An offhand comment A tiny detail An incidental moment Etc. It wasn’t really a big deal, but, for whatever reason, it had a big impact on you. What was it, and what was the impact? Tell us the story.
I didn’t have Indian food until I was 22.
Upon my first bite I was viscerally angry that I’d lived over two decades without it in my life.
Could be from a place you visited or moved to. Could be from a community or group you joined.
Whatever it was, there was something new or unfamiliar to you, and you had to wrap your head around that something that you weren't used to.
What was the culture shock, how did you respond to it, and how do you feel about it now?
AGDQ 2026 just ended and raised $2.4 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
GDQ marathons are always positive, heartwarming, entertaining events that show the best side of the gaming community rather than all that gaming-associated darkness that I and many of us here try to avoid.
They’ve also been explicitly and deliberately inclusive since the start, so it’s an ongoing safe space for queer people and other minorities. It’s one of the few places in my life I get to enjoy the collective effervescence of a large crowd of people cheering for trans rights, for example.
I’ve been watching them since 2012-2013 (can’t remember exactly when I started) and they remain highlights for me to this day, well over a decade later. My husband and I look forward to them the way that other people look forward to, say, the Super Bowl.
To date, their marathons have raised a combined $59 million (!!!) for charities, with the median donation being less than $25. This, more than probably anything else, makes tangible for me the idea that a lot of individual people doing little things can add up to create a genuinely huge impact.
That’s a nice principle for me to keep in mind right now. It’s easy to lose sight of.
I’ve got a TV mounted on the wall in front of the treadmill with a Fire Stick running Moonlight which streams the game from my PC. I use an Amazon Luna controller to play.
I can only play games that require limited or non-time-sensitive input without throwing off my balance, so turn-based stuff or bullet heavens are perfect.
Yesterday I did an hour at 4 MPH and an 8 degree incline. It’s a pretty decent workout that doesn’t feel as long as it is since the game distracts me. It’s also WAY healthier for me than sitting on the couch for the same hour.
You're very welcome! Glad you're liking it.
In the realm of survivorslike "do the same very little thing over and over again so that numbers can go up" games, this is among the more polished and well-constructed.
It's got all the lanes of permanent metaprogression you could want: stat boots you can buy; gear drops that you can individually level up; weapon, class, and stage masteries that give bonus multipliers; 300 different achievements.
The bullet heaven genre is admittedly waning in its appeal for me on its own. I'm not super compelled to sit down and pick something like this up when I want to game.
HOWEVER
I've been playing it while walking on my treadmill, and it is like a cheat code for not noticing that I'm exercising. I can do two runs in the game and barely notice that an hour has gone by. It's great. Don't know if I'll end up 100%ing this one, but for right now it's doing a fantastic job of making time pass while I'm doing something mildly strenuous without me realizing it.
My indecisive multiplayer group chose this, as we really loved Raft and the two games are very similar.
Sadly, Voidtrain is a subpar version of Raft in pretty much every way.
It's got some cool ideas and a cool setting that are mostly squandered by interminable repetition and asset reuse. Like, every station you stop at has a fire fight with the same enemies in the same arena. There are little sidequests you can do where you have to grapple away from your train and follow a chain of rocks, which seems really cool initially, but they always take you to the same place. where you do the same thing.
It feels like they had the skeleton of a decent game and just polished that up to a 1.0 release rather than fully developing something more robust.
We're having fun with it because it's fun to play games with your friends, but it's unfortunately not the Raft-alike we were hoping for.
So, that ended up being a GREAT run, and the continually unfolding Nintendo Family lore ended up being such an entertaining through line.
Also, my husband’s donation got read aloud!
He donated as The Nintendo Family Private Chef and made the joke about a speedrunner’s favorite food being gold banana splits. 😁
The “John Nintendo” donation and its subsequent riffs have been a delight so far in this already great Super Mario Galaxy 2 run.
Also, for any CGA folks: Chrono Trigger is coming up in a few hours!
EDIT: I might have commentator’s cursed the runner. Literally right when I posted this he got stuck for a good minute or so. 😆😭
I never actually finished the game. Like you, I got stuck on some (maybe just one?) of the riddles, and there wasn’t a guide or anything on the nascent internet at the time, so I just… stayed stuck.
I do remember trying to return to the game years later wanting to finally see it through, only to find that I wasn’t able to get it working on what was (at the time) modern Windows.
The point can be a common phrase or lesson, the message of a work of media, something directly stated, etc.
It doesn’t have to be “universal” and can be a story from your life/school/workplace where, say, a lot of people missed the point of a meeting or directive or whatnot.
Whatever its source and impact, it’s something where you think that a lot of people really missed the point and went with a different and more incorrect understanding/interpretation.
