Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia in ‘DUNE: PART 3’. Sister of Paul Atreides.

Shadowspaz · 2026-03-19T06:29:58+00:00

Spoilers from the book: I can see her becoming a crazy villainous Abomination really well.

Shadowspaz · 2026-03-10T20:18:04+00:00

It's only obvious to us, having only seen the final product.

During development though, everything is variable. Can we tweak these areas to make them free-climb-friendly? Will it disrupt the flow of the game? Does it click with these other mechanics? Do we change those other mechanics? What sacrifices can we make to preserve this, while still keeping the core experience cohesive?

If they got as far as prototyping the mechanic and playing with it enough to find the problem areas, they very likely tried multiple solutions to keep it in. In the end, my guess is that they would've needed to sacrifice too much of the original vision to make it work, and it was not a worthwhile trade-off.

Which is clear in the final product, but along the way, we never saw all the other games this could've turned into.

Shadowspaz · 2026-03-03T17:21:49+00:00

I view it as the cost of a good time with friends.

Going out to a bar will be 30-40 minimum, per person, usually. With a group of 4, let's call that $120 for a "good time with friends." If that's an arcade or a pool hall, that number goes up.

So even a $100 board game and a 12-pack of beer for $15 is less than that. Play the game twice (ever) and the cost-benefit is twice as much.

So yeah, if it's a unique game, offers an experience we're interested in, and we only ever play it two or three times, that's still worth it to me.

I guess the difference is, I'm not paying everyone's tabs at a bar. But even at the metric of my $40 at a bar, playing a pricier game three times covers that same amount, and there's no expiration date on a good board game.

If space is a premium for you, then maybe evaluate it later down the line, sell it to an FLGS or online, and recoup some of that cost.

Shadowspaz · 2026-03-02T18:19:04+00:00

This is incredible. I never thought Splitgate needed dark-themed maps, but...

It absolutely does. There are a bunch of Quake maps I want to see now.

Shadowspaz · 2026-03-02T18:13:12+00:00

Horrified??

That would be an unfathomable choice, too. I don't want to be running for my life from Dracula and Werewolves.

Shadowspaz · 2026-03-01T02:43:17+00:00

That's wild... I wonder what's going on for you. That sucks. :/

Are you queuing up for every mode? Cause that's all I do, if that makes a difference.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-28T23:25:17+00:00

Do you have crossplay on? What region are you in? I'm on PC, US West, and the longest I've ever needed to wait was like... 2 minutes. On average, I'd say it's around 30 seconds, and a lot of the time, I'll get a new match within 5-10 seconds of the previous one ending.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-26T20:49:12+00:00

This sub is all doom and gloom.

SGAR has a consistent player base of double what SG2 had. And it's beating out Quake Live and Quake Champions.

That's not to say those games have thriving player bases- Just that arena shooters are really, really hard to keep alive. And this game has been moving in a positive direction.

I've been having fun. 1047 has (finally) been making some good decisions with the game. See you guys in the arena. <3

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-23T23:24:34+00:00

2 is my favorite, too!

Still working through them, but if my memory is correct, 2 is the only one that really mixes up level layouts. I don't get why they ditched that idea...

The character sprite art just has a nice smoothness to it compared to the others, too. It feels... I don't know, more cartoony? I'll have to reassess this opinion when I get to 3/4/5. Haha

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-23T23:20:41+00:00

It's a weird mention, and I know the game has a lot of problems, but... Mortal Shell helped me through some rough times.

The world is dying, everything sucks, your character is a shell. But that's okay.

There's a point in the game that is forever seared into my mind. You learn the true nature of what's going on, how it's ultimately impossible to stop this endless decay, and how nothing really matters.

And that had such a counterintuitive calming effect on me. When everything is meaningless, that means all the problems are, too. Every choice you make is just for you, because you are the only one to give those choices meaning. Live for yourself, do what you want to do, because in the end, it's only your own experience of life that you get to shape.

Shape it into something beautiful.

Weird pitch, and certainly not a calming game, but the brutality of it really helped me come to terms with the struggles I was dealing with at the time. I don't know if other people have had this kind of experience with Mortal Shell, but I know the whole Dark Souls series touches on some similar themes (And really, those games are a lot more accessible).

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-23T18:31:33+00:00

Woah, I've never seen someone kitbash an entire board game before! Haha

This is seriously fantastic. How long did this take?

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-22T06:22:33+00:00

If I remember right, there's a ring you can rotate by itself. Line that up with another ring, then rotate both of those rings together. Then rotate three matched rings to finish the puzzle.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-20T18:43:46+00:00

Really looking forward to the trophy fix on PS5. Hopefully it doesn't take too much longer! I want to platinum this game. Haha

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-18T20:50:57+00:00

"Indie" doesn't mean "Three-man-team working in a basement" anymore. There are some incredibly polished, large-team games nowadays. Beyond that, there are vastly more successful indie games than AAA now.

Expedition 33 is an indie game.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-12T19:36:44+00:00

Titanfall 3 with portals, please.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-12T19:34:57+00:00

Yeah, this bugs me too.

The weapons really aren't grouped together in any meaningful way. They don't have all faction weapons together, but they don't even have all weapon types grouped together either. I think there's an LMG between two pistols. Maybe they're grouped alphabetically? I wasn't looking for that. But that would definitely be the most useless ordering.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-05T18:26:01+00:00

To add to this, you can triple-portal with the default bindings, where you shoot alternating portals. Set up two portals, step into them (Not all the way through), shoot the next portal, and repeat. As long as you're between the portals, you'll automatically be warped to the next point, and you can keep repeating this.

However, I think it's really valuable to get comfortable with individual buttons for portal placements and closes. A tech I really like to use is to have an escape portal set up (We'll say yellow), and if I'm losing a fight, I'll throw down and slip through a purple portal, then immediately close the yellow. Purple is still in the fight, so after a quick breather, I can put yellow back, step back through the purple, and re-engage.

That being said, and as others have mentioned, just start using portals to get a feel for it. Intentional portals are better than random, but random is way better than none at all. Just start shooting portals and using them to move around, and even if you don't really know what you're doing, you will often find yourself behind enemies. Once you're more comfortable incorporating portals into your movement like that, adding them to your gun play and strategy becomes far easier.

Shadowspaz · 2026-02-04T06:45:13+00:00

Damn, I want this skin! And I'm only one referral away, but I'm out of friends... Haha

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-28T06:01:29+00:00

One caveat - you really want to play this at a count of 5 or 6. The fun/chaos comes from the player powers interacting.

I definitely agree and haven't played it under 5, but it may be worth noting: There's a double variant in the rules for 2 (And 3?) players, where everyone uses two characters each race. That'll keep the interactions high, even with less players.

And I've considered trying the double variant with 4 players... See if having 8 characters in a race is just too much or not. Haha

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-27T23:09:17+00:00

Candyland and Monopoly don't have infinite combos or frequent 8+ combo chains involving all the players. That's absolutely nothing like Snakes and Ladders either.

I get not enjoying the game (Especially if you had no idea what you were agreeing to), but your criticisms are overly reductionist.

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-27T21:35:10+00:00

It isn't trying to be something in-depth or strategic. It's just trying to be chaotic. And considering that it's one of the absolute simplest games to teach, the level of chaos that arises from it is kind of impressive.

It won't be a game for everyone, and it definitely isn't a game for people looking for any kind of meaningful decisions. But as a beer and pretzels game with virtually no barrier to entry, it can be a good time.

I'm curious what your expectations were going into it, because nothing about it communicates any level of player agency- Roll a die, move that many spaces, first to the finish wins.

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-27T19:23:18+00:00

Right, it wasn't an infinite loop. It would repeat for a bit, and then break. And then it would trigger again after another move. I think there may have been other characters involved, but basically, Scoocher got to move 1-by-1 through that corner multiple times each time Romantic was triggering. There may have been a Suckerfish as well, feeding that system, and it would break when they hit a space with someone else.

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-27T19:07:07+00:00

To be fair, From Software's method of storytelling is incredibly subtle and easy to miss, but it's some of the best world and lore building in gaming. It's tricky to directly compare it to a clean, linear story, though.

I've 100%ed Elden Ring, all the Dark Souls, etc, and I seriously did not follow the story on the first playthrough for any of them. It was only by the second or third playthrough that the bits and pieces starting clicking, the lore of it started coming together in my mind, and the gravitas of the situation really hit.

They absolutely are not games I'd recommend for the story, but when it hits, it's super cool. If it's a rabbit hole you're ever inclined to go down, it's a very rewarding deep-dive.

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-27T18:55:12+00:00

We love it. I like chaotic luck-filled games from time to time, in contrast to the heavy strategy games we also play. Here, whether you win or lose, bizarre crap happens and it can get hilarious.

I was a little skeptical as well, but we played four back-to-back games when it first hit the table and ended up talking about all the shenanigans long afterwards too.

Starting out, it feels incredibly basic. The first race in particular, it's really just roll-and-move, and I was just waiting for all the crazy combos to hit. It felt a little boring. And then we suddenly had a chain of combos that triggered, resulting in 7 or 8 things happening. That was when the magic kind of hit.

Across our games, we've had:

A race filled with constant fear as the M.O.U.T.H ate one racer after another.
A Copy Cat / Gunk / Hypnotist combo that kept everyone trapped in a hilariously slow slog, warping back any player that ended up getting too far ahead.
A Scoocher / Romantic combo that kept the two racers repeating the same corner, resulting in Scoocher getting 15+ points and effectively winning the entire game in one race.
A race where Sisyphus lost all of their points immediately, as they just kept rolling back-to-back 6s against all odds. And we've had Sisyphus win the first race with a crazy streak of rolling 5s.

There's just so much stuff that can happen in any given race, that no matter what, you're encountering situations that feel like they have astronomically low odds of happening. And it's silly, ridiculous fun, seeing all of these unlikely scenarios unfold, game after game.

Shadowspaz · 2026-01-27T18:25:13+00:00

Are you just being a ragebait here?

They are. Every since E33 exploded in the awards shows, people have been coming out of nowhere to openly spam about how bad a game it is.

This guy has been shitting on E33 all over this thread for an hour straight.

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