SingedFrostLantern's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
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    Guidus Zero It's a mixed bag. Like I definitely enjoy the gameplay, it's a real time grid-based roguelite, kinda like Crypt of the Necrodancer without the rhythm and more like a room-by-room...

    Guidus Zero

    It's a mixed bag. Like I definitely enjoy the gameplay, it's a real time grid-based roguelite, kinda like Crypt of the Necrodancer without the rhythm and more like a room-by-room roguelike. There's just also a bunch of unpolished stuff/design decisions that makes it hard to really recommend to other people.

    So many complaints

    • Upfront, it does crash a lot which leads to some issues as while it does save your gathered meta-resources, there's no autosave for the dungeon and it doesn't count as playing a run for meta-progression purposes. My band-aid solution which made crashes much rarer is to play in windowed mode and slap on DXVK (which I try for any 2D game that doesn't run well; Dead Estate went from a single-digit mess from the fog to silky smooth 60), though it makes the intro cutscene low fps while it loads and there's a brief graphical glitch when initially loading the dungeon.

    • You need to play runs in order to unlock the mechanics/meta-grind. This would just be a pet peeve, but there's the above issue with the crashes which make it so that runs don't count and then there's the below issue that's just what were they thinking?

    • The first final boss is unkillable and one-shots you. With my CotN experience, I consistently made it there pretty damn fast and each time I was asking myself if I was messing up the mechanics somehow until the run where it started working normally. I genuinely cannot discount if it was an actual bug or if it was the extremely boneheaded decision of doing that crap on purpose because I hadn't done enough runs to gather everyone into the base camp until that point.

    • After defeating the first final boss, the 4th biome layout permanently changes. I now have a sidequest that cannot be finished because the dungeon NPC for it no longer spawns there.

    • I said Crypt of the Necrodancer without the rhythm, but the game has serious input buffer. If you mash, you're gonna be stuck in place with a delayed action; instead you have to pace your inputs like CotN.

    • The game is designed for controller first. Keyboard buttons don't show up with the onscreen controls and I don't think it's possible to check an artifact's upgraded forms without a controller.

    • There are some straight up useless artifacts which is pretty bad when you only get 2 choices (or upgrade your current artifact) from a chest. A compass showing the boss room is bad. So is a 1% chance to find a stat stone from destroying environmental items. So is more exp which doesn't do anything tangible compared to a regular item.

    • There just isn't enough money for shop items until you get the meta-upgrade to get $10 after finishing a room.

    • It is still clearly Early Access despite leaving it, as in they obviously haven't finished the final floor or the story. I've seen another game do this (Meta-Ghost: The Breaking Show), so I'm wondering if this is some sort of sales boost tactic and/or if sales/funds aren't good so they have to push the game out and say it's complete?

    Despite that giant bullet list, I'm still having fun because it feels like a good game underneath all that mess. There's basically 4 biomes with 2 floors each and a chest, shop, and boss on each floor. There's 3 playable characters with a choice of 2 character specials and a 2-choice skill tree on level-up.

    The Characters

    Dalia (Swordswoman)

    1st character and the only one to benefit from trait cooldown artifacts. Has a triple hit combo where the last hit deals the most damage. Special choices are the 300% dash attack (5s cooldown?) or the 100% spin attack with 20% bleed over 5 seconds (9s cooldown?). Mostly preferred the spin attack because it has an early damage spike with its skill to have guaranteed crits after using it, and the dash attack having to deal with positioning. Definitely get the CD reduction items.

    Zin (Mage)

    2nd character. Basic attacks deal 1 damage but primes the enemy for her special. Special choices are between generating explosions from the primes, or generating swords that spin around her. Explosion path I went with auto-detonate because A: the only indicator for how primed the enemy is is the stars spinning around them B: the explosions are pretty visually noisy on top of that which just makes it hard to tell. Sword path definitely makes a crit-focused build easier due to how often the swords attack.

    Chatri (Monk)

    3rd character. Basic attacks charge up the special to do more damage/last longer. Didn't like him; no range and both specials are pretty bad. The strong fist special is slow, has a lot of unnecessary skills focused on enemy kill chains when bosses are mostly solo, and the parry skill doesn't seem to protect against any multi-hit damage. The rapid-attack special loses all charge when stopping and bosses don't stand still nearly long enough for all of it.

    Crab Champions

    My 3 complaints are the lack of in-game codex to say what an item's base stats/stacking do and which portal reward pool has them, the sidegrade unlock gacha only being usable once between runs (though restarting the game bypasses it), and the enemies having perfect tracking/reading your movement inputs which force you mash directions once they start targeting you. Aside from that, it's a fine TPS that's kinda Risk of Rain style with the item stacking, but more kiting and killing everything and getting the item reward after completing the room. Not really sure how to build aside from getting enough damage reduction to not get exploded though, but I'm still trying to get diamond ranks for each equipment piece.

  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
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    3 recent steam sale writeups and 1 backlog (Boltgun). Yet Another Killing Game A visual novel which is exactly what it says, 3 girls wake up in an unfamiliar house and find a message on the...

    3 recent steam sale writeups and 1 backlog (Boltgun).

    Yet Another Killing Game

    A visual novel which is exactly what it says, 3 girls wake up in an unfamiliar house and find a message on the entrance door saying that it won't open until one of them dies. Took me almost 3 hours to reach the end continuing where my demo save data left off, but I thought it was well worth my steam sale money. I just like the vibes and think it's a clear work of love. Since the game goes fast with spoilers, I think I'll separate my thoughts into different layers of spoilers.

    Kinda spoiling game structure/gameplay

    I think Zero Time Dilemma is probably the closest comparison in how progression works? You have to go through the bad ends before the protagonist has enough deja vu to progress (kinda like that specific AB game that needed to be repeated with different choices). The core cast is also just 3 people like a team.

    The rooms aren't a crime scene investigation or puzzle/escape rooms, but just point-and-clicking things for flavor text and banter until you've examined the right things because there really aren't much relevant clues to discover. There is a (very) hidden explanation for it, but it means there isn't that feeling of "I solved the shit out of that puzzle!" though it can instead be taken as the unnerving feeling of "oh there really isn't any hidden thing to solve, someone's gonna have to die." In that vein, there isn't really any lengthy exposition aside from some optional occult stuff in one or two specific rooms. I suppose to that end, it means the game is very much up to how receptive you are to the characters.

    Spoilers up to the demo/Part 1

    Well I like how the bad ends happen immediately at night time when everyone agrees to sleep. I hit the Chaos ending first with Cece, so next cycle I investigated with Ria first and said nobody's dying only for the protagonist to get a bad feeling about it. It was at that point I realized "Oh all three memory shards are gonna result in death because you can't have both of them peaceful" and then I guess that feeling of "Oh, there isn't a wrong decision to make here, the mental time travel is a part of the plot, let's get through all those endings". And I did. And I liked everyone communicating at the end of Part 1 which got me to buy the full game.

    Disjointed spoilers for the entire game

    Honestly my thoughts are pretty jumbled. After hitting all the reveals, I'm been replaying when grabbing achievements and there's just all the little details to notice.

    • After seeing Ria verbally confront the Professor, you can go back and realize that her exclusive rooms are the bedrooms and the lounge where she was searching for details about the house's owner. It makes sense that while she's the logical one and dismissive of the occult, it also means she was focused on looking for the human aspects which is why she's able to reach the Professor's humanity with her words. I have a lot more appreciation for her character after writing it out.
    • In retrospect, you can see that Cece's sendoff moment is in Part 2's finale: she fights off the zombie to protect everyone, defies "normal" sense by cutting part of the cloth covering the dead girl to bandage Ria since it's the only clean thing around, and exhibits both her occult knowledge and human side when talking to the protagonist.
    • For me at least, I like that there's enough supernatural elements in the beginning (the protag's time travel, the unbreakable windows) that when more come up (the gate to hell, the shackles), it feels natural and doesn't need to be explained with nitty gritty details. It's just part of the story and when you look back, it was always this way.
    • I liked how the Professor saw that they weren't killing each other and just decided to step in himself on day 2.
    • I also completely fell for the True End. The narration popped up and I knew it was for people like me who thought it was done.
    • The title reveal was so good. The title is taking the piss out of itself, but then it actually has a meaningful reveal to it which connects to the time travel and all the bad end restarts.
    Mega spoilers for Achievement #60

    Oh wait nevermind she's watching she kno-

    Aliya: Timelink

    Not what I was looking for. It's basically a fake chatbox from you to Aliya who is a space explorer from 1000 years in the future and you have control over some of her spaceship stuff. While having to wait real time between her responses is definitely immersive, it also means you're just putting this game in the background and then having bursts of "must respond back when she does otherwise you'll miss the conversation prompts". I'll admit the 1st ending was emotional, but some of the later conversations I could tell were just illusion of choice where she'll respond the same way. I got the 5th ending just by being honest and helpful with her in the beginning and then missing all the conversations because of work followed by getting awarded the ending achievement once I checked in again. While I don't plan to refund it, I apparently have 5 hours on it which is way past the no questions refund time limit for just a handful of dialogue.

    Pawnbarian

    Still need to find my groove (2.6 hours), but this game is being upfront about its annoying enemy types. It's a draw 3 cards, 2 energy game, but with no deck editing besides buying upgrades for the cards between floors. The obvious best upgrade type is cantrips which is "no energy, draw another card", but the 2nd dungeon hard counters it. Some enemy types also persistently drop blight which is a stacking damage poison that'll make a lot of tiles lethal to end turn on if you don't manage to kill them first. Other enemies are immune to damage unless you're next to them/not next to them and a PITA enemy type basically has a regenerating shield which generally means you have to hit them twice to kill them. It's a lot to learn I guess, but that might also be on me for not looking at the remaining cards in the deck. I don't think I'm feeling the X-factor anymore? It's starting to feel more and more like damage is unavoidable which the game might be trying to signal with its one hp recovery on floor completion. Think I might have to focus more on the AoE upgrades to offensively and efficiently take out enemies.

    Warhammer 40k: Boltgun

    Played for 13 hours on normal for the campaign + DLC + some horde mode. My knowledge of W40k amounts to "Purge heretics for the Emperor" and the Orks' WAAAAGH field, but I very much like the stomping feel from just moving around in the ultramarine armor, it feels right. I feel like I had to play in bursts though; like as cool as being a walking tank charging into enemies while mashing the taunt button feels amazing, it also feels like the TTK for non-cultist enemies was on the higher end for how many there were, especially when enemies respawn in locked fight rooms where you have the kill the elite/boss enemies to finish. I did dedicate every weapon past the heavy boltgun as a elite/boss slaying weapon, so that might be a me issue, but also the regular and heavy boltgun were all-rounders that just took care of everything. I thought the normal shotgun felt weak for a videogame shotty with a lot of fall-off damage, slow fire rate, and 2 shotting demons at best while the plasma gun felt a lot better after learning I could hold down the fire button and release 5 blasts without recoil damage. I'm not the best judge of retro-style shooters, but I think the enemy health felt exhausting and especially so in the DLC.

    I guess it should be mentioned that there's an autorun and perma objective point options in the settings since those are helpful, though enemies are pretty good at tracking. I did wish there was an enemy tracker due to the chapter select keeping track of whether every enemy was killed in a level.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on The 2025 Steam Summer Sale is live (runs June 26 - July 10) in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
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    Ah yes steam sales, the perfect time to add more things to the unrelenting backlog. Added about $60 worth of stuff which well, formerly the full price of a game. From least pricey to most:...

    Ah yes steam sales, the perfect time to add more things to the unrelenting backlog. Added about $60 worth of stuff which well, formerly the full price of a game. From least pricey to most:

    • Nexomon: Extinction: $2 from $20. Saw xavdid's post above and thought "sure, why not try another mon game".

    • Aliya: Timelink: $2.50 from $3. Saw it while searching from Steam250 with most reviews calling it an emotional VN where you're communicating with Aliya in real time. It's cheap, so into the cart.

    • Touhou Hero of Ice Fairy DLC1 - Rose Idol: $2.50, not on sale. Honestly, the base game is cheap enough and I liked it, so I'm willing to just pay for the new boss fight.

    • EVERSPACE™ - ULTIMATE EDITION: $3 from $30. Roguelite spaceship dogfighting going from node to node. Also cheap so I'll take that chance.

    • RoboCop: Rogue City: $3.69 from $50 when looking at ITAD. Mostly nabbed it because it's a new historical low with the previous low being $7-ish bucks.

    • NOISZ episode G : $4 from $5. Story DLC for NOISZ. Now I am a little miffed because I got the game and 1st story DLC at the start of June from deciding to get the $20 add-on for their Chronal Chain kickstarter, except with the current sale, it's $20 for the game and both story expansions as a bundle anyways with no complete the bundle option.

    • Pawnbarian: $5 from $10. Roguelite deckbuilder with a single chess piece and the cards being the different movement options. I played the demo and really like the general feel of games that let you optimize movements to avoid damage (Into the Breach, Tactical Breach Wizards), so this is the first proper "I want it cause I actually want it" choice for a game.

    • Crab Champions: $7.50 from $10. See, I've seen this before and thought it was some type of joke game, but it's apparently a competent roguelike with 23k reviews? I'll take the chance on the vibes.

    • The Void Rains Upon Her Heart: $9.09 from $13. Horizontal Bullet Hell Boss Rush Roguelike. It sounds up my alley and it had its 99th update, so why not get it before the 100th? Well I've also seen it before it's had its price raised, so that's another reason.

    • Guidus Zero $10.04 from $15 at ITAD. Now this is more of a gamble as a 69% Mixed rating game with the top 3 shown reviews being negative, but there's been a patch this month and dev notes about their future direction plus I enjoyed the next fest demo for it from last October, so I'll gamble on it.

    • Yet Another Killing Game $11.38 from $17. Played the demo, wanted to see where the rest of the game leads, simple as that.

    Almost pulled the trigger but didn't:

    • Blazblue Entropy Effect Character DLCS 1-3: There's a tempting $10 complete the bundle option and the freshly released Bullet, but I've only just unlocked and played as all the base characters once each, so I'm gonna hold off on that.

    • Divinity Original Sin 2 & Pillars of Eternity 2: Tempting CRPGs, except I keep remembering that I am not good at stats and character building and also the other CRPGs in my library.

    So in summary, mostly roguelikes, 2 VNs, and misc games/DLC.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
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    (DLC) Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker Finally took some time to complete the DLC which came out a month back. For better or worse, it is definitely more Sea of Stars so that's gonna depend...

