The weird thing about Stardew Valley is I cannot understand why I don’t like it. I’ve tried to like it. I’ve poured many hours into games in the same genre, but I haven’t even managed to get 2 hours into Stardew Valley and I do not understand why. I can’t point at anything in particular that doesn’t work for me, and it’s exactly the kind of game I love to play, so I’m honestly perplexed as to why I don’t like it.
The first time I played My Time at Portia, I had the same issue, and it felt like it took ages and ages to do the bridge. It was much easier on subsequent playthroughs. Basically what I did was build about 6 furnaces to get the crafting going early on, and always had at least 2 of each subsequent crafting station (more as space and resources allowed, although there were a few that just one was sufficient for. Making sure you get a crafting commission every day really helps as well, because that’s your main source of income, which makes it easier to afford more land, inventory upgrades, etc. Fishing is also ridiculously lucrative once you get good at it.
What my Portia daily routine normally looks like is something like this:
Wake up, check mail (if any).
Grab resources that have crafted overnight (if any).
Go to town hall and pick a commission, looking for something that I have most or all of the materials to craft. The plan is to get it made and delivered that day if possible, so if there’s a choice of something that doesn’t pay well but can be done immediately or something that pays better but will take 2-3 days to make happen, I pick the low paying one.
Check map to see if any locals have quests that day. If they do, go and get the quests.
Go home and craft the commission item, plus any items required by other quests picked up that day. If any crafting stations have finished production, set them going again.
Deliver crafted item to recipient(s).
Gather resources for the rest of the day. I usually pick one activity and stick to it, say mining, fishing, hunting (the sound of dying colourful llamas makes me sad, but I want their pelts), etc.
Check crafting stations when stamina has run out. Set more crafting going if needed.
Go to bed.
The other thing is that the big “main” quests for building those major projects aren’t necessarily meant to be done quickly, as they’re the bigger story events that gate your progress through the game. Once I stopped trying to get them done as quickly as possible, and let myself get sidetracked on other stuff, I enjoyed the game a lot more. I spent quite a lot of time just spending whole days on, say, just mining, or harvesting wood, or fishing, while ignoring the bridge entirely. (I actually think I spent about two weeks fishing once. I got really, really into it. It then took me another week to sell them all.) By the time I thought “oh yeah, I should do that bridge thing”, I had more than enough of all the resources needed, and then it felt really quick to do. I ignored quite a lot of main quests for a really long time, including one that narratively I should have done much quicker. Let’s just say that
spoilerPortia went without clean drinking water for so long that everybody should have died
Speaking purely from my own experience, the mistake I made with My Time at Portia the first time I played it was I was too focused on being goal-oriented by following the main quest. But the game’s not really about that. I had a much better time when I slowed down, focused less on the main quest, and more on crafting stuff for the locals (so many stone stools) and selling them preposterous amounts of fish.
Not even then. I think the thing that’s easy to forget about shareholders is they’re not doing this because they’re evil and get off on watching people suffer. They’re doing it because their own personal inadequacies are so vast that the only way they can cope with life is by trying to fill that enormous emotional hole with money. As a result, even when every other person on the planet has been crushed and ground into paste, and just one person with this mindset finally owns everything… it still won’t be enough for them. They will still be left with that unfillable emotional hole. They will still be empty inside.
Hey everyone, I’m a big player of Space Games of all forms, and this mini-genre (or ‘theme’, if you prefer) really has a TON of range and depth, and is a very fertile ground for indie and unique projects. I was recently playing a game called Avorion, after owning it for years without ever really engaging with it, and...
I still have a soft spot for Freelancer, despite all the years that have gone by (and aside from some minor UI issues, plays perfectly on a modern PC), and it still looks remarkably nice for its age, too. The story is pretty linear, and the characters not hugely memorable (despite some voice acting from George Takei, John Rhys-Davies, and Jennifer Hale), but it’s just fun to play. It can be challenging if you want to venture into areas less travelled, but because progress through the game is largely dependent on the money you earn (in-game), if you just want a chill evening, you can just trade goods.
And like… this is a game I’ve been playing on and off for 20 years, and occasionally I still find something new. I played it a couple of months ago, committing to docking with every planet and station… and discovered a new trade route that was both shorter and more profitable than the one I had been using. It probably only cut 10 minutes off my three stage trade run around the entire map, but it was still kind of exciting to go “oooh, I never realised this was an option!” All because I visited a station I don’t usually visit.
Agreed! I think a lot of games benefit from trying to do one thing really well, rather than multiple things badly, and Freelancer is unapologetic about focusing on doing the in-ship stuff well. Games that try to do both the in-ship and not-in-ship elements end up either with both being done badly, or one just feeling like it serves little purpose in the game.
I’ve definitely thought about modding Freelancer, but haven’t quite found the right ones yet. I tried Discovery (I think it was), and felt that the changes to the enemy AI and equipment (such as constantly using shield batteries and nanobots) just made gameplay more frustrating than enjoyable, because it made every single battle challenging - no more just chilling out while hauling random stuff through trade lanes. I’d really love a mod that adds new systems, planets, locations, ships, etc without dramatically changing the gameplay to be exclusively about the combat.
I literally responded to that link with an out loud “oooooooooh!”, my standard “yes I want it” sound. Spiritual successor to Freelancer with Lovecraftian elements? Ticks all the right boxes.
I’m playing Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge and loving it. Cute frogs, beautiful art style, chill gameplay. Just a really nice way to wind down at the end of the day (and also at the end of a very intense academic year.)
I’m also playing Ori and the Blind Forest when I have the energy. I’d never played this before, but picked it up on sale a few months back, and I’m finding it very challenging even on the easiest difficulty. Visually beautiful though.
“Inspired” by the Square-Enix putting their foot in their mouth thread, I thought it’d be interesting to make a little thread about indie games. People always talk about wanting to try different, cheaper titles, but with how hard it is to get good gaming news and the state of advertisement/marketing, word of mouth tends to...
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion: You play a turnip and you get to commit crimes. The characters are cute, the humour is silly, there are puzzles and bosses. It plays a bit like a Zelda game, I guess, except everyone is a vegetable. It’s pretty short - I completed it in about 5 hours, including all the achievements. I should play this again actually.
Spirit of the North: This is such a beautiful game. The best way I can describe this game is Abzu but you’re a fox. No dialogue or narration, just you, your spirit companion, and some really gorgeous music. This is also a pretty short game - I was fully complete with all achievements in about 6 hours. I’ve played this 5 times since I bought it 9 months ago because I love it so much.
Terra Nil: A reverse city-builder, where your goal is to clean up all the pollution on the map, restore plants and wildlife, and then get rid of any traces of your presence. You can play the whole campaign in a few hours, but it took me about 20 hours before I got all the achievements. I’ve put in almost 50 hours in total, because it is just so chill to play.
I’ve played Sims 2 and 3, and generally enjoyed them. I think I would have played both a lot more if they hadn’t been prone to such severe performance issues. Especially 3. I was in a better position financially back then, upgrading my PC every 2 years, and somehow even a brand new PC built around gaming performance could not run Sims 3 without severe lagging and stuttering. I tried various mods intended to improve performance, but never really made any headway on the issue. Gave up, haven’t tried Sims 4 because the quantity of DLC is huge and expensive.
While I have gotten fairly proficient with the TV and film high seas, I struggle with games and software, often leaving me uncertain if what I’ve actually downloaded is a virus.
This is basically why the largest studio in my county shut down last year. It was considered “insufficiently profitable” by the parent company. Not unprofitable. It was turning a profit and had produced some highly regarded games, including an award winner. It was also a company that treated its employees well, including offering highly flexible working hours and having a dog-friendly office. I’d been eyeing them up because I’d hoped to work there when I got my degree. But nope, they’re gone now because they weren’t making enough money.
I believe society as a whole should stop idolising the wealthy, and start seeing their inability to be satisfied with having enough money for a comfortable life as the dysfunction it is. Never being satisfied no matter how much money you have should be seen as a problem, not something to aspire to.
I am between games at the moment. Having finished university until September, I have a wide open summer, and a huge list of games… and am thus suffering from choice overload, not certain what I want to play.
