Sep 2023: This Month's Games
a public journal of everything i've played this month
any notes should be treated as "first impressions"
any notes should be treated as "first impressions"
21 Games
back at it again
going to write more in-depth review on this one when i'm finished but first impressions are that this is yeo's most mechanically deep game but i'm not quite sold on the narrative, not at this early stage
Hits the sweet spot on the level of complexity I'd like from a transport sim and the dynamic cities are cool even if it's not actually simulating anything crazy. The only real difficulty here comes from aligning and designing the tracks to keep things moving which ends up making the economy portion feel a little half-baked
They also had a person with an obvious European accent voicing American-born Thomas C. Durant and they do a good job but it reminds me enough of this video that I can't stop thinking about it.
They also had a person with an obvious European accent voicing American-born Thomas C. Durant and they do a good job but it reminds me enough of this video that I can't stop thinking about it.
"city building" in the same way that something like kingdom: two crowns is "city building" - run a little guy around and place coins into structures to build them and at the end of each turn you have a little tower defense mission. it's well made but i have a hard time imagining that anyone is getting fired up to play this
I like the challenge of creating a self-sufficient city in a very small area, making use of every inch, but this one just involves too much waiting and the fast-forward just isn't fast enough in most cases. I don't want it to be that idle. Sorry!
Probably the best city builder I've played at portraying the irregularity and organic nature of a lot of medieval settlements - roads are just well-trod desire paths, and your farm's fields are painted with a brush instead of being placed in neat little squares. Hardly a simulator but I think that works for the best here, since I'm not aware of another city builder with this focus that's trying to lean into the sandbox experience.
(Ostriv exists but is perhaps more difficult than some would like)
Probably the coolest feature in this whole game is that you just take a big brush and tell people where they can live and they'll build their own houses.
(Ostriv exists but is perhaps more difficult than some would like)
Probably the coolest feature in this whole game is that you just take a big brush and tell people where they can live and they'll build their own houses.
it's a typing game - not doing anything particularly interesting other than gauging your speed at typing out hololive-themed words (complete with special characters) in either english or romaji
about as deep as you'd expect if you're familiar with the premise, but I can't really hold that against them. nothing here is particularly hard but i like it better that way - 4/5 core games are mesmerizing until you take on the last few challenges in each mode and need to start applying some brain power.
fuck cash run
fuck cash run
Airship combat that is fine, paired with a grand strategy game that is fine, all to make a game that is just fine
essentially dorfromantik without the railroads and rivers, which is to say: easier dorfromantik
i keep returning to this game intending to show it some good will but it immediately sabotages that every time by making me unable to click out of menus notifying me of garbage unlocks until i've waited the mandatory 5 seconds for each notification, regardless of how much text is on screen. i just want to play the skateboard mode you advertised and you're eroding all my good will before i've even taken control of my character
could have potential but the scale is just too broad for me to care about any of this. if you want anything interesting to happen you have to crank the timer really fast and zoom out really far, but if you do that you're just looking at different colors mashing into each other until one wins. kinda fails at both small and large scale simulation
I don't think I'm tired of Bethesda's in-house style - rather, I think I'm just the type of person who needs some coaxing to find space interesting as a setting and Starfield has no intention of helping you with that. Futzing around on a planet and scanning things is neat but the game doesn't seem too interested in fostering a sense of wonder. Is this a stupid complaint? It feels like a stupid complaint.
In any case the moment-to-moment gameplay is fine: shooting things feels pretty solid, creating a character is an interesting process this time around, etc. It's also got some really little things that happen to really get on my nerves, though. I could go the rest of my life without someone I met ten minutes ago going "Hey, can we talk? I've met a lot of people across the galaxy, but you? You're different." I could go the rest of my life without spending 20 seconds staring at a single table/locker, combing through all the meticulously modelled junk so I can scrounge up 6 bullets (looks identical to the junk).
Anyway, I talk big shit but I can't really say anything of substance about this experience, the whole thing just slides right off my brain and out my ears. I'm not really sure what it wants to be and based on what I've seen so far I'm not sure I care to find out. I'll certainly revisit this in a couple months or years when I've got a hankering for this kind of thing and at that time I'll give it a "flawed, but I like it anyway" 7/10.
In any case the moment-to-moment gameplay is fine: shooting things feels pretty solid, creating a character is an interesting process this time around, etc. It's also got some really little things that happen to really get on my nerves, though. I could go the rest of my life without someone I met ten minutes ago going "Hey, can we talk? I've met a lot of people across the galaxy, but you? You're different." I could go the rest of my life without spending 20 seconds staring at a single table/locker, combing through all the meticulously modelled junk so I can scrounge up 6 bullets (looks identical to the junk).
Anyway, I talk big shit but I can't really say anything of substance about this experience, the whole thing just slides right off my brain and out my ears. I'm not really sure what it wants to be and based on what I've seen so far I'm not sure I care to find out. I'll certainly revisit this in a couple months or years when I've got a hankering for this kind of thing and at that time I'll give it a "flawed, but I like it anyway" 7/10.
poorly translated, which i wouldn't mind if the rest of it were developed enough that i could intuit what i'm supposed to be doing
Demo
Standard fare except for the setting, which will be enough for some people. I don't really care about Ancient Greece but a similar game for a setting more appealing to me would set my brain on fire
it also absolutely needs an option to speed up time even faster
Standard fare except for the setting, which will be enough for some people. I don't really care about Ancient Greece but a similar game for a setting more appealing to me would set my brain on fire
it also absolutely needs an option to speed up time even faster
Demo
I like the concept but I'm not fully sold on the execution - if you listen to the devs talk about this game it sounds like they're about to make the city-builder of my dreams but the truth is that while it's a very clever project, I don't think it does as much to foster that appreciation for the things your people build, and you never really get a sense that things are growing and thriving around your infrastructure - you just feel like you're manually building better infrastructure forever.
I like the concept but I'm not fully sold on the execution - if you listen to the devs talk about this game it sounds like they're about to make the city-builder of my dreams but the truth is that while it's a very clever project, I don't think it does as much to foster that appreciation for the things your people build, and you never really get a sense that things are growing and thriving around your infrastructure - you just feel like you're manually building better infrastructure forever.
Demo
xianxia stardew. some people wont like the graphics or the occasional typo but if you can put up with those i think this does some fun things. i like spellcasting and using charms when farming, and i like that there's actually some material benefit to decorating your house (although some might not). cooking is also fun as hell. no joke, with a little more polish (a usable map) i think this is the stardew-type game that i'd be most likely to put time into
xianxia stardew. some people wont like the graphics or the occasional typo but if you can put up with those i think this does some fun things. i like spellcasting and using charms when farming, and i like that there's actually some material benefit to decorating your house (although some might not). cooking is also fun as hell. no joke, with a little more polish (a usable map) i think this is the stardew-type game that i'd be most likely to put time into
Demo
The Sims is so chock-full of features at this point that it'd be hard for any indie developer to compete, so everything here is pretty basic, but i kinda like it. it feels quieter than a modern sims game, no cell phones meaning you're not getting constantly blown up by your neighbors telling you shit you don't care about.
The Sims is so chock-full of features at this point that it'd be hard for any indie developer to compete, so everything here is pretty basic, but i kinda like it. it feels quieter than a modern sims game, no cell phones meaning you're not getting constantly blown up by your neighbors telling you shit you don't care about.