Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Harminoff posted:

Looks like the people behind Jalopy have a new sim out today

Landlord's Super!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127840/Landlords_Super/

Looks to be a mix between House Flipper and My Summer Car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfOJMUkcY_c

Oh man, I been waiting for this one to come out! Hopefully it's good. I liked Jalopy and I love gently caress around games like My Summer Car.

It's a good day for weird niche simulator releases, here are a couple more:

Train Station Renovation

Another one that is sort of like House Flipper, but with train stations. I played the demo and it's pretty chill. Also cheap, it's on launch sale for like 12 bucks or if you have any of their other games (like Car Mechanic Simulator), it's $10.49. Demo version is here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1281080/Train_Station_Renovation__First_Job/

Also released today:

Lumberjack's Dynasty from the same people who did Farmer's Dynasty, which is a farming game where you can also walk around town, get quests from people, get married, etc. This looks to be much the same but with lumberjacking. To be honest, Farmer's Dynasty was kind of a buggy, unfinished mess, but there was some fun to be found there -- maybe worth checking out if you can put up with some jank.

Finally, I don't if it truly fits in the niche simulator category, but I wanted to mention Intergalactic Fishing which is like the No Man's Sky of fishing (with limited graphics). Travel to a billion procedurally generated lakes and catch fish. Design your own lures. Participate in tournaments, or fish contracts, or side quests. Or follow the main quest which seems to be about overthrowing a big evil megacorporation through fishing. It's made by one dude who is very responsive on the Steam forums and I've been enjoying it a lot.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

zedprime posted:

Does anybody have anything good or bad to say about Gold Rush before the sale ends? Wouldn't mind an alternative to Farm Sim for repetitive task zoning out for $15 and have caught something of a dig for gold bug from messing around with Hydroneer.

Pros: It's relatively low on bugs and jank these days and works pretty well. There is a good sense of accomplishment once you get out of the panning around in the mud stage and start setting up a real mining rig.

Cons: I found the tutorials lacking in some respects, be prepared to do a little youtubing to figure some things out. Also, and this is personal perspective only, but I didn't find the core loop of the game all that fun once you get to the big machine phase. The digging with the excavators can just be kind of a pain in the rear end, and that is 90% of what you are doing. Still, that's my own personal opinion, you may like it more -- if you are a farm sim fan, you are also well-acquainted with gameplay loops like "driving in circles for an hour" (which I don't mind).

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Cross posting from the VR thread:

Derail Valley the train simulator launched a huge update today, that they are calling Overhauled, and it's so extensive it might as well be Derail Valley 2.0. It works in both VR and outside of VR.

Launch trailer for Overhauled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_XCdfc-Exk

They did six short videos building up to the release about the changes:
Introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUW4fWUM40o
General Improvements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGiabrJakb4
Couplers, Derailing and more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLXbuLw7bnk
World Rework: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTsz_HDvAKc
Fees, Licenses, and Insurance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLKKTu5MG4g
Jobs, HAZMAT, and More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qogr2xgfOjw

It's a game I've had fun with for awhile, but it was so janky that it was hard to recommend. I haven't spent too much time with the update yet, but it looks to smooth out a lot of the issues. If you like trains and want to shovel some coal, it's a good time to jump in (and even more so if you have VR).

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

nielsm posted:

Got around to play the Derail Valley update today. It was good before, it's really great now.
I've had a few glitches where I lose clipping with the train and can't control the controls, one time it resolved itself, another I had to quit and restart the game.

The new career mechanics can honestly be frustrating, but it's definitely the way to put progress-gauging into a game like this, and the persistent fuel/wear/damage on locomotives used is also a good way of making the player drive responsibly.

All in all, it's exactly what I want in a train simulator.

Yeah, it's pretty good. At first I thought the fees were a little too punitive, but it's teaching me to avoid stuff like just jamming the throttle on full and wearing out my wheels when I'm starting up.

Or crashing my shunter into a traincar like an idiot.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

zedprime posted:

Good thing they thought ahead to insure the new guy



Yeah, the keyboard control isn't as responsive as Train Sim World but it seems to work enough. Your brakes feel weird but maybe that's a more realistic take on air service brakes. I can't get a hang of if, when and how to use train brakes besides as an estop because it can't seem to add pressure back by the time they bite.

