Lotheneil

Lotheneil vs. The Backlog Hydra, Ep. #17

This week I’ve decided to get down to the games selected for me by 86maylin (thanks again :)) as a part of the Challenge Me! well, challenge. 4/5 finished, with one dropped title and one kind-of-cheated. Not that bad I suppose.

Mini Metro

Mini Metro

7/10
10.8 hours
23 of 45 achievements

A simple (but not simplistic) puzzle game. You start with a map of specific region and a couple of stations. Your task is to create a working metro system that allows its inhabitants to travel to their chosen destinations, creating new routes and redrawing existing ones, placing bridges or tunnels and sending more trains and carriages to cater for growing population. This title is definitely an "easy to learn, hard to master" type.

The biggest issue of the game is its - sometimes unfair - randomness. Location and variant of the station to spawn is selected at random, so you may end up with one located in inconvenient place that everybody an their mothers want to get to - which leads to unavoidable bottlenecks. Furthermore, a bonus for each new passed week is random too - so you may have no possibility to build tunnels or bridges on a map with a lot of rivers for several weeks. Even though the game offers significant number of maps with unique problems requiring specific approach (an extensive river system, large distance between stations, smaller than usual carriages or particularly large number of passengers), after some time the gameplay does become repetitive. Still, it's a really nice little gem worth playing.

Status: beaten - all maps unlocked and played. There are achievements for finishing each map in a specific way (like using no more than 2 lines or 1 tunnel), which are quite challenging and require a lot of strategic thinking and some luck - a level of game mastery I was not inclined to gain.

Hand of Fate

Hand of Fate

8/10
10.9 hours
15 of 53 achievements

A mixture of tabletop game similar to Talisman, card game and Arkham-style brawler. Moving between encounter cards, the player needs to make decision how to proceed, which may lead to gain or loss of resources and equipment or battles with opponents. After resolving encounters properly new cards can be gained, and later used in consecutive plays. The goal of each game is to reach the boss card and beat him.

Unique setting and gameplay style, unpredictable outcomes of each encounter that do not seem unfair to the player, challenging but manageable difficulty level and stylish visuals make the title definitely worth playing.

Status: beaten - all bosses (including the final one, I won't give the details to avoid spoilers) beaten. I did not feel like beating every single encounter to complete the deck though.

Else Heart.Break()

Else Heart.Break()

3/10
3.7 hours
no achievements

A point&click adventure game with open world-ish feeling and programming elements.
I really tried to like the game and immerse myself into its unusual setting. I failed. It just throws the player (together with the main character, Sebastian) into an unknown, surrealistic town, populated with odd individuals and give only the vaguest pointers on how to proceed. It's up to the player to explore various locations, talk to people and get his bearings in the environment he ended up in, and later - use his programming skills to directly alter it.

The problem is - the game failed to captivate my interest enough for me to want to explore and learn the town's secrets. Locations are bland and undistinguishable from each other and conversations with NPCs seem boring and pointless. With no pointers and specific goal to aim for you end up walking around aimlessly, hoping to find that one action that will push the plot (or what poses for it here) forward. Perhaps the game gets more interesting later on, but after four hours of gameplay I've just had enough. It was not fun for me in the slightest and with no story to speak of I wasn't even curious how will it end. It looks like the devs tried to experiment and create a new experience, but in my opinion that experiment has failed. Miserably.

Life Is Strange

Life Is Strange - Episode 1

9/10
2.5 hours
12 of 60 achievements

I thought I have a full version of the title. I was wrong - in fact my backlog contained the first free episode only. It was still a really fun experience, if a bit shorter than I assumed. I'm definitely looking forward to playing the rest of the game, will pick it up on some sale :)

Status: completed - Well, I've completed the first episode (all photos collected) - so I'm marking the title blue even though I did not see the rest of the game yet. Will do, though.

tsupertsundere

You lasted way longer in else Heart.Break() than I did - I think I played for one hour before I dropped it. Which was a shame, because I liked the art style a lot. It just felt aimless and empty, like you said. I’m glad you liked everything else, though!

gazimply

Else Heart.Break() was such a disappointment for me. I did manage to make my way onto the main questline and follow it for about 8 hours, but eventually lost my way. I’m not sure whether the blame lies with my own obliviousness or the game’s frequent bugs; either way, I was beyond bored at that point. Luckily I was able to obtain one of the bad endings through sheer chance.

86maylin

Hand of Fate has been in my To play list for so long, but I just never seem to have the urge to pick it up.
How long is each game session of it for you? I’m not sure if it’ll get a bit repetitive if you play for too long.
Sorry to hear that you did not enjoy Else Heart.Break(). :< Is it really that bad? Now I’m questioning if I should play it. >_<
As for Life is Strange, totally didn’t know that it’s only the first episode. :o Glad you liked it tho! It is indeed quite a good game, although I personally didn’t rate it that high, I can see why others would like it a lot. :3

Lotheneil

One session (meaning killing one boss) takes approximately an hour, but the game autosaves after each encounter (card), so you can make play sessions as short or as long as you wish :) - and dealing with one card takes up to like 5 minutes. For me the game was not repetitive, as while the mechanics stay the same, encounter cards change (I was removing “completed” cart from the deck and replacing them with new ones you get a semi-constant stream of), so there is always something new to discover :)
As for Else Heart.Break() - while I didn’t like it at all, it has ‘very positive’ rating on Steam, so looks like I’m actually the minority :) You can decide for yourself, the first hour or so should deliver an answer.
Life is Strange was very sneaky, I was certain it’s full too, only after launching it I’ve realised it asks me to purchase the remaining episodes - which I am going to do, but as I’m not in a hurry due to extensive backlog of other titles, I can wait for a sale. I really liked the story, its pacing, setting (I believe it’s a first game I’ve played dealing with teenagers - or young adults - in a modern school. While there are a lot of tv series like that, in game it was a nice change from fantasy of sci-fi worlds) and visuals.