Lonan's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on CGA-2026-04 đšī¸đđ§âđ INSERT CARTRIDGE đĸ Space Rogue in ~games
Lonan Link ParentYep, with Vice64-3DS there's a virtual keyboard if you need it, but also you can remap all the buttons. The 3DS has a d-pad, circle pad, the nubbin thing, 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons,...Yep, with Vice64-3DS there's a virtual keyboard if you need it, but also you can remap all the buttons. The 3DS has a d-pad, circle pad, the nubbin thing, 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons, start, and select, so plenty of scope to have something playable. I have a set-up that works pretty well now, and I've visited the first couple of space stations. Saving to disk seems to work too, although it only saves once to a whole blank disk! Good job I can make as many as I need, imagine shelling out for those on a real C64. It didn't ask for a password to recover either.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentThe difficulty with the masters/bosses is weird. I failed the second master's challenge about a hundred times before eventually passing it. I was stuck there for days. I'd do my daily reminder...The difficulty with the masters/bosses is weird. I failed the second master's challenge about a hundred times before eventually passing it. I was stuck there for days. I'd do my daily reminder challenges, have a crack at the boss, fail, and stop for the day, or try it a couple of times. So it went for a while. Then I decided to just knuckle down and not stop until I beat the boss. It has 30 questions, and you can get 2 wrong, the 3rd wrong answer is game over. Somehow when I did it finally, I beat it without losing a life! Despite on the previous run wiping out before even reaching 10 answers. It was a 1-star clear (more stars = did it quicker), but that's good enough for me :)
Now I am on to what I think is the final area. I may even complete the content, but just recently they added some more. Even when I'm done with the main game, I have to go back to get all the achievements and secrets, and 3-star all the bosses... I'm telling you, game of the year for me this one.
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Comment on CGA-2026-04 đšī¸đđ§âđ INSERT CARTRIDGE đĸ Space Rogue in ~games
Lonan Link ParentI had the C64 version of Space Rogue, and the manual comes with little hints written by a fake "previous owner" of your ship. Some of it is nonsense, but some of it gives small clues to parts of...I had the C64 version of Space Rogue, and the manual comes with little hints written by a fake "previous owner" of your ship. Some of it is nonsense, but some of it gives small clues to parts of the game.
I may be wrong about this, but if you get the copy protection wrong, does it maybe remove items from your inventory? I want to say it did something evil like that, but maybe I am mixing up games. I know that Exile on the C64 if it detected it was a hacked version would move items around the map in such a way that you couldn't complete the game. It was enough that the game remained unplayable for years on emulators as the only cracked versions doing the rounds had the unplayable item glitch in there, which the crackers didn't notice. They saw that the game ran, job's done, moving on.
So yeah, the C64 version of Space Rogue. This Zzap64 review was so glowing about it that I just had to play it. It was one of the few original games I bought haha. I got an Amiga not too long after so I didn't complete the game, or get anywhere close really. I remember exactly where I got stuck as well. It was probably about 2 hours in given my general experience with just how small these "massive" old games actually were when you have all the guides available. The docking felt easier than Elite because you could come to a dead stop, but I've become so good at Elite in the intervening years that I wonder if I'd find it frustrating nowadays?
