Not sure if Professor Fitz Quadwrangle’s nephew can solve this Quantum Conundrum

Here’s the radical truth: every time I scroll past Quantum Conundrum on my interminable list of PlayStation 3 games, most of which were acquired through PlayStation Plus, it scares the crap out of me. Not because it is from the horror genre, where jump scares and messed-up imagery reign queen, but because a song plays the fraction of a second you idle on its name. That song is this song, and, while catchy, it starts so suddenly that, depending on how high I have the volume on my TV, it’s like meditating in a quiet room unexpectedly rocked by a massive explosion. Or maybe I’m being dramatic and just whining about being scared easily. Either way, I want it gone sooner than later.

Again, this is not a horror game. It’s all about puzzles and using your noggin. You play as the non-speaking twelve-year-old nephew of the brilliant and peculiar Professor Fitz Quadwrangle. You’re sent to stay with Quadwrangle, who is unprepared for your arrival and deep in some experiment. Alas, the experiment goes sideways almost immediately, which causes Quadwrangle to become trapped in a pocket dimension. He has no memory of what went wrong before, but is somehow able to watch and communicate you. The results of the experiment leave portions of the Quadwrangle mansion stuck between four dimensions with alternate properties. It’s up to you to restart three separate power generators and bring back Quadwrangle safely.

Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle game, much like Portal. That should come as even less of a surprise when you learn that it was designed by Kim Swift, the project lead on Portal. You’ll notice many more similarities between the two beasts: a wearable device to alter physics in a room, a silly yet omniscient narrator, and lots of buttons to push. By using Quadwrangle’s Interdimensional Shift Device, you can manipulate the objects around you by shifting any given room into one of four different physical “dimensions” at the press of a button. You must use these dimensions in varying ways to solve puzzles throughout the mansion and restore the power. There are four dimensions to mess with, though I only just got up to the third one: fluffy (makes things lighter), heavy (makes things heavier), slow motion (slows down objects in motion), and reverse gravity (self-explanatory). With these varying properties, pieces of furniture or safes become your best tools.

Puzzles aside, the writing is pretty funny. Every time you die, which seems to be most commonly from falling into an endless pit inside this mansion because videogames, you’ll see a darkly snarky death message about something you’ll never get to see now that you no longer exist among the living. There’s also a lot of books with punny titles to examine, as well as amusing paintings on every wall. I especially like the one of the dachshund that stretches across multiple paintings and walls. I do wish that Quadwrangle, as our constant narrator, offered more hints, especially after you spend enough time in a room and can’t figure out what to do next. I solved a couple puzzles already through sheer luck and tossing boxes/switching dimensions until everything lined up perfectly, but I know that technique won’t get me to the end.

At this point, I’ve only fixed the first of three generators in Quantum Conundrum, and I didn’t have to look up any puzzle solutions online. I consider that a great victory as I am–and I’m not afraid to admit this–not the greatest mind to ever walk this spinning planet. However, I do believe this is only because the puzzles start off slow and simple, and the more dimensions you gain access to, the more involved the solutions will become. Couple this with the sometimes wonky physics, like when a box you are carrying suddenly touches a sliver of the wall and freaks out, as well as the less-than-ideal platforming moments, and I’m worried that I won’t ever see Quadwrangle back in the real world. I’ll certainly continue to try, but this mansion might turn out to be more of a prison in disguise.

Disney Magical World 2 and the grand return of so many stickers

According to my records, I’ve played Disney Magical World 2 for a little more than half the amount I dumped into the first game, which has the honor of being one of my most-played games on the Nintendo 3DS, bumping elbows with other critical darlings like Animal Crossing: New Leaf and…Netflix. I’m not even near a 50% completion rate. That first game was a super addictive life simulation thing with more than two handfuls of quests to constantly be working on that came out right at the time I needed it to most, and the sequel is all of that again plus more. I got it and Pokémon Moon shortly around the same time last year, and I haven’t touched the latter for more than a couple of hours in November. Sorry, my cute l’il Rowlet baby, I promise to be back shortly.

Once more, you the player, using either a custom character or the Mii that is on your Nintendo 3DS, arrive in Castleton and are magically the only person able to help everyone with their multitude of problems. These include reuniting a musical band of sea critters in The Little Mermaid‘s realm, ensuring Pooh has enough hunny for a picnic, helping those seven dwarfs clean up in preparation for Snow White’s arrival, and so on. There’s a bunch of new, big name worlds to explore–alas, still not an inch for The Incredibles–and each realm is ripe with materials to collect, characters to interact with for special items or side requests, and larger story missions that take you to dungeon-like locales to fight off ghosts using your magic wand. A couple worlds, like Lilo & Stitch and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, feature mini-games too though they aren’t worth spending a lot of hours on.

The main goal hasn’t changed beyond collecting Happy Stickers. Sure, you can grow your café, earn lots of money, tend to a garden, and find new recipes for food, furniture, and clothing, but it continues to be all about them stickers, which are earned by completing specific tasks, such as catching so many fish or clearing a specific number of episodes. Ultimately, these dictate unlockable content or areas and what quests you can take on so it behooves you collect them as you go so you can have more to see and do. Everything feeds into one another, so, no matter what, you are always making progress, which is a thing I love. At the beginning of the game, you’ll see areas locked behind a high number of stickers and think getting there will be impossible, but all it takes is time and dedication. By the end, there’s so much to juggle that you’ll think back at the lengthy opening and how little you could do then and chuckle.

Here’s what was taken away in Disney Magical World 2, much to my dismay: collectible pieces of art every day, whether animation frames or original movie posters, from characters all over in Castleton. Instead, you gather puzzle pieces, and once you acquire a full set and the respective border, you can visit the themed land in the Dream Realm, which mostly exists for silly pictures, but also gaining a bunch of “like” points in one big gulp. “Like” points buy stat buffs, special recipes, and missing puzzle pieces through random chance. I’m not a huge fan of this trade-off. Art is cooler. Also, the dungeons are much more linear with claustrophobic challenge rooms instead of open, almost maze-like corridors to run down and discover enemies or items. When you throw a good party at the cafe, you can now do a song and dance with your guests, which, again, seems to only exist for picture taking. The real reason you throw a big party is to get those characters to permanently show up on a daily basis in Castleton.

So, spoiler territory here–and yeah, I consider this spoilery because if it was something I had known about beforehand it would have definitely lessened the woah factor for me when it happened–but credits roll in Disney Magical World 2 immediately after you earn all 100 stickers and return to the castle square. However, just after that, you are presented with another bunch of quests to keep working towards: pro stickers. These consist of more of the same (build X many pieces of furniture, wear X number of Ace Ensembles), but there are a few others that do demand some time and effort to unlock. Each of these stickers comes with a special item too when you earn it, such as new themed wands and Easter clothing/furniture. I figured the game was mostly over, but nope.

Speaking of Easter, that’s the next time the game will switch over in terms of look and events, starting on April 1. So far, it changed for Halloween and Christmas. I was hoping for at least something for either Valentine’s Day or the month of leprechauns, but alas, no. I wonder if Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh‘s realm will play a prominent role during this upcoming time. Either way, even with the new pro stickers to go after, I won’t be playing this as much until the seasons alter and offer some new outfits/items to enjoy. I really have to get back to Pokémon Moon and then there’s the upcoming remake of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King.

2017 Game Review Haiku, #11 – Disney Magical World 2

Back to Castleton
Farm, help, dress, build, dance, profit
Even more stickers

–

I can’t believe I’m still doing this. I can’t believe I’ll ever stop. These game summaries in chunks of five, seven, and five syllable lines paint pictures in the mind better than any half a dozen descriptive paragraphs I could ever write. Trust me, I’ve tried. Brevity is the place to be. At this point, I’ve done over 200 of these things and have no plans of slowing down. So get ready for another year of haikus. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.

In the end, Earthlock: Festival of Magic is amicably middling

Well, I was dead wrong with my assumption that Earthlock: Festival of Magic was like Costume Quest 2 and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness in terms of its length. I was expecting an eight- to ten-hour adventure, but ended up seeing credits roll after something like nearly twenty-six hours. Eep. I mean, yeah, part of me is to blame, as I simply had to see everything and pop all the “rare” Achievements, considering I saw them all as potentially achievable, but much blame can go to the developers as well, as some of their decisions unnecessarily padded out content. Like giving you two under-leveled party members late into the adventure or locking garden recipes behind difficult side bosses. More on that in a bit.

I beat Earthlock: Festival of Magic the other night, and I still really don’t know what the plot was or why this diverse range of colorful characters were working together. It’s real simple to say they were trying to save their planet Umbra, but things get more murky beyond that goal. From who? Not sure. Why? Well, because. It begins plainly enough with a journey to rescue desert scavenger Amon’s uncle from an ancient cult that is after some even ancienter gizmo. Basically, there’s a magical doodad that evil-minded people want for evil-minded means, and us, the good guys, which consists of a mythical hogbunny called Gnart and Ive, the daughter of a famous general from the House of the Great Wave, and a few others, must do everything to stop this. Because we’re the heroes, dang it.

Look, I didn’t come here for the story. I was initially intrigued by the game’s art style and heavy influence from classic RPGs from the late 1990s, such as Final Fantasy VII and Wild Arms. I’m a real sucker for turn-based combat, though I prefer it when taking turns becomes more than just that, with extra mechanics tossed in to liven things up. Like button prompts in Paper Mario: Sticker Star or enemy location manipulation in Radiant Historia. There’s some of that here, though not enough to get me gushing. Actually, let’s dive into the combat, since a major chunk of the game is spent with you commanding your party to attack, heal, buff, and wait against enemies.

I already told you it is turn-based. The turn is order affected by individual character speed stats, as well as whether or not you have initiative when entering the fight. Your party of four battles in two pairs. For me, my go-to pairing was Amon with Gnart and Ive with Taika. You might find other pairings better to your liking. Basically, each pair gets special stats and buffs as their bond together grows. When damaged by enemies, they accumulate support points, which can be used to activate special moves once the bar fills up. These include healing your entire party or attacking every enemy with a magic spell for big damage. Other than that, each character has two stances, which affects their attacks (range versus melee, healer versus soldier, etc). I think I maybe switched stances less than five times total; my suggestion is to find a style that works for you, and double down on it. You’ll be fine. There’s some fun to be had early on with the combat as you begin learning who can do what, but it quickly grows mundane and repetitive when you have to grind later to get all your party members up to level 20. Thankfully, you can kite more enemies into a single fight because the more you battle at once, the bigger the XP gains.

Other than that, I spent a lot of time gardening in Earthlock: Festival of Magic. Not like I do in Stardew Valley or Disney Magical World 2, but enough to see my thumbs turn green. This is because, as mentioned earlier, I mained Ive and Amon, two characters that use ranged weapons, and those need a bunch of different element-based ammo to get through all them repetitive fights. Gardening isn’t tough, and you can easily fall into a hypnotic rhythm of harvesting, watering, harvesting, watering, and so on. I still feel like Plumpet Island was severely underused; there are areas that seem like they’d be accessible or eventually open up to offer more things to do, but that never happens. Basically, you have a garden, a place to craft ammo, a place to craft talents, a shop, and an inn to rest for free. Considering the amount of time you spend there and the fact that towns are few and uninteresting, I was hoping for more interaction. Something like from Dragon Age: Origins, where you can chat with your party members.

Even if I had finished Earthlock: Festival of Magic back in December, it would not have made my top five games list. It’s not a terrible RPG, nor is it going to blow you away. It hits the average mark and does not waver. The ideas are there and staples of the genre, but that alone does not make an astounding adventure.

The BackDoor series is unpredictable, except for the puzzles

The BackDoor series, which comes from a creator called SolarVagrant and so far consists of two games, namely Door 1: The Call and Door 2: The Job, is a small thing, with large ambitions. To me, especially with adventure games, that’s good. Respectable and well-intended. After all, Sequoioideae redwoods start as just a seed in the ground. Blackwell Legacy from Wadjet Eye Games and Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! both started small, in humble territory, but contained more than enough material and ideas to burgeon into larger, more mainstream experiences. I think, with enough time, this too could become a series you hear about more often. Naturally, I’m getting ahead of myself, so on with the summaries.

For Door 1: The Call, you begin as a young man…falling. After what seems like far too much falling, you find yourself in a strange house. The only person who might know what is truly going on is a mysterious individual who contacts you over the phone…or might actually be the phone, seeing that it talks to you and has sharp, untrustworthy teeth where the number buttons are. Turns out, this strange house is on the moon. Your best plan of attack for now is to escape, and that means solving puzzles by finding items, combining them correctly, and examining everything in the environment to use them on. Pretty standard stuff, save for the part about being on the moon and trapped between different dimensions.

