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[Rolan7]

We do have a thread for that one, actually.

So we do!  Nice, I'm curious and it's relevant to me.

[Robsoie]

KeeperFX reached version 1.0.0 a couple of week ago
https://keeperfx.net/news/11/2023-11-10/keeperfx-100-has-been-released

[Robsoie]

Playing Styx : Shard of Darkness

first contact with the game after setting the graphics so it play smoothly on my old system, then went to rebind the keys to fit my needs and convenience.
result : for whatever bizarre reason the character suddenly can't move to the right anymore, as if the key i bound to the right direction was just ignored.
changed that right direction to many other keys, still same problem.

Found the solution as it was in fact a known bug but looking at the date of those posts, looks like the devs never cared to fix it since 2021 :
https://steamcommunity.com/app/355790/discussions/1/133259855833560566

I had this problem, so I checked through the various .ini files in %localappdata%\Styx2\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor.

In the Input.ini file, I found a list of button mappings. Cursory examination revealed a line of code that seemed to be missing, specifically:

AxisMappings=(AxisName="MoveRight",Key=F,Scale=1.000000)

You can change the Keys to whatever you want in the .ini instead of in-game if you prefer not to be told that various keys are already in use (you can also change the scale, although I can't find a practical use for that).

After checking the input.ini at the designed location, indeed this line was missing, there were 2 "MoveRight" lines while there should have been 3
So just copy paste the line from the quote in the input.ini right after the 2 already present AxisMappings=(AxisName="MoveRight"....
lines, then change the Key=F to whatever you wanted

Other than that, as a stealth game it's really very good so if you like the genre claim it while it's still free on gog ( 14 hours left )

[Criptfeind]

I just played though The Case of the Golden idol. A mystery investigation game that's got some inspiration from the return of the obra dinn, in that you're looking at scenes and trying to figure out what happened, although instead of a first person walking around perspective you have point and click adventure game style screens that you have to search though. You look at the environment and people, going around though everyones pockets and listening to what they are saying to piece together what happened via putting together a mystery madlibs essentially with the words you find. Most levels consist of having to figure out everyones names, fit together a few smaller puzzles, and then use those to figure out the big who did what that's going on in the scene. I think it's pretty fun, it's got a fun little story to watch play out as you go though the levels, and although it's not too hard and maybe a bit short, it's a nice game and pretty cheap too.

[Rift]

Been playing Let's School the last few days, i'm only a bit over 7hrs in but i've rather enjoyed it. It's kinda like a lighthearted prison architect, focused on building and running a school in japan. Unlike say, the two-point hospital/theme-hospital style of "fill a structure with rooms, meet goals then move onto to location and start again", its more the prison architect style of "Build up from near-scratch, rebuilding structures/expanding out". It has Z-levels (up anyway) but i haven't really felt the need to add a second floor, i haven't even filled 1/2 the first area yet of a single floor. You can also buy extra plots around too, and expand horizontally, although that seems even more unnecessary at the moment for me... the school would be truely massive at that point.

Anyway it's got some style to it, looks fairly nice (minimalist low-poly 3d anime style) with a general kinda cute esthetic. You also get various seasonal festival stuff as well as researching a whole bunch of new stuff both functional and decorative (decorative IS useful for making people happy to a degree, as well as helps count towards improving room efficiency a tiny bit, theres even statues with buffs and stuff). So there's no real shortage of 'stuff' to throw in any given room/hallway/outside, although it is a bit lacking until you start unlocking stuff, fortunately you'll be working on that same location/save file for many many hours. Also, i'm playing on normal(easy/hard also exist) and while i can't go completely ham with spending money, its fairly easy to stay in the black financially.

There are events like fires, earthquakes and the like, as well as delinquents to deal with, but nothing feels super scary or hard to deal with, more like minor problems, so its a very low stress game. Oh, and you can send classes on field trips to unlock parts of the greater world and get a few extra mini-events for the class/school.
Overall, lots to do, i feel like i got  another 10hrs or playtime till i'll 'complete' the content, and could see myself replaying it at a later date, so yeah. Recommended by me atm, certainly one of the better tycoon/-business sim games.

[Kagus]

I just played though The Case of the Golden idol. A mystery investigation game that's got some inspiration from the return of the obra dinn, in that you're looking at scenes and trying to figure out what happened, although instead of a first person walking around perspective you have point and click adventure game style screens that you have to search though. You look at the environment and people, going around though everyones pockets and listening to what they are saying to piece together what happened via putting together a mystery madlibs essentially with the words you find. Most levels consist of having to figure out everyones names, fit together a few smaller puzzles, and then use those to figure out the big who did what that's going on in the scene. I think it's pretty fun, it's got a fun little story to watch play out as you go though the levels, and although it's not too hard and maybe a bit short, it's a nice game and pretty cheap too.

Yeh, played this one myself not that long ago. Very charming, and I was definitely left wanting more (even if some of the later levels are a bit tedious, the Lemurian Vampire DLC has a particularly egregious example as its capstone). One thing was the gameplay itself and piecing together a narrative of what had happened, but the overall style and storytelling was quite endearing.

[Criptfeind]

Just played though Steam World Build. The latest title in the steamworld series. It's a city builder in the style of anno or kinda the old impressions city builders combined with a dungeon keeper style underground building game, where the goods and population from the city builder are used to make and staff the rooms and buildings of the dungeon keeper part of the game, which are then used to get resources to fuel the city building part of the game.

I was pretty excited for this game, I'm a fan of management city builders, I'm a fan of the steamworld series, and I like dungeon keeper. The game is competently made and enjoyable to play. But it does simplify the game, both the city builder and dungeon keeper parts to a large part. It's heavily polished but in a sense feels lacking. Maybe too polished, all the annoying bits of the genres have been polished away but so too has a lot of interesting little bits. There's really not much complexity or difficulty too the game and about halfway though you'll have seen all the game has and the rest is more of the same for a bit. I played for like 6-7 hours (at a guess) to beat the game once. I don't really have interest in playing other levels (which seem like they are just going to be the same thing with a different layout) and I can't imagine increasing the difficulty will do anything except make it so you need to wait longer before progressing at various points.

The story is serviceable. Sparse but you don't except much from a city builder. It's helped by the art of the cutscenes, which I quite like.

Spoiler: Potentially spoilers for the steamworld setting story, if there's anyone who cares about that (click to show/hide)

I was disappointed that we didn't get to see the rise of the Red Queen. The only twist in the story was the obvious from the first cutscene one of the AI guy who's a villain in all the other steamworld games is evil still. I was hoping that the game would be longer and with a more involved story letting us see and play out the rise of the diesel bots and the red queen, and although we see diesel bots they have no place in the story and just act as a higher tier civilian in classic anno style. The final cutscene leaves on a cliffhanger, and I guess we'll see the queen take on the evil robots in some future steamworld game, if they keep getting made.

My ultimate conclusion is that it's okay. Much like quest was. I enjoyed the time I spent on the game, but much like quest I'm sorta glad it's over and I'm left feeling somewhat disappointed that it doesn't really live up to dig 2 or heist, both excellent games.

[nenjin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0rIgaiPWA

Dragon's Dogma 2 finally gonna come out. First one was good. Kind of quirky in terms of the story and how it was all presented, but weirdly compelling with the over the top Monster Hunter World-esqe monster fights and the AI party members that could be sourced from the community. Will probably pick this up.

[AlStar]

I recently picked up Fights in Tight Spaces and have put a couple hours into it - it's an interesting mix of Slay the Spire and Into the Breach.

Spoiler: "General Overview of the Game, Some Thoughts" (click to show/hide)

You're playing as a 007-expy, moving from one location to another, usually with branching paths that give you a choice of options of where to go. Along the routes you take, you'll hit areas where you can either refill/increase your health (hospitals) or improve/buy/remove cards (gyms) using money earned during missions. Each campaign ends with a boss fight. You keep your deck between campaigns, and, including the tutorial, there's half a dozen before the end of your career.

During combat, your character is - at least as far as I've seen so far - always in a one-against-many scenario. The only friendly I've seen so far was a civilian I had to protect, who just cowered in place. You're able to fight off the hordes of thugs, criminals, and ninja - many of whom are wielding weapons of some sort - because they telegraph what they're going to do, and you're way more mobile then they are. You've got two currencies - momentum (energy) and combo. You start each round with 3 momentum, cards (that I've seen so far) cost between 0-2 momentum. Each time you play an attack card that hits an enemy, you earn one combo. Playing a movement or defensive card will reduce combo. Some regular cards get stronger the more combo you have, others will deal a multiplier of your combo, but reset it to 0. Some cards have a combo cost - they can only be played if your combo is high enough.

Much like Into the Breach, positioning is everything. Enemies can be pushed around, bashed into walls or obstacles, or even thrown out of the arena (resulting in an insta-kill), if you position them correctly. They can also be persuaded to punch, stab, or shoot one another, if you sidestep or push them correctly.

One of my favorite moments so far was on a boss fight: Two of the bosses' minions had push attacks that went off automatically if anything stepped in front of them, and they just happened to be facing each other, one space apart. I was able to kick the boss into one of the minions, who pushed the boss into the other minion, who pushed him right back, resulting in a good chunk of the bosses life getting drained.

The game seems to reward glass cannon builds - many enemies have nasty effects when they hit you, some ignore armor entirely, and the values of block cards means that often, even if you block, you're likely to take some damage anyway; better to just step out of the way and dodge entirely.

Overall, I'm enjoying it, but I'm glad I picked it up as part of a Bundle, as I don't know if it has the staying power of StS.

[Robsoie]

I've been replaying from scratch Seven Enhanced Edition as it's been a couple of years since the last time i played and forgot most of it
This time instead of exploring the huge world and doing side quests, i decided to follow the main story only as i didn't moved through those quests last time.

And so far it has been good, playing fully stealthly as much as i could, escaping when detected and coming back once alerts were off, using the (very usable) environment to "parkour" everywhere in every directions horizontally and vertically.
Was happy to see that stealth and sneaking around was always a possibility (great because i have difficulty to "get" the combat gameplay with this game)

After +/- 8 hours of doing main story quests and progressing in the world, i'm at the part in which you infiltrate a massive building called the Repositorium in which the technomagis that decided to betray the emperor have imprisonned Savaash, an emperor agent like you (you mostly against your will),  and bound him into a machine to decrypt his memories in order to locate a vault.
Then you get into that machine yourself to explore Savaash memories.

After some dreamwalking around his memories, you're then thrown into an unescapable arena to fight the spirit of Savaash that is apparently not happy from your intrusion (hey buddy i'm supposed to be on your side you know) in melee, as terrible as i am with melee fight in Seven it seemed do-able from the fight first few exchanges.

Until Savaash spirit just clone himself and you face 2 of them at the same time, then another one comes after a few more hits and something invisible comes to join the fray after some more hits.
So basically you're stuck in a fight with several enemies that hit like a truck without any possibility to go stealth anywhere or escape to come back later.

Maybe it would have been do-able if the game had not made me think stealth was always a possible way instead of fighting, and so i didn't left truckload of health healing item (because weight is an issue a lot in the game) into a stash and only carried a few.

Lesson to learn : always keep a save from before going into the Repositorium so you can go away and explore the world in the hope to find better equipment, and always carry all the healing items you can before getting into this.

Fortunately i had one old save, but the less i can say is that difficulty spike was totally unexpected after so many hours of stealth gameplay.

[Criptfeind]

It's not a video game, but it is still a game, so totally counts!

I've been playing the darkest dungeon board game, and it's a real strange beast. A decent proportion of the game, resting between missions, heroes and what they do with attacks and stats and stuff, and exploration, have been basically lifted from the game with some light to moderate adaptation to a boardgame format with a much shorter campaign than in the video game and they generally work well and are enjoyable (although exploration is more punishing in general).

Combat though, arguably the main meat of the game, has bizarrely been changed into a tactical battle thing where enemies and heroes move around room maps, the classic darkest dungeon style everyone standing in a line thing still exists outside of the tactical battle map, but now your position in the line determines turn order and what enemies do and what abilities heroes can use, who you can hit depends on movement in the tactical battle map. The quality of the translation of darkest dungeon stats and abilities to the tactical map range from questionable to broken. A lot of abilities require fairly specific and fiddly positioning, pushing and pulling both moves people on the map and in the line, and generally speaking a lot of the rules are pretty poorly/ambiguously worded.

Over all the feeling one gets is the more distant any mechanic is from the video game, the worse it will be. This culminates in the occupancy rules, rules which limit how many people (both heroes and monsters) can stand in any particular space on the tactical battle map. Which as far as I recall DD doesn't really have anything like and are basically just completely broken in the board game. About 30% of the way though a campaign I asked my playing group if we can just remove these rules, they agreed and in removing them the game genuinely immediately went from a 3/10 game like a 6/10 game. Keeping in mind that these are the only rules wholly unique to the board game, the only thing in it that the board game designers came up with on their own, it doesn't seem like a good look for whoever made this board game.

Overall, quite weird. I'm enjoying it after our home ruling, but yeah I dunno. It's quite strange how sorta poorly done it is.

[Aoi]

Combat though, arguably the main meat of the game, has bizarrely been changed into a tactical battle thing where enemies and heroes move around room maps, the classic darkest dungeon style everyone standing in a line thing still exists outside of the tactical battle map, but now your position in the line determines turn order and what enemies do and what abilities heroes can use, who you can hit depends on movement in the tactical battle map. The quality of the translation of darkest dungeon stats and abilities to the tactical map range from questionable to broken. A lot of abilities require fairly specific and fiddly positioning, pushing and pulling both moves people on the map and in the line, and generally speaking a lot of the rules are pretty poorly/ambiguously worded.

I was intrigued by DD:BG too and sounds like I was glad I skipped it...

On the other hand, the description of the combat sounds sort of like they riffed off of Into the Breach, where positioning and battlefield control is paramount, since enemy actions are locked in at the start of your turn, and your abilities in shoving them around can force them to land attacks on empty spaces (or better yet, their own allies) and block new hostiles from spawning. I'm guessing that it doesn't work nearly as well though?

[scriver]

Wouldn't Darkest Dungeon make for a pretty good game if if was more or less directly translated? I guess the developers thought they had to make it their own somehow. Or maybe just had a mechanic darling they couldn't make themselves kill.

[Robsoie]

[...]
Lesson to learn : always keep a save from before going into the Repositorium so you can go away and explore the world in the hope to find better equipment, and always carry all the healing items you can before getting into this.

And that was indeed the solution: more healing items for those unavoidable fights in which stealth is not allowed. It made a huge difference as i could then move through that specific battle without troubles despite those clones attacking in ranged or melee.
It also helped when i ran into a few more unavoidable fights while getting more quests and missions, but they were much more managable than Savaash.

Anyways, i am still impressed how massive the game world is in Seven Enhanced Edition, and unlike so many of those open world type of game, it's packed with content (so many missions/quests with most being interesting) and things to discover with lots of very unique biomes and landscape that aren't just "repeats" and offer huge amount of parkour possibilities , and the stealth is very nice with even more things to do when you get more powers and abilities.

I have still several side missions and quests to do, but on the main questline i'm right before the last mission that complete the game. And so far it's been really great.

[Criptfeind]

On the other hand, the description of the combat sounds sort of like they riffed off of Into the Breach, where positioning and battlefield control is paramount, since enemy actions are locked in at the start of your turn, and your abilities in shoving them around can force them to land attacks on empty spaces (or better yet, their own allies) and block new hostiles from spawning. I'm guessing that it doesn't work nearly as well though?

You would guess correctly. There's not much of a sense of manipulating positions of enemies like that both because turn order is semi random, there's an initiative deck with 4 hero cards and however many monster cards as monsters you're facing (normally 4) which you pull a card, if it's a monster card a monster goes first, if it's a hero card then a hero goes first, and because movement, especially for monsters, is fairly free. Monsters will move every turn in order to get in range of their target. Soooooometimes you can push them or move in a way that screws them if they are particularly slow or their targeting priority is particularly far away, but most of the time it means a monster is just going to walk up and smack at the closest hero. They aren't locked into attacking specific areas in specific ways (and most of the time at the start of their turn there's a random dice roll to determine what type of attack they are going to do.)

It's just fiddly because the translation of DD ranges to the board games ranges can be awkward and movement isn't free for heroes (they get 2 actions, so they can attack twice or attack and move, obviously attacking twice is generally preferred if possible.) Like the plague doctor in the video game has a heal that can target any ally, in the board game he can only target allies exactly 1 space away. And his aoe poison is exactly 2 spaces but his single target poison is exactly 1 space. Since monsters only ever attack once there's not much consideration for them but for players it's a constant fiddling with exact spacing to avoid screwing each other over.

Spoiler: Here's a picture I found online of what one of the tactical battle tiles looks like, they aren't really that big or complex, sometimes there's effects on various tiles that mostly exist to screw over slower heroes. But generally combat consists of smacking whatever enemies are in range that you can. (click to show/hide)

Honestly the most impactful the tactical battlemap has been has been situations where an enemy will spawn in some opposite corner from the heroes and use an ability that makes it so heroes can only target that monster... So we'll be fighting a bunch of monsters and suddenly a snake two turns away down a corridor and around the corner will rattle and now there's nothing we can do but move over towards it. Quite annoying

The little grey dots on the spaces in the image above are the occupancy system by the way, which is how many people can stand on a tile. There's a little bit about pushing if a monster is big they can push out heroes and if a monster is small heroes can push them out, but in general it just serves as a way for the game to break in certain situations where monsters or heroes get stuck and unable to do anything.

Wouldn't Darkest Dungeon make for a pretty good game if if was more or less directly translated? I guess the developers thought they had to make it their own somehow. Or maybe just had a mechanic darling they couldn't make themselves kill.

Honestly I think a more direct translation of DDs combat system would probably have made the game better, yes. And would honestly make more sense for a few of the mechanics that are in and not really properly translated.