Kind of surprised this is the take. Algorithms in general, just sorting by highest to lowest or whatever common problem that needs to be solved, aren’t bad. “Algorithm” has become a dirty word mostly because of the stuff pushing short-form content over long-form content, outrage that generates engagement over something you would enjoy that doesn’t enrage you enough to make you type fifty paragraphs and keep coming back to fight in the comments, etc. So I agree with the literal statement that algorithms aren’t always bad.

But as for what you meant, I’m super surprised at all the people who want an algorithm to feed them content and aren’t satisfied. I looked for the stuff I was interested in, subscribed, and am happy. When I run out of content I either log off and do something else or go seek out stuff I’m kind of interested in. In my most charitable possible assumption, people who want algorithms are probably a lot less suspectible to getting pulled in by outrage and scrolling all day, and just want to be able to discover cool stuff fast, and the algorithms somehow worked to show them the cool stuff. In my experience I had to strictly stick to my Home feed with just stuff I subscribed to on Reddit to not see outrage porn, could never poke my head into Popular or anything without seeing some outrage sub like r/noahgettheboat or /iamatotalpieceofshit. And then they started forcibly sorting my Home feed by Controversial… yep. Stopped regularly browsing there really fast.

I am just really wary of asking for algorithms back because I really don’t want the Fediverse to become another place catered towards outrage porn for max engagement. I really want users to have options if this is implemented, so as not to force this algorithm on users like myself who like the “chronological order of stuff you purposely followed only” algorithm. And for that option to not be taken away from me in an effort to “drive growth!” and all that.

I don’t want to refuse others a good thing just because it’s not for me, but I also have been burned by social media algorithms that were once nice chronological, and later became catered towards outrage and showing you content you never signed up to see without having an option to switch back to chronological and opt out of having RandomInfluencerYouDontFollow in your feed. Looking at you, Instagram. I signed up with my elementary school classmates, liked chronological feed, liked having Explore just be friends of friends… I still only follow people I know in real life but now Explore is a bunch of controversial memes, people selling stuff, and influencers who want me to form a parasocial relationship with them. This is also what my regular feed, which used to just show me chronological order posts only from people I follow, turns to once I scroll past maybe 7 posts my friends made. Have not fully deleted but also haven’t touched the app in months now.

I guess the real solution is giving people options and not taking them away because you decided to go public and need maximum eye-on-advertisement time. Hopefully Lemmy stays open source and different instances stay popular, so in case someone does try to take it public we can all flee to different servers and keep talking.

Some of the visuals really bothered me. Scroll down and it says 3D models and 2D graphics were AI-generated. Maybe that’s why…

Hey, thanks for the rec, I am taking a look at it! The graphics definitely don’t feel like 1 was made in 2018 and 2 in 2021, for better or for worse. So far I keep seeing in reviews that 2 is abandonware but 1 is fine. Both have warnings that they are for mature audiences. What did the dev put in there, cocaine and hookers? The reviews just talk about normal city builder stuff.

I could have sworn some city builders or tycoons existed that dealt with politics (not as in a commentary on current real-life events, but as in dealing with reelection and

policies, by-laws, and subsidies

and the like). Wanted to find one but could not think of any off the top of my head. Then this post shows up the day afterwards!

It is not just a quick text list that you or I could type up right now, but a website thingy with fancy little entries for each game. Any of us could go copy the code for it, spin up our own copy of that site, alter it to our wish for free; and not get pursued in court for it because they have it under a license that says we can do that instead of the usual license about no copying or modification, etc.

At least that is my understanding. Not an open source expert.

That is so interesting. In the tycoon games I have played I do not remember having competitors too often.

So basically we could absolutely have a clearly recognizable city builder in the absence of a money system in-game (even if thinly replaced with reputation or something that still gates progress just like most games would with money)? Maybe even one on the barter system, while you could not do the same with a tycoon game?

Okay, now I am thinking of a possible game where you are trying to have the best business before we invented money, and you have to barter for upgrades. Would this not be a tycoon game? Although you could argue that while this isn’t money, it is the lead up to it, and such a game is still centering economic exchange with the purpose of growing a business. (But then again, in city builders, don’t you have to manage income and expenditure of different resources, often including money, with the purpose of growing your settlement?)

Also, I cannot think of one off the top of my head right now but I am pretty sure there are tycoon games where you manage people/employees too, not sure if there are any where you worry about survival though.

Sorry if this comes off combative and contradictory, I really just mean it to be a nice friendly discussion.

This does not really scream casual to me. I am usually not a fan of casual games but this does not seem to fit the casual label it’s applying to itself. Even if I’m just dead wrong and it is casual, I would like to play this. For some reason the idea of drawing my own trails (and what is shown of it in the game screenshots) is very appealing despite me never having skied before. I’d like to try skiing someday though.

I wonder how much Kairosoft has sold on Steam as opposed to mobile. I played and enjoyed lot of their stuff on mobile.

Read character bios, it sounds adorable, but the game’s graphics unfortunately makes this a no from me. That is probably a good thing given how many games I have needed to check out thanks to this community…

Sounds cool, will definitely have to try the demo because most of the reviews seem to be from the Early Access phase and I am not sure if the criticisms still hold now that it is out.

mm quality of life Quick Challenge features…

I’m waiting for the Steam release. Maybe I can play on my Mac. Hoping they add Linux support for more than just Steam Deck someday! I’d like a taste of the super high def graphics everyone else has, as a mobile player I thought my graphics were good, and then I saw everyone else’s in-game pictures. It is not a huge priority for me, I can still see my outfits just fine when adventuring. But my Mastodon pfp is a shot I took in Infinity Nikki, so… I should probably upgrade that someday.

I did like most of the puzzles. Most. Some of the “jump on a platform to tilt it correctly for the ball to roll” ones were so hypersensitive to like 1° of wrongtilt I actually had to look up solutions and it still did not work sometimes, I had to keep adjusting. But the Hamiltonian path ones (jump on all the platforms ONCE) were a lot of fun, as were most of the box pusher ones. Box pushers made me use my brain.

Combat is right where it should be for mobile folks like me ;-; I am sure I could take a difficulty bump on PC. Platforming on mobile feels like I am probably having the same difficulty as PC/PS5 folks while I see people in the Discord talk about how mobile platforming is difficult compared to doing it on PC/PS5. I guess growing up on PC, Nintendo DS, and Wii gaming trained me for this—I never ever learned how to use a conventional controller.

Game is actually very high-quality. A lot of girly games I grew up with were… not of the best quality, while more stereotypically boyish or gender-neutral fare was better. This game is aimed at women/girls and actually has very nice gameplay and graphics (and people of other genders can absolutely enjoy it too). As of now there are soft and hard timegates but they do not feel anywhere near as frustrating as typical mobile energy timers. I tried Ikemen Vampire and despite liking otome games, I bounced off super hard after a couple days of genuinely trying because so much was gated behind freaking energy. Progress on story can be soft-gated here (must level up clothes or get good enough clothes to certain amount, it takes energy to level up clothes or get certain—but not all—clothing materials) but you can still explore the open world, collect most materials, and dress up Nikki/play minigames to your heart’s content, so it feels way less bad.

At least, that’s why I am assuming such an innocent community ad has attracted downvotes so early on. It’s not some shovelware game or a Flash dress up game out of 2008 (though I did like the latter). In a period of my life where I am having trouble sitting down and just enjoying a video game, I have gotten quite hooked on Infinity Nikki. Tried on the recommendation of the OP once late December, have been playing almost daily ever since. It’s genuinely fun.

You can collect coins and get upgrades in quite a lot of games that are certainly not tycoon games (see: a ton of RPGs, and some platformers). I politely disagree that this is any kind of edge case. I think it’s flat-out not a tycoon game. It’s cool, I like the idea of restoring the environment, but I really think this doesn’t belong here at all. I do not moderate this community though so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Beautiful art and fun premise, but exactly how is this a tycoon game?

I feel I did not really learn much about the game or as much about museum workings as I wanted by reading the review, but maybe it is just me. I usually like seeing people from a relevant profession interact with media depicting it. I get to find out what things are accurate, what things are fun shortcuts they wish they could have in real life, what things they find gross misrepresentations, and learn more about their subject of expertise.

Been noticing a small trend of potion/alchemy shop games lately. Not sure what to think, though I don’t dislike it. I love the idea of taking on the role of the shopkeeper who sells to the hero in a traditional RPG.

Read the review, you might want to have bundled that with this post given you posted the review so close in time to the Steam link. Of course link posts on Lemmy only take one link, but the review could have gone in a post body.

Review was enjoyable! I love tea so I might play. The fact it can reflect psychological realities over what the usual “correct” gaming responses are (reviewer gave answer about self-divulging about a problem to an NPC usually being the right choice, but they picked the option to say they were not really ready to talk about it, and the game did not punish that, it continued to feed them story with the NPC) sounds really cool.

The fact the reviewer felt conflicted about the game being about a warrior who needs to relax and take it slow, while he was playing in a manner that personally stressed him out and he didn’t find it relaxing actually made the game sound pretty good to me. Things that stress some people out don’t stress others out. Some people have to purposely slow themselves down in Stardew Valley to not feel stressed and pushed by a mental checklist, I’m not one of those people. If I have no goal to work towards in a game (self-assigned goals count), I’ll have trouble.