Hello fellow tildeans,
I’m looking for suggestions for 7 player lan games that will run on a combination of steam decks and Mac books. I was thinking of retro games because I feel like there’s more compatibility for macOS but would like to field suggestions from fellow nerds on Tildes.
Thanks!
Preferences are probably shooting games but are open to other kinds~

Well, the time is about up for this month's CGA, so I hope everyone that gave Lufia II a shot enjoyed it and defeated the Sinstrals forever. JK, it's a prequel, we know they came back :)

Please feel free to talk freely about the game in the comments and let everyone know how far you got, what you liked, and what you didn't.

I was able to finish the game and I beat the ancient cave (my true goal) on my second attempt. Did anyone else give the ancient cave a try?

Our next host is u/Boojum with the amazing game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I'm super excited about this one, even though I've played it a dozen times, as it is my favorite Zelda game.

Introduction

The Legend of Zelda series celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, and A Link to the Past will have its 35th later this year.

So cast your mind back and let me set the mood. Picture this: the year is 1992 and you're a middle school kid who has saved up enough chore and birthday money to finally get your first new game for the SNES (the one you worked so many chores to save up for when your parents finally allowed you to have a console like the other kids you were so envious of.) You've beaten the Super Mario World game your SNES came with and you're definitely ready for something else.

You're sitting in the back seat of the car as your mother drives you home from the store, holding the box for A Link to the Past in your little hands. You open it up and find a cartridge (of course!). You carefully set that aside.

Next up, there's a detailed manual, because of course nearly all games back then came with some kind of little manual of some kind, or at the very least an instruction pamphlet. You read it cover to cover, because you're that kind of kid.

In the box you also find a little hint pamphlet sealed shut with a bit of adhesive. Tempting, but you want to challenge yourself to get as far as you can before peeking. (You give in a few days later.)

Finally, the ride back from the mall is done and you race downstairs to the den, pop the cartridge into the top of your SNES, and turn everything on. You're greeted with a Triforce in 3D that spins and assembles itself (3D on a console? Witchcraft!), while a short harp arpeggio plays:

Doodloodlooodloodloodloodloodloodl do do do do do Do!

Then the title screen, a sword drop, and a pictaresque castle, moat, and mountains behind them while a fanfare plays:

Bumpa deeee! duhduhdudludlut deeee! duhduhdudludlut deeee! Dee DEE DELAAAAH!!

A moment later, the intro prologue begins giving the back story as tense chords play. Then, the now-famous fairy fountain theme plays as you name your game save ("Link", of course!) and so the game begins. The mood is set as you step outside your house into a storm with a layer of splashing rain, flickering lightning (Wow! Amazing graphics!), crashing thunder and a reprise of the tense music. You binge through the first dungeon or two that day.

It's nearly summer, but school isn't done yet. So each day as soon as you get home from middle school, you can't wait to race down to the shade and the cool relief of the basement den to conquer the next dungeon, get the cool new piece of equipment and see what new areas of the game it opens. (Homework? Homework can wait!) That's the rhythm: one day, one dungeon, just an hour or two a day, until you get to the end.

That's how I first played it and why this game is so special to me. :-)

For First Time Players

Don't be afraid to check the manual and hint book that I linked above. Yes, they spoil things a bit, especially the hint book. But the game shipped with them and they were part of the original experience. And if you pace yourself to one dungeon a day, you should easily get through the game by mid-month. It's not a terribly long game, all told.

I think you're in for a treat, and I look forward to hearing your experience with the game, as seen fresh through 2026 eyes.

For Experienced Players

There's a popular randomizer for the game, complete with a Reddit community.. I've never tried it before, but as I've played the vanilla game many times, CGA seems like a fun excuse to finally try the randomizer.

I'll be using this seed if you'd like to join me on it. It uses the "Beginner" preset which seems a good place to start with the randomizer, but with the "Hints" turned on (which I understand means that the telepathic tiles in the dungeons are changed to tell you where some things are). I'm eager to see what insanity the chaos produces.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Versions:

• Super NES (1991/1992): The original!
• Game Boy Advance (2002): A rerelease as part of the The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords. I've never played this version, but there's a list of differences here.

