Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1787https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6133So I have been playing the game completely passively for about an hour now and I’m dying more often than before. I really hope it’s worth it. One thing that I noticed after restarting the game is that certain narrative elements have changed, and this was very cool and creepy at the same time. For example, the second time I confronted Toriel at the exit of the ruins, she mentions something along the line of me looking at her as if I saw a ghost. Wow, did the game record my previous session where I killed her and adjusted the narrative based on me killing her? If that is the case then I’m very impressed, not because it’s a fresh idea, but rather the way it was implemented. I could have played through the second time without even noticing the narrative adjustment, instead of making the change extreme and noticeable it was very subtle, but at the same time very powerful. Playing passively can get a bit annoying at times. As stated above I’m dying more often and staying determined is not easy. I’m currently solving puzzles by the two skeleton brothers (for the second time) and I really wish I had completed the game by this log entry so I could reflect on the ending.Thu, 07 Apr 2016 12:15:14 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6133&iddiary=10718https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6133So as I was making my way through the underworld something was bothering me. The moment after I killed Toriel and went through the door I was confronted with that annoying flower character. And it mentioned me killing her, I can’t exactly remember what the flower said, but it was something along the lines that “I didn’t even spare her”. Which got me thinking, maybe there is a different way? Maybe I don’t have to kill her to progress through the game. This also got me thinking how at the beginning of the game Toriel informs me that I can talk to enemies to avoid fights i.e. killing them. There is even a fighting practice dummy that you can talk to. At this point I realized I didn’t once try to flee or spare enemies. I was just slaughtering everything that came upon my way or try to talk my way out of conflicts...but no fleeing or sparing. So I couldn’t help it. I reset the game and started all over again. This time I didn’t kill a single monster. I quickly learned how the flee and spare mechanics work and it made the game even a bit easier in terms of retaining health points and getting through conflicts quicker. As the moment came to face Toriel in front of the exit of the ruins, I did not attack…I stayed determined and kept on talking to her, to the point of thinking nothing will happen, when eventually the conflict stopped and her life was spared. She let me through the gate and she is alive. This game is messing with me…because now I know there must be alternate endings…now I must remain passive until the end. Wish me luck. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:17:24.)Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:13:33 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6133&iddiary=10707https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6133So I know very little about this game. Let’s just say that these retro style RPG’s are not my favorite games, but let’s give Undertale a chance shall we? The first thing that grabbed my attention was the strange and interesting concept of being able to passively end conflicts with monsters. This is fresh, for me at least. I actually tried playing the game entirely as a passive character, which didn’t last long. After only about a dozen monsters I gave up on the whole passive nonsense and just proceeded to kill enemies. One thing that I really like about the combat mechanics is the sliding bar attack mechanic, and the bullet hell defense mechanic is also very cool. So about 20 minutes into the game and I’m slightly becoming annoyed. The mother-like goat character, Toriel, is really creeping me out. When I eventually reached her house I immediately left to go explore, just to realize I can’t do much exploring. I obviously have to put up with this strange goat character. And that’s when the game had its first impact on me, the moment when I had the opportunity to ask Toriel “when can I go home”…I paused on this screen what seemed like a long time, I felt bad for the old goat lady. She made me a cake and was taking care of me and even though I found her annoying, I felt bad asking “when can I go home”. So I tried to ignore the subject, but quickly realized that I must confront her on this…and here I am now, I just killed her. She sacrificed her life to test my powers and see if I’m strong enough to face all that the underworld brings…and now the game is officially starting. Old goat lady you will be missed…Mon, 04 Apr 2016 18:04:29 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6133&iddiary=10697https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6115So this time I decided to build my own prison. It was interesting to note that the game gives the player a significant amount of adjust-ability in terms of difficulty. The player can select options such as different wardens, unlimited funds, gangs, and random events etc., which all have an effect on how the game will be played. In order to get the best idea of my own play-style I decided to go fully sandbox mode. So I gave myself unlimited funds. In my first log I mentioned how I always cheer for the prisoners in prison escape movies, well having the power to control a prison with unlimited funds definitely changed the way a favor escaping prisoners. My first 45 minutes of playing were spent blueprinting the prison layout. I spent most of the planning time making sure the prison exits and entries are well secure. I haven’t played the game long enough to even know if prisoners will escape through the main prison exit, but regardless I made sure to make it as secure as possible. The next thing that I did was build the water and electricity infrastructure to perfection. I think this is coming from my old days of playing Sim City. I wanted to make sure that my prison is “future proof” by having a solid water and power infrastructure. I made a grid of pipes and wires which was so dense that regardless of where I placed a building it would automatically have water and power connections nearby. The next step was prison cells and sanitation. While the traditional cells has its own toiled, I went a step further and installed showers and drains in each cell. I was under the impression that if I have showers in each cell it would reduce the likelihood of soap dropping incidents happening in the shared showers, haha. By this point I have been building my ultimate prison for 2 hours. I was so invested in the building process that I completely disregarded that I have a queue of prisoners waiting to move in. But regardless of that it was interesting to notice that my main goal was to make a prison that has great sanitation and infrastructure. My prisoner’s quality of life was priority number one.Thu, 03 Mar 2016 12:00:28 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6115&iddiary=10677https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6115When I first started playing the game I was under the impression that there is only one mode to play. I guess because when you first start the game it goes directly to campaign mode. Today I discovered that there is both a campaign mode and a build mode. I will postpone trying the build mode for later, now I will continue playing the campaign. Chapter 2: the Don Palermo family. This chapter started out with a fire that broke out in a second prison