Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

I agree that the aging process in CotL needs to be slowed down some. I named my initial cultists after Discord buddies, but before long they started dying off one after another and I ran out of buddies.

Maybe if they aged a "year" every two days, or had an average lifespan of 60 years before hitting Old rather than 40, it'd be more bearable.

I think quite a few things in the game are over-tuned. And I think that goes along with the pace the game is trying to set. Like, I feel like you blaze through the Lamb's tech tree and commandments because there's SO MANY sources of faith and divine inspiration, just taking a little time off from dungeoneering gets you tons of upgrades. I really like CotL but I would take most of the systems at 20% slower speed. People don't age so fast, you aren't unlocking something new every single day and you're not "having" to go collect divine inspiration 3 to 4 times a day, not even bothering to assign anyone to actually worshiping. It's part of what gives the game its pacing and it's still pretty fun. But it's more on the twitchy side of the spectrum versus the chillaxed one. The only cultists I even deign to remember anymore or check up on what they've been up to are the ones I gave (what seems like the Eternal Life necklace) to. My first cultist got one and he's in his 90s now and still hasn't aged into the olds yet.

[Sirus]

Can't say I disagree honestly. It's got the ingredients of a great game but the cult management aspects could stand to be slowed down in all aspects. This would not only allow players to connect with cultists before they die off and maybe have more fun with rituals (which also need some expansion; for example, why can't I sacrifice one cultist to grant another improved powers or unnaturally long life?), but also give them more time to do extended deep dungeon runs before they need to run home and take care of things.

[nenjin]

Yeah, I'm not sure how you're supposed to find the time to do these "extended" dungeon runs. It takes at least a full day night cycle to get through a dungeon, and by then most cult aspects need tending to (faith, poop, food, etc...) How you're supposed to be gone for two to three days and not have your cult at zero faith, covered in shit, surrounded by dead bodies and starving is beyond me.

[Sirus]

Well you can build multiple outhouses and prepare extra meals in advance, so that covers part of it. Janitors can help keep any accidents cleaned up while you're gone. Faith decrease definitely hurts though and I haven't found a way to counter it other than going back to tend to the flock.

So far the longest I've been able to be gone is a two-boss dungeon run.

[nenjin]

Food never seems to fill up completely after 12 or so cultists. I've tried to leave extra food out but it doesn't really seem to help? The poop thing is largely manageable. What's not manageable though is old age and death. 2 days is enough time for someone to croak and really fuck up faith for the whole flock.

About the only solution I've found is dose the cult with mushrooms and then immediately go on your excursion, and hope you make it back within two days before the mushrooms wear off.

[Aoi]

Backpack Hero... another pre-release/Steam demo, except this like Luck Be a Landlord: The RPG. Effectively, you've got a Tetris-style inventory, and you're pulling from there to attack, use items, block, etc. The twist here is that your item positioning greatly impacts the effectiveness of an item. Boots benefit from having extra inventory slots above them; helmets must be in the top row, heavy items will drop to the bottom of your bag, etc. A more dramatic example? Cleavers are fairly weak, 1x1 weapons... but there are two rarer variations-- 'When used, use the adjacent above cleaver.' and 'When used, use all adjacent diagonal cleavers.'

Playing the updated EA version, instead of the Itch.io demo...

One of the new classes' basic mechanic is actually really nifty, and I feel like there's an entire game buried in its mechanic alone. (I also feel like I've seen something very similar before, but can't quite place it.)

Spoiler: Screenshot and explanation. (click to show/hide)

This character is a robot that, unlike the other characters, you have to pre-program your moves by arranging your bag and directing 'charges' that trigger items as it moves over them. Mine is fairly basic, running only one charge, but extremely potent--

From the bottom, the heart (3,1) fires a 3AP charge upwards, triggering the 0AP machete, the 0AP hatchet, through the elbow, gets +1AP, goes through some junk, bounces off what looks like the dead end node on the right (10,4), goes back towards the left, picks up another bonus +1AP, through the elbow that has now flipped around, trigging the 0AP shiv, through the corner elbow, triggering the 1AP dagger, through the elbow, triggering another 0AP shiv, going through the machete, triggering ANOTHER 0AP shiv, before hitting the 0AP gun (1dam per distance the charge travelled), then the club twice as it moves along, triggering the second gun, taking the elbow upwards, activating the damaged sword, hitting the blue shield generator (1shield per distance), before ending its turn in the upper right elbow that deals extra damage.

What makes this board a particular monster is that every weapon triggered gets a buff for the remainder of the battle, and adjacent weapons get buffed for the turn... the end result is that this basically turns into a meat grinder that starts out small.

Though, one thing I do find kind of... almost offensive is that the default post-game endless mode becomes nigh mechanically impossible starting floor 15 or so; a run is officially over after the boss of floor 9.

