, Void, and Marss, as well as an exhibition match between Zain and Hbox.
As a pretty much lifelong fan of both games, it has been surreal for me these past few days, watching so many of my favorite Melee players getting coached by all these incredible chess streamers. I thought it’d be fun to revisit a post I made several years ago comparing Melee characters to different chess “openings”. This time around we’ll also have a list comparing our favorite smashers to some Grandmasters of today and from the past. Lastly, there will be a short guide on how to get started with chess, with me trying to say “And this is kind of like Melee because X” as much as possible, and sometimes it will even make sense.
So before we get into why I think playing Fox is kind of like playing the Sicilian Defense, I should explain what a chess opening is. In chess, the first few moves are known as the opening, where both players try to steer the game into a position they’re comfortable with. Like Melee characters, some openings are certainly better than others, but there is enough diversity in choice even among the top tier openings that the game remains healthy. And just like a top 100 player could choose a bottom tier character and still destroy almost everybody reading this, a Grandmaster (or even just an average solid player) could play virtually whatever opening they want against a novice and likely have no problems.
As far as the concept of “mains” is concerned, in Smash it’s pretty much accepted that the best advice to beginners in regards to choosing a main is “Just pick somebody and stick with it.” This can be true in chess as well, but I’d suggest new players to at least try to familiarize themselves with the basic ideas of a bunch of openings before diving too deep into a particular opening repertoire. Some top Grandmasters are more predictable in what they play, others, like Magnus Carlsen, will play almost anything under the sun (and make it work because he’s Magnus). Ultimately though, openings are far from the most important thing new players should be working on, but more on that later. For now, just know that the general goals of the opening are to:

