PCGamesN Sunday, April 7, 2024 7:49 AM  In a world of complex, intricate city-building strategy games such as Cities Skylines 2, Anno 1800, Tropico 6, Rimworld, and the upcoming Frostpunk 2, the recently released Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is a rather delightful breath of fresh air. Its beautiful design and unique, simple building system that stretches out raised pathways and towers across a series of islands makes it one of the most immediately satisfying building games of 2024, and developer Tomas Sala reveals his current plans for what's ahead. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best city building games, Best strategy games, Best building games |
PCGamesN Sunday, April 7, 2024 7:35 AM  The Fallout 4 mod project that promises to entirely rebuild the iconic Fallout 2, Project Arroyo, has shown exactly how its ground-up remake and reimagining both follows the original and enhances it in a new comparison video. With three decades between them, it's safe to say that Project Arroyo is going to differ from Fallout 2 on a fundamental level. That said, the team clearly wants to make sure the atmosphere of New California is exactly as you remember it. Continue reading Massive Fallout 2 fan remake shows grand rebuild of the 1998 classic MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Fallout 4 console commands, Fallout 4 mods, Fallout 4 System Requirements |
PCGamesN Sunday, April 7, 2024 6:47 AM  I love cats, but as much as they can be an endless source of comfort they're also creepy little guys sometimes. They bring you half-caught prey to train you in the art of the hunt, they're often seemingly indifferent to bizarre situations around them, and they might even eat you if left without other food sources after your untimely passing. Suffice to say, then, that I'm not sure if the presence of a cat in the new PT-style indie horror game The Stairway 7 is a good or bad thing - but it's certainly got me curious. Continue reading New indie horror game is PT with a cat, and I'm scared to touch it MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best horror games, Best indie games, Best puzzle games |
PCGamesN Sunday, April 7, 2024 5:55 AM  If you've patiently been waiting to hear how Arrowhead is getting on with the ongoing Helldivers 2 crashes since the last big update, the team behind one of the biggest Steam surprises of 2024 has given us an update. While it doesn't sound like a hotfix for these crashes is going to drop at any moment, it looks like we also won't have to wait much longer. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Helldivers 2 weapons, Helldivers 2 servers, Helldivers 2 system requirements |
PCGamesN Sunday, April 7, 2024 5:42 AM  Frostpunk 2 beta dates have been confirmed by developer 11 bit studios, but you'll have to pay if you're eager to jump into the brutal city-building survival game early. The sequel to the fantastic 2018 strategy game is set to arrive in just a few months, and I couldn't be more excited to try out its grander scale decision-making, but you'll be able to get a first taste of it with a closed beta on Steam - although you'll have to put in a pre-order to do so. Continue reading The Frostpunk 2 beta is coming soon, but at a price MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best city-building games, Best survival games, Upcoming PC games |
PCGamesN Sunday, April 7, 2024 4:59 AM  April 7, 2024: We've checked for the latest new codes to claim free dice links for today. How can I get Monopoly Go free dice links? The classic board game has made its way to a free-to-play format, and you'll be doing laps of the board collecting houses and hotels and completing a variety of multiplayer minigames along the way. You can't get far in Monopoly Go without dice rolls, which you'll have a limited amount of to begin with. To earn more dice rolls, you'll need to log in daily to collect bonuses, invite your friends to the game, or progress further. If you don't want to spend your hard-earned money on more dice, you can use dice links for the board game instead. Now, let's run down all the currently active Monopoly Go free dice links for today. Continue reading Free Monopoly Go dice links April 2024 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best board games, Free PC games, Monopoly Go dice |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Sunday, April 7, 2024 6:00 AM  Sundays are for trying to get into yoga again, since alongside inheriting Edder's column, I've also somehow inherited his dodgy back. Before trying to track down the warlock Edders no doubt lavished several trinkets and a plump goat upon to gleefully transfer his ailment to me, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things!) |
Twinfinite Sunday, April 7, 2024 7:32 AM  |
Siliconera Sunday, April 7, 2024 9:00 AM
The older I get and the longer I work in this field, the less time I have. As I extend my social network outside of friends I've made playing MMORPGs and online, I spend less time gaming. Instead, I opt to go to local bars or restaurants as a way to decompress. One evening while I was out, I saw an ad for AFK Journey on Instagram. I never dipped my toes into its predecessor, but I liked the way this looked and I pre-registered. When the game installed itself on my phone, as most do when you pre-register for them through the Google Play Store, I opened it up on the night of release after a pretty severe bout of insomnia. To my surprise, it's everything I currently want out of a mobile game both visually and mechanically.
Between juggling reviews, guides, writing features, and working on other projects, the only time I play games these days is when they're related to work. I guess AFK Journey falls under this umbrella too, as I'm writing about it, but it is less of a game I play and more of a game that I manage. Players recruit characters through the gacha or special currency obtained by participating in PvP, a special boss mode, and guild activities. Which means there are more than a few ways to expand your roster or increase the rarity of the characters you've recruited. Increasing their rarity through feeding them duplicates of themselves is arguably the best way to increase the power of your team.
This means that the free units you get are more than viable for long-term play. I'm still using Valen and Lucius, two low-rank characters that I've now managed to make Mythic+ (which is one of the highest tiers of character rank in the game). Character designs are also fantastic, and the visual style of the game is gorgeous. The textures on the individual character models give the impression of being hand-drawn, which is a really lovely effect, and the world itself is lush and vibrant.
Outside of needing to obtain duplicates of characters to upgrade them, you participate in "AFK Battles" to get a set amount of currency per-hour, per-day. This currency is given based on how high your AFK Battle Level is. Right now, I'm at AFK Level 413. This means I'm getting enough resources to reliably level up my characters beyond level 110, which has allowed me to engage in additional content. At one point, I even turned on auto-battle to get me through AFK Battle ranks while I slept, just to see how far I could go with my freshly leveled up characters.
Because while the game doesn't have stamina attached to every activity, you will hit roadblocks based on what units you may or may not have, or what level they are. This requires you to quite literally just put the game down and come back later. Rewards from your AFK Level are gathered in a chest that can be obtained whenever you want. So you don't need to constantly load up the game to check back. You maybe need to boot it up once or twice a day to collect your rewards, level up, and then auto-battle to increase your AFK Level if you can.
There are more active activities as well. As I mentioned previously, you can tackle boss fights and guild-related activities. There is also a rogue-like mode that is scaled so you can take whatever character you want to experiment with different team compositions. This was arguably one of my favorite modes, since it involved being a little more strategic on my end when picking what Blessings, stat upgrades you get from beating stages, I wanted to obtain as I navigated the maze. However, these modes more or less build on the foundation of what AFK Journey's combat system is, which is auto-battling. Instead of actively picking what moves or characters you will use, the game is focused around picking complimentary team compositions based on who your opponent is or what your objective may be. Sometimes you need to defend a crystal, defeat waves of enemies, or place your characters accordingly to respond to environmental obtrusions. There is enough strategy there to keep you engaged, but not enough to be overwhelming.
I can enjoy AFK Journey on my own time without feeling like I need to constantly engage with the game, since it encourages me to put it down. I have to quite literally stop engaging with the game in order for my characters to grow more powerful. I appreciate that. I appreciate a game that lets me not feel like I'm missing out on any rewards or that I constantly need to be grinding. (Because the game does that for me.) My only complaint is that I want to do more sometimes, but maybe not being allowed to is for the best. It keeps the game low-stress and prevents me from being glued to my phone. For this reason, I can see myself playing AFK Journey for a good while. It's something I can appreciate, and maybe others will too.
AFK Journey is available for Android and iOS devices and PCs.
The post AFK Journey Is a Pleasant and Manageable Mobile Experience appeared first on Siliconera. |
Gamer Empire Sunday, April 7, 2024 4:07 AM Hearts of Iron 4 is a grand strategy game where players get to control any country of their choosing through the Second World War. The starting date is 1936, and there is no real end date. This means that many of you will reach a point where World War 2 is done and it doesn't […] |
Gamer Empire Sunday, April 7, 2024 3:48 AM Most people know that Italy had the most embarrassing performance during and before the Second World War. Around 40 years before the start date of Hearts of Iron 4, Italy managed to lose their war of aggression against Ethiopia. In hopes of fixing their past mistakes, Italy under Benito Mussolini launched another attack on the […] |