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Worth noting that in Planet Zoo at least, you do need to build a lot of functional items - habitats need the right balance of toys, feeding/watering areas, biome-appropriate rocks and trees, climable areas, lighting, heating - and if you're playing in non-sandbox mode you also need to find the right balance of viewing areas (and placement for them) to both give your guests lots of opportunity to observe the animals and to give the animals the privacy their species needs. Outside of enclosures you're trying to strike a balance between animal viewing, informational kiosks/stations, donation income, and fulfilling needs. It's a great game for cosmetic building, but it's attached to a very deep gameplay system that requires lots of attention, too. I'm not 100% sure how much of that you can avoid playing in Sandbox Mode (though I suppose you could use it purely as a terrain editor with lots of decorative items  )Flowscape is a pretty neat terrain/scenery/zen garden tool https://store.steampowered.com/app/1043390/FlowScape/ I'd say it's not worth full price, it's a little light on content and the dev sort of gave up on it, but it goes on sale for as low as $3 occasionally. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 23:31
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So update on Elex The Good: Having fun sneaking around and finding high-level weaponry The Bad: Can't use high level weaponry because of stat requirements. Can't gain levels because everything loving kills me. ChrisBTY fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 17:52
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deep dish peat moss posted:Worth noting that in Planet Zoo at least, you do need to build a lot of functional items - habitats need the right balance of toys, feeding/watering areas, biome-appropriate rocks and trees, climable areas, lighting, heating - and if you're playing in non-sandbox mode you also need to find the right balance of viewing areas (and placement for them) to both give your guests lots of opportunity to observe the animals and to give the animals the privacy their species needs. Outside of enclosures you're trying to strike a balance between animal viewing, informational kiosks/stations, donation income, and fulfilling needs. The sandbox mode tracks all those things but there aren't really any consequences since both money and animals are infinite. If you do things "wrong" then the game will tell you that your animals are unhappy or your guests don't like the zoo but it doesn't matter unless you care. It doesn't matter if guests stop spending money since you never needed it from them in the first place, and if an animal gets sick or dies, no problem, you can ship in a new one at any time. That said I think the aesthetics and the "correct" gameplay solutions usually line up well. A giant wall of glass around an exhibit doesn't look as cool as intentionally built viewing galleries, and the habitats usually look the best when you use the plants and features that the animals in them like.
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Apr 2, 2023 18:01
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bloodstained: ritual of the night is a good metroid/exploration kind of game yeah? what's the combat like?
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Apr 2, 2023 20:47
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ilmucche posted:bloodstained: ritual of the night is a good metroid/exploration kind of game yeah? what's the combat like? Have you played Symphony of the Night? It's the same deal. In other words, pretty basic platformer melee, with more of a focus on the wide variety of ways you can fight, rather than on any individual way being particularly polished. Most enemies die pretty quickly, and while bosses can be tricky, you can also just spam healing items to get through them.
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Apr 2, 2023 20:52
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The game also let's you, encourages you to really, do dumb rear end bonkers gimmick poo poo and have it be actually effective and viable. SotN at the end of day made you have to just swing weapons to really be effective; BS let's you do infinite aerial dropkicks if you can put the build together.
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Apr 2, 2023 20:56
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Have you played Symphony of the Night? It's the same deal. In other words, pretty basic platformer melee, with more of a focus on the wide variety of ways you can fight, rather than on any individual way being particularly polished. Most enemies die pretty quickly, and while bosses can be tricky, you can also just spam healing items to get through them. haven't played either. i'm looking for exploration/metroidwhatever type games. just got through haak, played islets/hollow knight etc. I like the exploration and powering up side of things but can't really hack really tough combat like hollow knight/salt and sanctuary anymore. I did really like blasphemous though and the combat in that one felt pretty tough Maybe Alwa's legacy for like 4 quid? ilmucche fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 21:02
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The Castlevania side of Metroidvanias isn't necessarily about being hard with the combat, it's more about the long corridors you have to fight through being more of a gauntlet of endurance to wear you down by attrition. But the leveling system makes it possible to overcome challenges even if you don't necessarily develop new skills. But I haven't actually played Bloodstained to say for sure about it. Seems like it'd be in the ballpark of Blasphemous as well. There's definitely a lot of exploration medtroidvanias out there, I dunno what I'd say the best ones are after Hollow Knight. Yoku's Island and Wuppo are some of the weirdest that are probably worth a look see.
