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Event[0] (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 11th, 2026 at 16:12:33)

This was an interesting one. Another "what happened in the space station" game (I have played several of those lately!), except in this one, all your interactions are with the ship's AI (named Kaizen) through computer terminals. This game was released in 2016, pre-genAI, so Kaizen procedurally generates dialogue based on what you type. For example, Kaizen will treat you differently if you're mean to it vs. nice to it. It can be persuaded to do things, like let you into into an airlock, or you can fail to persuade it and it'll kill you. That specific example was the only one during the game where I couldn't get Kaizen to do what I wanted. I suffocated in space like 10 times before looking up what to do. You have to specifically reassure Kaizen that you're not a threat to it, that you won't harm it.

I really enjoyed trying to figure out what to do through speaking with Kaizen, but I often felt very manipulative. I suppose this is necessary. I mean, the gameplay is almost like completing a series of dialogue puzzles, probing with keywords and instructions and learning how Kaizen tends to respond. It's interesting because, knowing I was talking with the ship's AI, I was treating it like a genAI chatbot, and expecting it to respond like a genAI chatbot. GenAI chatbots are collaborative. They are designed to facilitate interaction, to address user needs. The game actually put me in this collaborative state of mind with Kaizen because it isn't framed as a rogue AI villain, as ship/station AIs are in most games like this. But then, Kaizen doesn't act like a genAI chatbot. If you tell it to do something, it doesn't ask what you mean. It doesn't suggest another course of action. It doesn't offer up very much. It's collaborative, but in a cheeky way, like talking to someone who's a little sarcastic or guarded and who isn't going to be easy to work with.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play for about a week, and when I came back to it today, I totally forgot what I was doing, where I was supposed to go, what this code I had was for. And Kaizen was being difficult and wouldn't give me straight answers! This resulted in all the aforementioned deaths and looking up things in walkthroughs. Turns out I was right at the end. So the last little bit of the game was dampened by me having to basically follow a guide because I didn't remember anything. The game is really short, and the story and narrative presentation are both obtuse, but it's interesting for sure.

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Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (NSW) by jp (Sep 11th, 2026 at 09:55:05)

After another hiatus - I picked it up again last night. I had played a fair amount and had gotten to a boss fight I was sort of stuck on. Sort of in the sense that I didn't clear it, but also hadn't tried for too long or too hard.

The boss was Karla - who when defeated triggers a second boss fight against Flaus(?). I'm having a hard time remembering the names because I haven't been paying too much attention...

So, I booted up last night expecting to get stuck again, and although it took me a bit to get used to the buttons and actions again, I was able to (luckily!) quickly figure out where I was at/stuck - I mean, I didn't remember what I was doing at all. And so, it was back to Karla! And...I was able to finally beat them both...and then made my way back to a part of the map that look open...and yes! Finally made some progress.

There was a room that had a giant rock and... I had been finding these keys (I had four) and...Karla gave me a 5th (well, Flaus) which was exactly the number I needed...So, it felt really good to finally unlock that area - one for which I had no real idea what I was doing and for which I was starting to get a bit worried and confused. I had picked up these keys, didn't know how to use them, didn't know if they had been used already(?). Anyways, now it was made clear and I'm looking forward to seeing what new things open up now!

I've also hit level 22...I wonder how far this goes?

A few more interesting things:

a. You have a bow you can aim, and there's some puzzles/mechanics requiring the bow. They're clever in principle - for example, fire arrows at a large gear so that it rotates and lifts an elevator you need to ride in. But, you need to fire multiple arrows at it, so it gets a bit annoying because I'm bad at aiming the bow... There are other puzzles that were more fun - shooting arrows to hit a thing that opens a door - but sometimes there are magnets that affect the trajectory of the arrow and that sort of thing. Those were neat.

b. I ran across a buy that oversees a bow shooting mini-game - I did very poorly (you get rated/ranked) and I'm not sure if there's some sort of reward associated to doing well? I've moved past it now in terms of level layout...

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Dishonored 2 (PS4) by jp (Sep 8th, 2026 at 16:17:20)

Finished playing this last night and I've been chewing on my overall impressions. First thing is, obviously, that I really enjoyed it and I thought it was something quite special how the different missions had their own unique "thing" while all being fully coherent with each other, the game's world, the story, etc. Ok, the time-travel mission might be a bit of a stretch - because you're only able to play around with the mechanic of flitting between past/present in that one mission and never again...but still.

The other thing I really appreciated is how this also applies to enemies and what they do and so on. I vaguely recall from the first game that as new enemies were introduced, they were then THERE for the rest of the game (mostly) - so, the difficulty did sort of go up (even as things got easier because you had more/better powers/abilities). Here I was worried that the clockwork soldiers would then appear everywhere - but they didn't. Or that the witches would show up all the time after being introduced, and they didn't. They appeared when it made sense for them, and this helped keep things interesting and fresh rather than "incremental" if that makes sense.

I did find myself leaning into the same modus operandi as I went about playing the game - lots of blinking around to takeout enemies and for the most part I was pretty cheap when it came to using ammo and equipment. Because the game explicitly encourages you to lean into its' two main flavors (violence vs non-violence) - I felt that I had to commit to one. Sure, I could play differently each mission and sort of flip flop, but then I think I'd be excluding myself from both of the end-game trophies? (I decided to do the non-killing option for the main targets on all the missions, but I assumed that the end trophy would be binary - if either killed them all or did not kill them all, kill some but not others would have NOT resulted in either trophy, but maybe I was wrong).

I noticed a new menu option - for a New Game + and I now wonder if that's what I should experiment with next? I did spend about 30 hours just completing this one - and it's probable that the more violent mode is just faster. But, will I still have to scrounge around scavenging in new game+? That's what took a lot of time on the clock, and I don't think it even counts all the times I just let myself get killed because I inadvertently killed someone without meaning to.

The game's help tips - that appear during loading screens and you can switch between - are encouraging of the player to experiment, try stuff out, and so on - but I always felt cautious about doing that (and I'm not going to try the "never spotted"/full stealth mode of play either) and I've been wondering how they could have encouraged repeat play while still preserving the "this was your campaign"? (while playing it, rather than as an after-you've-beat-it option. I think I can now go back and do any mission, but I would have liked to have tried some earlier ones in that way so long as they weren't "wasted time" for the purposes of end-game trophies.

I guess this makes it all seem like end-game trophies can be a real bad idea for some types of games? (because they force your players to "pick a side" and commit to it, when you want them to experiment and mess around - even finding mixed-modes in between.) I never put points on lots of abilities simply because I knew they were "violent abilities" and so why bother if I would never use them. Similarly with the item upgrades - I spent so much money on the upgrades, for no good reason knowing that I wouldn't be doing any shooting...

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Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2 (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 3rd, 2026 at 15:47:16)

I played Part 1 for about an hour. Apparently it's only 2 hours long, but I couldn't bother to get through it. It's an Inkle game, received in an Inkle Humble Bundle, and I had never heard of this early effort of theirs, so I was intrigued. I see the Inkle DNA in it, a branching storyline, minimal gameplay, roguelike-ish elements (this has a "rewind" button, so instead of starting a "run" over, you just rewind to a previous decision).

The story is typical high fantasy stuff. You're an unnamed adventurer going to get a magical crown. Choose which way you go on the map, see little scenarios, make little choices, engage in half-baked combat, die a lot. The combat is kind of a guessing game. You have stamina (health), and you can select how powerful your attack is, from 0 (defend) to 10 (a massive slash). The enemy will also select an attack power, but only sometimes reveals its intention in text. So if it hunkers down, then you should also defend, and not waste attack power. If it readies itself for a big attack, you should do a bigger attack, which will overwhelm it. Sometimes, it doesn't say anything, and you can be safe and defend (take 1 stamina damage) or you can try to attack. You take damage based on the difference between the attack power of your attack and the enemy's attack, though I didn't quite work out the math. So if you attack for 5 and the enemy attacks for 7 (whether or not it gave a tell), you take damage. And then there are spells, which is a whole mechanic where you manually enter three-lettered spells (HOT shoots a fireball, WAL forms a protective barrier, etc.).

That's it. I was yawning after half an hour. I mean, I found the style and setting kind of interesting, but the combat was frustrating, and it was just...reading high fantasy text. I have 10 better fantasy RPGs and fantasy books sitting around that I'd rather engage with. Pass. Sorry, Inkle! I'll try Overboard! and Expelled! soon.

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GRIP: Combat Racing (PC) by dkirschner (Sep 3rd, 2026 at 15:34:09)

Really poor "combat racing" game. I played for under an hour. Tracks are uninspired and were already repeating themselves. The tutorial immediately made me skeptical because it would progress quickly through tooltips before I could read what the information said. It also had one part where it wanted you to use an item with R1, but the tutorial said use L1. And it was really confusing with the controls, calling L1/R1 something else, and also giving keyboard controls, because the tutorial didn't change based on whatever input was detected.

Anyway, it's a combat racing game. There are like 4 weapons only, a speed boost, a shield, and I guess a couple other things. In the campaign, you just race around the same boring tracks over and over through like 12 different tournaments, each of which (so far) has 3 different races. It's like the game has an hour of content and was like, "We'll just have the player do that 12 times," Difficulty seemed weirdly varied, like sometimes, I would be dead last forever after wrecking one time, whereas other times, I would wreck and no one would pass me. There's also a weird thing about manually resetting your car on the track if you crash/go off course. It doesn't just reset you like in any normal racing game. Instead, you have to reset yourself, and half the time I would reset myself backwards, like going the wrong way, and would waste like 15 seconds trying to orient myself. Totally unnecessary!

Yeah, really poor experience...but, it was in some Humble Bundle, and I can't resist a racing game with missiles and stuff. No real time or money lost on this one.

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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open, you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries) for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.

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