Klaustrix
BACKER
2023
A simple cute idle game that doesn't waste your time. I'm more familiar with unending exponential idle games like Cookie Clicker which literally never end, and Gnorp keeps things achievable, concise, and doesn't out-stay its welcome.
The game is built around attacking a rock to generate shards and collecting those shards to spend on resources. The pile in the middle grows and if it builds beyond a threshold you go up one tier, the number of shards is halved but their value is doubled. With 10 tiers this makes the task of balancing your damage vs. collection the key to growing your supplies.
The units available are a cute and quirky mix that I won't spoil, but beyond the variety of unlockable structures and ways to affect damage/collection, there's also the traits. By reaching collection rate thresholds you earn special points that can be used on a skill tree of sorts that applies gameplay modifiers. These are key to winning the game so expect at least 3-4 runs and can make the strategy of how you win different - albeit not wildly so.
Overall the graphics are simple, the music is serviceable, and gameplay is enjoyable. In the 2 days I 100%'d it I saw just about everything it had to offer and was ready to stop anyways. There is replayability if you want to experiment with units and the skills but I don't think there's much motivation to. Good for people testing the waters of idle games, but lacking length and breadth for hardcore fans of the genre.
The game is built around attacking a rock to generate shards and collecting those shards to spend on resources. The pile in the middle grows and if it builds beyond a threshold you go up one tier, the number of shards is halved but their value is doubled. With 10 tiers this makes the task of balancing your damage vs. collection the key to growing your supplies.
The units available are a cute and quirky mix that I won't spoil, but beyond the variety of unlockable structures and ways to affect damage/collection, there's also the traits. By reaching collection rate thresholds you earn special points that can be used on a skill tree of sorts that applies gameplay modifiers. These are key to winning the game so expect at least 3-4 runs and can make the strategy of how you win different - albeit not wildly so.
Overall the graphics are simple, the music is serviceable, and gameplay is enjoyable. In the 2 days I 100%'d it I saw just about everything it had to offer and was ready to stop anyways. There is replayability if you want to experiment with units and the skills but I don't think there's much motivation to. Good for people testing the waters of idle games, but lacking length and breadth for hardcore fans of the genre.
2007
A simple well designed arcade game seemingly inspired by pachinko. The gameplay is very straightforward, morish, and tightly designed making this a fun little time passer. There's a variety of characters that give your balls unique mechanics and keep things interesting throughout. It's not very long but has a variety of levels to keep you busy.
Peggle doesn't do anything revolutionary, the art and music are serviceable and have that mobile 'broadest appeal possible' vibe. The score system is engaging and ties into the mechanics nicely but I don't think anyone is 'competing' at peggle so it seems serve just as a brain reward neuron activator. It certainly introduced and popularised the concept of pachinko in the west to some degree, but it also doesn't try to weaponize the gameplay as traditional pachinko or modern games do. It just provides a solid game loop and lets you indulge in it.
Feels like the kinda game they could have bundled with windows back in the day and its genuinely refreshing to see a small self contained game that doesn't spread itself across DLC and a cosmetics shop. Exactly the kind of self contained robust design you only really see from indie now days.
Peggle doesn't do anything revolutionary, the art and music are serviceable and have that mobile 'broadest appeal possible' vibe. The score system is engaging and ties into the mechanics nicely but I don't think anyone is 'competing' at peggle so it seems serve just as a brain reward neuron activator. It certainly introduced and popularised the concept of pachinko in the west to some degree, but it also doesn't try to weaponize the gameplay as traditional pachinko or modern games do. It just provides a solid game loop and lets you indulge in it.
Feels like the kinda game they could have bundled with windows back in the day and its genuinely refreshing to see a small self contained game that doesn't spread itself across DLC and a cosmetics shop. Exactly the kind of self contained robust design you only really see from indie now days.
2024
The west's answer to Earth Defence Force, and man does it live up to the title. A great combination that takes on some of the best aspects of sci-fi to create a uniquely fun satirical take on authoritarians conquering the galaxy.
Visually this game is highly cinematic. There's a large variety of planets each with their own weather effects lit in day and night, with vivid colour schemes and contrast. All of them make for wonderful backdrops for your destruction to rain down on and you'll regularly be recreating the cinematic moments from classic action films just by playing the game. There's a lot of film references and inspirations that are worn on its sleeve and all of it used fantastically, down to the hilarious satirical setting and voice lines peppered throughout. The music adds to this as it's highly atmospheric and while the title theme is the most memorable tune I appreciate the tense 80's synths that fill the space between bot attacks.
I've mentioned this idea before of 'generosity' as a design concept and HD2 encapsulates it perfectly. You have a ship that is bedecked with orbital weapons, heavy weapons to drop down to you, and a hangar loaded with attack ships to call in. You have your standard array of light and medium arms, grenades, and all of these things deploy in style. You start off where most games leave off and while you do have to unlock and upgrade a lot of this, you still feel like a one-man army from the get-go.
The next thing this game gets right is not only giving you a ton of stuff to play with, the vast majority of it has a reason to exist. The two types of enemy have very different units that require very different equipment to take on properly. Bugs come in huge numbers, low armour, and prefer melee while Bots have smaller numbers, heavy armour, and prefer ranged firepower. So while some gear is made obsolete by upgrades, there's still plenty of weapons and stratagems to experiment with along both tactical lines.
The enemies themselves are takes on familiar concepts, Bugs being 40k Tyranids by way of Starship Trooper bugs, and Bots being 80's Terminators by way of 40k Orcs. Even the human faction of helldivers have a 40k space marines by way of Destiny 2 guardians feel. While the comparisons might sound reductive, the focus here is on high quality DNA being used in ways we all wished the respective IP owners would use them. The bugs are a fun and simple introduction to the game's core mechanics and as you increase the difficulty new enemies are introduced that require you to make use of your weapon and movement options, coordinate with your team, and communicate with them.
The bots being so tactically different, heavily armoured, and coordinated make them quite a steep difficulty curve to adapt to as you'll need that late game gear to stand a chance, but once you get to grips with their fighting style and weak points it's every bit as satisfying to shoot down drop ships and bomb their heavily reinforced bunkers. Don't get me wrong, you'll still get curb stomped occasionally but you aren't penalised for lives lost. Quick reinforcements and those powerful stratagems to back you up mean it's easy to bounce back and it makes the victory feel all the more hard fought for.
Missions meanwhile offer something to do besides blasting waves of enemies. You'll have to make your way across the map to various way points, interact with terminals to play mini-games, and adjust the settings on radars, open pipes, and unlock ICBM silos. It's simple stuff but easy to keep in mind amdist the chaos of enemies baring down on you at the same time. That said there can be some tedious wait times for bars to fill, long walks from one side of the map to the other, and at later difficulties you'll want to avoid setting off encounters you don't need to. This can slow things down but it's never long before you're back to combat. Plus while the objectives are a fun 2nd layer of things to do, they can get repetitive at the 30hr mark - thankfully the simplicity leaves plenty of room for new tasks to be implemented down the line.
Speaking of expansion it's also worth addressing the Warbonds. Functionally they're a masterclass in non-abusive ways to implement battle passes. I genuinely never thought I'd see the day! Still part of me feels like for the way it works and what it is, they could have built this points > shop system in any number of ways besides the structure of a battle pass. I almost feel like it sanitises battle passes conceptually and I don't know how to feel about that as I'm quite against the abusive trends they're historically associated with. At the very least HD2 shows the rest of the industry that live service games aren't the problem just the predatory practices that accompany them.
In conclusion HD2 is beautifully presented, designed, put together, and most importantly fun to play. It has its flaws of course, going single player isn't nearly as strong of an experience, there's some bugs which show up from time to time (from visual issues to straight up crashing mid-game), but when it works it easily outshines those blemishes. The studio are rolling out patches with new weapons, vehicles, and balance adjustments regularly so I'm confident this will all get dealt with - not to mention that it's exciting to have a game releasing new content that isn't exclusively paywalled and actually builds on the existing content. Since everyone can have it by default the playerbase isn't weirdly broken up and segregated which is surprisingly rare. In an age of the games industry taking, this is a game that gives a lot back and I respect that.
Visually this game is highly cinematic. There's a large variety of planets each with their own weather effects lit in day and night, with vivid colour schemes and contrast. All of them make for wonderful backdrops for your destruction to rain down on and you'll regularly be recreating the cinematic moments from classic action films just by playing the game. There's a lot of film references and inspirations that are worn on its sleeve and all of it used fantastically, down to the hilarious satirical setting and voice lines peppered throughout. The music adds to this as it's highly atmospheric and while the title theme is the most memorable tune I appreciate the tense 80's synths that fill the space between bot attacks.
I've mentioned this idea before of 'generosity' as a design concept and HD2 encapsulates it perfectly. You have a ship that is bedecked with orbital weapons, heavy weapons to drop down to you, and a hangar loaded with attack ships to call in. You have your standard array of light and medium arms, grenades, and all of these things deploy in style. You start off where most games leave off and while you do have to unlock and upgrade a lot of this, you still feel like a one-man army from the get-go.
The next thing this game gets right is not only giving you a ton of stuff to play with, the vast majority of it has a reason to exist. The two types of enemy have very different units that require very different equipment to take on properly. Bugs come in huge numbers, low armour, and prefer melee while Bots have smaller numbers, heavy armour, and prefer ranged firepower. So while some gear is made obsolete by upgrades, there's still plenty of weapons and stratagems to experiment with along both tactical lines.
The enemies themselves are takes on familiar concepts, Bugs being 40k Tyranids by way of Starship Trooper bugs, and Bots being 80's Terminators by way of 40k Orcs. Even the human faction of helldivers have a 40k space marines by way of Destiny 2 guardians feel. While the comparisons might sound reductive, the focus here is on high quality DNA being used in ways we all wished the respective IP owners would use them. The bugs are a fun and simple introduction to the game's core mechanics and as you increase the difficulty new enemies are introduced that require you to make use of your weapon and movement options, coordinate with your team, and communicate with them.
The bots being so tactically different, heavily armoured, and coordinated make them quite a steep difficulty curve to adapt to as you'll need that late game gear to stand a chance, but once you get to grips with their fighting style and weak points it's every bit as satisfying to shoot down drop ships and bomb their heavily reinforced bunkers. Don't get me wrong, you'll still get curb stomped occasionally but you aren't penalised for lives lost. Quick reinforcements and those powerful stratagems to back you up mean it's easy to bounce back and it makes the victory feel all the more hard fought for.
Missions meanwhile offer something to do besides blasting waves of enemies. You'll have to make your way across the map to various way points, interact with terminals to play mini-games, and adjust the settings on radars, open pipes, and unlock ICBM silos. It's simple stuff but easy to keep in mind amdist the chaos of enemies baring down on you at the same time. That said there can be some tedious wait times for bars to fill, long walks from one side of the map to the other, and at later difficulties you'll want to avoid setting off encounters you don't need to. This can slow things down but it's never long before you're back to combat. Plus while the objectives are a fun 2nd layer of things to do, they can get repetitive at the 30hr mark - thankfully the simplicity leaves plenty of room for new tasks to be implemented down the line.
Speaking of expansion it's also worth addressing the Warbonds. Functionally they're a masterclass in non-abusive ways to implement battle passes. I genuinely never thought I'd see the day! Still part of me feels like for the way it works and what it is, they could have built this points > shop system in any number of ways besides the structure of a battle pass. I almost feel like it sanitises battle passes conceptually and I don't know how to feel about that as I'm quite against the abusive trends they're historically associated with. At the very least HD2 shows the rest of the industry that live service games aren't the problem just the predatory practices that accompany them.
In conclusion HD2 is beautifully presented, designed, put together, and most importantly fun to play. It has its flaws of course, going single player isn't nearly as strong of an experience, there's some bugs which show up from time to time (from visual issues to straight up crashing mid-game), but when it works it easily outshines those blemishes. The studio are rolling out patches with new weapons, vehicles, and balance adjustments regularly so I'm confident this will all get dealt with - not to mention that it's exciting to have a game releasing new content that isn't exclusively paywalled and actually builds on the existing content. Since everyone can have it by default the playerbase isn't weirdly broken up and segregated which is surprisingly rare. In an age of the games industry taking, this is a game that gives a lot back and I respect that.
Koji Igarashi returns to deliver a spiritual successor to the Castlevania series, but the end result is a re-tread of overly familiar territory that doesn't add anything new to the genre he helped create.
Bloodstained feels like a combination of Castlevania and Bayonetta, but plays closer to something like Valkyrie Chronicles or Shantae. The game does some work to set itself apart as a legally distinct IP for the advertising, but spends far more effort on homage and pastiche to make sure you know it's related the moment you start playing. You aren't a vampire, you aren't a dude, and you aren't fighting Dracula, but it is very much a game about gothic era heroes fighting demons using swords and sorcery in a gothic castle. All of the most fundamental aspects of the game are borrowed and recycled in a 'copy my homework' kind of way while failing to deliver anything meaningfully original.
Gameplay is clearly trying to evoke memories of Symphony of the Night but ends up feeling far too clunky and slow by comparison. Symphony was defined by it's flowing movement, attacks without interruption, a variety of interesting mobility options, and a subtle nuance to its simple combat design. Bloodstained meanwhile has attacks that interrupt movement, basic speed improvements locked behind late game equipment, mobility options that are highly circumstantial and inconvenient to use, and a slew of 1 dimensional enemies (some of which feel oddly sci-fi or just don't mesh with the setting at all). As beautiful as the levels are no thought has really gone into how you move through them and enemies are positioned just as arbitrarily, requiring the same attack / dodge / attack pattern until you can just tank and mash.
There's a very shallow streak that runs through bloodstained that leaves every sub-system feeling underdeveloped. Much of the game's design revolves around % drop shards and materials. The shards are unique to each monster and grant a different game mechanic while materials fuel the incredibly tedious crafting system. Both of these are designed with quantity over quality in mind featuring close to 120 shards (about 5 are required to beat the game) and over 120 materials used to craft a staggering number of weapons, items, equipment, and food, but the majority are redundant. In both cases you'll be fine to pick one damaging shard and one type of weapon to serve you, just swapping out to whatever does the most damage at the time. None of the enemies or levels require you to switch tactics or make any meaningful choices leaving all of these 'options' inconsequential.
Much of the game's design, then, feels vestigial. Only the strongest attack really matters, you have 10 types of weapon each with different special attacks to unlock but never a reason to use any of them. You can use magic or melee but neither meaningfully affect gameplay or challenge. Even the feature that makes managing your equipment easier is itself tedious to constantly update as you unlock and change equipment during a playthrough. All of the most practical ability and gear unlocks are saved for the very end of the game when there's barely any game left to use them on, and of course all the late game achievements involve unlocking every weapon, armour, item, and shard which would be fine if looking up items, monsters that drop them, and where they are wasn't also somehow designed to be a slow annoying process of going through 3 different menus each time you want to look something up.
It's stunning to me how the person who created a game as genre defining as Symphony could end up making a game that misses the mark on every aspect that made the original so fun. Bloodstained emulates the visuals, music, and character, level, and combat design of better entries that came before it. It is a game in structure alone and fails to ever really capture a sense of 'fun'. Its features are shallow and there is no interaction between magic, melee, and movement options, nor any enemies that might inspire you to experiment with them. The variety that exists is superficial padding to a bare bones platformer that adds nothing to the genre and does nothing that hasn't been done before. You'd be better off just playing the classics than playing a game that wishes it was them.
Bloodstained feels like a combination of Castlevania and Bayonetta, but plays closer to something like Valkyrie Chronicles or Shantae. The game does some work to set itself apart as a legally distinct IP for the advertising, but spends far more effort on homage and pastiche to make sure you know it's related the moment you start playing. You aren't a vampire, you aren't a dude, and you aren't fighting Dracula, but it is very much a game about gothic era heroes fighting demons using swords and sorcery in a gothic castle. All of the most fundamental aspects of the game are borrowed and recycled in a 'copy my homework' kind of way while failing to deliver anything meaningfully original.
Gameplay is clearly trying to evoke memories of Symphony of the Night but ends up feeling far too clunky and slow by comparison. Symphony was defined by it's flowing movement, attacks without interruption, a variety of interesting mobility options, and a subtle nuance to its simple combat design. Bloodstained meanwhile has attacks that interrupt movement, basic speed improvements locked behind late game equipment, mobility options that are highly circumstantial and inconvenient to use, and a slew of 1 dimensional enemies (some of which feel oddly sci-fi or just don't mesh with the setting at all). As beautiful as the levels are no thought has really gone into how you move through them and enemies are positioned just as arbitrarily, requiring the same attack / dodge / attack pattern until you can just tank and mash.
There's a very shallow streak that runs through bloodstained that leaves every sub-system feeling underdeveloped. Much of the game's design revolves around % drop shards and materials. The shards are unique to each monster and grant a different game mechanic while materials fuel the incredibly tedious crafting system. Both of these are designed with quantity over quality in mind featuring close to 120 shards (about 5 are required to beat the game) and over 120 materials used to craft a staggering number of weapons, items, equipment, and food, but the majority are redundant. In both cases you'll be fine to pick one damaging shard and one type of weapon to serve you, just swapping out to whatever does the most damage at the time. None of the enemies or levels require you to switch tactics or make any meaningful choices leaving all of these 'options' inconsequential.
Much of the game's design, then, feels vestigial. Only the strongest attack really matters, you have 10 types of weapon each with different special attacks to unlock but never a reason to use any of them. You can use magic or melee but neither meaningfully affect gameplay or challenge. Even the feature that makes managing your equipment easier is itself tedious to constantly update as you unlock and change equipment during a playthrough. All of the most practical ability and gear unlocks are saved for the very end of the game when there's barely any game left to use them on, and of course all the late game achievements involve unlocking every weapon, armour, item, and shard which would be fine if looking up items, monsters that drop them, and where they are wasn't also somehow designed to be a slow annoying process of going through 3 different menus each time you want to look something up.
It's stunning to me how the person who created a game as genre defining as Symphony could end up making a game that misses the mark on every aspect that made the original so fun. Bloodstained emulates the visuals, music, and character, level, and combat design of better entries that came before it. It is a game in structure alone and fails to ever really capture a sense of 'fun'. Its features are shallow and there is no interaction between magic, melee, and movement options, nor any enemies that might inspire you to experiment with them. The variety that exists is superficial padding to a bare bones platformer that adds nothing to the genre and does nothing that hasn't been done before. You'd be better off just playing the classics than playing a game that wishes it was them.
Afterbirth+ may have been a bit of a wet fart, but after Antibirth pushed the limits of what a Binding of Isaac expansion could be Ed and the team stood up to the plate and knock Repentance out of the basement.
Here we see a return to the sheer quantity and quality that Afterbirth initially gave us. You have all new environments, atmospheric effects, power ups, item combos, unlockable characters, bosses, more monster variants, challenges, room designs, and more.
While AB+ was clearly meant to be more of a community oriented expansion with lofty goals around the ARG element, it was clear that what people really wanted was the gritty in-game substantive content. An IRL prize that benefits the few hundred people able to take part in it doesn't compare to 5000 new room layouts that everyone can enjoy.
This expansion simply does what made AB so great in the first place - it add more of everything you care about, and makes for a great excuse to get back into the cellar if you haven't visited in a while.
Here we see a return to the sheer quantity and quality that Afterbirth initially gave us. You have all new environments, atmospheric effects, power ups, item combos, unlockable characters, bosses, more monster variants, challenges, room designs, and more.
While AB+ was clearly meant to be more of a community oriented expansion with lofty goals around the ARG element, it was clear that what people really wanted was the gritty in-game substantive content. An IRL prize that benefits the few hundred people able to take part in it doesn't compare to 5000 new room layouts that everyone can enjoy.
This expansion simply does what made AB so great in the first place - it add more of everything you care about, and makes for a great excuse to get back into the cellar if you haven't visited in a while.
FFXIV is a very broad game with a storied history that I'm sure many are aware of so there's a lot to say about the game. While I know XIV is very popular I think this comes down to it being less of an MMO as I've come to know them, benefitting from being more of a theme park single-player focused JRPG with a heaping load of fanservice.
I was around for the original launch of the game and I think it was best described as... a confusing experience. From the insistence on in-universe words and phrases for things, to very unintuitive interfaces for the crafting and gathering systems, combined with a huge lack of tutorials or explanations for how anything actually worked. It made for a very off-putting experience.
So when ARR launched I was eager to give it another go. Of course the result is a much more polished experience and while it does a lot very well such as the crafting mini-games and the fact you can be so independent, I think it does so by eschewing experiences that only an MMO can deliver. It does so in favour of what is fundamentally a single player experience that epitomises the MMO design World of Wacraft popularised. That is to say that for the majority of the game you are playing a single player game where you are the protagonist and everyone else plays the extras and fodder to your personal story.
Since I started playing MMO's back in 2000 the narrative design back then was largely that you are an individual in a fantasy world and often by banding together and co-operating with other players you shape the world and forge your own stories. Be it building and exploring player made worlds in star wars galaxies, or forming vast levelling parties in ragnarok online to fight gods and craft for others, players collective actions guiding the story in matrix online, or the intricate player driven economics and politics of EVE online. The focus was always on players being the shapers of their world and gameplay literally relying on co-operation.
WoW really set a precedent when it created a questing system that allows players to completely solo the game to end-level, with parties and guilds being largely optional albeit encouraged. All of this was heavily structured, built with one solution in mind, and players were expected to fill the slots, perform their role, and earn their loot to share. It stripped away the organic open-ended player-built nature of MMO's of the past and replaced it with a framework where if you perform the role dictated by your class, you get your shiny. And FFXIV really picked this up and perfected it - not that it's inherently a bad thing, knowing exactly how to play your class and what to do in multiplayer events so easily is a boon but it comes at a cost in my opinion.
In FFXIV you have your class, you have your responsibility in the tank/dps/healer trinity, you have your very strict skill rotation to follow for every battle in the entire game that slowly grows in complexity, and if you press your buttons in the right order for long enough you are often assured victory. The real innovation in XIV's combat is taking the WoW raid mechanics and granting them to ordinary mobs. This means occasionally moving out the way of flashing templates on the floor. As is the case with the 'Holy Trinity' combat design anyone can jump in and perform a role but because the game is built around independence you don't 'need' other players other than in the designated 'multiplayer' content like raid bosses and dungeons. Otherwise every class has some amount of healing, damage, and defence that can only be improved on by others joining you but never makes them a necessity like games of the past would have.
So is independence a bad thing? Not at all, but it does kinda undermine the multiplayer component of an MMO and the types of experiences you can have. Yes you will be playing with many other people in the Trials / raid bosses, dungeons, and FATEs, but FFXIV's gameplay is so structured that this is never dynamic. As long as you are following your rotation and avoiding the flashing ground you never actually need to care what anyone else is doing other than doing the same thing. That does make 'playing with others' very easy and fluid as groups can form and dissolve in minutes without any conversation, planning, or tactics - but that interaction of stopping, meeting people, and talking to them is arguably the very essence of multiplayer. When the game auto-groups you, everyone auto-knows what to do, and never has to interact with anyone - sure you technically 'played with others' but only in the very literal sense.
The other half of the game then is the core story and quests which largely centre around the obtuse good vs evil plot that basically all final fantasy games now revolve around, recycling all the most iconic FF characters, names, enemies, and mascots, endless dialogue boxes of badly written anime filler, and plenty of monster grinding. I think a lot of my issues with this boil down to the way that Enix have always handled the FF IP since they merged with Square. The artistic vision of the older games was driven by Yoshitaka Amano's abstract blend of western fantasy tropes with eastern cultural aesthetics and fashion design. Every game had a very west-meets-east style that was incredibly distinct. I'm not anti-anime, but the way that every new FF game and many of the remakes get fed through the anime filter feels like it's actively destroying and ret-conning the artistry that made this series so distinct to begin with.
So in conclusion, the multiplayer is largely single player, the actual multiplayer is shallow, the story is the same 'Summons are out of control, but a Hero of Light™ will thwart the Villain of Darkness™ to save the kingdoms' stock storyline that every modern FF is about. The world is more focused on being a theme park than being believable, the cutscenes are fully stocked with all the anime tropes, the gameplay is simple and repetitive, and it's stocked up with fan service at the expense of having any integrity in its world, premise, or characters.
Is it a good game? Sure, it's insanely popular and you can dress up your character like an anime doll, pose, and take cute pics. Is it a good MMO? You can check a box saying you played with other people and don't have to actually work with, coordinate, or even talk to any of them. Is it fun? Apparently yes for most people. But it's also a big example of how both the FF brand and the MMO genre have been eroded and homogenised to appeal to the broadest demographic possible. It makes sense that its popular, but it got there by getting rid of what made it special.
I was around for the original launch of the game and I think it was best described as... a confusing experience. From the insistence on in-universe words and phrases for things, to very unintuitive interfaces for the crafting and gathering systems, combined with a huge lack of tutorials or explanations for how anything actually worked. It made for a very off-putting experience.
So when ARR launched I was eager to give it another go. Of course the result is a much more polished experience and while it does a lot very well such as the crafting mini-games and the fact you can be so independent, I think it does so by eschewing experiences that only an MMO can deliver. It does so in favour of what is fundamentally a single player experience that epitomises the MMO design World of Wacraft popularised. That is to say that for the majority of the game you are playing a single player game where you are the protagonist and everyone else plays the extras and fodder to your personal story.
Since I started playing MMO's back in 2000 the narrative design back then was largely that you are an individual in a fantasy world and often by banding together and co-operating with other players you shape the world and forge your own stories. Be it building and exploring player made worlds in star wars galaxies, or forming vast levelling parties in ragnarok online to fight gods and craft for others, players collective actions guiding the story in matrix online, or the intricate player driven economics and politics of EVE online. The focus was always on players being the shapers of their world and gameplay literally relying on co-operation.
WoW really set a precedent when it created a questing system that allows players to completely solo the game to end-level, with parties and guilds being largely optional albeit encouraged. All of this was heavily structured, built with one solution in mind, and players were expected to fill the slots, perform their role, and earn their loot to share. It stripped away the organic open-ended player-built nature of MMO's of the past and replaced it with a framework where if you perform the role dictated by your class, you get your shiny. And FFXIV really picked this up and perfected it - not that it's inherently a bad thing, knowing exactly how to play your class and what to do in multiplayer events so easily is a boon but it comes at a cost in my opinion.
In FFXIV you have your class, you have your responsibility in the tank/dps/healer trinity, you have your very strict skill rotation to follow for every battle in the entire game that slowly grows in complexity, and if you press your buttons in the right order for long enough you are often assured victory. The real innovation in XIV's combat is taking the WoW raid mechanics and granting them to ordinary mobs. This means occasionally moving out the way of flashing templates on the floor. As is the case with the 'Holy Trinity' combat design anyone can jump in and perform a role but because the game is built around independence you don't 'need' other players other than in the designated 'multiplayer' content like raid bosses and dungeons. Otherwise every class has some amount of healing, damage, and defence that can only be improved on by others joining you but never makes them a necessity like games of the past would have.
So is independence a bad thing? Not at all, but it does kinda undermine the multiplayer component of an MMO and the types of experiences you can have. Yes you will be playing with many other people in the Trials / raid bosses, dungeons, and FATEs, but FFXIV's gameplay is so structured that this is never dynamic. As long as you are following your rotation and avoiding the flashing ground you never actually need to care what anyone else is doing other than doing the same thing. That does make 'playing with others' very easy and fluid as groups can form and dissolve in minutes without any conversation, planning, or tactics - but that interaction of stopping, meeting people, and talking to them is arguably the very essence of multiplayer. When the game auto-groups you, everyone auto-knows what to do, and never has to interact with anyone - sure you technically 'played with others' but only in the very literal sense.
The other half of the game then is the core story and quests which largely centre around the obtuse good vs evil plot that basically all final fantasy games now revolve around, recycling all the most iconic FF characters, names, enemies, and mascots, endless dialogue boxes of badly written anime filler, and plenty of monster grinding. I think a lot of my issues with this boil down to the way that Enix have always handled the FF IP since they merged with Square. The artistic vision of the older games was driven by Yoshitaka Amano's abstract blend of western fantasy tropes with eastern cultural aesthetics and fashion design. Every game had a very west-meets-east style that was incredibly distinct. I'm not anti-anime, but the way that every new FF game and many of the remakes get fed through the anime filter feels like it's actively destroying and ret-conning the artistry that made this series so distinct to begin with.
So in conclusion, the multiplayer is largely single player, the actual multiplayer is shallow, the story is the same 'Summons are out of control, but a Hero of Light™ will thwart the Villain of Darkness™ to save the kingdoms' stock storyline that every modern FF is about. The world is more focused on being a theme park than being believable, the cutscenes are fully stocked with all the anime tropes, the gameplay is simple and repetitive, and it's stocked up with fan service at the expense of having any integrity in its world, premise, or characters.
Is it a good game? Sure, it's insanely popular and you can dress up your character like an anime doll, pose, and take cute pics. Is it a good MMO? You can check a box saying you played with other people and don't have to actually work with, coordinate, or even talk to any of them. Is it fun? Apparently yes for most people. But it's also a big example of how both the FF brand and the MMO genre have been eroded and homogenised to appeal to the broadest demographic possible. It makes sense that its popular, but it got there by getting rid of what made it special.
1999
While many were introduced to the FPS genre by legendary games like Doom or Quake, I landed at just the right time to pick up Unreal Tournament. It was a visceral and eclectic introduction to the genre with an all-in-one package that featured a little bit everything and a focus on variety.
From the incredible map designs like Phobos and Facing Worlds, the chaos of everyone having personal teleporters, and the various character models to play with, UT was a game that took the best of everything that came before it and put it in one place. Each of its weapons feel like it's own playstyle (a design that would go on to inspire the modern hero shooters), it had the iconic announcer voice, and of course there were so many different game modes and modifiers - aka Mutators.
You could play a very grounded and tactical capture the flag game, or go wild with a deathmatch on a low gravity map, and insta-kill weapons. While you can say that UT never really came up with any of these concepts it did put them all together to create a fun game that was at just the right time for anyone to pick up and play. You didn't have to be the best at everything, know all the glitches, or adopt a meta. If you were new you could grab just about any weapon and get some kills while the more experienced players knew tricks like how to make the shock rifle bubbles explode and master rocket jumps. And of course you could always find the Redeemer nuclear rocket launcher and even the playing field by sending gibs bouncing around the room spraying blood everywhere.
While later versions of the game would focus more on gimmicks, elaborate game modes, and battlefield style vehicular combat, UT was very much the purest form of it's own playstyle. It exists now as a kind of perfect bubble that encapsulates the features, mechanics, and gameplay from that era. It may not be as ground-breaking, prolific, or well remembered but for me it still holds many of my favourite FPS experiences before the genre got so bogged down by legacy IP's and homogenised gameplay.
From the incredible map designs like Phobos and Facing Worlds, the chaos of everyone having personal teleporters, and the various character models to play with, UT was a game that took the best of everything that came before it and put it in one place. Each of its weapons feel like it's own playstyle (a design that would go on to inspire the modern hero shooters), it had the iconic announcer voice, and of course there were so many different game modes and modifiers - aka Mutators.
You could play a very grounded and tactical capture the flag game, or go wild with a deathmatch on a low gravity map, and insta-kill weapons. While you can say that UT never really came up with any of these concepts it did put them all together to create a fun game that was at just the right time for anyone to pick up and play. You didn't have to be the best at everything, know all the glitches, or adopt a meta. If you were new you could grab just about any weapon and get some kills while the more experienced players knew tricks like how to make the shock rifle bubbles explode and master rocket jumps. And of course you could always find the Redeemer nuclear rocket launcher and even the playing field by sending gibs bouncing around the room spraying blood everywhere.
While later versions of the game would focus more on gimmicks, elaborate game modes, and battlefield style vehicular combat, UT was very much the purest form of it's own playstyle. It exists now as a kind of perfect bubble that encapsulates the features, mechanics, and gameplay from that era. It may not be as ground-breaking, prolific, or well remembered but for me it still holds many of my favourite FPS experiences before the genre got so bogged down by legacy IP's and homogenised gameplay.
2014
This review contains spoilers
Transistor was my first introduction to Supergiant games and while it is stunningly beautiful, mechanically innovative, and fun to play - it unfortunately glorifies suicide as 'the answer' which really put me off of supergiant as a whole since they seem to care far more about aesthetic than the harm such messaging can do.
The gameplay is clever and fuses a combination of turn based mechanics with hack and slash where the mechanics and features of your sword are customisable and combine different mechanics to create new effects far before bullet heaven games started doing it. This creates a pretty huge array of play styles and mechanics as you can switch up the way the game plays and feels on the fly and change tactics to better match the variety of enemies. Combat is sleek and fast feeling like an early prototype for Hades which says a lot about how good this game feels to play.
It's rare that I get into spoilers for my reviews, but I feel I have to here because I don't understand how everyone glosses over the implications of this story. Put simply, a singer's boyfriend is murdered using this very powerful sword / key to the city and his soul becomes trapped in the sword. Having lost her boyfriend and her voice she goes on a mission to get vengeance on the powerful individuals conspiring to take control of her world guided by the voice of her bf trapped in the sword. Honestly up to this point it's all well and good, a sort of cyber-noire with excellent character design and strong motivations all around.
However at around the half way point you feel the design team worrying about the budget as the protagonist suddenly decides 'we should go back to the start' as if they ran out of money to build more of the game. You return and fight the city itself as the changes the conspirators wanted to impose on the city grow out of control. The remaining minions kill themselves and after you stop the process, and defeat the big bad you go back to your bf's corpse, Realising she won't get her bf or voice back she decides to kill herself, where she's then reunited with him in a happily ever after.
Even for 2014 I thought this game handled the concept of suicide very poorly. Not only using it as a cheap way to write off two of the antagonists, but also as a lazy conclusion for the main character. The fact she kills herself is one thing, but to have a happy ending reunited with her bf in a beautiful sunny ever after sends a pretty disturbingly clear message that killing yourself is actually the solution to your problems. It gets the bad guys out of being held responsible, and it grants the main character everything she's been struggling for through the game.
The fact anyone could write such a grossly irresponsible glorification of suicide is irresponsible at best and outright harmful at worst. Somehow I seem to be the only person who cares though as this game has sold incredibly well and turned supergiant into an indie darling. Personally I still think this is abhorrent and I don't care how beautiful it looks and sounds, or how great the gameplay is when it exists to advertise how great suicide is. Supergiant should be ashamed of this title's core message.
The gameplay is clever and fuses a combination of turn based mechanics with hack and slash where the mechanics and features of your sword are customisable and combine different mechanics to create new effects far before bullet heaven games started doing it. This creates a pretty huge array of play styles and mechanics as you can switch up the way the game plays and feels on the fly and change tactics to better match the variety of enemies. Combat is sleek and fast feeling like an early prototype for Hades which says a lot about how good this game feels to play.
It's rare that I get into spoilers for my reviews, but I feel I have to here because I don't understand how everyone glosses over the implications of this story. Put simply, a singer's boyfriend is murdered using this very powerful sword / key to the city and his soul becomes trapped in the sword. Having lost her boyfriend and her voice she goes on a mission to get vengeance on the powerful individuals conspiring to take control of her world guided by the voice of her bf trapped in the sword. Honestly up to this point it's all well and good, a sort of cyber-noire with excellent character design and strong motivations all around.
However at around the half way point you feel the design team worrying about the budget as the protagonist suddenly decides 'we should go back to the start' as if they ran out of money to build more of the game. You return and fight the city itself as the changes the conspirators wanted to impose on the city grow out of control. The remaining minions kill themselves and after you stop the process, and defeat the big bad you go back to your bf's corpse, Realising she won't get her bf or voice back she decides to kill herself, where she's then reunited with him in a happily ever after.
Even for 2014 I thought this game handled the concept of suicide very poorly. Not only using it as a cheap way to write off two of the antagonists, but also as a lazy conclusion for the main character. The fact she kills herself is one thing, but to have a happy ending reunited with her bf in a beautiful sunny ever after sends a pretty disturbingly clear message that killing yourself is actually the solution to your problems. It gets the bad guys out of being held responsible, and it grants the main character everything she's been struggling for through the game.
The fact anyone could write such a grossly irresponsible glorification of suicide is irresponsible at best and outright harmful at worst. Somehow I seem to be the only person who cares though as this game has sold incredibly well and turned supergiant into an indie darling. Personally I still think this is abhorrent and I don't care how beautiful it looks and sounds, or how great the gameplay is when it exists to advertise how great suicide is. Supergiant should be ashamed of this title's core message.
While the base game of Talos is very bland, empty, and disconnected beyond the puzzles, it's surprising that the Gehenna DLC actually does so much more with so much less.
If you enjoyed the puzzling from the base game (or simply want the 100% achievements) the DLC is well worth a play as you're getting a heaping spoonful of extra puzzles, some of which explore the mechanical nuances in more detail. It doesn't introduce any new obstacles or tools and all the artwork is recycled from the first game but it's all used to a much greater effect.
Gehenna is essentially a prison and you play Uriel (an AI mentioned in the first game) who is challenged with breaking them out. Despite being imprisoned the characters have a rich presence in the message boards of Gehenna's terminals creating art, discussing philosophy, and creating games for each other. This small touch gives the puzzles more purpose as they now function as locks to prison cells. Even the level design is more interesting despite how much smaller the world is.
It's a shame they didn't reverse the roles and have this as the premise for the core game and leave the lonely testing to the DLC. It's amazing how just this touch of extra depth, having a mysterious premise, playing a named character, and having a cast of characters adds so much that was missing from the first game - or maybe it's a case of something is better than nothing. Either ways I'd recommend this over the base game but I don't know if it's worth $10 extra to make an okay game good.
If you enjoyed the puzzling from the base game (or simply want the 100% achievements) the DLC is well worth a play as you're getting a heaping spoonful of extra puzzles, some of which explore the mechanical nuances in more detail. It doesn't introduce any new obstacles or tools and all the artwork is recycled from the first game but it's all used to a much greater effect.
Gehenna is essentially a prison and you play Uriel (an AI mentioned in the first game) who is challenged with breaking them out. Despite being imprisoned the characters have a rich presence in the message boards of Gehenna's terminals creating art, discussing philosophy, and creating games for each other. This small touch gives the puzzles more purpose as they now function as locks to prison cells. Even the level design is more interesting despite how much smaller the world is.
It's a shame they didn't reverse the roles and have this as the premise for the core game and leave the lonely testing to the DLC. It's amazing how just this touch of extra depth, having a mysterious premise, playing a named character, and having a cast of characters adds so much that was missing from the first game - or maybe it's a case of something is better than nothing. Either ways I'd recommend this over the base game but I don't know if it's worth $10 extra to make an okay game good.
2014
Talos is yet another puzzle game that finds itself stuffed into the business suit of a tangentially related plot. The puzzles are strong on their own but are roughly mixed into a philosophical story of AI and self awareness which comes off as a bit high on its own farts at times.
So lets start with the best this game has to offer - the puzzles. Everything is centred around getting lasers from source A to receiver B, often redirecting around obstacles both static and active-ly trying to kill you. Your arsenal of tools are simple and grow as you unlock them but the game explores every nuance of how they interact thoroughly through it's large stock of levels. The only mechanics I really couldn't get on with was the shockingly tedious time-based ones introduced late into the game, but thankfully these were few and far between.
The puzzle design is straightforward and does a great job of introducing not only the tools and obstacles but their unique mechanics and interactions gradually. There were 2-3 puzzles that require you to explicitly understand these nuances in order to complete them and while I had to step away, I found I'd coined the mechanic from other puzzles by the time I came back. There wasn't a point where I felt like it was unfair. There are of course additional challenges beyond the core puzzles if you want to explore the easter eggs, endings, and bonus mechanics the game has to offer - though be prepared to do a lot of tetromino puzzles (the static puzzle game tetris is based on).
As for the plot while I won't spoil the specifics it is sadly another case of coming up with the mechanics first then filling in the gaps between them with the plot filler. You can at least ignore the plot if you want and focus on the puzzles part provided you aren't attached to achievements, and for those who are you'll annoyingly have to get the DLC to 100% the game (though I'd argue the DLC is stronger than the base game).
So why the low rating then? Well aside from the strong puzzle design, the game is just very empty. Levels are deconstructed and scattered around but not in any meaningful or interesting way. The world feels like it was built from asset packs and no matter how much the story insists it's verisimilitude it doesn't change the fact it has simple, repetitive, bland HD environments. There are no other characters aside from written messages, and the dialogue only comes from a voice in the sky or expositional audio logs. It's possible to do a lonely world well, Shadow of the Colossus nailed it, but that world was deep and explorable - here it comes off as limited in imagination.
I don't feel like the game even justifies being HD, like a lot of time and work was spent putting ray tracing into a sudoku game. That speaks to the larger feeling I have of a game that's trying to insist it's impressive and smart but without really justifying those claims. It wears its inspirations like Portal on its sleeve and thinks 'being smart' is talking about philosophy, but then pairs that with puzzles about connecting lasers without any attempt to relate the pair instead insisting they're analogous. The same way the rocks are rendered with such depth and detail, but not really used in any meaningful way.
In conclusion Talos is a very well designed game that has trouble meshing it's very serious and pretentious story with 'connect the dots' puzzling. If unlike me you do vibe with the story then there are a variety of endings and twists which you might enjoy. Regardless the mechanics themselves are interesting to explore and provide a fun variety of challenge making the game worth a play. I think you'll either love it or tolerate it.
So lets start with the best this game has to offer - the puzzles. Everything is centred around getting lasers from source A to receiver B, often redirecting around obstacles both static and active-ly trying to kill you. Your arsenal of tools are simple and grow as you unlock them but the game explores every nuance of how they interact thoroughly through it's large stock of levels. The only mechanics I really couldn't get on with was the shockingly tedious time-based ones introduced late into the game, but thankfully these were few and far between.
The puzzle design is straightforward and does a great job of introducing not only the tools and obstacles but their unique mechanics and interactions gradually. There were 2-3 puzzles that require you to explicitly understand these nuances in order to complete them and while I had to step away, I found I'd coined the mechanic from other puzzles by the time I came back. There wasn't a point where I felt like it was unfair. There are of course additional challenges beyond the core puzzles if you want to explore the easter eggs, endings, and bonus mechanics the game has to offer - though be prepared to do a lot of tetromino puzzles (the static puzzle game tetris is based on).
As for the plot while I won't spoil the specifics it is sadly another case of coming up with the mechanics first then filling in the gaps between them with the plot filler. You can at least ignore the plot if you want and focus on the puzzles part provided you aren't attached to achievements, and for those who are you'll annoyingly have to get the DLC to 100% the game (though I'd argue the DLC is stronger than the base game).
So why the low rating then? Well aside from the strong puzzle design, the game is just very empty. Levels are deconstructed and scattered around but not in any meaningful or interesting way. The world feels like it was built from asset packs and no matter how much the story insists it's verisimilitude it doesn't change the fact it has simple, repetitive, bland HD environments. There are no other characters aside from written messages, and the dialogue only comes from a voice in the sky or expositional audio logs. It's possible to do a lonely world well, Shadow of the Colossus nailed it, but that world was deep and explorable - here it comes off as limited in imagination.
I don't feel like the game even justifies being HD, like a lot of time and work was spent putting ray tracing into a sudoku game. That speaks to the larger feeling I have of a game that's trying to insist it's impressive and smart but without really justifying those claims. It wears its inspirations like Portal on its sleeve and thinks 'being smart' is talking about philosophy, but then pairs that with puzzles about connecting lasers without any attempt to relate the pair instead insisting they're analogous. The same way the rocks are rendered with such depth and detail, but not really used in any meaningful way.
In conclusion Talos is a very well designed game that has trouble meshing it's very serious and pretentious story with 'connect the dots' puzzling. If unlike me you do vibe with the story then there are a variety of endings and twists which you might enjoy. Regardless the mechanics themselves are interesting to explore and provide a fun variety of challenge making the game worth a play. I think you'll either love it or tolerate it.
2013
The classic 2D RoR is a slow and difficult game in comparison to the faster paced and more elegant sequels, and while it's certainly one of my favourite action roguelites of the 2010's I can see how polarising it's slow and meticulous design is.
The premise is relatively simple, a cargo ship crashes on a planet and you have to collect the futuristic supplies to help you escape while fighting the local flora and fauna. There's massive variety of items and difficulty constantly creeps up through each playthrough spawning more powerful enemies. You start with one survivor who has a tight long-range skill set and must begin unlocking new items, heroes, and secrets from there.
Risk of Rain's adoption of a side-scrolling action game was unique for the time, especially as a sci-fi roguelite, with it's unique pixelated art style, ethereal soundtrack, and truly alien environments giving it a style and aesthetic that truly stood out. The simple 4-skill design for each character is fine tuned and as satisfying as they are different, embodying a wide variety of unique play styles that is refreshing to see when most procedural games rely on the numbers to set the differences.
That said RoR is truly at its hardest when you first turn the game on. The initial difficulty is very slow paced, the starting character's skill set very simple to learn but hard to master, and of course you have only the starting items. It's only once you've died 20-30 times that you're in a position to start getting unlocks and that's a long time to go without encouragement, getting to grips with the repetitive early gameplay. Most people will dip out before things get interesting, but if you stick with it the unlocked items and characters are the core of this game's variety.
Between the secret items littered throughout the variety of stages, the massive roster of foes to face, the modifiers for enemies you can encounter, the huge variety of items to unlock, the large roster of playable characters, and each level having randomised layouts there is a lot of quality game design to experience here - unfortunately that does mean getting over that starting hump which is admittedly a tall order. It's a polarising title and while I loved every moment of this mechanically tight and challenging 2D platformer, your mileage may vary.
The premise is relatively simple, a cargo ship crashes on a planet and you have to collect the futuristic supplies to help you escape while fighting the local flora and fauna. There's massive variety of items and difficulty constantly creeps up through each playthrough spawning more powerful enemies. You start with one survivor who has a tight long-range skill set and must begin unlocking new items, heroes, and secrets from there.
Risk of Rain's adoption of a side-scrolling action game was unique for the time, especially as a sci-fi roguelite, with it's unique pixelated art style, ethereal soundtrack, and truly alien environments giving it a style and aesthetic that truly stood out. The simple 4-skill design for each character is fine tuned and as satisfying as they are different, embodying a wide variety of unique play styles that is refreshing to see when most procedural games rely on the numbers to set the differences.
That said RoR is truly at its hardest when you first turn the game on. The initial difficulty is very slow paced, the starting character's skill set very simple to learn but hard to master, and of course you have only the starting items. It's only once you've died 20-30 times that you're in a position to start getting unlocks and that's a long time to go without encouragement, getting to grips with the repetitive early gameplay. Most people will dip out before things get interesting, but if you stick with it the unlocked items and characters are the core of this game's variety.
Between the secret items littered throughout the variety of stages, the massive roster of foes to face, the modifiers for enemies you can encounter, the huge variety of items to unlock, the large roster of playable characters, and each level having randomised layouts there is a lot of quality game design to experience here - unfortunately that does mean getting over that starting hump which is admittedly a tall order. It's a polarising title and while I loved every moment of this mechanically tight and challenging 2D platformer, your mileage may vary.
2021
While there's a deluge of games vying for the crown of the new bullet heaven genre, it doesn't take long playing Vampire Survivors to understand why it's going to be tough to surpass the game that popularised it.
What begins as a simple premise quickly spirals into a dizzying example of over-delivering in the best way possible. From the huge number of varied and interesting power ups, levels, game modes, characters, modifiers, and secrets to all the additional content beyond even that. While it takes a little while to get started it isn't long before the game snowballs into a constant delivery of unlocks that encourages you to stick with the simple and fun game loop.
Generosity is the core design feature here and its a mentality I try to inject into my own work. In an age where the games industry is defined by how little it can give you for the maximum price, VS stands in absolute opposition by taking the antithetical approach. For such a small price, using the simplest of game mechanics it asks how much can it give you, and it's not merely offering cosmetics and reskins. From unlocking new power ups, to unlocking combination power ups, to new maps and characters, to game modes, modifiers, to secrets hidden within all those new unlocks to secrets hidden within those it is a game that relentlessly rewards you for investing your time in it.
VS may be lacking in almost every department that the big budget AAA giants lavishly spend millions on but it makes up for all of that and more with the one thing they wish they can't figure out - a simple fun game loop amplified by every other system in the game. It may sound corny and pretentious, but this game is emblematic of the spirit of gaming. It is a shining example of the indie scene, of what small time devs can accomplish, and proof that when you take the heartless, calculated, cowardly industry out of the equation you get fun, inventive gameplay that has a global impact and keeps on giving.
What begins as a simple premise quickly spirals into a dizzying example of over-delivering in the best way possible. From the huge number of varied and interesting power ups, levels, game modes, characters, modifiers, and secrets to all the additional content beyond even that. While it takes a little while to get started it isn't long before the game snowballs into a constant delivery of unlocks that encourages you to stick with the simple and fun game loop.
Generosity is the core design feature here and its a mentality I try to inject into my own work. In an age where the games industry is defined by how little it can give you for the maximum price, VS stands in absolute opposition by taking the antithetical approach. For such a small price, using the simplest of game mechanics it asks how much can it give you, and it's not merely offering cosmetics and reskins. From unlocking new power ups, to unlocking combination power ups, to new maps and characters, to game modes, modifiers, to secrets hidden within all those new unlocks to secrets hidden within those it is a game that relentlessly rewards you for investing your time in it.
VS may be lacking in almost every department that the big budget AAA giants lavishly spend millions on but it makes up for all of that and more with the one thing they wish they can't figure out - a simple fun game loop amplified by every other system in the game. It may sound corny and pretentious, but this game is emblematic of the spirit of gaming. It is a shining example of the indie scene, of what small time devs can accomplish, and proof that when you take the heartless, calculated, cowardly industry out of the equation you get fun, inventive gameplay that has a global impact and keeps on giving.
2023
Scratching beneath the inky surface of Void Stranger reveals a very tight mechanical puzzler with a minimalist game boy art style, mashed up with an anime story, a surreal world, and obtuse meta elements. I can see how people might find this combination charming but it just didn't work for me.
It's difficult to really talk about the game without spoiling it as it goes out of its way to be secretive about its mechanics and premise. It takes the stance that difficulty is synonymous with just not telling you how anything works so the design comes off as being more arbitrary than punishing. There is a lot more depth to the game but all hidden behind vast quantities of tedious puzzle grind so I hope you enjoy that core game loop.
Under the veneer of mystery is a reasonable and challenging sokoban-style puzzler. You can remove and place blocks but only from/to a space directly in front of you. The rigid movement makes facing the right way a challenge of navigating the tight spaces and doing things in the right order. This is complicated by gaps, blocks with different mechanics, obstacles, and enemies that wander the stage. Despite being mechanically sterile the puzzles are serviceable but repetitive and lack a 'fun' element preventing me from really engaging with the game beyond the surface level.
The other half of the game involves its setting and story which are drip fed throughout. While I'll avoid getting into details, both the story and main character feel uninspired at first glance. While I understand the game ends up going into a lot of depth I just wasn't hooked by the story breadcrumbs or the core game loop so I had no motivation to even finish the first playthrough.
Whether this game captures the nuances it's trying to emulate will come down to player preference. I was taken in by the trailer but I felt like it's attempts to be dark and mysterious just feel obvious and predictable. The hints at larger layers of puzzle and the mechanics you'll obviously need to get there struck me as tedious and boring - spoiling the game for myself revealed this hunch to be completely right. If you aren't hooked by the core loop and story in the first few hours, the next 40 aren't worth the effort.
It's difficult to really talk about the game without spoiling it as it goes out of its way to be secretive about its mechanics and premise. It takes the stance that difficulty is synonymous with just not telling you how anything works so the design comes off as being more arbitrary than punishing. There is a lot more depth to the game but all hidden behind vast quantities of tedious puzzle grind so I hope you enjoy that core game loop.
Under the veneer of mystery is a reasonable and challenging sokoban-style puzzler. You can remove and place blocks but only from/to a space directly in front of you. The rigid movement makes facing the right way a challenge of navigating the tight spaces and doing things in the right order. This is complicated by gaps, blocks with different mechanics, obstacles, and enemies that wander the stage. Despite being mechanically sterile the puzzles are serviceable but repetitive and lack a 'fun' element preventing me from really engaging with the game beyond the surface level.
The other half of the game involves its setting and story which are drip fed throughout. While I'll avoid getting into details, both the story and main character feel uninspired at first glance. While I understand the game ends up going into a lot of depth I just wasn't hooked by the story breadcrumbs or the core game loop so I had no motivation to even finish the first playthrough.
Whether this game captures the nuances it's trying to emulate will come down to player preference. I was taken in by the trailer but I felt like it's attempts to be dark and mysterious just feel obvious and predictable. The hints at larger layers of puzzle and the mechanics you'll obviously need to get there struck me as tedious and boring - spoiling the game for myself revealed this hunch to be completely right. If you aren't hooked by the core loop and story in the first few hours, the next 40 aren't worth the effort.
2023
Before Risk of Rain blew up with its 3D incarnation there was it's cult hit 2D predecessor and if you never got the chance to dip into that version Returns truly goes back to its roots. For fans of the 2D version though this is very much an 'enhanced' re-release than a true 2D sequel.
If you own the first game you're going to be very familiar with Returns at first glance. Everything that was in the first 2D game is all here just with a healthy portion of new additions and upgraded sprites. It feels very much like they wanted to cash in on the new audience while giving those who didn't vibe with the 3D version a little something extra to justify the re-purchase.
Don't get me wrong, the new content is welcome. You have a variety of fun challenges for each class which unlock alternate abilities, and everything that there can be more of has more of it from player characters and bosses to maps, items, and monsters - though it feels like playing the base game with a bunch of packaged DLC being sold as a 'new' title.
Personally I really loved the first 2D Risk of Rain and never got into the hype for the 3D version so I'm happy for more of the same. The enhancements, additional content, rule and content customisation, game modes, and everything else make this a clear upgrade over the original but it doesn't do much to distinguish itself beyond the extras. Even so, I'm having a blast and will continue to chip away at this through the year. If you're looking for more rain it's here, but there's no risk of innovation.
If you own the first game you're going to be very familiar with Returns at first glance. Everything that was in the first 2D game is all here just with a healthy portion of new additions and upgraded sprites. It feels very much like they wanted to cash in on the new audience while giving those who didn't vibe with the 3D version a little something extra to justify the re-purchase.
Don't get me wrong, the new content is welcome. You have a variety of fun challenges for each class which unlock alternate abilities, and everything that there can be more of has more of it from player characters and bosses to maps, items, and monsters - though it feels like playing the base game with a bunch of packaged DLC being sold as a 'new' title.
Personally I really loved the first 2D Risk of Rain and never got into the hype for the 3D version so I'm happy for more of the same. The enhancements, additional content, rule and content customisation, game modes, and everything else make this a clear upgrade over the original but it doesn't do much to distinguish itself beyond the extras. Even so, I'm having a blast and will continue to chip away at this through the year. If you're looking for more rain it's here, but there's no risk of innovation.
2021
Hacker Simulator takes a more grounded approach to the hacker sim and lets you employ simulations of realistic tools and methods used by contemporary hackers. Sadly it does this in the most repetitive, tedious, and slow way possible, showing a poor understanding of what makes a game fun.
It has a great first impression. The PC has a simulated OS with terminals, linux commands, a pretend browser, and it seems close to 'Welcome to the Game II' levels of depth, but you very quickly discover how shallow everything is. The OS is clunky to use, terminals only take a few specific commands, the browser isn't dynamic, apps don't take arguments, you have to click into text boxes to start typing - there's lots of annoying cut corners. Then you get into hacking and again it seems reasonable at first. You hack the wifi, hack an IP, steal some data. Then you do it again, and again, until you unlock malware and phishing.
This is where the game gets to its most repetitive. For some reason almost every hack from this point is a phishing attack to upload malware. Phishing involves a counting game, spending $3 for a burner facebook account, and running an upload command. You do this about 25 times then you unlock exploit crafting which introduces a new money sink of $12 roughly every 10 minutes and the rewards barely cover the cost. Then the game wants you to grind $350 to get a mining rig. This took me about 8 hours of repeating these phishing attacks, occasionally broken up by stealing files, and after all that you're rewarded with another uninteresting 'hack' puzzle that involves checking a long hex code for invalid characters and re-writing it.
The underlying ideas here are great - using realistic tools, doing a variety of realistic hacks - but dear god the implementation and pacing is awful. Counting items in a list and writing the same 6 instructions is mind numbing, least of all when it's all you have to do for hours on end only to be rewarded with another mechanically lazy, easy to generate, boring 'puzzle'. Throughout the grind you learn how shallow the 'generative' elements are. Files have meaningless random names placed randomly into a file structure. Every contact says one of two lines. Every problem is introduced alongside its solution so there's zero anticipation. And if you do extra work and download extra account files they soon become invalid and just take up space on your hard drive, so there's actually punishment for being a 'better' hacker.
At its core this game is just doing the bare minimum. Mechanics are implemented in lazy, simple ways that are easy to randomize. Zero foreshadowing, nothing to look forward to. Every feature has corners cut that make them less interesting to use. Every hack is over simplified, padded with extra steps, unfun, and overused. Rewards are undermined by hacking costs. Upgrades are barely of any use. At every turn the game feels unfinished, rushed, and missing variation, yet this game isn't in early access and the dev is working on other projects. The game exe doesn't even have it's own icon, the unreal logo is showing. A sad waste of real potential.
It has a great first impression. The PC has a simulated OS with terminals, linux commands, a pretend browser, and it seems close to 'Welcome to the Game II' levels of depth, but you very quickly discover how shallow everything is. The OS is clunky to use, terminals only take a few specific commands, the browser isn't dynamic, apps don't take arguments, you have to click into text boxes to start typing - there's lots of annoying cut corners. Then you get into hacking and again it seems reasonable at first. You hack the wifi, hack an IP, steal some data. Then you do it again, and again, until you unlock malware and phishing.
This is where the game gets to its most repetitive. For some reason almost every hack from this point is a phishing attack to upload malware. Phishing involves a counting game, spending $3 for a burner facebook account, and running an upload command. You do this about 25 times then you unlock exploit crafting which introduces a new money sink of $12 roughly every 10 minutes and the rewards barely cover the cost. Then the game wants you to grind $350 to get a mining rig. This took me about 8 hours of repeating these phishing attacks, occasionally broken up by stealing files, and after all that you're rewarded with another uninteresting 'hack' puzzle that involves checking a long hex code for invalid characters and re-writing it.
The underlying ideas here are great - using realistic tools, doing a variety of realistic hacks - but dear god the implementation and pacing is awful. Counting items in a list and writing the same 6 instructions is mind numbing, least of all when it's all you have to do for hours on end only to be rewarded with another mechanically lazy, easy to generate, boring 'puzzle'. Throughout the grind you learn how shallow the 'generative' elements are. Files have meaningless random names placed randomly into a file structure. Every contact says one of two lines. Every problem is introduced alongside its solution so there's zero anticipation. And if you do extra work and download extra account files they soon become invalid and just take up space on your hard drive, so there's actually punishment for being a 'better' hacker.
At its core this game is just doing the bare minimum. Mechanics are implemented in lazy, simple ways that are easy to randomize. Zero foreshadowing, nothing to look forward to. Every feature has corners cut that make them less interesting to use. Every hack is over simplified, padded with extra steps, unfun, and overused. Rewards are undermined by hacking costs. Upgrades are barely of any use. At every turn the game feels unfinished, rushed, and missing variation, yet this game isn't in early access and the dev is working on other projects. The game exe doesn't even have it's own icon, the unreal logo is showing. A sad waste of real potential.