Text adventures. It's not out yet, but I've been following the development of taustation which will be an in-browser space adventure using text as a medium to tell the story. It is multiplayer of course. There are a few games like this within a fantasy setting, but none Scifi that I've seen. The team does bi-monthly blog post updates going over everything from in game lore to artwork to code testing and architecture. The games creator and lead is an expert in the Perl community and wrote one of the best programming books in my rather large collection. So not doing a huge amount of playing at the moment, but eagerly anticipating. Check it out:
Any other text-based games you'd care to recommend? I'm a fan of Counterfeit Monkey, Spider and Web, and a few particularly good Choice of Games games, like Lost Heir and Choice of the Deathless.
Sounds like you're in the know! Andrew Plotkin(spider and web guy) did one for Linux/iOS/Android recently called Hadean Lands that got good reviews. I'm a big fan of most of Emily Short's work (Bronze was good if you like Beauty and the Beast with a bizarre plot line). I also really really liked City of Secrets as the storyline was riveting although I did get stuck at one point and can't find a good walkthrough. Alabaster to me was a beautiful & short work of art. Good stuff.
I used to play Rimworld, then I realized I dislike sandbox games for the same reason I hate MMOs, MUDs and the 'roguelike' T.O.M.E. Huge time wasters. Rimworld is barely even a survival game. I mean it doesn't even display how many days your food will last!
I generally like my games short and tight:
Online FPS games come in 20 minute chunks.
Catacomb Kids is a splendid Early Access roguelike platformer, similar to Spelunky but much harder and terrain is generally indestructible. The amount of item and dungeon feature interactions is crazy, and the game is notable for having smart humanoids as its most dangerous enemies. They chase, keep distance if you have a longer weapon, run away and bring reinforcements when badly wounded, or escape to the next level. It may look like a brutally hard arcade game at first, but your success chance dramatically improves with planning ahead.
I also play many board games. Board games are funny because good games are played for decades, unlike Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Heroes of Might and Magic II, or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. They are also extremely modding friendly, and it's trivial to write a patch (it's called "house rules" and it's widely used). Board games have the sense of community like in old FPS games that had multiplayer based on dedicated servers. You don't get people randomly disconnecting. Also, one copy of a game is enough for several people. Board games also have the advantage that they are more about mechanics. I mean Quake and Unreal Tournament is basically the same game. Heroes of Might and Magic III would be called an expansion pack to HOMM2 if it was a board game. People play the games that are most fun, not ones that look best or have best action figures.
Flatmate bought a switch and we've been playing quite a bit of Mario Kart 8. It's just nice to play a game that you don't need to get 'in the zone' to enjoy. The switch controller setup is really good too.
It's really hard to get "good" (I've played on and off for 2-3 years and still don't feel competent!) but the matchmaking is good enough that you win about 50% of games.
I like that it's 1v1, so when you win or lose, it's usually completely your own doing.
I also like that you pay once and are on a level playing field with everyone else. All of the in-game purchases are purely cosmetic. I played Hearthstone for quite a while but eventually totaled up the amount I spent on it and promptly quit!
I played Factorio for a while, but at some point becomes as complex as coding, when I reach that point I say "well, I can just work, get paid for it, and get same amount of fun", so I always drop around that.
Kerbal Space Program is by far the one I spent more time in, probably around 1000 hours.
Dark souls was one of my favourite (1st and 3rd), spent a lot of hours there too.
I'm also playing a lot of board games lately, not sure if they count!
I'm always looking for cool new games, I'm really picky.
Oh I almost forgot! XCOM and Invisible Inc, both great!
Guild Wars 2: Free to play, no subscription if you play for the game, and plenty of "things to do." The game revolves around story lines and open world events. What I like is that I can pop on and just do something and then pop off without feeling like I have to get my money's worth every month. Sometimes, it's nice to fell like I've managed to complete something (when it doesn't feel like it at work).
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Admittedly, part of that's because I'm messing around with different quest/dungeon orders and NPC interactions, but damn, that game can keep you playing for hundreds of hours if you let it.
Maybe I'll stop when that rumoured Mario & Luigi remake comes out. If not, probably when Super Mario Odyssey is released.
League of Legends is my jam, I love the split second mechanical strategy that has me constantly trying to outsmart my opponents. Example: I cant cast my ultimate ability in a team fight until two specific opposing champions use their interrupt abilities. Opponents building Magic Penetration items? Magic Resist items won't help me, time to build straight health items.
The other game I play is Battlefield 1942. I've been playing that game since 2002 and there are a number of communities keeping the online scene alive even though Gamespy shut down their master server browser.
I was playing Rocket League while trying to get into other games (Cities: Skylines, Rome: Total War) but I would always fall back to Rocket League. I was also playing Diablo 3 for awhile but just get bored. I start just about every season but quit shortly after I start. Currently I'm not playing anything because my desktop died in my move :(
Just completed Witcher 3 at almost 270 hours. It was an amazing experience and comes highly recommended. Started The Last of Us (ps4) now, and so far it's been very good as well. Skipped FF15 after playing half an hour (used to be a huge FF fan, but they ended on 9 for me).
For online multiplayer I like playing mindless games like Halo or DOOM4. For single player... I struggle to think of the last good campaign I played, probably Hitman Absolution because it felt like a movie whilst also having entertaining gameplay.
I had the original Witcher 3 on my XBox360, with no DLC. I just started playing Witcher 3 Complete Edition on my PS4. Currently level 5 and really enjoying it. I get maybe 6 hours a week to play, so it will take a while, which is fine with me.
When I bought my new game laptop I was playing Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and on Linux I use to play rouge-like game ToME, I've also play Adom but I was cheating by copy the whole game directory to restore the game when I was killed.
Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes on mobile. It's fun and able to passively play and progress in the game. Biggest plus is the game mechanics in the game, they constantly improve things. I've been playing for about 18 months.
After an exhausting day of swimming in the current of JIRA issues, bugs, pull requests, server logs, and such, Overwatch gives me a dose of pure fun and excitement!
It's a Game Of The Year for a reason!
You know, the world could always use more heroes ;)
