Yup. I’ve always loved having a handheld device as a companion to my PC. The first few months with the Switch were great, but as time went on I just wanted a better designed Switch that’s also just a PC, particularly after getting hardware-banned for trying to fix some of the issues myself with homebrew apps.
I never would’ve thought that we’d actually get to see a device that’s real so quickly (anyone remember the Smach Z?), is actually pretty good and how quickly it’s now becoming its own market segment.
I just got the (first) completionist achievement after 60 hours plus however many I spent on the demo. I might try a few of the challenges and try to win with the final stake at least once, but after that I think I’m done.
It’s an absolutely amazing game and has secured its place in my deck building hall of fame beside Slay the Spire and Wildfrost.
I’ve been really looking forward to this one since watching the first short clips. Also helps that Pseudoregalia really got me into the mood for some more Metroidvanias recently.
Most games are great because they provide something unique or are polished to perfection, so it’s wild that they’ve made something that manages to be both their first attempt. Really looking forward to whatever they decide to do next.
Played it a bit so far and the controls are really unique. Definitely needs a lot of learning to get somewhat competent, but also very powerful when mastered. I’d be surprised if this isn’t going to become my favorite platformer of the year.
That said, the tutorial level (1-0) feels rushed. Very confusing pacing and camera transitions as well as bad audio mixing. Thankfully I haven’t seen any of those issues again in any of the proper stages.
A bad voice probably also just feels much better and complete than having no voice at all. At least based on the observations I’ve made when adding sound effects to my games as a hobbyist. A silent game just feels bad.
It’s a great game but that’s indeed one big issue of the game. Most of the game is pretty lenient when it comes to difficulty, but there are a few bosses that come with pretty enormous difficulty spikes. I’d recommend looking up how to power-level when you reach those sections.
I’m currently playing one of the games in Last Call BBS: 20th Century Food Court.
For anyone familiar with the Zachtronics catalog of games it’s like someone bolted one of the programming games onto one of their factory games, but the programming part is done using cables. Unsurprisingly, programming with cables gets quite messy, so even after a short break I usually have to restart a puzzle because I don’t recognize what part was supposed to do what anymore.
Seems like they won’t release it before it’s in a state where it’ll “just work” on about machine, which makes sense, since that’s the thing that helped the Steam Deck to success.
To that end it’ll probably be a while before they can get there, particularly for machines with NVIDIA GPUs, assuming stuff like multi-monitor VRR and bug-free Wayland support is on the list of requirements.
The Talos Principle. I’ve had this game for years, but always bounced off during the second world. Finally stuck with it in anticipation of the sequel. Overall, not as difficult as I imagined, but some puzzles are quite frustrating, either because the solution feels like a bug or because the setup is long and a mistake requires a full reset. Still very enjoyable even though I didn’t care much about the story.
FF7 Remake Intergrade. Not much to say about this one. Very solid DLC and just the right length. Next up: Continuing my playthrough of the original FF7 from where Remake ended.
Cocoon. Probably my favorite game of the year beside Hi-Fi Rush. Really cool main mechanic that’s explored at a very enjoyable pace. All puzzle elements are clearly telegraphed as well and unintentional red herrings get blocked off to avoid confusion. Didn’t really see this game get noticed though, which is a shame.
Played through the first (quite short) chapter today and it’s really promising so far. Really fun combination of movement mechanics, particularly the rope usage, which is something I’ve never seen in any other game.
It’s also quite good looking since it’s one of the first UE5 titles and has some gorgeous lighting and high overall image quality as a result. No issues running the game on Linux either.
To expand a bit on the user base issue: Even on Reddit with its giant user base a game needs to have a decently sized audience in order to sustain a healthy and active subreddit.
Now, hypothetically speaking, even if this place had a tenth of the user base, it would mean that a game would still need to be 10x bigger in comparison in order to maintain an active community.
For now, only a very, very small handful of games are above that threshold.
Yup. Ideally there should always some kind of indicator, like a bar, that lets you easily see how many steps there are and which one is selected.
Also: If there are graphics presets available, if there’s one that’s called “highest” or “max” then that should actually crank everything to the highest possible setting.
Like, there is an in-universe explanation for why you are solving puzzles.
That observation actually made me go through my library looking for more examples and, yeah, it’s surprisingly few. There’s ‘The Entropy Centre’, which also falls into the “You’re a test subject” category. Other than that there’s the Zachtronics games, where the reason for puzzle-solving is because it’s your work.