Tag: not

Gamer’s Thoughts: Let’s Find The Difference Extreme Edition

Today I wanted to talk about a totally new type of game that’s gaining a lot of popularity. In late 2018, a totally new type of game called I’m on Observation Duty got released on Steam. Recently, these type of games are exploding on Steam. A spin-off called The Exit 8 gave a totally new spin on the formula. The games are actually a scary spin on the spot the difference style of gameplay. But, what does attract players so much into this formula? Let’s talk about a few titles, and maybe we find an answer to that in this article. Now, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on these games, similar games and/or the content of this article.

Two main gameplay styles

There are actually two major styles in this genre. A lot of streamers call, one style Observation Duty and the other style Exit 8. Both styles have the same core concept. You need to first look at a room and then notice if anything changes or anomalies appear. The way how you deal with these anomalies differs in both styles.

In Observation Duty style games, the idea is mostly always that you are a security guard watching camera’s. You have to flip through camera’s and report the anomalies before there are too much present in the area. In Exit 8 type games, you play through them while walking through the rooms themselves. You have to walk one direction when there is no difference and another direction when there is a difference. The difference is that you have to make a certain amount of correct judgements in a row. One wrong judgement and you are sent back to level 0.

The gameplay is tricky to explain in words and in an article. I wanted to write this article several times, but I was unable to describe it properly. The best way to describe it in my opinion is a non casual spot the difference game.

Ever since, “I am on Observation Duty” and “The Exit 8” hit the scene… A lot of horror game streamers played through them. They gained a lot more popularity. A lot of new titles came out in a rapid pace with different spins on the genre and interesting innovations. I think it will become more clear when I talk about the games I played through or watched my favorite streamers play through.

The Exit 8 – The Platform 8

During the summer of this year, Klamath and I streamed through these two titles. The Exit 8 is one of the earliest games to my knowledge in the 3D style.

The idea is that you are trapped in a looping metro hallway where you have to reach the 8th exit. Travelers are advised to continue walking when nothing out of the ordinary happens. But when suddenly a poster changed or something else changed, you need to turn back.

Like I said in the introduction, when you make one mistake, you start at level 0 again. The first passage through the hallway is always safe. After that, you have to do 8 correct answers in a row. Now, at least 8, since if your 8th run has an anomaly, you need to turn back. You can only win if you have a hallway that has no strange thing, and you are above the 8th hallway.

Something really nice that this game does is, it doesn’t repeat anomalies. When you defeat a certain anomaly, it won’t repeat until you see all of them or reset the game. This makes the game more unpredictable and replayable.

The anomalies in this game range from extremely obvious like suddenly the hallway flooding… But others are sneaky, like a camera that moved location to the other side of the hallway. So, it was a puzzle. Is this room really the same, or did something change. Since you couldn’t go back to check. And there were various details that added to the complexity of the game.

In May of this year, we got the follow-up to this game called The Platform 8. If you thought that was more of the same, think again. This time, you are in the actual metro, and you have to survive 8 carts. The big change is that you can’t fail with an anomaly this time around since the exit door is locked if you need to find the anomaly first.

It’s a change that didn’t sit well with me at first, but I totally understand why. This game is now turned into a more tense game where you have to survive the crazy things that the game throws at you. The game is shorter than The Exit 8, but I’ll say… This game had me spooked and jump several times.

That’s Not My Neighbor

At it’s core, this game is an Observation Duty game. But with a big twist. You are a security guard at the entrance of a building. There are imposters out there, trying to look like your neighbor, and you have to keep them out.

This game tests your reasoning skills and tests you if you can look at all the clues. The best I can describe this game is: a mixture between Papers Please, and I am on Observation Duty. The added layer of difficulty is that you have a lot to keep track of. Who did you let already inside? Who is on the list and for who do you better call their apartment first?

This game is getting frequent updates with more lore and more modes. Each time I see this game being played by the streamers I watch, the new update impresses me. And I totally understand why this game got so big.

There is this extremely catchy song by longestsoloever. The amount of times I played it on repeat is just getting silly. Give it a listen if you like electronic music, but I warn you. It’s an earworm.

Confabulation

Confabulation, noun. Confabulation is a memory error consisting of the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world.

This game does a very interesting take on the actual formula. Instead of explaining the differences and anomalies with unexplained events, in this game it’s caused by a mental illness.

The flow of each play trough of this game is the same. But, the puzzles, the changing objects amongst other things are randomized. It’s up to you to make sure that you avoid you going insane and finding the truth of what happened.

This is an Observation Duty style game, but you can walk around in the area instead of watching at camera feeds. There is an extra layer added with the puzzles that add more information and lore of what happened.

I could talk about it more, but I highly recommend you play this game as blind as possible. The story, scares and impact is that much stronger when you don’t know what’s coming and let yourself be surprised. Watch the candles since they give you amazing hints on where to look next.

ATTA -Spot the Oddities in the Strange Hotel-

What if you have to count the amount of differences in a hallway instead of deciding there is a difference or not? Well, then you describe “ATTA, -Spot the Oddities in the Strange Hotel-“.

This game is an Exit 8 type of game with multiple rooms, where you have to count all the errors in a hallway… While various strange things happen. Like a train suddenly appearing and you have to duck for cover.

The atmosphere this game has, where it leaves you with an open ending that raises more questions than it answers, is the cherry on the cake. It’s a more intense game than your usual games. It may be a short run, but it’s a wild and pleasant ride all the way through.

Hospital 666

The final game I want to talk about today is called Hospital 666. In this game, you try to escape a cursed hospital. The first level has you running down a looping hallway. The second level, has one side room open.

Now, an impressive option that the game gives you is that you can choose if you want anomalies in the hallway or not. So, if you are in the second level, you can choose if you want things in the hallway to change or only focus on the new room.

Something impressive that this game does as well, is when you make a mistake, you can go back to the hallway to see what the mistake was that you made. You still start from the lowest floor of that level, but being able to see what got you is amazing. Since this game has very crazy anomalies but also various very sneaky ones. Like one is that some smiles faces appear on the wall.

In between the levels, there is a boss fight/puzzle that separates the floors from each other. They can be a bit janky, but the developer has updated and optimized the game quite a lot, and it is a lot better. Now, he is currently creating a sequel taking place in a school. And as somebody who works in education, I can’t wait to play through that.

Final thoughts

These games are only a handful of games in the genre. I have given a quick rundown of the games mentioned in this article, but if you are interested, I’m willing to talk more in depth about these titles. My intention with this article is to promote these titles.

Each game listed here is between 5 to €10 and is an amazing ride. These games are short little romps but are bursting to the seams with creativity. I always think, now, I have almost seen everything this genre has to offer. But, then I’m surprised with a new gameplay mechanic or a new setting that changes the atmosphere completely.

So, depending on how well this article does… I might write more of these. If you found amazing titles like this, feel free to send them my way or leave them in the comment section down below. But, for now, I’m going to leave you with my usual outro. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

First Impression: Cave Digger 2 (PC – Steam) ~ No Feedback

Steam store page

One of my favorite activities in Minecraft is going deep inside the caves and just exploring them. A few years ago, the developers behind Cave Digger reached out to me and asked me to review their game. Not too long after, the sequel got released and looked like it would be a VR exclusive. Until I noticed that it appeared on the Nintendo Switch eShop. So, I thought, maybe it also released on Steam, since after playing the Switch version, I felt like this game was better played with keyboard and mouse. Now, a non VR version is on Steam now… But is it worth it? Well, after playing the first sections of this game, I want to talk about it. The latest update was on May 28th, 2024 when writing this article. Now, before we dive right into it, I want to invite to you leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Risk of Staleness

In this game, we play as an unnamed miner who is throwing into the deep end, when his digger broke. You arrive at a mysterious valley. In this valley, a hardy explorer once did his research. But why? Which secrets are in these valleys and the accompanying mines? That’s for our miner to figure out. Now, the story is being told by various comic book pages you can uncover and, according to the Steam store page, has multiple endings. I’m quite curious where it’s going to go.

So far, I haven’t gotten too deep into the story. But, from what I can read on the Steam store page, I think it has potential. I have my doubts on how the multiple endings will work. Since comic books mostly have one ending, right? Unless, it all depends on which page(s) you find or in which order or where. That’s something I’ll discover when I’m deeper into the game.

If this game is like the original game, the story overall will take a backseat for the gameplay. And after 5 hours in, that’s the case. The original game didn’t have a lot of story to begin with, but more story in a game like this can be interesting.

There is one voice actor in this game. He does a pretty fine job and brings some life to the atmosphere. I replayed a bit of the first game and I have to be honest, I appreciate the small voice lines during the exploration. Even when you quickly hear every different line, it’s a nice break since they aren’t spammed and don’t appear that often.

One of the biggest changes in this game is that the cave this time around is randomly generated each time you enter. So, this game becomes a rouge like to a degree. But, you can always exit via the lifts to safety. Since, dying in the caves means that at least half of your obtained loot is dropped. The atmosphere this time around is very cohesive. This game presents itself as a sci-fi western game, and it really feels like that. Something I really like in this game is that it doesn’t go overboard in the sci-fi genre and stays grounded. The technology could realistically exist today, apart from the unique enemies in the cave, that is.

With the story taking more of a backseat, it’s quite important that the gameplay loop is enjoyable. The gameplay loop is simple, you have to explore the caves with 4 chosen tools. The three slots above the entrance give you a hint on which tools you will need to bring to gather the most loot. You take the lift down and gather loot, while fighting enemies and avoiding pitfalls to survive. The goal is also to find the other elevator that takes you down to the next level to gather even more valuable ores to bring to the top. You have to fill in the ores you gathered into the grinder to buy upgrades to your tools and environment to progress.

The big risk with this kind of gameplay loop is that this is just a different numbers game. What I mean by that is that, apart from maybe the visuals changing, the core concept is always the same. This risks that the game becomes stale and repetitive. It’s possible that it is just a “me thing”, but I enjoy games like this more when there are some variations on the gameplay or some different puzzles. Thankfully, this game has that. There are a lot of things you can upgrade and improve to make each run feel rewarding, and each type of cave you can visit has different enemies types and unique lay-outs to keep you on your toes. In a way, I dare to compare the idea a bit to Cult of the Lamb in a degree.

The music in this game is also a blast. It fits the atmosphere of each area like a glove. My favorite track is the track that plays in the lake caves. It sounds like you image a typical track like that to sound. And it gets more intense while you are fighting enemies down there. Now, the silent moments when the music doesn’t play feel a bit long, but I always know that there is more music coming and that it fits the atmosphere perfectly and draws me more into the game. Sadly enough, this isn’t the only problem with this game, and I’d like to talk about them.

No feedback

This game has an addictive gameplay loop, and I’m really curious how the multiplayer works. I haven’t tested the multiplayer in this game, but it looks like fun. Now, this game can be played solo perfectly fine.

Now, I don’t know if VRKiwi took the VR version as a base for the non VR version, since I have the impression, that is the case. I especially notice that with the controls in this game. It feels a bit floaty, like you aren’t really connected to the ground. It also feels a bit stiff, like you have to move your mouse like you would a VR headset. You really have to play with the settings until you hit that sweetspot that feels right for you. For me, I had to lower the sensitivity to 80, amongst other things. I highly recommend that you tweak the settings to your liking, since on the Nintendo Switch version, I had to lower the sensitivity to 40 before it felt right.

Still, the character control doesn’t feel right. At first, I thought it was because the controls felt floaty… But, after some testing, I think I found a few other problems with the character control that might cause it to not feel quite right. First, the jump in this game is just silly. You can’t really rely on it, since it doesn’t always trigger when you hit the spacebar, and it’s just a pathetic jump. You can’t even jump out of ankle high water sometimes.

Secondly, there are no sound effects for walking on most floors. You feel like you are floating, and it’s jarring when you suddenly hear a sound effect when you walk over a table or a railway. Thirdly, climbing on ropes amongst other things is just insanely picky. There is also no real feedback or sound to show you grabbed the rope. Fourthly, the scroll order between tools is extremely weird. You get numbers on the wheel counter clock wise. But you go down, right, left, up. Which still confuses me after 6 hours of playing this game.

And finally, some things are extremely picky. For example, there are safe riddles you can solve down in the caves. But to rotate the letter wheels to make pick the right letter is more difficult to do. All of these things give you a feeling that you aren’t always in control of your character and that you don’t get the feedback as a player on what’s happening. Making you unsure what’s happening and doubt if you are doing the right thing.

Prompts like “Use W/S to use the crank” should be “Hold W/S to use the crank”. Since, you need to hold the key instead of pressing it. Small things like that could also improve this game and it’s controls quite a lot. Overall, the controls are good, but they lack feedback to the player sometimes. Either with sound effects or with some visual effects. Like with the hammer, you barely have any sound effects when you use it, and it has some wind up animation, making you unsure if you are using it or not.

That is one of the biggest flaws in this game. The lack of feedback on your actions. Things like not knowing how many bullets are still left in your revolver or a sound effect when you hit an actual enemy. I think if there is one thing I’d use the built-in feedback tool is to report various cases/moments when I expect feedback from the game, like a sound effect or visual effect. Maybe they appear in the form of rumble effects… But, I’m not playing this game with a controller.

When you read this section of the article, I wouldn’t blame you if you think that this game isn’t good. Small bugs like the text of “Press R to reload” when your gun isn’t equipped or the bullets not leaving from the gun but from the player model don’t improve things either. Yet, I find myself looking past these problems since the core gameplay still works. I find myself getting used to the jank in this game and finding a very rough diamond. If the developers keep up with their promise of improving this game, I think that more action feedback will bring a lot to the game and maybe fixing the small bugs like in this paragraph as well.

Things like the animation of the shovel looking weird sometimes. The animation looks like the arms go through each other after a dig. Speaking of the shovel, the last dig is annoying since you have to move a pixel or two for it to count and give you your goodies. But the bug I’d love to see fixed most is the freeze for several seconds when you pick up something new or get a new codec entry. The game locks up like it’s about the crash, but it doesn’t.

What’s next for us?

Usually, I’m not really picky when it comes to the visuals of a game. As long as a game looks consistent, I’m quite happy. It needs to have a certain style so that you can quickly identify what’s what and enjoy the game.

Yet, for this game, I do have some things that I not really like in terms of the visuals. Firstly, the contrast of some ores and the floor isn’t clear enough. Sometimes I was passing up on ores since I wasn’t able to notice them on the ground.

There are also a lot of objects to give more details to the cave, but you can barely interact with them. I’d love to see lilly pads in lakes to move a bit when you walk past them or something more than just being able to clip through them. As well, a sound effect when you hit a wall you can’t mine. You get shouted at when you use the wrong or a too weak tool on something, so when not for the rest?

I think the biggest mistake that the visuals make is that it has an identity crisis. What I mean by that is that it isn’t a cohesive style. There is a lot of shell shading going on, but there is also a lot of details that give off a more realistic vibe. Some textures aren’t detailed enough and strechted too wide giving wrong impression the rest of the visuals that look more modern. The floor textures sometimes suffer most from this issue.

Looking back at this article, I think I’m being very critical for this game. I have played a lot worse and broken games for 15€. But, in this game you even have customisation options for your character and thee developers are extremely open for feedback. This game has a lot going for it. Fun achievements to hunt for, bosses at the end of runs and an amazing auto save system.

Apart from improving the character controls and adding some feedback on actions, I think this game is pretty decent. Yes, there is some polish missing like not having a tooltip with the lever at the cave entrance on what that lever does. I personally feel less conflicted about this game compared to the original. The growth in this title is immense and brings me a lot of hope for either some amazing updates, DLC or a new entry in the series.

The basis of for an amazing title is here and if you look past it’s short comings, this game is a blast to play. Maybe it’s a bit too repetitive for some and can be more fun in short bursts. But, when this game sinks it’s hooks into you, it really clicks. There is some polishing left to do and for a rather new VR focused developer, this is amazing. It’s their second non VR game and it shows a lot of promise.

The game is a perfect relaxing game to wind down, since it isn’t too difficult. The game is rather forgiving. I wouldn’t be surprised that I play this game after work to wind down and try and finish it slowly. Then again, while I’m writing this, I have summer holidays and I wouldn’t be surprised that I finish most of this game during my summer break.

Like I said earlier, I feel less conflicted about this game compared to the previous title. This game has a lot more going for it compared to the original. It’s less repetitive and it has a lot more going for it. It has it’s problems, yes. But, if you enjoy games like Minecraft, Steamworld Dig or Cave Digger, give the demo of this game a chance. The demo gives a very good idea on what you can expect from this game and if you enjoy it, buy the game. I’m enjoying myself quite a lot with this game and I’m happy that I have chosen the PC version over the Switch version since I feel like it just plays better. But maybe, if I get used to the Switch controls, I might enjoy it on Switch as well.

With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. Maybe when I finish this game, I might write a full review with the final thoughts and opinions on this game. But for now, I think the best conclusion for this game is that it’s an amazing step up from the original and besides some unpolished things… It’s a great game and comes recommend from me.

So, it’s time to wrap up this article with my usual outro. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then have a great rest of your day and take care.

Preview: Conquer Humanity (PC – Steam) ~ Let’s Go Rouge.

Steam page

In this article, I’m taking a look at a game that’s going to release in the first half of 2023. The developer send me a Steam key for the full version that’s still in development. But, if you get interested in playing this game right after this article, there is a demo available on the Steam store page. In this article, you’ll also get my 100% honest opinion on the game. I’ll take a look at what I played and what I think should be in the full version. So, should we conquer humanity, and should we become a super villain like the Steam store page suggests, or should we wait until this is a bit more polished or skip it outright? Well, that’s what I’m trying to discover with you in this article. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Editoral note: the release of the full version is set in Q1 2023 at the time of writing.

Simulation Devil

In this game, you enter a simulation where you are a super villain with various powers. Your goal is to destroy and kill as much as you can before you are defeated yourself.

You do this in a very large map where people are spawned around you. But, the more destruction you cause, the more police will come after you.

To defeat the game, you’ll have to reach level 30. The more people you kill, the more XP you’ll get. If you get a great kill streak and do it in style you’ll get a better ranking and earn more XP and do more damage that way. Compare the style thing to Devil May Cry in a way.

This game is anything but easy. You really have to manage your powers and movement strategically. Since, the smallest mistakes get brutally punished. You have ten lives and no way to get any back. You are able to heal, but you’ll have to kill for that. So, getting surrounded might be your end.

This game is described as a brutal, fast-paced, isometric bullet hell. And I honestly can’t describe it better. For this review, I have played several rounds and I had a really hard time getting further than level 15. I’m a bit on the fence on the difficulty curve, since I honestly think that with one change… This game can become way more fair.

The big issue with this game is that you are directly thrown into the deep end. You are dropped into the simulation with 6 powers on a cool down and a few other mechanics. You barely have any chance to get used to everything, since after a few kills… The police spawns, and you have to be quick on your feet. Now, you do have the sandbox mode to get used to the game. Yet, here the powers aren’t on cooldown, and you don’t see the blue level up bar or the powers.

I think it would give the game a better flow if the player is nudged first to the sandbox mode where you have to reach something like level 10 using the different mechanics. Since, I felt close to overwhelmed with all the different mechanics and I felt that I first had to figure a lot of things out before I was able to attempt the actual game mode.

I don’t want to sound like “this game is too difficult for me, make it easier…”. I just feel that if you give new players too many mechanics at once without them having a way to learn them or practice them, they aren’t going to have a fun time. And I think if you add a mode or a few optional tutorial stages to get used to the game would be a blessing. And I really mean, optional. So people who want the experience of jumping into the deep end can still do it. But, others who want to know how everything works can ease themselves into the game. Since, if I’m brutally honest, the controls manual is helpful if you know how everything works. It’s too bare bones for newcomers. Like, why not add the icons of the powers in the controls manual?

Did it fail?

This game is difficult, and it’s a game you will have to get gud at. Once you learn the different powers and when to flee, this game is actually quite enjoyable. This game has the “one more attempt” mentality nailed down. After you are defeated, you can get right into the action in seconds and try again.

The game also has a built-in timer, which can open the gates for speed runners and other competitions as well. Maybe it would be fun to have a leaderboard with the fastest times and the longest survival times in the full game.

And maybe like an endless mode that started on easy and at certain level milestones, it goes to a higher difficulty?

Are there other things I would like to see in the future? Of course! First, I’d love to see a way to change the key binds. It’s something I mention quite often in my PC reviews, but I get annoyed when the game forces WASD on you and don’t keep in account that there are a lot of countries which have another keyboard layout. Here in Belgium, we use an AZERTY layout, and that means I have to set my hand in a pretty weird spot to move. Since our “A” is where the “Q” is and our “W” is where the “Z” is. And then the powers having keys close to WASD… I only have two hands and I still have to control the mouse.

Speaking off the mouse, I think a controls flaw is created there. I noticed that I had trouble preforming my push move because that was clicking with your scroll wheel. Which is all good and well, but using your scroll wheel actually zooms in or out. So, if you didn’t click in the chaos of this game, and you actually scrolled, well… Yeah, that’s an attack that didn’t happen. Which is sadly not limited to the push attack. There is another attack that I feel either isn’t as powerful or the visuals don’t communicate it’s power/range enough. When pressing Control, you can do a slam down attack. But, it’s not only unclear how big the radius is… it’s also unclear how strong it is.

In this game, it’s important that the visuals communicate with the player what’s happening. All in all, the visuals feel “last gen” but I honestly don’t mind that. It optimizes the game quite a lot, and you get a stable game to play. Also, it makes it easier to read what’s going on around you and makes it easier to make the right decision. I think it would be handy in the future to have a sort of radar in the right corner. Since, it would be helpful to know where the police and such are if you flew too far away.

Speaking about flying, that’s something I want to address as well. In the small manual, it teaches you that you can start hero mode by pressing “H” when you reached at least the “A” style rank. Yet, when you start the game, you get a free hero mode and only get a “B” rank. Now, it’s unclear that the message of “A” style rank still has to be on the screen or not… But there isn’t a way to know if you can activate hero mode or not.

In addition to that, I think there might be something strange going on with the flying… Since, once you lose your first life, you loose hero mode. And when you press the fly button then, you sprint away. Very slowly, sprint away. Yet, I had trouble starting to sprint several times when I press moving.

It’s early simulation

Reviewing or talking about early access games is quite tricky. Especially when they are still in development. You never know in how much detail you should go since a lot of things can change when you get the final product.

For example, I really like the animation system in this game. It’s goofy and gory, which fits this game like a glove. Especially when you make a great combo attack… The slowdown to show you the result of your attack is eye candy. And sometimes a much-needed small break in all that intense action.

That’s something I sometimes missed in this game. A spot or a moment to get a breather from the action. It’s intense all the way through, and you can’t let your guard down at all, or you are done for. And your ability to earn any of the achievements is done for.

Another example is that sometimes there is no music during gameplay. I had several times when the track just stopped playing and no new music track started. Sadly, it ruins the atmosphere, but I think this is something that will be fine-tuned and patched when the game releases.

Speaking of the music, the music is a nice heavy metal track that plays. I really enjoy it, and I’m curious to hear the full soundtrack once the game goes out of early access. Since, it’s the perfect music genre for this style of game. In terms of sound effects, this game is fine but still has some work. Sometimes you hear “god dammit” and I can’t say if it’s my character getting damage or a human dying.

Something I’m really on the fence about is that this game doesn’t have a save system. So, that means you’ll have to do each run in one sitting. I think that’s a shame since if you are in a good run and something happens like automatic Windows updates restarting your computer out of nowhere… It’s the end of the run. And failed runs don’t count for your “best run” in the main menu.

Finding the right balance between challenge, fun, and options is extremely tricky. I have no clue how to implement a save system during a run of this game. And it might open the door for a lot of other issues.

Just like deciding on the cooldown period of your powers. Personally, I feel that sometimes the cooldown is a bit too brutal. Quite often, I felt that the laser power cooldown was a bit too slow. Maybe I’m using the wrong strategy of running away from the cops and trying to kill the small gatherings of humans I left around the map, but the cops are faster than your laser power can regen.

So, what do I think so far of Conquer Humanity? Well, I think this game has an addictive concept where the fundamentals are here. It has that “one more try” and “one more round” written all over it. But, it still needs some polish with the controls and animations. Its biggest flaw is currently that the game doesn’t really explain all its mechanics enough for players to learn how everything works. So for newcomers to these type of games, it’s not the game to get into the bullet hell genre.

I recommend that you give this game a shot and give your thoughts and/or opinions to the solo developer since I think that this game has a lot of potential to be an amazing small indie title to test your skills at crowd control and bullet hell. I might be brutally hard, but it’s a game that feels rewarding for the small progress you made. I highly recommend this game to everybody who is looking for an action/arcade type game and looking for a great challenge with it. Since, there is a lot of game to learn here and it’s going to beat you, several times.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game in this preview. I might take a look at this game once it’s released to see what’s the finished product is. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Android Games – Let’s start playing on my phone again.

It has been quite some time since I wrote an article with short reviews of Android games, has it not? Lately, I have been focussing on the bigger games and I haven’t given the smaller games some time to shine on my blog. Also, when I was talking about a smaller game, I wrote a longer article on it instead of a short review. But, since I’m currently working on bigger articles and I didn’t want to skip this week, I decided I wanted to bring this series back and start talking about a few smaller games I have been playing on my phone lately. So, let’s start talking about smaller Android games and let’s take a quick look if they are worth your time/money. Also, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and opinions on the games and/or the content of this article.

ProgressBar95

Steam version – Android version

For those who don’t know, I’m 28 years old, and I also have a day job. This day job is being an IT admin in a big art secondary school (high school for some) here in Belgium. My work days are filled with solving problems that teachers and students have, improving our IT infrastructure, developing our website… Apart from that, I’m also a big fan of old tech and I love messing around with old computers and technology.

So, when I came across ProgressBar95 on the app store, I downloaded the game right away. And I fell in love with it right away. The game keeps true to its tagline that this game is a “hypercasual UI game”. The main idea of this game is that you are a progress bar that needs to catch dropping squares to make the progress bar progress. Blue and light blue are good ones, orange are errors but still help you in progress. Pink detracts from your progress bar, so you can get rid of orange squares if you want.

Depending on how well you do, the amount of points you get to unlock various upgrades to your computer. The higher your level, the more difficult this game becomes and the more points you can earn. This game also works with lives, but if you run out of lives, you don’t have to wait a certain amount of time for them to recharge and try the game again.

So, the interface of this game is top-notch. It nails the ascetic of being a computer amazingly. For example, to toggle sound on or off, you can press the sound icon in the bottom right of the computer. If you click the “EN” of the language toolbar, you can switch languages. It also has a colorblind mode, cloud saving, multiple game modes and one of the best ways to handle microtransactions I have seen.

The different gameplay modes I have played so far is a sort infinite runner Wolfenstein game and a “dodge the red numbers and get to the bottom of an Excel spreadsheet”-game. They add so much variety to the game and I love going between them if I’m bored with one game mode.

The biggest recommendation I would give to you is that you buy the extremely cheap “no-ads” package. Overall, the ads aren’t annoying but the game improves so much without forced ads. Now, if you look at the whole shop, you might think that this game is a “pay-to-win” or a money sink. But, no. You can pay to unlock all other levels but 99% of the stuff in the store can be earned easily in-game by winning levels or doing side quests.

It’s clear that this game has a lot of love put into it and I have a hard time finding anything negative about this game. Apart from this game being extremely niche and the game being a little boring for extend playthroughs… But yeah, I honestly would recommend this game to all my other retro gamers or people who are into computer science. It’s an amazing and refreshing experience.

Score: 5/5.

Word Lanes

Android store

So, when I’m in a waiting room or have some time to kill, I love playing small games. Especially when they are puzzle games like word searches or connect the dots to give two examples.

In Word Lanes, you are presented with a grid of letters, and you have to find all the words that fit the clues at the top. Each letter can only be used once and the letters have to connect horizontally or vertically to be used in a word.

This game is rather relaxing, and it’s a great way for me to unwind. I also love how the game is fully translated into my native language. The only complaint I have about that is the fact that as a Belgian person, I always have to struggle when the hint is talking about something from the Netherlands. But, I always report them with a handy report feature after you solved a clue. With this report feature you can report typo’s, wrong clues and things like that.

I’m also on the fence about the microtransactions. You earn coins to use the hint features after beating a level, but I feel I always don’t have enough. Thankfully, you have these daily rewards and saving them up is easy then. Honestly, I just think that the prices of the power-ups are a tad bit too high.

But hey, that’s a minor complaint. Since this game has so much enjoyment to offer and the ads aren’t THAT intrusive and only play between levels. Also, quite frequently, I have an option where the ads are disabled for one day. This is amazing and actually makes me consider buying the “no ads” package since I got a free trial.

Score: 4/5

Reigns

Android store

Way back in 2017, I wrote an article about Questr. A game that has some “Tinder” style gameplay while being a questing game. Now, that game was more about adventuring while you created your party with a sort of Tinder app. In this game, the main feature of Tinder of swiping left to reject or right to approve, is set into a “choose your own adventure” game.

Reigns is published by DeveloperDigital and is so close to be amazing, it’s painful. The gameplay is quite addictive, and I love taking decisions as an immortal king on how my kingdom should progress. The atmosphere, sound effects, music and visual design is amazing. It really pulls you into the game and I love playing the game but…

It’s way too easy to take a decision. It’s too sensitive. I had several moments where I was choosing between two options and just because I hit the edge of one side a bit too much, the game decided for me. And not only that, my phone doesn’t have physical buttons anymore and quite often, I had the game deciding for me just because I swiped down to see the time or see my latest notification.

There is also no “message log”. So, when you put the game down for a moment, you can’t see the history of what happened. And if I want to change the options during gameplay, though luck. The menu only appears when see the progress between kings.

This game has a lot of amazing elements like having to balance your four powers and the various twists and turns certain decisions and pathways can take, but it has various rough edges, I fell so mixed about this game. Maybe the PC version of the game is better, but I feel like this game works best as a mobile game. But, I feel like the mobile version just got a few rough edges. For example, I had to look up a way to reset your progress in the game. It turns out you have to hold two fingers on to have the reset screen to show up.

Yet, I advise people who enjoy adventure games to give this game a go. But be warned, the mobile version has some rough edges. But, for the low asking price of this game and the amount of content in this game, I can say for a fact there is a LOT worse out there. And I’m also so glad that this amazing concept got a few sequels as well… So, I know what to play next on my phone.

Score: 3.5/5

Wrapping up

I’m so glad that I gave this format another go and revived it. It allowed me to talk about three Android games I wanted to showcase on my blog, but I didn’t have the time for or wasn’t able to write a good enough “long” article about. I think I’ll revisit this format more often in the future and maybe also use it when I play small games on Steam, Switch or other platforms.

Then again, with my busy lifestyle and the backlog of games I still want to cover, I can’t promise how frequent I’ll write articles like these. I also challenged myself to be brief and short in this article and I had the urge to keep writing about these three games. So, if you want a more in-depth article about one of these games, let me know in the comments.

So, with that said, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in a future article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Review: Blood: Fresh Supply (PC – Steam) ~ He lives AGAIN.

Blood_logoWikipedia entry – Steam link – Steam link
The Build Engine. One of the biggest game engines ever created in 3D shooter history. Three landmark titles have been created in that engine called Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and today’s topic: Blood. Back in the day, I used to download a lot of old archived shareware or demo versions of old DOS games. In one of these adventures, I downloaded the demo for the legendary Blood, and I was hooked. At the time, things like Steam weren’t what they are today and I still was in secondary school (high school for you Americans) and too young to start a holiday job. Then, on one summer Steam sale, I found this game for a rather cheap price and I thought: “Why not.”. So, I bought the game for €1 and moved on with my day. Then, COVID-19 happened last year, and I was looking through my game library to play after work. I booted up Blood, and it got my top 10 games of 2020 list. Why did I give this game a spot on my top 10 games list? What did I like so much about this game to place it on that list? Let’s find out together while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts/opinions on the content of the article and/or the game.

He lives AGAIN

Blood 1In this game, you take on the role of Caleb. Caleb has a reputation for being a merciless gunfighter from the Midwest. Caleb is a servant of the god Tchernobog and his minions called ‘The Cabal’. Now, for some reason, our “friendly” god kills Caleb and his fellow chosen for whatever reason and dumps Caleb in a grave. Caleb rises up from his grave several years later, and he is looking for vengeance of course.

Like your typical old school 3D shooters, the story isn’t the main focus of this game. Most of the story in this game is told through cutscenes at the start and end of a chapter and the environment that you are going through. Speaking about which, there is are  a lot of moments like: you start on the train you that you crashed in the previous level. The whole game feels interconnected due to small details like that.

There are a few cutscenes in the game that enhance the story by a little. The reason I’m saying only a little is that the total runtime of these cutscenes is give or take only 5 minutes. Which is a shame, since the cutscenes really added to the atmosphere of the game. On the other hand, I think that if this game had more cutscenes, it would overpower the gameplay and the environmental story telling.

There is voice acting in this game. Of course, you have your typical enemy shouting that is as immersive as the cowboy shouting from Outlaws. You also have your wise-cracking main character Caleb voiced by Stephan Weyte. Stephan also did voice work for one of my favorite edutainment companies Humongous Entertainment. He voiced several side characters in the Pajama Sam and Freddi Fish games. Before I start rambling about unrelated things for this review, I have to say that Stephan killed it with his performance in this game. His delivery is extremely memorable, and I love his voice work for this game. A fun fact is that the voice acting for our evil god has been done by the executive producer Jace Hall.

Should you play Blood for the story? Oh, heavens no. Don’t misunderstand me here, the story of this game is fine, but it is far from the best story you can experience in a shooter. The story is there to set the mood and set up the atmosphere of this game and to help you immerse yourself in the game. But, nothing more nothing less.

Now, if we check on the Blood Wiki on the amount of different versions and ports that this game got we learn that there are two versions of this game on Steam. You have Blood – Fresh Supply and Blood – One Unit Whole Blood. At the moment of writing, the “One Unit Whole Blood” version has been removed from Steam and the “Fresh Supply” version is still up for sale. I found a nice forum post about the biggest differences on the GOG.com forums between the two versions. As the title suggests, I played Fresh Supply for this review.

Crazy cultists

Blood 3I don’t think I have to explain what you have to do in old school 3D shooter games. You have to fight various enemies, find keys to open doors, do some platforming and solve some puzzles. Personally, I compare this game in a way to games like Heretic and Duke Nukem 3D. It’s an old school 3D shooter with amazing weapons and power ups to aid you in your battle against your enemies. There are a lot of different enemies with their own attack sound, strengths, and weaknesses.

Most of the weapons in this game has a secondary fire mode. For example, the double barred shotgun secondary fire shoots both bullets at once or the Tommy gun’s second fire let out a burst of bullets where you swing the weapon back and forth. You can even use one weapon as a turret and another weapon is a voodoo doll.

But the most iconic weapon in Blood is the dynamite. There are big differences in terms of the dynamite you can use. You have your normal dynamite, proximity, and dynamite you can remotely detonate. Depending on the chosen difficulty, the skill to use your weapons and especially dynamite is essential to your survival. I can’t count how many times I had to resort to dynamite to “thin out the herd”.

Speaking about the difficulty, if you aren’t too familiar with all Blood’s mechanics and secrets and different routes, I don’t advise the higher difficulty settings. I have to admit that I’m not the most skilled player when it comes to shooters and I had an extremely hard time with the medium setting. Get used to the mechanics of this game before you play on the highest difficulty settings and thank me later. The game is otherwise too frustrating for newcomers.

Earlier, I said that this game feels quite interconnected due to the level design. That start of the level represents the previous level. Most of the levels have a sort of linear design. You have to backtrack quite rarely. Yet, I found myself stuck in a few levels and the map system, while impressive, was far from helpful. Now, in terms of map systems, I think I might be spoiled by the more modern design methods where the key door locations are marked on your map.

Sadly enough, there are some moments that the level design wasn’t the best. For example, I found one or two spots where you can get soft locked. But more annoyingly, I found some monster rooms quite annoying since the exit gets locked, and you have to go switch hunt. I think these moments could have benefitted from Caleb saying: “Where is the switch” when interacting with the door.

This game is controlled through mouse and keyboard. While this game has controller support, I only played this game through mouse and keyboard. I didn’t have any problems with the controls and felt they worked amazingly. After a minor bit of tweaking to fit the AZERTY lay-out better that we use here in Belgium, I was able to master the responsive controls.

Visually, this game still looks fine. The visual improvements you can choose to either enable or disable are a great way to choose between the vanilla textures and the newer “more modern” visuals. Of course, this game really shows its age in the visual department but, that isn’t a bad thing for this game. I still find that the visual atmosphere is created amazingly, and I feel that the world still feels somewhat real and alive.

Something that truly impressed me are the animations. The animations in this game are a masterclass in how animations should look in shooter games. Enemies that get shot in the legs crawl towards you and keep shooting, enemies set on fire with a flare run around crazily… And that are just two examples.

Very rarely, I found some visual glitches. In one level there was some Z-fighting with a pillar switch. (Z-Fighting is when two textures overlap and the game can’t decide which one to show, so it flickers in between them.) In some spots, the shells of the Tommy gun vanished. These moments were thankfully rare and didn’t impact gameplay too much.

Dynamite

Blood 2The sound design in this game is extremely important. If you don’t pay attention to the well crafted sound effects, you might miss some important enemy cues especially from the zombies. Since those don’t die right away from the weaker weapons. So, yeah, heard of hearing and deaf people are disavantaged when it comes to this game.

Sadly enough, the soundtrack could have been better. I feel that it’s too short and for some reason, it bugged out during my playthrough and it didn’t always play. While I was writing this section of the review, I was listening to the soundtrack on YouTube and I heard some tracks I haven’t heard in the game. While the music in itself is quite good and adds a lot to the atmosphere but it being only around 30 minutes, I felt that the soundtrack is too short for the game’s length.

This game has the perfect length for a shooter game like this. This game packs all the expansion packs so that means that a casual playthrough might take you around 10-ish hours. If you want to go for 100% you might be able to double that. But, this game gets so much more challenging and rewarding when you play it on higher difficulty settings so you might be able to get a lot more hours out of it than that.

Now, there is one thing in terms of the UI I really didn’t like. That’s the weapon wheel / ammo system. Let me explain. In the bottom center, you can see how much ammo you have for your weapons. Just like in other shooters from that time period, you have no idea which number corresponds with which weapon. It still shows “0″ even when you don’t have that weapon. The weapon wheel also doesn’t really show well to which weapon it’s going to switch since, it’s a wheel. When you pass the last weapon, it goes back to the first.

There is one thing I feel that the game totally dropped the ball on. And that’s the saving system. It’s not that the saving system doesn’t work, but it’s extremely bare bones. This game uses manual saving. There is no checkpoint saves when you enter a new level, but that isn’t such a big problem. I don’t mind manually saving once in a while I enter a new level or passed a difficult section. What I do mind is that the load system doesn’t give you ANY information in which level the save is. On top of that, you only have a limited amount of save slots and no visual information when you successfully saved the game. I worked around it by naming my saves with the level name like: “E1M3” (Episode 1 Map 3) and some additional info, but it shouldn’t be such a pain. Thankfully, we have a way better system now-a-days.

A minor thing that I really didn’t like in this game is the respawn mechanic. Of course, when you die, you are going to respawn at the start of the level with only your pitchfork. No problem there. But, the issue is in my opinion that the reloading just take a bit too long for my liking. It’s always faster to load your save from the pause menu then waiting on the game to respawn you. It might also save you some frustration since “pitchfork starting” isn’t always the most enjoyable way to play some levels.

This game also has Steam Achievements. These were a whole lot of fun to try and get. After I had beaten the game, I got 6 out of the 20 achievements. I could have gotten more but for some reason, my game glitched out and some achievements are still locked. Oh well, all the more reason for me to play through the game again at a later date.

There is quite a long list of references in this game. While I was 5 years old at the time of the original release, I had to admit I was able to pick up on several references. Maybe my love for retro games and retro media might have helped me out quite a lot there.

Oh, before I forget, there is a multiplayer mode in this game. I’m sorry but I haven’t played it at all so I’m not going to comment on it. But, from what I have read and seen, you both have your typical death match gameplay and a way to play through the campaign in a co-op fashion. That is sounding quite interesting for when I can let friends come over again.

And with that said, I think it’s high time for me to wrap up this review. I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game and before I ramble on and on, I’m going to wrap up this article in a neat conclusion like I usually do for my review articles.

Conclusion time

The good:

+ Amazing shooter with replay value.

+ Easy to learn but oh so difficult to master.

+ Still good looking after all these years.

+ Amazing audio design.

+ …

The bad:

-The save and load system isn’t the best.

-The weapon wheel is a bit broken.

-Some softlocks / switch hunting moments.

Final thoughts:

Blood is a game that came out in 1997. This game is almost 25 years old and I have to say that this game still holds up amazingly well. The visual improvements that the Fresh Supply remake brings to the table are amazing. It gives a breath of fresh air in an already amazing game.

While I was researching this game, I found several video’s by one of my favorite YouTubers Civvie11. The release of this remake wasn’t the best. Thankfully, through the years, the game got various patches and updates that improved the game quite a lot to the point that I barely noticed the points that Civvie gave in his original “Blood: Fresh Supply is broken” video.

Apart from some flaws, this game holds up amazingly well. I knew that Blood had a high reputation when I started playing it and I was so happy when the game didn’t dissapoint me at all. Of course, I encountered some jank because this game isn’t the newest but that’s to be expected.

Would I recommend this game to people who enjoy shooters? Absolutely. This game gets an easy recommendation from me. The game costs only 8,2€ here and let me tell you, you can play a lot worse games for that price. The few issues this game have can be taken care off and they won’t hinder your playthrough too much. Is Blood one of the best retro game shooters? Easy answer, yes. Yes, it is. It’s as good as the original Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Duke Nukem and if you enjoy retro games and especially shooters it should be a crime to not at least give this game a try.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article and until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 95 / 100

Game Quicky: Grood (Switch) ~ Not That Three One.

CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v80), quality = 82Steam version – Nintendo.com page – Official website

Drageus Games is at it again, they published a new game called Grood. Not to be confused with Marvel’s character named “Groot”. Fun fact, groot is actually a Dutch word as well. When you literally translate it into English, it means big. Anyways, I’m getting off track. Drageus Games provided me with a press copy to take an honest look at this game and in this article I’m going to take a look at this 2,5D side scrolling shooter by CC_Arts. Is it any good or should you skip this indie title for 5€? Let’s find out while I invite you to shoot me a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this (game quicky) article. 

Editorial note: this review has been written while playing v1.1.0.

Load the canons!

the-woods1

The story of this game is short and simple. There are a lot of enemy robots and machines out there, so you build a big attack ship called Grood. You want to take on the enemy with this ship and you set out on a mission for it.

In terms of story, there isn’t much more. On one hand, this can be seen as a negative by some people but I personally see it as a positive for this game. The focus of this game is the gameplay and not telling a story. So, it doesn’t get in the way at all. Also, this time it’s in the game instead of only in the description of the game in the eShop.

Something that I found a huge positive for this game is the fact that there is a co-op feature. It would be a huge ask to have an online co-op as well, but hey. I’m surprised that there is a co-op mode. I do have a small nitpick about it, but I’m going to talk about that in the negatives section of this article.

Let me tell you, this game doesn’t fool around. The epilepsy warning at the start of the game is a serious warning since there are some flashing imagery in this game. This game is anything except a cakewalk. At first, I was afraid that this game would use a lot of unfair or unbalanced ways to make the game “more difficult” but I was pleasantly surprised.

This game hits the right balance at being challenging but not too challenging. The pattern of the enemies are easy to learn and avoid. This game doesn’t go into bullet hell mode or spawn a ton of enemies you have to damage through. In most cases, there are one or two enemies who are a bit too cheap in my opinion. At the start of the 3rd level, there is this ship that shoots lazers without too much of a warning in which direction making it too much of a cheap shot.

The damage system is quite interesting as well. The more damage you take, the less color there is during gameplay. Yet, this game throws an unique wrench in the mix. It simulates a broken screen so you have to also think where to aim your bullets since you can’t line them up properly anymore.

There is also this slow motion mechanic. Once you have defeated a certain amount of enemies, you can go into slowdown mode. Everything, even your own ship, slows down so you can plan out your shots even more. You notice how much more time you have in the slow-motion mode with the battery next to your score. It has to be full before you can start it and it has to be depleted to exit out of the mode. You can’t start or stop the slow-motion at will.

You could think that this game can be cheesed by hanging at the bottom at passing through the levels quite easily. Yet, you shoot yourself in the foot with that tactic. Since this game also focuses on high scores. There is even a leader board in the main menu. I only wish it told me on what platforms these scores where achieved since I would love to see which platforms have the highest score.

Visually, this game looks extremely nice. In terms of animation and visual presentation, I don’t have any complaints. The animation of text appearing is a nice touch and pleases the computer scientist in me greatly. The game runs quite smooth through the detailed terrain and I rarely experience frame drops or slowdowns.

Speaking of impressive visuals: you can play this game in “90’s love modus”. If you enable this option in the options menu, you go from the 3D visual artstyle to pixelart with the same attention to detail that the 3D-style brings. This makes the retro gamer inside of me extremely happy. I do have two minor complaints about it and that’s the score isn’t readable enough in TV mode as well as the health bar. But these can be fixed with a minor patch I think.

This game feels quite gratifying to play. The quite responsive controls is another part the helps achieve that fact. Add an nice metal soundtrack with great sound design and you get a game where you have that “one more round” mentality.

This game has been localized in 4 languages. Which I find a bit strange, since usually Drageus Games has more languages then 4. This game can be played in English, Russian, Spanish and Italian. Since I only speak English out of these 4, I can’t review or talk about the quality of the translation.

Let’s forget about the cannons

philosopher-path0No game is perfect, and this game made a few mistakes. Since I only played the Switch port, I can’t say that these issues appear on other platforms but these things were a bit of a downer on my experience.

First of all, let’s talk about the health situation. While the draining of color is a interesting mechanic that has been used in other games like Tomb Raider, sometimes it’s quite unclear how much health I still had left. This made me play too careful sometimes.

Secondly, let’s talk about that silly “continue” feature. I can understand that you only have one life and when you are death, you have to restart the whole game. But, I think it would make the game more accessible and ease the tension a bit when the player had more or infinite lives. With the consequence, that when a player died, there score was reset to 0 or they could “pay with their score” to revive. That way people can still finish the game but try and get a high score to get higher on the leaderboards. Also, that would provide a solution that you could only continue when you have beaten level 4.

Thirdly, let’s talk about the UI. It makes a few mistakes alright. While the visual design is quite cool and interesting to use… It suffers in the usability department. Take the credits for example, these are unreadable while you are in TV mode due to the angle of the menu.

Another bigger example is the options menu. Each option brings you to a submenu. Apart from the vibration option, that can be set in that menu. Now, if only you could feel a sample of the vibration and we would be set.

But the biggest issue with the UI I have is something quite simple. I find it extremely strange that you can’t go back to the main menu during gameplay. You either have to restart the game or have a game over.

Fourthly, in this negatives section of this article I want to mention that there is no overview of the controls. Since the tutorial only appears the first time and doesn’t appear after that, that means you have to figure out the game on your own if you take a break or let a friend play.

Fifthly, why o why isn’t there a sort of level leaderboard? Wouldn’t it be cool to know which are the high scores per level? Or in what level a certain high score was achieved?

And finally, let’s talk about the co-op mode. I do have one gripe with it. Earlier I talked about the health situation. Image that issue but now you have two ships and you are unable to tell who is almost dead and who has still a lot of health points. Let’s not forget to mention the fact that there is no tutorial in this game so your partner has to figure everything out from either you or trail and error.

So, let’s save or not?

Is this game worth it or should you skip it? Well, it depends. There is a lot going for this game. It’s challenging and fun. It has that one more round mentality and it has a lot of competition with the high scores and leaderboards. Yet, with only having one live, this game can feel quite unforgiving.

The biggest mistakes are made in the UI department. There are some things that really bothered me and made me quite thankful that the Switch has some features to easily reset the game.

Would I be able to recommend this game to anybody? Yes! I would recommend this game to anybody who enjoy side scrolling shooters. This game quite well done and has a lot of love put into it. It does have a ton of minor issues that make the game a bit less enjoyable but apart from the one live – restart situation, most of the things shouldn’t get too much in the way of enjoying this game.

I have left out one mechanic from this review for those who want to give this game a try and want to still have a surprise left. I’m rather curious what you guys and girls think about it. But, apart from that, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game.

So, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 3.5/5

Review: Paper Mario – The Origami King (Switch) ~ Fold And Turn

Official website – Wikipedia entry

2020 is quite a strange year. Back in May, we got a trailer for this game and to everybody’s surprise, the game dropped a few weeks later. The game has been out for around a month now and I have finished the game a few days ago. So, I want to talk about this game. Especially, since some people are quite curious how this game holds up compared to the previous entries in the series. The two previous entries in the series weren’t that well received, so will this game “save the series” or will it divide the fanbase even further like Color Splash? Let’s take a look at the game while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

Fold The World

So, the story starts a bit similar to Sticker Star. A festival is held in the (paper) Mushroom Kingdom and something goes horribly wrong. In this case, the princess is converted to origami and suddenly, you meet an evil origami character called Olly that wants to fold the whole world to origami.

In your journey to save Princess Peach and save the Mushroom Kingdom from certain destruction, you team up with the sister of the evil origami character called Oliva. She is able to grant you special powers that aid Mario in his quest.

To avoid spoiling the whole game or sections of it, I’m going to try to keep story explanations to a minimum. But, I do want to give my honest opinion of the story. The writing and the dialogues are pretty good, the pacing is excellent as well. I barely felt that any sections were filler or padding. But, the story isn’t thrilling at all.

The structure of the story is somewhat like the Pokémon anime series. Just replace the gym badges with the streamers and you have the structure of the story in this game. Barely any of the characters, apart from the main duo, of course, go from one section to another.

The next point I want to bring up with the story is that it’s a bit too predictable in my eyes. I can’t pinpoint exactly why but I felt that I experienced this whole story somewhere before or that I had seen the arcs. I think that the main issue with this game is that it barely does anything creative story-wise.

Does this game have a bad story? Well, yes and no. Apart from the predictability and the “safeness” of the whole story, the charm of the story is so great. I have a few ideas that could have improved the story. The first thing is the world-building, I felt that wasn’t done enough. For example, you have an area called “Picnic Road”. Why o why are there no picnic benches? I mean, one of the previous areas had a whole barbeque setup…

The second suggestion I have is that there could have been a bit more side stories. A great example is with Luigi. Side-arcs, side quests, or just things to explore on the side. I know that you can free toads, fill in Not-Bottomless Holes but in most cases, those don’t affect the story that much.

It almost feels that the developers just cut out several sections to improve the flow or the pacing but with that, they also cut out too much. Sometimes a bit of padding or filler doesn’t hurt.

Oh, and before I go to the next section, I usually talk about the voice acting and voice work right after the story. And I can finish my opinion quite fast. That’s something where I think they could have done more but on the other hand, the animations are so good during dialogues that the very little voice work is “replaced” if that makes sense.

Turn Your Way To Victory

One of the biggest criticisms of the previous two entries in the Paper Mario series was the battle system. The games before those had an RPG style battle system. Then in Sticker Star and Color Splash, we got more of a sort of puzzle system.

I think it would make this review too long if I start to analyze the flaws of the two previous battle systems. For the sake of going forward, let’s focus on the battle system of this game. There is no real RPG-style battle system in this game. But, something that does return somewhat is the buddies from previous games. Now, before you get too excited, the buddies just provide a chance of an attack after you finished yours. And that’s it.

Before I talk about the puzzle battle system, I do want to mention a huge improvement compared to the previous two titles. At certain moments, you can find a health improvement. Besides having more HP, these improvements have other implications on the mechanics of the game. For example, after a few upgrades, I was able to just jump or hit these Goomba’s with my hammer and I didn’t have to go into battle. The only downside is that you don’t get all your coins like you would have defeated them in the puzzle battle. But, it does save your weapons for each little encounter.

Speaking about weapons, I barely had any problem with those. At the start of the game, I just stocked up on weapons and healing items and I do have to say, I barely had to go to the shops in the game to stock up on items. The game is quite generous with items to use in battle. A bit too generous for my liking.

The game is a bit too easy. Apart from some scripted sequences, I barely saw the ‘game over’ screen. Also, quite rarely, I felt challenged during the battles. Even when I was unable to solve the puzzle in front of me, I was almost always able to beat the enemies with relative ease.

Now, what is this “puzzle battle” I’m talking about? Well, if you look at the screenshot a bit higher, you might notice that Mario is in a battle area with four rings. Your goal is to line up the enemies in a line or in a group of 2 by 2. You can do that by either rotating a ring or move planed vertically.

In order for you to solve the puzzle, you have a limited amount of moves and time. But, here is where some amazing game design shines through. During the adventure, you can buy various items that give you more time, health and defense during battles. You can enable or disable all of these items in the pause menu. On top of that, you can invest your coins in more time or cheering. Now, what is cheering? Well, that means you can invite the Toads you have rescued during the adventure to aid you in healing or solving the puzzle in front of you. The only moment where the Toads don’t solve the puzzle is during the boss battles. But more on that in a minute. So, if you find the game too easy, you can challenge yourself more by disabling all these support items and not cheering or buying more time during battles.

So, do you HAVE to solve the puzzles to be able to attack the enemies? Oh no, you don’t have to. It just gives you an attack bonus that can one-shot most enemies. Otherwise, you have to rely on your partner or block the attacks and try again. Also, just like the previous games, when you time your button press correctly during the attack, you do more damage to your enemies.

