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@“mtvcribs”#p116132 D2 is one of the absolute coolest games
I lol’d at the scene with the little girl talking about how much she loves her grandpa and how she’s wondering if he’s ok, while Laura just kind of sits there silently, knowing that 10 minutes earlier she shot the guy 300 times with a sub machine gun until his guts spilled out, then a human sized seagull ate his guts, then his whole body inflated like a balloon, then exploded.
@“treefroggy”#p116212 Not a complete one, no. Somebody‘s working on it but I think they have some life stuff going on that’s made it hard to find time to progress. Also I think the 3DS game (the other 2 are iterative DS sequels) completely dropped the mystery mechanic, which was one of the more charming parts of the game imo.
@“donrumata”#p116239
I would be down for getting a group together to somehow play magicians quest as a family, and really dive deep into the mechanics. Such a mysterious and obscure game that has very little recognition and I’m sure very few people played to the fullest extent like with animal crossing. Just getting multiple people in on it would be rare.
finished oracle of ages today. that is a very, very tasty game - the puzzles felt like the right level of challenging, and it‘s got that link's awakening charm crossed with a slightly darker, less whimsical feel. i do think it’s got some pacing issues but overall i had a really good time with it.
also played through _even the ocean_. i had a similar experience with it as i did with _sephonie_ - that is, there are great ideas and a really well-developed sense of style and tone, but it can't quite realize its ambitions and ends up feeling a little ungainly. that said, i had a better time with this one, actually because it lacks some polish. there's a lot of stuff in it that almost feels like indulgence for the sake of indulgence, like the overworld map, and that stuff felt so idiosyncratic and endearing. it almost felt like a flash game - it definitely looks like a flash game in spots - and i grew up on those.
also also played through _coffee talk episode 2_. it's... exactly the same as the first one. what's there to say? it's comfort food. i do feel like the writing improved somewhat from the first installment. unlike _even the ocean_, i feel like the slight lack of polish to both of the _coffee talks_ works against them, but it doesn't ruin the experience, just adds uncomfortable little sparks of irritation to what are otherwise very vibey, turn-my-brain-off games.
@“treefroggy”#p116245 I‘d also be interested in trying this out. Don’t know if I‘d consistently play for very long, but I’ve always been curious about the game. I think I first saw it in a Nintendo Power review?
I remember back in the feature phone days my mom took me with her to the store when she was buying a new one. The salesman said in passing "the average person only uses their phone for 10% of what it's capable of." Animal Crossing (and likely Magician's Quest too) are definitely in that same zone of being these things capable of so much that the average person only engages in on a surface level. To continue the phone analogy, maybe a game like The Sims is more akin to a smartphone, where you specifically go into it expecting it can do anything. When you see a tiny phone do things you never knew it could, there's a lot more magic to that than just downloading an app for your iPhone that does the same thing.
@“saddleblasters”#p116249 well, what I meant with magicians quest is compared to AC, which recently has been documented to near completion (though it took them really long to start giving it similar treatment to Pokémon, Zelda etc in that regard) whereas magicians quest is still just chock full of mysteries. One day it will blow up and become the thing everyone is emulating on their folding devices in 2030
Humanity!!! Enhance creates vibes like nobody else. Watching all those little dudes jump and swim and fall to that insane music gives me a genuinely New Feeling. This is what video games are ABOUT. The puzzling is very clever and rewarding. If I had a complaint, it‘s that when I’m in the middle of wrestling with a tricky puzzle, all of the amazing aesthetic choices kinda fade to the background of my mind.
I jumped into one of the recommended user-created stages and was delighted to find that, even though I couldn't solve the puzzle, I had so much fun just inhabiting the space that someone else made. It was nice when I gave myself permission to just leave after 30 minutes or so without solving it, but still happy that I had visited. I might go back and try again! Then I found out later that the completion rate for the stage was 1%, lmao. I almost wish they didn't show that until you have given it at least one try - otherwise I might've never tried it!
a bit further along into deus ex, i have >!discovered unatco was hoarding the grey death vaccines!<, >!transmitted the NSF distress signal!<, >!killed my boss and the flatlander woman!<, and joined my brother in hong kong.
good shit
I played about 2.5 hours of For A Vast Future, a gameboy inspired indie RPG that just released on Switch, There is a lot to like about it - cool graphics & color palettes, lighthearted writing, and a very unique battle system where you have consumable bullets with different modifiers and status effect percentages. It amounts to a pretty strategic system, but as much as I wanted to love it, I can just never seem to get down with RPGs where everything is consumable. I get ‘too good to use’ anxiety and hold off on using stuff or I‘ll end up using too much of something I need later and have to grind to get more of a thing. Also, the towns are pretty far away from each other so it feels a little draining to have so many battles with so much resource usage without a reprieve. You also have to craft a lot of your stuff, and I’m no fan of crafting systems. Just let me pay money like a capitalist! I don‘t want the means of production! But it’s a short game, from what I‘ve seen around 7-9 hours, and the game says I’m about 40% through it. Maybe I‘ll come back to it, but I don’t know.
The game costs $14.99 but they released it on sale for $1.99, which was smart! It made me impulse buy it with my coins!
After years of having it downloaded, I played Frog Fractions 2. It‘s good! I feel like saying anything is a spoiler, so…
||My favorite part definitely was the TXT world. I don’t think I would have liked a FF1 style pure gauntlet of minigames, since there‘s no element of surprise the second time. Having an overworld to keep returning to with new powers to explore was really interesting and it actually has great puzzles! The minigames are alright I guess, but I didn’t find them that funny, mostly felt like playing random game jam games.
The early 2010s references are bizarre. Mass Effect 2, Dark Souls and Obama? I had to check the release date and sure enough, it was 2016, making the game seem a bit quaint. That goes for the game in general too. Since FF1 there have been many games like Undertale, Doki Doki Literature Club, Nier Automata, Inscryption etc. that go outside the box and actually are cohesive experiences instead of the “it‘s a text adventure now! it’s a management game now!” stuff FF heavily relies on. But I gotta admit that hiding your game in another game is an 11/10 maneuver.
I am cautiously excited to revisit FF1 in the future, with the DLC!||
FF2 reminded me of this game. Play it and give it some time if you like puzzles :)
https://smestorp.itch.io/corrypt
just started lost judgement after beating like a dragon ishin the other day. very psyched to find there‘s a whole dang master system/mark III in dude’s office! most Sega stuff totally passed me by so it‘ll cool to find the 20 or so carts and poke thru em for the first time. alex kidd in miracle world is the only game I have so far and it’s super brutally difficult?? also fun cuz Jeremy Parish is current doing games from the master system on his weekly YouTube series so that's a cool lil bit of synchronicity for me. also Ado did the intro theme which like, I dunno much about modern day japanese pop but I know who Ado is and that seems like a pretty huge get for them
I beat^(* )Psycho Solider, and what a game! As a King of Fighters/SNK Heroine character I was never too into Athena‘s design (or Sie Kensou for that matter but now that I know his name is the Japanese pronunciation of “Sequence” I am on board). But Athena’s actual game has an oddly compelling gameplay loop. It‘s a scrolling bullet hellish type of game with 4 paths and you have to dig through walls, kill enemies, and collect powerups. The learning curve on the first 3 levels is brilliant, it’s not easy but it‘s manageable and makes you feel like you feel like a very skilled player as you pull off close calls and defeat things just in time. Turning into the phoenix for the first time was a genuinely shocking and very cool experience. It makes you feel so powerful. The colors are stunning. It’s a visual delight… well at least until the last area which is neon yellow and green and strained my eyes a bit at the end. The music is good, I like theme song, and it‘s cute how proud this series is of the fact it’s the first game with fully voiced music.
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But in true arcade fashion, the game gets incredibly difficult at some of the later levels. I don't know that there's anything _literally_ unavoidable (except those stringy bead things in the last level, I hated those). The final level has regenerating obstacles that's just annoying and the final boss also has a tiny hit box and throws so many damn pinecones at you. But with enough determination or credits I am proud to say it is possible to win!
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^(*)- I used the SNK 40th Anniversary rewind feature liberally
I started Cookie Clicker the other day. Something about the words “idle game” turned me off from giving it a go before. I get it now, though. It's fun building and spending resources in a minimal fashion. Why not just turn it on and get some cookies?
I'm glad I gave a chance to something I wasn't sure I'd like
I‘m playing Wanted: Dead. It’s actually somewhat better than I expected. The John Wick influence is really apparent, and I love John Wick. The gameplay felt strange but once I got adjusted to it I liked it a lot. It‘s kind of like Ninja Gaiden with guns. You can pause mid combo with a katana to shoot a guy across the room. The finishing moves are really satisfying and well animated. And on occasion it will do two finishing moves in a row, on two dudes, seamlessly, and I’ve never seen that before.
