Free Games: making spreadsheets about money saved on games you will never play

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Free Games: making spreadsheets about money saved on games you will never play

«‹›291 »

Noper Q: Nov 7, 2012

repiv posted:

Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition is free on EGS this week

Weird how the only game that exists is Dark Souls. I have vague memories of a past where there were games other than Dark Souls, but maybe that's just my imagination. Good thing Dark Souls has a perfect design that can just be blindly copy and pasted into literally any game with no negative repercussions!

Sorry, I'm just so tired of this crap. Checkpoints that are way too far apart, extremely limited healing, and you better believe you're losing your upgrade currency if you die. Everyone loooooves corpse runs! I was really enjoying the game at first. The movement conceit is fun, original, and fast, and they did a good job making it intuitive and responsive. But the needlessly punishing difficulty makes me feel like I have to move at a crawl because I never know when something dangerous is going to appear just offscreen, and there goes one of the three hits I can take for the next twenty minutes of gameplay. And, sure, you can turn off a lot of this crap, but despite it having no influence on your ability to get achievements, they still go out of their way to say that it will permanently mark your save file, like some kind of mark of shame.

Also, I didn't know it was possible to make a 2D game with a bad camera, but they found a way. It will random decide to be zoomed in so far that you can't even see the walls, and when your only mode of movement is bouncing between walls, that seems questionable. And sometimes the screen rotates 90 degrees, and you have no control over when this happens. That would be disorienting enough on its own in a game that's all about navigation, but when it does this, the map doesn't rotate, so suddenly moving to the right in-game is going up on the map.

I maybe shouldn't be feeling this strongly about a game I got for free, but it's just so disappointing. I really was having fun; the movement is smooth as butter, and the setting and art style were intriguing. But for some reason they decided to have these terrible design decisions.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 21:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 24, 2024 11:55

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

Noper Q posted:

Weird how the only game that exists is Dark Souls. I have vague memories of a past where there were games other than Dark Souls, but maybe that's just my imagination. Good thing Dark Souls has a perfect design that can just be blindly copy and pasted into literally any game with no negative repercussions!

Sorry, I'm just so tired of this crap. Checkpoints that are way too far apart, extremely limited healing, and you better believe you're losing your upgrade currency if you die. Everyone loooooves corpse runs! I was really enjoying the game at first. The movement conceit is fun, original, and fast, and they did a good job making it intuitive and responsive. But the needlessly punishing difficulty makes me feel like I have to move at a crawl because I never know when something dangerous is going to appear just offscreen, and there goes one of the three hits I can take for the next twenty minutes of gameplay. And, sure, you can turn off a lot of this crap, but despite it having no influence on your ability to get achievements, they still go out of their way to say that it will permanently mark your save file, like some kind of mark of shame.

Also, I didn't know it was possible to make a 2D game with a bad camera, but they found a way. It will random decide to be zoomed in so far that you can't even see the walls, and when your only mode of movement is bouncing between walls, that seems questionable. And sometimes the screen rotates 90 degrees, and you have no control over when this happens. That would be disorienting enough on its own in a game that's all about navigation, but when it does this, the map doesn't rotate, so suddenly moving to the right in-game is going up on the map.

I maybe shouldn't be feeling this strongly about a game I got for free, but it's just so disappointing. I really was having fun; the movement is smooth as butter, and the setting and art style were intriguing. But for some reason they decided to have these terrible design decisions.

I've put hundreds and hundreds of hours into the various dark souls games and honestly?

:same:

big. loving. :same:

.

even fromsoft is getting boring at it. i don't give a flying gently caress about elden ring. do something different. give, fuckin', armored core the god damned love and attention you give soulslikes, god dammit.

and enough with the loving poison swamps, for fucks sake.

anyway hi thread i'm new to pc gaming.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:10

Lutha Mahtin: Oct 10, 2010; Your brokebrain sin is absolved...go and shitpost no more!

It's pretty remarkable how big of an impact Dark Soups has had on game design trends. And of course, any game that has such a big impact like that means there will be a ton of games that implement its ideas badly or nonsensically.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:20

JustJeff88: Jan 15, 2008; I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE

THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

of SA-Mart forever

The game industry is like any other; it will hopelessly milk a popular concept for cash until people are sick of it and it dries up because being creative and innovative is risky and difficult.

