16 votes

November 2024 Backlog Burner: Week 2 Discussion

Week 2 has begun!

Post your current bingo cards.
Continue updating us on your games!

If you did not participate in Week 1 but want to start this week, that's fine!
Reminder: playing bingo is OPTIONAL.

Quick links:


Week 1 Recap

11 participants played 10 bingo cards and moved 17 games out of their backlogs!
There were 0 bingo wins.

  • 6 people played Flow bingo cards
  • 4 people played Flux bingo cards
  • 1 person played free choice

Game list:

57 comments

  1. Wes
    Link
    Bingo Card (Custom/Flux) - 9/25 Filled Mode: Custom Bingo! Finished 9/25 ✅ Super Mario Eclipse ✅ Remnant II Focuses on relationships An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game Has a...
    • Exemplary
    Bingo Card (Custom/Flux) - 9/25 Filled
    Mode: Custom Bingo! Finished 9/25
    A modded game
    ✅ Super Mario Eclipse
    Uses procedural generation
    ✅ Remnant II
    Focuses on relationships An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game Has a moral choice system
    Focuses on exploration
    ✅ Remnant II
    Part of a trilogy
    ✅ Mandragora, Otherskin, MH: Wilds
    Has multiple playable characters Randomness determines your fate
    ✅ Remnant II
    Has a skill tree
    It’s already installed
    ✅ Super Mario Eclipse
    Features a mystery Has both combat and puzzles
    ✅ Remnant II
    Has a top-down perspective Known for its difficulty
    You can complete it in only a few hours From now-defunct dev studio You have to tinker to get it running
    ✅ Super Mario Eclipse
    You wanted it when you were younger Makes you think
    Has a lives system A romhack or total conversion mod
    ✅ Super Mario Eclipse
    Has a time limit From a studio you haven't heard of before Has cards

    Welcome to week 2! I hadn't posted my card yet because I wanted to have something to share first, but I'm ready now.

    For this event I'm aiming at playing fewer, but larger titles. Chiefly those that I've been interested in for a long time but felt overwhelmed by starting. I still had a slower start than I intended, but I'll try to tackle more larger games as the event proceeds.

    I decided to run a Flux card this time. I'm thrilled to see everyone enjoying the new categories, and it seems that Flux vs Flow is split right down the middle. Awesome to see, folks!

    I've customized my game rules to play similar to golf mode (allowing duplicates), but I've narrowed the win condition to just rows and columns (no diagonals). This is to allow for a completion with fewer entries, without making it too easy. I also disabled the star tile so I have the full 25 categories available. Depending on how easy this proves to be, I may change to a full blackout later, but I'll give this a try first.

    But now, onto the games!


    Super Mario Eclipse

    We're starting off with a comprehensive romhack for Super Mario Sunshine. Eclipse doesn't so much change the game as it adds to it. All of the original stages and shines are still there, but Eclipse adds 120 new shines, 5 new stages, new playable characters, new boss fights, an original soundtrack, and even a few new moves for Mario. There's a lot!

    On top of the new stages, a number of connections have also been added to the original stages. There's tunnels, boats, and trains connecting them to make the island feel more connected. I keep accidentally finding new connections and getting side tracked from my current goal.

    It's a small detail, but the skyboxes have been updated to add other stages off in the distance too. In many cases, you can head right towards them and find some clever new way of traveling there.

    One thing I've found is that the new content feels quite a bit more challenging. That makes sense, since Nintendo was aiming for all ages while modders are generally already very good at the game. However, I'm apparently not much better at the game now than I was in 2002, so it's been hard going at times. I sometimes go back and complete the original shines when I need a bit of a rest. I've unlocked Yoshi now, but can't seem to remember how to unlock the other nozzles.

    My favourite stages were always the FLUDD-less ones. Where it's just Mario doing his platforming thing to some acapella music. That remains true today, and I'm glad to see a number of these stages were added as well.

    Eclipse is clearly a labour of love, and it's one that's been in development for over four years now. If you've been looking to relive some of that GameCube-era nostalgia, I think it's worth checking out.


    Remnant II

    I played through the original Remnant: From the Ashes back in 2020, and liked it well enough. I thought it to be a bit of a flawed gem. The story was interesting, the combat solid, but it had some major design flaws that made the game often frustrating to play.

    As a sequel, Remnant II embraces both the good and the ugly by doubling down on all of these aspects.

    Starting with the positives, Remnant II just feels better to play. The gunplay is more engaging, melee weapons feel more impactful, and the story is more clearly communicated. There's tons of new weapons, different kinds of upgrades, and they've added fun archetypes that greatly affect your character. There's plenty of content to unlock and level up, and is perfect for those with a completionist streak.

    The problem is... leveling up actually works against you. The game world is split into separate zones, and each one - when first discovered - will scale to your current level. So whenever you upgrade a gun or earn enough XP to level up, it's also making the enemies in the next area stronger.

    Technically the game also slowly increases the difficulty of newer zones, but you can easily accelerate it by getting stronger too fast. This creates a perverse incentive where you want to avoid leveling your character until you reach a difficulty wall, then gain a level or upgrade your weapon to proceed. Of course you can only upgrade your weapons so far, so you need to carefully manage your difficulty. This also requires negotiation with any players in your party to ensure nobody accidentally blows the difficulty up.

    I do not consider this a fun system. In fact, it was my biggest turn off from the first game. It requires far too much thinking about game systems to be fun, especially when you can permanently set yourself back with it. It's the classic TES: Oblivion problem where random bandits suddenly get glass daggers that can take you down in one shot.

    While that was the largest problem, a few smaller ones were brought forward as well. The shop inventory is shared in multiplayer, which means there's often not enough materials to go around. Ammo pickups are also strangely not shared, so everyone needs to be mindful of other players' ammo levels too.

    Ammo in general is a bit of a concern. My partner and I had major issues in the first area because we simply didn't have enough ammo to take down the baddies. At one point we simply had to run through hordes of enemies until we made it to a shortcut door.

    Like the first game, bosses all seem to include a phase of sending out minions. This is partly a necessity of design, because minions drop ammo and ammo is very scarce. While it doesn't feel quite as bad in this game, I do think they could have found some different solutions to this problem altogether.

    Next I'd like to talk about puzzles. I like puzzles! The puzzles in Remnant II are downright inscrutable. I almost never go "Aha! That must be it!". It's more like, "Could that really be it...?". Last time I played, I spent over an hour solving one puzzle involving symbols and shadows. It offered great presentation, but almost no direction whatsoever. At least I got a cool bow out of it.

    Generally I don't like to look up guides for games, but I would not blame anyone at all for doing so. It almost feels like some of these puzzles are meant to be crowdsourced and shared. But okay, therein ends my complaints.

    Although it's easy to miss this fact while playing, Remnant is largely procedural. Sure it has set pieces, but they're put together in a convincing way that still create interesting worlds. It's actually pretty impressive that they can integrate a story into a system like that at all. It's not just finding "journals" as some roguelikes do, but there's full characters and encounters that are added to the world, and quite seamlessly, too.

    There's actually an entire system after the campaign for generating new sets of worlds. This is where most players would do the farming to max out their character. Personally, I'm more interested in just completing the first playthrough, but it's neat that it's an option.

    Remnant II is a true and proper successor to Remnant: From the Ashes. If you liked the first game, you'll surely like this one. It builds on each of the existing systems, and knows exactly what it wants to be. I can respect that. Some aspects are not for me, but there's still a solid game in there. I consider it a larger, more lustrous flawed gem.


    Demos

    I've decided to be cheeky on this next one and include three demos as one entry. From my perspective, they are a trilogy! Two were downloaded via Steam Next Fest and left unplayed (and thankfully are still available to play afterwards). One was part of a timed beta test. I figured I'd knock out all three as part of one entry, though it's still three separate write-ups. Best of luck to our record keeper in counting this one.

    Mandragora Demo

    Mandragora, a self-described RPG with metroidvania and soulslike elements. I find myself agreeing with their description. It definitely hits most of the Souls mechanical tropes, like bonfire checkpoints, estus flasks for healing, and "door does not open from this side" shortcuts. It plays more like a metroidvania though.

    The visuals are very nice, with great background art and visual effects. There's something about the character art that feels a little off to me, but nothing I can point to exactly. I found I wasn't able to customize my character at all, possibly due to a control bug in the editor, so that might be a factor.

    I don't think I've seen enough of the demo yet to comment on the overall world design and how everything fits together, but it reminded me of Blasphemous and other metroidvanias I've played recently. The individual rooms feel very "horizontal" in how they're laid out, with with ladders and drop downs occasionally adding layers. I guess that's another way of saying "it's a side-scrolling game".

    I'm not entirely sold on the combat yet. It feels floaty in places, and occasionally unresponsive. I think it feels generally okay on the ground where rolling grants iframes, but striking in the air feels like a disconnected animation. It's a bit like Bugs Bunny characters running in place until they notice the ground isn't beneath them anymore, and then they fall. Of course a demo only offers a small slice, and it's possibly that future upgrades will make the combat feel more dynamic and responsive.

    The stat system seems rather interesting. Instead of leveling up traits like health or stamina directly, you explore a large skill tree with branching paths and detours. Each node offers a small boost to one trait, with occasional rarer nodes that grant more powerful abilities.

    The first skill tree was already rather complex looking, and the demo hinted at even more becoming available. It's not quite Path of Exile levels of complexity, but that seems to be the inspiration. It leaves me feeling a little overwhelmed, but I think if the game clicked with me, I could get really into theorycrafting and designing an optimal build.

    I felt Mandragora was rough in a couple areas, and the pacing left something to be desired, but both traits are expected of an early demo. I'd say this is well on its way to being a very competent metroidvania.


    Otherskin Demo

    Another Metroidvania, but this time in 3D!

    So far, I like Otherskin. It feels a little lighter in tone than Mandragora, with more of a focus on exploration and movement. This is no soulslike. As much as I like a dark, broody story, sometimes it's nice to throw realism to the wind and enjoy the fantastical instead. This game delivers on that.

    The main gimmick of Otherskin is the ability to absorb new powers from creatures. Not exactly like Kirby, because the unlocks are semi-permanent. It's more like unlocking new upgrades that you occasionally lose when exploring a new region. The game does seem to be split into different zones, with a main warp hub connecting them. It's not a traditional open world.

    For those who have played it, I'm reminded a lot of Prototype. It offers the same kind of power fantasy, also shown through a theme of corruption, that encourages you to progress to unlock more.

    The movement tech is a lot of fun, with abilities granting things like super jumps and grappling hooks. You also unlock new weapons and tools as you progress, which can be upgraded with the currency orbs you find. I hope the final game will offer some customization here to allow multiple paths to complete a level, as that could add a lot of replayability.

    One of the things that sets metroidvanias apart from classic games is the use of keys. In Doom for example, you often found keycards that opened one door and did nothing else. In metroidvanias though, the "keys" also enhance your character in some way. You might gain a double jump to access a new ledge, gain extra strength to lift a boulder, or maybe find a hookshot to cross long gaps. You're not just getting further in the level, but you feel more powerful, too. I find that kind of progression really enjoyable, and Otherskin's abilities each feel like they grant a large power spike.

    I suppose the consequence of becoming too powerful, too quickly, is that eventually it would be too difficult to balance around. That may be why Otherskin has you lose your abilities when moving to a new zone. That can also feel bad though, so we'll have to see how it's balanced in the full game.

    The gunplay feels a little lacking to me right now. Partly I think that's due to the controls being rather awkward, and maybe designed for controllers. There's seemingly no way to disable auto-aim, which really messes with my PC reflexes. The aim sensitivity also slows dramatically when scoped in. There's a few questionable key combos, like holding "E" and "R" together to absorb powers. To me these feel like the consequence of testing only on a controller, but they're also likely to be fixed after some QA passes.

    The other thing I wish I could control was the camera zoom. Every time I sprinted, the camera zoomed out. Every time I aimed, it zoomed in. It felt like I was being constantly lurched back and forth in high motion. I do hope to see that turned down, or settings added to reduce it.

    Being an Unreal Engine 5 game, this one made my GPU sweat a little bit. I only just met the minimum specs though, so your experience may be smoother. It definitely feels like a UE5 game, with complex geometries and open spaces on display. The environments use heavy foliage, and actually remind me quite a bit of Crysis (as does the average framerate).

    I liked the cutscenes and game introduction. It was a bit expository but that suits me fine. When trying a game for only an hour or two, I'm not looking to explore the deep secrets of that universe. I crash landed on an alien planet, I can hoover up their powers -- say no more!

    The Big Bad™ this time around is a "corruption"-based enemy that infects creatures and seemingly wants very badly to eat you, too. This ties into your absorption ability, allowing you to fight back. As far as stories go, it's definitely one designed for a video game. And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

    Overall, Otherskin seems like a good time. I won't be able to play it properly until I upgrade my hardware but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it as it nears release.


    Monster Hunter: Wilds Beta

    Okay, this one is 100% a cheat. I can't even argue it was on my backlog because it only just released last week. But how could I not give it a try? I loved Monster Hunter: World, and Wilds seemed like a worthy successor to that title.

    Alas, the game is a complete slideshow for me. I don't quite get the origami art others have reported, but saw my own flavour of PS1 graphics. It made it difficult to follow the intro cutscene, and the game itself was practically unplayable. Despite tinkering, I never got my game above 15 FPS. I'm faced with the reality that I'll need to upgrade my computer, and I don't like it!

    I was able to explore some of the game's systems, despite the choppiness. The new Seikret seems very cool, and I love that you can equip two different weapons at once. The environment felt once again like a real ecosystem, something that felt strangely absent in Rise. I'm not 100% sold on the very fast transitions between biome states, but I'm willing to give them a chance.

    I was absolutely blown away by the character creator. It's one of the best I've ever used. The sliders felt intuitive yet powerful, and I've seen a lot of great looking results. The palico (kitty cat companion) slider was a little lacking in comparison to the hunter, but I still managed to add some unique features to my furry friend.

    I'm excited for the game, but saddened I likely won't be able to participate at launch. I do have some hope that they'll continue to optimize, but I think it's unrealistic to expect miracles with just three months to go.

    9 votes
  2. [4]
    J-Chiptunator
    (edited )
    Link
    J-Chiptunator's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 6/25) Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25 Pride ✔ Pikmin 4 Balance Restoration Open Resistance Peace Belonging ✔ ActRaiser ✔ Part Time UFO ✔...
    • Exemplary
    J-Chiptunator's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 6/25)
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25
    Pride Quantity
    ✔ Pikmin 4
    Balance Restoration Open
    Resistance Peace Belonging Faith
    ✔ ActRaiser
    Organization
    ✔ Part Time UFO
    Abundance
    ✔ Mushihimesama
    Complexity ★ Wildcard Distribution Creativity
    Exploration
    ✔ Affordable Space Adventures
    Friction
    ✔ Jotun: Valhalla Edition
    Perspective Silence Symmetry
    Repetition Choice Vulnerability Light Deception

    ActRaiser

    In the mid 90s, I was fiddling with ActRaiser at one of my uncle’s formerly-owned houses located next to a downward curvy neighborhood road of the now-merged Sainte-Foy sector of Québec City. Shortly after starting a new file, it stopped reading controller inputs when I accidentally overwrote the one and only save file and selected “No” when it prompted me to continue playing. I’ve never seen my cousin’s reaction at all, so I can’t tell if he minded about that fact.

    After acknowledging ActRaiser’s unique gameplay style decades later, I snagged its Virtual Console version before the day Wii Shop Channel officially stopped selling games, and ended up playing it recently. What I’ve experienced after completing the first region of the game’s world didn’t disappoint me.

    ActRaiser combines sidescrolling action-platforming stages and top-down perspective city building simulator areas together in a way that benefit each other. Act 1 and 2 has you clear the former phase, where the accumulated score from defeating enemies and collecting pickups influence how the region’s population will rise.
    You’re then sent back at the city in simulation phase to fulfill the reconstruction duties to restore the population’s faith after defeating a boss. In their gratitude, they will return your favor by increasing your HP and SP upon reaching certain total population thresholds alongside with offerings they come across by completing specific tasks. The latter can increase your total HP or SP, give you spells for use in the Action or Simulation phase.

    In addition to emphasizing the ever-growing faith, this genre mashup avoided its pitfalls by ensuring that each phase flows very nicely, at least in its original SNES version.
    The well-paced short stages of the action phase has you deal with fairly challenging but uncomplicated enemy placements, level design and boss fights, not too dissimilar to an average classic 2D sidescroller hack-and-slash. The only blemish I can think of is that some precision jumping sections can get annoying to overcome through.
    The simulation phase also won’t leave you severely underleveled for the upcoming acts to come, even with a basic understanding of the deceptively simple but effective city building mechanics. As an angel, you guide the citizens by telling them to construct structures and guide them with the large square grid cursor. Several of the magic spells are available right from the get-go in order to clear obstacles and monsters, alongside growing crops.
    In order to advance to the second act, magic circles must be sealed by the population. They rapidly spawn airborne monsters that can mess with your town progression by capturing people, destroying structures, and even hurt the angel in the hope of incapacitating him to temporarily disable the use of arrow. They can be defeated with the latter not only to regain MP faster, but also serves nicely as a busywork to keep the player occupied while the citizens to finish their job.

    All that sounds more complex than the action phase, but the brisk speed that the simulation phase goes by make the process a quick and smooth endeavor by comparison to its contemporaries. However, some believe that it could’ve been further fleshed out, to which the remake ActRaiser Renaissance apparently attempted to address. From what I’ve read, it added a tower defense elements on top of city building, which drags the pacing down while failing to expand upon the gameplay loop.

    Thanks to the SNES version’s sleek approach to the blend of sidescrolling hack-and-slash platformer and town rebuilding simulator, I’m going to continue this one sooner than later. The fact that Yuzo Koshiro himself composed religious-evoking musics here to showcase the SPC700 audio processor’s potential that also stood the test of time sealed the deal even further.

    The remake can be purchased through most modern game consoles, while the North American SNES original can only be found through secondhand market asking for a higher price tag.

    Part Time UFO

    After two very challenging games back-to-back and a middle-ground one, I’ll certainly welcome Part Time UFO as my first chill game of my November Backlog Burner journey.

    The premise here is that Jobski, the tiny sentient spaceship is, as the title suggests, seeking out for part-time jobs right after his first dibs. The goal here is to form a stable structure using objects that don’t necessarily share the same shape and weight, all by using Jobski’s UFO Catcher-like crane ability. Which calls for my organization skills!

    Although it can grapple onto any object and carries it anywhere as needed, the kicker is that this is a physics-based puzzle game. The angle which an object should be grabbed, velocity and weight should be taken into consideration, alongside the spaceship’s crane swinging inertia.
    Therefore, one has to carefully weave the flying saucer in order to control the object’s momentum and orientation more effectively. A reckless move can possibly topple the entire structure into shambles.

    Knowing how to manipulate physics well is essential to earn a good amount of medals needed to progress the game, although not all are required to reach to the credits screen. Oddly enough, both difficulty levels share the same medals, although clearing the latter counts toward 100% completion.

    So why do I consider Part Time UFO as a chill game? Well, the gameplay and objectives are easy to get hang of, most jobs don’t have a time limit outside the mandatory medal requirement, has family-friendly environment and character design, and a one-melody soundtrack evoking Sunday Driving vibe to me.

    Since I’ve got a soft spot for physics-based and that it executes it quite well, I shall continue playing that down the road until I at least collected all the medals. The slick and snappy UI makes it even harder to put it down!

    At the time of writing this Backlog Burner entry, the mobile version has been delisted last month, whereas the Switch one remains available on eShop. The latter has added extra content, such as the tower construction minigame that has you build the highest possible tower without a single collapse.

    Pikmin 4

    The Pikmin franchise is no stranger to the concept of resource and time management, and Pikmin 4 arguably pushes it even further. Like the previous instalments, you command a bunch of plant-like alien creatures called Pikmin to perform a variety of tasks, some of which requires specialties from a specific species.

    Quantity plays a big role in the game as to get any battle done reasonably quick and be able to pick loots off the ground. There’s nothing quite like pelting dozens after dozens of Pikmins at a giant Bulborb to decimate it within seconds and recycling it at the base zone to produce tonnes of Pikmins.
    In fact, this very idea of managing a horde came all the way back to the GameCube’s capability of rendering more than a hundred of polygon models at once as showcased by the Nintendo Space World 2000’s Super Mario 128 tech demo.

    New to this franchise is the Oatchi, a dog-like creature the brings some pretty useful features. Not only he functions as an all-around souped-up Pikmin with a charge attack, but also doubles as a secondary captain that’s at least on with player, if not better. These add more diverse strategies and multitasking potential worth considering, particularly when speedrunning the game.

    In Dandoori, the focus is at carrying as many creatures and valuables to the base onion as possible to earn a lot of points using only one type of Pikmin within a time limit. There’s also a VS variant occasionally found during the single-player campaign during where whoever score the highest amount wins. Although this mode doesn’t even compare to the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Pikmin 3’s Bingo Battle, it does a good job at further honing efficient resource gathering skills.

    I can’t comment on the night expeditions, given that I still don’t have access to it even after over 5 hours of gameplay in later, because I try collecting everything in a level. I’ve only played a couple of them, with less than 20% of progress done on the second level today with just an hour spent.

    Affordable Space Adventures

    Affordable Space Adventures is a notable indie Wii U exclusive that makes the most effective uses of the ill-marketed Wii U GamePad’s unique features according to the fans of the platform. So I went ahead and bought it way before eShop no longer allowed purchases.

    Here, you explore some distant planet and solve its puzzles along the way, as you slowly uncover it through the beauty of the cheap space traveling service.
    What makes this one expedition stand out is how it conveys the feeling you’re actually driving the spaceship straight out of infomercials, instead of just contenting with sticks, buttons and motion control.

    The touch screen on the Wii U GamePad serves as a control panel that lets you toggle the vehicle’s functions on/off, adjusting their strength level, review how much sound, electricity and heat they emit to avoid being detected and more. The level design even account on the fact that you will have to switch between the controller and TV monitor frequently, are there are plenty of safe areas for the vehicle to park in as long as the gravity strength is stable enough.

    Even the included electronic instruction manual explains in details like a real car manual, with a hint of condescension about every single feature it has. Too bad some of these weren’t actually implemented in the game to make it more hilarious, but understandably so given how it would further confuse players and disrupt the flow.

    I played 9 levels through the Tourist difficulty, which simplifies the puzzles a bit while still enjoying the unique and immersive control scheme, which is roughly ¼ of the main campaign. There’s also some free DLCs that add several more that are very difficult to solve. I need to experience the game more before I confidently put it into the standout tier, but what I saw so far was promising.

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      You know, you're giving me some fierce competition for the "longest comment award" in this thread. ActRaiser seems really novel for the time. I made a similar comment earlier, but it's unusual to...

      You know, you're giving me some fierce competition for the "longest comment award" in this thread.

      ActRaiser seems really novel for the time. I made a similar comment earlier, but it's unusual to see such a mix of genres for that early of a title. I'm almost surprised they could fit both top-down and side-scrolling combat onto the cartridge.

      You're also right about the music. This has me feeling nostalgic in the way that only the SNES sound chip can. I'm now checking out Yuzo Koshiro to see what else might float my boat.

      It's good to see a mix of console and retro titles in here to balance out some of our PC-heavy focus. I bet there's a lot of gems that I'd not even heard of before.

      Cheers for the effort post, and for being a returning participant of the Backlog Burner.

      6 votes
      1. J-Chiptunator
        Link Parent
        My tendency to lengthy comments comes from piling up my write-ups from a document file over the last week, my sheer curiosity to game design and my drive to get others understanding the appeal...

        My tendency to lengthy comments comes from piling up my write-ups from a document file over the last week, my sheer curiosity to game design and my drive to get others understanding the appeal and/or indifference behind those games.
        Some games also lend particularly better to a deep dive than others, thanks to their intriguing game design elements that are integral to the experience and/or how they match well with a specific Flow category on my bingo card.

        6 votes
    2. aphoenix
      Link Parent
      I straight up loved Affordable Space Adventures. I found that it actually shone as a good game to play multiplayer, though it's been years since I've played it. My kids were all pretty young the...

      I straight up loved Affordable Space Adventures. I found that it actually shone as a good game to play multiplayer, though it's been years since I've played it. My kids were all pretty young the last time the WiiU was hooked up. I thought it was the best use of the WiiU hardware of all the games, and I wish there were more games like it.

      5 votes
  3. kfwyre
    Link
    Pinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: here's the new topic for the week. Notification List @aphoenix @AugustusFerdinand @Cannonball @CrazyProfessor02 @deathinactthree...

    Pinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: here's the new topic for the week.

    Notification List

    @aphoenix
    @AugustusFerdinand
    @Cannonball
    @CrazyProfessor02
    @deathinactthree
    @Durinthal
    @Eidolon
    @Evie
    @hamstergeddon
    @J-Chiptunator
    @JCPhoenix
    @Pistos
    @SingedFrostLantern
    @Wafik
    @Weldawadyathink
    @Wes
    @WiseassWolfOfYoitsu

    If you would like to be removed from/added to the list, let me know either here or by PM.

    12 votes
  4. [5]
    aphoenix
    (edited )
    Link
    My card - Mode: Standard | Bingo! | Finished 2/25 Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25 ✅ Wilderless Nostalgia Recursion Peace Annihilation ✅ Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings Memory Absence...
    My card - Mode: Standard | Bingo! | Finished 2/25
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25
    Discovery
    ✅ Wilderless
    Nostalgia Recursion Peace Annihilation
    Order
    ✅ Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings
    Memory Absence Precision Endurance
    Lost Fragmentation ★ Wildcard Connection Dimension
    Empathy Organic Synthesis Darkness Mystery
    Adaptation Truth Belonging Courage Sound

    Wilderless is only about exploring as far as I can tell. You are a character that has some items, but there's no quests or story. The world is surprisingly beautiful for a game that's a under a gig. I did wander around for a while and discovered a castle, some animals, a cool cave, a lake, and more. I played for about an hour, and it's cool, but I don't know if I'm going to be returning to it. I would like there to be more story in my gaming experience.

    Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings is a fun little baseball game. It's about 10 years old, and there's nothing particularly special about it, but I have played way more of this than Wilderless and it is fun and silly. You can play a full game in about 20 minutes, there is season play, there is score tracking against friends. I mostly picked it up because for some reason my son installed it and started playing it and it seemed cute and fun. I like that the players are cartoons, and that they are a mix of men and women and various races. The background characters in the stands are sometimes surprisingly funny; I'm pretty sure there was a guy behind the batter in my last game who had no pants and was dancing in a suggestive way, but the post was blocking visuals of anything salacious. The game is easy to get into, the introduction to play is pretty good, and you can adjust the difficulty on the fly. And I should say that the relationship to order is... the batting order.