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Apr 2, 2023 21:24
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ilmucche posted:bloodstained: ritual of the night is a good metroid/exploration kind of game yeah? what's the combat like? Best in the genre IMO.
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Apr 2, 2023 21:26
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ilmucche posted:haven't played either. i'm looking for exploration/metroidwhatever type games. just got through haak, played islets/hollow knight etc. I like the exploration and powering up side of things but can't really hack really tough combat like hollow knight/salt and sanctuary anymore. Someone talked me into trying Astalon: Tears of the Earth and I'm really glad they did. A real metroidvania fan's metroidvania. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V87xLFNs-EA wash bucket fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 21:41
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ilmucche posted:haven't played either. i'm looking for exploration/metroidwhatever type games. just got through haak, played islets/hollow knight etc. I like the exploration and powering up side of things but can't really hack really tough combat like hollow knight/salt and sanctuary anymore. If you want exploration-focused games, I recommend Knytt, Knytt Stories, and Knytt Underground. They're all decidedly retro, but they're also much less about combat and more about exploring big maps and appreciating little details.
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Apr 2, 2023 21:43
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Bloodstained an ugly mess, both visually and in its combat. You do get a lot of fun goofy tools play around with though, and many of them easily win dps races to bypass having to learn the game's bad hitboxes or anything even on hard. For good exploration focused metroidvanias, Environmental Station Alpha is all about learning the map's secrets and puzzles, and is decently approachable. La Mulana is like that but for masochists, so probably not what you're looking for. The Ori games are easier than hollow knight or blasphemous and are more about beautiful environments and atmosphere. The second game cribs a lot from HK for its combat. Also seconding the Yoku's Island Express recommendation, it's well made and quite different, enjoyed it without particularly liking pinball.
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Apr 2, 2023 21:58
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Environment Station Alpha is harder than La Mulana from an execution standpoint. La Mulana has harder puzzles, unless you're going for ESA's extremely obscure bonus endings. I would hesitate to recommend either of them to someone who isn't confident in their gaming skills.
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Apr 2, 2023 22:03
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cool, thanks for the suggestions. I'll give ori a try since it's cheap on gog and looks like it's a lot of focus on an interesting world to explore. Cool style is part of what I liked about blasphemous despite the difficulty. I did play yoku's island express, it had so much charm.
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Apr 2, 2023 22:12
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ilmucche posted:haven't played either. SotN is an all-time classic and worth playing. I had never played it until about a year ago, and it lives up to the decades of hype. It's had a few modern re-releases, and the original PSX disc can be downloaded and emulated pretty easily, complete with its infamously campy "WHAT IS A MAN?" Dracula (they recorded new dialogue for the re-releases). It still looks great, too, especially Alucard's sprite animation; definitely a case where refined sprite art holds up better than early 3D. Castlevania 64 looks like poo poo nowadays, but SotN will always look good. My biggest beef with it is that using items is a pain in the rear end. You have to pause, enter the equip menu, unequip your weapon or shield, equip your item, unpause, use the item, pause, enter the equip menu, re-equip your weapon or shield, and then unpause. Fortunately, the game is easy enough that the items aren't super necessary, and you'll probably use them only for tricky boss fights. And if you are playing for the first time and thus don't know exactly where to go, you'll end up grinding through enough enemies that you'll be over-leveled for much of the game and able to facetank most bosses. That was my first-run experience, anyway. Item usage annoyance aside, it's a great game. Doesn't beat out Super Metroid for me as the GOAT exploration platformer, but it's still dope. Shine fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 22:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Environment Station Alpha is harder than La Mulana from an execution standpoint. La Mulana has harder puzzles, unless you're going for ESA's extremely obscure bonus endings. I would hesitate to recommend either of them to someone who isn't confident in their gaming skills.
