Wait until they are 12 (-ish) and they decide you are uncool
Otherwise, you’re doing what I ended up doing. There was a long span that, I just… never played games because I was too busy. I regret that a bit because it’s a thing that makes me happy and even if I’m “Dad”, I’m still a person that deserves some time for “me”.
This more or less. My wife games too. We went through periods where we probably gamed too much and had to correct that behavior (house was becoming a mess and kids ignored school too much)
For us it put a decent amount of pressure on our marriage for a while until we admitted that gaming needed to take a backseat to life in general. Its hard. I grew up with gaming and both my wife and I were 8+ hours a day of MMO before kids. But life demanded we become adults for a while and be responsible.
My kids are finally on the older side where their demands on my time is lower. I still don’t game much before dinner and most house chores are done. I try to game with them a bit after dinner and then I get about 1.5 to 2 hours to play a few League of Legends games (yes, I know i hate myself) if I don’t want to ruin my sleep.
Battlebit has replaced Mordhau (for now) as my brainless relaxation game. The FPS mechanics are surprisingly solid and it’s just good, chaotic fun. I do think the netcode feels a little last-gen, but you’re not playing this game to be a CS:GO master.
It looks pretty fun! I’ll look more into it but I l’ll probably buy it! My main problem is that I read somewhere that they are planning to use faceit and I use linux and as far as I now faceit doesn’t work on linux.
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 only finished it for the first time this year, after about 20 years of giving it a go, getting part way through, then forgetting about it. ADHD is evil. Still, it was fun, there were no long boring parts, nothing was grinding or luck based, and it felt really tight as an experience. Very well thought out, honestly I would consider it a masterpiece.
Honestly, I’m absolutely happy with my Steam Deck, I think it ticks most of your boxes (it even runs Linux, so it’s essentially a portable Linux computer designed for gaming), so I think it’s the better option that you’re looking gor. To your points specifically:
it’s really geared towards family/party gaming
There are plenty of party games on Steam.
it’s Nintendo, so you get the whole usual games (Mario Kart, Zelda, etc.)
This is the only reason to get a switch, if you want a Nintendo console and Nintendo games this is the way. Everyone who gets a switch understand this is the reason they’re getting it. If this is as strong a point to you that it makes you overlook everything else, then get the switch.
like most consoles, it’s plug and play and can be enjoyed in the living room (I kind of gave up trying to set up a proper gaming experience with my Linux PCs, given that I don’t have the hardware for it)
Steam Deck also has a Dock that you can plug to your TV, you’ll need controllers but even so it should be much cheaper in the long run since games are extremely affordable compared to Nintendo.
the battery life is not great to say the least (2.5 hours takes me back of the Game Gear in early 90s!)
Haven’t seen many benchmarks of the switch to be honest, but that does sound bad, the Deck only gets that bad battery life if you’re playing Cyberpunk or something, for more casual games it can get upwards of 6h. Plus you can get power banks that fast large it while playing, which I assume is also possible on the switch although the switch 1 used to have some issues with power banks.
the screen seems to be pretty bad too (at least it’s a step back from the OLED one of the Switch)
All but the cheapest Deck models now use a 90Hz OLED panel
the joycons are still not using a Hall effect sensor, meaning they might still be prone to drifting
While the Deck’s default sticks are not hall effect, they are easily replaceable and Valve sells hall effect replacements on ifixit, so if you ever get drift in your sticks it’s fixable.
most of the games will not be sold as proper cartridges but as download codes
If you’re going down this rote Steam sells download codes for much cheaper
the whole thing (console, additional gamepads, games) is quite pricey
The Deck is about the same price, but like I said you’ll end up saving in games since you start with your whole Steam Library and can get more games much cheaper.
it’s Nintendo, famous for their anti-everything (anti-homebrew, anti-emulation, anti-piracy)
The Deck is by far the most open console you can get, you can even replace the entire OS if you want to, but StramOS is great and you shouldn’t need to.
Obviously I’m not OP, but I took them to mean content that might be considered superfluous or otherwise not as meaningful to the overarching narrative in and of itself
Spiritfarer is awesome and I also recommend it, but I think I would concede there’s some “grinding” aspects. You’re going to be going out of your way to collect certain things.
played this game when it came out and definitely remember the mission but I'm not following the explanation, would you mind pointing out where the elevator is?
The elevators are the big vertical shafts. You start on the left area and take the leftmost elevator (the shaft connected to the gray exterior model, labeled A) down, then walk around that area until you get to the second shaft B. That shaft is the surprise one and brings you down to the lowest level. The third shaft, C, falls apart when you try to use it, and you escape via the fourth one, D, that connects to another gray exterior model and the second (lower) exterior section.
I love big picture mode for my use case - my living room PC boots it automatically for couch gaming with a controller. That being said, the button to launch it from the steam desktop client is very poorly positioned and I also understand the complaints about the Xbox button causing it to launch.
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