Browsing /subscribed only is definitely the way.

I’ve honestly mostly been vibe coding my changes to STALKER Anomaly mod TALKER and writing more backstories and personalities for it. It’s been fun, although frustrating at times.

I have played some Chaos Zero Nightmare on my phone. The game is fun, I just kind of wish it wasn’t a gacha mobile game. Also wish the character designs were a little less ridiculous, most are acceptable but some are playing to sexuality way too much making me just roll my eyes. All the usual trappings of daily energy and menial tasks to grind out to progress and level up your characters also feel extra annoying and needlessly time-wasting when the main gameplay is so good.

The actual roguelike deckbuilder gameplay is surprisingly good, though, and so far has kept me interested. The variety and versatility of builds is a lot of fun, with lots of specific or extra-rare upgraded versions of cards unlocking niche strategies and combos and stuff like that. Balance seems surprisingly good despite being a gacha and with the right builds you can make pretty much any character you like shine.

Also the story has a fast forward button that is almost like a skip, which is great because the writing is terrible and the translation is awful. But I’m not really here for that, so I don’t really care as long as I’m not forced to engage with it.

If that’s the case I can’t really fault Valve here.

Does the story actually get good? I tried it out around launch but when they introduced a knockoff Paimon I noped out. I was there for a dark post-apocalypse story, not Sunday morning cartoon. Not that there is anything wrong with it but just not for me. I felt a little mislead.

Recently it’s been Chaos Zero Nightmare on my phone. Yeah, it’s a gacha. Yeah it has some absolutely ridiculous gooneriffic character designs that makes me roll my eyes. Yeah it’s poorly translated and the story is garbage.

But you know what? The actual roguelike deckbuilder game mode is actually a ton of fun. The characters are well balanced enough that I’ve never felt like I was behind on power even with comparably “bad” pulls from the gacha. The game has been generous enough anyway that I have a lot of pulls saved up too. And the mutability and variety in the roguelike mode is just amazing. Tons of combos, tons of variations of every card and tons of opportunities to make niche builds work just because you happened to get one specific rare upgrade variation on one specific card while also stumbling upon one specific neutral card to add to your deck and stuff like that.

And all for the price of free? I can’t complain.

-95% and an All-Time Low mark on isthereanydeal.com is like my personal catnip.

Wouldn’t surprise that much, as far as I’ve heard from as far as I remember Valve is a great place to work and by all accounts treat their employees well.

It is… kind of. Hence the half-cheat. First off it’s 3D, but the game is completely centered around the Oldest House, which is the headquarters of the fictional FBC. Like a Metroidvania you explore and backtrack back and forth through it and unlock new areas opening up from previous places. There is also one (although only one) proper ability gate that lets you explore previously unreachable parts of earlier areas once unlocked.

Even if you don’t classify it as a true Metroidvania it’s definitely Metroidvania-inspired.

I don’t know, I played Blasphemous this summer and had a very mixed time with it. I really wanted to love it but it mostly pissed me off. Too much gameplay design specifically intended to waste your time and make you miserable. Which - I guess - is the point because the game is all about the virtue of suffering. I just didn’t find it particularly fun to play.

Great world building, music and art though.

Can I half-cheat and say Control?

Love seeing Blue Prince win awards. Such an inventive, creative and amazing game.

It was a special event route for the Pokewalker, but you can unlock it via connecting your 3DS to a pirate network. The myth of Surfing Pikachu was a whole thing back around Gen 1&2 proper so I think they did this one-time event around the time of HGSS release as a nod to that.

I was just warning them to set their expectations. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Just went and read your other post. Great read. I love HGSS, I know people sometimes complain about the level curve but to me those games were always the peak of the series. So much content, so much charm, just an absolute love letter to Gen 1 and 2, the dual region is still the coolest thing ever and the Pokewalker was a great little gadget. Though I still haven’t gotten my flying or surfing Pikachu from it as those fuckers have like a 2% spawn rate and no pity system.

Even 12GB honestly feels low these days. I have a 4070ti that I regret buying because I still run into VRAM bottlenecks and I don’t even play in 4k. I guess if you’re content with 1080p you might get away with it but I’d be super weary about buying anything with only 8GB.

I’m back to the modding relapse. My playthrough of STALKER: Anomaly has stalled out again as I’m week-deep into a project of modifying the mod that got me playing again in the first place: TALKER (the AI-powered mod that lets you chat with NPCs in game).

What begun as some tweaks to the prompt and minor edits to faction personalities has turned into both some hacky vibe coding and a ton of prose writing as I’m pushing to see how much character description I can feed the model to improve the output.

Even on Normal you can just build defensively and use Maelle with Egide to tank through like 99% of the game even without nailing a single parry or dodge. It’s only maybe the optional superboss that might give you trouble.

I know it never had a chance to win it. It never had a chance to win the soundtrack award either, but a nomination is still something.

I’m assuming Silksong snags the Indie Award but Best Debut Indie should be possible to win perhaps. It’s such a unique, interesting and inventive game and it deserves recognition.

Blue Prince only being nominated for the two indie awards is an expected travesty. Merited a GOTY nomination imo and also a OST award nomination. Sad times.

Perfect for when I shake my current STALKER addiction and get back to actually playing the AW2 DLCs. Bookmarked, thanks for sharing!