Tuxedo Catfish posted:

you're the one who piled on to yell "what the hell" at me dude

this happens to me a lot and i'm sick of it. i don't even need people to agree, it's just really tiring trying to say something and then realize that to even have an argument about the actual thought itself you're going to have to back up three or four steps to cover background you thought was self-evident

Galick posted:

Modded Minecraft, there's a village building mod!

Sandwich Anarchist posted:

7 Days To Die
Dragon Quest Builders 2

SlothfulCobra posted:

If you care the primarily about first person, Slime Rancher and Raft.

doctorfrog posted:

No Man's Sky does all of these things (including a sorta simulated village for you to manage) to kind of a shallow, but enjoyable and pretty degree. NMS is a very amiable game.

HenryEx posted:

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

One of the main endgame puzzles of Myst is you piloting a minecart through a (conceptually) 3d maze of tracks. Riven's entire world is connected by rail and requires you to use spatial reasoning to figure out where everything is in relation to each other in order to solve a comparable endgame puzzle.

The world of Riven is rapidly dying in the fiction, although it isn't really realized in mechanics it is the central dilemma of the entire plot, and there are several ways to get a game over where your character dies violently.

chainchompz posted:

I'm looking for a single player, FPS, basebuilding, exploration, and/or open world game where I can kinda just chill and explore and use my base as a hub for refueling between treks. I've played Subnautica (and below zero), minecraft and satisfactory to death already. If there's villagers that I can attract and build a tiny village that's semi-autonomous that's also cool.

I know fallout 4 kinda also did what I'm looking for with regards to basebuilding and exploring, but have also played it to death.

LLSix posted:

It sounds like you are describing Necesse, except it's not first person.

moosferatu posted:

This debate about Outer Wilds reminds me of the old arguments about adventure games with action elements or roguelikes vs roguelites. I only just started playing Outer Wilds yesterday, and I can understand comparing it to Myst. There are thematic and mechanical similarities that scratch a similar itch. That said, there are some significant gameplay differences that make it impossible to say, if you loved Myst, you'll love Outer Wilds. I think this particularly true for OG adventure gamers who traditional do not like dexterity based gameplay. Personally, I find the game extremely interesting, but probably won't play much more of it because I hate the space movement.

John Murdoch posted:

I inevitably think of

Magnetic North posted:

So, I skipped The Outer Wilds because first person games make me motion sick in my never-ending wretched senescence. However, I managed to play both The Return of the Obra Dinn (which is loving fantastic) and Superliminal (which is good). How 'action-y' is it? How fast is it?

John Murdoch posted:

I inevitably think of

Magnetic North posted:

So, I skipped The Outer Wilds because first person games make me motion sick in my never-ending wretched senescence. However, I managed to play both The Return of the Obra Dinn (which is loving fantastic) and Superliminal (which is good). How 'action-y' is it? How fast is it?

AG3 posted:

I read that as Arcade-Sque Amish at first and had a hell of a time trying to parse that.

Chamale posted:

Rimworld is the gold standard of that genre, isn't it?

John Murdoch posted:

FWIW, when I say I have qualms about Outer Wilds, it's exactly these. My tolerance for bullshit is a bit low these days - I love Dark Souls, yet I've not jumped into Elden Ring, for example. I also never liked MM, which is another point against it.

A GIANT PARSNIP posted:

I'm looking for a game where you start up a space colony on a station or a planet. There seem to be a lot of these games out and a fair amount of them have poo poo ratings. Which ones have people had fun with?

Phigs posted:

If this bothers you then I'd say definitely stay away. It has plenty of time sensitive bullshit that bothered me a lot. 22 minutes is a pretty short amount of time when you have to go up an elevator, launch your ship, fly to the planet, land on the planet, move to the place, then go through the maze/jumping puzzle/whatever path to get to the exact spot you need to go to, etc. And hey sometimes you need to get there before something happens, sometimes after something happens. It's got some pretty finicky bullshit. I think it's a pretty cool game that's worth a look for most people such that if you're just "should I play Outer Wilds?" my answer would be yes. But if you're "should I play Outer Wilds? I'm not down with any bullshit tho" my answer is no.

A GIANT PARSNIP posted:

I'm looking for a game where you start up a space colony on a station or a planet. There seem to be a lot of these games out and a fair amount of them have poo poo ratings. Which ones have people had fun with?

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

I take it you've thought of Dwarf Fortress?

It's the grandfather of basically all these games, and it still does something that's unique compared to the others (at least as far as I know), which is that you don't have control over individual dorfs, but instead control what needs to be done and it's then up to the dorf with (in)appropriate training, role, and most importantly mood to do the job.

It's also deeper than the Mariana Trench, so it's the sort of game that if you really fall into it, you're gonna spend a lot of time there.

It's also "nearing" a "complete" release.

John Murdoch posted:

tl;dr, it's a specific sub-genre of game design porn. Not to be confused with porn game design. Frankly this whole thing might be more appropriate for a PYF thread or some poo poo, idk.

John Murdoch posted:

Alright. So. Round two. Turns out trying to post about a high-minded (and likely -fueled) idea when I'm sleep deprived and feverish leads to people having no earthly clue what the gently caress I'm on about. And doubly so when I half-rear end on the examples. Lesson learned. (Hopefully.) Let's ignore that entire first post ever happened and try this again.

To spare the thread another clog of a giant rambling essay, albeit a much more coherent one, I've dumped it into a pastebin Google doc of all things because pastebin sucks rear end. Four clearly laid out ideas! Proper concrete examples! Sensible summaries!

tl;dr, it's a specific sub-genre of game design porn. Not to be confused with porn game design. Frankly this whole thing might be more appropriate for a PYF thread or some poo poo, idk.

I scanned back through the original recommendations and FWIW Hwurmp you gave me the last little push to finally grab Inscryption and also splurge on Tunic. I know both lean towards the meta-y side, and I'm pretty confident the former is right on the money at the very least. Ultrakill might be too but it's not the kind of game I'm after right now.

John Murdoch posted:

To spare the thread another clog of a giant rambling essay, albeit a much more coherent one, I've dumped it into a pastebin Google doc of all things because pastebin sucks rear end. Four clearly laid out ideas! Proper concrete examples! Sensible summaries!

StoryTime posted:

Rimworld is very much Dwarf Fortress with a handful of colonists instead of 100+ dorfs. Works the same way, you assign things to do and the colonists get around to doing them once they feel like it. It also has an actual UI. Amazing Cultivation Simulator is similar, except you build a Wuxian religious sect and the members gain ridiculous superpowers by meditating very hard, and random bears and pieces of furniture gain sentience as a side show.

A GIANT PARSNIP posted:

I have Rimworld and have had fun with it but I get more of a "we need to escape this shithole" vibe instead of a "we're making a new home" vibe. I don't own the DLC though and haven't gone too deep on mods so if these change the game to offer more of a pioneering / colonization vibe I'd be up for giving it another shot.

Jack Trades posted:

Using Randy in Rimworld just makes the game objectively better. It's unfortunate that the game doesn't communicate that well the fact that the other two narrators are literally actively trying to get your colony destroyed while Randy is the only one that doesn't.

Fruits of the sea posted:

Tyranny for creating a levelling system that responds to what you do in combat to reinforce your out of combat skills and vice versa.

E: I only skimmed but it may not be your cup of tea judging from the other stuff name-dropped. It's a crunchy RTWP rpg with branching narrative

Sobatchja Morda posted:

Some random suggestions:

-Baba is You
-R-Type Final 1 and 2
-Yakuza: Like a Dragon
-Every Castlevania from Symphony of the Night to Order of Ecclestia
-Bloodstained (see above)
-Magicka 1 and 2
-Divinity: Original Sin 2
-Gunpoint

StoryTime posted:

The Stanley Parable and Thomas Was Alone are both games with kind of a meta commentary about the game running along with the game.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay also has a dev commentary mode, it's like what you'd get on a physical copy of a movie disc, except it's in the game as you play.

Hypnospace Outlaw simulates being an early Internet moderator with a fully functional lovely OS with a browser and a desktop. You can download various applications to run for your enjoyment/detriment, and the game messes with the framing environment in all kinds of ways.

Eversion is a short platformer that goes places.

