“I Just Think They're Neat.” Like What You are Playing

[FelixSH]

So, something about that Dominique Pamplemousse stuck with me. One of the songs became an earworm, with it's bad-but-endearing singing. So I decided to play the second game. Dominique Pamplemousse and Dominique Pamplemousse in "Combinatorial Explosion". Spoilers to follow, but I think in this case it doesn't matter? Maybe? It's a weird experience. The first game was a point'n'click adventure with barely any puzzles. This here is basically a visual novel. You make one decision that doesn't matter (no, this is not a spoiler, it's extremely clear that it doesn't matter).

There is more singing (though less than in the first game), there is more queerness, there are more questions about queerness. The first game ended with a decision, resulting in two endings. This game starts, by the two Dominiques of the different endings meeting each other, trying to find out who of them is canon. In the end, they talk to the creator (who made a video of themselves talking, which you then see). They talk about not being able to come up with a canon ending, with not understanding how live works, despite them having achieved stuff, with a fine job and no live-threatening problems. About the void that still keeps being there. I'm paraphrasing here, these are not the words, but it's what stuck.

It's really hard to describe, but the game offers a bunch of questions, specifically regarding queerness (Dominique never answers if he is a boy or a girl, for example), without providing any answers. It is a weird and fascinating piece of work, and if this sounded interesting at all, give the two games a shot. They are maybe three hours long in total, and if nothing else, they are absolutely unique experiences, like nothing I have seen before. The second game specifically was absolutely hilarious and deeply touching, in the time frame of an hour. And there is more bad, but endeering singing. Please give it a shot, it's just such a unique experience. And if you got that old itch.io bundle, you already own both games!

If anyone else plays them, please write about them. I want to hear other opinions.

 

[estragon]

I've been playing the Armored Core games in release order and having a good time generally, but I was very happy to see that the consensus online reputation I've seen of Armored Core 2 (the first PS2 game, after one numbered title and two pretty big expansions on the PS1) of being "just the PS1 games with better graphics" dramatically understates just how immediately better it feels to handle your AC, even with the clunky stock parts you start the game with. Excited to start upgrading.

 

[lincolnic]

I just started playing Carrion, which I've been interested in since it came out, and after 30-40 minutes I'm impressed at how good the movement feels.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I just started playing Carrion, which I've been interested in since it came out, and after 30-40 minutes I'm impressed at how good the movement feels.

Doesn't it feel SO GOOD?

 

[lincolnic]

Doesn't it feel SO GOOD?

So good! Except when you're in the third health bar, which I assume is the max? Then it can get a little unwieldy because you're so friggin big. But mostly so good!

 

[Violentvixen]

Right before the eShop closed I finally picked up Adventure Bar Story for 3DS. It's simple and the writing is a bit awkward, but something about it is really charming. I've played a few games in this shopkeeper/dungeon crawler genre at this point (this, Recettear, Moonlighter and World is Your Weapon are the first to come to mind) and I appear to really like this gameplay formula/loop. There's something really satisfying about dungeon crawling being a side hustle.

I guess you could make an argument for Fantasy Life kind of falling into this too since you'll use items from dungeons for jobs, but doesn't quite feel the same. Love that game too though.

 

[jpfriction]

It’s a good loop. I guess the Torneko section of Dragon Quest IV would be the first example?

I liked Moonlighter a lot, need to check out those other ones.

 

[Mogri]

Peglin, the game that dares to put Slay the Spire into a blender with Peggle, is pure candy to my brain.

Instead of a deck of cards, you have balls with different damage and added effects. Each ball has two damage values, multiplying the number of pegs you hit depending on whether you hit the Crit peg. The Daggorb you start with deals very low damage except when you crit, making it either awful or extremely powerful. The Bouldorb is extremely heavy but hits all enemies that aren't flying. Morbidorb racks up hits on pegs that have already been cleared, and so on.

At this point, there's a fair number of "Peggle but kill monsters" games. Peglin is, at least for me, the clear winner.

 

[Kalir]

CASSETTE BEASTS IS OUT!!!!!

 

[Violentvixen]

Peglin, the game that dares to put Slay the Spire into a blender with Peggle, is pure candy to my brain.

Instead of a deck of cards, you have balls with different damage and added effects. Each ball has two damage values, multiplying the number of pegs you hit depending on whether you hit the Crit peg. The Daggorb you start with deals very low damage except when you crit, making it either awful or extremely powerful. The Bouldorb is extremely heavy but hits all enemies that aren't flying. Morbidorb racks up hits on pegs that have already been cleared, and so on.

At this point, there's a fair number of "Peggle but kill monsters" games. Peglin is, at least for me, the clear winner.

This looks so fun! Thanks for bringing it up.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I've been wanting to try Peglin for a while and it looks like it's out on iOS now? The reviews are fairly low, so I'm assuming it has some technical issues, but it's a free download so I'm going to give it a shot.

Initial impressions: I should be playing this on an iPad, everything is super tiny.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Despite having a title that slides right out of my brain every time I see it, Strayed Light is pretty rad so far. Kind of a mix of Punch Out, Ikariga and Bayonetta.

By no possible rationale should those things fit together, but here we are

 

[Paul le Fou]

I started Sports Story, and so far it's just as whimsical and delightful as Golf Story, even if my one experience so far with a sport besides golf (volleyball) was awkward and confusing.

 

[FelixSH]

I'm posting here, because in general, I really like spending time with Evoland 2. For those who never heard of it, the first Evoland started you in a Gameboy era action adventure game, and as you got through the game, you went through the different eras, up to early 3D. It always stayed top-down, though. It was a fun game, and would sometimes switch genres (I think it turned into an MMO-style game, at one point), and short. With story that is just an excuse to give you some reason for doing what you're doing.

The second game takes this way further. I go into the details a bit, so a big spoiler from here on. That said, I don't think it's a game where spoiling it should be much of a problem.

The basic game is still a 2D Zelda-style one, but you also time-travel, which always also changes the presentation (future is 3D, past is NES, present is SNES). It looks really good, at least the 2D settings, and killing easy monsters is fun. It's just way longer. I took a peak at a let's play, I'm probably half-way through and likely more than 10 hours in. Which is still a fine time for a game of this kind.

There are often genre changes. I had a 2D-plattformer, Layton-style puzzles, a bullet-hell shooter, a beat-em-up battle, an endless-runner level and a Bomberman dungeon. Which are never great, but always fun enough. They only get problematic, if they take too long (like the bullet-hell part did, or the annoying beat-em-up boss battle). This is all fine, they might overstay their welcome, but it's not so bad that I would stop playing. They are all decent to fun.

My main gripe is, that the mood and story is all over the place. With a longer game, we get a longer story. Unfortunately, the game can't decide if it wants to be a parody, or have its own epic story. Because it has the latter, but it's so full of clichees and really lame jokes, that even I find it horribly boring. Which is a shame, because I do like the general idea of it, and you could make something more interesting with it. If you had good writers, who took the story serious. It doesn't help, that the German translation, which I can't change in any way back to English, is just really, really bad. Most of the time, the grammar is ok, but it's just the most boring JRPG dialogue I have ever read. And I already complained about that in another thread, but the way that the people in your party, who spent a lot of time with each other now and are obviously supposed to be friends, are still super formal with each other, makes me kinda crazy. No one ever talked that way with each other, and good friends certainly don't.

To end on a positive note, there is quite a lot to find in this game, it has a simple but decent card game that is completely optional (with a set of cards to collect, also optional), and, at the point where I'm at, I'm hunting for five mcguffins. Which I see as a plus - a character gave me a hint for each one, and I'm now free to explore all three times. Very nice.

So, if you don't mind too much dialogue (which I guess you could skip a lot of anyway), and enjoy simple Zelda-style games, you might give this a go. Or maybe the first one. They are fun, just never too deep in any way. But considering how long this post is, I seem to have a lot of fun with it.

 

[Sprite]

I just started playing Carrion, which I've been interested in since it came out, and after 30-40 minutes I'm impressed at how good the movement feels.

I assume you're well finished at this point, but maaaaan that game is so great. It manages to present a pretty decent challenge while still making you feel wildly overpowered at all times.

 

[lincolnic]

I assume you're well finished at this point, but maaaaan that game is so great. It manages to present a pretty decent challenge while still making you feel wildly overpowered at all times.

Oh yeah, finished and played the DLC bonus level. Very good game!

 

[Sprite]

DLC bonus level

The wha 😮

I need to play this game again, clearly

 

[Octopus Prime]

What more; it’s Christmas DLC

 

[Paul le Fou]

What more; it’s Christmas DLC

:O

 

[lincolnic]

I mean, that doesn't mean much if you don't celebrate Christmas, but it was still a little more of a very good game so that was enough for me!

