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Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (PS4) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:26:13) |
This game is way more interesting than I initially gave it credit for (and I might even play all the cases, I'm that curious!)
There's a bunch of cases, you're Sherlock and you gather clues, investigate locations, use your special "eyesight", interrogate suspects, and more. So far, this is what you'd expect.
Some clues become more important and they show up in your "brain" where you can pair it up with another clue (if it's the correct one) to deduce something. Once you have enough of those, you can reach a conclusion. ALSO, once you've reached a conclusion you can decide how to act on it (usually it's either call the cops or call Mycroft - i think...).
What's really wild is that in the brain-connecting clues interface, you can reach lots of different conclusions! (I think it's 4 per case, at least it has been that so far and I've completed two cases). OH! And, as far as I can tell, the you can get it wrong! And, you just move on...the game calls some of them moral choices - which I'm confused by. But the idea that you could arrive at an incorrect conclusion and the game just moves on to the next case is pretty wild. So far, I've gotten both right (because there's abutton you can press that even warns you - like "spoiler alert" and it shows my result in green - which I assume is that I got it right).
Anyways, that's super cool!
Oh, and the game haslots of little mini-games that you play once, and they're part of the story (e.g. taking sherlock's pulse, or arm-wrestling with a sailor)..
The 2nd case is pretty neat - it takes place in the UK, there's a missing train...and there are rich Chilean (and Mexican) businessmen involved! Whoah.
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Fights in Tight Spaces (PC) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:19:38) |
This one's a bit weird and I'll confess I didn't play it that much (just played one mission - which is like 1/5 of a full run?). It looks like it wants to be SuperHot, but it isn't - that's ok. But, it has a "play the movie" of what you just did in a level that you would think would play fast and smooth and super action-y. But now, it's slow and it even pauses between card plays...so it looks rather boring, which is a real shame.
As for the game, there's interesting stuff going on, but I haven't fully understood everything:
a. There's a typical energy system for casting, but a secondary system (combo) that lets you play some cards with a combo cost. If you move in your turn you lose combo so it's sometimes tricky to get everything to pull off.
b. While playing I was disappointed (because it seemed unfair) that there are objectives (bonus ones) in each level - and I wasn't getting any because I didn't know what they were! Apparently they're actually shown on screen, but in a place I did not see or notice.
c. The game seemed a bit slow - I was just moving and getting out of the way as I waited to draw into a good hand of cards. This cuts the momentum for sure and also made it hard/impossible to accidentally hit the secret (not really secret) objectives. So, I'm curious to go back and try again with awareness of the objectives. They should help a lot - in that I'm more likely to try to "solve the puzzle" of each turn and hopefully get the bonus objectives.
d. It's strange that you have to pay to heal, but I thought it was neat that you can upgrade several cards (if you have the money) and that some cards are cheap to upgrade - there's different pricing for them!
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Hadean Tactics (PC) by jp (Apr 21st, 2024 at 00:11:34) |
Ok, I've now cleared the game (not unlocked everything, of course) and it really is quite fun and interesting. The 3rd character (which I was waiting on to try out because I wanted to clear the game with the 2nd one) is pretty neat as well though as I write this all I can really remember is that it has an orb mechanic similar to one of the characters in Slay the Spire.
The harder ending is basically another 3 levels, but they get shorter! The last one, if I remember correctly, is just the boss. I don't remember what deck I was running, but it was pretty good - in the sense that I had picked up some good combos..traps and all.
I'm going to stop playing, for now, mostly because the list of games too look at keeps on growing - one a week - because of the design seminar I'm teaching.
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Before Your Eyes (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 14th, 2024 at 13:51:13) |
I've been looking forward to playing this, especially after playing One Hand Clapping, which had a singing mechanic. That game activates your mic and you use your voice, raising and lowering pitch, to interact with the game. Before Your Eyes was similar in that the game activates your webcam and uses your eye blinks as input. Before Your Eyes works WAY better than One Hand Clapping, and it's the better game all around. I figure that detecting blinks (yes/no) is easier than detecting notes along the range of human vocal pitch, so kudos to One Hand Clapping for trying.
Blinking in Before Your Eyes doesn't do anything unless you do it over a prompt (mouse over the prompt, then blink to interact) or unless you do it when the metronome icon is visible, which progresses the story to the next scene. The rules are simple, and it became a game in and of itself for me to blink strategically. I imagined that at the end of A Clockwork Orange, Alex's eyes are forced open so that he could successfully complete this game. At times, I felt like holding my eyes open with my fingers. This is because your eyes will get tired/dry/itchy while playing and you will screw up and blink when you don't mean to, skipping dialogue or ending a scene early. That's frustrating enough. Make sure you do the blink calibration, but I think that no matter how well you do it, it will still occasionally register some non-blinks as blinks. This really didn't happen much for me; through calibration, I think I turned the sensitivity way down, and I wonder what effect wearing glasses had. But like I said, it works surprisingly well.
