T w e n t y S i d e d
This week I’m still playing Stardew Valley. I’ve finally got up Foraging to level 10, which was much more difficult than I expected. I’m still playing Rimworld on the side. I’ve bought every book any time a merchant shows up. And I’m probably utilizing the load game feature a bit much, at least when combat goes poorly. Anyway, what are you guys up to?
The Best of 2017
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
Rage 2
The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.
Batman v. Superman Wasn't All Bad
It's not a good movie, but it was made with good intentions and if you look closely you can find a few interesting ideas.
Object-Oriented Debate
There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
I played through The WereCleaner. It’s a game where you are a janitor and also a werewolf, which means you clean up messes and if you run into a coworker then you create a new mess which then needs cleaning up. It’s not the typical game I play but it’s free and less than an hour long, and it’s very well executed.
I’ve also been playing a lot of Inkbound. It’s from the same team as Monster Train, which was fantastic. Overall I’m enjoying it a lot, but it’s not as good as Monster Train was. The quests feel pretty samey and give meh rewards, which would be awful in most games but in this one it’s pretty minor since the core roguelite experience is quite solid. The fights use a tactical turn based system with a pretty generous movement design and abilities that cost resources and have cooldowns – unlike Monster Train it’s not card based. I also feel like the various damage over time debuffs, while powerful, are pretty interchangeable.
I really love the set bonus system and the way that you can consume your passive items to get extra set bonuses from them. It means a balancing act since frequently if an item has a set on it it also synergizes with the bonuses given, but since you can only have 7 passive items it lets you get benefits from extras.
Creeper World 1 was fun. Pretty sure it’s based off Starcraft, really feels like someone took Protoss cannon rush and Zerg creep spread and made a game about just those. It gets tricky to stabilize in the later levels, but that’s the first five minutes and after that it’s just a victory march, with some tripping hazards in the level you have to figure out how to get around. The last level was fun, a defensive wall against just masses of Creeper with the victory condition of “gain a single inch of ground outside the wall.” Kind of feels like what Shamus always said about the Arkham games, easy to win but hard to master. I think it’s likely someone could speedrun the game faster than I completed one of the levels.
Creeper World 2 changes the formula, the supply chains are much looser, resources are easier to gather, and it’s DigDug now; instead of surface combat with elevations it’s digging into the earth on a 2d plane. Took me a while to warm up to it, but I think I like it better than 1’s system now. This one’s found a way to make the Creeper threatening after the first five minutes; unfortunately that way is making the whole level timed, usually with separate timers for each section of the map. Time limits stress me out, it’s part of the reason I generally dislike real-time strategy. And the timed levels are still mean; I’m on 19, and had a Creeper emitter surrounded with a dozen blasters, and still couldn’t build the kill weapon because despite the dozen blasters focus-firing, the thing still covered the entire build zone at will. This feels like it’s probably the stopping point, two levels from story end, it’s just misery to try to beat this one under time.
Creeper World 3 is back to 1’s formula, surface-with-elevations and supply line coverage. Three levels in, it just feels worse. A huge part of that is the text size; it seems to be hard-coded to a standard monitor, so my 50″ TV monitor renders the text near unreadably small, with no option to increase it. But it’s also got some really confusing errors; both the previous games used right-click as cancel by default, but 3 makes you turn that on manually. Maybe there’s more later, it’s still the tutorial after all, but so far it feels like a knock-off of 1.
Slay the Spire. Nothing more.
I really like Creeper World 2 even though it’s considerd the proverbial “red headed stepchild” of the series. For me the verticality has added, pun intended, another dimension to the control and countering of the creeper with anticreeper flowing down or being able to watch the creeper level drop in a cavern as you bombarded the deeper deposits… The late levels kinda circumvent it by having the creeper follow patterns rather than physics. I don’t remember the exact level you’re talking about (would have to reinstall the game and have a look once I’m back home) but if you want to finish the game it’ll likely be about either using heavy hitting weapons to destroy big deposits before they spread all over the place (in the more patterned levels the emitters can launch what are essentially “bombs” that will carry too much material for blasters to take down) or securing just enough space in the corner of the range to reach the emitter essentially focusing on cointaining and or pushing the creeper away with whatever tools are available (which at this point is probably most of them).
It’s unfortunate about the font in CW3, I never displayed it on a device like that so never faced that issue. I will say mechanically it is singificantly more elaborate down the line perhaps almost giving you too many tools in some cases as I’ve been playing a lot of the freestyle maps without using some of them on account of “feeling OP”.
