I came from the generation that played obsessively through middle and high school, and there’s a part of me that really misses when I’d be able to absorb myself into a video game for weeks at a time.

Now that I’m a working adult, it’s a bit more difficult to convince myself that spending all day playing a video game is worth it as opposed to doing chores, practicing some more “productive” hobbies (art, exercise, cooking) or socializing. Part of it also seems to do with the fact that when I do get fully immersed into another video game and spend hours and hours playing at a time (thank you elden ring), my standard for dopamine seems to increase, and I’m not as interested in reading or playing music when I could get that instant dopamine hit from playing a video game, if that makes sense. The games I tend to play now lean towards relaxing/cozy games, generally offline games I can play at my own leisure, where I used to be very into the Overwatch/CSGO/Call of Duty scene.

I’d really love to hear how other people have experienced this, if at all, or what your experiences have been. Have you noticed a shift in the types of games you play? Do you specifically try not to play games to keep a healthier balance with your other obligations and hobbies too?

In general, I found a lot of real gems this year! The indie scene is thriving like never before, and smaller teams are being enabled by the likes of Unreal Engine to create really beautiful games on a budget. So I had a lot of free time today and yesterday, and decided to go through my discovery queue and check out a few demos. That quickly ballooned into sitting down and playing right through over a dozen demos, two of which (The Lies of P and Wizard with a Gun) I didn't get far enough into to give any coherent thoughts on. How many demos did you check out? Are there any games you're looking forward to on that basis?

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: 5/5
From Deconstructeam, a Valencian studio with a strong emphasis on narrative, choice, and empowering the player to create their own art, this demo was one of the big winners for me. Gameplay revolves around conversations, VN style, but those conversations often happen in the context of you performing, essentially, tarot readings where the cards are all designed by you. I had a lovely, relaxing time making my own cards, and the challenge of interpreting them to the people around me in a way that felt… true, I guess, was memorable. There is an impressive level of responsiveness to your choices on display here, both on a micro level and, it seems, on a macro level, so I have to think that the game will be pretty replayable. My one gripe was that the dialogue felt a bit stiff and unnatural at times. The game isn’t voice-acted, and the lack of rhythm or cadence in a lot of conversations kept them from flowing well. But that said, even if individual lines of dialogue fell a bit short, placed in context, the conversations felt meaningful, engrossing, and interesting. I will be buying this on release.

Death Must Die: 4/5
I’m a sucker for the “Survivors” genre. My first experience with it preceded Vampire Survivors, the little $3 game that swept the world last year and popularized the new gameplay style; I started with the mobile game that inspired VS: Magic Survival. I had tens of hours in that game. And each subsequent entry into the genre; VS, HoloCure, 20 Minutes Til Dawn, etc., etc. have only worn me out more. These games are all the same: more enemies fill the screen; you get more autofire weapons to deal with them and dodge around to avoid contact damage. Fun for half an hour, but don’t really leave you wanting more. Death Must Die is different. Isometric rather than top-down, the combat here is all manual. You click to fire off an attack that needs to be well aimed; enemies don’t deal contact damage but instead have telegraphed attacks that you have to dodge. It feels very ARPG, actually; a bit Diablo. And the level-up system, which sees you selecting boons from different gods, is clearly inspired by Hades and offers considerably more interesting choices (so far, at least) than the usual Survivors game. Feels a lot more skill based, and a bit more build-craft-y, than usual. And I even caught a whiff of a story, though how well it’ll be executed remains to be seen. I look forward to the full release. Just wish there were more defensive options – maybe a parry?

