Robert Rees

  • I started playing Backbone again this week, it’s pixel noir art style is unique and the background details of the lives being lived parallel to the story is a delightful exercise in minimalist storytelling.

  • Card-game design crossovers

    It’s interesting to see the crossover in card games between computer implementations and physical games. I started to read through the Dark Souls card game rules and I felt that I’d like to actually play a digital version of it and avoid the hassle of having to setup the cards, boards and tokens.

    The encounter and treasure draws felt like the loot tables in Slay the Spire, which has done so much to popularise card metaphors for computer games and I wondered whether it is easier to prototype games as physical or digital versions of themselves.

    All of this made me wonder why I actually bought the game in the first place and I think it came from a different time in a way. When something that could be played with multiple real players and solo sounded great whereas now if you think you are mostly going to be doing things solo then there is a real question as to why you wouldn’t just take the digital version of it.

  • Slay the Spire on the Switch

    I have been searching for a new game that fits the drop-in and drop-out nature of the Switch after hitting a tricky section of Hyperlight Drifter. I tried Curious Expedition but that is a punishing game that doesn’t really have sections beyond a whole expedition. The lack of real carryover between plays also feels a bit flat.

    The thing that has ended up hitting the spot is Slay the Spire. Pausing in a fight is quite disruptive but otherwise you can have all these choices about the next room, merchant purchases, campfires that are easy to stop at and to come back and parse easily.

    Your clear goal to clear each section means its easy to play a bit and then pick it up again later.

    Unlocking the characters and other bits of the game gives a shape across multiple runs and helps blunt the pain when you resume the game and fluff it as you can’t remember what strategy you were using to shape your deck.

  • I started playing Behold the Kickmen (interview with the developer) today. It’s a satire on football and football manager style games built over the framework of a surprisingly satisfying version of Sensible Soccer.

  • I started playing Pillars of Eternity 2 properly today. The core of the game is all very familiar from the first but it was lovely to see the stealth system overhauled to introduce sense radiuses and sight cones. I was also quite interested to see the scrolling map as well rather than the location to location point movement which was originally in Baldur’s Gate.

  • Mini Healer

    I played Mini Healer yesterday for the first time (you can play a free web-based iteration of the game which feels like a prototype but is mechanically complete). It takes a single aspect of the raid sub-game of MMORPGs and distills into a cute pixel art realtime resource manager.

    You manage a party of fantasy MMO archetypes: tank, physical damage, magical damage and of course the eponymous healer. You choose which boss monster you are going to take on and then the party automatically attacks and generates damage, like an idle game, while you as the player uses the healer’s abilities to keep everyone alive and manage any persistant effects on the party or the boss.

    At the start, the rewards are fast flowing in the forms of experience, new abilities, unlockable talent trees and stat-boosting items. Defeating a boss also unlocks a new one, while there are harder variations of the old bosses you can opt to take on.

    A fight is quick and takes about the same time as figuring out how to apply the rewards to your party. It’s casual roots are apparent and therefore the game is a delight to dip into.

    It looks like the development team are also keep an open project management Trello which is an interesting read.

    I’m really glad I picked this one up and I can’t help but feel it would be awesome on the Switch as well.

  • I’m not sure what is sillier, playing Pandemic: Legacy in a pandemic or the April twist. I had been enjoying the challenge of having the legs kicked from out of conventional winning strategies but the fantasy has left me a bit cold.

  • The Lost Farmer

    I had a strangely effecting piece of emergent storytelling in my latest play of Skyrim. I met a farmer, a dark elf, who annoyed at his treatment by the Nords said he was going to join the Legion.

    Only he wasn’t, he was heading in the opposite direction towards the stronghold of the rebellion.

    Weirdly I keep thinking about this aggrieved farmer and what his backstory could be.

  • I thought that Witcher 3 on the Switch would be an awesome combination of form factor and game. I’m finding the controls extremely untuitive though, at one point instead of galloping off I found myself mounting and dismounting Roach repeatedly. All it’s made me want to do so far is return to playing Skyrim

  • There is something satisfying on a primate level about Death Stranding being, at some level, a game about throwing your poo at ghosts.

  • Death Stranding: first hours

    I started playing Death Stranding and I like the whole walking simulator feel to things. I still don’t understand the Kojima approach to stealth though. While the BB system is much clearer than MGS there have been a few times when the scanner looks like it is identifying something behind me when something then materialises in front of me.

    Connecting the outposts it pretty satisfying as is the idea that essentially you don’t fight you just run.

  • Days Gone: Rescues gone bad

    Failed to understand the hostage icons and threw a pipebomb into an execution, killing everyone.

    Stopped to save someone trapped in a car. Forgot about the horde that were barrelling down the hill after me turning the survivor into a canned meal.

  • Days Gone: No nice guys (except when there are)

    I was kind of admiring Days Gone for having two equally unlikeable survivor camps.

    Initially I was sending survivors I encountered to Hot Springs as I deeply disliked the militia camp. Then I came to see Hot Springs as basically a labour camp and started sending people to the militia on the basis that at least some concept of individual liberty was central to the camp.

    I was getting to the point where I almost wanted to say to some of the people I was rescuing: just stay in the car, it’s safer. But probably doing forced labour is still kind of better than being eaten alive or executed by thieves.

    And then just as I was admiring the way the game was forcing me to make some pretty unpalatable choices a new camp was revealed. Iron Mike might have some dark secrets but I’m guessing the fact that there are several different personalities with different points of view in the camp mean this is the one I’m meant to be rooting for.

    I would like to have that expectation subverted though.

  • I finally understand enough how Dead Cells works enough to consistently run through the first level and get the speed bonus. The cell reward for a fast completion is substantial and being able to get ~25 cells in around a minute means that buying improvements is a lot easier.

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