After playing World of Warcraft for 15 years, I started becoming increasingly bored and disgruntled with the game. The game being grindy and repetitive is no real surprise, I mean it's an MMO. But the one thing that was really frustrating was paying monthly for a subscription and a huge chunk of cash for an expansion, but still having extra stuff flashed in my face all the time that was simply not possible to earn in-game. Mount skins, cosmetics, miscellaneous stuff that is only available in the Blizzard store. They also began adding loyalty items that require being subscribed every single month, and doing repetitive, extremely boring stuff on top of the other repetitive boring stuff, so basically double dipping on your grind, which really isn't fun.

Aside from that, I also played other games that required a heavy amount of grinding too, and each one of them had similarly frustrating elements. Destiny 2, overwatch, Battlefield, Fortnite, Halo, and the list goes on. Each of them has the same issue: fear of missing out. FOMO basically makes it so that if you don't seize the opportunity to spend real life money, you will never be able to obtain something really cool, because it's only there for a short time, and then it's gone, and you are made to feel guilty and bad about it. It's just kind of depressing playing kind of games and realizing that you are now mentally dependent on financial transactions in order to get the full enjoyment of the game. That to me is a very very awful way to live life, and it really messes with your emotions

So I ditched every game that had any element of an in-game purchase. This is honestly helped my mental health a huge, huge amount. Now, I only play games that either have no microtransactions in them at all, or are completely free and 100% possible to play with no purchase required at all. So games like team fortress, deadlocked, Stardew Valley, and many other indie games that you can purchase and then never have to worry about getting suckered into the microtransaction cycle for

Today we're diving back into the world of psychological horror with the Japanese game The Exit 8. This game is a walking simulator, except the purpose is to escape a single underground passageway that you're stuck in. Every time you round the corner, you find yourself back in the same hallway you just left.

The rules are simple. You start at Exit 0 and walk down the hall. If you notice something changed or abnormal in the hallway, turn around and go back the way you came. If you don't notice anything out of the ordinary, keep going.

Once you round that corner, if your exit sign on the wall has moved up a digit, then you're one step closer to finding Exit 8 and escaping. If it has reset back to Exit 0, then you made a mistake and will be starting your journey over.

You need to pay attention to details in this game, because some changes can be extremely subtle. Like the guy in the hallway smiling as he walks:

Or perhaps more obvious, like the eyes of this poster darting back and forth instead of staring straight ahead.

Or they'll be glaringly obvious, like walking into the hall to find it covered in no smoking posters:

Some of the abnormalities are sounds, like the vents clicking noise will be slightly different. Or there will be a banging noise coming from one of the doors on the right. Sometimes it will just be a slight change to a poster on the wall, and if you haven't studied the posters, you might miss it.

There are 32 anomalies, and you might be exposed to a random one every time you go down the hallway. If you can successfully avoid all anomalies, you'll find yourself at Exit 8, which is a stairway back to the surface. I won't give away too many of the anomalies, but here are a few others to look out for:

That last one is the closest to a game over you get. A rushing river of red water comes at you quick, and if you don't turn around and run, it will overtake you and the screen will go black, before you find yourself back at Exit 0.

The Japanese developer (KOTAKE CREATE) also made a sequel game of sorts, called Platform 8. It's the exact same premise, except this time you're stuck on a subway line, trying to find your way to the front train car.

And if you enjoy these kind of games, there's yet another game called Shinkansen 0, made by Chilla's Art, a small 2-person indie development team who makes Japanese horror games. As you may know, the Shinkansen is what we English-speakers call the bullet train. This is a very similar game to Platform 8, except for a few more horror twists in it.

They are also planning to put more games on steam, including Soccer, Football, Baseball 2001, Basketball, and Hockey!

The Axis Unseen free demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1807810/The_Axis_Unseen/

It took about 3.5 years, but now it's actually coming out in less than two weeks. I'm really excited to see what people think of it and it has been cool watching streamers react to the demo. Somehow my two story tall tree guy is really good at sneaking up on people. :D

original post on imgur

Today's game is Slime Rancher. I just came home from a concert, and i was wiped. So i decided to take things easy and just play around in my Slime Rancher Save.

As you can tell, I clearly don't have a favorite slime. And they totally don't have a entire dedicated chicken farm next to their pen that i use to feed them every morning (I then proceeded to fill the pen with a ungodly amount of Tabby Slimes shortly after)

Link to bundle: https://itch.io/b/2666/queer-halloween-stories-bundle-2024-60-fright-edition

Anyone know of any good games?

So I just read this book on history of games called "Blood, Sweat and Pixels" and was fascinated by the chapter on The Witcher 3 and mostly how the team put in so much thought and care in every single side quest. And seems that there are a lot of moral decision to be made on each adventure. So I finally decided to give it a try. Got any advice for me?

I'm playing it rightnow and so far I like it, Of course its nothing like the original but hey.. the graphics are really good.

Here's another fun Halloween-related game: Witch It!, a sort of hide-and-seek between witches and hunters.

This little game starts with random team assignments. You'll either be a witch or a hunter. The witches get 30 seconds to hide somewhere on the map before the hunters are let loose.

There are many different abilities and defenses you can set, but by default, witches get to shape-shift into an object they can see in front of them. So they hide by literally becoming part of the environment. Below, I've become a cute little edible gnome house. You can tell what you're shapeshifted as by looking at the text in the top left corner of the screen:

The hunters find witches by throwing potatoes at everything, until something flashes purple and cries out in pain. The hunters also get a range of abilities, but the potato is your main attack. I personally like the chicken, which alerts you when there's a witch nearby.

