it's the end of 2023, and I figured it would be fun to put together a list of the games which made the best impressions on me throughout. Post yours! It's cool if it wasn't a game made in 2023; if you found it this year, that's good enough. It's your year, not this year lol.

I've written about most/all of these in longer form here on Tildes. I might end up repeating myself a bit, but if you want a more thorough description they'll be easy to find in my history. Goes without saying I'd recommend any of them. The order here doesn't mean anything.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon - this was my personal game of the year, and one I'll cherish long after. Armored Core has you building, customizing, and then piloting a mech. AC VI took ideas and mechanics from across its series, blended them together into a new framework, and the result is a fast, explosive experience. As it was in the past, the game takes you through first learning the ropes and exploring new parts, then pushes you to get as good as you can with whatever is fun to you. In the best way, it feels like a game from an earlier time in history - its straightforward mission structure makes for a game you can quickly jump into, make a lot of progress, and jump back out of without having to worry about missing much or forgetting what you were doing. Everything about it has been polished, honed to be about as nice as you could reasonably expect. It looks good, plays great, and tells a story that does with mecha what Fromsoft did with AC's mechanics - it's a little bit of everything, elegantly smashed together.

Exanima - This game is perhaps one of the most unique experiences I've yet to see, despite looking like a lot I have already seen. Exanima takes a very detailed, simulation kind of approach to the objective of dungeon crawling. What makes it unique is its physics system. Controlling a character is more like moving a marionette, where you tug the character along to build momentum and aim your swings. Weapons feel significantly different to each other, and heavy armor changes how well you can move. Once you get used to it, the result of working with this system is a dynamic, visceral kind of combat where you may feel confident, but never certain. An errant slash or clumsy step can mean taking a heavy blow, and recovery is not easy. When the game was younger, folks played and loved the combat so much that it inspired an arena mode. The arena is a separate, distinct mode in which you are tasked with building a roster of characters and participating in tournaments. It is a game unto itself. If you're a fan of games with a very high skill ceiling, Exanima is providing you a system that can go really, really far. The game is a project being worked on by a small group of people, already has a lot of content available, and seems poised to continue development practically forever. Don't let "Early Access" put you off, this one is in a state where it's just good to get more of it. What's there is more than worth its price.

Kenshi - I just got into this one and have been blown the hell away by how much there is to it. In Kenshi you take the role of a person dropped into an alien world, and are tasked simply with surviving. How you do that is up to you, and the world is built to notice and react. There is no story, no main quest or objective. Rather, you can learn more about the world by engaging with it, and determine your own goals within it. As you do things like visit new places, eliminate important people, build your own town, etc., the state of the world will change. This can go in many directions, and there are hours upon hours of videos out there of folks pulling off all sorts of wild shit. Truly, it's a game where your playthrough will become a story the further you go. Mechanically, it's like someone combined Morrowind, The Sims, and Neverwinter Nights, with a big coat of Mad Max paint all over it.

Cyberpunk 2077 - I had played this before, when it first released, and though I did like some of what it was trying to do, the gameplay was busted to the point I didn't care to come back. Now that it's had its expansion and a lot of bugfixing, this game stands pretty tall and I was really impressed with it this second time through. Definitely a case of "they fixed it"; they really, actually did. It's not a No Man's Sky-scale redemption arc but a redemption arc nonetheless, I guess. The big ball of stories and systems rolls along and you roll right up in it, with missions playing out similar to an episode of a higher end tv show. They weave and wrap up satisfyingly, and by the end I feel I had a pretty complete experience of having been a Night City mercenary.

Tactics Ogre: Reborn - Tactics Ogre was always one of my favorite tactics games and this remake both ups its presentation and provides a different kind of challenge. Specifically, it eliminates the ability to power-level anyone; your level is capped as you make your way through the story, forcing you to engage with the game's other systems in order to work out an advantage. The best way I can think to put it, is that it goes in a more Chess-like direction, where you need to be carefully considering how your individual pieces work and planning out a sound approach, because you can no longer action-rpg your way out of it by grinding. At least for me, it felt like a fresh take on something I've enjoyed for a long time, and so became the version I most enjoy playing. If you like Final Fantasy Tactics, TO is its precursor. Give it a go and see what you think - at least for me, it won.

