Undertale

 

My son has been showing me Undertale lately. Its an amazing game built by two people. Toby fox the programmer and his artist friend Temmy. It has three possible endings and my son showed me two of them. The battles are a little over the top and the humor is waaay over the top. In order to access the differenet endings and game routes you have to either spare everything, kill everything, or do a mix for a neutral route, the most common route. Most people probably play the game and never know this unless they search the internet and spoil it for themselves. The thing that surprised me though was the well thought out character development. Recommended.

Game review for Octopath Traveller

 I think Octopath Traveller is an excellent RPG. I've been playing it most of this year. The music is similar to Final Fantasy 6 quality, though a little less amazing. The plot is well done and not predictable except for the happy endings. There is some grinding with monsters in order to be strong enough to beat the bosses and some bosses require unusual strategies which forces you to think but you can attempt to brute force them alternatively, its just much harder. I haven't decided who my favorite character is but I really like the secondary job system which lets you customize the character abilities some and get interesting combinations especially with the secondary abilities. One killer combo I found was cleric and dancer since you get constant magic refills after each move. Thief and wizard was another killer combo since thieves can steal SP. I thought that Olfric was probably the most boring character plot but still enjoyable enough. Most of the others are quite good though. I highly recommend trying this game out if you haven't yet.

Cheers!

Game reviews for Moonlighter and Ara Fell

In 2022 I played Ara Fell. A surprising gem made originally with the RPG Maker 2003 and then remade with Unity to give it steam achievements and enhanced combat a bit and other goodies. It has a surprising level of polish and was made by One programmer supported by an army of people doing other things. part of the reason I played it is I'm working on finish my own game with Anton and it is using the same engine so this gave me a lot of ideas for what it can do and what I polished game could look like. I can tell this game has been polished for years. The play balance, the challenging boss fights, they story polish, its all there, better than many final fantasy games really. They have an army of people making them but are not always so polished with love and dedication. In that regard it sort of reminded me of Stardew Valley, also made by one (over?) dedicated guy.
Other things I really enjoyed about this game was how delicately and more realistically it portrayed the heroine and her romance with the main character guy and how funny it was. It didn't try to do too much. It developed the four main characters and kept revealing secrets about them so that you really cared about finding out what happened next.

In 2023 (this year) I played Moonlighter as well as Gloomhaven some and other things. I just finished Moonlighter and I have to say I'm impressed at how it captures the fun of old Zelda 1 or 3 but with a new twist of grinding money and running a shop. The running a shop part isn't that amazing but its a good counter point to relax after a stressful life threatening dungeon run so it works pretty well actually. The only qualm I'd say I have is the bosses are a little under powered except the third and last one, once you grind up the gear. And the mini bosses you just steamroller once you have the right gear. They are a joke. And there are Easter eggs like rooms with infinite spawn or a monster who chases you if you run out of time but they often take a bit too long to find and most people probably finish the game and cease caring before they find many of these things. Still I think it was put together pretty well. My only real ask is for more dungeons and tools like in Zelda to make things a little more interesting but it did quite well for only having block, roll, shoot arrows, and slash.

Giving Thanks

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'd like to give thanks this year for video games. Video games have helped me and my wife and kids endure nearly 9 months of social isolation and being indoors more than preferred due to Covid, as well as helping us play with friends without exposure risk. A couple of games I'd like to be thankful for right now are Oxygen not Included, a colony sim which I'm really enjoying and which has a lot of interesting options and cute funny people running around making funny faces, Rim World, a different colony sim with a bit more fighting and seriousness, and Kingdom which my kids are really enjoying with me and which was coded by three people and has a rather nice feel to it. I'd also like to give thanks for sports which we've done when we can get a few precious moments outside, like playing Soccer with my kiddos.

Rounding a corner

I feel I'm rounding a corner. Its been a lot of time with toddlers and babies in the house but we're nearing the end. My youngest is finally turning four this year. I'm getting more time in the evenings to work on my Rhuidia game and play. I've recently beat the Draco Lich in NWN 2 and he was hard. Apparently Being a Cleric Thief with a Tiefling fighter friend works well against him if I keep casting remove fear and the Heal spell but he's still very tough. I have been playing Icewind Dale with my boys every other Saturday. They are really enjoying it and I might get my brother involved. I'm also occasionally playing D&D with them. Life keeps getting better as kids get older. Less diapers, more board games. I'm going to endeavor to blog a little more, not super regularly, but a little more than before when I was so strapped for time. Another neat thing I read in the news is that they are opening a Studio Ghibli land in Japan. How cool is that?

T Shirts and icons

I've been working hard on icons for my game I'm making with friends. Also I'm enjoying Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition that Anton gave me for my birthday. I haven't really recognized what is enhanced about it except the graphics resolution but that's OK because I never got to play Shadows of Undrentide or Hordes of the Underdark so there's plenty of adventuring to do.

Lastly I am trying my hand at making t-shirts for fun and profit.

Here's my first one I made on Zazzle!

C'mon, buy it. You know you want to! Especially if you have Asian family like me.

You can make one too and share it in the comments :) I'd love to see your creations! I might even buy one, with my spare change...

2019 - Busy busy busy

Sheesh,

One would think I'd dropped off the face of the earth. Instead I'm just really really busy. I'm busy at work making Genetic Sequencers become cheap. I'm busy at home helping my boys learn about dungeons and dragons, and I'm busy with my girls teaching them to read. I'm busy working on my game with Anton and Mordecai. I've got a loot system in place but it needs polishing and basic attack system is working but it also needs polish and lots of more cool moves. I'm busy avoiding listening to Trump on the radio. I'm busy trying to relax sometimes. My wife broke her leg this year and its better now, but that kept me busy being daddy/mommy. So yeah. So busy this year. But fun. Went to Italy with my wife. Played a lot of board games. I highly recommend Lords of Waterdeep, and Asara.

Best,
Thallian

What's going on this year

I've finished the rough draft pictures for all the character classes for my game but my wife has reminded me that someone might steal my art if I share it so I'm not going to share all of them. I'm working on the walking animations now for the warrior class. In the game playing department I've played a bunch of Stardew Valley this year. I highly recommend the game as its very fun and relaxing. I like it more than I liked Rune Factory Frontier which was overly grindy and too hard to marry the girls I was trying to marry, and didn't have the great of a plot either even though its graphics were more polished than Stardew, Stardew has serious charm and cute subplots. The dungeon gets boring pretty quick, though I'm glad its there. And the farming also gets old for me after a year. but the rate at which they give you new things to farm or raise is almost right, and the world is fin to explore and there are enough new things the characters say to keep you entertained for a good long while.

Trip to Japan

So I went to Japan last month for two weeks. It was really neat. They have really fast quiet trains (with video game commercials running on the walls inside and outside on the buildings), and quiet polite people, usually. The food was ok, I'm spoiled cuz I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I think our Americanized Japanese food is slightly better. Which is unusual since most countries I visit I think the authentic food is better than the Americanized stuff. Italy definitely follows that paradigm. Anyways so I was shopping over there in the malls for knickknacks and  I looked in the video games section cuz I have to, its Japan right? And I noticed that the prices are astronomical every place I looked just for the games. Makes me really glad to be living in the US. I'm attaching a picture for your reference.

Now just divide everything by 100 to get an idea of how much everything costs in dollars (yes I know the exchange rate isn't exactly that but its close)

68 dollars to buy Zelda Breath of the Wild (52.99 online in the US), 96 to buy that other game, 85 for Heroes 3, even the cheapest games were 47 bucks. Ouch, those poor Japanese gamers. At least it looks like they had the switch in stock but maybe that was just the display copy :)

Anyways, if you ever go to Japan, definitely visit in the spring, the flowers are gorgeous and the weather is nicest I think

Still working on my game

Still working on the turn based game I'm working on with family and friends. Adding some concept art i did. Needs a little more polish on the sword but its almost there.

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.

Thanksgiving Thought

Count your blessings, not your challenges. :) Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Anyone played Pillars of Eternity yet?

Has anyone out there played pillars of eternity yet? Is it good? Hard? Too long? Too short? I've read a lot of rave reviews but I'm looking for a more pedestrian peer opinion. I don't like that its not multiplayer but everything else about it sounds cool.

Nintendo thinks outside the box

Nintendo has opened up pandora's box, and possibly the only way forward for the company. It has decided to open up first party games to third party platforms like smart phones. Details in the article below but basically I see this being the smartest option for them from a business standpoint. The downsides are they don't control the hardware but the upside is the potential sales and audience and barrier to entry are all improved more than tenfold.

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/nintendo-dena-mobile/

Blizzard Cancels Titan

Blizzard just announced that it is canceling Titan, an MMO many have been looking forward to for years. I must admit I am disappointed as I did enjoy WoW Vanilla but I also feel bad for all those folks who were waiting for this for a long long time. I personally think if it wasn't fun they should have canceled it a long time ago like after three years of development and come up with a new idea. This kind of thing would sink a smaller company easily but its amazing after wasting so much time, money and effort how easily they shrug it off. I personally think there are very few companies capable of doing an MMO correctly, and if Blizzard fails that means theres even less chance of seeing a good one soon. But I have heard good things about FF online (the newest one) from Anton and some good things from my brothers about another MMo they are playing so there may yet be hope.

Source article http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/23/blizzards-mmo-titan-canceled-after-seven-years-in-development/

Good site for Baldur's Gate 2 EE mods

Good List of mods here. I've been testing them and there are some gems. I recommend installing them and you will end up with a bg2eee (extra enhanced edition) :)

The item randomizer lets you turn the game into Diablo, (think random loot)

Some of the others make everything more challenging like real D&D so you have to think more, faster and be more careful in places where you thought you knew everything. Still others add lots of new quests and content.

The character ones I've enjoyed so far are Yasraena who is like the only good Drow npc you have ever gotten to play with, Branwen who lets you make fun of the game a lot, the evil Hexxat is interesting, Neera and Rasaad are kind of weak physically but have lots of character, and I'm going to try Angelo and Dorn soon.

The link is here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/23726/bgii-ee-compatible-mod-list/p1

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year All!

I wanted to warm up your freezing new year (-50 degrees anyone?) with this hot tidbit of news:

Apparently Sony is un-consoling its games, which include some of the greatest RPG's that have ever been made! So now you can play the unconsoled games on Sony's cloud service.

See here for full story:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25645867

I can think of a few games I never played just because I never did own a PlayStation. I'm going to have to check it out.

Oh yeah, in other news, my wife is in labor. But its lasting a while and the hospital won't let us be admitted yet so I'm posting this instead. Can't wait to meet my new little girl when she arrives.

I'm not dead, yet, ... I got better!

Hi Virtual Sports Fans,

Coming to you live, not dead, from a long day of work here. I 've been mostly playing non-MMO games lately. My Life as a DarkLord is entertaining me a little but it certainly isn't the most cleverly designed Tower defense game ever made, as there are only a few ways to win certain levels but I like the Final Fantasy theme and music. Yes I know, it came out in 2009 and you want 'news' not 'olds' but I just was able to afford it. This is the 'budget users' MMO + random gaming blog after all ;)

I dug up some old games and started playing Harvest moon (the game cube one) again and was reminded that it wasn't a bad game. They definitely improved some things in rune factory but actually I like having the marriage thing be not quite so ridiculously hard to accomplish and not take so long. I can only handle so much grinding before things get tiresome. (I spent a year on rune factory frontier and the girls still didn't say yes) I also found animal crossing, and have been showing my wife Chrono Trigger which she had of course never played before.

