Blogging the experience of gameplayhttp://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7840Chill little arcade game that was an Amazon freebie. You control this creature, which reminds me of a long snake/dragon, and basically navigate it around each level with the aim of getting various pickups, including the one at the end that completes the level. The levels are 2d planes. You can move in any direction, but gravity pulls you downward when you are outside geometric shapes. Inside the shapes, you are unaffected by gravity. So, to move through the levels, you basically "jump" from shape to shape. There is a "dash" move, which helps you jump up or across long distances. There are other surfaces: the blue ones bounce you like trampolines unless you dash through them, while the orange ones bounce you only if you dash into them. It's pretty straightforward, and there are difficulty modes which, as it gets harder, reduces the frequency of safe shapes (and, I assume, either shrinks blue and orange surfaces or places more of them as obstacles). One neat thing is how Ynglet handles checkpoints. If you pause within any geometric shape and wait like 5 seconds, the game creates a checkpoint right there, and you begin there when you die. It was a really cool way to save, something between a manual save and an autosave. The main game is just over an hour long, and there are some extra "levels," which all feel like unfinished concepts. Simple, somewhat interesting game.dkirschnerSat, 14 Dec 2024 17:03:55 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7840&iddiary=13344http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7839Picked this up because it was supposed to be a clever unreliable narrator / narrator messes with you type game (like Stanley Parable or something). It is a game in such a genre, but it's not nearly as clever or funny as Stanley Parable, Pony Island, The Beginner's Guide, Superliminal, etc., etc. It's short, there's not a lot of substance, it's combat-heavy, and the combat is not great. You play as ICEY, a cyborg that is going after the big bad boss, Judas. On the way, you'll kill lots of other bosses and (often annoying) enemies. You'll upgrade some moves, and you'll listen to the narrator. The narrator really only has one "trick," and that is to tell you to follow the arrows (and then get frustrated with you when you don't). Yes, you'll die a couple times by not following the arrows, but obviously (videogame logic), you should explore and not follow the arrows. Exploring gets you more cash and more upgrades from secret areas, plus some cool fourth-wall breaking developer commentary (my favorite part of the whole game). Following the arrows takes you on the straight path. I accidentally tuned it to "hard" difficulty and when it got really, really difficult right at the end, I realized that I couldn't manually change it to easy. I actually watched the last boss on YouTube. This would have been cooler if I'd never played any of the aforementioned games. Neat, sure, but in 2024, it doesn't stand up like it might have when it came out in 2016. dkirschnerFri, 13 Dec 2024 18:25:47 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7839&iddiary=13343http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7838I'll admit that I was skeptical of Hades - not that it wasn't a good game, but rather that I would enjoy it. This is mostly because my current memory is that I played Bastion and Transistor and thought they were ok, but not "OMG this is the best thing ever" as sentiment at the time seemed to indicate. So, I thought that this time around, I'd have some fun perhaps but would ultimately be "meh" about Hades. And I was wrong. I mean, I started playing - very surprised that it sort of jumps right in with no tutorial or explanation - eventually died and wanted to jump right back in again. And, I've been doing that for a bit now. The game is definitely compelling in that way - you get random boons, you wonder how they work, how they combine with others, and off you go again. And, each time around there's some little detail that's new: a new character, some dialogue with an NPC, etc. so you feel like you're really making forward progress. So far I've gotten to the 3rd big area boss - haven't defeated yet..and things have started to turn. I'm starting to get a bit tired, almost bored...and the game feels a bit grindy. You have to go again and again to make very little progress in the meta... if I was a better player I might have won already - but I'm not. So, I'm sort of stuck grinding away. I'll turn god mode on - it gives you some defense against damage - and it gets better each time you die. (more grind?) We'll see how far I'm able to make it - I am curious to see the end. Definitely will not be doing the extra meta-game end stuff though...jpThu, 12 Dec 2024 21:55:59 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7838&iddiary=13342http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7825Patrick and I decided to bail on Maneater. Neither of us is feeling the shark RPG. The beginning was fun. You're a big-ass shark and you chomp on people on the beach, on their boats, in the water. Their screaming, the blood, the way you can thrash around, is all hilarious. But then it turns out that was your shark mom, and you're actually a little shark at first, and you start in a super boring place and have to get bigger by eating super boring fish. The game appears to be a massive grind-fest. I don't know how long it takes to get bigger, into open water, to where you're back rampaging on beaches, but we played a couple hours and we're just eating like "level 7 clownfish" or whatever, collecting resources for upgrades, and still trying to figure out how to jump effectively. And getting chased by giant crocodiles from time to time that are double our level. Pass. dkirschnerMon, 09 Dec 2024 20:56:22 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7825&iddiary=13341http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7836Ok, this was fun, but not THAT fun. It's - perhaps unexpectedly, more of a puzzle game than a chaotic "goat simulator" game? I knew it wasn't wild chaos like goat simulator - but it was definitely more sedate and structured than I imagined. But, it's fun - and the task list is really neat. It basically layers a puzzle on top of another. From the item on the list - I need to figure out what the puzzle is (how do I do the thing or, for trickier ones, create a situation such that the thing that needs doing gets done) and then figure out how to execute it. I've cleared the first two areas - I think there are two or three more? So, not a very long/big game. I think. The new areas might be huge? I doubt it. My main concern is that since I imagine the puzzles will become more convoluted, I'm worried that the wonkiness in the controls (mostly the thing the goose is locked on to seems wonky at times) will lead to a spike in frustration later on. I hope I'm wrong but we'll see.jpSun, 01 Dec 2024 20:35:49 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7836&iddiary=13340http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7831Chapter 5 was surprisingly underwhelming. Almost boring if I'm being honest. You play as a cat, which was fine. You have to run around town finding conversations - some are UI-evident others just require that you sit there an listen. There's a lot of sitting and listening, much more than choosing. So, I started to get bored and...well, the ending was sort of a fizzle for me because of this. I couldn't tell you what happened in the end (I think there are different endings based on choices you make) but...no bang, no whimper, no nothing is how I'd describe my experience with it. It seems unfair for me to say it like that. Perhaps I just was really tired that day? Not willing to really pay attention? Could be. Overall though, I did enjoy the game and think it was an interesting experience. Most salient for me is how cinematic it is - there's lots of interesting camera work, and framing, and more. And even the interactive parts are changing around and in this sense there's a nice amount of variety. But I think I mentioned all this already. Didn't change with Act V. So, all's well in that sense.jpWed, 27 Nov 2024 18:43:01 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7831&iddiary=13339http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7834I thought this was the last in a trilogy of games starting with To the Moon, but I must not have been paying close enough attention. After being confused how it related to To the Moon and Finding Paradise for most of the game, it turns out to be a prequel of sorts. It's a bit different than those other two as well, in that this one is part murder mystery. That was definitely the most interesting part until the end. The murder mystery is in Act I. Act II was boring and overly sentimental, narrating the intertwining lives of two of the characters. Act III ties the two previous acts together, and finally explains what this has to do with the previous games, and circles back to being interesting again. I should probably stop playing these Freebird Games games. To the Moon was awesome, but the others have been fine. The emphasis is on story, and the overall plots are neat. The writing is good, but characters tend to feel one-dimensional, and there is like one brand of humor throughout the games, which alternates from being silly/funny to childish and back. They are slow gameplay-wise, often with very little interactivity. What interactivity there is is often an illusion. For example, in Impostor Factory, in Act II, you have to collect memories, little orbs, to progress from area to area. But you don't have to actually DO anything to get the orbs. Just click on characters and listen to the story and you'll get your orbs. They're unmissable. Perhaps I am just no longer wowed by the overall concept since it's been three games now. dkirschnerSun, 24 Nov 2024 19:37:03 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7834&iddiary=13338http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7832Another excellent short point-and-click game. Rumu is a cute little robot vacuum cleaner who wakes up in a big house to the voice of an AI named Sabrina. Sabrina explains that the house's human inhabitants, scientists named David and Cecily, are gone mountain biking, to the grocery store, or otherwise out of the house. Rumu is programmed to clean and to feel one emotion: love. Sabrina teaches Rumu how to clean messes and safely guides Rumu around the house, but warns not to explore. Well, Rumu eventually gets curious and explores, and finds some things Sabrina didn't want Rumu to find. You think it's going to be a game about sinister AI, but it's not. It does say some things about our relationship with technology, about technology and ethics, and is actually really sweet and sad. To say anything else about the story will spoil things. Gameplay-wise, you just trundle around the house in a rather linear fashion learning more about Sabrina, David, Cecily, and a couple other characters, occasionally cleaning messes, and saying silly dialogue, usually about things you do or do not love, until you learn the truth of what's really going on. I saw this game on some list of "best games you've never heard of" or something, it sounded intriguing, and it's totally worth checking out. Also, it ends with a "Baba Is You" style sentence, so I guess I'm finally going to start Baba Is You. A sign from the universe if there ever was one. dkirschnerTue, 19 Nov 2024 19:06:57 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7832&iddiary=13337http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7830Artsy point-and-click about love and the end of the universe. The visuals are mesmerizing, lots of black and white (film noir style) with yellows for accent, flashing lights, changing perspectives, just wildly creative. The sound design is great too, lots of jazz music that often coincides with visuals bouncing around. The story isn't easy to follow. It's a metaphor about the main character's relationship with a jazz singer told as the creation, evolution, and destruction of the universe. I didn't care much about what was going on, but was just basking in the audiovisual treat. Gameplay is simple. Like I said, it's a point-and-click adventure at its core, but hyper stylized. So you aren't just walking around pointing and clicking. It feels like a series of scenes with toyboxes because it's not always obvious what you need to interact with or how to do it. It was reminding me of GNOG, where you just play with a level, click around and see what things do. I read that a lot of people found the gameplay frustrating, but I never did. Again, for me, this boiled down to "oooh aaah." I couldn't have cared less about how easy the puzzles were or how obtuse some of the interactions were or how deep the metaphor was going. It's a beautiful game and not one I'm likely to forget any time soon! I saw that there is another one coming out (sequel?). If it's the same kind of thing, I will definitely buy.dkirschnerMon, 18 Nov 2024 16:22:28 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7830&iddiary=13336http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7831I've just finished Act IV. And, I think I understand why so many people adore this game. There's a few things I think are really interesting design-wise, but for the most part it's not really about the game's game-ness... a. The interface when you're moving around/driving on the map is really slick. It feels quite natural and it works well when you change roads and so on. b. The game changes perspectives A LOT. In most games you make dialogue choices for your characters. Here it feels like you make choices for all the characters - sometimes alternating even within the same conversation. It's a bit unsettling but really interesting in a special way. I do feel like I have to pay closer attention to see who's saying what and what I want the responses to be. c. The game really does a good job in being cinematic in the sense of having interesting camera movements and positions and framing and so on. So, it's like the photographic direction is really good. The camera pulls back after a minute in some areas, as you move around the camera follows you but may also zoom in or out and show more/less stuff. It's quite clever. My guess is that it was hand/custom coded for each scene/moment? I have no idea where the story is going, the plot is all weird and all over the place, but I am curious to see/know where it all ends.jpSun, 17 Nov 2024 23:33:47 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7831&iddiary=13335