Labyrinthine Dreams

Labyrinthine Dreams by Solest Games is an RPG Maker-game that was Kickstarted in 2013 and released in May of 2014. It's a short game so I will only write a short review.

The huge selling point of this game is the story. The fully voiced tragedy is narrated by the protagonist, Beth, as well as her father. Between the story segments are puzzle elements that are almost as disconnected to the rest of the game as the puzzles in To The Moon. The game could have just as well shipped without them, but to be called and sold as a game you have to have some form of game mechanism, I guess.

If you like the aforementioned To The Moon and are looking for a short gaming snack, that nets you about 40-60 minutes of game time, then I can recommend this game.

Rating: Two pointless puzzles

(Not so) Mini Metro

This one surprised me a bit. Mini Metro by Dinosaur Polo Club is a minimalistic subway layout game.

It's a pure strategy title and by fully embracing their limits it does everything right. The goal is simple, transporting little passenger blocks to their desired stations. The UI is simple, dragging subway paths along the stops and adding carts on existing lines. At the start of every week you can choose between one of two upgrades. That's basically it. The depth? Surprisingly complex. With the ever increasing number of stations that you have to connect to your network and the ability to add new lines, the game gets ever more challenging. To solve this you can choose many different strategies, and even derive from real world subways. Star shaped, circle, checkerboard? Everything is possible (though not always efficient).

The game is still in development and lacks certain important features, such as sound. If you don't mind you can buy it on Steam Greenlight right now! Otherwise it is planned to be released in November 2014.

Rating: 5 waiting passengers

Chant Elise

Fourth? Third game: Chantelise

This game was released in 2006 by EasyGameStation at Comiket in Japan. The same group that made Recettear An Item Shop's Tale. It was translated and brought to Steam by Carpe Fulgur in 2011.

In this game you play a little anime girl with her fairy sidekick sister. You adventure through dungeons, defeating enemies with sword and magic attacks. Of course this reminds you of Zelda and it plays a bit like one. It focuses much more on combat though, akin to a Ys-type of game. The game features a blend of 2D sprites in a 3D world, which works surprisingly well. I had some issues with aiming in the beginning, but that worked itself out after a while.

The magic system is the central part of the gameplay. You use different colored gems to cast fire, water, wind and earth spells. These gems are used in the order you pick them up from the ground, but when you hold the cast button longer you use up to three gems at once. This way various different colored gems can be combined and produce different spells. This make for quite the deep system and keeps the combat interesting. Fuck earth though. Those gems are worthless.

There are no levels, so you only improve through your items. This makes the game faster and removes the grind you have in typical JRPGs. Upon death a Game Over screen pops up, but you just respawn at the town, which makes dying forgiving. That is needed though, because you will die a lot.

I actually had a lot of fun with the story, especially the characters. I don't know if it is thanks to the translation or source, but there are some really funny lines in there. I recommend this game, if you like some oldschool dungeoning.

Rating: four anime fairies.

No-ir Syndrome

The second game I completed is Noir Syndrome by Glass Knuckle Games. It's a detective game where you search for clues to find out who 'the killer' is. The pixel art and noir setting fit perfectly and the soundtrack is a delight. Its twist is that it's procedurally generated, so there are an infinite number of cases. It feels very much like the table-top game clue which is also explicitly added as its own mini game. After playing for a good 100 minutes it does start to feel quite repetitive though. There are random occurrences like a hitman being hired to kill you, but it happens so regularly that it doesn't feel exciting anymore. There are lots of achievements to be gained, like killing a certain number of people during a run or picking a certain number of locks, but I am not an avid achievement hunter so this is not something that would keep me playing.

In the end I have to say that this game is actually pretty fun (and difficult) and a very interesting take on the detective genre.

I rate this game two fedoras.

Diehard-ly Dungeon

Alright!

Even though I have mostly played Star Wars: KotoR this week, the first game I finished is Diehard Dungeon. I played for about an hour and a half in two gaming sessions. This isn't long enough to grasp the finer points for most games, especially rogue-like dungeon crawlers. But I have quite the list to go through so I will deem it enough.

Diehard Dungeon is created by Tricktale and got on Steam via Greenlight. The latest update was on August 6 2014 with version 1.6.5. It's a procedurally generated dungeon crawler with rogue-like elements, meaning if you die you have to start over. You start with a knife and a "hand-cannon" which can be upgraded with various features and stat boosts. You can also find items like a shield which blocks some attacks for a while, but there is no equipment hoarding, unlike Diablo for example.

The gameplay looks as follows; you enter a randomly generated room, find a switch, key or certain enemy that unlocks the next door, and proceed to next room. Along the way a trail of quirky enemies may or may not try to remove the hearts from your chests. You defeat these with a combat feeling like a mix of early Zelda and Binding of Isaac. You will not only encounter lots of enemies, but also lots of treasure. Luckily you are followed by a sentient 'companion chest' which stores all your riches and which powers rise with the amount of gold stored in it. Probably. There lies the problem with Diehard Dungeon. It doesn't explain a whole lot. There is a tutorial in the beginning, but barely any game mechanics are discussed. Every once in a while the chest 'levels up' and changes color, but that's it. After a couple of levels you enter a stairwell and can decide between a 'dungeon' and an 'underground' level. One of which is in red and has a skull next to its name. I have no idea what any of that means, but the game doesn't tell you either. The levels seem similar, with the skull levels being more difficult obviously. Once in a while you encounter a boss room, which has a pumped up enemy with special skills, like teleportation or deploying mines. A health meter would be a good addition here, because on my first encounter I wasn't sure if I did any damage at all or if I had to destroy all lamps on the walls to defeat it. (You don't, just attack until it's dead.)

Despite these problems, I had fun with the game. And not explaining everything and leaving some things for the player to figure him/herself, is actually something I would like to see more. Not necessarily to this degree, but it can be a good thing.

If you like Dungeons of Dredmor, Izuna or other rogue-likes, but would rather not fiddle with equipment, classes and skills, then this game is for you.

Two stars

The First Step

    “And those who are brave shall choose Roulette, or perhaps Roulette shall choose them.  And those brave shall not look away from the wheel in fear as thy ball bounces, for wherever it may land.  Destiny.  And whatever the outcome, the true gamblers, of which Roulette is their game, will trudge forward on the green, number felt, which is their battlefield.”

The ball is spinning, rien ne va plus. 

First game:

Chantelise - A Tale of Two Sisters

    "If you ain't just a little scared when you enter a casino, you are either very rich or you haven't studied the games enough." ~VP Pappy

Second game:

Diehard Dungeon

    “The Roulette table pays nobody except him who keeps it. Nevertheless, a passion for gaming is common, though a passion for keeping Roulette wheels is unknown.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Third game: 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Now that is a lucky draw. I'm not sure how the last one will fare on a modern system, but I'll do my best to get it running. (With the help of PCGamingWiki)

Until then.

= T

Let's start this hike

I'm standing in front of this mountain I will refer to as K1. Feeling excited for the accomplishments ahead, but also afraid, because I know it will be a long journey. 

Of course this mountain didn't arise out of thin air. It began on December 6th, 2011. The day I bought my first indie game bundle. The Humble Introversion Bundle; six games all in one neat package. And you are even helping charity! I put hours upon hours into Dungeons of Dredmor, a game I still hold in the highest regard. I tried Darwinia, the classic I had heard so much about. And I looked at the tech demos they offered, as well as reading forum posts about their development.

But this bundle came with Steam keys. Steam. This abhorrent DRM service that locks you out of your games if you don't have an internet connection, right? Yeah. Well they also have TF2 which I had played for half a year at that point, so I already had an account anyway. I activated the keys and all went well. Until a month later the next Humble Bundle started with even better games and more keys. Of course I grabbed that one too.

Back then we had a month or two of rest between them, but the Humble Bundles were so successful that many 'competitors' started appearing. At first Indie Royale with more underground titles, but also one or two Steam keys. Then Indie Gala, which offered more bottom-of-the-barrel quality games, but made up with quantity. And that's all I started caring about at this point. I had gotten so many games that the library list had a scroll bar. And every week I added a handful more.

It only got 'worse' from there. Holiday sales, Groupees, Bundle in a Box, Bundle Stars, and LazyGuys showed me all of these awesome deals I would be missing out on, if I didn't buy them right now. And of course almost all of these games were left unplayed. Spending so much of my time on reading about and getting the best deals didn't leave much time for gaming. I wasn't even interested in most of my purchases. 

At the 500 mark I said, "stop". I thought this had gone on for long enough and I should play my games before buying even more. As you can see this worked out just fine. I did play more, but the buying didn't stop. And even though I didn't spend as much time on researching deals, the world of bundles had accommodated. A subreddit about GameDeals presented all important sales in one spot and updated within minutes of a new bundle launch. IsThereAnyDeal.com monitored my wishlist and emailed me whenever a game was on sale somewhere. Everything was so easy. 

I had traded with Team Fortress 2 crate keys before, but during the last Steam Summer Sale I went all out. I traded the key items for games bought in regions where Steam sold them for half price, like Russia or Ukraine. Once I had enough reputation I bought hundreds of Dollars worth of keys back from these dealers at an even cheaper price than the market. Only to spend them on even more games. And all the time I felt like I was profiting so much. Of course in the end I didn't make a cent, but that was never the goal. 

Recently I cracked the 1,000 mark. 1K. The mountain. My profile says I'm a Game Industry Guardian. I've heard there are about 3,000 games on the Steam store. Which means I own one third of all the games that are being sold there. SteamDB says my account is worth $11,204.94, which of course is hugely inflated, but it's still telling me something. 703 of my games have never run once. 

And that is about to change. I will set some strict rules on my buying behavior and some not so strict rules on my playing behavior:

1. I cannot buy a game or bundle until I have finished three games. 
2. I cannot buy a game that has not been on my wishlist for at least two weeks.
3. I cannot buy a game that has a demo unless I have finished said demo.

1. I will choose three games per week that I'm allowed to play.
2. If I have finished a game or have played at least 1 hour of a game I don't like, this game will be removed from my list and I can add another game so I'm back to 3.
3. After completing a game I may write a note of success and a review on this blog.
4. This excludes multiplayer should a friend ask me to play with them.

The method to choose these games will likely be steamroulette.net, but I'm very open to suggestions. 

I hope this project will be a successful one and I can finally get a grip on my library and my own spending behavior. While doing so I hope I can entertain a few readers with game reviews and other articles about gaming. In any case, K1, you are going down!

= T.

Fun Fact: If I had all my games in those classic dvd cases (15mm thick), they would stack about 15 meters high (according to wolframalpha that's a 5-story building).