Sorry, you can also earn Gems in ranked which you use to unlock heroes which are something like $25 each currently. Which is so much money. I miss when you bought a game for a flat fee and played it as much as you wanted to.
I think it’s tough with card games because they come from a physical form of lootboxes. Being expensive is kind of baked into their lineage. Collecting cards is a big part of the fun, and if you made it very easy to do I think it’s hard to say whether people would enjoy them as much.
I don’t play any collectible card games anymore because I don’t want to pay for it anymore, but there is something very entertaining about the model even if it’s easy to argue it’s a scummy business model by today’s standards.
I haven’t looked into this game beyond your description, but it does sound like a pretty weird model. Do you also have to pay for cards on top of that?
I remember kind of disliking the arena system in hearthstone because I liked the game mode a lot, but as a casual player it was really hard to get to play it much. I guess they wanted to keep people from spending all their time there since you didn’t need to buy cards to play. I much preferred magic arena’s drafts where you pay an upfront cost but get to keep all the cards you played with. Much more accessible for casual players and more satisfying, too, since you always get something out of it.
I haven’t looked into this game beyond your description, but it does sound like a pretty weird model. Do you also have to pay for cards on top of that?
It’s not a card game, it’s an async autobattler. As long as all the characters are roughly balanced against each other, there’s nothing to be gained other than cosmetics (at the current state of the game).
It’s a shame that multiplayer games really struggle with paid models these days. It heavily cut into a player base if things aren’t free to play. That kind of forces all but the biggest releases to turn to other monetization models in order to keep the base game free.
I quite liked the concept a few years back when Apple and Google were talking about a Netflix-style subscription model for iOS/Android… a bit like Xbox Game Pass. The subscription would give you access to a bunch of games, and developers were paid royalties based on a mix of metrics like the game review score, number of downloads, average total time spent in game etc. It seemed like a good idea in that it aligned developers and players in the desire for genuinely good games, regardless of the game style or genre. It threw away the need for each game to find a way to monetize their players (which nearly always ends up in multiplayer endless cosmetic MTX nonsense).
Apple Arcade is still going and getting plenty of releases. I don’t know anyone buying it specifically but including it in Apple One (competitively priced subscription for most Apple services) means lots of people have access to it. Me and my partner use it a lot. It’s very nice knowing that those games won’t try to shove microtransactions down my throat.
I “beat” isaac on the Switch (one Dead God), then got it all again for the Steam Deck so I could have mods. Unsure if the mods themselves are tanking the performance, but I don’t really care. It’s up there as one of my favorite games. The creativity of the mod creators has kept me coming back to play custom characters and challenges.
The modding community really is insane. There are a couple of fan-made expansions like Fiend Folio that massively overhaul everything. I hope this update tries not to break mod support.
Oh yeah. Got that installed. Was fun because I hadn’t worked with Linux systems before, so finding the proper file locations was a little challenging for myself. Custom characters have post-its and I don’t get the big banner saying it was installed wrong. Even messed with performance settings the deck offers for each game and lowered those since, well, Isaac isn’t exactly the pinnacle of graphics. Even now, just custom characters, alt paths and their additional effects (rain drops, ash, etc) tanks my performance. Unless there’s some magic that I’m not seeing, I’ve tried what I know. It is a little annoying when games that have actual models, and a lot of them at once, don’t have issues at all (Deep Rock Galactic Survivor being a prime example).
@leonokarin
I feel like I've missed something with brotato. Isn't that another one of the platformers around the time of guacamelee and broforce, that kind of indie things?
I can’t help but question the accuracy of this list, since the Steam Deck doesn’t seem to log hours for games played in offline mode correctly. I easily have hundreds of hours unaccounted for. It will also add played time for hours spent in standby with a game running, but then wipe all of the hours played and in standby once I connect to the internet.
At least on PC if you play a game without internet connection the library update the achievements/hours played when you reconnect, is different when you log in the offline mode?
I recently put a dozen hours into Witcher 3 while using my steam deck on a couple long flights. I’m pretty sure it synced correctly when I finally got home and connected to wifi. Maybe it didn’t work at one time, but I’d be surprised if it still doesn’t.
Yeah I played Divinity Original Sin this weekend and my internet died Saturday, finished the game, when my internet got back on Monday steam saved my +15hr and the achievements but I also let my PC on and steam opened hoping for the best.
BoI is still one of the best feeling roguelites ever.
But it also very much suffers from the design philosophies of the 2010s. Because you are going to do one of:
Spend a LOT of brainpower memorizing all the upgrades and their synergies
Have a wiki open off to the side and reference it every few rooms
Just YOLO and feel like the entire game is RNG
Because there are way too many upgrades that end up being downgrades that can just kill a run completely unless you plan for them. And there is no good way to understand that in game.
This tracks, I almost exclusively play Balarto on my deck. A lot of those last almost a whole day on battery with how undemanding they are (and did you know you can undervolt games? I run a copy of Phantasy Star Online at 3w and it lasts 8 hours).
Nice. Its such small footprint game. Im tempted to get it for mobile/ other game console (portmaster?) just to keep going. Steam deck is great, but I need something smaller when I go out.
I agree. I wish we could get a deck mini at the very least. I miss my hacked PSP for that reason, it has a good size for emulation. A PSP sized PC would be insane.
It’s a cookie clicker type game that occasionally drops steam items that you can sell on the marketplace for real money. Most of the playtime comes from bots, not actual players, which is why it is so far up the charts
I like pixel games and/or great flow state. The SD has some of the best speakers on handhelds ive ever owned plus audio jack (wooo!). For flow games, ill often put them on and have an audiobook or podcast going at the same time.
Peglin, fun little peggle rouge-like. Its a good flow state game.
Coromon - Pokemon like game with excellent GBA vibes. Awesome pixel art, the coromon themselves look fantastic. Great little RPG.
Dave the Diver - I recently picket this up. Ive been enjoying the game, again pixel art is great. I love that all the side charaters have these huge cutscenes but Dave is just…Dave.
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - If you liked Mario RPG or the paper mario series, this is a game for you.
Tetris® Effect: Connected - Tetris, but with trippy visuals/music. Great flow state game that you can play with your friends.
Cobalt Core - rouge-like, FTL like, space game. Has a good story, fun gameplay loop. Another flow state game for me.
bin.pol.social
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