• Putt-Putt Saves The Zoo
  

  3 hours playtime

  no achievements

i’m continuing to play the putt-putt games with my kids. this time we put it on the htpc and my 5-year-old daughter used the trackball on the wireless keyboard to control it. they were able to figure out almost all of it without my help. they continue to improve a little with each new game — this one added a quit option you could click on and included a fun song about the zoo. had to run up the playtime to get all the cards to drop after the kids had beaten it, and they got at least halfway through the first time but then had to go to bed and started over next time because there’s no save.

this one was about what i expected after playing the first 2, which is what i wanted it to be. we’ll keep playing these every so often.

Weekly Games #46

Walking dead - Final Season

6 hours, 11 of 48 achievements
Example Draft

More

I was going through my game drafts and wondering what it will be like by the time I finally finish off my games. I tend to write them before I finish so I don’t just stick to the bad side of things. However they are all a work in progress since yeah how can I comment on what the story is like if I haven’t gotten to the end. Pretty much everything ends up with an edit with some more then others. Even my comments change depending what I think of at the time. Like so far just this week I’ve deleted 3 different ideas and having to write this whole thing again since I stupidly edited this all in instead of creating a new message. Somehow I made things shorter and others longer and everything is just in the wrong place compared to before

So as you can see I gave walking dead as an example. This was made in april pretty much after stopping it and then finding a suggestion on what might help the game. This is a draft which could easily change depending on if the fixed help or not. Especially now with a new laptop who knows what might change. Its my biggest example of how I work. The start is of course everything I experienced. Then you see the fake part since no I havent touched it since and I didnt finish episode 2 let alone episode 4. That all there is assuming it worked and assuming that the story will not make up for that stupid ass bow. Now I know this wont stay the same one bit. I don’t hate it so much anymore, i dont resent buying it and trying it. Im no longer scared of it and stuck reliving the fact it brought me to tears. I have hope that when I replay it again it will run smoothly one way or the other

As things stand I have 6 drafts. Walking dead, kindred dvds, chinese paladin, escapist 2, space academy, hatoful bf christmas. Now I haven’t finished space academy or hatoful bf so they will of course need an edit. Walking dead is in for a complete redoing so that just leaves me with 3. Kindred spirits has given me all I need to be confident in what I put same with the others. Ive only gotten around 58% with chinese paladin and when I replayed it I probably made it like 25% again. Thats all I need to know on what I like and what I hate. However like walking dead I cant be 100% sure on it since I can’t be certain the faults was the games problem. Like im pretty sure the controls are sucky but im sure my laptop didnt help with that. So yeah only 2 out of 6 reviews I don’t feel the need to edit. My drafts are plain and simple drafts. They are there ready to be changed whenever for when its time to post. Even on the day when I reread the full thing for the 2nd time I can still change things or add things depending on my mood. Anyway thats really it. This was never planned so I had to improvise everything for a 2nd time. Should’ve just left my talk about my slump in instead but my mind works in mysterious ways

I know I’ve said no indies on my first BBT, but there’s nothing stopping me from breaking my own rules, right?

Report 10: Big Boys Time II: Going rural

Stardew Valley

8,5/10

133 hours playtime

40 of 40 achievements (100%)

It’s an indie game and I wouldn’t exactly call it big, but it sure as hell took a sweet chunk of my time. Pretty sure it doesn’t need any introduction whatsoever. It’s a Harvest Moon clone, and a pretty good one at that.
Pretty much every mechanic works as pleasantly as possible to soften the tediousness of your actions.
Although the game can be pretty tedious alright, if you go for the completion, like I did. The last 30 hours or so I’ve spent trying to complete the museum collection, and then getting 10.000.000 in total profits. I’ve pretty much had to abandon the farm altogether and straight-up go to bed first thing in the morning while I wait for my starfruit wine to age.
The social stuff was a bit hard too, especially since you’ll be able to contact some characters only in a very specific time slot at first - damn you, Sebastian.
Overall a really great game.

Backlog progress status: still hopeless

Check it out, everyone: someone on this site is posting about a Kirby game!

Return to Dreamland is your typical Kirby platformer: along with your standard left/right movement and jump ability, you can keep pushing the jump button to FLY INFINITELY. Also, just like other traditional Kirby games, you can hold the attack button to eat enemies and star blocks, at which point you can either shoot them out as a projectile weapon or swallow them to absorb their powers (if they have one), and swallowing two or more enemies with powers triggers a roulette that gives you a random power (the power-combinations from Kirby 64 may be gone for good). New to this game is that if you shake your Wii-mote, you can eat specially-designated stone blocks (on top of being able to eat further and more at once), and shaking the Wii-mote is also how you escape the grip of larger enemies (and how you deal the finishing blow to the final boss). You can also abandon your power by pushing the minus button, at which point it turns into a star and bounces around for a few seconds; it’s actually a good idea to do this (especially with mini-bosses) because the game likes “hiding” the optional collectibles behind barriers that can only be broken with maybe one or two powers, one of which was that enemy you just killed, and no, you don’t get to backtrack to where it was, so you have to play the whole level again just to get that one last collectible.

