Came here to leave the same comment! I have such distinct memories of Gunman, but could never remember the name of the game.

Nearly anything you want to

Doesn’t that imply it isn’t a core feature from the perspective of the devs? If they haven’t enhanced it by now, I wouldn’t expect them to going forward. For what it’s worth, the lackluster space combat is my biggest gripe with the game, but I just don’t play NMS when I’m looking for a space dogfight then.

That would probably make it more interesting for many, but it was never meant to be a combat focused game so it makes sense that they haven’t added it.

I was tired and think I had wires crossed on Terraforming Mars and Planet Crafter. Though, I’m not sure what parts of NMS are being focused on? Resource management with a space theme? There you go!

I’m not sure what you’re looking for in a “game like NMS”, but

• Elite Dangerous
• X4
• Outer Worlds
• Endless Space
• Homeworld
• Starfield
• Star Citizen
• Everspace

Or “base”-building

• Satisfactory
• Astroneer
• Terraforming Mars

Not sure what you’re exactly looking for that NMS doesn’t scratch the itch of, but these are all games myself or friends have played that touch some of the same areas. Though, I understand the pain of “this game is so close to perfect for what I’m looking for, except for this one part that makes it unplayable to me”.

Maybe? But all the resources Valves puts towards supporting Proton benefits everyone gaming on Linux, even those not using a Steam client.

It’s Steam; you might wish they had more support on Linux, but you can’t say that Steam doesn’t support Linux.

Final Fantasy XIV has tons of them as well, especially in the side quests and FATEs. The localization teams do a stellar job sprinkling all sorts of references and nods to pop culture.

I’ll only support this if I can pre-order it for double the price, and have an option at launch to pay an additional $50 to make the butt sprites into dickbutt instead

That’s a little unfair, because enjoyment of something doesn’t necessitate it being experienced from beginning to end in a linear progression. Something like the seasonal(?) content on No Man’s Sky often requiring a save file being restarted and not needed the main story to be completed to finish the new objectives. Or, something like Path of Exile, where each season progresses from a fresh start at level 1, with no progress carried over.

Progress gets rest on those about as frequently, it not more so, than the resets in Star Citizen, except those games are also feature complete with a full story involved.

Maybe something like Ark, then, with the creation of new servers. No real story being progressed through, but a multi-player sandbox environment. Again, though, that’s a feature complete game where all the systems (mostly) work.

I guess where I’m going is that you can certainly look at individual elements of the game and compare those to similar systems in other games. And if expectations are of it being a sandbox you can mess around in and experience some cool systems, it will deliver. But it is not a finished game that has persistent player driven progress. It is not a game with a story path you can follow (though, I don’t think it claims to be once fully released, either). It is buggy at times and suffers server issues as the small changes and interactions build up over time, making an instance unstable and eventually kicking everyone logged in.

“Demo” might be the closest description, but that doesn’t quite capture the experience of playing it. It falls very short of being a full game. It also is something that other games just don’t capture the same feeling of.

Again, I’m not trying to convince anyone to spend any money towards it, but absolutely give the free fly events a chance.

It’s more than just “playable”, but it also is not a finished, fully fleshed out game, either. Definitely worth checking out during the occasional free-fly events (though one has just ended, so might be a little while for the next).

Yes, the trophy was security’s fault because it was from excessive force. He was already restrained! I’m not saying the guy wasn’t in the wrong for climbing on stage, but people climb on stages all the time without security breaking the centerpiece of the event while apprehending them.

I honestly don’t see how. Could you give some examples of what made it broken? Because aside from a better inventory management system being nice, I hadn’t encountered anything that made me think “this game is unplayable in vanilla!”

I’m really surprised I haven’t seen them mentioned here (and apologies if someone did suggest it and I missed it!).

The Monkey Island games. Super simple controls, as most of it is point and click. Not expensive to get into, so no big loss if it ends up not being her thing. They are silly and clever, and reward the player for being silly and clever. They are puzzle games that require some attention to detail and curiosity to solve, but there isn’t any “fail” condition. You just don’t progress if you can’t solve the puzzle. It doesn’t assume any prior game knowledge or habits; a lot of games will expect the player to be familiar with certain controls or tropes commonly used in games, but Monkey Island is more similar to a “choose your own adventure” style story.