Thalfon

Spiritfarer is an absolutely wonderful experience that is somehow both a casual open world chill game and a game that delves deep into the topic of death, being prepared for it, and leaving people behind. Really special game.

Another Kobo user, I have the Clara HD. I like having an eInk device for ease on the eyes, it has a good backlight with a natural light setting for warmer usage at night which is nice.

I suspect most basic ebook readers would be similar. I just wanted something feature-light that was purely for reading.

I did specifically want to avoid Amazon. Basically every other retailer uses the same ebook format: Epub, either DRM free or with Adobe Digital Editions DRM. This means most ereaders can use books from most retailers. The exception is Amazon - they use their own proprietary format with its own DRM to lock you into the Kindle ecosystem. Kindles can now read non-Amazon ebooks but non-Kindles can't read Amazon ones due to this. I find that particularly scummy and want nothing to do with supporting it, especially when most books I buy through Kobo or other sites are completely DRM free by comparison.

(There are ways to get Amazon books you own onto other devices in a pinch if you do some searching. Questionable legality, even if you own the book, which is crazy to me, but it's not impossible. Amazon has been updating their DRM against it, but it's still doable.)

I honestly had no idea that a 1.0 was even in the works. I thought this was one of those roguelikes where they'd just keep adding new ideas to it over time on and on, like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup does for example.

I feel like most of the time it's smaller things that bug me most.

For example, if I click the location link on an achievement, let the map stay open and be scrollable. Currently it shows you the spot and, if there's a waypoint there you can use it, but if not you can't scroll around to the nearest one and it just closes the map on you, forcing you to reopen it manually and find the spot again. It seems like such a silly and unnecessary design choice.

The other is builds. If I have a build saved, but I need to swap out a trait or utility for a fight, I wish that change didn't automatically save to the build. It'd be nice if the build only updated when you hit a button to do so.

I do agree, multiple saved cosmetic sets would be amazing. I wonder if they see that as a way they sell gear tabs though.

If you liked that one I'd suggest checking out The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, which is a very similar vibe as a contemporary fantasy. I put off reading it for a bit because contemporary and witches aren't normally my thing but it's really, really great.

I personally can't. I find it too distracting, even lyricless stuff. Oddly the opposite is often okay... I can listen to an audiobook while doing something else mindless and not miss out on details. But a physical or ebook generally takes my full attention.

With the DLC arriving in late September, I figured that'd be the best time. Probably will be on some kinda promotion again for that (and if not one won't be far off) and then get the fixed game, with the improvements that'll release alongside the DLC, plus the DLC itself all in one go.

Dug back into Dragon's Dogma (2016) recently. Still really enjoy that game. Maybe the best character creator in a non-soulslike single player game, which I think is the itch I was trying to scratch. Currently C$6.39 on Steam (so I'd guess probably US$5 or so).

Currently reading The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. Not far enough in yet to really make a judgement call. Magic system is interesting for sure. The vibe is a lot of political jockeying, largely structured around the nature of the world's magic.

Audiobook, currently listening to Warping Minds and other Misdemeanors by Annette Marie and Rob Jacobsen. At first it didn't appeal to me as much as The Guild Codex: Spellbound (in the same world), but it's been growing on me.

In A Realm Reborn, flying for all zones unlocks immediately after the end of the 2.0 quests, so you'll have flight during all the patch quests.

In the expansions, flight is unlocked by a combination of doing certain side quests and finding a certain number of aether currents in the zone. Once you've done all of them, you get flight in that zone. Typically, the last quest you need to get flight is locked behind completing most of the story in that area.

I really liked the narration of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Two narrators actually, one who does the first person narration of Amina which accounts for the majority of the story, and one other narrator serving as a story teller filling in narrative details, letters that appeared between chapters, and that sort of thing.

The narrators felt like they were part of the world the book describes, and Amina's parts in particular are told as though she's recounting her story at a tavern (complete with occasionally turning away to shout at a particularly obtuse listener). In short, it feels exactly like you're listening to the pirate captain recounting her own tale.

Below, ser mentioned Dragonlance Chronicles and Riftwar Cycle, and I have to second those. They are older, and while I feel they've aged with a certain amount of grace, there are certainly standout newer series that have raised the bar, but I still enjoy them. Riftwar in particular had an interesting take on magic and gods that made it fascinating for me.

I also think, however overhyped it may be, that the first two trilogies about Drizzt Do'urden are solid reads. The first trilogy of Homeland, Soujourn, and Exile is some of the best worldbuilding I've seen in fantasy of its time, and Icewind Dale is a great adventure as well. The later books do tend to suffer a lot from power creep and the series runs far too long for my tastes, but the first two trilogies are solid.

I'd also recommend anything by Robin Hobb, who has a deep and fascinating fantasy world and an excellent mind for characterization. Also pretty good at twisting the knife on her readers from time to time. She has a lot of trilogies/series that take place in the same world, and any of which would be a reasonable place to start, so skim through and pick one that seems like it might be appealing.

For historical fantasy, there's a lot, but to name one I loved, S.A. Chakraborty writes some truly fascinating and exciting adventurous escapades through the world of middle eastern mythology. Her recent Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is both a really fun adventurous romp across the 12th century Indian Ocean, and a thoughtful insight into motherhood, and the ways in which it changes you and leaves you the same.

Or, if you like a historical war fantasy, R.F. Kuang wrote the trilogy The Poppy War that takes place in what is essentially an alternate world fantasy-China that starts off a little Harry Potter, but very quickly becomes a long, drawn out story of war, rebellion, and the many wrongs that happen along the way. You may wish to consider reading trigger warnings on these books.

Or, if you want some urban/contemporary fantasy (meaning fantasy stories that take place here in our modern real-world Earth, except there's magic), Jim Butcher has a very gritty urban series called Dresden Files about being a noir-style detective investigating crimes involving magic that is extremely popular.

On the opposite urban fantasy mood, I've recently stumbled into Annette Marie's series The Guild Codex: Spellbound, wherein a human woman desperate for work accidentally stumbles into the magical world when she applies for a bartending position at what turns out to be a guild of mythics (people with magical powers), which she survives through sheer force of personality, no small amount of sass, and expert aim with a margarita. It hooks with its premise, but really the character growth and world development in this series has had me addicted lately.

And to suggest something a little off the beaten path, Jim C. Hines wrote a series of novels beginning with The Stepsister Scheme which asks, "What if those fairy tale Disney princesses were actually badasses?" The main characters (not actually based on their Disney versions of course, as these stories existed long before Disney) have a lot of depth that gets revealed over the course of the story. There is some very dark backstory here, so consider checking trigger warnings if that's a concern. Mostly though this is a Charlie's Angels style (minus Charlie) more action-focused series.