What's everyone playing?

[CJones]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/U7MJljsoUSo" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/U7MJljsoUSo</a>

I don't usually go in for puzzle games, but Baba is You is so ingenious I had to give it a try. I heard about this from playing Noita, another ingenious game. One of the devs for Noita also made this game.

This is pretty mind bending. It's part sliding block puzzle, and part existential mind ****, where you have to change the fundamental rules of the game to win the game. Can't figure out how to get past some walls? Change the rules so you play as the walls. Or make the walls the goal. Or remove the "Wall is Stop" rule so you can just walk through them.

I loved what I played of it, but found it extremely hard very quickly

Yeahhhh. Great game, but I also got stuck not too far in. Perhaps I should give it another go.

I've cleared 27 stages so far. Haven't gotten completely stuck yet. The game seems to be pretty good at giving you "simple" puzzles that serve to force you to figure out some mechanic you'll need later. The one that took me a little while was figuring out you could transform blocks into other blocks by making sentences like "Rock is Flag".

I like the logic aspect of it better than the block pushing aspect. Once I figure out what needs to be done, I find the logistics of how to actually get the blocks into the right positions to be somewhat of a chore.

[CJones]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/U7MJljsoUSo" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/U7MJljsoUSo</a>

I don't usually go in for puzzle games, but Baba is You is so ingenious I had to give it a try. I heard about this from playing Noita, another ingenious game. One of the devs for Noita also made this game.

This is pretty mind bending. It's part sliding block puzzle, and part existential mind ****, where you have to change the fundamental rules of the game to win the game. Can't figure out how to get past some walls? Change the rules so you play as the walls. Or make the walls the goal. Or remove the "Wall is Stop" rule so you can just walk through them.

I loved what I played of it, but found it extremely hard very quickly

Yeahhhh. Great game, but I also got stuck not too far in. Perhaps I should give it another go.

I've cleared 27 stages so far. Haven't gotten completely stuck yet. The game seems to be pretty good at giving you "simple" puzzles that serve to force you to figure out some mechanic you'll need later. The one that took me a little while was figuring out you could transform blocks into other blocks by making sentences like "Rock is Flag".

I like the logic aspect of it better than the block pushing aspect. Once I figure out what needs to be done, I find the logistics of how to actually get the blocks into the right positions to be somewhat of a chore.

I finally got stuck on one. Islands, level 11. I even had the right idea, but I was doing it wrong. Apparently I'm not the only one. While looking up the solution, I found out that that stage used to be much worse. But, because everyone got stuck there, the Dev removed everything that wasn't strictly necessary, in the hopes that, with such limited options, people would stumble onto the solution, simply because there was nothing else to try.

The solution requires stacking an object and a noun on the same square, something common sense would suggest isn't possible.  But of course, this whole game about changing the rules.

[CJones]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/onGvWgx2jnw" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/onGvWgx2jnw</a>

Been playing Disco Elysium this last week, and this Honest Trailer is a pretty accurate description of it. If you liked Planescape: Torment but thought it would have been better if they had just gotten rid of combat altogether, then this is the game for you.

<-- Check out my new avatar. Very early in the game when someone asks what you're name is and you realize you don't know, you're given the opportunity to make one up. If you fail the skill check to lie convincingly, you tell them your name is Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau, which no one believes. Later on, you can come clean and admit you made it up, or double down and insist that really is your name. I choose the latter

[Bitt_Player]

I picked up Daemon X Machina a while ago, finally started playing it. The world needs more giant robot games.

[Russoguru]

The Dreamcast had quite a few of those. Tech Romancer comes to mind, as does the Mobile Suit Gundam games for the original Playstation. Unfortunately they're few and far between these days.

[Variety of Cells]

I want to play the new Mech Warrior, but I refuse to use the epic games store. Soooo I have to wait another 11 months.

[Russoguru]

I think this will probably be the last year I buy anymore games. I barely play my PS4 anymore. Final Fantasy VII Remake and Resident Evil 3 will be the last new games I get. I don't see any point in buying anymore games.

[Pak-Man]

I'm back on the Stardew Valley wagon. One of the big reasons I never played it much was it was on my PC, and I only have a little bit of time to game on my PC every week. I have a lot more time to play on my Switch, though, so I got the Switch version and now I can do a little farming whenever I have a few minutes. It's a wonderful game for pick up/put down play (Other than the fact that you never want to put it down).

[Russoguru]

I recently started playing Final Fantasy VII again, partially because I'm excited for the remake coming out in April(hopefully).

[Variety of Cells]

I'm back on the Stardew Valley wagon. One of the big reasons I never played it much was it was on my PC, and I only have a little bit of time to game on my PC every week. I have a lot more time to play on my Switch, though, so I got the Switch version and now I can do a little farming whenever I have a few minutes. It's a wonderful game for pick up/put down play (Other than the fact that you never want to put it down).

This post made me want to get back into Stardew. And then I remembered that there’s a co op option (at least for the PC, not sure about for the switch). And my girlfriend has been enjoying playing co op games with me. But then I remembered you can’t do split screen, you have to run from two different computers.  But THEN I remembered that I got a Microsoft surface recently, which is capable of running Stardew Valley, and that my computer set up has two monitors, and can easily be rolled in front of my bed (as it was designed to do for watching movies). So here it is, the ultimate couch co op Stardew Valley setup.



We have been having a lot of fun!  I got her addicted quickly. There has been a natural division of labor. She takes care of the crops while I take care of the animals. We both go mining together though.  Having double the storage and double the people finding ladders is a big help. There have been a lot of little nice additions to the game since I last played too. For example, I can now switch my inventory bar with a button instead of having to go into my full inventory, so playing with a controller is much easier, with much less reorganizing. Oh and multiplayer works over LAN too, so I don’t need two copies of the game (as long as steam is in offline mode). Can’t remember the last time I actually played a game over LAN.

Co op is great in Stardew though. It’s relaxing and you really feel like a team working towards something. It’s not exactly balanced, but you do have to upgrade each person’s tools separately. However, you can share your tools, so if someone needs the nice axe for the evening, you can lend it to them. Or, more importantly, if your watering can is being upgraded, you can borrow your friend’s to water the crops.

[Lesbunny]

Been playing Rivals of Aether since I realized that I could connect my PowerA wireless GameCube controller to my PC via Bluetooth. That game is so good, if you're into platform fighters, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. It's more technical than Smash Ultimate, with a lot of similar mechanics to Melee. It's fast paced and a lot of fun. Can't love it enough.

[CJones]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/T7Ozz8NtKcE" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/T7Ozz8NtKcE</a>

I've been playing Outer Wilds (not to be confused with The Outer Worlds) for the last week or so. This is a pretty ingenious game. You play an astronaut, who, 22 minutes into his first mission, gets killed when the Sun goes super-nova. You then wake up again back at the launch site. You go through these Groundhog Day time loops, trying to figure out what the deal is with these alien artifacts strewn throughout the system, and why the sun keeps exploding. I'm still playing the game, so I haven't answered all the questions. But there is a definite narrative to what happened to the aliens who where here before your species evolved.

I've heard this described as the opposite of No Man's Sky. Instead of a vast number of planets with little to do on any of them, there are only a few planets (five major planets), but lots to find on each. You can spend a lot of time just exploring the environments, ignoring the overarching goal. Highly recommended.

Just one problem, the PC version is currently only available on the Epic Store. It will eventually be on Steam, but no set date has been made public. I initially pirated the game, but I liked it so much that I had to buy it.

[Variety of Cells]

I wonder what the game that pushes me to get a new GPU will be.  My Titan is almost 5 years old now.  It still holds up quite well.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles but it can brute force its way through most games.  But once a really pretty game comes out that requires a lot of power I think I'm ready to upgrade. 

Recently I've been playing Stardew Valley co-op and the rougelike Hades, so buying a new liquid cooled (yes, my new one must be liquid cooled) GPU on an impulse seems a bit silly.

I did start playing The Surge 2, but my Titan handles it well enough, even at 4K I'm getting a fine 45fps.  The Surge 2 is a lot of fun so far by the way.  It's not nearly as good as Dark Souls or Sekiro, but managing all the gear I get is pretty fun, and the combat feels nice.  The story is garbage, but thankfully it's so deep in the background it doesn't really matter.