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Autobattlers are drafting games in which automated battles alternate with drafting phases. The seminal Dota Auto Chess (2019, originally a Dota mod) was an 8-player elimination game in which players battled each other in 1v1 pairings each round, with the loser of the battle losing points, and players being eliminated when they've lost 100 points. So, too, in the current genre king, Riot Games's Teamfight Tactics (TFT), and in other major games in the genre. Teamfight Tactics (TFT) (thread) Free, with cosmetics to buy. Genre king. I like to think that it outcompeted the two forks of Dota Autochess (Auto Chess by the original devs and Dota Underlords by Valve) due to its brilliant item system, in which you receive item components over the course of the match, and you're always choosing between combining what you have in order to become strong immediately or waiting for more components for more options. My other favorite mechanic not found in newer games is the gold you get for winning, and also for winning or losing in a streak. Every four months, a new set is released, replacing all of the classes and units in the game. (Old sets are gone forever.) Set 10, Remix Rumble, was released two days ago, on 2023-11-21.  Hearthstone Battlegrounds (HSBG) Free-to-play; on the character select screen at the start of the match, subscribers are offered four random choices instead of two. (Characters are intended to be balanced.) Presumably there's also cosmetics to buy. Game mode in Hearthstone. Digital card game engine instead of RTS engine. Each season has a unique mechanic.  Super Auto Pets Free-to-play; there's a free base set, and a couple other sets you can buy, and a (free) weekly set composed of some animals from each set; there's a subscription that lets you look at the previous turns of your most recent past opponent; and of course, there's cosmetics. A lighter-weight game. Originally launched with asynchronous Arena mode only, in which the drafting phase has no timer (you can even close the game and come back later), and when you click End turn, you battle a database record from the (presumably recent) past. Now has a more traditional 8-player Versus mode. My friend's review: Xom's friend posted:I'm a big fan of SAP. Played the weeklies a ton for over a month. I basically agree that it's about finding the OP pets, but I'm also shocked how much play improves throughout the week. It's a casual game but people take it very seriously and learn a ton over the week.  Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game (thread) Free-to-play, with cosmetics you can buy. Cards represent actions instead of units, with Slay-the-Spire-like combat mechanics. More emphasis on counterplay: counterpositioning and sideboarding. Less emphasis on flexible drafting: most but not all characters tend to commit to a build early; nonetheless, there's skill in what cards you play en route. English card text has been cleaned up a bit and is fine now, but cardnames are still low-quality. (For example, "Spring Course Tea" should really be "Cloud Springs Dao Tea" or just "Dao Tea".) Has non-trivial single-player, unlike other games in the genre; for details, see my game mode descriptions. I've been hard at work translating lots of guides.  Backpack Battles Early Access demo available for free. Planned Release Date: April 2024. Inventory Tetris. Arena-style matchmaking, like Super Auto Pets.  Mechabellum (thread) $14.99 Early Access. Will become free-to-play on release (previously estimated approx. May 2024). 1v1. No random shop; instead, you choose a starting package of two units and a perk, from several random packages offered, but afterward you can spend resources to unlock any unit in the game, like in RTS games. (You also get a choice from several random perks each round; unlike the starting packages, both players get the same set of choices for these.) An exciting new genre branch.  Despot's Game: Dystopian Battle Simulator $19.99 I'm not very familiar with this game. Anybody wanna chime in?  Honorable mention: Legion TD 2 $22.99. Timing Push: The Game. A remake of the second most popular WarCraft III custom map, after DotA. 2v2. (Or 4v4, but the main ladder is 2v2. As a chill and agreeable person, I had a fine time solo queueing, but maybe if I wanted to get really serious, I might want to find a regular teammate or two.) Aside from building your own tableau of defenders, you also choose attacking creeps for the enemy's tableau; it costs you to send more powerful creeps, but you make it back if they break the enemy's defense. You draft units once at the start of the match, and one more time whenever you choose to exercise the privilege; there's also a starting option to have a random shop every round instead of a drafted lineup. One of several games in its mini-genre, including StarCraft II custom maps nowadays.  Some single-player games also fit the description. The simplest of these, and the one I've played most, is Luck be a Landlord, with very satisfyingly short runs. Inspired by LBAL are Fhtagn Simulator, which looks similarly lightweight, and Crop Rotation, which adds a bunch of complexity, and Endgame of Devil. Outside of LBAL-likes, I'm especially impressed by the design of Tower Escape, but I just haven't had time to play it. There's also Tales & Tactics in Early Access, but all I can tell you about it is that it didn't run well on my Linux computer. Some roguelite drafting games are nearly autobattlers, but have the gall to make you click a few things during combat. Shall we call them... semiautobattlers? In this category are Astronarch and Vivid Knight. Then there's The Dungeon Beneath, which also gives you a hero unit to move once per turn or something like that. (To be honest, I had an idea for a LBAL-like of having a hero unit whose position you could freely swap with another unit, once per turn.) You can discuss these games in this thread or in the roguelikes thread, de facto also the roguelites thread. Xom fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jan 24, 2024 |
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Nov 24, 2023 02:49
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I never really connected with any of the OG autochess style stuff, so personally Mechabellum, Yi Xian, and Vivid Knight always felt like the best of class in the genre. If you point a gun towards my head I would say Mechabellum is the best of the three, there is an elegance to the design I feel is lacking in the other two. And as much as I love Yi Xian for being really unique there is like an entire school of cards I just never play. I honestly really like storybook brawl too despite the really generic art, but then the NFT poo poo and I dump the game like many others. e: I didn't like Tales and Tactics from what I played, I been more impressed with the demo for The Last Flame which is doing a similar thing. Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Nov 24, 2023 |
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Nov 24, 2023 03:31
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I'm going to namedrop Night of the Full Moon. It has four modes, the original two are card games but the third is an autobattler (which is ok) and the second is an autobattler/card game hybrid that I really enjoy. Functionally you, the player, count as a minion, and your cards are primarily buffs, or trigger minions to do different things, after which everything autobattles a round and the cycle continues.
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Nov 24, 2023 06:27
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I feel like I'm obligated to post in this thread since I wanted one to exist. Thanks for the writeup. As I said, I'm enjoying Super Auto Pets a lot, the weekly rotation lets you try all the fancy new pets without spending any money and the endgame meta being win with a lvl 3 version of every pet means just winning with the best combination isn't really the end goal for most people. It's also playable on your cellphone. TFT and Mechabellum really seem like they're on the more complicated side of the spectrum that I've never gotten into, though I should probably give those a try at some point.
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Nov 24, 2023 06:28
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Snooze Cruise posted:e: I didn't like Tales and Tactics from what I played, I been more impressed with the demo for The Last Flame which is doing a similar thing. i like both of them. last flame doesnt do the upgrade with multiple copies thing so it is fairly weird for this style of game. hoping it comes out soon. they are taking their time putting out the prologue and getting into early access. Mithross posted:I'm going to namedrop Night of the Full Moon. It has four modes, the original two are card games but the third is an autobattler (which is ok) and the second is an autobattler/card game hybrid that I really enjoy. Functionally you, the player, count as a minion, and your cards are primarily buffs, or trigger minions to do different things, after which everything autobattles a round and the cycle continues. this sounds kind of like hadean tactics.
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Nov 24, 2023 06:37
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WarpedLichen posted:TFT and Mechabellum really seem like they're on the more complicated side of the spectrum that I've never gotten into, though I should probably give those a try at some point. Mechabellum def has more going on than a lot of other games in the genre, but I personally found it pretty intuitive. Like units pretty much are good at what you would think they would be looking at them. The tutorial is also pretty good.
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Nov 24, 2023 06:41
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I really enjoyed Astronarch, anything to recommend along those lines? I could handle a bit more active interaction, as long as it's not twitch based. Looking for autobattler ideas in a roguelik/te, more than the other way around. Vivid Knight looks like a bit much tbh
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Nov 24, 2023 08:12
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SAP has become my phone game of choice, which sucks because the servers are down right now 
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Nov 24, 2023 13:37
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I for one really like Team & Tactics, it's a fun solo drafting autobattler. I think there is an async PvP mode in development. I loved playing Mechabellum's beta, but it was a bit too addictive so I didn't buy it in EA. How is Yi Xian's PVE? Is the multiplayer in real time or is it asynchronous?
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Nov 24, 2023 15:24
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Oops, the following sentence got lost among my drafts. I've edited it back in.Xom posted:Has non-trivial single-player, unlike other games in the genre; for details, see my game mode descriptions.
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Nov 24, 2023 19:03
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OK, I voicechatted my friend while he screenshared the duel mode in Yi Xian, and it was way more fun than grinding it alone, and also probably more fun than if he played the normal multiplayer.
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Nov 24, 2023 23:12
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Xom posted:OK, I voicechatted my friend while he screenshared the duel mode in Yi Xian, and it was way more fun than grinding it alone, and also probably more fun than if he played the normal multiplayer. What is duel mode? It sounds like some sort of play against people in real time mode?
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Nov 24, 2023 23:18
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Xom posted:Yi Xian's next rotating game mode is 1v1 Hold 'Em mode, with six community cards, three hand cards (and three exchanges), and one betting round. The player going second gets a Spring Course Tea. Redeal after each battle instead of keeping cards.
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Nov 24, 2023 23:23
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Ah, interesting, that sounds pretty cool to have a community pool of cards. Super Auto Pets has a Versus mode to play with people in real time, but playing 1v1s has gotten my wife really pissed at me. Things are really different when you don't have sandbag teams to play against so tempo plays were king.
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Nov 24, 2023 23:30
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Hey, gang! I am not sure if this is the right thread for what I'm looking for, but it sounds like it is. I really like games like that Dragon Quest Joker game where you ran around recruiting monsters and then let the monsters fight. Or the monster collecting thing in Dragon Quest 8. I liked how I didn't actually manage the fights, I sort of just managed the monsters and their stats/equipment/whatever. I am looking for a not-PVP game that is like that. What I'm describing sounds to me like an autobattler, but I think maybe it's not quite the same :|
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Nov 24, 2023 23:54
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I wasn't sure about scoping the thread to include what I think of as management games rather than drafting games. Some do have automated combat. I guess I will chat what opinions I have. Teamfight Manager has an interesting battle system that makes the ban/pick minigame meaningful. But the management layer is grindy and boring. Also it crashed and lost my save file that I'd played for 12 hours, and my refund request was denied. Some similar-looking games that Steam has recommended to me are Gladiator Guild Manager and Soul Academy, but I have yet to take a close look at them. As far as I've heard, Hero's Hour succeeds in being like HoMM except with semiautomatic battles. (There are still a number of actions you can take during combat.) It has pretty good AI, in case you don't want to play against human opponents. Anyway, to digress and talk about HoMM for a moment: Xom's friend posted:HoMM IMO has two parts, one I like and one I don't. Xom posted:Found myself once more thinking about the genre of Tower-of-the-Sorcerer-likes (Tactical Nexus, DROD RPG, Desktop Dungeons). Many of them are deterministic puzzles, and one feature of determinism is that it allows for unlimited undo. I didn't buy Hero's Hour (HoMM-like, not deterministic) because I thought I might enjoy being good at it, but I didn't want to take the time to learn the minutiae of what beats what. But recently I had the thought, what if I simulated being good at the game by just yoloing and then reloading whenever I made a bad move. Xom fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Nov 25, 2023 00:34
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Big astronarch fan over here
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Nov 25, 2023 03:27
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Souls Academy is more focus on the management side. I refunded despite liking management games because it wasn't doing anything interesting and bored me.
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Nov 26, 2023 20:39
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Captain Foo posted:Big astronarch fan over here Primarch is supposed to drop Q2 2024 according to steam, I hope it's as good
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Nov 26, 2023 21:08
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Thank you for this thread, I love Battlegrounds and I've been looking something similiar for a long time. From my side I know there is Starcraft 2 Tavern Battle, basically Battlegrounds but Starcraft and with micro.
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Nov 26, 2023 21:14
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Super Auto Pets is amazing, it's like the only thing I play on my phone. If I had another asynchronous multiplayer game where I could put it down and pick it back up right where I left off at literally any moment, I wouldn't need another game for a long time. I get bored of the weeklies halfway through, but I still play them even after finding the broken combinations of pets. Please no more Leech Camels after this week.
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Nov 26, 2023 22:40
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This weekly is also really good for Mantis combos. I wish I knew what to do with Axolotl - but it seems really bad without Turtle. Snapping Turtle's skewer just doesn't seem strong enough.
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Nov 26, 2023 23:20
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I've always assumed autobattlers would suck, but I've been playing the gundam one, UC Engage, purely f2p and there's something oddly fun about trying to puzzle out how to do harder content with lovely units.
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Nov 27, 2023 00:58
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WarpedLichen posted:This weekly is also really good for Mantis combos. Koala + Leech + Camel scaled better than anything this week. Actually, last week. This week just started and I don't know what to do yet, but I'm assuming I'll get some wins with a level 3 Hoopoe Bird with a 1-UP.
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Nov 27, 2023 02:01
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The new weekly seems weird, monkey as the best scaler always makes things off. I'm probably going to try to assemble Axolotl + Walrus and fail a couple times.
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Nov 27, 2023 04:29
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I would love to play a remade castle fight. Custom map from WC3. One of my favorite customs out of so many good ones.
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Nov 27, 2023 07:06
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Soooo how are Underlords and the original Dota Autochess anyway? Does the latter still get updates? I'm kind of interested in the more standard Teamfights genre but i cant stand Riots artstyle
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Nov 27, 2023 07:32
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Underlords made some radical changes, but I don't remember if it was before or after it stopped being popular. Things like giving each player a big hero unit in addition to the guys you buy and sell. It was a fine game before the changes. Apparently Auto Chess is still active...
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Nov 27, 2023 07:44
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Xom posted:Underlords made some radical changes, but I don't remember if it was before or after it stopped being popular. Things like giving each player a big hero unit in addition to the guys you buy and sell. It was a fine game before the changes. Apparently Auto Chess is still active... from the top negative review posted:if this game genre is first person shooter, human-knight role build is called a gay move. and THIS GAME HAVE TOO MUCH CURRENCY, YOU GREEDY DEV!!!! 
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Nov 27, 2023 10:32
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I was sure underlords was dead but apparently its still got ~1650 players. I really liked it, but they basically never changed what units were available and it got extremely stale.
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Nov 27, 2023 13:39
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Thank you for the thread. Love these types of games since the original autochess debuted. I've been top200 in HSBG a few times, played through Super Autopets in the early days, and am now on the hunt for Masters in Backpack Battles. Arranging your items in the most optimal way is such a satisfying feeling. I just wish there were more general strategy guides to make this Masters grind a bit smoother
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Nov 28, 2023 01:44
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Fuligin posted:Soooo how are Underlords and the original Dota Autochess anyway? Does the latter still get updates? I'm kind of interested in the more standard Teamfights genre but i cant stand Riots artstyle I actually thought the original Dota Autochess had the best looking level ups with the heroes getting armor and fancier cosmetics, very sad that just generic silver/gold names became the standard after that. Got my first win with the SAP weekly - saw a lot of monkey teams but it seemed you needed some kind of other scaler besides monkey to win at the end. Anybody got some good combos to play for this week?
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Nov 28, 2023 04:12
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Underlords was quite fun while it lasted; even adding the "manager" units was an interesting choice because you chose a few rounds in, and each had two abilities of which only one would be available that game. There were some interesting choices in trying whether you tried one that synergized well with what you were already doing or that filled a gap in your lineup. The problem was it just stopped getting updates for no clear reason; they used to cycle types of heroes every update but they just kind of dropped it and didn't set up any kind of cycle to keep things fresh. Being Valve I assume whoever was working on it got bored and decided to work on something else.
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Nov 29, 2023 16:52
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Video about making an autobattler prototype (by the creator of Fruit Ninja): I developed a multiplayer game all on my own
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Nov 29, 2023 22:28
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Despot's Game is... very dense even for this sort of number-percentage genre. You can have up to 20-some units, each uniquely equipped, effecting-each-other, and positioned. Hard to see how you mitigate the randomness but I've always sucked rear end at that anyhow.
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Nov 29, 2023 23:56
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Astronarch and Legion TD2 are the best games in this genre IMO. Legion TD2 is one of the best strategy games of all time, and I wish more people would put in the time to get a feel for it because it's the purest example I can name of a strategy game that is actually about your in-the-moment decision making and intuition as opposed to reading meta build guides or whatever. I've played 600+ hours of it and climbed to near the top of the casual ranks (was top 100 for a while) and I still feel like I haven't mastered it and learn something new every time. Its only downside is that it can take quite a while to click and until it does it can feel like you're just flailing around wildly. But by its nature it's very difficult to write some kind of kickstart guide to get people up to speed. Count me in as someone who's extremely excited for Primarch 
deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Nov 30, 2023 |
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Nov 30, 2023 00:01
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I love legion TD 2 but every time I take a break going back to it feels difficult because I've forgotten so many little things that are important to playing the game.
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Nov 30, 2023 12:41
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Yi Xian just announced it will go free-to-play on releasing out of Early Access in January! (I've updated the OP.) I quoted the announcement in full in the Yi Xian thread. I'm continuing to translate guides.
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Dec 1, 2023 23:31
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Despot's Game's story begins with Despotism 3k, in which an AI managed to get control of some fabrication equipment and cloning vats, and needs some help churning out a healthy colony of homemade clones. It's a fairly difficult plate spinner, and you'll probably want a list of event outcomes for quick lookup. Despot's Game is a winnowing system to battle harden a subset of these clones for a strike force to be sent out into the universe at a later time. The clones don't much appreciate ...any of this process. There's a lot of pop culture references(including loving Cuno!), but the framing is very well done as the attempted humor/internet personality of a callous AI who wants to be friends with whatever crawls out of the top of its murder maze. Also, tanks and eggheads are really hard to make work. Also also, try the challenge where you can't carry food to get a much better feel for how far you can get ...without it RubberBands Hurt fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 3, 2023 04:43
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I spent an entire day playing Backpack Battles. I like the drafting. I have mixed feelings about the part where you move stuff around trying to maximize your adjacency bonuses. But overall I like it enough that I think my search for a single-player time-killer is at an end? (This arena-style async multiplayer basically counts.)
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Dec 3, 2023 06:52
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