Blogging the experience of gameplayhttp://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7987This is an aerial combat game. Admittedly not my favorite genre, but The Falconeer won a BAFTA, despite receiving lukewarm reviews, and I got it for free or in a Humble Bundle, so I decided to try it out. It apparently had a remaster, so I was hoping that whatever issues it previously had would be remedied. It nails a visual style and commits to political-military worldbuilding, which I respect. Unfortunately, that’s about all it nails. The amount of things the game doesn’t bother to explain to you is perplexing. It begins with a prologue and combat tutorial, the first and last thing the game explains. I appreciate figuring things out on my own, to an extent. When I decided to quit, I noticed some text on the menu screen that said I’d leveled up and saw that I was level 3. There are levels? Are there experience points, too? What do the levels do? Do they improve my stats? The stats are AG, SPD, ENG, HP, RGN, DMG, and ROF. What do these mean? Some I can interpret—SPD must be speed, for example—but others, I am at a loss. ENG? What is this? English? Engineering? What is AG? Agility? What does that do? There is no tutorial for this, no tooltips. I also discovered shops. What is the point of shops? I played an hour without buying anything and it didn’t hamper my mission success. Do I have to buy things? What are these different categories of things I can buy? I stumbled upon an inventory of sorts, I think. Do I equip things? Some things are damaged. Can I repair them? Speaking of the difficulty, it seems to be random. There are skull icons indicating difficulty of each mission. In the hour I played, these ranged from 1 skull to like 6 skulls (out of 10?). I didn’t notice a difference. It would go like 1, 2, 6, 1, 4, 2, 5, 1. What does the difficulty mean? Why was there a “6” difficulty mission 15 minutes into the game? And why was it easy? Why are enemy names re-used over and over? I killed the same named enemies, blew up their falcons, sank their ships, and yet they continued reappearing. What is the point of the shrines? Are a lot of the open world locations just places to discover, but you can’t interact with them? What’s the point? Related, the story is a dense political-military slog. There are a bunch of different factions, or countries, or organizations, and they are all fighting, allying, betraying. Some guy keeps barking orders at me to take main missions. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t really care. It seems like the developers built a neat world here, but the narrative isn’t presented in an interesting way, and exploring the world on your falcon is boring, too. There’s a big map, but there’s nothing to do. The open world is empty, just an expanse of sea with islands and cities here and there, and various shrines and other “open world” boxes to tick off, but there isn’t much substance to any of it. The controls are a hot mess, too. You can fast-travel immediately, which begs the question of why there is an open world at all, especially since there is not much to do it in. Actually, fast travel only works sometimes, though I cannot discern when or why. Sometimes, you can press “A” to fast travel and sometimes it doesn’t work. Other times you press “A” to fast travel, and the fast travel indicator doesn’t appear, yet you will fast travel anyway. In missions, you press “A” to target enemies. Sometimes “A” will target them and other times it won’t. It was very irritating. Occasionally, in combat the camera swings up for no apparent reason or the bird ascends, which is disorienting. I gather I am not the only one turned off by all these issues. On Steam, 57.8% of players completed the prologue. Then just 10.6% completed the first chapter! That’s a huge attrition rate. Then nearly half of those bailed before completing the second chapter, which just 5.9% of players did! It looks like it’s not until the third chapter that players committed to finishing (4.7% in chapter 3, 4.3% in chapter 4, and 4.2% completed the epilogue). I was just trying to knock something out in the next week so I could have a completion for March (because I’m in the middle of two long games), but this ended up being a retirement. I’ll have to pick something else to beat this week.dkirschnerSun, 22 Mar 2026 16:40:50 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7987&iddiary=13496http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7985I don't know why I had this one sitting on my shelf for so long...but, I guess it was a good a time as any to try it out. So here you're actually a vampire - but no powers (yet?), other than that it's a regular 2D Castlevania with items, and equipment, also levelling up, and backtracking and so on. I only recently unlocked the double jump, which helps - but overall I'm not super enthused by the game. I feel like the character takes too long to change direction, and that I get hit a lot in ways I felt weren't easy/possible to avoid. I don't mean when it's a boss and you're just learning what it's attacks are. According to the savefile I'm over 20% though, and I'm pretty tired of it already. I'm maybe 5 hours in or so? It's hard to tell because