It’s a great game! Didn’t realize save game editing would be that involved.

Heading screenshot looks beautiful!

Fwiw, for non serious writing, I’ve been using the “x” form since I was teenager.

For Threadi headlines, it’s a useful space saving measure since the title has a limited number of characters.

I haven’t played it, but from the let’s play it looked closer to something like They Are Billions than a classical tower defence game. I would say the RTS elements may be somewhat more pronounced than in They Are Billions.

I wouldn’t discount this as a pure (classical?) tower defence game.

It’s one of those (relatively) well known indie success stories. Not at the level of say Stardew Valley, but in the same category.

The game is good example of how people look for different experiences in gaming.

Star Citizen is the perfect example of why NFTs do not have good use cases.

But there is no good reason for CIG to deal with the extra headache of adding NFTs on top. It’s just more cost, risk and UX complexities (let’s for the sake of argument forget about regulatory issues) for no gain.

If you are OK with historical city-builders, the campaigns for Caesar III, Pharaoh and Zeus/Poseidon, are largely level-focused. They are available on GOG and there is a really nice modern engine for Caesar III.

Based on feedback and discussion that I’ve seen (I haven’t tried it yet), Microlandia seems to mostly fit your request in a modern city-builder:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4094120/Microlandia/

Might also be worth checking out Urbek City Builder (also modern).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1411740/Urbek_City_Builder/

I have played UCB and it does have a bigger focus on neighbourhoods and types of commercial/industrial areas. I felt that the tutorial makes it seem like it’s not a city-builder, it very much is and with it’s own game design approach.

You can play it as a Metropolis city-builder too, but there can be some annoyances with this approach (I had to design blocks for certain things for space efficiency, some blocks are available in the guide section on steam).

I feel like they will eventually backtrack in this.

It’s not 2002 when PS2 was truly dominant across the video game market as a whole. Now you have mobile, Roblox, Fortnite, a giant selection of pretty cheap indie titles on PC, things are a lot more competitive.

I don’t see the satire in the game itself, you got to have a satire concept beyond some random assets and random map.

Have the map structured as a US style suburban community, bunch of fast food lying around the suburb.

This is just some random assets and an FPS map. I am assuming there are no custom models or textures. Strange “game”.

Depends on the genre:

RPGs: Strong writing and/or world building is a must. I prefer when both are done well, but just strong world building with ok writing works too (more often than not writing us weaker). For me the point of an RPG is to explore a world and try different playstyles, factions and narrative. I enjoy reading in-game texts that provide lore backgrounds, but also minor clues and subtle opportunities to define your strategy.

Strategy/Tycoon/City-builder:

Story and writing are not needed. These are sandbox games, the point is to try different strategies, build your own designs and so on.

I usually don’t bother with campaigns for these types of games and just pick the largest map possible in sandbox. I did like the Cities in Motion 1 campaign though.

In 30 years of being a huge fan of these genres, I can’t really think of a Tycoon or Economic Strategy where the story was memorable.

One caveat is that if the game is set in a fantasy/sci-fi setting, sometimes strong world building is important, but it depends on the details of the gameplay.

In some cases, the most generic space/fantasy setting is fine, in other cases like with Vagrus, a trading game x RPG hybrid, the relatively unique grimdark fantasy world is a key part of what makes the game great.

Got it! )

To be honest, I don’t think the indie gaming scene will ever fully transition to his model even in the worst case scenario.

The market is basically large enough that it can support a niche being independent in terms of channel fulfilment and avoidance of console style exclusivety.

Not to mention video games are arguably much more competitive than movies or streaming shows. Often people look to a specific production with shows and movies, with games, new franchises can often build upon and expand upon existing gameplay models.

Not that I think the subscription model is good, but it is clear that there is a segment of the market that prefers this delivery approach.

Don’t get it.

Just need to get to it. :)

Interestingly, with I find pre-1995 strategy games (original Simcity, Pizza Tycoon) games easier to get into than say pre-1995 RPGs (with a heavily modded Daggerfall being an exception).

I never played it myself, but it does seem to be heading in that direction.

As weird as this sounds, I like doing this in GTA2 (still replay it every few years), although I do it became I like the grim-dark, almost cyberpunk atmosphere of the city in the second game. I feel like they’ve never gone that direction since.

Cloudpunk is another game where I enjoy just driving around and exploring with no goal, but once again, it’s more for the cyberpunk feels.

Steam shows ads for launches on startup and both platforms suffer from social media influence.

I haven’t seen the startup ads in what seems like a decade. I don’t see a big deal with content creators providing reviews (and commentary), the key is finding content creators who are independent and focus on the needs of their viewers/readers.

I use Voyager for viewing content and the mobile web view if I am posting.

Voyager is a slick experience, but they have zero support for Piefed features.

Been meaning to try Blorp and Interstellar. Would appreciate if Blorp and Interstellar users can comment on how well Piefed features are integrated (post labels, tags, unified cross-post comments, reactions etc).

Doesn’t sound like the Disney-themed game is going well.

Their PR rep seems to confirm (surprised at the relative honesty) this:

"Liz Markman, the senior director of global communications at Epic, said Bloomberg’s reporting is “not reflective of the ambitions of the Disney collaboration. We are building a new games and entertainment universe of Disney experiences.”

I play indie games and in more niche genres, so I am somewhat outside of mainstream sensibilities, but is there much of a market for a Disney-themed extraction shooter?

Seems like a bad fit, but what do I know.