The Steam Thread

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

It's marks the one game where I've sat there at my keyboard weighing up whether to beat an old man to death because he might have bandages or medication in his bathroom.

Sold.

[Fidatelo]

So my total damage was (all figures in Cdn$):

Nidhogg: $1.69
Child of Light: $3.74
Lego Batman 3: $7.49
Valkyria Chronicles: $5.49
Frozen Cortex: $13.99
The Wolf Among Us: $6.99
Epic Battle Fantasy 4: $3.89
Fighting Fantasy: The Forest of Doom: $3.29

Total: $46.57

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by bob

Is this a traditional game with start and end, or do you just try to last as long as possible ala Don't Starve?

It's basically a survival type game - there's no ending as far as I'm aware, but I've only last around 30 days at the absolute most.

[Ironhead]

Originally Posted by bob

Is this a traditional game with start and end, or do you just try to last as long as possible ala Don't Starve?

Spoilering for others just in case:

Spoiler

The game does have a defined start and end. It isn't apparent though as you play through the game which adds to the overall tension and feeling of being caught in the middle of a war. There is a big difference between the feeling of "How are we going to just keep surviving?" versus "I think I just need to survive another 7 days."

[Marmel]

I picked up the following games for all less than $5:

Borderlands 2 - I avoid FPS like the plague but damn if this game isn't amazing. I felt like I was 20 years old again, staying up too late and ignoring all my other responsibilities!

Terraria - Not feeling it yet

Torchlight 2 - Owned it when it came out but haven't been able to locate it on steam or anywhere else. It just vanished from my computer. Steam had no record of me purchasing it. It was fun to play this again though.

[heybrad]

Originally Posted by Marmel

Terraria - Not feeling it yet

I had a friend who pushed me hard to give Terraria a try. It has a huge hump you have to get over in starting a game but once you put some time into it and open up a lot of the options it becomes a really fun game.

[Grover]

Grabbed Wolfenstein. At $14.99 how could I not... and I despise FPS.

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by Grover

Grabbed Wolfenstein. At $14.99 how could I not... and I despise FPS.

The New Order?

I dislike FPS games as well and had a blast with it. Very detailed universe and it is always fun shooting Nazi's.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by BillJasper

The New Order?

I dislike FPS games as well and had a blast with it. Very detailed universe and it is always fun shooting Nazi's.

Yep!

I'll get to it once I get through the other 150 games I've yet to beat.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Marmel

I picked up the following games for all less than $5:

Borderlands 2 - I avoid FPS like the plague but damn if this game isn't amazing. I felt like I was 20 years old again, staying up too late and ignoring all my other responsibilities!

The BL series is one of my favorite series!

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Marmel

I picked up the following games for all less than $5:

Borderlands 2 - I avoid FPS like the plague but damn if this game isn't amazing. I felt like I was 20 years old again, staying up too late and ignoring all my other responsibilities!

Argh, I sat there with my finger on the trigger with this one... I know a lot of people who love this game, but I've never tried it.

BTW anyone want Frozen Cortex? For one reason or another I have a copy to give away.

[bob]

I'd love frozen cortex if you still have it!

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by bob

I'd love frozen cortex if you still have it!

Sure do, I'll send it through when I'm home - what's your Steam ID?

[Peregrine]

Borderlands 2 is amazing - I put in so many hours in this game. The next one, the pre-sequel, is good but not great - not sure why but it never grabbed me as much as BL2 did.

[bob]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Sure do, I'll send it through when I'm home - what's your Steam ID?

PM sent. Thanks!

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I'm intrigued.

Football Tactics on Steam

[Mota]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

I'm intrigued.

Football Tactics on Steam

Kind of reminds me of Blood Bowl.

[EagleFan]

Anyone able to download tonight? Have tried downloading and getting nothing, everything just sits there. Connected and everything else is working fine.

[Ironhead]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

Anyone able to download tonight? Have tried downloading and getting nothing, everything just sits there. Connected and everything else is working fine.

