These are fundamentally game-breaking spoilers, the whole game rests on not knowing what I'm about to say.

Don't read on if you want to play (and I really recommend playing it).

So while I think Call of the Sea is excellent, the endings of the game left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.

There's a point at the end of the game that you need to make a choice between the two endings. Excellent point to save the game so you can experience both of them.

If you play the game, there will be a song at the end of the game. It's worth listening to, as a reprise of the song earlier in the game, but as the screen fades to back, *QUIT THE GAME*. Don't let the final "after the credits" scene play out. Or mute your speakers, and minimise the screen to get the "completion" achievement, but even that is a bitter reminder.

***Here Be Huge Spoilers***

Norah's husband Harry is alive. The final after credits scene is an epilogue by Harry.

After playing as Norah, living Norah's story for almost six hours, Harry's epilogue suddenly makes the game about Harry, and how Norah's departure/death affected Harry's life, and how awful Harry's life is without Norah, and now he only has his work.

The epilogue was COMPLETELY unnecessary. Call of the Sea absolutely did not need a "Poor Harry! What about the mens?!" button on it.

Anyway, rant over. Otherwise, an excellent game.

July 29, 2023 - Day 210 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 229

Game: Othercide

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 8, 2020
Library Date: Apr 30, 2023
Unplayed: 90d (2m29d)
Playtime: 29m

What's black and white and red all over? Tankies on social media. Also, Othercide.

Othercide is a roguelike tactics strategy game with an extremely limited palette. The entire game is in black and white, with shades of red.

The game initially starts out in a instructional level set in a gothic-almost-Victorian-London-by-way-of-Lovecraft 1897 where you play as "Mother", the "protector of the veil" -a warrior with Barbie feet (more on that later)- in a tactics battle with a number of supernatural monsters.

Towards the end of the battle, Mother sacrifices herself, for reasons that are not entirely clear, other than to set up the rest of the game, but she appears to be trying to stop some greater supernatural evil, called "the other" and represented by "the child"; as the child is obviously not Grogu, I have the assumption that it may, in fact, be her child? In any case, kiddo is a bad seed, and he wants to destroy... everything. Destroying the city in the first battle wasn't quite enough.

Then Mother is... kind of... resurrected. Not exactly alive, but... alive-ish? She reforms among innumerable dead bodies piled everywhere, like a naked red Barbie with just as much physical definition, but alarmingly lifelike bare buttocks, and inexplicably, "Barbie" feet that are positioned as if our shoeless Mother is wearing high heels. It's definitely a choice.

From here, you find out that through Mother's sacrifice, you are now in some kind on aethereal interstitial plane where you can spawn "daughters", in one of three roles - ranged, melee, or tank.

The thing is, in the original version of the game, there was only "Nightmare" mode. There is no healing class, because there is no healing... except for sacrificing another daughter after the battle. The game has since introduced a second mode called "Dream", where as each day passes, each daughter regains 50% of her HP back.

Maybe I won't have to sacrifice any daughters. Based on what the game told me, though, that's unlikely. It tells you upfront that dying is part of the game, and you should expect to die. A lot.

Red-Barbie-Mother aside, it's quite an interesting game. It doesn't grab me quite as much as some of the other tactics-style games I've played this year, but I can definitely see myself spending some more time with the game when I'm in the mood for something dark and angry.

Othercide is pretty:

4: Good

#Othercide #Tactics #Strategy #Roguelike #FemaleProtagonist #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

July 30, 2023 - Day 211 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 230

Game: Opus Magnum

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 8, 2017
Library Date: May 3, 2020
Unplayed: 1184d (3y2m28d)
Playtime: 23m

Opus Magnum is a programming-puzzle game from Zachtronics. If you've encountered a Zachtronics game before, they're pretty much all along these lines. Well, they were along these lines, because in collecting some details about Opus Magnum, I learned that Zachtronics is no longer making games.

There are only a handful of Zachtronics games I don't own at this point. Infinifactory is on my wishlist, and Last Call BBS is available on Xbox Game Pass.

Opus Magnum is a puzzle game about programming and... alchemy?

Indeed, in Opus Magnum you build and program small machines to make increasingly complex alchemical formulae.

It's also a dangerous game for me, because it features my Kryptonite: systemisation & optimisation.

I've lost countless hours in these types of games just trying to systemise my processes.

But, as I discovered, Opus Magnum has a slightly keener edge. It has leaderboards. Not only am I trying to optimise my designs, but I can see that @tomcat is beating me.

It's a good thing I'm in a shooty shooty mood today instead of an optimisation mood, or I could see the rest of my day disappearing in this quirky little puzzle game.

The UX is a *little* bit confusing at first. It's not entirely clear how to start the first project. I clicked around on screen for a couple of minutes before unintentionally double-clicking on something I'd clicked on several times, but other than that, it seems pretty straightforward.

Opus Magnum seems:

4: Good

#OpusMagnum #Puzzle #Programming #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

July 31, 2023 - Day 212 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 231

Game: Möbius Front '83

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 6, 2020
Library Date: July 31, 2022
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 30m

As I mentioned in my Opus Magnum review, I own most of the Zachtronics games. I went through the list, and there were four I don't own, and I recognised Möbius Front '83 as a key I had in my spreadsheet, so I installed it.

I read an interview with Zach Barth (not to be confused with Zach Braff) about ending Scrubs.

Oops... I mean ending Zachtronics. In it he mentioned that Zachtronics was known for a particular kind of game (correct), and that if he were to go back to development again, he'd want to explore a different genre of game.

Ah, there's the rub. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, but everything about Opus Magnum that endeared the game to me is missing from Möbius Front '83.

It took me half an hour to complete the tutorial. I probably could have completed it faster had I not been exhausted, but it just felt like a grind.

Möbius Front '83 is a hextile turn-based strategy wargame. You've got infantry squads that can move only move one tile at a time, or shoot, but can move through forests and hide in them to ambush others, and can also load into a troop carrier to go further. In addition, when hiding, they can only be shot at by units in the next tile. Also, they have rocket launchers as well as rifles.

The troop carriers can go further, but appear to carry the a single rifle's worth of damage, and you lose a turn when it deploys the troops.

Tanks have guns and missiles (?), can move multiple tiles in a single turn, and then shoot in the same turn.

That about seems to kind of be it. I was just bored by the end of the tutorial.

After finishing a NewPlay, but before writing a review, I'll read one or two other reviews about the game. Not to crib from them, but to see if there's something I missed, some aspect to the game that I would have seen if I'd played longer.

It's disappointing how often a game turns out to be more of the same.

As such, with Möbius Front '83, it's interesting to note that apparently the game introduces some more interesting sci-fi stuff later in the game; the title isn't just something that sounds vaguely cool, but is actually relevant.

Unfortunately, it turns out that my initial feelings aren't that far off the mark. There is quite a bit of a grinding involved to get to that point.

Grinding in service of a storyline isn't a bad thing, per se. I played WoW for a very long time, and that's just par for the course. The key is to hook the player with the storyline first. Not just force them to grind.

In any case, Möbius Front '83 was a bit of a disappointment as a Zachtronics game. As a turn-based strategy game, it's just:

2: Meh

#MöbiusFront83 #TurnBased #HexTile #Strategy #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 1, 2023 - Day 213 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 232

Game: Shadows of Doubt

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 25, 2023
Library Date: Aug 1, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 2h

When I read a review of Shadows of Doubt a few months ago it absolutely fascinated me. You're a private-investigator in a first-person voxel-based fully-simulated city sandbox, solving crimes, and through that, hunting for a serial killer.

I added it to my wishlist, and it came up as a flash-special on one of the sales websites, which in turn I had a voucher than gave me a further 10% off, which meant it was almost half-price.

I want to say I love it, but I don't know if I do. It looks wonderful. I fell in love with voxel-based games thanks to Cloudpunk, and Shadows of Doubt has a similar kind of cyberpunk visual flair.

By fully simulated, they mean that the area of the city you're in contains NPCs and critical characters that are actively going on with a life, irrelevant of your presence. It felt strangely realistic.

Unfortunately it's not an easy game to make headway in, and I don't know if that's a "game" think or a "me" thing.

You collect evidence, and you can pin it together Pepe Silvia style, but by the time I decided to quite out, I was feeling like Charlie. I'd collected so much evidence, I felt overwhelmed, and I didn't know what to throw away.

However, I was incredibly exhausted, and that probably didn't help at all. It's definitely a game I'm going to go back to, as it's in Early Access and is still being developed.

Shadows of Doubt is:

3: OK

#ShadowsOfDoubt #Voxel #FirstPerson #Mystery #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 2, 2023 - Day 214 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 233

Game: The Artful Escape

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2021
Library Date: Oct 1, 2022
Unplayed: 306d (10m2d)
Playtime: 48m

Do you wanna rock?

I SAID DO YOU WANNA ROCK?!?

The Artful Escape is a game about the distance between who you are, and who you want to be.

Francis Vendetti is the nephew of a Dylanesque folk singer, and feels trapped in the shadow cast by his long-departed uncle.

Living in a small town, where his uncle was the primary export, the town is looking to him to bring back the glory days during the 20th anniversary celebration of his uncle's album.

The Artful Escape is essentially a (musical?) platformer, but not in a traditional platformer sense. There are no hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-or-die sequences (at least so far).

Once the story gets going, you're required to do some Simon-style pattern matching with the controller buttons, and you do, indeed, get to rock.

Graphically, this game is utterly gorgeous, and for a game that is about music, the sound is excellent.

The Artful Escape is:

4: Good

#TheArtfulEscape #Platformer #Music #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 3, 2023 - Day 215 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 234

Game: Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 7, 2018
Library Date: Apr 7, 2019
Unplayed: 1579d (4y3m27d)
Playtime: 15m

Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition is a 2D pixel-art Metroidvania platformer.

It's not like any other platformer I've played. Instead of running and jumping, as Dandara, you fire yourself from surface to surface, but only the surfaces that are covered in salt.

As you move around the map, the map is moving relative to you as well, sometimes rotating through 90 or 180 degrees.

After the first couple of levels familiarising you with the controls, the Metroidvania aspect of the game starts to reveal itself, as you make your way back and forth through multiple areas to activate switches to raise and lower platforms covered in salt so you can traverse to the end of the level.

You also find yourself armed, to shoot environmental threats and mobs.

Unfortunately, it just didn't grab me. I found myself watching the timer waiting for the 15 minutes to be up.

Dandara is a:

1: Nope

#Dandara #Platformer #Metroidvania #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 4, 2023 - Day 216 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 235

Game: My Friend Pedro

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 7, 2019
Library Date: Dec 16, 2022
Unplayed: 231d (7m19d)
Playtime: 20m

You're on your own kid, just you and the psychotic banana.

My Friend Pedro is a hyperkinetic shoot-em-up platformer.

You're woken up in a mob basement. unarmed, by a talking, floating... banana; I guess the banana is Pedro.

Pedro instructs you on how to navigate the levels, with walljumping, crouch-rolling, bullet-time, split shooting.

A bit like John Wick, with less coordination, a ridiculous outfit, and a talking banana.

You navigate each level via a series of different obstacles, with the ultimate goal (at least at first?) of killing "Mitch the Butcher", mob boss, restauranteur, and cannibal?

Apparently you're meant to be the meat.

The game is a frenetic ballet of trying to press a whole lot of controller buttons at the right time, and even if you don't checkpoints seem to be plentiful, so it's possible to suck and still make it through the levels on normal mode.

At the end of the level you're given a rating; C, C, B, so far, so I guess I'm improving?

In any case, this year has improved my controller mastery by far.

My Friend Pedro is chaotic:

4: Good

#MyFriendPedro #Platformer #ShootEmUp #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 4, 2023 - Day 216 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 236

Game: Blasphemous

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 10, 2019
Library Date: Aug 4, 2022
Unplayed: 365d (1y)
Playtime: 17m

Happy Birthday to Blasphemous. I didn't realise that I activated it one year ago today. I know that at the time, I took one look at it, didn't even open it. To be honest, I'm glad I didn't.

It's another game I wouldn't have been able to appreciate had I not spent all this time working my way through my pile of shame.

Blasphemous is a 2D pixel-art soulsvania action-platformer.

It is not a pleasant game. Laced in heavy religious themes, you are the "Penitent One" travelling through the land of Cvstodia (not a typo), with your sword "Mea Culpa".

There are locations where you can save, which cause your enemies to respawn, and when you die, you need to go back to collect your stuff. So... soulsvania, I guess?

After killing the first boss, you take off your giant pointy eyeless helmet, and fill it with the blood pouring out of him.

Then you put it on.

This is actually a game I could see myself playing, in the right mood. Just a kind-of specific one.

Blasphemous is:

3: OK

#Blasphemous #Platformer #Soulsvania #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 5, 2023 - Day 217 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 237

Game: Titanfall 2

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 28, 2016
Library Date: Nov 25, 2022
Unplayed: 253d (8m11d)
Playtime: 78m

Titanfall 2 is a first person shooter with mechs. While it has a multiplayer mode, I was focused on trying the campaign.

Technically, this is not the first time I've played Titanfall 2. I attempted to play it via Gamepass on the Xbox a few years ago, and try as I might, I just couldn't coordinate on the controller in any way that felt playable.

It was one of those games that I'd heard people rave about, and when it came up on deep sale late last year, I took the bait.

A seven year old game, with mouse and keyboard?

Yeah, that's the good stuff. Wall-running, which is a critical part of this Titanfall 2, went from making me want to throw the controller in frustration to something fluid and fun.

The gunplay while in pilot mode is incredibly satisfying. The guns feel weighty, and the sniper rifle in particular has a wonderful heft to it; putting a sniper round into a drone is particularly enjoyable.

By the end of my 78 minutes, I'd just loaded into the mech and completed the first mission, with the mech's abilities being a lot of fun, particularly the "catch all the projectiles and return-to-sender" ability.

Titanfall 2 seems:

4: Good

#Titanfall2 #FirstPerson #FPS #Mechs #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 6, 2023 - Day 218 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 238

Game: Builder Simulator

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 10, 2022
Library Date: Jun 4, 2023
Unplayed: 63d (2m2d)
Playtime: 16m

Builder Simulator is a first-person work simulator, and most work simulators suck.

In my experience there are two kinds of games I describe as work simulators.

The first involves cleaning. I'm not sure why, but when I was experiencing quite a dark time in my mental health, I discovered House Flipper. Leaving aside the real-world ethics of house-flipping, the game is essentially a cleaning & decorating sim.

Power Wash Simulator is another oddly satisfying work sim.

Building Simulator... is not.

Building Simulator opens with your new assistant, Bill Derr. Mmm, I love the smell of bad puns in the morning (I do not.).

Bill Derr is Claptrap from Borderlands mashed up with a cement mixer, and the annoying dialed up to ten.

Bill's role is -apparently- to tell you how to play the game. I found myself in the middle of nowhere, with an outline on the ground that I had to turn into a foundation.

A cement mixer, a wheelbarrow, a couple of piles of sand, and gravel, and... "OK, now build".

I spent the next few minutes poking around trying to work out exactly what I had to do. Eventually I dug into the options menu to find the controls to see if there was something I was missing, and it turns out that the tools menu is accessible through the middle mouse button.

If only there was some kind of in-game character to provide that sort of instruction.

Once I had access to the tools, grab shovel, dig out the marked outline, buy formwork through your handy tablet computer.

How much? Who knows. Not enough, not enough, too much. Install formwork. Sell overpurchased formwork back to story. Buy reinforcement. Rinse and repeat.

Now make concrete. Fill wheelbarrow with concrete. Lay foundation.