El Paso, Elsewhere: 4/5
This is cute. A Max Payne-style third person shooter that’s well written in a surreal, noir sort of way; corny enough to be delightful; dark enough to maintain the tension. Visually, it’s a low res, low poly callback to the PS1 era. The gameplay is pretty tough; I didn’t finish the demo, but I imagine it would be a lot of fun to master. I’m keeping my eye on this one, even if it’s not my usual type of game. A special callout: there are biblically accurate angel enemies in this game, which makes me a very happy woman.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion: 3/5
I like escape rooms, and this demo is just a well-constructed escape room – actually, it skews very closely to the types of puzzles and mechanics I’ve come to expect from physical escape rooms. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing; I do wish the game used its medium to get a little more wild with it. But the puzzles were generally pretty well constructed and offered a few fun “aha!” moments when I solved them, and I didn’t need to look at a walkthrough or lean on hints to get through. That said, the hints that I did use were pretty lackluster, and in one case, actually wrong, so that system needs some revision. Some of the sound design got a bit grating, too. I don’t know. Were this a co-op experience I’d probably like it a bit more. The appeal of an escape room is the excitement of solving it with a friend, and there are certainly enough self-contained puzzle sequences here to support that. But no; Mystwood Mansion is a solo experience, and I’m not sure if it’ll be that fun to solve multiple predictable escape rooms alone, staring at a computer screen.

The Invincible: 3/5
I am of two minds about The Invincible. This game is an atompunk sci-fi walking sim adapted from a novel (my roommate tells me) by Stanislaw Lem, and so, suitably, what we have in this demo is a slice of high-concept sci-fi steeped in personal stakes. I have a hard time thinking of anything bad to say about this game. It looks good, runs well, has an interesting story that left me wanting more. And yet, one day after playing it, I just do not want to pick the game up again. I suppose part of it was the pace. Some of the best walking sims – What Remains of Edith Finch – tell incredible stories in the space of two hours. Meanwhile this demo was 40 minutes long and felt like only a small piece of some grand, sprawling story. Environments are huge and your walking speed is pretty slow, so there’s a lot of time between set pieces where your character is just having headaches or struggling to breathe, which really wore me down. I can’t imagine playing this game for 10 hours; 5 might be pushing it. It’s not super tempting when I could just read the book.

Loodlenaut: 2/5
Oh boy, Loodlenaut. Where to begin. Okay, so, I actually like this game. It’s pretty, and relaxing; an ocean exploration game where your job is to clean up trash, rescue wildlife, and climb the tech tree. I have played through the entire demo, done everything there is to do, which took about an hour. And I will absolutely not be playing the full game. If you’ve played Powerwash Simulator, you know how satisfying it can be to get rid of muck and watch a meter climb up to 100% clean, and Loodlenaut scratches a similar itch. The problem here is that the game feels so clunky and limited that the frustration often outweighs the satisfaction. For example, you have a cleaning gun that picks up trash, destroys goop, and breaks boxes. But you don’t aim the gun, the game does, and it’s not really based on where you're facing or what you're closest to so much as it is on the game’s capricious moods. Say you’re trying to pick up a glass bottle, but there’s a crate nearby that you can’t break yet because you don’t have the right upgrade. Well, Loodlenaut will snap the gun to the crate and repeatedly try to break it, until you wiggle around enough to get it to change its mind and pick up the bottle. Wielding the gun is a constant frustration, as is sluggishly moving through the ocean. Your swim speed is slow, and your boost recharges slowly, so going back and forth between central base and the area you’re cleaning – something you have to do pretty frequently – takes what feels like an eternity until you sink lots of resources into infrastructure. None of this is a bad idea – incentivising players to craft boost rings to improve traversal is a good idea; auto-targeting is more comfortable than aiming on a controller – it’s just these systems are poorly implemented, which leads to frustration.

Luna Abyss: 5/5
Luna Abyss is a fucking wild demo. I downloaded it because the game’s description used they/them pronouns for its protagonist. I had no idea what I was getting into. So, okay, the best comparison I have for this game is to Returnal. Like that game, Luna Abyss is a high-production value 3D shooter where hitting your shots is easy, and the difficulty comes from avoiding the attacks of bullet-hell style enemies. And like Returnal, it has a strange, unsettling atmosphere, tight movement, and punchy, satisfying guns. Of course, Luna Abyss isn’t a roguelike, and it appears much more straightforward with its story beats so far. I don’t know, I’m having a hard time capturing what makes this game so great. Let’s start with the world, which is bleak and dark and oppressive. You run through cavernous metal structures, all black and grey, lit in harsh red. Enormous metal pipes twist and curl and embrace each other like enormous, mechanical intestines, and you run across them to get to your next objective. This place was not designed for you, and you feel that so clearly as you traverse it. You jump off the pipes and enter into combat, where a generous aim assist ensures that all your shots will hit. But there are a couple of enemy types to prioritize. You fire your shieldbreaker at a flying enemy, killing it, and time slows to a crawl, increasing the impact of the shot and giving you a tiny moment of respite to see what bullets you’ll have to dodge and decide what enemy you should prioritize next. A miniboss spawns in, grinning facelessly, and releases a flower of projectiles. You sprint and jump and dodge and you keep firing until she’s dead. The room is clear, and the demo is over, and your screen is awash with the bright, striking red of the UI. “Thanks for playing,” it says. I felt like I should be thanking it, instead.
It’s impossible to say, at this juncture, whether the game will be good. The crumbs of story were certainly engrossing; the combat fun; the world, striking. At the very least, Luna Abyss looks like it will be one of the most interesting and unique games of the year, whenever it comes out. I can’t wait.

Sea of Stars: 3/5
This one is alright. The world is beautiful, the music peppy, the character designs good. I just honestly have not played enough turn-based isometric RPGs to compare it to anything. I did have two big disappointments: I thought the writing was a little… on-the-nose, I guess? Characters just stated their objectives and everything was pretty surface-level. Dialogue wasn’t attacking or defending, only conveying information. And while the combat was fun and had a challenging timing element, it ended with a boss who I spent like ten minutes fighting for a single attempt, used all my items, did everything I could, and still lost to in dramatic fashion with no indication I had done any real damage. My suspicion is that the boss is simply meant to be an organic end to the demo, a scripted loss, but I don’t know; if not, it probably indicates that this type of game isn’t for me, since I found it to be quite a slog.

Stray Gods: 2/5
I really wanted to like Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. It is, essentially, a choice-based VN in the style of a broadway musical about ancient Greek gods struggling to live in modern society. A tantalizing premise, if a bit theatre-kid-y. But my degree is literally in theatre criticism, so I have a lot of tolerance for the genre’s usual excesses. I can’t think of another musical video game, but Stray Gods’ demo did not convince me that the idea could work. The performances aren’t the problem here; Laura Bailey is a charismatic lead with pipes good enough to carry the show, and the supporting cast of big names (Troy Baker, Felicia Day, Khary Paton) are no slouches either. But so much about this game is just not working for me. Let’s start with the sound design. This is one of those games where it feels like all the actors are recording in totally separate rooms. There’s a lot of dead air, not a lot of dynamism or one person bouncing off the other during conversation. It robs scenes of a lot of momentum and impact. And when I say “dead air,” I mean dead air. Bafflingly, the game seemingly has no room noise, no background audio, so when people aren’t talking, or music isn’t playing, everything is completely, uncannily silent. It’s genuinely weird.
The musical numbers alleviate this weirdness by filling the soundscape but do little else to pull me in. We get to see four songs in the demo; two from the opening act, two picked from later in the game. All of these songs are very similar – fugues or duets, where one character has one perspective and another character (or chorus) has another perspective, and their conflict is expressed and then resolved through song. Which is a fine structure for a song in a musical, don’t get me wrong, but it is not a fine structure for every song. Even our main character Grace’s “I Want” song, the song that establishes her, her desires, and internal landscape and should absolutely be a solo, is a duet with a woman she’s just met. It does not work. And when the game has you making dialog choices during songs, it robs them of a natural arc; there’s no organic progression from the characters’ starting points to their ending points. Some part of me hopes that this game will be good, but I’m not optimistic. Stray Gods is no Hadestown.

Vampire Hunters: 3/5
In the Death Must Die blurb, I praised that game for refining the “Survivors” genre by making tweaks that allow for more skill and expression. But fuck that. Vampire Hunters is a braver game than Death Must Die will ever be, because it dares to ask, “What if Vampire Survivors was a boomer shooter where all your guns were on screen at the same time?” The result is absolutely wild; by the end of a run, more screen space is devoted to your guns than the entire rest of the game. It feels pretty weird to play, too; all of your guns have different ammo counts and may or may not be automatic, but all fire with the same button, so it can be tough to manage all of their separate ammo pools. And XP drops have a tiny pickup radius, so you really have to move to get them all. The neatest trick the game pulls is that it increases enemy spawn rate when you sprint, so moving at a high speed carries a lot of risk. But apart from that, this game is maybe too audacious to be enjoyable.

Viewfinder: 4/5
I am not a frequent puzzle game player, but I, like most every PC gamer, have a soft spot for the kind of reality-warping sci-fi-y puzzle genre originated by Portal and carried forward by the likes of Superliminal and, now, Viewfinder. First: this game is a technical marvel. You are able to, in essence, carry around entire environments, often with a wildly different art style from the rest of the game, and place them seamlessly and instantaneously in the world. I played this at 1440p, >100 FPS with nary a stutter on my midrange system. The ability to place photos and enter them is genuinely incredible on all levels other than technical, too; it feels magical, like stepping into a painting that you yourself made. My only question, one that the demo did not answer, is whether Viewfinder will be able to construct interesting puzzles out of this mechanic. This was something that I think Superliminal often failed to do, too; when the central mechanic of your puzzles is so unique and novel and powerful, how can you limit it in such a way that players actually have to think and put in effort to solve problems? For me, at least, every puzzle in Viewfinder was solved pretty much instantly, with no “aha!” moments, and that does worry me a bit.

I personally cannot stand playing vanilla minecraft anymore and always play modded, recently ive been playing through Create: Astral and its so much fun. I love the steampunk factories of create and even though im terrible at automating its still so much fun to just mess around. I was wondering if anybody else has any other favorite modpacks they've been playing recently.

Hello everyone. I am an avid gamer but I allocate my playtime very differently from most other players. I prefer to spend my time playing very short(typcially under 30 mins) games created for game jams(limited time themed game development events) on itch.io.

Here is example of what a set of game jam entries looks like.

Many of these games are only about 15 minutes long so it is possible to play and review many of them per week. My question to you guys is that given the short nature of most of these experiences, is there at least mild interest in posts about these games and if so would it be better to post a weekly thread where I focus on a specific gamejam and review some of the games and encourage other users to join in and review some more of the games or should I focus on posting direct links to the best games I find when I sifting through these collections.

I’m am excited to share this area of gaming that people don’t talk about much and I would love to hear peoples thoughts on the subject.

Edit: The first thread is up

Hey all,

I will admit, one thing I will miss about the other site is having the strong simracing community. Have any other sim racers made the jump?

I told myself I wouldn’t buy another F1 game (hell, I partially got a PC to keep F1 22 alive with mods), but F1 23 looks like it’s a huge step better. Maybe that will be my last F1 game, lol.

Otherwise, I find myself really only playing Assetto Corsa. I know other games are better at one thing or another, but AC just seems to have the best all-around. I play single player almost exclusively, so I want a decent AI and also be able to race everywhere they do IRL. For example, I hear the indycars are better in Automobilista 2, but AC has all the track mods, and I’m honestly having fun using AI apps to fix any kind of AI dumbness that occurs. Same with WEC- AC probably isn’t the best physics, but I have all the cars and the tracks.

Any other sim racers here?

It's been another week and I thought – if there's not too much protest – we could all talk about what we've been playing again.

Personally I got in the one game of Hegemony at three players. I've played it twice before at two, and adding the third player really took the tension up a notch.

I played as the proletariat, which I think is the simplest class to play. Once again played no strikes or demonstrations, so I really think I might be missing a concept as it never seemed like a worthwhile pursuit. But it's really hard to predict how pulling any particular string in this game will resolve, so I think I'd just go for it in a subsequent game to see what happens.

The capitalists, like in previous games, started very weak but by the last few rounds were raking in the points. I managed a very narrow victory of four or five points over the capitalists. Middle class, who had to take a loan mid-game, never really recovered and were twenty points behind. Fun game, I can see why it's popular.

So what have you all managed to get played this week?

I'm a HUGE lifestyle sim player. I've played Animal Crossing since Wild World came out on the DS. I've put waaaay too much time into the Sims. Stardew Valley is my absolute favorite farming sim.

I just decided to buy Kingdoms and Castles Complete Edition because it's on sale. What other games should I check out? I have a Switch and Mac ecosystem for my games.

I originally asked this three years ago and got some great responses. Now that we have a lot more users active here and we're living three years in the future, I'd love to ask it again and see what comes up!

I'm interested in hearing about games that exist off the main map of gaming: games that I can't buy from any of the common storefronts and games that aren't easily playable through an emulator.

Examples of things I'm interested in hearing about:

• Long-forgotten abandonware
• Homebrew games for consoles
• Romhacks
• Legally dubious fan-games
• Total conversion mods
• ARGs
• Web games (not ones on sites like Kongregate/GameJolt though)
• Independently distributed games (that you can't get through, say, itch.io)
• Games for systems that aren't currently emulatable
• Games that have been removed from distribution
• Games with servers or content that are no longer operational
• Anything else you think fits the question, really

Tell me about the game(s) you know of and what makes them noteworthy.

With all the new people running around, thought it be a good time to ask what everyone uses for gaming...

Are you a console convert?
A portable gaming pro?
Desktop diehard?
Lifelong laptop leaderboard-er?
Teak-tabletop-till-you-die?
Archive level retro-gaming repository?
Custom collectible card game covers?
Tired of my poor attempts at alliteration?

In gaming discussion, rumors are very prevalent and powerful. Some rumors keep coming up over and over again and just won't go away despite never revealing themselves.

What gaming rumor do you feel like has been around forever and just won't die?

I've recently been getting into Diplomacy (both face to face and online) and it's surprisingly fun, although requires some dedication. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with the game or some tips for learning more in-depth strategy? It feels like online resources aren't that great or plentiful yet I'm having a hard time surviving against experienced players.

What I'm talking about are Pokemon that are given away in official events, which usually come in a Cherish Ball (after gen 4), have a ribbon, and were met in a 'fateful encounter'. I'm particularly interested in the H-Zoroark event distribution at the moment, because I love that Pokemon and the red color of the Cherish Ball matches it nicely.

Mostly just looking around for fellow traders to chat about cool shit we have, but I'm up for a trade or two if there's anyone interested!

My favourite game is Crystal Version for the Game Boy Color. I've been playing Pokemon since the beginning - Red and Blue. I loved the original games, and as a kid I saw the hype for the release of Gold/Silver online. Gold/Silver's release is easily the most excited I've been for anything in my life. When they finally came out in the west, they hit all my expectations and more. The introduction of genders, time-based events with a visible day/night cycle, new types, new Pokemon, held items and so much more made the games a hugely more in-depth experience compared to the originals. No other game in the franchise has offered such a marked improvement over the previous to date.

Crystal, being a third version, is essentially an enhanced version of Gold and Silver. It doesn't blow them out of the water, but what it does add is nice. Animated sprites, some feature refinements and an improved storyline makes it the quintessential Gen II game in my opinion.

Remakes of Gold/Silver - with some Crystal features included - exist in the form of HGSS for the Nintendo DS. A top five Pokemon game in it's own right, I like it slightly less because they don't have quite the same vibe the originals had. This is almost entirely due to nostalgia, but it's what I believe.

Do you agree? Do you disagree entirely? Share with us your favourite Pokemon game and why.

Usually when playing a game of dnd, pathfinder, etc. You want the party to be nice to each other. But at times when done right, you just have two characters who hate each other, yet it's fun for everyone.

Do you have any such stories?

Hey all, I recently got back into gaming. Loving it so far but none of my friends play these days. I figured since Tildes has a great community it could be fun gaming with others here!

I'm thinking we could have a game as a top level comment and then sub-comments could be game IDs or people interested in connecting? I'll start off with this format but I'm open to suggestions.

(Also, this is my first post on Tildes. Hopefully it aligns with the rules/community.)

Liking a game is easy enough: they’re usually meant to be fun, engaging, or interesting.

But being impressed by a game is harder.

It could be a particularly impressive set piece in a level, or a clever, novel game mechanic. It could be quality animations or a plot twist you didn’t see coming.

Whatever it was that impressed you, share it here. What was it? How did it make you feel? What made it stand out so much from its peer games?

Note: please mark all spoilers

You can hide spoiler text inside a details block like this:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers here!</summary>

Our princess is in another castle!
</details>

Which looks like this:

I recently earned the platinum for Riders Republic, its a fun game, takes around 40-45 hours to get the plat and outside of tricks battle mode its not too difficult, but I enjoy playing tricks battles.
I haven't moved on from the game after getting the plat though cause im levelling up to get elite level gear to win 64 player mass races, I got first place for the first time yesterday and consistently get podium finish

Personally I've received Earth and managed to get in a game at two players and another at five. I like the big stack of cards and the fact it plays so fast, but I think I prefer Ark Nova, which adds the tile laying puzzle too.

Earth does look funky by the end though, with all the shoots sprouting up from the table.

Also managed to get in a couple of rounds of Fugitive, the card based hidden movement game from Tim Fowers. I think this is an excellent little game to fill half an hour at the end of the evening. I keep eyeing up the events cards it comes with but have not yet been brave enough to actually play with them.

What have you all been playing?

I have a windows server with some spare capacity that I use to host some games for the community I'm a part of. Currently I host a couple TF2 servers and a wreckfest server. What other games can I host?

I nearly made this post a hot few hours ago, but it turned into me gushing about Worlds Without Number for an inexplicably long time. I realized that of all the things that matter, going into the minutiae does the least.

So yeah, I'm just curious what kind of not-D&D RPGs people are into and why exactly they're interested in it. Obviously there's the whole 'Wizards of the Coast is a shithole company' aspect, but I'm speaking more from a broad design standpoint than a moral one.

I had a vasectomy this week and needed something to do for a few days while I was down. A co-worker recommended star citizen (explaining the caveats). I love it so far, and if anyone here plays I'd love to add you to my friends list.

My username is Grendel_84

Was recently feeling nostalgic over some RPGs I used to play back in the PS1 era and was wondering if anyone had some "hidden gems" they've been wanting to get off their chest? A couple of mine are:

Suikoden II

Azure Dreams

Just wanting to see if tildes has any TES fans, and if it’s worth making a few lore dumps to spark discussion. I’m not using reddit anymore but I miss r/teslore (and r/truestl, though it has no place on tildes lmao).

So, if any of you are well versed in your lore, I want to know: What is your favourite bit of lore?

I’m a big fan of the book from ESO detailing different dishes in argonain cuisine, and generally love the more “mundane” elements of the world, rather than the super deep lore. I’m also a big jarthhead if anyone has read all the books ;).

I am mostly a TTRPG player, but lately I have been becoming a bit curious on wargaming.

I usually play TTRPGs because it allows a lot more freedom when compared to video games. However, I can't really see that much in wargaming that you can't get in video games. Is the appeal primarily a social one?

I am not bashing wargaming or saying that it's a bad hobby. I am just curious as to what the main draw is.
Thank you for any answers :)

I went through a phase where we seemed to have board games nights with friends a couple of times a month but with the whole pandemic thing that has dried up.

Tonight, I finally got around to trying Lanterns with my wife and we really enjoyed it. It's sort of similar to sushi go with more steps. You play lake tiles which contain lanterns and collect lantern cards based on how you place the lake tiles, then you dedicate those lanterns in different sets to gain honour (points) and at the end, who has the most honour wins.

We're at 59 days until Gencon and its one of my favorite events of the year. Wondering if anyone else is going and what you're excited for.

It seems like Lorcana is set to the be the buzz of the con this year around. While I'm interested in getting my hands on a deck or two to give it a go, I'm more looking forward to when BGG posts their games that will be releasing to sift through and try to find a hidden gem or two.

Personally, I would recommend Pixlriffs. A few days ago, he has started a new season of his Minecraft Survival Guide series coinciding with the release of Minecraft 1.20. The series goes over each step, including the basic ones, to get yourself started and beyond on a Minecraft world. Here is a direct link to the start of season 3 inside a playlist. If you are a new or returning player to the game, I think it's a very nice resource to get the hang of it.

The channel has been going for quite a few years now so there's a lot of content to watch, including a separate channel that he handles the writing and narration for dedicated to recapping the event of the Hermitcraft multiplayer server. The Hermitcraft players are themselves content creators I'd recommend checking out.

What recent announcements caught your interest? Video games or board games, indie or AAA, new release or expansion, fangames or mods, all are welcome!

Please also include a link to the trailer or blog post, press release, steam page, etc. so others can check them out as well.