Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1269https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8019I played Part 1 for about an hour. Apparently it's only 2 hours long, but I couldn't bother to get through it. It's an Inkle game, received in an Inkle Humble Bundle, and I had never heard of this early effort of theirs, so I was intrigued. I see the Inkle DNA in it, a branching storyline, minimal gameplay, roguelike-ish elements (this has a "rewind" button, so instead of starting a "run" over, you just rewind to a previous decision). The story is typical high fantasy stuff. You're an unnamed adventurer going to get a magical crown. Choose which way you go on the map, see little scenarios, make little choices, engage in half-baked combat, die a lot. The combat is kind of a guessing game. You have stamina (health), and you can select how powerful your attack is, from 0 (defend) to 10 (a massive slash). The enemy will also select an attack power, but only sometimes reveals its intention in text. So if it hunkers down, then you should also defend, and not waste attack power. If it readies itself for a big attack, you should do a bigger attack, which will overwhelm it. Sometimes, it doesn't say anything, and you can be safe and defend (take 1 stamina damage) or you can try to attack. You take damage based on the difference between the attack power of your attack and the enemy's attack, though I didn't quite work out the math. So if you attack for 5 and the enemy attacks for 7 (whether or not it gave a tell), you take damage. And then there are spells, which is a whole mechanic where you manually enter three-lettered spells (HOT shoots a fireball, WAL forms a protective barrier, etc.). That's it. I was yawning after half an hour. I mean, I found the style and setting kind of interesting, but the combat was frustrating, and it was just...reading high fantasy text. I have 10 better fantasy RPGs and fantasy books sitting around that I'd rather engage with. Pass. Sorry, Inkle! I'll try Overboard! and Expelled! soon.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:47:16 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8019&iddiary=13541https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8018Really poor "combat racing" game. I played for under an hour. Tracks are uninspired and were already repeating themselves. The tutorial immediately made me skeptical because it would progress quickly through tooltips before I could read what the information said. It also had one part where it wanted you to use an item with R1, but the tutorial said use L1. And it was really confusing with the controls, calling L1/R1 something else, and also giving keyboard controls, because the tutorial didn't change based on whatever input was detected. Anyway, it's a combat racing game. There are like 4 weapons only, a speed boost, a shield, and I guess a couple other things. In the campaign, you just race around the same boring tracks over and over through like 12 different tournaments, each of which (so far) has 3 different races. It's like the game has an hour of content and was like, "We'll just have the player do that 12 times," Difficulty seemed weirdly varied, like sometimes, I would be dead last forever after wrecking one time, whereas other times, I would wreck and no one would pass me. There's also a weird thing about manually resetting your car on the track if you crash/go off course. It doesn't just reset you like in any normal racing game. Instead, you have to reset yourself, and half the time I would reset myself backwards, like going the wrong way, and would waste like 15 seconds trying to orient myself. Totally unnecessary! Yeah, really poor experience...but, it was in some Humble Bundle, and I can't resist a racing game with missiles and stuff. No real time or money lost on this one.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:34:09 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8018&iddiary=13540https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7379Gonna go ahead and retire this one, too. I realize there's a reason that these two extremely difficult games (Baba and Spelunky) were sitting in my "playing" category for years. Any time I picked them up, I'd go, "Nah, not right now, I'll come back to it when I have more time to devote." And I'd pick it up later, it would be hard, and I'd postpone again. Spelunky 2 is like the first one. It's a hard as nails roguelike platformer. You die constantly. I made it to the first shortcut and I think last time I was playing (before this), I made it to the boss of one of the next levels. But today, no chance. I played for 20 minutes and don't think I lasted more than 2 minutes in a run. One thing I notice that's different about this one is that there are branching paths you can take. That is, once you get to the first checkpoint, you can go one of two ways, and sometimes those seem random? Or are they always a choice between the jungle and the volcano? Not sure. Anyway, I as with Baba Is You, I really do like Spelunky 2, but it's bested my patience and precision, and I don't want to play it anymore or look at it sitting, judging me, in my backlog. On to something else! I'm playing the lowest rated and oldest games in my backlog next, then clearing out all non-Steam/PS5 games (i.e., freebies on Epic and GoG).Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:31:29 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7379&iddiary=13539https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7833Ooookay, I started this years ago, have come back to it a couple times, and always set it aside again because it breaks my brain. Last week, I decided I was going to tackle Baba Is You for real, and I beat the level I had been stuck on really quickly. "Great!" I thought, "I've got the hang of it!" A few levels later: "What in the world...?" And thus a pattern was born. Get stuck. Either figure it out or watch a video and copy it. Solve a few more levels. Get stuck. Figure it out or watch a video and copy it. Solve a few more levels. Get stuck. Etc. Decide I don't want to do continue this pattern for the duration of the game. Write GameLog. Close GameLog. I had reviewed a couple papers about Baba Is You, so I was really excited to get back to it, thinking that somehow reviewing papers on problem-solving strategies in a notoriously difficult puzzle game would give me an edge. It did not. Also, those reviews were a while ago. The game is brilliant though. It's so simple, but combines basic commands into complex strings. You start with two rules: "Baba is You" and "Flag is Win." You are Baba. Move to the Flag and Win. Each element--words and objects--can be moved around. You can reconfigure those first two rules to say "Baba is Flag," which turns Baba into a Flag and is game over (because "You" have to be something). But "Flag is You" works just fine. Suddenly, Baba becomes inert and you control the Flag. Move "Win" over to "Baba is..." (now Baba is Win), touch Baba with the Flag (which is now You), and You Win. The level I am stopping at has the following rules at the beginning: Water is Sink (anything that touches Water Sinks) Baba has Rock (if Baba goes away, there is a Rock in his place) Wall is Stop (can't pass through Walls) Baba is Move (Baba moves when You do [note that You are not Baba here]) Rock is Push (You [whoever You are] can Push Rocks) Flag is Win Keke is You Some commands are behind Walls, so You won't be able to touch those. Others are in the open, so those are the ones You figure out how to manipulate. In this level, Rock is Push and a combination of Baba has Rock and Baba is Move (where one "Baba" is used in both commands) are in the open. There is a Flag in the a space in the middle of a bunch of Water. Baba and Keke are in the open, too. So, the question is how to get You (currently Keke) to the Flag without Sinking in the Water. I actually figured it out. I have to move the words so that Rock has Rock, which means that after Baba Sinks in the Water, the Rock he leaves behind will also have a Rock. Keke can Push that Rock, Sink it, which produces another Rock, which Keke Pushes, Sinks, and produces another Rock...continue until a path is cleared through the Water so that Keke can get the Flag. Easy enough. Often, levels build on each other. Not just new words ("has" is new in this level), but iterations on the same level. So, once I beat this level, it might give me some variation where, I don't know, the Water is Sink and Float, or something. Then you have to deal with that new property. It's going to get harder and I'm going to get stuck and the pattern will repeat. So, in the end, I appreciate Baba is You, but I don't want to play it anymore!Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:19:17 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7833&iddiary=13538https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8012This game nails the claustrophobic space station genre in terms of atmosphere. It’s in the vein of Dead Space, Observation, Deliver Us the Moon, etc. A good, tense space station mystery. The game looks great and has a visual style meant to effect like a 1970s/1980s analog vibe. It feels very “manual,” if that makes sense. You run around with your scanner tool, find and load modules into the tool, select modules, and use the tool to interact with the environment. You manually switch modules (no pressing “1” to switch). You actually need to bring up the scanner tool, click around to open/close/activate whatever module you need, aim the scanner tool at whatever you need to interact with, and interact. So, when you quickly need to disable a hostile robot, you aren’t going to quickly switch modules and disable it. You go through the whole manual process, and that robot can very well kill you in the meantime. You also manually interact with computer terminals, actually moving an on-screen cursor to click on emails and whatnot, and some other objects too. The game is split into six chapters, but it feels almost like two similar games. The first half is more Observation—rogue computer system, killer