What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

MUD diaries, Week 2

MUDs are text-based, multi-user dungeons games.

1. Aardwolf

I left Discworld behind long ago, and, once again tried, and once again gave up on Aardwolf, but now I can say more precisely what is wrong with it.

That is a game created in 1996, and it gives me the impression of being a well-maintained project that received significant improvements while retaining many of the old-school inclinations that may not please everyone. My perspective, as someone that never played MUDs before, is not at all nostalgic, so I may be harsher than most in my assessment.

Aardwolf's design is flawed, antiquated, or both. Regardless of race, class, or choice, everyone has to go through The Academy, a fictional institution that houses trainers (NPCs) that are supposed to teach your character the skills needed to survive in that world.

In our universe, these instances are narrative devices to teach the player the many systems used in the game. That is a well-known procedure that can be found in many video games, notably MMORPGs.

For these sections to work, they must be intertwined with indirect exposition that manages to engage the player in the overarching narrative. Everyone knows they're tutorials, but it pays good dividends to give them some flair and color.

Aardwolf's academy is among the laziest introductions I've ever seen in a game. It is overflowing with irrelevant descriptions and text dumps. The player is overwhelmed with a huge amount of information they can't possibly memorize, especially because it will take a long for all of them to become useful.

The one real quest in this whole section told me to go to a forest, kill a bunch of mobs and bring back their pelts. What a juicy drama! But, at least, I did learn the basics of combat from it. Other than that, the academy was so unbearably boring, I did not feel compelled to continue. I probably will, because I went through so many inane lessons that I feel my character deserves to see the world. At least once.

It is hard for me to be so harsh about a free game that is clearly a passion project for so many people, and I will say that, once you overcome the challenges of learning such a huge game with dozens of mechanics, it clearly can be loads of fun. Its systems may be plenty and the presentation lacking, but this is a game that will give many tools to script, abstract, or overcome anything that is not fun for you, and let you get quicker to the juicy bits^[1].

If you play TTRPGs, I'd recommend it for those that love min-maxing and rolling dice. The descriptions are often well-written and may be longer than you wish to read, but most of the time you don't even need to read them, since there are handy summaries prompted by dedicated commands. This can be good or bad depending on what you're looking for. It is not a coincidence that this is the most popular MUD out there.

If you wish to play, I strongly recommend Aardwolf's customized client, which features a world map, health bar (along with other stats), and dedicated sub-windows for chat channels. If you're not on Windows, it works fine with Wine.

^[1] I must notice that The Academy is optional. However, for new players, the other option is reading the Wiki and IDK what's worse...

2. Starmourn

Starmourn is a science fiction commercial game with a free-to-play model. According to players, the f2p is not predatory, there is no paywalled content, and you can easily have loads of fun and do anything you want without spending a dime. Unlike Aardwolf, this game is roleplay-centric and roleplay enforced, meaning that, with the exception of the dedicated out-of-character channels, you are expected to communicate as your character.

Released in 2018, this is a much newer game, and the way it plays really shows it -- not only in terms of its technology but also in game design principles. It feels modern.

The Nexus web-client is outstanding and is also available as an Electron App. This game has unique features, such as ambient music (it is not great, but it is there), dynamic map (when I had to move a ship, I could see it moving "dynamically" in the map - the red rectangle was added by me). The one thing that bothers me about this client is that when I hit enter on an empty prompt it does not create a new blank line, and the lack of space between scenes and text dumps makes me claustrophobic. But few people would be bothered by that.

The polishing in this game is on another level entirely, down to every detail. The formatting is clear, each element is neatly differentiated. Description blocks are colorful and engaging and contain useful details not found in other sections. The tone is closer to Star Wars than Star Trek. The lore is interesting and not generic, and the wiki is concise and to the point.

The tutorial session has a tiny, self-contained plot, that manages to engage the reader and anticipate a thrilling narrative. I learn to help my character get out of a jam, and not because a virtual nobody told me to.

There are punctual references to my race, but, for the most part, race, class, and other attributes defined in character creation are irrelevant to the plot. There are dialogue choices, but they're inconsequential and always lead to the same outcome. Regardless, they add color to the universe and make me feel that there is more than combat to the game.

I played for the entire introduction until I arrived at the larger world. It felt long, between 60 and 90 minutes. I didn't time it, unfortunately.

I can't say I really grasped combat, even though I've been in one. It seems approachable but complex, with unique touches. I wonder why turn-based combat (at least in the way we're used to it from JRPGs) is not the default for MUDs. It seems like a good combination.

Players in the Newbie channel were helpful, but that is true for every MUD. But we ended up chatting about roleplay, and some ideas I have for my character. They were smart and warm, and I felt incredibly welcomed. My character is now a 550-years-old cybernetic tree called Mordagrew, and I'm looking forward to roleplaying it with my new friends. If you wish to play Starmourn, I'm told that character names are unique, so you can find me there. That was the first MUD that made me forget I was sitting at a computer reading text. I was involved in the story, anxious to see my character progress. The Star Wars soundtrack on Spotify did help, but it's a good game and I'll be playing it further.

Tip: make sure to create a Nexus account, and then a game character (with its own password) within that account. Those are different accounts. It's a bit confusing.

Other notes

Life is too short. I completely gave up on the idea of customizing MUD clients myself, and will only play a mud if there's a custom client that I can readily use.

I suppose that's an obvious conclusion, but the online text games crowd does not cherish simplicity. Density, enormous worlds, and high complexity are explicitly advertised as a plus. It might be interesting to make a MUD that goes in a different direction, with a more contained universe and fewer, more intuitive mechanics. I would be pleased, but I'm not sure it would have an audience.

Procedural realms: absolutely gorgeous client, quick to start, dynamic gameplay. I will investigate it further. Seems action focused.

Iron Realms, the creators of Starmourn, have other MUDs as well, and I assume of similar quality. They are all f2p.

Other sci-fi MUDs I wanna check out: Sindome (cyberpunk), Cybersphere. It's unfortunate that many MUD engines and toolkits are laser-focused on fantasy, with ready-made tools for that genre alone. That is probably one reason why sci-fi MUDs are somewhat rare.

BatMUD has a client on Steam that was well-received. I don't expect to love this MUD, but it's the only for-profit MUD on Steam so I had to check it out. I think it's 2 US dollars. It looks great, I believe it was made in Unity or some other non-typical engine for MUDs clients. But I just took a glance, and haven't actually tested it yet.

I finished "Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky" (Steam). 2nd time I finished it, as I played and finished it on the PSP like a decade ago. It's a great JRPG, and it's actually a trilogy!

Which means I've started "Legend of Heroes: Trails in Sky SC" (Steam). I assume 'SC' means Second Chapter. Literally starts up right where the first chapter leaves off. Been waiting to play the rest of the trilogy for years as I think SC and the final, third part came out on Steam 5+ yrs ago. Just now getting around to doing all this. Hoping to finish this one before the end of Nov, and then start and finish the last part before the end of the year.

I managed to sync my Xbox Series S|X controller with my laptop that is running Manjaro Linux. It should have been automatic, but it's working perfectly now. It's mind-blowing to see what my aging laptop can "run" on an Intel HD4400. I'm in the middle of Star Wars Fallen Order introduction and it's outstanding (great game too).

Since we only have one TV for the time being, Xbox Cloud is going to save me. It's ironic that I arrived at that conclusion shortly after Stadia's demise. Downloaded games are still a much better experience, but this cloud-based thing certainly has its place.

It's fine on Chrome (not Firefox, I think), but I'm running on the Microsoft Edge Browser just because I assume it must have some kind of optimization.

However, even on my laptop's 14", 1366x768 screen, compression artifacts are very noticeable, especially in darker scenes. A very dark game would look like shit the whole time. But this is a beta, I expect things to improve.

Unfortunately, Remote Play (for games that are on my console but not on Xbox Cloud) is not an option on Linux, and probably never will be, since it depends on the exclusive Xbox App that does not run on a browser. It may be possible to do it via Wine at a significant performance penalty. There's the Xbox App for Android as well, which I assume can run on Android emulation. But that's hacky.

Lord of Rigel. If you like Master of Orion II, and really wish they hadn't ended the series there, this is the game for you.

It's almost exactly Master of Orion II but with newer tech. You have a race of sneaky spy people, you have a race of warlike cat people, you have a race of hostile lizard people, you have a race of telepathic amazons, you have... humans. The tech trees, the techs, many of the star system names, it's all Master of Orion II inspired or derived. And. I. Love. It.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits was generally good. It's a platforming/traversal heavy "Baby Souls", that is, it's not as hard as a From Software game but it does have a wide variety of boss fights with interesting mechanical twists to them. Incredibly polished Pixar-styled, Ghibli-themed visuals (mostly cheerful, not grimdark). Consistent plot. Although there are tons of of collectibles locked behind vaguely puzzle-like challenges, combat challenges or just hard to find, the rewards for the vast majority of exploration are unfortunately just cosmetic - costumes for Kena and hats for the adorable pikmin-style little critters that follow you around (or "crystals" used to purchase them, and only them). There are many, many hats. There are also unlockable skills, skill upgrades and collectible power ups (only one usable at a time) that actually matter. Good voice acting. Some cutscenes may make you cry, ready those onions. I got 25 hours out of it.

Hoa was more of a disappointment. Excellent soundtrack, and the visuals were OK, but otherwise full of unfulfilled potential compared to other puzzle platformers. I wished the movement had been a lot more snappy, greater challenge variety and definitely greater length--I finished this in just a few hours. The story felt like an afterthought.

I'm currently playing I Was A Teenage Exocolonist. It's a management style "numbers go up" kind of game with a pretty decent plot affected by your choices. You play as a young person who traveled in a colony ship through a wormhole, to a new planet bursting with alien life, along with a hundred other humans (including your parents and other kids). You are ten years old on arrival and have six peers close to you in age, all of whom are distinctive characters with personalities that develop throughout the story. There is no voice acting but a ton of dialogue trees; during the game, you get to interact with many of the colony's denizens (kids and adults) and learn more about them; you can cultivate a friendship with whatever kids you choose (there are meters!), though it's up to you to find their likes, dislikes, birthday, etc.

Each year has 13 months divided in 5 seasons, and each month you can socialize all you want (if characters want to talk to you) but have to choose a single main pursuit to occupy your time--early in the game there are few to choose from, but you gradually unlock more activities. The game is supposed to end at age 20, so that gives you 130 decision points. Activities grow one or more of your twelve stats, which are grouped in three types--physical (red), intellectual (blue) or social (yellow)--and some have a direct impact on the colony, your friendship with others, or assign status effects. There is also a stress meter that, when full, forces you to take a month off in one of the strict relaxation activities, and a "colony loyalty" meter that can restrict what you can do (you can choose to be a malcontent!)

All activities, from study, manual labor, competition with peers, fight with aggressive fauna, research and much more require you to play a minigame in which you arrange cards from a hand of cards into five slots in order to maximize their value by making flushes or sets of similar numbers or colors (same as your stats colors). The cards in your "deck" are the (nicely illustrated) experiences you collect throughout your life; you start with the "giggling" and "wondering" you did as a baby and accrue a lot more from everything you do throughout the game. Not all cards are good and a deck that's too dispersed is less effective, so you want to cultivate good experiences! There are mechanics for forgetting cards, but they are costly. As you age the game becomes harder, requiring multiple rounds, higher point goals and assigning random restrictions and rules. If you hate it and just want the plot, you can set the game to easy mode to dispense with it entirely.

All in all, this game is surprisingly addictive and entertaining. You are sure to like at least some of the NPCs and to be intrigued by the mysteries of the alien planet. Be warned, though, the game does a decent job of conveying the sort of problems that might arise in an exoplanetary colony. By which I mean, there is DEATH. LOTS of DEATH. Your favorite characters MIGHT DIE! I hope you kept some of those onions!

Zachtronics Solitaire Collection, which I got to through PysolFC. I never played Zachtronics games, and didn't know there were solitaire games hidden in most of them, I just know he put this out, and its got great games in it that are new, interesting, but solvable-by-design puzzles. I'm getting at least one run on each of the card-based ones as they aren't so abstracted as to be hard to understand, but one I simply don't get is Sigmar's Garden. I really should check out the actual games.

On the solitiare tip, I've also been playing Spider recently, which is interesting. I use PysolFC for this, as it's a lot of cards otherwise.

Risk of Rain 2 is getting back in my rotation after too much Vampire Survivors. I just love these "run around and grab stuff to win" games.

Victoria 3: The framework is good, and it'll be better with a few minor bugfixes and several hundred dollars of content DLC. At the moment only a few major nations have specific events, so the world feels a bit empty/sandboxy. There's not much railroading, aside from the discovery of needed rubber and oil pushing you into the rush for Africa, which is nice, but it also didn't feel like there was enough to do.

Chibi-Robo! for Nintendo GameCube. Brilliantly simple design, killer soundtrack, and oozing charm. Wish I'd played it sooner.