August 2025 General Game Discussion

[Pifanjr]

I highly recommend Humongous Entertainment games. They have so many good games to choose from, it's hard to pick a bad one. As a kid I was especially fond of Freddie Fish and Pajama Sam. They have since put a lot of them on Steam if you want to go that route as well.

I introduced my kid to Putt Putt quite a while ago via ScummVM. She played all of the main games multiple times, she really loved them. I also showed her Freddie Fish, but she didn't care about it.

 

[Johnway]

Yesterday I played two rounds of Noita. The first round was going very well, I got some good spells, a good amount of money and I made it to the second Holy Mountain with quite a lot of life left. At the second Holy Mountain I picked up a perk that gave me four spidery legs that allowed me to climb and stick to walls and ceilings, which was pretty useful.
At least, it seemed useful until I realized I had lost the ability to fly. Not being used to having my mobility restricted like that I died pretty quickly after into the third area.

In the second round I decided to just go deep as fast as possible. I got the telekinesis perk, which is awesome as flying debris does a ton of damage to enemies, one-shotting basically all of them. At least, if you hit them and they don't destroy the projectile while you're holding it. Except the one that was seemingly immune to kinetic damage and ended up killing me because I had no good wands to fall back on.

---

Today I told my kid she was allowed a bit more screen time if she played something educational. She decided to play Treasure MathStorm!, a game from my childhood that I had shown to her. She had played it in a browser emulator before but when she started it up all her progress was lost (even though I had tested it before to make sure it could save).
So I decided to get a local copy and get the Dutch version while I was at it. I thought it would just be a matter of getting a copy and running it in Dosbox, as that was what the website emulator did, but it turned out that the Dutch version was only ever released for Windows. Cue me spending several hours getting Windows 3.1 installed in Dosbox (with a switch to Dosbox Staging as apparently the regular Dosbox is obsolete), installing drivers, getting the game installed and then making a custom shortcut that loads directly into the game.

But it works! Now to get some more DOS and old Windows games to show my kid what I had to work with when I was her age.

have you tried looking into Exowin3.1 and exodos? plenty of classic dos and windows game of an educational nature. maths workshop was one of the few i played. there are of course the old BBC micro games which i don't remember much bout and the novel-but-actually-really-boring encarter maze game.

i do remember bodyworks 5.0 had a 2 player quiz game complete with FMV animated contestants. I would piss my brother off playing this because i didn't know anything about the medical questions. So i just hit the buzzer as quickly as possible and pressed a random answer. if you got it wrong you lost all your points, but boy on one or 2 occasions i beat my brother doing that and he was not impressed. it annoyed my dad too, who was watching us.

 

[Zloth]

OK, I'm tired of finding excuses to not play BG3. Next game. Something to punish me for not finishing BG3.

View: https://youtu.be/CzUFmzgkzw4


No clue what I'm doing! I've died a few times (twice in the tutorial) but the death penalties, at least at this point, are trivial. I'm trying to get good at killing those bat things, but it's rough. My one spell is a joke, doing less damage than my spear and with a shorter range, too!

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

 

[Pifanjr]

have you tried looking into Exowin3.1 and exodos? plenty of classic dos and windows game of an educational nature. maths workshop was one of the few i played. there are of course the old BBC micro games which i don't remember much bout and the novel-but-actually-really-boring encarter maze game.

i do remember bodyworks 5.0 had a 2 player quiz game complete with FMV animated contestants. I would piss my brother off playing this because i didn't know anything about the medical questions. So i just hit the buzzer as quickly as possible and pressed a random answer. if you got it wrong you lost all your points, but boy on one or 2 occasions i beat my brother doing that and he was not impressed. it annoyed my dad too, who was watching us.

I'm aware of Exodos, but I don't really need several hundreds of gigabytes worth of DOS software. I might just get a couple of the games my wife and I used to play as a kid just to show our kid.

OK, I'm tired of finding excuses to not play BG3. Next game. Something to punish me for not finishing BG3.

View: https://youtu.be/CzUFmzgkzw4


No clue what I'm doing! I've died a few times (twice in the tutorial) but the death penalties, at least at this point, are trivial. I'm trying to get good at killing those bat things, but it's rough. My one spell is a joke, doing less damage than my spear and with a shorter range, too!

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

Very nice parry! I never managed to get the hang of the parry system in any of the Dark Souls games I've played.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

OK, I'm tired of finding excuses to not play BG3. Next game. Something to punish me for not finishing BG3.

View: https://youtu.be/CzUFmzgkzw4


No clue what I'm doing! I've died a few times (twice in the tutorial) but the death penalties, at least at this point, are trivial. I'm trying to get good at killing those bat things, but it's rough. My one spell is a joke, doing less damage than my spear and with a shorter range, too!

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

The messages are pretty important if you want to find secrets and a lot of useful stuff. Death stays pretty trivial as long as you make sure you level up whenever you have enough runes. You can use any Rune items you find around from inventory to top up to the next level if youre close.

Godspeed on your journey!

 

[neogunhero]

I had online turned on, but the messages were pretty annoying and watching other people's ghosts jump around is distracting. Maybe I'll turn it on again once I get by the starting area. That should reduce the traffic a lot.

They can be distracting, but also helpful. There is a certain item you can get where you can summon other players into co-op to help fight a boss which is super handy. However, I think there is a slight issue with lots of current players being so far past the beginning area that they don't offer their help to new players, only the hardest bosses in the game. It may be a bit hard to find these messages, and often times the connection drops or the sign stayed well after the player has moved onto a different area causing them not to join you, but when it does work it's incredibly helpful.

 

[Rolfil]

I've finished Doom the Dark Ages and COD Blackops 6 campaign. I've also gone back to Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 which I bought the Submarine and Fishing Boats DLC.

The submarines are absolutely huge in game!

 

[Johnway]

I'm aware of Exodos, but I don't really need several hundreds of gigabytes worth of DOS software. I might just get a couple of the games my wife and I used to play as a kid just to show our kid.

Exodos lite allows you to download the app and then you can select the games you want within the app. So no need to download tbs of data.

Exowin3.1 i worked out that when you first download it, you can deselect all the games and tick the ones you want. Run the torrent file again deselect everything apart from the new games.

 

[Frindis]

Might be of interest for some of you:

Best of Humble Bundle: WB Play the Legends

Play Injustice 2, the Batman Arkham series, and more with the hottest games bundle of the summer from Warner Bros. Games!

www.humblebundle.com

 

[neogunhero]

Been eyeballing this month's Humble Choice mainly for one game, Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip. That game looks like pretty dumb fun yet well made with lots of love. My Time at Sandrock and Wildmender look like good survival games as well, this may be the first month in over a year where I buy Humble Choice.

 

[Johnway]

i've had a look at the humble choice and besides persona 5 (which i already got), none of the other games interest me. I think i've got a couple of them already via family collection so i'm skipping it. Again, kicking myself that i got persona 5 for £22 a year or 2 ago. Should have waited as i haven't played it. sucks.

Speaking of kicking myself, i got like a dragon:ishin and previously mentioned judement series earlier in the year and if i had waited another six months i would have got them on a better deal. more painful reminders to hold or don't gamble as much.


On other news i'm almost done with blasphemous, just need to find complete some of the side content. i'm still miffed for some of the bits where i can't reach so i need to figure out how to get to them. We're at 93% completed.

 

[Zloth]

There's a lot of talk on the Elden Ring forums about hackers mangling peoples' saves. They pop in and teleport the person underground, or into an DLC area (which means infinite loading if you don't own the DLC). Some will somehow cause every major boss to get killed off, so you won't get any rewards when you defeat them. If you haven't backed up your save, you're done. Start a new save.

Things weren't going well for me until I popped into a dungeon: the Stormfoot Catacombs. Got killed, then got killed just before getting my loot back. Arg. About 4000 runes gone - whatever they are for. A little underground area under a building in a swamp double-killed me, too. The first proper boss (found behind a one-way mist door) killed me pretty easily. I haven't died since, but I hardly had anything so I'm not going back for that loot.

I finally discovered the merchant that the game and been pointing me toward. I thought I would have to fight that big boss guy - but no, he just rides back and forth, waiting for me to get strong enough to kill him. That's going to be a pretty long time! I also found out that runes are money around here.

There are also soldiers wandering around. They're great! Better rewards than the giant bat things and WAY easier to kill. They're lucky to turn around before I finish them off! Those bat things are smart and sneak over the top of my shield to hurt me.

Still, I hadn't figured out how to level up yet. There's a "required" under my runes set at 750 or so which might be it, but I passed that up and there was no option to level up. What gives!? It's been two nights and I'm still at the same level I was. The guidance pointed me at another grace point, but the guidance from there points to a nasty looking place. I'm still the same level I was when I started and, though I have a nice shield, I'm barefoot! This can't be right.

So, I took a look in a guide. Oooooh, it seems I have to hang around that merchant overnight. Then I'll get a visitor who will clue me in on how to fraggin' level up. And give me a horse, too. And how was I supposed to know that!? Maybe those weird things the white mask guy said?

I probably would have gotten all sorts of hints about that if I had multiplayer turned on.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

There's a lot of talk on the Elden Ring forums about hackers mangling peoples' saves. They pop in and teleport the person underground, or into an DLC area (which means infinite loading if you don't own the DLC). Some will somehow cause every major boss to get killed off, so you won't get any rewards when you defeat them. If you haven't backed up your save, you're done. Start a new save.

Things weren't going well for me until I popped into a dungeon: the Stormfoot Catacombs. Got killed, then got killed just before getting my loot back. Arg. About 4000 runes gone - whatever they are for. A little underground area under a building in a swamp double-killed me, too. The first proper boss (found behind a one-way mist door) killed me pretty easily. I haven't died since, but I hardly had anything so I'm not going back for that loot.

I finally discovered the merchant that the game and been pointing me toward. I thought I would have to fight that big boss guy - but no, he just rides back and forth, waiting for me to get strong enough to kill him. That's going to be a pretty long time! I also found out that runes are money around here.

There are also soldiers wandering around. They're great! Better rewards than the giant bat things and WAY easier to kill. They're lucky to turn around before I finish them off! Those bat things are smart and sneak over the top of my shield to hurt me.

Still, I hadn't figured out how to level up yet. There's a "required" under my runes set at 750 or so which might be it, but I passed that up and there was no option to level up. What gives!? It's been two nights and I'm still at the same level I was. The guidance pointed me at another grace point, but the guidance from there points to a nasty looking place. I'm still the same level I was when I started and, though I have a nice shield, I'm barefoot! This can't be right.

So, I took a look in a guide. Oooooh, it seems I have to hang around that merchant overnight. Then I'll get a visitor who will clue me in on how to fraggin' level up. And give me a horse, too. And how was I supposed to know that!? Maybe those weird things the white mask guy said?

I probably would have gotten all sorts of hints about that if I had multiplayer turned on.

These tips are general and pretty consistent across all the Dark Souls games and ER.

Runes are both money and experience. You can only level up at Sites of Grace, so if you lose Runes before you get to one you might be in trouble.

If you didnt know, your dodge roll has invincibility frames, so you can roll through any attack as if it wasnt there if you time it right. Lighter armor gives a faster roll with more I frames and there are three speeds depending on your equip load that is affected by your Endurance stat. Every weapon scales off of a stat and its generally best to level the one that suits the weapon you prefer, but dont forget to level your Vigor as well! Respec is available a bit later with a useable item.

I think you guessed already but the idea is that you partly rely on other peoples messages to point stuff out, with that caveat that sometimes they will try and trick you into jumping off a cliff to your death instead for the laffs.

I suggest you try out every weapon or spell you find around and see what suits you because upgrade resources are a little limited. The combat didnt click fully for me until the first time I found a Great Sword, but a lot of people prefer faster weapon types or spells.