    (DLC) Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker

    Finally took some time to complete the DLC which came out a month back. For better or worse, it is definitely more Sea of Stars so that's gonna depend on how you feel about the base game (I much preferred The Messenger's wit and thought SoS was trying to take itself more seriously while lacking the depth to make it work). Since the game came out about 2 years ago and most people would be rusty, there's some plot excuses to make sure the party starts on a fresh slate: the DLC area has an evil presence that generates evil clones so the rest of the party is benched with the Artificer tagging in instead, while Valere and Zale are forced to learn new classes because they have to be entertaining to deal any damage there. 4.5 new dungeons of content (the .5 being the tutorial dungeon) which took me almost 8 hours according to the save file time difference. I did notice many of the new skills deal a lot of multi-hits and/or are theoretically infinite as long as you get the timings right, which fit me just fine since I used the moon boomerang and needle jumps a lot in the base game.

    I guess a few things did irk me:

    • The DLC's low level cap meant low max MP so you can basically never cast two specials in a row for a character without having to regen mana in between. It also meant a lot of moments where I didn't capitalize on dealing damage and just conserved mana for breaking locks in the next turn wave.
    • Mystery Locks were apparently introduced in the previous big update; basically what elements you need to hit an enemy with in order to interrupt their special moves are now initially hidden until using the right element which means a lot more guesswork wasting resources and 50/50 scenarios. There is an option to turn it off, but I stuck with it for the DLC to see how it affects things and yeah, I thought it wasn't good. In general, I'm of the opinion that games should provide enough info for gameplay to avoid the wiki rule of "Why don't I just search this up to avoid this needless frustration?"
    • First Boss spoilersThe First Boss ends with a reference to the infamous FF6 train suplex meme, except it's performed by one of the pirate NPCs tagging along. So there's that obvious feeling of getting killstolen and the fact that they're not doing anything else to help in the DLC, so the whole moment just feels a lot emptier.
    I did like the final boss though

    It was a bit easy, but the mechanics replicated the Wheels minigame which generate an instinctive knowledge of how to counteract by attacking the wheel to stop the boss from getting 3+ symbols.

    Clone Drone in the Danger Zone

    It's a melee-focused game like Chivalry except less complex, but with voxel robot limb damage. There's the basic sword which can deflect horizontal sword strikes and arrows, the bow & arrow which has very low projectile speed but will of course one-shot just you specifically, the hammer which can't block or be blocked by the sword, and the spear & shield which stabs instead of slashes. Each new (single-player) game starts you from scratch and every finished round gives an upgrade point to invest in the skill tree to focus on one of the weapons or perks. That's about it honestly? What you see is what you get and I feel done with it after 6 hours. Not sure how this has 30k steam reviews besides the multiplayer.

  5. Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of June 15 in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
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    Humble Bundle has a June Tunes bundle with $5, $8, $10 tiers. $5 Wandersong Everhood Onde $8 Rhythm Fighter ONE BTN BOSSES ODDADA $10 DJMAX RESPECT V Trombone Champ Ragnarock I can't speak for the...

    Humble Bundle has a June Tunes bundle with $5, $8, $10 tiers.

    $5

    $8

    $10

    I can't speak for the rest, but I think Wandersong and Everhood for $5 is a great deal. If you enjoy just talking to everyone in RPGs, Wandersong is a mostly light-hearted good time (though it's actually more of a 2D puzzle-platformer). And if you enjoy unique battles where you're avoiding the notes of each song from everyone else trying to fight you and meeting new people, Everhood is definitely an experience.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Steam Next Fest June 2025 in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Day 4 log. Downloading from the top 300 now, though avoiding anything above 10-ish gigs. Short list today, but with some stuff I thought was really good. Vibing Flick Shot Rogues: Turn-based...

    Day 4 log. Downloading from the top 300 now, though avoiding anything above 10-ish gigs. Short list today, but with some stuff I thought was really good.

    Vibing

    • Flick Shot Rogues: Turn-based roguelike where you flick your hero and bounce them at enemies and around the table to deal damage and avoid getting hit. Had a nice run where i sent in the AoE hero to prime bombs on the enemies before getting a damage boost for swapping back to the direct damage hero and then setting up firefly damage multipliers back for the AoE hero again. There's just a lot of little things that I liked about it: the shipwrecked explorers theme, the shield buffer that recharges every battle, how the game lets you finely tune your shots while aiming, the way you cash in EXP at campfires for leveling up, and just the overall vibes to it. I really like this one.

    • Windswept: 2D platformer which strongly brought up every memory I had of playing Donkey Kong Country 2. There's the bonus levels each stage, the letter collectibles spelling out a word, the target at the end to jump on with the celebration dance for getting it right, the tag team swapping and throwing, the roll mechanics being exactly how I remember it. I'm just so touched that someone out there decided to make a classic DKC style game and delivered while also evolving it a bit. Did have to put DXVK for stable 60 though.

    Might keep an eye on

    • Bits & Bops: Basically Rhythm Heaven, but non-Nintendo. Got a perfect on the robot game, awesomes on the seal and bird games, and just an okay on the hammer game. I like rhythm stuff, but I know the timing here gets strict so it's not 100% for me.
    3 votes

  7. Comment on Steam Next Fest June 2025 in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Day 3 log. Mopping up what I downloaded out of the top 100 yesterday. Keeping track of Ascend to ZERO: This game takes Half-Minute Hero's basic premise of having only 30 seconds to save the world...

    Day 3 log. Mopping up what I downloaded out of the top 100 yesterday.

    Keeping track of

    • Ascend to ZERO: This game takes Half-Minute Hero's basic premise of having only 30 seconds to save the world and optimizing the auto-grinding within that time limit, but instead of the stages being puzzles to figure out the victory conditions, the first HMH's RPG trope parodies, or the second HMH's epic generational tale, Ascend to Zero is a roguelite with a bunch of meta-grinding and investment to get more powerful and keep going farther in the story with every run. Each room has a designated enemy level to grind in until you're leveled up enough to leave and fight the next one and some rooms have minibosses that drop passives for the run. Weapons attack by themselves, but you still have to move and dash to avoid attacks. You also have an unlimited timestop (where no one can attack) that goes on a 6 second cooldown after you leave it which lets you reposition, collect EXP to level up and move to the next room without worrying about the timer, and unleash a super move upon leaving timestop. Normally I complain about meta-grinding in roguelites because you're not allowed to actually win a run until you spend a few hours grinding and filling out some skill tree; in this case though, you always feel powerful for the zone you're in and the game is upfront about how it's impossible to win in the beginning with it being part of the theme that the the world has ended already and the MC is trying to get more powerful through the time machine to keep changing the past more.

    Might keep an eye on

    • PIGFACE: FPS with no crosshair and Hotline Miami is probably the easiest comparison with the MC getting contracted to (basically) kill everyone at a location, a mask providing different passives, and having limited weapon slots (just a melee, gun, and healing syringe in this case). I like the aesthetic, though replaying through the demo level with a fully kitted AK (scoped, laser light, suppressed) by spending the job money in the shop made it laughably easy to just snipe everyone.

    • Burning Sword: Death Sun: 3D Wuxia Hack n' Slash. It unfortunately runs at 20-ish FPS for me, but I got past the first boss and it just looks cool? Enemies have a break meter which then allows you finish them off by draining their Qi.

    • Mecharashi: Turn based tactics ala Fire Emblem, but with customizable mechs and body part damage. Just finished the ambushed mission after the engineer joins, the strongest impression I have is the script and VA feeling very anime dubbed. Stopped after I noticed an energy meter at the top right so I ventured into the steam comments and apparently it's F2P Gacha?

    • Mycopunk: Objective FPS co-op missions with exp and loot. Went a run as the bruiser, probably shouldn't have chosen a kill everything mission as my demo run. Did like the gun feel and how shooting things restores ammo for your other weapon which gives a natural flow to swapping between them. Feeling very mildly interested, would be a dedicated co-op only game for me.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Steam Next Fest June 2025 in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Day 2 log. A few things made the vibes list today and a few more to the maybe/deep sale pile. Well these at least made an impression instead of being quietly installed. Vibing Hell Clock: ARPG...

    Day 2 log. A few things made the vibes list today and a few more to the maybe/deep sale pile. Well these at least made an impression instead of being quietly installed.

    Vibing

    • Hell Clock: ARPG Roguelite going down a dungeon floor by floor with a death timer going down (by default, there's a setting to turn it off). On one hand, I can already tell there's a ton of grind to it from the giant macro skill tree, persistent equipment, and the way my damage immediately dropped in the zone after the first boss. On the other hand, I kept going on more runs. Look, this permanent relic gives my machine gun skill fire damage and a chance of explosions. Oh, another relic that lets a physical damage gun skill trigger explode and trigger all the damage on an enemy that's on fire. Pick five skills, choose your perks as you level up, and thread that fine line between going down the side paths for loot while still making good time. It also does a nice thing where a skill can only have X amount of Y rarity perks, so it never feels like a waste to take a common perk for a skill because it's still powering it up. Just very well-themed overall.

    • Absolum: Roguelite Beat-em'-up with co-op, feels smooth to play even at base level with no upgrades. The demo packs a lot: branching paths, a 3rd character who joins after about two runs, unlocking new paths, all that good stuff. Heck there's even three types of counterattack triggers: dashing up/down to sidestep, dashing into the attack, and clashing against the attack with a strong move. Played as the dwarf, it was pretty easy to loop his normal chain into a dash into repeating it, though the game does note the repetitiveness. Pretty confident in this one.

    • Abyssus: Room-based FPS Roguelite. Has Hades style boons every few rooms to pick for your Primary fire, Secondary fire, and Ability. First run, I had a freezing aspect for my aimed revolver plus a +100% freeze rate on it to burst things down, then my grenades had the chain lightning aspect which also spread status effects for pretty effortless crowd control. Had a nice sunken ruins exploration theme to it.

    Might keep an eye on

    • Bloodthief: Melee FPS speedrun game. Kill enemies for blood, use blood to power chain slide jumps for momentum, rinse repeat. I think my only complaint besides my lack of skill for this genre is how the homing charge only works when you're in the air and not when you're grounded.

    • Possessor(s): Metroidvania with the steam page saying it's taking combat inspiration from platform fighters. Noticeable hitstop to attacks and the first equipable "special" is kinda like Ivysaur Up+B if it was also a multi-hit launcher move with the vine being the entire hitbox. The game's vibes are immaculate to me with its post-demon invasion ruined city state with the MC having to make a pact to survive, but the general movement doesn't feel polished enough, like it doesn't have enough flexibility when trying to mount onto a ledge for example or the wall jump height being a bit low. Looking at the steam page, the trailer says it's by the Hyper Light Drifter people apparently.

    • Dispatch: Forcibly retired hero dispatches misfit heroes to solve crime calls. Conversations are Telltale style while the gameplay is analyzing the call details and determining which heros to send, and which heroes to send for a new call while those heroes are out, and then leveling up their stats after they gain enough exp. Humor kinda leaned dick jokes and "Hahaha fuck you," "Yeah, fuck you too." I guess my closest point of comparison in my limited reference pool is Netflix Castlevania-ish? Not really interested in dealing with stats gameplay, so this one isn't high on my list.

    • VOID/BREAKER: Roguelite FPS with a focus on gun customization combos and breaking the environment to stagger enemies. For a one guy project, it is impressive, but I think it feels like the Borderlands 2 Slag problem where you have to do X thing to boost DPS which in this case is lure enemies to the breakable environment and grenade it then throw the pieces. Really depends on level design to make it work I think, and the demo environments are mostly open space. Also could be interesting, but it's not grabbing me style-wise.

    • Morbid Metal: 3D Hack n' Slash roguelite with a focus on swapping between characters for different movesets/cooldowns. Demo has a sword all-rounder whose skills are sword beams and teleporting in, along with a heavy polearm-wielder who has a wide sweeping slash and a groundpound launcher move. Doesn't feel as fluid as a dedicated stylish action game, and the pick a random perk system probably lends to min-maxing a single character of the 4.

    Dishonorable mention

    • Hell is Us: I tried it for a bit because the main character has Adam Jensen's voice actor and reading up on it, it's from the modern Deus Ex games' art director. It is also very unoptimized with a sluggishly slow start. Long boring cutscene of the main character getting interrogated, he wants to find his parents, go walk in these woods til you find an old farmer in his basement, take the key and keep walking til you get to the injured soldier and walk more to get a medkit for him, solve this 3 digit 3 picture combination to open a door, and at that point the fps chugged down and there really wasn't a reason for me to care so I stopped there.
    4 votes

  9. Comment on Steam Next Fest June 2025 in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    I'll be the dissenting voice and say that I wasn't particularly impressed with Mina the Hallower. There's an in-game manual that may have helped, but it's all written in very pixelated text so it...

    I'll be the dissenting voice and say that I wasn't particularly impressed with Mina the Hallower. There's an in-game manual that may have helped, but it's all written in very pixelated text so it was off-putting and I didn't bother reading it. I also made the mistake of picking the daggers which was supposed to have speed, but it still felt sluggish and the lack of range meant getting hit more; maybe the whip's range or the hammer's movement roll would've been better. The healing system is pretty odd: once you're missing health, you have to land hits to raise your potential heal amount and then cash it in by using a flask charge, but getting hit also reduces the amount so it's a cycle of hurting where if you're getting hit in the first place, you're likely to stay hurt. It also feels like the game doesn't properly emphasize how universal the burrowing mechanic is; if you want to dodge or get anywhere, you burrow. I just think the learning experience isn't quite as refined as Shovel Knight's was for what it is.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Steam Next Fest June 2025 in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link
    My Day 1 log. No standouts yet, just going off of what the steam page initially recommended. Gonna browse through the rankings and everyone else's posts tomorrow. Keeping track of NINJA GAIDEN:...

    My Day 1 log. No standouts yet, just going off of what the steam page initially recommended. Gonna browse through the rankings and everyone else's posts tomorrow.

    Keeping track of

    • NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound: 2D sidescrolling action with a focus on killstreaks; killing a blue aura enemy with a melee attack or a red aura enemy with a ranged attack makes the next sword/kunai strike oneshot to minimize flow disruption when a tanky enemy shows up. I guess the biggest thing is that the demo boss battle is more traditional instead of going into this flow state. Pretty polished otherwise with level rankings and collectibles at each stage.

    Might keep an eye on

    • Palette: Cards & Chaos: Room-based twin-stick shooter roguelike, except the "cards" are basically weapon modifiers that you can tack onto the limited space of each weapon hand to scale up. Went quick melee build to delete bullets, game feels more like a proof of concept, but it was okay.

    • KILLBEAT: Room-based twin-stick shooter roguelike, except it's to the beat. Not really into the visual style so far, but it's filling the BPM: Bullets Per Minute void a bit (Robobeat is seriously short as a roguelike and didn't do it).

    • BALL x PIT: It's a ball bouncing brick breaker game mixed with horde survivor. It mixes the angle aiming of the former with the movement and item-based builds of the latter and I guess a mix of mob prioritization for both? Not a horde survivor person, but this does seem interesting.

    4 votes

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link
    Jump King Continued from the Backlog Bingo and finished the base game with 10 hours on my file. The last chunk of the game (Chapel upward) is pretty straightforward after all the prior experience...

    Jump King

    Continued from the Backlog Bingo and finished the base game with 10 hours on my file. The last chunk of the game (Chapel upward) is pretty straightforward after all the prior experience needed to reach that point, so the middle chunk felt like the biggest skill check with those small roof tiles and shifting winds areas. Mostly yeah it's figuring out where you can stand to safely max jump without worry to minimize the amount of effort you need to do properly timed jumps and muscle memory for everything else. Figure I should get through more of my library before jumping back into the expansions.

    Clam Man 2: Open Mic

    Demo prologue for a Disco Elysium style game (still need to play the OG), except this is about an office worker who found a new stand-up comedy club beneath the office and decided to join in. The ending point for the demo is finding someone to spread the news about the opening and having at least 3 jokes ready to perform at night, so you're free to waltz around the neighborhood for sidequests as inspiration for jokes. Your coworker is feeling down, so you can insist on getting some star stickers to cheer her up. Your houseplant needs feeding so you're gonna have to head to your fridge to settle the fate of the food groups living within (or completely botch the roll like I did). This divorced father hiding in a mailbox is desperately asking you to lie to his daughter because he gave a fake address and is scared to admit he isn't doing as well as he said he was. Went Assertion/Improv for my character build, thought it was a nice hour-ish experience. Turns out I do have the first game from an itch bundle (albeit it's a point-and-click instead), so I have that to look forward to after the Next Fest next week.

    Rogue Genesia

    The Survivor-like with a Slay the Spire map (and another mode for survival). There is so much grind here: achievements and challenges to unlock new items, random equipment loot that carries over between runs, and a ton of macro-currency to spend on the permabuff shop or upgrading said equipment. There's always that sense that you can do another run to upgrade another thing and I need to stop because I don't even like Survivor-likes that much besides as a mindless podcast game and especially because the runs here take a while. The base power and power multiplier stats are generally useless except on challenge runs with rarity-limited items because there's a card that converts max hp into way more damage than that, or a synergy that converts defense into way way more damage than the HP convert card too, or the negative defense build that also does a ton of damage.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Conclusion and Recap in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link
    As always, thank you to @kfwyre and @Wes for hosting! The event really gives a nice gentle push to just start playing something and write about it, so I am grateful that we get these. I'm not the...

    As always, thank you to @kfwyre and @Wes for hosting! The event really gives a nice gentle push to just start playing something and write about it, so I am grateful that we get these. I'm not the most social poster, but it's also nice to read through everyone's progress and writeups throughout the month.

    Just a small sidenote for myself: compared to my game choices from the last bingo, the games I chose this month have more of a set player experience. From that, I think I realized I enjoy having a perks-based loadout to tinker around with (when appropriate), and my favorite game out of this bingo (Gravity Circuit) has a freely customizable one.

    Final Card (Standard/Flow, 14/25)
    Mode: Standard Winning Bingo! Finished 14/25
    Variety Harmony Emergence
    ✅ Noita    		 Swift Tradition
    ✅ Jump King
    Sly Fleeting Humor
    ✅ Frog Fractions    		 Endurance
    ✅ OneShot    		 Justice
    ✅ Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Season One
    Sound Community ★ Wildcard
    ✅ FIGHT KNIGHT    		 Peace Exploration
    Tense
    ✅ Resident Evil 2 REmake    		 Connection
    ✅ Slave Zero X    		 Annihilation
    ✅ ZeroRanger    		 Dimension Pride
    Identity
    ✅ Shadows of Doubt    		 Traditional
    ✅ Gravity Circuit    		 Distribution
    ✅ The Hungry Lamb    		 Absence
    ✅ Chicory: A Colorful Tale    		 Curiosity
    ✅ Tunic
    Games Followup

    Completed and Liked:

    • Gravity Circuit: Completely satisfied my craving for a modern Mega Man Zero style game. It's got all the action, customization, and breakable walls I wanted.

    • Chicory: A Colorful Tale: It is a nice game, but Wandersong resonated a lot more with me, in the same way I like Transistor more than Bastion or Hades as a game; they're all good, it's just a personal thing. I did find out though that Wishes Unlimited's next game (in Early Access) is Beastieball which seems to be volleyball mixed with 2v2 Pokemon, and that they also made Coin Crypt which I remember enjoying.

    • Slave Zero X: I made a Metal Gear Rising comparison during my post, and I think I stand by that as an overall vibes thing.

    • The Hungry Lamb: Has a planned sequel, The Weeping Swan: Ten Days of the City's Fall, will keep an eye for it on sale after it releases and gets an English translation.

    Completed and Liked, BUT!:

    • FIGHT KNIGHT: I did end up completing it! Ended up settling on the fire/ice gauntlets because they were close enough to the normal set while dealing status effects. Forgot to mention it, but this game is definitely not for people with motion sickness even with everything toned down and the last gauntlet sidegrade especially has visual effects that make it even worse. Turns out the fire/ice world I left off on had the biggest difficulty spike because of both the enemies being harder to counter and the huge map size which made retreating to town difficult along with the slide puzzles and figuring out where to go. I managed to make my way through that, but the final world was even more worse about enemy types so I read up and found out that defense potions work as a battle repellent so I chugged those down just so I could have some peace while figuring out the puzzles. Still consider it stressful, but its unique style made it still lean more on the positive side for taking that chance.

    • Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Season One: I'll repeat that it's not the best Ace Attorney style game, but it's cheap and alright if you already have it or want something to fill the AA void. Case 4 released recently for $7, but I think I'll wait on it.

    • Tunic: Ended up searching for some of the remaining requirements towards the true end and it honestly gets ridiculous. I think I'm fine considering the game completed.

    Active Backlog:

    • OneShot: Mentioned issues completing the game which possibly stems from the itch client sandboxing mode. There's a video playthrough clocking in at 2 hours for the remaining content, so I'll take some time to watch that.

    • Jump King: Patience and practice. I think the overall thing is that the game still feels fair to me so I'm willing to keep going at it. Also it turns out the hidden area I discovered is actually the New Babe+ expansion which the steam page recommends to finish the main game before attempting so back to the main path I go.

    • ZeroRanger: While Jump King is patience, ZeroRanger also asks for reflexes in a way that has limited opportunities to practice and even less safety nets. I think this'll take even longer than Jump King to true end.

    • Noita: I don't think I can really consider a roguelike finished until it gets 100% completion or the fun runs out. Well the fun hasn't actually started for me, but I'm still willing to spend more time and see how it goes.

    Back to the Backlog:

    • Resident Evil 2 REmake: Yeah, I'm just not a horror person and other stuff on my list seems more appealing. I do want to get back to it eventually, but well backlog.

    Dropped:

    • Frog Fractions: Overhyped and the random humor is just dated.

    • Shadows of Doubt: Lacks depth, the random generation restraints make the world feel soulless.

    4 votes

  13. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 5(ish) Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Oh I definitely get the increasing familiarity with a game; I grew up on beat-em-ups like Turtles in Time and run-and-guns like Contra III so starting from the beginning and understanding how to...

    Oh I definitely get the increasing familiarity with a game; I grew up on beat-em-ups like Turtles in Time and run-and-guns like Contra III so starting from the beginning and understanding how to get a little further each time is a probably what led to my enjoyment of (non-grindy) roguelikes which have the same loop of start fresh, learn more of how the game works, succeed. Typing that out though, I guess that cycle of learning the tools and mechanics is in itself a familiar process too from knowing the genres.

    And thanks for the vote of confidence. Guess I can't throw in the towel on this one now.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 5(ish) Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Wildcard - FIGHT KNIGHT FIGHT KNIGHT is a game that is equal parts first-person dungeon crawler and equal parts first-person brawling with a pinch of off-beat humor. While it's an intriguing...
    Wildcard - FIGHT KNIGHT

    FIGHT KNIGHT is a game that is equal parts first-person dungeon crawler and equal parts first-person brawling with a pinch of off-beat humor. While it's an intriguing blend, it also proves to be an exhausting experience because there's no downtime between the two aspects with the constant stress of health management from random encounters looming over. On the dungeon crawling side, it's a maze to map out, figure out the correct path forward for, solve puzzles, and figure out when to head back to town to recover HP and restock on potions lest a game over wipe out all progress since the last save. Once a random encounter is triggered, it goes to the real-time punching side with two lanes to sidestep between, the block/parry, your choice of special moves to bring, and a whole lot of punching. Because HP is so precious, you can't afford to turn off your brain during any encounter and your brain is always working on figuring out the next path too.

    I'm not going to call it bad, in fact it's pretty unique, but it's certainly engaging in two genres that prioritize very different skillsets while asking you to consistently bring your A-Game for both with little leeway. Or maybe it's more specifically the constant random encounters that ask for very high real-time player engagement; I had the same problem with the Everhood 2 demo. I've made it to the 4th world that has a fire & ice theme, and I'm honestly debating whether to keep the momentum and keep going or just shelve this for now.

    2 votes

  15. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 5(ish) Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Connection - Slave Zero X Slave Zero X is basically what I imagine a 2D anime fighter plays like except as a single player beat-em-up. Once you learn how (I did not learn how), you can pretty much...
    Connection - Slave Zero X

    Slave Zero X is basically what I imagine a 2D anime fighter plays like except as a single player beat-em-up. Once you learn how (I did not learn how), you can pretty much sweep all the enemies together and air juggle them until they literally explode in a burst of guts and gore. Of course, the game provides a barebones slideshow of what the buttons do, so you're likely gonna have to search online for a proper guide to mechanics and getting good. Also like a fighting game, getting hit once will lead to you getting stunlocked and combo'd from all the different enemies extending their hits together until you hit the ground (and risk getting hit on wakeup) or using your Burst to escape (which means you can't use it offensively to recharge all your meter for Fatal Sync mode).

    The basic gist of the story is that Shou stole the biomecha X from the rebel group that he's a part of to go on a one-man rampage against the regime as revenge for his lover while X is willing to go along with it to prove her value as the ultimate weapon. As such, they form a Connection between host and weapon. A combo is also a connection of hits. While people probably don't play action games for their story, I thought it did a nice job portraying its biopunk setting as well as showing off its hammy boss gallery: the American fanatic, the cold sniper, the genuinely compassionate hero who was converted to the wrong side, the manipulator who can twist things with a few words, the rival, and finally the uncaring god-tyrant SovKhan. For some reason, I want to bring up Metal Gear Rising's boss squad as a comparison for the character they show (in a favorable way).

    Now I was able to get by through most of the game because Fatal Sync mode provides health recovery (on top of its other buffs like unlimited EX moves) for comboing during it and it practically has infinite uptime as long as you keep comboing to regain Burst which is then used offensively to regain full meter to trigger Fatal Sync mode again. The biggest problem is the elites and bosses who have superarmor which needs to be carefully chipped away at while avoiding their attacks until they're vulnerable at which point they need to be air-combo'd to maximize damage before they recover. I did not know how to properly air juggle so I had to play neutral a lot more times which was made much more difficult if they either had normal enemies backing them up (necessitating comboing them all while avoid the superarmored enemy's attacks to not get rushed down), if the superarmored enemy is very aggressive (which increases your chances of getting combo'd and minimizing Fatal Sync's health recovery), or if the particular fight has multiple superarmored enemies. Still, while I was getting skill checked a lot near the final levels, I can certainly say it was a stylish experience after getting the basic loop down and finishing the game.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 5(ish) Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    (edited )
    Link
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 14/25) Mode: Standard Winning Bingo! Finished 14/25 Variety Harmony ✅ Noita Swift ✅ Jump King Sly Fleeting ✅ Frog Fractions ✅ OneShot ✅ Nina Aquila:...
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 14/25)
    Mode: Standard Winning Bingo! Finished 14/25
    Variety Harmony Emergence
    ✅ Noita    		 Swift Tradition
    ✅ Jump King
    Sly Fleeting Humor
    ✅ Frog Fractions    		 Endurance
    ✅ OneShot    		 Justice
    ✅ Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Season One
    Sound Community ★ Wildcard
    ✅ FIGHT KNIGHT    		 Peace Exploration
    Tense
    ✅ Resident Evil 2 REmake    		 Connection
    ✅ Slave Zero X    		 Annihilation
    ✅ ZeroRanger    		 Dimension Pride
    Identity
    ✅ Shadows of Doubt    		 Traditional
    ✅ Gravity Circuit    		 Distribution
    ✅ The Hungry Lamb    		 Absence
    ✅ Chicory: A Colorful Tale    		 Curiosity
    ✅ Tunic
    Tradition - Jump King

    Jump King is a game of many Traditions: there is a quote-unquote Smoking Hot Babe waiting on the top of a tower, there is a main character who can jump several times his own height, and there are simplistic controls like the time of yesteryear consisting of left, right, and the jump button which is held down and released to determine your jump height. Just like many games of yesteryear, it is a difficult game where you cannot change your jump inertia after leaping and therefore must watch helplessly after a fatal mispress, one of many, which will send you back down many screens of progress.

    But you climb again. Better. Faster. Each failed jump is another opportunity to hone your skills further. To quote a samurai waiting at the second last prison world of a separate game: "Excellence is not an art, it's pure habit. We are what we repeatedly do." Unlike the reputation of its genre, the controls are intuitive and precise: hold and release Jump for X time to leap in Y arc. Granted, most people are not precise or good at eyeballing distances and the game is starting to get more devious with its design at the point where I'm at. But still, you build up muscle memory, work out the range of where a jump should lead, figure out where to stand for a max or minimal jump to minimize mistakes, even start experimenting because hey, you'll drop back down again. So for me, I'm playing this as a podcast game which helps minimize the frustration and enter a sort of zen flow state and plan to continue it as such.

    Or well, Wes made a nicer, longer post during Week 2 about noticing improvements after losing progresses. Honestly, take a moment to read that if you haven't. Or read it again.

    The further I've made it so far is the screen where the blowing winds first start, though I've managed to accidentally find a hidden snowy area that I'm now progressing through. I'm also starting to visualize the jump arc (not perfectly accurate of course) so I'm not sure if that's a good or bad sign. That said, I have an odd personal issue where most of my time on this is spent on the steam deck, so swapping over to PC forces me to have to rejudge and reevaluate all my angles again, probably from the screen size difference.

    Should I be gambling a bingo on the very last day? No. Will I? Yes.

    4 votes

  17. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 4 Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Endurance - OneShot OneShot is an RPGMaker adventure game where a small cat-person child, Niko, wakes up in another world that is dying and told that they're the savior who'll carry the new sun up...
    Endurance - OneShot

    OneShot is an RPGMaker adventure game where a small cat-person child, Niko, wakes up in another world that is dying and told that they're the savior who'll carry the new sun up to the tower to save the world/buy more time for everyone. You, the player sitting behind the screen, are hailed as the god of the world and can communicate to Niko through dialogue options to guide them, solve puzzles, and explore the world on the way to the tower. It is also a meta game where one of the first interactions is some message windows popping up to say that you will determine Niko's fate and that you only have one shot. There are one-use beds for Niko that will safely close the game, but apparently closing the game without using them in the original freeware version would end things then and there forever. That's why it's an Endurance run to finish the game or at least get to the next bed to save and quit properly.

    Now I have to say that I don't have the full experience due to (presumably) having itch's sandboxing mode active which (again, presumably, don't know the actual problem) made it so that I couldn't trigger the solution to continue past the first tower puzzle. I did try one of the suggested fixes (copying the appdata from the itch user sandbox to the actual appdata), but I think that ended up replacing the save with a fresh one. Searched up a video of the remaining part and it turns out I was 15 minutes away (and that there was still more beneath the surface, but I haven't looked at that particular aspect yet).

    The game does show its age in other ways. The window size is stuck at 640x480 with no setting to window scale it besides fullscreen mode, but the game is strongly encouraged to be played in window mode due to its meta aspects. There was one particular meta-element that didn't seem to work properly for a 16:9 monitor, or at least on my setup. It's also a puzzle/adventure style game with no modern things like maps or objective markers or objective/puzzle reminders, so I did have a guide open to help navigate where I was supposed to go and not get lost. And well, my PC is crashing more these days, so I was a little worried I would have failed the one shot aspect (though I made it through), as well as scrambling to get to IRL stuff.

    I don't think I can quite make a proper judgement on it considering the circumstances above. I think I'll settle for I was invested in seeing where the rabbit hole leads, but not particularly fond of the gameplay genre of explore everywhere in this zoomed-in perspective to get this and that item. Probably set up a time to watch the rest of the playthrough after the bingo finishes.

    OneShot - Ending Spoilers

    To be clear, this is for the first playthrough; I'm just aware that there's a Solstice run, but not what that means.

    So the theme of this little segment is sacrifice. At the end of the game, you're directly told from two sources that Niko is anchored to the world through the lightbulb and that the choice is to either place the sun to save the world, but strand Niko there, or destroy to lightbulb to send Niko home, but doom this world. Normally in games and choices like these, you connect to all the places and people you've met so of course the obvious moral decision for the faceless blank state vanilla main character to give up their old lives and join this new world. But you're not Niko. Niko isn't you. Niko is a separate entity who asks you for guidance and directly acknowledges you as a person. They're a scared child who wants to go back home to their mama and village after they were suddenly isekai'd. Can you do that to them?

    And besides, the world is dying. It has been dying even before the previous sun ran out; disintegrating and glitching out from the stress of the system. It's brought up in-universe that putting up the new sun is no guarantee that things will be fixed. But still, even as bad as things are and as much as they continue to worsen, you still see people carrying out their lives. Doesn't it mean something that they can still survive on their own for a little longer?

    So in the end, I would have chosen to send Niko home. My reasoning is as above: Niko being a small child who was abruptly being taken to this world with no choice, and the world dying on its own. In fact, quite a few individuals you run into are robots (not that I'm putting them as lesser beings to any future real AI reading this). Do I consider Niko more "real" than the rest of the world they were put in? I think I do. I think I'll give credit to the game for not making this a moral choice, but a choice of which bond and lives to save.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 4 Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    Emergence - Noita Noita is a 2D platformer roguelike where you play as a hooded wizard diving into a cave. As with many roguelikes, you're thrown into the deep pool of ignorance from the start and...
    Emergence - Noita

    Noita is a 2D platformer roguelike where you play as a hooded wizard diving into a cave. As with many roguelikes, you're thrown into the deep pool of ignorance from the start and either learn the language of gameplay or have the wiki open as you suffer silly death after silly death. The controls are simple, 360 aim to shoot the wands/potions and the levitation meter that recharges when not flying, but the game's claim to fame is its simulation system and its wand crafting.

    Fancy wand in a pool of acid? Toss a bomb to the bottom to drain it. Sudden flood of water? Perfect time to lightning bolt assuming you're far away enough or have immunity to it. All that flammable gas, wood, and oil? Get the fire potion out and let it all burn.

    In between levels, you can swap the spells around on wands to engineer the perfect wand out of whatever you've managed to scrounge together so far. How about a triple cast lightning bolt wand? Sure it can (and did) kill me from standing too close to the blast, but it one-shotted almost everything I've ran into. Or maybe pairing a spell that teleports the enemy to you with the luminous drill to make sure nothing can escape the insta-death zone. Or heck, a long-distance casting component that pretty much allows for safely attacking through walls. You can only carry 4 wands at a time though, so you're gonna have to make a lot snap judgements on what to take and what to give up during the levels themselves.

    And that's where all the emergent gameplay, or Emergence comes in. This is the generated environment, what can you do with it? These are the wands you've crafted, do you ditch a usable one for something practically useless to harvest it for its spell components? Heck I haven't even scratched the surface, the furthest I've made it is the jungle level.

    Of course, all of this requires getting good and the drive to do some wand engineering; I'm still a beginner and I don't have that urge to theorize optimal combinations and macguyver some wands together. It's not a particularly flashy game until you survive long enough to find/craft a good wand, so I'm currently playing from the inertia of its reputation and consider it a very slow burn start that I'm still in the middle of. So I guess I'm not enjoying it enjoying it at this stage, but digging at it with a mixture of figuring it out and accepting the challenge.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 4 Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    (edited )
    Link
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 11/25) Mode: Standard Winning Bingo! Finished 11/25 Variety Harmony ✅ Noita Swift Tradition Sly Fleeting ✅ Frog Fractions ✅ OneShot ✅ Nina Aquila:...
    • Exemplary
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 11/25)
    Mode: Standard Winning Bingo! Finished 11/25
    Variety Harmony Emergence
    ✅ Noita    		 Swift Tradition
    Sly Fleeting Humor
    ✅ Frog Fractions    		 Endurance
    ✅ OneShot    		 Justice
    ✅ Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Season One
    Sound Community ★ Wildcard Peace Exploration
    Tense
    ✅ Resident Evil 2 REmake    		 Connection Annihilation
    ✅ ZeroRanger    		 Dimension Pride
    Identity
    ✅ Shadows of Doubt    		 Traditional
    ✅ Gravity Circuit    		 Distribution
    ✅ The Hungry Lamb    		 Absence
    ✅ Chicory: A Colorful Tale    		 Curiosity
    ✅ Tunic
    Justice - Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, Season One

    Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle is an Ace Attorney-inspired RPGMaker game where anime is real. Yes, that is the game's description, yes, you can expect it to be anime TM, and yes, there are many references; Case 2 is about children's card games with that exact phrasing used while Case 3 is about street racing. Season One contains one tutorial case and two proper cases. Case 4 is actually coming out this Friday as a standalone release.

    Well the game is lower budget and less refined than other AA-inspired games which is somewhat expected from being made in RPGMaker, but it's earnest in its spirit. It knows it's a videogame, it knows it wants to make references, and it knows it wants to have a fun time presenting its story (within its budget, again, RPGMaker). I have enough anime tolerance to say that it wasn't a bad time, which is helped by me getting it in an itch bundle and the game being pretty cheap, though not exactly my top rec for an AA-style game.

    Since it's made in RPGMaker, the trial segment UI is definitely more awkward with its menuing; you can't go backwards in statements for instance and the evidence is all listed in alphabetical order. It also has an overworld whereas most AA-style games let you zip from location to location. On the plus side, the game can show off crowds, random NPCs to just talk to, and events that visual novel style games would have to cut away from, make a CG for, or have excessive narration which isn't really AA-style.

    It also has minigames. Mandatory minigames which at least give you a "can't lose" setting, and Case 3 gives you an "auto-play" option. The in-universe explanation is that the witnesses don't respect Nina enough to talk to her until she decides to rank up in children's card games/street racing to force the issue. Case 2 has a turn-based auto-battler with an elemental triangle which was alright. Case 3 has rock-paper-scissors which felt much more tedious and luck-based.

    Case 3 Ending Spoilers

    After Nina nails down the culprit in court, they actually make a run for it and speed off in their car. Nina has to pursue with this being the final minigame race to close it out. You wouldn't see this in a normal AA-style visual novel so it really works here with the minigame that you've had to play for the chapter! Or well, the minigame really could have felt more better and more tactical, but it still gets points here!

    Unfortunately, I think the minigames is a reason for the cases having a 3-day structure which AA games have avoided after the first game for better pacing. In doing so, Nina has to ask these witnesses for any clues at all over the last two days which (in the cases so far) also means that the cases have to be crafted with very little direct evidence of the crime to argue over after the initial findings in day 1. My memory of the testimonies is generally that Nina has to argue against the witnesses' interpretation of the events (par for the course), or arguing against the witnesses' slandering the defendant's character despite having obvious bias, both of which stem from lack of direct evidence.

    The witness slander especially sticks out to me for quite a few reasons:

    • Most AA style witnesses stick to defending themselves, their version of events, and their own actions with logic. The witnesses here being specifically brought in to call the defendant's character into doubt is called out as witness conjecture, but is still allowed by the court.
    • Innocent until proven guilty is brought up in court despite the game also using the AA 3 day trial system. So even though Nina has established reasonable doubt through proving other people have the motive and opportunity, Prosecutor Chad always resorts to this and the Judge always leans guilty until proven innocent.
    • Continuing from the above, all 3 defendants so far are people who were found near the crime/body, and subsequently arrested because they were accused by a witness, 2 of which again have obvious bias. It really feels like the police failed to properly check anyone and just settled for arresting the closest and most obvious lead.

    I guess it also bothers me that the inciting case that's driving Nina is a flashback that abruptly takes place between case 1 and 2 where she failed to acquit her mentor. So you see in two cutscenes after case 1 that her mentor's targeted and then boom, Case 2 where Nina is moody after what happened and flashing back to it. Feels like it would've been more interesting if that was Case 1 or at least a playable segment where Nina does her best, but fails from being too inexperienced. The point being that it's told to the player instead of shown and experienced.

    I also think it's very gratuitous that Nina's "Press Statement" is a T&A pose which pops up every time. The end of day CG where Nina sleeps in her underwear? Anime. The end of case segments with fourth wall breaking and Nina in a bunny suit? Anime. But Nina yelling "Hold it!" at the witness to ask for more details with the T&A pose? Kinda ridiculous.

    Well as long as we're on the subject of AA-style games, there's only 4 that I remember and I thought they were alright. Would welcome more recs!

    • Aviary Attorney: 1840s France, the cast drawn as animals, time management to gather evidence, the game can continue even with a guilty verdict, and 3 separate final chapters depending on how the penultimate chapter ended.

    • Murders on the Yangtze River: 1900s China, each chapter has its own gameplay mechanic gimmick with skippable minigames.

    • Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane: Low fantasy humans with magic! Case 1 is a free demo. Probably the most AA-like in tone and execution?

    • of the Devil: Cyberpunk cyberpunk instead of an aesthetic. Case 0 is a free demo which is definitely worth playing even as a standalone thing. Still releasing episodically with only Case 1 released out of 5 planned.

    Danganronpa and Detective Raincode are more like distant cousins to AA, I don't count them.

    4 votes

  20. Comment on May 2025 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion in ~games

    SingedFrostLantern
    Link Parent
    I think for procedural generation, it's a matter of: How much does it affect the player? Are there enough underlying systems and mechanics to provide depth such that the generation provides...
    • Exemplary

    I think for procedural generation, it's a matter of:

    • How much does it affect the player? Are there enough underlying systems and mechanics to provide depth such that the generation provides variety for the player to interact with?
    • Are the results refined enough that there isn't any undue frustration? Is the player given tools to fix or bypass said frustrations?
    • How believable is it? Does it avoid uncanny valley if it tries to push for realistic (ex. an apartment closet that has a giant metal air vent inside) instead of videogamey (ex. thinking of maps as resources to mine or an obstacle course to clear)?

    Related to the above:

    • What type of generation is it? Right at the start with a world seed? Or constant generation with new areas/dungeons/loot/NPCs?
    • Is the generation constantly creating from scratch or is it pulling from existing refined assets (ex. room types) or asset types (ex. personalities/traits)?

    To throw some examples:

    • Dwarf Fortress (by reputation) generates the entire world, millenniums of history, civilizations, events, and notoriously has a lot of depth to it (one example I've read is cats getting alcohol poisoning from walking around in a tavern and licking their paws). It's dynamic enough that people write stories about their worlds and all the crazy stuff that happens to their colony.

    • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Shadow of War generates orcs and their hierarchy. They have different classes, combat traits with strengths & weaknesses, appearances, etc. and they matter because they're the elites and bosses for Talion to fight and/or brainwash to his side. The orcs backstab each other naturally or at Talion's behalf, and any orc lucky enough to kill Talion gets a promotion.

    • The modern X-Coms generate missions and the maps within, but I think people focus more on the soldiers to personify them. They're just pawns for you to control, but their combat results personify them. My Sniper is a walking god of death. My Assault dodges everything, but can't shoot the broad side of a barn whenever it matters. The rookie I brought along to train up became the sole survivor of the squad, but still managed to clutch the mission.

    • Spelunky generates the map and ensures that the player has a natural path to the exit. There are also expandable ropes if you need to climb up and bombs if you need to blow up the environment to open up a path if you don't agree with the map.

    • For resource sandboxes like Minecraft or Terraria, the map does matter for what you have access to in the beginning, but it's also all getting strip-mined in the end for the player's power.

    • While ARPGS have the endgame grind of getting the perfectly generated legendary loot, there's still the stuff inbetween while you're leveling up. In Borderlands 1 for example, I got a lot of mileage out of the Double Anarchy SMG type simply because it shoots 2 bullets at once and shredded everything.

    • Monaco 2 came out recently, but has mixed reviews on Steam with the procedurally generated levels getting mentioned a lot. It's a stealth/chaos co-op game with 4 classes to play as, so it seems like the possibilities are limited and frustrating compared to the first game's set stages.

    • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain isn't an example besides the generated soldiers for you to forcibly recruit, but it has all the different possibilities and player experiences from the loadout you choose to bring along into the open world and the adaptive measures the AI takes to counter you such as helmets, manned spotlights, mines set in sneaking paths, etc as they re-man their bases.

    All of this is why I don't think I can personally give Shadows of Doubt much credit besides attempting to create a generated city in first-person and giving the slow detective experience. The cases are on the level of a Skyrim radiant quest except it's pulling from existing NPCs instead. The player can't truly interact with the world or have lasting consequences to it besides faceless NPCs disappearing after getting killed/arrested, nor is there depth to any of them.

    If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Or rather, if something is procedurally generated and the player can't interact with it, does it mean anything?

    3 votes