Game musings and news

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]

[Newbie]

In interactive fiction news, the massive, 80+ author eldritch horror exquisite corpse tribute game Cragne Manor is finally out today. There's some really amazing, hilarious, and creepy stuff in here; I'm really proud of what my fellow authors came up with. (I also contributed to this project.)

If you like text adventures, definitely play at least until you meet the horse.

[Mongrel]

"SPONSORED CONTENT

Sponsored Content will be introduced into Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition on December 11. Sponsored content will be displayed in several locations in-game to remind you about costumes, bundles, and the Capcom Pro Tour. When Sponsored Content is enabled, players can obtain additional Fight Money in Ranked and Casual Matches - these bonuses come with an upper limit. Here are the places where you will see Sponsored Content:

Costumes: Ad Style – Every character will have an Ad Style costume where the sponsored content will appear somewhere on their clothing or model

Loading Ads – A sponsor will appear in the versus screen before a battle – this will not affect loading screen times

Stage Ads – Some tournament stages feature a sponsor like the Ring of Power"

[Thad]

Discord's reducing its cut of game sales to 10%. Also, if this guy on Reddit claiming to work for Discord is legit, Mac and Linux support is coming.

[Blossom]

[Mongrel]

As many have been expecting, Asia's anti-Gatcha laws are catching on elsewhere.

Ars: 15 countries and one US state team up to fight gambling in video games

Starr's guess was that this is aimed more at mobile games (probably correct), but regardless, the loot box regulation is real.

[Mongrel]

Australia preparing significant legislation regulating lootboxes as well

[Friday]

good, I want loot boxes head on a spike

including overwatch and no it doesn't matter that the items are purely cosmetic

[Blossom]

Cosmetics and aesthetics are 200% an important part of the game. Making that the gambling mechanism is nothing but a cover.

[Friday]

the people i talk to who think its fine as long as it's "cosmetic only" are missing the point

There are two unrelated topics and they're blending them together in their minds

the first topic is this

1. Pay to win

the second topic is this

2. gambling in videogames

We can talk about either of those topics as much as you want, that's fine. I have problems with Pay to Win, too! But let's understand that Loot Boxes are not "only bad if they give you a mechanical advantage" as if that was the only relevant fucking question.

[nosimpleway]

I got a Steam gift card for Christmas and I have no damn idea what to do with it.

Since having a baby my ability to sit down and chug away at a game for hours at a time is pretty much diminished! For the Steam summer sale I remember looking at Civ 6 at half price for a long, long while before deciding I just don't have time for that sort of thing anymore. (My Steam library has logged about 2000 hours combined in Civs 4 and 5, not counting the hours I put into 3 and 4 before I got Steam at all.)

I need a game that I can get up and walk away from at a moment's notice without losing track of what was going on. Cities Skylines is really good for that! Factorio is pretty good for that! Skyrim is probably not great for that. I am the filthiest of casuals in that I really don't have time to develop the reflexes to play a game like Celeste, which I've otherwise heard good things about. This probably dovetails nicely into the Hard Mode thread, but

Hey guys, any recommendations?

[beatbandito]

Work out some kind of investment loan with Lyrai on the Steam Market.

[zaratustra]

I got a Steam gift card for Christmas and I have no damn idea what to do with it.

Since having a baby my ability to sit down and chug away at a game for hours at a time is pretty much diminished! For the Steam summer sale I remember looking at Civ 6 at half price for a long, long while before deciding I just don't have time for that sort of thing anymore. (My Steam library has logged about 2000 hours combined in Civs 4 and 5, not counting the hours I put into 3 and 4 before I got Steam at all.)

I need a game that I can get up and walk away from at a moment's notice without losing track of what was going on. Cities Skylines is really good for that! Factorio is pretty good for that! Skyrim is probably not great for that. I am the filthiest of casuals in that I really don't have time to develop the reflexes to play a game like Celeste, which I've otherwise heard good things about. This probably dovetails nicely into the Hard Mode thread, but

Hey guys, any recommendations?

Hidden Folks and The Haunted Island is a game you can try playing with very young kids on your lap. You might have to skip reading some textboxes but

my son hates most games though. they take away precious time he could be using to watch Paw Patrol

[Yoji]

I guess Uncle Romo let my boy play Smash Bros last night on a long drive home? Just practice, of course. He picked Megaman (he's on a "blue robot" kick) vs Donkey Kong. I was in the front seat and couldn't watch, but we managed to save a clip:

Good to see he's getting the hang of it, but I thought we still had years to go until he really got into games.

[Mongrel]

Ahahahaha

"This video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds"

EDIT: Wait... this video is from 2005 and has 200k+ views, so I assume you were just being cheeky and linking the music track?

[Yoji]

Yup, just trying to be cute :|

More on topic, I'll just pitch in what we've been playing for the past few years:
-Pretty much anything on the Switch. It's great that you can just put it to sleep and pick up where you left off.
--Kiddo seems to like pretty much any Zelda game. We're almost done with Wind Waker and he's still asking to play Breath of the Wild/"Blue Link." The dungeons are kind of a slog since you always restart at the entrance, though.
--Mario Kart has short rounds in Time Trial, of course. My boy could also try it since it has different controls, auto-throttle, and steering correction. He'd rather pick different characters and carts over and over, though.
--Splatoon/"squid kids" is nice since Turf War rounds are only three minutes long. I'm just stingey about paying to play games online.
-My boy really likes Donut County. It's pretty short and shallow, but it's cute. Also on the Switch, I think.
-Never Alone/Kisima Inŋitchuŋa is awfully pretty, has a snow fox, and grandpa likes listening to the story. And the chapters are fairly short, so it's easy to put down and pick up.
-He also likes The Last Guardian. Can't turn down a giant dog cat bird thing. The story is fairly straightforward, so it shouldn't be too confounding and difficult to quit and resume.
-I haven't played Minecraft in what feels like years, but I imagine it'd be a good on-and-off game.

[Thad]

I need a game that I can get up and walk away from at a moment's notice without losing track of what was going on. Cities Skylines is really good for that! Factorio is pretty good for that! Skyrim is probably not great for that. I am the filthiest of casuals in that I really don't have time to develop the reflexes to play a game like Celeste, which I've otherwise heard good things about. This probably dovetails nicely into the Hard Mode thread, but

Hey guys, any recommendations?

I haven't played Surviving Mars, Parkitect, or Prison Architect, but they're building games and I hear good things.

[mharr]

Today I learned that Flight Simulator X is a sort of ad-hoc pure roleplaying MMO where everyone's messing around doing the usual flight sim physics tricks and hacking, but often checking with volunteer air traffic control first which turns the whole thing into a kind of dada theater production.


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfoK9L ... 6zqsFZtNJQ

This is now my head canon for what Culture spaceport comms chatter sounds like.

[Mongrel]

That was way funnier than I ever expected a flight simulator video to be.