Stylized, isometric 3D illustration for the Dutch ComputerTotaal magazine, about a levy for the copying of media that was introduced in the Netherlands.
Stylized, isometric 3D illustration for the Dutch ComputerTotaal magazine, about a levy for the copying of media that was introduced in the Netherlands.
Renew is a medical devices company specialising in the development and supply of prescription bowel management products. They asked me to create isometric and 2D illustrations to be used in instructional videos for both clinicians and patients.
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.
February 10, 2024 - Day 406 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 442
Game: Beacon Pines
Platform: Steam
Released: Aug 31, 2022
Installed: Feb 10, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 20m
Rating: 4 - Good
Beacon Pines is an isometric narrative adventure, in which you can go back and change the choices you've, and thus the outcomes that ensue. It's game number 4 in the February Humble Bundle.
Framed as a storybook, in which you're participating in creating the story, the story is about a anthropomorphic young deer, whose father died when he was six, and whose mother has now disappeared.
Luka and his best friend find themselves in the middle of investigating goings-on in their small town of Beacon Pines.
The game is bittersweet, and I'm interested to see where it goes from here.
February 12, 2024 - Day 408 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 444
Game: Children of Silentown
Platform: Steam
Released: Jan 12, 2023
Installed: Feb 12, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 21m
Rating: 3 - OK
Children of Silentown is an isometric point-and-click adventure with a beautiful but haunting art style. It's game 6 in this month's Humble Choice Bundle.
Lucy is a 12 year old girl living in a town deep inside a forest, that's haunted by monsters, in which children have repeatedly gone missing.
The game is very atmospheric, and just a little creepy.
I think I might keep playing to find out what's happening in Children of Silentown, because it's:
Oaken is an isometric hex-based tactical roguelike deck-building strategy game. It's game 7 in this month's Humble Choice Bundle.
Oaken is very pretty, but I'm not sure I could explain the storyline, even if I tried. You're some kind of spirit making your way down an oak tree, through various battles, and building out your deck in the process.
February 26, 2024 - Day 422 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 458
Game: Undying
Platform: Steam
Released: Dec 7, 2023
Installed: Dec 20, 2023
Unplayed: 68d (2m6d)
Playtime: 30m
Undying is an isometric zombie survival game, with a twist.
Undying is set in the immediate aftermath of a zombie outbreak. With survivors having been shepherded into safe zones, the survivors are being extracted, one safe zone at a time.
Anling and her son, Cody, are in one of these safe zones, which is overrun by zombies during the extraction. The extraction fails, and Anling and Cody make a run for their lives, finding a car, and returning to their home.
Their home becomes their survival base, with all of the standard trappings of any number of other survival games, just with extra zombies.
With one catch - Anling was bitten by a zombie while escaping, and needs to teach Cody how to survive before she turns.
This adds a somewhat melancholic layer to the game, knowing that (playing as Anling), you're on borrowed time, and as a parent, this affected me quite deeply.
As you go through each step of building and repairing items, you encourage Cody to observe, which levels him up, allowing him to do more of these things himself.
March 8, 2024 - Day 433 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 468
Game: Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin
Platform: Steam
Released: Nov 18, 2023
Installed: Mar 8, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 24m
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is an isometric real-time strategy game, and it's first game off the rank in this month's Humble Bundle.
It's also got to be the quickest release-date-to-bundle-date I've seen.
It's good looking, but boring. There's some kind of storyline here, but it feels a lot like it relies on pre-existing knowledge of Warhammer, and much like Boltgun a few days ago, I suspect if you're a Warhammer fan you might get more out of this that I did.
Not a great start for the March Humble Choice bundle, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is just:
March 18, 2024 - Day 443 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 478
Game: Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition
Platform: Steam
Released: Oct 28, 2015
Installed: Mar 17, 2024
Unplayed: 1d
Playtime: 1h30m
Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition is an isometric RPG with turn-based combat. It was released by a little-known dev team based in Belgium (pardon my language) called Larian Studios.
Larian Studios released a small indie game last year that few people heard of called [checks notes]... "Baldur's Gate 3"
In all seriousness, though, it was my experience with BG3 that made me wishlist "Divinity: Original Sin - The Source Saga" soon after, which is a bundle of Divinity - Original Sin, Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, and Divinity: Original Sin 2, which is currently on sale in the Steam Spring Sale for AUD$21.61. Given that it's normally $121.90, the 82% discount was impossible to turn down.
I installed D:OSEE, intending for it to be my game for the 17th, and I encountered something in a game that I've not experienced in years; it took me way back to my early days of gaming.
I started the game, and it hard-locked my PC. Instant crash, everything frozen. Two more attempts, same deal.
I raised a support ticket with Larian. Played A Musical Story instead.
When I woke up yesterday, my troubleshooting kicked in. Hard lock doesn't help much in terms of logs, but there's still some working assumptions I could try out, and it turned out that it's something to do with my monitor setup.
I'm running triple monitors. Main monitor is an AOC 34" Ultrawide, the LH monitor is an AOC 24" FHD, and the RH monitor is my old primary monitor, an AOC AGON 32" QHD.
It seems that as long as I only have one monitor active, D:OSEE will start OK. I'm still trying to nail it down, because it seemed yesterday that once I'd started it successfully and set the options in-game, it worked fine with all three monitors active, but last night I started it again, and another hard-lock.
I now have it set to "Fake Fullscreen" (other games call that Borderless Windowed), and will be running it again after I post this to check.
After all that, what about the gameplay?
It's a slow start, and it feels... slow. It's the story of a corrupted magical force named "The Source", and a two-character party of "Source Hunters", that are completely customisable before the campaign starts.
After 1.5 hours of gameplay, and clearing out what turned out to be a "tutorial" dungeon, I've just reached the first main questline. Still, for a 9 year old game, there are the hints of greatness that are found in BG3.
So far, other than the maddening crashing bug, and the game's apparent inability to display my actual resolution in the list instead of dingbats(!), Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition is: