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[Criptfeind]

I've recently played the Spark in the Dark Demo. It's a fairly hard core perma death (mostly, there are a few rare one use items that if you die when holding them rez you.) dungeon crawler. Probably doesn't deserve it's own thread because right now it's just a demo with no release date, it's short and there's a little bit of jank, not to mention combats maybe a bit simplistic once you get used to it, but I think it's showing a lot of promise. It is sorta hard to get into. I died many times at first, but once you get the hang of it it's not very difficult. Anyway, I had fun, so I thought I'd post it here encase there's anyone else interested in some dungeon crawling fun for a bit.

[Robsoie]

Deep Sky Derelicts
[...]
Odd to see loading time of so many seconds when getting back to your home station, it's only a few 2D pictures and there are only very few procedural items generated at the trader. But that's an Unity game after all

Fun random fact, despite having much more assets and etc... when there's a loading Dying Light load noticably faster than Deep Sky Derelicts .

Some tip : keep a lot of your firecrackers (and craft some) , it can save your sorry bottom at night by distracting the enemies. Those damn Volatiles...
weapon break fast and can only be repaired a finite amount of time, but don't ditch your then mostly useless (as damage are then very low) weapons, as there's a skill you can get early that allow you to throw your weapon and damage/stun enemies, perfect use of mostly useless weaponry.
You can pick them up again after being thrown..

another tip : during your scavenging you will find a lot of trash valuables that can sell very well and are made to be sold.
The most common of them are cigarettes, coffee, cosmetics and pouch.
But some games do not tell in advance, but while telling you to sell those items will give you at some point a quest in which you need a bunch of said items.
Such is the unfortunate design decision of Dying Light devs : at some point a quest will ask you for a dozen of coffee. So to avoid having to search everywhere to find them because you sold a tons of them before, always keep a dozen of coffee in your inventory.

[Robsoie]

As there's no more thread allowed for Cataclysm, this "probably don't deserve their own threads" seems the most fitting to post this :
Learned of the existence of 2 more Cataclysm forks
edit : spotted an information thread on reddit for CEoD

Cataclysm End of Decay
https://github.com/AtomicFox556/Cataclysm-EOD
can't find informations on this one to know how it differ from the other forks as the documentation is still the same one as cdda
informations : https://old.reddit.com/r/cataclysmbn/comments/12g7j0l/announcing_cataclysm_era_of_decay/

Cataclysm There is still Hope
https://github.com/Cataclysm-TISH-team/Cataclysm-TISH
informations : https://old.reddit.com/r/cataclysmdda/comments/129mdxn/cataclysm_there_is_still_hope/

[King Zultan]

It's good to see that Night-Pryanik is still working on the game, maybe his fork will become the prominent one in the future.

[Robsoie]

Once i took the dropkick skill in Dying Light, i understood why everyone calls that game "the best zombie game ever"
Because i didn't knew before but i quickly learned that dropkicking zombies around is definitively one of the best thing ever

Oh and some more tricks : some side mission may require you to do something at night.
Problem is that nights can become really hard in the Dying Light world with various kind of mutant murder superzombies roaming, jumping and climbing everywhere, so a good way to get more chances to survive such missions : go at location at day, wait there until night, do the required action and try to survive running away to a safe zone (that already should increase vastly your chances).

Additionally : do not rush the story mission, they decide the zombies progression in difficulty. So rushing through the story missions may put you into harder situation with you having equipment and skill not yet up to the task.
Get around the side-missions instead to build up your character by leveling up your skills tree and getting good skills, and provide better equipment.

Oh and Molotov are good, especially with human enemies that can dodge and block your melee attacks sometime.

[Folly]

Meet your Maker launched days ago on Steam. A game about building dungeons full of traps, and raiding dungeons made by other players.

I was hesitant on this one, doubting that the simple concept and limited game assets could justify the $30 price tag. I'm still not completely certain on that price, but I am having a lot of fun.

I can spend hours carefully devising nefarious killboxes, then watch replays of raiders expertly evading my traps, then I go back and rebuild everything to be even more devious. It's ever so very satisfying when I come back from my own raids and see a report that someone died multiple times in my dungeon, and then watching the replay to see exactly which traps got them and how. And if I have build points left over then I can waste some more time making everything look pretty; appearances count!

[McTraveller]

I've been poking around looking for an RPG to play, and saw that there's a new Star Ocean.  Kind of has mixed reviews and I'm watching some initial footage...  sort of interesting but the things that stand out to me:

1. Wow it's a game from 2022, but the character's lip synching makes them look like puppets. I'd rather them have had no mouth movement at all. The female protagonists voice actor voice also doesn't seem to fit my mental model... but it is about as wooden as the animation 
2. The music in the opening area is way too dramatic for the situation.

Not sure I can get back into the franchise with this entry.

[Robsoie]

Oh and some more tricks : some side mission may require you to do something at night.
Problem is that nights can become really hard in the Dying Light world with various kind of mutant murder superzombies roaming, jumping and climbing everywhere, so a good way to get more chances to survive such missions : go at location at day, wait there until night, do the required action and try to survive running away to a safe zone (that already should increase vastly your chances).

