What are you currently playing?

[naufragar]

I picked up Jupiter Hell after it came out of Early Access, and I've been having a blast with it, although I keep dying pretty quick. It's Doom but as a 2D turn-based rogue-like. (It's made by the same guy who made DoomRL.) I'm no rogue-like expert, so I don't have much of a frame of reference. It's far more streamlined than something like ToME. It doesn't seem as gear dependent as Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. And, bizarrely, clearing a room with a shotgun still feels viscerally destructive, with the sound effects and cover destruction. It plays a lot more fun than the screenshots and clips on the GoG page indicated.

[haphazard1]

I have also been playing Jupiter Hell, and it is a lot of fun. I have played a lot of rogue-like games, going back to Rogue itself, and Jupiter Hell really does feel a lot like those old text screen ASCII graphics, keyboard-only games. Except it has much better graphics, and great sound, and lots of modern trimmings.

Like naufragar, I usually die pretty fast. But I have had a few good runs. Some luck with a better weapon dropping early helps a ton; taking an elevator into the optional levels can really boost your character but is a high risk/high reward path. I am not a fan of the shotgun unless you can get skills or mods to improve the reload speed; otherwise the damage output just is not strong enough averaged across the turns you are not shooting.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Another Risk of Rain victory on Rainstorm happened today, this time with Huntress.  The advantage this class has is being able to move while shooting arrows, so the Missile and Laser drones weren't doing ALL the damage to Providence this time.  Foreign Fruits was the usual "use" item for healing, and a Medical Drone provided passive HP restoration, although it was broken in the final battle.  Teleporting a Gauss Cannon from the Armory to Providence's arena paid off.


Final Time:  37:15, I'M COMING FOR YOU

Ending Narration:  ". . .and so she left, her soul still remaining on the planet".

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I'm currently playing Dreamscaper, a new rogue-lite that just exited early access.

The concept is a bit strange. You're a faceless young woman with a back story that is not explained at all and slowly revealed as you play. The main gameplay involves going to sleep and entering a dream world where you fight enemies and bosses through stylized version of real world places that have meaning for your character. When you die, you wake up, and begin the process of engaging with the new city to which you have relocated. You meet people, "chit-chat" with them, and once you get to know them, give them personalized gifts you create for them, which provide you buffs in the dream world as you create closer relationships with them, assuming you correctly chose the gifts they would like based on your interactions. Each of the real world locations also offer you meta upgrades of different aspects of your character and the dream world using various meta-currencies earned in the dream world. You go through this waking and dream cycle, much like entering the underworld in Hades and then re-emerging in the House of Hades to interact with various individuals and spend your meta-currency on upgrades. The game definitely feels most similar to Hades, although its map layout and design was pretty clearly cribbed from The Binding of Isaac.

It seems the main story likely revolves around grief and some significant tragedy in your protagonist's family life, but that has only been hinted at thus far.

The game is quite lovely and plays very fluidly. It is much more deliberate in both pacing and combat than Hades though. I prefer Hades, but I bought Dreamscaper on sale for $18.75 and will easily get that much value out of it.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I'm currently playing Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth for Switch.  The cartridge has both this game and its sequel Hacker's Memory.  Although both are RPGs, I don't feel like writing Let's Plays for them.  The reason is that your party has a high turnover rate because you're constantly evolving and "devolving" your Digimon, which makes the series stand out from Pokemon.  One reviewer on Reddit compared it to a Charizard eventually becoming a Gengar or vice versa.  (If my memory isn't deceiving me.)


Combat is turn-based, with up to 3 Digimon on each side.  Digimon can have types like Virus, Vaccine, and Data, as well as elements like Plant or Fire.  If you're lucky enough, multiple Digimon on your side can use a combo attack.


I'm unfamiliar with Digimon, but I'm enjoying the game so far.  It's hard for me to resist a monster RPG.  Now I'm wondering if Pokemon Sun and Moon plagiarized the Poke Pelago idea from Cyber Sleuth.

[Bobchillingworth]

Recently started playing the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles; currently maybe a third of the way through, but I'm enjoying the narrative quality typical of the series, as well as some interesting departures from the standard Ace Attorney gameplay (the second "trial", for instance, doesn't involve a courtroom at all, and has completely different mechanics from every prior case in the franchise).


Not sure why games in this genre are so rare; something with the text-heavy narrative focus of a pure "visual novel", but with fail states and enough gameplay that I don't feel like I purchased an expensive, digital picture book.

[Dp101]

Recently started playing the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles; currently maybe a third of the way through, but I'm enjoying the narrative quality typical of the series, as well as some interesting departures from the standard Ace Attorney gameplay (the second "trial", for instance, doesn't involve a courtroom at all, and has completely different mechanics from every prior case in the franchise). 


Not sure why games in this genre are so rare; something with the text-heavy narrative focus of a pure "visual novel", but with fail states and enough gameplay that I don't feel like I purchased an expensive, digital picture book.

To be fair, the second case isn't unprecedented for AA in general, as the Ace Attorney Investigations spinoff series is basically entirely composed of mysteries/investigations without trials on the end. Then again, those games are still mechanically much closer to the regular games than that case was, so it's still a bit out there, just maybe not as out there as it might first seem.

I recently played through GAAC and found them to be some of the best games in the whole franchise, so you (hopefully) have a lot to look forward to.

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh, I wasn't criticizing the second case, I enjoyed the change of pace and willingness to depart from series' conventions.


I played the first Investigations game and remember enjoying it, but never got around to downloading an emulator for the second, which Capcom inexplicably refused to localize to English.

[Dp101]

Oh, I wasn't criticizing the second case, I enjoyed the change of pace and willingness to depart from series' conventions. 


I played the first Investigations game and remember enjoying it, but never got around to downloading an emulator for the second, which Capcom inexplicably refused to localize to English.

Oh, I didn't think you were criticising it, sorry if that was unclear. The second Investigations game is much better than the first, I'd highly recommend checking it out after you're doing with GAA.

[El Grillo]

I've been slowly playing through Ace Attorney Chronicles 2, but then case 3 really captivated me and now I'm really looking forward to the remainder of the game. I'm enjoying the more grounded setting and characters, compared to Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice, and I like the tighter continuity between AAC1 and AAC2.

I also highly recommend Ace Attorney Investigations 2 if you enjoyed the first game at all.