Once you've damaged a witch enough, they lose. If all the witches are destroyed, the hunters win the match. But if they can't find them all, then the witches win. Here's me winning a match as a tiny broccoli resting at the base of a giant beanstalk:

The below screenshot shows another easy win. I shape-shifted into a "doge firework" and hid on top of a tower next to the map border. No one even came close to me all match long!

You earn all sorts of different outfits and appearances, which you can use to dress up your witch or hunter. Here's my current witch:

Here's another one of me hiding as a red candle pressed up against a wall in a stairwell. I didn't last long in this match; not enough stuff around me to blend in!

My only complaint about this game is that it's online multiplayer, so you need to play with other people. As much fun as it is, it doesn't have a very large following, so there's usually only a few matches going at any given time, and I usually just jump into the largest group I can find.

But if you get a bunch of your friends into this game, you can set up your own private match and play whenever!

I want to play an easy shooter where you feel like you're in a flow state aiming at targets, the only time I've ever felt like that was in the PS2 Medal of Honour, kneecap, helmet shot, head shot or up till MW4 original.

I've tried the latest CoD and the cinematics and cutscenes are just overblown.

Borderlands would be a kind of turn off your brain type but they haven't made a new game in awhile.

Helldiver had great shooting but the grind, limited levels and multiplayer means I wasn't too invested in it after a hard days work

I got back to the Grindstone today with Alan Wake and started Episode 5. The screenshot is of the Diner.

I wanted to get an achievement where you complete the entire segment without dying, but I was cursed to fail by walking backwards and somehow through an invisible wall and dying (not before getting Alan stuck on some scaffolding though and trying to break him free).

I have too say this episode is my third favorite (First being Episode 4 with the Lodge and Farm and then Episode 1 just for being an Amazing introduction), the whole fight through the town and then the ending is amazing. Tomorrow I’m going to take it easy so I probably won’t be playing Alan Wake, but after that I will go back to part 2 of Episode 5, and then get to work on Episode 6 and the DLC levels.

The real Halloween scare this year.

Chud site source: https://x.com/LittleBigPlanet/status/1843652568389480651

After years of rumours, it's finally happening.

Today’s Game is Old School RuneScape. I felt like shit after pulling an All Nighter last night for an Assignment so I didn’t want to start Nightmare mode of Episode 5 of Alan Wake. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Challenge. But I wasn’t in the mood for it today. On top of that my Usual Friends I play multiplayer were gone, so I decided to dick around in OSR by myself.

I don’t play very often (as you can see by my amateur armor and equipment) but I like the vibe of the game, and the Soundtrack is one of my favorites. I love how it sounds, specifically Newbie Melody, Yesteryear, and Sea Shanty 2. And the graphics have a charm to them I love with their rudimentary polygons.

I took the screenshot in a little village market I spawned in, before teleporting back to the usual spawn, and did a quest where I had to help this chef guy gather some things. Then I ran around the castle stealing boots. I then took a walk over to a big city and fought some bandits. Overall I think I got my relaxed day.

I’m hoping to get back to Alan Wake tomorrow, but the day after I think I’ll probably take it easy again because I’m going to a concert that’s running late.

Kids can be mean, huh? But adults can be just as awful sometimes. Here's the conversation at the first house you go trick-or-treating at:

I decided to change things up a bit for my Halloween screenshot postings. I've been posting too much horror and gore lately; it's time for some childish Halloween fun! And what better way than a video game that's all about trick-or-treating?

Costume Quest is about two new kids on the block - twin siblings - who are going out trick-or-treating for the first time in their new neighborhood.

At the beginning, you get to choose which of the two siblings to play as: the boy Reynold or the girl Wren. Of course, with my affinity for playing strong feminine characters, I went with Wren.

Your first trick-or-treat door went poorly, as seen above. Afraid to be seen with your embarrassment of a sibling, you let your twin go alone to the next door, where they encounter a monster hunting for candy! And it just so happens, your sibling is wearing a candy corn costume!

Your sibling is abducted and thrown over a gate into an ominous land and you find yourself forced to collect Halloween candy in order to open the gates and pursue your sibling.

Along the way, you find an ally in another new kid who's being bullied. With your combined costumes, you collect candy and fight more monsters you encounter in houses. You can exchange costumes for various abilities, and you can find resources in the neighborhood that let you build new and unique costumes, for more unique abilities that will help you on your quest.

The fights against monsters transform into giant kaiju-like battles, where your costumes provide you with special attacks. The fights are turn-based with quick time events to successfully land a blow.

This was a fun game about trying to rescue your sibling so they don't ruin Halloween for you. This game is a Halloween tradition for me; I always like to re-play this game every October. I personally enjoy it because it feels nostalgic to me. It takes me back to my childhood days of trick-or-treating in suburban neighborhoods. I lived out in the forested countryside, so I had to be driven into town by my parents to go trick-or-treating.

I always looked way older than I actually was, so the last 3 years I went out, people always asked if I was too old to be trick-or-treating. Halloween was my favorite holiday, so it was sad that I had to give up trick-or-treating a little early, just because I looked much older. We need to normalize trick-or-treating for adults!

Ahem.

There is also a sequel to this game called Costume Quest 2, where trick-or-treating is outlawed in the near future by dentists. You and your sibling go on time-traveling adventures to stop this horrible dark future from happening.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20627621

Some of the in-game text strongly suggests this is not a simple oil industry tycoon game focused on Iran.

Fair framing, but rather political for a tycoon game:

This definitely has some propaganda elements to it:

This looks to have been published by UIG Entertainment GmbH, a (defunct?) German publisher that seems to be focused on shovelware type games. However, Mobygames does not have an entry for "Oil Tycoon Simulator" under UIG or any other studio/publisher.

The content creator does go into his attempt to find the source of this game at the end of the video.