As I continue to wait for my order email, I'm curious: have the ratings shifted to be more in line with peoples' expectations? I.e., Verified being more like ProtonDB's Platinum (stable, no problems, basically bug free), rather than "technically checks off all the boxes Valve laid out on the criteria page".

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But everyone who misses the email means I get mine faster! …But seriously, that's cool of Valve that people have a little extra time.

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Oh, "Deckard" is the code name…thought Valve was going for a theme for their hardware products, and was looking forward to the Valve Deck-orator, Ad-deck-t, and Fana-deck. :grin:

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: PhlebiacWhat happens when the host creature gets an itch, and rolls over to scratch all those pesky parasites on its back?

Given its biology, I'm not sure it can roll over. :dizzy:

I'm kinda interested in how your villagers get up there in the first place though—the game kinda glosses over it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia [External Link] ?

I can't play the demo again to check, but if I remember correctly, the intro explains that the world has been changing (weird plants growing with clouds of spores, etc.), forcing your band of villagers to move from their original home. In their wandering, then encounter the Onbu, which it sounds like is something rare that they only remember from legend. I believe the intro to the game ends with a static shot of your villagers looking down at the Onbu from a distance (like from on a hill or something), then it fades into the game proper with all your villagers on its back.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyYeah, while I was watching I was thinking, OK, if it lets its tail drag sometimes you could probably get on there and walk up to the back . . .

I don't think we ever see it drag its tail in gameplay. Not that I have a problem with the villagers getting on while it goes to sleep or anything, it's just more how they get up there in a physical sense. Its back is like a plateau, with a flat top and steep sides. Maybe your villagers came from a mountain and are all accomplished mountaineers? :huh:

Later in the tech tree you can build watch towers which let you send away parties (even while the Onbu is moving) to investigate places you pass by, and I don't have an issue with those including, I dunno, rope ladders for letting people up and down, I'm just fascinated by how people get up there in the first place. I'm probably definitely way overthinking it though. :grin:

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Quoting: PhlebiacWhat happens when the host creature gets an itch, and rolls over to scratch all those pesky parasites on its back?

Given its biology, I'm not sure it can roll over. :dizzy:

I'm kinda interested in how your villagers get up there in the first place though—the game kinda glosses over it.

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Cool! The demo already worked fine with Proton, but this is still good news. It still needs some polish, but it's a promising seed of a game and the 2D hand-drawn sprites in a 3D world make for a pretty interesting graphical style.

When you open the demo there's also a big splash screen photo of the dev team, and it made me think about how we never really see that in games. Sure, there'll probably be a list of credits when you finish the game somewhere, but seeing that photo reminded that games are made by real people, not just a scrolling list of names on a screen. It really humanized them in my mind. I dunno, it just stood out to me because I can't remember another game that did anything like that.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: PhiladelphusAs we seem to be moving backwards in time, I'm looking forward to the eventual Codex Critters, Palimpsest Pals, Cuneiform Clay-tures, and Hieroglyph Helpers. :grin:

Packing some gorgeous alliteration there, pal.

I didn't set out to do that, but once "Palimpsest [External Link] Pals" popped into my head I couldn't not think of alliterations. (Bonus one that didn't make it into the post: Scroll Summons, to go with the physical recording media theme. I just liked Hieroglyph Helpers too much. :grin:)

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Huh, I played Star Wars: Episode I: Racer maybe two years ago or so on Proton. Though I remember it had a game-breaking bug at first where it acted like I was constantly holding down "right". I did manage to fix it somehow (I've forgotten how), but if that's been fixed so it works out-of-the-box that's good news.

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Quoting: Romlok

Quoting: eldakingApparently "retro physical media + monsters" is an entire sub-genre of pokelikes, with Cassette Beasts, Floppy Knights, and Disc Creatures.

Anyone up for making Gramophone Titans?

As we seem to be moving backwards in time, I'm looking forward to the eventual Codex Critters, Palimpsest Pals, Cuneiform Clay-tures, and Hieroglyph Helpers. :grin:

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I remember seeing the World Turtles trailer before. Kinda reminds me of The Wandering Village [External Link] (which also has a solid native Linux version), in the whole "city builder on top of a giant creature" theme.

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