What are you playing?

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:19 am

Skyrim

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu Apr 09, 2020 9:26 am

Animal Crossing but it’s been a real disappointment. I was under the impression it would just be a gentle world of virtual garden-tending but I’ve been working on paying off a home loan by smashing rocks and capturing, then selling, innocent bugs.

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:48 am

J and I have been playing a card game called Loot. It is about pirates (a little bit.)

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:01 am

Jona and I also play at least an hour of Level 20 (the highest level/difficulty) Dr. Mario a day.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:55 am

OH SHIT I just realized that Dr. Mario IS our ritual

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Fri Apr 10, 2020 11:44 am

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:55 am OH SHIT I just realized that Dr. Mario IS our ritual

Yes.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:48 pm

NEO Savenger—roguelike resource management
Stardew Valley—twee resource management
Don't Starve—open world resource management
4 Suite Spider solitaire—like untangling knots from a pile of yarn
Freecell—like sorting a pile of Skittles

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:58 pm

Thanks for the Dr. Mario memories. Playing that game in grade school for hours on Friday or Saturday nights during sleepovers* was possibly my first introduction to hyper-focused all-nighters facing a screen.

*Apartment sleepovers where you just hang out until 5 AM then go back to your own apartment to sleep

Abe · Post by **Abe** » Thu Apr 16, 2020 4:30 pm

Dungeons and Dragons, X-Com, and occasionally Civilization.

alexshred420 · Post by **alexshred420** » Thu Apr 16, 2020 4:44 pm

Untitled Goose Game, which was fun, once I did all the tasks I just did ridiculous things like "dump everything from the pub into the river"

I sort of want to dump EVERYTHING into the river but it would take hours and hours

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:07 am

This game sounds intriguing! I watched the trailers(?) and I'm afraid it would heighten my already deep disdain for geese.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:27 am

I played Skyrim intensely for a few months and am now very bored of it. It's such a boring game. Everything is the same, over and over, and the landscape is so grim and unrelentingly Nordic and there is no magic in it except a few witches you immediately kill. There is a separate realm within it that is based on HP Lovecraft and that is pretty fun (lots of sick tentacles) but also gets boring. All I want is BOTW but I've played it so much its shine has worn off. I specifically got Skyrim to try to make myself take enough time off from BOTW (ideally one year) so that I could play it again and it would feel fresh and wondrous again but I don't know if I can do it. I might need to return to Hyrule before my year is up. I'm intrigued by this new game that's coming out for Switch soon that looks very Zelda-adjacent, called Windbound, anybody have thoughts on this? I actually know almost nothing about games/gaming culture (in fact I don't even know how to insert a game into my Switch as it's only happened twice and both times someone else did it for me) but I have this insatiable Zelda lust that I continually yearn to slake. Any Zelda heads out there? Any Skyrim nerds who can tell me how to make the game not boring? I literally learned how to tame a dragon and ride it around but I was still like, ho-hum. Maybe I am just a grouch.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 6:50 am

I am a big fan of watching other people play Zelda. I used to watch Evan V.N.S.J. play the gamecube one, wind waker?, for hours a week. I never had a single urge to actually play it myself. We made a good team.
Does anyone recommend a good phone game that isn't hella embarrassing or involve matching up colorful objects? Phone games are both addictive and embarrass me. They remind me of hiding in my closet to sing "Do the Bartman" into my tape recorder so my mom and sister wouldn't laugh at me. I know there will be shame, but there is no earthly way of stopping myself.

kenbaumann · Post by **kenbaumann** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:04 am

Once quarantine was a thing my friend and I immediately set up a Discord chat for local friends who are also often gamer nerds.

I've been playing a lot of single-player/campaign-mode games on the PS4. Before quarantine I played and fell in love with Bloodborne, the only Souls game I've loved. Lately I finished The Last of Us Remastered (in preparation for its sequel) and Control (which I loved! X-Files meets Lynch meets Naughty Dog games! with maybe the best opening 45 minutes of any game!). I've been goofing off in Fortnite with some locals. I'm waiting for Disco Elysium to make it to the PS4. I'll probably play Outer Wilds and No Man's Sky.

And I play a bunch of Magic: The Gathering. My favorite format is Commander, and I've been playing via webcam with my local playgroup. It's gratifying to play with actual objects right now (like sleeved-up cards and dice).

kenbaumann · Post by **kenbaumann** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:05 am

Oh yeah and the occasional board game or social game (like Mafia, Secret Hitler, Inhuman Conditions, and Wingspan).

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:49 am

Yes! KB with the deeper gamer lifestyle! You’d be proud to know that our ongoing Shadowrun game has moved from our dining room table to an online platform called Roll20, which (bless its heart) has just a spectacularly janky interface. Our GM @jjstratford has an epic campaign going for us in the deeper recesses of Shadowrun’s matrix-internet, the dataverse, but we also spend a lot of time fucking around with the controls and trying to crash the game by rolling hundreds of 3D dice at the same time...

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 11:07 am

Ritchey, your passion for Zelda is very adorable. And Molly, playing Wind Waker with the "help" of a housemate who loved watching (he had a crush on Link) was so joyful and giddy. When I was a kid I loved playing my friend's Sega and making her crack up laughing for hours (adding a smart mouth to Aladdin). And that Simpson's blues album... Man, it doesn't get any bluesier than that.

Alex, I think you should put everything in the river. It would be so satisfying. I love playing games where I can organize the F out of everything expressly for my personal enjoyment.

I have a couple "rules" I like to operate by in games. In some games, I like avoiding all fights by running away so I don't have to kill anyone. Or I'll only eat vegetarian. My favorite thing is, in games where you make trades, to give much more value than I receive. I like to give NPCs extra food, seeds, and medicine so we can all thrive as a community.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:21 pm

I love this. I love going against the "obvious" rules of the game. In Skyrim I like to free every prisoner I find, which usually ends up with the prisoner getting killed but still we do our best.

I also agree that the Simpsons blues album is the bluesiest music ever recorded.

01001010 01010101 01000100 01000001 01001000 · Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:16 pm

I just finished Control and it was pretty fun, some satisfying dynamics and trippy sci fi stuff.
Also Untitled Goose Game, which I could have played forever.
I played a Star Wars, Fallen Order and it was fine.
I really wish I had a Zelda - love those games. There is a game Oceanhorn (1 & 2) that is a phone game that is kind of like a Zelda.
Usually don't like the shoot em games or the warrior games but maybe Skyrim is a good one?
I still play The Last Guardian sometimes which is still very good!
I tried to play No Man's Sky and found it boring and repetitive.
I played the horse game for awhile and marveled at many things.
Nier: Automata is kind of a fun game.
My friend says the Final Fantasy VII remake is v good so I will probably DL

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:59 pm

Ritchey & RCH: I deeply love this way of playing games! I taught a workshop class at a technical university in Madrid a few years ago where I had students invent subversive play strategies for the battle royale fighting game Fortnite. They came up with all these amazing things like building mazes inside the game, playing “hot lava” where players could never touch the ground, playing as environmentalists, only walking backwards, playing “paparazzi” by trying to surreptitiously screengrab other players, and playing “hive mind” style, where one player controlled the cursor without looking at the screen and the other looked without controlling, describing what to do next.

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:25 am

ritchey wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:27 am Any Skyrim nerds who can tell me how to make the game not boring?

HI

OK, so you are right that it is basically not a good game. It's one of those things where they have painstakingly recreated a world full of creatures and cities and people and stuff but the only way you can interact with most of them is by killing them.

I still managed to play it for probably a hundred hours (or more) and in these dark times have even been contemplating doing it again just to "feel" outside, you know?

IDK how many of the quests you played through, but if it's magic you are looking for you can go to the mage college at Winterhold to learn how to.... kill people with magic. There are a lot of spells and some of them are more interesting than others. I think the game is kind of broken in that the "Destruction" spells that just shoot fire and lightning at people are more effective than any of the more interesting ones, but if you have a lot of patience the "Illusion" and "Alteration" spells are funnier. You can turn invisible, cause angry enemies to suddenly become peaceful (so you can kill them) or cause them to go wild and attack everything they see. And the "Conjuration" spells let you summon different kinds of monsters and elementals and stuff to kill people for you. So yeah it's mostly still just different ways to do violence I guess. Video games!

One of the less violent things you can do though is to just hyperfocus on alchemy and enchantment, in that case the game becomes mostly about wandering through the wilderness gathering herbs and looking for treasure, which you can then transform into different potions and enchanted armor and stuff and sell it. The problem is the game isn't really designed to 'reward' you for this so unless you are finding it personally satisfying there's not much else you can do with it.

So yeah I think the answer is still just "don't play Skyrim" but I guess if you want to know why anyone would it's mostly because it is sort of cool to meet some random person who is like "Maybe you should visit the Mage college at Winterhold!" and then you can drop everything you're doing and walk for what feels like hours through all these environments, and then find that there is indeed a mage college in Winterhold. Only in between you might get attacked by a random dragon or find a cave full of zombies or ancient dwarven robots. (there are hundreds of caves full of zombies or ancient dwarven robots, but not much else. Oh there's also like an entire underground community of Gollums that attack you with giant scorpions???) It is really impressive how big and pretty the world is, even if it is all kind of bland and nordic and all you can do it in it is learn to kill more effectively.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:37 am

Evan VNSJ has arrived!

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:58 am

Evan this is so cool hello! And also THANK YOU for affirming my feelings--because I have already done precisely everything you mention in your post, and it is actually very comforting as I had been worried I was just "missing something." But in fact it sounds like I have been doing exactly right, and am simply still finding it boring.

I def studied at the mage college, and in fact not only did I learn spells, I actually was elected to be the new Archmage!! But no new duties accrued to this honor, I simply was given the Archmage's bedroom and a cool robe. I really wanted the game to direct me into the deep arcane bureaucracy of running a college but it did not.

I have also devoted myself to alchemy and enchanting, including building a house with alchemy/enchanting tables and a fully functioning forge/smithy outside so that I can smith up stuff and then enchant it. But the game doesn't seem to reward amassing massive amounts of money either! So there's no real point outside personal interest, which at this point is quenched.

I adopted a kid and got married, but also nothing really "happens" once you accomplish those things. I really want my life to get super complicated and to have richer relationships with the people in it but they mostly just ask me for money or offer to cook me something.

I also did already go down into the Gollum maze with the horrible scorpions; that was pretty satisfying to beat actually because it was so scary and hard.

I do love the world and wandering through it, but I wish there was more to discover in it. Like in BOTW the world is so full of magic. Everything you see is like beckoning you to come explore it. Hmmm that rock looks weird, I bet there's something cool over there! And there usually is. In Skyrim though you think hmmm that rock looks weird, then you go to it and it's just a rock.

I'm not really complaining as I understand the concept that game technology simply isn't capable of allowing me to have nuanced personalized relationships/interactions with everyone I meet etc. but I just am bored of it. In conclusion I am very validated by your post and glad to know I'm not just missing something or playing it stupidly. I went back to BOTW yesterday and will just sort of live there for awhile even though it's not that exciting anymore as I know every inch of it so well. But that feeling of just wanting to go outside is very real--I just want to go hang out in Hyrule and hear the atmospheric piano and make some potions.

aguyatarave · Post by **aguyatarave** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 3:19 pm

Has anybody here played Death Stranding? great experience

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:08 am

Say more

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:55 am

aguyatarave wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 3:19 pm Has anybody here played Death Stranding? great experience

I haven't but it's another one of those things that feels weirdly prescient now! Isn't the whole game about delivering packages and helping people maintain social networks who have been forced into isolation by oppressive Weirdness?

GARY-19 · Post by **GARY-19** » Thu Apr 30, 2020 3:06 pm

kenbaumann wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:05 am Oh yeah and the occasional board game or social game (like Mafia, Secret Hitler, Inhuman Conditions, and Wingspan).

Wingspan is statistically the most-played game in our household, since I started formally logging plays in September 2018.

I also got Inhuman Conditions. Is it fun with just two or do you need to play online/party game style to make it fun?

Sincerely,

Gary

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Fri May 01, 2020 4:11 am

Everyone on this board would love Wingspan. If you can get ahold of a copy you should!
It's about ZUBS and NOTHING BUT ZUBS

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Fri May 01, 2020 5:05 am

When my mom and sister and I get together we like to try a new game. This might be the next one! My mom spends half of each and every day boiling more sugar water and refilling her MANY humming-zub feeders and my sister and her husband are zub-FREAKS.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Fri May 01, 2020 5:09 am

it is SUCH a beautiful game, it's so well designed, all the zub cards are so fun to look at. It's very soothing. We've been playing it every single day before dinner lately.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Fri May 01, 2020 5:14 am

I will have it postmarked directly to Harriet's door. That is, if a future exists when I ever again get to see my family and friends, who are over 5,000 miles away...

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Fri May 01, 2020 5:49 am

FWIW we have been playing Settlers of Catan over Zoom with our gaming group and it's pretty easy. We "share screen" with a randomly generated board on it, then we each "annotate" it in our own color--drawing settlements, roads, etc. We haven't figured out how to do the robber or development cards but it's still pretty fun. Last time we played everyone got bored and started doodling all over the board and we forgot whose turn it was. Wingspan you could actually play over Zoom I think, with some inventive finagling. Each person plays on their own board, so if every person involved bought their own game you'd all have everything you needed. There are shared cards and a bird feeder with shared food in it that you'd have to figure out but I bet you actually could, if you set your mind to it! Like maybe one camera trained on the cards/feeder at one person's house, and that person could manage it for everyone. Then you could play!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Fri May 01, 2020 5:56 am

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Fri May 01, 2020 9:47 am

Hey, did you guys know about the 1984 Japanese role playing game, "Psychic City"? Or depending on who you ask it may be called "In the Psychic City"

https://www.mobygames.com/game/in-the-psychic-city

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri May 01, 2020 3:58 pm

[mention]Evan.V.N.S.J.[/mention] What! Never heard of it in all our years!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sat May 02, 2020 1:40 am

[mention]Evan.V.N.S.J.[/mention] [mention]yourfriendclaire[/mention] "A remake of this game was later released in 1987 for the NES, entitled Hoshi wo Miru Hito, which was developed by a different company, Another, but published by Hot-B. However, this remake suffered from numerous bugs and slowdowns, and, as a result, was poorly received compared to the original PC version of Psychic City. In Japan, the NES remake has a reputation for being a "kusoge" ("crap game")."

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sat May 02, 2020 8:36 am

Hot-B

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Sat May 02, 2020 10:04 am

Yes! I just learned about it the other day because Hoshi wo miru hito ("People who watch the stars"-another great title btw) is being rereleased on the Nintendo Switch, and nobody can understand why because it's a game famous for being bad.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sun May 03, 2020 9:52 am

Controversial opinion: there are so many bad old Nintendo games! They keep re-releasing them on the Switch for nostalgia purposes & Jona and I try them all when they get added. Kirby Dream Course? I defy you to tell me what the objective is or how you even play it. The only thing worth a damn is Dr. Mario, which as previously stated we play for an hour-plus every day.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sun May 03, 2020 10:10 am

There was such a wild assortment of quality in NES. That Kirby game was cute but really hard.

Remember the Tiny Toons Cartoon Workshop? It was an animation program that provided scenes, characters, and sound effects.
https://youtu.be/dMbSQAzktaI

The Roger Rabbit game was good.
https://youtu.be/z51SOcslQlw

Spy vs Spy might be good to play.
https://youtu.be/LJC7DIP5JIw

Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom is my favorite NES game, even above Maniac Mansion. It is a story about stopping a power-crazed fascist pumpkin from taking over a peaceable nation of vegetables!
https://youtu.be/X_tbYdxRq1s

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Sun May 03, 2020 10:38 am

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Sun May 03, 2020 9:52 am Controversial opinion: are so many bad old Nintendo games! They keep re-releasing them on the Switch for nostalgia purposes & Jona and I try them all when they get added. Kirby Dream Course? I defy you to tell me what the objective is or how you even play it. The only thing worth a damn is Dr. Mario, which as previously stated we play for an hour-plus every day.

Kirby Dream Course? The golf game? It's a classic! The goal is to get a, "Hole in one"

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sun May 03, 2020 11:35 am

It doesn't necessarily sound like the promise of a good time, but I wonder if some of you might appreciate the This War Of Mine board game: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188 ... board-game

The overall concept is loosely based on the Siege of Sarajevo, where civilians from all walks of life were placed in the middle of military conflict. It's a game that uses realistic portrayals of trauma, famine, and violence in order to explore moral issues and outcomes of impossible choices.

In playing the original PC game, I found a deeply empathetic experience that places pain, hope, responsibility and perseverance on a level playing ground. Basically, it is a trauma simulator that creates a state of emotional catharsis through humility and acceptance.

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Mon May 04, 2020 10:30 am

Duolingo, does that count as a game? I'm revisiting it. French, Japanese and Norwegian.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon May 04, 2020 10:31 am

Is it fun? Then it's a game!

matthew · Post by **matthew** » Mon May 04, 2020 9:41 pm

I’ve been obsessed with:

1. Mancala (I’m very good)
2. Hanabi (please let’s be friends and play because I’m desperate for a perfect game)

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Tue May 05, 2020 3:07 am

pizza wrote: ↑Mon May 04, 2020 9:41 pm I’ve been obsessed with:

1. Mancala (I’m very good)
2. Hanabi (please let’s be friends and play because I’m desperate for a perfect game)

1. Of course you are (very good).
2. I am open minded. Tell me more.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Tue May 05, 2020 12:40 pm

The Loteria google doodle.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed May 06, 2020 5:34 am

and this one https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/

aguyatarave · Post by **aguyatarave** » Thu May 07, 2020 10:11 am

Evan.V.N.S.J. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 10:55 am I haven't but it's another one of those things that feels weirdly prescient now! Isn't the whole game about delivering packages and helping people maintain social networks who have been forced into isolation by oppressive Weirdness?

Dude, yes! wildly prescient. Humanity is driven into isolation through a mass extinction event. You play a "Porter" and make deliveries on foot to far flung farmers, weather station scientists and preppers in a landscape that's harsh but interactive - walking paths wears them down and you make your own branching network. I can't recommend it enough. Top notch everything.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Thu May 07, 2020 10:30 am

Has anyone ever played Kentucky Route Zero?