Hey all, someone posted a new ARG! Here's their challenge:

Cthulu has a challenge for you. Step forward. Lets see if you have some skill

Rich puzzles. Deep lore.

You'll need to sink or swim.

If you need hints, come here

The hacker "Cthulu" is looking for others who can crack her puzzles, codes and other challenges!

A healthy blend of lovecraftian lore, cyphers, double crossing and a blend of online and IRL puzzles, you'll need to survive 15 challenges.

There are three paths you can take with different outcomes.

Good luck!

It took quite a while, but it's finally out. Fully free, no ads, no in-app purchases (besides a "Support the developer" option), no data collection and fully offline playable. All you need is your phone and GPS :)

I originally made the game to go on walks, unfortunately I sat even more in front of my PC to develop it. It is what it is. Hopefully it motivates some of you to get your steps in 💚

General idea of the game: Collect ingredients, brew them into potions and sell them to merchants. With the gold and reputation you get you can buy things and decorate your neighborhood. Other players see the same map and resources (so you can indirectly play together), but the game world fully belongs to you (singleplayer only).

General roadmap right now:

• Adding achievements
• Adding buildings you can improve over time (tavern to attract merchants and an ingredient tree you need to grow)
• More minigames and improving the existing ones
• And of course bugfixes, please let me know if you run into issues :)

For any questions and suggestions I'm always available!

Elden Ring Journal - Day 12

Today I got my first hand job! In fact, I got like 5 of them. Not at all what I expected.

First since I updated my map to show all the delicious loot, I was going for something to try to make this Flask of Wondrousness a little less mostly useless. I thought I was fighting some very large spiders, but it turned out to be huge severed hands! Not at all normal human hand sized, these things were as large as dogs are... outside of that awful place with nightmare dogs I found the other day.

Anyway, I offed them easily with one hit each from a greater crystal shard and happily strode towards my prize. Before I picked it up, however, I was flung back several feet onto my back. And IT arose. Not the clown, a hand so giant it made the other ones look like fucking tadpoles!

I was taken completely off guard, and only managed to get off two more greater shards before I was smashed to a pulp. One had killed the now-small hands, but two only made this thing giggle. Giggle! I have no idea what strange physical mutation could allow a hand to giggle, but I swear it happened.

As always I awoke to the alarm in my hotel room blaring "I Got You Babe." I still don't know why that keeps happening. I hopped onto my horse to retrieve my soul, and... died again. And then again. But then I finally managed to kill that damned huge hand. If it was ever alive? How could a severed hand be actually alive? I should have never eaten all those mushrooms.

High on my success, and the mushrooms, I carried on to the city on the hill. I guess they call it a manor, but it looks far larger than the few tiny clusters of buildings I've seen so far. As I approached it started raining down blue bolts of lightning, or magic, or something. I assumed getting hit by those would be unhealthy, but whatever caused them they were super easy to avoid by just not mindlessly riding in a straight line. Such a lame trap, I knew I was going to loot this place dry.

I touched grass at the gate and headed in only to have another of those fucking massive hands drop on me from the fucking sky and smash me to paste.

Once more I awoke to the sound of that damn song. This time I noticed I could summon one my undead slaves, or ghost pokemon, or whatever the fuck they are. I decided to summon that archer lady I met. Not entirely sure on that one. I get the ability to summon these things once I collect the ashes of their cremated bodies. But... I actually met this lady. She was laying on a big wolf. That seemed dead, but she seemed far more alive than most things I've met since this all started. She said she'd come along with me and I was instantly so excited to not be going through this insanity all alone... but the next thing I know she was gone and I had her fucking ashes. I swear I didn't do it. I did not kill that woman. I know I keep blacking out or dying and waking up back in my room, and I must be insane seeing all this shit, but I wouldn't just kill some random innocent woman. Oh God, please tell me I didn't.

... errr... carrying on. With the help of my friend... my only friend... I managed to kill this bastard hand too, but after only a few more feet two more of them appeared. Not the now seemingly tiny ones, those don't matter at all. A flock of gargantuan fucking hands. Turned out they were everywhere. I was in a manor full of living severed hands bigger than boulders. And they hate me! Probably for having a complete person body? I wonder if they think I'm taunting them by having so many limbs, and feet, and a head.

I ran. I'm not proud of it, but since my coward horse wouldn't even appear I just ran screaming until I found a doorway to hide inside. There was a ghost there. A real one. If they are real? Not like my archer friend. She had been alive. I didn't kill her.

I walked up some stairs and, exhausted from all those times I'd died in the last few hours I noticed another glowing gold stalk of grass and decided to touch it and take a rest.

Today's game is some more Project Zomboid. Me and my friends got together to play some more, and even had dinner as a "group". Honestly, an ability to roleplay is part of what makes this game so fun to roleplay with friends. Like, yeah, most of our "cast" is unrealistic. Jerry the Unhinged Suburban Dad, Cable the adopted 25 year old stoner, and the newest addition to our group who named himself "Honest Abe" and is a male stripper who thinks he's immune after getting bitten by what he thinks is a zombie, but was actually just a handsy patron. The only serious one is the chef of our group. She doesn't really have any lore so it can be set to be anything for now i suppose.

While dinner was being made, i was working on the wall around our base. We have a ton of natural fences, so we can just wall off the gaps and it gives us a hugely defensive perimeter. Once that's set up i'm gonna set up a walkable balcony so we can have someone on look out. It's gonna be nice because last time we made a base here it fell to a hoard quite often.

Another thing that happened is Jerry got injured. Not by a Zombie, but by a camp fire. He'll recover but he was taking corpses out back to burn, and dragged one over the fire and accidentally caught fire himself. He's on the mend but it's but a wrench in our plans to build a perimeter. On the upside it means he can spend time with his chickens.

We ended off the day by looting a storage unit for seeds. Abe wanted to get into farming so we took him by their to find some of the stuff for it. I know it's there because when we first settled at the motel I went looking around the local area to see if there was anything good. Not much, i did find a shotgun though which was good. I gave it to the Abe though because he was new, and it's pretty viable as a weapon. Plus i have Jerry's Axe so I'm covered until i can find another one.

https://www.ign.com/articles/bethesda-has-a-new-logo-to-celebrate-its-40th-anniversary-and-it-harkens-back-to-the-studios-old-terminator-games

Today's game is Project Zomboid. The new public build of Build 42 fixed my controller problems, and i've been basically thirsting for Zomboid these last few months. So getting to play it again is like finding an oasis. I got my friends on too (this is why it's a 4:3 Crop, to hide their personal info the game shows), and we made camp at the motel where we made our first ever base back when it was just Jerry and Cable.

To celebrate the return to the public branch we're playing Jerry and Cable, who is by far my favorite "OC"s me and my best friend have made, if you can really call them that.

They changed some of the presets around i believe, because when we spawned in i was struggling to find myself a car that had gas and a key, meanwhile like every god forsaken rare item is spawning for me. I found sledge hammers, guns, even a can opener which i always struggle with. We're on builder too which is what makes it especially confusing. I did manage to find a car and a Jerry Can to fill it with gas though so it's not all a failure. It definitely made me feel more successful.

One of my favorite things about the new update is the animals. I found some chickens that were abandoned, and bless Jerry's cruel heart but he found something he could actually love. I built them a coop. I read up on everything i need to keep them fed and happy, so that should keep them alive.

One of our friends wants to eat them, but i convinced him to let me take care of them because that will give us eggs which will keep us alive and fed far longer.

Anyways, i'm glad to have this back in a state i can play. I missed it and i love all the new Build 42 Stuff they added. I'll probably see if i can get some friends on again tomorrow to play some more because i missed this.

https://archive.is/xOoqP

Note: I am not the author. I found this on mastodon and thought i'd share it.

Today’s game is some more Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. I ended up taking a break from Dead Space today. I saw a cool clip of someone doing some sick ass Parkour in this game and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel psyched to do some too.

I ended up trying to do the Exit Stage Right mission without the HUD. It was actually harder than i expected. But it also felt amazing when I pulled it off right. It still wasn’t the glamorous smooth parkour I was wanting but I’m damn proud of it. I’d upload the clip but I have no clue how to share it because it’s over 300 mb and Peertube never really plays nice here.

Another mission I enjoyed was the one where you have to sneak up and down into the building to kill the guard with the chest. It doesn’t have much content wise, but damn does the experience make up for it in my opinion.

Anyways. I had a some more points I wanted to bring up via a screenshot, but my Lemmy client these last few days has gone to shit for some reason and decided it hates my screenshots now. So for now I’ll just end by saying that I’m enjoying AC Brotherhood. It’s really made me see why people praise Ezio. With Revelations being next, it makes me excited to return to that. It’s the only Ezio game I played so to play that feels a bit like returning home for me.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/57413346

I played Nine Sols recently and it had a transformative effect on my gaming experience. I've found myself no longer getting mad at fairly structured games and deeply enjoying the personal refinement of my skill set in pursuit of a goal. Suddenly this shift in perspective has allowed me to see difficulty in a new light and truly savor the victory that comes after significant effort. With this new perspective, I decided to try the game that had made me hesitate the most with its reputation for difficulty: Sekiro

Its been truly eye opening to realize that my nervousness has only kept me from a good time. Or maybe I just wasn't ready for it...

Following that trend, I started Celeste for the first time even though I never play pure platformers, and it has blown my socks off. Do I suck? You bet your ass I do. But I know it's from a lack of detailed platforming, and developing that skill has been very fun and satisfying.

Now, I'd love to hear from others. What games made you regret waiting so long to try them?

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/41194768

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50031843

Apparently there will be some boycott of PS in regards of decision to discontinue disks.

From 23 to 30 of August.

Today’s game is some more Dead Space. I knocked a decent chunk out and did some side quests. I didn’t finish it like I had planned though.

One thing I did want to talk about that was on my notes (I sometimes take notes) is the Barracks in the Military Ship that rolls in. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I love how it resembles a morgue here with the fires killing the closed off bed chamber things. It’s also a little scary to think about that someone might have been asleep in one of those too and been cooked to death in a human oven. Just something I was thinking about. I’m not sure which would be worse. Being cooked to death or becoming a necromorph.

Severed Human Legs

I also found this leg bowling. It’s grotesque but it got a chuckle out of me when I threw the severed head and got a “strike”. I want to know though what the fuck the cultists were up too that they were setting up fucking bowling sets with human legs. Weird ass shit.

Anyways. Tomorrow I’m gonna try and beat it. I’m two chapters away so I should have this in the bag no problem. The only issue I’ve been running into is I’m running low on ammo in everything. But after I resolve that I’ll be set too tackle chapters 11 & 12

A rare PvE focused extraction shooter?

"Netflix for games" has proven to be far from the ideal solution.

Today‘a game is some more Dead Space. I made it as far as Chapter 8 today. Not as crazy as my goal of 3 chapters a day. But what matters most to me is that I’m having fun so that’s more of a suggestion.

Anyways. I put the Beacon up. This section actually pissed me off a little because those big spinning arms were impossible to avoid. What I ended up doing was breaking the gravity clamps inside, and then going outside and doing everything there. Rather than what the game was suggesting I do.

On another topic, As I’ve been making my way through the game, I’ve found myself appreciating it more and more. Its design is really appealing to me because it’s not just generic bright Sci-fi, but it’s also mechanical and stuff. It reminds me of how things made to last are usually mechanical and bulky as it’s easier to repair them (with only the user presented side being futuristic). And getting to see that slowly become corrupted is cool.

