Word of warning: systematically classifying video games is HARD. It’s a bit like classifying any form of creative media: music, cinema, visual arts, etc. It’s hit-or-miss. RPG forums routinely fall into that rut and the infamous corollary: [insert game here] is (or is not) an RPG.
If you’re dead set on this endeavour, I’d suggest identifying main features and tagging games with a number of them. Try and pick required ones if possible. Or don’t, because gate keeping sucks. If you know how to code, this is sort of the Composition over inheritance mindset.
I agree with this methodology, and it’s reminiscent of how traditional roguelikes are defined here. I’ve used a similar approach in my own endeavor of defining incremental games - define a canon, find the qualities they share, and indicate which ones seem most important to have.
Oh wow, I missed it early on! The Eternal Cylinder is good, but some occasionally clunky gameplay alongside the very unique alien designs might turn some people away. It crashed twice on me and once you figure out all the systems of play it can feel simple (although there’s a lot of complexity under the hood), so I could see some people giving up on it due to frustration or boredom - especially if the aliens or story don’t hook them.
I loved the environments and alien concept (plus the fun stress of the cylinders approaching) which kept me hooked. Plus it’s much more mechanically involved than Spore was. Spent about 13 hours with the game and left satisfied. If I had to numerically rate it, it’s maybe around 8/10?
I can recommend “Encased”. It’s a CRPG that’s heavily inspired by Fallout gameplay wise, but it’s modernized a lot (in a good way). It has its own unique story and setting which are amazing to explore
Congratulations! 1 more country to beat the threshold requirement (after the Netherlands whose threshold seems will be crossed imminently). France and Ireland seem like solid contenders.
Mildly interested. Concerned about monetization. I don’t do subscriptions or microtransactions, and “pay once and you’re good” is pretty rare, probably in part because there’s ongoing costs to running a server and in part because lol most people will charge as much as possible. But that’s why the only MMO I play is guild wars 2. You buy the game and you’re good. They sell expansions every couple of years.
Also you should mention lemmy on your site where you mention discord and reddit.
We don’t have an official community here (at least, not yet). And I’m quite hesitant to add one, as we already have our hands full with Discord, Reddit and WalkScape Portal communities.
When it comes to monetisation, the model we’ve planned is what seems both the fairest and most sustainable when compared to any other alternative, which is why I chose it as our plan. You can either buy it once to gain access to the offline “ironman” mode, or pay an affordable monthly subscription to play the online mode - both of which will be free to try out, so you’ll know if it’s worth your money before paying anything.
Going with single purchases only isn’t as sustainable for an online game. It’s much harder to keep it supported and expanding it long-term (and pay for servers) if we’re relying on single purchases, and it would tie us into needing to plan expansions that bring extra revenue to keep things running. By having an affordible subscription, we can keep content coming rapidly without needing to consider what kind of expansion pack and price tag do we need to put these new features behind, which I feel is much better from both game design and player perspective.
Microtransactions and ads are something I’ve clearly stated we’ll never be doing, as those also compromise game design and are predatory or come with privacy concerns.
I really like the thoughts put into the game. However, I personally think, that micro transactions aren’t necessarily a bad thing, if you do them right. As an example for this I would call Helldiver’s. You can pay to get faster progress, but it isn’t necessary by any means. You can unlock everything with a reasonable amount of grinding.
But this game is tied to fitness and also has competitive elements to it. Imagine you can buy yourself faster progress here, when it’s all tied to physical activity. It would completely ruin the game and any competitive aspects in it, and devalue the feeling of achieving things in it, if players with bigger wallets gain advantage. When there’s only an affordable subscription, there’s a ceiling to spending and no one can gain unfair advantage by paying more than others.
Microtransactions overall pretty much always compromise game design. Games usually make the grind or progress much slower than what would be actually good to drive the purchases of MTX.
I’m also personally very against MTX and ads, I think they’re the worst invention in gaming and I hate when game design is now revolving around what kind of mechanics can make people open their wallets as often as possible instead of what’s fun and cool.
I’m really glad to have found a fitness app made by someone with the exact same opinion as me on app monetization. I’ve been using the app since March and will happily pay for the subscription. I’m really happy to see this openness, and the fact that you still repeat this promise.
Thank you! The very first post I ever posted to r/WalkScape covers this and I promised that there will be no ads and no MTX, and we’re going to keep what we’ve promised. That’s also why I’ve turned down every investor and publisher, as those could compromise this by having a stake at the company.
I agree with your ideas on micro transactions here. They create a lot of temptations to make the base game worse. “Your inventory holds 12 items but for a very reasonable price you can hold 6 more!” may seem harmless but it also sucks. The game is objectively and arbitrarily worse without that transaction.
Purely cosmetic skins are a little better, but you end up taking advantage of people who buy more than they should.
Exactly my thoughts! I was just approached at Gamescom by somebody who was pitching me to put limits to the inventory in order to sell expanded inventory space. He said it’s cool, as it’s just selling “utility” to the player. I think it’s designing your game to be annoying so people would pay more for it, and I like to put game design over anything else. As a game developer, I’m proud of designing things well and would feel disgusted by intentionally designing crap just to make more money.
Also I think the best cosmetics in games are those you earn through gameplay, which is why all of the cosmetics (which there are a lot in WalkScape) are earned by putting hard work inside the game. And also the players are proud to put the rare cosmetics on their characters to flex that they’ve achieved something. I think that’s a lot more cool than just being able to pay real money for it.
Not to even talk about what you just mentioned here. All kinds of MTX, be it cosmetics only, really take advantage of people who can’t limit their spending. They’ll pay a lot more than they should and it encourages unhealthy spending habits.
But this game is tied to fitness and also has competitive elements to it. Imagine you can buy yourself faster progress here, when it’s all tied to physical activity. It would completely ruin the game and any competitive aspects in it
Okay, you got a point there. Can’t argue against this.
We’re planning that it’ll receive the same updates as the main game itself and all of the features (that work offline). Expansions to the game world might come at a small price so you can enter those, but other than those my current plan isn’t to restrict features, new skills or content additions to existing regions in any way in the offline version.
Also, offline version will include cloud saving so there’s no risk of losing your progress if the device is lost. It’ll cloud save when it has connection periodically while mostly keeping everything on a local save.
I hate stealth games and didn’t like the AC series until Origins started the “Witcher 3 wannabe” style of AC games. All 3 of the ones released so far (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) have been like crack for me - I can’t stop playing them until I’ve been to every icon on the map. If you like open world action RPGs and Ancient Egypt, you’ll probably like it. If you prefer stealth like the older AC games, though, you might not.
Megabyte Punch is a side scrolling fighting game where you build your robot with different parts salvaged from fought robots that give you different abilities and powerups.
It is a super fast, casual game that you can bang out in a few nights. It has a pretty good electronic soundtrack, boss fights feel weighty even if they are relatively simple.
One of my favorite games as far as just fun and de-stressing!
Cleaning the System is a platformer where you jump through levels as some kind of pogo stick. The movement is really fun and if you bounce well you can build up a lot of momentum, which lends itself to speedrunning.
There is also a free version of it from the GMTK game jam where it placed very well
Rouge like turn based dungeon crawler. Certainly not new by any means, but still a pretty decent little dungeon crawler. The art is cute and the game is pretty simple to pick up, which makes it perfect for more casual play. That said if you’re a completionist, it can get a bit repetitive, but nothing too hair-pulling. Probably not worth the full sticker price, but historic sales have knocked it down to $1.49, which is a nice balance between cheap and fun (took me about 28 hours to 100%).
Yeah, probably. There is a village building/ upgrading component, but it doesn’t have much of an impact on gameplay. It does get pretty tedious, especially if you’re well versed in strategy. I mostly just figured I’d throw it out as a more casual one-shot to pick up on the cheap.
I want a game in the Black Marsh. And I want it to be weird like Morrowind where I can kill anybody and become a god (from absolutely nothing).
Like, in Morrowind you’re literally not important. Even the Nerevarine hopefuls die and they just find another. Oblivion you’re given instructions (by the Emperor, IIRC). Skyrim you’re the Dragonborn pretty much immediately.
The Morrowind expansion for Elder Scrolls Online could have been the greatest thing ever, if they had just straight remade TES3 in the ESO engine, following the failed Neverine that literally existed in lore during the era ES was set in. Instead they just released an expansion set in morrowind with a story that had nothing to do with tes3’s storyline.
I really wanted to love ESO, and I'm delighted that they'e actually using the weirder lore sometimes, but it never felt like it rewarded my exploration. Like I never learned aything new about a place by finding stuff in it.
Ridge Racer - Namco have really done it dirty and would love to see it revived. Take it back to basics as a pure arcade racer without the Burnout nonsense.
Timesplitters - Just pleeeeaaase.
Alundra - It was a JRPG on PSX and nothing ever came after the second game. It had loads of potential.
SSX - I still love the stupidity of those early games. Would love to see a fun another snowboarding game that doesn’t take it self seriously.
In regards to SSX, after the success of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater remake, I am surprised that EA did not counter with a remake of SSX Tricky. I love how accessible the SSX controls are while still offering plenty of depth for people who want to optimize their runs. It is too bad that EA Sports seems to be focused on simulationist sports games (and live services).
I can across this a while back that might scratch some of the SSX itch for me - its an indy game that takes heavy inspiration from SSX. There’s a basic demo, it plays quite well on Steam Deck. Though I wasn’t a fan of the controls, so hoping the dev changes them or allows them to be changed.
I want to see an adaptation of Naked Lunch as a video game that starts out as a hard-boiled neo-noir detective game, becoming a surreal waking nightmare much like the book, and ending with becoming an endless randomly-generated flight from the cops as you evade pursuit for accidentally killing your wife during a game of William Tell.
I’ve got probably 9,000 hours on different variants of the Civ franchise over my lifetime, assuming I played Civ V and VI the same amount as the other four. I’ve got 1,600 hours in Factorio and probably the same amount in KSP.
My point being that some of us kinda do want the same shit over and over.
For me it was the themeing. Games like League of Legends try to come up with weird reasons why the games work the way they do and it feels silly. SMNC leaned into the goofiness. Instead of killing a dragon for gold you’d have to catch the Mascot. I wanna say you’d get stuff from brands to help you out but I can’t remember.
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