Glide
The executives, investors and accountants making the decisions that are ruining games are not millenials.
That's an interesting take. I found them to be very different people. Two different flavours of cliche'd anime protagonist, sure, but very different people none the less.
My partner and I make a point to occasionally play through a couch co-op game as well. Here are some of the things we enjoyed.
Phogs - Currently playing this. It's a cute, dog-themed puzzle game thing, where you play as two heads of a single long dog-thing. We're enjoying it, but we're not particularly deep in, and I do wonder if it'll get Ibb and Obb samey, but it's worth checking out imo.
Cassette Beasts - Couch co-op, Pokemon inspired, adventure RPG with great storytelling, fantastic music and a retro aesthetic. The world is very Zelda-like in exploration and puzzle solving, while combat is Pokemon double battles. Highly recommended, just be aware that one player gets to be the player-made protagonist, while the other is one of an interchangeable series of partner characters.
Sea of Stars - The co-op update did a lot of good for this game. A Chrono Trigger inspired, faux-SNES era, indie RPG. There's a lot of unvoiced dialogue, which I could see as being a barrier to enjoyment as a multiplayer game, but the game is paced quite well, so I don't think it's a huge problem. Also, players do take turns inputting commands, but everyone is responsible for the timed hits/blocks, and you each control a character of equal agency in the overworld, so it avoids the largest co-op turn based RPG folly of having one player and one half-watching "follower." There are a ton of accessibility options/features (difficulty is VERY malleable), and as an added bonus, there's a free story DLC coming on the 20th.
Children of Morta - This is perhaps the most "hardcore" of my list, but the girlfriend, despite explicitly not enjoying "hard" games, really really enjoyed this one. An action-RPG with some very light roguelike elements, Children of Morta has you play as a family of hunter-gatherer-warrior types in a fantasy world, working together to stop a malevolent power from corrupting the physical world. Each family member has a different playstyle, their own skill tree, and a lot of personality. The game is very story driven, with a few moments being taken between each run for the fantastic narration to drip feed the narrative, slowly teaching you more about the world, the characters, and their family dynamic.
These are the ones that came to the top of my mind, either because they were particularly good or, in the case of Phogs, is ongoing. If I see anything else worth mentioning when I look at my Steam list next, I'll add.
Feel free to degrade me.
Are you okay?
This thread is actually huge, so apologies if this has already been recommended, but take a look at Against the Storm. It's an indie city-builder with a bit of a rogue-like spin. You can usually get it on fairly deep sales, and the rogue-like elements combined with some meta-progression gives it a real play length, even though a single city-building session is a ~45-60 minute experience.
Mhmm. Everyone is shitting on Nintendo, but the reality is their games are literally keeping up with inflation. The problem is that our wages haven't kept up with inflation, and the cost of living has, at least, kept up. In some cases (rent), it's grown faster than the inflation of everything else.
Don't get me wrong, Nintendo is tone deaf for making this decision now, and I suspect they'd still make billions with a $15 price increase rather than a $30 one. I'm not defending them. But the picture is a lot larger than them.
It can be both.
There's no "sanity" system in Look Outside. The closest thing is a hidden "stress" stat which, last I checked, is literally just combat problems when it gets low.
That said, Look Outside is a fantastic game, and the Dev is super down to earth and active with his players. Highly recommend.
Oh I don't have any performance issues. My 3070ti has no issue holding 120 fps (with frame Gen on, mind you). Game plays perfectly.
And I'd be more forgiving of the "15 hour long free game," but it ate a part of the game I enjoy, made playing that part of the game with friends challenging to the point of feeling not worth it, and it's required before I am allowed to enjoy the game I actually paid for. Those 15 hours - well, 12 for me - were more valuable to me than the price I paid for the game. 15 hours of work is well into the several hundreds of dollars space. But I already paid over $100 CAD once taxes were in. Why do I also have to give it my time?
Again, great game, but worst on-boot Monster Hunter to date. And that's saying something, considering World doesn't let you hold a weapon for the first hour.
Smart people who make good products that people want will have the invisible hand distribute them wealth. Dumb people who make bad products that no one wants will go backrupt. This is the core philosophy behind why capitalism "works." It is a system that conflates wealth with virtue, by design.
You're right to point out that it is incorrect logic, but no one is confusing anything. The entirety of our Western world is build around this idea and reinforces it to its people at every single opportunity. They're making the judgements that they have been told are correct. Can we really say people are confused when they're confidently acting exactly as they've been taught from birth?