    7 votes
    1. [3]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      I'd never heard of Wilderless before, but I love the art style. It's so warm and vibrant. It sounds like it doesn't hold the attention for long, which I get. I've played some other "walk the...

      I'd never heard of Wilderless before, but I love the art style. It's so warm and vibrant. It sounds like it doesn't hold the attention for long, which I get. I've played some other "walk the forest" type games (Eidolon comes to mind) and have eventually fallen off. I think I'll still check it out if I get the chance though, so I'm glad you shared it. It could easily have flown under my radar.

      Regarding Super Mega Baseball, I can think of no better reason to try a game than "I found it installed on my computer", so that's great. It looks cute, and surprisingly realistic for its art style.

      5 votes
      1. aphoenix
        Link Parent
        Wilderless is really something especially considering the size of the installation. I have been thinking of getting back into Sea of Thieves because some of my friends like it, but it's 120Gigs;...

        Wilderless is really something especially considering the size of the installation. I have been thinking of getting back into Sea of Thieves because some of my friends like it, but it's 120Gigs; contrast that with Wilderless at like 900Megs, and it is really interesting. I'd love there to be more games that do something technical and interesting with a relatively small installation. And there is actually a fair amount of things to do, it seems like - there is active development, and the dev is adding features. It's just not exactly what I'm looking for in general, which is a bit more of a structured game. I'm a bit spoilt - if I want to walk through a peaceful forest, I can go out my back door and walk out into a very peaceful and beautiful forest.

        The baseball game is growing on me more - I've playing a half dozen games of the season, and done a bit of the dynasty management. It is taking me back to NHL games that I used to play, where you could pick the coaching staff and improve your players, and such. It's low key, but fun enough to bring me back into it.

        6 votes
      2. kfwyre
        Link Parent
        I really, REALLY wanted to like Eidolon but ended up feeling like it didn’t respect the player’s time or give you the tools to succeed in its own world. With a little more quality of life with...

        I really, REALLY wanted to like Eidolon but ended up feeling like it didn’t respect the player’s time or give you the tools to succeed in its own world.

        With a little more quality of life with regards to navigation, it could have been a really cool experience.

        5 votes
    2. ebonGavia
      Link Parent
      Super Mega Baseball is great! It runs smoothly, the Ego system is really smart, and I always enjoy a few games here and there. Very good on Steam Deck too.

      Super Mega Baseball is great! It runs smoothly, the Ego system is really smart, and I always enjoy a few games here and there. Very good on Steam Deck too.

      5 votes
  5. [2]
    CannibalisticApple
    Link
    A week late, but I'm joining in too! This time I'm going for a golf card. The Card Mode: Golf Bingo! Finished 3/24 Owned for more than 3 years It’s already installed ✅ Pokémon Kanto Expansion Pak...

    A week late, but I'm joining in too! This time I'm going for a golf card.

    The Card
    Mode: Golf Bingo! Finished 3/24
    Owned for more than 3 years It’s already installed An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game
    ✅ Pokémon Kanto Expansion Pak
    From a genre you don’t normally play Is beatable without killing any enemies
    Has both combat and puzzles
    ✅ Pokémon Kanto Expansion Pak
    You can save/pet/care for animals You wanted it when you were younger A romhack or total conversion mod
    ✅ Pokémon Kanto Expansion Pak
    Has a time limit
    Came out more than 7 years ago You can create your own character Has a branching storyline “When the hell did I buy this?”
    Focuses on exploration You started it but never completed it Has a weather system Has a fishing minigame Is one of the oldest games you own
    Uses a unique control scheme Popular game you never got around to playing Has aliens Set in a dungeon Is mostly text-based

    First off: the Pokémon romhack Kanto Expansion Pak. It adds a bunch of the leaked Pokémon related to the Gen 1 Pokémon, along with a bunch of other new features. I just started it last night and spent about two hours playing, though haven't beaten Brock yet (chose Pikachu as my starter so gotta grind some others), but I already like it. There's now a "pre-gym" in Viridian City with that one cut character, Yuujirou, who I think was originally meant to be the Viridian gym leader. Also already caught two of the leak Pokémon, Coinpur (Meowth prevo) and Gentlarva (which I did not remember and for a second thought was a really bad Weedle sprite).

    Weirdly, it didn't update types for Gen 1 Pokémon to reflect the new types, even though I know it's added Fairy, Steel and Dark types. Also didn't update Gust to be a Flying-type move, so I'm curious what else was left unchanged. I'm going in mostly blind, so will be fun to see what's still the same and what's different!

    7 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      Most of my nostalgia for Pokemon lies in the early games. Red/Blue, Gold/Silver. Beyond that, I stop being able to recognize the 'mons nor do I know their types, which makes gameplay a bit...

      Most of my nostalgia for Pokemon lies in the early games. Red/Blue, Gold/Silver. Beyond that, I stop being able to recognize the 'mons nor do I know their types, which makes gameplay a bit frustrating at times. There's a lot guesswork: "That thing looks... electricy!".

      I feel like romhacks offer a good middle ground to getting new quality-of-life features and content while staying rooted in what's familiar. I've played with Pokemon randomizers, and also house rules[1] before, but not yet a full romhack. Some of them seem quite extensive.

      Of course I also know gen 1 had a lot of weird design decisions, with types not quite lining up how you'd expect (like you mentioned with Gust), and some iffy math in places (accuracy comes to mind). Looking back with modern vision, the world layout of Kanto is also... not great, with cities basically right next to each other. But nostalgia is one hell of a drug, and I enjoy reliving those memories, and listening to the old tunes.

      [1] My friends and I played a randomizer with different seeds. We limited ourselves to a single Pokemon type throughout the whole game, based on our selection from the initial three options available in the lab. I selected grass. It was awful. Grass is weak to everything. Anyway, we called it the "Gym Leader Challenge" because gym leaders always like to specialize for some reason.

      5 votes
  6. [11]
    kfwyre
    (edited )
    Link
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25 ✅ Journey to the Savage Planet Organization Duality Perspective Conflict Courage Symmetry Adaptation Open Progress Isolation ✅ That Which Gave Chase ★ Wildcard...
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25
    Wonder
    ✅ Journey to the Savage Planet
    Organization Duality Perspective Conflict
    Courage Symmetry Adaptation Open Progress
    Isolation Endurance
    ✅ That Which Gave Chase
    ★ Wildcard Trust Creativity
    Synthesis Empathy
    ✅ Sea of Solitude
    Deception Change Freedom
    ✅ Snow Moto Racing Freedom
    Fear Truth
    ✅ Rumu
    Restoration Fleeting
    ✅ Windward
    Causality

    Meta note: It feels like people are hiding all their amazing comments and bingo cards in <details> dropdowns -- feel free to leave them out in the open, y'all!

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Snow Moto Racing Freedom - Freedom So, one of my goals with the Flow card is to try to not be too on the nose with the categories. As such, I hesitated with this one because "Freedom" is literally...

      Snow Moto Racing Freedom - Freedom

      So, one of my goals with the Flow card is to try to not be too on the nose with the categories. As such, I hesitated with this one because "Freedom" is literally in the name of the game. I'm convincing myself that it's not against my own rule though, because I very much doubt that a snowmobiling game is what most people have in mind when they first hear the word "freedom."

      At the very least, that wasn't the case for me.

      I think the titular "freedom" in this case refers to the game's main mode. Each race takes place on a small, open-world map full of untouched, snow-covered wilderness. Checkpoints are scattered throughout the map, but there are no pre-defined race lines or parameters connecting them. You have full say in how you navigate from point to point, carving up powder all the way.

      I like this conceptually a lot. I recently replayed FUEL, which had a similar feel in one giant open-world map. It, however, still has a large number of roads and paths which were often the optimal way to navigate. I like that this game completely does away with those and doesn't really have a predefined "optimal" racing line. Even if there is one, you wouldn't be able to see it under all the snow!

      The game has other modes too, including more traditional racing maps with predefined boundaries and invisible walls that will respawn you back on the track when you hit them. This is considerably less cool to me.

      Unfortunately, the game suffers from a not-so-great physics model.

      I tend to love racing games and snow games each for their "feel." This one, unfortunately, doesn't feel great. Even though the landscapes are allegedly covered with rich, lush powder, it's unconvincingly illusory in the game. Snow softens everything, smooths out edges, gets rid of sharpness. Unfortunately, in the game, it's clear that your snowmobile is navigating the rigid, angular, polygonal collision map of the terrain under the powder, rather than the powder itself. It's the game equivalent of throwing a bunch of pillows down on top of concrete. Even though it looks soft, it isn't.

      Additionally, I ran into some unintentionally comical issues regarding acceleration. The game has a turbo mechanic, where you build up your meter doing stunts and then can use it at strategic times. I always enjoy a good turbo mechanic in games, but something about this one also feels "off." The turbo sometimes lasts only as long as you press the turbo button, while at other times it seems to persist past that.

      This became nearly game-breaking for me. Going uphill loses you a lot of speed, so I would turbo uphill to counteract that. Unfortunately, if you're still turboing at the crest of the hill, you will often go airborne far more than you would expect -- even if you're going relatively slow, even if the hill isn't intended to be a jump. Once airborne, you don't have air control save for the orientation of your vehicle, so this can cause you to overshoot checkpoints or veer way off course, effectively losing you the race.

      At times, the effect was so pronounced that it was genuinely hilarious -- the kind of thing that would fit right in on a blooper reel.

      I wouldn't mind this too much if it were predictable, but, when tied in with the previously mentioned turbo inconsistency issue, it made it so that I had difficulty knowing when or if the effect would happen. The lack of reliability made me a lot less likely to continue playing the game, despite generally liking the concept.

      I think if this were patched up and smoothed out a little bit, it would be a nice hidden gem. As is, I find it hard to recommend. I stopped playing it after about an hour and a half.

      6 votes
      1. Wes
        Link Parent
        I definitely agree on the "feel" mattering so much for snow games. You want to feel like you're cutting through powdered snow, sliding over ice, and spraying through slush. Snow has a lot of...

        I definitely agree on the "feel" mattering so much for snow games. You want to feel like you're cutting through powdered snow, sliding over ice, and spraying through slush. Snow has a lot of variety! The game should reflect that, especially when choosing your path through a variety of conditions is a huge part of the game.

        That's not to say that perfect physics simulation is absolutely necessary. More arcadey games can be just as fun too. But while I don't know much about snowmobiles, I feel they don't usually fly like E.T. on a bicycle.

        I've probably enjoyed most snow games I've played though. I loved 1080 on both the N64 and GameCube, and rented Snowboard Kids a few times. Never got a chance to play SSX unfortunately. But one game that looks to capture that same magic is the upcoming Slopecrashers. I played the demo earlier this year and had a blast with it. It has a capybara character! I hope I can get some friends to pick it up with me on release, because I'm really looking forward to carving out those maps.

        I played FUEL too when it came out, and always felt it was a game with so much potential. The map was so massive, and it had tons of vehicles to explore with. It was like a prototype open-world car game. I think other titles have probably delivered better on that premise since then like Forza Horizon, but FUEL was the first, and I feel like it never gets credit for it.

        5 votes
    2. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      That Which Gave Chase - Endurance I had originally slotted this for Fear but it turns out the game isn’t really a horror game. It’s got a foreboding atmosphere and some unsettling vibes, but I...

      That Which Gave Chase - Endurance

      I had originally slotted this for Fear but it turns out the game isn’t really a horror game. It’s got a foreboding atmosphere and some unsettling vibes, but I never really felt afraid while playing it. (That’s not me trying to be all “strong” by the way — it’s that the game itself doesn’t really try to scare you.)

      The game is a slow-burn, first-person, narrative adventure game where you and a companion are traveling via dog sled. Some of the game takes place on the sled, and some of it takes place on foot. (And yes, for those curious, you can pet the dogs.) Given the distance and conditions of the dog sled trip, I felt like Endurance was a better fit.

      The game is made up of different little vignettes separated by smash cuts. It reminded me of Virginia in that regard. It also has a distinct, low-fi, low-poly aesthetic. It would fit right in on the original PlayStation.

      I picked it because of its compelling title, and because I liked the idea of playing a dog sledding game (which is something I've never played before).

      Ultimately, it left me... whelmed.

      I appreciate that the developer had a very clear focus for what they wanted do, but I think they stumbled at sharing that with the player. The game doesn't do a lot to draw you in, explain itself, or get you to care about the characters. You have a companion who talks to you during your trip, but a lot of the conversation is vague or abstract, hinting at deeper meaning but not doing much groundwork to establish their meaning in the player themselves.

      The game is also slow-paced, but short, which I usually appreciate. I like a game that gives a little breathing room to the player, particularly when it's meant to be more cerebral. I also like a game that doesn't overstay its welcome, as this one doesn't. Unfortunately, even with its short runtime (I beat it in an hour), I found myself a little bored for some of it. Some scenes felt unnecessary.

      That said, there were also some cool scenes. There's one in particular towards the end of the game that I really liked - a relatively rare moment of genuine tension in the game. Also, the game's atmosphere remains great throughout. The game is very minimal in its presentation, but it uses a lot of different techniques to good effect. This game wasn't just slapped together -- they thought out a lot of its elements.

      One Steam review called the game “like a poem” and I think that’s a really good description. It didn’t land for me personally, but I absolutely see how it could hit just right for someone.

      So, ultimately, while I didn't particularly love this game, I do think its developer has chops. I hope they continue to hone their craft, because I would definitely play another game by them in the future.