Honestly too many to count. GOG Galaxy, with its links to the other platforms, has over 400 games on it, most of which I’ve never played. Serious choice overload.
For me the biggest problem with modern games is the obsession with high fidelity graphics. The dev teams that create games without a focus on photo-realism or jaw dropping visuals are often the teams creating the best games in my eyes.
I think this is very much down to personal taste. While I don’t think a great game needs photo-realistic graphics, for me a game’s graphics do factor into my enjoyment of it, so it should at least feel like the devs put some effort into making the game visually appealing. That could be focusing on making the graphics beautiful, or stylised and quirky, or just incredibly cute. But if I’m gonna spend hours looking at something, I want it to look nice.
You get what you pay for. If you download a free game, then of course it’s going to be full of pay-to-win microtransactions. Although there are issues with greed in some larger games run by big companies, the reality is that game devs deserve to earn a living too, and that means at some point a game needs to be paid for.
There are still plenty of good quality mobile games out there, they just don’t tend to be free to download. Back when I had more free time, I actually got good usage out of the Play Pass on Android, which was £5 a month and gave me access to a catalogue of excellent mobile games with no microtransactions at all, the vast majority of which were single-player, offline games. Literally the only reason I’m not still subscribed is I just don’t have time to play mobile games at the moment - the chances of me subscribing again over the summer when I’m not at uni is high.
Ah, it’s active! I saw this a few weeks ago when the petition had been created but was being reviewed by the petitions team. Been waiting for it to be open for signatures, so thanks for the reminder. I have signed it.
I don’t expect the government to do much about it, though. I’ve signed a number of these petitions over the years and the government response is always very non-committal. They can get more traction when an MP can be inspired to care, so if anyone has a youngish MP who might actually be capable of understanding what the problem is, it could be worth writing a letter to them directly (regardless of what party they’re in - a 35 year old Tory MP isn’t a complete write-off and may be more sympathetic than you’d expect.)
That said… could be the kind of thing the next government could be pushed to act on. We’ll likely have a cash-strapped Labour government that’ll be looking for stuff they can do to make things better for normal people which also don’t cost the government any money, and this is a simple adjustment to consumer rights that would achieve that.
A requirement to leave a game in a “working state when support ends” doesn’t mean continuing support (ie, running the server). It means the game should still work when the server is gone, which means either fully offline play, or a means for players to run their own servers. That’s the whole point of this campaign, which is taking place across multiple countries.
“Release the source code” isn’t going to be considered a reasonable thing to ask a government to legislate on. “Make sure the game can still be played after support ends”, which in practice means patching it so it doesn’t require an internet connection to servers that no longer exist and/or allowing players to self-host their own servers, is far more likely to succeed. It’s a reasonable request that someone who has bought something should be able to continue using it for as long as they want, no matter what happens to the company that sold it to them.
It’s a request that stands a decent chance of success if a politician can be made to understand what the problem is, because it is an easy extension of existing consumer rights law. Requiring game studios to hand over their source code to gamers would be considered excessive and unreasonable, and is therefore much more likely to be denied outright.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. For the majority of gamers, the changes proposed would be more than sufficient, so that’s a good reason to push for it even if it isn’t what an open source idealist would want.
Of course they wouldn’t, and they shouldn’t. Releasing the source code doesn’t absolve them of a responsibility to make sure the game is actually working when they end support. “We fucked over all our players, but here’s the source code so someone else can fix it for nothing” would be a really shitty thing to do and they shouldn’t avoid penalty for fucking over the majority of their players (and the unpaid people who will have to fix it for them).
On the other hand “we patched the game so it’ll continue to work for everyone who bought it” benefits most players, and “we patched the game so it’ll continue to work for everyone who bought it, AND here’s the source code so others can expand/modify it if they feel so inclined” would satisfy everybody. It just shouldn’t be a legal requirement.
Also keep in mind that in the UK system, if a petition reaches its 100,000 signature minimum in order to be considered for debate in parliament, that’s only the beginning of the process. It doesn’t just get put into law exactly as the petitioner words it. It goes through multiple debate stages, where the MPs consider all the options, and then the law gets written - and then it usually gets amended a few times. So I would expect that if this petition did lead to a change in the law, the resulting legislation would have considered multiple options for what “leaving the game in a working state” would look like. A surprisingly large amount of UK legislation on this kind of stuff sort of goes “this is what we want, but companies have freedom to choose how they will implement it”.
I thought about this too, but then I checked the end date of the petition. It’s in October, as petitions have to run for 6 months in order to give them enough time to get to the 100,000 signatures. So by the time this petition ends, and then rises to the top of the list of petitions to be debated, we’ll definitely have a new government. 😉
I haven’t played it yet, but it was on my wishlist for a while, so when I saw it on sale a few days ago, I snapped it up and immediately installed it. I’m really excited to play it as soon as I have some free hours.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. I loved Abzu, and Journey went on my wishlist because so many people had said how similar they were. I’d have probably played it already if I wasn’t ill - I can barely hear anything right now, and that’s not the best time to play a game where the music is a big part of the experience!
Slime Rancher’s protagonist, Beatrix LeBeau, is definitely not white. It’s not the most story-driven game out there, but I really appreciated how the main character is a PoC woman, with zero fuss about it. She’s just a lady with a ranch on an alien planet, and why shouldn’t she be a PoC woman rather than a white dude?
I mean, that’s kind of the point. For the vast majority of games, there’s no real reason why the protagonist has to be a straight white dude, yet 99% of the time, that’s what they are. I like it when devs do something different.
Explore a 1:1 scale Milky Way in a meticulously designed Starship alone or with friends. Try the tech demo on Steam, run through the cold and dark startup tutorial then find cool things in space. It’s already a lot of fun in its barebones state....
Their Kickstarter page says they’re a husband and wife team (plus some help from freelancers and AI), so the latter outcome seems more likely than the former. They do intend to distribute the game for free, which… can work to avoid getting sued, but then there’s all the money from the Kickstarter campaign.
I think it’s a really cool project, and it’s definitely the kind of thing I’d be interested in playing, but I would definitely hesitate to invest in the Kickstarer when a lawsuit seems pretty inevitable.
What have you all been playing! Still on my usual binding of Isaac and helldivers grind, but I’m also getting back into elden ring to get ready for the dlc coming later this year! 🤩
Playing Subnautica this week. Having the slight problem that I find all the small fish so adorable that I feel bad about cooking and eating them. It’s also worth noting that I have thalassophobia, which is impeding progress a little because underwater caves are scary, deep water is scary, not being able to see the bottom is scary, and not being able to see the surface is scary.
Yeah, it’s definitely more of a horror game if a lot of the setting fills you with primal dread! I’m definitely enjoying it, just… only in small doses.
The other day someone asked this and everyone recommended a $1,400 chair. I can’t afford that, I can’t even dream of affording that. I’m looking for something with good lumbar support for ideally under $400 tops. Does anyone have any ideas?...
I’ll second the suggestion of Secretlab. Pretty sure mine was in the £400ish price range, and it’s really nice for gaming.
Go part of the way through purchasing one, and then close the tab. Within a day or two you’ll probably have a discount coupon. It’s my favourite trick for buying expensive stuff.
Townscaper - this is my go-to for just kind of chilling out. Just plonking down buildings and seeing what configurations they make is just so relaxing. There’s no points, no goals, no competition, not even any citizens with needs that must be fulfilled. You just build nice cities.
Slime Rancher - the slimes are cute, and just so happy to be alive. There’s something about a bright pink slime bouncing past, with a massive smile on its face as it cries “wheeeee!” that reminds me there are indeed reasons to live.
Maneater - this is a different kind of happy. A cathartic, violent, murderous happiness, as I pop inflatable unicorns, sink yachts, and launch myself at unsuspecting golfers.
This week I have discovered the joys of Slime Rancher. There is something about an adorable slime with a face bouncing past me going “whee!” that makes life worth living. They’re just so happy. Except when they’re scared of something. I don’t like it when they’re scared, and this must be prevented at all costs.
