toxicitizen

Really tempted to get that one for Crossworlds. And I've wanted to try the Men of War games for a while.

Ah, that makes sense. I spent most of my time jumping around so I didn't really think that one would be useful there. Also, thank god, I unlocked a "skill" that lets me re-randomize the children. I was getting to a point where I wished I hadn't unlocked a few of the classes. When the choices are Archmage, Archmage and Spelunky it just kinda makes me want to kill myself right away. Anyway, spent some time grinding yesterday and today, I should probably give the boss another shot soon.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/01/an-outsider-what-is-xcom-enemy-within/ Please, please be an expansion. Or a sequel. Hell, even DLC works as long as it's more than just a bunch of story missions!

Extra knockback? My first instinct was to put on lifesteal gear because of the amount of enemies you're fighting but that turned out to not work too well. You make a good point about the mages, though. I kept trying to go for them and would get hit by the slimes jumping all over the damn place. I'll try ignoring the mages next time I make it there.

Holy shit, you weren't kidding. I used the architect earlier until I could make it to the fourth boss, just to see what it was and how much I needed to grind (the Land of Darkness has been kicking my ass pretty hard). I can deal it decent damage but goddamn I do not have the skills to deal with all that shit. So far I've been favoring a more tank-y play style where I go for high HP classes because I tend to play rather recklessly. I really don't think that approach is going to cut it here...

If there's one thing you definitely cannot say about the Souls game, it's that they are unfair. As long as you're not careless and actually learn from your mistakes, you shouldn't have any problems. On a semi-related note, I've been playing Rogue Legacy and enjoying it a lot. I read an interview with the devs where they said their intention was to basically make a 2D version of Dark Souls. I think they mostly succeeded. It's actually making me want to get back into Dark Souls proper once I'm done with it. I barely scratched its surface when it came out on PS3.

Last night, I made my friends suffer through two cinematic masterpieces. First, we watched Manborg. Words cannot do this one justice. I mean, just look at it! It was very wise of whoever made it to keep it only an hour long, though, because it walked a fine line between unpleasant and hilarious. It's possible that, after Manborg, our expectations were simply at an all-time low. But we watched Hobo With A Shotgun next and we all thought it was fucking amazing. Seriously, this one is legitimately good. Exploitation at its finest. Even after the credits rolled, it managed to give us one last laugh. Though I guess you would have to have been a fan of The Raccoons to get that one.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can do that anymore. At least, the last few times I tried, I got a "you have no compatible product this voucher can be used on" kinda message.

Is that the novel with the really weird format? Like, footnotes all over the place and weird page layouts? I've been meaning to check it out for the longest time. I just keep forgetting about it.

Yeah, I also feel like that's similar to what Eternal Darkness was going for. There's probably some obscure indie titles that are a lot like that, too. But yeah, it's a very interesting idea. I just think you have to strike a good balance where being weird isn't the only thing the game has going for it. Otherwise, I think it might get old pretty fast. So it might be a bit of a challenge to design an entire game around the idea. Could be why it's mostly relegated to being a single level or section. Like the ending of MGS2 or that Scarecrow bit in Arkham Asylum where the game makes you think it just glitched. Lol. That's awesome.

Grabbed this last night. Already close to 5 hours in, just beat the first boss this afternoon. This game is pretty fucking good! I feel like I'm terrible at it, though. I'm already around level 40 and only just starting to explore the forest. I've been watching Northernlion's videos on the game and he beat the first boss at a much lower level than I did. So far, the only trait I absolutely hate is vertigo. I gave it a shot on my last run and I feel it doesn't make the game more challenging, it just makes it a hassle and sucks the fun right out of it. Plus, I think it actually gave me motion sickness. I had to stop playing and felt a bit off for a good 20 mins. So, yeah, I think I'll be staying the hell away from vertigo characters from now on.

Ah, that explains why I couldn't find it then. I only looked as far back as the beginning of the summer sale. Oh well, nevermind then.

While I was aware of the game and what it was, it wasn't really on my radar during the Steam sale. But once the sale ended, I came across some video from Northernlion's youtube channel and ended up watching a bit of his series on this and Spelunky. Thought it looked fucking amazing and suddenly I had to buy it. And before you ask FDS, yes, I got it from the Humble Store. Heard a funny thing about that, actually. Couldn't find a source when I looked on his website and twitter, but apparently during the summer sale Tom Francis asked people to stop buying Gunpoint directly from him and to buy it from Steam instead. Something about putting it in the top sellers ultimately being more beneficial to him. Obviously no longer an issue since the sale's over, but I thought it was kind of interesting considering the amount of Humble Store pimping that went on during the sale (and I don't just mean here).

Yeah, I figured it had to have been a bug of some kind. I've done it before and it was fine, but for some reason this time the forum kept auto-adding closing tags at the very end so my entire post kept getting turned into one gigantic quote.

No, I'm pretty confident about that part. The don't-quote-me bit was about them thinking of patching it in later. I remember reading something along those lines but I couldn't find a source to back it up when I searched for it. Perhaps they thought the checkpoints were good enough? In that case, delaying to add manual saves would be delaying the project to add something they felt was superfluous. Whether or not that was the right call is, of course, arguable. But to bring their entire operation into question as a result of that call seems a tad unreasonable For the record, I never called you entitled. And I did get the sense that you were enjoying the game. It's just the "Why are they even making games?!" bit that bugged me. Man, splitting that post into multiple quotes should not have been so much trouble. I think the forum hates me.

My post was nowhere near as funny as his, though.

Of course not. More often than not, it's how people disagree that I'll have a problem with. It's really more about their attitude than their opinion.

That's a lot of assumptions. I really doubt that they were incapable of implementing manual saves. I find it far more likely that they simply chose not to do so. Perhaps because they were already spread thin and it wasn't worth the extra hassle. If the checkpoint system was already in place and they felt it was adequate enough, then yeah, it kinda makes sense that they would prioritize shipping the game instead of adding a feature. When it comes to kickstarted projects especially, I find this kind of decisive cuts far preferable to the alternative. Would you have preferred they overshoot and delay or run out of money like Double Fine did? Honestly, I don't envy the guys behind these kickstarted projects one bit. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Didn't they say the checkpoints-only thing was because they lacked the resources to implement proper manual saves? Don't quote me on this, but I think I remember reading somewhere that they wanted to patch in a proper save system later down the line. Personally, it's not a deal breaker but I can easily see how it might cause play sessions to end abruptly. "I have to replay the last 30 minutes???! Fuck that!"

I've been digging into Don't Starve a bit more. I think I'm getting to a point where I've got the fundamentals down and can start focusing on more long-term goals. It's a really fun game but some aspects of it can get a bit tedious after a while. After almost dying to a night time spider attack, I started trying to build a wall around my camp only to realize that I actually needed an absolute shitload of wood to do that. So it was either chopping down trees endlessly or moving my entire camp to a less spider-infested area. Also, it can get really stressful when you're preparing to settle down for the night only to realize you're short a few things to make a fire. So you need to run off and find some ASAP otherwise it's dead o'clock. Fun times.

Jack initially made more of a general statement, though. He only used the Payday example once I replied to that first post. Also, Payday 2 isn't out yet, and difficulty can be a pretty subjective thing (and come in many different forms), so until it's actually out it's impossible to judge whether the change is anywhere near as drastic as that turn-based StarCraft comparison. I searched for that quote Jack talked about and it sounds like the guy was mostly referring to having RPG elements and not giving the player all the information. He also mentions Diablo II as being an influence and clearly talks about "pulling off that perfect heist without killing anybody", which really sounds like something that should be a challenge and not something you'd pull off on a first run. So I think it's possible Jack read a bit too much into that one quote. Like I said, comparing a game to Dark Souls has become this kind of ridiculous marketing thing so I can't really blame him for that. Also, I personally haven't played the original Payday but based on what I do know of it, it doesn't exactly seem like baby's first heist game, either. Have you even seen that secret vault thing? That shit was insane! Yes, it was optional. But it shows that the idea of challenge was in the dev's mind to begin with. And for the record, I'm sure people would complain like crazy (I wouldn't wish Blizzard's fanbase on my worst enemy), but a turn-based StarCraft sounds fucking awesome to me.