Platforms: Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Wii, Wii U, New 3DS, Switch, Super NES Classic Edition

Genre(s): Action-adventure, RPG, Puzzle

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores: Free under the Nintendo Classics library if you have a Nintendo Switch Online or Nintendo Switch 2 Online subscription.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

Either because the game itself is still good, or because you think it's able to be appreciated for more historical/didactic reasons (e.g. Game X is the origin for a certain trope).

Or any other reason really -- you're not limited to the two.

Importantly, why do you recommend them? What appeal do they have to modern audiences?

The reason I'm saying "pre-NES" (Nintendo Entertainment System) is simply because I imagine that a good number of us here started gaming with the NES and don't have as much of a pulse on what came before it. I imagine even more of us started gaming well after the NES and would appreciate insight into that period of gaming history.

COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS: 🕹️🔥⚔️ Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

Hi everyone, zod000 here! Unlike many of our previous CGA hosts, I'm not much of a writer so this "insert cartridge" will likely feel a bit brief. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is hands down one of my favorite SNES games, and in fact possibly my favorite RPGs of all time. I'll do my best to prevent spoiling anything in the game, but I'll give you a quick rundown of the game itself, what to expect, and what to look out for to (hopefully) enjoy. This game is a proper 90s turn based jRPG, so I realize this game has a longer official runtime than we are used to, but I still feel that it is more than doable in a month of casual play as this was before the days of role playing games inflating their play times (I mostly blame Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1 for that trend).

Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

Now despite the name, Lufia II is a prequel and is canonically the first game as far as the story goes, so don't worry about thinking that you should play Lufia 1 first. If anything, that would spoil some of it, ironically. As I said, I don't want to spoil any story, but will say that the story starts as trope-y as it gets, but soon gets far more interesting so please don't drop off after an hour or so.

So what sets Lufia II apart from the many other fantastic jRPGs of its time? Well, I'll give you some highlights:

• Monster sidekicks! You get pet-like monster companions that fight with your party during battles referred to as "capsule monsters". They all start as essentially babies and they "grow" by you feeding them items. They are NPC sidekicks that you do not directly control, but they are always beneficial in some ways. Some are better than others, and there are ways to game the cryptic items they prefer and want to be fed, but unless you feel like going down that rabbit hole you can just passively feed them items you don't want/need and build up your little buddy. I don't feel like this is spoiler territory, but if anyone disagrees let me know and I'll hide away.

• Puzzles! Lufia II has a strong leaning towards puzzles, I don't know that any dungeons in the game lack a puzzle. Some feel inspired by games like Zelda, but some of the later puzzles can be fairly challenging. There are also some optional later puzzles which stumped me as a kid. You'll know which they are if you stumble upon then; feel free to skip those or use some sort of guide online.

• Optional Content! I know you're thinking "hey, stop using exclamation points, optional content isn't that exciting". And while you are probably right, the optional dungeon known as the Ancient Cave does get me excited. While not technically the only optional content (there are the puzzles and such I previously mentioned as well as a casino area that could be worth your time for some prizes), the Ancient Cave is almost a game in itself.

Anyway, I think that is enough, please enjoy Lufia II with me for this months Colossal Game Adventure!

Mods

There aren't any mods that I am aware of; however, there are some special modes that unlock after beating the game a few times and there are save game files around that have them enabled. One of the modes is called "Gift Mode" and starts you directly on an island with the Ancient Cave with the option to switch your party to any combination of characters you ever play with in the game. It is fun to either build an "all star team" or a "no star team" and either give you a better chance at it if you had a hard time normally or to give you a challenge if you're just that awesome.

As always, mark your spoilers as such with the following text block:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

Game Setup

Here is the rough news, to my knowledge Lufia II was never included in any sort of "virtual console" or retro console release. Pretty much the only way to legally play this game is to have a working Super Nintendo and the game cart (humble brag, I do). That being said, the game works perfectly in emulation and a simple search in basically any search engine of "play lufia 2" will let you play it directly online, though I am not sure how saves are handled, if they are handled, with these online emulators. I am sure any enterprising tilderino (did we ever actually decide on what to call ourselves?) should be able to run a rom file to play as well.

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
What about its system or era?
What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
What are you expecting from this game in particular?
Which Castlevania game has the best Death fight? 

FAQ

Important: This will be a noisy topic. If you do not wish to see it in your feed, please use the Ignore feature to hide it!

Tip: If the large number of comments are cluttering up the topic and you just want to see the main giveaway posts, click Collapse Replies at the top of the comments.

It’s time for annother edition of our biannual Game Giveaway topics! Share games with the community and get rid of those extra bundle keys you have lying around.

Before you participate, please make sure you read the rules below.

Rules

-Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

-Giftees

Request giveaways. Please make sure you follow the gifter's posted guidelines.

-Guidelines

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

1. No grey market keys! Only give away games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.
2. Requests for games should be done in this topic, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly in this topic, even obfuscated ones.

If you're new to these, check out previous giveaway threads to see how these usually go.

The eclipse is over! Dracula is sealed. Again. Kinda? Who knows, man, this was a weird bout for him. Nostradamus has gotta have some more stuff in the tank for another Belmont, but for now let's just enjoy all the Axe Armor souls we farmed.

I hope you enjoyed Aria of Sorrow! Playing it again, I've found this game is comfort food - simple and straightforward, but clicky and fun. How does it match up to the rest of the genre, or series, for you? Did you try any mods? HOW DO YOU GET PAST THE WATERFALL?!

Join us in July when u/zod000 presents Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals!

Inspired by the recurring topic every Steam sale over at /r/GameDealsMeta:

• What are some lesser-known or overlooked Steam games that you recommend?

• Are there any genres you’d like hidden gem recommendations for?

If you're interested in previous Hidden Gem topics, you can find them here.

For popular recommendations and general purpose sale discussion, please use the main Steam sale topic.

Optional: Feel free to categorize your recommendations by number of reviews (as a proxy for popularity)

Note to future kfwyre: please see this comment about changes to the Hidden Gems topic when you come back to this one in six months.

Greetings everyone. I'm currently in the process of getting a Computer Science degree for two primary reasons. 1.) Because I want to get a stable development job where I'm currently employed, but most importantly to me 2) Because I want to make video games and have the educational credentials to confidently do so.

I know I know, you don't need a computer science degree to create video games, and my program doesn't even teach game development. So I have a long journey ahead learning game dev alongside my program in my own time. Also I have no intentions of working at an actual game company.

So my question today is,

What is a game that you are dying to play, that nobody has made yet?

I'm trying to get some inspiration. It's hard to think about something that truly doesn't exist, because there's so many amazing games already. I'm genuinely curious.

If you're struggling like I am, feel free to list a game that's been made exactly once but no ones been able to reproduce it's genius.

I'll start,

I am DYING to play a factory builder game, but with ARPG gameplay. So Factorio / Dyson Sphere Program meets Diablo 4 & Path Of Exile. I just think this would create such a dopamine addicting game that would be impossible to pull away from if done right. My idea would be to have the factory be the loot crafting mechanic for progressively better armos, while the ARPG is what you use to get the materials needed to craft truly insane gear. Idk, if done right I think this could have legs.

I recently have been reconnecting with something from my childhood: the Krosmoz universe! Anyone who was a kid in France between 2004 and 2012 or so either grew up on it or is at least a little bit familiar with it. Most people outside of the country, if they know of it, generally only know of Dofus, the first of their three (actually five (actually eight if you count the dead ones)) tactical MMORPGs, or the derived TV animated series Wakfu, which was picked up on Netflix at one point. But it's massive here. Even today, they're still quite popular and perpetually developed.

As a medium, video games are not generally so closely tied to countries; more than half of their history has been during the era of globalization and the Internet. Even in the past, when you could only buy games in person in a store, people's minds everywhere were nonetheless on games from overseas. Today, games made in Sweden or Morocco have lived on the same storefronts as games made in Venezuela and Australia for a good while, and I'd bet most people don't even think about where the people who make the games they play come from.

I personally think this is a great thing! But the fact that there's something like Krosmoz, that's so unusually localized to one place, makes me curious to know if there's more; and if there is, I want to know what's unique about it, and what it says about its players and makers, too.

I've asked this before on reddit, and I remember being told about Metin2, an originally Korean MMO that was so popular in Eastern Europe that even a decade after the original Korean and US servers were shut down, players from those countries are still updating the game and keeping it alive. This is a different situation from Krosmoz but another fascinating one. It's the kind of thing I wanna know about.

