June 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Zed Clampet]

I don't know, it might stress out your GPU

We'll never know because I'm not buying it

 

[neogunhero]

Haven't been playing much at all. Still in a rut. I did play about two hours of SplitGate 2 and I think that is more than enough to get some enjoyment out of it. It's a fairly generic shooter with portal mechanics, but beyond that it feels like every other multiplayer FPS game. However, two hours of free fun isn't bad at all. I did really well in the Versus mode, but didn't touch the battle royale mode.

 

[Colif]

We'll never know because I'm not buying it

its not really a spectator sport.

I kept thinking the Beagal dog was an old man

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Played quite a bit of The Alters and like it a lot. Its a resource and base management survival game with a kind of more complicated evolution of the Telltale 'X will remember that' dialogue system stacked on top. The Alters are alternate versions of Jan Dolski the main character that you have to create to help you survive on a hostile planet after everyone else on the mission mysteriously(?) dies on landing. A lot of managing them and keeping them happy and working is based around understanding them and picking the right ways to encourage them in dialogue.

The conceit is that there's a quantum computer which has a map of Jans life and locates certain crossroad decisions that led to his career path, and what might have happened if he'd made different choices. There's a miner, a scientist, a botanist and so on. Handy that they're all pretty useful professions to the mission of course. They all have full memories up until the point they signed up for the mission to go into space and mine a Mcguffin element called Rapidium on a far away planet. You have to explain this when you wake them and they all react to the news slightly differently, even if they all seem to get over it and get to work pretty fast.

I'm only into Act 2, but so far the resource management is fairly simple stuff, there are 4 different resources plus the Rapidium to mine. These are used to build stuff to harvest resources more efficiently and build new modules in the base to keep the crew happy and healthy. The corporation who sent you on the mission are pushing you to try and harvest more Rapidium and you can choose whether to sacrifice other stuff to do so or not, which I assume has consequences down the road either way.

No jank or crashes for me, game looks nice and is quite well written. Story apparently inspired by Stanislaw Lem, who I havent read but probably now will do. Only €30 as well.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Played quite a bit of The Alters and like it a lot. Its a resource and base management survival game with a kind of more complicated evolution of the Telltale 'X will remember that' dialogue system stacked on top. The Alters are alternate versions of Jan Dolski the main character that you have to create to help you survive on a hostile planet after everyone else on the mission mysteriously(?) dies on landing. A lot of managing them and keeping them happy and working is based around understanding them and picking the right ways to encourage them in dialogue.

The conceit is that there's a quantum computer which has a map of Jans life and locates certain crossroad decisions that led to his career path, and what might have happened if he'd made different choices. There's a miner, a scientist, a botanist and so on. Handy that they're all pretty useful professions to the mission of course. They all have full memories up until the point they signed up for the mission to go into space and mine a Mcguffin element called Rapidium on a far away planet. You have to explain this when you wake them and they all react to the news slightly differently, even if they all seem to get over it and get to work pretty fast.

I'm only into Act 2, but so far the resource management is fairly simple stuff, there are 4 different resources plus the Rapidium to mine. These are used to build stuff to harvest resources more efficiently and build new modules in the base to keep the crew happy and healthy. The corporation who sent you on the mission are pushing you to try and harvest more Rapidium and you can choose whether to sacrifice other stuff to do so or not, which I assume has consequences down the road either way.

No jank or crashes for me, game looks nice and is quite well written. Story apparently inspired by Stanislaw Lem, who I havent read but probably now will do. Only €30 as well.

If you romance your clones and have sexy times with them, is it considered mas......never mind. Baldur's Gate has ruined my brain.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

If you romance your clones and have sexy times with them, is it considered mas......never mind. Baldur's Gate has ruined my brain.

https://imgur.com/a/dV06RBf

View: https://imgur.com/a/dV06RBf

 

[Zed Clampet]

https://imgur.com/a/dV06RBf

View: https://imgur.com/a/dV06RBf

This should be the symbol for sex camp in BG3.

