What are you Playing Now? - Games don't make you violent, lag does

[Malcador]

Almost done Castles, working through my backlog from 1992.  The game sure ups the ante with telling you the enemy is approaching from "Unknown". Also am stuck in the storyline loop where Bretagne is continually building a fleet to invade and their ambassador shows up talking **** to me.  Tedium in this game is the real boss.

[LadyCrimson]

Tempted to try Dredge because it sounds wacky and kewl, but it all hinges on whether I like the way the fishing mechanic works. I hated the one in Stardew Valley for example.

My Time At Sandrock is also on my radar. I never bought Portia and it sounds like this new one is much improved/more "fun" vs. that. Looks cute, like a 3d Stardew or something. Still in early access tho (one year in).

[uuuhhii]

4 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Tempted to try Dredge because it sounds wacky and kewl, but it all hinges on whether I like the way the fishing mechanic works. I hated the one in Stardew Valley for example.

My Time At Sandrock is also on my radar. I never bought Portia and it sounds like this new one is much improved/more "fun" vs. that. Looks cute, like a 3d Stardew or something. Still in early access tho (one year in).

dredge are great

it will destroy the hand that does timing mini game

[Hawke64]

On 4/20/2023 at 2:18 PM, melkathi said:

You can sleep in beds

Thank you. I think I found 1 bed I could sleep in, the rest were either non-interactive or I could not rest there because there were hostiles in the location. 

On 4/20/2023 at 12:18 PM, Gfted1 said:

I dont have the game, and Im just guessing based on your screen shots, but maybe the Rest button is the moon with zz next to the portrait (one red / one green)?

Thank you for the suggestion - those are status effects. The green one means that I am recovering from fatigue by passing out on the floor (-2 fatigue every 3 seconds in real-time), the red means that there are stat penalties from the fatigue.

Encased. Got the perk which should decrease fatigue after teleportation, but I had not know that teleportation required not only the device but also the corresponding ability.
The fog of war on the world map seems interesting enough - I do not think that there are large bodies of water or canyons (the thing in the middle of the map does not count), so just checking the map square by square should be possible.
Explored 2 small locations and realised that I need some non-lethal reusable weapon. While stealth is viable in general, in a side quest I was asked specifically to incapacitate the foes without killing them and the consumable items I had were single-use.
Edit. Found a safe bed in Junktown, an ability that deals 200-400 fatigue damage, and 3 companions. Had to knocked out one of them at the Arena and now she's got stuck in the floor KO'ed and I cannot initiate dialogue to recruit her.

Spoiler

Might have to replay the battle and just deal damage to her.

Edit 2. I gave Fox some coffee and was able to recruit her. Did not expect the item to work on an NPC before joining the party.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Hawke64

[LadyCrimson]

I spent the last two days playing the crafting/survival/sandbox/questing Above Snakes: Prologue demo on Steam. It's only the early part of the game so most features/upgrades etc aren't available but it gives a good idea/taste of game loop/mechanics. I think some of the Prologue progress will carry over to full game, too, if you want it to.

...TLDR: the demo was enough fun that I wanted to immediately purchase the full version ... and that's when I realized it's not releasing until May 25. Wah.

One of its main appeals is how you research new biome squares and slowly get to place them on the map, essentially creating your own map on the fly. You can remove placed map tiles if you want to redo areas as you research/get more biome types or special Quest tiles etc. Kinda neat. You can have a big home area or tons of tiny ones scattered all over.

Combat threat is low key and often avoidable/deal with it at your own pace, so I find it relaxing. I could see the games loop becoming a bit repetitive/mindless, but I don't mind. It works well with a controller, and I liked it enough to binge play it and start over three times, trying to figure out how best to place and efficiently use biome tiles. I wonder what the max numerical limit is for total map tiles.  I can't wait.

Edited April 23, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Gorgon]

Dead island looks. i dunno. Maybe fun ?. Debating whether I want to jump in at full price

[HoonDing]

Dead Island 1 was a boring slog

[ComradeYellow]

I dunno this one looks certainly improved from the original, and the original did need some improvements.

https://fqekj.com/news/dead-island-2-review-the-biggest-surprise-of-2023/

[LadyCrimson]

Dead Island 1 semi-entertained me for the initial first hour or two, but it wasn't long before it devolved into a dull/predictable slog, yup.

Dead Island 2 ... visually it's quite amazing, from environment visuals to zombie death detail graphics (if that's your thing) but from the playthru I saw, seems like it does the same thing where it's not too bad initially and sorta has you wanting to continue, but becomes rather monotonous before long. Still might be fun if you like zombie mashing. I'd probably wait till it was 30% off tho.

[uuuhhii]

weapon durability was very annoying in dead island 1

is there any way to fix weapon in 2

[LadyCrimson]

4 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

weapon durability was very annoying in dead island 1

is there any way to fix weapon in 2

Like in the first game ... there are workbenches around. Repair didn't look that expensive. Upgrading a fave weapon to be of your chr. level is the expensive thing now, seemed like. You can create/craft and mods.

Btw, I don't think it looks like a bad game - certainly looks better than the first one - it just felt like nothing special. There's apparently no difficulty settings, your character is an overly talkative, b-movie one-liner tossing avatar (so if you don't like the humor...). Seriously, what I saw your chr. never shuts up. But you get to wreck zombies with great visuals.

