Year: 2012
Genre: General
Website: http://www.ologame.com/
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 0.5
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: --/10
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 1.5
- Playthroughs: 8
- Rating: 7/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (8/25/2014): Lee and I played it for 10 or 15 minutes one day. Then we stopped playing it and haven't talked about it again.
The end.
- Lee (10/4/2015): More than a year after Shane and I briefly took this game for a spin, I found myself in need of an activity to keep my girlfriend's 8-year-old busy in the emergency room waiting area while her 11-year-old was getting his newly-broken leg checked out. OLO worked perfectly! The game ended up keeping both of us occupied for more than an hour. I'll remember that in the future...
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://www.noodlecake.com/1581/flappygolf-2/
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 13.0
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 7/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (6/25/2015): When I flew to Tokyo for a week of backpacking throughout the city, I got to experience my first ridiculously long airplane flight. Luckily, built into the seat in front of me was an in-flight entertainment system, which contained a list of movies and games to choose from. One of these games was Bejeweled...and I played that bitch for nearly the entire flight. Fast forward nearly a decade, and now I have my phone that I can use to pass the time in airports, on airplanes, and on the train. During our trip to San Diego last weekend, I first tried Box Cat, but that was a dud. Next, I loaded up Flappy Golf.
The aggravating thing for me about Flappy Golf is that it did a pretty great job of sucking me in, but then it wouldn't let me go until I finished it. And there were a cubic fuckton of levels. Every level was ultimately completable, but my obsessive nature made me get a gold star on each one. I did that for the first three or four thousand levels (just kidding), but then I just desperately wanted to be done with the game, so I allowed silver stars for a while. By the time I made it to the final 20 bonus levels, bronze stars were plenty good enough.
In all fairness, many of the levels were very cleverly built, and some of them were even fun. But after finishing the last level, I breathed a sigh of relief, then uninstalled it from my phone. In retrospect, this game was great for passing several hours while traveling, as it didn't require a lot of brainpower, but I don't see myself coming back to this one anytime soon.
Year: 2011
Genre: General
Website: http://www.noodlecake.com/presskits/box-cat-and-bloop/
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 0.5
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: --/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (6/23/2015): A TriMet MAX ride from Beaverton to the Portland Airport takes about 1.5 hours. A flight from Portland to San Diego takes about two hours, and we all know you should always arrive at the airport an hour early. So, while traveling to SD for vacation last week, Julie and I had several hours to kill, and what better way is there to kill time than playing a mobile game? I have accumulated dozens of Android games from various Humble Mobile Bundles, so I picked one from the list that I thought had the potential to occupy my time. It wasn't a great choice.
I have never really been very good at arcade-style games that require precise timing (think original Paperboy), and this game is no exception. I was mildly amused by the concept of a cat knocking around cars on a street, and I chuckled when I collected enough coins to briefly turn my avatar into a Super Box Cat, but I quickly lost interest in the game. "Survival Mode" didn't help either, as I wasn't fast enough to smash all of the cars. I did get some enjoyment out of the "Rush Hour" mode, since all you had to do was smash as many cars as possible within a given amount of time. But yeah, this is not my sort of game. Flappy Golf (another Noodlecake game), however... That one got me all the way to San Diego and back. And more.
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://m.withhive.com/game/desc/313/0
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: a few hundred
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 8/10
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: ~264.0
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 10/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (5/28/2015): Shane and I have fallen into the habit of skipping the write-up of some of the heavy hitters (Borderlands 2, Minecraft, Dungeon Defenders, etc.), but I would like to break that habit. As I mentioned in my LYNE write-up, I’m not here to be fancy; I just want to share some of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. So here it goes…
There is a lot to do in Summoners War. There is a story mode with 13 scenario regions, which is a great place to gain XP, monster scrolls, monster drops, mana, and runes to equip on your monsters. The story mode can be played on three difficulty modes (Normal, Hard, and Hell). The harder the difficulty, the better the rewards (better rune drops, more XP, and more mana). Each region will yield a different type of rune. Equipping multiple runes of the same type will grant a given set bonus to the monster. The player can also battle against NPCs and other player characters in the Arena for “Glory Points” and crystals. Glory Points can be used to purchase monster scrolls and helpful buildings for your floating island. I would recommend spending Glory Points to max out your Mysterious Plant first. Crystals can be spent on many different things in Summoners War, but my recommendation is to save them up and spend them on “Premium Packs,” which will net you 11 high-level monsters. The Cairos Dungeon is another great place to spend energy (and time). Clearing the Dragon and Giant levels in Cairos is a good way to find great loot, including powerful runes. Essences can be gathered in the Halls of Elements and are used to evolve your monsters into more powerful creatures. Also, many of the Daily Missions can be completed in the Cairos Dungeon. (Completing the Daily Missions is very important, as it will net you 10 crystals every day!) That’s enough to keep you busy for hours, days, and weeks. Trust me.
This game is amazing! A perfect 10. (The only other 10 I have given to an Android game was for Rebuild.) Interestingly, Shane only gave this one an 8. I find it fascinating what he and I look for in games. For me, I look for a game that consumes my world. A game that I cannot put down until I am forced to pry it out of my aching, sweaty hands, in order to move on with my life. This one definitely qualifies. I had to stop playing this game, because I was no longer sleeping at night. I would play it in bed at night until I dozed off, often dropping my phone on the floor. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I would pick the game up and burn any available in-game energy. And I would try to wake up an hour early to burn my energy and complete my daily missions before I had to start getting ready for work. I even played this game during dinner and while watching movies or TV shows. Julie was incredibly patient with me during this obsession (much like she is with all of my obsessions). I made spreadsheets to keep track of which monsters were “friends” and which were “food,” and I researched the most effective rune builds for each monster in my library. Yeah, I’m a big nerd. You can view the spreadsheet here. (Note that much of the content came from this amazing site: http://summonerswar.co/.)
Playing this game was an incredible experience…and I didn’t spend a dime on it. Occasionally, you would see someone in the in-game chat channels lamenting about how many hundreds of dollars they have spent on premium content for this game, then many others would berate this player, insisting that F2P (free to play) was the only way to go, until finally others would chime in and offer that “somebody has to pay the developers’ bills.” I don’t know where I sit with that whole thing. Sure, there were times that I wish I had a little extra energy to do “this one more thing”…but I never felt the need to pay for it. Instead, I just made a sandwich, then came back in a few hours after my energy had a chance to fill up. I think that the game offers a really great balance between the feeling of accomplishment and the desire to play more. But I can definitely see how they make money off of people who aren’t cheap-asses nor relatively patient. On the other hand, I did feel the urge to flip the devs some money to thank them for making a great game…but I think they are financially doing just fine. Regardless, thanks, Com2uS!
In all fairness, there were a few things that I didn't like about Summoners War. First, it was too difficult to coordinate, connect, or communicate with other players. For instance, Shane and I ran a guild for one frustrating week, and during that time, we were unable to round up our guildmates well enough to hold our own in battle. We were unable to see who was online, and we couldn't send messages, neither to the group nor individuals. The best we could do was add a note to the guild description. I suppose the lack of social networking capability in the game does hinder the actions of online sexual predators, but it is still a lame setup. Another issue that I had with the game was related to the rune power-up mechanism. For each power-up you do for a particular rune, there is a chance that it will fail, and that chance increases the higher the rune's level (up to level 15). Failure is so frequent with higher level runes that you can spend hundreds of thousands of mana before getting a successful power-up. I would much rather see a set cost for a given power-up. That way, I know how much mana to save up, AND it would help keep my blood from boiling. And finally, why is it so hard to get a natural 5* monster? There are dozens of them available! I heard some people in the chat channels complain that they have been playing for the entire year that the game has been open, and they have never received a nat 5*. I suppose one could purchase piles of crystals with real money, then spend them on hundreds of mystical scrolls...but what fun would that be?
Shane and I played this game for 2.5 months, and during that time, we had countless conversations over Google Hangouts about strategy, friend vs. food monsters, rune builds, status updates, and general excitement for this game. That was my favorite part of this game. And now, I am getting the chance to experience a bit of the same with Julie's kids. I get a lot of joy out of being asked whether or not a Water Vagabond is food, or whether they should evolve Ramagos or Sieq first (Ramagos, FTW!!). I'll definitely be back...
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://www.lynegame.com/
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 14.5
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: 7/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (5/21/2015): It has been four days shy of HALF OF A YEAR since the last time I made a blog post here. It's not as though I haven't been playing video games...I just haven't felt like writing about them. I think that I got too wrapped up in it, then I got overwhelmed by the expectations that I had made for myself that these blog posts be AMAZING, when I really should have just been keeping them simple and fun. So that's what I'm here to do once again. Getting behind sucks, but to be honest, I am kind of excited about it, since now I get to go back and replay parts of a pile of games as I play catch up. Over the next several weeks, you can expect to see blog posts from me for several of these games: Morrowind, Dungeon Defenders, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto III, Borderlands 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Clash of Clans, and Summoners War.
Let's talk briefly about LYNE. It's a pretty good game. Simple, clever, engaging, and equal parts rewarding and aggravating. The premise of the game is to draw a line from each color's start/end point to its other start/end point, while passing through every block of that color in the puzzle. The grey blocks serve as junctions where lines of different colors may meet or cross. Many of the puzzles have multiple possible solutions, which you can arrive at using a combination of logical reasoning and trial-and-error. The puzzles are grouped into sets of 25, and each set is denoted by a letter of the alphabet. In addition to the main puzzle sets (A-Z), there are two Daily puzzle sets available each day. Each time you complete a puzzle set, you are awarded a number of points based upon the difficulty of the set.
I was amused by LYNE for several days, but then the colossal beast that is Summoners War swallowed my life. Before my interest in this game went away, I did manage to complete puzzle "M25", and I earned a total of 49 points. I tried to pick it up again today, but I got bored after only making it to puzzle "N3". I guess I can shelve this one.
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://sodadrinkerpro.com/
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 0.5
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: --/10
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 0.5
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 2/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (11/20/2014): OK, I get it. Some dude makes a pointless "game" in a single day. He uploads it to some game websites and distribution services. Some people are amused by it and write jokingly glowing reviews of it. It's Goat Simulator + Delicious Women's Phd Darling Sexy Costume/Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears. Meh.
If you drink the soda on the last level, the game congratulates you on quenching your thirst. I'll call that a playthrough. My rating for this starts at a "1" for being complete shit, but includes a "+1" for the fact that some dude made a thing that got bigger than it really should have. Nice work, man.
- Shane (11/28/2014): I am actually (very mildly) angry that this exists. Yay there is a person releasing stuff that is really unpolished and it was fast to build and... I don't care. It isn't a "game." It is a camera overlay with a soda. Do you want to see a camera overlay game that is half-way awesome? Arcade Reality. You are welcome. Please don't go out of your way to buy the soda thing though. Just... don't.
P.S. Lee, thanks for the screenshot of the inside of a stall at work. Appropriate in so many ways.
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://crescentmoongames.com/wordpress/mines-of-mars/
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 27.0
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 7/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (11/4/2014): Mines of Mars... So much potential. I even forgave the massive game glitch that locked me out of the dungeons the first time I played it (a re-install of the game fixed the issue). I REALLY wanted to like this game. It had all of the right hooks for me: gloomy and mysterious Sci-Fi setting; unique premise; impressive physics; amusing dialog; addictive search for crafting ingredients; crafting of cool gear, tools, and weapons; etc...
But honestly, I feel that the game failed to capitalize on all of those promising things it had going for it. From the moment that you are dumped on the surface of the planet, your routine becomes: jump into the portal, mine side-to-side and downward, collect a few raw ore and gems, curse at the limited size of your backpack, use the jetpack to fly back up to the portal to the surface, heal and refuel yourself, fill up on ammo, drop raw gems off at the gem cutter, drop raw ore off at the smelter, window shop at the crafting station, curse at your lack of resources, head back to the portal, repeat...
The game allows you to mine all of the way down to the planet's core (assuming you craft all of the necessary heat dissipation gear) and craft all of the gear available in the game before you take on any of the dungeons. This feels clunky. And the dungeons (with their Super Metroid-like bosses) seem out of place...and kind of shitty. Also, the portals that you unlock are not evenly spread out across the depth of the planet, though that could just be another game glitch. And WTF is with the Offering Pit, artifacts, Museum, and the Arcade? These all feel cobbled together and pointless.
Now that I've ripped into this game a bit, let's talk about the positives. I COULDN'T STOP PLAYING. Despite the infuriating number of trips that I had to take back to the planet's surface, I kept going back to mine more shit. There was something very exciting about digging deeper and finding a new vein of ore. And I loved spending my hard-earned ore and gems on new hardware. I simply HAD TO BUILD EVERYTHING. And also, this game was beautiful. The graphics and physics engines gave me a world that I wanted to live in and explore. It was so rich, so moody, so alone. Incredible.
I heard a rumbling that the devs are planning on adding multiplayer capability, and while that is an intriguing prospect, I do hope it means that they are not done fine-tuning this game. Keep at it, guys. You are onto something quite good here; it just needs some polishing.
Year: 2013
Genre: General
Website: http://badlandgame.com/
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 10.0
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 8/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (7/28/2014): First of all, this game is beautiful in a hauntingly industrial, Tim Burton-esque sort of way. All of the game’s action takes place in the dark silhouette at the screen’s foreground, which stands out in contrast against the lusciously colorful, yet moody, background art. (These background images reminded me of the fantasy paintings printed on many of the Forest and Swamp Magic the Gathering land cards.) Very cool!
The object of BADLAND is to navigate your fat, dark, flying blob (called a “clone”) through side-scrolling levels containing obstacles, triggers, machines, traps, and more. Along the way, you can navigate your clones to pick up power-ups, which will multiply, shrink, grow, spin, or sticky-ify your clones. These modifications enable you to easier navigate each level’s traps and obstacles.
I was immediately drawn into this game. The initial levels were easy and deeply engaging. Even when I ran into a puzzle that popped, squashed, or overran my clone(s), a retry or two of the level was usually all that I needed to proceed. Then things got more difficult. While still ultimately solvable, the puzzles started taking more skill and dexterity to complete. Finally, the levels started to wear on me, and I lost interest. This response is par for the course when it comes to my history with side-scrolling platformers, though I really, really wanted this one to be different. I didn't play enough of the game to give it an official rating, but I feel that it would have ended up somewhere around a 7. If you are a fan of platformers, I suspect that you would love this game.
- Lee (7/29/2014): OK, well, shit. I don't want to be done with this game yet. Yesterday, before I sat down to write my review of this game, I played it for a few minutes for a quick refresher, since I hadn't played it in a few months (thank you, Borderlands 2 and Minecraft). Right away, I ran into the puzzle that had frustrated me enough to take a long break from this game. I popped my clone on the spinning saws a few more times, then uttered, "This is BULLSH...hold on...hey, I beat it!" Then I moved on to the next level, where I got stuck on another puzzle, and then, as Shane likes to say, I rage quit.
This morning, I went to uninstall the game, but decided to open it one last time. The colors drew me back in, and I grinded the current troublesome trap until I passed it. Yes, I almost immediately got stuck again, but I plan to tackle it later on today. Stand by for another update soon.
- Lee (8/12/2014): Well, I did it. I logged a playthrough of BADLAND. And it was glorious. I decided to define a playthrough as the completion (no skipping checkpoints!) of all 40 levels in both Day I and Day II (but not the 10 levels in Doomsday, the hardcore bonus day). I didn't really care about my game stats other than levels completed, but here they are for those who are interested: 507 clones, 26/270 missions, 19/51 achievements, 80/90 levels.
As I wrapped up the levels in Day I and began Day II, I found myself repeatedly blown away by the clever usage of the game's physics engine. The developers dug deep into the creativity bucket with nearly every level, which resulted in a near constant stream of unique gameplay sequences and brain-tickling puzzles. It was exciting watching the action of the traps unfold in interesting ways, and it was often even amusing to watch them crush, pop, or otherwise obliterate my clones.
I read online that the devs did a fantastic job with the game sounds. However, once again, since I usually play the game on my Droid X2 in places where I need to have the sound turned off (in my cube at work, in the bathroom, etc.), I didn't get to experience this important game element. I still feel weird about missing out on the entire soundtrack and gameplay sound aspects of these mobile games, but the best I can do for now is to just make note of it here.
The one-touch controls in BADLAND work amazingly well for navigating your clones through the series of traps and puzzles in each level. I am reminded of the game Vector, which has remarkably similar game mechanics and controls, now that I think about it. When we discussed Vector, Shane expressed a concept to me that each level is completed by a series of screen taps or swipes, and learning when exactly to tap or swipe the screen is much like learning a song on a musical instrument. It was applying this concept to BADLAND that convinced me to push through and finish the game. And now I want to play Vector again...
In summary, I have finally found a side-scrolling platformer that is accessible, creative, and beautiful enough to extract a playthrough from me. Swordigo didn't do it. I doubt that even Super Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong Country could do it. But this one did. Nicely done, Frogmind Games.
Year: 2012
Genre: General
Website: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/knights-of-pen-paper-1-edition
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 14.0
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 9/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (6/22/2014): I have played a bit of D&D in my day. Most of it was post college actually, in a time when people are usually more capable of roleplaying and focusing more on the story. Unfortunately, I was not that good at telling a story. I was far more attracted to building interesting combinations of skills and maximizing my combat abilities. As I look back on the games played now I often wonder if I missed out on something important with regards to developing a character, interacting with the world and other players around me, and telling a compelling story. If I wanted to apply that thought to this game, however, it would be mostly wasted.
Knights of Pen and Paper is a game about people playing an RPG. I don't know if I had ever encountered this concept before having seen it here actually. I have played many RPGs in both tabletop and computerized form but the meta-gaming where you are playing the characters who are playing a game appeals to me. That game inside a game idea is called out a number of times throughout the story as various characters break the 4th wall of the story the players are playing through, and even more so when the confines of the game are broken and... well, spoilers and stuff. I don't think the developers would appreciate me giving away the twists and turns of the story.
That story though, is not what kept me playing past the first 15 minutes while I decided if I was willing to put in enough time to play this title through. My favorite part of the game by far was the interactions of the players at the table. They quipped and distracted themselves in the same way as I have experienced with real people at my own kitchen table. They asked if they could invite their friends and talked about ordering pizza. They congratulated each other on good rolls and kicked themselves when they flubbed something. I didn't understand all of the references that were added (something about a beaver who needed to protect his television?) but I did chuckle at many of the easter-egg like puns and clever names. When I am running a game I try to make similar additions. It helps ground me in the world.
Lee told me that he installed the game and played 10 minutes or so but couldn't understand the point. His lack of Pen and Paper gaming is almost guaranteed to be the missing connection here. I say that if you are looking for a quick-ish RPG playthrough and want a call-back to nights spent drinking Mt. Dew in your buddy's basement, this game is well worth your time. A few chuckles, a couple decent quests and just enough story to keep me wondering where it was going to go. Good show, devs. Thanks for this.
Year: 2009
Genre: General
Website: http://www.enviro-bear.com/
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 1.0
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: --/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (5/9/2014): Well... You play a bear. In a car. You have a single paw with which to control direction, acceleration and braking, and vector. Oh boy.
This game is beautiful. It is complexity hidden behind simplicity in a way that makes my scalp tingle. Don't get me wrong, it is a pain in the ass to play and it really shouldn't be rewarded because of that, but so many of it's elements are... well... they are REALLY NEAT.
Things on screen interact with each other. That is what makes it so cool for me. Let me see if I can explain. The plot is simple. Eat enough food to let yourself hibernate before the time runs out and winter descends upon you. (The graphic for this is your screen filling with large white snowballs. Seeing it makes me sad.) Note: There is no food in the car with you when you start. You have to collect the food by running over either ponds or bushes with little red berries. This causes a number of fish or berries, respectively, to drop into your car, presumably through the open sunroof. Dragging those food items in front of your mouth results in them being consumed in the case of the berries and converted into skeletons in the case of the fish.
This brings us to the interaction part. Those skeletons I mentioned? They get in the way. If you drop them on the gas peddle, they will depress it causing acceleration in whichever direction your transmission is set. If they somehow end up underneath the gas peddle they will prevent acceleration and you will have to fish it out (hehe) in order to proceed to a cave to hibernate. It isn't just fish skeletons though. Running into other objects drops other things into your car.
Running into some of the trees will drop badgers into your car's cabin (For some Dada-ish reason.) These angry fuckers will flail around and shift your car, jack with the steering, hit the gas or the break, knock fish or other things out of the car... I actually lost one game because the damn badger pitched my timer out the window. At least I think that is why I lost that one. Could have just been a system crash but I liked the narrative better the other way.
I didn't play this one for all that long. Not yet. It remains to be seen if there is some form of playthrough possible. I hope that there is. Maybe there would be other kinds of food or ... how about a yeti stomping through the forest, playing rugby with the driving bears? (I hope I dream about rugby yetis someday. Please let that be a thing.) I just want to say "Thank you" to whomever created this thing. It was a wonderful distraction from more serious things. It also gave me the strong urge to play some games that are a bit more polished.
Year: 2013
Genre: General
Website: https://www.kabam.com/games/dragons-of-atlantis-heirs
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 25.0
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: 6/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (5/6/2014): I had a weekend. I burned it into this game. I am not sorry.
So it was Friday evening and I was surfing around on Twitter after I remembered that I set up a twitter account a number of years ago. Wil Wheaton was talking about being involved in a video game. "Interesting" I thought... I like Wil Wheaton and I like video games. Do I dare install this thing and maybe end up being disappointed by something to which Wil has attached his name? Well I was sitting on the throne and figured I was going to be there for a few minutes so... why not?
This is one of the category of games that start with a lot of stuff for a user to do. I could occupy myself pretty much constantly for a few hours, setting something to upgrade and waiting the 30 seconds to a minute and a half or so that it took it to update before I could do something else. (Damn you farmville style mechanics... I resisted thinking about this until now. The hours I sunk into that wasteland back in the day...) Things carried along rapidly enough and it seemed that everything I did was in one way or another associated with a "quest" that I was supposed to accomplish. Pretty cool really. The game is set up to reward you for fucking everything. I had to scratch my ass and half expected to see a little "quest completed" dialog pop up.
A light storyline followed me along my journey. Something about dragons and Atlantis and I should come up with jobs for all of these migrant peasants. I trolled along (like the fishing kind, not the "being a dick on the internet" kind) and was actually kind of proud of myself for accomplishing as much as I was. I was even relaxed. I suppose that is one of the better side effects of a good game.
Pretty soon I realized it was taking longer to complete the tasks offered me. I thought about a game with a similar mechanic that I heard about and ever-so-slightly wanted to play. When I set up a task in Dragons that took an hour I installed Dungeon Keeper and played through the introductory rapid reward stuff there at the same time. I then had TWO games patting me on the back for doing simple things! I loved it!
You know what? There isn't anything profound here. I did a bunch of this game. I loved it. I can even see myself leaving it installed and dinking around in this world on occasion, for a few seconds, before I go back to whatever else I was working on. Would I recommend it to someone else? Meh. No, not really. I felt more positively about it than Dungeon Keeper but it still feels like just another entry in a sea of similar gameplay systems. At least with Dungeon Keeper I could recognize the sprites as something from my childhood.
Devs, thanks for this game. It was worth my time and I tossed you a couple bucks to support your efforts. And that is about all I have to say about that.
Year: 2012
Genre: General
Website: http://nekki.com/vector/
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 5.0
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: --/10
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 0.5
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: --/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (4/8/2014): This game has proven well worth my time. I saw it being played by someone on a tablet while flying to New York earlier in the year. It seemed clever and simple. Once I installed it I first thought "So that guy on the plane had an Android tablet? Who has an Android tablet?" Then I found it to be clever and rhythmic, not really as simple as I had originally thought.
The story is something about a dystopian <Editorial note: I typed "distopian" here and Chrome tried to change it to "pianist"... WTF Google?> future and a huge corporation and ... maybe some kind of mind control? Not sure about that last part. But there is some kind of REALLY fit resistance group (I say REALLY fit because have you ever tried to do Parkour stuff? Balls it is exhausting. And hard.) that spends it's time running from the shock troops with tasers. Some of them even get apprehended while helping my character escape. I thought that was pretty noble of them but really didn't know why I was special enough to be sacrificed for. Maybe that is explained in the last chapter.
I have not logged a full playthrough of this game yet. I will keep playing it. Individual levels are not more than a minute or so. Totally playable while on the toilet. <Second editorial note: Lee had selected a pretty boring screenshot for the game when he built the base report for this game. I thought we could do better so I took a stab at grabbing a screen grab during a "special move". The scene: Bathroom, lunch time. Me, sitting in a bathroom cubicle. Other cubicle also occupied. Phone volume at max for whatever reason. What I didn't realize was that taking a screenshot activates the camera sound. Now I am not a shy bathroom person but in this case I felt the need to hide out for an additional minute until the other bathroom patron left as to avoid the required question "what exactly where you taking a picture of in there?"> An additional mechanic popped up after finishing the second zone "industrial park" where I had completed each level with just 1 star. I need 25 stars in this zone to unlock the third zone. I will keep this one around until I manage a full playthrough.
