Thanks for giving me inspiration to come back to it this weekend.

Drop Duchy 18.0 hrs last two weeks / 33.5 hrs on record

Deckbuilder, Tetris style-puzzle, and rogue-lite game. Gameplay is like Tetris but you get building cards which translate into tiles. When placed the tiles provide resources, armies, or somehow affect the tiles around them. Between rounds you can upgrade cards to improve or change their functions. There are achievement milestones which reward progression points that can be spent to unlock new cards, new decks, or otherwise provide boosts to make future runs more successful.

How was Magnolia? I loved Lillies.

Drop Duchy - Roguelike Tetris/card/city builder. 13 hours in and it’s solid./L Description from the Steam page does a good job of explaining an unconventional roguelike.

Drop Duchy - Build your duchy piece by piece in this refreshing hybrid rogue-lite game. Use block-dropping mechanics to collect resources, recruit troops to fight against belligerent armies, and let every block shape your realm, leading your path to victory!

Webbed - This deceptively simple metroidvania is based around using spiderwebs as the main mechanic for puzzle solving. You have two web modes: swinging or pulling yourself to a surface or creating persistent webs. The webs stay when you leave the current screen/room so when you spend time making yourself a ramp to get somewhere you don’t need to redo it again when you return to an area.

I also thought it was a cool touch that they made it accurate to nature in that the male spider is a riot of color and the female is grey/browns. I think they’re based on peacock spiders and the protagonist is the female.

I loved the Ori games and No Rest for the Wicked was shaping up to be a great game. Hoping my refund request to Steam wallet goes through; 67 hours played. I included in my refund request that I want to take that money and use it to support a studio that isn’t run by an asshole (but worded gooder).

Well that sucks. I was really liking this game but I’m not supporting trash people with my money. Sucks for the developers working there. Refund requested and review with reasoning posted.

I was unaware that Thomas Mahler was such a goon, bad boss, and puts out misleading press to bolster sales. I have requested a refund and will not be supporting anything he is involved in going forward.

After saying negative reviews ‘might just cause our death’ and ‘we’ve got a few months left in the oven’, No Rest for the Wicked CEO claims he never said they were in ‘immediate financial danger’ - https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/after-saying-negative-reviews-might-just-cause-our-death-and-weve-got-a-few-months-left-in-the-oven-no-rest-for-the-wicked-ceo-claims-he-never-said-they-were-in-immediate-financial-danger-actually/

Ori Studio Head Says Review Bombing Might Force Studio Closure, Then Takes It All Back - https://kotaku.com/ori-moon-studios-no-rest-for-the-wicked-review-mahler-1851780166?rev=1747057357889

Moon Studios Creative Director Thomas Mahler Criticizes Cancel Culture and Media Bias - https://noisypixel.net/thomas-mahler-cancel-culture-woke-narratives/

Despite its beautiful Ori games, Moon Studios is called an ‘oppressive’ place to work - https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/ Posted May 15.

Just accidentally memorize it from having to manually pay a bunch of bills online in a short span!

I also pro-rate the value of my games like this. For instance, Helldivers 2: paid $39.99 (€35,76), played 537 hours. That’s $0.001 (€0,0012) or 1/10th of a cent per hour of play. Even if I add $2000 (€1.788,61) for the PC I play on that still only comes to $3.79 (€4.24) an hour.

Hard to beat that price per hour of entertainment.

My Steam spend over the lifetime of my account comes to $25 (€27,97) a month which is a decent monthly entertainment cost. Of course that doesn’t account for additional spending on other entertainment but putting the total spent amount in perspective is definitely good to do, so thanks for pointing that out for those who need it.

Edit: added € costs

I’m still stuck in Horace! Such a great game.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is an excellent followup to Blind Forest.

Great game! I had a lot of fun with it. Was it early access at some point? I seem to remember it not being complete when I played it. Or maybe I was left wanting more? Guess I’ll reinstall and find out. Thanks for the reminder!

Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning $9.99

How timely a comment.

I just got pop_os up and running to replace windows 11 on my alienware aurora. Still working on a sound issue in Helldivers 2 but overall has been a smooth transition.

Ori and the Will o’ the Wisps is an amazing sequel, just as beautiful and just as smooth to play.

Moon Studios also has a new project, No Rest for the Wicked. It is very different from the Ori games but just as well crafted.

Oh awesome! Thank you

Using an old spare as a test is a good idea.

And to think, my wife mocks my hoard of old parts, cables, adapters, etc. Who’s laughing now? It matters not that it grows at an inverse rate at which it is depleted…I did say hoard, did I not?

Yeah…ok, so try it with a spare. Sounds good.

That’s the plan no matter what but always glad to hear from the voices of experience.

I use it to vet ganes for my kids at a glance. I still allow them to play some but I want them going in with eyes open to the machinations going on.

I want to swap my alienware aurora to linux but I’m struggling to find a distro that I know will be compatible with my hardware. Is there a list for bazzite driver support? I’m sure all my hardware will work in most linux distros geared toward gaming but it’d be nice to have some assurance beforehand.

Yes, that’s yet another dark pattern.
You can use this site to help with your game choices.

I know from personal experience it broke Star Wars Outlaws. Appears to have broken any Ubisoft games using that same engine.

This is why I returned Star Wars Outlaws on Steam. I couldn’t even get the game to start. Ubisoft has known about this issue for months now and continues to allow their PC games to be sold in an unplayable state. This is exactly the kind of situation class action lawsuits should be used in, too bad consumer protections are nominal at best in the US.

Compare this to, say, Dead By Daylight, where there’s “seasons” with unlockable rewards, you can get them for free, and you can keep unlocking them after the season ends.

Similarly Helldivers 2 battle passes cost in-game earnable currency to unlock and never expire, but if people want to pay cash to unlock them the option is there.

Ale and Tale Tavern is a game about running a tavern.
Star Was Galaxies back in the day was one of the only MMORPGs I have ever played where people actually hung out in the cantina all day. You can still play it with help from the linked site. That was an incredible MMO and a shame what happened to it.

I also like the lack of pressure to finish a round if you have to be drug away by life. I know they’ll likely be able to finish without me or someone will pop in after me to help.

Helldivers 2 is great for short to medium sessions.

Thanks, wishlisted and might pick it up super cheap before January 2nd.

I’ll have to check those out. I played Vermintide when it first came out and wasn’t very impressed. I’ll give it another go.

Lighthouse is my current white whale. Going to finally check out the Cavern next time I go back.

News:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/641297020996289523

Replay:
https://store.steampowered.com/replay/?snr=1_2108_9__2107

Let’s go to Venture!

I hear you. I’ve had every playstation since the PS1. We even own a PS4 and PS4 Pro. Mythbusters was the beginning of the end for me. When they yanked Mythbusters without warning or recompense it drove home what I already knew: my digital library was only as good as the whims of Sony. I haven’t made a purchase on their platform since.

And like you I also have Plus for a while, but I’ve noticed more offerings are starting to be PS5 only. And maybe it’s bias informing my experience but I could swear they’ve already begun enshitifying the PS4 store the same way they degraded the PS3 store when the 4 came out. They removed some of the browsing options, like browsing by category.

I was going to mention ytmnd. Thank you.

It was good of Sony to bribe enough people to bring it to your attention.

Your video game has characters collecting in-game coins.

We have a patent for commercial mechanics existing in games, pay us.

ding ding ding

I’m wondering if it will run on the Steamdeck I bought my daughter for Christmas.

Infiltration of Jabba’s palace was pretty thorough and went off as planned.

I was off, here’s the real tea.

https://www.eurogamer.net/if-someone-made-deus-ex-today-it-might-be-perceived-as-a-documentary-says-creator-warren-spector\

“If someone made Deus Ex today, it might be perceived as a documentary,” says creator Warren Spector

Similar that you may enjoy but set in the Wild West:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/307670/Hard_West/\ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282410/Hard_West_2/\ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1097350/Weird_West_Definitive_Edition/

The dev for that game recently said if they made it now the story would have to be very different because of the echoes with current events.