Hawke64

I've been playing Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch and it is an amazing improvement over the first game in all aspects. The developers addressed the issues I had with the first Lost Eidolons - they culled the small talk and fetch quests, made the characters distinct and good-looking, and even added helmets and character customisation (granted, only name, gender expression, and skin colour, but it is progress). The combat encounters are also more varied and challenging, while the character skill progression has a good pace. While it is still just a tactical game with a linear story and some optional content, now with RNG in the mix, it is, nonetheless, enjoyable. There are difficulty options, fairly frequent auto-saves (on every area transition, though the OS file management system has to be used for the save file management), rebindable controls, adequate system requirements, and skippable animations. There are also persistent upgrades (most things reset between expeditions due to the game being a Rogue-like) and a limited ability to replay the previous battles. The soundtrack does not seem to have any vocal tracks, but it fits the game well and is quite pleasant to listen to. I have reached the Normal Ending and currently trying to farm for the Completionist one and gather all optional party members. Hopefully, I will be able to achieve both around the same time and within a reasonable time frame (without getting bored).

Kind of, though there are fewer games I am extremely enthusiastic about, rather than "wait for a sale and try". There is also the issue of discoverability when there are a lot of lower quality titles which can hinder the chances of the first-time releases. The successful titles also set the expectations of the "production values", so fewer studios can invest that. Robert Yang has updated Radiator 2 to Radiator Forever. https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2026/07/radiator-forever-is-gay-as-service-its.html I have found a readable EULA (which does not say that the game's assets belong to the developer) and wanted to share it: https://store.steampowered.com//eula/4517370_eula_0

Thank you for looking into it. The checks seem to be less frequent now.

Retro Abyss All screenshots are fairly close to the end-game. Absinthia Virtue and a Sledgehammer (demo) I chuckled at this and realised that I really do like Saints Row. Naturally, option 5 should have been "Is it a challenge?". Servers are run by ethereal fairies and require no physical infrastructure, of course. The game is very pretty but I find the gap in understanding (like not smoking or breaking electronic devices in a forest) to be enormous. Enthropy (demo) Another very stylish game. The combat, unfortunately, was similar to the RPGMaker.

Not news but an approach I find reasonable: https://www.pentadact.com/2026-01-08-15-years-of-indie-dev-in-4-bits-of-advice/ Admittedly, a large cost sink is the visual assets and VA, while the crowd who can spend several thousands on their hardware are also more likely to have $70 of disposable income, but there are more people with $20. That is to say, the lower the system requirements, including the storage, the better for the production costs, the gamers, and the environment.

After looking through the screenshots, I've realised that I "finished" (as in, got pretty far and grew tired of bugs) Retro Abyss. A somewhat meta bullet-hell. The "numbers go up" part and the visual design were enjoyable, the story did not quite land for me (the in-game player seems to be a set character) and the writing was somewhat off in terms of phrasing or translation. The main issue is that the game stopped saving the progress between the sessions at some point and the cut-scenes were unskippable. Decided to let Absinthia be - I really do not like the RPGMaker combat system and the linear story, even if the core party is quite appealing. Replayed I was a Teenage Exocolonist for the "best" ending and got a few more along the way. It is welcome to see a mostly visual novel that takes the advantage of Unity not being a VN-only engine (i.e. you can run around the maps with the keyboard). It is somewhat less enjoyable when you are going from the start to the end and trying to optimise to hit few very specific things, but it was quite nice to see some mid-game endings and the full character endings. Virtue and a Sledgehammer demo. I liked the aesthetic and the presentation, but destroying robots in a forest felt wrong. One must go for the squishy and, most importantly, not-flameable meatbag that had put the robots there. Which, I assume, was the goal, but unachieveable during the demo. Still, reminded me of Johnny Gat.

Yes. Sent to you via DM.

I've got several more expiring keys I would like to share (HumbleBundle): BAD END THEATER (it is nice) Dustborn (started but have not finished yet, the visual design is cool) We Know the Devil (a VN) Harmony: The Fall of Reverie (a VN I have not finished; the saving system is poorly made, so copying the files manually is necessary to have hard saves) Death of a Wish (an excellent action game) The August Before

Rock Paper ShotgunValve's Steam Machine gets competition in the "Stim Machi...French hardware sellers LDLC have released a PC Box they originally dubbed the "Stim Machine", as an alternative to Valve's Steam Machine. Not purchasing either at the moment, but they look somewhat appealing. Though, a fully custom PC would provide a better value/cost ratio, getting the parts might be challenging.

Finished the first playthrough of I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. About 25% (?) of the colonists died. The highlight of the run was when I was making out with an NPC, then a random wildlife fatally tossed the said NPC off the nearest cliff in the same scene. The save files are JSON, so I was still able to reach a more favourable conclusion despite missing an event and for some obscure reason also being unable to have a certain NPC to have an "accident", despite having high Persuasion (to ask to have a chat on the walls), Combat (to break the neck), and Perception (to toss the body over the walls without anyone noticing). So, I just swapped the name in the file to my buddy. The story is a time loop of 10 years where you land on an unknown planet and try not to die. The second playthrough "remembers" some of the events, thus, the investigations are shorter and many issues can be avoided or mitigated. Edit. I am fairly certain that someone else on the forums played it, but I forgot who.

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/starmer-out/ We still can bounce back, providing that the voting population 1. votes; 2. not for the several types of fash. Curious when Starmer v.2.0 folds, though. Burnham has about the same intelligence and integrity.

While there might be occassional posts from bots, seeing this ("checking that you're not a bot") on every step when not logged in is quite annoying. I think it started 2 days or so ago. I suppose, I appreciate the reminder that Obsidian is owned by MS, but could it be shown once per session rather than every time?

The original Fable was fun, even if it could never match Molyneux's ideas. Fable III had a really badly done UI and GFWL. The reboot looks fun, though the combination of the "more graphics" (the phrase describes the problem well), which just increases the system requirements and makes everything into unreadable mess, unless you either manage to cull the junk by disabling as much as you can or turn the visual accessibility options to the max, and the ongoing BDS campaign against Microsoft discourage the purchase. Still, the style seems to be close enough to the original and, from a first few minutes of the demo video, murdering non-human animals to eat their corpses is still evil.

The title should be obvious. I included very few screenshots related to the companions and a lot related to various unexpected or amusing situations. The ratio is probably the opposite. From the 2nd/3rd area, I had to turn the FSR on and it had some sort of sharpening built-in. I like the armour design. Freedom. Kind of. The loading screens look good. Somehow the melee party members manage to hit the Lookout Monkey. Can't beat the skill. The Knightess. Just a random area. The game is a bit rigid with traversal and, while it looks nice on the screenshots, the only way to navigate is with the Tracking vision on (the screenshot above). The boss I have ~140 screenshots on Steam (more locally) and I will try to share them here. Uxantis Olima Peren The Mid-game Spoiler-land Post-mid-game Our talking-tree god is the best god. It offends my sensibilities - these are not machetes. The Expedition 33 reference. The Prince of Persia reference. This is a kukri, not a saber. Stealth All 11 busts. Not the most interesting collectible. End-game

Tried the Entropy demo. The art style is fantastic and the controls are rebindable. The lack of any QoL features, such as manual saving, and the RPGMaker-like combat are disappointing. Given that it's the developer's second title with the same single auto-save system (now with backups, fortunately), I have a suspicion that it is intentional. Also, the thing I adored in GreedFall is that the skip line and the select response functions were different keys, so I could safely tap away on replays. Speaking of, should replay and try to get a better ending for one of the factions.

