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    Griftlands (PC)    by   dkirschner       (Apr 29th, 2025 at 15:53:58)

    This is a roguelite deckbuilder that’s neat in that you have two different decks and there is some interesting worldbuilding, with probably like 100 characters you can meet. It’s also narrative heavy. You play runs with one of three characters, each of whom has their own story. Unfortunately though, it never really clicked with me; I was always sort of bored. I played two runs with the first character, Sal, dying near the end of my first attempt. On my second attempt, I noticed “story difficulty,” set it to that, and steamrolled the second run. I left it on story difficulty and steamrolled the game with the second character, Rook, too. When I started the third character, I was sort of dreading learning his mechanics, the tedium of leveling up another set of cards (you can level up each card once by using it a specific number of times), the endless filler-feeling dialogue, and the tons and tons of negotiations and battles I would have to wade through to get to the end of another story that I didn’t care about. So, I played part of the first day for him to get a sense of the character and any new mechanics, then called it quits.

    Here's how the two types of decks/combat work. The first is “battle” and needs no explanation. This is normal deckbuilder stuff. Do lots of damage and kill stuff. Some mechanics include “prepare” (a card is “prepared” when it is in the leftmost spot in your hand and can activate special abilities), “gamble” (one character has a coin that he flips, and some of his cards do different things depending on heads or tails), “burn” (deals damage over time), and so on. Each character has a few unique mechanics.

    When you battle enemies, you can spare them or kill them. If you spare them, they might hate you (all the various characters you encounter can either hate, dislike, like, or love you). If you kill them, their friends might hate you. If you kill them in an isolated place, well, you got away with murder. It can be tempting to kill enemies because they drop items, and sometimes quite good ones, or maybe because they were real jerks and deserved it. But, when someone hates you, you get a debuff (e.g., status cards cost one extra action), which does go away if you kill that person later. When someone loves you, you get a buff (e.g., gain 4 defense and 2 power at the beginning of every battle). It’s obviously good to have a lot of people love you and few people hate you. I definitely had some hate debuffs that were pretty annoying to deal with.

    The second thing you can do is “negotiation,” and this one is different. It’s the same basic idea as battle, except think of it as the passive option. This second deck is full of cards that are meant to manipulate, persuade, and intimidate others. In a negotiation, you have “arguments.” Characters all have a “core argument.” Then, they can make other arguments that do various things. All arguments have “resolve” (HP). When an argument’s resolve reaches 0, it is defeated. No big deal for a regular argument; these come and go during a negotiation. If your core argument loses its resolve, then you lose the negotiation.

    So, there are generally two ways out of a situation: battle or negotiate. Sometimes, negotiations make subsequent battles easier. As you think about building your decks, remember that if you lose a negotiation, you might still be able to battle, but if you lose a battle, you can’t then negotiate…because you’re dead. That means that, for me at least, negotiation was far more useful, and I chose that option far more. On the other hand, there are more mandatory battles than mandatory negotiations, and bosses are typically trying to kill you, not argue with you. So, you can’t rely on only one deck; you must figure out how to balance them.

    There are some other things to consider, such as the battle and negotiation grafts (like skills or perks you acquire each run), and then the various roguelite meta upgrades. You can unlock permanent upgrades for each character, perks that can be used on any character, as well as new cards that will appear in your runs.

    In the end, it feels strange to say, but I wish I had just stopped after the first run. I feel like I wasted my time with this one hoping that it would click. There are certainly things I enjoyed (like the negotiations and trying to get a ton of characters to love me), but like I said earlier, I just found Griftlands tedious and boring.

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    Gris (PS5)    by   jp       (Apr 20th, 2025 at 20:25:52)

    I distinctly remember Gris getting a "meh" review score in Edge magazine. So, I was expecting to be underwhelmed gameplay-wise though wowed visually.

    And yes, I was wowed visually (and aurally too - playing the PS5 version that makes use of the speaker controller in a cool way)...and the gameplay was sort of meh - but, it got better and better the longer I played!

    Not counting the "hub" area, the game has four zones/levels that each introduce a mechanic, as well as some in-world things to interact with. And so, the game really goes from less to more as later levels incorporate more in-world mechanics as well as require use of the character mechanics you unlock. It also all makes sense with the game's theme and story and balblabla (ludonarrative harmony is what my students brought up).

    That being said, it's a pretty relaxing and flowing kind of game - nods to Journey in there as well - and there isn't really a fail state, though you can get stuck on puzzles and some dexterity-timing dependent puzzles. There's some swimming bits that are just glorious - as you dash from "water bubble" to "water bubble" (blocks of water in the air) - and I loved swimming up waterfalls.

    What impressed me the most though were two things:

    1. I kept on trying to "go the wrong way" and most of the time, it was the right way.

    2. The onboarding and tutorials are really, really well done. You notice a thing, or do a thing, and then that's the thing you have to do later to solve puzzles and so on. It feels very natural and very normal.

    So, I'm actually excited to try Neva now...

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    Lost in Blue 2 (DS)    by   jp       (Apr 18th, 2025 at 18:46:41)

    Perhaps the strangest thing for me about this game is that it's a bona fide survival game on the DS. In my mind, the genre is more recent than 2006! I'm thinking of all the indie survival games (craft stuff, gather food, don't die of hunger or thirst) and then ones on Steam..and here's this game - a sequel no less - and it's straight up THAT. Survival. And there's two characters to boot - and you can die (I did, pretty soon it turns out).

    I guess I was surprised by how quickly I did die - and, from a novice perspective, it felt sudden and a bit unfair. As in, CLEARLY there was nothing I could have done differently to survive. I spent too much time exploring was probably the main problem, and I left the boy behind in a cave we found, and I'm not sure that's what you're supposed to do? You have to keep both of them feed, hydrated and energized, and I felt like I had my hands full with just the one character.

    I think my biggest mistake was probably not getting the spear for fishing made sooner? But then, I'm not even sure how you're supposed to use it - and all the other food I kept scavenging wasn't really doing much. Like, you'd eat it and not see a huge effect. I'm guessing there's something I'm not understanding and it makes me wonder if a full reset makes the most sense? (instead of loading into a saved game that's already doomed/too heavily stacked against success).

    Perhaps the strangest thing (for me) about the game is that there's a super simple mini-game for cooking! You collect stuff to cook and also stuff to use as spices and then need to sort of trial and error recipes - though I could set the boy (the character I was not controlling directly) to cook and he'd come up with his own stuff... it's weird.

    And it's a sequel? I guess I should look up if this is a port to DS from someplace else? It would make more sense in a way - the game is also low-poly 3D as you wander around the environment. Still...I might just put it on the shelf.

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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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    Mass Effect (360)    by   Nazoric

    A futuristic RPG where humans are struggling to make a name for themselves in the alien community.
    most recent entry:   Monday 14 January, 2008
    SUMMERY:
    Mass Effect is a futuristic space based RPG. However it has many elements which seperate it from your classic futuristic RPG. I think the key elements that make this game are its new mechanic, Mass Effect, the way it refers to you character during cinematics, the unique story it tells, and the innovation in RPG/Shooter combat.

    GAMEPLAY:
    I realy enjoyed playing Mass Effect throughout my game sessions. As I played I learned about the different things in the game that made it what it was, and why I enjoyed it.

    To start, I will talk about the new mechanic Mass Effect has. Perhaps surprisingly, this is one of the few things I hated about the game. The idea for Mass Effect is similar magic which you may see in your standard fantasy RPG, or “The Force” in your Star Wars RPG. Even though I personally did not like this mechanic, I will talk about its good elements first. One thing that this mechanic had which I have not seen in any other RPG is the extent to which mass effect abilities can effect the environment. Its physics engine allows you to push enemies and objects as well as lift them or damage them. The problem with this mechanic however is the fact that you have to pause the game in order to use it. Though this may not seem like a problem at first, the fact is, this game plays more like your standard 3rd person shooter then an RPG as far as combat goes. Every time you have to pause the game to use your Mass Effect abilities, I feel like you lose the element of being in the moment. It feels like it disconnects you from the actual game and makes you more aware that you are the player and not the character. Thankfully both NPC allies and enemies can use this ability without pausing the game. Because of this, I simply let my allies use their Mass Effect abilities as they saw fit, rather then the option of me having to pause the game and use it for them. Meanwhile I simply played the game as an RPG shooter and ended up fully enjoying the other elements it had to offer.

    One of the cool elements that this new RPG brought to the table was the incorporation of your character into cinematics. Although you get to choose your gender, appearance, and first name freely, your last name is restricted to the name “Shepard.” By doing this, the game made it so when characters refer to you, they simply call you Shepard. Though it may not seem like a big deal at first glance, it truly makes the game have a smooth flow to it. The cinematic conversations seem natural, realistic, and defiantly helped to immerse me in the story.

    Though this is no doubt not the first futuristic RPG to have aliens and humans in it, I must say it has done an amazing job to make a realistic futuristic space environment. The sheer amount of detail that they put into every aspect of the game is unrivaled by any game I have ever played. I doubt I even read half the information that they put into the game in order to make sure it was realistic and understandable. As you travel through the game you can inspect different items which unlock a new option in your codex. By going to you codex you can read, and sometimes listen to a narration, about different elements of the game. This information in your codex ranges from how your weapons work and why, to the politics of alien governments. They even went to the extent of giving you information about every solar system you visit, and detailed information on every planet. Even though little of this information is useless when it comes to actual game play, I must say it made me feel like a real future they had created.

    Although I started playing mass effect in the beginning of December, over our 3 week winter break I didn’t play it at all. The only reason I think this is interesting, or even relevant, is because over those 3 weeks I played both Knights of the Old Republic(KotOR) and KotOR 2. KotOR is an RPG game also made by the same company BioWare. What I found interesting about playing these games is it revealed something I had not previously known about Mass Effect. As it turns out, Mass Effect was simply a copy of the basic template used in both of the KotOR series games. What I mean by this, is you start out on your beginning planet, you run though some basic missions which essentially teach you how to play. Once you finish your basic missions on your starting planet you obtain a ship and can choose between 3 different planets to travel in order to complete other main objectives in the storyline. The order in which you complete these 3 different planet missions does not matter and is open to player discretion. I don’t think this fact interrupted or changed the game play of the game at all, I simply found it an interesting observation connecting BioWares previous titles to this one.

    The last element of the game play that I want to talk about is its RPG/Shooter combat. I defiantly enjoyed this part of the game. Like some other 3rd person shooter titles, in this game you can hide behind obstacles, then pop out and shoot your enemies before quickly ducking back behind cover. You have to aim your weapons, although the corsair is big enough that you don’t need the skills of a normal shooter in order to be successful. The damage you do with your weapons is based on the weapon it self, the modifications you have added to it, and your skill with that type of weapon. The weapon skill and such adds to the RPG element of the combat system, where aiming, hiding, and sprinting at your enemies makes up the shooter elements of the game. Overall I must say it is a brilliant hybrid of shooter and RPG, forgiving the Mass Effect mechanic, and I hope to see more of its kind in the future.



    DESIGN:
    Thoughts on innovation:
    I think the innovative elements of this game where its Mass Effect mechanic, how physics was incorporated into an RPG, and its hybrid combat system.

    What makes it a good or bad game:
    I think what makes the game good is its attention to the level of detail, how it immerses the player in the story, and lets the player make choices.

    What are my thoughts on level design in the game:
    I think the levels were fairly well designed in the game, because each main part of the story is based on a different planet, you get to explore new environments and fight different enemies. Obstacles are well placed to give you places to hide, and use its combat mechanics effectively.



    What challenges does the game provide:
    The game has both your standard combat, where you grind though waves of creatures attempting to reach your objective, and boss fights. Each boss fight is scripted differently making it a new and interesting experience for the player.

    How does the game create conflict:
    Perhaps one of the downfalls of the game is that the storyline is fairly rigid. Although at first glance it may appear that you have lots of choices to make, in the end these choices have little outcome on what happens in the game. Because of this, it is easy to just give you the bad guys, and then you have no choice but to go out and kill them. No joining the bad guys, sorry.

    How does the game keep you interested:
    The storyline itself is quite interesting, and it keeps you interested the same way a book does. You simply want to know what is going to happen next, and how the story is going to end. At least that’s how it worked for me.

    Does the game help foster social interaction among players:
    Sadly this game is only single player, I think if it didn’t have the mass effect mechanic they might have been able to add a cool co-op option to the game. But beyond talking about the game with other people who have played it, there is little to no interaction with other players.

    What would you change about the game:
    I would make it so you can simply have a current mass effect ability and you can execute dynamically by the press of a button without having to pause the game. This would keep a smooth and fun game play, and still allow the players to use the new mechanic.

    What ideas does this game give you for your own game project:
    I think the game gave me more ideas based on what it was lacking then based on what it had. Personally I want my choices in the game to make an actual difference on its outcome. Though this makes storyboarding a lot harder, because you have to make multiple paths, and possibly many of them, rather then just one with small variations.

    You thoughts on the games use of cut scenes to support the narrative:
    As I described in one of the paragraphs above, I think that the use of the character name in cinematics made the narrative support the game and help to tell the story. For me it defiantly helped to draw me into the story and excite me about what was to come.

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