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Apr 2, 2023 22:16
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grate deceiver posted:Ostranauts might also be this once it gets its poo poo together, but right now it still looks pretty barebones. happy to report ostranauts seems to have got its poo poo together. when i last played it it loving sucked but ive just been playing it for like 8 hours selling reactors on the black market so i can save up to repair one of the more intact derelicts
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Apr 2, 2023 22:44
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but i mean obviously it is still in early access
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Apr 2, 2023 22:48
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I liked ESA, but I couldn't manage to get past the three way boss.
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Apr 3, 2023 00:00
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Xeras posted:I’m looking for a game to play while listening to audiobooks. I’m not much of a truck/racer type so euro truck is doubtful. I do a lot of gaming while listening to an audiobook/podcast. Some games I like to do this to: * Armoured Commander I & II: a roguelike WWII tank commander game. Armoured Commander I is free and features American tanks in the European Theater. Armoured Commander II is paid and features different nations with more campaigns and tanks. I've never played another roguelike about WWII, but I dig this quirky roguelike. If anyone is aware of other games like it, let me know. I know there's a few sci-fi mecha roguelikes, but it seems rare to see a crew-based historical one. * Any of the manual labor sims: Powerwash Simulator, Viscera Cleanup Detail, Car Mechanic Simulator, Tank Mechanic Simulator, PC Building Simualtor, Brewmaster: Beer Brewing Simulator, Hardspace: Shipbreaker. * Paradox strategy games. For me, it's namely Stellaris, Hearts of Iron IV, and Crusader Kings III. I'm interested in Victoria 3 and Imperator: Rome, but people seem very mixed in their opinions of these ones, and I haven't tried them. edit, thought of another one: * Intergalactic Fishing: an extremely quirky and simple game about exploring otherworldly lakes and catching otherworldly fish. Caufman fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 02:50
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Coloring Pixels is worth a try too. Don’t really do Podcasts, but I like listening to music and coloring away.
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Apr 3, 2023 04:49
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ilmucche posted:cool, thanks for the suggestions. I'll give ori a try since it's cheap on gog and looks like it's a lot of focus on an interesting world to explore. Cool style is part of what I liked about blasphemous despite the difficulty. Also seconding Symphony of the Night (this game practically coined the term metroidvania) and Ori (beat the Blind Forest, it was short but real pretty). And you might look up Saira, I remember having fun with it (got reminded by looking up old metroidvanias from my collection, actually) and it's free on Steam.
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Apr 3, 2023 05:42
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ilmucche posted:haven't played either. i'm looking for exploration/metroidwhatever type games. just got through haak, played islets/hollow knight etc. I like the exploration and powering up side of things but can't really hack really tough combat like hollow knight/salt and sanctuary anymore. Alwa's Legacy is great fun, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Knytt Underground which was previously mentioned also feels great to explore and is pretty huge. A few others that may fit your interests beyond those already recommended here: The Messenger - more on the Castlevania side than Metroid, but it just feels good/tight to play. Starts off as a "run to the right" type of game but eventually turns into more of an exploration game. Catmaze - Surprisingly fun game with heaps to explore. Combat can be a bit janky at times but it's not too bad. Ghost 1.0 - More about exploration and powering up your weapons than a true Metroidvania but good fun. Rabi-Ribi - If you can overlook the awkward anime fan-service nature of the game this is a great exploration game with light Metroidvania elements. Boss fights are mostly bullet hell fights, but there is an in-game option to turn the difficulty down to near-trivial levels if you like. There's a whole heap of DLCs which add extra content if you like it, too. Iconoclasts - Probably more of an action/puzzle RPG but has some light Metroidvania elements. The story is fine, if a bit all over the place (you can really tell the game was made over a seven-year period) but exploring and finding all the various powerups feels great. Combat is a bit difficult but it comes with an easy mode. cmndstab fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 06:11
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FWIW these two are in this Fanatical bundle at the moment so if you can find a third game in there you can get them super cheap.
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Apr 3, 2023 10:26
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Sway Grunt posted:FWIW these two are in this Fanatical bundle at the moment so if you can find a third game in there you can get them super cheap. nice one, I picked them up to have a go later, thank you
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Apr 3, 2023 11:05
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Someone mentioned it a million pages back, but I reallly get a kick out of any games with a kind of spreading disease or poison effect. Not chain lightning kind of stuff necessarily, but I do have clear examples: - Grim Dawn: Bloody Pox. A spreading DOT that starts its counter over on each spread. Special mention to the fact that the effect lingers on corpses for its full duration, so running a string of mobs into even one corpse starts the spread over again. I get the biggest kick out of casting a single spell and hearing half the dungeon dying as my XP bar goes up. Falls off in effectiveness late game, but a barrel of monkeys before that. - Assassin's Creed Origins (others tried it, I found this one did it best): Poison. Similar to above, it lingers for a while on the bodies. Just such a funny sight to see guards wander over to see why their buddy died, get poisoned themselves, wander off to die in a crowd, and seeing all those guys get infected too. Enhanced by the greenish cloud that follows them around. I can't count how much time I spend in highly trafficked areas to see how many people I could wreck with a single dart. Sadly, for some reason the way they timed it, it never really ever got a super good streak going. I'd hoped when Dishonored 2 came out I'd have been able to do a similar thing with those wasps, you'd think it would work since wasp kills made a corpse that exploded into more wasps, but again, something about the way the game was coded prevented that working the way I envisioned. I just get tickled by the mischief of it, those moments when you see even more people heading into the cloud and think "Oh man, here come more of them, I'm gonna get like 5 more guys here" and for some reason it just hits the exact part of my shriveled brain that's still functioning. Of course I supposed if it worked in my idealized mental version the game would be terribly broken, but I'd still love to hear about any games that have similar spreading DOT mechanics.
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Apr 3, 2023 12:58
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Scruffpuff posted:Someone mentioned it a million pages back, but I reallly get a kick out of any games with a kind of spreading disease or poison effect. Not chain lightning kind of stuff necessarily, but I do have clear examples:
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Apr 3, 2023 13:51
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:The hacks in Cyberpunk get really fun for this. There's one Contagion that spreads to nearby enemies and can he upgraded to spread further and quicker, then other upgrades that let you spread any offensive hack as well which stacks with Contagion. By the end of the game you can basically delete a whole building of enemies as soon as you see one through a window. That's right - I forgot that one from the list! I blew through the entire game with that hack, it was awesome.
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Apr 3, 2023 15:51
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You can do that in Hades if you pick up the right boons from Dionysus. Poison one enemy then sit back and let it spread to the rest. It's great for the larger rooms where you can stand back relatively safely but in the smaller more confined ones it's generally much more efficient to actively go after mobs.
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Apr 3, 2023 15:58
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Scruffpuff posted:Of course I supposed if it worked in my idealized mental version the game would be terribly broken, but I'd still love to hear about any games that have similar spreading DOT mechanics. Scruffpuff posted:- Grim Dawn: Bloody Pox. A spreading DOT that starts its counter over on each spread. Special mention to the fact that the effect lingers on corpses for its full duration, so running a string of mobs into even one corpse starts the spread over again. I get the biggest kick out of casting a single spell and hearing half the dungeon dying as my XP bar goes up. Falls off in effectiveness late game, but a barrel of monkeys before that. Is that in vanilla GD, or is a DLC needed? (Which one?) Also, which class? Pierzak fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 17:44
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Scruffpuff posted:Someone mentioned it a million pages back, but I reallly get a kick out of any games with a kind of spreading disease or poison effect. Not chain lightning kind of stuff necessarily, but I do have clear examples: Not exactly DOT, but if you like watching a group of people clear themselves out, the Hitman series lets you set up simple scenarios that pay off in a similar way. Electrocute a puddle, toss a coin into the puddle, somebody goes to pick up the coin, gets electrocuted, a guard notices, goes to check the body, gets electrocuted, another guard notices... etc.
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Apr 3, 2023 23:29
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Scruffpuff posted:That's right - I forgot that one from the list! I blew through the entire game with that hack, it was awesome. Aw well I'm glad I was on the right track. A more left field one is Streets of Rogue, it's basically a top down roguelite Deus Ex and has a bunch of classes that focus on this kind of mechanic and on the general "spreading your load" concept. For example you can pipe any given chemical into a building's ventilation and see what happens, from spreading a deadly disease to making all the guards addicted to nicotine and causing them all to go out for a smoke, or you can play as a zombie and cause a zombie apocalypse on every level
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Apr 4, 2023 00:57
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bawk posted:Not exactly DOT, but if you like watching a group of people clear themselves out, the Hitman series lets you set up simple scenarios that pay off in a similar way. Electrocute a puddle, toss a coin into the puddle, somebody goes to pick up the coin, gets electrocuted, a guard notices, goes to check the body, gets electrocuted, another guard notices... etc. OK now that sounds right up my alley... for me the dopamine hit seems to be chain reactions, comedies of error, and NPC self-ownage. The longer it goes on without me moving a muscle the harder I laugh. I suppose it's a form of farce.
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Apr 4, 2023 02:31
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Pierzak posted:Is that in vanilla GD, or is a DLC needed? (Which one?) Vanilla Grim Dawn, Occultist class. Still never seen anything quite like it in another game. It's a shame at the highest levels it's nowhere near the effect, but you can pull it off up to level 50 at least.
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Apr 4, 2023 02:32
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Maybe the Shadow of Mordor series, where I think there's some poisoning, but also there's mind-controlling orcs to form a little army. Shadow of War goes more into depth into the system, but also gets grindy. And infectionator.
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Apr 4, 2023 03:44
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SlothfulCobra posted:Maybe the Shadow of Mordor series, where I think there's some poisoning, but also there's mind-controlling orcs to form a little army. Shadow of War goes more into depth into the system, but also gets grindy. Do you remember when shadow of mordor was coming out and everyone was skeptical as gently caress about their Nemeis System, like yeah right it will function like this, and then it absolutely did exactly what they claimed it would?
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Apr 4, 2023 03:46
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I was not paying attention to the hype and speculation about Shadow of Mordor. What did people think the Nemesis system was going to be like?
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Apr 4, 2023 05:54
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McCracAttack posted:Someone talked me into trying Astalon: Tears of the Earth and I'm really glad they did. A real metroidvania fan's metroidvania. one of the most underrated gems. i know indie metroidvanias are a dime a dozen nowadays but i hugely recommend this to everyone
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Apr 4, 2023 06:22
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Scruffpuff posted:Someone mentioned it a million pages back, but I reallly get a kick out of any games with a kind of spreading disease or poison effect. Not chain lightning kind of stuff necessarily, but I do have clear examples: Mark of the Ninja is my favorite game for this. While normally guards who find dead bodies will just say "man down" and become more vigilant, if you kill a guard in a gruesome manner (like with a trap that impales them from the ground-up), guards who find the body will instead become terrified and start shooting wildly, often hitting other guards. The gunfire may attract more guards, which may startle the terrified guard into shooting them. Meanwhile you're just sitting at the top of a light post admiring your handiwork. You can make this get silly by using the Path of Nightmares costume, which is unlocked early on. This makes guards always panic when they find a body, not just if you do something gruesome. Each level becomes a series of screaming guards shooting each other. My favorite thing is to drag a guard's body with me and throw it into the path of another guard, which freaks them right the gently caress out. It's also in general a dope game, whether you're being stealthy, violent, or some blend of the two (and the game doesn't penalize you for "playing the wrong way," which I love).
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Apr 4, 2023 07:23
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Oh uh I presume Plague Inc is too obvious but it's good, if probably a bit more uncomfortable to play now than it was a few years ago.
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Apr 4, 2023 10:24
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