The second DLC came out so I started my second run. I like the new robots, super robot focus this time and some clever use of working in a Brave series trope to work in the kid sidekick in a funny way. The Brave series picked stars a really lazy dude so it uses that cleverly for comedy early on.
Zone of the Enders 2
Came back to this to work on an article. Controls are still extremely natural feeling, with really smooth stick movement. Dub isn’t as bad as I remember but it is still very rough, bizarrely stilted translation and direction.
Various Winter Wolves VNs
Decided to try playing through several Winter Wolves VNs to fill out missing TV Tropes pages. So far made the Queen of Thieves page feature complete, along with the first two Planet Stronghold games, and started a few others (plus fleshing out Loren and Cursed Lands).
Queen of Thieves has some great romantic stuff, especially with how forward Thalia is in a way I’m not used to for games like this, and the RPG side of it is mostly solid. The randomized heists get a bit tiring and the early game is pretty tough, and the end game is a slog, but I really enjoyed it…except for some choices the co-writer for this one made regarding the missing mother at the center of the story that still baffle me, alongside not actually resolving major plot points so they can work as a sequel hook. This doesn’t work, mind, because said plot points or so needlessly vague and convoluted that it sort of soured the fans on the possibility of a sequel, like the guy misunderstood what actually worked about the writing. I kid you not, it ends with a Revolver Ocelot Calling The President conversation, and it’s not great. Not surprised I haven’t heard word of a sequel for this one. I did like it but it’s hard to recommend because its few flaws are serious enough to sour me on it.
Planet Stronghold is proving to be way more interesting. The first game is a very, very rough RPG clearly made with little know how with some interesting ideas that there wasn’t time to flesh out there. It was a one man project for the most part. The prequel, Colonial Defense, ended up being a fantastic card game with some really fantastic team talk segments, and was refreshing with how openly flirty everyone on the Stronghold crew was. The co-writer for that game did a fantastic job fleshing out setting details and giving characters strong voices. Planet Stronghold 2, lastly, seems to be mostly a solo show, but with a lot more experience with RPGs under the belt, resulting in a satisfying and often challenging adventure with with much improved writing over the first game. It’s a fantastic sequel that puts a spotlight on the underlining conflicts of the past two games and does some strong theme work with the environmental stuff in particular.
Spent a few hours with CiniCross tonight, which is basically rogue-like nonograms/Picross. As someone who enjoys nonograms, its pretty fun! My only complaint so far is that it feels maybe a little unbalanced. On my third run ever I was able to get a crazy build going that I carried into Endless Mode and ran all the way to floor 20, and I wasn’t remotely close to losing, I was just super bored of the insanely broken build that was basically auto-clearing puzzles. Seems like it’s pretty easy to outscale the difficulty of the game, but maybe I just got crazy lucky or something.
Also, per the credits, it seems to feature some of the music of our very own @NotJam. Smooth jams, homie!
I think the dev got in touch to let me know but I’d completely forgotten - this looks cool! UI is very pretty, although I’d wonder if all the movement could get distracting whilst playing?
Very strange to hear all the tracks slowed down! So used to hearing them at the original speed
Cinicross is great! I’ve been playtesting that since it was called Exucross. And yeah, fairly easy to get very busted builds; I think Endless isn’t the “intended” way to play, but it’s nice that it’s there to give a “power trip” feel if you just want to keep building up
A weird issue I had was when playing in the default full screen, it seemed like all the wiggly UI components would cause the game to slow down a lot over time, to the point where there was weird mouse lag and misclicks. Only solution I found was putting the game in Windowed mode - never saw any chunkiness after that.
Interesting to hear about the behind the scenes on this stuff too, appreciate that. Is it common/uncommon for a dev to reach out and let you know about using your music in a project? Are there potentially a bunch of baby NotJam games running around out there we don’t know about? Haha. Also interesting to hear that they made further tweaks to it - I wonder how common that is. Hm.
Ah, that makes sense. Yeah, doing the regular runs to unlock higher difficulties feels like the more intended path, as those subsequent runs actually feel challenging having to start fresh each time. Up to Difficulty 6 so far - curious to see how gnarly it gets, and how important the leveling mechanic ends up being.
I’d completely forgotten that Mutations existed on Left 4 Dead 2, so I’ve been playing (and failing, badly!) the Lone Gunman mutation this past week or so - work’s been rough, but the extreme pressure this mode puts you under means there’s no chance I can start thinking about anything else, which works perfectly to completely take my mind off things
This mode leaves you totally alone with no friends or bots permitted, and the only weapon available is a single Magnum with 8 rounds and a painfully long reload (other than throwables). The only special infected are boomers, witches and tanks, but common infected take off fully 1/3rd of your health with each hit. Positioning, timing your reloads and shoves and conserving throwables are all absolutely key, as there’s essentially no room for error, all whilst you’re attempting to sprint as fast as possible through each stage to minimise horde spawns, leading to some genuinely exhilirating runs.
It’s clearly not the intended experience, with some areas pretty trivial to cheese without the special infected to put pressure on, and some events feeling borderline impossible without a team or at least more weapons, but it’s a really novel way to play. As someone who doesn’t much care for playing online with strangers it’s a great way to get a real challenge from the game without the frustration of bot behaviour on higher difficulty modes. I’d highly recommend to anyone already a fan of the game!
Here is a bonus tiny pixel coach for the end of my post
I get a few devs reach out about the music, and a few with the fonts too! Generally it’s more from devs working on game jams than commercial projects, but I always love to see them either way and try and play as many as I can :)
I started playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora last night (I’m a big fan of the films… if you know you know…) and I’m actually pretty impressed with it for being a ninth gen large release. Granted, it has the common contemporary issue of a significant amount of the game trying way too hard to be a movie (and failing spectacularly), but the actual gameplay is pretty fun. I haven’t played many games of this ilk before, so maybe I’m more of a mark for this type of open world exploration loop than I think I am. I really like the lack of a minimap.
