STEAM 2020 Winter Sale Loot

[Ian C]

Anyone suggest any bargains?

Highly recommend "Generation Zero"...atmospheric, huge open world that has a definite "Far Cry" feel to it. Well done overall. Allows the player to use multiple tactics (from sniping to old fashioned SMG run and gun) to defeat mysterious robots that have suddenly appeared to take over the countryside. The game is about $8 with the sale, and is a steal at that price.

I love the Simon Stålenhag books and paintings that inspired it, but I heard a lot of mixed reviews about the game. Maybe for $8 it's worth the plunge.

I have about 20 hours of playtime so far...loved every second of it. I have not noticed any gameplay issues...except that you really have to do some tactical thinking, or the game will trounce you. As the game progresses, you are introduced to ever more dangerous robot types. You then have to find a tactic to defeat each of these. For example, the early "runner" robots can be fast, but when they pause, a well aimed sniper round to their fuel tank turns them into a ball of fire. Or later, some of the more heavy robots can be killed by exploding a small LPG tank under them. Anyway, great fun and no regrets. 

The game world is believable and gorgeous.

However, its not all wonderful. The inventory interface takes a little getting used to. The game only lets you save a spawn points. Also, when you are killed, the game forces you back to a spawn point...sometimes they are quite far away. I find myself missing Bethesda's standard save anywhere feature.

Will definitely check this one out  -Thanks!

[JasonPratt]

I'm doing pretty well distracting myself from potential sales (and a lot of other more important things) this year, messing with Tabletop Simulator.  I may be able to make it out of the season without any purchases at all!


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...hm, wonder if TTS has any newish modules on sale? I always like to support the devs. And Tabletopia for that matter...

[demjansk1942]

Do you like the table top simulator?

[mbar]

Anyone suggest any bargains?

Highly recommend "Generation Zero"...atmospheric, huge open world that has a definite "Far Cry" feel to it. Well done overall. Allows the player to use multiple tactics (from sniping to old fashioned SMG run and gun) to defeat mysterious robots that have suddenly appeared to take over the countryside. The game is about $8 with the sale, and is a steal at that price.

I'll second recommend Generation Zero. One of my favorite games.

[solops]

Bought...Nothing! In spite of having 20 items on my wish list I have seen nothing that interests me enough at the discount offered to push the buy button. Not to mention that I still have games from last year's sale that I have not played

[Gusington]

That is a very mature, responsible take on the Steam sale. And it won't fly here! Start screaming and throwing your wallet at things!!

[JasonPratt]

Do you like the table top simulator?

Very much. I may have to learn some scripting to create better notecards, and I'm not good at figuring out how to find and set up "tables" and "backgrounds" -- the actual area to play in. It's so great for solo, or for character-playing multiplayer. And if you can get some friends together, it's like being together with a real table -- except better in many ways because the host can copy-paste things, or even undo for serious problems, and setup is easy as pie (as long as there are saves to work from). Rule reminders can be attached to areas and pieces, some scripting can be set up ahead of time (if you know LUA, which I don't yet) for automating some things (including initial setup). TTS has a crazy number of modules now, so we can play out-of-print things or stuff we own but can't get all together on. (Or 'steal' plays of course, but often modders will take official Vassal material made public by publishers with permission, like most of GMT's catalog, and work from that.)

For example, four of the Crisis Grogs group (including our ArizonaTank, although Larry isn't in this particular game) are occasionally playing 1761: Canal Age to Rails (or whatever the title is), which is a recent 18xx game, now out of publication and freakishly difficult to find, as a way of teaching most of us the 18xx rules, because this game has a wonderful design of introducing 18xx concepts and rules progressively as the game goes along. A TTS modder has provided most of the 18xx series with similar scripting tools on each mod -- which is great -- but we're actually working from a private sub-mod where I added some extra information books. Three of us just got finished going through two or three full games of Churchill this way, too.

Meanwhile, I'm playing RAF: Lion vs Eagle 2-player solo (I own both single-player games for PC), based off a fine TTS mod which I've heavily modded up to place rule reminders around the board, and set up a secret area for Eagle player to work (in a potential two-player game for real). I'm recording that, and may put up a video series for demonstrating the 2-player game. TTS works very well for creating video records of boardgame play, obviously!

Here on Grogheads somewhere, I used a TTS module of Fire in the Lake to create a video series representing a four-player pbem Vassal game played by the Crisis Grogs. I've also used TTS mods to create video demonstrations of how to play games I've given to my nieces, so that they can watch and learn (since we're rarely able to get together and then almost never have the opportunity or wherewithal to play games together.  :'( )

I don't have anywhere to set up a solo game of Space Hulk Death Angels or Lord of the Rings Living Card Game, both of which I own, but there are good mods which I've been modding up further privately -- especially LotRLCG for creating the fan-based Tale of the Years mega-campaign.

I legitimately wish more publishers would team up with TTS so that there are more mods to legitimately buy; there are a lot, but not many groggy ones so far, though I've got the official Warfighter Modern set, which is again a great thing to use for solo play.

[JasonPratt]

I should add that depending on what you're playing, other players don't necessarily need to have TTS. One of the 1761 players back on Tuesday was off on Christmas vacation in a cabin northeast, and his Mac Airbook was giving him Peer-2-Peer problems staying connected with the mod for some reason (not with TTS or Steam, but with the mod per se). So since this game has no hidden information at all, or even randomness, he just watched over-the-shoulder on the zoom call, though he could have also done so over Steam (with the usual 10 second processing delay, not sure how much that's a problem anymore but I assume it is).

What TTS isn't] good at, unlike Vassal for example, is asynch play where players log on and make their moves and send on to the next player. Everyone pretty much has to be there, just like a real boardgame.

Of course, if the host is acting as gamemaster and running the rules for the players, then asynch can be done to some degree. I ran a forum game of Republic of Rome off TTS for a year and a half here on Grogheads, with some further modding by me for various purposes, using TTS snapshots, and sending players private information and snapshots by pmail (mainly involving their hidden cards).

[airboy]

This week I picked up:
Wasteland 2 Directors Cut
Imperium: Greek Wars
Queens Wish: The Conquest
Jagged Alliance 2

GoG is also having a big sale.  I picked up Queens Wish & JA2 there so I could play them on my laptop assuming we get to travel in 2021.

[Labbug]

Got from Steam:

Fantasy General II
Disco Elysium
Between the Stars

[Anguille]

Not planning on buying anything so far....have so much to play first.

[Pete Dero]

Not planning on buying anything so far....have so much to play first.

Over the years I think more about myself as a collector than as a player.   (it is the only logical explanation for my purchases)

[Sir Slash]

^ What he said.  O0

[demjansk1942]

I was thinking of buying mius front but still haven't purchased

[Geezer]

Nothing for me so far.  Too many games, too little time.  Might end up getting some DLC for games I already have but that will be it.