I downloaded a C64 cartridge version (!) that I was going to try and play on my hacked 3DS as I'm more likely to find time to have a go on that than pull out a computer and faff around there. It runs fine, but the controls need some remapping. Before you call me a complete nutter, I played through Ultima V this way a couple of years ago. I can't remember if I used proper saves to a virtual disk, or save states, since saving in general on this device is fairly hit or miss. As in, often the emulator crashes, which isn't ideal because you usually want to save after doing a bunch of stuff.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentOh I've been playing this too (on Android) and it is fantastic! I had no plans to actually learn Japanese, and I have a feeling that the gamification part of it is slightly detrimental to learning...Oh I've been playing this too (on Android) and it is fantastic! I had no plans to actually learn Japanese, and I have a feeling that the gamification part of it is slightly detrimental to learning - for example, I often find myself guessing what the right word is in the multiple choice questions based purely on the first hiragana glyph and it's almost always correct - but even so, purely as a game, it's very enjoyable. A couple of years ago I played through Heaven's Vault and Chants of Sennaar, which use language in their puzzles, and while I thoroughly enjoyed both I found they didn't go all in. Heaven's Vault for example has the language part as a sort of side-quest-ish thing, you can almost entirely ignore it except for lore about the game's fictional universe. There are very few puzzles where you need to know some language fact to open a door, say. Chants of Sennaar is not like that, instead you do learn the languages involved, by trial and error, context clues, or written clues, but they are limited to around 40 glyphs. Once you translate a word, the game then shows the English translation, so by the end of an area you aren't really interacting with the language at all. I found that the deeper I got into the game, the less the languages mattered, and by the end the learning aspect almost completely falls away.
Wagotabi is like the opposite of both of these games, and taken purely as a game, as if Japanese were some made up alien language, it works very well. For example, you'll need to know words and phrases to unlock doors - early on the "doors" are getting people to tell you how to get past passport control, but later on there are some more Pokemon-style dungeons, items to collect, block pushing, that sort of thing. Parts of it reminded me of the Silph Scope building in Pokemon Red/Blue. And the further you get into the game, the more Japanese is used and the fewer English phrases you see. Although being able to always tap/click a word to see its meaning is super helpful.
Right now I have put in around 65 hours over about 55 days, and the progress word wheel is about 75% full. The game says I have mastered over 100 words, but you know, I am a faker and feel like I know nothing lol. There are definitely difficulty spikes too, it's not all plain sailing. The first one is when you leave the airport, which is where the game's demo ends. They add more vocabulary then so you can do more things. The next really tough part after that is when they bring in weather, temperatures, and also introduce a whole bunch of concepts about giving and taking items and how it makes the person you give to feel (eh?). I've always felt at a point where the amount of concepts, grammar, glyphs, and vocabulary are beyond what I can handle, but when I've gone back to do a VS match against an earlier boss, they've been pretty easy despite feeling almost impossible at the time.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan LinkI was playing Animal Well on the Switch. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't what I expected. I liked the very vague almost dream-like scenario. The dynamic lighting adds a lot to the game, despite having...I was playing Animal Well on the Switch. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't what I expected. I liked the very vague almost dream-like scenario. The dynamic lighting adds a lot to the game, despite having a retro look at first glance. I thought it was going to be a Hollow Knight-style metroidvania, but thank goodness it is much more chill than that, and has virtually no combat. It's more about how you traverse the environment and use the items you find.
I rolled credits after about 10 hours, which is probably about 50% of the game. Then I carried on to see what the post-game was about. I stopped playing when I had about 5 of the hidden collectible items to find. I'd really pored over the map to find them, and couldn't see where I'd missed the others, so it was starting to get annoying. The one thing the game could have done better is guide you to the basic uses of the items you collect. You know, like in say Metroid, where you collect double-jump inside a pit, and have to use its ability to jump back out. In AW you find new items fairly randomly, and they don't always have any obvious immediate use. Having said that, the mystery is part of the charm. I may end up biting the bullet and looking at a guide for the last few hidden collectibles, because I've not played it for a couple of weeks now purely because I can't advance on my own.
What I have been playing though is an educational game called Wagotabi on Android. It advertises itself as "Master Japanese through full immersion in an educational RPG set in Japan". I heard it recommended on a podcast a while ago, and I went in not really knowing what to expect. I had zero knowledge of Japanese, and no real intention of learning the language. The demo is free on Android too, and once I was hooked the full game was only a couple of euros.
Calling it an RPG is a stretch. There are plenty of stats and things to unlock but the game is like the part of a Game Boy Pokemon where you walk around locations and talk to NPCs. Initially it's all mostly in English, and gradually it adds in Japanese phrases - for example the UI changes Yes/No to the Japanese equivalents quite early on. The Pokemon battles are replaced by learning new words, or by tests where you have to fill out sentences. There are mini games and learning tools in your in-game dictionary. One clever thing they did was add spaced repetition tests that award "mastery points" for each word/phrase. If you get something wrong it isn't the end of the world, the words get marked as difficult for you and it requires more points to return to non-difficult and eventually fill out to mastered level.
I don't know if I've learned anything useful, but the game is pretty good! It starts off in one region (Kagawa), and you travel to other regions and islands of Japan. It has you battling noodle chefs (write out "this udon is delicious", and "no I am not Mr Tanaka") to find out where the Japanese Master of the region lives. Or another section you have to push blocks with words on them into the correct slots corresponding to their order (like sometimes -> frequently -> always).
The Pokedex is replaced by a Kanjidex where you collect words written in Kanji (Chinese characters, which are usually more complex than the Japanese "alphabet" words). I played Heavens Vault and Chants of Sennaar a couple of years ago and, while the language stuff was good and fun to figure out, they didn't go as all-in as I'd hoped and once you learn the words things get auto-translated so you can gloss over the language aspects. Here the Japanese sentences remain, but you can tap individual words and it shows the translation and some context notes.
It's now starting to get really difficult, as you'd probably expect. We've moved on from basic greetings and "my dog is under the tree". When it started talking about adjectives and verb conjugation I struggled to keep up, but I'm still at it, learning about the weather now.
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Comment on Tell me about your favourite web-based logic puzzles! in ~games
Lonan LinkThe only one I've stuck with is https://www.geogridgame.com/ It's a 3x3 grid where each row and column has a category such as "population over 20 million" or "flag with a star/sun", and you have...The only one I've stuck with is https://www.geogridgame.com/
It's a 3x3 grid where each row and column has a category such as "population over 20 million" or "flag with a star/sun", and you have to fill out countries based on the 2 categories that apply to each square. There's a sort of high score aspect to it, since you get fewer points (lower percentage, higher rarity = better) for picking a country that other people have not chosen as frequently. But if you risk too much then you perhaps fail, and if you miss a square it is the equivalent of 100 points.
I like it because it forces you to learn trivia about countries, like Pakistan's capital is not the most populated city, Democratic Republic of the Congo has a border on the Atlantic Ocean, or in Indonesia they drive on the left.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan LinkI finished Chronoquartz (although I played it on Switch), which is an indie metroid-brainia, similar to Minit in some ways. You have 10 turns before the game resets, and each turn is when you...I finished Chronoquartz (although I played it on Switch), which is an indie metroid-brainia, similar to Minit in some ways. You have 10 turns before the game resets, and each turn is when you change rooms. You start out locked in the dungeon for some reason, and have to figure out how to escape the castle and what's going on. It never got impossible, although a few puzzles required some lateral thinking. There were a few fun time shenanigans moments, as well as a couple of "meta" puzzles. I don't want to really go into any more details because not knowing anything is the best way to play these types of games. How long to beat says 3 hours but it definitely took me far longer than that, probably nearer 10 hours without looking up any guides or using the built-in help. I had to take screenshots and notes for quite a few puzzles, and I always love it when a game requires that.
I've also been playing the DLC for Outer Wilds. It has its moments, and the DLC has a totally different weird vibe compared to the main game, while keeping the lonely exploration of a (new) moribund society. But I just don't love OW as much as some people. Going back and doing the same tricky parts over and over to get to a location before it all falls apart drives me nuts. Uncovering the mysteries is good, but the game's player-hostility and obtuseness frequently leaves me feeling like I don't want to play it any more. As in, I'll spend ages "doing a thing", multiple steps that all have to be done in a race against time, and the only reward is yet another mystery that makes no sense. At some point, I think "screw this, let them keep their mystery, I'm off to play something else" xD
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentDo it! Kids are only kids for a short while, before you know it they'll be ignoring you and won't want to play anything with their stuffy old parents.Do it! Kids are only kids for a short while, before you know it they'll be ignoring you and won't want to play anything with their stuffy old parents.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Lonan LinkI listened to the audiobook of Dan Brown's latest "The Secret of Secrets". Dan Brown gets a lot of deserved hate. He has his ticks and tropes that get rolled out each time. Despite this... I like...I listened to the audiobook of Dan Brown's latest "The Secret of Secrets". Dan Brown gets a lot of deserved hate. He has his ticks and tropes that get rolled out each time. Despite this... I like his books xD They're a guilty pleasure.
This one is set mainly in Prague, and has a character that returns from one of the earlier novels set in the USA (Lost Symbol), although it doesn't matter because they are barely a character despite being in most of the book. They just sort of get dragged along with the rest of the cast.
There were fewer art references than earlier books, but plenty of descriptions of places in Prague, some of which are real, some twisted with crazy facts to go with the story. There are many annoying cliff hangers, and a twist that I thought worked pretty well! I didn't see it coming at least, but the clues were all there. The premise here is, what if something about the power of the mind were real, and a secret organization wanted to prevent a researcher's book revealing these secrets?? Anyway, I liked it, despite the classic Brown drag-out-the-tension moments, and Wikipedia info dumps.
Now I'm listening to La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind). I first read this nearly 25 years ago when it came out (my god, has it been that long?!) and I don't think I had the level of Spanish to understand most of it back then. I certainly can't remember anything about it. Listening to it now though it's no problem, I thought I was going to struggle more to follow along.
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Comment on What are your favorite low cost main dishes/meals? in ~food
Lonan Link ParentI made my own fake spring roll paper that turned out OK. It's called brik pastry. Not worth it for being so time consuming, but if you make your own tortillas it might be of interest, it's kinda...I made my own fake spring roll paper that turned out OK. It's called brik pastry. Not worth it for being so time consuming, but if you make your own tortillas it might be of interest, it's kinda entertaining to do and you don't need special ingredients. You put a frying pan or similar large flat pan on top of a pot of boiling water, mix flour and water into a thin-ish paste (2 cups flour + 2 cups water is about the recipe), and paint it on to the pan in thin layers with a brush. I used one of those chunky silicon food brushes that are so common nowadays. The flour paste/paint sets solid into thin papery flexible "tortillas" that work pretty well for spring rolls.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentHaha, I am like your pre-purchase self with No Man's Sky. I keep seeing the new trailers and frequent sales, and think "oh, that looks interesting!" but luckily I've always listened to that little...Haha, I am like your pre-purchase self with No Man's Sky. I keep seeing the new trailers and frequent sales, and think "oh, that looks interesting!" but luckily I've always listened to that little voice that says "it's just a fancy front-end to an Excel spreadsheet, don't do it!" Or watch those getting started videos where it's a guy shooting bunch of rocks for ages on 10x speed, and remember I have better stuff to do. I remember playing a small amount of Minecraft a decade ago, and I couldn't be bothered to farm, nor had the imagination for building things, and NMS seems like that but in space.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan LinkI finished Chants of Sennaar yesterday. I had 10.5 hours on the save. What a weird ending compared to how the game starts, but I thought it was pretty good overall. Click to view my thoughts on...I finished Chants of Sennaar yesterday. I had 10.5 hours on the save. What a weird ending compared to how the game starts, but I thought it was pretty good overall.
Click to view my thoughts on the ending sections, with big spoilers
The penultimate section of the game was slightly disappointing, as rather than figuring out translations from speaking to people and understanding the context, the game did a sort of wheel puzzle thing. The puzzle has concentric circles with fixed tokens on each circle, and you had to match up the same word from the earlier tribes/cultures to unlock the final culture's equivalent word. There were just 3 of these, presented in computer terminals, and they were not particularly tricky or involved. After the more complex "Alchemist" puzzle to get past the door to the final area, I was expecting something else.
After that, the very end went slightly Star Trek, as you stop a super-computer power from enslaving the final group of people, trapped in its own mind-palace. I liked the last trick the game pulls, where it does a fake out "bad ending", but then there's a final final surreal part to the game, as you too are trapped in the virtual world.
Then the very last reveal is fairly clever. After you bring together all the people of the tower in harmony, the rotating 3D pyramid shape you have been unlocking as a side-quest turns out to be the most important glyph for all the tribes, but viewed from a different angle each time as it rotates around on its axes. So for the "Devotees" it is their god glyph, for the bard-people it is their word for beauty, and so on.
Anyway, a good game even though the stealth early-middle section felt out of place at the time. My overall feeling is that it was too short, which means it was probably just about right.
I also finished Bomberman Quest on the Game Boy Color (played emulated). This was a chosen game-of-the-month back in August or September on a Discord server I'm on, but I didn't get round to doing everything in it. The last "retro achievement" I had was to beat some of the bosses without taking damage. I liked the challenge of figuring out which bombs I needed to use to beat the final boss efficiently. My palms were sweating when I finally did it. If you've never played this one - I hadn't even heard of it before it got picked - it's a bit like Bomberman crossed with Link's Awakening. It's smaller in scope, but has more power-ups. You wander around an overworld, complete with hidden secrets, defeat monsters using the classic Bomberman-style bombs with their cross-shaped explosions, then go into short dungeons (4-10 screens usually) with bomb-toggle switches, defeat a boss, get a power-up, and unlock the next area. There are only 4 areas, then the final boss, but it has some optional stuff, and overall takes about 6-ish hours, then with the achievements it took me about twice that.
Next up I am going to try and finish Outer Wilds, which I stopped playing back in the summer. The end game was too scary for me last time I tried it, but I wanted to get the DLC and that is apparently even scarier so I'm going to have to stop being such a big chicken.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentI'm not sure about buying Dredge at some point. I played the demo of it on Switch, and it had a sort of "mobile game" vibe that I didn't love, with all the counters, cooldowns, and map-markers. It...I'm not sure about buying Dredge at some point. I played the demo of it on Switch, and it had a sort of "mobile game" vibe that I didn't love, with all the counters, cooldowns, and map-markers. It was fairly hectic and pushy at the start, probably because there are a lot of systems it wants to introduce. I thought it would be kind of Outer Wilds-like, in that you explore and discover secret stuff, but it seems kinda grindy and more RPG/roguelike-ish in its gameplay. Get stuff to get a better boat to get more stuff.
The main game loop seemed fun enough though, the sort of fish-tetris on the boat to maximize your catch, and I liked the way it gradually eased into the weirdness of it all. Like the way the normal fish you caught would occasionally be very spooky-looking. Then I went out at night and got killed by a scary giant fish almost without warning, and I think that was the end of the demo.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan (edited )LinkChants of Sennaar (Switch) was finally on offer on Switch this month, so I've been playing that. I really liked the demo of it, and so far I've played past the end of the section that involves the...Chants of Sennaar (Switch) was finally on offer on Switch this month, so I've been playing that.
I really liked the demo of it, and so far I've played past the end of the section that involves the race of characters that begin the game. You talk to the characters, who speak in a sort of glyph code, and have to decipher what it means by the context. Then there are puzzles that use this knowledge to advance - an early one for example is to decipher open / closed, and use that information to open or close some valves according to a sign, to change water flow to let you past.
The second floor I'm in now has gone a bit off the rails though. It turned from the chill puzzle game to a stealth game akin to Metal Gear Solid, where the language takes a back seat and it's all about timing your sneaking between guards. One wrong move and you get "killed" and sent back to the start of the area. It's too stressful! I had read complaints about this aspect, but thought they might be overblown. I was not expecting so much stealth to be involved, figuring it'd be a room or two (like in the demo). But no, it's room after room. Makes the part in Breath of the Wild with the banana-loving guys seem short and sweet.
