Yeah, I already mentioned I was busy today. No new releases on Steam on weekends either... Got my computer parts though. Now I just have to find a time to assemble them.
08.04.17
After the Empire looks like a 4X game with way more work done on the gameplay side than the user-friendliness side. Due to that, I can't really judge it by how it looks, but I've been pleasantly surprised by such things before, so I thought I'd give it a try at some point.
07.04.17
Okay, so I finished Hand of Fate's story mode today. Took me numerous tries and semi-frustrating losses, but I eventually got lucky, doubling my max health after reaching 200 of it, giving me a decent pool of it to work with when facing the final boss. But those are details. I'd rather talk about the game more generally.
I really quite like it. It's been a while since the last game I liked. Hand of Fate is a weird mix that, on paper, I didn't expect to work well. I'd say the core of the game is that of a roguelike's. You crawl dungeons in a turn-based manner, there's permadeath, hit points, food, various equipment, (mostly) randomly generated maps, etc...
But then there's also this card game, where the map and the enemies, and the loot, equipment, curses... All of the card types have their own deck. I would have really liked to see this side of the game be expanded on more. Currently there's a rather primitive deck assembler, but only for the map and equipment portions, not the other decks. Oh, and you can unlock new cards by defeating cards that you already have. This is the method of progression that exists between any two games, and I still haven't quite reached the end of it.
I think these two portions of the game work together really well, both in theory and practice. It creates something unique that I haven't quite seen in any other game, and what definitely helps it stand out is the attention to the style of it. All of the aesthetics fit well, and create a sense of immersion. Especially the dealer. I want to gush a bit about the dealer. They could have made the entire game without him and gameplay-wise, nothing would have changed. The dealer doesn't actually have a role in the game as such (aside from being the final boss), but without him, this game wouldn't be even close to as good as it is now. Not only does he have a nearly inexhaustible vault of flavor speech to add to pretty much every card and situation (which are often pretty witty, and oh I could listen to his voice all day long...), but it really makes you feel like you're just a player in the game. That you're not just playing by the rules because you want to enjoy a nice game, but because you have to. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I'm sure you'd understand when you would actually start to play. The dealer is half the game without adding anything from a gameplay perspective, and it's among the most unexpected things I could've found in a non-story game. He's just that good.
Now, the parts I described are both turn-based, and mostly luck-based. (There's this nifty thing where the "chance" cards are shown to you, then shuffled just slow enough that you can try to track their movement and pick the one you wanted. Your eyes can't always keep up though. They could've just shuffled them fully randomly, but this is another one of those small aesthetic details that, together with others of its kind, help set the game apart from the crowd.) Some would argue that sometimes the luck can be too harsh, and you can lose the game without doing anything wrong at all. While I agree that yes, you can, I also think that it's in the spirit of the game, as the name says: "Hand of Fate".
But the other half of the game, that I don't have five paragraphs to write about, is the skill-based combat portion. Unlike regular roguelikes which tend to leave the combat also turn-and-die-roll-based, Hand of Fate decided to go with action combat. People are saying it's a clone of some Arkham game? I haven't played that, but it reminded me of dumbed-down Shadow of Mordor combat. I can't really say the combat felt bad. It definitely wasn't as good as the other half of the game, but that's not my concern with it. Rather, it felt too different and not much in the spirit of the rest of the game. I can't help but wonder if it would have been better with the combat being in the style of the rest of the game - turn-and-luck-based? Perhaps even a card game against the enemies. I think that would have been fitting. Alas, I guess I'll never know. So yeah, if anything at all, my gripe about the game would be the combat half of it.
But in conclusion, it's a great game that really kept me hooked for the first several hours, and stayed interesting throughout the entire story mode. The attention to detail is amazing and there's plenty of content and depth to it to not get boring for quite a while. It's not like any other game out there that I'd know of, so if you're looking for something original, but also of good quality, I'd definitely recommend trying this.