I could talk more in-depth about the battle system but I want to avoid that this review gets too long. So, I’m going to link you to an interesting article of a great blogging buddy of mine Adventure Rules, who talks a bit more in-depth on the battle system on his blog. Be warned, there are some spoilers in his article. (And yes, I know that he is going to read this article… And no, the fact that I’m shouting him out here has nothing to do with it… Maybe… Maybe not. 😉 )

Now, let’s talk boss battles. These battles are the highlight of the game for me. The sheer creativity in these battles is just amazing. Each boss throws a unique challenge your way that changes up the battlefield or the way you have to solve the puzzle. It’s really amazing stuff. I’m not going to talk more in-depth about it to avoid spoilers but I found myself saying out loud, several times, “wow, this is creative and unique.”.

Speaking about creativity, I’m still surprised at the huge amount of different puzzles in this game. Rarely I had similar or the same puzzle during the game and if there were, I barely noticed. I always had to think about how to line up those enemies to win.

Stardance

This review is getting quite long and I have only talked about the story and the battle mechanics. There is still so much to talk about in this rather enjoyable game. For starters, let’s talk about the Starman Theme in this game. I’m just blown away by the amazing remix that has heavy metal influences and electronic influences.

And the rest of the soundtrack, my lord. These tracks are just amazing. I think that this game might have my favorite soundtrack of 2020. If the soundtrack ever comes out on CD, you can be sure that I’ll add that to my collection. The soundtrack is even part of my playlist when I’m writing or games like Minecraft. Now, the sound design of this game is equally as well done as the soundtrack.

Overall, this game is visually quite impressive. In very rare cases, I found that some textures weren’t the best or that the scene had a tad bit too much lighting, but I think that most players won’t notice the moments that I noticed as a hobbyist critic.

The theming of the areas are quite well done as well. So yes, the visual presentation of this game is something to enjoy. It really shows the power of the Nintendo Switch in my opinion. The art style is also quite consistent, vibrant, and colorful. Couple that with great animations and you have a great and smooth running game. Speaking of smoothness, the only time I noticed some slowdown was during the loading of some battles.

The UI of this game is extremely well done. The only minor complaint I have is that you can’t change your weapons during a battle, but that isn’t such a big issue because you just need to remember to swap your weapons after a battle.

One thing I loved in this game is the mechanics in place to help players who have trouble with the game. The electronic manual is quite easily accessible and on top of that, there is a training area for when you need to practice your timings to hit enemies and such.

In most of this review, I have been praising this game and pointing out some minor flaws. To end off this review, let me talk about some things that I didn’t really like. The first thing is the overall running speed, I found that a tad bit too slow. After seeing how fast you can go to the Boot Car or on the ship, I found it a shame that there was no run button. That’s the biggest complaint I have about the controls.

The other issue I have with the controls is that it sometimes was a bit too tricky to hit some enemies with the hammer. But I think that the issue is that you are unable to interrupt the animation and most of the time I wished that I was faster with my hammer because I barely missed the enemy.

A nitpick I have about filling the Not-Bottomless Pits, I found that sometimes it was a bit too tricky to get in the right position to fully cover the hole with confetti. Thankfully, this problem occurred maybe two or three times in the whole game.

One of the biggest irritations in this game is how the bells work. You can buy three bells, one for hidden Toads, one for treasure, and one for hidden blocks. They ring when one of those is close, but I can’t tell the radius of those rings. Especially now when I’m trying to find some parts I have missed during my main playthrough.

But my biggest disappointment is the lack of a completion reward and post-game content. There is barely any post-game content to find and the completion reward is just a 5-second extended ending that changes barely anything. Oh, yes. You get a gold star instead of a silver star on your profile.

And with that said, I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game. I did leave certain things out of this review because I wanted you to have some surprises when you play this game. So yeah, it’s time for the conclusion.

Wrapping up

The bad:

-The bells can be a bit irritating.

-There is no post-game/completion reward.

-The walking speed can be a bit slow.

-Overall, the game is too easy. You have to create the challenge yourself.

The good:

+ Charming story (even when there was more that could have been done with it)

+ Amazing soundtrack.

+ Creative puzzles and battle mechanics.

+ …

Final thoughts:

It’s quite possible that you will see this game on my top 10 games of 2020 list. This game came out of nowhere and really blew me away. I was expecting an “okay” or a fine game but I was blown away. I can understand that Paper Mario veterans expected more out of this game, but I don’t think we are going to get an RPG Paper Mario in the near future.

I think that this game took major steps in the right direction of an enjoyable adventure game. I enjoyed my time with this game and I can recommend this game to everybody who enjoys adventure and/or puzzle games.

The biggest flaw of the game is that there is just a major lack of depth. There is so much more that could have been done and the game is over after 20-25 hours of gameplay. But, these 20-25 hours are quite enjoyable.

But this game gives me high hopes for the next Paper Mario game. Since if this is the direction that they are taking with the series, I’m carefully optimistic about the series again. While there is a very vocal veteran fanbase that wants the old school style of Paper Mario back, I think that is better suited for the Mario & Luigi series. I think that Paper Mario is better suited for games like this. But, that might be just me, I still have to beat the original Paper Mario trilogy.

But, I’m trying to see this game apart from the whole series that it originated from. And when I look at this game as a standalone game, I’m quite impressed with the game. Compared to the two previous games, this game makes a ton of improvements that make the game more enjoyable and entertaining to play.

Any with that said, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 85/100

Gaming Nostalgia: Mario & Luigi – Bowser Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey (3DS) ~ It’s inside me, Mario!

Wikipedia entry – Nintendo Microsite

Remember the Zelda project, Final Fantasy project, and the Tomb Raider project? Well, today a new project drops all about Mario! The mad man, The Well-Red Mage found over 100 bloggers to write about the Mario series in the style that I found several bloggers for talking about the Zelda series and the Tomb Raider series. In any case, of course, I’m a part of this collaboration of fine bloggers! Now, you can find the hub article where you can find links to all the other articles here: [LINK TO ZE HUB BABY!] And in this article I’ll talk about my adventures and thoughts of Mario & Luigi’s Inside Story + Browsers Jr.’s Journey. So, let’s go with this Mario RPG!

It’s a me, a remake!

This game tells the same story as the original Nintendo DS game released in late 2009. From what I can see, most of the changes in the game are focused on the graphics. While the original game has a more 2D look to it, the remake has a more 3D look to the visuals. You can see a great comparison in the video created by aWiibo where both versions are set side by side.

On top of that, this game has an additional story mode telling a story about Bowser Jr. This mode adds 7-ish hours of playtime if I compare the times on howlongtobeat.com. But, the game almost doubled in playtime for people who want to play the game to its full completion.

There is another writer taking a look at the DS version of this game, but I’m focusing on the remake of the game. While I haven’t finished the game for this article due to time constraints, I did some research to make this article interesting in another way.

Some random facts

So, did you know that this game is one of the final games released by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS? It wasn’t the last Nintendo published game on the 3DS however, that honor goes to another remake: Kirby’s Epic Yarn a bit later in March of 2019.

The title of this game in development was Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!!. Since it was the 3rd Mario & Luigi game. Before this game, we got Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga on the Gameboy Advance and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time on the Nintendo DS. So the title makes a lot of sense since it’s the 3rd game in the series.

For some reason, Nintendo skipped over remaking Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and remade this game. Partners in Time is the only one of the three first games that didn’t get a remake on the 3DS.

Something that I found quite strange is that there are a lot of leftover sound effects from Yoshi’s Story and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time in the rom for the original DS version. This isn’t the case in the 3DS version.

This game got two updates. The first update fixed an issue where you could soft-lock yourself with Luigi. In the second patch, a sound issue was fixed in the Music menu under records.

According to the TCRF (The Cutting Room Floor), there are various test rooms left in the final version. You can read about them in more detail on the page of this game.

After releasing this game, the developer AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy protection. Which is a shame since we might not see a Mario & Luigi RPG on the Switch. Maybe Nintendo can get the IP to another developer?

My thoughts

So, apart from those interesting facts about the development of this game; let’s give my opinion on this game. I won’t give my full opinion on this game just yet since I haven’t finished the game and I’m planning to write a review about this game in the future anyway.

Now, the tricky thing is that I had almost finished the DS version. I was close to reaching the final area. But then disaster struck. I lost my save file and I felt a bit too discouraged to restart the whole game to get to the point I was at.

It’s a darn shame since the game is quite a lot of fun to play. If you have played the two previous games, you know what to expect here in terms of gameplay. It’s an RPG where you play as Mario & Luigi, where the A button controls Mario and the B button controls Luigi. This is also the case in the battle mechanics where you have to rhythmically time your button presses to do more effective attacks.

The annoying thing is that I’m anything but rhythmic. So some battles took longer for me since I wasn’t able to do all the attacks at full damage. I did improve the more I played the game, but I rarely got consistent.

Yet, I did enjoy the game for silly and unique storytelling. In this game, something strange happens with the toads. They swell up like a balloon getting the nickname “The Blorbs”. After some investigation, all the affected toads act a strange mushroom created by the mad scientist Fawful. So, Princess Peach orders Mario & Luigi to set out and try and find a solution. But, then Bowser tries to kidnap Princess Peach. When this fails, Fawful lets Bowser eat a vacuum mushroom and this sucks Mario, Luigi and various other characters from the mushroom kingdom inside Bowser. Mario & Luigi have to help Bowser to regain his strength in order to escape and find a cure for the Blorbs.

The multiple layers of the story are something I truly love. The writing is rather humorous and lightweight. There isn’t a lot of voice acting, but the voice clips that are used help a lot to understand which emotion is in that certain part of the dialogue.

Bowser Jr.’s story takes place during the events of the main game. So, the additional story is a bit of a side story. Currently, I’m playing through it and I’m going to keep my opinions and this quite interesting side story a secret.

Now, I much prefer the visual upgrade from the remake over the original. I have looked at various screenshots and video comparisons of the original game and the remake. I think that the remake’s visuals feel more alive and pop that much more. It makes the original look more like a sort of Saturday morning cartoon from a decade ago.

Anyways, I think I’m going to end off this short look back at Mario & Luigi’s Bowser Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey. That’s a mouthful. That said, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Wahoo! You are a Super Reader! But the adventure doesn’t stop here… There’s more of this project in another castle! This article is just one level in an entire Super Mario Multiverse, a galactic collaboration between writers around the world sharing a bit of our hearts and memories about our favorite Mario games. Visit the Center of the Multiverse to see more:

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Game Quicky: Island Maze (Switch) ~ Each Island Is A Maze

SQ_NSwitchDS_IslandMaze.jpgOfficial Nintendo microsite – Drageus microsite

From time to time, I enjoy trying out cheap games. Especially when I have some budget leftover and I see a game that looks interesting. That’s why I agreed to write a small review article on Island Maze for the Nintendo Switch. It’s a game Drageus Games developed themselves instead of porting the game over. So, let’s take a look at this game with the review copy that the developers provided. Now, in this review, you will find my 100% honest opinion on the game but feel free to leave your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article down below.

Positives

islandmaze1

This game is quite easy to grasp and has an enjoyable concept. The idea is that you get to the goal in the least amount of moves possible. The catch is that you can’t move over a colored tile without the correct gem. So, you have to think about how your dice is going to move over the field before moving.

Now, the game might seem to limit in the controls department, but you have a lot of helpful tools at your disposal. You can rotate the camera, zoom in and out and even undo moves. You can also reserve the camera’s direction when it doesn’t feel right to you to control.

This game allows you to skip levels. Whenever you are stuck on a certain level, you don’t need to play that level. When you complete 10 levels with the least amount of moves, you unlock every level.

The music is quite relaxing. It fits the atmosphere of the game amazingly well. Together with the amazing visuals, the game looks and sounds amazing. Maybe a bit more sound effects would be nice but then again, I think I would get sick of the dice rolling sound effect extremely quickly. Maybe one or two sound effects in the menus would be nice.

Negatives

is_s6

There are a few glaring issues in this game that I want to address.

The first issue is that the undo button only works for one move. So, if you noticed a mistake that you made ten moves ago, you better restart.

Secondly, there is no hint system. So, when you are stuck on a level, there is no way for you to know more. So, if you don’t understand a new mechanic right away… You will have to experiment.

For some reason, the “-” button brings up the controller connect menu of the Nintendo Switch. This serves no purpose in the game at all.

The naming of this game is a bad decision. If you Google: “Island Maze”, the results are mostly the island mazes from Breath of the Wild. If this game was a simple hobby project, I wouldn’t mind it too much. But, I think that in future the developers should pay a bit more attention to the naming in case they want to promote their game online more easily.

This game has been out for a year on Steam. Compared to the Steam version, which is a tad bit cheaper mind you, nothing has been changed. I think that after a year, the game could use some new levels and mechanics to give the game a bit more depth.

Final Thoughts – Conclusion

is_s1This is a good game, but it’s on the wrong platform. The audience for the Nintendo Switch isn’t an audience for quick and short casual games like this game. I think that the game would be better suited for mobile platforms. I felt that touch controls would work better for this game. Honestly, the game gave me that sort of vibe.

Apart from the broken undo system, I don’t see anything wrong with the game. This game is a cheap and enjoyable puzzler that can be entertaining for a rainy afternoon or when you are waiting for the doctor or when you are traveling on the bus or something of that nature.

I’m just a bit sad to see that this game is so short while the concept has a lot of promise. I enjoyed my time with this game but I wouldn’t blame people when they get bored with this game or skip it.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 3/5

Publishing: How to Tell a Hardware Problem From a Software Problem

Jonez note: This article has been written by the fine folks over at https://businessservicesweek.com if you are interested in various topics you should surely take a look at their site. I found this guest post article quite interesting, so I decided to post it. I found it so interesting, I might revisit this topic in the future with my personal advice.

A computer is made up of various different layers and components, all put in place to perform specifically for the computer’s needs. When a computer breaks or has malfunctioned, it can be a big pain and cause various different issues – especially if you use the computer for work.

save

When we are subject to a computer issue, it can be hard to determine where the problem is coming from. We have been groomed to just instantly turn it off and on again and pray for the best. But, it is more than likely a hardware or software problem. But, to anyone that isn’t very educated in computer makeup, it can be tough to know which is causing the problem.

The Difference Between Hardware and Software

Computer hardware can be defined as any physical attribute used in or with your machine. So, the hardware inside the computer, or the components on the outside such as your mouse, keyboard, server, and workstation. Hardware is anything that can be physically touched. Without these components to your computer, the software wouldn’t have anything to run on.

Software is a collection of code installed onto the computers’ hard drive, that allows the device to perform. Many systems will divide software into 3 different categories. These are system software, programming software, and application software. These major classes are sequenced in a way that will be able to change the state of the hardware of the computer.

Common Hardware Problems

Most common hardware issues are actually caused by your device overheating, and not being able to dispose of that heat to cool down. This can cause issues with all the components and their performance inside of the computer, disrupting workflow. Other than the underlying cause being heat, another way many hardware issues occur is because of physical damage. For example, dropping or smashing your device can cause the component to shift or even break themselves.

Some noticeable hardware problems can be as follows.

Blue Screen

A blue screen occurs when your computer encounters a failure called a ‘stop error’. The coding of this error causes the computer to completely crash and stop working. They can come onto your screen and produce all manners of information and coding that is being saved into your hard drive disk as it is happening. If this happens, the only way the laptop can be saved is to restart it entirely. This can lead to a lot of data loss, as the applications that may be open as the blue screen happens, do not have enough time to save all of their data.

Noisy Hard Drive

Hard drives, unknown to many, have a limited lifespan and these are something you do need to update every few months or years to have optimum performance. So, if there is clicking or disruptive grinding sounds coming from the inside of your computer, then it is highly likely the hard drive needs to be replaced.

Blank Screens

Having a blank monitor is one of the most common hardware problems. A blank screen is something that is most likely to occur at least once in your time when using a computer. This can be an annoyance if the computer is being used for work purposes or important work, so it’s an issue that would really need to be fixed fast. This problem can usually be caused by loose cables in the back of the computer such as the supply cord or video cable. A simple fix would be too check all of these and ensure they are securely plugged in, to decipher if these are the culprits.

Common Software Issues

Most common software issues are caused due to a bug in the coding sequence or because the system is not working as expected due to an external issue. Software problems can cause a lot of frustration as the software coding in your device is what runs your hardware to work smoothly.

Computer Freezing

A very common software issue in many devices is the incessant freezing of applications or the screen whilst it is in use. As the laptop will now not be able to be controlled by the mouse and no clicks are doing anything, the only option left is to restart the computer. But, instead of flicking the main supply to rid the laptop of complete power, just holding down the power button for 5-10 seconds will allow the device to restart without losing power – hopefully leaving any opened work untouched.

App Command Not Working

Another confusing and troublesome software problem that could occur is apps on the device are not loading or responding when opened. This can be caused by the software trying to load too many applications at once, and it just doesn’t have the power to configure them all. On the other hand, it could be the app compatibility with the strength of the software in your device. It may be possible that the device being used does not have the appropriate coding or sequence in its software to run the app.

Ways around these issues will be to either reboot your device and start on a clean screen with no additional applications running in the background – then start up the app you want to see if it loads. Or, it will be to research the chosen application and the environment it needs to work and compare that to your own device.

Your Computer Boots Extremely Slowly

Although a slow computer can be much of an annoyance, it is luckily one of the easiest problems to fix. The most common cause of the system taking its time to boot up is because there are too many applications trying to load at once in the background as your computer is trying to start too. The best way to avoid this issue would be to set all of the applications on the computer to only load when they are being used. This will stop new downloads sticking to their factory settings and loading as soon as the laptop starts – hopefully allowing your device to start a lot faster.

Conclusion

It is an annoyance for almost everyone when a device has problems or isn’t working properly – especially when it is of great importance to everyday life. It is hard to be able to configure by yourself why the problems are happening and find the cause. Therefore, the most beneficial decision would be to take your device to a repair shop, if the issue continues after reading through the tips and tricks of this article.