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Games, Game Reviews

Interstellar Space: Genesis (PC) Review

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Developer/Publisher: Praxis Games || Overall: 8.5/10

“4X” games always take a while to digest. Before realizing it was a whole genre unto itself with a fancy name, I used to refer to these games as “like Sid Meier’s Civilization.” While Interstellar Space: Genesis isn’t unlike Civilization, it definitely stands on its own with a couple of interesting game systems in regards to combat.

The goal of the genre is to eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate; that’s where the “4X” comes from. These games typically revolve around establishing an empire, expanding outward, gathering resources, and defending against others who are doing the same. Where it gets interesting is the interactions between all of the empires; the ground rules only make up “half” of what is interesting about any particular 4X game. ISG certainly draws on predecessors in this genre, and is fairly similar to how Stellaris treats solar systems with planets, asteroid belts, outposting, etc. You’ll mostly be making ships that land on another planet and establish your colony or exploit the resources. Establishing treaties with other empires, researching/stealing technologies, negotiating… the full suite of what you’d expect in a 4X game is here.

What makes ISG unique, in a sense, is that it makes some of these game systems a bit simpler to deal with. Establishing colonies and telling them to produce things can be time consuming but with enough forethought you can have things going without always micromanaging. You can tell particular planets to focus growth in three ways, but depending on the kind of growth you want, you’ll tell it to focus on Ecology, Production, or Infrastructure. Different planets have different biomes that different races prefer. Researching and Terraforming allows you to colonize just about any planet with solid ground, but depending on its characteristics it may not be ideal for your particular race. Since you can only expand so much before getting push back, it is best to focus your efforts on solar systems and planets that allow you to grow fastest.

Exploring is simplified by allowing for remotely scanning sectors for anything that may be hidden or unrevealed in close solar systems. This is in contrast to having to managing ships going every which way to explore. There is a singular, generic Space Culture talent tree that gives you certain boosts depending on your emphasis. There are also simplified talent trees for each individual planet, based on the three different growth focuses. There isn’t a lack of customization for your civilization’s needs at all, and your focus is always to expand.

Combat is certainly where a lot of emphasis is, as the game allows you to design your own ships with their own loadouts, designs, names, technologies, etc. When fighting against a rival fleet, there is a turn-based battle system that the entire fight takes place in. This allows for a mini-game of sorts to destroy your enemies, but you can also allow the game to auto resolve for you. There is also a “ground combat” mini-game that brings up an interface that allows you to make commands to take over occupied planets. You can perform a bombing run before a ground invasion, for instance. This makes the strategy a bit more engaging if you take an interest in having more control over the outcomes of combat scenarios. You’ll only be researching technologies rather than the units themselves, leaving it up to you to design them and put them into production.

Leaders are hired and assigned as either ship leaders or colony leaders. They cost a lump sum and a recurring sum each turn which means you will need to hire them at the right time so as to not bankrupt your empire. Leaders can increase income, attack enemies more efficiently, spy, steal, and many other things. Leaders are also kept happy by accomplishing requested tasks and the longer they are happy their opinion of you will grow. They will be less likely to defect or leave angrily as long as their opinion of you stays high.

Having been mostly a Civilization 4X player, I found ISG to be quite easy to get into. After figuring out the controls and the way information is displayed, it was fun to jump from a Small Galaxy/Easy map into a Large Galaxy/Normal map and begin to see how the difficulty ramps up. It can get quite complicated to manage defense against an encroaching empire while you are trying to develop yours. Games like these can also last for a long time, but there are different win conditions that allow for quicker ends than combat. The Galactic Council is the “soft power win” where the two most powerful empires are nominated to rule the galaxy and if 2/3 of the votes back one empire, they win. It can work in your favor to be friends with everyone, make treaties with everyone, and wield a couple of big sticks too.

From a more artistic standpoint, ISG looks a bit like an old DOS game in High Definition. Much of the user interface give an “old-timey PC game” feel, but is by no means a lazy endeavor. There isn’t much in the way of animation, as the characters are more like dancing/moving puppets but are unique in their design. The music is also quite good, though after 10 hours of gameplay, you’ll start to notice the same stuff playing. The story events that randomly pop up are also pretty interesting and well written, though there isn’t any sort of overall storyline.

There’s nothing that is really too negative about the game, except perhaps that it takes a lot of initial turns to get the game “going.” Around turn 100, you’ll start getting into the more complex decisions, but until that point you’re kind of just doing a rote process of skipping turns and clicking on something else to remotely discover. Otherwise, if you don’t intend to stay engaged with the game, it can wear thin since things won’t always go your way and starting a new game is probably more fun than enduring a long and painful loss.

Interstellar Space: Genesis is a pretty cool game if you like this genre but aren’t too serious about it. I found it to be more of an “entry level” game that can easily be enjoyable for intermediate to advanced players. While you’re not going to get too many surprises, it has something to offer in the way of combat that could get adapted across the genre.

Games, Game Reviews

Deiland (PC) Review

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Developer: Chibig | Publisher: 101XP || Overall: 9.0/10

Deiland is a fantastic game.  Think 3D Harvest Moon in space, or a more timely analogy, Stardew Valley in space.  Though, not as complex or farm-focused as these titles, Deiland takes a more streamlined and narrative approach to the farming sandbox genre.  An extremely charming and interesting game unfolds as you perform your typical farming/crafting tasks.

