What Video Games Have You Been Playing #15: Computer not on fire yet? Better add more mods!

[Timsup2nothin]

Gog is running a dungeon crawler promo sale and I must say some of them look fantastic. I should probably resist since I have no time for games...

And this has stopped who, ever?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Lots of Simon Tathams puzzle collection. Got it on Android. https://chris.boyle.name/projects/android-puzzles/ Look i figured out how to paste urls!

Send me other fun games on Android. Preferably free. I'm bored and my vast stash of fanfic only goes so far.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Send me other fun games on Android. Preferably free. I'm bored and my vast stash of fanfic only goes so far.

The complete Arvil Bren's Journal is usually a two day read. Hint, hint.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'd recommend Lords of Midnight, but you probably won't like it. And it's not free.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The complete Arvil Bren's Journal is usually a two day read. Hint, hint.

I actually have on my reading list but I forgot to sync my list to the reader. Oops.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The link in my sig is a good shortcut if your reader can pick it up.

 

[Akka]

Gog is running a dungeon crawler promo sale and I must say some of them look fantastic. I should probably resist since I have no time for games...

So what ? I've now fully accepted that I'll probably not touch most of my GOG purchases until I'm retired. I see this as a long-term investment.

 

[Arakhor]

Probably? You have so few games that it's not a statistic impossibility?

Send me other fun games on Android. Preferably free. I'm bored and my vast stash of fanfic only goes so far.

I can recommend Quantum, Universe and Seedship.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So what ? I've now fully accepted that I'll probably not touch most of my GOG purchases until I'm retired. I see this as a long-term investment.

As a retired person I point to this as the apex of wisdom.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The link in my sig is a good shortcut if your reader can pick it up.

Sadly sig doesn't appear on mobile.

Imterestongly though i actually once got calibres server function to cooperate with my port forwarding so i could access my library from anywhere in the world with internet connection. Passworded of course. But it was kind of pointless at the time so i never bothered again.

I can recommend Quantum, Universe and Seedship.

I will look thank you.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Sadly sig doesn't appear on mobile.

Imterestongly though i actually once got calibres server function to cooperate with my port forwarding so i could access my library from anywhere in the world with internet connection. Passworded of course. But it was kind of pointless at the time so i never bothered again.

Well, conveniently I use the same username everywhere so if you can get to fanfiction.com and you don't want to just roam wildly you can at least find me.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The highways in SimCity are interesting but they're a half-assed implementation. You can only build on-ramps at street-highway crossing and then only if you have the correct number of tiles. You also can't create those intersection on a diagonal, which is another headache. But the worst thing is that there are no interchanges to connect two highways. You can have one go under another one perpendicularly, but there's no easy, good way to connect them at that junction. You have to do all that with stand-alone on-ramps and side streets.

One nice use I have found for them is that they make a nice barrier. I can use them to build a ring around empty land like a big O shape. I build the city all around the outside of the O and then put light industrial stuff and a surface-water barrier (moat) around that on the inside of the O. This provides jobs and a way to get to the jobs without too much pollution affecting the city. It's not ideal (industrial zones should be at the edges and corners of maps to minimize pollution) but it works on maps with limited land availability like the islands map I'm currently playing on.

 

[cardgame]

I have put maybe an hour into Darkest Dungeon. I get the feeling this game is going to make me hate it. I almost freaking died just getting to the city in the first 10 minutes with unlucky crits and misses.

 

[Synobun]

I have put maybe an hour into Darkest Dungeon. I get the feeling this game is going to make me hate it. I almost freaking died just getting to the city in the first 10 minutes with unlucky crits and misses.

You very likely will. I really love Darkest Dungeon's aesthetic. It has fantastic atmosphere. But the game is designed to be artificially punishing. You can do everything right and still lose all of your painstaking progress in a single dungeon simply because that's the way the RNG crumbles. You can play optimally and still get screwed.

The only way I could redeem that game was by cheating. I cheat in most games, but with rogue-likes I am intrigued by the idea of progressing to the point where the game is no longer challenging. You've figured out the enemies, the best tactics, etc, and now you can get to the end game. I don't cheat in Binding of Isaac, for example. But Darkest Dungeon... no. Just no.

Spoiler naughty language video :

 

[civvver]

I have put maybe an hour into Darkest Dungeon. I get the feeling this game is going to make me hate it. I almost freaking died just getting to the city in the first 10 minutes with unlucky crits and misses.

You very likely will. I really love Darkest Dungeon's aesthetic. It has fantastic atmosphere. But the game is designed to be artificially punishing. You can do everything right and still lose all of your painstaking progress in a single dungeon simply because that's the way the RNG crumbles. You can play optimally and still get screwed.

The only way I could redeem that game was by cheating. I cheat in most games, but with rogue-likes I am intrigued by the idea of progressing to the point where the game is no longer challenging. You've figured out the enemies, the best tactics, etc, and now you can get to the end game. I don't cheat in Binding of Isaac, for example. But Darkest Dungeon... no. Just no.

Spoiler naughty language video :

Ok so I absolutely loved playing Darkest Dungeon, and it is artificially hard in that the game never gets smarter but just forces you to grind more. Once you figure that out, it begins to lose appeal. I find it has next to no replay value for me, which is fine, because I sunk like 60 hours into it. Thus I would suggest never playing on the default difficulty level. There's no point, as the easy level is essentially the same experience as the default but with a couple limitors removed so you don't have to grind quite as much. That's it.

The insane level or whatever hard is called has a time limit which forces you to grind smarter, but in the end you are still grinding.

What you need to do to not feel completely lost in the game is figure out some of the mechanics, how stuff like stun and the different resists work, and go from there. Once you understand that it's not really difficult. As long as you don't quest far above your level you won't risk dying, not until the final levels anyway. The only time I ever felt really in danger was the final dungeon, which is indeed, really, really difficult. But it's not randomly generated like the others so you can look up tips online on how to beat it and I was able to on my first try, but man your party gets beat up badly during it.

I have the expansions but never played through them fully. They didn't seem to make the base game that much more fun. I would actually suggest for your first time not playing with the red court plague of madness expansion, as it just adds more complexity and ways the game can screw you early on.

I can give you more detailed explanation of classes and mechanics and stuff if you want, but probably the biggest thing you need to know early on is this, heroes are expendable resources. They aren't characters you build up like in other rpgs. They're fodder. You get a bunch of crappy 3 star guys and send them on easy missions and let them die, collect loot and move on. When you find a guy with a really good perk you level him up and save him for big things, but the majority of your guys are just fodder. Use them up, don't heal them, don't remove their stress, just use and dump em while you build up your base. It's way too expensive early on to heal and destress everyone.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

But the worst thing is that there are no interchanges to connect two highways. You can have one go under another one perpendicularly, but there's no easy, good way to connect them at that junction. You have to do all that with stand-alone on-ramps and side streets.

Build four on-ramps on each corner where the two highways meet.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The highways in SimCity are interesting but they're a half-assed implementation. You can only build on-ramps at street-highway crossing and then only if you have the correct number of tiles. You also can't create those intersection on a diagonal, which is another headache. But the worst thing is that there are no interchanges to connect two highways. You can have one go under another one perpendicularly, but there's no easy, good way to connect them at that junction. You have to do all that with stand-alone on-ramps and side streets.

One nice use I have found for them is that they make a nice barrier. I can use them to build a ring around empty land like a big O shape. I build the city all around the outside of the O and then put light industrial stuff and a surface-water barrier (moat) around that on the inside of the O. This provides jobs and a way to get to the jobs without too much pollution affecting the city. It's not ideal (industrial zones should be at the edges and corners of maps to minimize pollution) but it works on maps with limited land availability like the islands map I'm currently playing on.

Which Sim City are you playing again? There's a mod for SC4 that is pretty much a "universal use" mod that fixes a lot of the transportation gaps and probably covers every one you have mentioned. If you are playing four I'll look for it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

3000

 

[FriendlyFire]

I have put maybe an hour into Darkest Dungeon. I get the feeling this game is going to make me hate it. I almost freaking died just getting to the city in the first 10 minutes with unlucky crits and misses.

Great game, but make a backup of you save
The frustration of losing your "main team" can be frustrating and game breaking

Make sure level up multiple teams as the game progresses.
And upgrade your blacksmith and equipment asap.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

3000

Been a long time...dunno if there's any fix for freeways there. Is that the one with arcologies, or was that 2000?

I recommend the jump to four, BTW. Height of the SimCity franchise.