u/itsOkami

Newbie here! I just installed Dead Cells with all DLCs from my Steam family library out of boredom and, even as someone who usually hates roguelikes, I'm beyond hooked: I've already sunk 3 hours into it, and still, those went by fast, lol. My only real issue so far is the fact that I "accidentally" (at least I think? I don't really know how the game works yet) ended up in what I suppose is the Castlevania DLC and ended up defeating >!Death!< as the 2nd boss. I got suspicious and checked the achievement list, only to realize how that's very much not supposed to happen this early on.

I guess the gist of what I'm asking is - is there a "meta progression" of sorts to the game, a la Terraria, and should I start without the DLCs to later maximize maximize my own enjoyment of the game? Thanks in advance!

While we're at it, I wouldn't mind clarifications regarding how the levels after the "final" boss(es) work: is the aim of the game to just keep going indefinitely or is there consensus on when a run successfully "ends"? I feel like I've got a pretty good understanding on most of the other mechanics, like weapons, upgrades and such, but that one still confuses me

Where do I go after the vanilla ending? I feel like I've checked every corner of the map multiple times but I can't get to any of the "explorable" locations any further... I've been to the >!observatory!< and I have defeated the following bosses: >!Egis, Flora, Crow, Acat, Calderon, Nabuu, Lombre, Atmos, Debby, Sawlong, Antra/Dr Halyn, Ati, Poltergates!<. I have all of Mio's skills except for the one at the very top of the list

Places I just can't seemingly make any more progress in:

• atop the Promenade tower, there's another locked path right to the left of the overseer
• anywhere in the statue area atop Metropolis; the statue is obviously gone, but the gate to the left is locked and the lift on the right obstructed
• beyond the Blood's Sanctum, there's a locked door to the left and a nook I just can't reach at the top left
• right above Poltergates' boss room(?)
• at the bottom of Foundations, there's a locked door pointing towards the <redacted> area
• upwards from the Sawlong path - there's a hole in the ceiling among the sawblades about 2/3rds of the way through, but I can't get to it, as well as a couple of destructible walls shortly before, but I can't break either one from this side
• to the left of Dr Halyn's lab, around where I got abducted; I've gotten to whatever the yellow area to the left is using the slingshot ability on a purple wall, but I can't make it upwards past here

Any tips? I've been loving the game so far, but I always despise this aspect of backtracking in metroidvanias... I've been going in circles for no less thn 3 hours at this point. Please try keeping it as spoiler-free as possible, thanks! No mentioning areas/bosses I haven't stumbled across thus far, preferably

They both go for 10€ on Steam at the moment. I like Annapurna's catalogue quite a bit, with Outer Wilds being mmy absolute favorite game of all time and others such as Neon White, Journey and What Remains of Edith Finch sitting respectfully close, so I've been meaning to play more of their stuff. I'm just wondering if the actual games themselves are worth the price or not, I know they're very short, but that doesn't really matter - I'm just looking for a cool, unique and preferably well polished game experience. Thanks in advance!

Which popular, medium to "big box" games got the "travel edition" or smaller spinoff treatment? Just off the top of my head, I'm talking stuff like:

1. Proper "travel/pocket" editions of larger games (Monopoly Travel, Clue Deluxe Travel, Risiko Pocket/Risk Express, Catan Traveler, Azul Mini, the more recent copies of Hanabi, travel chessboards/checkerboards...) - same games mechanically, almost zero functional differences with the bigger versions

2. "Budget cuts" (Mysterium Park and Horizons of Spirit Island alone come to mind) - minor reworks of the originals, with a few mechanics removed to streamline the experience a little bit

3. Full-fledged remakes (such as Gloomhaven Buttons & Bugs or Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition) - same core mechanics and general gameplay loop, but pretty much everything else around them has been heavily reworked

4. Spiritual spin-offs - games that keep the theme/spirit of the originals but otherwise overhauling everything else to the point they end up being entirely different games (for example, Side Quest Nemesis is an escape room set within the Nemesis universe, but it has essentially nothing to do with the dungeon crawling aspects of it)

5. "Duel" games (such as 7 Wonders Duel, Splendor Duel, The White Castle Duel, King of Tokyo Duel, Azul Duel, Wingspan Asia...), aka reworks of the core systems, specifically designed around lower player counts (often 2) - there are so many of these things out there that I don't even know whether they belong here or not, but I guess they're worth addressing

Now, there are many other small box board games, such as pretty much all card-based ones (The Crew, Sea Salt & Paper, Scout, Regicide, The Mind/The Game, Hanamikoji, Love Letter, Coup, Bohnanza, Monopoly Deal, Uno, Bang, Munchkin, Sushi Go, Exploding Kittens...), as well as others with a relatively smaller footprint already (Yahtzee, Codenames, Carcassonne, Hive, Sky Team, Fort, Cascadia, King of Tokyo, Sushi Go Party...), but these were conceived as they are from the get-go and obviously don't fall within any of the aforementioned categories. Also note that this is a purely curiosity-driven question more than anything else, I do own a bunch of these but I'm not particularly keen on collecting them, hahah. Which obvious ones am I missing?

Lastly, here are some games that I would like to see travel versions of, mostly just for the hell of it, lol: Root, Scythe, Everdell, Wingspan/Wyrmspan, Dune Imperium, Castles of Burgundy, Blood on the Clocktower, Aeon's End, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Heat Pedal to the Metal. I believe that, if Gloomhaven, of all things, managed to get slimmed down to the size of a box of tissues, then nothing is truly impossible...

Edit: I just learned that there actually is a compat (though not exactly small) version of Scythe for kids - it's called "My Little Scythe" and I have no idea what it plays like but I find its existence hilarious

A large, likely european mantis we rescued from the street last summer laid two nests on one of the plants on my balcony shortly before we found her dead around the courtyard, and the first one hatched today, after a few weeks. There is now a small legion (I counted around a dozen of them, so I'm betting that at least 20 or so individuals made it out alive) of green, puppy mantises scurrying around the plant, and I'd like to ensure their survival in as high a number as possible before I can find them a more adequate home... problem being, I have no idea how to tend after one mantis, let alone a family of 20 (soon to be 40) younglings!

Is there anything I should do in order to take care of them, so that at least they avoid killing each other, or do I just leave them be? Also, it started raining about an hour ago, and the mantises are nowhere to be found now. Should I be concerned? Thanks in advance, advice of any kind is very welcome!

I don't get it, I'm trying to learn the Clockwork 1 factions partially using Clockroot and partially using the official app, and the tutorial for them in the latter straight up tells you "these powers are shared by all bots" while highlighting "poor manual dexterity" (= clockwork factions can't hold cards, for those who are unaware) and "hates surprises" (= clockwork factions can't be ambushed), which checks out within the app as all of the bot factions there, Automated Alliance included, have both of those as traits.

My issue is how that's apparently nowhere to be found in the printed, retail version of the Clockwork 1 expansion, at least based on whichever pictures of the AA faction board I was able to find by googling around... it doesn't show up on the Clockroot website either, they do have the "automated ambush" trait but it's clearly something else entirely, as that one also shows up separately within the app; meanwhile, the "hates surprises" one is nowhere to be found, not even among the optional trait cards for them (or at least, as far as I can tell).

Could anyone with the physical Clockwork expansion(s) please check if there's anything about this apparent inconsistency there, be it on the faction board, within the card deck or somewhere in the rules? Was this specific trait possibly corrected just for the app to streamline things, or maybe with the release of the 2nd Clockwork expansion? Thanks in advance, I feel like I'm going insane, lol

What are some games that left you feeling like "yep, this is THE one game to end every other game"? I realize the question doesn't make much sense on its own, but I played Oath for the very first (and 2nd... and 3rd) time this week and I eventually got thinking "man, where has this thing been this whole time??" and in my mind it just skyrocketed to being something god-tier that I could've played forever and gotten endless enjoyment out of (now, to be completely real, I'm not sure it'll ever live up to that, but still, the first impressions I had of it were astoundingly positive). I had this weird kind of epiphany occur to with other games at various points in time, such as Root (the one that initially made me fall in love with the whole hobby - which may be part of why I appreciated Oath so much, even if they do differ quite a bit), Spirit Island, Gloomhaven, Dune Imperium Uprising, Mage Knight, Dwellings of Eldervale and Fate of the Fellowship, most recently. How about you?

I'm going for the platinum trophy in NieR Automata and I'm pretty much just missing the endings at this point. I've gotten the >!5 main ones, from A to E!<, >!ending Y!< (with the help of a guide for that one), >!the DLC ending!< as well as a few of the funny ones (G, K, M, T, U, Z so far), some of which I stumbled upon on my own, while others were hinted to me by my friends, whom I often was in voice chat with. Now, would it be possible for me, given very basic information, namely the name of the ending and the story chapter(s) leading to it, to figure them out on my own? I feel somewhat sad at the idea of letting go of this game, and I want to enjoy whatever remains of it as best as I can. Should I just throw the towel and resort to wikis, instead? I'm curious to know