It’s Colony Prime I think, with bunkers that shoot missiles at the Creeper and you fail if any of them die, and then there’s Creeper and phantoms and phantom Creeper everywhere and a bunker at the very bottom with destructible walls slowly eroding toward it that requires clearing the entire level at speed to save. The solution is probably more tech domes, I think the previous levels required upgraded shot speed to reach the emitters, but man, I reached the emitters in this level, I shot them in the face, and a dozen unupgraded blasters and multiple mortars still can’t clear enough space to build the emitter killer. I don’t think I want to deal with the rest of the level. Or the previous part of the level. I don’t like this level.
I’ll probably get back to 3 eventually in that case, but the stopping point in 2 and the early bad impression means I’m burnt out on Creeper worlds for now.
Edit: reread what you wrote.
Oh yeah, get those tech domes running, both the shot speed and range make a major difference. If you have the reserves for it remember that anti-creeper works very well with shields and/or pushers (whatever they’re called), particularly using the pushers to exert anti-creeper pressure directly on a generator works pretty well on suppressing it (with support from blasters and mortars). Also, mortars can be placed somewhat creatively especially with increased range because they don’t need line of sight, with a bit of luck the projectiles fired for one wave will arrive just in time for the next.
IIRC in this level the big thing is breaching that final chamber because it’s going to be chock full of high-pressure creeper and both it and the high hp drones will rush out. Probably the best option is to go with more is more and just build tons and tons of blasters and mortars with the idea you’re going to loose like half of them before that pressure releases.
I am unable to stop playing Dave the Diver. I am so glad I went for the PC version and not the Switch one or it’d be the only thing I’d do all day. It is seriously causing me eye strain as it is. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like if I had it with me at all times. Every time I think I figured out all the game has to offer and it will become routine and repetitive it throws half a dozen new things at me and puts a new spin in old mechanics. suddenly making it all fresh again. This is indeed my new obsession.
I got in another planet of The Old Republic with my Sith Warrior. As I expected, he’s not as much fun as my previous character, but he does have his moments. And he’s the sort of character to flirt a lot more, which gets me some of those scenes that my earlier characters wouldn’t have gotten.
I also played Mass Effect a bit more, getting through Therum and picking up Liara. While my character is one that can be a bit mean, what I’m finding is that the mean options are definitely a bit TOO mean for pretty much anyone to say, as at times it can come across as you stopping to talk to someone and then saying that you don’t care when they tell you what you were asking about, at least as per the description on the radial menu. Also not a lot of roleplaying options so far, even in terms of tone. Still, the combat is okay and I’m making my way through the missions, so I’m on track to get through that trilogy, hopefully this year.
Finished Final Fantasy X-2 – overall it didn’t leave a great impression due to the insubstantial plot and reliance on completionist overkill, but I did find a number of the sidequests fun.
Finished We Were Here Forever, a co-op asymmetric puzzle game. It was a game of highs and lows, with a few brilliant puzzles and a few baffling, incoherent ones. It’s #4 in its series, I’d recommend #3 (We Were Here Together) as a slightly better product.
Started Yakuza 6 – The Song of Life. It seems to be a much more scaled back effort compared to the massive scope of Yakuza 5. So far nothing has really grabbed me to cement this as an entry I’ll remember in the series, but it’s also a little nice to see the plot moving along without eight hours of semi-mandatory minigames. It’s a little refreshing to just have *a protagonist* again instead of a rotating cast of protagonists with their own massive sections of the game.
The semi-mandatory minigames will come. You’ll playing Baseball (for real, not just Batting Center) and some Tower Offence. But I missed Bowling.
I liked 6 with only two minor story flaws
Shouting: Haruka dive behind cover and do not just sit there.. And I’ll remember 5 as the entry with the worst story ever, where nothing made any sense, especially but not limited to Sajimas part.I downloaded a fresh copy of Elden Ring and the most recent cheat patch so that I might actually be able to beat bosses. I wish the game had an official “I’m just here for the lore and the landscapes” setting.
I would like to be able to say “hey, they made greatshields actually a thing in this one, just greatshield everything!” but you still have to learn attack windows and dodge-roll at least some attacks against bosses, more and more as the game continues. Because even when they deliberately make tanking an allowed build, they have to also deliberately make the bosses screw over tanks, because you’re supposed to dodge-roll and 2-hand you scrub! Argh.
I don’t know if you want any “build” advice, but I will say: the Fextralife map is excellent for telling you if an area is worth bothering/if you’ve missed something you could have got, the Storm Blade weapon skill ash is basically magic missile for non-squishies (very good for finishing off bosses that are low when you don’t want to get close again, I used it in all the last bosses), and the Demi-Human and then later Mausoleum Knight summons are gank squads much of the time. They won’t handle the whole game, but there are plenty of people on (especially with the DLC coming up) who should be able to clear bosses for you. Or yeah, if you’d rather just hax then go for it.
I’ll put my own Elden Ring post further down.
Selaco released in Early Access last week, so I’ve been doing that. I think I’m about halfway through since I’m at Sal’s Bar. It’s quite fun, and the level of detail in the level design, environments, and enemies is absolutely mindboggling for something made in GZDoom.
It’s great fun, but bloody hard. Even basic riflemen are tough, fast, highly accurate, and sometimes take a second to realize that you’re shooting them in the face, during which they are also shooting you. Shotgunners have the ability to cock their guns before they enter line of sight, allowing them to shoot you the instant you show yourself. Siegers have jet packs and highly damaging nailguns, and every enemy develops new tricks as the game goes on. I inevitably suffer at least moderate amounts of damage in every fight, and multiple set-pieces have ended up killing me repeatedly until I found a tactic allowing me to muddle through.
It doesn’t have much in the way of plot at the moment, both because it focuses on gameplay and because it isn’t finished, but what’s there is really cool. Might or might not be worth 25 Euros to you, but it’s certainly worth checking out.
I’ve also been playing Zephon, an upcoming turn-based strategy game from the people who made Gladius: Relics of War. The setting is thus: a near-future Earth suffers an alien invasion which quickly wipes out most of the species, then the AI Zephon wakes up and commandeers Earth’s military arsenals to fight back. He wins, but causes so much collateral damage that that’s why the map is procedurally generated.
You play as one of a variety of exceptional individuals who have amassed enough of a following to start building cities again. From there, you explore the surroundings, expand your holdings, exploit what resources you find, and finally exterminate everyone who will not agree to ally with you.
In addition to the player factions, there are three NPCs who are always present on the map. The Chieftess of the Reavers leads a Mad Max-ian bandit clan. They’re poorly trained and poorly equipped, but if you’re unfortunate enough to, say, lose a tank to them they will make it their tank, thus greatly expanding their abilities by winning battles.
The Anchorite leads the remnants of the Acrin invasion force who’ve managed to set up a few cities around the map. While you always start out at war, you can in fact make peace with them… and between their use of eldritch monstrosities as beasts of war and their love of The Bleed (which stops and damages most units passing through it), peace might definitely be the more preferable option when possible.
Finally, you have Zephon, the very same AI who caused half the current mess. It commands an army of killbots, has limited omniscience of the battlefield, and generally comes across as rather condescending during diplomatic talks, but making peace with it, at least temporarily, might be to your benefit.
From there, who knows how things might go? Every campaign is different.
Is that in RimWorld, or Stardew Valley? :D With the latest updates to both of them, it could be either…
In context, yes, I can tell it’s RimWorld. The books are pretty interesting, I’ve had a few help research new technologies (you can sell them on after you’re done with them) and the ones that fill the recreation need are great. And don’t worry about reloading, one thing all RimWorld players agree upon is that there’s no one right way to play the game; some people play ironman on the hardest difficulty, some people play in peaceful and reload whenever something goes wrong, and everywhere in between. Play in whatever way you find most fun.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve mostly been playing RimWorld this week.
I’ve fallen off (climbed back on?) the WoW Classic wagon. I’ll binge it for a month every once in a while. Hopefully I can hit 60 this month and do some light raiding next go round
I traveled last week so virtual I only had time for some mobile games. Yu-Gi-Oh! Duell Links for the most part. Analog on the other hand was packed. Iki, Earth, Vale of Eternity, Furnace, Dominion, One Night Ultimate Werwords, Skull King and Exploding Kittens to name a bunch. In Dominion we had a very bad draw of action cards. Over 2 hours for just a two player game. I hate attack cards that clog up other peoples decks (The Marauder of the Dark Ages expansion this time). Especially if you cannot get rid of the wasted deck space.
As with last week, Elden Ring. I got to a point where I was actually “rushing” to the end, because it felt like I should finish this NPCs thing before I went and did the other’s, and wanted to see exactly how the post-final-boss would respond to not having cleared all the bosses. Which I’d forgotten, the game explicitly tells you that you don’t need to clear *all* the bosses back at the beginning, so actually I should have just gone back and finished the last few areas I hadn’t done and left the final bosses for last. On the other hand, this means I still have some game left to chew over without having the final bosses hanging over my head.