The basics of the game are pretty easy to grasp.  You have three plots of land to plant food.  You plant trees to cut them down and gather wood.  You hit rocks and get stones.  You use these resources to build.  Where it gets interesting is that there is actually not that much to worry about when it comes to how to build your farm, or what things to plant, or where to put things.  You can certainly pay attention to those things, but the way the game treats them is much more in the guise of “accomplish these quests/tasks” rather than the “customize it and make it look good” thing that most titles in this genre emphasize.

There is a greater sense of purpose in doing the “normal sandbox tasks” that you see yourself doing.  You’ll meet around ten different visitors/friends to do quests for, making you figure out how to use the tools you have been given in pursuit of completing them.  Nearly every quest teaches you a new item to craft, and as you gather more materials, you’ll learn more about the visitors themselves.  Since they actually “visit” your planet at random times, they can also overlap, which allows them to interact with one another; this gives the little planet of Deiland a much more communal feel to it.  You’ll also visit a couple of different locations off the planet, such as another planet called Ankora, so it gives the game a bigger feeling; though you’ll feel homesick for the quaint life of farming carrots in short order.

By far the most unique aspect is the planet of Deiland itself.  Your entire planet is your “farm.”  The planet is also very small and you can run around it in less than a minute.  You have all of your normal sandbox features, such as a mine, plots of land to plant food in, and a lake to fish in.  There’s plenty of empty space to plant as many trees/bushes as you like.  Your house is upgraded to include more types of items to craft, along with upgrading your tools.  All of the upgrading and new crafting items occur through the story, so as you progress through quests, your planet will develop further.  Meteorites will hit the planet as well, creating a mini-game where you have to rotate your planet so that the meteorites don’t hit anything valuable, or they will get destroyed.  When it rains you can also rotate your planet or the clouds themselves over your plants to make them produce faster.

A much appreciated quality of life inclusion is contextual actions.  For example, if you go over to a tree, you will immediately use your axe to cut it; same with stones, you will immediately use your hammer to hit them.  There is much less fumbling around with selecting tools than in Stardew Valley, and for this reason alone I generally enjoy playing Deiland more, which is a pretty big compliment.  Why this wasn’t an obvious design choice in other games, I can’t answer, but I really do like it.

While most of the quests can be completed by creating something on your farm, you can also buy your way through many of the quests by trading with the different visitors.  Each visitor will buy particular things at a higher price, so it is good to wait to sell certain things until you visit a particular character.  The characters themselves are all interesting in their own way, and about half of them don’t actually have models — they are just character art hiding inside of their spaceship or a building.  This isn’t a big deal for me, but it would have been nice to see all of them have their own models and give more personality to the characters you befriend.

The mystery of the player’s character, Arco, is slowly unfurled as you progress through the storyline.  You find several pages of the Prince’s “story” which alludes to the main villain. The story is a bit dark, with an unknown entity communicating to Arco through his dreams, saying creepy things.  You also learn about previous “Princes” and the fact that your best friend, Mun, may have ulterior motives.  It took about 10 hours for me to complete the main story, but unfortunately the ending is a bit sudden and you don’t expect it to be the end.  Supposedly, there is free DLC planned for December, which gives at least some hope that the story is planned on being concluded in a satisfying way.

As far as the bad things about the game, there isn’t too many, but there is some obviously underdeveloped aspects.  It would have been nice to have a couple more buildings to build on your planet.  After upgrading your house and building the barn there isn’t very much to invest your most common resources, Wood and Stone, into.  The fighting system is also pretty barebones, as your character basically only has one attack animation.  Having to kill enemies feels more like a chore than something fun.  Additionally, a few substantial ability unlocks occur at the end of the game, at which point you’re pretty much done playing, so new magic spells, for instance, have very low use.  For some reason you’re also not allowed to even use magic in the “boss stage” which doesn’t make much sense.  If you aren’t going to use it then, when would you want to use it?  Not that this is required, but there isn’t any sort of “endless dungeon” or meaningful combat progression system, so there’s not as much emphasis on the combat aspects despite being something you have to do a lot.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the game’s story conclude with whatever free DLC is being planned.  While I’m not a fan of releasing unfinished games, Deiland is far from being unfinished — there’s plenty to do and I had a lot of fun for the time I put into it.  It would have been nice to at least know that something more was coming immediately rather than having to research online about it.

Deiland can be purchased on Steam.

Games, Game Reviews

Last Encounter (PC) Review

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Developer/Publisher: Exordium Games || Overall: 6.5/10

Last Encounter is a bit of a puzzling game for me.  The gameplay itself is fine, but the game is a chore.  You’ve got a space-themed twin-stick shootery game wrapped in a roguelite progression system, but the progression is so metered, it’s as if there isn’t any at all.  What it comes down to, is that being stingy in a roguelite just does not work.  Upgrades are few and far between, health drops are practically non-existent, and never mind the amount of enemies that want to blow your face off.

For a roguelite, there’s hardly any progression to be had and one of the major road blocks is that you research weapons you find by using Credits.  Credits are found only by killing stuff, and you lose half of it every time you die.  You can only research when you are back at the base, but you are unable to return to base until you die; this makes it hard to research or buy any weapons at the home base for a better run.  Credits can also be used to purchase weapons in a level where there’s a shop, so there’s probably going to be even less of it by the time you’re back at the base — if you even get the opportunity to spend it.

The one very positive and unique feature this game has is the weapon system.  You have three weapon slots, one being the base weapon, and the other two being modifiers.  The modifiers can change the way your base weapon behaves, either increasing its strength, changing its firing pattern, or making it fire faster.  The different weapon changes are actually pretty fun, but unfortunately there isn’t enough of these drops occurring to keep the cadence of the game itself fun; they are also finite as you’ll use up an energy allotment unless they are a yellow-colored upgrade.  There is also a lack of information regarding if you’ll replace a slot already occupied by another weapon, so you may downgrade or get something you don’t particularly want because you haven’t exhausted your previous upgrade.  There are additional kinds of upgrades laying around the levels that will provide a small boost to your ship’s stats, but these stats are only permanent for the run, and will disappear once you die.  The boosts are practically inconsequential and don’t appear very often, so it feels like they should have just been permanent forever.

If you are somehow able to get through a set of levels, called a galaxy, you enter a new galaxy where the theme changes and enemies become different and more difficult.  The themes are actually quite nice and unique from each other, and since the challenge increases significantly from one galaxy to the next, you won’t have much time to enjoy any of it before you’re dead again.  The graphics and art are a real selling point here since it’s easy to say it all looks pretty high quality and not-so-generic for enemy designs.  The level layout and enemy count is all procedural, so you’ll never see the same level again per se.  Using a controller is unfortunately a pain, though.  I opted for keyboard/mouse and it was a much more pleasurable experience.

The story is sort of interesting, but there’s hardly any focus on it, and it gets cheapened by a wise-cracking scientist.  Earth is under attack by aliens and they’ve lost the war.  So it’s up to you to go through the portal as a last ditch effort to close it and go back in time or something — I don’t really remember since there’s hardly much story flying around.  While in-game, you try to find out what happened to the previous excursion of battleships into the portal only to find they’ve all been destroyed, and you try to track down any survivors.  So, it’s up to you and your dinky ship to destroy all of the alien ships that are doing nothing but waiting for you to come and blow them up.  Rinse and repeat until you’ve lost interest, and you’ve got Last Encounter.

While the game can be fun at times, overall it is pretty dull.  It seems like the game is pretty short insofar as how many levels there are to go through, so maybe that’s why the progression is so significantly metered and doesn’t really exist as part of the gameplay loop.  If there were more themes, and possibly even having randomized themes, it might be a bit more thrilling to restart the game over and over.  Local co-op might be a pretty fun excursion if you’re looking for something, but the visual clutter is already an issue as it is.

Games, Game Reviews

Keeplanet (PC) Review

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Developer/Publisher: BiggameIncubator || Overall: 5/10

It’s often that I’ll play random games and discover that I like them or hate them.  It’s quite another experience to play a game that brings the question of “why does this exist?”  Keeplanet is more of a game that confuses me more than anything else.  I don’t hate it and I certainly don’t like it, but mostly I just don’t “get” it.  There’s some sort of design philosophy to this title, but the end goal didn’t seem to be “fun.”

Keeplanet‘s concept rides on the principal of “balance.”  You are the “World Commander” of a set of planets in a solar system, your role being to develop the new home for humanity after Earth got blowed up.  Your goal is develop your world by placing objects on the outer rim of the planet and keep the balance of all of the objects such that the world keeps spinning and isn’t dragged down by being too heavy on one side.  You can balance the world on the fly by placing more objects down and hoping you are “calculating” correctly before your world’s inhabitants are killed off from the lack of rotation.  Gravity seems to have taken a vacation from the rules of physics, but there’s stranger things happening in quantum mechanics so anything is possible, I suppose.

There’s nothing that’s inherently fun about the concept of randomly placing objects on the extreme edges of a planet, though.  Not only is it a pain to actually see where you’re placing things, but the planet will get “bigger” as more objects are placed and you put down even more objects between those objects.  Some levels require putting down a hundred or more of these “objects” so you’ll really have to be paying attention to what the hell is going on.  Unfortunately, the game doesn’t really provide you with the tools or information to help you in this manner.  There is a weight scale that defines the weight of the planet’s “left” and “right” (whatever that means) and as the world rotates on its axis and more objects are built, these numbers change constantly.  The goal is to keep these numbers as balanced as possible and the world will rotate.  If it stops rotating, then your population will start dying out from heat and cold and once it reaches zero, it’s game over.

The user interface leaves a lot to be desired.  There’s a large “Play” button on the menu screen that you only use one time, but stays there after you click it.  Selecting your level beckons you to click a WORD that says “Play” not the big Play button that becomes a quick way to close the entire menu and put you back to the Title Screen.  Like, why the hell do I need to go back to the Title Screen at that point?  Just hide the Play button or use it as the level selection.

The information provided regarding objects is basically nonsensical and I just don’t care about the numbers when I have to plop down 300 objects quickly — otherwise I’d be here for 30 minutes for one of these levels and that ain’t happening.  Of course, I die over and over regardless, so I’m stuck playing that long anyway!  I also really don’t get why the outer edges of the planet are the only thing being used; when the planet becomes bigger it becomes impossible to see all parts of the planet without zooming out, which makes the objects you are placing much smaller.  Where’s the joy in placing some stupid ass mountain on a planet if I can’t see it????  Or those dumb trees, for that matter.  There’s no agency here where I can pick which objects I want to place and create a strategy to overcome the task at hand — it’s more of a Tetris with objects being served to you and you dealing with it.  So, some World Commander you are.  Who is building these unwanted mountains for you?  Why not some big speakers that play Spanish music to liven up the place?  There’s also a big wasted space in the center of the planet which I feel could have been used for the user interface information in a more creative way, but instead the UI elements get in the way of the game play, and you mostly just stare at blank space on your screen.  The graphics are generally inoffensive, otherwise.  The sound isn’t that annoying, but there’s a siren that will go off when your population is dying, which can be a bit annoying.

The only real positive aspect of this game is that it is really cheap.  It is currently $1.99 on Steam at full price, so you can probably get it with some Steam balance and check it out if it interests you.  There are probably about twenty levels including the “Challenges.” It’s not particularly impressive, but it works and you can play it.

I don’t really understand why the title of the game is “Keeplanet,” but it probably goes along with the translation errors that can be picked out in the text.  Maybe it’s as simple as “Keep your planet alive.  Keep.  Planet.  Keeplanet.”  ::facepalm::

When it comes to the store’s page, it’s almost comical how weirdly it is worded at points.  Two quotes from the Store page and my analysis:

Develop the planet
In Keeplanet, you create your own history – there’s no right or wrong way to play! Become a world’s landlord, spread out trees, mountains, houses and other objects to make the planet rotate around its axis. Remember, the most important thing is not to let the planet stop. Otherwise, all inhabitants of the planet will die out from sunburn or freezing.

Except there is a right or wrong way to play.  You get game overs when you don’t play the right way!  It says it right in the same paragraph that if you let the planet stop you lose, that’s the definition of having a wrong way to play!

Fight for the humanity
Universe is a dangerous place, protect people from external hazards – meteorites, meteor rains and vigilant aliens are waiting for your mistakes.
Don’t let them break you!

Fighting for “the” humanity = fighting for our morals?

External hazards from outside of the universe?

The vigilant aliens just ram your planet, similar to meteors.  Meteorites are also meteors that have hit the Earth, so are meteors that hit Earth, flying off of Earth across the universe and then hitting your new planet?  What a bunch of assholes.

The same sort of thing happens with the in-game text, but there isn’t nearly as much writing, so there’s less to fuck up.  Some of the English is so broken, they are just words on screen with no association to each other.

Quotes

Quote #25668: Talking in the mic

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“But new day Dole walked faster bastard bastard bastard bastard I can like halo you sock soccer soccer the sock and sought soccer sought to the socket socket soccer sought to the socket socket and button uday Dole walked faster bastard basta best

Enter

Messrs. Backspace that at that and an ten ten ten ten then then then that in But at But the prop of that, but Pope, ,.  Zero nine eight seven seven six and 54321 supply goal notebook gates of dell Galvin that’ll back”

– davepoobond, talking into one of those text to speech programs like 15 years ago

Games, Game Reviews

Space Wars: Interstellar Empires (PC) Early Access Preview

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Developer: Desert Owl Games | Publisher: ToHeroes Game Studios || Outlook: Not Good

Space Wars: Interstellar Empires ventures into the bold frontier of slow, turn-based MMO.  Space Wars: Interstellar Something or Other takes the usual issue you have with this genre, speed of gameplay, and doubles the issue by having two phases per turn.  It’s a bit baffling how anyone can have the patience to play when the rule-set is laid out like this, not to mention since this is an MMO where you have to grind to get anywhere.  Uhh… No thanks.

For me, it was easy to make the comparison to Star Trek: Online.  You have warring factions, you get a ship, then you have space battles.  You allocate shields, power, choose which weapons to shoot, yadda yadda.  Except where Star Trek: Online is all real-time, you have a slow and plodding turn-based mechanic in Space Wars.  Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms with it being turn-based by design, where it becomes an issue is speed and seemingly needless complexity.

As stated, Space Wars has two phases per turn — an Allocation phase and a Combat phase.  Each turn has an Allocation phase where, depending on the stage of the battle, you decide what issues to fix and how to change your combat posture.  Your combat posture includes allocating power to different systems such as shields, movement, weapons, etc.  You can also repair damage if you’ve got any to repair.  This phase lasts until everyone hits “End Turn” but the maximum amount of time is sixty full seconds.  Then, you have the Combat phase where everyone gets their own sixty full seconds to make their moves and attack considering the preparations they made in Allocation mode.  Depending on how many ships are in battle, your turn may not come for another few minutes, and after you’re done with your turn, it could be another few minutes before the Allocation phase starts all over again.  We’re talking about the potential of ten to fifteen minutes per turn at this point, and I already want to open the airlock and get sucked into the emptiness of space.  At least I’d die quicker that way, and wouldn’t have to live knowing how much of a disappointment Star Wars: The Last Jedi was.

The interface isn’t bad, but does feel outdated.  It isn’t really pleasurable to hit the different buttons and modify shields by clicking just the right pixel or clicking multiple times to modify one piece of your Allocation phase’s bells and whistles.  The interface adds to the feeling that there is a layer of needless complexity involved, and many of the numbers/doohickeys don’t feel rewarding considering the gameplay flow.  Each weapon you shoot has a targeting arc meaning you have to be pointing the right direction to shoot.  You can change the direction your ship is facing to shoot with your other weapons in the same Combat phase, so its like why do I have to go through all of those hoops?  Just automate it for me, or simplify it with some other value.  I don’t want to control my weapons through three different mechanics, I just want to control them directly.

On a grander scale the game is based on PVP between factions, which two of the four are currently available during this phase of Early Access.  The map is persistent as each faction vies for more territory and the only way for a faction to expand is to take over another faction’s slice of the galaxy.  Entering on-going fights to help out in this effort is the highlight of this dynamic.  However, if you enter a sector already in the midst of battle, you’ll be stuck in a limbo of sorts until the battle has a “Transit” phase, typically after a full turn has been completed.  I can appreciate that tactics may all of a sudden change when new players enter the battle as existing battles rage on, but it sucks for the person waiting upwards of what could be five or ten minutes before they get to do anything without forewarning.  Also, there is information on what ships are currently fighting, but this can change at any point since players hop in and out all the time.  If you go into the sector looking to fight similar ships to you, you may just end up fighting ships that can one-shot you instead.  Now that’s what I call fun!

There are some PVE missions to take part in.  While the gameplay flow is much less cumbersome, it’s also not as eventful and half of the time you’re searching for the enemy on a large map, hoping you run across them before Alt-F4 becomes a viable plan to defeat them.  There is also an XP system and Leadership Points that you can earn to unlock things and progress your Captain/Crew.  Of course, as a free to play game, there are currencies you can purchase to improve your game and skip all of the grinding and immediately begin to pound asses without knowing what the hell you’re doing.  So there’s, that, too.

Since the game is in Early Access, all of your progress and characters can be reset to scratch at any time, without notice.  Cool!  Granted the game can change drastically from one patch to the next, it doesn’t exactly inspire me to keep playing something coined as an MMO if progress can be reset on whim.  What is the point, especially when it takes a lot of time to get a level or unlock ships?  I don’t even get brownie points for the 10 xp I earned before the reset.

Games, Game Reviews

Morphite (PC) Review

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Developer: We’re Five Games/Blowfish Studios/Crescent Moon Games | Publisher: Crescent Moon Games || Overall: 8/10

Morphite is more than a game.  It’s about finding your purpose in life.  What is the meaning of your existence?  What is the point of anything?  Moreover, what is the point of Morphite‘s procedurally generated universe full of random planets?  I don’t know.

In a nutshell, Morphite is like a less ambitious version of No Man’s Sky.  You have plenty to “do” but there’s not really any motivation or purpose in doing “it.”  Outside of a single player story that has you finding out about the main character’s past and how it relates to the mysterious element morphite, there isn’t much impetus to “explore.”  You’ll want to find resources to upgrade your armor and ship, but the resources aren’t plentiful enough on planets to want to go grind for them.

Morphite has a full universe to explore with procedural planets, which is appealing to hear on its surface.  However, it would be hard to qualify these as actual “planets” considering their size and access, and its best to refer to them as “levels” instead.  In addition, the procedural planets aren’t anywhere near interesting or rewarding enough to warrant the effort of repeatedly visiting new ones.  I only ever wanted to run in one direction, hit a dead end, then leave.  The fauna is quite interesting and I hadn’t run over too many duplicates of creature models as I progressed through the storyline and visited a few of the random planets.

The story itself has hand-designed planets and boss battles, and they are usually way more fun to play on than the procedural levels.  The story takes about ten hours to complete, and there isn’t a point where the game says “ok, now explore” until you finish the story; outside of the random side missions you might come across until then, there honestly isn’t any point to exploration.  On the bright side, if you did want to explore every planet in the game, it will take you 5.9 x 103932349029302909530490394 hours, give or take a few exponents.  When you complete the game you’ll gain a significant buff to your ship’s capabilities, so if you are interested in experiencing more of the random levels, its probably better to wait until then.  Though, I haven’t seen much of a difference in levels the further you fly away from your origin point where all the story takes place.  So, your mileage will definitely vary, as once the story is over there’s nothing left to do but to visit these randomized levels.  On a more meta level, the long-term goal is to increase your character’s power by upgrading.  You are able to unlock new abilities by scanning plants and animals that pop up as rare, and have a special ability; using this scan in tandem with your other resources unlocks your potential.  With more upgrades, more planets become available for exploration, where you’ll continue scanning more and more.

Gameplay is your run of the mill first person shooter with different guns and explosives.  As you find more of the “elusive” morphite, you’ll get more weapons, as they morph into your new equipment.  Platforming and light puzzles will be the main activity other than shooting, but nothing usually on the scale of frustrating; some of the later story missions have interesting puzzle design.  You’ll occasionally run across items that will buff your character in small ways, such as a bracelet that gives you more health.  Ammo randomly spawns in boxes and you’ll probably be hurting for ammo at the beginning of the game when you only have a couple of weapons to use.  Later on there will be a lot more boxes to shoot open and more weapons to use, so this problem goes away eventually.  You can restock a moderate amount of ammo at the pod you used to land on the planet, but you’re usually going to be far away from the pod by the time you need it.  When you run out of ammo completely, your weapons will recharge up to a certain point, but anything over that number will require extra ammo drops.  Considering your ammo doesn’t recharge very quickly, this hinders your gameplay experience in the shooter department as you’ll have to run away a lot as there are no permanent melee weapons.  Relying on Puggles, who is a dog with a laser cannon on his back, to do most of your dirty work is the best way to conserve ammo.

Collecting resources to upgrade your stuff can be a grind, but the resources are so scarce its forced to become an afterthought usually.  Its also hard to monitor how much you have if you have the opportunity to buy more resources or the time to upgrade comes around.  No numbers fly up telling you what you’re currently at — you’ll have to menu hunt to see your current stock.  There’s also some story encounters while traveling from system to system where you’ll either get lucky or unlucky.  You may fly into an asteroid field where you actually get to control your ship for a bit, or lose resources due to pirates, or run across a trader from whom you can spend “Chunks” at to buy resources.  Chunks are the currency in this universe, and the primary way of earning Chunks is through selling “Common Scans” of plants and animals, whereas “Rare Scans” are used to upgrade yourself (or you can sell for a much higher price).  Unfortunately, scanning is pretty fucking awful until you upgrade it a bunch of times, and even then its sad that this is the only way to really make money in this game.  Resources are not found nearly as often to want to ever sell them, and the amount of Chunks you get from ammo boxes and the like is usually very low.

When traveling from system to system, you’ll also have to wait for your fuel to recharge.  This forces you to go space stations (which are available in every system) to refuel, or you can waste time and wait for it to refill automatically. You can use this time to explore a random planet, or do your laundry.  It’s your choice what you think is more productive.  The side missions I came across were also not appealing to try and complete as the rewards they offered were usually not that exciting.  I only ran across one side mission that I could complete then and there; most seem to want to send you out into another part of the universe to complete and I’m not about that life.

The standouts here are the art style and the music.  The art is actually quite fun and reminds me of old 3D DOS games, but obviously this title is much more detailed in certain aspects than that.  Low Poly definitely has its benefit when it comes to space as detail can often be left to the imagination.  The ambient music also fits the space theme accordingly and I was really digging everything I was listening to, which seemed to be at least ten different tracks.  The variety of music is done well and each song sounded was good in its own right, I would probably listen to this soundtrack on its own.  There was also weird sound mixing with the voice overs, sometimes the music would overtake the voice over and you could only understand what they were saying by reading the subtitles.

User interface is another story, however.  The space navigation screens, typography, and the menus all seemed like afterthoughts.  The spaceship cockpit distracted me in a way that felt as if it looked unfinished and they forgot to put some more polish into making it look good.  It’s quite odd, because you arguably spend the most time seeing your spaceship and the menus, but everything else about the game looks great.  Besides that, the usability of the user interface is much more clunky than I’d like and its a pain to use a controller to navigate it.  Considering this title is meant to be released on a phone, you can see some of the design decisions were not built for a controller, and too spread out for mouse/keyboard.  Its also a huge pain to switch weapons — how you can screw this up in a first person shooter is beyond me, but there’s no easy and quick way to switch to your weapons with a controller, and you are relegated to another menu hunt to switch logically.  This becomes increasingly exacerbated as there will be puzzles that require you to switch between three different weapons over and over.  Keyboard/Mouse isn’t much better and you’ll have to remember which weapon is assigned to the numbers on the keyboard.  You can also use the scroll wheel to go one by one, or menu hunt then click “equip” once you find what you want — there are N64 games that are easier to switch weapons in.

Admittedly, it’s hard to get too excited about Morphite, but it is fun while your interest holds.  The story isn’t too long and I don’t think it overstays its welcome.  The ending is anticlimactic and the boss battles tend to be a bit on the easy side.  The mystery of the story is good while it lasts, and it never takes itself too seriously, not to mention it takes a dark turn towards the end that I wouldn’t have guessed would be part of the story.  Coming into Morphite thinking you’re going to be playing an indie sci-fi shooter is a better way to go about it than thinking its anything related to No Man’s Sky.

Games, Game Reviews

Bokida – Heartfelt Reunion (PC) Review

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Developer/Publisher: Rice Cooker Republic || Overall: 7.5/10

“Bokida – Heartfelt Reunion” is like one of those game titles that screams at you.  You don’t know what the fuck it is, but it is loud, and your first inclination is to run.  Peel back the layers of potential pretentiousness and in essence, the game is about space, in more ways than one.  Space in the literal sense, the metaphorical sense, and I guess even the hard drive sense.

Cutting to the chase here, Bokida – Heartfelt Reunion is a puzzle game with “exploration” elements.  I suppose most of what you do could be described as exploring, but the world(s) you visit are barren with puzzles sprinkled throughout.  Your real goal in exploration is to learn about the story(?) and solve the puzzles you do eventually find.  Solving puzzles unlocks some more puzzles and eventually you would presumably get to the end of the game.  When you reach the “Epilogue” it seems you are mostly left with a traditional collect-a-thon with orbs strewn about the huge world.

