What are you playing at the moment?

[laneford]

Post XCOM Ironman success, I'm trying some indies. Hotline Miami (Chapter Nine now), Grimrock (got eaten by a treeman) and most excitingly, Thirty Flights of Loving, which as a huge Wong Kar-Wai fan, I loved loved loved. Played it twice and Gravity Bone once. Adorable wonderful things.

Any discussion below about it not being a 'game' is not in the least bit interesting to me, or I'm sure, anyone else so please don't bring it up.

I'm thinking of revisiting Dark/Demon's Souls tomorrow, (on a bit of an achievement run) or starting Fallout New Vegas finally.

[LTK]

There are still a few puzzles in Antichamber where I'm surprised by my own creativity, but they've become more straightforward since the block gun puzzles. I found a solution to one of the puzzles that I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to - it involved the yellow gun and a disintegration field. I'm pretty sure that had to involve the red gun, since the blocks were red. I got the red gun a little later, but it hasn't done me a whole lot of good yet.

I finished Rayman, with only some electoons missing on time trials, and Quantum Conundrum, where I got all the collectibles. Man, I'm going through these games way too fast.

[fiddlesticks]

I finished Rayman, with only some electoons missing on time trials, and Quantum Conundrum, where I got all the collectibles. Man, I'm going through these games way too fast.

Congratulations. I gave up on trying to collect everything in Quantum Conundrum halfway through chapter three. Some of these puzzles gave me enough trouble while playing normally.

[LTK]

Really? I thought these collectibles were among the easier ones when it comes to secrets in games. The game tells you in what levels they are and they have a glowing highlight, plus a sound cue for the noisemakers. Certainly easier than those in Rayman. The last games in the puzzle genre that I can remember having really challenging secrets are Closure and Limbo. And Braid, but Braid was beyond ridiculous.

I gotta say that QC has gotten first-person platforming just right. I almost never missed a jump. The game is at its most finicky when you have to juggle safes using antigravity without the option to fluffify them. Those puzzles were horrible and should not have been in there. But for the rest, it feels like, well, an accomplished indie game, if I'm totally honest. Worth five euros, but not a whole lot more.

[alms]

Finished Unmechanical (meh). MotN = non-lethal FTW. Chime, a terrible game in a good way.

[fiddlesticks]

Really? I thought these collectibles were among the easier ones when it comes to secrets in games. The game tells you in what levels they are and they have a glowing highlight, plus a sound cue for the noisemakers.

I misread your post. You're right, finding the collectibles is easy, it was the Time and Switches challenges that gave me trouble.

And Braid, but Braid was beyond ridiculous.

Braid deserves some kind of special award for being needlessly convoluted. Not only are its collectibles incredibly difficult to find, you're unlikely to even know those collectibles exist.

[Anthile]

Played a bit of Alan Wake. It's really good so far, I'm just surprised there hasn't been a Sutter Cane or even a simple In the Mouth of Madness reference.

[Voon]

RCT 2 and I payed off the loan jumped straight into making another rollercoaster. This time is a looping rollercoaster but I'm not really fond of building one as it's a bit hard for me to build one with at least a 7 exitement rating. I might finish off XCOM but it'll be a loooong way to go, tracing that Ethereal ship first

[Ravelle]

Simctiy 4

Still learning the ropes as my expenses are triple that of my incomes and my environment can't get any more red even though I have parks and trees in my city.

[Voon]

Simctiy 4

Still learning the ropes as my expenses are triple that of my incomes and my environment can't get any more red even though I have parks and trees in my city.

You know, I've always try to get more money from taxpayers by zoning more and zoning large with high densities. Though, that ends up having more ghetto areas eventually rather than a growing economy

[Ravelle]

You know, I've always try to get more money from taxpayers by zoning more and zoning large with high densities. Though, that ends up having more ghetto areas eventually rather than a growing economy

I used to start with big zones but that burned my money like crazy so I decided to start small, I even lowered schools, power and utilities to not overpay for what I need and raised the taxes to eleven. I don't understand why pay 12k and get only get a 4k on incomes.

