if you play it again, and want to know, just ping me (or google it....)

Will do, thanks!

That's a shame, I found Ziggurat to be a really fun game but it does require a bit of practice and it isn't one of those games you can sink hours into but it fun to bring up every now and then. BTW, there are items in Ziggurat, amulets specifically that give abilities you can activate and there most definitely are perks, that's the cards you mentioned.

Just to let you know, both apprentice characters (Argo and Corina) have max spell, staff and alchemy mana at 100. The only difference between the two characters is Corina's wand has a faster firing rate. The first unlocked character (Kraz) that you mentioned, the game actually does tell you what his description means. Kraz's health is 100, max spell, staff and alchemy mana are 50 and starts with Wand Mastery 5 and Wand Link 5 perks which increase wand attack rate and wand mana recharge rate respectively. The problem is you have to be playing the character to see this information, you can't see it during the character selection screen (which you really should).

Also the game doesn't really need to explain the difference between wands, spells, staves and alchemy as you'll figure it out after a few minutes playing with the weapon. Did anyone really need an explanation of what the weapons did in Heretic or Hexen? No, because you could use the weapon a few times and find for for yourself.

Part of playing this game is managing your mana, mentally tracking multiple enemies, knowing when to apply pressure, when and how to evade etc all on fly. All the information you need is presented to you to do this, question is can you process it quick enough? If you are burning through all your mana and getting swamped by the enemy, you're doing it wrong. I could explain further but context is required (ie, what weapons you have, what enemies you're dealing with, room layout etc).

Also don't know what you mean about player movement being slow? Movement is actually very fast like in classic FPS games (Doom, Heretic, Duke 3D etc). It might seem slow because the rooms are really large. The PC movement in Unreal 2 or a console modern military shooter, that THAT'S SLOW.

Maybe I'll try out Tower of Guns sometime and see how it compares.

I'm struggling to finish Shadwen. I like stealth games but this is just so boring, illogical, and implausible. You're off to assassinate a king who didn't pay you when you save an 8yr old girl from a guard. Rather than do ANYTHING else, you take her with you for the entire game... to decrease the chances of her alerting the guards. I felt like I was playing "take your daughter to assassinate day", which took everybody's favorite quest... escort quests... and made it into a whole game. And then added spiderman platforming. Oh, and we get to hear the girl nag us every chapter break for killing people. Great design choices! /s I've had a few chances to get the game free and never have, because Steam reviews all said what you said. Great mood, fun-destroying combat.

All fair points. Thanks for the explanations!

Tbh, I didn't realize that the key used for leveling up (U) also shows your character stats and equippped items when you're not leveling up. But, as you say, these information should really be available at character selection already.

And the reason why I said the game does not explain the weapons is also related to me not knowing about the stat screen, I guess. So when I read that the new character is good at wands, that was the first mention of "wand" that I ever saw, and since I didn't have the opportunity to see all four weapons yet, I wasn't 100% sure which one they meant. But I admit that even without the stat screen you could guess that, if you know the difference between wand and staff etc. in general.

I don't really know why I said the character speed was kind of slow. You are right, it is perfectly normal for a FPS and sprinting increases it in a noticeable way. Maybe I confused it with a different game, as I was juggling so many at the same time, or I felt like that because creatures who come running towards you more or less match the character's speed? But that's no excuse for spreading essentially false information. Thanks for correcting it!

I did not mean to imply that it's a bad game, just that I had a bit more fun with the others, but it might also be due to me doing too many runs in a row instead of taking breaks in between. And as I said, I usually tend to lose interest in rogue-lites quickly, so I don't think I would ever play through the whole game anyway. Out of curiosity, how many floors are there? How long does it take to finish a run?

Tower of Guns is quite different, btw. It's much more linear, room after room after room, and you can continue to the next room without having to kill everything in the previous one (whether that's good or bad is up to preferences; personally I'm neutral towards the linearity and a bit in favor of being allowed to skip killing every single enemy). Immortal Redneck is much closer to Ziggurat, it also adheres to the "Binding of Isaac" formula that allows you to freely search connected rooms until you find the boss room but shuts you into them unless you've defeated all opponents. The difference is that Immortal Redneck does not spawn in new enemies once a combat has started, except for those that can be summoned by specific monster types.

In Ziggurat, there's 5 floors and even if you go slow, completing all 5 floors should be possible around the 1 hour mark. I havent timed myself but a single run isn't that long at all, definitely less than 2 hours though. You can save after completing a floor like Enter the Gungeon so you don't have to do it in one sitting. Gaming does come down to personal preference and there's nothing wrong with Ziggurat not being your type of game. I've seen a lot of people say Legend of Grimrock 2 was better than the first game but I was in the minority that I didn't like the second game at all and I played through the first 3 times.

In Tower of Guns, you mentioned you didn't have to kill all enemies before moving on to the next room. Are there any advantages to that? I'm asking because I've seen it some games certain things are optional but not really. For example in Baldur's Gate 2 when you leave Athkatla, you can skip the side quests and go straight to Spellhold but your PC will be under leveled so really should do at least some of the side quests. Linearity isn't a problem for me either, it bugs me when people imply linear is bad but open ended is good when that's simply not the case.

Also, in Tower of Guns, can the RNG screw you over real bad like it can in Crimsonland? Although I did finish Crimsonland, I was put off because if a crappy weapon spawned, you were screwed. For example, a submachine gun spawns instead of a rocket launcher, but because the weapon is so weak and the enemies match your speed, you can't kill them fast enough and get swamped before another weapon can spawn.

amok can probably answer these questions better than me, but from what I remember, you don't gain experience from killed enemies and you don't level up like in Ziggurat. You get rewarded with upgrades at the end of each floor after you beat the boss, and the game also compares your time for beating a floor to a "par", so it seems to encourage you to be fast, although I don't think it has any in-game consequences, it's just a FYI if you like the challenge. Depending on your situation it might or might not be beneficial to take your time with the rooms and enemies. IIRC, killed enemies drop small HP refills, so sometimes it might be wiser to clear a room of enemies before storming into a boss battle with low health (unless the enemies are more likely to decimate your health even further before you beat them). If you rush through the floors you might also overlook vending machines or secrets that might give you an advantage later on.

As for the RNG, I think it's mostly about which rooms spawn in your playthrough and what enemies you get. As I said, you choose one weapon for your run and then stick to that (unless you manage to find a secret one). So switching weapons on the fly is not really a thing in Tower of Guns, usually. That's also a significant difference to Ziggurat. The selection of weapons available at start gets bigger when you unlock new ones by meeting certain requirements during your runs.

I just played a bit of Tower of Guns and it seems my memory had deceived me once again. Quite a bit of what I've written above is not true:

Enemies actually drop weapon xp, too. There is a level up bar on the right side of the screen and once it's filled up, your weapon is automatically upgraded. So it might be worth it to destroy as much opponents as possible in order to get the weapon xp. On the other hand, if you get hit badly, you can also lose some weapon xp and have your weapon downgraded again. So it's up to you to decide whether you want to clear a room or move on.

Also, enemies do sometimes spawn in mid-combat or even after you think you've cleared a room, it's just not as obvious or regular as in Ziggurat. And contrary to Ziggurat, Tower of Guns has no sprint button, so I have no idea how I could think Ziggurat is slower. Both games aren't that slow when it comes to player movement. I guess Tower of Guns just feels a little more fast-paced to me because you move from room to room more quickly and usually clear them in a shorter time.

Anyway, I've picked up Ziggurat again, and I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Might continue playing it after all, just with more breaks in between. Thanks for changing my mind! :)

Kerbal Space Program

It is NOT a bad game. It's one of the greatest, actually. The point is, this game does not have any end - it's open world, or rather - open universe. But you wanted "multitude of reasons", so this does qualify, doesn't it? ;)))


Tropico 5

This was the game that actually brought me to GOG. I was about to buy it on Steam, but I saw some comment mentioning GOG, and somehow I decided to take a look at what this "GOG thing" is. Found the no-DRM statement, and some other stuff, and my soul had been sold.

This also was a good game, but some day it has simply stopped working on Win 10. The issue does not look like it's ever to be fixed, so I won't be able to run this game again. A pity.


My Memory of Us

And this is the only game (known to me) that actually deserves to be buried, burned, and forgotten. And then burned again.

I do not understand why I'm seeing only positive reviews in the store now - I remember there were some negative ones when I decided to buy that thing about a year ago.

I have played it for 4 hours and 45 minutes (according to Galaxy).

This game is not only just tedious and boring, but it's also wrapped in primitive "patriotic" notes, and supposed to tell a heart-touching story. It does not. It seems to be targeted at children, but then why does it promote stealing as the only way to solve some problems? Is this that we shall be teaching our children now? Really? Honestly - stay away from that!

Looking down in the gamecard, I have immediate suspicions. Normally there's at least one troll review, one review from someone too incompetent to operate a blanket, and one person who slams the game down with a one star review that critically pans it.

Thanks for the heads up, I've wishlisted Tower of Guns for now and might pick it up next time it goes on sale. Just curious but you mentioned if you get hit too many times, your weapon downgrades. Does this take the place of a life bar mechanic?

No, there is a life bar as well. I don't really know what causes the weapon downgrade specifically, seems like an XP penalty for allowing your health to get damaged that much. Reminds me a bit of Cave Story, which I think had a similar mechanic.

I don't remember exactly how, but there is a cheat that lets you fix just how amazingly underpowered your character is.

Honestly, the biggest QOL thing if I recall isn't even the combat (though that is brutal) but the walking speed...

Though I will say I didn't end up finishing it either (in the same way I rarely finish RPGs anymore), and that was years ago but I was much more able to enjoy it as an RPG game once I'd bumped up a few stats, esp the speed.

Cataclysm:DDA

Only for the time being though. It's a phenomenal game, but it is turning into too much of a time sink. I really want to get back to some of my artwork and reading.
It wasn't too hard of a decision really as I just suffered a kind of cheap death while trying to explore a zombie infested city at night using night vision and infrared goggles: some kind of weird spider monstrosity came for me out of nowhere and in a panic I decided to shoot it with my sidearm, bargaining that I'd have enough time to escape into a nearby building from all the monsters that would rush to investigate the noise. Unfortunately the spider thing had lots of friends and rapidly swarmed me, forcing me to use my M4. About 100 rounds later I was lying dead in a pile of zombie corpses with a sizeable horde stillcompletely surrounding me. RIP.

Perhaps I can now finally make time to finish the last Caesar 3 peaceful mission.

Am I the only one who can't make threads on gd??? No one can see my comments? No one is repyling