#732 Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress

Posted: 7th November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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464th played so far

Df_logo

Genre: Management Simulation
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Tam Adams
Publisher: Bay 12 Games

Dwarf Fortress! Here’s a game that’s started lingering in my conciousness for about a year now and it’s been intriguing. Sort of a Minecraft predecessor, it seems like a game that allows you to do… nearly everything, really. Big, difficult but worthwhile.

Our Thoughts

We lost a lot of time on this game, for a bunch of reasons. There is seriously a lot to do – just starting the game takes several minutes as it needs to generate a new world for you, one probably as unique as any. It does so by creating an initial world (following parameters you set) and then spending most of the time aging that world, having civilizations rise and fall and havng some of the contours of the world change.

Then you spend some time creating your team. You can use a decent default team or set them up yourself – stats, skills and all. Yeah, we went for the default team there, so we wouldn’t need to guess too much… Especially as there are a hundred-something skills that may or may not be as useful now or later. Then there’s traits and other elements, as it all stacks up and creates a complex character.

Then you pick your place to settle on the world (another complex decision) and you get put in your selected place. Represented (as the game has been so far as well) by ASCII characters. As shown with the likes of Nethack, this is not a bad idea, and in fact probably allows for more flexibility in the game.

The game deepends from there. While the initial run may be pretty standard – start digging a mine, find a place to sleep, start getting food – even there you’re already thinking about the inital standards, what the best food supplies are and how to lay it out.

So much starts happening after that, with so many options, that you’re just happy the game allows setting up enough orders with enough AI that it mostly begins running itself – something you can even improve with the right jobs and characters.

Even better, the game is still in very active development – at the time of writing, there are updates every five days or so – which means that even if the fortress building now seems to be off, it’s likely to change soon. There’s a full adventurer mode in there we’ve barely explored, seeming more like a roguelike RPG. Earthquakes and non-dwarf characters appear to be on the way as well, together with loads of stuff I just haven’t gotten deep enough into to understand.

This game is going to eat up hours of my time.

Final Thoughts

This game is so big, there is no way we could or would have covered it in the time we give to the game. It feels like we’d need to play for months to get into it.

It’s utterly addictive however, and once the basics get going it all flows naturally. It takes some time to figure out the best way to do things – we went through a few fortresses before we really got to it – but it’s absolutely worth it.

#208 Lemmings

Posted: 3rd November 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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463rd played so far

lemmings-c64-cover-front-22945

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1991
Developer: DMA Design
Publisher: Psygnosis

Lemmings… DMA Design’s biggest success story until they created Grand Theft Auto, one of the biggest gaming franchises – the biggest western and non-Nintendo one based on numbers sold. But yes, before that (and before the wonderfully weird Uniracers) they created one of the most addictive puzzlers. Lemmings is actually still on Wikipedia’s list, at 20 million sold – still pretty decent.

Our Thoughts

We both knew this game already, so there were no real surprises. It was still a lot of fun to get back to the game (even if the lemmings were a lot smaller than I remember).

The basic idea of Lemmings – get the cute green and blue creatures to safety through a gate – is pretty simple. There are several ways to change your Lemmings’ jobs that get you closer. And plenty of sad, sad deaths.

The puzzles are pretty clever, slowly increasing in difficulty but so far with still pretty simple solutions when it comes down to it. A couple have different solutions, but mostly it comes down to finding out the specific solutions you should have gotten. The main goal is to get as many lemmings to the exit as possible, with a minimum per level – which is usually more than easy to do when you find the solution, with getting as close as possible to 100% being more important. Overall, it’s still as good a game to play.

Final Thoughts

Lemmings is still as good a game as ever: a strong puzzler with a slightly light setup but mostly one that’s simply addictive.

Oddly enough, the game doesn’t seem to have received an ios/Android port yet. Possibly something that will follow – the game seems suitable for it, both in the interface you use and the bitesized level setup.

#110 Salamander

Posted: 30th October 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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0

462nd played so far

Salamander_flyer

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1986
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

With some games, it feels like there is not much we can add as an introduction. Salamander looks like one of those shoot ’em ups we’ve seen plenty of – horizontal scrolling, you control a ship that can move sideways to change your position and you have plenty of enemies charging at you.

So what’s so special this time?

Our Thoughts

As one of these shoot ’em ups, Salamander is pretty engaging – I tried playing it a few times and wasn’t that quick in giving up. At the same time, sitting here now, having played the next two games on the same day, I struggle to remember much about it.

The first level did make somewhat of an impact. While it’s mostly standard shooting, you are traveling through some creature’s body. Interesting is how parts of the level can be destroyed – you need to blast your way through walls – making avoiding slightly less important.

Powerups are easier to come by than the game’s predecessor Gradius, but it really mattered little for us, as death was too easy and it got rid of everything.

Later levels changes the theme (and direction!) causing some interesting differences in levels. In a way, the difficulty doesn’t feel like it actually goes up a lot – it’s just the ongoing onslaught that simply wears you down.

Final Thoughts

Salamander just isn’t that notable, sorry. It’s interesting, fun, and does some things its own way, but it is more an iterative update than something that feels special.