Also, I don't understand I-Ag, the demand seems to be skyrocketing no matter how much I zone.

[DaftPunk]

Played a bit of Alan Wake. It's really good so far, I'm just surprised there hasn't been a Sutter Cane or even a simple In the Mouth of Madness reference.

Game screams console port,not in terms of graphics but gameplay..It feels like you are controling a god damn pinokio.

[Voon]

I used to start with big zones but that burned my money like crazy so I decided to start small, I even lowered schools, power and utilities to not overpay for what I need and raised the taxes to eleven. I don't understand why pay 12k and get only get a 4k on incomes.

Also, I don't understand I-Ag, the demand seems to be skyrocketing no matter how much I zone.

Because unemployment. Agriculture is best when you build a city that focuses on it then build another city that depends on it for food industry rather than just zoning them in along with everything else in one city, iirc. That way you can create more jobs easily.

And oh yes, reducing funding is definately crucial. You'll need to reduce them until you get to have enough revenue to fully fund it. The tutorial in Rush Hour is definately helpful in this.

[LTK]

I misread your post. You're right, finding the collectibles is easy, it was the Time and Switches challenges that gave me trouble.

Ohh, right, the challenges. Man, they really made no effort whatsoever to avoid comparisons to Portal, did they? I didn't bother with those at all, they just seemed like a source of more frustration. I've had my fill of the game.

[Ravelle]

Because unemployment. Agriculture is best when you build a city that focuses on it then build another city that depends on it for food industry rather than just zoning them in along with everything else in one city, iirc. That way you can create more jobs easily.

And oh yes, reducing funding is definately crucial. You'll need to reduce them until you get to have enough revenue to fully fund it. The tutorial in Rush Hour is definately helpful in this.

What causes the development to be so inconsistent? I had multiple cities when the same kind of building plans but my money drains because residential areas won't build for a very long time even though the land value's as high as can be.

[Labbes]

Game screams console port,not in terms of graphics but gameplay..It feels like you are controling a god damn pinokio.

Pretty much, yes. I still don't believe that Alan runs straight ahead when I press W. The whole gameplay feels a bit off. I also don't like how "run" and "evade" are the same button. It makes the fights much worse than they should be, as evading slows you down quite a bit, meaning enemies hit you directly afterwards, or even during your evasion.

[Voon]

What causes the development to be so inconsistent? I had multiple cities when the same kind of building plans but my money drains because residential areas won't build for a very long time even though the land value's as high as can be.

I'm not really an expert on SC4 but probably either you put your taxes too high even on low density or there's the lack of jobs or commercial/industrial zoning that keeps your city from developing any further. I've had the same problem with industrial zones sometimes so, you really need to diversify on zones. You probably lack something your sims need to settle in your city I guess

[DaftPunk]

Pretty much, yes. I still don't believe that Alan runs straight ahead when I press W. The whole gameplay feels a bit off. I also don't like how "run" and "evade" are the same button. It makes the fights much worse than they should be, as evading slows you down quite a bit, meaning enemies hit you directly afterwards, or even during your evasion.

Amen brother! Do you still remember that tech demo of game from 2005,when it was still open world ? I was so hyped about the game,from creators of Max Payne series,i drolled watching that video many times.

[Nalano]

What causes the development to be so inconsistent? I had multiple cities when the same kind of building plans but my money drains because residential areas won't build for a very long time even though the land value's as high as can be.

There are caps on development. You can raise those caps for residential development with the following:

Parks
Churches
Mayor's Residence
City Hall
Zoo
Minor League Stadium
Major League Stadium

The big ones should get you to a quarter mil, no problem.

[Barberetti]

Just started S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC for the first time. 15 minutes in, and still at the "tweaking my setup/keybinds until I'm comfortable" stage. Anyone know how to bind the backslash key on a UK keyboard? The game's not accepting it from the menu, and I've tried editing the user.ltx file directly, and neither \, backslash, bslash, or bkslash work.

The ladders in this game are awesomely simple to use.