Divinity Original Sin [co-op night]

Divinity is really starting to click now.  The combat is getting more intricate and more fun with each fight, and we're able to pull off some decent combos.  I'm especially partial to using my teleport spell to snatch an enemy mage from the back ranks and dump him on his backside between the party's two fighters.

We also finished watching Attack On Titan.  It's been a fun series, lots of visual flair and some likeable characters.  It's going to be a long wait until the next season, but the anime list is long and plentiful.  Next up I think we've got one of Blood+, Psycho Pass, and a couple of others that looked half interesting on Netflix.

Next week's co-op night will be all programming and that, as we're doing Ludum Dare the weekend after next.  I'm sure I'll continue to derail the theme of this blog by posting all about it, along with a link to whatever hideous mutant we birth.

Desert Golfing, and Idle Oil Tycoon [all bloody week]

Sometimes, I just need a game that calms me down.  Both of these games are a little like obscure forms of meditation, and, since IOT basically plays itself with some occasional nudging and prodding I can flit between them at will. 

I am slightly worried that IOT might be reprogramming me through subliminal messaging.  I started playing it for a bit, then continued playing it while watching There Will Be Blood, and I was half an hour into the film before I realised both are sort of about oil.  

Co-op night tonight, so we might see another two-post day!  Even if we just watch Attack on Titan I'll ramble about that for a bit.

Oh, and if you're reading this, Mum, I don't really think Android games are sending me subliminal messages.  Please don't worry.

Divinity Original Sin [co-op night]

Wednesday evenings, a friend and I enjoy a curry, some anime, and some co-op gaming.  He very generously purchased two copies of Divinity Original Sin, and we started playing a week or so before I made this blog.  Last night was play session number two.

I was just the right age, I think, when Baldur's Gate came out.  I was 19, in my second year of uni, and had a lot of free time to sink into a game of that size.  I'd played some D&D at school, so I had a basic understanding of the rule set, but no idea of the type of stories that could be told.  My experience with that game was so formative that I give most of my characters the same name as my first BG character.  Suffice to say that I am almost certainly the kind of person Larian had in mind when they ran a Kickstarter for a new Divinity game.

We wrapped up the murder mystery opening of the game and headed off into the forest for some undead killing.  The combat is just what I want from a game like this, tactical and dynamic, with the location of the fight playing heavily into the strategy. 

VVVVVV [Finished]

After rounding off the last session with that damn escort section, the game actually got easier for a little while.  I found the rest of my crew friends, but then got teleported off into the "all the hardest rooms mashed together" zone. 

There were two rooms that made me lean back, take a deep breath and think "maybe I can't do this".  My reflexes are not what they used to be, but fortunately I was just belligerent enough to get through to the end.

I'm not sure I'll be going back for all the collectables, but I very much enjoyed bouncing around the world of VVVVVV.

VVVVVV #1

Just what the doctor ordered.  The first computer my parents bought was a C64, so the loading screen and graphical style of VVVVVV brought me right back to my childhood.

This really is a wonderful platformer.  The twist, for the uninitiated, is that there is no jump button; you can flip the effect of gravity on yourself, and only when you have your feet on the floor (or ceiling).  The controls are incredibly snappy, although there were some sections that required such pixel perfect placement that I had to put down the joypad and inch into position with taps of the cursor keys.  Zipping around the huge world is so much fun, plummeting through multiple screens, abstract chunks of scenery flashing by.

Whenever you're indoors, each room has a name, harking back to Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner. The names are mostly funny and clever, often giving you a hint towards solving the main puzzle.


The soundtrack is fantastic, and I'm happily humming it to myself right now.  Lovely, lovely chiptune.

Any game that has me calling the designer a shit, out loud while smiling, is doing something right.  Nearly lost me with that escort section though.

Actual Sunlight [Finished]

This is a very well made thing, but I probably shouldn't have played it.

Eversion [Finished]

Eversion opens with a quote from Lovecraft, and then proceeds to be a Mario clone with an eye-melting colour scheme.  It reminds me of the original Great Giana Sisters game on Amiga, all the nuts and bolts are there but none of the artistry.  The menu screen says "Press Evert button to start", but I don't really think too much about this, just means I hit B instead of A to get going.


