more on https://www.reddit.com/r/classicfallout/s/HU33zupBaw

Today’s game is Old School RuneScape. I was left with an urge to play today, so I booted it up and decided to focus on a task instead of my usual wandering.

My first idea was to do the quest where you kill the Vampire. Only. Problem. Turns out I’m far from a high enough level to pull it off. The guy is like level 20, and I’m level 6 (4 at the time of attempting it). So obviously I was gonna run into some issues.

I did the first thing I assumed I could do and went to killing things. I found this farm full of Goblins and just started mowing them down until I got low on healthy. Turns out the goblins are Semi comparable fighters. I went until I got to 2/10 health.

I then went on to try and slaughter some cows to gain experience. Because surely the cows won’t fight back. Plot twist, turns out they do and I got my ass kicked by them too after killing 4 of them. I didn’t have food so I’ll have to run into town.

Finally. After that I went to the pond in the main picture. I meant to kill some ducks, but they were just too harmless to kill I felt like so I left them be. I doubt they’d offer much EXP anyways. So I’ll just stick to healing and killing cows for now.

[DevLog] New Age Cartel — Solo Dev Project & Public Beta Soon!

Hey all! 👋

For the past couple of months, I’ve been hard at work solo-developing New Age Cartel—a modern PBBG / text-MMO designed with a slick, responsive UI, deep player-driven economy systems, and custom artwork.

Core features are coming together, and Public Beta testing will be opening soon! 🎉

Feature Highlights:

Central Dashboard: Real-time character stats, profile tracking, syndicate status, and daily login rewards.

Tiered Operations & Missions: Scale up from petty street jobs to high-tier syndicate operations with custom atmospheric art.

PvP & Rivalries: Target lists, stat-driven combat calculations, player contracts, and live rival battles.

Underworld Training: Upgrade facilities from underground rings to private compounds to boost Strength, Guard, Agility, and Precision.

In-Game Stock Market: Dynamic market charts, corporate ticker tracking, and interactive investment portfolios.

What to Expect in the Beta

Looking for active feedback to polish things before the full release:

Balance & Economy: Testing progression pacing, combat formulas, and market balancing.

Multiplayer Systems: Testing group mechanics, territory battles, and community features under load.

QoL & Player Feedback: Ironing out UI flow, catching edge-case bugs, and taking feature requests.

If you enjoy modern browser games and text-based RPGs, keep an eye out for the testing link dropping soon. Would love to hear your initial thoughts or questions below!

Ew, not like Fortnite, I mean like indie launchers

Today's game is some more Control. I was playing around with Aspect Ratios trying to see if I could get some interesting ones to work with in Photo mode. Unfortunately the highest 4:3 the game supports is 1600x1200 I could use gamescope to jump up to 8K 4:3, but that was lagging my game even if I dropped the resolution majorly. I decided to just have my fun with 1600x1200 and then stick to 16:9.

I also figured out how to get a good balance of Resolution w/ Raytracing. I capped it at 30 FPS. But a stable 30 FPS is more than tolerable for me, so I'm more than happy sticking to that.

My first thought was "Damn, these are some amazing Reflections". My second thought was "Damn, somethings are a little fuzzy". Still, not too bad as far as I'm concerned, especially getting to see those amazing reflections on windows and stuff. It brings it really high up in quality.

The Physics simulation is pretty too with all the shattering glass. I spent a little while trying to get a good shot with the glass and I got this one which I rather like.

Anyways, enough about graphics. Let's talk about Ahti. I love the guy. Genuinely he might be one of my favorite characters to come out of a Remedy game. Something about this Janitor with an air of mystery and power is just so fucking cool. Plus his role in Alan Wake 2 is even cooler. I just hope he doesn't get too tied up in everything to the point it starts being like marvel movies where you need to watch another franchise to understand the other. Granted, for that I think we'd need like a "Ahti the Video Game" or something like that, so maybe I shouldn't be too worried.

I made it to the research department and got sidetracked playing with the camera mode before my time for the day was up. I'm hooked on playing this again so I'll definitely be playing some more tomorrow because I missed this game.

Nintendo is so proud of the feature that it even included a little C button right on your Joy-Con (which was a point of excited speculation before the reveal) so you can jump into Game Chat whenever you like.

Unfortunately, it also tried to bury the fact that this Game Chat feature will actually require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription once the free trial period ends on March 31, 2026.

Now, you may be wondering what the button does if you don't have a subscription? Thankfully, Nintendo's vice president of player and product experience, Bill Trinen, was interviewed by Polygon on that very same topic. Trinen explains that the button will let you "find out about the NSO subscription there and get a sense of some of the functionality." It's basically a button that asks you to pay up.

It's basically a button that asks you to pay up

We've gotten to the point where button functions are microtransactions....

This is why I emulate games and just use Linux

The games will vary in obscurity, but I promise each would have had a North American release.

Please refrain from using reverse image search.

I’ll provide an answer if unsolved in 8 hours.

Can you guess the game ?

This is a small interview (by my usual standards!) with Jiayu, a girl in China who runs MagiGamer, a business she started making custom buttons and controls for various gaming handhelds. Tech, but with a custom twist :)

She makes buttons for Nintendo Switch, 3DS & DS handhelds, the Steam Deck and her recent favorite: AYN's Thor (as well as the Odin 3)

I chatted to her a bit for some quotes to use in my AYN Thor article I shared here yesterday, but this is the full chat, only because I love the work she does and how she gives people an option to truly make a console unique for everyone

There's plenty of behind the scenes pictures of the effort she goes to, and detailed pictures of the handhelds with her buttons installed. I thought this was a fun little one to share, hopefully you like it too!

Today's game is Control. I've been wanting to pick this up and play it again for quite some time. I decided now was the perfect time for a second playthrough (along with finishing the DLCs).

I will admite i've spent quite a lot of time finagling the graphics though. I really wanted to try it with Raytracing as i hear it's awesome with that and wanted to judge for myself. Unfortunately my RX 7600 XT just doesn't seem up to the task unless i drop the scaling down low, and even then i still only get like 30 FPS at 720p and it's all a messy smear. So not really worth it for me all just for some extra pretty rays.

I love getting into Remedy's games too, and finding these references and inside jokes. For example The Neighbor of The Beast like right out of the gate. It reminds me of the logic behind noticing certain numbers as a pattern in real life, only hear it's intentional. Almost like it's the game gaslighting you if that makes sense.

Playing this is making me really miss Alan Wake 2's Photomode as well. It was just a natural evolution. Here the controls are a lot less fine, such as the major F-Stops being like 0,5 > 0.7 > 1.0 > 4.0 > 5.7 > 8 > 16. I would love to have a F11 there. Legit love to default to that because 11 is such a nice number. There's also just a lot less fine tuning for color grading and such.

I remember the game being short, so i got the the Telephone and decided that was a perfect point to stop for today. Especially because i gave the game another hour of play time than i should messing with Graphics and RT/FSR

I’ve just published a different kind of AYN Thor Lite feature, looking at why the lowest-spec Thor makes more sense in 2026 than it might have at launch. Back when this all started, AYN sent me the Thor Pro for review which clearly I loved and reviewed to high heavens, but I thought that with how things are at the moment (current cost-of-living conditions, the RAM crisis making prices skyrocket), the very base model makes more sense than ever. Mostly because the community surrounding the Thor has just grown and grown and grown, the things developers and makers have created are just incredible.

For any who don't know, the AYN Thor is a dual screen retro gaming handheld, which is first and foremost an amazing way to emulate 3DS games, especially with the cost of original systems rising so much these last few years!

So instead of the whole specs and performance angle, I wanted to look at what has grown up around the hardware, and I was lucky enough to speak to, interview and quote a whole bunch of the people making it happen, some of them friends and some of them just so lovely to want to chat with me:

• Moth (lead developer of Cocoon)
• Nathan (lead developer of iiSU)
• PlayTranslate's developer
• Camille LaVey (lead developer/creator of Eden)
• MithrilMods (behind amazing magnetic buttons/d-pads/grips on etsy)
• Kitsabble Creations (who created Pokémon-themed decal front skins for the AYN Thors, also on etsy)
• MagiGamer (whose custom-made buttons are the prettiest damn thing ever made)

Plus a few other community creators and accessory makers.

(Jiayu, one of the replacement button creators I chat to in this article, and her work!)

(as is tradition, my cat and my handheld of focus for the article)

I talked to them all about the software ecosystem, dual-screen development, Japanese games and translation, emulation on the Snapdragon 865, custom grips and controls, handmade buttons, skins, and all the other ways people have taken AYN's hardware and made it their own. My focus for this whole article was how AYN released a near-perfect handheld, but the community around it has now taken it and run with it.

I hope some in here enjoy this, at least to hear from some of the people behind the programs and projects you might know and love :)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50669045

Well this is beyond absurd.

HDMod is a Spelunky 2 mod that lets you play through the roguelike platforming adventure of Spelunky HD. All of the original areas, entities, art and music have been lovingly remade with Spelunky 2's style and heightened intensity, including the secret hard ending with the face-off against King Yama! Relive HD's prologue, shortcut, and journal experience through a new story taking place on Earth after the events of Spelunky 2. Continue to challenge yourself with a brand-new post-game achievement system!

Mod page: https://spelunky.fyi/mods/m/hdmod/

Love me some spelunky

I've tried to find Japanese horror games from the PS2 era that has this same feel, but I can't :(

Some quick facts:

The VAs for Siren were British, so every Japanese person had a posh accent and didn't pronounce Japanese words so well

Siren 2's main setting, Yamijima Island, was inspired by an actual Japanese Island, Hashima island. The Island was an industrial hub for coal mining and was known for forced labor involving Korean and Chinese slaves.

Both games used facial scans from multiple angles to create the uncanny, and horrifying, expressions of the various protagonists and enemies

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/69345860

The games will vary in obscurity, but I promise each would have had a North American release.

Please refrain from using reverse image search.

I’ll provide an answer if unsolved in 8 hours.

Can you guess the game ?

Today's game is Assassin's Creed Revelations. I sat down and just played through the DLC in one sitting (and 100% the rest of the game, i'm not gonna talk about that though because it was nothing special). The DLC was honestly nice. The best way i could describe it is a Walking sim with a little Parkour and Puzzle mechanics. I know it doesn't sound exciting, but after back to back combat with AC, it was a nice break to have. Plus the landscapes in it were gorgeous sometimes.

I did get trouble with one achievement which gave me one of the biggest struggles i think i have with one in recent memory. The thing was giving me a headache so i just went ahead and used a glitch to do it. I love performing glitches like that in games so honestly no value lost for me. Still though, after an hour i was honestly considering throwing in the towel for 100% just because of that.

The whole tragedy of Clay was really sad too. Like, the base game made me feel for him, but getting to see his rough upbringing and the way he died, it sucks. Being forced into the Animus until you go insane and die is a horrible way to go if you ask me. And the fact Lucy was supposed to help him and just didn't.

After this i don't think i'll go straight to AC3. I have played 4 Assassin's Creed games Back to Back. AC3 i plan on just picking up where i left off, so it won't be too bad, but still. I really would like to try something new between the games. Maybe i'll do Myst. Playing this really left me wanting to play Myst.

A grand strategy RTS in the style of Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation. The game features strategic zoom, a streaming economy, and a sense of scale that's hard to match. The game is set on the outside of a Dyson sphere, and includes map-altering events like freezing and thawing of oceans, and dropping orbital mirrors to destroy the underlying terrrain.

They're well into development now and have released a playable demo as part of their Kickstarter campaign, so if this sounds up your alley go play the demo on Steam, and if you like what you see then consider backing the project on Kickstarter to help continue development! There are a few days left to unlock the last few stretch goals!

Personally I've been waiting for a game like this since Forged Alliance came out in like 2011. I've had a lot of fun with the survival mode in the demo in particular.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/69314422

(This isn't about co-op with 4 friends games like PEAK or RV There Yet, Borderlands or Magicka)

Stage 1 - purely individualistic games

In many games - COD comes to mind - you can just bust into a room and solo everyone. That's individualistic gameplay, where other players are merely pedestrians in a saga where you are the main character.

Stage 2 - shallow teamwork

Then there's games that have " teamwork " that boils down to pressing E to heal or revive someone - Battlefield or the tank/healer duo in MMOs. The only reason you're interacting with another player is because there is no alternative. If an ammo guy doesn't drop the ammo box for you - you run out of bullets, can't shoot and die as a result.

Left 4 Dead, Borderlands, Deep Rock Galactic or Helldivers (?) come to mind. The teamwork happens in a sterile game loop.

Stage 3 - deep teamwork

Then there are games where you technically can go at it alone, but due to the way the game is structured it's perhaps not the wisest choice. I notice that those games have a little more natural voice chat usage than in the current quiet zeitgeist. Also your opponents might be a pre-organized group of friends more often, since it's easier to coordinate playing than with randoms.

Examples of deep teamwork games

Rematch

Rematch is an online football (the European one) game. Instead of the usual FIFA-style bird's eye view, you control just a single player on the field from a third person perspective. It's also much more arcade-y. It has 1v1, 3v3 and 5v5 matches.

In this game yeah you could theoretically try to dribble past every defender like a main character prime Messi, but this is the exact type of person people complain about on the game's forums - "WHY DON'T THEY JUST PASS THE BALL". When I pass the ball, I think how do I pass it so it's most comfortable for the receiver - how long do I hold the pass button to get it just right? Pretty rarely people will actually use the built-in voice chat feature and it's pretty satisfying (when they're not thrash talking) since you're actually working with another human.

Holdfast (ship mode)

This is like Sea of Thieves but the round takes like 20 minutes. Two factions' ships spawn on a map. A bunch of randoms form a team each ship. There's a captain, gunners and repairmen. People larp and use voice chat a lot.

In the normal game mode some clans do the whole napoleonic wars thing and form up lines to shoot muskets. There's an Officer role that can point where a line should form and people standing inside that "line blueprint" laid down by them get a boost to fire rate as an incentive to work together.

Foxhole

Foxhole is a 3D isometric(?) third person perspective shooter. There's a persistent war between two factions that normally lasts ~20 real life days. When you spawn, you can equip rifles, ammo, uniforms but also materials to repair and construct bases etc. All of those items are made by players. There's a player that gathers the resources, then the same person could refine them into actual e.g. rifles, and then there's another player who will take the rifle crates from the backlines to the frontline base. It's a bit like EVE Online due to the player-based economy and persistence, just that Foxhole wars actually end.

This game has the absolute highest percentage of players using voice chat I've seen in a game. Foxhole's intro screen you see on every launch tells you "you are a cog in a machine". It's deliberately janky and set up so you can't be individualistic:

• medics can't heal themselves - either find another medic or voice chat to a player, tell him you'll drop your medkit and if he can heal you
• if you're bleeding you can patch yourself up, but it's 10x less resource efficient than if another medic does it to you
• some demolition items come in two parts - the explosive and the detonator. You need to have another player who will help you carry the other one
• artillery requires a gunner, a loader and sometimes a spotter. A gunner can go at it alone but it's annoyingly slow
• veteran players often stand at spawn and rally other (random) players to join them. This is often a "sticky rush" where a blob of players grabs a few anti tank granades and sprints at a tank to kill it (yes you die, but a tank is much more valuable than your worthless life). It's possible to do a solo sticky rush, but it's rarely effective

There's lots of big clans, but it's OK to play solo. The devs also have a similar game - Anvil Empires - set in a medieval setting. This is an "MMOFPS" like Planetside 2. There aren't many of those because shooters require good latency, and the "massive" part of "MMO" works agains that.

Summary

Any other games like this? I fear that those games are "one of a kind", because there's no real alternative to Foxhole or Rematch.
In today's individualistic world, what other games are there?

• Space Station 13 fits the bill pretty well, despite no voice chat. Barotrauma is similar, maybe
• I guess someone will recommend the milsim shooters like Squad, Squad 44, Arma (Reforger) though I fear it's not as deep or organic (i.e. you need to be in a clan).
• MOBAs like Dota 2 can come to mind but I feel it lacks depth in that aspect - the teamwork is diluted down to the skills your hero has.
• "Over The Top WWI" has a nice trench engineering aspect but I refunded it because the godmode Battlefront-style call-ins were too annoying (and individualistic to the "god"), plus you die too fast to make a friend.
• There's a game called Eco, it's similar to Minecraft but each player has a profession and I think the players "need eachother" to fulfil each other's needs
• Planetside 2 was great back in the day but it's too COD-like - why have a medic if you can just self-heal all the time?
• Star Wars Galaxies also seemed like it used to have a real player economy - it's still alive on private servers but feels dated.
• I like how Arc Raiders has a social component (the "don't shoot"). Rust and Sub Rosa similarly. But it's not really it.