apsham

I played it ages ago on the Wii U - the original co-op was not a fun experience, but with the update that they did to add in the new levels on the Switch version, they have made it so that both people are actively playing as characters and the special levels that come in the little expansion pack are also more suited to co-op. From what I gather, it's a fun experience but a pain in the butt that both people can control the camera so there might need to be some communication there. It's on sale at the moment so I was considering picking it up for this purpose as well on the Switch.

I recently got back to this after buying it, playing for a bit and getting swept up in Dwarf Fortress when it came out. I really highly enjoy it - and so far I think I've spent MOST of my time exploring the grounds, talking to characters and really fleshing out that part of the game. I'm super into getting to spend time with some of the lesser known or explored characters... more so that I expected to be.

I guess it's a bit of a carry over, but I ended up completing Tinykin just yesterday - I beat the game a bit earlier but did all the achievements. What a gem that is - just under 8 hours to beat, and that's the content from the original game, all achievements and the extra challenge stuff they added (but fuck the Platinum races) - a great no-stress game that is like Pikmin if I actually enjoyed Pikmin.

Sub Terra and the recently released Sub Terra 2 are TOP NOTCH recommendations here. When you play 2-players you each control 2 of the uniquely powered characters and there are many to choose from, even more with expansions. You flip tiles, explore and have terrible things happen to you - but win or lose you have fun every time. Games can kind of stretch out... most of mine are over in an hour, but you can also easily lose on the 2nd turn too. And when you do that, you won't stop talking about it just the same as when you've won. Similo is fun with 2 and doesn't take too long, you can play multiple rounds - essentially you buy a pack, and there are many versions like History, Myth, Halloween, etc. - and 12 cards get taken out of the deck. One of them becomes the card that YOU want the other person to choose, and you silently give them hints back as to whether or not the character you want them to pick looks like a card that you've laid down or not based on the way that you place it down. The depth here comes from getting into the mind of the other person and trying to figure out what they're trying to tell you. While the person giving clues can't talk, the person (or people) guessing can verbalize what they are thinking; "Oh, you laid down this card which is a female - and you laid it down sideways, so you might be trying to tell me that the character you want me to pick isn't a female, or maybe just that they don't have blonde hair..." etc.

They went and made the art a bit more standardized across versions and quite a bit upgraded from how it was originally, and also added a new expansion that is in that art style I do believe - this is the base box for the new second edition. https://firesidegames.com/product/castle-panic-second-edition/ I went ahead and got the second edition big box - so it'll store everything and come with all three original expansions, some promo cards/towers and the new expansion as well.

Castle Panic is a great game in general - I'm very excited that the second edition big box just came out, been waiting to get my hands on it for a while now. Big fan of games that take the time to slim down their mechanics for future generations of gamers to get a head start on.

...oh I forgot to link it, huh? https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/306154/2022-peoples-choice-top-200-solo-games-1-200 It starts at 200 and works backwards, though the creator might re-order it now that the countdown is finished. Also included are videos from four of the creators that I trust/watch the videos of the most as they go over the list.

I could blab on and on for a while, but this list here that is done yearly on Board Game Geek just ended and it takes in votes for everyone and contains opinions, and links directly to more information on the games, etc. So it's a very good place to start. Some of the games are on here as a legacy - they reeally aren't printed anymore but they have a few people that are going to vote it their favourite game forever - so it'll be on there for a while. I personally have been playing a lot of Heat: Pedal To The Metal, Final Girl, Calico, Raiders of Scythia, Baseball Highlights: 2045, Great Western Trail, Everdell, Roll Player, Cartographers, Hadrian's Wall, Obsession, Mage Knight and Spirit Island. ...yes I mostly play solo. That or two player, and I've probably had first hand experience with the vast majority of the games on this list if any catch your eye just let us know!

