Been quite a while since my last post. A lot of stuff ate my time to write posts, but fortunately I was still able to look into a thing or two. One of those is the stuff at Greenhouse.
I’ve been monitoring Greenhouse the past while for updates regarding Penny Arcade’s OtRSPoD:E2 (it’s supposed to come out this week), and in the process I got to try to interesting games: Spectromancer and World of Goo.
Spectromancer is a fantasy themed card game created by Alexey Stankevich (creator of Astral Tournament and Astral Masters), Richard Garfield (don’t tell me you don’t know who HE is!) and Skaff Elias (original MtG playtester, Harry Potter TCG / D&D Minis designer). Gameplay uses parts of basic MtG concepts but has randomized decks (if you can design a deck, I havent figured it out yet), default constant “mana” increase across all mana sources, limited cards per deck, fixed slots for placing summoned creatures, and some positional considerations based on those slots (similar to Monsters’ Den: Book of Dread). Single player campaign is available, as well as multi-player. Gameplay is interesting enough, but I’m just learning the nuances so strategy is just now being revealed to me. Yes, you can make combos, but if there is no way to to custom design your deck, card synergy is a bit of a hit and miss. This game should appeal to MtG/card game fans, and plays quite decently (though I’ve encountered quite a few bugs in the demo), but I can’t recommend it broadly (niche gamepaly)
World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game where you manipulate blobs of goo to create structures that allow you to complete objectives (in the demo, it’s mostly getting from point A to point B). Graphics are slick and well done, and the puzzles are very interesting, though I’m kinda stuck in what could be the last level of the demo (I don’t know where I have to go / build to). You’ll easily figure out how to play on the get go (though perhaps the objectives per level won’t always be obvious. Like I said, I’m stuck), so I can make a rather broad recommendation on this as it should appeal to a lot of people.
I’m currently playing through the demos to determine if I should purchase them or not. Currently, I’m leaning on getting World of Goo, I’m still deciding if the Spectromancer’s gameplay will be appealing enough for me to be worth a purchase.
You can find download links to the demos at the developer’s website of each respective game and of course at Greenhouse.
[edit]
Crap! I looked around for a hint on the last demo level for World of Goo. Either I missed a clue (I checked again, none of the signs seem to clue me in) or it just didn’t occur to me that some of the environ items are actually usable! Demo is officially over. Now it’s time to consider if I enjoyed it enough to be willing to shell out some coppers for the full thing.
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