and my main objective was to put it out. After everything got under control I found out that the fire was set up by members of the Palermo mobster family. The Don dies from the injuries and leaves the family business to his two sons (one is a son in law) who are also locked up. The Palermo family is responsible for smuggling narcotics into the prison and my job is to find the remaining drugs. Unlike the first chapter the second one is not as involved with the story. Most of my time I spent improving the prison and not really caring about the narrative, which was not the case in the first chapter. After a while I completely forgot about the Palermo’s and just focused on building. I noticed that I care about the prisoners a bit too much; I actually placed TV’s in every single cell. After playing it for an hour I actually ignored the staff completely. For some reason I’m relating to the prisoners and not to the prison workers…Wed, 02 Mar 2016 00:58:26 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6115&iddiary=10668https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6115So I know nothing about this game (prison architect) and I purposely avoided reading anything about it. My first assumption (judging by its name) is that it’s a sim game about building and managing a prison, I might be wrong. If this is true then I’ll have an interesting time playing it as for some odd reason I always find prison escape stories fascinating and I always cheer for the criminals to escape. Will this have an impact on how I play the game? Will I go against my support for escaping criminals and build the perfect prison or will I build a prison with poor security systems which will enable to prisoners to escape? I’m not sure yet but let’s find out! First play session (about 40 mins): I just completed the first chapter and I’m quite surprised. Before playing the game I thought it was just a sim, with weak or no narrative. I thought it was a resource game where I just manage a prison. However after playing the game for 15 min I realized this is not the case. The first mission is to build an execution room where prisoners on death row will be executed. And this is where the story of Edward comes in. The game allows you to click on prisoners and find out more about them, the reason why they are locked up. However I ignored this because I didn’t want to “bond” with any specific prisoner, or favor one prisoner over another. It’s just a resource sim game right? Well in the case of Edward the game goes quite into detail about his crime. Cut scenes show Edward finding his wife in bed with another man which ends in a double murder. After the cut scene the player is exposed to the Chief’s feelings about how finding your wife cheating on you does not justify murder and Edward is getting what he deserves. As the moment of Edwards execution nears closer another cut scene interrupts the game play, this time it shows Edward approaching a priest in a church after the murder, showing regret and asking for forgiveness. I loved this part and I already love this game. On one side the game is making you build and execution room, and on the other side its showing you this very traumatic event. It does not want to separateMon, 29 Feb 2016 22:53:17 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6115&iddiary=10663https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6088After scavenging the villa two nights in a row I finally decided to expand onto other locations. Before the night fell I got a knock on the door. Last two times I got a knock on the door it was the bartering guy. And I would choose to barter just because I was worried that if I don't barter, he would come back and steal my stuff. I guess this was my assumption from his message "you will regret this later" if I choose not to. However this time it was not him at the door, it was a woman who asked for my assistance to board up her house because scavengers would break in and steal stuff. At this point I was certain it was connected to the villa I robbed the previous two night. I did feel a bit guilty, so without hesitation I sent Bruno out to help her. In a way I was hoping that she was from the villa, as this request from her gave me a chance to repay her for the items I stole.Thu, 28 Jan 2016 00:54:20 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6088&iddiary=10630https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6088One thing that I noticed while playing the game was that I’m constantly returning to the abandoned cottage even though there were many other locations available to scavenge. One of the reasons is I was trying to see how much I could retrieve from a single location and if the items re-spawn, the second reason is I initially felt bad going into the ruined villa. I wanted to see if I could survive without stealing from others. But that didn’t last long. After a short while Pavle got sick and everyone else was extremely hungry so I had no other choice but to steal from the Ruined Villa location. The first time I went there I was very careful not to get caught. Spent a lot of time sneaking and just examining the house. Was really struck me how quickly my behavior changed. Upon returning to the Ruined Villa for the second time I was less cautious and greedier. I was taking my chances and stealing any item that I really needed, and even a few that I didn’t have any use of. One thing that really got to me was when I looked through the eye hole and noticed one of the tenants of the house going through a drawer that I previously scavenged and saying to himself how he can’t find something, something that I have stolen the night before. I felt a bit bad, but just a little bit. I mean, Pavle is sick and I had to steal it. After that I found myself not going back to the Ruined Villa quite as often…Mon, 25 Jan 2016 23:25:39 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6088&iddiary=10623https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6088So I heard quite a lot about “This War of Mine”, but never had the opportunity to play it until now. I actually bought the game about a year ago, as I knew I would eventually play it. So here are some initial thoughts about it. Before I started playing the game I opened the Option menu and found the usual Audio/Video settings, however I also found two settings under the “Misc.” category: Language and Temperature. Language is expected, but I was quite surprised to see the option of switching the Temperature between Fahrenheit and Celsius. This immediately gave me the impression that temperature plays an important part of the game and at this moment I already started fearing my characters’ lives, I can already see one of them dying from the cold, and I haven’t even started playing. The first 10 minutes of playing I spent learning the basics and quickly realized that this game is all about scavenging resources necessary to survive and managing the distribution of said resources. As scavenging is such an important part of gameplay I quickly realized that Marko (in game character who has the largest capacity to scavenge) became my number one, my favorite. Pavlov and Bruno were less important to me at this time. After four sleepless nights of scavenging, Marko’s stats quickly deteriorated as I was overworking him, he became extremely tired and in need of rest, while Bruno and Pavlov were mostly sleeping and not doing much. It is interesting how the character that I liked the most got overworked the most. I liked him but at the same time didn’t care for him. A very sad begging. Marko is now recovering while Bruno and Pavlov take his place scavenging.Sun, 24 Jan 2016 21:46:50 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6088&iddiary=10620