#roguelike rumble

[kallenchi]

Sketches from Pick Your Poison Production's "Roguelike Rumble" at the Roguelike Tavern, the happiest place in Las Aasimas! Featuring Aria Opaline, the tiefling popstar, the DM Lady Destiny, and the dutiful events photographer. Image description in alt text.

[haasmaxxing]

Damien at The Roguelike Rumbles

Pics via pagan_god on Insta

[guywithbeer]

Check out my gaming channel GUYWITHBEER GAMING on YouTube, Rumble and/or RUTUBE for my gameplay and review videos of the roguelike sci-fi shooter SHOULDERS OF GIANTS.

#shouldersofgiants #gameplay #review #roguelike #thirdpersonshooter

[skapasta]

Dunno if youre still super wariopilled but what makes you say twisted is the best ware game? Ive always been more into the land series bc im horrible at microgames but i actually have a copy of twisted that i might give a try

first things first im always wariopilled. think of it as a passive effect in a roguelike game. secondly, i feel like its the Smooth Moves of gba wariowares. not in the way that "they both have motion controls" but rather r&d1 just really let their creativity soar and freak flag fly with this one.

like they managed to make 223 microgames for the damn thing (which might have some fodder, but its still an impressive number) and despite the old quality over quantity rule it only shows how much they were able to innovate with just a tiny machine that can only tell if youre rotating it left or right because the game is still fun as fuck. and then they didnt even stop there cuz they put in a billion little knick knacks that are also fun to spend a couple minutes with just for the hell of it

another point id like to make is that while wario land 4 and warioware inc also had undeniably unique sound design, twisted takes that signature style and cranks its wackiness up to 11. because they were no longer restricted to only using wario land 4s instruments (and then some) the sound engineers/designers just, for lack of a better term, put their whole damn pussies into this game. all the compositions sound really fresh and unique too because of that. like its really a big step up from the first warioware. you didnt have shit like The Wave and Stay in School in mega microgames. and then you bring in the rumble pak and you realize youre playing a game thats the equivalent of eating the most perfect-tasting steak you can imagine that just so happens to have the appearance of mac and cheese, dinosaur nuggets, cosmic brownies, and chocolate milk.

third, its mostly bias.

[fioras-resolve]

I wanna talk a bit about Pokemon Rumble and randomness, because I feel like its design is useful reference for a lot of genres, from looter shooters to roguelikes to gacha games. Not because I think it's the best system for all purposes, but because its design is straightforward enough to be easy to analyze.

The core of it is this: Since there is no leveling system, you instead have to power up by finding stronger Pokemon. And the way you do that is by KO'ing them in the wild and seeing if they randomly drop for pickup. Pokemon you pick up will be at varying power levels and may or may not have moves you like, but because you can't finely control your moveset, the best way to find one that DOES work for you is to just keep getting new Pokemon.

Let's first call attention to that drop system. Because new Pokemon drop off at random every time you beat one, you can't know exactly how long it will take to get one you want or need. This can be frustrating, but it also works in the game's favor. It makes it all the more tantalizing

See, there's a concept in psychology called operative conditioning, which is a kind of conditioning that influences independent volition. Compare this to classical conditioning, stuff like Pavlov's dogs, where the conditioning influences a response to a stimulus. Operant conditioning is best encapsuled by what we now call the Skinner Box Experiment. You might have heard of it before.

Basically, it involved putting birds into boxes, each of which contained a button to push, which would occasionally reward them with food. There were two types of boxes. One gave a fixed ratio, meaning the rate of food relative to pushes was constant. The other gave an intermettent variable ratio, meaning that the number of pushes needed to spill out food was semi-randomized. And it turned out that the latter was more effective at getting the birds to keep pushing. This kind of conditioning is omnipresent in video games, from lootboxes to random drops to, yes, randomized Pokemon.

It brings up an interesting question of like, do we actually want a game to be more fair and honest to us? Would a drop system be more compelling to us if, instead of having a 2% chance to drop, you had to kill exactly 50 enemies for it? Or would that clarity actually put light to the tedium of it? We've been talking on occasion in this server about mobile games that "removed the gacha," and the various ways devs have both failed and succeeded to make that compelling. In a sense, randomness plays a trick on us, and sometmes we like that trick. But this does raise another question of "Is the best game the one that keeps people playing the longest? Or is there value in knowing when to let go?" Maybe, just because a game is good at keeping us hooked, doesn't mean it's the best experience or something we really want out of games.

Back to Rumble, though, this game is very good at keeping me engaged. A thing I wanna note is, even though the game gives about 250 different creatures to play as, I don't find myself getting attached to individual Pokemon in the same way I do in the main series, or that people do to characters in Genshin or FE Heroes. These Pokemon are broadly disposable, because what you really need is high power and good moves.

And I just wanna say, the amount of move diversity is really cool. Even duplicates of the same Pokemon will feel extremely different to play because they have different moves. A Pokemon with a fast attack and a ranged attack will feel different from one with a self-buff and an area-of-effect. Additionally, there's a small chance for a Pokemon you recruit to have an ability, something like a type resistance, high movement speed, health regen, etc. It does a really good job of not flattening all the Pokemon you get, but it does also mean that the usability level varies dramatically.

This brings me to the next component. What if a Pokemon has the stats you want, but not the moves. This brings me to the Move Tutor, which is an incredibly odd facility. Basically, you pay some in-game currency, then the game randomly picks one move from the Pokemon's entire learnset, and asks if you want to replace one of your two moves with it. A lot of these will be duds just by the nature of the game. It might have a bad power level, it might have a hitbox you don't like, or it might be a status move that you hate to use. I mentioned that I get more attached to moves than Pokemon in this game? Well, this is the game exploiting that fact by tying it to a gacha. And while sometimes it lets me customize a favorite Pokemon as I like, especially useful with an ability, I feel like I have better luck pulling an entirely new Pokemon with the Recruit Point. It costs way more, but at least there's a new possibility.

So, this next bit is something that comes up for me every once in a while. You know, if you play a game with random drops like this, you're gonna get a lot of shit you don't use. So most games of this variety let you burn your trash, as in, remove the stuff you don't use in exchange for something you can use. Every gacha has some system for handling duplicates, "Get In The Car, Loser!" has you burn items to upgrade your weapons, and Pokemon Rumble has a Release Point, where you can let go of obtained Pokemon for a cash reward.

This means that even the pickups you don't care about can be spent on something you do, either rolling for a new move or for a new Pokemon all together. Additionally, it has a very clever feature where if you release five of the same unevolved Pokemon, you get its evolved form, which comes with better stats all around. It's a cool feature that rewards collection, but I wish it was better implemented? You can only hold one Recruit Ticket at a time, and only one pops out from a bulk release. Meaning if you want the best outcome, you have to release each group one-by-one. But it's a big payout either way, and you can afford a lot more by releasing your excess. There's also a cool system where you get a legendary Pokemon if you release a specific combination, but that's a whole other thing.

I think it's really important to keep in mind how rewards play into your game's core loop, pacing, and economy. It can be hard to manage, but it's worth looking at case studies like this to deconstruct what the system is doing. Maybe keep this stuff in mind when you play a game with random rewards, and especially consider it when you're making one. I lay this all out not to seem superior for analyzing, but to give you a framework by which you can analyze and understand the games you play every day.

[altcontrollersprojectfm]

Game ideas

Multiple Controller Supported Game of Checkers

Board games, like checkers, are traditionally visual, which can make it hard to track where pieces are and where they need to move. For this project, I’d focus on enhancing accessibility by incorporating both rumble and text-to-speech features. Text-to-speech would announce the moves being made, ensuring players with visual impairments can follow the game. Rumble feedback would further assist by providing tactile cues when a piece is moved or a jump occurs, helping players feel more connected to the game.

One of the main challenges with keyboard and mouse controls is that they can be difficult, if not impossible, for players with motor conditions like dyspraxia to use. To address this, I’d ensure the game supports multiple input methods, including controllers and, if possible, voice commands. Voice control would allow players to make moves hands-free, improving accessibility for those who have difficulty using traditional input devices.

By providing various control options and adding tactile and auditory feedback, this version of checkers would be accessible to a wider range of players, allowing everyone to enjoy the classic game without barriers.

VR Football Goalie Game

This project would focus on creating a virtual reality football goalie game, built from the ground up with accessibility in mind. To ensure an equal experience for all players, I’d research various VR games to understand how they handle movement options and accessibility features. This would allow me to incorporate a range of customizable options, making the game more accessible and enjoyable for everyone.

The goal would be to integrate different accessibility features, such as adjustable movement speeds, customizable control schemes, and audio cues, into a simple yet immersive game. These features would ensure that players with various needs can fully participate in the experience. If time permits, I’d aim to add full-body tracking so that players can use their legs as well as their arms, further enhancing the physical immersion and engagement. This would be a stretch goal but would take the experience to the next level.

I believe VR is the ideal platform for a football game, as it allows players to physically engage with the game, creating a level of immersion that traditional controllers or a mouse can't match. Additionally, VR offers unique accessibility options that are difficult to implement in flat-screen games, such as more dynamic movement options and the possibility of adjusting controls to suit the player’s needs, such as snap turn instead of smooth turn, to prevent motion sickness.

