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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Posted last week that I had started Pentiment. Well I finished it, and it's just as good as stated previously.
Seriously: top-notch story, characters, setting, attention to detail, historic flavor, everything. There's not a single bad thing I can think of to say about this incredible game. The closest thing I have to a criticism is that the gameplay consists of just running around and talking to people. But really that's on me more than anything since I just wasn't too used to that type of game (interactive stories). Usually the story-focused games I've played had some element of combat or rpg or something, but Pentiment is just all story, no fluff. If you go into it with the mentality of a choose-your-own-adventure movie, then you wouldn't even notice.
In short: 10/10 game and anyone (gamer or otherwise) with a love of history should definitely check it out.
I really need to play it, it’s been on my wishlist forever. I’ve been in a medieval/renaissance mood lately and I’m kind of in a holding pattern until I know if Avowed is good or bad and if it’s bad I’ll need to get something like Pentiment to satisfy me.
Oh yeah then you'll definitely love it. I too had been meaning to play it forever. Finally bit the bullet during one of the recent holiday sales (think it might have even been the black friday sale) and just finally got around to playing it now. And damn is it worth it. I'd save it for a cozy weekend where you plan on staying in 2-3 days and then just power through it as if it was a movie marathon.
The new dungeon for Destiny 2, Sundered Doctrine, came out on Friday! I did not attempt contest mode, my clan and I instead did blind normal runs (normal combat difficulty but we figured out the mechanics and puzzles ourselves instead of watching the dungeon race or guides). This dungeon is great, though. There’s some fantastic lore, great aesthetics, and some fun loot. Rhulk’s Pyramid is my favorite location in the game and I’m excited to go back there! The difficulty is also great, it provided an appropriate challenge for a first run, but is very repeatable after learning the mechanics and the bosses have reasonable health values instead of having to 5 phase. My third attempt had us two phasing each boss which I think is a good balance spot for an activity that you ultimately need to run 15+ times to get the loot you want.
I also finally picked up Manor Lords after the recent updates. It still has a ways to go, for example the perks and policy trees aren’t very deep yet, but the base gameplay is insanely good and very customizable. It’s closer to a resource management and worker placement game than something like Cities Skylines, but there’s still a level of satisfying building placement. As someone who doesn’t want to learn a million things in a new game, I think it’s concentrated well enough for me to get very into it, but still with enough complexity to reward multiple playthroughs.
For my first game, I’m playing without opposing armies or bandits so I can get a hang of the management (I don’t play many games like this), but I will eventually do a city with that turned on since it gives you a lot of influence and that seems pretty crucial to expanding your kingdom (in my peaceful playthrough I’m currently running out of food until I expand but I can’t expand without tithing food which is not good because I’m already on a razor’s edge).
One thing I wanted to mention is how technically impressive this game is. This game is made by a mostly solo dev, is 15gb, is beautiful, and the level of detail is absurd, like how all the livestock in people’s backyards get names or how you can walk around your city. It’s a very cool game and while it lacks the depth right now of some finished games in its genre, I’m excited by what it has so far and where it’s going.
That's good to hear about Manor Lords! I've been waiting for it to get a little more fleshed out before picking it up (I'm sure I will get it eventually) but I was really hoping it would be more management-focused and less sandbox-ish, if you know what I mean.
Ever played Northgard? That game has you manage happiness, food stores, culture, and trade with a coat of RTS painted on it for combat.
Manor Lords is that, except far far more in depth and serious. It's realistic (to a point) and goes much further in its management of goods and services. Certain types of soil are required for certain crop types, and you must build wells on underground water sources.
Traders and goods physically move across the map to the point large amounts of trade may congest roads and trade houses, potentially delaying goods required for building or sustainability.
Different regions can be settled and each will have other types of resources, soil, soil fertility, woodlands, game, and even something as better road access.
It's sandboxy in the way that it allows you to build your settlement in the layout you want, while focusing on what you like -agriculture, apiaries, livestock, trade- either through perks or predefined access to resources, but being somewhat restrained by aforementioned fertility, access to water, and physical access to goods by villagers (like actually picking up food and wood from food stores or storages). It's all reminiscent of the Anno games.
Then on top of that, this game has a Total War level of combat that requires you to fight well since every soldier that dies is one that can no longer tend to your crops. You raise banners by enlisting your local citizenry, so a protracted war or lots of casualties will cause your economy to collapse. This is to simulate campaign seasons more than anything.
It's absurd how polished and in depth this game is even at this point.
People often mention it's a single developer which is technically true, but he does enlist contractors every now and then. Which I think is probably for the better.
Yes, actually. Thanks for the comparison, that makes a lot of sense.
And thank you for the in depth answer! The more I read about this game the more I want to play it. Next time I have some time off I'll get it and hopefully be hooked.
Mind that Northgard is a lot more arcadey RTS and Manor Lords is much more Anno 1602 meets Cities: Skyline with a sprinkle of Knights & Merchants and a dash of Total War.
I think the Northgard comparison still makes sense, but moreso because of the interconnectedness of the resources.
Yeah and it’s still a sandbox, it’s up to you to learn where to place your buildings and how to balance mining, farming, food, population, etc, but it feels more directed than playing Roller Coaster Tycoon or Cities Skylines where it’s basically “here’s the map, start placing things”. It pretty specifically tells you what your town needs (shows how many months of food and fuel you have, what amenities citizens need, etc).
It almost feels a bit more like an RTS or 4x game (based on vibes, it isn’t as deep as a 4X), which I’m enjoying. It’s also very relaxing, there were a few times where I just sat back and watched my city run for 15 minutes while trying to build up some supplies and watch my trade routes work.
Ahh good to know, thanks. That's about what I'd hoped for.
Been waiting for the Cyberpunk 2077 official Mac release before giving that game a real play, so killing time with UFO 50 which was slow to grow on me but once it got me it really got me.
It’s middle-age gamer bait for sure. A series of 50 game cartridges for a fictitious console with a lore and backstory for the game studio that developed the games throughout the 80s.
The games tend to represent the best and worst of the era. Weird control schemes, extremely basic 8-bit graphics, sometimes punishingly difficult to start. Typical routine with each of the games is I hate it for about 20 minutes, maybe try to start and go to a different game a few times, then eventually I “get” the gameplay loop and play obsessively until I beat the game. Just finished Golfaria which is like Zelda if Link was a golf ball.
I normally play very long games that take over your life, heavy on Elden Ring and also play a lot of the Yakuza series when they come out. This is a refreshing “play for 20 minutes or a couple hours” kind of game, change of pace for me and nice to not need to put in 80 hours of grinding levels to get through the smaller games.
Lol I've never seen anything described like that before but you're completely right. Thanks for the recommendation, it looks awesome and nostalgic even though I'm not usually a big retro-gamer.
That sounds wonderful. It's a big reason why I love roguelikes so much. Life's too busy nowadays, so being able to play for an hour and then just put it down is a big plus.
Adding it to my wishlist now.
I'll add that UFO 50 is fantastic on the Steam Deck -- to the point that I haven't even bothered to install it on my desktop machine. I've been playing it exclusively in little snacks on my Steam Deck. (And I find the "play for 20 minutes or a couple hours" thing is kind of what the Steam Deck is made for.)
Weirdly enough, I've been playing Team Fortress 2. I say weirdly because I am generally not the type to enjoy FPS games, although TF2 is much more casual and silly than the way some people play other FPS games so I'm vibing with it a bit.
I started because my friends play it regularly. I am pretty bad at it, but I do like playing Medic and Scout and Heavy. I'm neutral on Soldier, Pyro, and Sniper and terrible with Spy, Demoman, and Engineer. I'm interested in Engineer but I don't really know any of the maps well, so I'm never sure where to put my things.
Honestly, I don't really care about being good at it, it's just something to do with my computer friends on a regular basis. I really look forward to it.
How's the bot problem lately? Last time I tried to get back into TF2, I was getting 360 no-scoped from snipers flying through the sky.
If the bots have been fixed, I don't know that a game old enough to vote needs a seconded recommendation, but TF2 is my favorite FPS of all time. Silliness is the right word for it, but it's also super well balanced.
I've spent hundreds of hours just on the map ctf_doublecross, and I consider it to be the greatest map in the history of FPSs. If your group is ever voting between two maps, always push for Double Cross. If you want to be obscenely mobile with Scout, the Force of Nature, the Winger, and the Atomizer loadout functionally gives you quadruple jump, and on Double Cross, you can capture the flag in something like 25 second, intel room to intel room.
Just typing this out made me go reinstall the game.
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.
Oop, late on this! But apparently there was a ban wave right as I started a few months ago, so I only experienced like, a day or two of bots. I think they've been kept in check since then.
Double Cross is my BFF's favourite map too! She likes to play Demoknight and collect Sniper heads there. I've only got about 20 hours of actual playtime, so I don't have a ton of opinions yet.
Has a bit of time to dig into a few city-builders ive been putting off for a while.
The big one is Manor Lords. Wanted to wait for Early Access to get some meat on it and I'm not disappointed. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of the combat, I was happy to put 50hrs into a peaceful map. Got a massive central city facilitating trade with and between several smaller settlements dotted around it. It hits a lot of similar notes as the old pharaoh and caesar games so it wasn't hard to get lost in the setting. Even caught myself role playing little things about village life and rearranging things to be narratively friendly.
It really feels like the game needs a few more injections of content specifically in ways to differentiate between games and even settlemens. The holes in the tech tree are pretty glaring while the map generation doesn't really encourage a lot of layout variety. The same goes for occupation specific home models and even a few new products and super high value supply chains. Books, preserves, war machines and cheese would make for excellent investment products. Lastly I would throw all the money i can at a gothic fantasy dlc or mod, complete with Grimm Fairytale hazards and the ability to play a witch or vampire.
The other city builder is IXION. It was sold to me as Frostpunk in space and I'd say its actually Frostpunk 1.5. Theres still the individual placement of buildings and staff assignments in your giant generation ship (think Medina station from The Expanse). But there is a lot of explpration across solar systems and constant management of supply lines like in FP2.
The game starts strong with what seemed like a solid tutorial and smooth unwrapping of the story. And my issues start to pile up when you crash into the first chapter. I think it runs into a scope mismatch issue that Frostpunk 2 avoided. You go from harvesting goods on your local map during the tutorial to becoming wholly dependent on massive and restrictive supply lines for raw materials and processing that have not been covered.
You're also pushed into opening more floor space in the station early because the processing factories are massive, but that new space is considered an independent settlement that needs its own population and infrastructure. And that drives me nuts because its a completely arbitrary distinction.
There is no control on workspace allocations so every facility is either 100% or 0 and you need that flexibility with tight population caps, power limits in the start of the game. And so you're pressed into rapidly expanding population but the demand economy is so poorly communicated that i become aware of starvation only through a crisis indicator and not preempt the issue through a clean graph/rate stat. And the biggest sin in my eyes is fleet management and how it ties to a system of needless resource juggling.
I can see the logic of these systems when you're running 6 segments with tens of thousands of people and dozens of ships. But its not scalable down to the early and even mid game where you are stretched thin and every individual resource counts.
The issue is that i can see the game that it wants to be. And i like it on paper along with its interesting narrative and evocative sound and graphic design. But they seemed to balanced for the destination and not the journey to get there. So it makes for a frustrating uphill battle.
Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about the Manor Lords combat? I don't have it yet but am interested in picking it up eventually and thought that the city-builder-to-rts-strategy dynamic sounded pretty cool.
Its pretty much a case of personal taste. I enjoy RTS with a degree of base building, unit veriety, dynamic maps and more focus on simulation over units stats vs stats. Pretty much Company of Hero's.
For development focused games like Manor Lords, Civ and Endless Space: I play the game prioritizing economics, tech and diplomacy. And it really takes me out of the zone when I'm min-maxing trade networks and then suddenly throwing abstract numbers at each other and hoping mine are bigger.
I will say that Manor Lords does have the skeleton of something interesting, where you can essentially make your own weapons and armor to equip your troops with real production lines. And you can offset your shortcomings by just hireing merc's or importing what you need but at insane mark-ups. So you are making complex choices throughout the game but it grinds to a hault when the actual fighting starts and it becomes a dollar store Total War for me. Could see the system working better if it included factors like extreme terrain/environment systems, spycraft and a military interactions with the population. But thats a lot of asks for a solo dev.
And I do think the conflict sandbox would appeal to a Total War fan or Medieval Military nerd but that's just not my niche.
He frequently outsources work. He is the sole owner and decides everything, but he's not the only developer working on the game.
Not hugely important, but this level of depth is almost unattainable alone. It also means that it may not be too much to ask. Manor interactions and diplomacy can definitely turn into spying and the like.
Got it, thanks for the detailed answer. Maybe the combat will get updated a bit more before the 1.0 release then.
Whoa, you're telling me someone else has actually played IXION other than me? And you are right about the game having a rather unfair difficulty and knowledge spike, compared to the more gradual progression and challenge that both Frostpunk main campaigns have (scenarios are excluded because Fall of Winterhome assumes you beat the main story and is just max difficulty right off the bat).
IXION actually requires significantly more resource micromanagement than Frostpunk does due to needing to manually distribute goods between sectors, needing to worry about docking bay storage limits as a full docking bay can't receive new resource shipments, waste management in both industrial AND housing units, roads taking up actual space on the grid, resources taking actual time to get to facilities so good road planning is actually important, certain facilities only being able to be built on the walls on top of being huge which complicates the very limited space management issue even further, not being able to deconstruct buildings unless there's a road to it and a spare worker, etc, etc. Your first playthrough is more or less doomed to a couple failures and reloading from much older saves unless you're playing on the easiest difficulty because almost none of these things are communicated to the player well.
With all that said though, I still quite like the game, enough to beat it on Challenge difficulty, so I encourage you to push on and finish it at least once, as the better ending is a satisfying payoff for all the pain the game puts you through. Chapter 2 is actually the hardest part of the game, so if you can get past that the rest should be relatively smooth sailing, assuming you make the right choice for one very important exploration decision in chapter 3.
Check out Foundation - it recently hit 1.0 and it's quite fun, if a bit slow. I play on challenge mode though, it may be faster paced on easier difficulties. I've been along for the EA ride with them since 2019(?) or so, and it's been really exciting watching developments over the years. I enjoyed dropping in every couple years to see what's changed and explore new systems, then shelving it for next time.
Edit : this was meant for the op's comment, sorry.
Thanks for the suggestion. I remember giving it a pass way back when because the initial reception was mixed and it looked a bit too much like a mobile game/asset flip. But after a glance at the community feed they have really been putting in the work and looks like it turned out pretty good.
Though I am very surprised that many of the current negative reviews still seem to think that it needed more EA time. (Also find it hilarious that the top negative reviewe had 200hrs on record, left the negative review and still played another 20hrs since.)
Will have to go on the wishlist for now since I set out for only 5 new games this year and I'm already down 2. My hope is that this game gets some sort of graphical or texture mod because something about the style does not really gel with me.
So I gave the game a restart on Monday and went in trying to fully optimize the early game and honestly had worse results by the end of ch2.
And then I gave it one more shot last night, but went in with the intention to just ignore what the game hints is a correct timeline and play at my own speed. Simply because if you got enough food production and use the abundance of iron, you have a lot more time than the game implies.
Ended up turning sector 2 into a logistics hub for most cargo shipping and a sea of warehouses, cryo centers, food production and unskilled worker accommodation. While sector 1 is purely for steel and 3 is dedicated to Polymer, electronics and water.
And that's half of the space gone so I'm curious what the rest of the game would entail. But it's a lot more fun with this methodical approach but it has me curious what the intended playstyle was. Though I'm excited to wrap it up over the next weekend so thanks for the advice.
I'm a juror for the Thinky Awards, so i've mostly been playing a bunch of those nominees. I collected my impressions into a little blog post: https://david.reviews/articles/thinky-awards-2024-impressions/
There's a bunch of good games, but the ones I liked the most / am the most excited to revisit are:
But honestly all of the nominees were fun for their own reasons
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has pulled me into the medieval Czech kingdom of Bohemia once again. I've sunk over 40 hours into it since buying it Friday morning (it's Monday now). I'm nearing what I assume is act one's closing chapter, but I have quite a bit I want to wrap up first.
I'm really enjoying this game. I understand there was some kerfuffle about developer views, but I don't see that reflected in the the game so far.
I am surprised to see only one person discussing this game. I have also been playing it since its release, and I struggle to express clearly why it is just so damn engrossing to play. The game still has crashes, small & major bugs, it’s not the prettiest out there (playing it on the PS5), the UI is very unintuitive, but on the other hand - it is a game crafted with love, dedication; a lot of humor and tragic events; skill and charm. The world & its inhabitants are very compelling, and the quest design is out of this world. Without exaggeration, I have not run into two quests that are alike; that have you do the same thing in the same way; like, say, Skyrim’s frequent fetch/kill quests.
Regardless, I enjoy rolling with the punches and never resort to save scumming (outside of some fights). For some content, there are nice consequences for your actions & choices, for others the developers clearly want it told one single way. But overall, every story, big or small, feels immensely satisfying, and there is such a vast amount of content waiting to be discovered.
I actually find it quite amusing that, very often, what seems like a minor quest from some commoner is a thread that, once pulled, unravels a web of drama and intrigue.
In the end I want to leave some non-spoiler bug warning here: when you are starting a certain early quest that tells you the open world will be unavailable for a while, you will get a list of in-progress quests that the game warns you will be unavailable after that. Well, this is bugged - a sidequest involving a character called Pavlena will be completed & marked as failed without warning, so perhaps try to finish that first. Another one I feel compelled to mention only because it is a pretty big waste of money: don’t buy the Knight’s Sword recipe from the Trojsky blacksmith. That is also bugged, and it doesn’t unlock the recipe for it.
Overall, warts & all, I struggle to remember the last game I enjoyed playing to this degree. And I didn’t even like the first one, perhaps because it was too unpolished & buggy, even after years from release.
I simply haven't had the time to make a post discussing the game properly. It's not necessarily groundbreaking, but it has quite a few intermingling systems that each require some attention when discussing the game.
But I do think you're right and I see this often on the monthly posts, which leads me to the conclusion Tildes gamers often play different types of games other than the larger or more recognizable releases.
Sidenote: the Knight's Sword seems to work for me on PC. Maybe it's a console bug?
This is such a huge draw for me - and it really plays into what I love about a good narrative. When I run a D&D game, I do it very much like the game runs a quest; some small thing catches your eye and as you scratch and dig at it, you find a treasure horde underneath. Masterful. And as you said, no two quests are the same. My favorite has been the one you mentioned about Pavlena, which I've luckily finished already!
I really enjoyed the first game, but I can understand why someone might not, though I find it surprising what reasons you give. I also haven't encountered anything except minor bugs in KC:D2 (looping animation, respawning items, etc) so maybe PC version has a bit more shine than console? I have a decent PC and can run the game on ultra and think it looks fantastic. The biggest graphical issue for me is the torch lighting, it feels half baked and in photo mode it looks absolutely garbage.
I'm really enjoying this game. I've been able to put in another 20 hours since my original post, and haven't even left the first region yet. I think it speaks volumes to the quality of the game that part of my slow progress has been because what I enjoy doing is taking my horse on long, slow walks around the countryside, and that's just grand.
It’s possible the PC version is more polished, sure. As for the first game, I didn’t really give it a chance for more than a couple of hours. I don’t recall exactly what kind of bugs I ran into, but they were enough to make me not want to bother with it.
As for the Pavlena quest… There is some sort of conclusion, even if it’s marked as failed (and I didn’t even witness the events described in the journal for this quest)
My friend gifted me the Factorio: Space Age expansion last week. My free time is now gone and I'm building factories again. It's honestly crazy how much stuff they added, and I only visited one of the new planets so far! If you want to play it, I definitely recommend going into it blind without any spoilers
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Xbox Series S)
I wrote about it a bit a while back. Now I've finished it. For the most part, I loved it, but the final battle is one of the most frustrating video game experiences I've ever had. That and the truly terrible platforming sequence I've mentioned before.
OK, enough negative thoughts. Let's focus on the good stuff. The game captures the feel of the movies very well, and makes me feel like Indy. Much helped by the excellent music, voice acting, and overall sound design. Every tense moment is expertly punctuated by an appropriate musical cue. And even the music playing over the end credits is amazing.
edit:
Oh, one more thing about sound design: Indy groans! When you whip-swing across a pit, Indy will groan in pain as he slams against the wall on the other side, and again from the effort of pulling himself up the ledge. It a small touch of game design, which helps ground the whole thing and make the protagonist feel more human. (Which again is slightly undercut when the game gets cartoonishly over the top at some points.)
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black (PC Game Pass): Finished this weekend. Totaly runtime about 9 hours. Really a great action game with some fighting game sensibilities. In this release the "normal" difficulty is quite tame. I picked up the Xbox 360 release for $8 this weekend so will gie that a spin on original hardware some day.
Very excited for the two(!) Ninja Gaiden games we're expected to get this year!
Ninja Gaiden (NES NSO):
I have this on my NES but I'm playing on switch with save states. It's kind of a second screen game when my partner is watching a show I'm not invested in.
R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (PS5/PS1 Playstation+):
One of the best arcade racers ever. Sitting in a space kind of like Need For Speed, but taking itself a bit more seriously. I absolute love how the cars control in these games. The tracks really are classic.
R4 also introduced the "Grand Prix" format. In this game mode you pick a team (difficulty) and a car manufacturer. You then race through 8 tracks split into two heats and a grand prix. First heat requires you to place 3rd or better, second heat requires 2nd or better, and the final round of four races requires that you place first in every race.
I heard someone call it the "souls-like of racing games" and I see it. Rarely is some "racing game bullshit" impacting your race. It's just finding the best line around the track. I played a bit on PS5 then while out on errands found a PS1 copy at my LGS. I spun that up on original hardware for a couple hours and really enjoyed my time with it.
Eternal Strands (PC Game Pass):
I've heard a bit of buzz around this game from surprising places (some one on Giantbomb was enjoying their time with it, Yahtzee had some surprisingly nice things to say). So I spun it up for a bit.
My first reaction was single player WoW? It doesn't actually play like WoW, but the vibe and aesthetic feels WoW coded in a way that I feel like I'm exploring a world crafted by the WoW team.
But primarily you whack things with a sword or use magic. So far I can spray ice on things and I can throw things around with telekinesis. It has some physics sandboxiness to it too.
Not much to say, I might spend more time with it and be back with more details.
Citizen Sleeper (Steam Deck)
Did I mention this last week? I think maybe. Either way, it's a great story and fits right in between video game, TTRPG, and sci-fi novel.
EDIT:
Donkey Kong Country (SNES NSO)
This game is one of my earliest gaming memories. That I can spin it up on my switch with save states really is the best way to play it.
Last night, Game Grumps inspired me to finally boot up Sonic Adventure 2 on my Steam Deck because I realized from watching them play that I have better muscle memory for this game than Arin despite not having played in ten years or more.
Also, I had a powerful need to see Chao again.
It's as fun as I remembered. Playing without a GameCube controller feels a bit odd, but I'm getting the hang of it. I can appreciate how cheesy some of the cut scenes are now, and also how cinematic some of the levels are. The seagulls flying overhead on one of the jumps in Metal Harbor in particular was such a cool touch. I feel like more recent games don't really do that kind of detail anymore.
The one major hiccup, and tip for anyone else who plans to play it on Steam Deck: when you launch it, you need to go to the player tab in the launcher, and choose "gamepad" for the controller. Almost all the posts I found talked about opening Steam Settings, which did nothing. I think one comment across multiple reddit threads I checked specified to use the player tab.
Balatro - an absurd amount of fun. I didn't think that could be said for roguelite deckbuilding video poker, but jeez, it's problematically addicting. If Steam found a way to let me swipe my credit card for each hand, I'd be in deep trouble. Works great on Steam Deck. There's also a mobile version that I have not bought.
Melvor Idle - I wouldn't describe it as fun, but if your endorphins flow from watching numbers go up, it definitely presses the buttons. It's an incremental idler based on Runescape with what feels like endless progression. I micromanage it while working, and I love it. I bought it straight away on recommendation from my roommate, but I think there's a demo version if you want to try before you buy. Not great on Steam Deck; hard to scroll and crashes. BUT once you buy it on Steam, it also works in-browser on the phone (Firefox, not Chrome for some reason).
Brotato - Another roguelite, a top-down reverse bullet hell with tons of replayability. You're a potato with weapons and upgrades fighting waves of bad guys. Near endless synergies to play with. I'm 600+ hours in, which isn't bad for a game+DLC for $9, and I've got plenty of potatoes to beat still. It feels like it was built for the Steam Deck, and the Steam Deck built for it.
I've been playing Melvor Idle too. I actually used to play it years ago and recently got back into it, and managed to import my old save with only slight corruption. (Not sure what happened there, but there's been quite a lot of new content since I first played, so maybe the saves weren't quite compatible.) It's one of the better idle games out there, in my opinion. It's great for the occasional alt-tab over to poke at it and then let it be for a while again, or there are more active ways to play (combat before acquiring the auto-eat option for healing food, for instance). And there are so many ways the different skills can synergize that there's hardly a wrong one to focus on first.
Here is that demo you mentioned as a browser game. Incidentally, you can also use the Android/iOS app with all the same content you've bought on Steam, if that works better for you than playing in mobile browser.
Highly recommend adding the "[Bank] Item placeholder" mod to the game. It removes any headaches you get from organizing your bank, which becomes a real difficulty once you've gathered enough stuff (it's a UI/QoL mod only, not a cheat). The mods also travel with your cloud save, fortunately.
I can vouch for the mobile version of Balatro. The touchscreen controls are very well implemented. It's pretty much the perfect smartphone game, in my opinion.
I'm still playing Project Zomboid because some of you evil people put this mind virus into my head. The mods for this thing are nuts. It must compete with Rimworld in terms of quantity.
Also started replaying Astroneers with my BFF after not touching it for years. So many new features!
Trying to make my way through 1000xResist. I'm in chapter 3 and frankly it's just not my kind of game/story/experience.
IMO don't feel like you have to push through- games are supposed to be fun and not a chore
League of Legends is downright awful in its current state. I'm in an inescapable Iron 4 elo hell where your average player is an imbecile that doesn't know how to last-hit minions, place wards or even walk out of enemy AoE. This makes it damn near impossible to climb because you kinda need a team to win. Doesn't matter what role I play, I lose nearly every game due to a lack of cooperation from teammates.
Recently came back to World of Warcraft Classic: Season of Discovery for Phase 7 (didn't really level characters past 15 previously), and holy shit the immediate availability of runes makes a world of difference. You literally go from struggling to kill anything near your level to being able to 4-shot enemy mobs, even when playing a tank or healer spec. The plethora of runes (and lack of ability spell ranks) have shown just how underdeveloped certain specs were in Vanilla and the need for a downright overhaul of Classic. Good example being... Arcane Mage. The only real core rotation ability that even existed in OG Vanilla and therefore has learnable spell ranks is Arcane Missiles. I'd be tempted to play all the way to endgame if the community wasn't so toxic and filled with elitist gatekeepers.
I have a love/hate relationship with OpenTTD. As far as simulation games go, it feels incredibly clunky and archaic to play beyond the early game. If you get past the initial hurdle of using your starting capital to build profitable trade routes (all it really takes is a high-throughput coal train delivering to a power plant, or a two-route network where you supply wood to a lumber yard and goods to a town to rake in serious cash), then you end up with more money than sense. Managing lots of vehicles which quickly become obsolete, along with towns that grow their borders with impunity and get shitty whenever you try to build infrastructure on their turf in a way that makes the NIMBYs of my country seem reasonable by comparison gets old very fast. Building road networks and micromanaging bus/lorry routes is horrifically tedious, and somehow the train-building system is 50 times worse.
Train Fever and Transport Fever feel to me like spiritual successors to OpenTTD, and may be worth a look.
I have finished Evoland and currently I'm on Evoland 2 (they are both included in Evoland Legendary edition).
The first game was like homage to classics like Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy - these games are also mentioned in credits as inspiration to Evoland and they clearly are. It's fun and more like going down the memory lane. I wouldn't probably call it a gae, more like reminder of older and well known games, more like experience than game.
Evoland 2 is more like an actual game. It still has thevibes of older well known classics but it stands on its own this time.
If you want just a little casual game with the old times vibes, these are perfect. Just sit and play and chill out.
Currently midway (chapter 13) through Yakuza Like a Dragon. Loving the story so far and I'm playing mainly for all the plot twists and amazing story telling.
Sometimes I get a bit bored from the grinding but man the story keeps me going. Once I'm done with it I'm keen on going through Yakuza 0-6, but might be swept up by the upcoming POE event.
Just finished "Engarde", a Zorro style sword fighting game. It has a really fun fight system. Feels a little like the Batman Arkem games with a focus on timing dodges and parries. But you really can't fight more than one or two enemies at once. So there's a big focus on creating space by kicking over obstacles to trip up opponents, cutting ropes holding chandeliers, grabbing then throwing objects, etc to get opportunities for those winnable 1 on 1 fights.
I died constantly for a bit, but then it all comes together and you destroy a room full of enemies without taking a hit and it's extremely satisfying.
Dying Light - This is the first one in the duology, and boy oh boy am I already bored with it. The parkour is cool and all but after a while it gets boring. And after you maxed out the survivor tree and after you unlock the grappling hook traversing the map is really easy and makes the parkour mechanic almost pointless. I am 22% done with the story, and I really can't think of a reason to continue the story nor the game.
Peglin - I got this for Christmas, with the Balatro bundle pack. And I have been playing a run at a time, otherwise I will get annoyed at it and stop playing it (this is a common thing for me for rogue-likes). I mostly asked for because of Angory Tom's playthroughs of Peglin. I can see the complaints of it being really reliance on RNG for the runs, but when the luck is with the player, the builds can get silly kind of quickly. And when your build is shit, the game really spikes up the difficulty because you can't kill the enemies quickly enough.