robots, etc. This will feel more standard to players. The second half veers into more alien sci-fi/horror territory, and the gameplay accordingly becomes both more tense and frustrating. Both halves are plagued by shitty stalking/roaming enemies that can be extremely irritating (especially those in the second half). In both halves, you explore a lot, walking around looking for new places to go, looking for a specific place you’ve been (a locked door, a terminal with a keycode), scrutinizing the environment for clues. These two halves are also linked by the narrative, but the story is…forgettable? I mean, it’s weird and kind of interesting and requires some unpacking at the end, but in practice, at least, I wasn’t thinking about it. Like, I found myself focusing on the moment-to-moment tasks of survival and exploration on the base, figuring out where to go, avoiding enemies, trying to solve the puzzles, etc. The story—your goals—get lost in the micro moments of gameplay. You do have to pay a lot of attention to your surroundings, which ties in with the manual/retro 1970s sci-fi horror aesthetic. As such, the puzzles were often complex, and sometimes the visual retro film grain effect and/or UI design choices complicated exploration and puzzle-solving, too. For example, I looked up the following in walkthroughs: • How do you use CAT tool’s infrared scanner module? This was counterintuitive. This module is like a little VHS tape. When you load a VHS tape, you put the tape in the compartment and close the compartment. So that’s what I did. The module didn’t work. I messed with everything I could find on the CAT tool. I re-read the manual, messed with the tool again. Nothing. Turns out you DON’T close the compartment. You…leave it open…to activate it. • Where do you find the dang server elevator? There is an elevator that you can’t open because it requires a higher security clearance than you have at the time. And there is a server room that you solve a series of puzzles to enter. But I couldn’t connect the two. How do I get the elevator to open? I powered it. I opened the server room. I just don’t have the security clearance. Where do I get that? Turns out that the door to the server room leads to a different elevator, whose buttons are f a i n t l y visible on the lefthand side of the room, gray buttons on gray wall. Lots of people had this problem. • How do you solve the dang bathroom sink code puzzle? This was legitimately tricky. I thought I figured out the code, but it wouldn’t work. Remember, if text is on two sides of a paper, it’s like a mirror! What’s on the left is on the right when you flip it. Lots of people got stuck on this one too. And these two, I figured out, but saw that a lot of other people had trouble with: • Where is the first security terminal? I did everything I was supposed to do on the computer and was prompted to scan the security terminal for level 1 access. Couldn’t find the terminal anywhere. I was about to look it up when I…looked up. For some reason, the security terminal was like 10 feet up on the wall. • How do you unlock the vents? Early in the game, you have to unlock a vent to crawl through it. The vent has a red light indicating that it’s locked. When you unlock it, either the red light goes away or it turns green, the vent slides open, and you can crawl through. All other vents in the game don’t have any lights or locks like that and they don’t automatically slide open, so it’s understandable that players get stuck the next time they have to enter a vent. You actually have to crawl into it, like press W against the vent, and it’s like a flap that opens. Why have two types of vents? So that’s Routine. It was interesting. Unique aesthetic. Suspenseful. One good jump scare and one cheap one. But could be tedious, counterintuitive, and frustrating. And the story lost me. Overall, I liked it. Took me just shy of 9 hours, plenty of which was spent lurking through hallways and figuring out puzzles and directions, so it’s not too long. If you like a good sci-fi horror game, especially one that feels a little authentic, cerebral, and challenging, you’ll find something to like here, too.Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:04:54 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8012&iddiary=13535https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8016This immediately hooked me, has a great first chunk, kind of lulls for periods through the middle, but regularly surprises with creative segments, wonderful juxtaposition of music (huge licensed soundtrack), visuals (absolutely beautiful), and gameplay, and just a fun and nostalgic story. The story takes place in the mid-90s and follows three teenagers on their last night together before the main character, Stacey, goes off to NYC to follow her dreams of being a film music supervisor (aka an expert in matching the perfect song to the perfect moment). The other main characters are Slater, an artistic stoner type of guy, and Cassandra, a formerly straight-A student turned rebel, who is also daughter