GRcade

In a bit of a rut at the moment struggling to stay focussed on one game. Played little bits of Fallout 1, Eiyuden Chronicle 100 Heroes, Pillars of Eternity 2, Another Crab’s Treasure and Tales of Kenzera: ZAU recently.

Dead Island 2 - PS5 - I wanted something new to play and this was sale with the season pass.

So far it's enjoyable, combat is good if a little simple and it runs well. I loved Dying Light (didn't think much of the sequel though) , and this feels like a shinier version of Dying Light.

Hopefully combat and exploring opens the game up.

Started Heavens Vault on Switch last night. I enjoy all of Inkle's work, and this is not looking like any exception. The depth of choice hinted at in the first couple of hours is a bit mind blowing.

Performance on Switch is a bit iffy. I picked it up on this format for the physical edition, but perhaps it would fair better on one of the other platforms. Nothing game breaking though.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Started Heavens Vault on Switch last night. I enjoy all of Inkle's work, and this is not looking like any exception. The depth of choice hinted at in the first couple of hours is a bit mind blowing.

Performance on Switch is a bit iffy. I picked it up on this format for the physical edition, but perhaps it would fair better on one of the other platforms. Nothing game breaking though.

I find your taste in games really aligns with my own and this is another game that I have in my library and need to start!

Looking forward to hearing more about it.

Zilnad wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Started Heavens Vault on Switch last night. I enjoy all of Inkle's work, and this is not looking like any exception. The depth of choice hinted at in the first couple of hours is a bit mind blowing.

Performance on Switch is a bit iffy. I picked it up on this format for the physical edition, but perhaps it would fair better on one of the other platforms. Nothing game breaking though.

I find your taste in games really aligns with my own and this is another game that I have in my library and need to start!

Looking forward to hearing more about it.

cheers - I feel exactly the same way fwiw

Will try to provide vague updates as I progress, but what first struck me is how grand and expansive this feels compared to 80 Days and Overboard! It feels more like Sorcery! at this point.

Been playing Slay the Spire again recently and finally managed another winning run with the Silent.

Was using a mostly poison deck (had three upgraded 'Poison flask' cards and two upgraded to 3x 'Catalyst' cards - totaling a possible 216 damage and a 'Corpse explosion' card too) which made short work of the 3rd area boss (Time Eater).

Still haven't done a winning run with the Watcher yet though.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Zilnad wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Started Heavens Vault on Switch last night. I enjoy all of Inkle's work, and this is not looking like any exception. The depth of choice hinted at in the first couple of hours is a bit mind blowing.

Performance on Switch is a bit iffy. I picked it up on this format for the physical edition, but perhaps it would fair better on one of the other platforms. Nothing game breaking though.

I find your taste in games really aligns with my own and this is another game that I have in my library and need to start!

Looking forward to hearing more about it.

cheers - I feel exactly the same way fwiw

Will try to provide vague updates as I progress, but what first struck me is how grand and expansive this feels compared to 80 Days and Overboard! It feels more like Sorcery! at this point.

Sorcery! is another in my library to play!

80 Days and Overboard are indeed great though

Finished Harold Halibut earlier this evening (loved it!), will most likely make Firewatch my next game to play, meant to play it last time it was on Game Pass before it left the service.

The Exit 8

Had this on my wishlist for a while, then saw Jacob Geller had done a video on it, so decided I had to play it now before I watched that and spoiled it.

It's fun. For what is essentially a memory game, it's also a very effective horror game. The mundane setting really lends itself to the feeling of unease you get every time you turn a corner and spot a new anomaly, that then feeds into an even more tense feeling as you round the corner yet again and can't spot an anomaly, but search in detail for one. I've had more than a few instances where I've scoured for a change, have been sure there isn't one, only to head on to discover I must have missed something. I'm yet to complete the game and make it to exit 8, so still have a few more anomalies to spot. Put about an hour in and it flew by. Looking forward to finishing this off next time round.

Knoyleo wrote:The Exit 8

Had this on my wishlist for a while, then saw Jacob Geller had done a video on it, so decided I had to play it now before I watched that and spoiled it.

It's fun. For what is essentially a memory game, it's also a very effective horror game. The mundane setting really lends itself to the feeling of unease you get every time you turn a corner and spot a new anomaly, that then feeds into an even more tense feeling as you round the corner yet again and can't spot an anomaly, but search in detail for one. I've had more than a few instances where I've scoured for a change, have been sure there isn't one, only to head on to discover I must have missed something. I'm yet to complete the game and make it to exit 8, so still have a few more anomalies to spot. Put about an hour in and it flew by. Looking forward to finishing this off next time round.

I really ned to get round to playing this. I saw a few minutes of it streamed by Nextlander late last year and it looked like just my sort of thing.

Currently on Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and F1 23.

Up to chapter 3 of Infinite Wealth so far and have been spending time doing the first set of substories.

Meanwhile, in F1 23, the driver switcheroo on career mode has meant that Lance Stroll is now at McLaren, Sainz is in a Red Bull, Russell drives for Ferrari, and Alex Albon is in a Merc.

Knoyleo wrote:The Exit 8

Had this on my wishlist for a while, then saw Jacob Geller had done a video on it, so decided I had to play it now before I watched that and spoiled it.

It's fun. For what is essentially a memory game, it's also a very effective horror game. The mundane setting really lends itself to the feeling of unease you get every time you turn a corner and spot a new anomaly, that then feeds into an even more tense feeling as you round the corner yet again and can't spot an anomaly, but search in detail for one. I've had more than a few instances where I've scoured for a change, have been sure there isn't one, only to head on to discover I must have missed something. I'm yet to complete the game and make it to exit 8, so still have a few more anomalies to spot. Put about an hour in and it flew by. Looking forward to finishing this off next time round.

