What are you currently playing?

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Playing some Wizard of Legend at the moment.  Liz walked in yesterday and said, "Wow, this game looks like shit."  Even compared to my normal retro-ass, pixel-art stuff, WoL looks like a straight up NES game.  

Very solid game play.  The rogue-lite elements never really scale your damage or health, so the game does not get much easier except by practice.  I've put in five hours and can make it to the last level, but have not beaten the final boss yet.

There are literally hundreds of arcana (spells) and you can create a basic loadout with one relic of your choice and one cloak with bonuses to certain stats before the run, but otherwise your run is entirely customized by what you pick up at random or buy from shopkeepers.  Given the sheer number of available arcana, the combinations are pretty endless to have unique spell combos.

The game plays great.  Very smooth.  The combat plays out like a cross between the isometric dashing and dodging of Hades and the cooldown management of an ARPG.  

It's currently $5 during the Steam sale and is well worth the price at that amount.

As for the Steam sale, I'm currently planning to buy Grim Dawn, Binding of Isaac, Pyre and Transistor.  I've been wanting a Diablo-esque ARPG and I hear Grim Dawn is very good.  And I hear Binding of Isaac will ruin your life it's such a time suck.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Didn't learn until after beating Hand of the King that you have to activate the Boss Cells in the glass tube in order to increase the difficulty.  Must have assumed that it worked like Rogue Legacy's New Game Plus.  Hard (BC1) will have fewer health refilling stations after each level.  Maybe I'll actually have to master parrying. 

You getting Dead Cells caused me to go back and do a few runs again.  I was apparently on BC2 before I moved on to a new game. The game ramps up in difficulty very quickly with each BC level.  The enemies attack so much faster in BC2 that I end up getting overwhelmed by projectiles.  I am pretty sure I could beat it stacking purples with the electric whip, quick bow, crossbow-o-matic, and Owl of War, but I've been stubbornly trying to force myself to parry and use melee weapons.  I may have to give up.  My reflexes are too potato-tier.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

You getting Dead Cells caused me to go back and do a few runs again.  I was apparently on BC2 before I moved on to a new game. The game ramps up in difficulty very quickly with each BC level.  The enemies attack so much faster in BC2 that I end up getting overwhelmed by projectiles.  I am pretty sure I could beat it stacking purples with the electric whip, quick bow, crossbow-o-matic, and Owl of War, but I've been stubbornly trying to force myself to parry and use melee weapons.  I may have to give up.  My reflexes are too potato-tier.

Just completed BC1 in 39:02!  Hattori's Katana with Brutality mutations was even better than Barrel Launcher.  Only used the latter for Derelict Distillery this time.  Hattori's Katana uses Serge's "Dash&Slash" move from Chrono Cross for critical hits, and this animation happens to dodge most of Hand of the King's attacks.  I had Owl of War late in the run but didn't use it much.


BC2 removes all health fountains and replaces them with 1 flask refill.  In BC1, only some of the health fountains were missing. 


The problem with roguelikes in general is that they discourage you from varying your technique.  On the successful BC1 playthrough, I found myself going through all the "standard" levels like Promenade of the Condemned, Ramparts, etc.   Forgotten Sepulcher in particular is a bad idea since it's easy to run into an area with no light and suddenly die. Tried Tactics and Survival, but neither seemed anywhere near as effective or fun as my usual Brutality build.    


(Maybe there should be a mode that forces you to play random areas instead of choosing which one to visit?)


I'd like to see a large and difficult platformer with Dead Cells melee combat, but without permadeath or random levels.  (i.e. with a structure like Hollow Knight, at least based on what I've heard.  Haven't played that game.)

[Gustaran]

I recently discovered "Seedship" a mini text-based adventure/strategy game in which you play the AI of a spaceship and try to find a suitable planet for the last survivors of the human race in form of frozen colonists.

It's really just very basic, but a run takes less than 5 minutes and the game can be played for free on the website or downloaded for mobile (free as well). I think it's easily good for 30 minutes of fun.

https://johnayliff.itch.io/seedship

[sunrise089]

Just played for a bit. The scoring is kind of funny in my very cursory look in that the stats of the planet aren’t actually that important. Losing 1 point out of the cultural database cost me 1000 points while going from plentiful water to none only costs 500…

[El Grillo]

I wonder if it's possible to get all 1000 colonists killed upon settling. I was curious and picked the first world with 5 red scores, and the colonists still managed to eke out a neolithic priestly existence.

EDIT: it took 63 planet visits and 6 completely destroyed subsystems to get an acknowledged game over, and I still had 262 colonists alive. Looks like the key is to get to 4-5 systems at 0%, especially landing/construction, and then try to get as many red scores as possible.

[Bobchillingworth]

An interesting diversion; got a score of 9340, with my colonists as a minor immigrant species in a planet-spanning, post-singularity alien society run by corporations. Oddly, the planet had non-breathable air and "dangerous animals", and while the former apparently wasn't much of an issue (I guess the corporations sold the colonists canned air), the latter somehow managed to eat over 300 people before the colony established itself. Maybe they were really aggressive space pigeons or something.

[Brian Shanahan]

I recently discovered "Seedship" a mini text-based adventure/strategy game in which you play the AI of a spaceship and try to find a suitable planet for the last survivors of the human race in form of frozen colonists.

It's really just very basic, but a run takes less than 5 minutes and the game can be played for free on the website or downloaded for mobile (free as well). I think it's easily good for 30 minutes of fun.

https://johnayliff.itch.io/seedship

It's good for an occasional game. If there were extra events then it could be a very good random story generator. But then it's a totally free one man game so even a small gem is very welcome.

An interesting diversion; got a score of 9340, with my colonists as a minor immigrant species in a planet-spanning, post-singularity alien society run by corporations.  Oddly, the planet had non-breathable air and "dangerous animals", and while the former apparently wasn't much of an issue (I guess the corporations sold the colonists canned air), the latter somehow managed to eat over 300 people before the colony established itself.  Maybe they were really aggressive space pigeons or something.

Was President Skroob involved?

[Old Harry]

Nice recommendation Gustaran

Just played for a bit. The scoring is kind of funny in my very cursory look in that the stats of the planet aren’t actually that important. Losing 1 point out of the cultural database cost me 1000 points while going from plentiful water to none only costs 500…

I think it's a bit more complex than that. For instance if you choose a planet without resources it'll knock your tech level down from spacefaring to medieval (unless there is a rich moon to mine) costing another 750 points.

[shallow_thought]

I did something I promised myself I wouldn't do again and started another X-COM EW Long War campaign. All the easy settings are on but it will still be months. But damn it's good. Except for the air game.