That’s the thing, I was careful about my wording; “if their only intention is to step up to a higher object”. If I tell someone to get on top of a cement block, their impulse won’t be to do a parkour jump where they’re tucking their legs, they’ll likely use their hands to lift themselves up. They wouldn’t even think of their action as a “jump”. When people press the spacebar in a video game, the intent is clearly to get higher onto the thing in front of them, it’s just most games choose not to express the particular actions a human does to do that (much like how we dropped Tomb Raider’s approach of manually holding a button to grab onto ledges)

In DRG, the way they differentiate intention is with the direction you’re looking - you can only mantle onto platforms you’re looking towards. So, you wouldn’t get many occasions where you’re dodging sideways and accidentally get on a platform.

In DOOM Eternal, they got rid of crouch, and put the grenade launcher on there. G was changed to toggle between your two grenade types. In Deep Rock Galactic, Ctrl uses the player’s laser pointer, a tool for communicating to teammates that doesn’t really impact gameplay. Having a free keybind offers a number of ways to enhance or simplify the game; if they wanted to go for simple measures, it could be a context-sensitive VO button, like spotting out enemy players.

You and I might do it as a connected reflex between the space key and ctrl key to always get a higher chance of reaching a ledge with no drawbacks, but it makes no digetic sense. People in real life don’t do a squat mid-air if their only intention is to step up to a higher object.

FPSes of both the realistic and cartoony variety have been introducing step-ups as a way to simplify movement for a long time. Examples: DOOM 2016, Deep Rock Galactic. It also means that they can connect other important game functionality to the Crouch button if that keybind just doesn’t do much for the intended gameplay.

We see a lot of the gold of indies rising above the crowd, but there’s still lots of indie studios failing. Think of one of your favorite indies, and try checking to see if they’ve made a second game - many don’t even get that far.

Minority opinion, I think there’s a lot they could do for Team Fortress 3.

• Reset expectations on cosmetics to reduce flaming ghost hats
• Invent female versions of each merc and a new character/voice for Soldier’s deceased actor
• Add an unobtrusive mantling system to replace crouch jumping
• Console crossplay
• Simplify weapons by making Flare gun and Sandwich defaults for respective classes
• Retool matchmaking system

I don’t remember there being any textual dialog in the game except for a few portions of the manual, so I’m not sure what you mean with the central temple. Its main activation comes from both towers, and as someone said, the first simply requires a short trip through a forest and beating a large guard; but the second requires a VERY long path.

While I’m sure many like to comment on the delicious irony/attack towards Trump/Elon, I’m still curious about the “one dead” portion. It sounds like we have no idea who it was that was killed - possibly even just a random bystander from when it went off.

Which would be really terrible if someone was just detonating a stolen car for a political statement, and then ended up killing an innocent person.

Valve used to do ARGs for some of their major releases. It’ll be kinda sad if there’s just not enough energy around for people to figure out their puzzle pieces here.

I’m pretty sure even if the Steam store doesn’t do it, there are tools to search Steam that can exclude tags, right?

Seems like for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle it will be under half a year.

ah yes, port the billion dollar decades old high-fidelity engine that carefully manages memory to java, a language minecraft struggled to break free from to achieve any meaningful performance or mobile porting options. thank you, no one thought of that before.

Glad to see that strikes are having an effect.

Game bundles like from Fanatical are a good start. You can’t return them if you have issues, but they’re great if you haven’t played any of the offerings given.

A similar thing would be Xbox Game Pass, but that very much locks you into their ecosystem, and they’re clearly done investing into worthwhile games.

I hope they don’t remember the Alexander raids too fondly. Even when I’ve done one before, understanding and remembering the specific goals is infuriating, for myself and all the other players involved.

It’s okay to have something complicated, as long as it has diegetic meaning that makes sense to players quickly.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth looks really good. I can’t wait until it’s done so I can play it.

Previously, I had mused over vague ideas about whether blockchain technologies could go into a “proof of real person” system, by one-way-hashing information used to verify only basic details about a person. Eg: They exist, are a unique person, and are over a certain age. Ideally, it could be set up in a way that cannot easily correlate them between company databases.

That said, no real need to poke holes in the idea, because…that was the easy part, and it will probably never happen (or be far more draconian than I describe)

I’ve been saying for a while that the best thing that can happen to standard, microtransaction-free, singleplayer video games is: An increase in the US Minimum Wage.

Sadly, that doesn’t help international markets as much. I really wish we could get rid of key resellers so that games sold somewhere like Africa can be fairly measured out in terms of loaves of bread, not US dollars.

In a way, I accept that. I think too many super discounts were starting to poison the industry such that indie devs with a limited audience couldn’t even make their costs back, and couldn’t raise their price because they’d compete with so much $4 slop.

(By the way, my other post highlights some great $4 slop)

Full Metal Furies is a very fun “beatemup-style” game very much focused on unique character abilities and cooperation. The writing is very funny, and each character operates very different. Currently $5.

Oh, and on the topic of coop games with primarily female casts: Assault Android Cactus is a lot of fun even for people who haven’t played games much. Rather than use a teammate reviving mechanic, players can pick themselves up - but everyone is fighting their timer to complete the mission before their batteries run out. Levels are quick and chaotic. $5.

The Sexy Brutale is a fun Groundhog Day puzzle game set in a casino where you must sneak around to prevent the staff from murdering the guests. The story seems insignificant but becomes astounding towards the end. It’s currently $5.

Unmetal is a very fun Metal Gear parody that isn’t totally lax with its writing - maintaining just enough serious tone to keep you invested and break your expectations when it uses the storytelling format to throw you for a loop. Currently $4.

Homebody is another Groundhog Day puzzle game, also about preventing your friends from being murdered - but with a very different tone. Creepy at times, and requires a slow unraveling of every one of the mansion’s puzzles. $5

Tyrion Cuthbert is an astoundingly-done indie take on the Ace Attorney format, set in a fantasy universe with its own magical rules. 5 full cases, with some big character moments in the later ones. Currently $10.

Near Death is a short horror game based on surviving arctic chill at an abandoned base at night. It feels much like an indie game version of The Martian, especially when you contact personnel that can give you tips but can’t send a rescue party. Currently $2.

I’m curious whether that new feature, Hidden games, appears in this summary. I think it had some early missteps because it would disappear from some views but appear in others.