Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 21st

Stardew Valley, the 1.6 update adds lots of small new content in all the right places to really take the game to the experience I imagine ConcernedApe always wanted it to be. This is something like my 10th playthrough and it's easily my favorite one since the 1st.

Whenever it comes out, I'm so excited for Haunted Chocolatier.

I've been ripping my hair out trying to get through Nodecore, a game for Minetest. It's basically minecraft but without an inventory menu and in-world crafting. You can't punch a tree down, but you can tear down the leaves and put together some branches to make an adze, which you can drop gravel on to cleave through one (1) log from a tree, which you can then carve with the adze to make planks, and then tool heads -- it goes on like that.

So far I've discovered stone-tipped tools and how to melt singular items like sand. I'm trying to figure out how to do concrete in such a way that isn't mindbogglingly tedious, and I still have to figure out how to find metal - torches don't last forever, you see, so spelunking is an expensive and time-consuming task. If you delve too deep without proper preparations, you're proper stuck in the dark. Subterranean pits can be save enders.

Just finished Chants of Sennaar. Great game, highly recommend for people who liked Outer Wilds or Return of the Obra Dinn.

Now I'm trying out the new RimWorld Anomaly expansion.

Just finished The Witcher 3, and just started Ori and the Blind Forest.

Still playing Horizon Forbidden West. I'm close to exploring everything of the base game map. Once I'm done with that, I'll focus on the rest of the side quests and finally the main story.

I finished Final Fantasy VII Rebirth a couple days ago after about 110 hours, what a journey!

I'm currently playing a few shmups since I just purchased a (very cheap but perfectly adequate) arcade stick, easy modes for now and "moving up the chain":

• DoDonPachi Resurrection
• ESP Ra De
• Espgaluda II
• Radiant Silvergun

After that, I'll probably pick Cyberpunk 2077 back up (only 10 hours in from the free trial a few weeks ago).

Balatro

Finally finished out Diablo 4: Season 3, again after finding a group to tag along with to fight Duriel. I am very glad Diablo 4 doesn't make you complete every objective to get rewards and move on to the next chapter like 3 does, otherwise I'd have to deal with FOMO. Speaking of Diablo 3...

Diablo 3: Season 31 started last week, so I've shifted my Diablo focus to that. I'm going with a witch doctor build this round, and have already made my way through chapter 3.

Still working on Lies of P. I've been replaying earlier sections in order to level up some more, because fuck the King of Puppets and it being a two part fight. I just got into the weapon assembly aspect, so I've been playing around with different builds to see what works for me. And I think this game is teaching me button control and strategy? I'm used to panicky button mashing, but I've quickly learned I cannot do that here. Still, I'm happy with what little progress I've made this week.

Finished the main campaign in Midnight Suns. I maintain what I've said previously about the dialogue and characterizations bearing heavy MCU fanfic vibes. None of these versions of the characters qualify among my favorite iterations. But hot damn if it isn't super well balanced, addicting, and fun to play. The 60 or so hours I spent on it went by like a breeze and I still dip in to raise my remaining friendship levels.

I tried out Sifu from PS Plus and am glad I hadn't ever bought it. Seems like a super cool idea and good execution, but it felt a little like a fighting game with its button pressing combos (plus I hate combos where you have to flick the movement stick around). I also didn't fancy the idea of having to worry about how old I was gettiing in the early levels and potentially have to play them over again just to lower my age for later level runs. Broke my threshold for punitive tedium.

Now I'm a few hours into Outward, and it's promising so far. I'm loving the promise of the new stuff I can find and make, although I'm taking it super slow because the power dynamic is (intentionally) very intimidating.

Who needs new games. :)

Final Fantasy III.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Loving this leisurely playthrough with O2 drain turned off. Just scrapping ships little by little and trying to do it just right.

After 110 hours I'm still playing Dragon's Dogma 2, but am starting to be ready to move on to something else.

I've barely explored the third major zone in the game. There is a metric ton of content for people who like exploring in games.

Definitely a good value for the money.

Needed a palet cleanser after binging Baldur's Gate 3 for the last month and a half, found Nova Drift, very enjoyable bullet hell rougelike.

Planet Crafter. I am enjoying it, so I played it all weekend.

Finished the Fallout TV series, so got a hankering to explore those worlds. Decided to start at Fallout 3, level up, then visit all the vaults. We'll see if how far I make it before losing interest. Also might dona co-play of 1 and 2 with my partner (I control but she makes the decisions). She never played them and it would be great to show her how they have changed.

GTA 4. Currently playing TBoGT. I somehow forgot how cool the DLCs were. I'm quite impressed by Luis and the side content added in the DLC. If you squint enough parts of TBoGT already feel a bit like GTA 5. Luis also mentions vice city so I wonder if we'll see him in GTA 6.

I'm playing through New Vegas right now after watching the Fallout show. I forgot how fun the game was; I haven't played it in over a year.

I recently played through Miles Morales twice and decided to play the previous Spiderman game. Still having fun, but I'm trying to get to the sections with Miles (he's my personal favorite). It's interesting to see the kinds of side quests and mini games they chose to keep in retrospect.

Went back to fallout 4 with the magnum opus mod list. Lots of fun when you don't pick the male protagonist

Balatro, the Joker Poker has me deep in it's clutches.

I thought about playing a lot of things. I spent about 2 hours in helldivers 2 and that was about it for the week.

I ended GTA V main story yesterday and while I decide if I want to play the online mode, I'm going to play World of Tanks (which, I discovered, I enjoy way more than War Thunder).

Some Sekiro, some X3: Terran Conflict. Taking on a whole squadron of enemies with a single (albeit powerful) ship to calmly dispatch them one by one is just the perfect mix of cozy and power fantasy for me to wind down between the more fast-paced sections of "Let's chop you down as fast as possible because the longer the fight drags on the more mistakes I'll make".

My entire family is obsessed with Power Wash Simulator right now. Especially my partner who can't seem to get enough of it.
It is quite soothing though, just empty your head and wash away the filth.