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FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
His twitter has me at the edge of my seat

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FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
The suspense!
https://twitter.com/chubigans/status/908082779069599744

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
welp

https://twitter.com/chubigans/status/908108483177873408

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Nohman posted:

Kinda not really digging Cook Serve Delicious 2. It seems to be assuming you've been playing the original game regularly and throws you into the deep end immediately without much in the way of options. Also mouse support is broken and I've had a bunch of things I clearly done right fail for no reason. Feels like it could have used a few more weeks in the oven. Might just refund for now.

I agree that things are a bit overwhelming compared to the first game, just due to the sheer number of options. The game seems weirdly silent so far on not giving me explicit goals for my restaurant off of the bat (maybe they show up after you complete a day in your own restaurant? Maybe I missed an option somewhere) The tutorials are useful albeit very short and relatively information-dense. I think it might be a bit much to take in all at once if you've never played before. A big change is that menu items don't have levels any more, so everything starts off at its maximum complexity. You still have the ability to adjust difficulty by choosing less complex menu items (eg pretzels), of course.

I think I was helped a little by practicing a dish a few times before a level in order to have a general sense of which keys one needs and which keys will screw one over if one assumes it's just the first letter (on keyboard). I didn't figure out if looking at a restaurant let you examine (and practice) its foods directly, so I had to memorize a menu then scroll through the food index to practice a bit before jumping in. The starter levels actually didn't seem to bad difficulty-wise, in that your orders fill up pretty quickly but the patience timers seemed super generous, especially if you have a full complement of sides available. I didn't keep up my side dishes during rush hour but I probably could have managed it since I don't recall any near misses on the patience front. On the other hand, more dishes off the bat require timed cooking, which is an easy source of trouble if you're not used to it. But this difficulty was bounded, in that the starter levels I did didn't have anything outrageous like soup or kebabs, and the timed cooking had reasonable windows (as opposed to eg fried rice or bananas foster from CSD1).

I haven't played the game in a year, and I felt like I was generally successful in the chef for hire days I attempted. Maybe chef for hire has more generous patience timers (since their restaurants actually have decor and don't look like trash?). I haven't checked out the 'main game' ie your own restaurant since I didn't care for the starter foods and wanted to amass some capital. It looks to me like the 'main game' has a significant amount of player self-expression through decoration and the huge number of possible menu items. CSD1 had a reasonable variety on paper but in the main campaign I found myself using the same foods over and over again (fish/chicken/salad/ice cream tended to have a pretty good payoff relative to their complexity) and for quite a number of the foods I tried to avoid them like the plague (seriously, gently caress soup) and only put on my menu for bets/silver ticket challenges.

For complete context: I would say my CSD1 skill level was moderate: I finished the game at a point where my ability to get a perfect day was generally dependent on if I had anything particularly tricky in my menu. I only tried new game+ once and was not up to snuff at all for Extreme Rush Hours or things like the Mystery Box challenge mode. Coming back to CSD2 I felt like I was terribly rusty, but was given enough leeway to be successful. I don't think my experience has any bearing on whether the early game is reasonable for someone who didn't play CSD1 at all (I think the bronze/silver medals for the early chef for hire missions shouldn't be totally out of reach but this is largely speculation), but I think anyone with a nontrivial playtime in the previous game should be able to jump in and have fun, after first doing the tutorials to learn the new mechanics and maybe practicing a dish or two.

I didn't run into any bugs that I noticed, but I'm sure there are plenty. I would absolutely not begrudge anyone from waiting at least until a week of so of emergency patches land. It's kind of offputting not being able to use the mouse in menus, which will be fixed soon and doesn't prevent me from playing the game per se. Some of the text seems to render poorly, as well.

e: I reread the creator's note about v1.0 and it seems boosters/detractors are implemented but are not displayed anywhere. That's a pretty big lol right there. Also, the game will have an email system similar to the first but that isn't ready yet either.

e2: BTW the flavor text in this game is bananas!


e3: oh man when am i going to have the time to read all of the flavor text
https://twitter.com/braktheman/status/908123768010223616

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Sep 14, 2017

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
The talk of people missing the 'story mode' from CSD1 in the sequel is a little confusing to me, since my memory of the first game is that the campaign was basically a checklist of 'grind X days' type tasks with a minimal amount of fleshing out via the emails system. Mind you, things feel super unmoored without the emails and the booster/detractors being invisible, so I think anyone who really wants the full gameplay experience of running their own restaurant should wait until that stuff is added/fixed (which will presumably be soonish). The core gameplay is all there, though (maybe some foods are bugged?) so if you're ok getting unlocks by doing chef for hire the game's in fine shape.

I will note that people who care more about the story mode might feel unhappy about doing chef for hire to get decor or cash. Critically, a number of food items seem to be locked behind getting gold medals in chef for hire system, so you're highly incentivized to engage with that mode sooner or later.

I will note that in this version of the game it might be super easy to build up a high Buzz rating fast from chaining Delicious meals together, so if you're getting good days it appears to be pretty easy to ramp up the difficulty quickly to the point where you can't quite handle it. I think on paper I like the idea of this better than the first game's extremely slow accumulation of Buzz during the campaign, but in practice it might make CSD2 very stressful, since the game will inexorably push you towards the break even point for Buzz equilibrium. Since this requires Buzz loss to equal Buzz gain, this point of balance will be outside your comfort zone, difficulty-wise. Maintaining consistent perfect days might require a focus on making your menu simple.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
A lot of people online seeming to be comparing to CSD2's campaign mode negatively compared to CSD1. The thing is, some elements were removed that were popular because they 'felt good' but were kind of empty gameplay-wise, and mostly felt good for Skinner box style reasons. The restaurant upgrades were essentially 'pay one time fee to not have to worry nearly about chores ever again'. That feels good, and it does feel good to make concrete improvements of this form, but note that 'reducing chores' is actually subtracting gameplay depth. Specifically, it basically neuters the supposed downside of the foods with detractors like 'Trashy' , which were intended to have increased chores as a meaningful downside.

The other major advancement mechanism that was removed was menu item upgrades, which was a giant money-based gate to having any complex foods for a long time, and in some cases the upgrades essentially made no difference except you got more payout from serving the dish. I think CSD2's approach of horizontal rather than vertical advancement (ie, cash is good for getting new foods instead of upgrading your existing foods) is good on paper, but currently might be improved by recommending purchasing simpler dishes or at least a balance to a newer player. As it stands it's pretty easy to get a menu full of difficult items and get way in over your head. It is nice that a somewhat experienced player has access to complex foods immediately, though.

I think right now the way to feel that you are growing your restaurant is through the decoration mechanic and through the increased range of player expression in menu choice. However, this kind of progression is a lot more subtle than the previous model, where a lot of advancement was of the more straightforward 'numbers get bigger' variety. I think the new XP system for getting stars is a clear improvement over the checklist system from the previous game, but I do agree that getting XP for chef for hire days does decouple this from feeling like that advancement is tied to the advancement of your restaurant.

All in all, I think there's definitely room for the game to get the player to feel more invested in the advancement of their restaurant, but I would hope that such changes wouldn't undermine the underlying design.

fakeedit: apparently chubigans is staying up all night quite late to finish an update which will allow mouse menu support.

e: you say that the page system mostly avoids ridiculous keybindings, but some dishes are kinda silly. The example that I've run into that is particularly sever is the Chinese chef-for-hire restaurant with its three inconsistent wok dishes.

e2: I think the main restaurant will feel a lot more like the core game mode once boosters/detractors are visible and emails are enabled.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Sep 15, 2017

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Guy Mann posted:

I was only able to enjoy the original CSD when I used a cheat engine script to gently caress with the time limits so customers had way more patience, a game with simpler inputs and less time dedicate to arbitrarily shuffling your menu every day sounds cool and good.
I think menu rot is still in the game, just invisible for now or something. You do have the option of saving a rotation of 3 menus which is at least somewhat less of a hassle.

The game seems to have a way higher skill ceiling now. The patience timers are actually super unforgiving unless you keep up your side dishes, so when things get hectic they get real hectic. It now caps out at 12 prep stations and 8 holding stations, which is a crazy amount of juggling. Also it looks like you can't just buy your way out of meaningfully having to do chores.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
The core gameplay of CSD2 is finished, but the design changed the campaign gameplay dramatically. Chore upgrades and no food upgrades both seem to be missed by a lot of players. Addtionally, the last minute bugs had chubigans disable important features like dispalying boosters/detractors and emails. Even though it's easy to criticize the campaign structure, it did do a great job of investing most players in the progress of 'their' restaurant.

If you loved the first game for its hectic nature and raw mechanics, I think the sequel is already at a point where it's extremely worth the purchase. If you loved the game for that sense of progression in the campaign, I would say stay away for at the very least the first bugfix/update cycle. The campaign part of the game will probably feel much better once boosters/detractors are displayed (so that you can actually see the tradeoffs you're making directly when composing menus) and the email system is enabled. I think that may not be enough for some people, and in that case the best I can say is that if you trust chubigans the long-term prospects are hopeful, since he has heard the feedback and posted the following in the Steam forums:

quote:

Hey y'all. When I first started this game my main goal was to offer a more progressive campaign that was less "loose" than the last one and had the player keep wanting to play just "one more game." I thought that by removing the forced "20 days of service" and letting things become more freeform, people would enjoy the game a lot more, and in fact I know a lot of you are doing just that.

But at the same time after listening to feedback I know that the regular CSD mode isn't quite what people were expecting. Starting next week you'll see some big improvements made in that mode, including the return of emails among other things. I'm thinking of ways to really focus in on making that mode feel more "progressive" for those who don't want to play the new Chef for Hire levels.

Obviously I have bugs and tech issues to address first, and I'll be sending out patches tonight and over the weekend to address reported issues. But I definitely hear your feedback! Thanks and I hope you're enjoying the game.

e: I would say that buying now based on promises of long-term fixes would not be sound, to be clear.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Sep 15, 2017

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
I just played The Sea Will Claim Everything and while writing a review for it I noticed that it's on sale for 1.59. It's not a long or mechanically complex game, but I found it interesting and surprisingly touching. Apparently the creator was one of the two writers for The Talos Principle.

My review:

quote:

A short, charming adventure.

As opposed to the more traditional puzzle-focused adventure game centering on complicated interactions between the player inventory and the world, making progress in this title often boils down to "just click on everything". The focus is on exploring the fantastic locales of the Fortunate Isles and getting to know its inhabitants. A big part of the charm is that the game is filled with many small details simply there for flavor. As long as you are willing to take your time and soak in the atmosphere, the payoff will be worthwhile.

I will note that the game is politically-charged, but I found its approach to be both philosophical and heartfelt enough to make up for any differences between my politics and the author's.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Digirat posted:

so is decker's "reveal daemons in adjacent objects" thing inaccurate in invisible inc? (there's a tongue twister for you) I finished the game on beginner and always knew about daemons as soon as I saw anything at all, I didn't have to move next to them. Same thing for internationale's description saying it lets you hack from a distance when you already seem to be allowed to hack things from any distance.

Daemons are automatically revealed always, if I recall correctly the thing Decker does is _identify_ the daemons in an adjacent device for an action. It's usually marginal, but one can get some use out of it.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

DatonKallandor posted:

From what I understand the turn structure is You see what the aliens will do, then you adjust your orders for all your units, when you're happy with those, you make them happen. Your units do their stuff first - then the aliens do the things you knew they would do. The goal is to mess up their turn with perfect information and first-move advantage.
A neat trick is that the surviving monsters make the same attack relative to their position at the start of your turn. This means that if they're intending to attack a mech, you only need to get out of the way and they won't be able to choose a new target until the next turn. But it also means you can push monsters around to trick them into killing each other, too.

I'm glad to hear it's coming out soon. From what they've said they have been in 'we're taking time to polish the last 10%' mode for a few months now.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

ZearothK posted:

So, Rain World? Heat Signature? Sell me or unsell me.

I enjoyed Rain World a lot, but it's apparently not for everyone. My view is that you will have fun if you're playing the game on its own terms, but that involves accepting a number of assumptions that run counter to a lot of genre expectations and expectations about games in general.

-The game is essentially the opposite of a power fantasy, instead most of the time being a dedicated simulation of being a prey animal. The world's interconnected layout is similar to a metroidvania, but you get almost zero upgrades to your abilities over time. Progress of this sort is instead gained through player knowledge of the world's ecosystem and its dangers.

-The game does not go out of its way to explain several mechanics to you. There is a very basic tutorial to teach you some basic moves (jumping, eating) and to rest before the end of a cycle, but for the rest, you either need to experiment and pay close attention or to read the wiki. Generally, the important details aren't too obscured by this style of design, but ymmv.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

The Kins posted:

I may well be going against popular belief here, but Into the Breach is pretty good.

I think it's worth trying out even for some of the people who bounced off of FTL.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
I think the final boss is an integral part of the intended experience of FTL (for better or worse, it definitely makes the game less enjoyable to many). This is an issue if you want the game to conform to your expectations (especially if your interest in spaceship games is more towards the open-ended, like Starsector or something) as opposed to playing the game on its own terms. The final boss is meant to be challenging, and it's for that very fact that it feels meaningful to win. My recollection of some Oregon Trail-type games was that they just peter out at the end, with no denouement other than seeing how many points you ended with.

The flagship has 3 forms and a lot of raw strength + dangerous powers, so if you're just fleeing through the last couple of sectors it's going to be very rough. On the other hand, if you have a strong enough build you can generally get by with brute force (getting to this state more likely if you have the extra scrap rewards from Easy). In the usual situation that's somewhere in the middle you basically have to have enough foreknowledge of what you can do to neuter or mitigate the really dangerous bits. Figuring out that kind of stuff is admittedly a static puzzle, which can be painful if you're approaching it through trial and error in a game where runs can take a few hours. Nobody likes losing, but the fact that you can and will lose if you're not adequately prepared is what gives the fight weight.

The flagship adds some real stakes to the rest of the gameplay. Every little piece of scrap you can wring out of a sector or encounter is just that much more you'll have invested into something that you can use in Sector 8, even if it's something marginal like an extra power slot in oxygen so that it doesn't go out in a single hit. I think that certain aspects of the flagship fight could be altered without losing this sense of stakes, but it would still need to be hard enough that some players would still write it off as BS.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Feb 28, 2018

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

dmboogie posted:

Cool, thanks. I've beaten two islands and collected several Time Pods, so I guess I just haven't been lucky yet. :v:

Outside of getting lucky with time pods, you only get pilots as an option from getting a Perfect Island (succeed at all optional objectives, can still lose grid tho), as opposed to just completing the island.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

il_cornuto posted:

Can I get a couple of quick recommendations for £5 or less games for someone who likes Hexcells, Quell, Mini Metro and Hidden Folks? She's also really into Darkest Dungeon recently, but that is by far the most complex game she's played.
If she likes Hexcells it might be worth trying out Patterna, which is definitely inspired by it. I like Patterna since I think it's procedurally generated puzzles tend to be a bit better if you fiddle with the settings appropriately.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 1, 2018

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

StrixNebulosa posted:

Rain World question: what do the symbols on the map mean? The little crossbones, for example. I can't find a key to the map, and I don't want locational spoilers.

I know what the gate symbol looks like, and the hibernation chamber symbol.

Areas with active bats tend to be illustrated by blue pings on the map. If you put items in shelters (such as spears) they have their own icons that shows up on the map too (maybe in a couple other locations too). The really important map symbols are the gates and the shelters, which you already know.

The big point about Rain World is that it does tend to obscure some of the stuff you can do. The tutorial doesn't tell you much beyond 'eat food and find shelters or die, also here's how to long jump'. I never realized that those pick-up commands were listed in the pause screen so I went without them until I read some hints. Even if the basic controls are actually all laid out like that, a lot of the possible interactions and behaviors have to be observed inferentially or learned by talking to or watching another player.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

corn in the bible posted:

If a game is so obtuse it can't be played without looking stuff up then it's a bad game.
This is a subjective statement about you as a player framed as an objective truth about games as a whole.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
I liked interacting with Durance in that he's an interesting albeit unpleasant character. I talked to Grieving Mother just to the extent of getting her into my party and immediately decided that I was not interested in her at all. She might have merit in a more Torment-styled game, but eeeesh.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
Good thing everything we know indicates that we can trust Valve to make reasonable decisions as to what is and isn't acceptable. In particular, we can trust that there will be no haphazard enforcement that could easily allow bias to creep in (such as targeting LGBT content disproportionately).

e: Thanks to FirstAidKite for mentioning One Deck Dungeon upthread, I got it and it looks pretty cool after a playthrough. I'm surprised that making games out of solitaire-focused board games isn't more common than it seems to be.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Grapplejack posted:

Everyone talking about CSD2 I'm asking you to please post your perfect day score for Sushi Nest 10 when you finally get the game :)
suffer like I did

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
If you're going Chimney Canopy -> Wall, that's probably the more difficult way to go in that direction. The game is set up that you're instead 'supposed' to go through a totally different gauntlet (ending up in Underhang) that starts deep in Shaded Citadel.

e: it IS possible to go wall->underhang through that wide screen, but you have to use a thing.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Pigbuster posted:

I don't doubt it, but I just remember trying to find a way up there over and over and feeling deep regret in the end. Maybe I should've went out to get an animal friend. I think in the end I teleported.
Actually I misread you. The room you're referring to can be crossed without anything that isn't nearby, I'm pretty sure. I've watched a streamer playing hunter go wall->underhang several times that way.

e: It's certainly possible to go up the Wall, but it's very much designed to be descended instead of ascended, and at the very end you can get stuck in theory if not enough spears spawn. (Requires 2 spears unless you can do a very fancy trick.)

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 01:38 on May 28, 2018

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
e: double post

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Relin posted:

ah good, you cant 100% owlboy without doing an insanely frustrating minigame that has no presence anywhere else in the game but one optional area, that has gameplay completely separate from the rest of the game

i thought games kind of stopped doing poo poo like this but i guess it did start production a decade ago
I generally felt more forgiving towards Owlboy than the apparent goonsensus, but this minigame was an outlier. It felt good to actually be able to pull off an aerial maneuver correctly, but some 95% of the time I would fail instead and have to start over from the beginning, again.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Substandard posted:

So I installed my free Pillars of Eternity. It STRONGLY RECOMMENDS that I play on easy. I've played a ton of RPGs, but it has been a while since I played anything Baldur's Gate like. Should I take their advice? Is normal a slog?
I started on Hard after having not played many RPGs in a while and it felt sloggy only in a couple of places. I'm pretty sure Normal is fine.

e: I'm not super into minmaxing, I think that stuff is largely irrelevant outside of Path of the Damned.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

It's interesting how, when the game first released, everybody seemed to rave about it. But as the months have passed, I'm seeing a growing number of people cooling off to it in a way that they never did with FTL. Why is that?
It's just the Steam Thread cycle applied to most games where the quality is subjective, as opposed to universally beloved/hated. When a game first comes out people who are enjoying it are the ones most incentivized to post in number, especially because day 1 buyers are somewhat more likely to have it 'click' for them. After a few months, it's more likely that people with negative memories will pop up instead.

My view is that ItB is a very tight and polished game, but in pursuing such goals in design (especially the whole 'you can clearly see the status of the entire battlefield at a glance' bit) led them to rule out a lot of content/mechanics, so it can lose variety unless you specifically push yourself to try different layouts. It doesn't take long to see all of the mechanics/enemies/weapons/missions, even though the procedural nature creates a certain layer of variety in situational combinations. I would play it more, but I'm waiting on them to port it so I don't have to reset into Windows to play it.

e: I'm sort of confused why people feel a need to post 'RTwP is a bad mechanic' since it seems to me to be similar to saying something roughly analogous to 'first person shooting is a bad mechanic' or 'walking simulators are bad and shouldn't exist'. Clearly it's a mode of play that works for some but not others. Maybe for RTwP the target audience is narrower, but it's clear that it exists.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jul 4, 2018

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Occultatio posted:

:siren: IMPORTANT NOTE :siren:

Anybody who liked the PUZZLES of Braid needs to get ALL THE gently caress OVER Recursed before this sale ends.

It's not that the puzzles are especially hard (although some of them absolutely are), but it's the only game I've played since Braid that captures that exact feeling of "my brain is being turned inside out and forced to think along completely unfamiliar pathways." The influence is clearly deliberate, too; the third world introduces "permanent" (non-recursive-able) objects surrounded by a green glow.

It's less than $3, buy it buy it buy iiiiiiiiiittttt
Thanks for the recommendation, I got this in just before the sale ended and it's super neat!

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jul 6, 2018

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Real hurthling! posted:

Trash piles dont have a "Curator"
Given what we know about how Valve is a total shitshow operationally, I'm surprised that people are actively calling for Valve to be more aggressive gatekeepers as to what games are and are not available on Steam. Not that discoverability isn't a huge issue, but I don't trust Valve to put in the work to have a coherent definition of 'game good enough to merit inclusion on Steam' that doesn't exclude lots of legit indie devs. They should have a better stance on problematic content eg hate speech, but that's a different set of considerations than gatekeeping on something as subjective as game quality.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
https://twitter.com/joeparlock/status/1043227346692726784

Kind of surprising they lasted this long if so.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Philthy posted:

Picked up Shenzhen IO that's been on my watch list. Normally it was $15, but I didn't want to chance a game that has you programming in faux assembler language. It went on sale (And is still on sale) for $4.94.

If you enjoy programming and want to play a "game" around it working as a Chinese engineer who is creating cheap products to dominate the world and laugh at other countries who cannot compete on price, then this game is worth checking out. You get emails about projects to gadgets for deals the sales dudes just signed. So you might be making a blinking sign for a gaming tournament, so you drag these microprocessors onto a grid and connect them in a sequence to make it blink in a very specific way supplied to you. You then need to program these processors with a very simplified assembler language, but you only have so many lines of code to do it in. You have a PDF manual that documents all the processors and the code to work with.

It's very cool. I've got maybe 5 or so hours in, and have done the first 5 projects and im looking forward to playing it more after work. Easily worth the $5.

If you don't like programming, or don't know any programming, it'll be a hard pass. You'll most likely get frustrated and hate it.

Thanks for the heads up, I enjoyed TIS-100 and SpaceChem and was waiting for a good sale.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

TheOneAndOnlyT posted:

For Hamadou Diom/Alexander Booth I think the identifying clue is that Alexander Booth shows up in the "You killed my brother!" scene, saying he was there and he saw the whole thing (and he did, he was literally right next to the guy). Hamadou Diom is listed as being from Siera Leona, but the guy in the scene doesn't sound like he has a particularly African accent.

In the Doom Chapter scene 2 you can see the three empty hammocks for the seamen who are in scene 1: Nathan Peters, Alexander Booth, and Lars Linde. At the very least, it's reasonable to assume that Alexander Booth is still alive at this point.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Fat Samurai posted:

I've finished Return of the Obra Dinn, drat good game. Managed to get all except two pairs of crewmen who I had no idea how to differentiate, and I can't find a thread for it:

Spoilers incoming about 4 crewmembers, their names and how I went about figuring out their identities.

- Number 48 (Nathan Peters) and Number 60 (Samuel Peters). I know that they are brothers (so X and Y Peters, from the crew manifest, only ones who share a sunrname) from a conversation when Nathan bludgeons another crewmember because he dropped some cargo on Samuel's head, but that's all. Can't see them called by name anywhere, and I can't find Nathan's hammock, which can only correspond to the brother who died last.

I don't remember if it can be found in A Bitter Cold scene 1, but Nathan Peters' empty hammock is definitely present in The Doom scene 2.


quote:

- Number 42 (Nicholas Botterill) and Number 44 (Lewis Walker). They were the last two Topmen I was missing. I've seen both on the rigging, and could see one hammock with number 44 on chapter II.Part 1, but the man was completely covered by a blanket, so no distinguishing features..

In the dialogue for Soldiers of the Sea scene 3 iirc one of the characters mentions that 'Nick' has been killed.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
Huh, the developer removed the ghost timer from Fidel Dungeon Rescue. That seems like it should be a pretty big change in how much pressure it feels to play.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009
Wow, Stephen's Sausage Roll is on pretty deep discount on Humble. 4.49 for one of the best puzzle games of all time. I waited for a long time for a good price, but it would have been worth it even at the full list price of :10bux: x3.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Good to see that cultivating indie devs is such a high priority for Valve.


quote:

With that in mind, we’ve created new revenue share tiers for games that hit certain revenue levels. Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. Revenue includes game packages, DLC, in-game sales, and Community Marketplace game fees. Our hope is this change will reward the positive network effects generated by developers of big games, further aligning their interests with Steam and the community.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Dalaram posted:

Some teams just suck - judoka, I’m looking at you.
*The Judoka Defender Has Logged On*

They're actually fine unless you get literally no options for weapon upgrades. I think Judoka is one of my favorite squads for the first island on Hard. They're not great at deleting Vek but having a variety of ways of controlling the board is really powerful.

My only advice for starting out would be to slow the pace of play down and just play more. With time you'll get the hang of things. It takes time to absorb all of the various tactical options you have in some turns, so you almost have to brute force things with your mental calculation until you've built some serious mental muscle memory. If your planned turn gives up an objective or grid damage, it's usually worthwhile to spend more time thinking about the situation until you basically have a formal proof that the damage is unavoidable.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Dec 14, 2018

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

NObodyNOWHERE posted:

I just played through Gorogoa in 90 minutes flat. I have zero regrets.
I played through it like 5 times, no regrets. It's a work of art, with the combination of puzzle mechanics, art, animations, and music weaving a wordless story that's more than the sum of its parts. (Not a game for people who want a lot of content or who seek particularly hard puzzles tho).

This steam sale for the first time ever I actually bought something because it was recommended in the Discovery Queue. It turns out Domina is only five dollars this sale and is quite fun. One of the best OSTs out there.

FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

LORD OF BOOTY posted:

is there any trick to keeping the legate and magistrate happy, or do i just have to own the fact that i'm inevitably gonna lose my good dudes to them being fickle asshats?
My understanding is that the opinion of the relevant official is less important than how much you've been winning. If you have a sufficiently long streak going, they will give you 'gently caress you' hard fights even if they love you. The good news is that 0 skill slaves are pretty cheap. The good news is that this means you can let the opinion drop to rock bottom without too much in the way of negative consequence.

It seems that good players I'm aware of tend to go for murmilos and not retiarii, but I'm not sure if it's its truly worth it or no.

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FreeKillB
May 13, 2009

Samuringa posted:

Why was that a problem for the people who didn't want to do it? Changing it made it better for who?

The problem was that their design goals included making players stressed out due to managing risk, which is undermined by no-risk always-win strategies. Like, if you want a safe grindy game there are tons of games that offer that, but that's not the game they were trying to make.

e: the point of the game is to make the player suffer meaningful losses, and if you always had the 'well i could have just cheesed all difficulty away' that feeling is super undermined.

I played the game before and after the corpse update and that was definitely a huge improvement. Stunlocking enemies remained strong but not 'stun enemies forever while healing to full a tiny bit at a time', the preservation of which I would not rate as a design priority.

e2: I was actually more interested in hearing that Red Hook was making a new game before I found out it would be a sequel to DD. I loved that game but after 160 hours I am ready for a different paradigm.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Feb 20, 2019

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