19 votes

November 2024 Backlog Burner: Week 3 Discussion

Week 3 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 2 Recap

14 participants played 13 bingo cards and moved 36 games out of their backlogs!
There were 0 bingo wins.

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

Thus far, a total of 53 games have been played for the November 2024 Backlog Burner.

Week 2 Game List:

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:

48 comments

  1. [3]
    kfwyre
    Link
    Pinging all Backlog Burner participants/conversationalists: here’s the new topic for the week. Notification List @aphoenix @AugustusFerdinand @CannibalisticApple @Cannonball @CrazyProfessor02...

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

    Notification List

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

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

    10 votes
    1. [2]
      hamstergeddon
      Link Parent
      I had all the intent in the world of participating and then just got super busy/distracted. Maybe next time! Can you remove me from the list, please?

      I had all the intent in the world of participating and then just got super busy/distracted. Maybe next time! Can you remove me from the list, please?

      2 votes
  2. [3]
    JCPhoenix
    (edited )
    Link
    JCPhoenix's Bingo Card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 7/25 Known for its legacy You have to tinker to get it running ✅ Odysseus Kosmos and Robot Quest ✅ The Battle of Polytopia A romhack or total...
    JCPhoenix's Bingo Card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 7/25
    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
    ✅ Convoy
    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
    ✅ The Gardens Between
    Has creatures Has both combat and puzzles
    ✅ Signalis
    Is open-source
    Review - Convoy
    • Released: April 21, 2015 (Steam)
    • Purchased: July 5, 2018
    • Bingo Category: "Randomness Determines Your Fate"
    • Time played: 82min

    Convoy is a 2D, top-down roguelike in a Mad Max-esque setting. It's somewhat like FTL, in that the player can choose their own path, can upgrade and repair their vehicles, and there are lots of opportunities to fight and salvage loot. All while trying to get to the game’s end goal of repairing their crash-landed mothership.
    The player has their Main Convoy Vehicle (MCV) and two support vehicles. The MCV has no purely offensive capabilities, only "support" capabilities. The two support, or "combat," vehicles can equip both offensive and support capabilities. Also, the MCV can't be moved or positioned. The player primarily controls the support vehicles, primarily through positioning, choosing which enemies to fire upon, and the ability to ram enemy vehicles.

    There's also a lot of reading. A LOT. Like FTL, various scenarios pop up as you traverse the desert wastelands. But some of the text is just ridiculously long, and there may be multiple pages of it depending on the decisions you make in these scenarios. And none of it was particularly interesting. I feel like the game does too much telling the story, instead of showing it. That works well for some games like Disco Elysium, but not here. The story is the most important thing in Disco, where in Convoy and also in FTL, I think the gameplay is supposed to more important.

    The game was also difficult. I felt like there was no ramp-up. I did the brief tutorial, which was nice. However, as soon as I got into the actual game, it seemed like it was on hard mode immediately. The very first battle I went into had my convoy up against like four enemy support vehicles, two of which had shields, on top of their armor and health (which all vehicles have). Trying to figure out how to position my two combat vehicles against the enemy, while taking an onslaught of fire, and trying to keep them alive was tough. There were also things that weren't explained in the tutorial. Such as the fact that environmental dangers could appear, such as canyon walls or old utility towers, and if my support vehicles hit those, they go boom! So do the enemy ones, but the enemy "knows" that and tries to avoid them. I didn't, because I didn't know. Stupid me, right? So quickly I lost both my combat vehicles.

    I could continue the game without the combat vehicles, and I tried to. And it's possible to find new ones through random scenarios, but there didn't seem to be a buy-back method for combat vehicles. Once they're gone, they're gone. Which made it difficult to truly progress with only the MCV, since there's so much random combat. That playthrough ended about 10min later with my MCV going boom.

    I tried another attempt, and I was able to survive for about 30min that time. I brought the difficulty down to "easy," but that only really seemed to affect the starting resources I had. The battles didn't seem any easier, at all. But the RNG gods did seem to favor me, at least for a bit. I was able to complete at least two of the main item gathering quests.

    Overall, this game was OK. I think FTL, which Convoy compares itself to on its Steam page, does everything much better. That was a game that really made me want to keep progressing and trying again, even after I died over and over. Convoy, not so much. FTL has a difficulty ramp-up period in each game. It helps get the player acclimated and stocked and makes them feel like they have a fighting chance. In Convoy, it feels like I just get tossed in and told "good luck!" I don't generally prefer, in games, difficulty for difficulty's sake.

    I probably won’t go back to this game.

    I recorded this one as well, but given I was doing this at like 3:00a, it's not my best LP. If you click here, you'll get taken to the first fight to see what I was dealing with.

    7 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      This one does look a little rough around the edges. Though honestly, I think I never quite got on with the FTL approach of "Keep inventing scenarios to try to kill the player". Between that, and...

      This one does look a little rough around the edges. Though honestly, I think I never quite got on with the FTL approach of "Keep inventing scenarios to try to kill the player". Between that, and as you pointed out the copious amount of reading, I think this one would be a miss for me, too.

      Last week, @deathinactthree played Dark Future: Blood Red States and shared their thoughts on it. I feel like that title offers a similar kind of gameplay (issuing orders to vehicles, target priority, managing spacing), but in a more interesting and tactical way. There's no "overworld" map like Convoy has, but it feels like the moment-to-moment gameplay is better designed, and more fair, too.

      7 votes
    2. JCPhoenix
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Really only playing Backburner games during the weekend, so posting as I play them. Update: Did beat the game. 3.5hrs, total. Review - The Gardens Between Released: September 20, 2018 (Steam)...

      Really only playing Backburner games during the weekend, so posting as I play them.

      Update: Did beat the game. 3.5hrs, total.

      Review - The Gardens Between
      • Released: September 20, 2018 (Steam)
      • Purchased: April 25, 2022
      • Bingo Category: "Is Considered Relaxing"
      • Time played: 74min

      The story of The Gardens Between isn’t quite clear at the start, which is the mystery part of the game. What’s going on here, and why do they seem sad or even scared at the start while in their treehouse? How did they get to this realm of memories? Probably need to play the game to find out!

      The player “controls” two young friends, Arina and Frendt, as they make their way through little islands that seem to be memories of good times past. Such as when they first met, hanging out in the backyard with a pool, playing video games during sleepovers, and building a treehouse.

      And to progress through these islands of memories, they must solve various puzzles through both time and space.

      Control-wise, it’s simple: Left/A, Right/D, and Spacebar are all that’s needed. Left reverses times and Right moves time forward. Spacebar allows the two kids to interact with the world around them. Mainly a lantern that Arina carries, that can be used to carry some kind of orb of light. This orb can be used to activate bridges or shine through dark clouds, among other things. Frendt tends to interact with mechanisms that manipulate specific objects. In one stage, there was a rope and pully he used to manipulate an elevator of sorts. Other times, he can control flowers that hold “black holes,” that eat-up the orbs of light.

      Some objects, however, persist through time. So, if Arina needs her lantern and an orb to activate a bridge, they might need to go back in time, so Frendt can cause a flower to bloom that contains an orb of light. Arina goes back in time to get it, then the two of them move forward again with an orb and use the bridge. Even though time has gone backward and forward, her holding the orb has persisted throughout.

      If that’s confusing, I recorded this one as well. Better to see it, I think.

      As the game progresses, the puzzles and layers get deeper. I’m basically trying to determine what the correct order of actions of both characters are, along with when to use items around them. Do I rewind at this point so that Frendt can move this thing, before Arina walks on? Or should I wait til Arina walks on, then have Frendt do this thing later? I should also mention that the paths each character takes are predetermined. I can’t control exactly where they go. The only way their paths may change is by manipulating the environment and time.

      Sometimes it’s not immediately clear what needs to be done. Such as in my LP. So there’s a lot of trial and error. And while I got stuck at the end of my LP, I figured out what needed to be done a few minutes later and moved on. I just needed to pay attention! It is a relaxing game, but the player must watch what’s going on around the kids and the island. Otherwise, it’s easy to miss a solution.

      Anyway, I really enjoyed this game. It reminds me a lot of Monument Valley. I also get the feeling that it’s not a very long game; I plan to play some more this weekend. Maybe I’ll even finish it. If you’re looking for something chill, you need a break from a more action-heavy game, this is it. Also the music is so relaxing; I could fall asleep to this easily!

      4 votes
  3. [3]
    CrazyProfessor02
    Link
    CrazyProfessor02's Bingo Card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25 ✅ 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 Card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25
    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
    ✅ Hades
    Has a fishing minigame An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game
    ✅ Bioshock 2 Remaster
    You can complete it in only a few hours
    Set in a dungeon Has a score system ★ Wildcard
    ✅ Party Hard
    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 on the First Game

    Bioshock 2 Remaster is the remaster of the forgotten sequel of Bioshock, which barely anyone talks about and I think I know why. In Bioshock 2, you play as one of the hardest enemies from the first game, a Big Daddy that is looking for a Little Sister that your character is bonded to. I did not get that far into the game mostly because it really did not hooked me, as the first one had and the third one really had. Like this one is probably like that of Dragon Age 2, its there but no one talks about because its follow up and previous games everyone loves and talks about it.

    Thoughts on the Second Game

    Party Hard. You play as a serial killer that is going around the US during Spring Break that is killing party goers, just because a party was keeping your character up. I only got to the Vegas Level and decided that this was not for me. Just found it boring.

    Thoughts on the Third Game

    Hades. This one really sucked my time, I was originally going to put down as "Set in a dungeon" without realizing that there are other spots that I could put this down. Like I can put it down as a game that "You can save/pet/care for animals," you can pet Cerberus in the main hub, or one that has a "Has a fishing minigame" even thou the fishing minigame is not that in depth. But ultimately I decided to put it down as "Focuses on relationships." The reasoning is that Zagreus needs his friendships with the other characters that is actively helping him in his quest to escape from the Underworld that his father, Hades, runs. Mostly because he wants to find what happened to his mother, Persephone, much to the annoyance of his father.

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      kfwyre
      Link Parent
      Focuses on relationships is a great slot for Hades — and not really an obvious choice. The depth of the character writing really surprised me in that game. I went in expecting it to be a beautiful...

      Focuses on relationships is a great slot for Hades — and not really an obvious choice.

      The depth of the character writing really surprised me in that game. I went in expecting it to be a beautiful and punchy action roguelike (which it 100% delivers on), but the way the devs tied progression into the character interactions through gifting was really smart and gives the game’s lore and narrative a lot of heft.

      8 votes
      1. CrazyProfessor02
        Link Parent
        I agree that the relationship aspect of Hades is really smartly integrated in the progression of the game. And it really shows the friendships that Zagreus has, and develops throughout the game,...

        I agree that the relationship aspect of Hades is really smartly integrated in the progression of the game. And it really shows the friendships that Zagreus has, and develops throughout the game, and the strain relationship that Hades and him have. I really had no idea of what to expect in Hades, when I went into it, so it was surprise to see that it had a relationship mechanic with the gift giving.

        I also agree that it is such a beautiful game.

        6 votes
  4. [2]
    CannibalisticApple
    Link
    The Card Mode: Golf Bingo! Finished 12/24 Owned for more than 3 years ✅ Portal 2 ✅ Pokémon Kanto Expansion Pak From a genre you don’t normally play Is beatable without killing any enemies ✅...
    The Card
    Mode: Golf Bingo! Finished 12/24
    Owned for more than 3 years It’s already installed
    ✅ Portal 2
    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
    ✅ Portal 2
    A romhack or total conversion mod
    ✅ Pokémon Kanto Expansion Pak
    Has a time limit
    Came out more than 7 years ago
    ✅ Portal 2
    You can create your own character Has a branching storyline “When the hell did I buy this?”
    Focuses on exploration
    ✅ Lost in Blue
    You started it but never completed it
    ✅ Lost in Blue
    Has a weather system
    ✅ Lost in Blue
    Has a fishing minigame
    ✅ Lost in Blue
    Is one of the oldest games you own
    ✅ Lost in Blue
    Uses a unique control scheme Popular game you never got around to playing
    ✅ Portal 2
    Has aliens Set in a dungeon Is mostly text-based

    I added two games to the burner this week: Portal 2 and Lost in Blue.

    Portal 2 needs no introduction. I started playing it and it's fun, still love the dialogue and am remembering how cool the portal mechanics are, but I paused playing it only just past GLaDOS's revival and getting the portal gun with two portals. I was playing it on the couch with my aunt watching TV, and she asked me to pause until she went to bed in like 20 minutes since the audio was bothering her. So, being nice and too lazy to get up to grab headphones, I stopped.

