The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
And about Devolver, have you played Hotline Miami 1 and 2? It stills amazes me with how a game with 8-bit graphics can be so good in this day. EDIT: see Undertale too.
Hotline Miami perfectly demonstrates perfectly that it's not about the quantity of graphics a game has, it's the quality of them and how they fit in to the overall design. It has enough graphics, and it manages them perfectly, while the rest of the game gets to be this hypnotic killing spree. Love 'em.

Recently I've been playing Ghostrunner (Titanfall 2 crossed with Hotline Miami in a cyberpunk hellfuture; it's really good, but really hard and unforgiving, and IMO the levels are long enough it could do with saving checkpoints between sessions, but it's awesome and totally worth it), Monster Prom (Zoe, yo), Gunfire Reborn (Borderlandsy but roguelike and without the memes) and Ori and the Blind Forest / Will of the Wisps (Which are both gorgeous and incredibly well-designed metroidvanias).
 
Outer Wilds is amazing. Gris and Obra Dinn are on my queue. Never heard of this Olija, are you playing it yet? Is it good?

And about Devolver, have you played Hotline Miami 1 and 2? It stills amazes me with how a game with 8-bit graphics can be so good in this day. EDIT: see Undertale too.


Well, these tend to be more conservative, but even them have been kicking ass in recent years. God of War, Spider Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Total War: Three Kingdoms and TW: Warhammer, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Doom Eternal, Final Fantasy 7 remake, GTA V, X-Com 1/2, etc.

I would argue the quality and diversity of AAA titles is much better now than 10 or 15 years ago when the industry was taken by Call of Duty and its clones. I think the indie-boom of the 2010s raised the bar for everyone, forcing the big devs to deliver more than just pretty GFX and production values.

Edit: That said, I also lament this Werewolf game flop. I'm confident both new Vampire games coming (Bloodlines 2 and the one from The Council devs) will be better.

Haven't played Olija just mentioning it as the latest cool release from DD.
 
Hotline Miami perfectly demonstrates perfectly that it's not about the quantity of graphics a game has, it's the quality of them and how they fit in to the overall design. It has enough graphics, and it manages them perfectly, while the rest of the game gets to be this hypnotic killing spree. Love 'em.

Recently I've been playing Ghostrunner (Titanfall 2 crossed with Hotline Miami in a cyberpunk hellfuture; it's really good, but really hard and unforgiving, and IMO the levels are long enough it could do with saving checkpoints between sessions, but it's awesome and totally worth it), Monster Prom (Zoe, yo), Gunfire Reborn (Borderlandsy but roguelike and without the memes) and Ori and the Blind Forest / Will of the Wisps (Which are both gorgeous and incredibly well-designed metroidvanias).
Yeah, I have Ghostrunner on my queue and finished Ori and the Blind Forest already (awesome game). What is this Monster Prom? I saw images on google and couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Back to Hotline Miami, oh boy, what a game. I love both but the original is incredible due to it's David Lynch-like mindfucks at the end. But I loved the gang in 2 where you can pick different members for missions, and the journey of the pizzamen to it's radioactive demise at the end.

Have you played Deadwood, Lady? Single best survival horror game I've played in years. Puts AAAs like Resident Evil 7 to shame IMHO.
 
Yeah, I have Ghostrunner on my queue and finished Ori and the Blind Forest already (awesome game). What is this Monster Prom? I saw images on google and couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Monster Prom's a dating sim; it's six weeks to the school prom, and you're trying to get a date with one of monster high's hotties. It's very funny, deeply silly, and very LGBTQ+ friendly. I am also terrible at it...

Have you played Deadwood, Lady? Single best survival horror game I've played in years. Puts AAAs like Resident Evil 7 to shame IMHO.
I haven't! Survival horror is a genre that's always just kinda passed me by.
 
Yeah, I have Ghostrunner on my queue and finished Ori and the Blind Forest already (awesome game). What is this Monster Prom? I saw images on google and couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Back to Hotline Miami, oh boy, what a game. I love both but the original is incredible due to it's David Lynch-like mindfucks at the end. But I loved the gang in 2 where you can pick different members for missions, and the journey of the pizzamen to it's radioactive demise at the end.

