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I think that's what they were called? The lovely rich family. Edit: Anyway, they were definitely witches. sad question fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Dec 23, 2021 |
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Dec 23, 2021 17:51
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Oxxidation posted:please read The Satanic Verses It is one of my favorite books ever and I've been meaning to give it a re-read, but how does it relate to LiS?
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Dec 23, 2021 17:58
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ZearothK posted:It is one of my favorite books ever and I've been meaning to give it a re-read, but how does it relate to LiS? it's probably one of the best examples of magical realism in literary canon (at least outside of its south american origins) and also an example of why the tribulations foisted upon the protagonists of such stories are valuable even if they don't end well. gibreel and saladin suffered through their metamorphoses, and the former was destroyed by it, but it didn't make those experiences any less a necessary part of their lives. likewise the inevitability that plagues max's time-travel adventure didn't mean that she should have never used her powers, because her realization and acceptance of that inevitability was a necessary part of her own growth
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Dec 23, 2021 18:05
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Oxxidation posted:it's probably one of the best examples of magical realism in literary canon (at least outside of its south american origins) and also an example of why the tribulations foisted upon the protagonists of such stories are valuable even if they don't end well. gibreel and saladin suffered through their metamorphoses, and the former was destroyed by it, but it didn't make those experiences any less a necessary part of their lives. likewise the inevitability that plagues max's time-travel adventure didn't mean that she should have never used her powers, because her realization and acceptance of that inevitability was a necessary part of her own growth Ah, I gotcha! Thanks. That's a good reading. Also I am 100% on Bae ending because goddamn if I wouldn't let a hurricane destroy most cities I've lived in if I had a choice on it.
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Dec 23, 2021 18:17
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CommissarMega posted:Anyone try Disciples Liberation? Been in the mood for a new RPG, and this looks cool. This looks nice…I WL’ed it, I can’t talk myself into buying a more expensive game while I have like four older-but-AAA-titles I’ve always heard rave reviews over still in my backlog (never had any Mass Effect games, for instance…I haven’t had bandwidth for a Steam account and missed a ton of genre-defining games since 2007).
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Dec 23, 2021 18:32
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Kerbal space program is on sale. Are the DLCs any good? Should I just get the base game or is it worth springing for the DLCs as well?
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Dec 23, 2021 18:39
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Life sure is strange sometimes
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Dec 23, 2021 18:48
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Hey, thanks for all the XCOM responses, had a poo poo day at work and I'm only now reading through them all. While I'm here, another one: I keep thinking I'd like to get into 4Xs and I got Endless Legend at some point because I remembered someone recommending it as a good "baby's first 4x" (is this still the case?  ), but that was a good while ago and apparently a lot of dlc came out since. Any must-gets? Not sure if it's just new factions or if there's anything game-changing like Civ usually has.
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Dec 23, 2021 18:49
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Edmond Dantes posted:Hey, thanks for all the XCOM responses, had a poo poo day at work and I'm only now reading through them all.
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Dec 23, 2021 18:52
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Seconding that, Vanilla is fine. Major expansions bring new mechanics and a race whose gimmick leans into said mechanic, while minor xpacks add fluff and sidequests. They seem to have removed some of the half&half bundles and there's only the 'everything' edition, shame. Guardians adds Civilization-style wonders & legendary deeds which I feel adds a lot, but again, Vanilla is fine. I wouldn't call it baby's first 4X, but then again I don't know any title that is.
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Dec 23, 2021 19:07
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Thanks to both!Serephina posted:I wouldn't call it baby's first 4X, but then again I don't know any title that is. Well, guess I'll either learn or finally take the hint that the genre is not for me.
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Dec 23, 2021 19:17
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Slipways is a bite-sized micro 3X (there's no eXterminate) that I highly recommend.
