Destiny developer Bungie says it has addressed an issue where players have had their usernames changed by its "name moderation tool".

After "actively investigating" the issue for 24 hours, Bungie advised that while it had "identified the issue that was forcing a high number of Bungie name changes", it was "continuing to investigate" what happened and how "to address player accounts that were impacted".

Although Bungie acknowledged that a "high number of account names have been changed", the studio stopped short of confirming exactly how many players were affected.

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Steam store page – Twitter/X – Wikipedia

I know that I’m extremely late when it comes to the Palworld hype. Palworld released in early January 2024 and currently, since there aren’t a lot of updates dropping, the hype died out. Yet, the roadmap looks extremely promising. Since this game is still in early access, I’m always hesitant in writing about the game. Since, you never know which mechanics or things will change and evolve during the early access period. Especially since we are currently only at v0.1.5.1. So, I decided to hold off on my first impression/review article for now. But, I wanted to talk about this game. So, here are some things I’d love to see in the full version of Palworld or even in one of the next updates.

First of all, what is a Palworld?

Palworld is a combination of several games, all thrown into one. It’s easy to describe Palworld with saying which games it combines.

Foremost, at its core, it’s a game you can somewhat compare to Ark Survival Evolved. When I first started playing, I noticed the similarities right away. The way how you have a crafting system to build your base, and you have monsters running around you can tame/catch is totally here as well.

I haven’t played a lot of Ark, so I can’t say if this mechanic is also present in Ark… But, the fact you can use your monsters to preform tasks in your base reminded me quite a lot of The Survivalists. A game where you are stranded on an island, and you can train monkeys to preform actions for you. The big difference is that now certain monsters can only preform certain tasks, instead of the monkeys just copying you.

Now, a lot of other articles describe this game as Pokémon with guns. After playing this game, I think that’s a somewhat unfair comparison. When I think Pokémon, I think a journey with gyms and an evil team. I think turn based battles and a big ending tournament as its conclusion. While some Pals share a very similar design language to some Pokémon, most of the mechanics of what makes a Pokémon game aren’t in this game. The other big mechanic is the capture mechanic, but by now this isn’t exclusive to Pokémon games anymore. Especially since we have games like Coromon.

There are also influences of the latest Zelda games. Especially Tears of the Kingdom. There are these huge, strong bosses roaming around on the huge open world map, you can beat at any time. Also, the korok seeds to upgrade your character are also here in the form of effigies and Pal souls to upgrade your monsters.

This game really feels like the developers looked at all the games they liked playing, looked at what worked and threw it all together into one pot and shook it until it all clicked together. The mechanics of this game really click extremely well together. If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t be surprised if I said that this was a finished game.

There are some silly bugs here and there and in some spots, this game feels unfinished. But, overall the game we have currently is amazing and if you would enjoy a game like this after reading what I wrote here… Give this game a try. I only told you the most basic things in this game. This game is a survival game with elements from a lot of other games like those I have already mentioned but also Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders and various others.

Let’s talk improvements

While the game is a lot of fun to play at the moment, there are some things I wish that were improved or updated. While you get a lot of warnings that there are: save corruption bugs, crashes and bugs… Besides sometimes the lighting engine giving up for a moment or the AI of the pals or enemies doing some funky stuff, I haven’t seen too many worrying things.

Take for example this floating rock screenshot here. I have explored roughly half of the map after 35 hours of play, and this was the only floating rock I could find. That’s extremely impressive, especially since if you look at the size of the map… It isn’t small at all. In the future, new islands and area’s will be added so if they deliver them with this kind of quality, I have no complaints.

Well, I do have one recommendation. I’d love to see more landmarks in the map. Currently, almost all the landmarks in the game are based upon the terrain. I’d love to see more villages or ruins of them. I loved finding these things in the Zelda games and letting my mind wonder what happened there. It’s a very difficult balance act, since too many landmarks would make the map feel crowded and limit the amount of possible base locations.

Basically, I’d love more reasons for me to go exploring these regions and get unique rewards. Besides completing the Paldex, there isn’t a lot of reason to go exploring in certain area’s. And when you have set up the right kind of farms and work stations for your pals in your bases, the chance you run out of resources is rather small.

Speaking about bases, currently you can only have three bases. Most likely, this is done to improve the multiplayer performance. Since, the game emulates the three bases in the background, so you can easily have a base close to big ore clusters to farm those while you are working in your other base. If you don’t place a cap on those, it’ll tank the performance of any computer or server. Yet, I’d give the tools to the player to increase the cap. Personally, I think Minecraft has one of the best systems with the game rules. You can almost change anything to your playstyle and even disable or remove caps that are there for performance reasons. You already have quite a lot of toggles and sliders in Palworld, but I’d also expand on that.

Currently, the building system is decent, but it needs a lot of polishing up. The biggest problem I have with the building system are the stairs. It’s a nightmare sometimes to place stairs to go from one to another floor. Also, why can’t we place a full wall next to stairs? Most likely because some pals their hitbox would do some crazy stuff? Also, placing certain items or crafting stations on elevated floors doesn’t always work the best.

On top of that, besides the visual look of the floors, walls and ceilings, what’s the point of being able to unlock stone foundations? As a test, I tried to build a high tower with wood and one with stone. I didn’t find a difference. I’d love to see more meaning to what I unlock. Granted, stone can’t burn down. So, if you have any raids with flamethrower or fire enemies, your base isn’t in danger. But what’s the difference between stone and metal, then?

I honestly think that it’d be a bad idea if PocketPair only created more content and not make the mechanics have more depth. For example, something I’d love to see them implementing in the pal task system is a mechanic I love in Cult of the Lamb. When you welcome a new member in your cult, you can set the main focus of a member there. I’d love to see that you are able to set the main focus per pal. For example, when things are damaged in the base after a raid, you select one pal to go and get the repair kits and repair all damages first before going to do their usual tasks. Or when you have a pal that can do multiple things, and you mostly need that pal to pick up items, you could disable their other abilities. Maybe we need some items for that and those items can be only found in the wild, and we need to hunt for them. That’s an interesting idea to lure players out of their bases.

Dreaming like a madman

There are some UI elements I’d love to see change as well. First, I’d love to have a mini-map. The compass at the top of the screen only shows things in roughly 300m range, and that’s too short. Especially since in some areas the warp spots are spread quite far apart. A mini-map where you can pin certain things like the nearest warp spot would be amazing.

Secondly, in terms of the weapons. I’d love to see their stats before I craft them. Now it’s a guessing game that if I craft a certain weapon, if it’s going to be stronger or better than the one I currently have. It’d also be amazing if the durability is shown outside the inventory as well. There is some space in the UI element at the bottom right, so why not show it?

Now, in terms of the inventory. Sometimes I have issues with combining stacks of items. Sometimes I have to do it twice or thrice before they are combined. This is a rather small things, but outside of those… I don’t have a lot of small quality of life things that I could recommend. Maybe that if you sleep during the day in your bed, you can skip to night if you are hunting the nightlife pals?

Maybe there is one quality of life feature I think would be amazing. Quite often, when I’m hunting the stronger pals, I have my pal instructions set on “Focus on the same enemy”. I think it would have an amazing option if you have a feature where you are able to say to your pal if they are allowed to kill the wild pal or not. Since, if they are dead, you can’t capture them.

There is one attack that is a double-edged sword. In the Pokémon games, you have the self-destruct attack. You also have this one in Palworld, yet, some wild pals with this attack always take it over their other attacks. These bee pals always swarm me and instead of being able to weaken them, so I can catch them, I just get blown up. You barely have a chance to do any damage to weaken them to make capturing possible.

I just remembered one other quality of life feature. You can create saddles, gloves and other things to do special things with your pals. But, why I am allowed to create more than one? I mean, I can only use one of them at a time and they can be interchanged. So, if you make a saddle for a certain bird pal e.g. Helzephyr, that means you can use it on all Helzephyrs you catch.

But the biggest quality of life feature PocketPair could add is a mini-map inside caves/dungeons. The times I almost got lost in these caves is insane. Especially since there are only a handful of rooms in these and it’s easy to get turned around and confused.

Now, to completely change the subject… I wish there was more music in the game. The soundtrack in this game is amazing. Sadly, there isn’t enough in the game at the moment, so there are some silent moments. A little bit more ambient tracks would go a really long way in this game.

But, I saved one of my biggest things for last. That is inventory management. This is a total pain in bases. Since pals can put things inside chests, you can forget organisation. Thankfully, while crafting, the game pulls from all resources in your base, but if you need a certain item to use at another base, have fun to go searching through all your chests. What I usually do, if I can, is start crafting an item with the one I want to move and then cancel it. Since it drops the resources then and there. Now, how to solve this without breaking the game and the idea that pals can put things in chests? What if you have a new skill that pals can have? An organisation skill and depending on the level, they either put red things with red things or make a weapons chest and come to complain to you when there aren’t enough chests for their organisation?

If your base is fully set up, the proper of a lack of depth starts to show as well. When you build your base, why should you return to it besides needing to craft or repair your weapons? Give us some activities we can do in our base when we build them. I mean come on, we even have the amusement furniture set. If only we could play some mini-games with our pals to increase their sanity for example? Since currently, there is not a lot you can do when a pal is stressed.

Of course, a certain balance needs to be maintained. The more things a pal can interact with, the more chance you have to create lag or overwhelm the player. Also, the more depth you create, the more things you have to maintain and maybe that’s not the type of game that PocketPair wants to create. How I currently see Palworld is a playground sandbox in the schoolyard. It’s an amazing playground where you can make your own fun but it’s only part of the schoolyard and only has a swing, some monkey bars, a climb rack, a small castle and a slide. It’s all solid built and amazing to spend your time in… But, then you notice the potential this sandbox has to grow. What if we enlarged that sandbox with another castle, so the multiplayer can be player vs player as well? Or wait, why don’t we add an underground to that sandbox?

All I’m saying is that currently Palworld has an amazing foundation. The biggest issue at the moment is that the game lacks depth. While the current roadmap has a lot of expansions and more content, I hope PocketPair doesn’t forget to also make it more than just surface level. For example, imagne that the raid bosses can be captured and barely have an unique skills. Why should the player do the raids then? What reward do you get out of it? Not all mechanics can be fun because they are enjoyable to do. Players will get bored and they will look for a way to spice things up or to challenge themselves.

Now what that said, I’m going to close off this article. I’m quite excited for the future of Palworld and I’m going to wait a few more updates before I decide to write a review on the game. But overall, I’m really liking what I see. The basis of an amazing title is here already and I think we are going to get an even better game when this comes out of early access. Let’s wait and see what happens when the first big updates drop. Especially the raid bosses that got teased a few weeks ago.

Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. What do you think of PalWorld and what should be added or changed? Let me know in the comment section down below. Also, what do you think of my idea’s? I’m curious, feel free to leave a comment about that one to. But, I also hope to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

It's been a brutal summer - the perfect time to stay in and try out a few new games. While coverage of indie games has been dominated by the flood of quick-flip cash-baiting clickers, there were some more substantial titles on offer in July. That includes a nontraditional RPG, a nontraditional platformer, and a really traditional adventure game. Even if you overbought in the last Steam sale, you should at least give these a closer look.

If you'd like to see these games in action, check out the Find the Fabulist YouTube channel.

SCHiM

The world is full of creatures called schims, strange entities unnoticed by most that dwell in the shadows cast by people and objects. You are one such schim, living in a young man's shadow. One day, a fluke results in you becoming unmoored from that familiar shadow and launched into the world at large. Your goal is to navigate a world of light and shadow as you attempt to find your way back home.

SCHiM is a puzzle platformer seen from an isometric perspective, an unusual setup for a game like this. The player leaps from shadow to shadow while heading toward set objectives. A schim can last for short periods in direct light, but only enough time for one additional short jump. If the shadows are too far apart to reach by jumping alone, the player will need to hitch a ride with a moving object, find an alternate route, or solve a simple puzzle to create or move shadows.

The moment-to-moment gameplay in SCHiM is very simple. You might occasionally get stuck, but a minute of exploration is usually enough to get unstuck and keep the game moving forward. Similarly, the jumping mechanics are extremely forgiving, letting a typical player move between shadows quickly and with few errors. It is, overall, a very easygoing experience.

The main selling point for SCHiM might be its style. The high-contrast monochrome world is striking, with a remarkable amount of detail in the environments and animations. Many screens are also built around a wordless narrative - a simple story told through people's actions, vehicles, and even the weather. While a skillful player can hop through SCHiM in short order, it's worth taking the occasional moment to soak in the little details.

SCHiM is available for PC via Steam, PlayStation consoles, and Nintendo Switch. A copy was provided for this review.

Galactic Glitch

Galactic Glitch is a twin-stick shooter with a physics-based twist. In addition to the genre-standard armaments, the player's ship comes equipped with a gravity beam that can be used to grab debris, missiles, and even small enemies and fling them as projectiles. Using the gravity beam is strictly optional, one of several offensive choices offered to the player, but it's certainly a satisfying tool to use.

The objective is to reach a boss area at the end of a procedurally generated maze of rooms. Those rooms can contain enemies, shops, or teleporters that can be used for quick travel across the maze. A few rooms are also guaranteed to contain optional challenges yielding items that can be used to upgrade the player's ship later on. There is an emphasis on exploration, but a speed-minded player can also make a beeline for the boss and earn a separate bonus for being quick.

While there is a bit of a play-it-as-you-want vibe to Galactic Glitch, it's a pretty typical twin-stick shooter at heart. It is an above average shooter, one with solid controls and interesting visuals, but there's nothing revolutionary here. If you're a fan of arcade shooters and want something with some replay value, Galactic Glitch is a good choice, but it's going to offer less to those who are cold to the action roguelike boom.

Galactic Glitch is available for PC via Steam. A copy was provided for this review.

MonCon

The remote Mondoton Island is home to a facility that exists for only one purpose - MonCon, the world's most celebrated convention. A young man named Joey has just arrived on Mondoton Island in hopes of getting an autograph from the island's reclusive owner, the game developer Mr. Miyashiro. There's one big problem: Joey is painfully introverted and can't bring himself to speak to anyone. With the help of some new friends - the excitable, somewhat delusional geek Karl and Marnie, a podcaster with anger issues - he'll have to figure out how to navigate the con, deal with celebrities, uncover a conspiracy, and finally meet the legend.

MonCon is an RPG built around rhythm mechanics. The framing of the combat is very unusual - no actual fighting takes place, as the combat is symbolic of the protagonist navigating stressful conversations. Both offense and defense are conducted through a DDR-style rhythm minigame, which is fairly generous with the timing and isn't usually too hard. Enemies have weaknesses to certain attacks but there's no clear RPS system here - the player needs to figure out whether flattery, insults, empathy, or geek chat are the best options against any foe.

While there are specific objectives, MonCon involves a lot of wandering. New floors of the convention center and hotel open up after key story moments, introducing new characters and mechanics. There are a lot of sidequests, including minigames that spoof popular video games, trading, collecting, and a cosplay contest. Most of these are optional but expect to get pulled into several of them over the course of the story.

Since it's a rhythm game, it's worth mentioning the music. While the overworld BGM is pretty standard, the combat music is quite distinctive. Standard music is bass-heavy, while attacks from both PCs and enemies have their own distinctive musical character, drawing from many different genres and styles.

MonCon is available for PC via Steam. A copy was provided for this review.

Tachyon Dreams Anthology

Dodger, a dishwasher on a space station, is about to become an unwitting hero. The station's computer has detected a temporal anomaly and with no one else available to deal with it, the computer drafts Dodger into the time engineering service. Armed with a time travel remote, Dodger will need to move across time periods and repair the damage to the time stream, all the while piecing together clues pointing to an undiscovered history.

Tachyon Dreams Anthology is a series of three short adventure games built around 1980s design principles. Visually, the game goes to great lengths to recreate the graphical style of a computer game released on a mid-80s system such as the Amiga or Atari ST. This carries over to the keyboard-only control scheme, with the player using the direction keys to move and a text parser to issue commands.

The games themselves are about what you'd expect. The player moves across different rooms scattered across space and time, collecting objects that are used to solve puzzles elsewhere. There are certainly some obtuse puzzles here and there, but most are fair and an experienced adventure game enthusiast should be able to finish the anthology in a reasonable amount of time.

Tachyon Dreams Anthology is available for PC via Steam. A copy was provided for this review.

That wraps up our look at the games that caught our attention during July, be sure to come back each month for more indie games you want to look out for!

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