Hello ladies and gentlegamers, welcome to a new kind of weekly thread. Unlike more reputable threads around here which get their games from places like Steam and the Nintendo e-shop we are here to explore the some thing much more raw made by deranged indie developers running on too little sleep. That’s right we are here to talk about video games that come from game jams

Whats a game jam you may ask. Well imagine if you locked a group of game developers in a box for box for some quantity of time ranging from a few days to a few week and told them to compete with each other by building something around a theme and then judging whatever each other came up with, that's a game jam. Its voluntary crunch time and people are crazy enough to actually sign up for these things for some reason. There are more games submitted for various game jams than anyone could ever play and that is where I come in.

I select a double feature of two games each week on Saturday. I make no assurances related to quality or sanity. If you have issues with these picks leave a comment I will try and accommodate your feedback next week. Now without further ado, welcome one and all to the Saturday Game Jam thread(Its still Saturday somewhere in the world right?)

Anger Foot

Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Genres: Shooter, Action

Do you dream of battling a sewer dwelling cabal of lizard people, are you mad that Gunpoint only let you have the gatecrasher upgrade on the last level, do you like hurting other people?

Anger Foot is a Hotline Miami inspired first people shooter born from the 7day fps game jam. Its got a thumping hardbass soundtrack and nonstop action to keep your blood pumping. Its since moved on to greener pastures and has a stated release on Steam in 2024 so if you like the prototype make sure to wish list the game on Steam.

Interminal

Platforms: Windows, macOS
Genres: Walking Sim

After gunning people down why not stop and smell the roses or perfumes as the case may be. Interminal is a short experimental game also coming the 7day fps game jam about wandering around an infinite airport smelling various perfumes, watching the planes take off, and contemplating life. Its a shame that everyone here lacks the hardware to actually let you smell the perfumes but you guys are an imaginative bunch so I trust you. Let me know what your favorite perfume is in the comments.

That’s all for now. In true Tildes fashion I wanted to start slow and maybe grow later. Again leave feedback in the comments if you feel an improvement can be made

NEXT WEEK

A little indie game made by three people is currently the 11th most played game on steam.
64k players playing at the time of writing, just 10k behind Activision's Modern Warfare 2.

Anyone else having a great time in BattleBit?

I'm interested in buying one of the new PC gaming handhelds, and I'm torn. If I went for the Steam Deck I'd be buying the 512GB version, so the price difference between it and the ASUS is only about £50/£100 more. The ASUS seems to do a lot better in benchmarks, has a nicer screen, and comes with Windows 11. I love Linux but there's several games I'd want to play on it that the anti cheat just won't work with Linux. I know you can dual boot the Steam Deck, so that could also be an option. The main thing that is making the decision more difficult is that the Steam Deck has touchpads, and the ASUS apparantly has inferior thumbsticks and D-pad. But then again the ASUS is sleeker and lighter, so potentially more portable? Sorry for the ramble, I just wanted to express my thoughts so far, and hear what you all think. Help me decide!

Just tested it myself. Here’s the process that worked for me, in case anyone else needs a guide. No guarantees, of course, but hopefully it works for others too:

From Desktop Mode

Download the Battle.net installer
Add the installer as a non-Steam game
Change the installer settings in Steam to run with Proton Experimental
Run the installer
(tip: to make it easy to find the launcher in the next step, you can change the install path to be in your downloads folder instead of deep in the Proton path)

Once installed, exit the installer
Add the installed Battle.net Launcher.exe as a non-Steam game
Change the launcher settings in Steam to run it with Proton Experimental
Run the launcher
Log in
Install Diablo IV
(tip: uncheck the high res textures option which is on by default to save yourself about 40 GB of space)
Close launcher
(tip: if D4 is the only Bnet game you’re planning on playing, you can rename the launcher in Steam to Diablo IV)

From Gaming Mode

Launch the launcher
Click the Play button on Diablo IV
Enjoy!

Other Tips

During installation or the game, whenever you need a keyboard, press STEAM + X to call it up.

Occasionally, during installation or in the Launcher in game mode, my trackpad input would get wonky or stop responding. When this happens, hold the STEAM button down while using the trackpads, and they should work again.

Beyond that, the game automatically worked from me. It loaded low graphics settings (which are perfect for the Deck) and recognized my controller. It even opens with some accessibility settings before you start playing that lets you scale the font size up too, which makes it easier to read on the small screen.

I can’t say much about how the game actually plays as I really just did this to test if it works. I’ll be putting in my first actual time with the game tomorrow.

Pop-Up Event: Demo Disc Days

Today we are going to take a trip back to the 90s, when the best way to try out new games was to use a now-antiquated piece of magical circular plastic that you might have gotten along with your subscription to something like PC Gamer, PlayStation Underground, or the Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine.

The demo disc offered gamers a small taste of a variety of different games, letting you try out the beginning levels of lots of different titles in hopes that you'd find ones you like and buy the full games.

One of the most iconic demo discs actually came with the PlayStation console itself, and featured its games laid out in a grid. This is the format we'll be exploring in this pop-up: it's our taste of the 90s, but with the games of today ^{or yesterday or ten years ago.}

Community Task: Together, we will create our own modern demo disc by filling in cells in the grid below. To fill in a cell, you must "demo" a game, which consists of:

• playing the beginning of a game,
• that you have never played before,
• for at least 30 minutes.

Choose an unfilled category below, find a game to demo that fits it, and report back here with your thoughts once you've done so! Once you successfully demo a game, it gets put into that slot.

At the end of the pop-up, we will have what may very well be the first demo disc of the 2020s featuring a spread of 42 games across multiple styles and genres!

Additional Info: The styles and genres have been taken from among the list of Steam's most popular tags (with a slight preference for things that give a more 90s feel). You can use Steam's search tool or Steam's library filtering to find games that fit two tags simultaneously.

If you don't use Steam, that's fine too! A game doesn't have to be "officially" tagged to fit its category. If you feel the game fits, then go for it -- no matter what platform you're playing it on. PC games are fine; console games are fine; emulated games are fine; web games are fine; phone games are fine. Any and all games are welcome on our demo disc!

Also, the game does not have to be a modern game -- just new to you. If the game is playable today and can be demoed, then it works for our demo disc!