So, the game itself is narrative-heavy. It's an obvious play on the idea that a life can pass in the "blink of an eye." You're picked up by a ferryman of souls who asks you to tell the story of your life. Back in time you go to remember it: your childhood, your parents, your career, etc., blinking your way through each scene. I won't spoil the story, but there is a twist that I absolutely did not see coming (though I should have paid more attention to the mysterious dark scenes) that changes the narrative and the tone of the game. This is one you can spend time reflecting on.
Aesthetically, it's got a simple visual presentation, sort of painterly, with some really nice piano music. The voice acting is good, with the exception of the girl-next-door (who sounds the same at 10 as she does at 40). For some reason, they also used the same voice actor for your dad and her dad, which made the one scene with her dad calling her very confusing ("Why is my dad at her house?!"). But I liked the dad and mom's performances. I was wondering through the whole game if your character was mute and/or on the spectrum because he doesn't talk--only through a typewriter later in the game--and otherwise expresses himself through his prodigious musical and artistic talents. But I think he's just a silent main character, not actually mute.
Anyway, the game won a BAFTA for a reason. It didn't blow my mind, but it's a neat experience that's worth having. It's short too, doesn't waste your time. I'm considering incorporating it into a class.
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Stray (PC) by dkirschner (Apr 13th, 2024 at 12:00:39) |
Patrick and I have been playing this together this semester, and finished it a couple weeks ago. We were talking after beating it about despite how simple and straightforward of a game this is, it manages to be something new. Playing as a cat (and being able to do cat things like curl up and sleep, scratch things, knock objects off tables, etc., so cuuuute) was novel, and the setting and story were interesting. But really, playing as a cat. I smiled a whole lot throughout the game. The lil companion robot was cute too.
On the other hand, I was often tired and bored while playing, and literally fell asleep during several sessions. Patrick would be making dinner or something in the kitchen, and I'd snap awake, cat walking into a wall, and I'd pretend I had not fallen asleep, and that I was just watching the cat walk into the wall and thinking. Like how my dad always used to claim he was "resting his eyes" when he'd fall asleep on the couch.
I would not call the game exciting. It was a lot of wandering around the city and talking to robot NPCs, fetching things for them. The city is a really good-looking dystopia, and the robots are quirky, but I wish they had more dialogue. You don't get a sense that many of them have personalities besides whatever one-note thing they do. I mean, the lack of dialogue makes sense, and it's not really "dialogue" since the cat can't talk. The fact that you are a cat adds a whole layer of silly to the game. Like, why has this lil robot befriended a cat? Why are all these robots putting all their faith in a cat to save them? Cats don't understand what we're saying to them, and cats do whatever they want! Playing as a cat in a game where you're doing fetch quests (fetching is dog stuff!) and doing things to help people is very un-cat-like.
But, you know what? The ability to play as a cat and do cat things trumps how little sense it makes, and I would play as a cat in this dystopia again. Idea for next time: more cats. And what do you think? Were there cats at the end?! Optimistically, I think so.
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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)
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2157 registered gamers and 3105 games. 7607 GameLogs with 13096 journal entries. 5074 games are currently being played.
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Arkham Horror (Other) by Fluffyal |
| Hard to pick up, but very fun to play |
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most recent entry: Wednesday 1 February, 2017
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Arkham Horror: 2 sessions, Friday Jan 27.
Arkham Horror is a multiplayer, cooperative card game for 1 to 4 players. The game is one campaign which covers three scenarios. Each scenario feeds into the next and provides a timeline over the course of an entire game. Each player chooses one of five investigators to play as. The investigators are trying to uncover the secrets of Arkham and defeat the eldritch horrors directly from H.P. Lovecraft's works.
-Players-
Each of the investigators has four stats: willpower, intellect, combat, and agility. They also belong to two of five classes, with one being a primary class. The classes are Guardian, Seeker, Survivor, Mystic, and Rogue.
Every class has a set of cards associated with them as well as a set of neutral cards. Each investigator can include cards from either class and the neutral set up to a maximum of 30 cards. There are two additional cards unique to each character included in the deck, for a maximum count of 32. These are a weakness card and one item card with unique effects.
Throughout the game players will need to make skill checks to accomplish things or avoid negative effects. Players may positively modify a skill before they draw a Chaos Token. Chaos Tokens are almost always negative, ranging from +1 to -4 in uneven amounts. This spread only accounts for normal mode, harder difficulties remove any chance for a positive draw. If a player matches or exceeds the required skill check number, they pass the check.
On their turn, a player may perform any 3 of the following actions: move, attack, engage, evade, draw a card or gain a resource, investigate, or play a card. Playing a card takes a certain number of resources depending on the card.
-Rooms-
Rooms are the different areas the players may move to during their turn. Each room is connected to another, and may be connected to multiple rooms.
Each room has two values, a Shroud value and a Clue value. To gather a clue, the investigator in the room checks their intellect against the shroud.
Some rooms may have negative or positive effects on those who enter.
-Enemies and Encounters-
At the beginning of the second turn and every turn after, each player draws an Encounter card. The Encounter could be a monster or negative effect.
Monsters spawn on the investigator who drew it unless otherwise specified. Each monster has health, combat, agility, physical damage, and mental damage attributes. In order to attack a monster, the investigator must pass a combat check against the monster's combat value. Unless otherwise modified, an investigator's attack will deal 1 damage.
-Objective-
The objective of each scenario is to complete the investigators' Acts before the mysterious eldritch Agenda is completed.
Investigators can advance the Act by completing certain objectives in the game, like gathering a certain number of clues.
The Agenda is advanced when the Doom Counter reaches its specific number. At the beginning of every turn after the first, one doom is added to the Doom counter. When the Agenda advances, bad things happen and the investigators are closer to losing the scenario.
Win or lose, the investigators advance to the next scenario and carry the ending of the previous scenario with them to the next.
-Game Play-
The first session I played, I played with one other person. I was Roland Banks, a Guardian Seeker who excelled at killing monsters. My accomplice was Wendy Adams, a Survivor Rogue who preferred to dodge monsters instead of fighting them. She also seemed to attract clues like a magnet. Neither of us had played before, so throughout the session both of us were checking the rule book multiple times per turn.
We began our adventure in the Study of a Haunted house. The door itself disappeared and we had to find our way out. After gathering enough clues, we found our way out to the rest of the house, which had been transformed and infested by ghouls. We began our search of the house to find more clues in the basement. While we were searching the basement, we spawned an elite ghoul. This ghoul was hard to hit and dealt a significant amount of damage, we managed to defeat it after several turns of punching it. We managed to escape and dodge a weaker ghoul after gathering all the clues in the basement. Now we managed to make our way to the attic a little battered. Of course, as is the nature of the game, if it can make life harder for you, it will. We managed to draw the only other elite ghoul in the encounter deck to help us enjoy our stay in the attic. After defeating the ghoul and grabbing all the clues we made our way to the parlor to release the spell that was barring our way.
Promptly after opening the barrier, we advanced the Agenda by drawing two Doom cards, which put the Agenda to its third and final stage. It was now a race against time to finish our last Act. After the barrier dropped, the Ghoul Priest, this scenario's boss enemy, spawned on top of us. We also had the opportunity to recruit an ally which would help us deal more damage on a successful attack.
We had three ghouls on our location. Luckily Wendy was exceptional at dodging the ghouls. I made my way to the parlor to recruit the special ally and Wendy dodged all ghouls and made her way into the parlor with me. I then lobbed a stick of dynamite into the hallway and killed two of the three ghouls. I equipped my revolver and began to shoot the Ghoul priest.
Unfortunately, we were not able to kill the priest before the Agenda advanced to its completion. The scenario ended with us running out of the house in fear.
-Second Session-
For my second session I replayed the first scenario with the same person as well as one additional person. I was Roland Banks, and we also had Wendy Adams and "Skids" O' Toole, a Guardian Rogue. The game progressed much more smoothly now that two of the three of us had a little experience with the game.
We managed to not draw the elite ghouls the entire time, but we did draw many more monster cards than the previous session. After gathering the clues from the basement and attic and mentally preparing for the boss fight, we made our way to the hallway to advance the Act and spawn the boss. While the boss now had 15 health instead of ten, due to the extra player, we also had a much easier time fighting it this time around. We successfully defeated the priest and escaped the house.
RNG is a good part of deciding whether or not you have an easy or difficult time progressing through the scenario. For the most part, the game is designed so that the investigators would not have too big of an advantage, should they ever have one at all.
-Overall-
Arkham Horror is a very fun card game that unfortunately requires a significant time sink to simply understanding the rules and interactions. Each scenario takes about 3 hours to complete. Everyone had a blast playing this game.
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