Holiday Break

Since I don't wish every other post to be "Didn't do anything today." I'll keep updating this post with some little things I've done and found, but I'm generally spending the time with my family and friends.

Also, Steam's Winter Sale begins on the 22nd, and alongside it the Steam Awards voting.

Games played:

• Planetside 2 - Still as good, pointless, and grindy as ever.
• Pillars of Eternity - I played this for about 4 hours, and while I have nothing inherently bad to say about it, I guess it's just my personal preferences that caused me not to like it.
  My main problem would be that it's highly complicated. Sure, the complexity adds depth, and this seems to really be a RPG in the sense that you shouldn't always try to take the "best" and easiest route, but this is not really how I've learned to play games. With so many factors to consider, I could either bore myself with trying to find the more optimal combinations, or disregard them and take the first option that seems both reasonably good and fitting to the story I'm weaving. (As I assume the game intends I do the first times.) But again, that's not how I play games.
  Further, neither the lore nor combat gripped me, and it seems that even later on it's mostly just "hit stuff until something dies". And to my friends, from whom I got this as a birthday gift, sorry I didn't like it.
• Paragon - Checked in a few months after leaving because the game was being overly simplified and the developers were impossibly incompetent with balancing some things. To my utter surprise, it had actually gotten worse, so I'm probably not going to give it another chance.
• Heroes of the Storm - Well, this still helps me remember why I don't like team-and-round-based PvP, but it's decent enough that I played it for a while. I'm actually quite happy with the direction of the updates that have been made in the year I was absent, aside from the fact that ~70% of the new heroes are Assassins.
• Long Live the Queen - Did one more playthrough, and I'm still amazed at how many different paths there are. If I don't resort to guides, there's content for another 20 hours easily.
• Typoman: Revised - So, this is a puzzle platformer with a theme of the world being composed of letters. The concept's nothing special, really. Platforming is quite standard, and the puzzles seem to mainly be figuring out in which way you should rearrange the letters given to you each scene.
  And well, it's nothing good either. In addition to there being nothing special about the platforming, the implementation of it is below average. Your character feels unresponsive and it's difficult to say where exactly you can stand. The puzzles aren't all that well thought through, as it's often unclear why the intended word is correct, while the one you made is not.
  So, in conclusion, I don't see much of a reason to play it, and I quit fairly quickly after one of the puzzles bugged out due to me dying at a wrong time.
• And also a little bit of the following: Nord Invasion, Mini Metro, Prismata

Other:
Death Note - First half was amazing. Other half was rather bad in comparison. Still good overall.
Saya no Uta - Don't even look this up. I trusted vndb's popularity ratings and thought this was a good read. Big mistake.

Games found:
Astroneer - Already very well known, but launched just a week ago. Looks like it doesn't have much content yet but people like the style.
Art of War: Red Tides - Seems to be a 3v3 PvP game that looks like an RTS, except it's a lane pusher where players choose the composition of their waves at the beginning of each wave. It's F2P, so I guess it can't hurt to try.

19.12.16

Streamed like 8 hours of Civilization VI today. I promised I'd finish the game, but darn do some of the new features annoy me.

Let's start with the fact that the minimum distance between two cities is still 3 tiles. While I felt that was a tad low, it wasn't too outrageous in the previous installment. Now, however, every single district and wonder consumes a tile, which leaves oh-so-little space for regular tile improvements.

Now, add to that that the districts and wonders nearly always want to be on or next to some specific tiles and other districts and that you can't remove these once built, and you're left with either frustration at misplaced buildings, or having to plan all the buildings you'll ever potentially construct right at the beginning of the game.

Further, the decisions between keeping those great tiles that are producing you lots of resources, or instead putting wonders or districts over them are not pleasant ones to make. Do they add strategical complexity and/or diversity? Maybe. Are they fun? Not at all. And I'd say that's the case with the entire build-your-buildings-on-the-actual-hex-grid system.

Endless Legend (which currently holds the spot of my favorite TBS) does this district stuff much better, although that is due to the restriction of one city per (fairly large) area and because most tiles don't actually have any upgrades to be constructed on them.

Other than that, Civ's UI is still annoying, but that's a problem that can be fixed with relative ease in comparison to the problems mentioned above, which may just plague the entire installment forever.

18.12.16

Finally got around to trying some Obduction. It's about what I expected - Move around, click stuff, experience story, move around more and click more stuff to experience more story. There was also an abundance of dedication to the visual side of the game, with graphics settings ranging to, uh, very high values, and the space bar being bound to taking screenshots.

I'm not sure if it's a good game for people who actually like these kinds of games because I don't understand what they see in these. Definitely not my cup of tea though, and I don't know why I ever thought this was a good idea.

Other than that, a few more hours of Factorio, and then a few hours trying out the alpha of Breakaway.

Breakaway is Amazon's (yes, they have people making games now) new MOBA, which plays kind of like a mix of Paragon and basketball. Hit people, carry the ball to the opponents' base, buy some items, build buildings. Familiar concepts in a not-so-familiar combination. And while the idea's not bad, I would say the game is.
The game feels both too fast and too slow at the same time. Once you get moving, you're pretty fast, but anything that hits you stuns you for a brief moment. Stack those brief moments, and you're very quickly stun-locked.
So it feels kind of frustrating to be on the receiving side of damage, but it also feels rather frustrating to be the one attacking. Attacks are slow, and you're forced to stand still while attacking. Projectiles also have a pretty slow travel speed, so those players just zip past and you miss a lot, if not most, of your attacks and abilities.
Possibly something that gets better as players gain experience, but too many games were won by just some guy juking attacks and carrying the ball alone, possibly while the rest of the team kept the opposition mostly stun-locked. I also saw two cases of a bot being awarded MVP, and that probably says something bad about the game.

So I won't be trying it out during any of the next tests, should they occur, unless I hear it's gotten tremendously better. It's just an exercise in frustration right now, with an occasional laugh about how stupid some scenarios that happen are. Maybe the other two of Amazon's game projects will fare better.

Possibly starting an extended game of Civilization VI as the next game. While I've played it a little, I haven't really gotten a feel for the whole game, and I've never really played it up to the very end. I'll try to this time, no matter if I get bored mid-way.
But since the holidays are approaching, it might mess with the timings of that.

17.12.16

It's been forever since I got my friends to play anything with me, so after having mostly completed out exams for the time period until New Year's, we spent several hours on Factorio.

16.12.16

OneShot is a game that appeared on Steam some while ago. It wasn't released nor even in early access at that time, but it caught my eye for some reason and I put it on my wishlist regardless. Then I forgot about it. Fast forward until a week ago and Steam notifies me that a game on my wishlist released. And now, one week after the release, as per usual for when I pre-evaluate games, it looks decent enough that I'll want to play it. It's tagged as a casual adventure, but it's much more well received than the usual RPGMaker game, so I have hope it'll be good.

15.12.16

Nothing but exams and per-preparation for the next semester. Maybe games again tomorrow, but no promises.

14.12.16

Nope, nothing today, sorry.

13.12.16

Has it really been 2 weeks since I added the last game to my list? Well, in any case Shadow Tactics is some sort of real-time tactical stealth game, which is a combination that makes me skeptical, as neither RTSes nor stealth games appeal too much to me, but I'll probably at least give it a try someday, as it's very well received so far.

Also, I don't remember adding it to my log, but apparently I had Obduction on there. Exploration? Puzzle? Sci-fi? I'm skeptical already, but since I once thought I might want to play this, I'll honor my past judgement. Expect something tomorrow.

12.12.16

Oh how the days blur past in these rushed hours...
A couple more Shenzhen puzzles completed, but otherwise nothing noteworthy.

11.12.16

Too many hours of serious thinking in a row make my head hurt for obvious reasons, so I'll play some non-thinking-oriented games in parallel.

Gave Heart&Slash a brief 30 minute try, and it wasn't any good. It's a 3D hack-and-slash game, but both the audiovisuals and the gameplay were on the poor side. It's not flat out terrible in any way (running aside, I literally thought my game was glitched by how fast I was moving, and then they told me there was a sprint button...), but rather bad than good in all the ways.

So, no.

10.12.16

Well, tried participating in Ludum Dare for 6 hours, and reached a conclusion that given the amount of time I have this weekend, the speed at which I can make stuff, and the bare minimum I dare call a game, I wouldn't manage to make a game by tomorrow night.

I really need to familiarize myself with Unity (or some other game engine, but I feel like sticking with Unity for the time being) more. Not being in the middle of my exam period would also be nice.

So instead of practicing making games, I'll continue to waste my time on playing them. I really like Shenzhen I/O so far. It basically feels like TIS-100, in that, aside from hooking different parts up, all you do is write pseudo-assembly code. But it's a huge improvement, because it adds a bunch of nifty little additions you can hook up to one-another, which, together, give oh-so-many possibilities, from music players to touch screen games.

Actually, I'm not sure if I'd even bother writing my concluding thoughts when or if I finish this game. There's not much to talk about, as the game's very straightforward in what it is. You're given a manual. You're given a bunch of different parts. You're given a task. Read the documentation on how to handle the I/O on those parts, connect them, and write the code to complete the task, then move on to the next task.

The quality of the puzzles, as well as the rest of the game is great. If you like solving coding puzzles on a highly limited instruction-set, -amount, and memory, as well as spending a bunch of time thinking, not doing, then this game is great. I do, so I really like it, and I might eventually post any fun things I manage to make in the game's sandbox.

09.12.16

And once again I find myself conflicted between adding too many games for myself to try out or potentially missing something I'd like. And as usual lately, I've taken the second path. Hopefully one day I will actually complete my backlog and can try out new games as they come out, without worry of not being able to play them all...

In any case, Dungeon Souls released, which has been on my list for a while.

I also reinstalled Heroes of the Storm and Paragon, despite my better judgement. I'm telling myself I won't play them, but honestly, I don't know. Not yet, at least.

Instead, I went to play Shenzhen I/O. It's funny, really. Not the game, but that between playing games and programming for schoolwork, I also program games, and program in games. Will update on how Shenzhen is though.

08.12.16

Nope, nothing today.

07.12.16

I haven't forgotten to search Steam's new releases. But there really has been nothing noteworthy in the past while. I'm not really complaining, because my backlog will last me a metaphorical infinity, and it's nice to know it's not growing while I can't be there to trim it down.

And even though I should have perhaps done other things, I finished ICEY this evening. It was definitely something a little different. I definitely don't wish to reveal any further details about this aspect, but it reminded me very heavily of The Stanley Parable. It is most definitely not as intricate and well-made in that aspect though, but enjoyable in its own right.
But it is almost equal parts, if not more, an action game. You probably won't enjoy this if you're not going to at least moderately like both sides of the game, as you can't really ignore either. And the action part is actually rather well done. The combat feels fast, responsive, and rewarding. Perhaps overly spammy, and not all too difficult with the correct cheese tactics (which are boring and time consuming, but hey, you don't have to use them and just run on easy mode), but I really liked it.
The entire thing might take about 4-8 hours of your time, depending on how much you want to complete, and how good you are at progressing. The voice acting is also entirely in Chinese, which kinda bothered me, but you have subtitles in English, which luckily aren't badly translated at all.
Overall, it wasn't really super great in any of its parts, but neither were any pieces bad or missing. The variety was refreshing, and I guess I would recommend it, just don't expect too much from it.

06.12.16

About an hour of Prismata and Planetside 2. But I don't feel like I have enough time to properly start a game yet. Slow time of the semester...

05.12.16

A few games of Prismata today, but it's likely I won't have any time at all on most days in the next 2 weeks at least.

Whenever I do get time though, expect some of that mysterious ICEY game. (It doesn't even have a howlongtobeat page, but it's possibly around 6 hours, so perhaps enough to fit on Thursday / Friday.)

04.12.16

Since I'm already making these posts that do not pertain to any specific game I've been playing, here's another one. (tl;dr at the end)

So I figured I'd start with a new game today and pulled another VN out from the metaphorical RNG hat. Now, normally, this wouldn't be a problem and I'd just go and give it a try. But this time, I figured that maybe this is not the best way to go about things.

The problem starts with the fact that visual novels are, as the name says, novels, not games. Of course that point can be argued, less so in the case of kinetic visual novels (which, in my opinion, are usually the best ones), but making decisions and having differing actions happen based on those decisions makes them games, no? No. I think that anything considered a visual novel has too little "gameplay" (if it can even be called that) to consider it a game. Of course, there are always cases that blur the line between the two, and that line can be in different places for different people. I'd label things like Long Live the Queen and Danganronpa under games, even though they're conceptually the same as visual novels - mostly reading, but you can make decisions and have different actions happen based on those decisions. (They're good games by the way, would recommend. Especially the former.)

Now, having established my opinion on them not being games, the question arises whether they're suitable material for this blog. I don't really talk about books I read, nor anime I watch, so why should I discuss VNs? And honestly, I kinda think I shouldn't. The only argument I have is that "other sites focused on games categorize them as games, and discuss them as if they were". Well, that, and that perhaps clicking is a little bit more involved than staring at a screen for 20-25 minutes straight or at two pages for a total of 2-3 minutes before switching to the next episode/page. But I respect my own opinion and the reasoning behind said opinion, and therefore stand by it - no VN discussion on my blog meant for games.

And that would be great and all, but it still leaves one problem - content. I try to write every day, because ideally I should have some sort of material for mostly every day. I try to surround my life with entertainment, which is mostly in the form of video games, but since a good story scratches the entertainment itch just as well as a good game, I'd have far longer periods of time where I wouldn't be playing anything. So from that perspective, why not extend this to cover the other forms of entertainment I enjoy as well, even if just in passing? So, yeah, I'll... make minor adjustments based on this decision.

So, moving back a notch in the topics, the way I've selected visual novels to read so far has been the same as I've done for games. See if something looks interesting, then try it. This differs from how I select other stories, like books or anime, where I just pick something that's popular and well received instead of reading what it's about. (And sticking to the fantasy genre on books, because realistic things tend to be boring for my taste.) Now, I can't do this with games. Possibly because I'm too much of a snob in that area, which is most likely the result of playing too many of them. But visual novels have a very nice database of them, so I can just (mostly) start from the top, and perhaps I'll eventually develop a more refined taste on them.

Except that... it seems a prerequisite for being good is to be lengthy. From the 14 highest rated ones I checked, 11 are >50 hours, and 3 are 30-50. Now, let's put the former into perspective in terms of books. So, you know those thick 600-page giants? Well, those aren't even close. Stack 5 of those, and you'll be at the minimum length these VNs could be. So stack 2-3 more on top of that pile that's nigh too heavy to carry already, and that's an estimate on how long they are. But wait, there's more. Most of those are a part of some multi-episode series, each of which is as long. So, take that giant intimidating pile, and add 2-4 more piles of similar size next to it. Or on top of it. But you'd probably reach the ceiling before they'd fit. And that... is how much reading there is. Now, while I love lengthy stories if they don't get dull, I don't really have that kind of time. So I'm kind of conflicted if I should just start reading, and see where one of them takes me, or pick some of the shorter, <50h ones that don't have a mass of prequels and sequels.

tl;dr: VNs aren't games, so I'll refrain from now on from discussing them as much, but will in turn just as briefly mention any other forms of entertainment I've been enjoying. Also, the best VNs are way too long.

03.12.16

Played some more Battlerite, and my opinion on it hasn't changed. Other than that, a lot of the day went on Planetside 2.

Starting next week and until Christmas, I'll have two tests/exams per week, so I'll be shorter on time than usual. I'd want to partake in Ludum Dare next weekend, but I probably won't if I'm too exhausted from studying. But if I do, expect more info on that.

02.12.16

It was actually yesterday that the Battlerite free weekend begun, but I just got to try it today.

I was, again, expecting a bunch from this game, as it had been generally quite well received, and I really loved the idea of a MOBA without the lanes, and the creeps, and all that stuff. I had also just recently quit Brawlhalla, which had been my main source of PvP for the past months, so I really wanted to like Battlerite, and for it to be my new go-to PvP game.

Perhaps you can already tell from my tone of writing, but I did not. In no particular order, here are things that bugged me:

Really long downtime between such short matches. Characters aren't unique enough. Combat feels washed out, not impactful. Maps are boring. It really feels like there could be a little more to it then just fighting.

Maybe it's a little bit of nostalgia from the games I used to play, so I remember them as much better in comparison, but I don't currently see any reason to want to keep playing Battlerite. The victories didn't mean much to me, nor did losing or my teammate bashing me infuriate me in the slightest. I guess I just didn't care because I wasn't really trying, and that's generally unlike me in a PvP game - I'm very competitive.