What point did people miss? Why do you think they missed it? And why do you think your interpretation is the more correct one?
My husband and I turn it on when we’re home from work each night, actively watching stuff we’re interested in and then passively catching it in the background the rest of the time. Once the event is over we hit up VODs for stuff that we missed.
The Stop the Rock! run was great, though I’m admittedly biased. The game having a character named “Chet” that got riffed on as “Chat” was entertaining.
I enjoyed the Armored Core VI run yesterday. Good energy, and the runner has a golden voice. I thoroughly enjoyed the recurring donation counts for every time he picked the wrong mech.
Richard Burns Rally was also enjoyable as a skill showcase. The couch having an actual co-driver who went into lots of specifics about rally racing helped me appreciate the skill that goes into playing the game at that level. Plus the race direction donations were fun.
ITAD isn’t showing any previous bundles, but it was also already in my library too?
That one might be on me though because I genuinely do buy too many games and also have a soft spot for deeply flawed 3D Sonic titles.
I bought Haste in the Steam sale, so you’re all welcome for it being in this bundle. 😆
Ol’ DOS and I go WAY back. Just thinking about it has me nostalgic for the days of SoundBlaster and setting the correct IRQ (whatever that meant — I still have no idea).
Check your PMs! Also when Choice inevitably includes the third game, I’ll send that your way too.
Glad you're enjoying it! I love a good blobber but haven't ever gotten around to trying that one.
Also if you want the second one as well, it's in today's Choice and I already own it and would be happy to give it to you. Let me know if you want it!
As one of the ten or so people in the world who played Stop the Rock! back when it released, I'm genuinely and unironically hyped for that one.
@talklittle, your extension worked FLAWLESSLY! Thank you for the updates.
Speaking of working flawlessly, have I mentioned Proton lately? No native Linux games this month, but we've got 4 Verifieds and 4 Playables. Us Linux users are once again eating well.
In fact, I think Proton now works SO well that ProtonDB is becoming less relevant. I know that I used to regularly submit reports, but now I hardly bother because, well, mostly everything works! A lot of the games, even more popular ones, only have a few recent reports (if any), so I don't think I'm alone in that.
Now, Choice has always loved a base game with a DLC upsell, but this month they've taken it to another level. There's an entire separate bundle for Hunt DLC intended for Choice members.
You might think that this contains all the DLC, but you'd be wrong! It contains only ten out of the seventy different DLCs for the game. I'm not holding this one against Humble and instead putting the blame on the game itself -- what title could reasonably need that many DLCs in the first place?
Also people really do NOT like Wizard of Legend 2. Interesting to see such a split between the critic score and the userscore.
January 2026's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.
| Steam Page | OpenCritic | Steam Recent/All | Operating Systems | Steam Deck | ProtonDB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic Frontiers | 71 | 84 / 90 | Win | ✅ Verified | 🟨 Gold |
| Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered | 69 | 80 / 90 | Win | ✅ Verified | 🎖️ Platinum |
| Hunt: Showdown 1896 | 80 | 73 / 76 | Win | 🟨 Playable | 🟨 Gold |
| Etrian Odyssey II HD | -- | -- / 80 | Win | ✅ Verified | 🕙 Awaiting Reports |
| Nice Day for Fishing | 74 | 71 / 88 | Win | ✅ Verified | 🎖️ Platinum |
| Metal Slug Tactics | 76 | 72 / 76 | Win | 🟨 Playable | 🎖️ Platinum |
| Settlement Survival | -- | 80 / 85 | Win, Mac | 🟨 Playable | 🟨 Gold |
| Wizard of Legend 2 | 85 | 45 / 56 | Win | 🟨 Playable | 🎖️ Platinum |
Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?
Apparently you can slowly glide your boat using right trigger when the sail isn’t up.
I’ve spent hours in the game already and genuinely had no idea. (Is this my fault for not reading tutorial instructions? Of course not! Is it my fault for not noticing the “Cruise” instruction that’s always on the screen over the RT button? No way!)
How had I been pulling up to islands? Just run straight into them.
You know how I was positioning myself for those spots where you can grapple up treasure?
Taking the boat full speed ahead (even faster than normal due to the QoL mods) then throwing my boomerang when I was right next to it, which stops the boat dead in the water. I got it to where I could consistently stop in the right spot maybe 30% of the time, and I honestly felt pretty good about my skills.
If I missed the spot? I had to throw the sail, loop around, and try again, which I have done many, MANY times.
I couldn’t get over the fact that it was very clunky, but I honestly just assumed this was a knock-on effect of increasing the sail speed and that it would invariably be way easier in the vanilla game.
It literally didn’t occur to me that I would be able to move the boat without the sail.
On the plus side, this has completely changed the tone of the game from inspiring grand adventure to seafaring physical comedy.