And I still have no idea what was supposed to distinguish the two threads!
I enjoy the ride. Please keep us moving!
Thraeg
6274
I mean, it’s right there in the title. Not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse for effect, but:
This thread was for games that caught your attention in some way, but that are still early in development or that you haven’t played (enough) to recommend.
The other thread was for games that you have personally played, and want to recommend that others also play it.
Personally, I don’t get much value out of this thread because I don’t have the time and mental energy to follow development processes of games that might or might not be worth my time next year. I’d rather have concrete recommendations of things that someone on this board thinks are worth putting time into right now.
Given your gripes about early access game threads, I would have thought you’d feel the same way, and could have just ignored this thread.
I know, and probably a lot of other folks had the same difficulty, so that’s fair. To me, it was essentially the difference between the Previews section in a 90s gaming mag and the Reviews section. But I’m looking forward to doing unique threads for every game!
To me, the only difference is the one that is on top of the other on the front page, is the one where I’ll post my junk.
It never occured to me it was about EA games :O
Maybe we should have a thread for games that aren’t released yet, versus ones that are. Then Tom would never have to be disappointed because he didn’t realize something wasn’t out yet until after it piqued his interest.
Not necessarily. It’s intended for the poster to bring games to light that he/she hasn’t actually played yet. They’re usually still in development, but not necessarily. I know I’ve posted here about established games that I’ve just stumbled across but know nothing about.
The other thread is more of an impressions thread, and could probably be jettisoned in favor of specific titles.
orald
6280
I searched on Lost Frontier and came up empty and I am wondering if anyone has played it and can recommend it? One of the Steam curators said this about it, “Advance Wars-style turn-based tactical play with a Weird West theme; cowboys team up against rival gangs…and werewolves…using six-shooters and derigibles. From a dev that worked on Battlehearts”
Positive reviews on Steam from a couple dozen reviewers. Mobile port from Mika Mobile, Inc.
Pretty sure I played this on mobile ~6 years ago. Don’t recall enough to recommend or dissuade, unfortunately.
geggis
6282
Well, I made a start on the Punkcake mega bundle and Ecstatic is magnificent. I chose it first because it was the least clicked on game listed! :) But, I mean, just look at it:
Délicieux indeed!
So you’ve got a carrot-on-a-stick cursor that your spider follows when you left click, then a mouse-over lock-on, right click fire-and-forget shooting system. It feels weird at first but there’s this tension and rhythm between mousing over to lock-on and mousing away to move. It’s amazing how smooth it feels when you’ve got the hang of it. What’s more: when you lock-on to several targets, your spider does a burst dash on release which feels very satisfying and counteracts the stationary time to do all the locking-on. That’s a really smart touch. The heart of the game is in the pick-up/levelling system though.
Each level will periodically spawn a randomised pick-up. There’s blast (missile blast radius), drill (expands arena and speeds up lock-ons), hsink (reduces cooldown between salvos), speed (spidey speed), build (rate at which you store missiles), fangs (bite enemies on collision), freez [sic] (time slows down when you stop—this makes the game feel turn-based when levelled) and store (how many missiles you can store). Getting the right balance is key so not enough store and you run out missiles. Not enough hsink and you’re waiting too long between salvos. Not enough speed and it’s harder to dodge. But, hey geggis, I thought you said they were randomised? Well you can lock-on to pick-ups to cycle them!
There are three levels, each with their own music and BPM (and an editor that you can bung your own music into but I’ve not looked at that), each with four difficulties (easy, normal, hard, ecstatic) and a bunch of challenges or achievements to do for each one. I’ve done each level on easy but it’s getting really tough on normal. I daren’t think what hard or ecstatic are like. Restarts are lightning fast and as such I’ve found it very difficult to stop playing. It’s so easy to just have another go…
If the other games in the bundle are anywhere near as good as this then I’m in for a treat.
JoshL
6283
I didn’t buy the bundle, but I did buy Rush for the Ages. It’s… a fun diversion. Individual games are very quick, but the strategy doesn’t seem to be very deep. Mostly just hope you get good cards, and also recognizing when a particular card in the pool of available cards is good for you right now. There’s a little bit of manipulating the available card pool, since the size of the pool determines what cards you can play (and the values of a couple of the cards).
Worth the price, for me anyway, but probably not a lot of staying power.
geggis
6284
Yeah, I’m quite keen to check that one out!
My understanding is that these games are made in around a month, a bit similar to Sokpop’s stuff. I’ve got about 7 hours on Ecstatic now, somehow, god, it’s addictive (just completed normal), but for how ‘quickly’ it was made it’s absurdly good, as a very polished, tight and mechanically interesting shooter that’s holding my attention. The soundtrack is also great:
JoshL
6285
Yeah, I’m curious now about “sugar”, the tool/library used to make Rush for the Ages. I’m guessing all their games are made with it.
geggis
6286
Ah, it appears to be a game engine they’re developing:
Well, apologies for once again missing the point. I know this confused me previously, and it was probably explained to me, and I obviously missed the point again. I saw the other thread had been bumped after a long inactivity, and it looked to me like the post that bumped it belonged over here.
So, basically, this thread is for games you haven’t played and the other thread would be for games you have played? Honestly, I’m not sure I see the point, but if we make sure they’re labeled accordingly, I’m less likely to mess it up again.
-Tom
EDIT: Okay, I’ve opened the other thread and renamed them both. Hope that clarifies things. Again, I don’t see the point in there being separate threads, but I’m not the person to evaluate these catch-all threads. To my mind, they’re all abominations! :)
This doesn’t seem like the best new name.
I’m pretty sure some evil person like justaguy2 would jump on it to start listing every single games they haven’t played.
Therlun
6289
What was wrong with the old title? I found it very enticing and the new one is just wrong if you look at the majority of posts.
I definitely used this thread to post impressions and mini reviews of games I had played or that I played a demo of.
The other indie thread has 700 posts while this one has 6000. I saw this a the thread to discuss any indie game that caught your fancy, that you played and liked or indeed sometimes ones that you didn’t play but looked forward to. While, for one reason or another, not yet justifying creating a specific thread for it.
Hello, Lawful Good loremaster here!
So, basically, what had happened was, in this thread people would post about any and all indie games that looked or were cool.
A lot of the time, someone would be like “Hay this game Knights of Justice: Return of the Liberators is visually stunning.”
Someone else would say “But is it gratifying?”
And the first person would be like “How would I know, I haven’t played it, it’s $4 and I’m waiting for a historically low price!!!”
After this happened 5,000 times, someone else was like, “I want a thread where people HAVE played the games,” and they started the other one.
But this original thread wasn’t just limited to games that hadn’t been played. It was both, like eventually when Knights of Justice: Return of the Liberators went on sale for $3.99 and someone bought it they might post their impressions.
So, yeah, that was confusing and the new title is probably better moving forward. But it doesn’t fully describe what this thread has been so far.
Lawful good loremaster out!
