sucks2Bme

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Posts posted by sucks2Bme

  2. Posted

    I just finished this as well, and did the achievements for the secret ending. 

     

    I read some stuff about the ending, watched Campster's videos on it, but I still feel about the story like i did about Limbo's - that it doesn't really matter and its not a strong point of the developer, since in both games - more so in Limbo though - it is really hidden and vague. 

     

    But I am still curious about what you all thought of the ending(s). 

  3. Posted

    On 4/16/2017 at 1:55 PM, sergiocornaga said:

    This was a fun aside that hopefully highlights how some games can receive critical acclaim and still not really gel with Steam's primary userbase. 

     

    Steam is so ubiquitous that I find it hard to characterize Steam's primary userbase as hostile to indie games. Hating on things is easier than loving(?) on them, and it most likely is a vocal minority compared to the whole userbase. Also, using IGF award winners as examples for why Steam is hostile I think is slightly misleading.

     

    The IGF Awards are slanted towards more experimental and "riskier" games - obviously - and thus don't necessarily have mainstream appeal. Since Steam's userbase is so large, there are going to be a lot of people who "don't get it" and voice their opinion. This holds true for music, movies, and literature as well - but the difference I see is that we are still in a majority shift in thinking what a game can be, whereas when someone says "indie movie" a person already has a kind of idea of what it will be in their head. Critically acclaimed but largely hated isn't also limited to indie games, or games in general, and anyone who releases anything should expect some negative criticism or hate, warranted or not, cause like... humans. 

     

    Balancing niche on a global market where algorithms usually suck at telling you what you will like is probably not going to be great at getting your game in the hands of people who would actually want to play it. 

     

    This is something that better curation could help address. Hopefully anyway. 

     

    Also, "pixel art is the only art" can be found in people who say things like "I don't play games because of the graphics" although this weird superiority thing might have subsided with all the retro-looking games that have been flooding Steam. 

  5. Posted

    That's one person. 

     

    And I know there are a lot of them, but there are also a lot of people on the opposite side, who might say "the only art is pixel art"

     

    It goes both ways and you can hand power to both, which is how it has worked under steam curation system (follow the curators that like the stuff you like!) and I can't imagine them changing that intentionally. 

  6. Posted

    On 4/11/2017 at 0:42 AM, davidsgallant said:

    The fact that Valve refers to any games internally as "fake games" is pretty chilling. Valve already has very limited categorizations for games (notice how they foisted improving categories onto their users, just as they plan to do with the Explorers program). Asset Flips are not "fake games". They may not be well-produced games, they may be cynical cash-ins designed to get cheap trading card producers into people's Steam libraries, they may be a solo developer's first project, a game made by students, etc. They're still games; the quality of their production never renders them "fake" in any regard. Not to Valve, though, who have a very limited idea of what a game should be.

     

    I don't understand how Valve has a very limited idea for a game, considering there is a wide range of different games available on their platform. 

    I used to have a simple keyboard when I was little. It had some presets that would play simple melodies. That never made me a real musician. 

     

    Quote

    Remember, this is the Valve who believes a game should be longer than at least two hours (lest your customers finish it in less time and get a refund on it). This is the Valve who intends to charge developers at least $100 (at most $5000!!!) for each release, a fee that won't be recoupable by inexpensive or outright free products. This is the Valve that has no backend method of allowing devs to categorize a release as "experimental" or "narrative", other than to put it in the genre "indie" (yeah, "indie" is a genre on Steam).

     

    The 2 hour thing is an extremely cynical view, of both what you declare Valve to believe and of customers using Steam.If most customers are satisfied with the product, they won't refund it - but if you can convince me otherwise I am open to it. The second sentence I don't understand, are you mad at Valve for charging developers for using their platform? Most Video game players can't even agree on proper categories but "Alternative" worked fine for music, which is what Indie basically is.I don't see a problem with that, honestly.  

     

    Quote

    The list of games clyde provided as examples that might be declared "fake games" by Steam Explorers - some of their devs are already afraid that might happen

     

    I don't see this as a big problem either, as even under the current Steam Curators system there are plenty of voices where you would find out about these smaller games, even if there is a huge backlash against them/their developers online. I don't see why this would change with Steam Explorers. 

    Quote

    The only feedback Valve has sought on this new program are from two white cis males in positions of privilege. Both have experience with being the targets of online hate, but their privilege still protects them from what more marginalized devs already experience being on Steam.

