Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7944I played this for a few hours. Mostly I wanted to see where things were at with Super Monkey Ball. I wasn't expecting to find a wildly different or innovative game - just super monkey ball... which is what I found, though I did spend more time on the minigames. I've never been a huge fan of Super Monkey Ball - and I'm sort of surprised by how little love it gets in the context of people who like to play games that are really hard. This game is like Super Meat Boy (oh wow, I just realized they're both SMB! Which is also Super Mario Bros...). I mean, clearing some levels isn't THAT hard - but to get all the bananas AND record times? This is some serious dedication IMO. Lots of practice and real finesse. Cool stuff? Well, I quickly unlocked Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza series), Sonic and Tails, and "Jet"? (the skater from Jet Set Radio). I thought it was a nice touch that when you pick these characters instead of bananas you get pill bottles, rings, and spray cans! (like in their original games). The sounds are even different! (with the Sonic ring sound being particularly memorable for me). I then played all the mini-games. Some are more fun than others - and the be fair I was either playing solo or against AI, which is probably the less ideal way to play. I was surprised by how hard some of the games were! There's one in which I was only able to score once! (forget the name, but it's the one where you roll down a ramp and then up into the air - you're supposed to open the capsule to glide/drift to a target to get points. I only landed on a target ONCE. Everything else was a splash into the water because I fell far, far, short of the intended target. So, clearly there's something going on that I didn't understand - how to glide or whatever. And, many of the games have more sophisticated/complicated control schemes than you'd expect for a "mini-game". I thought it was interesting how they're all adapted to "your character is in a ball" - while still being "true" to the original game they're riffing on (lots of sports mini-games - the baseball one was interesting because it's sort of like a pinball in that you have to hit targets to get on base and stuff like that) Anyways, it was fun - but I decided I wouldn't spend all this time on it either...Tue, 21 Oct 2025 12:33:36 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7944&iddiary=13446https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7943I'm slowly dragging out the PSVR games to play them. Strangely this one was a more recent addition - it was cheap, and the back of the box lists all sorts of awards. But... I must have played for 30 minutes or so? Didn't finish the tutorial. I started to get nauseated - not uncommon in VR. But, the game wasn't really working for me either, which was a shame. Especially since it took me a while to get everything ready since I had to charge up both move controllers (one at a time!). The premise is simple, and fun enough, you're a wizard! And you cast spells with your hands doing different motions. I only got to see three things - the teleport action, creating and throwing a fireball, and summoning a protective shield. This was fine. The bigger problem I had was that I was never able to figure out how to adjust the facing. It always felt like I was facing to the side (90 degrees away from the TV) and never re-centering. And, since I was mostly facing away from the TV - lots of the hand gestures worked poorly because my hand/arm was obscured. Weirdly, this seemed like the default setting! So, I'm sitting, facing ahead, and the game then instructs me on how to do the fireball with "ghost" hands - that are off to the side... I went into settings and stuff and couldn't figure it out. This might be a "user error" situation? Anyways, the nausea was enough of an excuse for me to just uninstall the game. A shame really. I wonder if the version that won all these awards was on a different platform?Sat, 18 Oct 2025 19:08:11 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7943&iddiary=13445https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7940I'm 7 and a 1/2 hours in...and the game gets more interesting the longer I play. By interesting I really mean stylish and with cool effects and ideas. I had been lamenting that we hadn't played a "typical" point and click adventure game when this one came up on the docket. (previous game was Creaks, which I thought was a point and click in that sense, but it wasn't). So, lucky me! This one is a "traditional" point and click. At least in the sense of having an inventory and having to figure out when to use which items. But, there isn't really much in the way of conversations with characters and you get the items mostly as a result of solving a puzzle (like opening a locked door and the room inside has the item) and where to use the item isn't really a challenge...it's just getting the items in the first place that is tricky! And wow is this game tricky. LOTS of puzzles - all kinds, logic and word, and visual, etc. The hardest thing so far is not knowing when you have all the info to solve a puzzle and when you don't..which sort of sucks and it's been sort of trial and error for me so far. There IS a logic to certain kinds of rooms and things like that - for example the wonky movie posters are all clues to a number lock that will open the door. So, those are all nearby. But, I just solved a year room - and the insides of that room were clues to a puzzle box that's in a totally different room. Id forgotten about that so it took a while to figure out where to go. Sigh. Curiously I feel like there's never a MILLION open threads to pull on - I seem to get stuck and can then pull on a different thing, or am able to open a new door, then open some shortcuts and so on. The biggets "mega(?)" puzzle/theme so far is this giant maze I need to solve - and I've done it three times! First as the main maze (the red maze), then in a portable videogame cartridge I bought in the game (even in videogames I buy more videogames, lol), and the third was when I found quiz club - which has the same maze again - but in 1st person view (the first time was 3rd person, then 2nd person, and now 1st!). Cool stuff, and creepier the more I play. Supposedly it's an almost 20 hour game? I'm not sure I'll have the brainpower to keep going! But, maybe so? We'll see...Sat, 11 Oct 2025 21:51:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7940&iddiary=13442https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934After trekking across the entire map (that took a while) - which was fun in that I ran across a bunch of new creatures...I decided to give up. Not out of boredom or frustration, but mostly because I think I've seen most of what the game has to offer systemically, I'm not particularly engrossed in the story, AND I have a drawer full of other PS4 games I really want to get into... I feel like I played enough of this one (over 12 hours I think) that I gave it a fair shake and can say I played it well enough. And yes, I was having fun - but I feel I have to find new fun elsewhere...the pile of shame has slowly continued growing...Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:35:32 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934&iddiary=13441https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7939I finished this in one sitting! (literally, because I played it on PSVR while sitting down). I enjoyed it. Didn't get nauseated (from the VR, not the game...) and also had some fun. I think it helped that I recently (last year?) played some Psychonauts - and that the platforming experience there was...pretty bad, so perhaps I wasn't expecting too much. But that seems unfair, and this game was clearly designed in a thoughtful way with regards to the common issues in VR. So, there's no locomotion - you jump from character to character by "possessing" them (I forget what it's called in the game), and the entire first area (you're on a plane with some of the characters from the first game) serves as a tutorial for the different interactions (read, powers) you'll have to use later on. The plan you're on crashes - and everyone is scattered so you need to make your way around (outside of your own brain, because you're captured/tied to a chair) and rescue them, all the way until you get to the final baddy. As expected it's all puzzles, and there's humor (it wasn't terribly funny, but that's not a complaint), and a few clever uses of VR - for example there's a moment when you need to lean forward to peer into a periscope - and from there you can see another character you can possess (and thus continue making progress). Most of the puzzles were pretty straightforward with two exceptions. One took me a while - you had to possess a flea and "get inside" (I don't recall how this worked - but I did it) inside the music box to fix it. The second I had to look up - this was partly a UI thing I didn't understand, because I knew what I had to do, just not exactly how to do it. It involved a cow. And a haystack. Used separately. I think what I enjoyed the most - again, this is not a complaint, I thought it was really nice - was the intro. It's done in a James Bond intro style - with different creators names projected onto fish and stuff... the theme song is even done in that style - it's not the Bond theme but it evokes it. Curiously the game ends - in the final credits - with a message stating that Psychonauts 2 was coming. Huh. No cliffhanger thankfully, which I appreciate. I also appreciated the game being short and not overstaying its welcome. I'm going to guess that some people complained about it being too short..but whatever. Short and good is better than longer and less good.Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:32:22 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7939&iddiary=13440https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7938I love pinball. I'm not a particularly good player, but I do enjoy playing on real (and virtual) tables. So, I really enjoyed browsing around in this collection - there's lots of old tables, weird tables that are hard to play on their real-world counterparts, and more. Favorites? Ugh. It's so hard! Playing Black Hole was neat - though I think I had the chance to play it in Las Vegas? (or maybe that was another one). I am surprised that this collection has games from four different companies - I have no idea if that's because of current-day rights consolidation or if whoever put this together was able to convince lots of people? I don't think it's that common to have a (legit) pinball collection with tables from Bally, Stern, Williams, and Gottlieb! (of the older companies, who's missing? I'm not sure)Tue, 07 Oct 2025 13:44:59 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7938&iddiary=13439https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7936I felt I was close enough to the end that I might as well see it through. I was also curious about the giant monster! And so, 6 hours in, I can say I finished the game! (picked up all the trophies along the way as well - which wasn't too hard tbh, but still worth it - you have to pay a lot of attention so as not to miss some of the secret rooms, but since you can go back to any scene, it's not too punishing really. Also, the interactive paintings were a nice change of pace. As for new things? Well, there were three new enemy types! A female version of spiky-head (I don't remember what I called in my last post) - this enemy does the opposite of you: if you go left, she goes right, and vice versa (I know they're male/female because there's a puzzle in which you're able to bring to of them together and they embrace and it's romantic with hearts and all). Then there's the goat - that runs away from you to another patch of grass and can also, sometimes, jump up to higher/lower platforms, and the "elephant trunk". The goat turns into a chair you can stand on and the elephant trunk turns into a pipe from which water flows. The trunk comes up to "sniff you out" which is how you get it to change position before turning on a light. The last two aren't used in that many puzzles (good thing, I was starting to get a bit antsy tbh), and the game's ending was interesting.. a. You get a final light crystal that's used to take care of the giant boss 0- this area is deep underground - and you see a flower-headed creature! It's just there, chillin', which was intriguing, but nothing else happens...sort of teasing a future game? b. There's a lot of cut-scenes at the end, which was a bit tiresome - but the fun part is you basically (by following one of the bird creatures) ride a elevators/platforms all the way back to the top where you started. This is all following routes you can sometimes see on the way down, and it was neat to move past all these puzzles you solved! I enjoyed the trip back only for that! c. There's really no more puzzles - so, no final "boss puzzle" Which would have been a bad idea? it would have to be real-time? I don't know, I'm glad there wasn't another puzzle to work on...Sat, 04 Oct 2025 18:49:17 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7936&iddiary=13438https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7937When I picked games for my critical game design seminar this semester I really wanted to avoid a "typical" sokoban game and this one seemed to have enough of a twist that it wasn't really a block-pushing puzzle game, but rather something different. And it is! I've played 4 1/2 hours and I think I must be 1/3 of the way through? Or maybe a bit less..I'm not entirely sure since there's lots of optional stuff that you don't quite realize is optional, or that you skip over without realizing. At least that's what I learned during discussion... In that sense it's less puzzle game and more "adventurey" (true to the title). On the other hand, I'm not sure I see any significant features or aspects to call it a "role-"something game. Sure, there's a character (fixed/pre-determined), and you adventure around, but there's no inventory, no progression, no agency in the conversations. There is a lot of reading (from the conversations) and there's some nice humor un there...but not really any role-playing... The gameplay's a bit hard to describe, easier to see and show than to tell, but it's a game where you never move the character, rather the character is nailed to the floor and you slide the floor around - in horizontal or vertical rows/columns. You slide the entire row/column - and they wrap around the edges of the rooms, which are all basically rectangles in different dimensions. The trick is that there's a bunch of rules and interactions that make this harder to accomplish. For example there are objects that block movement (it's like they're floating above the floor so don't slide with it), but you can slide items (sword!) into them to destroy them, and stuff like that. Rather than pick the next puzzle you basically have to navigate the world, opening up new locations, and so on. I'm not sure if I'll go back to it, but it's definitely an interesting thinkygame that's sokoban-adjacent. Good stuff.Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:47:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7937&iddiary=13437https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7936I love Amanita Design's games but this one seems like a bit of a departure from the ones I've played before (Samorost and perhaps some of the sequels). Mostly because this one feels much more like a puzzle game and less like an adventure game? As in, the puzzles are much more structured, following rules introduced, contained to specific areas, and so on. Adventure games tend to have more bespoke puzzles with inventory items and such. I'm not saying this as a bad thing - just that it's not what I expected... And it's fun - I think I'm about 70% done or so? Maybe a bit less - I'm just going on the number of paintings I've discovered... It's, as with most puzzle games, pretty remarkable how much variation and interesting puzzles you can get with just a few rules and an interesting layout. At this point we have the dogs (that turn into nightstands with light), the floating jellyfish (that follow specific paths and turn into map globes), and the spiky heads (that mimic your left/right moves, and turn into coatracks in light), there's also the green switch that turns on/off the lamps with a green indicator, and the floor pressure plates. So far, the entire puzzle part of the game is built around these few elements. I wouldn't be surprised to learn there's one more? I'm also enjoying the mini-games in the interactive paintings (not all paintings are mini-games, but the ones that are, are cute and fun and short enough). There's a trophy for beating each one - so there's a bit of an incentive to complete them. From looking at my steam record I have 50% of the trophies, which means I've either missed a few (likely)_or that I'm half done with the game? I'm almost four hours in...so I'm hoping I'm more than half done to be honest, I'm enjoying my games short!Sun, 28 Sep 2025 23:47:04 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7936&iddiary=13436https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934Is it weird that the first hour or so of this game had me thinking of God of War? (the remake not the old PS2 games) It might just be the tribal costumes and the snow? Anyways, this game is certainly not that - probably predates the remake as well, but I've been having a lot of fun so far. I think I'm past the tutorial and prologue parts of the game where things have opened up and we've hit Ubisoft-Open-World design levels of "icons on maps for you to follow up on". I am torn between trying to focus on the main quest quickly and exploring the world and environments which takes time...and I also get distracted by inconveniences like running out of inventory space so I have to hunt wildlife to get the resources to upgrade that! Is it weird that I really enjoy hiding in the tall grass and taking down robot dinos? I think it's the same pleasure I got from Ghost of Tsushima.... I guess it's the pleasure of appearing skillful while not really being skilled? Ha!Sun, 07 Sep 2025 15:20:59 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7934&iddiary=13434