I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
October 23, 2023 - Day 295 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 315
Game: Lords & Villeins
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 11, 2022
Installation Date: Oct 23, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 15m
Lords & Villeins is a top-down pixel-art medieval city-building sim. Number six in the October Humble Choice Bundle.
I generally try to find something good to say about a game, but I genuinely can't find anything to like about this game.
Top-down & pixel-art was a hard sell to begin with, but Stardew Valley is top-down pixel-art and that worked for me.
This just didn't click. It's not so much of a city-building management sim, as a micro-management sim based on city-building.
The systems in the game seem disconnected from one another.
You assign land to a family. A 10 block x 10 block area of land is "10 acres". Each person takes up 1 block, so I guess each person is 10% of an acre in size?
But then you turn that area into a house, and now it's a 10 acre house?
I have to give the villeins everything single thing they need from my "warehouse". There are things in my warehouse. How did they get there? I do not know.
For instance, I had to give them X amount of straw.
Then they need walls on the land I zoned for them, and I can build the walls out of straw or wood. Do the walls come out of my warehouse pile of straw or the straw I just gave to the villeins?
The game does not tell me, and at this point, I do not care. I just want it to be over.
I attempt to build walls. You place the icon and drag out the wall. I dragged it in the wrong place. I can't cancel it. I need to delete it. I can't delete it with a drag. I have to click on and delete every single piece of wall individually.
The systems in this game are opaque and frustrating and when my 15 minutes were up, I gave a sigh of relief.
There is probably an audience for this game, but wherever that may be, I assume they have a tolerance for pain that I lack.
Game number seven in the October Humble Choice Bundle is "A Juggler's Tale"; a 2.5D sideways scrolling puzzle adventure game.
I have incredibly mixed emotions about this game.
You play as Abby, a young girl, who is both a juggler, and a marionette. Abby is trapped in a circus and forced to perform, and A Juggler's Tale is the story of her escape, narrated by the puppeteer.
The graphics are gorgeous, the sound design is good. The puzzles are not too challenging, although the controls (on controller) can be a little bit fiddly.
The narrator is an older man with an English accent, and is in turns condescending, and patronising in the way he talks to (and about) Abby, frequently belittling her (and technically my) failures when attempting to solve puzzles - and I utterly despise him.
I'm not sure whether the intent of the devs was to make me feel like that towards him, but his manner and commentary triggers emotional responses within me that I don't think were intended.
I'm tempted to just Google the game to find out how it ends, and if there's any kind of catharsis, because the idea of spending the entire game with this horrible person, fills me with dread.
I suspect that my reaction is partly a trauma response, from the abuse I experienced growing up. So, while I think this game is good, if you have that kind of trauma it may actually be triggering, which is a weird thing to have to say about a game like this.
October 25, 2023 - Day 297 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 317
Game: Mr. Prepper
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 19, 2021
Installation Date: Oct 25, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 32m
Mr. Prepper is the final game in the October Humble Choice. It's 2.5D cooker-themed... sorry, "prepper"-themed survival sim.
It basically feels like Fallout Shelter if it were about SovCits. And written by SovCits.
You play as the titular "Mr. Prepper" who literally goes by that name in-game, introducing himself as that to other NPCs.
The US government has been taken over by some kind of fascist organisation that stopped Mr. Prepper from escaping from his home town in the midwest, and is now monitoring him for subversive behaviour.
You need to build a bunker for him, and build a whole lot of stuff for the bunker, all while hiding it from the regular government inspections.
This is another game where if the theme of the game were different I might enjoy it more, but the whole real-world prepper/conspiracy theorist Venn diagram takes the shine off it, and just gives me a case of the icks.
October 26, 2023 - Day 298 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 318
Game: Dub Dash
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 17, 2016
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 5d
Playtime: 27m
Dub Dash is a dubstep-themed rhythm arcade game.
Using a couple of buttons, you need to time your button-presses just right to dodge the obstacles that pop up in front of you, in time with the dubstep soundtrack.
I have a bit of a thing for rhythm games, but I struggle a bit with games where I need to memorise an exact set of moves and repeat them perfectly. This is a combination of both.
The first level is a top-down level where you're a rolling wheel in a trench dodging the obstacles popping out of the side-walls of the trench. Kind of like the Star Wars trench run meets Skrillex.
The thing I found mildly irritating is that most of the required moves are on the beat, and then suddenly one that's off-beat, and not necessarily in a way that makes sense.
I'd feel like I was in the groove, and suddenly I'd smash into an obstacle that was on the third beat. I eventually beat the first level, but this is definitely one of those "I might play it again if the mood strikes me" games.
October 27, 2023 - Day 299 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 319
Game: Not Tonight
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 17, 2018
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 6d
Playtime: 36m
Not Tonight is a pixel-art work simulator based in a post-Brexit Britain, where a fascist government has taken over, and as a "Euro" with part European heritage and the right papers, you have to fight with an authoritarian bureaucracy in an attempt to remain in a country that wants you out.
To do this you work as a gig-economy bouncer at a pub.
I played for 36 minutes, doing the same job over and over, and if the gameplay loop extends beyond this, I don't feel like playing any longer to
My sole exposure to Vampire: The Masquerade prior to playing Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York was playing Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt is a third-person battle-royale with vampires.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York is... not.
I thought all of the early reading was setting up for the gameplay, but it was taking quite a long time, and then I was faced with a decision, which was - apparently - the wrong decision, because immediately afterwards I was met with a Game Over.
So I started over, discovered that seemingly all of the narrative "choices" in the initial setup lead to exactly the same point of decision, made the opposite decision and... more story.
After a while, because I'd hit the wee hours of this morning, I decided to pull the pin, and looked up the game, and... oh. Right.
It's actually a visual novel, something of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" based on the Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG, which I also learned of last night.
So, if you're a fan of visual novels, and Choose Your Own Adventure (TM), and the Vampire: The Masquerade TTRPG, this might be right up your alley.
Admittedly, the story did end up being kind of interesting, but this is actually a sequel to an earlier visual novel (Coteries of New York) for which I have an unused key, so might read that first.
October 29, 2023 - Day 301 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 321
Game: Youropa
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 27, 2018
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 8d
Playtime: 29m
Youropa is a third-person 3D platform puzzle game, in which pieces of a stylized Paris have been ripped from the ground and suspended in mid-air as a series of platforms.
Each platform has one of more puzzles that need to be solved to open the door to transport you to the next platform, and gravity is non-committal about the whole thing.
At times you can walk along a platform that wraps around itself and find yourself walking on what was previously the underside of the platform. At other times you can take a step towards the edge of the platform and find yourself suddenly on the next surface and rotated through 90 degrees, or alternatively, plunging towards Paris below, because gravity, much like the controls for this game, can be finicky.
Unfortunately, while the graphics and lighting are quite pretty, giving the game a certain charm, and the conceit of the game is something out of the ordinary, the wildly inconsistent controls make it equal parts fun and frustrating, and not in a "enjoyable challenge" way, but more in a "Why am I doing this to myself?" way.
Ultimately, I don't think the uniqueness is enough to make me want to come back to Youropa, making it a bit:
Tales of the Neon Sea is a cyberpunk-themed 2D pixel art adventure.
I'm a sucker for cyberpunk-themed games, and this is a game that makes pixel art look gorgeous. It's just a shame that the artwork is the best part of the game.
You play as Rex, a partly cybernetic ex-cop-turned-detective, who awakens in a sewer, only to suddenly find himself being chased by a grim-reaper-esque character wearing a plague doctor mask. Who can teleport.
After slowly escaping (because Rex is injured and moves really slowly), it's eventually revealed that this is a flash-forward.
"Three days earlier...", sees Rex getting out of bed in a gigantic house, and beginning his adventure.
The thing is, Rex moves slowly even when uninjured. The longer I played, the more it became obvious why. This is a game that has been made longer by slowing you down.
The length has then been increased by putting each of the MacGuffins you require to solve each puzzle as far away from you as possible, forcing you to walk slowly from one end of Rex's gigantic house to the other and back. Over, and over. There's no run. Only walk.
You also can't pick up stuff along the way that might be helpful later; things only become available to you when you need them for a puzzle.
While the storyline and setting grabbed me, the constant trudging backwards and forwards in Tales of the Neon Sea made it all a bit:
October 31, 2023 - Day 303 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 323
Game: TSIOQUE
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 8, 2018
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 10d
Playtime: 17m
TSIOQUE is a 2.5D hand drawn point and click adventure.
You play as young princess Tsioque, who has been left behind in the castle by her mother, the Queen, who has ridden off to fight an existential threat to her kingdom (queendom?)
While the Queen is away, the wizard will play. He's evil, takes over the castle, imprisons the princess, she has to escape, yada yada yada.
There are point-and-click adventures where the puzzles are creative brainteasers, and obvious in hindsight.
There are others where you just randomly click on crap until something happens.
Given the complete lack of tutorial, and the single-pocket inventory, IF you actually have one item, it may not be entirely obvious how to use it.
By "may not be", it's actually "good luck working out the UI!"
A later puzzle presented me with an "invisibility blanket". Often a point-and-click will say "you can't use that now" when you try to use something at the wrong time.
TSIOQUE doesn't. Nothing happens. There's no feedback whatsoever.
Turns out that on the next screen, you need to use it to evade some enemies. How? No idea. I tried to run back to the previous room and use the blanket?
Nope.
Click in the wrong place, the item is returned to the pocket.
Turns out that when you can use it, you kind of drag it towards Tsioque and it's removed from the pocket, and she can use it.
How do you put it away afterwards?
You can't.
Tsioque finds herself standing in the dark. Clicking does nothing. The invisibility blanket is back in the pocket. She's also wearing it, and it cannot be removed.
Take one step forward, she trips, the guards throw the lights on, the wind blows the blanket away and she gets captured.
Over and over.
I gave up in frustration - I'm ten minutes into the game at this point, with a further five minutes of being stuck on this "puzzle", and search for a walkthrough.
Turns out that above the light switch is a spider. I'd seen the spider in previous scenes, but there was nothing you could do with him.
However, NOW he's clickable (not that there's anything to indicate this); his relative size is that of a tap-target on a full-screen mobile ad, and clicking on him will turn the lights off, and all the guards plummet to their death.
Obviously.
Unlike last night with Tales of the Neon Sea's artwork to draw me in, TSIOQUE doesn't even offer that. Do I want to keep playing?:
November 1, 2023 - Day 304 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 324
Game: Cryptark
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 21, 2017
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 11d
Playtime: 21m
Cryptark is a 2D pixel-art roguelike sci-fi shooter.
You're the away team in a salvage crew, in which you enter procedurally generated ships, destroy armed defences to make your way to the AI brain controlling each ship, within a time limit.
Your attack-suit-mech is heavily armed, and you'll pick up various upgrades along the way.
It's apparently a twin-stick as well, but I played with mouse and keyboard.
I'm pretty wiped out, but even so, it's another of those games that if I was in the right mood I might take another shot at it.
November 4, 2023 - Day 307 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 327
Game: Little Man Has a Day
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 17, 2023
Installation Date: Aug 21, 2023
Unplayed: 75d (2m14d)
Playtime: 30m
Little Man Has a Day is a 2.5D walking simulator about a little man having a day.
With hand drawn graphics, this game is a deeply complex and cerebral exploration of what it means to be human.
Well, as deeply complex as one can get in 13 minutes. Because that's how long it took me to finish the game. The only reason I have 30 minutes above is that I went back to get the rest of the achievements.
As "Little Man" you wake up and you're having an "eh" day. You explore the map, and meet a handful of characters, and write about it in your journal.
Anno 1800 is a 3D real-time strategy city-builder, set in the 19th Century.
I bought it today.
"But Allie, you have too many games. You have new ones coming on Wednesday morning in the November Humble Bundle! Why would you buy a new game?"
Ubisoft had a free weekend, and I made the mistake of installing it. Then playing it. Had I not played it (wouldn't be the first time I installed a game on a free weekend and forgot to play it), I wouldn't have encountered an antagonist so eminently punchable (Edvard Goode) that I wanted to keep playing solely to grind his company into dust.
With a 20% discount on top of the already discounted price through Ubisoft taking it to a historical low of AUD$17.99, it was almost impossible to say "no".
In terms of actual gameplay, it hooked me early, and I was suddenly staring at an in-game popup that said "It's been two hours, how about a cup of coffee."
November 7, 2023 - Day 310 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 330
Game: Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 27, 2019
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 17d
Playtime: 25m
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt is an isometric real-time strategy city-builder, with a medieval setting.
I got a whole bunch of games on the 21st of October. I was talking with my son about how I'd skipped a couple of months of Humble Choice in the past few years, and he gave me most of the games I was missing (because he didn't want them).
Included in those games was Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt; this review could also be "A tale of two city-builders".
The graphics in Townsmen are quite cute, and it makes Townsmen look like it could be a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, that's the best part of this game, because the actual gameplay is incredibly frustrating.
As an aside, in-game grammar and spelling mistakes immediately break my concentration. One typo is an oversight. Multiple typos and grammar errors sets my teeth on edge. This was not a good start for Townsmen.
The biggest issue I had with Townsmen is that it's less a city-building sim, and more of a city-micromanagement sim. I want to build buildings. I don't want to have to go to each building independently and assign and unassign workers (particularly in early game).
Buildings also degrade over time, and can catch on fire if they degrade too much. How do you know? Apparently they start to change colour. So now I have to remember to look at each building individually to see if it's changed colour and might need repairs. To repair a building, click on it to bring up the building interface. Click on a drop-down menu, and choose "Repair Building". Actually, this building is normally that colour, and doesn't need repairs. Like I said, micromanagement.
The tutorial levels give tasks, and give optional tasks, and would intermittently stop everything to remind me to complete the task I was working on.
"You need more wood, build another sawmill. You need another worker to build the sawmill. Build a new townhouse. You need more wood for the townhouse."
So I'm going around pulling workers from other jobs to put them on different jobs so I can complete the jobs to complete the tasks, which you've just paused the entire game to remind me to complete.
Anno 1800 hooked me so deeply that it was a case of "two hours already?", where this had me checking the clock repeatedly.
It's not just that it suffers in comparison to Anno 1800, compared to all of the other citybuilders I've played this year, Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt is:
Almost There: The Platformer is a minimalist 2D platformer.
This game takes everything I hate about platforming games and distils it down into a pure essence: Eau de Platform.
This game makes Celeste feel like a relaxing walk in the hills. Celeste made me want to at least keep trying before giving up in frustration. This made me look up at the clock every thirty seconds wishing for sweet release from my self-imposed straitjacket.
"Almost There" was what I whispered to myself as the clock slowly, painfully ground towards the 15 minute mark.
Almost There requires pinpoint precision to do... well, everything. Beat the timers on each level to get three stars. Land on the tiny platforms. Beat the pointy insta-kill moving spikes. Wall jump to avoid the lasers. Avoid the moving lasers.
The dev describes it as being "designed specifically for fans of the hardcore platforming genre" and playing this made me wish WWE 2K23 had finished downloading tonight.
To be clear, this game is not a bad game. This is a game that exists to mock me; a game that exists to remind me that it doesn't matter how hard I try, there are some games that will never be "for" me. That's OK with me.
I hate this game. This is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin, but a game that I will never be able to enjoy.
For lovers of hand-eye co-ordination, this may be the peak of platforming experience, but for me, Almost There: The Platformer is a solid:
November 9, 2023 - Day 312 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 332
Game: WWE 2K23
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 17, 2023
Installation Date: Nov 9, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 51m
WWE 2K23 is a pro wrestling sports sim. It's game #2 in the November Humble Choice bundle.
I am not a sports fan; my wife passionately fills that role in our relationship. I'll occasionally watch a game with her, but sports just don't do anything for me.
Then there's professional wrestling. Not only do I not see the appeal, I find it actively repellent. The showboating aggressive and sweaty men give off the same vibe as the boys who used to bully me aggressively and incessantly at school.
There are few sports I want to know less about than pro wrestling, which puts playing a game like WWE 2K23 somewhere south of playing an F1 game, and almost at survival/escape horror levels.
Although, to be honest, I once went on a hyperfocus bender on the performance side of pro-wrestling, so I know what a heel turn and face turn are, but the sports side? I was even LESS interested in knowing more.
I was fully prepared to dislike this game. I WANTED to dislike this game. I figured I'd get in, play 15 minutes and get out, have a little rant about it, and free up 80 gigs of precious SSD space.
I loaded it up. The game aggressively loading up on the wrong monitor helped. Forcing me straight into a tutorial without first letting me adjust the settings? Pump it into my veins. Hiding the settings menu somewhere other than the options menu? Just trying to get it working has eaten up a good chunk of my 15 minutes. I'm ready to rant.
However, it's not a fair review of the game, so into the tutorial with some guy named Xavier Woods, who's part of "The New Day". Already learning things I don't want to know.
Xavier tells me that I need to train so that one day I can face off against John Cena. The tutorial walks me through the various moves, and combos, and it takes me a bit over 15 minutes to complete.
There are a LOT of moves to remember. At least now I can give it a fair review... except it's straight into a Wrestlemania ring. Xavier is now dressed in pink and yellow spandex, and is going up against his first opponent...
John Cena. Apparently. I can't see him, but I know he's there (sorry, not sorry).
"One day" is today. I'm wrestling John Cena. I can remember some of the moves from the tutorial. I'm... oh no...
...I'm enjoying this.
I'm playing WWE 2K23, and I'm having fun. I beat John Cena.
I BEAT JOHN CENA.
I put down the controller. My hands are aching.
I just had fun.
Playing a pro-wrestling sim.
Who even am I now?
I'm not about to sit down and watch WWE any time soon, but I'm not getting that 80Gb of SSD space back, either.
For a game that I was prepared to dislike SO much, I can't quite believe the words I'm about to write: WWE 2K23 is actually really:
November 10, 2023 - Day 313 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 333
Game: Friends vs Friends
Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 30, 2023
Installation Date: Nov 10, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 16m
Friends vs Friends is a combination multiplayer PVP FPS and deckbuilder.
Those two things go together like chocolate ice cream and nachos; I like both of those things, but not in the same bowl.
It's the fourth game in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and is reinforcing my theory that some devs are trying use the bundle to juice their player base to try and reach critical mass.
The opening of this game took me by surprise. I do not remember another game that has a fully animated theme song intro.
For a moment I was genuinely wondering whether this was a cartoon of some kind, because it feels just like the opening to a 90's Saturday morning cartoon.
The theme song alerted me to the fact it was a deckbuilder, but not that it was also a FPS, so when I found myself staring at a cel-shaded 3D environment, and while the environmental design and character designs were well done, I was at a loss as to what to do next.
I wandered around hoping that I'd trigger some kind of tutorial, some idea of how to play the game... nothing.
I found a shop, and guns I could try out, but no idea how to obtain them. I couldn't work out how to start a match, and I didn't want to start a match without knowing how to play.
Eventually I gave up, and started a 1v1 quickmatch; I muddled my way through, winning 1 out of 5 matches. I tried a 2v2 match with bots, in which my "team" lost both times.
Turns out, the guns are cards in your deck, you win matches, get cash, use the cash to buy new cards, build a new deck (or upgrade the old one).
After the 2v2 match, I spotted a question mark icon tucked away in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which on a 3440x1440 screen wasn't exactly obvious, and it contained a set of instructions for how to play the game.
For me there are few issues with the game; the first one is in the title. It's a game that would probably work best with 1 or 3 friends (multiplayer options are 1v1 or 2v2).
With everyone either in the same room in a LAN game, or all on voicechat together, this could be amusing, because some of the card effects were amusing. Playing against randoms? No-one to laugh with.
Some cards were confusing "If I play this, does it affect me or the opponent?" No idea, even after playing it...
...because it's a PVP FPS. The pace of the game means it either feels like nothing is happening, or feels like everything is happening, as I'm trying to shoot, and look at my deck, and not get shot, and pick out a card, and I'm dead.
