Hawke64

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/skald-against-the-black-priory-cffcc0 SKALD: Against the Black Priory is free on EGS. It is a decent turn-based CRPG, even if the ending is disappointing.

Any specific genre (gameplay/setting) you would like to try? --- Death Trash. The story has picked up, though I have not found an alternative solution for the quest I did not want to do. The Tower and the Godhunters' Prison locations were significantly larger than any previous ones, with the latter, unfortunately, being extremely light on story progression per encounter (as in, I cleared 4 large floors for 1 quest McGuffin and 1 lore bit). On the other hand, the Tower had 1 puzzle and 3 (!) quests with multiple solutions and skill checks. In terms of balance, I have found a decent 2h sword, attached an upgrade to it, and maxed out the Melee Sharp and Stealth skills, so I have a decent chance to 1-shoot non-boss foes. However, if I do not do so, they have a very high chance to 1-shoot me. The regular ranged enemies have perfect aim and just strifing is not sufficient to avoid getting shot, though it is possible to get out of the attack distance (depends). The PC does not have auto-aim either for the melee or the ranged attacks. Nor do I have the ability to restore HP automatically between encounters, while the enemies seem to do so. Thus, any 1-on-1 or 1-on-closely standing group encounters usually end in my favour fairly easily. If anything does survive the first strike, it results in a fair bit of kiting and dodging. Enemies do not dodge, at least. Reloading is almost instantaneous and automatic upon dying, so redoing a battle 3-30 times is less annoying. There have been 3 bosses so far - 1 with arena gimmicks (you can clear the arena, save, and face only the boss for 75% of its HP bar; it restores health if you leave the arena; has 1 attack and summons trash mobs at 25% HP), 1 with 2 attacks (just hitting and AoE explosives), and 1 which did not fight back but had a boss HP bar, therefore counts. The enemy variety feels sufficient, though it is mostly humans with weapons, a few zombies (regular, explosive, charging), 2 types of robots, and 1 type of turret. Also wierd dogs. I think it is possible to attack any NPC at will which is nice. Same for the locations - desert (and with meat), ruins (and with meat), underground facilities (and with meat), 1 purple forest. The equipment feels good, as every new weapon helps greatly, though it has only been dropping from the regular foes rather than being found in chests or dropped from the bosses (I did get a fairly useless but fancy-looking mask). I have found 1 armour set during exploration and purchased the one I use. Lockpicking feels pointless, as the value of the items found usually does not even offset the lockpick spent, while the XP gain is negligible (10-20% of a bandit). Regarding the above-mentioned quest, it gives an ability which might (will test) be required to access the newer areas, namely, the Perished City. From a quick look at the news and discussions, there might be more story content there. --- Update. Tested, the quest is not required to proceed. The Perished City has a better distribution and variety of pretty much everything.

Banquet for Fools. The highlight items key does not highlight NPCs or all items, so I just trotted forth past the nameless crowd in the starting fort into the wilderness. After walking through several maps with combat only (the in-game map with directions was not quite helpful), I got stuck in an ambush and decided to look for another way east after several attempts. The another way was a cave with spiders and resulted in the same outcome. The game does not have an automatic journal, which I noticed after a few hours, so I recorded what I remembered in the free-text notes. The formation being hard-bound to LMB and the dodge to the cursor annoy me a fair bit. I also discovered a bunch of smaller bugs (e.g. being able to leave locked buildings) and decided to pause the playthrough for the time being. I suppose, not being wolf'd upon loading a save is an improvement over the developers previous title, Serpent in the Staglands. Death Trash. The game had sat in my library for a few years with the release date somewhere far away. The combat is quite satisfying (the stamina is used only for rolls and stealth, but not attacks), but it has been quite story-light so far. I've visited 2 non-combat locations and cut through many more combat-focused ones. The issue is that there is no free health recovery, so I've been running with 1-2 HP for the past few hours, as I might need the limited resources later. Still, the controls are comfortable (I do not dodge to the damn cursor), the combat overall is enjoyable enough, and loading is very quick. I hope the story picks up at some point soon. The game had sat in my library for a few years with the release date somewhere far away. The combat is quite satisfying (the stamina is used only for rolls and stealth, but not attacks), but it has been quite story-light so far. I've visited 2 non-combat locations and cut through many more combat-focused ones. The issue is that there is no free health recovery, so I've been running with 1-2 HP for the past few hours, as I might need the limited resources later. Still, the controls are comfortable (I do not dodge to the damn cursor) and the combat overall is enjoyable enough. I hope the story picks up at some point soon.

I suppose, Disco Elysium is worth trying, at least to see which parts of its design bled into the adjacent genres (damned be the side panels and RNG in dialogues). The art and visual style are gorgeous, but the writing, the setting, and the narrative could be described as "Meh". You cannot fail the investigation (there is a choice-based conclusion, but it is not related to your objective), the NPC interactions are as exciting as watching paint dry, and one of the last sequences was completely lost on me, let's say, due to the "cultural differences". But the game did manage to portray minors in alignment with my opinion of them, which games rarely do. Sorry We're Closed was free on EGS a few days ago as well. If you've managed to get it, the game absolutely rocks.

Banquet for Fools

Started Banquet for Fools. It is a CRPG, the setting is original, the controls are rebindable (the feature itself is pretty, but uncomfortable, though), the party is fully customisable (like in IWD or Solasta). The developers quickly fixed the few bugs I reported. The combat is closer to RTwP and the prologue uses a predetermined mid-/high-level character. I must admit, I quite like the ragdoll effects there. The game is in EA and the full release is planned for the end of January. The New Arc Line (CRPG, steampunk; the demo ran extremely poorly) team recently posted that they use UE5 (a rather bad idea for a CRPG), so Banquet is my choice for this sale.

I appreciate the thoughtful response. However, separating art from the artist works when the artist no longer benefits from the royalties*. Rowling still does and is actively using her fortune to cause harm, regardless of how popular the IP is. When it is 6 feet underground and the fund set up specifically to finance transphobic lawsuits is dismantled, then sure. *excluding the financial aspect/from the cultural point of view, I'd say if you can experience the work in isolation from the author's biography and understand it fully.

The People Make Games channel has published Why We're Boycotting Xbox (and Maybe You Should Too). MS does own several developers whose work I am fond of, such as Obsidian, inXile, and Arkane, and, fortunately, all of them have been increasing the system requirements of their recent releases ("more graphics"), making boycotting them much easier. Some of the Arkane Lyon employees spoke out in support of boycotting their games, which takes quite a lot of courage even in France.

Just in case, JK Rowling's favourite hobby is harassing children and donating to hate groups, thus avoiding supporting the Harry Potter franchise would be appreciated. https://www.them.us/story/jk-rowling-girlguiding-girl-guides-girl-scouts-trans-ban-consent Granted, the books were not the best examples of literature to begin with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1iaJWSwUZs

In case it might help, GOG offline installers unpack everything through the system drive, so you'd need ~140GB of free space there for it to work, regardless of the selected installation drive. This is one of the main reasons why I avoid GOG for larger games. Why the developers stopped giving a f* about optimisation is another question.

The winter giveaways seem to have started on EGS. Today's is Eternights. The sales on Steam and GOG are ongoing and I am trying to figure out how to get GOG games to run on Steam Deck. I suspect it might need more storage space or I could just repurchase on Steam.

I am unsure whether humans or AI are worse for the environment, but not increasing the number of humans globally seems like a good step when they can and want to move on their own. Immigration can solve workforce shortages, providing services and taxes (unlike large corporations), and likely moving out before retirement, though the people who immigrate must be protected from exploitation, as they have less safety nets than the local citizens. In the UK, the nursing and the agricultural jobs (which the locals do not have the skills and the inclination for) offer(ed) dedicated immigration pathways. For the non-physical jobs, genAI might work, but, as was said during the peak of the COVID pandemic, a lot (not all) of the "essential" jobs require a human or a humanoid robot, unless there is a significant investment in the infrastructure. As the latter are more expensive to make and maintain than to hire a human, humans are more likely to be used. One of the explanations I've heard for why people care more about the genAI being applied to art is that artists can articulate their concerns about their employment and income, unlike a random factory worker. Well, and that creative jobs are more fulfilling than the manual labour or more routine office jobs, forgetting that artists also have to draw icons for mobile games, ads for fast food chains, or covers for romance novels, which are more of a craft than a genuine artistic endeavour. Humans love self-expression and even if it becomes unavailable as a source of income, they will do it for the sake of it, though it would make the hobby less inclusive. --- Regarding Larian specifically, all their initial concept art is generic (Rivellon is a generic fantasy setting), aside from maybe the elves and the lizards. Utilising genAI will not change it. The attached screenshot is from the DOS2 intro - the faces are deformed and the clothing already blends in. The current game cover, with the companions in action poses, is much better, but it is 1 promotional image.

The NG+ mode is quite fun, though much easier, as the stats are higher and everything dies quicker even on the highest difficulty setting (but also kills you in 1-2 hits). I used the whip sword as well due to its range.

I admire your optimism, though cannot share it. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out" - the genAI models are trained by humans on the human-generated data with the human-set goals, thus, the result is likely to be more of the same. And then there is the issue with the energy consumption. Pretty much yes.

Atlas Fallen I was quite surprised that the sysstem was locked by the NG cycle, but then I was almost always at 2-3 stage of Momentum (higher damage received and inflicted, also the dagger transforms into a greatsword), so it kind of makes sense. There was a way around the guard which I missed on the first playthrough.