And complete! An excellent little game for an hour's play (Steam says 67 minutes to complete with all anomalies found) and it's impressive how tense it becomes as you get closer to your goal, worrying about winding up back at square 1. Looking forward to the sequel that's on the way.

Zilnad wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Started Heavens Vault on Switch last night. I enjoy all of Inkle's work, and this is not looking like any exception. The depth of choice hinted at in the first couple of hours is a bit mind blowing.

Performance on Switch is a bit iffy. I picked it up on this format for the physical edition, but perhaps it would fair better on one of the other platforms. Nothing game breaking though.

I find your taste in games really aligns with my own and this is another game that I have in my library and need to start!

Looking forward to hearing more about it.

So a little update after about 5 hours...

The game is massively ambitious with the branching (or at least "non linear") story it is trying to tell. And it just seems to work. I have rarely (if ever) encountered the non sequiturs you would sometimes see in 80 Days (specifically when asking people about routes to certain places and they would reply "I don't know but there is an X in Y that does Z"). Here there just seems to be endless amounts of potential relevant dialogue, and that doesn't stop being impressive.

The budget limitations really do show. Despite the art being really nice and unique, there is a lot of glitchy environments and the most frustrating bug is that voice bubble things can move aorund mid conversation, which can make it hard to actually stay focused on the narrative. This is alleviated to some extent by all conversation being quite punchy (no more than a few lines between the next choice you have to make), so it never feels like you are reading a wall of text.

Though only partly narrated, the VA for your character is brilliant and has a really lovely voice (subjective I know).

The "sailing" scenes are pretty awful, adding nothing and going on for far too long. I assume they are to give a sense of expansiveness and pacing, but they can go on for way too long as the game progresses, and are barely interactive.

The language solving puzzles remain mind blowing to me. You make educated guess as to what the symbol might mean, and it gives you "linked" glyphs based on what choices you have made for other words previously. Every now and then it will categorically tell you if some are right (or wrong), but it feels like you can make a lot of selections around on a theory you have based on a symbol you saw some time ago.

It's all very impressive and there is not a lot out there like it. The game moves at a very slow pace, but I don't think that is to it's detriment.

Made it to the Circus case in Phoenix Wright Justice for all. Just using a walkthrough for it. It sucks ass!

Playing Super Mario Sunshine (3D AllStars) and this is majorly frustrating at times they really should have added some QoL stuff in this, Mario can be awful to control at times. doing the Red coins on the Water shine and trying to get the actual shine is so crap, I jump and seemingly hit the wooden platform at a bad angle and then just one hit kills me but also boots you out of the whole level.

Determined to finish this for the first time but damn some of these levels/challenges are just not fun. I'm only going to aim for the minimum amount of shrines I think, sod going for all of them.

Sunshine is easily the worst 3D Mario. I have no idea why people rate it so highly to this day. It clearly needed more time.

Made a start on Fire Watch this afternoon, so far I’ve really enjoyed it, nearing the end of day 2, story is rather touching so far.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Zilnad wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Started Heavens Vault on Switch last night. I enjoy all of Inkle's work, and this is not looking like any exception. The depth of choice hinted at in the first couple of hours is a bit mind blowing.

Performance on Switch is a bit iffy. I picked it up on this format for the physical edition, but perhaps it would fair better on one of the other platforms. Nothing game breaking though.

I find your taste in games really aligns with my own and this is another game that I have in my library and need to start!

Looking forward to hearing more about it.

So a little update after about 5 hours...

The game is massively ambitious with the branching (or at least "non linear") story it is trying to tell. And it just seems to work. I have rarely (if ever) encountered the non sequiturs you would sometimes see in 80 Days (specifically when asking people about routes to certain places and they would reply "I don't know but there is an X in Y that does Z"). Here there just seems to be endless amounts of potential relevant dialogue, and that doesn't stop being impressive.

The budget limitations really do show. Despite the art being really nice and unique, there is a lot of glitchy environments and the most frustrating bug is that voice bubble things can move aorund mid conversation, which can make it hard to actually stay focused on the narrative. This is alleviated to some extent by all conversation being quite punchy (no more than a few lines between the next choice you have to make), so it never feels like you are reading a wall of text.

Though only partly narrated, the VA for your character is brilliant and has a really lovely voice (subjective I know).

The "sailing" scenes are pretty awful, adding nothing and going on for far too long. I assume they are to give a sense of expansiveness and pacing, but they can go on for way too long as the game progresses, and are barely interactive.

The language solving puzzles remain mind blowing to me. You make educated guess as to what the symbol might mean, and it gives you "linked" glyphs based on what choices you have made for other words previously. Every now and then it will categorically tell you if some are right (or wrong), but it feels like you can make a lot of selections around on a theory you have based on a symbol you saw some time ago.

It's all very impressive and there is not a lot out there like it. The game moves at a very slow pace, but I don't think that is to it's detriment.

Inkle recently posted a Twitter thread on the making of Heaven’s Vault for its fifth anniversary, I think based on a broader GDC talk about its development. The rivers were apparently inspired by the horse riding sections in between the fights in Shadow of the Colossus, mixed with some Ancient Egyptian mythology. They definitely do show off the clunkier side of the game, as does a bunch of the gameplay really, but I think they still serve a neat purpose to break up the feeling of each location.

I love Heaven’s Vault. I think I said a few years ago that there was a game of the generation sat within there if you’re willing to put up with some annoyances. I’d really like to eventually get to a point where it, Pentiment, Disco Elysium, and Norco are narrative games I get to play annually.

Oh Norco is another in my library's "Up Next" pile.

If you're looking for another 'decrypting an ancient language' game then you might like Chants of Sennaar, its mostly point & click but there's a couple of slightly annoying stealth sections (which I hated).