Look, there's probably someone out there who finds deep levels of satisfaction in this. It's just not me.

There's something soothing about cleaning work sims that I don't experience in this kind of work sim.

I got to play the beta of PC Building Simulator 2, and having actually run my own real-world computer store for several years, I found it teeth-grindingly frustrating.

The biggest problem with Building Simulator is that it's just like starting a new job, where no-one will tell you anything, and you just need to poke at things until you get what's going on.

I have a job, I don't need to simulate having a second one.

Building Simulator?:

1: Nope

#BuildingSimulator #FirstPerson #Simulator #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 6, 2023 - Day 218 - RePlay Review
Total RePlays: 6

Game: Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 16, 2019
Library Date: Nov 9, 2021
Playtime: 1h12m (Total: 3h)

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut is an upgraded version of the original Disco Elysium, a detective RPG. It's one of those games that seemingly everyone raves about. Reviews all give it a 9 or 10 out of 10.

It's the first game in the August Humble Choice bundle, and a curious choice for a AAA game, as most people who would be interested in it would already own it.

I've tried to get into it twice previously, and it just didn't click for me. I'd racked up 108 minutes of playtime, and just sat there in my library, taking up space.

The necessity to review it meant starting over again, and turns out to be third-time lucky. This time it clicked. Not sure what the difference is, but I "get" it now.

It's a largely text-driven affair, and I now understand that the dice-role checks are taken from tabletop RPGs, which makes a little more sense of what's going on.

You play a cop who wakes up drunk and with amnesia in a wrecked apartment. You, the as-yet nameless cop are in a pretty bad way, and your mission is to find out who murdered the man hanging in the tree behind the hotel where you woke up, and who you are.

It seems like you're not a very nice guy.

I paid more attention to the dialogue choices this time around, and nobody (including yourself) respects you, and as it turns out, you're on the verge of resigning.

Thank goodness for autosaves, because I've twice triggered an unintentional resignation from the police force, and ended the game unexpectedly.

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut is:

4: Good

#DiscoElysium #ThirdPerson #RPG #Detective #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #RePlay

August 7, 2023 - Day 219 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 239

Game: Chivalry II

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 12, 2022
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 3d
Playtime: 28m

Sometimes the reveal of the Humble Bundle on the first Tuesday of the month is a pleasant surprise. Sometimes, it's a case of finding I already have the AAA game in the bundle.

Then there's months like this, where I was overjoyed* to see the second game in the bundle.

Chivalry II.

On December 28th last year, in what was the predecessor to this project, my personal rating on the predecessor, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare was "Meh".

It was DirectX 9, laggy as hell, and I didn't even complete the tutorial.

Does Chivalry II turn me into a fan?

First up, like Temtem last month, Chivalry II is primarily a multiplayer game. If I were a cynical woman, I might infer that there are some devs looking to the Humble Bundle there trying to goose the player base on their games.

Chivalry II is a first-person OR third-person medieval battle simulator.

There's no single-player campaign, just a somewhat frustrating tutorial to go through before being thrust onto a multiplayer battlefield.

It's said that trying to create art with a mouse is like trying to draw with a bar of soap, and trying to swing a sword with a bar of soap is worse.

On the off hand that it worked better with a controller, I tried the tutorial with a controller instead.

It was not better.

There were points during the tutorial where I was doing exactly as instructed, and not succeeding.

At one point, I had to block two opponents, and then move the mouse to the left to slash left.

The sword slashed right. I tried repeatedly, eventually figuring I was moving the mouse to the wrong left. I moved it to my other left.

The sword slashed right.

Eventually, mercifully, I made it through the tutorial, and onto the battlefield. At least I could show my mettle, and my metal, against a field full of human opponents.

Ah, no.

That would be a field full of bots. 63 bots and me.

But it was fun, right?

Nope. It was not even that.

Frantically trying to remember all the different ways to block and riposte, and heavy attack and light attack, and it was a lot easier to die than to fight.

I dropped my weapon, and walked away from the battlefield, with no desire to return. I'll cash in the trading cards, and then get 25Gb of NVMe space back.

Chivalry II is a:

1: Nope

#ChivalryII #MultiPlayer #MeleeCombat #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 7, 2023 - Day 219 - RePlay Review
Total RePlays: 7

Game: Road 96

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 16, 2021
Library Date: Nov 16, 2021
Playtime: 40m (Total: 3h)

Road 96 is a cel-shaded procedurally generated first-person adventure RPG set in a vaguely midwest alt-American quasi-dictatorship in the summer of 1996.

It is the third game in the August Humble Choice bundle, and the second of the games that I already owned, having bought it three months after it came out.

You play a succession of teenaged runaways attempting to escape cross-country by whatever means possible to reach the titular Road 96, the one route out of the country.

As you make each journey, you encounter a cast of characters, slowly piecing together their backstories as you make each journey.

Each journey can end in arrest, or (apparently) death, or escape.

So far, my first two chapters have resulted in being arrested each time, so at least I'm not dead?

The soundtrack is quite wonderful, and I find the storyline quite moving.

Between this and Disco Elysium, I think either game justifies this month's bundle, but if you don't have either, it's a definite buy. Even if you do end up with Chivalry II as well.

Road 96 is:

5: Excellent

#Road96 #FirstPerson #Adventure #RPG #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #RePlay

August 8, 2023 - Day 220 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 240

Game: Trek to Yomi

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 5, 2022
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 4d
Playtime: 29m

Trek to Yomi is a side-scrolling action game, where you play as a samurai set on vengeance.

Two days in a row, two sword-based action games, and they could not be more different.

There is an elegance to a katana that's just not there with a broadsword, and comparing these two games side by side is eye-opening.

The look of Trek to Yomi took me by surprise. It's set in black and white, as if it was a Kurosawa film (with film effects and everything). While it's technically side-scrolling, the opening tutorial of the game has you walking towards and away from the camera in the Z-axis as well, giving the game a beautiful sense of three dimensions.

The sound is lush and gorgeous, and the controls are intuitive. There aren't a dozen different combinations to remember, just a few, which makes the swordplay come to life. I very quickly found myself instinctively weaving and blocking, rotating to face another enemy and seeing him off.

I'd seen Trek to Yomi mentioned a few times since it was released, but the idea of playing a game in black and white as an Edo period samurai didn't grab me at all.

Yet as soon as I'm finished writing this review, I'm going back to play some more.

Trek to Yomi is:

5: Excellent

#TrekToYomi #SideScroller #Samurai #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 9, 2023 - Day 221 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 241

Game: Arcade Paradise

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 11, 2022
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 5d
Playtime: 54m

There comes a time in every monthly Humble Bundle where you hit the cruft. The games they chose to pad out the bundle to eight games.

...and so we come to Arcade Paradise, game number five.

This is not that game.

I really didn't expect much of this from the title. The apparent love of retro games by indie devs is lost on me, and going on the name and the artwork, I made the assumption that this was going to be something a la Capcom's "Arcade Stadium" with a bunch of retro-styled games, and maybe some vague narrative thread to string them together.

Having just finished re-assembling my PC at 11:45pm, I figured I'd put in my 15 minutes and write the review later.

The game intro didn't do much to assuage my fears. A bunch of hand-drawn animated graphics. Not *badly* done, but I've been burned before.

The intro ends, and the screen morphs into... full first-person high resolution 3D.

*blink* wut.

This is a pleasant surprise.

As it turns out, Arcade Paradise is a love letter to retro arcade games, wrapped in a business sim.

As 19yo college dropout Ashley, you've been handed the keys to one of your father's run-down laundromats, in the hope that you'll "make something" of yourself.

The game opens with you dropped off by the bus in front of said laundromat, with a series of answering machine messages from your father telling you each step of managing the laundromat.

Hope you don't mind doing laundry, kid. There's a lot of it to do. There's also cleaning, garbage collection, maintenance, and emptying coin hoppers.

Oh, and there are a couple of arcade machines in the back room.

This is the heart of the narrative. Yes, you need to do all that stuff in the laundromat, working long days, to earn money... so that you can afford to buy more arcade machines, and prove to dad that there's more to life than just the grind of doing laundry.

I was hooked, and am tired this morning as a result.

There are some things that frustrate me about the gameplay. The "opening the safe" process gets old *very* quickly. The inability to interact with the garbage piled outside the laundromat just annoys me.

I WANT TO CLEAN IT UP. There are empty vending machines that I want to fill, and cannot interact with. I don't just want to build the arcade, I also want to clean up and renovate the laundromat, but that's a "me" thing.

Ironically, you can also play the arcade games themselves, something that just doesn't grab me at all, but that's OK by me.

In a completely unexpected twist, Arcade Paradise is:

4: Good

#ArcadeParadise #FirstPerson #Simulation #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 10, 2023 - Day 222 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 242

Game: SuchART

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 14, 2022
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 6d
Playtime: 1h44m

Game number six: SuchART.

I figured this might be the game where I sigh, and force myself to 15 minutes and write my little review.

Almost two hours later...

Conceptually, this game is much like Passpartout: The Starving Artist that really surprised me back in January.

Instead of a humble garage in Paris, you find yourself in a future where all art is created by robots, and realising the dead end of this, real live artists are being sponsored to create real art, with real paints and canvases...

...based on a space station.

It's a cute twist. You're supplied with everything required to make basic art, and you can paint commissions or just create paintings and sell them in the "marketplace" (no other players required).

My first commission was a request for a unicorn from my sister.

It was a very bad unicorn. She loved it. Of course.

You can pretty much grind out anything, and it will be accepted and loved by those who commissioned it.

White polar bear in a snowstorm doesn't cut it though.

You have to put *something* on the canvas.

I kept painting, and churning out crap to complete quests and level up. It was kind of fun, and a chill way to kill some time.

Then... I saw something. An idea. An actual idea. In fiddling around with the in-game tools, something unlocked, and I found myself frantically grabbing paints and rollers and brushes, and a water pistol filled with paint, and *creating*.

When I was done, I sat back in my chair, and just loved that thing I'd created.

SuchART is:

5: Excellent

#SuchART #FirstPerson #Art #Simulation #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 11, 2023 - Day 223 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 243

Game: Tin Can

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 13, 2022
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 7d
Playtime: 25m

Tin Can is game number seven in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and answers the question, "What if Breathedge, but serious?"

Tin Can is a first-person space survival sim. Your goal is to survive as long as possible in real time.

The tutorial walks you (an on-board janitor) through the basic systems of the escape pod through a set of cute over-the-radio interactions with an on-board engineer who has to be in two places at once, and seconds you a few times to run through some repairs, then diagnostics, then troubleshooting.

Then the ship starts to explode, and suddenly you need to be in that escape pod.

You have a handful of spare parts, a technical manual, and a few minutes to solve whatever problem the escape pod is experiencing before that problem kills you.

The game tells you upfront that you will die. A lot.

I wouldn't describe it as fun, per se; it's stressful, but very engaging.

With only one game left in this month's bundle, I'm genuinely surprised at the number of bangers this time around.

If you don't already own the games I reckon you can't go wrong dropping AUD$17 on the bundle, even if the final game turns out to be a fizzer.

Tin Can is:

4: Good

#TinCan #FirstPerson #Survival #Simulation #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 12, 2023 - Day 224 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 244

Game: Hot Brass

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 17, 2021
Library Date: Aug 4, 2023
Unplayed: 8d
Playtime: 16m

Hot Brass is the final game in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and answers the question, "What if Rainbow Six Siege was a top-down game about SWAT cops?"

I'll start out with saying I'm wary about reviewing this, purely on the basis of it being by a local Melbourne developer, and if I rip it to shreds, I feel like there's a chance that I probably know someone who knows someone.

However, I need to get this out of the way. I cognitively understand why "ACAB" is a thing, yet I still struggle to reconcile it personally with some people I know who are very much C, but very much not B.

However, one cannot get away from the fact that SWAT teams are militarised police, and Hot Brass is a SWAT team simulator, so TCAB.

On a purely gameplay front, I wasn't quite sure how to make sense of the game, but a couple of minutes of the tutorial and I was ready to jump ahead and into the game.

It's much the same as most first or third-person shooters: WASD movement, CTRL to crouch, point weapons with mouse. Space to sprint is an odd choice, though. 1 & 2 to switch between primary & secondary, 3 & 4 for flashbang & door breach charge.

Right-click to yell at a non-compliant suspect... F to tase a suspect into compliance, E to handcuff a compliant suspect...

...it got ugly quickly.

I tried to just play without thinking about it too much, but I couldn't compartmentalise.

I've lived with depression and anxiety for most of my adult life, and my late Dx for autism explained a lot of that. I'm trans.

I'm now painfully aware in a way that I wasn't when I was younger that there are several different aspects of my identity in which an encounter with police could end badly for me, and I still have the privilege that comes from being white and educated.

I'm not Breonna Taylor, or Elijah McClain, or Eric Parsa, or Maddie Hoffman, or Clare Nowland. These names and more are burned into my brain, countering the lifelong messaging that the police are there to protect me.

As I breach the door in the first mission, then start yelling at someone expressing thanks that the police have arrived, followed by handcuffing them, it's all a bit too visceral, even as a top-down game with my character represented by a circle with a MP5 icon. I'm not having fun.

The mechanics of the game are well executed, and on a purely technical level, it seems like a good game. Some of the illustrations in the loading screens are... I can see a lot of effort and love went into them, and I'll leave it there.

Unfortunately, I can't enjoy playing as a cop; Hot Brass is:

2: Meh

#HotBrass #TopDown #Shooter #HumbleChoice #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 13, 2023 - Day 225 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 245

Game: Save Room

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 28, 2022
Library Date: Sep 11, 2022
Unplayed: 336d (11m2d)
Playtime: 32m

Save Room is a military-themed organisational puzzle game.

It's pretty simple. You have a case. You have X amount of space in the case. You have guns, and ammo. Make everything fit, with nothing left over.

Later on you get extra bits and pieces. You have a health meter, and sometimes you have things that add and take away from health, and you might have to take away from your health with an item and then replenish your health with a booster, thus using up both items.

There's actually not a lot to say here. It's a fun little puzzle game, and not a bad way to chill out and kill some time.

Save Room is:

3: OK

#SaveRoom #Puzzle #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 14, 2023 - Day 226 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 246

Game: Submerged

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 4, 2015
Library Date: May 13, 2023
Unplayed: 93d (3m1d)
Playtime: 24m

Submerged is an third-person post-apocalyptic open-world exploration game. You play as a young girl, Miku, who is trying to save her brother's life, and to do so, must sail around a submerged city, climbing the buildings and exploring the ruins to locate crates containing survival items.

It's very pretty, but based on my movement through the game so far, it seems like it will be a reasonably short game that won't outstay its welcome.

I think the sail->search->climb->find gameplay loop could get pretty old pretty quickly.

As you move through the story, you uncover pieces of Miku & her brother's story, and the story of what happened to the city in the form of pictographs, and as you explore, there are 60 collectables to find.

Submerged is:

3: OK

#Submerged #ThirdPerson #OpenWorld #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 15, 2023 - Day 227 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 247

Game: The Stillness of the Wind

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 8, 2019
Library Date: Jun 5, 2023
Unplayed: 71d (2m10d)
Playtime: 22m

The Stillness of the Wind is a third-person game about loss and getting old.

Talma lives alone on her farm in the middle of nowhere, with a couple of goats, and a few chickens.

This is a very quiet game, that involves just... living. As Talma, you milk the goats & make cheese. You collect eggs from the chickens, and mushrooms from under the windmill. You plant seeds, and collect water from the well, to water them. You cook dinner, read a letter should one come, and go to bed to start over.

