melkathi

Bloom looks very interesting. I especially like the fact that you will be able to do a non violent playthrough.

Soundtrack by Michiel van den Bos, indeed. Sound effects by The Audio Guys edit: oh, and my reaction was "Who the **** is Saridas?"

Also bear in mind that he is kinda surrounded by enemies: Edward is the main character of the Commonwealth campaign. To his right (his right, so the viewer's left) is Sundren, main character of the Elven Court campaign (and daughter of Julia and Saridas). Next to her is Dwemus, a dwarf with a grudge against the Commonwealth. On Edward's other side are Reshkar, a draconian who is seeking refuge in the lands of the Elven Court (so who might he be running from) and lastly King Saridas of the Elven Court. I'd not look happy either Interesting dev quotes regarding the box: There were big arguments whether a female (Sundren) or male (Edward) should be the central character. Apparently covers with women sell a lot less, so we opted for the male. Don’t tell this to Rhianna Pratchett (our friend and writer who worked on Overlord!). Seriously though, we felt the pose with the central large sword better fitted with the male dreadnaught than the female Rogue. And Please note Triumph earns less than half off a physical copy compared to a digital distributed copy of the same price. )

I had fun when it first released. It can be strangely addicting for a while even though it isn't a really complicated game.

Been playing Agarest: Generations of War Gaaaah... As if Bioware romances weren't bad enough, this game has romance as an integral part of the campaign. As you play over a number of generations, each generation you have to get hitched to some girl in the party to have a kid with to play as in the next generation. So you can't get around having to choose who to get to like you best. Especially as apparently, the more they like you the better the stats of the next character...

Divinity Original Sin update:

The Mandate will actually hold a court martial for the 10.000 scammer: As some of you may be aware, there was a bit of drama with our $10.000 backer pulling out when we were just $5.000 shy of the 500.000 goal. This was only a minor setback and we quickly recovered but this kind of scam could have been a major blow to a smaller campaign. So how do we chose to respond to this? Do we ignore it? NOOOO WAY! After getting some input from the most active backers in the comments field over on Kickstarter, we have decided to run a little community activity: There is no precedence for trying a Lord High Admiral [which is the $10,000 pledge rank] on a court martial and since all members of a court martial must have equal or higher rank than the accused, well, there is only one Lord High Admiral so... Instead the accused will be tried by a grand jury of his peers [for the sake of story we assume this event takes place before all of you were disgraced after your own court martial ] Our lead writer will act as Judge Advocate General of the Grand Fleet and draft the charges, basically violations of the Articles of War You, as captains of the fleet, will decide whether the charges are true or false You, as captains of the fleet, will perform sentencing (by popular vote) We hope this can turn something negative into a fun little community event. The court martial will be in session most likely in early to mid December.

And now for something completly different: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/205899120/dwarven-delve-an-action-dungeon-crawl-with-a-twist With only 40 hours to go and needing just under $1k, even a $10 contribution will make a huge difference

