Octopus Overlords

Daehawk wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 2:41 pm Shes blank and black Jack. Unless you use your mouse to highlight it then you can see the price.

I know. I thought we should have an example on hand rather than having to search for one.

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 2:02 pm I can't imagine them tweaking the color scheme to black text on black. It's more likely that they tweaked the API used with linking. Testing:

What I meant was, was it maybe changed during their whole redesign? That's what I'm wondering. Something was maybe changed inadvertently.

Maybe, but I hadn't noticed the issue until recently (and the UI update was six or seven weeks ago.)

Rumpy wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 9:35 pm Is anyone having issues with the Steam forum links lately? Any of the links posted lately don't show a price, just a blank black box where the price would normally be. Not sure what changed.

Seems okay to me. As a kluge, switching to a different board style in your User Control Panel may help. Using Digi DarkBlue, here's how Blackhawk's post appears:

Anonymous Bosch wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 6:23 pm

Rumpy wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 9:35 pm Is anyone having issues with the Steam forum links lately? Any of the links posted lately don't show a price, just a blank black box where the price would normally be. Not sure what changed.

Seems okay to me. As a kluge, switching to a different board style in your User Control Panel may help. Using Digi DarkBlue, here's how Blackhawk's post appears:

Given that I also use Digi Dark Blue, it's probably not that.

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 6:29 pm Given that I also use Digi Dark Blue, it's probably not that.

Yeah, in that case, it's evidently not the board style. Curious.

Black on my phone as well.

Yeah, I mean even if it were board style, it still doesn't answer the fact that it was working fine not that long ago, so it's likely something that Valve modified on their end that broke the functionality.

I must be enjoying F1 Manager 2023. I've got in 32 hours and have over one thousand screenshots

In video form.

Electronics Boutique 1992 Christmas Catalog
Electronics Boutique 1995 Christmas Catalog Electronics Boutique 1997 Christmas Catalog

I'll say, I had no idea what "EB" in "EB Games" stood for.

There were a few Electronics Boutique stores near me, I shopped there quite a lot. They also didn't always have the same games in stock so it was worth taking a tour of them to see which ones had which games. Back in the pre-Internet era visiting the stores was the only way to find out what games had come out as well.

I remember depending on magazines for dates. You'd get to the store and either go yay its in! or be really disappointed it was late or postponed for a week.

gilraen wrote: Thu Aug 03, 2023 10:58 pm I'll say, I had no idea what "EB" in "EB Games" stood for.

In Canada they stayed that way for a long time before they changed them to EB Games. Then it stayed as EB Games for decades and they've only just recently as of a few years ago changed them to Gamestop.

Daehawk wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2023 2:20 pm I remember depending on magazines for dates. You'd get to the store and either go yay its in! or be really disappointed it was late or postponed for a week.

Yeah, there was some website that the magazines used to get the dates from, along with snarky one-liner predictions on their accuracy. Got Gilded or something.

gilraen wrote: Thu Aug 03, 2023 10:58 pm I'll say, I had no idea what "EB" in "EB Games" stood for.

where i grew up (Minneapolis area) many stores sold software in the 80s, but lots of them were full MSRP. the only decent place to go was Egghead. (Software Etc did have a markdown bin, sometimes.) then on a family road trip out east in 1989, i discovered Electronics Boutique at Schaumberg mall outside of Chicago and they also had good prices. bought several games there, but they were stored in the trunk of the car the _entire_ trip and the heat did a number to the 3.5" disks. Temple of Apshai Trilogy had some really strange 'bugs' like where your character would just suddenly have -32093 or whatever hitpoints for no reason and instantly die (didn't discover this problem until later). and Ikari Warriors didn't have any enemies and the game ran reeeeaaallly slooooooowly. and Castle Wolfenstein was the only game we had that required DOS 3.1 or _under_ and we had 3.2 or something, and it didn't run correctly - load title screen, load game, game screen would come up for a split second and then the death screen would display, loop back to loading title screen. EB took back the latter two in exchange by mail and we got Thexder instead. i think.

Electronics Boutique did open stores in MN starting the early 90s (actually it may have been 1992, when the Mall of America opened)

Trying two games as I liked the subject matter, but oh boy, this is a mess.

