What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[oxybe]

Bought Timberborn on steam early access and it's absolutely delightful.

It's a post-apocalypse colony builder game where you're beavers.

the main game mechanics are water management through making dams and levees and whatnot, and that that the game will go into a "dry season" where your water source will dry up, making sources of lumber and food unuseable.

As such you actually have to build dams and lochs and whatnot to prepare your beaver colony for those dry seasons, as in addition to storing food and drinking water for those times, managing the water is super important if you want to keep farming during a dry spell.

The other interesting thing is that there are really just 2 building materials: lumber (from the trees you've harvested) and scrap metal you've collected from ruined human settlements.

Lumber is used for building but also for cooking higher quality food then just wild berries harvested or root veggies like carrots. some buildings require power, either through a waterwheel (which requires an actively running river, so when it's dry and you've locked up the loch to bide your time, the still water doesn't make the wheel move and thus your building doesn't get power) or a hamster wheel type device you can task a beaver to run on.

Still in early dev, but loads of fun for what it is right now.

Now join me in prayer for all the poor beavers who died of thirst because i am a terrible, terrible civil engineer.

[IthilanorStPete]

Bought Timberborn on steam early access and it's absolutely delightful.

It's a post-apocalypse colony builder game where you're beavers.

the main game mechanics are water management through making dams and levees and whatnot, and that that the game will go into a "dry season" where your water source will dry up, making sources of lumber and food unuseable.

As such you actually have to build dams and lochs and whatnot to prepare your beaver colony for those dry seasons, as in addition to storing food and drinking water for those times, managing the water is super important if you want to keep farming during a dry spell.

The other interesting thing is that there are really just 2 building materials: lumber (from the trees you've harvested) and scrap metal you've collected from ruined human settlements.

Lumber is used for building but also for cooking higher quality food then just wild berries harvested or root veggies like carrots. some buildings require power, either through a waterwheel (which requires an actively running river, so when it's dry and you've locked up the loch to bide your time, the still water doesn't make the wheel move and thus your building doesn't get power) or a hamster wheel type device you can task a beaver to run on.

Still in early dev, but loads of fun for what it is right now.

Now join me in prayer for all the poor beavers who died of thirst because i am a terrible, terrible civil engineer.

I saw that in the Steam store and put it on my wishlist. I like the idea of having to manage those hydrodynamics, seems like a neat twist to add to the usual city-building stuff.

[Erloas]

I'm wanting a light weight game that is on MS Gamepass (includes EA games now) and was looking for some recommendations. Mostly looking for relatively quick play times and not having to pay really close attention all the time. So turn based are good, but anything that can be stepped away from easily is good. Although short match PvP or Co-op could be good, but playing FPS on a laptop is just tiresome to me (I've spent way too long player on my desktop and I'll continue to play them there)

I've played Slay the Spire, and it's good, it just takes a long time for runs at times and I feel like I've got most of what I want to put into the game. I know there are a lot of other good indy games out there, I just haven't spent much time looking at/for them.

[oxybe]

I saw that in the Steam store and put it on my wishlist. I like the idea of having to manage those hydrodynamics, seems like a neat twist to add to the usual city-building stuff.

The hydrodanamics are def what interested me in the game, mechanically speaking.

On the map i'm playing right now, i've noticed an area that looks like it could be used as a reservoir in decent proximity to my town, so i'm hoping with some finagling and a tiny bit of creative explosive use i can use it as a backup water source or maybe the even the location of a third, industrial focused, district and have my original riverside settlement focus more on growing crops or lumber.

[Thomas Cardew]

Yeah, no. NONE of the Spider-man games envy the level of movement available in Shadow of War, except MAYBE the one for the N64? It especially doesn't hold a candle to the newer PS4 one.

It's not nearly as good as a ton of other games I've played either in terms of movement. It's a slightly jankier Assassin's Creed in that regard.

Fair enough, I already said superhero isn’t my genre. I think the last one I played was… X men Apocalypse? From like 2005. However, I do find it much better than the last Assassin’s Creed I played… which admittedly was Revelations (?) whatever the last of Ezio one’s was…( 3 was too much of a shovelware mess for me to touch it on release. Uplay was the nail in the coffin. ) The ability to jump from any height anywhere compared to only where there’s a bale of hay, or fast climb walls versus a iffy double jump, feels infinitely more satisfying. And that’s leaving out shadow strike/dash.

They will get stronger (sometimes a lot stronger, I've seen a Berzerker go from having 3 Enrage traits to *7*), but the chance of them losing a mortal weakness looks to be very low. I think I've seen it happen once or twice in all my playthroughs.

Of course, now that I've said that, the RNG will go completely against everyone here who tries the exploit, but that's the way it is.

I did it a few times (5<x<20), but the only mortal weakness I could find was terrified of stealth. He never lost it but it was an increasing hassle to be able to get to him fast enough to keep my low levels alive. Particularly if there wasn’t a convenient overhead ledge/rope. I ended up just offing him.

Huh, didn't know that, but it makes sense, considering the care and effort that apparently went into the characterizations.

Neither did I, that’s great. There’s a few of the introductions I’d really like to be able to skip through or end. Particularly, the ambush ones. Like I don’t mind if you and 5 more buddies are jumping into the fight, but let’s get on with it, not listen to you babble on.


I’m mostly finished with the base game, I’m on the final stage of the shadow wars so only a couple sieges left. Gameplay wise I’m glad they cut down the amount of slog I have to do here. I appreciate the sieges, but they aren’t my preferred game style. I liked the early campaign ones, where you did prep work and eliminated warchiefs in advance to weaken defense much more. The online sprint through and win in <7 min for rewards are much less appealing. I hate the timer. I dislike how congested they can feel. The penultimate campaign fight on the bridge against the Nazgul was similarly annoying. I spent the majority of that fight accidentally whacking my own troops. Same thing with the defenses. I’d be happier just depopulating Mordor on my own, as a result I like the online vendettas much more. If people could just die to more interesting orcs, I’d be set.


Story-wise… Aggressively stupid was wildly optimistic. The less said about this the better.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I'm wanting a light weight game that is on MS Gamepass (includes EA games now) and was looking for some recommendations. Mostly looking for relatively quick play times and not having to pay really close attention all the time. So turn based are good, but anything that can be stepped away from easily is good. Although short match PvP or Co-op could be good, but playing FPS on a laptop is just tiresome to me (I've spent way too long player on my desktop and I'll continue to play them there)

I've played Slay the Spire, and it's good, it just takes a long time for runs at times and I feel like I've got most of what I want to put into the game. I know there are a lot of other good indy games out there, I just haven't spent much time looking at/for them.

Hmm, I don't know much about what games are on the Gamepass, but I do know Halo Wars 2 is on there. Solid RTS, matches typically range from 10-20 minutes, and the story campaign is quite fun. Also noteworthy for having an AI that doesn't cheat at all, instead being based on micro and macro play styles from pro players (really a fascinating system if you're into the AI stuff).

[Anonymouswizard]

Took a break from Devil May Cry 5, and tried Bound By Flame. Thoughts so far..

Too many cutscenes early on. By far the most annoying is the first one, which essentially ends in a slow duel with a basic event while the main character says things I couldn't really care about. It should have thrown you into the basic combat there.

The hack and slash combat, while basic, is actually pretty fun. Maybe if Skyrim head combat like this it would have been enjoyable. I quite quickly turned the difficulty down because dexterity, but both the sword and daggers are fun to use and I'm probably going to invest in them before the magic stuff.

I'm not sure I like these characters. I'll give them a chance, but so far Vulkan had been annoying and the rest have been boring. Yeah, I get you're going for grim and gritty, but there's ways to do that with interesting characters.

[Silverraptor]

I finished Mass Effect Andromeda. I found it okay. I liked the overall story for the most part. The ending was a little jarring as so much was happening and they weren't telling the player to look where and when, so I ended up missing a bunch. There were still plenty of bugs, but I was able to get through the game despite them. I can see after the trilogy of the original Mass Effect games why it got so much hate it, especially if the bugs were multitudes worse then it is now. After the threat of a galaxy wide extinction event, being confined to a lone section in another galaxy can probably seem a little disappointing. But still, with the promise that new sequels would have more alien species and a galaxy wide war against the Kett, the story was fine. I didn't like the infinite enemies constantly respawning in parts of the map I cleared. Made me feel like what I did didn't even matter, so yeah...

