Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm going to add the following games to my giveaway on the 18th:
Luck be a Landlord
Dicey Dungeons

I would like to be entered into the drawings for:
World of Horror
Project Zomboid

Okay, I have the following available:

Cities in Motion
Hacknet
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Alan Wake's Collector's Edition
Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut
Shattered Planet
SUPERHOT
Tropico 5
Yoku's Island Express

Looks like there's currently nothing planned for the 18th, so I'll put them up for then.

As a side note, I'd never noticed before that Steam will automatically copy a store URL if you click on the little link at the top of the page - very handy!

Also, sign me up for Final Profit: A Shop RPG

I've got no insight into either of the free games offered this week, but since no one else has posted anything yet...

There's two games being offered: Surviving the Aftermath and Earthlock.

Aftermath appears to be a post-apocalyptic colony sim, while Earthlock seems to be an RPG - in the JRPG tradition, if I'm interpreting the trailer and text description correctly.

Defeated the Hand of the King on 2 BC / New Game++, earning me the ability to turn up the difficulty one more notch. (Some new, harder monsters; and the game's gotten downright stingy on between-level healing.)

I was having an excellent run, blasting through the levels taking only minimal damage; such that I was able to preserve my healing potions. Then I stumbled onto some really extraordinary luck - on one of the final levels leading up to boss (so when item levels are their highest, so weapons will have lots of affixes and high base damage), I came across a legendary weapon shrine. Defeating its guardians, I was awarded with a legendary-grade Starfury (a Terraria crossover weapon).

The regular Starfury is decent, but nothing special - its high rate of attack is balanced against the fact that it's not very good against normal enemies, since its attack doesn't cancel their attack animations. Each time you hit an enemy, two stars are spawned, which deal critical damage to random targets on screen - not so great when there's an entire screen of things that the stars might target; quite deadly when there's only a single enemy (like a boss battle.) Legendary Starfury doubles the number of stars spawned with each hit, more than doubling its damage.

It was still a difficult fight - if I hadn't had nearly all my healing charges I might still have lost - I actually chugged one potion while I was standing in a spike pit, since the pit was slightly safer than possibly getting juggled by the boss attacks.


Edit: Wow, and just a single day later, I managed to beat the game on 3 BC / New Game+++ mode.

Turns out that having a heavy hitting, fast weapon that deals criticals on enemies who are held (Baseball Bat) and a thrown weapon that inflicts a long-lasting hold effect - even to most bosses - (Boy's Axe) makes for a formidable combo. I even managed to finally scoop up a 'no hit' achievement on one of the bosses that I'd been unable to perfect before now.

I've been playing a bunch of Dead Cells recently, mostly on New Game++ mode, although occasionally dialing the difficulty back to base and winning a game here and there, just to prove to myself my skills actually are getting better.

It really is one of the best roguelike-Metroidvania games I've ever played. The excellent musical score, amazingly responsive controls, huge variety of weapons, challenging bosses - the developers have really just put everything together in an amazingly tight package.

Props on the longevity of support, too - the game came out 2018, and there's a new free content patch that just entered beta testing this week.

Hollow Knight might have it beat for straight-up Metroidvania experience, and I probably like Slay the Spire or Dungeons of Dredmor for more traditional roguelike fare; but if I want to just spend half an hour trying out a new combination of weapons/mutations, running through levels and killing dudes (and probably dying horribly), Dead Cells is my go-to.

Could the second one be MULE, or one of its remakes?

Anyone know how treasure maps work? I bought a couple in an auction. The description mentions hidden treasure.

Using one brings up a chunk of your map (although in black and white), with a bright red "X".

So I've found the spot on the map marked by the "X", but I can't find anything there that looks like either a treasure chest or somewhere I can dig. Do I need a shovel or something?