Dufniall

Hey, don't forget Good Job!, 51 Worldwide games and Jump Rope Challenge! Who is saying Nintendo isn't publishing?

Interesting they are coming up with their own Mario Royale after a fan-made one was taken down. I wonder if they were planning this already, or if they kind of went with the idea of the fan-made one. Anyway, looks more fun than Tetris 99, but the limited availability is weird.

I'm desperate to play it, but on PC it's an Epic Store exclusive so that's a no-no. Here's hoping a Switch version is indeed coming, or that the game will also hit Steam in a couple of months.

And here is the september video: Not much new there, so I think I'll just leave my town as is for now but when the october/Halloween update comes I may jump back in.

Cool topic. It's hard to put a finger on what really makes a game fair or frustrating games. Plus, there are games that are frustrating that I love and games that are fair that I hate. So it's not only this aspect that makes or breaks a game for me. To start with some frustrations. Bad camera has already been mentioned and is one of the worst things in games. Not making a jump because you can't see where you are going is just unforgiveable. Somebody also mentioned it in another topic, but unexpected reinforcements in strategy games. Valkryia Chronicles does this, as well as for example Wargroove. In your first playthrough you have no clue they are coming and where they are coming, so you cannot anticipate. This really feels unfair. Weird controls or mechanics. I'm currently playing Super Castlevania IV in the Castlevania Collection and there are just some weird mechanics. Like stairs, if you fall or jump on one you'll fall through, unless you press down. Bad hitboxes is another point of frustration, especially in platformers. As are blind falls. Not knowing if something is an insta-kill or not (again Castlevania: some spikes kill you in 1 hit while others don't). What does feel fair? Basically the opposite of what I've said above. Games like Hollow Knight control great and have perfect hitboxes, so every death there feels fair. Monster Hunter is also a franchise I love because you need to learn the behaviour of the monsters, and in time you will always be able to take one down. Despite the frustrations I love Wargroove and Valkyria Chronicles, so that's an example of games that do something wrong but still are great. I'm mixed about Castlevania IV, I have a feeling this series started to get good from the GBA on onwards.

No clue here! Even with one song having lyrics you would think it would be easy to recognize it, but it doesn't ring a bell so I guess it is something I haven't played.

And if you don't feel up to building yourself, I believe @RedShell bought a pre-built system quite recently so he may have some good pointers there!

For the Mini graphics cards: I think the maximum you can get is a 2060 Super, maybe there are 2070 Super cards. They should perform about the same as the bigger counterparts, only cooling may be less so the fans may be louder. If you are aiming at 4K high settings I wouldn't go under a 2070 Super. There are a lot of tiny builds to be found online so you can find inspiration there. m.2 is indeed a very good one, but it is almost becoming the standard now so I thought that was a given haha. For the rest: Get dual channel RAM (e.g. 2x8 or 2x16 compared to 1x16 or 1x32. Helps a little bit in performance as well. And of course a quality power supply is adviced, don't go for the cheapest one out there but I have a feeling you will not. And indeed:

Some things to consider: Do you want to build yourself or a ready-made system? At what resolution are you planning to play? Getting super high settings with 60FPS is easier on Full HD then on 4K. Like @Happenstance said, the new NVIDIA generation is inbound (expected somewhere in October I think?) so may be worth waiting on that to either get the newest series or the rest drops in price. Although availability is often bad when it comes to new NVIDIA cards. But in all honesty with that budget you should be safe and you can probably get anything you want. I'm not sure what the "biggest" size of graphics cards are that fit into a tiny case, but I think in a mini tower you can already fit a 2080 Super. Edit: AMD is a very valid option, especially for the processor. For graphics cards I still have a slight bias for NVIDIA as most games are optimized for NVIDIA cards. But the AMD graphics cards have improved miles.

No worries, I'm off in a second so that should work out better with bottom 2. Fun to play again though, it's been a while!

Surprise!

Lately I've been thinking I want to pick up an "easy" acoustic instrument. I have an acoustic guitar and a cajon here, but mastering acoustic guitar is quite an effort I don't want to invest time in, and cajon is not really something you play solo. So I've been thinking what would be a nice instrument to pick up that is fairly easy to master. I'm thinking a ukulele could work, as I know basic chords on guitar already (although a ukulele is tuned differently so you would need to relearn chords anyway). Plus it just looks like an awesome little instrument to play. And they are fairly cheap to come by. Anyone here who has experience with ukuleles? Or only with Yooka-Laylee?

I'm still quite happy with Hori Split Pad Pro. Looks not as classy compared to the Joy-cons but the grip is ten times better. It also feels a bit plastic-y and it lacks functions such as NFC and gyro. But for games that require a bit more precision input it's great. Stuff like Monster Hunter, Enter the Gungeon or Paladins plays a lot better compared to the Joy-Cons. The stick is better too (and shouldn't drift due to a different design). Plus it has a programmable button on the back of each half which is useful (I assign them to reload in Enter the Gungeon or a Hunter Art in Monster Hunter) I have the Daemon x Machina one but they are coming out soon in other colours: Still, they are compromises and I would rather see them fix the Joy-Cons. Luckily I have small hands so I don't mind the smaller size that much. Curious to hear: how is the Switch Lite in handling compared to the normal Switch? Any experiences with that?

A nice summary of what is coming on the indie front in the coming months (although there is plenty there without a release date). Quite a few interesting titles but the ones I want most are still TBD: Silksong and Axiom Verge 2.

Okay, tricky one then. Is Cadence of Hyrule a Zelda spin-off or a Crypt of the NecroDancer spin-off/sequel? I would argue it's a cross-over.

Throwback Thursday #34 Star Wars: Rogue Leader I'll do another long post before the end of the month with an update of my diary, but for now I'm just going to plug a new #TBT. I'm guessing a lot of folks here have fond memories of this game seeing it got picked quite a few times in the 30 Days Challenge as well.

Glad to see some more praise for Yoku. I reviewed it when it came out and thinking back it is indeed a perfect summer game due to the whole island vibe. If I wouldn't have so much on the backlog I would revisit it.

I have a nanoblock Ho-oh, but damn these things are pretty tricky to put together, and Ho-oh is quite flimsy because of its wings and tail. Every time I accidentally tip it over a part breaks off.

It's apparently not only lesser known areas, but also bigger attractions that get "remodeled" by the AI: Still, it's an impressive feat and I can only see the quality improve if more data gets available. I'm really curious to try the game out. I'm having two weeks off from work in a month or so, so by then I'll see if I can get some sort of cheap Game Pass for PC.

That was a pretty solid Indie Direct, with a couple of interesting games shown, and quite a few releasing now or soon. Ones that stood out for me are Spiritfarer (already liked the concept of it in the previous Direct), Raji (although it's obviously Prince of Persia inspired), and glad to finally see The Red Lantern pop up again. Subnautica is a great addition but I already played a part of it on PC. Card Shark, Takeshi and Hiroshi, Hypnospace Outlaw and Manifold Garden look interesting as well, but not too fussed about playing them soon so they'll go on the "wait for a sale" pile. Mixed feelings about Evergate (a bit of an obvuious Ori copy) and A Short Hike (it just looks so horrible). With that out of the way we can finally get that normal Direct.

Edit: nvm, wasn't reading. Sports Story delay was already posted.

Right, I went through all the levels and had quite some fun doing so. The verdicts: @Glen-i @Sméagol @Dcubed @RedShell All in all a cool theme, cool week and interesting to see so many different ideas, I really enjoyed it! My vote goes to @Sméagol, the concept is just too clever to not get the vote.

Thanks for the hunts @Glen-i and @RedShell! Some speedy quests there Unfortunately I won't be online tonight anymore though.

I can join now for about 45 minutes if that works! Then it's dinner time and I'm availt again afterwards.

Cool, what time would work? Anything not too late is fine by me.