The actual gameplay elements are essentially Minecraft.  You can build, cut, push, and erase blocks on the field in the pursuit of solving 3D puzzles.  The 3D puzzles I was able to encounter were “fill in the monolith,” “fill in the other monolith,” “bounce the line to the rock,” “construct blocks in this manner,” and some other things.  Most of the time the puzzles are done once or twice and you don’t need to do a lot of heavy thinking.  I’m not usually a fan of the whole “make your own fun” genre, but when similar tools are thrust into a constructed experience like Bokida, you get something a lot more freeform within its boundaries.  There isn’t a whole lot of explanation initially about why you are able to do the things you do, at least from what I’ve seen.  Despite what the screenshots convey, you never have to make buildings, though I have no idea if the world is a blank canvas on purpose so that you can fill it in with your creations or what.

The art design, sound, and use of colors are all part of the very intrinsically artistic experience.  This game is equal parts presentation and gameplay, with not much left in the middle.  This would be fine if you actually enjoy this sort of genre of puzzle game that attempts to achieve high art by being purposefully abstract.  Personally, the game just didn’t appeal to me after a couple of hours and I got really bored.  I made it to the “Epilogue” and there wasn’t much more to motivate me to continue exploring further.

Here’s the thing — it’s not awful, buggy, or annoying.  It is very competent and well-designed; I just didn’t like playing it very much.  I liked the way the game made you question how you move through space in a way that only a video game can present it to you: going through a door, turning around and seeing the door no longer there.  Or falling off the edge of a room and landing into the room you just fell from.  I’ve also figured out that falling upwards is annoying as hell and gliding through the air like a jet-propelled feather is an exercise in decision-making rather than physics.  Whatever details you can glean of a story are basically just all proverbs and metaphors and I unfortunately wasn’t really inclined to try and figure out what any of it meant.  The intro cinematic I guess is about a lonely planet trying to find its binary pair that got lost in another dimension, and there’s some Yin & Yang metaphor shit going on.  I suppose the story could just be a puzzle within itself, or it’s possibly just heavy on the religion thing and that all went over my head.

So, I could recommend the game to someone who likes 3D puzzles, high art indie games, or even just to play something out of the ordinary.  It’s just not something that ever clicked with me.  I just didn’t get why I was playing something that frustrated the hell out of me, spending 30+ minutes trying to get the line to the rock.

Stories, Fairy Tales

The Magnificent Mr. Jharraque

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There once was a lad, named Mr. Jharraque.  He wasn’t always always named this, but he was named it for the greater percentage of his life, to the point where if you were rounding up or down, you would be rounding up and it would be 100%.

Mr. Jharraque was born a man of 300 pounds.  When he was born, he was so large, his mother had been assimilated into this man and no longer existed.  Mother Jharraque may still live on in Mr. Jharraque, but since he is a freak of nature, its unknown.  Once Mr. Jharraque was released from the hospital’s baby ward, he was given a suit and a briefcase by the hospital staff who pooled their own money together to buy the items for him.  They wanted him to seem like a professional and find a job in the Commerce District of the Rubunthium Sector of the Januthliyu Bar and Grill Space Station and so that he may stark out on a life on his own.

It wasn’t easy for a three day old who had just naturally taken over his mother’s body like a parasite and eaten her from the inside, but after a tough learning process, he finally got a job at a drug store whose primary funds were to sell fad diet solutions.  Mr. Jharraque was not a normal employee of the establishment, but more of a “live model” of how any number of their fad diets may work.  They pumped so many different diet supplements into the poor man’s body that he lost 150 pounds in 2 days.  He ate nothing but dry chemical powder straight out of the bag with a large wooden spoon, chewing on diet pills non-stop, and ate “energy” gum to burn off whatever extra calories he might have had flying around in his blood after the other chemicals did their worst.

At 150 pounds, and almost no speech skills developed, Mr. Jharraque was depressed.  Mostly because of all the different chemicals floating around in his unnatural existence, he began to pine for something better.  Something better would not come for Mr. Jharraque, but something worse did.  Even though the labels on each of the diet products specifically said to not combine their diet products with other diet solutions, such as exercise, eating right, and the other products on the market, the non-discriminatory treatment of life by the Finhoogle and Nagle Drug Store destroyed Mr. Jharraque’s body and life with no remorse from the higher levels of the corporation, Mr. Jharraque was fired for crying.

“If Mr. Jharraque wants to cry, he can cry on his own time!”  Monty Finhoogle slammed his fist on the desk as Ken Nagle laughed at a picture of Mr. Jharraque in one of the promotional pictures they had forced him to be in with many of the different diet products they sold.

“If this fat 150 pound, 7 foot tall slob wants to have his emotions he can have no job!” Monty Finhoogle continued in his tirade.  Ken Nagle just kept laughing.

Later, in the backstreet alleyway behind the drug store, a jobless Mr. Jharraque pointed at things and grunted as he drank a lot of beer.  He pointed at a box and grunted again… and then a laser shot out of his finger and the cardboard box disappeared!  But not only did it disappear, Mr. Jharraque could FEEL the cardboard box be a part of him.

Mr. Jharraque was amazed at what had happened, he stared at his finger as he sat down.  He pointed his finger at another cardboard box and that box disappeared to!  He now felt what the life of an 8 x 12 inch cardboard box had.  Just then, the voice of his mother entered his brain.