Obviously, being a Kirby game, you can expect the difficulty to be fairly low. It’s far more substantial than something like Shu, but, like, if the official New Super Mario Bros. games make you rage-quit, this is the franchise for you. I lost count of how many levels start off with what’s basically a flat hall with the occasional enemy that only attacks whenever it feels like it, without even so much as a spike trap or bottomless pit (that, again, you can just fly over). To make things even easier is the game’s main gimmick: Super Powers. Basically, every two-or-three levels, around the half-way point of said level, there will be a glowing enemy that the camera will focus on for a couple seconds, and swallowing this enemy will grant you said Super Power. They only consist of one attack each (on top of having a limit to how much you can use said attack before it runs out and you go back to being normal Kirby), but said attacks are much more powerful and further-reaching than standard attacks. Plus, these segments always have that one object scattered throughout the room that only interacts with the aforementioned Super Power, and triggering the one near the end opens a portal to an auto-scrolling segment followed by basically-the-same-mini-boss-each-time-except-maybe-the-arena-is-a-bit-different-now-or-maybe-it-has-one-new-attack, and defeating said mini-boss gets you two more of the game’s optional collectibles. Honestly, I’m not that big a fan of the Super Power segments since they come across as scripted and gimmicky (though less so than Giant Kirby from Triple Deluxe since this game at least starts to do interesting things with the Super Powers by the final world, like making you time the snowball-dash between crushing pillars). It seems like it’s only there for the power-fantasy element: “Hey, remember all these mini-bosses that made you actually put forth some effort to get through them? Now you can kill them in one hit! Doesn’t that feel so amazing?”

Well, at least the rest of the game is fairly solid. The difficulty in the main game doesn’t really think about picking up until you make it to the boss of world 5, but there are plenty of optional segments that help add some challenge. On top of the auto-scrolling segments mentioned previously (where you’re being chased by a harmful wall of purple that slows down if you get too close), there are segments where you can race an enemy holding a key in order to unlock a door, which usually leads to another optional collectible; it helps spice up what would otherwise be average rooms. There are even segments where the key is just sitting there, but you actually have to hold the key and bring it to the locked door yourself (and holding an item prevents you from flying, though you can still jump). Similarly, there are a some segments where you can enter a giant shoe (which also prevents flying), and if you want whatever secret is at the end of the section, you have to time pushing the jump button at the moment the shoe stomps on an enemy in order to make a full jump (otherwise, it’s just a small bounce that’ll force you to abandon the shoe before you fall into a pit).

Now, you may think that whole “ ‘s “ in the title would imply that Kirby has to journey back to his home, but Kirby actually starts off in Pop Star and spends five worlds with the promise of being able to go somewhere else. Instead, that whole “return” is meant to imply a return to form after 11 years without a new, traditional Kirby game, and this is reflected in just how much content is recycled from earlier entries. I’m okay with normal enemies being the same since level design is what’s supposed to keep platformers engaging, but half of the mini-bosses are lifted from Kirby’s Adventure, and all of the mini-bosses are regularly recycled throughout the game. It takes until the final world for the game to start doing unique things like “now there’s a cannon in the boss’s room!” or “you have to fight two mini-bosses at once!” There’s even a level that’s just a mini-boss gauntlet because, hey, Kirby’s Adventure did it, and people liked that game, so clearly everything in the game must be a good idea! Even the final boss takes some cues from the final boss of Super Star/Super Star Ultra, but at least it has (mostly) its own attack pattern. However, I think the most annoying part of the game is that if you lose your power (and there are a few attacks that force this if you get hit by them), you won’t have any way to attack the boss on your own; you have to wait for the boss to throw a special projectile or for a collision to generate fat, yellow stars that you can absorb and throw back at it. There were a few times where I found myself just standing around, waiting for the boss to throw me a bone (or energy ball or whatever), and if you get your chance and miss, like with the final boss that likes to teleport without warning, you get to wait some more. I also found it weird that, whenever I died against a boss, its health seemed to go down much faster the second time than the first. At least the game managed to incorporate Super Powers for a couple bosses while still giving them a bit of challenge, which was neat.