Edited April 24, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

First Dead Island was so boring, I couldn't even play it with a friend in coop. Everything in it really, really wanted to bore me to death.

[Wormerine]

Played Plague Tale Requiem for a bit over 2 hours and decided to give it a rest.

I didn't enjoy the original beyond the character work, and so far sequel didn't seem to change the formula in any meaningful way. Story events have been so contrives so far, that I am already not caring. Maybe sometime later I will be in more favourable mood.

[Hurlshort]

Wartales has sure added a lot since I played back in Early Access. The fact that you can set up pitons and climb mountains is a pretty interesting mechanic. My band is pretty strong at level 5-6, and we have one lucky wolf named Fang who has surprisingly survived from the early game. I've buried a lot of animals, so this pup is clearly lucky.

I think it might be better than Battle Brothers. It definitely is much deeper. It might not have the same replayability, mostly because of a more set narrative, but it does give you a lot of interesting options on how to construct your warband and still creates some great storylines amongst the team.

[Sarex]

That is the next game I'm playing after Solasta. It looks so good.

[melkathi]

It's been on my wishlist since the very first steam demo

[Theonlygarby]

Warband is good.  I haven't played in a while, I remember getting to a point where I was unable to make enough money to cross any borders, and kinda gave up.  I should give it another shot.

 

I like non fantasy or low fantasy games.  It was a big turn off for pathfinder.  If there are fantasy elements I like them to be introduced slowly.  Pathfinder was like here are some demons and people that turn into dragons.  Same with ballers gate 3.  Fricken squid people was almost enough to make me quit right away.

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Theonlygarby said:

Warband is good.  I haven't played in a while, I remember getting to a point where I was unable to make enough money to cross any borders, and kinda gave up.  I should give it another shot.

 

Just to eliminate confusion, I was talking about Wartales. Warband is the new Mount and Blade game. Which is actually really good too. What times we live in!

[Gorth]

Still chugging my way through Mass Effect 1 (from the legendary edition). Driving around in the MAKO still feels like a chore, the side missions you have to do there being a bit "samey". Find merc/criminal/warlord base and kill goons, scan some object and do the mind numbingly boring mini game (luckily I have a small stock pile of omni gel now, so I can auto solve the more tedious ones). I've only played ME1 once before, so I don't remember all the little side stories, which I guess is a plus. Exploring the Citadel was fun as was all the politicking and lobbying going on in various circles there. Combat is still the most fun in any of the 3 games IMHO. Probably helped by being a slightly less linear corridor shooter. Two things I miss in the first game though... Garrus polishing his big cannon 24/7 and my fish tank

[Humanoid]

2 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Warband is the new Mount and Blade game.

Released in 2010, I know time flies but still.

[Hurlshort]

1 minute ago, Humanoid said:

Released in 2010, I know time flies but still.

Ah, my bad. I guess the new one is called Bannerlord, which is technically a prequel to Warband? I don't know, I just loot and pillage.

[Humanoid]

8 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

Ah, my bad. I guess the new one is called Bannerlord, which is technically a prequel to Warband? I don't know, I just loot and pillage.

Yeah, Taleworlds liked doing those "standalone expansion" things that used to be more common back in the day. I don't mind that at all really, if you've got a good functioning engine, may as well make the most of it by releasing new content with minimal technical improvement, instead of discarding it after one game.

In this case it also makes more sense than a traditional expansion because I don't think there's much reason for most normal players to go back to the original Mount and Blade after Warband.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Humanoid

[Hawke64]

Encased. Exploring the Magellan Station. It is divided into 7+ floors and can be traversed mostly freely. Some general design decisions are becoming slightly unpleasant - XP can be gained from looting and depends on the quality of the loot, while the loot itself is random, hte action of looting does not increase fatigue, and there are a lot of containers (including flower pots and trash bins), thus if looting is skipped, so is the XP, which might make the following encounters more difficult.
Also, there are some odd parts in the writing and slight mismatches with NPC descriptions (e.g. an NPC described having "sun-bleached" hair has curly black hair on the portrait). The quests are reasonably interesting so far, some are straightforward, some include light puzzles. Though the Journal updates are inconsistent - if a clue was obtained before the quest, it is not saved in the Journal and has to be repeated, which might not be possible.
The party is able to knock out a group of a similar size reliably - everyone has a non-lethal combat ability.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Hawke64

[uuuhhii]

13 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Wartales has sure added a lot since I played back in Early Access. The fact that you can set up pitons and climb mountains is a pretty interesting mechanic. My band is pretty strong at level 5-6, and we have one lucky wolf named Fang who has surprisingly survived from the early game. I've buried a lot of animals, so this pup is clearly lucky.

I think it might be better than Battle Brothers. It definitely is much deeper. It might not have the same replayability, mostly because of a more set narrative, but it does give you a lot of interesting options on how to construct your warband and still creates some great storylines amongst the team.

how boring the item management are

able to outfit every character seems like a nightmare

[LadyCrimson]

Above Snakes: Prologue -

My current run/save has a bug where one stack of twigs never disappears when I try to sell it, so I can sell it endlessly for infinite bucks. Not that I need endless bucks in the demo. I keep making stacks of ink (needed to delete placed world tiles) and reconfiguring my map, because I'm weird and find that fun. Not sure if I'll port a demo save into the full game or just start from scratch. I can't wait to have more biomes and quest/dungeon squares and stuff.

Is it the 25th of May yet.

Edited April 25, 2023 by LadyCrimson