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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3241 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 30, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video Game thread! What are you playing?

I've been replaying Terraria, this time with a bunch of friends and some light mods. It's a blast. We got five people on at once one time, and we may be able to do six this weekend. A great game for curling up by the fire while it's snowing and just gaming all day with friends on.

...

That's a shame. It seemed promising at first. Thanks for the ping!

The Planet Crafter - Toxicity DLC. Basically an Open World Survival Craft game with a terraforming flavour.

Also Cast 'n Chill fishing game.

Finally TR-49 for a Return of the Obra Dinn style mystery.

I've done a couple Planet Crafter runs but find that they stop being interesting to me right around the point that I no longer need to worry about oxygen.

Up to then it's a race against time for stability; once stability is gained it just becomes a matter of wandering back and forth over the landscape looking for the story-related stuff you didn't find/tag earlier.

Needs monsters. Devs have said no monsters ever.

Also the DNA/creature-gen system is vastly more complex and onerous than it is interesting, which IMO is a bad dynamic.

I'll complain generally that the whole "You are indebted/convicted and must work your way out of this situation for an evil corporation that has the deck stacked against you" is a tremendously-overused trope at this point. Can't we just be pioneers motivated by our own enterprise? Please?

Still, I have ~150 hours in that game so it must be doing something right.

Yeah, I find it becomes too grindy in a way once you need to start mass production of vegetables to start cranking out Biolab recipes. Still, I keep playing it and just bought the new DLC (sigh).

If you like the genre, consider Survival:Fountain of Youth, which is kind of a combination of Green Hell/The Long Dark. You're a 16th century Conquistador trying to find the fabled fountain.

Its got its flaws, but at least has 'monsters' in the form of rabid animals. Combat can be a bit clunky, but finally progressing to the point of getting a high end crossbow is very satisfying.

All of those are on my shortlist for what to try next. Please recommend more games lol.

I just started Inscryption (it was between that and Planet Crafter) and have enjoyed the first few hours.

Instant-classic games I played in ~the last year that I must insist anybody even slightly like-minded try:

If you like those, try The Forgotten City (Outer Wilds style Groundhog Day), Dredge (Cthuluesqe 'fishing' simulator) and The Painscreek Killings (Murder(s) investigation).

Dredge and Forgotten City are also on my the shortlist. Hadn't heard of Painscreek Killings 🙏

Re: Blue Prince I intentionally went in without having read anything, on the strength of the praise I saw for the game, and think that was a mistake.

I have no idea what's going on and it takes a lot of time and gets old fast.

"Just note down the clues in the rooms", people say. Yeah, well, every room is stacked floor to ceiling with numerous improbable decorative items which hint at significance. Which ones are clues?

idk. Everyone else loves it. I must be the one who's wrong. But I didn't find it fun or interesting at all.

I got to the first ending of Blue Prince (there are apparently a couple more), then the RNG dependence got to be too much. Once you need three or four checks to all pass within a single run just to check a theory, not necessarily to progress, it becomes a slog.

I've been playing various Portal [2] mods. Portal with RTX, Portal: Prelude with RTX, Portal: Revolution (no RTX).

Observation 1: RTX is cool, but not fundamentally changing my experience.

Observation 2: The games run like shit without DLSS, and DLSS actually looks very good in Portal, where there's no foliage or NPCs.

Observation 3: Portal: Prelude is crap. It's all about careful portal placement to get that final 1mm of extra fling distance.

Observation 4: Portal: Revolution is too much like Portal 2. Which is not a bad thing, really.

Observation 5: I'm not thinking about solving 3D puzzles the same way I'm thinking about everything else. Cue "virgin internal monologue vs chad cerebration" meme. When I'm doing my daily cluesbysam puzzle, I talk to myself when I get stuck. When I'm playing something like Portal, or Talos Principle, or QUBE, my head is completely silent.

Have killed the third and final Chosen in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. Now back to the main storyline.

I'm looking forward to Menace launching on the 5th of Feb. Finally a game that scratches that XCOM itch, while expanding the scope from 6 dudes fighting an entire alien army by themselves to... 40 dudes doing the same thing. Scale counts.

Maybe you and @FtttG should play together. Would be fun to have a motte gaming group again.

Recently started a Running With Rifles campaign with a bunch of friends. It's great for drop in/drop out play.

Sounds interesting. What is it?

It's a vaguely cartoony, multiplayer WWII simulator where each person plays the role of a single soldier in large engagements. You die a lot, and the game has a fairly unique system of deciding whether you're dead. It's mostly coded by one guy

Getting my Factorio fix from Arknights: Endfield (F2P only, naturally).

Factorio itself is a bit too high maintenance for me.

Hey, another person getting into Endfield! Enjoying it a lot so far, though I'm still in the honeymoon period, before the gacha system starts putting the squeeze on progression ressources, and before the game settles into a daily grind.

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