Monthly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing?

Help, the Factorio expansion has taken hold of me and will not let go!
- No cure has been found yet for factorio.
  
  The only cure is to burn out the addiction with more factory.
  
  I've found the perfect method to take a break from Factorio is to apply Satisfactory and a dash of Techtonica.
  I say break, because there's no stopping Factorio. I'm afraid it's chronic.
- How is it?
  
  It's more better lol
  Seriously though it's really well thought out actually. Each planet has unique challenges you will have to deal with and it's clear they put a lot of effort into designing these challenges and their solutions. Each planet grants new features that give you options you wouldn't otherwise have to help solve other problems. Lots of quality of life changes and an ever-improving user experience.
  It won't win over people who didn't like Factorio but fans of the game will get more of what they love.
  
  It's not for everyone, but if it's for you, it's amazing.
  I'd highly recommend beating the base game first if you haven't already. The complexity really ramps up quite a bit, so if you struggle with the base game, it might be better to hold off. That said, if you're confident in your problem solving skills and willing to push through some of the tougher bits, you could totally jump right in to Space Age.
  I think I'm at around 100 hrs into SA so far, and maybe (optimistically) half way through, and I've loved every bit. Except Gleba, fuck Gleba. :)
  
  So far, it's been really great. I'm still on the first planet, but they've added a lot of QoL to improve the experience!

I've started Cyberpunk 2077 recently. Runs pretty flawlessly now with patch 2.x, I'm glad that I waited a few years
- I played it for a bit about a year after it first came out and thought it was fun but it didn’t grab me. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of sci-fi movies and have an itch to try cyberpunk again. I’m glad to hear it runs well, that gives me hope

Caves of Qud
I cannot recommend it enough
- I've been waiting forever for this to get a real price cut but instead it just got 50% more expensive. I guess I will just have to be patient for another decade.
  
  Apparently its still in early access until next year. Didn't even know that until yesterday. So dont hold your breath it will be a bit. I got it as a gift for Christmas forever ago and am just now coming back to it. Dont play the regular mode first, play role playing so you can save your character until you know what you're doing. You will die.

I recently looped back to rimworld.
I was playing a bunch of frostpunk 2, then a little frostpunk 1, and then bounced between the two of them. But in the end all gaming comes back to rimworld...
- This time you're gonna finish the colony.
- i once heard somewhere that rimworld was just supposed to be an example piece of how gamedesign works rather than an actual game. and it had such good game design it grew a huge comunity :D
  No source, dont remember where i got that

NetHack 3.6.7

Sifu is a fun martial-arts focused game. If you liked the combat of Sleeping Dogs and Batman Arkham, it might be your kind of game. It's currently on sale for $20: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2138710/Sifu/

Hello,
Thanks for this post. Do you think they could be made weekly? The community is probably large enough to discuss things once a week
- I’ll try biweekly and see how it goes. If I get a lot of responses I’ll try weekly
  
  Biweekly sounds awesome! I'll be there for that
  
  Thanks !

I've started playing satisfactory.
That was a mistake...

I started and almost finished The Forgotten City. It's really good, if you like mystery.

Judgement, it's made by the same people who me see the Yakuza, Like a Dragon series. It takes place in the same seeing with the same family philosophy. It's currently on a70% of sale on stem so I got that and it's sequel with DLC for like $30.

I've been playing the Ballionaire demo, which is pretty damn fun.

I'm ashamed to say I've stepped into the Gacha rabbit hole with Zenless Zone Zero. It's a fun game, combat feels quite good on PC, characters are likable, and the story is intriguing so far. Though I'm not ashamed to say that I haven't spent anything on this game, and I'm sticking to free to play, as the value you get out of spending in game just isn't worth it. There are much better ways to spend money than rolling for a chance to get a character. How much the whales are willing to spend for a character will never cease to amaze me.

My co worker keeps telling me to get the witcher
- I've heard it's very good and I've tried every one, but personally could never get into them.
  
  Same, combat and movement felt clumsy
- The story and the world are amazing. Combat is a bit clunky but not too bad.

I’ve been addicted to WarFrame for months and before that it was Wayfinder but that was pre 1.0 so I’d like to go back into that one when I can peel myself away from WF
- Good luck on your Warframe journey! Where are you in the story right now? I dropped it after the railjack came out, and am tempted to go back and see some of the new stuff. I just don't have that much time and patience for grinding all the resources now, maybe I'll just see a playthrough or something.
  
  I’ve got the story all caught up. I had dropped out shortly after the new war was released and this time I decided that I wanted to actually understand the game (I usually follow guides because of how many game modes, resources and modding can be done) so I tackled all of the campaign missions back to back and then got my standing at level 4 to max with everyone and that was a DRAG. But I’m glad I did it because I’ve got tons of cool gear to mess with and I’ve been having fun swapping weapons and frames to see which abilities are fun with which gun or melee types. I don’t normally look into meta guides and prefer to just grab a weapon and see what feels fun but it took a while for me to get that way with WF because there are just so many mechanics to get overwhelmed by.

Soul caliber 6, story is supreme cringe but I like the 3D fighting aspect
- didn't know it had a story lol what makes it cringe
  
  The script is bad and the story is filled with boring tropes. The fighting is visually appealing and very fun for each character but the lore isn't interesting at all

The hordes of hel demo. Well polished reverse bullet hell, but maybe too well polished for the Devs to match the level of content of something like vampire survivors. But the mechanics are crisp and it's really fun.

Borderlands 2
I got into playing it yet again, mechromancer is so much fun when having full stacks of anarchy with a shotgun.

I came back to Cyberpunk 2077 recently. First time touching the game since the 2.0 update and I have to say I'm a bit mixed on the changes (I actually reinstalled the legacy version to make sure I'm not just misremembering things).
I'll probably post a longer write up once I'm done with my playthrough (or at least do more testing and comparison between both version) but for now my main takeaway is this: I like the new content and all the technical improvements, gameplay, while better from a design and balance perspective, lost some of the fun for me in the process. It's still a great title and I enjoy it quite a bit but yeah... I miss some of the old unbalanced jank of a game we had before.

pokemon lets go. i skipped it on release because i assumed the dumbed down mechanics are not for me as an aduld fan. but once i picked it up i like it a lot. the graphics are breathtakeing for a gamefreak ip. and the way more accessible and time saveing shiny hunting, made me commit to a shiny only run.
I gotta admit i boxed eevee eventhough i love it, because that would just be too op.
but a strong recomendation for the pokemon fan that yawns for a chill experience

Death Crown (2019)
It's as if a 4x was stripped down to the essentials, just you and the map and three building types, the gameplay is basically "try to overwhelm the enemy" and zerg rushing has been my winning strategy so far. Love the aesthetic though.
Narita Boy (2021)
I first played it close to release, but got bored of the story after a while, rediscovering this one on Steam Deck, the controls and combat has surprising depth !

I've been playing Eldritch. Friggin frustrating game. Ok, just one more go.

I have an anti-recommendation for Pathfinder Kingmaker.
They almost have a good RPG here but the combat is so frequent and the encounter design is just wack. The second to last dungeon is the worst I have ever experienced.
Normally I stop once I'm not feeling it. I'm not really sure why I pushed through here.

Monster Hunter Rise to have a MH fix until Wilds runs at more than 30 fps
- Played the beta last night and yeah, it got me in the mood for monster hunting again. Time to finally go play Sunbreak since I bought it ages ago, but never played through it again (bought the base game first on the Switch)
  
  I wanted to get away from the longsword in Rise but somehow I always gravitate towards it… Wilds is a blast, I hope they get their shit together in the next four months.
  Good hunting!

Battlefield 2042 (xbox series s), Danmaku Unlimited 3 (steam), Ketsui Deathtiny (ps4), and eFootball (android/xbox and f2p, though I'm not sure that one is in the right place here).

Rainworld is a masterpiece

Started Changed. What an insanely difficult game. What a strange thing for someone to be into.. but I love the art. It’s way too difficult for me so far, though.
- its kinda crazy isnt it? i would never tell irl i played it lol. but as a person who was in the rpg maker scene of the 2000/2010 years, it feels like the pinacle of this era and comunity. its not the best game but feels like the most iconic by haveing every standard and every stereotype of rpg maker games turned to 12. Perhabs there is potential to write a paper about how and why it was developed.
  
  I also was big into RPG Maker 2000! I completely agree with you on every point. Except I have no shame and no issue telling IRL peeps I play it hahahaha

Factorio with its latest expansion is really good

Finished persona 5 Royale last month, so I'm playing persona 4 golden right now. The story is interesting so far but the gameplay doesnt hold up that well IMO ( compared to p5r at least).

Wz2100. I go between that and zero-k.

Rivals of Aether 2, its so good to have an indie platfighter that has Smas'hs level of polish.
The first one is still a better casual experience because of workshop and single player modes, but I'm here to shmoove in ranked.