i has a question

[at0m]

[00:17:39] <+AtomSmasher> anyone know of any decent steam-compatible casual games?
[00:17:55] <+AtomSmasher> i wanna have a library of crap i can download onto whatever shitty computer i'm using

[KarthXLR]

Peggle?

[at0m]

Peggle?

I've got peggle on my iPod, and peggle EXTREME from orange box already. I meant other shit I haven't heard of / played :x

[Fail Medic]

I hear that Puzzle Quest business is kind of addicting.  Haven't played.

[KarthXLR]

World of Goo?

I'd say braid, but that's not really casual, is it?

[at0m]

World of Goo?

I'd say braid, but that's not really casual, is it?

I've actually played and beaten World of Goo, but I haven't really heard much about Braid

[edit] wikipedia says its like the original mario brothers/donkey kong, looks interesting. is it any good? [/edit]

[copulatingduck]

interesting but only fun for 45 minutes. it has pretty much zero replay value imho (as do most puzzlers i guess)

[ScottyGrayskull]

[quote author=Ye Salty Karth link=topic=2598.msg73825#msg73825 date=1238475677]
World of Goo?

I'd say braid, but that's not really casual, is it?

I've actually played and beaten World of Goo, but I haven't really heard much about Braid

[edit] wikipedia says its like the original mario brothers/donkey kong, looks interesting. is it any good? [/edit]
[/quote]

If the demo is any indication, it's a sub-par platformer with some very cool time-based puzzles. Oh, and apparently a story that according to the designer isn't the obvious thing that everyone says it is. When the PC version comes out in ten days and I pirate it I'll let you know more.

Plenty of other low requirement games for Steam. Audiosurf is another obvious one, as are the original Half Life games and all the old id games (Commander Keen, DOOM, and Quake games).

[CaffeinePowered]

all the old id games (Commander Keen, DOOM, and Quake games).

Quake Live, no steam necessary

[at0m]

[quote author=ScottyGrayskull link=topic=2598.msg73837#msg73837 date=1238503297]
all the old id games (Commander Keen, DOOM, and Quake games).

Quake Live, no steam necessary
[/quote]True story, but I'm not sure that laptop can handle even that. Its a Toshiba Satellite, with a 1.6GHz Centrino or whatever and a gig of ram.

[Spore]

[quote author=Caffeine link=topic=2598.msg73841#msg73841 date=1238505205]
[quote author=ScottyGrayskull link=topic=2598.msg73837#msg73837 date=1238503297]
all the old id games (Commander Keen, DOOM, and Quake games).

Quake Live, no steam necessary
[/quote]True story, but I'm not sure that laptop can handle even that. Its a Toshiba Satellite, with a 1.6GHz Centrino or whatever and a gig of ram.
[/quote]

You could try Crysis.

[KorJax]

Braid is an awesome game and one of my favorite games from last year that I played most of the way through in XBL and if you pirate it you're pretty much a douchebag considering the demo for it is pretty much half the game in length, BUT ANYWAYS

It probably won't run on your computer anyways because it apparently requires a beefy video card to run (7800+ or greater minimum kind of thing is the estimate from the dev blog)

[copulatingduck]

Braid is an awesome game and one of my favorite games from last year that I played most of the way through in XBL and if you pirate it you're pretty much a douchebag considering the demo for it is pretty much half the game in length, BUT ANYWAYS

It probably won't run on your computer anyways because it apparently requires a beefy video card to run (7800+ or greater minimum kind of thing is the estimate from the dev blog)

lolwat, a 7800+ for Braid, really?

Lazy port is lazy.

[KorJax]

Not rlly.  The game has to render the entirdy of the level (seeing as it's pretty much hand-painted and there's little to no tiling or reused assets involved) for all stuff in reverse and forward time, plus the many many layers of moving particle effects and post-processoing, all seamlessly in 60 FPS.  Not really un-reasonable, consdering most of what costs frames in 3D games for modern engines isn't the 3D models themselves but the textures (if you have lower than 256mb video ram), and post processing effects (which the game uses heavily). 3D models can cost a lot of frames but really in the end unless all of the models being rendered are unique, are massively complicated or there's just a fucktonne on the screen, 3D models are pretty cheap by themselves.  Hell I've been able to render 10,000 rocks in Crysis slapped down on some ground in the editor and still have above 15-20 FPS (though there certainly was an FPS drop, it's not as much as you think there would be).

But at the same time when I just told him to give the option to downscale the resolution, graphics, FPS and effects he said he didn't want to because it makes the art and presenation really bad "as it wasn't designed to look that way" and "ruins" the intended experience.... so basically he's forcing everyone to max the game.  Which isn't so bad as long as you have a semi-current video card, but still.

[ScottyGrayskull]

Braid is an awesome game and one of my favorite games from last year that I played most of the way through in XBL and if you pirate it you're pretty much a douchebag considering the demo for it is pretty much half the game in length, BUT ANYWAYS

http://braid-game.com/news/?p=519

According to Blow himself, despite blatant price-gouging on both versions of the game and the 360 theme (which he blamed completely on Microsoft), he does not care about our money. He just wants people to play the game.

Therefore, he doesn't need my money. Fuck him and his pretentious doucebagginess.

Q.E.D. <3

Also, the Demo is half of the game? I got through it in like 5 minutes and it was pretty underwhelming. Sure it looked gorgeous and the music was beautiful, but the gameplay was bland, only one puzzle was actually clever, and the story was uninspiring. Here I thought the full game was this deeply moving experience, but if that's half of it then colour me unimpressed.

[KorJax]

Well by half the game I mean it introduces half of the game mechanics.  Alot of the demo puzzles are the easy "I'm just teaching you how the mechanic works" type thing.  It gets really mind-bending later on in the game and the latter levels in chapers.

And price gouging?  Really?  Fucking $15?  No offense but you have to be a pretty big cheapskate to complain about $15 from an indie developer, especailly considering most "really good" indie games are prices around $20-$25, and even then that's more than half the price of a full retail game.

I guess I'm just not much of a pirate.  If you think you will like it, buy it.  If you don't, then don't.  Play something else.  Play the demo to get your impressions of a game, and if there is no demo take the word of others on it (I can be pretty leaniant on pirating a game you are not sure about to see how it plays to be honest though if there's no decent demo).

Personally I don't care if how pretentious the dev is.  Fact of the matter is I played through most of the game and the ending of Braid and I loved most of it.  The story is very ambiguous and it's not until really the ending chapters that it all starts coming together (since each level of the story is presented in isolated chunks, and only the ending ties the chunks together).  I mean if you don't think you can click into the whole puzzle-solving platform thing or really don't like games that'll go and present a narrative that strives for "seriousness" obviously I don't think it would be a good game to get.

[Squishy3]

if we want to talk about pretentious indie devs let's tlak about bob, the guy behind bob's game  :

[Eschatos]

Well I like Johnathan Blow.  His name makes me laugh, and on Podtoid he sounded like a pretty nice guy. 

[JoKeRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR]

Braid's well worth 15 bucks. The more money Blow has the better.

[Vongore]

Eets it's really fun, the music is a bit annoying, but i loved that game.