Having read the EG review, it sounds like a must have:
Oh that was that game! I remember the prototype being totally mesmerizing. I am totally looking forward to it.
Speaking of boardgame conversions, maybe I should start a thread? Anyway this is out
Second Second looks interesting and just entered EA.
Is that any good? From the description the game play doesn’t sound that interesting to me.
Dunno. I seem to recall playing the board game and thinking it was ok. I will be buying this anyway at some point so can scout it out for you when I do.
MrTibbs
1795
VBlank’s Shakedown Hawaii looks delightful. An overview trailer revealed it’s releasing Q1 2019.
MrTibbs
1796
The magic-based, battle royale game Spellbreak has a lovely art style.
FYI I bought & played Terraforming Mars. As a single player game vs AI its good. Which is what I wanted out of the game. Plays slick. No idea on multiplayer.
My biggest negatives are it doesnt explain why you cannot play some cards (insulation for some reason remained greyed out) but for others it does explain why, strange.
Lastly its one of those boardgame conversions that at the end scoring sequence does not allow you to view the map or cards as it tells you who won. Then exits without choice. In other words you cant look at the game after it is over. Which sucks as thats part of the fun for me is looking who could have done what or how the game played out.
All that aside though I like it. A computer version of a great boardgame like this is a fine laptop game.
I love games with a focus on magic, so I was saying to myself “lightning! fireballs! meteorites! ice walls! this looks great! oh wait, Battle royale? ughhh”.
The AI leaves something to be desired. I say that because having never played the game before this version, after only the tutorial and an exploratory game to learn the mechanics, I was able to beat 3 Medium-level AI opponents (only by a single point, but a win is a win).
I haven’t yet checked out multiplayer to see if async is supported.
I hear multiplayer is not working very well. Which again is fine for me. Fwiw the AI beat me on easy so I maybe unlucky or bad but either way its a challenge for me :)
NI1
1801
I played through Return of the Obra Dinn during the weekend. Took me about 11 hours which I felt was a perfect length for this kind of game. There’s so many puzzles to solve that there’s always another one to switch to if you become stuck. And by the nature of the game, solving one puzzle (figuring out a person’s fate), often makes figuring out the remaining puzzles simpler.
I was amazed how well the 1 bit graphics worked. It’s a really atmospheric game, not just because of the graphics, but also due to excellent sound design and voice work.
The puzzles were pretty clever and varied - be prepared to take notes! The game assists you a bit with keeping track of things, but I ended up with several pages of written notes. I was able to solve the fate of all 60 passengers even if I didn’t find all clues. The game will tell you every time you get three fates correct, so if you have two that you are sure of, you can brute-force the third… But this kept it from being frustratingly difficult (see: The Witness). The playing area is quite small, so there’s not a lot of running back and forth.
And the overall story is quite good as well, even if it’s a bit excessive how unlucky the ship and crew was.
Minor story spoiler: This could very well have been a H.P. Lovecraft short story.
Big thumbs up!
Wow, I’m at at least 10 hours and I think I’ve solved maybe a third of the cases. I’m sure there are a lot of sources of clues that I just haven’t even isolated yet, but I’ll find as I go back through for another pass on all the current unsolved mysteries.
Thanks for the write up. That game sounds like something I would really enjoy. I haven’t had time to game this week yet, but it’s at the top of my list when I do.
Just started a stand-alone thread for this because it should have one.
Finished in not much more than the time it took you, Nl1. Really accelerated at the mid-point. Not surprisingly, as a lot of it is about process of elimination. It felt a little cheesy, but I made a lot of progress when I started looking at the clothing of the characters. A lot of the stewards, seamen, and topmen wear similar outfits.
Great design, great ending, great music and sound, great look. A real triumph.
NI1
1805
I don’t think that’s cheesy at all. Pretty sure you’re required to use that info to figure things out.
Here’s a nice thing I did not figure out myself, only read after I had finished the game: The hammocks below deck are marked with numbers that correspond to the numbers in the crew manifest. I never thought about using the crew manifest numbers for anything! This allows you to use e.g. tattoos on legs sticking out of the hammock to figure out which person lies there even if their face is covered and they cannot be targeted.
Yes, I did figure that out eventually!