Pretty interesting results for me - I’m actually genuinely surprised that my CPU is my bottleneck, because I’d been assuming it was my GPU. That said, I have no bottlenecking at all if I run only one monitor, according to this calculator, but when I run the calculator for three monitors (my typical set-up, though I often run four because my drawing tablet has a screen), apparently my CPU doesn’t have the power to keep up with the GPU.
Yeah, I think monitoring the actual utilisation on my PC is more useful than theoretical calculations. Games performance is pretty good (it’s not like I’m playing demanding 2023 releases), but I’ve definitely got a bottleneck in there on digital art, 3D modelling, etc, and I’m not convinced that the CPU is the issue there.
That must be so difficult for them to “get through”. Surviving for a few months, maybe a year (if non-compete clauses are enforced, which they probably aren’t for CEOs) on just tens of millions, which forces them to buy only one yacht instead of three until they can get back into another well-paid CEO gig. The greatest tragedy of our age. Won’t anybody think of the CEOs?!
Yep, looks really suspect. Even if it’s true that they forgot to get someone to record the lines, it does seem implausible that they couldn’t source any voice actor (or even someone on their own staff) to record the dialogue and get it added to the game, even at short notice.
I have three games on the go at the moment. Gotta enjoy those few weeks off from university, when I actually have some time.
Empyrion: playing this with my partner. This really feels like a game that could be amazing if the devs gave it a bit of polish, cleaned up the bugs, and updated the in-game information with the current game mechanics. There’s something deeply frustrating about not knowing how to do something, and every post on Steam community and Reddit has a different answer, and very few of those answers are correct in the current version of the game. It’s a shame, because I’m really loving the actual gameplay. I spent most of today rebuilding my ship: suffice to say, the NPC faction that blasted holes in the previous version of the ship are going to rue the day they blasted holes in my ship. I have shields and a lot more guns. 😈
Earthlock: still enjoying this. Delightful RPG in the style of 90s Final Fantasy games. The storyline isn’t wowing me. It’s fine, very standard fantasy, but it doesn’t stand out as anything really amazing. But it’s a nice, easy-playing game with a lot of nice elements. It’s cute, the gameplay mechanics are interesting, and the puzzles are just the right balance between too easy and too hard. And I can plant trees that, for some reason, spawn frogs around them. I have no idea why, but I’m not complaining. 🐸
Maneater: I really had no idea how much I needed this game in my life until I started playing it. It’s been a rough couple of months, and something about being a shark on a quest for vengeance is incredibly cathartic. Those people in that fancy yacht totally had it coming. My glee definitely did escalate once I moved into an area with lots of rich people. More golf courses should have electric sharks sliding through them, chomping on the golfers. 🦈
An indie adventure/exploration/puzzle game. There is no combat in this game. You explore, solve puzzles, and take in the vibes of a story told without any dialogue at all. It’s all in the visuals, music, and mood. This is Abzu with foxes.
The gameplay is fairly simple, but also pretty forgiving - there are very few places where you need fast reactions or precise timing, and if you fall off a platform you only have to redo the last few jumps, not the entire level. It’s the kind of puzzle game where you have plenty of time to think things through and even more time to just enjoy the journey. Definitely a game for the casual gamer who wants to look at pretty landscapes, listen to beautiful music, and bark at things.
If you stick exclusively to following the story, it’s maybe 2-3 hours long, and getting 100% completion on all achievements, collectibles, and alternate skins took me 16 hours. So it’s not a huge game - which means the best time to buy it is when it’s heavily discounted, like right now.
I love this game so much. I like a lot of games, but it’s rare that I absolutely adore one. In fact, I might just go and play it again tomorrow.
Abzu (undersea exploration, relatively chill, but I never completed it)
@troyunrau Abzu isn’t an RPG, but I’d still second this recommendation, as it’s very chill to play, has zero combat, and has a lovely story to it. Would also recommend Spirit of the North for the same reason. No dialogue in either, though - the story is very much in the visuals, music, and atmosphere rather than words.
I thought you suggested it because of my username. Even better than you didn’t notice, and have now realised there’s another reason I should play Frog Detective. 🐸
apparently this is in response to a few threads on Reddit flaming Starfield—in general, it’s been rather interesting to see Bethesda take what i can only describe as a “try to debate Starfield to popularity” approach with the game’s skeptics in the past month or two. not entirely sure it’s a winning strategy,...
