I just bought Dirt Rally 2.0 with all its DLC for 8 bucks. A bunch of games that I follow are currently on sale. Here are a couple lists, where bolded titles are personal recommends. Almost...
A bunch of games that I follow are currently on sale. Here are a couple lists, where bolded titles are personal recommends. Almost everything is at least 50% off.
I came into this thread fully intending to be high-and-mighty with, "here's a suggestion, just buy games already on your wishlist" then you recommended a decent-looking game for $1.50
I came into this thread fully intending to be high-and-mighty with, "here's a suggestion, just buy games already on your wishlist" then you recommended a decent-looking game for $1.50
Welcome to Tildes, where everyone tries to be helpful! There are even hidden gem posts for the summer and winter sales. I expect most of those will be on sale again right now.
Welcome to Tildes, where everyone tries to be helpful! There are even hidden gem posts for the summer and winter sales. I expect most of those will be on sale again right now.
Seriously, between stuff like Humble Bundles, Steam sales, GOG, etc. it's INSANE the number of high-quality games you can get for cheap nowadays, not to mention emulators and playing stuff for...
Seriously, between stuff like Humble Bundles, Steam sales, GOG, etc. it's INSANE the number of high-quality games you can get for cheap nowadays, not to mention emulators and playing stuff for free. There's a lot of dreck too, so you do need to know how to filter, but still.
"Entertaining ourselves to death" is steadily becoming more feasible.
This time around I'm getting: Diplomacy is Not An Option ATLYSS Mind Over Magic Terra Nil Diceomancer Obviously I have not played these, but they caught my interest this round. It's annoying to...
Yeah, maybe I'm not great at the Steam UI or maybe it's junk, but I feel like they're missing out on word-of-mouth opportunities by giving us a spot to easily see sales on games we already own....
It's annoying to check games I already own
Yeah, maybe I'm not great at the Steam UI or maybe it's junk, but I feel like they're missing out on word-of-mouth opportunities by giving us a spot to easily see sales on games we already own. "Hey, friend, I enjoy playing games with you and also talking about games with you. I own RimWorld and have dumped hundreds of hours into it, and with Steam's interface, I can quickly and easily see that it's on sale. You might consider purchasing it. Heck, I will purchase it for you."
I know social media is the bane of all existence, but Steam could definitely be doing a better job of being the social media of games.
I feel like they do pretty good at that, overall. The particular feature you mention is lacking, but I feel the rest of the social features of the client are just about exactly what I want them to...
I know social media is the bane of all existence, but Steam could definitely be doing a better job of being the social media of games.
I feel like they do pretty good at that, overall. The particular feature you mention is lacking, but I feel the rest of the social features of the client are just about exactly what I want them to be. Here's a list of friends who want to be visible as being online, here's where the player-made walkthroughs are, here's the forums if you still have a shred of faith in humanity you want to destroy.
They don't hound you to engage with anything because they don't really care about engagement. They don't even advertise super heavily at you either, just one window that pops up whenever you start the client and actually goes away when you tell it to. I mostly leave my client running anyway, so I only see that at most twice or thrice a week, which is about the perfect amount.
I'm actually curious what else you'd choose to improve.
You can turn that popup window off at Settings->Interface->"Notify me about changes to my games...". Now if they would just let us turn off the unneeded and poorly implemented news item line at...
You can turn that popup window off at Settings->Interface->"Notify me about changes to my games...".
Now if they would just let us turn off the unneeded and poorly implemented news item line at the top of the library.
Agreed, and/or allow me to choose which games turn up there, because some games post wayyyy more than others. This small indie game that I love has had an update? Yes, tell me about it! I’m still...
Now if they would just let us turn off the unneeded and poorly implemented news item line at the top of the librar
Agreed, and/or allow me to choose which games turn up there, because some games post wayyyy more than others.
This small indie game that I love has had an update? Yes, tell me about it! I’m still playing this game regularly, so I’d love to try out the new features as soon as they’re available!
That multiplayer behemoth of a game that I decided I’ve quit playing forever because Australia no longer has the population to sustain queue times has released yet more cosmetics and skins that cost the price of that beloved indie game I’ve been playing? No thanks, I am still not interested in it as I’ve ever been.
I think you can manage your news a bit from right clicking the news items in your library and selecting "show less". You can also click the gear by What's New and tell it to only show updates and...
I think you can manage your news a bit from right clicking the news items in your library and selecting "show less". You can also click the gear by What's New and tell it to only show updates and not other stuff there.
I look over the Steam news page somewhat obsessively since I follow a lot of games, so the same things broadcast in my library is just a nuisance to click away every startup to remove the clutter from my games view.
Thanks. Pointed compliment, too, given I coined it from the historical source of royal purple dye: grinding up snail shells in Tyr. Sadly, I later started playing Guild Wars 2, which is set in the...
Very regal.
Thanks. Pointed compliment, too, given I coined it from the historical source of royal purple dye: grinding up snail shells in Tyr.
Sadly, I later started playing Guild Wars 2, which is set in the continent of Tyr, and around there I just look like some bozo fansnail :/
I love when I find a somewhat obscure classical reference in the wild. I want to say that Tyrian purple isn't that obscure, but then, I bet if you asked 100 people on the street if they thought...
I love when I find a somewhat obscure classical reference in the wild.
I want to say that Tyrian purple isn't that obscure, but then, I bet if you asked 100 people on the street if they thought there had ever been a time when you could be jailed for wearing clothes dyed in snail goo, 99 of them would look at you like you were insane. You and I are that one left over.
The steam forums are really bad. They're honestly a cesspool, I've never seen a forum that bad. I feel like they should really clean it up, or just cut it off from steam. Other than that, Steam is...
The steam forums are really bad. They're honestly a cesspool, I've never seen a forum that bad. I feel like they should really clean it up, or just cut it off from steam.
Other than that, Steam is pretty much perfect IMO.
I find that how usable a Steam forum is directly relates to how large of a community the related product has. Assuming that the community is large enough to exist, small enough to not attract much...
I find that how usable a Steam forum is directly relates to how large of a community the related product has. Assuming that the community is large enough to exist, small enough to not attract much mainstream attention, and isn't too insular (Discord centered, etc)...there's a lot of times where I've found and/or gave useful information, tech support/bug fixes, and so on. Its even led to learning a lot about the developers at times, or helping steer their Early Access plans in meaningful ways.
As someone who frequents smaller scale indie projects and avoids most AAA/AA level games, this happens more often than you might think, and I'd hate to see yet another useful resource disappear from search engines for getting games/software working properly.
Of course, it would be nice if the more densely populated and toxic forums were functional without having to add in pages worth of ignored users, but that would require better moderation, and that can come with its own set of problems - assuming Steam isn't interested in greatly expanding their paid moderation team.
The moderation is pretty important. Steam has a weird moderation policy. The devs can have mods and do anything they want, zero rules enforced by Steam whatever the mods do. Alternatively, the...
I find that how usable a Steam forum is directly relates to how large of a community the related product has.
The moderation is pretty important. Steam has a weird moderation policy. The devs can have mods and do anything they want, zero rules enforced by Steam whatever the mods do. Alternatively, the devs can not provide mods, and the forum defaults to Valve's mods, who will only check reported posts (eventually) and only for clear, obvious community violations. So a few people can troll endlessly and completely destroy a forum as long as they stay in the rules enough. You get a big game that goes that way, or devs with bad mods, and you really get the worst of Steam.
Not all the forums are bad, but Steam does seem to attract a lot of toxicity that no one does anything about, and so many people are absolutely hateful in so many ways.
I understand that. But as someone who only plays a few indie games, everytime I open up the steam discussions (usually accidentally tbh), I just see attacks, shit-slinging and nothing else. It's...
I understand that. But as someone who only plays a few indie games, everytime I open up the steam discussions (usually accidentally tbh), I just see attacks, shit-slinging and nothing else. It's upsetting, but I know the solution is to just not open it up haha.
If they're there, they're not posting somewhere else. I don't particularly mind it, the forums are probably the last reason I'd use Steam. Even so, Steam would have to either strictly moderate and...
If they're there, they're not posting somewhere else. I don't particularly mind it, the forums are probably the last reason I'd use Steam.
Even so, Steam would have to either strictly moderate and significantly step up their game, which sorta contradicts their way of anti-hierarchical work, or just leave it be. The latter is the principle they work from, and the only other option in the laissez faire category is to cut it off entirely but from Steam's perspective that's probably unnecessary.
On that note, I find it very frustrating that I cannot buy people a game on Steam without them being my friend. I'm a mod/admin on a discord for a decently popular game, and I'll occasionally buy...
On that note, I find it very frustrating that I cannot buy people a game on Steam without them being my friend. I'm a mod/admin on a discord for a decently popular game, and I'll occasionally buy a copy for people. Sadly, I often resort to grey market options (though currently on my "favorite" it's not available, so that's fair) because it's safe to say I do not want to be steam friends with random internet people...
Any retailer listed through isthereanydeal.com is legitimate and provides you with Steam keys you can share. No need to friend up that way and if the grey markets are a hang-up you can rest easier...
Any retailer listed through isthereanydeal.com is legitimate and provides you with Steam keys you can share. No need to friend up that way and if the grey markets are a hang-up you can rest easier that way too.
I feel like all they would need to do is allow you to put games you already own back on your wish list. Then you'd get the wishlist notifications, but if you try to buy it you'd only get the "buy...
I feel like all they would need to do is allow you to put games you already own back on your wish list. Then you'd get the wishlist notifications, but if you try to buy it you'd only get the "buy as a gift" link which is what I want.
Yeah, it's weird how difficult it is to get anything set up to just look over sales on games you care about for the purposes of suggesting. Especially when we have such advanced tracking sites...
Yeah, it's weird how difficult it is to get anything set up to just look over sales on games you care about for the purposes of suggesting. Especially when we have such advanced tracking sites like isthereanydeal and steamdb. There's a bunch of games I like to check up on and see where prices are or who's passing the sale, and it really ought to just be a list I could open somewhere.
I wish I could re-add games to my wishlist even after I’ve bought them! The wishlist already has the functionality I want — I can choose to have email updates when they go on sale, I can see them...
I wish I could re-add games to my wishlist even after I’ve bought them! The wishlist already has the functionality I want — I can choose to have email updates when they go on sale, I can see them all in a single list with prices and discounts shown, and I can rearrange the list to whatever custom order I want!
Valve is stingy on the weirdest things. Like, why do we only have a total of only 100 slots to follow or ignore curators, but they'll track our helpfulness thumb for every review and game on the...
Valve is stingy on the weirdest things. Like, why do we only have a total of only 100 slots to follow or ignore curators, but they'll track our helpfulness thumb for every review and game on the site? Let us make shopping lists instead of just the one wishlist. Or make shopping guides we can post places. Something. Anything to bring more curation to the store.
Mind over Magic is one that I've been thinking about picking up. I really liked the demo, but I wasn't sure how well that would translate to a whole playthrough - how much depth the game has,...
Mind over Magic is one that I've been thinking about picking up. I really liked the demo, but I wasn't sure how well that would translate to a whole playthrough - how much depth the game has, content, etc... Anyone here tried it and can vouch for it? If it helps, I'm a newcomer to the genre too (colony management / base sim / etc.)
