Steam Game

Pictures from Broken Age

stargrace December 13, 2015 No Comments

Another steam game I’ve had in my library but I didn’t actually get around to playing it until this week. Broken Age is tons of fun, with lots of puzzles. I didn’t even know about the “all star” cast until after I went back to the steam store page to look at why I hadn’t played it before (it has voice actors Elijah Wood, Jack Black, and Masasa Moyo).

There are two character stories you get to participate in from the start, and I flipped back and forth between both of them.

He doesn’t look very impressed, I blame the cereal selection.

These adorable little guys were just so cute I wanted to HUG THEM ALL.

Looking over some little creatures that we want to save.

All in all, I had a great time playing. It’s no wonder user reviews mark this game as ‘very positive’. Can’t wait to see where the stories take me next.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Gaming

More Steam Screenshots – and Steam Sales

stargrace November 25, 2015 No Comments

[36/50] We’re winding down for IntPiPoMo – and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to participate, because I have revitalized myself with some amazing screenshots I forgot I even took. Each one comes with a memory of whatever game I happened to be playing. It’s wonderful.

Yesterday the latest Steam sale started, and this time they’ve removed a lot of the hustle and bustle that you used to see from it. There’s no more “vote on what goes on sale next!” type of deals, nor are there any “this deal is only around for 2 hours and then it will be new sales!” deals either. Instead, what you see is what you get. I found this to be both good and bad. Good, because now I no longer have to wait during a sale to see if a 50% off game will drop to 75% off sometime throughout the sale, and bad because I also have a lot less hype for things.

[37/50] Even with the new version of doing sales, I still ended up making a few purchases. To begin with, all of the DLC for Tropico 5 along with two expansions I was missing were on sale for 75% off. There were 11 DLC in total that I didn’t own and I love Tropico 5, it’s an awesome game, very relaxed.

[38/50] I didn’t buy any more games (yet) but I did add a few more to my wishlist. Don’t forget you can always add me to steam! Anyway, I added Life is Feudal to the list, along with StoneHearth, two games I’m very interested in but just don’t have extra funding right this moment. Life is Feudal of course being the more exciting of the two for me at least.

[39/50] Then I spent a bunch of time looking through the activity section of my steam. I love this, it shows me what everyone is up to, what purchases have been made, what items are hot on wishlists this year. Don’t forget to add a wishlist guys, you never know!

[40/50] There’s four days left of November, and 10 screenshots left to post – so I think I’ve done pretty well on IntPiPoMo. Even with my sporadic blog posts. It even encouraged me to write a bit more than I normally would have. With NaNoWriMo going on this month, and holidays coming up, I know everyone is pretty busy. One thing I’ve learned from working at home, is how to manage my time to make sure that “all the things” end up getting done. Of course this year I also had to let some things slide (Gamers Secret Santa, I’m looking at you) but I know it was for the best.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

A Love of Steam Screenshots

stargrace November 20, 2015 No Comments

[23/50]It’s another screenshot dump! This time from my steam library. First up? The Flame in the Flood. This quirky little game is still in beta, but developers have been updating it on a regular basis thanks to feedback from players.

[24/50] Next up? H1Z1 by SOE. now, yes, when I first bought this game it was specifically because it was created by SOE and I was still in love with EQ2 – however, those days are a bit behind me now. That being said, the game is still absolutely breathtaking.

[25/50] Another amazing steam game – Life is Strange. This game.. I just don’t even have words. If you’ve never played it before you should pick it up (especially if you’re into any sort of games with great stories).

[26/50] Of course lets not forget Magicka – the game I spent more time killing my team mates than any other game. Oy.

[27/50] The final one for today, Pillars of Eternity. Another beautiful game with an amazing story.

Gaming

My adventures with Minecraft: Story Mode

stargrace October 13, 2015 2 Comments

Today marked the release date of Minecraft: Story Mode. Now these games created by Telltale games are basically choose your own adventure games, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. To be honest before today I’ve never played one before, even though I was gifted the bundle just a short time ago. I went in knowing that I absolutely love these types of games, they appeal to every side of my gamer self.

I don’t want to talk about the game that much because it will give away details of the story that are much better experienced in person. I did put up a short video on my youtube / twitch channel with the introduction but didn’t stream any further.

I will say that Ruben makes the game. Your faithful sidekick. He’s awesome.

Oh and of course I’ll show a bunch of screenshots too. So glad I picked this up, and can’t wait for the next episode.

Into the Nether.

Fun with minecarts.

Gaming

Changes to ARK: Survival Evolved

stargrace September 15, 2015 2 Comments

The last time I played ARK: Survival Evolved was right when the game released on steam as an early access game. While many people had performance issues it ran pretty well on my machine, and I happily set up a dedicated server for a few friends. Of course after a few weekends of playing I got completely burnt out, which is usually the case for me and early access games. I let it go for a while, updates happened, and then yesterday I decided to play and see what had changed.

First of all, there’s a lot more server customization than there was last time I played. I decided to play around with these settings not necessarily to make the game ‘easier’ but to make it less time intensive. I changed the experience bonus to 3x what it is at by default, along with the amount of resources you gather at one time. I left encounter difficulty and damage alone, there was no need to change any of that.

There are now dedicated servers, and non-dedicated servers. Non-dedicated are easier to adjust. You basically just select all of the options at the login screen, login, and then friends can join you. There are a few ‘downsides’ to this type of server though. One, your friends are tethered to you. They spawn at you, they can’t walk beyond you. This can be frustrating. Also they can’t just log in and play whenever they want to, it’s all reliant on you playing with them. Hence why I decided to go with a dedicated server.

In order to adjust the settings on a dedicated server you need to adjust the server.ini file. There are TONS of options that can be adjusted. There’s a pretty good list of them here on the steam forums.

There are also mods that you can use in your game now. I haven’t looked into these at all yet, but I know the steam mod community is a large and amazing thing to witness. I can only assume that the ARK branch of this community is well represented and I’m sure I’ll start checking out the mods before too long.

They’ve also added a lot of new creature encounters to the game. While I was collecting supplies in the jungle I ran into some mosquito like creatures that ended up poisoning me so I died. There are also new water creatures, new dinosaur types, new crafted items – and of course the game is just as beautiful as always. I didn’t have any issues with performance even though I was running the server along with my game client, and I really think that for a game that I had not even heard of before the company has done a pretty incredible job.

Did you pick up ARK when it first came out? Are you still playing or would you prefer it to be out of early access first? Let me know in comments!

I still haven’t found a way to turn off friendly fire, so a word of caution when you’re playing with friends…

Pictures from Broken Age

More Steam Screenshots – and Steam Sales

A Love of Steam Screenshots

My adventures with Minecraft: Story Mode

Changes to ARK: Survival Evolved

You Missed

Leveling Up With Timewalking

The Construction of Quail Landing

Making Gold – One Sale at a Time

Timewalking, Gets me Every Time