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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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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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2285 registered gamers and 3255 games. 7787 GameLogs with 13264 journal entries. 5110 games are currently being played.
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most recent entry: Saturday 26 January, 2008
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Gamelog entry 2
GAMEPLAY
After playing for a while longer, I've found the game remarkably easy to progress through (the storyline) with the exception of the mission of rolling the katamari to rebuild the moon. Since the mission requires your to roll your katamari all the way from 1 meters to a whopping 300 meters - roughly 10 times the biggest katamari size requirement I'd previously encountered. Even with 25 minutes on the clock, I found myself struggling to get the katamari big enough to effectively roll over islands the first few tries. Regardless, I had a lot of fun with it, since there's this bizzare joy in being able to level a city in a few seconds with a giant ball.
I think one of the other main reasons I found Katamari Damacy to be so fun was that the world was fairly open to exploration, limited only by the size of your katamari, and that you could never die in a mission by hit/being hit by objects larger than the katamari (only get objects in your katamari get knocked out), thus there are negative consequenses to rolling around randomly and having fun. You can still fail the mission, but there's no penalty for failing and you can try again; additionally, each attempt you make makes you more familiar with the map and controls, making it easier to beat the mission, since the game is dependent on player skill, which is very easy to attain once you grasp the control scheme. As to this, I did find it a bit tricky at first, but I had it down within about 2 missions, so I think the simplicity of the game is part of what makes it so easily enjoyable.
However, while the gameplay is fun and the theme of the game was definitely original and funny, I found the storyline a rather weak. As far as I can tell, the protagonist (the tiny prince) never says anything--even in text--but rather, is constantly ragged on by the King of the cosmos as you go from mission to mission unless you happen to do really well on a particular mission in the mission result screen; even so, he'll revert to his condescending tone again when you undertake your next mission however, making it seem kind of pointless. As such, there's essentially only 1 character that ever "talks," giving the storyline no character development. Literally too, since the protagonist prince is still a microscopic few cm when rolling a continental-size katamari (although I don't think he's still drawn at that point).
DESIGN
Straight up, the entire concept of the game is downright innovative. Beyond the concept, I think the simplicity of the control scheme is very innovative as it allows the player to enjoy themselves much more since they don't have to worry about hectic button mashing combos or perfect timing to make a long jump or what-not. The use of just the two thumb sticks to control the katamari means that the player never has to move their thumbs off of the sticks, and gives the player control of the camera implicitly while requiring more skill in controlling the katamari. Since the main game mechanic essentially consists only of rolling the katamari around, this could have been achieved with only 1 thumbstick... but that would have made the game too easy. The use of two sticks requires more skill, and provides a reminder that the Katamari isn't rolling by itself--the sticks control the tiny prince rolling the katamari.
While the control scheme is innovative and quite easy to learn, I continue to have problems using the charge roll, which requires the player to rapidly move both sticks up and down in the opposing directions. Somehow, I can get it to initiate the rapid spin, but then the katamari stops spinning instead of charging forward. I think this could have been implemented differently making it a bit easier to use. Other than this fault, I think the control scheme was brilliant.
After playing for a while, I noticed how well the game scales the player view of the world so that the katamari always appears to be the same size, and the world gets smaller, clipping out objects too small to see and not bother to take into account. There seemed to be several noticeable phases, starting with very small (push-pins, coins, etc.), then moving up to small fruits as being the smallest objects, then people and large appliances/devices (vending machines, etc.), and then finally buildings and structures being the smallest objects visible and taken into account (as far as I've progressed, anyhow). The game seemlessly phases out small objects from the gameworld as the katamari reaches certain sizes, altering the objects in the gameworld and available regions to move in while using the same world map without making any distinct graphical changes aside from clipping objects no longer taken into account.
This structure gives the game strong sense of emergence within each mission. The game does have an overlaying mask as a game of progression with the storyline and the player's progression from mission to mission as he/she clears missions and unlocks new missions, however, within each mission, the game mechanics affect how the player chooses to grow their Katamari. Simultaneously, however, the size of the katamari does restrict where the katamari can go, which is controlled by the level design, a quality of games of progression. Thus, while there is no single category for Katamari Damacy like many other games, Katamari Damacy has a unique combination of level design with game world rules that open up and limit movement, as it is possible to both grow and shrink the katamari by picking up and losing objects.
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