Part of the problem is that curses (a negative item that you are forced to put into your inventory or take damage) never reset their damage counter-- eventually, they'll 1-shot you, or you'll be RNG'd to death because one particular curse can only be removed my medics, and there's no guarantee you're going to find one... I was running around with 16 inventory slots wasted because of that, but still alive, until...

Poison. I was fighting something that could inflict 23 points of poison a turn, uninterruptable (other than killing them), with 40hp, and poison penetrates all forms of defenses. There's something like ONE weapon that can remove 2 points of poison every time you use it, and a handful of consumables that can remove it all. Except it'll just reapply it next turn, So... yay... Note that there IS specifically an Endless Mode that has no poison or curses, but that doesn't feel right either, since curses are a very reasonable way to screw with the player's carefully constructed inventory... or take a reasonable damage hit. (Maybe let the medic reset the counter.)

[Kagus]

Picked up Cultist Simulator a little while ago (and while I know there is a thread, I'm not sure if necroing it is the best course of action... especially considering it's still listed as a thread about the Kickstarter for it), and... Well, I have kinda mixed feelings. I've definitely put in a fair amount of time these past days, as it keeps hooking me in and keeping me going for one more expedition, one more dream ritual, one more dream etc... But the focus on exploration and experimentation, I.E. "you don't know shit. Learn by trial and error until you do know shit" combined with the length of some runs makes it so that I end up playing very defensively, which... Can turn into a bit of a slog. I've finally started loosening up a bit about notoriety/hunters (instead of trying to always keep the board clear, leading to incidents where I end up making a grim idealist tenacious mystic enemy for myself), but yeah... There's a certain dip in the midgame that seems to just grind along for a while if you don't want to drown in court cases.

Another weird thing is again related to the same exploration/experimentation aspect... Trying to actually talk about your experiences becomes extremely difficult if you don't want to A) Spoil something for someone, or B) Have something spoiled for you. So that's about as much as I can say.

So now here's some technically kinda spoilery ranting from someone who's had one standard victory and sub-30 hours of faffing around.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First run ended miserably in getting incarcerated, second run was inspector minor victory, and third run ended up being my first standard win. Grail/Sensation, of all things, and I started ascending a bit early so had to contend with the munchies for half the run (which I thought would end up killing me if I let it drop below 3 marks, thanks to the text on that one book). But, hey, now I've learned that advancing the card does that.

That run ended in kind of an odd way... I had the max lore and could summon Ezeem with some regularity, so I just needed a 10+ instrument, ingredient, or influence... aaaaaand I had not found any such thing in any of my expeditions, nor any mirrors to peek through the Peacock door. And since I didn't want to up my blood expenditure via Spider, I had to try and figure out other options.

...so anyways, I started summonin'. Ysabet had ended up with a knock scar, so she could summon raw prophets with just some grail lore to help out. No sacrifices needed. I got her to pump out four of the things, and then through exploration and talking juggled the timers of everything so they were all on more-or-less the same cycle. During this time the Ascent of Knives managed to poop out a level 6 Grail influence, which made things easier, so I kept that alive along with one of the prophets by just repeatedly talking to it about the bloody weather.

Then enough prophets poofed that I could smash two 2-Grail influences together into a 6, then the two 6's into a 10, and Sticky Bob's your uncle.

After that, I was a teensy bit fed up with Grail... But then I saw the fancy apostle legacy and thought "...ah heck, sure, I'll give that a try!"

...aaaaand two back-to-back seasons of sickness later, the run was over. Back to the drawing board!


Current run is an Edge/Enlightenment Physician, and through some incompetence and Learning^TM, Ysabet has ended up with two knock and two edge scars. ...which means she can now singlehandedly summon prophets, maids, hints and percussigants with just the appropriate lore. No expenditures necessary.

[Frumple]

(I also feel like I've seen something very similar before, but can't quite place it.)

It's just the old pipes type puzzle game. They've been around for a long time (earliest a half-hearted googling can find is 1989), and have both dedicated games for the mechanic as well as being a common mini-game in other games. Backpack hero has a neat implementation of it going on, but it's definitely not a new idea, heh.

[nenjin]

I think the CS thread is a fine place to talk about the game since most people that would read it have played and won.

At the end of the day, winning CS comes down to two things in my mind: knowledge (which you largely own forever after your first win or near win) and trawling expeditions to find what you need. Repeated playthroughs of CS, that's what gets me. Where I know what I need and how I need to do it....but I have to run most/all the expeditions to find it.

My first win was Forge and I think it's fairly easy because it doesn't demand much of you in terms of upkeep. Unlike Grail.

[Aoi]

(I also feel like I've seen something very similar before, but can't quite place it.)

It's just the old pipes type puzzle game. They've been around for a long time (earliest a half-hearted googling can find is 1989), and have both dedicated games for the mechanic as well as being a common mini-game in other games. Backpack hero has a neat implementation of it going on, but it's definitely not a new idea, heh.

I meant specifically as a RPG-esque combat mechanic... similar concepts are common as point-A-to-point-B puzzles (often lockpicking or circuitry), or as another riff on Pipe Dreams's arcade-style play, but I can't quite place where I've seen it as an optimization puzzle.

[Robsoie]

Played a few hours into Stasis and i really liked it, the sci-fi horror atmosphere is really well done, the dialogue and voice acting is good and you care about your character misfortune and hope things will go his way. The background sounds are coming along very nicely (or creepily).

Now Stasis follow the classic point&click system : move your mouse everywhere to not only read the description but to find which area of the screen can be interacted with , then find items and find where items can be used (and for a few case which item must be combined with which item) to find your way into new areas.
With said item use sometime being unfortunately not always very obvious , a problem of point&click, like this case that i had to google because i was stuck there :

Spoiler: that example (click to show/hide)

At some point i needed "refined" organic material, and in Stasis the way to get refined organic material is to put your not refined material on a specific table (and nowhere else, then use that empty gun you found some times ago on it, this will result into "refined" material, does not make immediate sense ? that's point&click for you  

Fortunately the majority of the time the item used are making sense so you don't get stuck for too long on each puzzle situation.

Oh and you can run, thanks to the devs as in a point&click you very often move back&forth between areas to check if some newly discovered item will help with a puzzle , running around really helps to cut the back&forth time

[Robsoie]

Finally completed STASIS (apparently the name must be all caps) and even if i have played too many point&click games in the past couple of decades so that i now have difficulty ot enjoy them, STASIS was a very good one and i ... enjoyed it .

Only a few times i was completely stuck and needed to google a solution to something blocking me without me seeing how to progress further (most of the time it was in fact me missing an item or a clue/pos-it on some wall/table/monitor prior the area where i was stuck).

It's also a large game, much larger and longer game than the free CAYNE (that is setup in the same universe) that is available on gog too.

And as expected it was very grim and very dark (even more than in CAYNE, that had its share of it), even the ending was making sure to kill any hope you had at finally getting out of the grim and the dark.
Unlike CAYNE in STASIS there's no joke (in CAYNE sometime despite her horrible condition and situation Hayley still made some jokes to try to cope with the horror) as John from the start is in a very bad condition and things go worse and worse until the ending that is in the "things always get worse" that is the STASIS universe constant

Anyways, if you're looking for a good point&click adventure i very heavily recommended it ,  BUT i must say that it is not for the faint of heart or people that have some depressive mood, because the setting is really "scifi horror" + "grim" + "dark" + "things get worse" + "there's never any hope" .
Oh and about the events and the ending and some things that seem to make no sense, there's something the dev mentionned but that you may have overlooked during gameplay , i sure overlooked it as i was too focused on solving the various puzzle stuff that were on my way :

Spoiler: John the main character (click to show/hide)

Your bio suit that regularly warn you of your shape, injuries and other nasty stuff, gives you hints about the status of John's mind, especially after you witness the nasty effect of waking someone from a stasis, and you were in stasis at the start so John's mind may not be at his best from the start.
Also there's a fungus stuff that has been going on that has affected everyone minds more or less prior John' forced waking up, and you may very well be under the same state, meaning basically several of the things John is experiencing and are real to him may be in fact results of various hallucinations, even more after all the horror he has gone through that possibly broke his mind even more.
All of this is left up to your interpretation so you will never be sure of what was really happening and what was in John's mind.

[Great Order]

Small, nice browser game where you have an orb that you can fill with water and make a small, very simple ecosystem in.

https://orb.farm/

I like to just put it on when I'm in the mood to relax.

[Iduno]

I've been playing Tower of Fantasy. It's fine for a gacha game, does some things better and others worse than Genshin. It's early in development, which is the only time you want to join a gacha game, usually.

I like the story, a bit, but more the worldbuilding. You get a feeling that the villains have a good point, and there really isn't a correct side who has the power to do anything. The worst parts seem like they were trying to be like Genshin when they shouldn't have, or are a lack of content because the game has been out less than a month.

Small, nice browser game where you have an orb that you can fill with water and make a small, very simple ecosystem in.

https://orb.farm/

I like to just put it on when I'm in the mood to relax.

I'm enjoying it. Stone builds shapes vertically (but falls), and wood just stays wherever you draw it. Everything else falls. And fish eat a lot.

[Laterigrade]

I haven’t seen a Legends of Runeterra thread yet, but god this game is good. A completely, actually free to play CCG, a way to access League’s lore without having to play League or watch Arcane for the fifth time, incredible graphics and art and basically flawless voice-acting. Pretty good gameplay — diversity of decks and strategies with clever and satisfying play patterns, enough cards that you can keep finding new ideas to put in decks but not too many that you’re doomed not to know half of them. Reasonable balance — better than HS by a long shot, far better than League.