Unfortunately, Friends vs Friends feels like it had potential, but it all ended up just a bit:
Prodeus is a post-modern retro FPS, and is number 5 in this month's Humble Choice bundle.
Some time in 1994, a 20yo sat down in front of a friend's PC, as the friend said "You have to see this!" and fired up a new game his dad had downloaded.
I was stunned. The same computer we'd played Captain Keen & Wolfenstein 3D was showing a true 3D environment first-person shooter (even IF the mobs were bitmaps).
But it wasn't just the visuals. It was the sound. The cheap speakers plugged into the SoundBlaster were emitting snarls and growls, that felt like they were just about to burst in and kill us, and all of my hairs stood on end.
I'd never experienced anything like it. I was watching him play Doom.
I've lost count of the number of FPS's I've played since. Tens of thousands of digital opponents have been blasted into pixels in all kinds of environments, and it's rare now to get a chill playing a FPS.
Yet firing up Doom (or Doom 2), and hearing those snarls & growls can still give me chills, and in spite of having them installed, I don't play them.
When I played Doom Eternal for the first time, it felt like they'd captured the spirit of Doom, with all the advances of modern tech. It was fun, but it didn't feel like that moment in 1994.
Prodeus has all the little Doom-like touches; armor shards & health bottles, exploding barrels, secrets stashed here and there, but with added up & down mouse camera movement.
However, that could still describe countless boomer shooters; the difference is that Prodeus has somehow managed to capture the atmosphere of Doom, in a way that I can't remember experiencing in a very long time.
I felt like I was playing a true spiritual successor to Doom, and that's tough to pull off.
But technology is not the only thing that's changed in the last almost-30 years. I've lived through some real-life horror. The mix of adrenaline and fear, that rush that I got from playing Doom in 1994, it hits differently now.
Reaching the end of the first level, seeing that Doom-like end-screen didn't give me a rush of excitement, just a sense of relief. My jaw and my shoulders are tight and sore. My body reacts in a different way.
This was a hard review to write. It's taken me almost three times as long to write as I spent playing.
These reviews are primarily about my feelings towards a game, and whether I want to play it again, and Prodeus is difficult.
As a game, it deserves an "excellent", but as I game that I'll play again? I don't know. As I wrote earlier, I have Doom and Doom II installed on Steam (and Doom 3). I have less than two hours playtime across all three games.
Prodeus' 1.29Gb install can stay on my SSD, because it's:
November 12, 2023 - Day 315 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 335
Game: The Legend of Tianding
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 2, 2021
Installation Date: Nov 12, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 21m
Game number 6 in the November Humble Choice bundle is The Legend of Tianding.
This is a 2.5D side-scrolling beat-em-up platformer, which is based on a Flash game from 2004. Both games are based on the life of a real Taiwanese outlaw during the early 20th century.
It was a bit of a frustrating start. The game doesn't support ultra-wide screen, and instead of letterboxing, stretches 2560x1440 to 3440x1440.
The graphics are done in a comic-book style, which is well done, but other than that, it's a perfectly functional beat-em-up.
SCP: Secret Files is an odd game that's based around SCP (which stands for "Secure. Control. Protect."), and is a collaborative story writing wiki about paranormal anomalies.
I'm not going to try and explain SCP beyond that; you either know what SCP is, or you don't, and if you know what SCP is, you either know if it's a "you" thing, or if it isn't.
I know what SCP is, and it's not a thing that grabs me. In SCP: Secret Files, you find yourself as a new recruit in SCP, (the organisation that the SCP wiki is ostensibly about), and working through SCP "casefiles".
I played through 51 minutes of this game because I wanted to see how the first story ended (one of several different stories within the game), and it was somewhat disappointing.
November 14, 2023 - Day 317 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 337
Game: SCP: Secret Files
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 2, 2022
Installation Date: Nov 14, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 20m
Souldiers is a 2D pixel-art Metroidvania Soulslike platformer, and the last of this months unplayed Humble Choice bundle games.
It has a fantasy setting, which involves being saved from death due to machinations within the kingdom by a Valkyrie only to have to fight in the land that you're taken to, and I didn't get much further than that in 20 minutes.
The devs have put a lot of thought and effort into the backstory, but it's not one that grabs me.
Once again, I'm staring at a fairly average Metroidvania in a year when I've played such excellent Metroidvanias and Soulslike platformers, that a game really needs to bring something different to the table to grab me.
Unfortunately, Souldiers didn't, and it's just kind of:
November 14, 2023 - Day 317 - RePlay Review
Total RePlays: 10
Game: Hardspace: Shipbreaker
Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 26, 2022
Library Date: Jun 20, 2021
Playtime: 59h20m
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is the first game in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and on the short list of games that I've completed - on July 24, 2022.
Also, you may note that the "Library Date" predates the "Release Date", and this is not a typo.
It was released in Early Access in 2022, and I did not once regret buying it.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a 6DOF first-person action-adventure sim, in which you play a blue collar space worker, who has signed up to work with Lynx Corporation as a ship breaker.
Living in space, it's your job to dismantle, sort, and destroy, recycle, or recover, all the parts of junked spaceships.
There's just a small catch. While you can make good money ship breaking, Lynx Corporation uses cloning technology, and when you sign up with them, they own you and your DNA until your pay out the billion credit debt you incurred in training.
Ship breaking is a dangerous job, with a lot of risks; for instance, one of the big ones is death.
But that's OK; if you die, Lynx will just reconstitute you, and you get to keep on working. The cost of the reconstitution is added to your debt, so no biggie, right?
The actual mechanics of breaking up the ship involve a ruggedised spacesuit, a tether tool, and a laser cutter.
The procedurally generated ships become increasingly complex, with new dangers involved as you level up.
Each ship floats in an orbiting salvage yard with a furnace & salvage bay on both the left and right hand sides of the yard, and a recovery barge below.
You use the laser cutter to break up the ship, and the tether tool to either send recoverable whole objects to the barge, recyclable materials to the salvage bay, and junk to the furnace.
You're paid on the basis of how much usable material you recover from each ship, as well as earning "Lynx Credits" that you can use to upgrade your tools and skills.
It's a surprising amount of fun cutting up a ship, and tethering all the recyclable parts together and firing them off to the salvage bay.
As long as you don't get too close, and get recovered too, because... yeah, I died that way. A few times.
The whole thing is set to a soundtrack that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Firefly; in some ways, the whole game has a bit of that vibe.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker isn't just a game, it's a game with an excellent narrative that has lot to say about capitalism, corporate exploitation labour abuses, and unionism.
I genuinely love this game, and it's up there with Firewatch as one of my favourite games.
It's worth buying this month's bundle JUST for this game, because Hardspace: Shipbreaker is:
November 14, 2023 - Day 317 - RePlay Review
Total RePlays: 10
Game: Unpacking
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 2, 2021
Library Date: Nov 23, 2022
Playtime: 7h17m*
Unpacking is the third game in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and another one on the short list of games that I've completed; this one on December 30th, 2021
My time played in Steam, however, is 0h 0m.
Unpacking is also available on Xbox Game Pass for PC, which is where I played it, and completed it.
Twice.
Unpacking is an utterly lovely, and very chill isometric pixel art puzzle game, that involves unpacking a series of moving boxes, and learning about your life. It's a game about what makes somewhere home.
Each set of puzzles is based around a time in your life, and as you unpack the boxes, you begin to tease out the narrative of your life.
The thing about Unpacking is that to explain it beyond this, risks giving away part of the narrative, and I don't want to do that.
There is so much I love about this game, both for the puzzle, but also for the narrative; those of you who've played it know exactly what I mean.
It's a game that sat with me for a long time after I'd finished it, and I ultimately decided that I want to own a copy, and put some money into the pocket of the (Australian!) devs (Witch Beam, based in Brisbane), so I bought it.
Writing about it like this has just reminded me how much I love it, and I might just need to play it through again. It's another one on my list of favourites, along with Firewatch, Dredge, and Hardspace: Shipbreaker.
Unpacking is the other game it's worth buying this month's bundle for; it too is: