Community Discussions
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Looking for feedback on Charleston Lakes neighborhood in St. Charles, IL : ChicagoSuburbs
Main Post: Looking for feedback on Charleston Lakes neighborhood in St. Charles, IL : ChicagoSuburbs
Never knew one of the most popular lakes in my province is “Reddit Lake”. Here’s my shot from last summer
Main Post: Never knew one of the most popular lakes in my province is “Reddit Lake”. Here’s my shot from last summer
Top Comment: That’s Moraine Lake- just outside of Banff Alberta. Also the same picture is found on the back of the older Canadian $20.00 dollar bill. Beautiful picture
You may not realize how good you have it (lakes/trails related)
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Well you probably do, considering the prolific advertising of 10,000 lakes, but it's not so much the lakes as it's the access to them. I visited recently from New England and it's such a difference. Growing up, so many lakes required you to be a resident of the town/city or pay a fee. A lot of the coastline is private. A lot of the lakefront is private. Plus you need a car to access many of them.
I was so surprised to see a nice clean trail system. We biked around (I think) Lake of the Isles and around Minnetonka one day. Chanhassen another day I remember because the Prince house wasn't too far. It kind of blew my mind that anyone can just walk or hop on a bike and get to a lake. It's just there for everyone and pretty well maintained to boot.
CityNerd has a good video on it. One of the few places where parks and lakes are publicly accessible to all via biking/walking trails/greenways. Skip to the 16:30 mark https://youtube.com/watch?v=leZ6vIpwSVA and pay attention at the 17:30 mark. Public frontage!! 🙌
Lots of states have parks, but it's the prevalence of them and the public frontage in MN that really was eye opening. I was told a few different reasons. One was the heavy Scandinavian background and it's a cultural thing to share things in a communal way. One was that it's only nice for a few months of the year, so you've got it enjoy it while you can! Whatever the reason, it's incredible.
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I think about how lucky I am to have this park system almost every day. It’s because of people like Theodore Wirth :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Wirth
Do people underestimate the Great Lakes?
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The Great Lakes are basically freshwater seas. But because they are called lakes, do people tend to underestimate how dangerous they are?
Top Comment: They definitely do. I’ve taken many folks who are visiting Michigan to one of the lakes and they genuinely have no concept of their size before going. A lot of people just imagine the biggest lake they’ve seen and then think of something slightly bigger. They don’t realize that, at least from the coasts, the lakes are basically indistinguishable from the ocean. People also don’t know how dangerous they can be for shipping. They’re generally safer for swimming, but the weather patterns in the Great Lakes region can make ship travel incredibly dangerous.
Also just found out that it's called Reddit Lake. Almost in my back yard.
Main Post: Also just found out that it's called Reddit Lake. Almost in my back yard.
Top Comment: You would almost think this (Moraine Lake) is the only lake in Banff National Park. Spoiler alert: it’s not. And now it is a pain to try to see due to over-tourism. You have to reserve and take a shuttle bus to get there, or ride a bike many miles from Lake Louise.
Opinions on the game ‘Lake’?
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I have just finished this game on PS5 (as well as the snowy DLC) and have to say it was certainly mindless and relaxing. I did enjoy the setting of Providence Oaks and the gameplay of driving around delivering mail (although it did feel somewhat repetitive). The art style is also very nice.
I do find it hilarious how Meredith’s parents are a mailman and motel receptionist and can afford a big house in a nice part of town AND to spontaneously buy a second home in Florida!
Jokes aside I do wish there was a bit more to the game, maybe some random events or just a more fleshed out town to gradually explore. The music was also repetitive to the extent where I had to mute it after a couple of hours playing.
What were your opinions?
Top Comment: I loved it and wish it was a lot longer. It's a chill experience, especially after finishing a long and intense game that burns you out. It made me want to dive more into walking sims but driving was something different. Cloudpunk is close but more collecting, talking, etc.
So what decent sized lakes in Michigan are still affordable to the non super rich to have home on?
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So we all know Michigan, Charlevoix, Torch, Glen, Elk, Orchard, Cass, etc. are all the exclusive of the super wealthy and, unless you have a high 7 figure net worth, you can just forget it as far as living there.
So what decent sized lakes are there still left in the state where us lowly working/middle class pissants could possibly buy or build a little place to call our own?
Top Comment: Oh, you can probably find some spots on Sanford lake, if you're willing to wait for a lake for 3 years until they fill it back up from the dam collapses.
When you realize Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined
Main Post: When you realize Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined
Top Comment: Canada has so many lakes that if we only measure land area, Canada won't be the second largest country in the world, not even the third. Trailing behind Russia, China, and US.
Lake isn't for everyone, but it's adorable, and it's my favorite game I've played this year
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I went into Lake not expecting a whole lot. It looked like an easy completion that would be leaving Game Pass soon, enjoyable enough, but probably another 6-8 hours I'd spend and then forget about, relatively speaking. It turned out to be an absolute pleasure, a type of game you rarely see, and my favorite game I've played in 2022.
In Lake, you step back to 1986 (before I was alive, mind you) and into the shoes of Meredith Weiss. Meredith is a software developer living in the big city in the early days of personal computing. She's taking 2 weeks off to return to her hometown of Providence Oaks, Oregon and fill her dad's role as the town mail carrier so her parents can have a much-earned vacation. Meredith left Providence Oaks after high school and hasn't returned in the 22 years since. It sounds exactly like the plot of a Hallmark Channel movie, doesn't it? It's a simple premise, and that simplicity is borne out through the game itself, but with some interesting opportunities and decisions to make along the way.
The first thing that strikes you about Lake is the beauty of its world. Providence Oaks can be truly stunning, from the shimmering waters of the eponymous lake to the trees whose leaves are just beginning to change their colors in early September. There are little details too, like deer coming and going across some of the dirt roads your mail truck traverses and a lovely little covered bridge over a creek. The game is nowhere near a graphical marvel on the level of a Red Dead Redemption 2, but these small touches create a beautiful world, not too big and not too small, that's a joy to explore and exist in as you carry out your postal duties.
Speaking of those duties, they form the core of the gameplay (though not the heart of the experience, I'll get to that shortly). This is where I'm sure Lake can lose a lot of people, as there is definitely a certain monotony to delivering packages to front doorsteps and placing letters into mailboxes. Yet I find a wry charm in devoting yourself to a simple menial task at times in my daily life, and I felt a relaxing sense of satisfaction in checking addresses off the list that you receive each morning. And as a different sort of federal employee myself (I'm a park ranger), giving the in-game characters the same sort of kindness I seek to give to the people I interact with in my own life was actually heartening (more on this later too).
While you're driving your mail truck around Providence Oaks, the radio will play a small selection of tunes spun by the local farmer/DJ. It's a playlist of about 10 songs, and yes, they can get repetitive, but I thought they were all quality choices. The songs are mostly the kind of indie folk pop/modern country you'd expect in a game like this (I played this game with my girlfriend, and we jokingly referred to a few of them as discount Sheryl Crow, budget Brandi Carlile, and knockoff Jason Isbell), but I think they're well-chosen for the overall goal of building a bright, pleasant, and cozy world.
Finally, despite what I've said so far, Lake is not a game about mail delivery or natural scenery. It is, first and foremost, a game about characters and relationships. Meredith meets several denizens of Providence Oaks over the course of her two weeks, and in that time she can forge or reforge some genuine bonds. Meredith generally comes across as a real sweetheart in her interactions with others, though she can definitely have a sarcastic streak if you choose to give her one. I could write way too much about some of your interactions, but overall I think they touch on some neat themes, particularly the meaning of home and community and that it's never truly too late to go back home if you want it. There are also multiple romantic opportunities for Meredith, both straight or gay, that you can choose to play out if you like. A more cynical version of myself might ultimately dismiss these interactions as cheesy or obnoxiously twee, but the sensitive side of me enjoyed the heck out of it. I recently finished reading Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey Into Night, about the relationships of a deeply broken family. The interactions in Lake felt like the positive antidote to that situation, and I appreciated it.
Overall, Lake is a game about slowing down and enjoying yourself, which is just such a marked contrast to most other games today. There's no existential threat to your universe, no bad guys to kill, just packages to be delivered and conversations to be had as you go about your two weeks in Oregon. I fell in love with this game, and I'll miss my time in Providence Oaks now that it's over. I almost never do this, but I might buy the game sometime and go back to it, just so I can cruise around those beautiful roads in my bulky mail truck, with a little indie folkpop on the radio and a smile on my face. I don't know if I'll ever find another game like Lake. I hope I do, but if not, I'll still forever appreciate those memories.
Top Comment: Nice write up, I'll check it out. I sometimes forget that solving puzzles or killing things may not be the best way to unwind, haha