Well that was a quick month. How times flies when playing games :) Like last post I will be covering what I have been playing in a more light manner than full reviews. So buckle up for some quick takes!
Pit People
So last month I was a few hours into Pit People an quite enjoying it. Smash cut to about 10 more hours of play and I think I am done. Not anywhere near finished, but I personally am done. The game turned into real grind about 6 hours in, with missions requiring much higher level heroes than I had and my lack of diverse gear making it hard to counter what even some of the mid-ranged quests asked of me. At the current rate of gains it would be hours and hours of just fighting random enemies before I could start back on the story missions again. I liked the combat and tactics a lot, but not *that* much.
Bit of a shame really, I am interested to see where the game goes but not so much that I want to spend another 4-5 hours grinding just to play the next mission. So Pit People goes into the "I may get back to you one day pile" for the time being.
Human-powered Spacecraft
I am not much of a clicker-game guy. I have tried a few and think the concept in principle is interesting (I like too see numbers go up as much as the next guy) but I usually need more from my games. Clickers I have enjoyed is the notorious Universal Paperclips and the recent Steam released Human-powered Spacecraft.
If you are looking for a clicker with low amounts of idle, good looking pixel graphics, a story and most of all doesn't go on forever. In fact Human-powered Spacecraft only takes about 2 hours to complete. It was humorous and had some clever upgrade mechanics. The only thing I didn't like about Human-powered Spacecraft is that the "p" in the title is not capitalized. It just looks wrong.
System Crash
Among the list of things I really enjoy are Cyberpunk themed things and Hearthstone so I figured System Crash would be a slam dunk as it is basically Cyberpunk themed Hearthstone. Turns out I was the one who got dunked on.
While it is exactly what it says it is on the tin I found the whole affair really boring. The card interactions were not exciting, the deck building was only ok. Even worse, the card art is quite bland. Even the inclusion of a single player story line with ways to earn credits to buy new cards (there are no in game real-money transactions) didn't lure me. Maybe I'm just stockholm'd to Hearthstone but System Crash just didn't do it for me on any level. It has all the potential mechanics and bells and whistles but no soul (in the machine).
Stormbound
I like to check out the new free-to-play games on Steam from time to time. Once and a while you find a real gem on there. Stormbound had the look and initial game play tease that caught my eye.
The basics of the game are there are 4 columns between you and your opponent that each of you will play cards to summon units that move down columns and hopefully make it to your opponents base before they are destroyed. Get enough into their base and you win. It's some deck building, neat strategy options depending on the faction you are playing, simple yet expansive game play. And I really did the art style a lot.
It gives you 20 or so single player missions to help you learn the game rules and the core faction strengths and weaknesses as well as some cards to bolster your options later. These are really well done and work as intended. When you are done with these you play against real people and this is where it all falls apart. You see there is an additional upgrade mechanic that allows you do trade in duplicates of any card you have for an upgraded version, which while fine in concept the game has no ladder or ranking system - so when you play against people you might get a beginner or someone who has a ton of upgraded cards that you have no chance against. The game had only been out a short while and I already could not compete with any of the people I played against.
Stormbound is great mechanically (and has a real nice aesthetic) but holey cow does the Pay-2-Win aspect hit you hard and fast. Shame.
Baobas Mausoleum Ep 2 1313 Barnabas Dead End Drive
The first episode of Baobas Mausoleum that I reviewed almost a year is (for some reason) one of the most read articles on this blog and I really enjoyed the weirdness it had to offer. Episode 2 came out and I dove right in.
Picking up right where the first episode left off the story continues with more strange characters and some of that old time adventure puzzles (you either love or hate). Searching for your lost girl Daphne our aubergine FBI agent Watracio has to prove his innocence and make his was through the bizarre town of Flamingo's Creek. Mixing up game play styles from older games, Twin Peaks and in this episode, SpongeBob SquarePants?!?! It's another couple of hours of fun characters and some really great music that ends in a cliffhanger for the next episode.
Swords of Ditto
Zelda style game play combined with rogue-like/lite mechanics? Sign me up! Or maybe don't?
I had such high expectations for this game. Everything about it looked great. The art and animation, the game play hooks and core mechanics. A game like old school Legend of Zelda's with a repeatable procedurally generated world. Awesome!
In practice less so but to be fair there is lots of good in Swords of Ditto. The art, animation and music are all top notch. Simple but varied combat keeps the game rolling. The random dungeons work very well, for the most part and the enemy/bosses variety is good. It's the rest of the game that just doesn't match up. There is a system of finding and buying stickers that give you bonuses, but you loose everything when you die (other than money) so it feels like a pointless grind. You are under a time limit, which is fine other than the world map changes every time you die so most of it is just spend finding your bearings. The dialogue is rough and full of "jokes" that just don't cut it. There is a leveling up system that you are forced to grind into in order to access the dungeons. A progress system making the world harder/easier based on the success or failure of your last run. Add items from dungeons, items from stores, a second currency, a third currency designed to help you get around the time limits and loss of items when dying. It's just too much. Sometimes less is more right? Most of this stuff seems to only serve once purpose, to get in the way of doing the best part of the game, the random dungeons and their puzzles.
Also every time you die you have to go through the same 5 minutes unskippable story sequence. Unforgivable. Some games have less parts that you just have to work past to get to the good stuff, Swords of Ditto has bad stuff that actively works against you from getting to the good stuff. Now I have only done 2 runs in my 5 or so hours of play and maybe the more you do the more it changes up and all these systems actually make sense. But I am currently annoyed enough at them to question giving more of my time, which it doesn't seem to respect.
Bokida - Heartfelt Reunion
Whew got a little worked up over that last game. Time to relax and play some Bokida. Ahhhhh. That's better.
Set in a stark white landscape you travel though the various locales, following clues and solving puzzles, Bokida is low impact. It feels good to play and doesn't ask too much of you. Through placing blocks, cutting them, pushing them, pulling to them and clearing them away the world opens up and more abilities are given to you. The peaceful soundtrack and the rushing of wind as you leap and glide through the air make it a nice relaxing experience.
Also...
So other than Destiny 2 releasing a new DLC which is where I really spent a chunk of my game time this month that about it. Some good games, some let downs. I started Mad Max. More on that next month. Oh and I lost like 5 hours on day to Stellaris. Oops.
Pit People
Bit of a shame really, I am interested to see where the game goes but not so much that I want to spend another 4-5 hours grinding just to play the next mission. So Pit People goes into the "I may get back to you one day pile" for the time being.
Human-powered Spacecraft
If you are looking for a clicker with low amounts of idle, good looking pixel graphics, a story and most of all doesn't go on forever. In fact Human-powered Spacecraft only takes about 2 hours to complete. It was humorous and had some clever upgrade mechanics. The only thing I didn't like about Human-powered Spacecraft is that the "p" in the title is not capitalized. It just looks wrong.
System Crash
While it is exactly what it says it is on the tin I found the whole affair really boring. The card interactions were not exciting, the deck building was only ok. Even worse, the card art is quite bland. Even the inclusion of a single player story line with ways to earn credits to buy new cards (there are no in game real-money transactions) didn't lure me. Maybe I'm just stockholm'd to Hearthstone but System Crash just didn't do it for me on any level. It has all the potential mechanics and bells and whistles but no soul (in the machine).
Stormbound
I like to check out the new free-to-play games on Steam from time to time. Once and a while you find a real gem on there. Stormbound had the look and initial game play tease that caught my eye.
The basics of the game are there are 4 columns between you and your opponent that each of you will play cards to summon units that move down columns and hopefully make it to your opponents base before they are destroyed. Get enough into their base and you win. It's some deck building, neat strategy options depending on the faction you are playing, simple yet expansive game play. And I really did the art style a lot.
Stormbound is great mechanically (and has a real nice aesthetic) but holey cow does the Pay-2-Win aspect hit you hard and fast. Shame.
Baobas Mausoleum Ep 2 1313 Barnabas Dead End Drive
The first episode of Baobas Mausoleum that I reviewed almost a year is (for some reason) one of the most read articles on this blog and I really enjoyed the weirdness it had to offer. Episode 2 came out and I dove right in.
Swords of Ditto
Zelda style game play combined with rogue-like/lite mechanics? Sign me up! Or maybe don't?
I had such high expectations for this game. Everything about it looked great. The art and animation, the game play hooks and core mechanics. A game like old school Legend of Zelda's with a repeatable procedurally generated world. Awesome!
In practice less so but to be fair there is lots of good in Swords of Ditto. The art, animation and music are all top notch. Simple but varied combat keeps the game rolling. The random dungeons work very well, for the most part and the enemy/bosses variety is good. It's the rest of the game that just doesn't match up. There is a system of finding and buying stickers that give you bonuses, but you loose everything when you die (other than money) so it feels like a pointless grind. You are under a time limit, which is fine other than the world map changes every time you die so most of it is just spend finding your bearings. The dialogue is rough and full of "jokes" that just don't cut it. There is a leveling up system that you are forced to grind into in order to access the dungeons. A progress system making the world harder/easier based on the success or failure of your last run. Add items from dungeons, items from stores, a second currency, a third currency designed to help you get around the time limits and loss of items when dying. It's just too much. Sometimes less is more right? Most of this stuff seems to only serve once purpose, to get in the way of doing the best part of the game, the random dungeons and their puzzles.
Also every time you die you have to go through the same 5 minutes unskippable story sequence. Unforgivable. Some games have less parts that you just have to work past to get to the good stuff, Swords of Ditto has bad stuff that actively works against you from getting to the good stuff. Now I have only done 2 runs in my 5 or so hours of play and maybe the more you do the more it changes up and all these systems actually make sense. But I am currently annoyed enough at them to question giving more of my time, which it doesn't seem to respect.
Bokida - Heartfelt Reunion
Whew got a little worked up over that last game. Time to relax and play some Bokida. Ahhhhh. That's better.
Also...
So other than Destiny 2 releasing a new DLC which is where I really spent a chunk of my game time this month that about it. Some good games, some let downs. I started Mad Max. More on that next month. Oh and I lost like 5 hours on day to Stellaris. Oops.
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