I can’t quite tell from the trailer if it’s what they’re doing, and unfortunately I can’t find the video about this that I watched recently, but I wonder if they’re talking about “animating on 2s”? It’s a technique where the character’s animation only changes every other frame, which gives an effect that’s just slightly choppy but pleasing to a lot of people. It’s how they animated the Spider-verse movie.

You’re right, of course. Indie devs with passion are still putting out some great stuff.

My ire was much more for the AAA studios, which seem to have tossed out all the talent and vision that brought them to the top.

I mean, I was Ride or Die with Square Enix for decades, when they were different companies. After 16, I think I’m just done with new Final Fantasy games altogether. Fuck you guys, imma go play 6, 8, and 9.

Not playing games, or not playing the current live service shovelware they keep pushing out?

Lots of people are realizing there were more quality games released between 1985 and 2015 than you could ever play in a lifetime. We don’t need new shit if it’s just gonna suck.

I’ve been doing both!

I never tried that one, but I also had a recent late-to-the-party “gaming as exercise” discovery: Beat Saber! I never gelled with rhythm games before I got a VR headset, but I’m really digging it, and it totally gets me sweating after a while.

Owlcat Games - they made two Pathfinder games, Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, some of my favorite CRPGs in recent memory. Their latest, Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, is supposed to be great as well, but I haven’t had the time to do more than check out the character creation so far.

If this is widely adopted, I have enough emulators and classic PC games to never buy another game in my life and still be entertained the whole time. Good luck, corpo dipshits.

I was about to hazard a guess that it hearkens back to Ray Harryhausen, but I rewatched the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts, and I’m astounded that they apparently didn’t do it there.

I played the intro campaign of Wildermyth, and not only is it great as the “fantasy XCOM” I was hoping for, but if you’re the type of person to headcanon little stories and relationships between your party in a tactics game, this game is for you.

Buckle up, mate.

Ooh, Wildermyth looks pretty tempting too…

I haven’t bought anything yet, but I’ve been compiling a short list of mostly DRPG games like the old Might and Magics that I’ve been playing, specifically ones that’ll work on the Deck nicely. It’s a genre I loved when I was younger that’s been rather missing from my modern collection.

• Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

and/or

• Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls
• Legends of Amberland II
• Operencia: The Stolen Sun
• Songs of Conquest (not a DRPG, but a great-looking spiritual successor to Heroes of Might and Magic 3.)

And then on GoG, I might pick up a few real old ones, like Lands of Lore and/or Wizards & Warriors, but I don’t think those will be good for steam deck even through Heroic.

Report: Novel Disease Outbreak Following Death of Burning Man Performer

So it’s a full-game escort mission like Ico? I don’t know if that gameplay will be for me, but it looks gorgeous. Definitely worth looking into when there’s more play footage to see.

Oh, and GOG has both Grimrock games for a pittance right now. That miiiight be my whole weekend now.

Ooh, I’m really digging the art style on Grimrock. It’s very reminiscent of the weird-looking old games, but so charming and slick about it.

Weepstone also looks fantastic, like playing an AD&D sourcebook. Will definitely be trying that demo this weekend.

I don’t play many Android games, and enjoy even fewer, but Hoplite is great. It’s pretty simple to play but still requires some thinking, which is what I want out of a mobile game.

Nationeering?

That sounds great. I really liked 4, and unfamiliar is fine as long as it’s not unfamiliar because I’m supposed to have played half a dozen other games first.

The gameplay could have used a little work, but man as an overall experience Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty great. I’d love to see them get a sequel, or a similar game with a different super-team like the Exiles.

I got the Lightbringers (Complete) edition because some of the base classes and a couple races are locked behind DLC packs. I’m not too happy they did that, but it wasn’t that bad on sale. It looks like a lot of the custom campaigns require Palace of Ice because of items or monsters it added too. So I’d try to get the complete pack on sale.

Good news! You’re allowed to skip them and instead play the hundreds to thousands of older games you’d surely love, but that slipped under your radar at the time. Plenty to hold us over until publishers and studios learn their lesson.

If it’s AI, don’t buy.

I don’t play it any more, but the only thing I did for most of my time playing The Sims was cheat in money and design baller houses. Couldn’t have given less of a shit about the Sims themselves.

Aren’t you glad you put money in Kushner’s pocket for this wonderful experience?

Fuck EA.

Oh neux.

God power keeps my pimp hand strong, so trust me or you won’t last very long!

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave.

I’ve seen tits you people wouldn’t believe. Orcish knockers around a fire off the shoulder of the Chionthar. I watched pierced nips glitter in the dark near Baldur’s Gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… Time to die.

Of course I want to bang surface dwellers, cousin. You know that after I left the Underdark, I pleasured a woman without a spider crawling across my ass for the first time? That almost never happens upland, it really lets you focus on the task at hand. And most of the women there will ask before sitting on your face.

Taking things off the market to drive scarcity and boost sales at a later date is a normal bullshit and common anti-consumer business tactic.

I started a new game of Baldur’s Gate 1 for the purposes of breezing through on easy to remind myself of the plot, and importing a character to BG2.

I’m going to get flayed for this, but man I forgot what a boring slog at least the first part of BG1 is. Doesn’t help that my memory of AD&D rules is like in the back of my mind’s attic.

But I’m gonna make myself push through so I can get to BG2, for Viconia’s sake. I can fix her!

the Mountain is Both “A Person and an Adversary”

That just sounds like Halaster Blackcloak.

Borderlands 2 is great for co-op, but I’m not sure if you can do local splitscreen if that’s what you’re looking for.

Oh damn I thought this was some “Fuck bitches, smoke trees - Abraham Lincoln” shit, but it’s a real quote. Nice.

It’s not out just yet, but it sounded like they’re close based on the discussion board. Demo took me an hour or two to run through, worth the time if you like the subject matter. Quinn is adorbs.

Nice. I don’t typically go for M/M unless femboys are involved, but it’s what my wife likes, and that’s one of the ones I linked her when she asked me to research a few games for her to try.

He’s the main love interest, not the protag, but have you seen Haunted by Femboy? A little on the silly side, but I enjoyed the demo.

Vought?

Oh yeah, I saw that one earlier and threw it on my wishlist for later. It looks pretty good. I picked up Scarlet Maiden instead for now, which is also a pixel-based naughty game, but looks to be a roguelite and is supposed to have great gameplay too.

That seems like a fair assessment of the current state of things, but I do want to stress how good Huniepop is as a puzzle game alone. One sparkling jewel in a sea of erotic sliding puzzle and jigsaw crap.

If you removed everything outside the actual gem matching gameplay and soundtrack, I would still play it.

And yeah, I started poking around and saw some of the more ambitious open world projects like you’re talking about, and they all looked like abandoned early access. But if they have the technical ability, why not show my character licking some Asari ladyparts in Mass Effect 5? Adults play a shitload of video games too. Make it an optional DLC if you have to.