Week of Oct 15 - Oct 21
Hey everyone! Back again with another weekly report. Hope last week has been great for you.
Here’s what I’ve been up to last week:
- Midvinter: Completed 100%. A short point & click adventure game, based on Norse mythology (I think?). Not half bad. Easy 100%.
- Polyology: Completed 100%. A short puzzle game where you slide boxes and make them touch boxes of the same number. Some puzzles are challenging, but overall it’s not that complicated.
- Super Star: A character sim where you educate your star girl and make her climb up the ranks to become a super star. A regular simulator, not much to talk about. Need to complete the game twice (to get permanent bonus items) before you move on to getting achievements.
- Alien Attack in Space: Completed 100%. Previously known as ZVEZDOLIOTIK. Needed to replay as they added one achievement after I completed it 100% before. Needed to beat the first boss on every color palette there is. Wasn’t difficult.
“Play Games or Make a GA” progress:
| Game | Status |
|---|---|
| STAR WARS™ - Knights of the Old Republic™ | Playing. Since I still have time until the deadline, I started this as well. Too bad it doesn’t have widescreen support. Playing as a Pilot, rolled a rather average character now that I think about it, and making my progress through Taris. |
| Dishonored | Finished. Shame I didn’t play this before, it was shorter than I expected. I got a Bioshock vibe out of it. Played as stealthily as I could, though at first I thought Weepers were like zombies and that we could kill them, and I thought sleep darts were poison darts, so not only I screwed myself out of a kill-free run, but I spent half of the game trying to blink my way past enemies since I didn’t know I could just knock them out with the sleep darts. Mainly used Dark Vision and Blink, with points in Agility as well. Thought of giving points to Bend Time as well, but didn’t like the high mana cost. Finished the main story with low Chaos in about 8 hours. Planning on playing the DLC, as well as replaying old missions to attempt a 0-kill undetected run. Does it count if you replay only the missions you didn’t get ghost and no kill before, or do you have to restart the entire game? |
| Valiant Hearts: The Great War™ | Finished. As far as adventure games go, this one was a different take with platformer elements, various puzzles and autoscroller sections. The story is good enough to pull you in at first, but you experience everything the game has to offer in the first hour, and after that, it’s the same thing over and over. Pursuing Baron von Dorf, the main antagonist, over battlefields, war-torn villages and tank factories is well enough intriguing for the player to keep playing, but after finally catching von Dorf, the story hangs somewhat in the air, as the main goal is completed. The rest is more like a unsatisfactory filler to tie loose ends. I admit, I didn’t have my hopes up for a good ending as this game is based on World War I, but it could use more of a closure. |
Last week’s game nights:
| Day | Game |
|---|---|
| Oct 15 - Saturday | Town of Salem - Skipped. |
| Oct 19 - Wednesday | McDROID - Attempted playing co-op. The game gets really buggy when two players of different campaign progression play together, so we played two or three levels before the bugs got frustrating enough to call it quits. |
| Oct 21 - Friday | Left 4 Dead 2 - Skipped, didn’t have it installed. |
Last week’s boosted co-op objectives:
| Date | Game | Objective | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 15 | Tabletop Simulator | Fluxx Participator - Participate in a game of Fluxx | Failed: People played game night instead. |
| Oct 16 | Pressure | Hectic Racer - Complete a race | Failed: No one wanted to play. |
| Oct 17 | Sol Survivor | Survivor Reviver - Last 30 minutes in survival (any map) | Failed: Attempted three times on different multiplayer-only maps. Multiplayer maps usually have wider lanes, making short ranged towers like tesla coils useless. Couldn’t get a good setup going, and failed before we could reach 30 mins. |
| Oct 18 | Daedalus - No Escape | Top Down Fragger - Play for an hour (rounded up) | Completed: Online servers are empty, and playing with 2-3 bots on large maps gets boring real quick. Still reached 1 hour. |
| Oct 19 | Faeria | Card Fairy - Complete a game against another TAP member | Completed: Played one match. Won, but barely. Interesting game. |
| Oct 20 | Tabletop Simulator | Mike Cho Riding Sparky On A Sandy Beach - Win a game of Dead of Winter | Failed: Was busy. |
| Oct 21 | F1 RACE STARS™ | F1 Race Stars, Alt F4 Losers - Finish a race | Failed: No one wanted to play. |
F1 Race Stars feels like a basic Mario Kart spin-off. I can imagine that it isn’t too appealing unless you’re a motorsports fan. I’ve played it sometimes with a friend, it’s good fun but there are better arcade racing games out there. I’ve never played Mario Kart but Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is one better example.
I’m fine with most kart games out there, if not all, but not everyone may prefer it of course.
Transformed is not bad, but kart transformations and changing tracks can be disorienting for new players. F1 is just like you said, a basic Mario Kart spin-off, and I’ve had less trouble with it in local or online multiplayer. Nothing beats Zero Gear though.
Hmm you’re right, Transformed isn’t the most approachable but it’s still pretty entertaining. It’s a shame that the player pool is very small though, so usually there’s at least one player in the same lobby with such a high skill level that it can be difficult to reach the finish line before the countdown ends. But I love racing in that game, some tracks are really satisfying to drive when you hit your drifts just right.
I haven’t tried Zero Gear! I should at least download the demo and see what it’s like. :)
Oh you should definitely try Zero Gear then. It’s not the best looking game, it has its own share of frustrations and the last time I checked the online community is pretty much dead, but it has a wide variety of maps and game types that it makes up for it.
Other than regular racing it has:
Sumo - A round map that’s gradually getting smaller. Everyone has the punch powerup. Punch your opponents out of the ring to win!
Pachinko - Literally this, but with cars instead of balls.
Skeeball - Literally this, but with cars instead of balls.
Soccer - Soccer with cars. Rocket League stole this idea. :P It’s considerably better implemented in RL though. Kinda buggy.
Ice Hockey - Ice Hockey with cars. Same as above.
Tag - Player gets points whenever they are tagged. Need to tag someone else by bumping them. Player with the lowest points win.
Target - The opposite of above. Try to carry the point item. Steal it from someone else by bumping them. Player with the highest points win.
It is immensely fun when you can get a party of 4+. Low file size and low spec requirements are also bonuses.
That does sound fun, all that stuff fits well for this type of game.
By the way, I’m not trying to go into an argument here but I just want to mention that Psyonix has been out there with their idea since Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars came out ;) (What a gorgeous monster of a name it has.)
I’m aware of that. I was joking.
I misunderstood your message a bit then, sorry about that!
If you know what level you got your first kill on you should be able to play through from there but to be safe I’d just replay the whole thing again. That way you’ll also be able to grab Mostly Flesh and Steel if so inclined to bring you that bit closer to completion.
Huh, didn’t see Mostly Flesh and Steel before, thanks for letting me know. I’m not sure whether I’ll go for it on a Ghost & No Kill run though, as Dark Vision helps a lot and I’m too much of a scrub to play without it :P. It’s prolly doable, but I need to get kill cheeves later as well, so I guess I’ll aim for Mostly Flesh and Steel when I’m going for that.
Coincidentally, I got my first kill on the first level, and did no kills on the last levels, so if it doesn’t need a complete playthrough, I’ll know halfway through the game.
It’s totally doable, my first play through was no kills, no alarms and no powers combined. Having played through and being familiar with the maps will make it easier.
Yeah, it’s one of my regrets Valiant Hearts subscribed to modern adventure game philosophy where puzzles are basically just token additions and you’re there for atmosphere, story, whatever. I did like the game, though.
If I ever reinstall the game, it’ll be for the musical vehicle sections. Those were fun, and in sync with the music too, didn’t expect that.