Just finished Infernax
Amazing dark, medieval-fantasy, retro, action-platformer with some Metroidvania elements, very reminiscent of OG Castlevania, and some player choice elements that allow for multiple endings, of which there are 5: 2 basic good/evil, 2 completionist good/bad, and a “redemption” route. Even has old school secrets like special characters if you input the right name and cheat codes you can find. Putting in the Konami code at the title screen even has something special.
Default experience is a classic mode that is very unforgiving, must save at in-game stations (one at each town and every dungeon entrance) lose everything if you run out of lives and try again from the top or try to [exit the dungeon/make it back to town] to save your progress, no fast travel until you find the spell for it, all that jazz. Plus a casual mode that gives some leeway like pitfalls not being instant kills and a checkpoint in the dungeons you can save at.
Gameplay is just good old school gaming. You hit, you jump, you duck and hit low, you can find some utility spells, you talk to NPCs that have cryptic sometimes-useful-sometimes-not dialogue to figure out what to do next, all the bells and whistles.
Warning: it is very gore heavy and even though the artwork is more retro styled, it is still things like guts spilling out, faces getting crushed, limbs being ripped off, etc… So not for the squeamish.
Started playing Wildfrost, a deckbuilder with some unique mechanics. I slept on it for a long time because it had somewhat mixed reviews early on with some players complaining that it was too luck based or that it was too difficult to evaluate game state. To me this hasn’t been a problem and the game was a very pleasant surprise. Thankfully it doesn’t try to be a “better Slay the Spire” since nobody seems to get that right but goes on its own way. There is no mana system, instead you pay for cards with time: playing a card (usually) takes up your turn. Some of your cards will stay on the board and periodically trigger based on cooldowns and other triggers - and so do enemies. It’s all about timing, sequencing and positioning.
These mechanics make the game flow very smoothly and the turn puzzle is satisfying. The implementation and art are great too making it a very pleasant overall experience.
Been playing unravel. When I’m done I’ll play unravel two. Got them both for $10 the other day on steam
I’ve never played the first one but Unravel 2 is awesome. Played it with a friend years back and it was one of our favourites to play together.
The first one is great. It has a really sweet story, too. It’s my chill game. I love how it has no fights, just puzzles.
I’ll definitely be sure to check it out sometime.
I’m on maternity leave and finally finished the extra levels in Opus Magnum this week after figuring out how to sit with the baby and still use both hands
I’m going to have to figure out how to do that too. I’ve got my first coming pretty soon. I get 8 weeks parental leave so I don’t have quite as much time as my wife gets to figure all that stuff out, maybe I should practice before the baby comes.
A stretchy wrap is great for newborns since they’re often too small for a normal carrier even with an insert. Some brands make ones with buckles if you don’t want to fiddle with tying it on every time. I use Boba but there’s a bunch of similar brands at the same price point.
I hate to recommend reddit here, but scrolling through babywearing helped me a ton with figuring out what a safe carry looks like for a tiny baby.
I appreciate the info. Thanks!
Still Antimatter Dimensions, though not paying too much attention to it. I pop in and out of Baba Is You after solving (or failing to solve) a few levels. Still not sure how to break Baba and Keke out of jail.
I’m stuck on that level of Baba is You as well. I’ll inevitably come back and hit my head against the wall on it every few weeks.
I’m about to finish Deliver Us The Moon, quite interesting.
And before it I played Tacoma, and before it I played Observation, and before it I played The Invincible. I think I’m starting to see a pattern here…
So far my favourite has been The Invincible, I think I’ll read the book eventually.
All of them performed like crap on my Legion Go with CachyOS, Tacoma being the least annoying in that regard. The farther I get into a game, the worse it performs.
If someone has more recommendations I’d appreciate them.
Been playing Ni No Kuni, had intended on playing it on PS3 but never got around to it, glad I didn’t though as the remastered version is a great experience on the deck! Haven’t got sucked into a game like this in a long time… send help (perhaps the sequel too 👀).
timberborn
The new zip lines are a real game changer
Just finished Split Fiction.
How was it? My wife was interested in checking it out.
We liked It Takes Two much better. But if you need to play a co-op game it is decent. ITT was more whimsical and fun. If I had to play it again, I’d rather play ITT.
We played ITT but stopped after the elephant thing. We’ve considered finishing it but never got around to it.
So, I just got slice & dice and man, I’m hooked. Dunno if that qualifies for patient gaming, it’s a bit older than a year.
It’s a roguelike, but not really a deckbuilder. Instead, you keep upgrading and improving a DnD-like party that keeps going down a dungeon of some sort, where each person is represented as a six-sided die. Your magician has sides that produce mana, your fighter sides that mostly deal damage etc etc.
I’m several hours in, which for me is already a lot. Just lost my latest run on level 19/20 on normal difficulty, so it feels like I’m starting to get an idea of what works well. The game has lots of unlockables and achievements and looking for upgrades and characters that synergise well is fun. The balancing seems, as far as I can tell so far, outstanding - time will tell if that holds.
Salt & Sanctuary
I‘ve finally decided to put my mind to Salt & Sanctuary which has been in my library for… a long time but it never grabbed me. Now I‘ve started a new character and I‘m following a guide, it feels more engaging and fun to me with more direction. The guide‘s crazy detailed and I‘m amazed someone sat down and typed all that out (screenshots incl.) for a - in my opinion - rather niche title. The only thing that bugs me is the animation update rate, the game can run at triple digit fps, it still looks and feels like 60.
Octopath Traveler
I‘ve also bought and started Octopath Traveler on Steam which I didn‘t want to at first since I a) have it on Switch already and b) like achievement hunting and boy does that game want you to turn every pebble for that. However, the music is so effing amazing (check out the title theme on YT or wherever) and the game so visually beautiful, I just needed the 60 fps and full res. I realized there‘s something very soothing for me in experiencing a jrpg story in pixelart. I regret nothing (yet).
Ooh I’m very curious to hear about Salt & Sanctuary. After just now finishing Mandragora I’ve gotten the Metroidvania/Soulslike bug and I’m on the outlook for something similar to fill the void. Right now I’m on Blasphemous but S&S is on my wishlist for the next sale along with Grime.
I think you’ll like SnS then. It‘s about 80% Soulslike and 20% Metroidvania.
It‘s a game where you can tell that they played Dark Souls and thought „We really wanna make that as well.“ Armor‘s practically useless, you‘re just looking for the most OP rings and weapon movesets - just like in Souls games (magic is supposedly OP, but I wouldn’t know I‘m not playing a mage, I‘m a 2h kinda guy).
It‘s a game with lots of love and little budget, with lots of things to find and lots of extra things to fight if you look around.
This is all just my opinion being maybe 20% into the game so far, though.
Is there a lot of platforming? I’m about 70% of the way through Blasphemous at the moment and that’s been by far the worst part. I’m not really a platformer guy (I’ve avoided Hollow Knight for a reason), and one thing I loved about Mandragora was how little platforming there was, and how easy the platforming that did exist was.
That‘s hard to gauge since I haven‘t played Blasphemous or Mandragora and there certainly is some platforming but I can‘t say if it‘s to an extent you‘d tolerate or not. I personally haven‘t broken a sweat so far, it‘s only been some jumping over gaps and the odd breaking platform (essentially platforming on a mild timer) nothing precise if that helps?
I‘d say you have to do some mild platforming somewhat frequently though, at least in the parts I‘ve been.
It’s been nothing like Hollow Knight in that regard, I can promise that much.
Sounds good, thank you! That sounds about the same as Mandragora. I think Blasphemous having clunky controls and janky detection for hitboxes and ledge grabs etc makes it a lot worse - plus some very annoying enemy placement that can lead to some very cheap feeling unfun deaths. Also there is a lot more platforming sections in it. The actual bosses haven’t been bad at all.
monster hunter rise
I’m finally playing Horizon zero dawn. Liking it a lot so far.
Euro Truck Simulator 2
The week that I pack away my wheel/pedals is the same time I get the urge to go back to ETS2… :D
Controller and a numpad for extra buttons works really well. Obviously not as immersive but is much easier/quicker to jump in and start playing.
Now I want to unpack my wheel and pedals and it’s your fault ! 😆
And room for it*
I got AC: Unity on sale on steam so I’ve been replaying that. The controls are pretty jank and rough, but I’m still enjoying it.
I’ve had a fair few talks on here recently about Unity. I liked it way more than the general consensus. I’ve heard there’s a really good mod for it that fixes nearly all of the problems, but I haven’t tried it personally.
I was looking at some, but there aren’t too many that aren’t just new outfits or skins to play with; at least on nexus.
Edit: they did a lot with Unity that I actually really liked. Between the co-op multiplayer missions/heists and story, you also had murder mysteries to help solve, and the “Paris Stories” (I actually quite like them. The Madame Tussaud ones are cool), on top of the assassin contracts. The gear customization was also probably my favorite of any other AC game aside from maybe Odyssey. I also kinda like the city events too, they let me roleplay a peacekeeper of the people type of character.
I haven’t played Mirage or Shadows, but I wouldn’t mind if they brought back some more “detective”/vigilante type stuff in the future.
They had a lot of good ideas in Unity. It’s such a shame that its poor launch basically single-handedly caused Ubisoft to pivot into the RPG style AC games instead.
Even though the controls are somewhat clunky, the concept of the free run up/down in Unity is amazing, and could have ended up being truly stellar had they continued to work on it. When you get it to work in Unity and you string together a nice parkour sequence you feel like a million bucks. The animations are just the best in the series, and Paris is the best AC city they ever created (and it’s not close).
Tbf I didn’t mind the RPG ones. I think Origins struck the better balance of having a linear story while still letting you build Bayek how you wanted.
I liked Odyssey, but I didn’t really care for how there were multiple endings, because it doesn’t make sense from a narrative or lore standpoint. The Animus is supposed to show us the genetic memories of people who lived in the past, so shouldn’t everything that happens in the Animus actually have happened in the past? Why are there multiple choice endings, or discussions for that matter? Still, it was fun for the power fantasy it was.
Valhalla was just too much.
To be honest they kind of just gave up on the whole modern day angle, which I personally find a shame. But I agree with you, it makes no sense to have multiple endings given what the Animus is supposed to be. I mean, that’s the whole reason we were getting stuff like “Game Over: Ezio never killed civilians” earlier.
I just checked, the mod I was referring to is ACUFixes.
Yeah customization was good in that game, I also seem to remember liking customization in Syndicate but I can’t remember it now.
So I’ve played with that mod now for about a day, and it’s really nice. The toggleable hood is a very nice touch, being able to shoot or drop bombs almost whenever is amazing, and they fixed the window thing.
I play this game almost exclusively with a controller, so I can’t really take “full” advantage of the mod, but a lot of the parkour stuff still translates as it’s just a different button map.
I also got a cloth physics mod to fix the stuff/heavy cloth physics, and it’s just an absolutely incredible feeling to have the long coats actually flowing when you move again.
Oh good, I’m glad I recommended it then. I’ll have to try the mod when I next play Unity. No idea when that’ll be though.