Then, on the second level, you can't get any further.  There are clouds where there should be platforms, but you fall right through them.  Platformers have never really given us a definitive answer to the question of whether one can walk on a cloud or not, and Eversion isn't helping matters.  So, I bumble around for a bit, trying to find something that I've missed.  Then I hit B, and a section of the screen pulses.  I head over to it, and the music shifts slightly, not quite so jolly now.  I hit B again and the world changes.  Only slightly, but the colours aren't so bright, the cute little monsters aren't quite so happy.  But hey, I can walk on clouds so on I go.  

Now I'm hitting B all the time, looking for these gaps between worlds.  Every time there's an impassable object, I'm hopping through portals, and the world is getting weirder.  Demonic hands fly out of pools of lava, with a scream that sets my teeth on edge.  The screen starts scrolling forward of its own accord, the level melting behind me.  The blocks making up the platforms twist and warp, dripping down the screen.  After dying, the game used to say "Ready!".  Now it says "I'm watching".  Then I find the princess, and she grows teeth and eats me.

OK, now I understand why Lovecraft was there on the intro screen. 

Ittle Dew [Finished]

Back after a day off, then a day of dental crisis.  Feeling a little better now, so I finished Ittle Dew.

The puzzles ramp up a lot towards the end of the game, the combination of the ice staff and the portal staff creating some complex combos (create portal block, freeze it, push it over spikes, freeze the wall, bounce a portal shot off the wall into yourself to cross spikes) all leading up to a final boss fight that manages to pack all of this into a single dynamically shifting room.

There's a lot more chatting to NPCs, and the writing is sharp and funny.  Ittle Dew understands the fundamentals of this type of game, and pokes fun at them while still revelling in how enjoyable they can be.  I had a lovely time. 

Ittle Dew #2

They really weren't kidding about the amount of block pushing.  To a certain extent I admire the purity of it; even the weapon upgrades are just new ways of creating, destroying, or moving blocks.  The enemies have so far been inconsequential.  Sometimes you need to kill them to open a door, otherwise, ignore.

I'm enjoying the level design so far.  Normally the number of alternate routes presented would have me paralysed by indecision, but there's something very carefree about Ittle Dew that means I just wander about, do some puzzles, and occasionally find a big pile of treasure.  I'm sure I'll have to start looking at the map and worrying about backtracking at some point, but for now it's no problem to find a new room with something to do.

Slightly slow progress through what is meant to be a pretty short game, but I've been feeling a bit ropey today and slept through a lot of it.  Hopefully back to normal service tomorrow.

Ittle Dew #1

This game is a slightly tongue in cheek love-letter to one of my favourite games of all time:  The Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past.  

It has a lovely, cartoon-like take on the classic Zelda graphical style, almost like a 2D Wind Waker. Everything on the screen is beautifully animated, and really gives the impression of having been crafted with a lot of care.

The gameplay isn't anything special so far.  It is, however, a very relaxing game to play.  I love neat little interface touches, like whacking a door to highlight the object that can open it.  I knew before playing that this game boils the Zelda formula down to just the block pushing puzzles, so I wasn't expecting anything mind-blowing.  I'm mostly just along for the nostalgia.

Heroes of the Storm

Friends are starting to get invites to the alpha now, so I'll be playing this more here and there.  Most of the time it won't be in place of the single player stuff in my backlog but if people are around to play then I'll be partying up with them for HotS.

There's not much for me to say about this game that hasn't been said already.  Blizzard have a really fun take on the MOBA here, and I like the core gameplay a lot.  Then they gave everything to do with meta game progression  to some marketing guy who's been cryogenically frozen since the 50s and is here to sell you tiny slices of the game for way too much money.  Please stop it Blizzard, you have tonnes of money and this game is basically an advert for all your other franchises, so you can afford to be a little more generous.

