August 2025 General Game Discussion

[BeardyHat]

I have a friend like that, who disables the permadeath in roguelikes. People should play the game however is enjoyable for them... but that doesn't mean I don't judge my friend

I've had Caves of Qud on my wishlist for a while now, but I feel like I should give Angband another serious try before I buy it. And maybe give Nethack and Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead a try first as well.

Caves of Qud just feels so good, especially on a Steam Deck, using it as a controller. It works exceptionally well. And I think Qud lends itself well to disabling permadeath because it has such an expansive, interesting world.

But I just generally don't get along well with Roguelikes, which I think is primarily due to my poor memory. I can't ever remember what the Red Potion does or if x creature poisons me, etc, etc. The only way I really learn and remember things is through sheer, immediate repetition. If I die in Qud and I can reload my save, its easier for me to remember the context of my death and think, "Oh yeah, that slime killed me last time. Better stay away from it." if I'm dead and I have to start all over, by the time I've started a new character and my run is totally fresh, when I finally get back near to where I've died, I've already forgotten all my contextual clues and just immediately repeat the same mistakes, leading to frustration.

That's just my hypothesis anyway...

Jupp, I'm playing it!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knh0HxK_d0Q

Awesome trailer!

I still need to get back in to Bannerlord. I only ever played it briefly when it came out; I seem to start playing and then end-up in a loop where I build-up a decent army, they all get wiped out and I'm captured, then I escape and rinse, repeat until the end of time. Need to actually spend some time learning what the hell I'm doing.

Been busy most weekends for the past 3-4 months or so. Even when I had my full week off of work over a month ago I didn't have much free time to do whatever I wanted. This weekend my wife is going out of town for a day with friends, leaving me all alone at the house for a good 6 hours or so. I plan to use this time wisely. Only problem is, I don't know what game to play just like so many others here.

BF2042 had a big update with a new map, and after the BF6 beta, I'm a bit fired up to give it a shot. I may run a few matches there, while not my favorite BF game it really isn't that bad overall, especially since launch.

I still have $15 in my Steam wallet, might spend that on something new. Enshrouded looks great, though not sure how well it is solo. Assassin's Creed Mirage is down to just $15, but I actually prefer the open world ones. Not sure what I'll end up playing.

BF2042 is on sale for like $2 right now. I thought about picking it up, but the Mixed reviews turned me off and the fact that it's a multiplayer shooter, which means I probably won't actually end-up playing it all that much...

 

[Zloth]

Back to the well again...

View: https://youtu.be/lnG30dERc3k?si=mMcr4klDHdVkDKKD

Too-long-didn't-watch version: Tropico 7 is coming out next year and that's all they are saying for now.

 

[neogunhero]

BF2042 is on sale for like $2 right now. I thought about picking it up, but the Mixed reviews turned me off and the fact that it's a multiplayer shooter, which means I probably won't actually end-up playing it all that much...

Mixed reviews come mostly from the games launch and people not pleased with it being 100% the same as older BF games. They tried some new things, and admittedly they didn't all land, but it was the shakeup of normalcy that made people mad. Also, not sure if this was a limited time gamemode or not, but there is usually a PvEvP type mode, where each team has ~20 players and 20 bots all fighting each other, makes the overall experience easier than straight PVP. BF6 had a mode like that, it was nice not getting killed every half second by other players.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Enshrouded looks great, though not sure how well it is solo.

I like enshrouded. Not sure about solo. If you make sure you always have good gear based on where you are, it would probably be okay. May have to use stealth and hit and run tactics at villages. Not sure about the dungeons they added after I quit.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Mixed reviews come mostly from the games launch and people not pleased with it being 100% the same as older BF games. They tried some new things, and admittedly they didn't all land, but it was the shakeup of normalcy that made people mad. Also, not sure if this was a limited time gamemode or not, but there is usually a PvEvP type mode, where each team has ~20 players and 20 bots all fighting each other, makes the overall experience easier than straight PVP. BF6 had a mode like that, it was nice not getting killed every half second by other players.

There's no campaign at all in that one?

 

[BeardyHat]

Started playing Crusader: No Remorse on my other Anbernic handheld and it's pretty cool. It's definitely got some of that DOS game jank, with tank controls on what looks to be grid based movement in an action game. But getting beyond those, the game itself is pretty fun, the graphics hold up pretty well and the environments look cool, plus everything explodes.

My only complaint is how I'm playing it; the controller isn't the problem, it actually works very well, when it works. Retroarch is great for some DOS games, like old platformers, but once you've got more than a couple of keybinds, things start to break down. My buttons will randomly begin doing other actions or stop doing them altogether and I haven't been able to figure out exactly why.

But it'll work for now. I think once I get back from this camping trip, I'll probably switch over to using my Deck, which will take some configuration through DOSBOX Staging, but hopefully I can remember all the things I did to get Might & Magic 4 working.

View: https://youtu.be/Oxep0JQEhVs?si=eOfGDu_XDSLjzgzw

 

[neogunhero]

I like enshrouded. Not sure about solo. If you make sure you always have good gear based on where you are, it would probably be okay. May have to use stealth and hit and run tactics at villages. Not sure about the dungeons they added after I quit.

Are there any difficulty sliders to make the game a bit easier solo? Surely it will automatically scale down a bit with just me in the world, but it would be nice to fine-tune some things as well just to make it a bit more manageable.

There's no campaign at all in that one?

None in 2042, the closest thing is a 4-player co-op vs NPCs mode. Still fairly fun, I've played it with randoms before, but nothing spectacular.

Edit: I read online that you can play the co-op mode solo with 3 AI teammates. Cool, but still not a campaign. Apparently BF6 will have one.

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Tried creating a Win11 boot USB drive last night. It blue screened my PC. This was the first blue screen I've gotten in a good two years, and of course it came from a Microsoft program of all things. Maybe that was a bad omen. Going to try again later tonight.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Are there any difficulty sliders to make the game a bit easier solo? Surely it will automatically scale down a bit with just me in the world, but it would be nice to fine-tune some things as well just to make it a bit more manageable.

There were not any difficulty settings when I played, but apparently they added them because I found these patch notes:

• The “Default” difficulty is still present as the baseline and would be the recommended setting for first-time players.
• The “Relaxed” preset reduces the amount of enemies and provides you with more resources and loot. A perfect mode if you are most interested in base-building and light-hearted adventuring.
• The “Hard” preset increases the amount of enemies and makes them more aggressive to give you a tougher combat experience.
• The “Survival” preset is for those who seek some punishment with additional survival mechanics like hunger and dropping all of your backpack on death, on top of more aggressive enemies.
• Finally, a “Custom” setting where each preset can be freely modified. Crank one or all of the 30 game settings all the way up, mix and match and tailor your adventure! Craft your ideal settings and share your thoughts with us and the community.

Sounds like you can use the custom settings to pretty much make it however you want.

 

[BeardyHat]

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Tried creating a Win11 boot USB drive last night. It blue screened my PC. This was the first blue screen I've gotten in a good two years, and of course it came from a Microsoft program of all things. Maybe that was a bad omen. Going to try again later tonight.

Linux... It beckons...

 

[Pifanjr]

I opened my Epic library and my eye was immediately drawn to Backpack Hero. I've wanted to try it since I've first heard about it and so far it's exceeding my expectations. I ended up playing it until 2:30 AM, then played it again today for a couple of hours.

Do you have RiME on Epic? I thought that was pretty good and a nice change of pace.

I'm not sure. I've claimed pretty much every freebie, so if it was given away I probably have it. It reminds a bit of Aer: Memories of Old.

Jupp, I'm playing it!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knh0HxK_d0Q

I have access to Mount & Blade: Bannerlord through Steam Family Sharing and have it in my favourites list, but I haven't gotten around to playing it. I liked Mount & Blade: Warband, but I never got particularly far in it. I got a single village once and it just kept getting raided.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Ive been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on the Steam Deck, and its pretty good. 2D Metroidvania adventure platforming type game. Picked it up on sale for 7.99 last week.

Coming from games like Hollow Knight or Ori the movement feels awkward, especially at the beginning. Theres no parry, dodge, wall bounce or other movement options. You have a floor slide, a back step, the standard jump, and seems like a double jump later. Seems intentional because its supposed to be a modern take on a Castlevania game from the designer of some(?) of those games. But the more I play it, the more I'm enjoying it.

It has level ups and stats to increase, which you do by cooking meals made of ingredients you gather as you explore, it also has a lot of different weapon types that all work slightly differently and a magic system based around Shards you collect from mobs. The Shards are equippable across I think 5 slots, giving you a ranged spell or summon, and a more heavy hitting nuke ability, as well as a passive bonus. There's a mana bar that recharges itself thats used for the active spells.

Theres a pretty big interconnected world to explore as you'd expect, with a lot of secret doors and keys needed to get around.

I think the biggest thing thats drawing me to it is that its really quite playful in the story and art design. Its a bit anime which put me off at first but as its gone on its grown on me. Some of the enemies are dumb in a good way, my favourite so far is the giant Horned cat demon.

Anyway, its been great on Steam Deck and I'll probably keep playing it for a while yet.

 

[neogunhero]

• Finally, a “Custom” setting where each preset can be freely modified. Crank one or all of the 30 game settings all the way up, mix and match and tailor your adventure! Craft your ideal settings and share your thoughts with us and the community.

This is exactly what I wanted to know, thank you. To me, one of the greatest newer features in modern gaming is customizable game settings, so I'm really happy this game has that. Sometimes I want the combat just a bit easier while keeping survival systems at moderate difficulty, or increase resource gather rate without making it feel too much like cheating. I'm really considering picking it up now, I've wanted it ever since it first came out.

Linux... It beckons...

Y'know, I'm going to have a ton more space with this new drive. I may as well make a partition in one of the older drives I'll still have connected and just check it out.

 

[neogunhero]

I have access to Mount & Blade: Bannerlord through Steam Family Sharing and have it in my favourites list, but I haven't gotten around to playing it. I liked Mount & Blade: Warband, but I never got particularly far in it. I got a single village once and it just kept getting raided.

I have similar experiences with those games. I really like the concept of them, but I never have a clue what I'm doing in the game and don't feel very immersed in it. Sometimes it's a lot of menus and running back and forth. I wasn't very great at combat either. I bought Bannerlord around the time it first came out because a friend of mine was super into the series and was hyping it up a lot to me. I think I have about 9 hours in that game, he has 221.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Pifanjr @neogunhero Is Bannerlord the game that has you do a tutorial of archery on horseback and jousting? I was at my host hilarious during this tutorial, and then I started the game, and the whole thing seemed half-baked. I remember I was supposed to find someone, I was in a town, but this person wasn't in town. They were actually down the road a bit, like I was supposed to know that...I mean, no hand-holding is fine, but you could at least give me a clue as to where in the entire world I'm supposed to find this person.

 

[neogunhero]

@Pifanjr @neogunhero Is Bannerlord the game that has you do a tutorial of archery on horseback and jousting? I was at my host hilarious during this tutorial, and then I started the game, and the whole thing seemed half-baked. I remember I was supposed to find someone, I was in a town, but this person wasn't in town. They were actually down the road a bit, like I was supposed to know that...I mean, no hand-holding is fine, but you could at least give me a clue as to where in the entire world I'm supposed to find this person.

Yeah that's exactly the one. I had a lot of fun with that tutorial, you were able to rerun that horseback archery course as much as you'd like and I did it a good handful of times. I also liked dueling with the NPCs. Then got into the main game and felt the same as you, just lost and unimpressed overall. It is one of those kinds of games where your imagination makes up a lot of the details, but I would still like a bit more direction and help with getting started. I had this issue in Warband as well. To make matters worse, I really sucked at the combat, it felt like I was never landing my blows for some reason.

 

[BeardyHat]

Someday I'll get into Bannerlord, but I'm not sure when that will be. I do wonder if they have multiplayer Siege like in the old days with Warband.

Ive been playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on the Steam Deck, and its pretty good. 2D Metroidvania adventure platforming type game. Picked it up on sale for 7.99 last week.

Coming from games like Hollow Knight or Ori the movement feels awkward, especially at the beginning. Theres no parry, dodge, wall bounce or other movement options. You have a floor slide, a back step, the standard jump, and seems like a double jump later. Seems intentional because its supposed to be a modern take on a Castlevania game from the designer of some(?) of those games. But the more I play it, the more I'm enjoying it.

It has level ups and stats to increase, which you do by cooking meals made of ingredients you gather as you explore, it also has a lot of different weapon types that all work slightly differently and a magic system based around Shards you collect from mobs. The Shards are equippable across I think 5 slots, giving you a ranged spell or summon, and a more heavy hitting nuke ability, as well as a passive bonus. There's a mana bar that recharges itself thats used for the active spells.

Theres a pretty big interconnected world to explore as you'd expect, with a lot of secret doors and keys needed to get around.

I think the biggest thing thats drawing me to it is that its really quite playful in the story and art design. Its a bit anime which put me off at first but as its gone on its grown on me. Some of the enemies are dumb in a good way, my favourite so far is the giant Horned cat demon.

Anyway, its been great on Steam Deck and I'll probably keep playing it for a while yet.

Still need to play this one. Bought it several weeks ago with big intentions to play it on my Deck and didn't end up actually putting any time into it.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I don't understand the "Endless" mode in these card-collecting roguelikes. To me, I've just finished a run, and I'm pretty happy with how things are going, and I'd like to play some more with what I have. To the developers, this is the opportunity to very quickly make the game impossible for all but the most perfect set-ups. "Endless" means you get a couple extra rounds unless you're on a miracle run.

 

[Zloth]

I went to the dungeon in Limgrave (Lengrave? whatever) that's right next to the tutorial. I went down the ladder and found myself in a pool of poison, then just "noped" right back out again. Instead, I finally finished off Stomveil's master (battle spoilers, obviously):

View: https://youtu.be/qJh_Ag9dG28

That was my first try on the guy and I barely got touched until the very end. He gave me the runes I could use to get level 40. I'm guessing I spent way more time in the first area than the boss was designed for.

And then there were.... the two fingers. Kinda hairy fingers. Was NOT expecting that!

 

[Pifanjr]

I have similar experiences with those games. I really like the concept of them, but I never have a clue what I'm doing in the game and don't feel very immersed in it. Sometimes it's a lot of menus and running back and forth. I wasn't very great at combat either. I bought Bannerlord around the time it first came out because a friend of mine was super into the series and was hyping it up a lot to me. I think I have about 9 hours in that game, he has 221.

I actually got quite good at the combat. I could beat a dozen enemies by myself with a bit of luck, especially if I was on a horse and they weren't. But even on foot it was possible to just kill them one by one by walking backwards while swinging at them if you had a weapon with good reach.

The biggest downside is that combat got boring once I had some decent units. For most skirmishes I could just order my cavalry to charge and wait five minutes until I'd won. Or I would be intercepted by a much larger army and be overrun in 5 minutes instead.

There just wasn't much to do outside of fighting random skirmishes. You could technically conquer other kingdoms, but it was an absolute pain to make any decent progress.

I don't understand the "Endless" mode in these card-collecting roguelikes. To me, I've just finished a run, and I'm pretty happy with how things are going, and I'd like to play some more with what I have. To the developers, this is the opportunity to very quickly make the game impossible for all but the most perfect set-ups. "Endless" means you get a couple extra rounds unless you're on a miracle run.

This is why I typically don't buy these kind of games. I love starting a new deckbuilding roguelite and the short runs are great for when you just want to play a quick game, but doing the same run over and over becomes boring rather quickly, so I typically stick with free versions or demos.

I prefer games like Inscryption that add a bit of story and regularly introduce new mechanics to keep the game fresh. Or roguelikes like Angband where a run can take many hours so you actually get to enjoy a good build (until you screw up and die).

Backpack Hero has been keeping my attention by giving me a lot of quests that change the way you play. The game has really been far too easy so far as I haven't even gotten close to losing a single run, but with a bit of a story and a lot of variety between runs I'm still enjoying myself. And the game is slowly getting more difficult, so I'm hoping it'll start actually being challenging soon.

 

[Frindis]

I'm sure there is a hidden furry gem inside there. Mjau, mjau, woof, woof!

Save up to 90% on furry games during the Anthro Festival 2025, now live on Steam

Massive discounts on all kinds of games featuring anthropomorphic animals. You can browse the complete list of offers here, each ranked from best to worst.

gg.deals

Also just in: You can play Dying Light for free on Steam until 25 Aug @ 7:00 pm. It's a really fun game and the parkour and grapple mechanics in the game are very, very good!

Dying Light is free to play this weekend on Steam (updated)

Brace yourself: Dying Light is free to play on Steam until August 25. Check out the refined gameplay and the polished look of Harran City in the Retouched update.

gg.deals

 

[Frindis]

New sale going on with a couple of family-friendly games in the midst:

Steam's Panic Publisher Sale 2025 is packed with top-notch indie games

Score up to 80% off games published by Panic, known for some of the best indie games.

gg.deals

 

[Frindis]

You might think you don't need it, but you would be wrong. This game will change you!

You can try a FREE Garfield Kart 2 demo this weekend as the devs rev up for release!

The open network test is completely free for all players on Steam, with no requirement to provide feedback.

gg.deals

 

[Johnway]

Started playing Crusader: No Remorse on my other Anbernic handheld and it's pretty cool. It's definitely got some of that DOS game jank, with tank controls on what looks to be grid based movement in an action game. But getting beyond those, the game itself is pretty fun, the graphics hold up pretty well and the environments look cool, plus everything explodes.

My only complaint is how I'm playing it; the controller isn't the problem, it actually works very well, when it works. Retroarch is great for some DOS games, like old platformers, but once you've got more than a couple of keybinds, things start to break down. My buttons will randomly begin doing other actions or stop doing them altogether and I haven't been able to figure out exactly why.

But it'll work for now. I think once I get back from this camping trip, I'll probably switch over to using my Deck, which will take some configuration through DOSBOX Staging, but hopefully I can remember all the things I did to get Might & Magic 4 working.

View: https://youtu.be/Oxep0JQEhVs?si=eOfGDu_XDSLjzgzw

i played it on the playstation. i did have fun with it and i agree the tanky controls at times can be irritating. Especially when jumping is involved and some of the combat situations as its fairly clunky to move. Especially when you try to make a few steps out or try to roll out into the open to blast a guard with flak.

Still, i'm hoping the play the sequel crusader no regret on dosbox or GOG. But too many games to play. just bought another 2 games and 2025 is apparently has become the 3rd biggest spend of my entire steam collection. Although, i argue that each chapter of tales of the monkey island collection shouldn't be counted as a game each. But its irrelevant as i feel like a damn junkie.


Path of exile i'm mapping and with the announcement of the POE2 league, i can expect the POE1 game to be dead now. So i'll be going it alone once more. Bigger problems is that recently the game has been lagging a lot and i can't put my find down as to why. maybe its because i'm mapping or something.

 

[neogunhero]

New SSD came in today, going to work on getting my clean reinstall of Win11 up and running tonight. Wanting to do a massive deep clean as well, so everything will feel fresh and new.

Got a large chunk of time all to myself tomorrow, and I'm struggling to figure out which game to play. BF2042 will be a safe bet, I'll have fun running a few rounds in that game, but I have never been able to play a BF game for more than ~2 hours without needing a break. The constant chaos and high octane action wears me out in long sessions.

I'm still really considering picking up Enshrouded, but also kind of on the fence about it. I'm sure I will have a great time with it, but I wonder if I can find something else for the same price to hold my interest longer. Sometimes survival games get boring after a while, though I understand this game does survival and base building differently, so perhaps I will enjoy it more than others.

I did get playtest access to Militsioner last night and played for a good hour, and it's absolutely amazing so far, but that is also the issue. The game is clearly a bit early in development, and I don't want to ruin the whole experience for me by playing the playtest a ton. Militsioner is an immersive sim through and through, my favorite genre of game, and a lot of the fun with immsims is the discovery of its systems and exploration of its world. I want the experience to still be fresh and full of surprise when the full game comes out, so I think I won't play it much more besides a few more runs.

From what I did play though, it's really great. I love interacting with the Militsioner (the giant policeman that keeps an eye on you at all times), he has a range of emotion you can evoke using various dialogue options or by gifting him items. The world seems very intricately designed with lots of hidden pathways to find. Immersive Sim sickos like myself will love seeing the classic "jump on this AC unit to reach other AC unit then climb into this window to find a secret item" motif here. Lots of things to discover and find out that can be easily missed if you don't take time to explore. Really looking forward to the full release, it has not been announced but hopefully it's soon.

 

[Zloth]

Paradox has a big sale going on GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/promo/20250819_paradox_publisher_sale

Battletech, Stellaris, Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, Shadowrun, EU 4 DLC, Tyranny, more EU 4 DLC, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings DLC, Age of Wonders DLC, Crusader Kings, even more EU 4 DLC, Tyranny DLC, Sword of the Stars Complete, Biogenesis... which is Stellaris DLC