Yep, it is preloading a game right now.

[EagleFan]

Eventually was able to download. Not sure why everything was hanging for a while.

[Coffee Warlord]

So I finally caved at the end of the summer sale and picked up ARK: Survival Evolved.

For the uninitiated, it's Minecraft + Rust/DayZ with Dinosaurs. It's also shaping up to be grand fun, particularly since I found a well run private server. My biggest fear in this game was the widespread reports of griefers/exploiters - it seems playing on a well moderated private server tends to eliminate that problem. You still have the element of PvP danger, but with far less chance of obnoxious kiddies.

For anyone who's been looking at it and on the fence, I'd say pull the trigger.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Borderlands 2 is amazing - I put in so many hours in this game. The next one, the pre-sequel, is good but not great - not sure why but it never grabbed me as much as BL2 did.

Yeah, Borderlands 2 is a great game. I put 208 hours into it according to Steam, plus, at least, another 30 or so hours on the XBox. I probably played through the entire game 4-5 times, including all of the DLC.

The game is a lot of fun and the writing is incredibly sharp and funny. Even on our 4th or so play through we (the 3 other friends I played with) found ourselves laughing at some of the dialogue.

Of the DLC, I'd highly recommend the Tiny Tina DLC. It's easily the best of all the DLC offered and is probably the best part of the game overall. I enjoyed the Mr. Torgue DLC a lot too. The Pirate one is okay and the Hammerlock one isn't all that good.

I felt exactly the same way about the pre-sequel. It just didn't... have it. At all. We played through it once, thought it was okay, but had zero desire to play it again. The writing wasn't as good, the missions were pretty dull, the PCs weren't as interesting... Something was definitely off. It was an entire different studio that did it, so I guess it's not too surprising.

[Lonnie]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Argh, I sat there with my finger on the trigger with this one... I know a lot of people who love this game, but I've never tried it.

You are in luck. Humble Bundle is having a Borderlands 1+2 bundle right now.

[Schmidty]

Bought stuff. Not happy with all of it. Anyone wants to trade: Hit me.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

Bought stuff. Not happy with all of it. Anyone wants to trade: Hit me.

What do you dislike?

[MizzouRah]

There are many games I don't play.. how do you trade?

[Ironhead]

Avoid PC version of Batman Arkham Knight. Very bad port issues galore. 70% negative reviews on Steam right now (out of 5,000+ reviews).

Batman: Arkham Knight's PC Version Is A Mess

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Lonnie

You are in luck. Humble Bundle is having a Borderlands 1+2 bundle right now.

Ah awesome!

I waited until the 10% off sale finished before grabbing Witcher 3 last night... Didn't like the 2nd one much (didn't give it much of a chance), but this one looks great. Only played it briefly last night, but had a video card quirk in the opening cut scenes - any time the main character was on the left side of the screen, his hair went green. Very strange. Amazing graphics though.

[Ramzavail]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

There are many games I don't play.. how do you trade?

It depends on if they are in your library or in your "inventory". Games in your library you cannot trade. Games in your "inventory" you can trade.

Also, search for the steam trade thread I started on FOFC too.

[MizzouRah]

Thanks.. I'll do some research!

[EagleFan]

Ticket to Ride - 1.99 Guess it was a midweek deal, looks like it is until tomorrow.

[Draft Dodger]

interesting stuff about Steam.

Some things you should know about Steam — Medium

[Mota]

Great article. Anybody trying to sell their games on Steam should have a solid understanding of this. These days you can't just release a game on Steam and hope it sells.

[PilotMan]

Jim hasn't said anything about how he fared in the sale. I assume it wasn't earth shattering, but I'm still curious to find out.

[Dutch]

Hmmm, I haven't heard from him since he bought that new palace in the Italian Alps.

[Solecismic]

Just in case anyone reading this imagines, even for a fleeting moment, that leaving the corporate world and writing games for a living is an instant pathway to the Italian Alps (personally, I prefer the Swiss side) or some such nonsense...

Yes, there are the occasional Minecraft productions that hit it big. Yes, some guy somewhere in Asia wrote Flappy Birds and made a zillion dollars he didn't even want overnight. I have dreams sometimes.

But, by and large, most indies make little to nothing. I really appreciate that Front Office Football has made enough to keep me out of the cubicles for 17 years. That's wonderful - a benefit beyond money. But in terms of money, I would have more of it had I remained a programmer for a large business for the last 17 years. And endured fewer 100-hour work weeks, of course. Those are actually kind of fun, once you're past the deadline and can relax a little afterwards. Maybe even visit the Swiss Alps for a few days if you've been careful and saved your money.

As for the sale, it was a good day, but not a game-changer in the slightest. There's no question getting on Steam saved my company. I would be working for "the man" right now if the Greenlight hadn't gone through. I'm still somewhat convinced that tablets/hand-helds are not in my near future, though Marc Vaughan has been very generous with his advice and thinks I should start developing for tablets. Steam has bought me some more time with this project.

I'll even experiment in the not-too-distant future with the next level of programming for tablets (JNI wrappers for C++ code, for those of you who have programming experience) because my work with Java/Android last year had me convinced tablets were too slow and too small to handle something like FOF. But I'm not certain I'll ever go in that direction. I'm a lot further from the Apple world - my last experience on Mac was in Hyperscript. It's an expensive leap.

[Draft Dodger]

(his butler typed that)

[Apathetic Lurker]

I heard it was his butlers butler who typed it

[MikeVic]

Thanks for the honest feedback Jim!

[Abe Sargent]

Holy Crap!



It was released on Steam back in September 2014, so I grabbed a Visual Novel called Planetarian. It was done by Key about ten yes ago or so, and if you don;t know who Key is, they are sort of to the Visual Novel genre was Microprose was to strategy gaming on the PC. Multiple big name VNs, among the best in the field, one of which, Clannad, will be coming to Steam soon

Alright, so Planetarian was quickly played - 3 and a half hours by me. Not a long commitment, and not a typcial VN - there are no choices, no alternate novels nothing.


Despite the age, the visuals were nice, the voice acting of the Yumemi character is downright amazing, there are lines that will blow you away, the the sci-fi is good, and it will be a very emotionally visceral experience. I don't want to say anymore, but if you come out of that without any major emotional responses, I will seriously question your humanity.


EDIT: It's impactful like To the Moon, and I'd put them on the same level

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

As for the sale, it was a good day, but not a game-changer in the slightest. There's no question getting on Steam saved my company. I would be working for "the man" right now if the Greenlight hadn't gone through. I'm still somewhat convinced that tablets/hand-helds are not in my near future, though Marc Vaughan has been very generous with his advice and thinks I should start developing for tablets. Steam has bought me some more time with this project.

Financially speaking, it would probably be your best bet, but for me personally I find the smaller screener doesn't fit well with a true sim. I've tried FM on both phone and ipad and just find the smaller screen far too restrictive. FOF is even more ratings/stats heavy than FM, and I think displaying all that info in an attractive way would take up too much screen space, leading to too much clicking/tapping to view the info you want to see.

Tablets/phones are for the casual gamers, and a more lightweight sim is probably the way to go with that crowd.

[nilodor]

I really like Invisible Inc. It's a turn based stealth game kinda like XCOM. You have a squad and have limited time to level up and accumulate resources before your final mission. You have to make tradeoffs for your final build (character levels and equipment) and I always felt just a little bit behind where I would want to be to be able to pull off missions comfortably. It was tense without being impossible.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

While being firmly against Early Access Games in general, I do have to continue to point out what a success story Prison Architect is. The development guys are adding great new features every single month. They're really focused on the product and seem to enjoy making the game. They make YouTube videos every month that demonstrate the new features and their excitement shows through in their narration.

Prison Architect Alpha 34 - YouTube

It's amazing that they put out this many bug fixes/new features every single month.

= Gangs
Some prisoners will now have gang allegiences upon entering your prison.
This can make those prisoners much harder to deal with, as they will work to defend each other during trouble.

This is an optional feature, enabled by ticking the new "Gangs" tickbox in the New Map screen.
(Nb. You can also hack gangs into an existing prison by adding 'EnabledGangs true' to the top of the .prison file)

More dangerous / higher security prisoners are more likely to be gang members.

- Gang members can be identified visually by their full body tattoos
- Gang members will always come to the aid of their fellow gang member when fights break out.
This includes coming to the aid of a fellow gang member involved in a fight with guards.

- Gang members more likely to try to steal weapons, and more likely to carry them rather than stash them
- Gang members will not participate in any voluntary reform programs
- Gang members will not work for the prison

- New view : Intelligence => Gangs. Highlights all known gang members and shows the total number of members of each gang.

Nb. This is part 1 of a larger feature.


= New room: Shop
- Requires shelves and a shop front. The shop front should go on a wall such that prisoners can acces the shop front from a corridoor.

- Shop goods will be brought into the prison in the usual way, and taken to the shop.
- Prisoners can work in the shop, and will unpack the boxes of goods onto the shelves.
- Prisoners can buy items from the shop to help with their needs:
- Soap, shampoo etc for Hygene
- Towels, blankets etc for Comfort
- Magazines for entertainment
- Snacks for Hunger

- All prisoners are now paid a fixed wage of 50 cents per hour when working for the prison
- Items in the shop cost $5 each
- Prisoner wages and shop takings are now shown in the daily cashflow report (updated at midnight)

- Prisoners are more inclined to participate in voluntary training programs, and will concentrate harder,
when there is a shop on site. (They want to earn that wage to buy things for themselves).

- The shop is a potential source of smuggled contraband


= Asian language support
The game now supports asian character sets, paving the way for translations into
Japanese
Chinese
Korean
etc

- Mail room (continued)
- Fixed: Mail satchels would be endlessly delivered in certain circumstances
- You can now dump mail satchels if you end up with too many


- Escape tunnels (continued):
- Each member of a dig team now brings diminishing returns to the overall speed of digging.
This represents the fact that (say) 10 prisoners just couldn't dig all at once in one square.
Previously 4 prisoners would dig four times faster than just 1 prisoner.
it will now take 4 prisoners to dig twice as fast as just 1 prisoner
It will take 11 prisoners to dig three times as fast as just 1 prisoner

- Searching a toilet manually will now reveal any escape tunnels.
Nb this requires you specifically search the toilet itself, and does not apply if the toilet is searched
as part of a "search cell" or "search cell block" order

- Conventional fences no longer slow diggers down


- The research screen now flashes a warning if you are attempting to research an item,
but are missing the neccesary Administrator, or he does not have an office

- Emergency services personel no longer need to rest in a staff room

- More prisoner faces added to the sprite bank, for greater variety

= BUG FIXES
- 0003270: [Control & User Interface] Flashing Yellow area in deployment screen not explained
- 0004990: [Gameplay] Basic Detention Center fails to recognize completed rooms if other rooms are incomplete
- 0003318: [AI & Behaviour] Delivery Trucks fail to stop and unload (when delivery zone at bottom of the map)
- 0006493: [AI & Behaviour] prisoners use the same seat/phone/shower etc
- 0007248: [Mod System] Special Characters prevent mods from work
- 0008666: [AI & Behaviour] Prisoners reading books will stop following regime and freeze up unable to fulfill needs.
- 0008916: [AI & Behaviour] Mail Room keeps ordering more Mail Satchels
- 0007670: [Control & User Interface] Spelling of bureaucratic in Chapel Description
- 0003271: [Gameplay] Clone Tool + Water
- 0007630: [AI & Behaviour] Gardeners and other AI vibrate when in 3x speed mode
- 0006067: [Gameplay] Prisoners are tunneling too fast (through perimeter wall)
- 0001166: [Gameplay] Guards wont take prisoners to Solitary Confinement, prisoner stuck in limbo
- 0008714: [AI & Behaviour] Some dump jobs are never done
- 0008766: [AI & Behaviour] Empty Parole Program slots not being filled despite long queue of eligible prisoners
- 0005953: [Graphics] Uniform's are sometimes under the bed
- 0006142: [Graphics] Render issues when stacking drains with other items
- 0008750: [AI & Behaviour] Prisoners do not leave Transport Bus if reception is full of laundry
- 0005453: [Gameplay] Power Switch + Cctv Monitor = UNLIMITED VISIBIlITY!
- 0008996: [AI & Behaviour] Prisoner released during shower leaves naked
- 0000665: [Gameplay] pausing stops the limit-check for daily spending
- 0008034: [AI & Behaviour] Chefs Don't Cook
- 0008129: [Graphics] Death Row font too dark
- 0006952: [AI & Behaviour] In large prisons suboptimal transport job causes death of overdosing prisoners during transportation to infirmary
- 0005830: [Gameplay] Bureaucracy research never finishes if started during pause after firing warden
- 0002935: [Gameplay] Guard dogs kill prisoners
- 0007920: [AI & Behaviour] Unconscious dog and dead handler
- 0006228: [AI & Behaviour] Dog handlers can't get tazers anymore, but research says they can
- 0009032: [AI & Behaviour] Dead guards in hearse still have flashlight on
- 0003311: [AI & Behaviour] Guards escorting prisoners to from their cell to the same cell over and over
- 0008135: [AI & Behaviour] Dirty trays are being stacked outside canteen (in a remote solitary cell, for example)
- 0007151: [Gameplay] Truck drivers can be sacked
- 0006966: [AI & Behaviour] 0 demand for meals in the second hour of Eat
- 0003132: [Gameplay] Sometimes contraband is listed as "None"
- 0007437: [AI & Behaviour] Cooks Not Cooking
- 0007933: [Other] cooks wont cook (Cellblock assigned to non-canteen in logistics)
- 0008904: [AI & Behaviour] Laundry without door breaks near-by rooms
- 0008624: [AI & Behaviour] Riot Police get tired
- 0007675: [Graphics] Altar not displaying properly against a wall
- 0008988: [Save & Load] Last Game Save causes a Crash to Steam Client
- 0008946: [Gameplay] Library Books keep coming

[Dutch]

I really like Prison Architect...glad to see more of it!

[Draft Dodger]

seems to be more the exception to the rule with EA games though.

in semi-related news, Terraria 1.3 update was released today and it adds a SHITLOAD of new stuff.

[Groundhog]

I go through big Prison Architect binges - won't touch it for a month or more, and then have a solid couple of days where I play it non-stop. It's always got some frustrating bugs, especially as your prison grows, but it's a really excellent example of an indie game done right via early access.

[Ramzavail]

Got suckered into the green man gaming $29.99 VIP sale of Witcher 3 which I didn't realize didn't come with a Steam key (for some reason) and it is only redeemable on GOG.com.

1. Don't fall for it
2. Let me know if anybody wants to buy it off of me or trade for it.

I have no interest in playing a game that doesn't play on Steam. grr.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

Got suckered into the green man gaming $29.99 VIP sale of Witcher 3 which I didn't realize didn't come with a Steam key (for some reason) and it is only redeemable on GOG.com.

1. Don't fall for it
2. Let me know if anybody wants to buy it off of me or trade for it.

I have no interest in playing a game that doesn't play on Steam. grr.

I imagine the reason is as simple as the company that makes The Witcher series is REALLY pushing GOG since they own it. I imagine most of the best deals for this game will come on that platform.

[Ramzavail]

Originally Posted by dubb93

I imagine the reason is as simple as the company that makes The Witcher series is REALLY pushing GOG since they own it. I imagine most of the best deals for this game will come on that platform.

I would have never thought that since my last VIP purchase was like 40% or 50% off of Pillars of Eternity Champion Edition and it had a Steam key.

[Ramzavail]

oh you meant CD Projekt, not green man. got it.