PS. I'm currently 3 hours into my first endless mode game. It progressively gets harder as the levels go on, and you can't make your own deck. Instead all the available cards are in the deck, and they can repeat throughout the game. Unlike the well-balanced story mode, endless seems a little too easy. I'm currently stuffed with equipment (rings stack basically forever, or at least as much as there are different kinds of them), loaded with gold, maxed on hit points, pretty much maxed on gear, also have a bunch of blessings... The game just throws increasing quantities of enemies at me with increasing quantities of hp and damage, while I've kind of stopped scaling. Sure, they'll eventually overwhelm me with sheer numbers, but even now it's crossed the line into tedium as I spend far too long fighting.
Apparently Hand of Fate 2 is in development, and not too far off from release anymore. They've kept the sweet dealer, and I hear the combat's gotten better. Am definitely looking forward to it.
06.04.17
Oh sweet weekend, finally. Although I still do have some things to take care of, and I'm busy celebrating my birthday over Saturday and Sunday, so it won't be the most productive weekend games-wise. Oh how I wish for more hours in a day.
05.04.17
How do you know if a game's good, or just looks good? Hell if I know, but the latter's definitely more prominent. In all honesty, if you just stick to games with reviews in the triple digits and ratings above 90%, you'll probably get to try all the really good games out there. But I'm not like that, so here's three games from last week.
Apparently there's this popular thing on consoles called Smash. Rivals of Aether is apparently kind of like that Smash, except it's available for PCs. I wanted to mention it, because I think it's a good game, but I wouldn't really recommend playing it simple because there's a better alternative. These games rely heavily on the size of the playerbase for PvP matchmaking, and Brawlhalla has a playerbase that's 10-20 times as large. Honestly, neither game is better than the other, although they do have their differences, but I'd recommend Brawlhalla, because Rivals of Aether is relatively dead.
Apparently there's this popular thing on consoles called Smash. Rivals of Aether is apparently kind of like that Smash, except it's available for PCs. I wanted to mention it, because I think it's a good game, but I wouldn't really recommend playing it simple because there's a better alternative. These games rely heavily on the size of the playerbase for PvP matchmaking, and Brawlhalla has a playerbase that's 10-20 times as large. Honestly, neither game is better than the other, although they do have their differences, but I'd recommend Brawlhalla, because Rivals of Aether is relatively dead.
Then some lesser known games that look good, but that I'm less sure about.
HackyZack seems to be a skill-requiring action puzzle platformer. Now, puzzle platformers aren't really my thing, but it's been a while since I've played one, and this one has an interesting twist where you have to juggle a ball while doing wall-jumps and the like. It's probably as difficult as it sounds.
And Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King appears to be some RPG-ish adventure game. Looks fairly simplistic, but the pixel art's nice, and perhaps there's a little bit of good gameplay in there.
04.04.17
I've been waiting for Rain World for quite a long while now. It's an action-adventure platformer where the starring slugcat looks simply adorable, and the environments look well done as well. From the reviews though, I can gather it had a rough launch. Gameplay issues perhaps? Well, regardless, I'm not about to not play it after waiting for so long, so expect it. Eventually.
03.04.17
All work and no play makes me slightly stressed. Sure, some of it is work I don't have to do, but it's also timed, so I can't really do it later.
Sorry I don't have any content right now. I estimate to get around to beating Hand of Fate around Friday. That is all.
02.04.17
I spent a good amount of yesterday on /place. It's quite the thing, and I'm surprised it's so organized. They're pretty much out of space now though, so I hope it shuts down soon before people lose interest and the quality drops. Wasn't there that much today, just checked in every now and then.
Instead I tried my hand at Hand of Fate. No luck. The last level is really quite difficult, but there is slow progress.
Also got a few hours of Divinity done. At this pace it'll take a while, but if we get a few sprints in, it could be done in a couple weekends.
01.04.17
Oh hey, April fools. I'm not a big fan though, so all will continue as usual.