Try to control the center
Develop your knights and bishops
Castle

Every position demands different things, and the things I listed above are just suggestions. There are plenty of ways each color can choose to approach the opening, let’s take a look at a few.
imgur album of every position/character
Fox: Open Sicilian 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3
Starting from the top, we have Fox and the Sicilian defense. The Sicilian is a top of the line aggressive response to 1.e4 with the move 1...c5. The Open Sicilian is reached after white plays Nf3 and d4. These positions are incredibly rich in theory, with some lines being analyzed past move 30. So needless to say, you need to know what you’re doing. The Sicilian might also be the most versatile response to 1.e4 as there are already dozens of variations black can choose from, most of which having cool Russian names. Kalashnikov, Sveshnikov, Scheviningan, Taimanov, Najdorph, Rossolimo, Hyper Accelerated Dragon. I think being top tier, aggressive, dynamic, and demanding of lots of study/practice makes the Sicilian and Fox an easy choice.
Marth: Ruy Lopez
The primary weapon of every GM playing 1.e4 is the Ruy Lopez, aka the Spanish. After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 both players are developing their pieces and fighting for the center as directly as possible. Both of the concepts of development and central control are crucial for beginners to understand, so this is a solid choice for beginners while still being viable, if not optimal, for players all the way up the ladder.
Falco: Italian 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4
The Italian opening dominated the Romantic Era of chess (1800s until Steinitz). While today there are many very calm ways to play this opening, back in the day (and still today, just not as much) The Italian was the choice of many to initiate rapid attacks on Black’s f7 square, often sacrificing pawns or pieces for initiative. These attacks were often very double edged and led to very entertaining games.
Puff: London
The London System is called a system because white essentially doesn’t care how black will respond to his moves. After d4, Bf4, Nf3, e3, c3, Nd2, O-O, white is all but forcing black to play at white’s pace. It might not be tough to guess that this opening has its share of haters due to its forcing nature. Still it is played by even Magnus Carlsen on occasion, and will likely remain relevant for longer than most of us would like to admit.
Falcon: Kings Gambit
e4 e5 f4. Always a crowd pleaser, the King’s Gambit (coming soon on Netflix) offers black a pawn in exchange for open lines and attacking possibilities. During the Romantic Era, it was second only to the Italian in popularity. This era was defined by being almost anti-materialistic, where gambits and sacrifices were very popular. The opportunities to style on your opponents are endless, the only problem with this comparison is that The King’s Gambit is not popular today while of course Captain Falcon has been enjoying plenty of success this year.
Peach: Grunfeld
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.nc3 d5 The big link here is trading. The Grunfeld’s main line reaches a near-endgame position where many of the pieces are exchanged. The Grunfeld can be described as a Hypermodern opening, which is a term built around the idea of allowing your opponent to claim the center of the board and then later undermining it. I think it’s fair that Peach and several other characters could be described as hyper modern, not interested in approaching but rather allowing their opponents to overextend themselves.
Sheik: Caro Kann
After 1.e4 c6 black will look to strike in the center with d5. Sheik is often recommended to beginners as a good character to start out with. I might be somewhat of a heretic among chess coaches for suggesting that the Caro Kann is a great choice for beginners, as conventional coaching wisdom is to have new players play e5 in response to e4, the Caro Kann comes with a very easy to understand plan of directly undermining white’s center with the c and d pawns. It can be frustrating to deal with as white, as black manages to stay pretty solid despite having a little less mobility.
Pikachu: Dutch 1.d4 f5
The poor man’s Sicilian. The Dutch in chess is about as popular as Pikachu is in Melee. Still, it’s far from refuted and can give black a good fighting chance especially considering in all likelihood white will be inexperienced in the lines.
ICS: Scholars mate
1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Qxf7# In chess, thankfully, wobbling was patched out of the game in the late 1700s. The closest thing to wobbling in chess today is what’s known as the Windmill tactic. But as far as openings, Scholar’s Mate seemed appropriate. This four move checkmate is the ultimate cheese strategy, and should be the go to option for beating your uncle. It requires no studying beyond just memorizing those moves and you’ll likely at least go 2-2 at your next chess local.
Yoshi Scandinavian (Qd6 line)
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 Don’t try this at home. The Qd6 line of the Scandinavian is an absolute jungle of theory (as opposed to the more “normal” Qa5 and Qd8 lines) and can easily lead to positions where novices will self implode. The Scandinavian immediately violates the standard opening principle of not bringing your queen out early. You should generally instead be trying to develop knights and bishops, castle, and fight for the center. But the Scandinavian is playable nonetheless, and like Yoshi it manages to put up a fight despite breaking some of the conventional rules of the game.
Samus: Larsen 1.b3
That’s it, one move. White will look to place their dark squared Bishop on b2 and try to maximize the usefulness of the long ranged attack (nice shot haha get it) along the central diagonal. White often stays very “grounded” after black claims the center (pawns on e5 and d5) by playing moves like e3 and f4, trying to maintain the diagonal for the Bishop.
Mario: Four Knights 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6
It’s classic, it’s logical, it’s just not that good. The Four Knights isn’t something you see at the highest level because it just doesn’t do enough to push for an advantage for white. Developing the Knights early is great, and shows good fundamentals, it’s just that this particular move order doesn’t do enough to scare black, unless you’re planning on playing the Halloween Gambit. Mario has plenty of tools, and in the hands of a player with solid fundamentals can be perfectly adequate, he just doesn’t have the ceiling that the characters above him seem to have.
Luigi: Halloween Gambit
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nxe5 It doesn’t get much goofier than this. White will misfire their knight on e5 but achieves a potentially massive pawn center. It’s not exactly a sound idea but it can absolutely humiliate people who aren’t prepared. Admittedly this comparison is more related to Luigi himself rather than his playstyle in Melee.
Young Link: Queen’s Gambit 1.d4 d5 2.c4
Chess players will say “Okay hold up, The Queen’s Gambit is top tier and YL is...not. Explain yourself.” This characteopening share an interesting connection in that both were unexpectedly brought out by a world champion in a very high stakes match. Bobby Fischer, a lifelong e4 player, surprised Spassky by playing a Queen’s Gambit during their ‘72 Championship match. Beth Harmon (the fictional main character in Netflix’s Queen’s Gambit, heavily inspired by Bobby Fischer) did the same in her final game of the series. Armada, as you know, famously used Young Link as a surprise weapon vs. Hbox.
Kirby: Fried Liver 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nxf7
Remember when you were 8 years old and Kirby was an absolute rockstar? When standing near the ledge holding B was virtually unbeatable? You can experience that same joy once again through the Fried Liver Attack. It won’t work once you reach a rating where people know how to avoid this, but until that time the Fried Liver is as broken as Kirby on the ledge. You lure the black king to the center while rapidly developing, and it’s pretty much lights out from there.
