The Nintendo Switch

because three, the game is simultaneously fast paced but also unforgiving of speeding through. There are some parts that seem to reward zipping through as fast as you can, both to avoid enemies but also to get the timed rewards at the end. There are other places where you want to explore everything to get the most upgrades before progressing to the next part.

never play Sonic the Hedgehog

on second thought, this idea seems fundamental to every platformer. most people just try to survive the first time, skipping what they can. they save exploration for 100%'ing or just squeezing some new challenge out of the game later.

the balance btwn speed + thoroughness is a critical & key part of how the game works

haha, yeah. and like sufjan is saying, fundamental to many games and even genres. balance between going as fast as you can and still doing well is kind of fundamental to being a human, whether you're doing manual labor, doing homework, or playing a racing game

How am I supposed to know what's generating the force field? Is that the fire hydrant looking things?

for this part though, i'd recommend just playing again and taking your time in that area. edge around the area, from the top or below, and get a look at what's happening. you'll figure it out

in the truest form of the rogue genre the only progress you make between runs are the knowledge + skills you've earned in previous runs

So far "Dead Cells" doesn't seem to be much of a platformer. That is, (so far) there are not many places to die from falling off, and there's really been no real precision jumps or anything. What sets it apart from other games remotely similar (from memory; I've spent much more of my life not playing video games than playing them) is the ultra-aggressive enemies that will follow you and fuck with you even when you retreat. In other games, those are the sorts of novelty enemies that show up later in the game to keep the challenge high. Here they seem to be there almost from the start. Also, I've only fought one boss so far (afaict), and it's unusual to have the bosses regenerate when you come back, too. So you have to fight them again. Definitely high-stakes and precarious! Am I right that to finish this game is akin to doing a start-to-finish game run?

But anyway, as far as platformers go, even from my limited experience and vantage I have relatively recently played Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight, Ori, and even Celeste, and this is nothing like those, imo. So far. (I've never played Sonic.) So far I'm definitely getting better at this, but it's kind of 1/2 step forward, two steps back, and it remains to be seen how compulsive I find this frustrating-by-design rogue rhythm.

hey what is the best way/site to track if switches (specifically the switch lite) are in stock at various online stores?

I used stockinformer.co.uk and it worked a charm, but I think it only tracks UK stock

thanks - looks like there's a US version too

dekudeals.com also good and for eshop sales as well.

OK, had a great run in "Dead Cells." Made it to the bell tower, killed absolutely everything, powered up like crazy and then ... no idea what to do next. There's a locked door that requires a key, can't find the key. Look all over for something I missed, and as far as I can tell I made it to every spot I can reach with the powers I had. I start looking at my watch, because it's time to start dinner, but there is of course no way to save (in theory you can just stop, but you have to leave the game running). Just searching and searching for some clue and ... nothing. So I give up and look it up online, and it turns out I have to ring these four far flung bells in order of pitch, which a) I never would have figured out and b) *even after learning that* I couldn't navigate my way around the map to find all the bells again. And then I got bored and had to make dinner and thought, well, it was fun while it lasted, and quit the game. It's totally on me, and maybe some of you more hardcore sorts were like, duh, that's a reference to Metroid 2, but me? I thought it was pretty annoying, which makes me think this game, for all I like about it - the humor, the weapons - might unfortunately just be Not For Me.

two thumbs down: way down

I had forgotten that you need to TURN IN the blueprints you collect. Don’t want to know how many I inadvertently never registered.

Oh I guess all I have to do is talk with the collector between levels? Suppose I do that everytime anyway, n/m.

i see josh is "in chicago" again

xpost I was about to say, holy shit, I had to *turn in* all those blueprints?!

You don't need that key to progress to the next level, you just need it to get the Punishment shield blueprint (which you should only ever have to do once).

I couldn't get out of that level. What did I miss? I was stuck there, as far as I can tell. There was no exit. Or can you go ... backward, to the previous level?

I think you’re just missing it, I’ve never had trouble exiting a level

You may very well be right! But I must have looked for 30 minutes, maybe more, before I literally ran out of time. I kept checking the map for places that might open up, but nada. It didn't help that that level is full of teleporters and doors and stuff. And it's all kind of irrelevant, because the next time I go back, if I bother, it will be a different map.

Sometimes uncharted hallway openings are hard to find on the map, it's true. Easy to miss the few pixels that aren't just more walls.

Plot twist! I think, ok, oooooone more try before I throw in the towel, let's see how long it takes me to get back to the tower. I boot up the game and ... surprise, I'm where I quit it! Which is to say, pretty powered up and still at the bell tower, with everything dead. That's good! But I still don't know how to get out. I look it up and I'm not the first to ask that question. It seems I need a different key to a different door, and that door is usually in a room with spiked traps. OK. So I go to every room with traps and ... I'm pretty sure I've gotten the key already. Which means there must be some door I either missed or confused for something else and lo and behold, there it is! Finally get past this level and through a couple of others before getting killed by ... The Hand of the King boss? Which, looking it up, means I actually did OK! So - I guess all is forgiven, "Dead Cells." And there's more to explore on future runs, too

sounds like you're ready for nethack

fwiw, i think the dark souls games are way more esoteric/confusing than dead cells, at least as far as items and the proper path forward are concerned

I should go back to dead souls

Obviously Dead Cells invites those comparisons, but hmm, let me think about that a sec. Well, I guess one big difference is that I went into Dead Cells 100% blind, and the way the levels generate makes it more or less impossible to follow walkthroughs, anyway. Before I played Dead Souls not only had its reputation preceded it, but so had some of its levels and battles. Oh, also, it is totally humorless, whereas Dead Cells is a hoot. One other big difference, of course, is that once you have a build or weapons you are happy with in Dead Souls, or a play style you like, that's what you get to stick with, if you want, so even when you die you more or less know where you stand when you start over and can therefore ignore a lot of the stuff it throws at you. Dead Cells, you don't necessarily start from scratch each time, but it's unlikely you will ever get to create the same build, so it forces you to change strategies and approaches even as the levels themselves shift and change. Like, Dead Souls, AI aside it's very set, so you absolutely know certain bosses, say, or levels, are trial and error. Which Dead Cells is, too, but you never quite get the same thing twice to grind away at the same way.

Anyway, Dead Souls rules, but Dead Cells is a clever lark. I think I may play Last of Us for the first time next. I like stories.

josh, tell the truth: did you start playing dead cells just because it sounds like dead souls

a game so difficult, it doesn't exist

i call it dud cells

Honestly I had no idea there was any relationship besides the two titles. But whenever the game came out (last year?) I know it got lots of good reviews and year-end notices, and that it was one of those games that developers kept, well, developing, so it seemed like a potentially good value and added it to my list for when it went on sale. Like I said before, I've never played any of the usual rogue likes, and this one I saw specifically referred to as a roguelike that gets right what a lot of them get wrong, so while I had avoided the ones I mentioned before (Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Spelunky; I did buy Death Road to Canada and Darkwood, the former I played once, the latter not yet) this one was intriguing enough to take the plunge. I'd also been looking for the occasional good Switch game to pick up between epic PS4 games, which I can also only play on the TV, which is to say, when the TV is not in use by anyone else.

https://ogn.theonion.com/the-11-best-games-to-play-for-the-nintendo-switch-1843476876/slides/4

hehehehe

would play: https://ogn.theonion.com/the-11-best-games-to-play-for-the-nintendo-switch-1843476876/slides/11

have been playing a lot of 'president' from the clubhouse games pack in btwn work/clients. always my favorite card game, very happy to have an actually deece version you can play super quick rounds of at a whim. to me that's worth the 40 bux right there, and then there are 50 other games??!? thx nintendo!

do most of the Clubhouse games have online play?

not 100% sure about that as I've just been playing against the computer... but judging from the games menus I think they probably all do yeah

SMT3 Nocturne HD OMG

cool, i'd been holding out on playing that via emulator just in case

good to see 5 still actually exists too

Super Mario Turtles 3?

am currently still being blown away by Z: BOTW so i got some catching up to do here

working on a second playthrough and its wild how much quicker/different im doing it just based on knowledge picked up the first time around

Is paper mario good?

It probably doesn't matter. I am in the middle of the world's slowest playthrough of DQXI.

No no I am

Actually probably not since I’ve taken the whole week off and have no plans other than playing DQXI, but I bet I end up taking more hours to finish than everyone else

I just finished up the horse race and a party member finally died in a desert battle. Sometimes, I'll spend a whole session on the forge.

I am still a few levels away from maxing out (at 20) the levels of my party in the DQXI demo - beat that, losers.

is dqxi really light and stupid? i think i might be into it. howlongtobeat.com says main + extras = ~ 87½ Hours

i started playing witcher 3 in march. i'm still not done, and i'm not being a completionist. i'm at 178 hours, and there are hours and hours left of DLC left. i didn't even play fucking gwent.

i need a follow-up that's big and absorbing, but not filled with ~ evil ~ and horrible load times.

ps i have never played dragon quest

if youre looking at the switch version there's a demo that includes the first several hours of the game and your progress carries over if you buy the real thing