bin.pol.social

tal, (edited ) do games w Does a "SuperTuxKart Remastered" or similar exist?
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

I doubt it, seeing as it looks like it’s still being actively developed. I’d expect anyone who wanted to have higher resolution textures or whatever to just add an option for that to the main game.

EDIT: It does look like they have abut 500 “addon” tracks, and I suppose that some of those might have higher-resolution textures than the tracks in the base game.

online.supertuxkart.net

EDIT2: Also, it’s not SuperTuxKart, but you’re looking for more-realistic open source racing graphics and haven’t seen it, there’s TORCS. That might do what you want.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-vnkZyDghA

EDIT3: Also Speed Dreams:

speed-dreams.itch.io/speed-dreams

EDIT4: It doesn’t look like you can sort the add-on tracks on the website by size, but you can sort by upload date, and I’d assume that newer tracks are probably more likely to have higher-resolution textures.

B0NK3RS, do games w Best Co-Op Games?
@B0NK3RS@lemmy.world avatar

www.co-optimus.com

Castle CrashersIt Takes TwoContraGears of WarHalo****Untitled Goose Game

If you are going to emulate then go for the Sega Dreamcast!

Virtua TennisPower Stone 1&2Toy CommanderQuakeGauntlet LegendsSan Francisco Rush 2049ChuChu Rocket****Soul Calibur

SlartyBartFast,

Goose Game slaps honks

SnotFlickerman,
cerebralhawks, do gaming w Whine harder you assholes

What’s a straight character?

In Skyrim you can romance any of a wide variety of characters marked as “marriageable” in the game’s files. That really just means the voice actor was willing to record the marriage ceremony lines. Since voice actors were reused, if a voice actor recorded their lines, most if not all of their characters would be marriageable. To marry a character, you complete a task for them that makes them call you a friend (typically a quest they give you when you first meet them). You then wear an amulet of Mara (the game’s goddess of love) and speak to them. They ask if you fancy them, you say yes. They propose marriage, you go to the temple of Mara and be there the next day. During the ceremony you can say yes or no. And the game does not give two shits what your gender is. If you’re a male character, you can freely marry any marriageable male character, and vice versa for females. I play female characters because I like to look at them. I’d rather look at a female than a male. And I always marry Mjoll the Lioness because she’s trying to tear down the most fun guild in the game, so I move her out of town and make her a housewife. (Her quest is a lot of fun, too.)

In Fallout 4 you can romance maybe half a dozen characters? All of your companions who are not robotic or animal. One of the robots can be converted into an android you can hook up with. You can’t marry any of them, and you can romance all of them. None of them care what your gender is. Many have quests you have to do, but even beyond that, you have to push up their approval rating of you, by doing things they approve of (e.g. Matt Mercer’s character loves when you pick locks and steal) and by not doing things they don’t like (e.g. there’s a junkie girl who loves when you do drugs, until you cure her addiction, then she hates when you do drugs). Once they’re romanced, you can take them to any bed for a fade-to-black sex scene (neither heard nor seen).

In Cyberpunk 2077, there are four characters you can romance and hook up with, but no marriage. Each one has a genital preference and a voice preference. So you can absolutely be trans in the game. You choose a body type (fem or masc) and a voice type (fem or masc). Depending on your choice, you get 2 people you can romance. The other two will not reach the romance stage with you no matter what.

I guess the characters in GTA are straight? I don’t play bro shooters and such. Not my thing. Tomb Raider? Up in the air what Lara Croft prefers. You could take that either way. I love the Life is Strange games and those lean gay/lesbian. In the first one, Max can kiss both a girl and a guy, and it seems equal, but if you read her diary, she has no attraction to the guy, but she absolutely crushes on the girl. In the second one, the guy is absolutely gay, but the focus is on his little brother who is too young to have a sexual orientation (I think he’s 8?). It’s less obvious in the third one, but that girl definitely has lesbian vibes. And the fourth one is Max again.

DrivebyHaiku,

What you are describing is a concept of the mechanically bisexual. The options as given often allow players to choose in a sandbox game whether they experience the game as a completely non-queer experience or not. It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience which rep wise is considered a step better than when all romance options in games were mandatorily heterosexual but also kind of a cop out where player choice means all characters are often Shrodinger’s bi. If you want to experience say Skyrim as an almost entirely queer free experience - you can. Your choices flip that representation on and off like a lightswitch so if you have queerphobic tendencies the game doth not offend much. No one ever hits on you first.

Rep wise Gay characters are ones specifically ones where the queerness isn’t optional, it’s a part of the canon of the character. Straight characters often are so in fixed story narratives where they have hetero relationships and if they have brushes that look like same sex romance it’s played for laughs and treated as not really an option. Since culture still sort of assumes straightness as a default if the character only ever is coded romantically by the frame of the game to be attracted to the opposite sex they can be termed a “straight character” because as a player the game’s interfacing with that character’s sexuality is mandatory. An example is the Prince of Persia games or the Final Fantasy series which have a romantically coded opposite sex paramours that you don’t have an option not to interface with the character’s sexuallity.

This is way more common in older games and fixed story franchises.

cerebralhawks,

So outside of visual novels, are there good queer games where you get hit on first? I’m in if the story is good and the gameplay is engaging. I am straight but not narrow, and games are fictional.

By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.

DrivebyHaiku,

By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.

The problem often becomes that the entire sexuallity of mechanically bi characters or all characters in the game are often under player control. In a some circumstances games with this mechanism will have the characters who are not chosen as romantic options pair with no one ever or defer to straight behaviour. This is in deference to games wanting to have it’s cake and eat it too.

Examples of this in action :

Stardew Valley where if you don’t choose a same sex option to romance - no other characters ever have any romances ever. The one exception is Leah who has an ex who shows up late in the romance pursuit who tries to win her back. However, the ex is whatever gender the PC is so if it’s a hetero relationship, it still appears to be a hetero relationship.

Harvest Moon Mineral Town (later editions) give the player to options to romance same sex options… But everyone you don’t choose pairs up in hetero relationships and no other characters.

In both games there is no other queer rep so the player essentially opts in or out to all queer representation in the game. Blanket Heterosexuallity or bi-invisibility until given player approval is the default.

Indy games are generally the leaders for actual queer rep that isn’t optional to the game’s plot where characters sexuallities are not revealed by the player opt in.

cerebralhawks,

Okay, I definitely agree with you on the player being the only romance option for NPCs… for the most part. Looking at it, I do see plenty of existing romances in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Cyberpunk 2077 — the examples I gave — and I think they’re mostly straight. In Cyberpunk, Judy Alvarez, an established lesbian character who will only romance you if you’re female, has a female ex who is a main character. You meet her before you meet Judy. She’s the one who gets you the heist gig, sort of. The one who hires Dex, who hires you and Jackie. It may not be obvious at first, but if you follow Judy’s story, even as a male character, it will be obvious. And Fallout 4 had a romance with two robots, but that’s mainly played for laughs and most people will never see it. (You have to go to the school in Diamond City and speak with the female robot, who will ask you about love. Give the most heartfelt answer and, the next night, you will see her wed a male robot outside the all-faith chapel, if you’re there for it — you could be elsewhere and you will miss it.) But that’s a robot relationship, and it’s hetero.

I do want to say one or two of them had a couple gay/lesbian romances.

Going a bit off-topic, Animal Crossing — largely considered a kids’ game — actually has a bunch of stuff just beneath the surface that most people will overlook. Flick, the bug collector, is considered by many fans to be FTM trans. He identifies as male but appears to be AFAB. There’s a peacock who identifies as female — peacocks are specifically the male of the peafowl species. Peahens are the females, and they don’t have the big feathery thing. So that’s a female character who was AMAB. Plenty of other characters rock the trans flag as well. Kids would never notice this, and being a Japanese game, they have to be very careful as that country is super conservative. (There’s actually a pretty deep rabbit hole on that game’s lore. Some characters hint toward the game being a game, breaking the fourth wall. There are also hints the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and you’re the last human.)

I’m with you though, in that I would like to see more same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ representation in my games.

DreamlandLividity,

It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience

Because, surprise surprise, most non-romance games don’t have romance as significant part of the game. You don’t get straight tailored experience in Skyrim either. Unless you believe killing bandits or mammoths is how you romance a straight person.

kind of a cop out

This mentality is why so many gamers outside the homophobic conservative circles are pissed at game developers and groups like Sweet Baby Inc. Not cramming gender politics into a game that has nothing to do with them is not a cop out. It is good game design. Skyrim is not a romance simulator and it shouldn’t be turned into one just to “be more inclusive”.

DrivebyHaiku,

Hey, just a heads up assuming “gender politics” don’t matter and being upset if a character is noticeably queer - makes you a part of the homophobic conservative circles. People, irl are queer, omitting queer people from settings where they would just exist as part of the world because “they shouldn’t be there” is a little queerphobic.

