Funnily enough, early Quake design included a hammer. Apparently it was some kind of Thor inspired thing.

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Quoting: Boldos

Quoting: Anza

Quoting: BoldosBut what drove me away was the fact that majority of the game was a perfect example of a so called Potemkin village game mechanics:

Games are pretty much Potempkin villages. They lie and cheat, especially when you're not looking. Best ones can give illusion that the world continues to exist even when you're not around.

Well, in general, yes, you are of course correct; all game engines are by definition Potemkin villages. And yes, game engines - in general - do cheat all the time... Mainly to save the CPU+GPU power for other intensive tasks.

But you are talking about different level of Potemkin villages than what I meant, when comparing NMS to X4 Foundations universes.

Sorry, I didn't tackle your answer entirely. NMS has been built around procedural generation in order to even be able to have the huge galaxy size. The size itself makes dynamic living galaxy something that starts to be technically infeasible. One player is able to discover only tiny part of the whole galaxy. Even travelling from one end of the galaxy to the other will take practically forever if you just jump from star system to star system.

NMS could be do better on the local level though, but let's keep on grander scale for now.

What Egosoft is doing with X series is cool, but I think they have had dream of persistence quite early on in the series. Probably won't be able to remember where player dropped a wrench in some random planet two hours ago (which NMS is also unable to do), but that don't think it has never been their aim. If you are trying to do absolutely everything, you probably end up in same situation than Star Citizen.

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Quoting: tfkI've never played it. Is it good?

Quoting: suchHighly depends. If you feel like just exploring planets and gathering stuff to maybe build/improve stuff is fun to you - then yes. If you're expecting a game with crunchy mechanics - no.

My take is that at launch NMS was terrible at the former, and now it's quite good at it. It'll never be good as a "proper" game, though, because that's clearly not the goal. It's more of a chill experience with some gamey bits that provide some sense of direction and progression, but that don't tie you to them if you don't care for them. Maybe grab it on sale and try it out then?

I can agree that NMS focuses bit more being wide than deep. It's just so wide that discovering new mechanics can be fun. Even when the mechanics are bit grindy if you interact too much with them.

There is actually a plot with few twists. And long side quest that functions as a tutorial and some of the unlocks are behind that. On top of that there's some lore than you can find.

Expedition might be good place to start as they act as semi standalone quests. As new player you start from scratch, but rewards along the way provide you enough stuff so you can complete the expedition. Longer time players can bring in some resources from their main save.

Upcoming expedition has combat focus. Combat is fine. It's not the most satisfying combat system ever and fun factor depends bit on what you're fighting with. And preview of the expedition hints that there will be at least some new enemies.

Quoting: BoldosBut what drove me away was the fact that majority of the game was a perfect example of a so called Potemkin village game mechanics:

Games are pretty much Potempkin villages. They lie and cheat, especially when you're not looking. Best ones can give illusion that the world continues to exist even when you're not around.

Sounds like NMS hasn't been just good enough in hiding the seams. I think space stations are not bad anymore and they can be populated while player is going through the entry animation. Planets can still be sometimes bit jarring. Animals might just appear out of thin air. Haven't noticed that yet with the new update, though have been played only twenty minutes after game froze.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Spilled! is a short yet cozy game that you can finish in 1 hour, but you can use the level select to go back to any area if you just want to relax!

That's probably going to bite them. You're going to get people feeling short-changed by that amount of gameplay and refunding, and it's going to be quite difficult to price the game appropriately for that amount of gameplay. If you make it too expensive, you'll get more people refunding, or just not buying it for an hour of gameplay, but if you make it too cheap then it gets the "cheap game" stigma and you might not make any money from sales.

If they can push it up to something like 4-5 hours of gameplay that would settle into the right kind of cozy game experience, and should be comfortably in the £5-10 price range which ought to do well.

I guess the problem is that it seems developers first game. Small scope is good thing to have in order to get something out. I don't remember how much of a thing refunding short games were. Might have been that it's not that big of an issue. I think refunds had reputation and if you abuse the system too much, you might not be able to get refunds for a while.

I think the cheap game stigma might be related to perceived effort. Using popular asset pack content as it can make it feel like like no effort was spent on the assets. With asset flips that can even be actually be the case. AI generated content could have same problem with some additional complexities on top of that.

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I played the demo and the it's nowhere near Balatro. Blackjack as game has basically two choices every turn and DDG doesn't build enough on top of the card game to make it nearly complex enough. There are few things that you can get that vary the gameplay, but they didn't do enough interesting things.

Luckily there's demo, so you can try it out yourself

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Quoting: NezchanI played the demo during the last Next Fest, and I don't think they had the hint system implemented there. I really could have used it for at least one of the puzzles. It's generally not bad, although the pixel style can be a problem when you're really close up to some objects. The Vulkan issue BloodScourge mentions might address that though.

There's actually hint system. Look question mark when you open the inventory. It doesn't give solution right away, first one is usually quite vague. The last one doesn't always give exact solution either, so I had to consult other sources too.

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Quoting: alexleducIt's nice to know that the other 55% of people gaming on Linux are doing it on regular PCs. Since there are millions of Steam Deck sold, that could mean millions of PCs used for gaming on Linux.

In other news, the stat counter worldwide desktop market share survey has been plummeting back down from its 4.05% milestone in March. It's at 3.77% in the May results.

Real world is messy and there are fluctuations into both directions. What matters is the longer trend, too bad Statcounter doesn't display that. Data can be exported though, so if somebody would want to do more useful graph, it's possible.

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Been playing it for a bit and full version seem to have lot more stuff. Also silver key drop rate seems to be bit higher so opening both chests in one floor is possible. Demo was one silver key for each floor.

Should be relatively short game, though I doubt I manage to finish it in one hour. Six hours could be more likely.

If you're unsure, try the demo.

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Maybe at least one post fest update as there's bunch of demos still available, games that didn't reach top 50 just get less visibility.

Aloft [External Link]
One among many openworld survival craft games, but this time around there's floating islands and you're able to fly them. You can also glide, which makes traversal between the island possible.

Crafting does nice compromise. You don't know the recipes beforehand, but ingredients that belong to undiscovered recipes are marked, so there's not that much trial and error.

You can also restore islands ecology, though that's something you need to discover on your own, at least in the demo. And one important part of the ecology restoration is not implemented in full yet.

Good fun, despite some frustrations.

Die in the Dungeon [External Link]
Can Slay the Spire with dice work? Apparently it can. Die placement and buffing are cornerstones of the gameplay and bit more rare dice unlock more options. Dice can be improved too.

Feels bit too easy or I just got too lucky by having health regeneration.

Still surprisingly fun.

Spilled! [External Link]
Self published ecology cleanup game. Basically you steer a boat that can clean up oil spills and collect trash. There's also animals to be rescued and you have few different upgrades you can buy. Quite simple. There's at least more biomes planned, so probably gameplay will evolve a bit in the full game.

Demo was simple and fun.

Silence of the Siren [External Link]
Sci-fi strategy game. Playing tutorial is optional, though there's lost of mechanics to teach, so you'll probably miss lot of the things if you don't play it.

Mechanics are fun enough, though I got bit bored in the first real mission as it's cleanup mission. Root cause might be that I'm just playing it in boring way or it might be that there's not many interesting decisions during the turns.

The overhead map feels bit like a boardgame and tactical battles are played on one screen with simple map. There's danger things getting bit repetitive.

So I guess it's fine. Somebody else might have more fun time with it.

Reka [External Link]
There's not that much exposition, but basically it seems that you want to become a witch. Before that you can do small side quests. Game starts up properly when you get to build your chicken legged house. Though even before that you get to do some witch things.

While the map is small, there multiple point of interests around the map.

Base building actually feels easiest that I have seen in 3D game, usually you need lot of corner pieces to integrate roof to wall properly, but this time around the wall pieces just change into corner pieces automatically. One problem might be though that once you create a piece, there's no way to transform it back into wood.

Bit janky, but I like that they are doing at least something that feels unique. The openworld survival craft part is bit shallow and focus seem to be bit more on the story and quests. Which might be good decision as this is the studios first game.

Worth trying out.

This time around top ten changes around a bit as some of the games were quite good. All of the demos are online still.

Alters
Tactical Breach Wizards
What the Car?
Aloft
Schim
Just Crow Things
Aska
Heroes of Loot: Gauntlet of Power
Die In the Dungeon
I Am Your Beast

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Quoting: ToddLI know Steam Next Fest ends tomorrow but whatever you do, don't play the Fera demo on the Steam Deck because the framerate isn't good and you can't adjust the resolution in the main menu or in-game.

Try Aska or Aloft. Both offer graphics settings, though I don't have Steam Deck to check how they perform. Aska I described few posts up, Aloft has gliding and base building from parts. Latter also has vibrant colors like Fera.

Also if other people have same bugs than I do, you won't get far with Fera.

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