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• Backlog Bingo Site
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Week 1 Recap

11 participants played 10 bingo cards and moved 17 games out of their backlogs!
There were 0 bingo wins.

• 6 people played Flow bingo cards
• 4 people played Flux bingo cards
• 1 person played free choice

Game list:

• Beholder
• Darksiders Genesis
• Dead Space (2023)
• Eternal Threads
• Frostpunk
• HoloCure
• Ikenfell
• Jotun: Valhalla Edition
• Monster Hunter Wilds
• Mushihimesama
• Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
• Sea of Solitude
• A Short Hike
• SIGNALIS
• Slay the Princess
• This War of Mine
• Windward

I'm completely hooked on this game.

My buddy and I have been sneaking in some Satisfactory at night when our families are in bed. If it makes it funnier, you can picture it like a secret love affair. Late night messages, slipping in and out bed trying not to wake the wives, and mid-day texts about our big plans (with our factories). Friends, I literally play this game in my head when I'm not able to play for real. And it's just as good since most of it based around planning.

Anyway, I'm surprised by the depth. A lot of it is intentional while a lot of the rest is the natural result of players kind of hacking the build mode to do things you can't normally do such as curves and 1 meter vertical conveyers.

What are your favorite tips and tricks for this game?

A loose definition of a “chore” game would be:

A game in which you repeatedly do relatively unexciting tasks to work towards a larger goal. The fun often comes from:

• A sense of progress/completion that builds over time
• Fighting entropy/restoring order
• Converting effort into currency
• Unlocking quality of life features over time that make the tasks easier/more engaging

A perfect example would be PowerWash Simulator. In fact, these games are often called “simulator” games or have the word in their title (though not always, and not all “simulator” games are specifically “chore” games).

Which ones are your favorites? What do you enjoy about them?

Live broadcast just ended, but it's available to watch in full here. And here is the full article about the Warcraft Direct broadcast - I have not read it though as it is very long and in depth.

So here are the highlights and headlines:

Warcraft RTS games news

Warcraft III Reforged to be updated with a patch 2.0

• Updates including new models, environment, and more - but players can choose whether or not to use the original or new ones.

Warcraft II: Reforged announced

• Similar to III, will be updated graphically and UI

Warcraft I: Reforged announced

• • Same type of updates as above.

Warcraft Battle Chest available right now.

World of Warcraft news

WoW: Classic to receive fresh start servers

• These servers will follow the same release pattern as the 2019 WoW: Classic release, including expansions. Burning Crusade expansion will also follow.

• WoW: Classic Hardcore fresh start servers will launch at the same time as the above

• WoW: Cataclysm Classic to continue its releases with Firelands and Dragon Soul raids.

• WoW: Mists of Pandaria Classic announced.

WoW: The War Within

• Patch 11.0.7 "The Siren Isle" now available on PTR.

• Features a small island zone with the mysterious Harranir race.

• Adds some main campaign quests/storyline content.

• Patch 11.1 "Undermined" revealed, to launch in early 2025.

• • Season 2.
• • Undermine is the new zone which will visit an Goblin area - an underground zone similar to most of the other ones in TWW.
• • Car mounts (lol) called "D.R.I.V.E." (loln't) revealed, but only available in this zone.
• • New dungeon called "Operation: Floodgate".
• • Two new delves, and more versions added to the existing eight delves.
• • New eight-boss raid called "Liberation of Undermine".

• At the end was a small teaser about the upcoming Midnight expansion about player housing but more news will come next year.

Here is the full roadmap for WoW: Classic.

Here is the full roadmap for retail WoW.

Most of this was going by memory from the broadcast so I'd recommend the links above for more details and whatever I forgot. Also, there was a ton of corporate nonsense fluff but I think nobody here really care about that.

There was also news about Hearthstone but I hope someone in the comments can expand on this as I don't know enough about it and also didn't really listen lol, so I can't properly write anything about it - same goes for news about Warcraft Rumble.

The game is AD&D 1e. The party:

• Jurgen, human Ranger 6
• Aeliana, elf Fighter 3 / Magic-User 2 / Thief 4
• DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
• Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
  • Henchman Thorgisl, Fighter 1
• Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
  • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4
  • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
• 6 crossbowmen and 2 infantrymen

The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

This is not their first foray into the dungeon, but they have their first encounter with the affected elves here. The ten elves are immediately suspicious and eventually attack once they learn the party was sent here by Alfred. One successful sleep and a decent set of rolls later, the remaining three elves flee. The sleeping ones were tied up, and the party attempted an inquiry, but the elves decided a forever-sleep was preferable, though their movements prior to that were oddly jerky.

They wander the halls of this facility, eventually encountering a gelatinous cube, which two magic missiles from Iskandar & Runa took care of.

In one chamber, they solved a puzzle and activated a Shrine (from the TSR Diablo supplement for 2e) that opened town portals back to the safe floor. Through trial, they discovered what these do, but only two (Aeliana's and Iskandar's portals) remained.

The highlight of the evening was the party coming across a set-up they'd seen in another room; two ceremonial masks kept inside a glass case, framed with iron, and watched by nearby metal torches that would loose blasts of arcane energy at any that got too close. Aeliana and Vortigern attempt to disarm the trap. Vortigern succeeds, but Aeliana fails significantly enough to accidentally trigger the trap, forcing a save vs. breath for 15 damage. She fails, and with her maximum HP of 8, she is incinerated on the spot. Luckily, her gear remains. They travel back to the portals activated earlier and send a hobilar in with Aeliana's corpse while the rest of them found their way back up. They petition Alfred for a revival, and he does have a scroll with a couple castings of raise dead on them, and the party can certainly afford the price for it, but he gently reminds them that elves are soulless, requiring more powerful magic to revive than he has access to.

After some discussion, Runa rests a while before casting invisibility on herself and her horse so that she might make a trip to a town some 35 miles out to grab:

• Rowan, a human MU 6
  • Henchman Rikka & Freya, both human Fighter 4

Rowan uses invisibility, 10' radius on everyone relevant and they travel back to the elven city to continue exploring. In doing so, they encounter another set of 15 elves, but dispatch them quickly and decisively due to surprise, though Ingrid took a heavy amount of damage (10 damage to her maximum of 22 HP).

We stop shortly after the group finds the lift to the lower level, whereupon their crossbowmen and hobilars refuse to go any deeper, indicating a dungeon floor of at least DL 4 difficulty.

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I'm looking for something to keep me busy / focused on with minimal actual concentration, planning or learning required. Things that you can't look away from while playing or you lose what you're doing. Nothing that involves interaction with other people.

Things that have worked for me for this in the past are Bejeweled 3 lightening mode, Insaniquarium, driving around mindlessly in Forza Horizons.

I'm kind of terrible at anything that requires twitch reflexes, so anything that punishes you for slowness isn't great. Bejeweled it's not a problem because the game is basically identical no matter how you score.

The blaze has officially ignited!

The November 2024 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play.

Quicklink: Backlog Bingo

Etiquette:

• It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week.

• It is also fine to respond to your own posts.

• If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.

Gameplay guidelines:

• Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.

• Playing Bingo is optional and not required.

• You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.

Backlog Burner FAQ

Backlog Bingo FAQ

Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will irrecoverably delete your card.

I've long enjoyed Foxhole and X4 and was wondering what other games has similar logistical systems. Both give the same satisfying feeling when you look at the big picture of how the games are a complex interplay between the immediate gameplay, and what is being simulated "behind the scenes" to enable it.

The descriptor in the title is a bit of a mouthful, so let's break down what I mean.

Complex
To exclude typical resource game mechanics, where you "just" mine resources which gives you resource points that you can spend directly.

Required & Supporting
In Foxhole the main objective is to push the front and win the war. And players can focus on that and never have to really think about how they get their weapons and ammo. But at the same time the logistics is the entire reason they even can fight.
In X4 you can fly about and do stuff and acquire ships while relying on the AI empires economies. But there has to be some alive economy for the game to not go to a standstill.
In short, logistics systems that are required by the game, but not necessarily by the individual player.
This excludes games where the logistics system is the game, like Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, Satisfactory, etc.

