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Phantom Abyss (PC) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 19:14:27) |
I'd heard of the game's hook (or gimmick if you will) as, everyday it's a different 1st person platforming game/run, and if you die - that's it. Play a different run later.
I'm guessing stuff changed along the way, though the concept is still here - it's a reasonably challenging rogue-like 1st person platforming game. I've had fun, you have a whip to help you climb and each level has different modifiers (the whip has an ability) and you can pick up boons in your run (if you have enough coins to afford them) and hopefully make it to the end. BUT, you see a bunch of ghosts for everyone else who played this level - if someone died, you can collect their spirit or something for a small heal! During each run you collect keys you can use to buy permanent upgrades, and so you go up the progression ladder of many roguelites...
Someone described this as first person temple run, which is close enough? I mean, the levels themselves are a lot more interesting than the "mere" reaction times that temple run goes for, here you can side-step/etc. stuff - and there are different paths, and in all you can be a bit creative for how you approach stuff...I've had fun so far - unlocked all the green levels and I've started on the blue ones!
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Cuphead (Switch) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:37:03) |
I only get to play this when my son comes around - and we play together and I realized, yeah - I need to either start practicing seriously or just give up. And, I enjoy playing it co-op, so there's not much sense in practicing, so I decided to give up.
We did make it to the 2nd island(?), and played some of the levels there - but I was clearly starting to see a steeper path to success. As in, it too us (mostly my fault) more and more tries to make less progress. He's already played it, beat it too? So, not much point for him really.
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Sonic Rush (DS) by jp (Apr 6th, 2025 at 13:34:08) |
I started playing this from the saved game - with new(?) character Blaze on "area 2" (I don't remember the exact name). And, I just could not beat the level - it was set in the casino world, and everything was moving super fast and on "automatic" - so, you just press move and the character zips along, bounces, etc.
It's actually quite boring! Because you just do this, at some point you hit an enemy (very few enemies in the game!), lose your rings, and then carry on. But, I'd lose because I'd fall into a bottomless pit, lose three lives and then out.
I'd say it wasn't so much frustrating as it was a disappointment. Yes, the point of Sonic is that it's "fast" - that's it's thing. But I find that there's little interaction to the game for most of the levels - you just "go along with the direction". It's neat when sometimes you get bounced around automatically, but for the most part I like to control the character.
So, I deleted the save file and started a new one, this time with Sonic in the equivalent of green hill zone. This level has two areas and then a boss. So, it's like 3 levels make up a level.
And, the experience was pretty similar - run on automatic for a while, lose rings suddenly or die, repeat with a bit more caution...etc. I did make it all the way to the boss fight - which I almost beat one too many times, and I just realized - ok, this is dumb - at least the boss fights have more gameplay ( you dodge, make an attack when the weak spot is open, etc.) - but it's still a pretty boring/uninteresting platforming experience.
So, off to the shelf it goes!
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Secret Files: Tunguska (DS) by jp (Apr 4th, 2025 at 19:16:25) |
I think there's a weird moment in time when everyone thought that point-and-click style adventure games were dead, but they were not. And, I think this game is an example of a game that was under the radar of "mainstream" games press at the time? Or at least under the radar of the average consumer of videogames...
This particular game is also a strange little time capsule - it's a port of what I think was a PC game...also at a time when people where porting all kinds of things to the DS. And, it works! Well, from a UI perspective at least. And it works pretty well. At least compared to another adventure game I played recently on the DS whose name I'm blanking on as I write this. I bounced on that one because it had some character/3D interactions that were awkward and unintuitive. Here, they were much smarter about it (I'm assuming they made UI "concessions" because it's on the DS). So, while you have a 3D character that navigates a static space - you don't actually have to move the character around directly in order to interact with objects/places in each scene. Press one button and all the interactive spots highlight, and you can just tap on them directly. I LOVE this solution - especially because I was never a fun of the "hunt for the pixel" approach that many games had (on PC) - and I'm super glad it didn't come across into this DS version (for all I know, the "here's all the highlights" was also possible on PC).
But, the UI triumph aside, I still kind of bounced off this. I got stuck on a puzzle (how typical!) - and what I had to do was leave a location to visit another location and then continued...this seemed really "unfair" to me - as in, unintuitive - mostly because I had assumed I could not leave the locatio in the first place. It wasn't entirely unintuitive - but it was the sort of puzzle where I was sure I should be able to (in this case) get the key out of the aquarium - but it turns out that no, I had to leave the place, do some other stuff, and then come back. At this point I was well into the tried-and-true "try all the things with all the things", except that I did not know I could leave the location I was at. Sigh.
So, from glancing at my list of DS games I still need to play...well, I wasn't THAT interested in the story so far and the puzzles didn't feel particularly interesting either..so, it was an easy game to put on the shelf.
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Shogun Showdown (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 4th, 2025 at 18:33:00) |
Clever little tactics roguelite. It reminds me of Into the Breach and other tactics games where you are given clear information about what enemies will do each turn. It's also reminiscent of Into the Breach because of the small play space. Basically, the game takes place on a 2d plane that is divided into like 8 or 9 spaces. Any given character occupies 1 space and can move left or right. You build a "deck" of "tiles" that include attacks and other special abilities, many of which involve movement (e.g., a forward dash that moves to the nearest frontal enemy and deals 1 damage). Your goal is to build up your tiles and progress stage by stage until you kill the Shogun.
During each run, you can purchase and upgrade tiles, mostly increasing their damage or decreasing their cooldowns, purchase passive abilities, use items, and other standard roguelite stuff--make yourself stronger by strategically handling whatever random things you get.
Most every action you do takes a turn, and all characters take turns at the same time. So, you move right (1 turn) and all the enemies do a thing (one might move left toward you, one might queue up an attack). Then you queue up an attack, and those two enemies might queue up an attack and attack, respectively. Actually, it also reminds me of Crypt of the Necrodancer, which works like this, where all characters act simultaneously. In that game, when you move, everything else moves. Shogun Showdown is like that. When you do something, the enemies do something.
I beat the Shogun for the first time this evening, which was maybe my fifth run or so. I had what felt like extremely overpowered weapons, a sword that I'd leveled up to deal 5 damage with only a 2-turn cooldown. I also had a bow-and-arrow with 4 damage and a 3-turn cooldown. The kicker though was a curse that doubled the next damage on an enemy. So, I'd just queue the curse, the sword, and the arrow. That took literally half the Shogun's health bar. Did it again, dead and into phase 2. No problem. Did it two more times. Dead. Easy. When you beat the Shogun, you unlock "day 2", which is the next difficulty level. You can also unlock additional characters with different skills, and you can keep unlocking new tiles and stuff. I consider it beat after taking out the Shogun once. It's a fun game, really tight, and makes you think ahead. It doesn't do much that you haven't seen before though.
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Blair Witch (PC) by dkirschner |
| Creepy, lots of wandering in the woods and getting turned around. Dog companion is great but makes me nervous! -------- Overplays the PTSD, becomes tiresome. Still creepy though. Great atmosphere. |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 28 May, 2024
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Finished tonight with Patrick. We've been playing this one for the past couple months and made a push to wrap up. What is this game about? Well, you're this guy Ellis with some serious PTSD. You go into the woods looking for a missing kid, against the wishes of your wife and the sheriff, who regularly allude to your mental illness (usually in flashbacks or hallucinations). A man with childhood trauma related to woods (??), who then joined the military and got his squad killed in an ambush, "accidentally" killed a civilian, came back and became a police officer, and shot an unarmed man, is totally the one you want getting lost in the woods with the Blair Witch.
Luckily, you have a faithful canine companion, Bullet. Bullet is the best, and our biggest regret is that we gave Bullet dark colors, which made him impossible to see at night. Most of the game occurs at night. Suggestion: make Bullet the lightest color you can and give him a bright collar. Bullet searches areas for you, sniffs out items, follows trails, and is a happy, good boy. He makes you feel less alone in the woods, but also makes you feel more unnerved. Because Bullet is so lovable, you know that something bad will happen to Bullet. You just don't know what or when it will happen.
I think that the game is split into two main parts: the woods and the house. I mostly enjoyed the woods, but mostly did not enjoy the house. In the woods, you are following the trail of the kid and whoever might have abducted him. The woods become creepier the deeper you go. You get turned around. There are monsters. There is a man with a coat of human skin. It's deeply unsettling. You occasionally find a tape for your camcorder (this is the Blair Witch, after all!). Some tapes are just story tapes; watch them to get info. Other tapes are interactable. If you are looking at a spot in the environment where something happens on tape, whatever happened on tape will happen in the environment. For example, a fallen tree is blocking your path. On the tape, the tree falls. Pause the tape before the tree falls, put the camcorder away, and voila, the tree will not be fallen. You'll use this trick to get through doors, find objects, and so on. It's neat, though can be annoying when (a) you can't figure out what has changed or what you are supposed to be paying attention to, or (b) you know what you are supposed to do but you can't trigger the change because you aren't lining up in just the right way or whatever. Those are the woods. Probably 2/3 of the game. Maybe 3/4.
Then there's the house. I think this is the house from the movie, or at least a very similar house. This is where, if you weren't sure yet, Ellis descends into madness and (if you got the bad ending like us at least) becomes a terrible version of himself (again) under the Blair Witch's influence. The house segment lasted far too long, with extremely repetitive hallucinations and flashbacks, with us having to see and hear the same things we'd been seeing and hearing for the entire game, as if the game didn't think that players knew Ellis was unhinged. This was established far earlier! The house appears to have three stories, but you will go up and down roughly 50 flights of stairs. Seriously, it lasts foreeeeever, just wandering through the house, here's a flashback, there's a hallucination, here's another monster to avoid, there's the screen shaking, here's the same room you already were in 10 times ("sigh," Ellis says every time--for real, me too!), here's another text message to read, and there are the stairs yet again.
Finally, it ends. With the bad ending, Ellis is trapped. With the good ending, Ellis is freed. You will get the bad ending, but this will free you from Blair Witch. Overall, I leaned toward enjoying it. The atmosphere is great, especially the sound design. It's creepy. But it's not a psychological horror game I would easily recommend.
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