Board 8 > Epic Games daily Christmas giveaways started today

(+) Yeah! (+)

Every day for the next 10? days we will get a new game
Starting off with Shenmue III

Shenmue Free

Tagging in case any of the games are interesting enough to make me actually get the epic game store

Today - Neon Abyss

masterplum posted...

Tagging in case any of the games are interesting enough to make me actually get the epic game store

You don't have to download the app. You can just save the games to your account.

plasmabeam posted...

You don't have to download the app. You can just save the games to your account.

Even so, you won't be able to play any of them unless you eventually download the app.

is Shenmue still free

Punnyz posted...

is Shenmue still free

No, but I think it'll be $4.99 when all the current sales are applied to it in the cart.

dang, didnt see this in time for Shenmue :(

I think I'm up to about 200 free games from this store, now.

I've even played a couple of them!

Today - Remnant: From the Ashes

Was already free at some point so if you follow Epic free games weekly you should have it already

Nanis23 posted...

Today - Remnant: From the Ashes

Was already free at some point so if you follow Epic free games weekly you should have it already

Yep, but if you don't it's a very fun game if you have a group of 3 for co-op

Yeah, I had that one.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter today

No clue what that is lol
Also a repeat though

Its one of those walking simulator type of games. I remember it being okay but nothing special.

Today is Loop Hero

I heard about it a lot

aw yeah I've been meaning to buy this for literally months

procrastination pays off once more

Oh, this is one I might actually play (but probably not).

I really did not like loop hero. It felt way too grindy. Like F2P mobile game level of grind. I was addicted for the first 10 hours or so then played another 10 hours while multi tasking then played another 5 hours as a job before quitting

Yeah it seems cool for the first little bit but becomes a chore SUPER quickly

Yeah I had fun with loop hero for about 15 or 20 hours and it just wasn't fun or engaging enough to keep playing

Loop Hero seems like the type of game to watch someone else play on YouTube at 2x speed.

Seanchan posted...

Loop Hero seems like the type of game to watch someone else play on YouTube at 2x speed.

Honestly that gets old too

The game is just way too long and doesn't add enough gameplay elements to keep it interesting.

It's fun the first 5-10 hours but then its just complete snoozeville where every run is exactly the same buy maybe you get SLIGHTLY better luck and make it a little farther which gets you a bit more of a boost for the next round so you can maybe get SLIGHTLY farther by doing the exact same thing over again...

I absolutely do not recommend Loop Hero. It was... not good.

This is such a crazy turn, when it first came out, everyone was absolutely RAVING about it.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

This is such a crazy turn, when it first came out, everyone was absolutely RAVING about it.

I know why. I have a rule about roguelikes and similarly replayable, procedurally-generated games. They all live three lives. The first is between 0-10 hours of play; the next is between 10-50 hours of play; and the last is after 50 hours of play.

In the first phase, before 10 hours played (although this number is not exact, it could be as few as 1-2 or as many as 20-30 depending on the game's complexity), the player is learning the game and coming face to face with the game's new concepts for the first time. This is often the most exciting period of playing a new roguelike or roguelike-adjacent; you are learning a new system and discovering new things in it constantly, making progress or gaining skill very quickly, and nearly everything is immediately novel. The promise of depth in the game seems grand, and the promise of possibilities seem virtually endless. A player might win a run in this time, depending on the game's difficulty and length or on the player's skill, but they will not exhaust the possibilities the game has in this time or meet all of its challenges, and the full breadth of the endgame is probably not visible to them.

In the second phase, the player has likely mastered, or at least gotten a strong control of, the basics of the game. They have either won a run or two, if the game is short and approachable enough, or they are at least starting to think about how to do it, if the game is a little more challenging (or if it's a campaign). They are still probably discovering new things, unlocking new things, or seeing new things for the first time, but these are fewer and further between (again, depending on the game, of course). The focus on play is not so much learning the game but about honing that knowledge into a finer point, and about exploring every possibility that the game has. The full breadth of the game, which appeared limitless in the first few hours, is now becoming limited, as possibilities are seen to their fullest extent, and paths followed to their logical conclusion, and as the game starts to run out of newer and better ways to challenge the player. With each hour of play, runs become second nature, until they are eventually habitualized.

Around 50 hours, for most games, is when I think they start to hit their third and final phase. It may take longer than 50 hours, but around this point, a player starts to master the game, at least to the best of their ability. Their head is now bumping into the game's proverbial ceiling - all of the game's boundaries and possibilities are known to them. They are no longer experiencing new things, but rather, seeking out novel possibilities previously missed, or evaluating which possibilities are the strongest. They have likely won many runs by now, and are playing them under more challenging conditions; or, they have completed the campaign and are trying again on a higher difficulty; or they may even join a speedrunning community and branch their experience out further that way. The game no longer becomes something to experience and beat, but something to conquer in every possible way.

The basic gist of this is that good roguelikes remain fun after 10 hours; great roguelikes are still fun after 50. Of course, if you only play to play for 10, that might be fine for you, though great roguelikes are often great in the first 10 hours anyway. For a game to pass "the 50 hour test", as I call it, it has to really have layers of depth that continue to reveal themselves well after mastery is achieved - new possibilities to be sought and evaluated, every run creating new challenges never before seen. To me, a roguelike can only be revealed as truly spectacular after you have played it for this long, to find out if, when you bump your head on the ceiling, do you stop there, or does the ceiling unfold into something new?

The trick here is, reviewers, and many people who recommend a game early in its life, have often not yet pushed the game to its third phase. This is not meant to be gatekeeping, of course - if you play a game for 10 hours and it's fun and that's enough for you, that's all well and good! But it's my belief that a roguelike must be played for a certain amount of time to be able to evaluate it properly, to really test the boundaries of its depth - all roguelikes will seem deep at first, but only some truly are once you have explored them.

Loop Hero is a game that spectacularly fails the 50 hour test, and frankly, I don't think it passes the 10 hour test, either.

I played it for about 20-30 hours, because it's a campaign and it takes about that long to beat - and I have a friend who wanted to watch me so that spurned me on a bit. It's a pleasant looking game with a really good idea behind the mechanics, and I did want to see it through to see if the game would have any depth. If you play the game for a few hours and tinker around with it, it might seem pretty fun conceptually, but it really shows its limitations quickly. Frankly I don't think it even starts with much depth; the game has a lot of design problems and mechanically it's just not that very interesting to make decisions in, so the only thing that kept me going was the skinner box nature of it - that little adrenaline rush at finding new items and making meta-progress. I was starting to get a little bored of it after a few hours, but I pressed on in hopes that it would become more involved as I reached the endgame - nada. I beat the game feeling completely unsatisfied by anything I'd experienced.

But, for a few hours, it works well enough; and I suspect that this is a large part of the reason why it had glowing reviews but people have come down harder on it later. I've honestly found that almost none of my roguelike friends really found much enjoyment in it.

Didn't come into this topic expecting an excellent analysis on the roguelike genre as a whole, but I'm not complaining

I HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT LOOP HERO and they've gone unaddressed for an entire year so I have a lot to say

Of course if you can get it for free go ahead and play it and make up your own mind, I'd love to be wrong because I think Loop Hero has a lovely concept and is very polished in most respects

I didn't play Loop Hero but I enjoyed reading Para's post
I did think of Hades though, as while I enjoyed it, I don't think it pass the "50 hours test" either, imo. I enjoyed it a lot for the first 40 or so hours but it became super repetitive and I still had stuff to do but I didn't have fun anymore
It was just not on the same level of Binding of Isaac in which it not only pass the 50 hours test, but the 200 hours test as well because literally every run is so different from the previous and it's not even close

Hades was borderline for me - I played it for 186 hours total and really enjoyed it but I didn't feel like it had a ton of endgame depth, it's just fun to play though

Hades could have gotten to that point IMO with post launch content expansions but the devs clearly didn't want to do that.

Which is kind of a shame, honestly, because it probably could be as longstanding as some of the really big Roguelites, but it is what it is.

Nanis23 posted...

I didn't play Loop Hero but I enjoyed reading Para's post
I did think of Hades though, as while I enjoyed it, I don't think it pass the "50 hours test" either, imo. I enjoyed it a lot for the first 40 or so hours but it became super repetitive and I still had stuff to do but I didn't have fun anymore
It was just not on the same level of Binding of Isaac in which it not only pass the 50 hours test, but the 200 hours test as well because literally every run is so different from the previous and it's not even close

Hades system to increase the difficulty made it shine though for me because of how long it took to beat. The story kept me in it first, then I kept trying harder and harder combinations until I beat 32 and never played again, but that was after 50 hours or so and I was satisfied

What is the game today?

Maniac64 posted...

What is the game today?

It's in one hour from now

Second Extinction. Some FPS about dinosaurs that's still in early access.

Well I wonder if this list of leaks that was posted on 4chan is right
It predicted Loop Hero and Second Extinction correctly

22 -> Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
23 -> Vampyr
24 -> Pathfinder: Kingmaker
25 -> Prey

Oh hell yeah 24

I was tricked into buying Loop Hero a while back and did not enjoy it lol

Nanis23 posted...

Well I wonder if this list of leaks that was posted on 4chan is right
It predicted Loop Hero and Second Extinction correctly

22 -> Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
23 -> Vampyr
24 -> Pathfinder: Kingmaker
25 -> Prey

Yeah leak is legit
As today game is Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Looks like I'm going to have to set a reminder to log in and get the free game on friday then.

Sweet I was able to get Mutant: Year Zero

Today is Vampyr

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition

Such a cool game, everyone get this.

Got it

Prey

2 years of adding these games to the library and i missed pathfinder ;_;
most interested i've been in one of these give aways in ages.

Awww I missed pathfinder! Darn I meant to get that