Takes two to solve puzzles in Two of a Kind

Chances are high that I would probably enjoy being an archaeologist, digging deep and surveying, excavating, and analyzing collected data to learn more about the past. As a kid, I had more than just rocks in my rock collection, occasionally finding some broken piece of clay or a weirdly shaped hunk of metal, and a small part of me always believed I had stumbled upon greatness. Now, the true purpose of archaeology is to learn more about past societies and the development of the human race, but I think we can also apply the science to videogames. However, I’ll pass on all the constant danger that Indiana Jones finds nipping at his heels, like rolling boulders, pits of snakes, and Nazis.

Which leads us to Two of a Kind by Dave Gilbert, the man who has given us numerous adventure games over the years from his small, but growing Wadget Eye Games. If you’ve not been paying attention to the most recent activity on Grinding Down, I’ve been on a point-and-click kick as of late, finishing up Machinarium, Deponia, and a number of smaller, shorter adventure games. Plus some Ben Chandler joints that I’ve yet to talk about, but will be doing so next week. Truthfully, this is all in preparation for two forthcoming titles: The Blackwell Epiphany from Wadget Eye Games and Broken Age from Double Fine, which I both expect to have some tricky, dastardly puzzles, and I plan to play them as soon as they release, with no chance of an online walkthrough handy. Gotta brush up on my pixel-hunting and inventory management skills.

Anyways, Two of a Kind is a small adventure game released for free at Adventure Game Studio in November 2004. It’s about an unusual town called Bluff City, which is full of people with unusual abilities. For instance, Tim and Tiffany Walters, fraternal twins operating a struggling independent private investigation business. Tim has the power to float off the ground, and Tiffany can communicate with animals. Other townspeople you’ll bump into also have powers, and it’s kind of like X-Men, but without all the smoke and rubble and misshapen limbs. The Walters siblings are very close to each other after experiencing a traumatic childhood, which they no longer discuss. Bills have been tough to pay as of late, but a new case offers a great financial opportunity. A priceless crystal was stolen from the local museum, and it’s up to them to find out the who, the how, and the why before the press gets wind.

Now, in all my years of gaming, I’ve not actually played many old-school adventure titles, the kind controlled by means of text icons like “look,” “open,” “use,” and so on. Think LucasArts started this trend. When I played Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge back in 2011, it was an enhanced version, updated to be more convenient for a controller. Basically, I came into the genre really late, and so my experience in using these text-based commands is quite limited, rusty. This was more than evident when I struggled to have Tim leave his apartment building; first I tried using “use” on the door, but that did nothing. Turns out, I had to use “open/close” on the door, and then “use” to walk through it. Oi. Like I said before: archaeology. Playing a text command-heavy game in 2013 was a slow process for me, as I found myself trying everything on everything. Can’t “use” that trash can? Well, let’s try “talking” to it and “opening” it and “giving” it to Tiffany. Been coddled for too long with just a right and left mouse button clicks.

After getting used to have to do things the archaic way, puzzles in Two of a Kind are fairly easy to deduce, especially if you’ve played some of the Blackwell games. Because just like in those, you control both Tim and Tiffany independently, just like Rosangela and Joey had their own things to do. I got stuck in a few spots, but only because I missed picking up an item earlier, and there is actually a walkthrough out there still for the game. Otherwise, so long as you keep trying items and different combinations, the solutions will come. Every item gets used; yes, even the ones Tiffany holds in her pockets from the very beginning of the game. Ironically enough, I was not aware that the final puzzle was being timed, and actually got a GAME OVER screen after failing to solve fast enough.

There’s no voice acting, which is all right, as there is a lot of text to digest, and I just can’t imagine anyone reading for the part of Tiffany doing it any kind of bearable justice. She’s a teenager that acts like a child–probably because of that previously mentioned traumatic childhood–and is constantly talking in kiddy gibberish to animals and being overexcited about literally everything. At one point, inside a mansion, I had her examine the most mundane items like a toaster or sink, and she responded to each with genuine excitement, a being of pure innocence. That aside, Gilbert’s writing is fun and personable, and his characters do come alive from it, especially the quiet bartender, the soaps-loving Oracle, and the drunk bum with the funny hat. The plot, which revolves around open sleuthing and chatting with animals and using magical powers, moves forward at a reasonably logical pace, but kind of jumps the (acid water) gun at the very end and fizzles out with a Candy-Land joke. I was hoping for more resolution, maybe a trip back to the museum to see Tim and Tiffany explain all the crazy antics to the concerned curator.