      6 votes
    3. [4]
      kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Journey to the Savage Planet - Wonder My original plan was to fill the Isolation square with this game. The premise is that you head off, entirely on your own, to explore an alien planet. As I...

      Journey to the Savage Planet - Wonder

      My original plan was to fill the Isolation square with this game. The premise is that you head off, entirely on your own, to explore an alien planet.

      As I started playing, however, I never really felt alone. The alien world is inhabited by tons of animals, and you have an AI companion who's constantly talking to you and commenting on things. The game didn't have an "isolation" vibe at all, so I had to recategorize it.

      I went with Wonder because the game is all about discovering details about this new alien world. The game's got bold bright colors, interesting and unusual flora and fauna, and all sorts of things to uncover, many of which are quite wondrous.

      At its heart, the game is a 3D metroidvania. You explore; you slowly unlock new skills; those new skills get you to new areas, as well as allowing you to access sub-areas of places you've already been.

      In playing, I was reminded of several different other games. The bold colors, cute animals, and first-person perspective reminded me of Slime Rancher. The metroidvania, shooting, and scanning aspects reminded me of Metroid Prime. Being able to manipulate cute animals by throwing out bait reminded me of Bugsnax. The grappling hook powers reminded me of A Story About My Uncle. The score reminded me of Borderlands. And the malicious-corporation-fronted-by-positive-cheery-good-vibes-speak reminded me of The Outer Worlds.

      That's not to say that the game is really like any of these individually, just that my brain constructed a whole pastiche of associations.

      Overall, I really like the game. The worlds are fun to explore, and getting new abilities is satisfying. I also love a good "metroidvania cleanup" where you return to previous places with your new abilities and can get all those things that you couldn't before, which were taunting you the whole time.

      That's pretty much the phase of the game I'm in right now. I'm eight or so hours in and a little more than halfway through percentage-wise. I believe I'm technically close to the end of the game and could finish it if I wanted to relatively quickly, but I'm a big "go for 100%" kind of player when it comes to metroidvanias, so I've still got a lot to play.

      I do have some complaints about the game. I don't know if the game has bad gunplay or if I'm just awful with FPS controls when it's not a mouse/keyboard (it's probably the latter), but I've been playing on my Deck and I hate all of the shooting segments. I generally try to avoid killing the animals anyway, but there are times where you have to, and these are my least favorite parts. Not out of some vegan playthrough obligation or anything -- simply because the aiming feels terrible to me.

      I could switch over to playing it on M/KB, but I've already come this far on my Deck, and I also love to play games lying down, so I'll put up with the aggravation in the name of comfort!

      The game also, being a 3D metroidvania, has a good amount of first-person platforming which isn't really anybody's favorite thing. I'm decent at it, but it can be a pain in some places.

      Finally, the game intentionally goes for a humorous vibe. Your AI companion is quippy, and there's a lot of aggregate goofiness. Some of this lands for me. For example, at the beginning of the game, the AI gives you a cognition test to see if your brain is functioning after your space travel. It asks you to identify the picture of yourself from a lineup of human portraits -- and one dog. I thought this was a clever way of doing character selection, and I of course chose the dog -- not because I thought I'd actually get to play as a dog, but because I thought the AI might have a snarky comment on it.

      Nope! I get to be a dog. It doesn't affect the character model at all, but all of my sound effects in the game are dog sound effects.

      Some of the humor, however, doesn't land. For example, there are birds that you can kill to get resources, but if you feed them instead of kill them, you actually get more resources! Great! Only, after you feed them, they fart out the resources and then continue to run around farting, with gratuitous sound effects. Not great.

      Nevertheless, despite a few sticking points, I still highly recommend the game. I've had a lot of fun with it and have been entertained by it for hours. One particularly interesting thing is that there isn't a map or minimap, which is unusual for a metroidvania. At first I found this a little frustrating, but I think it's also sort of forced me to create a better mental map. I don't really feel "lost" in the game ever. You can also unlock powerups that help you identify collectibles, so trying to find them all without a map isn't a gigantic pain.

      6 votes
      1. cfabbro
        Link Parent
        I don't remember Journey to the Savage Planet having bad gunplay, but I played on M+KB, so I suspect it's just not playing well with the Steam Deck controller. FPS games on controllers are never...

        I don't remember Journey to the Savage Planet having bad gunplay, but I played on M+KB, so I suspect it's just not playing well with the Steam Deck controller. FPS games on controllers are never all that great to begin with, but if they don't have decent auto-aim, which JttSP might not, they can be downright painful. It also might simply not yet be optimized for the Deck's controller specifically though.

        4 votes
      2. [2]
        Wes
        Link Parent
        I see you've once again got the "AI companion" games list on lockdown! I love the "metroidvania cleanup" phase as well. It's even better when you've made notes all along, and can finally check off...

        I see you've once again got the "AI companion" games list on lockdown!

        I love the "metroidvania cleanup" phase as well. It's even better when you've made notes all along, and can finally check off those items that you've been thinking about all game. Though I still like to do a once-over on the map after unlocking everything, just to make sure I've found as much as possible.

        I don't know if the game has bad gunplay or if I'm just awful with FPS controls when it's not a mouse/keyboard

        I was streaming my next game submission for some friends this weekend, and they laughed at me for my atrocious aim with a controller. Whatever skills I may have once had with a controller as a youth have since atrophied away. I'm fine with platforming or melee combat, but anything involving an aiming reticle will require a mouse from now on.

        1 vote
        1. kfwyre
          Link Parent
          Oh gosh, I guess I do have “a type” don’t I? 😂

          I see you've once again got the "AI companion" games list on lockdown!

          Oh gosh, I guess I do have “a type” don’t I? 😂

          1 vote
    4. [3]
      kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Rumu - Truth I didn’t originally intend to slot this under Truth. I started playing what I thought was a cute little narrative adventure about a robot vacuum named Rumu. What I didn’t expect was...

      Rumu - Truth

      I didn’t originally intend to slot this under Truth. I started playing what I thought was a cute little narrative adventure about a robot vacuum named Rumu. What I didn’t expect was that narrative to go in the direction it did. I won’t say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I was impressed with how the game unfolded.

      I played it on my Deck, which unfortunately was a subpar experience. The controls worked well enough most of the time, but selecting hotspots was clumsy. Plus, the game defaults to “Nintendo controls” where the right face button is the default “accept” and the lower face button is the default “back.” That’s fine on a Nintendo console, but on the Deck it means B is accept and A is back, which feels, well, backwards. By the time I thought about rebinding the keys, I was mostly used to it, but occasionally I would still instinctively flub them.

      I also got Rumu stuck once or twice and was unable to free it with the joystick controls. I had to touch the screen to mimic mouse input to get Rumu out of its jam. Not a dealbreaker by any means, just a minor annoyance.

      The game also has an “Exit and Save” feature, but it doesn’t tell you that it only saves at the beginning of chapters, so I unfortunately lost some progress before I learned to only exit after I’d completed a chapter.

      So, certainly, the game has some rough edges and QoL issues, but ultimately I still really enjoyed it. It was short (less than 3 hours) and interesting. Also, it was charming as heck. You’ll love Rumu pretty quickly if you start playing. I think this is a neat little hidden gem.

      5 votes
      1. [2]
        Wes
        Link Parent
        The "Nintendo controls" also got me in Super Mario Eclipse. I eventually resorted to rebinding, because it was easier than rewiring my brain. I thumbed through a few of the reviews and started to...

        The "Nintendo controls" also got me in Super Mario Eclipse. I eventually resorted to rebinding, because it was easier than rewiring my brain.

        I thumbed through a few of the reviews and started to get a sense of what you meant by spoilers, so I stopped reading. It sounds interesting though, and a little deeper than one would expect. Actually, it doesn't look like a narrative adventure at all from the screenshots, but I'm glad to hear there's more than just cute robot fun times (although those are nice too).

        I also got Rumu stuck once or twice and was unable to free it with the joystick controls.

        Ah, just like a real robot vacuum!

        6 votes
        1. kfwyre
          Link Parent
          I legitimately laughed out loud! A brilliant reframing. I redact my previous criticism and now commend the game for being immersive and true to life. 😂

          Ah, just like a real robot vacuum!

          I legitimately laughed out loud! A brilliant reframing.

          I redact my previous criticism and now commend the game for being immersive and true to life. 😂

          5 votes
  7. [4]
    JCPhoenix
    Link
    A little late to the party this week! JCPhoenix's Bingo Card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 5/25 Known for its legacy You have to tinker to get it running ✅ Odysseus Kosmos and Robot Quest ✅ The...

    A little late to the party this week!

    JCPhoenix's Bingo Card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 5/25
    Known for its legacy You have to tinker to get it running A solo-dev project
    ✅ Odysseus Kosmos and Robot Quest
    Has a isometric perspective
    ✅ The Battle of Polytopia
    A romhack or total conversion mod
    Has a lives system
    ✅ This War of Mine
    Has a skill tree Has romanceable characters
    ✅ Yes Your Grace
    Nominated for The Game Awards Popular game you never got around to playing
    Has more than 3 words in its title Has a review score above 90 ★ Wildcard Has permadeath Owned for more than 3 years
    Randomness determines your fate Has a moral choice system Focuses on exploration Recommended by someone on Tildes You heard about it in our weekly gaming topics
    Released in the year you joined Tildes Is considered relaxing Has creatures Has both combat and puzzles
    ✅ Signalis
    Is open-source
    Review - Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest
    • Released: December 1, 2017
    • Purchased: July 1, 2021
    • Bingo Category: “A solo-dev project”
    • Time played: 2.4hrs

    I thought this was a solo-dev project, and it may have started as one. But I think eventually a very small team made it. Oops. Oh well, it was in the backlog and needed to be played!

    I've always been a huge fan of point & click adventure games. Played or watched other play plenty of these as a kid in the mid/late 90s. And even played some as an adult.

    I played nearly 2.5hrs. This included the “pilot episode,” which is basically a demo. I’m only in episode 1 of 5. So, as usual, not terribly far. But one of the things I liked right off the bat are the puzzles. Namely that they’re relatively straightforward.

    I’ve played some other point and clicks where the solutions were just too esoteric. To me, the biggest offender of that is Grim Fandango. By the end, I had to use a walkthrough to finish the game. The item combos and what they should be used on made no sense. Without a guide, I would’ve never figured out some of those. But I didn't have that issue here...yet.

    I think I’ll come back to this game. It’s not a game I’ll necessarily play through in long sittings. Though I could absolutely see myself playing for an hour or so, then coming back to it a few days later. It seems like a solid, modern adventure game.

    My Let's Play of Odysseus Kosmos.

    Review - The Battle of Polytopia
    • Released: February 2016 on iOS / August 4, 2020 on Steam
    • Purchased: December 28, 2020
    • Bingo Category: “Has an Isometric Perspective”
    • Time played: 1hr

    I’ve played plenty of the Civilization games, as well as RTSs like Rise of Nations. I wasn’t entirely sure if Polytopia was a turn-based or RTS. Turns out, it’s turn-based.

    Which means that this is essentially a distilled and simplified Civilization! Cool. The default or main game mode is called “Perfection.” You have 30 turns to get as high as score as possible. And that’s done by growing your cities, claiming territory and cities, researching tech, fighting other NPC empires, and exploring. I like that in this mode there’s an ending. That’s always an issue in Civ games, where the games just go on forever. I think I’ve finished maybe two or three games when I’ve played Civ. And I played a lot of Civ 4 and Civ 5 in college.

    Since Polytopia not nearly as complex as Civilization, with not nearly as much going on, processing all the turns is quick. My 30-turn play was done in about an hour. It probably would’ve taken longer if I’d had taken the time to read everything. Like the technology in the tech tree, to really understand what the benefits are. Conversely, I imagine once I know all the tech, it’ll go way faster.

    I’d definitely play this again, if I’m in the mood for Civ, but without having to sacrifice tons of time. Perfect game to play during a lunchbreak or something.

    My Let's Play of The Battle of Polytopia.

    Review - Yes, Your Grace
    • Released: March 6, 2020
    • Purchased: Dec 1, 2020
    • Bingo Category: “Has Romanceable Characters”
    • Time played: 2.6hrs

    From the store page, I knew there was some potential to marry off princesses and such. I don’t know if that’s necessarily romantic, but it could be, right?

    This is one of those games where player choices matter. A lot. Like from the very first decision point, you can lose the game. I know because I tried it! That said, it’s not a roguelike. After playing for an hour, I decided out of nowhere to restart. I wasn’t doing poorly, but I was curious if the NPCs or story would change. It didn’t. I was presented with the exact same NPCs and their quests. Making the same decision, the result was the same.

    Importantly, it’s rarely clear how a decision will shake out. If I give a peasant some of the limited gold from the treasury to build an inn, what do I get out of it? What does the kingdom gain? Will he actually build the inn? Even if he does, it’s possible it might not even profitable. Which would be a waste of precious gold. Saving a lost child might improve relations with the people of my kingdom. But is it worth tying up my general for two turns? What if I need him for something else more important? It’s hard to say.

    So decisions are often made blindly. Which is how it sometimes is in real life. I’m the ruler here. The king. I’m “paid” to make the decisions for everyone. And my decisions affect everyone. One wrong move and the enemy may be at the castle gates!

    Anyway, I enjoyed it. I thought it was going to be a slow start, but honestly, it ramps up pretty quickly. I felt the tension and worry from my decisions. Did I make the right choice? I sure hoped so.

    Will I come back to this game? Not sure. Sounds weird right? I said I enjoyed it. But there’s a reason I play a lot of JRPGs, which are known for their linearity. I often like being told a story as opposed to participating in the story. I never really liked those “choose your own adventure” books as a kid. And that’s exactly what this is. We’ll see.

    6 votes
    1. [3]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      Holy cow, I wasn't expecting any entries in video form. I read the text, then skimmed through the videos to get a better idea of the game and your reaction. Though I've played it, I had a laugh at...

      Holy cow, I wasn't expecting any entries in video form. I read the text, then skimmed through the videos to get a better idea of the game and your reaction.

      Though I've played it, I had a laugh at that first jumpscare in Signalis. I think your heartbeat went up at least ten BPM for the rest of the playthrough. I also liked the on-the-fly German translations. Enjoyed the realization of flügel meaning wing.

      Odysseus Kosmos is one I'd never even heard of before. It feels like an indie take on early point-and-clicks, though it looks like there's actually quite a bit of content there. I feel like for me, my interest in point-and-clicks has mostly migrated to "Escape Room" style games these days, with a little more focus on puzzles and less on narrative. It's still a genre of nostalgia for me though, especially early titles like Sam and Max (as briefly cameoed).

      I actually own Polytopia, but wasn't entirely sure what kind of game it was. I like that the levels have a relatively fixed time length. Makes them feel a little more bite-sized (at least, once you're familiar with the upgrades).

      Cool to actually watch the games being played, and to see Tildes get a nice shout out.

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        JCPhoenix
        Link Parent
        Ha, glad you enjoyed my little freakout! I've got like 6hrs in Signalis now, but I only play when a friend is watching me on Discord. I'm still freaking out at the jumpscares, but it feels better...

        Ha, glad you enjoyed my little freakout! I've got like 6hrs in Signalis now, but I only play when a friend is watching me on Discord. I'm still freaking out at the jumpscares, but it feels better that someone else is experiencing it with me. Also, I'm only playing in like 30-45min spurts. My heart can't handle it otherwise, lol. I seriously feel myself getting more and more tense the longer I play!

        And I'm glad that you took a glance at the videos! I don't know if they're entertaining, but I've been wanting to get more into doing LPs and or maybe even streaming. Something sorta creative while I'm playing these games I've never played before. Figured I'd kill two birds with one stone.

        As far as escape room games, I do have Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma on my list to play. I think that's an escape room game. Though I think it's still mainly narrative driven. Closer to Danganronpa, probably. Any good recommendations for escape room games? Ideally ones that aren't scary!

        4 votes
        1. Wes
          Link Parent
          Most of the escape room games I've played were co-op, but I can make a few recommendations: The Room series. High-quality single-player games. Probably the most pure form of puzzle solving....

          Most of the escape room games I've played were co-op, but I can make a few recommendations:

          • The Room series. High-quality single-player games. Probably the most pure form of puzzle solving. They're discounted pretty frequently.
          • Escape Simulator is a little more sandboxxy. Playable in SP or MP, and supports community maps on the Workshop. The dev has released a number of free DLC maps, as well as a full VR mode.
          • The We Were Here series. They're more focused and tell a small narrative. They're strictly co-op, and the first one is free. A little clunky at first, but they get better as they go.
          • Tick Tock: A Tale for Two. Another co-op one, as the name implies. It has a more Victorian theme and requires some information sharing.

          They're not strictly "escape rooms", but I'd like to also shout out two puzzlers I enjoyed with similar mechanics:

          • Gorogoa, an artsy puzzle game involving transformation of objects and realities.
          • Agent A, a spy-themed game a little closer to classic adventure games, but heavier on puzzles.

          FYI, most of these are also available on Android and iOS, if you're looking for on-the-go distractions.

          4 votes
  8. [5]
    CrazyProfessor02
    Link
    CrazyProfessor02's Bingo Sheet Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25 The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Chosen for you by someone else Same number of letters as your username Has cards You...
    CrazyProfessor02's Bingo Sheet
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25
    You wanted it when you were younger The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Chosen for you by someone else Same number of letters as your username Has cards You can save/pet/care for animals
    Part of a trilogy Beholder Focuses on relationships Has a fishing minigame An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game You can complete it in only a few hours
    Set in a dungeon Has a score system ★ Wildcard Has survival mechanics Has both combat and puzzles
    Has a review score below 61 Has AI Has a time limit Has a skill tree Makes you think
    Your friend loves it Released in the year you joined Tildes From a different country than you Has permadeath From now-defunct dev studio
    Thoughts about the game

    The Secret of Monkey Island is one of those legendary point and click adventure games from the 90s that everyone loves. And for good reason, the humor is funny and the gameplay had aged pretty good, especially compared to the only 3d game in this series (which was the only one that I had played, back on the ps2 and more recently on the pc, even then the humor is great). I had always wanted to try the originals, even back when I was playing Escape from Monkey Island back on the ps2, because there were throwbacks to the originals, such as the reoccurring characters, like Otis and Carla, and the reason why they were reluctant to join Guybrush Threepwood's crew of pirates. I am about 15% done with the game, and still on Melee IslandTM, so it is not really a long game. I could have added this to the from now-defunct dev studio, because of Disney's weird decision of closing down Lucas Arts Studios, especially they had Star Wars 1313 in the works (which I believe they were close to finishing), and then reviving it under the Lucasfilms Games. But I have another game that would be under this for the coming week.

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      Hey, one I've played before! Never finished, of course. You can't convince me that classic adventure games of yore actually had endings, but I did at least play it. Honestly, I can't remember if...

      Hey, one I've played before! Never finished, of course. You can't convince me that classic adventure games of yore actually had endings, but I did at least play it.

      Honestly, I can't remember if the game was actually as that difficult, or if I was just an impatient youth. You're probably about as far as I ever made it at this point though, so I toss my pirate hat off to you.

      I think what's interesting about Monkey Island is how many different versions it's had. Guybrush comes in many different styles, and each has its own charm. The soundtrack also sounds fantastic in its different forms. I can't decide if I like the modern or retro ones more.

      As a side note, I see that checkmarks are missing in your table. I wonder if there's a bug there. Do they show up in the Markdown section under the web app for you? We switched checkmark symbols this time to improve visibility in the tables, and I wonder if they're not being copied for some reason. Hopefully nothing I broke! (but let's be honest, it's probably something I broke).

      5 votes
      1. CrazyProfessor02
        Link Parent
        Honestly, I have been copying and pasting the bingo card from my last postings and just doing the additions manually, not from the web app. So, sorry for the confusion. But I just checked, the...

        Honestly, I have been copying and pasting the bingo card from my last postings and just doing the additions manually, not from the web app. So, sorry for the confusion. But I just checked, the green check marks do appear in the web app in the Markdown part of it (as seen below), nothing is broken, just me being a complete idiot and not using the web app.

        CrazyProfessor02's Bingo Sheet Now With the ✅ Now
        Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25
        You wanted it when you were younger
        ✅ The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
        Chosen for you by someone else Same number of letters as your username Has cards You can save/pet/care for animals
        Part of a trilogy
        ✅ Beholder
        Focuses on relationships Has a fishing minigame An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game You can complete it in only a few hours
        Set in a dungeon Has a score system ★ Wildcard Has survival mechanics Has both combat and puzzles
        Has a review score below 61 Has AI Has a time limit Has a skill tree Makes you think
        Your friend loves it Released in the year you joined Tildes From a different country than you Has permadeath From now-defunct dev studio

        I think what's interesting about Monkey Island is how many different versions it's had. Guybrush comes in many different styles, and each has its own charm.

        I agree that the two that I had played, Escape from Monkey Island and The Secret of Monkey Island, are different in their charms and quirks, but what I find interesting is that the humor between these two games are the same, which I find hard to do for video games because of staff coming and going.

        5 votes
    2. JCPhoenix
      Link Parent
      I think I've played all of the Monkey Island games. Except for the most recent one, "Return to Monkey Island." My brother and I played all of these in the 00s. Though we were both familiar with...

      I think I've played all of the Monkey Island games. Except for the most recent one, "Return to Monkey Island." My brother and I played all of these in the 00s. Though we were both familiar with Sierra and LucasArts games from the 90s. Anyway, what a great series. I think my favorite character is the salesman, Stan Stansman. I love the way he moves, arms just all over the place. Yet the texture of his coat never moves!

      Glad someone else is playing some point & click adventure games! I tried a newer one this weekend and wrote about it my comment: Odysseus Kosmos and his Robot Quest. Might actually play some of that right now!

      5 votes
    3. CrazyProfessor02
      Link Parent
      CrazyProfessor02's Bingo Sheet Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25 ✅ The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Chosen for you by someone else Same number of letters as your username Has cards...
      CrazyProfessor02's Bingo Sheet
      Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25
      You wanted it when you were younger
      ✅ The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
      Chosen for you by someone else Same number of letters as your username Has cards You can save/pet/care for animals
      Part of a trilogy
      ✅ Beholder
      Focuses on relationships Has a fishing minigame An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game You can complete it in only a few hours
      Set in a dungeon Has a score system ★ Wildcard Has survival mechanics Has both combat and puzzles
      Has a review score below 61 Has AI Has a time limit Has a skill tree Makes you think
      Your friend loves it Released in the year you joined Tildes From a different country than you Has permadeath From now-defunct dev studio
      ✅ Thief II: the Metal Age
      Thoughts about the game

      Thief II: the Metal Age is brought to you by the now defunct studio Looking Glass Studios. I really don't understand why I got this and the other games that was part of the Thief bundle considering I don't particularly like stealth games (more that I don't have the patience for them than anything else and I find them stressful at other times). This one was a real quick ones considering that I stopped playing it at 11 minutes, within those 11 minutes I had to look up the controls more than once and then immediately gotten killed by the guards, and decided nope not for me. Even with newest Deus Ex games, where you can go without killing, I usually forgo that I go on a murder spree, to which in the prison warden in Human Revolution will criticize for this, if you decide to go this route. Mostly because it was counting on the fact that you remembered the mechanics from the first game because it literally dropped you in the game with no tutorial, even the first had that.

      4 votes
  9. [4]
    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    Le card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25 ✅ Deus Ex - Mankind Divided Has both combat and puzzles Has a campaign longer than 5 hours Has survival mechanics Considered a disappointment Part of a...
    Le card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25
    Is beatable without killing any enemies
    ✅ Deus Ex - Mankind Divided
    Has both combat and puzzles Has a campaign longer than 5 hours Has survival mechanics Considered a disappointment
    Part of a trilogy Has more than 3 words in its title
    ✅ Cult of the Lamb
    Has a skill tree Set in a post-apocalyptic world Is open-source
    Focuses on relationships A modded game ★ Wildcard You have to tinker to get it running
    ✅ Anomaly Warzone Earth
    From now-defunct dev studio
    You can create your own character Has dinosaurs You wanted it when you were younger Features a mystery Has a time limit
    Has a lives system Is mostly text-based
    ✅ Moonring
    It’s already installed Is one of the oldest games you own Has cards
    Le games

    Cult of the Lamb: Cute, understand why it was popular, enjoyed all the tongue-in-cheek references and the humor is right up my alley. However, I treated it more like a standard hack-and-slash as I am not a fan of games I have to micro-manage individuals. I fast tracked to the upgrades that make the followers pick up their own poop and farm their own food. Beat it, but definitely spent less time than others doing so to just get it done.
    6/10 when fighting, 3/10 the rest of the time.

    Moonring: Started this, it'll probably get much better and might need to play it on my computer instead of the SteamDeck to enjoy it fully.
    ?/10 too soon to tell.

    Anomaly Warzone Earth: Reverse tower defense (you are the movers instead of the towers). I have a love/hate relationship with tower defense games. I like the games, but pretty much all of them have balance issues (the only exception in recent memory is Herectic's Fork) where there ends up only being a single winning strategy and that's no longer fun. If I wanted a game where only a single build is viable, I'd play Diablo 4. This game is no different and hit the wall a day or so ago and uninstalled.
    5/10 as the half of the game I played was generally enjoyable but not flawless, didn't get to the other half.

    Deus Ex - Mankind Divided: I remember playing, but not finishing due to bugs, Human Revolution years ago. Got this for free ages ago on Epic, so decided to give it a shot. Dialog could be better and I've decided to depart from my usual playstyle and doing a full non-lethal playthrough. So far so good, but I am tired of hacking.
    6/10 so far.

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      Sounds like the first batch you tried didn't totally mesh with you. Hopefully the next batch goes better. That's part of the beauty of Backlog Burner though; it's like speed dating for video...

      Sounds like the first batch you tried didn't totally mesh with you. Hopefully the next batch goes better. That's part of the beauty of Backlog Burner though; it's like speed dating for video games. Nice work in fully completing Cult of the Lamb all the same, though!

      For those also curious to check out Moonring like I was, the game is completely free on Steam. The screenshots seem a little bit deceiving, and the video shows there's a lot more variety to the gameplay. I can see why it'd require a larger screen, though. Lots of small text and buttons to click.

      I have to admit that 8-bit was never really my thing (or is it 4-bit?), but I can appreciate artists working within set limitations. To differentiate a ladder from a railroad track from a gangplank takes a lot of detail work, and you only have a very limited pixel size and colour palette to manage it. I'm impressed by the many solutions and conventions that need to be found to convincingly display a scene.

      4 votes
      1. AugustusFerdinand
        Link Parent
        Games so far are fun enough and I don't regret spending the time playing them, which is the main point for me. Just not in the top of the list for me, but if they were they'd either the be games...

        Games so far are fun enough and I don't regret spending the time playing them, which is the main point for me. Just not in the top of the list for me, but if they were they'd either the be games I've already played or are sitting in my "when I have time to utterly dedicate myself to them" bucket.

        I do have high hopes for Moonring (solo project as I understand it from one of the co-creators of the Fable series), but I try to play any SteamDeck verified games on that device as I have this weird thing where it feels like a waste to use my very powerful gaming PC for something that has graphics that could be rendered on a calculator.

        4 votes
    2. JCPhoenix
      Link Parent
      I liked DX:MD, but I thought DX:HR was the better of the two. I wasn't a fan of the "hub-style" setting in MD. I feel like the game spends too much time in Prague, whereas in HR, we got to see...

      I liked DX:MD, but I thought DX:HR was the better of the two. I wasn't a fan of the "hub-style" setting in MD. I feel like the game spends too much time in Prague, whereas in HR, we got to see more of the world. Regardless, too bad we'll likely never seen a third entry or real finale 😔

      4 votes
  10. [5]
    SingedFrostLantern
    (edited )
    Link
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 4/25) Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25 Humor Connection Synthesis Morality Progress Harmony Love Erosion ✅ Eternal Threads Trust Pride Resistance...
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 4/25)
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25
    Humor Connection Synthesis Morality Progress
    Harmony Love Erosion Causality
    ✅ Eternal Threads
    Trust
    Pride Resistance ★ Wildcard Justice Sound
    Fragmentation Change
    ✅ Darksiders Genesis
    Choice Community Light
    Threshold
    ✅ Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
    Symmetry
    ✅ A Dance of Fire and Ice
    Isolation Happiness Fear
    Threshold - Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Steam)

    When it comes to the supernatural, the concept of a Threshold often pops up: spirits kept away through salt circles, a summoning circle built to contain the entity within (when made properly), vampires who must ask for permission to enter the premises. I don't think that particular rule applies here, but hey, vampires. Vampyr also happens to be in my library.

    Installed with Unofficial Patch Plus and reached the beginning of Hollywood. I think I have to say upfront that I didn't start PC gaming until around 2010, so a lot of older PC titles don't quite mesh with me. Now this game came out in 2004, so I'm sure someone is going to say it's not that old which is exactly how I feel about Gamecube era games.

    So I answered the character creation questions with charismatic choices and was offered clan Toreador (the fancy pants vamps). Went through the tutorial area, talked down the security guard there, told him to go ahead and cover me and- oh wait he just died. And I lost a Humanity point for that. I think that sums up my experience in a nutshell: it's so dark I can't see anything, there's no map or mini-map or objective markers so I'm constantly getting lost and have no idea how to proceed in missions without looking up what the quest trigger is in the wiki, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I don't fault the game for it, older era and all in a time where there's secrets everywhere without any spoon-feeding or maybe that's just me coping with its cult classic status but I don't feel quite connected to it because of the gap. Might have something to do with me not putting any points into Lockpicking/Hacking to get into places (aka me having a bunch of sidequests in Santa Monica I can't complete); normally I do, but I also know for older games to put points into asskicking because you're gonna have to fight something at some point and they won't hold back. At the least, I'm cruising through most things with maxed out Celerity (Time Slow) and 8 points of Persuade with judicious amounts of quicksaves for missions with encouraged stealth/pacifism.

    There's also a lot of vampire politics with the MC being the errand boy for everything. I can't say I enjoy vampire politics? I think my opinion has been soured by Netflix Castlevania season 2 which was mostly vampire dickwaving for characters who didn't really matter which ended up sidelining the actual main characters. I don't know where I'm going with this, the title and source material clearly say the Masquerade and I'm fairly certain vampire politics is usually a thing in vampire fiction; I guess I'm the type of person to lean more towards flashy supernatural power usage instead or the human vs vampire struggle rather than vamp vs vamp.

    As a sidenote, I'm getting a Fallout vibe from the dialogue, the whole upfront of the person's face and the text boxes and the dialogue check options, though that's probably from me having a very small reference pool for WRPGs.

    This is going on my continue list; despite me getting lost like crazy, constantly feeling that I'm missing something from the experience, and having to alt-tab a lot to figure out how to finish a mission, it is a relatively smooth ride and I want to see how things go for the rest of the game and how it got its classic status.

    5 votes
    1. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      I had some friends who played Bloodlines at the time it came out. I had never seen them so taken with a videogame! I watched them play some of it, and we had numerous discussions about how they...

      I had some friends who played Bloodlines at the time it came out. I had never seen them so taken with a videogame! I watched them play some of it, and we had numerous discussions about how they considered the game to be absolutely brilliant from a design standpoint. They'd never played anything like it!

      I remember watching one of them play the infamous "Ocean House" level, and it was genuinely terrifying.

      Over a decade later, I finally decided to try the game out for myself and see what the fuss was about. Unfortunately for me, games had progressed a LOT in that decade. Despite generally enjoying the game, it was hard for me not to see the game's age.

      When my friends played it, it genuinely stood alone and well ahead of its time. Fallout 3 and Mass Effect would both get high praise for the dialogue systems and choices, which was something Bloodlines did incredibly well YEARS before. The open-ended questing felt very free. The different classes having meaningful and significant effects on the mechanics and how you played the game was incredibly novel.

      Furthermore, the game was genuinely scary because we didn't know what better videogame graphics could look like. Its atmosphere was unparalleled.

      When I played it for myself, however, the "scary" I'd been genuinely frightened of a decade earlier looked more like a cartoonish haunted house.

      I think the game is a product of its time, and it's hard to go back and appreciate it now because so much of what made it land and gave it the cult classic status it has today comes from where gaming was as a whole when it released.

      5 votes
    2. [3]
      SingedFrostLantern
      Link Parent
      Symmetry - A Dance of Fire and Ice (itch.io) Symmetry is definitely not a category I would normally think of, had to search a bit for this. In this case, A Dance of Fire and Ice is a 1-button...
      Symmetry - A Dance of Fire and Ice (itch.io)

      Symmetry is definitely not a category I would normally think of, had to search a bit for this. In this case, A Dance of Fire and Ice is a 1-button rhythm game about a pair of planets circling around each other and pressing the button in time with the beat to have the planets walk along the path. Once you hit the button for the planet to land on the path, the other planet continues orbiting to land on the next tile and so on until you reach the end of the map.

      Now I must say this game feels like it was made for masochistic perfectionists which makes it a surprise to see 64.5k reviews on steam. Unlike other games which would give a % accuracy or a health bar, this game makes you reset the whole map for missing a single beat which is definitely not a casual friendly choice. The road system it uses for notes pretty much feels like a new language to process for rhythm games, faster notes on an inside corner and delayed notes on an outside corner, which contributes to the feeling of not understanding it initially and then the feeling of kinda getting it but still wondering why the game is so dang hard.

      I got as far as World 6-X. I'm not prideful enough to keep going on this one.

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        Wes
        Link Parent
        Ah, that feels like a very fitting choice for Symmetry. As for the game itself, man, that looks tough. I watched a little gameplay and it seems like just as you get comfortable with the rhythm,...

        Ah, that feels like a very fitting choice for Symmetry.

        As for the game itself, man, that looks tough. I watched a little gameplay and it seems like just as you get comfortable with the rhythm, the game introduces a weird shape and you need to quickly come up with the new timings. Seems like you need to build a very strong mental model between those rotational distances and beat timings. A bit too much for me, I think.

        Of course the only friend of mine who has played it on Steam is a complete masochist, has put in 40 hours and completed all achievements. Show off!

        It looks like the dev released another game, Rhythm Doctor, which is still in early access but is very well-received. They must know their niche.

        3 votes
        1. SingedFrostLantern
          Link Parent
          Oh well that explains a lot; I impulse purchased Rhythm Doctor earlier this year by reputation and I can see all the DNA shared between them. The one-button rhythm gameplay, the visual effects to...

          Oh well that explains a lot; I impulse purchased Rhythm Doctor earlier this year by reputation and I can see all the DNA shared between them. The one-button rhythm gameplay, the visual effects to screw with people looking for the visual cues, and the general difficulty. Rhythm Doctor at least feels more accessible: story mode, accessibility options, a health bar, and gameplay grading.

          I had gotten as far as 2-X here. I am getting skill issued.

          3 votes
  11. [3]
    deathinactthree
    (edited )
    Link
    deathinactthree's bingo card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25 Considered a disappointment You can save/pet/care for animals From now-defunct dev studio A solo-dev project Has a lives system You...
    deathinactthree's bingo card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 2/25
    Considered a disappointment You can save/pet/care for animals From now-defunct dev studio A solo-dev project Has a lives system
    You control a party of characters You're giving it a second chance Nominated for The Game Awards A modded game Features a mystery
    Has permadeath Recommended by someone on Tildes ★ Wildcard Has driving Has a third-person perspective
    Has a skill tree Is considered relaxing A romhack or total conversion mod Someone else has played it for their Backlog Burner Has a score system
    Focuses on exploration
    ✅ Cayne
    Popular game you never got around to playing Uses a unique control scheme Adaptation of other media type (e.g. board game, movie)
    ✅ Dark Future: Blood Red States
    Is open-source

    I'm already a bit behind on my bingo card and was only able to fire up 2 games from my backlog so far this week.

    Cayne

    I don't play point-and-click adventure games pretty much ever--I have nothing against the genre but it's just not for me, especially when they become exercises in pixel-hunting. But I had seen enough positive buzz on the Stasis series and bought all 3 (Stasis, Stasis: Bone Totem, and Cayne which is a short series prequel) based on vibes.

    And the vibe of Cayne is as good as I was promised, as you play a young woman who attempts to terminate her unwanted pregnancy and is kidnapped by $PLOT_POINT which wants to harvest the pregnancy at the expense of her own life. You escape from this fate by the skin of your teeth in the first few minutes of the game, and then attempt to discover where you are, why you're there, and how the hell to get out.

    The writing and voice acting does sell the fear of body horror and sci-fi dystopia. As a narrative and an overall vibe, it was just what I wanted. Unfortunately the puzzles are sometimes not intuitive and do involve the aforementioned pixel-hunting (even sometimes just to figure out where to click to go through a door, which was pretty odd). I did have to refer to a walkthrough guide often, although again I don't normally play these kinds of games so take that for what it is.

    The game length is short enough however that if you don't have any issue with occasionally referring to guides, which can also risk some spoilers, then I would recommend this game to sci-fi/horror fans for the story and presentation. I enjoyed it enough despite some minor gameplay and technical frustrations (there were multiple crashes) that I'm looking forward to the rest of the Stasis series.

    Dark Future: Blood Red States

    This was an interesting take as a translation of the tabletop game. As a Sanctioned Op, you take your Mad-Max-style (armed and armored) car through multiple missions that play as a semi-real-time tactics game. You don't actually drive per se, you pause/slow down time to issue "orders" to the car to speed up, slow down, change lanes, fire weapons, etc.

    There are shortkeys for this so it can kind of feel like driving, but here's my recommendation: don't use the hotkeys at all until you really understand how the gameplay works, because even small mistakes can quickly cost you, and you don't get any do-overs--restarting the run means losing any fuel or single-mission items you went in with, and money to replace them is a precious resource you won't have a lot of. This may mean the game moves "slower" as you frequently pause to change and issue orders, but the difficulty curve spikes exponentially pretty quickly in this game, and death is frequent and semi-permanent (dying means you have to restart the game, but some perks carry over when you unlock them).

    Missions can get pretty same-y: kill X enemies for whatever reason, escort this vehicle for Y amount of time, stick close enough to this truck long enough to scan it before the timer runs out, etc, all of them play out in a pretty similar fashion. You drive for a while, you blow stuff up while others try to blow you up, you fulfill the win condition in the the last couple of minutes. Upgrade your car in the shop between missions.

    That said, the gameplay is quite fun for a unique take on a tactics game, and I've found the trick to enjoying it is to play it in short bursts before the repetitive missions wear out their welcome. (Most missions have a ~10-minute timer, actual runs usually take about 5-7 minutes, at least in the early game.)

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      A hybrid turn-based/real-time driving game? It never even occurred to me that something like this might exist. But it makes a lot of sense as an adaption of a board game, and more than that, it...

      Dark Future: Blood Red States

      A hybrid turn-based/real-time driving game? It never even occurred to me that something like this might exist. But it makes a lot of sense as an adaption of a board game, and more than that, it actually looks pretty fun!

      It's interesting because while the game appears to have real physics, it does look more like moving pieces around a board. "Issuing orders to cars" is a good way to put it. I expect there's still some randomness involved, but on the whole it's basically a tactical driving game, which is an interesting novelty.

      I'm a bit surprised the game uses permadeath. I guess that mimics a board game, but feels a little strange in a mission-based video game adaption. I think I wouldn't mind the option of continues being allowed, but maybe unlocking perks are the main intended purpose of the game.

      6 votes
      1. deathinactthree
        Link Parent
        It gives you a break in that there are multiple characters to unlock, but the one you start with (Brain in a Jar) lets you restart missions on death on your first run instead of ending the entire...

        I'm a bit surprised the game uses permadeath. I guess that mimics a board game, but feels a little strange in a mission-based video game adaption. I think I wouldn't mind the option of continues being allowed, but maybe unlocking perks are the main intended purpose of the game.