Rendered in warm watercolour tones, you feel Talma's age as she makes her way around her tiny farm. Various items bring memories to mind, and several of them are quite sad.

This is not a game to play for fun. It evoked in me a sense of melancholy and loneliness.

I will probably play it through to completion, but when I'm in the right frame of mind to engage with it.

The Stillness of the Wind is:

3: OK

#TheStillnessOfTheWind #ThirdPerson #CozyGaming #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 16, 2023 - Day 228 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 248

Game: Praey for the Gods

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 15, 2021
Library Date: Mar 10, 2023
Unplayed: 159d (5m6d)
Playtime: 29m

Praey for the Gods is a third-person "open-world" boss-climbing adventure game.

Set in a harsh frozen post-apocalyptic wilderness, you play a nameless woman on a quest to kill the "Gods" in an attempt to try and save your world.

I bought this as part of the "Humble Heroines" bundle in March, and had no idea what the game was about. I started playing at 11:58pm last night.

After playing it, I was still struggling to grapple with understanding exactly what was going on.

Apparently, the game is inspired by a PS2 / PS4 game called "Shadow of the Colossus"; the PS2 version was released in 2005, and remade for the PS4 in 2018. I have no experience with that game either, & I feel like the devs expect the player to be familiar with the concepts underlying the gameplay.

The game opens with an intro giving the basic concept of the world, & the "gods", after which you find yourself in a tutorial level that guides you through navigation & interaction; you progress through a map, interacting with various items along the way, including a pull-switch that you "attack" to open doors and activate items.

Until suddenly it doesn't.

I activated one of these switches as I had several times before, and instead of moving into the next section, I was somewhere else entirely different, with nothing in common with the environment I'd just been in (that would give me some clue to how I'd arrived there), with a skyscraper-sized monster trying to kill me.

I'm unarmed.

At this point, I'm glad I'd left the difficulty set to the easiest level, because otherwise I would have been dead. A lot.

After punching the monster proved ineffective, I eventually realised that maybe I could climb out of the way.

Success.

After an eternity of sluggish climbing, there was a switch at the top which activated a bell that affected the monster.

At which point I noticed that the monster had three of the switches attached to its body. Turns out you can climb the monster too.

Did I mention that climbing is sluggish and awkward?

These boss fights are the core of the game, and the core gameplay is just frustrating. Each time you attack the boss with one of these switches, which you need to do multiple times for each switch, it tries to shake you off, so you need to wildly tap a button to stay on.

This drains your stamina, until you get knocked off and have to climb back up again, frustratingly grinding your way to killing the boss.

The game is a good looking game, and apparently open-world with a "survival" mechanic as well, but with feeling like I'm just grinding to achieve anything, it doesn't feel worth the effort.

Praey for the Gods is:

2: Meh

#PraeyForTheGods #ThirdPerson #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 17, 2023 - Day 229 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 249

Game: Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 4, 2018
Library Date: Apr 7, 2019
Unplayed: 1593d (4y4m10d)
Playtime: 45m

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is an adventure/tactical RPG with exploration & stealth elements, set in a post-apocalyptic Earth.

You control a team of humanoid/animal mutants called "stalkers" who scavenge the wastelands (called "The Zone") for resources to keep the last human refuge, "The Ark" running.

In terms of gameplay, it feels similar to other tactics RPGs I've played this year, and like many of those, it drew me in.

Even so, attacks have to be planned out carefully, and regular manual saves are necessary; it was late last night when I played it, but I don't think there's any autosaving.

Initially, your team consists of two characters, a humanoid boar named Bormin, and a humanoid duck named Dux. A lot of effort went into character names, apparently.

You find yourself on the map exploring in the dark; you can use a torch to explore, or turn it off to stealth around. Sometimes you're in stealth to split up and ambush the "ghouls" of The Zone, sometimes it's to avoid enemies that are so many levels above you, you have to sneak past them.

The overgrown post-apocalyptic environment is well executed, and this is yet another game I can see myself returning to; I wish I hadn't left it so long to play.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is:

4: Good

#MutantYearZero #TacticalRPG #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 18, 2023 - Day 230 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 250

Game: Darksiders Warmastered Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 30, 2016
Library Date: Dec 4, 2018
Unplayed: 1718d (4y8m14d)
Playtime: 27m

Darksiders Warmastered Edition is a remastered version of the original Darksiders released in 2010. It's a third-person hack-and-slash action-adventure.

The game opens with a explanation of the universe of the game; For eons, heaven and hell were at war, until "The Council" brought the war to a standstill. The Council had their own four-person army to take down anyone from either side who broke the law.

The army? The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

After a period of time, humans arose, and it was predicted that one day Heaven, Hell, and Humans would engage in a final battle when the seventh seal was broken (a lot of repurposed religious imagery here).

The game opens to a scene of world wide devastation, as meteor strikes across the planet turn out to be monster demons attacking humans, angels attack monsters, humans running around and dying a lot, and then you show up.

"You" being one of the Four Horsemen: War.

Angry looking dude with glowing eyes, long blond hair, and a huge sword. You take down demons and angels left and right, until you get smushed by a big demon in a boss battle.

Then you show up in front of the council, and they're kind of unhappy, and blaming you for the battle, as you weren't supposed to show up until the seventh seal was broken, and the seventh seal is intact.

Basically, War has been set up.

Playing with keyboard and mouse, the controls feel a little bit sloppy, and habitually going for the shift key to sprint doesn't work well when the shift key is set to focus fire.

With a little bit more playtime it might feel a little bit better, but I don't know if it's because it's a seven year old remaster of a thirteen year old game, or it's just overly bombastic, but it's not grabbing me and yelling "keep playing", but there's something interesting there.

Darksiders Warmastered Edition is:

3: OK

#Darksiders #HackAndSlash #ActionAdventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 19, 2023 - Day 231 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 251

Game: Glass Masquerade

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 19, 2016
Library Date: Aug 19, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 1h10m

Given today's exhaustion levels, I wanted something simple to play, and it just so happened that I got an email that Glass Masquerade was on special, as it's been on my wishlist for some time.

Glass Masquerade is a gorgeous stained-glass puzzle game, in which you're presented with a shape that you need to fill in with a series of random pieces arrayed around the outside of the play area, on two concentric "trays", with very much of a jigsaw puzzle vibe (without being a jigsaw).

The only downside is that it can be frustratingly fiddly to rotate the trays to find the piece you want.

It's beautiful, with a chilled soundtrack, and a great way to just kick back and relax when that's what I need.

Glass Masquerade is:

4: Good

#GlassMasquerade #StainedGlass #Puzzle #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 20, 2023 - Day 232 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 252

Game: Hotshot Racing

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 11, 2020
Library Date: May 13, 2023
Unplayed: 99d (3m7d)
Playtime: 18m

Hotshot Racing is a intensely colourful polygon-based retro arcade racing game.

In May a couple of games I wanted came up in a Fanatical Bundle, where the more games you bought, the cheaper each game was; buying three games was the minimum bundle level. Hotshot Racing was the filler game I added to the bundle to hit that level.

I love a good arcade racer. Hotshot Racing is not a good arcade racer.

Again, I have no love for retro-style graphics, but if the driving was good, I could get past the graphics.

The driving is not great either. The AI-driven cars are incredibly aggressive for a game that's meant to be a racer, and not something like Wreckfest.

Getting out in front of the other cars is always temporary, because they magically catch up every time... then immediately try and run you off the road.

The same two AI drivers in each race would box me in and bounce me, no matter if I got ahead of them or not.

It was just a frustrating 18 minutes of racing that I would have preferred to have spent in Forza Horizon or Wreckfest.

Hotshot Racing is:

2: Meh

#HotshotRacing #ArcadeRacing #Retro #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 21, 2023 - Day 233 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 253

Game: Golden Light

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 12, 2022
Library Date: Apr 2, 2023
Unplayed: 141d (4m19d)
Playtime: 22m

Golden Light is, in the description provided by the developer, a "Survival-Horror FPS Prop Hunt Roguelike about meat".

