October 2025 General Games discussion thread

[Frindis]

My first Halloween game this year, and it seems decent enough. Trying to go over my game list and find more "spooky" games, preferably something not being played before.

Still Life on Steam

Still Life 2 also now available!

store.steampowered.com

 

[Johnway]

NEXTfest is back baby. Downloaded a few demos to see what they're like. Will report back when i have time...

 

[Pifanjr]

I've been feeling under the weather, so I called in sick today. That meant I had a bit more time to play some games today, but I also didn't feel like doing anything too complex. So, instead of continuing Baldur's Gate 3, I started Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord.

On my first try I got a bit too optimistic and got my ass beat twice by some low level bandits. Turns out they throw stones now and those hurt quite a bit when there's half a dozen guys chucking them at you.

So I restarted and now it's going pretty well. I scrounged together some half-way decent gear and I got a couple of veteran soldiers, so I can take on most bandits without any problems. Though I did get downed once more from some unusually accurate archers. Luckily my men could just drag me out of there so I didn't lose anything.

 

[Zloth]

I played a variety of games over the weekend. Starting with Skin Deep, I was having a lot of trouble on the third level. The main gist of the game is the save all the cats locked up on each ship, however you choose to go about it, but at the end of the third level it tasked me to go back into the ship as it got boarded by a good 7 more pirates. This is where I was having issues. I had no weapons or kill them, so I failed and retried a few times.

The little capsule you pop into with the rescued cats has some extra weapons on the wall. No shoes, though.

 

[Colif]

Happy Monday everyone (unless you're a time-traveling Australian).

I am happy its not Monday any more. Too far away from Friday. I am almost up to hump day (Wednesday)... funny how people wish their lives away.

I was going to play Slormancer today... I forgot as not playing a game is normal mode for me.

 

[neogunhero]

I've been feeling under the weather, so I called in sick today. That meant I had a bit more time to play some games today, but I also didn't feel like doing anything too complex.

Hope you're feeling better, being sick is the worst.

The little capsule you pop into with the rescued cats has some extra weapons on the wall. No shoes, though.

I totally forgot to mention...

When I got to that capsule on my final try, I had to clear up my inventory to pick up those explosives. In my inventory was an unused lighter. I’m not sure how, but when I threw my lighter, there was apparently an explosive gas in the capsule.

So yeah… everything blew up in a great spectacle.

I revived myself and everything in the capsule (besides the cats staring at me) was destroyed. I had to go in with no weapons besides a few random blunt objects.

I thought for sure I was going to have to restart this again, but that’s when I had the idea to break the windows with the pirates inside, and that worked perfectly!

 

[Johnway]

So i opted to play a nextfest demo instead of code veronica today. it was Kingdom of the Night - an isometric ARPG similar vain to Diablo. Set in the 90s you are nobody who suddenly have destiny thrusted into your hands and to rescue your love from an evil demon.

Its nice and i love the graphics and passion, but mechanically its a bit ropey. Collision detection needs to be tightened up and needs more variety. but its an early area so maybe later it might get more interesting. might get when its dirt cheap, But for now, far too simple.

 

[Johnway]

has anyone tried Quarantine zone? its one of those job simulators but this one feels like has much more potential. Unfortunately my pc isn't good enough to run it, so no real idea what its like. its very positive though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3525400/Quarantine_Zone_The_Last_Check_Demo/

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bunch more Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord yesterday. I can now have up to 130 soldiers in my party, but it turns out that paying and feeding that many people is quite expensive, so I have to constantly look for quests to make more money. Luckily there are plenty of people in need and bandits to loot.

I really like the system where you can choose to have a companion take some of your troops and do the quest instead. It makes it feel like you're a leader way before you actually become a lord or king.

I did become a lord by swearing fealty to one of the kings. They even gave me a major city already. Hopefully it won't be immediately ransacked, as I was on the other side of the map at the time it was given to me.

 

[neogunhero]

Played a couple demos last night. First was Half Sword, a Next Fest favorite for at least the past year or two. It's pretty cool seeing the evolution of this game strictly through demos. It's a physics based medieval fighting simulator. You have to manually control your arm movements in order to punch and swing a blade, no single button press to perform the action. This often means you're swiping your mouse across your desk at high velocities, just make sure you put your drink somewhere safe so you don't accidentally knock it over. It's very funny to play, though I'm unsure if I'd actually buy it, unless it was very cheap.

Second was Road To Vostok. It's a singleplayer FPS extraction game, which seems like it could be right up my alley since I don't enjoy PVP so much these days, though I was getting very anxious playing it. I read to PCG write up on it, and they basically said the game is very quiet until you hear a gunshot. I got so anxious awaiting the inevitable enemy gunshot that I just quit to game lol. Performance was horrible anyways so it needs some time to cook, at least that's what I said to myself to justify quitting before getting into the action.

After that, I just went back to Deus Ex Revision. I left Hell Kitchen a bit too quickly by entering the subways and I'm a bit disappointed in that. That's one of my favorite areas to explore and I wasn't fully done yet, but it does lead to one of the best lines in the game. If you don't diffuse the hostage situation before heading to the subways, Paul gets upset with you. Paraphrasing:

Paul Denton: "JC, you left a hostage situation up there! What are you thinking?"
JC Denton: (very smugly) "Thought you could use a hand with the EMP field."

Makes me laugh every time.

 

[Frindis]

After that, I just went back to Deus Ex Revision. I left Hell Kitchen a bit too quickly by entering the subways and I'm a bit disappointed in that. That's one of my favorite areas to explore and I wasn't fully done yet, but it does lead to one of the best lines in the game. If you don't diffuse the hostage situation before heading to the subways, Paul gets upset with you. Paraphrasing:

Paul Denton: "JC, you left a hostage situation up there! What are you thinking?"
JC Denton: (very smugly) "Thought you could use a hand with the EMP field."

Makes me laugh every time.

Also installed the revision. Not gotten that far though, ended up being silly on the pier trying different ways to kill off my own team and swim around in the water seeing how far I could go. Silly stuff, I like it. Going for melee build, cattle prod, knife and batoning people in the head, real close and personal.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjfvx-k1Ms

 

[neogunhero]

Also installed the revision. Not gotten that far though, ended up being silly on the pier trying different ways to kill off my own team and swim around in the water seeing how far I could go. Silly stuff, I like it. Going for melee build, cattle prod, knife and batoning people in the head, real close and personal.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXjfvx-k1Ms

One playthrough many years ago, I put a lot of points on the Swimming stat. It's typically useless for most playthroughs, but once you start swimming more, you find tons of hidden secrets and extra items in the water.

I was reminded of this video:

View: https://youtu.be/hj91gEeY29g?si=tvHqNpaEdtEOLpqy

 

[neogunhero]

has anyone tried Quarantine zone? its one of those job simulators but this one feels like has much more potential. Unfortunately my pc isn't good enough to run it, so no real idea what its like. its very positive though.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3525400/Quarantine_Zone_The_Last_Check_Demo/

At first glance it seems a bit like streamer fodder, something that a handful of streamers will play for two days then move onto something next, but as I look more into it there seems to be a lot more going on. Lots of different mechanics besides just checking each traveler for infections. Also being published by Devolver makes me think the quality of it will be slightly above par. I might check out the demo tonight.

 

[Frindis]

One playthrough many years ago, I put a lot of points on the Swimming stat. It's typically useless for most playthroughs, but once you start swimming more, you find tons of hidden secrets and extra items in the water.

I can see myself swimming around in different waters looking desperately for treasures/items and finding jack shiat! Neogunhero is laughing his ass off because he knew I would take the bait and spec into swimming

 

[Johnway]

ok another nextfest demo this time its shell soldier:

Shell Soldier on Steam

" Shell Soldier " is a high‑octane first‑person shooter set in a bleak dystopian future. Featuring frenetic firefights against a diverse range of enemy combatants, each employing unique tactics and weaponry, and offering a wide arsenal of lethal tools at your disposal.

store.steampowered.com

Think fear and trepang. its very much early days and shows promise. Decent, but i think is that its missing one or 2 ingredients to make it even better. One is probably the lack of ammo, the only way to get it is by throwing knives at enemies. besides that there are no ammo packs to pick up.

The other problem is that its a bit slow. no sprint button whatsoever. I would like to dash around and use my shifty powers to full effect. instead i kick in bullet time and try and take out all the slightly spongy enemies. but its EA, so can't complain. Plenty of time to get it working.

 

[neogunhero]

I can see myself swimming around in different waters looking desperately for treasures/items and finding jack shiat! Neogunhero is laughing his ass off because he knew I would take the bait and spec into swimming

"When Swimming fails us, we really do live in a world of terror."

I've collected a few rebreathers already, I'll be sure to use them when I can. IIRC, once you get to Hong Kong, that large canal in the center of the city has lots of interesting things to discover. It's one of those things that the devs clearly spent time and effort on, but most players bypass it. People like to joke that Swimming is useless, but I've always felt that it wouldn't be a stat if it was completely worthless. But speccing it just means now you have to explore more to get more stat points

Also, swimming is great for pacifist runs. Some maps let you bypass a large portion of combat by swimming. For example in Hell's Kitchen, there is a sewer entrance you can take to get into the warehouses, which helps you avoid fighting your way in or tripping the turret alarms.

 

[Frindis]

@neogunhero The way you talk about the swimming and such, it made me think of how awesome it would be to have a dev commentary for this game. They did one for Human Revolution and it is the best dev commentary I have ever listened to.

 

[neogunhero]

@neogunhero The way you talk about the swimming and such, it made me think of how awesome it would be to have a dev commentary for this game. They did one for Human Revolution and it is the best dev commentary I have ever listened to.

Someone call Warren Spector and the rest of Ion Storm!

That would be very neat to watch. I wish someone will make Tim Caine style videos reflecting on their time working on the game. It's seriously one of my all time favorites, I'd love to hear some development history on it. Whose idea was it to include Swimming as a stat when swimming is optional if not non-existent in most levels??

 

[Frindis]

It's quite fascinating to hear how devs talk about stuff like cut content. In Human Revolution, they talk about a huge part of the game being cut and how they wanted it in the game. Another part talks about the basketball court and how they used ages to get the physics (something like that) to work. Just small tidbits like cereal boxes in Adam's apartment and fun puns all around. It's great stuff and shows just how much they love the game. They even arguing in the dev commentary about who did what and why, it's fun!

It reminds me, I need to finish listening to the dev commentary of Half Life 1. So far it is good, but a bit more scripted than the one from Human Revolution. I also did enjoy the one from Portal, that one was well done.

In the HL1 dev commentary, there is a segment about how they put down some wooden crates for players to step on and how they wanted it to be intuitive enough, but that they noticed that during play testing, players did not understand it right away, so changes had to be done. Nowadays, this would not be a problem, but back then, people did not play many games, so this was new territory!. How crazy is that!?

 

[neogunhero]

It reminds me, I need to finish listening to the dev commentary of Half Life 1. So far it is good, but a bit more scripted than the one from Human Revolution. I also did enjoy the one from Portal, that one was well done.

Have you ever played a Valve game with the commentary track on? It's incredibly interesting hearing the devs talk about the game as you experience it. It's for sure scripted entirely, but it works good because new dialogue starts when you get to certain areas. I think there are giant 3D speech bubbles you walk through to activate them. HL2 Lost Coast was the coolest IMO because it was made just as a tech demo so you hear a lot of older graphical terms like Specular Lighting and bitmaps shading.

 

[Frindis]

@neogunhero Not the first time around, I did play a second Portal run listening to some of the commentaries. I actually played my first full playthrough of Human Revolution with dev commentary on, but it was a bit hit and miss at times because there was no bubble, so at times I would know what would happen before I did an action. For the most part, it did not matter.

 

[Pifanjr]

Played a bunch more Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord today. Turns out that cities give you income, which means I was no longer losing almost 2k a day. Then I got given 2 castles and it turns out those don't even make enough money to pay for their own garrison, so now I'm pretty much back to where I started.

Luckily, war is really profitable, even if the enemy sometimes burns down one of the villages connected to your city/castle. Lords have much better equipment to loot than bandits and ransom for a lot more as well.

The kingdom I've joined is also doing a fantastic job at capturing new castles and cities, so I've been able to just focus on building up my treasury and taking my time learning about city/castle management.

---

I also played a little of The Killing Stone Demo. It's a bit similar to Inscryption, in that it is a deckbuilding roguelike with a lot of story and atmosphere, though I skipped a lot of optional dialogue because I just wanted to try out the gameplay.

The gameplay is a lot different than Inscryption, but it's definitely interesting. My first run was cut short when I encountered my first elite and got absolutely trounced. Unlike most other deckbuilding games, the creatures that you summon attack on the same turn they are summoned and there is no indication what your opponent will play on its turn, making it really hard to properly defend yourself.

 

[Colif]

The Slormancer reminds me of Torchlight. It by no means takes itself seriously which is evidenced in the first few minutes of the game by you accidentally killing the person who gives you the main quest in game.

I haven't noticed any silly weapon names yet but I only have 5 out of a possible 360 weapons.

I do like how you can change your build with no cost at any time. Especially since I am restricted to 3 save files. I am actually playing a mage but only as I have a build where my clones do most of the fighting and I spend most of the time avoiding damage and collecting stuff. I want to try the other two classes out today.

Huntress is fun but she is first character I died on and I had to restart her once as I got to lvl 10 and chose wrong specialisation in error and its one of the few things you can't change easily after choosing. I was not amused as I had found a weapon I didn't expect to find again... but it appears its always first bow she finds as I found it again.

Melee only survives as his 2nd attack is a ranged attack. I might play him last.