What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Edit: Well, given there's already a vaguely positive reception to the idea, I've went ahead and set up the server! It's by no means a finished product yet, but it's at least a start!
Here's the link: https://discord.gg/FqArkERU2U
About a year ago, I was running a pretty active, small community board game server and it was a lot of fun until most of the regulars got busy with life.
After that, things happened and it fell by the wayside, but my time here with Tildes makes me really want to bring it back, I just wanted to gauge interest first. The idea is that anyone could set events, anyone can invite people, etc. Obviously, it wouldn't be an open server, but one in the same vein as Tildes, but in board game community form.
Specifically, things like hidden role games and other more complicated games really feel like they shine when there's a solid group of regulars that are able to teach newbies how to play.
(And selfishly, this would be a great way for me to learn new board games, as well)
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!
Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”
Rules:
If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.
All previous Save Point topics
If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.
If so, how's it going for you? Go to any interesting talks or events? Meet anyone new?
The link to join is
tildes.modded.fun
It is whitelisted, so just drop your username either in the comments or in my DMs and I'll add you as soon as I see it.
I saw that @teaearlgraycold is possibly deciding to reopen the vanilla Minecraft server at some point. So, I decided that I'd start up a modded server instead of a vanilla one. Let's see how it goes. It's still in its early stages, like it doesn't have an icon as of now (still working on figuring out why not).
The spawn is at x:0 y:74 z:0 and is on the southern mooshroom island (there's two big islands, so ofc I couldn't resist that seed). The main land isn't too far away, but I'd recommend going east or west if you want a quick trip. We have a horse+boat compatibility datapack, as well. There are trees on the island and I set up a little starting area to the north, on the shore of the southern island. Just replant, breed, etc if you need anything. Also, there's a (very slow) egg farm in the cobble/water near the animals.
I figured we could have two main areas, one on the northern island and southern island (and put a Create train/monorail & bridge between them?). One for living, but also maybe we can create a shopping & gaming district to avoid the rapid progression for players via farming everything and then just taking. Hopefully that staves off boredom and losing interest. Let me know what you think. Right now, Idk what currency it would be other than diamonds or winning prizes.
The main mods we have are:
You can download the zip of mod configs/mods/required resourcepack/datapacks here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pz76nmyxgk7lamagg1opq/TildesModdedMinecraft.zip?rlkey=wepd36lr7g022vy4bh5juz2pq&dl=0
Some things to note:
Hold "W" to ponder items/blocks in Create to learn how they work.
Throw an egg on a painting to turn it into an easel to draw on. After drawing, save your work first, then export while holding a regular painting in your hand. Then place your drawing anywhere!
We have recipe fix datapacks as well as custom head drops from mobs and players.
Ask questions and report bugs to this thread/in my DMs.
Don't break any spawners.
FireTick is off.
Phantoms don't spawn.
keepInventory is off.
PVP is on.
The seed is -3315377300917012846.
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Given the fact that Yuzu (a Nintendo Switch emulator) and Citra (a Nintendo 3DS emulator) were recently taken down by Nintendo's legal team, is there a reason why Dolphin (an emulator for Gamecube and Nintendo Wii) is still going strong? Did Dolphin take any extra steps to protect themselves from lawsuits, or it's just a case of Nintendo taking their time?
Steam Sale time again! Post any amazing games or hidden gems you think others would like. I'll start: Mr Shifty is an amazing 2d top-down that's crazy fun (especially for its price!). I'm about to get a SteamDeck, so am hunting these style of games in particular.
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I realized that some games I play fall into specific categories that could be their own sub-genre, but are either too specific, haven't been around long enough, or there's a "good enough" combination of genres that could be used to describe them that makes it impossible to find more in that genre.
I'm interested if anyone else has any of these weird little sub-genres that they enjoy and wanted to share.
Feel free to add any games that you think fit into sub-genres other people describe
Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!
Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”
Rules:
If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.
All previous Save Point topics
If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.
I finally swapped my pre-historic phone for something a little more current and would like to play some games on it. I'm not a big fan of touch controls for games, so I got one of those adapters that allows me to play games with my Xbox controller while the phone is attached to it. Right now I would be interested in MMORPGs as well as things that resemble MMORPGs. Other than that, I appreciate pixel art in general. I am well aware of emulators and will be looking into those, but I have played emulated games for years so it might be interesting to try something else for now. The phone can probably handle most games unless we're talking about something very intensive.
Preferably games that were either made for mobile or adapted well. I don't care for tiny text or tiny UIs.
Zaniness, wackiness, and fast pace are appreciated.
Thanks!
For me it's bunny hopping. If I can't sail across a map at 100km/h in an FPS, it'll be very difficult for me to get into it. I get that I'm missing out on a lot of good games, but normal movement just feels so empty and slow.
For those who don't know what bunny hopping is, it's a mechanic in primarily FPS games where you jump repeatedly instead of walking/running. This allows you to move much faster and pull off some complex manoeuvres.
Anyway I'm curious to see if others have admittedly ridiculous requirements like this.
I wrote a blog post for basically my first time ever. It's a first draft, but whatever. I never share my thoughts because I lack confidence, but I want to work on that. I welcome criticism of the way I've presented my thoughts, but my main priority is just discussing Starfield here! I want to hear what y'all think, mainly about the world of Starfield.
