What's Going On!? The Game of Too Many Excuses

The last two months have been crazy. But it seems like the last two months are always crazy, so I suppose that’s no excuse for having not updated the blog. And despite my effort to make the What’s Going On!? series a more regular thing - it seems I haven’t. But you’ll all forgive me I’m sure, because now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for another What’s Going On!? Roll the excuses ...


The “eXplorminate” eXcuse

One excuse is that I’ve been continuing to write articles for eXplorminate. The first is a nice little Q&A with Starbase Orion developer Rocco Bowling. I’ve written about Starbase Orion before, and in the realm of Master of Orion successors, I think it remains one of the best over the past many years. It is great to see that the game continues to get development and support. I’m keeping my spider-sense alert for news of Starbase Orion 2, which rumor has it is in the works.

I promised in the last What’s Going On!? article that I’d do a proper review of This War of Mine. I’m happy to say that I have accomplished that goal, and there is a review of This War of Mine over at eXplorminate. This War of Mine is 11bit’s amazing war-torn civilian survival game, that is challenging, immersive, and hauntingly grim in a way that few other games manage to accomplish. If you are at all interested in roguelike games or survival-craft games, this is one to definitely check out.

Moving more into the board gaming orbit, I also did a review of Eclipse at eXplorminate, looking primarily at Big Daddy Creations iOS app version. But of course much of the discussion focused around the core gameplay experience, which has much in common with the physical meat-space version of the game. Long story short, I do enjoy Eclipse and think it does an excellent job delivering on its promise. I also happen to enjoy the game MUCH more as a digital app. Many of Eclipse’s downsides (in my opinion) relating to randomness are easier to swallow when I knock out a game in 30 minutes on my ipad compared to being stuck at a table for four hours surrounded by ancients. Anyway, check out the review.

The last bit of eXplorminate activity is a review of Invisible Inc. I mentioned last time that I’d be looking at this title more, and I am so glad that I did. Simply put, Invisible Inc provides the most fun that I have had in a turn-based tactical RPG game in forever. While the strategic side of the game is fairly thin, the stealth-based, net hacking, tactical espionage missions are just awesome. The game blends puzzle-solving, intuition, and strategy into a multi-layered experience where you are constantly having to juggle way too many things: gear, detection, power, unconscious bodies, surveillance, and more. The game’s character and execution is just wonderful as well. The narrative is the weak point of the game, but that shouldn’t stop you from digging in. If you like turn-based tactics game, Invisible Inc gets a giant glowing green light from me.

I have pile of other stuff in the works that will be cross-posted between this blog and eXplorminate, so stay tuned.


The “I Was On Vacation” Excuse

But I was on vacation. Unfortunately, I had to bring along a trunk full of games, and even sadder was that my family and extended relations kept wanting to play games! The audacity!

As I’ve mentioned regularly, my time for playing big boy games has been challenged over the past year or so (two kids does that, especially in light of other responsibilities). But, this means that I’ve increasingly been shifting focus to playing games with my kids (at least with the four year old who doesn’t try to eat all pieces) and my nephews. Here’s the highlight reel of what me and the fam have been up to:

I picked up Mice & Mystics during the summer, using my hard earned father’s day bonus to selflessly purchase a board game “for the kids” instead of buying yet-another-cardboard space-waster for my shelf of unplayed games. My kids/nephews have been enjoying the Mouse Guard graphic novels (as have I), and playing a game set in a similar world seemed like a no brainer, especially in light of their past interest in HeroQuest. Mice & Mystics is pretty great, with a fun story and lots of character. Given its cooperative nature, it makes it easy for me to sheppard things along, and the 4, 5, and 6 year olds have all made it through a number of quests at this point. They really get into it, which is just awesome to see.

Eight Minute Empire: Legends was stuffed into the game trunk as well. I wasn’t sure how well the abstract nature of the game would go over with the kids, but two of them really got into it. It is a testament to the amazing artwork of Designer/Publisher/Artist extraordinaire Ryan Laukat, that the games suckered in the kids so well. The set collection and area control are also very “visual” gauges of your score, which makes the decision making easier. It plays quickly, has plenty of opportunity for strategizing (or can be played more casually). It is among the best of the “high gravity games” that pack a lot of punch in a small box and compressed playtime. I love it, and might pick up the expansion at some point too.

I also have a new budding romance with designer Shadi Torbey and artist Élise Plessis's Oniverse. In particular the solo / coop card games Onirim and Sylvion. I’d like to gush even more about these games later, but I’ll give you the short take here. First of all, I absolutely freaking love the artwork and the whole package for these games. Z-man has done an amazing job of making the act of playing with a deck of cards feel like luxury. Folding open the box inserts is like cracking open a fresh box of chocolate each time. I can’ help myself from drooling.

In terms of Onirim, I’ve probably played well over 100 games over the past few months, most of these with the base game in cooperative mode with my wife. We’ve been playing it a bit in the vein of Hanabi with keeping our table talk to a minimum (which makes it much harder BTW), and it’s been a great experience. We’ve gone from losing almost every game to winning almost every game, which is a nice acknowledgement that skill matters. Still, you can get the bad hand that just doesn’t work. But the game does a great job maintaining tension throughout. I don’t feel a huge need to dive into the expansions, but I’ll probably test the waters more in solo play.

Sylvion is likewise a gorgeous game with a clever set of rules. I’ve played about 6 or 7 games so far, and feel like I’m just scratching the surface. I’ve found it a bit easier than Onirim, so I suspect I’ll be adding the expansions in in short order to ramp up the challenge a bit. Sylvion, for those not in the know, is a pretty slick interpretation of a tower/lane defense type game that are more commonly seen video games - yet the translation to a board game works well in this case.

I picked up Red7 from the illustrious Carl Chudyk. I played a few hands during the vacation with some of the adult types. Unfortunately, the experience confirmed my suspicion that Carl’s games, though simple mechanically in the case of Red7 at least, are really aimed at gamers. There is a certain sort of action planning, look ahead, and mathematical gymnastics that you need to go through to get the most out of his games. If you aren’t inclined towards such things, his games are going to feel dry, flat, confusing, and frustration. Which is the reaction had by most of the table. There is a genius at work in his games, but you have to want to stroke the genius to appreciate it. Ah well...


The “But I Was Glued to my iPad” Excuse

My family, sensing my inner need for games, gifted me some itunes bucks before vacation, so I loaded up my iPad with some new goodies. I tend to stay up way later than the rest of the family (a habit which will probably catch up me in time), which affords me a couple of hours most nights to nerd on out my platform of choice, be it board games or video games.

The first one to mention, and which was recently updated with a free content patch, is Inkle’s 80 Days. This is an absolutely phenomenal game. The game is based on a steampunk interpretation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, but structured as a choose your own adventure style gamebook. Inkle’s Sorcery series (which I also love) cemented their mastery of the digital gamebook, and 80 Days is no exception. In 80 Days, you assume the role of valet for the preeminent Mr. Fogg, tasked with principally with tending to the luggage and securing travel arrangements. Sounds dry, but it is so rich. The narrative and writing is superb, and there are a plethora of decisions to make in planning your route and finding opportunities to sell collected items for a profit, earning funds to continue the adventure. The game drew me in quickly and didn’t let go until I finally collapsed into a heap. If you are at all interested in digital game books, this is one to try.

In a nod to board gaming, I grabbed Battlelore: Command, a fantasy game based on the Command & Colors wargame system. The app is nicely done with great visuals and solid gameplay. I played a number of missions and they can be quite challenging. I’d love to see this game expanded with additional content though.

I have a pile of other iOS games I’ve been dabbling with, in no particular order:

- Warhammer 40,00: Deathwatch (meh, I liked Hunters 2 far more)
- Spacecom (cool slow-time RTS 4X game)
- Battlestaion: Harbinger (ship/fleet building roguelike thing, sorta like FTL, okay)
- Xenowerk (top down action RPG, meh)
- Space Marshals (top down action RPG, humorous, looks promising)
- Galactic Keep (sounds awesome on paper, haven’t played yet!)

I’ll write up more on these eventually. But not just yet.

Last, but not least, is Organ Trail. No, I’m not talking about the game Oregon Trail, the pioneer themed game that you played during grade school in some dilapidated computer lab. This is Organ Trail, the zombie themed game that you can play right now on iOS or Android in your very own home. Organ Trail has you loading up a station “wagon“ (wood siding and all) to embark on your very own cross-country adventure amidst the crescendo of a zombie apocalypse. It will all feel very familiar. Jenny got bit by a zombie. Joey has dysentery. Your wagon broke a tire. You need more bullets. You’re running out of food. And so on. If you like Oregon Trail, and you like zombies and station wagons, then take a look at Organ Trail. It’s really the same thing, but with Zombies. And it’s still just as good.


The “Buried Under Too Many Heavy Games” Excuse

This next excuse has to do with all the big grand games I’ve been playing recently. It’s ghastly to think about it. But I feel like I’m in a golden age for the sorts of games I like to play. And while the menu seems to be growing by the day, there is still the unpleasant task of separating the wheat from the chaff. So let’s get on with the drudgery.

Say what you will, but the 4X video game sphere is undergoing a period of galactic inflation. The number of games coming out that let you play emperor, dictator, or supreme peacemaker continues to grow and with more on the way. Earlier this year I had a chance to play around quite a bit with two often confused game: Star Ruler 2 and StarDrive 2. The former is a real-time 4X game with a number of inventive and clever mechanics, particularly around the concepts of creating resource networks between planets and the card-based diplomacy system. In practice, I found the game a bit too dry and cumbersome to convince me to continue with it, which is a shame because I love the ideas behind it.

The latter, StarDrive 2, is a turn-based reworking (for lack of a better term) of the often criticized original StarDrive. As a point of comparison, SD2 is about the closest we have to a modern Master of Orion 2 game, and it is really quite close to the mark. Except that it isn’t. It seems to have all the right pieces in place for an exceptional experience, but it needs a lot more tweaking and refinement to get the systems working better and to make the gameplay more challenging and varied. It looks good on paper but overstays its welcome quickly when you start playing. Still, it has an awesome ship builder, great visuals, and might be worth a shot. An expansion is in the works, which if coupled with improvements to the base gameplay, could turn this into a great title.

I’ve also put myself up to checking out Sovereignty: Crown of Kings, on behalf of eXplorminate. The game is still in early access, but it feels a bit like a streamlined fantasy version of Paradox’s grand strategy magnus opus Europa Universalis. I’ve never been able to get into Europa, as I just don’t have the attention span to wade through all the numbers and figure out the various systems. If I could figure it all out, I’m sure I’d love it. Oh have I tried. In contrast, Sovereignty takes many of the same ideas but keeps it all at higher more abstract level, and I can dig that. It also has a tactical battle system that feels very wargame-y (in a good way), a magic system (why not?), a slick agent/espionage system (yes!), and tons of diplomacy options (naturally). I need to give this one more time on the front burner, but so far it feels like something I could really dig into.

Then there is Thea: The Awakening, another early access title that has been generating some buzz for its unique combination of settlement management, strategy RPG, roguelike elements, and survival-craft. Here again, I need to spend more time with the game, as on paper it sound exactly like something with the potential to consume me. But in the short time I’ve played with it, I found it overly fiddly and detailed in a way that threw up too many roadblocks between me and the unfolding narrative. But my experience is limited and the game is still in early access, so anything is possible. I’ll be playing this more and watching its development closely.


The “Just One More Run” Excuse

My appreciation of roguelike games (and games with roguelike elements) continues to blossom. I’ve got something more specific in the works about this, but until then I’ll share a little about the games I’ve been fawning over.

Darkest Dungeon. I bit the hook and grabbed Darkest Dungeon. I told myself to wait. I told myself that it will be better when it’s all done. I said I’d never do it. But I did. I lied to myself. I bought the game. And not since I and a close friend had an entire movie theater to ourselves, where we watched nothing other than Van Helsing while screaming and swinging our fists in the air, has a game got me so pumped. Maybe it has something to do with its Van Helsing-ish mixture of Sleepy Hollow meets Lovecraft at the gates of hell (to name a few of my favorite things). But whatever it is, developer Red Hook Studios has got it. The game’s atmosphere (especially its amusingly dark narration) is just perfect for setting the stage for the grisly operation you will be running. Essentially, you have the pleasure of managing a hero mill. Heroes come to town, literally by the stage coach, and you feed them into the maw of various dungeons on your way towards unlocking the darkest of dungeons. Heroes are far more likely to come back from the pits a broken shell of their former selves, afflicted by disease, psychosis, and other crippling ailments. So you send them off to the sanitarium while you get the next load of fresh meat ready for the ginder. This all sounds awful, but I assure you it isn’t. Check it out.