For Door 2: The Job, things pick up immediately where the previous game left off, which, for a sequel to a 2013 release, is great for me playing them back-to-back, but others might have forgotten some details, especially like why some items are still there in your inventory. No biggie. Through more guidance from your phone friend/foe, you find yourself in a strange city of a robots. You are tasked with finding a specific robot called Aert, and you’ll know him by his unique scarf. Along the way, you’ll interact with a number of other robots–some more friendly those humans than others– in this familiar city hub and do the traditional thing of collecting items and using them just right to solve puzzles. Eventually you learn that Aert is kidnapped by a gang of goons for the sole purpose of tricking his girlfriend to date the leader.

The first game is obviously much smaller in scope and mechanics. Door 2: The Job really feels like something grander, with colorful characters and world-building and plenty of things to interact with and examine. Let’s call the experienced…enriched. I felt more invested in my tasks, such as catching a rat, fixing machinery, or tricking the shopkeeper to sell to a smelly, untrustworthy human, even if I couldn’t follow the larger, outer layer plotline all that much. Maybe whatever Door 3 ends up being will explain why this animated phone is dictating your duties and mocking you all at the same time.

Many of the puzzles in Door 1: The Call and, much more so, in Door 2: The Job are pretty obvious. From a solution standpoint. For example, you find a locked ventilation shaft grate and know that you’ll need to get by it somehow. You need something to take the screws off. The rub is figuring out how to accomplish that task. Some puzzles even require a bit of trial and error, especially the time-based ones right near the end. Thankfully, when you fail them, the game resets to a checkpoint in the previous room, so it is not too punishing, save for wasting time.

Visually, not too much has changed from Door 1: The Call to Door 2: The Job, and that’s okay. There are stylized and entertaining cutscenes. The pixel art, especially the character portraits, reminds me greatly of Cave Story, and the city, while not huge, does have a personality and some areas to explore. Also, the color palette seems to have switched from soft blues to light yellows, browns, and greens. Don’t let the screenshot at the top of this post fool you as I had to mess with its color to get my large, blocky white letters to read well on top of it. Regardless, while it might be some time until we see Door 3: [Subtitle], I’m eagerly looking forward to it. That said, I’ll never trust an anthropomorphic telephone.

The Wolf Among Us is where wolves fear to prey

I got through a decent chunk of The Wolf Among Us last year during my Extra Life event, sleepily playing it in the wee hours of the morning after I found myself walking off ledges too frequently in Dark Souls. Part of me suspects the reason I picked it is because, if I nodded off momentarily during a conversation scene, the scene can keep going, selecting “…” as Bigby’s appropriate response. I guarantee this happened a few times. I gare-run-tee it. I’m also fine with my Bigby being a bit shy or passive in his interactions with some people, even if later I made him ultra assertive and demanding when push came to shove. You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, y’know.

The Wolf Among Us, which I constantly wrote incorrectly as A Wolf Among Us in its game review haikus, is a prequel to Bill Willingham’s Fables comic book universe, of which I’ve read not a single page. Bigby Wolf, formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf, is the Sheriff of Fabletown, which is a hidden community of fairytale characters located in New York City in the 1980s. After receiving a phone call from Mr. Toad, Bigby saves a young prostitute from an intoxicated and extremely vulgar Woodsman. He escorts her away to safety. Alas, later that night, Bigby is shocked to find the woman’s severed head left on the doorstep of the Woodland Luxury Apartments. Deputy Mayor Ichabod Crane orders him and Snow White to investigate her death.

I’ve had problems with these adventure romps from Telltale Games since basically the first mainstream one I touched: season one of The Walking Dead. I enjoyed that one a great deal, even if I saw that it was more adventuring than pointing and clicking and had a couple complications, but this was a different beast, playable first on a console and designed for a controller and distinctive pace. I’ve stopped referring to these as point and click adventure titles. They are dialogue adventures. Season two of The Walking Dead was a whole lot less game, and this carried over to Game of Thrones. I’ve not tried Tales from the Borderlands, Minecraft: Story Mode, or Batman: The Telltale Series yet, though I do have their first episodes downloaded and ready to go, but I suspect I won’t find anything new to love there.

In The Wolf Among Us, players control Bigby Wolf, who is investigating a murder. You’ll “explore” various environments throughout Fabletown, such as apartment buildings, a bar, a butcher’s shop, etc. I used quotation marks because you are extremely limited in where you can walk, and there are only so many things to interact with. Many are just there for lore and to unlock entries in your Book of Fables guide. Occasionally, items of interest are stored in an inventory on the side, but you don’t access this like you would in a more traditional point-and-click title; instead, if you have the item, it can come into play at a later time automatically. Gameplay ultimately boils down to talking with a host of pretty memorable characters, with conversations presented in the form of dialogue trees and responses on a timer. Depending on your choices, these will have a positive or negative effect on how people view Bigby, as well as larger plot-points down the road. Many scenes are heavy on action, requiring players to respond rapidly through QTE prompts, such as fighting off bad dudes or chasing after a vehicle speeding away. I failed a couple of things here and there, but unlike Shenmue the story thankfully moves forward regardless.

Here’s where The Wolf Among Us shines, obviously: the writing. It’s an entertaining, complex story, with a cast of characters that are fun to recognize and see how they fit into this alternative realm. Bigby is a villain trying to live a better life and help who he can, struggling to shed his past skin. That comes through strongly in the story, and his interaction with Snow White, at least the ones I saw and decided on, spoke volumes without every directly saying what each person thought of the other. I also liked the interaction between the fairytale characters that could pass among humans versus the ones that couldn’t without using expensive treatments called glamours, such as Mr. Toad. The real villains are villainous, and I found the Crooked Man to be profoundly striking, using his smarmy, distrustful words and loyalty of his goons to get his way. Spoilers: I let him talk for a good while before deciding to alter his form for good. That said, I think the end conversation between Bigby and Nerissa was meant to be more profound, but it came off as plain ol’ confusing. If you want to read some theories, here’s a good starting place.

I had the luxury of playing The Wolf Among Us mostly back to back after getting the whole thing at once from Games with Gold in April 2016, but for those that experienced it episodically, spread out over nine months, I can see some episodes not really satisfying or feeling like enough. The action scenes are few and simply a bunch of button presses, and I found it hard to sometimes see what was going on because I was more concerned with which button to hit next. That’s the most gameplay you get, and the rest is Bigby lone wolfing it on the streets of Fabletown, talking to people and responding accordingly. There are parts of the game where you can only go one way or another due to time restraints, which theoretically leads to replay value, but I don’t like replaying these things from Telltale Games because, to me, my first go-through is my only go-through. The decisions I made, the words I spoke–like real life, there’s no do-over.

Wait, remember earlier when I said that the writing was the best part of The Wolf Among Us? I was wrong. I forgot that the intro title sequence is amazing, using shadows and purple neon and deep, pulse-laden electronica music to set mood like nothing before, save for maybe Stranger Things. Even if that feeling doesn’t last for the entire episode, it certainly kicks things off on a great, furry foot. Let’s end this post on a highlight, on that. If Telltale Games doubles down on ambiance and atmosphere for season two, if there is to be one, I might return. I might.

Grinding Down‘s readers will remember that.

Descend deeper and deeper with Runestone Keeper

I am enjoying Runestone Keeper greatly despite it being the sort of roguelike that demands you suffer inordinately for its opening hours before you can even begin to fathom making progress. You know, like Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac. Do the time before you enjoy the sublime. Not like Spelunky though. In Spelunky, you can beat the game on your very first run, so long as you know what you are doing; sure, a wee bit of luck is needed to get some specific items, like the jetpack, but it is totally doable. For other harsh roguelikes with some permanence to them in terms of upgrades and accrual, you must first grind runs one after another to begin closing the distance. I think, so far, I’ve gotten to level 9 with Guy, the only playable character available until you get further or are more successful on higher difficulties.

What is Runestone Keeper you ask silently from the other side of the screen? Well, it is a piece of interactive entertainment that came out in early 2015 from Blackfire Games. What else? It was recently part of the Humble Jumbo Bundle 7, which is where I got my Steam copy. Yeah, cool, but more specifically…what is it? Technically, Runestone Keeper is an über challenging roguelike-to-roguelite dungeon crawler that blends classic roleplaying elements and turn-based combat strategy. Kind of a weird, blood magic-driven fusion of Minesweeper and Dungeons of Dredmor.

That last description probably didn’t help all that much. Allow me to try harder. Basically, dungeon floors are randomly generated and set out as a grid that can be explored in any order from wherever you start, uncovering one tile at a time by clicking on it. Each revealed tile has an effect, even if that effect is basically nothing happens. Most discoveries include finding hearts that heal your HP, gold coins, treasure chests, traps, single-use items, weapons like readied crossbows, merchants, valuable runestones, and various pitfalls. Each tile you reveal also fills up your soul meter, which dictates your usage of certain items, as well as using in-level shrines and such. Your basic goal is to reveal enough tiles to find the staircase to the room below and head deeper into the darkness.

The real trouble with that endeavor is you’ll also reveal enemies in each dungeon level. You can avoid most fights if you want, but monsters block adjacent squares from being revealed, which are essential to finding the way to the next floor. Also, early on, you will want to fight some monsters for XP and dropped loot (which contains random prefixes and suffixes for different stats), though RNG rears its ugly head from time to time, causing you to miss your ax swings even though you are standing directly next to the angry goblin. Your attacks are obviously based on your gear, and you can quickly swap between two sets; I like having something for up close, as well as ranged enemies. Monsters hit your shield first, which absorbs a certain amount of damage before stealing away HP. The cast of enemies is quite varied, and many of them have their own unique abilities, like silencing or poisoning. Early on, your best friend as Guy, is the spell he has to lower an enemy’s attack power for a few turns though it is beyond frustrating to whiff on every sword swing during this phase.

Runestone Keeper‘s gameplay is extremely layered, even if it at times it feels unfair and driven solely by luck spirits. There’s tattoos to equip, an enchantment system, worshiping and un-worshiping deities that provide buffs and debuffs, elite arena rooms, special one-time events dictated by text choices, and more. Lots of spinning plates, and I’m sure I’m missing some elements. My focus for Guy continues to be upgrading his strength and stamina and plowing through enemies as quickly as possible while also hoarding a ton of gold coins and selling unwanted to gear; unfortunately, in the later dungeon levels, he struggles to deal with ranged enemies, as well not exploding when unearthing a ticking time bomb. It’s a problem. We’re working on it.

Similar to how I approached Rogue Legacy, Runestone Keeper is perfect for doing a couple runs, being unsuccessful, but returning to the main menu hub with enough gold coins to upgrade a permanent bonus, such as gaining more XP from killed monsters or earning more gold with each pick-up, and that leaves me feeling satisfied, feeling like I am actually inching towards a better run. I’m still hoping I’ll find that “perfect storm” run where I get some killer equipment/items early on that will help me reach level 10 of the dungeon and maybe even beyond that. If not, this is surprisingly one game I don’t mind bashing my head against the wall, desperately trying to survive or crawl to the next floor in hopes of…well, hope. Not everything has to be about being the ultimate powerhouse.

Dungeon of Zolthan’s classic platforming mechanics are the sum of life

As I’m wont to do, I didn’t go crazy for the latest Steam Winter Sale, especially considering the number of games still untouched in my digital library, a travesty I swear I’m working on for 2017, though the gamble is whether or not I’ll be successful. Well, shortly before that glittery ball dropped in Times Square and Mariah Carey fake-sung her last tune, indicating the official transition from one year to the next, I made a single gulp purchase of small games for a total that came in just under ten dollars. That’s a record high for me. Anyways, here’s what I got for those curious about what I got:

• Deus Ex: Invisible War
• LucasArts Adventure Pack (this includes Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Loom, and The Dig)
• Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4
• The Silent Age
• PulseCharge
• Dead6hot
• Broken Dreams
• Dungeon of Zolthan
• Reset 1-1

Part of me is surprised that I haven’t immediately loaded up Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 to see what that Australian devil is all about in this new day and age of endless runners considering my affection for the series (well, really just that first game). And yes, you can belly-laugh until hurts that there’s affection here for a game set on a fictitious Australian island about collecting “Thunder Eggs” and stopping the evil cassowary Boss Cass from being, y’know, even more evil; really, it just reminds me of long-gone snowy college days, of being trapped inside a third-floor dorm with not much else to do but toil away at things like Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, instead of working on that journalism degree.

Well, I’m not here to talk about the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Nope. This post is all about Dungeon of Zolthan, which was part of the Platformer Bundle by New Reality Games. Visually, it stood out to me from the others listed above due to its limited color scheme and retro graphics. I know that’s basically one-fourth of all indie platforming games on Steam these days, but it is a jam I enjoy on toasted bread and like eating. Not that I get to eat toast with jam on it much lately. I also relish some challenge, though not too much, as I’m not a masochist who gets a rise from dying over and over again. Somewhere in the range of Tiny Barbarian and You Have to Win the Game is just fine.

Dungeon of Zolthan seems to dance on the line between casual and hardcore. You can play it either way, your call. It’s an arcade-style Metroidvania platformer light on puzzles and starring a little green block with legs, eyes, and a mouth, determined to defeat the powerful mage Zolthan that lives inside the dungeon. That’s all the story I’ve gotten so far, and it is more than enough as a goal. As you move from room to room, you’ll acquire power-ups, like double jumping and dashing across gaps, as well as battle mid-bosses. I’m not sure how this fella holds the gun he is carrying, but it doesn’t matter. You can take your time exploring, finding all the hidden power-ups and extra hearts or you can make a mad dash to defeat all the bosses as quickly as possible, with as little extra help as you think necessary. The game itself is pretty forgiving, dropping save points that also restore your health bar all over the place, and the early difficulty curve is lessened once you get the hang of jumping, shooting, and dashing around. Personally, I’m not wasting a lot of time on shooting enemies and am finding more fun in generally avoiding them altogether.

According to the Achievements list, I’m halfway through this dungeon, with two more bosses to battle. Alas, I don’t think I’ll be earning those speedrunning-related Achievements (beat in 40 minutes or 20 minutes or less), as I’ve definitely already logged more time than necessary because I left the game running while making dinner in the kitchen. Oh well. It’s okay. I’ll save the speedrunning for someone else, though I’ll gladly watch them do it later if Dungeon of Zolthan ever shows up in Awesome Games Done Quick. Until then, may your indie platformers be unapologetically old-school.

2017 Game Review Haiku, #2 – Where is 2017?

Not a point and click
Battle mutated last year
Kill it, triumph, live

–

I can’t believe I’m still doing this. I can’t believe I’ll ever stop. These game summaries in chunks of five, seven, and five syllable lines paint pictures in the mind better than any half a dozen descriptive paragraphs I could ever write. Trust me, I’ve tried. Brevity is the place to be. At this point, I’ve done over 200 of these things and have no plans of slowing down. So get ready for another year of haikus. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.

You kind of control a pond’s ecosystem in Among Ripples

One of my goals for 2017 is to chip away at my Steam library, and I’m using HowLongToBeat to help me determine where to start. Certainly not with Crusader Kings II, which the site claims is around 175 hours in total to see through to completion though I do what to give it a swing at some point after really enjoying the fun that was an old GBE Playdate.

Instead, I went with Among Ripples, estimated to eat up 19 minutes of my sweet, precious time. I think I ended up logging closer to 25 minutes before exiting out of the…experience and staring for a bit at my two cats, wondering where they’d fit into the whole survival of the fittest scheme. I actually think Pixie would last longer in the wild, hiding with all her might, while Timmy would totally walk up to a predator to lovingly rub his face on it. Ah, tiny domesticated lions.

There are no cats in Among Ripples, at least none that I could find. There is, however, an otter, and that made this slice of casual gaming all the more wonderful. Though I still really don’t know what it was. In descriptive terms, it’s a meditative ecosystem management simulator. You are the puppet master of a small pond, filling it with food and predators/prey, watching life unfold over the seasons. Basically, you add different creatures to the mix and see how everything interacts. I did this just fine, but kept expecting something more to happen beyond this, despite knowing that this was all there was to experience.

It’s an extremely simple slice of sandbox gaming. You can click on a few things to get life going and then sit back to take in the watercolored art and gentle, calming soundtrack. However, among all this niceness is the fact that nature is ruthless, and animals eat other animals. You must be prepared for this. They also do other things many might scoff at; one time, at the Philadelphia Zoo, I saw a giraffe drink another giraffe’s pee. Nature is surviving at all costs, whether we’re talking about reality or simulation.

Among Ripples is neat, but not enough. I understand that the goals are your own to set, and I watched an otter live through all the seasons, which is all I ever ask of otters, as well as saw a bunch of crayfish rot. I don’t plan to write a haiku review about it as I didn’t feel like it was technically something I completed, but rather dipped my toes in; sure, I could leave this up in the background one day and really watch the pond evolve, but I best move on. No worries though. To quote that eccentric, charming mathematician from Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.” Just not in my pond going forward.