Board 8 > Suprak's Playdate Play Date (Playing Through EVERY Playdate Game)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Game #21 Complete! Nightingale

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Definitely not the worst adventure game on the Playdate"

Final Thoughts:

TotallyNotMI posted... Based on your writeups I really thought you were enjoying it so the 3 ranking surprised me!

There were definitely parts here were it was trending positive, but there are a couple of fairly big problems here. The first is that they don't ever really get around to the good bits. There are a couple of scenes here that start as something interesting. The creepy bit where you're alone in space and something bad has happened. Trapped in a house with an abusive, alcoholic mother. Two completely different vignettes, two that really drew me in at first. And then...things end. You get like five minutes in the world, and it feels like *something* is about to happen, and then...that's it. You're back at the hospital. They skip the best bits either because they don't know how to right them or they didn't think they were important. It's like a series of horror short stories where half the pages are ripped out and replaced with notes from a medical file.

The second big issue is that I don't think the game really accomplishes to tell the story it wants to tell. This is how it sells itself on its store page:

"an atmospheric horror game, centered around themes of hospitalization, illness, and what it means to feel safe in your own body."

The game occurs in a hospital. Your character is sick. But it never leans into the horror of the situation. It doesn't build up like it should. There is none of that ramping dread of feeling week and powerless and sick and hopeless. The scenes don't feed into that or build from that, and instead what the game is most focused on seems to be how annoying a hospital stay is. "Yeah Final Destination lite is scary but have you ever had to deal with OUT OF NETWORK MEDICAL COVERAGE oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo!!!"

So what you have is a pretty standard, pretty unremarkable indie adventure game. I've played probably hundreds of indie adventure games by this point, so I am a connoisseur and I can definitively say this is not a great example of the genre. It very much feels like someone's first game (and I think it is). It is a "oh nice great first try!" kind of thing but not a "oh nice, great!" sort of thing. You have no puzzles (which is fine) and minimal exploration (which is fine) but then the story doesn't hit the notes you want it to hit and what you're left with is some okay writing sometimes and maybe one bit of creepy imagery. Not really enough to sell into a genre completely saturated with better examples of the same game.

Should You Play It? Nah. Too many other, better adventure games out there.

Final Score: 3. Another 3. SO MANY 3's!

Games Completed: 21/128

Game Rankings:
21) Boogie Loops
20) Hidey Spot
19) The Lushes Land
18) Nightingale
17) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
16) Whitewater Wipeout
15) Snak
14) DYG
13) Lost Your Marbles
12) Grand Tour Legends
11) Demon Quest '85
10) The Fall of Elena Temple
9) Flipper Lifter
8) Questy Chess
7) Echoic Memory
6) Omaze
5) Sasquatchers
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

https://imgflip.com/i/88dw1g

TONIGHT

Probably. I beat another one at least!

Predicting 3

Currently Playing: The Keyper

What Is It? Indie adventure game about a weird ass apartment building. You're the titular "keyper". You need to find all the keys. Also, it's weird.

Gameplay Overview: It is primarily an exploration focused adventure game. Weird. There are a couple of puzzles here, but most of the game is trying to figure out how all the various tunnels and secret paths connect to each other so you can grab all the keys. Weird. Story heavy. Did I mention weird.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/the-keyper/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/184c2a2c.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/29dd4ff3.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/66710f5d.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/be422531.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5e46c808.png
Thoughts:
-The Keyper is next on my list. Sounds like a mystery game from the page description so why not.
-There is a treasure within these walls, my uncle used to say. Ooh interesting way to start a game.
-I spent many summers with him in the Winchester 21 building, where he worked as a janitor less interesting way to continue a game, but sure.
-He passed away last month. In his will, he expressed his desire for me to inherit his position. Yeah uh thanks Uncle Mark but I think Im going to keep my job as a systems analyst. Thanks for the janitor job though.
-There is treasure in these walls, he said at the end. And I believe it has found me. The treasure? Death, apparently.
-Well, in terms of story set up this one is at least doing better than the last couple of adventure games I played.
-Ah fuck me the music in this game is atrocious again.
-Im not a huge game music person, and I tend to mostly just ignore it. But the Playdate is drilling its importance into my head here and I will never take it for granted again.
-Visuals arent terrible, but the characters are just little squiggles. Again, possible system limitation but Ive seen some sprites with personality here and it sort of depends on the style you want to use.
-There is a menu in this game, where I can check my inventory and also check both my flat keys and other keys. Looks like Im going to be collecting keys as the keyper.
-Person at the front door hands over the front door key. I forget their name but Im sure Ill run into them later.
-Feels like my uncle shouldve given me the front door key, but whatever.
-Theres a dog blocking my path outside, but I can also go to another building where someone will sell me hints. Nah man. Keep your secrets.
-I find a note from my uncle. Before he died he scattered his keys all around the building. Seems like a bad idea and Im hoping all the keys you threw on the floor werent picked up by like six different people that committed six different home invasions.
-He says hell be waiting for me on the top floor. Uh did no one come and bury this guy?
-Theres the trash room key on the floor here, then someone in the hallway just straight up gives me the key to their flat. I AM THE KEYMASTER.
-Person outside is complaining they havent been able to find their key since they threw out their trash. Gee I wonder where it could be.
-Yeah I find the key in there. It apparently isnt enough keys yet though, because when I go up the stairs I find ERIK. Erik is a jerk and wont let me up to the upper floor until I have more keys. Okay maybe this guy is the actual Keymaster.
-There are four doors I can eventually open on this floor. One of them has the door moving back and forth and yeah! keeps appearing behind it. Someone fucking in 1D, guys.
-The guy in 1A also gives me the heart key when I talk to him. I dont want to know what this opens.
-Raymond slipped around the building like a cat. Once I followed him to the trash room, and when I went in he was gone. There were cracks in that rooms so Im guessing Raymond managed to slip in there somehow, A Link Between Worlds style.
-I find a note in 1C. Dear Jan, Dont be sad! You know perfectly well that this is not goodbye, we caretakers never leave the building completely. Yeah because apparently they let your body rot on the roof.
-My nephew will soon replace me as housekeeper, and I need you to help him. Receive him properly, ok? Wtf does that mean, uncle? Receive me how? RECEIVE ME HOW?
-So the heart key opens up the crack in the wall in the trash room and leads me to the tunnels. -Theres a copper coin here I could use to buy hints (I WONT) and a note from my uncle telling me each key tells a story if I look at it. Oh and hes waiting for me at the top still. Sorry, zombie uncle, I got keys to find first.
-Some random guy is in the tunnels because his boss told him to explore them, but he got lost. Uh youre like two screens away from the exit. Just keep walking.

-I can eavesdrop through walls while in the tunnels. I pass by someone and they are talking to themselves about how lucky they were to see the handsome boy from 1C in the hallway. Ill make note of that for later.
-Man, it would be helpful if the characters in this game werent just vague scribbles. Im going to have no idea who the hell is who because everyone looks the same.
-Mopey woman from 1C (wait, wasnt that where handsome boy was?) is whining about dead Raymond. Hey lady if you help me Ill let you see his corpse.
-These tunnels are going to get annoying to navigate because everything quite literally looks exactly the same.
-I wander a bit until I find a tower. There is a puzzle inside where you need to navigate up three ladders, but going up certain segments will send you down. It is basically just guess and test/memory game but its at least something.
-A little more exploration and I find a room of all keys (only one of which I actually pick up and the rest are just decoys) and then a mouse that says it has four super rare keys but will only trade me for some piping hot bread. Mm hmm. Well, its not the worst thing a humanoid rat could ask me for, I guess.
-So I find a baker, who gives me bread. He tells me not to trust the rat thing, which is fair, considering it is a talking rat.
-Rat thing gives me a key though, which is cool.
-I wander around for a while, finding a couple more keys and getting up to the second floor via a ladder. This game is largely about aimlessly wandering the tunnels so far, which isnt exactly a lot of fun.
-It is like can you have the special memory to remember where eight screens of nondescript tunnels go the game. Itll be fine until I turn it off for the night and then promptly forget where I already explored.
-So that thing with the door rocking and the YEAH coming out. It wasnt sex. It was some guy mad at their neighbor who left the radio up super load. Way less fun. Way more passive aggressive.
-Theres a note saying he got mad and threw his key out the window. Yeahthatll show your neighbor.
-I turn off the game for the night and promptly forget where all the non-descript tunnels go.
-I play some more, turn off the game again, and then have absolutely no idea where the hell I was at. This last bit is going to be me 95% going waithave I dont this already?
-I am missing one room key (whatever the topmost one is) and four of the special keys, and then two parts of the secret key. So like 75% done I think. Still no clue where the beer is at the rat thing wants.
-Oh wait, actually I find it at the bar. He takes a silver coin, which luckily I already had from exploring the sewers.
-Ok so time to go get that rat drunk. I think Ive explored most of the game outside of the top two floors now.
-Now the rat thing gets weird. Well, weirder.
-They say they used to be beautiful, and everyone wanted what they had. They want their dress which is up, up up.
-You know, there was someone else that said something along the lines of looking for these keys and hanging out with the rats too much would turn you into a rat. I ignored it as crazy person talk, but apparently thats something people in this building need to be worried about. Uncle probably shouldve put that in one of his notes, tbqh.
-I get the keys to the third and fourth floor, and up on the fourth floor I finda boat? At the top there is some guy that says he built his boat so big it pierces the clouds, but he still cant reach the true rooftop and theres some other way up there. The higher up you go, the trippier the hotel gets. I find the key to the fifth floor, at least.
-This is where my house used to be, a long time ago. Now there is a huge hole. I dont mind it. When I scream, the hole screams back at me. And sometimes, when I throw things in, it throws things back at me. Someday Ill get up the courage to see whats at the bottom. HELP UNCLE YOUR BUILDING IS WEIRD AS HELL.
-Theres this other room here that is empty but a switch on the wall and a staticky TV screen. Turn off the lights and a person appears who just says Shhh its getting to the good part. Turn the lights on and they disappear again. Spoopy.
-I find the dress on the weird clotheslines at the top of the building. Rat lady, heres hoping you look pretty.
-I also find the roof, but someone up there tells me it isnt the true roof. Uh huh. Theres also a note from uncle saying it isnt the true roof. Ok guys I got it you can cut it out.
-Rat lady is manic now. Like completely unhinged even by rat lady standards. Shes going on about not knowing who she is but that she lived her and she was looking for the key and he told her something and and and. Shes not doing well, is my point.
-Final request is to find someone who knows things. She also gives me the basement key.
-There is definitely someone here I talked to in one of the rooms that was basically like yes I know a lot of stuff ask me anything but that was like two days ago. Time to systematically explore everywhere I guess.

-Ok. Only missing two keys now, plus two bits of the secret key. Almost done weeeeeeee.
-While looking at the keys I notice a couple of descriptions that I thought were gibberish, but I throw it into Google translate because one of the words is que and Im like hmm maybe is this weird Spanish. Google detect picks it up as Catalan which is a deep cut I feel like. The message on the third key translates to: Much more mine than life, with me it goes and with me it doesnt come. Fourth floor is She is my mistress, and she gets wet from the yard and the street. Fifth floor is of the lime and the vine, and the blossom of the orange tree. Uh. K. Made as much sense in Catalan tbqh.
-There are another couple of keys in the basement. Oh, and a corpse. Also, in the room with the corpse you can see someone outside of it looking in. They dont say anything and you dont get any dialogue for looking at the corpse. Spoopy.
-I find the guy who knows stuff. Turns out the girls name is Jennifer who lived with this dudes grandson and may or may not have killed the grandson when she became obsessed with keys. Oops.
-Ok, I tell the girl her name is Jennifer and she gives me another bit of the secret key. Also she says she needs to be with her boyfriend and disappears.
-I go to the basement room with the corpse, and nothing. Dang.
-I turn to leave and the room turns dark, the body from outside comes in, and Jennifer shows up. AHHHHHHHHHH.
-Jennifer says she doesnt want keys anymore and basically confirms she killed her boyfriend because she lost her mind.
-Boyfriend found the special key they were looking for, but it doesnt matter now. They have some sort of reconciliation and disappear, leaving the key behind. YOINKS thanks dead people.
-It's the Elevator key, so now I have all the keys and Im only missing one secret bit. I do remember when exploring before there was an east door and I only had the west key at the time. I should be able to find that now.
-It takes a good bit of wandering because the whole building is a weird maze with no logic to it, but I find it after going through the fireplace in 2A, showing up in some sort of room floating in water, and going upstairs. Obviously.
-Open the two doors and Im in another clothesline section. Wander around a bit more, find two more copper coins, and the final bit of the secret key. I HAVE ALL THE KEYS
-I REALLY AM THE KEYMASTER.
-Ok, now I just need to find where the elevator key goes, and Im assuming theres a safe or something upstairs. The four bits of the secret key now read four numbers when you look at them.
-23 52 17 56. Just making a note for myself for later
-Waitwhere the hell was the elevator room?
-I wander around much longer the I should because I forgot where things are at this point, but I finally find the elevator room! It wasin the elevator shaft. Have I mentioned I am not a smart person?
-I get to this weirdthing. It tells me that it can reroute power to the elevator, but it will kill it. It tells me to go talk to my uncle, and then shuts off. The goodbye message is something about something special going away. IT WASNT MY FAULT I HAD TO DO THIS.
-Ok so there is a hidden 8th floor you can access (uncle is probably up there) and a hidden basement. I go to basement first.
-First thing I find is my room! Theres a note from uncle saying like hey lucky you, you live here now. Wow. Great. The subbasement of my subbasement. Who needs light?
-The other part of the basement is the skeleton of the first caretaker, who apparently was not the first person here. Beyond them is another skeleton on a mountain of gold. The skeleton (which incidentally is positioned under a pillar and appears to be holding up the whole basement and thus apartment) gives you an exposition dump. How he found the place. How he used the gold to build the house. How the old man (who was clinging to life at the time) talked to him about some hidden door to another realm and how he was afraid of it. Normal old man stuff, really.
-The gist is MYSTERY and SUPERNATURAL and YOU AINT GETTING TO THIS GOLD, SUCKA. Alright fine them. Keep your gold.
-I go to the roof and find Uncle. I am to become the next caretaker in a long line of caretakers. He tells me how I need to take care of this place and the people in it, and the flies off towards the sun. -Uh. Bye I guess? He says hell come back at some point which, cool I guess.
-The game is like hey keep playing and opening doors and finding secrets. I think I did everything but use the secret key.
-I figure out the secret key thing right away. Those numbers are floors you can access in the elevator (2, 3, 5, 2, 1, 7, 5, 6). Go to those floors in that order and you open the secret door! Inside is the developer, who thanks you for playing their game and shows you some early game assets. Cool enough secret room, I guess.
-Well, thats it! Another Playdate adventure game down. Ill think on this a bit, but it is definitely above Nightingale at the very least.

Time Played: Probably 3 hours. Ish. I didn't time myself but it was over three nights and involved a lot of lost wandering around.
High Score: Got all the keys. Got the secret room. Didn't figure out the hidden poem on the floor keys or if it means anything at all, but I'm guessing not so I'll call it 100% done.
Beaten? Yes
Grade: This is a very solid 5 or 6 sort of game. Definitely the best on the Catalogue so far! It is good enough that you can forgive some of the less fun stuff, and is weird and interesting.
Favorite Part So Far: The rat woman and ghost jump scare. SPOOPY.

Game #22 Complete! The Keyper

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "It's the kind of game that doesn't feel like a complete waste of money!"

Final Thoughts:
This one is closer to actually good. It isn't good, but it is closer. It can sort of see good from it's tippy toes if it really tries. The story is...interesting. Would I say it's good? Eh. I mean, I was interested. That's a good sign, at the very least. It gets really weird with it and I was sort of getting like Twin Peaks type vibes. Not necessary "good" Twin Peaks vibes, but it might've been good with a bit more work. There are these incredibly strange characters and scenes that get like three lines of dialogue and then that's it. They don't really build it up the way the need to, so you have this fun little framework that doesn't quite execute on its potential.

How much you enjoy this game is likely going to be tied on how much fun you think it is to be vaguely lost in a mall. I think the exploration here is actually ok. Like, you really are just wandering. The tunnel system is bizarre and doesn't make logical sense, which is sort of to the game's benefit but is also kind of annoying. Like I got to that part where I knew I had to get back to a door that was locked before because I found the key. But I was like "wait was that door on the third screen from the left in the second exit on the basement or was it the one that was behind the fireplace in the third screen of the fifth floor?" You don't get any sort of real sense of what is where, and you are going to spend most of your time here just wandering around and hoping for the best. It works better than other simple exploration based games where everything is in a linear layout and you only need to look at a thing or two, but it still isn't the best set up for an adventure game.

There aren't really any puzzles here beyond the exploration. Like, there was that one where you had to go up ladders and then the post game one with the secret key code, and that's about it. Everything else was bringing the thing you found to the place it needed to be at. That's about as complex as the game gets, which is fine but it also makes for a pretty ho-hum sort of experience overall.

Again, this isn't bad. Maybe I'm being generous here because of how unremarkable the last two Playdate adventure games were. This isn't special or all that noteworthy, but it is kind of interesting and the game is weird enough that I don't really regret checking it out. It could've been better, but I think it was probably worth the $3 I spent on it.

Oh, also I never figured out if there is a point to those three messages in Catalan. I'll just assume no, but if any of you are geniuses and know what it means, feel free to tell me and I'll give you $3.

Should You Play It? Eh. Maybe. It isn't the best adventure game but it is weird and $3. You could do worse for $3.

Final Score: 5. Completely and utterly average.

Games Completed: 22/128

Game Rankings:
22) Boogie Loops
21) Hidey Spot
20) The Lushes Land
19) Nightingale
18) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
17) Whitewater Wipeout
16) Snak
15) DYG
14) Lost Your Marbles
13) Grand Tour Legends
12) Demon Quest '85
11) The Fall of Elena Temple
10) Flipper Lifter
9) Questy Chess
8) The Keyper
7) Echoic Memory
6) Omaze
5) Sasquatchers
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Update likely tomorrow!

Currently Playing: Castle Tintagel

What Is It? Old school Castlevania type game with a Knights of the Round Table theme.

Gameplay Overview: "Old school Castlevania" really just about covers it. Sidescrolling action platformer where you slash bad things and try not to die. You get item pickups (just like Castlevania) and the game is actually pretty challenging, especially at first. Checkpoints are spread out at decent chunks so if you die you just don't go back to the start of the room, and you have a limited amount of lives. Run out and you go all the way back to the start of the level. You have boss fights with exploitable patterns at the end of each level and there's even a bit of an upgrade system in the one town I've found so far.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/castle-tintagel/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/82bf2c40.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3c87bfb6.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/882de948.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f1c5cdae.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f7f12ccd.png

Thoughts:
-Castle Tintagel advertises itself as a classicvania for the Playdate, and I was sold on that quote by itself.
-Also this is the third game for the Playdate with Castle in its name. So many castle games on the Playdate
-Wow there are three different ways to make the game easier on the menu if youre A BABY. I am not a baby so I ignore this option. Im sure I wont regret it later.
-Theres a text scroll here that doesnt stop so I cant take full notes. Quick summary is Morgana is bad and has defeated King Arthur and his knights. Merlin manages to teleport you and Gwendalyn (Gweneveire? Some G name. Is it obvious yet I'm not really familiar with the Arthurian legend?) away from the castle. Youre going back in to crack some skulls and get revenge for Morgana being a jerk.
-This text crawl goes on roughly five times longer than it should. COME ON I GOT A KINGDOM TO SAVE.
-Oh ok so the one surviving night is Gawain. Merlin just wanted to save all the G names apparently.
-Merlin: Gawain! Can you hear me? PSCCHT IM CONTACTING YOU ON MY MERLIN PHONE PSCCHT OVER
-Merlin: Gweneveire is safe, as are you for now. You must regroup with her up ahead. What the hell Merlin? You couldnt teleport us to the same spot? What kind of second rate magician are you?
-Gawain: Morgana will pay for this, how could shemy breatheren, they are all gone. Jeez dude use a period once in a while.
-Merlin: I have transferred what was left to you of my power upon completing the spell. I also transferred to you my debt. Youre going to want to lay low for a while. Sorry about that.
-Merlin: These torches have provided me with a gateway to transfer my knowledge to you. You should go ahead and touch them all. I swear this isnt a prank to get you to burn your fingers.
-I need to go to the underground caves so I can get to Lake Town. Again, really wish you wouldve just transported me to Lake Town, you garbage sorcerer!
-Merlin: Do not fear, we will stop her. Remember, Gawain, true strength lies not in the magic we weild, but the courage we show. Yeah great advice from the magician. Im sure shell be impressed at how brave I am as shes summoning hell beasts to eat my intestines.
-This game is kind of kicking my ass a little. Pits are instant death and send you back like three screens. Knockback is a thing and these stupid bat bastards have killed me like five times already
-Ok, finally getting the hang of things. After like three continues. A continue puts you all the way back to the start, btw. This game isnt playing around.
-Beat a mini-boss. I was hoping it was a boss and I would get to the next area, but not so much.
-I run into Gwenaveire. Hi Gwenaverierier!
-Theyre like man it sucks Arthur is dead and Morgana is a jerk. Agreed. Good talk guys. You want to jump down here so we can team up or you just gonna chill out of reach for some reason?
-Gwenaviereiereeeee: You did all you could! You were brave and a true friend to him. We must stop Morgana! And by we I mean you. Im staying up here because bats are gross.
-Gawain: She will answer for this. With Merlins help we can Merlin didnt even teleport you to the right spot so I wouldnt count on that guy.
-BOSS FIGHT. I have two health so I can only assume this will go great.
-It does not go great.
-I HAVE TO START OVER FROM THE BEGINNING?!?! Alright Ogre, Im going to murder you next time I see you.
-I get back to the Ogre and I need to complain about something really quickly. After you beat on him enough and you think you kill him, the game goes lol no and what you need to do to actually hurt him when hes stunned is turn the crank until the arc is on him and then Gwen will shoot arrows. The game does not use the crank at all before this and there is no hint youll need to use the crank. So I did the fight, thought I won, saw the crank prompt pop up, panicked to get the crank out, and by the time I did he was unstunned and hit me twice. THIS IS BULLSHIT HEY DEVELOPER WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN
-Good news is I had totally figured out his pattern. I had one health left for the rest of the fight and didnt get hit at all. You have to stun him like five times (each of which takes like eight hits with your sword) to finally kill him for real.
-I finally beat stage one! I am the best at this game!
-Gwen says shell see me in town and moseys off. Hey Gwen uh maybe just stick with me so we can fight through all the monsters together andno ok shes gone. Bye I guess.
-The second area is the underground caves. One screen in a bone fish jumps from the ground while Im riding on a moving platform and it knocks me to my death. Yep, shouldve expected that.
-I get a shield now! If I press down it block incoming projectiles, but also knocks me back a space, which was fun to find out accidentally while I was next to a pit.
-Theres actually a pretty big gap between checkpoints in these levels. I could see this being frustrating if youre not a fan of difficulty in games.
-Couple more pit deaths and I lose all my lives. Time to start over, I suppose.
-You at least dont need to go back to level one, which is nice. You beat a level, you dont have to beat it a second time.
-It takes me three attempts to make it to the boss, but when I do I beat it my first try. The boss is this big flower thing reminiscent of the infamous Battle Kid flower boss but like ten times easier. Boss patterns overall have been pretty easy to figure out.
-Hooray Im in Lake Town! Oh and theres people here I can talk to. Its like an actual town.
-Some guy out front says hes standing guard against Morgana. Yeah well she beat all the knights and the king but yeah, sure, Im sure youll hold the line.
-Merlin: Gawain! I have been expecting you! I knew if I sat right here and let you do all the work, eventually either you or your corpse would make their way to me!
-Merlin: The shield you found in the Underground Cavesit possesses a hidden power. Thats rightwith it you get a free subscription to Disney+ for a four month trial period.

