I have never wanted to play a game so hard in my life. It seems to have the atmosphere of Inscryption, the gameplay of Papers Please and a lot of buttons and knobs to mess around with.
One small thing but I’m surprised nobody points it out - the charging port location. I like using my switch/steam deck in bed or otherwise laying down, and the fact that the charging lead is at the bottom of the console rather than the top sucks. It just gets in the way and stops you resting the console on you. Whereas the Steam Deck just has it on top where you can just plug it in while playing.
I know the technical reasons behind it because of the dock and all that, but it’s annoying.
In general, I think the steam deck is better than the switch in almost every way - The switch is just an expensive ticket for the right to play Nintendo games nowadays.
Played it a while ago and had fun with it - would recommend if you like city/base building games.
Did fall off late game with the “factorio problem” of having huge bases that you need to micromanage and build manually (so called because Factorio is the only game which I think fixes this problem; a lot of games I keep wanting to blueprint things).
Also, it took me the longest time to realise that you were allowed to run paths underwater…
I’ve played Ace Attorney and the writers put a lot of love and personality into the characters. I’d be sceptical if an AI could get close enough to any kind of writing style to “kill” writing in games like that.
Honestly getting fed up of AI doing a mediocre job of creating art and then people claiming it kills whole industries because it’s the “in” technology.
I actually bought it, tried it for a bit, and then refunded it.
It just felt kinda bland? Not sure if this is just because I wasn’t in in the right headspace, but the game got to the point where I started collecting resources in a base and I just put the game down.
It’s like they got a generic survival game and added not-pokemon and guns to it for shock factors, without really considering gameplay cohesion.
The real reason I refunded it though is because, according to someone on Bluesky, the devs have a history of being NFT and genAI shills. I’d rather not get emotionally invested in mons that could just become NFTs or AI puppets.
Very interested in a future game where someone else takes the idea and actually has the passion to create a good 3D mon catching game. Clearly it’s something the market wants.
I’m reminded of old video games where they had the developers help out with the voice acting. Like, couldn’t you do this here? Just have someone who happens to have a high quality microphone do the lines? Maybe even pay a starving artist on one of those “voice acting for hire” sites?
I get that deadlines are usually way too tight on games, but this is just poor quality control. I guess that is the AAA games industry noways though.
Probably Celeste to anyone that has anxiety. I know it’s probably not the most profound representation of anxiety, but it’s a nice little game, it’s nice to feel seen and there’s a chance that some of the stuff in it will help.
See gameplay and more in this trailer for Trash Goblin, an upcoming shopkeeping game where you take on the role of a Goblin, and it's up to you to uncover and clean trinkets.
So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues. They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable. For me personally it has come to a point that I am not...
Screw client side anti-cheat, fix your goddamn server code.
I’m reminded of a case in Apex Legends where cheaters started dual wielding pistols, despite dual wielding not actually being a game mechanic. That should be something you can easily detect on your server and block.
Client side anticheat is just smoke and mirrors and lets developers think they can get away with not doing their job of writing secure code.
I’m honestly surprised that with all this concern about privacy against Google, Microsoft, Epic, and so on, gamers are willing to just let these games have unrestricted and unchecked access to all your internet, microphone and camera data.
Likewise, despite how much gamers call games “broken glitchy messes”, they are perfectly willing to give them enough hardware access to literally destroy your computer.
Server side anti cheat can’t distinguish good players from aimbots.
I’ve been thinking about this, and I wonder how accurate this is. I think overuse of all this modern AI nonsense is a problem, but wonder if this might be a good use case for it.
A big game will probably have huge amounts of training data for both cheaters and non cheaters. An AI could probably pick up on small things like favouring the exact centre of the head or tracking through walls.
If a user has a few reports of aimbotting, just have this AI follow them for a bit and make a judgement.
It’ll get it wrong sometimes, but that’s why you also implement a whole appeals process with actual humans. Besides, client side anticheat systems also have a nasty habit of mistakenly banning people for having specific hardware/software configs.
However, I would like games to come with servers again so you can play games on your own terms
Please! Not just for anticheat reasons, but also for mods and keeping the game playable when the publishers decide it isn’t profitable.
All you really need is where the character is looking, their location and the terrain map, all of which are things the server has authority over or can check easily.
