What Video Games Have You Been Playing #12: Rage Quit - ain't my thing

[Synobun]

I've been going through my unplayed games to try and find a new one to play. I finished Shadowrun: Hong Kong and it... eh... I mean, the gameplay was alright, I guess, but the story sucked. Unfortunate. There was a DLC campaign that I tried to poke at but I haven't bothered going back to it.

Worrisome is that all of the new games I've been trying aren't working on my laptop, even Grim Dawn with all the settings turned down. It's becoming more and more apparent that I should start saving up for an upgrade, but... y'know...

I also need to save up for a CheatHappens subscription. The trainer dev I support joined WeMod, and I was willing to give them a shot, but the platform blows. And it constantly crashes my laptop. So even of the new games that are working, none of the trainers do, and the platform uses a crowd-sourced voting model which costs money for trainer updates (and there's no guarantee they'll even update if you do vote).

On mobile, I've tried more and more idle games to no avail. They all bottleneck progress quickly. And it seems in the past year micro-transactions have gotten insane. All of these games are asking $20+ for individual managers and cards. I'd pay a couple dollars, maybe $5, but that much? Hell no. And my motivation to support developers is squashed anyways when they make it incredibly inconvenient to progress without paying them a fortune. Devs need to make money, but all the features are behind ad-walls anyways, so even a free player is making them a king's ransom. Ads + paying AAA figures? They're having a right laugh.

Tried a crossword game. Turns out I still suck at crosswords. Who knew? I still prefer CodyCross, because it auto-fills letters of other questions if you get another one right. I am good at crosswords with context clues.

 

[Ajidica]

Worrisome is that all of the new games I've been trying aren't working on my laptop, even Grim Dawn with all the settings turned down. It's becoming more and more apparent that I should start saving up for an upgrade, but... y'know...

Have you played any of the Spiderweb Software games? Some of the best RPGs I've played (look at Avernum: Escape from the Pit or Avadon 2: The Corruption) and are designed to be super easy on systems, specifically in that they have very primitive 2d graphics. Several of them have demos on steam and you definitely get your money's worth. Avernum: Escape from the Pit is $10 on steam right now for probably 70+ hours of content.

 

[Synobun]

I've heard of Avernum but never really gave it a second look. Despite my lite beer capabilities, I have champagne tastes. Although I wish I didn't.

 

[Zardnaar]

Back to Crusader KingsTwo. Behind in DLC, and behind in mechanics. Just figured out how to get elected king of france.

Had two branches of the family create 5 or 6 genius heirs and one got the French throne while sister got Italy. The Lord's of France won't accept an Italian Queen while I might lose my ancestral lands on succession.

Just trying to hold the throne long enough to pass primogeniture, holy war into Spain and see if the Basque culture shift trick still works.

Bring in equal succession and crusade into Mecca and install an Empress there. Deus Vult!!!!

 

[EgonSpengler]

Path of Exile. Bored already with Blight, I was freed to return to my dual-sword, Cyclone Gladiator. I've built him to use Evasion and Blocking as his main defenses, and Life Leech over Regeneration, which has left him miserable against some of the big bosses. He handled High Templar Avarious/Innocence, but it took friggin' forever, and Kitava at the end of Act V was brutal. And there was one of those burrowing, fiery dogs, Gold-named but not an Act Boss or anything, not even Orange-named, that killed him 4 or 5 times with some sort of flame attack that never missed. So I need to have a rethink of his equipment.

Nauticrawl is a neat little game, and unexpectedly engrossing. I can't say much, as it's a puzzle game and figuring out what you're doing and what's going on is essentially the whole game, at least at first.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I tried to download Rune Factory 4 on 3DS but I don't have enough memory and accessing the memory card requires partial disassembly of the unit which I'm too lazy to do right now.

I did pick up my old save file of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning and I'm struggling to figure out what I was up to in the game. Harvest Moon is not a game that lends itself to long breaks during play through. I started the game not knowing who I was dating in the game, what my long-term building plans were or what festivals I was trying to win. After a couple of in-game days I found my bearing but I wasted a lot of items that I was trying to turn into other things (like cheese, yarn, etc) while figuring things out.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So I went searching for a spare micro SD card to download Rune Factory and came up empty handed.

I have been giving Harvest Moon a college try but it's really, really difficult to jump back into the game. I massively overbuilt my farm such that I spend all of my time tending to the animals and have little time to do anything else. I even have a spring-fed field which auto-waters my plants but it's all too much. And to make things worse, to build a double bed for a mate, I need yarn. Except my sheep all produce golden fleece so while I can make golden yarn, I can't make regular yarn and the game won't accept the substitute. Plus, I tried to propose to the girl I'm dating and even though I met all the criteria, she won't take the ring. Not sure what's going on (I don't need the bed at this stage either, I was trying to plan ahead).

I honestly want to restart the game as I'm at the end but it takes a full ~6 hours of real-life time just to get it going. This edition of Harvest Moon is notorious for being exceptionally slow to start.

I'm super frustrated right now.

 

[Lexicus]

Stardew Valley folks. It's a dope game.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

In Minecraft, the Quark mod adds cute little mobs called Stonelings. I was able to get one of my own. They can hold any block you give them...

 

[Birdjaguar]

I joined a Civ 4 game last night run by a guy I do not know. It was my first time playing multiplayer. One of the other players didn't want me to play and encouraged the organizer to "kick me". He didn't. Well, the fellow who didn't want me n the game made it his purpose to wipe me out asap. Being clueless about how these guys play, it didn't take too long for 50 elephants and catapults to descend upon me and take me down. Oh well, so much for multi player.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That's pretty sucky, sorry that happened man

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

At least they weren't catapulting elephants into your cities.

 

[Lexicus]

Multiplayer is a rush game. Pay that dude back by smacking him with a stack of Chariots when he's still researching Construction

 

[Sommerswerd]

After surviving for over a month in The Long Dark on Voyager I've decided to move up to Stalker... I'd settled into a routine where I was killing wolves Deer and rabbits like I was giving out candy, I'd almost completed my animal skin Wilderness-Man outfit. I had the Gray Mother house refrigerator fully stocked with meat and the living room and bedroom cabinets fully stocked with supplies. It seemed like I was pretty much in position to survive indefinitely. I finally died when I got jumped by four consecutive wolves in the back of Paradise Meadows farm I fought off 3 but I didn't have enough life to beat the 4th.

I'm enjoying Stalker so far. The first playthrough I died in minutes because four consecutive wolves attacked me on my way into Milton. It's much harder to move around on Stalker with all the freaking wolves... but its more challenging/fun that way too

I did pick up my old save file of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning and I'm struggling to figure out what I was up to in the game. Harvest Moon is not a game that lends itself to long breaks during play through. I started the game not knowing who I was dating in the game, what my long-term building plans were or what festivals I was trying to win. After a couple of in-game days I found my bearing but I wasted a lot of items that I was trying to turn into other things (like cheese, yarn, etc) while figuring things out.

OMG I LOVED Harvest Moon on N64. I was late to the party and didn't discover the game until I came across it on emulators but boy, what a fun game

I have been giving Harvest Moon a college try but it's really, really difficult to jump back into the game. I massively overbuilt my farm such that I spend all of my time tending to the animals and have little time to do anything else. I even have a spring-fed field which auto-waters my plants but it's all too much. And to make things worse, to build a double bed for a mate, I need yarn. Except my sheep all produce golden fleece so while I can make golden yarn, I can't make regular yarn and the game won't accept the substitute. Plus, I tried to propose to the girl I'm dating and even though I met all the criteria, she won't take the ring. Not sure what's going on (I don't need the bed at this stage either, I was trying to plan ahead).

I honestly want to restart the game as I'm at the end but it takes a full ~6 hours of real-life time just to get it going. This edition of Harvest Moon is notorious for being exceptionally slow to start.

I'm super frustrated right now.

I know how you feel... you almost have to play that game using a journaling system if you're not going to play it every single day, because there are too many mini-projects going on all at once to keep track of it all. It's hard enough to keep it all straight in your head while you're actually playing, let alone trying to come back to it after a few days and actually remember everything you were up to ... So much to keep track of... cart the eggs, milk the cow, walk the dog, build the fence, work the mines, go fishing, weed the field, plant the crops, pick the crops, OOOPS! that wasn't a ripe one Oh no! I forgot to put the potatoes in the shipping bin! Now I won't get my beautiful money!! Oh crap! I forgot to bring my girlfriend flowers! Gotta run to town and see if my backup date is still awake! Damn I forgot to buy seeds!!!:

That game is a masterpiece

Stardew Valley folks. It's a dope game.

What's it about?

 

[Synobun]

What's it about?

A modern version of Rune Factory and Harvest Moon. Less agitating. Nice to look at.

 

[Sommerswerd]

At least they weren't catapulting elephants into your cities.

Run Away! Run Away!

 

[yung.carl.jung]

everyone except my inner circle completely hates me when I play Civ 5 online. and for good reason. I literally cannot think of a situation where my gameplan isn't "massacre your neighbor and take all his clay". If you're playing for fun it probably sucks to play with someone who is "optimal" and kinda takes the fun out of it. So yeah, don't play civ 5 with me.

 

[Synobun]

everyone except my inner circle completely hates me when I play Civ 5 online. and for good reason. I literally cannot think of a situation where my gameplan isn't "massacre your neighbor and take all his clay". If you're playing for fun it probably sucks to play with someone who is "optimal" and kinda takes the fun out of it. So yeah, don't play civ 5 with me.

Used to play AoE2 with someone.

Stopped playing with them when they learned macros.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Even with liberty your science gets kneecapped pretty hard for taking more than ~6 cities in Civ 5. 4 city tradition was pretty meta for racing ahead in tech, the really good players could necessarily get era+ ahead of more cities this way.

So what is "optimal" might be different than expected.

Stopped playing with them when they learned macros.

I have mixed feelings about macros in RTS, but overall consider only one side having access to them unfair/cheating. I also consider a perceived need for them a failure on the part of the game designer. Rote inputs aren't particularly interesting and don't do anything to separate the game from cookie clicker. Meaningful inputs where the player actually needs to make a decision won't benefit from a macro so easily, because the choice depends on context.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Even with liberty your science gets kneecapped pretty hard for taking more than ~6 cities in Civ 5. 4 city tradition was pretty meta for racing ahead in tech, the really good players could necessarily get era+ ahead of more cities this way.

So what is "optimal" might be different than expected.

4 tradition was meta for the longest time, and for good reason, but it isn't necessarily optimal. just check the science victory thread and you'll see many of weird attempts making new records, like wide shoshone or austria. this is true even more for singleplayer, but not necessarily for multiplayer. the MP meta is totally different and crazy, for a good glimpse of it I recommend filthy robot on yt.