macblur2's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
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    Long time ago I was paying Xcom 2/Chimera Squad, never finished what I wrote, but I quickly added something to conclude it and here it is. nuXCOM and Turtling. I've been playing XCOM2 (and Chimera...

    Long time ago I was paying Xcom 2/Chimera Squad, never finished what I wrote, but I quickly added something to conclude it and here it is.

    nuXCOM and Turtling.

    I've been playing XCOM2 (and Chimera Squad a little).
    Squad tactics games with a strategic element. The interesting part to me is the evolution of anti-turtle measure.

    Basically, the way the game works makes it so directly attacking is often... not the best option to take.
    So, you put most of your units on overwatch and let the ayys do your job of flushing them out.
    Needless to say, it's not a fun strat. It can be fun as part of, say, a tense situation where you're on a almost holdout-esque situation, but those are rare in XCOM.

    So, they need a way to force you to move fast.
    In the first game of the reboot (Enemy Unknown), they used Terror Missions, where you're running after civvies before the aliens could kill them.
    Works well, but it's an uncommon mission type. So, most mission could be turtled.

    Since it was such an issue, in the DLC (Enemy Within) they added Meld, a currency used for most DLC stuff.
    To get it, you need to rush to Meld canisters in regular missions before they destroyed the Meld inside them. One close and one far (with a bit more time before it broke).
    ...But the close one could be reached with only a bit of hurrying which only partially helped the problem.

    Then comes XCOM2 with... timers everywhere. 8 turns to do the job, plus a "stealth" mechanic that gave you an alpha strike.
    It was controversial (Meld got a pass by being optional, this isn't), and still had an issue with stealth lasting too long.

    So in it's DLC (War of the Chosen) they added missions that pushed you to break concealment early and rush anyway (rushing for supplies, or destroy a thing but you have to make up time by shooting small things along the way, etc).

    And then comes Chimera Squad with an encounter system.
    First is the Breach phase, where you pick who goes where and in what order (diffrent spots have diffrent traits, like having more enemies that shoot during Breach or give the last agent 100% chance to hit, on top of a different number of slots and even requirements).
    Then comes the Combat phase, which is mostly regular XCOM combat, but there's a timeline system like most RPGs rather than each side moving all at once, and the arenas are... well, arenas.
    Everyone can see where everyone else is at all time, with no chance of triggering another group of enemies, and each group of enemies being completely cut from each other.

    While Chimera Squad isn't a mainline title, it is the last released title with a mainline-adjacent gameplay. It's still interesting to see how we went from something they mostly didn't expect, to solutions that were too lenient, too getting more and more aggresssive in how hard they pushed you riiight up to the point they said NO MORE.

    That was something I wrote months ago, so now in more recent news (more than a week after it's over), I'm writing a... summary? for Red Sun over Paradise's Season of Screams V: Blood Moon (Blood Counter 4) event.
    Feel free to call it Blood Moon, or Blood Counter, we do that.

    SoS4 BC5- no wait, other way around, whatever, BLOOD COUNTER!

    Compared to the Metrolands at the start of the year, this was a simpler event: do stuff, get blood, enough blood = rewards. As for what stuff? Well, to quote Mikusch (our second-in-command):

    Combat? Blood. Objectives? Blood. Standing in spawn arguing about our spray rules? Still blood. Don't question how any of that works, because we sure as hell didn't.

    While you're doing... all that (especially the last one in the early days, got bad enough to add a command to ignore sprays), you'll get to experience the stuff they added for the event.
    Most common is the gifts (stolen straight from 2012, I'm not the one saying it!) they spawn every few minutes, get them for Battle Points (currency), a voodoo-cursed item (collect them all for a free crate!) and maybe a key for one of the other crate types- if you're lucky.

    At the same time, a new map was added to Player versus Map:

    Spoilers for Deltarune.

    The Roaring Knight, who takes surprisingly well to going from the Fun Gang to roughly 40 crazed mercenaries.

    Most bosses have a gimmick of some sort, like constantly teleporting. The Roaring Knight has a simple (NOT easy) pattern of hard hitting attacks.
    And long respawns. Jevil in the highest preset power (it has a custom mode) gives you 30 seconds to wait (custom goes up to 45). Normal RK goes for 30.

    It's a difficult enough boss that it has only 2 difficulty level, Mantleless turn most attacks into 1-Hit kills, mix up the pattern a little (still is completely set), and doubles the respawn time, 1 minute respawns baby!
    That boss is hard enough for only one group to beat Mantleless. I, somehow, was in that group.

    About halfway into the event, someone hit 100k litres of blood (out of the max required of 50k). Their reward was a new, secret one. One that lets you use GabeN's voice to terrify your enemies.
    Naturally, we expected some kind of boost sometime in the last week to help people out. We got to beta-test a new gamemode instead.

    Dice Warfare! It's Class Warfare, but with rtd! Become frozen! A tank! An invisible Heavy! Someone with 3 times the HP of said Heavy! A sentry buster! A Saxton Hale that gets killed by a cardboard cutout screaming "MeeM"!
    It's some good dumb fun with a good variety of effects to push the chaos. Like it.

    By last week, the giant pile of blood we're getting for the admins was getting big enough to hit twice the amount we needed for the last reward. We knew it was coming, a secret community-wide reward. We were in a frenzy, waiting to finally get Jackenstein voicelines. Someone even changed their spray to the Blood Counter showing Jack, even kept updating it as we got closer! Come on, you know it's gonna be-

    I ever tell you about the time Keith tried to deep-fry a turkey? Third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body. His doctor called up, like, other doctors to look at him cause they'd never seen burns on top of existing burns―

    We can now play as Ellis, from Left 4 Dead 2. We already had a couple L4D items, but they were for a single voiceline each. This is a whole skin, with a whole bunch of voicelines, including what might be the longest Battle Cries on the server. Why, the quote's one (and also the description).

    As this was happening, it became more likely to see Ocelot (the Surf-only server) become the only populated one when the server was mostly empty thanks to the Admins enabling blood earlier than other servers (to make up the player slots being lowered to 16 instead of 40). Most were players farming the event. A few new faces only here to play a bit of surf.
    Then, there was Shturman.

    Registered October 24, a week later had Surf Mastery MAX, received for completing 500 surf courses. Less than 2 weeks in, had unlocked all Surf achievements. By the time the event ended (27 days later), they had over 2500 surf courses completed. Little under 100 courses a day, probalby over 100 in truth.
    They became a small sensation on the Discord with their exceptional rise on Ocelot, despite not being on it. For a couple days.

    All in all, a good, simple event (for us, in the back end it was quite complex as said in that forum post I linked earlier), but now that we're out of it we've kinda crashed out.
    I mean, it still gets players and all, but it's still a smaller playerbase on for a smaller time window. Still not the worst, an earlier Blood Counter left the servers empty for 3 months afterwards!

    To go back earlier, and then jump to the end of the Blood Counter event, I bring Yomi 2.
    Now, I got into this a bit weirdly, see there was a kickstarter for the physical game, decided to go for everything + the big box (to get everything extra), which costed me over 300$.
    Now, go on Steam. You will find the whole game for under 30 bucks. This form comes with the bonus of handling all bookeeping (like changing HP values), easily showing both player's discard and known cards, a log, and even async games so you can play over timezones!
    I spent a good month with the physical game before buying it on Steam.

    Review/"explanation".

    Questionable financial decisions aside, this card game aims to recreate the feeling of fighting games. At high levels.
    As such, the goal is to defeat your opponent. To do this, you'll have win the Opener (where both players play a combat card in a double blind), which is a RPS deal: Attacks beats Throws, Throws beats Defenses, and Defenses beats Attacks. Same strikes means the faster one wins, if they tie the active player wins.
    It's not that simple, though, in just the basic cards:

    • Attacks make up 10 of the 18 basic cards, but their combos can empty your hand fast;
    • Defenses is made up of Blocks, no damage there but it gives you a card (and are only lost if you get hit), and Dodges, which will let you hit back against an attack (but are always discarded like Attacks and Throws);
    • Lastly, Throws punish overly defensive players and if you don't combo, knocks your opponent down.

    Keep in mind, this is the Opener at it's most basic, just the basic cards with (mostly) no special effects. Specials and Supers can make things even more interesting.

    To help you getting one over your opponent, during your turns you get to draw 2 cards and do a few Actions:

    • You can Exchange a valid card in your hand for another valid card in your discard. by default these are the basic cards I outlined earlier, but some characters can occasionally make other cards Exchangeable;
    • You can also use Ability cards. Self-explanatory, some are very simple (knockdown your opponent, go to combat), others can be more complex (Lum's Gimme a Jackpot! can have 5 different effects depending on which symbols were on the revealed cards);
    • You can discard a pair to Power Up, gaining a Super Meter and either another Super Meter or a Super card from your discard;
    • Lastly, you can activate your Gem Storm. For 2 turns you get a strong effect that can make getting hit by you an even more dangerous prospect than usual, or just make it easier to hit them to begin with. Keep in mind you can only activate it once per game.

    As you can tell by now, it's the kind of game where you'll second guess yourself all the way to the end, making you feel like a genius as you hard read your opponent, and also like a moron as you walk into what now looks into the most obvious 50-damage super the game has on offer.
    Like, genuinely, I once blocked against a full Super Rook. The moment I saw that full super meter I knew what was waiting for me.

    ...I may need to write a little less next time.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    The beta test for Sonic Racing Crossworlds is out for a few more hours. Game's fun and chaotic, it does lead to having a "last second matters" issue since you're always right by the pack, but...

    The beta test for Sonic Racing Crossworlds is out for a few more hours.
    Game's fun and chaotic, it does lead to having a "last second matters" issue since you're always right by the pack, but that's one side of the kart racer design flaw coin (the other being someone too far ahead just becomes untouchable even with pick-ups).
    It's big gimmick is customizable machines and gadget loadouts. The machine customization effectively don't matter stat-wise, just looks (a quick look + napkin maths tells me car types give 2/3 of the stats, the characters 1/3, and the parts selection barely reached 10 point difference in any stat when I deliberately went from highest to lowest), but the loadouts and machine type will change how you play a lot.

    For example, a Speed character on a Boost hoverboard with a drift-heavy loadout will have a lot of speed while boosting, boost nearly constantly thanks to the loadout making it incredibly easy to fill a least one gauge, but WILL stop when hit by any weapon for a few seconds, enough in this game to make you go from first to last.
    Meanwhile a Power machine and a ring thief/boost build might not be the fastest at any time, but they recover from attacks fast, and usually will be able to get back to their wincon fast (namely roadraging everyone out of their life savings) that you can expect them to always be very close to the pack, but rarely behind- or ahead- of it.

    If they balance the gadgets well, it could create a lot of variability.

    I've also picked up Receiver 2. An extremely manual FPS. By manual, here's what I mean:
    When using a double-action revolver, you must hold the fire button to fire the weapon, unless you cock the hammer first (then you just press it to fire), but doing so also means you cannot reload the weapon until you fire or uncock it.
    To reload it, open the cylinder and eject all bullets (this might take a few tries, you will also need to pick up any unspent rounds off the ground), then insert each bullet manually. You might have some blocked cylinders, so you'll have to align them according to the direction the cylinder rotates.

    If it sounds like a lot, it kind of is, especially if you're under pressure (which, as you're so close to being a one-hit point wonder any enemy will put you under a good amount of pressure). Thankfully, there is two modes to this game: the Dreaming (original mode, collect tapes while avoiding and shooting drones) and the Compound (safely train your handling of the weapons), both modes have their own progression (the Compound's one is permanent, the Dreaming partially isn't), and nicely complement each-other (try a level in Dreaming, afterwards decompress by running around the Compound while doing some challenges or just drills, then return to the Dreaming).

    The atmosphere of the game is just as oppressive and uncertain as the game itself, the Threat is not given so much as a... body, really (it sounds outright like a memetic hazard, where it infects purely by being heard), the location of the game doesn't quite make sense (all locations are directly linked to one-another, an hospital is one door away from a catwalk on a industrial site which is one door away from an art museum with a built-in apartment and so on), the tapes you collect are mostly spoken in monotone (and the few that aren't...), there are no humans (even your reflection is that of a target cutout) or any organic life besides potted plants, but you can hear noises during the Dreaming (I swear I heard dogs barking at one point). Time being not quite right is a plot point that explains why collectibles are not in any order.
    Even the Compound maintains a level of this despite being a safe place. Admittedly, it does lose some of it depending on what you put on the intercom (which affects the audio a lot, you might not hear the intercom at some places in the Compound).

    1 vote

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    Warframe's latest operation (Operation Eight Claw) is ending soon. It's all about running the Isleweaver node repeatedly, with no alerts running in parallel. Fairly sure we could see DE pushing...

    Warframe's latest operation (Operation Eight Claw) is ending soon.
    It's all about running the Isleweaver node repeatedly, with no alerts running in parallel.
    Fairly sure we could see DE pushing the track early on, it was that much of a slog.
    It really wasn't helped by Duviri nodes being 3x longer than regular nodes.

    I've also gotten back into Monster Hunter Wilds, the game loop is still enjoyable, although I may have made my wishlist useless by putting every armor I don't have either version of on (I have 230+ entries on it), so just about everyone is a wishlist monster.

