What game is that? It's not Stray, I haven't played little kitty big city, that may be what it is, but I wanna know for wife gaming purposes.

I'm a little behind, but I completed AC Odyssey and that was just buy it and that's it. They had a cash shop for armor sets but it was completely unnecessary and I never even looked at it much less bought anything from it. So provided the releases after that are the same it's a "there is an MTX shop but the game is balanced without it" situation

By asking that you've already failed. You needed to have the khakis the whole time.

You are correct in some ways, such as dedicating all your senses while giving you less on average to engage them, but are also over generalizing by saying it's always terrible voice acting, which just isn't true, it can be anime hammy, but I happen to really love well done over the top anime voice acting, which is a whole different style compared to something extremely realistic like The Last of Us. And if you don't like that style, that's okay, but it's not terrible.

I feel like biggest representatives could go to things like Danganronpa, Phoenix Wright, or Persona, which all feature choice and gameplay, and I'd say Danganronpa and Persona have good voice acting, with Persona's as excellent. I feel like generalizing that fans of the genre don't care about choice is just not correct for all fans, I personally dislike most of the choiceless VNs because they then rely extremely hard on story, for example I disliked House in Fata Morgana because that's a "reading a linear book" style of VN with no voice acting, and it's really long, and the soundtrack was not super amazing (compared to Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa, and Persona, which have OUT FUCKING STANDING soundtracks, and with a manga you're not getting a soundtrack that emotionally engages you and brings you back to listen to them long after completing the games as I have with those series.

They just make me wanna ruffle their hair and call them scamp as they buff my weapon with the wrong element.

It depends on the VN and its implementation. The existence of things like Slay the Princess, 999, Raging Loop, Phoenix Wright, AI: The Somnium Files, these are all inextricably linked with player participation and choice, as well as very dense narrative.

Then you have ones like Steins;Gate that don't have very much choice at all, that's a lot closer to a book in most respects, but as a blanket VNs are, more often than not, absolutely games.

As a counter I find the fact that VNs sidestep having to describe all sorts of setting and character related things by just showing you them instead with beautiful art work and at times voice acting.

To me that actually increases the pace instead of slows it down, if you think about what you're not having to read. I do also dislike reading VNs at a computer, though, so I'll only get them on portable systems unless it's REALLY good, like Slay the Princess, and that game would simply not be the same if it were a book, it's extremely reliant on choice.

I think there must be a degree of truth to the spaghetti code backstory, otherwise Rockstar would've just ported it already and raked in the cash

MECHANICAL/GAME STRUCTURE SPOILERS

Yeah, you would need to play it at least a couple "rounds" for it to really kick into full effect. It's a choice heavy game where most choices alter your route in ways that sort of become more and more unique the further you get, until it kicks you back to the start allowing you to make different choices, and the culmination of a few rounds results in a unique true end game.

The ways or fact that this is happening are not clear until you've gone through enough to start to see how what you do manipulates the world state, and the true story and meaning behind it all sort of slowly unfolds and even after completion requires some wonder and unpacking on the part of the player to fully enjoy.

I do find it a shame you didn't get hooked into it, it might just be one of those things where you have to come to it in just the right mood for it to really have full effect.

Oh, we accepting abbreviations now to fit one syllable? This is cheating, I'm calling the police

It's not super common, but it's been around in an essentially free form through Garry's Mod for a very very long time, so most people have had their fill of it there or in modes within other games. Roblox also has one, even Call of Duty Cold War had a prop hunt mode, so it's a lot harder for paid standalone games to make a dent, but this one does a lot more than just strict prop hunt, I think it deserves more population

Oh I saw a video of this game and it looks really fun! It's basically Gmod Prop Hunt with added modes and mechanics, this genre is a little saturated which is probably why it's not got a lot of players for how cool it is. Hopefully that changes

Can confirm, Roboquest puts you into a flow state. Pretty high speed

Wtf haha. They even left your bucket, like how cold

Zippybot strokin out over here

My cats simply act like it's not happening, no concept of what's going on. Or any of Marvin Gaye's other albums for that matter.

People hate Ubisoft so much that they're just not reading the article or your full comments and are downvoting you anyway. What a time to be alive

I can definitely go for that. I think the book in its own right is important for that, and is a great overview of that topic, and wouldve been a lot more impactful if I naturally found it, read it, discussed it with others.

Instead I got the whole overview of what it was trying to do first, had already discussed everything it covers in school, and then they made us read it and it resulted in my experience of "why am I reading this, we sort of went over this in three different ways already"

I find the biggest difference in itch scratched between Diablo-like ARPGs and Halls of Torment is that the pacing is very different. Diablo has a lot more player control over when there are breaks in the action providing downtime for the player to sort through gear and abilities. Halls of Torment sort of has that when you're making choices, but it's waaaay faster

It has a bit of resemblance, in that it's a dark fantasy action game in which the player character fights a very large number of enemy units in order to level up and increase their power while fighting bosses interspersed throughout, occasionally upgrading abilities and acquiring gear. and of course the art style is directly cribbing Diablo 1.

But in the nitty gritty of how the combat works, how the gear and abilities work, the format of the levels and win condition of the game and pretty much everything else, it's very different from Diablo.