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.
A while back I had an idea for some D&D magic items that were, in a shop keep's words, "Greatly discounted due to minor defects". The general idea was that these items would be a gamble to use each time, sometimes offering great benefits, sometimes offering catastrophic backfires, but all at a greatly discounted price any adventurer could afford. With my most recent addition (the Potion of Prior Authorization), it occurred to me that it could be fun to share my list here, for feedback and other potential additions to it. My hope is that the next time it's my turn to run a campaign, I can offer these items to my players.
Weapon (Handaxe), Uncommon
A heavy, pitted handaxe wrapped in frayed leather straps.
Armor (Shield), Rare
A beautifully polished steel shield painted with a vibrant red-and-white bullseye.
Weapon (Dagger), Rare (Requires Attunement)
A sleek, razor-sharp obsidian dagger that whispers encouraging murder tips to its wielder.
Wondrous Item, Uncommon (Requires Attunement)
A sturdy iron helmet imbued with the spirit of a long-dead, incredibly critical dwarf adventurer named Barnaby.
Wand, Rare (Requires Attunement by a Spellcaster)
A twisted birch wand that vibrates with intense emotional resonance. Has 3 charges (regains 1d3 charges at dawn).
Wondrous Item, Very Rare
A magnificent crimson velvet cloak that smells faintly of throat lozenges.
Ring, Rare
A flashy gold band set with a single spinning die where the gem should be.
Ring, Uncommon
A flashy ring adorned with a polished ruby that sparkles a bit too brightly under ambient light.
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
Light leather boots with wing patterns stitched on the sides.
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
Boots made of polished glass soles that constantly alter their texture.
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
Acts like a standard Bag of Holding, but suffers from severe separation anxiety.
Wondrous Item, Rare
A handheld silver mirror that speaks in an insufferably smug voice.
Wondrous Item, Uncommon
A bright peacock feather that twitches nervously when held.
Potion, Uncommon
A colorless liquid that, for unknown reasons, appears jet black when inside of any container. Has a surprisingly bitter taste.
Potion, Uncommon
A bright pink, fizzy liquid that tastes like strawberry soda and impending doom.
Potion, Rare
A murky gray liquid locked inside a completely opaque lead flask.
Scroll, Uncommon
A scorched leather parchment that smells faintly of sugar and lemon juice.
Scroll, Uncommon
A scroll bearing a crude drawing of a furry creature. The definition of "Bear" is left up to cosmic interpretation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Either because the game itself is still good, or because you think it's able to be appreciated for more historical/didactic reasons (e.g. Game X is the origin for a certain trope).
Or any other reason really -- you're not limited to the two.
Importantly, why do you recommend them? What appeal do they have to modern audiences?
The reason I'm saying "pre-NES" (Nintendo Entertainment System) is simply because I imagine that a good number of us here started gaming with the NES and don't have as much of a pulse on what came before it. I imagine even more of us started gaming well after the NES and would appreciate insight into that period of gaming history.
I’ve never played the original and am playing through the first game in the remakes and was curious if:
I was never a wordle fanatic, but I am hooked on this Alphable game now https://geoffpevlin.com/games/alphable/. I also play https://cluesbysam.com/.
Do people know of other web-based (hopefully free) logic puzzles like these? I like the daily format, but wouldn't limit myself to that if there are others that are also interesting.
I've done all of the https://www.rustylake.com/ games too, which I quite enjoyed, but these types of puzzles require a little bit more time investment that I don't really have right now. (I also hated that some of the "logic" in those games did not seem to make sense to me, and I'd have to google the answer to continue with the game.)
I also like https://timeguessr.com/ but don't return to that one as frequently because I can't play it on my phone.
I really like in-person escape games but they are expensive and vary drastically in quality, so was very happy to find these types of games scratch that same itch.
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.
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.
Hey team, wondering if anyone on tildes be keen to play Slay The Spire 2. I'm in Melbourne, Australia, so that's my rough time zone. But yeah none of my friends play it, I'm obsessed with it, I'm pretty close to buying the physical boardgame, but would love to try multiplayer.
Greetings everyone. I'm currently in the process of getting a Computer Science degree for two primary reasons. 1.) Because I want to get a stable development job where I'm currently employed, but most importantly to me 2) Because I want to make video games and have the educational credentials to confidently do so.
I know I know, you don't need a computer science degree to create video games, and my program doesn't even teach game development. So I have a long journey ahead learning game dev alongside my program in my own time. Also I have no intentions of working at an actual game company.
So my question today is,
What is a game that you are dying to play, that nobody has made yet?
I'm trying to get some inspiration. It's hard to think about something that truly doesn't exist, because there's so many amazing games already. I'm genuinely curious.
If you're struggling like I am, feel free to list a game that's been made exactly once but no ones been able to reproduce it's genius.
I'll start,
I am DYING to play a factory builder game, but with ARPG gameplay. So Factorio / Dyson Sphere Program meets Diablo 4 & Path Of Exile. I just think this would create such a dopamine addicting game that would be impossible to pull away from if done right. My idea would be to have the factory be the loot crafting mechanic for progressively better armos, while the ARPG is what you use to get the materials needed to craft truly insane gear. Idk, if done right I think this could have legs.
I recently have been reconnecting with something from my childhood: the Krosmoz universe! Anyone who was a kid in France between 2004 and 2012 or so either grew up on it or is at least a little bit familiar with it. Most people outside of the country, if they know of it, generally only know of Dofus, the first of their three (actually five (actually eight if you count the dead ones)) tactical MMORPGs, or the derived TV animated series Wakfu, which was picked up on Netflix at one point. But it's massive here. Even today, they're still quite popular and perpetually developed.
As a medium, video games are not generally so closely tied to countries; more than half of their history has been during the era of globalization and the Internet. Even in the past, when you could only buy games in person in a store, people's minds everywhere were nonetheless on games from overseas. Today, games made in Sweden or Morocco have lived on the same storefronts as games made in Venezuela and Australia for a good while, and I'd bet most people don't even think about where the people who make the games they play come from.
I personally think this is a great thing! But the fact that there's something like Krosmoz, that's so unusually localized to one place, makes me curious to know if there's more; and if there is, I want to know what's unique about it, and what it says about its players and makers, too.
I've asked this before on reddit, and I remember being told about Metin2, an originally Korean MMO that was so popular in Eastern Europe that even a decade after the original Korean and US servers were shut down, players from those countries are still updating the game and keeping it alive. This is a different situation from Krosmoz but another fascinating one. It's the kind of thing I wanna know about.
This is an invitation to yap, if you'll oblige me. Do you have anything like that where you're from? A game or game franchise that only people of your culture know, and that you want everyone else to know about? I wanna hear about it!
I posted this once and immediately deleted it to make it shorter. I did not really succeed. Please don't sue me!
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 think the simplest thing Arc Raiders nailed about gameplay is the pacing. The enemies move at such a pace that you never get instantly vapourised; you always have a second or two to try something crazy even when you're utterly doomed. The times that 'something crazy' works you have a unique memorable moment. Let me tell you about one of mine.
A Rocketeer is a common headache in Arc Raiders. It's a quadcopter drone the size of a tank that shoots rockets. It usually takes a big and expensive weapon to take one down, but players started to take notice of an item called a 'Hornet Driver', basically a stun grenade. What happens when you stun an aerial drone? That's right, it drops right out of the sky, to its doom if the fall is far enough.
With this in mind, I emerged from some tunnels to find another player pinned down by a Rocketeer. I throw a Hornet Driver, it hits just the right spot and the Rocketeer drops to the ground but is unharmed... and then in trying to angrily get back in the air it flips itself over on its back, completely immobilised. The two of us strangers hesitate for a split second before we sprint over and beat the thing to death with hammers.
There are flaws in this game but in terms of creating organic events it's been a great time.
Custom games/game modes/rulesets give gamers the ability to enjoy some games nearly infinitely. Gary's Mod, Rust, Minecraft, Robolox, Fortnite, and many others keep people coming back as people create new ways to play.
When I was younger I played a ton of Warcraft 3 custom games. I remember there being a solid ~2 years when that was almost entirely what I would play whenever I was able to use the computer and then another 3-4 years after where I would play at least a couple of times a week.
I remember loving custom games like:
I remember chatting with a lot of interesting people, though I didn't have any friendships I made move past Warcraft 3 in to other games.
I know there are many other games with custom games or customer game modes that the community developed, with DotA 2 coming full circle from being the sequel to a custom game to having custom games of its own.
To get the conversation going:
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.
Now that we know everyone's favorites, I'd love to hear about games that are further down the list -- the ones that don't necessarily rise to the high heights of definitive favoritedom.
So, share your eleventh favorite game this time. You know, the one that doesn't quite make it into your top 10.
Feel free to share your top 10 if you like as well, but lead with your 11th, as those are the ones I'm interested in seeing highlighted.
For this post I was thinking of games more along the lines of an early access title that was abandoned or had a 1.0 release announced when it was not feature complete or still had bugs/issues that were never addressed. If you feel like a live service/MMO game that has shut down should have kept going, feel free to share it 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.
Something unusual you like to do in games -- your uniquely weird habit or preference or behavior. Tell us all about it.
Long story short, I'm making an everything arcade cabinet and soaring no expense. At this point, I have a racing wheel and plan to install wind sim receptacles on a custom pull-out wheel drawer.
My challenge now is that really want to build flip out armrests that have cockpit controls attached and give me a spot for the car gear shifter, so I'm thinking of buying two VKB Gladiator joysticks to mount into the armrests.
Most of all I want it to look awesome and fit the design I'm after. Second, I want to actually play sim games.
My issue is as stated. Is a purchase like this crazy? Should I be starting with a second hand hotas unit to see if I even like it?
And for those of you who do enjoy racing, flight or work sims, were you once a casual user who got hooked? Did you wish that you'd bought decent gear right away?
Before I go into my rant I would like to ask you: Have you played Destiny or Destiny 2? What are your thoughts on Bungie, the imminent death of Destiny, their push for Marathon, and “games as a service” in general?
As for my opinion, I think that the real problem is that (probably) most managers, CEOs, investors, and shareholders involved in live service games aren’t gamers. They don’t care about the quality of the games. A majority of them probably don’t even play what they publish.
What they care about is to maximize revenue with minimal effort, cost, and risk.
The programmers and artists suffer from low wages and job insecurity, and the gamers suffer from live service slop that eventually gets sunset even when it has a dedicated fan base (that could grow if the game was better).
We can’t win against this horde of managers, CEOs, investors, and shareholders. They got AAA in a chokehold, especially in live service.
We gotta continue to vote with our wallets and give our money to the companies who deliver quality games, and pull our money out when they don’t.
If Bungie dies, I’ll be sad because I have a long history with Halo (Combat Evolved, 2, 3, ODST, and Reach), but so be it. Something better may rise from their ashes.
We gotta resist the slop. It’s like fast food. We gotta resist it even if it’s addictive, and go get better quality grub elsewhere even if it costs more. If we keep eating the slop, they’ll continue frying more of it.
