Recently this channel came up in my feed. There’s a few like this, that will highlight interesting games on Steam that haven’t had much attention.

https://www.youtube.com/@IndirectGames

I’ve had an idea of making a visual novel with gen AI, but I’d want to attach “Placeholder: AI Artwork” in a visible location for each sprite. And I only even consider that because I’m not exactly a known game dev and don’t have ready access to artists.

Larian should likely expect if they’re taking shortcuts in their position, they’d get backlash. I can at least recognize that they’re trying to be moderate about it.

We’ve seen the buyout/burn down methodology against a lot of smaller companies; it sounds a bit like Microsoft is doing that internally to Xbox division. It’s all I can think of to explain so much of the intentional damage.

So, the console war is now basically Nintendo, Sony, and Valve.

Emulation seems neat to me, but I know behind every comment on it there’s a whispered implication: Piracy. Very few people are imaging their own game discs. That unfortunately makes it less appealing to me, especially as trustworthiness shifts at many of those sites.

To me, it’s an indicator that the rest of the industry bankrupted its talent and innovation. There’s been some great indie games, but nothing overwhelmingly amazing, certainly not in the AAA space.

If HL3 was ever to get news, I don’t really think Valve would do it on someone else’s awards show. They tend to own their own announcements.

Something I tried to do earlier to help with it, in this very channel, was a “Downvote any game you’ve heard of before” thread. It was a nice exercise to help people post odd games no one had heard of.

I’m a sucker for Zenless Zone Zero. I recognize it’s often catering to male gaze, but I appreciate there’s some uniqueness and interesting themes to the designs.

Basic example, “Corin” being on first blush just a cute maid cut, but also following a Frankenstein design theme with the bolts/chainsaw and hair color.

They’ve also had a “bunny-girl”, Alice, who much like real bunnies is skittish and easily frightened (and is thankfully not nearly as sexualized as the theme often carries)

If you haven’t played games in a while, a subscription service like game pass or PS+ can be a good idea.

It’ll let you try out a lot of games that you might not try otherwise, and also try/discard some games that seemed cool but turn out to be unlikable.

Silly Poly Beast - 3 GB Another Crab’s Treasure - 7.7 GB

Rabbit and Steel - 376 MB, coop PVE game, plays a lot like FFXIV raids

The worst part is, I consider myself a bit of a gooner; I like alluring, attractive characters. But that was meant to be a story-based game, and yet it designed so many jokes around attractive women dressing in rags, being clueless, easily offended, and seemed to design the story around an intense contact between a shonen hero and a large-breasted woman.

At least in something like Stellar Blade, they evade the subject because they know there’s nothing constructive to say.

dives to 50 feet, removes tube from mouth to shout to Gabe, and fucking drowns

I wonder how they plan to cover the events. Normally, you’d bring gaming journalists, but Saudis are terrified of journalists.

I think the “risks” of letting a potential killer go free are reduced if the chances of any sort of repeat crime are distant.

I remember a sitcom spy-hero type show had a dilemma like this. A bad guy offers the good guys a large sum of money they can use to help unfortunate people he victimized, in exchange for them leaving him alone. He’s retired, has no plans, or even means, to continue any horrible acts, so it’s entirely down to whether they seek retribution for the bad stuff he’s done rather than use the opportunity to help and protect people.

Ah yes, the fascist plan of “Look, we all know the foregone conclusion. X person will never change their mind (certainly not saying I support them), so you shouldn’t stand against them.”

I really should retry this. I picked it on Game Pass a long time ago, but only later did I try Aggro Crab’s magnum opus, Another Crab’s Treasure. They actually got lucky again later with hit Peak.

Apollo is out there in Kuh’rain, wondering if Ace Attorney will ever pick up on an old story so his boss can tell him something important and he can say back “Yeah, Mr. Wright, I figured that out because I’m not an idiot.”

I mean…they considered piracy, and cheating, valid for a long time.

Huh. A long time ago I would’ve thought this purchase would’ve gone the other way around.

What’s sad is, I also had a silly web project like this, but had to abandon it since browsers (logically) decided to mute webpages on load until you interacted with them.

It was basically just user selection of image and audio, and then you pick a spot to forever zoom into. A little like YTMND.