It wasn't the first that I've jumped into, so I have no info yet! I will say that if you're looking to get into colony management then Rimworld is the undisputed (or mostly-agreed) heavyweight...
It wasn't the first that I've jumped into, so I have no info yet! I will say that if you're looking to get into colony management then Rimworld is the undisputed (or mostly-agreed) heavyweight champ of the genre. If you're looking to see whether you'd enjoy the experience then I'd start there.
In case anyone here isn't familiar with Is There Any Deal, I've found their filters to be super helpful in finding great games on the cheap. Here's a list of games that redeem on steam that are on...
In case anyone here isn't familiar with Is There Any Deal, I've found their filters to be super helpful in finding great games on the cheap.
Here's a list of games that redeem on steam that are on sale for at least 50% off, sorted by popularity.
And here's one of games that are at their historic low prices, sorted by how many people have added it to their waitlist.
And there are tons more useful filters, like drm-free, under 5/10/20 dollars, at least 75% off, as well as sorting options like review scores and player counts.
I've been using Is There Any Deal for a while now and it's gotten to the point where if I see a game on Steam that I want, I'll go to ITAD first to see if it's cheaper. It almost always is.
I've been using Is There Any Deal for a while now and it's gotten to the point where if I see a game on Steam that I want, I'll go to ITAD first to see if it's cheaper. It almost always is.
Then you must not be using Augmented Steam, because it puts the isthereanydeal lowest current and historical prices right on the Steam store page, so you don't need to go to ITAD unless you want...
Then you must not be using Augmented Steam, because it puts the isthereanydeal lowest current and historical prices right on the Steam store page, so you don't need to go to ITAD unless you want to see the history graph or all the shop prices.
Same here. I've slowly grown my waitlist to the point were every week or so I get an email from ITAD basically saying "Hey remember that game you saw 6 months ago that you thought was interesting...
Same here. I've slowly grown my waitlist to the point were every week or so I get an email from ITAD basically saying "Hey remember that game you saw 6 months ago that you thought was interesting but wasn't willing to pay 30 bucks for? well it's now $5 if you still want to check it out". Then I either get it, or realize that I didn't actually want that game all that much.
Especially useful for AAA titles, which follow a fairly consistent pattern of sales. A new 60-70 dollar game will drop and I'll go "neat, message me in a few years when you're on sale for like $15 and we'll talk".
I'd like to think that I'm saving tons of money by getting all these cheap games, but the reality is that I'm probably spending as much as I'd normally spend, just getting way more bang for my buck. Like instead of spending $100 on 3 games, I'm spending $100 on like fifteen different games lol.
Proverbs is 40% off. It’s like minesweeper but simpler. It’s one big board with 50,000+ squares. It’s the perfect game to distract yourself from something. It’s the perfect game to play while...
I like Proverbs. I bought it the last time someone recommended it here. I have one minor issue with it. It requires a lot of right-clicking. This is a little awkward on a laptop with a touchpad...
I like Proverbs. I bought it the last time someone recommended it here.
I have one minor issue with it. It requires a lot of right-clicking. This is a little awkward on a laptop with a touchpad that needs a two-finger click to do right clicks. I wish that Proverbs let you customize a keypress or something for right click, but the only controller customization allowed is to swap the mouse buttons.
Use Steam Input and program any key to use the Right Click! Should take 2 minutes to setup. You could even do something fancy like holding the standard click for x amount of ms for it to register...
Use Steam Input and program any key to use the Right Click! Should take 2 minutes to setup. You could even do something fancy like holding the standard click for x amount of ms for it to register as a right click.
Far as I know, you can't use Steam Input without a controller, and you can't key events off non-controller actions. You can send kbm, not react to kbm. 3rd party tools like autohotkey might be...
Far as I know, you can't use Steam Input without a controller, and you can't key events off non-controller actions. You can send kbm, not react to kbm. 3rd party tools like autohotkey might be able to, though, and if hobbes64 has a controller around then they can certainly use Steam Input to cover it.
Can confirm this. I tried to set up Proverbs to use different inputs through Steam Input to find a solution for @hobbes64, and I couldn’t figure out a way to do it with just the mouse.
Can confirm this. I tried to set up Proverbs to use different inputs through Steam Input to find a solution for @hobbes64, and I couldn’t figure out a way to do it with just the mouse.
Here's the magic "4H Club" filter for isthereanydeal, from @kfwyre Hugely Popular (3,000 or more Steam reviews) Heavily Discounted (75% off or more) Highly-Rated (85% or higher rating on Steam)...
Hey now, don't you go messing with my alliteration! I worked hard on that! 😂 For what it's worth, that number has actually crept up over time. I used to use 1000 reviews as the threshold, and then...
Hey now, don't you go messing with my alliteration! I worked hard on that! 😂
I rarely tend to buy games and enjoy them, but I bought Cult of the Lamb and I am having a blast, I’m not typically an indie fan but this game is so good. Highly recommended.
I rarely tend to buy games and enjoy them, but I bought Cult of the Lamb and I am having a blast, I’m not typically an indie fan but this game is so good. Highly recommended.
I too was checking this out last night. It was giving me major Don't Starve vibes (so much so that I originally thought it was made by the same studio). The reviews on it are pretty unanimous in...
I too was checking this out last night. It was giving me major Don't Starve vibes (so much so that I originally thought it was made by the same studio). The reviews on it are pretty unanimous in praise.
I’m not putting up a native hidden gem topic for this sale (I feel that doing it twice a year for the Summer & Winter sales is enough), but r/gamedealsmeta has their usual hidden gem topic with...
I got Horizon Forbidden West. I had it in my wishlist, I loved Zero Dawn and I have checked if it will run on Steam Deck. Now I'm waiting for those 100GB to download... I also got ARMA 3 DLC. I...
