Slaughtahouse

Started to make Iced Tea with the leftover Tealish, black teas we have. Super fun with honey and lemon.

Also bought a larger bag of Echo espresso (2lbs) and another bag of blend as a gift.

5 minutes ago, Avacado said:

I get the feeling I have to unlock quite a few more jokers to be able to do that.

PC / Steam Progress:

Nintendo Switch Progress:

2024-03-22 - Release Update

Heads up that today marks a unique milestone. It's that time where large corporate developers release their final title to boost their FY results XD. So with that said....

Quick notes:

• Alone in the Dark is hovering around high 60's on Metacritic. Not great but it's fairly affordable on GMG, doesn't have DRM, and heard it's actually quite fun from friends.
• Horizon Forbidden West is looking like an excellent port on PC.
• Dragon's Dogma II is reviewing exceedingly well, high 80's, but also has quite a few technical issues, predominately CPU limited. 
• Sheet will be updated before end of day. Updated*

1 hour ago, Avacado said:

Git Gud.

 

Let me know when you get to my level, then we talk. Reported for abuse XD

18 minutes ago, The Pook said:

 

I've already unlocked it (been playing it when I should be working) but I always run into a wall right around 25-30 

 

a deck works awesome and then I run into a boss (whatever they're called) and they always end up making my deck useless. I just found out you can look ahead and plan but usually I don't have the money to fall back on something else (or if I do the rolls are bad). 

When I first started, I leaned too hard to two suits. Which sucks when a boss blind debuffs one. Avoid that riff raff and those + 4 mults to a suit. That’s really only helpful for the first few antes but it cannot scale well. Especially as flushes don’t scale nearly as well as 3 of a kind or 4 of a kind. Watch carefully some of the jokers. Some require you to play a hand, where others require your hand to contain a hand. Example: I had a joker that gave me +12 mult if my hand contained 3 of a kind. I still get that mult if I go full house or 4 of a kind or 5 of a kind.

The other tricky one is when all cards played in the previous ante are also debuffed. Skipping at least one blind per ante usually helps mitigate that one.

I also recommend you burn all your discards early before playing hands, generally speaking.

Sometimes you get a crappy RNG and not much you can do. Other times, with a bit of luck, you can last a few antes to start to convert your deck the way you want to.

It just takes a bit of time to really unlock meaningful vouchers and jokers. Try different decks if you’re running into a brick wall and always watch your economy. $20 is my baseline once I get out of Ante 4. 

All in, I’ve only won about 10 times so far out of maybe 100 runs XD.

Last but not least, sorry for all the edits, I found a youtuber / streamer dude who outlines some pretty good strategies.

Sorry OP, I've corrupted your thread and got too many people addicted to this crack card game XD

Balatro

1440p

Did my first "Fibonacci" run, which adds +8 mult per each A,2,3,5,8 played. Leaned into 3 of kinds with my jokers. Used the spectral deck (first time win with it), which you'll gents will discover soon.

Not much else to add here quite frankly.

• Try to avoid dissimilar metals
• follow the fluid recommendations here (distilled + additives)
• use compatible tubing
• don't buy EK blocks
• don't over think it
• Add a drain / fill port if you want to make your life easier.

My situation is a bit different / unconventional. As I have my small res modded into my rear fan mount, but the D5 vibrates my case (Fractal Meshify) and I had to buy some small rubber washers from Home Depot to help absorb / mitigate the vibrations that were being transferred from the pump to my case. Essentially my case became a speaker as it resonated with the D5 pump. So... if you're noticing weird noises, try dampening around the pump  

Below is my rig (CPU loop only).

D5 pump, EK Res, XSPC EX 360 rad, Raystorm block, Primochill LRT tubing. 3 x A12x25 Noctua fans, black chrome bitspower fittings. 

There are better components available now, especially rads and blocks. My dream was to go full heat killer but I paused on investing into water cooling. I just love the machining, the quality of their components. If I had to do it again and budget wasn't a concern, I'd go full heat killer. For more context, I've had this D5 pump for more than 10 years. Still going strong. 

I actually purchased a TechN AM4 block from a user on OCN a couple years ago before I left but never bothered to install it. Sitting in the box collecting dust. One day I'll add it but it was highly recommended for AM4 along side Optimus since it provides flow above CCDs. Not applicable to your 10 gen Intel. 

Happy to come back with some reco's but from my first glance at Avacado's response, it wont vary too much!

23 minutes ago, The Pook said:

 

better get your hole ready for tonight bb

 

lasted all the way to 15 14

 

Keep it up, those discoveries will help next go around!  I see you have 55$ in hand, dont be afraid to reroll for better jokers at the shop. There is a voucher to decrease reroll cost along side vouchers that increase interest. All of which should help build a better setup  

On 18/03/2024 at 17:20, GanjaSMK said:

Ooooooh I finally have something to post:

 

 

I don't know if I'm going to kick myself in two years having gone with this over the 7900XTX, but because it was same price point ($999 msrp, man am I a dunce), I figured the RT and otehr features (productivity etc, encoding) was worth it now.  Plus I couldn't find an available 4090 at the $1500 mark so.... pretty impressed with this going from a 6800XT that was massively clocked. 

 

 

Honestly, I think its the better call. They trade blows in many titles and anything RT, 4080 will peel away. If the 4080 was priced that way at launch, I would of went for it over the 7900 XTX. 

Balatro

Switch

A few fun rounds on Switch tonight. Lacking… fish XD

1. Managed to duplicate a polychrome version of the king in hand buff Joker (Baron). Didn’t get too far but made chuckle.

2. Found the spectral card that converts your entire hand to one random rank. Got 9 kings from a hand full of 9s, 7s, and 2s. Huge win. Also didn’t make it far lol.

3. Took a chance on duplicating 5’s and leaned into hearts and spades. Had a few killer jokers, many were holographic, one that ranked up my chip value per time’s played, and multiple cards that multed mults when my hand contained a three of a mind. Made it to Ante 11. PR on Switch.

23 hours ago, Supercrumpet said:

 

Thanks for the tips! I've been close to looking for some since my runs mostly fizzle out at ante 5 or 6 at the latest in a really unsatisfying and often frustrating way, a surprising number of times less than a thousand off the target.

 

I'd figured some of these over time but a few of these are good to know with your longer term experience. I haven't relied too much on adding cards to my deck since I feel like that's a fairly inconsistent way to go about things, but maybe I don't have faith that my run will last long enough to give me time to put together a better deck lol. So I typically invest heavily in two pair hands and sometimes flushes, and otherwise make small tweaks around the jokers I happen to get. I'll try the approach of tailoring a deck to 4 of a kind hands over time, that sounds interesting. Ironically I've gotten far more straights than 4 of a kind hands, but I think your argument makes a lot of sense. Good notes on card enhancements as well.

 

No sweat   

You don't have to stick to Four of a Kind. Thats just one strat and you'll have to be fluid and adjust strats based on RNG early on until you can exercise some control with tarot, jokers, and planets. I only suggest Four of a Kind because its one of the hand types that scales really well, with + 3 mult per level up. Going back to my screenshot, you can see in that run, my mult got to 43 on Four of a Kind and it only required level 13. Two pair was only 7 mult at level 6. I think you get 1 mult per level, so if I invested into Two pair to get it to level 13, I would be at 14 mult. Not ideal for late game. Flush House on the other hand... scales even more crazy. But my deck wasnt setup for it. I was trying to slowly get there but it was too late.

Yes, go for card packs when you can and lean into something that makes sense with your hands, jokers etc. I had a joker that gave me x1.5 mult per King in hand. So I quickly started to convert my kings into steel cards (adds x1.5 mult) and then duplicate (sacrifice) cards into steel kings. With all those kings, I had good probability to increase my mult. For best chip score, I went for aces. Preferably lucky or polychrome. I didnt take a screenshot of my deck but it was primairly aces and kings, across 3 suits (one entire suit was sacrificed into kings and aces XD)

I'm definitely not a pro. I have however beaten Ante 8 about 6-7 times. Furthest run is still the one mentioned, shared above. 

51 minutes ago, The Pook said:

a buddy gifted it to me a few days ago but I haven't played it yet. I don't really understand the premise, he said it was "like poker" but what little I've read about it makes it sound nothing like poker. 

It’s only poker themed. In truth, it’s a deck builder. You don’t need to understand the rules of poker to play because they don’t apply here. The only poker rule component are hand types, like two pair, 3 of a kind, royal flush etc. Even then, the game gets creative because your deck can be modified to play 5 of kind or flush house, none of which are possible in a 52 card deck.

All you really need to think about is how can I beat my blind which requires you to pass a chip score. How you get there is the fun

4 hours ago, Supercrumpet said:

 

I picked this up a few days ago as well. Only have 3-4 hours so far, but it's a really cool concept. Still trying to find good strategies, but I love the premise.

Since this game doesn’t have cross-play, I had to re-unlock a lot of cards on PC. Unfortunately, it’s really quite difficult to make it to Ante 8 without unlocking at least a few jokers, vouchers that increase tarot or planet probability.

My suggestion once you have unlocked about 50% of the cards (see stats for more info) is to not lean too much into one play style at the beginning. Play fluid and diversify into tarot, jokers, and planet cards. You really need the combo of all 3.

4 of a kind scales very well but it’s extremely low probability for the first few antes. Each level up increases mult 3x but you’ll need to expand your deck with card packs and clone your best cards with low cards. E.g., sacrifice your 2’s and 3’s into lucky or glass aces. So to start, work with two pair or flush combos and you should get some decent economy to invest more into better hands to swap to a better hand, like 4 of a kind.

I typically avoid straights or straight flushes because probability is low. All straights either require a 5 or 10 and with so many other dependencies, I’d avoid in most circumstances.

I usually, but not always, skip the first two blinds in the first Ante, depending on the rewards.

Steel, glass, lucky are the best card enhancements. Red coins are critical for late game. Purple and blue coins are great for early game. Polychrome is the best edition. Skip foils.

Last but not least, this is the most important advice:

Card order matters! Pay attention to any cards that multiply your mults XD. They’re best at the right side of your joker stack or your hand. Some cards add chips. Some cards add mults. Stick those to the left. Example: 

Hand 1: +3 mult +3 mult x 3 mult = 18 mult

Hand 2: x3 mult + 3 mult + 3 mult = 9 mult

Hand 1 will score double hand 2. Same cards, just different order

Took me about 10 hrs to notice there are cards that mult mults… XD

That’s the gist of my advice! Good luck  

Balatro

1440p

I've been insanely addicted to Balatro. I've purchased it on Switch near launch and doubled dipped on PC. I'm around 45 hrs in across both systems. Easy to get sucked into it. Premise is real simple: Beat Ante 8. To do that... Earn chips to beat the blind (round). Each Ante (level) has 3 blinds (rounds), you can skip the small blind (round 1) and big blinds (round 2) but you can't skip the boss blind. 

Your deck starts off as 52 cards. You earn chips by playing poker hands. The magic comes from the vouchers, joker, planet, tarot, spectral cards. I'll call them magic cards to simplify. Magic cards enhance, modify, your deck, hand, or how they all behave. You can level up your hands to get better base chips and mults (multipliers). Only RNG is shop items and card pulls. Rest is customizable. It's a roguelite, like Hades, meaning some progress is carried (unlockable magic cards that can pull via RNG) to help improve your odds in the next run. The real fun just comes from how far you can break the game. Watch those chips stack and mults fly, you'll be off to Saturn real quick XD

Above are screenshots of my new personal record. Not only did I beat Ante 8, but I went to endless mode and made it Ante 12 and even pulled a 26,000,000 chip hand. I haven't hit hands that are counted in exponents (e.g., 1e17) but I'm getting close.

Try this game... and you'll be hooked.

Edit: If you type the "Seed" code above (2WF3Z83E) into your game, you'll have the exact same RNG. So you can try to beat my score, apples to apples XD. Good luck!

Welcome to Steam

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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The Steam Spring Sale is on now — find great deals on thousands of games! Plus claim a daily sticker on category pages.

Steam Spring is now live! 

GoG has some decent sales, including Blasphemous 2 at 40% off and God of War (2018) now available on GoG and 50% off. Easily one the best games and DRM free? OOOO baby

-50% God of War on GOG.com

WWW.GOG.COM

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Enter the Norse realm His vengeance against the Gods of Olympus years behind him, Krato

-40% Blasphemous 2 on GOG.com

WWW.GOG.COM

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The second scripture in the Blasphemous series portends the return of The Penitent One, w

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

Hey @Slaughtahousedo you ever drink tea besides your london fog tea?

 

I highly recommend Rishi vanilla mint chai aka vanilla pu erh. Try the 1/4lbs. option. Its loose-leaf so you'll need a tea ball, but I make it in a french press. Also, it's not great on it's own- you're going to need honey for it too. We get ours in a big thing at Costco.

 

Thought I'd bring it up for you to possibly try since I'm trying the Stereo Echo. This is the one I make or suggest to people who say they don't like tea, lol.

 

 

I drink coffee at maybe a 25:1 ratio to tea for context XD. Yes, I do drink tea from time to time and mostly it’s green or herbal. 

Only last year I started to order london fogs from my local coffee shop and decided to try making it at home once we bought that Rocket Appartamento. Which has opened me back up to black teas again.

I definitely will try one of your recommendations. I don’t want this to be one sided of course! I’m still working through my tealish order but next order I’ll check out that chai!

Additional info - I typically make 4 double shot espressos a day. 2 for me, 2 for my wife. Double shot meaning larger portafilter with ~19-20g of coffee pouring from the double spout per drink, as seen below.

If Im on the road or at the office (flex schedule) I only make 2 double shots and then I order a drink at my local coffee shop. That shop recommended to me to try Stereo and they’re one of the best shops in Toronto IMO.

2024-03-12 - March Update

Quite a bit behind schedule. Work, personal, as well just hard to keep up with all the announcements. Below is a quick excerpt from the latest version of sheet, highlighting releases for March. Trying to do a copy - paste from the sheet so hopefully it's formatted well. No controls available within this post editor unfortunately to adjust column width etc.

It's also worth noting some games may have already been released on other platforms but are now they're being ported to other consoles. E.g., Hi-Fi Rush. The list from 2023 will have it's original release date (January 29th). 

Beyond that, I'm still plugging away updates in the google sheet, and Metacritic scores should be up to date (+/- 1%) for any released title in 2024.

I think Dragon's Dogma II is the game to watch out for this month but I know personally, I won't be able to touch it for quite a while. There is a character creator (demo) that was released last week. Give it a go!

1 hour ago, Barefooter said:

Nvidia RTX 5090 could have up to 77% more memory than 4090

 

From techradar

 

Game Developers Conference (GDC) and Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) is also next week.

We won't hear about consumer class GPUs (SKUs, hardware, pricing etc.) but...I do expect some form of update on Blackwell architecture. Whether it's the enterprise counterpart and/or the technology we can expect to come down the pipe, they will want to preach to devs next week (and kick start their new FY... xD).

12 hours ago, neurotix said:

 

Getting it but because we're in Murica, it's going to take 10 days minimum to arrive.

 

We're getting drip grind and it'll be made in our basic Cuisinart drip pot. Hopefully that is ok even though it's an espresso.

 

I'll report back with my thoughts on it once I have it.

Awesome - Hope you enjoy. Yea, the naming is sometimes confusing but I believe thats just branding. Any bean should be usable for any brew process.

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

Thanks for the link. Got a lot of Kicking Horse coffee because of you guys in this thread. Maybe I'll check them out. What kind do you recommend?

 

I would love a double shot espresso cappuccino that you mentioned, lol.

Since you do filter / drip, I suggest one of the blends. We did a taste sample of a few at the roaster, both in espresso and filter / drip  and I really enjoyed the Columbia - Caldas Blend, Analog Espresso, and the Echo. I typically prefer beans from Columbia after trying different types of beans from different roasters but this Echo so far is now by far my #1 favourite. The flavour profile is sweet / rich, and it has this effect, like an IPA beer, that hits the side of your tongue and really opens up a different effect. At least, thats how the roaster described it and I can concur! Super fun  

Echo Espresso

STEREOCOFFEE.COM

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Our goal in creating this contemporary espresso is to selectively source coffees that are sweet, fruity and chocolatey. We carefully and lightly...

I really don't think you can go wrong in other words.

15 hours ago, neurotix said:

 

 

All way beyond me man, and my single serve Cuisinart I have every morning, french vanilla. And then a single cup of Columbian from the drip brew pot.

 

I can say that I am pretty much addicted to Cameron's black masala chai with brown sugar. If you or anyone else isn't aware, putting milk in tea causes the milk to bond to the catechins and make them inert. So you don't get the health benefits that come from drinking tea if you add milk or creamer. No effect from chemicals like ECGC. Nevertheless, we have Half & Half to make chai lattes with.

 

I never heard about the reaction from milk resulting in benefits being inert. Thanks for sharing  I typically don’t drink tea with milk, beyond my little bender with London Fogs.

RE: Espresso process. It’s honestly pretty simple once you get into the rhythm but I can understand why many would opt out of making espresso. 

A lot of the blends, including the one I bought, are recommended for drip, french press etc. and they ship to the US.

I made my first cup today (double shot espresso cappuccino) with the echo espresso and I can easily say it was the best coffee I’ve made yet.

Blends

STEREOCOFFEE.COM

Went to Stereo Coffee Roasters in Toronto with my wife to try a few samples. Came back with a couple small bags.

Super excited to make some drinks with these

In other coffee related updates, I retuned our approach to brewing.

I now set our grinder closer to 3 instead of 4, and once in a while weigh the grinds to ensure Im around 12g for a single spout / espresso or 19g for a double spout / espresso. I still need to be on my toes per bean as every little adjustment makes a big difference, including tamping pressure.

Getting more flavour out of each pull with this finer grind and less guesswork with weight.

Less about updates, more just an opinion piece.

Buy Balatro if you enjoy card games. 

Balatro on Steam

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker...

I picked this up last week, just to look for a quick pick me up. Found it hard to get focused in Alan Wake and my backlog was giving me anxiety.

I’m over 10 hrs in and easily, this could be potentially one of the best indie games of the year. 

The concept is pretty simple, the rules are bit complex to explain, but when you get into the action, it all just clicks.

Your goal is simple: Build a deck to get the highest chip count during a round. Chips are result of all of the chip values of your hands (full house, straight, flush, two pair etc.) as well as your multiplier.

You find various upgrades that can either modify cards in your deck to increase chip value per card or mult factors. Additionally you can level up the efficacy of your hands. E.g., level 2  full house bumps chip values and increases mult by X factor. 

What really makes it fun is watching all these modifiers work together. Special jokers, tarot cards, upgraded hands, modified cards like glass or steel… 

Layer on all the screen popping effects, sound effects, and challenges (boss blinds debuffing you), it gets super addictive. 

A game can last anywhere from 5mns to an hour or more. Really easy to pick up and play. Highly recommended on a mobile device. Playing on Switch.

10/10 

9 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

No thanks.  Can't play a lot of retro games on Windows 10 anyway, and Steam only works on Windows 10 and newer.  I'll stick to GoG copies.  You guys are more than welcome to be guinea pigs though.

If it's being listed on Steam today, it supports Windows 10. I understand the sentiment but there's no guinea pig. Its just a trade off storefront vs. drm free version.