I distinctly remember “humans are the friendly ones”/“humans are willing to pack bond with a lot of stuff” as a common HFY theme.

First link also works for me. I’m on Kbin if that makes any difference.

If you check the view of the community from lemmy.world the last post visible is from a month ago

… oh crap. I might as well just start my own community on kbin.run and post here again in a month or so as to not come off as a super spammer repeating the same topic.

Thank you so much for helping! I really appreciate it! And I do hope visualnovels gains some traction. Propping up dead communities hurts…

I’ll be honest, I 1) have no problem with straight males enjoying content aimed at them, including male-gazey content. I am 2) a woman extremely disinterested in that. I think the entire reason on Reddit we congregated on r/otomegames and usually didn’t bleed into r/visualnovels is because r/visualnovels catered mostly to men, and although that’s fine there also wasn’t much there for us. I took a brief look at your link and although it does have gender-neutral stuff like Ace Attorney, the one otome post has two downvotes and zero upvotes despite being on topic, and I see a lot of romance games aimed at men sexually interested in women. So sorry, but definitely not for me. Yes, those downvotes might be the obligatory few downvotes on nearly any Fediverse post I see ever no matter how inoffensive and on topic, but still, no approval balancing it out… nevermind, I read it wrong, two upvotes. My point about content I actively do not want to see (though I am okay with others consuming it) being prominent there as well as neutral news still stands. (Yes, I can handle male gaze in shows, I really enjoyed Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. But it feels a little different to play as a guy where at least part of the goal, whether explicit in game or just a goal in real life and not part of the main story, is to see women in a manner sexually exciting to a straight man. And although most otome aren’t quite sexual, and more about romance, I feel some men might also not want to see content focused on games where a big goal is to romance a man as a woman, presented in a femgazey way or a way tailored to our desires even if not sexualized.)

I know of the Lemmy alternative and I think I was ignoring it because at first, otomegames@kbin.social did have activity, and the Lemmy one was overrun by just reposts of fan art someone else drew (at least with attribution) and I preferred majority-discussion over a replication of that particular game’s tag on Pixiv. Also, oh god the English errors on the rules. It seems to have died so I might try that if this doesn’t work. Does Lemmy have a way to get inactive mods removed and replaced? Thank you for the recommendation!

(So why don’t I just recruit from the subreddit? Already tried when Lemmy and Kbin were getting their big population boom from the API drama. I got shoved into the Self-Promotion Sunday threads that nobody pays attention to.)

I know kbin.social has issues but I figured the federated nature of the Fediverse meant we could still post to communities there without being on it ourselves. Is the issue that the posts will be frequently inaccessible? I am a little confused.

Works for Kbin people, thank you, the one in the OP shoots me to mander.xyz

Same, started playing with a friend and now I’m back on the Stardew grind in singleplayer too. Doing a challenge run where I try to complete the community center without ever buying from Pierre (except for the backpack upgrades) or Joja, and without ever going in the mines. The real blocker on this is quartz. My only route to obtain it is fiddling in peoples’ trash and it is a rare drop.

I have seen Noita recommended so many times for deep/complex games or games with a cool magic system.

I have also never fired and bought it because I don’t tend to like roguelikes and I hear it can be very frustrating, though some mods help with that. Not sure if I should buy.

(Or I could just see if a friend would let me try theirs first :P)

I watched a quick trailer for Workers and Resources and the part focusing on a bus driving made me think of a head-in-the-clouds fantasy cool thing:

a city builder game. Click on a truck driving through to switch to a driving sim (think American/Euro Truck Simulator), on a train to a train sim, on a bus to a bus sim… Click on a person walking on the street and you get a The Sims-like interface and get the ability to switch into that game mode. And even though this is probably highly unrealistic and already too much, so why am I even thinking about scope, you could limit scope by locking to just this one city. Any vehicle routes out of the city have the vehicle disappear when you get to the city border. Sims already limited itself to one town/city, do that the same way.

After reading a few reviews for W&R apparently it scratches both a Transport Tycoon-type itch and regular city builder itches, so sort of like my above idea—a few games in one. Apparently it can be micromanagey, which appeals to me when I’m in a certain kind of mood.

Reviews for Skylines 2 are Mixed, which suggests you should play Manor Lords (Very Positive).

I just played some Stardew multiplayer with a friend. First time I have broken out the game in about a year, and what with 1.6 being newly out, now I feel like playing singleplayer…

Also multiplayer Minecraft with friends.

When I was a kid, I played so many more games on my own initiative. Now that I’m older I seem to need to be incentivized to play a game by “your friend is playing this game!” But that does set me in more of a gaming mood afterwards…

I did not even know they separated out Web searches until I came to your comment. Super useful, thank you.

Was free on Epic awhile back, check to make sure you didn’t get it there already

I always appreciate the Epic posts. I know it is a known weekly thing, I also tend to forget with all the other things going on in my life to actually go claim the weekly free game. Your posts remind me to do that.

I think that is the perfect explanation for why I don’t like walking simulators, thank you!

As a walking simulator hater (not going to say “if you like them you are not a gamer”, they are just personally not my speed), I enjoyed Stanley Parable a lot. Hades is kind of similar in that I don’t like roguelikes but I do like it.

Kingdom looked so interesting but actually playing it drove me up the wall for reasons I cannot articulate even today.

I remember someone being named Connor, a fandom on tumblr, and robots.

Is anyone named Detroit and does anyone become human?

Rabbit.

They’re adorable.

That’s the only reason.

Why yes, I do post on @bunnies@lemmy.world.

Various incremental/idle browser games that are truly free. Kittens Game is pretty good. It also has a mobile app (Android link) (iOS link) which you pay once upfront for. The Shark Game is also pretty cute.

Just found @incremental_games@incremental.social

Any time anyone ever says War Thunder all I can think of is people leaking military information on the game forums.

• Classified Challenger tank specs leaked online for videogame (1st time)
• Classified tank specs leaked on War Thunder game forums – again (2nd time)
• War Thunder Forums Have, For the Third Time, Been Used to Leak Classified Military Intel (3rd time)
• War Thunder players leak military documents on forums, again (9th time)
• Military secrets leaked on ‘War Thunder’ forums yet again (12th time)
• For 13th time, sensitive military information leaked on ‘War Thunder’
• Sensitive documents showed up on War Thunder forums. Again. (14th time)

May or may not come back and edit with more links for the other times