I can understand that their priorities lie with Windows initially. I also prefer Steam for their amazing linux support, but for preservation Steam is also a mess: delisting of games / the fact that the games are not DRM free. A copy you buy on GOG is yours forever, a copy on Steam is less certain. Also know that GOG operates at a fraction of the budget that Steam has, so they don’t necessarily have the money to put someone on linux support too. But hopefully in the future this will change!

This sounds fun! I don’t have access to Minecraft, but would love to know what my seed looks like :).

Thanks for reminding me! Those games were amazing and actually quite similar to Astro Bot in vibe: just wholesome, cute and positive all around!

I didn’t enjoy 3 that much, and the new Sackboy game is fun but seems like a different genre almost.

I did really like the PSP and PSVita entries of LBP, if you have access to those devices you should give them a go! Even though they weren’t made by the same team, they really captured the essence and both had a great campaign!

Sidenote, do you remember the millions of Shark Attack community levels? That was such a weird trend :).

If you like challenging 2d platformers, I can highly recommend Rite (5 euros on Steam).

Completely matches your description of muscle memory, and once you get there it is so satisfying!

If you are in any way able to get your hands on Astro Bot, I recommend it sooooo much. Even at it’s steep price, it’s already worth it for me (30 percent completed).

And you can always use my strategy, buy second hand with the ability to sell again when you’re finished. I know this does not support the developer, but when money is tight (as is kind of the case for me) I think this doesn’t matter.

I edited the post to just platformers, as it was indeed a bit vague! Though I think I was going more for the run-around, collect and jump on enemies kind of deal (Mario, Donkey Kong, Crash Bandicoot, Astro Bot, Banjo-Kazooie, etc).

So less action-platform I guess?

But what do you like about megaman? I’ve never played any game in that series!

So yeah, as mentioned in the post, I’m currently playing Astro Bot and absolutely loving it.

The gameplay is fun and varied and everything is so playful and full of joy. The music is super wholesome and I love how tactile everything feels.

I’m going through a bit of a harder period mentally and I find that this game can bring moments of wonder and surprise like few others can.

I had a similar experience with Astro’s Playroom and Super Mario 3D World. Sometimes a simple, colorful world with happy music and fun mechanics is all you need!

It is literally my favorite game of all time ;) great suggestion though!

I think you might have misread the post?

Well, I personally have several “types” of game that help me feel comfortable when things are tough:

• Puzzle Games: in relatively small doses, a good and somewhat challenging puzzle game can help by requiring focus, while not being stressful.
• Deckbuilders: Slay the Spire and Monster Train are similar games that require mental engagement, without being to stressful.
• Immersive Games: Games with an interesting mystery or otherwise immersive experiences. I am currently playing Killer Frequency and Hacknet, both for that reason.

To be honest, for graphically intensive games, there isn’t that much battery life left to sacrifice :)

What are they going to do? Reduce my 2 hours of Kingdom Come Deliverance to 1 hour?

But still, I respect the hell out of their decision to only update the hardware if the performance is significantly improved.

Is it recommended to play the other Mother games before 3?

I’m waiting patiently on Astrobot to get within my feasible price range, I adored Playroom :).

While I understand where you’re coming from, I believe that it distracts from a massive positive effect that the GPL has: the way it ensures collaboration. Lots of contributors to GPL software do so in the knowledge that they are working on something great together. I myself have felt discouraged to contribute to MIT licensed software, because I know that others might just take all the hard work, make something proprietary of it and give nothing back.

I see GPL as some sort of public transaction, it is indeed more limiting than MIT and offers less pure freedom in that sense. But I just love how it uses copyright not for enforcing licensing payment for some private entity, but enforces a contribution to the community as a whole. I find this quite beautiful.

I am probably in an extreme minority here, but my favorite final fantasy game is… XIII. I remember being so hyped when it came out, the graphics on my PS3 were unreal. This was at a time in my life where I was unable to finish any big game due to limited attention span, but I played the first hours of that game a lot and really enjoyed it. Since then I’ve tried getting into VII, IX, XII and XIV, and all of them I bounced off of. However, trying XIII again years later on PC, it just feels so comfy. I don’t need to think too hard were to go or what to do, just let the game guide me and enjoy the music and spectacle.

I’ve noticed lately that I absolutely love linear games: half-life, portal, uncharted… are all experiences I adored because of their simplicity. Just move forward! I feel that a lot of mainstream gaming has become about side objectives, open worlds and collecting 100% of collectibles, and it is honestly exhausting. If you have any linear game recommendations, please chime in :)!

What an amazing comment, this reads just like a blog post! Will definitely check it out!!!

What a great video! I was afraid going in that it would have some “forced” new opinion on the game to be relevant, but it was actually super important and interesting.

Thanks for sharing!

My personal favorite game of all time. Such an absolutely incredible experience, both from for the gameplay / puzzle mechanics, the story, the music and themes.

Not necessarily a VN, but you might like Pony Island if you liked Doki Doki.

Digital: A Love Story is also an experience that was really powerful for me.

I was unsure if choosing a specific visual novel would make the discussion too limited, so I decided to go with the genre as a whole for this thread.

Still, I sneakily used my favorite visual novel as the image: Steins;Gate! It was my first game in the genre. I bought it on a whim for PS Vita, after seeing the glowing review headlines that applauded it for its great story and music. Little did I know that this meant only story and music: there was barely any gameplay! This together with the fact that some of the tropes felt really strange to me at the time (I was not really into anime culture) made me regret my purchase and almost stop playing.

But somehow the story got its hooks in me. Only a tiny bit at first, but day after day I became more engrossed and looking forward to my play session. I read it mostly during the night while in bed, and it really took over my life for some time. Eventually I finished all routes and achieved the true ending, which is one of my favorite endings and stories in videogames as a whole.

Since then I’ve played lots of others. Some quick thoughts:

-999: a bit disappointing, the story felt very contrived and not as great as others experienced it.

-Virtue’s last reward: a real step up from the previous game, complex and satisfying story with a very meta twist to it!

-Zero Time Dilemma: often described as the worst in the series, but somehow this story really grabbed me from start to finish. The stakes were extremely high and while the story was very convoluted, the payoff worked for me.

-Danganronpa 1 and 2: very strange and over the top, but extremely well written mysteries with great presentation and soundtrack

-Ace Attorney: the first game in the series. I played it on switch and liked it, but didn’t love it. The humor felt to childlike for me at times.

-Planetarian: fantastic little gem of a game. Most visual novels will demand dozens of hours of your time, but this can be finished in less than 5 hours. Absolutely amazing.

-Muv-Luv Extra: I am currently finishing all routes for the first game in this trilogy, as I have heard multiple times that the 3rd one is incredible. I liked it most when it was just funny nonsense (it can be quite hilarious at times). The serious parts really didn’t hit home for me and a lot of the content feels a bit problematic and strange. I suppose some of this is culture, some of it satire and it was originally an erotic game so that might have something to do with it.

I’m glad that it seems sufficiently different from Ghost of Tsushima. I kind of dislike how most sequels these days are almost the same game with some small improvements in graphics and gameplay (Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-man 2). With the new character and time period, this seems like a more substantial change!