Lunacid - Lunacid is a simplistic game that does what it does exceptionally well. Borrowing primarily from King's Field, it's a first person dungeon crawler in which you piece together the weird place you're in by finding stuff and opening up new paths. It's playing the King's Field influence pretty straight; it lives off being spooky and weird, and spruces up combat to suit a more modern sensibility. What impressed me was just how good of an iteration it is; King's Field is a tough series to get into these days and this game feels like a successful effort to bring it back.

Honorable Mention - Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries - this one gets an honorable mention because just to be frank, the base game is kinda mediocre. It's through mods that I had a fantastically good time with it. I was never into Battletech, but did play the old Mechwarrior games, and while I did miss some of the more simulation-ish aspects of the older games, MW5 + the mods I used gave me enough to do and experiment with that it just didn't matter in the end. In particular, Coyote's Mission Pack, vonBiomes, and Yet Another Mechlab added just a ton of stuff, and of course you can go much much further with it if you want. The base game is not bad on its own, it's just easy to see all it has to offer really quickly. The mods primarily add variety, to tasks and options, and it's in that swirl of ideas and systems where I found a lot of the fun I had.

Post your picks! Just about all of this is on sale right now, so hopefully too we'll all find some neat stuff to check out.

Looking for an app/platform for logging and rating the games I've played. I play a lot of classic games (playing Dragon Warrior 2 right now) so something with support for older stuff is a must. Tell me what you use!

Recently on here someone recommended a game called travle, which is a lot of fun even though I suck at it, as do my friends who play. Can anyone recommend other similar "one puzzle per day" style games?

(I already wrote this once, but my phone didn't like it and randomly deleted the whole thing... ◕∩◕ )

I've been wanting to develop some games for a while now, and I have an overarching theme idea in mind. I couldn't decide on top down pixelated game or 3D style, because it's more of a visual story kind of game, where you explore, build a base (or several), meet and talk to NPCs, learn the story, etc. I want a lot of detail but I only have (minimal) experience with pixelated games. So naturally, 3D sounds better for a higher detailed, and maybe stylized environment.

I don't know much at all about code ( for example, I had to look up how to format this post). I don't even know what languages there are other than Java. I make resourcepacks for Minecraft, but that's minimal coding for the .mcmeta file. I do also make fabric mods for it, but I use MCreator for those, which I'm sure is like training wheels for coding.

I have the skills for graphics for both characters/environments and GUI/HUD elements. I have an idea for my story, and a few ideas for characters. What I know I don't have is experience in balancing things like economies, rpg skills, fighting, and weapons/armor and their upgrades. But I'm not really planning on implementing those, at least not right now. (The economy would be first if I did)

I recently saw a video on youtube showcasing Unity Engine's nanite environments, and basically, I want in on that. They're gorgeous.

The Questions

So my 8 questions are, on a scale of one to ten (ten being basically impossible for one single person to do), how difficult would it be to make these elements in a singleplayer, 3D game for someone without experience (like me):

1. Sky, ground, objects (like trees, flowers, rocks, etc) and other environment visuals' 3D models for exploration? I need to be able to walk on it, and maybe hit things like trees for lumber.

2. Base building and gathering the materials to build? This comes with the inventory issue as well (looking at you, Minecraft), which I'm still trying to figure out how I want to do this.

3. Crafting said gathered materials for building elements and items to gift to NPCs? This will need GUI and workbench, most likely.

4. Collectibles? Think koroks from BoTW or the museum artifacts in Stardew Valley. I'd like for the player to be able to display these only in/on a shelf/table/glass case inside their base(s).

5. NPCs with many hours worth of randomized dialogue interaction, gifts to and from NPCs, as well as a few friendship levels and unlockable interactions/gifts?

6. What would the time frame look like for me to learn Unity's Engine for these elements, or is there a better engine I should be aware of?

7. What materials might you guess that I'd need to spend money on to make this game? I already have: a Mac, the Adobe Suite, a drawing tablet, all the time in the world, and ideas. Would I need a license for anything?

8. What have I overlooked? 3D modeling (and not just blocky models in blockbench) is a skill I realized I'd need to learn just as I was writing this post.

The reason I'm asking so many questions is because I can't tell if trying this will be worth my time or not, and if I could afford to hire someone for parts of it, if need be. I have ADHD, so I'm wondering if this is just the "new shiny thing" that has caught my eye (probably is). I don't want to dive into a major learning session and project development if it ultimately won't go anywhere because it's too hard for my smooth brain.

Then again, I see some games (what I would consider low quality) that I'm like, "man, I could've done that, that looks so simple and easy!" So basically I have no idea whether I'm near the peak of Mt Stupid on the Dunning-Kreuger graph, or if I'm past it and somewhere in the valley.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Also, feel free to talk to me like I'm a dumb 5 year old.

So I was wondering through a book store and I found the Greninja ex Battle Deck, which I thought looked really cool, and I've always wanted to own a Pokemon deck, even if I don't have anyone to play with.

I learnt the deck is meant for absolute beginners and that it doesn't stand a chance against meta decks, but I expected that (it's the same for Yu-Gi-Oh structure decks, you usually need to buy 3 and add a bunch of staples to get something slightly competitive).

Now since I can't play with anyone IRL, I hopped on Pokemon TCG Live, scanned the deck's QR code and built a better version of the deck using this video from LittleDarkFury. Except I replaced 2 Starmie and 1 Staryu with 1 Comfey, 1 Pyukumuku and 1 Lapras because I don't have anything else that synergizes, and I ran out of credits. (I can share the decklist if needed.)

Mostly because I dumped all my credits into building a Giratina Lost Zone deck because I felt cocky and then I realized I have no idea how to play it. That was a mistake.

My problem right now is that I feel really aimless, I have 2 decent decks but I can't really seem to get the hang out of them. I do understand their main win conditions (get Giratina VSTAR out, respectively get Greninja ex out) but besides that I don't really know how to play them. It does feel like I just need to get a bunch of games in, to see what decks other people play, and what situations I need to adapt to.

Locally there are no game shops I could go to, but I would have loved to play with someone IRL and have them guide me through everything. This means I'm stuck with online resources, but most of them are aimed at players that already know the game.

What do you think I should do? I'll keep playing games in hopes something will click with me, but until then, I'd appreciate some guidance (feel free to ask me anything in case I didn't give enough information).

Gaming has been a mostly stale experience for me over the last few years, even with friends. But this game is the one that stands out; it's addictive in the best ways.
The soundtrack?
Slaps.
The storyline(s)?
Slaps.
The fact that creativity is rewarded?
Slaps.
The weird micro style of storytelling?
Slaps.
Iguazu being a whiny bitch the whole time?
Hilarious.
Anyways let's talk about it.

Hello, due to some unfortunately circumstances I need to have my left hand in a cast for some time and I'm looking for recommendations for games I could play only using my right hand (so only using the mouse). I have a few in my library that I've already been playing like Super Auto Pets and Let's Revolution, but I'm a bit bored of them. I also tried a tower defense game called Super Sanctuam TD, which was in my library, so I've tried looking for some other TD games but couldn't find anything that caught my eye.

Edit: I only listed what I've played recently, but I don't really want to limit myself to any genre, the only requirement is to be playable only with the mouse.

I'm basically very new to complicated tabletop games but I've been in love with this game for well over a year now but it's really hard to find people that want to play it multiple times with me (physically) because the setup and learning process takes 30-45 minutes for the average new-ish player. I just learned (today) that there's also an online component to it. If anybody else loves this game I'd be down to start an online game with you and your friends if they'd like to.

Edit No.1: I don't currently have a way to access steam but I should soon (assuming the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 can run games). If so I will DM everyone on here :)

Edit No. 2: I had no idea that this post would get this many comments (5 at the time of this edit). I'm very glad that my niche nerdy interest resonates with people. Whenever I get my lil computer/tablet thingy I wanna make a group chat thingy (maybe discord, never used before) with y'all so we can set up some games together. Looking forward to our future games.

Howdy, citizens!

So, after begging, borrowing and stealing, I've managed to piece together what I believe to be a barely capable rig so that I can get into playing this incredible looking game, but I'm running into a performance issue that makes it pretty unplayable.

Here's my rig:
AMD A-10 6800k @ 4.1 GHz
32 GB Ram
128 GB SanDisk SSD (for the game only, OS is on a similar size Kingston)
GTX 960 for the graphics.

Last night I tried running the game from my normal HD, which is a 1tb platter. This did not go well. Just moving my character around in the initial apartment was torture, and using anything in the room was an exercise in frustration to the point that the room ended up looking like a brawl had happened in it before I made it out, with coffee cups and water bottles all over the floor.

