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[+] 430 points 1 year ago (19 children)
  • [–] 92 points 1 year ago* (16 children)

    It might feel wrong to call their last proper sit down at a couch/desk singeplayer experience a "classic", but its older than Half-Life one was when it came out.

    That makes me feel old and I wasn't even around for HL1. How's your back feeling, millennials?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I've been biking so much lately that my legs are getting hella toned, the rest of my body is starting to tone too and I'm feeling much more alive and healthy than I have at any other point in my life!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    How long have you been biking for you to see these changes? I.e. what is 'lately'?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    This is my second season. I'm biking about 5 hours a week right now, averaging about 40-50 miles per week. I don't know how obvious the toning would be to others but I can certainly see it, since y'know I'm the one who sees myself the most

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    How's your back feeling, millennials?

    Wearing good shoes and keeping my weight down and staying active so it feels fine.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    That makes me feel old and I wasn't even around for HL1. How's your back feeling, millennials?

    I'm not old you're young! I'm not hunched over grabbing my back grimacing that's just my power stance!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    We’re at that age where you have to exercise and watch what you eat if you want to be in good health (and not have your back hurt.) The friends I grew up with who haven’t touched a vegetable in their life, no longer happen to look healthy and thin.

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  • [–] 198 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    And I'd say that it is 100% deserved. Stardew Valley is a once in a lifetime kind of game and has one of the best developers you could ask for. Free new content and updates for 10 years and it's still like $20 and frequently on sale. The developer actually tweeted out once that if he ever charged for new content that he'd want everyone to publicly shame him.

    “I swear on the honor of my family name, i will never charge money for a DLC or update for as long as I live. Screencap this and shame me if I ever violate this oath.”

    Stardew Valley is the gaming industry at its best and one of the best indie games out there.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    And at those prices I’ve bought it at least twice

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  • [–] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    My only issue has always been that I cannot throw more money at the ape. So I buy the game for gaming-adjacent friends and almost always ruin their lives convert them

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Couldn’t agree more. I’ve re-purchased the game for Switch and iOS after already having it on my PC for ages. I didn’t really want to play it on those platforms but just wanted to give more money to concerned ape.

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  • [+] 50 points 1 year ago (16 children)
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's one of my favorite games of all time, but I don't think Portal 2's basic formula would be culturally relevant if it was reused today. The quippy writing is very 2010s-coded (à la Guardians of the Galaxy), the gameplay is a bit too simple to be re-used as is in 2025, and the sweet&short linear storyline of Portal 2 would ironically be lacking ambition for a successor to Portal 2.

    Like all truly Great pieces of classic media, Portal 2 is a product of a skilled and truly passionate team getting together at the perfect time with the right idea, and reaching its public at a culturally relevant time.

    The Portal universe still has stories to tell, and there are still test chambers to solve, so I obviously wouldn't complain if Portal 3 came out, but I understand why Valve wouldn't want to make a barely decent game in the shadow of Portal 2.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The Talos Principle became an interesting spin on the idea of FPS puzzles that try to keep you engaged. They got more direct with introducing the lore of the world around each time (P1<TTP1≈P2<TTP2). The puzzles are probably less eye-catching because you rarely shoot yourself into air, they are closer to classic 2d logic timekiller games, but I find these games are what Valve need to look at to see if they want to expand the world like that in their own way. If we assume Portal 3 would be about portals, wouldn't reinvent the formula from the ground up, I think they'd need to go for higher stakes, and seemingly expanding the world or the mission at hand (from the probably sterile conditions of it all affecting just Chel and Apperture's robots and facilities), be it an escape into the outer world of some sort (although it overlaps with Half-Life, is it bad?) or make her herself not the only thing at stake. My only hope is that it won't be AR\VR\whatever experience because it would make me nauseos and\or poor.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    (They've already stated they won't do Portal: VR because of the nausea issue.)

    I completely agree with your analysis, they would need to completely switch up the ambitions from a writing perspective for Portal 3 to make any sense. There are plenty of super interesting stories to be told in Aperture Labs, but I don't think that Valve is structured to write any of them

    Valve has always been "gameplay/tech first, story second", and it just happened that Portal 2 delivered unexpectedly well on the writing. But I don't think they can make a game with gameplay/tech twice as ambitious as Portal 2, and at the same time double down on Portal 2's amazing writing. They're just human and most of the people involved have moved on with their lives; in fact Portal 2 was their last truly ambitious narrative-heavy game, and they had to hire the old writers as consultants to make Alyx (which I haven't played but from what I heard the narrative wasn't on HL2's level).

    I'd love to be proved wrong but IMO there won't be a Portal 3 for as long as Valve exists in its current form.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    I agree. But hear me out:

    Portal 3 explores the fleet of Gaben's megayachts with puzzles to get a control of them and also some abordaging\swimming mini-games to get from one to another, from smaller to bigger, with the last one being the promised Aurora Borealis, where game leaves us on an uncertain moment after we too see the feared G-Man but in Freeman's glasses, got catched by a Smoker's tonque in mall ninja rainbow colouring, only to be freed by Pudge teaming up with Scout.

    VALVE TEAM: THE END OF LIFE FOR DEATH FORTRESS: EPISODE FOUR: THE PORTAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL

    I'm happy they don't do that and for all I care I can wait if they do something or not as long as I can still play in their classics.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    If you like portal you may also like superliminal. It's the only game I've found that scratches the similar itch

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I'd also recommend The Talos Principle and The Turing Test for similar itch scratches.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    In a similar vein to Superluminal, I'd also recommend Viewfinder, it's kinda like Portal but with a camera rather than a Portal gun.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Antichamber is another that feels similar. Although Antichamber doesn't really have a plot.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ooo I've never heard of this! Kinda sad I only saw this comment after the Summer Sale :P Thanks for sharing!

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    No pressure on their next game or anything.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (8 children)
  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I've been over the hero shooter fad for almost a decade. Where are the actually new ideas for the genre?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    I think Deadlock is pretty up there. That said, it's closer to Smite than it is a hero shooter. The community-driven character builds mean meta is pretty fluid and it has what I would describe as a very accessible MOBA-centered design. I don't care for MOBAs much, but to say Valve isn't innovating here would be disingenuous. I think my only problem with it is that it's lacking something that makes the gameplay loop feel satisfying, but that may just be my bias against MOBAs talking.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    That said, it's closer to Smite than it is a hero shooter.

    I haven't played Smite since it came out, but has it really changed that much that it's no longer a hero shooter? 🤨 It was like Overwatch, 2 years before Overwatch came out.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Smite was not that much of hero shooter, Paladins from the same company was a hero shooter.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Hm... Maybe that's what I am thinking of. I know for sure that Smite is the reason Tribes: Ascend was left for dead, though, and that's reason enough to hate it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I miss Tribes: Ascend, great game. Hi-rez love to kill their games.

    Paladins always was better than overwatch and they killed it too.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    It's been hilarious watching Overwatch take notes from Paladins, the "Overwatch clone", more and more lately. 5v5, hero builds, more of a brawly playstyle... OW2 at times feels like a blend between OW1 and Paladins.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Not only they copied the way Paladins works but some heroes too. Kiriko is just Io, even the fox theme is the same. Maui is Raum. Freja looks a lot like Cassie but at least the playstyle is different, the other two have the same playstyle

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  • [–] 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    What valuing quality over profit does to a mf

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    Well it is the best game.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    I can never relax with that game. I just get it in my head that I must get my chores done right now and it always fucks my head up.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    jesus did i go back in time???

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    The fuck is with the clickbait title? For shame, OP

    Edit: Thanks for changing it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (22 children)

    God I wish I could enjoy it. I feel like I'm missing out. I just, I don't get it :(

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    While I enjoyed it, it was also very stressful. I think we just played wrong. We covered every millimeter of the plot with farms or other useful stuff and then proceeded to be busy for more than half the day with just maintenance. At some point this meant that we never got to explore and often barely had time to go to the stores or talk to the people in the village.

    Apart from overcooked it was probably the most stressful game Is ever played and it's not supposed to be like that

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    The urge to make even more money

    The days are just too short in the game

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

    Some people have a money anxiety built in that translates into the game. The funny thing is they bring it all themselves, the game makes absolutely no fuzz at all about making money.

    The very first scene is the main character running away from the ratrace to a farm. Yet the very first thing some players do is bring in the ratrace with them. Everything in the game makes money and no money at all is ever required by the game from the player, except to advance the farming itself. It doesn't even have banks or debts like animal crossing.

    It's bizarre how people, when left to their own devices, simply reproduce the worse habits of real life.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    no money at all is ever required by the game from the player

    Yes it is though? To upgrade the house, purchase new equipment, buildings, to see more features

    Sure, you can do without money, but then you're going to miss half of the game's features

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I might be remembering wrong, but I think it is entirely possible to develop relationships with the town characters and see almost all of the cutscenes without ever upgrading any of those.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    maybe, but I would say that's not most of the game's features, I personally don't really care about it

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Then you don't engage with over 60% of the game anyways. Sounds to me like a balanced game that has something to offer to a variety of players, and anxieties, overfixation and stress with some gameplay and not other seems to be something the player brings in and is not caused by the game.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    To open the community center (the primary goal for the first year+) specifically takes quite a lot of money actually, and outside of talking with NPC's once a day, money is necessary to get every other advancement I can think of. I agree that many players probably go too hard into trying to min/max things, but the game isn't as loosey-goosey with costs as you suggest.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No the game has a much, much worse anxiety time crunch in trying to 100% it before the end of year.. 2 ( I think) when grandpa shrine first measures progress.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    You don't find out what that means unless you made it to year two and it immediately tells you that you can keep trying anytime you want.

    It's not a one and done, you can literally retry the test infinitely. There is no crunch period at all, this anxiety comes from players misunderstanding things the game says in plain English.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yeah my problem with stardew is I feel too invested in min-maxing my time so I end up stressing over every minute in the game and it's too exhuasting

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I find it funny, because it is not required at all. You could be the most casual lazy ass gamer, and still see and accomplish every piece of content inside the game. The game doesn't penalize you, and instead goes out of the way to reward the player for everything they do, even if it is just loitering around and barely progressing stuff at random and by chance.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Personally I'd say that "always striving for the maximum and stressing myself out" is a personality trait that's not only a problem in Stardew Valley for me haha. I'm o it's not a great mindset to have, but unfortunately it's a subconscious drive that's hard to eliminate.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago*

    It doesn't feel like that though. For example, trying to earn money and progress by going into the cave or whatever to fight nets you almost no money gains and eventually your gear can't keep up.

    As someone who doesn't enjoy farming sims because they feel like work, it just doesn't feel like the game cares if you progress in other ways. And it may not penalize you, but a lot of the other options feel tedious because of the drastically lower rewards you get from trying to earn money through those activities.

    Thing is, that's ok. The game just isn't for me and I am fine having moved on.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    I never understand why anyone puts together those massive farms. Personally, I always end up leaving the vast majority of the space unused. My farms only ever occupy the space directly in front of the house, and even that needs sprinklers asap.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I guess it's just a mindset difference. I'd say me and my friends are all pretty competitive gamers (as opposed to more creative gamers). We tend to play games mostly for the challenge. Also didn't help that we had just finished our Facorio playthrough. So in our mind we still had "the factory must grow". So our minds were like "if space -> use space".

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Sorry, I probably could have been more clear that I was referring more to people that play SD for irl years and have crops spread all across their farm. I can definitely sympathize with new players that spread out too much without the experience to know what that entails. Hell, I'm pretty sure did the same my first time playing. It seems petty natural to make that choice.

    Fwiw, if you end up trying the game again, I found QOL mods really enhanced my enjoyment of the game, particularly the one that provided the option to change how long days were. Even just a 20% change really helped make the game less stressful for me.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Are you into dramatic NPCs? If no, you have to play it multiplayer with someone who gives a crap about pixel people.

    I tried playing it alone but every system in the game is puddle deep so I was only able to play until winter by myself.

    Then I played it with my girlfriend, and I spent 100 fondly remembered hours.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    There are probably games or other media that you love that the average Stardew Valley fan wouldn't click with. You're not missing out, you've just got other stuff you enjoy.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Very true, but then again most Overwhelmingly Positive games I find amazing. I do have a long list of games I love and a selection I actually always keep installed, some of which are mediocre by many people's standards ;)

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