Currently playing...

[Bisley]

Playing The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow on the Steamdeck. Lovely old school pixel Point n Click Adventure. Very good.

Picked that ups on special from GOG last week for Mac, but in the grand tradition of "too many games on too many platforms" have yet to download it.

Looks good though!

I know what you mean. Also playing Return to Monkey Island & Stray on the deck.

[VNVObit]

Are there any decent turn-based WH40k games out there? I used to love Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command on the PSP, but everything seems to be RTS these days, and I'm very much a turn-by-turn gamer when it comes to strategy.

There are a few turn based strategy games but not played any so can't comment. I don't enjoy RTS either and prefer playing party based RPGs using turns (action is fine if there's only one character)

ones I'm aware of are Gladius, Battlesector and Space Wolf but as I said not played any so can't comment on them. Would keep an eye out via isthereanydeal.com, humble bundle or fanatical.com as you may spot some discounts/bundles - metacritic may help in spotting reviews so you can gauge the games

[Foozwah]

Playing The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow on the Steamdeck. Lovely old school pixel Point n Click Adventure. Very good.

Picked that ups on special from GOG last week for Mac, but in the grand tradition of "too many games on too many platforms" have yet to download it.

Looks good though!

I know what you mean. Also playing Return to Monkey Island & Stray on the deck.

Yeah, it's crazy. A situation I could not have imagined as a kid when a new game was an Atari cart once a twice a year.

Really enjoyed Return to Monkey Island - just finished it on the Switch a couple of weeks ago. Great stuff!

[WiteWulf]

I'm currently playing The Stanley Parable, and not really sure I get the humour. I understand what it's doing, but it feels overly repetitive to the point of annoyance. I'll keep at it for a while longer, I guess, but it's wearing on me...

There is a game in there, promise. It's much more than just "that" joke

Well, I put in a few more hours on this and got really annoyed with all the meta game-dev bullshit once I got to the "ultra deluxe additional content" stuff. I realise what the "game" is now (

Spoiler: show

all the multiple endings, and the often creative ways of getting to them

), but the narrator and the snark started pissing me off...

Anyways, I'm giving Night In The Woods a go, now, and that feels much nicer.

[venusian]

I understood the story of Night in the Woods to be an allegory for

Spoiler: show

the spread of right wing ideology in the financially challenged, ex-industrial parts of the US

. But googling around suggests nobody else did which is odd because I thought it pretty blatant.

[Felonious Feline]

A couple of years old, but only just hit my radar (since getting a Steam Deck) - Glitchangels - simple mechanics, difficulty that at first seems impossible (but becomes easier as you upgrade - especially so once you unlock archangels) and plenty of "mods" as you go along. Take a bow @PaulCunningham...

Finally got all achievements yesterday. Well worth the few quid I paid...

[MattyP]

Outrun 2 (Xbox), Tempest 2000 (Atari 50th Celebration Xbox) and HiFi Rush (Xbox Series S).

HiFi Rush dropped onto GamePass this week and it's a fantastic breath of fresh air, fast, slick and great music.

[WiteWulf]

Also working through the older games on my Steam Deck: just finished Inside, and what an absolutely creepy, grim, gory delight that was! I loved Limbo on the Vita and was a little disappointed Inside didn't come to the system. Having now payed it I understand why, with it's much improved visuals.

[WiteWulf]

HiFi Rush dropped onto GamePass this week and it's a fantastic breath of fresh air, fast, slick and great music.

I'd really love to play Hi-Fi Rush, and it's available on Steam, but with Denuvo DRM, so that's a hard pass from me

[Mat]

Since its Steam release before Christmas, there is only Dwarf Fortress. And the recent news that the Adams brothers have had a significant windfall from the release warms my heart; they really deserve this break.
I know it's consuming Dio's available game-time too

Technically, there's a lot going on here.
Since I last played it, fortresses maintain playable framerates for a lot longer, and I have yet to lose one to outright FPS death.
The official tileset is incredible, and so much deeper than it first appears. They even render things like a dwarf wearing a single glove of a specific colour.
Yes, it can still be buggy, and before my current fort, I did have to stop playing a couple of ones because my dwarves just stopped working, for no discernible reason.