Distinguishing between a good player and a bot probably won’t be that hard. A simple aimbot would probably fire exactly at a target’s (0, 0) coordinate, while a good player may be a frame or two early or late. Someone with wallhacks will behave differently if they know someone is around a corner. There’s almost certainly going to be small “tricks” like that that an AI can pick up on.
People with wallhacks will deliberately move their crosshairs over people that they see through walls. Or, if they know the server is watching for that, they’ll make a subconscious effort to never have their crosshairs over someone through walls.
Unless the aimbot is using its own AI learning system, it’ll not behave as a human would. For example, it might fire at a random point in a circle, where a human might have better aim along the horizontal axis or something.
Inexhaustive of things that kernel mode code can do that unprivileged (without “root”) user mode cannot:
Update and install drivers.
Run programs (like cryptominers) without them appearing in the task list.
Make network requests ignoring all firewalls and monitoring tools, even when seemingly in airplane mode.
Monitor your webcam and microphone, possibly without turning on that little light next to it.
Escape any sandbox you put it in.
Replace the OS with one containing malicious code.
Replace the efi firmware with one that replaces any future OS install with the aforementioned malicious OS.
Permanently brick your graphics card.
Take advantage of buggy hardware to burn your house down.
And so on. The question you should be asking isn’t “are they going to do this?” but instead “why are they even asking for this permission in the first place?”.
A game where you run around pretending to be a space marine doesn’t need low level access to your hardware.
I’m a Linux gamer, every few weeks there’s a story in the news about how some random update to anti-cheat ending up banning Linux/Steam Deck users, it’s not a problem unique to AI. AI finding false positives will happen, but that’s where the “human in the loop” appeals process happens.
Some games do employ new tactics. For example, when the game suspects you’re cheating, it’ll spawn fake opponents only you can see and check if you try to interact with them. This will defeat most wallhacks and maybe even a few aimbots.
This is the kind of cool things that they should be doing! Try new and interesting things instead of trying to brute force anti-cheat by putting restrictions on what people can do with their computers and forcing a narrative where cheaters only exist because you weren’t strict enough.
I don’t. Anything on the client can be tampered with. It’s the server’s job to make sure anything they receive is both valid and consistent with how a human would act.
I’m not sure how to feel about this, to be honest.
I don’t have any serious plans or anything, but I do want to dabble in a bit of gamedev. Nothing major, just like an RPG or something that I put on Steam for like $5. I imagine there’s a lot of people who take bets on their future by releasing games that cost $10 or $20.
Why would anyone pay full price for games if you could get them from a trading platform for like 75%? I bet there’s a lot of people that would buy my game, play through it once and then sell it for maybe $4. And others who thinks anytime that pays full price for a game is an idiot.
Indie Devs would have to rise prices, perhaps drastically, to cover the lost revenue here. This would also put an end to Steam sales, because the instant you put your game on sale it sets the price for it in third party markets.
What about bigger games like BG3? What’s stopping me from buying it full price, copying the files somewhere and then instantly reselling it? It would probably force them to implement strict DRM restrictions, and probably the nasty rootkit kind.
I’m personally against DRM and don’t want to release a game with it, but the fact that this lowers the bar to piracy so much may force my hand.
I honestly believe this could spell the end of the indie gaming scene.
I’m reminded of AlphaDream, which died as a company shortly after releasing a remake of a game where the original was still playable on the same console.
As title says, once Valve announced the OLED deck, I saw the refurbished originals go on a deep discount and figured it was time to buy in. So I ordered a refurb 512GB and I’m so excited for it to arrive! Been in a gaming rut for a long time now and, having never been a PC gamer, I’m look forward to checking out a bunch of...
For Epic Games, I’d also recommend Heroic. You can download it from the Discover Software Center in Desktop Mode.
Some quick tips:
If you need to bring up a keyboard for whatever reason, you can hold the STEAM button, and press X.
Expect to tinker and play around with things, I think the software is still a bit new and rough around the edges.
Search the Discover Software Center for software in general; it’s a good place to download things like browsers and applications.
If you want to know if a game runs or not, you can check www.protondb.com , it’s a crowdsourced version of Valve’s “Steam Deck Verified”, where people say how well games work.
Some game recommendations, based on ones I’ve played. Not had a chance to try them all on the Steam deck, but they should work:
Stardew Valley
Baba is You
Celeste
Cuphead
Dicey Dungeons
Slay the Spire (Think you have to use the touch screen though)
I’ve been thinking about making this thread for a few days. Sometimes, I play a game and it has some very basic features that are just not in every other game and I think to myself: Why is this not standard?! and I wanted to know what were yours....
