I agree with the premise but disagree with the game - I couldn’t get enough Monster Train and the expansion just gave me more goodness.
I agree that it changes the pacing but it was just another way to learn to play.
I wish I had Dragonkin advice but it has been a while since I played.
the achievements work properly on steam, and are things like “have a golden egg next to an egg”. There might be some progress based ones, Im not sure
I’ve unlocked the ability to see them, now. They still aren’t 1:1with the Game Center ones but I can see the in-game list. I think there is one associated with each icon.
I think the game should have had this stuff up front rather than hiding it behind progression.
Maybe I will give it some more love….
Try mixing them with Awoken for your first few games and get some good defenders out in front. They are admittedly going to be be more difficult with the more advanced clans like Umbra or Melting Remnant.
I have not been playing anything on ios lately, instead, I’ve been playing Dredge on Switch, which is a Lovecraftian fishing game you’ve probably heard of. I have never played a fishing game before, though I will try most anything Lovecraft, and I have to admit, this combo works really well in this instance.
The way this works is, you have a boat (in the center of the image above), and you have a set amount of space to load up with fish and other stuff you catch (on the right side of the image), which you tetris in there as best you can. Some of the fish have been touched by some horrific and eldritch horror that has deformed them (pink fish in image)–and made them more valuable to the various fishmongers in harbors. Because while only some of the fish are touched, ALL of the humans you meet in the game are decidedly touched.
Aside from fishing, you can also dredge (hence the title) for treasures and resources. These can be used to upgrade your ship, create better equipment, and fulfill quests the creepy humans give you. Whatever you’re trying to haul up out of the water, you play a minigame (on the left side of the image), which are harder depending on various factors. There are lots of areas to explore and over 100 different fish to catch, and you can spend the entire day doing this and then sleep at night.
OR you can go out fishing at night too. And lose your mind in all likelihood, whilst getting attacked by nightmarish sea monsters, ghost ships, and rocks that seem to pop up out of nowhere.
You know you’re going insane because the eye in the top center of the screen starts turning red and darting around madly, and the screen images phase into a sort of 3D red. The sea monsters really are quite drawn to insane people, and their keenest interest seems to be in destroying your ship. The ship in the image above is about 2 seconds away from being pieces of debris. Fortunately there are a lot of saves possible, and getting eaten by a monster just means you go back to the last save and make better decisions.
Easy solution would be not to go out at night at all. But there are certain fish you can’t get during the day, including most of the deformed, twisted versions. Plus it’s just more fun to be out there in the fog with tentacles springing up and weird glowing lights chasing you around.
All in all, the game is a lot of fun, and you can go leisurely trawling about during the day if you want to just be chill about things, or you can amp it up and risk some dread sea peril at night. It’s a great solo game.
For those of you who love the Luck be a Landlord style game, and are looking for another take on it. I picked up Luckland on Steam Sale and am really enjoying it so far. There is a demo, so you can try it out first.
I am off this week because I am switching jobs. So I have both Marvel’s Midnight Suns and Age of Wonders 4 I can play this week…and I like both, but I am finding I don’t have the attention span for either any more.
I think Roguelikes/lites have basically fully changed my gaming habits. Even if I want to binge a game all day long, I want each run to be 20-30 mins max these days.
I was thinking about both Midnight Suns and AOW4, I have about 12-15 hours in both, and I have a good idea of the systems in the game now…and then I lose interest.
What am I going to play all week? 
I very much feel like you. I think it’s age, responsibility, family, and the fact that there are great games out there that I can consume in smaller bursts. I still play CoD with my brother in law as I think multiplayer games kind of fit the same niche.
One exception is if a game can fit on my phone - I still play Civ VI on there and I play plenty of RPGs. I’ve always wanted AoW Shadow Magic on my phone but I think I’d pick up about any 4x or strategy game of I could. Ditto Midnight Suns.
I’ve been playing a ton of Breach Wanderers over the last month and have maxed all but 2 characters (haven’t earned enough to unlock them). I have 2 quests that are still giving me trouble but once I get through them I think I may be on to my next Roguelike.
I feel you - I am struggling to maintain enough focus on a game. Plus the nagging pull to play “efficiently” and use guides.
Feel like it pulls the fun out of things… but I can’t stop it!
That’s the same thing that kicked me off The Outer Worlds. I really liked it in the intro planet. But when the other planets opened up it almost became too much for me. Well, maybe not almost; I stopped playing and haven’t been back. It was too huge and that doesn’t appeal to me like it did when I was single and playing through Fallout 3 for the third time and all its DLC.
Jumped into Backpack Hero - really enjoying this version of the rogue-like. Instead of a deck you are building a backpack of goodies, that you can use based on energy and other mechanics. There is a little town building and lots of research and unlocks.
Not to be confused with Backpack Battles - which is less adventure and more pvp structure
Resident Evil 4 remake. The original is very special to me. By the time it came out, I’d soured on the series and really had no interest. But a friend of mine got some awful news, and I thought I’d invite him to come over and play something new. We played all day, with him, me, and my roommate swapping out who was playing, who was telling the person playing to reload and noticing stuff that was hard to pick up when staying alive, and who was ordering pizza or the like. One of my favorite gaming memories, and it led me to give the game a chance. I loved it ; probably completed it more times than any other game with a story.
But it’s been 15 years or more since then, and I tried a while ago to plug in the old GameCube and replay it, and I couldn’t cope with the horrid graphics and antiquated controls. And I find horror and gore much less tolerable now than I did in grad school, so I put it aside. So I was pretty divided on whether the remake was worth it; I’d already tried going back to that well of nostalgia, and failed badly.
Turns out, once again, it’s terrific. I needed a good sale and a bonus credit from Microsoft to make me give it a chance, and I do kind of hate how ugly it is (mostly deliberately as a result of aiming at horror and disgust; the graphics aren’t up to a modern AAA standard, but they’re fine). But I remember enough to frequently have moments of “oh, THIS place!”, but not so much that there’s little to discover. The tactical puzzles it offers are still marvelous, forcing the player to adapt constantly without being so chaotic that the result feels random, and with a terrific balance of long- and short-term concerns along multiple axes.
It’s pretty weird that Dredge was cozy enough to get me willing to do something more challenging and mucky, but I think it really helped that that’s what I played last.
Has anyone played any of the Reigns games on iOS? Is there any depth? Strategy? Narrative? Are they worth it?
Yes, I’ve played the original Reigns, Reigns: Her Majesty, the Apple Arcade release (Beyond) and the Netflix release (Three Kingdoms). I think they’re definitely worth it if you’ve never played any of them. They have decent depth and narrative; the amount of strategy depends on the title, but most of them lack a ton of that.
I played the heck out of the original when it first came out and found it pretty novel and interesting. The games are fun as you’re completing early quests and unlocking more cards and paths. Eventually, progress is harder to come by and everything feels a bit same-y.
I thought Her Majesty was basically a re-skin where you’re a queen, not a king. The narrative’s different than the original but not enough to be worth my time. Beyond’s story is much different but didn’t grab me. Three Kingdoms is a nice step forward that introduces a map with different events and quests in the different locations, forcing you to travel around to progress through the story.
I didn’t even realize there was a Netflix one. Easy sell since I don’t need to pay. Thanks.
Looks like Netflix is also releasing remastered versions of GTA 3; Vice City and San Andreas - tomorrow. There goes my weekend.
There’s also a Game of Thrones version if you’re into that particular IP?
Been playing a lot of Cobalt Core. Described elsewhere as FTL meets Slay the Spire because your deck helps you control a spaceship in combat as you visit different nodes in the type of branching map we’ve seen in a million roguelike deckbuilders now. Like FTL, you can unlock new ship configurations as you go.
I really enjoy the game’s deck variety–you choose 3 crewmembers to take on each flight, and each one brings different card types. For example, the first 3 characters focus on shielding, movement/card draw, and attacks. Unlockable characters have new abilities like drones and exhausting cards. I also like the overarching story, which requires you win runs with each character to unlock their memories to figure out how and why they’re stuck in infinitely repeating “time loops”.
I played that one and the original. Both were worth the time and the money, although I did eventually drift away before I saw all the endings for GoT or anything as deep as all that. Fun timewasters.
If you like that swipe left/right mechanic and want a roguelike deckbuilder (such an underpopulated genre, those roguelike deckbuilders; when will they ever make more of them?), Meteorfall is very fun.
