Robb recently asked a fairly simple question on the main site:

Good starting skills for Dungeons of Dredmor

What is a good set of skills for a newer player in Dungeons of Dredmor?

I dropped a quick answer down there detailing what I recommended as an “easy” build, but thought I’d use this opportunity to go in to a little bit more detail and discuss which skills do and don’t work well for a beginner, why, and what skills to look at next.

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Recently the 3rd Humble Bundle was released. It’s a set of 5 games which would normally be worth $50 but can now be bought for what ever price you chose! But don’t pay less than a dollar or the developers involved don’t get a cent!

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I’ve been playing Frozen Synapse – a superb simultaneous-turn based small-squad combat strategy indie game – for a few weeks now. In my previous post I discussed a few “defensive” tips, concentrating on how not to get shot, and now I’d like to share a few more tips with you all.

As per last time, these are merely quite simple ways in which you should be manipulating the game mechanics to help you win more games.

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So you just installed TF2, and you started playing, and you like it! However, your one page of loadout goodness is barely enough to keep up with your first few weeks of drops. You have to prioritize. You’ll have to discard some items to make room for others.

Certainly you’ll want to try each item before deleting, but some items are objectively better than others.

Here’s, in my humble opinion, the items you want to stick with, plus other alternatives that didn’t make the cut.

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Originally posted on Reddit in a moment of frustration. Check the comments for some helpful gunslinger tips. Also check out my previous post on the topic.

tl;dr: Teleports teleports teleports teleports teleports teleports. Teleports teleports teleports teleports teleports teleports teleports teleports! …yes! more »

I’ve been playing Frozen Synapse – a superb simultaneous-turn based small-squad combat strategy indie game – for a few weeks now and would like to share a few tips with you all.

These aren’t going to be some grand strategies, guaranteed manoeuvres or power plays, but merely quite simple ways in which you can – and should – be manipulating the game mechanics in every game you play to help your guys not be shot as much. Specifically, they are recurring things that I have  seen new players, myself included in my earliest matches, fail to be aware of.

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No hidden biases here.  I’m laying it right out there.  I’m a big fan of Diablo, and its more recent spiritual brother, Torchlight.  While normally a fan of slower turn-based strategic games, there’s something about the frantic slaying of monsters and gathering of loot that keeps me coming back for more.  I had never played the Dungeon Siege series, but reading the description it sounded like it would provide more of what I love, and I set out eager to enjoy it.

Now, about 8 hours into the game, I find myself torn between progressing further, or taking another romp through Torchlight.  For a reason that I found difficult to put a finger on, Dungeon Siege just didn’t grab me in the way Diablo and its kin have.  So, what is it that differentiates Dungeon Siege 3?  Am I just the wrong audience for an otherwise fine game?

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When it was announced some time ago that a Civilization game would come to Facebook I was skeptical, a Civilization game designed for a casual audience didn’t sound very appealing. The fact that Sid Meier was said to have an active role in designing the game piqued my interest, so when I read that it entered public beta I decided to try it out despite my aversion to all things connected to Facebook.

The login servers seem to be busy a lot at the moment, this is just one of the many technical problems of the game.

To summarize my first impression of the game, it only shares the name and some superficial similarities with the original Civilization games. If you expect a 4X game you will be disappointed. Currently it is also a completely broken mess, unplayable due to game-breaking bugs. I’m not talking about smaller bugs that are expected to occur in a beta, but serious, very frequent bugs that pretty much randomize which civilization wins the game. I haven’t played long enough to see how deep the strategy can go in the game, but at the moment any strategy is useless if the rewards for your efforts are randomly distributed to an opposing civilization.

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A few weeks ago I had a look at Puzzle Agent, a game quite similar to Professor Layton series on the DS in construction – a point and click adventure game with brain-teaser puzzles. The original was very short and had some implementation issues that tarnished the experience a little bit, but the narrative was well delivered and overall I really enjoyed playing the game.

The sequel landed on the 30th June, and I’ve now played it through. Unfortunately, Puzzle Agent 2 is a disappointing sequel, let me tell you why…

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I’m not going to be reviewing this game as such, if you want to know what’s in it just watch the trailer:

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