The bundle is available on itch.io https://itch.io/b/3802/game-industry-hardship-fund

UVW ftw!

Today's game is Assassin's Creed Revelations. I've been playing this for a while now in the Background. I have much the same regards for this i had for Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood. It improves on the mechanics of the first one to a nice degree.

I especially like the Animus island, it has this cold and desolate feeling that feels almost cozy too me. I would love to bring my laptop out there along with maybe a blanket and just work on some personal projects or something.

One of the things that i love it introducing is the Bomb Mechanics. It's cool being able to craft my own. I will admit though that this more often than not leads me to just recrafting the same bomb rather than experimenting. But still, I do like having this here.

Getting to play as Altair again was awesome too. Especially with the better controls and stuff. It makes it way more comfortable to play. It's a shame though as a lot of what i liked about the 1st game was the unique qualities they have when it comes to stealth, that's something i wish was carried over or atleast recreated for these flashbacks.

I made it as far as the first key today, and now that Dead Space is off my table, i'm gonna continue too make faster progress (or so i hope).

Enshitification intensifies.

After months of waiting finally my Esquie plushy arrived. He's very soft and cuddly. But I'm afraid of washing him. His sign at the front feels like it could be cardboard.

For those who don't know, he's a character from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. They severely underestimated his popularity and didn't have a plushy ready on release.

Today's game is Project Zomboid. Me and My friends have been playing almost daily on our multiplayer save. The additions made in B42 have been awesome for the immersion in this game. My favorite things right now are the animals. They help make the world feel more alive which i love. I especially like the chickens. It makes me feel like i'm rebuilding something which is something Build 41 felt like it was lacking.

I also went out and found a Step Van to help make gathering logs so so much easier, it can hold 140 in the back so it makes hauling them across the highway easier. Because of that i was able to finish the wall today, and then i also went ahead and dragged home some bricks. My hope is to eventually upgrade the wall to a brick wall so it will last longer. I (assume) a brick wall has more durability than a Wood wall so here's to hoping.

Anyways, our group "Chef" was out today, so Jerry had to fill in and make dinner. I accidentally burnt the Omelette, but that's okay because we had extras. I tried to make a salad and split it into bowls but i guess you can't do that yet, so instead we all just ate a 1/4 and passed it around.

I also wanted to share something extra I made for fun that's relevant. I tried to recreate one of my screenshots (with a little more personality too) in Blender with the Project Zomboid Community rig. I'm sure someone with way more Blender knowledge than me can point out everything i've done wrong, but for having literally no blender knowledge besides like half the Donut Tutorial, i think it turned out well.

Hello everyone!

We are NoNameGame Studio, a small Ukrainian indie team, and we would like to share the playable Prologue of our first game — Astoria: Faber Exitii.

The free Prologue offers approximately two hours of gameplay and includes:

• Several locations to explore
• Story-driven quests and dialogue
• Different enemy types
• Three boss battles
• Blocking, dodging, parrying, and counterattacks
• Finishing moves
• Crafting, potions, and consumable items
• Puzzles, secrets, and hidden areas
• Keyboard and controller support

We recently released an update featuring a faster tutorial, improved combat sounds and effects, better controller navigation, new crafting materials, new potions, redesigned signposts, and rats that now inhabit some locations.

Play the Prologue for free on itch.io: https://nonamegame-studio.itch.io/astoria-faber-exitii

Thank you for taking a look at our game! Feedback about the combat, tutorial, controls, and overall experience is greatly appreciated.

So I've done close to around 60 developer interviews over the past couple of years, basically every dev team from every bit of software you might be familiar with on retro handhelds, but I wanted to try something a little different this time.

Rather than focusing purely on someone's latest project, I'm starting a new 'Community Spotlight' series, where I chat with some of the developers and creators in the retro handheld scene whose names you might recognize, about the handheld brands that helped shape their journey. For the first article, I spoke with Gamma, creator of GammaOS (obviously).

Instead of talking exclusively about GammaOS, we looked back at his history with Anbernic: the first handheld that impressed him, the device that inspired GammaOS, the models he thinks deserved more recognition, the challenges of developing for Anbernic hardware, and where he'd like to see the company go next.

I know this is a bit weird, and maybe a half-baked idea too, but I hope it offers a different perspective on someone many of us already know, while also exploring Anbernic's evolution through the eyes of one of the community's respected developers. As with all of my interviews I just like to do this kind of thing as a way to shine a kind of spotlight on the people behind a project, program, app or similar which you might know and love.

I'd love to hear what you think of this one, this format, and who you'd like to see featured in future Community Spotlights if this isn't a totally odd idea of mine :)

Depending on what you actually count as a “video game” the industry is now generating somewhere between 200 and 350 billion dollars a year in annual revenue, making it by far the largest entertainment sector in the world regardless of whatever your exact definitions may be.
More people are playing video games than ever before, they are playing them for longer, and (the not so secret reality is that) video game companies have gotten a lot better at getting money out of them while they are.
Over what should have been the best half decade in the history of the industry, the overall market is down by as much as 30% from its peak, in the same time that the broader market has more than doubled. Sooo how is it possible that even with record sales, record new revenue streams, record numbers of new players, and record new opportunities to monetize that new audience… video game companies have still managed to screw this up so badly?

