Coelacanth

Well, let me think. Apart from the Far Crys there is also the Saint’s Row games and maybe… Ghost Recon: Wildlands?

Hyperspace Outlaw looks interesting. I’m not sure it’s the kind of game I’m looking for right now but my ears are always perking up at an Overwhelmingly Positive indie game. Might check it out at some point.

Buying games on sale is so much more satisfying than actually playing them, isn’t it? All that potential joy at your fingertips, all those dollars you gigglingly save… Much better than actually cashing it in by playing them. I know that feeling.

I’ve never played Just Cause, but that sounds like something adjacent to Ubisoft open worlds? You could try some Assassins Creed game (I actually quite like Unity, otherwise the Black Flag remake maybe?), Ghost of Tsushima sounds similar, Sleeping Dogs perhaps (although more of a GTA-like)? Otherwise there are several Far Cry games that maybe can give you that loop of clearing out outposts?

It absolutely is. Thief is generally mentioned in the same breath as Deus Ex as the founding fathers of imsims.

Having a bit of a hard time resetting after my NextFest adventures. Played a bit more of the Ablahshikar demo just to try and figure out what the hell is going on with that game. Will probably buy the early access when it starts soon, partly because it’ll be cheaper than the full release and partly because I want to support the artistry of this developer.

Got back to playing a bit more Withering Realms today, which is also woefully impatient of me I know. I’m really flying in the face of this community’s values. Anyway. Game is good, it’s getting better with every patch. I think it will be fantastic once it releases next spring. Puzzles are quite a bit harder than Withering Rooms, though. Especially since the clues are much more spread out, and it’s much harder to know if you have access to all the required information or not. I’m stumped a bit on a particular puzzle at the moment, will probably have to backtrack a lot and see if I missed something.

I’m not being patient at all this week. In fact, I’m being the complete opposite. NextFest is ongoing, so I am NextFesting for all I’m worth. See it as investments into future patient gaming. I’m sowing the seeds of future on-sale purchases down the road.

At first I was disheartened by the deluge of Claude Code vomit projects (some of them seemingly spat out from a single prompt), but after sifting through the muck - admittedly requiring several more times effort than usual - I’ve at least managed to restore my faith temporarily by unearthing some interesting potential gems.

I already mentioned some cliff notes here, but I might write a longer standalone post too if I can find the energy. And that is only a small selection of the games I’ve played, anyway.

Absolum maybe?

Also… Chrono Ark mentioned, let’s go! Truly an underrated gem, must play for fans of roguelike deckbuilders in my opinion!

That’s a very thoughtful reply. I would expect nothing else from you.

If you enjoyed Control then there is a whole universe of other Remedy games you could potentially explore, culminating in Alan Wake 2. Would highly recommend.

I think Alan Wake 2 is in my top 5 of all time. Gameplay isn’t anything special - at least the combat (it’s a competent but ordinary survival horror) but the story, presentation, cinematics, mixed media and in general just the art aspects are all top shelf.

It also is the culmination of the Remedyverse stuff, and really pays you off for having played all the preceding games (including Max Payne and Quantum Break).

American Nightmare was an Xbox Live Marketplace game I think, and that low budget kind of really shows. It’s fine for what it is, and I do enjoy the live action recordings of Ilka Villi getting to let loose a little bit. I would never recommend it in isolation, but I think it’s worth playing on the way to Alan Wake 2.

Personally I really enjoyed the secret ending path into Temperance. But I really like Johnny, and the relationship with V, I suppose. I kind of hate the Sun ending, it feels antithetical to Vs emotional journey and while it is fitting for the genre and setting it feels like a devolution of V and just in general succumbing to Night City.

Two of the main inspirations for it are Silent Hill and Bloodborne, I forgot to say. You should absolutely play it, it’s phenomenal. Sequel is out in Early Access as well as we speak, although I would recommend waiting on the full release next spring. Needs a bit more time in the oven.

It’s not outright horror so much as horror-themed (as in: the game isn’t really scary) but I will recommend Withering Rooms to anyone and everyone who listens.

One of the most impressive solo dev games I’ve played. Super fun, interesting world building, gorgeous music, immaculate vibes.

Yeah. There are games out there with worse writing, but honestly that is not saying much. And when your “game” is literally only text, that text better be top fucking quality. And this isn’t really bad enough to be entertaining, it’s mostly just dull.

I have a lot of qualms, but there are two main problems:

1. Protagonist has extremely weak (almost nonexistent) personality and internal motivation
2. The overarching plot has no early hook, no emotional investment and no stakes.

Again if we take the Witcher comparison: imagine The Witcher 3 but you play as a cardboard cutout instead of Geralt, and the whole Ciiri storyline is completely absent. You just ride around doing contracts.

I’ve been playing a bit of Roadwarden this week. Actually, I only played about 6 hours of it, then I gave up and started to listen to this delightful playthrough as an audiobook instead. I think Roadwarden is probably a good game. I think the problem may be that my attention span is just destroyed. But I am not yet sure.

How should I describe this game? How about this: have you ever played Pentiment and thought to yourself “nonono, this is too action packed and too interesting!”. Or what about… have you ever wished there was a game with as much text as Disco Elysium, but without any voice acting, visual art, humour, mind-blowing world building, charm or top quality near-poetic prose?

Roadwarden takes a lot of inspiration from the Witcher setting. It’s a low-magic, low-fantasy world filled with dangerous monsters, and you’re playing as a sort of peacekeeper. But instead of being a magical mutant with superpowers and steeped in centuries of interesting lore, here you’re instead playing as… just a guy. Just some dude meant to scout out an unmapped peninsula, get to know the locals and report back to your superiors in the big city who want to colonise (or at least exploit) it.

And that’s kind of just… the whole game. Granted, I’m not all the way through listening to the playthrough yet. But you’re just riding around, reading mundane descriptions of mundane things, helping locals with mundane tasks.

One thing I want to praise though, is how the game does player-customizable world building. At certain points you’ll get some questions about certain minor aspects of the world, and you can pick an answer out of usually 5-7. And whatever you pick will be the reality in your playthrough. Are people in the capital wearing tunics or furs? Is the capital well off or poverty stricken? What happened to that old inn on a street off the harbour? It’s something I haven’t seen before, and it does make every playthrough a little more unique. I found it neat.

Sometimes you gotta be impatient. Remedy is one of the few developers I would be tempted by as well.

Yeah, I agree, I even mentioned it above. The mobile apps are out in beta now though, I think. At least Android.

I am not surprised Fediverse denizens tend to want to recommend IRC and Mumble and xmpp and whatever, but the truth is as you describe it. There is no one size fits all replacement yet that is viable.

At some point maybe Fluxer will be ready.

Hey, I’m glad to see the return of Anomaly! Looking forward to hearing more about that playthrough, whenever it happens!

On the one hand this doesn’t sound good and echoes some fears I’ve had about Control: Resonant. On the other this reviewer also gave Alan Wake 2 a score of 3/5, so who knows…

Didn’t it just come out? There’s already a Director’s Cut!?

This is the first time I’m wishing I had a Switch 2. But even this is not going to make me buy first party Nintendo products. Maybe a used one in five years.

Agreed.

I mean, there is definitely abuse and exploitation happening in online games. Roblox is a well-documented hellhole of predators. But intrusive age verification can’t be the answer.

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Oh fuck off.

I’m being astronomically un-patient this week. Well, apart from using the “launch week 15% sale” loophole again to adhere to my endeavours to not pay full price for games.

Ever since playing Withering Rooms earlier this year and becoming completely enamored with it, I’ve had the sequel (Withering Realms) as my most anticipated game. So even though I tried to hold off, I simply couldn’t resist getting my hands on it when it entered Early Access.

Now, this is mostly an excuse for me to promote Withering Rooms again. It’s great, you should play it. I’m having a good time with the sequel, but it is definitely in need of more time in the oven. I trust this developer with my life, though, and have every conviction the game will get there come full release.

Most of the things that were great in the first game are here too: the setting, world building, lore, story, characters, art & design, atmosphere, vibes, puzzles, MUSIC (all composed by the solo dev!), build variety… There’s the bones for something great here.

There’s just a lot of polish still required. Some features are missing. Others are undercooked, almost placeholder-y. Combat balance is way off. Many encounters need tweaking. I’ve run into some performance hiccups and bugs. I’m still having a good time, because I love this world and developer so much, but for most sane people I would recommend waiting until full release. This is not a fake “early access” soft launch, this is an actual “open beta” type of early access. Only get in now if you want to participate in giving feedback on the Discord.

What I do recommend, however, is playing Withering Rooms. The first game is in an amazing state, feature complete and wonderful and brimming with character, charm, creativity and atmosphere. And it’s cheap!