    However, what was in reach of the couch? My 3DS with a downloaded copy of Lost in Blue. It's a survival game for the DS where you're shipwrecked on an island. I marked it as "one of the oldest games I own" because A) it's from 2005, and B) I actually do own a physical copy. Somewhere. That copy has been missing for years now, and I've wanted to try playing it again because I kept dying a couple days in as a kid. So, I downloaded a copy of it to my 3DS.

    Thoughts on Lost in Blue

    So my first try, I died. I basically wasted the first day, and decided to let my character die on Day 2 because I couldn't fill my thirst or hunger. The thirst turned out to have a simple solution of stepping next to the river, which I did not do on my first day. So, yeah, rough start.

    The game can also be kinda bad at giving directions, and the controls are a bit bad. It uses the "A" button for most actions: searching, talking, climbing and jumping. It's also kinda bad at switching, because I have to reorient myself a LOT to talk to my fellow survivor instead of search the cave floor. So, I had no clue I could climb the ledges and thus couldn't reach any of the trees that had tree bark to make a fire starter tool. Though on my second game, some of the bark spawned on ground level, which is just plain unfair.

    Playing it now as an adult, I can see a bunch of design flaws/weaknesses and understand why I struggled as a kid. But, I am also a bit better now. I'd downloaded cheats because I remember my fellow survivor Skye dying a lot, but I haven't needed to use them because I'm actually decent now. The early game is VERY rough, but after getting a spear for fishing, Skye could make meals that are actually kinda filling. Better than the 4% or 11% you get from the clams, coconuts and seaweed, at least. And now that I've explored more of the island, I've found more stuff, like vegetables! Just wish it actually logged the recipes so I have an easy record of what's good.

    I've also had to consult walkthroughs a few times just because it's not always clear. The most notable example is a shortcut from the cave-base to the waterfall. There's a log you have to push, and then climb and jump to a nearby ledge. However, that ledge is partially hidden, and I also haven't been able to jump like that from other logs. It took finding an old Neoseeker post to understand where the shortcut mentioned by the walkthroughs was.

    On that note, the walkthroughs are very sparse. I think there's one on Neoseeker that's completed? I know another one ended right after the shortcut part I described in the above paragraph, with an unfulfilled promise to finish the walkthrough later. And looking up anything is likely to bring up results from Lost in Blue 2 or 3 instead. So, yeah.

    All this criticism aside though, I spent a few hours playing it yesterday instead of Portal 2. It's not the best game, but the gameplay loop is simple enough, and it's satisfying to see how much I can accomplish compared to when I was a kid. Just... Wish it was a bit clearer on the goals and gameplay instructions. My first attempt at making furniture failed because I had no explanation for how the minigame worked, or a warning there would even be a minigame.

    So that's my current Bingo summary! Hopefully I'll knock off another game before next week's thread and can ramble about it here.

    6 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      I was just tinkering around in Portal 1 when I ADHD'd my way onto Tildes and saw your comment. Serendipitous! Portal 2 is a great game. They made it a feature-length title, and managed to polish...

      I was just tinkering around in Portal 1 when I ADHD'd my way onto Tildes and saw your comment. Serendipitous!

      Portal 2 is a great game. They made it a feature-length title, and managed to polish all the little quirks and bugs out of the first game. To be honest, I do miss some of those quirks. I liked that portal projectiles having travel time, and portals created small platforms you could stand in. However, they made the whole experience much smoother, prettier, and still just as charming as the first game. I hope you enjoy the story and characters!

      If you ever get a chance, I recommend trying the co-op multiplayer mode, too. It's a completely separate campaign designed for two players. There's also quite a few workshop maps and standalone mods for even more content.

      I hadn't heard of Lost in Blue before, but I do like how it formed a complete row in your bingo card.

      4 votes
  5. [4]
    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    le card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 7/25 ✅ Deus Ex - Mankind Divided Has both combat and puzzles Has a campaign longer than 5 hours ✅ Subnautica Considered a disappointment Part of a trilogy ✅...
    le card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 7/25
    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
    ✅ Subnautica
    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
    ✅ Warpips
    Is mostly text-based
    ✅ Moonring
    It’s already installed
    ✅ The Falconeer
    Is one of the oldest games you own Has cards
    le games

    Subnautica: Extremely well acclaimed game loved by hundreds of thousands of people. I knew of the game and was expecting some minor crafting and major exploration, it appears to be a major component in both categories and I greatly dislike crafting games. It's pretty and aside from trying to build a base while floating in three dimensional space being more troublesome than I like, it's not a bad game at all for the hour or so I played it. Just not a game for me. I also dislike "remember to eat/drink" survival games, but I played on the second mode where I don't have to play the game like it's a high resolution Tamagotchi.

    Warpips: Basic tug-of-war RTS game, not bad, semi-good variety of troops, played on the hardest mode, still found it a bit too easy once you're past the first island as playing smart as it becomes relatively quick to build up a good cache of troops to use. I've played a lot of this style of game, typically on mobile and this one could easily be there too with its voxel graphics. Not a bad time waster, but not worth keeping on my computer, would keep it on my phone if there was an Android version. Seems to be PC and console only though.

    The Falconeer: Only game from this week that is still installed. Beautiful game, interesting story, well narrated and fully voiced, am through the first chapter now, will come back to it after the backlog burner is over. Hope there is more variety of weapons/falcons/gear after the first chapter, but am will not be disappointed if not as I've only tried a couple of strategies so far.

    le note...

    I'm not actually trying for a Bingo; if it happens, it happens (like real bingo). In fact, I'm not even choosing the games I'm playing. I'm letting a friend pick random numbers of the backlogged games I have installed already and just going from there.

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      Despite authoring the bingo app, I've also chosen to deemphasize my card this time around. I think the visual display of it is very helpful, and for those of us with large libraries, the...

      Despite authoring the bingo app, I've also chosen to deemphasize my card this time around. I think the visual display of it is very helpful, and for those of us with large libraries, the categories can really help us narrow down the selection. However, I had a short list of titles going in, so I'm backfitting them a little bit this time around. Many of my submissions only fit a single category (on a golf card), and that's okay. The goal is still the backlog. Getting a bingo, should it happen, is just a nice bonus. :)

      The Falconeer always struck me as a very nice looking title. Good to see a positive first impression. I'm actually quite interested in trying it in VR. I've always liked flying in games, but flying in VR is a completely different sensation.

      7 votes
      1. AugustusFerdinand
        Link Parent
        The Falconeer is worth a shot. I don't have VR, but just watched a couple of clips of it and I'm kinda disappointed it's not in first person in VR. I get it as part of the UI is actually needing...

        The Falconeer is worth a shot. I don't have VR, but just watched a couple of clips of it and I'm kinda disappointed it's not in first person in VR. I get it as part of the UI is actually needing to see the energy canisters that are on the back of the falcon (think Dead Space backpack) and part of the gameplay is tracking targets by turning the camera view while flying a different direction, so it will probably still work great, but not give a 100% feeling as if you're the falconeer.
        Always loved flying and flying games, hadn't thought about those with VR, so might have to borrow a friend's headset to try it out.

        4 votes
    2. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      This is the most Actual Bingo way to play Backlog Bingo. Random numbers get called and maybe there will be a win? I love it!

      I'm not actually trying for a Bingo; if it happens, it happens (like real bingo). In fact, I'm not even choosing the games I'm playing. I'm letting a friend pick random numbers of the backlogged games I have installed already and just going from there.

      This is the most Actual Bingo way to play Backlog Bingo. Random numbers get called and maybe there will be a win?

      I love it!

      6 votes
  6. [6]
    Wes
    (edited )
    Link
    I have a little less time this week, so I'm going to post my titles as separate comments and try to add more as I go. I'll also provide a quick update of my previous titles here. I'm now up to 60...

    I have a little less time this week, so I'm going to post my titles as separate comments and try to add more as I go. I'll also provide a quick update of my previous titles here.

    I'm now up to 60 shines in Super Mario Eclipse. That'd be half of them in regular Sunshine, but I'm afraid I'm only a quarter of the way there in the romhack. I never intended on 100%ing it, but it's going better than expected. I even managed to get through the hidden pachinko and lily pad stages without losing all of my sanity, somehow.

    I haven't played much further in Remnant 2, yet. Hopefully this coming week!

    Bingo Card (Custom Golf/Flux) - 15/25 Filled
    Mode: Custom Bingo! Finished 15/25
    A modded game
    ✅ Half-Life 2: VR Mod
    Uses procedural generation
    ✅ Remnant II
    Focuses on relationships An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game
    ✅ Portal with RTX
    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
    ✅ Praey for the Gods
    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
    ✅ Golf Club Nostalgia
    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
    ✅ Golf Club Nostalgia
    Has a lives system A romhack or total conversion mod
    ✅ Super Mario Eclipse
    Has a time limit
    ✅ Praey for the Gods
    From a studio you haven't heard of before
    ✅ Golf Club Nostalgia
    Has cards
    5 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      Praey for the Gods I enjoyed this one a lot. Praey for the Gods is an open-world indie title created by just three people. It takes heavy inspiration from Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus, which...
      • Exemplary

      Praey for the Gods

      I enjoyed this one a lot.

      Praey for the Gods is an open-world indie title created by just three people. It takes heavy inspiration from Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus, which will quickly become evident. The game revolves around you climbing on monsters, destroying weak spots, and trying your darndest not to get flung off.

      I actually Kickstarted this game way back in 2016. I tested the first build in 2019, defeating the few available bosses at the time. It fully released in 2021, and here I am playing it in 2024. Note that originally it was titled "Prey for the Gods", but Bethesda's lawyers put a quick stop to that.

      When I first tested the game years ago, I was surprised that it placed such an emphasis on its survival mechanics. The game takes place in a harsh tundra, and you need to manage your heat, sleep, and food bars to survive. I don't necessarily mind these kinds of mechanics, but I do think they can detract from a more focused experience, and I did find that to be the case here.

      Thankfully, in the full release they've added more fine-grained controls over the realism features. They also turned them down by default. I stuck with the standard mode which basically grants more stamina and health recovery if you're topped up on all resistances, but only extreme cold can kill you.

      The game features crafting and upgrading. Taking care of your gear is important, as everything has durability and it will break on you. This sounds annoying, however I found that durability only ever presented a problem at the very start, and soon I was swimming in excess gear and supplies. For this problem they added a deconstruct feature to break things down into constituent parts. For those who would rather opt-out completely though, this feature too can be disabled under settings.

      Unlike Shadow of the Colossus (henceforth just Shadow), there is combat outside of the bosses. It's hack n' slashy, though clearly Souls-inspired with iframe rolling and stamina management. This style of combat doesn't play a major role in the game, but does add another gameplay activity between boss encounters. The included bow also allows for simple hunting, with animals providing a good source of materials and food.

      The overworld is pretty sizable, and is covered in ice, snowy crags, and scattered ruins. It's also littered with caves and secrets to find. These often reward upgrade materials that let you improve your stamina or health. I suggest upgrading stamina every time, as climbing plays such a major role in the game.

      The climbing will feel very familiar if you've played Shadow. While minding your stamina meter, you need to find platforms or stable slopes to rest on before venturing further. This can pose a challenge when the thing you're climbing is trying to shake you loose.

      Essentially, each boss acts as a climbing puzzle. You need to figure out how to effectively navigate them. This is the main hook of the game, and remained my favourite part of playing. Most bosses offer a unique mechanic of some sort, and may need to be weakened before they can be mounted.

      I think my favourite moment was shooting down a giant bird, it crash landing beside me, then having it take to the air while I was trying to find its weak spot. I could only hold on for dear life.

      Sometimes the climbing could also be a source of frustration. It seems these monsters just do not want to behave. Why won't they let me kill them? Admittedly I felt some of those same frustrations when playing the original Shadow, and that's one of my favourite games of all time, so I'm willing to cut Praey some slack. I do think it's a game that requires a lot of patience, and that's by design. Rome wasn't climbed in a day, and neither are these creatures.

      There's a few additional forms of locomotion in addition to climbing. Primarily, the grappling hook. A number of surface materials allow you to grapple directly to them. This not only saves a ton of time over manually climbing them, but it's very satisfying to do, too. Grappling is also great in a pinch when you fall, as you're granted some bullet time to choose your target whilst in the air.

      In addition to the grapple is the hang glider. If you haven't already considered it, the comparison to Breath of the Wild is inevitable at this point. Yes it is common to climb to a high point then glide over to a distant one. Yes your tools degrade and break. The glider can be upgraded, and thankfully does not use durability. It can however veer off course during a snowstorm, so watch for that.

      Praey took me about ten hours to finish. I know there's more to find in the open world, but I'm satisfied with the game and am ready to put it down now.

      This is the second game that I've played as part of the Backlog Burner that I originally Kickstarted. The first was Blasphemous, which I played through back in May. I don't often Kickstart games these days, but I'm glad to have supported these titles and gladder still to finally play through them. It's also kind of cool to see my name in the credits after finishing.

      7 votes
    2. [2]
      Wes
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Golf Club Nostalgia A golf game for my golf card So, this was an interesting little game. Ostensibly this is a sports game, but I'm not sure that's right. Certainly you do play golf, but I can't...

      Golf Club Nostalgia

      A golf game for my golf card

      So, this was an interesting little game. Ostensibly this is a sports game, but I'm not sure that's right. Certainly you do play golf, but I can't help but feel it's just the medium through which to tell a story.

      The story being told is one of a destroyed Earth. I'll avoid giving direct spoilers, but that much is obvious from the game's screenshots and description. Throughout the game, a radio broadcast plays in the background. The broadcast is being streamed from the Martian surface, which humanity has migrated to after this disaster befell Earth.

      Over time, we learn more about the calamity, the migration, and what life is now like for Martian denizens, entirely through the radio. Different guests are interviewed, songs are sung, and some of them are quite beautiful. During the talk radio sections, there's a fair bit of humour, such as the host trying to explain that because Martian days are slightly longer, the duration of a second was simply increased to maintain the 24 hour day.

      I honestly think this experience could have worked almost as well in a podcast or audiobook format. We would miss out on seeing the remnants of Earth, but those interviews and stories being shared were the highlight of the game.

      As for the golfing gameplay itself, it was okay. There were some interesting gimmicks along the way (shortcuts, interactable objects), and the physics felt smooth. I did find the power bar was a little hard to read, as the indicator changed depending on your zoom level. It was also occasionally unclear which objects were foreground (solid), or background (you'd pass through).

      I chose to play on Challenge mode over Story mode, and in hindsight I think this was a mistake. Challenge mode requires you beat par to proceed through a level, and some levels were pretty frustrating. It sort of breaks the flow of the story when you need to restart a 16 par hole because you went one stroke over.

      I think this is meant to be a ponderous game. One you play to relax and immersive yourself into the world. Maybe "cozy" is the word? To that end, the game does take things slow. There's long transitions between screens, and after each shot, you need to wait for your character to jetpack over to the ball. I do appreciate the deliberateness of this approach, but I will say that by the half-way point I was desperately wishing the "Reset hole" button didn't take long to activate. Another reason I'd recommend just playing in Story mode.

      It should only take 2-3 hours to play through Golf Club Nostalgia. It does lend itself well to smaller sessions though, as I think the game may have been designed first for mobile phones. That's based mostly on the oversized UI elements, and the dragging controls being inverted of what I'd expect on desktop. There is thankfully a setting to change this.

      Similar to Praey for the Gods, this game was also renamed due to a trademark dispute. The old name was Golf Club: Wasteland, but honestly, I think the new name fits better. It is very much about embracing nostalgia, even if it's a kind of nostalgia we can't recognize (yet).

      If you're looking for a meditative experience and need to kill a few hours, I'd say it's worth taking a shot on Golf Club Nostalgia.

      5 votes
      1. kfwyre
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        This game is actually on my shortlist of things I’m considering playing for the Backlog Burner, so it’s cool to see it show up on yours. I knew nothing about the game other than “golf + decent...

        This game is actually on my shortlist of things I’m considering playing for the Backlog Burner, so it’s cool to see it show up on yours. I knew nothing about the game other than “golf + decent reviews,” so I appreciate you sharing that it’s got interesting narrative elements. That definitely piques my interest.

        Might have to see if I can slot this one into my card before the month is out.

        2 votes
    3. Wes
      Link Parent
      Portal with RTX So I went into this one with zero intention of submitting this as a bingo entry. I was simply testing out a graphics card upgrade, and thought I'd see what this "ray tracing" stuff...

      Portal with RTX

      So I went into this one with zero intention of submitting this as a bingo entry. I was simply testing out a graphics card upgrade, and thought I'd see what this "ray tracing" stuff was all about. But I started playing it, and then I kept playing it, and then I finished it. What can I say? I love Portal. I still might not have submitted this as an entry, except I had a category called "An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game", which is basically a perfect fit. So, here are are!

      This is definitely not my first playthrough of the game itself. Portal is a title I revisit every few years, just when the solutions have faded enough for me to rediscover them. It's not an especially hard game, though I still enjoy reliving those "Aha!" moments when they come. This time at least, I did go through the Advanced Chambers, and they took a little more noodling to figure out. In fact, I'm pretty sure I brute forced a couple solutions in unintended ways. But hey, it worked, and I love that my dumb solutions were just as valid as any other.

      I don't have too much to say about the RTX (ray tracing) stuff. The lighting was fancier, the buttons were translucent, and everything was extremely reflective. I suspect it was somewhat over-the-top because it served as a demonstration, but I don't feel it actually added much to the game. It also kept crashing, but that's probably because I have a 30 series card and it's currently undervolted. I understand this release requires a pretty beefy card to play smoothly, and I was pushing my limits.

      I'm reminded of an XKCD comic about playing games on a five-year lag. It makes a lot of sense, and I think it's just as valid now as it was then. There's no point in trying to play titles like Portal with RTX if you can only get 15fps. But in a few generations when RTX is a common feature and not considered so expensive to run, I think it'll make more sense.

      No matter how it looks though, I think Portal will always have a place in my heart. It feels like an indie project that was given life. And in some ways, it was. Kim Swift was the lead designer on Portal after prototyping the idea with Narbacular Drop in her DigiPen days. Valve scooped their team up and made it into a proper game. Both titles play very similarly, except in Narbacular the portals could be shot through portals, which really added to the complexity.

      Anyway, I know everyone is already familiar with Portal so I'll not go on garrulously. I'll just say that it remains a very comfortable and nostalgic title for me, and even the parts that can feel a little hokey today ("The cake is a lie!!") will still bring a smile to my face. Also, Jonathan Coulton is a musical genius, and I love the Companion Cube. There, I said it!

      4 votes
    4. Wes
      Link Parent
      Half-Life 2: VR Mod I just submitted an entry for Portal, but here comes another classic Source engine game. This week is, apparently, the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2. The timing is a complete...

      Half-Life 2: VR Mod

      I just submitted an entry for Portal, but here comes another classic Source engine game.

      This week is, apparently, the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2. The timing is a complete coincidence, but it's fitting then that I played the excellent VR mod for it. There's no tinkering with mod files required for this one, since it has an official release on Steam.

      To start with, the VR adaption is excellent. There's been a significant number of changes to the HUD, the controls, and the menus to make it play better in VR. They even included VR-specific weapon controls, such as pulling back on guns to reload, throwing grenades, and of course swinging your crowbar.

      The dev team has taken some heavy inspiration from the mechanics in Half-Life: Alyx, so if you've played that it will feel familiar. You can interact with physical objects using either hand, and select from a variety of weapons with your dominant hand.

      The mod also includes a number of locomotion options such as teleport and smooth movement, and the usual comfort options are included. The vehicle sections in particular have had a ton of comfort settings added, such as a rolling top-down camera camera, or fixed camera positions to reduce nausea. It's tough to adapt a pancake game to the VR form factor, but their team did an incredible job.

      However, even with all the player considerations in the world, there is still a large difference between a game adapted to VR, and one designed for it.

      Half-Life 2 is a shockingly frenetic game in VR. In the first chapter alone, you have combine descending on you in packs, dropping explosive barrels, and releasing manhacks. Zombies lurch out of the water at you, and a gunship tries to pin you down. It's exhausting in VR!

      I recently played through Half-Life: Alyx with the commentary on, and Valve spoke a lot about the design decisions that went into the game. Pacing was a huge consideration, and they made sure to give the player long breaks after bouts of intense action to let them cool down, rest their arms, and generally take a breather. In HL2 however, outside of a few physics puzzles, there's far fewer breaks in the action.

      Some parts of the original design did hold up extremely well though, and even shine brighter in VR. One example is the dynamic cutscene system. In Half-Life 2, they (almost) never lock your camera in place or prevent you from moving. Instead, the actors will adapt to you. They turn to face you when speaking with you, and maintain eye contact in an engaging way. This not only makes their characters feel more alive and dynamic, but it works perfectly in VR to create a comfortable and engaging experience. In comparison, if you've ever done the Skyrim intro in VR, you know just how unpleasant an "on rails" cutscene can be.

      The game defaults to easy, and for good reason, I think. Compared to HL:Alyx, the enemies are often more distant and as a result your shots can actually be tough to make. Or maybe I'm just not very good at shooting guns. Either way, having to manually reload while pulling ammo from your backpack, all while under fire - well, you can imagine that this is a lot tougher compared to standard keyboard and mouse controls.

      Despite all the comfort settings, I found I did start feeling motion sick after about an hour of play. I think that's on me, as I usually play with teleport locomotion but opted instead for smooth movement. However, it may be a title that requires a bit more of an iron stomach, if you've not developed your VR legs yet.

      I still had a blast with the game though. Even twenty years later, Half-Life 2 is still a fantastic game that holds up today. Source's physics engine is still tough to beat, and the environmental storytelling in City 17 remains top tier. I also couldn't believe how good the music sounded as the combine swarmed my position, and as I batted away manhacks with my crowbar.

      It's a solid game, and a solid VR port. The dev team also completed ports of Episodes One and Two, if you want even more VR action.

      I'm sure they'll begin working on Episode Three any day now.

      2 votes
  7. [4]
    deathinactthree
    Link
    deathinactthree's bingo card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25 Considered a disappointment You can save/pet/care for animals From now-defunct dev studio ✅Cave Story+ Has a lives system You...
    deathinactthree's bingo card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 4/25
    Considered a disappointment You can save/pet/care for animals From now-defunct dev studio A solo-dev project
    ✅Cave Story+
    Has a lives system
    You control a party of characters You're giving it a second chance Nominated for The Game Awards
    ✅ Celeste
    A modded game Features a mystery
    Has permadeath Recommended by someone on Tildes ★ Wildcard Has driving Has a third-person perspective
    ✅ Ariel_Knight's Never Yield
    Has a skill tree Is considered relaxing A romhack or total conversion mod
    ✅ Project Borealis: Prologue
    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

    Project Borealis: Prologue

    I thought this would count as a total conversion mod for the bingo card, but it was a tech demo if I'm being extremely generous. There is literally no meat on this bone--it's meant to be a prequel to the Ravenholm level of Half Life 2, but it's just a few rooms full of headcrab zombies with some upgraded lighting and it's over. I never want to slam the modding community in general, but the trailer for it is as long as the actual game is. If I seem disappointed it's because I felt like it was a bit oversold. I might swap this out with another actual TC mod like Archolos if I have time to get to it.

    Ariel_Knight's Never Yield

    A 3D endless runner game with a frame story, set in a futuristic Detroit. Gameplay is the typical simple style for this game with directional controls (and a jump button if you want to use it), which is why it's a little odd it doesn't seem to be available for any portable platform except the Switch and Steam Deck.

    It's very solid, and for better or worse there's not too much to say about it beyond that--graphics are great for this style of game, soundtrack is a standout, it's the kind of game you don't need to know much going in and can just kind of zone out to the beat and follow the colored instructions, as that how it announces the button you need to hit for each obstacle. All the more reason it seems odd you can't get this on a phone or tablet, as it seems it would excel there.

    Celeste

    An extremely well-made precision platformer game in the spirit of Super Meat Boy but with slightly (slightly) less challenge and more heart and visual style. An overall vibe that will take you back to the True Dark Souls Starts Here platforming of the old NES days. I am terrible at this game so far. I couldn't get even close to completing it, but I understand that's probably the typical story. I see myself going back to this and beating my head against it again in the future, but it probably won't be before the end of this month so I'm writing this now. Highly recommended if you like Super Meat Boy or N or similar precision platformers where frustration is expected and desired. Unironically.

    Cave Story+

    This kinda felt like cheating, as it's both one of the most popular PC solo dev projects, and also I completed the original Cave Story almost exactly 20 years ago (released December of 2004) on an old Acer gaming laptop that I had in college. But I bought the update several years ago and never played it, and going back to it honestly was a bit like going home for Gaming Christmas.

    It's a "metroidvania-lite", in the sense that the overall structure and gameplay are the same but it's comparatively linear without a ton of backtracking (but some! secrets await in backtracking!). It has a story that is just compelling enough for a game this relatively simple and short. I ran through it in about 5 hours, didn't quite 100% it and got the Normal Ending. The biggest thing working against me was coming straight off Celeste, which has hyper-precise platforming controls, whereas Quote jumps more like Luigi in Super Mario Bros. 2. It occasionally drove me nuts.

    But it's a great game, and is almost like comfort food for me after not having played it in 2 decades. The upgraded graphics are nice but not game-changing vs. the original, just a bit of zhuzsh. The soundtrack however is significantly improved and pretty terrific. I highly recommend this game if you just want to chill for an afternoon and play an old-school-style platform shooter that isn't too challenging but isn't too brainless either.

    5 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      Love Cave Story! To me it was the game that really defined what "indie gaming" even was. I agree the platforming isn't all that much to write home about, but the characters, the secrets, and oh...

      Love Cave Story! To me it was the game that really defined what "indie gaming" even was. I agree the platforming isn't all that much to write home about, but the characters, the secrets, and oh man the soundtrack are all so good. Comfort food is a good description.

      I also played through Celeste somewhat recently, and really enjoyed it. It definitely gets tough. I have a lot of history with precision platformers, but the last chapter took me as long as all the other chapters combined.

      It's funny that you compare it to Super Meat Boy, because arguably that was inspired by the Celeste creator's earlier games, the Jumper series. Their title character, Ogmo, even appears in Super Meat Boy as an unlockable character. So in that sense it's come full circle.

      Some great picks overall.

      2 votes
    2. [2]
      kfwyre
      Link Parent
      Kind of cool to see Never Yield pop up — I actually tried it out quite recently myself! It only has 77 Steam reviews, so I assume the game isn’t very well known at all. That said, did you run into...

      Kind of cool to see Never Yield pop up — I actually tried it out quite recently myself! It only has 77 Steam reviews, so I assume the game isn’t very well known at all.

      That said, did you run into any timing issues? I was playing it on my Deck and it felt unresponsive, like my input were way off. I ended up bouncing off of it quickly, despite liking it conceptually.

      2 votes
      1. deathinactthree
        Link Parent
        I can honestly say I didn't notice any timing or lag issues. FWIW I played it on my Linux mini-PC (AMD Ryzen 9, Radeon 6600M, Pop_OS) via Heroic Launcher, though I don't know that that's useful...

        I can honestly say I didn't notice any timing or lag issues. FWIW I played it on my Linux mini-PC (AMD Ryzen 9, Radeon 6600M, Pop_OS) via Heroic Launcher, though I don't know that that's useful info.

        I didn't realize that it was that unknown, which is kind of a shame, it's a quality version of this kind of game and I generally don't care for endless runner games.

        2 votes
  8. [3]
    aphoenix
    (edited )
    Link
    My card - Mode: Standard | Bingo! | Finished 7/25 Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 7/25 ✅ Wilderless ✅ FPS Chess Recursion ✅ Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator ✅ Warhammer 40,000: Darktide ✅ Super Mega...
    My card - Mode: Standard | Bingo! | Finished 7/25
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 7/25
    Discovery
    ✅ Wilderless
    Nostalgia
    ✅ FPS Chess
    Recursion Peace
    ✅ Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator
    Annihilation
    ✅ Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
    Order
    ✅ Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings
    Memory Absence Precision Endurance
    Lost
    ✅ Victoria 3
    Fragmentation ★ Wildcard Connection Dimension
    Empathy Organic Synthesis Darkness Mystery
    Adaptation
    ✅ Slant
    Truth Belonging Courage Sound
    The Games

    Victoria 3 - "Lost". This game felt like a bit of a mix of Cities: Skylines and Civ, and I tried to get into it for 30 or 40 minutes, but found myself pretty lost and not particularly interested. Maybe because it's the third, or maybe for some other reason, but this game really didn't work for me on the day I tried it out. I want to come back to it when I take some time off at the end of the year and see if I can un-lose myself, because I've been looking for a new game in this genre. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself to like it? I'm not sure. It was certainly a beautiful game in this genre (management / civilization sim) but I felt myself wishing I was playing either Civ VI or Cities Skylines the entire time I was muddling through the tutorial.

    Slant - "Adaptation". This game is from Simon Tatham's Puzzles, which I play on Android, but this specific puzzle game can be played on the website for Simon Tatham's puzzles. I'm not new to the games, but this is one that I had looked at, played one time, then never returned to. Recently someone made a comment suggesting these puzzle games, and then listed Slant specifically as one to play. Having not found this one to be particularly engaging, I needed to adapt and overcome my own disinclination to play it, so I sought it out and tried it. I upped the difficulty and played it, and now it's on my list of favourites in the app.

    Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator - "Peace". This is a 3D first person game that is very reminiscent of Stardew Valley. You are in charge of a little garden, which you weed, plant, water, and care for. There's a little town to go to to buy things, and a little cast of characters. It's a really beautiful game so far (only an hour or so in) and very relaxing. This was from a recent Humble Choice, and I mostly thought that my daughter would love it, but I have enjoyed going through the first few days of Gardening, and I will most likely return to this after this month is over and play some more.

    Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - "Annihilation". Also from a recent Humble Choice; I installed it because I saw my brother playing it and wanted to play with him. However, it turns out that he is mostly installing and uninstalling and reinstalling and not actually playing because he's having loads of problems. I created an Ogryn, modelled him after myself, and started killing space trash. Thus far... it seems like pretty middle of the road FPS stuff. I'm not enthralled. But that sounds of heresy, so maybe I'm just supposed to yell FOR THE GOD EMPOROR and start shooting space trash?

    FPS Chess - "Nostalgia". Did you ever play BattleChess? This isn't as good, but it's not bad - certainly worth what I paid (I believe it is free). I had told my son about BattleChess, and he wanted to find a chess game where there was a fight when you took the pieces, and so he did! Every time you try to take an opponent's piece, a first person shooter style interaction happens and you try to kill each other. Spoiler alert: pawn does NOT take Queen. Nothing takes Queen. Queen has a frigging machine gun. This was fun and silly and we'll probably play some more. Its the only way my son currently beats me at chess.

    Side note for Wes, just in case - if the card looks wonky, it's because I copied it from the previous card and manually edited it. I did this because I'm dumb; the tab with my bingo card is on my laptop and I have been playing on my desktop. This was poor planning. Any weirdness with the card is manually introduced.

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      Wes
      Link Parent
      I like using "Lost" to describe your reaction, rather than the game itself. Totally fair, and exactly how I feel when playing most of these grand strategy games. Simon Tatham's puzzle collection...

      I like using "Lost" to describe your reaction, rather than the game itself. Totally fair, and exactly how I feel when playing most of these grand strategy games.

      Simon Tatham's puzzle collection is great. I spent over a year playing the nonograms (called "Pattern" in the collection) before bed, and now I get a sleepy Pavlovian response to them.

      Despite having the collection installed on my phone for years now, I haven't actually bothered to learn most of the games. Slant was among those unplayed, so I just gave it a go. It seems fun! I wasn't expecting the "no loops" rule to matter so much, but even rectangular and larger loops still crop up with relative frequency.

      On my first attempt, I thought I had a valid solution, but the game didn't recognize it. Clicking Solve showed a different solution. I'm not sure if I misunderstood a rule that made my approach invalid, or if I just missed a number, but it seems like there's a single intended solution anyway.

      Simon seems like a clever duck. He's also the author of PuTTY, and a number of other popular system utilities.

      Side note for Wes, just in case - if the card looks wonky, it's because I copied it from the previous card and manually edited it.

      Thanks for the heads up! And you're completely right, I immediately double checked the markdown to see why "Slant" wasn't being bolded, etc. I wanted to add an import/export feature to the app, but didn't have the time/energy this go around. Hopefully I'll make it easier to move between devices in the future.

      If you really wanted to, you could edit the local storage data with your browser's dev tools. It's a little technical, but I'd be happy to step you through it if you'd like.

      3 votes
      1. aphoenix
        Link Parent
        Like Slant, I had mostly skipped over Pattern, so I have some fodder for next week. My favourites of the games are Galaxies, Loopy (Penrose tilings are awesome), Map, Towers, and Unequal. Unruly...

        Like Slant, I had mostly skipped over Pattern, so I have some fodder for next week. My favourites of the games are Galaxies, Loopy (Penrose tilings are awesome), Map, Towers, and Unequal. Unruly and Undead have been on the list at times, but I found a weird thing with the settings I normally play Undead, where it would require a large number of one sort of monster (say 18 Vampires) and low numbers of the other, even at relatively high difficulties. I might need to adjust the size or something to break this out of some kind of funk.

        I also have a soft spot for Rectangles, but that's because I worked on a version of this game at one point. That's actually how I was introduced to Simon Tatham's puzzles - I showed a friend a bit of the maths I was using to generate the fields in my game "Fields" and he said, "This is just Rectangles from Simon Tatham's Puzzles" and of course it was, just worse.

        And regarding moving the data to the right computer, I should definitely do so. I've just grabbed a copy of the local storage off this laptop, and I'll copy it into location this evening.

        2 votes
  9. [4]
    Eidolon
    (edited )
    Link
    No Man's Sky No Man's Sky had been languishing on my wishlist for years, stubbornly remaining one of the few popular space-sims I'd yet to try. So, after a historically low sale recently, it felt...

    No Man's Sky

    No Man's Sky had been languishing on my wishlist for years, stubbornly remaining one of the few popular space-sims I'd yet to try. So, after a historically low sale recently, it felt like an obligatory purchase. Fifteen hours in, I'm still playing through the extremely long and branching tutorial while progressing the main quests. I've farmed up a lot of materials so that I can explore freely for long stretches and not have to worry about constraints.

    My excitement after all the initial build-up to leave the starting system was dampened after I entered into a pre-discovered system with planets named by someone else that were very crude and misogynistic. But after I was able to clear their trail after a few jumps, I found myself in uncharted territory. At first I was all about discovering every planet in the system, which requires entering the atmosphere, but that wore off pretty quickly as the vastness started to make everything less significant. Not long after I became disillusioned with questing given that it just assigns your mission destination to whatever planet or system you're located near. Let's be real though, when it comes to games with a procedurally generated persistent world to explore, I've yet to find enough satisfaction to invest much of my time - Elite Dangerous being a case in point.

    The craft-based progression for tech and base-building is easily the most satisfying aspect of the game. After my eyesore of a first base, I started an outpost on a hot pink paradise planet. Architecturally it draws from urban Tatooine, except in a soft pink clay with a touch of intricate stonework. I like that they've opted for ease of deployment, with simple placement and flexibility to move objects later.

    The instance based approach to multiplayer is odd. You can access a communal area anywhere but unless you're grouped up you don't interact with anyone. There's some minimal simulated NPC traffic outside space stations, but apart from that there's only scripted interactions (pirate encounter, trader, etc.) in wider space. This unfortunately makes the universe seem quite lifeless, certainly compared to a game such as X4.

    The story itself is a little difficult to follow because everything comes in short bursts of messages. I don't really know what's happening half the time, but this at least maintains an element of surprise.

    I did end up teleporting to one of the 'featured' bases, a treehouse, and ended up getting stuck there and having to re-load an old save. But that planet was easily my favourite yet, with gorgeous dusky lavender grass, giant pre-historic palm trees and lots of friendly dinosaur-like mutant creatures ambling around. Other than one inhospitable planet, I've yet to find a self-discovered planet that has blown me away, although that's an incentive to keep exploring.

    I like that I can dip into the game and just casually roam around a bit, maybe craft something new, progress a quest line somewhat and then call it a day. It's quite relaxing and chill (that is, if you're not forced to undertake missions on planets with high sentinel activity - little robots that shoot on sight). I can see myself keeping No Man's Sky on the slow-burn...although I'd hesitate to recommend it unless you're dead keen on crafting. Regular and large updates are still being deployed despite Light No Fire being in the pipeline, which is pretty impressive. Persistent co-op would be the biggest drawcard for me with Light No Fire...but if it's a singleplayer re-skin of No Man's Sky then I'll pass.

    Catch everyone next week. I've got 2 more games to complete a Bingo line!

    EDIT: Updated to include another game! Post below.

    Updated Bingo Card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25
    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
    ✅ No Man's Sky
    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
    ✅ Cloud Gardens
    5 votes
    1. Eidolon
      Link Parent
      Cloud Gardens Cloud Gardens is a post-apocalyptic zen placement game with light puzzle mechanics. Perhaps it's a reflection of the times, but I'm increasingly a fan of chill games that are...

      Cloud Gardens

      Cloud Gardens is a post-apocalyptic zen placement game with light puzzle mechanics. Perhaps it's a reflection of the times, but I'm increasingly a fan of chill games that are beautiful and simplistic. Cloud Gardens fulfills the 'minimalistic vibe' category because: (a) the scene is just a tiny block of abandoned land or urban architecture; (b) its lo-fi soundtrack generative soundtrack is sparse; (c) it has a pixelated aesthetic; and (d) it doesn't have a written story and has a very short gameplay loop.

      The 'story mode' presents you with a diorama setpiece and a collection of random items that you can place, one at a time. Most of the time it is industrial debris - road signs, car tyres, cones etc. Either on the scene itself or in your inventory, you can activate or place a seed that spawns a growing plant. Once this flowers you can harvest them and when you accumulate enough, you can place another seed. The planting mechanic is fundamental, since plants will grow once you place the objects near them. The more the plants grow the more points you get and when you hit the target, you can move on to the next scene. It's essentially a coverage mechanic, since you'll get your points when the plants are growing over all the objects you place.

      It's immensely satisfying presiding over the re-wilding of a sliver of urban wasteland. So far, it hasn't been very challenging to reach my point target on the first go, but I'm enjoying the aesthetic aspect of it the most. You can collect new types of seeds in order to build up a card collection of species that you can select from in future sessions. There's something cathartic about nature taking the built environment as its trellis rather than being stamped over and manicured into submission. I've always loved overgrown abandoned ruins so this is right up my alley.

      There's also a creative mode which I haven't tried yet but will when I finish the story and there are tools to share your setpieces with others. Apparently, the developer is finished with major updates and there's no modding support so it's a bit of a dead end as far as the game's future is concerned - and the Discord isn't so active anymore. But Cloud Gardens still a little gem that's worth polishing when you're tired and feeling discouraged about the world - although I will say it is a little expensive at base price so wait for a sale. I should probably get into real gardening though...one day!

      3 votes
    2. [2]
      JCPhoenix
      Link Parent
      My friends and I tried out NMS a couple years ago. I think all of us only played after that big updated that "fixed" the game. While it was cool at the start, it definitely lost its luster pretty...

      My friends and I tried out NMS a couple years ago. I think all of us only played after that big updated that "fixed" the game. While it was cool at the start, it definitely lost its luster pretty quickly. Since it's primarily an exploration game, everything else just kinda seems bolted on.

      The multiplayer, especially. Which I think is for sure for got bolted-on, as that was one of the key criticisms/request when the game initially came out. There were probably like 6 or 7 of us at the start. One of the big problems we had was people's bases going missing. Someone would logoff, but then come back, and their base building would be gone. Even if some of us were still in the same area. Or the base properly saved at first, they came back to add-on to it, left again, came back later, but the new stuff wasn't there. All that effort gone. That happened to 2 or 3 people, so they quit completely.

      After a handful of days, it was just two of us left. And the exploration started to get repetitive. Millions of stars and planets, but they all felt the same. Even discovering ruins and such stopped being exciting.

      And I wanted to like it, but in the end, it just wasn't for me. Or any of my friends.

      1 vote
      1. Eidolon
        Link Parent
        Yeah I feel similarly about exploration. I wasn't aware of the issue of base disappearance (though I haven't tried multiplayer) - that's rough.

        Yeah I feel similarly about exploration. I wasn't aware of the issue of base disappearance (though I haven't tried multiplayer) - that's rough.

        2 votes
  10. [8]
    Evie
    (edited )
    Link
    This week's writeups in the replies. Thank you to everyone who's read them thus far :) Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 0/25 Call of the Sea Fear Prey (2017) Paradise Killer Courage Dead Space...

    This week's writeups in the replies. Thank you to everyone who's read them thus far :)

    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 0/25
    Beauty
    Call of the Sea
    Fear Silence
    Prey (2017)
    Order
    Paradise Killer
    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
    3 votes
    1. [5]
      Evie
      Link Parent
      Spoilers follow! I do not spoil any of the major twists, but do discuss the game's premise, lore, and some minor details relating to the structure of the ending. Prey (2017): Silence It has come...
      • Exemplary

      Spoilers follow! I do not spoil any of the major twists, but do discuss the game's premise, lore, and some minor details relating to the structure of the ending.

      Prey (2017): Silence

      It has come to my attention that I’ve been playing a lot of space station games this month – Dead Space, Tacoma, now Prey: all tell the story of some horrible disaster happening onboard a space station. Not just games, either; recently I’ve been reading Harrow the Ninth, a novel about the eldritch ghost of a dead planet attacking a space station – and listening to Splendor and Misery on repeat, a concept album about a slave who survives an uprising on a space ship. Last week @kfwyre mentioned “snow day” games, sort of comforting, warm and fuzzy experiences you return to; maybe my snow day indulgence is the “space station crisis” subgenre.
      Playing them in such close proximity it’s hard not to draw comparisons between Prey (2017) and Dead Space (2023), and not just because of their similar surnames. Mechanically, narratively, and in terms of world design, they’re often remarkably similar, and while playing Prey I was constantly thinking of it in relation to Dead Space – not its more obvious direct inspirations, like Bioshock or Dishonored, which I played and enjoyed years ago. But while I was quite critical of many aspects of Dead Space – you can read my writeup on it here – I was, broadly, extremely satisfied with Prey, which ended up being everything I wanted Dead Space to be.
      When talking about Dead Space, I praised its tenth chapter, which saw you travel to the crew quarters of the USG Ishimura and finally, finally get some sense of the humanity of the crew, how they navigated their world being devoured and their lives being destroyed by horrible monsters. The best way I can describe Prey’s world is that it’s as if Dead Space chapter 10 was a whole twenty hour game. In Prey, there is no escaping the crew of the Talos 1, the space station where the entire game takes place. A whole 250-person complement – all there in the world to be found – their bodies, or the eldritch creatures they’ve become, or the cells of survivors and holdouts they belong to. And not just them, but the detritus of their lives, their workstations and quarters and rec facilities and labs, horrible experiments intermixing with mundane life.
      On Talos 1, they were making neuromods – technology that records brain signals and uploads them into a subject. Use a neuromod made by a master pianist, and you too can achieve mastery – with no effort, with only one payment to TranStar corporation. Where things go wrong is when our playable protagonist, Morgan Yu, decides to make neuromods based on these strange, quasi-magical aliens known as the typhon. Where regular neuromods could make you a genius, typhon neuromods could give you extraordinary powers – telepathy, psychokinesis, basically all the abilities from Dishonored. These might be fun in gameplay but it's implied that the typhon material in these neuromods is active, and actively dangerous: converts humans into Typhon when they die; becomes part of a golden entelechaic web that does… well, something, to be sure.
      So, look, Morgan and her brother Alex and their family’s Big Evil Corporation do all kinds of vile human experimentation and implement ad-hoc authoritarian surveillance on their employees and make sophistic speeches and eventually all this wax-winged flying has predictable consequences. The typhon escape, overrun the station, kill almost everyone, disguise themselves as office furniture, start weaving their webs. Great, now go fix it. What really works about the story is not so much about these broad and predictable strokes – it’s the texture, the humanity of it all, that really made an impact. So the character you play as, Morgan, she set this whole disaster into motion. But since then she’s had her memory repeatedly wiped, and her personality written, by her brother. So a huge part of exploring the world is reconciling the person you are now (in my case, the typical self-sacrificial video game heroine) with the person you must have been to do those awful things. And the survivors on the station remember, too: remember what you did, and many of them distrust or even hate you for it. It’s a premise that immediately created a lot of narrative buy-in for me. Buy-in the game capitalizes on, by regularly giving the player choices for how they interact with the other people on the station: choices that are often less black-and-white than those present in Arkane’s previous games, and have a real impact both on the characters you meet and, presumably, the one you inhabit. Unfortunately Morgan Yu is a silent protagonist, which I’m so fucking over at this point. A compromise is being made here, of course: we are sacrificing the massive and compelling drama that would come from Morgan actually, you know, talking to other characters (as opposed to her main verbs of picking things up in one place and putting them down in another, killing enemies, or jumping around looking for secret passwords) – for the ability to self-insert to some extent, to embody Morgan and map your own opinions and experiences with the game onto her (or him, I guess, if you chose to play as male Morgan). I don’t think this compromise is worth it, personally, especially because Morgan is a person in the world who should, at least in some cases, have good reason to talk to these characters that she knew in a past life, and because interacting with these characters is like a major part of the game that often feels a little stunted because Morgan can’t talk. But I digress.
      I tend to think of the immersive sim genre as a series of very interesting compromises. Combat in Prey is not deep, or obviously expressive, or even really mechanically compelling. You rarely fight more than a couple enemies at once; encounters are slow and attritive; everything costs huge amounts of resources that you might not have a surefit of. But of course, despite the lack of depth, there’s still a huge amount of breadth, and from that breadth comes the fun. All of your weapons and grenades and, if you unlock them, combat-applicable neuromods are completely unique and usable against different sets of the dozen-or-so highly differentiated enemy types. The gear and abilities you choose to upgrade determine what enemy types will be pushovers, and what types will be intractable. And so you can gauge, when you see an encounter over in the next room, how thorny it will be for you. Are you equipped for it? Or should you use your expansive movement toolset (which, again, is not mechanically deep, but has a lot of options) to bypass it entirely – build a path over it with the Gloo Gun; sneak past with the shadow dash? My point is that Prey gives you a lot of options for how to engage with its lush, gorgeous world, at the expense that each individual option is a bit uninteresting. But, in aggregate, you get a wonderfully interactive sandbox that often has this almost natural-language quality of “if you can think of it, you can probably do it.”
      The problem is that this design approach is at its best and most enjoyable when the player has full access to a wider toolset. But Prey has progression systems that seem to undercut that. Combat abilities must be paid for. Weapons are upgraded separately. Many neuromods are strong – game-changing even – but highly specialized, so spending the very limited resources to unlock them might feel like it locks you into a particular mode of engagement. There are THREE achievements for beating the game without unlocking a wide variety of upgrades. The problem with that popup at the beginning of the game that says stuff like “play your way” and “if you can think of it, you can do it” (an ImSim genre convention) is that any one single “your way” isn’t going to be that interesting. That hacking minigame is fine but it’s not fine enough to sustain 20 hours of gameplay. And because I knew this going in, I was able to invest in a wider swath of my toolset, to plan my upgrades to always have a variety of options and resources available – to not lock myself into one potentially boring playstyle the whole time. To have a lot of fun with the combat and the hacking and the sneaking around because I did all three! But I can certainly imagine someone bouncing off Prey early, before they have a wide toolset – or never even getting one. That’s a shame.
      You know what’s not a shame? The world design. I described Dead Space’s Ishimura as tactile – a space you could touch, feel, manipulate, shape. Talos 1 has a similar quality, maybe not tactile, but palpable let’s say. Whereas in Dead Space most of the environments you explore are systems – engines, power distribution, food production, etc., in Prey much more time and space is given to living spaces: quarters, offices, gardens, entertainment options. By the end of Dead Space I felt like I knew how it would feel to fix the Ishimura; by the end of Prey, I felt like I knew how it would feel to live and work on Talos 1, this orbital company town rendered in a lavish post-art deco style, vocal luxury that thinks itself inconspicuous. The sense of interconnectedness is perhaps not as strong in Prey; the sense of place, however, is unmatched, and facilitated by the breadth of interactivity. Everything can be interacted with, usually in multiple ways. Every door can be opened, usually in multiple ways. Every email can be read, and a lot of them are about nonsense, D&D games or melodramatic sapphic breakups or – what’s this, a secret far-reaching plot to surveil Dr. Gallegos? Well I need to follow up on that one for sure!
      This all synergizes very neatly with the monster design. The first, most basic enemy you’ll encounter is a mimic, which works like the other players from Prop Hunt; can disguise itself as anything – environmental props: coffee mugs, chairs desk lamps; useful pick-ups: medkits, ammo, turrets – or even, on one memorable occasion, as the gory corpse of an already killed mimic. So everything in the lush, detailed environments is interactable, and anything interactable could be an enemy in hiding. Especially early in the game, when mimics still pose a credible threat to the underprepared Morgan, this creates an almost unprecedented level of tension, demands close attention to detail. Not long ago I played The Exit 8, a truly harrowing horror game about finding problems, discrepancies, with an ordinary environment. The sense of paranoia Prey fostered in its early hours was similar: similarly dreadful, promoted a similar level of caution and methodical play. But where in The Exit 8 that feeling was the whole point, in Prey it serves another purpose too: if you have to pay close attention to the environment to survive, it also encourages you to engage with the environment fully. To look carefully for loot (as well as mimics) or alternate pathways or alternate solutions. Prey’s paranoid early hours are extremely good at immersing the player in its environment and promoting the right kind of engagement with it.
      So I like Prey, like it a lot, and feel bad for putting it off for this long. I am finding that I don’t have all that much to say about the narrative, which I largely liked, even if it was clunky in places and ended with a twist that I didn’t much care for. But, I am gonna rant about that ending a bit; again, some spoilers follow!
      What is it with video games and this allergy to having falling action? I'm looking through my library now and like half of these game or more have endings that I would describe as “abrupt,” ending essentially right after the final boss or whatever. Prey, to its credit, has no final boss; the enormous horrible creature that shows up at the end is barely comprehensible, much less killable. But the game still ends right on the climax (or did in the ending pathway I chose) and apart from a very brief post-credits epilogue to reveal The Twist and summarize your choices, cRPG-style, that’s it. That’s it? Dead Space was the same way. Most games with a narrative are the same way, I’d wager. I’m sure there are plenty of counter-examples, and games that do an abrupt ending well, but off the top of my head I can only immediately think of Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 (whose epilogue was added in a post-launch patch!) as games that buck this trend, that don’t leave me sitting there scratching my head like, “oh, that was the ending?” Okay as I write this more counterexamples are coming to me but you get the point. Prey ended, and as many games do, left me wanting more in a bad way; more resolution, more time with the characters and world; more compelling drama, more marination in the impact of my choices. But it also left me wanting more in a good way. More games with detailed and engaging worlds, more compelling decision-making, more breadth of interactivity. More space stations! Prey provided where so many games fail to, and as a result was for me a cohesive and really delightful experience.

      7 votes
      1. Wes
        Link Parent
        Another fantastic writeup and critique. I've heard so many good things about Prey from those who have played it. It seems to take the best features from Immersive Sims that came before it, and put...

        Another fantastic writeup and critique.

        I've heard so many good things about Prey from those who have played it. It seems to take the best features from Immersive Sims that came before it, and put them into a well-crafted world with a compelling hook. There's a mystery, interesting monsters, and the promise of new powers to string you along.

        On the whole, I think immersive sims are one of the coolest genres. At their core, they feature a patchwork of different systems that come together in unique ways to create emergent gameplay. Then, bravely or foolishly, the developers grant the player the freedom to experiment with those systems. To find new approaches to defeat enemies, to get around the map, or sometimes to break the game in novel ways.

        For example, let's say they add a stealth system. The premise is simple: if an enemy can see, they can attack you. This feature is added to every enemy so the entire game can be played in a stealth fashion. Next, they add a transformation system. In Dishonored for example it's possible to turn into a rat. So you shrink down the player's hitbox and noise radius and it ties into the stealth system beautifully.

        However, what happens when you enter the boss arena in rat form? If nobody anticipated this during development, you might not activate the boss when you enter. In some cases, this may allow you to bypass the encounter completely. And so a speedrunner strategy was born.

        In the case of Prey, another possibility is the player using the the glue gun to block off the boss's line of sight. If stealth works by raycasting, putting up a wall could be enough to interfere (see also: placing buckets on shopkeepers heads to steal in Elder Scrolls).

        The chance of these kinds of unexpected interactions being introduced becomes greater for each new system the game supports. I think that's a big reason why immersive sims are difficult to get right. The systems need to interoperate, remain fun, and feel fair.

        To do that, game developers often need to make concessions to ensure the game remains stable and somewhat balanced. So things like invisible walls or out-of-bounds regions will be added to ensure the player doesn't completely break out of the cage. Other limiters may involve things like caps on speed or damage numbers, blacklisting item combinations, or checking for prerequisites (eg. verifying the boss is dead before you can untie the princess). These kinds of checks are often needed to maintain sanity, but it can be frustrating for a player when they feel they've finally found a way around a problem using the game's provided systems. It can feel unfair.

        So I have a lot of respect for games that offer freedom without needing to make many of these concessions. They're not all in the immersive sim genre, either. Roguelikes often feature unexpected synergies with devastating results. Noita allows complete customization of its wands, which can result in (often intended) ways of escaping the map for experienced players. In Oblivion, you could craft a spell to maximize an NPC's disposition so guards would instantly forgive your crimes. Morrowind allowed for even more shenanigans.

        I think exploring the systems of a game can be just as fun as exploring the game world or story. That makes immersive sims one of my top genres. I don't have any real excuse for not playing Prey yet, but I hope with enough of these Backlog Burner events, it will get done eventually!

        7 votes
      2. kfwyre
        Link Parent
        In my phone I have a note where I jot down different ideas for discussion topics to post to Tildes. It’s got dozens (maybe hundreds?) of different things accumulated in there from over the years....

        In my phone I have a note where I jot down different ideas for discussion topics to post to Tildes. It’s got dozens (maybe hundreds?) of different things accumulated in there from over the years.

        One line that has been in there for a while now is “So you want to explore a derelict spaceship…”

        I put it in years ago, after I played a series of space station crisis games, like The Station and Event[0]. I had an idea of doing a “round-up” of a lot of them, but then realized there were plenty I hadn’t played, as well as many I’d played so long ago (e.g. the original Dead Space) that I couldn’t really do them justice. I ended up not moving on the idea, and it stayed buried in my brainstorming note, like so many other topics.

        It is cool that they really are their own entire sub-genre of gaming though. System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time and is probably what originally inspired my love for the trope. So, just like my comment last week, this is my way of saying “I get you!”

        I also need to go back to Prey. I played the beginning of it and really liked it (it felt like a worthy successor to SS2) but ended up dropping my playthrough due to other unrelated-to-the-game factors.

        Your writeup of it is incredible, by the way. The way you describe the game’s systems and your attitude towards playing it is rich and illuminating. Thank you for putting so much time and effort into your commentary!

        7 votes
      3. [2]
        JCPhoenix
        Link Parent
        Never played Prey myself, but have watch a couple of Let's Plays, and even watched a friend play it. It's easily one of my favorites, even though I've never played it. I loved the story and the...

        Never played Prey myself, but have watch a couple of Let's Plays, and even watched a friend play it. It's easily one of my favorites, even though I've never played it. I loved the story and the worldbuilding.

        I'm also reminded of the Remedy game, Control. Having never played either, only watched others do so a few times, I can't speak to the mechanics and gameplay (I know Control is not an immersive sim like Prey), but storywise to, they're similar. If you haven't played it, might be something to add to the list.

        5 votes
        1. Evie
          Link Parent
          My immediate instinct when you mentioned Control (which has long been one of my favorites) was to go, "no, they're not similar at all!" But thinking about it you're right that there are at least...

          My immediate instinct when you mentioned Control (which has long been one of my favorites) was to go, "no, they're not similar at all!" But thinking about it you're right that there are at least some narrative similarities. The Typhon and Hiss are similar antagonists; the world design philosophy of both games has a lot of apparent overlap; I can identify common thematic threads about consciousness and how humans try to harness the unfathomable. I think the reason my brain initially rebelled against the comparison is because these games feel tremendously different to play. Prey has what I would describe as a methodical pace of play. Moving through environments, gathering resources, reading text, even solving combat encounters -- for most of the game, all of it happens at this same sedate pace. Further, although at the end you can chose to blow up Talos 1, for most of the game I think it feels like you're in a kind of harmony with the environment, more working to put it right, or resist its corruption, than anything else. By contrast Control's gameplay pacing frequently alternates between the slow-paced reading exploring, and light puzzling sections and the violent, explosive, frantic combat encounters, which are so destructive that, combined with Jesse's motivations, playing Control feels almost revolutionary, like Jesse is smashing and radically transforming a system (one made of paperwork and 'béton brut'). Broadly I would assert that, thematically, Control is more interested in systems (of oppression) -- the FBC, its containment sector, its Panopticon -- whereas Prey is more interested in individuals, the people who are responsible for its disaster, how they try to maintain their own power -- Alex, Morgan, the mercenary guy. Maybe there's a good essay in the comparison.

          4 votes
    2. Evie
      Link Parent
      CW: Some real hater energy Call of the Sea: Beauty As someone who generally tries to be positive and even-handed when I write and think about art, I wasn’t really sure whether to even do a writeup...
      • Exemplary

      CW: Some real hater energy

      Call of the Sea: Beauty

      As someone who generally tries to be positive and even-handed when I write and think about art, I wasn’t really sure whether to even do a writeup on Call of the Sea, a game which, ultimately, I thoroughly disliked. But if Call of the Sea is bad, it’s bad in a way that’s interesting to me, a neat little puzzle to explore, and so here I am, writing down my thoughts on it – if for no other reason, to get them out of my head. Nonetheless to stem the tide of negativity that will soon flow forth I will attempt to use the compliment sandwich method, starting and ending this writeup with praise, so let’s talk a bit about the environment.
      We might conceive of Call of the Sea as a three-legged stool, where one leg is the visuals and environment design, one is the narrative and themes, and the third is the puzzles. And that first leg, at least, is a really good leg. Call of the Sea’s environments are consistently gorgeous – the art style is a little generic, that shiny plasticky Unreal Engine 4 Indie Game Look, but used to great effect: scenic vistas with vibrant colors, strange stone ruins vibrating with strange energy; a great wrecked ship, creaking and groaning beneath a raging thunderstorm – each of the game’s six levels takes you to a new environment that is both visually stunning and deliciously atmospheric. There was a brief period while playing this game, for thirty minutes at the end of chapter 2 and the start of chapter 3, where the game managed to convince me on the strength of its atmosphere and visuals and sound design alone that this would be a puzzle-y adventure game in name only; that we had taken a sharp turn towards cosmic horror, excellent cosmic horror, tense and scary and gloomy, starring a largely powerless heroine. This was ultimately an illusion. Though Call of the Sea appropriates elements of Lovecraft’s fiction, most notably “Call of Cthulhu,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and “Dagon,” it uses them to convey a story that is for the most part airy and whimsical, only occasionally muddied by the record of some death or tragedy.
      Call of the Sea tells the tale of Norah Everhart, a woman with a mysterious chronic illness that causes unusual pigmentation on her skin, makes it hard for her to walk, and gives her a plot cough. Her husband, Harry, embarks on an obsessive search for a cure, which eventually leads him to arrange an expedition to a mysterious island in the Pacific, where he and his crew are beset by challenges and madness and failure and death. Playing as Norah, we arrive on the island in November of 1934, some months after the failed expedition, to investigate what happened to Harry, his team and the cure for Norah’s ailment. It is a strong setup, to be sure; one with all the right elements both for compelling puzzles and a moving, character-driven plot. We'll address the puzzles later but I found the plot weightless and immensely disappointing, for reasons that I don’t even need to provide spoilers to fully get into. In short: there is simply no compelling emotion here, no believable character work, no gripping drama. As we uncover what happened to the Everhart expedition, how it unraveled, it’s hard to be invested because Norah doesn’t know any of these people (except Harry), and the jumbles of personal effects we find in their tents aren’t near enough to build a solid picture, or even a passable sketch, of them and their relationships. Through Norah’s voiced inner monologue we do at least get a lot of information about her and Harry, her husband, how much she loves him, how her illness has been affecting her, how much better she (mysteriously) feels on this strange island – but Norah just tells us all these things, often in a wistful or reflective tone, that makes her life and relationship and struggles feel flat and insubstantial, just a series of mildly interesting anecdotes. As a result nothing in this story, none of the character beats, certainly not the bittersweet ending, had any emotional effect on me. Where the narrative is at its strongest, it’s exploring the mysterious connection between Norah and this mysterious island, but even that connection is painfully straightforward and literal in the end, and sometimes hinges on specific imagery that I have specifically seen used to much better effect in Returnal, a much less narrative-driven game.
      Perhaps worse than the story’s utter lack of emotional impact is its thematic incohesion. It is customary for cosmic horror stories written in [current year] to have a Take on Lovecraft. He used his horrible creatures and the cults that sprung up around them and the transformations they fomented as a way to bash minorities – people of color, immigrants, artists, the working class, seafarers, lots of people really. But the reason these monsters, down to the specific creatures and environments Lovecraft devised, have stuck around is because there is something deeply compelling about them even absent the bigotry. Something nihilistic, about our utter inconsequence, powerlessness, our limitations, our inability to understand parts of our world. These themes can be explored without specifically incorporating Lovecraftian monsters – Control did so! Or by filing the serial numbers off and presenting your own take – Prey (2017) and Dead Space (2023) and Returnal (2021) all did so to some extent. But when a work as extensively cribs from Lovecraft as Call of the Sea does, you expect it to be having a conversation with him, to have something to say about his works. Not to be trite, but you expect it to answer the question, “if not minorities, what is the real cosmic horror?” The N.K. Jemisin novel The City We Became answers: racism, gentrification, the soul of a place being strangled by people who see it as dirty, unclean, degenerate. The John Carpenter film In The Mouth of Madness answers: a certain type of popular art, made to be consumed as escapism, keeping people from engaging with the real world. I am not sure that Call of the Sea has an answer to this question, not sure it has any central theme at all.
      I can identify traces that seem to indicate the presence of a theme. Perhaps Call of the Sea is meant as a feminist text – when Norah says she feels more at home on the island than she ever did in the real world, is that anything? When she asks, “how could someone living in a cage all their life even know they were in a cage?” is that meant as commentary on what it was like to be a woman in 1934? But parts of the text contradict this: mainly, how much Norah loves Harry, how great their relationship is, and how the text doesn’t really say anything feminist when it comes to the other female character, expedition member Cassandra Ward. Okay, so maybe it’s meant to be an anticolonial text. This is maybe the strongest case I can make. The game spends a lot of time and goes to great lengths to distinguish Harry’s failed Everhart expedition, which often resulted to explosives, circumvention, or chauvinistic brute force to bypass the island’s puzzles – with Norah’s exploration of the same spaces, which involve listening to the island, actually solving its puzzles, and opening herself up to its black ooze. Maybe that’s why she survived and connected with the island, while disaster befell the Everhart expedition? But again the game contradicts this theme with an explanation about Norah’s special blood or whatever that both makes less thematic sense and feels a bit insulting frankly. And, worse, whatever anticolonial intentions the game might have had go straight out the window when Norah is treated to echoes of conversations by the fictional primordial Naacal tribe with gross dialogue like “We Naacal, we slaves, we suffer under masters,” just the most vile tribal stereotypes you can imagine. Okay, so maybe the story is about love, or transhumanism, or chronic illness, or the power of music? I could make a case for any of these, with textual evidence, and then also dismantle it with textual evidence from a different part of the game. The end result is that while I can pick up thematic threads I can’t weave them together, can’t figure out what, if anything, the game has to say; can’t find a strong emotional core to propel me through this story, or a thematic core to hold my interest.
      That leaves the puzzles, which are inconsistent. The quick and dirty summary is that each of the six levels is structured like a really big escape room, with a few puzzles to solve usually leading up to one climactic puzzle that, in some cases, has a satisfying cumulative solution. When the game works, it scatters clues all around its environment. Norah copies them into her journal, takes them to a central puzzle, and solves it. This minimizes backtracking while requiring the player to actually explore the gorgeous world to solve the puzzle. Good stuff. But as the game wears on, the puzzles seem to get worse and worse. Less complex, less interesting, requiring more backtracking and, in one case, repeating literally the exact same puzzle like six times (it wasn’t good the first time). A few time I got stuck just because, despite knowing the solution to the puzzle, I couldn't find the right Thing to Interact With that would unlock the Contextual Prompt Required to Progress, which felt especially disappointing in the wake of the absurdly, context-agnostically interactive Prey, The puzzles are at their best in the opening three chapters of the game, when the wonderment is still alive and when you still think there might be some interesting answer to the questions the story seems to be setting up. But the puzzles get bad at about the same time the story reveals how shallow and incoherent it really is, which makes finishing the game a terrible slog.
      I promised to make this critique a compliment sandwich but here I am having exhausted all I had to say about Call of the Sea, not having thought of a second piece of unalloyed praise. Call it an open-face compliment sandwich, if you like. I suppose maybe the production value, or the vocal performance of Cissy Jones as Norah, might be worth praising. Maybe there’s more to say about the game’s environmental storytelling, which, at times, does subtly convey some interesting information (without emotion, but still). But honestly, what would be the point? For however well made Call of the Sea is on a technical level, for however beautiful its world is, for however capable its leading lady, it all feels wasted on an inconsistent slate of puzzles and a story that I can’t even begin to connect with.

      7 votes
    3. Evie
      Link Parent
      I'm not going to do Paradise Killer the discourtesy of a full writeup, complete with praise and criticism, when I couldn't even finish it. A brief summary, nonetheless: I played this as prep for...

      I'm not going to do Paradise Killer the discourtesy of a full writeup, complete with praise and criticism, when I couldn't even finish it. A brief summary, nonetheless: I played this as prep for Outer Wilds, a game that's been an albatross around my neck for quite some time, because they allegedly have a conceptually similar setting: a smallish, handcrafted open world that is the site of a mystery, where you explore unguided to collect clues and leads, and then go to set locations chase them up. Unfortunately I couldn't get through Paradise Killer. Epic says I have about six hours of playtime, which is about a third of the game, and I'm finding myself dreading the idea of booting up the game again. Part of it is that, despite a host of interesting concepts, Paradise Killer hasn't really been able to hook me so far with its cast, hasn't wowed me with an unexpected twist, hasn't explored its really unique world in an interesting way yet. Probably it would at some point; this game is well-loved, and has a lot in common with art I really do like, but I feel like I haven't found the hook yet after quite a while playing. But worse is just that I find the game's weird anachronistic psychedelic vaporwave style totally grating. Charitably, it's a really good execution of a unique style that I just don't vibe with. Uncharitably, it's hideous, and gives me a headache if I look at it for too long, and to get through the game so far I've had to take a good amount of Naproxen. Perhaps I'm just not the right type of homosexual for Paradise Killer; regardless, another one in the "not for me" column.

      2 votes
  11. Cannonball
    Link
    Cannonball's Bingo Card Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25 You're giving it a second chance From a studio you haven't heard of before An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game Has...
    Cannonball's Bingo Card
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 3/25
    You're giving it a second chance From a studio you haven't heard of before An updated version (remake, re-release) of an older game Has a fishing minigame Has a skill tree
    Has a silent protagonist Has a review score above 80 Has a time limit It’s already installed From a different country than you
    Uses a unique control scheme Has more than 3 words in its title ★ Wildcard
    ✅ Monster Hunter Wilds beta
    Part of a long-running series Focuses on exploration
    Has both combat and puzzles
    ✅ Pumpkin Jack
    Chosen for you by someone else Known for its legacy Uses procedural generation Has great reviews, but not your usual type
    Has a logical vibe Popular game you never got around to playing Has a top-down perspective
    ✅ Ikenfell
    Adaptation of other media type (e.g. board game, movie) Features a mystery

    I've been in a bit of a funk which has resulted in less gaming in general and in me falling back on comfort games when I do play. However, I was able to make myself play a bit of Pumpkin Jack on the switch. It's a platformer with a bit of basic combat and puzzles to solve as you move through each level. I'm terrible at platformers but it's fairly forgiving and the setting is spooky-cute which suited my original plan to play it around Halloween. I particularly like the puzzle sections where you become a weird pumpkin octopus to move into tight spaces. There's nothing groundbreaking about the game but it's nice in its simplicity and theme. My single biggest complaint is that your character makes a generic grunt whenever you talk to other characters (which happens often) and it's the same sound effect every. single. time. I find it so annoying that I play with the sound turned down, which is a shame because the soundtrack is nice enough and adds some ambiance.

    3 votes
  12. [2]
    SingedFrostLantern
    Link
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 6/25) Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25 Humor Connection Synthesis Morality Progress Harmony Love ✅ Cavity Busters ✅ Eternal Threads Trust Pride...
    SingedFrostLantern's Bingo Card (Standard/Flow, 6/25)
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 6/25
    Humor Connection Synthesis Morality Progress
    Harmony Love Erosion
    ✅ Cavity Busters
    Causality
    ✅ Eternal Threads
    Trust
    Pride Resistance ★ Wildcard Justice Sound
    Fragmentation Change
    ✅ Darksiders Genesis
    Choice
    ✅ Project Warlock II
    Community Light
    Threshold
    ✅ Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
    Symmetry
    ✅ A Dance of Fire and Ice
    Isolation Happiness Fear

    Busier than I'd like to be unfortunately. I did end up completing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, but the endgame kinda devolved into spamming super speed and uzi/aug/deagle spam for me. I can say I've finished it now, though I'm not particularly appreciative of it.

    Erosion - Cavity Busters (itch.io)

    Brush your teeth twice a day and floss once a day to maintain your teeth. My dentist stopped being disappointed in me once I actually learned how to floss. Floss sticks work too!

    So this is a roguelike, very clearly inspired by Issac, where you're playing as a gum socket that's firing teeth at enemies while ascending through the levels and that's about all the plot I've understood. The main weapon is a charge attack that fires teeth which are then manually recalled back to the user for a second attack and like Isaac, it's about collecting a bunch of passives to become an unkillable god, though I think it's more skill-based like Gungeon. There's a dodge roll here that can shift into a wallrun with initial i-frames, and rolling into a flashing enemy allows for a free jump up into the air for a tactical pause/view and stomping down for bonus damage. There's an on-demand jump on a timer, mildly akin to a smartbomb/blank, which doubles as the fast travel system out of combat.

    One of the game's selling points is the "diseases", basically cursed items. Leave the room without them, and the run as a whole gets harder via various dungeon stat modifiers that the game shows. Take them, and you have to deal with the positives and negatives until finding the purifying NPC who deals 1 damage and takes 2 mints (money) to purify each disease's negatives (though some can't be cured).

    Another thing this game does is treat the max hp boost from bosses as a currency. Up to 8 of these can be stored with the elevator NPC which provides passive macrogame boosts or can be taken back later/on another run, or to use 4 of those on death to revive. They can also be given to the item room NPC for another random item, but it's certainly not on the level of Isaac's devil deals.

    I do appreciate that this game shows the hidden rooms on the minimap. The choice here is using up a shovel to gain access to it or sacrificing 1 HP without the shovel. I also appreciate that there are item descriptions, albeit the first time an item is seen it says unknown.

    I've said a lot about what the game does, but little about how I feel about it. I've only spent a few hours and reached the final floor a few times without clearing, still in that initial roguelike state of adapting to what the game is doing for its identity. The game design does seem competent and there's been updates up to this April, but I don't feel attached to it, like I'm not feeling its soul. Maybe I'm just not matching up with its aesthetic which is a lot of pixel fleshy mouth bits for the sake of pixel fleshy mouth bits, like if everything was variants of Isaac's womb levels and I've put more than enough hours into Issac.

    Gonna cheat a little with the Project Warlock II choice since there was an update for it. Also gonna complain a lot.

    Choice - Project Warlock II (Steam Early Access)

    Gonna be real, I was planning to try out Repella Fella for Choice, but then life got a little busy and now I'm putting in Project Warlock II because it got an update earlier this month revamping the Episode 2 chapters and now I will force a square peg into a round hole. Choice in this case is me ranting a lot about how badly the game presents its abundance of upgrade choices due to some options being clearly better/worse than the rest. Is there really a choice when things are considerably unbalanced?

    Now I will preface that I liked the original Early Access launch of Project Warlock II. Sure the Necrogirl enemies could 100-0 you with a single burst of seeking projectiles and the devs were weirdly vocal in the Steam Forums about refusing to enable manual reloads at the time and told people to reload by swapping weapons per their vision and the magic sword beam upgrade was completely useless for example because it could only hit a single target and the hitbox was wide enough to always get eaten up by walls, but it was simple. Grab guns, shoot demons, choose a weapon upgrade at the obvious perk stations each level. Secrets were pretty optional and was only a small boost for finding a gun early, extra armor, or bestiary entries.

    Fast forward a lot of development and now there's a bunch of low-impact busywork walking and pixel-hunting everywhere to increase the character's power level. There's treasure placed everywhere to pick up in order to level up along with 3 different types of perk tokens to find to trade in for upgrades. There's a sidequest system to augment weapons with elements, but you can only pick one weapon at a time and it's usually dependent on killing certain enemy types with the weapon and that's of course dependent on the enemy spawning in (*cough* SMG *cough*). The whole system feels bad to me because the upgrades cost different amounts so it always feels like you're missing enough tokens for the next upgrade for not going over everywhere with a fine comb. It's just hanging over everything else because it's in the back of the mind that all the missed currency adds up.

    Now I have to also say that the weapon upgrade UI sucks because it hides the Alt Fire upgrade until you've selected which weapon upgrade path you want. All this does is force people to save & load to check/test out the different upgrades or alt-tab to check the wiki. Why do so many games think hiding gameplay information for making decisions is good design? Anywho, weapon upgrades are subjective, but I thought there were some pretty obvious choices for Episode 2:

    • Kunai: I kept this unupgraded because it's an unlimited spammable projectile that can be used to kite and gives a 50% chance on headshot to regain 10% max hp. Meanwhile, both upgrade options turn it into a melee weapon. Why?

    • Pistol: Chose the sniper magnum path because it retains the "no ammo used on headshot" trait which basically made this my primary for everything and the scope let it burst down big targets. The scope had a weirdly long initial delay in order to fire though. I think this scope issue also happened with revamped Episode 1's laser rifle.

    • Shotgun: Turned it into the perfect accuracy lever action rifle instead of the auto shotty. Basically a stronger backup to the pistol with piercing, didn't even need the alt fire upgrade for it.

    • SMG: Too inaccurate and low damage compared to dishing out headshots with the above two weapons.

    • Dynamite: Explosive self-damage basically instagibs and the throwing arc was too low to be useful in my opinion. The fireworks path was at least a little useful for trash mob area denial when I remembered it existed, but not much else.

    • Crossbow: Boss sniping weapon, went for the tri-shot path because the charge up path's alt-fire is an explosive shot that instagibs self in close quarters.

    • Agility Spell: Went for 2x duration instead of invincibility when used with melee. This was 100% to run around faster and there are so many better options to just kill everything instead of running around trying to melee.

    • Poison Spell: Additional clouds on impact instead of initial blast on self on-cast. Simple DPS boost instead of an unnecessary panic button.

    • Crystal Spell: Stun & Piercing instead of explosive shot for the crowd clear.

    Stat upgrades were basically putting everything into vitality for max hp and just enough in the other stats to unlock the min requirements for perks because the guns are lethal enough. For passive upgrades, the 2 obvious choices are Stabilizer (incoming damage becomes DoT instead of instant) and the one that grants +10% damage for every combo point which resulted in absurd crowd clearing into instant boss kills with not much else mattering or needed.

    Speaking of bosses, both of the big Episode 2 level bosses are stationary, don't attack, and invincible until pushing a button to make them vulnerable at which point you offload DPS at them and then have to hit the button again. Terrible design in this day and age and even weirder because Episode 1 did have proper bosses.

    I think the game is playable, but it feels like it just falls into the trap of wanting to make a sequel, though not really having a plan which led to them shifting over to poorly copying the first game's homework midway through early access. Project Warlock 1, which I'd recommend over this and for cheaper, had a bunch of weapons and spells so choice there felt like specializing. Here it's trimmed down to 6 weapons and 3 spells so the power gap is a lot more noticeable for failing to find enough perk tokens for upgrades.

    3 votes
    1. Wes
      Link Parent
      Okay, so this has nothing to do with the game, but about flossing. Turns out, it is important! I used to be a terrible flosser, partly because I wasn't raised to do so, but mostly because I was...

      Okay, so this has nothing to do with the game, but about flossing. Turns out, it is important! I used to be a terrible flosser, partly because I wasn't raised to do so, but mostly because I was just stubborn. I also had braces for a few teenage years, and afterwards a retaining wire was lain behind the teeth to prevent them from reverting position. This made flossing even more difficult as I needed to thread underneath it. As a result, I basically never flossed, and my gums were no good and would bleed easily.

      Eventually I had that wire removed (at my request), and I began using floss picks every night. Within one week, my gums stopped bleeding. Within two months, my oral health had improved tremendously. I kept this up for most of my adult life.

      Just a couple years ago though, my dentist told me that regular dental floss was even better than picks. I hate using floss, but begrudgingly I gave it a try, and sure enough I did see further improvement. Now I get top marks at the dentist. It did get easier over time, and I was glad to reduce some of the plastic waste from picks, as well.

      So yes, daily flossing is important! I still keep a pack of floss picks around for nights when I'm feeling really tired and just can't be bothered to do the full routine, but it's a bad habit I'm glad to have finally corrected. If you find it hard to get into the practice, picks are a nice middle step, and still way better than doing nothing. Don't be afraid to try a couple brands, either. I like the Oral-B Glide picks and floss since I have narrow gaps. Others prefer using waxed floss. Experiment a little, and find what works best for you.

      That concludes this public service announcement. And now back to your regularly scheduled gaming.

      So Cavity Busters seems pretty cool. I think the mouthy aesthetic is a bit of a turn off for me, but I do like the faux-3D. The bosses seem well designed, at least if you enjoy learning bullet hell attack patterns.

      I also appreciate that there are item descriptions, albeit the first time an item is seen it says unknown.

      I actually really like that approach. It adds a bit of excitement to play, and gives you something to work towards unlocking. Each time you find a new item, you can bravely pick it up at risk to your run, while ultimately improving your "meta progression" through knowledge acquisition. Some older roguelikes leaned into this by requiring things like "drink this potion to see what happens!", though I tend to prefer it as a permanent unlock.

      I wasn't familiar with Project Warlock 1 or 2, but I dig the art style. Seems like a game that has a lot of potential, if they can work out some of the balance issues.

      3 votes
  13. [5]
    kfwyre
    (edited )
    Link
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 9/25 ✅ Journey to the Savage Planet Organization Duality ✅ PictoQuest Conflict Courage ✅ Eigengrau Adaptation Open ✅ Mining Mechs Isolation ✅ That Which Gave Chase ★...
    Mode: Standard Bingo! Finished 9/25
    Wonder
    ✅ Journey to the Savage Planet
    Organization Duality Perspective
    ✅ PictoQuest
    Conflict
    Courage Symmetry
    ✅ Eigengrau
    Adaptation Open Progress
    ✅ Mining Mechs
    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
    2 votes
    1. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      Eigengrau - Symmetry This little game is sitting at a lowly 52 Steam reviews right now. All 52 of the reviews are positive. It's good enough that I think the pattern would still hold if it had 520...

      Eigengrau - Symmetry

      This little game is sitting at a lowly 52 Steam reviews right now.

      All 52 of the reviews are positive.

      It's good enough that I think the pattern would still hold if it had 520 reviews. The game is a rare and genuine standout.

      Eigengrau is a bullet hell scrolling shooter with one significant twist: instead of always shooting upscreen, your ship shoots in one of the four cardinal directions based on whichever face button you're pressing at the moment. (“Eigengrau” is also probably German for… something. I don’t know; I don’t speak German but I can if you like.)

      The shooting directionality is a novel idea, but the game is also genuinely much more than that. It keeps innovating, playing around with all sorts of different conventions -- some related to direction, and some not.

      I don't want to say too much about these, because they're genuinely fun to discover as they unfold. The game does a great job of introducing an idea or new mechanic, then ramping it up and iterating on it. It does this a lot. These occur over the course of a stage, and then the final boss is a culmination of all of the different elements put together.

      The game remained consistently creative during its two hour runtime for me. It was genuinely a joy and didn't get old or wear out its welcome.

      Furthermore, the game is wonderfully polished. It looks good. It plays well. It's got lots of nice little touches.

      For example, in each substage, there are stars that can be earned. You're not told specifically what to do to earn them, but as you're playing you might notice a counter start when you kill a certain enemy type, popping up with "1/8". The next one advances it to "2/8". Get all 8 and you get the star. These little micro-goals as you play are spread throughout the entire game. Also, upon beating it, you unlock a separate list of challenges to complete -- one for each sublevel again.

      Additionally, I give credit to the game for being beginner friendly. The game is, by its very nature, quite challenging, but it gives you a difficulty setting and the opportunity to increase your number of shields per level from 10 to 30. There is no way I would have survived hard mode at 10, but I was able to make it through the full game on easy with 30, albeit with several close calls. One of my common complaints about scrolling shooter/bullet hell games is that there's often not a point of entry. You're expected to be very good at the start and grind to get better. I like that this one is a bit more open to less skilled players like me.

      That's not to say the game isn't challenging. Fans of the genre who want to grind and face down extreme difficulty absolutely can. Whether that's by score chasing, dropping the number of lives and chances, ramping the game up to "hard" instead of "easy", or tackling the specific stars and challenges for each sublevel -- the game offers a wide surface area for anyone that wants to dive deep into it.

      I chose this for Symmetry because bullet hell games often have beautiful geometric patterns. Eigengrau doesn't disappoint in that regard and is genuinely pretty. Furthermore, because of the directionality of its shooting, it has a lot of rotational symmetry in its design that I felt made it particularly apt for this category.

      Overall, I give an enthusiastic recommendation for this game to fans of the genre. It's excellent. It deserves to have a player base much bigger than it currently does. I think it is a certified hidden gem.

      4 votes
    2. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      Mining Mechs - Progress I fully realize that I’m one square away from a bingo and that this choice was not a strategic one. Nevertheless, I had lots of air travel this weekend, and, as is the case...

      Mining Mechs - Progress

      I fully realize that I’m one square away from a bingo and that this choice was not a strategic one. Nevertheless, I had lots of air travel this weekend, and, as is the case whenever I fly long distances across multiple flights during a short window like a single weekend: when I’m on my way home, I’m always exhausted.

      I can’t really sleep on planes though, so I need something mindless to occupy my mind to pass the time.

      Enter Mining Mechs.

      The game reminded me a bit of Wall World, SteamWorld Dig, and GEO — each of which are primarily about digging for resources so that you can make digging easier so that you go deeper and get better resources. In other words: Progress

      This game follows the same loop, albeit a bit more bare-bones than the others. You mine for resources, and while down there, discover mines that you can connect pipes to. These generate passive income over time. You use the income to buy better mechs and level them up so you can go deeper.

      The mechanics are there, but they lack refinement. For example, you can increase your mech’s dig speed, but the deeper you go, the slower the digging goes. So, even when you do upgrade that stat, it gets negated over time. At endgame, with full drilling power, the lowest dig levels will take an excruciatingly long amount of time.

      The game is also grindy to a fault. The costs of later upgrades are unnecessarily high. I ended up leaving the game open to idle for two hours today simply to let my passive resource generation accumulate enough to buy a few more points.

      I did end up 100%ing the game, but only because I’d completed most of it on my flights yesterday. Had I not been stuck on planes and in airports, mentally and physically exhausted, then I definitely wouldn’t have seen this one through. I do think other games (like the ones I mentioned above) scratch the same itch and do it better.

      That said, the one strength of Mining Mechs is that it is genuinely mindless, so it’s a great game to play while listening to audiobooks or podcasts. I finished it up today (after idling) while listening to a book. So if you’re in the market for something to turn your brain off for, then this is a good choice.

      4 votes
    3. [2]
      kfwyre
      Link Parent
      PictoQuest - Perspective PictoQuest is an RPG-themed picross/nonogram game. Each puzzle is an RPG task, like battling an enemy or opening a chest. I chose it for Perspective because, whenever I'm...

      PictoQuest - Perspective

      PictoQuest is an RPG-themed picross/nonogram game. Each puzzle is an RPG task, like battling an enemy or opening a chest.

      I chose it for Perspective because, whenever I'm solving nonograms, I'm so focused on individual squares the entire time, that it isn't until right at the very end that I catch a full glimpse of the complete picture and go "oh, THAT's what it is!" Even when it's really obvious -- my mind simply doesn't "zoom out" until I'm done.

      With regards to the game itself, it's well-made and polished and perfect for the Deck, but I also don't know that the RPG elements add much of anything to the game. They might come more into play later, but thus far (about two hours in) I've just sort of solved everything and ignored the fact that there's an enemy attacking me and I have a health bar and whatnot.

      The only time it's really been an issue is that sometimes an enemy attack will remove an already solved tile, which I don't like. This is infrequent though.

      At present I'm only at 10x10 puzzles, and they've all been relatively easy. The game does present as being aimed at kids, so I'm not sure if it'll get more difficult as I go. That said, I'd definitely recommend it as an entry point to nonograms for kids. I imagine they'd get a lot more out of the battle elements and item system than I have.

      I'll keep playing this, not because I think it's a great game, but because I simply enjoy the puzzle type it focuses on.

      Oh, and one neat little touch that I really enjoy: after you solve a puzzle, not only does it get colored in for the full picture, but it's actually animated as well. That's cool!

      3 votes
      1. Wes
        Link Parent
        Hey, I played this one on mobile! I really enjoyed it until the boards got too large for me, and then my dumb fingers could no longer select the squares I wanted. So eventually I dropped it. I...

        Hey, I played this one on mobile! I really enjoyed it until the boards got too large for me, and then my dumb fingers could no longer select the squares I wanted. So eventually I dropped it.

        I think I also found the RPG mechanics to be a bit distracting from the core experience. I guess I just don't want to be making decisions about using potions or whatever when I'm trying to solve a row. I'd probably be okay with some sort of meta-gaming mechanics (earning XP, getting equipment, etc), but I don't want it to interfere too much with the actual puzzle solving. I'm here to uncover that picture of a banana, and by golly I won't have any interruptions!

        So PictoQuest isn't quite it, but there's actually a few other nonogram games with a campaign or story to them. Murder by Numbers is one I got from a Fanatical bundle, and there's also Piczle Cross Adventure. Funny that they released within a month of each other, but rather than competing actually share a Steam bundle ("Narrative Nonograms").

        And at risk of mentioning it for the thousandth time, there is of course also Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection which includes a nonogram game (Pattern). Those are randomly generated boards, so they play a little differently than the picture-based ones. On the plus side, this means they are infinite, and can be exactly the board size that is most comfortable for your device.

        2 votes