Also, maybe the only ninth gen game that I think looks really good? The interiors aren’t anything special and neither are the character models, but the environments of Pandora are rendered in such a stunning way. Really fun to navigate and scavenge around… just like many video games, however, I really wish it didn’t have such a focus on plot…
This completely broken build has finally persuaded me to uninstall Balatro, as I think it’s unlikely I’ll ever beat it. This wasn’t a seed - I was just absurdly lucky drawing Taboulet and Blueprint early then stumbling on a series of Invisible Jokers, I’ve never known anything like it.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed most of my time with the game, although the final 2 challenge runs and some of the gold stakes were frustrating. The game was at it’s best for me in the medium stakes range, where it posed a real challenge requiring adapting to the Jokers the game served up but with still enough leeway that a few unlucky draws wouldn’t necessarily spell the end of a run.
Not sure what’s next now - I’m very much looking forward to Resident Evil Requiem, but will also need something lighter for relaxing after work, ideally something Roguelike or at least aimed at short, self contained runs. If anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them
Started playing Growing Up, and I’m really digging it. It’s a raising sim set in The 90s based loosely on the experiences of the developers growing up around that time. Each run is fairly quick and the various character routes are all well written, while the gameplay ideas are all clever ways to interpret ideas like learning or thinking. You can also tell it was made by industry vets just for all the polish in the UI, art, and music as well.
Also started Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars and it sure was a game made by Super Robot Wars devs. Too early to give a call but it’s promising so far, even if the lack of the futuristic style of the PS2 games being absent takes away some of the charm of the franchise.
Hwæt! Everything I meant to play this year I have not started but what I have been playing have really grabbed my interest. I started playing Assetto Corsa and I have never been a car girl but it just feels so good to togue race. Am I good at it? No but the feeling of clinging on to desperate control of your car as you’re trying to haul ass up a mountain in the fastest time you can manage really is exhilarating. On the more arcade side of things my obsession with speed has caused me to start diving into Night Runners and if your anime tastes are more Wangan Midnight rather than Initial-D then this is more your speed. Instead of the mountains of the 90s, you’re in the grimy street racing scene miles away on the Shutoko where maximum speed is the name of the game. And wow does this game make you feel like it.
Other than racing games, the odd gatcha, and match of multiplayer, I have been playing Rogue-FP. I did not think that a first person revamp of Rogue would be as tense and addicting as it is but I was wrong. Once you are in and start playing it like a first-person RPG you barely even register that you’re playing Rogue up until you need to start making decisions very quickly and each one will be a turn you don’t act. Add on top of that a mode that is the dev’s expansion and a few shorter dungeons, like a Doom inspired one, and I have wasted a few hours to this already.
Touhou Lost Branch of Legend - A Touhou fangame which is very StS, which I also enjoyed a lot! I’ve only played ReimuA, SakuyaA, and MarisaA and just cleared Lunatic Mode with MarisaA without any requests on. I really like throwing potions a lot! I’ll give the other characters and deck types a try later at some point.
Currently playing through Popful Mail on the Sega CD for a RetroAchievements event. It can be quite frustrating (mainly the bosses), but it’s a charming game that plays well, looks great and just has the most 1990s video game anime dubbing. The presentation carries it a lot. Weirdly, the bosses feel kinda souls-y in the way it’s mostly about memorization and evaluating your own spacing.
I just got through all the released content for Terraformental, which is a really fun game about solving a mystery on a planet you’re part of a terraforming operation on! It’s not strictly text-based, because there are buttons you press, but there’s not really graphics - and the main crux is making sure you have enough supplies to not dehydrate, starve, or suffocate while you’re out and about!
I found a Minecraft mod pack called “Raspberry Flavoured” that’s really scratching an itch. The load screen takes forever, and one of the little random messages it displayed while I was waiting was “taking estrogen,” and I immediately knew we were gonna click. Also, it’s making me learn Create Mod against my will lol.
Surprisingly, I have been enjoying Christine Love’s Get in the Car, Loser! Even though it’s a lot more saccharine and overly twee than her usual fare, I think the battle system is really fun! Lots of micromanaging what to do at any given moment, and even though like many RPGs it gives you far too many resources, it’s still cool that it’s as difficult and tribulating as it is. I could do without 90% of the dialogue, though.
I’ve been mostly using my Retroid Pocket 2+ to play the old Android version of GTA Vice City. As a game it’s mostly garbage but it’s funny because it’s very intentionally designed as nostalgia bait, and while I am getting a dose of nostalgia, it’s for playing the game when I was younger. Sitting at home, not doing homework, using the video card I borrowed from my neighbor, cruising around an open world in a golf cart while getting introduced to 80s music and horribly offensive talk radio parodies that no longer sound like parodies.
Tried Esoteric Ebb and after a few minutes I already feel safe in saying this is a must play for any RPG enjoyer of the Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium type. Really cool cel shaded look, fantastic menu design, and just genuinely very funny writing that is very clearly written by someone who played Disco Elysium and really liked what they were doing.
Also booted Tyranny and managed to finally playthrough act one. I’m a bit mixed on it so far, like there’s not quite as much freedom as I wanted in the choices, but that may be because I decided to go the rebel route and I just can’t get in the mindset to be properly evil enough for the setting. Might try an anarchy run first with a new character. Also it is comical how much lore checks come up. It’s basically the one skill check, but at least fits the concept of being a magical evil empire judge with a license to kill, maybe would have liked it to be divided into legal and history so it’s not overwhelming he other skills.
