Limbo

I knocked Limbo out of my Steam backlog last night.

What is Limbo?

Limbo is a puzzle platform game. The controls are simple. Most puzzles involve interacting creatively with the environment. While there are a few timing puzzles, mostly it involves figuring out what to do.

Why Play Limbo?

The atmosphere is unique. There is no color in the game, it's all gray. The atmosphere is quite well done. 

Why Not to Play Limbo?

The basic game play is simplistic. The quality of the puzzles can be found in free flash games, although that's more of a testament to free games than a criticism of Limbo. There isn't a cool RPG like story, it's more about trying to understand who the hero is and what the world is. Those questions are never fully answered, although that is part of the charm of the game for some people.

Should I Buy It?

It's often on sale for $5, so I can't say it isn't worth the money. The more important question is if it is worth the time. Most people who think it looks interesting will enjoy it. 

Did You Enjoy It?

Yes. Pretty much. Like 3/5. I was able to knock it out in a few hours. I looked at spoilers about three times. One was the game's fault, one was my fault, and one was somewhere in between. 

The biggest draw for me was nostalgia, as it is reminiscent of one of my old favorites, Another World. 

Normally I am not a big fan of platform games. I can enjoy puzzle games, and this one just barely made the cut.

BGGCon 2016

Oh no, a post about board games?

What is BGGCon

It is a celebration of board games, sponsored by boardgamegeek.com. Thousands of gamers meet in Dallas for 5 days and play a ton of games.

Why BGGCon

I used to be big into board games. I still play quite a bit but video games have gotten in the way for the last few years. I have a lot of friends who attend the convention that I only see that time of year, so it's a big social thing.

What Games Did You Play

The library has thousands of games to check out and they get advance copies of games about to be released. My friends like to use the convention to try out new games, and I'm mostly there to hang out so that's what I end up playing.

Mechs Vs. Minions

The is the League of Legends board game. I'm not sure how the publisher is related to Riot but it is part of that world. It is a cooperative game for up to four players stopping the minions from moving to their goal. The $75 cost might seem high to video game players but it's a good price for the quality of components. 

This is the game I am most excited to play again. I love coop games and this one delivers. It's not a Pandemic clone (I will review one of those below). It has a great story and good pieces and tense game play. After beating one scenario, one of the player jumped up, whooped, and gave everyone a high-five.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

This is quite an old game, perhaps 35 years old, and another coop. The players are trying to solve a crime in the Sherlock Holmes setting. Clues are gained from reading stories and the players decide where to go and who to interview. There is a lot of flavor and the game has a sizable cult following. This is a little more social than most board games. It also works well if some players just want to kick back and be part of the ride.

Gear and Piston

A game about building cars in the early years of car history. It was a fine game, but nothing special for me. It uses the same skills that hundreds of other games use. I do well at this type of game, but it isn't my favorite genre and with so many to choose from I don't need any more in my life. Perhaps my favorite similar game is Princes of Florence.

Terraforming Mars

This game had some similar complaints as Gear and Piston. I was hoping to see something innovative but nothing really grabbed my attention. It felt like a drawn out game of Race For the Galaxy. Not as elegant but with a few other interesting things going on.

Dreams

Very similar to Spyfall which is not my thing. You are a group of gods and one mortal. The gods must identify the other gods without letting the mortal know who they are. I do enjoy the Mafia/Werewolf genre, but not this one.

Dungeon Rush

Silly quick dungeon crawl type game where you make quick analysis and claim a reward before someone else does. The group I played with didn't like it, but for how quick it goes, I'd give it another shot.

Captain Sonar

This was another winner. It plays like a combination of Battleship and Spaceteam but more fun than either. You are in a submarine trying to find the enemy sub. You move by calling out directions in real-time, but the other team can hear you giving those directions. Eventually you can figure out the location of the other sub and shoot him down. It gets very hectic trying to keep track of everything going on.

Black Orchestra

A cooperative game about assassinating Hitler. This was a bit of a Pandemic clone, but had enough different things going on to be unique. The theme is pretty solid and the balance is good. We lost two of the three games we played on Easy. 

Njet

Just a boring card game. Worse, it uses a specialized deck from Mü and More. I love this type of trick taking game. Njet is good because it can support up to five players and because it is different from other similar games, yet anybody who knows how to take tricks can pick it up quickly. It's a bit of a tradition for me to spend one night staying up late and playing this. Sleepiness is a great equalizer when some people count cards better than others.

Summary

Favorite New Game: Mechs Vs. Minions

Favorite New-to-me Game: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Favorite Speed Game: Captain Sonar

Renowned Explorers: International Society

An interesting new take on the traditional turn based RPG.

Something Explorers: Something something

Come on guys, a game title needs to be catchy.

All in all I enjoyed the few hours it took to do my first play-through. However, I couldn't quite finish the second. This game has a lot of neat ideas and I would recommend it to anyone who thinks it might appeal to them. However, don't expect the tactical combat to be very satisfying.

Fallout Shelter

Fallout Shelter

Since I'm talking mobile games, let's talk about one that I've been playing for about a year.

Fallout 4

I really enjoyed Fallout 4. I did a fairly quick play through once and then started another one. For me, that's a big deal since I usually want to retire a game once I have finished the plot.

So is Fallout Shelter like the Fallout series? No. Not at all, except superficially. The art style, the setting, and some sounds is just about it. Fallout Shelter is more like a resource allocation building game or a tap game.

Gameplay

There is a lot to like. You get to build your vault, acquire resources, train people, and do quests. For the most part the game is pretty slick and satisfying.

On the downside, it takes a long time to load and it crashes quite a bit on my phone. I have a hard time accurately selecting individual people. When disasters hit the vault, sometimes the location is not clear and I have to scroll around a lot to find it. I don't like the barely-3d look of the game any more than a 2d sprite based game and a 2d game would solve a lot of the annoyances.

The hardcore mode was appealing to me, but the difficult interface leads to occasional frustrating deaths, and in a hardcore game I know it would lead to rage quit, so I never tried it.

The game itself is free and I never saw a reason to spend money. You can get a good feel for the game without a large time investment. For that, I give Fallout Shelter a solid thumbs up.

Pathfinder Adventures

Pathfinder Adventures

I've been stuck for a week away from home with poor internet. Normally I lug my laptop around to get my gaming fix, but I thought I'd load up my phone instead. The main games I've been playing are Pathfinder Adventures, You Must Build a Boat, and Fallout Shelter. By far my time has been spent playing Pathfinder Adventures so that's what I'm here to talk about.

Long Time Coming

I'm big into board games, card games, and RPGs, especially Pathfinder, so I was excited to play Pathfinder Adventures card game when it was first release. However, my initial play of it left me lukewarm. It was too dry and I didn't understand the interesting interactions that I now know the game has. Perhaps instead of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 they should use something more colorful and engaging like slight assistance, minor help, or massive boon.

What really sealed the nail in the Pathfinder coffin was when my gaming buddies played through the campaign. There was no way I would bother to look for another group to play with.

You Paid How Much?!?

Normally I'm a real cheapskate with IOS games. Of the hundreds of free games I've downloaded I doubt I've spent more than $5 on In App Purchases. I doubt I spend more than $10 per year on IOS games. So it was a big surprise that I was willing to shell out $25 for the Pathfinder Adventures campaign pack. Normally for this kind of game I would be happy to grind out free gold, but that puts me in a different mindset. I wanted to play the card game, not the grind game.

The Good

The game seems to be very faithful to the card game. The interface is mostly great (not an A+, but perhaps an A). Clicking on a card makes it large enough for me to read on my iPhone 6+. Often I find information that I need is buried under a few clicks but it is never onerous.

I have played 1, 2, 3, and 4 characters at a time and each combination has a unique feel. With a single character, you have plenty of time in the blessings deck. The limiting factor is more the character life deck. Characters that can self heal work well. With more characters in the game there is plenty of life to go around but the blessings deck becomes the problem. 

Best of all is the character progression. You keep items and followers that you find and you start to customize your deck to synergize with the other characters. You also gain more powers and abilities. All of this allows for a lot of flexibility and many different play experiences. For example, one game I decided that the sorcerer would be the "thief" of the group. She collected lockpick sets and I improved her dexterity. 

The Bad

Like any fairly complicated game, it takes a lot of time. This isn't your typical phone game where you can play for 5 minutes and put it down. Often I would have to spend some time clicking around to remember where everyone was and what they were doing.

Sadly there are a few bugs. For the most part it isn't bad but I did experience one bug that wouldn't allow me to continue a game and I had to resign it. I have also seen a bug that miscalculates the difficulty of completing a task.

Overall

This gets a thumbs up for me but I'm not sure whom to recommend this game to. If it were desktop I'd say it was worth $25. However I don't know a lot of people that want to play a brain burner on their phone for blocks of an hour at a time. It has a free to play mode so at least that's worth trying out, but I'm confident I would have given up on the game had I started in that mode.

Dream Quest

Let's Talk About Dream Quest

Dream Quest is a game written for mobile devices. I play on my iPhone. It's essentially a deck building game with crappy art and a some rpg exploration and leveling. 

Dream Quest is not a Blizzard Game

I love Blizzard games but there is plenty of quality entertainment in other corners of the world. I've played hundreds of mobile games since they fit into a certain type of time availability. 

Why is Dream Quest Great?

It's very much a Roguelike, one of my favorite genres. There are many classes to pick from and each dungeon is different. It's sort of like Nethack meets Desktop Dungeons with a little bit of Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering. 

Dream Quest is free or cheap and I've put in over 100 hours. I haven't beaten it with every class yet (missing Druid and Dragon). I'm generally a completionist but not when it comes to "achievements" and this game is no different.

Diablo 3 -- Seasonal is Fun

Like everyone else, I played a lot of Diablo 3 when it first came out. It didn't fully grab me and the auction house made the game too easy. I didn't like the play of the Witch Doctor so I rolled a Wizard. He also wasn't very satisfying, but the voice acting was so good I stuck with it. When I finished Diablo I shelved the game without much thought.

Then Reaper of Souls came out. By this time the auction house was gone and I played a barbarian. It was lots of fun. After hitting max level I started to play with friends and coworkers and it opened a new dimension of the game. By this time the endgame of Diablo 3 was very strong and I played a lot. Finally other games got my attention and I put down Diablo 3 again.

A year later, a friend wanted to start a seasonal character with me. Seasonal play is interesting because you are treated like a new player. You don't have paragon levels or access to items in your main stash. You get set item rewards for achievements which makes the grind faster and more satisfying.

Now I'm playing in season 7. I rolled a wizard to give it a second chance. At endgame, it is much more like the wizard I remember from Diablo 1. Teleporting, raining death, and a big force shield is the experience I was looking for. I'm sad that, for this season, top wizards don't compete with top monks and witch doctors, but I probably won't make it that far, especially with the World of Warcraft Legion expansion recently launched and the 20 hours per week of Overwatch I still play.