March 21, 2024 - Day 446 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 481

Game: Dead In Vinland

Platform: Steam
Released: Apr 13, 2018
Installed: Jan 10, 2020
Unplayed: 1532d (4y2m11d)
Playtime: 103m

Dead In Vinland is a 2D resource management & survival game with some roguelike elements.

A Viking family barely escapes a raid on their village. Mum, dad, daughter, and mum's sister-in-law escape in the raider's boat, and find themselves shipwrecked on an island.

I played through one entire loop of the game, from landing on the island until one of the characters died.

Once on the island, you need to send out the characters to explore the island, build things, gather food & water, as well as managing their encampment, and upgrading it.

Each character has five categories to manage: Fatigue, illness, hunger, dehydration, and depression.

Occasionally the camp will be raided, which leads to a turn-based combat stage.

The dialogue is incredibly hit-and-miss, with the angsty Viking teenager being more like a 21st century teenager in the way she talks to the other characters.

The game ends if one of the character's five status meters hits 100%, and the teenager unalived herself when her depression unexpectedly spiked before I could find anything to try and offset it during exploration.

The gameplay loop was just enough to keep me going, but the narrative was so disheartening, that playthough of Dead In Vinland was enough to push me from "meh" to:

1: Nope

March 7, 2024 - Day 432 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 467

Game: Conglomerate 451

Platform: Steam
Released: Feb 20, 2020
Installed: Aug 17, 2022
Unplayed: 568d (1y6m19d)
Playtime: 18m

The store page for Conglomerate 451 describes it like this: "... a grid-based, dungeon crawling first-person RPG with roguelike elements set in a cyberpunk world."

Grid-based, dungeon-crawler RPG with a cyberpunk aesthetic, and roguelike elements... sure.

It's technically first-person, but most first-person games don't have a fixed camera and snap turns, leading into turn-based combat encounters.

It cribs from a whole lot of different game genres, and then kind of mashes them up in a way that feels like it's less than the sum of its parts.

Unfortunately, it feels like it's not quite sure what kind of game it wants to be, so tries to be all of them, and fails to achieve any of them.

Don't even get me started on the giant twin ventilation fans on the sides of buildings that look almost exactly like a graphics card twin-fan cooler.

Conglomerate 451 is a:

1: Nope

February 20, 2024 - Day 416 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 452

Game: Niche - a genetics survival game

Platform: Steam
Released: Sep 15, 2016
Installed: Feb 1, 2024
Unplayed: 19d
Playtime: 18m

Niche - a genetics survival game is a top-down hex-tile turn-based strategy game with roguelike elements.

The single player game opens with a cutscene of a kitten-like animal being stolen from its family by a bird of prey. In mid-air, the kitten scratches the bird, and is dropped, where it wakes up alone on an island.

Your goal is to get back to your family... in a manner of speaking. "Adam" will only survive 14 days (unless injured), and so needs to find a partner, and mate, with Adam's descendants eventually finding their way "home".

At this point I was already on the verge of tears, and learning of the gameplay pushed me over the edge.

It might have been recoverable if the gameplay had been better, but it's just clunky. Adam died within a few days on my first run, because of how clunky the UI is, and in trying to climb onto a rock in the water, it was unclear that would, in fact, leave Adam in deeper water, taking damage.

On the second run I did a bit better, but found the whole thing just a little bit too clunky and complicated.

Niche - a genetics survival game is just a bit:

2: Meh

February 18, 2024 - Day 414 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 450

Game: Iris and The Giant

Platform: Steam
Released: Feb 28, 2020
Installed: Feb 2, 2024
Unplayed: 16d
Playtime: 27m

Iris and The Giant is 2.5D RPG/roguelike/deckbuilder. It's kind of hard to pigeonhole.

You play as Iris, and the game is an exploration of her mental health and struggles with anxiety. Cut-scenes that start to flesh out the backstory can be triggered during battles.

As deckbuilders go, it's quite unique, and the game has a certain melancholy air to it.

Iris and The Giant is:

4: Good

February 13, 2024 - Day 409 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 445

Game: Oaken

Platform: Steam
Released: Jul 21, 2023
Installed: Feb 13, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 17m

Rating: 3 - OK

Oaken is an isometric hex-based tactical roguelike deck-building strategy game. It's game 7 in this month's Humble Choice Bundle.

Oaken is very pretty, but I'm not sure I could explain the storyline, even if I tried. You're some kind of spirit making your way down an oak tree, through various battles, and building out your deck in the process.

If you're a roguelike fan, Oaken is:

3: OK

January 6, 2024 - Day 371 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 406

Game: Roguebook

Platform: Steam
Released: Jun 18, 2021
Installed: Jan 6, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 28m

Rating: 4 - Good

Roguebook is an isometric roguelike deckbuilder using hex-based gameplay mechanics. It's game five in the January Humble Choice bundle.

