This sucks.

And now for something completely different... The Complex is actually an interactive film! Sort of a "choose your own adventure" kind of story. You play as Dr. Amy Tenent (played by Michelle Mylett, of Letterkenny fame) as she deals with a medical science crisis.

The game opens with Amy saving lives in the war-torn fictional South-East Asian nation of Kindar. Which feels like a stand-in for North Korea. They even refer to the leader of the dictator regime as the Supreme Leader.

Immediately, you're given a choice, and choices matter in this game. You also have a limited time to make your choice. (Although you can turn off the timer in the options if you struggle to make quick decisions.)

Fast-forward 5 years and Amy is now working for a large organization, developing nanocells that will help heal and repair people. But one of the company's interns collapses on a public transit, having a bad reaction to the under-developed nanocells.

Amy is rushed to an underground complex, where she will attempt to save the young intern's life, while also extracting the nanocells from her blood.

But the complex suddenly goes into lockdown, and some mysterious terrorists attempt to break in. Amy needs to figure out what's actually going on and survive the threat from outside - and from within...

Like I said, choices matter in this game. There are 9 different endings and 196 different scenes to discover. And there isn't a way to save your progress and go back to a previous decision. If you make a bad call, you're locked in to the repercussions of that choice until the end of the game. Just like real life.

I played through this game twice. The first playthrough, I almost made it to the end and got a lot of people killed along the way. I did my best to be kind to everyone - if you remember my previous post, I mentioned that I don't like to be cruel in video games. I try to play as altruistic as I can. But apparently, that didn't work too well in this game. I had to be the "tough bitch" sometimes and make some harsh decisions instead of people-pleasing all the time. They gave me a final assessment of "neurotic." Damn, okay.

My second playthrough, I made a slightly different choice early on in the game... and died almost immediately. At least I got an achievement for getting over 50% relationship status with everyone I'd met... which is called the "People Pleaser" achievement. That hurts. 😖

I actually got this game in a bundle with other interactive film games, although I can't remember the names of the others. I'll need to dig through my Steam library and track down some more of these kind of games. I really enjoyed it.

For me personally, video games are basically interactive stories. I want to have an entertaining tale to follow, where I get to influence the way the main character completes the story.

This kind of game is exactly that, except super heavy on the film side of it with minimal interactions. It was fun to sit through once, but on concurrent playthroughs, I found myself spamming the skip button to get to the choices quicker. And some (lengthy) cutscenes were unskippable because they went over important story details. I would love to find all the endings to this game, but I don't think I have the patience to sit through it many more times. Not when I have many more video games that need my attention. 😉

I thought this was a joke but it seems like it's actually legit. WoW, which has a subscription and paid expansions, just added a $90 item to their store. This is Korean MMO levels of absurdity. What do you think of this?

Seems like hundreds of people bought it immediately

Today's game is No Man's Sky, and day 100! I honestly didn't expect to get this far with my schedule but i'm happy i did.

I decided to play No Man's Sky after seeing the new update for Halloween with all the Cthulhu stuff. I especially want the Bioluminescent Companion from it. I went to collect my Extractors on my freighter before leaving and snagged this shot from my balcony. I also got a few extras from planets i stopped along the way.

This one is of a planet that was entirely yellow. This is how i found out i have the sense of humor of a Middle Schooler.

This one i stopped by and took a screenshot at. I thought it was pretty with all the purple on it and i was planning to build a base here, but then i saw the corrupted sentinels and noped out because they're more of a pain then they're worth

This final one i saved for last. Partly because it's my favorite with all the snow, and partly because all my other posts with Alan Wake have been dark, so i wanted to put something a bit brighter at the forefront. The ship in the snow there is the Hanai HA5 which is a Solar ship i have. I wish it came in a different color other than yellow, but oh well.

Completely forgot about this but I'm excited to update and check out the new routes.

Officially, this game is called Duck Season, but ~~when they ported it to Steam, they added "PC" to its Steam title~~ the version on Steam without "PC" in its name is VR only. They're both just called Duck Season in the game itself.

