I should get vouchers from work in May for 20yrs of service.  I see a Steam Deck in my future.

Ooh may go back in

Loving it. Beat the second boss last night, gradually unlocking shop stuff.

Edit: Undermine.

Because I can't get enough, I nabbed Nadir. In EA. yet another deck builder. Defo something there. pretty cool USP as a mechanic. Defo needs some QOL work in spots, but one to keep an eye on.  

Flick through this for a look 

Finished it. Great game.

Yes please.

Elmlea wrote:

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

JonB wrote:

I've been playing Inscryption and came to look for the chat around it in this place. But it's one of those situations where it didn't get its own thread and got scattered around a few others instead, which is a shame. I guess here will have to do now. After a few hours, I managed to beat

Spoiler:

the cabin guy to complete that part of the game, and thought it was pretty great. I expected more to come after that, but the switch to 8-bit 2D graphics in the second part feels like a slap in the face so far. It's taken so much of the atmosphere and enjoyment out of it. I'm hoping if I push through, it will take another turn soon.

I played it solidly at the start but I suck at these sorts of games it seems so haven't beaten it. Need to return to it as I do love the aesthetic and have fun with it. Just need to make smarter decisions and learn to take my time with it

I had completely the same experience as Jon.  I absolutely loved it at first, really enjoyed the 'between games' bits, and the sense of progression as I got slowly better at the core game.  The underlying metagame about what the game is was interesting too. 

Spoiler:

But the move to an 16-bit mini RPG thing, with a totally different aesthetic, and suddenly having to bounce around 3 different playstyles/techniques just bounced off me.  I couldn't click with it, the mystery was gone, and there wasn't enough of a draw to get back to it. 

Is it worth playing on to the next bit?

Late response, but I think it's worth pushing through the middle part to get to the end. It never gets back the atmosphere and mystery of the opening, but there's still some really clever stuff in the final third.

Beneath odesa.

Inscryption is brilliant but it also suffers from being a bit heavy on the perks. Minor spoilers but hopefully nothing too drastic:

I struggled for half a dozen runs or so, only managing to beat one boss, then a particular perk helped smashed through the rest of act one/part one. I honestly don't understand how you could win without it, so I clearly suck at the cards, but I just blootered through and I'm on to the second part.

The perk in question:

The whole 'play until the game decides to give you a helping hand' thing is what I struggle with sometimes. I don't like it when rogues are too hard or too easy because random.

It's definitely gone on a diversion, I'm glad I kept spoilers to a minimum anyway. Another win for Devolver so far. Their scouting department must be ridiculous.

It's very peggly

Don't remember cards really. Maybe power up collection, rogue style, nothing more than that iirc

I was looking for something to scratch an RPG/rogue/Noita-esque itch and found that Caves of Qud is exactly what I'm looking for. It's still early days but I think it might be one of my all time faves, thematically and stylistically it's right up my street. Gameplay has a ton of systems depth but on the surface is straightforward and easy to learn and keyboard controls are logical.



I'm really enamoured with the presentation, for me it strikes a near perfect balance between readability and having enough low-fidelity abstraction to allow your imagination to run wild and grokk all the weirdness in your own way. If this had a more prescribed aesthetic and detailed sprites there's no way I'd like it as much, really smooth high resolution tilesets in roguelikes always looks weird to me. I generally have no problem figuring out what most things are at a glance, and the gorgeous and highly evocative writing makes even mundane objects feel vibrant -











There's a lot of procedural elements mixed with fixed elements to the world, which seems to work really well and often makes for amusing little vignettes that utilise your imagination to make explanatory leaps.

It's balls hard, but it makes up for it with the bonkers powers and gear you can accumulate. It's definitely a 'meant to be broken' kinda game. Some times you'll be rolling through caves with a crew of guys you've picked and all kitted and skilled out only to have some dickhead disintegrate you som, but it's all part of the tension and risk/reward of it. There is a few checkpointed modes plus a more passive exploration mode which is cool, but currently I just really like the tension of permadeath and having to make the right choices when going into the unknown, and there's a lot of crazy shit in this game to learn about. Definitely reminds me of Noita in that regard.

Highly recommended, it's much deeper than I was expecting it to be but is still straightforward enough that it's not a chore to re-remember how to play when going back to it. Playing with a very tactile clicky mechanical keyboard helps too, one wrong step can be the difference between life and death so you want to be very deliberate.

You can play a demo for Caves of Qud atm on Steam, I think as part of a gamescom thing so it seems like it's about to run out.

Probably the worst timed release of the year, but worth mentioning that Endless Dungeon is out and it's rather good. Sort of twin-stick shooter meets tower defence, published by Sega. Co-op for up to 3 players, but it also works very well as a solo job.

This trailer oversells the action side of things a bit, but I'll post it anyway: