| Title | Qt3 Games Podcast: Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Surge 2, Mindustry |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Games podcasts |
| When | October 10, 2019 |
What if Jason McMaster was the sole survivor of an aircraft crash along with about 70 other people? What if videogame masochist Nick Diamon got to play a game he actually liked? What if Tom Chick wasn't so scared of Factorio? This week, we answer these question and m
Well played sir.
After listening to that I’m adding three games to my wishlist that weren’t there before. Breakpoint, because McMaster does a great job of selling it, The Surge 2 because Telefrog does a great job of selling it (and I’d totally forgotten that it came out, it got lost in all the other big releases lately), and Mindustry because Tom does a great job in selling it. The only part where Tom lost me a bit is with the comparisons to Orc Must Die. I hated that aspect of Orcs Must Die, the fact that you had to kill so many of the orcs yourself instead of relying on your traps. The comparison to Mindustry though is that you have to be there to see what’s going on and build traps. At least I think so. I don’t think you have to kill most stuff yourself like you did in Orcs Must Die.
Oh, don’t let that put you off Mindustry. I only brought up Orc Must Die as one of the more extreme example of a tower defense game where the designers made you an active participant during the attack waves so that you’d have something to do. In Mindustry, you’ll actually ignore most attack waves because you’ve got your defenses built and you’re busy doing something else. The whole “jump into a mech and help fight” bit feels like an option more than an obligation.
-Tom
This might be why I was so bad at Orcs Must Die: I was focusing on trap skills and trying to find the perfect layout and watch the monsters kill themselves, and that wasn’t working out.
Thanks to Tom’s Let’s Plays (and the absurdly low price point), I picked up Mindustry. It’s really enjoyable!
One small clarification to the podcast: the map contours aren’t randomized, but the resource patches on the map are randomized. It’s a bit like in Offworld Trading Company, where maps on a certain biome will have a general resource distribution (e.g. a lot of silicon but little water), but the actual locations and amounts will differ from play though to play through. It can change the flavor of the play through, one time you might really have to hunt afar for some coal patches, while another time there won’t be much copper near the attacking waves in order to provide ammunition.
Edit: I was apparently smoking crack in my earlier post. After playing more, and re-playing certain maps more, I’m not actually seeing the randomization I thought I saw. Sorry for the excitement. Also, some of those “destroy the core” maps become really tough!
Edit 2: Ok, I found the reason for my confusion. It looks like the maps stay completely the same, however the starting position of your core can change from play through to play through.
Whoa, that’s pretty cool, then. I’m at the point where coal seems to usually be my limiting factor, so when I’ve played a map, I’ve assumed the coal placement was somehow tuned to make the map more of less difficult. Knowing that’s its random adds nearly just as much replayability as random maps.
-Tom
Another good podcast, and what was that I heard, Nick playing something he enjoys? Unacceptable! ;)
Surge 2 and Breakpoint will stay on my wait for heavy sale list, both games seem to have a complete shit stories, so no rush to pick them up at their current high prices.
I did pick up Mindustry last week and it is indeed fantastic. I even created a dedicated forum thread for it here.
Agreed on Jason selling Breakpoint. Wildlands but without the dumb AI buddies, a focus on stealth and not having to beeline between quest markers sounds awesome!
Why is the music the boardgame podcast theme? Is that an inside reference to the topics?
Oops. The sound department screwed up and shall be pilloried.
-Tom
Nick plays what he plays, yet get anger issues from Dark Souls? He’s such an enigma.
Just finished listening, and as a layman I was wondering if the satisfaction felt when we assemble things in game isn’t tied to our evolution. Are our basic instincts to craft stone axes in the same way Nature dictated that we have to open loot boxes?
I’m also left wondering what comes out on November 5th?