Giga Bowser: Bongcloud 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2!
Literally unbeatable. The White King immediately makes his way to the center and starts up-b out of shielding and takes out every other piece in the process. If this opening appeals to you anarchychess is waiting for you with open arms.
This next section will be on player:player comparisons.
Armada: Magnus Carlsen This one is simple. A couple Scandinavian BOATs (GOATs?). Magnus is the current World Champion and easily the greatest endgame player of all time. He will grind seemingly drawn positions for much longer than most would be willing to, simply because he knows that ultimately his opponent will stumble before he does. He recently set a record for 125 unbeaten games in a row, only wins and draws. To do this against the best in the world is the definition of a brick wall.
Hbox: Hikaru Nakamura The controversial ones. Both maintain massive fanbases as well as a large crowd of haters. Hikaru has exploded on Twitch recently, and while he isn’t in contention for World Champ (slow chess) like he previously was, he’s still second only to Magnus in blitz. He absolutely has it in him to jump back into the elite scene, but his success in streaming might be tempting enough for him to just do that instead.
Mango: Garry Kasparov GOAT. When it comes to getting into an opponent’s head, nobody does/did it better than Mang0 and Kasparov. Kasparov dominated for over a decade, and reached the second highest rating (2851 Elo) ever, Magnus (2882) being the highest. Kasparov was know for having an incredibly intimidating presence over the board, and at his peak was capable of making even the best players look like amateurs. His level of dominance over modern players will likely never be repeated.
Zain: Alireza Firouja Firouja is a 17 year old phenom and is a very popular answer to the question “Who will eventually dethrone Magnus?” Their career paths are far from identical, as Zain is already a pretty clear #1, but Alireza seems to be the most promising of all the recent prodigies we’ve seen in chess, and as a fan of chess and Firouja I hope this comparison stands the rest of time.
Leffen: Bobby Fischer If there ever was a “God” era in chess, it would have to be 1948-1972, where we had plenty of different World Champions, but they were all Soviets. Coincidentally, five of them: Botvinik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, and Spassky. Who would be the one to finally end the Soviet domination? Fischer of course. Both Fischer and Leffen have had some controversial opinions in the past, but thankfully at least none of Leffen’s were antisemetic or misogynistic. Fischer had some issues towards the end of his life, to say the least.
Isai: Paul Morphy Both geniuses in every sense of the word. The embodiment of their respective games. Morphy was the shining star of the Romantic Era, and in the 1850s was by far the best player in the world, when he felt like it. He refused to accept money for chess as his family felt chess was not a respectable career, and in those days, it wasn’t. His career was tragically short, and for that reason is referred to as “The Pride and Sorrow of Chess”. He learned the game without books, or teachers, or YouTube videos and laid the path for every player after him.
M2k: Wilhelm Steinitz Steinitz brought an end to the Romantic Era of chess. He was the first official World Champion (as proclaimed by... himself, and nobody could really argue). After Morphy retired, Steinitz eventually found himself on top, and he stayed there for longer than anyone in history. Perhaps the first player to truly figure out how to defend, he took great pride in dismantling Romantic attacks that are now seen as a bit primitive, and he is considered the father of modern chess.
Hax: Vishwanathan Anand In the early 2000s, Anand was one of the first big proponents of using chess engines to prepare for serious games. He was among the first to fully utilize the power of computer preparation, and in this way brought about chess’s own 20XX.
Plup: Alexander Grischuk Grischuk is a current top 10 and former Blitz World Champion. Speed is definitely at the heart of this comparison, but both players have shown great aptitude for other games, Plup being a great Minesweeper player and Grischuk having an impressive poker career under his belt.
Wizzy: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa Both players were born in 2005 and share an uncharacteristic tendency for younger players, and that is to play “lame”. In chess, it is normal for younger players to seek crazy tactical positions, and as they get older begin to favor more dry, strategic maneuvers. Praggnanandhaa has defied this stereotype and reached the chess maturity required to play lame, which has allowed him to achieve the title of 4th youngest grandmaster ever.
How get good?
So let’s get down to it, where does one start? There’s no right or wrong way to learn the game, but some things should certainly be more of a priority than others.
There are three types of moves in chess, strategic moves, tactical moves, and bad moves. Strategic moves are like the neutral game of chess. Imagine a Marth ditto with both players on opposite sides of the stage. There are no combos available, so all you can do is try to improve your stage position. In chess, you won’t always have a move that gives you an instant advantage. Instead, all you can do is to try to put your pieces on “active” squares, where your pieces can later be in position for tactics.
Tactics are the “punish game” of chess, and improving your vision for tactics should be priority number one. Almost all of your games will be decided based on who is better at spotting these tactics. A tactic could be a double attack, a pin, a discovered attack, and various other “tricks” that lead to either winning material (pieces and pawns) or checkmate. The way to improve your tactical vision is simply by doing puzzles. Chess is all about pattern recognition. If I showed a screenshot of a Marth Fox game to Leffen, he could instantly tell me seven different reasons why Fox is about to die and what each player should do. A good chess player can see a position and immediately start noticing the key features and motifs. The more puzzles you do, the easier it will be to start seeing the same ideas in your own games.
Speaking of your own games, the second most important thing you can do is to analyze your games (every single game always) with either an engine or a stronger player. Playing friendlies mindlessly for hours won’t help you in Melee, and it won’t help you in chess. If you aren’t learning from your mistakes, and more importantly WHY you are making these mistakes, improving will be much more of a struggle. You should also aim to play as slowly as you can stand to. I think 15 minutes per side should be as fast as you go, and even slower than that is better. Just like with learning an instrument, if you can’t play a passage slowly, it isn’t gonna happen at a faster tempo either. As far as where to play, I’ll parrot my favorite subreddit and just say Lichess good Chess.com bad.
Endgames should be prioritized over openings to begin with. This might sound backwards, but what good is being a rook up in material if you can’t mate with King + Rook vs King? This is a 100% win for the side with the rook, but only if you know how to do it.
And of course, YouTube is your best friend. For openings, I quite like Hanging Pawns General learning: St. Louis Chess Club Gotham Chess Naroditsky Grandmaster recaps: Agadmator Engine vs Engine recaps: KingCrusher
Also any lesson involving a beginner (everyone involved in Pogchamps and Smasher’s Gambit) and a master would be worth watching. Just dear lord don’t watch Mang0’s lesson with Eric Hanson, I could feel my Elo plummeting after just ten minutes.
So remember to check out Smasher’s Gambit this weekend, (edit: today at 2pm pacific, noon tomorrow) my expert hot takes are IBDW will win (Ludwig is pfavorite) while Mang0 will unfortunately lose every game.
So that’s all folks. Enjoy the journey, have fun with it, and most importantly, have fun with it.

This article was written with the feedback of ~300 highly engaged players from the different autochess reddit communities (TFT, DOTA Underlords, Chess Rush...), which participated in interviews and on a poll whose results are available here. They’re especially thanked by name at the end of the article.
In January 2019, Drodo Studio’s Dota Auto Chess mod became insanely popular. Many companies (including household names like Valve, Riot, Ubisoft and Blizzard) rushed to release their own versions.
It seemed like the beginning of something big like MOBA or Battle Royale. But it has been more than a year now and the hype seems to have vanished completely. As quickly as it rose, it went away…
This is the first on a series of articles where we will analyze the autochess genre. Here we will be exploring the genre’s history, its current market situation and its audience. And also, what are the core design issues that autochess suffers and that no one has been able to solve yet.
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It really helps me if you check this article (or similar content) at my blog https://jb-dev.net/

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This wasn’t the first time that a mod got the spotlight and ended up becoming the foundation of a genre. It happened in several major, industry-defining cases before (some of which are Team Shooters, MOBAs, Battle Royale…). But on some of these cases events unfolded differently. So we identify 3 distinctive eras related to the evolution of the industry:

1st Era (2000s): Assimilation

The company whose original software had been modded (or had a close enough game, like Valve) moved quickly to absorb the successful mods and turn them into even more successful products.
Since at that point creating a major game release was very complex (required an expensive development, publishing deals and an infrastructure to distribute the product), the deal was profitable for both sides. But it meant the dissolution of the identity of the original creator team, which became embedded in the bigger company culture.
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Team Fortress (1999) was originally a Quake mod. And Counter-Strike (2000) started out as a fan-made mod on the Half Life engine. Both games (and creators) were quickly absorbed by Valve.

2nd Era (2010s): Integration

By this time, the previous era model still was going on… but the gaming industry had significatively grown a lot and it was also possible for smaller or even new companies to lure the original developers, and use the mod as a proof for commercial success in order to secure funding and develop it as a full title.
The main characteristic of this era is that the original developers were able to keep a bigger share of control and relevance, rather than being integrated as just another gear on a bigger machine, because the companies they joined built their own identity around that key product.
This was the case of Riot Games: They were able to raise enough money for the creation of their company through family and angel investors, and then hire some of the original creators of DOTA, and then created League of Legends.
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Defense of the Ancients (DotA), the foundational title for the MOBA genre, appeared in 2003 as a fan-made custom scenario of Warcraft 3. Foreseeing commercial potential on a full game based on the concept, Riot games and Valve both battled for the Dota IP and the original developers, eventually releasing rival titles League of Legends and Dota2. Interestingly, Blizzard (owners of Warcraft 3) tried to replicate the success without the mod creators in Heroes of the Storm (2015), which hasn’t been as successful as the other two.

A similar case happened with battle royale, which also started in 2013 as a successful DayZ mod created by the modder nicknamed PlayerUnknown. Later, it was transformed into a full product through the acquisition of the developer by a korean company (which would later be renamed as the PUBG Corporation, again showing how the company grew around the game rather than assimilating it).
This case hints what would later happen with Auto Chess, since Fortnite wasn’t involved in any way with the original creators. They just copied the concept. Fortnite was a product stuck in a kind of development hell (had been 6 years in the works). As the game was getting close to the release, the developers became impressed by PUBG’s success, so they created a quick Battle Royale spin-off which became insanely popular and eventually ate the rest of the game.
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Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (2017), foundational title of the modern battle royale genre, is the successor of PlayerUnknown’s DayZ: Battle Royale, a popular mod for DayZ (which on itself is a mod of ArmA3, making it a mod of a mod lol). The success of PUBG inspired Fortnite (a title on the later stages of a troubled development at the time) to spin towards that genre, becoming PUBG‘s main competitor.

3rd Era (2020s): Fragmentation

In all the cases presented previously, the newborn genre ended up in the release of one or two titles which accumulated most of the business. But this hasn’t been the case here.
In Autochess, the newborn genre has been quickly fragmented into a big list of competitors. Some are standalone games (like DOTA Underlords or Autochess: Origins), but there’s also several service-model games which released their autochess mode as well (like Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds or TeamFight Tactics, which at the end of the day is a side-game mode of League of Legends).
This creates an interesting precedent, which I believe will define future cases where an innovative new game concept appears: The hot idea will be cloned very fast because today the main bottleneck in the industry is having an innovative design that generates player interest and engagement.
By 2020, it’s way easier to create and distribute a game, there are way more developers hungry for a hit than ever before, and a lot of service-model games with short development cycles always looking for something juicy for their next update… so new ideas becoming red oceans fast will be the norm.
For sure, this won’t affect the ability of small developers and modders to innovate, but it will affect their ability to leverage that to become successful on an independant level, before they get cloned.
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Dota Auto Chess, was a Dota 2 mod which obtained massive popularity. After a failed acquisition from Valve (owners of Dota), the mod developers (Drodo Studios) went to create the mobile standalone Auto Chess: Origins, while still maintaining the PC version linked to Valve.
Meanwhile, Riot, Valve, Ubisoft and many other companies developed and released their own autobattlers at a record time, downgrading the genre creators to just another competitor.

