What game are you playing?

[gerey]

Isn't that the game that portrays the KKK as evil for being against fish monsters

You're thinking of the Sinking City.

[Roguey]

I suppose you only played it once. So you may have missed its more glaring design defect. All those skills you put point into? It's a lie.

It's all RNG based. In a game railroaded such as CoC is, instead of giving you a seamless character build where, for example, if you invest in STR in chapter one you always manage to open the valve in the garage, you only increase your % of success of doing that.
So, even playing through the game multiple times, you're not guaranteed to see each path or experience all lore bits.

I remember reading that some high/low sanity scenarios were also quite highly RNG based, even if you statted your character perfectly for it. That should have been fixed with patches and now you should at least be able to reach the ending you want, if you build your character correctly.

Yeah, I could tell that through the descriptions/skill tests. You can't manually save either and it typically saves after you attempt a test. Didn't matter much to me anyway, I assume it's mostly cosmetic C&C. I believe you're able to pass all tests if you get to 100% in a skill so if you really want to see a particular outcome, just min/max. You just won't necessarily be able to see all the outcomes you want. Cthulhu's not a power fantasy.

I was able to see three endings, then I looked up the final one on youtube. Apparently no one is 100% sure how to get it. I liked the "Just do nothing" ending better anyway and that's the one I unlocked.

Isn't that the game that portrays the KKK as evil for being against fish monsters

That's the S(t)inking City. Like I said, the only modernity in this game is Strong Female Characters (and none of them make it out unscathed).

[Ratcatcher]

Yeah you're right in saying CoC isn't a power fantasy. I suppose it clashes in how I think a proper computer adventure game such as this should be designed tho. No RNG in my Monkey Island/Broken Sword/Blazing Dragons/Gabriel Knight plz.

[Ratcatcher]

Cult Simulator

Cult Simulator

Missed this. I thought I was the only one that enjoyed it. The consensus on the codex is it's a hipster game. And maybe it is but it definitely has enough mistique to keep me into it for hours.

There are a few design choices I rly don't like, like being able to 'park' cards inside other cards to avoid timers expiring. Apart from that tho I have no qualms.



Since the topic came up just a few post before this. I wrote a whole adventure for CoC (which I played with old Grim), inspired by the tenets of the Cup and one specific cultist that inspired me... Just sayin' ofc. I love it.

[gerey]

The consensus on the codex is it's a hipster game.

It is very pretentious, and you can tell the developer huffs his own farts on a regular basis. That being said, it's very unique, not just because of the gameplay, but also the premise, and the writing is on point.

I'd actually love playing a game with a similar premise that was structured as an actual strategy game.

[Kalin]

The only thing I actually dislike about Cult Simulator is the graphics, proper fixed 2D would have been so much better than the weird fuzzy artsy half-3D style, I don't explain it right but I think you sort of know what I mean. It's a really unique game though, well worth playing and Codex can go **** itself calling a cool game hipster **** while they're all sucking Disco **** (some rhyme HUH).

[SiMtRy]

The only thing I actually dislike about Cult Simulator is the graphics, proper fixed 2D would have been so much better than the weird fuzzy artsy half-3D style, I don't explain it right but I think you sort of know what I mean. It's a really unique game though, well worth playing and Codex can go **** itself calling a cool game hipster **** while they're all sucking Disco **** (some rhyme HUH).

are you gonna check out the dev's new game too ? heard that its pretty good.

[Rand]

Gonna start Robocop tonight. Maybe I should actually watch the movie first.

"Your move, creep!"

[maidenhaver]

[Rand]

I tried Wizordum; it gave me motion sickness and was not fun for me anyway.

[Roguey]

Finished Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil. Had better levels with fewer monster closets, and the double-barreled shotgun was a fun addition. The gravity gun was amusing, though not as fun as Half-Life 2's; that dinosaur Carmack was getting firmly outpaced by the younger competition at this point. Quite an interesting decision to include a renewable speed/damage/invulnerability power-up and tune certain parts of the levels so that you have to use it. The final boss was difficult in an unenjoyable way, but I got through it after a couple of tries (amused to read that they nerfed it a bit in the BFG edition). I still like nuDoom and oldDoom better.

[Rand]

Finished Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil. Had better levels with fewer monster closets, and the double-barreled shotgun was a fun addition. The gravity gun was amusing, though not as fun as Half-Life 2's; that dinosaur Carmack was getting firmly outpaced by the younger competition at this point. Quite an interesting decision to include a renewable speed/damage/invulnerability power-up and tune certain parts of the levels so that you have to use it. The final boss was difficult in an unenjoyable way, but I got through it after a couple of tries (amused to read that they nerfed it a bit in the BFG edition). I still like nuDoom and oldDoom better.

To be fair, he was only the tech director by then.
Which means he wrote engine stuff if he felt it was an interesting problem.
Make a good game dev rich and give him no deadlines and you turn them soft, getting a mediocre product.

[Kalin]

The only thing I actually dislike about Cult Simulator is the graphics, proper fixed 2D would have been so much better than the weird fuzzy artsy half-3D style, I don't explain it right but I think you sort of know what I mean. It's a really unique game though, well worth playing and Codex can go **** itself calling a cool game hipster **** while they're all sucking Disco **** (some rhyme HUH).

are you gonna check out the dev's new game too ? heard that its pretty good.

Nah I got time off so I gonna try Dream Zone, never played it and it looks aweome.

[Gregz]

Currently playing Quasimorph after putting it on hold for a while. i stumbled into the game a few years back when i was looking for roguelikes to play, but saw that the overall rating on the game was mixed. recently it had a big content update and reception towards the game seems to have been better over all.

the game plays similarly like DoomRL or its successor, Jupiter Hell. Basic Premise of the game is that you're a PMC Corporation that runs jobs around the planetary system by other big corpos.
I'm not too far into the game my self but the game offers a wide variety of guns, melee weapons, grenades, and gadgets. There's also the name of the game it self, quasimorph(osis) in which like a disease you have where the more infected you are to the disease, you can open up rifts/portals for demons to enter from.

Movement mechanic is interesting, you have 3 movemennt choices:
1. Stealth : you move only 1 time a turn but you can detect enemies nearby.
2. Normal : You can move 2 times a turn, you can also move once and shoot (you basically get 2 action points in a single turn, use it however you will)
3. Run : you can move 3 action points to spend but you cannot access your inventory,

There are a few types of missions you can get in the game which are nice to mix things up in a while. You can also trade items with colonies/cities in each planet. the economy works on a barter system so you don't really get money. you just give the item they needd and they will trade you a few items for it (guns, meds, food, etc.)


TLDR : its a fun game.

Is this a "poor man's" Jupiter Hell, or does it improve on that formula in any meaningful way?

[aweigh]

EDIT: posted it in a different thread.

[maidenhaver]

Neno's Cunny is a man's game. Welcome to the table fo men.

[Tweed]

I replayed Ultima 8 for some reason, it still sucks as much **** under ScummVM as it did under DOS. Then I played Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle since I hadn't touched them in over a decade.

Looking at old reviews for Ultima 8 it seems like most people went soft on it or even liked it except for Scorpia who tore into it good and proper for the pile of **** that it was. Nice aesthetic, terrible dungeon design (if you an call it that), fantastic music, and ground work for what could have been an interesting story if they'd actually finished the game. Still wouldn't have saved the pointless combat and platforming.

[SiMtRy]

Currently playing Quasimorph after putting it on hold for a while. i stumbled into the game a few years back when i was looking for roguelikes to play, but saw that the overall rating on the game was mixed. recently it had a big content update and reception towards the game seems to have been better over all.

the game plays similarly like DoomRL or its successor, Jupiter Hell. Basic Premise of the game is that you're a PMC Corporation that runs jobs around the planetary system by other big corpos.
I'm not too far into the game my self but the game offers a wide variety of guns, melee weapons, grenades, and gadgets. There's also the name of the game it self, quasimorph(osis) in which like a disease you have where the more infected you are to the disease, you can open up rifts/portals for demons to enter from.

Movement mechanic is interesting, you have 3 movemennt choices:
1. Stealth : you move only 1 time a turn but you can detect enemies nearby.
2. Normal : You can move 2 times a turn, you can also move once and shoot (you basically get 2 action points in a single turn, use it however you will)
3. Run : you can move 3 action points to spend but you cannot access your inventory,

There are a few types of missions you can get in the game which are nice to mix things up in a while. You can also trade items with colonies/cities in each planet. the economy works on a barter system so you don't really get money. you just give the item they needd and they will trade you a few items for it (guns, meds, food, etc.)


TLDR : its a fun game.

Is this a "poor man's" Jupiter Hell, or does it improve on that formula in any meaningful way?

By no means. its got a lot more going for it mechanically. just pirate it and try for yourself.

[WhiteShark]

I'm playing Fire Emblem 6: The Binding Blade (Fuuin no Tsurugi), first of the three GBA entries. It's the one that features Roy as the protagonist, with whom some may be familiar from Smash Bros. I really enjoy the fantasy medieval setting and the themes of the series: war, duty, loyalty, perseverance, fraternity, self-sacrifice, defense of the innocent from the powerful and the wicked. I can't help but feel moved sometimes even when I know exactly what's coming.

The game features ambush spawns - enemies that spawn into the map with no forewarning and act immediately - and was apparently the last Fire Emblem to do so. At first I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, but then I got blindsided near the end of Chapter 5 by a brigand that appeared behind me and one-shotted my fledgling Pegasus Knight, so I'm using FEBuilder to edit the spawn events such that they spawn at the beginning of the player turn before acting on the enemy turn, giving me a bit of room to react.

FEBuilder is a program for ROMhacking the GBA FE games. I've only used it to apply some patches and make edits to spawns but it has all the tools to easily and quickly edit every aspect of the game, up to and including creating your own campaign with its own roster and sprites. Evidently there are quite a number of these homebrew campaigns out there. There's one called Midori ('green') that has a roster consisting exclusively of every green-haired character from the series which, despite the silly premise, is apparently quite good. I'll probably stick to the official series for now but I may come back to try some of these eventually.

[Tweed]

Also wanted to point out with Ultima 7 that while they may have used Scientology as the face for The Fellowship, underneath it's still p.christian. Should also take note of the words typically used to describe fellowship members such as "pathetic", "fools", "emotional weaklings"," and "fascists".

[maidenhaver]

I'm playing Fire Emblem 6: The Binding Blade (Fuuin no Tsurugi), first of the three GBA entries. It's the one that features Roy as the protagonist, with whom some may be familiar from Smash Bros. I really enjoy the fantasy medieval setting and the themes of the series: war, duty, loyalty, perseverance, fraternity, self-sacrifice, defense of the innocent from the powerful and the wicked. I can't help but feel moved sometimes even when I know exactly what's coming.

The game features ambush spawns - enemies that spawn into the map with no forewarning and act immediately - and was apparently the last Fire Emblem to do so. At first I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, but then I got blindsided near the end of Chapter 5 by a brigand that appeared behind me and one-shotted my fledgling Pegasus Knight, so I'm using FEBuilder to edit the spawn events such that they spawn at the beginning of the player turn before acting on the enemy turn, giving me a bit of room to react.

FEBuilder is a program for ROMhacking the GBA FE games. I've only used it to apply some patches and make edits to spawns but it has all the tools to easily and quickly edit every aspect of the game, up to and including creating your own campaign with its own roster and sprites. Evidently there are quite a number of these homebrew campaigns out there. There's one called Midori ('green') that has a roster consisting exclusively of every green-haired character from the series which, despite the silly premise, is apparently quite good. I'll probably stick to the official series for now but I may come back to try some of these eventually.

There's a lot of modders gonna mod in the FE rom hack scene. You have to figure, most of them are developmentally stunted adults turned ******, because kids don't mod games anymore. Enter with that in mind.

[J1M]

Well it's that time again. That time where all the games I really want to play are coming out Tomorrow* (Much later in the future) and I still have plenty of time today to waste. So I turn to my old addiction, MMOs. This time it's SWTOR! Raji (SWTOR support staff) was helpful in getting my accounted reinstated so I can actually play, don't ask.

Also I know I need help



Did you know that Class/spec is no longer tied to character story? The only thing that matters is if your base story is that of a force sensitive person or not. So a Smuggler could play the entire smuggler story line as a Sniper instead of a gunslinger! I think that's neat.

I despise MMOs but I think this game can be played as a half decent rpg/coop rpg avoiding most of the mmo element.

That's pretty much how I played it ages ago. The Sith Warrior story was amusing enough for bioware slop but they fumbled the bag hard with every expansion and now all they have is a skeleton crew releasing tiny bare bones story quests and marketing them as expansions. It's kind of funny you can tell the moment a character has the potential to die that they will never do anything relevant again because they don't have the budget to make content for characters not everyone will see.

Which is ironic since doing that would create an incentive for players to spend more time on the game with an alt.

[Humbaba]

Started Larian OG Sin 2. The premise is ******* weak and I've yet to be engaged after 3 hours of gameplay. I have no idea what a "Saucerer" is and why no one likes them. So far, the companions are snarky lizard and snarky skeleton. I've also met snarky woman and snarky dwarf. The fact that I can just change their classes at will is gamey and immersion breaking and makes them feel less like people. I don't like that the dialogue options are paraphrases of what you're actually saying, seems lazy. I'm not exactly hooked so far.

The voice acting though is very good and the combat seems to be alright, from what little I've seen. Runs well too. I suppose if I gave Pillars a full playthrough I can do the same here.



-Humbaba

[Oyster Sauce]

Beat the Katamari 1+2 remakes since I just have the Steam Deck for the week. The next 4 main games in the series seem to be a PSP exclusive, 360 exclusive, PS3 exclusive, and then a Vita exclusive so... maybe I won't be touching those.

[WhiteShark]

The next 4 main games in the series seem to be a PSP exclusive, 360 exclusive, PS3 exclusive, and then a Vita exclusive so... maybe I won't be touching those.

PSP emulation is really easy and good, so assuming it works on Steam Deck, that shouldn't be a problem.

[Vergil]

The next 4 main games in the series seem to be a PSP exclusive, 360 exclusive, PS3 exclusive, and then a Vita exclusive so... maybe I won't be touching those.

PSP emulation is really easy and good, so assuming it works on Steam Deck, that shouldn't be a problem.

Speaking of which I've been playing Peacewalker on my phone with an emulator whenever I have down time during my vacation.

[wndrbr]

Playing through Vietcong (2003).

It's a Czech first person shooter from co-developers of the first Mafia game, has a similar art style with the heavy usage of photo textures. Don't know if Dan Vavra was involved, but it also has a sort of similar design philosophy of on one hand being story-focused and movie-inspired, but OTOH also trying to be immersive by having a large amount of pseudo-realistic mechanics and a brutally unforgiving difficulty.

Saving is limited (there are checkpoints that can be only accessed by calling HQ via radio, and a limited amount of quick saves per level), your character dies very quickly, your max healthbar size becomes shorter and shorter the more damage you take during the mission, one-hit-kill traps (from the typical tripwires to camouflaged holes with punji sticks at the bottom) are everywhere, levels aren't particularly big but it's still easy to get lost without a point man due to all the foliage. There's also a rudimentary squad control system, a simplistic stealth system, and you can search and loot enemy corpses and occasionally find pieces of intelligence (kinda like in NOLF). Similarly to Mafia, sometimes the game feels very cool, immersive and cinematic (in a good way), but sometimes it's a jankfest and a massive slog.

[WhiteShark]

Still having fun with FE6 but it's making me realize how much I hate secret objectives. Nearly every chapter has at least one. Look, there's a guy you can recruit - not that the game tells you you can - but whoops, he leaves at the end of turn 8 so I guess you have to restart! Some guys showed up on turn 20 saying something about sealing the mouth of a cave? Oh, there was actually a bonus chapter after this one, but only if you won in 20 turns or less. Hope you kept multiple saves so you can go back and redo the chapter! Did you keep all the suicidally brave neutral units alive during this chapter? No, there was no indication this mattered, but here's a super rare bonus item if you did!

I do not feel even a little bad for using a guide to check this stuff in advance. I'm halfway convinced it was designed this way on purpose to sell guides.

[gerey]

I do not feel even a little bad for using a guide to check this stuff in advance. I'm halfway convinced it was designed this way on purpose to sell guides.

Actually, yes - both to sell guides and to "encourage" players to call the tips hotline. FE games are tame in comparison to some other titles like Suikoden et al.

I imagine this was a conscious business decision with all the Sierra adventure games too.

[maidenhaver]

Still having fun with FE6 but it's making me realize how much I hate secret objectives. Nearly every chapter has at least one. Look, there's a guy you can recruit - not that the game tells you you can - but whoops, he leaves at the end of turn 8 so I guess you have to restart! Some guys showed up on turn 20 saying something about sealing the mouth of a cave? Oh, there was actually a bonus chapter after this one, but only if you won in 20 turns or less. Hope you kept multiple saves so you can go back and redo the chapter! Did you keep all the suicidally brave neutral units alive during this chapter? No, there was no indication this mattered, but here's a super rare bonus item if you did!

I do not feel even a little bad for using a guide to check this stuff in advance. I'm halfway convinced it was designed this way on purpose to sell guides.

I somehow got most of the gaiden chapters and rank-ups in 7 by accident. I played that one so many times, I must have found them by efficient play. I got suspicious after they introduced gaiden chapters earlier, and there inexplicably weren't any levels in the desert country. The secret shops are stupid though. Wasted mechanic having that merchant follow you, only to stock iron and steel weapons. His inventory should have included secret shop items if you scored high on your missions.