The main character has a weird swedish accent and every other character sounds like they were directed by completely different people in different studios. Most of the time during gameplay characters are talking over each other and it's very chaotic.
But it looks good and plays good. The only gripe I had was how difficult it was. I was about to throw in the towel, but after about twenty game overs it finally gave me the option of using easy mode. Now the game is actually fun and feels how it should.
The story feels like it was written by an AI or a child. It is incoherent and disjointed at best.
@“Tradegood”#p116639 I could literally listen to the Psycho Soldier theme song on an endless loop and stand by it's the greatest song ever made. The King of Fighters XIV version is incredible.
Have you ever played Capcom's SonSon? It's a similar sort of gameplay where you're jumping up and down between planes and shooting and it also has some bosses. I find it super addictive. Given Capcom and SNK have the Osaka connection, I wonder if someone who worked on SonSon later went on the work on Psycho Soldier.
psycho soldier theme song is SO good. I love it
also now that I'm a little further into lost judgement, I like...didn't realize the stakes are what they are? like I'm hanging around a high school a lot and dealing with bullies which like, yes, noble, but vastly different from the previous game jumping into all the murders and deceit etc. I expect things will ramp up like they always do in an RGG game but like, right now it's almost got after school special vibes? it's chill tho
Uhh a new character and art piece by Yoshitaka Amano just dropped in Fortnite. In case someone here wanted to know that.
I finished Vampire Hunter D on the PS1 last night. It is a Resident Evil like with melee combat and some wonderful pre-rendered backgrounds. The Left Hand and sub item parts of the combat could have really elevated the game if they were handled better and you weren't getting stunned out of animations so much. It looks fantastic in places.
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@“Chopemon”#p116720 You completed the whole game? That's awesome dude. I love Vampire Hunter D and was looking at this one recently.
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@“arauz”#p116648 I started Cookie Clicker the other day. Something about the words “idle game” turned me off from giving it a go before. I get it now, though. It’s fun building and spending resources in a minimal fashion. Why not just turn it on and get some cookies?
```gets up on the "weird thing I like more than most people so I'm going to take any chance I can get to talk about it" soapbox``` I'll tell you why, because there are much better games to play in the genre!! The idle/clicker format~1 is not just poorly represented by Facebook mobile ads and the sorts of stuff that ends up getting a Steam version. To be a pretentious purist about it, but _Cookie Clicker_ is more like an idle game about idle games, or, rather, it's kind of like an idle game about _incremental_ games, as in games about and/or incorporating managing resources and growth of said resources by expanding/tooling/exploring interlocking networks of source, cause, and effect.
Saying this as someone who has certainly spent a lot of time _Cookie_ clicking, _Cookie Clicker_ is a borderline cynical in-joke about incremental games, and that isn't to say the joke isn't funny, it's just that _Cookie Clicker_ is missing--and purposefully so because that's kind of the joke--what I think makes incremental games special. At their best they are more like real time interactive spreadsheets and sometimes even more like puzzle boxes, and can really take something as simple as watching numbers go up and create a fulfilling sense of anticipation and even wonder when systems expand and mysteries are revealed.
Worth mentioning too that the distinction between "idle" and "incremental" has some actual meaning, since some of these games can be quite far from idle, depending on how you want to play them. They can differ a lot on how much you can (or will want to) let things build up in the background while you do other things, or you can (or will want to) sit there and figure out how to optimize your progression and growth moment-to-moment.
Some all time classics of the genre:
While candy box! is somewhat outclassed by its sequel, I think part of the satisfaction to be found from playing candy box 2! is from having played candy box!, and seeing how much more sophisticated the sequel is.
The less said about [_Universal Paperclips_](https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/) and [A Dark Room](https://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/) before you just dive into them and play them, the better.
[_The Prestige Tree_](https://jacorb90.me/Prestige-Tree/) is a more self referential/self aware incremental game about incremental games like _Cookie Clicker,_ but instead of it being intentionally oversimplified in a cynical way, its more like reduced down to its barest most essential elements. Numbers that do things and then numbers that make numbers do things and numbers that make numbers do things that make numbers do things that make numbers do things that make num--you get the picture.
It's been a while since I've played one but, be warned, these are a great way to waste an entire day on nothing else but them (for a certain kind of weirdo, anyway).
^1 - For at least a glib off the cuff definition of format, see [Episode 287 - Rated L with Kat Bailey](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/2562-ep-287-rated-l-with-kat-bailey/61) of the Insert Credit podcast.