So I'll try again at F2P launch, but until then, I guess I'll just spend more time on my backlog and other stuff.

But gosh, now I really want to reminisce about the PvP games I used to play.

Starting with Brawlhalla, which I quit just a week or two ago. Despite being upset for the majority of the time playing it, which is the main reason I quit, I just couldn't pull myself free at times, even though I acknowledged I was upset and not really enjoying the game.

Matchmaking was quick, the matches were really fast-paced, skill-based, I didn't have any teammates to blame for my losses, so I could constantly focus on improving. The entire feel was great as a beginner, and after 200 hours.

But yeah, I quit mainly for the reason mentioned above. (The other being that a fair bunch of the game was built on being able to execute mechanically complicated combos that didn't require any thinking once you learned one. Furthermore, those combos changed from patch to patch, requiring re-learning.) Overall, this really solidified my assumption that team-and-match-based PvP games were always going to be frustrating, which is why I'm hesitant to pick one up unless it really, really fits me.

Before that, I played a month or two of Paragon, but it was fairly traditional mechanics-wise as a MOBA, just dumbed down and worse in comparison to the giants I could always go back to.

Other than that, I've always played Planetside 2, but definitely less actively in the last year or so.

Planetside 2 is currently the only decently good (and properly released) PvP MMO I know. It's been very slowly declining for over a year now, possibly for almost 4 years, ever since its launch, but it still has a decent amount of players for all its purposes.

I have over 1000 hours in it, and it's losing the magic. Sure, it's fun to go in, shoot stuff, participate in battles near unparalleled in size in comparison to other games, but there's no overarching goal. Kill to kill. Fight to capture a continent, just so another one would open up and reset. The cycle continues, and ultimately no one achieves anything.

But then again, that's also the case in any round-based PvP games, where the aforementioned cycle is several tens of times shorter. I guess I'm really just looking forward to something with the depth of EVE, and the action of a MOBA. Darn fairytale, I know, but maybe Crowfall will be half-decent.

I'm not even that big of a fan of FPSes, but still, the fact that there's no rounds, no fixed teammates, and an open-world means I can experience all of the action with none of the frustration. Winning and losing don't exist in the traditional sense, and you're free to do whatever the hell you want, as long as you can.

Sometime during that, I played Heroes of the Storm, which I quit just a tad more than a year ago after about 400 hours and when the matchmaking wasn't really living up to my expectations anymore. (Apparently something to do with there not being enough players at the higher MMR levels.) Still possibly my favorite PvP game in terms of combat, and I often consider going back to it, but I don't genuinely believe I'd enjoy myself anymore.

A very rough estimate for League of Legends is that I stopped playing 2 years ago and have 500 +- 200 hours in it. I just straight out switched to Heroes of the Storm when I got closed beta access to it, and never looked back. The last hitting, long matches and a laning phase, as well as the quick kill times, didn't really suit me. HotS also has an amazing variety of characters to play, not to mention the maps, and the different objectives.

If anything, that's the PvP game I'd go back to, but still, I'm afraid it won't be worth it.

Blizzard makes games with really consistently good quality, at least lately. Now, if only they did something from a genre which I really enjoyed, like an MMO... Oh, wait, there's WoW, and I am guilty of blaming it for the delaying the search for what actually makes a good MMO, as well as ruining MMOs, for a good 10 years.

01.12.16

This ain't even funny. Where did yesterday go? I swear today is the 1st of December...

30.11.16

So, Salt and Sanctuary? I could tell you it's a 2D Dark Souls with platforming, and that would be an excellent description. There's a bunch of games that mimic the Souls games, but I feel this one does it better than any others I'm aware of. And of course it's not just about the difficulty. It's a highly non-linear 2D action RPG with a bunch of platforming thrown in the mix. And if you've played any of the Dark Souls games, then you'll find the level design, combat, progression, and other mechanics feel very familiar.

I can't help but compare it every step of the way. While it obviously lacks the benefits of the third dimension, which plays a huge role in combat, but also in what I feel is about the only other thing this game is missing in comparison to Dark Souls - the gorgeous views and feeling of scale. You can only do so much via a layered background, but you can never go through a doorframe and take a few seconds just admiring the view, because you can't see ahead of yourself much.

But it may have even outdone its source material in other aspects. Honestly, I found the level design much more intricate, tightly packed, and interwoven, which felt really awesome, like everything's just one big place, not a series of connected areas.

The combat felt to be of a more consistent difficulty, the leveling system forced a bit of variety due to having a skill tree, which was mainly composed of stat upgrades, but also nodes that were required for wearing equipment, or that gave you more health/mana replenishing items. The weapon and armor variety was also decent.

About the only points of criticism I can think of right now, is that, one - combat didn't have much of a vertical aspect, especially since you had no way of avoiding damage while in the air, so jumping was often punished. Two - the last third or quarter of the game felt a bit rushed, having mostly bosses and platforming, with no or next to no enemies. And three - some very important aspects of the game weren't explained nor demonstrated.

About the last part - I played through half the game without knowing anything about weapon crafting, NPC bonuses, fast travel, upgrading, and possibly some more stuff. While I'm not a fan of tutorials, this should probably be made more obvious to players.

But overall, I really liked it, as is evident from spending 30 hours on it in a relatively short timeframe. If you like Dark Souls, I can almost guarantee you'll like this too. But even if you don't, you might still not hate this game. And if you want to spend even more time on it, there's NG+, as well as plenty of secrets and hard-to-reach places.

29.11.16

Been a while since the last time, but I found Alicemare on Steam. It's about the equivalent of an RPG Maker game. It's not very popular, but so far the feedback has been entirely positive, and the same developer made LiEat, which seemed to be pretty darn well received. So it's probably worth a try at some point.

Other than that, I finally finished Salt and Sanctuary today after a total of 30 hours. I will try to write my concluding thoughts on it tomorrow, because it's already late, and after 5 hours of being tortured by the game (for better or worse), I feel like I want to sleep on it. Can't form good thoughts neither after all this salt, nor on an empty stomach.

28.11.16

Played about an hour of One Finger Death Punch today, because I felt like it. I should continue with and finish Salt and Sanctuary, but it's kinda beginning to drag on. Only ~25% to go, so it should be bearable.

27.11.16

Maybe I should just pretend I'm not missing days. It's not like anyone notices in retrospect.

Also no games because Windows decided it wanted to update. So I had to deal with the consequences for the entire day.

26.11.16

I forgot two days!

But I've just been playing Salt and Sanctuary in my free time anyways. Exams are creeping ever closer, so I've slowly started preparing for those, which means less time for games.

25.11.16

Oh shit. I didn't just forget one day.

24.11.16

So, the already mentioned Shenzhen I/O is now out of Early Access, and still has a remarkably great review score. Hopefully I'll get around to playing it soon.

And, I found somewhat of an anomaly today. Considering I see all the releases with a 1 week delay, I'll usually hear about any popular release before I actually see it myself. And yet today I found a game by the name of ICEY, which I've never heard of before, yet which seems to be immensely popular. Clearly I must try it out. It looks like an action game, but it seems there's something more to it.

I don't always have something remarkable to write about it, but I played a couple more hours of Salt and Sanctuary today. More tomorrow and maybe I can finish it on the weekend.

23.11.16

I wanted to give a quick mention to Screeps, which released a week ago. It's an RTS, but instead of directly commanding your units, you write code that does it for you. And it runs 24/7. Now, I'm a huge fan of the idea, and would've bought it, but in order to really play the game, I'd need a monthly subscription, which I'm not quite sold on. So in all likelihood, I won't play this, but if you want to give it a try, there should be a demo on its site.

In other news, the huge flood of games on Steam is really demoralizing in that I can't really pick games solely based on what I think. Due to the sheer volume, I automatically filter out games that don't have at least a dozen reviews, as being good generally means at least gaining that much popularity. Every now and then I've tried some of these less popular games, and they have indeed not been very good, thus reaffirming my suspicions that popularity has a correlation with how good the game is. And so, with each such game, I try these kinds of games less. So, I put Way of the Red on my list to once again either reaffirm that "if it's not popular, it's not good", or for the slim chance that this isn't the case. We'll see when I get around to playing it.

Regarding Salt and Sanctuary, which I played for another few hours today, someone watching my stream notified me how I'm doing everything wrong. And wow, I really was. I take back about half of the negative things I've said and/or thought about that game. Basically, NPCs are a huge thing, and I thought the statues I got would only temporarily summon the corresponding NPCs. So I'm now definitely half way through the game, and I only just learned about weapon and armor transmutation, fast travel between Sanctuaries, merchants, hidden doors, and possibly a couple of other things.

Finally, I'd like to draw attention to the newest Humble Bundle, which is pretty good for a change, as well as whatever The Steam Awards are. (Honestly, I'm not really sure what the real goal with The Steam Awards is, but I have faith in Valve.)

22.11.16

And another good multiple hours of Salt and Sanctuary gone through today. I think I'm approaching the mid-way point in the game after about 13 hours, but I'm the kind to take things slowly and go through all the secrets and whatnot, so it might be slightly shorter for most others.

Encountered the first enemy type that's actually annoying in a bad kind of way. It didn't really kill the experience, but that one area (out of like 20+) was remarkably worse off due to this. Basically it teleports around, but there's no real cooldown on its teleportation so you can't attack it, nor does it attack you. You just have to chase it around the places it materializes and hope you get a hit in before it blinks away again, and that's just a waste of my time.

Otherwise, it's mostly been good. I'm a little concerned that I have nothing to spend my gold on, and I've probably lost without exaggeration 95% of everything I've ever earned to the "mysterious revive clerics", but that might just be my fault for not increasing my level in my faith.

The reason behind that is that I want to switch my faith, but these places are few and far between. I guess another minor negative notch for the game is that when choosing your faith in the beginning, it doesn't really explain what each one specializes in. So it happened I took a cleric faith. Wisdom spells and cloth armor, while I'm actually rolling around in the heaviest plate and 2H weaponry I can get my hands on.

21.11.16

Salt and Sanctuary actually got me hooked enough that I lost track of time slightly and before I knew it I had been playing for over four hours straight. What snapped me out was my computer reminding me it was getting late, and since I really needed to wake up the next day, I didn't have the time to write here.

So +1 for Salt and Sanctuary. Rare to see a non-sandbox engulf me like this. I'll write more of my thoughts on it later on.

20.11.16

Started Salt and Sanctuary today and got about 3 hours in. No clue how far that is, but I feel like I progressed a whole lot.

It's essentially a 2D Dark Souls, and that's actually a very accurate description. I'm quite enjoying my time with it, perhaps even more so than I did with the first two Dark Souls games. (I haven't played the 3rd one yet.) I can't quite pinpoint the reason for this, because Salt and Sanctuary is obviously worse in the sense that it lacks a 3rd dimension, which can actually take quite a bit away from the game. I'd also say the combat mechanics aren't quite as deep.

But it seems just a little bit less frustrating so far, and it's not because of the difficulty. (I can't even judge which game is easier.) It's probably a bunch of little things acting together that incorporates movement, how enemies are made, and perhaps, yes, a little bit of how it hasn't been overbearingly difficult at any point yet. Seems like a much more steady experience so far.

I'll definitely be continuing this in the foreseeable future. Hopefully it'll deliver more of the same - just a little bit frustrating and despairing, but not absolutely demoralizing.

PS. Note to self: Get a pencil and paper and make yourself a map. I am so lost.

19.11.16

So I did have time to play today. Got some more Rabi-Ribi done, but I have sadly reached the conclusion that I do not like this game. Why? Well, let me try to sum up my thoughts as best as I can remember.

I must say the the initial impressions for Rabi-Ribi are great. The music's kinda catchy, the art (both the sprites as well as the character art) looks nice and cute. The world seems large, not entirely linear, and there's a lot of skills and stats to level, lots of items to collect, new moves to learn, and it seems like there's so much to do, yet it's not overwhelming. I really wanted to like it.

And then the first thing I notice is that there's a ton of talking. I mean, that's fine for the beginning of the game. Lots of games do that to introduce the setting and story, but the more I play, the more I realize that these characters just can't shut up. The story's not really gripping or exciting or anything, but that'd be fine under normal circumstances.

Yet, sadly, a vast majority of the dialogue is completely useless unless you're reading it to look at the character art and how they act "cute" towards one another. I found myself starting to skip through the stuff being said without realizing it, and that's a clear signal that it was really boring me.
Okay, so, what else is there? Art and music are pretty great, as mentioned, so no complaints there. So, perhaps a look into what should probably be the most important part - combat. And a preemptive note: I may very well be missing some details that are important in high-level play, but I'm pretty sure this applies to any first-timers.
What infuriated me to no end, was the fact that I had to control my fairy and myself at the same time. In most games, you're used to just managing your own attacks, and you can't really do multiple attacks at once. Combos and such feel nice, and perhaps managing your movement while attacking to avoid the enemy and whatnot is also fine. (The latter of which is not in the game, by the way.)
But here I just have two completely unrelated entities whose attacks don't sync up, who I still have to control at the same time. It's incredibly difficult to get the timing of both attacks right, as I only have enough attention for one of the characters. I very much want to delve into a rant, but I'll leave it at comparing the feeling to trying to do quick side-to-side motions with your left arm while doing up-down motions with your right arm. Do give it a try, and then apply that feeling of "I can't quite do it." to a several hour time span.
Another major problem was understanding where my hitbox was. I never really did quite get it, and it didn't help that it seemed to change depending on what I was currently doing.
Overall, trying to mix a bullet hell with an action platformer didn't really work too well in my opinion. In a bullet hell game, I expect to have full control over my position. Here, I only have that control about half of the time, as my jumps need to land, and my dashes and attacks have a short recovery time. So it feels more frustrating when you get hit during falling or otherwise "recovering".
Furthering that point - the fights divided too much into two separate portions: dodging bullets, and attacking. Instead of being a nice mix, it feels like two separate pieces taped together.
Slightly relating to the previous point, having SP and MP also felt like too artificial of a restriction. Most enemies would just stop what they were doing while you were hitting them, so of course you'd need a cap as to how long you could keep doing that, but, again, this feels like a frustrating system, and it could be something better instead. Maybe that instead of being forced to stop attacking due to some arbitrary meter running out, you could be forced to stop because it's dangerous to stay there? Reactive combat perhaps?
That and a lot of things feel like they're just not well enough made. Great systems, but they lack polish. But seeing as this is already by far the longest I've written about a game, I won't delve much more into the other issues I may have had.
I'll just tack on that I didn't enjoy the amount of backtracking, and it felt really silly that it couldn't manage to restrict me from going into certain places but instead had to resort to some character telling me "no, you can't go there", then assuming control of my character and walking back.

Despite the long list of complaints, most of it isn't really game-breaking stuff, and is more or less also a matter of preference. A huge amount of people love this game, and I can't really say it's terrible either. But I, certainly, did not enjoy playing it.

18.11.16

No games today. Instead, I fight with my computer because for the past week every time I start it, it fails to install an update, spends 15 minutes reverting the changes, then downloads over a GB of data just to try installing the update again the next morning.

I'm also trying to get as much schoolwork preemptively done as possible so the holidays and the end of the semester would be more tranquil. So, hopefully more games on Sunday, at least.

17.11.16

Well, this should be a well known game, so it's not much news, but I added Tyranny to my backlog. I don't actually generally like RPGs though, because I'd prefer to play a game for either the gameplay or the story, not both at the same time. The reasoning being that it is inevitable that one is better, so whenever I'm not doing that which I like more, it just feels tedious, because I want to get back to the better bits. But we'll see how this one holds up.

16.11.16

Sometimes I don't even notice the day passing by. Come back to write here, and suddenly see there was no post the day before. Ah well, better late than never.

15.11.16

I got a little over 2 hours of Rabi-Ribi in today. I really like the overall atmosphere of it - that is the art, the sounds, the dialogue - it all fits nicely together.

So far though, the combat portion seems to be worse in comparison. Not that it's particularly bad, but most attacks lack that visual and auditory feedback to really feel fluent and impactful. Can't even properly tell when some of my attacks are charged, and the SP system feels a bit clumsy. Then there's the matter of not properly understanding where my hitbox is, and having to simultaneously control both my fairy companion's attacks as well as my own (and they're somewhat mutually exclusive, not that I'd understand how the system works), and then managing my movement on top of that. With the various difficulty levels, I suppose this just makes for a high skill cap, while the skill floor can be as low as I want, but it does make the combat feel clumsier. On the optimistic side, I feel like my experience will improve as I get more familiar with it.

Now, I'm not sure if the following is good or bad, keeping what I said about combat in mind, but there's not all too much of it. I was hoping to take another break from visual novels after the last one, but this one's just dialogue, dialogue, and then some more dialogue.

In any case, it's good enough that I definitely want to continue playing it for now. So expect more.

14.11.16

Oh look, another one of Idea Factory/Compile Heart's games: Trillion: God of Destruction. I'm not even sure why I added it to my list, since their games are always terrible gameplay-wise, and only perhaps average story-wise. At least they got English voice acting and can spark a chuckle every half an hour.

I also figured out the next game I'm going to play: Rabi-Ribi. It's not going to happen today though, hopefully tomorrow. But it's supposedly really good, so I got my hopes up. Let's hope it's not for naught.

13.11.16

I think my habit of missing days is increasing. I spent yesterday mostly on various non-game related automation stuff and Divinity. Nothing exciting.

12.11.16

Seems Fault - Milestone Two side:above was significantly shorter than the first episode. In other words, I just finished it.

What I've mentioned earlier about this still stands, so I won't repeat myself, but I do have some new observations to add.

First of all, I noticed a pattern in how the story's built. Now, while I'm not a very avid reader, stories generally seem to follow a pattern of starting slow and comparatively uninteresting, then winding up until almost the end, and then quickly slowing down as stuff wraps up. These, however, have a very strong beginning and ending, with the middle portion being the less interesting part.

Both episodes so far have started off with a lot of action, then most of the story is a slow development of events, and the ending always tries to make you cry. And honestly, I like this style. A fast start quickly sparks one's interest, then we can trudge through the brunt of the story (It's not actually bad, this is more of a generalization.), and an emotional ending leaves a stronger memory of the story.

The story also divides into portions where it's serious and stuff is progressing, and parts where the characters are just acting all cute towards each other. The fittingness of the latter rather confuses me, but perhaps it helps with defining the characters. I couldn't really tell.

I was completely mistaken about one thing though. I though that this tale would be one of fantasy and magic (or "manakravte", as they call it), but that hasn't at all been the case, nor will it probably be in the future. This episode especially drew very clear parallels with technological advancements in real life. A bunch of stuff, including some primitive form of the internet, in the form of a book acting as a message board.

But more than that, a huge topic was ethics. A developing country. A class system. How unfair life can be for some. Greed, and choices in life. It really tries to tackle a bunch of problems of society. And I'm not exactly good at discussing those kinds of things.

Sad for me, because I just wanted action. Perhaps the lighthearted segments I mentioned earlier were there to help against the overall slightly depressing mood of the story. Still, I can't criticize how it handles the topics themselves, as I quite enjoyed what I read. My only concern is that things do turn out just a bit too well for reality. I guess a story needn't have a happy ending, but at least a good one.

Aaand I went off on a ramble again. Reading a bunch of words must make me want to write a bunch of words in return.

To conclude, I must say that this VN series seems at first glance to be something completely different from what it actually is, but despite that, I think it's really good, and I can't wait for the next episodes.

11.11.16

Continued with Fault. Nothing to really add to yesterday's observations except that oddly often some character repeats a line they just said, or that the name of the speaker is wrong. Might be a bug, might be sloppy writing, but it's a minor annoyance either way.

As for Beglitched, my predictions were true - I didn't really enjoy it, but I can't say it was a complete waste of my time either.

It is essentially a 2-in-1 puzzle game. Minesweeper in the map view, and a match-3 in the battle mode. There's enough of a twist to both that they're not outright boring, but I still found them way too easy to be fun, and too lengthy to not care about them. There's hidden tidbits here and there as well to keep the experience more exciting, but they're rather few and far between.

I feel like the cutesy audio and visuals might drive some people away, but it's not as bad as the graphics make it out to be. Not that either is bad, no, I think they're well made for the style, but most people probably don't expect a good game in this art style.

If you like easy and cute puzzle games, then you might like it. I, however, do not.

10.11.16

So I finally started with Fault's episode 2.1. And while I didn't play much, it started off highly memorably. Namely there was a spell with the effects of a large strategical nuke, wiping out the entire continent including our main characters, then breaking the 4th wall, giving artificial error screens, closing the game window, leaving a pause to comprehend what the hell just happened, then opening it back up to the start screen with the previous background replaced by images of the caster of the first spell as well as an "undo" button.

It's a cheap trick, but it looks really fancy because next to no games do something like this. (And I believe many people are under the impression that if you close a program's window, you close the program as well.)

I also question the decision of breaking the fourth wall as well as introducing a character who is supposedly effectively omnipotent. Although they did hint at the entire thing being an "illusion", not that it'd probably give an answer any time soon.

So far, my main problem with the previous game, the fact that some backgrounds and characters were of an unacceptably poor quality, has been mostly solved here. Mainly the backgrounds, which all look nice now, even though some of the character art (although a much smaller percentage than before, at least so far) is still of a noticeably poorer quality.

It also looks like they added a "camera", which, when zooming or shifting, shifts the characters slightly in comparison to the background, creating a more 3D feel. A bunch of scenes also feature animation-like effects, which seem to be mostly panning, zooming, rotating, and other cheap effects, but they're all very well executed. Overall, the visual side has vastly improved, and I can't really recall any other VN I've read to be so... alive.

09.11.16

As per a friend's request/suggestion, I tried Prismata today. It's a card game, but it's trying to employ a different gameflow from games such as Hearthstone. If anything it reminds me a bit of Magic, but I'm not all too familiar with the latter, so I couldn't accurately tell. A major difference is that it's purely skill-based, because both players have the same "deck", and you can always see all cards in play or still waiting to be built. No luck, no secrets, no matches that are uneven from the very beginning.

For the few hours I played it, it was really fun. (This was mostly matches against the AI for practice.) However, the game's very low on players right now - 16 when I logged in. It is technically in alpha, where you have to buy access, but in reality you can get a free alpha code from their subreddit, so you can't entirely attribute the lack of players to that. But yeah, this means you'll be waiting quite a while for a match, and will probably be matched against someone much better than you.

I kind of hope it survives until launch, because I really like the idea behind it.

08.11.16

The new month's releases bring with it House of the Dying Sun, which has been in Early Access for a few months now, but is out now. Looks like a game where you fly around space and shoot stuff. Looks pretty, and hopefully fun for at least a short while.

And another release is Owlboy, which is some kind of platformer-y adventure game. Again, looks nice, will see how I like it when I play it someday.

I tried an hour of TowerClimb. And the first thing anyone would notice about this is that it's extremely difficult. Now, difficulty isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was kind of a source of frustration in this case. My main problem is with the controls. The game may have quite in-depth mechanics and options for me to use to progress, but the amount of correct button presses I have to make in a precise order, at a precise time, and in a short timeframe is too high. More simply put: It's got a high skill-ceiling, which is good, but also a very high skill-floor, which heavily hindered my progression, enjoyment, as well as how much content I got to experience.
I feel like they could've made the entire thing more beginner friendly without having to compromise the truly difficult parts in the later levels. As it stands now, a lot of the difficulty just adds frustration instead of depth. So you might enjoy it after a few hours if you master the controls and timing, but I feel like there's other such games that don't require this kind of commitment before you can hopefully start enjoying yourself.

07.11.16

A whole bunch of hours of Divinity today. Still nothing special to report of it. It's damn long though.

06.11.16

Another missed day. Not that anyone could tell in retrospect.

05.11.16

Princess Remedy is something that has been sitting in my library for a relative eternity. I played it, but got bored half-way, event though it's an hour-long game.

It's a funny little game, where you run around and cure people (and not-people) by completing a bullet-hell-type minigame. Each character gives you some dialogue about their (usually not-so-real) illness and a thanks for curing them. There's also some chests for power-ups located around the world. Not really much to do, but it's worth its low price of free. There's also like 66 endings based on which character you choose, and apparently something special if you run through the game without getting any chests or something.

You probably wouldn't miss the hour you'd spend on this game, even though it's not particularly good.

04.11.16

A good few hours more of Divinity. It's still fun, but there's not much to say about it, just progressing with the story, and enjoying some tactical combat, so I possibly won't mention every time I play it.

Tiger Knight wasn't to my liking, as expected. Not completely terrible, but the bots didn't add much to the gameplay for me, the performance was kinda bad for how weak the graphics were. The latter or which is probably because they game's apparently quite a few years old, it just hadn't been released in the West before. And the combat feels relatively unresponsive. I'd rather just pick some M&B Warband multiplayer mod, and have a good time with that.

And much to my own surprise, I was able to finish Orwell's demo as well. It was terribly short. Took me precisely 35 minutes. I understand it was a demo, but that was the entirety of the first episode, and with a total of five such episodes, the entire thing wouldn't be longer than 3-4 hours.
And while short doesn't mean bad, this one was by next to no means good. The only thing I really liked was the concept. You can observe different private and public media channels, and have to piece together details about people and their connections to find clues and evidence. But the execution was darn poor.
Starting with our "advisor" who couldn't keep his mouth shut and constantly had to make remarks about everything I found and all the opportunities I had. Hand holding of the highest degree, I say. It was bad enough that the story was completely linear, and each "clue" "led" to the next without any chance for error. (The leading part isn't true either. Pretty much literally all of the information I gathered was useless and carried no connection to the other opportunities I had of getting more info. It was just a linear sequence of events.)
So it's short, boring, hollow, and linear. I'm not in the slightest interested in the other episodes.
I do though, want to mention a game I've played before that I was reminded of - Analogue. It doesn't have the same concept, but I feel the gameplay is similar, except better. (Also Hate+, and Digital, the latter of which is free, since I'm already making suggestions.)

03.11.16

Okay, so today's the "new releases on Steam" special. I went through the entire week's games this morning. I feel like my judgement gets biased if I look through these games for too long, so there were about 3 games that I hesitated upon, but didn't end up adding to my backlog.

In hindsight, I realize why the amount of games spiked some two weeks ago. Halloween, obviously, but it's not celebrated where I live, so I blame my ignorance on that.

Another observation I wish to make is that there are a whole lot of VR games being made. Seems the craze is still going strong, although my personal opinion on them so far is that you can't really make a good game in VR. The input options are a bit more limited, and movement in-game is always a tough problem to tackle. I am therefore instantly skeptical when it comes to VR games.

But with that out of the way, here's some of last week's releases that I'm probably going to try someday in the future:

Tiger Knight: Empire War is apparently like if you took the combat portion of singleplayer Mount & Blade, and made it into multiplayer. It's free, so I'll probably take a look at it sooner, rather than later, but the concept seems a bit too good to actually be good.

Yomawari: Night Alone is some sort of horror adventure game. I don't generally like these kinds, but this one seems irresistibly cute.

Then there's Clockwork Empires, which finally released. Although its ratings have constantly been on the not-so-good side ever since it's been playable... *checks appearance date* ...2 years ago. Time sure flies. So, I won't expect to like it, but since it's made by the people who made Dungeons of Dredmor, I kinda feel like I owe it a quick try at the very least.

Something a little different - Orwell - is a "privacy invasion simulator", although it's not actually a simulator, and more of a story. Comes in 5 episodes, and the first one's available for free as a demo of the game. It's got potential to be interesting, but I've heard it's too linear, and the story portion is nothing astounding.

And an honorable mention to Carmageddon: Max Damage. I won't be playing it, but I just wanted to share the lovely video it has of itself. Here you go.

02.11.16

The struggle continues. I'm trying to cut that hour-a-day PvP itch to get that extra hour to finish stuff I need to, or to focus on my backlog. But, uh, another day, another nothing to report, sadly. =/

01.11.16

So busy, so tired. Haven't even checked Steam's new games since the beginning of the week, so expect a bunch when I one day decide to pick up my slack. There seems to be a period right now where more games are being released, as we're up to ~180/week instead of the usual ~120/week. (And I just realized how damn many games that is.)

31.10.16

After another 4 hours with Seraph, I think I'm done with the game. It's not that I've seen everything the game has to offer, no, but the more I play the more I realize that behind (or in front of) this great idea lies a not-so-good implementation.

Partially reiterating what I mentioned yesterday, here are but some of the things that bug me:

The level layouts aren't all that good.

The AI's pathfinding often causes it to get stuck. (Sometimes even in an open space. Overall, it's highly abusable.) In addition, some attacks can not be reflexively avoided, which is a source of frustration.

Particularly combined with the previous problems, the camera is zoomed in too close. And it seems our aiming AI can't really aim off-screen much.

I can't understand why the platforms that can be shot through, can't be jumped through. This would alleviate a lot of the the level layout problems as well.

The mote pickup range is way too short, and pre-placing them in some hard-to-reach places isn't really helping a game that has its main focus on combat. The places aren't actually hard to reach at all, as our character is incredibly mobile, it's just annoying. I guess this falls into the "bad level layouts" thing.

Interaction with chests, weapon closets, and other such things is too clumsy and takes away from the momentum of the game.

So, yeah, again, great idea, good combat, bad execution of mostly everything else. I think this would be a much better game if it were dumbed down a little. Needs to be less complicated, more flowing.

30.10.16

I am now 2 hours into Seraph, and I would probably love to be 2 more hours into it in the future. The movement feels fluid, and I hadn't really ever thought about the idea of giving control of a central game mechanic to the AI so the player could focus on the rest, but it works great. I am really enjoying the combat, and it seems there's plenty of character progression as well as replay value in this game.

The story feels a tad forced, and not too well made. I wouldn't have minded gratuitous shooting without forcing little bits of story on me, but it's not something that would take away much from the experience.

Also, the lack of a map combined with (in my opinion) confusing level layouts makes navigation slightly frustrating.

While it doesn't look like something that has replayability up into multiple tens of hours, I will definitely be playing some more of it later on.

Surprisingly, I managed to continue Divinity: Original Sin after about a 2 month break, and that took most of my afternoon and evening. I've started that game maybe 5 times now, each time the other player ditches me after a while, but you know... Maybe this time will be different. It's a long game, and my playing times don't depend entirely on me, so I might sometimes unexpectedly cut my other plans short for this.

29.10.16

Tried about half an hour of Blue Revolver, and it just doesn't sit with me. Probably more of a niche for people who are already familiar with these kind of Bullet Hell games, but everything seemed very repetitive and confusing for me. Starting from the controls which were poorly explained (no mouse control, glad I at least knew the default navigation buttons for these eastern games), to not properly explaining the goal or mechanics.

And the rest of the morning was spent on Project Highrise. 3 hours, I can't say I really miss them, but I can't recommend the game either. It's a management game, and it's not that it was bad, it's just that there are plenty that are better than it. It felt a little bit linear, and too stable. As in, if you got stuff working, then stuff was working, and there weren't any setbacks or anything that could force you into ruin unless you got overly ambitious and completely reckless. And there wasn't too much of a variety in things to do either. So, it's an okay game, just not worth playing in comparison to the great ones out there.

28.10.16

8 Chapters, and much longer than I anticipated, but I finished reading it. From the beginning, I expected some action-y magic-combat-filled stuff, but what I got was like a side-arc before the main arc had managed to kick off, along with no magic, no action, and, yet again, a tearjerker near the end. They could've just ended it on that sad note, but the story moved slightly past that and ended on a cliff-hanger. Like I'd need that to read the second Episode.

But what did I think about Fault - Milestone One overall? Well, starting from the less important parts:

The music was good and fitting, but nothing really amazing.

The (dare I say) three main characters, as well as the Event CG were of great quality. The other characters, not so much. And some of the backgrounds were just downright awful. (Oh, and I wanted to note it was sweet that once you complete the story, your new party member appears onto the title screen's picture.)

While the story didn't go along the path I hoped it would, I can't say I was disappointed. I would've hoped for a full fantasy setting, but they handled the science okay. I would've hoped for more action and magic, but they instead delivered decent feels. But for the large majority it remained unpredictable, well thought-through, and making me want more, and I appreciate that.
I should also mention that the writing was natural-seeming, which is always a relief. There were quite a few grammar mistakes or simply forgotten words, but that seems more like sloppiness than bad writing.

Oh, and about that one choice near the beginning. That has no effect at all on the story. About a minute's worth of different dialogue before they do the same thing anyways. I believe most would make the "right" choice, but if you don't, the characters will basically tell you that that isn't the right thing to do. So it's kind of dumb to even have a choice. Being a Kinetic novel is fine.
With the apparent moderate success of the first Episode, I have hope the next ones will be more polished.

So, yeah, would recommend if you like this kind of stuff. I'll take the time for another game or two before I move onto the next Episode though, because this took longer than I anticipated.

27.10.16

Continuing from last night, Chapters 3 and 4 have been finished, and the story's getting better. That's good, even though it seems I have been misinformed about the its length. I feel as though what seemed like the main storyline is not that after all, and that strong deviation and completely forgetting events that were previously left unsolved is slightly bugging me, but we'll see how it goes.

Oh, late edit - I also remembered that the game actually had me make a decision in the beginning of the 3rd Chapter. I thought this was a Kinetic VN, but I guess not. I think the decisions won't have a large impact on the story though, seeing as each Episode is on the short side, and they don't look like they have the budget to be making cross-episode effects on the choices you make.

Another thing of note is that the art it "sells" to you (not referring to the separate art thing you can purchase) is notably above the quality of the rest. It's not that I judge a story (much) by its art, but everything except the main characters and "Event CG" are of noticeably poorer quality. Often improper shading, and the worst case was where it was very glaringly obvious that the items on a shelf were just pasted there. But other than that, it's pretty good.

26.10.16

I wish to briefly blame procrastination for why we are not already a thousand years' worth more advanced, among other things.

But less cryptically speaking, I finished Chapter 2 (out of 3 or 4, I presume) of Episode 1 of Fault today. It keeps bordering on taking a turn for the worse, but manages to keep itself oddly enjoyable. It kind of switches between "incredibly well thought through" and "kinda cliché", but so far it hasn't stepped in any (il)logical buckets, and the silly non-story-advancing dialogue bits make for a nice, cheerful change of pace from the increasing amount of questions the story leaves unanswered, making you want more. I'm really more of a fan of the "thought through" parts, but the balance is all fine and good even for my taste.

25.10.16

I normally wouldn't list any interesting VR games I find, since I don't own a headset nor am I planning to get one in the foreseeable few years, but Accounting is something particularly interesting. Why, you ask?

For one, it's free, so there's no reason not to try it. (Aside from the ludicrous headset cost of course.)
Secondly, the rating's pretty good.

Thirdly, it's made by Crows Crows Crows, who made another pretty good game. (Which is also free, and doesn't require a VR headset, so, this time, there really is no reason not to try it.) P.S. They also made like half of The Stanley Parable, so that's another something.

And finally, something that has of no significance to me, but apparently it's a pretty big deal - It's also made by the co-creator of Rick and Morty.

So, interesting bunch of people, and apparently a good game. Shame I won't get to try it.

24.10.16

Aaand Dredmor run completed. Ended with over 3 million Zorkmids, figured out at the 14th floor I could get the Double Rainbow achievement at long last (and made a trip to the 1st floor and back to actually get it), crashed a bunch of times, once losing 2 hours worth of progress, but in the end, took down Dredmor without too many problems. That puts me at 48% achievement completion, mostly not having deaths to various monsters, and then a whole bunch of skill trees I haven't mastered. But I've filled my dungeon crawling urge for the time being, especially as the game gets quite unstable towards the end.

I want to get back to Fault, but in reality, I probably won't have time today. Hopefully tomorrow, but I make no promises.

23.10.16

I remembered I had an unfinished Dungeons of Dredmor game. Went down two more floors to 13, and things are proceeding rather easily. About every attack yields a combo for one extra attack, then I usually either dodge or completely block the enemy, still following up with a counterattack that combos as well, and half of those are criticals or go haywire, creating for some interesting effects and a total of about 4 attacks worth of damage in one hit. Also fun stuff like in the picture to the right. Money's increased to over 2 million Zorkmids, not that I'd ever do anything with them... So yeah, going great!

22.10.16

Go to sleep on Saturday, wake up on Saturday. Just one more turn, I swear. No, but in all seriousness, I don't really have the time to be playing all that much Civ right now. Backlog doesn't stop expanding for anybody, so I have to hack away at that.

Started today with the Fault series, which is a VN of which episodes 1 and 2.1 are out, 1's prequel should arrive this year, and 2.2 sometime next year. Point is, it's got a bunch of content out and coming.

As far as I got (and perhaps almost as far as the first episode goes, as they're on the short side - less than 10 hours a piece it seems), it was just setting the scene. Some cryptic inspirational prologue followed by a quick story of the basics of the magic system and it's evolution and spread, and how that all lead to a war. Followed by the actual story starting.

So far, I love the magic system, as there's clearly some thought and rules behind that, which makes for a more immersive setting because there aren't any obvious loopholes. I was a bit concerned when they introduced science into all this, but I didn't read further than that for the day, so hopefully the story stays all nice and logical. But that's just my personal taste.

Other than that, the character art looks quite nice, but most of the backgrounds are, in stark contrast, flat and boring. Which strikes me as odd, seeing as the... whatever you call the backgrounds that are shown when character sprites aren't on the screen, but rather in the background itself... are very well done. In any case, I'll definitely be continuing reading later on.

21.10.16

Thought I'd load Civilization VI up for a quick try. And as expected, it took the entirety of my evening. It was plenty fun though, and not too similar to the previous one.

As far as I played (Civ games never drag into the late ages for me, for some reason.), I'd say that it's an improvement in terms of gameplay. In no particular order, I like that:

• The AI is smarter.
• Districts force more attention to city placement.
• Diplomacy victory was removed. (It was too one-sided.)
• Culture now has it's own tree.
• Faith is slightly less useless.
• Districts force some degree of city specialization.
• Good strategies are (probably) less obvious.
• And probably more stuff. No glaring downsides for me.

Now, what I didn't like one bit, was the UI and settings side of things. The most glaringly obvious and serious problem was that very often, crucial parts of the UI overlap. I'm not a fan of the art style either, the minimap was too small, visual cues are a downgrade so I have to spend a bunch more time making sure I didn't miss anything. Some wonderful menus that Civ V had seem to just have been removed, etc. The game is also missing multiple settings available in the previous one that, while not crucial to playing it, simplified things.

So, overall, I think it's a step up from the previous game, because it's not really missing anything, yet has added stuff. It is, however, not more pleasant to play because it isn't as accessible. But I wouldn't hold that against it too much, as it's much easier to fix than gameplay would have been, had it not been as good.

20.10.16

12 days before I managed to not make a post one day. That better than I hoped, actually. Well, as you could expect, nothing much happened. University is really giving me a bunch of work sometimes, so some days are occupied by that. Highly likely much won't happen tomorrow either, but if I'm lucky, I can get some Civilization VI done with my friends in the coming weekend.

19.10.16

Some weeks I only find one game, some weeks it's two per day. So today's two are:

Project Genom - It's an MMO, still in Early Access, and the reviews aren't all that good, but I'm always a sucker for MMOs. In reality though, probably another something I won't even try in the end.

GoNNER - A procedurally generated platformer. It's got plenty of action, and from the looks of it, it's quite hectic. So, looks interesting, hopefully not too repetitive.

Well, despite Blogger acting up, I think I managed to get the background properly in there, and the rest of the template back to how it was. Even though Blogger might not be as up-to-date as some other popular sites of similar categories, it's really easy to use, and I like the default style it offers. So in the end, I'm okay with Blogger because I'm really lazy but want something that looks half-decent. And in the rare case I might feel like actually fixing some of its flaws, I have that possibility. (HTML editor full of >2000 lines of uncommented code, yay...)

18.10.16

So, found 2 games today:

Thumper, which is some kind of action rhythm game. I've heard a reasonable amount of hype towards this game, but I don't actually understand what the game is about. It looks like Audiosurf, but reading about it, it seems it's not that at all. I guess I'll find out when I try it.

And Blue Revolver, which I'm not even sure I'm going to play. It's a Bullet Hell game, apparently on the short side as well, but the visuals seem rather nice in comparison to most such games on Steam these days. I'm not really a fan of the genre, but the challenge it provides is sometimes enjoyable, so we'll see if I ever get around to it.

Another day with no time to play anything, with some thanks to having to fight Blogger in terms of the background. For about 3 hours. They suggest one at least 1800x1600 pixels, and everything looks fine up to 2000x2000 until you apply it and look at the live version. Then it's scaled down to 1600x2000 if it was any larger. And when you switch back to one of the default backgrounds, it also resets your entire color scheme. So, I'll get it working eventually, but I'm out of mental fortitude for the day.

17.10.16

Despite all my free time today, I only got a couple hours of Planetside 2 done in the morning. (That is, in addition to the 1K+ I already have.)
So, uneventful day in terms of this blog, but I'm making a new background for this place, so hopefully today's low content will be compensated for. =)

16.10.16

Little things aside, I continued with, and finished, Momodora. I don't really have much to add to yesterday's impressions. Spent a fair amount of time backtracking today, getting the little things I missed or couldn't get to before. There's plenty reason to do so, as Momodora offers a little more than most Metroidvanias in this regard - the items you collect are usually desired by some NPCs for a little extra content, story, or unlocking the true end. I also want to say that the attention to detail in so many parts of the world is a rather rare thing to see.

There are also reasons to re-play the entire thing. Higher difficulty levels don't only tune the damage numbers and hitpoints of enemies higher, but also rework enemy placement in many parts of the world. There's 20 bugs (not the software kind, mind you) scattered around the place, and while I achieved 99% map completion and checked every nook and cranny I could possibly bother, I only found 5 of them. I'm not sure if there's a special reward for gathering them all, but it's highly likely. And apparently there's also rewards for beating each boss without taking damage. And then a mysterious door I have no clue what's behind.

I'm not going to bother re-playing it. I did enough backtracking for my own liking. But regardless, I really enjoyed the game, and would definitely recommend it.

And on a completely different note: I found the rare urge to play some KSP tonight. I probably won't finish this in the near future, but since 1.2 requires relays to effectively pilot unmanned crafts, I figured I'd make a relay that can transmit to the entire Kerbol system. Going to plant one or two of these in low Kerbol orbit, and they should suffice for going anywhere except Eeloo. (That is, using the DTS-M1 antenna on the receiver ship. I could always use something beefier for an Eeloo trip.) Now, this is only the portion that will carry it after I reach Kerbin orbit, and even then I think I'm a little light on fuel, but I'm definitely sticking to the design, because just look at this thing.

15.10.16

Started the day by remembering that EVE Online was going F2P on the 8th. So I figured that since I had a starter pack lying around, and there wasn't any pressure to spend my time in there efficiently once I could play for free, I activated it, and flew around for a couple hours. Not much really happened, and I haven't the slightest what I could or should do, but maybe I'll bother playing enough one of these days that I'll start to understand the game. In any case, it's as big of a time sink as I want it to be, and I don't have all that much to spare for it, so you probably won't hear about it again in the near future.

Rest of the morning went on Dungeons of Dredmor again. Got two Dark Mirror Shields for a fancy 100% spell reflection, also happen to have 100% block chance, 50 armor, yet still dealing 60-70 damage a hit (critical included). Noticed I had amassed half a million Zorkmids, and got that rare Clockwork equipment achievement. So this is actually turning into one of my better runs in the past year or so.

And last but not least for the day, played some Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. It's kind of a Metroidvania with Souls' influence, and I really like it. Really has been a while since a game of this genre has managed to catch my attention for several hours that passed without even noticing them. It's not terribly long, being maybe 6 hours if you rush through it, 10 if you want to backtrack and find mostly everything you missed. And I'm a little more than halfway through.

The pixel art is both really cute and a little creepy, and animations are particularly excellently done. Didn't even know you could have that amount of emotion and facial expressions with so few pixels. The music is also nice, as is the layout of things on the map.

The amount of enemies between bossfights and new enemy types is just right, being enough that you are forced to learn their attack patterns and how to counter them, yet not so much as to render fighting them tedious. Bosses are a rather frequent sight, which is good because fighting bosses feels so much more rewarding than fighting through a few waves of regular enemies. Sadly, rapidly firing your bow is a cheesy and easy way to beat them. I'd much rather be forced to use my "sword". But that is about the only problem I had with the game.

I'll almost definitely finish this tomorrow, but they can't possibly screw up the end badly enough for me to not recommend this game. It's really good, and you should try it if you like these kinds of games at all.

14.10.16

I might be getting a little lenient, adding games to my queue that I won't (with a high certainty) truly enjoy, but Beglitched looked like something that might not be a complete waste of my time.

As for the games I actually played:
Some more Dungeons of Dredmor. About 40% through the current run, but there's nothing really noteworthy there.

Tried The Witness. I feel like I could have given it a longer try, but honestly, the mazes weren't fun in the first five minutes, nor were they fun after an hour of solving them, despite the pretty surroundings and differing rules and display forms for the mazes themselves. It really felt like an interesting concept, but apparently the entire thing is over 20 hours of solving mazes... It's... just mazes... Only mazes. It's not fun for me.

And finally, I also gave a brief attempt at playing Angry Arrows. It's not a bad game, just lacks content. It's local co-op only, but I'd assume that if you did get a few people together, it'd be a fun few hours spent. It simply has nothing to come back for, nor is it all that funny when played alone.

13.10.16

Didn't find just 1, not even 2, but an entirety of 3 games on Steam today that I want to try. That's an absurd amount for one day...

First off, something by the name of Hunger Dungeon. It advertises itself as a MOBA, and while I can already feel the "oh god, not another one" sensation coming up, it's free (to play), and the reviews aren't half bad. So while I don't expect much, I'll be giving it a try in possibly the near future.

Next up - Endless Space 2. In name, it's a sequel to Endless Space, but as far as I know, it'd be more accurate to say it's a sequel to Endless Legend, which is currently my favorite TBS out there. So while it's still in Early Access, I've already heard good things about it, and will definitely be giving it a try at some point.

Finally, Shenzhen I/O is another Puzzle game from Zachtronics, which, I dare say, makes the best Puzzle games out there. I've played nearly every one of their games since they were still making free Flash games, and I'm not going to miss this one either. It looks to be more on the programming side this time, possibly something along the lines of TIS-100. It's also in Early Access, so I'll give it time to get ready before playing.

Spent the rest of the morning playing Dungeons of Dredmor, inching ever closer to getting all the achievements. This of course calls for funny builds. I needed Unarmed Mastery, and, well... obviously the only route is to have a shield. In both hands. Couple that with Shield Mastery and Armor Mastery for nigh 0 damage, Berserk for more damage, and add Sneaking, Burglary, and Assassination to the mix to be the stealthiest raging tin-can alive. It's oddly efficient, and I'm getting 4 skill tree achievements completed.

Hunger Dungeon turned out to be terrible in the sense that it has like 5 players online, which basically means no multiplayer. 60% of the characters are locked, and it's not actually good in any way either. So that was an instant delete, same as most previously unknown free games.

12.10.16

Found something by the name of Butcher on Steam this morning. It's going on my terribly long wishlist for the time being because people apparently think it's good, so I want to try it at least.

I actually use an RNG to select a game from those that I have in my waiting queue (Early Access titles aside), so everything has a chance to be played. And by pure coincidence, the RNG chose Planetarian.

It was an... experience. I definitely didn't at all relate it to the VN I played 3 days ago, and I dare say I actually enjoyed this one. My main issue is that it's damn old, and thus suffered from a tiny window and a poor UI, but neither relates to the story, which is obviously its selling point. So from that perspective...
Suspension of disbelief is always a problem for me in non-fantasy stories, but this one had a below average amount of such problems, as most of the logic flaws were actually covered. The character through whom you experience the story (for lack of a better term) may not always make the most rational decisions, and often points out errors in what he himself is doing, but this does not feel out of place - you are reminded that such irrational thoughts are only human in times like those, and I felt like at least I could sympathize with their actions and not view them as moronic, despite possibly being such were one in an ordinary situation and state of mind.
The Planetarian was also surprisingly well made for a robot. I was afraid of another one of those suspiciously human-like robots with a full set of emotions and all. Instead, the story constantly points out the machine-like nature of the Planetarian, which has a nice comedic effect in the start, and a surprisingly saddening effect the further the story progresses. Plausible enough for an advanced robot, yet intelligent enough to feel for it. You know what she's about to say, yet the predictability is characteristic, and should in no form be removed.
The entire thing is built around being a tear-jerker, and I'm not really a fan of those kinds of stories, because they rarely have an effect on me. Didn't shed a tear here either, but it definitely came a lot closer than most stories aiming for this effect, and it only used up 4 hours of my time. So, eh, I guess it's worth reading if you like getting all sad over a story.