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"Inspired" by the Square-Enix putting their foot in their mouth thread, I thought it'd be interesting to make a little thread about indie games. People always talk about wanting to try different, cheaper titles, but with how hard it is to get good gaming news and the state of advertisement/marketing, word of mouth tends to be only alternative.

I'll list some of my recent finds, and try to avoid absurdly well known games (Hades, Hollow Knight, Sea of Stars) but not only that is a personal restriction, I also think people should request suggestions from others, if they got something they'd like to try in mind but don't know any options;

With that said, here's my first few entries:

Pseudoregalia

A 3D platformer, Pseudoregalia is a short adventure that doesn't overcome its stay, and provides exactly what it aims to do: Smooth, responsive jumping and platforming as you travel across a sinister castle

Cassette Beasts

I've seen news sites calling this "The best non-Pokémon monster catching game". I disagree, with the current state of both Nintendo and Gamefreak, there's no "but" when it comes to Cassete Beasts: It is currently the best monster catching game. Amazing graphics, soundtrack, and mechanics, its what every former Pokémon fan deserves.

Rabbit and Steel

What if MMOs were good? I'm joking, but Rabbit and Steel has taken people by surprise by focusing on one aspect of the multiplayer games: You're here to do bossfights, and only the bossfights. Team up with others in co-op or play by yourself, in a game where you're gunning for the dungeon boss in frantic, chaotic combats. Don't step on the wrong places, don't get in the way of your allies spellcasting, don't die, die, try again.

Lil' Guardsman

What if Papers Please looked much more cute but was still distressing? Play as a 12 year old in charge of a guard outpost and decide who gets to enter the town and who gets zapped to death.

Final Profit

My personal pick and one of my favorite games of the past year. Queen Mab's realm has been slowly been overtaken by The Bureau and their insidious machinations. In one desperate bid, she decides to go out into the world and fight capitalism by becoming a Lord of Business herself. Final Profit is a game that delivers massive serotonin doses with its shopkeeping and development mechanics at the same time that it doesn't shy away how there's no morally good way of shaking hands with capitalism. A satisfying and stressful experience, packed into a solid shopkeeping game.

ULTRAKILL

ULTRAKILL is one of the dopest, most high octane games published in the past few year. Parry bullets, slide across levels, eviscerate enemies with an arsenal of incredible weapons, rack up combos, feed on their blood. Not only ULTRAKILL is an amazing game by itself, however, but its also widely supported by people who know games can be hard and displays a wide range of accessibility options for tuning up your difficulty; the best games are the ones you get to enjoy and they're well aware of it

Posters Suggestions Below!

frog: My recommendations for indie games:

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

You play a turnip and you get to commit crimes. The characters are cute, the humour is silly, there are puzzles and bosses. It plays a bit like a Zelda game, I guess, except everyone is a vegetable. It’s pretty short - I completed it in about 5 hours, including all the achievements. I should play this again actually.

Spirit of the North

This is such a beautiful game. The best way I can describe this game is Abzu but you’re a fox. No dialogue or narration, just you, your spirit companion, and some really gorgeous music. This is also a pretty short game - I was fully complete with all achievements in about 6 hours. I’ve played this 5 times since I bought it 9 months ago because I love it so much.

Terra Nil

A reverse city-builder, where your goal is to clean up all the pollution on the map, restore plants and wildlife, and then get rid of any traces of your presence. You can play the whole campaign in a few hours, but it took me about 20 hours before I got all the achievements. I’ve put in almost 50 hours in total, because it is just so chill to play.

DUSK

SanitationStation: Might be a too obvious suggestion. But DUSK is one of the best things ever. The moment when you meet your first wendigoo is peak FPS horror for me.

Gatekeeper

mystuffdoesntwork: I’ve been the playing the fuck out of Gatekeeper. The lore isn’t super deep yet but the gameplay is super fun to me and the dev road map makes it seem like they have a ton of major updates planned (new characters, modifiers and locations). I’m not 100 percent sure on the terminology but I think it is an isometric roguelike. Anyways I have 30 hours and counting in it and I just 100% the unlocks but I still want to try higher difficulty runs with a full party.

CrossCode

Corr: The one game I will never stop gushing praise for is crosscode. Not a short game by any means but it’s taken my number 1 spot handedly.

GeneForge 1: Mutagen

🦄🦄🦄: I am playing Geneforge 1: Mutagen right now. You are a wizard that csn shape monsters into life to fight for you. Very oldschool-ish isometric rpg. It’s a lot of fun and very indie.

BackPack Hero

thisisbutaname: I find myself playing more and more Backpack Hero

Going Medieval

MountingSuspicion: I keep trying to find ways to evangelize Going Medieval. The devs have been so communicative and consistent with updates. It’s not everyones kind of game, but I’ve definitely spent more time than I should have playing it.

Arctic Eggs

ramirezmike: Arctic Eggs is a short but neat game about frying eggs

Animal Well

Blackmist: Reminds me of old Spectrum platform games, like Jet Set Willy or Dynamite Dan. Only with better controls. Sort of Metroidvania. Not overly difficult for the most part, although some bits took me a fair few attempts. Lots of secrets and hidden areas. Made by a single developer, Billy Basso, who sounds like a comic book character, but a British one who says things like “cor, eh readers?”

New Super Lucky's Tale

Kissaki: New Super Lucky’s Tale is a great action platformer. My review on Steam.

RainWorld

been_jamming: Rainworld - A beautiful, brutal survival platformer. This has become my favorite game. The game tells you almost nothing, and just tosses you into a world where all creatures are fighting each other to survive another cycle.

AI War

AI War 2

Ashen44: AI War 1 & 2 are both great and unique space RTS games. These games place you in the role of the last vestiges of humanity attempting to fight back against a galaxy spanning AI empire. You’re tasked with covertly taking down the rogue AI without letting them realize you’re a real threat, lest they bring the full might of their fleets down upon you.

Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal

Creeper World is a series of tower defense games with a unique twist: the enemy is a liquid! You’ll have to use a variety of weapons and tools to fight back against the literal tide of creeper. The third game is my personal favourite, though they’re all awesome.

Mosa Lina

Mosa Lina is self described as “a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim”. This game is chaos incarnate. Every level you are given a random set of tools and must touch or destroy all fruit and make it to the goal. Some levels will not be possible. Failure is expected. You can do some prettt cool things with a spear and a phaser though.

Siralim Ultimate

luciole: Siralim Ultimate is a very special monster collector. The sheer amount of everything is delightfully overwhelming, the depth is nonsensical and the grind is real. I love it.

WindowKill

Lumu: The most clever bullet hell I’ve ever played, best experienced on mouse and keyboard.

Windosill

More of an interactive art piece. Very short but I still think about it years later. (Some of their other stuff is available online for free and is similarly enjoyable)

Magic Wand

Like a surreal, jumbled mess that seems to parody a badly translated JRPG. Another short and sweet experience.

HYPER DEMON

Like a nightmarish fever dream. If you like old school FPS mechanics like rocket jumping and bunnyhopping you’ll feel right at home. This one is a little difficult to show people gameplay of because it looks impossible to decipher, but when you’re actually playing it and really start to get entranced, it’s an experience like nothing else. The way it gives you a 360 fov is an incredible mechanic.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

My favorite game of all time. Adorable puzzle game where you paint the world, with a story about what makes someone an artist. One thing I really like about this is the open ended way it lets you approach creative tasks; It’s up to you to decide how much you want to invest, there’s no scoring system to gamify the art portions, which is very in-line with the story to me. Edit: Oh, and a great soundtrack by Lena Raine!

We Who Are About To Die

Skezlarr: I’ve recently been playing a lot of We Who Are About To Die, and even though it’s an early access game, its been great fun. It’s a roguelite physics-based arena fighter where you play as an aspiring gladiator, and fight your way up the ranks. The multiple types of matches and mutators really keep the gameplay feeling fresh, and the mechanics are surprisingly deep.

Dinkum

The other game that I’ve been playing a lot is Dinkum, which is somewhat like a mix of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, with heavy Australian Outback overtones. It’s a nice game to play with friends and significant others, since there’s plenty to do with a good mix of action and cosy gameplay.

AndrasKrigare: To help give love to some games I think are underrated, here's a list of my favorite games with 4,000 reviews or less on steam under $25 ranked by my personal play time.

Neo scavenger $15

Post apocalyptic survival sim, that reminds me a tiny bit of Oregon Trail. There's a good chance a scratch will kill you, and finding a plastic bag so you can carry more than what you hold in your two hands makes you feel OP. I've put 74 hours into this game, have died and restarted countless times, and have hardly gotten anywhere in it, but it's exactly my kind of survival game

Fae tactics $20

Turn-based grid combat reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, with just a splash of pokemon. The mechanics and setting I found really fun, although the difficulty can fluctuate a good bit at times.

Xenonauts $25

If OG XCOM went more crunchy than streamlined, it'd be Xenonauts instead of Firaxis's Enemy Unknown. The combat gives you a ton of control during combat, specifying how much time they should spend aiming before shooting, specific hours of overwatch, crouching, etc.

Star Renegades $25 (currently $5)

Roguelike turn based party RPG. It doesn't do a crazy amount that's new or novel, but it executes very well, and lining up a good combo with your build feels amazing.

Rogue Book $25

Slay the Spire with some smart additions. Instead of one hero, you play two, which gives some extra possibilities to mix and match between runs. Instead of an overmap with a couple branching paths, there's a hex overworld where you can use resources to reveal tiles.

Wildfire $15

Avatar the Last Airbender as a 2d stealth action game. The level layouts are great, and the ability upgrades strike a good balance between being impactful and not trivializing encounters.

Don't Escape: 4 Days to survive $15

A classic point and click adventure, except using human logic instead of insane Game Logic. Reminds me of a bunch of similar games I played at the height of Newgrounds. It's a tight, solid experience that doesn't over stay its welcome.

Alina of the Arena $15

What if Slay the Spire had a hex grid system? I've seen other games ask this question, but Alina is the best I've played. There are some really clever design decisions they've made where certain builds very intuitively form some classic archetypes.

Shardpunk $14 (currently $10)

Roguelike XCOM themed as a crystalpunk version of Vermintide. Combat is solid, but the theme of running to the exit while shooting rats on the way with crystal powered machine guns sets it apart for me.

The Case of the Golden Idol $18

This one breaks my "4,000 or less" review rule by a little bit, so I'm putting it at the bottom, but it is one of my favorite games. I understand the love for Obra Dinn, but Golden Idol is better in my opinion. Each puzzle is a scene more or less frozen in time, which you can click on things for clues as what's happening. What sets it apart is how you really do need to solve the mystery to progress; the game doesn't walk you into it nor really lets you brute force it. Hands down the best mystery game I've ever played.

Corn Kidz 64

Dizzy Devil Ducky: Corn Kidz 64: if you like games that play like they were made for older consoles (n64 in this case) and directly ported to modern PC (requires controller and has no mouse and keyboard support). Currently $6.99USD on Steam. Long enough to leave me satisfied but short enough to make me want more.

Ardor

Ardor: free to play deck builder. Hasn’t been updated much since launch, I’m pretty sure. Play as a hexagon fighting other hexagons on a board of hexagons. Last I checked it currently has attack cards, movement cards, and cards that allow you to infect enemies. After each round you get to use the in game currency to upgrade things like how far an attack can reach, damage, how far you can move, etcetera. All numbers can go up for the right price. Currently $0.00USD on Steam. Has a $5.99USD support the developer DLC that, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t actually do anything.

Brok the InvestiGator

Brok the InvestiGator: describes itself as the very first punch and click, having a point and click mode and a character control mode. Has multiple endings depending on how you play and what you do. Currently $19.99USD on Steam and has for $4.99 and $3.99 respectively a soundtrack and artbook DLC. Base game includes unlockable fan art and official character sheets. Also has a demo that contains all of chapter 1 of the full game, so you can see if it’s a game for you.

Amorous

Amorous: NSFW furry dating sim visual novel game. Free to play. Can’t get a real date? Have fun trying to get into the pants of virtual people instead! Warning! Contains nudity and visible genitals! Currently $0.00USD on Steam. Must be logged in to look at Steam page, but no such requirement for the itchio page.

It was my favorite torrent site aggregator, so its a little disheartening to see it go.

I'd appreciate any suggestions for replacements, as well

Reminder that on GOG you can download your games DRM free, with no need to install a new client

You are Neil Conrad, CDI agent. Awoken by the news of a murder, you rush into a case that will soon turn your life and the whole solar system upside down. Ask questions, collect evidence, and put the pieces together until the ugly truth reveals itself... or not.

The story branches and ends based on your actions. There's no going back. Sure, you can rush your way to the end – if you don't mind paying the price. Play your cards right, and you might make it out alive.

Some questions don't have a right answer. Will you sell out a friend to protect your family? Will you endanger a loved one in exchange for public safety? Will you keep the peace or reveal the horrible, world-shattering truth?

Subscribing to the GOG newsletter will allow you to add the game to your library, which can then be downloaded DRM free

(Or with GOG Galaxy, if you prefer)

Subscribing to the GOG newsletter will allow you to add the game to your library, which can then be downloaded DRM free

(Or with GOG Galaxy, if you prefer)

[Original article in the title has links with sources, text-only copied here]

Video game company layoffs are creating an industry crisis

DevelopersDevelopers at Palia studio Singularity Six were still celebrating a successful early access launch when a surprising announcement was made: The company was laying off around 10% of its workers. Though the game is a cozy life simulator, layoffs were something that was “not so cozy,” as a Singularity Six leader had called parts of game development in a previous meeting, according to two workers.

Singularity Six is just one of the dozens of game companies that laid off workers in 2023, and its workers are among the thousands of people who lost their jobs this year. Only days after ringing in the new year, layoff announcements started rolling in: Wizards of the Coast canceled multiple projects and laid off a dozen people; game engine maker Unity Technologies cut 300 people; Microsoft laid off a staggering 10,000 people, which impacted both Starfield’s Bethesda Game Studios and Halo Infinite’s 343 Industries. The bad news just kept coming as the year progressed, as studios both big and small axed jobs — Digital Extremes, Epic Games, Telltale Games, BioWare, Bungie, CD Projekt Red, Ascendant Studios, Electronic Arts, Embracer Group and Volition, Amazon’s games division, and too many more.

Though there isn’t clear data on how 2023’s disastrous layoffs compare to other years, game developers Polygon spoke to agree: This has been one of the worst years for workers in a long, long time. (Polygon interviewed more than a dozen game developers for this story.) Unofficial trackers suggest more than 7,000 video game workers have been laid off in 2023; for comparison, another community-driven list suggested there were roughly 1,000 in 2022. The nearby tech industry has seen a 716% increase in layoffs announced year over year, too, according to research firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. “This is not just one individual company,” video game producer Shayna Moon told Polygon. “This is our entire industry. The current situation is not debatable.”

“Paired with tight economic conditions, the impact of layoffs has been amplified by reduced hiring and increased job competition,” said International Game Developers Association executive director Dr. Jakin Vela in an interview with Polygon. “This has been one of the most volatile periods in the games industry in the last 15 years.” Vela said that the IGDA is “deeply concerned” about the layoffs.

But why have there been so many layoffs this year? Studios have provided similar kinds of statements about laying off workers: We’re very sad to see our employees go, but we’ve had to make hard decisions during this economic downturn. Sometimes an executive will blame it on a lack of sales or player numbers, like a dwindling player base for Destiny 2 or poor sales with Immortals of Aveum, which was out for mere months before Ascendant laid off half of its staff. Epic Games, which cut its workforce by 800 people, pointed to overspending. “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” CEO Tim Sweeney said. Regardless of the details that led to this moment, the current picture is clear: Thousands of people have lost their jobs, plunging a massive group of people into instability and flooding the market with lots of qualified, established game developers looking for work.

“Many factors have contributed to the significant amount of layoffs developers have faced in 2023,” Vela said. “For example, large investments in games in 2021 and 2022 encouraged expansion at an accelerated yet unsustainable rate.” During that time period, video game companies had benefited from pandemic-driven interest in gaming, driving sales to everything from consoles and games to accessories, increasing profits.

Aubrey Quinn, senior vice president of communications for the Entertainment Software Association, agreed: The industry expanded in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding up to be worth $56.6 billion in 2022, she said. That’s a level of growth that no other entertainment industry has matched. “What we’re seeing now is that the market is stabilizing,” Quinn added.

Vela highlighted that struggling companies have it way easier than the individuals they’re laying off: “Now that investments have slowed down, companies have readjusted their spending to accommodate tighter budgets. Additionally, the industry is facing rising costs due to inflation and increased interest rates. Worse yet, the current economic conditions are most disruptive for individuals who don’t benefit from major tax incentives or breaks that companies may have.”

The precarity of the industry, coming off several years of massive success, has created a crisis for game developers. In 2022, the industry was trending slightly downward revenue-wise, according to Reuters, but it’s expected to grow again this year. That may come as a relief to executives and stockholders — but the industry’s workers still suffer.

A lack of transparency leads to far more pain

“Layoffs suck — I don’t care who you are,” said Take This clinic director Dr. Raffael Boccamazzo. “Whether you’re the person who’s been laid off, whether you’re the person who has to deliver the news, or whether you’re somebody who still remains at the company with added pressures. They have negative effects [on people].” Often, Boccamazzo said, the negative impacts of layoffs come down to the “perception of justice” in terms of how the layoffs are handled.

A company that’s transparent with its employees ahead of layoffs — or one that lets employees know layoffs may be coming, but that the company is trying to mitigate the loss — leaves people in a better position in terms of their mental health. The alternative, said Boccamazzo, is much worse: “You go to work thinking it’s a regular day like anything else, swipe your card, and you can’t get into the building,” he said. “Both result in layoffs, but both have the potential to result in very different mental health outcomes, both in the people who are laid off and the people who remain, because of that perception of justice and dignity.”

For many of the developers Polygon spoke to, the lack of clarity and communication around layoffs has made a bad situation even worse. On Sept. 28, Fortnite and Unreal Engine maker Epic Games announced it was laying off more than 800 employees — 16% of the company. The night prior, current and former Epic Games employees told Polygon, a mystery meeting got added to everyone’s work calendar. There was no information included, except for a directive: Cancel any meetings that conflict with this one, because this one is mandatory. “I jokingly messaged my team and was like, ‘I don’t feel good about this meeting. Is this how we find out we’re all getting fired?’”

Another former employee said they started to panic when they first saw the meeting and its accompanying email; however, other team members didn’t assume it was a layoff, and posited the meeting might be about Epic Games’ ongoing legal battles. “Thursday rolls around — a totally normal day,” the former employee said. “I have my morning meetings, my standup. No one knows what the meeting is about, but everyone thinks it’s fine. There was not a singular whisper from my experience about layoffs.”

Right before the meeting began, though, the truth became clear. Epic Games suddenly shut down the entire company’s Slack workspace, which is its primary communication method. Then, the calendar event’s title was changed: It was officially a meeting about layoffs. “I was the only one who received that email,” the worker said. “The people who were with me did not. I just stared at it and started crying.”

The toll of crunch culture

Working in the video game industry is notoriously difficult. Some companies demand “crunch” time, where people work even longer hours in the lead-up to a project. The industry has also been grappling with a pervasive culture of sexism and gender discrimination, as well as its overall lack of diversity across gender and racial demographics. The game industry is also typically referred to as a “passion industry,” because people who make games often love the games they make; companies can and do exploit that passion for profit.

Doing work in creative and other “passion” industries can feel so personal, because making art is personal. It makes a job feel like more than just a title, but like a defining part of a person. That culture of dedication to the craft of making video games makes it easy for developers to get wrapped up in their work, making a layoff even more demoralizing.

“Some people are even questioning their identities,” Boccamazzo said. “There’s so much passion that goes into making games. I’ve been around a lot of creative professions, and I think the passion that goes into making games is unique. It becomes a part of [people’s] identities — they make games, they’re a game dev. And so the loss of the job is not just the loss of a job and financial stability, it’s also a threat to self-identity in a lot of cases.”

Workers at both Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Games and Palia studio Singularity Six reported crunch hours leading up to the games’ releases — after which point they were unceremoniously laid off. It felt like a betrayal, for some developers, that their company had treated them in such a way so soon after they had completed all that work. It didn’t help, either, that days after laying off nearly half its staff, Ascendant Games patted itself on the back for its successes during Epic Games’ Unreal Fest, workers said. Loyalty to a company doesn’t make workers immune to layoffs; BioWare, for instance, laid off 20-plus-year veterans earlier this year. (Some of those 50 laid off employees are now suing the company for adequate severance pay, tied to their tenure.)

Two Epic Games employees laid off in October found it particularly painful when they saw that, weeks after they were laid off alongside hundreds of others, Epic Games was boasting about its record-breaking player base — 44.7 million players logged into Fortnite on Nov. 4.

“Painful would be the word, to see people out there celebrating this product that just screwed you over,” one former Epic Games worker said. “I wasn’t on the Fortnite team, but I can’t imagine having to see a thing you actually worked on, that you were just snatched away from, being praised and celebrated for breaking records. And here you can’t find a job. It speaks to how little the people that are actually doing the work matter.”

Game developers are on a never-ending job hunt

As thousands of newly laid off developers are flooding the job market, the competition for remaining jobs has intensified, especially in the generally tumultuous time period after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “People are dealing with inflation, we’re dealing with other economic factors,” Moon said. “People are getting cut into shark-infested waters.”

One game developer who got laid off from Sega earlier this year told Polygon that he has since applied to more than 600 jobs — roughly three per day since he was let go eight months ago. He says there are times he spends all day applying for jobs. “I’ve never been unemployed before,” he said. “It’s a very traumatic experience — and I had it better than a lot of people. I had a cushion. I was given severance.”

And that isn’t a unique experience. Other developers told Polygon they’ve submitted dozens to hundreds of applications since getting laid off; applying for work is a full-time job. So many of these job applications go unanswered, while a lucky few get pulled into second- and third-round interviews. Several of the people Polygon spoke to have found new jobs, but the majority are still looking, and they expect to be continuing to apply into next year as hiring slows down for the holidays. One developer told Polygon that they’ve never been looking for a job at the same time as so many of their friends before.

“It feels like there’s thousands of us competing for a handful of jobs,” a former Epic Games employee told Polygon. One person laid off from Volition, which shut down its entire studio, said he got a rejection from one job within a speedy 10 minutes. “I was like, Oh,” he said.

There isn’t comprehensive data on how layoffs are distributed across fields within the video game industry, but community management is one area that appears to have been hit hard. A laid-off community manager who worked for an independent company told Polygon that community management can be seen as entry-level work, underpaid and underappreciated like QA workers often are. “It’s usually seen as a good way to cut costs when layoffs come around,” she said — fewer salaries to pay while still keeping game development on track. Beyond job positions, women and other marginalized people are often disproportionately impacted by layoffs in the tech industry, according to analysis reported by Axios.

If this is unsustainable, then what’s next?

Video game workers are paying for the mismanagement of leadership; video game executives aren’t seeing the same hits to their jobs and compensation. For instance, Electronic Arts laid off more than 700 employees in March as $1.3 billion in gross profits were reported in the previous fiscal quarter; even CEO Andrew Wilson said at the time that EA was “operating from a position of strength” as he takes home an estimated $20.7 million in total compensation in 2023. (That number, however, is down from the more than $39 million he received in total compensation in 2021.) Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney’s salary isn’t public, but he’s estimated to be worth almost $10 billion, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index, thanks to Epic Games stock. It’s safe to say Sweeney is not living paycheck to paycheck.

The game industry’s growth over the past few years inevitably had to slow, but during that time, executives clearly incentivized short-term profit over long-term stability and the value of their workers. “A lot of reckless expansion of game monopolies has caught up to [the industry],” former Volition mission designer Alex Cline told Polygon. “Embracer owns a large part of the industry. Tencent owns a large percentage. We have huge consolidation of labor and IP. When you’re trying to get as much money as possible — if that’s ultimately your fundamental goal — then you’ve got to remove some expenses there. People were just an expense. They don’t necessarily care about the human impact.”

Most of the people Polygon spoke to for this story said that something needs to change. Several pointed to collective action on the part of workers, whether that means unionizing or pulling together to demand change in some other way. Unions can’t prevent layoffs, but they could help workers in securing more transparency at work. And if layoffs do happen, a union can be there — with legal support — to ensure that compensation and severance are adequate. The way forward for the industry, said workers, is to think about people over profit.

Though the game industry is a relatively young one, the systems in place have a deep chokehold, and change isn’t going to happen overnight. Change is coming — there are many more unions in the industry now, and even more incoming as workers organize themselves. That may not be much help to the people already laid off, but it brings hope for the future.

“The saddest thing I noticed is people who are younger and haven’t gone through this before who think this is their fault,” one former Singularity Six worker said. “It’s not their fault. They didn’t do anything wrong. There wasn’t anything better they could have done. They didn’t fail in some way. There’s nothing wrong with them — they’re not ugly and they’re not unpopular. This is just investors and other people who depend on investors throwing darts at a board. They just happened to land on those numbers. That’s it.”

Another OTA and probably one of the harshest, and most divisive ones so far. First of all, let's see their ~~excuses~~ justifications:

Galactus

[Old] 6/7 – On Reveal: If you’re winning this location and this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.

[Change] 6/7 -> 6/5

We expected Alioth to find a fast home in Galactus decks, which wasn’t a problem in and of itself. Exciting new cards shouldn’t hit the cutting room floor because existing cards might like them too much, especially if that card is Galactus–the whole reason we reworked him was to give us a knob that could rein him in. Given his metrics spiked well outside our acceptable range for over a week, we’re taking a harder line with this change than usual based on the impact we need. We liked Galactus right where he was before Alioth, so that’s our target range for his performance.

Kitty Pryde

[Old] 1/2 – When this returns to your hand, +1 Power. Returns at the start of each turn.

[Change] 1/2 -> 1/0

Kitty has been places. She’s seen things. And it’s been a fun ride! Kitty was an integral player in the metagame’s best deck at least four different times, and each of those decks was meaningfully distinct from the rest. That’s a pretty rare feat, and speaks to her raw strength as a card that both eats excess Energy and has cool mini-combos, like Angela and Hulkbuster. However, as we continue to make similar synergies, we want other cards to get their opportunities to compete with Kitty. This change is a little preemptive, as we expect Kitty would be too strong in October without it, and we’ll likely continue to explore different executions of Kitty for a future patch.

Psylocke

[Old] 2/1 – On Reveal: Next turn, you get +1 Energy.

[Change] 2/1 -> 2/2

We’ve had this change internally for a while, but we wanted to wait and see how the dust settled on some of the live decks that play with Energy ramp and Cost reduction. We hope Psylocke can eventually join the Electro/Magik/Wave crowd as another common way to push for big plays. Ideally she maintains a distinct identity from those options as a 2-Cost card that offers different curves and deck design opportunities.

Squirrel Girl

[Old] 1/1 – On Reveal: Add a 1-Power Squirrel to each other location.

[Change] 1/1 -> 1/2

Like Mysterio and Shanna, Squirrel Girl’s total power has been on the low side for how much space she takes up among your locations. She’s largely been confined to supporting early Ka-Zar decks for new players and Death-based decks in competitive play. We’re glad to have her continue on in both of those roles, but she’s a fun and appealing enough card to give a little bit more Power to see if she can find more homes. She’s been acting pretty spooky since this change, though–you should be careful walking through Central Park next month.

Snowguard Hawk

[Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities until the end of next turn (or the game).

[Change] 2/3 -> 3/3

Snowguard Bear

[Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.

[Change] 2/3 -> 3/4

We’re happy that Snowguard’s rework brought her in from the cold. However, the bulk of her strength has proven to be in concert with Loki and The Collector, where the extra cards she generates are the primary reward and the auroras are secondary. We don’t mind that much–the auroras are situational themselves–but they don’t need to be so efficient in that case, either. The Bear is gaining more Power because his effect has proven by far the weaker of the two.

With that shared, I can't help but feel that both this and the previous updates have been, at best, misguided. Even as a Galactus Hater™ I have to admit that he is not the issue of the matter here: Its the fact that Alioth is a "I win" card in any condition where its the only space it can be played. And just like the previous Collector nerf in regards to Loki, this seems like them trying to avoid altering a recent paid release rather than genuinely attempting a balance. Loki can still infinitely copy cards to a player's hand and Alioth can still erase the opposite space, so these barely feel like a bandaid.

Meanwhile the Kitty Pride and Squirrel Girl changes feel a bit odd. I get the idea, but a 'pre-patch' to consider cards that haven't even been released yet - and thus have no practical data on performance - is more than a little awkward.

Gotta say that the Psylocke change also is a little out of the left field, reminding me of when Nova out of all cards got a power buff. Sure, its nice to see, but I have never seen someone playing those cards for Power.

Still, this is definitely going to be a shaking up in the meta, even if not the one I desired. Thoughts?

Its another week of light balance updates, remaking, nerfing and simple reworks. As expected, the recent Collector+Loki combo is going to get a slight change, though we have to see how much it'll actually affect the meta. First of all, the official info:

The Collector

[Old] 2/2 - When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power

[Change] 2/2 -> 2/0

Taneleer Tivan, better known by the above moniker, has become the primary Power carry in virtually every Loki-based deck. We're sure he'll still fill that role well with this change, but this should help other decks build boards that at least threaten to compete with him. It's a ding to his use in other decks, but that was already pretty low, and Loki will ensure he always has one or more homes available. This change also makes him more vulnerable to a few counters, such as…

Shadow King

[Old] 3/3 - On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power. [Change] 3/3 -> 2/3

The recent surge in Shuri and The Collector has been good news for Shadow King, who is seeing play despite being relatively inefficient and occasionally reliant on revealing last. We decided to take a similar approach here to what we did successfully for Luke Cage and Invisible Woman, boosting his base rate to a level that players can justify playing in a wider range of strategies than Silver Surfer and Cerebro. We expect this will also relieve some of the pressure on Shang-Chi by diversifying the ways in which players can counter huge amounts of Power.

Lady Sif

[Old] 3/4 - On Reveal: Discard the highest-cost card from your hand. [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5

Lady Sif is one of those cards that's always been solid and had a home in a couple specific decks, most obviously Apocalypse, Hela, and Agatha. However, her individual performance hasn't been stellar, and when a lynchpin card for so many decks isn’t doing well, we like to poke at that a bit. We don't feel this will upend the metagame or anything, but pushing some medium-performance decks towards some time under the sun is one of the things we like to do via OTA, so let's try it out here.

Spider-Ham

[Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

[Change] 2/2 -> 1/1

We suspected the change in last week's patch might be damaging to Spider-Ham's usage, but we weren't sure–probably something like 65% sure, but that's a fair amount of doubt. Given we had an OTA coming just one week later, we decided to launch the patch with his 2/2 stats, then buff to 1/1 if that week indicated he needed the help. It did, so here we are.

Black Cat

[Old] 3/7 - If you end the turn with this in your hand, discard it.

[Change] 3/7 -> 4/9

Black Cat's been one of our weaker-performing cards for a long time. That might not be something we can fix with an OTA, but we've played with this version enough ourselves to at least be interested in seeing what develops, especially with a couple future cards forthcoming. Yes, this makes you more likely to discard her than play her, but the only decks interested in Black Cat were already assuming you'd be doing that. Increasing her Power makes that a better perk, and the number 9 is especially apt for the feline femme fatale.

Much like The Collector, a Spider-Ham change was expected after the harsh nerfs the card has been dealt with. Although unsatisfying to me personally, I feel like this will be its new niche, a somewhat thoughtless play to eliminate 1 card from the opponent's deck.

Though I am surprised by both Sif and Black Cat's minor buffs. I had no idea Felicia was so underwhelming - though to be fair I rarely see 'pure' Discard decks nowadays; They often have a Tribunal/Onslaught/Iron Man combo, or the meatiest 6 Cost cards alongside Hela and Modok.

So that's going to be our playground for a couple of weeks. Thoughts?

So with the new season also came a new patch, and some detailed reworks - including another total redo of an extremely unpopular card (I guess I'll bite my tongue now after trashing it). Let's see how that shakes up gameplay.

Official News Source

Some general updates, as a starter

GENERAL UPDATES

New Feature: Infinite Rank Revamp Infinite Rank Leaderboard: When reaching Infinite, rank will be replaced by your leaderboard standing.

Snap Points: Your standing is determined by your Snap Points (SP) - the more cubes you win, the more SP you get!

Conquest Mode Improvements:

Improved UI/UX experience after completing a Conquest run to remove extra screens

Mute now saved across multiple battles in the same match

New improved visuals for Infinite Avatar border!

And for the meat of the game, the general card rebalancing and remaking:

Blade

[Old] 1/3 - On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand.

[New] 1/3 - On Reveal: Discard the rightmost card from your hand.

Developer Note: A solid card in early discard strategies, Blade has dropped off in both popularity and win percentage. As we examined weaker cards that could use a little love, we'd also been thinking about ways we could give a little push to some discard synergy cards, like Hela, Ghost Rider, Swarm, and of course Apocalypse. Because Blade is a card players acquire early on, a change accomplishing both of these goals needed to be clean and simple, and we think this fits the bill. It might not be enough to breathe new life into the daywalker, but we like to find opportunities for small changes with the potential to make some interesting waves.

Soul Stone

[Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Draw a card. Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.

[New] 1/1 - Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.

Developer Note: It took players a few months to fully grasp the might of Thanos, but since then he's been a metagame mainstay with multiple stints at the top of the heap. We love Thanos, but his combination of flexibility and powerful synergy enablers has proven to be a bit dangerous over time. We decided we wanted to shave a piece of strength out of the kit, and decided to hit two birds with one stone by simplifying the only card in the kit with two abilities. We understand this is a bit ironic, considering the recent changes to Mystique and Rogue to copy the Soul Stone's draw effect, but oh well. While a meaningful loss of Power, we don't expect Thanos to fall out of favor once the dust settles.

Spider-Ham

[Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: Transform the highest-Cost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

[New] 2/2 - On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

Developer Note: As we mentioned in the OTA that adjusted Spider-Ham from 1/1 to 2/2, we weren't happy with how damaging his effect was to a few of our cooler 6-Cost cards, especially Apocalypse. However, we liked that Spider-Ham hit a solid sweet spot of disruption without fully denying you the card, and even had some risk due to Destroyer and Infinaut. This change aims to retain those positive elements without applying it exclusively to higher-Cost cards, and also makes the effect a lot easier to play around if you suspect Peter Porker might be paying you a visit. The trigger will still hit 6-Cost cards slightly more often, since they'll tend to migrate leftward in your hand as you wait to play them, but Apocalypse will safely hide on the right if you can keep discarding him.

Snowguard

[Old] 1/2 - While in your hand, this transforms each turn into a Hawk or a Bear.

[Old] Hawk: 1/2 - On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities next turn.

[Old] Bear: 1/2 - On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.

[New] 1/2 - On Reveal: Add the Hawk and Bear auroras to your hand.

[New] Hawk: 2/3 - On Reveal: Ignore all location abilities until the end of next turn (or the game).

[New] Bear: 2/3 - On Reveal: Trigger the effect of this location.

Developer Note: It feels like every patch includes at least one wacky, unexpected card change these days, so here's one for today! Snowguard has turned out to be a largely unsatisfying card for players, posting poor stats on both popularity and actual wins. Our goals for Snowguard were to create a novel tool for Hot and Featured locations that might also see some play in Conquest decks looking to surprise the enemy, but we fell short. In revising the design, we aimed to:

1. Make her stronger. Granting both the Hawk and the Bear is more total Power on-curve, and decreases the variance around whether either is useful.

2. Give her deckbuilding identity. A few decks (and more to come) already care about adding material from outside your starting deck to your hand.

3. Reduce confusion. Results weren't matching intuition around the Hawk, so we extended the window to start after it resolves. We also added text clarifying the effect won't last through the end of the game, even if you Hawk on the final turn.

4. If possible, let her variants stay in play. Leaning into summoning instead of transforming cleanly solved this.

Absorbing Man

[Old] 4/5 - On Reveal: If the last card you played has an On Reveal, copy its text. (if it’s in play)

[Change] 4/5 -> 4/4

Developer Note: What is this, an OTA patch? After last week's balance updates were locked, but before they went live, we saw a huge surge in the strength and popularity of decks based on the Forge + Brood + Absorbing Man curve. We knew our changes weakened other top decks, and that the new kid was already becoming a Big Deal in ranked and Conquest. We're often happy to let things breathe for a minute when a new deck appears, but this case was unique because it risked an especially dull metagame to let it ride until our next OTA. We decided to make a change now, and we'll evaluate it again with the data gathered from the most recent weekend post-OTA.

And Spider-ham takes yet another hit. While I can see their logic in the fact that high cost cards would eventually move to the left, disabling adversaries like Apocalypse or Hela was the entire point of the card. I imagine it won't be long until he gets another rework, as this will drastically reduce his potential.

The Absorbing Man nerf was more than expected. More than a few of my matches from the last week involved him and Brood being combo'd, as well as the usage of Forge making the trio fairly devastating.

Blade might have a chance of making it into my Discard deck now, it had been a while since I thought of using the man.

And as for Snowguard, well, that's a curious rework. My immediate thought is how its another addition to the Bounce/Collector meta, which was the target of a few reworks not long ago. But mostly it'll be a breath of fresh air for a card that no doubt was in the precipice of popularity ever since its release.

With that, we have our new playground for the next couple of weeks. Thoughts?

Store link

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Ghost Master features: 14 unique scenarios - ghoulish mysteries with multiple solutions; over 40 spirit types to command - from horrible cenobites like phantoms to hordes of spiders; 11 environments - ghostly atmospheres based on films of classic; horrors such as "Blair Witch" or "Evil Dead" and up to 30 separate characters per level for extended gameplay options.

Its an interesting little game from the mid2000s, kinda like a reverse tycoon where you have to evict people from their homes or from haunted locations by placing ghosts and scaring them. Both the placement and the type of specter influence how you interact with the people and the environments, in an attempt to puzzle out how to maximize your scares.

A reminder that while GOG does have its own client, its one of the few digital storefronts (maybe the only one?) that allows you to download a DRM free copy of your owned games - or if you're from the pre-Steam days, simply download the installation files and run the .exe

Hey y'all, its a new season, which means a new complete fuckery to everything we know as meta. This time the particular brand of fuckery will be Cost related, with several of the season's cards altering or preventing alteration from how much you need to pay to play a card. But let's see those beauties up close.

First, the new offerings:

(Going to be honest, it feels like they're struggling a bit with new characters when they draw from a TV show like this, but maybe I know less about comics than I thought)

As said before, the offering mostly focuses on Cost play, aside from Alioth which is a big destroying monster. Feels like a feral variant of Leader, and I wonder if it'll have the same impact.

Now for the Spotlight Cache offerings, starting wit this week's:

A strong opening. Knull is both a crucial play in almost every Destroy deck, as well as a possible counter for those, depending on your composition. Jeff is the anti-Xavier, and Gwen is one of the newest Move components.

Now this feels...lackluster. Hit-monkey is nothing to sneeze at, and Alioth can potentially be a deadly foe, but Snowguard as an offering is just sad. Its a Control card that never found a proper use, aside from maybe a Kazoo filler, but even then you have better options.

What follows up is an interesting offer. I can see Ravonna being an excellent pair with high-cost cards like Iron Man and Hobgoblin, especially if paired with another amplifier (though that might have diminishing returns). Zabu itself falls into that scope, and Jean Grey is an annoying card that's nothing to sneeze at.

Finally, the last offer and perhaps the weirdest. Only two cards, and one of them is, well, very situational. Kang by himself is not particularly bad, but there's two options when played, you either realize how badly you were going to lose or you try to come up with a last-minute plan.

(There's the 3rd option where you play him on a Cosmo but I've only made that cruel outcome happen once against a poor sod.)

While Mobius is a counter to cost increase and an offensive against cost decrease, somewhat like a reverse Luke Cage, which again, can be interesting in the right hands, but I'll leave the smart players to figure that out.

As for the rest, we have this seasons' variants, starring Loki from the TV show Loki

And a couple of new locations,

Time Theater seems a promising bother to deck drawing, joining the ranks of Weirdworld, while Vesuvius feels like the ultimate Snap bait to all greedy and eager players.

So that's what awaits us, in this green future. Thoughts?