First of all, what an incredibly detailed and cool post. Thanks for that!

I don’t enjoy racing games much (though I actually raced cars and motorcycles for a decade, and then sim raced for a few years), but it’s a great reminder to re play wipeout and the old school burnout games.

I will say, on a similarish but different note, I loved Snow runner. It’s a “get stuck in the mud” sim with friends. Their recent sequel is… Weird? Closer to truck Factorio. It’s not the same game imo but I appreciate the fresh view

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1465360/SnowRunner/

Quadruple A+ management*

Hemorrhage money to kill or buy smaller studios, then jack the price and tank the quality. Shove some AI in it for good measure.

You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy about it

Plus they’re helping continue to push EU regulations towards repairability. The premium going to that is fine by me

Live, or citizen? I kept hearing citizen not resident

I’m sad that the battery swap requires a screwdriver, but it’s really fine. As long as it’s not glued in I don’t care honestly.

The modular back is cool, specs look nice, lighter and smaller than my FP5 is a great thing, cuz this thing is heavy and the battery is mid.

It looks cool! Good direction I think. Of course I want a headphone jack, but I am learning to live without

In something like Denmark’s case, I could see an argument. In the US? Rich people pay nearly nothing, so I think forcing them to pay taxes is a slam dunk

I hate this argument.

If they’re not paying their fair share of taxes then leaving is beneficial. It’s like saying “yeah but if you ask the thieves to pay for their stolen goods they might leave the store”

It’s just a buzzword volly to get people to want to surrender more data. Actually insane premise lmao

I have done a bunch of runs each update and I do kinda wish I did what you did.

You’re gonna be blown away by how much more there is already!

Yeah I don’t see those are negative honestly. The send missions inflated the numbers and I don’t love that you can get locked out of stuff easily but it’s totally fine

I loved FFTA and have replayed it multiple times. I’ve played FFTA2 some as well, which was definitely not as good.

I thought A was much better than the original. I didn’t even know it was “not good”

There’s a LOT of toggles for difficulty/accessibility in there in case you get stuck and don’t wanna grind, just fyi

I agree that immigration is a big part of fixing this.

I think if the population (replacement rate )declines too swiftly, you have a lot of old people and few young people. At some point it become exponentially harder to even keep your last generation’s replacement rate, and you have spiraling population decline. See South Korea for the Speedrun.

If Japan steadily declines to 80M it could be fine. If Japan goes to 80M in a generation, that’s very very bad for the chances of there being any Japanese people left in a few more generations

Still hard on the Monster Train 2 grind

I think Outer Wilds is the most unique and fantastic way to tell a story I’ve ever experienced. Truly open in a way I’ve not seen before or since.

With the banger of a soundtrack too, I just can’t bring myself to rate other games higher than it; even if I enjoy them more, Outer Wilds is probably the best game I’ve ever played.

Slay the Spire probably makes the list as it’s inspired countless tweaks on its incredibly balanced deck building experience

Whew what a whirlwind I’ve had leading up to this while intending to play on deck

Ah man that’s pretty disappointing. I probably won’t buy it until then

I’m glad you asked!

I didn’t really like the aesthetic at first so I was on the fence.

It’s 3D, and most things take up more space with plenty of them taking some height as well. This makes the builds a bit more complex in a fun way. Also, the scaling is wild. You need a LOT more shapes, so you can duplicate or make more efficient things, ship them by train eventually, really makes it feel like a different game by the end than it does in the start.

They have a huge content update coming June 2 as well

Frostpunk 2 is a really interesting one to me.

I LOVED the first game. Soundtrack on in the background sometimes, liked the board game (just manual meh balance FP1), got all the achievements, really enjoyed it.

The second IS a good distinction from it, it’s not just rinse and repeat the same game. Great story, epic music, different scale and problems. It’s just like… They took the second tier of ideas they had for FP1 and implemented them. It actually probably would have been a good game if it didn’t have those footsteps to follow in.

Surprisingly, a few recent sequels have been amazing. Shapez2 is an unbelievable follow up to the OG. Hades II is the same imo. Massive, beautiful, fun distinction in gameplay, but still great ideas and balanced and such.

Monster Train 2 is great in demo, Kingdoms 2 crowns is a bit less recent but is such a great follow up to what’s effectively an arcade game in the first. It’s not all downhill or anything

Also silksong wen