I haven;t heard tell of any MMOs lately that really get me excited. I did enjoy Guild Wars for a bit but it doesn't really have the same charm that WoW (vanilla) did and I am interested to see what Blizzard cooks up next with Titan or after it. I have kind of fallen out of Lord of the Rings online even though I spent years in there and I haven't sworn it off or anything I just don't have a working computer that would run it. Gotta save save save the bucks right now since buying a minivan for our new baby arrival was a higher priority. They do have nice desktops and even laptops sometimes at Frys though for 600 bucks or so if I just save 6 birthdays worth.... Its gonna be a while.

In Big COOL news, there's Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced Edition coming out the 15th (four days) but I cannot afford it. I will of course be asking for it for Christmas along with some more necessary things...

That's all the news I have so far. Oh I played Bastion until I got tired of clicking like mad. The game is ok. I love the art but the plot is not really riveting stuff.

Why I Can't Really Stand Nintendo Any More

Nintendo licenses are a funny thing. I used to love Mario and Zelda, but now I can't stand them any more. What happened?

On the other hand, Square Enix puts out one Final Fantasy after another, and I continue to be fascinated by their games.

Something dawned on me the other day. I don't hate Nintendo's games, I am simply tired of their characters.
What if, instead of making a "new Mario game" every E3, if they just announced their new "platformer"?
And instead of announcing their new "Zelda game", they presented their new "Action Adventure game"?

Nintendo franchises have become synonymous with game genres.
Mario/Mario Galaxy - 3D Platformer
New Mario/Kirby - 2DPlatformer

Pokemon/Paper Mario? - RPG
Zelda - Action-Adventure
Metroid - Shooter
Fire Emblem - Tactical RPG
Star Fox - Flight Sim

It seems to me that they are doing this deliberately. Metroid wasn't always a shooter. They seem to be honing in on genres more specifically over time. They've even gone so far as to bring back sidescroller platforming with the line of New Mario games.

My problem, I realize, isn't so much that their games have gotten too hard, too easy, or poorly designed...my problem is that they are just lacking creativity. Every time I see an ad for Nintendo, it's the same dozen or so characters over and over and over.

People adore these characters. I can see why they keep it up. But on the other hand--Think of how much we've been missing the last ten years--if they had put in the effort to expand into new worlds, new characters, new stories, new visual designs...

-Anton

Wish Guild Wars could be... more... something!

I really enjoy Guild Wars 2 and I intend to still play an explore it, I just wish it could be ... more. The combat is intense with npc's and ok against pc's though gear still has too much sway I think rather than skill but its still ok fun. I like the "world changes as you do things" aspect, but it jsut gets me wishing things stayed saved a little longer or that the chains were a bit longer. It seems like the moment I save something and after I defend it for a while it just gets back in jeopardy the moment I turn my back. This breaks the "immersion curtain" and makes me feel like I'm just in a clock instead of a world. I'm not dissing the game. I like it better for world pve than pretty much any other mmo. I just wish it could be "more" of what it is. Maybe Guild Wars 3 will be. Anyways, I also wish the dungeons were lower level as I haven't seen them yet and I don't hear good things on the forums about the first dungeon. One of the things I loved in WoW and Lotro was the dungeons and other group sequences. There are times I've played in group in GW2 but only for convenience of survival to beat some boss or defend someone and it was mostly a flash mob. I've tried to catch my firneds online playing but it seems like we have different schedules. I'll keep trying though.

Other than that I'm really enjoying playing Terraria for our game night and I've been toying with the idea and some day having them play the black pits together with me for game night. That would be interesting. In Terraria I faced the wall of Flesh for the first time last Thursday and he cleaned my clock. I recommend Not touching him. We actually had him half dead when I died though. Maybe next time.. with more friends, most had gone to bed when he showed up. ;)