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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)
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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: Wednesday 28 March, 2012
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So my second game of chess against my roommate ended in a loss as well, much to my anguish. The game was much closer this time around though and it took a fair while for him to defeat me but in the end it was a deserved victory. I think the game changed when I lost two pawns in quick succession. This gave him control of the area just outside my base and from then on, I was trapped in my own area, not being able to make any attacks of my own. I made quite a few more observations about the game of chess in this sitting but since I explained a lot about the game play in my first gamelog, I will leave most of that out for this one.
Being such an ancient game, you can’t really say chess has any innovative elements. A lot of games have indeed been inspired from chess like checkers or Go and so there is not much that is unique to chess maybe with the exception of the distinct movement of the individual pieces as compared to checkers where there are no unique pieces and all pieces have the same degree of movement.
I would think the design elements that make chess such a great game would have to be the simplicity of the rules and the uncomplicated nature of the game. It does not take a long time for even a beginner to figure out how the game works as the only restrictions are the movement of the individual pieces. Having a variety of movement from the diagonal mobility of the bishop to the single step advancement of the pawn also makes the game more interesting as the player has a great deal of options to choose from at each step and thus a diverse range of tactics to employ.
I think the game mainly keeps the player interested due to its great replay value. No two chess games are the same and in every game the player will face new scenarios and board positions to overcome. This is made possible by the myriad of choice of moves available to the players. Hence, it is interesting as you have to think on your feet and every game brings with the opportunity to try out new strategies.
There is not much I would change about the game seeing how popular a game it is. But the one thing that for me, makes it a bit unfair is that white always gets the first move. This makes the game biased in favor of the white player as he gets to set the tempo of the game and the other player may forever be responding to his moves. There is no obvious solution to this, maybe except to have two sittings in each game and alternating who gets to start first.
As we are thinking of developing a puzzle/strategy game ourselves, chess does certainly provide some have some features we can borrow for our game. For example, we could have two characters who have different degrees of movement and who must work together to achieve a common goal.
Chess certainly has emergent complexity. In fact, that’s what the whole game is about. Developing more complex tactics from the simple movement of the pieces is the basis for winning the game. The more clever the tactic developed the less chances the opponent has of guarding against it. Beginners may not be able to develop complex tactics but as they get more experience in playing, they will learn to how to respond to certain situation and thus be able to come up with their own tactics.
There is no reward structure to the game and the only goal is to capture the king. Maybe the only other place where you are rewarded for your efforts is when you can get a pawn to the end of the enemy line and which allows you to get him promoted to another piece. However, I do not concentrate much on this as it is very difficult to do and can divert attention from the main aim of the game which is to capture the king. There is also no real feeling of flow to a chess game. In fact, each board position can be imagined to be a separate puzzle to solve in itself.
I had a great deal of interaction with my opponent while playing the game. Some people believe psychology to be an important part of chess and both of us engaged in various taunts to influence the others moves.
Chess will certainly work as a computer game as there have been chess programs developed which have even beaten the World champion in chess. Microsoft’s Chess Titans has also been quite successful since its release. As per what I was taught in my AI class, the way the AI chess player works is to do a depth limited look ahead of every board position and evaluate these through a evaluation function developed through machine learning. The greater the difficulty level ,the more look ahead the AI player does. As such, it can provide a challenge to even the most advanced chess players.
So, that’s the end of my gamelog on chess. Chess is a great game which everyone can and should play at some time.
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