Lutha Mahtin posted:

It's pretty remarkable how big of an impact Dark Soups has had on game design trends. And of course, any game that has such a big impact like that means there will be a ton of games that implement its ideas badly or nonsensically.

I'm not sure if I would try a bowl of Dark Soups - seems fraught with peril.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:22

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

JustJeff88 posted:

I'm not sure if I would try a bowl of Dark Soups - seems fraught with peril.

If you get up from the table before finishing somehow the soup bowl is full again when you come back.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:26

Farquar: Apr 30, 2003; Bjorn you glad I didn't say banana?

As somebody who has never played Dark Souls, what does this mean? How is this similar?

In the past few years I've seen many games described as "like Dark Souls" but they all seems to be different genres, so I can't figure out what what they have in common.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:34

cage-free egghead: Mar 8, 2004

Farquar posted:

As somebody who has never played Dark Souls, what does this mean? How is this similar?

In the past few years I've seen many games described as "like Dark Souls" but they all seems to be different genres, so I can't figure out what what they have in common.

Hard difficulty curve, lack of checkpoints or healing system. Dark Souls did do level design really great though, but a lot of games can't seem to match that.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:35

Air Skwirl: May 13, 2007; Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed shitposting.

Farquar posted:

As somebody who has never played Dark Souls, what does this mean? How is this similar?

In the past few years I've seen many games described as "like Dark Souls" but they all seems to be different genres, so I can't figure out what what they have in common.

Part of it is there's a bunch of different things that make Dark Souls Dark Souls, so games that are described as being similar often only have some of those things, and then they execute those things with various levels of skill.

Edit: But the post directly above mine describes the most common things associated with Dark Souls.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:38

Stickman: Feb 1, 2004

Lib and let die posted:

anyway hi thread i'm new to pc gaming.

You mean Dark Souls Gaming :colbert:

Anyone sick of Dark Souls might appreciated another free game code for Big Fish Games! (reddit thread link)

FREEGAME546711

There are recommendations in the reddit thread. Besides hidden object games, there are a variety of point-and-click adventures, puzzle and card games, and indie jrps.

I finally got around to trying a few HOGs I'd had in my steam library for a while and was pleasantly surprised:

Dracula: Love Kills is older, lacks widescreen support, and the story and voice acting are cheesy (but entertaining) as hell. Despite that, the variety of (mostly classic) puzzles kept my attention and didn't overstay their welcome, and a few were legitimately fiendishly difficult. I also enjoyed the hidden object scenes more than I expected - they tend to share some motifs so they went quicker and quicker as I learned the developer's tricks and refreshed my scene-scanning skills.

Nightmare from the Deep is a three part series that came highly recommended. The story is cheesy as heck again, but fun. Both the hidden object scenes and puzzles tended to be easier than Dracula and there's an option to forgo the hidden object scenes entirely and clear a Mahjong board instead. There's a lot of amusing adventure game logic, but it tends to either have relatively obvious hints or be self-contained within a scene.

Be sure to find the "Collector's edition" of any Big Fish HOG when using free game codes - they usually have some additional epilogue content. There's also a 3 for $1 / 5 for $2 / 10 for $3 Hidden Object Bundle on Fanatical with the entire Nightmare from the Deep series and the first to games of the Grim Legends series (which also has good reviews).

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:43

Gobbeldygook: May 13, 2009; Hates Native American people and tries to justify their genocides.

Put this racist on ignore immediately!

Farquar posted:

As somebody who has never played Dark Souls, what does this mean? How is this similar?

In the past few years I've seen many games described as "like Dark Souls" but they all seems to be different genres, so I can't figure out what what they have in common.

Soulsborne games generally have:

Infrequent checkpoints
High difficulty
Corpse runs (if you die, you have to go back to where you died to recover your xp/gold)
Restricted self-healing
Twitchy combat with a dodge/dash + active parry
Weapons with different move sets
RPG advancement
Levels you revisit later with shortcuts

So Hollow Knight is a Soulsborne game, although it only has one weapon and doesn't really have character levels.

Gobbeldygook fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 28, 2021

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:51

Farquar: Apr 30, 2003; Bjorn you glad I didn't say banana?

cage-free egghead posted:

Hard difficulty curve, lack of checkpoints or healing system. Dark Souls did do level design really great though, but a lot of games can't seem to match that.

So it's like a NES game. Got it!

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:51

RPATDO_LAMD: Mar 22, 2013; 🐘🪠🍆

Farquar posted:

As somebody who has never played Dark Souls, what does this mean? How is this similar?

In the past few years I've seen many games described as "like Dark Souls" but they all seems to be different genres, so I can't figure out what what they have in common.

The mechanics Dandara specifically copied from DS:
When you die, you drop all your cash in a pile on top of your corpse and respawn at the last checkpoint. To get it back you have to make it back to the place you died. If you die again it disappears forever.
You have a small health bar, with a limited number of healing potions that refill for free at checkpoints.

The dropping-your-souls thing is pretty dumb but the potions/estus flasks is a pretty clever design which more games should copy. It's like just having a 10x bigger health bar with no healing between checkpoints except it makes individual low-damage hits scarier and more meaningful because they can still kill you if you get hit with a few in a row without time to drink a potion in between.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:52

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

RPATDO_LAMD posted:

The mechanics Dandara specifically copied from DS:
When you die, you drop all your cash in a pile on top of your corpse and respawn at the last checkpoint. To get it back you have to make it back to the place you died. If you die again it disappears forever.
You have a limited number of healing potions that refill for free at checkpoints.

The dropping-your-souls thing is pretty dumb but the potions/estus flasks is a pretty clever design which more games should copy. It's like just having a 10x bigger health bar with no healing between checkpoints except it makes individual low-damage hits scarier and more meaningful because they can still kill you if you get hit with a few in a row without time to drink a potion in between.

I'm very, very much reminded of that one torch hollow in the burg underground.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:53

...of SCIENCE!: Apr 26, 2008; by Fluffdaddy

Farquar posted:

As somebody who has never played Dark Souls, what does this mean? How is this similar?

In the past few years I've seen many games described as "like Dark Souls" but they all seems to be different genres, so I can't figure out what what they have in common.

Haven't played Dandara so I can't compare, but outside of the difficulty and RPG-esque character and equipment levelling here's a list of the most common things that are described as "Souls-like" as well as examples to show how diverse and wide-spread games that people accuse of ripping off Dark Souls can be:

-A checkpoint system where all the enemies respawn when you use it and your character's health, etc are replenished (Jedi: Fallen Order)
-A system where when you die you have to go back to the spot you died at to reclaim the resources you were carrying with you (Hollow Night)
-A passive online system where players can leave messages to each other or request assistance (Pokemon Sword/Shield)
-An invasion system where players can enter each others games and fight (Watchdogs)
-Very fragile playable characters where dodging, parrying, and avoiding enemies are incredibly important to survival (Rain World)
-Clunky, self-important titles and proper nouns for locations and enemies that are equal parts badass and incomprehensible (Blasphemous)
-Lack of any map system, leaving the impetus on the player to memorize locations and routes (Salt and Sanctuary)

e. Basically at this point complaining that a third-person action adventure game is influenced by Dark Souls is like complaining that a third-person action adventure game in 1999 is influenced by Ocarina of Time. The lessons and concepts it brought to how to navigate and engage with a 3d space have become to new standard because they're really good and engaging.

...of SCIENCE! fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jan 28, 2021

# ? Jan 28, 2021 22:53

FanaticalMilk: Mar 11, 2011

Little Big Workshop just got added to Prime Gaming:

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256734652/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1603354906

Edit: 2 other games, Algo Bot & Cyber Hook are also on Prime Gaming now, looks like they got added a week or 2 ago:

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256704403/movie480.webm?t=1522395427

https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256802480/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1601059995

FanaticalMilk fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jan 29, 2021

# ? Jan 28, 2021 23:02

mortons stork: Oct 13, 2012

one thing people also severely underestimate is how much dark souls is made by its level and encounter design. case in point, bloodborne's chalice dungeons, which are a samey, awful slog.
basically, dark souls is the meme of the guy missing the point going 'wow, cool dodge mechanic!' while dark souls is trying to say 'make your goddamn levels good and interesting to play through' and it goes over his head.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 23:19

treat: Jul 24, 2008; by the sex ghost

God I'm so sick of these loving dark souls clones where you have to restart from a save point whenever you die

# ? Jan 28, 2021 23:23

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

treat posted:

God I'm so sick of these loving dark souls clones where you have to restart from a save point whenever you die

real gamers only play roguelikes

# ? Jan 28, 2021 23:28

...of SCIENCE!: Apr 26, 2008; by Fluffdaddy

Lib and let die posted:

real gamers only play roguelikes

The Virgin "arguing about the word 'soulslike'" vs The Chad "arguing about the word 'roguelike'"

# ? Jan 28, 2021 23:30

bees x1000: Jun 11, 2020

real gamers ain�t even real gamers unless they get all prickly about the differences between roguelikes and roguelites

# ? Jan 28, 2021 23:50

RPATDO_LAMD: Mar 22, 2013; 🐘🪠🍆

...of SCIENCE! posted:

The Virgin "arguing about the word 'soulslike'" vs The Chad "arguing about the word 'roguelike'"

people who argue about the word roguelike were sending their kids off to college before that meme was even born

# ? Jan 29, 2021 00:15

Kerbtree: Sep 8, 2008; BAD FALCON!
LAZY!

...of SCIENCE! posted:

The Virgin "arguing about the word 'soulslike'" vs The Chad "arguing about the word 'roguelike'"

whispers �roguelite� in ur ear :p

# ? Jan 29, 2021 00:33

dogstile: May 1, 2012; fucking clocks
how do they work?

RPATDO_LAMD posted:

people who argue about the word roguelike were sending their kids off to college before that meme was even born

These are the sort of people I feel like it's fine to "ok boomer" whenever they start talking.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 00:54

Zushio: May 8, 2008

Dark Souls Inspired Roguelite Metroidvania is a cursed phrase.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 03:25

RPATDO_LAMD: Mar 22, 2013; 🐘🪠🍆

# ? Jan 29, 2021 03:30

TGLT: Aug 14, 2009

this truly is the dark souls of Free Games (that used to not be free) thread pages

# ? Jan 29, 2021 04:10

rodbeard: Jul 21, 2005

...of SCIENCE! posted:

The Virgin "arguing about the word 'soulslike'" vs The Chad "arguing about the word 'roguelike'"

I can't tell you how many times I've had somebody hype me up on a roguelike only to later find out it's actually a first person shooter. Actually I can it's 3 but still that doesn't seem like a thing that should happen multiple times.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 07:36

Eh! Frank: Mar 28, 2006; Doctor gave me these, I said what are these?
He said that they'll cure an existential type disease

rodbeard posted:

I can't tell you how many times I've had somebody hype me up on a roguelike only to later find out it's actually a first person shooter. Actually I can it's 3 but still that doesn't seem like a thing that should happen multiple times.

Ziggurat, Tower of Guns, and Immortal Redneck?

# ? Jan 29, 2021 07:45

rodbeard: Jul 21, 2005

I forgot about immortal redneck. I was thinking of gunfire reborn as number 3 but it was actually the 4th time somebody pitched an FPS to me as a roguelike.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 08:18

The General: Mar 4, 2007

dogstile posted:

These are the sort of people I feel like it's fine to "ok boomer" whenever they start talking.

I'm only 35 :negative:

# ? Jan 29, 2021 08:23

Lutha Mahtin: Oct 10, 2010; Your brokebrain sin is absolved...go and shitpost no more!

don't forget delver

# ? Jan 29, 2021 08:42

Lone Goat: Apr 16, 2003; When life gives you lemons, suplex those lemons.

I was going to guess Void Bastards

# ? Jan 29, 2021 17:07

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Stickman posted:

FREEGAME546711

There are recommendations in the reddit thread. Besides hidden object games, there are a variety of point-and-click adventures, puzzle and card games, and indie jrps.

Oh hey, I finally checked this out. Turns out they have all the Emily \ other Diner Dash clones from gamehouse. drat, could have gotten a bunch of those by now...

Anyways, I also echo the recommendation of Nightmares from the Deep. Only played the third one, but it was appropriately stupid.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 21:01

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

https://twitter.com/primegaming/status/1355251917950169090

The new games will drop on Monday.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 21:36

doctorfrog: Mar 14, 2007; Great.

My kid liked the Nightmares from the Deep during her kindergarten year. It was decently fun to play through together. For a while she would hide under the desk when interacting with the dwarf. Just a quick click and zoom under the desk and I'd have to give him the coins.

# ? Jan 29, 2021 21:36

Kly: Aug 8, 2003

i dont know if DLC counts but Plague Inc DLC The Cure is free until COVID is under control
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1472780/Plague_Inc_The_Cure/

# ? Jan 29, 2021 21:53