Maze Runner Game

Maze games are primarily visual, and navigating intricate paths can be especially challenging for players with visual impairments or motor difficulties. In this project, the goal would be to enhance accessibility through a combination of audito cues, tactile feedback, and customisable control options, ensuring the game is enjoyable and playable for a wide range of players.

To support players with visual impairments, the game would incorporate text-to-speech that reads out the maze layout, provides hints, and announces key interactions such as when a door is opened or a trap is triggered. Additionally, rumble or haptic feedback would help players track their progress through the maze and provide subtle cues when they are near an important object or obstacle.

A major challenge with traditional keyboard and mouse controls is that they can be difficult or even impossible for players with motor difficulties (such as those with dyspraxia) to use. To address this, the game would support multiple control methods, including controller support and, if possible, voice commands. Voice commands could be used to move the character, interact with objects, and even request hints or navigate the maze.

The primary form of gameplay for this would be in a procedurally generated maze, similar to a roguelike

[ere-the-sun-rises]

A game critic I watch has said stuff about gameplay being a fundamental part of storytelling in games. "Hades" is a good example - the roguelike aspect of the game enhances the narrative of death and futility. In Halo Infinite, there's a scene where Chief holds a Spartan as he dies and the controller rumbles die off as his heartbeat does. In Nier: Automata, 2B and A2 feel like powerhouses that can absolutrly wreck shit, but despite their strength the machines never stop coming - their power enhances the helplessness.

But on the other hand, because these are active parts of the game that need to be engaged with, frustration can overwhelm the elements its meant to enhance. And each gamer's threshold for putting up with the frustration is directly tied to their personal willingness to slog through it and their engagement in the story. If you care enough about Norman Reedus' struggles, you will continue to play *despite* the gameplay.

I call it the "Interstellar Phemonema", after the Nolan film. Interstellar is a good movie, full of excellent acting, drama, scoring, visuals, acureate science and storytelling. But it's difficult to understand without prior science knowledge, hard to hear through the audio mixing of the voices and score, and deeply, deeply fucking depressing. People who disliked Interstellar get mocked for being "too stupid to understand it" or "too simple-minded to appreciate the narrative", but it's entirely possible to have grasped both and still dislike it. The difficulty in hearing the actors talk breaks immersion with the characters' struggles, the science can leave an audience lost on what's happening and why, and the sad ending can rob the audience of the pathos and catharsis that normally justify enduring the depressing elements of the narrative.

Games like Death Stranding are - despite its AAA nature - niche games that will only appeal to so many people. The elements that make it strong and compelling to one person are the same elements that make it unbearable to someone else. Interstellar was a blockbuster Hollywood movie that half the audience didn't get and left them cold and confused.

Importantly, though, neither of these opinions are *wrong*. It's just subjective experience.

Fucking wack how a lot of people seem to have redefined "gatekeeping" from "trying to kick people out of your community for not living up to some arbitrary standard you made up" to "making me feel intellectually insecure"

[monriatitans]

STREAM ANNOUNCEMENT

Thursday, May 30, 2024

We are going on a trip out of state for this weekend! So, I won’t be streaming this Sunday.

I, also, won’t be doing Artist Shout-Outs. They will pick up again on June 8th.

Before I close, let me recommend a game: Peglin by Red Nexus Games Inc.!

Here’s a bit about it, “The dragons have been popping peglins and stealing all of your gold for as long as you can remember. Enough is enough. It’s time to venture through the woods, conquer the fortress, and delve into the heart of the dragon’s lair to take back what’s yours and teach those dragons a lesson. Peglin is a Pachinko Roguelike – Fight enemies by collecting special orbs and popping pegs to deal damage. Acquire special relics that radically change the game and ensure no two runs are the same. Aim carefully to survive in this unique turn-based RPG!”

Lastly, for the curious, you can check out the Ta-Da! Lists for daily updates!

Well, these are all the updates I had for today! Thank you for reading!

May every decision you make be in the spirit of fairness and may the rest of your day NOT go to $#!7!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This announcement was originally posted in The Titans’ Discord; check it out here! Watch MonriaTitans on Twitch, YouTube, and Rumble! For more about MonriaTitans, click here! Hate the AI invasion? I give Artist Shout-Outs to human artists. Check them out here! Enjoy what I do? Please consider supporting via the WGS Ko-fi! Like what you see and want to know when there’s more? Click here to subscribe for updates and/or hit the Follow button! The announcement slides were made with the Quotes Creator App!

[durnesque-esque]

I fear I'm becoming a broken happy record on my facebook page, so just going to happy-vent here again.

I am SO thrilled with my life these days. We had our Championship Cup match for The Roguelike Rumbles last night (a live, interactive PVP TTRPG show I run). And so many times over I just was struck - I could not have pictured that my life would be this and have this level of joy and community and fun.

I am doing EXACTLY what I wanted to do when I moved out to L.A.

I was heartbroken, exhausted. I'd left my marriage and my job in the same year. I was starting as from scratch as possible and just knew that I saw possibilities in this place.

And it's all coming to fruition. Nothing's done growing, it's all just starting, and it's SO EXCITING!

Look at this bundle of nerds! This isn't even our full cast from the last year - so many folks couldn't make it, but this is a lot of them! And we've got plan for more, to play more together and make more joy for this community we're going.

Our audience is SO GREAT! And kind and energetic. This is all the work I want to do for the rest of my life. Stuff that injects joy and love into the world.

We have a potential sponsorship on the table that will allow me to keep paying folks to do this work with me and grow what we've got going. I'm so hopeful of how much more we can do together.

So anyway. Life rocks right now in ways that was hopeful it could, but never certain it would. I want this energy for all of you in 2023.

Be kind, love hard, & make joy.

p.s. if you wanna add to this post with positive things in your world right now, I'd love that.

[arobinwithoutbatman]

Tim laughed, leaning up a little into the hair ruffling. "I'm perfectly relaxed and you will be too knowing someone's watching your back while it's raining." He glanced down at the offered headphones. "And you won't have to listen to it either, you can watch something on your phone so you don't look at the windows."

Because there was no point trying to be subtle when Dick already had him rumbled. Now maybe he was projecting a bit. Tim had felt compelled to check windows after that first time he and Jason met and before his leg healed, he often asked Dick, Bruce, Alfred and even his friends to check for him. It helped him feel safer. Tim knew that Dick hated the rain; he wasn't sure if it was the sight, sound or smell just that Dick hated being out in the rain and didn't enjoy being inside when it was this heavy either. So maybe Dick would appreciate a distraction where he didn't have to see or hear the storm going on outside and he didn't have to worry too much about his own mind tricking him because if anything did happen, Tim would be there to handle it.

That was the logic anyway.

"Go watch that soap opera Jason got you hooked on, I've got my switch and several new roguelikes to try out." He grinned as he settled into a bean bag.

@dramatisperscnae from [x]

"Heating's busted in my room and I'm not fixing it myself tonight and I'm definitely not asking Alfred to either." He replied, calm as you please, strolling in by ducking under Dick's arm. "Figured I'd come hang out with you since you have a bunch of blankets; I swear you're like a cat when it comes to warmth." He commented as he planted himself on the floor, leaning against Dick's bed.

The next boom of thunder genuinely startled Tim; he himself had no real issue with storms but the volume of this one got him. He held a hand to his chest, taking a moment to calm his racing heart.

"Jesus." He hummed. "Here, I've got ear buds." He said, holding out his headphones then grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders.

He sat there on the floor, eyes fixed on the door, glancing up occasionally to smile reassuringly at Dick. "Take a nap, those headphones block out just about everything and you can always plug them into your phone if you want some music."

He didn't know what the exact problem was but Dick always got jumpy when it rained even when he was inside and dry. Tim recalled feeling a little more at ease between getting attacked and Jason revealing himself when there was someone else there to watch the door. So he was doing the same for Dick.

[peoplelikegames]

Steam Games Festival: I played so many demos. My thoughts...

I spent a few days playing as many of these demos as I could and wrote down some rough impressions.

Black Book (Morteshka): Heavily atmospheric and steeped in Slavic mythology. You play as a Slavic woman named Vasilisa, attempting to bring back her husband, who has committed suicide, back from hell in an effort to save him from the eternal damnation that their religion believes befell those who commit suicide. She becomes a witch after venturing through the gates of hell and back. The gameplay takes several different forms, depending on what you’re doing. It’s got some point-and-click adventure game elements during the more exploration focused scenes. Sometimes you’ll find herbs that can be used as items later during combat. The combat plays out like Slay the Spire and other deck builder games of the ilk, with the key exception of the spell slots. Instead of the standard 3 energy system restricting card usage each turn, here you have 3 slots that can be filled with spells that correspond with the slot type. You have 2 Order slots (big spells) and 1 Key slot (little spells) you can fill each turn. It’s a small twist to the formula that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities and combinations. In between fights and the point-and-click scenes you’ll get to interact with people you meet along the path to your destination and make choices that effect the story and your character. Vasalisa’s journey looks bleak and full of death, and I���m interested to see where it goes.

AK-Xolotl (Daniel Piqueras Constantin): Fast paced, adorable and aggressive top down shooter. Very simple gameplay of shooting down waves of enemies picking up weapons and items that drop when they die. Feels great to play. Good movement, good dash, not much else to ask for. Really quick and snappy shooting and simple gameplay loop me keeps playing again and again just to get a higher score and see what new stuff it has to throw at me. It’s got really cute pixelated graphics and lots of forest critters with guns. The game also features an absolutely filthy death metal track that’s a perfect representation of how aggressive the game really is. Just a really quick and dirty time that definitely makes me want to see the finished product. Also, I love the lil axolotl guy.

