Liking the look of this one. Added to my Wishlist.

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7 Days to Die :

I've been playing this game for years now. It has had big changes with each major release, and the new content has helped to keep the game fresh and interesting for veterans like me. Recently, the new Alpha 19 Experimental was made available in the Beta tree (and Alpha 18 is the stable version). There were lots of content changes with Alpha 19: The regular map has new buildings and new graphics improvements make the world quite different (so it is fresh to play again). I was really pleased that the other 3 regular maps (PREGEN 01, 02, 03) are all brand new layouts. Assuming you have played all those maps (or just want to create a random one) then that also keeps the game alive for repeated play-throughs.

With Alpha 19, there have been numerous balance changes and skill progression (perk trees) is different too. The food and water depletion is much harsher on A19 than A18. Some of the skills that you could manage without on A18 are worth having on A19 (e.g. I find I need to spec. into Stamina Regen else I am constantly out of energy when using tools.) On A19, the rate of progression has been slowed down, by restricting the level of the loot you find until your character is more experienced. Although this idea does work for making the game more of a survival struggle, because you are no longer able to find high level gear which would make your life easier, I find it is a little unrealistic to make loot level suddenly jump once an arbitrary game-stage is reached.

As I'm a veteran player, over the last year or so, when I've been playing, I have been pushing up the various difficulty settings in the game options. This helps to keep the game challenging and you can tune the game to your liking. I have played in many different ways, and here are a few examples:

- Zombie difficulty is set by Difficulty Level (1 Scavenger, 2 Adventurer (default), 3 Nomad, 4 Warrior, 5 Survivalist, 6 Insane) and I find the default is too low, and normally choose Warrior (but there are still higher levels beyond that if I wanted).

- Blood Moon Horde Night Frequency - This is when a massive horde of zombies appears at night and seeks out the player. The default is once every 7 days. I have played with the frequency set to 1 Day, i.e. Horde Every Night (on Nomad and Warrior difficulties). (It can be set to once every 3 days, once every random days, etc).

- Loot Abundance - This is a setting I've never touched before, normally it is at 100%. In my latest playthrough I set it to 50% and it makes the regular game much harsher, particularly the first few days. You really need to know what you are doing to play in the mode, else starvation or being killed by zombies (because you have inferior equipment so it is harder to fight) is inevitable.

- Numerous other settings can be tweaked beyond the most impactful ones I've mentioned above.

In my latest game, I have been playing with these changed settings - Difficulty: Warrior, Loot Abundance: 50%, Air drop map position: Off, Horde Max Size: 32, Zombie Day Speed: Jogging, Map: PREGEN01 - and the rest of the settings on defaults. Having Warrior and 50% Loot settings makes the game really difficult. You find hardly any loot, the zombies are tough to fight - It severely impairs your progress - It modifies the default game into more of a survival challenge. I found that I have been needing to focus on crafting equipment (e.g. tools) because finding a decent item is so rare. Playing in this mode, makes the game more like a traditional rogue-like, where you are at the mercy of RNG and you need to adjust your play depending on what you find.

RUST :

Nearly a year ago, FacePunch announced that they were stopping development of the Linux client. Up to that point, RUST had been one of my favourite Linux native titles. I have played 1000s of hours of RUST (on Linux). Following that announcement, I didn't give up hope because of Proton, and I continued playing the Windows client on Linux with Proton for a few more months. However, FacePunch ruined Linux play with Proton (on Custom Servers) by making Easy-Anti-Cheat necessary for your server to be included on the Game Server List. Their reasoning was - If a gamer joins "your" custom server they should know that EAC is enabled, and so the joining player is confident that they are safe from game cheaters (using hacks).

It was still possible to run a Custom Server with EAC turned off, but with the server not being in the Game Server List, no regular players would find the Server and play on it. So you'd end up with an empty "dead" server. After playing on dead servers for a couple of months, I finally decided enough was enough, and gave up on the game.

This wasn't entirely bad for me, because RUST as a game is a massive time-sink, it just doesn't play in a way that sensible people can progress. In the game, you get ahead by staying on the server accumulating resources and beefing up your base(s). The more time you stay online, i.e. Going and playing every day, the more you grow your little empire and the harder for someone else to beat you. As such if you are a casual player (e.g. I want to play for a couple of hours a week) then you'll get nowhere and your base will be destroyed.

Despite my comments above, and having not touched the game in 10 months, recently I've booted up to my Windows partition and played a little RUST on Windows. I absolutely won't go back to playing it avidly, like I used to when it was available on Linux. Still it is nice to have the option to jump to Windows in cases where I just can't use software on Linux. Literally a case like this is the only use for Windows that I have - To fire up a single piece of software, use it for a while, and then reboot.

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I've been watching this game for years, and enjoyed playing an early free revision of it that you play in your browser. With it being on sale on Humble, and combining the sale discount with the choice subscription discount, I've decided to take the plunge and pick it up, finally.

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The thing is, all the big development companies should contribute towards projects like this so that they themselves don't get put over a barrel by the companies who control the creativity software market, e.g. Adobe, Autodesk.

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As a massive fan of the 7 Days To Die game - which encompasses survival, crafting, base-building, exploration, looting and fighting hordes of zombies - I've been checking out the new Alpha 19 experimental build of the game, which was available to the public on Monday 29th June. I play it as a single-player permadeath campaign.

I've been playing on Warrior difficulty, on the Navezgane map, and I've found the map to be quite different to the Alpha 18 map. There are Traders in different positions, there are new buildings replacing older ones, and other changes. The improved graphics and other changes do make it very fresh and appealing to play.

As I'm used to playing on Alpha 18, here are some balance changes and things of note:

Loot progression is a lot slower on A19. Even with perk points allocated into the Lucky Looter skill, you almost always get primitive stone tools (in tool boxes), primitive stone weapons (in weapon boxes) until you have gained a decent amount of experience (game-stage 15 and beyond). This makes the early game tougher as you are less able to kill zombies, slower to harvest resources.

Another noticeable difference is the depletion rate of food and water. I'd say you need to eat and drink three times as much as you do in Alpha 18. This is somewhat punishing in the early game. It "encourages" you to spend points in the Iron Gut perk, which enables food and drink to provide better nutrition (and also makes you less prone to getting sick).

There are a selection of new (High Def) zombie models, which look better, help with game performance (frame rate), and seem to have better hit-boxes than the zombies in A18. However, it seems like your character gets tired and out of stamina quicker.

There are lots of other changes in the game - Zombies can now swim. The zombie A.I. pathing is a bit different. There are new items and furniture. A selection of new weapons. New books for learning additional skills. New candies in vending machines which provide time-limited boosts to abilities. If you get injured in game. there are new critical effects which can be nasty.

Overall I'm enjoying most of the changes. My biggest issue with it is that the game difficulty is set to follow the experience level of the player (rather than going up gradually with time). Following the player's experience level does mean that the zombies "keep up" with you, but it also means that you don't have a (survival) reason to train up your player to gain experience, because you are always behind the curve - The curve follows you. It makes the game into a sandbox experience, rather than a true survival campaign.

I'd like to see the option of these settings -

1. Campaign Mode (game stage goes up as a function of time)
2. Sandbox Mode (game stage follows player experience, i.e. what we have now)

My other issue is with the zombie path-finding. It is just too direct-able, which leads players to build zombie-cheesing bases. The developers had a go at addressing the cheesing "slippery slopes" base designs, but I've already seen youtubers have got around the developer fixes. I tended to prefer the stupid zombie A.I. of Alpha 15 (on horde night). I'm okay with the current path-finding for regular zombie appearances, but during horde night it can be exploited.

I like the fact that you are relatively susceptible to RNG during the early game of 7 Days To Die. You start with nothing, perform some basic harvesting and crafting, and have some very basic tools and weapons. From that point onwards, you come across items, e.g. a piece of armour, a schematic, and you need to work out the best way forward with the limited resources you have acquired up to that point.

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I can confirm because I have just checked - For people like me, who have a Humble Choice Subscription, and *before* I pause the subscription, and *before* I unlock the monthly choices, the 20% Discount Bonus on Humble Store is active.

If I were to pause this month, then the 20% Discount would go away. (This does not happen until I pause it.)

Note that if you leave the subscription unpaused, then in the last week prior to the subscription switching to the next month, it is assumed you want it (because you didn't cancel it) and it gets added to your account. (Pause early to avoid getting a month you do not want.)

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My birthday is close to yours. Personally, I've always taken off my birthday as holiday every year. And when I was a kid, my birthday was in the Summer holidays so I never went to school (doing school work) on my birthday either.

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I'm not sure exactly how this next suggestion might be affecting the statistics, but it is certainly worth thinking about:

In my work-place, the typical user is on Windows and leaves their computer *on* overnight. Rather than shut-down and conserve electricity, they are so lazy they just screen-lock and go home.

With COVID-19, the companies have no doubt stipulated that desktops are powered down, as they are not in daily use, and they wish to cut down service costs.

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Playing it now. So far so good.

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As a result of the new Steam Sale, and that extra discount if you spend enough offer, I've been trying out demos. Space Robinson demo is still accessible: steam://install/1144320 or here https://steamdb.info/app/1144320/. I like it, but as yet cannot get far enough "in the demo" let alone progress deep into the game. (I'm one of these people who doesn't like gamepads, and tries to play twin-stick shooters with keyboard and mouse, and naturally it is a little too much for some titles.)

Mars Power Industries First Job is a demo/free game for their Deluxe version. I've been giving that a go, too.

I've been checking out a lot of game play footage to see if I like various titles, e.g. Stranded Deep, Dying Light: Hellraid dlc, The Enchanted Cave 2, and others.

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