What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

You can get special whips that grant both a buff and a debuff. I think they are single use items that you then have to repurchase. I don't have any though, since I have yet to actually get my hands on a relic.

There is a mech mechanic game in early access on steam though it isn't anything special iirc:

www.rockpapershotgun.com/mech-mechanic-simulator-is-out-now

Add me to the chorus of those disappointed with Dark Alliance. It's just an exact clone of Vermintide 2. Except not as good as that one as the characters in that game at least all played differently. Thankfully I got it as part of GamePass and didn't pay for that garbage. I might have given it another try if it had couch co-op. As it is, I'd rather fire up Diablo again.

Ah_Pook wrote: I'm looking at the new Tainted Grail game, which is a rogue like deckbuilder with rpg elements. I read it had some balance issues, so I'll probably wait till it hits it's first sale and see if it's patched up, but it looks cool anyway.

Speaking of roguelike deck builders, Roguebook also just came out. It looks verrrry much in the vein of Slay The Spire, and was codeveloped by Richard Garfield. I'll probably end up grabbing whichever one goes on sale first.

Ah_Pook wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: I'm looking at the new Tainted Grail game, which is a rogue like deckbuilder with rpg elements. I read it had some balance issues, so I'll probably wait till it hits it's first sale and see if it's patched up, but it looks cool anyway.

Speaking of roguelike deck builders, Roguebook also just came out. It looks verrrry much in the vein of Slay The Spire, and was codeveloped by Richard Garfield. I'll probably end up grabbing whichever one goes on sale first.

Well I bought Roguebook and it's real fun, so that's that. It's very reminiscent of StS, but you're controlling 2 characters at once and your deck is half and half cards for each of them. The front character takes enemy attacks, certain cards key off being in the front or back, etc so positioning and swapping your characters is important. You also explore a randomized map between encounters, rather than walking predetermined paths ala StS, which is fun but also pretty random. I can't speak to it's balance in detail or long term endgame tail or anything really, but it's a very fun one of those of you want another one of those.

I stayed up way too late last night getting my first win if that tells you anything

There has been a lot of talk about that game vis a vis it not being a deckbuilder that gives any slimming opportunities, so you never run a tight deck in the usual CCG format. Apparently Richard Garfield is pretty bored of that element of card game design?

For myself, I got back into Crusader Kings 3 and have been doing the Northern Germany game.

Gary Sax wrote: There has been a lot of talk about that game vis a vis it not being a deckbuilder that gives any slimming opportunities, so you never run a tight deck in the usual CCG format. Apparently Richard Garfield is pretty bored of that element of card game design?

Yea there's one or two random encounters that can remove a card, and you can find alchemists to transmute a card into a random other card, but that's pretty much it. You also actively get buffs as your deck hits certain sizes, so you are incentived to live the fat deck life. You can get some wild card draw going if you get certain cards/gems, but you're not always going to get those combos.

I picked up the Arkane bundle for the Steam summer sale... I was originally planning to just get Prey for 10 bucks but I've never played Dishonored, any of them, so maybe I'll dip in later.

Prey is fucking out of this world good. I'm bouncing between it and Crusader Kings to vary things up between sessions of free time with video games.

Prey is probably the best game I played in whatever year I played it. Right up there with Deus Ex for an amazing FPS that gives you all sorts of tools. Bioshock is junk compared to Prey.

Yeah, the Bioshock vs. Prey comparison is not a pretty one. I get that one built off the lessons of the other one pretty hard and they aren't contemporanous, but Prey also comes from a different PC focused immersive sim development branch from Arkane and it is just better.

I'm not super excited about this coop vampire thing they're working on but I must say Microsoft buying and bankrolling whatever Arkane works on is very, very exciting. Microsoft gives no shits about immediate sales and is in a position to really care about long tails.

I'm still loving Phantom Abyss. After you start getting relics, you gain access to different whips that have a buff such as no fall damage, and a de-buff such as more powerful guardians.

The thing is, if you get a relic while using one of these whips, it becomes blessed and the de-buff is removed. This game is super thrilling, and its bite-sized nature makes it great when you only have a few minutes.

Had a bonkers run of Roguebook last night. The gist of it was 3x of an ally that let you return your last played card to your hand, and a variety of ways to make expensive cards free. So, get a free big attack and play it 4x... It was ridiculous. By the end I also had a card that spent all your energy and did 20x damage, while also being able to generate 15+ energy a turn. For reference, the final boss had 700hp, so a 300dmg attack is pretty good

Gave Loop Hero another spin after the update. They tweaked some stuff ("magic damage" is now "pure damage", which is still unexplained so im not sure that is an improvement) and there are some new card effects. Problem for me is that I'm at what I think is the endgame IV run which is BRUTAL but I can't remember all the resources or town building upgrades I need and the thought of grinding for them is just too daunting because I'd have to figure it out all over again. They did add more speed options and it seems like it might have a perpetual save option during a run (not a "save here so I can reload it" option) so the playability is better for anyone who wants to give it a try now.

Plus all I want to play is Battletech now and that damned addicting Man Eater game

hotseatgames wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: Just in case anyone was wondering what 805 hours of learning and grinding kaizo Mario Maker 2 gets you, starting from scratch

The people who have the patience required for that kind of fuckery are wired very differently from me.

It took 6 months and 200 more hours of getting better at shells stuff, but I finally uploaded the level in question last night

Do you like Hotline Miami? Do you like Splinter Cell? Then you might want to check out Intravenous . It is currently 10% off. It plays similar to a slower Hotline Miami, but you can save whenever you want, depending on your difficulty. The AI is no joke; they will flank, they will absolutely NOT fall for the "let them all walk in the door one by one and I shoot them" trick.

So far I've only beat the first two levels, and I'm playing on Easy. The game can be insanely difficult if you want to let it. Staying in stealth mode helps with the difficulty a great deal. You can distract enemies, you can shoot out lights, trip breakers, etc.