Hollow knight
Dead cells
ETG
Completed Unforeseen Incidents. The story itself was perhaps not the most original, and the ending a bit lacklustre, but at least the art was brilliant (especially liked the Port Nicola locations; very bright and vibrant) and the humour was good too.
I still think the puzzles had you running around a bit too much. I mean, some of these locations were miles apart, and I lost count how often I had to go back and forth between them on the same evening. (Or maybe it was evening again by the time I arrived.)
@TaarakVakil long time no see!
Nice to have you here, welcome back.
PS: I never write in this thread because I very seldom play videogames, latelyā¦ but Iām always lurking. I trust the good taste of this community
I donĀ“t like Video Games, but I donĀ“t really like Lana Del Rey in general.
Yeah, never really got the fuss. Always found it bit boring.
Thanksāŗ
I finished Technobabylon. Probably the last of my holiday season playthroughs.
It was enjoyable. The story and gameplay are slightly clichƩ without much of anything to say, more of a mood, but generally well executed. Sometimes gameplay suffered for story reasons and vice versa. I consulted a walkthrough two or three times, one time because I overlooked a couple of pixels in bad retro.
The ābig revealā was telegraphed well in advance, and Iām not sure if the dramatic irony worked in the storyās favor.
For those who care about such things, it doesnāt seem to have achievements on GOG.
Oh yeah, and if you die it just resets to right before you died. Definitely a good thing.
tl;dr Not as good as Primordia, Unavowed or Shardlight, but definitely worth a look. Depending on where you place episodic titles like Dreamfall: Chapters, it might even be the best 2015 game Iāve played.
Iām playing Unforseen Incidents too.
Regarding Unforeseen Incidents, I can safely recommend it to anyone who reads this forum without reservations. Itās a gorgeous, fun game if you like the point & click genre.
Since I played Unavowed, Shardlight and Technobabylon over the holidays (in that order), I decided to continue with The Blackwell Legacy now that itās still more or less that time of year.
The graphics arenāt as good (but decent enough), the sound is overcompressed, and it starts with one of those typical contrived adventure game type puzzles. (The doorman wonāt leave me into my own apartment? Really?) Weāll see where this goes once the ominous foreshadowing turns into whatever itāll turn into.
PS One thing I forgot to mention about Technobabylon is that I liked the longish (for a modern adventure game) unvoiced textual descriptions, like in Space Quest.
The gameās notebook mechanic is cute in theory, but borderline annoying in practice because you need to use it for really obvious stuff. Also the game failed to point out that it existed. At first I thought it was just a diary reminder kind of thing. Combine Alexander and Adrian to come up with the idea of gender-neutral Alexā¦ Totally unnecessary mechanic for the sake of the mechanic. Similar story with the ghost refusing to perform a distraction unless you talked about it elsewhere with him first. The goals were somewhat unclear.
I thought Unavowed didnāt really have puzzles, but so far itās a matter of being better off without these kinds of fighting the game puzzles. I realize the game is over a decade old, but of course itās also a decade and a half after Monkey Island. There were also a couple of reasonably decent puzzles though.
Anyway, on to the next puzzle: figuring out the order again, just like I did yesterday to figure out Legacy was first. Itās Legacy, Unbound, Convergence, Deception, Epiphany.
tl;dr Itās a decent effort, but based on this first episode I wouldnāt rush to play this one. Iād just read a paranormal ghost story instead.
Good to knowā¦ putting it at spot #50 of games Iāll play in 2019 (which means 2025 or so)
Iāve compiled a list of games I still need to finish or start. Seems I have over 50 in the category Point & Click alone
My strategy for this year will be to select 1 game from each category so I wonāt be playing more than 3 games at the same time.
The other categories are
- FPS/action (anything 3D, really)
- RPG/strategy (heavy time investing stuff)
- Platform/others (the Cave would be here)
- Retro (console/arcade games that can be as quickly picked up as they can be put down again)
In every category, I will follow a certain order to play the games and whenever I finish a game in one category, Iāll start a new one from another category just to keep things mixed up (I really donāt want to sit through 10 years of RPG)
Still not sure whether Iāll count episodes of a season as individual games. Probably notā¦
Oh and I have also foreseen a column āratingā in my tracking sheet.
#NewYearResolution1
Blackwell Unbound (2) is more polished, yet much worse. It introduces the new mechanic of switching to Joey at will, the implementation of which is where this particular entry is at its most interesting as a game.
The gameplay can unfortunately be aptly summarized as follows. Visit a location, look around a bit or talk to someone. You see a name or they mention one, the latter typically after a dialog puzzle of some sort. Go home. Look up the name in your phone book. Give them a call and/or visit. Rinse and repeat.
This game went from a promising start in Legacy to large swaths of boring slog in Unbound with amazing rapidity. Itās not entirely clear to me why I didnāt dislike Unavowed for doing more or less the same thing.
Perhaps itās mainly that all too often you have to perform too many redundant actions. Sure, itās realistic to look up a name in the phone book after you hear it, but itās the adventure game equivalent of killing a hundred sewer rats in an RPG. The puzzle is getting the name, not looking it up in the phone book. Nevertheless I have to compliment them for trying something different, and the story isnāt half bad.
Iāve started Convergence in the meantime, and so far it seems more promising.
Sounds about right. Btw, if you havenāt played it yet, I think Primordia ranks quite highly.
Also note that these Blackwell games only take a few hours each, so basically they all go together as one game. Itās quite possible that the whole experience will raise this into something much more memorable than just the first two episodes.
Care to share any of the list?
I definitely liked Convergence (3) better. I started Deception (4) and I think itās better still. The basic description I gave for Unbound (2) is not entirely inaccurate for the both of them, but the pacing and quantity is better so that it doesnāt feel like itās all youāre doing, and the amount of needless busywork is greatly reduced.
@tasse-tee might like the Blackwell series for its game breaking potential. One cute-sy thing I just did was to try to turn off the light in a situation where the game only thinks you might want to turn it on. So I got a scolding about trying to turn it on and then I automatically turned it off (when it was actually supposed to be on by that time).
Iām not quite as deeply into that kind of stuff as @tasse-tee, but it does amuse me.
Ooooooo, Iām intrigued
Yep, Iām sold! Thanks for the recommendation!
Well I just got Super Animal Royale for free in a giveaway!! Woohooo!! Gonna have some fun with it!!!
Enjoy your fight for furvival!
I finished the Blackwell series. The fifth and final game was decent enough in story, up and down in gameplay. I think it had more ātraditionalā adventure moon logic type puzzles. I liked the fourth game best as a game, possibly also as a story. Ben Chandlerās pixel art is always amazing to look at. The guy also created the graphics for the fourth Blackwell game, Technobabylon, Shardlight, and Unavowed.
This is a case where youāll definitely want to experience the first two or three games to get the whole story (plus they only take a few hours, whereas the last game is definitely a lot larger), but you could potentially also just play the (third,) fourth and fifth game. As I said, I thought the second game was a bit of a drag, and the fifth game basically tries to tie all previous games together, partially reintroducing the same drag. The principle is the same, but itās less bothersome due to slightly improved character control. Double click to speed up room navigation and instant map access wouldāve been nice to have as well.
Overall Iād recommend checking out the series, but with some reservations.
My order of Wadjet Eye recommendations:
- Primordia (must play)
- Technobabylon (more than decent, story a bit clichƩ)
- Unavowed (bit Telltale-like, enjoyable)
- Shardlight (itās nice, sort of Primordia light)
- Blackwell (bit rough, but good graphics/music/atmosphere smooth things out during lesser parts)
I havenāt yet played The Shivah or A Golden Wake.
(One might note that my top two āWadjet Eyeā games were only published by them, and perhaps I should tie Unavowed and Shardlight for third placeā¦)
In the meantime, I finished 3 more puzzles in Sam & Max.
(Admittedly spent only 1 hour playing as I started it up at 1AM or so)
Definitely need to put in some more time playing games apparentlyā¦