What else are you playing lately (that is not a AAA title or diablo-like ARPG)?

[KG]

There are so many games out there and so much marketing and social media hype that it can be hard to keep up with or just find interesting new games. I think it might be nice to share the "other" games we're interested in between all the talk of PoE and Diablo X.



I've been enjoying Tower of Time - a 2018 CRPG/Dungeon Crawler mix with pausable/slowable real-time team combat and semi-randomized+craftable+modifiable loot, set in a mysterious, interesting, surreal, and beautiful environment. I'm not far enough along to really rate the game but it seems to have a bizarrely low profile (and I assume low sales) for something so interesting. Maybe I'm missing something? It happens to be on sale right now; maybe others would like to check it out.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/617480/Tower_of_Time/



Sunless Sea's strange cocktail of rich stories, intriguing 2d art, lovecraftian horror, roguelite survival gameplay, and open-world exploration (on a steam ship!) turned out to be interesting enough (after - I admit it - buying it based largely on the screenshots) to tempt me interested in both the DLC and the sequel (set in space). Sometimes I leave it running while I do other stuff, just for the pleasant background noise of an underground sea. (I really should fix my indoor water feature thing some time...)



I've also been playing Darkest Dungeon (a bit at a time) but I wouldn't put that in the same underdog category - it seems to have done really well, the Grim Dawn of its genre. Whatever that genre is. So far I enjoy it, though again I just play a bit at a time.



Last I think, always in my heart and often on my mind is Dominions 5, a fiendishly deep turn-based strategy of a series produced by just two game devs (one a full-time secondary school teacher) since the '90s. Easy to mod, hard to master. If you can let your imagination see past the simple graphics (a large part of the "easy to mod" - even I have made new units) and get used to the "good enough" UI all the other 4x/turn-based strategy pales in comparison re: depth, tactical combat, nation variety, and fascinating lore. If you like the depth of character building from Grim Dawn, it might be worth looking in to Dominions 5. There's a free demo of Dom 3 available out there - since the game has grown on the foundation of earlier versions instead of being rebuilt, the Dom 3 demo still gives a taste of what Dom 5 might be like.



That's enough for now I suppose. Time to try to make my computer act up - diagnosing this hardware issue is driving me crazy.

[Takeda]

I bought Kingdom and Castles recently which has been good fun but feels like it has limited replayability, which is disappointing. That might be more my issue than the game's tho.

Tom Clancey's The Division was on sale a while back and I got that. I'd play more but my gaming buddy is really not keen on Ubisoft's take on controls (he prefers free form crouch hiding - whereas the Ubisoft take is a button that moves u into cover so you can lean over or out to shoot) which typically does away with jumping in favour of "you can jump here and get to somewhere we set up". I notice with this it pays to not take on scenarios from the place it sets you up to fight from - set piece encounters are much harder if you stay on the rails provided.

Wargame: Red Dragon - keep coming back to this to AI skirmish. Ideally you fight against others, but if you do it's at 13 yo I ate too much Coke and choccy speed, and you get cheesed with meta-tactics. The AI can be a moron sometimes but usually pushes in strength and switches fronts if you defend too well. The combo of very detailed unit weapons etc and annoyingly realistic ammo and fuel limitations makes it a perpetual challenge.

We Must Go Deeper, for a bit of sillyness .. Deep Rock Galactic for more co-op weirdness .. and maybe Warframe again because I've not done that in ages.

[Gregor]

I can Imagine you'll find a real good review for "Cro Teams" "Thalos Principle", I've had lot of thoughts around the none VR version, and what'S a "WOW" worth in € ? So 6.99 been my grab, it'S a picture in arts, and you might realy like to reconsider it to others.

Sincere recommendation.
Gregor.

If you know it.

Please leave your own oppinion about the mentioned title.

[SchnitzelTruck]

Havnt been playing too many games lately.

Total Annihilation. Ye olde large scale RTS from 1997. Still great to play with friends and heavily moddable.

Supreme Commander Forged Alliance. Total Annihilation re-envisioned with modern graphics. Again heavily moddable and fun with friends.

Steamworld Dig 2. Just got it due to sale. Feels very similar to the old Motherload flash game and it's hit me with the nostalgia hammer.

[RodHull]

Phantom Brigade (currently only on epic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAUBhEgvx_E

And then old favourites like Stellaris, WHTW2 and a bit of Invisible Inc

[mikeydsc]

Been playing Dyson Sphere Project, Bloons TD6 and Surviving Mars.

[DoctorDarling]

Remnant: from the Ashes which is my favorite shooter probably ever? Awesome 3rd person shooter with high difficulty (some people call it dark souls with guns, idk I hate dark souls can't get into it). Lots of items, sets, builds, nuance to the neutral evade/roll dodging, good gunplay, good story, good graphics, good replay value.... I love it. It's free on PS4 right now if people have that.