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Affilliation
There’s fraggin’, and then there’s puzzle fraggin’
The past week was filled with rave reviews on Left 4 Dead. Since I already got myself a steam account last week, and since I’m assuming you’ll need Steam anyway to play Valve games, I was considering purchasing Left 4 Dead online so I can finally get my feet wet with multiplayer FPSs.
Two things gave me pause:
- My PC is a bit on the old side (around 4 years now).
- FPSs aren’t friendly to lag. Half a second delay could get my ass handed to me.
I wish the L4D demo was still available so I could test it on my system, but alas, I can’t find it. The game currently retails at around US$50, so if I’m gonna fork out the dough, I better make sure I can play it immediately. I do have plans on upgrading my PC, but I’m waiting for Starcraft 2 to come out before I do it.
Fortunately for me, a nice little option came along.
Last week, gog.com started adding Unreal and Unreal Tournament stuff. I remember Unreal Tournament as the first shooter I really liked because it wasn’t as frantic as Quake was, and it was the 1st shooter that didn’t make me dizzy after prolonged hours of play. Delighted at the prospect of a shooter my system could handle, I decided that the cheap price is acceptable even if the ‘net multiplayer doesn’t work. I can accept US$10 for just fragging a few bots when I’m in the mood. If my ‘net connection can handle the lag, then the ‘net play would be a welcome bonus.
So I made the purchase and started the download. 2 gig don’t download all that fast, though, and I had to redo the download due to a silly thing I did. So while waiting, I decided to check-out what the other digital distribution sites had to offer.
I ended up being intrigued by the new stuff Greenhouse had. Hitherland was added a week or so ago, but the demo was available only recently. Puzzlegeddon was the new game, and it already had a demo available. I downloaded both.
I installed the Puzzlegeddon demo and played a few rounds. I wasn’t expecting much, but it ended up engaging me for quite a few rounds!
Puzzlegeddon’s core mechanic is basically sliding blocks in a square grid to make sets of at least 5 of the same color. The cool thing is that this core mechanic is used as a means to fuel a competitive game between 2-6 players! Making sets fills a meter of that color. The meter is used for various special effects like attack, defense, buffs, and disruptions. Also, you can select among several avatars which give you special bonuses like more powerful attacks, more efficient meter filling when chains are made, etc.
[pic above] A game against 5 bots. Me (12 o’clock, the castle) and Bit Bot decide to simultaneously fire missiles at Probot Hector. The wormhole above Probot Hector is an interrupt I cast, and the ephemeral flexing arms is due to a buff I cast.
One thing that bothers me a tad, and it’s not the gameplay. For some reason, Puzzlegeddon take a while to load, and it eats-up q big chunk of resources. Given the game, I was expecting it to be snappy, but it actually takes longer to load than OtRSPoD:E2! This has nothing to do with gameplay, though, and hopefully an update comes along to speed this part along. In terms of multiplayer, the lobbies aren’t that full right now, but if others like the game too, this will probably fix itself.
The whole concept, along with the fun and quirky art, and the possibility of multiplayer just gave me a nice warm feeling, enough to get me to purchase the thing!
And so, I now have two new competitive games, a nice old game where I shoot people, and a nice new puzzle game where I shoot people! 
Spectromancer, World of Goo at Greenhouse
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.
Tags: has demo, has downloads, MtG, Penny ArcadePenny Arcade’s “On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One” is Out!
“On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One“…
… whoa! That was a mouthful! Let’s try that again with an acronym…
OtRSPoD:E1 is an episodic game based on Penny Arcade, one of the best/most infamous webcomics to come out of the web. Is the game any good? I have yet to find out. While I try to get my hands on the demo in order to find out the level of suckage, here are some links to help you check-it out for yourself:
- OtRSPoD:E1 official site
- Penny Arcade ponders on wisdom of their video game venture
- Prequel comic and demo downloads here
- Critical-Hits’ review here
- Trailers and wallpapers here
- Penny Arcade promotes their game with flamebait from their biggest critic - lol
"Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" Demo Review
“Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords” is basically a RPG (role-playing game). You pick a class, equip your character with stuff, take on quests, fight baddies, level-up, assign points to your stats, etc. Combat, however, is executed by playing a Bejeweled type puzzle.
Your level and equipment determine your HP (hit-points), and your class mainly determines what spells/techniques you can execute in combat. You stats affect how effective various aspects in combat, fire affect red pieces, water affects blue pieces, etc. In combat, you and your opponent take turns swapping adjacent pieces on the board to make Bejeweled style combinations. 
The pieces you combine determine the various aspects of combat. Damage is mainly dealt to your opponent by combining 3 or more skulls together.
The elemental pieces, in particular, provide you with “mana”, which you use for casting spells or executing techniques (like dealing damage, destroying certain pieces or shifting mana, etc). Even the amount of cash you get (and experiences points also, I think) at the end of combat are affected by the pieces you play on the board.
The structure and navigation system of the main map is similar to the Tactics type games where you basically just choose where you want to go. On the way, you may encounter some baddies which you’ll have to dispatch. As you go along and accumulate wealth, aside from purchasing items and equipment, you may also opt to improve your citadel (or house) to gain extras in the game, like mini-games (perhaps similar to the fairy world aspect of Breath of Fire III). The game also supports multiplayer, so you can pit your character and puzzling skill at other.
The demo only allows you to play until level 7, so I wasn’t able to see the game through to the end. I’m a bit annoyed that the game is currently planned to be released only for the DS and PSP (which is strange since the demo is for the PC). Given the variety of puzzles in Puzzle Pirates, I was a bit surprised that you could only play the Bejeweled like combat. But then again, they did manage to put enough twists in the Bejewled style game to make it interesting and competitive. Before this game, I couldn’t imagine how you could make Bejewled competitive, but they pulled it off nicely. Perhaps they put in some other puzzle games in the mini-games available in your citadel.
I like what I’ve seen in the demo, it makes me actually think about getting a DS just to play the game. Given that they have a demo for the PC, I think (and hope) they decide to release a PC version in the future. Regardless of where it’s available right now, this game looks very promising. If you have a DS or PSP, this is a good game to check out. For now, I’ll just keep on dreaming for a PC version.
Here are some more screen-shots:
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