What are you playing?

[Chun the Unavoidable]

The Fluxx Cthulhu card game is rather good: very easy to pick up, fast game play, addictive. One thing I have against it after three plays is that it seems more luck than skill is involved, but for thirteen quid I do recommend it. There are quite a few variations (standard, zombies, SF, etc), but I had to go with The Lovecraft.

[SIngemeister]

people have sex like crazy back then so why does it take so long for a town to expand to the next size needed for further urban development

...Rate of survival to adulthood wasn't so great.

[Mossy Toes]

The Fluxx Cthulhu card game is rather good: very easy to pick up, fast game play, addictive. One thing I have against it after three plays is that it seems more luck than skill is involved, but for thirteen quid I do recommend it. There are quite a few variations (standard, zombies, SF, etc), but I had to go with The Lovecraft.

My group has Star Fluxx, which is the SF version and basically a hodge-podge of Dr. Who, Star Trek, Star Wars and Hitchhiker's Guide references--so worth playing, certainly.

[sam vimes]

people have sex like crazy back then so why does it take so long for a town to expand to the next size needed for further urban development

...Rate of survival to adulthood wasn't so great.

True which is why it takes a long time for tiny places on rome 1 like segesta to grow to a certain size, but in this game its so bloody slow.

[Vivia]

Since I have been reading my gaming time is limited, because as my mind works it's inconceivable if two activities would meet. Worlds collide!

Going back to Big Fish games, I'm a club member and I haven't bought games for seven months, the game credits are piling up. But first I want to finish the eight games I haven't played.
First was Dream Chronicles, way too slow for me at the moment, I reached chapter 14 and that was that. Next is The Gift, a regular Hidden Objects game with a certain film noir flair, it's set in the '40s.

For iOS games, after watching Resulka's LP of Wadjet's Blackwell series,I bought it starting with Blackwell Legacy. Really nice adventure game, unusually grown-up story, we play as Rosangela Blackwell, worst name EVER, she has medium powers that passes down for generations. Her spirit guide is a 1940s ghost named Joey, the film noir quality is established with subtlety, it may not be obvious to everyone. It plays a bit like a mystery crime story from the golden age. The only bad thing is that is far too short,it left me very unsatisfied after finishing it. I know that Resulka warned us about it but I was very surprised.
I'm feeling somewhat empty after finishing Ace Attorney on iOS and I'm looking for the next big thing for my trusty pad.

[Mossy Toes]

Returned to play altogether too much MASSIVE CHALICE, what with the introduction of harder difficulty levels and hybrid classes for a whoole bunch more challenge and variety. Had to restart my playthrough several times within the first handful of hours on account of mucking up, but am now nearly 200 of 300 years in. Sheer panic and terror are the name of the game, since a single full party wipe will spell the doom of the entire playthrough, basically, and there are so many of so much tougher enemies. At least I'm not playing the "no take-backs" Iron Mode, so can replay battles I handle poorly...

[Vivia]

Hah, I went and got Blackwell Convergence with Big Fish Games for free. I must have known in advance the game series was available there, I just had forgotten about it.
Really liking the ambience of the game, it has a surprising option; a commentary by Dave Gilbert! I have never heard of video game commentary, it's a cool feature.

[David Earle]

A couple things:

Resident Evil Revelations: Very old school Resident Evil! But damn they failed to spell-check the subtitles.

Guacamelee: Excellent Metroidvania game I got for three bucks on PSN.

Danganronpa: I like the art, but it's too early to tell about the gameplay. Think Ace Attorney but scarier.

Soul Sacrifice Delta: Out grim-darks 40K in five minutes. Not sure the gameplay will hold up, but early impressions are good.

Hearthstone: CRACK I TELLS YA

[Mossy Toes]

I've clearly been playing too much MASSIVE CHALICE, since I had a dream last night that was basically a that game meets a Studio Ghibli film (or at least animation style and plot), fully plotted and richly populated with interesting characters. I was a young Alchemist from the game, exploding flasks and all, named Max who was being hunted by a Cadence-like ooze monster who shapeshifted into various human forms, but in the end it was overcome by the innocent purity and filial love of my character in a true Ghibli moment.

What a frickin' cool dream.

[Vivia]

iOS games:

I bought Dream Chronicle - Book of Water for the pad. Good in all despite having some of the worst voice acting alive, not Return of Phantom of the Opera bad, nevertheless, it's very grating. It's like listening to one of those horrid Harry Potter children but with such a fake "British" accent it's likely to form plastic drops in the air from artificiality. Ugh. I keep tapping it away. It manages to keep my attention more than the first game.

PC games:

By trying to find other games than Hidden Objects with neither supernatural nor horror elements of which seems to be every other title, I stumbled across Paradise by none other than Benoit Sokal, the creator of Syberia. Woohoo! It pays to slug through the Big Fish Games site, the reviews said "masterpiece". It might not be true but if one can find at least one good game among all the mediocre HO games you can consider yourself lucky.
Another game that looks interesting is Off The Record: The Art of Deception , a mystery story with no supernatural/horror story, sacrebleu.

[Major Rawne]

Far Cry 4. Very much like the previous installment to the series. It's awesome.

[sam vimes]

Hey guys just done a really hard battle against the macedonions on RTWII and got a phyrric victory could some one work out the kill ratio for me as I REALLY shouldn't have won lol even if I was all praetorian s and first cohorts:
My forces 874: kills made 1119
Macedonia: 1582: kills made 682

[David Earle]

Um, you murdered 70.7% of their forces, they murdered 78% of your forces.

I've been playing Persona Q lately. Like Etrian Odyssey with Persona characters. Really most of the fun comes from them interacting, but the dungeons crawling is polished and streamlined for player enjoyment.

(Dream game: Etrian-style descent through Commoragh. Pick a Dark Eldar warband of five and go deep. Upper spires -> Gladiator pits -> Street wars -> Haemonculus dens -> Mandrake warrens -> Realm of Chaos for the finale.)

[sam vimes]

Thanks Dave um wow no wonder it was a phyrric victory

[Vivia]

I have bought several PC games but apparently my life isn't complete without at least one iOS game, it's an ancient need to tap on things.

The Room

Quite a delightful little game for the amazing sum of 9 sek, it's a ridiculous sum for a game of this quality.

The first hours I wasn't aware of the sound effects, I had the tv and laptop in the background, and as it was getting late the sounds were heard very clear. During the night my sense of fear triples up and every little strange sound and image can startle me, The Room had a few of those moments. The constant unspeakable whispers were really unnerving when they increased in volume, so much I had to switch of the sound on my tiny 5c.
It borrows the typical Lovecraftian elements; a mysterious scholar troubled by his discovery, crazy writing, a mystical lens that sees into unfathomable dimensions, a house that expanded into tiny rooms, a vintage setting and items, there was one particular letter that scared me despite being very short in detail. It has a wonderful dark mood with a lot of Myst and Zork adventure game mechanics thrown in, the graphics are crystal clear on an iphone, it's perfectly tailored for the phone in all. It totally tapped on my desire to have a dark Myst type of game, I was always bummed that Myst lacked horror elements, I mean a touching story about family, hmph (nothing wrong with Myst, it was a ground-breaking game with an original plot). I want unspeakable dimensions!

My only complaint is that the game is sold separately for the iPhone and iPad. It's very minor detail considering the price is the same for both, but I forget about this a LOT and I mistakenly buy apps for the phone when I want the app for the pad. Hm, maybe this is a lucrative business for the developers. On this instance it was okay, the game scared me on a small screen, I'm not sure I need a bigger one.

Highly recommended! The game is available for a number of platforms. http://www.fireproofgames.com/the-room

[Chun the Unavoidable]

That looks interesting, Vivia. My son has a Kindle Fire, so I might get it for him(/me ).

[Vivia]

The selfish gamer! *approves*

The Room 2 is available, but I'm waiting until next week, have to keep my budget when it comes to iOS games. It's very reasonable priced for its calibre from many of the games on iTunes.
It's not like I'm bitter about iTunes price raises over the new year, but whenever I go to Google Play I feel a tiny stab when I see their prices. I have tried to look for free games, I'm just not a fan of repetitive Match 3 and freeniums.

[David Earle]

Time-killing games you might enjoy.

[Vivia]

David, thank you for the link.

I knew it, I knew this would happen. Badland, a game that's been on my wishlist, is free on Google Play and it costs 39 SEK on iTunes, with add-ons for 9 crowns, up from 37 (unlike others that have gone up from 29 to a whooping 39). I have seen this a lot on my mum's phone but never for games I wanted, Big Fish has overpriced iOS games that are most certainly not worth it, on Android the developers sell their own games for less.

[Xisor]

I nipped into STO earlier this evening to join the folks holding a wee vigil for Nimoy. Quite a surprisingly touching thing, I found. That said, my screenshot of the thing seems to have been... mysteriously made blue. It was a bright red Vulcan day when I was there - perhaps it's how Andorian vision might see it. I shan't know.

In any event:


Also, here's our ship (the USS Lewisham) doing some Demiurg work by flying into the corona of a star to go to rescue Admiral Tuvok.


And here we are prior to warping off from Vulcan's near-orbit: