Maybe it's just me, but I think it was a mistake to describe it as GaaS. I understand how they're trying to use the term, but the fact they felt the need to clarify how they meant it should have been a clear enough sign the term is rather tainted.

Worse, it may make some people skeptical & suspect that they intend to change their tune down the line. Their track record notwithstanding, that's how some may be after having been burnt before with other experiences.

I think you forgot a link to the game itself! 😜

https://www.beyondallreason.info/

That aside, I've been giving it a look again lately but haven't dove in just yet. I'm in an odd mindset atm where I don't know if I'm down to wrap my head around RTS mechanics, but I'm really impressed by the looks of the game!

Also wanna highlight that this is a great rabbit hole to go down for other open source RTS games via Zero-K, Spring Engine, OpenRA, etc.

#VideoGames #Gaming #OpenSourceGames #BeyondAllReason

@LeylaaLovee When you play a long game (i.e. 60+ hours) all the way through, it's hard to tell how much of it was genuine enjoyment over some kind of weird sunk cost situation.

Kind of like watching a show that goes on for a ton of seasons. You get into a habit and despite inconsistent quality, you keep going back and you're not sure why, especially after the really bad parts.

It's why I understand *some* of the 100+ hour playtime negative reviews, & am skeptical of positive ones.

@showerthoughts Thank goodness the metaverse never took off, but still gotta be on guard against moves towards that BS.

Not to mention, sometimes they actively take away from the art direction. You can have a game that's clearly going for semi-realism and yet keeps damage numbers flying off like it's a comic strip, which doesn't fit whatsoever.

The strangest, funniest mixture are the games built off comic licenses that employ a semi-realistic style with damage numbers, when a better combination would be stylized so it would all fit better artistically.

These are solid suggestions for sure! I still need to get around to the rest of the Dishonored series past the first and finish Prey.

Immersive sims I think are pretty close to what I might be wanting, but they're unfortunately not that common, and some have RPG elements I don't find enjoyable. The Arkane games you mention pretty much avoid them last I checked though, and I dig'em for it

I think I may have it wishlisted, so I'm definitely trying to keep an eye on it. Waiting till it's fully released so I don't feel compelled to play it more like pseudo-QA and enjoy it less though

Thanks for the suggestion!

@JulesTheModest Er...How do you mean? The Galaxy app has its issues, but I've not run into this one.

Biggest issue I ran into was years back trying to point it to my existing directory of GOG games from before Galaxy to get it to recognize them without reinstalling them, but eventually I just decided to reinstall whenever I felt like playing them again (and uninstall from old location).

I haven't seen either of these mentioned yet, so you might look into Ponpu, and Light Fingers on the Switch.

Ponpu might be a little much, but Light Fingers may be a decent-ish pace, as it goes for something of a digital tabletop-like game design. They tend to go on sale around the holidays, so if you wait a little while you may snag'em on the cheap.

@Lowbird @Dee_Imaginarium On desktop you can be signed into different instances via different tabs, unless I'm misunderstanding you. Arguably a little clunky, but I do this with Mastodon to switch between a more moderated & focused instance, & a more general instance.

I imagine some may end up approaching Lemmy similarly now with Beehaw's decision (which I understand & honestly anticipated happening sooner).

@sugar_in_your_tea Tbh as someone that's felt similarly (even to the ARPG point somewhat), I'd suggest dropping the bulk of RPGs.

Adventure games (see Wadjet Eye's releases) & some visual novels provide plenty of story & striking art without the gameplay elements that you've found unappealing in RPGs.

This is coming from having tried multiple times over the years to give RPGs a fair shake. Some genres just don't click barring a few exceptions.

This is a great point (as well as others that have mentioned similar). I wonder if some of the old arena shooters from around then (or their open source offshoots) may handle just as well today, considering that.

I'll have to look into those that are still active and see! Thanks!

No worries on the wall of text! Also fwiw I'm familiar with RTS games, which is why I mentioned not being in the mindset for them currently. They're a lot to take in, even on a good day! 😅

Nevertheless, when I'm of the right mind for'em, I really enjoy'em. Building up outposts, assembling a bunch of units, and fending off enemies, it can be a bunch of fun!

Lately I've been more interested in peaceful builders/strategy games though. Still, BAR and the like remain really impressive!

Yeah sorry, I ran into limits from where I'm posting (Mastodon).

Some reference points might be like Outer Wilds (nice mix of story & interaction) and going back a bit, games like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Mega Man Legends.

Each have a certain sense of place and an enjoyable degree of interaction in terms of either roaming around or trying to figure out how to get around.

I have, a little, and have enjoyed those I've played, but I'm also fond of more visual art in games, so on the text heavy front I lean towards point and click adventures and visual novels more.

However like yourself, I tend to think I should play more of them, see what they experiment with and push boundaries on.

Btw you might check out The Trackless if you like interactive fiction. It mixes some light text parsing with a 3D adventure game, making for a unique experience.

@ItalianSkeletonGaming @games not sure how well alt text federates, so for those wondering the games in the image are Jump4 (top) and ParaPerspective (bottom)

Haven't gotten around to trying any demos yet personally, but ParaPerspective looks like my kinda game as someone that enjoyed Echochrome

Not OP, but I hadn't heard of Tempest Rising before! I'll have to keep an eye on that, thanks for mentioning it!

