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And then Hoyoverse discovered there's a lot of 1st January baby in the US.
And here’s an opinion by a game publisher NOT invested in getting haggled by a monopolist.
Day 294 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today is some more Oblivion. I went straight to the Shivering Isles DLC after beating the main story (which i will add looked sick in the remaster).
Case in point is how the final cutscene is done. The original was already sick, but the graphics really make it stand out and look epic. After the final battle i was left looking up at Martin in the sky. I just kind of chilled there for a bit while the soundtrack kicked in. The scene was really Serene:
, you could toggle the running shoes. So much nicer than having to hold B all the time. They also allowed for two Select items (items you can activate without entering the items menu), which also never carried over to other games.
I seem to remember one of the more modern games allowing you to view move details (description, power, accuracy, etc) from the movelist screen during a fight, rather than having to go to Pokemon > [Pokemon] > view moves, or whatever it is. I think one game also allowed you to see if the move you’re about to use is super effective or not, but I’m not really a fan of that one. Learning type effectiveness is part of the game imo, but my opinion on this isn’t too strong.
Not really QOL but I loved mega evolution and would like to see it come back. It was exclusive to Gen 6, which was the last Gen I played, but I heard they never included it in following Gens. It was basically a temporary “evolution” (a different form) for specific fully evolved Pokemon for just the fight. Only one Pokemon can mega evolve per fight though, so you gotta choose wisely. Gen 6 competitive battling was peak imo for just that reason.
I really liked the EV training in Gen 6, not sure if that carried over but it made it much easier to increase EVs, rather than having to fight the same Pokemon over and over again.
HMs eventually disappeared. Gen 4 had a whole bunch, then in Gen 5 I think there were still a lot but most weren’t required for progression (I think in order to beat the game you only needed one of the HMs, I can’t remember which. The rest were just for optional stuff I think. It’s been a while though). I think in Gen 7 they finally removed HMs. The moves are still available I think, but they don’t do anything outside of battle.
I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting, someone else can expand on this list.
Steam Deck / Gaming News #14
Well, it’s that time of the week where I share a roundup of all the interesting things I have spotted in gaming news. There’s a big variety this week, with a fair section of Nintendo Switch news, some GOG, some Steam Deck, Linux and just gaming in general.
My aim is to format these posts in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
- image/gif/link heavy (I’m a big GIF fan – and I pronounce it with a hard ‘g’)
- personal voice (no 1930’s nasal radio presenter voice here!)
- mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on normal gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I know you’ll have spotted the big news articles, so I’m hoping some of these smaller ones might have been missed by you.
So grab a coffee? Or a tea? Or a glass of wine? And enjoy <3
Wikipedia article on Camelot Unchained:
Camelot Unchained is an in-development fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game from City State Entertainment which was partially funded through Kickstarter [on May 2, 2013]. [The Kickstarter had an estimated delivery date of December 2015]. Leading its production is Mark Jacobs, the former designer of Dark Age of Camelot. Its crowd funding campaign has raised US$4.5 million with Jacobs contributing an additional $5 million from his own assets, and raising an additional $7.5 million from investors, for a total of $17 million.[1] The game is based on its own proprietary game engine engineered for server-side physics and large-scale battles, and as such will focus primarily on open world PVP rather than "theme park" instanced encounters or battlegrounds.
Camelot Unchained - State of the Game (April 2025) Youtube Video
[Camelot Unchained Kickstarter page](https://www.kickstarter.com/pr
@BossDj @Speculater 🤫 It's a secret. 🤐
Day 293 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
I finished the Dark Brotherhood quest today in Oblivion and finally went back to the Main Story. I'm not a big magic guy so i figured i'd save the Mage's guild for the post game. I went ahead into the Shrine for the Main story to get the Amulet. In the room above i got to pull of some sick stealth archer maneuvers too and took down everyone before they attacked me. I even stunned the main guy there for a few seconds.
After the Mythic Dawn, i raided the Bruma oblivion gate. I thought i could just charge it alone without all the NPCs. Turns out i was wrong though and i cleared the whole tower by myself for nothing. Luckily on my way back i guess the NPCs started to follow me in somewhere along the way so i didn't have to escort them the whole way back. The raid was pretty easy. I cleared i
The vast majority of my favourite games have been listed, many multiple times, so I'm gonna go with some I didn't see, though I didn't look exhaustively, here we go:
Quite a hidden gem in my opinion, almost no one I mention it to has heard of it. 2D platformer with an amazing story and some interesting gimmicks. One of the most surprising and unforgettable indie games I've played.
Ninja action-platformer that is way more than it first appears if you stick with it. Hilarious writing, great controls, and amazing music. Genuinely one of my favourite games.
Almost entirely unique in it's idea. It's a pinball-metroidvania where you're a postman dung beetle, and it really works. Gorgeous world, super chill vibes, clever puzzles... What metroid prime pinball should have been.
Ads, I can block. The shitty part of the site are the unrelated things getting shoved in the middle of the article.
Can we talk about how cancerous PCGamer is, for a second? I want to read an article, and the screen is like 80% advertising.
And don't forget his alternative to Discord - his Revolt server is here too, which is so fun, but maybe I am biased :)
I tend to like games that have lots of "levers" to play with and spend time figuring out, so I think that tends to be the unifying factor in the above games.
I don't know of anything really comparable to Oxygen Not Included in terms of all the physics and stuff. I'd like something like it too (especially since Tencent bought ONI and now has some locked graphics for some in-game items that you can only get by enabling data-harvesting and then playing the game for a given amount of time, which I'm not willing to do. They don't have an option to just buy that content. At least it's optional.)
For Rimworld and Oygen Not Included, both are real-time colony sims. Of those, the closest stuff on my list is probably:
- Dwarf Fortress (note that the commercial Steam build looks quite different from the classic version, has graphics and a mouse-oriented UI and revamped the UI and such, which may-or-may-not matter to you; if the learning curve being steep is an issue, that makes it a tad gentler). Rimworld is, in many ways, a simplified Dwarf Fortress in a sci-fi setting and without a Z-axis.
- Kenshi. Not a colony sim. You control a free-roaming squad (or squads) in an post-apocalyptic open world. That's actually a bit like Rimworld. However, you can set up one or more outposts and set up automated production there. It's getting a bit long in the tooth, and the early game is very difficult, as your character is weak and outclassed by almost everything. Focus is more on the characters, and less on the outpost-building -- that's more of a late-game goal. I find it to be pretty easy to go back and play more of. There's a sequel in the works that'll hopefully look prettier. Not really any other game I'm aware of in quite the same genre.
The other things on my list don't really deal with building.
Oxygen Not Included has automated production. If you're willing to go outside "colony sim", there is a genre of "factory-building games" where one controls maybe a single character or base element and just tries to create a world of automated production stuff, maybe with tower defense elements. I'd probably recommend Satisfactory if you want 3D and a first-person view. I like it, but in my book, it doesn't really compare with the games that I've racked up a ton of time on, winds up feeling a bit samey after a while, looks like I have thirty-some hours. Mindustry is a free and open-source factory builder that you can grab off F-Droid for Android to play on-the-go; that and Shattered Pixel Dungeon are probably my open-source Android favorite games. Dyson Sphere Program has outstanding ratings, but I have not gotten around to playing it.
There are a few colony sim games sort of like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress. I tried them, and none of them grabbed me as well as they did, but if you want to look at them:
- Rise to Ruins is a colony sim and does have combat, but less focus on individual characters than Rimworld. I don't like it mostly because the game is not really designed to be winnable, which I find frustrating. There's growing "corruption" coming in from the edges of the map, and the aim is to try to last as long as possible before becoming overwhelmed; you can flee from it to other colonies. Technically, there are some ways to defeat the corruption, but not really how the game is intended to be played.
- Prison Architect. This has somewhat-similar graphics to Rimworld. You build and manage a prison. It's not a bad game, but it doesn't really have the open-world scope of Rimworld.
- Timberborn. This was in fairly Early Access the last time I spent much time on it, so I'm kind of out-of-date, and it looks like it's still in EA. Doesn't have the combat elements from Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress.
- Gnomoria is kind of like a much-simplified Dwarf Fortress. It didn't really grab me, but maybe it's your cup of tea.
Exanima
Unique physics-based isometric dungeon crawler also featuring an arena career mode.
Moddable.
Really slow development cycle, though.
Severed Steel
Futuristic 3D shooter with maybe the best movement system I've tried, with wall running, full 360 air movement, sliding and more.
Weapons have only one magazine, so you're constantly sourcing them from your enemies while blasting holes into the fully destructible levels.
Very replayable.
One of my all time favorites right now is Brok The Investigator.
It's a game by French company COWCAT Games that is describes as a point and click beat'em-up game. Has lots to do because there are multiple endings. It has a free visual novel made to essentially showcase a vn engine that can be used to make BTI fan games or your own creations and has an upcoming DLC (apparently only gonna be $9.99) that focuses more on the combat side of the game.
It's currently available on PS4/5 (vita planned but scrapped), xbox (don't know if they mean one and series x/s or just series), switch, steam, itch(dot)io, and even epic if you hate yourself.
Probably just a comment on the moon logic puzzles in some of the games. And yea, Sierra had their own hint line to call. Or write in
Day 292 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
I got back to Oblivion's Remaster today and did the entire Dark Brotherhood quest. Or at least i thought i did. What i didn't end up realizing was that what i thought was the end of the quest wasn't the end. I have a whole 3 more ranks left after i kill the Dark brotherhood. When i did my unfinished playthrough when i was way younger i don't think i finished this quest because i'd feel bad killing them (ironic, a killer having a conscious). Anyways, when i was going to that point in the quest, i stopped and thought "Wait, these guys are all killers" and i felt less bad. Especially after a line from one of the NPCs where he was proud for killing a 6 year old.
In between the Dark Brotherhood quests though, i spent time exploring the city. I ended up pulling up a picture of the old version,
Random Screenshots of my Games #60 - inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories (demo)
Today I'm going to be looking at the demo for an upcoming narrative-driven simulation game that looks like a lot of fun! It's called inKonbini: One Store. Many Stories. This demo is free on Steam, so feel free to check it out for yourself.
"Konbini" (コンビニ) is the Japanese word for convenience store. It's a borrowed word from English, but the Japanese don't have a "v" sound in their language, so "b" is the standard replacement consonant for "v" in words. And of course, the Japanese have abbreviated the English word to make it easier to say.
inKonbini takes place on a rainy night in Japan, in late August of 1993. I actually spent 3 years living in Japan in the early 2000s, so this game felt very familiar and nostalgic for me.
You play as Makoto, a college student who is just starting work at her aunt's konbini, called Honki Ponki, while between sc
The Definitive Guide to Steam Play Tools
This blog post is by Gardiner Bryant, who you might know from YouTube (he covers Linux and Steam Deck in great depth)
I thought this one might be interesting for Linux and Steam Deck users here, if you missed it.
The link to the blog post is here!
...or just as interesting for those who like tinkering, and seeing what is 'under the hood' doing what!
The blog is is pretty beginner-friendly with how to run Windows games on Linux using Steam Play compatibility tools like Proton and WINE. It explains:
- Why compatibility layers are needed – Different operating systems handle system functions differently, so tools like Proton translate Windows game commands into something Linux understands.
- Performance impact – Unlike emulation, these tools don’t slow things down much, and some games may even run better thanks to optimizations like Vulkan support.
- Different tools available – It compares WINE (general
Just finished the Run This Town quest in Cyberpunk 2077 and the VAs for Aguilar nailed it. They both have that perfect mix of smooth and threatening. I'm sad that the character is only available for
Just finished the Run This Town quest in Cyberpunk 2077 and the VAs for Aguilar nailed it. They both have that perfect mix of smooth and threatening. I'm sad that the character is only available for that one mission. Really wish they were around more or were an option to voice V.
Day 291 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's game is some more REPO. There's a new Beta apparently and some friends were asking me to play with them. One new feature i think is new is that the Uranium stuff actually hurts you. We found this out the hard way after one of our friends dropped one on a bed and accidentally killed themselves.
On the subject of Uranium, on the new map included with the game we found these giant ass green cups which hurt a whole hell of a lot more. I climbed inside one of them and it got tipped over onto me and smashed into pieces hurting me and everyone in the general area.
The art musuem also has these
Developer interview: my Q&A with the team behind RetroDECK
In case you missed it from my last gaming news round-up post, I’m conducting interviews (perhaps Q&A’s is a more apt term though) with my friends.
These will be with the individuals and teams behind the programs you might use on the Steam Deck, but also in the Linux, gaming, YouTube and other similar ‘scenes’.
Coming up I'll be chatting to AA from Decky Loader, imLinguin from Heroic Games Launcher, Eben who makes Junk Store, some YouTubers whose content is Linux and Steam Deck-based, and far more.
But, one warning: I’m not a professional, nor are these meant to be very hard hitting.
I just like the idea of people getting to know those who are behind the programs they’re used to using. They rarely get any spotlight – they’re sometimes just a faceless username behind a project, and I feel like they deserve attention for what they give to us.
I was lucky that my friends behind RetroDECK were more than happy to agree to this first one, so – let’s go!
Day 290 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's screenshot is some more Oblivion. I finished the Arena Questline today and spent all day doing it. I did the quest for the Grand Champion, completely forgetting it makes him throw the match and now i feel a little bad for the guy. I was just trying to help.
The lighting for the arena is gorgeous though, especially at night. That's when the above screenshot was taken and it looks great.
I also bought the Adoring fan a house as a peace offering. I leave him here and let him do his thing, and i get to continue on with my day in peace. Bonus points because i get free storage too.
As
Day 289 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's game is some more of the Oblivion Remaster. I went ahead and finally put the Arena quest on hold for a minute to finally go help close the first Oblivion Gate.
The remastered oblivion gate design is really cool. It has this depth thing going on with it and I tried jumping into it like the Mario 64 paintings despite knowing that they haven't changed the way they work. I wonder if it would be possible to make a mod that makes it work in that way or if it would run into engine limitations.
After the gate though, i went back and did the Arena some more. Because god forbid my character do anything other than that for longer than a day. When i entered the Arena the first thing i'm met with is this guy half-naked and practicing archery. Not the outfit i'd pick for Arena battles, but mo
All of this month's 'free' games with Prime Gaming
This month's titles have been revealed (as Amazon always does!)
'But what is Prime Gaming'? I'm new to it!
It's as simple as free games every month! Prime Gaming offers a rotating selection of free PC games each month, ranging from indie titles to AAA classics. This is dependent on you having an Amazon Prime subscription, but if you've been near my Mastodon posts at all you'll know I can't stop shouting about how good the deal is.
To me, it's the best deal in gaming (mostly because I get so many GOG titles each month!), I just love it. Once claimed, the games are yours to keep forever (usually via Epic Games, GOG, or Amazon Games launcher).
Past giveaways have included games like
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- The BioShock games (Remastered and originals)
- Shadow of Mordor
- Dishonored
...and like, why even bother listing them, it's a lot
Quick summary for how it works:
- Requires an active Amazon Prime or Prime Video member
Day 288 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's game is the Oblivion Remaster. I picked it up yesterday and let it install while i slept since it was an 8 hour install for me. My first impressions are that it's a really faithful remaster. And i don't mean the Gameplay either, though the tech behind it is interesting to me due to the og code being underneath. The art style is what I'd imagine oblivion looking like if made with modern tools, minus the saturation being cranked up to 10 in the original and a few graphical discrepancies I've seen online such as the Night Mother's two new children. I have one complaint so far personally and that is that they gave Glarthir a beard, which i'm not a fan of. That's more of a personal complaint though.
The Graphical detail of this is really cool. It's what i felt like playing the old g
Day 287 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's game is Halo MCC. I picked up the Oblivion Remaster today and another game i heard about called "The Quiet Man". Reviews are bad, but it was $2 and i'd be lying if the concept didn't seem a little interesting to me. I had anticipated Oblivion to be done today but it's way larger than i was expecting. I'm trying to avoid reading about the opinion of the game until i've gotten to sink a few hours in for myself, but i have heard that the Game uses compression so i'm curious what takes up all that space.
Moving back to Halo, me and my friends played around with some Workshop maps. We did a set of Minecraft Maps mostly. The one taken above was from Juggernaut. It was the last match we played for the day. The map was a bit too small for comfortable play and every time you spawned back in you were thrown into the middle of Combat, but it was still a lot of fun.
Steam Deck / Gaming News #13
I’m here for another little post to share the interesting things I’ve spotted in gaming! Be it Steam Deck, Linux, general gaming or probably-not-relevant-at-all! And I know, it’s been 2 days since my last of these posts:
...but that was a dedicated GOG-specific one, so I reserve the right to inundate you all, if you’ll let me.
M aim is to phrase this in a more personal manner than most gaming sites do now. My ever-lasting inspo is the old, old video game sites, blogs and magazines that I never had the privilege of being alive for:
- image/gif/link heavy (I’m a big GIF fan – and I pronounce it with a hard ‘g’)
- personal voice (no 1930’s nasal radio presenter voice here!)
- mostly news or articles or points you won’t find on the ‘big’ gaming sites, these are the smaller, lesser things that I’m drawn to. I figure you’ll have spotted the big news posts elsewhere!
So grab a coffee? Or a tea? Or a tequila? And enjoy <3
Day 286 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's game is Assassin's Creed Shadows. I finished the main story today and i was expecting to be done today. I got sidetracked though after i found this interesting quest where i'm hunting Yokai. I plan on playing through it tomorrow, so today may be the last screenshot from the game, don't be surprised if tomorrow you see this game one last time though.
After beating the story i got Naoe's Master Assassin Robes, which is something i'm actually really happy to get. Seeing the Master Assassin Robes of the protagonist is one of my favorite parts of a AC Game. They're this really cool red silk material and have a white pattern on them. Overall i really like their design. A fairly memorable design for me, though Arno's still remains the most memorable to me.
🚀 Spaceship 🚀
Retro arcade 2d side-scroller bullet-hell shmup: Spaceship
[ Spaceship ] Major update: general Bug fixes, improved Stage & GFX, new BG GFX: Infinite Cosmic Space String v2, new GFX: Nebula, new GFX: procedurally generated Platform, 1x new weapon, faster rendering, Shader GFX.
#shmups #indiedev #indiegame #indiegames #IndieGameDev #gamedev #arcade #bullethell #RETROGAMING #retrogames #retrodevs
Sheris ROOM: POWERFUL BALLS
"I got addicted to my game that it's so good..." for kill monsters to get your pinga and restore the bar where drank
In Syntezia world, Kibo Carter needs to save the world for drinking your pinga again
Day 285 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games l've been playing
Today's game is Assassin's Creed Shadows. I finally finished up Act 2 today, and i'm pretty sure i'm close to finished with Act 3. The above screenshot i got in a sidequest for Naoe where she goes through her heritage and discovers the past of the brotherhood, and i get some sick ass robes that i'm like 90% sure is inspired by Ezio. This is all essential stuff for Act 3 as far as i understand. I feel like it would have been better interspersed with Act 2 to help with the monotony, but it was still a cool moment. Especially because i had some fears that the Assassin Brotherhood plot line was being dropped to the side.
Pictures of Animals
Before i start lore dumping though, here's a cool shark i found. It was swimming in the ocean while i was wandering around in the Obama region (No, tha