LunaEndlessWitch
1984
Sorta really cool. Putting this as 'Played' instead of Abandoned or Finished or Shelved, because I have no intention of returning but I didn't get all the way through either and I don't put it as a mark against the game. Because it's really interesting! It's a nice piece of history but also being really really well designed, especially with enemies and their very clear ruleset. The random mazes can be a bit tricky early on but it becomes second nature past the first few floors. The secrets are for sure intentionally obtuse but it provides charm especially since we're in the post-information timeline where it's easy to look up secrets. It's still too boring for my tastes, ended up feeling like coming back to Zelda 1 rather than navigating the maze for much longer past the 20th floor, but it gets a tertiary recommendation in the "worth a look!" kind of respect.
2020
Hollow
Discordant dream like aesthetics should have better stuff attached to them than just broad anxiety-bleeding somberness. No bones to the structure, no heart to the delivery, there is just words and setpieces with a flimsy but not whimsical-enough throughline.
Discordant dream like aesthetics should have better stuff attached to them than just broad anxiety-bleeding somberness. No bones to the structure, no heart to the delivery, there is just words and setpieces with a flimsy but not whimsical-enough throughline.
2009
I don't generally like being vulnerable, publicly. Even my most personal write-ups tend to be at least a little bit structured to guide around pain points that I'd rather not disclose, boiling down thoughts to more readable ideas that I don't need to haunt me. I don't really have that luxury today.
My uncle died yesterday, and we were close enough to where today I woke up staring up at the ceiling regretful, toiling around in my own head with a fog of thoughts that even now still permeates. I went through the rest of the day so far trying desperately to act as if nothing happened, driving with FFXIV music blaring out the car speakers, taking care of responsibilities with the best smile I could feign. Then I got home, and loaded up this game again, drawn to it searching for comfort. After an hour I started rewatching cutscenes, reading things about the game again trying to reexperience the same feelings that brought me solace. The game's chock full of them after all, with a dying man sitting at the bench with you giving last thoughts on a world and life he knows has dealt him the worst hand, to a scummy kid who is envious of his brother and still is even after his death not realizing how much he's trying to fill that hole in his heart that's been left. An old couple welcomes me in with smiles on their faces as they continue to grieve, just my presence being enough to remind them of what once was, but still they look forward hopeful.
I'm crying again as I attach myself to these stand-ins for loss, those depressing but not lonesome stories that help me grieve on my own time. This aura permeates through the entire narrative, as characters not so much different from my feelings of today pull off the same images of trying to act like everything's ok, and even the most naive cocky individual of the party has to come to terms with a hospitalized lover who he now wishes more than ever that he could've spent just one more minute with. I wish I had more time too, the last memory of my uncle is going to be me moving around stuff in his house while he can barely move about his home, and then after helping when he offers me and another sibling to stay and watch a movie with him, I say that I have to go home as it's getting too dark to drive. I still don't know whether my leaving was out of apathy, or cowardice, and I don't know which is worse.
And this game rejects apathy, it pushes to understand these feelings I struggle with today, an ENTIRE cult founded to bring the fall of all is juxtaposed with a desire from those who have suffered the most to keep living. A disgusting choice is thrusted towards the player and what's best isn't to remain ignorant but it is to defy this fucking downfall. It's hopeful, in the end, not wallowing in sorrow, even when the ending is still painful.
Not to say that this is a perfect simulacrum of these discordant thoughts, the combat ensues listlessness even in this version that tries to right wrongs of the flawed original. You walk multiple floors fighting enemies on passable at best strategies thinking about how it'd be nice if we were back several minutes ago to feel feelings at a scene again. There's even what would become late Atlus's problematic bullshit with hots-for-teachers and terrible handlings of lgbt, and that only spreads more poison over time for me. It just makes me angry, bile held and punches I wish I could throw at something other than air.
