{"id":49514,"date":"2020-03-17T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=49514"},"modified":"2020-05-11T23:32:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T03:32:50","slug":"this-week-i-played-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=49514","title":{"rendered":"This Week I Played… (March 2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t had a lot of time for games lately. I have a Jedi: Fallen Order<\/em> playthrough I plan to start soon, and Doom Eternal<\/em> will launch this Friday. So I expect to do a bunch of gaming Real Soon Now™. In the meantime, we’re house hunting and I’m trying to find enough time to balance my usual work with video production<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Is cloning a thing yet? Or time travel? I’ll take either one. I just need a few more hours in the day.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been playing… <\/p>\n

Grim Clicker<\/h3>\n

Don't have time for gaming? Get a game that plays itself for you.<\/div>
Don't have time for gaming? Get a game that plays itself for you.<\/div><\/p>\n

I’ve been playing Grim Clicker<\/a>. Well, “playing” is perhaps overselling what this game has to offer. Like a lot of clicker games, there’s an initial period that requires some furious clicking, but then you eventually unlock ways to automate it, then automate it more, then more. Once you’ve got things moving, you just need to check in every half hour or so to buy upgrades and make various investment decisions to optimize your progress.<\/p>\n

The hook with this clicker is that it’s supposedly an RPG that plays itself. You’ve got a little character that runs continuously to the right. A monster \/ enemy is positioned every few steps, and must be defeated before your dude can continue moving rightThe foes attack, but it’s purely cosmetic. Your dude can’t die until you choose to sacrifice him.<\/span>. Once he’s covered enough distance, he jumps through a portal to a new realm with new enemies.<\/p>\n

Like most games that revolve around watching numbers going up, it’s built around balancing the growth of A against B, against C, and so on. For example: <\/p>\n

That's a logarithmic scale, which is why the lines are straight. If this chart used a linear scale, these lines would rocket upward in a Matterhorn-shaped curve.<\/div>
That's a logarithmic scale, which is why the lines are straight. If this chart used a linear scale, these lines would rocket upward in a Matterhorn-shaped curve.<\/div><\/p>\n

Every time you buy an upgrade, your damage output goes up by (say) 10%. On the other hand, every time you go to a new level, enemy HP goes up by 25% or whatever. You start off way more powerful than your foes, but eventually you fall behind and each level takes drastically longer than the one before. At this point, you can sacrifice your dude. He dies, and you take the stuff he collected and use it to buy upgrades to make future dudes stronger. For the two curves above, you can either boost the starting damageThat damage line will have the same upward angle, but it will be positioned higher overall. Foes will still outpace you, but it will take slightly longer to hit the crossover point.<\/span> or make it easier to upgrade damage more frequentlyYour damage line will get steeper, meaning it’ll take longer for foes to get ahead.<\/span>. There are a ton of growth curves like this that interact and interconnect in different ways, which means it’s not initially obvious where to spend those between-game upgrades. <\/p>\n

I'm only dishing out 741 thousand damage, and the skeleton I'm fighting has a whopping 28 million in health. It's probably about time to sacrifice this dude and start again.<\/div>
I'm only dishing out 741 thousand damage, and the skeleton I'm fighting has a whopping 28 million in health. It's probably about time to sacrifice this dude and start again.<\/div><\/p>\n

Getting stronger makes it easier to get more ways to get stronger, which makes it easier to get more ways to get stronger faster<\/strong>, and so on. <\/p>\n

It’s not a deep game, but it’s enough to keep me amused without cutting into my work time. It’s free to play, so if you’ve ever wanted to play a clicker on a PC, then this might be worth a look. There’s also a cash shop where you can buy your way to victory, but I’ve never touched it and never felt like I needed to.<\/p>\n

Thief Simulator<\/h3>\n

The main character is silent. For exposition, you get a quasi-Italian sounding guy that calls you up to deliver little doses of story \/ tutorial messages.<\/div>
The main character is silent. For exposition, you get a quasi-Italian sounding guy that calls you up to deliver little doses of story \/ tutorial messages.<\/div><\/p>\n

I’ve only spent an hour or two with this one, and I get the sense that I’ve barely scratched the surface. Thief Simulator<\/em> is a stealth game along the lines of the classic Thief<\/em> titles, except with less story and more sandbox. It’s by the same team that created Car Mechanic Simulator<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Everything is set in the modern day. You play as a nameless dude who just got out of jail thanks to organized crime pulling the strings on your behalf. You travel between your hideout, a small neighborhood of a dozen or so houses, and the pawn shop. You can take jobs to swipe specific items, or you can self-direct and go from house to house looking for valuable goodies. <\/p>\n

Steal stuff, pawn stuff, and use the proceeds to buy upgrades to help you steal more stuff.<\/div>
Steal stuff, pawn stuff, and use the proceeds to buy upgrades to help you steal more stuff.<\/div><\/p>\n

I’ve only just cleared the tutorial levels. I’m not sure how much the game has to offer over the long term, but my initial impressions are very favorable. Sure, there’s a bit of design jank around the edges. There are some gameplay systems that don’t seem to add much to the game and the art and interface are unmistakably indie. Then again, it’s overall better-looking and more polished than the original that created the genre<\/a> and way<\/strong> better than the last game with “Thief” in the title<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The game is normally only twenty bucks on Steam<\/a>. That’s already a pretty good price, but this week it’s on discount for $11. This genre doesn’t get a lot of love, so if you like sneaking around and taking things that don’t belong to you, then it’s definitely worth a look. <\/p>\n

Wallpaper Engine<\/h3>\n

You obviously can't see it here, but the rain and puddles are animated.<\/div>
You obviously can't see it here, but the rain and puddles are animated.<\/div><\/p>\n

This is not a game, obviously. It’s basically live desktop wallpapers. The wallpaper is rendered realtime, optionally capped to a low framerateSlow-moving scenes are best anyway. Who would want a busy image on their extra monitor when they’re trying to concentrate?<\/span> if you’re worried about wasting CPU \/ GPU cycles. I’ve got power to burn and then some<\/a>, so this is a fun thing to keep all those extra cores busy while I’m writing articles. <\/p>\n

The game comes with a few wallpapers to start, but you can download literally thousands more community-made wallpapers for free from the Steam workshop. Some of them – like the glossy cars – are animated 3D models, while others are static 2D images with a few lighting \/ reflection \/ distortion effects on top. I even saw a couple of music videos, but I can’t imagine how that makes sense. Seems like that would be way too distracting, but I don’t know.<\/p>\n

The Workshop has cars, space scenes, nature scenes, memes, abstract images, retro 80s synthwave \/ vaporwave<\/a> stuff, and a metric wankload of dancing anime girlsThere’s also a category called “guys” if that’s more your thing, but I did not investigate. You’re on your own if you need to know about that.<\/span>. <\/p>\n

I downloaded everything in the “Cyberpunk” category and I’ve been enjoying various moody rain-slick cyber-cities. Yesterday I was sitting in my neon-lit home office and glanced over to my second monitor where a glowing city pulsed in time to the Distance<\/a> Soundtrack playing in the background and realized, “Holy shit. I’m living the life, here.” <\/p>\n

Your Turn<\/h3>\n

So what have you been playing lately? Also, what games are you looking forward to in the short term? Don’t limit yourself to AAA titles. Indie, retro, mobile, sports, whatever. It’s all good. Just tell us what you’re putting time into and what you think of it so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t had a lot of time for games lately. I have a Jedi: Fallen Order playthrough I plan to start soon, and Doom Eternal will launch this Friday. So I expect to do a bunch of gaming Real Soon Now™. In the meantime, we’re house hunting and I’m trying to find enough time to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49514"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49703,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49514\/revisions\/49703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}