The sneaking controls are also rather unusual, in that the game gives you these markers you can go to, which are fixed and shown by a white outline of your character, but the position is not always clear about which side of a wall it is on. So sometimes you think you will sneak to hide behind a wall, but in fact you sneak into a location on this side of a wall, out in the open, and get caught instantly. In addition, the enemies' outfits have very small details so you can barely tell the direction they are looking in. I've occasionally thought the guard was facing away from me, ran out "behind" said guard only to discover they were looking right at me. I just want the chill puzzles back! :(
(Edit: OK, I got past the roadblock, and the puzzling returned for a while... phew!)
After continuing past that tricky stealth part, it turns out it really was just a few rooms. It just felt like a lot more at the time! The rest of the game has not really involved anything as bad. There are a couple of timed jumps past obstacles, but they have been pretty easy to do. There was one more stealth section, but it was limited to literally one room, and used a second mechanic too so had some variety.
I think I may be near the end now. At least on the save screen it seems that all the niches on the tower that were initially empty now have doors showing. There are a few things I know I missed as I have a few words still left to translate.
Overall I've enjoyed the game, stealth section apart, and looking back even that wasn't so bad I suppose.
I really like it when games take information you thought you needed to solve one puzzle, but after something else is revealed later on you realize there was a second meaning to the same information that solves another problem. Chants of Sennaar does that trick a lot in the small, by giving you language "glyphs" in different contexts so you can try to guess their meaning, and then there are at least 2 memorable (to me) moments where it happens in a slightly bigger way. Information you thought you had finished with becomes a vital clue to progress past another point.
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Comment on What code editor / IDE do you use (2025)? in ~comp
Lonan Link ParentI have all my vim plugins in my own repository that I just put into whatever it is now, ~/.vimrc and a bunch of related directories. I really hated the direction vim plugins took a few years ago...I have all my vim plugins in my own repository that I just put into whatever it is now, ~/.vimrc and a bunch of related directories. I really hated the direction vim plugins took a few years ago (probably 15+ years ago now haha) where they started suggesting you use a plugin manager of some sort to download the .vim files from github and the like to make things easy. It is easier at first but creates a long term problem when repos change or plugins do things you don't like, and encourages a rat's nest of dependencies. I prefer to keep things mostly vanilla and where it isn't vanilla, the plugins are under my own control. I think I may have become one of those grumpy old Linux sysadmin types...
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Comment on If the Xbox Ally is the future of Xbox, Microsoft is in trouble in ~games
Lonan Link ParentAt work we've all had to upgrade our laptops just because Teams started running super slowly after a particular forced update.At work we've all had to upgrade our laptops just because Teams started running super slowly after a particular forced update.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentI played it about 2 years ago on Switch and loved it. I was put off by the reviews saying it was super difficult, but apart from one spike about halfway or 2/3rds through I found it doable (and...I played it about 2 years ago on Switch and loved it. I was put off by the reviews saying it was super difficult, but apart from one spike about halfway or 2/3rds through I found it doable (and I'm awful at games). Even that spike has a sort of cheese method using items to help.
By far the worst part of the game for me was when I got stuck for hours because I couldn't find a way to a location. I got into some end game puzzle dead ends just because I missed a path around a hidden corner. I ended up looking it up and was annoyed at myself and the game haha. The other sticking point was "-||-", I didn't realise what it meant, as there aren't really any clues for it. If you know, you know.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan Link ParentYeah, I maybe sounded too negative overall. I enjoyed large parts of Pentiment, and it is unique. There aren't many games where you discuss the meaning of the communion bread in church ceremonies...Yeah, I maybe sounded too negative overall. I enjoyed large parts of Pentiment, and it is unique. There aren't many games where you discuss the meaning of the communion bread in church ceremonies with some random NPC. I also liked the actual parts where it was at its most "gamey", running around and gathering the information, and certain aspects of that do carry over. Townsfolk remember some of the earlier interactions you had, so it isn't all on rails. I suppose my disappointment was in part from the very high review scores, and going in spoiler-free so I wasn't aware it's more of a visual novel.
