Video game spotlight thread
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Well, I got as far as the list of games in progress, then got "join failed" on every one I tried.
Another win for early access
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The player list doesn't auto refresh, and matches fill up quickly. Just join an empty match.
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Finally got it to install without failure, about to take a look.
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This is more of a video spotlight than a game spotlight.
Here's a video of 2 of DoubleFine's team discussing (and playing) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with the game's producer IGA (aka Koji Igarashi).
"Devs Play" Special - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – 2:16:52
— DoubleFineProd
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Oh, apparently the reason IGA is suddenly appearing all over the place is because he's started a KickStarter for the next #igavania game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
And by "started" I mean "fully funded within 6 hours of launch" and "almost triple the requested amount in less than a day."
Incidentally, here's the KickStarter video:
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Bugs me when people who can easily raise money on their own go to Kickstarter. I bet there's like 4-5 publishers tripping-over themselves wanting to fund that game-- but instead Kickstarter gets all the money? Weird.
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For some, I imagine they don't want the publisher to try to control the game, which I can understand. But there's also the fact that you can build an excited community long before the game is released, because they've all invested in it. In my case, it will just be 'the kind of people who are willing to animate fighting games can't be cheap', if I get there.
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Well if you need kickstarter you need kickstarter.
But this project don't.
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Browser based game. Starts off as a very simple survival thing, but elements keep getting added in quite an organic way.
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http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/
Browser based game. Starts off as a very simple survival thing, but elements keep getting added in quite an organic way.
I've heard of people referring to these as Incrementals.
Other popular games of this type include games like:
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Slowbeef is playing Snakebird: http://store.steampowered.com/app/357300/
It's pretty amazing.
Sample Steam review:
IT'S HARD AS ♥♥♥♥ WHY IS IT SO CUTE
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##Dead State: Reanimated
Pros:
- It doesn't crash as much.
- Combat has been "improved" so it's a bit easier on the player, mostly that your chances to hit seem higher, and that's really it. It might make the spikes less intense, I'd need to play that far to make sure and I don't think I will.
- It has Steam trading cards now wooooooooooooooow. To be fair, I did get a foil card from it, which I will now sell on the marketplace for supposedly $5.
Unchanged:
- Most issues I already had with the game, on a conceptual and actual level.
- Combat itself is otherwise unchanged. Still no cover mechanic.
- Camera still sucks, "Desync" still happens albeit not nearly as bad anymore (most things are just misaligned on the grid, not way out of space).
Cons:
- Before the update, I played on 2x animation because the game is slow. Now that animation speed affects zombie walk speed outside of combat, so now if they're attracted, they'll zoom into point blank before combat starts. Reducing the speed to 1x makes them less "zoomy", but the game just moves so slow at that rate.
- The issues around the dog companion still exist, except for one: You can control it out of combat. Problem is, it only happens when combat ends when the dog's turn was last, as once combat ends, you control the character whose turn it was last. The other problems of the dog still exist (can't see enemies, can't pick up items, etc.)
- Zombies seem to be able to do a lot of actions on their turns. This isn't a new problem, but something that obviously didn't change, which makes things hard when it seems zombies can do more on their turns than you can, even if you max out the stat giving you action points.
- The "can't shoot through objects" still exists. Had a point where my main character couldn't shoot at an enemy a few blocks away because an enemy was next to me, though said enemy was laying on the ground, knocked out.
- Before the update, to help speed up combat against zombies (especially when I had a good weapon to kill a zombie before it got a turn), I would have my main character run, then click to attack the zombie, so they'd run in, swing, and combat would start. After the update, zombies now always see you in advance, so now you end up a couple blocks away from the zombie when combat starts, so you have to waste part of a turn to close, then attack, and likely won't kill in one swing. Shortcut is gone, more time spent on combat that should be quicker.
Overall, even with the update, I stand by my previous opinion:
get it on a great deal. It's not worth their asking price of $30, maybe $10.
I'd still recommend saving your money for something else, something better.
Discourse, I have to have a newline for text before a quote to appear?
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Dwarf Fortress for Linux has the execute bit set on every file.
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SanctuaryRPG
Sanctuary RPG: Black Edition Trailer – 00:46
— GOGAs I mentioned, I'm clearing up my downloads folder, so I've been stumbling to a lot of games I'd downloaded and never moved to their proper place. This is one of them.
It's a very strange game. All the graphics is ASCII, you have RPG elements and combats are randomized. However, it is NOT a roguelike. There's no overland view, where you move your ASCII symbol and avoid other symbols. Instead, almost all interaction is done through menu systems. Normal play consists of going from place to place, interacting with NPC-s and initiating events. Then something attacks you and you enter the combat.
Combat is fundamentally similar to the strategic JRPG. You pick from various abilities, try to sequence your actions into combos and watch health and stamina meters.
All this sounds stupid, but they somehow made it work. I never liked an ASCII roguelike in my life, but I spent hours with this. Worth a try at least.
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I had plans this past weekend. They all went away after I gave this game a try.
It's a standard roguelike - permadeath, step-by-step movement, tactical combat, etc. I've tried a million games like this. However, this is the first one I remember that really hooked me in.
So what does it do right compared to others?
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Nice graphics style, not too many distracting effects
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Excellent interface, you can do almost everything through keyboard, using the menu system. This is where most roguelikes fail, they either force you to memorize 1000 key combos or use mouse.
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Removed fiddly features - no inventory weight management, food/thirst, etc.
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Added comfort features - easy identify all, sell all not used etc.
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Excellent tactical combat - you have just enough options to make things interesting, but not too many to bog you down into minutia.
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Overland exploration. Feels less like an "on rails" experience, when you can freely enter and leave dungeons.
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Overarching campaign outside of disposable heroes - after Rogue Legacy, this has become a must have feature in roguelikes.
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Humor. Granting that this is a matter of taste and that jokes will probably grow stale after a while, I'm digging it so far.
Overall, this has definitely become my next go-to "podcast" game.
... except, I can already see one MAJOR flaw that could potentially ruin it.
- No strategic layer whatsoever
Let me explain. In games with permadeath, most of the skill goes into managing long term probabilities. You want to play it safe - get the right powers early on, spend the right resources, grind the right amount before moving onward etc. The perfect roguelike playthrough probably involves a slow steady progression, with few surprises. The accent is on strategy. Tactics is secondary. If you end up sweating bullets in a boss battle, you probably screwed up somewhere along the way.
Tactics based gameplay is completely different. Mowing through thrash monsters in a predictable steady pace is boring. You want to rush in against the odds, try out different tactics, see if you can survive that higher level boss fight. Obviously, to do this, you need some way to cheaply iterate combats - quick save, checkpoints, whatever.
And Dugeonmans doesn't give you that. As fun as tactical battles are, smart player will always stay on the safe side, steadily progressing against hordes of boring same-level enemies. With permadeath looming, there's no place for trying to shoot above your rank. Any time things get tough, just retreat and come back after the next level-up.
This is where strategy is supposed to step in, but Dungeonmans doesn't have any. There is no long-term resource management whatsoever. Your hero doesn't get worn down by his/her descent into the dungeon. You'll never weight between braving one more combat and spending resources on the costly return to the surface. If you survive the current combat, you can pretty reliably retreat and fully heal / restock before proceeding onward.
Thus, the main problem with Dungeonmans is that it sets itself up with strategy in mind, but then put all the accent and fun into tactics. They should have doubled down on one or the other.
I'm still really into this game, but when I grow bored, I bet it'll be because of this flaw.
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move north
move south
move Dennis
talk Dennis
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"I was there, part of something that will never happen in the same way again, a moment in history."
I get that by taking a little drive around Houston.
And I don't even have to pay.
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yesterday I encountered a quest I've never seen before.
Happened to me last time I picked it up.
"What's that cave, I haven't seen it yet."
walks in
finds human sacrifice in progress
"Time to murder some necro!"
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You're replying to October 2014. Is that a new record?
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In terms of threads created since the Beast From The Depths Of Hell arrived, possibly. But there are replies to some of the imported threads that span an even larger gap.
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I'm getting notifications from October 2014.
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Not sure why, but I decided to start playing through the various id and Raven FPS games.
What I've finished so far:
- Doom 3: BFG Edition
- Ultimate Doom
- Doom II: Hell on Earth
- Doom II: No Rest for the Living
- Doom 3
- Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
- Doom 3: The Lost Mission
Here's what's still coming up:
- Heretic
- Hexen
- Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
- Hexen II
- Quake
- Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon
- Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity
- Quake II
- Quake II: The Reckoning
- Quake II: Ground Zero
- Quake 4
For those of you who know the id and Raven games, you might notice one or two holes in the above series. There's a reason for this...
- Hexen II: Portal of Praevus isn't on Steam.
- I never actually bought Hexen 2 back when I played it in the 90s. Arr.
- Heretic II is not on Steam
- I own this on disc (got it from my brother), but I have no idea where it went.
- Quake 3
- No single player campaign to speak of. I always preferred Unreal Tournament over Quake 3, so if I really wanted to play that kind of game...
- Wolfenstein
- I only own Wolfenstein and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Maybe I'll get into this series later.
I actually went to start Heretic last night, but the version on Steam:
- Looks terrible... like it has a film grain effect.
- Doesn't support WASD keyboard controls.
- Doesn't let you change key bindings.
So, I installed GZDoom and played the first few levels. Looked pretty good, actually... albeit a bit on the dark side. Might have to mess around with the gamma slider in GZDoom.
I found it interesting that GZDoom detected all the Steam versions of the games it supports that I have installed.... Doom, Doom 2, Doom 2: No Rest, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen: Deathnights...
- Doom 3: BFG Edition
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Is that a new record?
I think I saw someone necro'ing a thread from last June a month or so ago. Don't remember which thread. Remember wishing that they hadn't bothered…
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For those of you who know the id and Raven games, you might notice one or two holes in the above series.
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.
There was also that Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, but it's online-only and I wager the servers are dead. Also it sucked-ass.
Raven also made Soldier of Fortune, if you remember that game. I have a beta of it on burned CDs, signed by one of their C*Os (can't remember who at the moment) which I got as part of the sale of a web domain to him. So I played through that game like 2-3 months before it was released. (It's not very good.) EDIT: oh Soldier of Fortune is based on Quake II, so you gotta add that to your list.
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Remember how we were talking about Source 2 earlier?
Yeah, there's some Source 2 activity going on right now on Steam.
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Quake II: The Reckoning
Great stuff. Especially because of the Phalanx launcher.Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon
There's a bug involving a key in a level in the second episodeish thing. Hip2m3 or so?
Not sure if it's because of me using darkplaces or if it was in the original release, too.I fixed it by hacking around in the quakeC scripts.
Oh and ... No love for Final Doom (tnt:evilution + plutonia)?
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And there's also Doom 64, of course, which is a different game from Doom I&II entirely.
(Never played it, though ...)
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Well, for the Doom games, I was sticking to the ones included in the BFG Edition. I could play Final Doom and the 20 licensed levels in Master Levels of Doom as I own both sets.
As for Doom 64, I'm trying to stick to ones I legally own.
Last night, I got sidetracked dealing with TF2 PropHunt stuff and didn't progress farther in Heretic either.
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I forgot an obligatory question:
Which difficulty levels?
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When I started doing Doom 1, I did whichever one the middle difficulty was, but I have since moved up to the second from the last difficulty (the one right below Nightmare) in subsequent games.
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Well, have fun doing the Elder World in Quake I on Hard ...
I sure did the last time I did that.
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Oh yeah, I hope your wallets are ready... Steam cards for the Steam Summer Sale 2015 just started showing up yesterday.
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You're replying to October 2014. Is that a new record?
I necro'd something from September 2014 on Meta.d this morning.
https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-on-notification-link-for-moved-topic/16707/7?u=boomzilla
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Hey since you use that stupid site, get them to put in a way to remove "likes" from notifications. 10 notifications is already ridiculously small, and when they get spammed-up with "likes" sometimes only 3 of them are real notifications I give a shit about.
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Raven also made Soldier of Fortune, if you remember that game. I have a beta of it on burned CDs, signed by one of their C*Os (can't remember who at the moment) which I got as part of the sale of a web domain to him. So I played through that game like 2-3 months before it was released. (It's not very good.) EDIT: oh Soldier of Fortune is based on Quake II, so you gotta add that to your list.
Soldier of Fortune was super fun. It was the first game to to map shots to individual body parts and basically do the gore properly. It made emptying SMG-s into people very satisfying.
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You Must Build a Boat comes out today. It is the sequel of 10000000. 10000000 was a great little non-traditional match-3 game. You Must Build a Boat puts more of a game around the concept. If you email in proof of purchasing 10000000 today you can get You Must Build a Boat for free.
I have a pretty big Google Play balance due to their surveys so I went ahead and bought it.
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If you email in proof of purchasing 10000000 today you can get You Must Build a Boat for free.
How? Have a link to directions?
EDIT, ok I dug out a [link][1]:
According to Redwood, You Must Build a Boat will automatically appear in Steam and Humble user accounts when it is released.
So in theory I already have it, but I can't log into Steam from work to check.
[1]: http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/3/5375066/10000000-owners-to-receive-sequel-you-must-build-a-boat-free
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Speaking of non-traditional match-3 games, I need to see if I can find a cheap copy of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure at some point.
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will be free to those who own the first game via Steam or the Humble Store by launch day
I'm guessing there's probably nothing I can do with the Amazon Appstore version.
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He made it opt in. The email is on his twitter, which I would have linked to if I had access to twitter at work and wasn't lazy.
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See above post.
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The email is on his twitter, which I would have linked to if I had access to twitter at work and wasn't lazy.
Could you type the NAME of it perhaps? Sheesh.
In any case, I have no way to provide Steam proof of purchase if I'm not at home, so I'll just have to try and remember to do this in like 6 hours.
And he should get Polygon to correct the story because he'll have lots of pissed-off people otherwise.
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I'll just have to try and remember to do this in like 6 hours.
You could set a reminder on your Windows phone.
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I could but then I have to talk to that Cortana bitch.
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I could but then I have to talk to that Cortana bitch.
You can't do it without using Cortana? Odd.
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Well you probably can. I don't know how.
Cortana's great, but I still feel like a crazy-person if I'm in public (like in my office) and am talking to a phone with nobody else on the other end. Considering how rarely I see other people using Cortana/Siri/whatever Google's is called, I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
I use Cortana in the car a lot, usually to remind me to look up music tracks I heard on the radio.
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You can do it through the Calendar app, but it's a bit of a palava for quick reminders really
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Well you probably can. I don't know how.
Do you have a calendar app on your phone? That's how you add reminders in Android, similar to the way you do it in Outlook on the desktop.
but I still feel like a crazy-person if I'm in public (like in my office) and am talking to a phone with nobody else on the other end.
Meh. Do it while looking out of your office (or into the aisle if you're in a cube) so anyone walking by can see what you're doing, because you're holding the phone up like you're in a recording studio.
Considering how rarely I see other people using Cortana/Siri/whatever Google's is called, I'm guessing I'm not the only one
Judging from how many people walk around talking into their Bluetooth headsets, I'm not sure about that.