of a local police officer. They've got great rapport together. So, on their last night together, they plan to attend a big party. You spend the first half of the game trying to find booze to pre-game for the party. Maybe you didn't spend your teenage years full of ennui and/or rebelliousness, trying to get drunk and high and find meaning in your middle-class suburban existence. I didn't, not really, and though I was an angsty teen, I was also enamored with BEING an angsty teen, and collected associated cultural styles and practices, such as performing "the skater" (though I didn't skateboard) and "the pothead" (though I had never smoked pot), being angry about religion, wanting an eyebrow ring like the guys in Korn, and telling people I didn't anticipate living to 30. Wow, David, wow. So, these characters spoke to the teen that I imagined being. Anyway, finding booze turns out to involve a lot of sitting around in characters' bedrooms talking about how to find booze. In so doing, though, you look at objects in the bedrooms and learn about the three friends. Picking up objects can prompt flashbacks, mostly playable sequences depicting memories they've had together. These range from straightforward cutscenes to really fun segments where you might be skateboarding, breaking and entering into a dinosaur museum (I broke and entered into so many places back then to hang out), trying to rent videos from a Blockbuster while stoned (I used to hang out on top of a Blockbuster, climbing the utility ladder on the back of the store), running from the cops in a shopping cart (my favorite sequence), and so on. Technically, in the main story, not much happens, but there is a lot of reminiscing that enriches the current plot. Now, the game is called Mixtape. Why? Because Stacey likes to make mixtapes. In fact, she's made a mixtape for their last night together. She's mostly into alternative, grunge, post-punk, shoegaze, that kind of stuff. You'll hear Portishead, Smashing Pumpkins, Silverchair (a fun segment), and a whole lot of stuff I never heard of. She speaks directly to the player, breaking the fourth wall, introducing songs as they begin, giving the player brief lessons in music history from roughly the late-60s through the mid-90s (leaning toward the 80s and 90s). As a hopeful future film music supervisor, this is her passion. And she picks the perfect song for every moment. She has their last night planned out and her mixtape is the soundtrack. Except, the last night doesn't go as planned, and so her mixtape adapts. What you get is like a soundtrack that evolves with the narrative. It's really interesting to think about. What song does she pick in the moment when the night's plans unravel? When she learns about her older sister's legacy? When one friend gets mad at another? How does she use music to make sense of her experiences, to cope with (or construct) emotions and situations? Given the centrality of music to give form to and shape the narrative, it makes sense that there is some magical realism. Trippy synth tracks might accompany your car floating off the road into the sky; the drum beats of a track might coincide with exploding fireworks that you can orchestrate; and so on. Really creative stuff, and really enjoyed the game. It's not long either, playable in an afternoon. Highly recommend even if you didn't hang out on top of a Blockbuster in your Jncos.Mon, 24 Aug 2026 16:51:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8016&iddiary=13534https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8011This game is bananas. Do you like skateboarding games? I don’t, unless there’s something really novel about them (the recent Skate Story being one). Do you like racing games? Yes. Do you like being punk rock and sticking it to the man? Yes. Do you like fast speedrunning games and challenging platformers? Sometimes. Neon White was awesome. Do you like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio? Sure, I like Sega-era nostalgia. Did you enjoy the style of Hi-Fi Rush? Yeah, that was a colorful, super creative game with a kickass soundtrack that came out of nowhere. If you said yes to any of those questions, or maybe to two of them, you might become obsessed with Denshattack. Denshattack is all those things mixed into one. Except instead of a skateboard or a taxi or running, you are driving a train (and on one later track your train rides a skateboard, lol; know your inspiration). This is future Japan. An environmental catastrophe has happened. Everyone lives in secure domed cities managed by the Miraido corporation. Most everyone. Some people—rebels—live outside…in trains? No, I don’t know where they live. But they drive trains. They are Denshattackers…gangs of mostly young and always cool people (gangs are themed around baseball, cute fashion, rockabilly, goth/horror, whatever other subcultural or The Warriors-esque group) who…drive around fighting other gangs by racing them, out-tricking them, and apparently sometimes literally going to war and killing them. They also dislike Miraido, despite