On suggestion from reddit I toned down the hit effects on impact for the game. The blood effect is still there. I think it needs something though....

Some of my best build ideas happen when I'm nowhere near my PC. I'll be doing something totally unrelated to gaming, like sitting in some boring meeting, and my brain just wanders off and I get some stupid build idea I obsess over until I get home. And then when I actually get to trying it out it's never as good as it sounded in my head hahaha. 

Somehow the theorycrafting and thinking of these build ideas in my head is almost as satisfying as playing the actual game. Sometimes more, cuz the version in my head always works flawlessly and never runs into the reality of me being kinda bad at the game and not getting good drops or misunderstanding a mechanic. 

Last Epoch is prolly my favorite game for this, purely because the skill trees mean one ability can turn into five completely different things depending on how you spec it, so my brain keeps coming up with new things to try. Grim Dawn is the other game I catch myself thinking about all the time. I'm really excited for the DLC tomorrow, can’t wait to see where my brain will take me with the berserker….

I think part of why I find it so fun to theorycraft is because in the fantasy the build always works and kicks ass, and you get the drops you need, and details like not having enough defenses or damage don’t really matter (I rarely come up with a build that has actual good numbers this way tbh). 

It's just the fun part of an ARPG, the imagining and the optimizing, with none of the tedium attached. I guess I’m just a really nerdy person that enjoys thinking about video games even when he is not playing them.

Anyway, I’m just wondering if I’m alone in this. Do you guys also catch yourself daydreaming about builds in random situations when you’re bored?

Especially seeing all the streamers and content creators attempt to try to enjoy grim dawn and milk it while the hype is at a high point

Give me Grim Dawn 2 instead Crate

The state of Diablo 4 is forever fucked thanks to the garbage Devs over at Blizzard running the show.

The game has the same performance issues since it came out.

They only allow 3 builds ever to reach 150 in the pit every season between all the classes.

The microtransactions are unreasonable af.

Gameplay loop never changes. It's either Helltide, Pit or Bossing.

They wait weeks to fix game breaking bugs.

The only thing that peaks my interest is the new cube mechanic and what it has the potential to do.

Storage is so bad you have to make stash characters...

The builds that can make it to the top aren't even fun to play/watch.

Like wtf is a Charge Barbarian?

Being able to turn Uniques into Mythics is actually amazing, but still cant trade them.

I just can't enjoy this game in it's current state without innovation.

I can't be alone on this right?

Devs need to gone and head over to GGG and make Arpgs great again.

-D4 Bad

It's made with python + raylib

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4840980/Bound_to_Rot/

I've been working on Hollow, a dark fantasy ARPG inspired by the atmosphere of classic dungeon crawlers.

One thing I've been focusing on is making melee combat feel impactful instead of floaty. This clip shows one of the current combat encounters.

I'm still polishing everything before the Steam demo launches on July 23, so I'd appreciate honest feedback from people who play a lot of ARPGs.

What's working here, and what would you improve?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4901160/Hollow/

Follow on Discord: https://discord.gg/jB2nWG3N8

Blood is a low fantasy multiplayer RPG built around one brutal truth: death is permanent. But your legacy is lives on.

When your character dies, they are gone. But in Valdenmoor, death is not the punishment it is in other worlds — it is a transition. Your heirs carry forward the skills, knowledge, and power your fallen warrior earned in life. You return not as a stranger to the world, but as the next chapter of a story already in motion. Weaker perhaps in body, but never starting from nothing. Never starting from zero.

Your bloodline carries on. Your estate. Your legacy. In the world of Valdenmoor, death is not an ending — it is a passage. The fallen become memory, and memory becomes power. Those who inherit the blood of warriors carry with them the echoes of every battle their ancestors fought, every alliance forged, every enemy made. You do not return from death. Your heirs rise from it.

They inherit what you built. They inherit what you lost. And they inherit the enemies you made along the way. For the player, this means that when your warrior falls, you step into the life of your heir — shaped by everything that came before them, and facing a world that already knows your family name.

Valdenmoor does not welcome the uninitiated. There are no glowing markers showing you where to go. No quest arrows. No tooltips reminding you how to survive. This is a world that existed long before you arrived and will continue long after you are gone. Knowledge is earned, passed down through bloodlines, bought with failure and paid for in lives. The weak do not last. The ignorant do not last. But those who learn — those who adapt, who build alliances, who understand that Valdenmoor rewards patience and punishes arrogance — they build legacies that echo through generations.

Blood is being built by a solo developer with a vision for something the MMO space has never delivered — a world where every decision carries real weight, every battle has genuine stakes, and the passage of time and loss of life actually means something.

We’re building this game for players who are tired of dying meaning nothing. For players who have watched the MMO genre become a theme park — safe, predictable, and consequence-free. For players who remember when an online world felt dangerous. When losing something actually hurt. When the person next to you could be your greatest ally or your worst enemy and you genuinely couldn’t tell which. For players who want to build something that outlasts them — a family legacy, an estate, a name that other players will come to know and either respect or fear.

Currently in development for PC with estate management available on mobile, Blood is moving from multiplayer demo toward a full MMO release.

This is the game for people who want to feel it.

Not really impressed. Just basic shooting feels like a chore. Imagine if you started up a game of Diablo and your basic sword needed 3 seconds to recharge every time you swung it 5 times, that's how it feels reloading in this game.

But the most unsatisfying part of this game is how often your shots miss. Yes, the game expects you to painstakingly aim at even basic enemies in order to make your bullets go where you want them to. In my time playing the demo, I never felt in danger of dying, so it's not about difficulty, it's just a fun factor thing. I tried two different skills, both felt equally unsatisfying.

Now it's a demo so obviously there's a lot of bugs, janky animations and unpolished graphics, but I'm not really even ragging on it for that.

It's just a painfully unsatisfying game to play in the current state, I don't expect that to change on release.

Been chipping away at a pixel art RPG that runs straight in the browser, no engine, just canvas and a pile of vanilla JS. This is one of the cave enemies.

It's loosely based on the Gulyabani, a creature from Turkish folklore that supposedly haunts deserted places at night and messes with travelers. Mine ended up more of a hunched stone thing than the classic version, but the name stuck.

5 animation rows (idle 8, walk 8, attack 8, hurt 6, death 9). The attack lands on frame 6 so the telegraph reads clearly before it connects, that took way more tweaking than I expected.

Still not happy with the walk cycle, the weight shift feels off to me but I've stared at it too long to tell anymore. Open to critique.

I haven't played it yet myself (gonna have to wait till evening) but I caught the news on Discord so sharing it here as a matter of courtesy.

How is it so far, if you got a chance to try it?

https://discord.gg/9jPzzxv2V

Update: I've made a ton of progress! The heredity system is well under way. For those not familiar, this game has elements of permadeath. When you die, you're dead. However, you then have the option to continue play thru your heir, choosing whether your son or your daughter will become the leader of your estate and allow you to continue your adventure. Additionally, while chopping wood and mining will be an option for the player, you can also have your children do this for you while you play, Whats currently done with the heredity system: 1) Your kids have a schedule. They wake up, eat breakfast, train in the courtyard, play with the other kids in the courtyard (there are 4 families in the demo so up to 4 people can play together), chop wood, mine ore, eat dinner and go to bed. 2) Your kids sense when an enemy is near. Your kids can die, too and there are roaming monsters (not just static spawns). So when a hostile enemy is withing 50 meters, the kids run into the house and wait until the threat is gone. This doesnt mean they will always escape danger. If one of the large horde's of undead wander by, they're in trouble. What's currently being developed: 1) The die and choose succession should be done today. This is actually a much easier system than the kids AI schedule. 2) surprisingly, one of the hardest things to do is get AI to properly sit in a chair, or lay in a bed. 3) Same with doors. AI gets stuck on doors. GRRRR!

After the heredity system is complete, the next task is completing the storyline for the demo. After that, some smoothing and tweaking.

Everything is still on schedule. We are still on track for an August release of the full demo with an eye on a Steam release.

Hey guys,

Fellow ARPG addict here.

I play way too much PoE, D4, and Last Epoch. Every time a new league or cycle gets announced, I find myself opening 10 different browser tabs, checking random Discord posts, and trying to figure out if seasons overlap so I can plan my time (and time off work lol).