I completely agree! The guy can totally feel frustrated because he knows how hard his team worked, work that the consumers largely don’t appreciate, but he can’t argue people into liking the game if they don’t like it.
Let's discuss: Stardew Valley (beehaw.org) angielski
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Tango Gameworks employee shares pictures from the Xbox studio’s final day (www.videogameschronicle.com)
Thoughts on Space Games, Part 1: Top-5 AAA Games angielski
Hey everyone, I’m a big player of Space Games of all forms, and this mini-genre (or ‘theme’, if you prefer) really has a TON of range and depth, and is a very fertile ground for indie and unique projects. I was recently playing a game called Avorion, after owning it for years without ever really engaging with it, and...
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 9th
Apologies for the late thread!...
The Indie Chat & Recommendation Thread (cdn.imgchest.com)
“Inspired” by the Square-Enix putting their foot in their mouth thread, I thought it’d be interesting to make a little thread about indie games. People always talk about wanting to try different, cheaper titles, but with how hard it is to get good gaming news and the state of advertisement/marketing, word of mouth tends to...
Let's discuss: The Sims (beehaw.org) angielski
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets | Game World Observer (gameworldobserver.com)
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 26th
Whatcha all been playing!...
Am I the only person that feels that retro games are better?
Less DRM, smaller filesizes, no stupid anticheat, and no always online bs. Anyone agree with me?
Why do mobile games suck nowadays?
In the last 5-7 years I’ve noticed that mobile games have devolved info always online p2w shit...
It's finally up! Please sign it if you're in the UK :) Petition: Require videogame publishers to keep games they have sold in a working state. (petition.parliament.uk) angielski
Let's discuss: Journey (beehaw.org) angielski
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Are game studios suddenly abandoning Black developers? (www.gamedeveloper.com)
New Kickstarter for a cool looking game: Starship Simulator (www.kickstarter.com)
Explore a 1:1 scale Milky Way in a meticulously designed Starship alone or with friends. Try the tech demo on Steam, run through the cold and dark startup tutorial then find cool things in space. It’s already a lot of fun in its barebones state....
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 10th
What have you all been playing! Still on my usual binding of Isaac and helldivers grind, but I’m also getting back into elden ring to get ready for the dlc coming later this year! 🤩
Good chair that is *affordable* ?
The other day someone asked this and everyone recommended a $1,400 chair. I can’t afford that, I can’t even dream of affording that. I’m looking for something with good lumbar support for ideally under $400 tops. Does anyone have any ideas?...
What games make you happy?
Hello all! I would like to know what games give you that cozy, fuzzy feeling of simple happiness....
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of February 18th
Hey y’all!...
TIL about theBottlenecker.com - site for comparing CPUs and GPUs (thebottlenecker.com) angielski
Today I stumbled across this site, which allows you to see whether your CPU and GPU are well paired, for various tasks....
Embracer CEO says layoffs are "something that everyone needs to get through" (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
lol....
I thought I'd just be purring and meowing... (i.imgflip.com) angielski
The game is Stray. Developed by Blue Twelve. Published by Annapurna Interactive....
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Will Have a Character Voiced by Text-to-Speech at Launch - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
Rock Paper Shotgun's 75 most anticipated PC games of 2024 (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of December 24th
Merry Christmas!! 🎄 What have you all been playing!!
it's the steam winter sales, what game did you enjoy playing and want to share?
The Steam winter sales are here, up to the 4rth of January....
Looking for a rec: story oriented RPG with minimal focus on combat
Preferably in the high fantasy or sci fi genre....
Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of December 17th
What have you all been playing!...
Starfield design lead says players are "disconnected" from how games are actually made: "Don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is" (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
apparently this is in response to a few threads on Reddit flaming Starfield—in general, it’s been rather interesting to see Bethesda take what i can only describe as a “try to debate Starfield to popularity” approach with the game’s skeptics in the past month or two. not entirely sure it’s a winning strategy,...