Gaming

Star Wars Jedi Knight Academy! Enjoying an old game that my parents wouldn’t let me have because it was “too violent”

Also FTL! Snagged it for $2 on Steam.

Been playing Heaven's Vault, a game I kept seeing recommended for people who liked Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn. There's this big overarching mystery to solve, and a core part of the game is translating a written language. There's limited options you're given for what each word means, but you still have to compare symbols and use context to make deductions, it's very cool.

Just started playing Hollow Knight again and I’m HOOKED. I love almost everything about the game so far from the music, the visuals, and the gameplay. Although it gets mighty frustrating when trying to platform through those fucking thorns or off the bouncy purple mushrooms but I take my break and then I’m back at it again :)

I had been making steady progress in Expedition Rome from the sale, but then the siren song of RimWorld pulled me back again. My melee moleperson cult is going strong!

Stray!

And I did get it from the Steam sale.

It had been on my radar for quite some time. Partly because it's gotten such great review and partly because it's from Annapurna, they seem to release pretty sweet games.

And it's great! Highly recommended. :)

I'm playing a heavily modded Fallout 4. I got a mod where you can start more like a regular RPG and choose your backstory and where you start, and all of the dialogue relating to Sean has been taken out. It's great, way more fun. My character is a drunk who washed up on Nordhagen beach and is living with the settlers and killing raiders for them and building them a nice house :)

I'm paying through Skyrim for the first time. I had tried it once before as a teen but didn't really know what I was doing and gave up.. Now I've got it loaded up with mods and am thoroughly enjoying myself!

Grinding through nightmare dungeons in Diablo 4, and because I fell down a YouTube tutorial hole I'm retrying Frostpunk. Hopefully I can stave off the guilt from slapping makeshift prosthetics on orphans long enough to finish it this time.

Just picked up Terraria and I'm loving it. I played Starbound a while back and read that it was more or less a spiritual successor to Terraria. Terraria has all the things I wanted to see from Starbound. The crafting system is so expansive. The difficulty is real though, I travelled through 2 biomes and hit something with large beetles and cave worms that chomped me to death. Zombies, floating eyes, and slimes were no problem. Same for the mobs in the desert, easy...but once I hit that 3rd biome I was in trouble, even with my metal armor.

Path of Exile. I can't even say it's great. It's OK. But they must have nailed that Diablo-esque addictive quality because I can't stop.

For me, I am playing through Oblivion for the first time!

After seeing the starfield trailer I figured it was time for me to fill in this gap I had in the bethesda library. I am using some mods from the "through the valley" mod list and have been having a great time so far. The game is really goofy, but the exploration has been great so far. Also got the mods set up on my steam deck, and its been working great!

Pokemon Violet. I'm trying to complete the Pokedex as much as I can, as I try to ignore the blatant perfomance problems of the game 😅 But I really like the game and its open world nature.

I've been playing days gone a whole lot recently along with some Stardew valley and Witcher 3 and I got dark souls 2 on the sale as well

Currently playing Horizon: Forbidden West. I love it but it can get somewhat tiring after a while. It’s my third open world game in a row and I definitely feel the need to play something smaller and more focused.

Pikmin 2, Subnautica, Dome Keeper on the Steam Deck, Zelda TOTK on the Switch and revisiting Civ V on my main pc.

Taking a break from Diablo 4 till the season starts, played and finished Grim Fandango. Great game.

Now thinking about setting up a Minecraft server for me and my daughter.

Frostpunk and Diablo 4. Frostpunk is my first civ management game in a while (played lots Age of Empires and Age of Wonders back in the day) and OH MAN is this game good. Diablo is...compelling enough but not better than 3. Dislike the online aspect mainly but overall the game has its merits.

Love this thread idea BTW!

I've been really into Lord of the Rings Online with my buds, MMOs aren't for anyone but if you really like LoTR it's an absolutely phenomenal experience.

Cyberpunk 2077. It’s been ages since I actually decided to pick up an RPG and get into it. I’m enjoying it so much.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Anomaly on Ironman mode. Starting my 8th run. Haven't even made it close to chernobyl with any of my past characters yet. I honestly like it, makes the endgame that much more intriguing when you get closer each run.

If anyone is interested in a hardcore survival FPS game that is highly customizable to your preference give it a try. It's free to download and it is a standalone game so no need to own any previous titles 👍

Diablo IV mostly right now. I’m level 45 and barely getting started on Act II. I need to catch up, but there are so many side quests.

I also picked up Dead Cells for the Switch yesterday. Seemed more appropriate on the Switch than on PC. So far, it’s a lot of fun.

My favorite game is to score deals on video games and then watch my kids play them afterwards. I bought Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on release ($70) saving by using Nintendo game vouchers (2 games for $100) purchased with Costco eShop cards ($100 value for $90). I've been watching my daughter play these past two weeks while combing through Steam's summer sale. Another pro-tip is whatever game I find on sale @Steam, I can (usually) find the same game on Fanatical.com for a few dollars less and score a 5% coupon for the next puchase.

Hey!

From the Steam Sale, some casual games about playing with the odds:

• Peglin is quite fun and short. The more pegs you hit, the more it damages an enemy. Highly replayable with all the modifiers making each game unique.
• Roll is similar, modifying dice to get the highest score in 2500 rolls. There is way more complex calculations, but I like how messy it gets.

From the ones already on the library, just Hollow Knight which has been a delightful yet frustrating experience. The soundtrack is stunning, and I love me some platforming challenge.

I'm playing a bit of totk, and building out a version of https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/06/18/assume-normal-costs-an-update/ in Nimby Rails!

Cyberpunk 2077 with a bunch of mods. The Enemies of Night City mod is actually making the game interesting and somewhat of a challenge.

I recently joined a Survival multiplayer server on Minecraft for the first time and I am having so much fun. The community around it is so positive I really look forward to hopping on every day haha

I cannot stop playing Oxygen Not Included. Apparently my idea of fun is simulating fluid mechanics and learning about heat transfer and gas diffusion in the middle of the night

i'm running psychonauts 2, really loving the level design and story and characters. it has really really good gay representation too!

Okay so I'm continuing with my Bloodborne play through. Made some progress the last two nights and I feel like I've finally accomplished something.

I also started a few smaller games on my 'Deck, namely Spin Rhythm and Bleak Sword DX.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a blast.

Early access is more fully-baked than many full releases. The story is intriguing, and seems to react in a very flexible way to dialogue as well as actions in the world. The D&D nostalgia is awesome, and it seems that Forgotten Realms is more familiar to me than I thought.

It’s gorgeous. It feels great. It’s fun.

Fun fact: if you get the early release, you get a free upgrade to digital deluxe when it releases Aug 3 I think. Not a shill, I just love gaming.

The two games I've played the most this past week are:

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me - It's half off in the sale. The latest Dark Pictures Anthology narrative horror game. I love these games, currently working through a second playthrough and trying to save everyone this time. Also, this developer has several other titles if you like narrative horror. My faves are Man of Medan, The Quarry, and House of Ashes.

Halls of Torment - A Vampire Survivors derivative, and I think, a pretty good one. Has a dark, 80's era fantasy aesthetic. There's a lot of content here for an early access title too, and it's only $4.

I picked up Diablo 4, and also had to sign up for Playstation Plus since it's always online... Ended up spending more time playing the games from the Plus catalog. The story is surprisingly good - I always though D3's story was kind of dumb, but the atmosphere in this one is great, to the point where I'm often not listening to a podcast when I play (at least until I finish the campaign)

I played through Stray in a few days - incredibly charming game. In a way it almost reminded me of Chibi Robo, since you're a little guy exploring a human-sized environment. Definitely recommend it.

I also did a run of Until Dawn, which I played years ago. I always intended to replay it but it's hard to motivate myself to redo a story-heavy game like this where it's going to be a few hours before things really start branching off in interesting ways. I really like how they play with different flavors of horror, from slasher to paranormal, to play with your expectations if you're a genre-savvy horror fan. Going to check out The Quarry sometime.

And I'm playing Alan Wake, for another TV-show-esque horror experience. The Stephen King and Twin Peaks inspiration is pretty obvious but I like both of those things. Combat is a little frustrating, though, it's easy to lose track of enemies if you're fighting a group, and the cinematic slow-mo sometimes gets annoying.

X4 Foundations. The Kingdom End expansion is awesome and I absolutely adore everything Boron. Just yesterday I finally broke the mexican standoff my fleet (and that of the Argon) had with the Xenon. For multiple real life hours, we had our fleets parked menacingly at the respective ends of the jump gates that connect two sectors. I charged through the gate with my entire fleet after the Xenon sent through a large portion of their fighters (which got obliterated by my ships) so only their capital ships were remaining. Had to hit the bed during a short break in the battle, though, so the outcome is still to be determined.

In other news, I'm also playing a lot of The Isle again and having a lotta fun with the new dinos and mechanics that have recently been added/tweaked. I'm positively surprised how chill many deino (crocodiles basically) players are about sharing the rivers with beipis (think penguins but in tropic climate)

Been making my way through totk. I think I enjoyed playing the first one more but it's still pretty good. I'm stuck at the lost woods though, have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I might have done a main quest early so maybe I just have to progress to that point?

Getting pretty deep into FF16, really enjoying it still, the combat seems to be opening up which is making it more fun, will try and do all the side quests before the end, but will see how it goes.