People don’t really like to read the articles before commenting, huh.

Knowing Stardew was such a beloved game, I knew I had to get context before judging the author because it could be read both ways.

People who assume games not changing = criticism are telling us more about their own uncharitable view of others than anything else.

EDIT: That said, if I were to offer criticism, I feel like the author gives too much credit to Stardew as though it invented or pioneered the tight gameplay loop: perhaps at least some mention could have been made to Harvest Moon, the game from which Stardew borrows - and perfects - most of its major systems.

Also to be fair, it doesn’t go anywhere with that thought that Stardew hasn’t changed. Felt a little low-effort, like a retrospective on Stardew that just basically listed what people liked about it.

Slay the Princess is a relatively light game (largely narrative) that has this as part of its conceit.

I’m thinking about the games I played in my childhood that influenced what I like to play now, so it might be only halfway relevant to the question.

First monster collector: Pokemon Blue. Digimon World 1 was also one of my favourites, because of how real it felt, like a real monster. The one other monster game I really got into as a child was Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, I think I played Cobi’s journey. It helped that a lot of my friends were playing it.

First builder: Simcity 3000. Started my lifelong love for city builders, even though I’m not great at them per se.

Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper 2 were my introduction to management sims and also my favourites for a long time.

As a kid I absolutely loved this RTS called Warbreeds because of the ability to graft any weapon onto any unit. Nowadays though I just find such mechanics fiddly, but as a kid it felt so sci-fi. In terms of time spent playing, though, the standout RTS was probably Starcraft.

I also played on a lot of MUDs as a kid. Wheel of Time (but had never read the books), Discworld (but had also never read the books), Aardwolf and I think one or two others. I was amazed at how it felt like I could do so much (even though most of the “free” actions were just emotes.

My first graphical MMO was I think Maplestory, which was a huge part of my social life as a kid. I think I miss the feeling of being part of a big community than the MMO experience itself, honestly. Nowadays when I try getting into MMOs it feels like that feeling of being a part of a giant community of people is gone.

I believe you mean hypocrisy?

Never ask it for advice period. It is always confident because that’s the most believable way to present information on the internet. It is usually wrong because it is not actually intelligent.

Hag’s Bane finally working right after I gave up on trying to use it! I don’t really mind though, and am glad at least to know now that it really was a bug.

I’ve literally never heard about it until this post.

Looking at the reviews seems like a shame as the only complaints are the hardware limitations. Still won’t be getting it until I finish (at least some of) my backlog.

I don’t think OP is guilty of this, but a lot of people think that current AI-generated content is going to sound like something that doesn’t know how to be human or what humour is. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding, I believe, that thinks that the LLMs that are popular now have any kind of actual sentience, and simply lack experience or understanding.

Fundamentally, they’ll instead sound like exactly the most average or boring (but informed) person, except maybe a bit more repetitive, because they’re trained on data and not coming up with independent thoughts. Someone who writes in a unique way and has a unique sense of humour is far less likely to be an AI than the average (yet somehow more accepted) everypost.

Ghost Trick is a very twisty game, but a few of the twists had me tearing up.

Against the Storm has you play the most challenging part of industry builders - starting up and getting the production lines going - but gives you a limited selection of what buildings to build and a ticking timer to keep the pressure on.

Not for people who want to sit back and watch their city flourish, but if you really enjoy the process of scrambling to set up production lines to meet the needs of your people (and I do), then I highly recommend it.

Also want to second Against the Storm, with the caveat that if you enjoy seeing your colony go self-sufficient, this isn’t really the game. The instant your colony goes self-sufficient here, the game is basically over, and the gameplay loop consists entirely of the struggle in getting there based on a randomised set of variables.

… which makes it my favourite colony sim by a mile. I think I have over two hundred hours in it, and it’s still getting improved by the active devs.

In the same vein, Dragon Quest Monsters and Dragon Quest Builders are games that I really enjoyed that I feel don’t get enough attention. Surprisingly all the DQ spinoffs have been real hits for me.