whatchu playing now

i don't remember pillars having any humor which is deadly for a text heavy rpg. even baldur's gate had humor. and despite being an "original world" is just felt like a reskinned forgotten realms

There were lots of bits in Disco Elysium where I saw a new wall of text and got the instinctive "agh more video game writing" groan, but then immediately remembered that I was going to actually enjoy reading it because it's so sharp and funny

It was a brutally depressing game to play in the UK in December (it's probably even worse now!!), but it has heart

Really nice score too, didn't realise it was British Sea Power until the end credits

Bits of PoE were quite good, writing-wise – Durance, the Saints' War, Lord Raedric, the Council of Stars and especially the expansions, which are worth everyone's time imo – but even at its best it merely rises to the level of other titles in the isometric RPG subgenre, with the obvious exception of Planescape: Torment. PoE's wordiness was criticized so sharply that its sequel, Deadfire, erred on the side of concision, but it also lost much of its philosophical heft in the process, no matter how poorly it may have been handled in the first place. Anyhow, I am an absolute sucker for the original Infinity Engine games and my nostalgia knows no bounds, so I thought PoE and Deadfire were both excellent, because they got the atmosphere right, and because my fantasy standards when I'm not reading a book are undoubtedly lower than Mordy's. I haven't tried Disco Elysium yet, but I certainly plan on getting there soon. I will candidly admit to being less than enthused by its setting, however, just as I'm generally less attracted to modern and/or post-apocalyptic environments. Like most people, I play video games for purposes of escapism above all, so I'd rather just roll with whatever reawakens the dumb 13 year-old who fired up Baldur's Gate 1 a couple of months after it came out, and who took its plot oh so seriously (this, incidentally, is why I kinda hated Divinity: Original Sin I & II).

i couldn't enjoy divinity original sin for related writing reasons; it just seemed totally underwritten. the game systems were somewhat unique (at least for the genre convention) but the writing was even more generic than PoE.

really hoping they don't botch the switch port of disco elysium

Tbf to PoE's writing, much of it overtly deals with disappointment, which implies some degree of self-awareness on the developers' part and makes for a considerably more adult take on the whole fantasy CRPG shtick (hence the charges of blandness that have been levelled against it). The end result, while not stellar, is more interesting and subversive than its detractors give it credit for, even though I think the execution could have been far smoother, especially with the roster Obsidian had at the time. D:OS, on the other hand, set 'lol, whatevz' at its starting point, which just isn't appealing to me at all as a fantasy enthusiast. I want to be able to suspend disbelief, no matter how fleetingly.

to PoE's credit i often think about trying it again (or from where i left off) or taking a look at the pirate sequel but it's such a long game it's hard to commit when i wasn't particularly enthusiastic the first time through. i do remember there being some interesting things in it. i don't want to oversell my distaste for it. i did play it for 33 hours according to steam.

If you do revisit it, I strongly suggest checking out The White March, which you could probably get started on immediately if your party is already 33h in. It's not as dramatic a step up as Mask of the Betrayer was to Neverwinter Nights II's original campaign, but its writing is quite effective and it comes with a self-contained yet consequential narrative that is more skillfully deployed than in the base game.

(No idea why I italicized those titles, they're not books or albums!)

Btw, have you played Planescape: Tides of Numenera? And if so, what did you make of the writing?

Speaking of PoE, I've been playing some Path of Exile lately. It's a f2p Diablo type that is a few years old but was just released on PS4 last year. I probably wouldn't have tried it if it wasn't free, but it's pretty fun. The multiplayer aspects are handled well.

i have not played tides of numenera - i've been interested in it tho bc i've read some of the numenera sourcebooks and they looked cool -- is it worth playing?

I'd say so, although it's nowhere near as good as Planescape: Torment and parts of it are painfully overwritten. Its highs are tremendous, however, especially the so-called 'Mere'.

In a similar vein, Tyranny's setting is quite unique (you're a Judge Dread-type figure in a low-magic Bronze Age) and eminently repayable.

As for the other PoE, Grim Dawn remains my favourite Diablo clone, but Path of Exile is an incredible achievement in its own right. You need to be a hardcore theorycraft fan to thoroughly fall under its spell, though.

*Dredd

maybe after i finish disco elysium i'll check out numenara now that my taste for isometric rpg has been rekindled

I'm gonna pull the trigger on Disco Elysium as soon as it hits 50% off, hopefully this summer.

tyranny on sale atm -- only $15. should i pull the trigger? i do love judge dredd...

I'd go for it if I were you – it's fairly unique among its peers, all things considered, and worth it for that reason alone.

ok cool i grabbed it - i'll play that next after disco since numerara is still quite expensive so i'll wait for that to go on sale

ooo steam says ck3 in sept

Tyranny is better than Tides of Numenera anyway imo so you made the right call.

Maybe CK3 will mark the moment I finally leap into the franchise.

ck2 is an alltime great fwiw at this pt maybe you're better off holding out esp since the new one is supposed to be more accessible but if we ever repoll best games of all time ck2 will be in my top 10

Ok cool. Tbh it's one of those games I've partly avoided for fear of getting sucked into it because I'm fairly sure it would be up my alley.

I believe Tides of Numenara is available in xbox game pass if that's any use to you mordy

just got obra dinn and baba is you, yay for me

Baba is You is a motherfucker.

a ISS space station docking simulator.

actually really fun!

https://iss-sim.spacex.com/

loved "baba is you" and everyone in the house got obsessed by it for a weekend but I think we all got completely stuck pretty quickly

I should clarify. Baba is Me is brilliant and hard to put down, but it gets pretty tough and can drive you a bit crazy. It’s a logic game but the metaphysical fuzziness of some puzzles makes you question the soundness of the design and then immediately your own intelligence for not getting it.

Baba is You*

Still messing with me

It’s a logic game but the metaphysical fuzziness of some puzzles makes you question the soundness of the design and then immediately your own intelligence for not getting it.

'There is literally no answer for this room. Oh, wait, so it also works like *that*.'

really hoping they don't botch the switch port of disco elysium

― megan thee macallan 18 year (||||||||), Thursday, May 14, 2020 6:20 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Oh man if ever there were a game that felt like A PC Game

steam released an update where it will recommend games from your library that you haven't played - it's nice of them to recognize the problem. it recommended i play epistory: typing chronicles, which was a fun game except i felt like spent most of it wandering around trying to find the next thing to actually do. and then when i did it was a ridiculously huge horde of spiders. the thing i like about rpgs is that it offers some sort of alternative to "git gud", but i'm not sure how any of the unlockables i get from leveling up would actually help me defeat this swarm.

tried "marvel super heroes 2" the other day. lego games are really frustrating to me because of the story levels. they're supposed to be "easy" and casual but i spend most of the time wandering around trying to figure out the precise random action i'm supposed to take in order to progress, and all the "clues" they throw at me never seem to quite help. ok, i'm supposed to do something with dr. strange here. wait, dr. strange isn't in my party. he used to be in my party. did a story event i ignored make him go away? do i need to go find him? or did he just get stuck somewhere because of a bug and i need to quit and replay the level all over again? i spend half an hour smashing random stuff, none of which unlocks anything, and quit. i do not restart.

the lego games are interesting to me because the games seem to be "for kids" easier copies of whatever style of gaming is popular in AAAs. maybe the mechanics they use are done better in AAAs, but i don't care about the mechanics, i just want to get the story over with so i can wander around and look for cool shit. i never get to that part with most of the games, between the unskippable cutscenes, though at least the most recent games let me turn off the voice acting, and the frustrating story levels.

PC gamers smell of onions

i am a hybrid gamer

so scallions?

was hoping for shallots

xp rush: i actually just started playing Epistory: Typing Chronicles - love it! half of that is the gorgeous origami/low-poly art style, though. the unlockables eventually do help because you get more powers and then you can upgrade those powers to do more damage and stun.

splatoon is haaaaaard

it took like 20-30 hours of games before i had the moment where it all clicked and i felt like i was In The Zone and carrying my team on a regular basis

feels so different to all other fps - I'm a fairly competent player at those and normally keep a decent k/d... this is all so much and so fast, can really get bamboozled fairly quickly and fairly often. of course still finding my feet on weapons, and play styles, and game modes, and builds etc. but at the moment it's all... a bit much.

need to work more on my game sense and stop rushing in so often. think a lot of the time the best play is to back off, ink some more, and find a better route into an engagement. can really get rushed though quite often by teams piling onto less capable teams, and in some games you never really feel like you get going and before you know it you're beat 60:40

my controller doesn't support motion controls either : /

oh that's a fairly big disadvantage in that game once you start playing against good players

are you playing turf war still or have you gotten into the ranked modes? i preferred the latter, other than clam blitz which i hate

downloading Lonely Mountains: Downhill now. i watched a 10-minute video, and it appears to be a chilled out Trials-like game, in isometric view. instead of revving engines, think bird sound, wind and rustling leaves. i heard the words "marble madness + trials" and was instantly sold.

tell us how it goes!

that game is good

I ordered a TurboGrafx-16 Mini. Impulsively. I want Splatterhouse on tap.

Playing Days Bygone and Idle Mastermind on my phone. Days Bygone is one of those idle waves games like Clicker Heroes. It's "free" but you need to pay around $15 to get to the real game, with automatic combat and fast resets. Currently at floor 2500, where it feels like there's little progress, and the next upgrade/change to the gameplay is at floor 3000. I don't know if I'll continue. Idle Mastermind is a very nice "true idle" game, where it helps to check up on a few times a day but otherwise it runs itself. The paid content isn't worth it, and the ads are optional and capped at four a day.

Lonely Mountains is so good! very addicting, hard to put down.

i am sure that a lot of my love for it comes from it's resemblance to marble madness in some ways -alternate paths that are harder but faster, momentum based physics, isometric view, alternate control schemes.

but it's got its own thing going on. earlier i described it a "chill "game, based upon the lovely sound design. there's no music, just nature noises, waterfalls, and an awesome spinning chain sound when you catch air. i love it. there's no announcer screaming at you, no crowd, no dumb c-grade major label guitar rock in the menus.

however, the experience of playing it can be as stressful, depending on how you play it. there are 4 mountains, with 4 trails on each mountain. so 16 trails in all (i think). each one has around 8 or so challenges, which get progressively harder. the first one is simply to get to the bottom. then 2 beginner challenges - get to bottom under a certain amount of time, and get to the bottom crashing x or less times.

the interesting thing - and this is hard to explain, my apologies - is that your total time for any trail is based only on your best times from each of the trail's sections. there are 7-8 sections on each trail. let's say you do terrible on section 2 and crash 8 times. each time you crash, you go back to the last checkpoint, and your time also resets back to what it was when you reached the checkpoint. the only penalty is your crash count.

what this means is that the "beat x time" challenges consist of you figuring out how to get a really good individual time in each segment. this usually involves some sort of crazy-ass shortcut. so the "time challenges" are deceptively more interesting than they might seem, because they will require exploration and some creativity in order to figure out the best routes and pull them off.

the earlier time challenges are pretty easy to beat, but the more advanced ones are fucking intense! that's what i mean about the stress. if you decide to do these extra challenges and try to unlock the other bikes and get all the gear and all that shit, you will be intensely paying attention to the game and regulating your breathing patterns. or not...you could just take a lovely bike stroll down a trail and look for the 4 hidden whatever stones in each level.

didn't mean to write a megapost, sorry. but last thing, just to hit the important part - it just feels good to bike around. the momentum feels really good. it's easy to get into a mesmerizing groove not unlike that of the Alto's Adventure iOS games. it's fun just to do the normal turns. when you crash, you never feel ripped off, it usually seems fair. i could go on. it's fun!

@ciderpress - yeah I've been mixing it up betw turf war and ranked, mostly because the latter has 5 minute games and more fun game modes (excepting clam blitz which I also hate.)