Overall, I think Two of the Kind is still a solid experience some nine years later, definitely worth playing for the solid writing and killer soundtrack, and I think Wadget Eye Games should re-release it like they did recently with The Shivah and get Ben Chandler to do all new art for it. C’mon, think about it. I know you’re reading this.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #49 – Two of a Kind

A priceless crystal
Gone, new case for Tim and Tiff
Dachshund bonus points

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Grand Theft Auto V, crass comedy in a crazy world

Grand Theft Auto V is the first game in Rockstar’s entire hooker-killing franchise that I’ve actually completed, and by that I mean I successfully played all of its main story missions, picked my A, B, or C choice for the finale, and watched the lengthy end credits–over thirty-five minutes long–scroll by as I pondered my collective time and experience as three unsavory souls stuck in Los Santos. And…exhale. Considering I still can’t even get past the second mission in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, this is a real, genuine accomplishment, a feat worth featuring.

To be honest, I don’t think much overall about GTA V. Now, please be sure to read that sentence a second time before you blow a blood vessel; I did not say “I don’t think much overall of GTA V,” but rather about. It’s kind of everything I expected it to be based on past experiences with the franchise, and I feel like it went through all the motions, and I went with it, a mute player. If you must know, I enjoyed what I played of Grand Theft Auto III, really dug Vice City for its vibe and tunes, and never got too far in San Andreas. Also, Chinatown Wars is a surprisingly good time, but quite a different beast from its bigger siblings. Truthfully, Saints Row: The Third is more my kind of freedom.

The story in GTA V revolves around three men: former bank robber Michael Townley, repo man Franklin Clinton, and uncontrollable psychopath Trevor Philips. They have their own personal stories to see unfold, but they also eventually all get mixed up in the same nefarious business, which involves running a bunch of heists and making some serious moolah. It’s clearly a videogame story, as things happen so that the player can take part in extravagant setups and scenarios and leap from tall buildings and blow up important locations and all that. A few missions feel like they just came up with some third part to play, spur of the moment, so all three protagonists could be there, even if there was absolutely no need to bring the greenhorn Franklin along. Of the three main characters, I was most disappointed in Franklin’s overall journey, as it seemed like the whole “other guy got the girl” subplot fizzled within the game’s first hour. Michael has heavy family stuff that gets resolved, but not in a way that fills me with confidence. And Trevor…well, he’s pure crazy, a lot of fun to watch, but just walking insanity, and GTA V would actually be a lesser game without him to keep everyone on their toes.

The open-world gameplay in GTA V is everything you’d come to expect from the company that certainly had a big hand in creating the genre. When you’re not accepting main story missions as either of the three gruff dudes, you can drive around the sprawling city and its outskirts, play a round of golf or tennis, do some yoga, get a haircut, shop for new clothes, invest in buildings, visit the strip club, surf the Internet, watch TV or a movie, take the dog for a walk, and so on and so on. There’s quite a lot of miscellaneous, nontrivial time-wasters for those wanting just a bite of action, as well as larger side missions in the forms of Strangers and Freaks. Random events like “Stop that purse snatcher!” occur from time to time, and you can also just stand still and watch the world go by or sit in your car listening to your favorite station. I found a lot of the side stuff more interesting than the main missions, as they are clearly trying to be big and bombastic, and there’s always an excuse for a gunfight, no matter what the scenario. Thankfully, thanks to a rather easy auto-aim feature, shooting down gang member after gang member is no big thing, and probably the biggest aid I had for completing this game next to Franklin’s bullet time mode when driving.

