Anyone else into indie horror games? Last night I finished The Crooked Man, a very fun ride with a cool story that left me thinking about... a lot of things. I'd say it's somewhat close to Silent Hill 2 in concept, but with it's own twists and turns. Should be easier to relate to for the average person and it's fairly long for an indie (4-6 hours). Fun little game.

The Crooked Man was super fun! Really enjoyed it, very cool visuals and some real freaky stuff. You play Mermaid Swamp yet?

I want to try that Grave game - looks like a more minimalist premise similar to Alan Wake, where monsters die form light. But, this is one an adventure game with no violence during the game, and a survival adventure game filled with dread at night! Ahh! Sppoky!

www.indiedb.com/games/grave

I started Mermaid Swamp before The Crooked Man but I got stuck where

Much creepier than The Crooked Man so far, but I've a feeling that the story won't be as good. We'll see.

There are a lot of free indie games on my list right now, but I'd rather play the 2D ones because it seems everyone in the universe is using 3D engines to create Slender clones, even when Slender is a pretty shitty game.

I found one where the hair looks pretty good IMO (spoilered for size):

I'd really love to play The Last of Us, but not owning a PS3 (or PS4) is a bitch.

Anyone here like platformers? Like the really difficult ones that YouTubers idiotically rage over? I find VVVVVV and Electronic Super Joy to be very fun. Watching videos of the games is painful though, because the commentary is usually just mindless overexaggerated screaming.

VVVVVV is fantastic.

Yeah man, I love the game. I speedrun it a lot, too. I think my record is 21:48, if I remember correctly.

Considering my general disinterest in most indie games and platformers that rely on a gimmick, I've got to say I really liked VVVVVV. The music was baller. I can only think of one part where I was completely, irreversibly stuck for a considerable amount of time. It's difficult, most definitely, but only during the escort segment did I ever find myself raging uncontrollably.

Finally went back and finished Wolfenstein The New Order. Holy fuck is that one of the best games this year. That ending boss fight was insane though, I died like 15 times due to the layout of the fucking tiny room you fight in. I'm definitely going to start another playthrough soon just to see the possible differences in the storyline. Most fps need to take note of the mechanics in Wolfenstein, I love how they did health regeneration and health packs, it really makes you choose wisely when poking your head out.

While I liked the mechanics of VVVVV and the way they were used and it was an interesting game to watch, I didn't really get much into playing it myself. However, the best part of the game is the music. Just outstanding.

The Last of Us is easily one of my favorite games that I've played in the last several years, I hardly never get hyped up for new stuff but I'd heard nothing but good news about that game, needless to say that was one of the few instances where I didn't feel let down after playing it. I cried at the end of it (not really, but the storyline was phenomenal- it's like playing through a movie at times)

Indeed, excellent games. Also check out They Bleed Pixels. And Super Meat Boy, in the unlikely case that you haven't played it.

Any Dwarf Fortress players here? I tried a few times and was chased off by the vertical learning curve, but at my friend (who is a huge fan)'s behest I'm going to try cracking it one more time.

Strike the earth!

I'm guessing not many, no one has ever responded the couple times I've floated Dwarf Fortress out there. The new version is ridiculous. Fortress mode is mostly the same, but Adventure mode got quite an update. Still a bit buggy, but Toady has done enough fixes that v 0.40.05 is stable enough for new players.

Definitely get one of the starter packs people have put together (i use this one- http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=126076). It integrates a bunch of texture packs (the ASCII hurts my eyes) plus a few utilities that can be quite useful to work around the dodgy UI (dwarf therapist is a life saver for managing jobs). The Bay12 forum is pretty good, although you may also want to check out the subreddit, lots of fine folks to help out with some questions and plenty of good stories to pique your interest. Oh, and you'll probably get boggled the first couple times so look up the starting guide on the wiki.

And good luck! It's really not as bad as its rep suggests once you get you used to its quirks, and totally worth spending the time on.

Long live Cudgelticked!

