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Video game thread.
I played return to moria this past two weeks. It's a survival crafting game. Gameplay wise it is fairly standard for the genre. The setting of middle earth is fun. I'm not a massive LOTR nerd, so I'm sure I missed some subtleties.
There are some mechanics that definitely make the game better suited for co-op. I played it alone and felt like I was missing out. Storage sizes always felt too small, there were legendary gear items that you could only carry one of, and you could be picked up upon death by a comrade if you had one. I eventually downloaded a mod to fix the first two issues. It expanded storage and allowed carrying multiple legendary items.
Progression happens entirely through gear. And gear drops on death. Corpse runs were not as brutal as I feared. The game seemed to handle agro and grave placement in a way that helped corpse runs.
Resource collecting was generally pretty standard but sometimes I'd find myself making fun little mining platforms to get higher.
The map is procedurally generated, but it's more like pre-made rooms that are stuck together in an odd assortment rather than fully new terrain each time.
Navigation was tricky with the map not helping much except to provide general directions. I ended memorizing a lot of tunnel layouts in order to get where I needed to go.
Replayability felt low. I didn't want to totally start from scratch after getting used to all my awesome gear. The next update is supposedly adding NPCs for bases, I'll probably replay the game when that comes out.
I've still mostly been playing Silksong. It is fantastic. It is a great followup to Hollow Knight, a great example of a sequel: more content with just enough of a new spin to keep things fresh while still staying true to all the things that made the first one great.
The thing that most confuses me is: why aren't more games like this? At this price point. It was made by 3 people. Yes, it took 7 years and probably re-used a lot of development assets from Hollow Knight but... why aren't more games like this? This level of quality to price ratio. Why can't more studios make similar games on similar budgets? You wouldn't need to charge $60 for your game if you only needed to pay 3 salaries. And on the other side, there are lots of cheap indie games that are crap in comparison. Why can't all of the 3 people studios produce games of this quality?
Obviously there's talent and inspiration and stuff that varies and this might just be an outlier of 3 geniuses who are disproportionately skilled at what they do. But what are they actually doing differently that all of the other indie studios haven't been doing?
Lucky thing for us is that Slay the Spire 2 and Hades 2 are going to come out this year too.
It does seem crazy that Silksong is $20, which seems to me like it is mainly a reflection of Team Cherry becoming fabulously wealthy (surely, right?) and not caring at all about money anymore.
Slay the Spire 2 got delayed. 😕
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