Edit: To make sure I don’t confuse anyone, I should add that Destiny 2 will receive one last content update this month, and will remain playable, just as its predecessor, for the time being. What I think most people are complaining about is that a game that could potentially be excellent, will be left in a messy state, designed mostly around maximizing revenue through micro-transactions, rather than offering a good experience. It has a large and passionate fanbase, but will basically abandoned by Bungie, in favor of their new game Marathon, which no one cares about
Edit: Just bought NSO + Expansion Pack. 39.99 EUR/year to celebrate the console’s first anniversary. 💸
Edit 2: The Direct is scheduled to 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET. Here’s the YouTube link.
It’s a me, your resident die-hard, hopeless, Nintendo fanboy normie.
In this post, we’ll discuss four tangentially-related topics:
What are your predictions and wishes for the upcoming Nintendo Direct?
I’ll say right up front that my experience with Nintendo Directs over the years has been that whatever I want the most is always what I don’t get.
This time around, that’s news on the Zelda movie and the Ocarina of Time remake. In fact, I’m fairly certainly they’ll reveal more on those in September instead.
I’m leaning on that certainty for three reasons:
(1) If I’m wrong, then I’ll be pleasantly surprised, and if I’m right, then I won’t be sorely disappointed.
(2) I only really care about these two because I do know a little bit about them. Whatever else I don’t know about, doesn’t bother me. So, other announcements, even very big ones that might positively shock me, aren’t really what I’m worried about. This is also the reason why I’d much prefer it if no information ever leaked at all. I want to be surprised. I can’t isolate myself from leaks if I “surf on the web” at all. It’s impossible. So, Nintendo’s ninjas need to step up their game and silence the leakers.
(3) It seems to me that Nintendo is working hard to move away from the “big Direct” model of making announcements. It might be difficult for them because at least once a year they need to communicate through that medium in order to give investors and shareholders a heads-up (who would otherwise not know about anything because they don’t care about the industry and don’t follow it closely). However, for us, the customers, they’d much rather operate with more flexibility, showcasing games and products individually, spacing out announcements to keep the Nintendo brand fresh in people’s minds, and reveal new titles close to launch to create as much buzz around them as possible. That’s my guess. I could be wrong.
As for my list, I’ll put all the items in a single one. Some of them I think are more plausible than others. Some are entirely wishful thinking.
What is a Nintendo franchise that you think is in dire need of a change, and what would that look like for you?
(1) The Legend of Zelda
My hope is that the Ocarina of Time remake is not just a recreation with better graphics. The 3DS version already did that. I hope that it is a reimagening. As big as Hyrule felt in 1998, it feels small enough today that I could see it being the perfect size for Nintendo to add to. They could make it half as big as Breath of the Wild, and it would still feel pretty sizeable, for me at least (I never even gave 100%ind Breath of the Wild a try for how big it was).
The point of the remake for Nintendo, I think, is two-fold:
(A) Introduce a larger, fresh audience to the franchise, by giving them the gold-standard of what it has to offer, while wasting minimal resources developing it (so, kind of what they’re doing with Star Fox) and in time for the big release of the movie next year, so the two products can cross-promote each other. We’ve seen them do this with the two Mario movies.
(B) Flex those “linear Zelda” muscles a bit, which have become extremely atrophied during the long “era of the wild”, so that the next major title, becomes something that is more of a compromise, something that has that large open world for one group of players to sink hundreds of hours into, but also that highly curated puzzle-solving experience with a meaningful story that the group of players that I am in personally love the series for. The last two major titles were a feast for people who like checklists. For me, they were frustrating. I still loved them. I loved the gameplay. I loved the breadth (of the wild). I didn’t like the “dungeons”, and I absolutely hated the stories. The latter of these had me fuming. They had zero substance for me. They even “soft-rebooted” the series if you think about it. They just placed the games in an entirely new “era”, completely detached from the rest of the franchise. I honestly hope we never return to this era, unless it adds something meaningful to the story. I wanna go back to the wacky timeline from the previous era and make it wackier.
(2) Animal Crossing
Zelda and Animal Crossing were my favorite video game franchises of all time. In fact, I played every mainline Animal Crossing title extensively. I say “were” though, because Pokopium, as I endearingly like to refer to it, has dethroned Animal Crossing. New Horizons was such a disappointment for me. The series became a decorating sim. My favorite is still the GCN entry, if you can believe it. It’s the one game I love returning to.
It seems that Tomodachi Life is Nintendo’s answer to people like me. Nintendo has heard us. I haven’t played the most recent entry in that series because it released on the Switch 1, and I have this weird (I know) rule that I only buy Switch 2 exclusives so as to not overwhelm myself with my options. Pokopium also happened to release shortly before and to say that I got very busy with it would be an understatement (cough cough 160+ hours in and counting). If they release a Switch 2 edition of that though, then I’ll jump in. I am in dire need of that proper, funky social sim, where the characters say and do weird stuff.
This is to say that I don’t know what Nintendo could do to make me want to return to this series. If the next entry is just more of the same, more decoration, even if it’s a “bigger world”, then... it might be time to say goodbye to this franchise. I really don’t know what they could do though. I have heard people suggest an MMO take, where there is one big world and everyone is playing in it simultaneously... yeah. Except that Nintendo would never do that.
Tomodachi Life allows you to do some really out there stuff with your characters, and guess what? It has no online multiplayer of any kind (at least that I’m aware of). That’s how Nintendo “worked around” having to monitor player interactions 24/7. Nintendo is never doing an MMO. They know that degenerates would immediately flood it. Even so, that wouldn’t be enough for me. I just don’t like decoration sims, MMOs or otherwise.
Tell you what, Nintendo: The people deserve their decoration sim. That’s fair. If you want my money though, release a new Tomodachi Life or a Switch 2 edition of the current one, and I’ll buy that. I think that’s also fair, right?
(3) Super Smash Bros.
I had so much fun with the N64 entry, Melee, and Brawl. The first two I played a ton with friends, locally. I actually had that experience. Crazy, am I right? Every time I think about it, it feels like a bygone era. I actually had friends over (and many at that), and also visited friends, and we all played Smash with each other, and it was a lot of fun. I had enough online friends to play Brawl with as well, but far less so.
These days I just don’t care about multiplayer games at all. There are two reasons for that:
(A) I don’t have the time. I could make time to play with other people between 7 PM and 9 PM on most days, but I live in one of the least convenient time zones: UTC+2. Most of the Nintendo world is either asleep or waking up at that time.
(B) I’d just simply rather... experience great single player games? I don’t know. My taste has changed. I’ve also come to hate competitive games more and more. I can’t imagine dedicating myself to one game to become good enough at it so that I don’t get rounded up while playing online and actually get some enjoyment out of the experience. The time that I would waste to git gud, I could be experiencing an epic adventure with instead.
Super Smash Bros. could still bring me back if (and that’s a big if) they included a revamped single-player experience (“Subspace Emissary” was kind of fun for me), and also significantly changed up the formula. I get that it’s a platform fighter, but it’s starting to get ridiculous. Are there seriously any significant gameplay experiences between Brawl and Ultimate? Real ones? Major ones? I played Ultimate, and my mains, Peach and Zelda, felt like they hadn’t changed at all.
I know that if they do something other than a 2D platform fighter, there will be riots, but they’re also going to get a lot of complaints from people saying that it’s just “more of the same”.
Also, I think that 20 to 30 characters is a good sweet spot. You can reduce the Fire Emblem characters to Ike and Marth as well, and while we’re at it, maybe invite some Western characters to the roster? I know that Japan has a lot to offer, but Lara Croft and the Master Chief, for example, make 100% sense in Smash Bros.. If Duck Hunt and Game & Watch can be on the roster, so can Lara and John. Heck, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon should be in the roster. Don’t give me any excuses. If you’re going to get characters from non-Nintendo IPs into the game at all, then I don’t know what’s holding you back from getting more of the ones that everyone wants.
(4) Everything else
Whatever new 3D Super Mario, Paper Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or Metroid Prime they release in the future though, I’m fairly confident that it’ll be good, and that I’ll buy it even if its more of the same.
How would you rate the Nintendo Switch 2’s first year, and what Nintendo games did you enjoy playing the most?
I think I’d give it an B+.
I’m a Nintendo fanboy, so it would be difficult for me to give them a lower score, but I think that the case can be made that this first year was actually quite good.
The releases may have seemed slow in the first half, but there was a brand new Mario Kart World (for those who liked it, not me) from the start, as well as Donkey Kong Bananza not long after that, which I loved so much, I 100%ed it in 50+ hours.
Pokémon fans got that Z-A title that I skipped on, mostly because it just looked boring and gray (though I heard good things about the gameplay).
Kirby Air Riders turned out to be an amazing game that I didn’t play, and very few other people did. It’s just too niche.
Metroid Prime 4 I loved to bits, but most people hated it, because of the desert, the characters, the pacing, and how similar to Prime 1 it was. I didn’t like how the story ended, and I didn’t like that it was a Prime title that didn’t include, well... Metroid Prime/Dark Samus. I guess the point of them being called “Prime” now is that they’re first-person adventure games. It’s whatever. Just make another one and forget about the open world thing. Make a Metroid game, you know? Not a Halo-inspired game featuring Samus Aran.
I also had a ton of fun with Hyrule Warriors, which was the story-driven Zelda I didn’t know I longed for. Excited for more Warriors spinoffs in general, and not just in the Zelda franchise...
Third parties eventually picked up, and they gave us a ton of games that somehow run amazing on this little boy. I’m thinking Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata (the latter of which I played and loved), though there were others, some of which were Switch 2 ports, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. There were many others, but these four seemed to have dominated the Switch 2 third-party discussion, at least this half of the year. I should add that Capcom is hitting it out of the park. Now please go and give me some news about that Okami sequel, will you?
It may have felt like there were some lulls, but it was actually a packed year, and that’s not to mention all the NSO stuff and the Switch 1 games that run the Switch 2.
As I have told you all a million times before though, my absolute darling, without which I would have given this year a C+, was Pokopium.
Animal Crossing + Minecraft + Pokémon made by the guys behind Dragon Quest Builders. Who would’ve thought that this could be worse than opium? I’ll tell you what: I did! Right from the moment the game was announced in September, everyone I talked to about this told me that they weren’t sure or even seemed disinterested. I felt very vindicated when the game released to such an acclaim, that it became the highest rated Pokémon title ever, and it isn’t even a mainline one!
To the people who worked on Pokopium, thank you very much for your hard work. It paid off. Now please go and make a sequel or DLC so I can give you more money.
To Nintendo: Outstanding work on the Switch 2’s first year. Some bumps along the ride, but in general, you did well. You delivered is the goods. Now go and give us this generation’s heavy hitters. Also, stop being so secretive, and clog up the leaks!
Give us your thoughts on the Direct after you’ve watched it.
First of all, this was an absolutely wild ride of a rollercoaster. It had many extremely slow moments, punctuated by announcements that had me literally clapping in my studio apartment.
My highlights were as follows (in the order that they appeared during the Direct):
I would have given the direct a B if it wasn’t for Ocarina of Time. It was a real slog at times, even though the Pokopium DLC and the insane drop of all three Xenoblade entries had me going nuts.
I feel as though Nintendo felt forced to tease Ocarina of Time because the entire planet was asking for it. They showed us so little though because, as I have explained before, they want to say a lot more about it at a later point, when they are also ready to show us the first teaser/trailer of the movie, alongside the kickoff for the 40th anniversary. If I had to bet, I’d say that we’ll hear more in September at worst, late August at best.
I think that the art direction for the game will be divisive. It will retain some of its charming fantasy features, but will be realistic in tone. I was divided in my head between that and an adaptation of the art work for the original game. I’m glad they went with this. It feels cinematic to the nth degree. I think that I will love it. I’m not sure that everyone will though.
“““Little””” details I noticed: Voice acting. The Triforce of courage appears on Links’ hand before he pulls the Master Sword. The Triforce glows on his LEFT hand.
So, my game plan for the rest of this year is:
I still think it is effectively the best possible version of a mainstream game platform that can realistically exist under current conditions and I think it is better that it exists than if it didn't. In particular their desire to not be reliant on Windows means the Linux gaming is in significantly better place than it would have been otherwise. They simply constantly remind me how low absolute bar the best possible version of the worst possible kind of game store platform is.
My non exhaustive list of problems in no particular order is
Hey, so I've used an XBone controller for... God knows how long. I've been playing Mina the Hollower and realized that it's causing some pain along the muscles going from the top of my left middle and ring finger past my wrist; I've got piano fingers and kinda grip the analog pretty hard, so my fingers are going past 90° holding the thing and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be doing this anymore.
I think if I had a bigger controller I'd be fine? I'm trying my arcade stick, but it's not great for fine motion like the analog. Does anyone have any experience with having to move out of their usual controller due to pain, and what did you do?
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.
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.
Once more I come to you with this eternal annoyance of mine, that just won’t go away, with regard to 100%ing games:
I own a Switch 2. It’s my one and only entertainment device (I don’t watch shows, movies, or do anything else).
I already limit myself to only buying Switch 2 games (meaning, no Switch 1 or classics on NSO), so I don’t get overwhelmed with all the options, but good new games come out so quickly now, and there’s so many that I am dying to play, that I’m still feeling like I can barely keep up.
I never buy a new game (even if on discount) before I roll the credits on the one that I am currently playing. That would kill me, to just have them sitting there, on my digital shelf, collecting dust.
For me, anywhere between 20 to 40 hours with one game is ideal, but many of the kinds of games that I enjoy and buy take more than 50 or even 100 or more hours to 100%. I don’t buy them because they’re huge. I buy them because I like their worlds, their stories, and/or their mechanics. If I chose my games based on how long it takes to roll the credits or 100% them, then I’d probably not play almost any modern games.
By the time I roll the credits, I usually feel ready to move on, I feel satisfied with how much I got to experience that world, story, and/or mechanic, but if I do move on, then I also feel bad for not 100%ing the game. It’s some kind of OCD or “all-or-nothing” mental issue that I have. I don’t know.
I guess there’s nothing that I can do about it, because I’m even less interested in grinding for hundreds of hours to 100% a game. The magic and newness of whatever world, story, and/or mechanics a game has to offer have usually worn off by the time I roll the credits, so I would just be forcing myself to check off a list of chores and that’s not fun at all for me.
By that time, there’s also usually a new game that I am dying to play anyway.
So, the choice is between leaving games behind without 100%ing them, or playing two or three games a year, slowly and tediously chipping away at them. The new experiences tip the scale for me.
How about you?
I just wish that I could make this nagging feeling in the back of my head go away and accept that moving on from a game that I didn’t 100%, is OK.
That being said, on occasion, I play a game that is designed to be 100%able on the first playthrough, and those are by far my favorites. Very few games are like that anymore though, which I find sad.
Edit: A short poem I made (with some inspiration from ChatGPT) to help me get over my desire to 100% games. I entitle it, “An OCD Gamer’s Mantra”.
Credits rolled, story told.
New adventures shall unfold.
Rolled the credits, closed the quest.
Move on and discard the rest.
Credits rolled, I’ve seen the end.
Loose threads I need not to mend.
Rolled the credits, let it be.
The next great game is calling me.
Taking it all into account - storyline, presentation, roster, gameplay, etc.
Not sure if there are too many fighting game enthusiasts on here, judging by the posts. I'm not exactly an aficionado myself, as I haven't really been into them since the Neo Geo and PS1 days. I'm probably only really qualified to say Samurai Shodown 4 is the best in the series, although it is remarkable how well Street Fighter 2 still holds up today. For Tekken, Soul Calibur, Marvel vs. Capcom, etc. I didn't play past the first couple entries.
Background:
While playing games for the Backlog Burner, I was surprised to learn that the Humble App (which is a "free" perk of having a Humble Choice subscription) has a few games that are actually exclusive to it.
Part of the reason I chose to play games from the Humble App is that I don't expect it'll be around much longer. It isn't getting updates or new games added to it. Also, Humble Games, the publishing arm of Humble which released many of the games available through the app, was abruptly dissolved in 2024.
With this in mind, I went through the entire current library for the Humble App and tried to identify games that I could not find available for purchase/download elsewhere.
Below is a list of games that I consider to be "endangered" because they might become unplayable/lost media if (i.e. when) the Humble App does shut down or stop working.
If you've got the Humble App, it might be worth playing some of these sooner rather than later.
If you've got game preservation sensibilities, it might make sense to download and archive these for posterity.
Game List:
Here are the games that are, as best as I can tell, Humble App exclusives and in danger of being lost permanently.
For each title below, I tried to find a decent link that gave information about the game. Many of these simply don't have a lot of online presence.
Some of them have Steam pages linked, but in those cases, they're just placeholders and you cannot actually buy the game.
A2Be - A Science Fiction Narrative - Steam page
after HOURS - info link
Crescent Bay - info link
Divinoids - Steam page
Elephant in the Room - trailer
fistful of nothing - homepage
Heeey! Park-Boy - Steam page
Keyboard Sports - Steam page (note: I found an itch.io page with it available for download, but it is clearly unofficial)
Lyric Sonata - gameplay video
Operator - trailer
Quiet City - trailer
Rogue Mansion - Steam page
Roman Sands - gameplay video
Space Routine - Steam page
Spoolside - trailer
The Groundz - gameplay video
THOR.N - gameplay video
Woten - Steam page
Yojimbrawl - gameplay video
Zodiac XX - trailer
Feel free to check my work and let me know if I missed any, or if some of these games are actually officially obtainable outside Humble and I didn't find them.
Also let me know if I whiffed any of the links or if you find better ones for any of the games.
Maybe beating a certain dungeon or winning a particular game, or something deeply emotionnal for you.
What is yours?
I have two and they are both in WoW because I played for 10 years.
When you raid in WoW, it's very rare that the kill relies mostly on 1-2 people, it's always a group effort. That boss was different because there was a mechanic that allowed one random person every ~1min to get transformed and you had specific duties to do and dealt A LOT more damage.
We kept wiping and wiping because people kept fucking up when they got transformed and I kept thinking "if only it could get back to me, I know what to do, just transform me!" Lo and behold, we got an attempt where I got transformed first and last (before the phase switch).
We killed that boss on that attempt. It felt so good to "carry" the group!
See, I almost never played with my brother, ever. But WoW was the first game we played together for real. It was an awesome time.
Anyways, we had decided to start a guild together, just to have the guild bank lol so one day we decided to run MC to try to get some old stuff that maybe we could sell. We had an absolute blast that night, wiping, having fun, just playing together.
...it was 15 years ago and I still haven't had a moment with my brother like that. He ended up quitting WoW a couple months after and I just kept playing. We grew apart and that was that. I still think about that MC run with him from time to time.
How are we feeling about it?
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.
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.
Hey everyone!
I know there are some people on Tildes who like making games as a hobby. I’ve had a long-standing passion for game development, but I never managed to finish a project. About a month ago, I decided to push myself to finish a small game and publish it somewhere, and finally that day has come! Orb Sweeper, a 3D minesweeper puzzle on a sphere, is now live on the Google Play Store. Just as a disclaimer: it’s free, has no ads, and works offline by default, so I’m not earning anything from it. I just genuinely wanted to share my first finished project, along with the joy and relief I feel now.
Honestly, I’ve always been more ambitious when it comes to game mechanics. I’m a big fan of strategy games, especially TBS games over the years, so of course I always dreamed of creating a grand 4X strategy game of my own. Over time, I implemented many different systems and mechanics that are complex on their own: generation of realistic and interesting maps, pathfinding, economic models, different variations of game AI, and so on. But since these kinds of projects are huge, I was never able to finish one as a solo developer, or even bring it to a properly playable state. I burned out relatively quickly.
Over time, I realized what motivates me to continue: when somebody else is also working on the project, and when you can quickly see the results of your work. Both things are difficult to achieve. First, it’s hard to find people who are ready to spend a lot of their free time developing a big strategy game while following the same vision. Since it’s a hobby and I cannot pay for development, I also have to spend a lot of energy motivating others, not just myself. The longest I managed to keep a small team of two enthusiasts together was one month.
Second, with complex games like strategies, there are only a few big and impactful mechanics that bring the game to the state of a playable prototype, but getting there demands a ton of polishing. Graphics, sounds, small animations, 3D models… a lot of work that is almost invisible on its own, but contributes enormously to the overall look and feel of the game. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in these small fixes, and that also leads to burnout.
So I decided to make my projects progressively smaller until I could realistically complete one from start to finish. It’s a bit sad to see that only a Minesweeper-like game survived this approach, but I feel like it’s an important starting point. Seeing my game actually published gives me a bit more motivation to finish other projects.
But then… it’s Google. All interactions with its platform make me feel a bit frustrated. It’s surprisingly difficult to publish such a simple game. I even had to hire paid testers just to satisfy their entry requirements for closed-test user engagement. There are so many policies regulating data handling that even if your game does nothing in terms of transferring data, handling accounts, or showing in-game ads, you still have to go through all these bureaucratic procedures anyway. I guess it’s probably the same with Apple, but their famous support still hasn’t helped me with account verification after a month, so I’ve yet to experience that side of things fully.
Anyway, I’m glad that the game is available somewhere at least. And I actually play it myself sometimes on my phone. I know some people here are going through similar obstacles, so I have a question for you: what motivates you to continue working on big, complex games? And more generally, how do you avoid burning out on long-term projects?
Inspired by a youtube video thumbnail I saw saying "Which Link would function the best in society?" I didn't watch the video, but that did get me thinking to how weird player characters can behave. You know, with all the walking into strangers' houses, constantly crouching and jumping while moving, breaking any containers we see in hopes of loot, using special powers for silly things... Destroying stuff just for the heck of it...
So! Here's my extended question: how long would a society comprised mainly of video game protagonists last? And I mean protagonists who behave the way players make them behave, not just how they're written by the story. And that includes still having all potential powers.
Can be based on specific past playthroughs, could just be generalizations of how they're typically played. How many protagonist characters could actually hold down proper jobs without getting fired? Who would be able to avoid causing heavy destruction in daily life? Or get arrested fastest?
How long would they be able to put up with other protagonists' weirdness before snapping and starting a city-wide battle?
Hey Steam users, I'm wondering if you can help me troubleshoot an issue I am having with Steam Link. Some games work flawlessly, and some games just show a black screen (with game audio) on the Steam Link Client. I have tried this in various configurations and devices, but my host machine remains the same (PC running Bazzite)
I have tried this wired via router (to Steam Link on raspberrypi OS), wifi (to steam deck), and cellular via remote streaming to the android app.
The symptoms are the same on each setup. Games like Helldivers 2 and NMS run flawlessly, others are just a black screen.
Also, big picture mode runs great until you bring up the menu, and then the screen goes black.
Do you guys have any ideas?
SOLVED
thank you everyone for your suggestions! I switched to an X11 session and everything is working now with steam link!
I think this might be a hot take, but as the cliché goes, please hear me out.
First of all, what I define by “new and radical” is something that is not only significantly different from what we had before, but it must also fulfill another criteria: it must become ubiquitous.
So, for gaming input devices, I would say that what Nintendo tried to do with the Wii didn’t stick. The technology wasn’t new, but its implementation was new and radical. It was a gamble, for sure. I loved it for what it could do (and, honestly, I miss it), but it’s been almost exactly 20 years now, and the Switch 2 has the double joystick, d-pad, ABXY, quadruple shoulder button combo that all other controllers have. That basic form factor is what became ubiquitous. Motion controls didn’t go extinct, but apart from aiming via gyroscopes, they’re not that common. Classic controllers though, they’re here to stay. In fact, in these last years, I’ve seen the market for controllers explode. It’s wild.
What Nintendo did with touch screens on the NDS/3DS did become ubiquitous though (even if they kind of pulled out of it): That input method is what mobile games rely on. Its home hardware are mostly smartphones. What was new and radical about it (and something that Steve Jobs explained well when he introduced the iPhone) is the idea of having one stylus/finger tip as the tool for for the input, and then designing the input methods (swipe, tap, hold, etc.) around it. Again, the technology wasn’t new, but its implementation was a radical departure from conventions at the time, and again, it became ubiquitous. I don’t see smartphones ever going away (or rather, slabs of glass that we swipe, tap, and hold our fingers on).
I think that there was a hot minute there where we all thought that VR was going to become the next big thing. The input for that doesn’t use technology or methods that are radically different from controllers (they are still just buttons, gyroscopes, and accelerometers, as far as I can tell), but combined with the (supposedly) immersive VR experience, they could have made up for a package that feels new and radical, except that... it became a niche, and I don’t see that ever changing. Baring a leap in technology that allows us to instantly plug into The Matrix, without any complicated setup, I don’t see VR becoming important in gaming, even if it becomes significantly cheaper. It’s just not convenient enough, and in the end, I think that convenience is king, and controllers/touch screens are the ultimate convenience.
You may be thinking about what Valve is doing with touch pads, on both the Deck and their new controllers, but I don’t see it catching on (not to mention that it doesn’t really feel all that radical to me). I’d love to be proven wrong (and I know that those touch pads can do way more than just replace a mouse, since they also have “zones” that can be mapped to, etc.), but in the end, I don’t see it replacing the third pillar of gaming input devices: keyboard and mouse. For PC games, especially certain genres, nothing will ever beat the convenience of that combo.
So, for gaming inputs, I think that we have reached the end of the line. If before the end of my time on this earth, something new and radical comes along that becomes ubiquitous, then feel free to come back here and rub it in my face. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that it won’t happen.
Now, let’s have a talk about form factors, or rather, the hardware.
I think that the Switch 1 and the Steam Deck really kicked off a golden age of handhelds. Indeed, it feels to me as if some new handheld device releases every week. It’s absolutely wild. I don’t know what changed since the launch of those two consoles. We’ve had handhelds since... what? The Game & Watch? Maybe earlier? I don’t know, but it’s been decades. Yet only now has the market for them finally grown big, maybe too big.
Why do I say too big? I would like to know why these companies keep developing new models. Are they really selling that many units and making that much profit? If they are, then wow. Good on them. I’m skeptical though. I hope it doesn’t lead to some market crash. I should add that, as someone who feels lukewarm about handheld gaming at best, I don’t understand why they sell so well (again, if they do). Yes, every time I see a new handheld, I want to buy one, just out of FOMO, but look: I have a Switch 2 and I always play it docked.
I had a GBC/GBA/NDS growing... for the sole purpose of playing Pokémon... always at home. With a couple exceptions on the NDS, I never cared for much else outside of that. It may be that I was conditioned to feel this way about handhelds, since my first console was a Nintendo 64. My preferred way to play games, is to comfortably recline on a chair, turn on a TV (the bigger, the better), grab the controller, and play in the comfort of my home.
I cannot relate to people who have the courage to take their $200, $300, $400, $500 (or more expensive) handhelds out into the wild, where they could drop from their hands (I’m very clumsy), get stolen, or worse, only to play on a tiny screen while sitting very uncomfortably. If you do this, please explain to me why you enjoy it. I genuinely don’t understand. I’m scared spitless just from yanking out the Joy-Cons from my Switch 2, let alone unplug it from the dock. I also don’t care much for mobile games for similar reasons: screen too small, games not that interesting for me.
