What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

The very overpriced Kickstarter for Paperback Adventures (a solo deckbuilding word game with a roguelike theme) made me remember Bookworm Adventures, an old Popcap game that I sunk approximately Infinity hours into back in the day. Apparently it has been scrubbed from existence for unknown reasons, but there's a game called Letter Quest available on basically every platform that is 100% Bookworm Adventures minus the charm and whimsy. It even has a cameo from the Bookworm Adventures protagonist. So basically you have a grid of letters and you spell words to attack monsters, then they attack you. Each level has x monsters to get through with various types of attacks to need with your letter grid and do damage to you. You also get items and level up your stats and whatnot. If you like word games it's just delightful.

I wrapped up Control by finishing its final DLC. It's very funny because the last DLC is like this gigantic teaser for a new Alan Wake game and I absolutely do not give a shit and am not interested at all. The Control story and the main character of Control are so much more interesting and better acted.

I never played Alan Wake so that whole dlc was just kind of... There. It was a solid expansion gameplay wise, they both were. The other one added fun backstory stuff though, which I'm way more into.

Subnautica was free on PlayStation at some point, and I downloaded it then. Finally booted it upa few days ago and I'm DEEEEP down the rabbit hole on it atm. Super cool game. It's a survival game set on an ocean world, and you're a survivor of a spaceship crash. You start out scraping by catching fish in the shallows to keep your hunger level up, but eventually you build a self sustaining base and start being able to explore deeper into the ocean. There's a whole story to uncover about what happened to your ship and what's going on on the alien planet you're crashed on etc. The core loop of exploring and collecting resources, bringing them back, and building upgrades to expire and loot better is super satisfying, the base building is fun, and man the atmosphere is stellar. This game makes me uneasy like no horror game ever had. The feeling of getting out of your submarine to grab some rare minerals while you're 900m down and you can hear predators hunting in the darkness around you is really something else. The vistas you explore through are beautiful too. So yea, it's great. Everyone was right!

I loved the time I spent with subnautica but like I said upthread I just got stuck and overwhelmed by one of the moments where you're supposed to find some shit to go deeper on your own. I've heard the sequel is a bit smaller and more directed, I wonder if that would work better for me.

The unspoken rule of video games is keep a FAQ/walkthrough handy I love the sense of exploration and freedom in Subnautica, but once that gives way to "okay but wtf do I do now" I'm immediately looking up some direction to keep things moving.

Yeah, a good walkthrough for the end game and some of the better maps save a TON of time in Subnautica. Nothing like getting a mile down and realizing you are out of salt...

I might do the map thing for sure jason10mm.

I built a base at 900m down next to this crazy tree, and I built the cyclops and prawn suit. So things are ticking along nicely in Subnautica. I've gone as deep as the SeaMoth can go, so once I stock up on some nickel I'll be going further down into what seem like endgame areas (?)

Ah_Pook wrote: I built a base at 900m down next to this crazy tree, and I built the cyclops and prawn suit. So things are ticking along nicely in Subnautica. I've gone as deep as the SeaMoth can go, so once I stock up on some nickel I'll be going further down into what seem like endgame areas (?)

Some general, non-spoilery tips for the endgame areas:

-You'll want a fabricator on your Cyclops because there's one plot-specific item you need to make, and backtracking out of that area in the Cyclops takes a while and kind of sucks.
-Speaking of the Cyclops, it can hold several storage lockers, an aquarium with fish, and it even has room for a garden bed with melons. It's worth it to outfit it as a mobile base so you're not constantly worrying about hunger/thirst while figuring out the layout of the last area.
-Take along some purple tablets (see my note about backtracking above).
-Take some extra power cells for the Cyclops because the last area can be confusing and using the radar burns a lot of juice.
-SAVE before you go into any building in the Prawn suit. It can be all kinds of glitchy and I've experienced game-breaking bugs (getting stuck in/on the floor is the most common) that necessitated a reload.

I've got the makings of a mobile base in my Cyclops already, but I haven't gone really hard on it yet since I haven't found any nickel to upgrade it's depth past 900 so it's just been chilling next to my surface base while Ive been messing around setting up my deep tree base as a staging area for points beyond. I'm guessing you find nickel in the Lost River, as I haven't really foraged around there much yet and I certainly haven't found any in previous areas.

You all convinced me to get back into it and it's going better this time. I just built my moonpool at my main base so I'm trying to understand base systems. Is there a place where it just shows the energy underlying the power calculations?

I find the decision of where is "ideal" to place your main base kind of anxiety inducing so I just went and did it. I know everything is 100% refunded, but...

Gary Sax wrote: You all convinced me to get back into it and it's going better this time. I just built my moonpool at my main base so I'm trying to understand base systems. Is there a place where it just shows the energy underlying the power calculations?

I find the decision of where is "ideal" to place your main base kind of anxiety inducing so I just went and did it. I know everything is 100% refunded, but...

They added a base power console thing to the sequel, theres nothing in the base game that breaks it down with any kind of granularity.

I put my base right next to my life pod. Its a nice central location.

I built mine near an entrance to the mushroom caves with the thermal vents. Can I build a thermal plant down there and bring power up?

I wish things were just a little bit better documented in game mechanically.

A thermal reactor will generate power for thighs within range. The range isn't very long, but you can boost it with a power transmitter. Not sure if you can chain power transmitters though. My surface base was fine with a few solar panels and a bioreactor full of acid mushrooms (gel sacks and lantern fruit, later).

I know my thighs were quite warm after the effort to build nukes

I really only needed 2 bases. And then only to support a moonpool and the vehicle upgrade thing. The scanner was almost useless other than using cameras as way points and I never could get the observatory to fit right.

My son is playing on creative or adventure or whatever mode takes away all the thirst and damage. It's just such a beautiful game to veg out with, and even if you can't take damage and don't need air it is VERY hard to casually swim down into the deep reef