Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1819https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6365Played through another hour or so of the game. It was good. The ability to turn back time and remake choices has the magical power to make me incredibly uncertain of any choices I make. I probably remade the same choice of whether I directly intervened when a security guard was threatening a girl or if I took incriminating photographic evidence for later about four times before my CHAMPION OF JUSTICE instincts kicked in and I decided to live with the fact that in my playthrough I'm doomed to be on the bad side of the Law. That adds the security guard to the principal and the rich kid for influential people I've made angry. I'm learning more random trivia than I'd ever hoped to about photography. The game's bringing it to light a lot, though not as much as the hodgepodge of other messages/agendas about high school life. Stuff about social media, cliques, etc. It's a high school experience a bit different from what I remember, but then again I haven't been in high school for five years, and technology marches on. More and more emphasis on the missing girl. Everybody knows her, and she's all things to all people. I WONDER WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXTThu, 06 Apr 2017 00:02:45 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6365&iddiary=11120https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6365Played through the first few scenes of the game. One of those choose your own adventure point and click type games in the vein of Telltale Games. Looked like it was just going to be a high school story at first blush, but now there's time control powers, so that's cool. With great power comes great responsibility. Or so the character Max thought, anyways. Saved the life of a girl being threatened at gunpoint by a fellow student. The first major choice in the game was whether or not to report the fellow student's action to the principal or not. I technically had the choice to rewind and explore both options, but I just decided to report the student. It felt like the right thing to do. Though I can only imagine there are repercussions. I hope it doesn't end the life of the girl I was trying to save in the first place. Some foreshadowing about a lighthouse and a 19 year old gone missing. We'll see what that's about.Wed, 05 Apr 2017 00:49:39 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6365&iddiary=11102https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6318And I blasted through the rest of the game. It was a ride. I feel pretty mellow now. I'm not gonna talk about any specifics because I'd hate to be the guy to spoil this for anybody, but it was amazing. I'd recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good story, or anyone really. I loved the scenery. Even with 5-6 year old assets, the artists knew what they were doing with composition. It's a treat to go through the game. The gameplay is always changing up, and while it's never challenging it's fun to see the mechanics. One of my favorite themes in the game was the influence one has on other people, and the real difference you can make by your action (or inaction). In both required and optional elements there are many chances to be an influence for good. And at the same time, the opposing theme that there are things outside your control. Some things are in the past, and some things are so powerful they must be avoided. Loved seeing how the characters progressed. Fantastic. 10/10 game. Now one of my favorites. That ending.Wed, 22 Feb 2017 23:45:16 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6318&iddiary=11015https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6318Ran through what I'd call a complete cohesive portion of the game. My little sons stepped out from the rabbits and sheep of their pastoral homeland and into real danger. After some cliff jumping and wall crawling I ran into a troll with mushrooms sprouting out of his back who was missing his loved one. Well, he didn't tell me that, but nobody tells anyone anything in this game. Point is he was crying alone over his bowl of porridge at a table for two. After the older brother did his standard human interaction (DO YOU WANNA SEE MY MAP), the troll pointed in a direction, perhaps indicating that he knew where our destination was. He helped us across some larger obstacles with his impressive being a huge troll skills, grabbed us, jumped off a waterfall, and pointed us to a cave too small for him to enter himself. Turns out the troll's a liar. He wasn't pointing us to where our goal was. We got directed to the TROLL SLAVE MINES, where the object of his affection was being held against her will past a long series of gears, water, chains, and puzzles, ultimately guarded herself in a large cage by a burly green troll with a club. That troll guy that took us here's terrible, I tell you. I mean, as a player I wanted to help him find his trollwife and I was perfectly happy, but wtf man. You can't just send two young boys who are immature enough that dipping white bunnies in soot and launching sheep off bridges are their idea of a good time into a cave of machinery and death and actual mean trolls with actual weapons. Well, the sons are the protagonists and thus succeeded, so all's well that ends well, but WHAT IF THEY DIDN'T HUH. I probably woulda done the same thing. 10/10 storytelling. Anyways now it's night and it looks like there's wolves about, so we're probably gonna get eaten. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Tue, 21 Feb 2017 22:22:44.)Tue, 21 Feb 2017 22:18:47 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6318&iddiary=10995https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6318Played through the first hour or so of the game today. A real charming piece of storytelling, and quite different mechanics from what I'm used to. Looks like it's going to be a real winner, in my opinion. I enjoy the creator's distinct decision to not provide comprehensible dialogue for the characters, and the measures they've taken in their place. You learn the most about the world and the characters, particularly the two sons, by interacting. Seeing how the older son might nudge a rabbit gently to encourage it while the younger son would grab the same rabbit by the ears. I spent a lot of time just wandering around skipping rocks, playing ball with a girl, and dipping rabbits in soot so they can make friends. Felt a little guilty about all that when I realized I was supposed to be going on a quest to save my deathly ill father, but it's a charming world. Game mechanics took a bit of getting used to. The controls are simplified so it helps (a joystick for movement and a button for interaction for each brother), but controlling two characters simultaneously was a bit uncomfortable. Feels like I have to relearn how to cooperate with myself. Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing, I think it really adds to the story, just something I'm not familiar with. I can only imagine that playing this game on a keyboard would be a nightmare. Glad I got a controller for my computer. Haven't advanced too far into the story, but I'm hoping the writer does good things with the nice base they set up.Tue, 21 Feb 2017 01:08:43 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6318&iddiary=10991https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6218A day later than I planned, but there we go. Turns out I was mistaken and there are two fewer scenarios than I anticipated, so there was only Scenario 9 left. It was nice. I'm not sure I felt 100% fulfilled by the ending though. Just seemed kinda...vague and non-satisfying. Didn't really tie everything together (maybe I just didn't understand the ending) Maybe part of the whole dissatisfaction was because all the new characters in the last few chapters are gray, and I liked the ones with colors more. But don't get me wrong, still was fun right to the end. Just feel like it should have been more than it was. Again, gameplay stayed solid the whole time. Never felt like a level repeated an idea for interaction with characters, always kept it fresh. Each one was less like mario and more like a Rubik's cube waiting to be unturned. Is puzzle-platformer a genre? Google says yes. This is that sort of game. Less frantic sonic dashing and more...Braid or Portal-like problem solving. Beat the game with 100% completion in about three hours. I think 3-5 hours is a nice sweet spot for a game to tell a contained story. Long enough for some substance, short enough for the player to remember the beginning when they pass the finish line. As for themes this time, I suppose the theme with the new characters and the levels influenced by the old characters was a legacy, perhaps? That whole innate human desire to 'make your mark' on the world. The original characters may not have been able to save themselves, but they opened the road for others to eventually do the same. If you can't win yourself, the next best thing is helping someone else do so. In other words, modern society (Or AI-puzzle-land) is built on the backs of the previous generation. The previous generation didn't necessarily fail because they didn't make it to the end like their descendants. They did the best they could with what they had. Something something human progress. As for how I feel about the game overall, solid 8.5-9/10. I'd probably play again for the gameplay, The story's the kind of thing you feel like you get a handle on after you experience it once. And again, I guess the overarching theme (I think I mentioned it before) is it takes two (or more) to tango. There's a limit to what one can accomplish by themselves. The gameplay and the story both emphasized and encouraged cooperation, and I think that's something admirable, especially considering it's a single-player game. If you've got $10 and a few hours, consider giving it a whirl.Wed, 18 Jan 2017 21:40:09 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6218&iddiary=10845https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6218Played through scenarios 4-8 today. Yup, the cloud was bad news. It was a real roller coaster over these five scenarios. The creator's pretty good at adding the human dimension to his characters, funny considering they're all artificial intelligences. I suppose that's one of the questions that these sorts of games dredge up. Is artificial intelligence entitled to the same rights as humans? If you say it depends on how smart they are, where is that line, anyways? But yeah, if the first few chapters were questioning what kinds of interactions bring human beings together, I suppose themes explored in scenarios 4 and 5 were what brings friends apart. When does someone decide to split from another person? It was pretty fun to play through. Plus, with the characters fluctuating more the puzzles got more challenging. The levels change up enough that it never gets repetitive. Favorite character so far showed up in Chapter 7. James. His gravity's inversed. I thought I was so clever when I figured out that if you jump just right you can have two characters walk on one anothers' feet (I know they don't have feet. Whatever.) and effectively fly. Felt clever until it was necessary the very next level. There were some pretty memorable quotes. "James liked being alone. No one to insult him, or question his unique disregard for Newtonian laws..." Pretty fun. I'm having a lot of fun with this game in general, which I guess is what's most important. (is it?) Well, it's fun, and it's making me think a lot. Big plot twists in Chapters 7 and 8, so get excited for that if you play the game. Plus the party gets their mojo back together. And then of course everything shifts again. Looking forward to the last three chapters, probably'll do them tomorrow some time.Mon, 16 Jan 2017 23:09:02 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6218&iddiary=10830https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6218Played through the first three scenarios (Think worlds, about 10 levels each) of the game Thomas Was Alone today. In all took me an hour and some change. With about 11 scenarios total, it appears that it's a short game. I estimate completion of the whole title in under four hours. The game began in traditional fashion for platformers, with the hero (a red brick named Thomas) on the left and the goal on the right. The soothingly British-accented narrator tells us that Thomas' first thought is thus: that he is alone. And indeed for the first few levels you are alone, completing some simple jump puzzle. By the way Thomas has one of the best jumps in any platformer I've played so far. Slowly you amass a group of friendly AI (the game informs you quickly that they are AI) of varied personality and ability. One to squeeze through smaller gaps, one to jump high and run fast, one to float on water, one that others can bounce on for a higher jump. The titular Thomas is the Mario of the group, possessed of no special powers but reasonably capable of running, jumping, and lending himself as a footstool to boost his amassed friends to new heights. And boost he does. No level can be completed without the cooperation of every little AI brick present. In all, from a gameplay standpoint Thomas Was Alone is a well crafted little platformer. But more interesting to me than the gameplay alone is the story that is told alongside and through it. There are several themes that stuck out over the course of gameplay. One is differences between people. Thomas cannot jump as high as John, who cannot get to some tight places Christopher can, who is as useful as a bag of kittens in the face of bodies of water that Claire can easily cross. Is one character better than another? Perhaps if you measure them from one standard. And sometimes you do indeed get frustrated and wish that Christopher could jump up just this one staircase on his own rather than rely on vaulting off the top of Thomas. But it teaches you something. What is the inherent worth of a person? Is there something makes one 'better' than another? Certainly it's easy to get ahead and achieve financial and professional success in the world by being smarter, working faster, or yes, jumping higher than others. But what happens to our sense of worth when we (or others) shift focus to something we're not so good at? Perhaps some of the most important qualities aren't measurable at all. A little food for thought. Another concept brought up in the wonderfully narrated interaction between characters is perspective. What someone intends in their action versus how their gesture is accepted by other people. I won't go into too much detail as said dialogue between characters is one of the little joys of this game. One more for this entry. As is common in platformers, the name of the game is PvE, player versus environment. The AIs are quick to anthropomorphize the world around them, pretty much unanimously assigning it a malevolent will. Now as this is the realm of the game I won't deem it impossible, but we do the exact same thing. Call a day bad, feel like the world is out to get us, or yell at the terrible weather. But hey, at least Thomas isn't alone in facing the scary world any more. Towards the end a spooky pixel cloud showed up. I wonder what's going to happen. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:50:39.)Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:50:13 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6218&iddiary=10829