I agree, and strive to remain cognizant of how both game size and digital only games serve to widen the digital divide.

Appreciate your reply compelling me to elaborate, as without I see where it can read like, "why not redownload several 50+ GB games" which unfortunately is increasingly people's situation with games. 😟

Hey yeah, appreciate the detail in how you go about it! I'm kinda surprised by the responses saying they don't tend to write anything until further in and/or completion, but it's reassuring in a way, as that's been my approach too for some time.

I also dig that you try to engage with the "soul idea" as you call it of games. It resembles what I've read elsewhere of a reviewer trying to evaluate in part on whether a game achieved what it set out to do or not, which I thought was interesting.

Follow-up: what are some of the lesser known or niche games trapped on a hardware platform you'd like to see a good port of?

@games

Seriously, that game was a charming semi-parody of some RPG elements and aspects of classic Legend of Zelda.

One of my favorite parts was the character creator, such a smart integration of a voxel editor. It put me in the mind of RPG Maker's pixel art sprite editor with how it had you make a small voxel spritesheet for the character.

Thanks! I have them, but the scale of the pieces isn't similar, albeit the perspective is kinda close.

It sounds kinda familiar, but I don't know if I have or not. I'll have to look into it!

I'm also bookmarking Worlds Apart to check out later, so thanks for both suggestions!

Heya, I dig the walls of text sometimes! I also tend to bounce around a variety of games, so I like the idea of short notes about each. Until recently I was writing similar notes digitally as separate notepad files and littering them throughout my computer, but I've been trying to make a habit of using stuff like Zim or Joplin to keep them better organized. 😅

Also right there with you on covering weird jank and "subpar" games, so thanks for writing about them!

@Donjuanme Yeah, you're not wrong. The trick is, "games these days", which I enjoy a fair amount of, but I'm also interested in games from across time, so older titles as well.

Those are a little iffier to play given some lack the settings or options, and sometimes also any cheats. Do you happen to know of any sites/resources advising how to use emulators to sorta do that for older titles?

Alternatively may need to review which old titles I have that have cheats for that kinda thing...

Interesting approach, and I get it for those more involved or longer games, as some don't even have all their systems in play till awhile into the game (which is worth noting in itself!).

Thanks for your perspective!

Oh yeah, and here's to Outer Wilds! Absolutely a game for the ages!

How does some of the Warframe community reconcile that kind of narrative with its whole business model?

I'm aware it's generally considered among the "better ones", but it still is what it is, a freemium game that by necessity has to push its business model on you since it doesn't have an upfront cost.

I guess maybe it inadvertently adds to the atmosphere of being under the heel of capitalists?

Servers may be some of the issue, but the problem then is that a number of games, at least outside of MMOs, don't seem to give much of a choice on that. Presumably they're trying to connect to servers that should give a good experience, but... 🤷‍♀️

Regardless, the intent here isn't so much to troubleshoot networking issues, as it is to find games that may handle less reliable/rougher network situations decently, as much as is really possible anyway.

@popcar2 Looked over the other variations of this thread and didn't see Prospector mentioned: http://www.prospector.at/forum/about.php

It's a scifi roguelike where you lead a team of prospectors to try to recover valuables from across space to make enough money to retire.

Kind of in an odd spot source-wise, as the recent source code technically isn't open/available (last open releases were 10+ years ago), so it may no longer really fit, but seemed worth mentioning nevertheless.

Your initial claim remains false.

As indicated, digital game storefronts offered refunds explicitly prior to Steam, and it wasn't leading the way, especially given its policy was that all purchases were not refundable, up till 2015's changes.

Leading the way isn't making some exceptions to their policies occasionally, it's making refunds a part of the policies from the outset when others aren't.

@Kedly What? This is flat out untrue. Back in 2008 Stardock's attempt at a storefront via Impulse offered refunds: https://web.archive.org/web/20080708091849/http://tgnforums.stardock.com/315290

Later in 2013, EA of all companies would also offer refunds on their storefront, Origin: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/08/ea-begins-offering-refunds-for-its-digital-game-sales-on-origin/

And later that same year, GOG would offer refunds: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/gog-s-new-money-back-guarantee-is-more-about-trust-than-refunds

It was only a couple years after EA & GOG, in 2015, that Valve began offering refunds on Steam: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/valve-begins-offering-refunds-for-all-steam-games/

It's decent enough to consider it, I'll give you that.

Something worth adding, I think:

I mainly play smaller games (like ≤ 10 GB, often below 5 GB at that), with few bigger ones in the mix, which is why I even considered this method.

Also back when GOG Galaxy was being introduced, GOG had fewer big games, I think. If not then it's that I lean towards smaller and older games in general.

Right, as I mention though, from what I recall they didn't always have cheats, or necessarily the sort I might want like removing random battles for the games with them.

I use Steam, but I also go for games outside of Steam, which is what my message was indicating. I'm into first/third-person puzzle games, for sure.

Not much of a fan of Bethesda's style of RPGs (given you asked in another comment). They're too buggy/unstable in my experience, but also plainly RPGs.