Mickey

Yeah I definitely felt that all the stuff I actually wanted to see were rushed and replaced instead with a ton of ads and generic looking game trailers. There were only a few trailers that were actually notable and for a 2h show that was super disappointing. The speeches getting rushed and a lot of them not even having time to go up was also very disrespectful to the devs. Just overall not great.

Man this is a ton of new stuff! Just when I think I’ve played enough Stardew there’s another update and I start all over again.

I believe he said it took place in the same universe at some point? So there will probably be overlap between them.

Somehow they managed to make the game look even stranger than the first one, which I didn’t think was possible. I remember trying to watch a playthrough of the first game and it was a bit too out there for my tastes already.

Take a look at Dredge! It’s a creepy horror-ish game where you play as a fishing boat. There are some creepy elements at night but it’s fairly causal overall. I really loved the atmosphere and light story elements as well as the fun fishing games that is the majority of the gameplay.

Ah I was hoping Dredge would have won one of the indie categories. Such a good game!

I’m so glad these will be another one! The first one was so great. I can’t wait to see what crazy things they think of for this one.

Interestingly I’d say Elden Ring is the most forgiving when it came to the “death penalty” you mention compared to all the other titles. There were far more rest points and things were so much more interconnected so you can stroll through/around most of the enemies to get back to where you died. Not always but a lot of times.

Also I found that really using your summons (especially mimic!) really helped with the difficulty. Also using magic makes life way easier. A lot of people just tend to go for the pure melee build which is making life really hard for yourself.

I played through The Forgotten City and really liked it! It’s a time looping puzzle game where you have to unravel the mystery of a strange city before every day it collapses into ruin. It really sucked me into the story and I could forgive a bit of the jankiness in the actual gameplay. The characters were all interesting and were very interconnected which made the whole thing feel quite alive. I didn’t love the ending (there are technically multiple but I managed to get the canon one on my play through), it was okay but a little out of nowhere, everything before that was good.

I really like watching ChristopherOdd and Gab Smolders. Odd plays a lot of tactical games and popular titles. Gab tends to do more indie and horror but also does some popular games on occasion.

The actual awards where they celebrate the games they are supposedly meant to celebrate. Some respect for the devs who poured all their time into making them instead of being rushed off the stage. And finally it would be nice for them to actually acknowledge the industries struggles this year and put a light on the fact that the gaming culture is kinda rotten and this is meant to counteract it, instead it seems to fall into the same hole.

I played through Far: Lone Sails and really enjoyed the light puzzle and management of the machine. It was super atmospheric and I really loved the game overall. It was a perfect casual game that really absorbed me into it. Going to play the sequel as well soon.

Totally agree with this. The first few hours were great but then when you get the broom and you see the huge open space that’s just really lacking. I really wish it never went to that scale.

It’s on sale right now on switch (which is where I played the first as well) but not on steam.

I haven’t played Outer Wilds but from what I know of it it should be similar. The Forgotten City is based on real world history though which was pretty interesting and it’s much more compact than what I’ve heard of Outer Wilds. It look me maybe ~7h to finish it fully, but can definitely be done faster too.

Honestly, Elden Ring. I kept a small notebook on the side to write down all the different bits I didn’t want to forget. Clues and quests and stuff like that. There were so many things if you pay attention and take care to try to piece together. It was really fun to come across something many hours later and then pull out the notebook to find my notes on it.

I did a int/dex build as well and loved it. I used the Demi Human Queens Staff and Moonveil Katana upgraded to the max, I may have switched the staff at some point but that took me very far. You should also look into the FP physik tears, especially the Cerulean Hidden Tear + Magic Shrouding Cracked Tear which makes it so easy to blast off some big spells for free and high damage. I especially recommend using it with the Comet Azur to wreck bosses right off the bat.