Spending Money

Despite having next to no time to game, and my despite my computers currently being used for crypto-currency mining, I still have managed to just about bankrupt myself with Steam sales.  I just can't stop.  The deals are too good.  Somebody, anybody, please help me.

On another note, I have my Pentium III 'RetroBox' up and running now.  I was having issues with it freezing intermittently which I think was being caused by a faulty USB port.  I have since picked up at PS/2 keyboard and mouse to use and I don't seem to be having any issues (knock on wood!).  It's loaded with Windows 98 and will be a project rig for running vintage software on.  I have dabbled with programs like VMWare and VirtualBox, but I wasn't always able to get certain games running due to the constraints of the virtual environment.  I'm hoping that having a dedicated box with dedicated hardware will remedy this situation.  I also have a P4 box which I'm trying to bring back from the dead, although in all honesty I'm not really sure why as P4 boxes are still pretty common today.  It does have a ZIP drive though which is something I've always thought was kind of cool (ever since I couldn't fit AltecApollyon's copy of SimCity 2000 on to a normal 1.44MB diskette).

I've also been busy attempting to digitize the analog media I had lying around.  I'm through all of my VHS tapes now, so I just have Hi-8 and cassette tapes to go through.  Once I have everything digitized I can start editing and hopefully getting some stuff posted to the web.  Alright, I've got 20 minutes?  I'll just pop in a tape and let my Hauppage encoder do the heavy lifting.

I'm hoping to pump out some new content in the new year as I'm slowly adjusting to having an infant in the house and he's slowly adjusting to his rather bizarre father.  I'm excited to get going on the MAME project again as I ordered buttons and joysticks, and just recently acquired some more tools to allow me to fabricate a control panel from scratch.  That'll have to wait though as it's about -19 degrees celsius here today and my garage isn't heated.

Anyhow, here's to my peeps in the streets who are essentially game collectors and not gamers thanks to Steam's ridiculous sales.

Race the Sun (PC)

NOTE : this game has nothing to do with the 90's movie with Halle Berry....thank the good Lord. Although it does use the "solar powered vehicle motif.

Race the Sun caught my eye on Kickstarter. The sleek ship design, dodging geometric obstacles, clean HUD, the metallic look to everything and the feeling of speed - were all things that attracted me to this title. I'm a big fan of the original Starfox - and this reminded me of the feeling I first felt flying in that game. Having been burned before though I held back, didn't pre-order and finally picked it up when it was a full release.

You might have heard of Race the Sun, or Flippfly - from their widely publisized "Not On Steam" sale.

It's been called an endless runner, compared to Tiny Wings, Starfox, Temple Run and Star Wars Podracing. This last one I would like to quickly mention that a true Star Wars Podracing game with customization at it's center - racing and betting online - would be an amazing game.... and customization (at least at that level, is missing in Race the Sun).

When I first got it I played it daily. Since the levels are reset every 24 hours - it's a different experience each day. This idea does keep you coming back for more and prevents the player from memorizing a map and being able to play the game blind. There are also portals that take you to alternate levels and now (since the newest update) a new very difficult level type and user generated levels. In short, there's a lot to play. Sometimes, however, the randomly created levels can be a little unbalanced - your runs range from extremely short and then the next day perhaps it's a breeze.

You are a solar powered ship that must stay in the light to keep the ship powered. Collect little glowing pyramids to increase the multiplier. The sun is setting, so you need to hurry and power-ups will help you. As the sun sets, the shadows will get longer - this has two effects: one to sap power from your ship if you stay too long in them, and two to actually warn you of an upcoming obstacles - it's a good mechanic. Also the setting sun has a neat effect - though the long shadows it creates might help you navigate, when you pull back into the sunlight you are blinded and if it's low enough it's exactly as you would imagine: flying towards the sun is blinding.

Each game starts with a quote - usually sometime to about time and I wonder if that has something to do with the way that the levels are created. Perhaps the quotes are apart of some algorithm? I don't know.

I haven't mentioned yet that there is no speed control in the game - you fly at maximum speed all the time. You can steer, jump if you have the power-up and even do a barrel roll (although I find this super dangerous and not too helpful). If you bump an object you might get lucky and get away with a speed reduction and a scratch - but most likely you will explode into a powdery white firework.

The game looks so sleek while flying - I wish I could say the same thing for the menus. I think they are wanting the menus to look "old school" but in my opinion they are just clunky and ugly. Since the last update actually, the game has gotten even less appealing to me with the addition of ship decals - which I find destroy the beautiful bright reflection off the metallic wings.  If anything, I would update the HUD and simplify it even more: putting a light on the back of the wing or hull for a power-up so you don't have to take your eye off the action.

There is also a Rally Mode where you can play with friends in teams. The first player races as far as they can and when they collide and explode the baton is passed to the next player and they continue from there - unfortunately I have no experience with this more because I just don't know anyone else who is playing. *sob* I haven't tried to the world editor for the same reason.

Overall it's a fairly solid game - sometimes the levels seem a little strange and I'm not sure how I feel about how the leaderboards work - comparing your daily scores and then your overall scores, but I guess that is the best way to do it with a game that randomly creates levels. It might take away from the competition though, since you have to check back to see what day you won on. Maybe they could implement 'daily wins' or something like that.

I've decided to step away from Race the Sun for a while - mostly because I don't know anyone who is playing and so the will to compete just isn't there for me. It's fun to climb leaderboards for a while - but without taunting and trash talk and rubbing it someone's face when you destroy their highscore, it feels lonely. Maybe I will take it up again after another update, see if they fix that HUD and those menus.

You can pick up Race the Sun here.

Also check out the (now over) "Not On Steam" sale page and their original Kickstarter page for game details.

Puzzle Games on iOS

'I Love Squares' is a little game that looks great. You drop the glowing lines (either vertical or horizontal) down Tetris-like - you can only match colours with like colours and slowly the lines move up at the game progresses. I found it pretty hard, and since I am not big on these kinds of games anyways, I left it on my iPad for my wife for a while - and then dropped it.

Hue Brix is a pretty cool little game and I played and kept it for quite a while. You have these coloured blocks with numbers on them and that's how many adjacent blocks you can paint with that colour. There are things that make this more complicated then you first would think - blocks that subtract or add amounts of colour, blocks that can only be exited in one direction and specific ending points that much be reached.

All-in-all Hue Brix is very solid. When you beat a level theres a satisfying "resolution" as the colours wind around each other like ribbons and zip off screen and it's great to play on the iPad but I felt like I had played enough and didn't need to see how challenging it gets - I understood the mechanics and the style and was happy to move on. Deleted.

Match blocks is just too hard. Blocks tumble down onto the screen, at first with only two colours but in different patterns. You use the two buttons at the bottom of the screen to tap the patterns you see which makes the blocks disappear. So by tapping : Yellow, Yellow, Green will blocks with that sequence disappear but not, 'Green, Yellow, Green.'

Of course when the falling blocks reach the top you're dead and this will happen faster then you can blink - especially with circular multipliers and a third colour. That is as far as I got - three colours. I tried the game a few more times, but no, I am terrible at it - and so it's deleted.

Crush (iOS)

Crush is an arcade game from Radian Games. I have played most of his games, either on the Xbox or on iOS. But after falling in love with Super Crossfire HD (which I consider the best work) I was hooked and ready to try anything bearing the Radian Games titlescreen.

Colours are a big deal in games by Radian Games, usually they are neon and flashy and I love them. This time they are more mature - a tan-bronze background and three colours of blocks; off-white, red-orange and grey. There's also a crazy tilt to the whole thing while playing (which you can adjust if you don't like it) and one other colour scheme to choose from.

This game has unlockable powers and like Ballistic and Super Crossfire, its important to choose the powers that fit to your playing style. I gave this game far more chances that I usually would because of my love for Radian Games but I just couldn't find a way into this game. Sometimes I felt like I understood what to do, other times I felt like the game was too random and I was just tapping around. I would recommend this game to anyone who passively plays arcade games on their phones - people who maybe like bejeweled and things like that. It's better than those games, but just didn't hook me.

Moku Fly & Scarlet (Browser / Freeware)

Moku Fly : A cat, flying a biplane over a river flowing through a canyon which is filled with cacti for some reason....oh and floating lasagna (at least that's whats I see) after playing a few rounds I found out that you can shoot (when that little circle on the back of the plane is yellow).

The circle or propeller at the back of the plane makes a good "power bar" and life bar....well done. Other speedy dodging games could make use of this so you don't have to look away from your vehicle to check the HUD. But, controlling with the mouse? That really sucks and I got over 7 million points while using my trackpad so I'm guessing the collisions are a little off. Not much to sink your teeth into. Wont have to play this again, but cute none the less.

You can play it here.

 Scarlet : Your girlfriend arrives home early from a conference and while she blabbers on about it (that's my character's point of view, not mine!) you run around the apartment hiding the evidence of your affair.

It's another game made for one of these 48-hour jams and and considering that it's pretty conceptual. It's really simple, but it does the job and makes it's point : you become the transgressor. I really enjoy games right now that put the player in difficult moral situations and this does that.

I would really like this one to develop into a full game (I even thought of the subtitle : "Deceit, Lies and Underwear"). In the full game it would be interesting to have more consequences for your actions, maybe you could also play a female story.

This version has a few strange issues, like objects twirling in the air for no reason and an ending which was criticized by some but I found it to be just dark humour and a quick way to finish off the game.

Artibeus (Freeware)

My daughter woke from her nap to find me reading gaming news on Indiegames.com - she pointed at this game and said she wants to play it - so we checked it out together.

It's quite cute and very old school. You are a little bat who has to get fruit - so maybe a fruit bat? You use the arrow keys to fly around and gather up the fruit and avoid the enemies : eyeballs and spikey green things and later flying skeleton-serpents and swords. If you manage to get all the fruit then a door opens to the next level. Little details were quite nice in the game, fly over a magnet and the fruit wafts towards you and hit a bomb and it kills enemies in a radius. My favourite was the candle, hit this and the lights go out - and it's just you in "bat view" seeing the enemies and the fruit - I told my daughter its most definitely because bats can see better in the dark.

It seems that Stanislav Kostka, from Slovakia used Game Maker for this as well - I really am amazed at the polished quality people can get using that software. His pixel art shows real promise and I will keep an eye on him to see what he comes up with next. Here's the trailer :

Download Artibeus for free here.

X-Com Enemy Unknown (PC)

I really love X-Com Enemy Unknown - I didn't have any prior knowledge of the series and quickly started a game on Medium and turned on Ironman to make it more interesting, more serious. Then I started learning about the game...

I had pretty much screwed up so badly by the eighth mission that I knew I wasn't going to beat the game, I had underestimated or not even realized the importance of satellites or interceptors and although I was getting better at strategy on the ground I lost all my veterans on one terrible mission where I was half paying attention and half watching the kids.... everyone died *sob*.

I think I stopped playing because I wanted to take it seriously and I noticed that every time I played I was just "checking in" playing a mission and then I had to turn it off again and go back to real life. That's actually the reason I got it on the PC, I wanted to take it seriously, sit down and actually play it - if I had it on my iPad (I thought) I would be jumping in and out of the action like I do on many mobile games.

So after not playing again for a good long time I jumped in again 'just to get a feel for it again' and probably I would get hooked again. Turns out I was right - except I also played another mission and got so badly whooped that I have decided to start all over.... This time without Ironman, because I am a wuss and I guess I want to start feeling like I am winning this thing for once.

Lesson Learned : X-Com is another game you can't just jump in and out of and think that it's not going to have consequences.

The Walking Dead: Assault

This game I picked up right before Halloween. It was on sale for 99¢. What first grabbed me were the graphics which were taken from the comic books not the TV show. There is no dialog and the game is sparse as far as story however the story is in the comic books or the show, not the mobile game. The levels are fun and well built, a nice addition are thugs or aggressive survivors. Here a choice can be made. Kill the thugs with ranged weapons or beat them unconscious with melee weapons. One nice and surprising touch, which I would love to see built into other games was a reward system. This rewarded the player with supplies and, this is what pleasantly surprised me, images of the comic book artwork!

Absenteeism

So I've been a bad blogger as of late.

Here I was, blabbing away at how awesome my MAME cabinet was going to be, and how nostalgia would blah blah blah... then, BAM!  No more posts.

Well, lots has been going on.  My wife and I recently celebrated the arrival of our firstborn, JonnyNostalgia Jr.  Needless to say this has been keeping us more than busy.

In what little free time I've had I've been trying to take advantage of the Terraria 1.2 patch.  It's hard to get anything done when you're only playing in 15 minute stretches, but I have to say, this new patch breathed a whole lot of awesome new life into an already amazing game.

As for the MAME side of things, I have been doing more plotting and research than anything else.  I did however just order my control panel bits and pieces and I'm hoping to be able to build a mock-up control panel for use in my house.  As I'm writing this I'm installing the GameEx frontend.  I want to see how it stacks up versus HyperSpin.  Although I have HyperSpin working, I'm still kind of resentful at how steep of a learning curve there was in figuring it out at first.  You can only read, 'Check the forums' so many times before you start to get annoyed at a community.  Anyhow, I'll elaborate on that further at a later date so I can actually go in to detail.

As always, stay tuned for more as there will be more... at some point.

King Cashing 2 (iOS)

I've had King Cashing on my radar for a while - I think because I had "Tower of Fortune" on my iphone for a while and although I really liked it's style it was hampered by some balancing issues, control issues and IAPs. Slot-machine games just seemed like such a strange genre to me, I guess I was interested, so I added it to my watch list and forgot about it.

Until it came down in price for Halloween this year! It was only 1€ and since it's got such good reviews I wanted to give it a try. What really sold me was what I read in the app description : "The idea for the first King Cashing came while playing Kairosoft's Game Dev Story. When making a Slots/RPG hybrid in the game, I wondered what that would look like in real life and thus King Cashing was born."

I've also played Game Dev Story and made some pretty strange genre-mixes while playing and always wondered: 'What would that look like?'

So how does a Slot machine / RPG work? Actually a lot like a normal RPG. You spend money to enter a fight, spin, stop the reels and try to make a match. If you match the first reel (party members) and the third reel (enemies) then damage is done, if you can match the second reel (weapons) then more damage is done, and if you can match the right weapon to the right party member then extra bonus damage is done. Battle time is limited to the number of cherries you have (3 are used per spin) and if you win the battle you win gold, some experience points and maybe a weapon.

As you play you will be playing through a comic book (at the time of writing this there are 4 books available) they layout a loose story, which isn't much of a story but it sure beats some type of level select opinion that a lot of lazy games use. You battle different opponents with different resistances and masterys - and again: no IAPs, if you beat an opponent with a gold star rating it is 'free' to battle them next time, making griding very easy.

The art style is great. The comic, the menus, the pixel graphics on the actual slot machine game - they all work perfectly, for a simple game it's got a lot of art, opponents aren't reused and because of that I have kept playing - just to see the art work.

There are loads of different weapons and combos and you have to make decisions whether to go for power or hit rate - and what to take into battle, along with bonus items and team members.

The characters in the comics that you battle all have their own pixel icon - as do your zombie companions and the weapons. This is the beast tamer getting a critical hit : wowzers!

Win a battle and you get what you pretty much get in any RPG when winning a battle : gold, experience and chance at a weapon or item. It really is a slot machine-rpg....which makes you think, maybe all RPGs are slot machine games wrapped in stories and "choices." King Cashing 2 gets it right.

Shelter (PC)

Shelter provided a welcome (albeit short) distraction tonight. 

After watching the first trailer I almost pre-ordered. But held back because of Might & Delight's other game 'Pid' (which was also beautiful, but sadly shallow and a little dull gameplay-wise)

 

The chance to play a parental badger protecting and leading it's cubs got me so excited I jotted down notes for a few different "animal simulation" games.

The endearing graphics use patterns to give the whole world a quilted look - but somehow the paleness of the colours put me off a little; as if I was looking through a grey veil.

The gameplay isn't much to brag about - it's not the simulation game that the trailer made me think it was, but it was a memorable little game, with great music and art - and a somber finale. I'm not even bothered by the shortness of it: better short and sweet than long and tedious.

October : Torchlight II

I'm finding that one of my biggest problems as a gaming junkie (yes, I have finally decided that I am no longer simply an addict but it's full on junkie now....) is that I am constantly switching games, partially because I have hoarded all kinds of games and also because I somehow feel obligated to "test" games although that is not my job and I often find myself playing something I was pretty sure was going to be poor from the get go.

So, to combat these missteps and regain some control and hopefully have some fun - I choose to only play Torchlight II during October.

As my other attempts to fight back against my addiction (not getting an Xbox 360: failed, Halo 3 being my last Xbox 360 game: failed, giving up on online competitive gaming: failed, only buying 5 games in 2012: failed, cutting back on gaming in general in 2013: failed) this attempt failed too. I did play a lot of Torchlight - and I love that game - but without anyone to show my equipment to or friends to play with the game does really drag -  and I don't want to have to play with strangers.....urg.

I continued on, but I also poked around in the Ouya (MirrorMoon Ep), bought and "tested" a few games on the iPhone and iPad - and on Steam too. I had to get "The Wolf Among Us" and play straight away...but that was only 1 evening, so that barely counts, right? And Halloween distracted me some, as you can already see from my posts. Overall it was a good experiment though because I am slowly learning about what I want from a game and what I need from a game like this (people to play with). If they would just bring out the Mac version already I could convert some people I am sure.

I don't know if I will return to Torchlight in November. I would like to try Gone Home again, although it over-heated my graphics card and shut down my computer (!!!) and I am now playing Daily Challenges on Spelunky (dang it online Leaderboards got me again) - and I'd like to look into my XCom game again before I forget what I was doing.

Slender - The Eight Pages (PC)

I don't usually play games simply with the intention of scaring myself, but that is what I set out to do with Slender. Shocks in horror movies usually don't me, because I am concentrating on how they angled their camera or trying to guess the plot the whole time and don't really let my guard down, but in Slender you have to interact with the world and therefore you are far more vulnerable.

You're in a dark forest with only a flashlight, which I later found out has only a limited amount of battery power - you can lower your flashlight to run but are otherwise walking very very slowly through the dark woods looking for the "eight pages." Just when you think 'hey, this isn't so bad....' a new soundeffect comes into the mix, a heart beat which makes your own heart beat, you begin checking behind yourself more although it's getting darker and you aren't quite sure what you are seeing....

I'll admit the first time I saw the Slenderman it gave me quite a jolt - it was pretty electric, all the hair stood up on my neck, arms and back and my heart was pumping after that! On my second attempt (still under the adrenalin of the first) I found myself more frustrated with the slowness of the game and the confusing map which felt like everything had moved (and probably had) and I bumped into the Slenderman on the second or third page again and I just found myself playfully dodging him around corners for a bit before I got bored and decided to walk on. After walking aimlessly until my battery died in my flashlight I called it quits and walked right towards him.

I had felt the shock effect of the game, but wasn't really interested in the actual gameplay. Still memorable, but without really good gameplay I doubt that many have played it more than once.

Halloween Gaming 2013

I love the autumn and especially Halloween. Every year I gear up to the 31st by watching scary movies and carving pumpkins. This year I decided to pick out games for the spooky season. There are many games I could have gone with, but here is the lineup that I have chosen.  Luckily "Gone Home" was on sale on Steam the day I went to buy it (bonus!). "Lakeview Cabin," a browser game (on GameJolt and Kongregate) was released purposefully on the Halloween season and from what I have been following it has great atmosphere. "Slender" needs no introduction but I haven't played it yet and I haven't watched any Youtube videos on it either.....  Hopefully I get enough time to play all three.

The Wolf Among Us (PC)

'The Wolf Among Us' was an easy choice for me. After playing Telltale's 'Walking Dead' and '400 Days' and reading a few of the Fables comics, I knew that Telltale's newest tale was going to be good. I love the idea of episodic gaming, which fits perfectly into my time scheduled and my attention span. You can play through an episode and it feels like watching an awesome television show that you've been put in control of. Also, the slow release of episodes give you time to think about your decisions, try out new ones and get excited for the release of the next episode.

From what I have seen in the first episode, The Wolf Among Us is going to be a more mature than the original 'Fables' comics (at least the storyline that I read). The melding of well-known fairy tale lore and hard-boiled detective story makes for some great storytelling and fun double-meanings, all wrapped in an eye-popping colourful New York. But be warned, if you have sensitive ears then you might want to turn the volume down; I haven't played a game that drops this many F-bombs.... can't wait for Episode 2.

Derez Infinite (Browser)

Derez Infinite is a trippy endless runner with cool backgrounds and no screen shake and a slick neon colour scheme. Maybe it's just another Canabalt clone, except it's got a game-changing mechanic: it's  DownRez and Uprez effect. Every time you hit a little white arrow you "gain resolution" and your screen looks like above. If you hit a black bat like creature your resolution goes down and you see something like the screenshot below.

I'm so into this game that I actually signed up for Gamejolt and went through the whole process of getting my avatar setup - now I'm 2nd on the leaderboard (only behind the developer himself).

When your REZ gets too low it suddenly gets really hard to see what you are doing.

Die and theres a very scary windows error noise followed by a faux-blue screen. That sound makes me jump every time. It's pretty much the scariest sound in the computing world if you ask me.

It's got different colour schemes and different difficulty levels.

There is even a little intro, very cyberpunky-80s scifi I liked it alot.

In conclusion Derez Infinite does so much right : soundtrack, intro, colours, mechanic, simplicity - I really wish I could play it on my iphone, or on my ouya. It fits perfectly into my gaming habits as a busy father - quick rounds and highscores, next to no loading time and no violence so I can play it around the kids. Go play it now and beat my highscore!

Play it now, play it here.

Games That I Bought This Week

 The Wolf Among Us (PC) : After The Walkind Dead, I knew that Telltale was going to make good on a preorder.

 Descent 1 & 2 (PC) : I have a long love affair with these games, and gog.com had a sale: perfect.

 Sky Tourist (iOS) : Loved the artstyle and funky interesting control scheme.

 Mirror Moon Ep (OUYA) : After Fotonica I have been watching the development of this title and glad that it came out on the Ouya at the same time it got a PC release - nice!

 Dark Void Zero (PC) : An official Capcom "demake" - looks really authentic and only cost me a buck, nothing wrong with that.

 Race the Sun (PC) : This really fits into the kinds of games I am interested in right now and thanks to "notonsteam.com" I could afford to give it a chance.

Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2 (PC) : Another game on sale for a ridiculously low price - I couldn't resist. I have great memories of playing the DK series and actually, so does my wife.