This is an invitation to yap, if you'll oblige me. Do you have anything like that where you're from? A game or game franchise that only people of your culture know, and that you want everyone else to know about? I wanna hear about it!

I posted this once and immediately deleted it to make it shorter. I did not really succeed. Please don't sue me!

Custom games/game modes/rulesets give gamers the ability to enjoy some games nearly infinitely. Gary's Mod, Rust, Minecraft, Robolox, Fortnite, and many others keep people coming back as people create new ways to play.
When I was younger I played a ton of Warcraft 3 custom games. I remember there being a solid ~2 years when that was almost entirely what I would play whenever I was able to use the computer and then another 3-4 years after where I would play at least a couple of times a week.

I remember loving custom games like:

• Defense of the Ancients (DotA)
• Island Troll Tribes (also Jungle Troll Tribes to a lesser extent)
• Risk (and it's many versions)
• Wintermaul and Wintermaul wars (along with all the other tower defense and tower defense wars)
• Vamperism
• Pest Control
• Many others as this list would drag on

I remember chatting with a lot of interesting people, though I didn't have any friendships I made move past Warcraft 3 in to other games.

I know there are many other games with custom games or customer game modes that the community developed, with DotA 2 coming full circle from being the sequel to a custom game to having custom games of its own.

To get the conversation going:

• What games had your favorite custom games?
• What custom games were your favorite?
• Did you make or contribute to any custom games?
• Any favorite memories?

Now that we know everyone's favorites, I'd love to hear about games that are further down the list -- the ones that don't necessarily rise to the high heights of definitive favoritedom.

So, share your eleventh favorite game this time. You know, the one that doesn't quite make it into your top 10.

Feel free to share your top 10 if you like as well, but lead with your 11th, as those are the ones I'm interested in seeing highlighted.

For this post I was thinking of games more along the lines of an early access title that was abandoned or had a 1.0 release announced when it was not feature complete or still had bugs/issues that were never addressed. If you feel like a live service/MMO game that has shut down should have kept going, feel free to share it as well.

Long story short, I'm making an everything arcade cabinet and soaring no expense. At this point, I have a racing wheel and plan to install wind sim receptacles on a custom pull-out wheel drawer.

My challenge now is that really want to build flip out armrests that have cockpit controls attached and give me a spot for the car gear shifter, so I'm thinking of buying two VKB Gladiator joysticks to mount into the armrests.

Most of all I want it to look awesome and fit the design I'm after. Second, I want to actually play sim games.

My issue is as stated. Is a purchase like this crazy? Should I be starting with a second hand hotas unit to see if I even like it?

And for those of you who do enjoy racing, flight or work sims, were you once a casual user who got hooked? Did you wish that you'd bought decent gear right away?

COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS: 🦇🧛‍♀️🔥 Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Yarrr! Now it be me... [ahem] Sorry, we're out of Pirates!. Now it's ACTUALLY my time to post! Let's set the scene. Looking for a nice summary last month, I found this one from TCRF:

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is a Castlevania game that, shock, isn't about one of the Belmonts! Instead, we get some white-haired emo kid that happens to have the ability to absorb souls.

... Thanks, TCRF. I'll spoiler the writeup for the sake of scrolling through twice.

As always, mark ya spoilers as such with the following text block:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

Game Setup

A couple years ago, Konami released the Castlevania Advanced Collection with Circle, Harmony, the SNES version of Dracula X, and Aria. This is pretty much the only way to legally obtain Aria nowadays - and if I'm not mistaken, it includes the .gba ROM in case you'd like to play it in a way other than the official emulator. (Someone fact check me on that...)

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Share if you ever cosplay as Soma Cruz
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
What about its system or era?
What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
What are you expecting from this game in particular?
Which Castlevania game has the best Death fight? 

FAQ

Ahoy there cap'n, and welcome to Puerto Retiro! Once you have docked your ship, head over to the town's best (and only) tavern, La Aventura Colosal, to rest your peg leg, sip a glass of rum, and exchange tales of your exploits with other well-salted seadogs.

How was your time with Sid Meier's Pirates!, our CGA title for May? Which version did you play? How did it meet your expectations? What worked for you and what perhaps didn't? Did you read the manual?

Don’t get too comfy though! In just a couple of days, u/Lapbunny will be booting up Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow for us, which based on the title I assume is a karaoke game for melancholy songs. I for one have been practising my rendition of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for weeks in anticipation!

I still think it is effectively the best possible version of a mainstream game platform that can realistically exist under current conditions and I think it is better that it exists than if it didn't. In particular their desire to not be reliant on Windows means the Linux gaming is in significantly better place than it would have been otherwise. They simply constantly remind me how low absolute bar the best possible version of the worst possible kind of game store platform is.

My non exhaustive list of problems in no particular order is

• Inability to filter by addtional EULA/DRM/account needed. Steam is already about all of what I am willing to tolerate. Not letting me hide these products is only wasting my time.
• Review system heavily biases towards positive and kills nuance.
• Inability to turn off game updates. For me personally this is the single biggest problem I have with the platform
• Related is inability to go back to previous game version.
• Refund window is a bad joke. For some kinds of games it is fine, for others it does not even allow to get out of tutorial. Sadly it is still better than a lot of other platforms
• I'm seeing more helpful recommendation features that are not possible to turn off - Calendar
• The wishlist/sale feature is extremely effective in enticing impulse purchases. Features that would limit this are of course not implemented. For example setting wishlist alerts only for below a certain price

Once more I come to you with this eternal annoyance of mine, that just won’t go away, with regard to 100%ing games:

I own a Switch 2. It’s my one and only entertainment device (I don’t watch shows, movies, or do anything else).

I already limit myself to only buying Switch 2 games (meaning, no Switch 1 or classics on NSO), so I don’t get overwhelmed with all the options, but good new games come out so quickly now, and there’s so many that I am dying to play, that I’m still feeling like I can barely keep up.

I never buy a new game (even if on discount) before I roll the credits on the one that I am currently playing. That would kill me, to just have them sitting there, on my digital shelf, collecting dust.

For me, anywhere between 20 to 40 hours with one game is ideal, but many of the kinds of games that I enjoy and buy take more than 50 or even 100 or more hours to 100%. I don’t buy them because they’re huge. I buy them because I like their worlds, their stories, and/or their mechanics. If I chose my games based on how long it takes to roll the credits or 100% them, then I’d probably not play almost any modern games.

By the time I roll the credits, I usually feel ready to move on, I feel satisfied with how much I got to experience that world, story, and/or mechanic, but if I do move on, then I also feel bad for not 100%ing the game. It’s some kind of OCD or “all-or-nothing” mental issue that I have. I don’t know.

I guess there’s nothing that I can do about it, because I’m even less interested in grinding for hundreds of hours to 100% a game. The magic and newness of whatever world, story, and/or mechanics a game has to offer have usually worn off by the time I roll the credits, so I would just be forcing myself to check off a list of chores and that’s not fun at all for me.

By that time, there’s also usually a new game that I am dying to play anyway.

So, the choice is between leaving games behind without 100%ing them, or playing two or three games a year, slowly and tediously chipping away at them. The new experiences tip the scale for me.

How about you?

I just wish that I could make this nagging feeling in the back of my head go away and accept that moving on from a game that I didn’t 100%, is OK.

That being said, on occasion, I play a game that is designed to be 100%able on the first playthrough, and those are by far my favorites. Very few games are like that anymore though, which I find sad.

Edit: A short poem I made (with some inspiration from ChatGPT) to help me get over my desire to 100% games. I entitle it, “An OCD Gamer’s Mantra”.

Credits rolled, story told.
New adventures shall unfold.
Rolled the credits, closed the quest.
Move on and discard the rest.
Credits rolled, I’ve seen the end.
Loose threads I need not to mend.
Rolled the credits, let it be.
The next great game is calling me.

Taking it all into account - storyline, presentation, roster, gameplay, etc.

Not sure if there are too many fighting game enthusiasts on here, judging by the posts. I'm not exactly an aficionado myself, as I haven't really been into them since the Neo Geo and PS1 days. I'm probably only really qualified to say Samurai Shodown 4 is the best in the series, although it is remarkable how well Street Fighter 2 still holds up today. For Tekken, Soul Calibur, Marvel vs. Capcom, etc. I didn't play past the first couple entries.