I got Horizon Forbidden West. I had it in my wishlist, I loved Zero Dawn and I have checked if it will run on Steam Deck. Now I'm waiting for those 100GB to download...
I also got ARMA 3 DLC.
I don't want to buy anything else, as I already have too many games. Even the HFW I bought only because I want to have this edition (before anyone realizes they can do some definitive or enhanced edition and pull this original one down - enahanced wouldn't probably run on Steam Deck, so I'm better safe than sorry).
In the historical Turn-Based Strategy genre, I've hugely enjoyed Old World. I've been frustrated with many of the choices that the Civilization series has made since Civ IV, and Old World neatly...
In the historical Turn-Based Strategy genre, I've hugely enjoyed Old World.
I've been frustrated with many of the choices that the Civilization series has made since Civ IV, and Old World neatly avoids just about all of my complaints while still being a unique and clearly modern game. It's also from a small studio, still under active development despite releasing in 2022, and the developers are very responsive to questions and suggestions on Reddit.
I’ve bought this ages ago, but I have struggled to properly get into it. It seemed a bit heavy of the micromanagement side of things, but maybe that’s unfair.
I’ve bought this ages ago, but I have struggled to properly get into it. It seemed a bit heavy of the micromanagement side of things, but maybe that’s unfair.
People seem to have a very wide range of opinions on what qualifies as "micromanagement" and how much of it is desired. You're not alone in having this complaint, but it also does not match my...
People seem to have a very wide range of opinions on what qualifies as "micromanagement" and how much of it is desired. You're not alone in having this complaint, but it also does not match my experience.
The game was designed with "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" very much in mind (that article is by it's lead designer, a decade before Old World came out). I find it does a very good job avoiding giving any incentive for really tedious stuff that dominates high level play in the various civ games, like tile swapping and careful production overflow management, but it still gives me direct control over all the decisions that matter. Mostly this is accomplished by making the player commit to investing stuff to get other stuff (e.g. 20 iron and four orders to build a quarry, which will produce stone every turn), with the understanding that having made that initial investment, they will continue to get that stuff unless they find a really compelling reason to pay yet more stuff to change it.
Contrast this with Civ VI (or V, IV, III, and I believe the prior games as well), where you are putting down tile improvements, but you also have to think about which citizens are going to work those tiles and when. Building a third mine in a pop 2 city is useless until that city grows to pop 3, and you probably want it to be working a tile with more food in order to get to pop 3, so even the second mine might not have been a good choice to build just yet. But also there's no cost to flip flopping a citizen between a mine and a farm as needed for whatever you are prioritizing right now, so maybe you do want those improvements down even if you're only going to benefit from them on some turns but not others. Etc, etc. Of course if you're just playing casually and not really thinking about this stuff then of it won't bother you anyway. And there's nothing wrong with that!
Old World also has a fair amount of mid- to late-game automation that one can turn on if one is so inclined. I've just never been so inclined, so I can't comment on how much it would reduce your overhead.
I hope you're right. Personal qualms aside: Epic-related deals, the way certain members of their team handled PR in the Steam launch period, fears about Old World doubling down on "one weird trick...
I hope you're right.
Personal qualms aside:
Epic-related deals, the way certain members of their team handled PR in the Steam launch period, fears about Old World doubling down on "one weird trick that's OP" spam that in my eyes defined the Civ4 experience, etc.
My biggest issue as someone who newly bought in during this sale is the micro. I don't like automation, but I've also got debilitating hand/wrist issues that get in the way of micro, and in my first few hours I'm finding a lot of weak documentation encouraging a "trial and error" approach that my hands don't have the patience for. Tooltips are great, but having to tap MMB or hold Shift repeatedly isn't (waiting X period of time would be much better for me), and often those tooltips aren't comprehensive enough without going several layers deep.
And yes, before ever playing I read the full manual included with the game. I felt like both it and many of the tooltips I've seen in early game could be written in a clearer way, but perhaps it'll make more sense once I manage to get a full session going.
I'm trying not to buy anything--though I suspect I will fail--as I have tons of stuff already and things I've bought recently that I haven't touched, though I've been better about that as of late....
I'm trying not to buy anything--though I suspect I will fail--as I have tons of stuff already and things I've bought recently that I haven't touched, though I've been better about that as of late.
Anyway, just wanted to recommend Call to Arms: Gates of Hell - Ostfront for less than $4. Especially if you like World War 2 games. If you like Company of Heroes, it's not really like that at all and I prefer this series (that being Men of War) over CoH.
I grabbed Jedi Fallen Order for £3.49, which I thought was a great price, not gonna have the chance to play it for a bit but couldn't turn down a 90% discount. Also grabbed Teardown for £12.99,...
I grabbed Jedi Fallen Order for £3.49, which I thought was a great price, not gonna have the chance to play it for a bit but couldn't turn down a 90% discount.
Also grabbed Teardown for £12.99, been keeping an eye on this game for a while and 50% seems to be the lowest I've seen it so figured I'd bite the bullet. Played that for a couple hours this afternoon and it's a lot of fun.
Tetrachroma is one of the most interesting take on Tetris of the last few years. The gimmick here is that each piece has a color and they switch back and forth like in revers. It's simple yet...
Tetrachroma is one of the most interesting take on Tetris of the last few years. The gimmick here is that each piece has a color and they switch back and forth like in revers. It's simple yet complex, and happily messes with my brain and reflexes is a good way.
Star of Providence (10% discount down to $13.49): Talked about this in the weekly game thread. But it's a retro/NES inspired roguelike, but each room is quite small. Game play is like Binding of...
Star of Providence (10% discount down to $13.49): Talked about this in the weekly game thread. But it's a retro/NES inspired roguelike, but each room is quite small. Game play is like Binding of Isaac with a bit more bullet hell. A very easy time filler a run takes a couple minutes.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 (60% discount down to $15.99): Remaster of the first two Tony Hawk games I'm not very nostalgic for these since I only had Tony Hawk on game boy. But I do remember playing these a lot in the electronics section of the grocery store while my mom shopped. Excited to spend some more time on this.
Max Payne 3 (70% discount down to $5.99): Never played a Max Payne, I've been listening to the Something Rotten podcasts which talks about vaguely nihilistic media. Stuff like Kane and Lynch that focuses on the scummy side of society. Interested in playing giving this game a shot.
Should I get Red Dead Redemption 2 ? I'm mostly play FROMSOFT games these days (I was also playing Dota but stopped last year) and I don't have the patience anymore for games that feel like work...
Should I get Red Dead Redemption 2 ? I'm mostly play FROMSOFT games these days (I was also playing Dota but stopped last year) and I don't have the patience anymore for games that feel like work (fetch quests, etc) and dumbed-down gameplay. I do like a good story & exploration though.
Nubby’s Number Factory. It’s a pachinko roguelike game with 90s flash game aesthetics. The mechanics are simple, but the item synergies can get pretty complex. It’s $5, so no excuse to not start...
Nubby’s Number Factory. It’s a pachinko roguelike game with 90s flash game aesthetics. The mechanics are simple, but the item synergies can get pretty complex.
It’s $5, so no excuse to not start your job at the number factory.
For what it's worth I tried the demo and it took me 15 levels to intentionally lose the game. I know the appeal is kinda just shutting off and letting physics do its work, but there isn't much...
For what it's worth I tried the demo and it took me 15 levels to intentionally lose the game. I know the appeal is kinda just shutting off and letting physics do its work, but there isn't much effort involved...
I'll always shill for Nova Drift; it's 20%? 25% off? It's one of my favorite games; I keep replaying and replaying. It's almost a frenetic meditation! The more people who buy it, the more likely...
I'll always shill for Nova Drift; it's 20%? 25% off? It's one of my favorite games; I keep replaying and replaying. It's almost a frenetic meditation!
The more people who buy it, the more likely we are to get DLC or a sequel, per the dev.
I just bought Dirt Rally 2.0 with all its DLC for 8 bucks.
A bunch of games that I follow are currently on sale. Here are a couple lists, where bolded titles are personal recommends. Almost everything is at least 50% off.
Games under $5
80 Days - $3.89
A Memoir Blue - $3.99
BELOW - $4.99
Braid, Anniversary Edition - $4.99
Cursed To Golf - $2.99
Dust: An Elysian Tail - $3.74
El Hijo - A Wild West Tale - $3.99
Enter The Gungeon - $1.49!! I've got like 600 hours on this.
Firework - $4.99
Gorogoa - $4.94
GRIS - $2.99
The Gunk - $4.99
Helldivers (1) - $3.99
Indivisible - $2.99
INMOST - $4.49
INSIDE - $1.99!
Journey - $4.94
Juicy Realm - $4.99
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - $4.49
La-Mulana - $3.74
LIMBO - $0.99!
Linelight - $1.99
Long Dream - $3.84
LUMINES REMASTERED - $4.49
Midnight Ghost Hunt - $4.99
Moon Hunters - $1.49
Neo Cab - $2.24
Neon Abyss - $4.99
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) - $2.99
Night Call - $4.49
Octahedron: Transfixed Edition - $1.29!!!! This is an absolute hidden gem!
Once Again - $1.19
One Finger Death Punch - $1.24
Orbital Bullet - $1.69
Pipe Push Paradise - $4.99
Planet Cube: Edge - $4.94
The Red Strings Club - $2.99
Road 96 - $4.99
Room 301 NO.6 - $2.39
Souldiers - $3.99
Stealth Bastard Deluxe - $1.29
Super Magbot - $1.29
Tales of the Neon Sea - $2.88
Tokyo 42 - $1.99
WuJiDaoRen - $3.49
Games under $10
Antichamber
The Artful Escape
Bonfire Peaks
CrossCode
Cyberwar: Neon City
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
ElecHead
The Heroes Around Me
Invisible, Inc.
LOCKDOWN Protocol
Loretta
Mondealy
Overgrowth
Pid
Planet of Lana
Raji: An Ancient Epic
The Rewinder
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Shadows of Doubt
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Soda Crisis
Superliminal
Twelve Minutes
Undying
Wavetale
The Witness
Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Beyond the Mountains
Games over $10
Kenshi
Minds Beneath Us
Nine Sols - Currently at the final boss! This game can be really tough, but it's really good. Well worth it at full price.
Pinball Spire
Tetris® Effect: Connected
ZERO Sievert
I came into this thread fully intending to be high-and-mighty with, "here's a suggestion, just buy games already on your wishlist" then you recommended a decent-looking game for $1.50
Welcome to Tildes, where everyone tries to be helpful! There are even hidden gem posts for the summer and winter sales. I expect most of those will be on sale again right now.
Seriously, between stuff like Humble Bundles, Steam sales, GOG, etc. it's INSANE the number of high-quality games you can get for cheap nowadays, not to mention emulators and playing stuff for free. There's a lot of dreck too, so you do need to know how to filter, but still.
"Entertaining ourselves to death" is steadily becoming more feasible.
This time around I'm getting:
Obviously I have not played these, but they caught my interest this round.
It's annoying to check games I already own, but a non-exhaustive list of favorites that I've manually verified to be on sale:
Yeah, maybe I'm not great at the Steam UI or maybe it's junk, but I feel like they're missing out on word-of-mouth opportunities by giving us a spot to easily see sales on games we already own. "Hey, friend, I enjoy playing games with you and also talking about games with you. I own RimWorld and have dumped hundreds of hours into it, and with Steam's interface, I can quickly and easily see that it's on sale. You might consider purchasing it. Heck, I will purchase it for you."
I know social media is the bane of all existence, but Steam could definitely be doing a better job of being the social media of games.
I feel like they do pretty good at that, overall. The particular feature you mention is lacking, but I feel the rest of the social features of the client are just about exactly what I want them to be. Here's a list of friends who want to be visible as being online, here's where the player-made walkthroughs are, here's the forums if you still have a shred of faith in humanity you want to destroy.
They don't hound you to engage with anything because they don't really care about engagement. They don't even advertise super heavily at you either, just one window that pops up whenever you start the client and actually goes away when you tell it to. I mostly leave my client running anyway, so I only see that at most twice or thrice a week, which is about the perfect amount.
I'm actually curious what else you'd choose to improve.
You can turn that popup window off at Settings->Interface->"Notify me about changes to my games...".
Now if they would just let us turn off the unneeded and poorly implemented news item line at the top of the library.
Agreed, and/or allow me to choose which games turn up there, because some games post wayyyy more than others.
This small indie game that I love has had an update? Yes, tell me about it! I’m still playing this game regularly, so I’d love to try out the new features as soon as they’re available!
That multiplayer behemoth of a game that I decided I’ve quit playing forever because Australia no longer has the population to sustain queue times has released yet more cosmetics and skins that cost the price of that beloved indie game I’ve been playing? No thanks, I am still not interested in it as I’ve ever been.
I think you can manage your news a bit from right clicking the news items in your library and selecting "show less". You can also click the gear by What's New and tell it to only show updates and not other stuff there.
I look over the Steam news page somewhat obsessively since I follow a lot of games, so the same things broadcast in my library is just a nuisance to click away every startup to remove the clutter from my games view.
Thanks for the tip.
I like your username, by the way. Very regal.
Thanks. Pointed compliment, too, given I coined it from the historical source of royal purple dye: grinding up snail shells in Tyr.
Sadly, I later started playing Guild Wars 2, which is set in the continent of Tyr, and around there I just look like some bozo fansnail :/
I love when I find a somewhat obscure classical reference in the wild.
I want to say that Tyrian purple isn't that obscure, but then, I bet if you asked 100 people on the street if they thought there had ever been a time when you could be jailed for wearing clothes dyed in snail goo, 99 of them would look at you like you were insane. You and I are that one left over.
The steam forums are really bad. They're honestly a cesspool, I've never seen a forum that bad. I feel like they should really clean it up, or just cut it off from steam.
Other than that, Steam is pretty much perfect IMO.
I find that how usable a Steam forum is directly relates to how large of a community the related product has. Assuming that the community is large enough to exist, small enough to not attract much mainstream attention, and isn't too insular (Discord centered, etc)...there's a lot of times where I've found and/or gave useful information, tech support/bug fixes, and so on. Its even led to learning a lot about the developers at times, or helping steer their Early Access plans in meaningful ways.
As someone who frequents smaller scale indie projects and avoids most AAA/AA level games, this happens more often than you might think, and I'd hate to see yet another useful resource disappear from search engines for getting games/software working properly.
Of course, it would be nice if the more densely populated and toxic forums were functional without having to add in pages worth of ignored users, but that would require better moderation, and that can come with its own set of problems - assuming Steam isn't interested in greatly expanding their paid moderation team.
The moderation is pretty important. Steam has a weird moderation policy. The devs can have mods and do anything they want, zero rules enforced by Steam whatever the mods do. Alternatively, the devs can not provide mods, and the forum defaults to Valve's mods, who will only check reported posts (eventually) and only for clear, obvious community violations. So a few people can troll endlessly and completely destroy a forum as long as they stay in the rules enough. You get a big game that goes that way, or devs with bad mods, and you really get the worst of Steam.
Not all the forums are bad, but Steam does seem to attract a lot of toxicity that no one does anything about, and so many people are absolutely hateful in so many ways.
I understand that. But as someone who only plays a few indie games, everytime I open up the steam discussions (usually accidentally tbh), I just see attacks, shit-slinging and nothing else. It's upsetting, but I know the solution is to just not open it up haha.
If they're there, they're not posting somewhere else. I don't particularly mind it, the forums are probably the last reason I'd use Steam.
Even so, Steam would have to either strictly moderate and significantly step up their game, which sorta contradicts their way of anti-hierarchical work, or just leave it be. The latter is the principle they work from, and the only other option in the laissez faire category is to cut it off entirely but from Steam's perspective that's probably unnecessary.
While I don't use the forums very often, I've found the guide section is often invaluable for niche indie games as well as bigger titles!
On that note, I find it very frustrating that I cannot buy people a game on Steam without them being my friend. I'm a mod/admin on a discord for a decently popular game, and I'll occasionally buy a copy for people. Sadly, I often resort to grey market options (though currently on my "favorite" it's not available, so that's fair) because it's safe to say I do not want to be steam friends with random internet people...
Any retailer listed through isthereanydeal.com is legitimate and provides you with Steam keys you can share. No need to friend up that way and if the grey markets are a hang-up you can rest easier that way too.
I feel like all they would need to do is allow you to put games you already own back on your wish list. Then you'd get the wishlist notifications, but if you try to buy it you'd only get the "buy as a gift" link which is what I want.
Yeah, it's weird how difficult it is to get anything set up to just look over sales on games you care about for the purposes of suggesting. Especially when we have such advanced tracking sites like isthereanydeal and steamdb. There's a bunch of games I like to check up on and see where prices are or who's passing the sale, and it really ought to just be a list I could open somewhere.
I wish I could re-add games to my wishlist even after I’ve bought them! The wishlist already has the functionality I want — I can choose to have email updates when they go on sale, I can see them all in a single list with prices and discounts shown, and I can rearrange the list to whatever custom order I want!
Valve is stingy on the weirdest things. Like, why do we only have a total of only 100 slots to follow or ignore curators, but they'll track our helpfulness thumb for every review and game on the site? Let us make shopping lists instead of just the one wishlist. Or make shopping guides we can post places. Something. Anything to bring more curation to the store.
Mind over Magic is one that I've been thinking about picking up. I really liked the demo, but I wasn't sure how well that would translate to a whole playthrough - how much depth the game has, content, etc... Anyone here tried it and can vouch for it? If it helps, I'm a newcomer to the genre too (colony management / base sim / etc.)
It wasn't the first that I've jumped into, so I have no info yet! I will say that if you're looking to get into colony management then Rimworld is the undisputed (or mostly-agreed) heavyweight champ of the genre. If you're looking to see whether you'd enjoy the experience then I'd start there.
Have fun with Terra Nil! I played it for the first time last year and loved it. Like, playing felt weirdly good for my soul. It's great.
Oh good, that's what I was hoping for when I saw it. Need the calm vibes!
Rimworld is easily one of the best games I've ever played. It's only improved with the years. The mod scene for it as unparalleled outside of Skyrim!
In case anyone here isn't familiar with Is There Any Deal, I've found their filters to be super helpful in finding great games on the cheap.
Here's a list of games that redeem on steam that are on sale for at least 50% off, sorted by popularity.
And here's one of games that are at their historic low prices, sorted by how many people have added it to their waitlist.
And there are tons more useful filters, like drm-free, under 5/10/20 dollars, at least 75% off, as well as sorting options like review scores and player counts.
I've been using Is There Any Deal for a while now and it's gotten to the point where if I see a game on Steam that I want, I'll go to ITAD first to see if it's cheaper. It almost always is.
Then you must not be using Augmented Steam, because it puts the isthereanydeal lowest current and historical prices right on the Steam store page, so you don't need to go to ITAD unless you want to see the history graph or all the shop prices.
That is a correct assumption and thank you for the suggestion! I'll definitely look into that.
Hey that's pretty neat. Thanks for linking!
Same here. I've slowly grown my waitlist to the point were every week or so I get an email from ITAD basically saying "Hey remember that game you saw 6 months ago that you thought was interesting but wasn't willing to pay 30 bucks for? well it's now $5 if you still want to check it out". Then I either get it, or realize that I didn't actually want that game all that much.
Especially useful for AAA titles, which follow a fairly consistent pattern of sales. A new 60-70 dollar game will drop and I'll go "neat, message me in a few years when you're on sale for like $15 and we'll talk".
I'd like to think that I'm saving tons of money by getting all these cheap games, but the reality is that I'm probably spending as much as I'd normally spend, just getting way more bang for my buck. Like instead of spending $100 on 3 games, I'm spending $100 on like fifteen different games lol.
Proverbs is 40% off.
It’s like minesweeper but simpler.
It’s one big board with 50,000+ squares.
It’s the perfect game to distract yourself from something.
It’s the perfect game to play while listening to audiobooks or podcasts.
I have 20 hours in it and am about 70% of the way done.
It plays really well after a long, stressful day at work.
It plays really well if you’re trying to get your brain away from thinking about, you know, everything.
It’s very rote.
It’s very calm.
Looks like the perfect game to rotate out with dragonsweeper while watching tv after a long day of work. Thanks!
I like Proverbs. I bought it the last time someone recommended it here.
I have one minor issue with it. It requires a lot of right-clicking. This is a little awkward on a laptop with a touchpad that needs a two-finger click to do right clicks. I wish that Proverbs let you customize a keypress or something for right click, but the only controller customization allowed is to swap the mouse buttons.
Just yesterday the dev mentioned that they're working on control remapping, so it might be possible soon.
Use Steam Input and program any key to use the Right Click! Should take 2 minutes to setup. You could even do something fancy like holding the standard click for x amount of ms for it to register as a right click.
Far as I know, you can't use Steam Input without a controller, and you can't key events off non-controller actions. You can send kbm, not react to kbm. 3rd party tools like autohotkey might be able to, though, and if hobbes64 has a controller around then they can certainly use Steam Input to cover it.
Can confirm this. I tried to set up Proverbs to use different inputs through Steam Input to find a solution for @hobbes64, and I couldn’t figure out a way to do it with just the mouse.
Here's the magic "4H Club" filter for isthereanydeal, from @kfwyre
I personally change the filter values a bit to surface more indie games, but this is a good baseline.
This is useful!
I imagine you probably have to get to something like 50000+ Steam reviews to really qualify as hugely popular though.
Hey now, don't you go messing with my alliteration! I worked hard on that! 😂
For what it's worth, that number has actually crept up over time. I used to use 1000 reviews as the threshold, and then upped it to 3000 a while back. It could probably use another push up given that Steam keeps getting more users and the review to sales ratio keeps going down over time.
Or maybe I should just change the label to "Healthily Popular?" I’m not willing to give up an H!
I rarely tend to buy games and enjoy them, but I bought Cult of the Lamb and I am having a blast, I’m not typically an indie fan but this game is so good. Highly recommended.
I too was checking this out last night. It was giving me major Don't Starve vibes (so much so that I originally thought it was made by the same studio). The reviews on it are pretty unanimous in praise.
The game even has actual Don't Starve content due to a crossover. :-)
Ha, they mesh together perfectly!
I’m not putting up a native hidden gem topic for this sale (I feel that doing it twice a year for the Summer & Winter sales is enough), but r/gamedealsmeta has their usual hidden gem topic with some good recommendations.
I got Horizon Forbidden West. I had it in my wishlist, I loved Zero Dawn and I have checked if it will run on Steam Deck. Now I'm waiting for those 100GB to download...
I also got ARMA 3 DLC.
I don't want to buy anything else, as I already have too many games. Even the HFW I bought only because I want to have this edition (before anyone realizes they can do some definitive or enhanced edition and pull this original one down - enahanced wouldn't probably run on Steam Deck, so I'm better safe than sorry).
In the historical Turn-Based Strategy genre, I've hugely enjoyed Old World.
I've been frustrated with many of the choices that the Civilization series has made since Civ IV, and Old World neatly avoids just about all of my complaints while still being a unique and clearly modern game. It's also from a small studio, still under active development despite releasing in 2022, and the developers are very responsive to questions and suggestions on Reddit.
I’ve bought this ages ago, but I have struggled to properly get into it. It seemed a bit heavy of the micromanagement side of things, but maybe that’s unfair.
People seem to have a very wide range of opinions on what qualifies as "micromanagement" and how much of it is desired. You're not alone in having this complaint, but it also does not match my experience.
The game was designed with "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" very much in mind (that article is by it's lead designer, a decade before Old World came out). I find it does a very good job avoiding giving any incentive for really tedious stuff that dominates high level play in the various civ games, like tile swapping and careful production overflow management, but it still gives me direct control over all the decisions that matter. Mostly this is accomplished by making the player commit to investing stuff to get other stuff (e.g. 20 iron and four orders to build a quarry, which will produce stone every turn), with the understanding that having made that initial investment, they will continue to get that stuff unless they find a really compelling reason to pay yet more stuff to change it.
Contrast this with Civ VI (or V, IV, III, and I believe the prior games as well), where you are putting down tile improvements, but you also have to think about which citizens are going to work those tiles and when. Building a third mine in a pop 2 city is useless until that city grows to pop 3, and you probably want it to be working a tile with more food in order to get to pop 3, so even the second mine might not have been a good choice to build just yet. But also there's no cost to flip flopping a citizen between a mine and a farm as needed for whatever you are prioritizing right now, so maybe you do want those improvements down even if you're only going to benefit from them on some turns but not others. Etc, etc. Of course if you're just playing casually and not really thinking about this stuff then of it won't bother you anyway. And there's nothing wrong with that!
Old World also has a fair amount of mid- to late-game automation that one can turn on if one is so inclined. I've just never been so inclined, so I can't comment on how much it would reduce your overhead.
I hope you're right.
Personal qualms aside:
My biggest issue as someone who newly bought in during this sale is the micro. I don't like automation, but I've also got debilitating hand/wrist issues that get in the way of micro, and in my first few hours I'm finding a lot of weak documentation encouraging a "trial and error" approach that my hands don't have the patience for. Tooltips are great, but having to tap MMB or hold Shift repeatedly isn't (waiting X period of time would be much better for me), and often those tooltips aren't comprehensive enough without going several layers deep.
And yes, before ever playing I read the full manual included with the game. I felt like both it and many of the tooltips I've seen in early game could be written in a clearer way, but perhaps it'll make more sense once I manage to get a full session going.
Sale time! Wanting to get any suggestions of great games to buy or unearth any gems.
I'm trying not to buy anything--though I suspect I will fail--as I have tons of stuff already and things I've bought recently that I haven't touched, though I've been better about that as of late.
Anyway, just wanted to recommend Call to Arms: Gates of Hell - Ostfront for less than $4. Especially if you like World War 2 games. If you like Company of Heroes, it's not really like that at all and I prefer this series (that being Men of War) over CoH.
I just got every thief game for $6 :)
I grabbed Jedi Fallen Order for £3.49, which I thought was a great price, not gonna have the chance to play it for a bit but couldn't turn down a 90% discount.
Also grabbed Teardown for £12.99, been keeping an eye on this game for a while and 50% seems to be the lowest I've seen it so figured I'd bite the bullet. Played that for a couple hours this afternoon and it's a lot of fun.
Tetrachroma is one of the most interesting take on Tetris of the last few years. The gimmick here is that each piece has a color and they switch back and forth like in revers. It's simple yet complex, and happily messes with my brain and reflexes is a good way.
Star of Providence (10% discount down to $13.49): Talked about this in the weekly game thread. But it's a retro/NES inspired roguelike, but each room is quite small. Game play is like Binding of Isaac with a bit more bullet hell. A very easy time filler a run takes a couple minutes.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 (60% discount down to $15.99): Remaster of the first two Tony Hawk games I'm not very nostalgic for these since I only had Tony Hawk on game boy. But I do remember playing these a lot in the electronics section of the grocery store while my mom shopped. Excited to spend some more time on this.
Max Payne 3 (70% discount down to $5.99): Never played a Max Payne, I've been listening to the Something Rotten podcasts which talks about vaguely nihilistic media. Stuff like Kane and Lynch that focuses on the scummy side of society. Interested in playing giving this game a shot.
Should I get Red Dead Redemption 2 ? I'm mostly play FROMSOFT games these days (I was also playing Dota but stopped last year) and I don't have the patience anymore for games that feel like work (fetch quests, etc) and dumbed-down gameplay. I do like a good story & exploration though.
Nubby’s Number Factory. It’s a pachinko roguelike game with 90s flash game aesthetics. The mechanics are simple, but the item synergies can get pretty complex.
It’s $5, so no excuse to not start your job at the number factory.
For what it's worth I tried the demo and it took me 15 levels to intentionally lose the game. I know the appeal is kinda just shutting off and letting physics do its work, but there isn't much effort involved...
I'll always shill for Nova Drift; it's 20%? 25% off? It's one of my favorite games; I keep replaying and replaying. It's almost a frenetic meditation!
The more people who buy it, the more likely we are to get DLC or a sequel, per the dev.