Even though the entire campaign is built around single-player, it’s possible to play this co-op with up to four people. Similar to NSMB Wii’s multiplayer, the camera tries to keep everyone on screen at once, potentially leading to there not being much camera space to see incoming enemies, and players can also bounce off of other players to jump higher (except in this game, that’s usually a bad thing since if we wanted to go up some more, we’d just use the built-in flight mechanic!). However, unlike NSMB Wii, anyone who gets too far away from Player 1 gets teleported back to Player 1 (it even delays the respawn if Player 1 was shot from a cannon and hasn’t landed yet). Another exception is that, in NSMB Wii, anyone could come back as long as there were more lives and someone else still alive. In this game, Players 2-4 can keep coming back even if the life count is at zero (though another life gets spent if it’s above zero); however, if Player 1 dies, everyone goes back to the last checkpoint (or the beginning of the level if the life count is at zero). Playing multiplayer can even break some of the optional challenges: rather than having to throw the key onto the conveyor belt and run to the other side before it falls down, one player can be on the other side to catch the key as soon as the other player throws it onto the conveyor belt. It also helps the boss fights not be so time consuming: Kirby may still have to wait for something to spit back at the boss, but Meta Knight, King Dedede, and that one random Waddle Dee never lose their weapons and can keep up the offensive. Oddly enough, while none of Kirby’s powers have any friendly fire, the giant shoe and the equip-able cannon do have friendly fire, so if you’re playing multiplayer, you’ll have to be careful not to hurt your allies (Super Powers also seem to have friendly fire, what with the knock-back animation playing, but actually looking at the health bars seemed to show no change).

Despite any recommendation I could give, this is one of those games where you already knew whether or not you’d like it by reputation alone. If you’re a huge Kirby fan that somehow doesn’t have this game yet, you’ll enjoy it (it may not be worth buying an entire console over, but that’s what Epic Yarn and Rainbow Curse are for). Are you looking for an easy game, something to introduce someone else to video games, or just something to have fun with no more than three other people you know? Then yeah, it may be worth checking out on sale. However, if you’re looking for a more challenging experience, or if you believe that succeeding games in a franchise need to do something drastically different than its predecessors to be worth checking out, then this isn’t a game for you. The game does have a few challenging parts, but it takes its time getting there.

Let me know if you found the hidden reference in my post. Spoilers

A Trip Down Nostalgia Lane

My brother visited me after not seeing him for a few years and we did what one would normally do. No, we didn’t go out to visit some places or anything like that, we played that one game we beat over twenty times and was last played in 2001. I’m talking about Resident Evil 3 - Nemesis

Playing a game this old makes you really aware of how much gameplay has changed over the years. Things you take for granted (like getting up/down platforms automatically when running towards them or using keys (and other key items) when needed just by pressing x on the locks (or whatever else that item is needed) instead of having to search for that item in your inventory) are missing here and it makes for an awkward experience until you get used to it. There’s also the whole “tank aiming” which is pretty bad, but imo it still beats aiming with the twin sticks.

Replaying this game also helped me remember some bits of the plot I forgot as well as some puzzles and map layouts. You have no idea the amount of pointless backtracking I did in the hospital because I forgot to check the rooms in order. Also I didn’t remember well what happened between when you leave Raccoon Park and you get in the facility, as in there should have been another map in between them. It turned out there wasn’t anything there and the transition from one map to the other was pretty abrupt.

All in all I wish this game gets remade like RE1 and RE2 did. The game could definitely use a gameplay overhaul (and improve its graphics while you’re at it) and the story is already good enough to not need any changes (except you know don’t put a secret facility right next to a park).

damn I forgot to update in a long time!
Not much, besides “beating” crusader kings 2 by playing a game from start to finish, and beating hacknet, I only played and beat three other games: Arkham City was 100 percented, half life 2 was beaten, and new vegas main game was beaten, currently playing dlc stories. After that, backlog is clear

Happy playing!

• A Plague Tale: Innocence
  

  19 hours playtime

  35 of 35 achievements

Report #239: A Plague Tale: Innocence

Such a good game

I just finished the best game so far in 2019. If you have the chance to play it, do that immediately. The story is really cool and gameplay is awesome as well.

You play as a young daughter of a lord. But then there comes the plague and you have to get yourself and your brother to safety. And also try to fight the Inquisition.

It plays similar to Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice, but not too similar. Fighting is different, but the graphics are both equally good and they play all on a rather linear path

Took me around 12h to complete the story, replayed almost every chapter for the collectibles and finally some more to get the last materials for the weapon upgrade.

Very satisfying game

Screenshots

RONIN: The backlog is dead

  RONIN is an action game with a twist, where the combat is turn-based in a 2d platformer environment. In your turn you can either move, kill an enemy if you're close enough or use a special ability. It's inspired by Gunpoint, a game which I played around 5 years ago for about an hour so you'll forgive me if I can't make any comparisons.

  Right off the bat I'm going to say I don't dislike the game, but it has a lot of problems. For one, the turn based combat mechanic is barely developed throughout the game, with barely any enemy, location or weapon variety. The skills *sort of* bring a little spice to the gameplay, but half of them are useless or extremely situational.

Announcement

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