Thinking about it, games like this stay bland because they’re not as distinct – there’s no story to differentiate them and most enemies are ‘weird species’, ‘odd birds’ and ‘worm things’. I’m looking forward to actually seeing some more story or cutscenes to add some reason to play the game.

Short Break

Posted: 10th October 2015 by Jeroen in Uncategorized
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Thank you all for reading!

Because of a bunch of good news happy things, we’ll not be near any laptops or other blog updating machines for a good part of the month and we’ll be focusing on other matters. As you are reading this, for example, we might well be cutting a cake.

To minimize the risk of things going wrong, Pong and Beyond will be going on a brief hiatus. We will be back October 30th with the next game – and don’t worry, we will, it’s already in the queue!

#33 Gravitar

Posted: 6th October 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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461st played so far

Gravitar

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1982
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

Back in time again, we’re grabbing one of our old shoot ’em ups to cross off some old games.

Gravitar comes from Atari’s stable and runs with what seems like vector graphics. Without any other reference, we’d go for Lunar Lander as something we’re looking at to compare with.

Our Thoughts

My notes describe this game as Asteroids or Lunar Lander combined with Scramble and having added missions. That’s pretty long, but it covers the basics.

The first screen of the game starts you on a star map with several planets at the edges. Using the Asteroids-like controls, you move to one of them and start a level there. They can be played in any order without any indication of differences in difficulty, differences that are present.

In each level, you then need to destroy several bases to blow up the planet. Doing this to all would get you to a new set of levels, although (as you’ve probably gathered from our gameplay skills) we never reached that.

The levels themselves look simple and are tricky to control, Asteroids style controls don’t really translate well anymore. Using them on the map makes more sense, but even there they have put in enemies, making it more than a level select – but with the real game only starting when you enter a level, it feels unnecessary.

Final Thoughts

It’s still a simple game, but Gravitar feels like it is moving in the right direction, introducing different levels and options to an idea that’s otherwise fairly simple to plenty predecessors. It just feels a bit too tricky to really get into at this point.

#978 Zen Bound

Posted: 2nd October 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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460th played so far

363308208-zen-bound-2-universal-2015-04-16-12-34-07-icon

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: iPhone
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Secret Exit
Publisher:Chillingo Ltd

IOS games can have their own feel. They’re as varied as any other platform, but being handheld and having touchscreen controls means that they can be quite different.

Zen Bound is a good example of that, as a game where you tie a rope around an object doesn’t seem like it could work anywhere else. It’s one of those games that experiments with a medium.

Our Thoughts

The game really is that simple, and its effectiveness and addictiveness comes from that. You tie a rope around one of many oddly shaped objects, which radiates colour a bit. The goal is to splatter it with enough paint to reach a certain percentage – higher is better.

It’s a pretty simple idea and the different ‘statues’ย  make it look lovely – partially they serve to create a puzzle, but the wooden finish add to the atmosphere as well. The game really becomes zen-like – staring at the screen to find a solution, gently turning the object to get the angle just right. Tricky at times, but not too much (I did well rather easily) and pretty engaging.

The book puts it quite well – hand a person a wooden toy with a nail and a piece of rope and they’d be hard pressed to call it a game (although when watchingย  TV, I can see myself doing this sort of thing to keep my hands busy). The addition of score keeping, however, adds a goal that elevates it to an interesting new experience.

Final Thoughts

Zen Bound is a simple, straight forward game, following what we often see as the right rules for mobile – quick play, simple and quickly enjoyable. They’re addictive puzzles that feel like they always have a better solution while being tricky enough in some places that there’s plenty of these quick wins even before finishing a level.

#849 LostWinds

Posted: 28th September 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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459th played so far

original

Genre: Adventure/Platform
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: Frontier Developments

Just the look of this game draws me in. It looks gorgeous, while even the few things I’ve read about it draw me in – an interesting looking platformer.

We ended up playing the IOS version of the game, which may influence things slightly, but we’ll see where that goes.

Our Thoughts

There was something magical about this game. The controls are simple – you can get Toku, the main character of the game, to walk left or right and use gusts of winds (swiping on the touch screen in our version) to lift him up and propel him forwards, creating a jump.

Not even paying attention to the gameplay elements of it, the wind makes the game look amazing. Everything responds to it, some leaves start blowing, people try not to blow away too far.

When playing it continues to have more interesting effects. While the game starts with you just using the wind to allow your character to jump, it gets expanded to give you more abilities – throwing rocks around and spreading fires between torches. It feels pretty natural and comes together to create some interesting puzzles. There’s several where we did get stuck for a while, but it really came down to us overlooking something.

If there’s one bit that stands out negatively, it’s that the enemies get annoying to deal with. Some take quite a bit of beating to get down – especially when you just about can’t get the gestures right – and they respawn in large numbers. They interrupt the flow a bit when they appear, forcing their way in when you want to experience your adventure and enjoy your time in this world.

Final Thoughts

This is a lovely little game, looking amazing and interactive while providing smooth gameplay throughout.ย  It’s great to even just play through, let alone experiencing the clever world that gets built and the way it slowly unfolds as you gain more abilities. This really felt like a treat to play.

#58 Crystal Castles

Posted: 24th September 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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458th played so far

Crystal_castles_poster

Genre: Action
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1983
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Atari

These isometric games don’t work well for me. I’m not sure why, but there’s a series of games like Crystal Castles (several of which are yet to come) that I just dread. The controls are awkward, the action simple and there’s just not much appeal in them for me.

We’ve played Knight Lore in the past, with similar trappings. It was okay, and Crystal Caves predates it… so in the end, we’re covering this as much simply because we have to.

Our Thoughts

The game was fine, I suppose. We heaped quite a bit of praise on Q*Bert, which this game almost feels like a continuation of, together with some Pac-Man – mostly, what you do is moving around this isometric landscape (with height differences) as you collect pellets. Enemies chase you around, which adds pressure, and collect the pellets – to advance, you need to collect more than they did.

It gets fairly manic, which is where the controls stopped doing it favours (for us). You need to run around both avoiding and getting to the pellet-dense places, but when, in the rush of things, you don’t have up-left vs up-right memorized, it’s easy to jump into a pit or take the wrong road. It all feels a bit sluggish, but that could be our systems.

Past that the game is challenging and has the chance to get really addictive, when you get past the issues, and the few different levels were varied enough to stay engaging.

Final Thoughts

It’s a pretty simple game in the end, as said combining Q*Bert and Pac Man more than the other isometric exploration games I mentioned before (although I suspect there might be some lineage still). The control issues are still there, however, and the game doesn’t really feel like it offers much more. It must have looked amazing at the time – now, though, it feels like it’s been overtaken.

#32 Ultima 1

Posted: 20th September 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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457th played so far

Ultima_1_box

Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1981
Developer: Richard Garriot, Origin Systems
Publisher: Origin Systems

One of the early RPGs I played was Ultima Underworld, the sequel to which we’ll end up playing at some point in the future. I’m not entirely sure what led me to it. I had heard of the series before, but didn’t have much experience with it. I also played a bit with the later, entirely top down games.

My real exposure to the game, as much as it is, was from the Blogging Ultima blog, a minor inspiration for me starting this project (together with some similar blogs). From that, it looked less interesting than the ones I had played – good for its time, but not as playable for us, possibly too tricky to get into. I approach this game with trepidation…

Our Thoughts

That was a lot more fun than my initial fears suggested. Sure, the game looks simple, and there’s clear flaws – the controls are not always the most intuitive. But unlimited lives and bits of information that carry over between deaths mean that you feel like, step by step, you get better at the game, progress further and accomplish more.

The graphics are pretty simple. Mostly effective, but confusing when you’re in a first person dungeon – the corridors look the same, although a lot sort of become familiar as you keep track of your steps.

The quick levelling curve and early rapid increases in power (you can often afford a better weapon and better armour after a handful of fights). The rapid wins make it fun.

Even so, the game’s story is thin (although there’s supposedly space battles near the end?), making a good effort for its time but fairly simple at the moment.

Final Thoughts

The game is tantalizing in its setup. It’s simple, offer a fairly clear reward structure and hints at a story that could be interesting. Partially standard high fantasy, true, but I’m also aware of the ambition offered in later games.

Even so, the difficulty is restrictive, requiring you to know carefully what you are doing. It’s easy to die early or get stuck with a character, but at least death feels cheap and easy to get past with some persistence – always armed with more knowledge as you do so.

#723 Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

Posted: 16th September 2015 by Jeroen in Games
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456th played so far

600full-rise-of-nations_-rise-of-legends-cover

Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Big Huge Games
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

We loved Rise of Nations when we played it. It was a good mix of strategy gaming and civ-style simulation. Sure, Age of Empires has it similar, but the work and experience put in by one of the Civilization series lead designer shows.

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends takes a similar formula, but sets it in a fantasy/steampunk world. Enough for me to be even more interested.

Our Thoughts

Yeah, the game pulled it off again. The fantasy veneer on top of the game works really well, adding some variety to the world and providing some interesting concepts. So far we’ve only played the steampunk race, with the others providing magic and a more esoteric background. Even so, the world is interesting from the start, something that still draws you in.

The city and empire building seems to have switched a bit in the game. The RTS levels feel a tad more RTS like. While still focused more on base building than others, this isn’t quite as intense in this game. You’re still building cities – multiple ones even – but with a few less resources to keep track of and slightly simpler research.

Instead, more of this moves to the worldmap. If you battle in a map, resources are moved from adjacent maps, giving you additional gold or units partway through a mission. This is done through another resource management system – really just investing your XP in diferent areas, but it feels more tactical than that. The same also unlocks different starting units, building up your initial army wherever you go.

It’s a very nice expansion on the otherwise often meaningless campaign map – the missions may be slightly different but normally your choices seem to matter little. Here they’re a vital part of your strategy, bringing it a bit closer to, for example, the Total War formula.

Final Thoughts

This game has rapidly risen on our list of games to play and we had trouble putting it away in the end. This is honestly why I love playing strategy games.

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