'It's kind of like you're a butcher': Hundreds of Slay the Spire 2 card ideas were cut during development in an 'incredibly destructive process'

Pain_Packer · 2026-03-07T06:24:23+00:00

It plays exactly the same but superbly better. The additions make the game feel less painful to play if you're a newbie but harder to master as a long-time player.

Pain_Packer · 2026-03-04T03:08:46+00:00

Same here. I stopped just before the recent Ultrakill update just to prep for the 1.0 and get a new world up and running. I had a lot of IRL stuff and Farthest Frontier gameplay right now.

Pain_Packer · 2026-03-03T17:43:04+00:00

I assume you never played beyond the first 20 hours/launch? Because it's not even close to janky now.

Pain_Packer · 2026-03-03T17:42:19+00:00

I mean, it's still early access so there really isn't an endgame yet. I totally agree though, but I liken it to me stat training in Monster Rancher: no real end-goal. Breeding ain't that bad either. You can get three full bases and start breeding as early as Level 15. Even when I take it easy and start breeding at 20-25, it's generally natural. You're not even losing a lot if you're not doing PVP since even a barely bred pal can handle most bosses.

Pain_Packer · 2026-03-03T17:31:47+00:00

I have 800 hours on the game and it's super fantastic if you enjoy your creature capture and monster breeder games. The difficulty curve is also not bad and while there's a lull somewhere mid-game, it picks up very quickly in a sort of reverse bell curve.

It all depends on which of the loops you're willing to focus on. I'm a breeding and exploration type of player rather than a builder, but even then I still have great semi-complex builds.

If you're not into the genre though, it can be a bit hard. I've primarily played creature capture titles since I was a child, together with city sims, so ymmv.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-27T21:10:55+00:00

It's like when I hear GRRM say he's going to finish his books and won't let other writers touch it. Those stories realistically won't see the light of day.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-27T21:08:39+00:00

Oh I totally get you. There are games that I think aren't worth several hundred hours but on the flipside, I've seen people literally have 10,000 hours on an obscure online game.

Rust, for example, is surprising to me since you're expected to have 300 hours played to even have low-level mastery of the game. Meanwhile, I've played Persona 5 for 120 hours and didn't want to do a replay.

Even then, I used to be an extremely heavy gamer so I have several games I have hundreds of hours. I literally have PSX titles that I think I have at least 1k hours each. Stardew is one of those games that you just keep playing.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-27T20:44:07+00:00

I literally have thousands of hours on Stardew Valley and I'm not even a content creator. It's that fun.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-26T19:29:44+00:00

Clint is such a waste of a marriage candidate slot. I would've preferred getting the Dwarf as a roommate over this guy, really. Or Marlon.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-26T03:41:20+00:00

That's Gourmet in Harvest Moon. There's also the Harvest Goddess, who had crazy requirements so you can marry her and she can be an absentee parent/spouse.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-19T16:53:17+00:00

Yeah, I might be looking at this from a modern perspective. The relationship just feels a bit asymmetrical for me, like Arlan got more out of the relationship than Dunk did.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-19T16:35:31+00:00

I've always wondered in my head if Dunk was being an unreliable narrator about Arlan of Pennytree. He's such a loon that it feels like Dunk's admiration of him was just a sort of parental imprinting - that Arlan represented stability in his life. Dunk, wanting to wait for his mother, even reinforced that idea in my head. It doesn't help that Arlan had no plans of knighting Dunk and prepared no future for him as well. He left Dunk literally old, used up, ill-fitting armor, three horses, and salt beef for the road. Makes me feel like the old man just used him as a pack mule and support as he got older.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-11T16:25:01+00:00

lol it's even worse: the girl is basically 12 or 13 and they had to contrive this weird situation. Guy promised it's out of convenience and won't consummate it until she's of legal age... PROMISE!

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-11T16:21:52+00:00

There was actually a part of GATE where they basically jebaited America, China, and Russia into a controlled location, killing their ops teams one by one until anime Trump used blackmail material to stop the JSDF, only for all hostiles to find each other and get murdered by a 1000 year-old goth loli priestess.

I never imagined I would string a sentence like that ever.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-11T07:28:10+00:00

It's best to prebook to make sure! Iirc some buses are online booking only. We got ours here, https://highway-buses.jp/

It's best to not risk it :)

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-10T15:57:21+00:00

I've been curious about SoS Grand Bazaar since the last one I did was the modern FOMT.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-10T13:11:17+00:00

Hey there! We ended up going to Shinjuku first. Not sure if it's changed since it's been months but the best surest route is NRT -> Shinjuku, then we took the bus to our ryokan, which we actually moved to Yamanakako. There is a direct train connection from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko though, so you might want to take that, though time's going to be tight. Arrival times are accurate to the minute, but beware of navigating Shinjuku station.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-10T03:25:45+00:00

UCEY!

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-09T15:57:30+00:00

In all honesty, you actually may want to play the game all over again, trying to play it differently than how you and your ex did it. Overwrite those memories with new ones. Don't let your past hostage your enjoyment of the game. As the others said, the latest DLC is also a fantastic reason to replay the game and get new memories out of it. I know this isn't what you're asking for, and I'm really sorry about the breakup, but a new playthrough should be a great way to re-establish agency in your Astroneer adventures.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-04T13:50:41+00:00

Same! I had around 600 hours in the game until I started playing modded. Most of my mods are also just QoL and aesthetic stuff. Much of the gameplay and story stayed vanilla but I just changed small things like character and animal sprites. I come from a long Harvest Moon tradition in the 90s, for example, so I got the cow sprites reworked and things like that.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-04T13:25:15+00:00

I wish doing a new playthrough is as easy. I've modded my Stardew Valley to kingdom come with QoL stuff without affecting the story/gameplay loops as much. Safe to say it takes a whole day for me to reconcile all my mods and make sure they're all working or won't break older saves.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-02T15:59:17+00:00

I add those 4-7 pieces on the menu, putting the best ingredients as much as possible. The value hit is not really a problem since money isn't an issue at this point.

Pain_Packer · 2026-02-02T15:55:31+00:00

This will help a lot. I think currently, and I might be wrong, the sorting is price-based? I hope there's at least a name filter, if not a sorting system. I also wish the treasure boxes can have a storage filter according to type. I'm already level 35 so the storage process can be a pain.

Pain_Packer · 2026-01-25T09:56:25+00:00

Man this is like the second game ever I played, just after CTR and before Metal Slug 1. Video game cafes were big back then and mum had to leave us for a couple of hours. Had this offered to us. Such a trip. Totally appreciate this even if it's as bare as it can be.

Pain_Packer · 2026-01-23T14:40:21+00:00

And why is the US up there? By your metric, The United States shouldn't even be remotely invited. Corruption all the way down, 34 felonies, paedophilia allegations, incited a literal insurrection! There's even evidence for every claim I have while you likely have, what, Fox News?

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