I was starry eyed when I first launched Starfield, but it ultimately left me feeling spaced out. After spending around 25 hours with the game I've realized that I wanted something different from Starfield, and that the game just doesn't keep my mind engaged and imagination running. I feel some guilt saying that. It took a buttload of human working hours to bring Starfield to fruition after all, and I don't want to dismiss that work. It's a very pretty game, with a lot of mechanics, characters, and stories. On paper, it's an ideal game for me. It's a first person adventure through the stars meeting strangers and ogling at alien planets packed in with loot and rpg elements. That's my kind of treadmill to be running on. The type of game loop I enjoy. Ultimately though, it did not fill the space in my head that I wanted it to.
Starting with the core game play, it's what I had the least expectations for. I am no Bethesda mega fan, but I've dabbled in their games. Their combat, stealth, traversal and so on have always registered as just serviceable to me. That's not really even a criticism as I've never gotten the impression that Bethesda's intention was to draw fans on those elements. They want to provide a simple set of tools to interact with their worlds. The tools they've provided here in Starfield feel fine. They all work. Gun play feels fine, traversal feels fine, stealth feels fine. It's the way those tools interact with their environments, characters, and narration that typically attract me, but don't here. Even their newest game play addition in space ship combat echoes their standard approach. It feels simple but solid. No extravagance like a Star Fox 64 barrel roll, but there's enough going on to feel good. Like the rest of the tool set, it's serviceable enough to let the player interact with their world. The world is what has left me cold.
Bethesda introduces us to Starfield's world in a baffling place, a place almost opposite to space, a mine. Sure, they planet isn't Earth, but it might as well be Earth. It's dark, dirty, rocky and far from a feast for the eyes. It's no surprise that mines are in the game as Bethesda has always included similar spaces in their games. Such environments are perfect for stuffing loot and combat encounters into, but imagine if Skyrim had began in a cave instead of out in its beautiful landscape. Starfield could've opened in space on a ship or on a number of visually alien worlds, and I think it's a misstep to begin the player in the most unappealing of its environments. Unfortunately, I think it's telling of a large part of the way you will be seeing Starfield's world. From a lot of interior spaces. It's often easy to forget that I'm playing a sci-fi game set in an open world space setting.
Starfield's world looks like what I imagine it would look like if human space colonization were to actually happen. In that regard, I think they were incredibly successful. It's the realization of this image that I think held Starfield back. Just like a lot of our own real universe, it is often empty and dull. Many landscapes of the planets and moons of Starfield, while sometimes pretty, are more often unremarkable. Procedural generation is an incredible tool that can easily lead to unimaginative results. I'm never able to escape the thought that what I'm looking at was probably computer generated. After visiting around 15 planets, I began to feel as though I'd seen it all before, just in different colors. Often fauna and foliage looked strange but lacked a certain spark of hand crafted creativity. I was never struck by their beauty nor their horror but only their only seemingly random assortment of attributes. On planets with human inhabitants their lacked personality in their work and living spaces with exceptions being the hand crafted major settlements. Buildings and structures felt modular and mass produced by the same manufacturer. All of this is probably an accurate depiction of a real future where we branched out into space, but it doesn't make for a fun video game to see and soak in. Major cities like New Atlantis and Akira City lent much more life to Starfield's world with obvious heart put into their creation. You can see their influences from the sci-fi genre in their construction. Instead of aiming for a large and marketable open world, it's a smaller handcrafted galaxy I wish we would have gotten. Somewhere with its own politics and drama taking place on landscapes with intent and personality. A larger existing universe could be hinted at with follow ups in sequels. Bethesda is bursting at the seems with creative talent, but there was simply too much space to make aesthetically daring from every angle. Instead that talent was stretched an inch thin and a mile wild.
The inhabitants of Starfield are offensively inoffensive and so dry they'll leave you parched. They're boring, full stop. They lack nuance and detail in their personalities. They begin and end at their core archetypes. The meaning of their existence is only to facilitate the player and be impressed by you. In my 25 hours of play, I didn't find my self endeared to any character except for a sweet old grandma exploring space, but I only liked her because I like that trope. Characters are very formal and professional which I believe was Bethesda's intent. After all, the context of most every interaction has you acting in an official capacity for one of the factions. You're a representative for the professional work these factions are doing, like being a volunteer cop for the United Colonies or Freestar Collective's Rangers or an explorer-researcher for the stuffy Constellation. It makes sense that conversations would be formal, professional, and often to the point. Ultimately that just doesn't make for compelling conversation. I engage with fiction, especially genre fiction, for its strong sense of personality. The characters I found in Starfield feel like they're just going through the motions of their 9 to 5 job. Their framing as a talking head when having conversations with them only highlights their stiffness.
I believe Starfield is a well-done realization of Bethesda's intent. It's a very corporate and made by committee vision, but it's well executed. It seems they wanted to create a world that resembles a legitimate future where humans leave Earth and colonize the stars. The result is barren unremarkable planets, sterile labs, boring mining and manufacturing facilities, mass produce modular homes, and plenty of empty space. I think they're right, this is what a settled galaxy looks like, but it just doesn't make for a satisfying video game.
edit: fixed spelling from "feel" to "fill"
Looks like there was renewed interest in this idea as the old topic has seen some recent posts. It’s been my experience that older topics don’t tend to get a lot of attention when they resurface, so I figure we were due for a refresh.
As such, here’s round 2!
This is a thread for game recommendations, but not just any standard game recommendations.
This is a thread for game recommendations where you have a very specific thing that you're looking for.
Maybe you're looking for a certain type of experience that can't easily be summarized with genres and tags. Maybe you're looking for a game that will evoke a particular feeling that's hard to put into words.
Whatever you're looking for, share your desired specificity below, and let people try to recommend games that fit it.