But the game still very much speaks to me, just putting out these thoughts after every couple minutes of tears and thinking of what this MEANS to me, what it represents, what it is, is helpful. I don't know if I can entirely recommend, or hope that the same will stand true for most individuals, not that it matters I guess. Please spend time with your loved ones if you can, I'm surely about to drive once more to be with family and mourn together while I still struggle not to fall myself.
My uncle died yesterday, and we were close enough to where today I woke up staring up at the ceiling regretful, toiling around in my own head with a fog of thoughts that even now still permeates. I went through the rest of the day so far trying desperately to act as if nothing happened, driving with FFXIV music blaring out the car speakers, taking care of responsibilities with the best smile I could feign. Then I got home, and loaded up this game again, drawn to it searching for comfort. After an hour I started rewatching cutscenes, reading things about the game again trying to reexperience the same feelings that brought me solace. The game's chock full of them after all, with a dying man sitting at the bench with you giving last thoughts on a world and life he knows has dealt him the worst hand, to a scummy kid who is envious of his brother and still is even after his death not realizing how much he's trying to fill that hole in his heart that's been left. An old couple welcomes me in with smiles on their faces as they continue to grieve, just my presence being enough to remind them of what once was, but still they look forward hopeful.
I'm crying again as I attach myself to these stand-ins for loss, those depressing but not lonesome stories that help me grieve on my own time. This aura permeates through the entire narrative, as characters not so much different from my feelings of today pull off the same images of trying to act like everything's ok, and even the most naive cocky individual of the party has to come to terms with a hospitalized lover who he now wishes more than ever that he could've spent just one more minute with. I wish I had more time too, the last memory of my uncle is going to be me moving around stuff in his house while he can barely move about his home, and then after helping when he offers me and another sibling to stay and watch a movie with him, I say that I have to go home as it's getting too dark to drive. I still don't know whether my leaving was out of apathy, or cowardice, and I don't know which is worse.
And this game rejects apathy, it pushes to understand these feelings I struggle with today, an ENTIRE cult founded to bring the fall of all is juxtaposed with a desire from those who have suffered the most to keep living. A disgusting choice is thrusted towards the player and what's best isn't to remain ignorant but it is to defy this fucking downfall. It's hopeful, in the end, not wallowing in sorrow, even when the ending is still painful.
Not to say that this is a perfect simulacrum of these discordant thoughts, the combat ensues listlessness even in this version that tries to right wrongs of the flawed original. You walk multiple floors fighting enemies on passable at best strategies thinking about how it'd be nice if we were back several minutes ago to feel feelings at a scene again. There's even what would become late Atlus's problematic bullshit with hots-for-teachers and terrible handlings of lgbt, and that only spreads more poison over time for me. It just makes me angry, bile held and punches I wish I could throw at something other than air.
But the game still very much speaks to me, just putting out these thoughts after every couple minutes of tears and thinking of what this MEANS to me, what it represents, what it is, is helpful. I don't know if I can entirely recommend, or hope that the same will stand true for most individuals, not that it matters I guess. Please spend time with your loved ones if you can, I'm surely about to drive once more to be with family and mourn together while I still struggle not to fall myself.
Played the demo, and I'm already very excited to see where this goes. Pretty effective tactical mastery here, with cards and grid based decisions working seamlessly, with wiggle room to really decimate with card combos and keep yourself damageless. Encounters are excellently tuned to where you have a healthy amount of options at any point and time, and the difficulty ramps up well AND you can pretty much destroy the final boss in mere seconds with just the regular deck alone if your strategy is up to snuff.
Is certainly a demo in most senses of the word though, has some rough patches in terms of cpu performance (weirdly, this shit should not be intensive at all?), metagaming in terms of choosing your routes and choosing when to go to shops and healing when currently they cost WAY more than it really should, and a couple balance quirks. Like that example I said, beating the final boss in like a couple turns. Some of these cards are too OP for their own good. Regardless it's absolutely excellent, and definitely worth a look by more people.