     

     I would be interested in hearing more about the experience of marginalized devs on Steam. The two white cis males in positions of privilege are, no matter how you look at it, the biggest influence on game sales (outside of the Steam Front page) and with huge followings on their Steam curator pages. I think it would be negligent for Valve to not at least hear their thoughts on possible future changes to make the system better, and also what problemmachine said

     

    Quote

     

    So, yeah. "Fake games" is bullshit. Valve continues to make Steam a hostile place for smaller developers. Buy your games from itch.io instead.

     

    But Steam and Valve had a big hand in the "indie revolution" that happened a few years back. I don't see your point of view in how evil Valve is to smaller developers. Itch.io is a great place for a specific kind of games, much of the ones you seem afraid will disappear from Steam (which they won't anyway), but as Twig said, if they ever get as big as Steam, they will be dealing with the same issues. 

     

    Quote

    Do you know why Steam actually sucks? It's because capitalism doesn't allow for the success and well-being of artists who don't manage to achieve the necessary amount (of varying degrees, depending on scale of project) attention from the masses.

     

    Naw, that's not why Steam sucks. Artists have ever only been able to "make a killing" if they appeal to the masses, or find that one rich person/family that loves their stuff to become their patron. Steam sucks because it is a huge marketplace managed by a (what must be) relatively small group of people, who in customer facing areas don't know what they are doing and don't think things through. Also because of what problem machine said

     

    Quote

    I think the main issue is that right now Steam is both a distribution service and a marketing platform.

     

    Personally, I am very happy Steam continues to work on curation, even if it is more of the silicon valley "we dont want to scale so put it to the people" thing. It is hard to find stuff on Steam because of its size. And this shovel ware and unfinished games and old ass games that don't work on modern computers but are still sold - that are on the platform diminish the value of it. Around the corner from me there is a little market that sells all sorts of stuff, including a small selection of fruits and vegetables. Sometimes, there are a lot of flies and a strange smell around their fruit because they don't take care of it. I shop there still, but I never buy produce from there, even if it sometimes looks good, because I know that they don't care. I walk the extra fifteen minutes to the bigger store, where the produce always looks good. 

     

    I feel it is the same for Steam (and many other things). If you don't care about the products you sell in your store, why should I care about what you are trying to sell? 

     

  7. Posted

    not sure if it has been mentioned here before. A friend of mine was on a Podcast called "maeve in america" and it was really good. It's a podcast where an irish comedian (i think she is also a writer?) who lives in the US talk to different immigrants about their stories. I have only listened to the one my friend was on but it sounds very solid. 

  8. Posted

    2 hours ago, Trip Hazard said:

     

    Couldn't agree more with this statement. I don't always agree with his politics, but the brilliance of his games cannot be denied

     

    I guess. The Witness has blown me away (just finished the challenge room!) but I still fail to see how Braid is particularly brilliant, but I am open to be convinced 

  13. Posted

    Just finished the first playthrough - emily/low chaos - normal or hard difficulty (whichever one is for "dishonoured veterans", don't remember)

     

    Me and the gf worked together to solve the Mansion puzzle, which was fun but it also meant I skipped most of that level. I think I did alternate eliminations for a little more than half of the targets. The first guy I killed cause fuck him, Jindosh was too protected and I didn't have the equipment necessary to take him alive, and that Duke level was so impossible for me to go through without killing people so when I found an easy way to get to him, I just killed him. 

     

    I also had some performance issues and sound stuff - finally ended up putting everything low and turning the resolution down towards the end. It seemed to help. I want to do a Mr. Murderdad Corvo playthrough but the game stuttered the most when NPCs got aggressive. It went OK with a low chaos run but if I am going to fight, I can't have stutter. I dont have the most awesome rig but this is the only game where I have felt I needed something more, and that I am playing it on low settings is kind of dampening. It still looks good though (i tried using the scaling resoluton and it made things very blocky!) I hope they are working on some performance patch. 

     

    I loved the levels in this game. Even though it is, essentially, just more dishonoured, the level design really made it feel fresh - Clockwork Mansion and Crack in the Slab missions are standout pieces of course, but I also really liked the Conservatory and the final Dunwall Mission gave me a lot of deja vu - which was perfect. 

     

    I know some of us were making fun of the opening scnee's writing but I didn't think it was too bad (as far as Video game writing goes) and I felt it got better as the game went on. 

     

    The showdown with Delilah was a little anti-climactic as far as combat goes, but the first game did this as well which I like, since you spent so much time getting through the levels! 

     

    I still feel most of the abilities are skewed towards murder rather than stealth and I had a hard time figuring out how to use Emily's abilities. Except far reach, I really liked Domino. Hoever, shadow walk i only used to crawl through rat spaces, and I got doppelganger late and everytime I used it, it backfired - the doppelganger would run towards me... I didn't use the mystify one at all. How did you use her skills? I am guessing Corvo's are gonna be the same more or less as in the first game? 

     

    Also, anyone tried New Game+? Is it just starting over but you got stuff now so you are overpowered or?

    Can I switch characters in new Game+? 

     

    4 hours ago, Nappi said:

    I fired this up again after finishing Watch Dogs 2 and a campaign of Civilization 6. I'm going slowly through the second mission. The positional audio is fucking killing me. I was in the Overseers' outpost and couldn't for the life of me figure out whether a guard was in the next room or two floors down from me. Not being able to trust my ears at all is making me paranoid. :( 

     

     

    Are you wearing headphones? I just noticed today that there is a "Headphones?" On/Off option in the menus under Audio. I play with head phones and it was defaulted as off. Turned it on and didn't notice a difference but it was towards t he end of the game. Maybe it will help? 

  14. Posted

    On 1/6/2017 at 9:52 AM, twmac said:

    That didn't stop me smiling as Dan tried to defend Star Dew Valley, despairing when people changed their votes for Overcooked as they realised it was getting too many votes and one of their other favourites might not make the top ten, and the horror that they were talking about removing Inside.

     

     

     

    Dan defending Stardew Valley in every category he could was adorable. 

    On 1/6/2017 at 6:06 PM, Badfinger said:

    The Palmer Luckey thing rang true to me. I know people have been on GB for not always being as progressive as they'd like to present, but having followed the site since 2010 they have made a lot of strides forward towards inclusivity and also for saying so out loud. Not all the time, but when things happen that need to be commented on they do so. I'm sure there are plenty of literal kids in the audience for them, but they don't seem interested in trucking with that kind of behavior.

    2

     

    Yea, I thought that was good as well. You could hear how uncomfortable some were that they weren't just talking about which game release was the worst, but an actual a thing (a point they make repeatedly too) and agreed with what you said about GB even though I don't follow them closely I have noticed too. 

    On 1/6/2017 at 6:40 PM, SgtWhistlebotom said:

     

    Cara Ellison for GBEast 2017.

     

     

    if only! She is sorely missed 

  15. Posted

    I also couldn't get above them :/ 

    I will be doing another playthrough, maybe I will try for the achivements in that one :)

     

    I just sniped the target from the other room. Got the kill without any special dialogue or anything (that i had heard anyway i my many many attempts to get him)

    Once i was able to grapple myself onto the chandelier and when the robots went to attack me they jumped off the railing into the room below. But I couldn't recreate that. 

  16. Posted

    I think these are all the games that I played this year that came out this year: 

    1. Banner Saga 2   -   love love love this series. Perfect blend of everything I like. The second makes enough small tweaks to be a significant improvement without sacrificing the feel and style of the original

    2. Dishonoured 2 - love love love this world. I love how you can play as a super assassin or a sneaky sneak and now that you can choose to play 2 characters, it makes it easier to start a new run after the first (which I plan to do!)

    3. Darkest Dungeon -  great grindy game, but since it is grindy i stopped playing a bit but i love how it is structured that you can jump in and do a run or two and leave. doesn't look like it but is a good lunchbreak game (if you do the shorter quests)

    4. Firewatch - i loved the ending. was more like a book ending than a Video game ending (if that makes sense?)

    5. Duelyst - its like Hearthstone, but better! A lot better

    6. Overwatch - got into this late but its been fun so far playing with my friends! I hope to join the euverwatch sometime soon too

    7. Ultimate Chicken Horse - I have never ever had so much fun doing couch co-op as with this game since we were early teens eating too much pizza and drinking too much soda playing super smash. 

     

    old games that took up my time:

    Finally beat Far Cry 2 so played through far Cry 3 right after. FC3 was probably more fun, but a lot less engaging. At the end I didn;t have it in me to explore the island further at all and ultimateely the game didn't leave a lastin impression

    League of Legends - been waning off of this since my group started doing ranked (which is fine) and then tilting (which is ok) and then getting into fights (which is bad). Most of them migrated to Overwatch now anyway

    Skyrim - never got really hooked but a few mods and christmas with my mom I found myself having fun doing fuck all in this world. I originally tried to roleplay it and do a sneaky character but then realized the systems in the game aren't good for that. So now i have 2-3 followers and we roam around kicking ass. 

    Armello - for some reason I am having fun with this now that I didn;t before. Also, I guess loot boxes help with that?? Thought this game never got quite the credit it deserved when it was released. 

    Invisible Inc - spent a lot of time trying to beat this on the harder difficulties/modes and never succeeded :'(

    hearthstone - getting bored with this :/ not sure why. probably because I don;t have a lot of top cards and the meta always seems focused on one or two specific decks which makes it boring. Arena is still kind of fun though

     

     

     

     

     

  17. Posted

    Trine 2 i think has local and would work if you dont mind using M+K 

     

    i used to have to do this before i got more controllers but having the keyboard in the lap and a wireless mouse on the couch next to my leg worked ok for some games but i dont know what the set up you have or if it would work/be comfortable. 

  18. Posted

    Her Story isn't a walking simulator but it still might appeal to you for the alternative storytelling part. Also check out the IF game Aisle he did. 

     

    For walking stuff, I would make an unusual recommendation SOMA but with the "wuss" mod. It is still creepy but you don't have to worry about the monsters (except 2 chase scenes i think) and the story there is pretty good and the environments top notch. 

     

    Miasmata is also really immersive but i haven't played it enough to get a sense of the story. there is a monster that hunts you there though. 

     

    All the ones Clyde said are very good too. 

     

    Ethan Carter has some puzzles but they aren't too difficult and i wouldn't call it puzzle based. Most of them involve walking, iirc, so it fits :D 

     

     

  19. Posted

    I love this game too, about half-way through a low-chaos emily run. her abilities are really interesting. It's very much just more Dishonoured but somehow also feels fresh. I almost completed the clockwork mansion with no kills but i couldnt get the target alive because of the two robots near him. those are really hard for me to destroy. 

     

    I am also sad that the game doesnt appear to be doing as well as it should, i hope they keep making them, or at least similar games, in the future. 

  20. Posted

    On 1/1/2017 at 10:23 PM, SgtWhistlebotom said:

    Sorely missed Austin's presence on the GOTY podcasts this year. Right at the end, Brad says something along the lines of "We should have talked about the games more instead of just dealing on which spot they should be" and my immediate thought was how that's what Austin is really good at- asking people "Why?" in a way that gets them to say interesting things.

     

     

    Agreed. The GOTY deliberations is the only time I really listen to GB - really like the format. But this time I felt like, no matter what category, they were only talking about the same handful of games and where they should be ranked. In addition to the "Why", I also missed Austin campaigning from games that weren't super big. I remember him going to bat for Invisible Inc. so hard and rightfully so. I still have the last one to listen to but I fear its just going to about where Doom, Titanfall, and Overwatch are going to be on the list. 

  22. Posted

    I guess it depends on what or how you want to use them in the classroom 

     

    Her Story and Beginner's Guide have some potential, particularly in themes and narratives. 

    Elegy for a dead world is a game that is supposed to help people write

     

     

    There is a lot of good stuff in the IF space too for narrative and it is all free - Photopia is fast and easy, Spider and Web is maybe more interesting from a game writer point of view, and Aisle i think could be a great start of a writing exercise

     

    Bernband is a low fi graphic exploration game on a weird space station, could be another jump off point for writing 

     

     

    Theres also a game somewhere on the internet where you play briefly as someone from some part of the world and i cant remember what it is called.

     

  23. Posted

    On 11/27/2016 at 5:55 PM, Rilen said:

    After you finish Portal 2, let me know if you want to do the excellent co-op campaign with someone! I never got to finish it!

     

    I might be game for that sometime in the near future. I have always wanted to try the co-op part of Portal 2 but haven't found anyone to do it with 

  24. Posted

    Some of these are old episodes cause I don't come to the forums much also maybe i mentioned some of these before. 

     

    Gimlet's new show Crimetown is pretty good, really enjoying hearing about the mobsters in 70's Providence, RI 

     

    Reply All's recent Hello? episode was wonderful, but I don't know if it is for everyone.They open the phone line for 48 hours straight and it is 2 hours of them struggling with this idea and also some of the people they talk to 

     

    I recently checked up on WTF and I would recommend his interviews with Natasha Leggero, David Simon, and especially the one with Terry Gross. He also has one with Neil Strauss which was very interesting, since Strauss has left the PUA stuff and has bad feelings about it, and Maron kind of hits him kind of hard on the topic. Neil was pretty open and honest and I kinda dig hearing growth and change in a person from that person's POV. He also had Goldblum on but it was just OK. 

     

    The Tim Ferri's Show has an interview with Robert Rodriguez that was really interesting, covering his life, how he started making movies, and where inspiration and such comes from for him. It is one of the earlier episodes. 

     

    If you are of the entrepreneurial mindset but want to/currently run an honest, small business, I would recommend The Fizzle Show - a group of smart people who have the kind of fun casualness of the thumbs, sort of. good advice but not boring.  

     

    Two Video game podcasts I don't hear anyone talk about here are Unconsoleable (mostly about mobile games) and Spawn on Me. I dont get to them much (too many pods) but they are good