Alas, I have to admit that handhelds have become ubiquitous. I’m not 100% sure, but I think that, as a form factor, they might stay around forever. I don’t think that smartphones, the other form factor that is ubiquitous, are going to completely replace them. Handhelds have the added convenience of analog sticks, buttons, and being gaming-first devices. Smartphones don’t have that.
The third and last ubiquitous form factor would be consoles and PCs. I group them together because I have a feeling that sooner or later consoles are just going to morph into PCs. I don’t know what Nintendo will do though. They seem determined to have complete control over their ecosystem, but that will require them to keep releasing new consoles with walled gardens. Can they become the Apple of gaming? Can they make this business model sustainable in the long term? I’m not 100% sure. Either way, “big, stationary gaming machines” as the third category, are here to stay.
VR could be a new and radical form factor, but for the reasons that I mentioned before, I think it will forever remain a niche. Other than that, I can’t imagine what else we could come up with.
Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you have a different take? Do you maybe have an idea of what could become ubiquitous in the future? Is there an input device or form factor you’d like to be more commonplace (like Mii with the Wii) or be invented (if it hasn’t been yet)?
Maybe I should reserve this for a different topic later, but I also don’t see video games themselves coming up with any new and radical gameplay mechanics anymore. I think we already have all the genres that we could possible come up with, and everything that feels new is really just a mashup of something that came before, arranged in a way that hadn’t been thought of yet... kinda like music.
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.
The last couple of weeks I've been fooling around with different ideas for how to build a chess bot that's fun for beginners to play against. I don't have much real experience with chess, so I've mostly just been testing it against myself.
After looking into the different techniques that are used to force engines to play at a certain level, I put together my own (somewhat silly) approach and have had some fun playing against it. The problem is, as I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to the actual game, I can't be a particularly good judge of how others will feel playing with it.
Regardless of your own skill level, I'd be super appreciative if anyone would give it a try and let me know what they think.
I'm working on a full write up of how it works, but here's the short version:
The inspiration came from this paper which describes a "Tutoring Search" wherein the engine attempts to find the worst move available that it predicts the opponent will not recognize as an error.
My implementation doesn't follow this exactly, but it does have the same aim. Two engines are used: one (Stockfish) as an oracle treated as a true measure of any state's quality, another (Maia) as a substitute for the opponent model. On each move the bot consults both of these to identify a move which:
The idea is that, if a human would be likely to play the move, they also would be unlikely to identify it as an error. The ultimate goal is a bot which gives the player plenty of opportunities to win, but only if the mistakes are likely to go unnoticed.
There are a few other supplements to the implementation like adapting to opponent choices and some tweaks to early and end-game play, but the above is the core idea.
On sale at 1PM EST, sold out by 1:30. Payment processing failing awfully. Any lucky tildos score one?
In the past couple of weeks I've recently watched some console retrospective videos while doing some chores (Liam Triforce's videos on the PS2 and Dreamcast).
It got me curious if anyone would be interested in discussion/retrospective threads on the different console generations/consoles?
I was thinking about using the Wikipedia page for the history of video game consoles to guide this, and potentially adding in some threads for different stages of PC gaming (i.e. decade or 5 year periods).
If there is interest I was thinking of having this be a weekly post. I'd love feedback on which consoles to cover/how granular this would be.
I.e. would it be better to discuss all of a generation's consoles in one thread or separate threads.
Some sample questions I thought of for different consoles:
I don't play as many new games as I used to, but I've also realized there are tons of games on the consoles I did play that I have never heard of or got the experience to play and would love to go back and try them. I've also seen some channels where people try to play every game on a console which sounds like an interesting experience, especially the guy who is trying to play all 4,000+ PS2 games that were released!
I've been getting more suggested game trailers on youtube and have been surprised by the number of "knock off" games. I've seen three different versions of Dregde (a game I absolutely adore) and a number that seem to be mimicking Hollow Knight. I don't even mean just like fishing or rogue like games, I mean like full on knock-offs.
I get the niche they fill, but I'm kind of curious about the ethics of it. Like, I would love to play more dredge but it doesn't appear more is on the way. But I also don't really want to support a company that is just completely ripping off everything from mechanics to art. Like this game seemingly took the actual artwork from Dredge. As a developer I think I'd be pretty pissed.
Is this really common and I'm just learning about it now? Is it the video game equivalent of Atlantic Rim? Where do people stand on playing these kind of knock off games?
I managed to put a scratch into the d-pad on my steam deck and the replacement process looks more involved than I care for (gotta go through everything in the back to get to it). It's fairly shallow, about 1mm x 5mm, but right on the down button so it can be pretty tactilely distracting.
So I was thinking I may be able to 'refinish' it in some manner to get back a smooth, consistent feeling, but wasn't sure what I'd be able to use to achieve it. Any tips? I'm not too big on how most silicone button caps feel, but maybe I'll try one if it can adhere on the top and not try to fully cover it? Most seem to be going for some aesthetic though, which is also tactilely distracting.
Worst case scenario, maybe I use it as an excuse to replace the ABXY buttons too, they feel a bit loose and their friction when they slide against the edge instead of straight down is also a bad tactile sensation, so replacement button recommendations are also appreciated :)
SOLVED! I tried the suggestion from @mat first, which involved using acetone if it was ABS, and it was. I used several q tips, a cotton pad, and nail polish remover. Steps:
It feels smooth to the touch and it even looks a bit better!
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.
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.
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.