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Games, Game Reviews

Infini (PC) Review

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Developer: Barnaque | Publisher: Nakana.io || Overall: 8.5/10

Overview:

Infini is probably the strangest, most psychedelic puzzle game to ever be created. Let’s just say there’s a lot of weird shit that happens in here, folks. I really didn’t expect any of what I played and it kept getting weirder and… “better” as I went along. The puzzles are all competently designed, and feel like they’re from a different era; heck, a different universe even. Everything about it is a throwback to early 2000’s GameMaker games where its just one guy doing everything and somehow being able to put it all together.

The story is basically about a bunch of personified “Ideas” interacting with each other. Hope, the main character, is trying to escape Infinity and go back to Reality. All of it is very abstract and I don’t understand half of what anyone is saying or doing. As you get more clues of explanation, going back and watching the story scenes might help make more sense of it all. The game begins with a naked man skydiving out of a large rectangular prism with elephant legs, so it doesn’t pull any punches on what to expect. There are multiple references to something vaguely called “The Incident,” which brings an allure of mystery to the story.

Graphics:

The graphics/art are definitely a very distinctive aspect for this title. While not everything looks “appealing” to the eye, it is all essentially working together in such a way that makes it look like some sort of weird, animated experimental film. So much so, that if there were a movie with all of these elements in it, it would probably garner a much more invigorating response from myself since I’m infinitely (pun intended) more interested in the lore and story than the puzzles.

Sound:

Yet another aspect of the game that exceeds itself. The soundtrack is almost too good for this game — if it weren’t specifically made for it. Each level has its own mood and the music is unique and even shifts throughout the stages in each level. A lesser game would maybe have 5 or 6 songs total and re-use them regardless of what was going on in the story. Since you’ll be retrying stages over and over as you figure them out, the music is such an important part for keeping at it.

Gameplay:

At its basic level, the game is a puzzle game. Each level has about 10 or more stages. The puzzles themselves aren’t too crazy or ridiculous (other than the background art), but the mechanics you’ll use to solve the puzzles are varied and interesting. There are some similarities throughout the levels, but most have a unique challenge or aspect that keeps the gameplay fresh.

The general idea for the puzzles is that you are constantly falling and eventually want to get to a “ring” (or maybe it is a portal). How you get there is impacted by the layout of the barriers, and the mechanics introduced for that level. Mechanics range from multiple 2D planes, rotating, flying, falling slower, swimming, etc. One of the biggest constants will be using the borders of the screen to reach the other side of the screen, almost like a wormhole. When zooming is introduced, these borders change dramatically and you have more control over where you appear on the map. You’ll have to do some layman’s quantum mechanics to figure out how to get through some of the levels.

Eventually, you’ll also find special objects that open up new stages or unlock extras in a “bonus” type of area. You’ll collect letters from these special objects and read stuff in this bonus room, so it is an overarching goal to replay stages to find these objects if you didn’t get them the first time around. Luckily, you don’t need to play from start to finish to save your progress in this regard, you can just pick and choose the stage and quit after you complete the single stage.

Crappiest Part:

So, it’s hard to really shit on this game, but the crappiest part is definitely how if you get stuck on a level, there’s no way to look up a guide to get through it. It is a new game, but also, not many people are playing it. So, it can get frustrating if you are banging your head against a wall for 999,999,999 attempts. The game does open up a bit as you progress, so you don’t necessarily have to linearly complete each level, but it will be the main way to unlock shit. You’ll be able to quit and come back later, at least.

Conclusion:

No need to take drugs before you play — you’ll gain an effective high just from the sights and sounds. You’ll see some shit, and your brain will flip around in its skull with all of the space/time bending puzzles. A lot of it won’t make sense as you’re doing it, but you’ll somehow figure it out if you keep at it.

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.

Game Reviews, Games

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.

Stupid IMs

#22656: sunny_girl -> davepoobond

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sunny_girl: hey how are you? i love Donnie Darko! every time i hear that song from the movie i can’t help but sing along and think of frank!!!

davepoobond: yeah the song instantly reminds me of that movie too. i’ve probably seen it about 10 or 15 times all together. did you read much into the conclusion of the story that much? which interpretation did you prescribe to?

sunny_girl: there are all kinds of things…telling the future, he’s posesed, its a dream, they go back in time, its a relfection of the past, he has schizophrenia…there are so many things. i get something new each time i watch it

davepoobond: well, i know that, i was just wondering which one you believed it was

sunny_girl: lol i think its a dream which do you think

davepoobond: i think it had more to do with the universe needing to explain to itself where the airplane jet engine came from, so it created the alternate path to show what would happen had donnie lived. i thought it was the more believable explanation rather than the religious one or just it being a dream, which I suppose is the less complex explanation.

sunny_girl: That is pretty complex.

Jokes

Joke #5261: Little Mary

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Little Mary was not the best student in Sunday school; usually she slept through the class.

One day the teacher called on her while she was napping, “Tell me, Mary, who created the universe?”

When Mary did not stir, little Johnny, an altruistic boy seated in the chair behind her, took a pin and jabbed her in the rear.

“God Almighty!” shouted Mary and the teacher said, “Very good.” and Mary fell back asleep.

A while later the teacher asked Mary, “Who is our Lord and Savior,” but, Mary did not even stir from her slumber.

Once again, Johnny came to the rescue and stuck her again. “Jesus Christ!” shouted Mary and the teacher said, “Very good,” and Mary fell back asleep.

Then the teacher asked Mary a third question, “What did Eve say to Adam after she had her twenty-third child?”

Again, Johnny jabbed her with the pin. This time Mary jumped up and shouted, “If you stick that damn thing in me one more time, I’ll break it in half!”

The Teacher fainted.