Players are understood to be sharing a cake. How much cake do you want? Be fair. Anyone who has had the least gets to size the next piece. Don't finish the cake!

Is this plausible ttg rules text? Do you recognize the instructions?

Hi all, can anybody recommend any games that are mostly investigation-based with little to no combat? A few that I've really enjoyed were Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn, and The Sexy Brutale. (Two of these have time loop mechanics, and even Obra Dinn has something very similar, but I guess that's not strictly a requirement.) Each one is very story-driven, with complex worlds and events meticulously crafted, and it's your job to figure out exactly how each one works.

Do you like them? Hate them? Don’t care about them? Take pride in them?

What do you consider good/bad achievements?

Do they affect how you play games?

Do you feel you have to get most/all of them?

What games have used them to novel effect?

Anything else you want to say about the topic is fair game as well. This is an open door for any discussion related to achievements.

I have a friend who's in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. They're currently all meeting remotely, for Obvious Covid Reasons.

The kid they were paired with asked if they could play a game like Monopoly or Wheel of Fortune.

I'm sure there are some amazing games out there that are a) well-suited to be played over Zoom or a similar videoconferencing link and b) enjoyable for an adult and a kid to play together (most likely 1-on-1, but if there's games that could be played with N adults and N kids, those could also work)

This could be a gaming series that is very popular but for some reason or another doesn't resonate with you, or maybe a weird one-off within a genre that you love. What aspects didn't resonate with you and what could have been done differently that would made it easier to like the game?

I've recently been playing a bunch of the Board Game of Thrones (the epic strategy/war/negotiation game) online over at thronemaster.net, and was wondering if any of you fine folks would like to join me in a game?

Hi all,

We are approaching the end of the billing cycle for the server and I wanted to gather feedback with all the users who have logged on and contributed to the server over the past few months. I believe we have nearly exhausted the options for gameplay and built an incredible Tildes Town, and as a result gameplay on the server has dropped for the past month. I reset the boss progress a few weeks ago but I think based on the server stats I have checked intermittently over the last few weeks, there is very little activity. Before the billing cycle hits again, I wanted to gather thoughts and feedback on the next steps for it.

1. I can keep the server up and running if there is still interest in playing on it.
2. The server can go offline and I can provide the world save files for those who want to archive it and continue playing solo offline.

Let me know what you think!

I’ve missed a lot of the older mmos growing up like Everquest and dark age of Camelot. What are some good older mmos to play that can still be enjoyed either as a single player or coop experience with friends that still have online and supported servers? Doesn’t have to have a massive player base or anything, it can even have just a few thousand players. I would also like to avoid WoW, I’ve had a fair amount of time in it and don’t have any desire to go back.

I have started playing D&D basic with my family as a way to spend time together away from devices.

I found the original character sheets:
http://www.ultanya.com/2015/10/throwback-thursday-character-sheets.html

Anyone else have favorite character sheets for D&D?

Today I was lucky enough to get the Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS Flight Pack that includes a joystick, throttle, and rudders. I also have a Valve Index set up to use for VR flight games. My main use for this setup is to use alongside Flight Simulators to practice maneuvers and other things flight-related while I am taking IRL classes to get my pilot's license. But I want to broaden my scope a bit and try out other games that would suit it (VR or non-VR).

Any thoughts on what to try and play? I have Star Wars Squadrons that I plan to boot up already.

From what I can gather, the choice comes down to Xbox and PS5. Also, from what I've read, I'm leaning towards PS5.

This will be for my two boys since they are growing out of simple Internet gaming. Probably will be an upcoming Christmas gift for them.

Thank you in advance for all of your advice and expertise since I have zero knowledge of any of this.

My old TTRPG group hasn’t met in months now, and listening to actual play podcasts only scratches the itch.

Probably a long shot given the size of the site, but anyone interested in playing a TTRPG sometime soon?

I’m thinking something easy and low pressure, like Stewpot, or Fiasco or maybe a world builder like the Quiet Year/Microscope/Anomaly/The Ground Itself; I have the PDF for most of those.

But hey, if you have something you’ve been waiting forever to play: I’m here for it.

I have literally nothing to do tomorrow so drop a message if you’re interested! I’m in CST

Inspired by a comment here from @Don_Camillo and @Omnicrola

Show me pics of your Factorio setup, brag about how cool and automated everything is, share any blueprints you find useful (either ones you've designed yourself or found online), and any other tips & tricks.

For the purposes of the question, I want to ignore official remasters/rereleases since those are essentially separate, newer full releases. I'm interested in old, original games. Titles that you can "manually remaster" yourself with mods are fine, since you're still playing the "original" game to some extent.

Also, "regularly" in the title doesn't have to mean daily/weekly and can instead be "once every couple of years".

• What keeps you coming back to them?
• Is your love for the games strictly nostalgia-based, or could an unacquainted newcomer still find similar value in them?
• If there are any modern games that try to scratch the same itch, do they succeed or fail?
• Would you want an official remaster of the game (if one isn't already available)?

So there is this game called Valheim that recently released. You may or may not have recently read the article where they claim to have sold over a million copies around a week after release.

I bought it to give it the 2-hour smell test and it seems pretty darn good. However, this game seems best played with others and I doubt my friend group will end up playing this. Renting a server seems pretty cheap so I was wondering how interested you would be in a Tildes community server? I would be down for paying for a month and seeing where it goes from there.

It looks like min slots for a server would be 10 slots but I would imagine that's okay since we all wouldn't be in the same time zone. I can scale this up if the demand is there.

Thoughts?

Other Info:

What is Valheim, the Viking game blowing up on Steam?

Server is set up!

Game is password protected but if you click me, you will find what you need.

I purchased a license and activated DEV MODE on the Xbox Series S, with the purpose of running some SNES games I definitely own... But part of the procedure involves using the Games and Apps tab to set Retroarch as a game. Without that, it doesn't have access to all the system resources. The problem is that the tab disappeared and I don't know how to get it back. Anyone have the knowledge to fix this? I really don't want to reset my Xbox to factory just because of that... thanks

The title question is more of an umbrella one, and I want to state from the get go that I am asking these questions non-judgmentally. I want this to be a space where people can feel safe to respond honestly.

I’ll also qualify that I’m not asking these impartially, as part of my reason for making this thread stems from some identified frictions in my own life that I’ve been mulling over. I don’t want to prime anyone’s answers, however, so instead I’ll just lay out what I’m interested in hearing about:

• Do you feel that you need to hide your gaming from others?
• Are you honest with others about the amount of time you spend playing games, the types of games you play, or the importance you ascribe to them?
• Do you feel that people judge your gaming habits or status as a gamer negatively?
• Do you identify yourself as being a part of a broader gaming culture?

Hey, so I'm looking for more comfy Nintendo (or maybe retro stuff in general?) focused youtubers like Scott the Woz or Nitro Rad or even AVGN to leave on in the background. In general I'd prefer people talking about games or gaming trends or whatever over just playing them...I don't think I really have much interest in let's plays or highlight reels anymore.

It can be full-on silly AVGN stuff or super dry Gaming Historian stuff, I love it all, though my ideal is somewhere in-between. Of course, I'd also like for them not to be terrible human beings, so no jontron or anyone like that please. Thanks!

Unlike the current tendency, unless I'm playing with my real-life friends, I don't care for multiplayer in shooters. I'm usually surrounded by highly skilled players that seemingly dedicate their lives to becoming experts in that game. I don't wanna become actually skilled, I wanna play in my own way and feel I am skilled in face of limited AI. You know, fantasy!

Most franchises are leaning towards multiplayer, and my playstyle is quickly becoming old fashioned. I recently purchased the Xbox Series S and would love suggestions of great shooters with a focus on offline missions. Especially historical shooters (like WWI and WWII), but not limited to it.

Thanks!

"Wrong" here can be intentional or unintentional. Maybe you completely missed that a character had a certain ability and got through the entire game without knowing there was so much more you could be doing! Instead, maybe you specifically challenged yourself to get through the game without using that ability, seeing if you were up to the challenge! Maybe you activated cheats to cruise through on easy mode, or maybe you accidentally activated a cheat and had no idea that the game wasn't supposed to be that easy (ask me about my FF7 playthrough).

"Wrong" can also be however you decide to interpret it: counter to the developer's intentions, exploiting the game engine, uncovering a loophole in the game's systems, pursuing your own goals instead of the game's goals, etc. It's not meant to be a moralistic judgment by any means (play any game however you want!) but more just an identifier that you went against the game's standard norms and expectations.

Tell us what you did "wrong", why you did it that way, and what the outcomes were. Did it make the game more fun or exciting? Did it ruin the game for you?

I keep seeing a lot of complaints surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 that it's not a particularly good RPG, because the story is pretty linear and the player choice doesn't really amount to much. I'm not yet done with the game so I don't know how accurate that assessment is. But either way, with my limited knowledge of programming and game design, I assume that doing this sort of thing well is a significant technical challenge.
What are some games that rise to this challenge and make the most of player choice and branching story?

I recently played through 2013's Tomb Raider and it was a delight -- a wonderful reboot that modernized a series whose originals I loved but that are quite dated by today's standards.

In the game, Lara, the main character, is in peril constantly, and she is driven into worse and worse situations in an effort to save her crewmates and friend. The narrative of the game demands immediate action -- any dawdling risks all of the characters' lives.

Of course, we know that games' timelines aren't necessarily time-driven but character-driven, so it is trivial for Lara to stop at any point in the game and not advance the story. The killers who are prepared to murder your friends will patiently wait around as long as necessary. Furthermore, the game gives you plenty of reason to do so! There are collectibles to find and story and lore bits scattered about the levels that you have to go out of your way to encounter. Finding these gets you more XP and resources which unlock skills and weapons that make the game easier. The game lets you fast travel back and forth to different areas as needed, and I spent a good amount of time at the story's height of tension not resolving that tension by advancing to the climax but by ignoring it and scouring the island for all the things I missed instead.

I use Tomb Raider as an example here, but I'm sure you can think of plenty of other examples where the game directly incentivize actions that outright subvert its story. What I find interesting is that, on paper, I should care about this discrepancy, but in practice I really don't. In fact it's customary for me to do this in nearly every game I play, as I find that I like "checklisting" and cleaning things up rather than advancing the plot (of course -- do I actually like that, or do I merely like that I get rewards for doing so?).

I don't have a singular question to ask but instead have some jumping off points for discussion:

• Is this undermining of narrative tension an actual issue, or is it just part of the suspension of disbelief embedded into the medium of gaming?
• Have you felt that particular games were made worse due to this issue? If so, why? If not, why not?
• What games are counterexamples -- games whose narrative tension is not undercut by their gameplay? What makes them work? Does that aspect benefit the game, or would the game be roughly the same (or better) without it?
• If you consider this an issue, does the "responsibility" for it lie with the developer of the game for incentivizing gameplay counter to narrative, or does the "responsibility" lie with the player for ruining their enjoyment of the narrative by pursuing other goals?

Also, don't feel limited by these questions or my choice of game and feel free to address anything else relevant to this idea that you feel is important or relevant.

I was curious how many people on here enjoy listening to game soundtracks outside of the game. I personally love when a game has a great soundtrack as it really adds to the atmosphere and overall immersion in the game. I also like collecting physical copies of them as well.

If you do, which ones are your favorite? Personally I love Shin Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy, and Blazblue soundtracks the most.

Flash is gonna die for good in a few days (dec 31st) so I felt this is a good time to ask this question. (Although obviously, there have been large efforts to preserve these when the developers did not. And even then, HTML5 means browser games will continue to exist, even though mobile games have mostly replaced browser games anyway.)

Mine personally were (taking away some of the more well-known ones):

Gravitee 2

Basically a game of celestial golfball. Had a level editor, which was quite fun.

Bonk.io (although this one has a sequel that's not in flash)

Pretty popular for a flash game made in 2016. Basically a game where balls need to "bonk" eachother out of the playing field.

Effing meteors (Definitely one of the games that I probably remember being better than it is.)

Basically a game where you clump up small meteors into bigger meteors to destroy stuff.

Ribbit

A game where a rabbit and frog are fused together and need to bounce like a pogo to the end.

Frost bite

A mountain climbing platforming game.

Sushi cat

A game where you need to eat sushis quickly. Also has cutscenes.

Flash cat

An aesthetic racing game? Not entirely sure.

Chisel

A game where you drill through the planet enough times to move to the next level (man, I had some weird gameplay preferences.)

Dillo hills

A game where you need to time your descents to pick up speed in the hills and fly.

Dino run

An 8 bit game where you as a dinosaur need to outrun extinction.

Raccoon racing

A power-up racing game I remember playing quite a bit. Definitely designed for children, even if that's not very surprising.