Have you played Deadwood, Lady? Single best survival horror game I've played in years. Puts AAAs like Resident Evil 7 to shame IMHO.

Deadwood was mentioned in this thread way back when, I keep forgetting to check it out even though it is totally up my street.

Hotline Miami came along at just the right time for me and got me appreciating the beauty of arcade-style play again.
 
After a rough couple of weeks, my wife and I found something to play together whilst we keep our kitty in the room, honestly to mainly take our minds off things.



It is an early access title and yet feels incredible. We both played 3 hours last night and got swept up in the flow. You're a recently dead warrior from Midgard that Odin has diverted to essentially purgatory, and here you need to kill some bosses (akin to Terraria) to help ol' Ody out.

Chop trees, build a lovely little cabin (don't forget to give your firepit an outlet for smoke in the roof!), hunt boar and deer, forage berries and mushrooms (similar to The Forest or Green Hell, or even ARK). Prepare yourself to face against the enemies that exist in this plane. Search dungeons for loot and/or build a longboat to voyage across the islands. All with low-poly visual aesthetic that I personally find rather charming. I also enjoy the design around hunger/resting with regards to health - the more full your belly, the higher your health ceiling and the faster your health regenerates, but you can't eat too much of the same thing - a varied diet is key!

If you are a fan of survival games then I definitely recommend checking it out. It's quite feature complete to say it's an early access title, and the Publisher (Coffee Stain Games) are the same as behind Deep Rock Galactic - another Early Access title that had a fantastic cycle and release.
 
Last edited:
After a rough couple of weeks, my wife and I found something to play together whilst we keep our kitty in the room, honestly to mainly take our minds off things.



It is an early access title and yet feels incredible. We both played 3 hours last night and got swept up in the flow. You're a recently dead warrior from Midgard that Odin has diverted to essentially purgatory, and here you need to kill some bosses (akin to Terraria) to help ol' Ody out.

Chop trees, build a lovely little cabin (don't forget to give your firepit an outlet for smoke in the roof!), hunt boar and deer, forage berries and mushrooms (similar to The Forest or Green Hell, or even ARK). Prepare yourself to face against the enemies that exist in this plane. Search dungeons for loot and/or build a longboat to voyage across the islands. All with low-poly visual aesthetic that I personally find rather charming. I also enjoy the design around hunger/resting with regards to health - the more full your belly, the higher your health ceiling and the faster your health regenerates, but you can't eat too much of the same thing - a varied diet is key!

If you are a fan of survival games then I definitely recommend checking it out. It's quite feature complete to say it's an early access title, and the Publisher (Coffee Stain Games) are the same as behind Deep Rock Galactic - another Early Access title that had a fantastic cycle and release.

Steam suggested me this one today. Giving it some serious thought.
 
After a rough couple of weeks, my wife and I found something to play together whilst we keep our kitty in the room, honestly to mainly take our minds off things.



It is an early access title and yet feels incredible. We both played 3 hours last night and got swept up in the flow. You're a recently dead warrior from Midgard that Odin has diverted to essentially purgatory, and here you need to kill some bosses (akin to Terraria) to help ol' Ody out.

Chop trees, build a lovely little cabin (don't forget to give your firepit an outlet for smoke in the roof!), hunt boar and deer, forage berries and mushrooms (similar to The Forest or Green Hell, or even ARK). Prepare yourself to face against the enemies that exist in this plane. Search dungeons for loot and/or build a longboat to voyage across the islands. All with low-poly visual aesthetic that I personally find rather charming. I also enjoy the design around hunger/resting with regards to health - the more full your belly, the higher your health ceiling and the faster your health regenerates, but you can't eat too much of the same thing - a varied diet is key!

If you are a fan of survival games then I definitely recommend checking it out. It's quite feature complete to say it's an early access title, and the Publisher (Coffee Stain Games) are the same as behind Deep Rock Galactic - another Early Access title that had a fantastic cycle and release.
Dude this looks like pretty cool and I dig the graphics. I just bought it, this is def something the Mrs will like. If I get around to renting a server I might share with the Pub.
 