But with this new fortress, I've fully implemented what is technically an exploit in Quantum Stockpiles, and that keeps things ticking over nicely.
Most of all, I'm amazed by how Toady's managed to change my behaviour and effectively remove the crutch of Dwarf Therapist (even though it's now available).
If you leave labour assignments alone, all jobs will get completed. I rarely, if ever, tinker with roles in this current fortress, other than to briefly specialise dwarves when I need them to concentrate on a particular task. It's such a breath of fresh air not having to rely on it like an ugly, spreadsheet crutch.

There's other things that are minor annoyances, but the overwhelming depth of the simulation more than outweighs them.
I'm so happy with it, and most importantly, it broke Guild Wars 2's grip on my soul

If you're also playing and don't already know, DFHack is now working, which can help ease out some of the buggy behaviour, but I would suggest starting a new fortress once you've installed it.

[Dio]

Since I last played it, fortresses maintain playable framerates for a lot longer, and I have yet to lose one to outright FPS death.

Someone isn't being ambitious enough with magma pumps. I have a lever in my fortress I can pull to send my FPS to SPF. I now make sure I lock a dwarf in the room with the lever when I pull it, the last time it took me 2 hours to get it unpulled.

My fortress is suffering from a problem where whenever a fight starts, some or all the foreign dwarfs inside will end up fighting, so I need to station squads in my tavern and temples before I start a fight. And I'm unbelievably frustrated with the lack of sorting options on most of the 'pick a dwarf' dialogs. But it's still great.

[Rhythm]

Only been dipping in and out of stuff at the moment. My "core" game currently is Marvel Snap. I've never encountered such a great card battler before. The battlefield being different every single time keeps it fresh as hell. It really is something special

[Rhythm]

Ooh, I know what I'm playing tonight - they just added 9 more levels to Powerwash Simulator \o/

[Mat]

Someone isn't being ambitious enough with magma pumps. I have a lever in my fortress I can pull to send my FPS to SPF. I now make sure I lock a dwarf in the room with the lever when I pull it, the last time it took me 2 hours to get it unpulled.

Ha, I learned that lesson a loooooong time ago, and I tend to prefer a wood-driven steel industry instead of a magma one now. It's more of a faff to get up and running, but my FPS more than makes up for it

My fortress is suffering from a problem where whenever a fight starts, some or all the foreign dwarfs inside will end up fighting, so I need to station squads in my tavern and temples before I start a fight.

Someone isn't being ambitious enough with mist generators

And I'm unbelievably frustrated with the lack of sorting options on most of the 'pick a dwarf' dialogs. But it's still great.

Tell me about it; there's irritating inconsistencies like this throughout the user interface, like...

• The depot being the only list you can apply a value filter to.
  
  Some lists showing category breaks that can't be collapsed while others can.
  
  The complete loss of the ability to see which items in your stocklist are in use (I built FAR too many minecarts when I discovered the joys of Quantum Stockpiles, only to discover that when I went to sell the excess, my dwarves stole the ones powering the QSPs too :E )
  
  Not being able to modify equipment templates, instead having to start from scratch every time (although I think there might be a way around this by modifying an individual dwarf's equipment)
  
  Some dwarf icons being clickable in lists taking you to that dwarf, while others aren't...

But yeah, it's still great

[Dio]

Someone isn't being ambitious enough with mist generators

You think I went for a 120-Z-level magma stack before a mist generator in the main hall (and a top-quality clothing pipeline)? My fortress dwarfs never tantrum, I rarely have more than one in the red and half a dozen worse than yellow.

The problem is that whenever I start a fight (e.g. against some attacking humans, or a goblin I just released from a cage for target practice) then some or all dwarf visitors from other sites hanging out in the tavern or temples ("baron of Workclod" or "countess of Chambercheerful" or something) instantly goes hostile and starts fighting everything in range (but, annoyingly, not triggering cage traps, which were my first go at sorting the problem out). Possibly a known bug based on my research, but very hard to tell.

Yes, the lack of click-through (and "back" buttons, and being linked to back/forward buttons on the mouse!) is also a massive PITA.