Miraido’s cute, funny (evil) mole mascot, and they enjoy tagging and destroying corporate property. Denshattackers and/or Miraido have laid train tracks all over the place for…reasons. You play as Emi, a ramen delivery girl who learns about Denshattack through a random encounter with a Denshattack fan. Long story short, she becomes a pro, defeats all the gang bosses, and together they take on Miraido. The story is absurd, fun, and oddly heart-warming. The game is broken into 9 chapters, each of which takes place in a different gang’s territory. Each chapter has a handful of tracks. Most of these involve just getting to the end, but there are also occasional races (place in the top 3), score attacks (get x score in 2 minutes), and boss fights. Each track also has additional objectives, like picking up x collectibles, doing specific tricks in specific locations, doing things to affect the environment in some way, smashing 10 opponents in a race, etc. One thing I loved about Denshattack is that it has minimal gatekeeping. Most racing/speedrunning/platformer games gatekeep like crazy. You have to get x stars or gold medals to unlock the next area…that kind of thing. There really isn’t gatekeeping in Denshattack. The only thing that came close for me was those score attack tracks (until I learned how to rack up massive combos and easily beat them). I imagine the races are tough for some people, too, since you have to place in the top 3, which means that you can’t crash hardly at all. If you finish the track and meet its main objective, you can proceed. But if you want to strive for perfection, getting gold medals, finding all collectibles, completing additional objectives, you can go nuts replaying tracks. There are some incentives for doing this, such as buying cosmetic items for your trains, buying new trains with different abilities, and filling out Emi’s “book”, which is a fun little way of learning more about the world and Emi’s adventure. I just went straight through though. So, in each chapter, Emi confronts a new gang, and in each chapter, she learns a new skill. Because of these constant additions, Denshattack never got old. First, you learn how to do all the regular tricks. Then it introduces rails and you learn to grind. Then it introduces tunnels and you learn to go off-track to do halfpipes. Then it introduces hanging rails and you learn to swing. Then it introduces magnets and you learn to flip upside down…and so on. The tracks are fast, and once more and more of these elements are added, the tracks become insane. I mean, that’s how I would describe the whole game—it’s insane. Tracks are fast, obstacles everywhere, you’re pulling combos, jumping, dodging, spinning, grabbing, choosing directions, switching tracks, nabbing collectibles, smashing enemies. Reacting constantly as Emi zooms around. Many tracks have big set pieces, so there might be a tsunami, kaiju, wrecking balls, a sawmill, all sorts of stuff going on around you that you can often interact with. And the boss battles are wild, multi-phased tracks oozing with creativity. You might think, “how can they do a boss battle in a skateboarding game?” That’s what I thought about Skate Story too, and it was badass the way it handled bosses. Same with Denshattack, but…insane. The whole game is creatively stunning, the entire time. I kept thinking, “at some point, this will get repetitive” or “wow, no way they can top that,” but it never gets repetitive and nearly every track—certainly every chapter—contains awesome new things that you haven’t seen before. Finally, I appreciate how user-friendly the game is. Taking a cue from hard-as-nails platformers like Super Meat Boy, checkpoints are generous. Usually if you crash, you are set back just a few seconds, so you can fail, try again, see what you did wrong, fail, try again, fail, and succeed, and feel like you overcame something difficult. The game provides the feeling of mastery. Or if not mastery, at least solid proficiency. This gets a strong, strong recommendation from me. So glad it was a day one release while I had a month of Game Pass!Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:40:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8011&iddiary=13530https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8010Halo felt like a standard shooter. In that way, it is authentic to the original (standard now, perhaps, but revolutionary at the time). I was never a massive Halo fan. I played some multiplayer in college, but never actually played the franchise until I was like 30 years old. I played the original Halo when it was remastered for Xbox 360. So, I can look at this without nostalgia. And the simplicity was striking. There are no RPG mechanics, no loot, no parries or dodges, no cover. I remember when each of these features was added to FPS games; it’s weird seeing none of them present! You can sprint through levels just like in the original Halo, but that gets hard in the tunnels with all the Flood. Some of those later Flood missions were really annoying with so many enemies crowded into corridors. All the hallway/tunnel areas were pretty abysmal. I’m surprised they didn’t change them. The game adds three new bonus missions. In those, you cannot sprint through everything! You always either have to kill all enemies (then the exit would unlock) or have Johnson unlock the exit (after all enemies were dead). New missions added a some modern elements, but were a bit jank. For example, Johnson had trouble following me. I had to go find him a few times. One time, I had cleared enemies in an area, and he said “alright, let’s go!” and the exit door opened, but he wasn’t there. Then no other door after the exit door would open. I traced my steps back to the beginning of the area, and there is Johnson, stuck on a door (how I heard him say anything, I do not know; perhaps he’s an expert at throwing his voice). I had to reload to get him loose. Another time, I was supposed to clear all enemies in an area. After doing so, the exit wouldn’t trigger, so I was running around, thinking it was because I lost Johnson again. An enemy materialized out of a turret. Killed him. Exit opened. Another time the opposite happened, where the exit opened, as if I’d killed all the enemies, but there was still a red dot on my map. Followed the dot, and it was an enemy, who promptly killed me. Had to start over. I think he was stuck in a corner and the game read him as dead for some reason. So…this was…fine. I feel a bit like I wasted 10 hours. I don’t feel any more knowledgeable about Halo. I just feel like I ran through an old, buggy shooter. But you know what? My (at least) 5-year-old laptop ran a brand new AAA Unreal Engine 5 game on low settings. Go go laptop!Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:34:27 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8010&iddiary=13529https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8009This is an arcade-style beat-em-up mixed with a roguelite. The developers clearly know both genres. The result is interesting for sure. It works for sure. But it only held my attention for about 5 hours before feelings of repetition and boredom set in. I see this as evidence that you can layer most any genre with roguelite elements, but that some genres might tend to produce deeper progression systems and more varied gameplay than others. I am most familiar with the deckbuilding roguelite genre, wherein every run in a great game is full of strategic battles, tough decisions, varied builds, and so on. You’re thinking all the time. In this beat-em-up roguelite hybrid though, I rarely thought. Strategy goes on the back burner, while combat is foregrounded. This should be fine as long as there’s enough variation from run to run, but the combat got old, despite the developers’ attempts to make each character unique and to offer multiple paths and introduce some randomness to keep things fresh. There are four characters who mainly differ in their special abilities (arcanas). They all have a regular 4-hit combo with the X button, a strong attack with the Y button, they can jump, grapple, etc…all similar basic moves. But then for the arcanas, the dwarf attacks with his gun in various ways, the frog uses some magic spells, and so on. More variety comes in the “rituals,” which are elemental attacks. This is part of creating a build during a run. There are six types of rituals: fire, lightning, necromancy, and so on. Fire rituals allow you to do things like set enemies to burn with your X or Y attacks, leave a burning trail behind after dashing, create a flaming wreath around you that hits enemies after you block, and so on. Lightning rituals are all about stacking “static” and discharging it with chain lightning, and creating sparks that track and zap enemies. Water rituals are all about creating tidal waves (which damage and knock back enemies) and bubbles (which allow you to launch enemies into things). Necromancy rituals are all about creating skeletons and stacking spectral armor. More advanced spells are ritual hybrids that do things using two elements. Usually, you trigger burning or spawn skeletons or whatever—the ritual effects—by attacking, dodging, deflecting, or clashing. This is where the game draws inspiration from modern combat systems. Dodge is dodge. You move away from an attack. Deflecting is dodging into an attack. Clashing is using your strong Y attack when an enemy attacks (basically a parry). After any of these three actions, you can press X to “punish” the enemy, which initiates a counter that does extra damage. This reminded me of Space Marine 2’s free pistol shot with R2 after dodging or parrying. So, you are doing all that, triggering all the conditions for your rituals, and by stacking rituals of the same element or that trigger on the same condition, you tend to specialize for a run. For example, you might start a run by getting a fire ritual that says “apply burn to an enemy after X combo finisher.” That means you’re going to use your X regular attack more than your Y strong attack and you’re going to look for more fire or “X” attack rituals. Then you might get a water ritual that causes a wave upon your X finisher. Okay, now you’re really going after the X attack rituals. Alternatively, you might find a lot of rituals that trigger on Y attack, or that trigger on clash, and so on, so I found myself mashing X, or mashing Y, or focusing on clashing, or whatever during each run. Runs themselves start repeating pretty quickly. I was really, really tired of playing the first area (which I did 13 times). And there is the most path variety in that first area. In the others, there are basically like 1.5 paths. The first area has a decent amount of branching. But this is the same concept as other roguelites. You choose to go left or right, or whatever, and balance risk and reward. There might be an easier boss one way with a guaranteed ritual, but a harder boss the other way with a ritual and extra gold. I like that the game weaves quests across your runs, such that even after I beat the game, I still had a few outstanding quests to do. I got pretty far on my own, but I was getting bored and the meta-progression (spend crystals that you earn each run to start with more HP, start with more gold, increase damage in the air, etc., etc.) was starting to feel grindy, so I turned on “assist” mode, made myself invincible, then waltzed through two complete runs so that I saw most everything. Cool game, but didn’t hold my attention that long. I wish runs were more varied and strategic. I think I just prefer deckbuilding or other genres instead of beat-em-ups, so the beat-em-up / roguelite hybrid, while novel, didn’t suck me in.Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:18:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=8009&iddiary=13528https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7968Just finished. What a ride. The Alters is one of the more creative games I’ve played in a long time. It felt a bit like Subnautica in that it’s a survival/crafting game, which I usually dislike, but its oppressive atmosphere and philosophical sci-fi narrative are excellent. It also felt a bit like one of those “timeline” games, like Eternal Threads, although you aren’t technically manipulating an existing timeline; rather, you create “alters,” real versions of yourself that exist in alternate timelines. Here’s the story: You are Jan Dolsky, a “builder” on a space mission to find rapidium, an element that can solve serious earthly problems like food shortages and save humanity from itself. Upon nearing a planet, there’s an accident on the ship and everyone dies except you. The quantum computer (the ship’s big super brain) could only choose one life to save, and it calculated that you had the best odds of survival. You wake up and, to save yourself, the base, the mission, and possibly all of humanity, you embark on a biological project to clone yourself. A bunch of times. This is…highly illegal. Yet here are your alters: Scientist Jan, Technician Jan, Botanist Jan, Miner Jan, and so on, maybe like 10 of them. They are all distinctly you, but in different timelines as calculated by the quantum computer. And yet they are not you. They are aspects of your self, yet are their own unique selves, while sharing core memories. Their memories branch from yours at various points in your life (lives). For example, several might stay with your abused mother instead of leaving to go to college. One of those who stays might confront your abusive father, while another leaves for a job abroad. One who goes to college might not finish. A few meet a woman and fall in love. One meets a man and falls in love. Worker Jan becomes a union leader. Miner Jan loses an arm in a mining accident. Botanist Jan never develops a strained relationship with your wife, whereas she left you and some of the other alters, and so on. They all have their own values and life goals and their own lessons to impart based on their unique life experiences, and these lessons—working with your alters to accomplish your mission—help you become the best version of Jan you can be. I think that you are required to have some alters, like the Scientist (the only one who can research things) and the Technician (who plays a key role in the story and whose skill is quickly fixing things around the base). Others, it seems like you can pick and choose. For example, I never created the doctor, the guard, or the shrink. Actually, these last three, I realized at the end of the game that I could have made them in Act 3, but I just wasn’t thinking straight. So actually, I completed Act 3 with half the alters I could have had. Oops! There was another part of the game where I was supposed to have four different alters, but I didn’t realize that I could make a fifth until I could make a sixth, so I spent like 10 in-game hours with one less alter. This led to a funny error on my part. In the beginning of the game, the Technician is grumpy from sleeping on the floor and asks you to build a dormitory. He’s happy when he has a bed. The dormitory has 4 beds for 4 alters. By the time I got more than 4 alters, a big chunk of the game had gone by, and I forgot that the dormitory only held 4 alters when I created my fifth and sixth ones. After I created my fifth and sixth ones, my alters started getting in really bad moods! I couldn’t figure out why. Then, one day, the Technician tells me he’s tired of sleeping on the floor and when am I going to get him a bed. I was like, dude, what are you talking about? You have a bed. I built a dormitory forever ago. Then I realized the dormitory only holds 4 alters, so after I went to 6 alters, 2 were sleeping on the floor somewhere. Then I laughed because the Technician was the first or second alter I created, and he got one of the first beds. Why would he not have a bed later? Why wouldn’t one of the NEW alters not have a bed? It’s like they kicked him out of the dorm, haha. Of course, it’s just that complaining about the lack of beds was Technician dialogue, and so once I fell short of beds again, he was going to complain about it again. Here’s another story related to the tough decisions about resource management and task prioritization. One time, I had agreed with the Worker (who was a big union leader in his timeline) not to make my alters work overtime for five days. Easy enough. I had only imposed overtime once or twice the whole game. Then I had another request from another alter during a dispute resolution to stockpile 10 radiation filters within five days. I was coming down to the wire on being able to produce the radiation filters, so I made my alters work overtime. But I forgot about my agreement with the Worker. Not only did the Worker get pissed off at me, but I missed the radiation filter deadline by just a few hours. So I failed both requests! The complexity of the interactions between all the alters led to numerous funny, odd, confusing, and/or stressful moments like these. Anyway, you need your alters to mine elements, grow food, make repairs, create items—all those survival game tasks. YOU, though, regular Jan, you don a space suit and explore the environment, searching for mineral deposits, discovering and neutralizing anomalies, and doing various tasks relating to getting the hell off this planet (because the sun is coming and it will fry you all to death). This is a major part of the game, which is basically split between exploring the planet and managing the base/alters. The exploration part happens in the morning/daytime/evening. You’ll run around, map out the area (in each act, the base gets stuck in a new area), find mineral deposits, build mining outposts, connect the mining outposts to your base via a network of pylons, kill anomalies, do other mission-critical tasks, and you can assign your alters various tasks in the base (growing food, prepping food, researching, repairing, creating items in the workshop, etc.) and outside the base (mining). At 8pm, you get “tired” and your work efficiency is cut in half. Then when the sun goes down, the planet is bathed in radiation, too much of which will kill you. Time to return to base. At 11pm, you become “exhausted” and will wake up later the next morning for every additional minute you stay awake. This very much mirrors my own sleep schedule, haha. Your alters also have defined work hours based on their moods, which you must manage. Extremely pissed off alters will only work 4 hours per day. Extremely happy alters will work 12 hours per day. Mostly happy or slightly bummed alters will work 9 and 7 hours, respectively. You can affect their moods by talking to them, giving them mementos you find, fulfilling their requests, preventing/curing their radiation sickness and injuries, sending them to the therapist, playing beer pong with them (silly minigame), watching movies with them, and so on. Their mood worsens due to a variety of factors as well. There is a lot to manage here, but it’s all handled really well. I haven’t even mentioned the electrical storms, the base weight management, and any story bits that you have to deal with, often relating to ethical decisions. There is a larger story here about the corporation whose mission you were on. They want rapidium. A rogue scientist wants your alters. You’ll occasionally talk to them, and they’ll both be trying to help you get off the planet to serve their own interests. There are several different endings depending on a variety of choices you make. I got the “good” ending, which isn’t really “good” per se, but most of us survived. In the end, like I said, the game is really unique. It’s philosophical, funny, nerve-wracking, charming, and strategic. I liked all the alters that I created. I often thought they were annoying at first (looking at the Scientist, who comes off as superior to the other alters and likes to tell them how to do their jobs, which pisses them off, and the Miner, who is severely depressed and causes significant problems when created until you help him resolve his issues). Strongly, strongly recommend.Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:12:16 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=7968&iddiary=13527