Dragons Crown, a fun and mindless beat-em-up/looter from Vanillaware on PSVita.

I came to the conclusion that Cities: Skylines is too basic, and C:S 2 doesn’t really seem like it adds all that much, so I started playing Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. The game offers a lot of difficulty options, so you can make it play somewhat like C:S if you want to, but it is an entirely different beast in it’s “realistic mode.”

In Cities: Skylines, you plop down a power plant, pumping station, sewage drain, run some cables and pipes, zone some residential, and unpause the game. In WR:SR, you must manage the logistics and construction of all these things. The sewage and water mains can only run from higher elevation to lower elevation, unless you install additional pumping stations. The electrical network requires you to build switches and transformers to step from 105KV to 22KV to 230V, and appear to observe Ohm’s Law with regards to current and voltage drop. You also need to build heating plants and pipe steam to your residences and public services.

All of this infrastructure must be built by workers and machines. All these machines have fuel tanks which need to be filled, wear and tear which requires maintenance. Even something as simple as road construction requires delivery of construction materials, workers, and machines, and while that work is being done, no traffic is getting through. If you are not careful, you can block your buses carrying your workers to the heating plants in the dead of winter and cause a death spiral. It takes several hours of gameplay to get to the point where your first citizens can move in.

It took me several attempts before I could even start settling people, but here is my first residential microdistrict. My infrastructure is already absolutely cursed. That’s the other thing. Once something gets built, you need a demolition crew to dismantle it, so if there is a power pole where you want your road to go, or an inconveniently located water main junction is preventing you from building a factory, you need to send more work crews and excavators and garbage trucks and haul the scrap to a dump. And that will shut down services for anything relying on that power pole / junction box.

deleted by creator

I beat Earthbound which is actually pretty good, the gamers were right for once.

Picked up Metal Slug Tactics on the Steam sale. Been waiting 3 years for that game. It’s appropriately difficult, as those games used to devour my quarters in the arcades. My only real complaint is that they got Marco’s face all wrong.

Edit: Also Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. They just finished Shadows Over Bögenhafen and are in the process of sailing to Altdorf.

I bought cyberpunk 2077 to see if they ever made it a good game

Beat all decks on Gold difficulty finally for Balatro. The Black and Nebula decks were the last two and took a lot of tries. Now it’s on to beating each challenge and getting Gold on all jokers.

I’ve been playing a lot of Half Life 2. That shit is so awesome. I absolutely have fallen in love with it. Played it for the first time at the beginning of this month, beat it a while ago, and about to move onto HL2: Episode 1.

Gotta be Project Zomboid, with Build 42 unstable out, there is a wealth of new things to test out. Quite buggy, unsurprisingly, like the bowl duplication glitch or whetstones being uncraftable. But that’s peanuts to the fact that the map is expanded, animals are added, guns are totally different and crafting if much more interesting. And all the pieces of flavor! The randomized basements, novelty keychains, dice of all varieties, books and magazines have titles (and are no longer eaten by your character after reading) tons of new zombie stories (I found a silver ring on a “rude letter” on a kitchen counter, I guess a zombie apocalypse is a good time as any for divorce) it’s just so much and so good. And it’s not even all balanced or polished yet, it’s only up from here!

Combat is also totally different, with muscle strain and randomized zombie behaviour, its more difficult to cheese them, and now leveling strength and weapon skills are doubly important as it reduces muscle strain. And guns, yes, no longer are they “melee weapons with a really long range.” They actually spawn 3d bullet objects when fired and have to be aimed properly at the undead. Jams are too frequent tho, so I modded those out. The JS 200 shotgun is a real blast!

Well, not experiencing the “proper” game rn tho. Computer is very weak, so I reduced zombie count a lot. Still keep getting scratched tho, I blame lag!!

Decided to give Ultima IV a whirl since 1 was pretty boring and I lost my interest in it. IV has much more meat on the bone and feels like a traditional rpg with party members, overworlds with fast travel, and towns with npcs you can dialogue with. Pretty much an upgrade over one which was bare bones…probably because it was designed and coded by one guy, Richard Garriott

Metaphor Refantazio continues to deliver me a cute little guy saying silly knight shit with fantastic menus and music. I’ve learned the rhythm and order of operations for the game’s various features and I’m excited to see where it goes next.

I’m considering making a thread for a hexbear game of Dominions 6. Would anyone be interested in that? I’m imagining a game that’s pretty casual and geared toward teaching people to play multiplayer. Maybe even being open with our builds and what we’re doing? Let me know if that is something you’re interested in.

I think I might be getting into a boomer shooter mood. Right now I’m playing Prodeus again and I just love this stupid game. I play on easiest mode so I can turn my brain off and just mow down baddies. It’s really becoming a comfort game to me lol.

I also redownloaded a few others I’m hoping to get to. I never gave Forgive Me Father 2 a real chance so I think that might be next up unless I grab something on the Steam sale. Right now my cart, after adjusting some, has Selaco, Dusk, Cultic, and Amid Evil. Still waffling over what to get. I really can’t afford a lot and Selcao on there being $18 really weighs down the cart page. Been looking up reviews by G@mers on reddit trying to help me decide.

I also have the Blood and Powersl*ve remasters on my radar but I think I’m after something a bit more modern for now.

E: went with Selaco, Dusk, Cultic, and Amid Evil.

I’m playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia again, and it’s making me remember just how much I enjoy that game. I mean, it adds up, considering I’m in the middle of Fire Emblems Awakening, Fates, Binding Blade, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Genealogy of the Holy War, and The Morrow’s Golden Country (romhack). Where did all of that bring me? Back to SoV.

I’ve also started a Fire Emblem Warriors playthrough with my sister, and it’s so fun to see what characters she gravitates to. I never knew she liked certain characters until now, and it’s also interesting to see her reactions to certain strange characters (Camilla). I never knew Corrin was her favorite Fire Emblem character until this, and this has given me the impression that she would be a Fates-head if given the chance.

I’ve been playing Infinity Nikki since I saw it recommended in the Sunday gaming thread two weeks ago. It’s pretty comfy. Where your normal open world adventure is only about fashion in a meta, unofficial way this is directly about fashion. There is gacha shit but it’s pretty unnecessary and the game is generous with free drops, especially now near launch.

The way the word stylist is used in Nikki world is fun, it means both adventurer and stylist so you’ll have people telling you about monsters attacking and your character confidently says “don’t worry, I’m a stylist” and they send you off to fight the monsters. And styling competitions are taken as seriously as card games in Yu-Gi-Oh world. Human villains will challenge you to a styling competition and if you have more drip they just leave you alone.

I played a bit of BG3 with my partner till I got sleepy.