What game are you wasting time on?

[BruceVC]

I played two PC Fighting Fantasy books, House of Hell and Forest of Doom

Very nostalgic and worthwhile experience and reminded me of the incredible time when I was kid and we didnt have a PC so books and Tabletop games was how we played fantasy games. These PC versions of the books are exactly like the original narratives with some understandable mechanic changes like how you can save and restore anywhere and a convenient map

I bought 3 more to play later

I decided to play Two Worlds 2, its fun. It has some unusual designs and mechanics but its a cheesy and entertaining RPG, its not complex but its fun

You made me remember that I have the paper House of Hell somewhere in my bookshelf!
Do the digital ports include the original illustrations?

Currently "wasting time" on my playthough of PLanescape: Torment. Having a blast!

They do and you can download coloured illustrations

Its such a nostalgic experience playing these PC books again. I also bought Creature of Havoc, Citadel of Chaos, Assassins of Allansia and Bloodbones and the last 2 I never played as game books

I have already played the more advanced versions of Deathtrap Dungeon and Warlock of Firetop Mountain but the ones I bought are considered DLC of the free Fighting Fantasy Classics game on Steam and they exactly the same as the books with the added convenience of the save\restore and map

https://store.steampowered.com/app/856880/Fighting_Fantasy_Classics/

If you grew up playing these books then you wont be disappointed with the PC adaptations , highly recommended

UGH! I hate you so much, you bastard!

I was so stoked and ready to launch into the games, only to be told I need to install a Steam app. Fuck that shit!

https://tinmangames.com.au/games/fighting-fantasy-classics/

Im sure you can install this app without using Steam and you should able to buy the PC books outside of Steam?

Steam is just very convenient

 

[Cael]

I played two PC Fighting Fantasy books, House of Hell and Forest of Doom

Very nostalgic and worthwhile experience and reminded me of the incredible time when I was kid and we didnt have a PC so books and Tabletop games was how we played fantasy games. These PC versions of the books are exactly like the original narratives with some understandable mechanic changes like how you can save and restore anywhere and a convenient map

I bought 3 more to play later

I decided to play Two Worlds 2, its fun. It has some unusual designs and mechanics but its a cheesy and entertaining RPG, its not complex but its fun

You made me remember that I have the paper House of Hell somewhere in my bookshelf!
Do the digital ports include the original illustrations?

Currently "wasting time" on my playthough of PLanescape: Torment. Having a blast!

They do and you can download coloured illustrations

Its such a nostalgic experience playing these PC books again. I also bought Creature of Havoc, Citadel of Chaos, Assassins of Allansia and Bloodbones and the last 2 I never played as game books

I have already played the more advanced versions of Deathtrap Dungeon and Warlock of Firetop Mountain but the ones I bought are considered DLC of the free Fighting Fantasy Classics game on Steam and they exactly the same as the books with the added convenience of the save\restore and map

https://store.steampowered.com/app/856880/Fighting_Fantasy_Classics/

If you grew up playing these books then you wont be disappointed with the PC adaptations , highly recommended

UGH! I hate you so much, you bastard!

I was so stoked and ready to launch into the games, only to be told I need to install a Steam app. Fuck that shit!

https://tinmangames.com.au/games/fighting-fantasy-classics/

Im sure you can install this app without using Steam and you should able to buy the PC books outside of Steam?

Steam is just very convenient

I have the original books...

 

[Necrensha]

I watched a Let's Play of it. The combat is pretty bad.

So bad that If I don't get the axe/hammer at the start of a new run I reset cause the other weapons are so worthless that they make the game unplayable.
Enemies can hit you before they even spawn on the map.
One time I defeated the toad boss, but the 50 flies it spewed killed me in the middle of the cutscene and made me have to repeat the run.
Terrible stuff.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I'm still playing Deus Ex 1 but I reached the catacombs and losing steam/interest. How much longer is the game?

 

[NecroLord]

I'm still playing Deus Ex 1 but I reached the catacombs and losing steam/interest. How much longer is the game?

Not that much.
You should know that after leaving Paris, the game does get more linear and there are less opportunities to interact with characters and spend credits to buy items.
You are fighting against MJ-12 after all, so you don't have time to dilly dally.

