Patient Gamers

Basically, your wishlist (and maybe other pages as well?) display the sale % using the wrong number. It makes it look like you're getting a better deal than you are. For example, this game I wishlisted is $43.95 AUD. But if I get it in the bundle, it's $41.81 AUD. That's a 4.8% discount. But the wishlist shows 42% discount of the whole bundle, not the actual game I wishlisted. I think that's misleading.

You could argue I'm getting extra games so it's a good deal; but I don't know that other game, I haven't researched it or wishlisted it. In some cases, I've had this happen to games that are in bundles where I already own the other games. At that point I'm just getting completely ripped off, because it says 75%, but it's actually 5%, without even any "bonus games" to justify it.

To avoid this, never buy from the wishlist or home page or any page that isn't the original full store listing. I always click into each game to see the original store page and ensure it's a real discount before buying. I'd recommend doing the same.

I noticed this years ago and submitted a support ticket and a Reddit post, but it never got fixed. I feel like it must be by design at this point. This is the first "anti consumer" practice I've seen Steam implement.

Roguelikes are infamous for their ruthlessness: instant deaths that could only be prevented with spoilers, early game hell gating most of the game for those who aren't able to learn all the intricacies of the system, many ways to permanently cripple your character in one wrong move, unbalanced classes / builds with no clear indication on what's a good choice for a beginner...

Some games like DCSS and Brogue see this as a fundamental flaw of the genre. Others lean into it instead, turning pain and (perceived) unfairness into a new masterpiece. That's Infra Arcana.

Let me predict your first run in IA:

• You open a door and meet face-to-face with a pack of wolves. They kill you easily.
• As you explore a wall collapses and a group of zombies appear. You either try to kill them and die or you try to run away and reach a dead-end. And if you somehow manage to get rid of all the zombies you end up being infected crippling your character for the rest of the run. Yeah.
• You meet a cultist with a shotgun. You make one step forward to them and they one-shot you.
• You confront a blind zealot and they maul you to death.
• You open a sarcophagus and a ghost saps your spirit in a few turns.
• You drink an unidentified potion and die.
• You try to cast a spell that removes all your spirit in one casting.

Even if you are well familiar with the genre you will find plenty of (deadly) surprises as you try to keep a character alive for more than a few floors.

Here's an example from my recent run:

I started as a rogue (focused on stealth) and opened a door in a room I spawned in. Immediately a wolf pack went inside started attacking me. I make a step back and a cultist with a shotgun appears!

I saved myself by tossing a Molotov cocktail but even then I already was one hit away from death. One of the wolves wasn't affected by the cocktail (the only way to include it in the "explosion" was by exposing myself to it too) so I had to fight it with my weak starting dagger. If I got a little bit more unlucky, that one wolf would have finished me off.

As you can see, the early game difficulty is somewhat offset by the amount of tools you start with. Every character (except ghouls) start with a melee weapon, a gun with some ammo, some explosives and throwing weapons. War veteran (the local fighter) starts with the best equipment overall while occultist (the local magic user) has the worst equipment. Since magic is very dangerous in IA and every occultist starts with only 2 spells, veteran is actually the most versatile character at the beginning unlike so many RPGs I know of.

Now, you might have a question: why would you want to play such a brutal and unforgiving game? Regardless of whether the game is actually unfair or just feels like that to a novice, it will still invoke the same feeling of a cheap death. Well, I cannot make you enjoy experience that just aren't for you but hear me out!

The game provides a formidable challenge but it's never impossible. From the very beginning you have the tools to confront the horrors of the cult: even the weakest starting gun deals a lot of damage, explosives can get rid of hoards of undead and starving canines, stealth is a powerful tool that's not punished at all (enemies grant no experience), spellcasting while dangerous is open to all who amass some spirit points, throwing weapons are a cheap and quiet way to damage enemies from afar, statues and braziers can be kicked on your foes to get rid of them wasting no resources.

Infra Arcana is a game that's very satisfying to conquer. And, no matter how harsh it looks at the beginning, it wants you to succeed.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game. But I'm not sure it deserves all the hype it got last year.

It does some very clever stuff in terms of gameplay, with each character having their own unique battle system that synergise with the others.

And yes, the soundtrack is incredible.

In terms of the story, whilst it was interesting, the way the game drip-feeds you knowledge in the first two acts quickly became frustrating. There were multiple cutscenes where characters speak in such a vague, superficially poetic way. In reality it just felt pretentious.

Major story spoilers:

Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion but I found the game aesthetically quite ugly. Many landscapes had a feeling of copy pasted Unreal assets that looked so same-y at points they became confusing to navigate (especially given the lack of a mini-map). The characters had these blank, uncanny stares half the time and the designs for some of them (Esquie in particular) just didn't look good to me.

Oh and I'm really not sure why the devs decided to add entirely unnecessary platforming elements!

I found certain enemy attacks to be inconsistent and not well telegraphed, leading to some frustrating encounters were you had to memorise the parry timings rather than learn them from a valid cue.

I think the game deserves good reviews, but I'm not quite sure how it won so many GOTY awards. Perhaps it just wasn't the game for me.

(DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup)

It started as a goofy suicide performed by Edmund the dumbass who turned my ice beast into a fucking dragon.

And then suddenly the dragon is against ME and Blorkula appears out of nowhere with a wand of charming. Imagine a more epic appearance.

On an unrelated note, now I have two wands.

Monster Hunter Dos is the JP-exclusive sequel to Capcom's 2004 debut title Monster Hunter. The franchise had a niche set of fans, enough to keep it going, that is until 4 Ultimate and eventually Monster Hunter World propelled it into mainstream status. But as a veteran of the series who started with 3U, I wanted to take a look back on the PS2 iterations of Monster Hunter.

Monster Hunter Dos has you acting the role of a small-town hero, who arrives in the humble village of Jumbo. The chief is thankful for your services and sends you on simple gathering missions to get your bearings in the nearby jungle. The first thing any long-time Monster Hunter fan will notice about Dos is exactly the creatures they didn't notice before. Small monsters are highly aggressive, able to stagger you constantly, and deal large amounts of damage quickly. A single hit from a crab under the sand will take a third to half your health bar, wasting precious healing potions.

At all turns, Dos rejects convenience in favor of hard work. Gathering spots are not marked, leaving you as the hunter to gauge whether a small plant is decoration or a valuable commodity. No automated farming means every single resource you gather is due to you pressing the circle button on a gathering point during a quest. It's brutal. You start with no money, no armor, and only a Sword & Shield. Quests cost money, armor costs even more money, and don't even think about upgrade costs. Need mega potions? Not if it's cold season, you'll need to wait roughly 5 hours for Warm season to gather honey again. Seasons introduce variety, but also lock off quests, zones, and specific materials to gather. In order to change seasons immediately, you need to pay more than 8x the cost of the simple gathering quest you start with.

But here's where it changes.

You learn. You grow. With every hunt you understand how to manage the attacks of small monsters. You learn the rotation of the seasons, understanding when to gather what resources. You accept this inconvenience not because it's inherently fun, but because the lows can make the highs all that much sweeter. Perhaps you go online, learning the strengths of working in a group. Fellow hunters lift you up, helping guide and hone your abilities.

And with you, Jumbo grows in kind. The village expands, paying you back for the favors you performed for its residents. The once-small village becomes something more, a thriving community and a home away from home.

I used to play quite a few of them in the ps1/ps2 era, but sort of dropped out after Resident Evil 4.

Now I've picked up Resident Evil 7 and it's clear I'm about at endgame, and I've been enjoying it pretty well.

So aside from other RE games (I have Village ready to install when I finish 7), what are some more good ones from say the last 10 years-ish?

I find the superscience bullshit of RE is usually easier to follow than supernatural survival horror games, I prefer to have some combat and not be purely hiding like I think it's Amnesia? And I enjoy RE7's shift to first person. Tank controls are hard for me to go back to.

Beguiling: ability that forces a creature to become the caster's companion;
Siphon Vim: transfers health from a creature to the caster for several turns.

I got attacked by the puma and tried to fight back with Siphon Vim but quickly realized I'm not gonna win so I tried to beguile it and sure enough it worked.

But then it just kept losing health until it died :c

Back in the NES days games that were localized for American audience heavily censored any overt Judaeo-Christian imagery or reference to death. Churches no longer featured crosses, the Death spell was renamed to "RUB", and the Kill spell was renamed to "XXXX".

UFO 50 games notably don't really touch upon Christian stuff at all. Except one game - Grimstone. It's a very Final Fantasy-like JRPG set in Wild West except the continent somehow ended up in Hell itself. The local religion is very Christian-like with angels and holy water and and and BIGGAN!!

Interestingly, Grimstone shares its setting with two other UFO 50 cartridges - Devilition and Rail Heist but neither game feature that much religious references except for demons in the former.

Now, it can be just a coincidence but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.

I recently completed my first playthrough of P5R.

I think it's the peak of the series. Gameplay-wise, the dungeons are really expressive compared to Persona 3's Tartarus. The puzzles are not dated like the ones in Persona 4.

What really sets it apart from the other two games though is the theme and the setting. I think where a lot of games tend to suffer is how disconnected they are to reality and their fictitious worlds are self-contained.

The game is 10 years old already. It's sad to see the state of the world today. In democratic countries, why do we still fall for the false promises of Shidos and Yaldabaoths?

I know Persona 5 is not the first to deliver its message but that only makes it even more concerning. I can really feel the pessimism of some older artists and media professionals when they say their work has no influence in this world.

It can be quite depressing sometimes. But I guess that can also be the sin of sloth...

That said, I'm interested in what Metaphor is about and what sentiments about the world it expresses.

CoQ's main quest inevitably forces you to delve into Golgotha (ancient sewers or something like that) to retrieve a broken robot. Black slimes dwell there and they will likely afflict you with "stiff legs". And then after some time your movement speed will start decreasing while your armor will increase.

That kinda sucks. Ironshank maxes out at -80 movement speed penalty - 5 times lower than the default movement speed! Armor bonus is nice but not being able to run away from overwhelming threats is WAY too big of a penalty.

So, after my character contracted the disease, I tried talking to all sorts of NPCs in hope that some will provide a clue. None did. No one at all even mention it. It got on my nerves so I checked the wiki. Aaand there's a book named "Corpus Choliys" that one NPC sells that contains instructions for curing diseases.

....How on Earth should a first-time player know this?.. How do you figure this shit out without looking up a solution? Whatever! I know what to do now! I bought the book and read the page dedicated to Ironshank.

Once the disease is fully blown and the patient begins to lose mobility, gel (made from desalinated amoeba slime) is the only effective treatment I've discovered. The patient should be administered a draught composed of one dram of gel and one dram of wine[1] every day until the leg joints regain their full range of motion.

[1] The game randomly chooses what liquid you need to use. I got the rarest and most expensive one :)

"Gel made from desalinated amoeba slime." Wh- what? I know about amoeba slimes of course, I fought dozens of them at this point, but what does "desalinated" mean in this game? I've never seen a single mention of this in any dialogue or items' description. Not knowing what to do again I looked it up online.

When a desalination pellet is applied to a container of liquid, or thrown into a pool of liquid on the ground, it removes up to 200 drams of salt, leaving behind the remaining liquid.

Interesting. So the game has this item. And one of the NPCs I've met already have these at sale! So, it is my fault in the end? It was me who wasn't paying attention?

No. The mentioned NPC did NOT have desalination pellets on sale. Bottles, liquids and some unidentified artifacts - but nothing with 'pellet' in their name.

I went to Six Days Stilt to see another trader who should sell it. No luck again. Frustrated, I checked the subreddit. And, well...

Bottles, liquids and some unidentified artifacts - but nothing with 'pellet' in their name.

There were indeed these pellets on sale. It's just that the game hid them from me. To make sure I have no hint whatsoever on how to apply the instruction the game so fiendishly hidden away.

Maybe I should read on the ascension kit next while I'm at it hm?

Related to a post I made last year, but a little different because (1) you get to choose 10 now instead of 5, and (2) other games don’t get deleted, you just aren’t able to play them, so you don’t need to think about the good of humanity or anything, purely just selfish picks because it only impacts you.

A couple notes:

• Any equipment necessary to play the games, you’re obviously allowed to have
• You can play any DLC for the games you choose
• You’re not allowed to make any games for you to play. If you make video games, either as a career or hobby, only other people are allowed to play them
• Mods are allowed, but you’re not allowed to make any for you to play. You can try to commission someone else to make them for you, though
• If there was historically a trilogy, for example, that now is sold on a major storefront (Steam, Xbox, PlayStation) as a single game (such as Mass Effect or Hitman) that counts as one game now. Game bundles, though, do not count. Basically, if it’s in one entry in your steam/xbox/ps library, it’s one game

I’m interested to see what this community chooses, and hopefully it’s different enough from my old post to warrant some good discussion here.

Modern takes on old games are some of my favorite indies and this blog post explains the appeal really well. Lunacid is kind of like King's Field and Shadow Tower but in the end the developer is KIRA, not From Software, so the game will feel different no matter how close to the original formula it is.

I'm gotta admit: I love vampires. Not as a friendly neighbor who drinks ethically sourced blood but as an evil monster who hunts for humans' blood and turns into bat/fog/wolf at will.

(If you don't want to read about Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, skip to the next section.)

My first experience with vampire as a playable character in a roguelike was Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. Vampire in DCSS was interesting if a little bit weird: the removal of hunger from the game made the devs change the way Vampire's gimmick works causing its own issues (why would I ever change to the inferior Bloodless form?) while another species, Vine Stalker, excel at the rapid healing in melee much more than the archetypal bloodsuckers.

Nonetheless, I loved playing Vampires. Despite everything, they were species with no equipment restrictions and no stat penalties. While being primarily focused on stabbing, they were also really at swordfighting and several magical schools (Necromancy, Hexes, Ice magic) making them a good choice for hybrids.

Now, objectively speaking, the species that replaced Vampires, Poltergeists, are much better designed: them gaining a boost to defense for every status effect they inflict on an enemy creates so many useful and unique synergies making normally 'decent' spells like Cause Fear truly shine, while the ability to "haunt" (= equip) multiple gloves/boots/hats is just hilarious while also pleasantly different from the way other species go about their armor.

Despite this, I didn't play Poltergeists nearly as much as Vampires back when they still existed. It might be that I just dislike that Poltergeist has a health penalty and is generally less tanky compared to Vampires, and that I stopped playing stabbers as I became a better player (stabbers' endgame sucks) but I believe the species' flavor plays a big role here too. I just don't care about ghosts that much.

So, do I miss being able to play as Vampires? Nah. Because...

Golden Krone Hotel. A roguelike that fixed so, so many problems I have with the genre. Runs taking hours to win. Boring, uninspired hunger systems. Lack of control over my character's development (this targets one game in particular). Extremely inconvenient saving system (again, one game). Awful UI from hell (old roguelikes).

The game is centered on a journey of a human afflicted with vampirism whose goal is to reach the top floor of the hotel and to beat the shit out of its' owner. Who's the human we're playing as, the owner of the hotel and the relations between humans and vampires in this world - all these questions are answered in lore bits here and there, sometimes told through dialogues. Yes, you heard me right, a traditional roguelike with dialogues!

You need to ascend ten floors - but it doesn't mean that the game is just 10 floor and nothing as GKH borrows a concept of branches and runes from DCSS. And just like in DCSS, to get to the final area, you need to explore optional branches and gather at least three MacGuffins there, represented as rings. In defiance to Crawl, rings do give you mechanical bonuses increasing your stats and/or granting you resistances.

Vampirism in this game is a force to reckon with:

• As a human, you can use magic and weapons, regain health over time but you have to deal with hunger and vampirism that slowly gets you. The only way to become a human after turning vampire is to drink a soul elixir.
• As a vampire, you are naturally strong but cannot use weapons, you cannot use magic but can learn vampiric powers by drinking demons' blood, you lose health naturally but you can heal up by drinking blood of the living. You don't need normal food but you take damage from sunlight (which is a whole mechanic on its own!) and water, and you are weak to fire.

In addition to that, human and vampire NPCs recognize you and will attack you only if you aren't the same as them meaning the game has a two set of enemies that will attack at different times.

As usual for the genre, melee brutes are easiest to play. Vampiric form gives you more strength and blood spills around you victim so you can easily heal up during fight. Mages and rangers aren't so lucky as vampires can't use spells and the pistol leading to more resource management: now you need to assess you mana/bullets, food and soul elixirs! Despite this, Sage and Warper are two best classes in the game.

GKH improves on a lot of pain points of the genre:

• UI and controls are top-notch. Going from "I don't know anything about this game" to "I can do anything in a matter of seconds" takes like a minute or less. You can play with a controller. Fancy features like animations and the like can be disabled. It is very nice.
• Visual style is pretty good. I never had a problem distinguishing between two similar but different enemy types. The entire Line of Sight is visible at all times and UI doesn't cover parts of it. The map takes a bit of time to familiar yourself with... but that's like the only problem.
• Resource management is involved and interesting. It's not just braindead "press 'e' to eat when the bar is low". If you notice you struggle with food, you go Vampire. For mages, that's a big drawback and it might force you into another playstyle if you're particularly unlucky. Human-only challenge run is very heavy on resource management.
• Item identification is the best I've seen in the whole genre. The developer has a blog post about it that I really recommend to read if you're interested.
• The way floors increase in size as you go further. The floor 1 is a tiny level with a few rooms. The floor 9 is a huge level filled with very dangerous enemies of all types. Later levels are so big that I sometimes just don't clear them completely. And that's cool, I like it!
• Roguelite-inspired run length. In a community that considers DCSS to be a short game GKH's runs taking under an hour from start to finish is a godsend.

Of course, the game isn't perfect and I have some issues with it. Classes aren't that different from each other. Some branches are too gimmicky for my liking. Plenty of questionable spells. Sunlight mechanic makes being a vampire a bit annoying. In general, the game isn't as large and complex as I wanted it to be. But that's fine. It has its' own niche and it fits that niche so well!

I got the urge to play again, but the last update broke some of my mods. I'm just about done reinstalling all the visual and QOL mods I think I want on a fresh install, but can anyone recommend any that add quests, random events, or minor romances like the Rita and Bugbear ones?

Every time I use Steam's discovery queue or any "what to play next" site, I get bombarded with stuff from the last 6 months. I get it - that's what generates clicks and sales - but it's genuinely unhelpful for how most of us here actually want to play.

I've been quietly working on a tool to change that. The core idea - your taste doesn't have an expiration date, so recommendations shouldn't either. Something from 2011 that fits exactly what you're looking for should surface just as easily as a 2024 release.

It's early and rough around the edges, but I'm at the point where I want to validate whether this is even a problem worth solving for other people or just a me.

If a recommendation algorithm for games like this existed - smarter discovery that actually respects older games - would you use it?

What features would make it genuinely useful vs just another thing you try once and forget about? I want it to be the tool someone actually recommends to a friend, not just upvotes and forgets.

KLEI publisher sale.

EDIT: heck i assumed steam and gog would be the same price right now!!

Original below:

or perhaps i should be asking if it's worth it to wait on the sales?

a lifetime ago, played Morrowind and oblivion for countless hours and have always wondered why i haven't gotten into Skyrim yet! apparently it's so i could share this experience with the wife!

I have had a copy of Skyrim forever now, and she is enjoying life as a khajit!

a far cry from sharing the OG xbox controller (the Duke!) with my little bro, this time around I'm interested in the Multiplayer mod so we could run through all this together.

if it was 15 or 20 bucks on steam I'd go without avacado toast and grab another copy, (/s) but it's currently at $40 and i just don't have the budget to justify that right now. (especially not knowing if the multiplayer works well and stuff.)

i didn't know if there was a secret humble bundle or similar

or like, y'all know that it'll be 12.99 on arbor day

or someone accidentally has extra copies of Skyrim special edition keys they keep tripping over on the way to the bathroom,

does the mod work well?

Thanks in advance, happy gaming!

I mean, I guess I shouldn't say "surprisingly" because that's sort of an insult to all the positive reviews it has. But still, I was hesitant based on the trailers making it look like it's too repetitive and simple relative to FTL and Slay the Spire.

It's pretty satisfying to have modules that chain with each other in generating more and more energy after you've spent your last cell. It's really cool to see an enemy set to annihilate you even when you're at max health, only for you to cleverly manipulate your energy numbers and generate more to turn the tide all the way to even striking them instead. It feels like a "slower" Cobalt Core (even though they're both turn-based).