This one is a bit weird, but I started playing Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy again. I beat it way back in 2017 when it first came out, and again when it was on steam in 2020 for the achievement. So I beat it again and got an achievement for beating it a second time on steam, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Getting Over It is often seen as a qwop-like masochistic rage game: You climb a steep mountain by swinging a hammer around, passing difficult obstacles and sometimes small mistakes can make you fall down past several obstacles you already passed, making you complete them again just to get back to where you were. A lot of these types of games exist, often as youtuber/streamer-bait to get reactions of them raging as they mess up. You see it a lot in their trailers where they get footage of people playing the game and screaming.

But Getting Over It is different. It still has those elements of frustration, but I feel Bennett's running commentary as you play the game brings meaning to it as opposed to being difficult for the sake of being difficult. Having him talk about the frustration of starting over and the ideas of whether or not culture has to be accessible to be worthwhile. When you fall, the game doesn't mock you, instead you get encouragement to keep going, or get an old song mimicking the emotions you are probably feeling.

Your first run through will probably take a handful of hours. And when you beat it, the game assures you that the second time is easier. And it is. Your second run will probably only take 30 minutes or so. You've figured out general strategies for all the obstacles you though insurmountable before. You still mess up and lose progress, but it doesn't bother you as much. Each time you had to redo a tough obstacle, you got better at it, it's no longer as daunting.

So coming back to the game and remembering everything about it and beating it relatively quickly, it felt really good and I got an achievement for beating it a second time which is nice, as it encourages that second playthrough which shows the player how much they grew and how those tough obstacles at the beginning are child's play now. Then, seeing there are only 3 achievements, I looked at the last one: beat the game 50 times, which is a pretty crazy number, considering once you know what you're doing, the runs take 15-20 minutes each. I laughed at it and didn't think I would ever go for it. But I decided to do another few runs as I was enjoying my time.

I ended up watching/listening to video essays on youtube while playing Getting Over It next to it and it became almost meditative. What people see as this rage inducing game became this almost calm and relaxing way to spend my weekend and the time flew by. My completion times slowly went down without really trying, just making less and less mistakes. And by the time I reached 50 completions, I was getting 10 minute runs with a record of 7:47. And the weirdest thing was, I felt a bit sad when I hit 50. I hit my "goal" that I had never really intended to go for in the first place and didn't have an excuse to launch the game to make more progress towards it. I ended up playing through a few more times during the weekend anyway since is now just a relaxing game for me, and I think it will be a game that I come back to at least once a month now just to climb what used to be an impossible mountain.

I started playing Dredge a Lovecraftian fishing game. Found it while browsing the Steam homepage and I've really been enjoying it. It's this weird mix of cozy and less than cozy depending on the time of day. You play as a fisherman who's newly arrived at a cluster of islands to take over for their previous fisherman. I'm still early enough that the Lovecraft has stayed hidden, I've been careful to not stay out at night so the only thing that I've run into so far is what it calls Abyssal Mutant fish which are based on normal fish you can catch but mutated to be off, one is just a big pile of eyeballs instead of scales, that sort of thing.

Gameplay consists of you driving your boat around, fishing for fish, and trinkets to sell, quest times for story progression and materials to upgrade your boat/rod. Time only passes in the game if you're actually moving or fishing so it encourages you to take things a bit slower, with a full journal explaining all of the things you've caught you don't have a punishment for taking the time to actually read it. Once night hits the fog rolls in and your character starts to panic, from here I can't explain much that happens because I have not experienced it yet. The game seems to be decently large I've got a few hours of playtime and have barely explored the map.

Definitely highly recommended for anyone who enjoys the zen-style gameplay that sometimes slaps you awake. I'd compare it to Subnautica, it'll feel super peaceful until a shark wakes you up by biting your toes.

I looked this week at my Steam stats and realized recently that I've logged 170 hours in Deep Rock Galactic even though I only got it a couple of months ago. There's just something so good about something so simple, only a couple of mission types, so it all feels familiar, but so many ways to approach the same issues, through each of the 4 classes and the multitudes of weapons available. I find myself switching between each of the classes depending on how I'm feeling.

I've also just been replaying Persona 5 Royal on my steam deck! It's only been 2 years since I played it last, but I'm going to Tokyo soon so I wanted to "get in the mood" so to speak. I really forgot how much I love most of the characters and their personalities, it feels very fun. I don't like anime in general or even JRPG's, but P5R is just too good.

Otherwise, the usual Slay the Spire runs, I finished Ascension 20 Heart for everything already but I'm still trying to learn more and more, there's something that keeps bringing me back!

Outer Worlds. It was absolutely fantastic. There is one character you can have in your party that is a mechanical engineer and wants to date another woman despite how she is adverse to physical contact. Every time she asked something of me, I would drop everything and do whatever she needed. When I finished the game I was so sad that I wouldn't see her anymore so I immediately bought the DLCs.

Nova Lands

I've had this wishlisted for a couple months because I like factory games. This game is a little simpler than something like Dyson Sphere Program or Factorio. It's really good though! It's a mix of factory game and something like Stardew Valley, but mostly factory game. You can finish the main research tree/mission in about 30 hours.

BattleBit Remastered

Hell of a game. I saw people talking about it blowing up on reddit. It is unbelievable that four people were able to make this game. And since (early-access) release last week it has gone from 20k players up to 87k over the weekend. I've had no issues connecting to a game or any lag. It's an absolute embarrassment to AAA developers that four people can deliver this feature rich Battlefield style FPS. These days I'm not much of an FPS person anymore but these developers deserve every bit of praise this game is getting.

PS5: Final Fantasy XVI - I've played every Final Fantasy game almost since they came out (starting with IV on the SNES) so this was going to be no different. I'm loving the story so far, but I understand the criticisms that people are having with the linearity and sub-par crafting. I feel like it's closer in battle system to the Batman: Arkham games, with the strong focus on blocking/dodging in combat and the mostly on-rails exploration. I'm all for iterating and keeping the series fresh, there are plenty of other options for people to get the classic FF itch, so I'm feeling pretty good about it so far. And man, that story is great!

Switch: Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - I put almost 200 hours into TotK so now it's back to this one, which I am enjoying. It's more on-rails than the first FEW game, truly a mix between classic Fire Emblem and Warriors-style chaos. It's a nice change of pace to just run in, do a battle for ten minutes and get out.

Steam Deck: Vampire Survivors - Another one that's great for bite-sized playtimes throughout the day/evening.

Mobile: Guardian Tales - The best (now that Final Fantasy: Record Keeper is shut down) gacha game on mobile. Great content, balance, the gacha is mostly extraneous and almost everything can be done with free resources. Story and gameplay is great too.

By the way, this is my first comment on Tildes! Happy to be here!!

I gave Spiritfarer a try. While it's pretty simplistic and derivative in its mechanics, the animation is splendid and the subject matter is profound.

The concept of the game: you take over from Charon and become responsible for ferrying souls to the afterlife.

I have met only 3 characters so far, but I already feel sad about knowing how their story will inevitably end. Which means that the game does a good job with:

A) getting me to like these characters
B) handling its theme

Chicory - This game has been a blast for me and my player 2. Cute graphics and design, fun boss battles (although limited combat in general), relatable and diverse characters, it's a great indie game! We spend waaaaaay too much time doing co-op paintings in the art class and it's absolutely hysterical hearing the NPCs praise our hot garbage artwork. Definitely check it out if you like relatively chill games with some puzzle mechanics and unique graphics.


Wild Rift - Ok here me out on this. If you really like LoL but hate long game times and toxic chat, Wild Rift mostly resolves all those issues while keeping the core gameplay. Yeah the controls take a little getting used to, but the client is superior and has expanded functionality, and even in games where I'm doing bad and not having fun it only lasts like 20 minutes tops instead of 40+ minutes of misery.


Satisfactory - Yes I've sunk too much time into automating my facilities. Yes I will continue to do so. Even though I wasn't a huge fan of Factorio this game just hits the right spots for me. Plus I just love base builders like Terraria and Satisfactory is tangentially related enough that I can enjoy the base building feel while also having completely different game mechanics and goals.

Diablo IV - Getting to the end of this one (until season one drops next month) but wrapping up some of the end game stuff I still need to finish.

Tears of the Kingdom - Such an incredible game. Put it down a bit when D4 released but getting back into it now and hopefully will finish the story soon.

Final Fantasy XVI - I hate this game. And I was really looking forward to it before release. Even bought the deluxe edition of the game. I liked what I saw and heard in the developer interviews, trailers, and gameplay videos before release. Avoided the demo and went in blind after that. And let me say, I'm not someone who minds real time combat in RPGs. I actually quite like it generally. So this isn't just complaining because it's not the ATB system or a turn based FF game. I generally just think this game is boring as fuck. The story is pretty interesting so far and the game is very pretty. But that's about all the positives I can think of for it.

The combat is boring. Even after unlocking the new elemental builds, it's just the same loop over and over. Smaller enemies don't have a lot of health and die quickly plus tend to mostly attack one at a time. Boss and elite enemies with the will bar have way too much health and it becomes more of a test of stamina than one of skill. And I just don't find the combat satisfying or entertaining. I'm bored or frustrated with how long it takes 90% of the time. Outside of combat, the movement around the world feels off and slow. The game is super linear and there's basically almost no reason to explore each area. Just feels pointless walking around like the world is only there to funnel you to the next battle or cutscene. And the Eikon battles are clunky and also boring (though very pretty). They should just be cutscenes.

This is a little bit off of the beaten path but I want to make the argument that Duolingo is a mobile game. The mechanics, notifications, and the fact there is a leaderboard makes me feel like I'm playing a game.

I've been learning Japanese and honestly I have been very engaged by the gamification that is provided by the app.

Other than that, BattleBit for when I have some spare time and Ark: Survival Evolved because I have a friend who is into that game and I want to spend time with him. I don't actually like Ark that much and prefer other base building/crafting/survival games but my friends are important to me so it's mostly an excuse to be together.

Battlefield 2042 - It had some pretty poor reviews to begin with but it seems that recent updates have made the game pretty fun. I still wish for a true successor to the styles of 2142 and BC2 but this one has satisfied my desire for an arcade shooter I haven't experienced since BF4. The recent season also added a map that is an homage to Zavod from BF4.

Got sucked back into Red Dead Redemption 2 again. Played most of the story years back on PS4 but didn't finish, just finished the story on PC this weekend with ~95 hours. It's crazy how many side-quests and side-activites you can waste time doing and still feel like you've only scratched the surface. I had thought all the quirky events happening all over the map happened to everyone, but there were a ton from my PS4 playthrough that I didn't come across on PC, and vice versa. And man, that ending hits like a truck, and while the epilogue was not at all what I was expecting it felt like the perfect send-off.

I haven't tried online yet, though I hear it's a bore. What I'm really excited for and just recently seems to be playable is RDR1 and RDR Undead Nightmare on a 360 emulator. Anyone have any experience with those?

I've been playing Tears of the Kingdom again recently. I played through most of the story so now I'm just exploring the world. The sky islands are fun and the depths are super exciting to explore. The darkness just adds to the excitement and I'm loving navigating around the gloom. My favorite part is the audio design. The music adds to the ambience of the unknown and the little piano jingles as you discover things is just fun.