-The dude who had the shield before me was Uther. The chunky German kid from the Simpsons?
-Merlin: Hold out your hand. I want to spit in it. Im an old man so you have to let me.
-Ok, so it now deflects projectiles if I block at the exact moment of impact. Eh. Blocking sounds easier overall so Ill still to that, thanks.
-Ooh theres a shop here. Suddenly all those coins Ive been picking up make sense!
-I talk to Gwen on the edge of town and shes decided to help and stay guard. Cool ok guess Ill go fight Morgana myself but make sure the coffee shop has good protection.
-Im half tempted to grind the earlier levels again to get the money I need, but honestly Im not sure how much that one extra health or one extra magic is going to help. And then theres a fourth item that says faster health recovery but I dont think I can actually recover health? I just buy the one extra life because thats huge and then move on. I can always come back if I get the sweet sweet cash.
-Oh Im in the castle already! This might not take all that long.
-New enemy is a knight statue that doesnt move at all and just stabs downward. I think the chandelier above him is a trap so he actually hits me twice while Im looking at the not trap chandelier. Doh.
-There is an actual trap chandelier like I was expecting, but one screen over. I jump into it by accident and it's an instant death. Yep, that tracks.
-Gawain: Look at what Morgana has done to this place. It is a shell of its former glory The interior decorating is all WRONG! How dare she move the side tables to the other side of the room!
-Wow this reflective shield is a game changer. A lot of my deaths came around pits, and sort of timing a jump over a projectile while avoiding a different enemy coming in for a hit. With the shield, I can pretty easily kill any projectile shooting enemy now from safely across the screen.
-Yeah this nerfs things a lot. I defeat this whole levels losing only one life (due to the aforementioned stupidity).
-The boss is kind of fun, but easy. Its a dragon thing that shoots fireballs at you and you just need to reflect them back. Theres a beam attack it uses too that you can block, but it is pretty easy to fall down once you hear the audio cue so it cant hit you.
-I have enough to buy an extra heart container. I might just grind this level for a while and boost myself up as high as I can because this level is super easy and shouldnt take more than 10 minutes or so at a time.
-The game crashes my next time through the level, which I assume is a sign not to do it. I beat it one extra time so I have enough to get the extra bit of magic and then I'll move on.

Time Played: Probably 2 hours, including all the deaths and restarts (mostly on level 1, strangely enough)
High Score: Well I've got two of the six secret things I need to buy the double damage upgrade. I'll count that as the high score.
Beaten? Probably about halfway there.
Grade: Actually, maybe a 6. This is crazy old school but I am a sucker for HARD games. I like the challenge and this one definitely isn't afraid to get mean. The movement is a bit slow for my liking, and honestly the bosses are a bit underwhelming. But it definitely isn't bad.
Favorite Part So Far: When I fell in an instant death pit two screen in, got back to the screen and fell right into the very next pit. It was a very "oh wait this game is for real" kind of moment.

Up

Still Playing: Castle Tintagel

Thoughts:
-This fourth level is KICKING MY ASS. I dont even have notes from this level because I was too frustrated to stop and write anything down. My notes are this: OOF OUCH MY FACE
-I got to the boss here like four different times, each with one life, and each time losing and having to restart. I took like a day break between each playthrough which might not have helped things but I was getting tired of the repeated butt whoopings.
-So heres the pain in the ass part of the level: there are these knight things which toss axes at you. They toss them at a little bit of an arc so they dont just go straight across the screen. The game likes putting them on these little platforms that they can walk back and forth on while doing this, and either side of these platforms is a bottomless pit. I got killed, so many times, by knockback. They take two hits so you cant just jump over and attack. You have to time it so you can get two hits in, but there are multiple parts where you cant time anything because youre on a moving platform or a disappearing platform and you just have to sort of go.
-The boss of the level is also definitely the toughest so far and takes a million hits. The shield power up only protects you from projectiles I find out in this level, too, making it not as useful as I thought.
-The boss is Percival under the control of Morgana and he can shoot fireballs, some trash ball, and teleport/slash you. Hes kind of rough to get the timing on, particularly when you only have one life left to do so.
-I finally beat him. FINALLY. EAT SHIT PERCIVAL.
-Once you get the pattern down, he isnt terrible and you can get a lot of hits in on him pretty consistently.
-Hes like oh no I cant fight off Morganas influence youll have to kill me and Gawain is like no my brother no but Im like hell yeah fuck you percival eat sword bitch. Thats what he gets for being the boss of the toughest level.
-Ok back to town to talk to the townsfolk and remind them how awesome I am.
-Random townsperson: Sir Gawain, there are whispers that Morgana has resurrected the Golem in the North Tower. ButIm going to the North Tower next.
-Maybe the golem will be friendly. Also bad move by Arthur keeping the Golem corpse in the North Tower tbqh.
-Random: I have heard folk tales as a child, but I never believed the creature was real. Yeah golems are silly make believe creatures unlike dragons or giant plant monsters.
-Merlin: Gawain, never forget. Percival was a knight of noble heart and pure intention. Yeah well now hes a knight of dead heart and dead intention.
-Sorry Merlin I might not be fully over how many times Percival killed me last level.
-Merlin: He was bewitched and not himself. You freed his mind from the prison Morgana had created. I also freed his head from his shoulders, if thats what you mean.
-Merlin: Go forth Gawain. Trust in your noble heart and you shall find the strength to overcome any obstacle that may come your way. EXCEPT for those wandering knight things in level four. Those things will kill you every time.
-Gwen: I dont understandPercival was a beacon of honor and purity. How could Morgana have such power over him. He was boring as shit and never went to any of the knight parties. How could Morgana control him it would basically be like controlling a mop with a face drawn on it. Anyways, Im glad hes dead.
-Gawain: She preys on our vulnerabilities, seeking to corrupt and destroy everything we hold dear. Stupid vulnerable Percival. Next time be less vulnerable, you big baby.
-Fifth level is way easier. Mostly because the boss here is a chump and I beat him the first time I get to him. Level has some hard bits, but definitely feels a lot easier than the level before it. I die once but overall it wasnt too bad.
-BACK TO TOWN.
-Gawain: What news from the kingdom Sir Gawain I literally have not moved from this spot what would give you the impression Id know anything at all.
-Random guard: Sir Gawain, nothing new to report. Told ya.
-Merlin (speaking about the now defeated Golem): His purpose is to guard and protect, but its power can be unpredictable and destructive. He protec. He attac. But also he now crumbling in a stacc.
-Merlin: The tower golem may appear menacing, but it lacks the ability to reason and make choices. He only has three slow attacks so you should beat him the first time, trust me.
-Merlin: The fate of our land rests in your hands. Only because you and Gwen got to town and decided to take a break, you jerks.
-Sixth level is Throne Room and the opening bit is just a long hallway with all the pickups. Ah ok so Im assuming this is boss only?
-Oh hi Morgana! Please dont kill me.
-Ah Gawain. There is no need to stand on ceremony. I dont know what that means but ok I wont.
-Gawain: I have come to avenge Arthurs death and restore rightful order to our land. Hell yeah suck it Morgana. Get your gross butt off this throne right now.
-Morgana: Arthur was weak, blinded by his idealistic notions of chivalry. He was always holding the door open for people and saying bless you when someone sneezed. What a dork, am I right guys?
-Morgana: I am the one who can lead Camelot into a new era of strength and prosperity. Yknowshes making some good points here and I dont see anything shes really done bad so far other than killing the old ruler which is kind of how this worked back in the day. #TeamMorgana #ImWithHer #yolo #blessed
-Gawain: I will not rest until I have vanquished you and reclaimed the kingdom for its rightful ruler. Gawain is part of the establishment! If Mike Pence has courage, Morgana can still win!
-Haha Morgana does the chalice toss ala Draclua. Nice touch.
-Morgana: Prepare to face the consequences of your foolishness. Oof. Ive heard that one before. Always stings.
-Morgana: You underestimate my power and the lengths I will go to protect what is rightfully mine. Yeah just wait until she riles all her idiot followers up on social media, Gawain.
-Aw she kicks my ass.
-Okay Ive figured out the pattern. It isnt too bad but I keep getting hit when she moves towards the center of the screen for some reason.
-The awful part is if you die, you have to sit through the whole dialogue again. DAMN YOU MORGANA WONT YOU SHUT UP
-Woo hoo I win. Took five tries but not too bad. Helps there is no level before her.
-Morgana: You fool! You will never silence me! My presence will linger on for eternity! Ah fuck shes going to found truth social too, isnt she?
-Well, that does it for Castle Tintagel! There is an ending screen that is way less wordy than the game itself thats basically like Gawain worked to rebuild the kingdom so thats cool I guess.
-Only thing Im missing: there is a powerup that increases your attack power if you collect all six of the hidden orbs. I have three so I could go back and track those down. I probably will before completely calling it quits.

Time Played: 5 hours or so mabye. A lot of that is deaths though.
High Score: 3/6 special orbs collected. 1/1 Morgana defeated
Beaten? FINALLY
Grade: I think a high six. Good but very derivative. Basically a less good version of a game you can just go play.
Favorite Part So Far: Finally defeating Percival. Seriously. What a jerk.

Game #23 Complete! Castle Tintagel

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Party like it's 1987!"

Final Thoughts:
So I did go back and get all the collectables to unlock the extra attack power-up. It took a bit of searching through the levels since this game doesn't have a guide, but I found them all finally. If someone happens to find this through a Google search, I *think* it goes one in the first level, two in the second, one in the third, two in the fourth, zero in the fifth. So if you find them all, you should unlock the damage boost in time for the fifth level! Which is one of the easiest in the game! And the sixth level! Which is just a boss fight. So basically don't waste your time.