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Dec 23, 2021 19:23
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Serephina posted:Seconding that, Vanilla is fine. Major expansions bring new mechanics and a race whose gimmick leans into said mechanic, while minor xpacks add fluff and sidequests. They seem to have removed some of the half&half bundles and there's only the 'everything' edition, shame. Guardians adds Civilization-style wonders & legendary deeds which I feel adds a lot, but again, Vanilla is fine. As a tangential question, is there a website that explains some of these gaming-related terms? When I tried to search for “4X” all I got was ads for Hawaiian Shirts for fat guys (bookmarked immediately, ofc). I can figure out “Idler” and I know what words “RTS” stand for, for instance, but not what the term actually means for gaming purposes. Also like what is “Turn Based Combat,” because I loved Dungeon Siege for play style years ago, but am no longer a fan of OG Warcraft-type builders and resource building beyond MechCommander’s “salvage at the end of mission” loot. I love PS:T/BG I & II, but don’t have experience much beyond EQ/WoW and heavily modded Skyrim RPGs and MMOs. I’ve got some Christmas money comings so I’m trying to get a lot of top-tier-but-cheap-old games in before my corneal transplant in late January. I just would like to recognize what some <Tags> mean before like, buying an Xcom bundle or something. Any links or even like if Steam has an equivalent to the SomethingAwful Encyclopedia (hidden) part on the app is deeply appreciated!
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Dec 23, 2021 19:27
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Jack Trades posted:Slipways is a bite-sized micro 3X (there's no eXterminate) that I highly recommend. That was actually in my radar for a bit when it first came out; not quite sure why it didn't make it into my wishlist but I just corrected that. Thanks a bunch.
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Dec 23, 2021 19:29
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X
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Dec 23, 2021 19:30
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DerekSmartymans posted:As a tangential question, is there a website that explains some of these gaming-related terms? When I tried to search for “4X” all I got was ads for Hawaiian Shirts for fat guys (bookmarked immediately, ofc). I can figure out “Idler” and I know what words “RTS” stand for, for instance, but not what the term actually means for gaming purposes. Also like what is “Turn Based Combat,” because I loved Dungeon Siege for play style years ago, but am no longer a fan of OG Warcraft-type builders and resource building beyond MechCommander’s “salvage at the end of mission” loot. I love PS:T/BG I & II, but don’t have experience much beyond EQ/WoW and heavily modded Skyrim RPGs and MMOs. I’ve got some Christmas money comings so I’m trying to get a lot of top-tier-but-cheap-old games in before my corneal transplant in late January. I just would like to recognize what some <Tags> mean before like, buying an Xcom bundle or something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X Then look at the side-bar for additional genres.
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Dec 23, 2021 19:30
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Edmond Dantes posted:That was actually in my radar for a bit when it first came out; not quite sure why it didn't make it into my wishlist but I just corrected that. Thanks a bunch. Slipways is indeed very good but don’t believe their lies about each game only taking an hour. You will be agonizing over every decision.
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Dec 23, 2021 19:40
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Jack Trades posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X Thanks, both of you. My Google cluelessness didn’t think of “genre” as a term. I did find some baller-rear end fat guy shirts, though… 
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Dec 23, 2021 19:49
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I like As Far As The Eye a lot as a weird easy to get in to 4x game (well, 3x since there's no combat) It's entirely about good resource capitalization so it'll teach you how to do better in most other games in the genre It's about taking a cute little nomadic tribe on a pilgrimage through a bunch of miniature civilization maps, it's very charming and I find it very enjoyable.There's one important caveat to the game which is 'never ever enter the special event ruins if you can't identify them' cause there's like a 2/3rds chance the result will be either bad or worthless to you at the time. You can (and want to) train up a druid who can identify the ruins when you know your basic needs are met. I feel like people entering every ruin and getting hosed up as a result is the biggest reason all the negative steam reviews call it frustrating.
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Dec 23, 2021 20:20
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 e: it really wants to recommend me games with soundtrack today.  useless... Sininu fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 23, 2021 |
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Dec 23, 2021 20:36
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Kerbal space program is on sale. Are the DLCs any good? Should I just get the base game or is it worth springing for the DLCs as well? Not at all worth it IMO. I like the game enough that I eventually bought them just for completion's sake, but you won't miss them even a little bit.
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Dec 23, 2021 20:53
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Kerbal has dlc?
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Dec 23, 2021 20:54
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Brief snapshot opinions: Overboard is very good but very short and I'm vaguely unsatisfied with it. I wish there were more meat to it because the presentation is top-notch. Makes me want to replay 80 Days honestly. Rhythm Doctor is very very good, was surprised to see it's still in EA. Tap button to the beat, enjoy musical adventures. To The Rescue - buggy, buggy, buggy. Clicking through tutorial dialogue advances two boxes at a time randomly, I can't figure out how to clean dogs, and it's just... I am frustrated! I want to love it, it's pretty and the loop seems satisfying but bugs! Nuclear Blaze - a game I'll enjoy more when I sleep on it. It's a short SCP adventure that's themed around firefighting and platforming. Really flexible difficulty. I'd like it, but I just can't shake the disappointment that it's not a regular firefighting game. I want to save people from burning stuff, not explore a SCP thing right now. Bonus thought: god damnit my controller is broken and I'm mad. It vibrated off a stack of books, hit the floor and now the connector joint thing is loose. 
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Dec 23, 2021 21:01
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RBA Starblade posted:Kerbal has dlc? yep; its last hurrah considering kerbal 2 is vaporware
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Dec 23, 2021 21:01
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Wizard of Legend is 70% off and is really good.
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Dec 23, 2021 21:03
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played through the first few chapters of Call of the Sea, which bills itself as a Myst-style first-person puzzles-and-mechanisms mystery adventure game, about a woman following the trail of her husband's archaeological expedition to a South Pacific island in the 1930s -- but turns out almost immediately to also be cosmic horror. Like, the presentation is gorgeous, the puzzles are not the hardest ever but are decently interesting and do require you to think a bit and put pieces together, and the voice acting is good (even if the writing is kind of ham-handed), but I do wish they hadn't deliberately hidden such a major aspect of the plot/mood. It's not even that it's especially horrifying (there's only really been one somewhat-telegraphed jump scare so far), it's more that I don't particularly enjoy cosmic horror stuff and was looking forward to a more straightforward mystery/pulp adventure.
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Dec 23, 2021 21:17
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Occultatio posted:played through the first few chapters of Call of the Sea, which bills itself as a Myst-style first-person puzzles-and-mechanisms mystery adventure game, about a woman following the trail of her husband's archaeological expedition to a South Pacific island in the 1930s -- but turns out almost immediately to also be cosmic horror. imo it isn't really a horror game at all despite having significant Lovecraftian elements in the plot, nor is it intended to be one. might not be for all tastes, though
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Dec 23, 2021 22:08
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I need to see if they ever fixed the crash preventing me from progressing in Call of the Sea on XB1. I was enjoying it, but ran into an unavoidable 100% repro reset the console crash that was apparently a known issue at the time.
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Dec 23, 2021 22:11
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A bit late to the LiS discussion, but while I think the psychosexual magical realism interpretation is a really interesting one, it's not something I personally felt. I think it's especially problematic in context of the other games, which have similar magical BS but are way more grounded and less prone to surreal interpretations. As far as the ending to 1 went, I had two big issues. One was the same criticism I've had of every LiS game, which is that the ending felt like a dumpster fire that came from a different game. The disaster/butterfly effect storyline could've been interesting, but the game itself almost never touched on that. It felt like chapters 1 and 5 hit it a bit, but the rest of the game was laser-focused on the friendship stuff and on Max's attempts to be cool slowly leading her to realize what an absurdly toxic piece of crap she is. With chapter 5 in particular, I think my biggest issue was that the Chloe vs. Town decision made zero sense. They had no evidence that Chloe's saving throw vs gundrugs was what caused the issues, it was just one of them (Warren, I think?) throwing out a random idea, and everyone immediately taking it as gospel. I think if there had been firmer, direct evidence of the thing it could've been a gut-wrenching choice... but when I played it, it didn't feel like 'save the cheerleader or save the world', it felt like 'Believe conspiracy theory that might be right, or save awesome friend who you know for a fact will get action comboed out of existence if you don't act.' Honestly, I wonder if Before the Storm isn't my favorite LiS game explicitly because it doesn't have magical crap, it just focuses on telling an engaging story about a couple of assholes. Rambling essay about goofy French adventure games aside, could someone explain to me exactly what Ruined King is? It looks like it's a turn-based RPG, but all the LoL trappings and marketing fluff are confusing the heck out of me.
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Dec 23, 2021 22:43
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I've played all LiS games except for 2 and I dearly wish they'd stopped with the supernatural stuff.
