What are you playing? (Redux)

[Syt]

Finally tried Dungeon of the Endless (from the makers of Endless Space and Endless Legend, and set in the same universe) after watching quill18's videos.

The game has a bit of an FTL vibe to it - instead of hyperjumps you open doors, however. Goal of each floor is to get your crystal from the start to the exit.

You start with two crashed chars who have to work their way up a dungeon. Each floor is randomly assembled from pre-fab rooms. Whenever you open a door, it can spawn monsters who attack you or your crystal.

The game has 4 resources: industry, science, food and dust. Industry is used to build little production thingies, buffs or defensive structures. Science is used to research stuff at artifacts (new and improved production devices or better defense buildings). Food is used to level your characters or to heal them. Dust is needed to power rooms, so that production and defense structures can operate.

The experience is quasi-turn based. Each time you open a door, you get your turn's worth of resource production. No door opened, no resources gained. Whenever a door opens, monsters can spawn in that room, and/or any room that isn't powered up and has no character in it. That creates an interesting decisions - which direction do you explore into, which rooms do you power up, and where do you risk monster spawns.

You can create defensive positions to defend critical locations or choke points, but all production you spend on this floor won't carry over to the next. Food - do you gamble on your char making it through an attack wave without healing (chars heal completely when all waves of a turn are defeated)? Or do you rather ensure they stay alive and maybe not be able to level them up?

Once you have found a floor's exit, you have to decide: do you stay on the floor and explore further, hoping to find loot and few enemies? Or do you grab the crystal and head for the exit? Oh, when you move the crystal, monsters spawn everywhere and try to stop you. Your crystal carrier can't fight and is slowed down. So you better choose a route, send your chars into their positions and maybe create a few defensive structures.

Character movement also smacks of FTL. You don't micro your chars much - you send them to a room and they will attack enemies there. Or you activate their active skills in combat (buffs or heals, usually). Or you have them operate machinery for extra resources.

Again, the game forces you to make decisions with limited resources - how close do you want to cut it to in one situation in the hopes of having an advantage later on? Do you open one more room? Do you build a few more turrets to cover your escape or save the resources? Do you leave a comrade behind and save the others? RNG can shower you in resources and loot on one floor, and create a hellish gauntlet to get to the exit in the next.

Additionally, the game doesn't take itself too serious as can be seen in item descriptions or the texts for skills or biographies.

Good fun.

[mongers]

Been giving 'Arsenal of Democracy' a spin, playing as France. Started in 36 and have made some modest improvements by the time war starts in Sept 39.

I exit the game and reload as the UK to see how my allies are going, Ah, Ok the UK is mainly building aircraft carriers, a dozen of them. 

So I reload the game, play a few days as France and are somewhat surprised by the quality of the German opposition, so reload as Germany ... OK, so German in Sept 39 is going to war with an expected large army that also includes 18 armoured divisions and 18 light armoured divisions, with many more in the build queue. 


Not sure the game is worth continuing with or for that mater restarting as someone else?

[Syt]

I've also played a bit of Dark Souls to make sure the GFWL*-removal was successful. My old save game was 1:30 into the game, at which point I had stopped because the game makes me way too anxious. Yesterday, however, I managed to get through the same area with little problem once I'd relearned the controls again, being careful but reasonably confident and much better at dodging/parrying. I didn't die once, and even recovered (by chance) my last death's souls. I felt more zen/focused than on previous forays into the game.

I may give this a try again.

[CountDeMoney]

I've just got GTA5 for my PS3.
It has been installing for half an hour now

I burned up a PlayStation gift card on that, since it was half off for the holiday sale.
Took so long to download and install yesterday, I didn't want to play it anymore.

[Razgovory]

Is the Playstation thing still down?

[CountDeMoney]

Is the Playstation thing still down?

No, it was only down for about 48 hours, just like the news you didn't read said.

[Razgovory]

I don't understand consoles.  They frighten me.  Though there is a certain allure since it appears that Red Dead Redemption will never be coming out for PC.  I did read that that two of the guys who brought down the Playstation and Xbox networks were arrested.  They called themselves "lizard Squad", so naturally one of them was a goddamn fucking Finn.  I should have known.

[Scipio]

Right now I'm playing "We're Fucking Pissed Off At Each Other for No Reason" with the wife. Fucking winner, that one.

[Ed Anger]

Use the Konami cheat code on her.

[Scipio]

Use the Konami cheat code on her.

All I get is a lifetime of being married to her.

[CountDeMoney]

Use the Konami cheat code on her.

Analog, man, analog.  Just play a round of William Tell.  Worked for William S. Burroughs.

[Razgovory]

 

[FunkMonk]

Gotten hooked on Path of Exile again. Anyone play this?

[crazy canuck]

Gotten hooked on Path of Exile again. Anyone play this?

I liked the early game until about the mid game when it ends up being an extreme gear grind in terms of matching the proper number and colour of slots with the gems you want to use.

[frunk]

I usually play it enough each season to fill up my storage panes with rares.  I have way too much crap that, if I ever go back to the regular league, it'll be an exercise in vendor time.

I'll usually get through normal and into cruel before wanting to try a different character (sometimes earlier if I get bored).  I'm impressed with the changes that they've made, but I would kill for a good skill gem management screen.  The fact that these little doodads not only are tiny but also have two possible properties that aren't visible without mousing over (experience and quality) drives me nuts.  It's even worse when they are socketed, and all you can tell is color.

The experience gain and pacing seems designed to be more of a grind the further you go.  Early on levels come quite quickly, by merciless it'll be a few maps before you gain a level and it's easy to lose healthy chunks of experience.  Diablo 3 does it better in this regard, leaving the grindy bits to after max level (and letting you customize the speed of level/difficulty as you go).