This game was perfectly and totally fine. It is a pretty decent Classicvania with good difficulty. Is that all you're looking for? Then this probably will scratch that itch. I thought level design overall was pretty good and I liked how it wasn't afraid to be hard. I did run into frustrations at times, and there are segments here with moving/disappearing platforms combined with an edge hugging enemy on a specific movement pattern that never seems to be where they need to be to land the jump. It mostly stays in that "fair" sort of difficulty, but in a game like this there is a fine line between challenging and "BLIND SEETHING HATRED" and you get close to the later category at times.

I think the biggest issue is that Gawain doesn't control quite right. Like he's just a bit too slow to make some of the platforming they want to do feel natural. He's got that confused dad at a mall pace to him where you kind of want to shove him a bit faster to get him moving. There were times I knew what the pattern was but Gawain's casual stroll was making it way harder to pull of the actual movement I knew I needed to pull off.

There's also accessibility options here to make things easier, but I kind of wish there wasn't. And not just from a "lol get good scrub" sense either (but certainly, please get good scrub). Playing a game meant to be hard and turning on baby mode is like ordering a streak from a high end restaurant and slathering it in ketchup. It's cool if that's what you want, but just go get something else at that point. Because, honestly, take the difficulty away here? You've got a nothing, generic platformer. The combat isn't good enough to stand out on its on and neither is the platforming. This is a game where the thing is the difficulty, and if you don't want that you're best suited finding a different game rather than nerfing it because nerfing it reveals how generic it is underneath. It's basically a shorter, less good Castlevania.

That being said though, if you like Classicvania style games and you like a challenge, this is probably worth looking into. It might not be the best example, but for a Playdate indie game it honestly is pretty solid. Visuals are better than i was expecting and there's an actual story here which I wasn't expecting either. It is fun enough even if it might not be the best Classicvania game out there. It is derivative and kind of generic at times, but the gameplay is still good enough and the difficulty helps elevate over some of the other indie comparatives.

Should You Play It? Sure. Particularly if you like Classicvania style games this is a solid enough attempt.

Final Score: 6. I thought it was fun enough but at the same time this is a worse version of something that's been done to death.

Games Completed: 23/142. 142!!!??? WHAT THE HELL. Guys stop releasing so many games so fast I'm never gonna catch up.

Game Rankings:
23) Boogie Loops
22) Hidey Spot
21) The Lushes Land
20) Nightingale
19) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
18) Whitewater Wipeout
17) Snak
16) DYG
15) Lost Your Marbles
14) Grand Tour Legends
13) Demon Quest '85
12) The Fall of Elena Temple
11) Flipper Lifter
10) Questy Chess
9) The Keyper
8) Echoic Memory
7) Omaze
6) Sasquatchers
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Think you've gotten enough use out of it to justify the price yet?

I'd say yeah, probably. $200 isn't that bad for getting a whole slate of games with it. You have to go into it with the awareness that you're basically just getting itch.io type games for it though. There have been some fun ones but there's also a lot of "bad indie game" style stuff populating the store at the moment.

I like handheld and I like indie and I like niche, so overall I'm still fine with the price of admission here. I would've been playing this the same amount even if I hadn't created this project to work on when I got it. I feel like there's only a select group of friends I'd recommend it to though, as there's a very specific audience for stuff like this.

Currently Playing: HANA

What Is It? A lump of coal waiting in my stocking for having the audacity to think I was playing bad games before.

Gameplay Overview: Well, the first half is essentially an old school Zelda game with no combat and its really bad. And then the second half of the game is essentially an old school Zelda game with only combat and its somehow worse.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/hana/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/ac8178b5.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b400b923.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/572192dd.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/996cfd81.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/98d228e9.png

Thoughts:
-HANA is a game that comes with a photosensitivity/epilepsy warning due to flashing lights which is interesting because I didnt even know a Playdate game was technologically advanced enough to cause a seizure.
-I mean cmon guys. The title screen here looks unfinished. Like legitimately it is almost a blank screen with text and some squiggles.
-Oh wait one of those squiggles is me and I need to move my way to another squiggle, which is a staircase.
-Look. Im not a huge visuals snob. I said Castle Tintagel looked good and it was essentially Game Boy era visuals. But you have to do better than this. This looks like someone wanted to make a game but didnt know any one who could do the graphics work so they tried to do it themselves and also they were blind and only had an etch-a-sketch to use for modelling.
-???: Captain, it is time to wake up. Youre having that dream where you think youre a squiggle again.
-?: What are you? My mother? This is an earnest question. I cant tell what anything is in this game. Are you my mother or a wolf or a stack of graham crackers?
-???: No I am most certain I am your computer and only companion. Sick burn, computer.
-Also, characters dont have names for some reason. They have some squiggly portrait next to the text that I cannot possible decipher.
-See, this is what Im talking about. I finally wake up in a room. I cannot possibly guess which one of these indecipherable squiggles is supposed to be a human form until I start moving. Its like trying to find a needle in a squigglestack.
-I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ANY OF THIS SHIT IS AND IM SCARED
-Ok I guess I go downstairs? And get a space suit on? I was avoiding this thing because I thought it was an enemy but then I walked into it and got some dialogue about needing to refuel eventually but wanting to take one quick trip first.
-Have you ever played a game too ugly to play? This might be the first for me.
-I walk into a thing I think is a slot machine but might be the computer. It asks me where to go and I have once choice. Earth.
-Computer?: Oh are you going to another version of Earth? I dont know man, you tell me.
-Computer?: There does not seem to be any lifeforms left there these days. Or maybe there are. I honestly cant tell what anything is supposed to be at this point.
-Computer?: Opening void gate to Earth. Void gate? Never mind, I dont want to go that badly.
-This is the ugliest game on the Playdate and Im not sure theres a second place anymore.
-I get to Earth I think and theres a sign. Up is the garden, fountain. Left is the river, training. Right is the info desk. And down is S. Well, Im checking out that S first.
-I dont know what this is down here. It says BREAK! and then theres um arrow boxes? Around a uh harpoon? The boxes say theyre too heavy to lift. I dont know what Im even looking at here.
-Fuck it Ill go to the info desk. Hopefully that can tell me what things are because I feel like Im wandering around a six year olds art project.
-Captain?: I am getting temperature readings of 60 degrees. Okay? That seems pretty comfortable, man.
-Captain? Centigrade! No wonder everything seems to be dead here. Ah. Bad spot for a page break, friend.
-Computer?: Jack, if your suit starts breaking down due to the heat, Ill have to pull you back to the ship. Game, youre already on thin ice. If there is a bullshit limited exploration mechanic I swear Im banishing you to the bottom of the tiering.
-There are these things I think are enemies but are just corpses. Cool visual cue, guys.
-Theres a screen here that says CRANK with a path I cant cross. Cranking, however, does nothing.
-Also I love this game is so horrendous visually they are literally writing out directions in words on the ground at this point.
-I get to some building or something and it says three reactors are active and I need to go to the training grounds west of here. It also has this weird text thats something like launch(#PROG: something something and I have no clue if its flavor or game code that snuck through.
-I make it to the training temple and it turns out the training is basic Sokoban type puzzles. I can at least tell what boxes are so sure, lets stick to that for now.
-So three rooms of the most basic Sokoban puzzles possible and I get a key. Time to go back to that one temple that was locked before.
-I check north too as thats the one way I havent gone, and theres a temple here that requires five keys to open. FIVE?! How many locks did they put on this temple.
-Theres some fountain over here too that doesnt look safe to drink and my squiggle is like something seriously bad happened here. Sure uh what gave it away? The cataclysm? The extinction?
-Well I enter the temple and I get a notification telling me my progress is saving. At least this game has save spots, I guess.
-Computer?: Jack I think you have entered a temple of some kind, although I dont know what kids of gods they worshipped here. Her name was Taylor Swift and she was glorious.
-The computer warns me theres a deep chasm in the next room and to be careful, which is good because I thought it was like a sand patch or something.
-The one squiggle here is a teleport spot squiggle. It is barely different from other floor spaces so Im sure Im going to forget about this in two rooms.
-Jack makes note that if they had that broken ladder from across the river, it would come in handy here in the next room. Ok, Ill try to remember that very obvious clue, at least.
-The computer in this game is Navi levels of annoying in terms of popping up and giving me hints I dont need. Hey you could teleport to that key if you had a teleport ability but since you dont you should walk around. Hey that keys behind a wall but if you could find another way around you might be able to get it. Cool thanks shut up and let me explore please.
-I do get a second key, which unlocks a door that gives me teleporting boots.
-Oh I forgot to mention the first time I teleported there was an aside that was like whoa jack I didnt know anyone but us had teleporting technology strange hm hm so Im assuming thats important for the story later.
-There are some very rudimentary switch puzzles where I need to teleport very obvious places and touch switches to open up more places I can teleport. At the end is a flower which I touch and get transported to a SCARY MONSTER OOOOOO. It looks like what a young child might draw as an approximation of a giraffe. So super spooky.

-The computer manages to teleport me out and they both agree that flower is dangerous. And that it can cause voidwalking which means nothing to me. Also, this probably isnt Earth. At least not this guys Earth. They say it all over the top definitively so I'm assuming this actually is this dude's Earth.
-My reaction to all of this is who cares and how soon can I be done with this game.
-The guy wants to explore more, which, sure, fine. This place seems super small so lets do it.
-This plot is just straight up gibberish to me. They keep popping up to talk about nonsense stuff I do not care about in the slightest. Games arent allowed to have complex plots if your hero is an ampersand. Thats a rule Im starting right now.
-Like heres what the display in one of the buildings says: Reactor 3 is reaching peak volatility. Earthquakes caused by the meltdown have made travel to reactor 3 difficult. All available workers should proceed to reactor 3 as soon as possible. To enter, workers will need a crank in order to lower safety barricades and release emergency bridges. A spare crank is located in reactor 2 across the river to the west and then south. Reactor 2 channels void energy across space. This process is very unstable for human workers who can occupy one space at a time. To mitigate danger, the reactor is split into two buildings. OH MY GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.
-I dont need this much dialogue. Your game is eight screens big dont give me directions disguised as flavor text. I dont want to read this nonsense.
-I beat the second temple with zero problem. These are barely puzzles youre dealing with here. I pick up a crank and the puzzles involving them are literally does this spot say crank? Ok then undock it.
-I hate this game.
-End of level teleports me to more of those monster things and its like gotta warn other earths cutting out tsch chkkk or something I dunno. Or care. Im guessing these void gate things are opening up holes to eldritch abominations or something but this is the least Ive ever cared about eldritch abominations. Im honestly hoping they show up early to just end this game.
-The computer thing is like itll be hard to get back home you didnt recharge the hoozit whatsy when I told you. Good. Everyone in this game deserves to die.
-I find another computer in the next temple thats like JACK YOURE BACK THIS WAS YOUR EARTH ALL ALONG Yawn.
-The info dump we get is that I tore a hole in the something and its affecting time something and Ive actually been gone for generations. The hole I made let demons in and they destroyed the Earths surface. This computer is AI from the last generation of humanity and those flowers Ive been finding can restore the Earths atmosphere if I can redirect power to the fourth temple or something I dont care I DO NOT CARE
-Ive been playing this game for like twenty minutes and this is the info dump I get. This is written by someone who has never read a single story ever. The pacing here is all wrong and I do not care about these squiggles in any way.
-Oh this whole thing is called project HANA in case youre curious where the title comes from. I wasnt.
-Im not 100% sure why Im so annoyed with this game. Something about it is just so off putting but Ill have to spend more time thinking about why. For now Ill just be grumpy.
-There are more super remedial puzzles which are more so just moving the one way you can go and I get the power gloves which let me smash blocks. The visual to smash them takes a second longer than it should so Im annoyed in another way.
-Theres some log here where all the scientists were mad at Jack because they told him not to go and now theyre waiting on him to return to fix things forsome reason Im not sure of. The whole hey why does this one guy need to do the thing and why can't literally any other human do it isnt clear to me.
-The ship pulls me back because stuff is exploding and I tell the computer this is Earth and we messed up. Yeah, just a bit.
-It turns out they just found this ship and took off? And everyone was telling him not to do it because they didnt understand what it was? And then doing so ended the Earth and the multiverse so uh yeah great job Jack.
-I hate Jack more than any other squiggle I've ever seen in my life. Fuck you Jack, you piece of shit. You killed everyone by being the world's biggest idiot.
-Jack tells the computer he wont be coming back and stay on standby mode for a lesson for future generations. Yeah the future generations on this fiery hellscape will appreciate it, Im sure.
-Im worried the ending is going to be a dumb recursive one where the void ship I found was my void ship and I enter it and go through space time and end things over and over in a cycle that doesnt make sense.
-I find a sword in the one place I couldnt access before. Will there be enemies in the last temple? Will there be anything? Probably not.
-Sign at the entrance of the final temple: SON OF MAN WE HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU ABOUT YOUR CARS EXTENDED WARRANTY
-WELCOME TO YOUR PRISON. PLEASE HURRY ALONG. DELIVER THE SEED TO THE REACTOR. Do I have a seed?
-Theres another computer in here. AT 2 OCLOCK THE EMRGENCY BULKHEAD HAS FALEN. IT CAN REOPEN IF THE TIME IS SYNCED WITH THE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS CONTROLLER. WHAT WAS THE TIMER PROTOCOL AGAIN? 6:45 I THINK. I DO NOT HAVE THE ENERGY TO WASTE FIGURING OUT YOUR PROBLEMS. AI CANNOT HIDE HUMAN INCOMPETENCE FOREVER. Ok sure thanks for that sassy AI.
-Theres some weird heart thing in a room labeled XII. I dunno if that will come up later but uh hey heart thing do you know the way out of here?
-AT 1 OCLOCK A MAINTENACNE TUNNEL IS AVAILABLE. THE TIMER THERE NEEDS TO BE RESET. AT 3 AND 9 OCLOCK STAIRS WILL BE AVAILABLE. Im just writing all this down now because I know Im going to forget on account of not being interested.
-THE SEED IS CURRENTLY LOCKED UPSTAIRS. IF YOU CAN UNLOCK IT IT CAN BE PLANTED AT 12 OCLOCK. Oh duh okay so the heart thing was the seed.
-Ah ok wait the middle room is organized like a clock and all those time clues are relative to the center. Got it.
-Theres a bunch of other clues here Im not writing down because I know which way to go now.
I get all the keys needed to unlock the seed, then make my way to the 12 oclock exit which is where the seed is supposed to incubate.
-Theres an AI down here that is like aw shucks dont be too down on yourself about ending life as we know it the future will thank you. Shut up AI, Jack deserves to be hated.

-It tells me to take the elevator down to the core because this process needs a soul to complete. My guy is like Im ready to die and Im like Im ready for this game to be over so we cant run to the elevator fast enough.
-OH GOD THERES MORE
-Theres more game here? No. WHY? What have I done, universe?
-Its like a Zelda game now. I have hearts and stuff and theres monsters to fight.
-Please no why I thought I was done.
-I cant even begin to detail the ways on how this part of the game is somehow worse than the first. It shouldnt even be possible. I just went through hell and then some little demon showed me to the backroom and it contained extra bonus hell.
-This is like when I played Castlevania SOTN for the first time and I beat the final boss and there was literally another second castle, only this time the second castle is replaced by seasonal depression.
-Man, did I think the visuals were awful before. Now I cant even see where enemies are coming from. Their squiggles blend in with the background squiggles and I cant tell where they are. I cant even tell where I am when I enter a room. Like if a room has multiple entrances I have to move a round a bit until my eyes locate the motion.
-So you walk around, get keys, and open doors is sort of the gist of the gameplay. Its like Zelda if Zelda was made by a team of chimpanzees who had been fired from their last chimpanzee job for incompetence and public intoxication.
-The combat doesnt seem to work half the time. There are multiple enemies Ive run into that do not die for some reason. They look just like enemies that do die and the only way I can tell they are enemies that do not die is that they survive the five slashes I hit them with and kill me when Im trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
-Oh, also you can die in this part. It will send you back to the last checkpoint. You keep any items you find (so like I find a bow and arrow and I keep that) but you lose all your keys and all enemies respawn. Playing more of the game again is a punishment that I honestly cant handle at this point and each death sends me one step closer to quitting gaming entirely and taking up ccgs as my primary hobby.
-I take a second to try and remember if I ever liked games. Im no longer sure. I think Ive been playing this game for eight years at this point. I no longer remember my childrens names.
-This is so utterly miserable in just every way. I take a ladder to this underground cave screen. I go across the screen, find a key, climb out the other side and I die. How? HOW DO I DIE? THERE WAS NOTHING HERE. WHAT KILLED ME???
-I have to restart, again, because I was killed by a mystery invisible monster.
-I didnt want to, but Im cancelling Christmas this year everyone. This game exists, so no one gets Christmas anymore.
-Its likethe combat is broken. And not fun. Enemies move at you, sometimes in a pattern and sometimes seemingly by RNG. You can only attack in the last direction you faced, so you have to hope the enemy walks into your sword. If they move around to your side, you can try to move down but youll get hit by the enemy before you can attack. And plus sometimes enemies are invincible for no reason. It is all a mess, I die a lot, and I consider just moving on to another game multiple times but Im too stubborn.
-Theres a boss with the worlds easiest pattern and I beat him my first try.
-I wander around some more in a second area and find a second boss. Hes even easier.
-HAHAHA the game just ends. Theres another person just past the second boss and the conversation is essentially am I near Tokyo and the main character goes boy am I glad to see you and THAT IS LITERALLY IT.
-I get a The end thanks for playing screen and Im half convinced I triggered it by accident because the story here doesnt feel done.
-This is the most offguard Ive been caught by an ending, ever. I literally laughed when a THE END popped up. I feel like I was at a play and everyone fell over and started convulsing and a stage hand haphazardly closed the curtain and shouted THATS IT GO HOME
-I cant go back and play since I won, either. Thats just it. Start over if you want. I do not want.
-What a disaster. Merry Christmas everyone but me, who had their holiday season ruined by HANA.

Time Played: Either 2 hours or 17.5 years. I can't remember.
High Score: You don't get high scores here. You only suffer.
Beaten? You don't beat HANA. You only suffer.
Grade: 1 feels too high so whatever "angry guttural animal noises" translates into on a ten point scale.
Favorite Part So Far: Fuck past me for being optimistic enough to think every game would have a favorite part I could talk about. Fuck you, past me, you piece of shit.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Suprak!

Game #24 Complete! HANA Spacetime Fantasy

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "(screaming goat noises)"

Final Thoughts:
We have a new king of the trash heap. Do you know how surprised I am to find something worse than Boogie Loops? Boogie Loops has the feel of being made by someone who hated games. Like, the person who got contacted to make it was like "fuck games, I'm making a music creation tool because games are dumb". HANA Spacetime Fantasy was made by someone who wanted to make games, but it made me hate games.

It is a game so bad that I feel like its wrecked the curve. Everyone else gets 100% because this game somehow got a -15%. It's the video game equivalent of marking "C" for every answer on a test and the test wasn't even scantron it was short essay.

I hated everything about this. I don't even want to elaborate that much because the whole thing is bad. Two separate times I thought my game had glitched out but the visuals were just so bad I couldn't tell the difference. One time I died by using a ladder. Sometimes enemies are invincible, seemingly at random and with no visual cue. Here's the thing with this game: I can't tell if things are broken or if the game design is just that bad. Ok so this enemy that looks exactly like a bunch of other enemies is invincible. Was it meant to be? Is this a horrendously dumb decision or is it the game having a stroke and fluid leaking from its ears. I can't tell. I can't tell if like half of the bad decisions in this game were intentional or not. That's the level of game we're dealing with here.

The game doesn't know what it wants to be. It flitters around like a sophomore in college midway through their fourth major and fifth sabbatical. The game opens with a training temple giving you three of the world's easiest Sokoban puzzles. These are never mentioned again. What was I training for? The game introduces crank puzzles which are quite literally the word "CRANK" being written on the floor and then you use the crank. Halfway through it ditches puzzles entirely and starts doing combat, which is worse. How is this worse? HOW DID YOU GET WORSE.

The saddest thing about this whole experience was finding out there was more. That second half of the game hit me like a truck. I was so excited for the game to be over and then there was more. People always warn you about having too much of a good thing but no one ever warns you about having too much of a bad thing for some reason. I hated this. Hate hate hate super hate LOATHE ENTIRELY.

The good news is it can only go up from here!

...right?

Should You Play It? Absolutely not. This game is $8. EIGHT. DOLLARS. Last month I lost a ten dollar Starbucks gift card and I still feel better about how that money was spent.

Final Score: 1. Sadly not the worst game I played this year but very, very close.

Games Completed: 24/142.

Game Rankings:
24) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
23) Boogie Loops
22) Hidey Spot
21) The Lushes Land
20) Nightingale
19) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
18) Whitewater Wipeout
17) Snak
16) DYG
15) Lost Your Marbles
14) Grand Tour Legends
13) Demon Quest '85
12) The Fall of Elena Temple
11) Flipper Lifter
10) Questy Chess
9) The Keyper
8) Echoic Memory
7) Omaze
6) Sasquatchers
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Sadly not the worst game I played this year

Okay wait I need more than this

lmao

So a game that's terrible can still potentially be worse than a game that's nothing

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

The game opens with a training temple giving you three of the world's easiest Sokoban puzzles. These are never mentioned again. What was I training for? The game introduces crank puzzles which are quite literally the word "CRANK" being written on the floor and then you use the crank. Halfway through it ditches puzzles entirely and starts doing combat

This sounds hilarious actually. Clearly Undertale inspired.

Holy gods, laughed 'til I cried. Reminded me of Seanbaby's articles for Cracked, back when that place was relevant. I am glad for the existence of HANA Spacetime Fantasy because it gave us the funniest post(s) of the year, albeit at the expense of Suprak's happiness slash faith in the human race

There's something very specific wrong with my brain because my takeaway is "I want to play HANA Spacetime Fantasy"

Playing it would no doubt fix that very quickly.

TotallyNotMI posted...

Okay wait I need more than this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/185732-my-name-is-mayo/reviews/174241
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps4/318779-avoid-them-breakthrough-gaming-arcade/reviews/175192

I feel like everyone knows what My Name Is Mayo is already. Avoid Them gets a special call out because they accidentally make the playable stick figure look like a swastika when it moves. I don't think it was intentional but I honestly I'm not sure it wasn't, either.

Here it is in action if you don't believe me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3g4n84dmmw

Johnbobb posted...

So a game that's terrible can still potentially be worse than a game that's nothing

We did some science here today everyone and arrived at a shocking outcome.

foolm0r0n posted...

This sounds hilarious actually. Clearly Undertale inspired.

How dare you sir.

Place posted...

Holy gods, laughed 'til I cried. Reminded me of Seanbaby's articles for Cracked, back when that place was relevant. I am glad for the existence of HANA Spacetime Fantasy because it gave us the funniest post(s) of the year, albeit at the expense of Suprak's happiness slash faith in the human race

Wow, thanks! Glad someone got some enjoyment out of this.

Kenri posted...

There's something very specific wrong with my brain because my takeaway is "I want to play HANA Spacetime Fantasy"

If I cause any additional people to play HANA Spacetime Fantasy then I will consider this whole year a failure. Also, I mean...

Lord_Bob_Bree posted...

Playing it would no doubt fix that very quickly.

Currently Playing: SKEW

What Is It? An endless runner where you use the crank to move up and down and the gyrscopic controls to move side to side. There are traditional controls too if you're boring.

Gameplay Overview: You crank your little robot through a tunnel and avoid obstacles while collecting orbs to boost your score. It is head on instead of side to side. Have you played an endless runner before? Okay, this is that but also there's a crank now.

Here's The Game Page!
https://play.date/games/skew/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/fcec229d.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3afd2039.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a28398a8.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/be4e7df2.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/719fe9d0.png

Thoughts:
-Next up is SKEW because we're entering the portion of the catalogue where the developers Caps Lock key was broken, apparently.
-SKEW is better than HANA, at least. I havent started playing yet. I just know already.
-Whoa this thing talks? I think this is only the second game with spoken dialogue Ive played, and the first of which was A Joke Worth 99 Cents.
-Oh no maybe this is a bad sign then.
-The name is SKEWas in Stock Keeping Unit. Uh shouldnt this game be called SKU then?
-It says its voiced by Jason Isaacs. Do I know who that is?
-Sorry game, Im going to imdb to see if this is someone I should know or not.
-OH! I know Jason Isaacs. He was Malfoys dad in Harry Potter. That counts as famous. More famous than I was expecting from a Playdate game, honestly. The second biggest voice actor to appear on this so far was the dude who made A Joke Worth 99 Cents narrating the joke and third place was whoever was torturing the recorder during Elena Temple.
-Hahaha one of his earliest roles is Cow Pat Keegan from something called Divorcing Jack. Gotta scrub that one off your imdb page, man.
-Also, speaking of scrubbing your imdb page, The Last Worker is in his credits but not SKEW. Gotta rectify that somehow.
-Wonder if I can change his Wikipedia and how long it would last? Jason Isaacs is an English actor best known for his performance of SKEW in SKEW for the playdate. Also, if you rearrange the letters in the name you will find the hidden code I AM LORD VOLDERMORT.
-Oh shit, Jason Isaacs was Admiral Zhao in Avatar? I didnt know that! Thats really what the Wikipeida lead should be.
-Hm, it says he was Admiral Zhao in Korra too? How was he Admiral Zhao in Korra?
-Ohhhhh he had an appearance during one part I completely forgot about.
-Man, I should rewatch Korra. That was a solid show I dont actually remember all that well.
-Arent you glad you joined us here today for JASON ISAACS FACTS?
-This game really wants you to know it was a The Last Worker spinoff. It says so on the title screen. Its listed on the store page. It says so on the splash page. The person who wrote up the blurb for the 10 Best Catalogue Games From 2023 had two sentences to describe the game, and one of those two was spent saying it was a spinoff of The Last Worker. Some dude yelled it at me from his car window last week.
-This begs the questions: what the hell is The Last Worker? Is this a game I should know? They clearly thought it would help this thing sell but I have not heard of it and I would say I am connected to the indie gaming scene more than the average gaming aficionado.
-Heres the Youtube trailer in case anyone is curious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toPIsIh-BoI
-I meanit doesnt look bad? I kind of want to play that more than SKEW, honestly.
-So part of the reason I picked SKEW was because it was selected as an editors choice game for 2023. They picked the ten best (favorite? Most notable?) games that could be found on the catalogue. The list is here: https://play.date/games/staff-picks-2023/
-The bad news is also on that list are Grand Tour Legends and A Joke Thats Worth 99 Cents. Grand Tour Legends wasnt horrible but its hard for me to think that would make a top ten list of anything unless there were only ten games released that year. And I wouldnt put A Joke Thats Worth 99 Cents on any best of list. If I thought it had to be included, Id just scrap the list at that point.
-Alright. So, SKEW.
-It is totally and utterly fine but its an endless runner and I dont think Im going to sink that much time into this because Im not the biggest fan of endless runners in general.
-Now excuse me I need to go look up more Jason Isaacs facts.

Time Played: One hour playing, one hour feverishly researching Jason Isaacs
High Score: 2935. Good for 39th place worldwide.
Beaten? I guess. I'm not done yet but I played through several runs.
Grade: 5. About as close to average as you can get.
Favorite Part So Far: It isn't HANA

But what would you grade Jason Isaacs

I think the odds are pretty good that Jason Isaacs does not know he voices a character in this game. His lines have the energy of "stuff that got cut from the actual game but they had laying around and managed to work into this by splicing them together." He must've had something in this contract that they could use his lines here in other projects and he thought "heh no way this ever gets another game so sure." Silly Jason Isaacs didn't account for that guaranteed Playdate spin-off.

But he was also Admiral Zhao I just found out so I would score him 10/10 with no notes for improvement.

That was your beat writeup yet.

Game #24 Complete! SKEW

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "Slightly aSKEW"

Final Thoughts:
Alright, I promise no more Jason Isaacs facts. For that, you'll have to subscribe to my podcast "I Yaks About Isaacs". Yes I know that doesn't rhyme but it does if you mispronounce it.

SKEW is a hard one for me to rank because it is an endless runner and I don't particularly like endless runners. It just is a genre I don't really care for so apologize to the endless runner fanclubs across the world. This, however, was almost a pretty good one. It uses the crank, which at least makes it feel like its own thing. I've played a handful of other endless runners before and they're all the same. Well, almost the same. This at least doesn't feel like "endless runner clone #974" which is nice. I was considering playing it a bit more even after feeling like I had a good grasp of things, which is a good sign for stuff like this.

Couple of issues here. The first is that the "fun" controls aren't the best way to control. I was having more fun using the crank and the gyroscope controls, but it was much easier with the dpad and buttons. When I was actually trying to get better scores, I was being boring and hated myself for it. But there was no denying it was easier that way, so I dealt with the self loathing to get them points.

The other thing is the point system is bonkers broken. Ok, so there are technically two segments dring your runs. The first is a sort of standard tunnel. Obstacles come out, you avoid them, and you try to collect orbs. The faster you go the more the points are worth, but also the harder it is to get them because you starting moving fast and they love hiding them right around other obstacles. Then you get to a "free falling" segment. You rotate counterclockwise or clockwise, avoiding boxes and getting orbs. Now, the orbs in the free falling segment and ONLY the free falling segment can be chained. Grab one? Five points. Two in a row? Ten. Three? Twenty. Four? Forty. You have to get them all in a row and there is a ton of luck involved in patterns, but you can get literally hundreds or thousands of points in a single tunnel segment if you're lucky. I figured this out by accident because I went into a tunnel with like seventy points and left with over seven hundred.

This by itself isn't terrible. But here's the thing. It makes the rest of the game feel utterly pointless. The normal segments are like 95% of the gameplay but you get a single point for like five seconds of flight. So either you get a good tunnel segment or you play for an hour. The top place on the leaderboards right now has 351,000 points. I promise you, they did not play this game for the two days it would've taken to get that score otherwise. This game becomes all about the tunnel segments and the stuff you get from the other bits is a pittance. You're throwing pennies on top of Scrooge McDuck's money pile. You're bringing a handful of sand to the beach. Who cares about the ten points I get for playing between falling segments when I can get hundreds upon hundreds during the only bit that matters.

And on top of that you can also make the normal segments trivial. You die if you crash into an obstacle, but if you stop flying and let yourself drag on the floor (or ceiling or walls) you slow down. Now, theoretically the fast you go the more points you get because you eventually go fast enough to get a speed bonus. And then...you get three points for every several seconds you fly instead of one! So...you're throwing three handfuls of sand onto a beach. And also you're going a lot faster so it is much easier to crash into something and lose a life. Oh, and you're going so fast you're going to be missing half of the orbs in the tunnel segments which don't chain but are still worth between 10-25 points.

So you have no incentive to go fast. In fact, you have NEGATIVE incentive to go fast. Here was my strategy: drag myself on the ground to slow down. Get through the tunnel segments with almost zero chance of dying because you are going so slow. Repeat when you gain speed to slow back down. Go through the tunnels and do everything you can to chain orbs. Rinse and repeat. 95% of the game is pointless and you're literally just killing time until the falling segments pop up again. You're literally just twiddling your thumbs going slow and waiting for the big point chance to pop up again.

I got close to 4k and then died during the falling segment and I just didn't have the desire to go back in. OH! And I forgot to mention: the orbs that are worth points and the boxes that kill you in those falling segments look very close to each other because the Playdate is in black and white and they're both the same general size and shape. So my success felt like 5% due to my skill at maneuvering my character, 45% on the luck of the layout of the boxes and orbs, and 50% on passing this eye exam I forgot to study for. I got a decent score and just couldn't motivate myself to go back in. Not that it wasn't mildly enjoyable, because it was. But that scoring system makes so much of the game feel pointless that I didn't feel like wasting my time to hope I got a good layout of boxes.

Fine endless runner. Uses the crank. Some dumb design ideas. BUT it isn't HANA so good going, SKEW!

Should You Play It? Maybe? It isn't bad but it isn't great. You might like it more than I did if you like endless runners and can overlook the rough edges. It is only $4 so it feels like it is worth that asking price.

Final Score: 5. As mid as mid gets.

Games Completed: 25/142.

Game Rankings:
25) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
24) Boogie Loops
23) Hidey Spot
22) The Lushes Land
21) Nightingale
20) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
19) Whitewater Wipeout
18) Snak
17) DYG
16) Lost Your Marbles
15) Grand Tour Legends
14) Demon Quest '85
13) The Fall of Elena Temple
12) Flipper Lifter
11) Questy Chess
10) The Keyper
9) Echoic Memory
8) SKEW: a The Last Worker Spin-Off Featuring Jason Isaacs as SKEW (voiced by Jason Isaacs known for his work in The Last Worker)
7) Omaze
6) Sasquatchers
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Currently Playing: Bub-O Collect

What Is It? Yet another indie puzzler that is way too easy and mildly broken. The Playdate special, as I like to call it.