The game has an impressive opening animation that leads you to the "Roguebook". You are trapped in the titular Roguebook, and need to gain brushes and ink to reveal what's hidden in the blank hex tiles on the page as you attempt to reach an exit.

Each of the inks do differing things, with some revealing smaller and larger areas around you, and some revealing (n) tiles in a straight line.

In the uncovered tiles you will find gold stashes, locations where you can donate gold to craft a card, basic & elite fights that provide the brushes and ink.

One of the more interesting things about the game is that Richard Garfield was involved in the development; his name may not ring a bell unless you're familiar with another game he created, a little tabletop game called "Magic: The Gathering".

I'm not a big deckbuilder fan, but so far Roguebook seems to be:

4: Good

November 15, 2023 - Day 319 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 338

Game: BPM: Bullets Per Minute

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Sep 16, 2020
Installation Date: Nov 15, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 16m

BPM: Bullets Per Minutes is a rhythm-based FPS roguelike. I discovered BPM when I was reading about Metal Hellsinger, and added it to my wishlist.

Joke was on me. Turns out I already owned it.

After the 250Mbps fibre was installed today, I went looking through my unredeemed Steam keys list, and spotted BPM. "Ooooh! I'll install that!"

While this has the same basic concept as Metal Hellsinger, it plays very differently.

Instead of raiding hell, you're a Valkyrie raiding randomly generated Viking-esque dungeons, rendered in an eyewatering, almost monochromatic colour palette.

You also absolutely MUST fire on the beat, or the gun just doesn't fire. Even on easy mode, the mobs hit hard. Each hit does 25% damage.

You walk into a darkened room that may or may not have a wild number of mobs in it, and you run around trying to make out where you're going, and not get hit.

If you're unlucky, there's a boss in the room, who might completely blind you for a moment... and then you're dead.

Ultimately, it was the graphics that killed it for me. I would probably persevere if I could easily make out what I'm shooting at against the backgrounds, but it just becomes too much work, particularly when there are a lot of mobs on screen.

I really wanted to like this game, but unfortunately, BPM: Bullets Per Minute is another:

1: Nope

#BPM #BulletsPerMinute
#FirstPerson #Rhythm #FPS #Roguelike #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365
#NewPlay

November 1, 2023 - Day 305 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 324

Game: Cryptark

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 21, 2017
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 11d
Playtime: 21m

Cryptark is a 2D pixel-art roguelike sci-fi shooter.

You're the away team in a salvage crew, in which you enter procedurally generated ships, destroy armed defences to make your way to the AI brain controlling each ship, within a time limit.

Your attack-suit-mech is heavily armed, and you'll pick up various upgrades along the way.

It's apparently a twin-stick as well, but I played with mouse and keyboard.

I'm pretty wiped out, but even so, it's another of those games that if I was in the right mood I might take another shot at it.

Cryptark is:

3: OK

September 28, 2023 - Day 271 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 291

Game: Void Bastards

Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 29, 2019
Installation Date: Sep 25, 2022
Unplayed: 369d (1y4d)
Playtime: 19m

Void Bastards is a cel-shaded FPS roguelike, in which you play a reconstituted criminal, raiding successive space stations to collect spare parts on behalf of the AI controlling your stranded prison ship, so that it can be repaired, until you die. At which point you'll be replaced by another reconstituted criminal to continue the job.

Literally reconstituted, as it seems that in this universe, prison means being freeze-dried and powdered and placed into storage.

Each space station presents different challenges to overcome, while trying to collect parts, food, and fuel (to make it to the NEXT space station). You're also collecting equipment to build yourself upgrades, while trying not to get dead, but at least upgrades survive each death.

The next couple of weeks of reviews will probably be pretty short, while I'm on leave.

Void Bastards is:

3: OK

#VoidBastards #FPS #Roguelike #MastodonGaming #Gaming
#Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

September 27, 2023 - Day 270 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 290

Game: Tunche

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 3, 2021
Installation Date: Aug 9, 2023
Unplayed: 50d (1m19d)
Playtime: 21m

Tunche is 3D-ish brawler/roguelike set in the Amazon jungle.

Playing as one of five characters (one of whom appears to be Hat Kid from A Hat In Time??), each with their own backstory and reasons for being there, you attempt to make your way through the jungle, wildly mashing buttons and brawling with whatever pops out of the repetitive jungle screen to clear levels and collect whatever pops up.

No matter how I tried, I couldn't mash the right buttons in the right order, and even though I made it through all the way to the first boss, I got mashed by the boss, and didn't feel any desire to try again.

Tunche isn't really my thing, just a bit:

2: Meh

#Tunche #Brawler #Roguelike #MastodonGaming #Gaming
#Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay