catfeeder

The “holy” element is extraordinarily powerful against most foes, so your weapon choices are effectively limited.

At my first playthough, I was so tired of using Lightning all the time. It’s such an obnoxious spell (thanks to its sound) but it’s very efficient because Light = Good.

It’s really sad that all the dark weapons are just useless. Many of them look so badass!

It’s also quite easy on default settings, while the difficulty slider seems to do nothing but inflate or deflate monster HP and damage.

Yep. Difficulty slider only changes enemies’ damage, up to 500% of the initial value. I always keep it at ~300% because otherwise enemies deal such a negligible damage. But it won’t make the game hard because all you need to heal up to full health is to just press one button.

Lost in Vivo is great. It’s all about claustrophobia and psychological horror. Plenty of secrets too!

Of games that aren’t pure survival horrors (as in, they aren’t shooters): NO-SKIN, Infra Arcana and House of Necrosis.

NO-SKIN is a very weird, moody turn-based roguelite focused on resource management and figuring out secret interactions. It leans heavily into psychological horror side of genre.

Infra Arcana is a mix of survival horror and traditional roguelike. It’s lovecraftian horror with weird cults and things from distant stars and all that vibe. Unlike everything else I recommended this game is BRUTAL!

House of Necrosis is a roguelike that takes ‘survival horror’ more literally: aesthetically, it’s pretty much just Resident Evil. Zombies, labs, evil plants, Jill… it’s much easier than IA too.

This is why I always avoid even learning about how to cheat in any game. It’s a strong temptation that can ruin your experience in one poorly thought-out decision.

Even if sometimes games like CoQ really can ruin your game with one unexpected mechanic lol

I don’t think I’d emotionally survive permadeath 20 hours into a run.

For me even 3-6 hours needed for DCSS runs is too much. I can’t imagine going for hours and hours in a permadeath game - especially a game as unfair as CoQ!

LOL I see I see

It will take me many months to complete CoQ in Classic mode - at least that’s how long it took me to beat DCSS. I’m not very well-suited to winning roguelikes but I enjoy them nonetheless.

I just learned that you can be really cruel to the NPC who asks you to reach Six Days Stilt. Poor guy didn’t know who accepted his quest…

At least he may be at peace after the Machines slayed Ulaad in Grit Gate (the idiot forgot to find Droid Scrambler).

My current main build has Photosynthetic Skin so I’m basically always under its effect. It’s combined with Fasting Way (from Pilgrim start) so I just never run out!

But iirc siphon vim is on use and not like damage over time so that seems weird the puma kept dying after beguiling.

Nah it’s DOT:

image

But it shouldn’t last for so many turns! I literally managed to get to Kyakukya before it died.

Unrelated, you should play a run as an office chair, its fun.

Dominate is on my list of stuff to try. But at first I want to figure some basic stuff like companions (this run), cooking and tinkering.

It took me many hours to get used to the game! It felt almost uncomfortable to play at times, maybe because I didn’t utilize autoexplore in my first hours.

Good luck with Red Rock! It is a hard first quest but it teaches very important lessons, especially if you’re new to the genre.

The only constant of every roguelike is that when your run seems to go well prepare for the worst.

“I have rPois, demon whip and solid armor, I will handle Swamp just fine” - the last words of an unnamed DCSS player

Well, my goal for this character was to make the archetypal vampire so I don’t mind him being evil. Ulaad the Beguiler can be cruel as a treat.

I found it much better when played in Roleplay mode. It becomes a very solid open-world RPG. I generally don’t like when permadeath games have runs that last for hours and hours. NetHack, Angband, CoQ… Never could understand their appeal because of that.

I transitioned from playing games with guides and wikis to not using outside help unless I really have no idea what the game expects me to do. The joy of knowing what to do that guides give you can be replicated by a second playthrough but that first experience full of mystery is something you can only have once for a given game. Not to mention how much outside sources ruin immersion!

It reminded me strongly of a fungal infection in Earthbound that messed up your controls. To heal it you had to reach a hospital and talk to a… No, not a doctor - they think you’re perfectly healthy! To a random old man that stands in a patient line.

Because of course that’s how it is.

Fair. I at first too was like “woah, a disease? So dangerous, I wonder how will I remove it.”

But having no NPCs react to it and making me read up stuff on wiki and reddit led to my immersion being ruined. I’m okay with goofy games like NetHack doing that but Qud loses something important for me when I have to leave its pixel confines to interact with its mechanics.

I’m okay with wiki games (I wouldn’t be a Dark Souls fan otherwise) but I’d prefer them to actually signal their nature to the player before they sunk 7 hours into a run.

I’m playing in roleplay mode so it’s not a big deal but I could be playing with permadeath and mechanics would still be as obscure. Death in roguelikes should be meaningful.

Well now I know CoQ is a wiki game haha

I wish they’d put a disclaimer like “this game won’t bother to explain anything to you so unless you enjoy dying to obscure bullshit be ready to alttab to wiki at any time.”

I feel like combat in Lunacid is more like a filler for exploration - which is the main focus of the game.

Okay, maybe you can playtest while you’re still developing the game, but once the game is ready to be played in full, you can’t continue to play it

Development hell never was so fun!

Little things like picking sounds and determining timings for various actions requires a lot of trial-and-error so you have to test it as you do it. Doing all of that through a QA team would slow down development very hard. Not to mention that I’m a hobbyist game dev and I don’t have money to hire anyone :D

I suppose I could always ask my friends to help me out with that… adding scheduling as another problem during development :D

If you make video games, either as a career or hobby, only other people are allowed to play them

But how do I test them???

My list:

1. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. This game has so much stuff in it and it gets updates roughly two times a year with lots of rebalance and new stuff.
2. Dark Souls. One of the best games ever made - how could I leave it out?
3. Dark Souls 2. My second favorite Souls-like. It’s different enough from DS1 to be included here.
4. Lunacid. Objectively a bad choice because it’s not very replayable but I love it and replay it all the time.
5. UFO 50. Technically one game ;)
6. Minesweeper. Sometimes I just want to kill time on my smartphone.
7. Yume 2kki. For all my casual “I just what to wander around mindlessly” needs.
8. Minetest (Luanti). Mod-heavy sandbox for my sandbox needs.
9. Doom. Mod-heavy FPS for my FPS needs.
10. My girlfriend’s future game of her choice so I don’t miss out on her important achievement.

I love Lunacid but gotta admit its’ gameplay is a bit lackluster. It’s held primarily by its superb atmosphere and the feeling of exploration. I replayed the game several times but whatever challenges I come with don’t really make the game hard. And level 1 playthrough would just be a boring slog thanks to 1 Speed…

I killed the throne duo and the ore seller is STILL not selling unlimited chunks. I looked it up and she’ll start selling them once Nashandra is dead. I wasn’t in the mood for three bad boss fights (counting Vendrick) so I ended up not doing it today :D

After clearing the ancient dragon’s abode for the best dragon ring, I decided to finally go for the DLCs. There’s not that much left in the main game anyway: memories which I’m not fond of, three areas focused on covenants and a few bosses of which I only like one (Darklurker).

So, I went to Shulva instead. I love this DLC. I went into the DLC with a slow approach trying to explore everywhere and solve every puzzle I can see. It is a bit annoying having to switch between avelyn and a regular crossbow for puzzles tho. I think it’s also the first time I reached the second bonfire the intended way lol.

Surprisingly, the warriors here don’t lose poise even when I’m slicing them with my murakumo! I like the tension these corrosive bugs create. Not a particularly dangerous enemy but still quite effective. The ghost knights are a cool puzzle and that room with spikes and many buttons is just awesome.

I ended up getting the dragonblood sword and the puzzle sword to +5. But the most important is of course the onion head. Fashion Souls after all.

It’s interesting how all the bosses are located rather deep in the area. I haven’t even reached any of them today. I don’t think I will engage the graverobbers because they suck but I’m looking forward to fighting SInh!

Because I am the kind of wizard that will find the most efficient mana-per-damage spell in my arsenal and sling that almost exclusively.

I can’t remember many RPGs where this is discouraged. Only the first two Dark Souls games but the first DS doesn’t have enough spells for it to actually change things so DS2 ends up being the only such game.

I also learned today for the first time ever that you can dual wield powerstance a pair of crossbows.

There’s actually one scripted invader in Tseldora who dual wields two avelyns. In a hell of a place too.

a mediocre katana is still head and shoulders above most other weapons.

I’m not a huge fan of katanas because of their annoying diagonal attacks that miss small/moving targets a lot. I much prefer wide horizontal swings combined with either a thrust or a top-down crush as a strong attack.

I believe she upgrades one more time to unlimited chunks after you beat Watcher and Defender. Now that you have the King’s Ring in your pocket I think you can go fight them right now and just get that out of the way.

That will be my next target then!

Aldia’s Keep is behind me now and the Crypt is cleared of its treasures. Souls of Gwyn and Nito are also on me but the other two proved to be a bit harder (Freya mostly thanks to the runback to it; the boss’s easy). I also ascended the Crypt bonfire as I want to get the best royal soldier ring. Almost killed Velstadt and then he one-shotted me with a lucky move. Twin Pursuers is another of my NG+ goals but that will be really hard haha.