One is Overcrowd: a COmmute'Em Up, where you design a metro station, and staff them to get everybody commuting smoothly, with efficient design and layout and stuff. The game is fine when the station is laid out for you, but the tutorial for building underground is incomprehensible. I'll probably need to try to watch the video a couple more times to get it.

Two is Mech Engineer, which is described as post-apoc city-builder semi-auto combat and somehow I can't even survive the the tutorial level?!?!?! WTH?! I like the setting, the premise, but at least give me a difficulty I can handle at the beginning, sheesh...

Kasey Chang wrote: Sat Aug 05, 2023 2:13 am Two is Mech Engineer, which is described as post-apoc city-builder semi-auto combat and somehow I can't even survive the the tutorial level?!?!?! WTH?! I like the setting, the premise, but at least give me a difficulty I can handle at the beginning, sheesh...

YMMV, but I found the Splattercatgaming overview below provides a helpful intro on how to get started in Mech Engineer:

Went back to play Mini Metro and Mini Motorways. They just added 3 cities to both games for their Miniversary (10th year) and I've completed all of MiniMetro's achievements and only have 2 achievements left to go in MiniMotorways (I belive I had 30-60 left before I started Friday). Unfortunately, those two have so far eluded me, and they are indeed extremely hard.

Back to Steam, but does anyone feel the new/current UI is a bit less functional than the previous version? A few nights ago, I'd loaded it up for the first time in months, and while the previous version had client update prompts asking you if you wanted to update now or later, this new version doesn't seem to, at least in context with what happened to me. I'd started downloading a game, then without warning the client completely disappeared. I'd thought it had crashed, but it was supposedly updating.

Theres something off about it but I haven't been able to narrow it down to what.

There are too many games coming out. It's the first time I've felt that way in years.

Diablo 4 and System Shock recently released (these I already own, although I've barely touched D4 due to D3 burnout.)
Jagged Alliance 3 just came out, and I'm in the middle of playing it.
Baldur's Gate 3 just hit.
Starfield is right around the corner
Cyberpunk's new make-over/DLC is just a couple of months away.
Payday 3 is getting close.

I'm actually a little relieved that Spider-Man 2 is going to be a PS5 exclusive, as I don't have a PS5 (in other words, I'm disappointed that I can't play it, but at least it's one I don't have to worry about!)

I want to play all of these (although I'm going to be waiting for non-mainstream reviews for both Starfield and Payday before I commit.) I have neither the time, nor the money to do so. Well, I could make the time if I gave up other pursuits, but I prefer to mix up my days.

I usually buy one new-release game every year or two. It's been a long time before there were enough new-release games I was interested in coming out in such a short timeframe that I had to make hard choices. It's actually kind of nice.

The Steam links are back to looking normal rather than blank.

somehow i've put 125 hours into Zachtronics Solitaire... trying to get the '100 games won' achievements for all eight titles Fortune's Foundation, Shenzhen Solitaire and Sigmar's Garden are all at 100. all the others (except Kabufuda Solitaire) are now in the 50s or low 60s. (i only got the hang of Kabufuda recently and now have 25 wins. it's also the only one with a difficulty setting, so have been so far playing mostly on 'Hard' mode with some 'Medium' and 'Expert' wins)

One of those free prologue games is now available, sounds somewhat interesting, and it's free

Interesting. I might need to check that out at some point.

Today, I wanted to listen to the soundtrack from Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. I searched for it on YouTube and clicked on the first result.

I was vibing to it when I noticed the name of the YouTube channel: Conversations with Curtis. Curious name, I thought. So I browsed the channel's other videos. I'm really glad I did.

Conversations with Curtis is run by Paul Morgan Stetler, the actor who played the lead role of Curtis in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (aka Phantas 2). He interviews the actors and designers of classic 90s Sierra and LucasArts adventure games and some newer games. For example, he interviews none other than Roberta Williams herself, joined by the lead actor from Phantas 1:



If you've got adventure game nostalgia, you'll find something of interest here. Just be warned that a couple of the video titles have spoilers for Phantas 2 in case you're of a mind to play that game for the first time.

in case anyone is looking for a used Switch console: https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/collections/gaming

Any Armored Core fans in the house?

the concept behind this is spot-on (taking early-2010s fake mobile game ads and making actual games out of them) but i won't get it until it hits the Fanatical/Humble bundle sales...



(from the studio that did the Katamari Damacy remasters)

Max Peck wrote: Tue Aug 22, 2023 11:52 am Any Armored Core fans in the house?

No, but I am interested given where it's coming from.

Uh oh, I've hit a gaming funk.

Scrolling through my very large backlog full of excellent games, many of which have not been installed, let alone played.

So far...nothing grabs my attention.

Except maybe the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.

Been years and years. Might be fun? Easy to learn anyway. That's the real roadblock to playing anything new...the learning curve. It's nearly impossible for me to just start playing a game and figuring it out as I go. As I don't enjoy doing it either, so I spend hours reading up on a game before playing, most of the time.

Hipolito wrote: Mon Aug 14, 2023 10:44 pm Today, I wanted to listen to the soundtrack from Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. I searched for it on YouTube and clicked on the first result.

I was vibing to it when I noticed the name of the YouTube channel: Conversations with Curtis. Curious name, I thought. So I browsed the channel's other videos. I'm really glad I did.

Conversations with Curtis is run by Paul Morgan Stetler, the actor who played the lead role of Curtis in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (aka Phantas 2). He interviews the actors and designers of classic 90s Sierra and LucasArts adventure games and some newer games. For example, he interviews none other than Roberta Williams herself, joined by the lead actor from Phantas 1:

If you've got adventure game nostalgia, you'll find something of interest here. Just be warned that a couple of the video titles have spoilers for Phantas 2 in case you're of a mind to play that game for the first time.

Interesting. I watched an Infocom documentary on youtube recently.

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Aug 24, 2023 5:58 pm Uh oh, I've hit a gaming funk.

...

That's the real roadblock to playing anything new...the learning curve. It's nearly impossible for me to just start playing a game and figuring it out as I go. As I don't enjoy doing it either, so I spend hours reading up on a game before playing, most of the time.

Yes, this. I find my patience for learning the mechanics of unfamilar games very thin these days. There are really intriguing ideas that I just can't get into because I don't the perseverance to get back learning the ins and outs of how to play it.

Hope you find something that hits the 'sweet spot', Goo!

Thanks.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but it's pretty funny how many games you install, start, look at the main menu interface, then exit and do it again with another game, repeatedly, during a funk.

Or look at your huge backlog and then fire up a game you've played a ton already?

I just played half a dozen or some runs of Void Bastards. Probably could have knocked another game off my backlog instead. Oh well... (and it's still installed...)

TheMix wrote: Thu Aug 24, 2023 7:17 pm Or look at your huge backlog and then fire up a game you've played a ton already?

I just played half a dozen or some runs of Void Bastards. Probably could have knocked another game off my backlog instead. Oh well... (and it's still installed...)

Absolutely. I play the newer Master of Orion because I can play that in my sleep, rather than continue to learn the ins and outs of Stellaris, which is layered in complexity.

I do a lot of stuff on repeat, I've realized over the last decade. I think I like seeing the same stuff again and again, until I'm finally bored, but much later than most people. Give me a game that plays differently with different character builds and I will play it over and over again with every alt possible. Diablo is a good example of this.

edit: Looking to see if I (or my son) owns void bastards. I think one of us does.
edit2: We do, maybe from a humble bundle. I will install, watch the loading screen then try something else.

You can't go wrong with Void Bastards. Amazing game.

There are other proven treatments for Gaming Funk. But installing game after game is a symptom, not a cure.

The two best home remedies I've found:

1. Play a game that is different from what you normally play - a different genre, a different point of view, a console rather than PC (or vice-versa.)
2. Take the hint from your brain and stop forcing it - go pursue something that's not gaming related for a few days. Catch up on a show, do some reading, finish a project, fiddle with a different hobby. When the Funk has run its course, you'll know - you'll have that irresistible urge to game back.

Let me know if you have any questions about Void Bastards. I've got some decent strategies going. (Though those mostly revolve around knowing when to run away and skip a ship.)

Most of my strategies stemmed from knowing that, as soon as I saw good mutation, I'd die on the first ship.