As in will not have it at all? Or will be added later?
(Not that I have ever played it cooperatively–not the kind of game my partner enjoys.)
Nothing there now, nothing about it yet mentioned.
It would otherwise definitely be something I’d buy to play with my son.
Edit: someone just said it was mentioned “in a stream” as something they considered but couldn’t see any way of doing. So it’s definitely been written off as an option.
1 Like
There was a Reddit AMA thread a couple of weeks ago where this was asked to the developers: link, it’s about the fourth question down.
The response makes it sound like it’s not something they even thought about during development, and ends with “Still, it could be something that is considered for the future I suppose. Not everything is set in stone.”
Edit to add: of course, it is possible that they have looked at it in the past two weeks and now concluded that it isn’t possible. Although that would seem like a rapid turnaround for a small team.
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I bought a Steam Deck a couple weeks ago, so finally have a way to play PC games again after my last PC caught fire (literally! although the flames were very small and quick before it burnt out immediately)
I played through Baby Steps and have been taking a crack at Skin Deep.
Baby Steps was wild. Very difficult physics-based walking simulation(?) where you move one foot at a time to climb a series of obstacles up a semi-open mountain. The narrative framing of a depressed man-child surrounded by surreal slapstick characters was really fun and weird. Not to everyone’s taste but I had a great time with it.
Skin Deep is a new Blendo Games production, with some of their signature blocky characters, but more developed than their other titles that I’ve played. It’s very immersive sim, where you’re breaking into captured spaceships to free imprisoned cats. Reminds me a lot of Heat Signature, which I didn’t really get on with, but seems like it has a more traditional narrative structure which might work better for me. Looking forward to understanding it more; at the moment I can’t quite tell what methods there are for dealing with or avoiding guards beyond combat.
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The only thing I regret about buying a Steam Deck was not doing it a year earlier when I first considered it.
It is a great machine and having the Steam catalogue (and PC pricing) plus Epic games, GoG, Xbox game pass, Geforce Now, emulators for old console games and whatever makes it super interesting and exciting.
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I have finally made it to the top of the Spire for the 3rd time. The first two were somewhat quick but I have now unlocked so many cards for the Silent that it is harder to build a focussed deck.
This one was really neat: based on the new “Sly” attribute that plays a card when it is discarded. Combined with cards that draw and discard cards and a Power that gave any skill “Sly” after being played once, I added in some free attacks, lots of poison because poison cards are Skills and I got a fun kind of “endless draw discard” combo going where I was able to play through my full deck in a turn more or less while accumulating defense and poison. The deck was really small, too. I was only missing my favorite new card “Shadow Step” which discards your hand to have attacks deal double damage next turn (this one works really well with a shiv based approach, too)
PS Sly is one of the new additions in StS2 that I am still learning how to utilize. I think this was the first time I got it working.
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The Opus Magnum port on Switch is a mess!
Like, it’s all functional and the game underneath is still as good as ever but:
- the text is so small! There’s a lot of empty screen and all the dialogue is in the smallest space possible
- the controls are very odd, where buttons behave differently in different contexts which makes the very unintuitive. I’m sure I’ll get used to them but it would be much easier if there was any touchscreen or pointer support
- there’s no help for half the controls!! I had to figure out that I could move the camera with the right stick, that I could undo/redo by clicking the sticks, and even for the controls that are explained during the tutorial they consistently tell you them one lesson after you had to use them to progress? Seems totally unplaytested
- It seems like there might be some bugs related to placing gizmos, but honestly that might still be me missing context cues for eg whether something is held or placed. Feels like they refused to change any of the interface from the pc version apart from some tweaks to command placement
The game is good! But it’s just weird how much the port fails in various UX ways. Could definitely have done with more testing or just a stronger vision for how to translate it onto a handheld/controller.
2 Likes
I found the same with the DS port of Myst. Technically it ran, but it was pretty much unplayable because there seemed to have been no effort made with the UX.
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I finally made it to the top with the Necrobinder
It took me quite a few runs to find a combo that worked.
The key to this was a shop artifact called “Chemical X” that adds +2 to X for any cards with an X cost. I don’t remember if I have ever played any combo that relied on X cards before. X cards can be played with X=0 (+2)
The most important card in that combo was Dirge which has (in the upgraded form) has Summon 4 X and add X Soul+ Cards to your deck. Souls are 0-cost cards that draw more cards.
(Also Volley which does 10 damage to a random enemy X times). Summon ads HP to Osty who tanks and can deal damage based on HP through Unleash (starter)
Along with the Automation power (colorless) which gives energy for every 10 cards drawn, Invoke which gives 2 energy next turn and the Haunt power which deals damage when Souls are played plus Death March which deals damage based on the number of cards drawn in a turn… and Graveblast which fetches cards back from the graveyard… good times 
Overall the deck was too big in the end and I was unable to get rid of the curses I drew from events and the starter cards (the Defends should not be there when I have 2 Grave Warden and 2 Negative Pulse). But the Souls provide such generous card draw that in the end it didn’t really matter.
Cards I didn’t actually need in the combo:
- Putrefy (debuffs)
- Calcify (helpful for attacks for Osty but the main damage usually comes from Unleash)
- Instead of Negative Pulse (Defend + Doom) it would probably have been better to have more Grave Warden (Defend + Soul)
- Oblivion (Doom per card played)
Helpful: cards that have 0 cost to save up for the X cards.
