Weekly ‘What games have you been playing’ thread #25

Started Space Haven a few days ago. People have been comparing it to Rimworld (maybe, haven't played RW yet but the description looks close) and FTL (kinda, but not really seeing that). My personal parallels are Sims and OG X-COM (1994 version, haven't played the newer ones though).

It's early access, so there are some warts and imbalances, but overall like it so far, it's fun.

Hoi4

Far: Lone Sales. Comfy non-narrated art game that’s like a 2d walking simulator but using a Ghibli-like ground ship transport apparatus. You keep going right, and solve puzzles to keep progressing. It’s short.

lmao that neighbor ded

Sonic Frontiers The fact they added all the previous music tracks as quest rewards is making me do a completionist run.

I've been playing Let's School. It's very thoughtfully put together, and is a very interesting management sim. Unlike most similar games, you actually have to construct a bureaucracy to run your school, which is something I never knew I wanted in a game. On the other hand, many of the features are very poorly explained, which means a lot of trial and error. It has a pretty good artsyle as well. I'm gonna try to post a longer review comparing with two point campus some time this week.

I started playing Final Fantasy XIII, which is actually my first Final Fantasy.

Holy moly this game is a drag and every map so far is a hallway. I can’t control my party members. I do like the combat though.

Dwarf fortress to get unrusty for the rdrama succession game.

Sometimes some northgard because it's nice to play a game with a definite end objective

Been playing Yakuza Kiwami off and on for a couple of weeks now. When on meetings at work lately, I've been playing through the Deathless megawad for Doom. Pretty excited for Voxel Doom II in August, though I'll probably need to run it on a real PC and not some cheap Chinese handheld.

Semi-current game: Crying Suns. Basically FTL type game where the ship-ship combat is a pausable RTS on a hex grid where carriers send out squads of smaller ships. That part is good simple fun but sadly they completely ruined it with the "clicking around on the map between combat" part. You just wait and wait and wait for UI animations and interstitial visuals. When you make one of the "I will risk my crew in this random encounter" choices, it will fade to black for 5 seconds before revealing the outcome, just to be annoying. You get to send your crew on a ground mission: pick a commanding officer according to your crews' skill-based loot/casualty probabilities, and .... sit there for two minutes watching skill checks. They have a better storyline/writing than a lot of games, but are too hopped up on it and have you clicking through endless exposition. Would not recommend for these reasons.

Retro games: The original inconsistently named spaceshit FPS, Dark Forces/Jedi Knight.

Star Wars: Dark Forces: It's spaceshit DOOM! Its engine has several advances over DOOM such as "jumping" and "looking up/down". You are Kyle Katarn, space private military contractor. Introduces a key facet of the series which is ridiculously scaled Star Wars architecture with bottomless pits all over. Good levels, good guns.

Star Wars: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight: It's spaceshit Quake! Still its own engine, it's at the pinnacle of the pre-Half-Life FPS. All storyline development remains in amazingly cheesy greenscreen live action cutscenes. Surprisingly it turns out Kyle Katarn has fun space wizard powers to aid him and a lightsaber to fight the Dark Jedi bosses. Great guns and good levels.

Star Wars: Dark Forces 3: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast: Spaceshit Quake 3! Now it is literally on the Quake 3 engine. Not gonna lie, now it sucks as a shooter. Guns mostly suck now, ranged combat feels tedious. It is great as a space wizard simulator. You run around with your lightsaber and powers absolutely massacring hordes of stormtroopers or alien criminals, occasionally having a miniboss lightsaber battle. The villain figures a way to trans space normies into space wizards so you have plenty of miniboss lightsaber battles rather than just the few boss battles of the last. Power usage is more integral than the last one. Unfortunately they made Kyle Katarn forget how to be a Jedi so you have to play like 1/4 the game as a shitty shooter before you become a Jedi again. Once you get the lightsaber you mostly abandon the guns except for an occasional sniper rifle or anti-material heavy weapon shot. Levels feel pretty generic.

SHOW MORE

I took a break from Conquest of Elysium 5, but now I'm back on my illusionist bullshit.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1606340/Conquest_of_Elysium_5/

Also been playing some STNC Stellaris. !trekkies

Star Trek: New Civilizations is a total conversion mod for Stellaris that turns the universe into an approximately lore accurate Star Trek grand strategy game. If you know the show lore, you can navigate events pretty well for a newbie. The multiplayer is super fun, and they even have mechanics for the Borg, Obsidian Order, Tal Shiar, and Mirror Universe events. There's also crisis events that can threaten your empire, including an extra-dimensional invasion. It's pretty legit.

You can pick up Stellaris and share DLC/Mods and such for like $10 on G2A or on sale.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/

Dead space 3 I basically got it free on steam as the bundle of all 3 was cheaper then buying 1 and 2 Separately (it was like 10$ for all 3). But yeah it’s bad shit opens up with some cover shooting uncharted butt shit and even on hard you are swamped in ammo and health. The weapon making would be cool in any other game but not a dead space one as the necromorph type enemies are not strong enough to deal with making Op butt guns.

I finished the original Punch Club. Lazy bear makes some half cooked mobile game tier shit but I still somehow end up enjoying their games, maybe it is that "soul" I have been hearing so much about. IDK if I have time to play through Punch Club 2, my life is starting up again soon, and I really should be getting ready.

Finally beat Persona 5 Royal, really liked the game but was ready to be done with it. Now I’m playing through Inscryption, it’s a total mindfrick of a game and I love it. Anyone know any other similar games [not really the deck building so much as the 4th wall breaking puzzle stuff]

Dividing my time between Soma, Bioshock 2, and FFX

Playing Humanity, a trippy little Japanese puzzle game. It has that kinda gonzo Dreamcast vibe, and it’s very satisfying.

I would recommend Library of Ruina if you’re a masochist who likes card battlers. It also has a great story and good music

Don't remember if I said this in the last thread, but I finally gave Witcher 3 a try. Quite different from the previous 2 games that were more linear so I'm a bit overwhelmed, but liking it. So far I've finished the Bloody Baron questline which was very interesting and well written

The Wandering Village.

Not a bad little colony sim. But I hate that the only way you get villagers is by finding them and not natural growth.

Nothing. I finished Dave the Diver and everything else seems so insubstantial by comparison.

There should be massive NMS update the week after next though, so 🤞🏿

Starsector new update. like the new AI ship

Bought that Aliens RTS. Pretty good but the lack of a manual save feature kills it. Not everybody is a teenager or a redditor with aeons of free time to spend on vidya- some of us only get short periods of free time for le space invaders.

Found out it saves whenever you use an elevator so I have to rush back into an elevator like a homeless person looking to pop a squat every twenty minutes.

This is why your elevators smell so bad btw.

I've been mostly playing train games this week (New Vegas and HoI4).

I've been playing terraria after 7-8 years I think? The new master mode is great! One of the best additions. But I foolishly decided to play on mediumcore and I've been paying the price in pulled hairs ;(. I HATE GOBLINS .

Oh, and I was also playing through XIII again. One of the few actually good Ubishit games.

Making my gf jealous

Dave the Diver - cute and funny little game, but it's slow going