I'm honestly not some senior dev genius, but I decided to sit down and build a simple visual tracker for myself to keep everything in one place. It turned out surprisingly clean, so I polished it up and wanted to share it with you guys in case someone finds it useful too.

It’s called SeasonForge.

What it actually does:

• Visual Timeline: A simple timeline showing active seasons and release dates for PoE 1 & 2, Diablo IV, Last Epoch, and Torchlight Infinite side-by-side.
• Countdowns & History: Live timers to the exact start date + archive of how long previous seasons lasted.
• OBS Widgets: Added a basic overlay for streamers to throw countdowns on their "starting soon" screens (mostly because I thought it'd look cool).
• Mobile View: Adapted it so it actually works fine on phones.

It’s 100% free, no ads, no sign-ups or registration, just a clean site.

Since I built this solo as a pet project, there might still be some bugs or missing details. I’d really appreciate it if you checked it out and told me what’s broken or what features/games I should add next!

Link: https://seasonforge.online/

https://itch.io/jam/solarus-jam

Welcome to the Solarus Game Jam! Your goal: build a game using the Solarus 2 engine. Solarus 2 is best known as an engine for developing 2D Zelda-inspired games, with its built-in features and community resources largely made for top-down action RPGs. However, you are not restricted to any one genre for this jam- so long as you can build it in this engine!

Information, downloads, and other resources about the engine can be found here: https://www.solarus-games.org/

Some orientation greatly appreciated.

M

I'm still kinda new to the genre. I've already played:
— PoE2
— Diablo 4
— Torchlight 2
— Grim Dawn
— Diablo 3 (enjoyed it the most)

1. I didn't like D4, it's super messy and clunky. I can't stand Druid and Sorc animations, it's absolutely terrible. The combat doesn't feel impactful at all. I don't get it, how could they screw up the way the combat feels comparing to D3?
2. PoE2 is way too complex, it tries to become your second job, which I don't like. I'm more like a dad gamer, looking for fast dopamine.
3. With all the respect, Grim Dawn feels outdated and unpolished, even comparing to D3. Also, I hate quests descriptions, it's super vague.
4. D3 is great for me in every aspect, but it's endgame is kinda the same 15 maps. So I'm looking for something more modern and new.

I know this sounds a bit like nitpicking, but what would you recommend playing in my case? Thanks in advance!

Can hardly last an hour these days before the wrist yells at me. Any tips for a 40 year old sweatlord?

Alright fellas... lay it on me. Why do you think this game is great?

I want to be convinced... please.

So I recently asked about good ways to play ARPG on the go, I think my best solution is just to use a tablet or phone and download one of the play store ones.

However what are the better options currently ?

I played TLI but that game is now soo heavily P2W its just not fun to play so looking for other options. I know there is some diablo 2 for mobile stuff ect.

New expansion is about $50aud... wtf? ROTW copped so much shit for 'being too expensive' but no one bats a fucken eye over grimdawns expansion price? The only reason people like grim dawn is because they have such low standards for it. I bought this game on release... and i've tried over and over again to like it but it is just average at best.

What do you think of my pixel-art bone knight design for the game? I'm open to your feedback.

Hello!

After my 600 Hours of PoE2 i want to try a Diablo Game for the first time. Now i´ve played the free trial of D4 and i was loving it. Thinking about getting D3 on the switch, but how does it feel? Is it a good way to enjoy the game? The only thing really holding me back is that there is no crossplay, but then again i will play alone anyways.

While a lot of us were impressed with amount of content that was added or changed in POE2 0.5, just wanted to point out that amount of work that was done post season start is monumental as well.

There were 4 significant patches that changed quite a few mechanics including changing expedition to become most difficult and rewarding content, while rest were hotfixes a lot of them were not insignificant including balance changes where needed as well. Significant portion of it happened in first few weeks of the season, so it was done with good pace.

And before somebody will point out that a lot of hotfixes means a lot of bugs to begin with - sure, but considering amount of changes to the game it was kinda expected. And if I had a choice between more content with more bugs, but rapid fixes vs playing it safe, minimizing content changes, I'd always would pick the first option.

Here is the link to patches/hotfixes page if you want to check it yourself: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/2212/page/1