 

[Fedora Master]

So yea, Wasteland 3 - The game has the same problem with difficulty as most other games: It's basically a choice of "how much fun do you wanna have?" because Supreme Jerk makes some choices just pointless. The AI isn't any better though, it will happily shoot your guys in the back but DON'T YOU DARE accidentally friendly fire on them, that's a no-no.

 

[Naraya]

Heroes of Might & Magic 2 (via fheroes) and Heroes of Might & Magic 3, replaying some campaigns (AB at the moment).

My god, how I adore HoM&M 1-3. I don't think there will ever be a turn-based, fantasy-themed game with pixel graphics that's more beautiful.

 

[jackofshadows]

So yea, Wasteland 3 - The game has the same problem with difficulty as most other games: It's basically a choice of "how much fun do you wanna have?" because Supreme Jerk makes some choices just pointless. The AI isn't any better though, it will happily shoot your guys in the back but DON'T YOU DARE accidentally friendly fire on them, that's a no-no.

The problem is that even on SJ at some point (12 lvl or whatever it becomes too easy and therefore no fun - that's release version impressions though I heard they've tweaked stuff somewhat). The most fundamental problem with it all is the team turns - it fuck things up too much in terms of who goes first wins. I remember one key fight (against that female boss) where I cleared it with ease in a few rounds, all good etc and then I've decided to select some other dialogue in order for her team to go first. Guess what - team fucking wipe, I haven't been able to do literally anything. So for RPG enthusiasts there're no choices at all yeah.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I tried a handful of Steam demos recently:

tl;dr: A bunch of shit, the only ones I'd consider picking up so far are: TMNT: Splintered Fate and Those Who Rule but not in that order.

Depths of Faveg: Bizarre, it's like a roguelike with blobber combat that strips out actually moving around or exploring the dungeon with clicking "explore" and giving you a random battle every time you do that, choosing to either fight random battles or fight a boss and descend to the next dungeon level (or die). Descending a level provides a rest that refills your hp and mp. Class picks for level up are random with your choice to pick one of three to go up a level each time. Not my cup of tea, I'd rather just play a blobber for this sort of thing.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion - not sure yet, I got stuck in dialogue hell and had to run out. What little gameplay I've seen before makes me skeptical, but I reserve judgement for now.

Magic Cauldron - Dungeons: Complete hot garbage. Eye of the Beholder but with one guy (as I recall, I basically uninstalled right away and barely remember it other than noping out pdq)

Never Second in Rome: Sweet mix of ancient Rome and clicking next to read text while watching numbers go +1 next to a skill or something. I don't even want to play this again if you paid me.

Saturated Outer Space: Interesting idea, play a space search and rescue team in tactical turn based combat... with the jankiest shovel ware presentation I've seen in years. Probably not worth a $0.35 coupon to Taco Bell.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate: Isometric action roguelike TMNT brawler take on Hades. I sort of like this one, but there are better games in this space. Only worth it if you both like this style of game and are either a TMNT fan or a kid.

The Adventurers: We have Battle Brothers at home.

Stellar Terminus: Like playing a space blobber on your graphic calculator in 1990. Nope.

Combat Complex: Some sort of progression oriented twin stick shooter except moderately slow paced and clunky. There are way better games to scratch this itch.

Those Who Rule: Let's make Fire Emblem as a westernized flash game. ... I actually really like this, but I also have a soft spot for this genre. I'd totally buy this if I'm looking for something to play in this space. Assuming it's not coming out priced at like $60 or something.

Whispers of the Eyeless: Cool art style, not much else going on. It kind of reminded me of a less interesting Darkest Dungeon. YMMV. I won't be looking at this again.

Things I will theoretically try for at least 3 minutes each before NextFest ends:

• Flint: Treasure of Oblivion - just to get into the actual gameplay loop and see if I hate it.
• Spirit of the Samurai
• Stone Madness
• The Precinct
• Neon Blood
• Worshippers of Cthulhu
• Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch
• Knights in Tight Spaces
• Lurks within Walls
• New Arc Line (less sure about this, I was pretty sure it was going to suck before I saw comments that say the demo sucks)

Honourable mention:

Not a demo but I finally got around to trying The Textorcist which is insanely discounted and I've had in my library for years. What a bizarre, yet inspired game. Love it.

 

[Raghar]

I managed to do 6 mistakes, 9 blunders, and 6 missed wins, and I still won.

Playing bad on purpose without anyone noticing and still wining is hard.

 

[Raghar]

I managed to freeze chess in browser when I had pawn on E4, AI put queen on H5, and then when I moved pawn G6, AI wanted to do normal gameplay... And then AI got mental breakdown, screamed who plays like that and froze.

 

[Ezekiel]

Skyward Sword's art style is childish. Proportions so stretched and weird.

Cutscenes just keep going, like MGS but not fun.

Link's pants suck. Tights or kid's bare legs. (Kid Link was better.) Nothing else works. Those earrings have to go. The chainmail under his tunic I don't care for. Liked it better when the green clothes were just his regular everyday clothes and he already wore them before his adventure.

 

[Machocruz]

Nintendo's art style is childish.

I cannot stand most of Nintendo's art direction since SNES. I'm thinking the limitations of the NES were the only thing that kept them from going overboard with their saccharine, garish tendencies. Now they either look like baby toys or have a lifeless plastic look.

 

[mediocrepoet]

A few more things down:

Knights in Tight Spaces: I haven't played it but from the dev's messages in the demo, I assume this is like their earlier game Fights in Tight Spaces. Some sort of deck building strategy game based on grid movement, positioning, and resource management. It looks interesting but wasn't really what I was looking for. Seems to be decent quality though as long as the visuals don't bug you.

Worshippers of Cthulhu: Anno Cthulhu fhtagn ia ia!

 

[mediocrepoet]

Wasn't going to do anymore tonight, but I decided to finish up the Flint demo before winding down.

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion: This is really interesting. Some of the UI stuff is a bit clunky, like having to hold the mouse button to confirm actions, but it also offers you more options than many games of this style such as environmental interactions and attacks, various weapon types, trips and knockdowns, etc. that fit with the swashbuckling pirate theme. The art style is fairly cool and the dialogues and story is done with captions and comic book panel interactions. The dice rolls, skill checks, and overall presentation reminds me of either a TTRPG or board game style presentation for both difficulty checks and for progression.

Not a perfect game by any stretch, but one that seems quite promising and actually feels "piratey" unlike most other "pirate" games. For instance, the XP for your captain and crew is actually your loot that you're sharing out, giving a tension between paying out your crew to level them up (and add a mechanical reason to pay them other than having a timer or something) versus keeping money to keep your ship repaired and supplied.

Added it to the wishlist, I probably liked it most out of all of these demos so far, or at least about as much as Those Who Rule (which isn't really fair because that's just re-skinned Fire Emblem). It's certainly the one that I've found most interesting and that felt like its own thing so far.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Knights in Tight Spaces: I haven't played it but from the dev's messages in the demo, I assume this is like their earlier game Fights in Tight Spaces. Some sort of deck building strategy game based on grid movement, positioning, and resource management. It looks interesting but wasn't really what I was looking for. Seems to be decent quality though as long as the visuals don't bug you

Ought to start a betting ring for the next sequel title-

Spoiler

Wights in tight spaces
Smites in tight spaces
Mights in tight spaces
Brights in tight spaces
Lights in tight spaces
Whites in tight spaces
Blights in tight spaces
Tights in tight spaces
Slights in tight spaces
Kites in tight spaces
Bites in tight spaces

 

[mediocrepoet]

Knights in Tight Spaces: I haven't played it but from the dev's messages in the demo, I assume this is like their earlier game Fights in Tight Spaces. Some sort of deck building strategy game based on grid movement, positioning, and resource management. It looks interesting but wasn't really what I was looking for. Seems to be decent quality though as long as the visuals don't bug you

Ought to start a betting ring for the next sequel title-

Spoiler

Wights in tight spaces
Smites in tight spaces
Mights in tight spaces
Brights in tight spaces
Lights in tight spaces
Whites in tight spaces
Blights in tight spaces
Tights in tight spaces
Slights in tight spaces
Kites in tight spaces
Bites in tight spaces

Nights in your Tight Spaces.

 

[Fedora Master]

Finished WL3 - Since this was my second playthrough, although after a long while, the cracks really start to show at times. Nothing TOO bad though.
Still, the choices and consequences are fantastic by CRPG standards. It's only natural that some of it doesn't quite gel well.
Also it was odd how the very last fight I actually had to do was against a bunch of refugees. Everything else can be solved with speech checks.

Supreme Jerk is a shit difficulty. It's not hard, just stupid at times. By the end even my most heavily armored Rangers could be downed in one hit by some enemies. Going first is basically the one deciding factor in every fight.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm officially done with Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete. Did the second expansion. Those were some fun (and at times annoying) ~200 hours. I will keep the game installed, and check out user generated stuff. I have never actually delved into that territory. I'm not doing in straight away, though. A little break to play some other stuff.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth feels like a massive game. 50 hours in, and on chapter ten. It's a bit weak compared to to it's predecessor, but I'm still having a decent time with it. The two biggest problems are difficulty, and the plot not really going anywhere. The game is on the easier side, and main story + side stories don't feel as good as previous games. I do like the addition of movement in combat, and the job system is a bit better realized in this one. I will not be going for 100%, and I will not be doing every mini game. Maybe complete the Sujimon Arena, and maybe Dondoko island. I can't help but feel that both of these shouldn't have made it, and they should have given other things more attention. One thing that really hit me is Kiryu's flashbacks, and realize that you have actually followed this guy's story for 20 years, not only in real life, but also in universe. While I don't dislike Ichiban, he's half the main character that Kiryu is.

Other than these, I started Drova: Forsaken Kin. 2D Gothic like. It plays well, so far. If Body Type 1/2 annoys you, and can't handle people of color in your games, you should avoid it.

I also dabbled in the prolog of the latest game from Atlus, Metaphor: ReFantazio. It's a decent game so far. The differences between this and Persona are that there is no school setting, and the game uses a job system instead of Personas.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I messed around with a few more demos tonight.

New Arc Line: I was pleasantly surprised. Based on the comments I've seen on the Codex and the asstastic story trailer, I figured this would be hot garbage, but I enjoyed my time enough to shut it down in case I decide to pick it up after all. It has a variety of social, general (like thievery and athletics), technological and magical skills and stats, that actually do come into play as you move around the game world. I also quite liked the art style, though the faces had that sort of expressionless asset flip look to them. Regardless, it looks like there's a solid foundation and it'll just depend on whether the content is worth engaging with. I also know that they'd updated the demo today and I hadn't tried it before, so if you played it earlier and had issues, maybe try it again and see if they're resolved because I didn't have any technical hitches or anything else that bothered me.

Slice & Dice: This is a dice rolling game where 1 6-sided die represents your skills and equipment and rolls will determine what action you can do. You can re-roll for the party up to 3 times, committing to an action or not after each roll. After the third roll, your actions are automatically assigned from whatever was rolled. Enemies range from rats to undead to wizards, and so on. After each combat, you can be rewarded with a choice of an item to equip that may provide a passive bonus or change sides of a character's die, or a class change that will change out the character's die entirely. Classes are all sorts including (descriptively speaking) shield bearers, warriors, berserkers, assassins, archers, paladins, monks, etc. It's a far more engaging and interesting game than it appears at first and is modestly priced.

Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch: It's a tactics RPG roguelike. I'm not sure what else to say about it. The gameplay was solid, but the roguelike elements were weird to me given the odd genre mix. There's an interesting story hook though in that you don't remember who you are or who the people around you are, etc. and it's presented reasonably well, I think, though the dialogue is a bit goofy.

 

[Raghar]

Easy mate in 10.

 

[Cael]

Might as well use the 4 move checkmate if you are playing against AI of that calibre.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Almost done with the demos I was curious about from Steam.

tl;dr: Bunch of crap except The Precinct which I'm going to keep an eye on.

Spirit of the Samurai: I wanted to like this one much more than I did. The gameplay is a bit janky and stilted and reminded me a lot of an old Genesis game called Sword of Sodan* in that it forgets that what makes a side scrolling action game isn’t the visuals, it’s the fluidity of gameplay. You have jank like combo animations moving you to the other side of an enemy where nothing hits and your back is to the guy you’ve been fighting, animations moving you into an area transition where you leave the fight and then if you go back, the enemy you were fighting no longer exists, etc.

The voice acting is a mixed bag, leaning towards mildly racist ass and the writing is a bit stilted and weird, but the biggest issue is that the visuals have no options other than resolution, meaning that a lot of areas have that film grain effect, except it’s so poorly implemented it doesn’t do anything other than make everything look like pixelated dog shit. Worse than this, anything to do with spirits or the spirit realm has the gamma turned so high, I found it uncomfortable to look at and almost quit the demo before even making it to the main gameplay loop. As it is, what I got out of that wasn’t worth making it through burning out my retinas.

The nicer ideas of the game are that you can manage your stat growth and as you level up or find things, you learn new combat moves that you can add to attack combos, but the implementation is very amateur and leaves a lot to be desired. As I said earlier, the game reminds me of a nicer looking title I’d have expected from the 16 bit era or so and even then I found this sort of game lacking.

The game wants to be a visually cool side scrolling action RPG, but it doesn’t really make it there and I wouldn’t even play this thing again for free. They’d seriously need to tighten up the animations and gameplay and massively tone down the gamma or add an option to manage this stuff before I’d bother with it.

*Apparently it was originally an Amiga title, but I only played it on the Genesis.


To Kill a God: A slow arena based action RPG where each arena is based on choosing options out of a Path of Exile style Chinese checkers grid. Could be fun, but there are many better ways to spend your time with this sort of thing unless the PoE grid specifically draws you in. Meh.


The Precinct: Top down police simulator including appropriate levels of force, various ways of policing (walking the beat, driving a police car, flying a helicopter), Mirandizing suspects, etc. This was really cool. The only things that weren’t great were the community theatre voice acting, clunky writing, and Flash/AI style dialogue graphics. The isometric city streets that are the primary game play presentation are very nice and detailed. This could be pretty cool.

 

[Necrensha]

Clash: Artifacts of Power

The story/characters? Barely exist, and in fact most cutscenes/dialogue seem to end extra early as if everybody was skipping half of their lines. I like how it's a plot point that everybody you meet instantly jumps to ''let's punch each other to determine who is right''. Owlboy was interesting but he barely gets to do anything.

The levels are extremely beautiful to look at, but they make 0 sense, they are labyrinthian with no signs/marks/map or anything that may help you navigate them. They honestly rival Hexen/Turok in the constant feeling of having to backtrack and checking every wall while wondering where the fuck are you supposed to go.

Gameplay is too awkward and janky to be fun, I got stuck inside walls/enemies like 6 times over my playthrough, often Mr Meathead will punch in a direction I'm not looking at or launch himself in the air and land out of bounds.
You can challenge everybody you see to a dice minigame to determine who will start the fight with a handicap if they lose... but this minigame is too slow for how many hundreds of times you have to do it, and after a certain point I started ignoring it and just punched everybody the normal way.

There are many techniques and attacks to learn through the game, but they are all pointless because the uppercut move you get at the very start is better than all of them and will stun every enemy in the game.
There are a truckload of worthless crafting items crammed in every rock, yawn.

There is also a nighttime mechanic where you can backtrack some more to challenge new enemies and mini bosses to get items, but the whole thing is just a pointless waste of time since the combat isn't fun at all.
And the ending... is like you're watching episode 26 of some random scifi show without any context.

Overall: another one for the unfulfilled potential list.

 

[Azalin]

Finished Cosmic Star Heroine a retro jrpg trying to capture some of the magic of the 90's golden jrpg era.It's a nice little game in a sci fi setting,the pixel graphics are nice. The story is just some generic stuff just to move you along,the gameplay is ok,nothing revolutionary but with some new ideas.My main problem is that it felt a bit short,it could have been a bit longer to develop more the large cast of characters you gather and the world.