Pyramidia

it’s an indie city builder in which your first goal is to secure the survival of the settlement. Graphics are adorable and retro-ish and the gameplay is challenging. Although it could use a it more polishing and there is some getting used to the games quirks. But it’s quite cheap (~3€) so I feel it’s okay.

I’m nearing the end of Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion. It’s still really mediocre, but I got into that mindless grind of those 300 side missions. The main story is pretty lame, the only interesting bits are those directly connected to FF7, basically when you’re in Nibelheim, although even that is a bit of a let-down.

I also played more on my Steam Deck than expected, mainly because I got sick a few days ago and would just dabble a bit here and there while lying down. I did a some Vampire Survivors runs, but it’s basically always the same, so I need to look into those unlocks I’m missing. Then I tried Boneraiser Minions, but I’m not sure about this one. It’s a Vampire Survivors-like, but here you summon different skeletons to fight for you. The first few runs felt really slow and boring, but some of the unlocks improved it somewhat. I’m still not sure about the minions fighting for you thing though, since it feels a bit too RNG, but I’ll give it a bit more time.

Super Mario RPG and Civ 6 still getting tons of mileage

GTA IV. I had started playing around August but had to leave it because of Uni. Just remembered that I had it downloaded now that I’ve finished this semester.

Also the monthly Ridge Racer Type 4 / wipEout 2097 replay

Diablo 3: Season 29 - Working on stocking up on Torment 16 bounty caches for the Avarice conquest (completing a 50,000,000 gold streak). It’s taking me longer than I anticipated, but then again, I keep getting distracted by the Visions of Enmity. I really need to start ignoring those portals.

Diablo 4: Season 2 - Snagged the Razorplate chest armor with around 15,000 Thorns and a level 925 bow, so I’ve been kicking ass and actually surviving Helltides. My current goal is reaching level 90.

No one lives under the lighthouse - This was the first time I played this game, and it was amazing. It’s been sitting in my Steam library since this past spring, and I didn’t really know a lot about it going in except that is was more or less atmospheric horror. It was not what I was expecting, and in a good way. It was way more horrifying and lightly Lovecraftian than I thought it would be, since I was expecting something more similar to Dear Esther or What Remains of Edith Finch where I just kind of walk around while learning the story, so I was pleasantly surprised when I actually had work to do lol. I thought I’d get sick of the pixel art graphics, but it held up pretty well, and I even got some nice screenshots out of it. The only parts that were relatively frustrating were two weird chase scenes, but luckily the game gave me the choice to skip them after dying so many times. I’ve read that there’s multiple endings, but I was satisfied with the one that I got (whichever one it is), since it was pretty much like a light bulb going off in my head and made sense with the story as I understood it. Parts of it felt very Amnesia-like as well, which is always a plus for me. I don’t plan on 100% it any time soon, because it’s definitely one of those games I like to finish in one go, but I think I’ll have fun whenever I do.

Since getting a PS5, a good chunk of my time has been spent with my PS4 library I fell off of when loading was too obnoxious. I had a Last of Us Left Behind save on grounded difficulty that I had never beat because, while I enjoy the brutal difficulty of the last encounter, waiting to load every time I died was miserable. The much faster (but slower than PS5 games lol) load time got me over the hump.

I’m getting into the Last of Us 2 next.

Replaying Pokémon Fire Red as a ROM hack with Throwback. It’s a vanilla + experience and it’s really quite fun to play old games.

Star Citizen. It’s a buggy mess as usual but it’s such a fun mess. Especially the Siege of Orison event going on right now, I’ve had some really amazing emergent gameplay moments come from it that have me very excited for the future of this game.

Diablo 2 Resurrected. Rolling a new character as Sony decided I needed to pay for online access to play my other character.

Fuck that. I only do single player. I’ll just make a new one!

Unbelievably, I’m playing (and enjoying) Fallout 76 after avoiding it for so many years of following it’s travails from afar.

It’s buggy in all those Bethesda ways that are almost comfortable in their familiarity at this point, and it’s got a lot to explore. This can tide me over until Starfield is discounted and improved.

Also been playing Teardown a bit, which has a really cool look and feel. Hyper-real except a voxel universe, if that makes sense. Lots of fun to destroy the environment.

Dorfromantik this week. One day I will have the time and energy for something more complicated. My enormous list of unplayed games is staring at me.

I just finished my second ever playthrough of the original goldsrc Half-Life. It gets all the love it deserves. So few games craft an atmosphere of horrific mystery like that game, and I love the payoff of that tension. I know Xen gets hate for being rushed and the levels being chaotic, but I like that. EVERYTHING about Xen feels alien and terrifying. Then when you find out more about the alien society it turns the entire “invasion” on its head. What a great fuckin game.

I think now is as good a time as any to finally finish (after restarting) Half-Life: Alyx

A bit of Slay the Spire again and a tiny bit if Spiro Remastered with my daughter.

Back to catch up on Baldurs Gate, finally tied up act 1. Also back to Tarkov, the masochism is in full swing.

Aaand back to counterstrike, did i mention masochism? CS2 has brought the gang back together though, really feels like almost a decade ago when we had full lobbies every night.

Just got into Backpack Hero recently after someone I watch online released a video a week or two ago going back to the game now that it’s released. I kinda became a little addicted as it’s pretty much been the only PC game I’ve been playing since I got it.