As for Viewfinder, that does look good. I am going to have to bite the bullet at some point and get a powerful enough PC to play these newer puzzle-type games. Blue Prince is another one I'm interested in there. I recently finished Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (on Switch again) and that was brilliant. That got great reviews too but had kind of mixed word of mouth so I avoided it for a long time, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it when I finally played it.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Lonan LinkLately I've found I'm getting worse at games that require any kind of quick reactions. The straw was when I couldn't get past a boss on Luigi's Mansion 3, which up to that point had been pretty...Lately I've found I'm getting worse at games that require any kind of quick reactions. The straw was when I couldn't get past a boss on Luigi's Mansion 3, which up to that point had been pretty easy. So instead I've been playing some more cerebral stuff on Switch.
I played through Pentiment. I knew nothing going in to this, and initially was pretty disappointed given its good reviews. The game is described as a medieval murder mystery, which it kind of is. I'm not sure how much actual mystery solving you can do. While playing it felt like I had little input to the story, and nothing I did really made a huge difference.
For the most part, you speak to NPCs and there's a limit on how many conversations you can have before the story moves on almost automatically. For example, you can choose to have lunch with one family or another, and depending on who you eat with you will hear one side of a story or the other during the meal. You can't eat with both groups, and when the meal is over, the in-game clock advances, and people move on to their new chores or locations. You definitely will miss something. But in the scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, since hardly any of the information is actually used for anything.
Now that I've finished the game, I listened to a spoiler-filled podcast about it, and all of the major beats are left fairly vague or ambiguous, so any story choice you make is valid (whoever you point the finger at as the murder culprit). Choices seemed forced on me at several points, perhaps depending on who I spoke to, the replies I gave, and so on. Some of those were determined by selections of "abilities" made at the very beginning, like can my character read Latin or not. The podcast hosts made some different choices to mine, but the overall outcome was basically the same.
As the game went on I made more milquetoast choices in conversations, since saying anything slightly "controversial" seemed to lock me out of certain paths. Maybe. Anyway, it's an alright game, certainly unique, and once things picked up about an hour in it held my interest to the end, and the whole story wrapped up well. However it was more like a 7/10 for me, not the 10/10 it has been given in reviews. And I found a lot of it quite depressing! There were a few times I stopped playing because I didn't want to know how it continued, or to speak to NPCs who were very sad/depressed. In some ways it was like a Ken Follet novel, where unjust things happen to regular people over many years, as those in positions of power take more and more until there is a tragedy.
The conversation-based gameplay reminded me in some ways of Heaven's Vault, which I played a couple of years ago. That game has a more procedurally generated feel to it, but the choices you make seem to have more impact on what happens. I played through HV several times to see all of the possible story beats, whereas I'm not keen to play through Pentiment again.
Agree with all of that too. I really liked the game, but I reached the last part without having unlocked all of the 3rd layer I think it was. I vaguely remember that the mirror one was a page I hadn't translated. There are those model theater things that you need to feed the monkeys to get to work, and I had missed all of that, yet still got through to the end game. I went back and filled it out though. My other sort of disappointment is that there weren't that many places that the translations / languages were used. There are a couple of good set-pieces per layer, but I felt like they could have done much more. The first area was more involved, while the language aspect played second fiddle in some of the later parts.
Oh well, it's a great game, and I wish there were more like it. I semi-hesitantly recommend Heaven's Vault as it is in a similar vein. It is the game the Chants of Sennaar people say inspired them to put a language puzzle into their game. It's almost the total opposite of CoS though - while CoS has you engaging with multiple languages in order to progress, but the languages are quite limited, HV has a bigger single language, but you are able to almost completely ignore it if you only want to progress the story.