Viscera Cleanup Detail

I spent a good chunk of time today on the phone and web-based customer service chat, trying to sort out a fibre internet package.  If I need to occupy myself while at the computer, I play Viscera.  It probably says a lot about my life that I'm much better at cleaning up fictional alien blood than I am at cleaning my flat.

Analogue: A Hate Story [Finished]

I've never played a visual novel before, but I was expecting something far less interactive than Analogue: A Hate Story.  Before I started playing, I knew the basic premise:  search through the logs of a long-missing spaceship, and find out what happened to the crew.  Fortunately, it would seem that my idea of what the game might be was formed from the driest possible description.  

The journal entries and letters that make up most of the game's text are sorted and presented to you by a pair of AIs, both of whom add a great layer of characterisation to the main story.  The opening in which the player and the first AI, *Hyun-ae, work through some interface quirks together is a neat way of building a bond, and it got me immediately engaged.

Once you get to the meat of the investigation, it feels like flipping through an old diary with a friend.  Most of the log entries can be shown to the currently active AI, and they'll share some thoughts and opinions with you, often unlocking more documents in the process.

The more you learn about the society that formed on board the ship, the more the cracks start to appear and you see the injustices that ultimately led to the event that wiped out the ship's population.  At that point, with a perfect sense of timing, the game presents you the option of speaking with the other AI, *Mute.  Suddenly, everything wrong with the former inhabitants is personified in this one character.  She revels in the misery on display, and takes salacious delight in picking through the private lives of the crew.  As she reveals more "unsent letters", I feel distinctly grubby.  My reading partner had been replaced with a tabloid journalist.  

Of course, this game is too well written to leave it at that.  As the nature of *Mute becomes apparent, we understand what she was built to do and the ideas she was made to reinforce.  This is certainly not a story of moral absolutes; no one is virtuous, no one gets away clean.

The Swapper #2 [Finished]

What a  fantastic game.  Amazing atmosphere, a story that I'll be thinking about for days, and some really well balanced puzzles.

The graphics are something truly unique.  Building all the objects in game from household junk and clay gives The Swapper a truly alien appearance.  You can tell what everything is meant to be, but it looks just wrong enough to be unsettling.  The excellent music and sound design are the delicious icing on this cold and terrifying cake. From space.

The game rarely lets you forget the horror at the core of its central mechanic.  You are cloning and killing yourself over and over.  Early on, the game asks you to reach the top of tall rooms by leapfrogging up a chain of clones, each successive vessel crumpling in a heap below.  Occasionally I found myself dashing through bulkhead doors to avoid the sounds.

As you discover more about Theseus Station, more questions are raised about the true nature of the swapper device.  Is it transferring consciousness between bodies, or forcibly overwriting the personality of the new host?  Body swapping sci-fi isn't anything the new, but the ongoing story of the device's origins, and the discoveries made on the planet below are a clever take on it.

I'm also going to note here, just in case I end up borrowing the design at some point, the map was excellent.  Clean, well laid out, and extremely good at showing you everything you had yet to explore. Also worthy of note is the placement of fast travel stations after every section of the game that was tricky to navigate.  The designer realised that these sections are fun and challenging but wouldn't bare repeating as you back track through some sections of the station.

That's two excellent games done, will this be the start of a streak or have I just cursed it?

The Swapper #1.5

I played The Swapper for about four hours yesterday, but then I had friends over, and fell asleep about five minutes after they left.  I have many thoughts about this excellent game, so I'll do another post later today.

The Swapper #1

Here's a game that I've been looking forward to playing for a while.  I'm a big fan of the kind of sci-fi that takes technological advances, pushes them to their logical extreme and then examines the often horrible implications.

The Swapper opens with what can only be an intentional musical call back to Star Trek, perhaps to lull people into a false sense of security.  That is immediately stripped away as soon as you're into the game proper.  The art style is all dereliction and decay, real-world clutter repurposed as abandoned technology.  The atmosphere is incredible, with the lights on your spacesuit shining through swirling mist and sounds echoing off into the distance, there's a real sense of isolation.  

A few rooms explored and we get to the major gameplay mechanic: cloning.  At any time you can create copies of yourself, and switch your consciousness between copies.  If this sounds like fun, just wait until you swap bodies and then accidentally walk your old self off a cliff.  The poor sod hits the floor, legs shatter.  It's all very grim, and immediately brings to mind The Prestige.  I can't wait to see the path it's going to take with this;  the creepy audio logs seem to suggest that it's not going to be pleasant.   

The Walking Dead [Finished]

A milestone! If nothing else, starting this blog has cleared one game from my backlog, so I'd call that a success. Oh, and what a game it was.

Unfortunately, episode 4 had some of the weakest sections so far.  Too much of the frankly awful shooting mechanics, and a fair amount of traipsing up and down corridors when a simple cut away to the next scene would have been far better for pacing.  This, in particular, was a real shame, because the game has done a pretty good job of giving the player control at just the right moment.  Games like this always include a certain amount of backtracking, and where other episodes have done a good job of getting right to the meat, here it seems to forget that it's even an option.  This is even more surprising given that this is the penultimate episode.  There's a lot to get done in order to position the story for the finale, and I would have liked to see some of the newer characters get a bit more development.

The set up ends up being more than worth it.  The final episode is all killer, no filler.  The conversations that highlight the awful choices you've had to make along the way.  The gut-wrenching moment when you realise that Lee is truly done for, combined with the gradual transfer of player control to Clementine. This last deserves special mention.  I was reminded of Brothers, a wonderful game that everyone should play, in that the mechanics of player control underpin and reinforce the story.  As Lee slips away, his, and by extension the player's, only agency in the world is to issue verbal commands to another character.  It's a neat trick because it reminds us that, in a point and click adventure, this is all we ever really do. 

So, farewell for now, The Walking Dead.  I still have 400 Days to play, but I'm going to need a break first to appreciate it properly.  I don't imagine I would be doing it justice by launching into it immediately after that ending.

The Walking Dead, Season 1 Episode 4

Episode three may have had the highest main character bodycount so far, but at least it looked pretty. All warm autumnal tones and piles of rustling leaves.  Episode four is a misty November murk, and the puzzles are equally grim.  Another child shot in the head and a family pet exhumed, and I've only been playing for half an hour.

 Further exploration of Savannah reveals what was obvious to everyone except Kenny: all the boats are wrecked or gone.  We get a glimpse of the outer walls of a terrifying compound run by social Darwinists, then the wall crawling ninja turns up and I have to go for a long lie down.

The Walking Dead, Season 1 Episode 3

I love point and click adventures.  One of my earliest memories of playing games was The Secret of Monkey Island on the Amiga, and ever since I've been hooked on the combination of sharp dialogue and borderline nonsensical puzzles.  The Walking Dead has some of the best writing of any game I've played, but the puzzle solving can be a bit pedestrian by comparison.

Episode 3 opens with a chunk of what this game does best:  it takes two characters who already hate each other, then has both of them piss you off right before you have to pick a side.  Lilly is growing more and more paranoid, and Kenny is using it to push his plan to get the hell out of the motel.  This leads into a fairly dull bit of investigation, but the game seems to realise this and pretty quickly has a bunch of bandits kick the door in. 

Now, I'm one of those freaks who can't aim without inverted mouse controls, so of course I managed to make a total pig's ear of the fight.  Thirty second later, we're all piling into the RV and abandoning the motel to a swarm of walkers, attracted by the gunfire.

This leads into my favourite section of the whole episode, as Lilly starts to lose it completely, and we're forced to stop by the roadside to scrape a walker of the bottom of the van.  Some excellent camera work really ramps up the tension, making sure we're don't know who is going to snap until the moment before it happens.  Things escalate fast, and with each set piece our group gets smaller and smaller.

Speaking of set pieces, this game remains a master of them.  Getting the train up and running left me with a glow of satisfaction, which of course meant that I was about a minute away from being asked to shoot a child in the head.  Oh Walking Dead, don't ever change.

The episode wraps up with the striking image of a jackknifed petrol tanker hanging off a bridge and blocking the path of the train.  This looks so good that I can almost let them off one of the worst fire effects I've seen, when the whole thing inevitably goes up in flames.