when you die...well, all that time prior doesn't count. The powers are pretty strange - so, sometimes, when you kill an enemy you get like a "spirit orb" or something that you can then equip as a power. They're all different - I like the ones that summon a monster-pal the best, but overall the system seems under-utilized? Maybe I just haven't been lucky enough to get any of the really cool monsters? Touch screen interaction seems minimal - occasionally you'll run into a sealed room that shows a design and sometimes, after beating the boss that's usually behind that room, you have to trace the design yourself. I did think it was funny that two NPCs set up "shop" in one of the early areas - so you can teleport back to their location (from special teleport rooms) to basically buy supplies and things. I should stock up on lots of health potions, but I'm probably not going to continue to play the game, so not seeing much point. I think I got the gist of it.jpSat, 21 Mar 2026 18:27:14 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7985&iddiary=13495http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7959Yeah, this was incredible, as expected. The story, the character development, the historical setting, all incredible. My brother and another friend (especially the friend) were highly invested in me playing the game, so I was keeping them updated while playing. Another friend was supposed to be playing it at the same time as me, but I paused a couple months ago and he defected to Mass Effect for a break and never returned. I need to be like, "Dude, I beat it. Hurry up so we can talk about it!" There are so many memorable missions, from the night out with Lenny (the game explores race and racism during this time and place, which was neat) to going to get the kid from the Italian guy to an epic train robbery to the final showdown, and even to the side missions, like collecting debts for Strauss (which seems so mundane), but realizing the damage that Strauss's money lending causes to individuals and families and then eventually kicking him out of camp. The characters are all flawed, and the main character arc of Arthur about made me cry throughout the last chapter (though I had a MAJOR plot point spoiled for me by a John Green book!). Truly, it is a story about redemption, with some characters growing and others succumbing to their flaws. Very human, very emotional. Two main activities in the game are riding your horse and shooting people. Riding your horse could have gotten boring fast, but you have good control over movement and how fast you go, and have to manage horse stamina. You also encounter things along the road, from Strangers (capital "S") to meet (aka side characters with their own story arcs), to strangers (small "s") whom I usually ignored (aka random events to random NPCs like passing someone calling for help because he's getting chased by bandits, passing a person begging for money, passing a hunter stuck in a bear trap [I felt bad that I never helped the hunter]), to ambushes, etc. There is a handy auto-ride system, where you can set a cinematic camera to take over as you go from one place to another. Arthur will actually ride the horse the whole way, but you can put the controller down and watch the beautiful landscape and bathe in the ambient music. You can also fast-travel using wagons or trains between towns, but I hardly ever did that. Shooting people is pretty basic. You have a weapon wheel and an inventory wheel, and during combat you basically duck behind cover (R1), pop out and target someone (L2), which uses handy aim assist, flick the left control stick up to the target's head (because aim assist always centers on their chest), and pull the trigger (R2) for a headshot. Duck again, line up your next headshot, kill. Move forward to the next cover. Repeat until mission cleared. This did get repetitive by the end. I hardly ever used "dead eye," a slow time ability that allows you to shoot multiple enemies at once, and I hardly ever used items, including healing items, because you just don't need them. Weapons are just regular pistols and rifles and knives, whatever they had in the late 1800s. Combat was spiced up by the various contexts in which you fight (e.g., raiding a mansion, robbing a train, shooting on horseback, etc.), and it was engaging, but like I said, it did get repetitive. Another thing that got repetitive, and that I quit doing after too long, was looting corpses and searching places for loot. Each "search" animation is way too long, and like I said, you don't end up needing health items, or any other items. You can always pick up new guns from the ground and ammo is plentiful. You can also buy guns and ammo too if you want. There is a "camp upgrade" element to the game in the earlier chapters, and I collected money and items to sell until I had upgraded everything, but that was a small portion of the game. Once I'd upgraded everything, first of all, the camp moves and you don't even have access to all the upgraded stuff for a chunk of the game (I don't think), and second of all, you don't need all the stuff anyway. So once camp was upgraded (by like chapter 2? of 6 + epilogues!), I basically had no use for money for the rest of the game. Sure, you can buy outfits and new guns and whatever, but none of that is necessary. This made me feel like I went pretty straight through the main game, plus most of the Stranger missions, but didn't touch much else. I didn't mess with mini games, I didn't spend time in towns going to the theaters and whatever, I didn't mess with cosmetic things like giving myself haircuts or trying on outfits, I didn't do optional legendary hunts (those wild animals will kill you so fast!) or search for special gear or do the treasure maps, etc. That all sounds nice if you want to spend more time in the game and do everything that the Wild West has to offer, but I didn't. The main story was fantastic, so that was my focus, and I've played so many open world games and MMOs that I felt no need to hunt extra legendary creatures or collect special item sets. Red Dead Redemption 2 was an epic tale. I can see why my brother and my friend were so excited for me to play it. Now I will be the one harassing other people: "Did you play RDR 2 yet?! Let me know when you start it! Keep me updated!" Next up from Rockstar later this year: GTA 6! dkirschnerMon, 09 Mar 2026 09:45:05 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7959&iddiary=13494http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7984From the back of the box this game looks like a "western realistic" Trauma Team game - use the touchscreen to do medical stuff like bandage a patient's arm or give them an injection. And it is...sort of? Weirdly every single "case" (mission) I played began with (and sometimes also ended with) a driving section - an ambulance of course. Here you have to dodge other vehicles and obstacles to avoid damage as you travel to a location where something happened or back to the hospital. Roads are full of other vehicles that have no qualms with suddenly changing lanes in front of you and such. You can collect "energy" (not what it's called in the game, but I don't remember the name in the game), and when you have enough you can turn on the siren - and this causes other vehicles to get out of the way (sometimes not fast enough). It's kind of a bizarre gameplay addition - and it doesn't help that the controls are kind of wonky and, from my experience, it really out stayed it's welcome even as the background locations you're driving through change. I even unlocked a better ambulance (better driving stats)...and there's more to (eventually) choose from. I mean, the game's basic structure is pretty standard, there's cut-scenes with stories (everything so far seems to involve college kids of some sort). It makes me really wonder who the intended audience/age group for this game was. The name of the game would imply children (it's aspirational!) but the story seemed a bit more "grown up" - i.e. adolescent, but the gameplay was also quite simple..skewing younger again in my mind. The more games of this kind I play (not top-tier first-party DS games), the more I wonder about the conditions in which they were made. Was this a game that was knocked out by a small studio in 6 months?jpFri, 06 Mar 2026 18:01:32 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7984&iddiary=13493http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7961Decided to quit suddenly because I realized I was just starting to grind for achievements and not actually having fun or enjoying the game. Which, in the grand scheme of things sounds like a bad thing other than I think that I quit in time BEFORE I got super tired and bored. So, leaving on a (little past) the high of the fun experience. I was grinding the Dream Doors - and apparently there's a nice monster at the end that can be a real challenge - but, I didn't have a sense of WHY I'd want to do that. Here I mean motivation within the game's story. I was hoping for a nice story payoff if anything? It seems like there isn't, it's just a grind for resources and stuff and so...time to bail!jpMon, 02 Mar 2026 19:08:07 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7961&iddiary=13492http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7584I first played this a few years ago on Game Pass and loved it. I rebought it on Steam because there was so much extra content. (I have since learned to avoid long games, roguelikes, and stuff with tons of replayability on subscription services; buy those instead!). Last summer, I replayed the game and started to dig into the DLC. There is practically an infinite amount of stuff to do in Vampire Survivors. I still feel this after sinking another 30 hours into it. The achievements and unlocks are extremely compelling and I could chase them all day. But it has finally started to feel repetitive. Longer 30-minute runs that result in like one unlock or just some progress through a map feel more and more like a time sink, especially as I have other games to get to, including newer games in this genre. The DLCs (so many!!) have been interesting in that they alter the base game in interesting ways. The maps have rooms, islands, and more geographical features; they are not just massive plains with the occasional obstacle. Contra has a different kind of boss fight. They have new characters, weapons, evolutions, and secrets. The Ode to Castlevania DLC is massive, about the same size as the entire base game! It also has unique boss fights, and an even bigger map to explore, including different spawn points so you don't start over every time. I mean, really, I could just keep playing this forever...but I can't keep playing this forever! I must delete it. Maybe one day there will be another DLC that really piques my interest and the game will rise like a vampire from the coffin of my Steam library! I did see that they are releasing a first-person card battler roguelike, so I am sure I will get sucked into that too!dkirschnerMon, 02 Mar 2026 15:38:02 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7584&iddiary=13491http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7983This one is in the "sim" sub-group "city building" bucket for this semester's critical game design class. I'm generally not a fan of city building games since I find that the simulation part often runs away from me. I think I'm doing well, but then everything falls apart. This game was surprisingly chill - it almost feels like the game you'd just keep on playing? As in, you start - and then just continue. I'm 6 hours in and I've just hit the point where I should be building palaces and having nobles prancing around. The game is basically a "Sim-City FairyTale Edition", but I've really liked the pace of it. At times things were going wonky, but I just kept going and slowly things have recovered (I took too long to build the hospital, so people died - once it was finally built it was funny to see a huge swarm of sick people mob it). The economy is rather complicated with lots of different resources and I find it really hard to know if things are going well/poorly - there's time delays on everything of course, I just don't notice when "production" happens and whether or not it is sufficient for the demans of my populace. Basically though, it's always "make numbers go up" and then you run out of people to work - so make houses for them, and so on. Here's the things I've particularly appreciated in this game's design (or that I thought were neat). a. People live in houses (and bigger residential buildings), but there's always ONE person who is the head of household. That's their job. b. When you pay for a new building you basically pay money, and decide where it's going. But you then have to wait for the resources for the building to be delivered/transported there. I often ran into an issue where I paid for a bunch of stuff, but no construction was happening because I didn't have enough planks or something. c. My village has a cyclops that wanders around making people happy. So much better than terrorizing. d. In winter, lots of things shut-down, this felt like a "vacation" for the farmers, which I let them have/enjoy. e. I thought it was funny that Commoner's really don't like living next to peasant homes. So, a peasant home could be super desirable - but only for other peasants. It's the complete opposite for commoner's (highly undesirable). Basically, there's a class system and they don't like each other when it comes to living close by. (I'm assuming the same will apply for nobles, but I don't have any of those yet). f. A common driver of unhappiness in the people is how far they have to walk to work (you can manually assign different people to different buildings). It makes sense - but this is all walking anyways...but still - distance from home-to-work matters! Apparently this is because workers go home to eat! g. I liked how you could chop down trees but also have a little add-on forester hut so they grow back.jpSat, 28 Feb 2026 18:37:25 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7983&iddiary=13490http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7982Dang, another kickass random freebie from Epic sometime in the past year. I remember being drawn to it because it was published by Blumhouse, which has had some horror movie hits, and which is apparently getting into game publishing. This is like a PS1-style survival horror game, but without combat. Gameplay is straightforward. Without the combat, it is more linear, simple puzzles, play some hide-and-seek with the monster. It builds a great atmosphere though--still manages to be tense--and has a unique story. I think the narrative is where this really shines. It drip feeds you the story and peels back layer after layer. You think it's this straightforward high school romance drama, but then no. And then the second layer, the second thing you think is happening, but then no, another layer. And another layer. Some taboo shit that made my skin crawl. It was really good. And it was really...sweet. It's an atypical choice for a horror game, but it works. In the end, maybe it is a high school romance story after all. Definitely worth playing. dkirschnerThu, 26 Feb 2026 17:49:42 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7982&iddiary=13489http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7981This game is SO COOL! Like, must play. It was a random freebie from Epic last summer that sounded interesting. I'd never heard of it. It's got a sort of Orwell feel, but is its own thing. You play as Evan Tanner, a new Operator at the FDI (basically the FBI). Operators have access to FDI databases and their job is to retrieve information for FDI agents in the field. So, an FDI agent will be working a case, find some evidence, call an Operator and ask them to ID someone, for example. It's basically a detective game. You respond to agent queries by going through text/audio/video files, puzzling out how to get information and how to solve various problems. But an intriguing mystery quickly emerges. A mysterious hacker contacts you. There is a mole in the FDI. There are interlocking cases with a few different field agents. An unidentified killer. A cover-up. You end up doing way more than just reading through files to find information, but you interact with agents over the phone helping them through dangerous situations like guiding them through defusing a bomb or helping them break into buildings. It's really exciting! The writing is solid. The voice acting can be a little corny, but it does the job. There are some really funny parts. In one part, you are trying to get an FDI employee away from their computer, so you call them and pretend to be IT. This is the kind of employee who would fall for a phishing attempt or have their identity stolen. You call and are like, "Hi I'm...Mike...Smith...from IT." She replies, "Hmm...I don't know a Mike Smith in IT. It says here on the caller ID that you're Evan Tanner, an Operator." "Well, I don't know about that. I'm Mike Smith." "Hmmm...then why does it say you're an Operator?" "Because...I'm...also an Operator! Yeah, that's it...Operators sometimes also help with IT." "Hmmmm. I thought Operators just worked with agents? I don't know about this. But...okay, what do you need me to do." "Just leave the room and I'll take care of it." "Hmmm...how long will this take?" "It shouldn't take but a few minutes!" "If it'll just take a few minutes, then I'll sit here and read my magazine." "Actually...It will take a long time." "But you just said it would take a few minutes. This is suspicious!" "No, yeah, it will definitely take like an hour." "Hmm....Okay, I'll leave, but I don't like this!" It was a really funny interaction and reminded me of those information security videos you have to watch for work. There were a few other parts that made me laugh too. Also, a nod to the minimalist visuals outside the Operator screen. The sound design is great, too. I was able to guess a solution to one puzzle immediately because I had heard what the inside of a particular apartment sounded like a few times. That was cool. The downsides I can think of are: (1) the bomb puzzle had some confusing terminology; (2) the part where you guide someone through a floor of a building was silly, as if someone couldn't walk through a small office floor and find the stairs on their own (there would be signs!); (3) I'm not sure your choices really matter. So yeah, this surprised me. I loved it. There is a sequel in development! Hopefully it's longer and more involved, perhaps with some branching narrative (this game was just a few hours). (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:35:29.)dkirschnerThu, 26 Feb 2026 11:33:01 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7981&iddiary=13488http://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7980I gave up on this one. The puzzles become really obtuse. There is a hint system, which helped me get through a couple tough ones. In the end, I either came up against a puzzle that stumped me or my game has a bug. The internet suggests it is the latter, but you never know. The puzzle in question is about 2/3 through the game and it is plant-related. You acquire three different types of flowers and have to cross-pollinate them to breed different types, eventually spawning a mandrake. I combined flowers in various ways as I experimented, but reached a genetic dead end and needed to get the original flowers again to start over. The problem is that I could not get flowers to regrow. I was actually able to do this once, but the second time, I could not. I turned the game on and off, as per the internet's suggestion, reloaded, and so on. Nothing. No available flowers and I couldn't "undo" what I had done. Frustrating! Aside from the obtuse puzzles and likely bug, I was enjoying Samorost 3. It is an Amanita Design game through and through, although I found that it lacked the charm of some of their other games. It wasn't as funny as Chuchel or as disturbing as Happy Game or as whimsical as some of the others. Perhaps it's because this is an older one (2016) and the third in a series of still older ones. Nevertheless, it had that great Amanita Design art and sound design, and there was joy in poking and prodding at things in the environment to see what they did. You play as a little alien guy who gets a space ship and flies around to different planets, solving puzzles. I think in the end you are defeating some big evil baddie that is wrecking all the planets. Not quite sure because I didn't get there, but there was some exposition in the beginning that suggests this is where it's headed. I'll just assume that the little alien guy (is its name Samorost?) saves the day. Hooray! We did it! dkirschnerWed, 25 Feb 2026 15:23:45 UTChttp://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7980&iddiary=13487