I complained about them a lot as I was fighting them, but wasn’t actually stuck for very long, so I guess that means the last few bosses were actually pretty well balanced for me? I still don’t think it’s great ending with a bunch of bosses in a row, the first three souls games were more about the journey and the end was practically a formality, but I will say that at least the final boss here was not so insulting as the final boss of DS3. I suppose you could say that being open world and so ridiculously huge, Elden Ring is already so focused on the journey that the ending should actually be more about refocusing on the end no matter how you got there. But the last zone basically comes out of nowhere. This is a game where you can easily spend 100+ hours on the first playthrough, and reach the end with questions that you’ll have to do another whole playthrough to piece together the answers for. Unless you got spoiled trying to look up basic information on the wiki of course.
Will I immediately start a new run? Eh, part of me says yes, now that I’ve really learned how non-casters are actually also casters with different slot mechanics and that while armor is nearly cosmetic, you can actually wear medium to heavy armor without insane investment now. But also, I’ve just done like 50 hours of Elden Ring and I’m getting tired again. Even using a map to skip everything not relevant to the build, it’s still a whole game, and putting in a bunch of hours to build up to mostly the same build but slightly different seems. . . eh? You’ve gotta be interested in playing from the start, but also have a list of everything you need to run and get from the start, which just feels artificial (and I’ve basically already done so with a different character before). And I’m always leery of new game +, because you’ve already hit weapon upgrade cap so where is there to go?
You either do a gimmick build, which requires a bunch of artificial rushing and inevitably hits a wall where the gimmick is no longer effective and/or fun. Or you just play the game and fall into the same pattern you know works. Or new game + where you keep playing the same character but your upgrades are done.
So maybe a different game next.
This week I’ve played Super Lesbian Animal RPG, I had it in a backlog for a while but felt Pride month was the right time to try it. It is a silly JRPG featuring a predominantly lesbian cast in a furry setting. It is not very long, the JRPG part is somewhat light but works well and a lot of the writing is good, entertaining and in places funny. Somewhat to my surprise it is NOT a game about queer issues. There is mention of coming out (though more relating to being a transperson rather than a lesbian), of unsupportive families and intolerant society but it is something in the characters’ past and generally glossed over more as background that informs some of their current relationships. Instead the game focuses on themes of insecurities and communications in a relationship in a way that is probably universal though with a strong underlying idea of “found family”. I’d recommend it if you want a mostly feel-good queerthemed game that doesn’t treat itself too seriously.
In co-op we’ve started Dead Island 2. It’s okay so far though with the caveat that poking your eye with a stick is fun with a friend. Fighting zombies has a fun kinaesthetic feel (especially with the heavier blunt weapons), the level design at least tries for variance so far and we’ve accidentally stumbled into the Haus DLC which seems interesting (we stepped back into the main game as we haven’t yet unlocked all the exploration mechanics). The game’s humor is mediocre most of the time, not helped by us picking probably the two most boring characters out of the bunch, and since the last zombie game we played was Dying Light I keep trying to do parkour moves that this game simply doesn’t support.
Other than that I’ve started a replaythrough of Dark Souls 2 after finishing a replaythrough of the first game. I was immediately reminded of how much the limited respawn of enemies changes the tone of the game as it makes “depopulating” a level, or at leats a path to the boss, a valid strategy and encourages grinding by putting a sort of natural cap on it instead of encouraging the player to get “good enough to pass”. Mind you, I am not one of the DS2 haters, I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely a stark change when you’re moving straight from the first game to the second.
Destiny 2 has finally launched its delayed expansion The Final Shape but since it only came out on Tuesday between work schedule, server downtimes and login queues I barely had the opportunity to play it so haven’t even gotten through the initial batch of story missions.
I did find the complaints about depopulating enemies in DS2 to be very odd. I only ever had it happen on one particular route, to a boss I was clearly missing the point of (the Ruin Sentinels, you gotta get off the ledge). So people that were making Dark Souls their entire personality and yet apparently had to grind areas so much that they depopulated them seemed incongruous. So it seems all upside to me on its own, and even then you can just look up how to turn it off.
I think it’s a bit more complicated. Some complaints were definitely due to snobbery from people who perceived this as a mercy system* and got in a fit because that meant “compromising for casuals”, these people should be ignored (ideally at all times). Having said that, while I can’t speak for everyone, I don’t think for a lot of people it was that they had to depopulate areas to grind enough to progress, it’s that part of their gamer brains pushed this as an optimal strategy which changed the feel of the game even if they didn’t actually do it.
*IMHO OG Dark Souls, with every level passively increasing all defenses, already had a bit of a skill compensation system for those who were willing to put up with the grind.
City of Heroes in the Thunderspy private server.
It has customizeable henchmen for masterminds, everything I ever wanted from City of Heroes.
Well, technically city of villains, even if they’ve opened masterminds for heroes.