It was a bit too complicated to answer succinctly in a short form format like this, honestly. Maybe I'll go into details in one of the threads. But hey, I'm glad to hear you and your family are hanging in there! I honestly never thought about that particular issue with remote schooling, but now that you mention it, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I'm honestly a little ashamed I didn't think about it.

Rany, it sounds like what you went through isn't much different than what I went through, except it was wrapped up in a package that said "Game" on it. That's part of the reason I don't ever MP, but TBF the couple of browser-based games I've played where I was involved in guilds, the guilds were pretty solid.

Was it more of a personality issue in your case or was it the difficulty of the game?

I've been off Steam for some time myself.

Partly because the arrival of school means I'm also in the classes with my son as well as teaching him on my own. The quarantines mean that when school is back in, the parents are doing more because I need to sit with him in the virtual class and keep him focused.

But mainly because I've been frequenting various forums and Facebook, getting involved in different family drama that hasn't helped my mental health at all. IMO people on Facebook might be just as bad as some of the worst people on Steam, except they sign their real names to the stuff they write.

Gaming isn't very healthy, but it is a lot healthier than social media.

"Sometime by the end of the month." Okay, uh, long story. TLDR: Joined a Raiding Static as a role I don't normally play since my friends needed me to do so. Was 12 hours a week of progressing the harder fights. I was super incompatible with another member. The end result was a constant high-stress environment where I didn't want to touch the game outside of Raid Night. I quit that group this past week. So things have been pushed back but not abandoned.

Oh, and forgot to mention. When I do the FF14 thing, expect my character to look... uh... pardon my language, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I very recently paid for a name/race change to become a clone of a story NPC, and... yeah, not my usual style at all. Not even sure why I did it. But honestly, people are loving the joke and I even made a Twitter account for my character because it was getting attention.

Update on the FF14 thing: Net has improved but is still flaky. Down to only 3 classes to get to 70, and one of which is almost there. Could have been done by now but one of my classes that was previously 61 when I last posted about it is now 80 and what I'm playing in my new raiding group. So expect a follow-up sometime by the end of the month, big new patch hitting Tuesday and it's bringing some balance changes, so I'm not rushing things.

Update: Haven't been able to work much on the FF14 followup due to connectivity issues with my new setup (Comp has no wireless router, directly wired to a 2.4g wireless extender that has multiple walls and a microwave between it and the router) so I think I'll post another game to tide things over.

However, my new-ish policy to only post about games I've actually beaten does narrow the field drastically. I'm in the middle of playing through a few I don't expect to be especially long, however, and they'd be decent candidates for the thread. One of which is a combination of genres I've barely touched at all in the thread, while yet another is a genre I've covered before, but a different setting entirely within that genre. In the worst case scenario I have a few pocket backup rainy day reviews for some games I played on consoles that I can break out if I feel it's way overdue I post SOMETHING.

That's good to hear. I had actually wanted to connect my Xbox One to the same TV I am using for my PC here and was surprised to find that this TV doesn't have HDMI. Then I realized 2008 (when I bought the TV) was 12 years ago now which is ancient for electronics.

But I'm old enough that I still inwardly regard any flat screen HDTV as being new. :(

Hopefully you'll be able to get the issue sorted out but I've heard a lot of orders from Amazon and so on are being put on hold due to the virus. Most important thing is to stay safe - we're patient and we'll still be here when you can get up and running again!

Just letting people know I haven't forgotten about the gaming thread; I knew I had a new computer incoming so I held out for it to take higher quality screenshots. However, it has it's own share of issues (My monitor is not compatible with the video card since it's an old monitor and can't do HDMI, as an example) which has slowed me down. Rest assured, as soon as I can get this sorted out, it's right back to work, for me!

It's exposed a lot of weaknesses in the American system at least, I'll say that. For every politician saying one thing, there was another one saying the opposite. Lots of people are ignoring the warnings here too - there was still a big 'spring break' celebration in Florida and college students from all over the country were infected there. Countries like China have an edge there, in that they can lock people down and those people will do what they're told (although I do not believe Chinese claims that there are no new cases)

Most damaging of course is the shutdown of many businesses. Unemployment is going through the roof, small businesses are in big trouble, and landlords, the taxman, etc, are still demanding full price from people. Luckily my wife is one of those who can work from home but it makes me wonder what we'll be coming back to even after corona is defeated somewhat.

Glad to hear you're doing all right, and I hope you're enjoying the game! It's definitely less combo-heavy than a lot of ArcSys fighters but that's actually what I like about it; less time where one player is just waiting for the other to drop their long combo so they can finally do something. Keeps the matches more back-and-forth and every player is playing more often.

I'd like to think that Canada was pretty on the ball as far as the administrative action goes (including action from one particular politician that went against everything they did until now, finally doing the right thing for once, which surprised me!) but people keep going out for big social gatherings on the weekends and it's reaching a point where all the administrative actions aren't meaning much anymore. So things are definitely going to get worse before they get better.

Hey, everything's (relatively) fine here in Germany - we have like 70k known infected and about 700 dead. Most people are actively helping the old and handicapped and even all political parties agree on the gvts response. Good thing I can mostly work from home and the archives are sterile anyway.
I'm currently playing Persona 5 Royal, Granblue Fantasy Versus (ty Rany, I finally got it ;)), League of Legends (why am I even playing this ...) and Path of Exile.

I agree. I was hoping that things wouldn't have escalated to this point, but within my own country, even politicians who were very "screw the 99%" are seeing the state of things and taking actions to help the 99%. I'm amazed that people I never trusted to take action are taking action, which really makes it sink in just how crazy the whole situation is.

I'm looking at it like food poisoning: I've had it 5 times and it nearly killed me once, but it's very survivable. Just because I can survive it, doesn't mean I ever want it again, you know? The mortality rates are low but the spread is insane which could very realistically lead to massive death tolls, and there's no reason to take needless risks. Not everyone sees it the same way, however, and I should stop here before it gets too political.

Unfortunately I think things will get worse regarding Corona before they get better. And I believe, with this and all of the political uncertainty now, that we're heading into a historical crossroads of sorts. Something is going to happen soon that every high school student in 200 years is going to know about offhand. We're living in a major historical time period, like it or not.

I'm also playing a game called Massive Chalice, which is pretty old, been on here since 2015, and I'd never heard of it before. It's not one of my top titles but it's one I'll replay a few times. It was a creative idea.

I'm good here thanks. How is everyone else? These days I'm having to home school my son since all the schools are closed - that's taking up most of my time. I'm playing House of Fata Morgana and think I'm getting near the end. It's not a choice-based VN, more of a book, but the stories are pretty good. Hopefully you'll be up and running soon Rany!

Just wanted to say I hope everyone is staying safe. I should hopefully be getting a new computer soon (buying a friend's since he got a new one) so I can get back to doing gaming related stuff; my computer's started to mess up on me.

Well played :)

Friend: "Do you think there's a company out there that makes specialized gaming keyboards with less keys and a more convenient layout?"
Me: "Yes. They're called controllers."

Just wanted to share this ;p

Oh, I'd very much need to provide a lot of spoilers, for sure, but the thread itself would be spoiler tagged. For the more vague overviews, like "This character's arc is about X" I could get away with being less specific, and I could use spoiler tags when specifics are needed.

Though I don't know... I'm thinking about VNs when I say that. For other genres, it might be a pretty good discussion area.

You're certainly not oversaturating. But my worry is that you would have to provide a lot of spoilers to be able to analyze a story.

Stupid Question: I've been considering making another gaming thread, this time one that picks a game I feel like talking about and going into story details, either picking apart that doesn't work, or explaining overlooked nuance that adds to what does, etc. I don't want to oversaturate the discussions any more than I already am, though. Anyone have thoughts on whether I should or shouldn't?

I was browsing the new-ish releases, and noticed something cool: The Arland Trilogy of Atelier games (Which were my re-introduction to the series after loving Atelier Iris 3 but never playing another game in it besides that until Atelier Totori) are on Steam, now! Now, these games can be a hard sell, but I'll make a post in the Gaming Showcase thread as to why.

In what universe is "We paid 200 dollars" considered "not paying" for your internet bill? I'm back, only took me two weeks this time, but ugh. The net is SUPER slow right now, though (I'm hoping it's because this new ISP JUST connected us and everything's updating at once) and I need to leave for work sooner rather than later, so I can't stay long. I promise I'm not ignoring everyone!

Congratulations! Any income coming in is a welcome thing.

I think being out and on a schedule is going to have some benefits of their own, too.

First new job in 5 years. Part time seasonal stuff over the holidays, but work is work! Going to be collecting donations for the Salvation Army. Far from my ideal job but wow, I'm desperate enough to take anything that isn't illegal or immoral and I'm honestly just glad it's not worse.

I hope things start to look up for anyone else who needs it, too!

Speaking of knowing developers, the official Copy Kitty OST DLC is going live on Youtube tomorrow (I specify DLC since it's the purchaseable version. The music is designed to fade between variants, so this is a custom-made version being sold, not with all the individual tracks, but with fades within tracks, to other variants.) If anyone hasn't heard it yet, here's a link so you can check it out a day early!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL27srx9eKNSdB1V3qsB-VPblM493v3HbA

That's a shame. If it were me, I'd slip your name in there in one of the updates.

But I would have to write a game first, in order to have that right. :)

True story about that, by the way: Azure told me that if we'd met like a month earlier, I'd probabl be in the credits as a tester. But yeah, we only really started talking after the official release, so I'm just poking around in the public beta for anything that got missed. (Next Update: Boss Rush Mode.)

Even if you were an official tester, it wouldn't in any way compromise your opinions on the game. What are beta testers usually, other than people who are fans of a game?

Since the devs are aware of you, I'm surprised you're NOT a tester by now TBH.

One nap later, I don't know why I felt paranoid abot that.

If anyone was curious about what the heck was going on with the beta achievements in my activity feed, the newest update to Copy Kitty accidentally got put into the public beta instead of the closed beta. I just thought I'd point this out since I've basically advertised it here; I'm not an official beta tester, this was an honest mistake.

Yeah, I live on the 8th floor (no shade, heat rises) and it was about that temperature, too. Not the hottest I've ever felt, but the most relentless, for sure. (For the record, hottest was something like 48c/114f about 11 years ago, back when I was still in high school... and I was playing soccer in long black pants... yeah, uh, I was just REALLY bored and had nothing else to wear, uniform-wise.)

It's 100 degrees F here. Then when it gets cool at night, the mosquitoes come out and eat you.

I'm not even considering going outside. :(

Today was very hot over here. I hope everyone's managing to stay cool. I was too hot to sleep so I had to get a big bucket fill it with water, and sleep on a chair on the balcony with my feet in that. Here's to hoping some of you have air conditioning ;p

Second ending is done. Gonna go through and make actual highlight reels sometime in the next few days. Whew. So much reading. My throat is not happy. Still, it's been great to share with people, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. Still... 10 hours is a lot of stream footage to go back through, so I'll probably make a thread with a few highlights per day.

Time to get back to replying to other threads, now that I have time!

It's a shame that the end of part one had to come in the middle of a stream. I know after hitting that for the first time, I was DONE for the night (although it was 3am, too...). I still got goosebumps watching the stream though.

It's been the best part of a year since I've played this now. I'd even forgotten the warning at the beginning of the game. And that's great! Maybe that means I can revisit DDLC in a few months and it will re-hook me somewhat. I had thought about playing through again anyway, and leaving it at the space room ending (I prefer that to the 'true' ending myself).

First ending done. Gonna go back and see the remaining scenes and the second ending. Yes, my throat is all dry and scratchy. But it's all worth it for the chat's reactions. Things like the "I've made a terrible mistake" when finding out about Yuri's other hobby. I'm glad I finally got to share this with more of my friends. It's been a lot of fun.

Been streaming DDLC for some friends who never checked it out. 3 hours and a hoarse throat later, I'm at the weekend where you help someone (Yuri - I let my chat decide and yeah, one of them took an instant shine to her) and we stopped for the night. I look forward to seeing a fresh batch of reactions to things that go down. If anyone wanted to see part one, https://www.twitch.tv/videos/268395571

I saw that in the reccommended videos and went "oh geez." I didn't actually click on it, but I guess I have to, now that you've mentioned it. I'll check it out when I have time.

That was brilliant, too. lol how the heck do people come up with this stuff?

Gotta admit, in some respects there is no better time to be alive. So much creativitiy is on display today that would never have come out in any previous time.

Did some1 watch the "Broki Broki"-version (aka satire-version)?

Holy cow, I cant stop laughing ... send help :D''''

Yeah, I especially liked the distortion effects. And the lyrics arent bad either - its generic pop yeah, but it suits the situation.
Thanks for sharing :)

That is incredibly well done. It's artistic and everything bears close resemblance to the game.

A friend showed me this, and I felt some people here may get a kick out of it, so here's a Doki Doki Literature Club MMD. I'm not gonna pretend to be into this stuff, but I was impressed with the effort that went into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpV_xL2FrGA&ab_channel=MagicalPouchOfMagic

I'm tempted to check, but I don't have a phone at the moment (seriously.) You're right about how players will pick up on things that devs didn't, though! I mean, there's a bunch of "glitches" that would go on to become "features" in later games, like Street Fighter 2's combos. I'm sure that's exactly why Azure and Raibys (the two Copy Kitty Devs) love watching streams of their game - the games are tightly designed and hard to break or exploit, but clever players can still find shortcuts, like kicking off walls to gain a few frames of height to reach a platform earlier in a level. (That's one I came across, myself.)

I wrote a couple of games before. One might still be on the App Store (Seven Spells).

In each case, there were a lot of people who played the game better than I did. You wouldn't think that would be the case, but those guys instinctively picked up patterns as players that I missed. Anyway, I really liked watching that. Not just as a test of skill but that someone was interested enougn in what I'd created to invest that much time in it.

That must have been a big kick for you, but I bet the devs really enjoyed watching that, too.

Being praised for your skill by the game's creator is a neat experience. I had another stream a few hours ago, doing the Hard Mode of Boki's new levels. This time, both the developers showed up, and said that I handled World 12 more smoothly than people who do 1-11 without deaths doing 12 Hard for the first time, even though I was struggling with worlds 10-11 on Hard.

I guess I was being hard on myself since I was comparing myself to some people who were routing the maps like speedrunners, and practicing like heck; I know one girl who cleared ALL of Hard Mode without getting HIT! Still, she apparently takes dozens of attempts to come up with the best way to approach a map.

Sorry, I still can't get over how surreal an experience it is to have a game's devs at my stream.

That is different. A lot of developers don't even visit their own forums, much less take such a personal approach in how they deal with their players.