Introduction

Fun Fact: I named my Cat Crono because of this game.

Welcome to Chrono Trigger.
We're playing it for this months CGA.
In my opinion, if you haven't played this game before, you're in for a treat. This game is often considered the gold-standard for JRPGs. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi from Final Fantasy, Yuji Horii from Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball.

This year is actually the 30 year anniversary since it's release.
Square Enix has launched some new CDs with the Soundtrack, and a Concert in Tokyo if anyone is interested.
The music is actually what got me into this game. If you want to know, it's this - might be a minor spoiler, but I remember when I first found that music in the game, I was hooked and just stopped to listen. That was the first time since Saria's Song in Ocarina of Time.

So what is this game: I like to think these games are best experienced going in blind, so I will be as vague as possible. (Any additions are welcome). Chrono Trigger is a RPG from 1995. It's got an amazing story, some really interesting mechanics, beautiful characters and an amaing soundtrack. I'll put even the smallest things into spoiler tags, since maybe some people like to go in completely blind.

Chrono Trigger

Versions: Original (1995), PlayStation (1999), Nintendo DS (2008), iOS/Android (2011), Steam (2018)

Platforms: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), PlayStation, Nintendo DS, iOS, Android, Windows (Steam)

Genre(s): Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG), Turn-based RPG

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• Steam -- on sale until Oct 6
• Google Play
• App Store

How Long To Beat:
On a first playthrough, expect about 20-25 hours.
Without giving away too much: there is definitely some replayability.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

A "Silksong" = a game that you waited a long time for and that met your very high expectations.

• What was the game?
• How long did you wait for it?
• What were you expecting?
• How did it deliver?

(And yes, Silksong can be your "Silksong")

With October approaching, it's time to play some horror games! Horror is my favorite genre. It's chock full of emotion and creative game design. It's a genre that has to continuously reinvent itself to avoid getting stale, which leads to dozens of incredible games.

The games I'd like to play for the first time are:

• Silent Hill 2 - I was holding out for a proper remaster for over a decade. It's finally here, but it's $70! I'll probably have to bite the bullet.
• Resident Evil Village - I've been meaning to play this for years and already own it! On sale for $10.
• Resident Evil 4 (Remaster) - I played the original but not the new remaster. On sale for $20.
• Dead Space - Just bought this on sale a few weeks ago. It looks really good! On sale for $12.
• Alien Isolation - Alien is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I should really play this.

Now for some recommendations:

• Resident Evil (REmake) - This is where you start if you're new to horror. Absolutely iconic, and not too scary thanks to its cheesy B-movie script, which can be humorous. On sale for $5.
• Resident Evil 7 Biohazard - This game was a true return to form in the horror department. Absolutely loved it. On sale for $8. Genuine steal.
• Inscryption - Not very spooky. Has a fun card game and a lot of intriguing ideas.

Are there any games you're looking forward to playing?

Do you have any recommendations?

Hi! I'm looking for some fun and interesting casual puzzle games. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are:

• Sudoku
• Nonogram - like the recent Every 5x5 Nonogram or Picross.
• Tetris - Apotris on GBA is great!
• A few from the Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
• Sokoban
• Catrap on Gameboy, a bit similar to Sokoban
• Dragonsweeper and Mamono Sweeper that people recommended here a while ago.
• Chip's Challenge - Lexy's Labyrinth is a browser-based reimplementation.

Flames flicker as the once mighty Orient Express lies on its side in pieces, bodies in cartoonishly thuggish costumes scattered all around. After a long three days full of murder, deception, concerts and romance, its final journey has come to a fiery end.

From the inferno, a single figure emerges in a scorched trench coat, dark hair ruffled by the breeze. He brushes off the coat with one hand and smoothly extends the other, and a solid gold bird swoops down from the sky to perch on it. Red flames flicker along its wings and back, but his sleeve remains perfectly untouched.

He walks away from the burning wreckage, arm still outstretched with gleaming golden bird atop it. Sunglasses descend from the sky and land squarely on his nose. A second smaller pair studded with jewels descends and lands on the bird's beak, managing to somehow look cool instead of ridiculous.

“Time to kick some Nazi ass,” the man declares, and the bird caws.

The train explodes behind them and the air reverberates with a “Yeeeaaaahhhh!”

Note: the above scene may not be 100% accurate or canon.

So concludes the first leg of the Colossal Game Adventure!

We hope you enjoyed your time aboard The Last Express. For anyone who missed the initial boarding period... Well uh, luckily this game involves rewinding time, so you can just rewind here to the Insert Cartridge topic when the train was intact. Feel free to post there if you're just starting the game, or you can post here after finishing even if you're only finding these topics months later.

That said, presumably most of you boarded earlier and had a chance to play the game. As such, this post will not require spoilers to be hidden in dropdown blocks. So if you don't want to be spoiled, please adjust your clock and rewind to the previous post.

Use this post to share final thoughts and impressions, post fun little secrets or easter eggs you found, ask questions if you had to abort your playthrough for whatever reason, link video clips, discuss if you completed any of the meta challenges, etc. Or you can share and express admiration for the very nice official Colossal Game Adventure splash screen made by @Boojum which I meant to link last time on "Press Start", but accidentally pasted the wrong link. I have since fixed it, but that was two nights ago so you probably haven't seen it. And dang it this splash screen is too awesome to go unappreciated!!

Otherwise, we can consider this leg of the journey to be complete. That said, the adventure is only just beginning! Wouldn't be a Colossal Game Adventure with only one game, now would it? You can find the current schedule here. Our next destination will be Chrono Trigger with @ali stepping up as the next host. As for me, my time as conductor has come to an end and I will be joining you all as passengers.

If you intend to continue this journey, you can just grab your luggage from the—uh... *glances at the flaming wreckage* ...Well hey, it'll be a little easier to travel without all that extra weight, right?

Onwards to Chrono Trigger!

THE END

> CONTINUE?

Hello everyone,

Gamers’ I need your advice. Due to a serious family illness, my nieces and nephews age 4 to 15 will be spending a lot of time at my home for the foreseeable future.

I also have a college age kid, who is home occasionally and will play a few sports games and fighting games. He is head of the Fighting Game club at his universities club.

I am looking to entertain the kids as we move towards winter and also keep my house in one piece.

I purchased a NS2 w/ Mario Kart World, Minecraft, Shinobi, SFVI, NBA 2k26, Star Wars Outlaws and BoTW.

I am going to purchase a few more Switch 2 titles and a few Switch 1 games. (Hopefully on a B2G1) sale. I do not need to purchase all at once. Likely, I’ll buy 1 or 2 a month. Or hope for a b2g1 sale.

I am LOOKING FOR RECOMMENDATIONS from everyone.

I already preordered Dragon Quest 1&2HD2D and Mario Galaxy 2.

Games I am considering.

Luigi mansion 3
Sonic racing Cross World
Persona 3 reload
Super Mario Bros U Deluxe (you can play as Peach?)
Mortal Kombat Collection
Madden or EA FC
Metroid Prime 4 ( I don’t know what to make of this game. Is it Metroid BoTW?)
Bomberman R
Paper Mario Thousand year door
Links awakening or echoes of wisdom?

I am looking to have some variety so there is something for everyone.

These kids already have a Switch 1 w/ mario kart 8D, smash, Mario 3d World, Minecraft and a bunch of Kirby games.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Side note: My kids had a Wii U when they were young and i am somewhat familiar with those games.

Introduction

July, 1914. Paris.

Tensions are high all around the European continent. A long-growing discontent has reached a sharp peak not even a full month earlier with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In the midst of these ever-uneasy days, a young American doctor by the name of Robert Cath gets a sudden invitation from his best friend, urging him to join him on the now-legendary Orient Express.

As he boards the train, he cannot predict the chaos that will follow. Luxurious as the train may be, this will not be an idyllic trip, but the scene of a murder. Blood will be shed, conspiracies will unfold, secrets will be revealed and romance will have a chance to blossom. With the official beginning of the Great War only a matter of days away, he may be the last passenger to step aboard what will be...

The Last Express

Welcome everyone to the first month of the Colossal Game Adventure! I am sure most people reading this will know the details already given the activity on the setup threads. Just to reiterate though, the Colossal Gaming Adventure is a monthly event where we will be playing through older games together. While @kfwyre organized the voting and nomination phases, each month will have a different host. We have seven months' worth of games already scheduled through March 2026, and I have the honor of being the conductor for the inaugural round!

As you saw above, our first leg of this grand journey will have us board The Last Express, a 1997 adventure game about a mystery on the Orient Express. I myself have not played it yet and will be experiencing it for the first time with most people here, because this game seems to be the poster child for hidden gems. A game that received critical acclaim and praise from critics and players alike, and clearly a work with serious passion and effort, but according to Wikipedia it sold only 100,000 copies on its initial release.

Luckily for us, one of those 100,000 copies belongs to kfwyre, who brought it to my attention with this passionate recommendation back in May. That link has some mild spoilers for the very beginning of the game, so you may not want to read it, but here's the key takeaway that made this game so interesting: this game plays out in real time. As you explore the train, characters will go about their set routines and events will unfold off screen regardless of you being present to witness them. These events can set up unknown domino effects that will impact you, and your own choices can also have unforeseen consequences that won't come into play until much later.

To that end, don't be discouraged by failure. Many adventure games of this era rely on trial and error but in this game failure is particularly integrated into the gameplay. Someone might somehow get the luckiest run ever and manage to complete the game on their very first playthrough without ever encountering a fail state, but ultimately, this game will call for a bit of patience. And maybe guides if you have the original version or the hints don't help. Which I personally think is pretty neat. Doesn't get much more classic/retro than looking up walkthroughs on GameFAQs!

So all aboard The Last Express, and enjoy the ride.

Game Information

Versions: Original Release and DotEmu/Gold Edition. The DotEmu version is a re-release which has additional features such as hints and tutorials, which may make it easier.

Platforms: Windows, MacOS, MS-DOS, iOS, Android

Genre(s): Adventure, Mystery, Point-and-Click

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• GOG, Original: The original 1997 release, in all its 1990’s glory for purists. (Also may come with some extras like a soundtrack and "making of" from a 2011 Collector’s Edition published by DotEmu, but which is now wiped from the internet...?)
• Steam, Gold Edition: The remake/remaster released by DotEmu with added hints and tutorials, as well as interface tweaks. (Note: while it lists macOS, the game is 32-bit, which is unsupported by any macOS versions beyond 10.14 Mojave.) This version is on sale for only 11 more hours at the time of this topic being posted!! An extreme time crunch for sure, so if you see this message, now's the time to buy it!!
• iOS (Apple App Store) and Android (Google Play Store). These ports are also by DotEmu and predate the Gold Edition.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

IMPORTANT: Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

IMPORTANT: Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

With all the pleasantries out of the way...

> PRESS START

(Credit to @Boojum for the splash screen. It's too awesome not to include!)

Inspired by the recurring topic every Steam sale over at /r/GameDealsMeta:

• What are some lesser-known Steam games that you recommend?

• Are there any genres you’d like hidden gem recommendations for?

If you're interested in previous Hidden Gem topics, you can find them here.

For popular recommendations and general purpose sale discussion, please use the main Steam Sale topic.

Optional: Feel free to categorize your recommendations by number of reviews (as a proxy for popularity)

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.

Sorry to be picky, but it's hard for me to find games I enjoy - and part of that is I don't really know where to look.

I'm a fan of games with no/skippable story, no/limited exploration, no/limited unlocks, no/limited power ups - but high in strategy and/or skill based games that are pretty simple while still giving depth to it (aka something that can be picked up and put down without issue, eg picking right back off where you were after not playing for months). Online is okay but no login bonus/requirements and something that can be played at ones own pace.

I think what I'm looking for and what I'm NOT looking for would be easiest by giving examples:

One of the big things that makes me asks this is that I find collectible card games (eg Hearthstone, MTG, Marvel Snap) to really fit the mold that I'm looking for, but the toxic skinner box of their economy to not be worth having in ones life. I don't want "daily quests" to be something I worry about.

I found Slay The Spire to be okay, and have mostly been jamming Balatro as of late...but it's very annoying that basically all card games I can find now are basically Slay The Spire knockoffs. Going back to the "no/limited unlocks" and "no/limited power ups", that rouge-lite aspect to them really ruins the games to me - I get that there's the macro strategy about picking the power ups and what not, but it personally ruins the actual gameplay aspect to me and just feels too much "am I going to high roll or low roll?". Runetera's Path of Champions also fits this mold that, to me, was ruined by the power ups. I've heard good things about Monster Train, but the fact it gets compared to Slay The Spire has led me to skipping it.

