soulsource
@soulsource@discuss.tchncs.de
- Comment on What is your Game of the Year? 1 day ago:
According to Steam, I spent most hours this year playing Book of Hours. (The word “Hours” is in the name of the game, so what choice did I have?) It is an amazing game, and I recommend it to anyone who likes cozy games with lots of lore to explore.
However, there is one game that I must confess I had even more fun with, even though it’s relatively short: The Pristine Cut of Slay the Princess.
I can’t really say much about it other than that it’s a horror visual novel with excellent voice acting and incredibly good writing, as almost any detail of the game’s story would be a spoiler. - Comment on Is there any (single player playable) game under $10 or equivalent which has made you point any go "ha" or given you an equivalent feeling because it was that enjoyable for every moment you played it? 5 days ago:
I did play a lot of of HoMaM back in the days - and also just recently installed VCMI on my PC, in order to re-play HoMaM 3. I didn’t start with that though - too many other games to play in my backlog… I never tried any mods - I don’t even know if the modding scene already existed back in the 90s, when I originally played it. I must confess that I prefer HoMaM 4 over HoMaM 3 - it feels a bit more complex.
There is one game series that is quite similar to Heroes of Might and Magic, that I personally love, and that gets the “fun all the times” and “100 hours play time” easily for me, but I didn’t mention it before because the current iterations are way above $10: Dominions. I haven’t bought Dominions 6 yet because of the size of my gaming backlog, but I have had a lot of fun with Dominions 4 and 5.
- Comment on The Two Genders 5 days ago:
The way I understood it was that she did not loose her ability to use magic, but rather decided not to use it any more after what happened when she had to draw power from fire.
Spoiler
She also used magic to escape Bonhart/Skellen/Rience after Kenna’s attempt to read her mind unintentionally gave her a bit of magical power.
Even if it would be a bit disappointing, I think an explanation as simple as “she grew older, and had a lot more time to deal with the trauma of what happened in the desert” would be sufficient to explain why she is OK with using magic again.
- Comment on Is there any (single player playable) game under $10 or equivalent which has made you point any go "ha" or given you an equivalent feeling because it was that enjoyable for every moment you played it? 5 days ago:
Tough question.
Of all the games I have played, only few have 100 hours playtime, and all of them are over $10 except for
- Dwarf Fortress. However, I would have to lie if I said that it is constantly fun. There are gameplay mechanics that are boring, like the labour management (though that got vastly improved in version 50.x).
I do have one game suggestion though that is consistently fun all the time, and costs less than $10 - however I have less than 100 hours on it, because I never looked into the user-generated levels:
- TIS-100. It’s a puzzle/programming game by Zachtronics (so it’s in the Zach-like genre by definition), and it is amazing. Also, as said, there are user-generated levels, so even after you finish the main campaign, there’s a vast selection of puzzles to solve.
- Baba is You would go in a similar direction, but misses the $10 price point (by a tiny bit).
- Comment on The Two Genders 5 days ago:
As someone who is curious about how they are going to explain the lore (in case you haven’t read the books: Ciri forswore magic after she had to draw power from fire in an emergency situation and that nearly escalated - also, you are missing out, the books are great), I feel offended by your statement.
- Comment on What do we think will be GoTY and which game do we think should be? 1 week ago:
I just finished The Pristine Cut of Slay the Princess, and I fully agree that it should be the GOTY.
It’s amazing how different it feels when you play a really excellent game. With most games I regularly pause and tab out, to browse the web. With Slay the Princess I did not. It completely absorbed me, even though it was my second play-through.
- Comment on anyone know any good android games? 1 week ago:
- OpenTTD: Open Source and available for free.
- Settlers 2 via some DosBOX version. Back when I still used Android I used Dosbox Turbo, but it seems to have been removed from the Play Store. No clue which DosBOX build for Anrdoid is good nowadays…
- 2048: Open Source and free puzzle game
- Threes: Puzzle game similar to 2048
- Cogs: Puzzle game. No clue how to find it on the play store, but it’s available at humblebundle.
- Slay the Spire: Deck Builder roguelike.
- Space Chem: Zachlike puzzle game. (Actually not only zachlike - it’s form zachtronics)
and basically any Android game that ever was part of a Humble Mobile Bundle. Those happened before Humble Bundle was sold and consequently became boring.
- Comment on Silent but Deadly: I met some of my closest friends through multiplayer games. Then a strange happening turned everyone (literally) speechless. 2 weeks ago:
It was there for certain.
In WoW it disappeared when the Dungeon Finder was added, which made social interaction and therefore being nice to each other optional. Before that feature, you had to chat with people in order to form groups for clearing dungeons - a step that the Dungeon Finder conveniently allowed to skip…
Don’t get me wrong, the Dungeon Finder wasn’t the start of it, but it is what accelerated it greatly. Before that social interaction had already been in decline, mostly because everything except for the end-game had been slowly turning into essentially a single-player experience. However, everyone (who stuck to the game) sooner or later reached the end-game content, and had to interact with other players. With the Dungone Finder, this incentive was lost too…
(I am maybe a bit too harsh on the Dungeon Finder - some end-game content was difficult, so you had much higher chances of success if you played with a team you knew well - and therefore had to form/join a guild.)
- Comment on What's your favourite it's all in the gameplay game? 2 weeks ago:
Yep. In addition, there is now a free build of version 50.xx on the official website, which uses the same code as the Steam version, but does not include the tileset and the soundtrack.
I tried that free build on the weekend (because I didn’t want to bother with installing Steam on my ARM64 laptop), and it still looks as amazing as always. Now I just need to learn the keybindings for the Steam version - because using a mouse with ASCII graphics feels just wrong 😉.
- Comment on What's your favourite it's all in the gameplay game? 3 weeks ago:
This, sadly, is no longer true for the Steam version of the game. It comes with a (pretty good) tile-set, which is enabled by default.
I still think, the old ASCII art and keyboard-centric UI was better, but well…
- Comment on What's your favourite it's all in the gameplay game? 3 weeks ago:
You can’t say “Losing is fun!” without linking the comic!
(Source: Dwarf Fortress Wiki article on Fun)
- Comment on VR is so 90s 2 months ago:
Revisionist? I am old, I was there. But if you don’t believe me: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian
(And while I didn’t own a Symbian phone myself, a good friend did. Oh, but what I owned was a tablet computer. Way back in 2002. And now you will likely call me a Revisionist again, because I owned a device before Apple invented it…)
- Comment on VR is so 90s 2 months ago:
It’s funny that you mention the iPhone - a device that had zero innovation compared to its competitors, and just managed to take the market because of marketing.
- Comment on Let's discuss: Visual Novels 2 months ago:
While Visual Novels are not my favourite genre, there are a few entries that I would like to highlight, because I enjoyed playing them quite a lot:
- Pyre: While it isn’t marketed as Visual Novel, it pretty much is one. To be precise, it is a Visual Novel with sports-game elements. The world-building in this one is excellent, as is the art. The visuals alone would make this game worth playing, but there is also the soundtrack, and the gameplay of the sports events is pretty fun too. Oh, and the story. This game really requires tough choices. It’s from the same studio that made Hades, Transistor and Bastion, and it shows.
- Griftlands: Again, not marketed as Visual Novel, despite very clearly being one. This one is a Visual Novel with card battles and deck-building. Just as with Pyre, the world-building in this one is outstanding. The card battles are well done. It’s no Slay the Spire, but it’s still pretty good. Also, it has some of the best jokes I have seen in games recently.
- Loren the Amazon Princess: Again a Visual Novel that is primarily marketed as something else - this time Role Playing Game. And to be honest, it has everything you would expect from an RPG: inventory management, character stats, JRPG-style turn-based battles, trading, a world map,… But it’s still pretty much a Visual Novel with RPG elements. It has a massive scope for an indie game, and is overall pretty well done. To be blatantly honest, I played this mainly for the RPG parts, but the story isn’t bad either, once one gets past the initial “I see your party has no rogue, mind if I join?” part. The setting is still being actively developed by the studio behind it, who have released several other visual novels (with and without RPG elements) set in the same world, with recurring characters.
- Comment on VR is so 90s 2 months ago:
Yes. That’s why I was utterly confused when big companies dug out hat dead horse (yet) again.
And they are still trying to ride it.
- Comment on Looking for a Tales-like RPG without active combat 2 months ago:
Yep. And the worst part is the Fear-of-Missing-Out when disabling them.
Like, there is nothing stopping you from just not doing the kingdom management mini-game, except that nagging feeling that you might actually miss out on some content…
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 29th 2 months ago:
Currently? Potionomics. I just wanted something that I can finish quickly, because of the upcoming release of House of Light, but now I am still not done with my play-through, so I kinda cannot start House of Light just yet.
But in a couple of days, as soon as I am done with Potionomics?
House of Light. And that for quite some time, I expect.
- Comment on Looking for a Tales-like RPG without active combat 2 months ago:
And the predecessor, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is amazing too.
- Comment on Nintendo and Pokémon are suing Palworld maker Pocketpair 2 months ago:
It depends on what kind of patent. I just googled the term I had used before, and it is indeed what I expected it to be: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
And yes, that name is stupid. That’s why I am happy that my native language, German, has a better distinction between “Patent” (what you described) and “Geschmacksmuster” (design patent).
About patents being public: They are. That’s because the idea behind patents is that after they expire, anyone can use them to build the technology they describe. The temporary exclusive usage rights that they offer are meant as an incentive for inventors to publish their findings. The only problem is that the legal situation did not keep up with the creativity of patent lawyers… (I will stop now, otherwise this will turn into an endless rant about how broken the patent system is.)
- Comment on Nintendo and Pokémon are suing Palworld maker Pocketpair 2 months ago:
I’m not sure how the term “patent” is to be interpreted here. It could be used like back in the days when Apple sued Samsung because their phone had rounded edges too…
Like a “design patent” (sorry, I’m not a native English speaker, so I’m unsure if this is the correct translation).
A lot of the pals in the game look quite close to Pokémon. Not identical, of course, but so similar that one just has to wonder if the design has been “inspired” by Pokémon…
- Comment on What are the scariest games you've played? 2 months ago:
Amnesia.
- Comment on Palworld will not change to free to play model, dev claims [VGC] 2 months ago:
Short answer: Whales.
Long answer: Watch the South Park episode on the topic. They explain it in detail. It’s titled “Freemium Isn’t Free”.
- Comment on M*crosoft's search engine is borderline unusable 3 months ago:
Need to enshittify it enough to make the AI features feel like an improvement.
- Comment on [Request] Retro Recommendations 4 months ago:
Oh, and just in the moment I hit send, I remembered another gem from the olden times:
Unreal World: Basically the survival game. 99% of today’s survival games are just a pale shadow of this. I mean, nowadays there are even “survival” games without hunger mechanics or proper simulation of wounds… No, this is not one of those easy mode survival games. This is Fantasy Finland, and it’s the Fantasy Iron Age. Available for free or, if you want updates faster, also for money on Steam.
- Comment on [Request] Retro Recommendations 4 months ago:
If I weren’t currently at work and would have time to think about the answer, I could probably come up with more titles, but those are the top 2 that come to mind, if I ignore cRPGs (at least that’s how I read your “avoiding final fantasy-esque” requirement):
Settlers 2: It’s new enough to still look decent by today’s standards, and has amazing game design. Available at GoG.
Star Control 2: One of the best early open world games. The graphics have definitely aged by today’s standard, but the humour hasn’t. Or maybe it has, but just a bit. Available for free and open source.
- Comment on Paradox CEO admits company made "wrong calls in several projects" in wake of Life By You's cancellation 4 months ago:
Just look at the trailer. Of course there is still some animation jank, but the overall visuals are just stunning.
It’s so uncanny valley that I might feel bad for deleting the pool ladders (or whatever the equivalent of that is in inZOI).
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 28th 4 months ago:
I would like to answer Vagrus, as that is what I would want to play.
However, I spent way too much of my spare time playing Lean4, and that isn’t even supposed to be a game!
Almost all the rest of my gaming time goes into Palworld multiplayer with my wife. What left about 1 hour for Vagrus last week…
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 14th 5 months ago:
I wanted to play Baldurs Gate 3 multiplayer with my wife, but couldn’t convince her. She really doesn’t like turn-based combat, and the game has too much dialogue for her taste…
So, we are now playing Palworld instead. It’s a lot of fun in multiplayer, but still quite grindy.
- Comment on I asked what your fave controllers are, now. What is the worst controller you have used? 5 months ago:
Xbox Series X/S.
It isn’t even particularly bad by itself, but compared to its predesessors (Xbox One and Xbox 360) the Xbox Series X/S gamepad is a clear step back when it comest to build quality (just try pressing the D-Pad buttons without thinking “this is cheaply made”), and that comparison is what makes me hate it.
And what adds insult to injury is that the quite expensive Elite version of the controller is just as cheaply built as the regular model…
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 30th 5 months ago:
Technically I’m still playing “Vagrus - The Riven Realms”, but I didn’t play much lately, since I rediscovered my love for the Lean4 programming language and am now playing around with a formally validated heap again.
