Any Scandinavian country should have a population ranging from proficient to fluent in English.

The creepy/dark atmosphere is actually the thing that appeals to me about them! It’s the platforming and puzzles I am worried about.

Both look really cool, but I am really not a big platformer guy so I’m unsure. Inside is 90% off on GOG though so might pick it up for a dollar and a half. Limbo is full price and even though it’s just $10 I don’t know that I’d like it enough. How hard is the platforming and the puzzles?

How good are these games? Are they worth buying before the delisting just to have them?

I just finished Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree today, after having to go to bed last night in the midst of fighting the last boss and coming back fresh today. That second phase definitely took me for a spin, or at least it did my particular build. Maybe a ranged build would have had an easier time. It was still a cool fight though, and that first phase was pretty much perfect.

I had a really good time with this game. The Soulslike Metroidvania with a PoE style skill tree ended up tickling me juuust right. I love theorycrafting and making builds, and it ended up being amazingly fun in this game. There is some interesting synergy you can setup by mixing and matching various classes’ skill trees, and I’m already thinking about a potential second playthrough. Though I’m actually equally tempted by going straight into NG+, as my Chaos daggers build with two teleport skills ended up being super fun to play.

I definitely recommend it, especially if you like these kinds of games. My playtime ended up at just over 40h, though that was with me exploring basically 100% and finding all the optional bosses. Not bad for a €40 game, and if you can get it on sale I’d call it a bargain.

Trump deregulating gas and paint to put lead back in both would be so unsurprising it won’t even garner a reaction from me.

I think Unity is super underrated to be honest. Revolutionary Paris is the best AC city they’ve ever done, and they had such a good idea going with the free run up/down system. It has some of the most stylish parkour in any game of the series and some phenomenal animations. Some of the missions are absolutely amazing too.

On PC it’s apparently even better with the ACUfixes mod, but I haven’t played it personally.

It’s a shame, the music is great and I do love the freshness of the unusual setting. But having seen both some gameplay and some of the writing I just can’t see myself playing it.

I’m deep into Mandragora Whispers of the Witch Tree this week and having a blast. Played about 19 hours and it feels like I’m about half way. The story so far has been serviceable, but I do enjoy the world quite a bit and I also think some of the characters are pretty funny and well written.

Gameplay has been excellent, combat has the right sort of depth to it without being crazy complex and the bosses have been very enjoyable. Good patterns and fun movesets. I’m just now at the second really big story boss and he’s a doozy. As someone who isn’t huge on platforming I am also happy to say the platforming segments aren’t really a big part of the game and have been very easy.

Character customization has been another highlight and making builds is super fun between both the PoE inspired passive tree and choosing which active skills to use and choosing which active skills to upgrade. I’m doing a dual dagger build that dipped almost immediately into the adjacent Chaos Magic tree and while probably not a power gaming choice it is great how flexible the game is in what it allows you to do. Having a lot of fun so far with Chaos Echo and Shadowstep both giving teleports to the range-deficient daggers.

Heavily recommended if you like Souls-likes and/or Metroidvanias!

EDIT: Forgot to mention one thing. I really appreciate this game having difficulty sliders for both Enemy Health and Enemy Damage ranging between 40-160% (default 100). I haven’t used them yet, but knowing you won’t be hard stuck on a boss and worst case can just turn down the difficulty is actually quite nice. Helps my mental.

Bill Hicks evergreen marketing bit is as relevant now as it was in the 80s.

I have very mixed feelings about it. I also adored the art and setting, and I really appreciate the historical research that has gone into making it. And there were some well written characters in there.

But man, the game is sloooooow. The last act in particular was like pulling teeth. Reading is fine when what you’re reading about is interesting. There were so many banal, shallow and uninteresting conversations in there that really tested my patience.

I just played through Pentiment and even on the fastest speed dialogues were painfully slow. It wouldn’t fix all the other pacing issues, but the text popping up instantly would be a huge improvement.

It stopped being a story with unpredictability and actual stakes. There was a time I felt like anyone was at risk, even “main characters”, and it was awesome. It just turned into more of a Sunday morning cartoon - which is fine - it’s just not for me.

I also got sick and tired of them doing the “guess who’s back from the dead?” plotline a bazillion times.

I played for a while and enjoyed it, but eventually it became clear the developers were taking both the story and the gameplay in directions I didn’t like.

Heavensward was a great story, Stormblood patch quests were amazing. Shadowbringers had its very high peaks of course but even there they had started doing things in the story I hated.

I’d watch it.

“Coming this fall: ten billionaires are locked in a house with a murderous psychopath. Who will be the first victim, and who make it to the end? Use your phone to vote each week on what weapons the murderer will have access to! Introducing: Bigger Brother! Only on cable!”

On a related note I wish we had a c/madlads around these parts.

I would absolutely hate being a kid growing up in today’s world. I feel like I was part of the last generation that had a relatively normal childhood and only started to truly hear about the doomsday reality towards sort of my mid-to-late teens.

Yes, hydroelectric is the primary source. Nuclear is still number 2, however.

“Mildly interesting” or “greatly depressing”?