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I have terrible news for you all, the new Vampire Crawlers is really, really good.
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Honestly, all the Slay the Spire folks are probably going to love this.
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Maybe, but I am still busy with Slay the Spire 2 
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Opus Magnum’s switch edition has been receiving some updates. It’s now far less buggy and the timeline isn’t broken any more. I had picked it back up a while ago but ran into an issue where it would crash every time you create gold by combining lower elements. This made the “create gold by combining lower elements” level impossible so acted as a hard stop on progress.
However, that also got fixed, and I have now beaten the main story. Except that in the first post-game level there’s another hard-lock bug where you can’t move the little element portals and place them in 2 out of the 3 sections? There’s also a tutorial box that pops up and is definitely supposed to explain something but is missing all the text!
Still surprised at how much of this got into the release, and I have no clue where I could report any issues…
However, with the main story complete I’ve started the DLC campaign, which is exciting. Not sure what’s coming up but hopefully some interesting new concepts.
3 Likes
I’ve been playing a ton of Lost Flame, which plays and feels a lot like a turn-based Dark Souls.
You arrive on the shore of a bleak land where everything is trying to kill you. Eventually you find a place where you can light a pyre, and in doing so you travel via the pyre to another, where you meet four people who seem conscious. From there, you begin to piece together what this world is and was, and how you fit in it.
Aside from the story, a real highlight is how combat works. The very first “boss” fight is against this guy, while you still have only your iron shortsword:
Here you can see yourself, the little helmeted guy in the middle, about to get hit by a big sweep of the giant’s club. Fortunately, he’s really slow and has been telegraphing this swing for about two turns already, so you can just step out of the way.
With a shortsword, your attacks are actually marginally faster than one turn, and all timings are quite granular like this. While relatively unburdened, you can lunge, stepping one tile and hitting a tile beyond it, strike and step back, tumble two tiles, and parry, all of which require stamina, and the last two have cooldown timers. Parry is pretty cool - if someone tries to hit you in melee immediately after you activate it, you don’t take damage and they do, and if multiple someones try to hit you, they also all get stunned, but if you mess up the timing, instead you get stunned (representing being badly off-balance, I guess). Other weapons have different movesets, and although the focus is very much on melee combat, you can also find items and weapons for ranged combat, and learn waxmancy, carnomancy, and witchcraft.
The first game you play you get a kind of play-forward death reprieve: you rewind time to the last time you lit a pyre, and you and your items become cursed. Some curses actually make you stronger, while others make you a lot more vulnerable. If you don’t get those curses removed, you’ll slowly accumulate more. Anyway, that’s the “forgiving” way to explore and learn about the world, but if you ever find yourself stumped you can start any future game where you have no such reprieve, and death is final, and this is of course the way I prefer to play. I’ve died about 20 times, and discovered 4 different endings, all of which felt very suitable for the world, and made me want to discover others.
Highly recommended for roguelikers, and even for people that don’t normally play such games but are intrigued by the description.
Another early boss fight.
EDIT: Also, the Steam shop video is the lone developer earnestly explaining his game for 1 minute. Apparently took him 8 years.
8 Likes
The new expansion for Diablo 4 is out, and the game is finally where it should have been at launch. Detailed tech trees, new classes and the story is epic.
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Picked up saros last weekend and it’s pretty great. The story is giving strong Cthulhu vibes and the gameplay is exactly what you’d want. The addition of a progression system and level select makes the game sooo much more accessible than returnal.
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But I really liked the inaccessibility of Returnal!
I appreciate they couldn’t really replicate that for a sequel, but I am worried that it undoes a lot of what I liked about Returnal. Anyway, will have to wait for a PC port, and then probably longer for a sale =P
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It is still extremely hard (although it sounds like you’re better at these games than I am), I’ve died around 27 times each run lasts about 20 mins when going straight to your level or you can do a run from the start which feels more returnal and is certainly longer. The systems on systems of upgrades I haven’t fully grasped yet but overall I feel like I’m making progress every time even if the RNG screws me over.
I would compare the change to be closer to hades 2 vs hades 1. Rather than a complete overhaul.
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I finally finished Clair Obscur Expedition 33 which is a good or great game, not exactly sure. I love the atmosphere, looks and soundtrack. The battle system was fun starting in act 3 because you could finally do really interesting stuff and I explored the whole world and did almost everything just to find out that I was seriously overleveled for the endgame. That felt weird. I thought I should do all or most of the optional things to get ready for the final boss because I found some optional bosses who beat my lvl98 ass. But the last level is more for lvl50. It was a bit of a letdown, the much hyped up final boss was beaten in one turn but couldn’t die because for plot reasons they had to do two turns minimum. So I waited for this boss at 1% invincible to do his turns before I could finish them off.
I wish I had known that.
Afterwards I started Mechwarrior 5: Clans and this seems a fun Mechwarrior game, better than the one before where enemies just spawned in your back which destroyed the immersion. I wish I had a joystick to play it but I am not buying one just for this game. But I have very fond memories of playing Mechwarrior 4 with my Microsoft Sidewinder joystick and how awesome it felt.
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I’ve been playing a lot of Hades II since its console release. I’m not sure there’s much to say other than it very much feels like (much) more Hades, and that’s a good thing.
I’ve just manged to clear all the Vow of Rivals fights for the first time. Still plenty to do, although I might be ready for a break once I’ve got the last Night’s Champion reward and defeated Zagreus.
2 Likes