Ok, I'll do something different then. Instead of listing what I'm going to buy, I'll list the things I would buy if I didn't own them at least once already: The recommendations without no reservation whatsoever: 1) Startopia http://store.steampowered.com/app/243040/ Murky Foot were former Bullfrog devs who made this Spacestation sim with a lot of humour back in 2001. I own it on disc, own it on GOG, always tempted to buy it on Steam. I always found that this game proves that the "big names" of gaming mean nothing without their team - while someone released a mediocre Black and White, the no-name devs created the little gem that's Startopia. Incidentally, part of Murky Foot were behind the recent kickstarter "Satellite Reign" 2) Valdis Story: Abyssal City http://store.steampowered.com/app/252030/ A platformer RPG in which you run around, jump around and chop up demons and angels, while making stops at shops to buy new equipment. Multiple playable characters and various spells, skills, upgrades etc make for at least some replayability. But the most important thing for me is that I felt as if I was a kid again playing Wonderboy in Monsterland. It is a shame I missed the kickstarter. 3) Expeditions: Conquistador: http://store.steampowered.com/app/237430/ We had a long discussion about it here. A turn based strategy/rpg about a Conquistador and their merry band of explorers journeying to the New World. Other recommendations that won't be for everyone: 4) Knock-knock http://store.steampowered.com/app/250380/ A game about making it through the night and facing one's fears. Light drives away the thing under the bed, but if you always turn on the light you'll never overcome the fear. It is one of those kickstarters I backed and that delivered a final product. I hadn't known what to expect but they delivered exactly that... which makes as much sense as their wierd backer updates... Somehow, despite the unrealistic art style, the game manages to be very atmospheric. 5) Castle of Illusion (Mickey Mouse) http://store.steampowered.com/app/227600/ A very well made remake of the old platforming fun, it can catapult you right back into childhood for a while. It isn't very hard, but on sale it is worth it just for the nostalgia alone. 6) Salvation Prophecy http://store.steampowered.com/app/248450/ Now a lot of people hate this game. The graphics are not really that good and part of the gameplay is very simplistic. Then again Firedance Games is in reality one person. The game is about the war between four factions in space. You are a grunt in one of the four armies and climb yourself up the hierarchy until you become the faction leader. This is done by joining your faction on random missions, hunting pirates and exploring the story missions. The games weak point is its strong point: there are a number of different gameplay elements and as a result none could have the depth they would have if the game concentrated just on them. You can join planetary assaults or defend your own colonies from assaults - this is done as a third person shooter. A not so very good third person shooter. Actually, if this game was just a third person shooter, you would not touch it. But you can also join larger space battles of 20 vs 20 fighters (or in some circumstances 20vs20vs20+battleship+spacestation...) and the space battles, while not extremly complicated are actually good and fun. Then, once you are faction leader you can try your hand at some rudementary diplomacy and resource management - again though quite simplistic. What made me fall in love with the game are the little things: walking around a space station and suddenly getting the flashing mesasge on the screen that the station is under attack and all pilots should report to their ships, then running to the hangar and seeing the other fighters already launching. Or joining the fleet for an attack and having to wait at rendezvous points for the whole fleet to arrive before jumping to the destination - or emerging from the jump gate only to discover that one of the other factions was on their way to attack you and their fleet is gathering to make the jump to your system. So if you can overlook individual shortcommings, the game as a whole can provide a lot of fun. But the game is not for everyone. Personally my own only complaint is that there are only four star systems and the story progresses too fast - if it was a larger galaxy with a sanbox war, I'd be happy. This was rather long, but it is a recommendation with reservations. Quite a few people here won't like it. 7) The Wolf Among Us http://store.steampowered.com/app/250320/ Like The Walking Dead, this episodic game by Telltale really stretches the definition of the word "game". It has pretty much the same gameplay, with a few kinks apparently worked out (though it is enough of an improvement that Bigby, unlike Lee, does not have a busted leg and therefor walks at a more agreeable speed). the "detective story" seems to fit the scheme better. While it is still on episode 1, in comparison, several differences make it, in my opinion, a better experience: choices seem less forced. While you still reach a point where you have to choose A or B, it isn't the result of someone doping up the zombies on Jet so that they kill one of your companions in fast forward. How these choices carry over to the next episode remains to be seen, but at least in episode 1, they motivated me enough to want to play it twice so far.

I looked at things I wouldn't mind picking up and remembered my backlog is large enough for me to not need to pick up any games 'till next year's sale...

I got a -90% Coupon for Enclave. It normally costs $4.99, witht he coupon it goe down to $0.50. I can't say I am interested, but at that price I guess I'll give it a shot

Just make sure you have a look at the information they have there, so it really is something you personally are interested in. I wouldn't trust me, I gave $150 to SRR

As Trash mentioned, AngryJoe, TotalBiscuit etc decided to give it a mention so more people checked it out. I also want to believe though that the devs' persistance and amount of goodies they put out, as well as their active presence in the comments helped to ensure that these people who became aware of the project then actually backed it. And talking about active project. New devblog:

Last Remnant is higher on my personal list.

Ok, just for Zor's sake I'll stop typing GoG and will from now on call it gOg. edit: that is until the capitalization balance is restored

Melk I contributed towards this game after your endorsement. I'm probably the reason they made there goal, what do want to give me because I supported you? Hmmm.... How about I won't force you to read the first three chapters of my failed NaNoWriMo attempt ?

And The Mandate made its goal.

Haven't played Enter the Dominatrix yet. But is that cyborg Fun Shaundi?

I'd love to see walk around bases as well. Maybe through PayPal after funding ends. You never know.

Dreamfall and Consortium have already been funded. They are old kickstarters and I guess they may have been better suited for the Random News Thread. the Mandate could use your money though: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1964463742/the-mandate edit: remember to play the Text Adventure for the mandate: http://www.mandategame.com/scourge edit2: requires UNITY

What are you interested in?

I think there will be quite some time between the two releases so you can have a nice big break.

Arcanum combat was equally unbalanced if played real time. Especially the XP thing was not a result of TB but the result of a problematic combat and experience point design in general. One could equally well say that Arcanum shows how real time combat unbalances the game, as higher rates of attack would result in more hits and therefor a higher xp gain for specific characters (think thrown weapon masters, high magical aptitude with the unique chakram that caused timestop on hit). With other games, what real time seems to always clash with is party AI. For example when aggro range is wonkily defined and while you are looting after combat and trying to heal up, some npc has used superman's x-ray vision, looked through several walls and decided to race out of the room, to turn five corners to charge a sentry (happened to me in NWN2 the day before yesterday...)

And Zoraptor didn't even talk about DA2 encounter design *shudder*