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[Aoi]

Neoverse, one of the selections on this month's (May) Humble WhateverTheyCallItNow, is the same genre as Slay the Spire but way easier due to massively increased flexibility and minimal RNG screw. Four lengthy runs in, and I'm definitely viewing it favorably. Terminology will be closer to StS for simplicity's sake. (Update: Okay, if you're used to StS or the like, it's waaaay easy... the first class is actually one of the harder ones to work with. Thankfully, there are harder modes that bring it up to something other than an easy win.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm going to ignore the aesthetic. It's not inherently bad, but it does scream certain fundamental design decisions. (Oh god, the awkward jiggle physics on the third character...)

Combat plays very differently-- unlike StS where card draw is moderately to extremely important for pretty much every build, it's practically worthless here: At the end of every turn, you discard your hard into the discard, pull five new cards off the draw pile, and keep drawing cards for each one you play until your draw is empty or you need to end your turn for some reason (no mana).

Each class has different starting loadouts and three equipment slots; the equipment can have some very dramatic effects: All sources of Block give only 1, but you get 50% healing after each battle. No artifacts. Instead, you have a randomized 5x5 grid of random skills that you have to unlock with SP earned in-run, and the bottom/right row/column of skills require the other 4 in its respective row/column to be purchased. In addition to gold/SP/cards for finishing combats, each one gives you a mission (Finish a battle taking no damage.) that you can finish at any time for extra rewards. The shop can be used at any time-- including in combat.

Only tried the first and third classes so far, but they feel fairly distinct-- the former's 'gimmick' is that a lot of her better skills use a 'heat' mechanic... every time it hits five stacks, it drops a curse card that you either have to take the hit for or let it clog your deck. The latter is a beastmaster who can swap pets in and out and manage command points.

Ultimately, despite there being a lot of RNG, each set is fairly compartmentalized (missions, enemy types, shop contents, card rewards, skill grid, etc.) and generally afford some degree of control which makes things a lot easier and less bashing your head against the wall because you're running endless shivs and oh look, it's the time eater again. Which isn't to say hard counters don't exist; my 1-out-of-4-tries loss was to an anti-Power build... where the enemy would spawn an add for every power you use.

Oh, and peacocks suck.

Edit: Okay, maybe it's too easy. If you can get ONE specific card on the beastmaster, you can roflstomp everything. Unless you run into a buff stripper, in which case the rest of your deck should be strong enough to deal with it, albeit slowly. And if you're playing the second character... I stopped paying attention to my hp halfway through.

[Dostoevsky]

Blasted Road Terror, which describes itself as a "real-time tactical looter," is a pretty neat bite-sized game.

I'd describe it as Convoy, but actually good (in my opinion). Much more streamlined and the combat is faster paced, but there is effectively no story whatsoever and no world map or whatnot. Just combat. You have a central mothervehicle plus four regular ones, versus waves of enemies in Mad Max encounters. Most missions are short, though there are 'patrols' which basically string together a series of encounters while managing resources.

It does a good job of the aesthetic. Weapons range from 'spearboys' (i.e. the explosive spear chuckers from Fury Road) to giant lasers, vehicles are nicely cobbled together, music & sound is properly crunchy, etc. I find myself coming back to it from time to time for an hour or two, as it does a good job of scratching an itch. It's also pretty cheap (9 bucks, but frequently on sale).

Spoiler: Rather more on it (click to show/hide)

Combat is quite like Convoy but faster-paced - kinda-sorta tower defense on the move, protecting your central vehicle with your smaller vehicles and fending off enemies. There are several missions types, but they generally boil down to 'kill this stuff and maybe protect some unarmed allies while doing so'. Between each mission you return to a central hub for shopping/repairs/upgrades/etc. Only real objective over time is strengthening your team + base and doing harder missions.

Effectively no game over condition, but only one autosaving save slot - you lose a smaller vehicle it's permadead (you can always get more); you lose the central big vehicle and you fail the mission + lose your full team (if I recall). You have some garage slots to store vehicles and equipment in, though, so if you're fairly far along and get a TPK it's not like you've lost everything. Damage to a vehicle persists past the mission, which means you'll be keeping a decent stable to swap in out and for repairs as needed.

One amusing mechanic is that as your team gets stronger, they'll object to easier missions - you have to pay them off to do one, which could potentially eliminate profits entirely. Losing one of your vehicles sufficiently chides them into not objecting against easy missions for a while, which help you recover from losses. (You can also just swap out your vehicles for weaker ones.)

There are several different damage and armor types - HP, Fury, and Armor. Fury is basically Mad Max-ified shields. Damage types are have their pluses and minuses version protection types, along with overall traits / behavior. E.g. explosives very good against Fury, crummy against armor, and tend to be low ROF + high power weapons. The four different enemy factions each have different strengths in weapons and protection, so you need to kit up your team properly before a mission.

Only three options for the biggie vehicle but each one has a skill+equipment upgrade tree, which lead to one having a few different weapons plus at least one special active ability (plus a bunch of passive bonuses). The biggie can move from side to side a little during a mission, but that's it.

Over a dozen regular vehicles, falling into several groups. Interceptors are basically speedy tanks; Marauders are fragile but have wide attack angles and secondary weapons; Attack vehicles are specialized damage dealers, and Support vehicles are, er, kind of other. They level up to increase stats, but don't have upgrade trees. These smaller vehicles can move around more freely, though generally speaking staying close to the mothercar is advisable.

There are also 'hero' vehicles - basically mercenaries that bring their own equipment and are utterly expendable, but which have an upfront cost + take a portion of the mission payment. They can also be classes that you don't have normal access to - e.g. a biker.

Regular vehicles each have one armor and one weapon slot. Armor is generally just stats, though rarer pieces can come with special abilities like an additional weapon or special perks.

Weapons come in several types across three classes. Light has relatively short range but a 360 angle, medium has restricted angles but a good mix of stats, and heavy slows the vehicle down but packs a punch. Each one also has a damage type, which has pluses and minuses. Weapons also have ammo ratings - you'll have a total ammo capacity across your team that you can't go over. No need to worry about running out of ammo in-mission, just means that you can't just use all heavy weapons. Usually comes down one heavy, one light, plus a mix of others, though ammo ratings within a weapon class can be pretty broad.

[Iduno]

Has anyone else played Tyranny? I got it as part of a Humble Bundle, and I'm far enough in that the hope for an interesting game has kind of died. It seems to be pretty disappointing for a game you get as part of a Humble Bundle.

From the way-too edgelordy story, to Paradox's need for players to be unable to do anything particularly interesting, it just doesn't seem to have much to offer. Am I missing something?

[JWNoctis]

Tyranny is...another game I needed to finish, someday, somehow.

But the 1/3 of it I did go through felt almost like a simplified version of Pillars of Eternity except for its magic system which, to me, was pretty neat. The wordiness and extra demands on role-play was exactly the same, and some of the choices were sufficiently out-of-the-box for me, though I suppose it's hard to have a not-edgy story with one of your sidekicks literally wrapped head-to-foot in it.

So, yes, it's a nice game in my book...nice enough to make me want to finish it someday, at least.

[Iduno]

Tyranny is...another game I needed to finish, someday, somehow.

But the 1/3 of it I did go through felt almost like a simplified version of Pillars of Eternity except for its magic system which, to me, was pretty neat. The wordiness and extra demands on role-play was exactly the same, and some of the choices were sufficiently out-of-the-box for me, though I suppose it's hard to have a not-edgy story with one of your sidekicks literally wrapped head-to-foot in it.

So, yes, it's a nice game in my book...nice enough to make me want to finish it someday, at least.

I think a combination of the "scrape and save for a 0.5% increase in this stat with this slight malus" combined with early enemies who are immune to certain elemental attacks (and come in mixed packs, so you might need 3-4 elements with your 2 spell slots) when you have a very limited number of spells is just frustrating enough that the game isn't fun anymore. The spell system could be neat, if there were enough components to make more than a dozen different spells. The absolute scaling (all enemies scale to whatever level you are with no limit, and skills are tied to level) also means you can never come back when difficult enemies are easier, because they never will be.

Edit: I wasn't a fan of POE for similar reasons, so being a not-great POE knock-off isn't going to cut it.

[Kagus]

That just sounds like Tyrannyphobia to me.

[Iduno]

Endless Space:
"These 96 school students need to reach Mars in the Sol System...for a historical field trip."

Yeah, I'll be getting right on that, school system. I'm kinda short on bunks (have 14), though, so it would help if you put them in these livestock crates for me. Look, for the money you're offering, I'll take 96 tons of school students, I just can't handle loose students. You still don't have seatbelts on buses, so I know you aren't particular about them arriving in one piece. It'll be fine.

[Akura]

Endless Space:
"These 96 school students need to reach Mars in the Sol System...for a historical field trip."

Yeah, I'll be getting right on that, school system. I'm kinda short on bunks (have 14), though, so it would help if you put them in these livestock crates for me. Look, for the money you're offering, I'll take 96 tons of school students, I just can't handle loose students. You still don't have seatbelts on buses, so I know you aren't particular about them arriving in one piece. It'll be fine.

Are you sure that's Endless Space? And not, say, Endless Sky?

[IncompetentFortressMaker]

I think Iduno is talking about Endless Sky. I've seen historical field trip jobs like that before in Endless Sky. Also in Endless Sky: aliens. Quite a few aliens. I won't say any more than that though, for the sake of avoiding story spoilers.

[Iduno]

Endless Space:
"These 96 school students need to reach Mars in the Sol System...for a historical field trip."

Yeah, I'll be getting right on that, school system. I'm kinda short on bunks (have 14), though, so it would help if you put them in these livestock crates for me. Look, for the money you're offering, I'll take 96 tons of school students, I just can't handle loose students. You still don't have seatbelts on buses, so I know you aren't particular about them arriving in one piece. It'll be fine.

Are you sure that's Endless Space? And not, say, Endless Sky?

Yeah, that thing.

[AlStar]

Has anyone else played Tyranny? I got it as part of a Humble Bundle, and I'm far enough in that the hope for an interesting game has kind of died. It seems to be pretty disappointing for a game you get as part of a Humble Bundle.

From the way-too edgelordy story, to Paradox's need for players to be unable to do anything particularly interesting, it just doesn't seem to have much to offer. Am I missing something?

I actually finished a playthrough of Tyranny just recently. Enjoyed it enough that I might loop back around sometime to try being allied to one of the other possible factions.

I think it most shines in its magic system - especially when you get up to three digits worth of Lore skill. You really start feeling godlike, hurling around massive frost-fireballs, beams of negative energy, chain lightning, and the like. To that end, I fully recommend taking the leadership skills that increase the number of spell slots that everyone has, then having the stupid ones eat/drink/whore their way into a high enough lore skill that you can teach them some healing and/or buff spells that they can cast on themselves/eachother - they don't need to stay smart enough to cast the spell, just to learn it.

My only complaint is that the last 4th of the game feels very rushed - on your road to taking over towers, you go through elaborate dungeons for the first two... and the last couple are literally just single rooms. Also, the expected final boss fight... isn't.

[Iduno]

They're working on a new Gearhead, called Gearhead Caramel. I don't know, either. But it does mean they're probably done with Gearhead 2.

It's a free game where you pilot a mech, and then keep bolting parts on until it's awesome. Or you run around as just a human. The difficulty scales (fairly quickly, from what I remember) based on how successful you are, so you generally succeed in a mech a few times to get more money (and salvage parts?), then go get beat up as a person so your mech doesn't get blown up. Also, your mission and character background are procgen, with hilarious results. The original had a great skill system where I think you could win as anything from a soldier to a rock star to a mech engineer who makes insane frankenmechs that have 40 wings all attached to each other with several guns on each wing. I'm not sure that one was meant to be taken seriously, but the second one sounded more serious? I haven't played the second one yet, so someone else will have to step in. The games aren't impressive-looking, but they also cost you nothing, so give them a try.

Anyway, they're trying to hire people to make the new game, so it will probably be an actually great game. Here's the dev's website.

[Akura]

I remember hearing something about that before, but must have forgotten. Neat.

From the most recent release notes on Caramel's Github page:

Performance now gives weaponized singing in combat. LISTEN TO MY SONG

[n9103]

Spoiler: Relevant (click to show/hide)

[Niveras]

I liked Tyranny pretty well. Yes, it's a crapsack world, I wouldn't call it edgelord fantasy though. In a setting that dystopian, it seems reasonable to me that it would be real hard to be a true paragon of virtue where you can walk around unequivocally helping everyone. The decisions you make have consequences (in-world even if the story feels railroaded despite the choices you make) and, in-character, would have to be made with pragmatic considerations.

I did find the combat pretty easy/forgiving, which helped. I wouldn't have wanted to play through it four times to learn skill combinations that break the game.

I really liked the setting would have wanted to explore it more, by whatever means. I'd really like to know about the history of the oldwalls, how they are related to the spires, and how the spires and oldwalls (and undoubtedly the ley-line energies they're built on) relate to the history of the world, edicts, and the overlord. (Though maybe the character is only compelling because it is enigmatic, and any portrayal would simply fail to meet expectations that have been built up.) The expansion covers a tiny bit of it but not much.

But I don't think any of that is going to happen. I haven't kept up with it but I'd seen it mentioned that the IP owners aren't merely non-committal about a sequel, but actively refuse to do so.