Favourite inspiring/unique games

[pgimeno]

I made provable fair gambling machines and rented them out to casino operators on a commission basis. A few weeks in they banned all kinds of gambling because there was a lot of scamming going on.

I also had money in a "bank" that paid incredible interest on your balance. Turned out it was a Ponzi scheme and most of the "customers" lost their money.

SL was interesting, but always super shady.

Gambling was banned because of law changes, not because of scamming. Banks were prohibited when they were detected. Edit: Also, we're talking 2007-2008. Things changed a lot in a matter of months after that, and have continued quite pacifically. If anything, Linden Lab has been a bit trigger-happy about banning accounts.

Woah, seems like you can make serious money in SL. Or should I say could? Is it even still running/active?

Yes, it's still active. I'm mostly retired but I still receive money from sales (of my products and others in which I receive a share).

[grump]

Gambling was banned because of law changes, not because of scamming.

I remember it differently from my perspective but that doesn't mean much. There was a lot of ruckus going on in the gambling scene with many accusations against makers and operators. I quickly left and didn't follow what happened later. Young me had a short attention span.

[ddabrahim]

That's not very clear in this case. There have been broken marriages, for example. I guess it depends on your own personal view of it, as it can be a lot of things. There's sex, role playing, marriages, sex, travelling, partying, dancing

I can imagine having virtual parties and sex can effect your relationship with friends and family in real life and you can find your self in a place where all your friends lives in a virtual world and this is the only place where you can be your self and enjoy social interactions with others.
It does actually happen to me sometimes when I get really immersed in a game, but usually those are linear games that comes to an end at which point I can feel empty and I wish I could go back and do other things, explore more, interact more with certain characters. So I can in a way relate to the idea a game is not a game for some people and when there is no end, the game is going forever like with Second Life, the boundaries can disappear.

In SL it doesn't take serious money to start a business; it's about the quality of your work.

Fortunately or Unfortunately, social interactions in a game is not that interesting to me. But in case I can start a business without serious investment and I could just create art, clothing, sculptures for example, open a shop and sell my art to people in game and make real money maybe I give it a try. Creating real art, clothing, sculpture and selling it in real life in real shops is just too complicated for me. Last time I was considering I was stopped by a bunch of regulations, certificates to make sure the material is safe and import charges. In some cases import charges can be just as expensive as the material you order + certificates, shipping. Now you got me interested

Talking about VR worlds, anyone heard of Sword Art Online (anime/light novel....
There they had a VR system that would connect to your brain, put you in a kind of comma or sleep, and make the whole virtual world more immersive...
Is that type of thing even possible? Or could it be possible in the near future?

I believe science is capable to do anything. If they manage to discover how the brain can generate dreams, providing there is no spiritual component to it, I am almost certain it is going to be possible to replicate it with devices that can put you in to a sleep like state and generate controlled dreams. Elon Musk already working on an interface to communicate with devices using your brain and to also receive information to your brain. That information can also be a dream I guess and who knows maybe at some point don't even need to be implanted, you can just stick it on to your head, set a wake up time and go. At which point, I could also imagine to distribute games and interactive movies this way.

Some conspiracy theorist believe that this is already happening and we are in a simulation and it could also explain reincarnation, memories from an other life, having natural talent, unexplainable drive for doing this, going places and a bunch of other things. My niece learned to read on her own when she was 4 just picked up a book and started to read, she called my mother her daughter, she looked confused when we told her she is the grand daughter and not the mother and she has a real talent for baking cakes. My grand mother passed away just 2 years before she was born. So, spiritual, simulation or scientific but something is happening beyond what we can sense for sure.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Yeah, matrix stuff.

Though the NerveGear, a helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, A.K.A the console can be controlled by the owners to have it micorwave your brain Dangers.

[ddabrahim]

helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain

I'm not so sure though if I would want to sense pain, temperature, smell, taste when I play. Maybe acceleration and falling could be interesting but not the moment when I hit the ground or freeze to death or starving I don't know how boring someones life has to be to sign up for something like that.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

, I think they make things like pain just a small shock or impact. You'll only be starving if you've haven't eaten in real life. It says if you eat in the game there's a risk of getting malnutrition since you trick your brain that you've eaten.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

I found another good one for me that does something well in design ... exceptionally? Well atleast in its field. I present Nuclear Throne. It's a shooter (bullet-hell? A little...) roguelike with fast gameplay and it accomplishes a feat that many other (atleast "modern") roguelikes fail at.

...bullet...hell?

Just like other good games it has really good design (this is not the exceptional part). And besides the "juice" that vlambeer is known for it also has mechanics that complement each other (e.g. Expiring loot to keep you moving at all times hence keeping the game faster, easy recovery of health to allow more reckless gameplay, so forth, so on...), strategy implemented through picking one upgrade from a number of them when leveled up, some sort of lore story in the game without too much text and other things.

But what it does is this:
In roguelikes there's a high chance (if you're good at the game) that you'll restart before making it past level 1 because of a bad start due to rng or a small slip-up before you get "in the zone". Though Nuclear Throne has this for speed runners, a slipup does not ruin your game AT ALL. Some messups could be getting hit early, getting a bad gun, getting bad upgrade choices for the first level, getting low exp ...but unlike a lot of "well designed" roguelikes you might even beat the boss on that game that started horribly. For two examples I have Spelunky and Downwell. Accidentally fall in Spelunky at level 1 or got too low an amount of gold, best restart or that one heart you lost might be the end of you. That chicken change you managed to scrap together won't be able to buy you that jetpack. The same for Downwell. Get hit before level 2 (or even "world 1") the best choice is to restart. In their defense it's really quick to finish level 1 (just under a minute ar average) but so it's also really quick in Nuclear Throne.

Nuclear Throne gives rewards you health pickups that could easily take your health from 10% to 100 if you manage to last for a few good seconds. Again, in the defense of the others Nuclear Throne allows a little recklessness and that's part of the design and if the others were to do this the player would be a Tank.

tank...top?

But, hey. It's design. They could have thought of something - or maybe they really couldn't have and then just allowed that minor (because I guess it IS minor) flaw to remain. And in a game like Spelunky there's also the fact that if you don't get specific equipment the playthrough won't be as good (e.g. jetpack, sticky bombs for ...accuracy?, rope, jetpack, shops, jetpack, JETPACK) but in Nuclear Throne it is SURE you will get something you can make dew with as it's guaranteed that high caliber equipment will show up sooner or later. And there isn't really anything that seems to necessary to win/get far like JETPACKS. Keep that RNG on a leash, people!

[glitchapp]

One of my favourite indie puzzles: "The Swapper"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swapper

A wonderful game from start to end: great music and graphics and amazingly original puzzles!

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

One game to look at would be Brogue,the roguelike... The Brian Walker's Rogue...hence Brogue.
...escalated...blah...blah

Talking of Brogue and its design, I drew some Brogue Fan art.



Based on this:

Screenshot_2023-02-24-16-38-49.png (398.88 KiB) Viewed 4509 times

[GVovkiv]

Talking of Brogue and its design, I drew some Brogue Fan art.

That's actually sick art, wow