It's about robots: Primordia

So, I'd be the first to admit I couldn't tell you the difference between a puzzle game, a HOG or an adventure game or any of the myriad divisions. I mean some games are puzzle games, but there are also games which have puzzles in them? They are puzzling but not puzzled out? I would also be the first to tell you that I delight in robots - robots are very important to me. And Primordia is about robots.

Or it is sort of.

Primordia is a well-written adventure (!?!) game centered on a robot with a wacky pun spewing sidekick that has to solve the essential problem of power, since another robot showed up, shot him and took his "power core" that provides power to his ship. And oddly that song does fit the theme of the game, somehow. The game's story slowly comes together, and I don't really want to spoil elements, but I found it sort of an interesting take on post-apocalypse sort of things since the robots don't really recognize it as such. Or much of anything as such, but since they're robots, you go yeah ok this makes sense.

There isn't a lot to say about Primordia, given the gameplay is very simply and very soothing. The characters, pardoning the one, are very interesting and unlike Morningstar they're not intentionally pushed to be annoying. I wish I could have screenshotted more of the sidekick's puns, but unfortunately the game won't allow you to use the steam overlay screenshot tool OR the raptr screenshot tool (how that is even possible is beyond me) but will allow you to screenshot using the printscreen key.

Which makes no sense! Unfortunately that also advances the dialogue, so I'd see something funny and then the game would eat it. Sigh.

There Was a Cave Man

 

There is a video series done by Egoraptor in which he talks about the transition from original property to sequel, and what it means in game design, and so on. Although I've read egoraptor is a bit of a loon, I agree with almost everything he says, and the one episode talks about the tutorial level for Megaman X, and how it is amazingly well done. How it explains the body of the game's mechanics in a fluid, easy to adapt to manner.

One of the things that stands out when you play 'hard indie' games is the design process seems to really fail to grasp previously demonstrated good game design. Megaman X came out like, twenty two years ago, but you still rarely see good tutorial levels even to this day. Game design constantly struggles to articulate to the player how the game works, and the most mind-blowing thing is the predilection toward killing the player.

I mean, I get it. You heard you want to make the game hard, so the game is hard by killing the player. Checkbox, little animated check going in it. Grats. The problem is, man oh man, getting killed in the tutorial while you're trying to figure out the damn controls is just so obnoxious. If you're dying, shockingly, you're not really learning. You're re-loading.

There Was a Cave Man has such a tutorial level. The controls and scheme aren't bad - actually, I really like them - but getting down the rhythm of the dash and double jump takes more than the 0.13 seconds the game gives you before it starts trying to murder you. I really don't get the appeal of this sort of thing.

I mean as I write this, Fallout 4 just came out, and 1.2 million people on steam were playing it last night. Does Fallout 4 give you, I don't know, more than ten seconds to get a handle on things? Sure, Fallout 4 has no doubt a host of problems and I doubt I'm buying it til, I don't know, 2018 or something. But there's something for a product being immensely more complicated and yet far more willing to be approachable. Game difficulty was built around artificially extending the longevity of a product, not necessarily enjoyment in and of itself.

Woah Dave!

Woah Dave! is a single screen attempt at building what probably amounts to a retroclone from the arcade era. It feels very familiar, honestly blending elements from Mario Brothers the not super, arcade pixel art and Super Mario Brothers 2 (NES version) into one relatively cohesive game. If that sounds like I'm bashing it, well, it depends on how much design space you imagine there is within a single screen and how much polish you think the game should have.

Oh, and it sort of reminds me of Super Hang-On, although that's probably the sort of subjective memory absolutely no one will get.

At its core the game is extremely simple, but there is just a little more to it than you think there is. At first it just looks like you pick things (that eventually explode) up and throw them at things, which become more dangerous things if you don't handle them and while that is all there is to it, there is a weird sort of strategy to each of the levels that begins to become apparent, especially when things get out of hand. It simple, but I find it fun. It also sounds good, and the music is very catchy although there is really only one track or at least only one set of tracks that play as you get deeper into the level. They did not add additional tracks with the additional levels in the "deluxe" update, which is a little disappointing, primarily predicated on the fact the music is legitimately catchy.

There is a progression from the word go, with the lowest floor slowly being consumed with lava, and then various new enemies added once you've reached enough score, with some other modifications. It does give the game a sense of shifting change, but it's nothing major. Basically what you see is what you get. It plays smoothly and it plays pretty frantic, but that's about it.

The game is, as I said, simple ... But it in some ways even for the goal it sets out for itself are undermined by being a little too simple. As I said, one of the dangers is the things you pick up explode. The problem here kinda goes a little in a couple ways. For one, your character can leap out of the screen, which can muddle the things you're carrying or pick up things that haven't dropped on the screen yet. This is minor. Less so is how difficult it is to discern the remaining time of objects on the ground, especially if they stack up, which the game can happily do by itself. There's no real reason the game can't shade objects a little more, or shift their sizes a little to make them all not almost identical, and it can really add to the frustration for really no real design benefit.

The other thing about Woah Dave! is the game almost works against its best fun. Essentially speaking, you most enjoy it when you're scrambling around, struggling to try to keep up with the downward flow and ever upgrading aliens. The problem is that, due to the randomization of drops, you can never get behind - if you're ever behind, it is very likely the next drop you sorely need to catch up won't be the one you need or even worse drop onto something you need to deal with, preventing you from reacting. Once the screen becomes polluted with rapidly evolving foes, you're pretty much done. The best, frantic moments don't last long. It feels awesome to recover, but it is rare that manage to. On the other hand, drops are random, so sometimes they just fall in the same spot as the same item repeatedly and you get pretty bored.

Regardless, I played it for more than a few hours and quite enjoyed my time with it. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's good clean fun for a time, which is more than I can say for most retroclone stuff, you know?

Morningstar: Descent to Dead Rock

I was sort of hoping this would be a horror game, albeit a VN one, so I could quickly push through it and play through at least a pair of horror games for scary games month. Bad news: It's not a horror game. On the other hand, given my expectations for HOGs is rock bottom, the ironic title and fact it isn't horrible I will take as victories. Extra bad news: I forgot I never posted this review. Whoops!

I don't know much about Hidden Object Games, or even Adventure games in general. I consider the genre as sort of the opposite of the various genres lost in the rise of 3d: Adventure games were generally terrible, unenjoyable, and sort of a bad way to enjoy reading. The puzzle concept was largely about trying to figure out whatever nonsense logic the designer was employing, and every adventure game felt weirdly disconnected, poorly plotted out, or you could play leisure suit larry which was supposedly an adult game but as an adult feels more like a juvenile cartoon.

Regardless, much like platformers and pixel graphics, adventure games made a comeback and nowadays "HOGs" are apparently decent sellers for their investment of development time. I don't even really know how I ended up with Morningstar on my account - it might be a groupees bundle or maybe it came from indiegala or who knows - but it showed up and I installed it for whatever reason.

I can't really rate it relative to other adventure games due to this being my first in ten years or something; It is about two hours long, has no gameovers and is a gently paced adventure. The basic plot is your space ship, which appears to be a small cargo runner of a vessel, crashed on some generally off limits planet. One of your three man crew is dead, and your other crew member got a rod through his gut so yeah he isn't doing so great. You basically tromp around the little desert world, searching for mysteries and solving all the clues.

Visually the game looks pretty much like something I'd play on my 486, although obviously the resolution is up to modern snuff. The art is a mixed bag, with some elements looking quite good and others looking quite drab. There are a couple gentle FMVs, but don't expect any pulse pounding action out of this one.

The voice acting is ... It's hard to say? The VAs aren't fantastic, in fact are a little unlikable, but I definitely feel like the secondary character is supposed to be that way and the protagonist probably is at least a little. I like the fact they sound like they're of different races, at the least. You never see their faces since everyone is in space suits,

The story is ... Simple, honestly, and how you personally take it depends a little on your outlook as a person. You're trapped on a relatively hostile alien world, and your protagonist wants off, so while the game hints at a bunch of mysteries, you basically solve all the clues and work to get out of there as soon as possible. He's not an explorer, and while he's curious, it isn't his overriding concern.

I appreciated that, though I do feel like the game could have expanded out its assets a little bit with minimal fuss to give the game a bit more depth. On the other hand if you're the sort of person who wants all the mysteries explained, the game won't really gel with you.

Dork Quadrant: Enemy Mind

Rounding off my set up space shooty games is Enemy Mind, which I got from ... Actually I'm not really certain where I got this, though it was probably in a bundle? I believe this game was in Early access back in 2014, but is probably bundlefare at this point.
 
Enemy Mind is a shmup, and it is in space, AND it has cards - actually what this series was supposed to be about -  with really nice pixel artwork done in the more 16-bit style. The premise of the game, however, gets away from the general shmup thing with two slightly interesting twists on the general basics of the genre.

For one, the game has a core gimmick that shapes basically every design made in its design.

For two, it has a really neat story that relates back to its core gimmick. But the addition of a store is a 'for better or worse' arrangement, as it continues to add to the odd issues of the game.

The "gimmick" or "premise" depending on how you jive with it, is that your ship is not your ship. You are a psychic entity, capable of possession that leaps from ship to ship. You fight using their guns, you move using their skills and you die as they would die - unless you leap to the next ship.

It's nothing super hyper new, but it isn't on the other hand something I'm all that familiar with. I'm sure it has been done before, but I'm struggling to remember another example besides like ... Messiah or something.

Dork Quadrant: Hypership Out of Control

HSOOC appears, initially, to be a shmup. It certainly looks like a shmup in the screenshots, but instead its more a topdown shmup with a gimmick. 'A gimmick' seems to be the running theme of this subset of reviews, though HSOOC is less "has a gimmick" and more "is built around a premise" when I think about it.

The premise is you're the usual sort of topdown shmup spaceship doing its thang when your space brakes are cut! Or, whatever, basically your space craft can not really slow down and goes increasingly fast. It's a very basic, very obvious idea that I'm not certain has really been explored all that much before. So instead of going from enemy to enemy, you're in a race against ... Well, you're just going fast and you're worried about running into things.

I got to use the Gotta Go Fast tag, which I didn't think I'd get to use til my regretful purchase of Sonic Lost World next year. (It's gonna happen, argh)

The game looks pretty good, and the sound track is enjoyable to listen to. I enjoy the tracks shifting between the different levels, though there doesn't feel like there's enough music but this sort of relates to the game's problems. The gameplay is largely simple stuff - the game is more or less score attack, though I imagine you can finish the game if you keep at it. There's no story line, though the levels do have little visual gags that make me smirk. One level just ... Has bees. And it goes oh no, bees!

Dork Quadrant: Weird worlds: Return to Infinite Space

Continuing on through my trek through my back log is Weird Worlds, which is ... Actually nothing really like the other games in this subset, neither having cards and in spite of the awesome looking title screen not actually having much shooty space action either. I fire up games to see if they run - a habit from darker ages when steam would install a million tiny files before hand - and watch the title screen to make certain I get that far before moving onto other things.

This game's title screen kinda lies, you know. It looks like there's going to be rigorously most shooty space battles, and on the most part ... Well we'll get into it.

Weird worlds: Return to Infinite Space is essentially a 4X game through the filter of having 1.5X instead of the full four. Unlike the other four in this so-called Dork Quadrant, it doesn't really involve being a topdown or side-scrolling shooter, and is instead a pointy clicky space map game. It reminds me a lot of playing Master of Orion Two, looking both visually similar and borrowing a couple elements, though this is not to say that the game is that deep or that uncreative.

Merely that if you're familiar with taking a space ship and exploring the stars on a 2d map with little distances between them, you'll probably find this game almost eeriely familiar.