I'm about 6 or 7 hours into Chained Echos, a turn based JRPG and I'm liking it quite a bit. My biggest issue so far is that you're introduced to quite a few characters (both in-person and by reference) who are scheming schemers and I just cannot keep track of them all. It doesn't help that they don't have names like Bob, Gary and Mary. So whenever an NPC is mentioned I basically have to infer who they are by the context.

There are boss fights as is typical of RPGs and I kinda hate them. My issue is that there's no health bar shown which is an intentional choice by the developers. So when I'm fighting a boss I have no idea if he/she/it's almost dead or I'm only halfway through. This makes the boss fights unsatisfying to me. One of the boss fights took me half an hour to beat and that was on "normal" difficulty; I turned down the difficulty going forward which made subsequent boss "fights" less of a slog.

An interesting mechanic (maybe other JRPGs have this, I don't know) is that you can have 8 members in your party but only 4 on the field at a time. You can tag a sidelined character in for free but you can't swap any character in. Bob is paired with Gary for example, so if you want to swap Bob out (maybe his combat style isn't effective) you can only swap Gary in, not Keisha or Jose. I don't really see the point for this system aside from its integration with the overdrive system as your enemy can have more than 4 characters on their side. If I was fighting a boss surely I'd want all hands on deck right?

At the end of the second act (I think it's the second) your squad is separated into 3 teams. A team of 3 has to get to a hotel via a mineshaft. They come across a rolling platform and hop on. As they're rolling along a mini-boss shows up to fight you. While this fight is happening you have to set the points on switches to change which direction your cart will go. It's a super cool system that I hope to see again.

I've been replaying Ridge Race Type 4 on an emulator recently. The main campaign isn't very long but it has a nice way of implementing additional difficultly on replays by having different vehicles and teams that make steering more difficult but increases the speed and adding a nice drift mechanic especially for a game around that time.

For me the game has so much nostalgia I remember playing it on a tiny TV in the kitchen/dining room as we weren't allowed to have the PS1 in the living room.

The best part of the game is the soundtrack. They also produced a 20th anniversary remix that bangs.

One of the musicians of the game has a YouTube channel where they still produce music in the same style but I currently can't remember their YouTube name. If I find it I will add it.

I'm close to the end of my first playthrough of Triangle Strategy, which has been phenomenal. I haven't played many tactics RPGs (FE Awakening, a little bit of FE Fates and FE Echoes, and a bit of Final Fantasy Tactics) but I've been greatly enjoying the gameplay.

I much prefer the individual turns for units over the FE "decide what your whole team will do at once" turn system. I also really enjoy the lack of customization compared to other games in the genre that I've played, both because completely open-ended team building can be a bit stressful (this is actually the reason I stopped playing FFT, definitely want to get back to it eventually though) and because it feels more interesting for gameplay. Characters all feel more uniquely designed with their own gimmicks and niches and instead of trying to build a team with complete freedom to handle any situation you have to figure out how to approach each map with the pieces you have, and with the variety in both the units and the map design you'll be able to find ways to use all of your units effectively, even if not in every encounter.

I'm playing on hard which feels perfectly tuned, punishing if you don't take the time to plan out how to approach a mission and any given decision you make therein, but not so much that it feels unfair.

The story at the beginning is a bit of a drag, there's a lot of time spent in cutscenes between chapter battles spent building up the world and introducing characters for the first few chapters (until around chapter 4, I think), but once the story picks up it's a very enjoyable Game of Thrones-esque political drama with branching paths through the story based on your choices and multiple endings. It's a fantasy setting with things like magic, but the story is grounded in a believable resource struggle, there's no gods to kill here.

I've also been playing a lot of Omega Strikers, which there is much less to say about. It's essentially 3v3 competitive airhockey with some MOBA-ish elements like levelling up as a match progresses and picking out new gear to get stronger in particular ways. Does a good job at scratching my itch for a skill expressive competitive environment.

I had been playing through the older Armored Core games to get back into the swing of it and man those are so good. The gameplay is tight, customization is great, and it's very challenging. By this point I've beaten all but Verdict Day, because Verdict Day doesn't seem to play very well in emulation. I got it working thanks to the community discord, but it doesn't run as well as I'd really like and the smoothness of it matters to me.

It's been pretty cool to do because it feels like peering into the DNA of how they were making things. The games change and progress over time, kinda like a music album can, where it's the same core concept done with a different spin, a new flavor. And a lot of it absolutely informed what came after, so I'm very excited to see how it all comes together in Armored Core VI.

Besides that, I've been playing Tears of the Kingdom, which I've come to enjoy in a way I did not expect. Originally I was exploring a bunch and enjoying similar to botw, but with all the ultrahand stuff and machine parts everywhere, it's almost like a toy box. Like I don't necessarily go for what's optimal, I'll just see what I can make with what's there and that on its own can be fun/instructive. I like much of what's been introduced and the scale is just beyond anything I expected. I thought something like Elden Ring would stand apart for a while and totk feels somewhat larger to me. This is also pretty exciting, because these games are (as far as I know), longer projects than what's been typical. If folks can maintain across a 4-6 year development period and produce stuff like this, I am all for it.

I’ve been playing a lot of Doom 1 and Doom 2. I didn’t grow up playing either of these games, they pre-date my early gaming experiences by around five years and I would have never been allowed to play them in a very religious household. Although, I nearly got Chex Quest installed on my grandparent’s computer. Ha!

With a modern source port like GZDoom these games genuinely hold up as good games, though I don’t think I wouldn’t enjoy them as much running in DOSBOX without niceties like mouse look, modern resolutions, etc.

