The [NEW] GRcade Gaming Alphabet 2024 - NEW ALPHABET NOW LAUNCHED PG. 21
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OrangeRKN
- Community Sec.
- Joined in 2015
- Location: Reading, UK
- Contact:
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site23
- Member
- Joined in 2021
OrangeRKN wrote:site23 wrote:But I enjoyed it -- I liked the characters and its sort of 'anime' / 'old school internet culture' sense of humour enough to see it through.
So when are you playing Neon White??
OK, I will commit to playing it this year, since it means so much to you.
Right now I'm going through Christmas presents, which means I have to play Hollow Knight next.
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OrangeRKN
- Community Sec.
- Joined in 2015
- Location: Reading, UK
- Contact:
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Zilnad
- Member
- Joined in 2019
site23 wrote:OrangeRKN wrote:site23 wrote:But I enjoyed it -- I liked the characters and its sort of 'anime' / 'old school internet culture' sense of humour enough to see it through.
So when are you playing Neon White??
OK, I will commit to playing it this year, since it means so much to you.
Right now I'm going through Christmas presents, which means I have to play Hollow Knight next.
Neon White is really excellent
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Dowbocop
- Member ♥
- Joined in 2008
Love
This is a "minimalist platformer" - in terms of gameplay I'm reminded heavily of Manic Miner more than anything else, although the platforming is probably of a slightly faster, more modern pace, more akin to Super Meat Boy or N+ (but without the acrobatics). I don't think it's as hard as those games though from what I've played thus far. Graphics are very Manic Miner, I'd say the music is more Super Hexagon or Ubermosh (I like it, you may not!)
The big hook with Love is the checkpoint system. You have 100 lives to beat twenty levels, but you can place as many checkpoints as you like, pretty much wherever you like in the level (you have to be on solid ground basically, so you can't checkpoint on a moving platform to the best of my knowledge). Other than an auto-checkpoint at the start of each level you have complete freedom to progress as you wish.
I've had one blast through this thus far (one and a bit if you count the first one where I didn't know you had to save before quitting
) and I got to about level 12 or 13. So it's probably not the hardest game in the world but it is fun. Speed run and single life modes exist but I'm not arsed about them, and I think extra map packs are available.
I really like it - it's definitely a descendant of Manic Miner which is probably my oldest gaming memory and one of my fondest to boot, so I've got a lot of time for it. This is currently free on Epic Games until Thursday afternoon so if you're interested grab it now. I think it's only a couple of quid anyway and it's worth that to be honest!
This is a "minimalist platformer" - in terms of gameplay I'm reminded heavily of Manic Miner more than anything else, although the platforming is probably of a slightly faster, more modern pace, more akin to Super Meat Boy or N+ (but without the acrobatics). I don't think it's as hard as those games though from what I've played thus far. Graphics are very Manic Miner, I'd say the music is more Super Hexagon or Ubermosh (I like it, you may not!)
The big hook with Love is the checkpoint system. You have 100 lives to beat twenty levels, but you can place as many checkpoints as you like, pretty much wherever you like in the level (you have to be on solid ground basically, so you can't checkpoint on a moving platform to the best of my knowledge). Other than an auto-checkpoint at the start of each level you have complete freedom to progress as you wish.
I've had one blast through this thus far (one and a bit if you count the first one where I didn't know you had to save before quitting
) and I got to about level 12 or 13. So it's probably not the hardest game in the world but it is fun. Speed run and single life modes exist but I'm not arsed about them, and I think extra map packs are available.I really like it - it's definitely a descendant of Manic Miner which is probably my oldest gaming memory and one of my fondest to boot, so I've got a lot of time for it. This is currently free on Epic Games until Thursday afternoon so if you're interested grab it now. I think it's only a couple of quid anyway and it's worth that to be honest!
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Dowbocop
- Member ♥
- Joined in 2008
Garten of Banban 3
There's a bit in Ico where you need to activate a giant waterwheel. It involves using some form of jump pad (can't remember the details exactly) and grabbing a handle on the waterwheel itself. This is not a particularly important part of the game, but it sticks in my head as the only time I needed to consult a guide and when it turned out I'd done it right in the first place but just not right enough so I'd wasted loads of time looking in vain for the missing piece of a puzzle, I felt a bit cheated by poor design in a game that is otherwise a bit of a masterpiece.
Garten of Banban is full of these moments. None of it is fun, and when you do find bits that might fall into being an okay game if they're not careful, the irritation by design mantra of this developer ensures you hate them just as much as the pointless busy work.
Your first task is to tidy a room. That's it. You then meet this big orange octopus thing who vaguely threatens you before you have an out of body experience as the octopus and play one of the target shooting sections from the previous game with octopus arms that can shoot electricity. Literally it's exactly the same but you use your electricity arms instead of firing fireworks out of cannons. Then you're in a car with the orange thing, the titular Banban (he of terrible voice acting fame), this weird emu/ostrich that has been trying to kill you for the last two games, and a white fluffy monster woman that was teaching the murder class from GOB2. There's some direlogue which is as pointless as it is embarrassing and they crash the car. You then wake up and have to finish making the spider's girlfriend because he's only angry because he's lonely apparently.
This bit is okay to a point. You have to mix potions to inject into the spider monster thing to finish the experiment, but you also have to fix power fluctuations in the machinery and also push buttons on the wall because reasons. This was actually a bit of a challenge, but mainly because you need to keep running over to a table to switch tools. They made this less fun just to waste your time. Girl spider wakes up, girl spider kills boy spider, I think the orange lad knocks you out again, and you wake up in a classroom with the white murder teacher and the corpse of the boy spider.
I know what you're thinking, I have to be omitting some of the exposition here. Nope! The climax of the last game was this white monster trying to kill you before "Jumbo Josh" (more on him anon) incapacitated her instead, and now she's your friend apparently and is giving you instructions on how to escape Jumbo Josh's classroom. He looks in on you every minute or so and if anything is different he'll kill you. So you have a series of piss poor block moving puzzles that you have to tidy up and restart every minute or so, interspersed with the character who told you the rules of the scenario writing on the whiteboard which you need to erase, culminating in you needing to do pixel perfect jumping to catch two switches and use your absolutely terrible drone to hit some other switches. The drone (which you can direct with a remote control) could be a really nice mechanic in the hands of a developer who actually cared. As it is it handles like a helium balloon.
Some gooseberry fool happens, I don't even know, and you have a boss battle where you feed fireworks to a two headed dog. Again, this is actually vaguely competent and actually resembles a boss fight in games designed by people who don't belong in The Hague, but because everything handles terribly it's a stressful and horrible ordeal. To show you how annoying this game is - you have to open SIX doors one after another to get to this boss fight. When you have completed the boss fight you get two party hats which complete a weird Banban scarecrow thing. You then have to press a button to push this thing FIFTEEN TIMES to get it to the place where you need to scare a baby bird and execute a pixel perfect jump onto its parent which you inevitably fail and go back to the beginning of the pushing section (every push comes with a hoo-laar-ious catchphrase so bad I turned the speakers off after the first five times). Another thing - these bird things have been by a country mile the scariest thing in this game, and with no explanation whatsoever you finish this episode riding one of them to escape the devil Banban. And of course it ends with an elevator...
Nothing in this game makes sense. Nothing in this game is fun. I think the Roblox knock offs might actually handle better than the real thing, which if you know anything about Roblox is a damning indictment.
And my son asked to play the fourth one tonight
There's a bit in Ico where you need to activate a giant waterwheel. It involves using some form of jump pad (can't remember the details exactly) and grabbing a handle on the waterwheel itself. This is not a particularly important part of the game, but it sticks in my head as the only time I needed to consult a guide and when it turned out I'd done it right in the first place but just not right enough so I'd wasted loads of time looking in vain for the missing piece of a puzzle, I felt a bit cheated by poor design in a game that is otherwise a bit of a masterpiece.
Garten of Banban is full of these moments. None of it is fun, and when you do find bits that might fall into being an okay game if they're not careful, the irritation by design mantra of this developer ensures you hate them just as much as the pointless busy work.
Your first task is to tidy a room. That's it. You then meet this big orange octopus thing who vaguely threatens you before you have an out of body experience as the octopus and play one of the target shooting sections from the previous game with octopus arms that can shoot electricity. Literally it's exactly the same but you use your electricity arms instead of firing fireworks out of cannons. Then you're in a car with the orange thing, the titular Banban (he of terrible voice acting fame), this weird emu/ostrich that has been trying to kill you for the last two games, and a white fluffy monster woman that was teaching the murder class from GOB2. There's some direlogue which is as pointless as it is embarrassing and they crash the car. You then wake up and have to finish making the spider's girlfriend because he's only angry because he's lonely apparently.
This bit is okay to a point. You have to mix potions to inject into the spider monster thing to finish the experiment, but you also have to fix power fluctuations in the machinery and also push buttons on the wall because reasons. This was actually a bit of a challenge, but mainly because you need to keep running over to a table to switch tools. They made this less fun just to waste your time. Girl spider wakes up, girl spider kills boy spider, I think the orange lad knocks you out again, and you wake up in a classroom with the white murder teacher and the corpse of the boy spider.
I know what you're thinking, I have to be omitting some of the exposition here. Nope! The climax of the last game was this white monster trying to kill you before "Jumbo Josh" (more on him anon) incapacitated her instead, and now she's your friend apparently and is giving you instructions on how to escape Jumbo Josh's classroom. He looks in on you every minute or so and if anything is different he'll kill you. So you have a series of piss poor block moving puzzles that you have to tidy up and restart every minute or so, interspersed with the character who told you the rules of the scenario writing on the whiteboard which you need to erase, culminating in you needing to do pixel perfect jumping to catch two switches and use your absolutely terrible drone to hit some other switches. The drone (which you can direct with a remote control) could be a really nice mechanic in the hands of a developer who actually cared. As it is it handles like a helium balloon.
Some gooseberry fool happens, I don't even know, and you have a boss battle where you feed fireworks to a two headed dog. Again, this is actually vaguely competent and actually resembles a boss fight in games designed by people who don't belong in The Hague, but because everything handles terribly it's a stressful and horrible ordeal. To show you how annoying this game is - you have to open SIX doors one after another to get to this boss fight. When you have completed the boss fight you get two party hats which complete a weird Banban scarecrow thing. You then have to press a button to push this thing FIFTEEN TIMES to get it to the place where you need to scare a baby bird and execute a pixel perfect jump onto its parent which you inevitably fail and go back to the beginning of the pushing section (every push comes with a hoo-laar-ious catchphrase so bad I turned the speakers off after the first five times). Another thing - these bird things have been by a country mile the scariest thing in this game, and with no explanation whatsoever you finish this episode riding one of them to escape the devil Banban. And of course it ends with an elevator...
Nothing in this game makes sense. Nothing in this game is fun. I think the Roblox knock offs might actually handle better than the real thing, which if you know anything about Roblox is a damning indictment.
And my son asked to play the fourth one tonight
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site23
- Member
- Joined in 2021
Dowbocop wrote:...
And my son asked to play the fourth one tonight
Amazing.I also just saw this:
Dan
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Herdanos
- Go for it, Danmon!
- Joined in 2008
- AKA: lol don't ask
- Location: Bas-Lag
Bolded because we won 
AYAW? Finished it, mate.
AYAW? Finished it, mate.
Generating Real Conversations About Digital Entertainment
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Ironhide
- Fiend
- Joined in 2008
- Location: Autobot City
aayl1 wrote:What did I just read?
Dowbo's been on the cooking sherry again.
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Qikz
- #420BlazeIt ♥
- Joined in 2011
Dowbocop wrote:Squord - An Apology
I recently wrote a short review of Squord where I questioned the core mechanic of the game and insinuated that the individuals at the top of the leaderboard were cheating in order to achieve such high scores. Having just scored 38 and finding myself joint top of the leaderboard today I would like to clarify that nothing could be further from the truth. Squord is one of the finest word games ever created and mastery of it is one of the greatest intellectual achievements on our planet. To suggest that high scores are in any way manipulated is an outlandish and offensive suggestion that reflects more upon the accuser's poor character than the honest and noble nature of innocent Squordlers.
The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