“Jerry, you have finally discovered your hidden powers.  You have realized what it is like to be two different cardboard boxes with all of their unique experiences of having things being put in and taken out of them.  You are my son and I have awakened inside of you.  You now have the knowledge of a thousand eons of information and have the power to assimilate all that is around you.”

The Magnificent Mr. Jharraque had finally realized his true potential.

The back office of the Finhoogle and Nagle Drug Store lay quiet as Monty and Ken took a nap from their excessive amount of bellowing and fist-to-table pounding.  Mr. Jharraque stepped through the wall like a ghost and watched the two corporate fiends slumber.

Mother Jharraque’s voice emanated again.  “These men are responsible for kicking you out on the street, my dear.  It is time you taught them a lesson about what it is like to be human.  Break their fragile necks and show them that they are weak, worthless scum!”

Mr. Jharraque pointed his hands at Monty Finhoogle as he stepped closer and closer, aiming for his neck.  Monty woke up just before his neck became compressed between the large hands.

Monty grabbed his sharp stiletto letter opener and tried to fend off the attacker, but Monty’s soul was soon drained from his body and became a part of Mr. Jharraque.  Mr. Jharraque’s eyes began to glow and he picked up the shell of what was once Monty and threw it to the floor.

Ken Nagle had woken up during the assault and began to drink copious amounts of whiskey, knowing his end would soon come as well.  Ken threw five shot glasses as the monstrous Mr. Jharraque lumbered his way over to Ken.

“STAY AWAY, YOU MONSTER!”  Ken screamed as he backed up against the wall and tried to open the random cabinetry to find more things to throw at Mr. Jharraque.  Each of the shot glasses filled with whiskey sunk into Mr. Jharraque and each of the stories of the shot glasses became one with Mr. Jharraque.  Like, this one time Harry the Shot Glass was in the dishwasher and had an affair with July the Plastic Bowl.  Alfred the Spoon witnessed the foul acts occurring just above and while that was supposed to be a vacation, it was not fun getting all the dirty soap dropped on him from above.

Harry the Shot Glass was sued by his ex-wife, Mildred the Shot Glass and was forced to pay alimony of five molecules of dishwasher detergent every Sunday before seeing the kids.  He didn’t see why he had to pay to see his own kids, it’s not like they weren’t crafted in the glass factory from his own superheated sand.

Ken Nagle took a punch in the gut as he was flung across the room and into the door.  He busted through the door and as the splintered door pieces flew everywhere around him he began to crawl away, in pain.

Ken yelled to his secretary, Somya Fridaray, “CALL THE POLICE!  THIS MANIACAL DIET SUPPLEMENT ADDICT KILLED MONTY AND HE’S GOING TO KILL ME!”

Somya Fridaray stood up and opened her drawer and took out a smoke grenade.  She knew it would come in handy one of these days after she found it dropped by one of those ex-military men canoodling through the aisles of the drug store thinking they can just walk around wherever they want.

Somya threw the smoke grenade into the air and it began to fill up the small room with ease.  Mr. Jharraque couldn’t see anything anymore!  Oh, if he ever found that confounding secretary he was going to assimilate her like those cardboard boxes!  She has the wits of a rabid squirrel looking for a large acorn to satiate his thirst for blood, but realizing that acorns were no replacement for blood.

Ken Nagle and Somya Fridaray stumbled into the greeting card aisle outside of the office.

“Oh, it is so horrible, Somya!  He stole all of our shot glasses and made me drink all of my whiskey!  He would have pounded my face into a fine silicate dust if you hadn’t saved me!”  Ken Nagle confided to Somya.

Somya replied, “Do not worry sir, that is what I am here for—-“ and in the next instant a large red aura surrounded Somya and she disappeared!  Enveloped into the Magnificent Mr. Jharraque, she was.

Ken Nagle scrambled to his feet as he grabbed greeting cards as a defense weapon against  Mr. Jharraque.  Each progressively thrown greeting card sunk into his body and all of the corny stupid jokes became part of his vocabulary.

Mr. Jharraque shouted at Ken Nagle, “HAPPY 41ST BIRTHDAY!” and stomped on the ground with such force that made Ken lose his balance and fall to the floor.

“GET WELL SOON!”  Mr. Jharraque stomped again and Ken bounced up and down on the floor as he kept crawling away and into the Diaper/Beer aisle.

“Will someone please call the police!!”  Ken yelled at the diapers falling on top of him.  In a frantic panic, he opened as many beers as he could and tried to drink them all.  Sucking down fifteen bottles of beer empowered Ken Nagle to become Super Diet Man, who had the power of making non-lethal things into lethal things, such as diapers!

The diapers in all of the packages flew out and began to encircle Mr. Jharraque.  The flying diapers confused him, as he was only 5 days old at this point, and he had never worn a diaper in his life.

“Time to take out the used diapers, Mr. Jharraque!” Super Diet Man announced in a drunken delivery.

“HAPPY GRADUATION!!!” Mr. Jharraque jumped so high he jumped over the wall of flying diapers and grabbed onto the air conditioning duct hanging off of the ceiling.  Mr. Jharraque all of a sudden became sick and he fell to the floor and started puking.

Super Diet man stood laughing at Mr. Jharraque, and they became friends.

Moral:  Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear – beer before liquor, never been sicker.