To give an example of card games I enjoyed, Marvel's Midnight Suns I thought was quite fun. It was nice that you could completely ignore the story and RPG aspects of the game to solely focus on the card combat. Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales has interested me since I've heard good things about Gwent, but since it's a Witcher game I don't know if that means it's mostly a story-based game and the gameplay is just a means to server the story. I've been enjoying the duet expansion of Wingspan and see that it has a video game counterpart, so that might be interesting to try out for single player (but I also don't want to get burnt out on the game to be able to continue to play the board game)

Autobattlers (which I basically consider deck builders) like Hearthstone's Battlegrounds I enjoy, outside of the fact that by being an online multiplayer game you have to give 100% focus on the game. I also quite dislike the constantly changing cards and what not with just how much information there is to the game (it's a big reason I haven't picked up other autobattlers like the League of Legends one). Are there any good offline autobattler-type games?

Going off card games for strategy games...I do enjoy simulation games like Civilization to an extent, but the "one more turn" aspect of them really hurts - very rarely do I want to go back to a campaign I've already started and have to re-figure out what my plans were. Something that is either a lot quicker of a loop or a lot easier to drop back in would be interesting to me though.

Tetris is probably one of the easiest games that fit the mold I'm looking for - strategy game that has very simple game play but a lot of depth to it. Shoutout to the old tetrisfriends.com website, though playing on it so much kind of burned me out from the game (definitely used to get the Tetris effect lol)

X-Com 2 has been of interest to me since I enjoyed the game studio's Midnight Suns as mentioned above, but it's been hard to get into the start of the game and it's not exactly the easiest to play on a Steam Deck. I do think I'd enjoy it though.

Going more skill-based group, Cuphead and Furi are two of my favorite games I've played in the last decade. I've definitely been leaning more strategy games though as I've gotten older, but still down for anything that is pure straight awesome gameplay without any other fluff like those two.

This post is probably getting long enough lol. But thank you for any suggestions/pointing in directions for me to look

There was a lot of interest in a Retro Video Game Club. I'm thinking it would be cool to get it off the ground!

Use this topic as brainstorming/planning for how we think it should run.

1. We need a facilitator/emcee.

• Is anyone interested in stepping up and running this?

2. We need to figure out logistics.

• Schedule
• Game selection process
• Parameters on what counts as "retro" (if necessary)
• Maybe a name for the club?

3. Anything else?

• Is there anything else we need to consider?

Introducing: Colossal Game Adventure

Colossal Game Adventure is Tildes' brand new retro video game club.

Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!

Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.

What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!

It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.

Nominations

In this topic we will be gathering nominations for games to be played.

If you're looking for ideas:

• This Wikipedia list of "games considered the best" is a great place to start.
• RacketBoy has "hidden gem" lists for many retro systems.

Importantly, not all games for CGA have to be "significant" games. Zany, offbeat, and experimental games are welcome too. Anything you think might make for good discussions.

We will also have some "Arcade Special" months where we play several smaller/shorter games together in one batch (e.g. Pac-Man, Frogger, and Galaga). If you're not sure how big/long a game is, HowLongToBeat can help.

Single Game Nomination Rules

• Choose any game you feel is "retro" -- there is no hard and fast rule on what does or doesn't count
• Maximum of TWO game nominations per person
• Link to the game(s) on MobyGames

"Arcade Special" Nomination Rules

An "Arcade Special" is a batch of games that you feel could be played together in the same month.

(They do not have to be proper arcade games and can be from any system or genre.)

You might choose them because they're shorter or don't have as much staying power. You also might choose them based on a theme, series, or franchise. You also might do a completely random grab bag! There's no wrong way to make an Arcade Special (except for choosing games that are too big to fit in a month together).

• 2-5 games per Arcade Special
• Maximum of ONE Arcade Special nomination per person
• Link to the games on MobyGames

So, one person can nominate up to TWO single games and ONE arcade special (of up to five games).

Optional Extras

None of the following are required, but they make things more interesting:

• Explain why you're interested in nominating the games
• Explain why you think they'd be a good choice for the group
• If the game has multiple releases or multiple platforms, you can choose to specify which release/platform to target if you feel it's important. (Note: participants are still free to play whichever version they want.)
• For Arcade Specials: list why you think the games would be a good candidate to be played together.
• For Arcade Specials: give the batch its own cool name!

Next Steps

Nominations will be open for 48 hours from the time of this posting.

