Anyone play Northgard? Looks like it's out of Early Access & on a mild sale for the next week.

Bought it at Christmas, like everything else, haven't played it. Has anyone been playing Into the Breach? FTL was so damn good, they get a freebie for the next one.

Into the Breach does not have the replay potential that FTL has. That said, I have 23 hours in it since last Saturday night.

EDIT: While every map is winnable with any squad, it is very swingy based upon the map. That said, you see the map before you drop so you can pick maps that are good for your squad. Occasionally, you get a set that just don't work well for you though.

I picked it up when it was released into early access and loved it, but put it away to wait for the campaign and additional content. I'll be diving back into it a bit today, but it had a great Warcraft 3 feel to it when I played it several months ago.

Anyone pick this up? Reviews are decidedly mixed/bad, even for a Paradox game at release.

I'm holding off for now, too many other games at the moment.

A friend of mine did, and he said hold off. It's very thin, and has more than a few bugs.

I expect it to be typical Paradox. I.e., it's probably going to be good to excellent a six months to a year from now. As for me, I'm holding off for Frostpunk, which drops in a little over a month. I expect that to be a serious time sink for a while.

I bought Surviving Mars and while I've put in a number of hours and quite enjoyed it, I'd hold off. There's not much depth to it, and it's seriously easy. I was hoping for "Banished in Space", but this isn't it.

Feels like it's a few patches and a paid-for DLC or two away from being a fleshed out game worth playing.

I too am playing Surviving Mars. It's...pleasant? Very slow moving, doesn't seem particularly challenging, but the atmosphere is terrific.

It looks more Tropico than Banished

Well they do have the same developer.

I'm really digging Space Tyrant. Fast paced 4x style game.

What difficulty settings did you use? From what I've seen from YouTube examples, there seems to be a great variance in the challenge based on the setup.

I'd read a Steam review that said to avoid the "Very Easy" and "Easy" sponsors as they made the game seriously easy (so starting as USA is out, that's "Easy"), so I started as "Normal" difficulty Europe. I picked an ok but not great starting point for a total starting difficulty of 200%. That wasnt difficult at all considering it was my first attempt.

Next time I went for Paradox as Sponsor (Hard difficulty) and a worse starting spot for a difficulty of 300% and it still doesnt take any planning. Just plonk down power and water lines, a couple of domes near Rare Metals, and it all ticks over making enough profit to buy necessities quite easily.

It's not a bad game, Steam says I've played 30 hours so far, it's just not very deep or challenging.

Thanks, that makes sense.

This more tends to be true for new releases than repeats. EU4 or CK2 or HOI4 were fine on release, but yes, I agree, for a new game like this. EU4, for example, has had 25 free patches, every single one fixing bugs and such, as well as adding content. That's who they be.

I agree for the first two. A lot of people would disagree about HOI4 ;) And then there's stuff like Stellaris which I think is comparable to the description of Surviving Mars in that at release it was certainly very playable, but once you figured out it was down to 'Moar Minerals' and the equal-starting factions meant it was going to be more or less the same every time, not a whole lot of depth/replayability was left.

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of how long and well Paradox supports their titles, and the DLC complaints are usually way off-base considering who can just pick and choose what you want and don't want.

CK2 is free. Search drop down in forums isn't work, or else I'd bump it there as well

For those of you playing (or played) There are Billions, how in the holy hell do you stop the odd zombie creeping in somewhere in your camp before you have expanded far enough and got enough resources to build walls? Rush to the barracks and get enough soldiers to provide somewhat of protection against the odd straggler or two?

I must be terrible at this game, because even when I feel like I'm doing well and I've managed to get a couple sides enclosed, the next minute while I'm distracted I just notice the first building about to be turned...

It's not an easy game, so don't feel bad. What I normally do is look for choke points to build my walls to, then use the units I have to patrol areas (run back and forth on their own). Even doing this they will slip through no doubt.

Anybody know anything about Salt? On sale right now.

That stuff is terrific on eggs.

It causes high blood pressure if you eat too much.

I thought it was decent for an Angelina Jolie movie.

A million times better than Pepper ever thought of being.

Not a chance, it can't even hold pepper's jock.

Less than 10% is used for human consumption.

BTW - Slay the Spire is a great game - even if still in 1st access. It's extremely polish for an early access game.

As polished as your grammar? HAHA. Sorry, couldnt resist.

Or maybe its from Poland?

LOL - I guess I should have read the post before I hit reply. Anyway, it's been a fun game.

It's quite fun indeed.

Anyone play Heat Signature yet?

Stumbled upon Thimbleweed Park last Christmas and last weekend finally decided to buy it. it took me about 13 hours to play through the full game (it has short and long options). Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island 2 are probably the games to compare to given the designers. To be fair, coincidentally I rank those two as my favorite point-and-click adventure games. Depth of the game, number of puzzles, is comparable. Having played those helped in understanding the game and puzzle design. There were 2 or 3 puzzles that were very out of the box. There were 3 items that I overlooked, I felt they were hard to find. I found it weaker on the comedy factor. Finally, take the "better save the game first" warning seriously.

For now tentatively rate it a 7 out of 10. I hope to find enough time to play the full game again in one session soon.

Is anyone with me in waiting impatiently for Battletech to go live? This was my favorite tabletop game 30 years ago, it really does look like they have made a solid PC game out of it.

I'm impatient enough that I was hesitant to run the preload, just because I'm not sure whether it's quicker to unencrypt the preloaded files on this computer or just download the unlocked files at release time. I mean, we're talking maybe a few minutes either way, but I need to know which gets me into the game quicker.

The silly part is that I'll almost certainly quit playing when PoE: Deadfire drops two weeks later, because I am easily distracted.

Frostpunk out today.. too bad I'll be out of town today and tomorrow. Maybe get some time with it tomorrow night.

I've been keeping an eye on it for some time. I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point.

For those interested in Frostpunk, GreenManGaming is giving a 22% discount on it and most other games (Battletech included).

+1

I am. I still get in a game of Battletech when I can. Have a boatload of minis I am kitting out in true Maria style on my painting table.

I would say this is the first game I called out sick for in a long time, but it is not really true. I did sort of call out (I am really never completely off now in my current job), but I do have an ear infection that feels like the top of my head may come off. I'm trying my best to medicate myself just enough that I can play without falling asleep. Mostly I am just going to be playing through the pain.

Never preload. :banghead:

With you. The wait is killing me.

First game that I've bought at release in like, 4 freaking ever.

Post some thoughts on Battletech... I'm sure I'll grab it at some point. Reviews say the campaign is quite difficult, which to me is a good thing.

Oh, cool. Unlock time remaining just went from two and a half minutes to seven hours. Yum.

EDIT: And two and a half minutes later the unlock is done. I give up. :)

11/12 GBs downloaded!

we will send search parties for you if we stop hearing from you :)

Character set up is cool, and the artwork is fantastic.