Anyways. I boarded the Tram and made my way towards the deck. I saved right before boarding so I don’t get mixed up in anything. I’m gonna buckle in and try to complete this all in one more sitting as I’m really enjoying it and I want to see how it ends.

Hello, just wanted to share my story as a reminder with all the lay offs in the gaming industry, it has been terrible outside of it too. I've been working as an automation QA for a pretty decent software company and I was about to hit like 11 years on the job. Also on the side I've been trying to get my own indie game dev studio off the ground with releasing 3 small games in the past 3 years.

After saving for like 10 years and living in small rented apartments, last summer I finally managed to secure enough money so I can get a loan to buy my first apartment. After a year of dealing with contractors (yes, they are that slow!!!) I finally moved and was hoping to be able to focus my free time on my game again. However literally first Monday we have a meeting with a head of our department and they said we are practically being replaced with A.I. So around 60% of the company is gone across all offices in 3 different continents...

I guess my dream has always been to go full time game dev, it's just I was hoping to be able to do it on my own terms and not kinda being forced into it. But with no real money coming in from my previous games I might not be able to make payments for the place I bought and spent most of my adult life saving for.

So now I guess I don't have a choice but to go all in on my current game. If you want to check it out and leave feedback on how it looks or even wishlist, you can so here STEAM

Wish me luck guys and gals!

Today’s game is Assassins Creed Brotherhood. I’ve been playing this along with Dead Space. Dead Space would have been featured today but I got stuck on a boss and when I beat it I was left with no screenshots except 2. (For context, I take most of these screenshots for myself and then pair them with the writing).

Anyways, Assassins Creed Brotherhood. I have quite a bit of praise for this one. First off: the colors. That’s right. I didn’t ruin this one by fucking with reshape every 5 minutes.

I have to say that I find Ezio’s robes the most pleasing part of this. They’re so harsh to look at in a good way and almost seem to glow in direct sunlight. It resembles the promotional material which I love.

Then there’s Gameplay. It feels like a natural evolution of what 1 made, and 2 built off of. It feels cleaner, more refined even. Combat flows a lot cleaner and less janky. I will say though I feel as if they made countering with the hidden blade easier. Which I both like and dislike.

I like it because it’s good for combat. I don’t like it though because it feels too easy and reaching a “mastery” with it doesn’t feel as rewarding. Then again this could entirely be me gaslighting myself and maybe I just got good.

Speaking of getting good, one thing I’ve neglected to mention is the whole “training Desmond” thing is a cool Analog (at least to me) for fans who played the entirety of the first few games. We’re almost stepping into Desmond’s shoes and learning the gameplay loop to become the master Assassin ourselves. It’s a cool perspective I considered and like.

Anyways. I wanted to talk about this since Dead Space was giving me some problems. Tomorrow I’ll be back to it I believe. Though I’m really loving Brotherhood so maybe I’ll feature it again.

Youtuber "Brad is Brad" creates a custom controller for Subnautica using an exercise bike and an Arduino so that he has to pedal the bike in order to swim in the game.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49878453

Solo project I've been building this month, wanted to share here. The rules:

You get $10,000 and two secret years of real S&P 500 history, drawn from 1928 to 2019 (daily data, dividends included; your cash earns T-bill rates while you hide). One button: BUY or SELL. Your opponent is a couch. It buys at the start and never moves.

Every finished game is audited by 1,000 monkeys. It's a permutation test 1,000 replays with your same time in the market and same number of trades, on random days. Beat 90% of the monkeys and your win is stamped TIMED THE MARKET. Anything less is stamped LUCKY, in red ink, on your settlement document.

About 84,000 games have been played so far. The couch has won 63% of them. Roughly 1 game in 9 ends in a win that survives the monkey audit.

There's also a daily hand, same secret window for everyone, streaks, and a public ledger of humanity vs the couch.

If you have time, I'd love feedback, and I will answer any methodology questions, thanks!