Edit: oh, Antichamber for exploration of non-euclidean 3D spaces.

Sway Grunt posted:

In terms of pushing a concept all the way the first thing that came to my mind was Brutal Legend and not just because you used music in the example. It's just a game that absolutely revels in the idea of "heavy metal" and infuses it into every aspect to a ridiculous degree. Your whole first paragraph exists almost verbatim in BL, down to a guitar being your weapon and having to play a solo to "cast" a spell. One of your attacks is called "Bring it on Home" and summons a zeppelin to crash onto the field.

Now you do have to deal with some mediocre open-world gameplay and vague-at-best strategy battles, but the latter at least does have some decent design in it in terms of unit variety and synergies and such, with the major problem being that the game is really bad at communicating that design or giving meaningful feedback to the player. The potential is there to play smartly and strategically but because the info is so hidden most players (myself included) never get there and battles end up being very random and chaotic (which, actually, can easily be spun as a positive in this game specifically).

I also wonder if Crypt of the Necrodancer or Atomicrops might be interesting as they both really commit to the concept/aesthetic as well, and are chock full of puns. Necrodancer does still have mostly standard weapons and enemies but at least the playable characters are thematic.

John Murdoch posted:

That's an interesting wildcard. I've never heard anyone really talk about Tyranny for its mechanics. I remember playing the demo and being intrigued by the writing but rather...unimpressed by the first impressions of the combat system. (Pillars was similarly bewildering, though that game's way worse about dumping maximum crunch on the player before the game even properly starts.) Has a whiff of

John Murdoch posted:

Sway Grunt posted:

For Atomicrops I'm just gonna cop to not having actually played it. But I watched a whole bunch of it at one point. You're balancing growing your crops and exploring for upgrades with defending your farm from mutants. The action is of the twin stick shooter / bullet hell variety. I mentioned it mostly because like Brutal Legend it leans hard into the concept, and the pun levels are through the roof (example weapons: Shallotgun, Parsniper; example bosses: Old Mech-Donald, Bundertaker). The kind of stuff where you can tell the devs are enjoying themselves. My impression at the time was that the runs aren't varied enough for the game to have any sustained longevity (i.e. the capacity to make different builds seemed lacking so it whiffs on your third point with the self-reinforcing design, whereas other roguelite/likes nail it better - like Slay the Spire or Hades as you've mentioned). But this was a couple of years ago when it was still EA, maybe that's been improved? Someone who's actually played it would have to chime in.

Fruits of the sea posted:

E: also there's a one sentence explanation every time you mouse-over a weird fantasy name instead of pretending you have amnesia and suffering through endless expository talks with npcs to explain the setting. God I wish they would go back and do the same to Pillars of Eternity.

Cantorsdust posted:

Consider Darklands. It's a very old MSDOS RPG set in medieval Germany, but medieval Germany as its inhabitants might have imagined. Praying to saints really does help, and building a repertoire of who you can pray to and for what is how you cast magic. Alchemy is real and potions are made from gathered components. But also the devil and demons and witches are real, and you have to deal with them, too. Immerse yourself in a full map of the Holy Roman Empire including every major city, with main squares, churches and guilds, market shops, and backstreets to explore. Explore the countryside and fight robber barons, corrupt church officials, bandits, witches, demons and worse. gently caress around for as long as you want in character creation and start your party with 4 60+ year olds with high skills but poo poo stats. It has poo poo graphics and a clunky old interface. But it has a certain charm to it and really works hard to immerse yourself within its world.

Consider Highfleet. Take command of a fleet of steampunk-style ships, all built in a 2D builder out of parts. Run them through a campaign where you have to invade a foreign land and defend against its own strike fleets while you manage money, fuel, weapons, and resources against time. Intercept radio signals using a manual interface and decode them using captured keys in order to discover radio chatter merely suggesting where the nearest strike fleet is going. Play hide-and-seek radar scanning games and send rapid strikes to hit your enemies before they hit you. All this through an extremely detailed interface with switches to flick and dials to turn. Pilot your ships in 2D battles where your pilots pass out and your screen turns black if you pull too many Gs. Loot the wrecks and take the money to rebuild your ships into more fearsome specialized fighting machines. The ultimate say in skeumorphism.