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Dec 23, 2021 22:49
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Omi no Kami posted:Rambling essay about goofy French adventure games aside Regarding these, if anyone is looking for the ultimate weird french adventure game experience, I don't think it gets any better/worse than Isabelle. You play it freely switching between two brothers, one of them freely walking around the island, the other blind (due to a suspicious accident that kickstarts the game plot) and exploring a psychedelic mind-hallucination of said island. It's all Gouraud-shaded low poly and is absolutely weird as gently caress. See it as a challenge if you're into obscure games. I can't imagine too many people have managed to go through it. It was beyond me back then as a college student, and I was into weird games... A review here for more context and some screenshots: https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/17463 Available as abandonware here: https://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=2251&fic=liens Haven't tried the download, so no idea if it even works on modern windows I'm afraid.
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Dec 23, 2021 22:53
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lordfrikk posted:I've played all LiS games except for 2 and I dearly wish they'd stopped with the supernatural stuff. I wish they'd just give up trying to be original and use time travel again. It's a wonderful concept for an adventure game, to do the save/reload on bad choices loop in-universe.
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Dec 23, 2021 22:54
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lordfrikk posted:I've played all LiS games except for 2 and I dearly wish they'd stopped with the supernatural stuff. Life is Mundane
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Dec 23, 2021 23:07
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lunar detritus posted:I wish they'd just give up trying to be original and use time travel again. It's a wonderful concept for an adventure game, to do the save/reload on bad choices loop in-universe. One of the lead developers said that the programming and coding required to make the time travel mechanic work was a stress inducing nightmare and they never would've picked it had they known how difficult it would be going in. The Life is Strange games are weird in the sense they were directly modeled off of the Telltale style episodic release drama games but written but a French company that was trying really, really hard to capture the sense and feel of a specific part of American culture. 1 is good but almost out of date even on its release, and there's definitely the feeling that the ending was kind of thrown together last minute as they scrambled to finish the game. It's hipster boarding school meets Twin Peaks and went hard in on all they could to create that feeling and to their credit did a really good job. 2 has a lot better individual parts especially early on, but is such a completely different narrative that it lost a lot of what made 1 special while never really committing hard enough to the changes. It had some great parts, but lacked a lot of emotional impact since every episode was a new place with new characters. Then you get the games made by Decknine, an American company, brought in by Square-Enix after it seemed like Dontnod was thumbing their nose at their corporate bosses who wanted more of LiS1. Decknine made a prequel to 1, which was pretty good, and True Colors (LiS3), but TC loses a lot from being about 1/2 as long as it should be as a result of covid completely loving over the original game design plan. The only real problem is the fanbase is pretty much 100% in on the original game and want more of it, but there's no good way to make a sequel and trying to keep placing games in the same universe is becoming a hassle and drip feeding in minor characters as a "Hey look at this!" isn't going to keep working.
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Dec 23, 2021 23:17
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you want a dontnod game that really allie-oopsies into a dumpster at the end then go with Remember Me
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Dec 23, 2021 23:18
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I loved LiS 1, and played through it several times, but thought LiS2 was dreadful boring. I forced myself to finish it, but didn't enjoy it at all. Team BAE!
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Dec 23, 2021 23:33
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Oxxidation posted:you want a dontnod game that really allie-oopsies into a dumpster at the end then go with Remember Me lol almost all their games are like a bunch of great ideas that just full face plant in the asphalt once you get to the last 10%. I've not played Vampyre or Twin Mirror but they have similar reputations for "inventive and cool, but not good games" Tell Me Why was at least a coherent story with a good ending but it seemed like Microsoft basically demanded the game be fully finished before releasing the weekly episode or had some major editorial control over the process.
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Dec 23, 2021 23:42
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Edmond Dantes posted:Thanks to both! I would classify Warlock 2 as a good "babby's first 4x." It's kind of like a very, very lite Master of Magic set in the Majesty universe, but the factions play differently enough that you can have some fun strategies. (I like to do undead runs where I just dimension-hop, terraforming all the alternate dimensions into deathlands!)
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Dec 23, 2021 23:46
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I've also seen The Battle of Polytopia described here and on Steam as a good intro 4x which is why I bought it, but I still haven't played it so I couldn't say for sure.
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Dec 23, 2021 23:54
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Occultatio posted:played through the first few chapters of Call of the Sea, which bills itself as a Myst-style first-person puzzles-and-mechanisms mystery adventure game, about a woman following the trail of her husband's archaeological expedition to a South Pacific island in the 1930s -- but turns out almost immediately to also be cosmic horror. Agreed, it’s a decent little puzzler but I’m glad I got it on sale because it’s fairly simple and short, albeit a pretty experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
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Dec 24, 2021 00:03
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