Gameplay Overview: You are a thing, and I'm sorry but that's as specific as I can get. You shoot bubbles. You can bounced those bubbles off of walls and ricochet them off barriers, but they also pop if they hit something spiky. You need to collect all the flowers in a stage either by walking into them or bubbling through them, and then you need to make it to the exit portal without popping your bubble.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/bub-o-collect/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b367b858.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4f66856d.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/50d9698d.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3c2aca5a.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6d9ac741.png

Thoughts:
-Bub-O Collect is a game staring Bub-O from the well-known Bub-O franchise.
-No, seriously, theres apparently multiple of these: https://gabeswarr.itch.io/bub-o-collect
-The store page advertises MORE THAN 45 LEVELS! so Im assuming that means 46.
-Bub-O is some sort of monstrosity. Hes a bubble generating gun thing I think but Im not sure.
-He sees another bubble bloing monstrosity with a bow and immediately falls in love with it.
-She wants flowers though. Yes, yes, I remember courtship.
-There is like this little instructions bit on the menu that shows you how to play but its in Bub-O hieroglyphics and I cant understand what the hell theyre telling me half the time, But uh, sure guys. Ill try this thing youre showing me.
-Theres these things I need to move around but I cant figure out how. I try both buttons and neither works so Im out of ideas.
-I try to go back to the instructions bit but you cant access it once youre it the game. The menu only lets you quit out to the Playdate home screen. Hey Bub-O. This is a dumb idea. Dont tempt me into quitting your game to find the instructions because Im hanging on by a thread here.
-Oh duh I need to use the crank. Have I mentioned before that Im not a smart person. I somehow forgot theres a crank on a console that is crank focused.
-Ok I fly through the first 15 levels in like 15 minutes.
-So the concept here is essentially you shoot bubbles and you need to bounce them around the level in such a way to collect all the flowers. There are walls they ricochet off of and if they are slanted they will bounce in that direction. So you use the crank to redirect the bubbles into the flowers.
-I am a sucker for interesting, clever indie puzzle games if they have a new mechanic and use them in interesting ways. This is a new mechanic, or at least one I have encountered a lot. But they do not use it in interesting ways.
-All of the puzzles here are like uh okay I guess Ill just bounce it in the places I can bounce at and see what happens. Most of them are super simple so you have like a line or two and it is incredibly obvious where things are going to bounce.
-This game is also kind of glitchy, which is insane. Theres like 45 minutes of content here. How could this game not get through 45 minutes without having a seizure? PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, MAN.
-One level the paddles you rotate become misaligned. Like I did the level right the first time but walked into a spike so I had to retry. And when I retried the two paddles were now askew by one turn and there was no way to get them to bounce like I needed to. I had to quit and restart.
-In another level a flower just straight up despawned. It was there my first attempt, then gone my second. I had to quit out, again. STOP TEMPTING ME INTO QUITTING.
-Oh theres like special hidden apples or something? I had no idea these were even here until I accidentally walked into a wall. Oops. Well Im missing like 15 at this point.
-After I give the flowers from the first fifteen levels to lady Bub-O, she sees a different flower and I have another group of 15 to do. Hey, lady, please just take the fifteen flowers and let me quit like the game wants me to.
-This is so boring. One level you just walk around in a loop and win.
-Oh, I forgot to mention if you bump into certain wall, your bubble pops and you lose. Like after you shoot the flower, you have to carry the bubble to the exit without breaking it. Theres some extremely minor movement puzzles that are essentially are you dumb enough to walk into the spikes or not? several times. In some of these levels.
-They try to add new tricks but not much do anything. The most interesting is the flowing water which will move your bubble up one space or down one space when it gets shot through depending on the direction its flowing.
-Ok middle fifteen beat. Final group of fifteen please?
-Yeah she wants more flowers. Fine, lady. But no more after this I got to get back to playing slitherlink.
-There are portals now which are fine but some levels have like four and there isnt any indication which exits were linked to which portal until you use it the first time. So you just kind of guess and see where you get spit out at.
-Theres a lot of sloppy stuff like this and its weird for a game this short to feel this unpolished.
-Oh theres a boss?
-Well there was a boss.
-So after you get Bub-ina all the flowers she sucks them all up and turns into a one eyed monster that shoots spikes at you. WOMEN, AM I RIGHT GUYS?
-I beat her my first try without taking damage, just so you have an idea of the difficulty here.
-Hm, do I call things quits or do I go back and find all the missing apples?
-I go back and find the missing apples because why not.
-If you look on the screen during levels, you can find walls with a small indent or spike blocks that have a little hole in them. Walk into these and youll reveal a secret passage and in like 90% of levels thats where the apple is. Some require you to do this multiple times.
-Aw man, your reward for finding more apples is more game. Thats like finishing your homework and your reward is you get extra secret bonus homework.
-Well the final three levels arent anything much harder, except for level 47.
-In 47 I get all the flowers but the exit portal doesnt open up. This happened to me before and I quit out the game and did the level again and it fixed things. This time it does not fix things.
-LET ME IN.jpeg meme energy right now.
-SERIOSLY LET ME OUT
-I try like forty different ways and none of them work. I refuse to let this game be at 99% completion.
-I check the forum but Im one of like six people who bought this and probably the only one who actually played it so I find no help. THANKS FOR NOTHING SIX OTHER PEOPLE
-Ok, I finally did it. I collect every single flower by hand, except one in the middle and I use the shortest shot to get it instead of the longer one. The portal finally opens.
-Cool. Love playing the same level 28 times and cursing the gaming gods because the game is glitched out.
-Well. Done. Finally. Goodbye forever Bub-O. I will not be looking into any of your other games. No Bub-OECU for me, thanks.

Time Played: Most of the game was like 45 minutes but tack on another hour for glitch fighting
High Score: 48/48 levels and 48/48 apples. Good for 100%
Beaten? Yep. Done.
Grade: Curse of 3 is likely to strike again
Favorite Part So Far: Final boss fight against female Bub-O was a fun idea even if it was way too easy

Currently Playing: Slitherlink PD

What Is It? Slitherlink, but on Playdate. You know, I just figured out what the PD stood for. Have I mentioned I'm a dumb person?

Gameplay Overview: You have a grid and follow the clues on the grid to make one continuous, slitherling line. The lines slithers, and you link it. Slitherlink.

Here's The Game Page!
https://play.date/games/slitherlink-pd/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/04ea84a5.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/38c9d672.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e8493017.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c1a4e97a.png

Thoughts:
-Slitherlink PD is slitherlink. Do I need to explain slitherlink or is this a well enough known puzzle type to skip?
-In case this is new, you have a grid that shows numbers. Numbers indicate how many lines can be touching that square. Like if it says three, then three of the four sides will be drawn in. Squares that dont show a number can theoretically be any number. You need to make one (and only one) continuous loop using the clues. Thats sliterhlink.
-This is one game I can probably score without even playing it. This is just slitherlink. I know how I feel about slitherlink. Here is what Ill say at the end: This was fine and I dont mind slitherlink but I have a hard time recommending a game that just as easily couldve been a puzzle book and nothing would change.
-Like maybe this is great is you love slitherlink and you play every night before bed and you named your son slitherlink as your wife tearfully looked on while regretting her promise to you that you could name the first kid. You had teased it would be a family name, but all along you knew it was going to be slitherlink. Oh, itll be a surprise darling, but I guarantee youll like it. The fool. She never understood you like Slitherlink did. And slitherlink will be here long after she leaves. They all leave in the end. Anyways, thats the kind of person you need to be to get excited about this game.
-Like, its fine. ITS FINE. Okay? Slitherlink lovers out there. Relax. Stop sending me hate mail.
-But, again, is anyones favorite videogame crossword puzzles? Thats what this feels like. Someone just stole the solutions from the back of a slitherlink puzzle book and this game was born.
-I dont mind slitherlink, but this is the kind of grandpa game Id play before bed for a couple of stages before getting tired, taking off my glasses, and soaking my dentures overnight.
-Stages start off as 8x8 and then goes all the way up to like 24x20 or something close to that.
-I fly through the 6x6 puzzles, even with tv on in the background.
-Thats another thing about this game. I was playing it and was like hm let me put something on tv so I dont get bored. I dont do that when Im playing Resident Evil 4. I promise you I wasnt looking for Office reruns when I was playing Crankin. If I need something to keep me from being bored when Im playing a game, its a bad sign.
-Also, if you make a wrong move you just need to go back and quickly scan where your logic error is and hope it didnt lead to too many other problems.
-On one puzzle I wound up needing to just restart over, which wasnt too bad since the puzzle is small but I am anticipating despair when I make one mistake on the huge puzzle and spend ten minutes trying to figure out what I did wrong.
-So Im through 46 of 90 puzzles now. I get the feeling this will far and away have the most playtime on the system. Some of the biggest puzzles take like a solid hour to finish. I mean, I get sort of distracted sometimes while playing and Ill look up at whatever I have on Youtube or quickly search something on my phone, but the big puzzles do take a while.
-I need something non-Slitherlink to take a break with. Ill come back to Sliterlink though. Those final 44 puzzles will not get the best of me. MARK MY WORDS SLITHERLINK.
-Oh, I'm also confused about the "best times" each puzzle has. Am I supposed to play the same puzzle over again? What's the point of that? It is a definitive solution so improving my score is less "aha beat my old time!" and more "aha I cheated and knew the solution beforehand!"
-Also, here's free slitherlink puzzles online: https://www.brainbashers.com/slitherlink.asp
-There, I just saved you a couple of bucks in case you were tempted by the sweet sweet allure of Slitherlink PD

Time Played: I think like ten hours, total. I actually started this like four games ago and I just got over the halfway mark. Well, maybe not even that. I only have done a couple of the big puzzles and the big puzzles can take like 30-60 mins while the small ones were all 2-5. So there's a lot of game left here.
High Score: 46/90 llinks slithered
Beaten? Nope
Grade: Probably a 4 or a 5? It isn't terrible, but it isn't anything. It's just a very common puzzle type put on the Playdate. No frills or tricks or anything. I feel like these are always some of the easiest games to make because you're really just putting someone else's ideas in a game and selling that.
Favorite Part So Far: Beating the big puzzle with no mistakes made me feel smart. Well, as smart as I can feel when I couldn't figure out the "PD" at the end was Playdate.

I've never heard of Slitherlink

slitherlink police department

Murder By Numbers but it's all Slitherlink puzzles.

"Hey Detective Link, some one has stole the all the evidence from the apartment homicide case! All I can remember is the bloodstain looked sort of like this. Can you fill it in for me?"

DETECTIVE SLITHER LINK IS ON THE CASE

There Kenri and I just made some developer a million dollar idea.

Johnbobb posted...

I've never heard of Slitherlink

There were a bunch of games on the Vita, which is how I first heard of them. They're not on the level of Sudoku or picross in terms of "grandparents puzzle book games" in terms of people knowing about them, and they're like a tier or two below that. Same sort of game, though.

Johnbobb posted...

I've never heard of Slitherlink

Same

Game #26 Complete! Bub-O Collect

Throw This Quote On The Back Of The Box: "The Second Best Bub-O Game You'll Ever Play!"

Final Thoughts:
Oof. I feel like if you're playing a game and half of your play time is spent wrestling the thing to try and fight your way through the glitches, it's a bad sign. "Hey can I play you," I asked. "GRTHGH RGGGGGGGGGH hrk" it replied which I think roughly translates to "call a doctor, please". I hate that I spent an hour on the second to last level when it took me a minute to play because I had to keep quitting out and restarting and hoping that would fix the exit door that refused to open up. I also hate that I knew that would work eventually because the same glitch happened on three other levels. I don't know if anyone else's grandparents had one of those crazy old CRT tvs that got like three channels and would be static most of the time and they'd go "hey just hit the top enough and it'll work again." This is the video game equivalent of that.

That wasn't even the only glitch I ran into! There are like eight different flavors of broken here. This is the Ben & Jerry's of video game brokeness. You go into the store and you're like "aw fuck did they really release another flavor - how do these guys find the time!?" I think my favorite was the one that convinced me I was losing my mind. The first time I ran into a level where the paddles got misaligned, that was truly a mind fuck the level of which Chris Angel can only dream of. I beat it, accidentally popped my bubble, and then it restarted with one of the two paddles turned 90 degrees for absolutely no reason. I had a minute long argument with my brain about whether or not I was misremembering things.

"Wasn't this paddle a different direction before?"
"No, no way man. That wouldn't make sense. How could a game even break that way. Think about it. The paddle was always in this direction."
"But now I can't beat it. Are you sure brain."
"Fuck you man. I haven't worked right since HANA. You're really asking for my help remembering stuff now?"

This was the first game that's ever gaslighted me. That's got to be worth something. I've played plenty of games but very few have made me question my sanity like this one. There's that part in MGS1 where Psycho Mantis reads your memory card, there's that bit in Doki Doki Literature Club where you're not sure what the hell is going on, and then there's Bub-O Collect. The developer here achieved what horror game developers could only hope to accomplish on their best day, and they did it by accident.

Beyond that though, this game is just bad. Indie puzzle games are a dime a dozen, and you have to do better than this. I hate when I'm playing a puzzle game and the puzzles just sort of solve themselves because options are so limited you have no other choice but the right solution. There are puzzles games that make you feel smart, puzzle games that make you feel dumb, and puzzle games that make you feel real dumb because you wasted $4 on it and it in what is starting to feel like something the consumer protection agency should be made aware of. Bub-O sits in that later category, bleeding profusely from the ears and asking what the hell an exit door is supposed to be anyway.

Don't play this game. I know none of you have Playdates, but don't do it anyway. Tell your friends. I doubt any of them have Playdates either, but you can never be too safe.

Should You Play It? No. No way. You want to get stuck in an hour long hell of playing the same level in the hopes the game would recover from its stroke like I did?

Final Score: 2. A boring nothing puzzle game is bad enough, but add brokeness on top and there's a whole lot of not fun to be had here. Ranking this below The Lushes Land, which in case you don't remember is a Zelda game where they forgot to add the game. This at least ranks above Hidey Spot on account that it felt like it was trying with some of its puzzles at times.

Games Completed: 26/142.

Game Rankings:
26) HANA Spacetime Fantasy
25) Boogie Loops
24) Hidey Spot
23) Bub-O Collect
22) The Lushes Land
21) Nightingale
20) A Joke That's Worth 0.99 Cents
19) Whitewater Wipeout
18) Snak
17) DYG
16) Lost Your Marbles
15) Grand Tour Legends
14) Demon Quest '85
13) The Fall of Elena Temple
12) Flipper Lifter
11) Questy Chess
10) The Keyper
9) Echoic Memory
8) SKEW
7) Omaze
6) Sasquatchers
5) Castle Tintagel
4) Casual Birder
3) Zipper
2) Pick Pack Pup
1) Crankin's Time Travel Adventure

Currently Playing: The Botanist

What Is It? An interactive comic that last 15 minutes and costs NINE DOLLARS HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK

Gameplay Overview: You don't really "play" this. It is in the same vein as a visual novel, with a bit of Playdate functionality thrown in. You have these strips that you sort of crank your way through, and occasionally you'll need to use a button when prompted.

Here's The Game Page! https://play.date/games/the-botanist/

Here's Some Pictures!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bd617664.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f774919b.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c1d09b5f.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d22279c2.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1b2c187a.png
Thoughts:
-Im going with The Botanist next as Ive seen it mentioned a lot on the discord as a must play and it was one of the 10 Best 2023 Catalogue games according to the editors on the website.
-I should probably spread these out a bit more because this is my 4th of the 10 and Im going to run out soon and be stuck with HANA equivalents.
-Oop the game starts without me.
-Im on the Har Crater on Callisto. Not my number one vacation destination, I have to be honest.
-Wow this game actually has a chapter select option on the side menu. The last game wouldnt even let me go back to the title screen without first quitting back to the Playdate menu, so this is a massive improvement.
-So it is a little comic up front, which is cute! You rotate through the panels and theres an astronaut who emerges from some plants. He at least looks like he has a unique style and the person who drew things knew what art was, so again, huge improvement over some of the other games Ive played.
-Im guessing this is an adventure game from the bits Ive seen so far, which is nice.
-Oh how fun. I get to a part where the explorer has to climb a cliff and the comic goes from scrolling horizontally to scrolling vertical. Nice touch.
-The animation here is very solid. And I like the little movement you get in some panels. For example, as youre scrolling up you see this guys hands on the cliff top and as you keep scrollin up his head slowly peers over with a look of surprise on his face.
-There is no gameplay here so far but I already feel like this is a lock for the top ten. Thats probably a damning indictment on a lot of the other titles, but it is always pretty easy to tell which developers know what theyre doing and which dont and this one already falls in the former category based on the cute little touches theyve been throwing in.
-Alright I found a plant. Good job, me!
-Wow title screen music is a potential contender for best Playdate music so far. Thats a low bar to clear again, but it sounds like someone knew what they were doing here and not just torturing a harmonica an evil wizard brought to life.
-I didnt bring this up before, but I was a little concerned my speaker was broken. Thats how bad some of the music has been up until now. I thought no, no way was this made intentionally. It must be a mistake. But the music here is good! So I guess, no, just a bunch of people that hate music making games for the Playdate.
-Some minor on screen prompts get you to do stuff like press down to put in the specimen or use the crank to magnify the thing on screen.
-I get a message from someone named Commander Bishop telling me excellent work and that the species may be the key to solving our food shortage. Mm. Moon weeds. The most delicious of all delicacies.
-Bishop needs me to go out and collect a species for cross pollination and I have to leave RIGHT NOW. Jeez lady I just maybe solved the food shortage. Cant I scroll Instagram for like ten minutes?
-Nope. Spaceship leaves now and Im going to some other planet.
-Shuttle takeoff goes smoothly. You get to see the ship and it looks like theres an arboretum area on the top in a big glass dome. I dont know if thats the most effective shape for a spaceship, but Im not a botanic spaceship engineer, either.
-Autopilot engaged. Time to wander around the ship?
-You use the gyroscopic controls to float this guy up to the garden area. It took me a second to figure out why my crank wasnt moving things. Oops.
-Theres a little acorn on the tree. Food crisis solved!
-Well the joy is short lived because I get a collision warning, get his by a bunch of asteroids, and crash on some other planet. Hey stupid autopilot you arent autopiloting very good!
-I fall out the door of the spaceship and some weird other astronaut appears to be looking at my ship from behind some rocks. DONT YOU STEAL MY ACORNS!
-Well after I wake up I start a fire which I guess is good because there has to be some sort of atmosphere here. I also try to send out an SOS because I cant get good signal strength. Maybe our hero crashed in rural Nebraska?
-The Botanist sees a nearby peak and its like aha signal is probably better there! You see him building something and he builds legs for his computer to walk on. Why not just carry the thing, you lazy dork?
-Computer with a smiley face on the screen and two legs is probably a top ten Playdate character at this point though, sadly.
-You load the computer with flora and fauna information via what looks like a floppy disc from 1983. -Not at all how I assumed your high tech computer had information added to it.
-Yes yes we can travel to deep space now but can we all just agree that floppy discs looked cool and do all upgrades with those for now on?
-During our hike to the peak we run into a Woodland Anemone Fern. I know this because it pops up on the computers screen with the words EXTREME DANGER flashing on it. Yeah, I figured that out from the cow skulls right next to it.
-Maybe just dont walk into the plant guys and youll be safe?
-Oh haha its not that big. Like you dont get any perspective other than an animal skull at first, but when they show you walking past it, it looks like the size of a normal potted plant. Just punch that thing and move on.
-Oh that was anticlimactic. I didnt even punch it! I just gave it a stick and kept moving. Im assuming that thing will come back bigger and scarier at some point.
-We get to the peak but the signal is still too weak. Dang. Computer friend, do you have any ideas?
-Theres something playing catch behind us in the bushes by throwing what looks like a ball up and down. Im sure its friendly.
-OH. Its the specimen I was actually supposed to collect. Well thats lucky.
-The Botanist grabs the ball thing and it looks vaguely like a cartoon representation of COVID. Well, I know what Im sending people next time I catch COVID.
-Aw it causes the plant to die. Thats not cool, Botanist.
-When its plant corpse falls over, it reveals another shuttle in the distance behind it. Hey whos shuttle is that and can I steal it, please?
-The Botanist uh tells the computer it loves it? Maybe? This one Im not sure about but it grabs the computer by its sides and a heart icon appears above its head.
-AH ITS A PIRATE! I know because he has an eyepatch and looks like a jerk. Also the chapter is called the pirate so that helps too.
-He pulls out a gun and the computers display changes to dont shoot! which is super cute and you really shouldnt shoot him, pirate.

-The pirate wants the COVID spore plant, and the Botanist hands it over on account of not having a gun like the pirate does. We ask for a ride in his ship and he laughs at us. Is that like haha of course why would you even ask! or haha sorry I was just thinking of a funny I Think You Should Leave bit but yes of course you can come? Im assuming it has to be one of those two.
-A tentacle comes out of nowhere and snatches the pirate up. He sounds like he releases a Wilhelm Scream, but Im not positive.
-The computer tries to warn him with a watch out but the Botanist covers that up. Yeah, maybe let the guy who is about to kill us get ate.
-Well we get the plant ball back and steal the ship. Hooray for us.
-Wait this chapter is called Epilogueis that really it?
-Holy shit thats it.
-Aw man what the hell, The Botanist? I was enjoying this but its like 15 minutes, tops. And you dont actually really play it. Youre paying $9 for a 15 minute interactive cartoon. A cute cartoon, sure, but a very insubstantial one.
-I am once again checking to make sure I didnt miss anything. I get a credits and a the end but it is so short Im hoping I accidentally skipped something or theres a bonus chapter or something.
-Nope. Thats it. Well. Uh. Back to Slitherlink I guess.
-I dont like saying a game was too short because it lasts however long it lasts. But that was too short. Way too short. Especially for $9.

Time Played: Fifteen minutes. Not an exaggeration and more trying to get a laugh. That's how long this was.
High Score: My speedrun time is unparalleled
Beaten? Somehow, yes.
Grade: I actually have no idea how to score this? The animation is cute and it is really charming, but this isn't a game. It's not an anything, really. You play any 15 minute visual novels you'd recommend to anyone? Because that's what this is. And the story isn't even good! Nothing happens and nothing is resolved. I almost feel like giving it an "incomplete".
Favorite Part So Far: Those blissful first ten minutes or so where I thought this was a very good opening cutscene for the game that was about to start. Oh, young Suprak. You silly fool.

Not every game can be a 10 hour masterpiece like HANA

That art is crazy good for 1-bit

foolm0r0n posted...

That art is crazy good for 1-bit

It is impressive and the style here is charming as hell. It has this distinct sort of personality, which is great. It is crazy going from games that are indecipherable squiggles to this. I was ready to declare this top ten like a minute in just for appearances. Whoever did the art here is crazy talented.

I feel like if this had even a vaguely interesting story, or lasted more than literally 15 minutes, I might've forgiven the steep asking price. All you get here is this really fun art in a barely interactive comic that doesn't have a story that goes anywhere.

Johnbobb posted...

Not every game can be a 10 hour masterpiece like HANA

How dare you sir

The ambition of HANA combined with the artistic merit of The Botanist... game of the year, certainly. If it can be done.

bump