Caves of Qud, Ancient Domains of Mystery, Tales of Maj’Eyal, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, and Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode are all examples of modern games that meet the definition of a “traditional roguelike” - which is the term Steam uses to categorise games that are actually like Rogue, as opposed to games that just have permadeath and procgen.

However, dorks like the guy who wrote this article need to understand that language evolves. Roguelike doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did 30 years ago. There’s no problem whatsoever with games like Slay the Spire, Dead Souls and FTL being called roguelikes - you can see in an instant that these games don’t meet the definition of the traditional roguelike. The claim that this terminology is confusing or frustrating is just not true.

The main theme does the same for me, those opening bars are just pure bliss to me

Looks good, basically the same gameplay as the first game but with updated graphics - which is exactly what I’m after. I like that you can stand on enemies instead of falling through them. The spell effects look really good, and I liked seeing an armoured caster.

I tried playing Outer Worlds but my main complaint was that I was constantly being overwhelmed by just how garish and visually busy the game was. The area that I was exploring was a bit too colourful, a bit too cluttered, and enemies didn’t stand out well enough for me to differentiate them from the background visual elements. I got frustrated with the number of times I wouldn’t notice an enemy until I was right on top of them.

Another issue I faced was a classic dissonance seen in most RPG/FPS blends - it’s where you can equip a high powered rifle and shoot an enemy in their unprotected head only to watch them shrug the shot off with ease as their HP bar drops by a measly 10%. It ruins immersion for me, just reminds me that I am not actually an adventurer exploring a strange new universe, I’m just a guy playing a video game.

Apart from that, there was a lot to like! I liked the story that I got to experience, the characters seemed cool, the quests were interesting. I just couldn’t push past the things that bothered me to see more of the stuff I liked.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1

GOG once did enforce the use of DRM-free executables, but (as far as I understand it) once they expanded their store to include modern AAA titles, some of the bigger game companies refused to follow that rule so they dropped the requirement.

The writing is the strongest part of the game in my opinion. But the writing almost NEVER translates to interesting gameplay.

As an example, there’s a quest where you’re tasked with tracking some bad guys through a labyrinthine canyon, then you need to search for clues to find out where they came from, who hired them, etc. The gameplay for the quest is about the least imaginative way to interpret that story - the tracking is just following waypoint markers on your screen; the combat is just shooting four basic enemies; and finally the “search for clues” is just looting one item from the enemy leader’s corpse. Then you fast travel back to the quest giver and get some credits as a reward.

Nearly every quest is like this. They present an interesting story via the dialogue, but then the actual gameplay for the quest is always just travel to a location, shoot some bad guys and/or pick up an item and/or talk to a person, then fast travel back and get some credits.

Yeah they always ask “Why won’t people pay $100 for our video game?” and not “How about we DON’T spend $100,000,000 making ONE video game?”

I played the demo for this game and it was super fun! Reminded me a lot of Chrono Trigger, but obviously more modern. The soundtrack was AMAZING! Definitely going to pick this one up.

NVIDIA’s AI tech is off the charts, this looks insanely good. One of the issues I have had with raytracing is you had to choose between either 1) having DLSS off so the reflections and lighting look grainy as shit, or 2) enabling DLSS so the reflections and lighting look smudgy and low res. The reflections look so goddamn sharp with the new denoiser, I can’t wait to try it out.

https://weatherfactory.biz/failgate/

Anyone know if enemies trigger traps in BG3? Something I see in other CRPGs (Pathfinder and Rogue Trader, specifically) is that enemies will walk right through traps without setting them off. It’s particularly frustrating if you learn this only after you’ve spotted a trap and then you try to lead the enemies into it and it doesn’t affect them.

As others have said, it’s pronounced “kud”. The name for the in-game plant qudzu, is based on a real life plant called kudzu.

My favourite run was when I took the mutation that gives a tiny chance of my evil twin appearing. Literally the turn that I started the game in Joppa, my twin appeared and killed me. They acted before I even got the chance to take my first turn, so from my perspective I just loaded in and instantly died.