The voting topic will open on August 29.

Once the voting is over, we will post the schedule for the next six months and start our first official month on September 1st.

Notifications

If you want to be added to the notification list for our Colossal Game Adventure, simply comment in this topic. I will add all commenters here to the list unless they explicitly mention otherwise.

IMPORTANT

We now have a splash screen. (Thanks @Boojum!)

ALSO IMPORTANT

Please read all directions for submitting a proper ballot.

Any improper ballots will NOT be counted, but you will get a polite message from me before the count asking you to fix them. XD

• All ballots must be top-level comments.
• All top-level comments should be ballots ONLY.

I will be using the Collapse Replies button to tally votes, so any ballots not in top-level comments will not be counted.

After you submit your ballot, you can respond to your own post in a new comment to lobby for your choices (which is optional but highly recommended). It's completely fine to have conversations downthread from the ballots, but please make sure that the top-level remains clean.

Submitting Your Ballot

• Each person has 20 votes to distribute among games they see fit.

• Each person can allocate a maximum of 5 points per Single Game/Arcade Special.

• Arcade Specials count as one block (do not vote for each game in them individually).

• Votes should be listed as NAME (VOTES) -- e.g. Pong (3)

• Voting closes 48 hours from the posting of this topic.

Please ensure your titles match mine exactly (copy/paste highly recommended). I will be using CTRL+F to tally votes u/Spore_Prince has written a program to tally the votes, so any different spellings will not being counted. See examples below, as well as my actual ballot in the topic.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (5)
Portal 3 (5)
Half-Life 3 (3)
Team Fortress 3 (2)
Night Trap (2)
Xexyz (1)
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1)
Left 4 Dead 3 (1)

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (10)
Protal 3 (7)
Wand of Gamelon (5)

Voting Outcomes

• The top 6 games/Arcade Specials will become the next 6 months of CGA.
• Of the remaining games, the bottom 50% will be cut from the list.
• The remaining 50% will stay on the list and will enter the next voting round starting at their current point totals instead of 0.
• The next round of nominations will happen in 6 months, and participants will be limited to nominating 1 new game OR 1 new Arcade Special.

Nominees

Arcade Specials

I had an idea for a game some weeks ago, just as the title says. It would be something like Crusader Kings, it's all about dinasties and roleplay, but set in more modern eras, from the beginning of the industrial revolution until today, or maybe the future, we'll see. And instead of kingdoms, it's all about businesses. It's all about owning global company empires. Being a kind hearted local chain owner, or a sociopathic cutthroat in the 1% that owns the world. Up to you.

And this idea is still stuck with me, and I wanted to get back into game development, so I might as well just try it for fun and see what happens.

I picked Godot, 1) because it's open source, 2) it's going to be fun to see how much it developed in the last decade and 3) it's free, and especially 4) I don't want to use commercial engines and risk being affected by something similar to the runtime fee fiasco

I still have to finish some tutorials and make some simple games to get a grip on the engine and see how everything works, but as a data analyst I already have programming foundations and, I think, this project is monumental for someone like me, but I also think it's doable.

I have a very rough idea of how the code will work for the AI. It will incorporate "ticks" like CK, each tick being a day, and some events fire weekly or monthly, where based on the stats and traits, each individual character will calculate how likely they are to accept or reject that event. This event can be about buying shares, accepting proposal marriages, going on a trip, etc.

My main worry here is if GDScript is good enough to handle "intensive" algorithms. If not, I can always use C#, or C++ if I really have to, and adapt the problematic algorithms.

Another is what would be the best database manager for this, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

As for the world, initially I was thinking about being about the real one, but I realized that I may not want to deal with... Well, accuracies. For example, I don't want these businesses to exist in a vacuum, I'm going to try to make a system that interacts both the world's political events and these businesses. I want to create events, like, a country invades another, which creates demands for weapons, and if you own a weapon factory, good news for you! If you own businesses in the invaded country, well, sucks to be you.

So, I want to do those kind of events, but without needing to worry about things like "Portugal would never invade Japan. What is your AI thinking!?" or "Why is Greece an industrial power house?". If a big studio like Paradox has trouble fine tuning their hundreds of nations in their games, me by my alonesome certainly will not be able to do it.

So I'm thinking just making a fictional world, populated by several countries and empires but not as many as the real world. This way I can fine tune it to my liking and without worrying about being accurate with the real world. This is another challenge by itself, with its own cliffs, but it's more doable.

And so far, that's it. After I'm done with the learning phase, I'm going to start a proper planning phase, lay down some key mechanics and develop a prototype.

I wrote this post as a way to put my thoughts down, double check with myself if the idea is good.

But also, to check with the tildes community if you have any inputs. It can be anything: ideas, suggestions, warnings, problems that you know that I'll face, etc. I'll appreciate anything that you can give me

Hi everyone,

I was never so lucky as a kid to have a gaming console (forbidden by my parents) so I could only be jealous of my school friends getting gameboys and super nintendos. But I’m an adult now, so I got myself a RG35XX H to try all these games out, and enjoying myself.

So I was thinking why not create something like a book club but for these old games? We’d play (and attempt to beat) one game per month or something along these lines and then discuss the game itself, the story, context around how and when it was made, etc.

I’m looking to share this hobby with others (as it is rather solitary otherwise), and create a social aspect around it.

What do you think? Would anyone be interested?

I'm attempting to change my phone habits and swap out some unhealthy ones (doomscrolling the news) with healthy ones (solving puzzles instead!).

I just set up the incredible RetroArch on my phone now that you can do that on iOS, and I even got a little controller for games that need it (I tried playing Tetris with touch controls, and it was like, 95% good, but missing a spin or move when things were getting tense was frustrating and took me out of it).

What I'm looking for are puzzle game recommendations up through the PlayStation/N64 era (including handhelds) that can run on my phone.

In particular I want to explore more "novel" puzzle game ideas -- ones that kind of take their own swing at things. For example, Intelligent Qube on the PlayStation is one of my favorite games of all time, in part because I've never played anything like it in the nearly 30 years since its release.

That said, I'm also open to just regular old "pure" puzzler games. The first game I set up (and have been thoroughly enjoying) on RetroArch is Picross 3D on the DS. I love games like this that are just lists of puzzles and I can play one or two of them rather than, you know, doomscrolling.

Any recommendations you can give are appreciated!

Hey all,

I just recently got a Switch 2, and am looking for some games to play on it. I currently have Mario Kart World (and have been enjoying it), but nothing else.

I have not owned a Switch before, so if there are good switch games that work on the switch 2 I would appreciate those recommendations as well.

Looking primarily for single-player & local 2-player games. No real genres I dislike, except I don’t play a lot of horror games. I have played a bit of splatoon on a friends switch, and that wasn’t my cup of tea.

I do have a PC and have played a lot of games there (like Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Tunic, Hollow Knight, etc), so mainly looking for games that are console-exclusive, or that might’ve slipped by my radar.

The concept of achievements in games has existed for quite a while now. According to Wikipedia's article on video game achievements, they were first programmed into some games in the 90s, and perhaps first made it big with the Xbox 360 in 2005. Steam achievements shortly followed in 2007.

Some of them are very easy - "Complete the tutorial" is a comment achievement. Some of them are silly - "Pet all the dogs in the game" has become a bit of a meme. But some require an incredible amount of patience, luck, and/or skill.

What are some achievements that you or others you know have put time into that felt significant? Or perhaps even ones that stand out for being a clever addition by the game developers.

What are some newer obscure titles that you would personally recommend?

Let's say something from a five years ago and that is really unlikely to be known by somone else unless you told them about it. But it really is not that important.

I am looking for some small studio or personnal project that manages to take whatever it is based around and create an entertaining experience.

Also I am posting this as hopefully a way to surface smaller titles that someone considers good.

Do you base it solely on age? On the year/console of release? Graphical style? Vibes? Divination?

Additionally: based on your criteria, what are some complicated edge cases?

For example: is DOOM 3 "retro" because it's over 20 years old and its series was rebooted, or is it modern because it's got nice 3D graphics and lighting and whatnot? Is Crow Country retro even though it came out last year?

The point of this isn't to find the hard line of what is/isn't retro -- it's to play around in the gray areas for what "retro" potentially does or doesn't describe.

Maybe you spoiled the story.

Maybe you min-maxed the fun out of it.

Maybe you played it SO much that eventually its tiny little flaws were all you could see.

Maybe you spent so much time excitedly modding it that, when it came time to finally play it, the fire was out.

Whatever the reason: what was the game, and how did you ruin it for yourself?