Finally, it is fine to demo more than one game for the event. In fact, please do! We’ve got a lot of slots to fill!

Pop-Up Event: Ludonostalgia!

Task: Replay an old, favorite game that you haven't played in a long, long time. Tell us about how your playthrough now compares to your memories of the game.

Time Period: This weekend! (November 10-14)
Update: Ludonostalgia is extending its hours through November 21st!

I received my Steam Deck on June 6th and have used it literally every day since then. Here are some assorted thoughts that might be of value to people either waiting on theirs or on the fence about ordering:

The Good

• I had no idea until I got it that there's an official Deck test game: Aperture Desk Job. It's essentially a cute test/tutorial for the Deck's controls, set in the Portal universe. Takes about half an hour, but it's a fun onboarding for the device.
• On the past two Saturdays, I have woken up and played Vampire Survivors with one hand while I held my morning coffee in the other. This is the way.
• The control remapping options are absolutely incredible. It is a very robust system. Even simple fixes (like putting A on a back paddle so I can play Vampire Survivors one-handed) can make a world of difference.
• I haven't run many heavy games on it, but I started up Bugsnax, and it was keeping a solid 60 FPS and looked great.
• Emulation on the device is a dream. I haven't done anything past OG PlayStation games yet, but the power of the device, the robust control customization, and the ease of installing emulators (adding Flatpaks in desktop mode) make this absolutely ideal for revisiting older consoles. I've spent probably 80% of my time on the device in PSOne games.
• Battery life is fine, but I don't really use it. I bought a long power cord and spend most of the time with it plugged in on my couch since it has passthrough. I thought the cord sticking out the top of the device would bother me, but it hasn't really been an issue.
• Game selection is increasing steadily (1700+ verified games currently). If you're buying it to play specific games you might be disappointed, as there's still a lot that doesn't work. If you're buying it for games in general though, there is plenty to keep you occupied.
• The grips are MUCH more comfortable for bigger hands than standard Switch joycons. Those would always cramp my hands, but the Deck feels natural and comfortable.
• The middle of the device gets warm to the touch during gameplay, especially on more demanding stuff, but the grips remain cool and you won't feel the heat at all unless you specifically move your hands to the back middle of the device.

The Bad

• The paddles on the back are a little awkward, and I accidentally click them more than I like. In most games they're not mapped to anything so it's fine, but in emulators I use them for save states. I had to set them to respond to long presses only so my accidental clicks didn't mess things up.
• The software is... still getting there. I get navigation issues on store and profile pages frequently, along with frequent UI lag. It's a bit unpolished at the moment.
• Don't know if it's specific to my hardware or a software bug, but sometimes it won't log me in to my Friends list and the only fix is a reboot.
• I wish the control sticks had deeper indents for your thumbs. They're pretty flat, and my thumbs tend to slip off on stick-focused games (most noticeable on my right (aiming) thumb during 20 Minutes Till Dawn).
• Bluetooth headphones have to be manually reconnected in the Settings menu each time. No idea why this is, but it's a bit of an inconvenience.
• Mid-game suspending is still clunky. I don't really do it, as I don't trust that it'll save like it should. It also still counts playtime while suspended but seems to have a rollback feature? I put the device to sleep with a game open that I'd played for 20 minutes and came back to it saying I'd played it for 3 hours. The playtime ended up dropping back down to 20 minutes, but only after I restarted the device.

The Ugly

• There isn't any ugly. I absolutely love this device. Despite my nitpicks above, I think it's nothing short of splendid. I'm more excited about this than I've been about anything in videogaming in a long time.

If anyone has any questions, ask away! Also if any other people here have their Steam Decks and want to chime in with their experiences (@Autoxidation), go for it!

So I just upgraded to an M1 Mac Mini. I was a little iffy on it, part of me wanted to build a PC just to play games but I really like MacOS and I mostly play on PS5 and the Switch with the PC only being for indie titles and stuff that only works with a keyboard and mouse like RTS, 4x, or city builders. I just don't play PC games enough to prioritize gaming as a use case in buying a computer, but I also really like RTS and city builder games.

I figured WINE and Parallels would meet most of my gaming needs but my forays into WINE have been frustrating and buggy, and this reddit thread about what works on Parallels is, frankly, just kind of sad to look at. What's worse, apparently the new Age of Empires has some kind of pathfinding instruction set that ONLY works with x86 architecture. So it won't work under any kind of virtualization or emulation.

Enter Cloud gaming. It seems the big contenders right now are ShadowPC, GeForce Now, and Paperspace. Has anyone tried these? When I last costed these out Shadow was only around $15-$20 a month which was almost a no-brainer. But it seems to have gone up to $30 a month now, which gets costly enough to where it almost seems like I'd rather get a Steam Deck. Paperspace is like $10 per month plus another ~$1 per hour of play, which would probably end up cheapest for how little I play. But how it is in terms of configuration and latency I have no idea.

Edit: Formatting by the generous PetitPrince.

† shared between CPU and GPU; exact memory access scheme unspecified
†† ~2.5 hrs at rated 15W APU power draw; also consider SSD, screen, controls, WiFi, etc.

7nm process

This APU is probably on the exact same TSMC process node as the Ryzen 7 4800U.

CPU cores

Half the cores; worse multithreading performance. More power for the GPU†.

† power management features probably do this in practice.

Overall this shouldn't matter much. Maybe impacts people who compress game files or want to use the Steam Deck for things other than gaming.

CPU clock speeds

A somewhat low max boost. Probably from power and thermal considerations. Is it the sustained max boost? With just the CPU? How about max GPU? Can it clock higher when docked?

A surprisingly high minimum clock. I hope it can clock lower than 2.4GHz.

Overall, this is subject to power and thermal limitations and management. Needs to be tested by a trusted third party. I am hopeful that as a handheld PC, we can adjust clocks and boosting behavior. These behaviors may be different on Linux compared to Windows.

CPU cache

Unspecified, I expect 8MB from AMD but we could see 4-6 as a cost and power saving measure.

GPU

Docked performance will likely be held back by the 8 CUs.

The clock speeds look good, about what was expected. Same goes for sustained boost as for the CPU boost.