- Lee (4/10/2014): I made a deal with myself after my write-ups for Color Sheep and Bad Hotel that I needed to write a positive review of a game before I tear into another game with more negative opinions. With yesterday's favorable Katamari Damacy entry now up on blog, I feel that I can share some brief thoughts on Vector.
Some positive stuff: The concept of the game is awesome. I loved being able to fly through the air, spin over some obstacles, and dive under others. Fantastic.
And now the negative: I really wanted it to be like a Tony Hawk game, but without the skateboard. I wanted to run around and do cool tricks, perhaps with the goal of maximizing your points for each level, or gathering items during your run, or meeting some other objectives...just like in Tony Hawk games. But in this one, there is some dude chasing you with a taser, so your moves have to be near perfect, else you are dead. And this game has no "Lee Mode" (Easy Mode). After getting killed MANY times on only the third level, I gave up.
That's when I had a discussion with Shane about it. He made a very clever and profound analogy about this game (which I noticed that he didn't mention in his write-up). He said that playing a level in Vector is like learning a song on a musical instrument. You have to learn and practice the nuances of each level/song. Playing doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, but it has to be good enough, otherwise the song sounds like shit...or you get zapped to death by a taser. (I may have paraphrased a bit there...) That is the real power of this video game project. Being able to share some thoughts, both positive and negative, on a particular game with someone can have a profound effect on one's approach to a game and on the gameplay experience itself. Thanks, Shane. I'll probably give this one another spin someday.
Year: 2013
Genre: General
Website: http://www.trinketstudios.com/color-sheep/
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 3.0
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: --/10
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 0.5
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: --/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (3/31/2014): Nope. The premise and controls for this game are simple, but it didn't suck me in. When I'm looking for a mindless game, I don't want one that is going to make me frantically manipulate on-screen controls in order to stay alive, unless there is something intensely clever about it. The wolves can go ahead and eat this sheep.
- Shane (4/10/2014): Lee, I don't share your feeling on this title. I don't expect it to win any awards for execution but I really enjoyed the bit of play I had on it.
A few points:
Easy mode (Lee mode as we have started calling it) is too easy as a result of the overwhelming number of item drops that pollute the gameplay. Of course, I don't really mind this because the hard mode is SO BLOODY HARD that I didn't get much past the first stage. Normal mode has a fine incremental tutorial but even that isn't without issue. I got tired of being directed on how to achieve each color every time I played through. I didn't look exhaustively or check the interblogs but I don't think I should be required to look all that hard to turn off something that is that bloody annoying.
I found this game to be quite rewarding honestly. I like the sheep thing and I like that she fires color-shifting Hadouken style energy blasts out of her face. It is intensely satisfying to reduce an advancing wolf to a skeleton. The two thumb control isn't hard to pick up and there are enough color options and enough patterns that I still don't remember how to get the right kind of Orange...
One detractor (outside of the difficulty) is that there seems to be some kind of reward for blasting more attackers with one blast so I had a natural urge to hold off on my blast until the last moment in case another wolf of the same color came onto the screen. I lost so many games to this. I couldn't get my mind to shift from the "wait for it" mode to the "get the next color" mode fast enough.
I am not quite done with this game yet. I ran through a pile of easy mode and the backgrounds changed around a bit. It kind of looked like something I could call "story progression" though I don't know if there is anything there that I could call an official playthrough.
Color Sheep, you have a bit more time to impress me. If I had a rating for you right now I would rate you a 4.5 up.
- Shane (4/10/2014): Additional note for toady: Color Sheep, after a bit more thought, I don't think that you actually have an end. Your backgrounds stopped changing and frankly, I don't have time to play you any more. Had I made it to 10 hours I would have probably rated you a 5. Maybe a 6... I may install you again when my kid is old enough to care about games but for now, you need to go away to make room for other games. Thank you and goodnight.