Real end-2-end
To specify that there should as little cheating as possible. Though obviously there is always some cheating in games. Both in X4 and Foxhole, every resource is tracked right from harvest, to refinement, to the end product. And all steps require real moving of goods by AI (X4) or players (Foxhole) between factories, other intermediaries, and end users.

So what other similar games are there? I was thinking of EVE Online, but I think only the player orgs in null-sec have real economies in that game, and you could still play it if they all suddenly stopped.

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:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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November 2024's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

I was looking into getting a whole bunch of mods for Fallout and Skyrim and it seems like Nexus is the only game in town. I am not really in the mood to go back and forth 600 times between client and webpage to click on every time I wish to try a collection. I wouldn't mind it if they just severely throttled my downloads, they could just run in the background. But if I have to click the mouse thousands of times every once in a while, I'd rather not mod any game, to be honest.

And although I understand that this is a service and "there is no free lunch", the price they are charging in Brazil is too much for me to be okay with paying. A month of Nexus costs R$51.82, which is 12 bucks more expensive than a month of WoW. I really don't wanna be a "choosing beggar" here, as I know that it is not Nexus's fault that my currency is worth shit. But if there's a cheaper alternative I'll have no problem whatsoever paying for it.

Hi and hello all and fellow southpaws,

With the increasing option to pick from genders between characters (unless heavily tied into story and designed that way) it feels like the next option would be to have left-handedness become an option.
As a lefty I always felt a little "left" out (pardon the pun) in games as soon as I saw a gun or weapon being held in the "wrong" hand.

I know CS2 makes the option available if you dig a little, which is a great start.

So my question is, do you know of any other games that deserve a call out for already having this? Games that might need this (character fantasy) or just a shout out in support of the idea, feel free to discuss below.

Cheers!

It's almost time...

...for another Tildes Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason).

The Backlog Burner for November 2024 will officially begin in two days on November 1st.

If you're new to the Backlog Burner, check out our previous events to get an idea of what's going on:

• 2024 - May
• 2023
• 2022
• 2020

Backlog Bingo returns again!

Backlog Bingo is a backbone of this event, so it's of course back and better than ever! u/Wes has made some new tweaks to his amazing site, and we've also further developed our category sets.

For this event, you can choose between two different official Bingo lists:

• Flow: A conceptually abstract list of ideas to guide you. Let your imagination flow.
• Flux: A tweaked and updated version of the May 2024 category list.

If you participated last time, clear your old card and start fresh with a new one. If you're new to the event, simply go to the Backlog Bingo site to generate your card.

Notification List

If you are interested in participating in the Backlog Burner, please comment in this topic. Anyone commenting/replying here will automatically be added to a notification list for the Backlog Burner, unless you specify otherwise.

Start Planning (or Playing)

Technically the event starts in two days, so you have time to roll your cards (if you're playing Bingo) and plan out what you'd like to play for the month. That said, if you're eager to jump right in, and start early, I certainly won't stop you!

Let's get ready to burn through these backlogs!

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Hello,

I am struggling with a relatively useless personal issue, I am finding it very hard to play the aforementioned game mentioned in the post. My close friend has this heralded as his favorite game ever (tied with Majoras Mask) and possible one of the best of all time, and since the remake came out he very graciously lent me his copy. I have just gotten past the first major boss (Hooktail I think his name is) and just playing this game feels like a chore.

The combat is very slow, the dialogue is so overly childish, the story is your typical Nintendo fan-fare story. Even the music, which Nintendo does a great job most of the time, I find just average. I find the Rogueport theme music to be overly obnoxious for some reason, and too grating to my ears for a central city/hub which you're visiting a lot.

I really want to know what I am missing out on that makes this game so beloved by people other than pure nostalgia because I just can't see it. I know it's completely fine to not like games, but I feel a game as acclaimed as this should usually be liked by most people, and I think I usually fall into the subset of that lol.

Ironically enough, this is the same friend who introduced me to FromSoftware and I have loved all of their games.

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:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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