Thursday, April 28, 2016

What's up Doc?

You might fairly wonder if this blog is dead. Its not, we are just really really busy. Anton made a game with another friend and sent it live on the Playstation network last year.

I played Dungeon of the Endless to death, (great game by the way, I give it a 9 out of 10 due to it getting too easy once you know some cheesy tricks to game out the AI using the hipster scarf and someone fast to run back and forth around room with defenses agroing the enemies but very solid fun game and generally tough.

I played Invisible Inc (9 out of 10 if you want to have some fun for a bit) and really enjoyed it for a bit but it wore out for me eventually due to it becoming a resource management game (the resource being power in this case) the ai isn't smart and with some cheap tricks I can get the to go to the other side of the complex and leave me alone most of the time.

I played Pillars of Eternity which I really wanted to love considering Obsidian made it, but the "fun" of Baldur's Gate's NPCs wasn't there neither was the compelling storyline of Icewind Dale coupled with its tactical difficulty. Most encounters were either "everyone on your team runs out of energy and you die", or "you steamroll the enemy". I hated the new energy mechanic where your guys get tired super fast and all pass out even on easy mode (doubly fast if you are facing undead or mushrooms). If it wasn't for that I might have beat the game instead of giving up on it early but I didn't feel much inspiration from the plot regardless.

Now I'm starting working again on a tactical turn based RPG. This time I've involved more people, critically my oldest son this time, both to help him learn programming and art and also to keep me motivated, but also my brothers and sister. We'll see what happens. Going to try and make something tactically more challenging (but not at first level, AI will increase at every level, and will not cheat so you always have a chance) and more fun than any turn based fantasy game that has come out. Going to try and give it a great (compelling but sometimes funny) story. Going to need a lot of inspiration and suggestions and help from friends. :) Talk to you again when I get around to it.