whatchu playing now

they fixed the one hard jump in meat circus in all releases since 2011. still an annoying stage!

Black Mesa, cos its currently £3.74 on steam.

I'm finding it hard!

Playing Ace Attorney Chronicles. Currently defending classic Japanese author Natsume Soseki from the accusation that he's stabbed a woman in London.

playing tales of arise right now. while i prefer the anime style of the previous games, i have to say i'm really impressed that they were able to pull off the "next-gen" look while still feeling like a tales game

as the resident fan of tales games not called vesperia i ought to be playing that but i am behind the curve on new jrpgs still. looking forward to getting to it next year

Been playing a bit of Spiritfarer, coop mode (my friend plays as the cat), and am enjoying it mostly.

It's clearly a linear experience, dressed up to give the idea you're making choices, but the characters are interesting enough and I'm keen to see where it all goes. I do like the mini games for each room you build, the Sawmill one is so hard though.

I'm a big boat fan in games, and not enough games let me just sail around and maintain a boat. Not necessarily interested in combat or exploring islands I just want to do mundane tasks on a boat. Let me just scrub the deck all day long amongst the roaring sound of the waves please.

Just finished Psychonauts 2! It's fantastic. The PSI King level has to be one of the most beautiful platform game levels I have ever seen. But it's amazing how gross and horrifying it can be too (teeth level, glove puppet boss fight...) I do wish they did more with certain characters, but that's a minor quibble. And being able to explore all the locations and complete the side-quests at your leisure after beating the game is a nice touch.

Star battle
Star battle
Star battle

echoing Duane's post - finished Psychonauts 2, was great fun and that PSI King level was incredible looking. so much wit and invention throughout.

Really loving The Long Dark. Survival game where you're dropped into the Canadian wilderness and have to scrounge for food, shelter, supplies, all that good stuff. Thankfully free of zombies and monsters and what-have-you, just gotta deal with the elements and the wildlife. Top notch if you're into the genre.

Yeah might have to check that one out, thanks

was mivered into playing duos on Fortnite with my 12yo nephew. He is level 70 or so and I'm 2, so matchmaking had us against easy prey for him and so-so for us. We won a fair few games, but it was just as annoying as I remembered it and I'm out already.

had fun with the new wario game but the thing where you have to push right when you want left and down when you want up is just beyond my capabilities

turn the controller upside down

I'm in a PC adventure game mood. I recently beat Toonstruck which was great. I started Legend of Kyrandia but I don't like it so far -- it's very much a King's Quest clone, with similarly illogical puzzles. I got stuck in a cave, and it turned out that to progress you have to drop glowing rocks on every screen -- they go out if you change rooms while carrying them, but if you drop them they never go out. Riiiiiiight.

I also just discovered http://magneticscrolls.net which might become a huge waste of time.

It's interactive fiction comp time, so I'm back on my IF roll. Seems to be less outright bad stuff than some years, the general quality is pretty good, but nothing's blown my mind so far. (I know there's an IF comp thread but I'm often the only person there so thought I'd post about it here instead.)

Anything stand out for you, Emily?

I haven't played them all yet, but the ones I've given the highest scores to so far are:

And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One by B.J. Best
The House on Highfield Lane by Andy Joel
The Song of the Mockingbird by Mike Carletta
What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed by Amanda Walker

I also had a fair bit of fun with:

4x4 Archipelago by Agnieszka Trzaska
Grandma Bethlinda's Remarkable Egg by Arthur DiBianca

I played Psychonauts (1) for an hour, and man, it just felt BAD. Muddy graphics, annoying controls/camera -- I'm not sure I want to go on.

I haven't played 1 since it launched, but 2 is definitely a much more refined experience.

Thanks abanana for the Magneticscrolls heads up

Inscryption, which seems pretty great so far, but I think I've only just scratched its surface

finished Superliminal, fun puzzle game. presentation heavily influenced by Portal but the mechanics made it feel enough like its own thing.
playing Carto now, another puzzle game but a lot more simple, more of a chillout game with nice atmosphere & music.

Carto totally sounds like my vibe. Will wishlist it

Carto was more of a "casual" game than I expected.

inscryption is so goddamn good

haven't started it yet but it's probably the first game i bought new in years (i think the last one was BOTW) on the strength of the gamejam it was based on (sacrifices must be made, free on itchio). just want to carve a good chunk of time to spend with it.......

Damn, that looks great. I loved The Hex, too (and I did like Pony Island but was bad at it).

Windows only atm, though ;_;

is it just me or is it deliberately invoking The 7th Guest?

Picross 6 baby. But seriously - I really need to stop, it's compulsively addictive

Played If On A Winter's Night, Four Travellers last night. It's short but pretty. The puzzles are not difficult so it all ends up being a bit of a walkthrough. It's free on Steam though so if you have a spare couple of hours..

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1603980/If_On_A_Winters_Night_Four_Travelers/

inscryption is excellent but i should caution anyone curious that it's not really the same thing as the sort of deckbuilder roguelikes that are endlessly replayable (slay the spire etc.), it's drawing on those but going in a very different direction. it didn't really come across as a bait & switch or anything to me given the dev's history but i've seen people very put off when they discover that it isn't aiming for the same thing as slay the spire etc.

Not that I've played that many new games this year, but The Forgotten City is now in my top spot for GOTY. It's soooo good and has thoroughly colonized my brain

i just went to check what it is and it was on my wishlist already whoops

there are too many games to remember let alone play

"a mixture that seems to be placed in the middle of the trio of wonders composed of Skyrim, Myst and the little known Shadow of Memories by Konami." SOOOOOLD

Far Cry 6. Not the deepest game, has some fun bits

Shadow of Memories call-out? goddamn i'm in

Hahah, I'd never heard of Shadow of Memories before, the PS2 era really is its own trove of forgotten treasure, huh?

Enjoying Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous so far. I got the first one, Kingmaker, free with a Humble Monthly thing after a lot of the initial launch problems had been heavily patched and found it to be pretty polished and satisfying as far as party-based, statty D&D type rpgs go

I am somewhat regretting choosing to be an Arcane Rider and having this big horse following me round people's mansions all the time

xp On the one hand absolutely positively the best non-Nintendo console ever. On the other hand, scientists so preoccupied with whether or not they could recreate the FFVIII ballroom scene in real time, they didn't stop to think if they should...

only one mention of days gone itt, wasn't even nominated for C&P 2019, i feel like i didn't know anything about this game on its release even though it was apparently heavily advertised.

i've been consistently surprised? delighted? by the dialogue and narrative decisions at points in this game. the setting itself is nothing super special but the voice direction and acting is spot on (when it wants to be), and there's a couple of genuinely neat story twists (including one that's subtly "built in" to the ux), i am really enjoying this game!

also, forza horizon 5 is a maximalist absurd joy.

and back 4 blood is satisfying/exactly what it needs to be

jackbox 8 is good but doesn't (yet?) hit the highs for me of previous packs.

i started fucking with Green Hell and i liked it but gotta dive back in at some point. interesting survivor game.

(looking at my lists to see what i haven't talked about yet. i've been playing a lot lately!)

humankind feels like a solid civ vi competitor, but after finishing one campaign i haven't had the urge to go back. i should when im done with all that other stuff above.

i started the somnium files bc those spike chunsoft games are a guilty pleasure, but i didn't have the stomach for it. might go back might not.

i got stuck 5 minutes into cruelty squad, i hate getting stuck 5 minutes into anything so i didn't go back >:(

oh and loop hero is decent!

i wanna play forza horizon 5 badly but also want to wait and play it on a Next-Gen console even though 4 looked and ran great on my pc. car games feel like they demand new hardware as part of the experience

in my circle days gone mostly got dunked on for being the n+1th gritty open world checklist game of the generation as well as the n+1th zombie survival game. and also for having a main character named Deacon St. John

i can tell ya that FH5 runs pretty much the same as FH4 on my pc, and both ran far better than a lot of non-car stuff does! (my pc is... 1 year old? but only ("only") a 1660 TI in there so it's not like i'm tracing rays or flopping a lot of gigs here)

and re: days gone, i have a lot of patience for variations on a tired theme, and i gotta say a lot of moments in this one really feel like they just do a way better job than i expected. it's an extremely assured and surprisingly subtle character story handled with a maturity and grace i wouldn't expect from a game with... yeah, a guy named deacon st. john

played a bit of FH5 earlier, not into driving games at all but even I can tell how well made it is. also first time I've noticed how effortless everything is made to feel with the new fast hard drives, no loading screens or wasted time, just 4K dopamine hit after hit poured into the eyes.

i didn't think i was into car games until i first tried forza horizon, the open world checklist/collect-a-thon formula really really works for that type of game, much more than action/adventure/rpg type games imo