Year: 2012
Genre: General
Website: http://www.luckyframe.co.uk/badhotel/
Lee:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 1.0
- Playthroughs: 0
- Rating: --/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Lee (4/7/2014): I have been impressed with many of the games in the Android Humble Bundle packs, including Ridiculous Fishing, Spider, Kingdom Rush, Rymdkapsel, and Zombie Gunship, but this one didn't do anything for me. The premise seemed quirky and full of potential, but after a few rounds of expanding my hotel by haphazardly adding building blocks to it, I decided that the game was pointless. A few months went by, and then I got the urge to give it another chance. Discovering that the weapon blocks didn't generate money was definitely important, but it did very little to increase my excitement for the game. I beat the first set of levels, then got my ass handed to me by a bunch of birds ruthlessly dropping bombs on my hotel. After getting quickly blown up a few times, I tried building a hotel out of gun blocks only (no money generating blocks)...and it worked. What should have been a satisfying troubleshooting success (like the feeling I got each time that I finally selected the right combination of attackers in a Kingdom Rush map), left me only slightly less bored with the game. The next level brought the boredom back with a new combination of blocks and more fucking bomb-dropping birds...or evil, lightning-shooting clouds...or whatever. Uninstalled.
- Shane (4/8/2014): Lee kicked this game in the teeth a bit. I would love to continue the assault on it's character and personality...but I didn't care enough about it to put forth that kind of effort right now. I would LOVE to hear from the developers on what they were up to here and I don't mean to insult anyone who worked on this project... but I really had no reason to care about this one.
- Lee (4/9/2014): Thanks, Shane. I will admit to being a bit pissy a couple days ago when I wrote the initial post. In all fairness, I remembered (too late) the game being referenced somewhere as a rhythm game. Since I usually play these games with the volume off, I didn't get to experience that aspect. Perhaps someday when I have a bit more patience, I'll install it again and see if the music and game sounds add a dose of awesomeness to the gameplay experience...but I probably won't.
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://dogeminer.se
Shane:
- Platform: Browser
- Hours logged: 4.0
- Playthroughs: 2
- Rating: 4/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (2/27/2014): I gave myself a playthrough on this one because I bought all of the upgrades offered. It took me a couple days to accomplish this but the time logged is "active" time.
Dogeminer is a CookieClicker knockoff. I was digging around on one of the dogecoin subreddits and someone posted this. In short, I saw it, played it, smiled a lot and used it to learn a bit more about javascript. I seem to have a weakness for these silly side projects that people throw down. Goes to show you that there is an audience for damn near anything a person wants to make.
Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://dhmholley.co.uk/civclicker.html
Shane:
- Platform: Browser
- Hours logged: 10.0
- Playthroughs: 1
- Rating: 6/10
Notes and Discussions:
- Shane (3/25/2014): I love finding this kind of thing. I played the hell out of Cookie Clicker (also by Ortiel) and Candies Box in the past. This game is in the same mindspace.
It starts with very few options. Summarizing a quickplay would play out about like this:
Click the resource buttons until you can build a hut. Once you have a hut, click more resources until you can buy a worker. Have the worker start collecting resources for you until you can buy more huts and more workers. Keep this up until you can unlock stuff. Build a military when you can. Use that military to invade other towns, gaining you more space to build and more resources.
There are some added quirks. Things like dead bodies need to be buried in graveyards. Graveyards are expensive because they cost herbs, which are a second tier resource which cannot be directly "mined." You have a chance of getting an herb when you get a wood. (Skins work this way with food. Ore works this way with stone.) If you don't bury the dead then your workers will get sick and not produce. If you don't have enough space to build then your people get mad and produce less of whatever function you set them to perform.
The game is one of formulaic balance. It... feels RIGHT to me. I can sit in front of my browser and feel really good that I throw more workers at agriculture so that I can have more workers getting other resources so that I can have more soldiers so that I can raid bigger targets to steal more land to build more houses for more workers... You see the cycle. It makes me feel all warm inside. Like there is an order to the universe. Must be how the faithful feel.
Then we get to the other reason I love these games. They are built with JavaScript. I have an awesome job right now where I get to break things. All day long, I am tasked with breaking things. Software things. High tech things that people poured thought, time, love, and other fluids into and most of the time they are really proud of those things. Given that most of my job involves breaking things on the internet I encounter a lot of JavaScript. Here is the problem: When I started this job, I knew NOTHING about JavaScript.
So then I found these browser games. I play through, learning how the developer intended it to be played. I give it a playthrough, because I owe the creators that, then I dig in and start mucking with the numbers. I use this to learn stuff. And I rejoice! Messing with these games taught me how to use the console in my browsers to track which functions call which variables and where all of this is stored. I had to learn how the DOM was built to know what I was looking at. In order to "cheat" I had to study and that made me powerful... or something.
Uh... Moral is... if you really want to do something, come up with a really good justification. Then do it. And make sure you learn something.
