Finally got around to playing Outer Wilds, what an awesome game. I think I am past the halfway point but it's hard to tell. Exploring the different planets looking for lore nuggets to progress is a really fun gameplay loop. If anyone knows of similar games please send them my way!
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
26 points (100.0% liked)
games
20850 readers
411 users here now
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
-
3rd International Volunteer Brigade (Hexbear gaming discord)
Rules
- No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
- Mark spoilers
- No bad mouthing sonic games here :no-copyright:
- No gamers allowed :soviet-huff:
- No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Aw shit, I'm on another Battletech (2018) binge
Finally playing Xenosaga for the first time. It's pretty good.
Although I went in assuming that there would be fewer long text-dumps than Xenogears, and MonoSoft was all "Hold my sake."
OK I know this is a video game sub, but I want to send some praise out for Codenames. It is such a fun and chill game to play with friends and family. It's also just a good ice breaker game that allows you to get to know people through the way their mind draws connections between words.
I picked up No Man's Sky finally 
I have about 35 hours in on it and am doing a mix between main story, side stuff, and fucking around with base building. I have a main base on a planet with red grass and floating islands, but I'm planning on setting up an oxygen farm on a new planet and making that my new base while using my freighter as well.
The game is scratching the itch for sure. I was never into Minecraft but this being basically "Minecraft in space" seems to work for me. I kind of wish they had modular space station type stuff like in X4 to make the stations seem less same-y and I wish storms happened way less frequent than they do but that's probably my only gripes so far. Oh, and making stair inside bases is a nightmare.
Started and finished Shady Part of Me (on special for like $3.50AU). Gameplay-wise it's really good; difficulty curve is one of the smoothest I've experienced. No real roadblock puzzles where I had to resort to a guide, but enough that had me stumped long enough that the eventual "A-HA!" moment was really satisfying. Very well tutorialised, puzzle elements are introduced cleverly and get recombined with other, previous elements to make some fairly complex puzzles. Plot-wise, IDK. It feels like it's intentionally vague to give an impression of depth that players can project their own ideas onto. Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I'm not sure. Only took me about five hours to complete with about 75% of the collectibles, but there's no way I'm going back to 100% it. Probably wouldn't pay full price for it, but recommended while on sale.
heavily modded Warhammer 3, still
Finally started Baldur's Gate 3. Character's basically a Kyle Reese (good-aligned rogue, relies on stealth and surprise to get the drop on bigger, tougher opponents) type.
The Blue Prince, I'm obsessed. I'm over 10 hours in and still not entirely sure what I'm even working towards, but I have like 3-4 meta puzzles I'm keeping track of in notes outside of the game.
Me too, I recently reached the 46th room and there's still many mysteries to solve, and the world building is very interesting so I want to solve what's going on! I also have a notebook I keep beside me to write down things in.
One of the players of my regular Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay group couldn't make it, so I tried running a 1-shot in 2d6 because I thought it was gonna be like Skald (or even a more straightlace Disco Elysium). It's incredibly rules-light, to the point where you may have to rule zero some stuff as you go.
(Edit: No, the action economy is fucked. Totally fucked.)
1-shot has become a 2-shot due to a player being late and me not being finished drafting NPC stat blocks when the game was scheduled to start, but otherwise has gone better than expected. I had anticipated being a lot more railroad-y with it, but my players seem to be making a decent amount of space for role-playing where there otherwise wasn't much.
In this house, we run Linux exclusively. I held out dual-booting Windows for a very long time, but since about a year ago when I built a new computer, it runs Gentoo exclusively. Anyway, while many games work perfectly fine in Proton, Another Crab's Treasure simply refused to accept input from my PS4 controller. Until I tried again this week. Last playthrough I got up to Flotsam Vale. This time I started from the beginning to try a different build (twice as many points in Attack as anything else, last time I built fairly balanced) and I am up to the fight with Roland.
Somehow I managed to defeat Pagurus, The Ravenous on my first try, but those electronic hammer crabs are fucking impossible. I am doing much better with parries this time around.
Hexbear has a few emotes, so you know it's good. 
I've also been playing a bunch of FTL. Can't manage to get past the fifth sector (on normal difficulty). My micro has gotten a little better though, so now I can consistently die in the fifth sector. There's like a 50% chance a run ends up on the high score board as long as I don't make any serious mistakes. So I'll probably win in about 10 years.
Also tried the IronMario 64 Challenge. Topped out around 5 stars before I said fuck this lmao.
Can you give me some early FTL tips? I've tried to get into that game a few time but my suspicion is I'm taking way too many engagements because I'm always too poor/out of ammo/eventually die. I seek to get annihilated by a bunch of the random chance decision stuff too.
I know I'm approaching the game wrong somehow hut don't really understand what I'm doing wrong.
Engagements are good. Guaranteed scrap as long as you know how to fight. Random chance events which might cost you a crew member or hull damage are sketchy ("Giant alien spiders, eh? Sounds like a YOU problem"). There are too many of these in a run for it to be worth rolling the dice every time. In the long run, the house always wins.
You NEED to collect scrap to upgrade your ship and to have any chance later on in the game. Think about scrap the way Chess players think about Material. Your crew, weapons, and systems are material. Hull repairs, spent missiles, dead crew / drones cost you material. The key is mitigating risk. Improve shields and evasion as soon as possible, so you can take fights "safely." In practice, I end up skipping the first few stores. They either come too early, or don't have any practical weapons. Buy fuel, missiles, and hull as necessary (in the early game, I am usually only buying hull, and if I am lucky, exotic crew or a convenient weapon). I usually only repair my hull to 25/30, because there are several events which will give you free repairs, and you miss these free repairs if you are at 30/30. I also try to avoid using missiles in any encounter where I have the upper hand (because they ultimately cost scrap). If I am taking damage, or the adversary is about to jump away with MY scrap, I will use missiles to stop it, but otherwise I treat it as a panic button.
You can upgrade your reactor, shields, and weapon capacity any time you are safe (e.g. after an encounter, before jumping). These are some of the most important early upgrades, and you don't need to be at a store to do them. Priority one is upgrading shields and engines (evasion). You do not need to have enough reactor to power everything. You can remove power from med, (or even oxygen, until your enemy is crippled) to keep your shields / engines / weapons running. If an enemy fires a missile at you, you can pause, remove power from shields, and put it all into engines in that split second to maximize your dodge chance (which is small until upgraded). If they shoot ion weapons at you, you can also turn off your shields for a second to expose other systems, so hopefully the ion hits your doors or scanners instead of being a guaranteed hit on your shields. It is faster to turn the shields off and on then to wait for even a level 1 ion hit cooldown.
You need two upgrades to upgrade certain systems. For example, shields require two upgrades to get a second layer, but by doing one upgrade, that means the system can take one damage without going offline (and this requires no extra power). It might not be immediately obvious, but a lot of times it is worth doing these "buffer" upgrades as soon as you can. Along the same lines, if you are playing the default ship, the "Kestrel A," you can change the order of the weapons. If you put the pulse laser in the first slot, it will continue to function when your weapons system takes one damage, while if you leave it in the default order it will be taken offline, leaving you only missiles. If you put one upgrade into weapons, even if you haven't found any new weapons yet, it will be able to take a hit and keep both your missiles and pulse laser online.
Focus all firepower on enemy weapons / drone control (prioritized based on which is the greater threat). Remove their ability to hurt you before attacking anything else. You might think you need to take out their shields first, but if you have a pulse laser which shoots three projectiles, you can damage enemies as long as they don't have three shield layers. Once their weapons are down, you might think it is time to hit their shields, but no. Hit their cockpit. Once their cockpit is down, they have a 0% dodge chance. Then, you can think about targeting shields, but oxygen might still be a better choice (but it is likely they will have weapons back online before you get here). There is a crew inside that ship scrambling to fix shit and put out fires, just like yours. Keep them busy. Also consider their race. Engi do repairs extra fast. Mantis do repairs much more slowly. It is possible to crew-kill a Mantis ship from oxygen deprivation with a couple well-timed hits.
Pilot and Engines are the most important systems to crew, because without them you have zero dodge chance. If you play a ship like "Torus A" (the first unlock), you will have a crew of two Engi and one Human. In cases like this, it makes sense to assign the human to weapons. They are the strongest crew member in terms of combat, and will be able to deal with boarding parties while the weaker crew keeps the essential systems functioning. You don't want to take your pilot off duty to fight boarders if you can help it.
Try to hit as many stops as possible in a sector, because the difficulty will only increase in the next. If you end up in a situation where an enemy is incapable of penetrating your shields, farm experience for your pilot / engine / shield operator. I think it is even possible to farm experience for your weapons if the enemy has one shield but cannot hurt you, by immediately removing power after the first laser projectile is fired, but I haven't managed to do this effectively yet.
Genuinely thanks so much for this. I'll give the game another go soon with this information.
My primary mistake seems to have been focusing enemy shields over weapons. I tried to sparingly use missiles but probably not enough.
I'll keep the early upgrade timing in mind as well and the tip about disabling/shifting before certain shot types his is extremely helpful.
Thanks again.
It might make sense to use missiles more freely in the early early game, so don't take it as a hard rule. It is still always better to shoot a missile then to take damage. But once you get the ~90 scrap to get level two shields you should rarely need them until sector 3 or so. I judge based on enemy weapons. If they are shooting missiles at me, I will shoot missiles back the second my laser whiffs, because shields are ineffective against missiles and that is something I want to put an immediate end to.
You do get a number of missiles for free throughout the run, and there's no way to sell them directly aside from chance trade events. Just avoid needing to buy them, and keeping the option open to choose fuel in events where you have a choice.
I finally started Graveyard Keeper, which has been in my library for a while. It's very Stardew-esque in its gameplay, but with a dark setting and more of a linear progression in the way the story has played out. I'm not very far because it seems like a long haul, patient gamer grind, but I'm curious to see how it turns out. Some content warnings though:
Slight spoiler/cw
as the graveyard keeper you deal with bodies and autopsies, and there's a lot of not-subtle religion-driven misogyny, as it's kind of set in a time period akin to what most people would call "medieval", with witches, cannibalism, and other horror genre themes.
