@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

gmr_leon

@gmr_leon@mstdn.social

i ramble about video games. i like sharing & weird stuff. @ me with weird games.

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gmr_leon, to gaming
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Something that's been cool to see over the past few years is the emergence of more non-combat focused building/strategy(?) games like Islanders and Autonauts.

I think maybe Dorfromantik fits into that category too? Not played it but that's the gist I've gotten about it.

Should look into more of'em tbh. They manage a nice slow-burn pace without as much tedium as games that try to explicitly slow you down (i.e. many RPGs).

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Never really understood competitive games, for a mixture of reasons, and among those reasons is:

if you excel at a game, you kinda narrow down who you can enjoyably play against, and doesn't that kinda suck?

Personally I've never found it much fun to wipe the floor with opponents, AI or otherwise, so I don't get wanting to excel at a competitive game. In my mind you're undermining your own enjoyment of it somewhat.

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

This was brought to mind again as I played several rounds of Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition online for the first time, despite having played the original off and on for a long time, and as I expected, I got wrecked each time.

I let my opponents smash up what little I'd managed to build since that's some of the fun, but I can't imagine steamrolling me was much fun otherwise.

gmr_leon, to random
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

I should really try to get better at finding more people around here that I relate to to follow, or better hashtags.

The hashtags that I currently follow make me feel like I'm plugged into streaming and games industry adverts, unfortunately. 😞

gmr_leon, (edited ) to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

So, given the kinda joke about people hating phone calls, yet using voice chat in games, I can't help wondering what people's preferences may be on chatting in games.

When you play online games, which do you lean towards when it comes to text/voice chat, or other options I didn't fit here, contextual pinging (e.g. Apex Legends), emotes, or voice/chat commands (e.g. Team Fortress 2/AoE 2)?

Repost/boost as you will, curious about this!

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

In case you missed it, running a poll to get a rough idea of how people prefer to communicate in online games.

gmr_leon, to random
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Big businesses are perpetual milkshake ducks.

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

the surest sign someone has successfully stayed away from entertainment communities is when they describe a massive hit as a "hidden gem", e.g. read a comment calling Witcher 3 a hidden gem πŸ˜…

i sometimes wish i was better at being like that so i could talk about games more at ease

but i know just enough about how the sausage is made so i can't

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Does Proton for games on Linux work without using Steam? πŸ€”

I know vaguely of stuff like Lutris, so I'm still wondering how gaming on Linux looks if you're not completely bought into Valve's pseudo-monopoly. That should be in line with Linux thinking, right?

If it does, hell yeah. Then the other trick might be controller stuff outside of Steam, but one step at a time.

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

@averyminya ? I appreciate the advice, however I'm confused what may have suggested an inclination toward Epic

I lean towards smaller Valve/Steam competitors for commercial games when possible, like Itch or GOG. Primarily for their games being DRM free

ChrisFerguson, to pokemon
@ChrisFerguson@mastodon.social avatar

Random, uninformed thoughts on the Switch successor memory storage.

I think it would be cool if the handheld system had 256gb of storage. (Potentially pretty small for 4k games...)

But the DOCK had memory/memory expansion options too...

You could take select games with you on the go, have them all when you're home...and here's the kicker:

1/2

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

@ChrisFerguson i keep writing occasionally that arguably the smartest move to make with a Switch successor would be slyly reintroducing a revised Wii U.

So make an improved "dock" that can work like a console on its own & stream games to existing Switches and act as a dock to upgraded "Switch 2s" or whatever they call them. Best of both worlds, especially if they worked out backwards compatibility for existing Switch as well

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

@ChrisFerguson the idea behind that is for it to be an option rather than the primary method of play

It comes from both the Wii U and PlayStation Vita's remote play options that enabled local streaming which mitigates some of the issues with remote streaming. It would also help relieve handheld bottlenecking which has driven some devs to release their titles only as remote streaming versions

This approach means you wouldn't have to wonder when a company might drop streaming your games to you

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

My favorite part of watching videos of people trying lesser known games on Steam is seeing the wide range of quality/polish.

It's encouraging in an, "If people are willing to put their work out like this, what's stopping me?" way. Like just go for it, everyone's already throwing everything at the wall so why not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Megsdci7jUc

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

I feel like I need a site or some way to easily relate in any post concerning big video games/video game companies how despite whatever interesting/decent experiences may be found in their games their publishers/owners also flatly suck.

Yes there may be exceptions, but this would be applied to those making the rule that they broadly suck.

Something like web3isgoinggreat but for bad games industry behavior.

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

It's seriously clockwork with the big game companies. It's news like this that I had in mind when writing this post.

This stuff is unfortunately so common anymore if nobody's compiling it it's way too easy for people to simply forget each specific instance.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-reportedly-shutting-down-four-bethesda-studios

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

If GameFAQs doesn't have cheats for a PS1 game, where else do you look? Alternatively are there cheat files for PS1 emulators to load in? πŸ€”

gmr_leon, to random
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

One of my favorite parts of finding old parts of the web that are still online is when you go to their links and they're still online as well.

It's like finding a treasure chamber with open passages to more treasure chambers which in turn may lead to even more.

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

As I was doing a little more digging around for discussions of note-taking and games, I found a forum that was still online, and one of the posters mentioning they'd written on their blog about their habit of note-taking in games.

Despite the thread only being 13 years old, I expected the link to be dead. To my pleasant surprise?

It's still alive! And behold this glorious, somewhat broken, old school site:
http://www.rvgfanatic.com/7443/78601.html

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Okay, I said it was somewhat broken and that's true, because it takes a little while to render properly.

However give it that time and you have an intact old school site that somebody put some love into!

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Also in case anyone else happens upon this thread somewhen down the line, I've found where the person writing RVGFanatic is still around!

They've since switched their blogging over to Wordpress, which is a mild bummer (none of that classic web style, sadly), but cool to see they're still active!

http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/

gmr_leon, to patientgamers
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

How do you like to approach writing about games?

I've noticed there are some folks writing at length here on their experiences playing games, so this felt like a good place to ask. Do you take notes as you play, and/or after each session, then write out full thoughts upon completing a game?

Or are your reflections compiled only after finishing a game, no notes?

I've dabbled with different approaches, and haven't really settled on a consistent process personally.

@patientgamers

gmr_leon, (edited )
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Interesting approach, and I get it for those more involved or longer games, as some don't even have all their systems in play till awhile into the game (which is worth noting in itself!).

Thanks for your perspective!

Oh yeah, and here's to Outer Wilds! Absolutely a game for the ages!

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Hey yeah, appreciate the detail in how you go about it! I'm kinda surprised by the responses saying they don't tend to write anything until further in and/or completion, but it's reassuring in a way, as that's been my approach too for some time.

I also dig that you try to engage with the "soul idea" as you call it of games. It resembles what I've read elsewhere of a reviewer trying to evaluate in part on whether a game achieved what it set out to do or not, which I thought was interesting.

gmr_leon, (edited )
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Heya, I dig the walls of text sometimes! I also tend to bounce around a variety of games, so I like the idea of short notes about each. Until recently I was writing similar notes digitally as separate notepad files and littering them throughout my computer, but I've been trying to make a habit of using stuff like Zim or Joplin to keep them better organized. πŸ˜…

Also right there with you on covering weird jank and "subpar" games, so thanks for writing about them!

gmr_leon, to gaming
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

Hmm. CostGames or CostlyGames for a short, distinct tag for commercial games, and GratisGames for noncommercial games?

I'd say Paid instead but that feels like it overlaps too much with Sponsored, and doesn't clearly indicate Commercial aspect that's meant.

#Gaming #VideoGames

gmr_leon,
@gmr_leon@mstdn.social avatar

May not really be worth making the distinctions, but a part of me likes drawing attention to the cost of many (most?) games.

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