It's feels relatively close to a two-player game, but the game itself is pretty much multiplayer solitaire anyways. Once you learn how to run the automata it's pretty quick and easy to do... it just shakes things up a bit so you can't do EVERYTHING you want to do without worrying if a resource or card might leave the tray before you have a chance to. Mechanically, you just flip a card and based on where you are in the game - the opponent might take a card, take some food, go up towards the end of round goals that you are both competing for, etc. Much like 2-player Wingspan it's quite a bit different than a 3-4 player game where cards that have powers like 'when your opponent does X you get to do Y' are far more useful, but they can still function in the solo mode due to the way the cards come out - some will let you access your pink powers, and depending on your opponent that can actually make it MORE likely to get than in a 2 person game. I'd recommend it, but Wingspan is overall one of my favourite board games. As alternative; - The digital version of the game, which is totally on Black Friday sales, has the solo play build in as well as access to the first expansion on the cheap. And it also lets you play against AI, but at the same time you do kind of lose the feeling of having all those awesome bird cards right in front of you. - Wingspan Asia is juuuuust about it come on, and not only is it an expansion, but it's also a smaller footprint game that is playable at 1-2 that would give you a feel of how things are before you decide to grab the bigger box - but then again the bigger box is also just on sale quite often these days anyways As an aside, I just got this; The Wingspan Nesting Box - which is made to support all current and future expansions and I'm mid-sleeving all of the cards. I kind of like this game.

But yeah, not at all shocked that things went in this direction. I'm only shocked it didn't happen sooner.

God damn that’s amazing.

Some screenshots of it are out, very exciting!

It's apparently just an iOS port of a game that was on Apple Arcade that failed dramatically. It doesn't really have anything in it except for making a text choice every once in a while - so it looks well marketed but it's a hard pass at this point.

If it's a licensing thing, it might be based off internet connectivity and functionality being technically a new feature completely instead of just allowing us to run the game better with better framerates, higher quality textures and achievements - which is an outside system - the multiplayer that you get on the N64 version of the game over the internet is ESSENTIALLY the same as using Parsec or something else to have someone else play with you on your own copy - which is why it's so spotty. So it might come down to a technicality.

Don't worry, to follow it up you can play the most inspired game title ever. Various Daylife.

Not to mention that access to those N64 games is locked behind a subscription that most people don't want to pay for.

They could have just walked out and said "Yes, we remember Theatrerhythm exists" and I would've been happy.

We've been playing the hell out of it here as well - so many great quality of life improvements that Animal Crossing should have been doing by now, it's actually impressive. But yeah to @RPS's point - it feels like it's really a lot more for the Stardew Valley crowd of young adults/adults wanting to play something to de-stress. It even has the same "man, the city kind of sucks" opening that SV has.

The custom list of features is a bit foggy, but I still think we get a regular (not very detailed) CAW. Custom Wrestlers (attire and appearance) Is what it officially says. It's either assuming that we're going to be able to customize the existing wrestlers, or that we're going to have able to do some very basic CAW stuff. Guess at some point they've preview the suite of creation features and we'll know for sure.

Mirage is really just going to be the Assassin’s Creed Rogue to Valhalla’s Black Flag I assume? Since it’s a relatively smaller map and concept and plays off that story. I’m very interested in Hex and mildly interested in Red. We’ve already had some great open world games set in Japan and I wanna see what they’re doing differently to handle that. Valhalla’s French expansion was a pretty neat view of a return to older styled gameplay that I’d be happy to see them build on.

Most of the time when a controller says it has controller support it really just means "has support for x-input" which usually you have to kind of trick the game into if you don't have an Xbox or X-input supporting controller. You can look into these methods to see if they'll work for ya. https://www.pcgamer.com/ps5-dualsense-controller-on-pc/

Yeah the deluxe thing means I have the option of turning on the boosts for money, EXP, etc - they're good for a jam but I'm going to avoid using them if I don't have to.

Yeah I might just be getting lucky any doing things in an order where it doesn't feel SUPER samey to me - but I knew I was getting into in that respect and I enjoy the driving/movement in this so it hasn't been super samey for me yet. Another thing? I love the Monster Trucks - they properly crush cars - not just blowing them up possibly, but also just flat out pancaking them sometimes.

I just started Soul Hackers 2 the other day! I bought Deluxe and everything on release day because I am all in on supporting more games like that coming to the Xbox and honestly, I just do that with SMT games anyways. I haven't got far in but I like the battle system so far.

I somehow missed that Dijakovic is just a playable character now, I know they added in a few but I hit random while testing new sliders and landed on him today. Nice!