 |
|
Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (NSW) by jp (Sep 22nd, 2026 at 07:38:16) |
The night before last I played some more and beat the gauntlet! I felt very chuffed about that...kept on going, got to another boss (Parn!) beat that, and immediately after was ANOTHER boss...I lost really quickly and got really mad. In my mind it was boss gauntlet + Parn + final boss...with no saves in between and the thought of doing it all over was too much. So, I put the game down pretty confident that I'd just have to watch the ending on Youtube or something.
Last night I picked it up for a "last attempt" of sorts - before that though I scoured the map and found a few secret areas I had missed! And one area that was now accessible I had forgotten about. Good thing I did, I got a new weapon (the Chakram?) with great range, for a little less damage, but just the sort of thing I'd need for the final boss fight. I then stocked up on potions, swapped my spell to one I thought might work better, and went back in.
And success! (I think I had to try twice)
And in the end, was it all a dream. Sure. With some more to it...but still. The epilogue was nice, though it was weird to going back to level 1 with none of the additional movement unlocked - not that there was any challenge.
It feels strange to beat a game like this. I usually bail a lot earlier due to my lack of interest in practicing enough to improve enough so I can clear certain challenges. This game hit the sweet spot for me - it wasn't trivial, and I felt like I improved and learned the game's systems over time.
read all entries for this GameLog 
- add a comment 
|
|
Please, Don't Touch Anything! (PC) by jp (Sep 20th, 2026 at 13:12:20) |
It's weird for me to think/write that the most important "contribution" this game has had for me is how useful/intriguing it's been to show students in experimental games class. The game is strange and quirky and funny and genuinely interesting as a puzzle box style game, especially once you've peeled back a few of its layers and understand how the game's support to work.
Over the years fewer students have heard of it, or played it, which is both good and bad. Good means there's more room for it to be genuinely surprising to them, bad means it's also increasingly more "strange" - I've found that students have a lot less to go on with this game since it is so exploratory in the beginning. Hmm. it would have also made a good addition to the "thinky games" cycle when we did the game design seminar...
Now that I'm at a new place with a new group of students, I wonder how it would go with them?
It's been a while since I've played it - and I don't recall which endings I got or anything like that, but it seems like I did make decent progress since I've only got 5 locked achievements. One if for every ending, the other for ending 25 without unnecesary buttons being pressed. 3 are hidden.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (NSW) by jp (Sep 20th, 2026 at 12:41:02) |
I'd been playing until I got stuck on a fight - it's a two-parter boss against a soldier guy. The second part is against a sort of zombie/ghoul version of this soldier guy who spews green venom and turns into toxic clouds.
After scouring the map for missing things - found a few new upgrades (not interesting ones at this point) and filled in the map a bit more which was nice - I finally realized that I could buy more than one health potion (up to 10!) and I've come to better appreciate how the magic select menu works. So, I devised a new strategy for the boss fight. I'd get to the 2nd phase and swap out the spell with healing potions and try to use those to stay alive. And it worked! I was down to 3 or so...but still.
Yay!
I'm now in Stage 6. I think this might be the last chapter?
So, I kept on moving through new areas...and went back to older areas too - found a few secret areas as well (null space on the map)...and then I hit what I hope does NOT become a new wall.
Maybe this is the end/last battle? It's basically been - so far - a gauntlet of all the bosses (I think all?) in the game. And, while I don't think they've been scaled in difficulty (meaning some are way easier than when I fought them originally), it is quite tiring.. I did quite well until I got to the boss fight I'd just been stuck on earlier. My hands were cramping up and I just...couldn't.
Thankfully after I forget which boss there are items between them to heal up and such...but still. I think I lost this one from nerves and cramps more than difficulty? Though, I dread to see what happens AFTER this one. Will there be another boss? Sigh. I hope not.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
The Silver Case (PS4) by jp (Sep 20th, 2026 at 12:26:42) |
As I was installing the game I wondered why I had picked it up in the first place. So, I flip the case over and read the back - nothing really stands out until I look down and see "Grasshopper Manufacture".
Ah. Ok.
Grasshopper's oeuvre is interesting in that it's always weird, and strange, and they somehow manage to stay in business which makes it also surprising to me. I think the last game of theirs that I played was "Sun Flower..something..something". A strange DS game that was strange and creepy and I don't think I ever finished. I won't open a separate tab to check my gamelog for that one...but whoever reads this might want to.
Anyways. The game has a really striking visual style - and it's really "noisy" i the visual UI sense. Lots of text coming on, and pictures of the characters in different places on the screen (not always the same place), and words that sort of float around in the background...and little animated effects. It's all very busy, attention grabbing, and just - to me - visually noisy in a way that made me less interested.
Apparently the version I have is a remaster of an older one, so I wonder if the low-res poly graphics (e.g. car driving down an embankment at night) and such are kept in smaller windows because it wouldn't look good today and all the rest of the decorative screen stuff is what's been updated?
Anyways. There was lots of reading. Watching stuff, more reading and very little gameplay...and when the gameplay started it was "fine" (moving around a 3D environment in first-person view, but grid-based, like the old CRPGs Bard's Tale or the dungeons in Ultima and Wizardry). It didn't feel interesting - story least of all - so I finished the first chapter and called it quits.
I just bounced off the writing, the story/context seemed strange but not intriguing...so, time to move on.
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
Pokémon TCG Pocket (iPd) by jp (Sep 17th, 2026 at 20:24:16) |
Hmm, still "playing" though I would very often forget to "check in" when I first arrived in Rochester. So, for a hot minute, I though I might have been done with it.
The other night I played the card game - demo at a store - and was surprised to learn that the card game is basically a super set of this game. I guess I didn't have a real conception of the difference between them - I thought that the cards were all the same, but they're not! This actually made me a bit less interested in this game, since it really is a watered down version of the regular card game.
I do think it's an interesting approach that I don't know of other examples? Because it really does seem like a subset rather than a "new" or "different" or "variant" version. I wonder if someone's looked closely at them?
read all entries for this GameLog
- add a comment
|
|
|
|
|
GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
[latest site fixes and updates]
[read more]
|
view feed xml
|
 |
|
2323 registered gamers and 3384 games. 7923 GameLogs with 13435 journal entries. 5109 games are currently being played.
More stats
|
 |
|
Elden Ring (PS5) by jp |
| No comment, yet. |
|
most recent entry: Friday 1 July, 2022
|
Last night I started playing Elden Ring. It's a game I'm excited by while at the same time recognizing that it's probably not a game I'll enjoy and I'm not entirely sure I have enough time and desire to improve my skills playing it while also figuring out the intricacies of its RPG systems. That being said I've decided that I will give it an honest try and we'll see how it goes. Will this be like Nier Automata where I almost bounced off and then figured out I'd been playing it incorrectly?
So, I'm barely an hour in, which is probably closer to 10 minutes in for everyone else on the planet. I just barely levelled up once and got access to the horse. In terms of geographical distance from where I started - I'm essentially still at the doorstep.
I would say that it went "ok". I did not make the mistake of avoiding the tutorial section - it does seem kind of stupid to me that you have to purposefully jump down a hole to do the tutorial - but I'd been warmed through a little bit of "general cultural osmosis". So, all's going well in the tutorial. I can see I'm going to struggle a bit with the attacks being on the triggers - and I'm also wasting my starting resource (some shrimp thing) by using them by mistake - but, it's ok.
And then I get to the tutorial boss - some knight with a long sword.
And I fail. And fail again. I fail a handful of times and it's frustrating because the game has taught me to block, but it doesn't seem to work all the time. Is my timing off? Should I have the block button pressed all the time? Should I not have the block button pressed all the time? Is it a problem of distance? Blocking only works when you're at a certain range? I don't know, I'm struggling and I'm starting to get a bit frustrated. It doesn't help that I'm also practicing how to lock on and realizing that facing really matters - and that you cannot assume that the game will automatically adjust things in your favor.
I did eventually beat the boss and I think I learned something: Some attacks you just cannot block so you need to roll out of the way.
The bad news is that I have yet to figure out how to tell which attacks are which (blockable vs not).
So, I wander out of the new area talk to someone who basically says to head in the direction of some flashy lights that float in the air are pointing toward - and there's a giant guy on some giant sort of horse thingie on the way.
Oh! That's my next target.
And he basically one-shots me.
Multiple times, because I figure I must be doing something wrong.
And then I decide to screw it and sneak around...
I discover a camp - talk to some guy who sells stuff and recommends getting a crafting kit. So, I'm intrigued - but can't afford anything.
I also have no idea how/where I get cash. Is it from killing monsters? Chests? I've also been picking up random plants/fruits and bits of stone.
I imagine these will all matter at some point, but we'll see.
I'm still worried about the giant guy on the horse-beastie...like he'll just run me down when I'm looking the wrong way.
So, I hop over a wall - and head in a direction orthogonal to the direction I think I'm supposed to go just because...let's go exploring.
I'm cautious, and moving slowly, and picking 1:1 fights with soldiers who are sort of guarding in this foresty area - and dying ocassionally and starting over.
I do find a soldier camp. It has a name I've forgotten.
And here I grind.
I kill a soldier. His buddies come out and cut me down.
I try a new approach. Same story, then I decide to use this opportunity to practice fighting - to see if I can tell when blocks dont' work and so on. I think I'm a little better at it, but not really.
I stuck around that one area just attacking, dying, retrieving until eventually I had enough runes to level up. Found a camp. Levelled up - an underwhelming experience to be sure - and then got a horse.
Wow, that seems like a lot of time for very little progress... I want to feel like I'm learning the game and so on, but it still feels like I'm really in the dark with little opportunities to test/try out things to see how they work.
So, things I need to decide:
(1) Should I try a different character class? I picked Bandit because I saw it had a bow - and using the bow was awful. I wanted to try something ranged, but I guess the bow and arrows are not it. Magic might be the option?
(2) Do I carry on with this character so that I have a more "true" experience and just play until I cannot take it any more? Will I be able to "crack" the nut of combat or will each enemy/boss pose it's own puzzle I'll have to bang my head against the wall to solve?
(3) Do I try to cheeze/grind my way by basically levelling up ever so slowly by farming weaker/easier enemies and opponents?
[read this GameLog]
|
|
|