Definitely appreciate a train sim that involves orienteering with awful station schematics and switches appearing behind trees and curves.

I basically use the train brakes when I need to come to a full stop or dump a lot of speed. As you say, they seem to take a bit to engage, and then they also seem to keep braking for a bit even after I let off while they are repressurizing. If I just need to slow down a little or keep speed even on a downhill, I've been using the individual brake.

Of course, that's just on the little diesel shunter guy. I'm one or two jobs away from unlocking the steamer, that may require more train brake.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
The steamer in DV is fun as hell to use now that there are decent speed limits throughout the valley. Pre-Overhauled, it had plenty of power but you couldn't really put it to use since you really could never go above, like, 40 without fear of derailing. Now that you can go 70-80 most of the time, it really feels powerful and kind of terrifying.

However, it has a MAJOR bug right now: the coupler for the tinder (the coal car) isn't working right, resulting in the tinder smashing into your locomotive throughout most of the ride and you ending up with like a $60,000 bill for damage at the end. Basically any run with the steamer right now is full co-pay on your insurance because the tinder car is going to be 100% damaged at the end. They are aware of it, and are going to hotfix it to make the tinder invulnerable while they fix that coupling, but right now it is still screwed up.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

nielsm posted:

Sound like I've been doing right to skip the steamer and save up for the big diesel instead.

(Really, driving the steamer with having to manage the fire and boiler takes so much attention I'd rather spend on the track. I should probably try it out anyway at some point, they did say they improved something about it.)

The mistake people make with the steamer (and I did this at first too) is continuously feeding coal and water into the boiler like the engine is going to die if you don’t keep it constantly stoked. Basically just look at the steam gauge like a gas tank. If there’s still plenty of steam pressure in the thing, just leave it alone and drive the train. I typically only shovel coal and add water if it gets below like half (9 on the gauge). Since the thing is so heavy and you can coast a lot of the time unless you are on an uphill, it typically doesn’t chew through steam that fast. If you’re keeping the thing pinned all the time, you’re just wasting coal and a lot of your own energy and attention.

I did a 45 minute-ish trip yesterday and I think I shoveled coal like twice, three times if you count start up. It’s not that bad. Although I wouldn’t recommend it until they at least fix the coal car damage bug. But I find the steamer actually a lot of fun.

If you’re saving up for the big diesel, the developer just put out a very short video on how to actually start the drat thing (since there’s no manual for it in game yet): https://youtu.be/HqeeEsUJHtk

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

nielsm posted:

Okay so the big diesel is also bugged. The first car after it gets slowly pushed into the ground during transport, and this causes damage to the car, and potentially also loss of cargo.

Notice how this car is clipping through the rails and leaking oil. This is from an entirely accident-free and carefully shunted trip from Oil Well North to Harbor. Even after insurance, this trip was a net loss.


I wonder if that's basically the same coupling bug as the steamer has, just that with the steamer, the first car behind it is always the tinder car. I hope they fix it fast, the rest of the update is really good but it's killing my enthusiasm to play if I'm racking up fees all the time.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Derail Valley updated today and fixed some of the worst bugs we’ve been talking about — including making the coal car invulnerable. They also made some additional changes to the licensing system to give a bit more direction.

More info from the devs: https://youtu.be/V63bSNhkpaA

StarkRavingMad fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jun 6, 2020

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Anime Store Adventure posted:

I'm pretty sure I've played all the (2) games in this sub-sub-sub genre, but are there other sim-like games with a strong 'physical' world ala My Summer Car and Derail Valley that don't suck?

It's hard to describe, but its one of the only games where while the physics is janky and weird, its very touchy feely and objects have a strong physical presence. The only games where you can get a "now where the gently caress did I put that" feeling. Obviously this plays extremely well with My Summer Car since it perfectly complements putting a car together, but it helps in Derail Valley in a silly way with "oops I slapped my book into the train brake."

I guess Viscera Cleanup applies here too, but it does do an FPS when you're holding a mop or whatever.

Really hoping Deadstick (a flight sim) follows this sort of game feel.

Hydroneer might be worth checking out, it definitely has that first person “I dropped my bucket full of gems in the wrong spot and it catapulted them across the map” jank to it

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Derail Valley got another nice visual update: https://youtu.be/oL3HYoVZUkA

Also includes a temp fix for the DE-6 derailing the car behind it for no good reason.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Another update to Derail Valley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1vPcZfa13o

Features:
Extended tutorial;
Dynamic fees (so you can have more fees outstanding and still take on a new job depending on your bankroll);
Caboose that has a loco remote signal booster and fast-charger, an end-of-train map marker, instant jumping between caboose and locos in the same train, a mobile career manager terminal (so you can service on the go), a stronger independent brake, and a bunch of item storage.

Like the other hidden garage, you apparently have to buy the key for it and then find it somewhere. Also, you can summon it via the radio but it costs 10,000 to summon, so it seems like mostly an endgame luxury item.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Anime Store Adventure posted:

Me in derail valley, but replace “loading machine for section d” with literally anything in the game at all and also I’m drunk and listening to a podcast.

I’ve never had so much fun getting consistently lost.

Holding that loving station map and being like "I came in from the...north..east? And I'm by track C so the station house is by track G which is, over...there? But that's just water." *holds map upside down* "this way? It's....well now, I'm at the military terminal, this isn't it"

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Derail Valley update, with one big change: ability to control multiple locomotives at once - no longer have to mod that in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUVihtYCSH0

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Krataar posted:

I bought Derail Valley on a whim today after being reminded it exists, and it way more fun than I expected. Needs a bit more fleshing out or even some coop and it'd be great. If they add a way to add more trains or different maps I'd be very happy. I'm currently trying to figure out how to get the shunt to do what I want and get to a second engine while navigating my horrendous copay for hazmat deliveries.

Speaking of which, new update to Derail Valley, including a boombox:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw177ABbUX8

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Mrenda posted:

Resurrecting this thread to observe that game devs are absolutely rushing into the niche between Farm Sim, House Flipper and RPG mechanics. One that caught my eye was Junkyard Simulator, which could scratch the delving about in horrible places to find some nugget itch, but then I looked at what else they're coming out with an there's a "Bum" Simulator from them as well, where you live a homeless life. I thought this was a gross misstep, and decided not to play the demo of Junkyard Simulator as a protest. Sure, murdering, etc. is part of a huge amount of games, but pretending to be homeless, as some of the most abused people in the western world just doesn't sit well with me, especially finding entertainment in it. I figured of course there's one dev willing to sell their soul for this market, but then Hobo: Tough Life popped up a few days ago after leaving early access. What's wrong with just simulating life on a farm?

And speaking of farms, an actual question... Do any of the Farm Sim-likes that offer more RPG style interaction play well? Keeping the farming part relatively open but adding some storyline or more characterisation to the upgrade paths in comparison to Farm Simulator?

It looks like Junkyard Sim and Bum Simulator are two different developers (Rebelia Games and Ragged Games), just the same publisher. And that publisher, PlayWay, publishes like everything that comes their way, ESPECIALLY if it has the word "simulator" in it. They did Car Mech sim, Mech Mech sim, Mr Prepper, Rover Mech sim, Thief Simulator, Train Station Renovator, Car Trader Simulator, Drug Dealer Simulator, Tank Mech Simulator, Cooking Simulator, Plane Mech sim, Ultimate Fishing sim...the list goes on and on. I wouldn't hold using that publisher against the Junkyard devs.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

zedprime posted:

I think the Dynasty uhh franchise? Series? They're all basically random small or indie dev studios making RPG mixed with survival or sim games that were picked up by a budget publisher.

I haven't picked up Farmers Dynasty because it doesn't have nearly enough machinery and crop porn but the reviews aren't universally bad even though the gist of a lot of them is that the RPG doesn't add enough to make up for it not being Farm Sim. There's also Lumberjack Dynasty that is similarly tepidly regarded.

Medieval Dynasty is a good one but it's much more Bang Tree Make Dinner survival game than a niche sim.

In Farmer's Dynasty, you can do a certain amount of quests per day for the people in the town, which basically are either "take something from point A to point B," "repair my house/barn/etc," "go find a missing sheep and bring it back," or "cut my grass." These raise how much the people like you. For the women in the game, you can also raise their affection level by complimenting them once a day. If you do that enough, you can then give the girl gifts and eventually marry her. Getting a wife means she'll hang around the house, do some cooking. Eventually you can have a kid, which I think hangs around in a crib for three years and then gets up and walks around but doesn't really do anything.

It's all extremely basic, it doesn't have the depth and RPG mechanics of like Stardew Valley or anything. It is kind of cool to have a little more on foot stuff and be able to fix up your house and cook and whatnot, instead of the game being just driving in circles in your farm machines, but it's all so shallow that it's hard to recommend. Lumberjack's Dynasty kind of the same thing, except with cutting down trees instead of farming, and somehow even less finished. Medieval Dynasty is probably the polished of the stuff they've done, and even that is pretty drat janky.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
https://twitter.com/microtrailers/status/1438189149601902593?s=20

quote:

Key Features
Renovate, run and expand a gas station in the desert.
Build new services like a workshop, shop, warehouse or car wash.
Try to handle everything on your own or hire employees to help out.
Interesting events on top of the normal gameplay.
Lots of customisation and decoration options.
Lots of different customers with varying needs and expectations.
Lots of management options for you to dive into.

I played the demo for this awhile back and remember it being surprisingly compelling if you like stuff like House Flipper and Car Mechanic Simulator.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
https://twitter.com/microtrailers/status/1448274558646210567?s=20

Junkyard Simulator is out in Early Access.

Another Playway published game (surprise surprise) but I've watching some streamers play it and there seems to be a decent amount to it. Crushing cars, restoring cars, refurbishing parts and other junk, etc.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Azhais posted:

They must have been giving out alpha keys or something because I saw videos of that ages ago. I figured the new burst of YouTube presence was due to it releasing, not just hitting early access

There was a demo that came out awhile back, I think

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
One of the airlines used to have headphone jacks in the armrest (back before everything was bluetooth) with various stations you could select, and one of them was listening to the pilots talking to ATC. It was always soothing to listen to, just the tower handoffs as they pass from region to region.

I remember being on a flight where I was completely terrified. Worst weather I've ever been in on a flight, plane rocking back and forth, doing some of those big sudden drops at times, all of that. And then I hear the pilot in my headphone saying to ATC, "Yeah, we're experiencing a little mild chop up here, can we get a different elevation?" and I was like, wow, just another day on the job up there. Calmed me right down.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Galick posted:

Thanks folks! Looks like My Garage and The Long Drive are the closest. They don't hit quite the same niche of janky life sim, but I'm interested in both at least.

If you want janky life sim and aren't totally wedded to the "build a car" part of it, check out Farmer's Life.

You don't have to actually farm if you don't like farming. You can survive by hunting, or making moonshine, or just collecting eggs from your chickens and drinking out of the well.

You can fish, or you can get drunk and chuck grenades into the lake and collect fish that way.

StarkRavingMad fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Mar 11, 2022

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Mon Bazou with a big update:

quote:

KINDA IMPORTANT
- Dolly Trailer
- Derby Demolition
- AI Traffic on the roads
- A friend that can give you a lift in town
- More races & rewards at the night meet
- You can now sell old parts/metal
- Magnetic tray to carry bolt easier
- Racetrack apartment with saving spot, big storage fuel tank & a little something special
- School bus
- Tunable ECU + Glove box in Konig
- Custom interior autometer gauges (RPM/Boost/etc) & shift knobs
- You can now lock decorations like tables & shelfs (Also burn/recycle them)
- French Canadian voices for Normand, Jacques & Mother

CONTROLS
- Steering wheel H-Shifter support
- A bit better support for steering wheels
- Auto-Clutch can now be disabled
- Head movement inside the car

COOL, I GUESS
- Jackstands - You will all start with two at the load of your save
- Wheel spacers
- Mixing paint booth + More feedback/details when painting
- Bloom & Better lighthing
- Different colors 20mm bolts + New wheel bearing
- Windows tints now available at Kali-Gas
- Possible to paint the Performance Caliper & LSD Differential
- Gilles can now find your objects without being friend with
- Windmills are now out of phase from each other
- New shirt colors
- Auto-flip vehicle added to the SmollATV and Buggy, they can't be stuck upside down + Chainsaw holder on SmollATV
- Keybind to hide the UI added in the escape menu
- Better quality rear mirror
- No more 2D trees & better lighting on them
- Gilles can now find [UNIQUE] parts (Buggy parts, Transmissions, Rewarded spoiler, etc)
- Warning sound/visual when you are about to die of one need (+ death sound)
- Exhaust fire + backfire on the Konig
- Rally shocks now unlockable

BUGS
- Controller bug when launching the game
- Objects flying of the Konig trunk
- A very good update on the save system & loading the save had now way more informations (And "tips"..)
- "No grid electricity" text bug at the Sugarshack
- You can now deliver firewood for the garage at anytime to your brother (Also bug with the firewood not reseting)
- Model 2 muffler wrong hitbox
- Sometime it was impossible to disconnect a the trailer from the OlTruck/SmollATV
- Item could stay stuck under the press table in the Sugarshack
- Pruning looper could go through the ground
- Fuel visible in canister in 3 third person
- When bending a sign, you can no longer stay stuck on it
- Teleport vehicle with trailer attached is fixed
- Item that clipped through the map will now have more chance to spawn back in the dumpster at the Sugarshack
- Reverse mirror now works at night & with the OlTruck bed light
- Trailer could explose when loading from save
- Weird skidmarks when loading the save or towing the vehicle in town
- Adjust the rear spring force and height on the coilover while installed on the car wasn't possible
- Konig right door rust wasn't visible

For those who don't know it, it's French Canadian My Summer Car, but less intricate/difficult on the car building side of things -- you start with a working car (plus a truck) and can replace parts as you make money. And the biggest way to make money is by starting your own maple syrup manufacturing shack.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Anime Store Adventure posted:

I really wish Mon Bazou was my summer car with a similar complexity but minus a year or two of dick-punching additions like house fires and rapidly degrading parts and all that. I keep eyeballing it but the kind of worse “art style” combined with relative simplicity pushes it more into a bad category for me than “weirdly awesome” like Summer Car was.

I just wish the guy hadn’t gotten fed by the “haha man is it ever hard” crowd and just kind of expanded the things to do in the world and called it quits. I enjoy that exact level of complexity assembling the car and getting the resources to restore it without all of the added “and you need to fastidiously maintain it, and your house can burn down permanently, and you can die from various near-joke-tier stuff at all times.”

Yeah, I really liked My Summer Car early on and then some of the additions kind of turned me off of it. I think I tuned out around the time they stopped giving you the truck right off the bat as a second vehicle and introduced more of the part degradation. I keep meaning to go back to it and give it another solid try, but it always feels like so much.

I've been enjoying Mon Bazou, but I've only been playing it for like a week and to some degree it's turned into syrup shack manager for me instead of me doing all that much with the car. But it's the closest thing I've found to scratching that same itch (that and Farmer's Life, in just a life sim kinda way). I haven't tried out the new update yet.

StarkRavingMad fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Apr 1, 2022

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
So here's something else that kind of feels like it's in the My Summer Car vein which I just found this weekend:

The Slavarian Trucker, used to be called The Wasteland Trucker before the developer got a legal threat from Microsoft for using "Wasteland."

It's like some unholy mix of My Summer Car and Euro Truck Simulator in a post apocalyptic (I think) environment. You drive from shithole city to shithole city and deliver goods for money so you have enough to buy water and booze and food to stay alive. It is extremely early access and extremely janky. Like, you have to load all the goods into the back of your truck by hand and half the time if two things touch they'll launch out of the truck and across the street and of course poo poo will fly out of the back of your truck if you hit a bump. Luckily, it's not a big deal if you don't deliver the whole cargo, you get paid by the piece.

I can't say it's a good game. It's unfinished and does the typical whacked out physics stuff you expect from a one-dev indie Unity project but...it's compelling me for some reason.


Look at this load screen. Look at the "don't press load if you haven't started a new game" warning. Look at the "Windows 7 users check this box." Amazing.


Look at this tutorial screen and the incredible run on sentence telling you how to replace a part.


Look at this map. You don't have a GPS or waypoints in this world. You have this garbage map and a compass if you remembered to grab it from your starter house.


Look at this horribly textured shitpile truck.


It's even uglier on the inside.


Look at these shacks where you can pick up jobs.


LOOKIT THIS DUDE

here's a trailer from the dev's twitter:
https://twitter.com/FrankBudai/status/1464943461141041160?s=20&t=WB2ZFo6fwzOj9ryC6fqaKg

It's all so ugly but I love it for some reason. The truck handles like an absolute boat, can barely go up a hill in second gear, and takes forever to brake. My cargo flies everywhere all the time. My radiator is leaking, I think, and I pissed in it to top off the fluids. It may get better if I ever scrape up the money to buy new parts. Apparently there's also drug smuggling and you can find other cars and tow them back to your place and fix them up, and who knows what else.

Anyway, I only recommend it if you don't mind figuring out how things work from the barely readable tutorial screens and can handle jank, but it definitely has that My Summer Car feel and it is under active development (he just added rain and cooking within the last month). And it's only $11.99. I'd love to see it get more attention since this kind of thing is right up my alley but I didn't hear anything about it when it came out back in December.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Anime Store Adventure posted:

Holy poo poo if that single dev can thread the needle and polish the turd just enough but not too much, that’ll be my favorite game ever.

Even though it’s very different the weird vibes remind me of Open Sewer which is still being redone and updated but still hasn’t relaunched. Give me more insane dystopian, greasy, niche simulators.

Man, I hope Open Sewer actually gets the rework. It's been years.

The core loop of this game works already, at the very least. You can take the delivery jobs and deliver stuff. And I'm finding it pretty rewarding since I have to navigate with the map, so half the time it's like "where am I, oh god did I miss my turn, wait is that actually the city I'm supposed to be headed to?"

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

zedprime posted:

I used the Steam sale to dip into Mon Bazou and Slaverian Trucker. I haven't slav trucked yet but Mon Bazou is remarkably laid back for a game based on Summer Car. All the generator fueling and tube running make me want to play Gold Rush the Game of all things.

The new update to Mon Bazou is pretty cool. To get the new grow area you have to bring 12 big packs of weed to the new dealers and then pay them $40,000, so you have to be fairly far along to do it. After you do that, it takes 6 or 7 days.

spoiling the rest in case people want to keep it a surprise:

You get a message that says "the bunker is done, look to the drain on your bathtub." So I go in thinking "ok, so is the key in the bathtub or something?" There's a spot to push on the bathtub drain and the whole tub LIFTS UP on hydraulic risers to reveal a hidden staircase, which leads down to an enormous underground warehouse with 24 hour grow lights and an auto-watering system. You have to buy grow pots from the decoration store, but there's so much room down there to grow stuff. And an upgrade compost machine that you can throw extra potatoes in to make fertilizer and a "huge pack" upgrade machine so you can make a pack of 27 big packs to sell back to the dealers.

It's really well done and makes growing stuff really cool. Feels like a major upgrade in the same way getting the electric heater for the sugar shack does. I like that he's still doing such big updates, because I had reached the point of having done everything else in the game but I wanted to have a reason to keep playing.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

nielsm posted:

Shunting jobs can seem boring, but on the other hand they help get a bit more feeling for how the loco handles with and without load.

Yeah, this would be my first suggestion reading all this. Do some shunting jobs for a bit. They're not bad money and you can do them pretty quickly. Then take on some light loads with the shunter. And check your route, try not to take anything with it that's all uphill.

I did like almost all shunting jobs and very short, light runs until I was able to at least get the steam engine.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
All the short clips they've been posting of the upcoming Derail Valley update is really making me hyped for it. It looks dope.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
For anyone who dug Signal Simulator but was a little disappointed in where they stopped development on it, someone is working on a semi-clone (at least in terms of gameplay), called Voices of the Void: https://mrdrnose.itch.io/votv

Graphics aren't as good, it seems to be a source engine type thing complete with half-life/portal sound effects, but the gameplay is good and there's more events and it's under active development. Also currently termed as a demo, even though there's a good bit of content in it already, so you can choose your own price when downloading, including getting it for free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1TRiha3nLw

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

grate deceiver posted:

Does it really already have more content than Signal Sim? I remember Signal had quite a few special events.

I can’t say for sure on that. I played a decent amount of Signal Sim and really didn’t run into that many special events, but that could have been bad luck on my part or me playing it too early in early access or something. Voices has a (currently) 30 day “story mode” along with an infinite mode so it’s probable I’m seeing a higher concentration of events in general in the story mode because it’s designed that way.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Dark_Swordmaster posted:

I haven't played it myself yet but a couple people I know have been playing it obsessively and having an absolute blast. Apparently it is exceedingly good for the creepy alone in SETI vibe.

It's a good mix of "creepy alone in SETI" vibe and sometimes "chill simulator." Like, when nothing weird is happening, there's a calming routine of getting a signal downloading, checking the servers and satellites and fixing any issues, calibrating them, coming back to check and process your signals and get them sent out, etc. The original Signal Simulator was the same way.

It also has an upgrade system and you buy food and decorative objects and other stuff with money from the signals you process, so there's some progression and personalization. Seems pretty well done so far for a solo guy's project and I hope he gets enough interest to keep working on it.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
I just enjoy stuff in general that's like "fiddling with big machines that I barely understand." Other stuff in that vein that I've liked are Objects in Space, I Fetch Rocks (VR only game), to some degree Derail Valley, even VCV Rack although that's a music creation tool and I'm no musician. Just give me lots of buttons and knobs and wires and switches to screw with. I'm always happy to see more stuff along those lines.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

GOOD TIMES ON METH posted:

Depending how hardcore you are there is a company that makes super realistic simulations of the old train dispatch boxes with all the clicky knobs and old looking lights and buzzers and punch cards and poo poo. I don't really have the desire to dig into it to learn how it all works but I think they are cool looking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3uWuFnTFaI&t=303s

I don't think there are any videos about it that aren't in German, which should tell you how deep down the nerd hole it is.

Oh wow, that's maybe beyond me. There's a lot going on there. In German.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

zedprime posted:

I still want any game half as good as My Summer Car.

Mon Bazou and Slaverian Trucker are both really good but not even half as good as MSC.

Yeah there's a handful of pretty good My Summer Car-alikes (another recent one is Junkyard Truck), but nothing quite gets to that same level of insanity. Or the feeling of accomplishment of managing to do, like, anything in MSC.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
It's funny, I don't get motion sickness at all from Derail Valley. American/Euro Truck Sim, on the other hand, makes me ill like, immediately in VR.

StarkRavingMad fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Jan 30, 2023

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Mrenda posted:

Have any of the Niche Simulator games come out recently that have the depth and general chill-ness of Farm Sim?

I've clocked up about four hundred hours in one farm, managed to get it to the point I can buy pretty much anything with a typical year's harvest, and the entire playthrough, past the first bit of googling how to do stuff, involved a mixture of turning my brain off/having my brain plan expansion while I drove up and down in lines.

My fear for a lot of the sim games is that they're all really basic reskins of a basic premise where you do X task to get Y, then use Y to get Z, that's pretty much set out in a linear way and doesn't offer much depth in choice.

Maybe check out Farmer's Life, it's got some farming but also quests and more life stuff.

If you want slightly more comprehensible My Summer Car, Junkyard Truck is shaping up pretty solidly.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

30.5 Days posted:

How do you even play My Summer Car? I went into the garage and saw there was just a bunch of Stuff with not even like an in-game manual or picture or something indicating how cars fit together and felt it was perhaps not for me.

Unless you're like a mechanic IRL or you want to look at it like a puzzle you solve over the next year, I'd say look up a guide on the build your first time. Even knowing a good bit about cars, I wouldn't have been able to do the build at first without a guide. Now I can mostly muddle through it. Also, I'd recommend one of the mods that helps with knowing the right wrench size for the bolts. There's ones that just tell you whether the wrench you are using is too big or too small instead of just giving the bolt size if you don't want to be totally cheaty.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

Cling-Wrap Condom posted:

mother of gently caress this looks so god drat good

It’s especially impressive to me considering how basic the game was way back when it first started (like before even the last big update). There didn’t even used to be turntables and you had to console command to flip a locomotive around if there wasn’t a good spot where you could do like a three point turn. Hell, there weren’t even speed limit signs when it first came out. These new little videos look really polished.

Big question in my mind is how some of these graphical changes are going to perform in VR. But I don’t blame them for aiming a little more at the wider market as that’s way more likely to fund continued development.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan

skooma512 posted:

Route 66 simulator seemed neat and that it might scratch the My Summer Car itch, but the car repair gameplay is rudimentary. Performance was also pretty bad, though I was defaulted to ultra.

I played the demo for it, and it felt more like an advanced version of The Long Drive than it did My Summer Car. But with quests. I don't know, it was interesting enough for me to wishlist it for now, but it needs a lot of work still.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply