Hey everyone! Since it was brought up in this thread I've created a Minecraft server.

Details:

• Version: 1.20 (Join from Bedrock)
• Host: tildes.nore.gg
• Plugins: Basics for server administration and rapid leaf decay

I know there was some push back on running v1.20. I am operating under the assumption that the majority of Minecraft players here aren't opposed to the newest version.

Currently the server is un-whitelisted.

I used to run moderately large Minecraft servers years ago. I'd love for us to have a healthy player base so that we can have periodic events (in game lore, UHC, etc.)! I play more of a game master role - so don't be surprised if you see me just floating around in creative mode!

Edit:

Updates:

• Set sleep threshold to 50% of online players in beds
• Disabled chat verification enforcement server-side. You need to install a mod to disable it client side if you're afraid of the chat reporting system.
• Disabled mob griefing
• Installed a fast leaf decay plugin
• Upped from 20 to 32 player slots (we hit 20/20 today!)
• Created a site to get build access (You can use /nonick in game to revert this - and /realname to reveal the Minecraft account name for another player with a nickname)

I came from the generation that played obsessively through middle and high school, and there’s a part of me that really misses when I’d be able to absorb myself into a video game for weeks at a time.

Now that I’m a working adult, it’s a bit more difficult to convince myself that spending all day playing a video game is worth it as opposed to doing chores, practicing some more “productive” hobbies (art, exercise, cooking) or socializing. Part of it also seems to do with the fact that when I do get fully immersed into another video game and spend hours and hours playing at a time (thank you elden ring), my standard for dopamine seems to increase, and I’m not as interested in reading or playing music when I could get that instant dopamine hit from playing a video game, if that makes sense. The games I tend to play now lean towards relaxing/cozy games, generally offline games I can play at my own leisure, where I used to be very into the Overwatch/CSGO/Call of Duty scene.

I’d really love to hear how other people have experienced this, if at all, or what your experiences have been. Have you noticed a shift in the types of games you play? Do you specifically try not to play games to keep a healthier balance with your other obligations and hobbies too?

Important: This will be a noisy thread. If you do not wish to see it in your feed, please use the Ignore feature to hide it!

Tip: If the large number of comments are cluttering up the topic and you just want to see the main giveaway posts, click Collapse Replies at the top of the comments.

Introduction

Hi all! For everyone new to Tildes (welcome!), we usually run a community game giveaway thread during the major Steam sales. Feel free to make giveaways of your own (using whatever rules you want), or participate in others' giveaways. If you'd like to see some previous examples, check out our most recent Holiday 2022 one or use the tildes game giveaway tag to look through previous posts.

Before you participate, please make sure you read the rules below.

Rules

Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

Giftees

Request giveaways. Please make sure you follow the gifter's posted guidelines.

Guidelines

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

1. No grey market keys! Only give away games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.
2. Requests for games should be done in this topic, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly in this topic, even obfuscated ones.

Let's list some great mobile games. Preferably ones you can pay for once and be done, or free ones that have microtransactions that you don't need to do to just play the game (e.g. Marvel Snap). Leave out pay for power or games that have "charges" to stop you from playing until you buy more or burn time.

Edit: Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I compiled a list here that is, I believe, mostly Android. If you're looking for iOS only suggestions it looks like Apple Arcade was recommended regularly and also user Recognition101 had a comprehensive list I will refer you to: https://recognition101.github.io/ios-games/

Here is the Android Games List:
-Square Enix re-releases
-Stardew Valley
-Monster Hunter Stories
-Disgaea series remakes
-Vampire Survivors
-Slay the Spire
-Shattered Pixel Dungeon
-Slice and Dice
-Bloons series
-Sproggiwood
-Pysol FC
-Lexica
-Mindustry
-Overboard
-Old PC Game ports like Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, SW:KOTR 1 & 2
-Hoplite
-Simon Tatham's Puzzles
-Rogue Adventure
-Cultist Simulator
-Mini-Metro
-Wordament
-Retro Bowl
-Antiyoy
-Marvel Snap
-Star Realms
-Wingspan
-Team Fight Tactics
-Battle for Polytopia
-Where's My Water?
-Underhand
-Badland
-Eat Me Please
-Z Origins
-Yellow
-Dawncaster
-Ollie's Arcade
-Orna
-Night of the Full Moon
-A Dark Room
-The Ensign
-Universal Paperclips
-Opus: Rocket of whispers
-Opus: The day we found Earth
-TerraGenesis - Space Settlers
-Sheltered
-Seedship
-Framed
-Plague Inc.
-Gravity Defied
-Magic Research
-Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes
-Peglin
-Civilization series
-Rebel Inc.
-Boom Beach
-Professor Layton Series
-Slay
-Ritual

So, by now everyone knows about the big outcry over Unity's big runtime fee. Even if they backtrack, I foresee MANY developers leaving Unity because the trust has been damaged. So there are two options to look at now: Unreal and Godot. I have no experience with Godot personally, but I know there are people on here who do.

So, to those with experience with it, here's the chance to share your expertise and knowledge! What do you want new users to know about it? What do you consider its strengths and weaknesses? What resources would you recommend for new users? Any particular tips and tricks? And also, what are some games you know made with it you'd recommend, either to give people ideas of its capabilities or just because they're good games?

For every big Steam sale r/gamedealsmeta does a Hidden Gems topic which is always one of my favorites to browse through. Given that the July 1 reddit fallout is upcoming though, I figure it's worth trying to roll our own version here too.

The purpose of this thread is for game discovery: surfacing games that are hard to find about elsewhere. As such, try to recommend things that are less well-known.

For general game recommendations of all popularities, use this thread. For general Steam Sale discussion, use this thread.

Roguelikes have a special place in my heart. When you know that your character is mortal, the stakes feel so much more real, and your progress feel so much more earned. You can’t second-guess the level design, because random, and sometimes things are simply not unfair, like when you get transformed into a cute mushroom, while your otherwise generic foe get transformed into a god. I consider unfairness, uncertaincy and chaos to be core gameplay components.

Here’s some roguelikes I liked, in no particular order:

Inscryption
Sort of like Slay the Spire with retro aestetics combined with the gritty feel of the SAW franchise. The most atmospheric and foreboding deckbuilder I've ever played. It is sort of a meta-game where you play a retro computer game in which you play a tabletop roleplaying game with a deranged dungeonmaster.

Noita
Looks like a rather generic pixelart side-view dungeoncrawl, but beneath the humble surface lurks Finnish folklore, a revolutionary physics engine and an insanely versatile magic system, likely the best in any game. The game is vast, both in sense of game world but also the numbers of monsters, spells, perks and secrets. I consider this the best roguelike, full stop.

Don't Starve
Craft to survive in an unforgiving wilderness, battling wildlife, hunger cold and insanity. Having to constantly collect resources makes this game a bit on the grindy side, but the hand-drawn artwork and a rich world to explore and unlock makes this stay fresh.

Jupiter Hell
This, the successor to DRL (Doom Roguelike), is the only classic roguelike I could ever get into. The top-notch visuals makes me literally forget that I'm playing a grid-based turn-based rogue-clone. Still, the game is rather lacking in variation, and there's no lore or story choices. While I think this is by design, the DOOM roots and whatnot, I'm missing the sense of exploration and wonder found in other roguelikes. But even with that, the game is cool and ever so dark, and there's quite a lot of depth despite the simple controls.

FTL
Simplistic and neat pixelart space exploration game. The meat of the game is space combat in real time with pause, between which you plan your route on a node-based overworld and make various choices. The game, while cozy, is quite intense. You're trying to escape a vastly superior fleet while fighting off incoming attacks and trying to not run out of fuel while hopefully improving your ship to survive as the stakes rises. Every choice you make feels like a life or death decision. The fights offers a lot of different tactics. There's various ships to unlock by completing various missions. The one downside is that you have seen all the different encounters way before you have everything unlocked, but the mod FTL Multiverse adds a lot of new content.

Into the Breach
Simple tactical turnbased on 8x8 fields, by the folks behind FTL. The main gimmick is that you can see how the enemies are going to attack in their turn, and try to counter it. This works surprisingly well and offers a lot of depth.

Depth of Extinction
Underwater turnbased tactical. The game feels like watching a cheap action movie from the eighties. Sometimes the missions can feel a bit samey, and the underwater setting could be more in forefront but this doesn't stop the game from being quite a lot of fun. I'm hardly an expert here, but I've heard people who prides themselves of their expertice at turn-based tactical gaming giving this one a lot of praise.

Retromancer
Arena-shooter with a very stylish retro aestetics which doesn't confuse you in the fast-paced chaos. This, combined with a RPG fantasy theme really make this stand out from the other twin-stick offerings. This is a game I consider a spiritual successor to the original twin stick shooter, Robotron 2084. Of course, you need to play the Hunter, the other characters doesn't have the Robotron-trademark mashine gun fire. There's a dash function which is quite handy when you're about to be cornered. There is not really any character building, although by scoring enough points you can unlock various pickups. I guess it is designed for local multiplayer (there's four characters to choose from) but I haven't tried this. Plays excellent with controller.

The Wrath's Den
This is basically Dungeonkeeper, but simplified into a turnbased pixelart game with keyboard controls. You use space to switch between minions, arrow keys to move them, X to do various actions. Besides the random room choices, everything follow simple strict mechanics, which sometimes requires a bit of observation to grasp. The one major downside is that you cannot save your game. Much suck! But other than that, this humble little game is quite easy to fall in love with.

I was playing Motorstorm: Arctic Edge emulated on my Vita and realized I have literally never seen it brought up or discussed online.

Motorstorm is a dead franchise, but the console games I occasionally see talk of but never the psp version. I think it did a great job of capturing the feel of the game on the go and has a banger soundtrack too. I played it a ton back in high school on my psp and still boot it up from time to time for a quick hit of adrenaline fueled racing.

I'm sure others have similar games, maybe it's a "bad" game that you love or just an oldie lost to time.

Liking a game is easy enough: they’re usually meant to be fun, engaging, or interesting.

But being impressed by a game is harder.

It could be a particularly impressive set piece in a level, or a clever, novel game mechanic. It could be quality animations or a plot twist you didn’t see coming.

Whatever it was that impressed you, share it here. What was it? How did it make you feel? What made it stand out so much from its peer games?

Note: please mark all spoilers

You can hide spoiler text inside a details block like this:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers here!</summary>

Our princess is in another castle!
</details>

Which looks like this:

Hello everyone,

I have been craving a sort of game genre, but I'm not quite sure what it is or if it really exists as a genre at all.
It is a game with a lot of existential twists to it. I could call it Mystery though I feel it falls short.
The main story tends to be a complete upheaval of what we thought was the basic premise. Think of it like paradigm shift: the game.
They also tend to be games that you can really only play once. Lucky for me my memory is horrible.

So far I came up with these games:

• Outer Wilds
• Enderal (which is a "total conversion mod for Skyrim", but an amazing game)
• The Forgotten City
• Paradise Killer

Most of these have some kind of cycle involved in them, but I'm not sure if that's coincidental. All of them have you learn how the world works and it's never really what you first expected.
They tend to be light in battle, which is probably a skill issue bias on my part.

Honorary mention to:

• Strange Horticulture
• Horizon Zero Dawn, but the sequel less so (although still a very good game)
• The Zero Escape series, although I haven't played the first one yet
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (as it really breaks away expectations you got from earlier games too, and the existential dread is dripping off it)
• Nier Automata
• Doki Doki Literature Club

Do you know any others? Or do you know a good match to this list?
What do you think kind of links all this? Feel like playing one of these games?

I've been running Linux full-time pretty much since Valve released Proton. I remember submitting reports to ProtonDB back when it was just a shared Google Sheet! In the years that followed I made it a point to test and report out on different games as new versions of Proton were released and support improved. I thought it important that we have a good data set for what worked and what didn't. Over those years I tested hundreds of games and submitted as many reports to the database.

In thinking back over my gaming in 2023, however, I realized that I fell out of the habit of submitting reports because I'm so used to Proton working that it's stopped occurring to me that it might not.

That doesn't mean that there aren't some games that don't work -- it simply means that the success rate that I used to have (maybe 30-50% on average) has risen high enough that I'm genuinely surprised if something doesn't work (it's probably somewhere around 95% for me now, though that's biased by the types of games that I play). I actually tried to remember the last game that didn't work, and I genuinely couldn't tell you what it was. Everything I've played recently has booted like it's native.

Honestly, I genuinely don't even know which games are native and which run through Proton anymore. I've stopped caring!

I got my Steam Deck halfway through 2022. It was awesome, but it was definitely a bit rough around the edges. There weren't that many compatible games. The OS had some clunkiness. It matured though, and has gotten better. Among my friend group, I'm the only person who cares even a little bit about Linux. If you asked any of them to name three different Linux distributions they'd stare at you blankly because they wouldn't understand the question. Nevertheless, of my friends, SIX of them have Steam Decks and are now gaming regularly on Linux.

There are currently ~4,300 Deck Verified games and ~8,700 Deck Playable games according to Valve. On ProtonDB, ~8,600 games have been verified as working on Linux by at least three users, while ~19,700 games have been verified by at least one user. There is SO much variety available, and the speed with which we've gotten here has been pretty breathtaking.

This was my device breakdown for my Steam Replay for 2023:

• 55% Steam Deck
• 32% Linux
• 10% Virtual Reality
• 4% Windows

The only non-Linux gaming I did was VR and some local multiplayer stuff I have on a Windows machine hooked up to my TV.

I don't want to proselytize too much, but if you have a general interest in gaming, you could probably switch over to Linux full time and be perfectly happy with the variety of games you have available to you. Not too long ago, making the jump felt like a huge sacrifice because you'd be giving up so much -- SO many games were incompatible -- but it no longer feels that way. You can transfer and most of -- probably almost all -- your library will still work! Also, if a particular game doesn't work, there isn't too much sting because, well, there are thousands of others you can give your attention to.

If you have a specific game that you must play, then it's possibly a different story. If you love Destiny 2, for example, then full-time Linux definitely is not for you. The same goes VR -- it's simply not up to snuff on Linux yet. There are other niches too that don't transfer over as well (modding, racing sims, etc.) so, of course, this isn't a blanket recommendation and everyone's situation is different.

But for a prototypical person who's just your sort of general, everyday gamer? It's reached a point where they could be very happy on Linux. In fact, as proven by my friends and their Steam Decks, it's reached a point where people can be gaming on Linux and not even know they're doing that. That's how frictionless it's gotten!

I don't really have a point to this post other than to say it's incredible that we are where we are, and I'm beyond appreciative of all the effort that people have put in to making this possible.

I'll go first: turn-based combat.

While not as common as they once were, there are still a lot of games, AAA and indie alike, that get massively popular and are known for their supposedly excellent turn-based combat. Games that are probably what a lot of people who don't care for turn-based combat make an exception for, for one reason or another. Say they really enjoy how Undertale is "the RPG where you don't need to kill anything", or how Persona 5 is "so stylish". Also, there's the classic JRPGs of old, such as the older Final Fantasy games, or these more military grid based kind of games like Fire Emblem.

I just don't "get" any of it. I've never beaten a game featuring turn-based combat from start to finish. Yes, that includes Pokemon games. I don't know what it is specifically. I've beaten games of basically every other genre, but when I start any turn-based game because of some friend recommendation or good reviews, I try it, am genuinely invested for a couple hours, then my interest in the game just dies all of a sudden. I don't think it's any one issue really, probably a lot of different things.

Anyone else never really got into these kinds of games? Or do you have some other game genre that everyone else swears by that you just don't care for?

I originally asked this three years ago and got some great responses. Now that we have a lot more users active here and we're living three years in the future, I'd love to ask it again and see what comes up!

I'm interested in hearing about games that exist off the main map of gaming: games that I can't buy from any of the common storefronts and games that aren't easily playable through an emulator.

Examples of things I'm interested in hearing about:

• Long-forgotten abandonware
• Homebrew games for consoles
• Romhacks
• Legally dubious fan-games
• Total conversion mods
• ARGs
• Web games (not ones on sites like Kongregate/GameJolt though)
• Independently distributed games (that you can't get through, say, itch.io)
• Games for systems that aren't currently emulatable
• Games that have been removed from distribution
• Games with servers or content that are no longer operational
• Anything else you think fits the question, really

Tell me about the game(s) you know of and what makes them noteworthy.

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

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

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

There’s no hard requirement for what counts as a “hidden gem.” Any game that you think deserves more attention counts.

For general and popular game recommendations for the sale, please use this topic instead.

This is breaking news and I'm no journalist, so bear with me here.

It looks like a bunch of people at The Escapist were fired earlier today (one, two, possibly more). In response, the entire rest of the video team has quit (including Yahtzee, plus all the rest)

The video team has plans to go independent. From their new Discord, they made this statement (from Nick Calandro):

I was fired from The Escapist along with many others today, and in response the entire video team, including Yahtzee, has resigned from The Escapist.

Our plan is to go independent, but we will share more plans on that later this week.

I like to play games. So I guess I'm a "gamer"? But: I'm not into arena shooters, MMORPMRPORG grinders, anything with endless cutscenes of exposition and absolutely nothing that needs a "pass" to play... so where's my games? I feel like there's nothing for casual-but-not-candy-crush-or-clash-of-clans players like me out there.

I want something that takes me back to the days of Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City 2000 or more recently, Stardew that's not going to make my blood boil or nickel-and-dime me to progress. That doesn't mean it needs to be cute or easy, but more... meditative? Or goofy?

Given the crowd here I figured you lot would probably have some good recommendations. So: fire away!

I'm planning to wind down our server at tildes.nore.gg. Over the last couple of months playtime has dropped significantly. Servers don't last forever unless you have a sufficient stream of new players.

I'll keep the lights on for the rest of the month. After that point the map will be released as a download.

Pretty much the title. We all play all sorts of games, and they generally are all good games. However, every once in a while you start a game that just hits the right notes and you hate putting your controller or device down, and you can't stop thinking about things you want to do when you get back in front of that game. I figure we could post up our current addicting games so others can search them out as well :)

My current addiction is Frostpunk. Got it on a whim from the Steam Summer sale, and my Lord am I addicted. It's a really good (to me) post civilization survival game where you try to establish and rebuild life with a new world around you. Surprisingly challenging and the scenarios are very fun. I bought it 2 weeks ago and have 63 hours into it.

It’s often argued that open-world, zombie survival, and the likes have been overdeveloped and variety needs to be introduced to help stimulate an otherwise stale market. What do you wish upcoming games had that the others do not? Were there any titles that just fell shy of your expectations?

Hello all and welcome to the weekend! We made it. Or if your weekend doesn't begin until later, you'll make it yet!

Let's talk cozy games! You know the ones I'm talking about, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon. Games we used to call something else before the collective zeitgeist of the Internet decided to lump them all together under (which I'm personally fine with, I mean what do you call Animal Crossing anyway?)

In a stark contrast to my younger and more vulnerable years, I've become much more of "casual" gamer, and I find myself enjoying shorter bouts of play rather than becoming engrossed in the same world or story for hours on end. Games like Animal Crossing are perfect for this, in that I can just pick it up, talk to some villagers and go fishing or whatever, and put it down whenever I please. Not just that though, but I just absolutely love the warm and well, cozy vibe games like these offer. I've best heard them described as a warm mug of tea by a window as it rains outside.

Enough about me, let's talk about you! What "cozy" games do you enjoy? Feel free to lump them all together, who cares, it doesn't matter! We are all cozy games on this day.

11PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World

I think the population of the site has likely grown to the point where we could get some multiplayer gaming going. While I don't currently have anything in mind, I figure there will come a time when I do so I thought I'd try to get things rolling.

So, what multiplayer games would you like to try but lack the people for? What is your general availability for playing? Is there anything else people need to be aware of? Interest permitting, a recurring thread may be appropriate, though the exact interval would depend on the level of interest.

Happy Baldur's Gate 3 Day! Just wanted to open up this thread to see what everyone will be rolling as. I haven't played any of early access, so maybe be careful on the spoilers.

I'll be playing as a stereotypical criminal human rogue, mostly because I like sneaking around and dual wielding, who is aligned maybe lawful evil (planning, scheming to get what he wants) but I want to eventually bring back to good because he realizes how much his previous life has hurt other people.

I'm interested to see what you all will be playing, and what you're most excited about!