Also, everyone looked the damn same. In the original Mass Effect, there was *some* variety in skeletal shape and face structure. But in Andromeda, almost every Asari and Human I looked at had the same face shape as every other Asari or human I've seen in the past. Only main characters were exceptions. I get that switching game engines is hard, but make sure you have a plan for transitioning into the new engine. Jumping into it without it completely thought through probably contributed to the problems the game had and the bad reputation it was labelled with on release.

[Frozenstep]

Finished up Metroid Dread today, with 100% items. Fantastic game. The gameplay and movement are so fast and fluid, though the lack of customization for controls hurts a bit. I actually like the "stealth" sections, I think they offered up a nice change of pace and you could play them multiple ways. I kind of wish the game had pushed it a bit further, actually. The bosses are great, too.

The main issue I have with the game is the story. Yeah, I know it's a 2d Metroid game, but it really could have used some optional lore to help flesh out the areas. I don't need prime levels of scan visor text to read through, but just a bit to help tell me what all these different areas are about. What we got works, but it's too brief to leave an impact. I'm not quite sure I like how the ending played out. It would have been nice to get Samus's final thoughts after the game, too, like in fusion.

[Anteros]

Playing around in Overwatch. I haven't played since around release and I suck, but it's still fun. Blizzard might be derivative, but they're great at making fun and aesthetic characters.

[Rynjin]

I tried to play Overwatch again a few months ago. I...kinda hate everything they've done to the game since I stopped playing in 2018 or so. The fixed role queue for Quick Match is ****ing stupid, for example.

[Anteros]

I tried to play Overwatch again a few months ago. I...kinda hate everything they've done to the game since I stopped playing in 2018 or so. The fixed role queue for Quick Match is ****ing stupid, for example.

Yeah, I've been playing classic mode. It seems better since (most) people don't take it seriously and aren't toxic and I'm free to switch around...which is good because I still don't even know what half the new heroes do.

[Cespenar]

Played a few more indie titles, if anyone looks out for them:

Mahokenshi demo: Slay the Spire meets overland movement/terrain logistics. Plays pretty well, and introduces enough new stuff to the StS formula to constitute a new game, unlike many of the faceless clones out there.

Midnight Protocol: A puzzle/hacking game in the vein of Hacknet, but more puzzley/RPG-ish rather than being more hardcore like some Zachtronics or similar games. Some parts actually remind me a lot of FTL, since you juggle risk, time and energy quite a lot.

VtM: Coteries of New York: A pretty good Vampire the Masquerade visual novel. People apparently bashed this because of its railroaded ending, but if your writing and visuals are this good, I think I can get along with a bit of railroading, thankyouverymuch.

[warty goblin]

Started messing around in The Riftbreaker yesterday, which is basically a tower defense game but with RTS build-anywhere rules and economy crossed with a twin stick shooter.

You wear a lot of hats in this game, and impressively it all comes together pretty well. The key I think is that you are generally only wearing one or two of the hat stack at once, i.e. you're building up your defenses or you're fighting off a swarm of off-brand Zerg, or you're scouting the map for alien nests and more expansion locations, or you're using your flamethrower to roast some aliens, but not all at once. It helps that all of the modes are pretty competent; like I wouldn't play hours of the twin stick shooter bit on its own, but it complements everything else pretty well.

Also the hordes of aliens are actual hordes, and not like, you know, 23 dudes. It's ice to see that.

I'd recommend, based on very early impressions.

[Man_Over_Game]

After finishing Psychonauts, I decided I want to replay the 2018 God of War. Partly to refresh my memory of the story for when Ragnarok hits next year, partly just to re-experience a great game.

And yeah, it is striking just how immediately you can tell how damn good this thing is. There's subtlety for the writing of Kratos' relationship with Atreus right from the get-go, with him struggling with his inability to express his actual feelings to the boy, or really any feelings at all other than anger, and trying his damnedest to keep that particular feeling in check whenever it rears its ugly head. Everything looks great, and the gameplay feels wonderful, so smooth and responsive. I've actually turned the difficulty up compared to my first time through, to the "Give me a Challenge" difficulty (basically Hard), and it's certainly noticeable. Enemies are definitely more numerous and hit a lot harder, and I think they may be a bit more aggressive as well, though with being over three years since I last played it that could also be misremembering. And yet it's one of those games that can be hard as hell, yet never truly frustrating, between those great controls and the very well-done, satisfying combat system. One of those kinds of games where losing a fight a couple of times just makes eventually overcoming it that much more satisfying.

It's just such a wonderful game. Hard to believe it spawned from the same series as the original God of War trilogy, which, while fun action games, were never nearly this good in so many ways. Especially the writing - this is by far the biggest jump in writing quality within any game series that I can think of. I'm not far in (just met the second of the Dwarf brothers), but I very much look forward to seeing it all again. And I really hope that its sequel can live up to it next year.

I agree. I've been replaying it too, after watching my wife play it and helping her with the valkyrie fights.

The one complaint I have is how much your stats matter. Gear upgrades abysmally slow for the first 2/3 of the game. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but GoW is an incredibly technical game, akin to a fighting game, and the rules on how enemies interact with your attacks is really chaotic.

Sometimes my attacks have hitstun, but then they don't after hitting the enemy a few times.
Sometimes one attack in a combo hitstuns an enemy, on other enemies it doesn't. Same thing when it comes to launching an enemy in the air.
Some blockable attacks show an indicator that they can be blocked, while the fastest attacks in the game don't have an indicator (so you don't really know when to block).

I tried playing it on the harder difficulty, but it took so goddamn long to kill the easiest enemies. You could batter one of the simple Draugrs into the air into a slow, 5-hit combo, and you might take out a fourth of his HP (assuming one of his friends don't gank you in the back during it and take out a third of your health).

Take a wrong turn on the Normal difficulty, and you run into enemies that are a couple levels higher than you and can wipe you out in two attacks. Then you decide to give up, go do the story missions, and barely end up with a challenge.

It's not even that bad when it comes to scaling, there's a just a big disconnect between how technical the game is compared to how consistent it is. It's like playing a fighting game but your stats are randomized every fight even when your moves don't change.

And hitstun matters a lot in this game, you don't get many ways of dealing with crowds if you can't stun them.


That sounds like a lot of complaining, but it's really the only thing I can think of that felt 'off' to me. Still loving the s*** out of it, though.

[Taevyr]

VtM: Coteries of New York: A pretty good Vampire the Masquerade visual novel. People apparently bashed this because of its railroaded ending, but if your writing and visuals are this good, I think I can get along with a bit of railroading, thankyouverymuch.

Ironically, the railroading in context of the story is a pretty perfect example of V:TM politics. I thought it was quite well done.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Been playing a game called Yoku's Island Express, a metroidvania/pinball game of all things. It's been moderately entertaining so far, but I just found the Sootling (a companion that lets you latch onto certain plants, spinning around them until you let go and launch yourself in a direction of your choice), and I'm really liking what it adds to the traversal and pinball mechanics.

[Anteros]

Started messing around in The Riftbreaker yesterday, which is basically a tower defense game but with RTS build-anywhere rules and economy crossed with a twin stick shooter.

You wear a lot of hats in this game, and impressively it all comes together pretty well. The key I think is that you are generally only wearing one or two of the hat stack at once, i.e. you're building up your defenses or you're fighting off a swarm of off-brand Zerg, or you're scouting the map for alien nests and more expansion locations, or you're using your flamethrower to roast some aliens, but not all at once. It helps that all of the modes are pretty competent; like I wouldn't play hours of the twin stick shooter bit on its own, but it complements everything else pretty well.

Also the hordes of aliens are actual hordes, and not like, you know, 23 dudes. It's ice to see that.

I'd recommend, based on very early impressions.

It's very similar to They Are Billions. I've only played the tutorial, but I'm loving it so far.

Do you know if it's possible to beat the tutorial? I'm pretty sure I could have killed the wave if I played better or knew what I was doing from the start. I don't want to waste my time if it's just endless though.

[Cespenar]

Ironically, the railroading in context of the story is a pretty perfect example of V:TM politics. I thought it was quite well done.