By implementing the Radeon RX Vega 8 on 7nm, the process improvement gains have already been realized. Additionally, I speculate that AMD has had ample opportunity for some under the hood improvements to the aging microarchitecture. Some benchmarks found it to be 30-40% faster than an RX Vega 10 (a larger GPU) on the older process node. However, the clock speeds were twice as high compared to the RX Vega 10. Consider also that the 15W laptop was pulling ~48 watts.

Since it becomes difficult for me to speculate on GPU microarchitectural improvements, I will consider the APU's 8 CU RDNA 2 GPU to have comparable performance to the Ryzen 7 4800U's Radeon RX Vega 8.

This is mostly for convenience. It may be realistic to expect somewhat lower performance because the handheld Steam Deck APU is unlikely to be allowed to pull more than 20~25 watts. More on this in the battery life section.

By far the most significant improvements from the RDNA 2 GPU, in my mind, stem from the latest GPU features; modern video decoding, Vulkan features, mesh shading, and more. Also, being the same microarchitecture that console developers will be targeting.

Feel free to substitute your own speculative performance, but please don't let hype bias your expectations, and be careful when seeking out benchmarks.

APU power draw

4 watts is pretty clearly the minimum idling draw seen in windows laptops with Zen 2 CPUs.

Unfortunately this is high compared to ARM CPUs. It may also be subject to the level of optimizations done on the firmware and the custom Linux distribution. People willing to roll their own might be able to get this lower? It would require getting your hands dirty, and don't bank on it. I'll be happy if Valve actually gets idling consistently down to 4 watts.

As for 15 watts, it is pretty clear that commonly shared expectations of the hardware are not tailored for this rated power draw. People are expecting performance that comes with 40-80 watts. I expect the APU to draw as high as 20~25 watts in certain circumstances, but this is speculation, and cannot be verified until Steam Decks are in the hands of trusted third party reviewers such as Gamer's Nexus.

And make no mistake, drawing anything over 15 watts in the APU will have battery life implications, which I will cover later.

RAM

If there is anything I am allowing to build my expectations, it is probably this. To my knowledge, we haven't much seen LPDDR5 in devices yet, so there is some novelty and some unknowns.

Compared to DDR4/LPDDR4, even this reduced speed (saving more power btw) LPDDR5 memory will be faster, finally reaching something similar to dedicated GDDR memory speeds on older budget discrete mobile graphics cards. It has plenty of new power saving features, and should generally draw less power anyway.

But let me be clear on what it isn't; it is not GDDR5, and it is not GDDR6 as seen in the Xbox Series X or S. Please do not confuse these. I have seen people refer to it as all kinds of things. IT IS NOT GDDR, IT IS NOT LPDDR4, IT IS NOT LPDDR6.

Okay. With that out of the way, the other half of this that has me tentatively hopeful is the listed 128-bit quad channel memory. I am not qualified to speak on the nature of memory accesses and on memory channels, but generally, this should be responsible for the memory bus bandwidth to approach that of budget discrete graphics cards.

Hopefully this improves the GPU performance significantly.

Also, while I initially assumed 16 GB of RAM was such overkill for the target resolutions that it could only be to pander to the PC gaming crowd which would identify the gratuitous RAM with a premium product, I speculate it was just a byproduct of having four memory packages for quad channel. I'm guessing the smallest packages LPDDR5 came in was 4 GB. Anyway, I might be wrong on this account, and it doesn't much matter; there is more than enough RAM, faster I believe than any older APU already on the market (we aren't counting the consoles okay), and it should save power all the while.

Considering people would still be buying the Steam Deck regardless, I say well done Valve, even if it was required to hit performance targets or actually a financial boon behind the curtain.

Storage

At first I was upset the base model was eMMC rather than an NVMe SSD, given how cheap 64/128 GB SSDs are in bulk. On second consideration, it makes a lot of sense.

I speculate that at best, the base model has an extremely narrow profit margin. Even a cheap SSD might eat into that. But even more, eMMC should be more than enough for anyone intending to use the Steam Deck primarily for 2D games and emulation, which is historically a staple segment of the handheld market. These are the games that will also be happy on a microSD.

In this way, there is some product segmentation for the mid and high tier models, which are making money on the storage.

I personally have placed a reservation for the base model, although I intend to upgrade the storage myself. However, it is difficult to obtain benchmarks of power draw for m.2 SSDs of this size beyond "less than bigger NVMe drives because fewer chips and no DDR4 cache probably", so it might not be an advisable tradeoff to anyone but the budget conscious and those seeking a full 1TB fast NVMe storage.

Speaking of power, my limited findings are suggesting ~3.5W power draw from appropriate m.2 NVMe SSDs, meaning the eMMC model may also deliver the best battery life (even before accounting for less demanding titles). That is probably the listed 8 hours.

Keep in mind I don't know much about the power draw of eMMC, and the power management differences between eMMC and NVMe.

One last thing; Microsoft promised optimized games for the Series S that would have reduced asset sizes for the reduced storage. A promise it appears they haven't been able to deliver on. However, this is a very good idea and I would be THRILLED if Valve was able to wrangle a user selection of asset quality when downloading games. Some PC games have higher quality assets as DLC, and generally as a handheld PC we have some ability to do this manually. Compressing game files might also be an avenue?

Battery life

Everyone looks for different things in a product. So far I've tried to provide a relatively practical, unbiased take on the Steam Deck's listed specs, leaving it up to readers to decide what they care about.

But if you saw the Steam Deck and a short battery life never once crossed your mind, it probably isn't a concern for you. I don't know what your usecase is; maybe permanently docked, perhaps just keeping it around the house. It doesn't really matter, and I think the Steam Deck is a particularly solid value for you in particular.

It is pretty easy to do a battery life calculation. So everyone should do so with their own speculations on the total system power draw, when gaming, idling, etc. Things to account for are the APU, screen, WiFi, SSD, RAM, and so on.

I figure something like 1.5 < x < 2.5 hours for full fat gaming. I probably should have watched the video (holy cow can you believe I'm going to post this whole essay without watching the video!?) but I believe 6 hours 30 fps was thrown around, so that should be the upper limit possible for general gaming and optimized titles. I'm pretty confident the 8 hours is a best case scenario only on the eMMC model running 2D or generally less demanding games.

The math here is simple so make up your own mind!

Lastly, with a PC we have some wiggle room to optimize settings and we can also destroy battery life I'm sure. So remember, frame limits are your friend on a 60 hz screen, and on mobile devices in general. Also, reducing settings possibly. It really goes against my nature as a PC gamer though, considering I play Skyrim with an ENB on a GTX 660M. At a stuttery 10~15 fps. Yeah, sometimes a stable 30 fps is the way to go, but I'm a hypocrite who just can't wait to run 1080p and downscale to remove jaggies!

Weight

I wasn't sure if I should include this, as I am skipping other things like the microSD card slot (other than that I genuinely would have preferred a regular SD card slot so I could emulate having game cartridges; actually, I need to look up splitting game files across onboard and removable storage).

Still, it deserves a mention; I have no clue if it will be too heavy for me. I suspect going from the Switch to the Steck will be frustrating, although some have pointed out that the placement of buttons and joysticks will make it easier to rest it while playing. Also I'mma just call it the Steck from now on, my apologies.

Overall, it looks bulky and heavy and might be a pain to tote around. But modding makes this worth it for me personally.

Actual Performance Numbers Please, or APNP

I am now realizing this is way too long, and I'm spiraling out of control; there's no way I can edit all this! How long has it been since I've slept? Did I eat yet today? I will be downvoted to Oblivion for posting something this unwieldy and unreadable!

Oh well. Before I loose consciousness, I pretty much expect 1280x800 30fps on all titles. Doesn't that seem too low? But there are overheads that go into running unoptimized PC ports of games on Linux, and frankly while Proton does great things, I'm mostly familiar with it on a desktop. What is the experience with a power budget? The Radeon RX 8 struggles with 1080p on some titles; will the Steck be able to hit 1080p 30fps on all titles, let alone 60fps?

Anyway, I've made my base expectations. I personally anticipate for 1280x800 60fps for all titles, albiet at a limited battery life, but I don't think we can take it for granted. Docked performance, remains to be seen. 1080p 30fps seems realistic. Basically my clunky 11lb gaming laptop from 2012 with the GTX 660M, but with waaay more RAM and a tenth of the power draw. In a handheld.

Freesync

I don't think the display supports freesync or, as I've seen some people say, Valve would advertise that. Seems strange given the market, and if expertly implemented could potentially let the display downclock way down when appropriate. To tired to check, but possibly could be implemented down the line? That means NOT a feature, unless it is on the box when you are paying BTW.

Wow, I Can't Believe FlippantGod Won't Shut Up

The price is right, folks, but please don't pretend that this will double as a serious VR rig. That isn't the sort of thing you speculate on before a console is even released and benchmarked by trusted third parties.

What do y'all think of my expectations? Too low? Too high? Any interesting morsels I may have missed? And lastly, will Reddit eat me alive if I post this there? Willing to take any and all criticisms when I wake up! And hey, if someone high up on the Tildes social ladder wants to tag this "Steck", I will forever be in your debt. I am much too scared to do so myself.

I wanted to get a general discussion going on the opinions of game streaming services. This is a potentially huge market and the big companies out there are really trying to break into this market. I personally use google stadia and love it, there is a slight amount of latency in movements but it feels no different than a larger dead zone to me.

I love the idea of game streaming as it brings more games to more platforms like Linux, macOS and mobile devices. I know the big argument against them is that you don’t own the games, but from my perspective, you don’t own the games on steam either, you own the right to play someone else’s game just like with Google stadia or Luna or xcloud. If you want to own an actual copy then you have to buy the game from a vendor like gog or itch.io.

So let me know your opinions on this market, do you think it’s good, bad, or somewhere in between and why? If you play on any of these services what are your thoughts and experiences? Has it worked well for you and do you see yourself using services like this in the future? I genuinely am curious as it’s a completely different mindset than what we’re used too and it can really disrupt a market that hasn’t seen proper innovation in years.

I'm primarily a PC gamer with a library slowly approaching 1,000 games on Steam. While I have sometimes bought games through the other storefronts like Blizzard, GOG, Uplay, and EA Origins, I never really invested significant time in them to the point where I don't keep track of what is in those libraries. Suffice to say, I thought that I was so entrenched in Steam that I couldn't possibly play in another storefront for any meaningful amount of time.

This has changed for the past year. I hopped on one of those deals that gave me access to Game Pass since Microsoft added all the Bethesda games and partnered with EA Play. And I gotta say, I'm invested now. Invested so much that I bought a Series X despite having zero interest when the new generation of systems was announced. Game Pass on Xbox is an even better deal than Game Pass on PC. The library is larger and for the games that are Play Anywhere, I can continue my save file on my PC when my living room TV is unavailable.

I really think that Microsoft has a winning strategy with Game Pass this generation and it really surprised me how my attitude to the Xbox ecosystem changed this year. While I think both Sony and Nintendo have great exclusives, the value proposition for me of convenience and a rotating slate of quality games will likely keep me invested and subscribed, moreso than Xbox Gold or PS+ have in the past.

Note: this will be a noisy thread! If you would not like to see it in your feed, please use the ignore feature!

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This offer is no longer available. Thanks to those who participated!

Anyone here in the mood for a new Steam game this weekend?

Presumably you are, because you clicked this thread to read it! Welcome!

What is this?

It's a Steam game giveaway! I figured some of you might want a new game to play this weekend, and what's better than getting an awesome new game for free?!

What's the catch?

There isn't one! No gimmicks, and no strings attached!

How do I get my game?

Comment below with your choice, and I'll PM you the key. To keep the thread from being pure noise, I would also like you to, with your request, tell me about a favorite “hidden gem” game you’ve played. I love hearing about diamonds in the rough, so let me know about an underappreciated game you’ve loved (the more obscure/unknown the better).

Also, if you end up playing the game you get this weekend (you don’t have to — it’s a gift, not an obligation!), return to the thread to tell everyone about it!

Are there any restrictions?

Only one game per commenter please, but note that multiple people CAN request the same game! I will give out as many of each copy as is requested!

Why are you doing this?

My pageant answer is about doing something nice for an awesome community during some difficult times, but the real truth is that I've been drinking a bit, there’s a seriously good bundle on right now, and as I looked at the titles in it, it made me feel deep down in my bones the unshakeable sense that more people need to play Yoku's Island Express.

What's on offer?

Your choices are below. I haven't played all of these, but, based on the reviews, there's not a bad game in the bunch! There's also a wide amount of variety, so hopefully you can find something that speaks to your individual interests!

What do you recommend?

First of all, thank you for asking! That’s so thoughtful.

• Yoku's Island Express

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO PLAY THIS (thus sayeth the truth in my bones). The game is a delight. It's charming, novel, and very well-made. "Pinball metroidvania" isn't exactly a common genre or even one that makes sense on paper, but it's pulled off splendidly. It’s also thoroughly enjoyable even if you're a complete pinball novice like me. If in doubt about which game to pick, choose this one! If, after you play it, it turns out I’ve steered you wrong, you’re allowed to return to this thread and yell at me.

• Yooka-Laylee

I honestly think this is one of the most unfairly criticized games out there. I genuinely don't understand why so many people had very negative reactions to it. I don't normally finish games, but I full-on 100%ed this one! It has a couple of rough spots and edges, but on the whole I thought it was wonderful and deserved far better than the lukewarm-to-hostile response it got.

Can just ANYONE ask for a game?

Yes. PLEASE DO. Don’t wait around thinking someone else deserves it more or you don’t want to be a bother or you don’t want to put me out or you might not play it this weekend or you might look like a freeloader. I literally WANT to give this stuff away. Nothing would make me happier than to see this thread deluged with requests! If you're someone who might get enjoyment out of any of these games, then DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK FOR ONE!

IMPORTANT EDIT: I am handing out games even if I'm not responding in the thread to each individual request! I didn't want to keep bumping the thread myself with confirmations.

This is a wild, ongoing story that is playing out in a rather bizarrely.

First off, here is Frogware's open letter on the situation from August 25, 2020.

Basically, Frogwares signed an agreement with Nacon (formerly Big Ben Interactive) to license and publish their game in return for funding, but Frogwares still owned the IP. Frogwares claims that Big Ben was consistently late with payments and did not honour milestones for further funding. They took on an EGS exclusivity agreement to help get funding. At some point during the development, Nacom bought another studio and then demanded that Frogwares give their source code to this new company, which Frogwares refused to do.

The released the game in June 2019 but then were told by Nacom that the milestones that were previously agreed to were cancelled, therefore Frogwares would see no profit from the game. Frogware filed a lawsuit and finally got access to some sales data but found it wanting in many regards. They also found that copyright notices on the game were incorrect with the result of misallocating the IP ownership. Their logo was removed from the PS4 and X1 versions of the game and they discovered that Nacon was presenting themselves as the IP owners for the game, and had bought domains for Frogwares' other Sherlock Holmes titles (most of which was published by Focus Home Interactive, with some published by Atlus in North America or self-published by Frogwares).

Frogwares believes they had what they needed to terminate the contract with Nacon, despite some complications with the French legal system due to the COVID pandemic, and so they pulled their games from various storefronts alongside this letter.

In January 2021, that French legal complication played out against them when the Paris Court of Appeals determined that Frogwares acted unlawfully and decided that Nacon would be able to put the game back on the market.

Today, The Sinking City was put back on Steam with Frogwares listed as the developer, but Frogwares says they did not make this version. It seems to be an older version, missing much the DLC and features like achievements and cloud saves.

Frogwares' own version of the game is being sold only on Gamesplanet, Origin, and the Xbox 1 Series, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.

So there is this game called Valheim that recently released. You may or may not have recently read the article where they claim to have sold over a million copies around a week after release.

I bought it to give it the 2-hour smell test and it seems pretty darn good. However, this game seems best played with others and I doubt my friend group will end up playing this. Renting a server seems pretty cheap so I was wondering how interested you would be in a Tildes community server? I would be down for paying for a month and seeing where it goes from there.

It looks like min slots for a server would be 10 slots but I would imagine that's okay since we all wouldn't be in the same time zone. I can scale this up if the demand is there.

Thoughts?

Other Info:

What is Valheim, the Viking game blowing up on Steam?

Server is set up!

Game is password protected but if you click me, you will find what you need.

Here's the background...
So, I tend not to play video games at all any more (not for at least 15 or 20 years). My teen daughter wants to get a Playstation gaming console...but it seems less about playing and more about socializing with her friends. Her friends - while i promised my partner not to call them 'idiots' - are not really the best decision-makers and they're quite affluent (and we definitely are not affluent), so their poor choices usually never impact them. (I think it is less about being teens, and more about them being rich, entitled poor decision makers, because my daughter and a few other poorer friends are actually good kids who know that we can not get all the things.) Here's an example: all of my daughter's rich friends will ask their parents to buy them widget X, and so of course my daughter wants one so she can connect with these rich teens. For these rich kids, after they inevitably abandon widget X, there is no issue; they merely drop them off in one of the rooms in their mini-mansions. But for me, i can not always afford to buy widget X and then have my daughter abandon stuff in our little, meager but love-filled house. (Please if possible let's avoid the topic of how I'm raising my daughter, because all of the parents of us poorer kids in town have the exact same issues with our kids.) Now, we come to the part about my daughter wanting a playstation...I don't mind saving up for a PlayStation - especially if she'll use it...However, since she really only wants it to socialize with her rich friends via a couple of games, i was thinking on getting a PC/gaming rig (not as expensive as PS or some sort of AlienWare) instead of the dedicated gaming console, but still plenty usable for some games...So that, after some time if she abandons it (because for example her friends have migrated to other avenues of socializing), i can always re-purpose the machine. In my mind it seems a more worthwhile investment. (I'm a software guy mostly, but over the decades, almost every machine i have/own has been franken-built by me...so i know just enough hardware.) Now, if I go the route of a PC/gaming rig, can i just sign her up for online gaming accounts like PlayStation Network, and that will suffice for her to use her PC but still connect, say via PSNetwork, with her friends playing PS games?? (To help, i should clarify the games these teens play are fortnight, minecraft, and grand theft auto...I think GTA does not support in game chat/comms with friends, though i could be wrong.)

So, is it possible for me to sign up my daughter on an online gaming account - like PS Network - that would allow her to communicate with hr friends? And, if so, which gaming network should I set up an account, PS Network, Steam, etc.??? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!!!

