I’m having a good time with it! If you’re a Marvel fan, it draws from a lot more than just the MCU, and is much better for it in my opinion. If you’re not a Marvel fan, it’s similar to an Overwatch, but with each character playing drastically different from each other. Character complexity can feel like a lot, but it works out in a chaotic, fun way.

Iron Man, my preferred character, has a projectile repulsor blast, a close-range unibeam, perpetual flight, boosters to move quickly (with a recharging meter), a temporary damage buff, rockets that can fire while buffed or while using boosters, and an ultimate bomb. If he’s on the same team as a Bruce Banner/Hulk, then whenever Hulk drops Gamma radiation, Iron Man’s buff is stronger (and green).

On the indy front, I picked up Terra Memoria, and it’s been interesting so far!

Hell Let Loose, I’m assuming. Haven’t played it, but I think it’s a WW2 sim shooter?

I mean, it’s certainly one way to have “flavor of the month” characters without actually having to rebalance things monthly.

A lot of good games can be based on randomness. Being in control of the deck building means that your choices shape the odds. I used to have a similar viewpoint as you, but learned to really embrace randomness and the design challenges it presents.

I say this as a Magic player, where even the greatest players in the world can get screwed or flooded on mana. The possibility of screw/flood increases the importance of card draw/card selection, makes the playability of low-mana cards more important, and makes heavy color pip investment, multiple colors, and higher mana costs a very serious concern.

Oh, I already have it, I just needed a good reason to hop into it and really give it a shot over the holidays.

I’m fine with games that push you to change your combat; combat that’s only there as a stat check and grind doesn’t feel like a compelling reason to have combat.

I was on the younger end of the target demographic, but I got big Geocities vibes from a lot of those pages. Such a neat game.

I’m like, one toe deep in 4 different turn-based RPGS. What does this one do particularly well?

Hey, don’t forget about good old Riding the Dilu Horse. +2/+2 and Horsemanship that stuck around, with no counters or attachment.

Wyrmspan is awesome.

If you enjoy Wingspan, Wyrmspan feels like a Wingspan where you can actually “build” in a cohesive manner, and everything feels a little tighter/tougher due to the reduced number of resources you can get per action initially. The ability to earn more actions within a round becomes pivotal. And it feels like there are different viable paths to victory, whereas Wingspan really felt like "get early pink ability birds, then focus on high point value birds.

My board game group has switched over without looking back, and we had already invested in the Nesting Box and every expansion for Wingspan.

Thanks!

I didn’t know/understand the integrated memory thing.

It seems like this thing is like 80% of the way to an amazing machine. Hall Effect sticks and a great screen and chip set, but the Windows 11 nonsense and the short RAM keep it from being an auto-recommend.

If SteamOS goes public, I’d really hope to see how this device fares.

Aside from the cruddy software, I don’t understand these complaints?

Yes, it’s Win11. Terrible interface, awful setup, and I’m not a fan of it.

16GB of RAM is what’s in my Steam Deck, and the Ally X goes above that with 24GB.

This seems to be a 1080p, 120Hz, OLED display. Is your issue the lack of HDR/color depth? Or are the resolution and refresh rate too high for the battery? Or is it actually like, RGB lighting on the handheld?

My reading list right now is:

• Sweet Bean Paste, by Durian Sukegawa
• Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree
• Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu

Making very slow progress through each of them, but I’m still just trying to get into the reading habit again.

Okay, would people recommend playing 1, 2, then 3, to get the experience as it was first given? Or going 3, 1, 2?

TCG Live is for people who actually care about Pokemon TCG and the complexities and depth it offers. It’s not that confusing; there are maybe 3 currencies, and one of its features, like it or not, is that you can’t just swipe a credit card and get everything you want. The only money-to-game translation is buying IRL boosters and scanning in the codes. Yes, the app can be fairly buggy, but it’s what we’ve got for now, ever since they closed Pokemon TCG Online. It doesn’t have trading, which is to prevent people from just having a dozen accounts and amassing all the value into one.

The currencies aren’t too bad: Coins are for cosmetics. Crystals are the “premium” currency for unlocking the battle pass or buying the equivalent of IRL sealed products (boosters, display packs, bundles, etc). Credits are like dust from other TCGs. Duplicate cards beyond 4 are “dusted” and you can convert them into the singles you want for deck building.

TCG Pocket is to slowly attract people into collecting actual cards again. After you get into the cadence of opening your 2 free packs a day, people might start to be interested in collecting physical cards, which pulls them into paying for boosters (rather than just buying singles) and trying the actual card game. It’s just a small bonus that TCGPocket might also earn them a bit of money, largely off of old art and minimal playtest work.

Aggression should be part of a game, but shouldn’t be the only way to play it. Obviously, when a game is optimized, it may be the best way to play (Monster Hunter and HAME speedruns come to mind), but a lot of great games try to design so that different archetypes can coexist and play off one another.

Street Fighter 6 encourages aggression. The Drive Meter system makes it so that turtling and blocking forever will end with you in blowout, taking chip damage and having worse frame disadvantage, as well as removing your ability to use Drive moves and opening you up for stuns. However, also hidden within the Drive System are some of the tools to deter mindless aggression. Drive Impacts are big moves with armor that lead into a full combo, so if you can read a braindead attack sequence, you can Drive Impact to absorb a hit, smack them, and then combo them for 35% of their life total. There are also parries, which can refill your drive meter.

Magic: The Gathering has tried to balance the various archetypes (Aggro, Midrange, Control, and Combo) so that every format should have at least 1 competitively viable deck in each meta archetype. Typically, Aggro will be too fast for a Control deck to stabilize and kill them before they can get their engine set up. But Midrange will trade just efficiently enough (with good 2-for-1 removal or creatures) to stop the aggression, and then start plopping out creatures that Aggro will have difficulty overcoming. And Combo often has nothing to fear from Aggro, since Aggro oftentimes can’t interact with the game-winning combo pieces. And because of this system, Aggro decks have to have sideboard plans ready for whatever meta they expect at an event or tournament. Removal or protection to get over or under Midrange, and faster speed or other types of interaction to take down or disrupt Combo. Magic’s systems (Mana/lands, instant speed removal, and even the variance that comes from being a card game) don’t punish aggro directly, but they make sure that there are usually answers out there.

What a game! I’m way out in the suburbs, but we heard the entire neighborhood pop off at the slam.

Dodger fan here. I wouldn’t count any chickens before they hatch. 3-1 is a good lead, but it’s led to a series upset something like 14 times in MLB postseasons. And the Dodgers leading 3-2 is an even more tenuous situation than it appears. Game 6 will likely be a bullpen game, and game 7 will be Buehler, with maybe Yamamoto coming in relief if absolutely necessary. Today was LA’s best remaining pitcher matchup, and the pitching staff couldn’t record a single strikeout.

Also, it has been 11 times in over a century of baseball. It hasn’t been a recent matchup that people would be tired of, it’s just the usual complaints/griping about large market teams.

Am I crazy for not wanting anyone to get shot? I know how crazy our politics are getting, and I’m afraid of the future, but we shouldn’t be wanting anyone to be shot at. Life is life, even if it’s attached to the absolute worst person on Earth. Sure, lock up people who are a danger to society, but let’s not celebrate gun violence.

This is the darkest timeline.