What are you currently playing?

[SevenSpirits]

Played The Witness (puzzle game by Jonathan Blow, author of Braid). Liked it a lot. Makes you think. If you know you're in the target audience, just play it.

Edit: Should also mention, it doesn't have the humor or story focus of e.g. Portal. But its other qualities are worth at least as much, IMO.

Worth the full purchase price or wait for a sale?

I never really know how to answer that, because IMO the time cost of playing a game far exceeds the money cost. And then, waiting for a sale is all but free, so why not do that regardless of how good the game is?

My own feeling is, if I liked the previous game from this source, then I'm happy to give them full price for the next one. And that's what happened here. And I like this one too so I'll happily pay full price for whatever's next.

Trying to predict how you would feel about it... I think the game is widely seen as being overpriced for an indie puzzle game, because most indie puzzle games are cheaper. But on the other hand a lot of people liked it and are happy with it. And I also think this game took more effort to make than the typical indie puzzle games it's being compared to. I guess in the end I would say if you're not sure, wait.

[sunrise089]

@El Grillo - Is there somewhere I can read about the differences in the three (!) versions of the new Fire Emblem given that I'm not an existing player?

[El Grillo]

It's basically market segmentation. In short, and without touching on the different plots (other than noting that they're completely different):

Birthright: targeted at series newcomers. The player has unlimited opportunities to grind for gold, experience, levels, and character relationships. Every map's objective is simply to rout the enemy.
Conquest: targeted at returning players. Resources are limited, enemy units have access to skills, and there are a variety of map objectives, often with time limits.
Revelation: released later and targeted at people who've completed either version. Combines the varied map objectives of Conquest with the unlimited resources of Birthright, allows the player access to the full cast of characters, and offers the most customization and postgame content.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/seven-th...blem-fates

I personally think (having played Conquest and watched a bit of Birthright gameplay) that you could pick up either version on Normal difficulty and be okay.

[Fenn]

@sunrise, I haven't found any one place with all the differences listed, so I'll do my best to describe them here...

From my understanding there's two 'main' versions, Conquest and Birthright, and a third version - Revelations - that's only available as DLC. The three routes share the first five chapters, but after that they seperate into three different campaigns with different storylines and ~23 unique chapters each (plus some sidestories); one or two maps are shared between them, but in those cases your starting position, objective, and enemy composition are different. I think the third route reuses a couple of maps from the other two, but with everything on it shuffled around and some added gimmick (eg. wind that shifts units every few turns0.

With regard to specific differences, Conquest is styled like the older games in the series. Map objectives are varied, and the maps themselves tend to be more intricate; some maps have you trying to survive for X amount of turns, or prevent any enemies from crossing a line, or saving villages from getting sacked, or getting your whole army to a certain point on the map within a time limit, etc. Enemies also tend to have unusual skills or equipment - for instance some enemies may switch places with your unit after attacking that unit, and others can warp any unit towards them. Because of all this, Conquest is probably the more difficult route.

Birthright hews more closely to Awakening, the previous game in the series, and tends to be more straightforward: maps are overall simpler and most objectives involve killing all enemies or reaching a certain tile with your Lord. Enemies are often more numerous and have higher stats than in Conquest, but lack the weird skills and items. Birthright also allows you to revisit completed chapters and grind for experience and money; it's not required for even the highest difficulty, though.

Revelations I don't know much about. I believe it allows you to recruit almost all of the characters in the game - the two normal routes only let you recruit about half each - reuses more maps than the main two routes, and tends to have more map gimmicks. In terms of difficulty it's in between Conquest and Birthright.

[El Grillo]

Well I think between those crossposts you have all the info you'll need :D

[sunrise089]

Thanks El Grillo and Fenn, that's impressively helpful.

[Bobchillingworth]

Been playing a lot of Fallout 4 lately- I've found the gameplay to be massively improved over 3 & NV. The weapons modification system in particular is the best I've seen- lots of flexibility allowed for different playstyles (although, as ever, melee builds probably add about an extra level of difficulty).


Haven't bothered much with the base-building system- for some bizarre reason it forces you to use WASD to move, and I don't feel like rebinding them from the arrow keys just so I can redecorate the wasteland. It hardly has any gameplay relevancy anyway, besides being an effortless source of experience points.

[Lewwyn]

I'm playing Stardew Valley. There's something very wonderful about it.

[Sareln]

I'm playing Stardew Valley. There's something very wonderful about it.

Also playing a bit of stardew, finding it oddly soothing.

[Jkaen]

The latest build of Stonehearth has got pretty stable now, and is starting to get most of the features in game and working, so I have been playing that quite a bit recently