Old guys like me know the game this is parodying - Duck Hunt, for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The "Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt" cartridge was the first video game I ever owned and I had the original gray gun controller for it. I spent a lot of time shooting ducks in that game back in my youth!

There are a few differences between this game and the original one. Firstly, this one is a high-def simulation of a kid playing the original Duck Hunt. Secondly, instead of an actual dog, it's a guy in a dog costume. And finally... this is a horror game!

Strangely enough, I beat the entire game and was surprised that there were no horror elements. Besides a couple slightly weird scenes, nothing out of the ordinary happened. I beat the game, then the kid I was playing as moved on to "Final Fiesta II," a parody of Final Fantasy II. It was the best ending! I even got tons of food, like I was having a sleepover party with friends! Definitely brought back some nostalgic memories of my childhood in the '80s-'90s.

Then the kid's mother mentioned that she would've shot the dog if she was playing, and it hit me - I actively avoid being cruel in video games! That's why nothing bad happened; I wasn't mean to the dog. Oops.

My next playthrough, I accidentally (read: automatically) dialed 911 when I picked up the phone, and I dropped the receiver instead of hanging up, which led to the "Best Men" ending. I was mean to the dog this time, but instead of whatever horrors he would've brought to my house, I instead watched a live news coverage of a police helicopter pursuing him through the neighborhood! I guess I need to play through it again and avoid doing anything logical this time if I want my horror ending...

Interestingly, the game opens like a stage production, with backdrops to tell the story leading into the game. Which is an odd way to introduce a nostalgic video game simulator.

Also, the game itself takes you into the TV, where you're essentially on-stage performing. There are props and boundaries to the stage, and if you turn around, you can see yourself sitting in front of the TV!

I enjoyed the nostalgic toy commercials. Especially with all the blocks that the toys crash through. Very much like old '80s/'90s commercials. Personally, I always wanted those blocks so I could crash my own toys through them! They made it look very appealing for young me.

Here's an amusing bit of trivia: The hunter guy in the shotgun tutorial video is Sam Gorski - someone I went to high school with! He and his buddy, Niko Pueringer (the guy in white who yells at his mini dude in the game's Bootloose VHS tape) are the creators of Corridor Digital, and I knew them both when we were teenagers.

I wasn't super close with them; they were a few grades below me and we had intersecting friend circles. But I've been following their CG film career on YouTube for the last 2 decades and I was surprised to see their familiar faces in this game.

Digging into the production details of Duck Season PC, I discovered that the writer/director, Brandon Laatsch, is the younger brother of an old friend of mine from high school!

And he's not credited, but I'm 99% positive the guy in the "There's No 'I' in Iowa" VHS tape is my high school homecoming king. Small world.

Minecraft will officially stop supporting all virtual reality headsets after March 2025, according to an update posted to the Bedrock changelog. The update means Minecraft will no longer support devices like the Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, or the Meta Quest (through Quest Link), as reported earlier by UploadVR.

Last month, Minecraft developer Mojang also announced that the game would end support for PlayStation VR headsets next March. When Minecraft’s spring update rolls around, Mojang says you can “keep building in your worlds, and your Marketplace purchases (including Minecoins) will continue to be available on a non-VR/MR graphics device such as a computer monitor.”

As pointed out by UploadVR, you’ll still be able to play Minecraft in VR on PC by using the Java version of the game — either by downloading a VR mod like Vivecraft or using a standalone VR port such as QuestCraft.

Minecraft initially launched on Samsung’s Gear VR headsets in 2016 before adding support for the Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR. Before ending support for VR, Mojang also shut down Minecraft Earth, its augmented-reality mobile app, in 2020.

I've been playing it for a good couple months and I'm still nowhere near tired of it, I'll actually replay the whole game once I beat it because it's so much fun. Love the story and voice acting too. This game goes on sale a lot so I'd highly suggest getting jt for cheap and trying it out

Additional info:

• PC version will be available only on GOG (store page is up).
• Remaster comes bundled with the original version.
• Classic tank controls can be enabled.

Hello, all!

I have recently gotten into playing FromSoftware's older titles, namely King's Field and Shadow Tower: Abyss.

It's all thanks to a Youtuber called Majuular. I had no idea at all about these games, since at best I'm just a light and casual fan of Dark Souls 2/3, and Elden Ring. What I mainly enjoy about Dark Souls/Elden Ring is the exploration aspect, hence the casual.

I've got to say, if you haven't played King's Field IV: The Ancient City, or Shadow Tower: Abyss (Shadow Tower: Abyss is a Japan exclusive, but a fan translation patch is available!), and you enjoy romping through retro games with that certain something that only FromSoftware provides, please give these games a try!

To add context, after watching Majuular's video on King's Field, and his video on Shadow Tower's series, I started to look into more of From's older games, and found a game that is heavily inspired by King's Field called Lunacid. Well, I played the HELL out of Lunacid, and loved it so much, I started digging into finding other games like it! While this led me to find out that not a lot of games are in this niche of gaming, I did find a few! I can provide those to you if you so wish, just let me know!

I am happy to report that there is also a toolkit that can make similar games to King's Field, provided by FromSoftware all the way back in 2000, and lastly updated in 2001! This caused me to start looking for games that were made in this toolkit, and again, I did find some, but not a lot! I was also able to find a Remade demo for King's Field 2 by someone going by Rotmilldev, who did a wonderful job, and the only thing I'm disappointed by is that the demo is only the first part of the game!

Anyway, the real reason I am posting this is to get some discussions going on similar games, getting King's Field/Shadow Tower on people's radars that might incite some inspiration or interest, and to give any info I can to anyone interested in trying these forgotten gems!

As I am currently in King's Field IV right now, I can help anyone else who wants to spin it up for a try, and give some hints on settings or insights into why I'm falling in love with these games. If you are interested in it, I can also give you a .pnach file that will introduce better feeling controls for this game, at the cost of making it easier to fight any enemies due to the game being developed for a slower player character, which in turn means slower enemies to match.

Thanks for reading all this. I'm sorry to geek over it, but I would love to discuss it with anyone else interested! :)

Today's game is Alan Wake's American Nightmare. I completed the second loop today, and also finally moved out of my comfort zone by using the assault rifle. The animation for it looks hilarious with Alan. I also found out how much of a pain The Birdman and the Splitter are because they take 8 shots to go down with the Hunting Rifle. Out of all the enemies on Nightmare mode they gave me the most trouble. My MicroSD card i kept it on also decided today was a perfect day to die, so i had to perform an emergency transfer to get everything off of it. I'm going to call SanDisk support tomorrow to see if i'm still under warranty. Luckily i have Alan Wake II still installed on the Internal SSD so i should be good for the day after tomorrow.

This is a list of text-based IF’s (Interactive Fiction) that I and another user from itch.io, xSai or Bladed-Barbwire on Discord, made on itch.io, and I thought I’d share this here with you guys in case anyone is interested. All the credit goes to xSai for coming up with the idea. Also, note that, neither I nor xSai own the rights to any of these IF's; we are just recommending them to people as we believe they deserve more recognition and people might actually end up enjoying them. The list was made on itch.io and so, unfortunately, will have to be accessed from there for anyone wanting to access them from here. The list also had to be split into separate parts as we ran out of characters to use. All the IF’s are completely text-based, a few using some visuals and/or images, but none of them are full Visual Novels. Almost all of the IF's are made in Twine, with a few being made in ChoiceScript, Ren'py, or some other engine. Most of the IF's are free-to-play, some are pay-to-play, and some are free until they're completed and/or a price is decided. Some of the IF's have extra DLC's or bonus side content on their itch.io page or on the author's patreon, which are either free-to-play or pay-to-play. Most of the IF's can be played in a browser (works best in the itch.io app, Chrome, Firefox and some other browsers. Not guaranteed to work in every browser) with some also having a download option, but there are some IF's that only have a download option and no browser one. Most of the IF's can be played on PC and mobile, but some are not compatible for mobile. A lot of the IF's are also unfinished WIP's (Work In Progress); some of them are already completed, close to completion, just started, or may have been discontinued. Some of the links of the IF's also don't work, stop working for a while before working again, or ask for a password to access; perhaps due to being discontinued, shut down for maintenance, or for some other reason. We will continue to keep updating the list as we find more IF’s. We also have a discord server, a lemmy community, a subreddit, a tumblr blog, and a cohost page dedicated just for this. If you, or anyone else have any IF’s you want to recommend, feel free to share them on here, the three itch.io topics, the discord server, the subreddit, the tumblr blog, or the cohost page (They have to be text-based IF’s from itch.io and need to have at least some kind of interactivity. IF’s from other sites, Visual Novels, or some other type of game will not be accepted). Or if you just want to talk, or ask me for some suggestions on which IF's to try, then feel free to do that as well. Anyway, thank you for your time, and I hope you have a good day, folks. Cheers!

Twine games with character customization - Part 1

Twine games with character customization - Part 2

Twine games with character customization - Part 3

Twine/VN with Customization Discord Server

r/TextbasedIFRecs

Text-based Interactive Fiction Games Recommendations - Tumblr

Text-based Interactive Fiction Games Recommendations - Cohost

I was hoping to keep up daily Halloween-themed posts through all of October, but I had way too much on my plate yesterday and didn't get a moment to myself until almost midnight. Who knew retired life could be so busy? Oh well; at least I never promised to do daily posts. Maybe I'll make a double post sometime to make up for it, or review an extra horror game on November 1st.

Today's horror-themed video game is Alien: Isolation. This takes place in the Alien movie franchise (specifically after the first film), and actually follows Ellen Ripley's daughter, Amanda, as she tries to track down what happened to her mother aboard the Nostromo.

As you may remember from the original 1979 film (Spoilers ahead; click to reveal)

This game takes place 15 years later. Amanda Ripley, now an adult and working for Weyland-Yutani (her mother's company), heard about a remote trading station called Sevastopol that had recovered the flight recorder from the Nostromo. She was invited along with the recovery team, only to find that the station was under duress and not responding.

Amanda is split up from her team while trying to board, finds the trading station mostly empty except for a few panicked people running and looting for their lives, and eventually discovers what's happening... an alien is loose and hunting people.

Worse yet, the androids running the trading station have locked everyone out of the communications hub and are refusing to contact the outside world. When you try to break in to contact your team on the orbiting ship, the androids mark you as a threat and turn violent. Nothing worse than hearing kind words from an android while being strangled to death...

This game is mostly stealth, sneaking around and avoiding aliens. But it definitely falls under the horror category and has its jump scare moments. The aliens patrol certain regions of the ship and you have to find your way around them using various tools, such as smoke bombs, noisemakers, flash bangs, and EMP mines. All of which you have to craft yourself using items you find scattered around the various floors of the trading station.

Plus, it's everyone for themselves, so you have to be careful about the people you run into. Some will help you; others will attack you. Use your best judgment when approaching others. And don't forget to use your motion tracker to see how close the aliens are to you. They like to hide in the vents and surprise you. But they can also hear the ping of the motion tracker, so use it sparingly if they're close by...

Alien: Isolation faithfully reproduces the original film in video game format, with the same theme music from the film, as well as high-quality reproductions of the film sets. The original film was a beautiful sci-fi spectacle, with incredible details on board the Nostromo. You get to see that same level of quality applied not only to your own ship (the same type as the Nostromo), but to the trading station as a whole. No corners were cut in the music and graphics department. Check out these familiar scenes reproduced from the film:

Note: these screenshots are all from my 4K gameplay with maxed out graphics settings. They may look a little blurry here, but click on them and you'll see the full 4K detail. It's absolutely gorgeous level of work that went into replicating everything in game. There are hardly any copy/paste levels; it's an insane amount of work to create a world that feels like you're actually living in it. I keep pausing just to admire the details of everything, even just random hallways!

This game is a masterpiece in graphic design, and the soundtrack pulled right from the 1979 classic film helps to pull you into this world even more. I really enjoyed this game and I can't recommend it enough!