Greedfall: The Dying World The default face can have a different hairstyle and skin tone and does look the best Not the starting area, but the point about visibility. It might look like a door but it is actually a wall. The "trust me, bro" worked. Jumping over a branch. The last part of the prologue

Interesting. Thank you for the possible explanation. Still, it is unlikely to be "agentic" AI with access to the mailing tool and there must have been a human who LGTM'd the output, though it would be less intentional in that case. I guess, the genAI subscriptions can be cancelled, but I doubt that anyone would get a subscription for a non-programming LLM only instead of some sort of an office suite (MS Copilot and Google Gemini and not Anthropic Cloude).

The annual Pride Month Bundle is up. https://itch.io/b/3684/the-power-of-pride-bundle-2026-10-pwyc-edition The Bundle Explorer is less helpful than I'd like, but at least https://bwobbers.itch.io/detective-beebo-night-at-the-mansion is on my wishlist, so there's something.

GOG is the only DRM-free storefront with more professional titles, so I hope that they will remove whoever thought it was a good idea to send this (a bit too specific to be random) and hire a sensitivity reader or a team (I was annoyed when I got an unclearly marked ad for hetero porn). Admittedly, I stopped reading the email after "Slavic".

I have finished GreedFall: The Dying World. In general, the game has charm and I am happy with the time spent, but there are technical issues and minor bugs. In terms of combat, the tactical approach did not change much - the tank CC's, everyone else hits. The tank companion was able to restore both his armour and health, so could effectively hold the line indefinitely (or until the damage received was higher than the AP generation). The only issue was the range of the Taunt ability when there were many foes. The final boss died surprisingly quickly on the first attempt, being able to perform only a single attack each time between getting stunned. On the continent, there were much fewer giant "guardian" bosses, but the ones present were unique in combat design and appearance. When compared to GF1, where there were very few types but at least one boss per location (as everyone and their grandpa were turning into the tree zombies), the difference is noticeable. I strongly suspect that a deeper understanding of the systems would be required on the higher difficulties, as there are a lot of active and passive abilities, their synergies, and craftable consumables. I was looting a lot, but did not have the need to use resources, so I shouldn't have combed the locations - it was a significant time sink and interesting or unique items were only in chests and only in ~5-10% of them. On an amusing note, some armour descriptions were easter eggs - there was a jacket of Those Who Come After (Expedition 33), an armour of the Sands of Time (Prince of Persia), and some heavy cuirass referencing a Balor and a bridge (the Lord of the Rings, I believe). I like the equipment design quite a lot, though the colour schemes being bound to the equipment tiers was somewhat unpleasant (granted, only the tank really needed the armour). In terms of story, it was quite compelling overall. The PC is unavoidably mostly Neutral Good and can automatically do dumb ****. It is noticeable in the main quest, but there are more options in the side quests. The antagonist appeared in person fairly late, though the impact of the actions was felt throughout the game. I'd say that it is welcome, as talking BBEGs annoy me immensely. Unfortunately, the PC is also unavoidably a druid story-wise, even if they wear heavy armour and wield a rifle. As for the continuity, the quest outcomes tracked correctly (e.g. the Knight appears if survives), even if sometimes unpleasantly (I said a wrong thing to a random guy in the main quest, so he did not cooperate and died suddenly in a side quest, so I messed up a faction quest line). There are smaller inconsistencies, such as a companion firstly being told that the PC's father died, then 15 minutes later in an environmental auto-dialogue asking about what happened to the PC's father (as in whether he was alive). At some point, a companion can do an unwise action and die. I was able to ask the companion kindly not to do it, so the party member was definitely not dead. When we revisited the location where the dialogue took place, the companion's corpse was lying prominently next to the path and the very same character was standing right next to me and being quite alive. A smaller thing is that I had found a turban with a full-face mask early and wore it throughout the playthrough. Every NPC still recognised me as an islander and, in one scene, I drank a potion without removing the headgear. Several times, I got kicked out from stealth for the enemies to start a dialogue, despite them normally being unable to look down and see me crouching 2 metres away. Also, in a side quest, we found a lizard dog, a lewolan, who had been brought to the continent and quite stressed due to being a territorial animal in an unfamiliar environment. So, naturally, the party liberated the scaly doggo and stashed him in the cargohold next to the merchant. At no point there was an opportunity to release him back on the island, so he stayed there with the tail clipping through the wall behind. Overall, the side quests were satisfying and the number and variety were just right - no filler and the world did not feel empty. The companion quests provided an impressive range of activities, from the usual combat to stealth to puzzles, so I was quite happy with them. Also, somewhere from the mid-game, several capes with +2 to the talents became available, so they covered a lot of skill checks. I still needed some investment to get the Hard checks, but there were few enough of them. As for the other bugs, the game crashed a few times during cutscenes, I had only one corrupted save file and once the companions' bodies and hair failed to load, so I was talking to bald flying heads and hands. The more noticeable issues were the performance, the NPCs and textures loading late (so the props, such as brooms and sword were levitating), and the ship. When you travel between the main areas via the ship, you first get teleported to the ship, and only then to the chosen fast travel point. While the area loads (from an SSD), the game, including the sound, stutters and briefly freezes. It would have been better if the loading screen for this was just the ship sailing animation (either its concept art or something more fancy, like it moving on the world map), especially considering that the ship could be fast-travelled to at any time. One time (that I noticed), an optional merchant became unavailable (despite loudly advertising her services) and I missed a unique piece of armour. Regarding the DLC, I think it was released on 4 May, so Spiders themselves must have worked on it. From SteamDB, there have not been any file updates since. I suppose, unless the developers somehow reorganise and regain their IP, there might be no further support.

I saw an announcement for a DLC after 29 April, so someone is still working on the game, though I doubt that the bugs will be fixed before the support ends. While GF2 is not a Larian-style sandbox, there are still quite a lot of opportunities to break things and express your unique playstyle. Granted, I was puzzled when the (main) quest marker pointed at an NPC who was underground, but I was able to figure out where to go (to be fair, the places have very descriptive names on the map) and the game proceeded as expected. In another quest, the party was stealthily gathering evidence against the BBEG. There was an option to run into a group of mercenaries and learn from them (required a successful skill check) where the BBEG's secret base was. At first, I skipped this option, then took it, then reloaded to the first point (where the party did not know where the base was). In the knowing state, the party was able to see the quest marker and the highlighted wall marks on the way to the base. In the not-knowing state, the path was quiet and I was jogging from memory (though, there was only one floor transition marker in that part of the map). So, there were several ways to proceed and it was impressive that the game did not break and did not force a strict sequence of events (it did at some other points*). Another thing is that not all quests have markers (unsure if intentional). I had an escort quest where the NPC told me to go, firstly, to his friend who lived "near the aqueduct south from" a district I had not found yet, then to the faction HQ. I also quickly discovered that I could not save during this particular quest. So, I decided to skip the friend visit and go straight to the HQ because that I could at least see on the map. Fortunately, I found the district and the aqueduct on the way. Unfortunately, the aqueduct was on the west and not south, so I spent some time following it down until an opening appeared and the cutscene triggered. Going to the faction base afterwards was easy. So, I had to actually read the map and look at the landmarks to find out the destination and it was enjoyable. What I genuinely like is the story and the companions. The story is that you are an islander sage (so I was a very sneaky and stabby sage, I suppose) and you and your friends get kidnapped and the teacher killed (ironically, the teacher was the only one not participating in combat and just standing still in the tactical mode/covering his head in the over-the-shoulder camera mode). So, you are trying to find your way home (at least, no opportunity so far to try to conquer the continent). The premise also sets up the companions - they are the people who are willing to help you because what happened was unjust (or they broke out with you and did not have a ship, so decided to tag along). They are also the best (not as the most widespread) representatives of the respective factions. Admittedly, I do not quite understand their classes and the expected combat roles, but they seem to work well with everything - there are 3 skill trees and 1 weapon type per companion, but the attributes and other equipment can be anything, while many have abilities fitting several possible archetypes. I am generally happy with the combat, despite it being fairly straightforward on the default difficulty - the tank does CC and gets hit (also heals), the rest of the party removes the armour from the enemies and cuts into the HP. There is some synergy (e.g. higher damage on enemies without armour or suffering from a debuff), but I have not seen any reason to dig deeper into it as of now. The AI can do some positioning (e.g. the rogue can auto-flank), but allowing it to choose targets or use abilities is not a good idea. *I found it quite funny - a quest, 2 different battles where you have 2 different NPC allies. In the first case, the NPC ally can die and the dialogue changes slightly (well, can't talk to a corpse, but can discuss the outcome with the companions). In the other, the NPC ally continues fighting at 1HP, then (as one could guess) tries to cross the party and regains the whole health bar for the mini-boss battle. Another bug I found amusing is that the PC was trying (successfully) to vault over a very small tree branch (still attached to the tree) in the starting area. The traversal is fairly inconsistent in terms of things you can interact with, but fine in general (challenges in seeing things aside). --- A significant issue at the present is that it is hot af in the city and I am not brave enough to run the game in this weather. Should be better tomorrow.

Is this oil? Is it supposed to be Greek Wrestling?

I'd guess that the larger a studio gets, the fewer risks they can take if they increase the production costs. Not wasting funds on "more graphics" or full VA does not seem to occur to them. The only developers I can name off the top of my head who keep their costs in check are Spiderweb Software and The Game Bakers (kind of - haven't played Cairn).

Greedfall: The Dying World The misadventures on the continent. I have discovered that there are timed quests by failing a side quest. No spoiler tags as it is fairly inconsequential. On the Olima markets, there was a noble berating her servant. The servant lost the noble's necklace. I quickly found it and tried several dialogue options to return it to the servant. The thing was that one of the companions was disapproving, so I decided to swap the party and return later. I got sidetracked and, when I finally got back, the noble and the servant were nowhere to be found and the quest promptly failed. There was nothing in the journal to indicate that it was a timed quest, however, the noble had mentioned going to a ball. So, while it is more immersive than the NPCs waiting for me for a few in-game months, the lack of clear time limits is unpleasant. The stealth system, on the other hand, is funny. There are several notable things. When you stealth-kill a hostile NPC and save/load, sometimes the remaining hostiles spawn at different positions, including the newly freed one. Another one is that you technically can approach from the front (~45 degrees) and, when you stealth-kill the opponent, they turn their back to you. And another one is that even with 1 point in the Stealth skill, the hostiles cannot notice you farther than a few metres away in the ~45-60 view cone in front of them. The companions, conveniently, are completely invisible. There are some continuity bugs, such as a quest NPC spawning after the related quest was completed or companions referring to the non-chosen options. It does not happen too often, but it is noticeable. When the quest resolutions are tracked correctly, it feels good, though. Other than that, I've spent most of the time trying to comb the areas for loot. I do not know whether I will ever need all those crafting ingredients or low level equipment, but if it is there, I must collect it (i.e. the game might be balanced in a way that considers the player looting everything in sight and if I do not, I will be at a disadvantage later). It is a fairly meditative experience. I am also certain that the playtime would have been halved (thirded?) if I did not do it. I think there are difficulty options, but I'd like to stick to the default one. On the other hand, it makes the story progress much slower than it could have been. There is also a new "feature" - you cannot take more than one companion quest simultaneously (the PC auto-refuses) and the companion remains in the active party until it is completed. I probably could just grab 3 people and do their quests in parallel, but I kind of understand the reasoning behind limiting it to 1.

I liked the game, liked most of the options for quest resolution, and some intentionally OOC/sarcastic responses, though cannot recall the details now. The only advice I can give is to get a bag of holding early (there is a lot of loot and it is heavy) and save manually and often. Also at one point you can a small but satisfying action My second playthrough was focused on trying to kill a key NPC (the NPC and short summaries of my attempts follow)