This is a very unique game both in terms of setting (and how it relates to gameplay as highlighted in OP) and overall fusion of genres.

One issue with KoDP is that it can become a bit min/max focused. The gameplay isn’t as organic and open ended as I would like.

I much prefer OG Deus Ex style blocky 3D graphics to much higher quality asset flip/shovelware 3D assets.

I don’t mind some use of GenAI assets (especially when it’s edited and worked on to integrate with a specific creative direction), but some heavy use of GenAI assets os downright repulsive.

I like that the graphics and presentation stands out from your typical [retail type/business] simulator UE5 shovelware.

There also seems to be a lot more to do in terms of management and exploration than just designing your retail store.

Love the retro art style and the concept!

Good to hear, it sounds like they’ve made some excellent progress.

Will have to try the new demo.

Played the first two games in this series, it’s a pretty solid VN experience, especially if you are into vampires.

From what I remember while HL2 was demanding it was relatively well optimized at release. That being said, I would have been fine with 30-40 FPS back then.

I tired the demo last year, unlike many other similar tavern management games it felt like it had its own sense of place. The customisation and placement options were also very flexible and elaborate.

I Wanna Be The Guy bring back memories of the early 2010s and TotalBiscuits’ “WTF Is” series.

I am assuming he is promoting his new game.

I still play the original Cities in Motion to this day. I really like the euro vibe of the original, although the game is IMO unplayable without certain mods.

I’ve played about ~60 hours of CS1 which was worth the buying price.

But between the never-ending stream of mostly low effort DLC and the intense competition in the city-building genre (not only with new games, but also with Simcity 4, which has 20+ years of free custom content), I’ve decided to not bother with the CS series.

And I am huge fan of Cities in Motion 1/2, the predecessors to Cities: Skylines.

Star Ruler 2. If you choose a map with ~450 systems, it plays more like a space economic strategy game, as opposed to the RTS/4X hybrid of the default map settings.

Molyneux almost seems to reflexively say something stupid every time he gets an opportunity to do so. Or perhaps this is just a PR trick?

I remember first seeing Total Biscuit play this in the early 2010s.

I initially read this as Lynn, the girl drawn on Pizza. I was intrigued, but then I realized it said Puzzles not Pizzas (not a fan of puzzle games).

For sure, I missed that (and the fact Valve seems to be deploying protections as well).

The commentary about Windows Defender was just a random remark in passing. I wasn’t expecting the WinRAR zero day to be addressed (it’s a zero day after all), but the malware itself (the Monero miner) was around for a while (current version at the time was at least a year old) and WD had zero protections against its methods (that did not use the WinRAR zero day, that was the entry point).

That being said, I do think this more of an edge case. WD works pretty well in my experience (especially for non-power users).

I didn’t know that Windows Defender essentially blocked the vulnerability.

I will also note that there can be situations when Windows Defender doesn’t work.

I got hit by a WinRAR zero day exploit (the archive was supposed to be just images) that installed master Monero minor that disabled Windows Defender and blocked installation of other tools. I was able to clean my computer, but I only found through a non-english site (and I happen to speak that language so it was easier to validate that it was legit).

He seems like a cool person who is passionate about gamedev. I also like that his game is very eclectic in terms of gameplay and even settings.

AFAIK, it is inspired by The Mountains of Madness, although the connection is very loose, mainly the setting and some elements of the early parts of the story.

EDIT: Turns out Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell was the bigger inspiration. That being said, I remember reading somewhere that The Mountains of Madness was inspiration (the same article also mentioned Who Goes There?, but that initially slipped from my memory).