Amarna Forum

I've been thinking about Ultrakill and Doom recently; more specifically about the difference in what these two games consider skill.

Ultrakill is an interesting game, though I don't really like it. It's a perfect encapsulation of what zoomers like in shooting games, and I think it's a decent barometer of the prevalent attitudes towards gaming nowadays. The most interesting part about Ultrakill is what it chooses to focus on in difficulty, which is essentially technical execution. In Ultrakill, the most important part of the game is movement and shooting, which is what I believe zoomers also think is the most important part of shooters. The problem here is, of course, getting good at this isn't actually a matter of skill, it's a matter of execution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqU8BtpyzyQ

I'd like for you to look at this video, and try and understand what the most important part of beating this boss is. Obviously, a bossfight isn't a perfect representation of how a game is normally, but for Ultrakill, you're supposed to do basically the same things for both, so it's appropriate to look at it. It seems to me (I didn't actually get to this part because I was sick of the game before this) that all you really need to do to beat this fight is have fast reflexes and shoot it a bunch. It's not really skill as much as remembering a formula that will always beat a level (that being jump around, run everywhere and shoot anything close to you). It's similar to most fighting games, of which the most debased part of the gameplay is the combos, where skill means memorizing increasingly complex sets of inputs and being able to tap them quickly. In Ultrakill, the movement is basically memorizable; you can beat most battles by mindlessly running around and shooting the enemies.

Compare this with Doom, the videogame which is the inspiration for most of these zoomer shooters. Skillful play of Ultrakill is memorizing how to move and how to shoot your guns; what is skillful play of Doom? To understand this, you have to look at what wins you the game in both. In Ultrakill, you MUST kill every enemy in order to progress. It's very clear that killing enemies is the primary objective of the game, and getting good at killing by using murder formulas is skill. But in Doom, you often don't have to kill enemies to progress... However, you DO have to grab keys, open doors, and move to the exit to progress. In Ultrakill, moving through the level is incidental to getting sick kills. In Doom, killing is incidental to traversing the level. And there, I think, you have the key to what makes you skillful in Doom, that being your ability to move through the level and deal with it's threats.

This really makes sense when you realize that in Doom, the level is as much an enemy as the traditional enemies. It's structured in ways to ambush you, put you in difficult situations, test your skills... In Ultrakill, the level is a backdrop for the enemies. Doom's usage of the level as an enemy makes much more sense to me, it requires you to utilize your limited toolbox to deal with every encounter individually. It requires much more active thinking than Ultrakill, and it also requires usage of many more faculties than it. I think Doom's skill requirements correlate more closely to what I consider skill than Ultrakill's skill requirements.

The main problem I have with Doom is that it sort of cucks and doesn't take this to it's fullest potential, with most levels being very simple to pass through and not hostile enough to the player. I've heard WADs do this, but have never really played one, so hopefully someone who does can expand on that aspect of it. Also interesting to consider is that the Doom remake also doesn't use the level as opposition to the player and the levels essentially work as a set of arenas that you go through in sequence. It's a shame to see the idea of a level as a fully connected organic thing basically die out in modern shooters, except for autistic "immersive sims". Hopefully someone will get around to making an actually good boomer shooter, or I'll find a shooter that's actually good. And if neither of these things happen, there's always Quake.

(10-16-2023, 04:01 AM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]I've been thinking about Ultrakill and Doom recently; more specifically about the difference in what these two games consider skill.

If we're looking at video games as skill challenges that exist to be beaten I don't see too much point in comparing any one to another. They'll both resist a bit and give. DOOM becoming a level-person's game was kind of incidental to only being able to do so much with the guns side of things I believe. You could put more thought into making levels for Ultrakill. But it has far more elaborate gun stuff, which would get in the way beyond a certain point, probably make intricate designs that play off of what the player can do more difficult.

Sunlust is a great example of different thinking in a skillful shooter or whatever we want to call this. It's really not much of a shooting game. More like a series of puzzle boxes that run on the rules of DOOM.

(10-16-2023, 04:40 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]If we're looking at video games as skill challenges that exist to be beaten I don't see too much point in comparing any one to another. They'll both resist a bit and give.

I disagree with this. Even if most videogames are meant to be beaten, I think it's important to consider how they want you to beat it, and whether it's fun. Without considering how a game is meant to be played and the ways it challenges the player, any writing on video games becomes overly abstract. Trying to find a games core ideal is fine, but it's uninteresting if you aren't able to express how that ties into the gameplay of it.

(10-16-2023, 04:40 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]DOOM becoming a level-person's game was kind of incidental to only being able to do so much with the guns side of things I believe.

I doubt this, since Doom 2 also has many of the same ideas carried through, though executed at a worse level. I doubt that the devs thought at any time while making the game that it was essentially about traversing hostile levels, but they seem to have realized that this is the best way you can structure the game, and applied it to most games they made (haven't played any Quake so don't know whether they did it there).

(10-16-2023, 04:40 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]You could put more thought into making levels for Ultrakill. But it has far more elaborate gun stuff, which would get in the way beyond a certain point, probably make intricate designs that play off of what the player can do more difficult.

I agree with this.

(10-16-2023, 05:46 AM)Guest Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-16-2023, 04:40 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]DOOM becoming a level-person's game was kind of incidental to only being able to do so much with the guns side of things I believe.

I doubt this, since Doom 2 also has many of the same ideas carried through, though executed at a worse level. I doubt that the devs thought at any time while making the game that it was essentially about traversing hostile levels, but they seem to have realized that this is the best way you can structure the game, and applied it to most games they made (haven't played any Quake so don't know whether they did it there).

The DOOM developers obviously understood and worked on levels in the same intricate way that fans making things like Sunlust did. They're obviously designed with how you move through them in mind. Traps, routes, etc. My point is more that they didn't keep making games like this. Nobody really did. Except doom modders.

(10-16-2023, 07:09 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]The DOOM developers obviously understood and worked on levels in the same intricate way that fans making things like Sunlust did. They're obviously designed with how you move through them in mind. Traps, routes, etc. My point is more that they didn't keep making games like this. Nobody really did. Except doom modders.

This is true, and quite sad. You can sort of see hints of these ideas in games like Hotline Miami, but no game that I know has really dedicated itself to it's levels like Doom and it's assorted successors.

What I find weird about video game movement is how the game can place all kinds of limitations on your movement and apparently feel natural enough. In a fighting game it may be "your whip reaches this many pixels" or "your roll looks like this, goes at least this far whenever you roll". The interpretation of the keystrokes is limited to what fits in a very direct, objective key-to-action translation. Press roll, you roll in the same way every time like you are basically an NPC puppeteer. You jump, but oh no, your automatic jump height is set too high so you are stuck in the air too long! Or action1 locks you out of action2 for some milliseconds and this should somehow form your strategy for the game. It all feels like a direct connection to your nerves like an appendage shaped out of pixels, but you don't have tons of options to do different things differently with it. If you had different limitations where your character just automatically does the thing that you would clearly want them to do in the situation then the action in your game becomes more like a cutscene or a "quicktime event" which gamers are not fans of. Maybe because there isn't a consistent interface, the gameplay becomes about reading your options really quickly and then clicking the right one instead of intuiting "this is when I press this button- which will let me dodge in this way". Maybe just because the actions don't feel like they are yours once they become more dynamically complicated than the button presses.

The fundamental appeals of Tarkov are the "gambling" aspect which Anthony already covered but there is another important one: simulation.  There is a fair amount of gear queer autism but the realism is the appeal.  And it is realistic: submachine guns are present in Tarkov but aren't popular because everyone is wearing body armor...just like in real life.  The gacha aspect is completely intertwined with this: the stakes provide an element of fear.  In actual combat, the effect of fear is pervasive and important, but it is difficult to simulate this which causes human wave behavior in players.  Tarkov pulls this off by making the player fear for losing their gear and progress, which might represent hours of time (and of course scavs have less to lose and can play more fearlessly -- again literally a simulation of "penniless adventurer with nothing to lose").  