I ended up going back to Control, and recommend to anyone interested in cosmic horror in modern days. The setting of the game is a absolutely fantastic, and it could be easily stolen for tabletop RPGs.

Just have in mind the game is far from perfect (gameplay and writing has problems, some of those really big IMO). I still think it's worth to mine for ideas, though, for things like Delta Green, Unknown Armies, Kult, Conspiracy-X, Esoterrorists, etc.
 
I've been getting into the tutorial missions for Fields of Glory II: Medieval. Having played the original ancient world version, the interface came back to me fairly quickly on the first mission, where I was playing France vs. the Low Countries. It was mostly a matter of getting a handle on the period-specific units and tactics. The second scenarios had me playing Pomeranians vs. the Teutonic Knights. That had me setting up the deployment of my troops. It also teaches how to deal with difficult terrain, as it is set in area with lots of marsh. I made a mess of that the first time, but narrowly won the second time. I had my knights and spearmen on the narrow stretch of dry land at the center, with my archers and peasant levies in the marshes on either side. The AI was smart enough to realize that charging me head-on would let me flank them with my levies, so their superior knight held back ominously while they sent infantry in to clear my levies out of the marshes. By the time my levies began to collapse, leaving me in danger of being flanked myself, the knights I had sent on a long circuitous route to come at them from behind showed up, and I was able to win the battle in the center.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this game. It has some solid strategy, and I can wrap up a battle with the computer in under an hour.
 
I was digging through a box of old CD's the other day and found my copy of SimCopter! A devoted fan made a patch to allow the game to run on Windows 10 so I've been playing that for the past couple of days. I remember back in the day never being able to finish a Train Rescue mission, but this time around I finally managed to do it by practically landing on top of the train. The current level I'm on has an absolute mountain of fires, and little in the way of water, much to my chagrin. This weekend I'm going to try and import some maps form SimCity 2, something the original game could do, but I'm unsure about the GOG version.
 
Kerbin Station with passenger shuttle, tug and fuel shuttle

Kerbin Station 2.jpg

I gave in and used nuclear engines on the shuttle. Otherwise the payload fraction is so low that it becomes quite tedious to shuttle fuel from the mining stations on the Mun. This design carries a Rockomax X-64 tank and most of two monoprop tanks full with enough reaction mass in the outboard tanks that I don't need to use the contents of the X64 tank. It's a quite marginal though, there's about 100 m/sec surplus for the Mun-Kerbin-Mun mission delta-V.

The passenger shuttle is mainly for docking with SSTOs although it can make a run to the Mun. SSTOs are marginal enough that they don't have a lot of spare delta-V for orbital manoeuvres, so it's easier to send a small shuttle to dock with them. It also has parachutes so it can function as a re-entry vehicle, but then it has to be replaced. It's a living embodiment of the maxim "Anything can be air dropped at least once."

The tug is used mainly for assembling the docking arms onto the station, although it has occasional applications for humping stuff between Kerbin and Munar orbit.

And here it is from a different angle

Kerbin Station 3.jpg
 
Last edited:
Picked up some more wargames on the Steam sale. Unity of Command II and Ultimate General: Civil War. I played through the first battle on Ultimate General and really liked it. It feels the way I always wish Total War games would feel. A little slower paced, very focused on the morale and condition of the troops. Having to use skirmishers to slow down and harass the enemy and rotate in reserves to keep fresh troops engaged and coordinate supplies to sustain the attack. It's pretty fun. After the first battle it throws you into campaign strategy with zero guidance on how to build an army, so I've got to read up on that a bit.
Unity of Command has a decent tutorial for field operations. I like the look of that so far as it seems to have a bit more depth than Panzer Corps 2, which I've played a bit lately but got kind of bored with. But it also throws you into a campaign planning stage right away without any tips on what anything is. So today I'm probably spending some time reading how these games work.
 
Close up of the tug with Mun and Kerbin in the backgroud. This is a mission to install the final two docking arms on Mun Station, after which the tug will be largely redundant. These will be delivered into Munar orbit by a disposable engine pack and then docked and manoeuvred into position on the station by the tug.

Tug2.jpg
 
Valheim is probably the next new game I am going to jump into.
I definitely recommend playing Valheim with a friend or loved one; it is a nice chill experience punctuated by "oh shit!" moments when confronting some new danger. Some buddies already have a server going but I declined joining for now as I want to enjoy the game at our own pace.

It's good for an Early Access title and I only have two minor issues. One, my FPS is much lower than it should be but I am looking into solutions for that. Two, when Bunny breaks down a resource "stack" that I created, she only gets one resource back instead of 50 (and likewise when I do the same for one she created).
 
I definitely recommend playing Valheim with a friend or loved one; it is a nice chill experience punctuated by "oh shit!" moments when confronting some new danger. Some buddies already have a server going but I declined joining for now as I want to enjoy the game at our own pace.

It's good for an Early Access title and I only have two minor issues. One, my FPS is much lower than it should be but I am looking into solutions for that. Two, when Bunny breaks down a resource "stack" that I created, she only gets one resource back instead of 50 (and likewise when I do the same for one she created).
Yeah, that's what has held me back so far. I'm waiting to pull someone in before trying it.
 
Yeah, that's what has held me back so far. I'm waiting to pull someone in before trying it.
I understand and agree; I think your wait will pay off. I don't know if you played Conan Exiles but I had an amazing time playing with Bunny and a close friend on a private server, exploring and figuring things out at our own pace. I don't think playing solo or joining a server already in progress would have come close to the sheer joy of that experience.
 
Mun Station finally assembled. You can see the light and heavy tugs docked. I used the heavy fuel tank tug to change the orbit plane, to get it in line with Kerbin's equatorial plane. Getting both stations' orbits lined up knocks a significant amount of off the mission delta-V for a fuel shuttle run. This is a good thing where the margin available from the fuel tankage is about 100 m/sec or so.

You can still see it docked onto the rear end of the station. The shift had to be done gently as the station is quite wobbly if you try to manoeuvre it.

It's much the same design as Kerbin station, basically a bunch of fuel tanks with some docking arms and a bit of crew accommodation for transfers. The stations have loads of docking ports - 5 large, 12 medium and 4 small. Currently the heavy miner is parked on the Munar surface to get it out of the way while I was frigging with Mun Station.

I could build a fuelling station in orbit around Minmus, but it's a bit of a faff to get to, and quite a lot more delta-V as its orbit lies off the plane of the ecliptic. It would be a PITA as a primary fuel depot, but as a depot for deep space missions, it's right near the edge of Kerbin's sphere of influence so it's worth considering setting up a depot there to fuel up the missions before you depart.

If I did that, I would do it as a single large tank in some configuration that didn't require a lot of parts to be flown out and assembled, mainly as I can't be arsed building another station like these ones. However, the tugs can easily make it to Minmus under their own steam, so assembling someting is perfectly feasible should one be motivated to do so.

Mun Station.jpg
 
Last edited:
This little tug has been a real workhorse. I've gotten a dozen missions out of it so far. It's transferred Mun Station into Munar orbit, docked 4 fuel tanks each to Kerbin and Mun stations, corrected the orbit of both Kerbin and Mun stations reducing the delta-V for a Kerbin-Mun transfer. It's also rescued the pilot of a botched Minmus depot launch and just transferred Minmus depot out to orbit around Minmus.

I did try to make an adaptor to dock the docking arms with standard size docking ports to it, but never got that to work well. If I'd gotten that working the light tug would have been redundant and the mission count for this would have been up at 20.

Seen in orbit around the Mun with Kerbin rising in the background. By waiting for Minmus's orbit to reach the ascending node (imagine a point on the line through where the orbital planes of Mun and Minmus intersect) I got the delta-V for the correction from about 220m/sec that it would have been in Kerbin orbit down to about 30. The total delta-V for a Minmus-Mun transfer was about 500 m/sec.

Tug3.jpg
 
This is the Minmus depot - a much simpler one-piece design. It's really just a fuel depot that miners and fuel shuttles can dock with. There is a bit of crew accommodation to support transfers and some comms relays but those are the only other facilities here. It has a lot fewer docking ports as we're not anticipating much need to park stuff here.

In the first attempt to launch this I realised I'd left out the fuel exhaust valves, which are quite useful in a fuelling station as one tends to wind up with surplus oxidiser and monopropellant. The tug above has a two-kerbal cabin (actually for landers) so it could be used to rescue the pilot.

Minmus Depot 1.jpg
 
Looking forward to Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace. I am a big fan of FFG's Arkham Files franchise so I'm okay with risking $15 bucks on a discounted pre-order. I already many (most?) Asmodee games so I am confident they do a good job.
 
Valheim with friends is proving... addictive.

I'm more proud of my tame boars and carrot field than the hall we're building...
You can tame boars and make carrot fields? Did not know that. We just made bronze, crafted a dragonship, and found the merchant.
 
So uh, I don't think this is good news for the Bloodlines sequel:

Seems like they are trying too hard. Shouldn’t they just be releasing it as a buggy mess and letting the fans make it playable?
 
You can tame boars and make carrot fields? Did not know that. We just made bronze, crafted a dragonship, and found the merchant.

The bronze Cultivator lets you prepare the ground and plant any seeds you pick up.

Boars is more tricky - basically, build a pen and get a couple of them to chase you in.
Once you have them trapped, you can start throwing mushrooms, carrots and berries into the pen.

Eventually you'll tame them and you can pet them... keep feeding them and they'll make little piglets!

Have tried keeping pet greydwarves, but it doesn't seem to work...
 
The bronze Cultivator lets you prepare the ground and plant any seeds you pick up.

Boars is more tricky - basically, build a pen and get a couple of them to chase you in.
Once you have them trapped, you can start throwing mushrooms, carrots and berries into the pen.

Eventually you'll tame them and you can pet them... keep feeding them and they'll make little piglets!
Thanks for the tip. I have avoided spoilers thus far but I am gonna take your boar trick and run with it. Bunny was using cultivator last night so we got farming on lockdown. Three of us in full bronze tried to take out the 2nd boss. It didn't go well. I was also experience crippling lag so that didn't help. We're gonna try again with fully upgraded gear, potions, and the best food.
 
I think I finally cracked the code for Gordian Quest. In case you were wondering, this is a neat little party-based tactical fantasy RPG that uses cards. The RPG campaign is easy but there is an iron man challenge where you earn points to accumulate artifacts by completing progressively more difficult randomized realms that has been kicking my ass. I was beating my head against this challenge for a while. Further hindering me is that I only play party based RPGs if I can run it with a male Fighter MC and a harem of attractive female characters so that limited my options. Anyway DEX-based duelist fighter, STR-based mettle bard, and INT-based druid focused on animal companions finally did the trick.
 
I killed my first Troll! Terrifying and exciting! Sadly, my brand-new bronze weapons were useless and I had to rely on my bow. Still, it was epic.
Tried and true method of troll-slaying is kiting with fire arrows. I don't think you can face tank them.
 
On Vornheim I get caught in a crazy loop making charcoal and smelting ore. The process is too long to walk away from and I get stuck in a maniac loop of running back and forth feeding these beasts like a beaver on methamphetamines. Then poof! an hour disappears just like that.
 
On Vornheim I get caught in a crazy loop making charcoal and smelting ore. The process is too long to walk away from and I get stuck in a maniac loop of running back and forth feeding these beasts like a beaver on methamphetamines. Then poof! an hour disappears just like that.
That sounds almost as bad as "Just one more Turn" syndrome with turn-based strategy games.
 
The key to face-on fights is using a good shield and perfect parry!
Absolutely, the shield is almost OP and the bronze shield was a huge upgrade. I haven't tried face tanking a troll with it because fine bow + fire arrows is low risk and easy.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top