What are you playing now?

[Tawmis]

Star Wars - The Old Republic - free to play.

Finally finished all the class stories in the game, and just played it as a single player, free to play MMO. Only money I put into it was a year's sub, when it first came out... back in December of 2011.
Might have been 2 years sub? I know it wasn't much more than that before the guild there fell apart; and I only returned when it became free to play.
I still immensely enjoy the game and stories and NPC Companions. Bioware was clearly dipping their fingers in what would become the blue print for their own games (Dragon Age and Mass Effect).

I never played the MMO, but I could definitely see the seeds of Mass Effect in the original KOTOR.

If you do the character stories for the MMO (it's free to play, which is the sole reason I kept playing it a few years back), the story is pretty good too, for each of them. (There's other "area" quests you can do, and such, which helps with getting XP and leveling). But you can literally just do the "class" story (which is what I did with the last one, which was the Imperial Sniper) and "beat the game" to finish your story. (The game naturally continues, with new quests, even after you finish the class story, and they've done expansions - you'd need to purchase - that go even more and more, with higher level caps and such, and more content). But even when you finish the class story and don't buy any expansions, new quests open up to continue playing.

[BBP]

Curious to see if the board game would be entertaining enough , I bought Mysterium on Steam.

I lose. A lot.

[BBP]

Tried my first hand at group playing Mysterium. There were 9 people online in the chatbox. Played my first game with an actual person, who quit the game before it was over.

I'm afraid I again joined a game right before the end. Like Pandemic during its final run.

[BBP]

Cluedo / Clue 2023 by Marmalade Studios.

They generously gave me the beta test version so I could spread it out to all social media I'm on.

[Rath Darkblade]

I'm wondering, BBP: which is better? This Cluedo or this one? (Both by Marmalade Studios).

As for me, I just started playing Age of Empires IV. It's fun, but there are lots of "documentary type" videos too about battles, how to make mail (of the chain variety), etc. (I knew that making a suit of mail took a lot of links, but I never realised it was as many as 200,000 individual links. Wow.)

[BBP]

Get them both

[Rath Darkblade]

Um, I'd prefer to start with just one. Is there any difference between them? Surely, the basic mechanics of the game (six characters, six rooms and six weapons) are the same. Right?

[BBP]

Yes, there is.

Clue/Cluedo Classic Edition on Steam will give you 1 set of characters + 1 "skin", with an optional extra 9 skins and 66 characters available for purchase.
The game you'll get has Dr. Orchid instead of Mrs. White, but there are various Mrs Whites available - along with other expanded universe characters like Lord Azure, Sgt Grey, Ms Peach, Ms Meadow-Brook... Special mention goes to the Sherlock Holmes skin, which has 9 characters including Sherlock and Watson and Moriarty (part of the reason why I was Moriarty in the last Masq).

The game plays well and looks nice. There is a multiplayer option where you play online with strangers, plus you can host online games with friends or you can all play on the same device when everybody's in the same room, but they'd all need an app.


Clue/Cluedo 2023 Edition gives you 3 Cluedo variants: aside from the classic game, there is Master Detective (upon your suggestion all your opponents will say if they can disprove your suggestion, but not which card they have), and Cluedo with cards - much the same except when someone rolls the looking glass, he gets a card telling other people to show cards.
There are currently 2 skins available - more will be in preparation.
Another new feature is unlockables, by winning a certain amount of times / making certain suggestions etc you can unlock background story and extra artwork.

The characters are all the same and in accordance with the current Hasbro line of etnicity - so Scarlet is always a black journalist with hair dyed red, Mustard is white with a white Santa beard, Green is always Asian. Cluedo Classic has (aside from the 1949 set which is based on the original all-white set) very mixed ethnicities and appearances. This doesn't do anything to your gameplay experience unless you really want someone to look like you.

Backstory for the latest Cluedo is unlockable, for the Cluedo Classic it was posted somewhere on social media or on Steam.

Hope that helps! Either way I'll be able to play with you if we manage to overcome the time difference.

[Rath Darkblade]

Thanks, BBP! Last time I tried playing Clue (the older version), it didn't run. Back then I was using Windows 7, but now I have Win11, which presumably makes a difference, so I'll try again when Clue is on sale again.

As for the time difference - hmm. Right now, it's 7:43am where I am. The time in the Netherlands is ... *checks* 11:43pm, so you're 8 hours behind me.

I work 8:30am to 5pm, so I can't game then. I can game from 7pm or so onwards, though. That would make it ... *checks* 11am for you. I don't know if that works for you?

[BBP]

I got it to work on my Win 7, albeit a bit slower.
I play regularly with someone on the Cluedo forum I frequent. He lives 8 hours behind me. But he works nightshifts, so we can find time to playa.

[Rath Darkblade]

All right -- I'll see when the Clue games (either of them) might be on sale next, and get it then.

I'm not sure why the Clue game didn't work for me then. I mean ... I could hear it, but I couldn't see anything; my screen was completely black, except other than a large black square with green sides, at the upper left side of the screen. Have you ever heard of something like that?

I think it might have been a GPU issue, since the same thing happened with other games (e.g. Sam & Max Save the World). Except that with S&MStW, I could actually see and play the game, but the green square still showed up -- but only while the game loaded, and while I was restoring a game. Very weird.

[BBP]

Time-of-the-year for the AIVD puzzle again. Hope I can juggle it with all the other balls I have now.

[Rath Darkblade]

Good luck, BBP! Maybe some of us can help?

[BBP]

You're more than welcome to give it a go! Thing is you never know in advance if any of it is solvable by non-Dutch speakers. However if you want to give "charts" a go (their newly invented game: a cross between chess and darts) I wish you the best of luck!

https://www.aivd.nl/onderwerpen/aivd-ke ... uzzel-2023

[Tawmis]

Hope I can juggle it with all the other balls I have now.

Somewhere Larry Laffer is giggling about that line...