We're trying to start a Gamecircle (kind of like a Bookcircle) with friends and accuintances and I'm looking for some good Games to start. It is a daunting task to be honest, as there will be some first time gamers taking part. And for me as a singleplayer for year (mostly factorio and some round and grand strategy games) I dont even know where to start looking.
I'm looking for something like mario kart, which is easy to understand and fun for everybody to play, for the first months. Not cost more than 10$, be aviable through steam or gog or itch.io, preferably cross-platform (steam play works fine too).

On another note, has someboy tried something like this? how did/does it work out? What would be your Advice?

Latest update here. Thanks to everyone who helped me out!

I have an Nvidia Shield hooked up to my TV, and it's great for Android games and emulation. I'm looking for similar hardware that will allow me to play my Steam library on the TV.¹ It doesn't have to be as small as the Shield TV, but I'm not interested in having a giant tower hooked up in my living room. Basically, I want what those old Steam Machines promised before fizzling out.

What I'm looking for:

• Pre-configured
• Able to support wireless controllers through Bluetooth
• Able to play smaller, less demanding games flawlessly
• Would be nice if it could play more demanding titles, but this is not a must
• Has decent cooling (I'm worried that boxes not designed for gaming will get way too hot)
• Price point: undetermined so far -- I'm willing to pay what I need to, but I want to see what's out there before committing to anything
• Would like to be able to set it up to basically be a seamless "console" if possible, where I can boot right into Steam (or easily get there with a controller) and not have to use a keyboard and mouse (I do have a Steam controller but I would rather use an 8BitDo SN30 Pro+ as my primary input method)

Searching around, here's what I've found so far:

• The System 76 Meerkat is a mini PC that looks great (and I'm partial to the company), but I don't know how it would perform with gaming. Also, I haven't decided if I want the (small) amounts of friction that come with gaming on Linux on my TV or not.

• Intel NUCs seems to be popular, and they have some gaming-focused models at higher price points.

• The MSI Trident 3 is explicitly gaming-focused and has a dedicated cooling system. Might be overkill for what I need though?

Here are my main questions:

1. What other hardware options are out there that I don't know about?
2. What hardware profile and price point should I be targeting for my needs? How little is too little, and how much is too much?
3. Are there any pitfalls to this kind of setup that I'm not aware of?

I'm open to any and all suggestions, as this kind of stuff is all a bit over my head so it's hard for me to even know what I'm looking for. I haven't even decided that this is definitely something I'm going to do yet, since there's such a wide range in price and performance. Instead what I'm trying to do is figure out what my needs are and then which models (if any) would fit them best.

1: I do have a Steam Link and have tried the app, but the quality for me has been spotty enough that I would rather have native hardware playing them than trying to stream it from my laptop.

Firaxis just announced a new addition to the XCOM series in the form of XCOM: Chimera Squad. It takes place 5 years after the events of XCOM 2 and focuses on a specific squad of named human and alien characters trying to maintain the peace in a one of the new cities.

Game Reveal Trailer

Gameplay Trailer

It's currently $10 on steam, presumably since it looks like it was built on the XCOM 2 engine. The sale lasts until May 1st, so you'll have time to wait until some reviews are out before you buy it.

I absolutely loved XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, so this is a nice surprise for me. Some of my friend who have played some of the older XCOMs are comparing it at least thematically to XCOM: Apocalypse

Edit:
@cwagner provided a link to GMG where its currently $9.50

My wife and I enjoy playing mystery walking simulators together and have been looking for more-- Steam's recommendation engine is pretty terrible in finding others or lesser-known titles, so I thought I'd ask around for what others play! They don't have to be full-on walking simulators, just games where dying is rare/not a big component of the experience (looking at you, Visage!), and the rest of the game is all about solving a mystery/thriller of some sort. Preferably first-person games with realistic-enough graphics.

Ones we've played so far and have loved are:

• Dead Secret
• Gone Home (loose fit)
• The Painscreek Killings (really loved this one)
• The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Ones I've got in my queue:

• Anna
• Bohemian Killing
• Dead Secret 2
• Return of Obra Dinn

I've also played What Remains of Edith Finch, Dear Esther, Firewatch, and some others-- but those didn't really have a big enough mystery component to them (to be clear I liked them, they just didn’t have a dark/thriller vibe to em).

Any other suggestions?

@Deimos clued me in to this site which lets you filter your Steam library using tags. I had no idea this was even a thing, and it made me want to know what else I'm missing. What are some great sites/tools out there that improve your Steam experience?

It should go without saying that they need to be safe to use. I know scam Steam sites are a dime a dozen, so make sure you're posting something that's properly vetted.

Here's a running list of submissions:

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING

What I Did

The game took me around twenty hours to beat, and I stretched that out over the course of about two months. Sometimes I would dive in deep and play non-stop for an hour or two, but most of the time it was me playing it almost piecemeal, for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Enough to get through one or two panels that I had been stuck on and then stop again.

I would have liked to do longer gaming sessions with it, but I found that I sort of had finite mental resources to apply to the game. I would hit a panel, be thoroughly perplexed, stare at it for 10 minutes while trying different solutions in my head, on paper, and in the game. Nothing would work, so I'd stop the game. The next day I would boot it up and, more often than not, have the solution in a minute or two--sometimes even the first try! I think my brain was working on these in the background.

Something that helped me massively was not letting myself get intimidated by the game. As I would work myself farther and farther down a strand of puzzles, I would instinctively start to feel the pressure that they were getting harder and harder each time. Rather than feed into that feeling, I simply reassured myself that each puzzle was its own thing, and each one had a solution right there, staring me in the face. I just had to find it.

What I Loved

I think the game is gorgeous. Stunning. Beautiful. An absolute joy to look at. It made me realize that we don't often get vibrant color in games that aren't pixel art. I also think the world is beautifully designed. The island is a memorable place with lots to explore.

I also loved the game's ability to teach you its rules wordlessly. The line puzzles aren't just puzzles--they're a language. The whole game felt like some geometric force was trying to communicate with me, but first it had to teach me its alphabet, grammar, and syntax.

Furthermore, I can't tell you how many times I would fight for a solution to a difficult puzzle, feeling it was nearly impossible all the way, only to find the seemingly one right answer. The only way it could possibly work. The next panel? The same damn layout but with an added rule that ruined my prior solution! I loved that the game made me rethink my own thoughts and forced me to see, quite literally, that there is often more than one way to solve a problem.

What I Felt

I was probably 12 to 14 hours into the game when I accidentally stumbled onto the knowledge that there were lines that could be activated outside the panels. I can't remember where I was but holy hell can I remember the feeling. I've got goosebumps right now as I type this from revisiting it in my memory. It was the sublime feeling you get from a great plot twist. There was a sense of revelation, the feeling of frission, and a newfound respect and appreciation for the design that went into the game.

What's sad is that it shouldn't have taken me that long. I saw the circles and lines throughout the environment as I made my way around the island and just assumed that it was a sort of visual motif, or maybe a stylistic flair, much like the game's sort of cartoony, polygonal look. Finding out that I could, in fact, trace them just like every other line I'd been making for the past ten hours was absolutely flooring to me. Experiencing that moment is one of the high points in all of my gaming history. It was the moment the game went from "this is definitely a clever game!" to "FUCK...this game is SO. DAMN. SMART." After that moment I think I spent two hours frantically running around the island hunting environmental lines. Now that I knew what to look for, they were EVERYWHERE. Hiding in plain sight! I was stunned. In absolute awe.

At probably about the 15 hour mark, I found the movie room and had the input for one movie. It was a scene in which a man lights a candle and attempts to walk across a courtyard, and each time the candle goes out, he returns to the beginning. I took this to be a metaphor for the game--specifically that it is about the journey rather than the destination. As such, this was the point that I realized I wasn't going to get some revelatory story at the end of the game, and that making it to the end of the game, while definitely a goal, was not what gave the game meaning.

The sub-takeaway from the film was the idea that the effort is worth it. The man in the film could have just crossed the courtyard and lit the candle at the end. The fact that he didn't showed self-restraint and a committment to the rule. I took this to be a comment on how the game is played. I could have looked up solutions to the puzzles online and just inputted them easily as a way of breezing through the game. While it would get me to where I was going (the end), what was the point? My playthrough was the lit candle route--harder because I was forcing myself to put in the work rather than taking the easy way out.

Oh, and did I mention that the film also had an environmental line at the end you could activate if you went behind the screen while it was running? Genius. This game is SO. DAMN. SMART.

What I Didn't Love

Because I didn't pay attention to detail and made assumptions when I shouldn't have, I didn't realize that I could enter the mountain without all the beacons activated. My gamer mind simply saw OBVIOUS GATED DESTINATION and OBVIOUS DESTINATION GATE KEYS and went "yup, gotta get all of these to unlock the end!" As such, I overplayed my game a bit by doing all of that first. I was all set for entering the mountain to be the ending, especially because the village beacon felt like a "final exam" to the game, incorporating all of the other puzzle types. I kept coming back to it after learning a new symbol/rule and would chip away here and there until I finally got through all of it.

As such, when I got into the mountain and there were even more puzzles I was miffed. My steam had run out. Add to that I'm pretty susceptible to motion sickness in games, so the flashing, scrolling, and color-cycling puzzles were deeply unpleasant for me. I literally had to look away from the screen for the scrolling ones. I solved them on paper and inputted them with the panels in my peripheral vision.

The double-sided room below those was equal parts brilliant and frustrating, though I was impressed as hell with the room with the four sub-puzzles that fed into the larger one on the floor. Unfortunately, I ended the game on quite a low note, as the pillar puzzles at the very end turned my stomach on account of the rotating camera. I was able to power through those only because I knew I was so close to the end.

What I'm Left With

While I didn't love the ending, I, as previously mentioned, don't think it's about that. The game gave me 20 hours of puzzle-solving bliss in a beautiful, rich environment. It gave me legitimate chills when I figured out its secret. It made me think, it made me work, and it made me feel legitimately fulfilled. Good puzzle games make you feel baffled and then they turn around and make you feel brilliant. This one made me feel all sorts of brilliant.

The game has so many legitimately clever moments. I loved the pagoda area where you have to look through branches at the right angle to see the solution. The last puzzle has two pieces of the answer, but a section is missing. After traipsing around, trying every possible visual angle, I look down and find a branch broken off at my feet. The missing piece. Brilliant.

It was filled with little things like these. Little thoughtful twists or nudges. Each puzzle strand was an iterative sequence, and each time you thought you knew where it was headed, they'd push it further. Then further. More and more. Often in ways you wouldn't expect. It's not just that the idea of the game is good but that its execution is so rich and thoughtful that it makes me reverent.

As for post-game stuff (because I know there's a ton I haven't gotten to), I'm taking a break from the game right now, but I might return to it a little later. I kept screenshots of puzzles I didn't solve or environmental elements that I was pretty sure were really activatable but that I couldn't quite figure out (the brown railroad tracks in the white limestoney area, for example).

I have the inputs for a couple more movies that I haven't watched, so I'll probably go back for those. I know there's a challenge area as well, and I'm presumably equipped for it given that I did all of the beacons, but I don't know if I'm up for that. Not just yet, at least.

What You Can Help Me With

For those of you that have gone through the post-game content, do you recommend it? Are there certain things I should focus on? I'm not terribly concerned about spoilers, but if there's something "big" like the environmental line revelation, maybe just give me a hint or point me in the right direction.

I also have a couple of lingering questions. Feel free to answer them unless you feel that it's better if I try to figure it out by myself.

• What do the individual, standalone panels lying around the island do (the gray ones with the triangles)? I've figured out the rule, I just don't know their purpose.

• Does finding all the environmental lines serve any larger purpose?

• Is there story or lore in the game? Does the island or its frozen inhabitants get explained? I activated a few audiologs, but those were mostly philosophical ponderings rather than narrative.

• How on earth do I get that environmental line with the railroad tracks? Of all the ones that I haven't been able to figure out how to get, that one's bothering me the most.

Finally, to anyone who's played the game (which is hopefully anyone who read this), I'd love to hear your experience and thoughts. What was The Witness like for you?

EDIT: Writing the post inspired me to go back into the game instead of sleeping. I watched two other videos I had found inputs for. One was a woman talking about freeing yourself from want, and the other was a man talking about science and knowledge. Interesting stuff.

