These have been fairly popular and I really like hearing from the community, so here's this week's thread.

I've been playing Golf Story for the Switch (got it on recent sale). I've found it relaxing and amusing, a good combo for evening wind-down. I'm not sure if I mastered the mechanics yet, putting is surprisingly hard when you can't see the slope in 3D. Story is fun, and the variety in courses is refreshing, highly recommended.

Just purchased Football Manager 2018. I'm not actually a football fan or anything, I just really like the RPG-like nature of assembling a good team and seeing my amateur tactics play out on the field. Games can be surprisingly tense and exciting. I wish I had a deeper understanding of the game, but it's fun enough regardless.

I finished my second Mass Effect original trilogy run two days ago, and today is one year since I first played ME. Below I have my goodbye to my second Shepard, Alana, a Renegade Vanguard. (Spoilers below)

Alana Shepard

October 18th, 2017, to June 23rd, 2018

Alana Shepard was not what you might think of when you think of a hero. Born on Earth, she was orphaned at a young age, and survived on the streets of some of the planet’s worst slums. Though the vids told the story of her enlisting in the Alliance Navy, she was essentially conscripted. Even as an untrained 18 year old, her biotics made her a danger to herself and others.

The structure of the Navy changed Shepard’s life, but it didn’t change who she was. Both the anger she harbored from her abandonment and the stubborn determination that kept her alive on the streets remained. Her rage drove her to kill countless Batarians on Torfan, despite the loss of her squad. Her actions on Torfan were at once monstrous and impressive, and they caught the eye of the N7 program. The Butcher of Torfan became one of the Alliance’s top operatives.

Watching Alana Shepard fight was awesome in the truest sense of the word. That a combatant could be so efficient and powerful was beautiful; that she might be heading for you next was terrifying. Many wondered if, somehow, her unknown parents were Krogan and Turian. In each of her biotic charges, there was the power of a Battlemaster and the precision of a Legionnaire. It was this combat prowess that drew Shepard and Garrus Vakarian together.

As the saying goes, there is no Shepard without Vakarian. Alana and Garrus were partners on and off the battlefield, ever since Garrus’ stint as Archangel on Omega. Despite all the bullets that tried, the only thing to make it past their armor was their love for one another. This love kept them at each other’s side all the way to the conduit.

On the Citadel, Alana Shepard did what she did best. When the Catalyst was done speaking to her, she leveled her pistol, and fired. This failed to activate the Crucible, dooming her cycle to be defeated by the Reapers. The same strength that helped Alana resist the Reapers in the entire campaign was her undoing. Alana Shepard was not what you might think of when you think of a hero, because she could not save the galaxy in its darkest hour.

I do intend to come back to these games, as I feel there are at least a few more Shepards whose stories I need to tell. That said, I will be waiting a bit longer before I start my next run, either starting on N7 day, or next summer on the two year anniversary from my start. I'm open to discussion, either about Mass Effect (I've only played the OT), or about Alana Shepard.

The steam sale has been going on for a few days now. I'd like to start a discussion on recommendations for games that might not immediately grab attention or were given bad reviews at launch or really any criteria at all.

Recommend something!

So. I'm Dming a group and this night we had an unusually large session. We just added in a new PC who will be joining us for the remainder of the campaign and a visiting friend who was a guest character for the night.

The PC had successfully managed to get into the favor of a local Baron, who invited them all to dinner. The guest was playing a premade character, the bastard son of the baron who had just returned home hoping to earn his asshole father's respect.

So dinner goes fine, the Baron is a smarmy asshole and a monster attacks. After a very tough fight the PCs are victorious. Then things get weird. The son goes to the Baron to tell him of the victory and they have a moment. Fearing his father losing interest, the son then lied and told the baron that there was a treasure trove of a caravan down waiting for him at the foot of the 200ft tall hill the Baron's castle is located on. The pair start walking down, the son the whole time trying to think of some way to get out of the lie he made.

The other PCs follow them outside and stop at the top of the hill, and one of them says, "You know, that Baron was a real asshole. Be a real shame if something heavy happened to fall on him from this high up."

A quick investigation later and they find a 200lb barrel of tar in a barn. One of the PCs, who is both good aligned and canonically an idiot, tries to stop them and gets knocked the fuck out and tied up. The remaining PCs manage to lift the barrel, carry it to the top of the hill, and then toss it.

Meanwhile, the son is nailing his charisma rolls against his father and soon has him eating out of his hand. They get to the bottom of the hill and the father for the first time in the son's entire life tells him he's proud of him.

And then a 200lb barrel of tar lands on the Baron after falling 200ft, instantly killing him.

What follows is a roaring rampage of revenged that killed one PC and nearly killed another, so in the end we decided to take everything after the boss fight as a non-cannon fever dream the whole party had.

It was probably the hardest I have ever laughed during a D&D session in my entire life.

I love this game.

Where do you guys buy games from? I like the fact that Valve's been pushing Linux recently but I just feel wrong for buying games that need a client to be played, so I stick with GOG, even though there are no plans to bring GOG Galaxy to Linux any time soon. Thoughts?

Hey guys. I got MGSV on Xbox games with gold last month and I've been absolutely LOVING it but I'm not super creative with the game mechanics and I'm trying to branch out. They don't tell you too many advanced techniques, at least with how far I've been. I try to mainly go non-lethal with the occasional rocket blast (I'm addicted to Fulton capturing soldiers), but I would love to hear some stories and tricks you have used to great effect!

Hey ~ers, I'd like to keep a weekly discussion going on this topic (every Wednesday or so?). Let me know if this isn't something you want to see in the future, I always liked these, but maybe not everyone does? Last one got a lot of interesting posts, let's see how it goes this time!

I've been playing Grim Dawn quite a bit lately. I've kickstarted it back in the day, but never got around to really playing it after the early access period. I was burned out on Diablo clones at the time: Torchlight 2, Victor Vran, Van Helsing, etc. I think the break did me good, as playing it fresh is quite enjoyable. There's a good variety of classes and builds, fun abilities, and tons of gear number crunching (playing thunder smashing shaman now). Just the way I like it! I'm hoping to snag one of the DLCs once I reach a high enough level and play with my friends on one of the unlocked hardcore difficulties.

I've been trying to get back into game dev recently and I'd love to work with someone if you're up for it. I'm also down to join existing hobbyist projects, although I have a thing I'm currently building at the moment.

• I'm based in SF; I'm willing to work remotely with someone, but would definitely prefer someone in the area.
• I'm a software developer with 6ish years of experience programming, a CS degree and just starting an out-of-college job.
• I've built some small games in the past, mostly in Unity.
• I've got a reasonable amount of UI/UX experience but I'm by no means a professional and none of it is all that game-related.
• I can do some pixel art though I'm by no means an expert.

If you make games for fun and are looking for a partner, feel free to send me a PM or just reply to this.

Similarly, I'd like to also suggest a Tildes ~LFG (looking for group) or other meeting-ish area.

I'm sure a lot of us are aware of WHO officially recognizing gaming addiction, and probably have read some follow up news articles about it as well.

I really dislike how news and media outside of gaming communities in general portray gaming. It's always this foreign, voodoo magic-y thing. Often, games are just talked about as a giant whole, instead of breaking it down into reasonable categories. For example, being addicted to online poker is very different from committing to a MMO raid. But, to be fair, there is always that one guy that takes everything way too seriously.

In TV series, such as The Big Bang Theory (I know this is a cheap shot), their MMO episodes were outright offensive. It was definitely more of what non-gamers think of gamers than actual reality.

So I guess I'm just wondering:

• Have you ever been accused of being a gaming addict, and looking back were you?
• How do you explain gaming to non-gamers?
• Does your gaming actually cause any conflict between you and your family and friends?
• Did you ever forget or do something stupid because of your gaming?

Just anything I guess.

For those who don't know, you can get Quake Champions for free and you'll still have it forever, you won't have to wait until the full f2p launch.

Has anyone been playing? I picked it up right after the announcement at E3 and I've been having a great time. I played Quake 3 and Live pretty casually in the past, but I think I'm actually getting into this one. I'd love to play with some of yall or just hear your thoughts!

I just finished playing Florence. Honestly, I enjoyed it, but it definitely doesn't act like most games I've played for the past 20+ years. It's a very short one too, you can finish it in 30 minutes. So it actually feels more like an interactive graphic novel.

I like most aspects of it like the animation, the music, and the clever metaphors they incorporate to the simple puzzles (especially the speech bubble puzzle, and the inventory organizing puzzle).

The main issue might be the duration, if it's longer and has more complex story, it might become something like lucasarts adventure games (which I admit is not the point of Florence).

At the very least it's a very interesting experiment on gaming.

What do you guys think about games like Florence?

Kickstarter

Demo (via GOG)

Xenonauts 2 is a sequel to 2014's Xenonauts, a turn-based tactics game inspired by the original Xcom games.

I've never played the older games but I'm in love with the Xcom reboots, so I'm definitely keeping a close eye on his one. Any other Xcom fans here?

So I have a group of Discord buddies that we just had our first session last night, and it went pretty well. I used a pregen character that they had on Roll20, but feel like I missed out on creating a character. No one I know IRL really plays consistently, but after that session I am hooked. I want to get into it more, but don't know where to really start. If anyone has any newbie friendly tips/tricks on what I can read/get to learn more, I'd really appreciate it!

EDIT: Thanks for the tips everyone! I'll try to stop by my LGS this week and see what they say.

Mine's definitely Evan's Gambit. IF I can get a game with it I'm going to play it. Always leads to a fun, spicy game with enough tactical mess to make for a great blitz game. For any classical game though I'd probably just stick with open Italian systems but castling queenside and throwing pawns if they dare castle first.

How about you guys?

In multiplayer games where there is open chat between teammates or worse, among all players there is rampant toxicity. It is known.

I think that most game companies believe that if they crack down too hard that they will lose their player base.

My belief is that the opposite would happen. A sincere effort (with human review) would require a HUGE initial outlay of resources but with the right punishment (30-day ban from ranked play for example) would nearly eliminate toxicity and also significantly reduce the need for human review.

DOTA did a half-assed measure in like 2015 or something and it worked really well for the time they kept it. But there was a serious change in people's attitudes when it got implemented. Games went from total-toxic to mildly-toxic.

I would bet that a game company that has a decent game (thinking mobas but FPS's probably involved too) such as Hots, Dota, or LOL, they would not LOSE playerbase, but instead gain a HUGE playerbase of people that just want to play games and know that if someone tells you that you are a non-team-playing motherfucker for choosing the hero you think best (but they don't).... they might get banned for 30 days... that might stop them from going off the rails and politely asking instead.

Anyway, I fucked your mom last night.

Any perspectives on that, fellow Tildoes? Tildarians, Tilderinos, Tildonkeys, etc.?

From what I can tell, the main argument against it is that it's not historically accurate. I guess that makes sense, but A) that doesn't seem to warrant the utter seething rage that I see from opponents, and B) I rather doubt the Battlefield franchise has made it a habit to be 1-to-1 regarding history anyway. I've played none of them, but I saw someone mention that in-game events are definitely not historically accurate anyway. So I guess the "keep women out" side is conflating the game's setting with a declaration of dedication to historical accuracy? Seems silly to me to take umbrage at a game failing to meet an expectation that you invented.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. My initial gut reaction was to write it off as casual sexism and an unwillingness to break tradition, and while I'm sure that explains a minority of the outrage, I highly doubt the controversy can be explained so simply.

Anyone here want to way in?

With the focus on the big budget games at E3, smaller releases and indie games tend to get lost in the noise, or just ignored. Are there any upcoming games you're excited about, but don't see anyone talking about?

Personally, I've been keeping an eye on Noita, which was just added to Steam listings. The particle effects look amazing, let's hope the gameplay lives up to it!

I don't play mobile games very often but every now and then I want to load up something a bit more substantial than your average mobile game without having to log hours like Fallout Shelter. I played something called (I think) Pixel dungeon in the past that was a sort of roguelike and I enjoyed that. What do you guys play and recommend?

I just bought this game and I'm in love. The whole Roller Coaster Tycoon nostalgia is at play here, that is for sure, but the level of detail in this game makes my head spin.

I spent a whole evening designing a custom styled burger and drink stand.

Anyone care to share some of the stuff they're been making?

So I picked up Jurassic World: Evolution recently because I loved Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis as a kid and have a "dinosaur park sim"-shaped hole in my heart. I'm enjoying it for what it's worth. I think 60 bucks is a little steep for what it's offering, so I can't recommend you pick it up right now unless you REALLY want a Jurassic Park sim game with potential for future growth.

Anyways, that being said, I am 99% convinced this game is just a reskin of the old one. Everything from the dinosaur animations, to the mission types, to the vehicle controls, to how the general flow of gameplay goes feels almost identical to Operation Genesis. I get that there's only so much you can do when you're making what is essentially the same game with from the same property, but take this from a man who put an ungodly amount of time into OG as a child: it feels 100% the same. Like I think all they did was take OG and give the dinosaurs a very nice new paint job and then give everything else a half-hearted coat of paint.

I don't mind all that much since I can't play OG anymore, but I still found it odd how shockingly similar this games feels to OG. Anyone else notice this? Or am I just crazy/supplanting my memories of the old game onto the new one?