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Bridge Constructor Portal (PS4) by jp (Sep 12th, 2026 at 16:02:23) |
Oh, the main reason I got bored is because, once the levels start to get a lot more complicated, I found myself in the situation of having to painstakingly "rebuild" bridges from scratch because my first attempt just just off by a little bit...and you can't really do things like select a whole construction and, say, move it to the left a little bit...you just have to built it again from scratch, which got a bit tiresome - felt more busywork.
That being said, because the physics simulation isn't quite 100% predictable - there are moments of genuine surprise and laughter. Each level has essentially two goals - get one cart across and get a convoy (multiple, that come out at a regular rate) of carts across. The convoy part was definitely more fun because your bridge might work for one cart, but oscillate a bit such that the next cart barely missed, and then there's a whole pileup with carts flipping and getting stuck or the entire bridge swinging out of control.
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Bridge Constructor Portal (PS4) by jp (Sep 12th, 2026 at 15:58:36) |
I played 40 plus levels, it was fun, didn't take too long but began to get a bit tiresome (which is why I've bailed and moved on).
This game is a portal-themed bridge-constructing game in which carts move automatically and you have to build structures that will sustain/hold them on their way to a pre-determined exit. It's physics based, and having taken static mechanics as an undergraduate I appreciated the load-balancing/bearing principles behind a lot of the gameplay.
However, the game's gameplay is portal-themed and not portal-based. In the main Portal games (1 and 2), the cognitive challenge comes from figuring out where to place portals and how to navigate yourself (your character, in first-person view if I recall) around an area such that you can reach the exit. In this game, the portals (and later gels for speedy and bouncy effects) are already placed - you just need to build bridges. This is fair to the game's title - just an observation not a complaint.
In fact, the existence of portals arguably makes the puzzles themselves more interesting because it affords larger areas withing a single screen/area. If a level in this context is a large rectangular "diorama" - there are only certain ways to navigate from, say, the top left corner down to the bottom right. Portals allows the game's designers to create different navigational paths that violate the regular rules you'd have to follow in a normal space - Portaling around is basically teleporting (going from A to B without traversing anything in between) - so you can have more "interesting" routes you need to build bridges in.
I haven't played the other games in the series, which I assume have their own interesting mechanics and level-things to avoid/make use of, and I wonder if "teleporters" were used in their earlier games? If so, then this game is a lot less interesting - after all it limits itself to portal themed things (switches, sentry guns, the gels, etc.) while the other games could presumably have all that and much more.
Still, as a theming exercise, it's really well done - GladOs and more...and fun little interstitials every 10 levels (or was it 20?).
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Senran Kagura Peach Ball (NSW) by jp (Sep 12th, 2026 at 15:48:09) |
I kept on playing the main story - it did become a bit of a drag mostly because I did not care about the story or characters - in the vain hope that this might unlock an additional table to play on. Alas, this was not the case. It did not help that I kept unlocking different cosmetic items and virtual things that threw me off - there was one whose icon was a small pinball table. It took me a while to figure out what they referred to and, sadly, it was not a new table.
That being said, I thought the game's table goal design was interesting and how it triggers a broader goal you reach and then move on. Another way to describe it is that the game's main mode of play (the story mode) is one in which the pinball table is NOT played "until you lose", rather it is play until you complete it's goals - and then it forcibly ends you get another story sequence. There is, of course, an "endless" mode which I would call "regular pinball". LOL.
As I write this I continue to wonder why they decided NOT to go with a vertical orientation for play but alas. The different camera angles helped some, but I still felt like the game was harder to play than it should have been (it wasn't hard to play, just made harder) because of the aspect-ratio limiting how much you could see on screen or how small/big it would be. I found better success changing the pinball to different colored/textured ones I unlocked because they had better contrast with the background table...
Oh, also the tables often got stuck in an "infinite" situation that I had to nudge out of to continue playing, which is why the endless mode and score chasing are kind of pointless.
BUT, it was an interesting game. Creepy in many ways, but true to the series theme (which is, I guess, creepy/pervy already?). The table goal design were interesting, even if I found it hard to follow them (look at the right-side of the screen while playing)...
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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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