 

[neogunhero]

I did redeem a month of Game Pass and immediately regretted it, I could have saved the code for when more games I'm interested are coming to it. I tried The Alters but couldn't bring myself to play more than 30 minutes. Not that it is bad at all, it just didn't click with me immediately. I will probably give it a better shot since so many people are saying how great it is. I also played a bit of the THPS 3+4 beta which is fun, but is limited to Arcade mode only without any goals. So you can only free-skate in 1 minute 45 second intervals. Without goals it gets boring fast.

Bloons Tower Defense 6 on my phone has been my most played game over the past week or two...

 

[Colif]

https://imgur.com/a/dV06RBf

View: https://imgur.com/a/dV06RBf

thinks of an ex mod that wouldn't like that post... no, not this one.

 

[Zloth]

No jank or crashes for me, game looks nice and is quite well written. Story apparently inspired by Stanislaw Lem, who I havent read but probably now will do. Only €30 as well.

When I saw the story, it did remind me of one of his better short stories (first story in this collection) where Ijon's spaceship's steering breaks and he zips through a region with a lot of black holes, causing a weird time distortions. It's more about tiny time travel jumps to meet himself instead of building selves from alternate pasts, but it still has plenty of arguments going on between versions.

It looked interesting to me, but I got put off by only being able to save at the start of the day. Is that right? Is a day a long time in this game?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

thinks of an ex mod that wouldn't like that post... no, not this one.

Its a completely innocent logo for a personal training company. Either that or its a classic example of guerilla marketing.

When I saw the story, it did remind me of one of his better short stories (first story in this collection) where Ijon's spaceship's steering breaks and he zips through a region with a lot of black holes, causing a weird time distortions. It's more about tiny time travel jumps to meet himself instead of building selves from alternate pasts, but it still has plenty of arguments going on between versions.

It looked interesting to me, but I got put off by only being able to save at the start of the day. Is that right? Is a day a long time in this game?

Ive heard Lem mentioned a fair few times but not looked into him much before.

Yes the game only saves when you put the character to sleep and its an autosave. I'm at day 35 and theres a save from the start of every day available to load still.

Seems like in game time a minute is 1 second and it speeds up a lot when youre manning a station to mine or make something. Day starts at 0700 and the character gets tired IIRC at 2000 which makes actions take much longer. You usually spend the day in action, either exploring or picking up resources so it usually goes faster than 13 minutes.

 

[Pifanjr]

Its a completely innocent logo for a personal training company. Either that or its a classic example of guerilla marketing.


Ive heard Lem mentioned a fair few times but not looked into him much before.

Yes the game only saves when you put the character to sleep and its an autosave. I'm at day 35 and theres a save from the start of every day available to load still.

Seems like in game time a minute is 1 second and it speeds up a lot when youre manning a station to mine or make something. Day starts at 0700 and the character gets tired IIRC at 2000 which makes actions take much longer. You usually spend the day in action, either exploring or picking up resources so it usually goes faster than 13 minutes.

Is there a time limit, such that you only have a limited number of days to complete (certain) goals, or could you just end a day early if you want to save?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Is there a time limit, such that you only have a limited number of days to complete (certain) goals, or could you just end a day early if you want to save?

So far theres been quite a bit of time pressure, although it did ease off for me towards the end of act1. Losing or shortening a day would mean you dont get resources or items made that could put you behind.

 

[Zed Clampet]

So far theres been quite a bit of time pressure, although it did ease off for me towards the end of act1. Losing or shortening a day would mean you dont get resources or items made that could put you behind.

If I'm being honest, this sounds absolutely terrible. Fortunately, it's on Game Pass, so I'm going to try it anyway.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

If I'm being honest, this sounds absolutely terrible. Fortunately, it's on Game Pass, so I'm going to try it anyway.

Maybe its not your thing. Its not a sandbox, everything is based around the beats of the story. So far Ive been able to get ahead of it eventually and spend some time gathering extra stuff, but generally its more about the characters and exploring the planet and the anomalies. The first two levels have been pretty small, its not a big open world.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Maybe its not your thing. Its not a sandbox, everything is based around the beats of the story. So far Ive been able to get ahead of it eventually and spend some time gathering extra stuff, but generally its more about the characters and exploring the planet and the anomalies. The first two levels have been pretty small, its not a big open world.

Hey, I'm not just a sandbox guy anymore. I completed Expedition 33 and am almost done with my first BG3 run. The things that you do in this game sound like my bread and butter, like what you would do in a survival game. The differences are the save limitations and the time limits.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Hey, I'm not just a sandbox guy anymore. I completed Expedition 33 and am almost done with my first BG3 run. The things that you do in this game sound like my bread and butter, like what you would do in a survival game. The differences are the save limitations and the time limits.

Thats fair, I figured with this one youre a survival guy, and though I dont really play a lot of those games I think those parts of it are probably quite simple compared to most.

I always think whats missing from a lot of survival or base building games is a narrative to give me a reason to keep playing beyond just building the next tier of tech, so it works for me if stuff is time limited, it feels like the choices I make have some weight to the outcome.

Obvs I dont mean this as any offense to anyone but it always surprises me how much weight you guys put on the ability to save whenever you want. I dont really think about it.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Maybe its not your thing. Its not a sandbox, everything is based around the beats of the story. So far Ive been able to get ahead of it eventually and spend some time gathering extra stuff, but generally its more about the characters and exploring the planet and the anomalies. The first two levels have been pretty small, its not a big open world.

Obvs I dont mean this as any offense to anyone but it always surprises me how much weight you guys put on the ability to save whenever you want. I dont really think about it.
[/QUOTE]
And I hope you never have to think about it, but I'm old and have health problems, and I need to suddenly quit some times and do things like go to the bathroom (age related), check my blood sugar, calculate insulin intake, eat the proper amount of carbs, and rest until my blood sugar stabilizes and I'm able to concentrate again, and I don't want to leave the game paused that long.

Anyway, I just finished playing the Alters, and I didn't make it to the first sleep, so I'll have to start over next time. I do love the Xcom/Fallout Shelter/SimTower sort of base building, so I'll probably give it another shot.

 

[Pifanjr]

I always think whats missing from a lot of survival or base building games is a narrative to give me a reason to keep playing beyond just building the next tier of tech, so it works for me if stuff is time limited, it feels like the choices I make have some weight to the outcome.

I also need some kind of a narrative to keep playing survival games, but not necessarily one with choices. Subnautica and The Planet Crafter mostly had some lore snippets every now and then, but that's enough for me to keep playing.

I suspect that if I try playing Factorio I'd get sucked in for a dozen or two hours before the lack of narrative makes me lose interest. It's how it went when I played vanilla Minecraft, Terraria and Space Engineers.

Obvs I dont mean this as any offense to anyone but it always surprises me how much weight you guys put on the ability to save whenever you want. I dont really think about it.

For the past couple of years we only had one PC to share between my wife, my kid and myself. So it's not really possible to leave a game on pause for long periods of time and (especially) with a kid it's also not always possible to take your time to get to the next save point.

Now that we have an extra PC and our kid is a bit older and more self-sufficient it's luckily not as big of a deal any more.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I also need some kind of a narrative to keep playing survival games, but not necessarily one with choices. Subnautica and The Planet Crafter mostly had some lore snippets every now and then, but that's enough for me to keep playing.

I suspect that if I try playing Factorio I'd get sucked in for a dozen or two hours before the lack of narrative makes me lose interest. It's how it went when I played vanilla Minecraft, Terraria and Space Engineers.

You should really try Satisfactory instead of Factorio. It's got Subnautica levels of narrative.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

And I hope you never have to think about it, but I'm old and have health problems, and I need to suddenly quit some times and do things like go to the bathroom (age related), check my blood sugar, calculate insulin intake, eat the proper amount of carbs, and rest until my blood sugar stabilizes and I'm able to concentrate again, and I don't want to leave the game paused that long.

Anyway, I just finished playing the Alters, and I didn't make it to the first sleep, so I'll have to start over next time. I do love the Xcom/Fallout Shelter/SimTower sort of base building, so I'll probably give it another shot.

Thats a special case and I can understand the need for it then.

Heads up, when it comes time to travel you'll need an amount of organics the same size as your base to move on. If you have any items on 'Uphold' which is the auto manufacture to keep items at a certain number in storage, the materials needed to make them will be reserved and it can keep the amount under what you need to travel. If your organics says you have for example 260 (+40) thats whats happening. Took me a minute to figure that out.

I also need some kind of a narrative to keep playing survival games, but not necessarily one with choices. Subnautica and The Planet Crafter mostly had some lore snippets every now and then, but that's enough for me to keep playing.

I suspect that if I try playing Factorio I'd get sucked in for a dozen or two hours before the lack of narrative makes me lose interest. It's how it went when I played vanilla Minecraft, Terraria and Space Engineers.

I really enjoy it when they weave the narrative and gameplay more tightly together. Banner Sage, Frost Punk, Per Aspera and obviously The Alters are games that have done it really well, outside of RPGs in general. I played a few hours of Subnautica and the drudge of collecting stuff and not really knowing where to find it got to me after a short while.

For the past couple of years we only had one PC to share between my wife, my kid and myself. So it's not really possible to leave a game on pause for long periods of time and (especially) with a kid it's also not always possible to take your time to get to the next save point.

Now that we have an extra PC and our kid is a bit older and more self-sufficient it's luckily not as big of a deal any more.

I quite often have to pause or stop when the family is around as well, but its never really bothered me if I have to replay 5 or 10 minutes, seems to me most games have checkpoints more often than that these days.

I actually get more annoyed when games don't have autosave and I dont notice and find I havent saved for half an hour or something when I die.

 

[Pifanjr]

You should really try Satisfactory instead of Factorio. It's got Subnautica levels of narrative.

I'd like to, but almost €30 on sale is quite a lot for me when I can scratch the itch for automation with a free Minecraft modpack as well. Or go back to The Planet Crafter and terraform the two new moons they recently added in a free update.

I really enjoy it when they weave the narrative and gameplay more tightly together. Banner Sage, Frost Punk, Per Aspera and obviously The Alters are games that have done it really well, outside of RPGs in general. I played a few hours of Subnautica and the drudge of collecting stuff and not really knowing where to find it got to me after a short while.

After thinking about it a bit more I realised I don't even need a narrative necessarily, I just need to be able to get immersed into the game. I need to be able to forget I'm just playing a game so I can pretend I'm actually achieving something. Having a good setting can allow me to create my own narrative for that and I agree that weaving together the narrative/setting and the gameplay helps a lot too.

I quite often have to pause or stop when the family is around as well, but its never really bothered me if I have to replay 5 or 10 minutes, seems to me most games have checkpoints more often than that these days.

I actually get more annoyed when games don't have autosave and I dont notice and find I havent saved for half an hour or something when I die.

Having to redo something I've already done can absolutely destroy my motivation to play a game. If it happens while I'm playing a game because of a crash I can typically power through, but if I lose progress when I quit and know that I have to redo that stuff the next time I start the game there's a good chance I'll just drop the game entirely.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I'd like to, but almost €30 on sale is quite a lot for me when I can scratch the itch for automation with a free Minecraft modpack as well. Or go back to The Planet Crafter and terraform the two new moons they recently added in a free update.



After thinking about it a bit more I realised I don't even need a narrative necessarily, I just need to be able to get immersed into the game. I need to be able to forget I'm just playing a game so I can pretend I'm actually achieving something. Having a good setting can allow me to create my own narrative for that and I agree that weaving together the narrative/setting and the gameplay helps a lot too.



Having to redo something I've already done can absolutely destroy my motivation to play a game. If it happens while I'm playing a game because of a crash I can typically power through, but if I lose progress when I quit and know that I have to redo that stuff the next time I start the game there's a good chance I'll just drop the game entirely.

I understand, but please don't compare Satisfactory to a free Minecraft mod pack or The Planet Crafter. I'd hate to have to meet you at the 7 Eleven again. Last time I found you wearing lingerie trying to earn money for a plane ticket home. (if anyone remembers that post other than me. which I doubt)