On Autochess, the fragmentation and fast release pace came at the cost of innovation, though. These games feature few unique selling points compared to the original DOTA Autochess experience: TFT’s ‘anti-snowballing’ character selection rounds, Underlord’s bosses and fast-track mode….
And ultimately, they haven’t fixed the core issues of the original game, which separates it from a true hyper-successful product like MOBA.

MARKET STATUS

Because of the rain of clones, it’s hard to map all the autochess games on the market. It doesn’t help that some of them are available in both PC and Mobile (playable in PC, Mac, Android and iOS), and also they’re exclusive to different PC stores (Dota Underlords is only on Steam, TFT is on Riot’s LoL launcher, and Autochess Origins is only at the Epic Store…).
And if that wasn’t enough, the Auto Chess mod in DOTA2 is still very active and has no signs that it’s going to be dying soon. It’s still being regularly updated, and presumably still profitable: Some months ago they added a battle pass system, with its revenue shared between Valve and Drodo.
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What’s interesting is that none of the contenders has been able to become massively successful in terms of monetization, at least not in terms comparable to even a second or third tier MOBA. And while there are definitively different tiers of following among these titles (led by Riot Games’ TeamFight Tactics), it seems that none of them has been able to gather under its banner a significant amount of players, mobile downloads or Twitch Views…
Sources: AppAnnie (mobile metrics), TwitchMetrics (twitch)
So ultimately, we’re dividing the autochess market into 3 categories: Squires, Would-be Kings and Peasants.

Squires: Rather than standalone games, these are side-modes of already successful products. Under this category we would list the Battlegrounds mode in Hearthstone, or League of Legends’ TFT, and maybe even the original DOTA Autochess mod. While for sure they’ll have their own dedicated audience that only plays those modes, for most players it’s just a nice and fresh activity integrated within a broader game experience. The squires are the ones that have achieved the biggest success among the autochess genre because they don’t suffer as much backlash from the lack of gameplay depth inherent to the genre, which is harmful for the long term retention: Even if the mode eventually becomes a bit shallow, players have many other things to play, and thus are retained. As a consequence, these games can still monetize significatively by selling renewals of their Battle Passes every new season. Not enough to make them successful on the degree that was expected… but at least it’s something. Other than bringing an additional source of revenue, these modes were useful to their core games: They generated player interest by providing innovative gameplay. Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds was an amazing addition to the CCG genre, and made a lot of people come back to the game to discover the new mode and reengage.

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SQUIRE: The gameplay of TeamFight Tactics (slow tempo, no team coordination, decreased attention requirement…) makes it a nice relief mode to play between LOL matches, which is its purpose in the foreseeable future. If there ever was an intention to make it a standalone game, it vanished together with the player interest on autochess…

Would-be Kings: These are the other two top dogs of the category. They were supposed to rule… but that looking at the numbers they don’t really seem to have ever lifted off. Under this category we would list Auto Chess: Origins and DOTA Underlords. The problem is that their standalone approach means that they suffer the most of the design issues of the genre that we’ve presented in the last section of this article (i.e. flat complexity, lack of mastery depth, lack of progression and rotative meta…). That means that they lost a lot of population over time, and therefore their Battle Pass renewal isn’t as effective at generating revenue : (

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DOTA Underlords is an extremely polished product in terms of graphics, character design and UX, and yet another proof that Valve devs really know how to do great games. Too bad they aren’t as good at releasing third installments.

THE AUDIENCE

We are of the belief that you can’t talk about a game and not talk about who plays it, and that players say more about a game than analyzing all its features and mechanics. So with this in mind we collected answers from ~300 autochess players (check the raw data here). After examining their responses, we’ve identified 3 main player profiles (the comments on each profile are literal):
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Patricks, gamers looking for a competitive-but-idle experience that doesn’t require full attention and it’s easily reconcilable with their functional adult life.
Grizzlies, competitive players that struggle with fast paced games that demand a high actions per minute ratio and quick reflexes (like MOBAs or competitive shooters).
Warmasters, highly competitive players that enjoy more the area of strategy (setting up goals and planning how to achieve them) rather than tactics (skillful execution of actions and micromanagement).

What these profiles have in common, other than being hardcore gamers and having a big interest in competitive games, is the fact that they enjoy the lack of micromanagement, and the demand of reflexes and dexterity of autochess.
This is quite interesting, considering that the genre foundation is so close to MOBAs, which are extremely demanding on those aspects. Overall it seems that they belong to audiences below the MOBA umbrella which are currently being alienated by the bulk of ‘younger and dexterity focused’ players.
And when it comes to platforms, it seems that even though the barrier between the classic gaming platforms and mobile is progressively disappearing, the genre is still mainly focused on PC: Out of the ~300 players that answered, 50% said that they play exclusively on PC, 25% played primarily on Mobile, and the remaining 25% played in both.
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Players said that they enjoy the focus of the game in planification, as opposed to the focus on execution and performance of MOBAs. And when asked about their main points of frustration, they pointed out 2 main topics: 1.- The strong luck factor that has a strong impact on making you win or lose regardless on how well you played. 2.- The fact that the game eventually becomes shallow and repetitive, fueled by the fact updates were unexciting and not rotating the meta.

Surprised by the fact that players mention randomness as a factor of both enjoyment and frustration? Don’t be! Competitive players tend to have a love-and-hate relationship with luck, because they tend to consider that external factors outside of skills (money spent, better draw…) stole their well deserved victory.
And it’s even more frustrating in autochess, because there’s a strong snowball effect: Players that obtain a big advantage early on in the game become hard to catch later on. Which means that a few bad or good draws early on can decide the rest of the match.
There hasn’t been a single feature more criticised in Magic: The Gathering than the randomness of drawing mana. And yet, luck it’s part of what makes MTG stand out compared to other CCGs: For experienced players, it introduces uncertainty and the need to take risks and gamble, like they’d do in poker. And for rookies, it allows beating someone that has better skills and has a better deck, if Lady Luck is on their side. Won’t happen often, but it will feel awesome when it does. Like a friend likes to say: The best feeling in MTG is to draw a mana when you really need it. And the worst? To draw it when you didn’t.
This goes to say that in autochess, perhaps the power of luck needs to be reviewed, but it would be a bad decision to completely remove luck from the equation.

DESIGN CHALLENGES

In this awesome DoF article, Giovanni Ducati already pointed out the two main problems that the games in this genre need to solve to achieve real success: Bad long term retention and low monetization.
To these issues we would add a third one, which is bad marketability: Contrary to their big brothers League of Legends and DOTA2, these games haven’t been able to achieve high organic downloads (at least not to be able to generate significant revenue through soft monetization mechanics). What’s even worse is that all these games, their themes and target audience are quite close to RPG and Strategy, which are genres with some of the highest CPIs on the market. So they need top-of-the-class retention and monetization to get a high enough LTV to scale up.
But why do these games fail at keeping players entertained for a long time? And why don’t they monetize enough? Here’s what we think:

Flat Complexity & Progression

You have some games out there which have a strong entry barrier due to being quite complicated to grasp. But for those that can deal with the numbers and stats, the depth will keep them entertained for months and years. This is the case in most RPGs and 4X strategy games. And then you have hypercasual games, which are simple and plug and play. So they generate a great early engagement, but are too shallow to keep users hooked for a long time.
As a genre, Autochess games are in the middle ground: they have a high entry barrier, but also lack the complexity to keep players engaged for a long time…
As a general rule, games with long retention tend to follow Bushnell’s Law of being easy to learn and difficult to master. They achieve that by having what we call an unfolding experience: They appear simpler at the beginning (not necessarily easy), but require thousands of hours of practice to master.
An example of this are games that level lock most of the game complexity, so the player understands and masters only a set starter mechanics. And then, progressively unlock new modes and demand more specialized builds and gameplay, repeating the cycle several times to keep the game always interesting while attempting to avoid being overwhelming.
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In World of Warcraft, character depth is huge. But this complexity is unfolded progressively, forcing the player to spend time mastering each skill and activity as they level up, before moving further.

Another approach to the same idea are competitive games focused on mechanical ability, dexterity or micromanagement. Like CS:GO or Rocket League. They may unlock all the mechanics from the beginning, but a newbie player will only be able to focus and manage some of them, and then progressively discover and master the rest in an organic way.
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Rocket League hides its complexity by matchmaking early players with others of a similar skill. This makes beginner players viable even if they grasp only the basic mechanics. But, as they climb further, they’ll face rivals that take those basic skills for granted and the player will need to master more challenging techniques to keep up.

League of Legends and Overwatch are actually a combination of both: The game first introduces the player to a small selection of heroes which progressively gets expanded, while at the same time having an insane mastery depth that requires a high APM and reflexes, team coordination and thousands of hours of practice.
Contrary to any of those examples, Autochess games throw everything at you from the beginning: Character Skills, Synergies, Unit Upgrade, Gold Management, Items… It’s a lot to swallow. And there’s not even enough time to read what each thing does before the timer runs out. This creates a complex, overwhelming first impression that drives many players out.
But that’s quantity, not depth. Once you’ve gone through that traumatic starting phase, you’ve grasped all the mechanics and you know which team builds are dominating on the meta, it’s just a matter of making it happen by taking the right decisions and adapting to a few key draws.
Eventually, unless luck is really against you, your skills won’t be challenged and you won’t have new mechanics to master. At that point, winning will be based more on the knowledge of the content database and luck rather than your planning and strategic ability. And that’s boring.
So ultimately, these games are hard to grasp for a newbie, but also lack the ability to keep players interested for a very long time since they eventually run out of new features and mechanics to discover and master.

Unexciting Updates, Lack of Collection

On top of that, autochess games seem to have a hard time adding content which reawakens player interest and makes churned ones come back.
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The DAU that we would expect on a long term retention game: A decreasing trend of players until reaching a stagnation stage. At that point, a big update (or new season) is required to attract and reengage users back with new content. This is the model we would see on Fortnite or Hearthstone, but it’s not what we see in most autochesses.

On this topic, perhaps the one that has put the most effort is Riot’s TFT. Each season update, the game releases a new series of heroes, synergies, items and rebalances, as well as a big bunch of cosmetics. This generates a short lived boost on revenue (due primarily to players buying the pass) and downloads, but ultimately nothing that really moves the needle in a relevant way.
‘Why seasonal updates don’t work?‘, you may be asking. Part of the reason is that TFT, as well as every major contender do not include elements of content progression or collection. Instead, they all stick to the roguelike approach of the original mod: Players have access to the same set of units, and build their inventory exclusively during the match.
While at first this seems a good idea, since it keeps the game fair in a similar way to MOBAs, it’s oblivious to the fact that new units do not offer the same amount of gameplay depth as in League of Legends. In LoL, a new unit means weeks or even months of practice until mastering timing, range and usage of the skills, how they interact with every other champion, etc… In comparison, in TFT the new content can be fully explored in just a bunch of matches, both because the new content doesn’t offer that much depth to start with and because it’s available from the moment the player gets the update.
By lacking content progression and collection, autochesses miss the opportunity to create long term objectives after an update, more innovative mechanics and less repetitiveness. As a consequence, they have it really hard to hype players on updates.

Big ‘Snowball Effect’

In game design, the snowball effect refers to the situation where obtaining an advantage or dominance generates further conditions that almost invariably means winning the match. As you can guess, on competitive games this effect can generate a bad experience, especially when the divergence starts early on: The player that obtained the early advantage will keep on increasing the advantage and curbstomp the rest.
For example, this can happen on a Civilization game if a player gets ahead of the rest acquiring key resource territories, and uses them to achieve a greater progress in tech and income at a faster pace than the rest. Or in League of Legends if a team scores a bunch of early kills and levels up, becoming more able at scoring even more kills…
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In this match of Age of Empires 2, the red player (Aztecs) managed to decimate the blue player (Turks) military units early on. Since without an army it was impossible for the blue player to secure enough resources to perform a comeback, for the next 2 hours the blue player was in a pointless, hopeless match. Kudos for not abandoning, though!

Autochess games have a huge snowball effect, due to the following reasons:

Resources lead to victories, victories lead to resources As you know, in autochess each player builds a team based on successive battles. Better battle performance will grant more gold, which is the resource used to buy units, perform shop rolls, etc… Similar to the cases we’ve already explained, this means that players that achieve early dominance will be able to to obtain more gold, use it to get better units and get more victories and gold, therefore increasing their team power faster than the rest. ‘But players can be lucky or unlucky, generating a factor that compensates for the advantage of having more resources early on‘, you may be considering. Unfortunately, this is a flawed logic, because of 2 main reasons: (1) Having more resources means more adaptability: The dominant players will be able to leverage on them to re-adapt their team, therefore outperforming the rest on a randomness-driven scenario. (2) Resources allow to buy more rolls, which diminishes the deviation generated by each individual roll.

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TeamFight Tactics attempts to decrease the snowball effect by introducing Carousels: rounds where all players pick a character from a list, and where the players that are losing (i.e. have less health) get to choose first. While this decreases the issue, it doesn’t really solve it… It just makes that smart players aim to lose on purpose at the beginning so they can get the better pick and generate the snowball slightly later on.

Luck factor. The previous point goes into maintaining and increasing dominance once it has been achieved early on, but another source of frustration is that luck is a huge factor in achieving early dominance. This means that your strategic skills and smarts can be completely invalidated by a couple of bad rolls at the beginning of the match. And there’s nothing that competitive players hate more than having their match stolen by factors outside the pure clash of abilities.

As an antithesis, Poker also has resource management, and luck factor determines the victory (on a specific round). But unlike Autochess, resources can’t override luck, and early victories don’t affect the later chance of winning.

Excessive Match Length

Compared to PC, on mobile is much harder to keep the player focused for a long period of time on a single session. And having a very long minimum session kind of goes against the premise of being able to play anywhere which is a primary strength of mobile as a gaming platform. This is a problem for autochess games since a single match can last for 30-45 minutes of synchronous, nonstop gameplay.
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The knockout mode in Dota Underlords aims to make the game more accessible by skipping the slow beginning of the match (you start with a pre-setup army), and by simplifying the health and fusion systems. This shortens the matches to ~15 minutes, which is still too long for mobile, but better than 30. The problem is that it also increases the snowball effect, since the match has less turns to allow comebacks, and makes any mistake (or a bad roll) way more punishing.

‘Isn’t the solution just make the match shorter?’, you’re probably wondering. Unfortunately, there are several reasons that make this more challenging to the core design than what it seems:

Because in autochess the player builds its team from scratch, at the beginning of each match there are several turns to setup team foundations. Removing these early decisions severely decreases the teambuilding possibilities, decreasing overall depth.
Also, each setup phase between clashes requires a minimum time to think and perform the actions. In the last turns of a match, the game can become quite demanding on thinking and input speed.
Matches require a minimum amount of turns to compensate the weight of a single lucky/unlucky roll over the chances to win. Because the possible units for teambuilding appear on random rolls, the less turns there are the more luck factor the game will suffer, and as a consequence the less important the player’s strategic skills will be.
And if there are few turns, there are also less chances for comebacks. Because it means that players will have less setup phases to adapt and catch a player that has obtained an early advantage.
Finally, since the match involves 8 players, it requires a minimum of turns so that they all can fight between each other… Nevertheless, I don’t consider this a critical issue because Dota has been able to change this specific point on the knockout mode without sacrificing too much in terms of depth.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The history of the autochess genre serves as an example of the risks of design endogamy: The devsphere rushed to clone Auto Chess, and before a year all the major contenders were in the board. But that speed came at a cost: None of these projects has brought the concept much further than its original conception, and in doing so they haven’t solved any of the core issues.
https://preview.redd.it/jptzdrj8kpg61.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f3fb34eb46b610e6ee355ba47782c804cb74186

The folks at Riot games developed the TeamFight Tactics in less than 5 months. This allowed them to release while the hype was still at its peak… but it also meant it added just a couple of improvements, and it’s otherwise very similar to the original Auto Chess mod.

After seeing all these projects fail to meet the big expectations that were placed on them, the question is if perhaps the best approach was to avoid rushing, and instead tackle the genre with a title that is not a clone, but rather a more groomed, accessible and innovative successor of the original idea.
In our next article on this series will make an attempt to see how such a game could be, rethinking the spirit and fresh design ideas of autochess to solve the issues mentioned above. (May take a while though, I want to focus on smaller articles for a couple of months…)
Meanwhile, if you want to read more about this genre, we suggest you these awesome articles from the folks at DoF: Why Auto-Chess can’t monetize – and how to fix that and How Riot can turn TFT into a billion dollar game

Special Thanks to…

These articles wouldn’t have been possible with the collaboration of ~300 members of the reddit communities of the different auto chess games who provided us with feedback and data. You folks have been incredible solving all our doubts. One thing that this genre has is some of the most awesome players around.
So big kudos for Brxm1, Erfinder Steve, Xinth, Zofia the Fierce, STRK1911, LontongSinga22, bezacho, hete, NeroVingian, marling2305, NOVA9INE , asidcabeJ, Eidallor, Rhai, Lozarian, bwdm, Toxic, Ruala, Papa Shango, MrMkay, Dread0, L7, kilmerluiz, Amikals, Sworith, Tankull, B., hete, Bour, Denzel, DeCeddy, Diaa, hamoudaxp, Benjamin “ManiaK” Depinois, Katunopolis, DanTheMan, MikelKDAplayer, 0nid, Tobocto, Tiny Rick, phuwin, Alcibiades, triceps, d20diceman, shadebedlam, stinky binky, Tutu, Myuura, suds, Kapo, Hearthstoned, Engagex, Pietrovosky, Daydreamer, Doctor Heckle, Ignis, ShawnE, NastierNate, LeCJ, Nene Thomas, Chris, trinitus_minibus, Nah, Kaubenjunge1337, Mudhutter, Asurakap, Nicky V, shinsplintshurts, bobknows27, Willem (Larry David Official on Steam), Jonathan, Dinomit24, Monstertaco, GangGreen69, Veshral Amadeus Salieri (…lol!), Kuscomem, Cmacu, Pioplu, Dilemily, qulhuae, Ilmo, MarvMind, facu1ty, crayzieap, Saint Expedite, Lobbyse, Lukino , tomes, Blitzy24, Mcmooserton, magicmerl, i4got2putsumpantzon, radicalminusone, Pipoxo, Kharambit, Bricklebrah, Rbagderp, Merforga, Superzuhong, Mo2gon, MoS.Tetu, MeBigBwainy, Zokus, CoyoteSandstorm, Stehnis, Noctis, Fkdn, Ray, Fairs1912, Fairs1912, Krakowski, HolyKrapp, Damadud, Pentium, Mach, Mudak, CaptSteffo, jwsw1990, Omaivapanda, Inquisitor Binks, Jack, yggdranix, GoodLuckM8, Centy, Prabuddha (aka Walla), dtan, Philosokitteh, Doms, ZEDD, Calloween, Synsane, Kaluma, GordonTremeshko , Djouni, DOGE, haveitall, ANIM4SSO, Task Manager, Submersed, BAKE, Viniv, La Tortuga Zorroberto, BixLe, Rafabeen, Blzane, bdlck666, FatCockNinja86, R.U.Sty, Yopsif, blesk, Quaest0r, FanOfTaylor, StaunchDruid, Rushkoski and everyone else that took some minutes to help us out on the article.

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