cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/63094441

The Triple-I Initiative is about to announce a bunch of new indie games (in 10min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShrDsKDQjtc

There is a steam page already https://store.steampowered.com/sale/triple-i-initiative-2026

There are some solid games this year, on top of my list of expectation is Dead as Disco.

Just had the best Act 3 run in Slay the Spire 2.

Sealed Throne, two Big Bangs, Particle Wall, and Seven Stars let me just roll over all the enemies in Act 3. Unlimited stars to fuel both Seven Stars for attack and a Particle Wall with Retain gave me all the block I needed. This run made me feel like I actually know what I'm doing.

#gaming #SlayTheSpire #games @games

Inspired by https://lemmy.world/post/45118004

What do you think is a good sweet spot for Achievements?

I think it's nice to have a few easy one (even if it's just to let the person know that the game HAS achievements), and some that just make progression sense (like, an achievement for completing a stage or a quest or a story etc.)

And I think it's nice to have some challenging ones. Especially ones that create certain limits like "use on X weapon" or "only have X resource" etc. But I don't love Achievements that are tied to purchases (like an Achievement for buying the game in Early Access or so). Also not a super fan of speed run achievements but to be fair, that's purely because I just hate the whole speed running thing.

Also don't like it when games that are very long have multiple ending-related achievements as they just smack of trying to artificially increase replayability. In similar vein, don't like achievements that you can fail at the last second.

I suppose I like achievements that reward dedicated playing over raw skill (call me casual then).

Looking to get some Total War Games again, Rome, maybe Empire, Shogun. Wondering if those cheap like 200 dollar laptops will work for that, and if walmart is an ok place to get it, as best buy has burned me on defective electronics post 2020.

Thanks for any advice, was just going to use steam to play.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/61746701

The Button 🔘

An experiment has begun.

There’s a button.

That’s it. Just a button… and a timer counting down.

Anyone can press it. Everyone sees what happens. And every press changes things forever.

• One shared button
• No undo, no reset
• A collective test of curiosity, restraint… or chaos

Some of you will hold the line. Some of you won’t last five seconds.

Either way, once it’s over… it’s over.

The Button

So the only question is:

Do you press it?

The Button is open to anyone on any federated platform, be that Lemmy, Piefed, Mastodon... even Stegodon!

Any user from any instance can sign in and press the button, but you only get one chance.

To add another layer to this, users can choose which faction to join, and the "winner" is the faction that holds the button the longest amount of time before it eventually runs out.

Initially a press of the button resets the timer to 15 minutes - this may reduce if the game carries on for a while. At the time of this post, there is about 60 minutes until the button expires. The first button press will be available when there's 15 minutes left, i.e. in 45 minutes, but you can sign up now to be ready!

There is also a permanent record of the first pusher :)

Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is amazing.

I love the atmosphere and music. It also has several quality of life improvements to standard game mechanics. Magic has a Light and Heavy cast which can do different things. For example, a heavy cast might summon a creature while a light cast tells your summons who to attack. When interacting with merchants, you can sell directly from your stash without having to carry it all around.

#gaming #games #TaintedGrail @games

I very much enjoyed Darkest Dungeon 1. I've done several playthroughs, and bought all the expansion packs.

Yesterday I bought Darkest Dungeon 2. I'd always kind of intended to buy it, but it hadn't reviewed great - so I wasn't in a hurry. But since it was on special, and I'd heard that updates had improved things etc, I figured that it was time.

Anyway, I bought it, and I'm a bit disappointed. I think the developers took a wrong turn in their stagecoach. I haven't played heaps, but I've played enough to put in a few dot points:

• Firstly, DD1 had a native linux port. DD2 does not. So that sucks. It's not really a big deal, but its an immediate disappointment.
• For the first hour or so of the game, there is a near constant stream of notifications and popups explaining how things work. And while it is nice to have fairly tougher documentations, it doesn't feel great when I'm just trying to play the game. Perhaps more gradual flow of new game mechanics with a show rather than tell introduction would be better.
• The user interface has heaps of little design problems, for example sometimes opening a menu seems to do nothing, because it opens behind something else that needs to be closed first.
• Most things can be done with the mouse, but apparently starting the stage coach cannot? That feels a bit weird.
• Many symbols and icons in the game have a less-than-obvious meaning. You can of need the mouse-over text to learn what they do. But often the symbols appear inside the mouse-over text of something else - and so you cannot mouse-over the symbols that are inside the mouse-over text to see what they do...
• From a style point of view, I think the game is ... too grand too fast. I feel like I'm not finding the right words for this. But I just think it's weird that there is a constant stream of full-screen declarations for new areas and enemies, and big grand battle zoom-ins and commentary etc. right from the start. There seems to be no way to ramp up the tension for the boss battles or anything because it is already at maximum right from the first ghoul or whatever. It ends up making things feel a bit flat.
• Regarding the game strategy and tactics... I probably shouldn't comment on this, because I haven't played enough to be sure - but sometimes I feel like there's just a bunch of random junk happening, with enemies pushing me around and setting me on fire or whatever - and that's all fine but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to what I do. So it feels like it's just a lot of light and noise and luck. -- That said, I'm very aware that often when reviewers say a game relies too much on luck, it's really just that the review is not good at the game and so they over-rely on luck to make up for their skill deficit (which they cannot see). I suspect that a lot of the possible counter-play and strategy gets 'unlocked' as you unlock more characters and abilities; but I'm not sure that's great design, since that would mean the early experience is a bit crap.
• I feel like the game is designed so that I cannot succeed at first, but it will get easier on each attempt because I unlock bonuses etc. And although this is similar to DD1, the feel of it is very different - and worse. Because in DD1 there was this sense that the town and the characters visiting the town formed a consistent and continuing world. We journey into the dungeon and bring back supplies which may be useful for the town. Whereas in DD2 it isn't really clear what it is that we're upgrading or how we're upgrading it. The characters seem to just die and respawn for no apparent reason, and we get awarded candles which make everyone stronger? I just don't think the feel of it is right at all.

So over all, while I appreciate that the developers wanted to make a new game rather than just rehash the original, I feel like their "new game" was basically to mash the original together with ideas lifted straight from Slay the Spire and/or Hades - and it just quite fit properly.

So I'm a bit disappointed.

I've been playing Slay the Spire 2 and I've been really enjoying it.

The new characters, Regent and Necrobinder, have really interesting play styles. Overall, it's proving to be a great sequel to an already great game.

#gaming #games #slaytheSpire @games

I'm completely speechless. This looks so terrible I thought it was a joke, but apparently Nvidia released these demos to impress people. DLSS 5 runs the entire game through an AI filter, making every character look like it's running through an ultra realistic beauty filter.

The photo above is used as the promo image for the official blog post by the way. It completely ignores artistic intent and makes Grace's face look "sexier" because apparently that's what realism looks like now.

I wouldn't be so baffled if this was some experimental setting they were testing, but they're advertising this as the next gen DLSS. As in, this is their image of what the future of gaming should be. A massive F U to every artist in the industry. Well done, Nvidia.

oldest videogame i genuinely appreciate is

1985 (arcadeboard) Gradius

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998 (N64) Banjo'n'Kazooie

1999 (N64) Rayman 2, (PS1) Bloody Roar 2, (PC) Age of Empires 2

2000 (N64) Kirby 64,

2001

2002 (PC) WarCraft 3: RoC & tFT

2003

2004 (PS2) Need For Speed: Underground 2

2005 (PS2) SoulCalibur 3, Tekken 5

2006

2007 (PC) Assassin's Creed

2008

2009 (PS3) Demon's Souls

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026

And thank you, Eric!

https://www.gamedate.org/

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/DiscordAlternatives/p/1782665/searching-for-discord-alternative-with-multi-screenshare-feature

When gaming with friends, many times we'll share our screens simultaneously so we can help keep track of group members if we get split up.

Are there any discord alternatives with this feature?

Bonus points if it allows you to also toggle on/off the audio from the share separately from their microphone.