Then I started exploring and I found an environmental line made by the negative space in the sky when properly bounded by a cloud and wall from the exact right angle. This game is SO. DAMN. SMART.

EDIT 2: Disregard where I said I was going to take a break from the game. I'm diving back in. I want to explore and find these environmental lines. It's so satisfying when you find one.

There was one on a bridge leading from the village towards the foresty area with the orange trees. I could see it from the ground and knew it definitely was one, but I could never quite position myself right to actually trace it. I tried climbing in the castle area since it seemed like I needed to be elevated, but that didn't work. I tried it from the rooftops in the village, and that didn't work. Then I looked: the tower in the middle of the village! I'd forgotten to try from there because once I got to the top of that I headed straight for the mountain. Sure enough, that was the spot.

Also, can we talk about how the sound is so satisfying when you get one? So good.

EDIT 3: The game might be trying to teach me a lesson in freeing myself from want. Now that I'm fired up to dive back into it, it's hard crashing after I start it up. It loads fine and I can walk a few steps, then it locks up my whole system.

I'm running it on Linux through Proton and tried all the different Proton versions assuming that was the culprit (it has crashed before) but the outcome is the same. I might be technologically barred from going further, which I guess is in the spirit of the game's ending and philosophy, right?

EDIT 4: My OS had some graphics library updates for me today, and after installing them I'm back in business--no more crashing! (Sub edit: I spoke too soon. It crashed after about half an hour, but that's way better than what I was getting before). I spent a while traipsing around the island, looking for environmental lines. It's amazing how, in hindsight, so many areas or destinations that I thought were just kind of dead space are actually strategic locations for environmental lines.

A good example is the very beginning of the game. You can get onto the roof of the overhang you first walk out from. At the beginning of the game I got up there, saw some pillows, and just thought it was set dressing in an ultimately useless space. Nope! Not only is there an environmental line you can get from there, but there's an audiolog as well if you're paying attention to detail (which, of course, I wasn't in my first go-around).

I've never really been that into video games. When I was young, I played a lot of RPGs on the SNES and PS1. Within the last couple of years, I dipped my toes back in the water and tried a few out. I tried Skyrim on a friend's recommendation, but it was just a little too involved and open-world for me. I got Cities:Skylines, which I love because I love city builder sims, but that game just does not run well on any of my underpowered computers. And I loved Ori and the Blind Forest, a beautiful platformer, and I'd play it again right now if it wasn't Windows-only.

Here are my requirements. First, it needs to run well on a low-powered machine without making the fan go insane. I've got a MacBook Air 2012 and a ThinkPad x250 (Linux). Neither of these are the ideal gaming experience, I know, but I'm not looking for amazing graphics or bleeding edge technology or something super immersive. Pixel graphics are fine with me. It reminds me of my youth, anyway. I played both Skylines and Ori on my Intel NUC 4th Gen and while it worked, they both really taxed that little machine. I was able to finish Ori, but once a city reaches a certain size in Skylines, it gets unplayable.

I'm not looking for stress. I like RPGs and sims. But it doesn't have to be really hard or frustrating. I don't want to feel chased in a game. I prefer to feel that I'm driving the action and I can go at my pace. I want to feel like if I look away for a moment, I'm not going to lose everything. I'm a casual. I also don't mind if there's no defined ending of a game. For me, I'm more looking for a diversion and a slow build over some kind of constant progression/achievement type scenario.

If it has full controller support, that would be ideal. I've got a Steam controller, and I prefer using a controller to play a game. I've never liked using the keyboard to play. I'm not totally against it, but I guess I just never got into computer gaming. I pretty much always played on consoles in the past.

Linux or macOS only, please. I did have Windows installed once so that I could play games, but I'm not bothering with that anymore. I don't want to have to boot into another operating system just to play a game. I want to be able to hop in and out of a game while using my daily driver computer.

So in my research, I've looked into Terraria and Stardew Valley. These might be what I'm looking for. But I really don't know. Do either of these scratch my itch? Is there another game that I would enjoy based on what I've told you? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

EDIT: Thank you everybody for your awesome suggestions. I'm still happy to hear more, as I plan to add the ones that really interest me to my wishlist and revisit later. I ended up getting Hollow Knight yesterday and I spent the whole day playing it. It's very engrossing, and it's the perfect game for me. It's so much like Ori, and that game blew me away. Chilled out, go at your own pace, exploring dungeons, challenging but not impossible (though the first Hornet fight was pretty tough for me). The game runs fine on my ThinkPad x250 (i5-5300U) in Pop!_OS Linux, apart from the initial movie scene stuttering--I just had to skip past it, unfortunately. It's such an awesome game, and I'm glad to see they've already announced a sequel. If you know of any other games that are like Ori and Hollow Knight, let me know.

I know I'm late to the party, but do you have any recommendations, hidden gems? What's your favorite lately?

I've played most of the big games on console, so I would be looking for something that isn't on PS/Xbox.

Thanks!

Edit: I usually like puzzly games such as Limbo, Inside, Little Nightmares or story-driven epics like RDR2, God of War.

(Still don't know if Tilders is a thing, but I'm rolling with it.)

Red Dead Redemption 2 has hooked me like no other game has in years, and that's saying something. My collection is massive between my Steam library, PS4 library, and all the older titles I hoard. But ever since RDR2 came out a few months ago, it's almost all I have played on a daily basis.

Aside from the fact that the graphics and animations are objectively jaw-drop gorgeous, there is something about this game's pacing, writing, thematic story telling, game-play, and characters that has absolutely captured my imagination, and has become my go-to way to unwind after a long day. Most of this applies to the story mode.

But I also dove completely head first in the Online Beta for a few months straight. I'm now rank 101, have all I want really for online as it stands, and I loved every minute of my crazy solo-hunting/fishing/griefer oblitherating grind. Taking a break for new content coming on the 26th of this month, and also really need to get some friends to play with... (I have a perma-posse on PS4 named "The Pariah" as well if anyone decides they may be interested)

I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and somehow, RD2 MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH HUNTING IN IT. I could go on, but I'm hoping to get some discussion out of this and not just blabber on and on like I do in real life about it.

So... please tell me I'm not the only freak on here that loves this game. The Reddit communities for this game are a toxic dumpster fire, and I really want to discuss it with some people who actually like to... discuss.