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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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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: Thursday 21 February, 2008
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GAMEPLAY:
Huzzah. My faith in the Mario series has been restored. Turns out I was right to give them the benefit of the doubt- after the first observatory dome, the levels get considerably more interesting. Apparently they did actually have competent level designers. It's still Super Mario 64 in space- there's no point in even trying to deny that. But they have introduced enough new things for me to keep my interest even though they're using the same tired old plot again and again.
Gameplay got significantly more interesting in the second and third observatory domes, including everything from blowing Mario around in a bubble to turning into a Boo to racing through space by pulling yourself along with Pull Stars. I became interested once again. Also, I actually got a plot piece- the Princess Peach look-alike, Rosalina, seems to actually have a story behind her. I am intrigued, because I really don't know anything at all about her and her Luma friends (the Luma are a race of little star people).
However, I did notice some issues with it, as well- particularly in the controls and handling. It could be argued that Super Mario Galaxy comes as close to 3D cardinality as any game ever has. It's not just move around flat plane and jump. It's move around sphere, jump, get attracted to some other object's gravity field, and suddenly you're upside-down. Unfortunately, the Wiimote and Nunchuk are not really designed to handle 3D cardinality, and thus there are some control issues where it's hard to tell exactly which way I ought to tilt the controls stick to make Mario go where I want him to. Also, the camera is independent, and while you can override it to some degree with the control pad, it's a little awkward to actually do so, so occasionally there are camera issues. So far it's just cases of times when the camera won't point in the direction I want it to. I haven't seen any actual camera glitches yet, which is good.
Another major thing I noticed about the gameplay: It's a Mario game. It probably does have a difficulty curve, but I hardly notice it. Especially on bosses, where I expect them to be difficult and then they're not. In my personal opinion, if a boss doesn't kill you the first time you face him, something is wrong with the boss. But this is merely a personal preference on my part- I simply prefer games which present a greater challenge than this one does. I am sure there are other people who would find Super Mario Galaxy to be just difficult enough for them.
DESIGN:
The basic design of the game seems to be centered around one idea: "Lol. We have gravity. What kind of crazy stuff can we do with it?" Answer: Lots of crazy stuff. In some cases, gravity is completely arbitrary and makes a 180 degree switch if you cross a certain point. Places like these will have arrows on the walls showing which way gravity is pointing where, though, just so it isn't completely impossible. There are other places where if you cross to a wall at a certain point, it becomes the floor- anywhere else and it's still a wall. Many other places are simply miniature planets, a simple sphere that you can stand anywhere on. Other times it's disks where you can be rightside up or upside down. And every so often it's platforms where if you walk off the edge you die. Usually this is shown with corners- if there is a corner, you'll fall off. If the edge is rounded, you can walk on it. Although this is not an absolute rule, it's pretty reliable.
Level design was also a big thing in this game, because it has so many levels and they're all completely different. I've been in a beehive, a haunted house, a space junkyard, a mountain riddled with cannons, a figure-eight track of water suspended in midair, and a place that was essentially a giant bowl. Each level manages to have its own feel to it, while still remaining in the same style so they don't seem out of place being together in the same game. This is probably far harder to do than it sounds, and is definitely an integral part of level design- making levels that are different enough to be interesting, yet close enough that they don't violently clash with each other. Super Mario Galaxy does this quite well, I think. And this is probably the thing I'm going to think about when I make my own game, which has levels of its own, but rather lacks a complicated 3D gravity engine.
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