I bounced off Qud pretty hard, but the fun is there after someone writes an unfocused Gamefaq style guide under the narrative guise of a DBZ character to teach me how to get past the first 15 minutes

Finally picked up the System Shock remaster for Playstation and finding it a bit of a mixed bag.

From a long-time SS2 fan, it looks great, but some of the controller mappings are diabolical, and the "you're on your own" element of figuring out which objectives are next (via the audio logs) can get frustrating. Think I'm over the hump, and enjoying it a lot more now I've put a good few hours into it.

I'm not motivated to grind through Chorus at the moment, stuck on a protracted battle/mission. Still intend to return to it at some point.

I picked up the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition trilogy (originally released starting in 2013) and am about halfway through the first one. I'm stuck on a battle in the towers above Shantytown. Previously, I was able to get through the big ambushes/battles in Shantytown by running away and then luring baddies to me and picking them off, but can't do that here. Sick of getting offed in brutal fashion. This is the first gorey game I've played and it's beginning to wear on me a bit.

I started messing around with Space Engineers with the little dude. Steep learning curve but he managed not to melt down and hang with it and build some simple structures in outer space yesterday.

I also started playing Minecraft with him in earnest and it's a blast. I mostly work on abstract shit while he builds more concrete structures. The combination works nicely. We're working away at our Arctic Sculpture Village. Once I realised you could basically go all stochastic on it, running around in circles dropping blocks while switching between different aesthetically pleasing materials randomly, I really started to dig it. I do that for a while and then zoom out and impose more structure on it if I like. Basically like doodling or abstract drawing and then fleshing out more concrete parts as they emerge. We make a good team.

Been on that Balatro tip for a few weeks and it has been very responsible for me staying up an hour+ past my bedtime.

andyman wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:15 am

defendyachtrock wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2025 2:56 pm Been on that Balatro tip for a few weeks and it has been very responsible for me staying up an hour+ past my bedtime.

I was into that briefly but the ease with which flushes win made it kind of easy.

Maybe on lower stakes, but the score scaling becomes a real issue on Purple stake and above. At that point, it's really about joker management and making sure you can get a x-mult joker that can keep up with the scaling. That usually requires getting your money managed properly and sometimes deep rerolling to get a blueprint or brainstorm.

I've finished gold stake on about half of the decks so far.

Return of the Obra Dinn

I've had this on my wishlist for years based on recs and reviews. Picked it up on a whim and was immediately sucked in.

It's Clue on a trade boat in Dutch East India times. Buck Wild presentation. Weird little hints and things for the observant. I'm sure the average completion time is about 6 hours. I'm on 8 and about halfway done.

GuyLaCroix wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 11:28 pm Return of the Obra Dinn
...
I'm sure the average completion time is about 6 hours. I'm on 8 and about halfway done.

Savor every moment, take 20 hours. Lots of people have said this, and they're all correct: I wish I could go back to the first time I played Return of the Obra Dinn. It's lightning in a bottle.

brephophagist wrote: Tue Mar 18, 2025 11:43 am

GuyLaCroix wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 11:28 pm Return of the Obra Dinn
...
I'm sure the average completion time is about 6 hours. I'm on 8 and about halfway done.

Savor every moment, take 20 hours. Lots of people have said this, and they're all correct: I wish I could go back to the first time I played Return of the Obra Dinn. It's lightning in a bottle.

I'm running up towards the end and getting stumped. It's starting to wear a bit. But it's also all I've been thinking about since last Friday.

Powered through and Obra Did it. Incredible.

Game rules.

Obra Dinn is a lovely experience that I expect to return to now that I’ve forgotten most of the crew details, though I doubt I’ll forget the sailor in a striped top as he had me stuck for a while.

I’ve decided to start methodically going through games that've dozed in my PlayStation library for a while and let go of the urge to wring the last drop of juice from them. So far, this has been fun.

God of War (2018) - I almost gave this up as my first hour of playing it on and off after a five year break was fiddly and confusing, especially around working out how the menus functioned and what the various widgets did. This is comical, as I am extremely tolerant of FromSoft’s infamously standoffish UI. Enjoyed the game a lot once past that first hour or so of fumbling; great, hefty combat and some of the dialogue and exploration is fun, though the preponderance of invisible walls and clunking story tropes never completely subsided. Actually felt a little sad to delete it for space once I decided I wasn’t going to spend a dozen or more hours hunting valkyries and obscure bits of armour. I’d happily play the main story again.

Undertale - sweet, sharp Achewood vibes, though I never quite got into the battle system enough to feel compelled to complete a pacifist run, despite basically keeping all the NPCs alive that I could by the end. Beautifully executed and quite moving; I hadn’t expected this would draw more sad-dad vibes out of me.

Ace Combat 7 - I’ve only reached the fifth mission and love it so far. Been decades since I played an arcade flight shooter game, and I’ve had to learn to keep my right thumb off the second analogue stick and realise this is not an FPS. Am already watching nerd videos on how to play better and might stick it out beyond the first playthrough.

Shadow of the Ninja Reborn - fabulous remake of an NES game made by veteran developers Tengo Project, a hard, precise and eye-poppingly pretty pixel side-scrolling platform action game. I’ve put it down on the third level with the intention of finishing it in small doses.

Akai Katana Shin - haven’t played in a couple of months, but I’ll return to a very slow attempt to get good enough to think about a 1-cc. Bullet hell shooters are very cool and I am bad at them.

Ridge Racer Type 4 - grabbed this after listening to Phil Fish elect to include this in his selection for the My Perfect Console podcast and it’s a delirious banger.

Helldivers 2 - still playing with a couple of forum members from when before the PRF was called the PRF.

There’s a pile of other games I hope to get to, including a couple of Yakuza games, the last Mimimi game Shadow Gambit, Dishonored 1&2, Catherine: Full Body, Humanity, Wanted: Dead and Psychonauts 1&2.

I think that’s enough.