Let me talk briefly about the collectibles scattered around and outside of Los Santos, as I only stumbled across one during my entire criminal career. Which is very similar to my experience in finding those golden film reels in L.A. Noire. Either they are extremely well-hidden or I’m going blind, a likely case. According to the Internet, there’s a ton of things to find: Spaceship Parts, Stunt Jumps, Letter Scraps, Hidden Packages, and more. I found a single Letter Scrap, which ties into the Mystery of Leonora Johnson side quest–and that’s it. I started the missions that opened up the ability to find Spaceship Parts, but never came across them, and I felt like I did a lot of “off the path” exploring, mostly because I was trying to hide from cops, and changing elevation is a vital tactic.

A lot of material in GTA V is extremely off-putting, and for good reason. Rockstar’s treatment and regard of women is abysmal. If they aren’t there to either have sex with the main characters or sex with someone else to anger the main characters, then they are on their way. Take Michael’s family. He has a wife and a daughter. His wife is sleeping with her yoga instructor, and his daughter wants to get into porn. Take Trevor. Past the early intro scenes, you first truly meet him as he’s having sex with meth head Ashley, who never plays a further part in the game. Later, he kidnaps a man’s wife and begins to have a relationship with her. And lastly, take Franklin. He lives with his aunt, who self-describes herself as a “new age feminist,” and the two are constantly bickering. I don’t recall a single time that I returned home as Franklin that she wasn’t whining or complaining loudly from the other room. He has a childhood friend Tonya Wiggins, who is a crack addict. At first, it seems like he’s a man all about winning back his ex-girlfriend Tanisha Jackson, but that plot fizzles very quickly, so much that her sudden appearance near the game’s end was befuddling. Aside from these, there’s a few other women that stand out: Devin Weston’s lawyer Molly Schultz, the athletic MaryAnne Quinn, and celebrity-crazy old Mrs. Thornhill. In short, why couldn’t there have been a female gang leader or a woman working closely with Michael to keep his identity better hidden? Or some role more involved. Because to Rockstar, men do the ruling.

Early on, I actually watched some in-game TV, something I never even attempted before in Grand Theft Auto IV, despite a lot of people going gaga over the fact that such a large and completely skippable thing existed way back then. I ended up watching “Gordon Moorehead”, an animated detective drama radio show that looks innocent enough, that is until anyone starts speaking. I don’t recall the specifics of the episode’s story, just the constant degradation of Gordon Moorehead’s assistant Molly Malmstein, who Moorehead constantly treating her as a woman of little intelligence, often slapping her. I think the show is trying to to poke fun at sexism and misogyny, but actually just reinforces it all the way. It’s extremely disappointing; you literally can’t go anywhere in Los Santos without some knock against women.

I dunno. Looking back over this post, maybe I do think a lot about GTA V, just nothing too great. It’s got its problems, but it also felt very routine and predictable and crass for no good reason. The use of crude language, especially. I played a single post-credits mission, but haven’t really gone back to do any further exploring or money spending, and I just don’t really see myself getting back into the swing of things. I guess I’ve had my fill.

A mysterious hatch leads to trouble in BNKR

I’m attracted to games with strange names or, at the very least, strangely written names. For instance, ^_^, XIII, Viewtiful Joe, and Big Mutha Truckers 2: Truck Me Harder. Some quick complete transparency though: I’ve never played that last title, but just the sound of it alone, the way it rolls off your tongue and hangs in the air like some glowing, ethereal angel, has me curious. But yeah, if your game’s title is non-traditional and a bit bizarre, then you already have my attention, which is really helpful when sorting through game jam lists, too. And all that is just to slip into talking about BNKR, a point-and-click game by Piter Games not from Philip K. Dick and not from some recent jam, but just out there, waiting for you to devour.

Here’s the deal: the world was once populated by humans, but now only androids roam the bereft towns and buildings, constantly searching for fuel vital for survival. One day, a hatch opens, demanding whatever lies beneath it to be explored. You play as an unnamed–yet numbered–android with a digitalized male voice who goes down the ladder to see if there is anything worth salvaging.

Not counting the first hub area, which is a small, closed off town in the form of an overhead map with a few buildings to explore, most of BNKR is played from first person perspective. Er, I mean…first android perspective. Thank you, thank you. No, please, I’m happy to sign autographs. Anyways, you can click to move from scene to scene or interact with your surroundings and items in the inventory. A changing cursor alerts you if there’s something worth investigating. And that’s it gameplay-wise, which is fine, as it’s very short, though I’ll admit it took me much longer than probably others to complete it as I got stuck on two less-than-clear puzzles. Spoiler: you can find the third piece of mirror glass hidden between a desk’s drawers, as well as the other half of the broken key in a vent near the ceiling out in the main hallway. There, that should help greatly.

BNKR is a beautiful, desolate world. Also: very gray. You wouldn’t be wrong to immediately think of Machinarium or Primordia immediately, to compare in looks. There’s some light narration atop some striking artwork, and the voice of the robot you control is both human and not, which only helped draw me in more. It’s a strange combination of familiar and foreign, with the robot’s comments on things like levers and desks and photos of once-living humans little puzzles themselves. You can tell that the robot is a little sad, a little unsure. You can mildly interact with another android at the beginning of the game, but other than that, you’re searching solo; I think more droid-on-droid interaction would have been nice–hey now–as well as some dialogue trees to help fill in story gaps. Other than a couple of really well hidden items, the puzzles are pretty easy to figure out if you keep on clicking, and you can probably breeze through the game in about ten or fifteen minutes.

Alas, BNKR ends right as it just starts getting good plot-wise, and so I’ll have to keep looking for whatever comes from the people at Piter Games, as finding out what’s actually inside that opened hatch is just the tip of the post-apocalyptic iceberg.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #48 – BNKR

A bunker opens
Need android fuel to survive
Where is mirror glass?

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Dead Rising 2 should not have returned from the grave

There are some games I loathe from the very beginning, but a terrible, masochistic part of my brain keeps me playing, as I have to see them through to the end, hopeful that there is maybe still some aspect or single element I haven’t seen yet that can be called enjoyable or mildly so and see the whole experience retrofitted just a wee bit. Here, let me name a few: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked, Mafia II, and Game of Thrones: The Game. They all have their problems, but I kept playing them save for Cyanide’s take on Westeros, blind with false hope. Well, I think we can also now officially add Dead Rising 2 to this selective category.

In Dead Rising 2, you play as Chuck Greene, a former motocross champion now housing it up in the fictional casino town of Fortune City, Nevada. He is an active member of Terror Is Reality, a controversial game show where contestants kill zombies for money and fame. Chuck only does this because he needs the prize money to buy Zombrex, which is a daily medication that magically suppresses the zombification process, for his bitten daughter Katey. However, while backstage after the show, Terror Is Reality’s supply of disposable zombies is released, creating havoc and panic and bringing everything good to a shambling halt. Chuck is able to rescue his daughter and reach an emergency shelter, but has to keep her supplied with Zombrex until the military arrives in three days.

That’s the story setup, and from there you can explore Fortune City at, more or less, your leisure. So long as you don’t suffer too many zombie bites, of course. Main missions and side missions are constantly available, but some won’t begin until a specific time and others only last so long before you lose out on whatever prize they offer. Basically, you have to choose what you can do in the time that you have, and I found myself, after restarting the story twice due to boss fight difficulties, skipping all the side missions and just grinding out PP from zombies near the safehouse until a main story mission began. By the end of the game, I had only killed five Psychopaths and rescued 12 survivors, which is just a drop in the bucket for both of those optional endeavors. I only fought a Psychopath or saved someone if the description mentioned Zombrex. When not killing zombies, you can also look around for items to make combo weapons and mixed drinks to further help you kill zombies later, which is both fun and frustrating, especially when some items are terribly huge and have to be carried all the way back to a maintenance room, which is across a sea of biters. I stuck with a few staples over the course of the game, namely spiked baseball bat, the Defiler, and whatever it is called when you mix MMA gloves and a box of nails.

Other than smacking a zombie in the face with a spiked baseball bat or running over a horde of them with a mobile trash bin, I did not enjoy much of anything that Dead Rising 2 had to offer. Chuck purposely moves slow and clunky, especially if you try to jump and then keep moving. His speed increases and additional melee moves are unlocked as you level up, but it’s a slow and seemingly random process, as by level 26 I still was missing a lot of abilities that would have made running around more convenient and a bit easier. You can only save at bathrooms, which are not surprisingly everywhere you turn, so I found myself constantly losing a lot of progress if Chuck accidentally bought the farm. Can’t set waypoints on the map. Weapons break after some time, and I understand why that has to be, but man do I not enjoy it, especially after it took so long to find the right pieces and construct it. Wearing goofy clothes is okay and thankfully completely cosmetic, and I do appreciate that Chuck has them still on in all cutscenes, but Dead Rising 2 is a very goofy game with batshit crazy side quests and zany survivor-saving missions, but then also a main storyline that really does want to be taken dead serious, with its twists and turns and real-life drama of a child potentially being turned into a monster and a man being wrongly framed. It’s all very conflicting.

That previously mentioned masochistic part of my brain wants to load up my last Dead Rising 2 save, which is right before what I thought was the final boss fight, and see if I can get the other ending, but I know it won’t enhance my experience any more. Hmm. In fact, after reading a bit about it, seems like quite a bother, and for what, a silly Achievement. Meh, no thanks. However, I’m pretty close to crossing the 5,000 mark for killed zombies, so maybe I’ll put on a favorite podcast and go out swinging.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #47 – Dead Rising 2

Gotta find Zombrex
Up my zombie kill count, too
A gamble, restart

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Deponia’s English translation is the trickiest puzzle yet

It’s a bummer to have to be so hard on Deponia simply for its atrocious German to English translation work, as everything else is actually quite good–if a bit too straightforward for the point-and-click genre–but text is a large, vital part of many adventure games. They say every man carries a sword, and sometimes they need to fall on them to remain honorable, and so I say “On your knees!” to all that work/worked at Daedalic, not just the one wearing the “proofreader” badge. Your shoddy QA job cannot be ignored. But let’s get some of the other stuff out of the way first, like story and gameplay and pretty, pretty pictures.

In Deponia, you play as a rude little lay-about called Rufus. He’s a bit like Guybrush Threepwood, except completely unlikeable. He’s smarmy, arrogant, cruel, and inconsiderate, and I got all that from within the first few opening scenes of the game. I guess that’s fine since we now live in an age of many anti-heroes, such as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones and Walter White in Breaking Bad. But man, he’s a bother. Anyways, Rufus is tired of living life on a literal junk pile of a planet and sets his eyes to the sky, specifically a place called Elysium, which one can assume is where the rich, clean folk spend their days drinking white wine and looking down from balconies. As he makes his way sky-ward, he accidentally bumps into a young girl named Goal being bullied by some men. Inadvertently, he knocks her down to Trash Town below and is tossed overboard after her. And thus begins the epic quest to get the girl and get going.

Gameplay in Deponia is traditional inventory management stuff. You talk to people, collect things, combines items, and use those items on people and other items to solve puzzles and move the story along. What’s really nice is that, at any time, you can press the space bar to highlight all the items Rufus can interact with, so there’s no pixel-hunting roadblocks. Occasionally, just like in Machinarium, there’s some other kinds of puzzles to play with, like fitting all the broken pieces of a glass mosaic back together or highlighting which spots to bomb in the mine via a map or flipping switches to get the tracks perfectly aligned so your vehicle can drive away to safety. Acts are divided up by brightly animated cutscenes, which only ask that you watch them.

Let it be known that the greatest reason to play Deponia is to look at it and get to the next scene and look at that. It is gorgeous, through and through, with a fantastic sense of imagination. Vibrant, colorful art makes up a lot of the screen, and the design of the trashy town areas are pretty original. The characters themselves range greatly in looks, though I guess you could say Goal and Rufus’s ex-girlfriend resemble each other somewhat. The inventory menu takes up your entire screen, though I never recall filling more than two or three rows with items, so it seems like wasted space, but nevertheless you can see everything you are carrying clearly thanks to the vivid artwork. And as I mentioned, the cutscenes are well-animated, though maybe some extra frames of animation are needed when Rufus interacts with certain items or mixes stuff together.

Alas, not all is whistles and whoops. Take, for instance, the treatment of women in Deponia. First of all, there’s not many to begin with. It’s a male-inhabited realm, with men being the forefront of everything: work, science, law, freedom, the upperclass. Obviously there’s Goal, the mumbling, brain-damaged goal of the game, who Rufus wants in the same way a kid on Christmas wants a new toy, and then the whole town tries to win her over through some strange lottery system with the mayor. Then there is Toni, Rufus’s ex-girlfriend, who exists to nag and bemoan the boy, and eventually ends up getting drugged. Oh boy. Subtlety. Lastly, there’s Lotti, who works at the mayor’s office and is constantly switching from her obviously deeper male voice to a fake, over-exaggerated high-pitch voice, time after time, because, y’know, repetition is funny.

Here we are, the real stick in the mud for this adventure game, which was clearly made overseas. Localization and copyediting. They are two different things, and both were not done adequately enough to ensure that Deponia was a quality product. Some German to English translations make no sense, as if some kind of app like Google Translate was used and nothing else, because I found myself scratching my head at some descriptions or clues. Then there’s the lack of consistency across the board, with some words capped and others not, as well as improper grammar. I spotted many wrongly used apostrophes, as well as several sentences ending in commas, not periods. Some might not notice stuff like, but I like to read along as I listen to the voice acting, mostly because I read faster than I listen and can skip ahead if I’m ready. I also ran into a couple of technical problems, such as dialogue choices appearing above the text box and the game not always responding to double-clicking to hop to the next scene instantly. Small stuff, those ones, but there nonetheless.

Deponia is an undoubtably pretty point-and-click adventure game hindered by a number of localization and technical problems. I didn’t have the worst time getting through it, nor did I find myself foaming at the mouth in general excitement over it unfolding, save for the next gorgeous piece of background art to gawk at. I simply played, looked up a puzzle solution when I got stuck several times, frowned, smiled, frowned some more, and finished it off. There are two sequels already out in the series, but I’m in no rush to see what happens next to Rufus and Goal. I’m still not over all the random capitalized “if”s in the middle of sentences.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #46 – Deponia

Want off trash planet
Solve some tricky puzzles first
Hope you hate English

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

The Half-hour Hitbox: November 2013

And that was November, a month of new console generation releases, colder weather, eating everything not called turkey, and doorbusters, which is my new favorite word to hate. Seriously. Tara suggested that Black Friday sales should be called “I’m stupid!” so that when asked what people are there for, they can just say, “I’m stupid!” I kind of have to agree with her on this. We’re only a few years away from Black Week, seven days of stupidly saucy sales priced just low enough to get you into the stores and away from your loved ones. Me, I’m spending this day-after-Thanksgiving in my pajamas, writing about videogames and drinking coffee. Sure, I might go out later, but it’s probably only to Family Dollar for the sweetest deals this side of Pennsylvania. I don’t expect to be trampled.

But wait, that’s not what this post is supposed to be about. No, no. I’m here again to cover the handful of games I’ve played this month, but have not gotten a chance to really examine here on Grinding Down. There seems to be a lot more this month than previous Half-hour Hitboxes (Hitboxs?), and I don’t know why. I guess as the year winds down I am finding myself with more time to dabble. I have also continued to put in some solid hours with Primal, and I expect to beat it before 2013 comes to a close, praise the realm of Aetha.

Once more, to the list…

A World of Keflings

I was surprised at how much I liked A Kingdom of Keflings, which is a very relaxed town-building sim, with a focus on a soul-soothing soundtrack and straightforward missions, like build a house or a factory or put this Kefling in that thing you just built. So far, A World of Keflings seems to be all that over again, except now you can travel between various themed kingdoms for different missions–and that’s fine by me. I also like how you can begin building something, and your little Kefling worshipers will finish putting it together so long as you construct all the required pieces. You can also play with silly emotes.

Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen

Last month, the big epic free RPG for PlayStation Plus subscribers was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and this month, we got another doozy brimming with hours of content. Alas, I probably won’t see much of it. For some reason, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen doesn’t fit properly on my TV, and even stretching it out is an ordeal, with the end result being sub-par. This makes for tiny text, tiny monsters, tiny inventory screens, and so on. I played about an hour’s worth of content, did a few missions, and recruited some Pawns to aid me in my quest to…slay the dragon that ate my heart? Sure, I think that’s it. I do, however, appreciate that you can play as a woman, as well as one with a bigger build.

Might & Magic: Duel of Champions

Honestly, I had no idea Might & Magic: Duel of Champions existed until it did, and I went straight to it from Penny Arcade‘s Twitter account the morning it was released on Steam, curious enough to give the newborn a shot. I mean, I no longer have a circle of friends to play Magic: The Gathering with, nor the money it takes to stay current and in the loop, so a free-to-play card game based heavily on the same CCG mechanics is right up my alley. Because I still desperately want to play, and this, from what I dabbled in, seems really good. I did all the training missions and the first real “hands off” mission, and I like the mechanics a lot, especially the ones that differ from the more traditional MTG stuff. However, sometimes the opponent’s turn goes too fast, and I have a hard time keeping up with all the action.

Kingdoms & Lords

Ahh. Yet another city-building game, but this time set in Medieval times. No, not the themed restaurant chain that I went to once as a wee lad, but rather the era. Oh, it’s also on my Windows 8 phone instead of something you’d get distracted by while perusing Facebook. Anyways, it has all the typical city-building and social elements that I experienced shortly in Little Big City and CityVille. Which is to say, there’s energy and only so much you can do in a single session. However, it holds a slight advantage over those previously mentioned titles because it has castles and soldiers and barbarians and so on. Plus, there’s Achievements to pop.

Star Wars: Tiny Death Star

This is both very addicting and simple. and over the last few weeks has become my go-to game for when I have five or ten minutes to kill. Basically, you’re helping the Empire build a Death Star, opening up apartments and shops and other nefarious levels for people to spend money at to raise some serious credits. You take these citizens to their required level via an elevator, and watch everything grow. I’m not sure if there is actually an end point, but right now I have 12 levels and 23 people housed and working, with more to come. The cutesy pixel graphics and sampled tunes really make Star Wars: Tiny Death Star a fun, light-hearted game, one that maybe shows that Disney won’t ruin the franchise. Regardless, I’ll continue to keep playing until the Death Star is fully operational.

Iron Brigade

Tower defense, but with the focus more on action, on running and gunning, and you certainly play a bigger part than some dude who just places turrets down to do your dirty work. You sit in a Trench, which is like a mobile war machine that can shoot guns and build defenses. and a race of aliens called Tubes are trying to take you down. Naturally, as Iron Brigade comes from Double Fine, there’s an attention to style and goofiness here that is immensely enjoyable, like all the cosmetic gear you can equip your soldier with–hats, mostly. I’ve only done a couple of the early missions, but like it. Strangely, I find absorbing scrap to be therapeutic and rewarding, much like I had in Red Faction: Armageddon.

ibb and obb

Earlier this year, everyone went ga-ga–and probably rightly so–over how the two boys in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons could be controlled by both analog sticks. However, if it is anything like ibb and obb, I’m out. Honestly, I barely made it through the first few levels, and they were more than frustrating. More so, I got frustrated at my brain, as I kept getting the characters mixed up, forgetting what stick controlled who, and so on. Which made for faulty platforming. This game seems better experienced with one player controlling one guy, and an other the other. I doubt I’ll play any more, unfortunately.

Mad Father

Um, I’m sorry. I really don’t know. I found a copy of Mad Father in my videogames folder on my laptop, so I guess I knowingly downloaded this at some point. Anyways, it’s a Japanese horror game that looks like an RPG from the SNES era, and I played a little bit before getting freaked out. There’s a lot of story up front with sepia-filtered flashbacks to boot, and no combat from what I experienced. You want to avoid these monsters. Also, a spoiler: the father is mad. And not in an angry kind of way.

Habla Kadabla

Just a short and easy point-and-click adventure game about a witch trying to recover her stolen enchanted cash register. I had some time to kill before heading out for the Thanksgiving festivities yesterday, and so I gave this a spin. The puzzles are quite easy, mostly inventory-based, though you do also have to make a potion, complete a jigsaw puzzle, and shoot some ducks. I like the art and humor of it all, but for someone that just got robbed, Habla Kadabla–that’s her name–really needs to stop smiling.

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The Half-hour Hitbox is a new monthly feature for Grinding Down, covering a handful of videogames that I’ve only gotten to play for less than an hour so far. My hopes in doing this is to remind myself that I played a wee bit of these games at one time or another, and I should hop back into them, if I liked that first bite.