Recent reviews by Dther

Have you ever wondered how we went from plumbing to computers? Wires are, basically, pipes for electricity. If you assume electricity to be a fluid weighing nothing. But that's sort of hard to imagine.

ComPressure will sate your curiosity... While making you thankful for the fact that we invented ones and zeroes. It's a game (a Zachlike, specifically) that uses a simplified model of fluid dynamics to present you with the kind of problems early electronics engineers had to solve in order to invent the first computers.

There won't be any programming or algorithm selection (at least, I haven't got to them), because those things haven't been invented yet. In ComPressure, the kind of challenges you'll face are along the lines of "adding two numbers" and "making ROM".

If this sounds appealing to you, you owe it to yourself to give this game a try. You'll come out with an appreciation of how far our field has come. Or you'll tear your hair out trying to figure out why your buffer is inconsistently off by 1-3 PSI for any value that isn't 50. Probably both.

I wish there was a "Maybe?" recommendation, specifically for Dwarf Fortress. Dwarf Fortress has been one of those games that I come back to every few years. I've been playing it for over 12 years now- I was still in High School when I first played Dwarf Fortress. Minecraft wasn't around when I first tried Dwarf Fortress! Because of this it deeply saddens me that I generally don't recommend Dwarf Fortress, despite all the attempts at modernising it. I do not believe the current version of Dwarf Fortress, when taken as a whole, is worth $30 USD, and especially not the whopping $45 AUD after conversions. The game, despite its release on Steam and subsequent purchase by a publisher, is still as half-baked as ever.

The heart of the game is largely the same. It is still an insanely rich simulation of a fantasy world, full of strange mysteries and wacky interactions. You can still pull Stupid Dwarf Tricks! You can still search for the Hidden Fun Stuff! There's all sorts of things to do and see! With the new updates, I think the changes have been largely positive! (Except for gay livestock. Seriously. It is insanely annoying to me that I need to mod the game to make sure my turkey roosters aren't hen-averse. There should be an option to toggle it for specifically intelligent races only, not farm animals. I also shouldn't need an external tool like DFHack for a paid game to know that my hens are lesbians. But I digress...)

There was an old criticism that was excusable for a free game in the 2010s, but is now inexcusable for a game of this price point: for all of the things you can do in DF, there really isn't much to do in DF.

Making a functional fortress is actually really simple. Train a military, keep everyone fed, dig down. That's really it. Anything else is fluff. Aside from that, the only real roadblocks are either self-imposed or keeping nobles happy, and everyone knows the solution is a cozy (lava-based) heating system for their throne room. The wide-open sandbox that made DF unique isn't really a big whoop nowadays, but that could be excused... if the game wasn't 45 dollars. For that price point, I could be playing, I don't know, Rimworld or Prison Architect.

Finally, onto something highly subjective: I don't like the new UI changes, both from a functional and aesthetic standpoint. Not because they're mouse driven or because I'm some kind of weirdo with an ASCII art fetish... Okay, I am a weirdo with an ASCII art fetish, but hear me out.

I found the ASCII-focused aesthetic of the game endearing. It's what first drew me to DF, and it shaped how I engaged, mentally, with the world that was presented to me. When I imagined the faces and figures of the dwarves living in my fortresses, rather than relying on the dense character descriptions, I would shape how they'd look in my mind's eye based on how I felt about them. I'd imagine the jolly axedwarves, gaily hacking through trees as those filthy tree-humpers looked on in disgust. I'd imagine my fearless militia, standing stoic against the foes they faced, my imagination running wild as to the gross anatomy of the fume-spewing, pus-soaked Forgotten Beast that tore through my +bauxite door+ cave airlocks. This was helped along by the players that surrounded Dwarf Fortress, and how the Bay12Forums used to be filled with people giving their creative takes on Dwarvish culture.

This changed with the new art direction that the Steam version has. Now, every dwarf has a portrait. Every Beast is... Just there. I don't imagine how they look like anymore, they're "just" pixel-art dwarves with funky hair styles or scars. The player base is now sort of split between "those on Steam and Discord" and "those who were on Bay12". Something has been lost, like how watching a movie is never quite the same as reading a book. I don't think there's ever going to be another Boatmurdered.

Functionality wise, I'll admit: The new interface is more intuitive, and I didn't immediately hate it. I'm a very keyboard driven person. I use Linux btw, and I've made more than a few contributions to open source vi-like editors in my time. When it comes to games, the mouse really does help, and the new interface has the potential to be better than the old hotkey interface.

But that's the problem: Potential. It isn't there yet.

The old keyboard-driven interface was obtuse, and clunky, and all sorts of adjectives for "hurts to learn". But it was two things: consistent and finely tuned. "Consistent" in that there was a method to the madness- once you knew what you wanted, it was like learning a new language. The keys were the words, and your will was the command. "b-uild a D-epot". "b-uild a f-armplot". "m-ark this zone for... whatever". It was "finely tuned" in the sense that, like an axe handle, touched by many hands, most of the rough spots were worn away, either by updates, or by external community-made tools like Dwarf Therapist or DFHack.

The new interface felt surprisingly good, going into it with an open mind... until I was hit with INCONSISTENCY. It's a pet peeve of mine when a UI is inconsistent. Why can I click through dialogues, but not through the building menu?! Why do I sometimes draw areas with the mouse, sometimes make boxes? aAGH- Common actions are largely painless, but more obscure actions feel like stubbing a toe.
(Will say, though: the militia menus are so much better. Equipping things and setting custom uniforms is a breeze. The old militia menus stank like last year's miasma. Admittedly a low bar to clear, because of just how insanely bad militia management used to be, but the new interface there is leagues ahead.)

I do believe that the UI is going in the right direction, but it isn't there yet. It needs more polish, it needs more customising, it needs more love in general. Excusable, again, in a free game... But not for a 45 dollar experience!

(waaay) TL;DR: the game is still "good" but it really isn't 45 dollars good. Gameplay is still endearingly janky, but UI is now a different kind of janky, that is unfortunately much less endearing.

I bought it in the hopes of supporting future development. See you all in another year or two.

I got this on itch.io. For the amount of content, it's perfectly priced, and I find Tux and Fanny to be endearing characters. I'd love to see more of them in the future.

Tux and Fanny is a wholesome adventure about two best friends (Tux and Fanny) enjoying the simple pleasures of life together, with just a touch of surreal humour. The game is, also, a framing device for a collection of experimental mini-games of varying quality. The premise and presentation is straightforward and honest, which I found to be a breath of fresh air in our current times. If this sounds like something you'd enjoy, get it. It's a steal for $10 USD.

Finally: The ad for the "Tux and Fanny: The Feature Length Film" at the end of the manual isn't a joke. This game is a prequel for it. If you end up enjoying this game, you should definitely see it. It's free on YouTube and deserves more views.

i feel like a kid doing the puzzles on the crayon placemat at a diner but also the grandpa doing crosswords next to him

This game is free. It's also really, REALLY good. It takes the best part of old school CRPGs- puzzling out strategies against enemies, figuring out what gameplay style suits you most, living off the moonlit land to find and fight gimmick bosses, and combines it with the best of "modern" roguelike game design: Procedurally generated dungeons, a giant loot table filled with unique magic items, and a punchy grid-based combat system with all sorts of fun quirks to reason about.

It should be noted that while the game is reminiscient of both those genres, it's in reality neither. The closest game I can compare it to is a much lighter Caves of Qud, but even that isn't a very good description at all. The game is free. Please, *please* try it out.

My only real criticism is this: The plot lacks a strong hook. To avoid spoiling anything major and expand on what's already in the store page, the hook is this: You're Dreamless, meaning that for some reason, you haven't been claimed by any of the game's gods and need to figure out your destiny on your own, and one of your caretakers (Not your parent... I wonder why?) died under mysterious circumstances: wandering into a cloud of madness-inducing gas, and dying to the things living inside of it. An unfortunate accident. (Or a crisis of faith, perhaps?) Anyway, you're starting to get up there in years, so your other caretaker tells you to head to the city and make a name for yourself. There's talks about the Archon, the closest thing the land has to a leader, needing a successor- or, well, a replacement. And as you know, only Dreamless are allowed the title of Archon.

And that's it. That's all the direction that's ever directly given to you. The parentheses added by me were the first questions that popped into my head, and what led me down the rabbit hole of reading all the stuff I could find. The game is incredibly bare bones in terms of giving you direction. There's a ton of lore and words to read, but you essentially are on your own in terms of figuring out "why" you should care about any of it. You're plonked into the world with very little context aside from "You are in a special class of people who have to find your own way in this world"... The reasons for which are fascinating if you're willing to dig for the answers, but makes the start of the game feel incredibly slow, when you're bumbling around hoping to bump into the plot by accident.

haha filter go bzzt

This game fulfilled my fantasy of falling in love with a woman who could kill me in an instant.

nice game

100% in 5 minutes. You have no power over me. Give me the refund.

You ever just go hiking somewhere, pick up a big stick and feel like big smart chieftain caveman? imagine that, but then 5 seconds later you get eaten by a bear. highly recommend