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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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Dicey Dungeons (PC) by dkirschner |
| Cuuuute. RNG-fest. Fun. Looking forward how much harder it gets. --------- It definitely gets more frustrating. Rather, I feel I've seen most everything it has to offer. |
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most recent entry: Wednesday 8 December, 2021
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Going to try and write some more proper reflection entries instead of just summing up when I finish something. I've thankfully got some relaxing time ahead of me in the next month. As usual, I've already subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, so I've got a bunch of stuff from my wishlist queued up. This time, it charged me $1 for three months. I don't understand these platforms enough to know how Microsoft can keep charging me $1. I'll probably play $500 worth of games in the next three months (and probably have played well over $2000 on Game Pass in total, while I've paid like $4). And Epic keeps giving away free stuff with that Fortnite money. When is the last time I even paid for a video game?!
Anywayyy, I have been happily clicking away in Dicey Dungeons this week. It's a roguelike (lite?) card game hybrid thing by Terry Cavanagh (VVVVVV, Super Hexagon). The game is set up like a game show. Lady Luck presides. She'll grant contestants' wishes if they make it through all the challenges. She turns them into dice and sends them into the dungeon, where they fight enemies in turn-based card battles, open chests and shop to get new items, as they go down the 6 levels of the dungeon (always with a boss on level 6). You can play one of a handful of characters, each with unique skillsets and some unique rule sets as they play through different episodes.
Example: The first character you unlock (and by far easiest to play) is the warrior. The warrior's special ability is to re-roll a die up to three times. Dice rolls determine damage/defense values. There is a lot of randomization, but a lot of room for you to be clever or totally screw up on your own. The warrior starts with a sword in his inventory (Do x damage) (x = die roll) and two dice. Did you roll snake eyes? Well, re-roll one and hope for a 6. Later weapons might say something like "Minimum 3. Do 3 damage." This means that you have to roll a 3 or higher to use that card and that it does 3 damage. Other cards can be reused multiple times in a turn. Others can only be used once in a battle, like the one that, upgraded, lets you plug in any four dice and adds 4 burn damage.
I actually killed a boss in two hits using that badass weapon. It was brilliant (I am bragging). I was playing as the inventor, whose special ability is to convert one item after every battle into a once-per-turn ability (that basic warrior sword I mentioned, for example, can be destroyed to gain a 3 damage attack, while the badass weapon can be destroyed to gain a 3 fire damage attack, marginally better). I was on a later episode with different rules. In this episode, the inventor actually destroys TWO pieces of equipment after each battle and gets TWO once-per-turn abilities. I knew the power of that flame weapon from a previous run, so once I got it, I upgraded it and set it in my backpack to wait for the final battle (since you are forced to destroy two items from your inventory after each battle, I didn't want to run the risk of having to destroy the flame weapon, so I kept it safely hidden in my backpack!). I also knew from a previous run that if you destroy a crystal sword (Do 3x damage shown on die, once per battle), you get the ability to double your next action. Finally, another of the inventor's special abilities is to make all your dice sixes for a turn.
SO. Once meticulously prepared, I arrived at the final boss. I equipped the flame weapon. My super power to roll sixes was ready. I converted my dice to sixes, put them in the weapon (6+6+6+6+4 burn damage), used my "repeat ability" action, and then attacked. 28 damage, good lord. Then attacked again! 56! 8 of which was burn damage, which sets enemies' dice on fire. If they want to use a die, they suffer -2hp for the privilege. The AI isn't brilliant, but it's not suicidal. The boss didn't even do anything. Then I killed it on my next turn with regular weapons.
That was one of the best moments playing this game so far. It is full of these kinds of moments where you've sort of created your own good luck. The game stays fresh for a good amount of time with the RNG and varying rulesets in different episodes and of different characters. BUT! I fear it is starting to wear thin. Why? Well, as I mentioned, each character plays differently, and each of them has some unique episodes. However, I've learned that the unique episodes are episodes 2 and 3 (of 6) for each character, and I've already done most of those. Episode 1 is always standard. Check out the variety in episodes 2 and 3!
Warrior 2: Start with two upgraded battle axes. All equipment you find is upgraded. Inflicted with curse (your equipment has a 50% chance to fail once) at the beginning of battle.
Warrior 3: Start with a venus fly trap (weapon that does x damage, and if you roll a 6, it also heals you for 2). Lose 2 max HP when you level up. (This one was challenging!)
Thief 2: You can keep enemy equipment after each fight (the thief can steal, of course, but usually doesn't get to keep anything).
Thief 3: On your first turn, all rolls are 1. On your second turn, all rolls are 2. And so on... (I haven't beaten this one yet, hard!)
Robot 2: Duplicate dice vanish immediately (yours, not the enemy's...)
Robot 3: No CPU counter. Create any dice you like! (The robot doesn't roll normally. Basically, each die value adds to a counter. If the counter exceeds the maximum, like if you get greedy and keep rolling, it overheats and you can't do anything; so in this episode, you can choose which dice to create, which was neat, but tough because of...) 50% chance that equipment will randomly disappear each time you create a die.
These have all been really fun, interesting, many challenging to complete, and I've done most of them. But episode 4 for each character just gives enemies more HP and all their weapons are upgraded. No other ruleset tweaks. I don't want to just play the exact same thing on hard mode! Then episode 5 changes the same thing for each character too (status effects work differently, enemies still have 10% more HP), and episode 6 just adds random rules each level you go down the dungeon. The RNG is brutal on that last one. I've beaten all the warrior episodes, but don't want to do them all for every character.
Anyway, I feel like I've done the most interesting stuff, and that I won't see much more variety or interesting stuff until I sink a ton of time into this. I might play some more because it's fun and I can probably knock off additional challenges, but I'm going to start something else in the meantime!
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