Indie

Crashin’ & Cloudpunkin’

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I plopped down on the couch this evening and enjoyed a little bit of Crash Bandicoot, got a couple achievements! Then a bit later I played Cloudpunk at my desk, and continued getting achievements… huzzah. For some reason I was in a Futuristic Dystopian Delivery Girl kind of mood tonight, and I love the dialogue! I met a couple of android gang members who go around performing typical gang member activities… such as building playgrounds for children. Not long after I had to give a Karen and her Android husband a ride along with the package they wanted to send. Oh, and I had a cup of coffee. :v

Light At The End Of The Sanctuary

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I made up for last weekend in spades. I had a small breakfast sandwich, cleaned up my digs a bit, patched up a shirt, and last but not least I put some scented fucking candles on and played a bit of AER: Memories Of Old. It took me awhile to remember what I was doing, but I did eventually find Eventide Sanctuary — and even got an achievement! There really isn’t very much to this game, but at the same time it has a lot going on. Lots of land to traverse on foot and as the crow flies, and there’s quite a bit of story to read and piece together throughout your travels. This will most likely get a recommendation from me once I finish the game, when I’m able to pick it up again. 😛

Compared to last week this was the perfect day.

Stabby Sunday

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I was still in a bit of a stabby shooty mood today, but wanted to play Shadow Warrior 2 instead. I finished some side quests, collected swag, read a few fortune cookies, and even advanced the plot and earned a couple new achievements!All the while warming the house with my fun time. It was fun to take my aggression out on demons, cyborgs, the Yakuza… this game has everything!

I figure once I finish this game the third one will be on a decent enough sale to buy. This game is big enough to keep me busy for awhile, and one of these days I’ll have to will myself to play the first game again to collect some missing achievements.

Trading JRPGS for Indies

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I guess I didn’t have much energy to post yesterday… I blame NieR’s musical score for lulling me to sleep. I did wake up this morning with some fine energy, made a good breakfast and did a few things around the house. Oh, and of course there was some 4K gaming shenanigans. 😛 But I gave the Japanese RPG games a rest, and focused on playing some Unreal Engine Indie Games like Overload, and BPM: Bullets Per Minute.

I still suck at it, but I did at least get an achievement for getting out of the first two levels! It’s an FPS Roguelike where you can only shoot to the beat of the music, all the while traversing a dungeon that changes each time you die, which makes the gameplay much less stale at least.

On this particular playthough I happened to find a bank! Handy for stashing extra coinage when I don’t have a use for it. As an added bonus if you find the bank again after you die you’ll be able to retrieve your coins. That came in handy this evening for buying some pricey powerups that can’t easily be obtained within one dungeon romp. As much as I keep dying it’s oddly addicting to play.

Amnesia Sunday

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In continuing my spooktacular themed mood I decided to give Amnesia: The Dark Descent another chance. My last play attempt was back in 2015, and it was plagued with control issues. Needless to say I didn’t have that issue this time around, and so far everything has been running perfectly! I just found my way into the wine cellar and I’m trying not to go too insane. I think I’m getting close to the part where the creepy creeps will try to chase me.

Perhaps next week, if I don’t decide to play something else. 😛

Indies: Only If

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I treated myself to a game this weekend… I think? I haven’t played anything in over a week and sifted through my ever expanding games collection when I came upon a game I forgot I obtained a long time ago, and so can anyone else. Only If is a first person puzzle game that isn’t afraid to kick you to the curb. Your name is Anthony, and you’re going to a party to meet a girl named Sam, and you’re such a fucking pansy that your vision fades before even opening the god damned door! Bloody Pratt.

You awake in a bedroom of the house you were too much of a wuss to quite make it into… somehow. There is a door on the right of the anime babe, all ready to engulf you (or Anthony) in Darkness. You find a light shining in a void, as you walk to it the light orb begins to move and you hear someone or something giving chase.

The light orb leads Anthony to a blocked door; he manages to get through, only to be greeted by our antagonist: An angry radio (and probably one of the few good voice actors in the game) that simultaneously threatens, helps and berates you.

You are tasked with choosing a white or black pawn; Taking a white pawn means to sacrifice yourself while taking a black pawn sacrifices Sam (the girl/plot device). You have to complete a puzzle after choosing your desired pawn, and once you succeed you’ll have a key to open the door representing the choice you made with your pawn. Each path is different, and some of the answers to some of the rooms are not what you would expect. Some of the puzzles don’t seem practically solvable without a guide. [su_spoiler title=”If you aren’t afraid of spoilers…” open=”no” style=”fancy” icon=”plus-circle”]I couldn’t even figure out how to get past the first part of the White Pawn portion in the first room where the guy over the radio, “Vinny” is asking you to name something sweet, and if you don’t type the answer you’ll die. I didn’t know I could just type! Supposedly he gives away the typing bit over the radio but it sounded unintelligible to me.[/su_spoiler]

It’s far from perfect, but for the price and the year this came out I can’t really complain too much. I need to fiddle around with it a bit more before doing one final review of it, but I can at least say that if you have an expendable amount of time you want to waste, and a computer 15 years of age you should set some time aside to check a look at this artistic brain rot. If anything it’s an artful time waster.

Spaced Out Sunday

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After playing a bit of Overload yesterday, I felt the itch to get spaced out some more. I’ve successfully made it to a moonbase on Phoebe, and my current objective is to rescue workers turned hostages in stasis, and eventually a boss battle with a dick ship (not to be confused with whatever the fuck Jeff Bezos blasted off in recently). Everything from the level design, to the music and pickups brings back many memories of the old Descent games. If AMID EVIL is a love letter to games like Hexen and Heretic, then Overload is easily the modern Descent game. I almost livestreamed it tonight, but wasn’t sure how my stomach would hold up given all the aerial flips you can make in that game. Fortunately I didn’t get sea sick, and I think that clears me to stream it next time.

I’ve also successfully remapped the controller buttons in game, made it more comfortable. Next time I play it on the TV I’ll be ready. 😛

Zen Bondage

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Birdie Bondage

Have you ever been so tired at the end of the day that you end up staring into space, and you want to do something but you have next to no energy? I got some basic animation done tonight and reached a point where my brain was just… done. I wandered through my large collection of games for something to unwind to, and I ended up playing a freebie I got a long time ago called Zen Bound 2. It mainly consists of 3D objects tied to a rope, and you use your mouse or peripheral of choice to tie it up. Each level has a minimum, medium or maximum goal indicated in the bottom left corner.

With each goal completed a flower will bloom, and you’re able to ascend further up the tree until you reach the top! There are no time limits and it includes relaxing music, perfect for ending an evening on a soothing note.

Each level adds something different. You have to wrap the rope around a certain amount of nails (or nail bombs), or wrap a rope around an object to paint it. I only completed the tree of introduction this evening, but I’ll be back to take another crack at it on an evening where I’m low enough on energy reserves but still want to feel like I’m doing something!

A Ghost In A 3D Printed Shell

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I decided to try one of the many games I haven’t touched in my library, and my magical dartboard of destiny landed on Ghost 1.0, a metroidvania meets megaman type of game that isn’t afraid to make fun of itself:

Your name is Ghost, and you’re on a mission to steal the greatest electronic secret ever hidden on the Nakamura Space Station. Primarily you remote control an android that can be rebuilt via 3D Printing should you die. You can also use your mysterious unexplained digital ghost powers to possess different robots and androids on the Space Station to solve puzzles, or clear things out ahead of time.

Anything Ghost possesses will turn slightly blue

It handles nicely under Linux, even on my Linux Surface Tablet! It runs as if it were made for it!

Aside from your typical powerups and weapons, you also have upgrades and… geeks? I found a geek item while playing a little bit ago, and equipping it seems to emit a weird scream anytime you’re damaged by an enemy.

You can also collect skill points to apply to certain skill trees. You can improve your chassis or your ghost abilities. You can also level up Jacker and Boogan, the ones that hired you to take on this cray cray adventure. Boogan is your technical specialist, and Jacker is a hacker . 😛 You can also improve things for yourself around the space station, but so far I’ve mainly focused on chassis upgrades.

So far the game has been fun, challenging, and funny enough for me to forgive the voice acting in certain spots. Perhaps I’ll will myself through this game on another weekend, and maybe also during a long trip on my tablet! I can finally tell the co-worker that gifted this to me that I love it! 😛 If you like metroidvania style games you might want to consider looking this one up.

Get On The Ball!

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After a week of playing Capcom games at work I wanted to take a break with something different, and an indie puzzle sounded like a nice change of pace from hackin’ and slashin’ or painting my enemies to death  Nope, instead I drug a giant ball around solving puzzles in a tomb.

First up; if you ever decided to get this game I highly recommend using this guide to tweak your resolution and framerate. By default The Ball only goes up to 1080p and has a framerate cap at 62FPS, not very appealing on my monitor. Fortunately the fix is as simple as doing a small tweak to an ini file or two. It also runs peachy via proton.

The Ball is a first person puzzle game where you solve puzzles with the aid of a hammer gun and a giant ball you can carry around wit h said hammer gun. I’m currently three levels in, and the puzzles so far have been pretty easy to solve. It does get more challenging when you approach the undead, and the only weapon you have is your ball which is only as good as your control of it.

Being this is an indie game from 2010 it’s age is showing in the graphics, but for the time period it came from it was considered fabu graphics, even by UE1 standards. :v I remember hearing about it a long time ago, when I stumbled across a video someone did about their Portal chamber update and mentally noted that I had to check it out someday. Tonight was that night, and I wasn’t the least bit disappointed.