What games are you playing and why?

Tried the latest build of "The Pit" Beta. It's SOOO much easier now. I guess there were so many complaints about running out of... well running out of everything (food, ammo, meds, even weapons and armor -- yes you could far, far too easily end up naked and weaponless) that they've overcompensated. I haven't finished a game yet on this difficulty (mostly because there's no save game, and I've generally booted up the game when I'm too tired to do anything else lol. So I end up quitting before the end).

BTW, I don't know if I've mentioned it but crafting has been implemented. There's no known recipes atm, and the only thing I've figured out how to do is to cook meat (because it's so obvious) and how to 'purify' other food items (the purifier device only takes one ingredient so that makes it easy). I'm sure there are other recipes, but it's all trial and error, and anything you put into a crafting device is lost, regardless of whether it actually results in a new item. To complicate matters, as an example of how it works, if a recipe calls for two items, and you put in 4, then you'll get a succesful craft, and ALL items will be consumed. Put one raw meat into a cooker, and you get one edible meat. Put in two raw meat, and you still only get one
edible meat (the extra raw meat is lost). So if you put in more than one item, you won't actually know for sure what the recipe was that succeeded. Now, with how common food is, it's no longer a huge issue (plus the recipe is pretty obvious). But with other crafting stations, working out actual recipes is going to be problematic, since there are so many different random items with unknown (crafting) purposes. If they don't change how this works, a wiki is going to be mandatory for any NORMAL human being (hopefully those superhuman individuals who either hack the crafting database or actually have the discipline to work out all of the different recipes will blaze the trail for the rest of us).

To make matters worse, crafting devices can wear out after an unknown number of uses. I've put a single piece of raw meat into a cooker, got a steak and a broken cooker. Other times, it's worn out after 3 crafts. So seems random to me.

One other thing -- just about any trap that does damage seems likely to also take out something you are either wearing, wielding or is in your inventory. That's partly why I mentioned that you could wind up naked and weaponless so easily. That said, weapons and armor are a bit easier to come by now. I'm sure that will eventually be toned down to somewhere between the rate of this build and the previous build, but for now, it won't be as much of a problem. Eventually, I believe they will find the right balance. I think the right balance will be at just the point where only half the players are bitching and moaning about the game being unfair (instead of all of them or none of them).

 

I haven't had the chance to try the latest beta of the Pit, but I definitely feel like the game was essentially unwinnable due to attrition previously. I consistently died to either starvation or losing my weapon and encountering a difficult enemy (usually while also starving) for a solid streak of six games or so between floors 3 and 4. I'll have to check out the latest beta, but I feel like the problem is less the rate at which you gain resources and more the rate at which you lose them. Weapons and armor break very, very quickly and that hunger clock ticks *fast*.

 

The freeze has happened 3 times; first two were after being run over by teammates, so the "SUICIDE: STOP KILLING YOURSELF" was locked on my screen until I brought up Task Manager. Third was the differently-worded-suicide-message I already mentioned.

So the intended grenade behavior was the behavior that happens 25% of the time. Good to know.

Station cash I'm not going to worry about until the game leaves post-beta beta I'm afraid I do appreciate the free daily certs though; when the game gets patched enough to enjoy I'll hopefully have enough to unlock several weapons.

 

Yeah I saw TotalBiscuit's video talking about respawn shields, defender tunnels, xp changes for support/bounties, FPS improvements, etc. Sounds like all good changes, I'm just hoping the "and many bug fixes!" includes things like "grenades stop deleting themselves, medics can heal, and driving in the same continent as a vehicle pad doesn't freeze the game" so I'll be able to enjoy them lol.

 

I didn't win, but I did get to level 7 as a marine, before I died. I still had several weapons -- all my starting weapons minus my blade, plus a shotgun that I had picked up along the way. I died while trying to heal myself with a medikit I had picked up (had I healed myself a turn or two earlier, I would have survived).

I also found a couple of new crafting stations but STILL have not discovered any other recipes other than Purifier+raw meat=good meat, purifier+old cheese=good cheese, and cooker+raw meat=good meat. I've tried with a science station and an electronics station, but have had absolutely no luck discovering recipes. I'm using a mixture of logic and total randomness (for electronics stations, obviously I use electronics parts, and for science stations, I use anything that's neither electronic nor food. That usually consists of chemicals, hypodermic needles, scent glands, acid glands, cloths, that ropey thing that all sorts of critters drop (whatever it's called) etc. As someone who so often likes crafting in games, it's getting frustrating.

 

I've been playing the Engineer primarily, but I haven't really even seen crafting stations by and large. I found a cooker once and that's about it, so I haven't had a chance to experiment with crafting recipes. Definitely seems to be shaping up to one of those roguelikes you spoil yourself on beforehand to stand a chance. Normally that'd sound like a knock on it, but I'm a Crawl player so I can't really complain about that much.

 

Torchlight II - It seems both better and worse than the original. But I think the fishing limits seem low. I miss just being able to stand there and fish to wind down. Playing as the Engineer or whatever class it is. Having fun hitting things with a big hammer.

Blocks That Matter - First result I found for "French Indie Games". I watched someone play it in a YT video embedded into that article, thought I could do better, turns out I can't. Well, I can and can't. It's a little frustrating at times, the first boss (of sorts) is too unforgiving for being so early in the game, but I think they've definitely tried to make a replayable game. And maybe it will be. But the soundtrack ain't bad, I'll be buying it one day.

 

Yeah, but those you find in the 'wild', as it were, have limited attempts.

 

You aren't wrong, there is.

The reason why the outside fishing holes aren't unlimited is because some of them have special properties. It's been a while since I played so I can't recall the special ones, but I know they existed.

 

Maps will reload when you leave them for awhile. I'm not sure how long "awhile" is, but just revisit old areas every once in awhile, they'll generate new fishing holes. Though honestly I find myself not fishing much once I find a Giant fish of the type I want.

 

I find it's usually enough to just get to the second warp point, warp back to town, and start anew. Getting to the first one doesn't always work, but sometimes it still does (some floors do reset then, and some do not; I have no clue what mind-influencing substances is the map reload checker in that game on).

 

I'm sure there are ways around it, but 'snot my point. In TL1, I'd often stop at a fishing point as I came across it, and just spend some time fishing peacefully in order to break up the game, relax, maybe take five minutes and so on, and I wouldn't have to bother with portals to go fishing or anything.

I can't do that in TL2 now. It's not a huge loss, but I still miss it already.

 

There was a dev post that I forgot to bookmark and can't find atm, that said the game remembers your 2 most recent towns and 3 most recent battlefields; reaching a 3rd town/4th battlefield will start resetting the older ones.

However to continue the tradition of me finding weird-arse bugs, my Berserker at one point rerolled an Act 2 map, and managed to permanent delete one of the waypoints; I had unlocked it before rerolling, and can now teleport TO there from town, but when I arrive there is no waypoint in that entire battlefield. If I Town Portal from there, the town waypoint will give me the option of going to that zone through the Town Portal or the deleted waypoint.

 

I picked up the DEMO for Unepic And so far it has been pretty fun.
It was Greenlit on steam, and I thought I would give the Demo a whirl before they released it on steam. Enjoying it so far, although I don't know how it would fair as a multi-player game.

 

My insatiable need to play everything at once continues.

Bleed - Hm. Could easily be fun, though the controls are slightly annoying when it comes to double/triple jumping. But it's certainly not bad.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane - Well, it's Civ V with magic, really. UI's not entirely clear, it's too easy to 'skip' quests and stuff, but it's certainly playable. Also refreshing to see some female units. Only gripes are, really, there's not enough female warlocks to play as. I feel almost "stuck" as the Dragon Queen.