 

[FelixSH]

To continue my fixation with Cosmic Star Heroine, I guess it finally clicked, when reaching the third planet. I got more powerful abilities, which let me do over 10k damage in one hit, which felt good (and I can relatively easily get hits in that do a few thousands, which feels nice. The third planet is also finally not a hellhole. Bad things happen, but generally, it's a nice place with a really neat sense for fauna, to make it look sci-fi in an old-school RPG way. Dunno, it's nice that it finally clicked.

The writing didn't get better, but now, it is servicable, and it never did something out of left field, like with the mecha, again. Everything made kinda sense, so that's fine. I was at a point yesterday, where I didn't want to stop playing, and I want to do the sidequests, so, good job.

 

[Mogri]

I got a bundle deal in a recent Steam sale, so you got a two-for-one in this post..

Backpack Hero is Inventory Tetris: The Game. It's the game I intended to buy when I got the bundle. Great game, amazing soundtrack. The challenge in the game centers around arranging the items you receive into your limited backpack space such that you maximize adjacency bonuses and so on.

There's an incredible amount of variety in the game. For one thing, there are the five characters. Purse the (pack)rat is your standard vanilla character: she doesn't have anything unique to her that I'm aware of, but the other characters only get access to a subset of her gear. Tote the frog has a bag of carvings she summons into her backpack each battle -- basically, this is the "deckbuilder" character. CR-8 the robot must arrange his backpack into a program that he can run, which is tricky but satisfying. Satchel the robin can divide his backpack into separate pockets, making it harder to arrange items, but many of his unique items gain bonuses based on having things laid out into pockets. Pochette the hedgehog summons pets into battle; she has only 2 energy per turn to other characters' 3, but her pets have their own energy gauges.

And then each character has about 20 game modes. They're not all super exciting -- there are about six flavors of "hard mode" per character -- but there are plenty of weird ones like Satchel's Bird Ninja where he can't find any weapons except shuriken. (I thought that one would be really hard, but the enemy never got a single turn over the entire run.)


The other half of the bundle was Alina of the Arena. This is a game with a ton of Slay the Spire DNA and an even better soundtrack than Backpack Hero. (That track transitions into the next one at the appropriate point in the boss battle, which is a great effect.)

Slay the Spire knockoffs are a dime a dozen these days, and any STS clone is interesting only by virtue of where it differs from the rest. Alina distinguishes itself in three interesting ways.

First, positioning. Battles take place on a small map. Each hand you draw gets a temporary "Initiative" card that allows you to move one space on the battlefield in exchange for one energy. If not played first, the card disappears. Most enemies won't damage you unless you're adjacent, and every attack in the game can be avoided just by moving out of the way, so you will wish you had access to more movement; there are very few movement effects in the game. Giving you a guaranteed move is a smart piece of design, and forcing it to be your first card play leads to some nailbiting decisions.

Second, weapons. You have two hand slots, and any action that could conceivably be equipment-related is colored red or blue. Play a colored card, and it gets effects from the equipment in the corresponding hand slot. For example, a dagger will increase the damage of attack cards and make them cause Bleed. A shield increases block power and makes half your remaining block carry into the next round. A greatsword will cause your attacks to affect an arc of three spaces but makes them generate a Fatigue card. A bow gives you ranged attacks but requires reloading. (Two-handed weapons give effects to both card colors.) The total number of cards in this game is relatively small, but the weapons are very transformative and will determine how you play as much as the contents of the deck.

Third, the crowd. You're an arena combatant, and you're performing for a paying crowd. If you do exciting things, they'll toss weapons and consumables into the arena for you to use or sell. If you spend several turns repositioning without attacking, they'll get bored and start complaining. (There might be additional penalties if you keep it up, but I haven't tried it.) It's a fairly minor mechanic, but it's thematic, and it's a fun addition to the game.

I don't think this game revolutionizes the genre or anything, but I'm enjoying it, and I'm glad I rolled the dice on the bundle.

 

[FelixSH]

Sokoban: Bunny Tales is, as the title suggests, a sokoban game. It also looks not good (I find the graphics charming, but I'm absolutely positive that they are a turnoff to people), and the sounds are annoying.

That out of the way, I find it to be a really well done take on the tired sub-genre. I normally don't care about sokoban puzzles, but here, the puzzle design is pretty well done. It is also wrapped around children stories of a bunny who is growing up, going out into the world and finding other animals - each set of 10 levels starts with one of these stories, which are cute and short (and you can immediately skip out of, if you don't care, it's pure text), and then an element of that story is taken as a new element for the puzzles. Like, in the forth story there is a penguin, and then you get slippery ice floor added. It's nothing amazin, but all works neat together.

Aside from that, the puzzle design is just strong, I think. It also costs basically nothing on Steam (0.99€), so if you are even slightly interested in puzzle games, give it a try.

 

[Mogri]

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator is a game made for me in particular.

On the surface level, it's a shop management game. You brew potions for townsfolk, and you have to manage your ingredients to ensure you can meet demand. Your customers don't ask for specific potions; rather, they tell you the problem they're having, and you can often satisfy their need with more than one potion. If the game were just this, it could be a really good game.

Underneath this, there's a potion-crafting game that essentially has you explore a map using ingredients that move you in specific (and often very strange) paths. You must follow some of that path for each ingredient, and you can choose how much more of the path to follow. If you reach certain areas on the map, you can imbue your potion with the corresponding effect. This means that while you can create a healing potion with two liferoot, that's not the only recipe, and if an ingredient becomes scarce, you'll need to pivot to a new formula. Again, I'd play a game that's just exploring a map like this.

But put the two together, and you get a game that exceeds the sum of the two parts. You can write down recipes to recreate potions (thank goodness), but you'll often want to deviate from your recipes, either to conserve ingredients or to satisfy a customer's odd request ("I heard liferoot is bad for you; I'll pay extra for a potion that doesn't use it").

I have only one complaint: the game has only one track, and it's nothing to write home about, though it at least doesn't grate. Mute the music, maybe supply your own. Otherwise, this is a GOTY contender for me.

 

[Violentvixen]

Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator

Ha, a coworker of mine went nuts for this game and said she was up until 2am playing it multiple nights in a row. It didn't click for me but I still appreciated what it was doing. It's still included with Gamepass too.

 

[Behemoth]

My FOMO's got me flipping back and forth between Tears of the Kingdom and Diablo IV, with some RE4 Remake thrown in for good measure. Video games are good, y'all.

 

[JBear]

I was sure we had a dedicated Roguelike Deckbuilder thread, but I think I must have dreamt it. In any case, I'm enjoying my time with Meteorfall: Krumit's Tale a lot more than I thought I would. I've basically never seen anyone but @Octopus Prime talk about it, and my expectations were a bit low as a result, but it's a fun and unique little beast with a very Adventure Time-inspired aesthetic that starts simple but gets very complex as you start unlocking newer characters. Honestly, the possibility space for a turn here kind of blows most other entries in the genre out of the water? I don't think I've ever gotten as deep into the tank on analysis paralysis as I have here. And unlike most deckbuilders, it encourages you to make your decks as large as possible by having monsters come out of a shared deck, so every card that you add thins out the monster density. Anyway, it's a great time, and available on Steam or mobile, and I highly recommend if you're looking for something a little different, and also if your name is @Mogri .

 

[Mogri]

Hey! My name is Mogri! What are the odds?

 

[q 3]

Octopath Traveler II is a lot of fun to play. As with the original my favorite part is the multitude of NPC interactions you can have and here they've added even more options. Also while I know there is some dogshit writing in my future in 2-3 of the character routes, the ones I've started so far (Castti, Ochette, Partitio, and just started Agnea) have ranged from "pleasant and refreshingly inoffensive" to "actually legitimately good." Ochette isn't even 10% as annoying as I feared she'd be based on her art. Particularly in light of recent word about FFXVI, I appreciate that Team Octopath at least quarantine the edgy grimdark sex bullshit to one or two of the routes, and the even gender split basically requires the female cast to be more varied than is often the case.

 

[q 3]

Still on Octopath 2, I just finished Castti's story and loved it. I would probably rate it higher than any of the Octopath 1 stories. A lot of that is personal preference, but I do think it's refreshing to have a JRPG story centered on an adult woman - and not one who is just starting out in her career or beholden to an older male mentor, unlike most of the other Octopath ladies. And the emotional core of her story is her relationship with another woman, which is unique and appreciated. (A strictly platonic relationship, though I'm unsurprised to find a dozen or so ship fics on AO3 and equally unsurprised at myself for looking for them.)