Honestly, I need to let the devs describe it, because I couldn't.

It's a pixelated bitmapped mess. It uses procedural generation to decide what something you pick up will do each run. You're apparently in some monstrous "gut", and you can eat anything you pick up.

There are weapons, but if you use them, you'll make the gut angry.

You can eat the weapons. They might do something good. They might do something bad. They might do nothing at all.

Some props will turn into vaguely defined and difficult to identify monsters. The graphics are awful. "Meat" panels randomly appear on badly lit walls.

I viscerally hate this game, pun intended. This is the third-worst game I've played this year. I cannot understand how anyone would enjoy this, let alone rate it 9/10.

It came as part of the March Humble Bundle, and I'm just glad that I didn't buy it by choice.

Golden Light is:

1: Nope

#GoldenLight #HorrorSurvival #FPS #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 22, 2023 - Day 234 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 254

Game: Desktop Dungeons Enhanced Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 19, 2023
Library Date: Apr 18, 2023
Unplayed: 126d (4m4d)
Playtime: 32m

Desktop Dungeons Enhanced Edition is an updated version of Desktop Dungeons (Nov 7, 2013). I'm not exactly sure what makes it "Enhanced", but it was given away free earlier in the year, and if you owned this, you got the sequel "Desktop Dungeons: Rewind" for free, which seemed like a deal that was too good to be true.

Desktop Dungeons is a top-down bitmap pixel-art roguelike dungeon crawler puzzle game.

It's also a great example of a game where the gameplay overcomes my dislike of pixel-art games.

In one sense, it's a pretty standard dungeon crawler. Explore the dungeon, attack mobs.

However, each square you uncover goes towards refilling your health and mana. You need to explore the fog of war to find mobs, but if you clear the fog of war and then try and kill the mobs, you're gonna have a bad time.

It took me a few goes to get through the first level, but by the time I did, I was hooked.

Between dungeons there's some resource management and basic city-building going on, but the game is designed to be played in short chunks.

Desktop Dungeons Enhanced Edition is:

4: Good

#DesktopDungeons #TopDown #DungeonCrawler #Puzzle #PixelArt #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 23, 2023 - Day 235 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 255

Game: Desktop Dungeons: Rewind

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 19, 2023
Library Date: Apr 19, 2023
Unplayed: 126d (4m4d)
Playtime: 23m

Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is Desktop Dungeons Enhanced Edition in 3D.

Literally.

Gone are the pixel-art bitmaps, replaced by glorious detailed 3D artwork.

The gameplay is (at least at this point) identical.

Like, last night I played through the first map multiple times before I understood it and beat it.

Tonight, exactly the same map, with the same mobs, and the same drops, but all in 3D.

So: Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is an isometric 3D roguelike dungeon crawler puzzle game.

Where last night it was a great example of a game where the gameplay overcomes my dislike of pixel-art games, now the fun gameplay is also pretty.

Still a pretty standard dungeon crawler. Explore the dungeon, attack mobs.

However, each square you uncover goes towards refilling your health and mana. You need to explore the fog of war to find mobs, but if you clear the fog of war and then try and kill the mobs, you're gonna have a bad time.

I cleared the first level with exactly the same strategy I used last night, still hooked. The only reason I didn't keep playing was that it ran into my actual work shift.

Between dungeons there's some resource management and basic city-building going on, but the game is designed to be played in short chunks. No change, just prettier city-building, in 3D!

In a shocking and surprising turn of events, Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is:

4: Good

#DesktopDungeons #Isometric #DungeonCrawler #Puzzle #3D #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 24, 2023 - Day 236 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 256

Game: Shred! 2 - ft Sam Pilgrim

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 18, 2018
Library Date: Aug 9, 2023
Unplayed: 15d
Playtime: 19m

Shred! 2 - ft Sam Pilgrim is a 2.5D mountain bike game. I'm not sure simulator quite fits.

Firstly, I don't know who Sam Pilgrim is, and I don't really care to find out. I assume he's the mountain biker you play in-game.

I got an email for a 5-game bundle from Fanatical a couple of weeks ago, and as I wanted one game in the bundle, and $8.00 for 5 games was cheaper than that game on its own, I bought the bundle.

I have a terrible sense of balance which means that riding a bike is a chore, and pulling stunts or tricks is utterly impossible.

Riding a skateboard (or anything with small wheels) is a non-event. Yet I lost countless hours to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, & 3 (even 4, to a degree).

I also got invited to the Rider's Republic beta, enjoyed it enough to buy the game when it went on sale. In both the THPS games and RR, I've managed to pull some pretty wild stunts and had fun while doing it.

None of that mattered in Shred 2. Shred 2 wants you to pull technically correct tricks... perfectly timed. Fail? Start the level over.

I started a lot of the tutorial levels over. The restart level button on the controller is the Y button, which meant I started more than a few levels over because I hit the wrong button.

When I started playing THPS2, I found it incredibly frustrating, but the risk/reward balance was just enough to keep me in the "One more try" loop, and I kept improving.

This was less of a loop, and more of a grind, and it just didn't feel like fun.

It actually felt a bit like OlliOlli World, but without the sense of humour that underlies that game.

Oddly enough, the closest comparison I can make is Forza Horizon to Forza Motorsport. I own Forza Horizon 1 through 5. I've sunk countless hours into Forza Horizon, and I'll tell anyone who'll listen how it converted me to playing arcade racers.

I also own Forza Motorsport 7. I think I've raced three laps, if that. Forza Motorsport is technically demanding, requiring focus and discipline, and understanding the technical limitations of your car and the track.

Forza Horizon, I just press the accelerator on the controller and steer the car, and have a lot of fun.

Shred 2 feels like Forza Motorsport. If I had excellent hand eye coordination, and the ability to repeat the same bio-mechanical movements over and over, I might be able to enjoy it; unfortunately, I don't and I can't.

For me, Shred! 2 - ft Sam Pilgrim is:

2: Meh

#Shred2 #MountainBiking #SportSim #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 25, 2023 - Day 237 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 257

Game: Banners of Ruin

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 30, 2021
Library Date: Aug 9, 2023
Unplayed: 16d
Playtime: 19m

Banners of Ruin is a roguelite deckbuilder in which a mouse and a bear attempt to take back their city from the corrupt folks who stole it.

With two and a quarter hours sleep last night, I figured I'd get in early for a NewPlay and review, because I'm not even sure I'm going to make it through the morning.

Banners of Ruin came in the same bundle as Shred 2, and where Shred 2 felt like a "oh well, nothing lost", Banners of Ruin is a bit of a surprise.

Although it's quite different, it reminds me mostly of Slay the Spire, and while initially put off by the idea of trying to play a deckbuilder and remain conscious, it's actually fun.

The tutorial was well done, but a little bit too loquacious, and determined to hold my hand even after I'd grasped the basic mechanics, but once through the tutorial, I had a fun, if short run.

On the downside, it insisted on starting on a secondary monitor, and we had a fundamental disagreement about which monitor is which. It also supports a quite limited number of resolutions for a game that was released mid-2021, only running up to 1920x1080, but Fullscreen is an option, and the graphics don't suffer at all.

All in all, Banners of Ruin seems to be a fun way to kill 15 minutes here and there, and is:

4: Good

#BannersOfRuin #RogueLite #DeckBuilder #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 26, 2023 - Day 238 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 258

Game: Hero's Hour

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 2, 2022
Library Date: Apr 2, 2023
Unplayed: 16d
Playtime: 17m

Hero's Hour bills itself as "A fast turn-based strategy RPG with real-time combat."

It was included in the Humble Choice March 2023 bundle.

I've repeatedly said that nostalgia does nothing for me, and it turns out I was wrong about that. Nostalgia can piss me off.

One of the growing trends at the moment in gaming is to remake old games. The most important thing about taking a game someone loved and remaking it for "modern" gaming, is to understand what made the game tick, then update the things that were limited by technology of the time, while keeping the elements that made the game tick intact.

For instance: The Quake II RTX "reimagining" took the first three levels of Quake II and made them pretty. Ho-hum.

The Quake II re-release updated the game itself and pretty much nailed bringing an ancient game into the modern era, without losing the character of the game.

I didn't know what to expect going into Hero's Hour, other than the pixel-art that featured in the header graphic, but within a couple of minutes of starting the tutorial, I realised I didn't need the tutorial, because I knew exactly how to play the game.

Describing Hero's Hour as "A fast turn-based strategy RPG with real-time combat." sounds better than "A pixel-art knock-off of Heroes of Might & Magic III".

I sank countless hours into Heroes of Might & Magic III. It might even have been the first "one more turn" game for me.

If you want to create a knock-off of a classic like HOMM3, you need to understand what makes it tick, what gives it that "one more turn" element, and the devs of Hero's Hour clearly don''t.

Desktop Dungeons demonstrated that a great gameplay loop overcomes the limitations of pixel art.

Hero's Hour made the art worse, and breaks the gameplay loop.

In HOMM3, your pixelated hero explores the pixelated map, but when entering a town, each kind of town has a character all its own, that grows as you expand the town.

Hero's Hour has almost-identical little boxes for each building.

HOMM3 battles were a carefully managed hextile-based strategy affair that could leave you elated or exasperated.

Hero's Hour replaces that with chaotic real-time battles that leans into the exasperation, and adds frustration. You can speed them up to 2x, but that still feels like an eternity.

Heck, some of the sound effects during map exploration feel like a straight rip from HOMM3.

Ultimately, Hero's Hour feels like the Temu version of HOMM3, and if I wanted to play a game that felt like HOMM3 without understanding HOMM3, I'd play HOMM VI.

Hero's Hour is an unsurprising:

1: Nope

#HerosHour #TurnBased #Strategy #RPG #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 27, 2023 - Day 239 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 259

Game: Crumble

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Dec 5, 2020
Library Date: Dec 25, 2022
Unplayed: 245d (8m2d)
Playtime: 15m

Crumble is a 3D physics platformer, where you play as a slime, rolling around on, and jumping between platforms, and using your ridiculously long tongue like a web shooter to swing from place to place.

I haven't clock-watched a game for a while. Even Golden Light got 22 minutes out of me.

After 4 minutes in this game I was watching the clock.

I spent a further 11 minutes trying to get past one single section of platforms.

On the first level.

The thing is, when you get your momentum up, and have things to swing from, I can understand where this might almost achieve something that could be described as almost, but not quite, entirely unlike fun.

With apologies to Douglas Adams, whose name I have besmirched just by associating his words with this game.

At its core, this is part platformer, part grappling game, and the grapple requires momentum to function.

There's no "reel-in" function to the grapple-tongue, to allow you to build up momentum, either (a la Just Cause et al.).

If you can't get momentum up, and your timing & coordination isn't almost perfect?

Well, sucks to be me.

At least you can target the grappling point, right? Why do that? It might add some sense of fun and enjoyment to this torture. The tongue wants what the tongue wants, and rarely did the tongue and I agree on what it should stick to.

In addition, even when I was close to getting something resembling success, the camera would suddenly clip through the environment, and I'd be disoriented as to where I was trying to go.

When I added it to the bundle in Christmas, it seemed like fun. Poor, delusional, past Allie. The most joy I got from this game was "Quit to Desktop".

People have, miraculously, completed this game. Maybe, in the eternal words of Detective Roger Murtaugh, "I'm getting too old for this shit."

Crumble is a crumbly:

1: Nope

#Crumble #3D #Physics #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 28, 2023 - Day 240 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 260

Game: Candle

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 11, 2016
Library Date: Jan 15, 2023
Unplayed: 225d (7m13d)
Playtime: 15m

Candle is a 2D adventure puzzle-platformer. The graphics are beautiful; the lush backgrounds and characters seemingly hand-painted.

You play as Teku, on a quest to save a tribe member from another tribe that has captured them, armed with the titular candle.

The illumination & lighting in the game is gorgeous.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I load the game, it opens at a resolution of 1280x720, a full screen jagged square in the middle of my widescreen monitor. I set the resolution to 2560x1440. I turn off fullscreen. The window jumps off the screen. I kill the game, restart it. It starts at 1280x720. There is no way to save the resolution. This is foreshadowing.

The game opens with a cinematic, the narrator setting the stage for the world in which Teku lives.

A narrative technique attributed to Chekov (Anton, of the famed "gun", rather than Pavel, of the USS Enterprise), is "Show, don't tell". The devs seemingly disagree.

The narrator's tale continues...

...and continues...

...is he STILL going?

He is still going.

He does eventually stop talking, but he will be back to over-explain everything after I complete the first level.

My eyes come to rest upon Teku, becoming conscious in the middle of his burning village.

Teku stands. I move the control stick left. Teku walks. Slowly.

The game encourages me to press the left trigger to get Teku to run. Teku moves noticeably faster than Teku's walk, but to describe this as "running" is stretches the definition of run to near-breaking.

Teku reaches a ledge. "Press X to climb". I press X. Teku does not climb. Repeat. Same result.

I nudge the control stick. Teku moves a couple of pixels. I press X. Teku climbs.

I press on.

I am faced with an icon of a cube. Text appears onscreen.

Not to tell me what the cube means, but to tell me to open the menu to read the instructions to tell me what the cube means.

Show, don't tell.

I start encountering puzzles. The few clues available are frequently inscrutable.

Don't show, don't tell.

Several of puzzles require quick movement & precise timing.

Teku is neither.

Death comes frequently, & frustratingly. A tunnel that I have just exited, and can re-enter, becomes inexplicably inaccessible during a puzzle, with no indication of this.

I solve the puzzle. I start to climb. I reach a ledge. I am immediately killed.

I try again, repeatedly.
I die again, repeatedly.

Tired and frustrated, I quit to the desktop.

I really wanted to like Candle; it is gorgeous, but it feels like all of the love & care was given to the visuals, with little left over for things like UX, controls, or gameplay.

Sadly, Candle has been snuffed out with a disappointing:

2: Meh

#Candle #2D #Adventure #Puzzle #Platformer #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 29, 2023 - Day 241 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 261

Game: Hellblade: Senu'a Sacrifice

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 8, 2017
Library Date: Jun 29, 2019
Unplayed: 1522d (4y2m)
Playtime: 31m

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a third-person action-adventure game, in which you play as Senua, a Viking-era Pict warrior, on a mission to enter Helheim, and save the soul of her dead lover.

The game opens with a mental health warning that it features representations of psychosis, with good reason.

Senua is experiencing psychosis, and hears voices.

I immediately found this challenging. I have lived with mental health issues for all of my adult life. While I have not experienced psychosis, I felt... a familiarity... with the game's expression of psychosis.

The game opens with Senua in a canoe paddling into a horrifying gorge in which bodies are floating in the water, and are impaled on stakes along the riverside, as the narrator speaks of Senua in the third person.

Senua is paddling into Helheim.

This tableau, however, is not an expression of Senua's psychosis.

The narrator is.

As the Senua paddles on, the narrator joins with a cacophony of other voices challenging, attacking, and goading Senua.

This is discomforting.

As Senua makes landfall, and progresses on foot through an environment that is no less harrowing than the river, light appears and fades; the screen distorts, the voices rise and fall.

The weight of this presses down on me. On Senua. On us.

Memories explode into view, and then fade.

Senua reaches the gates of Helheim, and engages in her first battle, which is frightening, and devastating in turns.

This has been a difficult and long review to write; the way in which the game shifts between the mental and physical is both visceral, and somehow weightless.

This too, feels familiar. It makes this a complicated game to play.

On a technical level, the visuals are excellent. The sound design is is something else; it lifts this game to another level.

There is no HUD, no health bar. No instructions on what to do.

With keyboard and mouse, the game relies on the standard WASD + F to use. Swordplay and blocking felt instinctive.

This game is only a few months newer than yesterday's game, yet almost perfectly embodies "show, don't tell". The attention that was seemingly lacking for gameplay in yesterday's game, is seen here in buckets, and the game is better for it.

However, these reviews aren't entirely a review of the quality of the game, but also whether I want to invest my gaming time in a particular game.

That is far more complex, because while this IS an excellent game, it's a difficult one for *me* to play; it is affecting on a level that I need to assess further.

As such, for me Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is:

4: Good

#HellbladeSenuasSacrifice #ThirdPerson #ActionAdventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 30, 2023 - Day 242 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 262

Game: Dead Bits

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 8, 2014
Library Date: Jun 11, 2018
Unplayed: 1906d (5y2m19d)
Playtime: 16m

Dead Bits is a voxel-based FPS platformer, that is somehow less than the sum of its parts.

The game starts out with something that almost resembles a storyline, and then you find yourself in a series of brightly-coloured maps or dark tunnels with a torch, facing a a barrage of identical enemies whose health is represented by a number set in typeface from one of those "Free Font Downloads!" websites.

The platforms are hard to judge, and every death sees an unskippable cutscene as monsters gorge on your dead voxel body in black and white.

Your weapons are whatever each level sees fit to give you, and collected weapons don't carry forward between levels. There is no loot.

The melee weapon is an undefined chrome-wrapped long thing.

Guns are gun-ish shaped things.

The only goal is to kill enough monster shapes to get to the next level.

The absolute kicker was when quitting the game, it hung. As it had set itself to the front-most window, and prevented anything from being in front (like Steam, or the task manager!), I spent several minutes on top of that 15 minutes just trying to quit.

Dead Bits is nothing more than trading card fodder, a big:

1: Nope

#DeadBits #FPS #Voxels #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

August 31, 2023 - Day 243 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 263

Game: The Ascent

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 30, 2021
Library Date: Aug 31, 2022
Unplayed: 365d (1y)
Playtime: 67m

The Ascent is a cyberpunk-themed isometric action-shooter RPG, with an oddly annoying control scheme.

This is not, technically, the first time I've played The Ascent. I played a short part of it -on PC- when it was on Xbox Game Pass. I remember being annoyed by the controls then, but forgot I'd installed it.

Then it dropped in the August 2022 Humble Choice bundle, and I uninstalled it from the Xbox app and installed it on Steam, and promptly forgot about it.

Turns out that was *exactly* twelve months ago.

When starting it tonight, I remembered my annoyance with the controls, and turned on my controller.

This is a game that feels like it was designed to be played with a controller. On a controller, and an isometric* game, moving with the left stick feels natural. WASD feels odd, because you're using two keys at a time.

But targeting with the right stick feels like playing in glue. Maybe if it had snap-targeting, but it doesn't. Targeting with a mouse feels natural and particularly during the first frenetic boss battle, if I'd been trying to target with the controller, I'd probably have given up.

My only other critique is that "isometric*" above. A lot of isometric games handle being behind an object by making it transparent, or outlining your character.

The Ascent puts a circle on the ground, which can be a little hard to keep track of when you're behind a large fixed object during a frenetic boss battle.

On top of this, it's isometric until it isn't. Suddenly, the camera is behind you for a while, but not when it might be helpful, like when you're behind a giant object during a frenetic boss battle.

The gameplay and atmosphere are excellent. It nails that gritty cyberpunk feel. The mobs suddenly popping up out of nowhere give just the right amount of chills. The first level in the bowels of the city feels -and sounds- like you're underneath everything.

The visuals and sound design when you complete your first major quest getting a machine running is great.

The Ascent is a game that overcomes its weaknesses pretty damn well.

The Ascent is:

4: Good

#TheAscent #Isometric #ActionShooter #RPG #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

September 1, 2023 - Day 244 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 264

Game: LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 3, 2008
Library Date: Nov 27, 2021
Unplayed: 643d (1y9m5d)
Playtime: 79m

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is a Traveller's Tales LEGO game, which is [X] IP turned into a LEGO-based adventure game.

Looking at my remaining games; there are a lot of them, but many are sequels to games I've already played, or games like this, where it feels a bit like "If you've played one, you've played them all."

Therefore, I wasn't going to review any more LEGO games, I was just going to play it for a bit to see how it held up, which means I'm now reviewing it.

Traveller's Tales have been making this kind of LEGO game since 2005's LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Indiana Jones was their first non-Star Wars IP-based LEGO game.

Time has been weird to it.

I grew up with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as part of my movie lexicon. Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

As a child, I didn't think about the underlying themes in the same way I do now. Some of the tropes in the original movies haven't aged well; even in the 15 years between 2008 and 2023, it's hard not to think of most historical archaeology as stealing shit from people in other countries to put it on display in a museum.

That makes it harder to just relax and play.

But even putting that aside as much as possible, the game itself makes it hard to play.

Being 15 years old and still able to run in ultra-wide resolution is pretty impressive, but later LEGO games have refinements that are missing here.

I started the game and sat through the intro video and keyboard/mouse were set as primary control. I picked up the controller and attempted to play, and it immediately put the game into two-player mode. Get the controller set as primary controller, still can't get out of 2P.

Quit out, restart, sit through the same unskippable intro. Indy can jump over gaps using his whip. Get to a point that requires Satipo (the other character), Satipo keeps falling into a chasm instead of following. Thinking it's bugged, quit out, restart, sit through intro, same bug. Can't even complete the first level.

Google it.

If V-sync is off, the characters can't jump properly, which feels like a hall-of-famer for "weird game bugs".

Enable V-sync, sit through the unskippable intro again, I can finally move on.

Controls are a bit twitchy, and I die a lot from undefined edges where Indy doesn't bother grabbing on even when I'm mashing the button.

I finally clear the level (having lost most of my studs), and sit back.

If you REALLY like Indiana Jones, AND enjoy LEGO games, then you might get a kick out of LEGO Indiana Jones.

If you're just into LEGO video games, maybe play one of the newer, more refined iterations.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures is (barely):

3: OK

#LEGOIndianaJones #LEGO #Adventure #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

September 2, 2023 - Day 245 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 265

Game: Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 25, 2013
Library Date: Feb 20, 2014
Unplayed: 3481d (9y6m13d)
Playtime: 21m

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is a top-down pixel-art-styled stealth heist game.

I'm not sure what I found more surprising: that this game is over 10 years old, or that it's been in my library unplayed for 9.5 of those years.

In this game, you break out of prison, and assemble a team of thieves, with the goal of pulling off a heist.

It apparently has co-op mode as well, although I only played in single player.

When I started this project, I was openly hostile to pixel-art games. What I've learned over the past 8 months is that while pixel-art based games can be the product of lazy devs, or devs who are hopped up on caffeine and nostalgia, a good game can overcome my feelings about pixel-art (and lazy devs can be just as lazy using vectors, voxels, Unity, or Unreal).

On that basis, I think I'm done commenting on pixel-art, other than to mention if it's the art-style of the game.

With that said, Monaco isn't a true pixel-art game. Even though the environments and characters are pixel-art, the lighting and UI elements are not.

Monaco is a lot of fun. Even though each of the characters you embody is only a small blob of pixels, each has their own skillset, and even in the early stages of the game, can see how they'll fit together for "the heist".

As a stealth game, the lighting is used to great effect throughout, and and having your area of vision lighting up a room and suddenly spotting a guard is nerve-wracking.

Making it through the level undetected and making a clean getaway give a great buzz.

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is:

4: Good

#MonacoWhatsYoursIsMine #PixelArt #TopDown #Stealth #Heist #MastodonGaming #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay