I keep seeing a lot of complaints surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 that it's not a particularly good RPG, because the story is pretty linear and the player choice doesn't really amount to much. I'm not yet done with the game so I don't know how accurate that assessment is. But either way, with my limited knowledge of programming and game design, I assume that doing this sort of thing well is a significant technical challenge.
What are some games that rise to this challenge and make the most of player choice and branching story?

I recently played through 2013's Tomb Raider and it was a delight -- a wonderful reboot that modernized a series whose originals I loved but that are quite dated by today's standards.

In the game, Lara, the main character, is in peril constantly, and she is driven into worse and worse situations in an effort to save her crewmates and friend. The narrative of the game demands immediate action -- any dawdling risks all of the characters' lives.

Of course, we know that games' timelines aren't necessarily time-driven but character-driven, so it is trivial for Lara to stop at any point in the game and not advance the story. The killers who are prepared to murder your friends will patiently wait around as long as necessary. Furthermore, the game gives you plenty of reason to do so! There are collectibles to find and story and lore bits scattered about the levels that you have to go out of your way to encounter. Finding these gets you more XP and resources which unlock skills and weapons that make the game easier. The game lets you fast travel back and forth to different areas as needed, and I spent a good amount of time at the story's height of tension not resolving that tension by advancing to the climax but by ignoring it and scouring the island for all the things I missed instead.

I use Tomb Raider as an example here, but I'm sure you can think of plenty of other examples where the game directly incentivize actions that outright subvert its story. What I find interesting is that, on paper, I should care about this discrepancy, but in practice I really don't. In fact it's customary for me to do this in nearly every game I play, as I find that I like "checklisting" and cleaning things up rather than advancing the plot (of course -- do I actually like that, or do I merely like that I get rewards for doing so?).

I don't have a singular question to ask but instead have some jumping off points for discussion:

• Is this undermining of narrative tension an actual issue, or is it just part of the suspension of disbelief embedded into the medium of gaming?
• Have you felt that particular games were made worse due to this issue? If so, why? If not, why not?
• What games are counterexamples -- games whose narrative tension is not undercut by their gameplay? What makes them work? Does that aspect benefit the game, or would the game be roughly the same (or better) without it?
• If you consider this an issue, does the "responsibility" for it lie with the developer of the game for incentivizing gameplay counter to narrative, or does the "responsibility" lie with the player for ruining their enjoyment of the narrative by pursuing other goals?

Also, don't feel limited by these questions or my choice of game and feel free to address anything else relevant to this idea that you feel is important or relevant.

I was curious how many people on here enjoy listening to game soundtracks outside of the game. I personally love when a game has a great soundtrack as it really adds to the atmosphere and overall immersion in the game. I also like collecting physical copies of them as well.

If you do, which ones are your favorite? Personally I love Shin Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy, and Blazblue soundtracks the most.

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2021

Enough has been said about 2020 — let’s put some good out into the world in the form of game giveaways as we welcome a new and hopefully brighter year!

Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

Giftees

Request giveaways according to the gifter's guidelines!

Rules

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

• No grey market keys! Only giveaway games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.

• Requests for games should be done in the thread, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly, even obfuscated ones.

Flash is gonna die for good in a few days (dec 31st) so I felt this is a good time to ask this question. (Although obviously, there have been large efforts to preserve these when the developers did not. And even then, HTML5 means browser games will continue to exist, even though mobile games have mostly replaced browser games anyway.)

Mine personally were (taking away some of the more well-known ones):

Gravitee 2

Basically a game of celestial golfball. Had a level editor, which was quite fun.

Bonk.io (although this one has a sequel that's not in flash)

Pretty popular for a flash game made in 2016. Basically a game where balls need to "bonk" eachother out of the playing field.

Effing meteors (Definitely one of the games that I probably remember being better than it is.)

Basically a game where you clump up small meteors into bigger meteors to destroy stuff.

Ribbit

A game where a rabbit and frog are fused together and need to bounce like a pogo to the end.

Frost bite

A mountain climbing platforming game.

Sushi cat

A game where you need to eat sushis quickly. Also has cutscenes.

Flash cat

An aesthetic racing game? Not entirely sure.

Chisel

A game where you drill through the planet enough times to move to the next level (man, I had some weird gameplay preferences.)

Dillo hills

A game where you need to time your descents to pick up speed in the hills and fly.

Dino run

An 8 bit game where you as a dinosaur need to outrun extinction.

Raccoon racing

A power-up racing game I remember playing quite a bit. Definitely designed for children, even if that's not very surprising.