So far I'd recommend it!
Loved the game but grind as hell. Highly recommend mods for qol stuff
Did you finish it, because I'm wondering how many hours it'll take unmodded. Would also love to know what mods you'd recommend!
I've beat it like 3 times now i think? I usually start it up when a new expansion comes out. I find it has a really satisfying game loop. I don't remember the exact amount of hours, but i play modded so i end up a lot faster. Anyway, pretty much all the top mods from here are great:
https://www.nexusmods.com/graveyardkeeper/mods/top
Especially the inventory mods and energy mods
Thank you!
Bloodborne on the emulator
Anyone here ever catch all the Pokemon? I'm thinking about doing it this summer for one or two of the generations (I think I have the materials to do it for gens 1-5), but I never have because I'm a posuer. A poképosuér.
I've finished the Dex in Gen 3 (with exception of Jirachi and maybe Deoxys), Gen 7 (pretty easy), Gen 8 (super easy, provided you have a friend, Pokebank, or two Switches).
Right now I'm still fuckin' grindin' coins to unlock the gold glider in Mario Kart 8. They shifted it down to 5000 in DX, but MK8 has it at 10,000 and you can't do a bunch of extra controllers with auto-accelerate/auto-steer to multiply how many coins you get each run to 20-40 or whatever.
Lunar Remastered Collection. Complete nostalgia bomb for me, combat is relatively standard for an old school JRPG but the charm and character development and plot really make it a classic.
I have the teardrop necklace thing that came with the special edition of 2, I think. Its tarnished as heck but I like seeing it every time I dig through my closet.
saw that on fitgirl earlier and snapped it up, can't wait to play it
Warframe, got a bunch cookin' in the Foundry. Still sitting on a mountain of platinum from back when trash rivens could sell for hundred so I'm good for slots for now but I fear one day I will run out. Anyway, there are too many syndicates now.
Two more frames have hit the foundry 
I just finished Tomb Raider 2013 remaster, it was pretty fun, could've used more tombs.
Currently installing Horizon Zero Dawn.
The sequel to that game (Rise of the Tomb Raider) is the best in the reboot trilogy imo. Give it a shot once you've got nothing you want to play in front of you.
I played the trilogy once as they came out, but it's been a long time. Was that the one all in Russia?
Primarily Greece and Turkey if Wikipedia is to be believed. I just remember thinking its tombs were more fun than 2013 or Shadow, but it's been a long time since I've played it.
I'll throw it in the queue (of my torrent client)
BG3, checking out the new ranger class. Midway through act 1 and the flurry of swarm damage is really falling off, idk if I did anything wrong.
Edit: just checked the wiki it's 1d6 damage until level 11 when it becomes 1d8, I just happened to roll well the first coupla times I used it and land 1s every time since.
Not today though, today I touch grass.
cs 1.6. it's a blast from the past and im surprised that people still play it (granted it's mostly schoolchildren and almost always on dust2 which i don't hate but the same map gets boring after 560 hours).
nvm i called the admins cucks and they banned me from all the servers of the specific crack i was using. time to hop games.
Playing Viscerafest! Pretty gosh dang fun, and not nearly as hard as the reviews made it out to be. It's not easy but I was expecting torture, putting myself on Brutal difficulty.
Subway Surfers. I'm purged, aren't I?
First Berserker: Khazan. Trying the demo and enjoying it for the most part. Weighing whether or not to get the full game still. Played mostly on the Steam Deck, but I've noticed that its harder to parry faster enemies. Not sure if its just the bumper buttons possibly wearing out a bit since I've played other games that use it for parrying also.
Also trying out the Unbeatable demo. As much as I want to love it though (really nice art style, and you get to beat up cops) I suck at rhythm based games. Might come back to it at a later point though.
Still making my way through Ace Attorney Investigations.
Finish Suikoden 2 remaster. It was beautiful, devs did an absolute amazing job. They went far beyond what I would've expected. All the new hd backgrounds are really well done, and most of the post processing is pretty tasteful and adds to many of the scenes. Suikoden-fix mod was also essential for a lot of QOL things. all around 10/10 experience, one of my favorite games of all time.
Trying Mandragora also, but not really feeling it. Very generic, boring, and doesn't do anything that well. Nine sols/Hollow Knight are vastly better in every way. so likely gonna drop it.
Not playing but really enjoying wc3 getting some attention with a recent streamer invitational. Always good to see my favorite rts getting attention
I got Friday off so I went no-life with some college friends and played about 20 hours of Rematch (new 5v5 street soccer game in beta) this weekend. It ends sometime tomorrow and is the most fun game I've played in years (Rocket League being the last time I had this much fun with a game).
Did some yakuza 0 so that was alright also a bit of zelda spirit tracks. Been looking into more ds games I can do while biking, not many but don't think that will stop me.
Im back on terra invicta for another 100 hours, this game has a lot that can make a communist happy.
Mario kart on my phone emulator
Might do some Pokemon or Cassette Beasts.
view more: next ›