I agree with everything in the OP and most of the other comments. But something for me that I don’t think I’ve seen options for in any games.
Eyes and teeth. I’m a bit squimish around things happening to them. If your game shows them being injured in some way, just let me turn that off and skip it or something.
I know it sounds like a small thing, but I know at least four games which have this issue…
In terms of numbers (according to the Steamwide statistics, which may be different than CS:GO), MacOS isn’t that far behind Linux in terms of usage. I get that Valve is pushing Linux and all, but this a bit scummy (saying this as a Linux user)…
Unless there is more Politics involved. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is that developing software for Apple is basically a quagmire of regulations, proprietary lockout and big pits you need to pour money into.
Also, strictly reading help.steampowered.com/en/…/73EF-08A3-0935-6369 they didn’t say that they were discontinuing it BECAUSE of lack of playerbase, but that they didn’t expect it to have much impact due to the small playerbase. Low player count is probably one reason, but I suspect there might be more factors in play.
EDIT: I know the article does mention the API issues, but I’m just a bit annoyed that they decided to title it the way they did for clickbait.
I find it odd there has been very little noise about this. Like sweet its awesome to see that there is a new Counter strike and the features they are adding seem awesome. People were very angry when Blizzard did this same exact thing, where is the anger right now about this?...
Blizard took a paid for game with fair microtransactions and transformed it into a predatory free to play game with an unfair battlepass.
Reception to OW2 would have been better if they kept the freely dropped lootboxes and gave some more compensation to the people that bought the game. Also if they didn’t leave the game to dry for several years on an empty promise.
Honestly, one thing I’m seeing frequently in comments about this is a bit frustrating. That is, people saying that they vow never to buy any games in Unity ever again on principle.
Vendor lock-in is a real thing, and part of the reason they actually tried this play. Many of these developers likely want to switch to a different engine, but don’t have the time or resources to do so. Honestly of all people hit by this situation, they probably need the help most.
Incidentally, if you are one of those devs reading this and feel you don’t know anything other than Unity, go learn something else. Diversify your portfolio. Learning a new engine isn’t hard if you know the fundamentals.
So I bought the game a while ago, but haven’t really been playing it (I need to get into the right headspace). However, I’ve come to realise something.
This is the first game I’ve bought for over £40 in a while where I haven’t felt scammed or that I’m complicit in something immoral. I feel like they “deserve” the money, which is a strange feeling considering the AAA industry right now.
The game doesn’t even include DRM, not even the “free” one you can enable through steam.
It always felt like it wasn’t that they didn’t know this, its just that they don’t care. I’m sure they’ve done extensive research on exactly how many people they can discourage from the game without harming the income from their whales.
Exploiting vulnerable people with predatory practices in an underregulated market is almost always going to be a gold mine.
The modern model of buying AAA games is that of hostility between buyer and seller. You always feel like you’re either being scammed or complicit in something immoral.
Legit surprised it’s this bad, tbh. I was expecting some amount of people to review bomb it, but thought that at worst it’ll maybe hang around “mixed”. Let’s be honest, besides the monetization model, it’s a fairly solid game, and I assumed many people were willing to overlook it (because it’s a “free game”, blegh).
2023 starting to shape up to be the year where megacorps overreach a bit too much and/or consumers to finally grow a backbone.
I actually went through some of the positive reviews, seems they are only thumbs up because I assume people want their posts to be read - a lot of them are just memes and shitposts.
A Japanese video game walkthrough listing sleeping pills as one of their recommended methods to get high scores in Pokémon Sleep has gone viral on Japanese Twitter recently. The mention of sleeping aid has since been deleted from the site.
Smash Bros uses/used “For Fun” and “For Glory”, which I thought was pretty cute.
I think there is an issue with saying that ranked is “playing to win” though, since people in non-ranked games are still trying to win. They probably don’t want the pressure of ranked, or maybe just don’t want to play the meta.
PVKK from the Dome Keeper devs is Papers Please but you get a huge planetary defence cannon (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
Maybe hot take: as a handheld, the regular switch is an awful handheld
Have you ever held a switch? Its long, flat and the controllers suck. Awful dpad and bad sticks....
Need fighting game advice
So, j want to get into fighting games, mainly the der street fighter games, and advice on how to get good....
Thoughts on the game Timberborn (store.steampowered.com) angielski
Has anybody given this game a try? I’ve been considering it for a while, but money is tight. Curious if it was worth it....
A Small Steam Game Shows How LLMs Could Kill the Dialogue Tree (re: Verbal Verdict demo) (www.404media.co) angielski
Excerpts:...
GeForce Now adding ads for free users. (feddit.nl)
Are you enjoying Palworld? angielski
Sorry if this is redundant, I didn’t see another thread focused on reactions to the game itself (just the Pokemon-ripoff news cycle)....
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Will Have a Character Voiced by Text-to-Speech at Launch - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
Valve: Most games made with AI tools are now welcome on Steam (arstechnica.com) angielski
Well shit…
Get Humble Choice and other package titles for cheaper angielski
tl;dr: key shops… use https://gg.deals as a finder...
Has anyone tried to mark a game private in Steam? Does it work as intended?
asking for a close friend
If you could gift a videogame to anyone, what would you give to whom? And why? angielski
Imagine you could give a Christmas gift to anyone, famous or not, what you would give and to whom? And why?...
Trash Goblin - Official Kickstarter Trailer (youtu.be) angielski
See gameplay and more in this trailer for Trash Goblin, an upcoming shopkeeping game where you take on the role of a Goblin, and it's up to you to uncover and clean trinkets.
😐... (feddit.uk) angielski
Valve needs to step up on Anti-Cheat angielski
So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues. They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable. For me personally it has come to a point that I am not...
EU court rules people can resell digital games (www.gamingbible.com) angielski
Finally some good news! I’ve been waiting for quite a while for such a ruling....
Are there too many video game remakes and remasters? (www.eurogamer.net)
Bought my first Steam Deck after seeing the deep discounts on refurbs...what should i know as a first time Steam Deck/PC gamer?
As title says, once Valve announced the OLED deck, I saw the refurbished originals go on a deep discount and figured it was time to buy in. So I ordered a refurb 512GB and I’m so excited for it to arrive! Been in a gaming rut for a long time now and, having never been a PC gamer, I’m look forward to checking out a bunch of...
What is something (feature, modes, settings...) you would like to see become a standard in video games? angielski
I’ve been thinking about making this thread for a few days. Sometimes, I play a game and it has some very basic features that are just not in every other game and I think to myself: Why is this not standard?! and I wanted to know what were yours....
Valve Says Counter-Strike 2 for macOS Not Happening Because There Aren't Enough Players on Mac to Justify It (www.macrumors.com)
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/10/valve-confirms-counter-strike-2-no-macos/
Valve just pulled a Blizzard and seems to have gotten away with it. (kbin.social) angielski
I find it odd there has been very little noise about this. Like sweet its awesome to see that there is a new Counter strike and the features they are adding seem awesome. People were very angry when Blizzard did this same exact thing, where is the anger right now about this?...
Minecraft Wiki moves away from Fandom (minecraft.wiki) angielski
Godot Engine hits over 50K euros per month in funding (www.gamingonlinux.com)
Unity Apologizes For Runtime Fee Policy, Promises To Alter Plan This Week (twitter.com)
https://twitter.com/unity/status/1703547752205218265
Why did Baldur's Gate 3 blow up? Larian lead writer says it's thanks to "a big gamble" with CRPG standards (www.gamesradar.com) angielski
"We believe RPGs are big ... So we always believed the audience was there," says Adam Smith
Xbox boss would ‘love to find solutions’ so games aren’t lost when the 360 store closes | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
The Main Lesson From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Should Be ‘People Hate Microtransactions’ (www.forbes.com) angielski
If reception to Baldur’s Gate says anything, it’s that people hate microtransactions in their AAA games.
Overwatch 2 is now the #1 of the worst Steam games (feddit.de)
steam250.com/bottom100
Pokémon Sleep: Japanese walkthrough site lists “sleeping pills” as a tool for real competitive sleepers, but quickly backtracks (automaton-media.com) angielski
A Japanese video game walkthrough listing sleeping pills as one of their recommended methods to get high scores in Pokémon Sleep has gone viral on Japanese Twitter recently. The mention of sleeping aid has since been deleted from the site.
Out of the way FROMSoft, Pokémon Sleep is now the hardest game ever created (cdn.imgchest.com) angielski
seen on Twitter...
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