Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1894https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6486I made an excellent choice. I was curious going into my second run of Oxenfree that the continue option had been replaced with "Continue Timeline". And expected that it'd be a basic new game plus mode. While a lot of the choices and dialogue seem to be the same, the game has yet to stop surprising me with little changes and even new dialogue made for this second run. The most surprising of which was the chair. It was brilliant. The chair was present in my previous run in the game, and much like I had chosen the first time through to sit on it. I did the same. But this time I decided to select a different option. Normally I would expect that the game was showing me the alternate outcome. But the dialogue was very specific that "Nothing changes in this world, ever." Not to mention the new objects laying about in some places, and the constant visions that the games spirits seem to be behind. It reminds me a bit of Undertale, except the spirits don't quite have the awareness of a character like Flowey who is aware that he is in a game.Tue, 07 Nov 2017 22:33:08 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6486&iddiary=11377https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6486I decided that for the second entry for this game I was going to finish one run through of it. Then for the third I am going to see how far I can get in a second play through of the game. What is intriguing about this section of the game is how the stakes of the story drastically ramp up, while the time travel and rewind that the ghosts subject Alex too gets more and more dramatic, all leading up to a conclusion that left me with questions that made me want to play the game again. The particularly interesting parts for me in this games narrative are the parts where you are making decisions for your friends, or the ghosts, as they hate to be called; are subjecting you to tricks and illusions that normally would drive a person insane. What’s particularly interesting about it, without spoiling too much, is Alex’s reaction to them. Most video game protagonists would be timid, aloof, or intimidated by the torture that these spirits put Alex through, but Alex sees through the ruse. She’s aware of the rules of this game that they want to play with her. Because of this, they seem to break and wish to offer her a deal. Whether you take this deal or not is the crucial moral choice of the game. The decision drastically alters the ending, and the trade-off that you make is a rather huge one. Even I wondered if I’d made the right decision by the end myself.Mon, 06 Nov 2017 22:43:15 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6486&iddiary=11372https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6486Before playing it I only knew that the writer of Oxenfree was one of the writers for Wolf Among Us, which was a Visual Novel that I finished recently that I really enjoyed.(No telltale games aren’t adventure games, they’re visual novels. Usually based off of comic books.) I was happy to see that Oxenfree actually has puzzles, something that I've grown to miss a lot in adventure games is the puzzles. So far, I've been enjoying the story too, the art is interesting to walk around, even if the architecture doesn't look the most feasible. I’ve also always had a soft spot for dark themes, mysteries, and ghost stories. Which isn’t what I expected to see going into this game either. There is a lot of candid talk about death in this game, from Alex talking about her dead brother, to the game ambushing you with information about Jonah’s mother also being dead. And I kinda like that. Even though I usually dislike the dead parent trope a lot, given the ghost story angle I think that so long as the game confronts that in an interesting way it will be fine. As far as the morals of the game are concerned, there isn’t the typical “Choose the red option if you want a renegade” that I’ve grown tired of. A lot of the options seem very equal, and the timers effective. There are two moral issues that I’ve run into so far in the game. The first being when you get the vision of Jonah’s mother in the mirror. The game asks if you want to allow Jonah to speak to his mother or not, it’s a rather abstract and strange scene. And as of now, there hasn’t been any effect of the choice I made. The other, is when you go to find Clarissa and the spirits on this island subject you to a game of hangman. I succeeded in their game with only one mistake. But the implication of what would happen if I failed was dark. And it was very jarring when the game gave me a vision of Clarissa hanging in that radio room. Only to have her jump out the window shortly after. It left me wondering if my one mistake had caused her to leap. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Sun, 05 Nov 2017 23:05:43.)Sun, 05 Nov 2017 23:01:18 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6486&iddiary=11365https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6468As troublesome as the controls in the last guardian are, I really enjoy the game a lot. There's a lot more to it than the frustrating puzzles that don't always respond. The game is really effective at making Trico feel like a living animal, in fact his unwillingness to listen is one thing that even helps this somewhat. It really is difficult to pin down if there is any single ethical quandary in this game. So it's difficult for me to do much other than criticize it. Since I must try though, I'd have to say the game is a good show of how there is more to our values than black and white statements of right and wrong. There are parts of the game that are extremely moving and involving. And it brings up the question of, why do I care what happens in a game about an imaginary creature? It's hard to articulate why.Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:57:07 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6468&iddiary=11339https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6468What a frustrating game. As good as it is, and as much as I look forward to doing it. There is no end to the frustration that the controls of this game give me. They are simply far to unresponsive for the game to give you full control over how to solve the puzzles. For example, in this session I fell into a water filled cave and needed Trico's help to get back out. There was a crate I could push into the water, so I did, and climbed on top of it, Nothing happened. So after a few tries I got frustrated and had to look it up. Thank goodness for the internet. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have it and tries to complete this game. The issue is that you need to have it next to a specific pillar. However, even when I did, the game didn't respond as I would have hoped, and in the end I had to sit on top of the crate and call Trico again and again until he finally dropped his tail. It's actually kind of a shame that the game isn't a bit more responsive, because it does a really good job of making you build a relationship between the boy and Trico. The puzzles are interesting when they work, and fun to solve. But when the controls don't respond they are frustrating and cumbersome. The main focus of the game in terms of theme, or story. (Since I must address this for this class.) Is this relationship between the boy and Trico. This relationship is extremely effective. With more and more exciting moments pumping up their bond and the stakes. The many leap of faith moments that you experience in the game are extremely cool. At least these first few times. I can see how they could get quite old honestly.Thu, 28 Sep 2017 00:19:43 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6468&iddiary=11314https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6468So far I've actually found myself getting sucked into The last Guardian. The game has a very interesting environment, and on top of that it always feels like I'm exploring some new forgotten cavern wherever I go, even though I'm just following the narrative of the game. This could make the game feel rather stale, but in the case of this game I actually found every new environment to be refreshing and puzzling. The game itself feels a lot like a puzzle platformer, which is about what I know about the previous works of this team. Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus namely. There is plenty about this game that I think works really well, fromt he interesting environments, to the unique design of the player character. If there were any problems that I had to say harm the game out for so far, it's that the controls are actually pretty annoying for me. There are a lot of occasions so far where the player character, the boy, has jumped off of Trico's back and into a pit. Which brings me to another small problem that I have with the game. I don't understand the game over screen. When I saw it for the first time, I mistook it as a loading screen, and only figured when my random button presses were affecting the screen that I needed to smash everything on the controller to respawn. I think that this is not only a strange choice for a death screen, it's pretty bad honestly. And as of yet I haven't really thougth a lot about the ethics of the game. Since for all of it so far all that I have done is wander around with my giant cat-dog with wings. If I were to try and think of just one thing that stood out to me. It's that the game has a message laying under it so far, that seems to imply that the player character is accepting quite a lot of responsibility.Wed, 27 Sep 2017 02:56:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6468&iddiary=11305https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6433So this is actually a repost of my third entry since my previous one was lost to the ether. I've grown to enjoy Prison Tycoon a bit more since I unlocked free play mode, but there are a few things in the game that I really think could have made it more compelling if perhaps they were tweaked just a little bit. As well as some mechanics that I find really confusing to work with. I will start with the latter. It has taken me quite a bit of time to figure out why my workmen build walls the way that they do. After considerable time playing around with the quick build options I've found that for me the quickest way to build a cell block is to place a foundation of carefully considered dimensions. This is made easier with the planning tool. Which is a wonderful feature I wish a similar game, Rimworld, would outright steal. Leave a little space for the hallway, and then place one cell. Then use the clone tool to copy paste that cell outline up and down the row. Repeat until the cell block is done. This is actually the kind of thing I enjoy in tycoon games. Careful planning, and decision making. It is hampered however by the bizarre choices that the workmen AI use. Sometimes I'll find that they've torn down a wall that I didn't want removed and I won't know why. So far, I'm still getting surprised by brick walls vanishing. Sometimes only to be rebuilt. The other problem that I have with the game is I think it is far too easy for me to make money with a prison. And there's no real motivation that I feel makes me want to have the most profitable facility. The grant system is an interesting way to encourage this. However, with my prison already running profitably, I didn't feel the need to take on some of the more unscrupulous ones. I've never been the type to feel like a moral decision that is too easy to make is a compelling one in a game. So when I'm making plenty of money and have a well funded education program in my prison, what reason could I have for making my prison less hospitable? But I think if the game was rebalanced so that education was more expensive, or so it was harder to turn a profit. The decision between offering awful meals and dog patrols would be a lot more tempting. But still though, I am compelled with Prison Tycoon to find out what that's like. So I think that the designer was onto something.Fri, 01 Sep 2017 17:31:57 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6433&iddiary=11270https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6433On my second session of Prison Architect I found that in sandbox mode the player faces some difficulties and they aren't necessarily ethics quandries. I've had a lot of frustration with figuring out how to place cells optimally. You typically have to draw out the foundations before you section them into cells. The issue is it is rather hard to say how big you want it to be if you want say, 15 cells. I think more or less I've got the pattern now. But sometimes I seem to get one side of the cell block wrong, and the other just fine. I think this game could have a bit more intrigue to it too if the game had more interesting quests. Perhaps given by specific characters in the game. In Tropico, a game I see this one having more and more similarities with. You have faction quests in both Tropico, and Abroad in foreign powers. As such, you have a wealth of quest-givers. I don't think Prison Architect has anything like this. And it could make for really interesting gameplay if you could take quests from prison gangs. Or from politicians. Maybe even unscrupulous scientists!Thu, 31 Aug 2017 05:16:59 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6433&iddiary=11256https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6433I was pretty glad that there was actually a game from the list that I could afford to play at the moment. There were other games on the list that I would have rather tried, since I've never played them before. But in the end I definitely found Prison Architect enjoyable. I think that a person could probably get through the campaign pretty fast. I had the spare time so I decided to get through all of it. There isn't much special about the campaign, since it really just serves as a tutorial. I think the more interesting part of the game is the sandbox mode, since it gives you a greater control of your own goals and your prisoners. This makes for some much more interesting ethical choices that makes the game a lot like Tropico. However, all the time I spent with the game today was in the campaign so I guess I'll spend a little more time talking about that. The campaign has five parts and takes you through some interwoven stories about the prison system, from building an execution room to end the life of a double murderer, to a psychologist who is an advocate for prison reform. But one of the more interesting segments in the entire tutorial campaign for me, especially since all of the cutscenes can be skipped and you won't miss much. Is the way that every character except for one has so much contempt for prison reform. And it's something that I think shows in the gameplay itself, I'm not sure because I haven't put enough time in yet. But I did notice that if you have classes and courses for your prisoners, many of them will not be interested, and it wouldn't help you if they did. Since the money you make is directly tied to how many prisoners you have. You can even choose not to make a parole room to hold onto parolee prisoners for potentially twice as long. There is also no shortage of prisoners though, and you're always able to ask for more. And so long as you keep them healthy and relatively happy, you'll make plenty of money off of each one.Tue, 29 Aug 2017 09:14:03 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6433&iddiary=11226