The level design is frequently really well thought out, stuff like Hangar and Mt Erebus are just great standout levels. That quality is obviously really up and down, but it is astonishingly good considering that there wasn’t a large history of what would make a first person shooter level great.

Enemies are incredibly well-designed. Much has been said of the chess combat that the Doom enemies perform, with each enemy type given a pretty role like pieces in a Chess combat. The location of enemies, the number of enemies, and the type of enemies really change how combat plays out. While I like mil-sims, I prefer the combat of really defined enemies that do have these very specific roles in games like Doom, Halo, Destiny, etc. And Doom nails it in 1993.

One thing I didn’t know is how different Doom 1 and Doom 2 feel. Doom 1 is largely slower paced with fewer enemies. For a game series known as run and gun, there is a LOT of peeking around corners, firing, and running back into cover to avoid getting shot by hit-scanners. Doom 2 emphasizes larger arena-style gameplay, but also more monster closets and traps that I enjoy quite a bit less.

I’d say both are 10/10 games. I’m getting into some mapmaking and playing with mods, for which like have like thirty years of catching up to do.

In Final Fantasy XIV I'm currently working on clearing the most recent Savage raid tier. I just cleared the final fight's "door boss" - for those who are unfamiliar, the final fight of a Savage tier is often split into 2 separate phases with some kind of transformation cutscene between them, and a checkpoint. This does mean clearing up to the checkpoint every time we go into the raid to access the second boss, but now that we've done it once, we can do it again and again more easily.

I'm already well past the point beyond which this becomes my slowest tier to clear in the Endwalker expansion, with Asphodelos and Abyssos cleared in 4 and 2 weeks respectively. That said, with no Ultimate release coming after this tier, there's no "pressure" to make sure I'm BiS by a certain timeline, which is a big part of why I've taken it much more slowly, despite clearing the first 3 bosses in the first 3 days in Party Finder. If I'm not BiS by Criterion release, then Criterion can wait. Surely if I just search hard enough I can find people to do the content late.

Completed a few games recently:

1. Teardown: A fully destructible, path traced voxel world with a fun heist campaign, providing a good amount of variety in gameplay. Now has a creative mode to make your own creations. I had a blast (heh) playing it.
2. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe: I don't think this game needs an introduction. Glad I finally got around to trying it.
3. Dadish 3: Not sure how I came across it, but I had so much fun playing it. The cutesy artstyle may fool you into thinking it's a kids game, but it's a fantastic 2D platformer of moderate difficulty. Free to play on Android and iOS with a $2.99 IAP to remove ads.

I just played Dredge over the weekend and loved it. It's a fun little fishing simulator combined with a Lovecraftian series of quests into the eldritch horrors that lurk beneath the surface.

I've been playing Valheim a lot lately. I host a server and have some friends that play with me.

I can't seem to put away the division 2 for some reason. I think it's the ability to jump in with a random group and the build diversity. Also the seasons have been releasing new ish content. There is also a new play mode "descent" I'm kinda into.

I'm also planning to start a 7 days to die play through.

Other than that I've got a decent retro setup and have been playing lots of Mario cart double dash with my kids.

Ghost of tsushima on PS5... i just feel burned out on "assassin creed games" so im struggling to pick it up again. Combat i feel is meh (no target lock, sloppy switching sub weapons, context menu's are too finicky)

Parasite Eve I & II on retro handheld. Its been 20+ years. Enjoying it.

Playing Jaipur, Lost cities w/ my GF. And Pit, Clue with my kids and GF.

Nintendo Switch

• Overcooked. Though I find the controls finicky and the icons small, now that we're getting to later levels it's really hard to steer the character between cliffs and lava... imo it should be about optimizing the kitchen operations, not optimizing your joystick and eyesight

(below is all PC games)

RTS

• Age of Empires 1. Did you know you can do co-op and have different people manage different parts of your empire? Select the same color online and you'll both control the units. My girlfriend does base management: crank out units, manage resources. I take them and micromanage fights and get insane K:D ratios. The same limits apply for every team (we set 75 population limit) but it's a real force multiplier to divide tasks among your warlords.
• Beyond All Reason. Fun open source RTS game, with some of the praise points being the insanely good keyboard hotkeys and infinite zoom in one fluid motion. Besides 0AD I think it's the only big open source game that I know with good graphics.
• Creeper World 3. Not sure how to describe it, it's a bit different from real RTS but this category fits the best. Probably best to watch a gameplay video. Easy to learn, hard to master, I've finished the campaign but still come back to it occasionally

Miscellaneous

• Geographical Adventures has a nice video series where he explains (showing some code) the making of. Pretty and open source pay-what-you-want minigame where you fly around the world and have to pick up and drop off packages, basically training your geographic knowledge. I get super competitive for some reason, post your highscore if you played this :D

Simulation

• Factorio needs to be mentioned, in case you're one of today's lucky ten thousand
• Oxygen Not Included: somehow I keep coming back to the game, and somehow I always get stuck around the same point. Things are working okay but it's all extractive and getting circular/renewable resources going on seems to be unattainable, so I feel like I constantly need to find plenty of resources to consume, which takes more and more time because they need to walk further, which means they get less done for the same resources... and then I quit the game for another six months. Don't understand why the game doesn't offer any guidance on what you're supposed to do after the first couple obvious things. So not sure I'd recommend but, at the same time, I have to admit I keep playing so.. maybe?

Citizen Sleeper

Just now finishing up my 3rd playthrough. Jacob Gellar mentioned it in his Top 10 Games of 2022 video, and boy am I glad he did because I honestly doubt I ever would have played it otherwise. In my experience, it's been one of those games where most people I've talked to have neither heard of nor played it, but those who have are equally as delighted by it as I am. It's a text-based sci fi rpg in which you play as a human consciousness stuck in a robot body, stranded on a remote space station, in which you spend the game surviving, exploring, making friends/enemies, and trying to either escape the station or build a life there. Character art is imaginative, detailed, and beautiful, and the writing is possibly the best I've ever seen in this type of game. And the gameplay loop is surprisingly addictive! You get a handful of d6 dice at the beginning of each in-game day to assign to whichever actions you'd like to complete, with the dice numbers corresponding to the odds of a good outcome for that action, and you lose dice if you're injured or starving. The developer recently announced there will be a sequel and I couldn't be more excited.

Solar Ash

This one's an action-platformer where you have space roller blades - movement and exploration is an absolute blast. The game world is vibrant and trippy - you're in planetary ruins near a black hole and gravity is all messed up in areas, causing the horizon to twist in unnatural ways. I found the story to be passable, but mostly uninteresting until reaching the end of the game, where there are some incredible twists that maybe someone smarter than me may have seen coming, but for me were totally unexpected and took my story rating through the roof. I'm working on a hardcore playthrough and getting my ass handed to me, but still having the time of my life.
Also, the game is from the studio that made Hyper Light Drifter, and while the games aren't directly related, I did read that they take place in the same universe!

Genesis Noir

This is the game I recently started. It has an art style that might not be very everyone but I immediately found myself captivated by it. It adds so much flavor to the puzzle-solving experience. Thinking about it, some might find the puzzles a little simplistic? It is self-described in the tags as "point and click". For me, it's more about experiencing the art. I don't typically select games with "being difficult" as a necessary quality. This is the type of game you play because you want to enjoy the art, the music, the atmosphere. If you prefer direct storytelling, need dialogue to follow a narrative, or hate jazz, I would not recommend this. But for anyone who likes "art turned game" style experiences, I'd say check out the trailer and see what you think.

Pummel Party

I think this is most easily described as an online alternative to Mario Party. If your online friend group enjoys mini-games or destroying trust with sabotage then you'll enjoy this. This is just plain, good, party-style fun. It's a little rough around the edges but in the best way possible and even when I'm losing, I'm having fun.

Hi-Fi RUSH

One of the most fun games I've played in recent memory. If you like music, funky art, innovative combat then please check this one out. The characters are great, the dialogue and voice acting are well done. Everything feels very polished. This truly feels like a game made by people who love games. I'm not good at rhythm games, but that doesn't hold me back whatsoever - there's even a mode for people who want to focus more on the story than the combat. Highly replayable, highly addictive. Everything about this game just feels like FUN. And if you're the type who is a rhythm perfectionist, then I think this will provide you an excellent challenge.

Sons of the Forest

This is everything I loved about The Forest and turned up to 11. There's just more of all my favorite things. It has one of the most intuitive and fun building systems I've encountered in a game. The devs made it SO satisfying to build a log wall - placing the logs looks, feels, and sounds great. There's so many surprising little bits of customization and it seems like they've continued to add a lot of the flavorful decor items that were missed in the initial launch. The game itself is gorgeous - I wasn't expecting such a large upgrade from the first game but the devs really delivered. The island genuinely feels large and worth exploring for all its secrets and they've added even more things to do and see since launch. And while there are always some hiccups with multiplayer, I would say that the co-op is one of the more stable and enjoyable I've experienced. As far as the story goes...I'm going to hide this part for those who prefer to blind play their games.

I've played a ton more this year - League of Legends (my most hated favorite addiction), Garden Galaxy (it's pretty, there's no objective, it's relaxing, charming, and you should absolutely give it a peek), Pokemon Violet, Dying Light 2, Street Fighter 6, Bear and Breakfast, Ruined King (even for non-League players, this is an excellent, challenging turn-based RPG), and more. Feel free to ask me anything about a game I mentioned or if you're looking for specific genre recommendations. I'd be happy to provide more :)

Inscryption.

I didn't know much about this game before going in and I definitely recommend that approach. I tried the demo for this on Geforce Now and just got sucked in from there. Super impressed with the creative style and mechanics for this deck building game. I can see going on a deeper dive for deck building games as a result, got my eye on Slay the Spire next.

Monster Hunter Stories 2
Was just semi-recently on Steam sale and while I already had it on Switch and got distracted before I beat it, I bought it again to play on Deck and it's such a great game to play in bed just chilling. It says "Unsupported" for Steam Deck on the store page and that is completely false. I have no idea why it says that. The game is actually more playable on Deck than Switch because the top rated community layout has turbo buttons for all the monster clashes so you don't have to repeatedly tap anything. I'm deep into the game, I haven't hit a single issue.

As for the gameplay itself, if you like taming monsters, especially moveset/trait crafting, grinding to create that perfect Ratha, Destroyer of Worlds and then unleashing it upon the monster legions, this is for you. You will be searching for rare monster dens to swipe their eggs, hatch them, harvest genetics, and add them to your own monsters. There's also a lot of monster armor and weapons to craft to equip onto your player character but you contribute a tiny amount of damage vs your monster companions--your gear is more cosmetic than anything. But you still want to look cool.

I also really love the dynamic between the Hunters and Riders, their societies are totally different and while the game encourages understanding each other, I gotta say... only one city is spewing black smoke into the atmosphere and it isn't the Rider ones. I'd love a more mature game down the road that leans heavily into the tensions between Hunters and Riders this game explores, please let us have a full on war, I'm ready to toast some Hunters... one thing this game will absolutely do is get you to think about where you stand. You may see the Monster Hunters in a different light after being on the outside of their organization.

Just started playing Archvale and Deep Space Derelicts on the Switch.

For Archvale: On the surface, it promises a bullet-hell RPG with customization in the form of weapons, armor, helmet, and badges (like paper mario). Unfortunately, the rpg aspect is it's weakest point for me. I enjoy bullet-hell games with Enter the Gungeon striking the balance of rogue-like / dungeon crawler.
Archvale struggles to hit that same appeal due to weapons feeling fairly weak and enemies feeling a touch too spongey. It isn't a terrible game, just not one I would recommend if Enter the Gungeon is your preference.

Deep Space Derelicts is an interesting turn-based dungeon crawler akin to Darkest Dungeon without as heavy of penalties early on. The artwork is beautiful and the sound design is good. Movement in the derelicts isn't as punishing as the torch system in Darkest Dungeon, but you do have to monitor energy reserves because it is your catch all resource. This one feels more promising than Archvale at the moment.

I just recently finished Steelrising, and I'm happy to say that I enjoyed it a lot more than I initially thought I would. I fell into the "Dark Souls influences every game you play after it trap" a few years back and while I still enjoy a great variety of genres, I've found myself mostly drawn to Metroidvania, Soulslike, and Zelda-like games that more or less take a hands-off approach to letting the player loose in their worlds, but not so hands off that it's a sandbox-y or primarily intrinsic motivation driven game. To that end, I've been trying anything in those genres that catches my eye and most recently it was Spiders' AA entry into the soulslike genre.

Steelrising managed to hit a really nice middleground where it had the engaging, slow, "danger around every corner" exploration in a hand-crafted word that I crave, but it was also more direct with its story. It had lots of cutscenes, plenty of conversations with NPCs, side quests with branching choices, and the story was directly driven by your character's involvement rather than only after a cataclysmic event like in the Souls series. It tries a few new things with resource management and stamina usage and makes it all fit into a world where your character is an automaton, nicely tying together the bonfire and stamina mechanics. There are areas where the game could certainly have used more polish if they had infinite time or money to spend, but honestly, there wasn't really anything that I could point to and say it took me out of the game. It's a safe implementation of a few new ideas in an established mold done by a team that wanted to recreate certain aspects while still trying out some new ideas, and I felt that it really worked. I'm excited to try more from Spiders' recent catalog (Greedfall is next up!) and seeing what ideas they have that they try to implement within the limits of their scope; the limitations that come with indie or AA development seem to always have outcomes I'm happy to explore, even if they're not perfect!

Foxhole

It's an incredible but insanely addictive game where there is always something to be done. An isometric (not top down) mmo war with 2 different factions that each have separate weapons/vehicles. You pick a side and fight until the required number of towns are captured by one side, usually 15-30 days per war. Throughout the war different tech is unlocked where you start from just a few guns/grenades/vehicles all the way to super tanks. Almost everything is made by the players, e.g. bases, facilities, weapons/ammo, and vehicles. This makes the consequences feel authentic and gives a real sense of loss and thrill. There really is nothing like it and I'm extremely hooked.

Above the general gameplay. It is fascinating that the faction fighting bleeds out into the community making it terrible. The official channels are their subreddit and discord, both a mess, but almost like a train wreck you want to goggle at. Always politics, fighting, positioning for buffs/nerfs for the other side, complaining, insulting, etc. Would be fascinated by some type of breakdown on whats going on with it all. Like a documentary on ape gangs.

(I've been playing Guild Wars 2 mostly, but the real reason I'm commenting here is...)

Space Haven is on sale for the next few days, and it's on my wishlist. Has anyone here played this? Care to share your opinion, and sway me to buy or not buy?

Lately I have been playing Fallout 76. I love the game context, with the well-written storyline and sidequests, with a sidedish of griding to get that right pair of armor pieces. The game came a long way since launch, with a solid storyline, amazing community and enough grinding so you won't get bored for a while.

Battlefield 2042 and various mobile games as I try to find other things to occupy my time.

By all accounts, the release of 2042 was rough, and it deserved nearly, if not all, criticisms that were thrown at it. But I got it on sale on a whim after reading some comments and reviews saying it had gotten better, and I'm incredibly satisfied. The graphics and sound design are great, I like the maps (except the ship yard map, why do companies think we want to play around shipping containers), the gunplay feels good, and I'm a big fan of how you can customize your gun with multiple attachments, and swap them out depending on what the circumstances call for.

I tried hopping on Battlebit: Remastered, and it's just not hitting the same way. Not sure why, I know it's objectively a better game, but I just prefer the gameplay of 2042. It may be due to the scale, I feel like I'm just running across the map half the time when I play BB. It's in my library though, so no reason I can't try it again.

Moving on from PC, I've surprisingly been having a lot of fun with mobile games lately. I don't see myself logging onto Reddit again any time soon, so I've been trying to find other ways to spend my time, both online and off. Reading more books, checking news apps more, but also mobile games, specifically Tiny Tower and Super Auto Pets.

Tiny Tower is a simple, dumb little game, and although I know full well that it's taking advantage of the rewards center of my brain, I am here for it. Whereas Super Auto Pets is a surprisingly deep little auto-battler, where battles are won before they even begin due to pet placement, skills, etc. I thought it was just another dumb little time-waster, but there's actually a level of strategy involved that I wasn't expecting. Who knew!

I have been playing MLB the Show 23 with 2 of my friends. It makes me really miss the classic NCAA games they had on probably PS2.

Six Days in Fallujah came out on early access for PC (Steam). It’s intended to put you in the experience of being in Fallujah and in close quarter firefights, room clearings. It’s one of the best audio and experiential games. It was heavily designed alongside veterans who were there, Iraqis who fought, as well as civilians. I have been really enjoying it.

Started Planet of Lana now. You control a child native to a beautiful forested world whose entire village (spoilers?) is kidnapped by invading spider robot aliens. Lana has no special abilities - she can't jump very high and will die if she falls from a height - but she befriends a critter who she can command to "sit", "come here", "go there" or, uh, gnaw on ropes? It's a puzzle platformer, of course. The art is gorgeous.

My main go to game has always been World of Warcraft. I've been involved in every aspect of the game at some point or another, high end pvp, mythic raiding and mythic+. The newest expansion, dragonflight, has been a huge breath of fresh air compared to the last two expansions. I don't feel pressured to play daily anymore for the risk of falling behind on gear progression. Compared to my life during those two expansions, I can't just play the game anymore all day everyday. I have a job, wife, and two kids now and I'm glad dragonflight is in a state where I can only raid log or log on to run a key or two before being done without falling behind.

Recently, in my downtime from wow, I've also been playing a lot of Oxygen not Included (oni)and just got into Kingdom Come Deliverance.

Oni is a nice little colony/engineering sim. You have to keep little duplicates alive and they definitely try their best not to stay alive. You have to figure out how to build and design food, oxygen, power, etc. for your base.

Kingdom come deliverance is a different style game from what I normally play. It's a medieval times rpg set in the 1400s in Bohemia. Some of the style of play reminds me of the Witcher 3 and it's been super fun to play so far.

I primarily play RPG/FPS games, but I recently started picking up Fighting Games. It felt like a huge learning curve, but once I got into the nitty gritty like frame data, I really started enjoying it a lot more.
Getting over that recent mental block made the game feel less like panicing to get out of a combo to actually trying to read my opponent and make logical choices in response.

Warframe

I've tried to get into it three times before, I would always finish the tutorial (which is very short and not comprehensive at all) and then get confused by the amount of stuff there is to do.

This time I made myself bear through the complexities and ignore anything I don't know about until I'm ready to research them online.

Now I'm Mastery Rank 8 and pretty much addicted. For a decade old game it has some very glaring flaws (especially technical/graphical), but if you ignore that, it's a very nerdy and casual game until you decide to actually engage with the meta and then it gets very complex and grindy.

For me the appeal is that there is always something to work on, and missions are 15-30 minutes long. You can also play solo (which lets you pause the game at any time) or multiplayer (which is obviously realtime, but you get better rewards).

I really recommend giving it a try, but keep in mind you will need a browser tab open at all times with the wiki, and one with /r/warframe so you can research things you don't understand.

Also i love that it's marketed as "space ninjas", but it's mostly hack and slash (or shooter, but I prefer melee) with very little stealth, most characters are not ninjas (mine is a gladiator) and the space parts are actually boring.

Duelyst II

This is a redo of the original game. The developer apparently made the code base open source and a couple of other developers took it up to get it going again. Duelyst II is available on Steam, and I can't track down the different version just yet to link here for fair representation.

It is a free-to-play Card battler, with six factions each themed around different play styles. The game pits two players and the deck they construct against each other on a 9 x 5 square grid. I love the creativity that people have been able to build their decks out with. Each game is like playing Chaos chess, and puzzles at the same time. I might be in the minority with this opinion. Anyways I just great like for this game.

Rocket League

Soccer with cars ... I finally stumbled on this game when it made its way to the Nintendo Switch. I have invested quite a few hours into it in the last year. I picked up a Steam Deck so I could play this game on a more responsive machine then my Switch. It is beautiful what some of the top players are able to pull off mechanics wise. I find myself enjoying getting better bit by bit ( I am only low Plat at this time). I am never going to be a pro, but I enjoy trying to improve. Toxicity of chatz can be annoying, but I have just taken on a policy of letting it go when I see it, and encouraging those that make honest mistakes.

20XX

I have been a long-time fan of Capcoms Megaman franchise. I became an even bigger fan when the X series became available. When I was searching Steam for Megaman offerings, the 20XX and 30XX games came up as alternatives in my search results a couple of months ago. 20XX takes the Megaman series, and adds Rogue game mechanics, as well as randomization of Boss levels. Makes for interesting replay value.

Diablo IV - Tried the demo and liked it, on release a lot of friends got it so here I am.
Spiritfarer - it's free with Netflix, been checking out their game catalog.

Skyrim

Honestly, I'm getting into Skyrim a decade late. Starfield got my hyped for a space RPG, and since I already had Skyrim on Steam from some super sale I just decided to dive into Bethesda's game design philosophy.

I feel like Skyrim is this huge, expansive world with so many options for main story, side quests, roleplay, magic, alchemy, dragon-fighting, puzzle solving, combat strategy, etc, and it gives the player a chance to do it all at their own pace. I honestly can't believe I hadn't played it much until this past month.

Stardew Valley

I'm also going through Stardew Valley on my Switch, and it's just a phenomenal time-filler when I'm on transit or if my girlfriend is watching garbage on tv :D It's so cute, and roleplaying a new-to-town farmer who has to get to know the townsfolk, grow crops, raise animals, and explore the secrets of the town is so much more fun than it sounds.

Being completionist with Monster Hunter Rise/Sunbreak as the title is now fully realized with all the updates and bonus content.

Having fun with the Early Access of Satisfactory but I'm taking a break until they iron the whole experience out. 80 hours in and I'm barely breaking the surface of what the game offers.

On a hiatus from Deep Rock Galactic as my buddies have grown somewhat tired of it. Hopefully the new season's content draws us back in.

Exploring Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and the Nier series as well as Capcom classics during downtimes.

I find myself looking at older titles that I haven't given a chance yet, mostly console ports that were critically acclaimed. Somewhat excited for Starfield though, might be time for a hardware upgrade to enjoy that title to its fullest.

Tears of the Kingdom has been the only game I've played. Lots of running around in the Depths, I cleared all four temples, and am working on the shrines. I specifically do notbwant to fight Gannon at the end because I know when those credits roll I'll dip.

I like the mechanics, the more I play away from the story, the more I love it. The main story has some jank, mostly in how it can be revealed (implied, but unenforced sequences for discovery of key story notes), so it's something of a relief to know I don't need to worry about that as much. Now it's just "I see a thinf I haven't been on yet, how do I do that?"

Yesterday I got Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. The original Another Wonderful Life back on GameCube was my first Harvest Moon game, so lots of nostalgia! So far haven't even finished spring yet, but I love it. It managed to keep the spirit of the original one, even the character redesigns try to stick close to the base. I'm also happy the bachelors actually look decent. The very first game was originally made with a male player in mind, and uh... It really showed with the romance options. ^^;

BUT! Now they look good AND we can date either gender. This is the first time in a while I've liked so many different romance options in one of these games, I'm actually split on who to date!

One more thing: The physical copy has a booklet. That is so dang rare these days. I pity children who never got to experience the joy of reading a booklet in the car ride home and get even more hyped for the game.

(For those who don't know, there's licensing weirdness involved in the English hemisphere, so: modern Harvest Moon games are a separate brand since Lost Valley. Story of Seasons is the continuation of the original Japanese game series.)

I've reached the point where I've lost interest in Tears of the Kingdom. I enjoyed it a bunch but the temples don't do it for me so I think I'm gonna call it a day.

Elden Ring was on sale though so I finally picked that up. I know I'm like a year and a half late but oh man that game is good! I'm really enjoying the exploration! I've definitely gotten absolutely annihilated by big scary beasties a few times in my first couple of hours but I'm finding it somehow less infuriating than Dark Souls?

I got sucked into Batman Arkham games again, played through Arkham City and still loved it, possibly the best superhero game ever made. Started playing Origins which I never actually played before and I see why it was least popular of the Arkham games, so far seems like they just changed the map and story but kept everything else from City and it feels a bit dull that there doesn't seem to be much gameplay improvements aside from being able to hit enemies that are stunned on the ground so it's a bit easier to keep the combo going on. Combat is still quite satisfying though, I think the Arkham style fighting works really well on melee combat games, liked it in Spiderman and Shadow of Mordor series a lot as well.

I just beat Planet of Lana. It was fun but the puzzles had the same difficulty and never got harder. Story is barely existent, but it’s a pretty game and I still enjoyed it. Before that, I beat Stealth Inc. It was all right. Had some rough moments but it’s okay overall.

Then there was the new Zelda title. Loved that. 110 hours to beat it. Right now, I’m working on Alundra, Cyberpunk 2077, and Lost Winds.

Diablo 4 - Though it has its flaws, the game’s story, voice acting, and core gameplay are worth the trade-offs. I finished the main campaign a bit under level 60 as a Hardcore Sorcerer. I’ll come back to it once more story expansions release.

Final Fantasy XVI - I’m addicted to this game. The story is exactly what I wanted from a fantasy series. Mature, dark themes set in a fantasy world which takes itself seriously. The boss battles are gigantic spectacles that truly feel like titanic clashes between godlike entities. The game has its weaknesses, but they’re easily overlooked if any of the above appeals to you.

FFXIV : Sort of the game I play frequently, though recently I'm focusing on other games, that game has a very good soundtrack, some of the raids and trials are REALLY good and fun, though it's a story first game, despite being an MMO, which isn't sort of what you'd expect from it.
Endwalker's story was pretty comfy, but the difficulty of base content(non Savage or Extreme) is significantly lower than Shadowbringers, which is something I don't like about Endwalker.
Story starts really slow, but if you can bear through A Realm Reborn, the stupid parts of Heavensward, you get to Stormblood which while most fans don't like it, I thought it was a pleasant ride, it doesn't have the highs of Heavensward, but none of the lows as well.

Gal Guardians:
A weird hybrid between classic Casltevania and Metroivania/Modern Castlevania.
Not then biggest fan of Metroidvanias, but Gal Guardians stages are linear with some branching paths in the middle of the stage, with secrets that you need abilities to unlock.
I like it, I finished it a few days ago but only got the worst(?) ending in it.
It is a part of the Gal*Gun games which I plan on playing down the line.

*Ori and the Will of the Wisps:
The second Ori game, It has boss battles, instead of events like the first game, the music is good, you got more abilities to use, I think I'll need to actually finish it to have a more concrete about it.

Etrian OdysseyIV:
The fourth Etrian Odyssey game, my first Etrian game, but one of the last I finished.
The start is pretty rough, in terms of soundtrack I find it one of the worse ones, too. The dungeons are pretty short compared to the other games(but it has more dungeons).
The post game is probably the easiest in all of the games, which considering that pretty much all the previous post game superbosses were unfair, I'd say that's a good thing.
Despite that, it has some of the more fun classes in the entire series, while not a favorite, it's a game I liked more after playing the other games first.

Etrian OdysseyII:
The second Etrian game but on DS, I've played its remake on 3DS but I wanted to play all of the games, including the ones that got remade. I returned to it to defeat the superboss, of the games I did the post game in (I,II,IV), this one probably has the worst one to fight uncheesed.
The game despite being remade I think holds up, if you don't mind some old game jank.
Geomag poles being one way, except the ones at the start of the strata.
Mapping still lacking enough icons to draw a fully detailed map(esp if you have warp puzzles).
I'm unsure if I would prefer this over the remake but I think I might.

The Final Fantasy pixel remaster I ordered at the end of April finally arrived.

I finished FFII and just started FFIII (the original three, not six) I honestly don't think Ive ever played this one and am rather enjoying myself.