So, after I read a few pointers online, I salvaged the SanDisk from a different PC and began reinstalling on that. Today I hope to be able to move around smoothly enough to actually play, but aside from setting every option to its lowest, are there any other little tricks I can use to get it more playable?

I just posted this as a comment to someone who mentioned Horizon Zero Dawn, but figured there might be more discussion if I made a new post for it, so here goes:


Are there any games that you have enjoyed playing without the HUD or mini-map? If so, which ones and why?


One of my favorite gaming experiences was playing Zelda BOTW in its entirety without any HUD elements, just using the game's scenery and story to guide me. I loved it so much that I tried doing the same in other massive open-world games like Skyrim, Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, and Assassin's Creed Origins, but found that they relied too much on small details or markers in the minimap. So instead of feeling more immersed and in-tune with the game world, I just felt more frustrated at not knowing exactly where to go or which specific person or item to click on without the game explicitly telling me. I'm sure it can be done, but I found it nowhere near as pleasing as BOTW.

I just recently picked up Horizon Zero Dawn and wondered if it could be played in a similar manner, without the map or other HUD elements, or if I'll end up needing some of them to know where to go or who to talk to.

I'd love to hear any other recommendations or thoughts on this matter.

Hello tabletop community,

I am designing my first ever boss fight, meant to really challenge my players. I don't want to kill any of them off since we're all new and it feels weird to lose a character, but I also want it to feel threatening. I could use some advice about how to execute this situation:

Boss is a big mimic disguised as a blood fountain with 6 long tentacle arms, each of which will be it's own figure on the board that can be up to 3 tiles from the 3x3 mimic figure.

Four of the tentacles have weapons that can deal 2d6 damage and have 30hp AC11 (roughly making it in line with a Brown Bear for threat and HP). They can grapple (squeeze the target) instead for 1d8 damage per turn, escapable on DC13 strength.

Two of the tentacles have shield-like hard points that defend neighboring enemies by giving disadvantage on attack rolls against them. AC14 HP30. I couldn't find anything to base these on for an encounter designer app.

Main body has low movement (10ft), and has 200hp AC19, and loses 20hp per tentacle lost. It has a bite attack +6 to hit 2d8. It also floods blood through sections of the room, forcing player movement and dealing 2d8 poison damage. I based it on a Roper for difficulty and attacks.

I think this combination creature would provide a very interesting and movement focused fight, but I'm very new to DM'ing and I'm afraid of accidentally killing the players.

My questions are: (1) How do I avoid accidentally killing everyone? (2) Is this fight too hard for a newbie group of 5 new players? (3) Any other cool ideas I didn't think of?

Set your Wayback machine to the early 2000s, and you'll find me in hog heaven, building and racing old muscle cars from a catalogue of real world parts that interacted as they would in real life. EA released this game as a racing MMO, but I spent most of my time treating it as a single player game, building my hot rods and racing against the computer.

In 2003, they pulled the plug. Since then, nothing has come close. There are mechanic simulators, but you don't get to drive the cars when you finish them. Then there are the racing games, but none of those have the.level of detail in the build and tuning portion that MCO did. In MCO, you needed to actually build your engine in a way that the parts would work well with each other in order to get the best performance. It wasn't simply an upgrade chain, as you could easily spend ten grand on parts and come out with a 200hp brick.

Most recently, my search has led me to a.game called Revhead from Australia. It scratches a LOT of the itch, but it's still missing a lot of the stuff I miss from MCO. You can build cars with parts and race.them, but the build still feels like a more money=more power equation instead of an exercise in research and testing to figure out the perfect recipe for my particular driving style.

Am I chasing a pipe dream in the hopes that there is a.modern equivalent for that old gem?

As title says, once Valve announced the OLED deck, I saw the refurbished originals go on a deep discount and figured it was time to buy in. So I ordered a refurb 512GB and I’m so excited for it to arrive! Been in a gaming rut for a long time now and, having never been a PC gamer, I’m look forward to checking out a bunch of games I’ve never played before.

What tips do you have for a first time Deck owner?

Any essential games I should be sure to get?

And finally, is it possible to get games I own on the Epic Games Store (I collected all their free games over the years) or Xbox Game Pass PC games on my Steam Deck?

So, I have my group of IRL friends, and we have a Discord, as I'm sure many people do. I spend a lot of time there, and we've all played games online together since we were in middle school.

Well, now that we're all in our mid to late 20s, real life has caught up with most of us. Scheduling is hard, having free time is hard, having energy is hard, and now we've all found our genres we like, which all adds up to none of us ever playing much together anymore. I'm sure many of you can relate.

I ventured out into LFG groups trying to find a community. I'm not into competitive games, I prefer more cooperative and casual experiences (Satisfactory, NMS, and Snowrunner are my big 3 at the moment). That makes finding a group difficult as is. Finding a group that is primarily my age is harder. But nonetheless I persevered.

I've tried a number at this point, and it's always one of a handful of issues.

1. The group is hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of members big. Everyone gets swept in the masses and there's little individuality. These usually also have problems 2 and 3 due to their size.

2. There's just blatant -obias in the chats. Incels, toxic masculinity, racism disguised as "humor."

3. Supposedly I'm in a group of people who are 21+, but the maturity level might as well be a 14+ server.

At this point I feel like I'm losing my mind, that I'm being gaslit by the online Discord community. There is no way I should be feeling "too old" for this kind of thing, I'm only 26!

Hello Tildes community,

I am soon going to DM my second ever mini-session for a small group of fairly new players. I'd like to send the group into a haunted tavern that has an unusually intelligent mimic in the basement that has been eating tourists that pass through, leaving behind undead creatures throughout the basement.

My primary goal with this is to help the players (most pretty new) understand how to conserve their magic instead of firing it all off in each battle, so I wanted to prevent them from long resting. I figure I could magically lock them inside when they arrive, and then let them learn that if they should rest, previously killed undead creatures (like Minotaur Skeleton or zombies) resurrect after about an hour.

I am looking for two pieces of advice. First, I'd like to know good creatures to put into the dungeon that would provide a challenge, but not be too devastating. I looked at Wraith, for example, but a Wraith could easily one-shot any of the casters in the group and instantly kill them, which isn't fun. What should I be using instead? Remember that each individual fight doesn't need to be too hard, I just want the group to start feeling the strain of resources getting exhausted.

Secondly, the primary DM (who I am running a single session for) has said I can level up the party to 6 during the dungeon. Does this essentially heal the whole party and refresh their spell slots, ala most RPG games? I'm a bit confused how this part would work, tbh.

Thanks for your help, and big thanks to everyone who answered my last question about a Kobold Brewery. It was a blast, and the party loved it, particularly some of the traps that y'all came up with. By the time the party escaped, the entire brewery was on fire, which was amazing.

Appreciate your help!

Hello all,

So I built a new rig with some of the great CPU bundle deals that came along recently, and now I'm enjoying Cyberpunk with the absolutely glorious pathtracing+DLSS combo - thoroughly enjoying it. I've been customizing a lot of the keybindings to my exact preferences by editing the InputUserMappings.xml and UserSettings.json files and have been able to figure everything out except one.

I have installed a number of mods, one of which allows me to customize the first person driving camera to be much better for my setup. One thing I cannot change, however, is radio volume while I'm in the car.

So, I was wondering if it's possible to make a new keybinding that changes the CarRadioVolume setting in UserSettings.json up and down. Ideally, I'd bind it to my mousewheel so it would be like having a volume knob while I'm driving around. There are also some keybinds located in this same file, but they are a different type of value (a name) whereas the CarRadioVolume is an int value. I have not seen any other settings that are of the type I'm trying to make: a keybind that changes an int value up and down. If I did, I'd just try and copy that.

So, as someone very unfamiliar with programming, I was wondering if this is even possible to make a keybind for this without making a mod/extra script to do it? Or does the game's engine/logic have to already have this type of keybind built into it in order to edit it? Thanks in advance for any info!

I'm trying to find some recommendations for more laid-back, relaxed games. Something than can be worked on over time. I'm thinking stuff like Stardew Valley, games where there's no time limits hanging over your head, super fast-paced keyboard mashing, that kind of stuff. I'm burned out on action games at the moment, so I've been looking into colony sims and the like where you mostly build stuff, farm, explore, etc. Some minor combat like Stardew Valley is fine. Bonus if it has online co-op.

My only caveat is I only use PC (Steam), I don't own any consoles except for a PS4 I haven't used in at least two years. Thanks!

EDIT: One game I came across that I've kind of enjoyed which is fairly laid-back is Arcade Paradise. You play someone whose father gives ownership of a run-down laundromat which you gradually convert into an arcade. You have to take care of the place and make money by doing laundry (initially), cleaning up trash and making sure the toilet works. However, you can also play with all the arcade machines and each one has a unique game, plus you can withdraw money from the machines as part of your income. It's a fun time-waster.

I like the idea of MOBAs, and sometimes contemplate learning one. Not to be really good -- just enough to have fun as a lower-class player. It sounds attractive as something that might occupy my brain for a few hours, but I wouldn't wanna treat it like a career without pay, like I used to work on my chess (with serious courses, studying books, etc).

So my question it, is that something that can or should be done? And what game would be best?[1]

[1] As long as it is not an FPS.

I live in a pretty compact house, and have my work office upstairs in a corner of one of my kids bedrooms.

Obviously, gaming in there after they are asleep is a no go! Our one tv is usually given over to my wife on evenings I break out the Steam Deck - which has been my first foray back into gaming since having kids and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

However, I'm interested if anyone has found a neat solution to use it in e.g. desktop mode without a conventional monitor or TV to dock with, that I could break out quickly on a breakfast bar and then stow easily.

I'm envisaging some kinda of Frankensteined cheap laptop shell housing to contain the screen and keyboard-

Steam Deck -> USB C Dock -> HDMI out to laptop screen and USB out to keyboard.

Anyone familiar with something resembling this kind of setup, or something similar?

Server host: tildes.nore.gg
Dynmap: https://tildes.nore.gg

The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.

Server Changelog

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  • If you have both editions you can link your accounts here. Then when you log in through Bedrock Edition you will log into your Java Edition account (with its name and inventory)
• Updated to 1.20.2 (Please update your client!)
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Recently I've been really nostalgic for really simple, daily turn-based games. Not sure how many people here may have played Empire, but this is what I'm talking about. I very fondly remember dialing in (with a modem) to 4-5 different Unix based BBSes just to play Empire every day. Each day your turn may take 10 minutes. This is the key thing I am nostalgic about...really low time investment every single day, but in a game with lot's of other players.

Other games that I really enjoyed back then were the BBS "door games" like Tradewars. Tradewars can still be played via telnetting into various BBSes that people are keeping up and running.

So, now that I've set the scene, what are the really simple games out there that you may play that are daily turn-based?

Second question, what would people think about a web based version of Empire? I'm thinking of building it, if I don't find the existence of it somewhere already. I think it would be really cool to have someone drop by the web site, click play, and have them thrown into a map with other players (up to 30 per a map or so).

Buy 2 get 1 free right now in stores and online until the 11th. Anyone pick up anything from here? I got these with 2 free.

• Lost ruins of arnak
• Parks
• Sheriff of Nottingham
• Wingspan
• Horrified Greek Monster edition
• Quacks of Quedlinburg

I've been trying, without success, to find a good video game that is in the D&D/Pathfinder type genre, but without mature content. Some very light profanity would be OK. I really want to avoid games that objectify females, which, unfortunately, a lot of games in this genre does. Preferably something that can be played solo, even if that's in a multi-player environment. I'm good with new games, old games, indy games, high priced games, whatever. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

For the first time in my adult life I actually have some real discretionary money, and the one personal purchase I've wanted to make for a long time is a VR rig. I was hoping for input I can be pretty sure isn't tainted by capitalism/ads.

Cost-vs-value will matter a lot, but the actual cost isn't too big a concern anymore. Budget up to maybe $3-4K if it's really worth the money.

And to note, I already have a pretty gnarly personal computer that is more than capable of running VR games (Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core / RTX 3090 / 32GB DDR4) -- I just need the rig.

Artificer school is rough. You have to learn so many ways to manipulate magic forces and try to shove it all into small items. Sometimes it doesn't work as well as hoped. Even if every student gives it their best effort, someone has to be the worst passing student in the class.

In my campaigns, I try to explore this concept by adding niche items or items of student project quality. Often times these items end up adding quite a bit of fun to the lower levels before access to "real" magic items is available.

I would love to throw this idea out to the world and maybe get a bigger collection of these items for all of the Tildes DMs to use in their campaigns if they fit in the setting.

What tools do you use to make maps for your table?

I've tried looking and I have found a few decent generators, but I'm really looking for a making tool I already have a general layout in my head of what the city/region/continent but I can't draw for shit, and I want to find a tool that makes this easy? Makes it look nice, makes it easy to add points of interest and features, etc.

What do you use?

Edit: for clarification, this is for city/region maps, not battlemaps.

I just got my Spider-Man 2 Platinum trophy and was looking through my trophy list, I wonder how many people will also obsessively chase the 100% or Platinum trophy and under what conditions.

My personal favorite 100% achievements recently and why:
Slay the Spire - I dumped almost 500 hours in this game and finally got Eternal One last year, it was an incredible journey and I definitely feel myself getting better as I play
God of War Ragnorak - I'm a lifelong God of War fan since the originals and getting through this game was definitely a journey. Finishing the final final boss was incredibly satisfying
Resident Evil 4 Remake - Another one of my personal favorite games of all time, I grinded a week for 50 hours to grab this over about 4 or 5 playthroughs
Spider-Man 2 - My fastest platinum, not too difficult but very satisfying (I do love Spider-man though lol)

Let me start by saying I really enjoyed playing the Mass Effect games. They are awesome.

I found the plot, though, incoherent. Especially in ME3. I don't mind small conveniences like "good thing this random teleporter beam designed to suck up corpses has easy entrée to the reaper's command center," because it's a game.

But how on earth did Cerberus amass seemingly billions of elite special operations forces with nobody noticing? What do you mean the secret weapon against the reapers has been improved each cycle by people who didn't know what it was supposed to do? How could that possibly result in a functional device?

It's clear, I think, that this wasn't necessarily the direction the first game was going. Cerberus was the subject of a side quest, but nothing more. The authors of the lore seemed to be taking great pains to ensure everything was logical, based on the in-universe rules they had established.

...and then ME2 kicks off and the series is almost as much about Cerberus, from this point on, as it is about the reapers.

What did you think about how the plot unrolled?

(You may also wish to read this series of essays. It's about 18 billion words long, though - fair warning. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)

I got Skyrim on PC, which means that I can really MOD now. However, a lot of the MODs are about making things more difficult, complex, or realistic, appealing to very "pro" players. That is not my case. I just wanna do Skyrim the "right way", but without the cruft of a 2011 game. What are some MODs that make the game more manageable and lively?

And yes I'm playing this instead of Starfield :P

Here's a first world problem: I work remote and sometimes I get bored during meetings. Wondering if you guys had any game recommendations for games I can play on a second monitor or something while I kill boredom in my meetings. Mouse only is probably the biggest requirement, and also something more "turn based" so if I need to I can still pay attention to the parts that I need to.

Some of my recommendations:
Slay the Spire (+ Downfall) - I "beat" all of it (A20H for all characters) so I wanted to take a break, but I loved it.
Monster Train - I didn't get into it as much as StS tbh, it's fineeee but not my personal favorite
Super Auto Pets - I'm not really an Autobattler kinda guy but the slow pace and the rotating sets make this game kinda perfect for what I'm looking for!
Brotato - I've been playing mouse only, but can't really stop it in the middle of an intense run tbh.

Steam or Android games if possible!

The new Forza Motorsport has released to the masses as of today, and has been available to those who paid extra for premium upgrades and the like for about a week. I got it via Xbox Gamepass and played about an hour of it this morning, and so far it feels like a nice return to form for the series, which hasn't seen a new non-Horizon edition since Forza Motorsport 7 in 2017.

That game had some baggage with the card system/gambling mechanics, and I'm glad to see none of that thus far in the new Forza Motorsport - which, you may have noticed, has dropped the number. There's a feeling that Microsoft/Turn 10 may be aiming to make this something of a long-term platform play rather than just another game in the series.

I'm enjoying it so far, and after playing Forza Horizon 4 and 5 a lot since FM7 came out, I'm glad to have the return to more traditional circuit racing, and absolutely do not miss the supremely annoying voiced characters from those games.

The thing I most immediately noticed upon playing the game (besides the graphics, which are a real showcase for the Xbox Series X or a sufficiently beefy PC) is the new upgrade/tuning system, which requires you to actually spend time driving a specific car in order to unlock the various upgrade parts for it. You earn car points for doing things like clean racing and fast lap times, which you can then spend on upgrade parts between races. The game keeps calling those CP, which makes me think that nobody at Turn 10 has spent any time on the internet. An unfortunate acronym...

I'm curious to know what everyone's opinion on this game is. I know a lot of the audience is turned off by the more sim-like/boring nature of the Forza Motorsport games versus the arcade fantasy for the Horizon games, but I'm very much on the FM side of that divide.