Same here. The game (and the setting) underline both the physical and political power discrepancy between you and the big players many times. But people gotta people.

Been playing a game called Yoku's Island Express, a metroidvania/pinball game of all things. It's been moderately entertaining so far, but I just found the Sootling (a companion that lets you latch onto certain plants, spinning around them until you let go and launch yourself in a direction of your choice), and I'm really liking what it adds to the traversal and pinball mechanics.

Yoku was a pretty interesting foray into some genre combos, yeah. It's a nice little surprise of a game.

[warty goblin]

It's very similar to They Are Billions. I've only played the tutorial, but I'm loving it so far.

Do you know if it's possible to beat the tutorial? I'm pretty sure I could have killed the wave if I played better or knew what I was doing from the start. I don't want to waste my time if it's just endless though.

I think it is possible, although obviously quite difficult. Probably requires making much better use of mines and firing platforms than I did.

I'm a bit into the first map, and it expands a lot. There's an entire tech tree, and long term objectives and everything. The story advances too, and while the writing is, to put it mildly, extremely blunt, it at least sets up characters with different, and defensible, views. Looking forwards to getting farther along this evening.

[Zevox]

I agree. I've been replaying it too, after watching my wife play it and helping her with the valkyrie fights.

The one complaint I have is how much your stats matter.

Eh, I have mixed thoughts about that. For an action game I'd normally prefer just not to have stats at all (ala Devil May Cry), but God of War does it in a way that I find mostly unobtrusive. Your level doesn't increase your stats; your stats increase your level, which is just there to give you a general measurement of where you're at in the game's power rating. So you have a fairly clear measure of how strong you are, and the game makes it easy to compare to your level to the enemies' since it shows enemies' levels alongside their health bar - and even color-codes them for how dangerous they are. And I tend to find that I can take enemies up to 2 levels higher than me, personally, it's only once they get to 3 higher than me, and most of their attacks become unblockable and, often enough, one-hit-kill shots, that I have to back off.

And that doesn't really happen often - most of the time you only tend to encounter enemies that are outside of your level range when dealing with the Rift battles. Which, yeah, I kind of wish they'd just tailored those to the level you can be expected to be at when you find them, but with the game's generous auto-saves there's not much consequence to trying one, finding out it's too tough, and dying; you just back away after the reload and come back later, when you're closer to the level it wants you to be at. Or you can stubbornly power through it and just try to cheese out a win without ever getting hit, I know I did that against a few of these on normal difficulty (they tend to have too much health for me to be willing to do that on hard).

Slightly more annoying to me is the whole equipment thing, but your regular gear is found infrequently enough to that it mostly doesn't bother me. You do get inundated with Enchantments at times, though, and those tend to be where the "this seems like generic filler equipment" nuisance comes in for me from time to time. But it's a minor irritation on the whole.

Sometimes my attacks have hitstun, but then they don't after hitting the enemy a few times.
Sometimes one attack in a combo hitstuns an enemy, on other enemies it doesn't. Same thing when it comes to launching an enemy in the air.
Some blockable attacks show an indicator that they can be blocked, while the fastest attacks in the game don't have an indicator (so you don't really know when to block).

Well, yeah, those first two are typical of action games. Enemies sometimes have animations during which they won't take hitstun - effectively super armor from a fighting game - and different enemies react differently to attacks, with weaker ones being more likely to be easily affected by hitstun and ones that are supposed to be bigger and stronger being more likely to be able to ignore it. You just kind of have to learn which is which.

As far as attack indicators, actually that white attack indicator ring doesn't indicate a blockable attack, it indicates a guard crush one - you can parry those, but block them and you'll get put in a stagger animation that leaves you briefly vulnerable (though usually it needs to be a different enemy taking advantage of it, not the same one that guard crushed you). Regular attacks don't have any indicator because all defense options work against them just fine.

I tried playing it on the harder difficulty, but it took so goddamn long to kill the easiest enemies. You could batter one of the simple Draugrs into the air into a slow, 5-hit combo, and you might take out a fourth of his HP (assuming one of his friends don't gank you in the back during it and take out a third of your health).

It can feel that way at the start of the game, when all you have are your basic attacks, but once you get going it's not so bad. Especially once you have the big charge-up heavy attack overhead cleave thing.

And hitstun matters a lot in this game, you don't get many ways of dealing with crowds if you can't stun them.

Runic attacks and Atreus' support are your main tools there - especially once he gets the lightning arrows and you upgrade them for chain lightning, but even before that he can be effective as a distraction.

Speaking of, that's something else the game deserves a lot of praise for: Atreus could have been the thing that killed the game, both story and gameplay wise. It would have been so easy for this to have been "God of War: Escort Mission," with an annoying, useless kid tagging along that you need to keep safe all the time and is just a huge pain in the ass. Instead, you never need to worry about his safety (which is admittedly a bit unrealistic, but still far better than the alternative), plus he's genuinely helpful in combat and only gets a lot more so as the game goes on. And of course, story-wise, he's not annoying at all and the relationship between him and Kratos is the game's heart and soul. The devs deserve a lot of credit for how damn well they pulled off a concept that could easily kill other games.

[Taevyr]

Just finished my second playthrough of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, this time putting some actual thought in the builds rather than just having fun. Probably also working with a clearer mind than I did mid-lockdown depression.

I somehow reached a point where I blazed through the House at the Edge of Time relatively easily (as long as Freedom of Movement and the 9th level heroism spell lasted) and simply wrecked the final boss (the 4-phase one) after some momentary difficulty with the 4th phase, since all your companions are debuffed for that one and shorter buffs run out. Compared to the complete slog last time it's a night and day difference, though I also finished the game at lvl 19, 2 levels higher than last time.

Sword saint with rapier is a killer build, btw. 53 (58 with buffs from other party members) AC with 5 attacks, the first with +38 to hit, and mirror image, displacement and greater invisibility to boot. And excellent nova potential. Kind of proud of building that one without consulting any guides besides looking at the feat trees.

[Erloas]

I also decided to give Riftbreaker a try after Warty mentioned it. Only got about 45 minutes before I had to go, which wasn't enough time to finish the tutorial. It seems pretty good, though the tutorial I think could use a bit of work. It seems to be making a lot of game system knowledge assumptions, which is counter to the point of a tutorial. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it was trying to get me to do, only to realize after the fact that it was marked but the mark was never noted or in any way referenced.

I don't think any of that will have any long term impact on the game, but since I didn't have a lot of time to play, that's all I have been able to notice so far.

[Anonymouswizard]

Started Pathfinder: Kingmaker, playing entirely in turn based mode. It feels much nicer than RTWP D&D games, almost as if this was his the ruleset was meant to be used. I turned auto turn ends off, which is nice as it now sites me to check the board before the events take their turns.

The only potential issue was that I rolled up a standard human Fighter (using a scimitar, because I decided crit chance>damage), and at the end of the prologue most of the spellcasters left my party because I took the Lawful and Evil options. Which isn't too bad so far, being only second level means having two Fighters and a Barbarian solves pretty much every combat via good hp and damage, but I'm definitely going to want a full caster in a couple of levels just for the buffs. Still time to see how this pans out, only just got to the first town so there's still a long way to go.

[KorvinStarmast]

Diablo II Resurrected.
Yeah, like I really needed to get addicted to it again.

The visuals are wonderful. (But the Amazon's face is kind of square).
The revamped cinematics: what's not to like?

This morning, I just realized that all of the ladder rune words are enabled, even though there is no ladder.
I just made an Insight Rune word for my Act II merc, and all of my mana problems are gone.
Currently playing:
Assassin, Traps
Amazon, Javelin and Shield

The Necromancer (Bone emphasis) is now dormant since the three person party it supports can no longer play together.

And as ever:
Charsi's Imbues are frustratingly bad
The Countess never drops the runes I want when I do a Hell Countess run.
My gambling luck is, of course, awful. Gonna make a bow to make it cheaper, at least.
Ormus gives crappy rings after the Gidbin quest.
The rings from he Cain rescue mission still suck harder than a Hoover vacuum cleaner.
The cow level remains good silly fun.
Rakanishu!

[Taevyr]

Started Pathfinder: Kingmaker, playing entirely in turn based mode. It feels much nicer than RTWP D&D games, almost as if this was his the ruleset was meant to be used. I turned auto turn ends off, which is nice as it now sites me to check the board before the events take their turns.

The only potential issue was that I rolled up a standard human Fighter (using a scimitar, because I decided crit chance>damage), and at the end of the prologue most of the spellcasters left my party because I took the Lawful and Evil options. Which isn't too bad so far, being only second level means having two Fighters and a Barbarian solves pretty much every combat via good hp and damage, but I'm definitely going to want a full caster in a couple of levels just for the buffs. Still time to see how this pans out, only just got to the first town so there's still a long way to go.

Good luck on the journey! You'll get a chance to recruit casters as you go: I think there's 5 potential companions to gain after the prologue and before the end of Act 1, and you're guaranteed to encounter 3 of'em. They're all casters to some degree, if you gained all the martials post-prologue.

Spoiler: If you want more info: won't spoil any plot threads, but still

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Both companions who left can rejoin with a diplomacy check when you next encounter'em, and join at the end of the act unless you kill them, as I seem to remember getting that option. (also unless something else kills them, I guess; I didn't play with companion permadeath on, so don't know how it interacts with non-recruited companions). Beyond that, you got 2 arcane caster companions who can be found, together, after a scripted world map encounter, and a divine caster you're guaranteed to encounter.

[Man_Over_Game]

The other day, I was hovering over my wife's shoulder and saw her playing some kind of phone game. One that had you use space efficiently to create resources, which were used to make other resources, in a cute Facebook-style resource management game. All-in-all, it looked like something I wouldn't mind enjoying for a couple hours.

So I did what any terrible husband would do and introduced her to Anno.

We decided to pick up Anno 1880, since it was on sale, and got her started. Other than the abysmal tutorial campaign that doesn't explain jack s***, and the fact that there's no pause button (but you can slow down time), it's been going well. Despite burning through all of her money on things that weren't her fault, and the fact that the ruins the game puts on your starting island causing a pollution problem that's afflicting her houses, she's having a blast.

Once she gets bored of this one after the next 80 or so hours, I think I might introduce her to Zeus: Master of Olympus. She's a sucker for mythology and puzzles, and Zeus is basically a puzzle version of Anno with gods.

[Anonymouswizard]

Good luck on the journey! You'll get a chance to recruit casters as you go: I think there's 5 potential companions to gain after the prologue and before the end of Act 1, and you're guaranteed to encounter 3 of'em. They're all casters to some degree, if you gained all the martials post-prologue.

Spoiler: If you want more info: won't spoil any plot threads, but still

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Both companions who left can rejoin with a diplomacy check when you next encounter'em, and join at the end of the act unless you kill them, as I seem to remember getting that option. (also unless something else kills them, I guess; I didn't play with companion permadeath on, so don't know how it interacts with non-recruited companions). Beyond that, you got 2 arcane caster companions who can be found, together, after a scripted world map encounter, and a divine caster you're guaranteed to encounter.

Thanks for a hint, thankfully I knew that would be an important aspect, so I've been investing in said skill.

Needs to wait until I've got a day off until continuing though. I just don't have the energy for a proper RPG after work.

And as I said, it's not exactly a bad thing at this level. I'll be switching out either Amiri or Valarie as soon as I have an overly full party, but it's working for now.

[factotum]

Diablo II Resurrected.

You know what can *bleep* right off? Slingers in the Nightmare Bloody Foothills. They have a bull 100% piercing ranged attack, so suddenly my summoner Necro isn't able to hide behind his wall of bone (ala Skeletons). Drank more healing potions getting Shenk than I think I did in the entire rest of the game!

[Dire_Flumph]

Hey! Campaign for Gloomhaven Digital is finally finished. Played a lot of the boardgame with three campaigns (one with my group, one with me and my son, one solo, however I haven't finished any of them) so I'm familiar with the system. I kind of miss the physicality of holding the cards and moving the pieces around on the board, but it's an excellent translation so far. Makes playing four-handed a breeze even if the game itself remains something of a brain burner.

Having fun, but it's making me want to pick up and continue my solo campaign on the tabletop version now.