I'll also point out that you can in fact play Tarkov with others, the game natively supports this: and moving from lone marauder to buddy team to full squad is almost another game.  Tarkov's stakes even manage to accurately simulate the pressure to recover fallen comrades.

Personally, my problem with Tarkov is that it's just too high-commitment.  When I do get into I tend to binge it for a few days.  But the fact that it's less arcadey than PUBG is the point.  If you don't appreciate simulationism (which I think is also at the root of your dislike of CRPGs) then it's easy to see why you would prefer PUBG over Tarkov.  

(The lack of an in-game or clear directions is still baffling.  When I play, I keep it up on a second monitor).

It's the same deal with Total War.  Total War went off the rails when it stopped trying to simulate battles (the world map was always kind of secondary to the tactical engagements and the series was already losing its way with Shogun 2's overreliance on world map mechanics).  The original Shogun Total War did have a hero unit of sorts and there were sometimes hero-ish units in later games (like the Arcani or Berserkers in Rome), but they always had important limitations or were outright gimmicks.  You didn't build an army around them.

(10-18-2023, 03:17 PM)Unformed Golem Wrote: [ -> ]The fundamental appeals of Tarkov are the "gambling" aspect which Anthony already covered but there is another important one: simulation.  There is a fair amount of gear queer autism but the realism is the appeal.  And it is realistic: submachine guns are present in Tarkov but aren't popular because everyone is wearing body armor...just like in real life.  The gacha aspect is completely intertwined with this: the stakes provide an element of fear.  In actual combat, the effect of fear is pervasive and important, but it is difficult to simulate this which causes human wave behavior in players.  Tarkov pulls this off by making the player fear for losing their gear and progress, which might represent hours of time (and of course scavs have less to lose and can play more fearlessly -- again literally a simulation of "penniless adventurer with nothing to lose"). 

I really appreciate this stuff. I like when guns feel nice in a game. In call of duty they all feel like weightless holograms of objects. In Halo Infinite they look like 3D printed plastic. In Tarkov they feel like metal objects that your guy is actually holding and manipulating. A few games have done them to this level, but not a lot. Red Orchestra and Rising Storm I think did this really well. Also the Metal Gear Games are fantastic at this. I think on one hand it's a technical issue. Craft and competence. On the other I think it's appreciation. People actually caring about guns and wanting them to feel cool, and understanding why guns are cool. (even if they're faggots about it. gear queer culture, etc.)

edit: forgot to add here, to see how nicely they did the guns, check out the game's imfdb page: https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Escape_from_Tarkov

And for some contrast, another game I love: https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Far_Cry_2[url=https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Far_Cry_2][/url]

And yes you're right about the stakes inducing more interesting behaviour in people. Rising Storm 2 has very mean and heavy guns. But it also has constant respawning so there's no harm in diving into enemy fire spraying bullets all over. The game has to hurt you somehow to make you care more. And Tarkov does this with time. Casinos do it with money. If every respawn in Rising Storm 2 cost you ten dollars you can bet it would suddenly get far more tense. In Tarkov it costs you time. Raw time to get back in, the timecost of the gear you lost, etc. It's a neat idea.

Quote:I'll also point out that you can in fact play Tarkov with others, the game natively supports this: and moving from lone marauder to buddy team to full squad is almost another game.  Tarkov's stakes even manage to accurately simulate the pressure to recover fallen comrades.

I haven't played with people in a group yet, but I have had interesting encounters with other players. The nature of the game brings out interesting things in people. The way we're all kind of competing in the same direction creates interesting room to potentially be nice to people, potentially screw each other over for advantage or just because it's funny. Lots of possibilities. My favourite encounter with other players so far, which was observed by someone else here I was showing the game to. I had accidentally entered a game without ammunition and was being chased by a scav (ai bot). I ran into two other players, announced myself and said I had no ammo and asked for help.

They didn't shoot me and instead explained that they had no shells that would fit my simple shotgun. The second offered to lead me to a dead scav so I could get his gun. After a few steps that way the first scav shot me twice in the spine when my back was turned. I wasn't mad. This was extremely funny. And I suspect the second guy did mean to help me, just the first guy couldn't resist the urge to shoot. I don't blame him at all. Again, this was hilarious.

Quote:Personally, my problem with Tarkov is that it's just too high-commitment.  When I do get into I tend to binge it for a few days.  But the fact that it's less arcadey than PUBG is the point.  If you don't appreciate simulationism (which I think is also at the root of your dislike of CRPGs) then it's easy to see why you would prefer PUBG over Tarkov.  

(The lack of an in-game or clear directions is still baffling.  When I play, I keep it up on a second monitor).

Yes, this is ultimately the trouble. If I play a bit, I'm incentivised to play more, and that creates more incentives which creates more incentives. It's a pointless loop of building your capacity to play tarkov so that you can play more tarkov to build more capacity to play Tarkov.

As I was saying to Lavranson, this game needs a Death Stranding like framing. If Death Stranding were made by westerners it would be like Tarkov. It would just be a bunch of locations you walk between, building up infrastructure and gear, increasing your capacity to make deliveries... so that you can make more deliveries. And then like three times a year they reset the game so you can start building up again.

Death Stranding was such a brilliant idea because in addition to creating the Strand game. It completed it. Kojima created a new style of game. And then justified it by integrating it into a greater multimedia work of art which played off of the nature of the new game. This was also what he was doing with Metal Gear with action games. A succession of attempts at making the last action game. One which is perfect as a game and provides a catharsis and conclusion finding a coherent point that the nature of the game points towards.

Tarkov needs that. Will it get it... We'll see. More likely a Japanese person will do so out of nowhere.

Quote:It's the same deal with Total War.  Total War went off the rails when it stopped trying to simulate battles (the world map was always kind of secondary to the tactical engagements and the series was already losing its way with Shogun 2's overreliance on world map mechanics).  The original Shogun Total War did have a hero unit of sorts and there were sometimes hero-ish units in later games (like the Arcani or Berserkers in Rome), but they always had important limitations or were outright gimmicks.  You didn't build an army around them.

It's very weird. The lack of a clear overvision I think has led to this. Once they have the guns and shooting in place they don't seem entirely sure what they or we are meant to be doing. So stuff that other long term online games do gets thrown in without too much apparent thought as to why it may have made sense for them and why it may or may not make sense for Tarkov. I already bought the game. Why do they need me doing "dailys"? Strange stuff.

And Total War. Lack of defining final vision. Why am I upgrading an "economic tech tree" to get +2% income from taverns after ten turns? What does this have to do with cool virtual army fights?

Quote:It's very weird. The lack of a clear overvision I think has led to this. Once they have the guns and shooting in place they don't seem entirely sure what they or we are meant to be doing. So stuff that other long term online games do gets thrown in without too much apparent thought as to why it may have made sense for them and why it may or may not make sense for Tarkov. I already bought the game. Why do they need me doing "dailys"? Strange stuff.

And Total War. Lack of defining final vision. Why am I upgrading an "economic tech tree" to get +2% income from taverns after ten turns? What does this have to do with cool virtual army fights?

The world map in the good total war games exists to provide context for your troops on the battlefield.  Who they are, how they got there, why they're fighting.  Why do I need to climb the economic tech tree?  To get more, better troops. This of course doesn't require a lot of effort: you just click the upgrade button.  It's not much but it's positive action from the player.  Building upgrades also makes your city look cooler, and you can look at it.  It's not a major part of the game, but you can do it.  Like I said: context.  My army comes from, and defends, this cool city (or druid circle or whatever).  The Warhammer games are also bad at this btw.  You can also fight inside cities instead of on fields, although this tends to be less fun.

Warhammer TW comes from the same impulse as D&D: what if we added wizards and superheroes to our historical simulation?  You'll note that D&D, and for that matter Warhammer tabletop, managed to do this just fine.  It's a solid concept.  The problem is that it was executed poorly by people with no talent or vision.  I'm honestly not sure what the thought process was, for instance, behind making the "hero" units so hard to kill.  It doesn't make sense mechanically and it isn't fun.  Dominions, a game that is literally made by two people, does a better job of this.  I guess as long as goyslaves keep paying $70 + $5/DLC for their favorite skeleton vampire or whatever they'll keep cranking these games out.

Edit: Thinking more, the lackluster sales of the Empire TW games compared to the Warhammer cash cow might have had something to do with it.  While I liked Empire, I think it got a lot of criticism for the units being too samey, which was a deliberate design decision with roots in historical reality.  CA could have fixed this by doing what they did in their previous good games by sexing up differences between factions a bit and digging more into historical reality.  A good example is the bizarre decision to have grenadiers actually throw grenades.  In reality, "grenadiers" were troops who could be trusted to actually carry through an assault.  There's no reason this couldn't have been done in the game.  Really basic differences like whether cavalrymen wear armor or carry lances or have firearms were just sort of ignored even though it could have made tactical gameplay much more interesting.  Instead they tried to MOBAfy their games, presumably because that was working for League of Legends at the time.

(10-19-2023, 02:00 AM)Unformed Golem Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:It's very weird. The lack of a clear overvision I think has led to this. Once they have the guns and shooting in place they don't seem entirely sure what they or we are meant to be doing. So stuff that other long term online games do gets thrown in without too much apparent thought as to why it may have made sense for them and why it may or may not make sense for Tarkov. I already bought the game. Why do they need me doing "dailys"? Strange stuff.

And Total War. Lack of defining final vision. Why am I upgrading an "economic tech tree" to get +2% income from taverns after ten turns? What does this have to do with cool virtual army fights?

The world map in the good total war games exists to provide context for your troops on the battlefield.  Who they are, how they got there, why they're fighting.  Why do I need to climb the economic tech tree?  To get more, better troops. This of course doesn't require a lot of effort: you just click the upgrade button.  It's not much but it's positive action from the player.  Building upgrades also makes your city look cooler, and you can look at it.  It's not a major part of the game, but you can do it.  Like I said: context.  My army comes from, and defends, this cool city (or druid circle or whatever).  The Warhammer games are also bad at this btw.  You can also fight inside cities instead of on fields, although this tends to be less fun.

Warhammer TW comes from the same impulse as D&D: what if we added wizards and superheroes to our historical simulation?  You'll note that D&D, and for that matter Warhammer tabletop, managed to do this just fine.  It's a solid concept.  The problem is that it was executed poorly by people with no talent or vision.  I'm honestly not sure what the thought process was, for instance, behind making the "hero" units so hard to kill.  It doesn't make sense mechanically and it isn't fun.  Dominions, a game that is literally made by two people, does a better job of this.  I guess as long as goyslaves keep paying $70 + $5/DLC for their favorite skeleton vampire or whatever they'll keep cranking these games out.

Edit: Thinking more, the lackluster sales of the Empire TW games compared to the Warhammer cash cow might have had something to do with it.  While I liked Empire, I think it got a lot of criticism for the units being too samey, which was a deliberate design decision with roots in historical reality.  CA could have fixed this by doing what they did in their previous good games by sexing up differences between factions a bit and digging more into historical reality.  A good example is the bizarre decision to have grenadiers actually throw grenades.  In reality, "grenadiers" were troops who could be trusted to actually carry through an assault.  There's no reason this couldn't have been done in the game.  Really basic differences like whether cavalrymen wear armor or carry lances or have firearms were just sort of ignored even though it could have made tactical gameplay much more interesting.  Instead they tried to MOBAfy their games, presumably because that was working for League of Legends at the time.

I get how Total War works. But most of the overworld options now no longer serve cool. The battles are ruined. My armies are not consistent or human feeling. More like a set of moba skills that accompany the hero that just materialise while the hero is walking between points of interest. Once that falls apart all of the parts that were once "contextual" now aren't. And they're just far worse than the old management stuff. Cities having "slots" is stupid. Again, it feels like I'm building moba heroes.

I don't think Warhammer came from an authentic desire to put cool wizards into a cool army simulation. I think it was one of probably many ideas marketing or whoever had that somehow got rolling and then succeeded beyond anybody's expectations or understanding. The game which is actually "what if wizards in historical simulation?" is Dominions. Because the wizards are actually cool, and are interacting in a wizard-like way with what is otherwise a rather robust and grounded simulation-game. Illwinter didn't just happen to do a better job. They did a better job because they actually had a coherent idea of what they were doing.

I don't know if this has already been discussed here, but I have a love-hate relationship with what has been termed colony simulations, such as Rimworld, Kenshi, Banished etc.
Does anybody have a pet theory why these are so addictive to so many players like me? Often if not always, they are objectively bad: buggy, unfinished (full content only achieved with post-release patches, or never), ugly. Yet the gameplay somehow captures a love for micromanaging economies and characters in a way that satisfies some urge for control or whatever. Not sure. Open for suggestions.

t. started playing Kenshi even thought it might be the single worst-thought out game I have come across.

(11-06-2023, 01:35 PM)Hamamelis Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know if this has already been discussed here, but I have a love-hate relationship with what has been termed colony simulations, such as Rimworld, Kenshi, Banished etc.
Does anybody have a pet theory why these are so addictive to so many players like me? Often if not always, they are objectively bad: buggy, unfinished (full content only achieved with post-release patches, or never), ugly. Yet the gameplay somehow captures a love for micromanaging economies and characters in a way that satisfies some urge for control or whatever. Not sure. Open for suggestions.

t. started playing Kenshi even thought it might be the single worst-thought out game I have come across.

I don't think it's a unique mechanism, but probably just one form of the standard: Begin in novel world, develop understanding, exhibit mastery over the space around you. These games were rarely something I enjoyed (the only one I spent time on was Roller Coaster Tycoon 2), but a friend of mine was a big fan of Rimworld. Perhaps it also gives you a way to "write", maybe you are creating the stories as you play (without consciously noticing possibly.)

A sort of way to express that creative impulse within a bounded, logical world. This is what I expect given the nature of my friend, but I am not sure if this is true or not. Of course, the peanut-counting desire (which most, if not all have) is also satisfied by such games.

"The Atheism stat in Final Fantasy Tactics remains to this day the greatest example of ludo-narrative resonance in video games." 

-Hideo Kojima.

I am inclined to agree.

(11-06-2023, 01:35 PM)Hamamelis Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know if this has already been discussed here, but I have a love-hate relationship with what has been termed colony simulations, such as Rimworld, Kenshi, Banished etc.
Does anybody have a pet theory why these are so addictive to so many players like me? Often if not always, they are objectively bad: buggy, unfinished (full content only achieved with post-release patches, or never), ugly. Yet the gameplay somehow captures a love for micromanaging economies and characters in a way that satisfies some urge for control or whatever. Not sure. Open for suggestions.

t. started playing Kenshi even thought it might be the single worst-thought out game I have come across.

The Sims but it's built around doing stuff like removing the pool ladder.

(11-09-2023, 08:07 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]The Sims but it's built around doing stuff like removing the pool ladder.

"The Sims, for men" might hit the nail on the head, actually. In any case, I tried Kenshi, and it was very frustrating. I basically only played it to justify buying it to myself. The best thing I can say about it is that they went for a specific visual aesthetic and mostly achieved that. It looks bland but memorable at the same time somehow.

As this was the last of "that type of game" that I wanted to try out, I don't think I will return to this genre again. I think it should be a general warning sign when large parts of the consistent playerbase use mods to play a game.

(11-10-2023, 04:47 AM)Hamamelis Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-09-2023, 08:07 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]The Sims but it's built around doing stuff like removing the pool ladder.

"The Sims, for men" might hit the nail on the head, actually. In any case, I tried Kenshi, and it was very frustrating. I basically only played it to justify buying it to myself. The best thing I can say about it is that they went for a specific visual aesthetic and mostly achieved that. It looks bland but memorable at the same time somehow.

As this was the last of "that type of game" that I wanted to try out, I don't think I will return to this genre again. I think it should be a general warning sign when large parts of the consistent playerbase use mods to play a game.

I liked how Kenshi had massive open spaces but it seems like the primary experience its success was built on is being Rimworld in 3D.

I really tried to like Kenshi, but it's just so retarded. Building an RPG around avoiding fights instead of buttonmashing is innovative. Awarding experience for losing fights and keeping on playing, instead of rogue-like play->lose->start over is innovative. But then the whole mechanic around it is so badly constructed that it gears the whole experience towards finding workarounds for those design choices. You level your "stealth stat" (a nasty thing in and of itself) by enabling "sneak mode" and sitting in the corner in proximity to hostiles and idling. You *could* do it by sneaking around, stealing stuff, knocking people out etc, but that gets frustrating (because it nets you not profits except some "sneak xp") and brings you nowhere. So idling is what the game encourages.

(11-10-2023, 05:51 AM)Hamamelis Wrote: [ -> ]I really tried to like Kenshi, but it's just so retarded. Building an RPG around avoiding fights instead of buttonmashing is innovative. Awarding experience for losing fights and keeping on playing, instead of rogue-like play->lose->start over is innovative. But then the whole mechanic around it is so badly constructed that it gears the whole experience towards finding workarounds for those design choices. You level your "stealth stat" (a nasty thing in and of itself) by enabling "sneak mode" and sitting in the corner in proximity to hostiles and idling. You *could* do it by sneaking around, stealing stuff, knocking people out etc, but that gets frustrating (because it nets you not profits except some "sneak xp") and brings you nowhere. So idling is what the game encourages.

I kind of liked some of the idle stuff. Like just mining rocks in the middle of a giant desert for a long time is kind of neat to me. Maybe I should try it again, not sure.

(11-10-2023, 05:57 AM)anthony Wrote: [ -> ]I kind of liked some of the idle stuff. Like just mining rocks in the middle of a giant desert for a long time is kind of neat to me. Maybe I should try it again, not sure.

If you do, I hope you find some redeeming angle to it, because I was disappointed that I could not. Many things that work in its favour outweighed by some dumb mechanics. I think you would like the environments - the world is convincingly large (not as in: the map is so many square miles, but as in: you feel like a small being in a large world) and varied, the graphics gave me a cozy feeling, even though it's all grey-brown-beige, as far as I've seen. I'm going to attach some pictures to convey the mood. I have seen maybe 5% of the map and would have liked to explore more. Alas, the game punishes you for prioritising exploration over having your dudes mine rocks, so I didn't.

Does anyone else here play Tetris? There have been times when I've gotten into other games but that usually means playing obsessively for a couple days then promptly forgetting about them. Tetris, meanwhile, has been with me for over a decade. Sometimes I don't play for months, then I play for a few hours a day every day for weeks, or even all day for a couple days.

Here are my high-scores: ~750k on NES Tetris (level 18 start), 44.1s 40 line sprint on Jstris. I feel like I'm close to crossing the 800k barrier on NEStris.

My skills would be far better if I'd spent more time actually honing them and learning various techniques. Instead, I've spent most of my Tetris time playing half-consciously to kill time or while listening to something like a podcast or video.