Crypt of the Necrodancer. A friend of mine recently got married, and so we did the bachelor party thing of gathering up as many canoes, kayaks, rafts, coolers, and beers that we could to float down a river as far as it would take us. Curiously, the river ended up, somehow, at my house where I, somehow, had Crypt of the Necrodancer cued up, somehow, on the “big screen.” Crypt is a roguelike with a twist, which is that everything moves to the beat of the completely outrageous techno music that constitutes the game’s high-energy soundtrack. The game is funny, hard, and silly. And it features local co-op, making it an ideal candidate for hanging out with a bunch of jolly friends, keeping the good times rolling after a raucous day on the river. It’s also a pretty damn fun game on its own.

The Flame in the Flood. I just started in on this one. But it plays nicely into my theory that Oregon Trail was one of the first roguelike games. In the Flame in the Flood, you are tasked with navigating your way down a river in a flooded world. The river navigation sequences are eerily reminiscent of the final river stage in Oregon Trail. The rest of the game has you stopping at islands and scavenge around for various craftable materials, used to keep yourself nourished, hydrated, warm, and healthy. The game is still in early access, and the story/campaign mode is not in place yet. So right not it is a “how long can you last” type game. What is present, however, is well produced and engaging. But the game is also HARD. Whether it is too hard or not (for me) remains to be seen, but it’s a cool game nonetheless.

Massive Chalice. The games keep coming! I picked this one up too, and have been tinkering with it a bit. I’m not sure that it is all it’s cracked up to be, although I’m enamored enough with the idea of it that I’ll keep playing. Essentially, the game marries a tactical RPG combat game with a lineage management sim. As a sort nebulous overlord figure, you establish various royal houses and arrange various marriages that will lead to the birthing of various offspring that you can train and deploy in the various tactical combats that you will be variously called upon to conduct. It’s a nice execution, with a reasonable balance of detail in the systems. But I’m not sure how much variety there is over the course of the game, even with all the various things mentioned above.

Almost done. Hang on.


The “Bitten by Nostalgia” Excuse

In an earlier blog post, the one about old school FPS games, I reminisced about Doom and Quake. That reminiscing has led me down a rabbit hole of actually playing these old gems again. Not only that, in the case of Quake (one of my all-time favorite games), I’ve put myself through the horror of getting my own multiplayer server running. This has been a total cluster-f^&k operation that has culminated in me learning more than I ever knew there was to know in the first place about home networking, DNS servers, flashing router firmware, and the command prompt. But I overcame.

More horrifying is that I successfully convinced many of my local friends to dig out their ancient copies of Quake and join with me and the Dark Lord Sauron on the server, that we may rekindle long-extinguished flames. And it happened! A number of us have been playing Quake deathmatch across the trove of custom levels I’ve collected. I even went nuts and started to re-catalogue the 100’s of maps I have. Take a peep at if you dare.

Last, I’ll mention a game I’ve been playing a bit that has captivated me in a number of ways. The nostalgic way is that mechanically, the game plays like a japanese-style RPG, reminding me of playing final fantasy on my Nintendo. The aesthetic way is that the art direction, soundtrack, and narrative is just amazingly well done. The third way is that I’ve been playing the game with my daughter, who seems as enamored with it as I am. The game is Child of Light, and among other things is a nice case study for the kinds of creative design and execution is possible from a AAA studio with a AAA budget when unshackled from the usual AAA constraints.

Child of Light is a side-scrolling adventure RPG about a young princess trapped in a sort of fairyland dreamworld, on a quest to free her bed-stricken father from a comatose state. The overarching story isn’t terribly original, but it is presented in a very touching manner and all of the text is structured to a rhyme and meter. The game world feels like this wonderful little mystery box that you get to explore the nooks and crannies of, and my daughter loves flying Aurora (the protagonist) around and looking at things. It’s like a picture book. There are even some local co-op features built in so that we can play together. And finally, the sound track. I’ve listened to the soundtrack so many times on YouTube, especially when I’m working. I don’t know what it is about it, but it beckons to me. Check out the video below, and see if Child of Light beckons to you as it does to me.

Cheers!