MUDs. Text based (generally RPG) games with incredibly immersive story telling, near infinite levels of character customization, and many even feature ways for players to build on the world itself.
I’m surprised it’s not more popular amongst D&D enthusiasts.
In its hey day, people spent thousands of dollars just to boost their characters on massive for-profit MUDs like those created by Iron Realms. But smaller MUDs like Ancient Anguish were just as quality.
Sadly they’re going extinct. Only a few MUDs are still actively maintained.
I started reading Mort (Terry Pratchett) and it reminded me of the Discworld MUD I played with my friends in the 90s, on dial-up, all crowded around a single 13" CRT. I looked it up, and it’s still running!
Whoa that’s a nice piece of trivia. Did some googling and it definitely has roots in MUDs, but Andrew obviously had higher ambitions visually. That’s cool.
My son is 11 months, and if I didn’t have my steam deck I would probably not be gaming at all right now :) That instant off/resume is absolutely amazing.
I picked up a Switch thinking it would always be attracted to my TV. Maybe it was for a bit, but when my child came along the only way I used it was handheld and for spurts at a time.
That’s how I knew the Steam Deck was an instant buy for me - the pause/resume is key.
You should try playing Cattails which is basically exactly that. You play as a stray cat living a regular cat life. You can hunt, socialize with other cats (some are nice, some not), etc. No humans, just cats. The start of the game you get abandoned by humans I think?
They are all decent, and fun to play if they’re your jam, some are more pay-to-win than others, like Star Trek Online. Some are a bit on the older side, like Guild Wars 1 being from 2005 though.
“Photograph” by Nickelback was released on August 8, 2005. There’s a chance that someone listening to the radio while playing this game would gotten a moment of fitting dialog from Chad Kroeger when they arrived at this scene.
I’m definitely not proud that I let my autotomatic annual renewal go through in April. At least it was before the price increase, and now that I’m determined to not renew, I’m being a lot more stingy with my months.
It was recently increased to $15 USD. Though the Plucky Squire actually looks like a solid game published by Deveolver Digital. Looks like it has gone on sale for $15 before, so it’d basically be like buying that game. And you get Grapple Dog thrown in
Split Fiction is a master class in game design. The split screen is so integrated into the experience that even online multiplayer is in split screen. The screens are a part of the story.
The gameplay is constantly changing to the point that discovering new mechanics becomes the gameplay loop.
The level designs are so clever that you’ll have several moments that feel scripted but were actually just inevitable because of how we play games.
To give a snapshot of the experience: there was one scene where my character was driving a motorcycle along the sides of skyscrapers, doing the craziest stunts imaginable, and my wife’s character was sitting on the back frantically trying to solve a series of CAPTCHAs on her phone. She was so focused on keeping a steady hand that she barely noticed the death-defying stunts happening literally out of the corner of her eye.
By the end of it I was like, “Did you see that??” and it turns out she did not. It was absurd and hilarious, and it’s the kind of storytelling that only works in a video game.
My current obsession is UFO 50, which is a collection of 50 “retro” games. In real life they’re all new, but the story of the game is that they’re from a company from the 80s called UFOsoft, and then there’s a dark meta narrative hidden in the background.
Which is all just a framing device for 50 games, most of which are good, some of which are amazing, and half of which are couch co-op multiplayer. It’s like exploring the Switch’s retro NES collection for hidden gems, except there’s a lot more gems.
There are beat 'em ups, obscure sports games, some platformers, tactics games, a little bit of everything.
I’ve enlisted my wife to help me, because a lot of these games are just begging to be grinded out in co-op.
I got the game when I saw someone describe it as “a master class in game design”, and I thought, “that’s the phrase I’ve just been using to describe Split Fiction.”
And finally, I recommend Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, because that’s the multiplayer game I’ve been recommending for almost ten years.
You each play as adorable creatures in an adorable space ship that you customize as you go. The ship has several stations that need to be manned, including the captain’s seat, navigation, a directional shield, and multiple weapons.
But you each can only man one station at a time. So if you need to stay on the shield but a new enemy is approaching from the other side, then that means the captain is going to have to jump on a weapon and leave the ship adrift.
You may have arguments over which type of weapons to add to your ship or over who’s better at piloting which kind of engine. Or maybe you’ll work together in perfect harmony, relying on each other’s strengths and covering each other’s weaknesses as you adapt to every new challenge. Both ways are fun.
Big second for Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime. Purely co-op, very simple controls so even people who aren’t super into games can play, and a super cute aesthetic make it a great ‘We wanna play a game, but don’t want to sweat’ kinda game.
It’s insanely good. At some point I want to make a post just about UFO 50, just to spread the word, but I don’t even know where to start.
Fifty is just an insane number of games, and so many of them are so god damn good.
Even now I want to be like, Porgy would be worth the cost on its own! But then I’m like, should I say Porgy or Avianos? Or Mini and Max? Or Grimstone? No, Rail Heist! Fuck it, I’m just going to go back to playing the damn thing.
I want to be something else when I play games. I don’t understand this need to be the same thing I am every fucking day. Bring on other genders, sexes, races, species, colors, limbs, all of it. Let’s be different. It’s a fucking video game.
Looking at my game library, I seem to prefer blank slate player characters.
In Factorio, you play as a humanoid in a jumpsuit. In Satisfactory, you play as a humanoid in a jumpsuit. Infinifactory you play as a humanoid in a space suit. Antichamber you play as some being that can hold a gun-like tool. Buckshot Roulette you play as…something that can fire a shotgun. In all Half-Life and Portal games you play as a series of named but barely characterized people. Return of the Obra Dinn you play as an investigator, each time you start the game it randomly chooses a male or female voice for the player character. In Subnautica, you play as a stuffed wetsuit.
bin.pol.social
Ważne