Is certainly a demo in most senses of the word though, has some rough patches in terms of cpu performance (weirdly, this shit should not be intensive at all?), metagaming in terms of choosing your routes and choosing when to go to shops and healing when currently they cost WAY more than it really should, and a couple balance quirks. Like that example I said, beating the final boss in like a couple turns. Some of these cards are too OP for their own good. Regardless it's absolutely excellent, and definitely worth a look by more people.
2010
I hate having to put this king shit away because Windows 10 said that NO YOU WILL TAKE THESE FRAME FREEZES AND DEAL WITH THEM while I cry and struggle with pixel perfect maneuvers on Hard, barely trudging through World 1 before I couldn't take it any more. And as much as I think this stuff is great, I would rather have my baked late 00s meme culture super interesting precision platformer be running perfectly and I'm not about to start up a fucking virtual machine.
SHAME!
SHAME!
2000
meh
Tales of games are known for their long generally boring setups, but the base stuff here is not anything I can see getting interesting 20+ hours in. The party dynamics are already making my eyes roll and the general story setup while charming definitely doesn't cut above the generic board it starts on. Aesthetically it's ok, but also very bland at times (especially in the beginning areas). The music doesn't do enough to complement any of these features either.
But what Tales of games are generally looked up for are their gameplay, and boy is this the least interesting iteration I've played of the series so far (I am, definitely aware of worse ones that I haven't touched). Enemies have a super armor mechanic that can basically invalidate certain approaches at total random, leaving very inconsistent poke game and praying often times that you'll get a punish so you can do a dial-up fourish hit combo. The combo probably gets a lot bigger later in, but so far the first hours of enemy encounters were disgustingly simple. I talked about the super armor mechanic, but let me not imply that this game is challenging by any sense of the word, even on Hard. It's just route, definitely a product of early 00s vibes but nothing I'll ever return to even on the strongest of vouches. To the rpg hells with you!
Tales of games are known for their long generally boring setups, but the base stuff here is not anything I can see getting interesting 20+ hours in. The party dynamics are already making my eyes roll and the general story setup while charming definitely doesn't cut above the generic board it starts on. Aesthetically it's ok, but also very bland at times (especially in the beginning areas). The music doesn't do enough to complement any of these features either.
But what Tales of games are generally looked up for are their gameplay, and boy is this the least interesting iteration I've played of the series so far (I am, definitely aware of worse ones that I haven't touched). Enemies have a super armor mechanic that can basically invalidate certain approaches at total random, leaving very inconsistent poke game and praying often times that you'll get a punish so you can do a dial-up fourish hit combo. The combo probably gets a lot bigger later in, but so far the first hours of enemy encounters were disgustingly simple. I talked about the super armor mechanic, but let me not imply that this game is challenging by any sense of the word, even on Hard. It's just route, definitely a product of early 00s vibes but nothing I'll ever return to even on the strongest of vouches. To the rpg hells with you!
Fastest Castlevania in the west.
In pacing and in moment to moment combat, you're generally always on the move. It's neat! I'm not the appeal to the sort of slow paced platformer as these games are really for, but I was able to enjoy myself p well here with good levels and even stronger bosses. It's also got a good amount of challenge too, with the latter two stages giving me the most trouble as usual. Limited continues did make me really consider the save state though, like I appreciate long term challenge design but through the whole game is always questionable.
The only criminal underpin really is that the soundtrack, while good, doesn't slap nearly as hard as CV3. A weak comparison maybe, but if I'm not jamming and I'm playing a genre that doesn't give me dopamine it kinda hits less in my mind from screen to screen.
I do love my tarzan swinging though. Good game
In pacing and in moment to moment combat, you're generally always on the move. It's neat! I'm not the appeal to the sort of slow paced platformer as these games are really for, but I was able to enjoy myself p well here with good levels and even stronger bosses. It's also got a good amount of challenge too, with the latter two stages giving me the most trouble as usual. Limited continues did make me really consider the save state though, like I appreciate long term challenge design but through the whole game is always questionable.
The only criminal underpin really is that the soundtrack, while good, doesn't slap nearly as hard as CV3. A weak comparison maybe, but if I'm not jamming and I'm playing a genre that doesn't give me dopamine it kinda hits less in my mind from screen to screen.
I do love my tarzan swinging though. Good game
1980
Legendary sort of fun. The kind that should be enshrined everywhere, the kind of legendary in terms of myth and whispers, the kind that isn't one for 'worthy explorers' to try to debunk and put into the light of reality. Cuz otherwise it would be incredibly boring, like this is to play.
1982
Neat point of twin-stick history. Really incredible how the paradigm of constant positioning and dealing with enemies that all want to murder you while you desperately look for safe spots to manage all the distinct enemy types persists all the way since its creation.
Albeit, still monotonous to really attempt to perfect past the first hour now, although how far we've come on the genre definitely holds a lot of the blame for that. What doesn't is how painfully flashy the art and colors are, with not exactly the accessible and perfect sprite stuff you see in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Really more of a game that makes you quickly appreciate or at least learn how exactly visual feedback and cohesion is kinda something that's super important to have.
Definitely the age old wear I expected walking in, but hey at least it'll look good in a museum!
(made it to wave 32, in case anyone is curious)
Albeit, still monotonous to really attempt to perfect past the first hour now, although how far we've come on the genre definitely holds a lot of the blame for that. What doesn't is how painfully flashy the art and colors are, with not exactly the accessible and perfect sprite stuff you see in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Really more of a game that makes you quickly appreciate or at least learn how exactly visual feedback and cohesion is kinda something that's super important to have.
Definitely the age old wear I expected walking in, but hey at least it'll look good in a museum!
(made it to wave 32, in case anyone is curious)
2018
First Impressions
I was personally really really really put away by the art style at first, and honestly I double down on that art style being really snooze-worthy and the general atmosphere to be a bit dull in a way I swear only dark dreary rpglikes will be excited for. But what's here on offer is an interesting take on Spelunky with more chaos put into here. I was only able to make it to the end of the second area (of which there are four total), but I was generally impressed by how the combat was done. There's still a lot of points where the enemies are so hectic and there's a bit of a weird mishmash between wanting to take it slow and wanting to use the whole arena v quickly to kite your foes. It's a bit of a conflicted design I feel, but still quite enjoyable.
The bosses are the real meat so far, and in general I found having to deal with them to be the best part with a lot of careful dancing of positioning, especially when they spawn or are surrounded by other enemies.
It could maybe do without the rpg style, which doesn't really add to that interesting decisions. It feels very number crunchy and just the general texture of this game is kind of a snoozy pushback. Really deserved more time on the dev floor, but maybe it rapidly improves in the final couple areas. Certainly worth my recommendation, as it's a good time overall from what I played. On to the shelf it goes!
I was personally really really really put away by the art style at first, and honestly I double down on that art style being really snooze-worthy and the general atmosphere to be a bit dull in a way I swear only dark dreary rpglikes will be excited for. But what's here on offer is an interesting take on Spelunky with more chaos put into here. I was only able to make it to the end of the second area (of which there are four total), but I was generally impressed by how the combat was done. There's still a lot of points where the enemies are so hectic and there's a bit of a weird mishmash between wanting to take it slow and wanting to use the whole arena v quickly to kite your foes. It's a bit of a conflicted design I feel, but still quite enjoyable.
The bosses are the real meat so far, and in general I found having to deal with them to be the best part with a lot of careful dancing of positioning, especially when they spawn or are surrounded by other enemies.
It could maybe do without the rpg style, which doesn't really add to that interesting decisions. It feels very number crunchy and just the general texture of this game is kind of a snoozy pushback. Really deserved more time on the dev floor, but maybe it rapidly improves in the final couple areas. Certainly worth my recommendation, as it's a good time overall from what I played. On to the shelf it goes!
2011
I appear to have made a mistake playing this.
It was only at the end that I realized that I'd kind of just skipped to the last chapter of the book without my knowing. "Brand new players" in the game description is deathly misleading, as even to me it felt like I wasn't seeing the full picture at all. The game absolutely expects you to be on the final chapter of the whole journey, literally calling back to elements I had no way of knowing about until I just looked them up.
I don't think that changed my opinion on the end though. I could see that it was minimalist, very clearly a sort of painting put up on an art museum at the chronicles of fate, where this is the point of passing on. A final farewell to a series meant to feel very transcendent.
And it is dreadfully not fun to play, in fact my eyes are still strained and crying as I'm writing this, because it's fucking painful on the eyes. The game's main mechanic, in response to all you're doing being paddling the pong balls coming to you, is to obfuscate the way to hit them in the most 'fair' way possible, but at the same time with so many trippy and bright elements in the background ESCALATING as you get better at it. It was a fight against my eyes, and at the end of it I wasn't feeling the ethereal emotion.
I also kind of think the music just completely went one ear and out the other? I wasn't feeling anything, especially when I was severely trying to fight back against the pain to get through the game. I don't want to say the music just sucks, and I'm sure there's an intent to it, but I don't think I'm supposed to walk away thinking "I just wasted a full hour just to get my eyes hurting".
Y'know you could just play Journey. Ok that's unfair they're like not cognitively the same, but look I just want to give fair warning that unless you're in it to appreciate this, you're paying a ticket to potentially suffer.
It was only at the end that I realized that I'd kind of just skipped to the last chapter of the book without my knowing. "Brand new players" in the game description is deathly misleading, as even to me it felt like I wasn't seeing the full picture at all. The game absolutely expects you to be on the final chapter of the whole journey, literally calling back to elements I had no way of knowing about until I just looked them up.
I don't think that changed my opinion on the end though. I could see that it was minimalist, very clearly a sort of painting put up on an art museum at the chronicles of fate, where this is the point of passing on. A final farewell to a series meant to feel very transcendent.
And it is dreadfully not fun to play, in fact my eyes are still strained and crying as I'm writing this, because it's fucking painful on the eyes. The game's main mechanic, in response to all you're doing being paddling the pong balls coming to you, is to obfuscate the way to hit them in the most 'fair' way possible, but at the same time with so many trippy and bright elements in the background ESCALATING as you get better at it. It was a fight against my eyes, and at the end of it I wasn't feeling the ethereal emotion.
I also kind of think the music just completely went one ear and out the other? I wasn't feeling anything, especially when I was severely trying to fight back against the pain to get through the game. I don't want to say the music just sucks, and I'm sure there's an intent to it, but I don't think I'm supposed to walk away thinking "I just wasted a full hour just to get my eyes hurting".
Y'know you could just play Journey. Ok that's unfair they're like not cognitively the same, but look I just want to give fair warning that unless you're in it to appreciate this, you're paying a ticket to potentially suffer.
2020
First Impressions (kind of a new format I wanted to do, I kind of treat backloggd as a journal of my thoughts to begin with so why not!)
It's good.
Better than I expected from the team that sucked a lot of my adolescent hours away for a moba I'm incredibly mixed about. It does a pretty fun accessible combination of CS + hero powers, and it's fast paced enough with neverending split second decisions. Mostly just happy about how they landed the ingame economics, not just of where you spend money, but how you make moves at any point.
The biggest standout difficulty curve to climb was weapon and ability swapping, as whenever you ready something there's a HUGE startup, and that can very easily be your downfall. Knowing exactly when to do something as simple as that is a key point, adding that onto map control, the tradeoffs of weapons and ability usage, and you have something that is probably really interesting.
I tried out mostly Commando and Jett, and also the two meme modes. Spike Rush is just "I feel like wasting time", and deathmatch is "I want to lab my aim". Neat stuff.
There's a couple other miscellaneous stuff there, game looks bad but perfect for competitive play and weaker end systems, so it's just a heartless tradeoff but whatever. Feedback is INCREDIBLY good, in that you don't even need to like know all the agent abilities, they're very intuitive to figure out just from looking at them. Some of the best visual info stuff I've seen in a while. Matchmaking was smoothish, but not knowing what map you're going to get queued on can make things disgusting when you're thrusted from maps you haven't yet learned to ones you were just getting to learn.
Overall, good time, looking forward to coming back and getting not-shit at it.
It's good.
Better than I expected from the team that sucked a lot of my adolescent hours away for a moba I'm incredibly mixed about. It does a pretty fun accessible combination of CS + hero powers, and it's fast paced enough with neverending split second decisions. Mostly just happy about how they landed the ingame economics, not just of where you spend money, but how you make moves at any point.
The biggest standout difficulty curve to climb was weapon and ability swapping, as whenever you ready something there's a HUGE startup, and that can very easily be your downfall. Knowing exactly when to do something as simple as that is a key point, adding that onto map control, the tradeoffs of weapons and ability usage, and you have something that is probably really interesting.
I tried out mostly Commando and Jett, and also the two meme modes. Spike Rush is just "I feel like wasting time", and deathmatch is "I want to lab my aim". Neat stuff.
There's a couple other miscellaneous stuff there, game looks bad but perfect for competitive play and weaker end systems, so it's just a heartless tradeoff but whatever. Feedback is INCREDIBLY good, in that you don't even need to like know all the agent abilities, they're very intuitive to figure out just from looking at them. Some of the best visual info stuff I've seen in a while. Matchmaking was smoothish, but not knowing what map you're going to get queued on can make things disgusting when you're thrusted from maps you haven't yet learned to ones you were just getting to learn.
Overall, good time, looking forward to coming back and getting not-shit at it.
2019
Disco Elysium is a reminder. A painful one at that.
No, not a reminder of what we knew. It always comes in bouts, that stumbling around attempting to find meaning in the world that is painted in garish colors of conflict and ideologies that tear us apart, that harsh critique of what we are capable of as people. The ways our lives are completely connected in ways that drive us to the brink of despair, building towards a pale that rips at the edges of the world before the whole book cracks at the seams and turns the paper to shreds. No, that's nothing new.
That's something any cynical mindset could create really, even if they had the prose as excellent as this game did, or the character writing this painstakingly real. That's doable. What it really reminds me of, is our emotions, yknow that feeling thing. That helps us really understand each other at our core, is how we as people can live. Living with the loss, the many many many casualties not just personal but also in our own heads. Or as Disco Elysium really well puts it by the end after a long long conversation, "dealing with all this shit." At the end of the day, we're capable of understanding each other, and you don't need to drink yourself to the point of amnesia just so you can find the steps to get there.
That definitely sounds more verbose than a game which painfully relies too much on the odds of sentences landing with a roll of the dice may deserve, but this work was fucking profound to me. Compared to my earlier impressions, of which I really did look like the bumbling cop nihilistically walking away thinking all of it was worthless, I find myself hoping that everyone I know gets around to playing this.
No, not a reminder of what we knew. It always comes in bouts, that stumbling around attempting to find meaning in the world that is painted in garish colors of conflict and ideologies that tear us apart, that harsh critique of what we are capable of as people. The ways our lives are completely connected in ways that drive us to the brink of despair, building towards a pale that rips at the edges of the world before the whole book cracks at the seams and turns the paper to shreds. No, that's nothing new.
That's something any cynical mindset could create really, even if they had the prose as excellent as this game did, or the character writing this painstakingly real. That's doable. What it really reminds me of, is our emotions, yknow that feeling thing. That helps us really understand each other at our core, is how we as people can live. Living with the loss, the many many many casualties not just personal but also in our own heads. Or as Disco Elysium really well puts it by the end after a long long conversation, "dealing with all this shit." At the end of the day, we're capable of understanding each other, and you don't need to drink yourself to the point of amnesia just so you can find the steps to get there.
That definitely sounds more verbose than a game which painfully relies too much on the odds of sentences landing with a roll of the dice may deserve, but this work was fucking profound to me. Compared to my earlier impressions, of which I really did look like the bumbling cop nihilistically walking away thinking all of it was worthless, I find myself hoping that everyone I know gets around to playing this.
Load of interesting horseshit.
High/Low blocking is cool, and this being maybe one of the first iterations I've ever seen of it does give it a bit of neat game design-level charm to it, especially when it does a better than average job of testing that. The real problem is that that's kind of all this game is? Just like, nothing else? It's a testing of very very simple fundamentals that goes WAY beyond the time limit where that stays interesting, with positioning only mattering at select points while most of it is still waiting. Poorly paced, dripping with eroded architecture, very intentionally shitty dungeon design to make stuff longer for god knows why, doubtful to say that there's really moments that will stick with you as charming.
If you're looking for difficult games that stress one mechanic, maybe this will be interesting for you. Otherwise you can jump and well time smack off to something else, odds are if you were interested in that you'll have already played this game.
High/Low blocking is cool, and this being maybe one of the first iterations I've ever seen of it does give it a bit of neat game design-level charm to it, especially when it does a better than average job of testing that. The real problem is that that's kind of all this game is? Just like, nothing else? It's a testing of very very simple fundamentals that goes WAY beyond the time limit where that stays interesting, with positioning only mattering at select points while most of it is still waiting. Poorly paced, dripping with eroded architecture, very intentionally shitty dungeon design to make stuff longer for god knows why, doubtful to say that there's really moments that will stick with you as charming.
If you're looking for difficult games that stress one mechanic, maybe this will be interesting for you. Otherwise you can jump and well time smack off to something else, odds are if you were interested in that you'll have already played this game.
Ok, "completing" minesweeper aside.
I think this is interesting, maybe because there's like a powerful resurgence going on around me cuz of one person who decided minesweeper was fun again, but also because I was toying around with this vs. a bunch of other minesweeper knock-offs, and kept circling back to this one.
And why? Because of rng. Which is weird, because I can't think of anything more frustrating and annoying about minesweeper then you running into the dreaded 3-1 with two last clickable spaces left, or just the pretense that because you rolled the dice wrong you were fucked from the start, kiddo. But when I played versions that used algorithms to remove that element, where it just became a game of statistical probability using the same techniques ad nauseum, rather than some measures in my head to try to reduce the risk through intuition, it became... boring. A solved game isn't always bad, but it's not something I come back to, and I don't think most people do.
That's the wild part, this game is ancient and it swallows up my freetime hours lately with nothing but basic probability management and very simple to learn techniques. All baked into a very intentionally irritating gameplay component. There are people who have spent their lives optimizing that component, creating strategies to fuck with the board, bending the numbers under their knee until they unlocked it like a fucked up puzzle and going YES I GOT IT.
Fucking wild. Legendary game, probably not something I'll recommend lol. This is just a fun retrospective.
I think this is interesting, maybe because there's like a powerful resurgence going on around me cuz of one person who decided minesweeper was fun again, but also because I was toying around with this vs. a bunch of other minesweeper knock-offs, and kept circling back to this one.
And why? Because of rng. Which is weird, because I can't think of anything more frustrating and annoying about minesweeper then you running into the dreaded 3-1 with two last clickable spaces left, or just the pretense that because you rolled the dice wrong you were fucked from the start, kiddo. But when I played versions that used algorithms to remove that element, where it just became a game of statistical probability using the same techniques ad nauseum, rather than some measures in my head to try to reduce the risk through intuition, it became... boring. A solved game isn't always bad, but it's not something I come back to, and I don't think most people do.
That's the wild part, this game is ancient and it swallows up my freetime hours lately with nothing but basic probability management and very simple to learn techniques. All baked into a very intentionally irritating gameplay component. There are people who have spent their lives optimizing that component, creating strategies to fuck with the board, bending the numbers under their knee until they unlocked it like a fucked up puzzle and going YES I GOT IT.
Fucking wild. Legendary game, probably not something I'll recommend lol. This is just a fun retrospective.