Note : don't try this for the Witch Queen side quest, going during the day is hell

[Robsoie]

In Dying Light there are several optional running challenges in which you need to go from A to B (and move through checkpoints) in less than a specific time.
So far no problem, it's always a nice change of pace in comparison to regular missions and side quests.

But there's a problem : if your system can't run the game at its full speed, you will never manage to complete any of those racing challenges (fortunately they're all optional and failing them do not have any bad consequences as you can just re-run them at will), because the racing timers are not linked to your fps while your character speed is totally depend on your fps.

So in case you notice you're failing a runner optional challenge despite doing your best on the best possible path, try to lower you video settings more (or use some fps mod that disable lots of effects) to get more fps, it makes a noticable difference.

[Kagus]

In Dying Light there are several optional running challenges in which you need to go from A to B (and move through checkpoints) in less than a specific time.
So far no problem, it's always a nice change of pace in comparison to regular missions and side quests.

But there's a problem : if your system can't run the game at its full speed, you will never manage to complete any of those racing challenges (fortunately they're all optional and failing them do not have any bad consequences as you can just re-run them at will), because the racing timers are not linked to your fps while your character speed is totally depend on your fps.

So in case you notice you're failing a runner optional challenge despite doing your best on the best possible path, try to lower you video settings more to get more fps, it makes a noticable difference.

Makes me think of how the speed of cars in GTA:Online was also tied in to your FPS

I could do a race against someone else, using the same car, and end up trailing most of the course because my exact same car is running slower due to my computer being made of cheese and lint.

[Robsoie]

I think the first time i saw a game in which fps made a gameplay impact was with Quake 3 in which many specific trick jumps between platforms were possible if you had a specific amount of fps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he02vJvKaRs

[Robsoie]

Reached a mission in Dying Light that saw me go through some sewer system that made me leave the really huge quarantined city map "Slums" to the even more quarantined sector 0 "Old Town", that is another large (but less huge) map.

Wow, that game playfield is even bigger than i thought and they haven't slept on their open world as there are truckload of things to do and missions/side quests/challenges/etc... throwing you all other the locations so it's never boring "more of the same".

And that without mentionning the huge countryside map that comes with the DLC (that is free with the enhanced edition) The Following and that is said to be as big as both Slums and Old Town combined.

Still having a lot of fun parkouring and dealing with zombies with new ways (and new unlocked skills), so far some parts have been really difficult for me, i really don't want to imagine how it is playing those on higher difficulties
And so many new weapons when you level up, so many ways to upgrade them into even more fun stuff...

[E. Albright]

Whether or not it deserves its own thread is questionable, but... MuHa's Master of Magic remake snuck out into full release w/o me noticing it last December, and recently released its first (free) expansion (which added a few new wizards, a couple of hero/unit abilities, and Myrran Goblins as a playable race).

Overall, it's, uh... fine? It's a pretty faithful remake (hexes notwithstanding), which is both good and bad. The UI is a bit smoother & friendlier, but it's also indistinct and bland. I feel like it would benefit from higher contrast; the elements are almost all mid-range earthtones and greens. By and large, gameplay remains what it was in the original... which now feels very dated, especially since the UI makes things look modern. There's definitely an art style, which really stands out and feels a bit odd... but that's mostly b/c the pixelated art in the original was so vague. It's quite playable, but it's not compelling.

Content-wise, it's... fine.  There are some minor new features that don't really disrupt gameplay or dramatically change things: new events, events where you have choices, dungeons where you can choose to push deeper or give up, different types of Towers... but nothing that feels new or game-changing. There are built-in event modding tools, and plans apparently include adding full-spectrum modding with Steam Workshop support.

It is a Unity game, which both contributes to the genericness of it and means it's a bit of a resource hog. It more time to load up on booting than I'd expect, but once it's up and running it seems to run well with quick responsiveness, to include reloading saved games.

So, yeah. I mostly just don't have strong feelings about it.  To be fair, I didn't ever achieve my old levels of fascination & enthusiasm when I played the re-release of classic MoM a few years back, so that may just be an artifact of the underlying  dated gameplay. I had a similar "you can't go back" moment when I picked up the modern-OS-compatible re-release of EFS. Alas, I am not the same gamer I was 25y ago...

[Robsoie]

There's a sense of wonder from when you played those rather breakgrounding masterpiece, their artwork that were playing on your imagination due to their resolution in their time that unfortunately no remake can ... remake because time and technology moved on.

Spotted this video making the comparison, looks like the new one feels more like a mix between Age of Wonders and MuHa's previous games UI design
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bue9KLkFX98

Not saying the remake is bad, but all the video up there made me is wanting to launch the old MoM again

[nenjin]

I attribute that sense of wonderment to being young, when small things filled your whole world view such that it made the possibilities seem endless, because your mind couldn't yet encompass the intricacies of it and therefore the edges of it. In a pixelated sprite our minds invested more meaning and depth and possibility than reality actually supports. As we grew older and saw the shape of things more fully, from further back, we realized there were boundaries to things. Even landmark games in my adult life, while I loved and really granted a premium experience, never managed to fool my brain again into not seeing the walls, the patterns, the systems, the inevitable outcome or conclusion to ideas and gameplay and content.