Genshin Impact

The real main reason I haven't been doing much else or trying out many other games lately is because I've been on the Genshin Impact treadmill. While part of me feels disappointed in playing so much of a new and popular game yet again while my backlog just sits there and grows ever larger, I've been having fun, and how can I possibly regret that.

First concerns first. "Torn! This is a mobile game, what are you doing? Worse still, it is a gacha game. And their bloody adverts won't leave me alone. What in the world are you spending your time on and calling fun!?!" I know, I know. I had this exact problem as well. A game from a franchise that has been mobile exclusive is a red flag, and widespread advertisement seems to have some sort of correlation with low quality games, which is another red flag. It actually took me almost a month from release, trying to ignore all the people talking about it, before I noticed a suspicious amount of people saying somewhat or very positive things about it, that were not paid advertisements. I still didn't believe it, but as it was free, I downloaded the game and gave it a try, expecting to quit in like 10 hours tops. But... I didn't. And the more I played, the better it got, until the point where I now feel confident giving my thoughts about it, knowing that whatever comes next, this game has given me plenty of hours of quality entertainment.

It is actually somewhat difficult to describe what makes Genshin different. If you've played (action) JRPGs, it will feel immediately familiar. You have your squad of characters who you can equip with weapons and artifacts to boost their stats. Each character has one of five weapon classes, which each play differently, as well as their own unique abilities, which further make playing each of them a distinct experience. Combined with that, every character has one of six elements, which they can inflict onto enemies, potentially combining with other elements or the enemies' innate features to provide a reaction for an extra effect. All of this is enhanced by being able to rapidly switch between characters to get their abilities and elements in for devastating combinations. Topping it all off, there's the nice detail of cancelling your own attacks into invulnerability frame dodges, for very precisely avoiding enemy attacks. Aside from combat, there's also a big open world with enough little collectables and puzzles that you will find a new one every 5 minutes of exploring, yet probably literally never find them all.
It also falls into many of the same pitfalls that I hate about JRPGs, such as starting off with (and seemingly providing with each new event) a load of story you probably don't care about and too many (more than 0) "fetch" quests, where you just run from point A to point B to deliver something or talk to someone. It also frontloads you with a ton of information about everything you can do, from game mechanics to character and equipment upgrades, and more. However, there is a silver lining. Genshin still cleverly spaces these things out, allowing for plenty of time to explore the world on your own between story quests, as well as giving time to try out the existing mechanics you've learned before even allowing you to try new ones. Still, if you want to speedrun through all the story, and unlock all content, you may do so at your own capability.

There are two very common and incredibly large problems, that I was really surprised to not find in Genshin.
One, that none of the game systems are redundant - you should and almost must use each aspect of the game, and it all ties very well into the overall gameplay. I'm not personally fond of the food system, but I can't say it's useless. I've just never personally liked consumables, but I admit that to be my own problem. There is also a small "but" regarding characters and weapons. From an individual perspective, you will stick to your party of 4 characters and 4 weapons for long periods of time, only changing when you find someone or something better. It feels a shame to waste all the other characters, but there really is no use in playing everyone. From a grander perspective though, I'm sure everyone will find their own favorites. Some characters might be more popular, but none are downright useless, so I can't hold it against the game too much.
Two, that it actually manages to keep its difficulty. Games without difficulty settings rarely offer a challenge to me, and even with difficulty settings, it often just feels like the enemies' numbers have been turned too high. Genshin, however, feels genuinely challenging, but I think this is unique to how I play it. It is at this point I must admit that either the developers got really lucky, or they know precisely what they are doing. See, I am a solo F2P player. If you play with friends, it's easier, as there are now more of you to gang up on the enemies. Likewise, if you pay money, you get better characters and weapons, making the game easier. And it is my guess that it is precisely the people who have come to fool around with friends, or who are used to tossing money at games to solve their problems, that are less experienced in games, and thus need an easier experience. I want to, at this point, also alleviate your concerns for this being a gacha game. You do not have to pay for anything. You will not get all the best characters and weapons if you don't (not impossible, just takes impossibly long), but you don't need to. In fact, I wouldn't even want them. If this game was easier, I wouldn't like it as much.

"All that rambling, but I still don't see what's so special about this game, Torn?" Well... there isn't. I don't like it because it has some really cool or interesting new idea that sets it apart. I like it because everything it does, it does so well. It is the most polished and perfect JRPG experience I've had, and that's what keeps me hooked. So, to wrap this long review up, Genshin definitely makes it into my list of favorite RPGs, and I would invite you to look past the mobile franchise and gacha game stigma, and play it as just a game. I would definitely recommend it. If you like action RPGs or JRPGs, you'll probably like this, and even if you don't think so highly of them, maybe Genshin Impact will be a bit better.

while True: learn()

Maybe I'm not best suited for playing programmer games as a programmer, or maybe the opposite is true, but I want to try them anyways. So today I played while True: learn(), which sells itself as a programming puzzle game that teaches you machine learning. Haven't had one of those yet - sounds wonderful.

The problems arise quite early on, as you realize this is not a programming game, nor are you actually learning anything about machine learning. (Unless you click on one of the external links explaining these topics in actual technical detail, but these aren't part of the game and can't be attributed to it.) While True: learn() is more of an automated distribution or load balancing game. You get up to 3 shapes and/or colors that go in, a few very rudimental nodes that act as glorified if-else statements or something similar, and outputs with required quantities and accuracies of these colored shapes you must fulfill. There are other parts of the game, which aren't really related to the main gameplay for some reason, like a small stock-market-like game, cosmetics, and worst of all, upgrades for your computer that allow you to just get a better score when you go back to replay previous levels without actually changing anything.

My initial hope of comparing this to a Zachtronics game would be a terrible insult, as this isn't even worthy of being called a programming game. It does nothing to familiarize people with neither programming concepts nor machine learning concepts, instead acting like a system of belts and splitters from Factorio. The puzzles are either too simple, or can be most efficiently solved through trial-and-error, not thinking.
As an actual example from the game, you're given triangles, circles, and squares, all mixed from the input stream, and have to split them into the corresponding 3 streams. A chilishly simple task, right? 2 if-else statements and you're good. One of the promotional pictures for the game on the store page has managed to convolute this into a mess of 9 nodes, which don't actually solve the problem. And that's most of the game - terrible, complicated, and incorrect solutions for simple problems.
It's not entirely a pile of garbage, but best I could do is lump it in with "casual puzzle games". It thus saddens me that this has probably sold more copies than any single Zachtronics game, which are by and far superior.

So, would I recommend while True: learn()? No, definitely not. It pretty much lies about the type of game it is, and doesn't do a particularly good job at anything. Want to do load-balancing? Go design Factorio belt systems. Want to play a real programming game? Play one from Zachtronics. But don't try this affront to the programming game genre.

The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between is a short (~3 hours) atompsheric puzzle game. Each level acts like a short animated movie, as you can't directly control the characters, but instead you forward and rewind time. Some elements of the level are not affected by the flow of time however, and through understanding how to properly manipulate these elements, you can complete the level.

Being an atmospheric game, the emphasis of The Gardens Between was on art, animation, and sounds. That appeals to some people as evidenced by positive feedback on the game. For me, the turnoff was the lack of gameplay. Admittedly, this was more of a casual puzzle game, where the puzzles don't require that much thinking, but rather you figure them out in your stride as you watch the game unfold. Therefore, all of my time playing this game was spent of effectively watching the animations and story. It was kind of unique, but it wasn't interesting nor entertaining, and it definitely wasn't challenging either, leaving me with no enjoyment to be gathered from it.

So, personally, a strong "not recommended" for this one. You can probably find a movie or something that is better than this, or even some better story game, if you definitely want some hand in playing back a fixed story.

Among Us

So I caved to playing another fad game, this time it being Among Us. It's always a bit pointless giving my opinion on these games, because everybody is already playing it, or decided they really don't want to, but what can I do. I play it - I talk about it, those are the rules.

So, Among Us is a social game for up to 10 people, 1-3 of whom are impostors and must work together to kill the remaining players without being found out. Meanwhile the crewmates (non-impostors) win if they either figure and vote out the impostors, or complete all their tasks. The latter being more of a time-constraint for the impostors.
There is little to do as a crewmate, other than your tasks and keeping an eye on what others are doing. There are a few helpful appliances like cameras that monitor a select few small areas, or vitals, which show the alive-state of everyone. The crew can not actively fight back. The impostor however has a cooldown on his kill, leaves behind very obvious bodies, can use vents which connect parts of the map to teleport, and cause malfunctions like doors to close, or lights to go out. If a body is found or someone manually calls a meeting, everyone is allowed to communicate for that period of time, and potentially vote somebody out.

The very first thing I noticed as I entered the game was how low quality it was. The level of art and especially UI quality was something out of a game jam game. It baffled me that such a thing amassed so much popularity, and has been around for two years. But, okay, it's never about the art, but the gameplay, right. That said, I can't give its gameplay a much higher rating. The game is shallow. It requires very little learning and you'll see everything you can do in just a couple of games on each map. It doesn't require much mechanical skill (basically none as a crewmate, while the impostor has to juggle more things), so aside from getting better at tricking people, you can't really get good at the game. And it has strategies from the crewmate side that can most probably guarantee a win, so you just got to agree not to use them. It's less about playing the game, more about screaming at and laughing with your friends.
Mind you, this is all from the perspective of playing with a group of trustable people over Discord. I can not imagine playing with randoms. It is so easy to cheat or abuse the game. It takes just one person to mess up the game for others. I also wouldn't want to be typing into chat, as the game has no built-in voice either. Playing with random people would just be a terrible experience.

Would I recommend it? Well, the answer would be clear were I not still regularly playing it. I want to very clearly state that I don't think it's a good game. It's pretty bad on most fronts. However, they hit that sweet spot for a game that friend groups can play together, and, like for pretty much all games that got popular fast, people swayed their friends to join them to play it. Missing a player for today's session? Ask all the players to ask all their friends. And instantly, just because somebody leaves, like 20 more get notified on it. So as a final verdict, if your friend group wants you to join them playing this, and you like just hanging out with them... Sure, go play some Among Us. But try not to be the one looking for a game. If you're lucky enough to not have friends playing this, join them in their other activities instead, or if you're alone anyways, play something else.