Interesting Things on Steam

Hard West looks like a weird western themed isometric roleplaying game with, maybe, some tactical elements. Not a lot is shown about it so far, there isn’t even a video on that page, but it looks good and interesting and a weird western take on this genre might be a vital shot in the ass. Coming this Autumn. Shift Happens looks like it was conceived at the same time and from the same juices as Shiftlings although the production values seem lower and it’s more cutesy. It’s get some room and time to grow so we’ll see. Early Access on the 19th.


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How NOT to Give Everyone a Fair Salary

Company Testing Standardized Salaries Is Struggling I think what they did there was just plain wrong. The way to equalize salary considerations is not to give everyone, from the newest hires to the CEO, the same salary. That is a sure fire way of causing discontent. What they need is to give the newest, lowest ranking hires a fair base salary and then, from there, calculate everyone’s salary based on veterancy, responsibility and, most importantly, merit. And I think it’s ok for people to know their co-workers salary. There’s no reason I can think of to hide salaries that is for the employee’s benefit. If there’s a difference between my salary and someone else’s, I want to know that, if I have a higher one, there’s a good reason for it. And if there isn’t, maybe I shouldn’t get one. And, if it’s lower, I want to know what that other person did to ingratiate themselves upon the management so I can do it too and get paid better for it. For example, if someone is getting paid more than me because they have a year of company time on me, I think that’s fair. If they get paid more because they are very reliable and help whenever asked, I want to do that too. If they get paid more because they handle 3 times more responsibilities then me… well, there’s not a lot I can do about it but that’s fair.


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Interesting on Steam

Submerged is a beautiful, water-world-esque exploration puzzle game. I’m not really sure how the main mechanic work because what I’ve seen thus far is mostly traversal and exploration but it looks interesting. Though, if you’re not automatically hooked, better wait for reviews. Available August 4th.  Empyrion – Galactic Survival is, from what is available now — which is not a lot, Terraria if it was fully 3D and also in space. It looks very ambitious. It looks very early in its development. It looks like it still needs a lot of work. But if they can bring this up to snuff, I might opt for this over Star Citizen or No Man’s Sky. Early Access August 5th. Geocore is another Descent wannabe and it looks very very basic but it is early in development by a two man team. It’s all very early so I guess I’ll have to see about this one but I would love a proper Descent reimagining. Early Access July 31st.


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Interesting on Steam

Nomad Fleet looks like finally someone is trying to make another, different Homeworld and not half-ass it. This one looks good, it looks interesting. I’m not entirely sure about the grid and the controls but I hope it comes out good. Early Access now for 13$. Contradiction is a full video point and click murder mystery and it looks like they went all out with it. Every section of it is full video. They claim that you have complete freedom inside the game scenes and the every movement is possible. The video also looks very high quality. It might not be exactly my thing but I put it on my list just for the novelty. Available now for 10$. Into the Stars is a space exploration and survival game that gives the player the role of the ship’s captain while actually still being the captain. That is, giving orders and seeing systems and not micromanaging everything. And it looks very good. Early Access now for 20$. Rocket League is football with freaky, rocket propelled cars and a big giant ball. And it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. Out now for 20$.


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From Stretching to Grind

It is a common practice in game design to try to stretch out the length of a game by padding out the content. This could be done by insidiously layering out difficult, repeating levels or by simply varying out the already introduced elements into new configurations. I’ve recently thought about this after seeing a few new puzzle games. I have quite a low tolerance for those unless they introduce something really interesting (i.e. Ronin) and even then, they should probably be short enough to not over stay their welcome. And so, when looking at those puzzle games, I played two or three levels, understood what they’re doing with it, and decided it wasn’t interesting enough to invest time in. The problem is, again, a conflict of expectations, exacerbated by the sheer quantity of quality games out there. Meaning, if I’m playing a game that I’m not enjoying as much as I thought I would and I know I have other games that will be at least as enjoyable if not more, why should I keep playing? I’ll take a look at it using three examples I think, at least in my case, symbolise different levels of padding/grind vs my innate interest in those genres of play: The role of grand strategy game will be played by Civilization: Beyond Earth. The role of the endless runner will be played by Relic Run. And the role of the Action RPG will be played by Path of Exile. Grand Strategy / Civilization: Beyond Earth Continue Reading →


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The House of Ill Gotten Gains and Disrepute

After much deliberation I had not much say in because of my injuries, I managed to actually fly the ship back to Mos Entha where Naritt and Zamir found a local Hutt to sell the water rights to. After some back and forth that I’m glad I didn’t have to do myself, we agreed on a price, the Hutt took off to see his new acquisitions — we threw in the location of the abandoned research lab for free — while we took off back to our original employer. We docked at the wheel a couple of days later and met with our Isotech contact. He schlepped something out about not fulfilling our contract completely because we let the laboratory and the water mine get taken over by a Hutt. We bit the bullet because the Hutt paid a lot for it. Then, when we asked what is next on the agenda, he told us he is waiting on his sister to come back with some information on an old Republic ship that went missing, something very valuable. So, of course, we couldn’t just sit our asses down. We went to investigate.


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First Encounters and the Screams of Dying Plans

We flew over to where the blip showed on the map. What we found was a Sand People encampment around a small mountain. We surveyed the area and decided to land a bit farther away, I still prefer to keep the Badger as safe as possible, at least as long as it’s not paid for. So we walked. And what we found from the ground level was lots of buildings but few people and an entrance into the mountain from which people exited, looking not very happy. At the entrance to the mine we found the object of our search, Jaa Adik. We explained that we meant no harm and just wanted to see what the fuss was all about add our mission was to ascertain what happened. Inside the mine we found containers of water and crates of explosives. That was the point I started to think that maybe we should just go away. But before we could leave, an explosion buried us in, causing a boulder to mangle my arm. After everyone was excavated from the rubble, I called it quits and headed outside, hoping to reach safe ground before passing out. But outside the cave, Jaa Adik was waiting with open guns. I drew my own but he managed to shoot first, burning my side and thoroughly disabling my left arm. I managed to duck out of the way and then the rest came and battled him out. At the end, I was saved from unconsciousness by Continue Reading →


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Interesting on Steam

Lego Worlds is Lego Co. dive into the Minecraft clone business and they might be big and tough and interesting enough to actually make it. Now in Early Access. Trove, at first glance, looks like a generic Minecraft clone among all the rest trying to claw out some room. But what’s different about this is that they’re going massively multiplayer and, unlike Minecraft, they’re taking the gaming side and running wild with it. So, I’m looking forward to it. Out 9th of July. Interstellar Rift looks like a space simulator built out of LEGO bits and the best parts of DF-9 and I have to say that, as an avid space simulation fan and a typical builder/explorer personality, I’m quite looking forward to this and hope it comes out good. Early Access on the 23rd of June.


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להקדים ציפיות

אנחנו רוצים להוציא גרסה גדולה בקרוב עם הרבה שיפורים ועדכונים ולכן עבדתי הרבה על דיאלוגים בימים האחרונים. אני עדיין משתדל לתת הערכות קצת נדיבות לגבי כמה זמן כל דבר ייקח לי כי אני יודע שאני מאוד גרוע בלתת חסם עליון לכמה זמן אני צריך. אבל, מכיוון שאני מכיר את המערכת הזאת יותר טוב מכל אחד אחר, זה לא נורא מפתיע כשאני בדרך כלל סוגר אותם מוקדם. אבל זה באמת שעשע אותי אתמול. אתמול התחלתי בלסיים את החלק השני של המשימה שנשארה לי מיום לפני. הכל היה סבבה רק עמית ביקש ממני לסדר קצת את ה-colliders על הכפתורים כי הם לא הגיבו כל כך טוב. ובזמן שטיפלתי בזה, הוא בא לפרוס בפנינו את התוכנית לימים הקרובים כדי שהכל יהיה מוכן. אז אני קיבלתי משימה שהייתה אמורה לקחת יום החל ממחר בבוקר. אז כשסיימתי את המשימה הקודמת, התחלתי לעבוד על זאת. הדיווח האחרון שלי לפני שעזבתי את המשרד? “בגלל שזמי כבר הלך אז אני לא יכול לקבל תיקון לשני רקעים אבל חוץ מזה, הכל כבר סגור.” כשאמרתי את זה אז גם עמית וגם טל נראו כאילו הם לא בטוחים אם להיות מופתעים או לא. וסיימתי את זה כל כך מהר שאני לא יכול להתחיל את המשימה הבאה כי אני מחכה למשימה אחרת שעוד לא נגמרה. אז זה קצת גרם לי להרגיש טוב עם עצמי.


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Blasted Droids and Flashing Lights

Throutek lost balance for a second and almost sent the white paste down the wrong hole. He quickly put down the bowl next to the console and coughed, causing his side to sting and burn. He lifted up his shirt and looked at the bandages with the tiny red smudge covering his left waist. At least it’s not as bad as Naritt got. He spat at the nearby bin and tried to swallow the rest before he continued typing. As we were scouring the operations room’s computers and electronics, a previously locked door opened and a bunch of worker droids filed out. I wasn’t expecting them to, but not really surprised, when they started to attack us. With welding tools, of all things. Me and Naritt engaged with blasters after the droids started advancing. We managed to take out three of the four droids, even after Zimir wanted to keep one for himself. Then a proper security droid showed up and blasted Naritt and me before I got the luckiest shot of my life and hit his central power source or something, making it explode. We quickly bandaged what we could and started scouring the rest of the facility. We found a couple of stimpacks which Naritt needed more than me. Then we found a report saying the goal of the whole facility was moot. And the map in the operations room displayed a coordinate which was probably where our target was headed, the next stage of this search. As Continue Reading →


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