        It gives you a break in that there are multiple characters to unlock, but the one you start with (Brain in a Jar) lets you restart missions on death on your first run instead of ending the entire run, although you still lose resources. The idea is to give you time to learn the game. But yes, the roguelite unlocking of perks that carry over is a main function of the gameplay loop.

        It is much more like moving pieces around a constantly moving board vs. an arcade-style racing game like Road Blasters, although it can start to feel more like the latter as you get comfortable using the hotkeys more. It's interesting in how it successfully executes being a hybrid like this, and the novelty of the playstyle keeps your attention as long as you keep it to relatively short sessions before the repetitiveness sets in--fortunately it does lend itself pretty well to only playing for like 20 minutes at a time.

        4 votes
  12. [2]
    Durinthal
    Link
    Durinthal's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 3/25) Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25 Friction Absence Justice Lost Light ✅ Super Mario Maker 2 Progress Exploration Silence Transformation Fear Power ★...
    Durinthal's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 3/25)
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25
    Friction Absence Justice Lost Light
    Precision
    ✅ Super Mario Maker 2
    Progress Exploration Silence Transformation
    Fear Power ★ Wildcard Connection Threshold
    Fleeting Uncertainty Choice
    ✅ Slay the Princess
    Repetition
    ✅ Secrets of Grindea
    Empathy
    Tradition Increment Complexity Fragmentation Beauty

    Perhaps unsurprisingly I was going for a couple of games that didn't need a whole lot of thought from me this week.

    Super Mario Maker 2 — Back on the grind for Team 0% with the goal of ensuring that every uploaded level is beaten by someone. I don't have great technical skill at the game, due to a lack of practice if nothing else, but there's still a decent amount of precision needed in platforming with lots of dodging enemies and other hazards. For the most part it's straightforward to figure out what needs to be done to beat a level with the help of external tools that can show the full layout of a stage including any hidden power-ups or secret shortcuts to the end, so once routing is done it's just a matter of execution and it's a good way to zone out for a while.

    Secrets of Grindea — An action RPG reminiscent of Secret of Mana and similar games of that era, as one may guess by the title there's a lot of grinding to be done for full completion. The repetition here is again a nice distraction and it's set up to encourage sitting in one room repeatedly killing respawning enemies if you'd like, with rewards of permanent power-ups coming after you kill enough of each type of monster. The story's rather simple and writing's somewhat snarky which feels like a common thing in indie RPGs these days (maybe just the ones I've played) so it's easy enough to ignore. Not something that I'd call a positive most of the time but here it's exactly what I needed.

    5 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      Grindea was on my Steam wishlist, mostly because it's a co-op RPG, but I completely missed the connection with "grinding". A bit obvious in hindsight. A perfect fit for the "Repetition" category...

      Grindea was on my Steam wishlist, mostly because it's a co-op RPG, but I completely missed the connection with "grinding". A bit obvious in hindsight. A perfect fit for the "Repetition" category though.

      I think I know what you mean about snarky dialogue. It seems like a style that's growing in popularity. It's not always my preference, but it can make a game feel more lively if it matches the rest of the tone. I'm thinking titles like Dicey Dungeons or Ittle Dew. 'Course, it depends just as much as the player being in the right mood as the game having a strong delivery.

      Good choices for your selected categories, I think.

      4 votes
  13. [6]
    Evie
    (edited )
    Link
    This week's writeup(s) below Evie's bingo card (Standard/Flow) Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 0/25 Beauty Fear Silence Order Courage Dead Space (2023) Power Erosion Creativity Holocure Quantity...

    This week's writeup(s) below

    Evie's bingo card (Standard/Flow)
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 0/25
    Beauty Fear Silence Order Courage
    Darkness
    Dead Space (2023)
    Power Erosion Creativity Collaboration
    Holocure
    Quantity Fragmentation ★ Wildcard Endurance Justice
    Progress Empathy Freedom
    A Short Hike
    Happiness Precision
    Celeste 64: Fragments
    of the Mountain
    Restoration Morality Survival
    Tacoma
    Time Pride
    4 votes
    1. [3]
      Evie
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I really do want to strongly recommend Tacoma, so I'll try to avoid getting into the heavier more spoiler-y discussions of the narrative until the end; will still be talking about the themes and...
      • Exemplary

      I really do want to strongly recommend Tacoma, so I'll try to avoid getting into the heavier more spoiler-y discussions of the narrative until the end; will still be talking about the themes and premise of the game before that, though.

      Tacoma -- Survival

      Set in orbit around the moon in 2088, Tacoma sees you arrive at a lifeless space station. You're a contractor, tasked with retrieving the space station AI, but as you explore the station, you'll also witness some of the station's last recorded surveillance footage, rendered in the space as low-res AR holograms, where the small crew of 6 experience a disaster and fight for survival. If you've played The Return of the Obra Dinn, this is that without the puzzle mechanics; if you've played Cyberpunk 2077, this is basically the braindance sequences from those games, but two hours long.

      This is a favourite genre of mine: short narrative games -- Before Your Eyes, The Beginner's Guide, What Remains of Edith Finch -- that have an interesting enough hook to tie the player more closely into the world. Here, that's the flow of watching these recorded scenes play out. Often a scene will have two or three different conversations going at the same time, in different parts of the room. Sometimes, these conversations are plot critical, or might see characters accessing computers with critical files that you also need to access and view. Other times, these conversations are pointless, but colorful. But to follow them all, you'll be watching the same recording multiple times, fast-forwarding or rewinding to see where two people went off to chat after a larger conversation broke up into three smaller ones. It's hard to explain, but I've never seen a game do a better job of capturing the fluidity of social dynamics in a group setting. It's pretty impressive, how for every scene there's clearly been a lot of thought put into each character, even the vestigial ones -- and how they'll respond differently to each new plan or piece of information. How some might be galvanized into action; how others might break down alone but ensure they're putting on a brave face for others.

      The characters really shine here. I've played games with more fully-realized characters, but maybe not more believable ones. Through the surveillance systems, you catch fragments of each person -- not only during big group conversations, scenes from the crisis, but also during much older recorded moments -- reading or singing in the shower or playing video games together -- and also emails, texts with family, and the like from computers. And the sum of these fragments are very believable, if low-resolution, sketches of a compelling cast.

      This all does feel a bit like a violation of privacy, obviously. No one wants to be recorded in the shower, and viewing these private moments is profoundly uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable that the footage exists at all, and moreso even then the games' obvious and heavy-handed class and AI commentary I was thinking about surveillance throughout all of this. Implicitly, I think the game poses questions about what to do with this gross and unethical footage now that it exists. On the one hand, viewing even the group conversations that take place aboard the Tacoma sometimes feels invasive, like looking in on a family dinner, but on the other, if watching these videos can in some form preserve the memory of the presumably dead crew, and bring to light what happened to them, maybe there's value in that. It's a question I hadn't thought about before. Can the very surveillance systems created to oppress people be used against their oppressors? Tacoma seems to think it's at least worth considering.

      As an aside, last week I played Dead Space (2023) and I think there are some details in this game that show that it was at least a little bit inspired by Dead Space; likewise the plot of one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes (from when I first watched it years ago, anyway), "Oxygen," seems so similar to this game's that it strains the credibility of "parallel thinking." It's always fun to catch these similarities, to be able to contextualize a work with its ancestors and its descendants, to try and trace a genealogy of inspiration.

      Two more random bits of praise before we get into spoilers.

      1. This game does a good job, I think, of promoting a specific mode of engagement with the player. It understand that, with its somewhat nonlinear mode of storytelling, and with the complex themes it tries to tackle (not always elegantly, mind), the player will need time to reflect. As a result the station's wheel and spoke design really slows the player down between chapters, for a non-interactive elevator ride with only some light music, to think things through and prepare for the store to continue. Likewise the ability to pause, rewind, even leave during the middle of critical dialogue scenes creates a kind of Brechtian sense of distance between the player and the blobby, imperfectly rendered characters, which again drives a specific kind of engagement with the text. It's almost the opposite of, say, Edith Finch, which uses every dirty little trick in the book to connect you to the characters as quickly and viscerally as possible. I'll talk about the drawbacks of this approach in the spoiler section, but I think it's worth praising for its uniqueness and for how well it was accomplished.
      2. For a 2018 game, Tacoma feels really relevant, almost prescient, now. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and lately I've been hearing a lot of talk about pushing for some kind of semi-autonomous Cascadia regional bloc; in Tacoma's world, the US seems to have Balkanized, and Cascadia is one of the new nation-states. And real-world companies Amazon and Carnival Cruises appear as minor players in the game's story, which is completely wild. But beyond minor cosmetic stuff, it's the central thematic questions that Tacoma deals with -- questions of AI autonomy, surveillance, labor rights in an evolving market -- that feel most relevant, and for the most part Tacoma addresses them with a clear-eyed, historically accurate view that feels so much more compelling and plausible and immediate than the often cartoonish examinations of these questions you see in games like Cyberpunk or the Outer Worlds.

      Okay, spoiler time. I'm mostly just gonna criticize the ending here so it's not really anything important. Before that, let's wrap it up: quibbles with the ending notwithstanding, I think Tacoma is a tight, engaging, and fairly original little narrative package. If you like this type of short narrative game it's absolutely worth your time; I do, and I really enjoyed it for what it was.

      Tacoma spoilers

      That said, the saccharine ending to this thing landed badly for me. It's not necessarily that it's unbelievable, but the fact that everyone survives at the end, even the AI, left a bitter taste in my mouth. I guess I'm looking around at the real world and thinking "if only it were that easy; if only cruise companies and secret string-pulling AI rights groups could swoop in and save the day; if only the internet were so staunchly opposed to corporate ratfuckery." I think the most plausible reading of the game's central theme, binding up all its commentary on labor and AI and government and surveillance into one, is this: "The tools of the oppressor can be used to keep each other safe, and fight back, as long as we don't forget our humanity, or let go of the bonds we share." This is a noble theme, well expressed, but maybe I'm just not in the right headspace to accept it.

      Perhaps more cripplingly, the detachment that the game has, I think, created between the player and the characters really undermines the ending. Frankly I don't feel anything about the death or survival of the crew one way or the other -- thus far the game has encouraged me to intellectualize the themes and characters and so I have. And so, when everybody lives, I don't get the feeling of "oh thank God, I'm so relieved," I get thoughts of "I just am not sure that I buy this ending in the context of the world." And I like these characters, they're fantastically written and phenomenally acted, but I guess the problem is that I only experience them as characters, not as people deserving of empathy.

      In the final sequence leading up to the ending, the game does make more of an attempt to align the player's experience with the characters', cutting out all rewinding, and syncing the recordings of one character discovering the truth with the player discovering that same truth, so that it kind of feels like you're coming to the realization together. It's neat as a climax to the game's primary mechanic, I guess, but in terms of actually creating empathy it feels like it's too little to late.

      My favorite narrative games, listed earlier, are all willing to hold nothing back, to just absolutely punch you in the gut, fuck you up emotionally. I guess what Tacoma has done in this respect, with its hopeful ending, is subvert genre conventions. Maybe I wasn't in the right place for it, maybe I'm just a masochist, but it doesn't manage to make it work in my opinion.

      6 votes
      1. [2]
        Wes
        Link Parent
        I appreciate shorter narrative experiences too, and I didn't know that Tacoma was only a couple hours long. One sitting playthrough games are very appealing to me. I appreciate you separating out...

        I appreciate shorter narrative experiences too, and I didn't know that Tacoma was only a couple hours long. One sitting playthrough games are very appealing to me. I appreciate you separating out the spoilers from the main block. In this case I only read the main text as I may play it myself in the future.

        The theme of surveillance does seem to be increasing in relevance each day. There's the corporate perspective, of course, and questions about how surveillance can be used against people. But there's also the individual question, and asking where my right to film intersects your right to privacy. I think we're still figuring out some of the social norms here, and it's constantly changing in response to improvements in technology.

        The general setting and holograms in Tacoma actually remind me of a game I played a few years ago, Deliver Us The Moon. It also largely takes place on an empty station, and you're tasked with figuring out what's going on. Tacoma seems to focus more on telling a story than solving puzzles, but the setting is familiar.

        By the way, you'll have to forgive me because I've responded to your reviews multiple times now. But they are very interesting to read, and I'm glad you're putting so much effort into your write-ups.

        6 votes
        1. Evie
          Link Parent
          Don't apologize! I'm very glad for the feedback, and to hear your thoughts as well :)

          Don't apologize! I'm very glad for the feedback, and to hear your thoughts as well :)

          5 votes
    2. [2]
      Evie
      Link Parent
      This writeup turned out to be not so much an analysis of the game in question as it is an analysis of my current mental state. Proceed with caution. Celeste 64 -- Precision I don't really have...
      • Exemplary

      This writeup turned out to be not so much an analysis of the game in question as it is an analysis of my current mental state. Proceed with caution.

      Celeste 64 -- Precision

      I don't really have experience with platformers, so I'll try to keep this quick. In my entire life I've played like three: Mario Galaxy, Mario Galaxy 2, Celeste (which I really, really struggled to finish) and various assorted non-platformer games with platforming elements: Ori, Hollow Knight, Titanfall 2, the like. And I've never really liked the genre. I like movement, the process of expressing yourself by traversing the game world, but I tend to struggle with the more specific mechanical demands of level-based platforming. In fact I only played the original Celeste out of a vague sense of transgender obligation, and kind of resented it the whole time.

      So what is Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain? I guess it's a kind of game-jam-y attempt to transform Celeste's mechanics into a 3D environment, loosely inspired by Mario 64 and its family of early 3D platformers. Made in a week, released for free on itch.io, taking maybe an hour and a half to complete (less if you're not as bad as I am at platforming) this is the kind of game that it would be tremendously rude to be critical of. Not that I have anything critical to say, beyond the usual "this isn't for me." The movement system works, the Celeste mechanics that are present have translated surprisingly well into 3D, there was even one platforming puzzle -- one involving wall climbing and jumping precisely to collect a bunch of rings scattered above spikes -- that genuinely delighted me. I suppose it's also nice to catch up with the Madeline and the other characters I vaguely remember from years and years ago, before I had access to HRT.

      So, cards on the table, I didn't really enjoy this game. There were a couple levels I found irritatingly precise, like I barely had the skill to clear them. And I'm not connected enough either to Mario 64 or Celeste for this to hold much nostalgic value for me. But for all that, the "ending" of the game hit me like a truck. Or, well, maybe a slow-moving minivan, but it hit hard is what I'm saying.

      Spoilers follow, not that this is a narrative game with much to spoil in it.

      At the peak of the game world, Madeline meets with Badeline, who I guess is like the embodiment of her insecurities and psychological issues, and they talk about some nonspecific big change that they're afraid of. Madeline says that maybe this is why she's returned to Celeste mountain, and this time reformulated it as an homage to a game (probably Mario 64) that she loved as a kid. You know, retreating into nostalgia in order to feel safe, all that.

      Some of my earliest and fondest gaming memories are of playing the Super Mario Galaxy games on the Wii when I was like ten or eleven or fourteen and just being so in love with it all, not only with the particulars of those games but with the idea of games in general, the idea of the enormous world that contained like a hundred other worlds and you could step into all of them, listen and hear and in some intangible way feel it all. My parents, controlling as they were, shaped my interactions with art, required everything I read or watched as a kid to be "redemptive" or "constructive" but with those earliest games I played, Minecraft and Mario Galaxy and Portal, I felt like I was able to experience art for the first time, not as something that was supposed to teach me something or improve me in some way, but as art, an aura, this overwhelming thing that was valuable unto itself. It's maybe important to come to terms with the fact that I will never feel that way again, that pursuing the nostalgia of those earliest experiences is just chasing ghosts, or becoming stagnant water, or some other evocative simile.

      Yet still I play Minecraft when I'm feeling stressed (on the Tildes Minecraft Server! why not drop by, take a look around?). Still I booted up Celeste 64, knowing I wouldn't enjoy it, and I'm realizing now that maybe I did that because I just wanted to play Mario Galaxy again -- or, maybe, just wanted to be twelve again, not be hurting and tired and a little sad all the time. And it's funny, or at least ironic, that Celeste 64 didn't give me what I was after, but it did at least, with a couple lines of dialogue, make me realize what I wanted, why I was there.

      I don't know what to do about this. Madeline says "you're allowed to be afraid," (but you should still keep moving forward); Acheron from Honkai: Star Rail says "Even if the ending has been predetermined, that's fine... on the road to the end, there are still many things we can do," and maybe it's time to admit that that I'm a bit burned out on all this moving forward and existentialism stuff, even if it is true. Maybe it's okay to take a little while and just soak in comfortable nostalgia, if you're aware of what you're doing and why. Also, maybe I need to go to the grocery store tomorrow morning, and it's getting late, and being self-aware to the point of self-flagellation is not a virtue. God only knows.

      Anyway if you like 3D platforms this is literally free on itch and an hour long so go crazy. I guess there's no tutorial for the controls but you can figure it out, you're an adult.

      6 votes
      1. kfwyre
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I’m going to second @Wes; your writeups are incredible. I’ve loved reading each of them. Lol, I know this feeling well. I’m gay, not trans, but after I came out, I consumed a LOT of queer media....

        I’m going to second @Wes; your writeups are incredible. I’ve loved reading each of them.

        In fact I only played the original Celeste out of a vague sense of transgender obligation, and kind of resented it the whole time.

        Lol, I know this feeling well. I’m gay, not trans, but after I came out, I consumed a LOT of queer media. This was well before our current glut, when queer anything was much harder to come by. Some of those books and movies (there were, unfortunately, very few queer games) were ones I was legitimately interested in, but a lot of it was stuff I felt obligated to read/watch.

        I had a weird guilt about not liking some of them, because it felt like I was forsaking some sort of queer solidarity in doing so. After years of this pattern of behavior, I stumbled across a blog post by someone describing the exact sort of thing I was feeling (I wish I’d saved the link). They framed that feeling of “I didn’t watch that important queer movie” as “I didn’t do my queer homework.”

        Or, “I did do my queer homework, but it took all the fun out of it.”

        This was genuinely helpful for me, because, as a consummate A student in my youth (being in the closet and having no self-worth meant I worked REALLY hard for grade validation), I realized I was guilting myself unnecessarily by continuing a bad pattern of behavior from my childhood well into adulthood. I was turning entertainment (which should be based in interest, joy, and satisfaction) into a sort of mandatory, joyless curriculum.

        Of course, it was hard not to, because at the time queer things were fewer and farther between. This meant less “work” to keep up, but it also meant that you ran the risk of not having the necessary opinion on it when pigeonholed as a queer person. I can’t tell you the number of times I was asked about what I thought of Brokeback Mountain (I didn’t like it), but I was always stuck between giving my honest opinion on it, versus lying because it felt like I should be “supporting my team.”

        This is a really long and roundabout way of saying that I admire not only the personal touch with which you talked about the Celeste series, but the honesty with which you talked about it! And I say that as someone who genuinely loves the original Celeste — not out of a sense of queer obligation, but because it’s like gaming comfort food to me.

        I call it my “snow day game” because, whenever it snows heavily outside and schools unexpectedly close and I don’t have to teach and wind up with a nice day off of work, I more often than not boot up Celeste and play through it in one or two sittings. I find it cozy and comforting. It’s got a warmth that’s beautiful to me, especially on a cold day. Despite being a newer game (and one that I first played as an adult), it still gives me a childlike feeling of nostalgia.

        I hope you’re able to soak in that feeling of nostalgia and play some of your personal “snow day games.” Ones that bring you comfort, warmth, and joy. Ones that you play because you want to, not because you’re obligated to.

        Funny enough, despite my love for Celeste, I also don’t love Celeste 64. Adding the third dimension took away the “coziness” for me. I don’t know why I feel that way, but I do.

        8 votes
  14. xothist
    Link
    Control: I had started a play-through of this game a few years ago with my partner but we didn't get super far before we just dropped it for whatever reason (I can't even remember). This time I'm...

    Control:

    I had started a play-through of this game a few years ago with my partner but we didn't get super far before we just dropped it for whatever reason (I can't even remember).

    This time I'm just playing solo and really sinking my teeth into the story more than we had the first time around. This is such a wonderful narrative game with some fun abilities and superpowers. It gives off real X-Files/Twin Peaks vibes to me. Also very reminiscent of New Weird Lit.

    At this point I've finish the main story which was really fun and gone through the Alan Wake DLC and now working my way through the final DLC. At this point I'm just really excited to see where they go with the story next. Really looking forward to Control 2.

    4 votes
  15. [3]
    Eidolon
    Link
    Just in time for Week 2! Dark Star One = From now-defunct dev studio You are an earnest, naive and overly excitable young space cadet who has inherited a ship called the Dark Star One from your...

    Just in time for Week 2!

    Dark Star One = From now-defunct dev studio

    You are an earnest, naive and overly excitable young space cadet who has inherited a ship called the Dark Star One from your late father, who passed under mysterious circumstances. You receive intel about a man connected with your father's death become determined to search for him. The Dark Star One, you discover, is no ordinary ship and you can upgrade it by finding ancient artifacts scattered across the universe. You enter a system, recover the artifact by dealing with local pirates, upgrade and move on. Rinse, repeat. It's no surprise that this narrow gameplay loop is one of the core criticisms about the game.

    Dark Star One is probably one of the lesser known titles in Ascaron Entertainment's catalog. Based in Germany, the Sacred, Port Royal or Patrician series are likely to be familiar - though DS1 was my first introduction to the studio. I am a big fan of space-sims and am crawling my way through lesser known titles. DS1 regularly goes on sale for a couple of bucks and the reviews are pretty good overall, though coloured by nostalgia! Released in 2006, DS1 appeared on the scene when the genre was receding from its heights in the late 90s-early 2000s, prior to its re-resurgence in the 2010s. Ascaron unfortunately did not survive into that era, having gone insolvent in 2009. Interestingly, the IP for DS1 was on-sold, though it may well be a stranded asset.

    Superficially, the arcade-like spaceflight, system scaling and base interaction reminds me of Freelancer. Oddly enough, Microsoft took an interest in the game post-release and secured an Xbox port. However, the story and voice acting leave much to be desired and the archetypes are less sandbox and more scripted according to mission selection. Space-flight is pleasingly smooth although the UI is awkward. The game is also very expansive, much bigger than Freelancer. Overall, the game is quite simplistic but it does scratch a certain old-school space RPG itch. I am not sure yet whether I will finish the game, however.

    TaleSpire = Adaptation of other media type (e.g. board game, movie)

    TaleSpire is a tabletop sim in early access that's quite promising, if you can put up with its quirks. My DM ported our Dungeons and Dragons 5e Strad campaign into TaleSpire, ditching Roll20 for a full 3D experience. With a wealth of custom content that you can import easily - including Strad content, it hasn't been too difficult to set up. It's not the most optimised, but I've seen much worse for an early access title. Moving from 2D, it's ramped up the immersion - especially for the more unusual situations. We had a crazy underwater battle, for example!

    Lethal Company = Has a time limit

    An easy strike-off due to a co-op run! This game meets the requirements twice over - once for having a time limit for completing a run (over the course of the passing of a day in game time) and two for having a time limit for delivering on the game's objectives.

    I'm surprised that this game hasn't been discussed on Tildes as it's a popular and relatively recent title. It is a survival horror but palatable for people like myself who struggle with horror games, because of its humour. It's a dystopian premise, you are an employee of 'the company' and you and your team have to go collect scrap on planets. Mics and chat are based on promixity unless you have walkies, so it gets spooky fast if you get lost from the group. You have three days to collect a certain amount of 'quota' which you earn by selling scrap. There's a merchant interface on the ship to purchase items to assist you, such as torches and weapons. If the whole team dies, it's game over. You encounter lots of strange and weird creatures who have different attacks and require distinct strategies. Overall, I like the vibe and it's easy to fire up for something quick when your gaming group don't have much time. We've had many laughs just from dying in stupid ways or pulling of some weird feats.

    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25
    Is considered emotionally resonant Has a non-human antagonist Focuses on exploration Has a lives system Has a review score above 81
    Came out more than 6 years ago Adaptation of other media type (e.g. board game, movie)
    ✅ Talespire
    You wanted it when you were younger From a studio you haven't heard of before Has a skill tree
    Set in a real world location Music/rhythm-focused ★ Wildcard
    ✅ Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
    From now-defunct dev studio
    ✅ Dark Star One
    Uses procedural generation
    Randomness determines your fate Is open-source Has a time limit
    ✅ Lethal Company
    From a different country than you Part of a trilogy
    Uses a unique control scheme You heard about it in our weekly gaming topics Owned for more than 3 years From a different culture or country Has a minimalistic vibe
    3 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      TaleSpire looks really good. I've never been able to fully get into tabletop gaming, since it requires a pretty dedicated group of like-minded individuals. I think these kinds of applications can...

      TaleSpire looks really good. I've never been able to fully get into tabletop gaming, since it requires a pretty dedicated group of like-minded individuals. I think these kinds of applications can really smooth out the process though, and make things more accessible. Booting up a "game" is definitely easier than reading a 30MB PDF and spending two hours on character creation, anyway.

      Yeah, I'm not sure why Lethal Company wasn't too much of a buzz around here. I think the game can be fun, but also requires some commitment because you never know how long a run will go. I generally prefer games with a definitive ending, but I can understand the attraction of "get as far as you can". It's not so different from the high scores on arcade machines.

      I recently tried the demo for KLETKA, and it provides a similar feel. Instead of exploring planets, you're descending floors of a strange structure using a curious elevator. Things continue to get stranger and more dangerous as you go.

      It's early yet, but I expect fans of Lethal will like this one, too. Twice I blew up a friend by throwing a giblet onto a landmine. Once I was blown up by a rat scurrying across one.

      2 votes
      1. Eidolon
        Link Parent
        I know what you mean. Tabletop is a relatively new thing for me, I'd never known anyone who played until a friend suddenly got obsessed with DnD and invited me along. After getting the hang of the...

        I know what you mean. Tabletop is a relatively new thing for me, I'd never known anyone who played until a friend suddenly got obsessed with DnD and invited me along. After getting the hang of the ruleset, it's more effortless now and feels more like hanging out with friends. And yes, TaleSpire miniatures are pre-loaded by the DM (unless you submit a custom token). So you are able to just show up, but you still need to maintain an external character sheet for aspects that you can't integrate in the game (levels, items, spells, etc. - you can only really track your HP bar in game). Overall, everyone's been really happy with the platform though. I don't think we'll have the appetite for DnD Beyond, it will be geared too much towards profitability I suspect (if not immediately, then over time). TaleSpire has a thriving modding/custom content community on the Discord and this is one of its greatest strengths.

        Re Lethal Company, I agree, our host will save but often we'll forget we have an existing run to continue with or don't have the same host and have to start afresh! And thanks for bringing KLETKA to my attention, I will check out the demo and see how it fares once the early access is live.

        On to next week!

        1 vote