Today's game is Dead Space. Took me fucking forever to get these sorted out, ended up having to crawl into the other room and turn back on my PC just because my mobile client went to hell.

Anyways, i finally finished this up today. I spent all day basically filling out every secondary thing there is. Weapon upgrades, schematics, and the last side quest i had. With how small this is i wanted to leave no stone unturned. Basically the only things left if i wanted to 100% it are NG+ and running through on Impossible mode. Which both i am weighing doing in an evening or few.

::: spoiler spoiler The final boss fight i really enjoyed, though it dragged out quite a bit. Having it stop every time i destroyed one of it's glowing tumor things in it's throat hole was obnoxious,

I did thoroughly enjoy the Nicole reveal too, even if i already knew it was coming. it's very well executed, and from what i understand the remake adds extra detail onto that. :::

I didn't enjoy moving the Marker. This section was obnoxious as fuck to do for me because i was low on Ammo and they were throwing all the enemies i was bad at handling at me. Especially the Fetus things that chuck acid at you.

Anyways, at least for a bit now i'm done with this. I am a bit sad for it to end, it was a short experience and it left me wanting more. Maybe i'll check out the sequels or do the NG+/Impossible run i mentioned.

"Retched" in Devil May Cry

Was checking the back of #DMC's PS2 case and noticed the word under one of the screen captures.

At first I thought it was "wretched", but suspecting of a potential mistake like that being too obvious to pass, I still went to check. Apparently it's Old English for "vomited"? Curious choice of word if so.

Tangentially, these old cases are being interesting to check imo, to see how titles tried to be relevant back then.

So recently, I spent a fair time chatting with the creator of PSPunk, a website I'm sure many here might have visited. But that chatting (which ended up being an interview) pivoted instead to something a bit different from what I usually end up doing with articles.

Rather than just talking about the website itself, we ended up discussing the people who keep older gaming communities alive. We covered how PSPunk started as a simple custom firmware guide, why preserving guides and community knowledge is just as important as preserving games themselves, the modern PSP homebrew scene, and why the handheld still has such an active community more than 20 years after launch. You might recognize me from a few PSP articles I've done these last months, I just...think they're neat:

It was also interesting hearing from someone who doesn't consider themselves a developer or a major figure in the scene, just "a helpful user who creates guides." I think that humility says a lot about projects like this, because every community needs people documenting, organizing and preserving information just as much as it needs people writing the software.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/68998990

Steam Link

Leftover from the humble bundle. The game is awesome, albeit janky. Much better than the second game. Note: This game is a product of Israel. Also note: I paid $0.00 to publishers in purchasing the bundle. This is as guilt-free as it gets.

To enter, just comment something. I'll close the givaway at 3:00PM CST, and use a wheel picker to decide the winner. The prize will be delivered in the form of a code.

Edit: I'll have to extend, obviously. No comments thus far :(

Not really one for space sims. I feel like a lot of them are more complicated than they should be. But I'm really liking Rebel Galaxy! I only have to worry about an XY axis and it's a lot like a naval sim. so it plays a lot like Assassins Creed Black Flag.

Any remarks about the actual content of the videos is being drowned out.

Today's game is Halo 2. First, i would like to say when i took these they were no where near this dark on my screen. I have no idea what happened. Maybe i just adapted looking at it so long or it lost some colors. Either way i apologize for the darkness.

Anyways, me and a friend have been working through a Replay of Halo 2. My very first brush with it was Legendary Co-Op with my friend (i was feeling cocky and wanted a challenge). Absolutely the worst challenge yet, may never do it again. I loved every second of it though. Anyways, since then my 3 favorites to go back to are Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo Reach. I know with 4 it's not much of a competition with that (i still loved it though), but CE it's pretty damn close.

We stuck mainly to the two Flood levels for today's playthrough because we were running short on time. These two levels honestly are some of the weakest for me in this game. Not as bad as the library but still quite a bit of enemies to wait and fight off. At least we have smarter (i think) NPCs this time to help out.

I do also like that they give us vehicles. It helps break up the monotony of the the on foot sections. Makes it a lot more fun too if you can snag that tank. It becomes a lot easier to handle as you roll through and over enemies.

I've played this game so many times now that i've started to notice so many useless details. Like, on old graphics now i don't think Arbiter has any animations when he's falling in the pit. As far as i could tell he was just kind of pivoting in a 3D space. In motion it looks a lot better but it was still a little silly too watch. Then again, it's entirely possible my copy just bugged out for some reason.

Anyways, tomorrow i'll get back to my usual stuff. It's been a little hectic these last few days so i haven't had a lot of free time, and what little i did have i wanted to spend with friends. So hopefully i'll finally finish Dead Space tomorrow.

Back into the Grim Dawn we go!