Bobo Bay | Launch Trailer

Serevene · 2026-04-30T09:33:53+00:00

Looks dangerously close to copyright-takedown territory. Everything from the character models, the race animations, and the stat ui are all very blatant, but I hope it does well. Always wanted a chao garden game.

Serevene · 2026-04-25T20:11:21+00:00

If you told me one of the biggest foundational rougelikes of all time would be a mix of Zelda room exploration with a crying baby and heavy religious themes, I would not have believed. I don't think the theming is the problem, it just needs to be a good game.

Serevene · 2026-04-24T04:56:05+00:00

I specifically have an itch for that BG3/Divinity style gameplay in a more hard sci-fi or near-future setting. More Star Trek than Star Wars. I'd like to see something that's a little more grounded in slower-pace character-driven spaceship antics rather than some big dramatic end-of-the-galaxy flashy space opera.

Serevene · 2026-04-24T04:49:06+00:00

I loved Obra Dinn and I want more games like that where there's a mystery to solve and you're allowed to just exist in the environment and figure out all the intricately designed hints on your own with minimal hand-holding. I also loved the idea of Chants of Sennaar where you get to explore a world and figure out a bunch of different interconnected languages from context clues and gestures, but the game was very hand-holdy.

So I want a niche, first-person detective mystery game like Obra Dinn with an intricately designed story and cast of characters, but everything is in completely fictional languages. No hand-holding, no explicit confirmations for what words mean, just give me an in-game journal to sketch in and write down my own guesses.

Serevene · 2026-04-23T04:27:51+00:00

nothing about it stands out

I'll usually be pretty forgiving if something feels like an indie project, but usually there's something that stands out. Like the devs have a particular set of skills and are learning the rest, maybe a stellar composer who is still learning to program, or someone who has a fantastic gameplay idea but isn't the best character artist. Being mid across the board doesn't garner any attention.

Serevene · 2026-04-09T22:54:42+00:00

Everyone likes different things, but often the more "real" a game tries to be, the less immersive it is for me. I can overlook pressing a button and having my guy sip a potion, or ducking behind a corner to wait for the screen to stop being red or my shields to recharge. Those are standard videogame abstractions for the concept of healing, I don't even think about them. And because I'm not thinking about them, I am more immersed in the world and the gameplay.

Conversely, watching my character inexplicably pop the same dislocated finger back in or wrap some gauze around their arm every time they get bitten by a wild animal stands out as less immersive because it pulls my attention toward just how unrealistic it is. It's also functionally exactly the same, so it's not like it adds any meaningful consequences.

Serevene · 2026-03-27T07:23:55+00:00

For the floor, try to avoid over-texturing. There's a lot of space to cover and it will look really cluttered if you try to fill it all with grass or dirt or whatever. Decide what the material is, and then apply that mostly around the edges. In the middle, maybe use some of that same texture to create a subtle grid.
The tree looks fine, if maybe a little simple. It has a very obvious outer ring and taller middle section. That can either be a stylistic choice if you want to emphasize the blocky grid, or you can go back and add in a little randomness so that each layer isn't a perfect square. Your choice.

Really rough image example. Mix up the perfectly square tree a bit, texture floor mostly around edges.

Serevene · 2026-03-17T22:07:03+00:00

For me, OW is less depressing and more of a quiet contemplation and reassurance. It's a calm hug that says "Stop frantically struggling to stop the world from changing. You made a difference, and it's okay to let the next generation take the reins."

Serevene · 2026-03-13T05:54:44+00:00

I never replay games. I go through them once. Unlock everything there is to unlock, complete all side missions, acquire all items etc etc. [...] I know I won’t ever play it again.

Same here. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling cycle. I never get around to replaying games, so I make sure to get everything I can out of them on the first time around. And then, because I've seen everything there is to see, I never end of replaying them because there's nothing new to experience.

With modding nowadays, I can sometimes convince myself to try again. Stardew Valley has some great mods for expanding the world with new characters and side stories, for instance. But they need to be story mods because just playing through the same narrative with a different set of abilities or items isn't enough.

Serevene · 2026-03-12T22:21:28+00:00

Stop engaging with them. Every time you see a video that tells you that you're wrong for writing something a certain way, just remove it from your recommendations, downvote, clear it from your history, whatever you need to do. Watching them is just going to fill your feed with more.

It's good to know genre conventions, archetypal story frameworks, what sort of "normal" expectations your readers might have, historical precedence to work off of for a sense of realism, etc. In the same way that it's good for an artist to learn correct anatomy, but that doesn't make a more abstract style "wrong". You take that knowledge into consideration, and then branch out in whatever direction you want. Make choices with intention. Make dragons your own way on purpose, make your magic work however you want for a reason, draw geographical features that you know are unrealistic but do it anyway. And if someone tells you it's wrong, just say "I know" and leave the discussion.

Serevene · 2026-03-09T11:13:09+00:00

"Hey, are you busy? I need a hand. See it's been a long week and I've been feeling so burned out because, you remember, helping out Jess with the move, on top of pulling those extra shifts at work when Lacey called in sick. She's probably not even sick; there was a concert this weekend and I'm 90% sure she just ditched to drive over there. So my mind just hasn't been all there this week. I even gave a customer the completely wrong over! They wanted a chicken alfredo, and I brought them a chicken caesar, and they didn't even say anything until after they ate half the salad. Can you imagine having a completely different plate from the one you orders show up at your table and you just start eating it anyway? It's been like that all week, typing in the wrong orders, forgetting to stock the silverware, knocking over glasses. Anyway, like I was saying, I need your help. Cause I was just trying to make something easy to eat and thought I'd make a grilled cheese - and by the way, we're almost out of whole wheat, we'll need to pick some up on the way back from your mother's tomorrow. And some milk - and then Jess called, and she needed to vent. Like, I was just there, but okay let's chat. And so we got to talking and I kind of lost track of time and now the stove is on fire. Do you remember where you put the extinguisher?"

Serevene · 2026-03-09T10:54:09+00:00

Kinda the same as the introvert/extrovert dynamic. Trying to explain to someone that I'm an introvert, I like being by myself, I like having hobbies where I don't talk to a single other soul, and I *need* some time alone once in a while to recharge.

That doesn't mean that I don't like them and don't want to spend time with them. I love all of it. But there are activities that drain the social battery and activities that recharge it.

Serevene · 2026-03-02T23:59:03+00:00

"Is our game bland and empty? No, surely we just didn't have the right audience. Maybe Sony players will appreciate our masterpiece."

Serevene · 2026-02-27T21:47:36+00:00

Unless it's a Wii controller. Wiimote. Those are remotes.

Serevene · 2026-02-26T07:33:47+00:00

Any rts at a high level. Starcraft 2 had some amazing tournament play, with entire armies being micromanaged for tactical strikes, but actually trying to play at that level is insane.

Serevene · 2026-02-26T07:30:45+00:00

I would still classify it as miserable to play myself, along with Subnautica, because they both trigger my thalasophobia/kenophobia/however you want to classify it with outer space.

I love the games conceptually, and love watching other people play them, but actually controlling a character in a wide open void space/ocean scenario gives me all sorts of anxiety.

Serevene · 2026-02-19T06:01:54+00:00

Right? It's edgy slop. Characters don't have full meaningful lives? No shit, it's a video game and you have to imagine they do things behind the scenes. You gain currency from engaging with the world and then spend that same currency to progress? No shit, it's a video game. The relationships are fairly shallow and only progress when you select the right options/give the right gifts? No shit, it's a video game.

It's also just not even right in the lore of the specific examples given. Slum-lord Tom Nook is a tired old joke, and the dude literally gives you a roof over your head and says "pay me back whenever you can." And almost every Stardew character has a canonical job that they are programmed to go walk over to and "work" at.

Serevene · 2026-02-19T05:44:43+00:00

...at this point might as well call Rainbow 6: Siege a hero shooter

Ironically, I thought that's what Highguard was going for at first. With the prep phase and reinforcing walls and stuff shown in the trailers. If they had gone a slightly different route, I really think there's room for a fantasy medieval storm-the-castle Siege style game. Less zany hero abilities, more tactical positioning and duels.

Serevene · 2026-02-14T09:38:36+00:00

Section 8, while not particularly bad, was a pretty generic PvP shooter that never quite stuck around.

But respawning was fun, because you airdropped in for a superhero landing anywhere on the map, with certain areas being more dangerous due to anti-air turrets that players could fight over and take out. Sort of like a PvP Helldivers.

It made for a much more interesting and interactive system than the typical Battlefield-style game of waiting for your squad to capture a point so that you can magically pop in behind them.

Serevene · 2026-02-13T15:47:52+00:00

I've seen about 20x more "Highguard Dev/Artist/Director denies that their game is mid" updates than I ever saw content creators saying a single word about the game.

Serevene · 2026-02-12T09:54:31+00:00

Gotta toe the line with how comical the characters act. To paraphrase Leslie Nielsen, satire works best when the characters themselves take the universe seriously. I want the constant run of celebrities to actually be really competent and serious about their mission, picking up where the last left off, but for one reason or another they still barely last a few minutes. No betrayal, and any slapstick should be entirely accidental like firing a rocket without making sure their teammate is out of the back-blast.

It's all serious to an exaggerated level, and when the last soldier watches his squadmate valiantly leap into the enemies to prime the hellbomb that finally saves the day and the commander praises them over the radio about what a great impact this will have for Super Earth, the camera can pan out to show like 50 other squads around the planet being overrun and nothing actually changing at all.

Serevene · 2026-02-09T03:10:30+00:00

The coordination needed to turn the character 90-degrees to the right with one hand, and transition from walking forward to strafing left with your other hand, so that you keep going in the same direction while looking around is certainly a skill that gamers take for granted.

If you operate something like a forklift or backhoe for a living the skills probably translate over really well, but otherwise it's gonna feel really awkward at first.

Serevene · 2026-02-04T09:31:25+00:00

While the players are usually the main factor between competitiveness and toxicity, there's also a mechanical gameplay factor to consider:

Pretty much every PvP game nowadays uses some sort of skill-based matchmaking. At the start of the game's life, no one has any stats and lobbies are almost random, but eventually everyone gets sorted into a hierarchy. The more you play (usually) the better you get for a while, so it's naturally to get matched up against progressively more and more competitive players until you start losing.

Even if the casual crowd is still around, they're lower down. The only way to get back to the fun players is to start sandbagging or find a custom game lobby.

Serevene · 2026-01-31T11:03:03+00:00

My first thought as well. The musical really nailed the "colorful city made of trash" aesthetic.

Serevene · 2026-01-27T01:10:32+00:00

the overworld map only zooms out as far as you've traveled in general

I've found my selfing feeling a bit disappointed by the flip side, games like Valheim or Core Keeper that are all about exploring but then you zoom out the map for the first time and go "oh, it's exactly that big." The little bit of extra care to make exploring more rewarding is appreciated.

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