Sometimes I question what I'm really searching for in all these games I play. Sometimes I enter a game with pretty much the full knowledge that I won't really enjoy it, but for some reason I still feel compelled to finish it. I really love multiplayer games and MMOs, and I'd love to spend more time in Planetside, HotS, maybe even start with EVE, Albion Online's been on my mind, Crowfall's coming, I've actually also wanted to go back to Mabinogi, then there's the Factorio modding scene I haven't properly explored, and although it doesn't fit the multiplayer description, gosh, it's been years since I last played Dwarf Fortress.
But I know I have around the magnitude of a hundred games waiting for me to play them, and as I go through a hundred, a hundred more appear, so I don't really ever get around to properly playing the games I really like. I don't know. I guess I don't want to miss out, so I'm not. But at what cost?
Right, but with that out of the way, here's another game onto the pile: Battle Brothers. I'm not entirely sure what it's about, but I see a hex-grid, turn-based strategy, army management, and they're telling me it's inspired by Mount&Blade. It's also quite popular, it seems, so, uh, yeah...
31.03.17
Let's start the day off with a new find. Monster Slayers is a deckbuilding RPG rouge-like, by its own description, and aren't I already playing one of these right now? Well, it's well received and the art style made me recognize it as one of Nerdook's games. I used to love his work back when I was playing flash games on Kongregate. It stands out less now that it's compared to actual paid games, but it's definitely worth trying.
I forgot about the last "hidden" level in Hand of Fate, so I didn't quite finish it today. But soon. Soon...
I also got over a rather difficult level in Shenzhen, after not playing that out of frustration for a while. My solution was still terribly inefficient and produced the greatest circuit spaghetti imaginable, but it works.
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I forgot about the last "hidden" level in Hand of Fate, so I didn't quite finish it today. But soon. Soon...
I also got over a rather difficult level in Shenzhen, after not playing that out of frustration for a while. My solution was still terribly inefficient and produced the greatest circuit spaghetti imaginable, but it works.
30.03.17
Busy, busy, busy. I actually got a couple more hours of Hand of Fate done, and am nearing the end of the campaign. I'll definitely have my thoughts by the end of it.
29.03.17
Only about an hour of Planetside 2 today. I still like that game.
But there's also a Humble Bundle that might be worth buying if you have friends to play with. There's Eon Altar at the 1$ level, which is an RPG played with an Android app as a controller. Also Helldivers at the 10$ level, which looks like the spiritual successor to Magicka (rather than Magicka 2, which didn't do so well), except with guns.
Sadly you only get the first episode of Eon Altar, and only one of the ~ten DLCs for Helldivers. Far from the full experience, which is why I won't be buying it. But there's also some other games in there, which I dare say are decent, but not as good as the listed ones.
28.03.17
I blame my lack of time on the fact that it's the middle of the semester. It's not always like this every week, I swear. nervous smile
In all honesty, Tuesday-Wednesday are busier days than the rest. I don't have much time for games on them.
27.03.17
Spent most of my free time today picking out parts for my new PC. I just wanted a CPU upgrade, because my shitty 3rd gen i3 was not at all handling a bunch of games on the settings I wanted, but new CPU → different socket → new motherboard → new RAM... So I ended up getting a i5-7600K and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. Should complement the GTX 960 nicely.
26.03.17
More Hand of Fate, more Factorio, also a fair bit of time spent on studies. Nothing of note.
25.03.17
Oh, hey, NieR:Automata released a week ago. I was waiting for that. I heard it has some slight performance problems as is common with console-first games, but nothing too serious. I never played it, but I liked the look of the original NieR, so I'll surely play this one. Eventually.
Right, but, staying on track with actually trying out games:
Butcher is a platformer + shooter that advertises itself as being very difficult. I would definitely say it is difficult, but I don't at all like some of the aspects that contribute to that difficulty. What mainly irks me is how pixelated the games is, and how everything is pretty much the same color. While it's true that this is the "feel" the game is going for, and "that's just part of the style", it could have been executed better.
It is incredibly difficult to keep track of where the enemies as well as all the objects on the screen are, and whether they're scenery or important. It feels frustrating instead of genuinely difficult if more than half the times you get hit are because you couldn't see the enemy. Also pretty bad if a button I have to press gets buried under a mountain of corpses, and I spend 3 minutes looking for it while the entire level only took me 2 minutes otherwise.
I can't even get to analyzing the gameplay because the visuals are really that terrible as to render the game mostly unplayable. For a game that does these kinds of visuals right, I suggest taking a look at Devil Daggers.
I also spent a couple of hours with Hand of Fate, and I am really enjoying it thus far. The atmosphere, the visuals, the animations, how many lines the dealer has... It's all darn wonderful. This game seems to have both loads of content and depth, but I'll get a more detailed understanding of that as I play more.
Finally, not a new game, but I tried my first game of "FactorioMMO" yesterday night/today. Essentially, it's just regular Factorio, but with about 30-60 players on at all times. It feels completely different than playing alone or with a small group, because with tens of people, you can't really keep track of where everything is, so each player kind of has to have their own little area of expertise and just hope that everyone else is doing their job. It doesn't run as smoothly as a well-constructed singleplayer factory, but I'm honestly amazed at the speed of progress and how relatively organized everything is. If it weren't for the inevitable FPS death and the potential lethality of griefers, I would really love to see how one of these would pan out over a longer course of time. There's moderate potential for some sort of economy to form.
Right, but, staying on track with actually trying out games:
Butcher is a platformer + shooter that advertises itself as being very difficult. I would definitely say it is difficult, but I don't at all like some of the aspects that contribute to that difficulty. What mainly irks me is how pixelated the games is, and how everything is pretty much the same color. While it's true that this is the "feel" the game is going for, and "that's just part of the style", it could have been executed better.
It is incredibly difficult to keep track of where the enemies as well as all the objects on the screen are, and whether they're scenery or important. It feels frustrating instead of genuinely difficult if more than half the times you get hit are because you couldn't see the enemy. Also pretty bad if a button I have to press gets buried under a mountain of corpses, and I spend 3 minutes looking for it while the entire level only took me 2 minutes otherwise.
I can't even get to analyzing the gameplay because the visuals are really that terrible as to render the game mostly unplayable. For a game that does these kinds of visuals right, I suggest taking a look at Devil Daggers.
I also spent a couple of hours with Hand of Fate, and I am really enjoying it thus far. The atmosphere, the visuals, the animations, how many lines the dealer has... It's all darn wonderful. This game seems to have both loads of content and depth, but I'll get a more detailed understanding of that as I play more.
Finally, not a new game, but I tried my first game of "FactorioMMO" yesterday night/today. Essentially, it's just regular Factorio, but with about 30-60 players on at all times. It feels completely different than playing alone or with a small group, because with tens of people, you can't really keep track of where everything is, so each player kind of has to have their own little area of expertise and just hope that everyone else is doing their job. It doesn't run as smoothly as a well-constructed singleplayer factory, but I'm honestly amazed at the speed of progress and how relatively organized everything is. If it weren't for the inevitable FPS death and the potential lethality of griefers, I would really love to see how one of these would pan out over a longer course of time. There's moderate potential for some sort of economy to form.
24.03.17
Something a little less popular today: Snowflake's Chance. It's a supposedly difficult platformer with a slightly creepy atmosphere. You have 99 lives to climb out of a pit you fell into, mostly running and hiding from your enemies instead of fighting them because you're just a scared little bunny.
As for games I tried today:
Yomawari: Night Alone is an isometric horror-y adventure game. I'd say the best part about it are the visuals - I quite like how cute the sprites are, looks a bit like Don't Starve. Now, the horror part isn't nearly as well executed. With how adorable stuff looks, it doesn't really give a frightening atmosphere, and while I was spooked a few times, those were simply poorly executed jump scares. Rather hard to not jump at a sudden sound and a picture popping up at you.
The game does a poor job at explaining what exactly I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to avoid the enemies in the narrow streets I'm traversing. The isometric view combined with tall trees and buildings often obscures my view, and the enemies are invisible unless directly looked at to boot. Overall, not a very pleasant playing experience.
Oh, also, it doesn't really explain the controls, it crashed on me after playing for a semi-short while, and I couldn't really find a way to recover my save data. So, with how the game had been, I just quit it there instead of starting over.
As suspected, Night in the Woods isn't really my cup of tea. The story didn't seem to start to get any interesting and I didn't really relate to it either. Possibly a conscious decision on the art style, but it did a very poor job with expressing the (rather important) details. I couldn't understand anyone's gender, mood, expression, anything... And the characters only had about one sprite. If that was facing sideways, it looked terrible in any situation when they shouldn't have been facing sideways. There wasn't really any gameplay to speak of, just walking from place to place, so nothing to commend there either. (And gosh, those rhythm game sequences are long and not even good.)
Overall, the only thing I saw going for it was the humorous mono- and dialogue. Got a chuckle and a few grins out of me, but not enough to keep me playing. I don't know, clearly a fair amount of people like it, but personally I don't even know who the target audience would be, so I can't at all recommend it.
As for games I tried today:
Yomawari: Night Alone is an isometric horror-y adventure game. I'd say the best part about it are the visuals - I quite like how cute the sprites are, looks a bit like Don't Starve. Now, the horror part isn't nearly as well executed. With how adorable stuff looks, it doesn't really give a frightening atmosphere, and while I was spooked a few times, those were simply poorly executed jump scares. Rather hard to not jump at a sudden sound and a picture popping up at you.
The game does a poor job at explaining what exactly I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to avoid the enemies in the narrow streets I'm traversing. The isometric view combined with tall trees and buildings often obscures my view, and the enemies are invisible unless directly looked at to boot. Overall, not a very pleasant playing experience.
Oh, also, it doesn't really explain the controls, it crashed on me after playing for a semi-short while, and I couldn't really find a way to recover my save data. So, with how the game had been, I just quit it there instead of starting over.
As suspected, Night in the Woods isn't really my cup of tea. The story didn't seem to start to get any interesting and I didn't really relate to it either. Possibly a conscious decision on the art style, but it did a very poor job with expressing the (rather important) details. I couldn't understand anyone's gender, mood, expression, anything... And the characters only had about one sprite. If that was facing sideways, it looked terrible in any situation when they shouldn't have been facing sideways. There wasn't really any gameplay to speak of, just walking from place to place, so nothing to commend there either. (And gosh, those rhythm game sequences are long and not even good.)
Overall, the only thing I saw going for it was the humorous mono- and dialogue. Got a chuckle and a few grins out of me, but not enough to keep me playing. I don't know, clearly a fair amount of people like it, but personally I don't even know who the target audience would be, so I can't at all recommend it.
23.03.17
Now, I don't really like card games. Something like Hearthstone didn't sit with me at all. Duelyst was a little bit better with the game board and moving units it brought to the table, but ultimately still not to my liking. Now, I don't really have much hope for it, but I figured I would give Faeria a try. It adds to just having a gameboard with the ability to actually build it as the game progresses. Sadly, that was about the only innovative thing I saw on it, and it wasn't that much of a game-changer. Not really in the mood to explore yet another card game deeper, as it doesn't seem to be special enough - might as well go back to Duelyst.
22.03.17
I haven't actually played it yet, but there's this apparently MMO shooter thing by the name of Foxhole. It's not out yet, but there's a pre-alpha available for install further down on its Steam page. It reminds me a bit of Running with Rifles, which was pretty good, funny, although mostly dead in terms of the playerbase.
21.03.17
Maybe if I cut down on some of those PvP games, I'd have an adequate amount of time. In any case, tomorrow's a long day, but at least I have the 3 day weekends to look forward to now.
And I just counted - I have 95 games left to play, not counting Visual Novels and VR games. (Which I don't have a headset for.) So I'm not sure how I counted 111 games some while back. Maybe I included the half-finished ones in my Library? Point is, that's less than 100, and that already looks like a manageable number. One day... One day I'll try them all.
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