Hi everyone, I’ve been a long-time player of text-based crime/mafia browser games, and I’ve officially started development on my own project. I’m aiming to capture that classic "persistent empire-building" feeling—committing crimes, training stats, navigating a player-driven economy, and climbing the ranks—without falling into the trap of making it feel like a "second job" or a stale spreadsheet simulator. Since this genre thrives on community interaction and long-term strategy, I want to build the features that players actually care about, rather than just guessing. I’d love to get your input: The "Mafia" Hook: In your opinion, what is the best way to handle the "Family/Gang" dynamic? Are there systems (like recruitment, territory control, or leadership roles) that you feel are underutilized or currently done poorly in existing titles? Active vs. Idle: How do you prefer the game to balance active effort (manual crimes/attacks) versus passive growth? Do you prefer a "time-based" system where everything is about efficiency, or a more traditional "energy/stamina" model? Progression & Burnout: What is a mechanic that usually makes you quit a browser-based RPG after a few weeks? Is it power creep, a stagnant economy, or perhaps the lack of meaningful endgame goals? Social Friction: What kind of player-to-player interactions (like markets, bounty systems, or coordinated attacks) actually make the world feel alive to you? I’m currently in the early stages, so I have the flexibility to prioritize mechanics that the community is actually hungry for. I'm not looking for marketing hype—just honest feedback from those of you who live and breathe this genre. Thanks in advance for your time and expertise!

Sharing a quick peek at the early dashboard for my Mafia project. It's still early days and definitely a WIP, but I’m looking for some constructive criticism on the UI. What’s working for you here, and what would you change to make the daily grind more intuitive?

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1211656/a-new-steam-game-called-congratulations-on-your-purchase-is-priced-at-1000-making-it-one

According to its creators:

This game is not for everyone. It is for those who understand that prestige has a price.

They also describe it as “the most expensive game on Steam.”

Players enter a palace, walk a red carpet, and see their names displayed for future owners. No idea if this game is a joke or a social experiment

Beware the onion judge!

Set to the left: Astronomer's hat, Felkin's cloak and boots, archdrake gloves, puzzling stone sword and avelyn.

Set to the right: Catarina helmet, judgement coat and gloves, priestess skirt, washing pole and avelyn again.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/euro/p/1768831/stop-killing-games-fails-to-secure-eu-law-despite-1-3m-signatures

Big update to my blog detailing every game studio using AI. I added Crystal Dynamics, Owlcat, Pearl Abyss, Mistwalker, and three more. One of those is GenDesign, which claims not to use AI for its games, only "behind the scenes" work. I detailed why I included them in the post.

I also added a note about Kojima's horrible AI-generated Prada ad, and Crazy Taxi's revival using AI generated assets.

I feel more and more of me die with each update to this blog. I think what frustrates me the most is when companies try to hide it. Like, I hate that Sega are using genAI on Crazy Taxi, but at least they're honest about it. So many (including Pear Abyss which I also added today) tried to hide it and only admitted to it when they were called out. And what's worse, Steam, who have a mandatory AI disclosure policy, just don't care when that policy is violated. Makes you wonder what else Steam would let these companies get away with.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/66084205

Found on reddit

Agdayne sure knows how to dress in his Crypt!

Set to the left: hunter's hat + wanderer coat + black leather gloves and boots + claymore + light crossbow

Set to the right: thief mask + Agdayne's black robe and kilt + black leather boots + uchigatana + Avelyn

On May 12, a developer going by FzzyBzzy released the wildly racist slavery simulation game Plantation Simulator onto Steam.

It’s a top-down sim game in which you play as a Southern plantation owner forcing a number of Black slaves to grow crops under threat of being beaten. That’s it. That was the game.

For the first week or so this game was live, it mostly flew under the radar. No reviews, no players really, according to SteamDB. But around May 20-21, it started picking up.

Reviews began to trickle in, the vast majority of them positive, containing racist commentary, and largely written by people who had played for less than half an hour. For context, the game’s concurrent player peak was 109 individuals last night.

Posted later in the day yesterday, the 1.2 update changed the Black slave characters in the game to white people. A further update not long after changed the whipping animation to a string of hearts, put bikinis on the slave characters, and updated the mature content description to, “In this game, your friends wear bikinis and you can give them little kissies.”

We’ve reached out to Valve for comment twice now about Plantation Simulator and haven’t heard back, and the game remains on the Steam store at the time this piece was published.

This is from Luanti that I started playing recently. I want to build my own evil dungeon in survival mode. Villagers have no idea!