    Lastly, and this one goes a bit weird, I've gotten the Mythic GM Emulator (2nd edition) pdf, with a bunch of compilations of its companion magazine.
    Now, I do (plan to) use it on, y'know, TTRPGs, even if all I've done in one is some light prep because I'm waiting for it's second edition to come out first.
    I've done too little to really test the system, and it's not helped by not having a proper TTRPG setup in any way (just installed MapTool but don't use it (to the point I didn't realize it was missing dependecies*), heavily rely on google sheets), or my 3 first adventures being a pair of West Marches Campaign-style stories (instead of a set party, you have a host of characters handling a bunch of stuff), and a retooling of the system to give a boardgame a not-really-legacy-but-that's-the-closest-I-got variant.
    (That game is Rallyman DIRT, and I might include GT, but that might wait until I have more stuff for it and*or they rerelease RX first, but it only matters for context)

    The thing is, I spent hours so far redoing a bunch of sheets to more easily make characters and use some other homebrews to give the Rallies more personality than just the terrain ratio and setting the vault to do all of that, to no boardgame time yet. And it was enjoyable?
    ...At least it something I might share with KamSandwich, I guess?

    * Technically it was Java/JaveFX missing dependencies, but I found my answer on the MapTool github.

  4. Comment on Steam Next Fest June 2025 in ~games

    macblur2
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    I found AEROMACHINA through a fanart of the MC (an aeromorph) instead of Next Fest (again, seems to be a recurring thing, this whole fest discovery not helping that much...). The big thing here is...

    I found AEROMACHINA through a fanart of the MC (an aeromorph) instead of Next Fest (again, seems to be a recurring thing, this whole fest discovery not helping that much...).
    The big thing here is gliding since you're a 'morph, big thing that tripped me is that joystick only deals with steering and acceleration, not height (unlike a wingsuit). Once you get used to it it's way better, setting aside the fact that glide and stomp are on adjacent face buttons (Y and B), but they should be rebindable in the full game (there's already a field for those options, even if it's empty right now).
    Past that, I don't have that much experience in the genre, but it does place it's backtrack goals pretty clearly in sight (but not on the map, even if you entered it and stood right on something you can interact with later). Combat is fun if mostly pointless (not helped by enemies respawning the moment you leave a room). Didn't do everything yet, but I have to get close to the end by now.

    The other game I found was though Next Fest itself this time, Slyders, it's pretty much Vampire Survivors (or HoloCure with the upgrade slot system), just as a FPS instead.
    Overall, if you like VS/HC and FPS you'll like this game, just noting that it does use AI in artwork (got the whole disclosure thing on steam, right after the description).

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Drones hit ‘Freedom Flotilla’ Gaza aid ship in international waters near Malta in ~society

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    Good catch, I somehow misread the "by" as "of". Makes me wonder how often flags get revoked.

    Good catch, I somehow misread the "by" as "of". Makes me wonder how often flags get revoked.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Drones hit ‘Freedom Flotilla’ Gaza aid ship in international waters near Malta in ~society

    macblur2
    (edited )
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    Followup on the ship's state from the Times of Malta: Couldn't be more suspicious if they tried. No flag (was removed one day before being hit going off another article, edit: as noted by...

    Followup on the ship's state from the Times of Malta:

    Malta has offered to pay for the repairs of the Gaza-bound boat and help it reach its destination, but it continues to refuse to let the vessel in Maltese territorial waters and ports.
    The government will not let them in unless it is allowed to inspect the ship and ensure it is truly carrying humanitarian aid and that its damage is compatible with the damage sustained by an attack, Prime Minister Robert Abela told reporters Sunday.

    Couldn't be more suspicious if they tried. No flag (was removed one day before being hit going off another article, edit: as noted by TheMediumJon, the issuing country removed the flag) or insurance, took damage while carrying HumAid but unwilling to let Malta's maritime surveyor in.

    11 votes

  7. Comment on Drones hit ‘Freedom Flotilla’ Gaza aid ship in international waters near Malta in ~society

    macblur2
    Link
    Couple more articles on it from SB's whitehall: CNN and ToI. For starters, both articles states that the FFC hasn't given evidence that this was a IDF strike, and that the IDF also is silent about...

    Couple more articles on it from SB's whitehall: CNN and ToI.

    For starters, both articles states that the FFC hasn't given evidence that this was a IDF strike, and that the IDF also is silent about it (an IAF C-180 was tracked to enter the area, but left hours before the attack).

    The more fun thing is the crew list, it's number to be exact.
    Again, both articles report the same number- from Malta's government, 16. Where it gets weird is the FFC's number. ToI states the org's website said there were 21 volunteers aboard, and CNN asked FFC directly and got 30, so where did the 5-14 new crew members come from.
    Note that CNN also reported the 21 volunteers from their statement.

    Then you have the ToI-exclusive info that the convoy was organized by Hamas to attack the IDF troops, they credit Al Arabiya (a Saudi news group), which themselves state they had a Western security source (according to ToI, as their English article does not say so, it could be in the Arabic one though)

    10 votes

  8. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    Pacific Drive recently got a pretty big update. For starters, they finally figured out whatever problem the save system posed so we went from an Hades system (game saves every time you enter a...

    Pacific Drive recently got a pretty big update.
    For starters, they finally figured out whatever problem the save system posed so we went from an Hades system (game saves every time you enter a Junction) to a proper Suspend and quit option.
    I know people weren't fond of the game asking for 15-30 minutes without stops at a time, so this will be helpful to those who can't quite lock that much time to Drive.

    Besides the much more friendly save (if you don't screw up during a run) they introduced Expeditions, a remixed version of regular drives that basically shove the entire loop of PD into a single run.
    Basically you start with next to nothing (it starts off by limiting your inventory, and quickly add your crafting bench and what car parts you have to that) so every run becomes strictly about making the parts you need to get anchors and go through the Gateway, because you just can't afford the space to hoard everything you come across.
    Adding to this, Expeditions take place on a randomized map, where the number of Junctions and paths will change each Expedition, and added Junction Features, essentially presets that guarantees certain aspect (for example: Desolate barely have anything, [Blank] Junction are full of whatever they're named after, Pit Stops are stable Junctions with the means to repair, refuel, and recharge your car), which coupled with a region timer that adds conditions that applies to every Junctions the more Junctions you clear, the fact that Junctions you drove through becomes Desolate, and the Instability claiming more and more Junctions over time makes this a very difficult challenge where even routing between Junctions becomes an important choice.

    It's fun, but basically need the base game to do supply runs (which makes sense, since it's very end-game oriented), also it shows that I need more pnemalockers, 4 isn't enough...

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Do you have games that you play (almost) exclusively? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    Honestly fair, and the game's been adding more and more limited-access grinds like that (pretty much 1 new syndicate/expansion, weekly challenges in many forms, I guess even the ones limited on...

    Honestly fair, and the game's been adding more and more limited-access grinds like that (pretty much 1 new syndicate/expansion, weekly challenges in many forms, I guess even the ones limited on the rewards' side would count?), I personally am fine with it (this game attracts a lot of people who are willing to nolife an update into being completely done within days if given the chance) but I can see how many wouldn't like that sorta thing (hell, I usually hate battlepasses nowadays and waframe has 2 technically, and one's weekly).

    1 vote

  10. Comment on Megathread: April Fools' Day 2025 on the internet in ~talk

    macblur2
    Link
    Loads machine gun Sufficient Velocity appears to have insufficient acceleration to break the planet in it's logo. Meanwhile, SpaceBattle is gonna hold an IPO and hosting a shareholder meeting....

    Loads machine gun
    Sufficient Velocity appears to have insufficient acceleration to break the planet in it's logo.
    Meanwhile, SpaceBattle is gonna hold an IPO and hosting a shareholder meeting. Needless to say, people are taking the theme and running with it.

    Redsun kept things simple for april fools, they just UwUified the main site (the april fools maps are also available but that's automated apparently).

    A couple discord servers are also playing around: Stop Killing Games has a notification icon built-in (took me marking it as read to figure it out...) and decky-loader's making homebrews for the Acer Nitro now.

    AO3 interviewed orphan_account, while it is funny (because it's, y'know, automated) it was still informative (namely who to contact for what issue in an orphaned work).

    Arknights makes some minigames for April Fools, I don't thing they're up yet, even if we know them.
    Global will have the Terra Investment Masterclass, where Prof. Can (better known as Cannot Goodenough) will guide you on maximising profits by... participating in Salty Bets?!
    Well, get those bets in!

    Spoilers from China on the new AF event. ARK no NIGHTS, where Reunion awakens the Doctor and we fight a version of Rhodes Island that might be controlled by PRTS (this is taken from a reddit post so might).
    You can also play the previous years' minigames if you haven't finished them (or just want to reminisce).

    Lastly, I wouldn't normally add them here, but the pranks are clean (even if the websites are very much adult-oriented/only) so I think it's fine?

    I'm still throwing them behind a spoilerbox.

    On one hand FurAffinity gave itself a makeover replacing the banner with only the highest quality mspaint drawing.
    They're also using Comic Sans everywhere now.

    On the other paw E6 is following some new regulations by requiring user to submit to a fursona check.
    It, of course does nothing, but a lot of users did download their drawings to post them (it even has a tag), and despite E6 being, well, E6, of the 3k+ posts under the tag, only about 100-200 aren't rated safe somehow?
    Well, safe by E6 standard, I'm sure at least some could be considered suggestive elsewhere.
    Also, despite the tools given being worse than mspaint there's still a lot of good drawing outta this, couple I found are 5473083 (a chibi soulseer mizutsune) and 5473527 (a small dragon perched on a branch).

    5 votes

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    (edited )
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    As mentioned in the daily game thread, I picked up Inertial Drift last week, it's a racing game where steering and drifting are decoupled, both having their own stick. So on top of having to...

    As mentioned in the daily game thread, I picked up Inertial Drift last week, it's a racing game where steering and drifting are decoupled, both having their own stick.
    So on top of having to handle using both sticks at once (just treat the Drift Stick as the main stick for turning, and use the Steering Stick for fine adjustments), you also have to handle the cars drifting differently.
    There's an in-universe reason for the control scheme (the Drift Gyro) which is also gonna change when the DS can work its magic, for some it's always an options (if stronger when not accelerating and/or braking); while others may need you to do something first, not to mention recentering once you're done drifting may not be that easy for some cars...

    For some examples:

    The Terra Dart and Coda Gecko can drift on demand, just push the DS, but how much it alone can do differs: the Dart goes to about 50% while the Gecko stops at about 20-30%, the Dart also recenters pretty much as you let go of the stick, while the Gecko takes a second or so.

    The HPE Dragon barely can drift while you accelerate, you have to release first to start drifting.
    It also recenters slowly, but can be forced to by braking, even by a light tap will do.

    Then you have the Coda Chrono, you can do some surprisingly steep drifts without releasing the accelerator in this one., but the big drifts need you to release first...
    And then feel what your angle will be once you're back on the pedal, since you're "charging" the drift while not accelerating unlike the first 3 cars. But much like the Dragon, it recenters slowly if you don't brake.

    While you can expect to spend most of your time racing (with no contact ever) and setting times, you do have some other modes to bring some variety, Duels (basically Tokyo Xtreme Racer), Endurence (reach Checkpoints on a timer to get a progressively lower amount of time back, aim to go as far as possible), and Style (Drift as close to corners and as fast as possible to gain as many points as possible) are the ones I tested.

    While the game has a great handling model and style, and even a good variety of gamemodes, it does have some issues.
    Arcade mode is the only mode to not show you car stats for some reason, Story Mode have some difficulty spikes in the 2nd story (only an issue for 100%) and the 3rd (mostly completion again, albeit some can slow progression), and then the last storyline gives you 2 fairly easy events followed by a challenge that spikes hard (get the gold time medal, just straight up beat Arcade gold in that car. In the first area of Story Mode. Yeah.Correction, Arcade gold is 50 seconds, Story Mode clear is 47 seconds.), due to the SM spikes I wouldn't be surprised if the Challenges also get way harder for the last 3 cars I gotta unlock, most of the gamemodes are basically Time Trial in a trenchcoat, and then there's the content.

    16 cars in the base game, 4 variants from free DLC (existing cars up/down-tiered), and 4 new cars in Twilight Rivals (a paid DLC), and 10 tracks across 5 regions with reverse variants, paid DLC adding 4 more tracks, for a final total of 20 cars and 20 tracks in the base game, and 24 cars and 28 tacks with the DLC.
    This is a double-edged sword, there is little content, but both the cars and tracks feels significantly more different from each-other as a result.
    It's also explained by having like, 90% of the game made by a 3-man team.

    I've also been playing Rallyman GT and DIRT on the side.
    It's a boardgame about racing, track racing and rally to be precise.
    While they share so many of their mechanics that they can be crossed over (there even was an actual crossover expansion), they still have some differences.

    Really fast rules.

    The basic rules are fairly simple: here's a track made of spaces, and a bunch of dice.
    Use the black and white dice to move down the track one space at a time, use the red dice with a black die to slow down and pass trough speed limits safely.
    Each die can only be used once per turn.
    For rolling, either make a path and roll all dice for the path at once to gain Focus Tokens, or roll one die at a time with the option to secure a roll by paying Focus Tokens.

    They differ in a few key points, from track features (sharp corners in GT vs shortcuts in DIRT for example) to turn order and how the game starts, passing by what's on the dashboard, or even the goal (finish 1st in GT vs having the lowest time in DIRT).

    There's a bit more to the rules (Loss of Control, rows and movement, overtakes and contacts, etc) but that was just a basic idea of what they are.

    While I play solo there's still a lot of stuff for me thanks to things like the ISGOYTRA Cups (which is quite the acronym) and the historic solo challenges someone made on bgg, it does need a couple other homebrews but gives you a good 40/50 scenarios to try. There's also rallymoon for a weirder homebrew.
    2 votes

  12. Comment on Do you have games that you play (almost) exclusively? in ~games

    macblur2
    (edited )
    Link
    I played Warframe for 1162 hours so far. This is according to the in-game stats, so it only includes time in missions. It's probably double that in time I left the game open. I play both pubs and...

    I played Warframe for 1162 hours so far.
    This is according to the in-game stats, so it only includes time in missions. It's probably double that in time I left the game open.

    I play both pubs and solo, I lfg for relics if I really wanna get a rare part fast.

    As for why I keep coming back...
    The variety, in terms of equipment (there's like 60-ish warframes, and far too many weapons, 4 vehicules), locations (3/4 types of spaceships, overgrown forest, whatever the Cambion Drift counts as, Eastern Europe circa 1999 among many others), side stuff to do (fishing, mining, conservation, Duviri).

    They also treat us well, pretty much everything gameplay changing can be farmed (there's a few exception but they're mostly seen as status symbols imo).
    It's also pretty good to F2P, since you can trade Platinum (premium currency) so if you want more slots/cosmetics you can just farm tradeable items.

    Mind, even with all this I still play other stuff since it's fine to drop WF for months/years and come back with no issue since there's no big FOMO even for cosmetics (they actually will rework paid systems if they feel it gets too predatory), and there's always 1 or 2 more games I play alongside it (I picked up Inertial Drift and got back into EA WRC last week for example.

    4 votes

  13. Comment on Steam Next Fest 2025 - February 24 to March 3 in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    DEMON DUST Found out about it in the underground GARDEN discord because a friend of the dev posted about it. That post also drew me to look at this Next Fest a little more. It's a survival...

    DEMON DUST

    Found out about it in the underground GARDEN discord because a friend of the dev posted about it. That post also drew me to look at this Next Fest a little more.
    It's a survival horror/dungeon crawler with a weird FPS/point-and-click interface: you move yourself and the camera with wasd (plus qe for strafing), while the mouse is exclusively for interacting with whatever's currently in sight.
    Enemies are built with this in mind, they're... vaguely humanoid unconnected slabs of flesh, some of it's static instead. Shoot all of those bits off to kill them, AFAIK hitting them anywhere else does nothing.
    You also can't just have your gun out at all times since you're slowed to a crawl whenever you're using an item.

    Between the control scheme and the atmosphere (it's very low-res, and dark. you do have a flashlight. it's not big, and strictly around your cursor), it's a great game, but probably one I won't buy (mainly 'cause I just don't handle horror well, and by that I mean collecting currency that was hidden basically jumpscared me).

    Neongarten

    The first game I played of this Fest, it's a basic district builder with a minimalist-ish Cyberpunk aesthetic. Also very cubic.
    Place a block during the day, collect cash from your buildings each night, try to make to cash than the taxes you've gotta pay each week (that's all the cash is used for).
    Things get interesting when effects and perks get involved, some things want to be connected in one way or another, others don't want to be near each other, some stuff wants to be above a certain layer, etc.
    It's in the same vein as Dorfrokantik, basically. Just, y'know, cubes.

    TMNT Tactical Takedown

    A Tabletop-styled tactics game, and by tabletop I mean it genuinely could be made as a boardgame, they already made it look like one, and the rules could be bought over with minimal change: gameplay alternates between you and the enemy, you get 6 AP to spend between 5 main actions (+ an action built up by defeating enemies), those actions can build off each-other (or the environment), for example:

    • The second level has cars as an hazard, and a couple of your actions stops enemies from moving, this coupled with the basic enemy "AI" can lead to some funny (and awesome feeling) moments.
    • An action moves you 3 spaces, dealing 2 damage to enemies in the way, but gives 1 AP back on KO, so if you have 2 enemies with 2 HP lined up, you get a free move, meanwhile enemies with 3/4 HP get dealt with for 2 AP instead of 4.
      Meanwhile, the enemy AI seems to be simple (move as close as possible, if adjacent hit), not an issue for 1-on-1, but you'll often be outnumbered 5/10(/15) to... 1, so, y'know, get ready to fight in tight spaces if only because you're being swarmed.

    Now, the twist: it's an autoscroller! I promise it's better than I make it sound: once about every 2 turns part of the stage will be marked (and a part that's out of bound will be marked green), after the enemy's turn the level "mutates" (their words) instantly knocking out anyone left behind on the red part of the stage (and making you lose if you were on it) and adding whatever section was colored green. Keep in mind, enemies will spawn wherever there's space, including that new bit of stage.
    Now remember: you have 6 AP, and are very mobile (I think even the biggest the map's gotten can be crossed with 3 AP worth of movement), so it's more akin to a GM revealing the battlemap bit by bit while slowly (but steadily) forcing you to move forward.

    Audio is fine, music is good if kinda generic (I admitedly don't know much about TMNT so it could fit with what the franchise does), sound effects are good, the "thock" of pieces landing and moving, repeated "twacks" for attacks, special mentions to the KO sound, extremely satisfying to hear trigger a lot in a few seconds.

    So far I've only done 2/5 level in the demo, so there's probably more interesting stuff to use/deal with in there still.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    While I play basically only on redsun, I did a couple casual matches to test things out and saw no bots. Still, I think it's over since other communities aren't full of posts about casual being...

    While I play basically only on redsun, I did a couple casual matches to test things out and saw no bots.

    Still, I think it's over since other communities aren't full of posts about casual being full of bots.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on What video game mods do you play, or have played in the past? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    I dunno how much it fits into this thread since I don't really have to install anything (you will have to download a metric shit-ton of stuff, though...), but I've been playing on redsun on tf2...

    I dunno how much it fits into this thread since I don't really have to install anything (you will have to download a metric shit-ton of stuff, though...), but I've been playing on redsun on tf2 since... 2018, technically (fairly sure it was the last server I was on before I left, and after I came back I played like 2 casual matches to check things then jumped right back in).

    The servers have Gamemode Madness in their titles due to, well, changing which game you're playing every 20/30 minutes.
    And by change game, I don't mean Capture the Flag to King of the Hill.
    I mean Left 4 Dead into Versus Saxton Hale into SCP: Secret Laboratory into Warioware.
    While there are more regular gamemodes (Stock Classic kinda, Mystery Map, Team Battles, Combat Surf), there's nearly 30 gamemodes so don't expect to play the same thing twice in one session.

    This is on top of having it's own inventory system and even events.

    Again, I'm not sure how much it counts, but considering that community servers are almost entirely gone (and ones with large enough API to basically do completely different things or making their own item servers are just gone) in modern games I'd say it counts.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    The closest to a roadmap we got is that they intend to be out of early access in about 4 months going off the Steam page. Mind, the game's been out for not even a full week, if they wanna tell us...

    The closest to a roadmap we got is that they intend to be out of early access in about 4 months going off the Steam page.
    Mind, the game's been out for not even a full week, if they wanna tell us what's to come it might be closer to a month since release, assuming they don't just drop updates out of the blue.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    Tokyo Xtreme Racer released into early access last Thursday. I already have nearly 23 hours on it. Gameplay has you go into the Shuto Expressway and challenge every rival to SP Battles (racing...

    Tokyo Xtreme Racer released into early access last Thursday. I already have nearly 23 hours on it.
    Gameplay has you go into the Shuto Expressway and challenge every rival to SP Battles (racing game façon fighting game: you both have a SP bar as your HP, get ahead of your opponent to drain their SP while avoiding contact to keep your SP) to gain credits and BP; then you get back to your garage to unlock and buy new cars and upgrades, and you keep repeating those 2 steps.
    It runs very well on Steam Deck, even with TSR which makes it look real good.
    Fair warning, it has a wall that's literally stronger than the boss it's hiding (going from others' posts, I haven't beaten Melancholic Angel) and basically anything you can make at the time, but she can be beaten apparently.

    I've also got DOOM, the ones with more sourceports than franchises got entries.
    Not much to say that wasn't said countless times before (it's Doom and Doom 2), but I basically started with Time Tripper (only thing I did before that was check if I set up zdl and steam input right on Doom 2's MAP01), which goes from beautiful (a good example is C1M3's second room) to trippy (both liminal spaces), it's also harder than the base game (going off it's site, Normal is equal to Ultra-Violence), which when combined with me still getting used to controlling this on the deck made for a difficult, but memorable experience.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Moving wikis away from Fandom in ~tech

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    They actively hinder closing their own wikis afaik, which leads to some funny stuff at times when the staff has migrated and people start vandalizing, but I got no links on me on that. What I do...

    They actively hinder closing their own wikis afaik, which leads to some funny stuff at times when the staff has migrated and people start vandalizing, but I got no links on me on that.

    What I do have, is on plagiarism, and from the look of it they are fairly slow and fairly light handed towards plagiarists (original video and follow up, I'll note that I had to skim the latter due to lack of time atm).

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Monster Hunter Wilds | Release date reveal trailer [Feb 28, 2025] in ~games

    macblur2
    Link Parent
    I expected the CPU to be the big bottleneck, but if that's what is needed then yeah it won't work too well even taking in the smaller resolution of the Deck.

    I expected the CPU to be the big bottleneck, but if that's what is needed then yeah it won't work too well even taking in the smaller resolution of the Deck.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Monster Hunter Wilds | Release date reveal trailer [Feb 28, 2025] in ~games

    macblur2
    Link
    Really hoping there's a demo on Steam. Don't really like having to pay extra to play with other on ps5, but I'm not sure how well the Deck's gonna take it.

    Really hoping there's a demo on Steam.
    Don't really like having to pay extra to play with other on ps5, but I'm not sure how well the Deck's gonna take it.

    2 votes