Donkey Kong Country Returns is hard. I'm playing the 3DS version and it's like WTF? This is world 1? It's challenging and probably will be hard, but not rage inducing.


As far as other games I'm playing.

Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen was pretty good. Its cons are poor hit detection. There's no invulnerability frames and you get knocked back so if you get hit you can ricochet around like a pinball between enemies and hazards. Also an enemy might constantly swipe at you but cause you're slightly below or to the side of their horizontal or vertical strike they'll just stand there and keep swinging while you are safely attacking them.

Cutscene graphics are dated, but who cares? Great story, voice acting, and environment and gameplay. Music is atmospheric too.


Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is OK. I just started it. Its cons are it feels like Tomb Raider gameplay. So I'm moving along and if I need to look around I have to come to a full stop and then switch views to look around. Dated graphics are only bad when they hinder gameplay and I struggle to see which part of the environment is something I can interact with and what's just the game background. The controls are a bit demanding of precision.

But the concept and story is good. It's sort of fun to play.

Ever play Din's Curse?

Nope, but it's on my Steam wishlist now, thanks!

Path of Exile! Path of Exile!

This.

Yeah I beat it, the mine cart levels were a pain but not as hard as SNES, it's all just timing and routine. The end boss is actually the hardest part (without giving anything away) because if you get hit once as Diddy and end up as Donkey Kong, it's near impossible to make the jumps correctly.

Good game but the nagging feeling that the enemies should be Kremlins, or something that at least looks cooler, does take it down one star for me.

I'm not too big into hard trail and error challenges like VVVVV but I do like Fractured Soul, a lot. Which at first seems like you're regular plat-former with a twist until later levels. I always hook it up to my stereo because the soundtrack is so damn awesome.

WTF. I tried searching for this on Steam and all that shows up is the trailer, which I can't even watch because it's not available in my region. Anyone know how to trick Steam into thinking I'm back in the US?

Edit: Apparently this game is free? I'm downloading it from the Path of Exile website just fine.

Yeah, it's genuinely free-to-play (informally named "fair-to-play" to distinguish it from the usual FTP model). The only real-life currency you can expend is for cosmetic alterations for your character.

Also extra tabs for your stash, which is perhaps a bit of an advantage, but not that much, and once you buy em it's permanent across characters and whatnot. Pretty nifty.

Recently got back into Borderlands 2 after putting it off for about two years. It's pretty much better than the first one in every way except for the fucking absurdly cheap bullshit the game throws at you. I'm playing as a Siren, since seeing four different colors of damage fountaining out of enemies is a wonderful sight, and that makes certain parts of the game needlessly difficult if you're building the Cataclysm tree (like I am). My whole model is based on elemental damage, and then the game throws you into a place like Frostburn Canyon really early on where fucking everybody is resistant to fire, so every trick up your sleeve is completely worthless. It's not the biggest deal in the universe since you're obviously going to have some non-elemental guns lying around, but it's frustrating to have to go through areas dying every fifteen seconds purely because the build you're using is wholly ill-suited to a mandatory part of the game.

But really, my biggest problem is the enemy spamming. I mean, there's challenging level design, there's great enemy AI, there are lots of ways to make a game challenging, simply throwing dozens of enemies at me at once is just a cheap fucking way to add difficulty. The aforementioned Frostburn Canyon was utter horseshit with having five Nomads with flamethrowers completely covering my screen in fire and making it damn near impossible to get anything done, much less get that much needed second wind. I mean, I got through it by basically spending all my money on shitloads of ammo and using one of those guns that explodes when you reload. But really, it was the goddamned Caustic Caverns that almost caused me to ragequit today. Fuck Caustic Caverns. Fuck dying in a Varkid area and then having the eight larvals pod out into adults and badasses while I'm respawning, meaning good fucking luck getting through that again on the first try. Fuck fighting more than one Crystalisk at a time because if you get close enough to use a shotgun they just do that ground pound move to whoop you, and if you're far enough away they shoot those fucking stalactites that never fucking miss me. Fuck fighting fifteen Spiderants that all refuse to daze so you can never get a critical hit without Phaselocking. Fuck the goddamn fucking fuckfaced Wormhole Threshers that either A) Completely fuck up my plans of "fuck dying so often I'm just gonna run through here" or B) Suck me into the ocean of corrosive goo and doom me to a sticky death. Fuck how all of these enemies respawn for seemingly fifteen minutes at a time, and fuck dealing with every single one of those scenarios at the same fucking time. I died somewhere in the neighborhood of two trillion times there. I mean, I get that the game is trying to encourage me to play co-op, but that area more than any other just completely crossed the line into "fuck you, player" cheap spamming territory. None of the loot or quest rewards were even worth it. Fuck that area with dynamite.

And then when I tell my brother how much I struggled to get through that area, he just says "Oh, wait til you get to Sawtooth Cauldron. That one's not even optional". Jesus, good thing I like this game so much or I'd've just gotten frustrated enough to forget it again.

Dude... what. I'm bad at FPS, like, really bad, and never struggled at this game, like, ever. Git gud?

Not to mention, dying is of almost no consequence whatsoever.

Yeah I know dying only takes a paltry amount of money away from you but it's still unspeakably frustrating to have to do the same shit a bunch of times because of retarded spamming. And how the hell do you even get good at Borderlands anyway? If you build within one tree and use appropriate weapons/shields/mods, there's really no way to get better other than just, I dunno, not missing your shots? I breezed through the first game every time I went through it, but this one just keeps irritating the fuck out of me. Mostly just because of the sheer number of enemies it throws at you for such prolonged periods of time. It just turns it all into a chore that's not at all fun to play. I have a blast playing this game 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time I'm in the Caustic Caverns inventing new curse words.

The key for Borderlands 2 solo is to start picking the part of the skill tree that allows you to replenish health more quickly and whatever special attack you have that can let you ping multiple enemies. Crowd control becomes so important so quickly that those skills are mandatory. I played as the Siren, and I maxed out the tree that let me replenish health immediately when I launch my special.

Also Morrigan, that's not true. You lose a lot of fucking money when you die, and considering money is the only thing that matters in that game, is a pretty shitty way to penalize the player for failing to get second wind. Bastard, how do you like the second wind feature? Did you notice roughly half the time you bleed out, all of the enemies run away making it nearly impossible to get a kill? Oh, there goes $4,000! It's not like I needed that for a weapon or an upgrade! Yeah, that's especially my favorite uncharged part from the first game. I enjoyed Borderlands 2 quite a bit, but there is so much shit in that game that's fucked, and even more that wasn't improved at all.

Caustic Caverns really were not that hard for my commando...Sniper rifle takes out the life crystals on those giant crystal beasts while my turret and liberal dosing of child-spawn grenades polishes off everything else. Easy-peasey, yo.

And yeah, crowd control is key, which may be why commandos and their turrets tend to have a bit easier of a time.

You lose more money in 2 than in 1, sure, but it's still not enough to be a real hindrance to me. I like the Second Wind feature, it rarely completely screws you, and enemies trying to run away and not die is, I dunno, kinda the point?

The reason I went Cataclysm over Harmony or Motion was simply because a ludicrously high DPS is the way I powered through the first game and it's done well for me throughout most of this one as well apart from one or two problem areas where enemies are resistant to my elements. The fact that I haven't found a single shield with health regen (do they even exist in this one?) doesn't help, but I've been using one with ammo absorption for a long while now, which is super helpful since my main weapons right now are combat rifles and this one pistol with ludicrously high damage and accuracy, so I eat through ammo really quickly. The game isn't necessarily hard as much as it is just frustrating with how prolonged every segment is since the waves of enemies seem to only stop after you've finally succumbed to four hundred bullets to the face and killed the same set of enemies fifteen times. I obviously like it a lot but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't irritating me a lot at points.

Well, I'm impulsive and sell a lot of shit, so constantly dying and having second wind be a fucking joke of a feature is what really irked me. I don't feel like they've nailed the combat scenarios yet. If they're going down the path of having a ton'o enemies on screen, they need to go the Serious Sam route and make them all die in a handful of hits. Obviously keep all of the cool parameter-driven enemies, like you need to disable a shield to kill them, or something, but have them soak less damage. Everything just takes so fucking long.

The key for every class, at a certain point, is to build in a way to maximize your self-healing, or at least do so much DPS that you don't get hit much. Those caverns were kind of annoying, but mainly because there were a couple of varkid areas where it did seem like they spawned endlessly. But yeah at some point trying some sort of balanced build and playing cautiously just doesn't work too well.

What the.... money is important? What? Eridium is way more valuable than money. Especially if you pick up junk loot to sell every now and then, you'll never run out of money ever. Why would you even spend money on weapons when there's so much better loot to find in chests or as quest rewards anyway? I rarely buy guns from Marcus, only ammo, and that is also rare other than rocket launchers (since rockets are rare as loot), usually in-between Circle of Slaughter rounds. I never ran out of money, not once, across like 4 characters... I've played Zer0, Maya, Gaige, and a little bit of Salvadore (but abandoned him, he's not really my playstyle). And I tend to spend it very freely, like I'd often see a cool shield in "item of the day", buy it, then whoops, there's a better one in the normal items for sale, buy that one too. And I gamble it constantly at Moxxi's bar in the hope I'll get Eridium. I literally cannot wrap my head around what FasterDisaster is talking about. It's like he's playing Borderlands in Opposite Land.

Never had trouble in the Caustic Caverns either. In fact I just did that area with my friend recently, I don't think either of us died once. I've solo'd it with Gaige no problem, and Zer0 too even (while hunting for Vault Symbols it's how I found the Dark Souls and Minecraft easter eggs).

I'm starting to think you guys are somehow worse at this game than I am... and I really must insist at how bad I am at FPS. Do you not use your skills, or grenades, or stick to crappy pistols, or skip all the side-quests or... what? O_o

Losing money in Borderlands 2 is only annoying when you're hoarding it to complete challenges. I mean, until you start up a TVHM run where the vending machines stop being consistently worthless, the only place you can feasibly spend it is at the slot machines. That being said, it's annoying trying to save up to $1,000,000, and then having the game take $20,000 away from you every time you die, because if you get caught in a really shitty situation you can get drained pretty quickly. I feel like it'd be more fair if respawning had a set maximum price that scales by level. Once you owned, say, more than 1,000% of whatever that price was, it would remain a fixed amount, but the game would use percentages for any value below that.

Also, Caustic Caverns is irritating, but I wouldn't say it's especially difficult. I enjoy the various paths through the area, and the fact that it has some of the game's more interesting Easter eggs. Those crystalisks seem like they were meant to be incredibly tough opponents, but they're laughably weak if you have an even remotely melee-oriented build (I've only played the game as Zer0 and Krieg and both can mop the floor with them in seconds; my sister plays as a Commando and she seems to really struggle with them) - I'd honestly be more concerned about the various incarnations of Badass Varkids which sprout up there.

I always had more luck buying weapons, finding weapons or winning them on the gambling machines. Regardless, the simple fact for me is taking money as a penalty for death is an annoying system.

Awesome, dude! It's definitely low budget, but the concept is cool and the gameplay is pretty great.

For all the Skyrim players here, for how long did you play the game until it finally wore out on you?

233 hours. I'm looking at my steam list. If I was unable to mod it, I would never have bought it.

I wouldn't even say it's irritating; it's one of my favorite maps, second only to The Freezer. There are a lot of enemies, but so what? You can easily run past them, and if one group follows you into another area, the different types will fight each other. Getting through thresher areas is much easier if you get some adult varkids to follow you, since the threshers and varkids will just shoot at each other. Granted, I've played the game quite a bit, but I really don't understand how someone could be having that much trouble with the area, unless they 1) messed up their build pretty bad, 2) are underleveled, or 3) undergeared. Or I suppose 4), suck at FPS's in general, but I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt on that one.