What are you Playing Now? - Back to the Grind

[kanisatha]

10 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Farthest Frontier is still on my list because I like Crate Ent. I trust them to make a good/decent game. That said, from the getgo I wasn't sure if they were making a city management game I'd personally be into. I think you can essentially get a sandbox  mode out of it turning dangers and combat off, but still. Not sure at all, even when it comes out of early access.

I can't remember if you've played the old Impressions city builders or not? There's at least less of the population happiness management - I mean it's there but it's more of a generalist thing and not difficult to pacify or almost largely ignore (at least in freeplay). Or at least, I didn't find it so. But then I do find some aspects of the "management" part of efficiency "fun" as long as it's not overboard.

I liked Banished and I'm glad it rather revived the genre, but I'm tired of the whole "city building survival" concept. I don't care about earthquakes or floods or invading armies or skill trees or research paths. Just give me the buildings and a map and let me figure out what I think is best/most fun. To me that was the whole point of such games - sandbox, not to provide a gamey gameplay RTS challenge with the city building.

I also like city builders to be smaller scale myself. Stuff like City Skylines I have no interest in.
EDIT: the few building simulators I've seen that are much simulator vs. management are either too mechanics geek tech-y/complicated or too simple (almost to mobile game simple).

So yeah...maybe for different reasons but I find if difficult to find modern ones that I like beyond an initial run too. Although some of that may be because I find them all largely too easy to "master" by now. They've spent more time trying to insert more gamey gameplay or difficulty/time roadblocks and zero time on how to make the process of designing a city/layout more fun/interesting. eg, more terrain or resource challenges perhaps. Everything that conceptually worked in the ones from 20+ years ago still basically work in the new ones.

* yes I meant Farthest Frontier

I largely agree with you. I think it is the adding of the "survival" piece into the builder games that make them a turn-off for me. But even with strict builders, or where you can use a sandbox mode (which Patron also now has) option, caring for the needs of the people and making sure everything is optimally available for them starts getting tiresome for me once the population gets big. Even when I play Surviving Mars, I always use the robots mod so that eventually I can replace most of my workers with bots and limit my human population to under 100.

Btw, I've kept Kingdoms Reborn on my wishlist. Because of its card game component, I'm curious to see how it eventually turns out (once it leaves EA).

Edited April 7 by kanisatha

[BruceVC]

I completed  Hogwarts after 80  hours, it gets a solid  71/100 on highly popular " BruceVC game  system "

I have mentioned all  things I liked about it so I wont repeat it 

The main negative is the combat doesnt require much strategy  and the repetition of the same 5-6 enemy types  for  the whole game 

You can only have 4 spells  active at one time and even though you can change this in the HUD for most battles you dont need  to  so combat does tend to become repetitive 

But that negative doesnt detract from  the overall positive experience 

 

 

[Keyrock]

I completed the Wilhelmina romance quest in DD2, it's called Every Rose Has It's Thorn. It wasn't what I expected... I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that. It was a fun quest chain and I got a sexy time scene at the end, albeit a short one. I'm not going to post any pictures of it, though. 

 

[uuuhhii]

give up on farthest frontier after food spoil

really not enjoying that realism

[Hawke64]

Stray Blade. Defeated the first main boss by face-tanking and hitting it with a halberd. Spent 2 hours running in circles before that - the goal of the past 7 hours was to find a way around several locked gates and collapsed bridges to the boss, so I suppose it is on point. Encountered 1 rather unpleasant bug - a weapon blueprint, thus, a skill upgrade, was not dropping. It was resolved by switching to the beta branch, then back.
Story-wise, it is funny that the NPC companion wants the invaders out of the Valley, because they kill and destroy everything there, including each other, and this is exactly what the MC and the companion have been doing throughout the game. Except destroying buildings - the buildings are invulnerable. So, it is either some meta commentary or a ludonarrative dissonance.
So, overall, the game is not terrible, but I would have felt bad if I didn't get in a bundle. Granted, another game from the same bundle tried to fry my CPU, so this is definitely an improvement. And the story might get better.

Edited April 9 by Hawke64
typos

[kanisatha]

A question about the Hogwarts game: given that the Harry Potter universe is based on children's books and movies, is the video game at a level where it can be realistically enjoyed by adults? Serious question, as I know nothing about this or any other Harry Potter video game.

[Hurlshort]

40 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

A question about the Hogwarts game: given that the Harry Potter universe is based on children's books and movies, is the video game at a level where it can be realistically enjoyed by adults? Serious question, as I know nothing about this or any other Harry Potter video game.

I'd say your mileage may vary. Harry Potter books and movies were incredibly popular with adults as well as children, so the short answer would be yes. It certainly isn't PAW Patrol.  

[Keyrock]

2 hours ago, kanisatha said:

A question about the Hogwarts game: given that the Harry Potter universe is based on children's books and movies, is the video game at a level where it can be realistically enjoyed by adults? Serious question, as I know nothing about this or any other Harry Potter video game.

I'm 47 and I had a blast playing it last year... Okay, I was 46 back then.

It's a fun game that can be enjoyed by a person of any age.

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, kanisatha said:

A question about the Hogwarts game: given that the Harry Potter universe is based on children's books and movies, is the video game at a level where it can be realistically enjoyed by adults? Serious question, as I know nothing about this or any other Harry Potter video game.

Yes but with a caveat, like I mentioned it doesnt have adult themes   but that doesnt mean you wont enjoy it and it does  have engaging components. I didnt  get the  thrill  of exploring and risk vs reward  like in normal  RPG

For example the beasts are all cute and you dont  really feel   like you MUST kill  the monsters because   they truly diabolical like a Daedra  or Baatezu with the exceptions of spiders which I hate in any game. And almost all your companions are  teenagers  and kids which was a bit weird and unusual for me but thats how Hogwarts  is suppose to be by design 

And then as  you mentioned the books are written for a younger audience but adults  do read  and enjoy them which is the  most  important thing,  adults are  reading.  And you dont want to shame  people  to suggest " why you reading a children's book "

But Hogwarts is light-hearted  fantasy  game and you will enjoy it if you understand its narrative limitations compared  to  " adult " RPG 

 

 

[Hawke64]

Stray Blade. Defeated the first major main boss on the first try, while repeatedly getting killed by a random halberd warrior and low FPS (there was a lot of clutter in the area) before that. The boss had a reasonably interesting story background (the companion had been talking about him for the past 8 hours), some specific battle mechanics (required to break 4 glowing things in the arena), and visually distinct design (a lightning sword and deer-like facial features). So, it was fine, but the combat encounters with the regular foes are rather uninspired, even before taking into account the occasional FPS drops.

2 more areas and 4 bosses to go. The skill tree is filled for about 75%, and I am curious if the character development system is going to change.

[Keyrock]

I unlocked the Trickster vocation, I've been itching to try it out since I heard about it. It's an entirely support vocation, I mean you can technically smack enemies with your censer, but it does little damage. It's effectively an illusionist class that causes enemies to focus on it then screws with their minds to distract, disorient, and even turn them against each other. I don't know yet if I like it, but, if nothing else, it's VERY different from all the other vocations, which makes it interesting.

Edit: According to Steam only 18.6% of players have unlocked the Trickster vocation. I didn't think it was particularly hidden.

Edited April 9 by Keyrock

[LadyCrimson]

Re: Hogwart's - I had a lot of fun with it (even tho for myself, I also had a lot of crash issues ) but it is rather simplistic. To me more of an causal adventure romp game vs. an rpg - no true choices/consequences, no real depth. I've seen the movies (they were ok, nothing that memorable for me), haven't read the books, am not a potter universe person. Game is light fun, but not something one is probably going to replay, as example. But I definitely had a lot of fun with it.

===========
Patron journey continues (I have nothing better to do apparently) - to kind of repeat myself, since I'm a city builder "efficiency" person, my main long term goal is usually about just expanding the city/population until it fills a map or performance tanks. I have maybe .05% interest in making realistic/pretty towns. But it's easy to 'master' the loops, and the cycle (in Patron) is about once a year you get more workers trickling in etc.

In other words ... it's 2024. Why do modern city builders still limit you to only 10X speed? I think we can handle 20x now. Why? Why? 
Also, why do ppl in houses complain about no schools when there are three schools other within radius (I build four, overlapping radius), and only the one is totally full? Just go to one of the other ones. Or ppl who complain there's no houses when there are like 10 empty Shelters. Idiots. Bad design/glitchy AI or something. Irritating.

Edited April 9 by LadyCrimson

[bugarup]

Fear & Hunger, little indie horror RPG where horror seems to be tailored for my tastes. Creepy art, creepy disturbing soundscape, grotesque monstrosities, dungeons you can practically smell, so much to love  It's also laughably unfair ("Hey hero, pick your traits. You wanna fast movement or tripper?") and unforgiving, which by itself wouldn't be too bad, but combine it with extra stingy save system and horror gets diluted with one of the most unfun things to experience, tedium. So after first twenty or so assortedly amusing deaths I installed 99 saves mod and can finally experience my atmospheric horror in nice short pieces before bedtime if I wish so.   With its Wiki open though, because it doesn't explain mechanics and what are all these things in inventory either. 

[LadyCrimson]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:17 PM, uuuhhii said:

give up on farthest frontier after food spoil

really not enjoying that realism

Yeah that was one of the main things that made me go "ugh" when I learned of it near their ea release. I was hoping eventually a mod would get rid of that.
The other thing was their (seeming) focus on combat. I know you can turn it off but point is that could change development focus.  I do like RTS/strategy with a bit of city management (Stronghold, mainly) but to me a mainline "city builder" is still a separate thing vs. RTS and vice versa. More and more game genres become so mashed together (City Builder, Tower defense, rouge-lite, political strategy, RTS, post-apoc!) it just feels like a mess/don't like it.

Still hoping Manor Lords RTS factor will be something I like - but at least there will be a non-combat mode if I don't. We'll see.

Lately tho, while I appreciate the current efforts/genre revivals, more and more I feel like "may as well just play the old games instead."

[BruceVC]

On 4/10/2024 at 8:48 AM, bugarup said:

Fear & Hunger, little indie horror RPG where horror seems to be tailored for my tastes. Creepy art, creepy disturbing soundscape, grotesque monstrosities, dungeons you can practically smell, so much to love  It's also laughably unfair ("Hey hero, pick your traits. You wanna fast movement or tripper?") and unforgiving, which by itself wouldn't be too bad, but combine it with extra stingy save system and horror gets diluted with one of the most unfun things to experience, tedium. So after first twenty or so assortedly amusing deaths I installed 99 saves mod and can finally experience my atmospheric horror in nice short pieces before bedtime if I wish so.   With its Wiki open though, because it doesn't explain mechanics and what are all these things in inventory either. 

I see the game is created by a single developer, thats impressive 

I am playing Sons of the Forest, I loved the first one and it was the best survival game I have ever played

Im only 4 hours in and Im doing lots of pausing of game and using google around " how to make a fire " 

There is almost zero hand holding but its coming together with the mechanics 

 

 

[BruceVC]

On 4/9/2024 at 12:20 PM, LadyCrimson said:

Re: Hogwart's - I had a lot of fun with it (even tho for myself, I also had a lot of crash issues ) but it is rather simplistic. To me more of an causal adventure romp game vs. an rpg - no true choices/consequences, no real depth. I've seen the movies (they were ok, nothing that memorable for me), haven't read the books, am not a potter universe person. Game is light fun, but not something one is probably going to replay, as example. But I definitely had a lot of fun with it.

=

This is an accurate view of Hogwarts, there is no  real  choice and consequence except for the end of some side quests where you have an option to not return the item that you  were sent on the quest to find  in the first place. It seemed a bit silly that type of choice and I dont think there were any consequence for not returning the item 

[bugarup]

16 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I see the game is created by a single developer, thats impressive 

Now when I think there's quite a number of games with great worlds made by solo devs. Fear and Hunger, Kenshi, RImworld, Stardew Valley...I probably should pay more attention to indie scene. If only itch.io weren't an embodiment of Sturgeon's law. 

[BruceVC]

Im about 6  hours into Sons of the Forest  and Im absolutely loving it

The game starts with ZERO hand holding and Im just exploring and using my GPS. I dont know what Im supposed to do except for find the " family " which is great
I havent really explored caves yet but thats clearly where the main quest needs to be but I did go to one cave and it was terrifying experience with strange mutants but lots of resources to find

I appreciate the complete randomness of the design and the rewards for exploring , I went down to the beach and swam to a raft and I found a gun !!!!

But I assume bullets will be a scarcity so Im using my bow in combat and I will only use the gun in critical battles

I had a disappointing moment where I came across this attractive  blonde women  lying in some bushes and I thought  " nice, possible Romance arc with an NPC" but then she got up and ran away ...and she had 4 legs !!! Mutants just dont do it for me  so major Romance interest destroyed 

 

Forest 1 was my favourite survival game of all time and this sequel could deliver the same experience

[Hawke64]

23 hours ago, bugarup said:

Now when I think there's quite a number of games with great worlds made by solo devs. Fear and Hunger, Kenshi, RImworld, Stardew Valley...I probably should pay more attention to indie scene. If only itch.io weren't an embodiment of Sturgeon's law. 

At the moment, the same ratio is true for Steam and GOG is getting there as well. I suppose, one could check the most popular paid titles on Itch.io occasionally.

---

Stray Blade. After reaching the second area and unlocking all normal weapons, the game became somewhat jollier - I am using the halberd and only the halberd without having to switch to worse weapons. Ironically, the dual daggers turned out to be less fitting for combat than I had hoped - the damage per strike is low, while the time window is the same, so I might as well hit with the strongest weapon. Dodging or parrying attacks is mostly useless, because everything has too much stamina to do so fast, while 2-3 hits from the halberd kill everything except bosses. The hitboxes still feel somewhat odd, while the combat in general is not exactly engaging - the MC's attack animations are too long and impossible to cancel, while the foes have very long wind-ups and can turn 180 degrees mid-swing. Also, the red faction of the forest + ruins area changed to the blue faction of the mountains + volcano area. And I saw 1 green faction mini-boss (had a skull on the health bar)

I also pretty much stopped exploring - all normal weapon blueprints have dropped, the armour blueprints seem to be dependant on the level (the first chest you open after leveling up will have an armour piece blueprint). On a funny note, the customisation colour schemes transfer poorly between armour or weapon sets - each colour point refers to different materials across sets. For example, I had my sword's blade grey with the cloth on the handle blue, while the halberd with the same setting has its blade blue.

But the story is going at a reasonable pace and generally fine. It is delivered almost exclusively through the MC and the companion standing and talking. There are also lore entries in the Bestiary describing the societies of the people killed. The information is not useful, but adds some immersion. The entries for the animals are rather depressing, though.

[InsaneCommander]

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell. Another good metroidvania, it looks just like the previous one and it's beautiful. It has no complicated or annoying mechanics and I enjoyed it a lot. However, I do have many criticisms: the map is more linear than in the previous game, basically one straight path with some ramification areas (although each area has many short ramifications). Most bosses can be damaged at any moment and the battles become a little boring, with victory depending more on pressing buttons quickly than dodging and trying to find a weak moment/spot. The story is quite simple and the companions could be more creative, but instead are just skin variations of three types.

[bugarup]

I had some ~*Dark Souls experience*~ with Fear and Hunger for myself over a weekend, that is, played a number of sessions without the savescumming mod and just let bad luck take me wherever. It went like this:

† Won three Necronomicons in a row, won the coin toss to read them all without going mad and consequently dead, lost the toss to a monstrosity next door, died;

† Had a lucky streak with good armor and weapons, won the coin toss for successful rest, but it appears that if you don't kill this one really weak enemy beforehand, he drags you to his torture room where you, well, eventually die;

† Forgot to give the little girl I rescued from the cage her whiskey and opium, she got too sad and left;

† Some **** of a mage sang my limbs away, fortunately was able to will myself into suicide;

† Defeated some monstrosity surprisingly easily, it dropped a thing that would cancel annoyances like bleeding, infection and worms away, couldn't equip it because of cursed item in the slot;

† Okay, "What if I jump into the latrine?" is entirely on me. 

And that's with mercifully brief combat. If I had to experience all this plus a drawn-out twitch-based fight before kicking it? Gimme that sweet Necronomicon. 

 

On the savescumming runs, one party failed forward straight into their goal, unfortunately the dude I was hired to rescue turned up dead, so hauled my arse all the way back to see if I were allowed to leave since what's the point of staying there anymore? Indeed I was allowed to leave, got "Ending E", which implied endings A, B, C and D. Went to game's wiki and it appears I missed, like, 90% of game? Okay good. Wasn't planning to quit it any time soon anyway. 

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, bugarup said:

I had some ~*Dark Souls experience*~ with Fear and Hunger for myself over a weekend, that is, played a number of sessions without the savescumming mod and just let bad luck take me wherever. It went like this:

† Won three Necronomicons in a row, won the coin toss to read them all without going mad and consequently dead, lost the toss to a monstrosity next door, died;

† Had a lucky streak with good armor and weapons, won the coin toss for successful rest, but it appears that if you don't kill this one really weak enemy beforehand, he drags you to his torture room where you, well, eventually die;

† Forgot to give the little girl I rescued from the cage her whiskey and opium, she got too sad and left;

† Some **** of a mage sang my limbs away, fortunately was able to will myself into suicide;

† Defeated some monstrosity surprisingly easily, it dropped a thing that would cancel annoyances like bleeding, infection and worms away, couldn't equip it because of cursed item in the slot;

† Okay, "What if I jump into the latrine?" is entirely on me. 

And that's with mercifully brief combat. If I had to experience all this plus a drawn-out twitch-based fight before kicking it? Gimme that sweet Necronomicon. 

 

On the savescumming runs, one party failed forward straight into their goal, unfortunately the dude I was hired to rescue turned up dead, so hauled my arse all the way back to see if I were allowed to leave since what's the point of staying there anymore? Indeed I was allowed to leave, got "Ending E", which implied endings A, B, C and D. Went to game's wiki and it appears I missed, like, 90% of game? Okay good. Wasn't planning to quit it any time soon anyway. 

Im have no problem  with savescumming when its necessary because of bad design or because of laborious   respawn mechanics that force you to repeat the last 1-2 hours 

Time is limited in this world 

 

[LadyCrimson]

Patron - got to around 3300 population. The save file takes much longer both to load-in, and when processing exiting game, now. Although save file doesn't seem super huge or anything.

But I'm starting to get a little bored with expanding mostly for sake of keeping citizens from complaining about no housing, there's no other motivation at this point. I mean, I'd still love to fill the map but the performance keeps dropping, too, ofc. So it might be time to try another map/try with different land challenges.

I think I did figure out why citizens still get grumpy re: no housing even with Shelters - I think they will stay in Shelters for a while but eventually get annoyed and want a proper house, perhaps as part of an "angry citizens may leave or riot" mechanic. Thus kind of negating Shelters supposed no-births growth-damper effect. Only need 3-4 Shelters, because they start to get annoyed before any more will fill up.

Edited April 16 by LadyCrimson

[Wormerine]

I retrieved my heart in Dragon's Dogma. What happened next surprised me, and I don't quite know what to make of it.

I think there is something fundamentally unsatisfying when a game puts you against enemies you defeated before many times, but now with heavily inflated stats. It is especially harsh, as so far DD offered very little resistance. And it is doubly unenjoyable to me because of the numerical power curve that game has - I suspect what I am expected to do is grind, level up, upgrade and get even better equipment to bring the difficulty curve down. And to me it just feels like a waste of time, especially as I already experienced the other side of the curve before. I just had a lengthy and epic fight with a hydra - and it would probably feel more satisfying if I didn't kill one easily within a first hour of my playtime already.

On a flip side, the game became somewhat interesting again. Actually worrying about enemies weaknesses became a non issue after about 10h of playing, so overall it is the best the game has been.

Edited April 16 by Wormerine

[Katphood]

I recently finished The Outer Worlds.

+Huge world to explore

+Well written dialogue 

+Gunplay feels fun

+Choices matter

-Gun variety is awful

-Main story is boring

-Factions don't have any meaningful motivations

Overall I'd give it a fair 7.5/10

 

Started playing Stalker: Shadow of Chornobyl on the PS5. My god is it hard on Stalker difficulty. I am reaching the end of the game and I am getting my butt kicked left and right...cannot...take it anymore! Definitely gonna start the other two games on novice difficulty since I am getting the feeling that the console version is a little harder compared to the vanilla version on PC.