Despot’s Game (Konfa Games): Rogue-like dungeon crawler where you control a mob of humans. It’s a pretty cool and complicated battle system my only problem is I can’t help but feel like I don’t have enough control on the outcome of the fights. It’s almost a little like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator in that way. Basically, your run begins with you purchasing a bunch of little humans and different weapons to give to those little humans which will give them a class. Give a little guy a medkit and now he’s a healer, give someone a gun and they’re a shooter now. Humans with classes have special abilities they can activate when there are enough classes of that type on the field. Like an Auto Chess (Auto Battler?) game, if you have, say, 2 or 3 Fencers on the board, your fencers will now have access to their special ability, a dodge roll. Position your people in what you hope is a tactical formation and start heading for the dungeon exit. Most rooms consist of a fight, which plays out automatically. When you press go on a fight, your troops and the enemies will all start fighting until only one side remains. This is where the game loses me a little bit as it’s unclear how much of a difference positioning makes or what more I should be doing to change the outcome. Did I win this time because that unit was farther up than last time, or did the AI just play it out slightly differently that skewed in my favor? I can’t tell if the changes I’m making are actually making a tactical difference, or if the AI routines are just clashing with slightly varying results each time. You’re gonna lose units a lot but they are pretty disposable, with frequent shops for buying reinforcements or new gear. And every unit contributes to your mob’s total hunger meter, which deplete with every new room you enter. You have to buy food to feed your troops to keep them from losing effectiveness. Bigger team=greater food consumption. Gotta find a balance with your money and spending it on new units, new weapons, and food. I really wanted to like this game more because I really dig the hook of building up a mob of little guys with cools powers and I like the unit synergy system as well, but the perceived lack of control over how the fights play out and the game’s edgy humor ultimately pushed me away.

Dead Estate (Milkbar Lads): Fairly generic zombie shooter rogue-like (there’s gonna be a lot of rogue-likes). Your standard twin-stick kind of shooting you’d find in the Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon, except here you can jump, adding some verticality. Explore each room, kill the zombies, find the key and then find the elevator to the next floor. Sometimes you find a new gun or shop along the way. The movement feels pretty slow and the rooms feel small. Too many times would I walk into a room, fight three of the same zombie then walk int next room just to see two more of that same zombie. Too many times did I have to walk back across a whole level at a snail’s pace. Needs more enemy variety and to move a little quicker. The shooting is a little better, I like how the game makes its weapons feel distinct by how much it kick it has. More powerful weapons will push you back with each shot. Unloading the mini gun felt chaotic and rumbly that make you slide back and wiggle in a fun way. You can usually kill most enemies before they’re even able to do anything makes them unique, rendering most enemies the same “zombie that walk towards you for second before you finish them off.” Didn’t really draw me in or entice me to see what I might encounter on higher floors.

Foregone (big blue studio): This one feels a little like a watered down Dead Cells at first, AT FIRST. It’s a little slower and less snappy but it’s still very fun. Plus it’s more of a linear 2d action platformer with lots of loot. I like the loot aspect here quite a bit; watching a bunch of currency fly out of enemies is satisfying in a “headshot kill in Destiny kinda way.” Just a bunch of fun particles and a frequent gear drop that has you constantly popping open your inventory to equip your new gear and make those numbers go up. If that’s your kind of fun, you can definitely find it here. Lots of weapon variety on show here and most, if not all, of them feel unique. Just wish the combat was little tighter, which since this is a demo, I assume will come in due time. The game could also do a better job of informing the player that they’re taking damage, which made it difficult to hone the timing on the dash to avoid taking damage. And I’m hoping the environments of the full game become a little more diverse and sprawling, right now it feels like it’s mostly individual rooms/levels of engagement at a time. Excited to see how the full release pans out.

Tunche (LEAP Game Studios): Immediately drawn in here by the beautiful hand drawn art style. It’s a brawler roguelike and if you know what those two words mean in the context of video games, that’s all you really need to know. The brawler combat is what it is, very combo and juggle heavy, enemies that take dozens of hits to kill, fairly bland and just flat land environments. Walk forward until you’re stopped, fight a bunch of waves of enemies, rinse and repeat. Except this time you occasionally get upgrades after finishing rooms like “chance for attacks to cause burn” and “chance to regain health on hit,” your standard rougelike fare. With the territory comes the roguelike difficulty, and this game is plenty tough with the amount of enemies it throws at you and how limited your health pool can be. All of the art and the animations are what really shine here, and if you’re into that brawler style combat, this seems like a pretty good one of those.

Power of Ten (Pew Times Three): Next up we have a top-down space shooter roguelike. I like the minimalistic pixel art style in this one. It helps with atmosphere and you making you feel like a small ship in a large system. Your goal is to power planetary shields on inhabited planets throughout the system by gathering resources from asteroids. While you’re hunting asteroids, pirate ships will randomly attack a planet, pulling you away from resource gathering into a space dogfight against the pirates. That push and pull of gathering resources to fuel a planets shields while simultaneously protecting the planets whose shields are not yet charged is the core loop here that I really like. Conveying solid, core gameplay loop that’s engaging is exactly what you want to get across in a demo, and they definitely deliver that here.

Jelly is Sticky (Lunarch Studios): A lovely, casual sokoban puzzle game. Sliding around and rearranging cubes of jelly into oblong structures to match highlighted areas within a given space. You’ll encounter jellies of different qualities along the way, all with their own quirks around how they like to stick. I really like the non-linear structure in the over world, letting you navigate around between levels from all of the jelly-archetypes at any time. Solving sets of levels will unlock jelly in the over world you can stick to and rearrange to give you access to further levels gated behind walls and other triggers. It’s an appreciated extra layer of depth you don’t expect from a puzzle game that could have very well presented it’s levels in an ordered, level-select screen.

Potion Craft (niceplay games): In this game you play as a budding alchemist trying to make your mark on the world in your newly acquired (stolen possibly?) alchemy shop. Its an alchemist simulator. It’s presented in an “alchemy text book diagram-style” that’s immediately endearing. Every day, you collect ingredients like herbs and fungi from your garden and then it’s time to open shop. Customers come and share their plight, asking for potions of different types. They’ll offer different prices for potions of different potency which you haggle up further (or lower, if you mess up) through a simple timing mini game. The actually potion making is puzzling and unique, if not occasionally limiting. Ingredients you add to the cauldron determine a path that the potion icon in the center will follow across a fog covered map. Add more ingredients to add length and direction to the path, trying to build the path in a specific way that will lead to a “?” destination marked on the map. Name the potion, choose a bottle and label, and brew it. You’ll learn what it does, and can save the recipe for easy use again later. The only downside is how limited the ingredients are makes it very punishing when experimentation results in failure, all those ingredients are just lost. It seems like the game really wants you to just fill the orders at hand instead of blindly exploring into the fog to see what weird stuff comes up, which is my favorite thing to do so far. This is still easily one of my favorite demos of the bunch and has to be seen for oneself.

Aeon Drive Prologue (2awesome studio): This is definitely one of the ones I wanted to like more than I did. A self proclaimed “speedrun action platformer” and it demands that go fast. Very short 2d platformer levels with an ever ticking clock. If the timer reaches zero before you reach the exit, you fail the level. Consumables lined throughout the level can be used to add more time to your clock. This game is very punishing, one hit from anything, from enemy to stage hazard, will cause you to fail and restart. Very quick movement and a focus on chaining together different moves to find different paths through the level. There seemed to be benefits like special collectibles for taking more inventive, alternative paths, but the ticking clock really kept me tunnel-visioned on the most clear cut route through the level, meaning I only ever small a very tiny portion of each one. I’m not the type of person to butt my head against how to pull some crazy route as opposed to the clearly laid out one in front of me. Unfortunately, that clearly laid path just isn’t very fun to take. There’s also a dagger you can throw and teleport to, which I found difficult to aim and not as fun to use as it sounds. There is definitely something here, it’s just ultimately not for me.

Medievalien (dOOb games srl): Action RPG roguelike in a medieval world that has been invaded by aliens. You play an amnesiac protagonist trying to undo the calamity through repeated attempts from within a magical (or scientific?) time loop. Commence genre mashup. Nothing particularly stands out here. Two weapon slots and two throwables slots, lots of different items to fill them. Your weapons consist of bows, crossbows, and staves, and the throwables are bombs of varying elemental effect. It’s fun to play but fairly middling. The low poly art style doesn’t do anything for me and the soundtrack was forgettable. Still, if you’re like me and enjoy ARPGs and roguelike, it does the thing well enough to scratch the itch.

Minute of Islands (Studio Fizbin): Right out of the gate this 2d narrative platformer hits you with gorgeous hand-drawn art. A poisoned, decaying world that is beautifully drawn and animated. I’m gonna day this is not the best demo. The pace is very slow and the objectives are linear and don’t even register as puzzles. This game calls itself a puzzle platformer yet there were no puzzles to be found in this demo. I’m assuming the demo is trying to preserve story details so it starts at the beginning and only gives you a small slice from there. So maybe the game introduces more puzzle elements later in the game. But what’s left in the demo is not very compelling to play. The impressively detailed environments and atmosphere are only driving forces so far. But extremely strong forces at that.

Alekon (The Alekon Company): This feels like spiritual follow up to Pokemon Snap in all of the best ways. In its most basic form, the game plays exactly like Pokémon Snap, but builds on the nearly 30 year old classic in several key ways. Creatures in this game are called “Fictions” and whenever you take a picture of a new fiction, the creature also appears back in the game’s hub world. Once back in the hub world, you can talk to the fictions who have moved in and they’ll give you small quests to do that’ll usually reward you with key game features, like a zoom function for the camera. There’s a great feature that involves capturing photos of a fiction in all of its potential poses, which will unlock the ability to “see through the eyes of the fiction.” So when you’re looking through the album of your saved pictures, you can apply a fiction filter to see the image as a particular fiction would see if through their own eyes. Also, once you’ve unlocked all of the different routes in a specific biome, you gain the ability to “wander.” Wandering is free from the rails of the standard routes and allows to explore every inch of the biome and find other fictions that were previously hidden. It’s also a great space to snag that perfect picture of a fiction you couldn’t get while riding the rails. The creatures themselves are kind of hit or miss so far in their design. Sometimes it’s literally just a seal, sometimes it’s a ridiculous alien thing, but it seems like the personalities of the fictions are what makes them unique. Even though I didn’t care for the designs, I found myself endeared toward the creatures once I found them back in the hub and helped them with their troubles. There’s some good writing in these bits that really helps sell me on these creatures. Lots to love here if you’re into games about snapping pics of critters and throwing donuts.

Eat’n Eaten (Gaëtan Benoit): A cartoony tower defense game with bug plants. Bugs that grow from plants. It has a really fun and easy to understand “food chain management” system for building up units. It almost feels like it was designed to translate easily to touchscreens for mobile devices. Your soil has 100% nutrients, plants grow and feed off nutrients, plants grow apples which you can pick who will then become your units. When an apple dies it’s corpse returns nutrients to the soil and it’ll drop a seed that will grow into a new plant. If you don’t pick the apples off the plant long enough for them to consume extra nutrients, the apples will become a caterpillar. Pick the caterpillar off the plant and now you have a more offensive unit, who needs to eat apples to survive. The game only builds on the loop from there; the way bugs will level up into new or stronger forms after eating enough fruit, or how the game will add spiders to your team who will then need to eat caterpillars to survive. Manage this whole food chain to keep a steady supply and distribution of units against waves of enemies. I don’t know if that seems confusing when put into word like that but it’s really quick and simple to pick up they way it is presented. It can definitely get a little frantic at times but that’s when the game is at it’s most fun.

Dorfromantik (Toukana Interactive): Chill, colorful, tile placement puzzle game about building a village landscape. You start with a deck of 85 hexagonal tiles, and it doesn’t end until all the tiles have been placed. You’re placing tiles with the intent to line up as many like edges between adjacent tiles, making longer and longer networks of landscapes of matching type. The way the scoring works and how the game conforms matching sides together does a good job of making the best place to put your tile one that not only scores well but also looks good in the context of the interconnected village landscape you are ultimately trying to craft. I would kill for this game on Switch.

Unsouled (Megusta Game): An isometric pixelates dark souls-style action game. Described as an “ultra-brutal” game with “fast-paced and savagely rewarding combat,” Unsouled comes exactly as advertised. The combat in this game is very difficult and I am simply not the person to conquer it. It’s really fast paced yet proper movement and combat requires consistent timing and punished button mashing. Every thing you do has to be deliberate and calculated as it’s easy to lose control of the battlefield very quickly. Even just a few enemies can be dangerous as they all can dodge and block and roll just like you. The game is unafraid to put the pressure on and throw ten enemies at you all at once engaging from different ranges. The game demands that intimately learn the combat systems if you want to keep your stamina and health high in the heat of combat. I’d bet that if you’re a fan of Dark Souls or souls-like games, this game has all that difficulty but a different pace of combat that doesn’t feel derivative.

Rogue Invader (Squishy Games): Immediately I love the look of this game. It’s got this old school 1-bit black and white look to it. It also opens up with a fully animated and voice acted cutscene. The game is actually pretty difficult. It’s a side scrolling shooter where you’re part of an army in invading an alien planet one soldier at a time. You’re also managing weapon heat and breakage, and carry weight effecting run speed. Each soldier gets body armor and a pistol but you can equip them with a rifle and helmet from your armory. Which you’ll definitely want to do considering you die in one shot if hit in the head. When you’re soldier dies, they lose the gear you equipped them with and the new soldier needs to be equipped with whatever you can craft in the forge. This is where I ran into issues with hardy ever having enough materials to craft a helmet, go into a mission and die early to a single stray bullet to the head, and subsequently not earn enough materials to make a helmet. The evasive controls like jumping, running, rolling and taking cover all felt clunky in my hands, add that to fact that bullets often just miss even if you’re aiming right on an enemy, and it made for a pretty unsatisfying game to play.

Devastator (Radiangames): How is this not just Geometry Wars? Because this shit is just geometry wars. Fortunately, Geometry Wars slaps so this game is still pretty fun. But just go play Geometry Wars. There, I mentioned a different game like five times more than the game this was supposed to be about.

ANVIL (Action Square): Co-op top down shooter roguelike with space marines. It’s like a run-based Starship Troopers game. It’s pretty great. The three characters unlocked in the demo all have different weapons and abilities resulting in very distinct play styles between classes. There’s a fairly simple loop to each floor: search the floor for the boss, along the way areas will be filled with enemies, who’ll drop money, which can be used to buy passive upgrades from chests found throughout the floor. The upgrade system allows you stack multiple of the same upgrade for increased effect. Lots of variety in the enemy type really keeps you on your toes. Unsurprisingly, it just feels good to mow down mobs of space bugs.

Orbital Bullet (SmokeStab): A 360 degree shooter platformer. It’s a really cool gimmick actually, you move in 2d but in ring around a 3D space. It’s makes for some cool looking environments and depth from having inner and outer rings you can switch between. Really fast and arcade-y feeling. Snappy movement and gunplay. There’s seems to be a lot offered here among different weapons, in-run upgrades and meta upgrades that persist between runs. Which makes this a roguelite, as opposed to roguelike, which I tend to prefer. I like having something upgrade outside of my runs to make me feel stronger or different going into the next run. The games has a sort of ancient alien aesthetic, it feels industrial and monolithic. The bursts of neon in the walls, enemies, and weapons really pop among the ruins of the stone temple. Watching your weapons’ shot glide along the curve of the world is an effective visual as well. Just because I clearly like to compare to games so much, this game feels a lot like Resogun meets Downwell, and that’s just fantastic.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Greg Lobanov): A colorful and cartoony adventure game about painting that takes a small but welcomed bullet hell turn. You play as a cute little pup that claims the power of The Brush after it’s wielder (and your master) disappears along with all of the color in the world. Searching for cause and hopefully the solution, you embark on a journey to repaint the world and make your mark as the new wielder. Once you pick up that brush you can start coloring in literally everything in the world. It’s fun and charming the whole way through. You can help the townsfolk bring color back into the lives and color in their houses to their satisfaction. Use the paint to navigate the world by growing and shrinking plants by erasing/coloring them. The demo is a little thin but definitely makes me interested to see what fun stuff the game has in store for these paint mechanics.

Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den): Okay this game was a trip. I barely have any idea what I just played but I know I really liked what was happening. It’s a heavily stylized point and click adventure game where it feels like you exist within an improvisational Jazz album. Train tracks becoming notes on a cello. Getting into a cosmic jazz-off that plays like a game of Simon and ends with your opponent on the wrong end of a mob hit. I think? Honestly this game is so trippy it was difficult to keep track of what was going on. And occasionally it was a little ambiguous as to how you’re supposed to proceed, which lead some random click and dragging around the screen until something clicks. It actually seems like it could turn out to be a really good example of a story and experience that can really only be through video games. Not quite an animated film, not quite a comic book or visual novel, but instead a fantastical, interactive amalgamation of many things. Whatever this thing may be defined as, it’s something unique and special.

[haasmaxxing]

Damien was a guest on Pick Your Poison Productions DnD event "The Roguelike Rumbles"! Such a fun watch! VOD should be up on their YouTube channel soon!

[qm-vox]

So You Want To Play Hades

I spent six hours coming up with that title because I have problems in my mind which I refuse to either examine or resolve.

So, Hades! The latest work from Supergiant Games, who brought you the interactive soundtracks to Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre, all superb games in their own rights known for their intuitive gameplay, build-your-own-hard-mode difficulty style, incredible atmosphere and characterization, thought-provoking stories, and that sexy, sexy fuckin’ music.

Like, listen to this sometime it’s amazing (all of their soundtracks are available from them on Youtube, by the by, though if you like ‘em you can support the creators by buying the music from them directly too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH3Aoj1nw58

You’re likely asking, quite reasonably, why in the infinite and undying fuck I’m writing this post right now, and the long and short of it is I want more people to talk Hades with so now y’all are gonna get hit with the sales pitch and what I hope will be a helpful beginner’s guide if you decide to get into the game. Let’s get into that first part, shall we?

Thou Shalt Subject Your Gods To Market Forces

(Image sourced from Supergiant’s website)

Hades is an action-roguelike/lite that places you in the role of Prince Zagreus, secret son of Hades. Zag is trying to move out of his father’s house and live somewhere else for awhile and, well, Dad’s just being an entire dick about the whole thing. Hades challenges you to face down the endless ranks of the dead one chamber at a time, gathering the resources you need to breach upward through the Greek underworld and open the mighty gates into the living world. You can acquire it on Steam or on the Epic Store.

How do you know if Hades is or isn’t for you? If you like action games with tight controls and widely varied playstyles, we’ve got you covered here (if you’re thinking in terms of previous Supergiant offerings, Bastion has the most bones in). Hades also offers a great character-focused narrative, centering around the relationships Zagreus has and develops with the people around him - from legendary shades like Achilles and Sisyphus, to the gods of Olympus, to the cthonic gods of the underworld like Charon, Nyx, and the Furies - which fully incorporates the conceits of the genre. Unlike many roguelikes which sorta quietly elide failed runs or deaths, Zag’s defeats are part of his journey. After all, he’s already in the underworld. Where the fuck else is he going to go when he dies? Connecticut?

Though I can gush about the characters and narrative all day (and I’ll do it a bit more later), don’t get me wrong: Hades expects you to perform some pretty tight mechanics. Since dying is just the end of this run and not the game, the game feels pretty free to take brutal measures; the environments you move in are full of deadly traps, the seething ranks of the dead outnumber you to vast degrees, and you’ll fight a dizzying mix of opponents who do not hesitate to catch you in cross-fires, push you into lava, or drop bombs when you kill them because fuck you for succeeding you weird godling bastard. If you get easily frustrated or flustered, Hades may be quite stressful for you; before it’s anything else, it’s an action game with a heavy focus on combat, and if you decide to ride this train that’s the price of the ticket. If you relish the challenge and especially if you like the satisfaction of watching your play improve, though, it’s one hell of a ride.

In terms of accessibility features, Hades is a mixed bag. It has subtitles and aim assistance available, as well as a variety of supported languages and control adjustments which can alter how you do things like dash or attack, but it’s missing, for instance, a colorblind mode (and that’s gonna be important here in a minute), and many enemy behaviors & traps have audio cues which are not part of the current subtitle support. A rumble feature for controllers that have it is supported; Hades strongly suggests the use of a controller, but I know several players who choose to use a mouse & keyboard and seem to prefer it. Semi-recently, a God Mode option was added which empowers you when it’s turned on and does so further every time you die; it’s the closest Hades comes to an ‘easy’ mode, and while reception of it from my fellow players has been highly positive I’ve not tried it for myself.

If you’ve liked action games in the past, I’d highly endorse giving Hades a try as long as it’s accessible for you. The current build of the game (just before formal release) is selling at $24.99 USD on Steam right now, and like...I am not a highly skilled Gaming Individual(tm). I lose at games a lot. I play most of my games on Easy or maybe Normal if I’m really feeling like my dick is big - and with that in mind, I loved this one enough to buy it twice. I love the tight feeling of the combat, the way the mechanics feel, its gorgeous environments and its captivating characters. Hell, that’s why I’m out here writing a whole-ass article.

Stealth, Guile, Subtlety, And Other Things You Will Not Need - Getting Started In Hades

(Artwork sourced from the Hades wiki)

So you’ve decided to acquire Hades, you already own it, or the first part of this article was intriguing enough for you to look at the advice portion and see what sort of game you could be dealing with. Hades can be intimidating at first; it throws a lot of stuff at you, very quickly, and while it gives you some strong guidance on what to do with many of the resources you’ll acquire not all of those uses are immediately intuitive. The following is a guide to help your first few runs go a bit more smoothly and work on the fundamentals that will help you through your entire experience.

Let’s start with some General Tips that will help you out with every run and every weapon:

- Relax. No, seriously: relax. You haven’t ‘failed’ a run if you don’t beat the final boss. Hell, you probably haven’t even ‘failed’ a run if you die in Tartarus. If you learned something or got any permanent resource - gemstones, darkness, nectar, keys, blood, diamonds, ambrosia - then that run was a success. Even if the game wasn’t currently early access and thus without a proper ‘end’ at the moment, it’s supposed to be fun. Don’t castigate yourself for dying, just dive screaming back in and rip your vengeance from the spectral chest of your slayer.

- Always Be Moving. You only have so many hit points (you start a save file with a max of 50 and the most you can start a given run with is 200) and healing is limited over the course of a run. If you’re standing still, you’re getting hit. Zag’s quick on his feet - keep him moving and use your dash liberally. Once you’ve dealt some damage, leave and let your enemies swing at empty air, then dash back in and bully them back into their graves. When you start a dash you’re invulnerable until the dash finishes, which can make for some real cheeky dodges once you’ve had time to learn enemy timing.

- Watch And Learn. Early on in the game you’ll be learning about new enemies every chamber, especially when you start transferring to new zones and all of the enemies you’ve been facing just stop being a thing. Take the chance to know your foe! You’re not on a clock: don’t leap into the fight immediately. Dash around and watch how your enemies move and attack. What’s the limitations of their tactics? The reach on their attacks? How fast do they swing and move? If you’d like to watch some of that stuff ahead of time, I’d like to suggest amber_cxc’s Twitch channel: she’s been doing a lot of runs and speedruns of Hades of late, among the other games she plays.

- Manipulate Your Rewards. Certain things in Hades can only be offered a limited number of times per run, and once you’ve hit your quota they stop appearing. You can take advantage of this to get more Boons, Centaur Hearts, and Poms of Power. Specifically, you can only have up to two Daedelus Hammers and up to three Hermes Boons. If you can knock these out early I highly endorse doing so; they’re never bad to have, and even if somehow you want none of what they have to offer getting them off the RNG will help you later. Additionally, you can use Keepsakes (more on these in a minute) to manipulate who you get Boons from, when, by changing in and out of them at each biome. In this way you can control the shape of your build for the run.

- Accept That Your Dick Energy Is Fucking Huge. A lot of games try to keep you humble. Dark Souls is infamous for it, of course, and others in this genre such as Crypt of the Necrodancer and Enter the Gungeon do not reward haste at all. That is not this game. Walk into Hades like you’re the lord god of the Big Dick Dimension even if you know you’re not; take risks and learn from experience how you can mitigate, manipulate, or cancel out those risks. That unearned confidence won’t just help you with tip one (Relax), it’ll help you practice in those high-pressure situations which will occur more and more as your Heat rises.

- A Brief Note On Projectiles. This game has a few kinds of projectiles that you’ll need to learn to identify. Balls and Arrows can be broken - hit them with an Attack and they pop and won’t hurt you. Waves cannot be broken; they travel fast along the ground and have to be dodged or deflected. Lasers can neither be broken nor deflected. Traps can’t be broken, and deflecting them doesn’t always make them safe for you; these include the lava balls in Asphodel, Inferno Bombs, and the shit spit out by Bothers and Pests. Know your foe and always be moving.

In terms of the resources you’re offered, there are broadly two kinds: in-run resources, and out-of-run resources. Let’s talk briefly about in-run ones.

- Boons: Boons are the powerful gifts of your Olympian relatives. They change how you play during your run by augmenting your abilities (like your Attack, Special, or Dash) or by offering passive benefits. In general, look at Aphrodite, Athena, or Dionysus if you want powerful defenses, Ares, Artemis, or Zeus for powerful attacks, and Poseidon and Demeter for a combination of damage and utility. Different gods will be good with different weapons, and we’ll get into that later. Boons have a Rarity and a Level; Rarity determines their starting power and how well they scale if they do scale, and Level is that scaling.

- Centaur Hearts: +25 max and current HP for this run. Do you like not dying?

- Poms of Power: Poms increase the Level of a Boon by 1, which generally makes it better at doing whatever it does. Not all Boons will level up, but the ones that you can attach to your Attack, Special, Cast, Dash, or Call always do. You do eventually hit diminishing returns with these, so you’ll generally want to spread the love around if you keep picking up Poms.

- Obols: DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS Y’ALL. Obols are the coins preferred by Charon, the Ferryman, who will take them from you for goods and services. Obols can be turned into all other resources - even out-of-run resources. They’re almost always a great choice of investment.

These in-run resources are presented as potential rewards when you’re selecting chambers. I tend to run heavy on Boons and Obols myself, but your own play style is likely to differ! Experiment with the feel of acquiring various rewards and see what you like to invest in. After all, they’re only for the run you’re on; you literally can’t take it with you.

Out-of-run resources are used to permanently advance Zagreus’s power, his relationships, or both. They are as follows:

- Cthonic Keys: Used to unlock new weapons and new parts of the Mirror of Night. Once your weapons and Mirror are wholly unlocked these keys stop being useful more or less instantly, and can be safely traded at the Wretched Broker between runs to acquire Nectar (but see Gemstones, below).

- Gemstones: Early in the game, Gemstones can be traded in at the House Contractor between runs in order to enhance the underworld; in particular, they can be used to install fountain rooms, to open up access to Chaos and Erebus, to give you access to Infernal Troves (and upgrade said troves), and to add in-run resources to Keys, Nectar, and Gemstones. These services are in the first tab of the House Contractor and you should buy them out as soon as possible so that your runs can springboard off of these powerful additions. Once that’s taken care of, Gemstones can be used to renovate the House of Hades, including Zag’s bedroom and the lounge, again at the House Contractor.

- Nectar: The nectar of the gods is in short supply in the underworld, and is a treasured gift that Zagreus can offer to his friends. In most cases, the first time you give a character Nectar they will trade you a powerful Keepsake in return; these are run-altering tools you select at the start of each run and change how you play. Early on, spread the love, but once you’re full up on Keepsakes you can feel free to develop relationships through gift-giving however you see fit.

- Darkness: The power of Night is used to give permanent, powerful passive benefits to Zagreus via the Mirror of Night in his bedroom. I would suggest using Darkness to get your extra Dash and extra hit points before anything else, but once you’ve got those tools kinda fuck around and find out. Eventually a dialogue option with Nyx will unlock the flip side of the Mirror’s talents, which must be developed separately and cost even more Darkness; you’ll want lots of this and you’ll want it for a very long time. Oh, and try to save aside 8,888 Darkness for a rainy day. You’ll need it.

- Titan Blood: Offered by the first and last bosses at each level of Heat (more on Heat later). Titan Blood is used to upgrade your weapons, making them better at doing all of the things they do, as well as to unlock Aspects of those weapons. We’re still shy one Aspect as of the latest patch, so ah, don’t stop collecting this. You’ll always have a use for it.

- Diamonds: Offered by the second boss at each level of Heat. Diamonds are used to buy plot-relevant renovations to the House of Hades, to advance certain relationships, and to acquire the fishing minigame and in-game access to the soundtrack within the House. Like Blood, you’ll have a use for these for a long, long time.

- Ambrosia: Offered by the third boss at each level of Heat. When you reach the point at which you can no longer offer people Nectar, genuine Ambrosia from Olympus becomes the princely gesture by which you can show your gratitude. You may be tempted to trade this for Blood early on. Don’t.

When you’re starting out, Darkness and Gemstones will be the gods of your new world, followed closely by Cthonic Keys You’ll run out of immediate need for Gemstones faster than you will for Darkness, but by that time you’ll either be comfortable with Hades or you’ll have determined it’s not for you. Focus on unlocking access to your new weapons, upgrading the underworld itself, and paying off your talents; at this stage, escaping the underworld isn’t really a priority so much as setting up for your eventual triumph is.

And When You Can No Longer Lay Waste - Infernal Arms And Heat

(Artwork sourced from the Hades Wiki)

The assault rifle with under-slung mortar launcher is definitely my favorite ancient Greek weapon.

So I’ve mentioned unlocking weapons, and I’ve mentioned that Hades offers varied play styles, so I suppose I ought to talk about them. Zagreus’s weapons - his Infernal Arms - form the first layer of your play style choices, which will be augmented by your in-run choices, and the second layer comes in the form of the Pact of Punishment and its Heat. Each weapon has differing values for its attacks and behaves very differently. I’m not gonna give you the specific numbers here - we have a wiki for that - and will instead make some general statements on how they play and what might pair well with them.

- Stygius, the Blade of the Underworld: You start each save file with this bad boy. Stygius is a generalist weapon that leans somewhat towards speed; its Attack is a three-hit combo that ends in a Thrust with knockback, while its Dash Attack (note: these are not the same with ANY weapon) is solely the Thrust, still with knockback. Its Special, slower than the Attack, is a high-damage shockwave that breaks enemy projectiles and knocks them back. You might be asking yourself, Vox, why would I Special when it makes people leave sword range, at which point I will direct you back to Always Be Moving; your Special makes your enemies Go Away, which saves you hit points. Stygius can build into almost anything, though its Attack benefits the least from Zeus and Poseidon, and is notable for having the most wild fucking Hammer options. Some of them do little things like make your Special bigger, but then you get stuff like Hoarding Slash (deal extra damage equal to 5% of your Obols), World Splitter (you do one big swing with a base damage of 80) and motherfucking CURSED SLASH, which is where Stygius rips a line of cocaine off of a mirror, cuts your health by 60%, and then heals you for 2 every time you hit something. My advice for this is whatever you start down, commit. Stygius might build into anything, but it can’t build into everything: once you choose a boon path, pick things to compliment that and go fucking ham.

- Varatha, the Eternal Spear: The forgotten child of Hades’ weapons, Varatha is a versatile weapon that, like Stygius, does a bit of everything - and unlike Stygius, does it all at the same time. Varatha’s base attack is a series of three long-range thrusts with low damage, and its Special throws the spear in a straight line, at which point it hovers in the air until you Special again; it follows a straight line from its position to your current one, damaging anything in that line. Last, but not least, you can perform a powerful Spin Attack by holding down the Attack button and charging up. Spin is one of the strongest single hits in the game, but you do have to stop moving to charge it up. However, you can dash out of the charge - even better, dashing releases the Spin at the end of your dash. This means that once you learn the timings of your charges, you can use Spin to attack and dodge at the same time, in a wide circle around yourself. Unlike Stygius, Varatha benefits to an extent from splitting your build up; its Attack wants big hitters like Aphrodite, Artemis, or Poseidon, whose high multipliers pair amazingly with the spin, while its Special can mount debuffs or stranger forms of damage like those offered by Dionysus and Ares. If you start building into one thing, but then Hammer into an alternate focus, the end result is still going to be pretty cohesive. Like Generic Goodstuff, or want a weapon to use while building up many divine relationships? Varatha does it all.

- Aegis, the Shield of Chaos: Just because this thing has the only block function in the game doesn’t mean it’s a defensive weapon. Aegis is a fast-moving melee weapon whose hits cause native knockback, slamming foes into walls, up against cliffs, and through traps & magma. Since Aegis throws people around it’s great for a highly aggressive style; dash in, hit them, and watch them slide away before they can do damage back to you. Its Special throws the shield Captain America style, where it ricochets off of opponents and obstacles before eventually returning. Use this with care; you can’t attack or block while your Special is out. Holding down the Attack button begins to charge a Bull Rush; while you’re charging, you’re immune to damage in the direction the shield is facing, and then when you release you dash to the end of the indicated line, damaging anything you hit. Despite how sexy that sounds, Bull Rush is honestly kinda slow and can be hard to build for specifically; instead, Bull Rush is best used to get out of bad situations, or to outlast big long boss combos, especially those used by the first and second bosses who are known to spit out absolute STREAMS of projectiles. Aegis hits fast and gets lots of bonus damage against normal enemies by bullying them against walls for that sweet, sweet Wall Slam damage, but it craves big damage multipliers less than some other weapons; consider using Zeus, Dionysus, or Demeter for your Attack, saving big damage choices for if you can get a Dash Attack build going. Special is great for mounting utility like Aphrodite or Poseidon that let you control the engagement further, just remember to think before you hit the yeet button.

- Coronacht, the Heart-Seeking Bow: Meet your first ranged weapon! Coronacht deals damage in a straight line by charging up a shot; when your line flashes, release the shot for a Power Shot that deals extra damage. Its Special is...bad, I’m gonna be real; it’s a wide-sweeping volley of arrows that deal individually low damage and will rarely, if ever, hit the same target. Still, it has its uses. Coronacht benefits from either high damage or battlefield control on its Attack; look into Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, and Poseidon. Its Special is harder to build for, but Ares and Zeus both do well on it since they can cause damage out of proportion with the range and/or area of your volley. Play keep-away and use distance to get off those charge shots, and remember that you can break projectiles and hit multiple enemies with each attack. Avoid mounting odd damage (Ares or Dionysus) or utility (Athena) on your Attack; it’s not going to come out fast enough to take meaningful advantage of those tools.

- Malphon, the Twin Fists: Easily the angriest weapon in all of Hades, Malphon is a pair of massive fuck-off gauntlets that are used for fast-moving combos at extremely short range. It is unique in that its Attack has a Dash Attack, and its Special - a massive uppercut - has a dash upper, letting you sweep in and deal big damage in a tight area immediately. Though each of Malphon’s hits are individually small, it throws out so fucking many of them that you can put almost anything on your Attack and it’ll work out. Athena Attack? Why not, you’ll be swinging when the enemy is. Dionysus Attack? Poison stacking has never been easier! Artemis Attack? Sure, you don’t do a lot of base damage, but you swing so often that you’ll crit constantly and take advantage of passives like Support Fire. Your Special has much higher base damage and can easily become the focus of your build, and because it moves slower it wants bigger damage multipliers like Artemis or Aphrodite if it’s your focus. If it’s not your focus, consider Poseidon in its slot (to get enemies to Go Away) or a god that will combo with your Attack (for instance, if you’re doing Demeter Attack, consider Zeus Special so you can potentially pick up the Cold Fusion boon and get 10 seconds of free damage every time you tap the Special button). You pay a price for this ease of use: Malphon’s range is directly inside the enemy’s ass, which means you need to have razor-thin timing to dash out of the way of attacks and keep your combos going, especially if you get swarmed. Since Malphon can mount and build literally fucking anything, it’s the ideal weapon to use if you want to power-level Keepsakes; slap something on at the start of a run and then just never take it off. Sure, you’re letting the Three Fates decide your build, but fuck it, it all just works!

- The Adamant Rail: What if you invaded the underworld with a fucking machine gun. The Adamant Rail has an ammo counter; each Attack takes 1 bullet (and Dash Attack takes and fires 2), and you reload by pressing the right-hand stick in. Its Special is a slow-moving mortar that hits in a wide area. The Rail is a powerful and versatile weapon capable of engaging at great range, which tends to build either Attack or Special. If you’re building Special, look for big hits like Aphrodite, Artemis, or even Poseidon, and any Special upgrade at all from the Hammers. Attack usually wants utility or stacks - stuff like Poseidon, Demeter, Dionysus, or Zeus - but certain Hammer upgrades like Spread Shot might make it more worthwhile to invest in big hits for it if you get them early. However! Just because you’ve decided on a focus doesn’t mean you should neglect the other half of your weapon. For instance, an Attack-focused build might still entertain the Targeting System upgrade so that you can more easily land your hits and avoid the enemy, while a Special-focused one benefits from mounting debuffs like Weak or Chill on its Attack.

For any weapon, once you settle into a play style you enjoy, find ways to be rewarded for what you’re already going to do. If you enjoy, say, the Chiron Aspect for the bow which makes it into a Special-focused weapon, mount benefits like Doom or Weak on its Attack since you still have to use that to make your shit go-go. This applies more broadly too; if you’re saving up Gemstones for something, for instance, use the extra money you get during your run to visit the shops earlier and more often. Let Hades reward you for doing the things you already want to do.

To close this guide out I’m going to briefly touch on Heat, which is how Supergiant Games has manifested their signature build-your-own-hard-mode approach. After you clear the game with any weapon for the first time, you acquire access to the Pact of Punishment. This Pact lets you turn on hostile modifiers to your run, which each have a Heat value; once you clear the game with a weapon at any given level of Heat (0, 1, 2, etc) you can only get Titan’s Blood, Diamonds, and Ambrosia with that weapon by advancing to the next level of Heat. In this way the game gradually gets harder on a weapon-by-weapon basis.

So, what modifiers to turn on? Depends on what you’re good at and bad at, but I would highly, highly suggest that you get used to Extreme Measures, Middle Management, and Benefits Package as soon as possible. Not only are they sources of big Heat by themselves that don’t change too much of the run by themselves, but their primary difficulty is knowledge-based; once you know them, they’re practically free real estate. Since Heat is tracked per-weapon and not in total, you can also always go back to weapons you’re not as good with and use practice with them as an excuse to get more permanent resources that you can pour into the ones you prefer.

Obviously this guide is not comprehensive! I’ve left out a lot of things you might want to know, like boss patterns, enemy types, and a whole lot of stuff about characters. Some of these things I’ve not talked about because I don’t want to give spoilers; others I haven’t talked about because I’m, again, actually pretty bad at games and the Hades community has talented folks whose guides on Steam, on the Reddit, and on the wiki can provide you with thorough breakdowns of the math that makes the game work. Still, it’s my hope that this can ease your entry into the world of Hades and help guide you in those early runs when it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels. I look forward to hearing from you; reblogs and commentary are welcome!

See you all in Hell.

[fluidsf]

Fluid Label Focus on QUANTUM NATIVES 4 Crown Shyness: Isonautics (2019) Review format: review copy of MP3 download as kindly provided by QUANTUM NATIVES Welcome to a review of the second recent release on the label QUANTUM NATIVES and once again we’ve got another awesome package of music with this album in MP3 download format. As always, QUANTUM NATIVES kindly sent me a review copy of the release via email, including all info and a link to a video for the first track on this album, Glacial Romance. The album we have here is titled Isonautics and is by the artist Crown Shyness. Crown Shyness is one of the aliases used by American artist Kevin Carey. The album description as provided in the email I got is again really interesting and this time in the form of what seems like an abstract narrative written as a fragment of a logbook by a captain of a large ship. The log tells that the ship had capsized during their journey but most importunately it talks about songs as being physical objects, chunks of frequencies. This description of music is derived from the sound of the sea as the title of this logbook fragment suggests and this theme of a journey on a ship combined with waves of abstracted music and musical elements flowing through the sound of the music is what I felt is the driving force of the Isonautics album. Before I move onto my review of the music and the video attached to the album for the track Glacial Romance, I’ll mention that download contains the 13 album tracks in 320kbps/48kHz above CD quality audio, the album cover in good 1100x1100p resolution as several icon files for the album cover and icon of this release on the map of the QUANTUM NATIVES site. Isonautics is an awesome album that is clearly composed like a continuous journey rather than a collection of several pieces as the 13 tracks all quite smoothly connect to eachother. Throughout the album the music switches from glitched and awesomely sound designed and composed melodic tracks with Deconstructed Club elements in them to soundscape like compositions built out of various sounds and occasional musical elements as well. Isonautics starts with Glacial Romance for which cceggyang and Aldéric Trével also made a video. The video features animation from both artists showing an articial landscape that features dark mountains and backgrounds that are changing overtime like architecture and nature blending and morphing together. Abstract rounded figures also feature in the video, like sculpted organisms embodying the sonic elements in a visual form and a fragmented structure made up of blue “Roman” style columns with rectangular roofs on them can also be seen. It’s a great combination of music and 3D animation in which the animation seems to express the musical elements in vision through the evolution and movement in the space but also adds a separate more independent layer of abstraction to the combination through the more alien yet also familiar looking organic rounded shapes. The images that came into my mind while listening to this first track without the music video were more into the territory of the aformention journey with this large ship. The music samples, especially the strings sound a lot like the overture of one of Wagner’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen operas and gives the music a quite meditative “infinity” type of ambience. Like the journey on the ship is long and slow but we are passing some gorgeous icy landscape, like traveling through Antarctica by ship. The clicking sounds, chain dangling and bell sounds draw you into the soundscape of the ship and are some wonderful touches to the piece and introduce the album in a great way. Next track Stormborn describes a storm at sea through a soundscape of water sounds, noise effects, low bass rumbles and a jumpy drum rhythm that’s very well composed as well as sound designed blending the mechanical sounds (representing the ship) with the hissy and liquid sounds that represent the storm itself forming an exciting mixture of kinetic rhythms and richly detailed soundscape elements, sounds very convincing like a storm too. Then on Breakwater we have chopped elements of a drone in the same key as Glacial Romance in the first half, but with a glassier filtered tone that’s mixed in between an abstract groove of stuttered time stretched and reverberated drum sounds and sound effects that hints at mechanical sounds of the ship. A great mechanical rhytmscape once again with some lush glassy synth tones at the end. Labor has got this “nocturnal view on a quiet ship” kind of vibe to it, with mechanical clicks, metallic clangs and rock like sounds forming a soundscape that sounds like machinery and clicking chains on the ship without the sound of sea in the background. It’s like the captain is very focused on his ship, listens to the mechanics, checking if there’s no odd sounds of broken machinery audible with his focused thoughts drowning out the sounds of the sea in the quiet night. Spiral expresses a memory fragment of a calm peaceful night on the ship in the night through a looped sound collage of manipulated music samples and mechanical sounds, making for a great mixture of fuzzy musical ambience and metallic machinery sounds. Granite (strain / tension) embraces metallic and digital sonics with a very glitchy chopped up mixture of mangled Footwork like grooves and Bass Music like resonant synth sounds that do also reference the ship again with their hollow decay. A very captivating composition of sound sculptures mixed with almost continuous grooves with a very inspired feeling for both execution and the form that these sounds are in shaped into. Silent Quarries sounds like a melancholic feeling getting expressed through resonances of the ships structure. Resonant vibrating metal surfaces shaping shifting tones and drones that conjure up a mysterious sense that the ship is alive, as a being of its own. The filtered tones in the first half of the piece also add an organic vocal quality to the textures created on the piece that creates this awesome feeling of both organic and metallic materials creating melodies of their own, deep into the night. On the short piece Tread Well, a catchy guitar melody is tinkling from what sounds like a frame of metal springs vibrating which moves into a low pitched mechanical sound, which leads directly into Cut From. Cut Form is a continuation of Tread Well in which you can hear all kinds of mysterious ghostly low shifting sounds as well as less processed sounding bits of a guitar melody which are combined with chops of acoustic drum sounds, clock sounds and various flying sound effects. The piece sounds a bit like you’re hearing the soundtrack of a moment in time when the captain of the ship is struggling to steer the ship in the right course and time goes by (the clock sounds) as he’s thinking and communicating with the outside world what to do in this uncertain situation when he’s unsure where he is anymore and where he is heading in this ice-cold dark nocturnal seascape. Leak is a great abstract Glitch piece that has some of the classic elements of the style, like several sections containing series of short phased impulse ticks but there are also much more metallic sounds and stuttered percussion loops in here too as well as pitch manipulated vocal samples. Overall the piece is a great glitchscape combined with some more rhythmic samples of chopped crystalline sound and synth outbursts. Then on Thrash we have a short piece consisting of resonant stuttered manipulated vocal music samples, like impulses of strange shiny metallic matter. Home of Depths moves quite deep into the nocturnal sea journey ambience and also features a more continuous rhythm and progression than the pieces before, moving into a more gradual type of evolution of the music. With a more subdued ambience the music gorgeously explores the icy seascape outside with distant drones, crystalized resonant tones, combined with some really catchy jumpy mechanical percussion rhythms. There’s also some more extreme dynamics in the piece with some percussion elements (like a laser like sound) spiking out at some points and the differences in distance between the percussion and drones and resonances in the background bring a great depth to the music, making this perfect music for nocturnal introspective deep listening. Final track Roguelike (perpetual light) starts off with a quite loud melodic richly textured ambience but afterwards moves into a mysterious deep ambience of hollow tones, reverberating mechanical sounds and a minimalist slow melodic pattern on glassy crystal synth. Various quirky synth effects also twirl around in the quiet nocturnal ambience. Quite eerie but also calming, this subdued but also richly detailed piece forms a great quiet ending to Isonautics that works as a great point of rest after the sometimes intense abstraction from the music before. Isonautics by Crown Shyness is an awesome album of imaginative deep and well composed and sound designed soundscapes and abstract experimental music. The album’s concept and especially the references to both the captain’s log about the concept of music as being objects of accumulated frequencies and the abstracted back story about the ship help to guide you into this album’s nocturnal journey through an icy seascape full of details, memories, mixed clusters of sound and musical elements blending into new sonic shapes. The album’s tight tracklist also helps as the 13 tracks playing after each other really smoothly flow from one into another bringing you to a variety of sonic pictures and keeping the album coherent as a whole. Combined with cceggyang and Aldéric Trével’s excellent music video for the track Glacial Romance I highly recommend you to check out this album. This is an especially great listen if you’re a fan of contemporary abstract electronic music that experiments with Club elements, if you like Glitch infused soundscapes or if you’re looking for a nicely varied experience of quality underground Electronic music that freely moves from abstract experiments to more recognisable melodic and rhythmic pieces. Highly recommended. Go check this out. The MP3 download released on QUANTUM NATIVES is available here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/srrbwu4irzs1ymi/Crown+Shyness+-+Isonautics+%28QNR024%29.zip?fbclid=IwAR0-43HBPS3ZFssTkTpqD7Hqz8to9g7sD1nHnJaLQWhHPYrkOvQ7Gx_ani0 Watch the video for Glacial Romance by cceggyang and Aldéric Trével here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=pgurUcMHEPA