Conservative circles have been screaming about woke games forever just when options to have non-binary people exist at character creation or when there is one gay side character. A lot of folks in the arts, including in game development, are queer and like to make stories that didn’t exist when they were growing up. Your opinion is your own but assuming it’s universally considered “good game design” to force developers to exclude the things they are passionate to put in their games to appease a howling mob that is never happy even when they get what they say they want is a bit rich.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

No. Not wanting to have your car stolen by a gay person does not make you a homophobe. It just makes you a normal person that doesn’t want to be stolen from. Equally, wanting a game to be entertainment, not political messaging does not make you conservative.

Most people had no issue with diverse characters that are part of a game, see Life is Strange. They do when you turn a game into political PSA at the expense of the rest of the game, see Valeguard.

DrivebyHaiku,

Ah yes, the two sexualities - political and non-political. You really aren’t as far along as you think.

I can accept that you are unhappy and want your games to not make you feel uncomfortable. Gods forbid they ever be like every other form of media and actually have a message they want to convey or try anything new. I can say having something tailored specifically for you is quite nice - now that more of us actually get to experience that.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

and want your games to not make you feel uncomfortable.

You are missing the point entirely. Playing as a homosexual character did not make me feel uncomfortable, even though I understand if it did for some people. Even so, not every game is for everyone. It is fine to have games focused at different audiences.

But when you hand over writing your game characters and story to groups like SBI, whose only qualification is “inclusive writing”, than it destroys games for everyone and you get entirely justified backlash from gamers.

Same if you take an established franchise and change the target audience.

Unfortunately, just like you don’t make distinction between the actual homophobes and people who just want good writing and game design, a lot of gamers once pissed of don’t distinguish between good inclusion and forced, badly executed one. And than you get the polarized BS of today.

DrivebyHaiku,

There’s no “actual homophobes” vs " not homophobic but still unhappy that queer people and ‘forced inclusion’ are in a game people" - that’s just different degrees of homophobia.

Games changed a bit so that they aren’t all made for you specifically. Those franchises didn’t belong to you and for some people those ‘ruined games’ are their favorite games. Everyone has studios they don’t like. Not all representation is gunna be great because not all writing is going to be great but when inclusion “ruins it for everyone” in your veiw look around and ask if the people around you who are discussing it is actually a good cross section of “everyone”.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

There’s no “actual homophobes” vs " not homophobic but still unhappy that queer people and ‘forced inclusion’ are in a game people"

That’s the same kind of argument as saying criticizing Israeli genocide is antisemitism. There are objectively bad things done in the name of inclusion. Criticizing them is not homophobic. If you are going to pretend they are, that you are somehow above criticism just because your stated goal is noble, don’t be surprised when people turn against you.

DrivebyHaiku,

Are these “bad things in the name of inclusion” just making a game you don’t like? The push against “inclusion” on a general scale has lead to real world harms because a bunch of babies can’t come to terms with there being pieces of media with choices they don’t like and threw a fucking tantrum. There isn’t really a side anymore where railing against the harms of “inclusion” isn’t propping up the arguement that minorities “earned” the actions against them by asking “too much”.

People will take your words as tacit endorsement that queer people “had this coming” because a bunch of businesses responded to a body of queer theory and made some fucking games. The anti-DEI crowd is the Conservative crowd and you might be on the fringe but you aren’t outside the radius.

DreamlandLividity,

People will take your words as tacit endorsement that queer people “had this coming” because a bunch of businesses responded to a body of queer theory and made some fucking games.

That is exactly why your stance is pissing me off so much. People like you, who don’t care how their ideas impact other people as long as they are inclusive, are pushing massive amounts of people towards the conservative side of the argument. I don’t think that makes those people conservative, for some reason you do. Regardless, we both agree it hurts queer people.

So was it worth it? A bunch of poorly written queer characters in games and movies in exchange for pissing off a portion of otherwise tolerant population and pushing it towards conservatism?

DrivebyHaiku,

Was it worth it? Coming down hard on queer and telling us we’re terrible people for daring tp ask for something better and throwing your lot in with the oppressors at the smallest hurdle?

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

Yes, deflect the question, misrepresent the issue, and blame everyone around. Just avoid any introspection.

There is no “worth it” here for the non-queer gamers in the first place. It costs them (seemingly) nothing to throw queers under the proverbial bus and oppose any inclusivity. The only thing stopping people is sympathy and goodwill. Being a decent human being. Which tends to go out of the window quickly, when you actively try to destroy what those people care about. People don’t have sympathy for people that “picked a fight” with them first. They just “fight” back.

And before you pretend games are insignificant and people shouldn’t do this “just because of games”, remember you picked this “fight” because of representation in games as well. Can’t have it both ways. Games either don’t matter (in which case what are we arguing about) or they do.

Gamers care about games. They have always pushed back hard against people messing with their games, whether it is “concerned parents” (religious conservatives), queers, or payment processors. If you believe that it is just homophobia, you are deluding yourself.

So I ask you again, is it really worth it to push things like SBI, that produce objectively bad games for everyone, knowing it will destroy sympathy and goodwill you have with gamers?

You don’t have to answer here, just think about it. Because you can’t expect understanding and sympathy from others if you are not trying to understand and sympathise with them as well.

DrivebyHaiku,

Because I don’t find you terribly sympathetic. Yes, I would like better inclusion and more variety in games and can look at past examples and point out what worked and what didn’t from a queer perspective but you came in hot with your nose out of joint about how what is being asked is bad “for everyone” as though you are the arbitor of the everyman.

It’s worthless to conceed ground over and over again to people who always wanted us to disappear. It doesn’t work. You want to go on the woke advisory board on Steam and see how nit picky they get? This isn’t about media. This is part of an interconnected effort to get all of us to disappear from public life forever and it didn’t start, it never stopped and the point is it won’t until it all goes back to the way it used to be.

What is “in it” for the non-queer gamers is realizing they aren’t the center of the fucking universe. That they can show their support for something that isn’t explicitly for them and leave homophobic assholes with no wonderful jungle of slightly less homophobic assholes to hide behind. But no the second it costs you anything suddenly it’s the end of the fucking world. People want to feel all nice and accepting and open minded but they never want it to actually inconvenience them.

By all means keep on harping your one fucking studio you hate. I hope it keeps you warm.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

you came in hot with your nose out of joint

Sure, make it my fault for disagreeing that following fundamental principles of good game design is somehow a cop out. Whatever makes you sleep better.

What is “in it” for the non-queer gamers…

And you proceed to describe what would benefit queer people, if they managed to keep non-queer gamers on their side or at least neutral. Which just proves my point.

People want to feel all nice and accepting and open minded but they never want it to actually inconvenience them.

Some people don’t want to be inconvenienced at all, most people don’t want to be inconvenienced for no good reason. There is a big difference.

It’s worthless to conceed ground over and over again to people who always wanted us to disappear. It doesn’t work.

Yes, what you are doing now seems to be working great. Best of luck with that.

MummifiedClient5000, do gaming w AI at the World’s Biggest Games Event(Gamescom) Booked Random Meetings for Attendees

An AI that book meetings that no one wants to go to? Middle managers will be out of work soon.

Nasan,

They’re clearly not doing their jobs if AI “solutions” go straight to prod without any consideration for the results it’ll yield. One would think that since it’s still code at its heart that it would still follow a well implemented CI/CD pipeline, but I guess because it’s AI that it just can’t wait. Someone else might do it first and all that.

MummifiedClient5000, (edited )

You’re responding to a dumb joke, but anyway: A solution can run perfectly in a test environment and still be shit. It’s not really the development process that failed in this case (or even the somewhat misguided use of “AI”). The failure is fully owned by whoever thought that random strangers would like to hook up via unprompted meeting invites.

Rhynoplaz, do games w Any good Android games that aren't roguelikes?

Stardew Valley is on Android.

BigBananaDealer, do gaming w This happened to me in Roller Coaster Tycoon and The Sims.

it was so hard for me to play grim fandago without looking up the answers but i did it! 10 hours later and lots of critical thinking and i finally solved the first puzzle!

rautapekoni,

We played Leisure Suit Larry with my brother at somewhere under 10 years old without knowing one full sentence worth of English, and it took hours to even get the game to start. There was a quiz about US history and politics or something for age verification, and it took a lot of tries to guess our way through and memorize the answers. Didnt get that far in the game either.

ivanafterall,
@ivanafterall@lemmy.world avatar

Police Quest 2 had mugshots.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/076b63af-7c05-4ddb-be62-3047942b60f2.png

You had to look in the manual and type the correct name to start the game. That was their DRM. I remember praying it’d be Jessie Bains, because he was the only one I memorized.

saimen,

Lol same here. I still remember one question was something with “apple”.

prole,

That was vintage copy protection. They would print the answers and stuff in the back of the manual, so you could only start the game (or get past a certain point), if you have a legitimate copy of the game (or just a copy of the manual lol).

There were all sorts of creative copy protection schemes prior to DRM.

rautapekoni,

Yeah, I’m aware of all the manual and code wheel based copy protections, but I’m pretty sure that the quiz in Larry was just a rudimentary age check. There’s even a button combination to bypass it, which would have been nice to know at the time.

frunch,

I remember AD&D Hillsfar had a decoder ring that you had to spin to match up the pair of symbols on the screen and type in the decoders output. It was actually kinda cool! I loved that game…

StrixUralensis, do games w Secret of evermore has some gigeresque visuals. I should probably attempt to finish the game but here are some screenshots
@StrixUralensis@tarte.nuage-libre.fr avatar

Only a single screenshot 😔

You can add more picture by putting the in the text body of the post

PerfectDark, do games w Junk Store 2.0 has released
@PerfectDark@lemmy.world avatar

I know its silly of me to care about down votes. This is the internet after all, and having thin skin on the internet is just crazy.

But the idea that you’re downvoting me for sharing news just strikes me as…insane. Do you not want me to share news on Lemmy? Do you think I’m the developer? If so did you not read this intro to the piece at all?

Again. Just stupid to care about being down voted, but if you’re one of those who have been, I’d love you to just speak up and explain why?

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c0b4ef51-0ca8-4f55-9dfa-58f869a43518.gif

AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor,

I think some people use downvotes as a disagree button. They don’t like the idea of paying a sub for a launcher (I too find it stupid but that’s just my opinion) and use the downvote to let the world know instead of commenting or simply ignoring the post.

Don’t take it personally, and please don’t let the downvotes discourage you! Your posts are a breeze of fresh air content in a place where most content is just links to news sites.

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

One of them here.

I like = Up
I dislike = Down

What else should it be?

AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor,

It might be me, but I don’t use the downvote button as a disagree button. I reserve it for content that’s actually negative, such as spam, ai slop, insults/bigotry… If iI had to downvote every piece of content I don’t like/disagree with in lemmy, I’d pass most of my time here downvoting. You can just ignore what you disagree with.

wizardbeard, (edited )

I don’t like subscription based software, and a subscription based game launcher is even more ridiculous. Especially when there are already free open source alternatives.

With the subscription aspect in mind, this reads to me like an advertisement rather than news. Probably because you just pasted in their literal ad copy instead of giving us any of your own thoughts about it whatsoever.

A big part of why I’m on lemmy is to get away from the “natural engagement” ad posts, so in short this sort of post isn’t something I want to welcome or encourage.

Personally, this post would have come across a lot differently if it was just the link to their site/blog post and even a few sentences about your personal thoughts on it. This comes across as a poorly done ad.

You didn’t “just share news”. You just shared an ad with effectively no further context.

mintiefresh,
@mintiefresh@piefed.ca avatar

Thank you for sharing. I gave it an upvote because I do care about posts and it was informative.

I disagree with the product though and wouldn't get it because I don't want another subscription. I guess people are down voting because they disagree with the Junk Store 2.0 itself.

Anyhow. Please continue to post. It's important for growing these communities and try not to let the downvotes discourage you.

Railcar8095,

What should be your logic to upvote or downvote? Mostly because you’re the one asking on the first place.

daniskarma,

Because it reads more like advertisement of a paid product than news.

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yep.

Get it here

What is Junk Store 2.0?

Junk Store 2.0 is a fully extensible game launcher designed to help you easily install and manage games from platforms like Epic, GOG, Amazon, and more — all without the hassle of complex workarounds. It’s faster, more stable, and includes a ton of new features to enhance your experience on the Steam Deck.

So much advertisement it reeks of hypocrisy.

BuboScandiacus,
@BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz avatar

But the idea that you’re downvoting me for sharing news just strikes me as…insane. Do you not want me to share news on Lemmy?

You are not being downvoted

The content is. If it is downvoted it will be buried, less people will see it, and they’ll find less subscribers thus earn less money

PMmeTrebuchets,

Because this is an ad?

Zexks, (edited ) do games w First they came for steam, then they came for itch.io .

Hmmm. Could porn once again become the medium catalyst for bitcoin to take off.

Zahille7, do games w Vintage gaming advertising pictures: a gallery

Those PS2 underwear ones are fucking wild

Blackmist,

They had bizarre TV adverts as well. You could never accuse early 2000s Sony of not getting weird with it.

I don’t know if any of it really helped. It rode in on the already wildly successful PS1. It had a DVD player in it back when a DVD player was quite expensive. It had SSX and Tekken Tag at UK launch. It could play all your PS1 games and “upscale” them. The only competition it had at launch was the Dreamcast. It was going to sell anyway.

rottingleaf,

It also looked so cool and, a rumor had it, could run Linux (it could, but only the fat models and with a hard drive sold separately as part of a kit, and only a specific kind of Linux with Sony’s patches, and slowly as hell, but)

Blackmist,

I think that was the PS3. They took it out later though, and had to give a paltry amount of money back to people who were using it.

It’d be nice to see homebrew coding return to consoles. Something like Godot ported to it and installed, kind of like Dreams but less limited.

I first got into programming via Basic on the ZX Spectrum, and I do worry how future generations will get into it now they’ve all gone back to phones instead of PCs.

rottingleaf,

No, the kit was for PS2, PS3 could run distributions intended for it without modifications, I think (maybe with some firmware changes), but those were by enthusiasts, while the PS2 Linux was provided by Sony.

I first got into programming via Basic on the ZX Spectrum, and I do worry how future generations will get into it now they’ve all gone back to phones instead of PCs.

Maybe the future generations will realize the difference between “can” and “should”, and there’ll arrive a niche for simpler PCs. I hope.

Derpenheim, do games w Pop it in your calendars

Yar har fiddle dee dee

Lawnman23,
LovableSidekick, do games w Pop it in your calendars

I will support this by continuing to be apathetic toward (and in fact ignorant of) a game known as Subnautica 2.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I’m not ignorant of it, just uninterested. I’ve watched gameplay footage of the first one, and it didn’t look like my kind of game.

JackbyDev,

First one was a cool premise but really annoying in some ways. The game sort of assumes you get certain fragments of blue prints by certain points but doesn’t actually make them easy to find nor really give you any hints to find them.

For people who’ve played it was for the sea moth and and later the moon well.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I just really don’t like crafting mechanics in games, and the game seemed very collecting and crafting heavy.

zqps,

Yep, it loops between exploration and basebuilding / crafting.

The exploration part is what usually gets people hooked because the alien underwater setting is amazing. The other stuff is more to give you a reason to stick around for longer, and pace your exploration since need to unlock things at certain points.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Then maybe I’ll try it sometime. I don’t like base building (feels like crafting), but exploration can be fun. But it’s pretty far down my list.

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Very, very light spoilers:

This is a survival game, gathering resources from the environment to craft tools, vehicles, food and water are core mechanics, as is finding and scanning fragments of technology to unlock blueprints. You actually don’t need to craft very much, I have done a run of this game where I built no seabases, only one of the three submarines, crafted no food or water surviving only on what you can scavenge, and only made seven tools.

A common complaint I see people make with this game is that the inventory doesn’t stack, so where do I put my 900 titanium? Frankly they’re playing it like Minecraft, and it’s not Minecraft. You don’t need to hoard treasure chests worth of everything, most common materials are relatively easy to find and with the possible exception of Lithium, if you have more than five of basically any raw material on hand that you don’t have an immediate idea of how to use, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Base building is entirely optional; the idea is you’re a castaway, survivor of a shipwreck who is waiting to be rescued, you’re not moving in. To quote the game itself, “Treat this space as your home, but never forget that it is not.”

JackbyDev,

It was weirdly a little light on crafting in some ways. But extremely heavy in others. I tried playing it like Minecraft and stockpiling stuff but that’s not really the way. I found it slightly more enjoyable to gather things only when I needed them.

Also the game has no map and I’m REALLY bad with directions. Like REALLY bad.

Goldmage263,
@Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works avatar
moopet,
@moopet@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, I just had to search for this because I thought, I missed that too!

kaidezee,

That’s the point of the game - it doesn’t tell you where to go and what to do because you’re meant to explore the environment yourself. And the debris you scan, the screenshots you take, and the thrills that you get - are the real reward here, and not some goal that game artificially imposes on you. So I think you were just playing it wrong.

JackbyDev,

So I think you were just playing it wrong.

Look, I genuinely get your point, and I was tracking with you until you said this. Fuck off. Fuck for with this stupid bullshit. I was not playing wrong. I was playing it the same way everyone else does. I was exploring. I was collecting. I was finding new things. It was getting very clear that the distances the game expected me to travel were meant to be done much faster than what I was capable of. I was getting multiple upgrades for things that I couldn’t use because I didn’t have the thing that lets me install them. It’s been ages since I’ve played and I’m not psychic so I’ll never know what the actual devs’ intent was, but something was off. I’d definitely missed something. What’s more annoying is that I was finding multiple blueprints I already had or something? I don’t remember the context. Like you needed 3 fragments or something. And I’d find more like “ah surely this is the third for the thing I need” only to get the 5th of something I already had. It was give years ago when I played, at least, so I’m probably explaining wrong.

But don’t fucking say I was playing wrong. That’s such a condescending, brain dead thing to say to someone who is critiquing a game.

“Hey, based on what’s going on and getting tons of upgrades and not unlocking the thing to install the upgrades, I think I’ve missed something and I have no idea where to find it. It would be nice if there was a way to unlock this without scouring every inch of the ocean I’ve been through multiple times and without looking it up online.” No, you’re just playing wrong! It’s a game about exploration and discovery!

🙄

voodooattack,

You’re not alone. As much as I love that game, the absolute lack of direction is one of my biggest gripes with it, right along with the atrocious inventory system.

You’d think someone who manages to build a fricking atomic submarine and a mech suit would be able to pinpoint relevant tech on the go somehow but no. Also you get a scanning room that can pinpoint little pebbles a kilometre away but is it helpful? Nope. Just another half-baked gameplay element that was never developed beyond the initial concept.

So yeah, your concerns are absolutely valid. Anyone who played this game would agree. But maybe that’s why I personally love the game. Clunky and beautiful, frustrating but once you find that thing you’ve been looking for, a bit rewarding too.

JackbyDev, (edited )

Yeah, I think people look at that criticism and think I mean I want super explicit bright glowing objects with a Skyrim style HUD that points me directly to where I need to go to get blue prints. Nah. Some ideas:

  1. Some way to tell if there aren’t any more in an area so you don’t waste time looking when there isn’t anything.
  2. Some sort of device that tells you how close some are, but not where they are. Like the classic “beep … beep … beep beep beep BEEPBEEPBEEPBPBPBBPBP” thing that gets more frequent as you approach. But make the max range relatively small.
  3. I think they were called life pods? Like the other crashed emergency escape pods. For things you’re expected to get like the sea bike (I don’t remember the name), sea moth, and moon well maybe always put some blue print fragments on life pods you find later. This way you can’t miss them (unless you’re really really not paying attention). You can still make it so you get them earlier on, but this way in case you missed some somehow you can always “catch up” to where the devs expect you to be. Like if they expect you to get them ~10% in, then make it so the life pods you find ~25% in give you what you are missing for the sea moth.
  4. A bit of a map system. This one is controversial, so I’m putting it last. A huge appeal of the game is not having a map. But even just a blank screen showing you all your way points, but not showing you where you are or what biomes are around would be useful. Then do something like show where blueprints are in an area. Maybe something like once you get two of three it shows you the general area where the remaining ones are, but doesn’t put a marker on the HUD.

Because with games like this where progression isn’t gated behind actually having some of these items, you can get in weird states where you get further in and didn’t get them. But maybe >95% of players did. The other <5% just missed something somehow. And then there’s no real clue on where to.go to back track to get it. And you can get in these annoying situations where it seems like you should have it but you aren’t sure, and you don’t want spoilers so you don’t look it up. Then when you look it up maybe you see a spoiler and it turns out you shouldn’t have it yet, that’s common. Other times you missed something super obvious in some very random area you only needed to go to once and never checked again because it seemed empty.

But it’s just so infuriating when people say things like “you’re not playing right” like, I’m getting frustrated because I’m playing right! If I wasn’t checking everywhere I could miss things. So I have to check everywhere to make sure I don’t. But then you can still miss things because there’s no real way to guarantee if you actually checked everything.

voodooattack,

Tbh I’m against the full on map idea since it would ruin and demystify/trivialise the aspect of exploration, but maybe they could have made it so that the scanner room HUD chip UI was actually useful and displayed any kind of distance indicator. Often times I’d be scanning for limestone chunks for example. Now my HUD is full of circles that all have the exact same radius and no indication of distance, just a vague direction, and it’s so frustrating to work with that.

They could have added some sort of compass as well. They chose not to.

I wish they implemented something like No Man’s Sky’s non-intrusive HUD, which conveys both heading and distance at the same time in a super nice way.

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Fragments of the Seamoth can be found around wrecks in the red grass plateaus, there’s a guaranteed one near Lifepod 17 aka “Ozzy from the cafeteria WHAT THE HELL GUYS?” The game hints that you can find Seamoth parts around there by the line “Our pod was almost crushed by the Seamoth bay on the way down.” You can also find several guaranteed Seamoth parts in the Aurora, I think enough to outright complete the blueprint.

Moonpool parts can be found just about anywhere you’ll find Cyclops hull fragments; I tend to find them either in the Mushroom Forest or around wrecks in the Sparse/Grand Reef.

The Scanner Room you can add to a seabase can detect scannable fragments, and you can display them on the HUD with a craftable upgrade.

JackbyDev,

I don’t think I had scanner room blue print.

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Also found in great abundance around the red grass plateaus especially near wrecks.

You’ll get radio messages from Lifepod 17, 6 and 7.

Lifepod 17 will give you a HUD marker that takes you straight to it, depending on where your lifepod spawned you’ll likely pass a small wreck and a scatter, and there is a large wreck within sight of it. I would actually be surprised if you couldn’t complete the Seamoth, scanner room and bioreactor right there.

Lifepod 6 and 7 are both “coordinates corrupted” quests; it won’t give you a HUD marker but a picture and a hint as to their location (lifepod 4 is similar). 6 is similarly within sight of a large wreck and a scatter, going to Lifepod 7 will take you past a large scatter and a small wreck.

All three of these are fully explorable with a seaglide, high capacity air tank, and repair tool. I recommend a rebreather and an air bladder. You can find scanner room, bioreactor and seaglide parts in addition to scrap titanium outside the wrecks, and laser cutter, propulsion cannon, mobile vehicle bay, modification station, battery chargers, plus several useful databoxes including the vehicle upgrade console, and a strong chance of +30 bottles of water in supply crates.

It can be a bit of a bother for new players telling scannable fragments from the background scenery of the wrecks; act a bit like a bloodhound, drag your nose around looking for the scanner icon to pop up in the corner of the screen.

I’ll give an oblique hint for further in the game: there may come a point where you say to yourself, “Well now what?” And the game doesn’t seem to give you somewhere to go like it has been. go deeper.

JackbyDev,

I don’t need hints because I’m not playing the game and I’m not planning on continuing. I’d gotten further than you think. But for context I’d already begun to explore the deeper areas when I ran into this conundrum. I built a stupidly long oxygen tube to get down there. I think the game expects you to have the sea moth first. That was one of the first moments I thought something was wrong. Then I think once I got it I couldn’t take it down there without an upgrade because I also didn’t have the moon pool unlocked. You’re talking about life pods, I never had a problem finding life pods. Those were easy and fun. It was going deeper without the sea moth and upgrades that was troublesome.

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, it sounds like you didn’t explore the wrecks or their surroundings, because all the blueprints you say you need can be found above 250m fairly easily. There are Seamoth parts and a free depth upgrade for the Seamoth available right at sea level in the Aurora. I’ve finished the game several times without building a seabase at all.

JackbyDev,

I explored around the wrecks.

dastanktal, do games w Pop it in your calendars
@dastanktal@lemmy.ml avatar

Companies only answer to profit and unfortunately we get to see the results. Can’t have those proles making 250 million dollars now. That would eat into the profits of our shareholders.

shadowedcross, do gaming w Beware games like this
@shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works avatar

Think I have something like 16k hours across all my PC games, with EU5 having the most at ~1.7k, I’ll never understand how someone can have more than 10k in one game.

Macaroni_ninja,
@Macaroni_ninja@lemmy.world avatar

My most played games like Terraria are well under 1K. Even this was before I become a parent and started working full-time.

These days if I put more than 50 hours into a game its considered a lot. I just finished the Oblivion Remastered and literally this was the only game I played for many weeks, with a playtime of ~45 hours.

I can’t imagine playing something for 10K hours.

sunglocto,

I have around 80 hours in fallout 76 and people say thay’s too much

halloween_spookster,

Idle games/games that have an idling mechanic

Honytawk,

Some people are afraid of trying new things. And they also don’t mind doing the exact same thing over and over.

So they play repetitive games like Call Of Duty, Rocket League, LoL, Dota, Counter Strike, … where every match is the same gameplay. And they don’t get bored, even after 10k hours.

If they were to play Terraria, they would be the ones mining the entire map as a “challenge”

Phunter,

PvP is inherently not repetitive due to the fact you will be interacting with many many different people over your gameplay sessions. And people are random, inconsistent, and weird.

Also, some people like honing a particular skill. It’s not really about being afraid to try new things, but rather trying to be better at one thing.

Swedneck,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

that’s true to a degree, but not for 10k hours, 10k hours is literally the amount of time people use as a benchmark for slogging away at something until you master it and i can’t think of any FPS game that is quite that varied unless you just play a new map every day

SandmanXC, do games w Thank you, Thor! 🥳

I’m not proud of it but I really enjoyed the mass dunking on this guy.

bishoponarope,

Be a little proud, as a treat. You deserve it.

  • Wszystkie
  • Subskrybowane
  • Moderowane
  • Ulubione
  • FromSilesiaToPolesia
  • NomadOffgrid
  • ERP
  • rowery
  • Technologia
  • fediversum
  • esport
  • test1
  • krakow
  • Gaming
  • muzyka
  • Spoleczenstwo
  • sport
  • informasi
  • tech
  • healthcare
  • turystyka
  • Psychologia
  • Cyfryzacja
  • Blogi
  • shophiajons
  • retro
  • Travel
  • gurgaonproperty
  • slask
  • nauka
  • Radiant
  • warnersteve
  • Wszystkie magazyny