The Roottrees Are Dead – Free Game Recommendation

A few months ago I got the exciting opportunity to playtest an in-development game by solo developer Jeremy Johnston. Despite having no idea what I was signing up for, I ended up really liking the final product and heartily recommend it to everyone! The Roottrees Are Dead is free and playable in-browser on itch.io, and currently has 5/5 stars with 189 user reviews! Taking place in the dial-up era of computer history, The Roottrees Are Dead stars a genealogist who’s hired by a mysterious woman to assemble a family tree for the Roottrees, a famous pedigree who made their fortune through an… [Continue Reading]

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Review & Recommendation

Baldur’s Gate 3 is getting rave reviews from everyone, sweeping award shows and being called the Best Game of 2023 by multiple publications. And it’s really not hard to see why. Having played it myself, it honestly deserves all the praise it’s getting and it’s easily one of my personal favorite games of all time. 1. Deep Breadth of Content The first thing I noticed upon jumping into this game was how much it had to offer. With 11 races, 12 classes and 46 subclasses, your player character can wield a vast array of different playstyles, backstories, and appearances, and… [Continue Reading]

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The 3 Things That Appear in Every D&D Campaign

Now, I know that’s a very bold title to start off with. “Come on, aabicus,” I hear you saying, “There have been literally millions of D&D campaigns throughout history, with unfathomable amounts of premises and settings. How can you say for sure that anything has appeared in ALL of them?” Well, this is how. For the rest of this slow-news-day article, I’m gonna lay my case for why these three things (one weapon, one monster, and one treasure) have never failed to appear in any D&D campaign ever played, from one-shots to dungeon crawls to the most unfathomable genres and storylines you… [Continue Reading]

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3 Free Programs That Will Turn You Into a Video Editor (Updated 2024)

Three years ago I wrote an article on my recommendations for people hoping to try their hand at video editing without paying anything. After advising a friend on that exact topic, I’ve reviewed my old article and found it largely out of date, and in desperate need of updating. So here are my new suggestions for what you should get while breaking into this exciting and fun field of study: 1. Open Broadcasting Software The one software to survive from the old article, OBS remains the fan-favored way to record game footage or your own screen, if you’re going the… [Continue Reading]

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2013-2023: 10 Years of Daily SPUF

Phovos’ Nightwave critique yesterday clocked out 10 years of articles on The Daily SPUF! That’s right, on August 18 2013 we published our first article, a rant about Team Fortress 2’s Half-Zatoichi. Over the past decade since, we have published a new article every day without fail (except once), covering a huge swathe of games and topics from all across the Steamosphere and beyond, and we couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you who read, commented on, or submitted articles over the past 3,652 days. In order to commemorate the occasion, I wanted to write another… [Continue Reading]

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The 5 Most-Impactful Steam Trades in My Life

There’s something kinda nice about having all my years of gaming stored on Steam. For people like me who got into the scene late, I can pretty much track my entire life through my Steam history, traipse through old screenshots and reviews to see what I was into during those phases of my life. But at least personally, the tab with the most nostalgia is somewhat hidden away in a dusty corner of the inventory screen. Expanding the dropbar near “Trade Offers” lets you see an itemized list of everything you’ve ever done to alter your inventory across Steam’s many… [Continue Reading]

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The 5 Best Vehicles in Just Cause 2

There aren’t a lot of reasons to use vehicles in Just Cause 2, and I’m the first to admit it. Slingshotting yourself with the parachute is faster, more maneuverable, and more efficient in 95% of situations. But this article is about the other 5%! There are some niche situations where Rico is better served buying or stealing a vehicle than going it on foot. Today, we’re discussing what those times are, and why! 1. The Chevalier Icebreaker This jingle-playing ice cream truck was released as free DLC, and buyable in-game for $25,000. This is the cheapest price on the black market,… [Continue Reading]

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Return of the Obra Dinn

I seem to have a habit of abandoning games due to frustration with the core gameplay mechanics, giving it another go 5+ years later, and only then getting completely hooked. It happened with Just Cause 2, World of Warcraft, Stardew Valley, ARK Survival Evolved, and now it’s happened with Return of the Obra Dinn, Lucas Pope’s latest bureaucracy-themed indie game. Set on an 1800s ghost ship that mysteriously returned to dock with none of its passengers or crew aboard, the player controls an insurance inspector who boards the vessel tasked with learning the fates of all 60 missing persons. The core… [Continue Reading]

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5 More Great Weapons in Call of Cthulhu

Last year I covered five (really six) of my favorite weapons in the Call of Cthulhu RPG system. Since then, I’ve gotten to play more campaigns and more characters, and I’ve found some additional combat options that I think really hold their own. Whether raiding eldritch tombs or staking out satanic speakeasies, here are some effective personal defense options I think you should consider: 1. Sawed-off Shotgun The famous double-barrel boomstick is the archetypical survivalist’s weapon, and it should have made the first article for its laundry list of positive traits. It can fire twice a round and each shot… [Continue Reading]

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The 5 Best Stealth Weapons in Payday 2

Payday 2‘s stealth missions require a completely different set of skills to a regular heist, and correspondingly, your stealth weapons will be focused on very different stats to their loud counterparts. Plenty of weapons offer high concealment, the bread-and-butter stat to stealthing, which means the standout weapons bring some sort of additional utility. Today, we’re covering The 5 Best Stealth Weapons in Payday 2! Starting with #1, the Judge shotgun pistol is widely agreed to be the best stealth weapon in the game. Great stats, great performance, high concealment, unobtrusive silencer, and like any shotgun, it sends victims flying when… [Continue Reading]

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