[livefromphilly]

Not So Late Game of the Year 2018

These are my top five games of 2018.

5. Mario Tennis Aces (Camelot Software Planning)  - I have very fond memories of playing the Gamecube version of this game with my roommates in college. The Switch version added a layer or two of complexity, but at the core it's just a really fun tennis game. What keeps it from being higher up on the list is a very bare bones arcade mode and a lack of polish/intuitiveness in the menus. I'm also not a fan of the DLC characters being locked behind an online tournament requirement. I mean, don't get me wrong it's a pretty easy barrier to be behind, but at that point it's almost pointless for there  to be any barrier at all.

4. Marvel's Spider-Man (Insomniac Games) - I think I read somewhere that there have been close to 40 games featuring Spider-Man as the main character. The only two I can remember playing were the Atari 2600 and Game Boy versions, so outside of things like Capcom's versus series, it's been a while. It almost goes without saying, but this game is way better than those two. In some respects, it's as good as any of the Spider-Man movies and it tells a really good story. There's also an amazing sense of freedom in swinging; Insomniac absolutely nailed that shit. Where the game falls short is in most of the instances where you don't control Peter Parker; while the Mary Jane stealth sections add something to the game story-wise, they're a real pain to play and there are far too many of them.

3. Celeste (Matt Makes Games) - 2018 was a really good year for games so the rest of this list doesn't have many big flaws. Celeste is a sublime platformer that doesn't necessarily redefine the genre or anything, but is just really well-done. It's a challenging game to be sure, but it doesn't get to the frustrating level of things like Super Meat Boy, a game I enjoyed but never actually finished. If you want to 100% the game, there is a significant effort you'll have to put forth but I have nothing to prove so I just played it straight up without looking for secrets or doing most of the "B-Side" levels. It also has a heartwarming story of overcoming adversity and one of the best soundtracks in a game ever.

2. God of War (SIE Santa Monica Studio) - Sony's exclusives have been really on point this gen, and this is up there with the best of em. Although it's higher budget, what with full voice acting and 4K-ish visuals, it reminds me a lot of post-Ocarina/pre-Breath of the Wild Zelda games but with a much better combat system. There's a fair amount of back tracking to areas you've been before and accessing new places when you get new weapons or powers. There's also some raising/lowering of water levels that reminds me of that infamous water temple from the N64 game. Honestly, this game is almost a toss up with Dead Cells, but the linear nature of the story means once you play through it once there isn't a ton of incentive to try again right away whereas Dead Cells is pretty much infinitely replayable.

1. Dead Cells (Motion Twin) - This is a game that definitely stands on the shoulders of giants. It takes elements of Castelvania and Metroid and combines them with run-based roguelikes for something that feels very familiar but with a slight twist that makes it better. It's almost like you're a person that eats cheeseburgers all the time but then one day you get bacon on it and you're like "holy shit, it's everything I already loved but better" Dead Cells is like Rogue Legacy with bacon on it. Thees types of games always end up high on my list because you can keep coming back to them. I'm not sure how many hours I put into Dead Cells so far, but I'd guess it's over 100 at this point. 

Honorable Mentions:

Stuff that didn’t quite make the cut for whatever reason.

Katamari Damacy Reroll (Monkeycraft Co. Ltd./Namco) - This is just the original game on modern systems with a resolution boost so I didn't think it should count in a list of 2018 proper releases. Still, it's a classic and maybe in my all time top 10.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (Backbone Entertainment/Capcom) - More old games playable on modern TVs is always good for me. My only issues are that I got it for Switch and there's no good 6-button pad for the system yet and that it's the arcade versions of the games so certain ones suffer compared to the console versions (SFA3 especially).

Lumines Remaster (Resonair/Q Entertainment) - I'm noticing a trend here. This is another mid-2000s game that I'm happy to have a modern version of on the Switch. It also has some of the best menu music out there.

Destiny 2: Forsaken (Bungie) - Although just DLC for the game, this pretty much fixed everything I didn't like about D2.

Pocket Rumble (Cardboard Robot Games) - This is neat fighter that makes perfect sense on the Switch given the limited button options. I didn't sink quite enough time into it to place it on my top five, but I really enjoyed it. Also, the art is great and Waneella contributed. 

[justwii]

Best cross platform games 2020

Best cross platform games 2020 update#

Best cross platform games 2020 full#

Best cross platform games 2020 Ps4#

Best cross platform games 2020 Pc#

Best cross platform games 2020 series#

There are power-ups, like a handy ability to turn into a plane, which can lower the difficulty wall somewhat. Players must sprint and jump their way across its brightly colored levels, leading to themed boss battles - like a giant gravestone and a sunflower that needs anger management lessons. A fantastic entry to the run and gun genre, mixing in a rubber hose animation which really adds character to the enemies and surroundings. Some of us have tried, and tried, and tried to beat it.

Best cross platform games 2020 Pc#

Indies have taken the simple ingredients and spun them off in umpteen directions (but still normally from left to right).īelow you'll find a collection of the very best platform games on PC - including puzzle platformers, physics platformers, platformers with roguelike elements, and platformers about absolutely nothing but pixel-perfect jumping. These are listed below.The biggest names in platforming used to live only on console, but it's on PC now that the genre is thriving. Several may work with one console and PC, but might not include support with every other system. Many games support crossplay for some platforms but not all.

WWE 2k: Battlegrounds: PC, Ps4, Xbox One.

World War Z: Epic Games Store, Xbox One, PC.

World of Warships: Legends: PS4, Xbox One, PC.

Best cross platform games 2020 series#

Worms: Rumble: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC.

Super Mega Baseball 3: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch.

Super Mega Baseball 2:, Xbox One, PC, Switch.

Super Bomberman R Online: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch.

Super Animal Royale: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch.

Star Wars: Squadrons: Xbox One, PS4, PC.

Spellbreak: Epic Games Store, Xbox One, PS4, Switch.

Splitgate:PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Secret Neighbor: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch.

Rogue Company: PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X.

Best cross platform games 2020 Ps4#

Rocket League: Xbox One, Switch, PC, PS4.

Riders Republic: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Realm Royale: Xbox One, Switch, PC, PS4.

Quake: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch.

Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid: Switch, Xbox One, PS4, PC.

Paladins: Champions of the Realm: Xbox One, Switch, PC, PS4.

Overwatch: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Overcooked: All you can Eat: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Nerf Legends: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Need for Speed: Heat: PS4, Xbox One, PC.

MLB The Show 21: Xbox Series X, PS5, Xbox One, PS4.

Minecraft Dungeons: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch.

Knockout City: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Hood: Outlaws and Legends: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

GRID Legends: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

For Honor: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC.

Fortnite: PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, mobile, Xbox Series X, PS5.

Farming Simulator 22: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Fantasy Strike: PS4, Switch, Mac, PC (including Linux).

Evil Dead: The Game: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch.

Destiny 2: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Dead by Daylight:Switch, Xbox One, PS4, PC.

Chivalry 2: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Call of Duty: Vanguard: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Call of Duty: Warzone: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X, PS5.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War:PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series X.

Back 4 Blood: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

Apex Legends: Xbox One, PS4, PC, Switch.

Among Us: Android, iOS, PC, Nintendo Switch.

It is growing rapidly, particularly for competitive shooters.

Best cross platform games 2020 full#

This full list of cross-platform games is below. Because of that, it’s best to check with the developer or publisher to see if your favorite game supports crossplay.

Best cross platform games 2020 update#

Keep in mind that publishers and developers release new games every day, and developers update their games even more frequently. We dug through as many game listings as possible to bring you a comprehensive list of all cross-platform games. To make matters more confusing, certain backward-compatible games on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X still support crossplay on the most recent hardware, even if there isn’t an official release for that hardware. Unfortunately, there aren’t any rules when it comes to crossplay, so each game handles the feature a little differently.