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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
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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: Monday 1 August, 2016
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I’m absolutely loving Legend of Grimrock II (LoG), and I'm totally annoyed that school is starting and I won't be able to finish it for a while. Oh summer, I will miss you dearly.
One of my absolute favorite things about LoG is that I'm always learning something (often after being stumped by a puzzle). It's interesting playing this after coming off of Grim Fandango. The latter follows that bizarre adventure game logic, while LoG is highly rational. It's more rational than I am used to thinking. For example, I was stumped yesterday on how to gain entry to the Crystal Mines. At the entrance were three pressure plates in a line and two statue heads flanking the last plate in front of a gap in a stone wall. Obviously you are supposed to go through that gap to reach the Mines. I stepped on the first pressure plate, and a gate sprouted from the ground, sealing off the gap. Crap. I stepped on the next pressure plate. Nothing. And walked to the third. The two statue heads shot a poison bolt at me, ew.
No worries. There's always some trick to the pressure plate puzzles. But it seems that this one triggered that gate when I stepped on the first plate, and the gate won't go back down. Maybe I should place an item on each pressure plate. Hmm, these are a bit different. It seems only my weight will trigger the plates (usually you can place rocks and other items on them, but not always). What to do, what to do? I suddenly remember finding a hint some time earlier about how to get in the Mines. It said something about walking the path of the snail. Hmm. I went and stood on the first pressure plate for a minute. No click of a mechanism, nothing. Hmm. I'd put a snail figurine on a pedestal for another puzzle in another area, so I went and retrieved it. But what do I do with it? I walked across the plates with the snail in my inventory. No luck. I put the snail down on each plate. No luck. Hmmmmmm. No other snail-related items around...
So I did what I do in these situations in LoG: turn to the walkthrough. I've used a walkthrough about 5 times to help me when I'm out of places to go. I've always failed to get a key puzzle. One time, I knew I had to do something with pressure plates on the other side of a gate, but I couldn't figure out how to get to them or how to get objects on them. I'd try to throw a rock through the gate, but you can't throw things through gates. I eventually looked up the puzzle because I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. And do you know what? You have to *drop* an item through the gate, not throw it. Who knew?! Well, I should have because when I was reading my entries for Legend of Grimrock 1 which I played last year, and I quote: "I admit to looking at a walkthrough one time only, and that was because I didn't realize I could drop items through a gate (hint: you can drop items through gates)." I also didn't realize in the previous game that you could put items into sacks that you picked up (and I wondered why my inventory was always full), but I figured that out quickly this time.
So back to my snail story. I said that LoG was highly rational in its logic. To get the gate to open, you have to walk...really...slowly...across the pressure plates, standing on each one for a few seconds before progressing. Omg. So literal. I was close. I would have figured it out if there were some audio cue like a switch sound when I stood on the first plate for a while thinking, but there was no audio cue, so I didn't know I was on the right track. Such a clever little puzzle! And as it has been with LoG II, I'll explore the Crystal Mines, and hopefully solve the important puzzles and make my way to new areas, but will probably peek at a walkthrough after another few hours of unaided exploration.
A couple other odds and ends: LoG II is HUGELY expanded over the first game. The first one was set in one dungeon that you went down, down, down into. LoG II is set on an island and there are many dungeons and caves and locations (30 in all, versus 13 in the original). There are so many secrets, hidden paths, items to find, puzzles to solve. It is really fantastic level design. Since a large part of the game is outdoors, there's a day/night cycle, which is of course key to some puzzles and secrets and things. Carry plenty of torches until your mage (I hope you have a mage!) learns the Light spell. I feel like I've learned a lot of spells, though I have mostly relied on the basic fireball spell for most of the game.
I've had a couple mishaps in character creation. My shortbow-wielding rogue is supposed to also be an alchemist, but I realized probably 10 hours in that I *really* should have figured out how to make potions by now. Turns out I missed picking up a mortar and pestle early on. Oops. Glad I didn't put more than one point in Alchemy. On the bright side, his inventory space is freed up after throwing away 100+ flowers. Then my minotaur fighter was supposed to be dual-wielding two-handed weapons by now, but I misread: the heavy weapon feat to wield 2-h weapons in one hand does not state that you can dual wield these 2-h weapons. You can only dual-wield 1-h weapons. Though I wonder if you get the feat to dual wield 1-h weapons, if you can have a 2-h in one hand and a 1-h in the other. I can interpret the rule either way.
Aaaand finally for now, there are other cool additions, like the rope, shovel, and timepiece. These items are practical. The rope lets you descend into pits without falling and taking the accompanying beating from that; the shovel lets you dig for secret buried chests and items; the timepiece lets you know where in the day/night cycle you are, which is super useful in no small part because night time is scary in LoG. It's nice to be able to rest until you know it's dawn and skip the night.
That's all for now! More...later.
*Edit on 8/4* I ended up finishing sooner rather than later after all. Nothing new to report. Technically, I watched the end on YouTube. The last boss was really hard, but I could have gotten him if I were more patient. Excellent game.
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