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Weekly Gaming: Titan Souls (PC) Review

On paper, Titan Souls ticks all the right boxes for me. Indie: Check, Roguelike: Check, lovely pixel graphics: Check. But in playing through and completing Titan Souls, I can’t help but feel hollow. The games completely based around the simple concept of one shot kills, with your character only having one arrow to fire at a time and it having to be retrieved before firing again. It’s was a great concept in theory, but where did Titan Souls manage to slip between the crack and become so… dull?

Well it wasn’t in the graphics, which were simply sublime throughout the whole campaign. There were times when everything felt a little repetitive, and the Titans and player could of had more animations than the few they are given, but overall the world felt alive and lovely, with each and every Titan being exquisitely detailed. My biggest grip about the graphics? Too many enemies flip-flopped between being 3D modeled and others being completely 2D sprite based. It was jarring, and certainly inconsistent in a world that was mostly sprite based.

After defeating 8 Titans you’re able to make your way to the final two bosses, which are certainly harder than the rest.

The music helped me enjoy the game and see it through to it’s end, with lovely guitars playing whilst exploring forests, and action-ey fast paced music appearing whenever a Titan is encountered. What surprised me the most was the amount of variety, with all 13 Titan encounters having different music. Granted, due to the way the game is played (you die, you run to the place again, and die again), you rarely got to hear music for more than a few seconds, but what was heard was certainly impressive enough to keep me adventuring.

The controls? Well not much can be said about the controls. You have two buttons: One to fire your sole arrow + reclaim it, and one to roll/sprint. It’s simplicity at it’s finest, enabling the player to master the controls early on, and purely using the Titans moves/patterns to dictate how the game is played out. There were times I couldn’t help but think how much better the game could have been with different abilities though, with a new level of variety being added to the game based purely on what actions you can and cannot do to your enemy.

So what of the gameplay? Well, this is probably where my major gripes start to manifest. You see, the roguelike ability to die with one hit is fantastic when applied to lots of different games, and can push you to better yourself as a player. My problem with Titan Souls’ implementation of this mechanic is that when you die you’ll then need to walk back to the same point you were at previously purely to start the fight again, which, when you’re dying over 128 times in one playthrough, equates to a lot of waster time walking back to the same point you were at previously. Whilst it sounds like a tiny gripe in the grand scheme of things, I can’t help but feel the single hit death which is applied to enemies and the player is a bad concept in making the player feel empowered after killing a Titan. You see, there were more times that I felt my triumph over a Titan was more down to luck than my own skill, causing me to feel hollow when I should have felt joyed that I had managed to kill my foe.

One of the only places in the whole game where you’ll get any dialogue, this friendly giant must be slain without any context as to why.

The hub world between Titans just felt contrived, with no story as to why the ruins are there at all being explained to the player in my entire playthrough. During development, team Acid were interviewed and asked where their motivations came from, with the team admitting Shadow of the Colossus being high on their list. The problem is, this doesn’t translate very well into Titan Souls. Where Shadow of the Colossus did indeed give massive open worlds, they were there as you was striving to find your next Colossus’ to take down, giving the player time away from the action they had previously endured. Titan Souls attempts to do this with their big open hub world, but it just can’t help but feel contrived, as the player has no prior knowledge as to why they’re there at all and why they’re killing Titans. At least with Shadow you had a purpose, here Titan Souls can’t even muster much of a purpose. You kill big things instantly; end of.

Most Titan chambers are simple, with only a large area to which you can avoid enemy attacks with. The water Titan was an exception, and one that genuinely had me excited to play.

Add all of what I’ve said above with the fact Titan Souls is a short game (I managed to complete it in 2 hours 35 minutes), and you have a disappointment when compared to my initial excitement. Replayability is limited, as I now know how to kill all the Titans, so going back would feel more like luck in defeating them than actual skill. Titan Souls is clever, there’s no doubt about that, but I won’t be coming back to it anytime soon.

3/5

16/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: DMC: Devil May Cry (PC) Review

As a huge fan of the Original Devil May Cry series, I’ve been waiting to get my teeth into DMC for a while. I’ll admit, when it was first announced, I joined in with the mass of fans that cried foul because of Dante’s hair colour change (how petty and small a thing to get worked up over). But, upon the game being released for years now, I’ve gotten over that original contempt I felt for the change, and have decided to finally take the plunge and play the game on PC, where I can experience it in full 1080p, 60FPS glory. Below I’ll break down each part of the game, starting with the Story, moving onto the Graphics/Sound, and finally the gameplay. Enjoy!

The Dream Sequences are fantastic, easily showcasing some of the best scenes in the game.

First up, the Story: Seriously, as much as I enjoyed the original Devil May Cry games, the story wasn’t exactly thorough or deep. I find that with age, I genuinely can’t remember much other than Dante was the son of Sparta, a demon that loved a human and had a kid, allowing that kid to be super-human in strength, and to even summon demon powers to take on the super-natural. Whilst this may have been enough back in the days of the PS2 (a simple enough premise to keep players engaged), these days that simplicity just wouldn’t stand.

So Ninja Theory (developers of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West) took the game back to the drawing board, with the story taking place in a world not unlike our own. Dante and Virgil are still demon kids, but their mother was also an angel, meaning they are nephilim; half angel, half devil, able to kill gods themselves. Unlike the original series, which took place in a real world, DMC takes place in Limbo, giving Ninja Theory the perfect setting to let their creative juices flow freely, with worlds crumbling and contorting in weird and wonderful ways. It also allows them to show Dante fighting demons without humans seeing them, closing a loophole the previous games faced. This setting, and the seriousness of it, really shone through, keeping me hooked until the end of the game. Fantastic retelling/alteration of a mediocre original series I would say.

As can be seen in the first level, you’d be really hard pressed to find that DMC was buiilt for the PS3/Xbox 360. The level of detail is stunning.

Next up, the graphics/sound: Well, what can I say. We haven’t really had a true next gen (read: previous gen) devil may cry game, with Devil may cry 4 being more of a slight upgrade over Devil May Cry 3’s engine, it felt awesome to actually play a game made for Xbox 360/PS3, and even on the PC, where I was able to crank graphics settings so high it looked like a PS4/Xbox One title (albeit with silky smooth 60fps framerate at all times). The HD textures were a pleasure to behold, with in game graphics looking better than the pre-rendered cutscenes, I was gobsmacked. Ninja Theory deserve a pat on the back for what they managed to do with the Unreal 3 engine, with the game truly being a beauty on new and old consoles + PC.

The sound was also a joy to behold: with punk rock appearing every time an enemy encounter started, it truly got me into the fight, pumping me up and pushing me to do better. Whilst the music and sound may be a bit “pretentious” due to some of the songs feeling too… contrived (as in, the developers forced the punk aesthetic too hard), it still all flowed well together, with the main menu music also pulling me in to the point I’d stare at the screen for a while, waiting to start.

Levels seem to constantly twist and turn, adding a certain fluidity to the game as nothing is ever what it seems.

So, finally: The Gameplay. The absolute core of a Devil May Cry game, and the main reason the series has been so renowned for so long. It’s the gameplay that kept players coming back despite all of it’s terrible story and plotholes. How’d it hold up in DMC? Fucking beautifully.

It was the gameplay most of all that kept me hooked to the game from beginning to end, with each and every action or story-point actually tying perfectly into the gameplay. Whilst playing, I couldn’t help but this Ninja Theory concentrated 100% on the gameplay first, with everything like story and music being made purely to add substance to the game, or to give an excuse to actually play it. You start off with just Dante’s sword, and his trusty guns. This soon changes to a devil weapon (a hammer), and an angel weapon (a scythe). These soon get superseded by stone hands and katanas, which in turn immensely changes up the gameplay and combos you can perform, so much so I was constantly changing my tactic to try and get a SSS rating in fights. Like I say, it truly feels like the whole game was built around the fighting first and foremost, with everything else being an excuse to fight more. It’s fantastic.

The boss fights were incredible, with the News Anchor fight easily being one of the most intoxicating environments in a game in a long time. Having news graphics with a presenter you need to kill is fantastic.

So overall, I’m annoyed. Annoyed because I didn’t invest the time (nor money) to play DMC sooner. The only reason I finally got around to buying the game now was because it was only £5 for the PC version, and I really need to finish more games that I buy. I’m glad I finally did play it, and am annoyed there may never be another considering how damn great DMC was. The sales figures weren’t great for this one, with Capcam being in a scary position of almost going bankrupt also, it seems we’ll never see a sequel for DMC anytime soon. If you haven’t played DMC, and are a massive fan of action games, you owe it to yourself to play DMC.

5/5

09/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: Life is Strange Episode 4: Dark Room (PC)

Hi all!

This week I managed to play the latest episode in Life is Strange’s great campaign. Being the fourth episode of five, you won’t be surprised to learn that many mysteries are coming to an end, all whilst others are popping up.

If you wanna give the review a read, hit up the link below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/260439/life-is-strange-episode-4-dark-room-pc/

Thanks for visiting!

-Dan

18/09/2015
Weekly Gaming: The Silent Age (PC)

Hi all!

So this week I introduce to you The Silent Age, a point and click adventure game that concentrates on time travel as an extension to the puzzles, with a fantastic story that’s sure to captivate. If you’d like to give the review a read, please by all means click the link below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/259456/the-silent-age-pc/

As always, thanks for reading and supporting me!

-Dan

19/06/2015
Weekly Gaming: Ittle Dew (PC)

I recall seeing Ittle Dew years ago whilst I was in America, having just bought a Ouya on release day and browsing it’s store, I happened across Ittle Dew and decided to download it (since the Ouya had a try before you buy model). It looked interesting, and definitely unique, but I just wasn’t ready to splash $14.99 on an indie title which, from the sounds of things, “only lasted 3 hours”. I gave it a pass, and lo and behold, I haven’t really touched my Ouya since. Ittle Dew went forgotten for a year then, until that is, I happened to get a copy from Steam for a few pounds. That was a lot better for my wallet, and for the supposedly short playtime of the game. So, given that I bought the game 8 months ago, what made me finally get round to playing it? Well, this blog for one, but also the fact that I’m currently writing 5 weeks worth of reviews within a week to ensure I can spend those 5 weeks programming non-stop to finish my new game (which should be released by the time you read this). Given that Ittle Dew was meant to be short, I gave it a go.

It’s rare that you talk to other characters on the island, with most of the game taken up by puzzles and dungeons. The story (if you could say Ittle Dew has one), could be summed up in a sentence, so not much is done to tell it.

Ittle Dew starts out with a few postcards showing the story of how Dew happens upon the island you’ll be spending the whole game on, and why she stays. “I’m a pirate that seeks adventure”, she says, as you are then prompted to get on with the game and go into the first cave. There could have been more of a tutorial, but considering we’ve all played the dungeon adventure like Zelda before, it was appreciated that as a player I was able to just get on with the game.

The first dungeon explains the basics, with switches on the floor and blocks to move being a staple of the genre, but as the game progresses these basics become a lot harder, with blocks becoming icy, meaning moving them pushes them across the whole stage, or multiple switches requiring clever skills to move everything into place. After leaving the first dungeon, you’re introduced to the core plot of the game: You must find enough gold to buy different items, which will be used to solve more complex dungeons in order to finally take on the final boss in the castle to get a raft off the island. It’s with this core plot that the game becomes repetitive, with each push to the castle resulting in getting slightly further, only to come back to the gentleman to buy a new item.

In this single picture you can see the three item dungeons the game has to offer, with the castle in the middle. Each purchase of an item pushes you to either the volcano, swamp or forest, ensuring you master a item before you can proceed back to the castle in the middle to put it to good use.

Each one of the three items bought has it’s own dungeon to solve before you can claim the item as your own for good. Whilst this sounds trivial, it’s actually done pretty well, ensuring the player is adequate with an item before taking it back to the main castle. The three items are: The flaming sword, a sword which has the ability to set things alight (it will set logs alight and will destroy anything ice), the Transportation/block making staff (this is hugely useful and allows you to create the very blocks you usually push), and finally, the ice staff, allowing you to extinguish flames and freeze blocks, making them more mobile. This loop pushes you to think quite creatively when harder puzzles come into play, ensuring I was constantly on my toes whenever confronted by a new cave.

The graphics/art style are charming, and definitely a plus for the game. It feels very personal, making your time spent exploring the dungeons and island all the more enjoyable. You will encounter enemies throughout the game, but given the limited amount of mobility you have as a character, you will not enjoy the combat, so fights are few and far between. There are also boss encounters, but as I said before, they won’t be based around combat so much as they’re all mini puzzles in themselves. Irregardless, the style and controls were perfect for a game like Ittle Dew, where the core mechanic and core premise is all about the puzzles.

All the coins means all the prizes. The loop of getting coins and buying items can last as long as you like, with the game having multiple achievements for finishing it with only two items instead of the whole three you can buy.

So, is the game really as short as people say it is? Well, yes and no. Yes, because I genuinely completed the game within 3 hours and got an achievement for doing so. No, because there’s a damn lot of content to find on the island (I literally only had two heart pieces when I guess there’s a lot more). I barely scratched the surface when it came to replayability for the game, with multiple achievements for completing the game within 15 minutes, completing it with only 2 items instead of three etc. It all makes for an interesting premise, but one thats sure to be good enough to come back to.

So, was Ittle Dew worth the wait? It was certainly enjoyable in the few hours I played it, and I can’t help but think I missed a lot of content, so am really tempted to go back for more. Should you sink your money into Ittle Dew though? Well, if you’re a Zelda or Metroid fan who loved the puzzle elements more than the action, then Ittle Dew is perfect for you, with puzzles clicking into place after minutes of looking at them. Ittle Dew is dungeon puzzles (almost) perfected, so you really can’t go wrong.

4/5

15/05/2015
Weekly Gaming: Life is Strange Episode 2 (PC)

Hi all!

So this week I take a look at Square Enix and Dontnod Studios’ latest in their new episodic adventure game series, Life is Strange: Episode 2; Out of Time. I thoroughly enjoyed this instalment, with massive plot twists and decisions to be made, it was always going to be a good one.

If you want to read my full review on it, click the VGChartz.com link below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/258781/life-is-strange-episode-2-out-of-time-pc/

As always, I hope you’re all well, and until next week, I’m over and out!

-Dan

08/05/2015
Weekly Gaming: Convoy (PC)

Hi all!

So this week I’ve linked this post to my review on Convoy Games’ first game, Convoy (confusing naming, I know). It was a bloody enjoyable game, and one which easily could be recommended to anyone who loved 2012’s FTL.

If you want to give the article a read, by all means click the link below to read it over at VGChartz.com

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/258803/convoy-pc/

That’s all for this week people!

-Dan

01/05/2015
Weekly Gaming: Race The Sun (PC)

The whole game is summed up in the title. It’s genius really.

Having seen Race the sun ages ago, I was interested at the offset. Here was a stylistically simple game, but with what looked like a complex and tough gameplay implementation. I didn’t buy the game straight away, and if I’m honest, I wish I would have kickstarted it, but alas, I waited a while and finally brought it on the humble store when it was on sale this past Christmas. Am I glad I bought the game? Hell’s yes I am! Flippfly deserve every penny of what I spent on Race the Sun, something I wouldn’t say all too often with most of the game I play. Read on as I explain what about Race the Sun drives me to this conclusion.

The game is centred around a plane that is powered by the sun, constantly moving forwards whilst avoiding obstacles. Speed increases to a certain point (dictated by how long you’re in the sunlight), to which the game stays strikingly hard until you crash into an obstacle and die instantly. This instant death mechanic keeps the player coming back for more, knowing that the game isn’t fobbing them off and it was actually their own fault they died. It’s a hooking mechanic, one which kept me playing for hours after I should have stopped many nights.

When the Sun’s like this, you better get your arse in gear, cause you’re next to death son. Only yellow star items can help you out in these situations.

Since your plane is powered by the sun, Flippfly studios wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you to play their game, so the sun that powers you is constantly setting into the horizon, making shadows on the stage longer (shadows limit your speed and kill you should you stay in them long enough) along with making it harder to avoid obstacles or get a higher score. It’s a lovely mechanic, one which keeps you not only on your toes with the obstacles, but also on your toes looking out for the items you can get to help you on your way through this weird and wonderful world.

You see, items help to not only improve your game, but to also keep the game going and making it interesting. . You have blue pyramids that you can collect to multiply your constantly increasing score, Yellow star shaped items that increase the amount of time the sun is up in the sky whilst also giving your plane a boost in speed, a green crown shaped item that allows your plane to jump. and finally a purple shield that can be otherwise known as an extra life. All these items ensure you’re constantly aware of whats around you, not only trying to avoid your imminent death, but also checking to see if you can grab any items that are nearby to give you the advantage.

Dodging all the obstacles can somethings feel impossible, but thankfully the developers usually give multiple ways out of any situation, helping you out greatly if you can think fast enough to react.

So far I’ve only talked about the mechanics, and that’s because the Race the Sun is all about the mechanics. Even the objective system, which is reminiscent of mobile games like Tiny Wings on iPhone, helps to create a feedback loop where the player is pushed to achieve the objectives (e.g. jump 20 times in one run), only to be given more items or skills in playing the game again. It’s a perfect loop, where players are encouraged to play more to unlock more to then progress further. It’s highly addictive.

Once you’ve played the game enough and gotten to a high enough level, Race the Sun will give you a new stage called “Apocalypse”. This new stage is extremely hard, being twice as fast as the original, with all manner of the hardest obstacles appearing from the offset. It’s not for the faint hearted, but was certainly challenging and fun once you start to master it on a given day.

The reason I say “given day” is due to the very way levels are built in Race the Sun. Although the stage is randomly generated, it’s generated from a seed that the developers push out to everyone’s machine daily. This seed will determine what each region will hold, so you can at least start to master the patterns of obstacles you’ll encounter. I found this aspect of the game just as intriguing as the rest, as I could never really feel comfortable, having to constantly change my tactics due to new layouts. It was refreshing.

The Apocalypse level was ridiculously hard but addictive, ensuring I came back time and time again just to master this fiendish stage.

So, with Race the Sun being made available on most platforms now (PS4, PC, Linux, PS3 and PS Vita), should you part with your money to play it? Well I for one completely understand some people being hesitant about paying $9.99/£6.99 for a game thats essentially a ported mobile game, but I can’t help but feel to surmise Race the Sun to it’s core mechanics is missing everything else it does so well. The feel of the craft and the precision gaming are fantastically hooking, so much so that you’d be hard pressed to find this simplicity elsewhere on the market. Should Race the Sun ever drop in price, either permanently or for sales, buy it, as I feel you won’t regret the time you spend with it.

4/5

30/01/2015
Weekly Gaming: The Novelist (PC)

Not much to see here, but at least you know the name of the game right?

Having brought The Novelist quite a while ago during another Steam Sale, I decided it was finally time to site down with this intriguing indie game and decide for myself whether it deserved all the praise and attention it got upon its release.

The game focuses around a small family comprised of the father (the novelist himself) Dan, the mother, Linda, and their child, Tommy, as they retreat to a getaway house in the forest whilst Dan works on his latest Novel. Whilst the main character is technically Dan, you start to realise that everyone has their own wants and needs, and it isn’t only about the father completing his book in order to achieve greatness.

Whilst you don’t control the characters in the house directly, you play as a ghost that observes the family, and can read their thoughts as well as past memories to figure out what they all want in a set of different situations. Once you’ve observed enough you can make a decision on what the family as a whole should do going forwards by whispering to Dan whilst he’s asleep. Once the decision has been made you’ll be shown what the outcome of your decision was, with some family members being happy at the decision, and others dreadfully sad.

Some of the decisions the family members want to make seem a bit contrived at times, but not to the detriment of the overall narrative, that each and every member of the family will think differently in any given situation.

Compromise

Compromises are a central theme of The Novelist, with constant different wants and needs affecting each and every one of the family in different ways. In one example, the family get some inheritance from a cousin, leading each of the family members to come to different conclusions on what should be done with the money. Dan wants to use it to advertise in magazines by himself, without the help of his publisher, which would motivate him to work harder on his novel. Linda would like to use the money to join an art community in the town near their getaway home so she can get properly back into her painting. Tommy on the other hand would like to use the money to go on a camping holiday, ensuring he can meet other children his age rather than being isolated out in the forest with only his parents as company. No matter which decision you make, you’ll always make the other two family members upset, so you best pick the best option for your family as a whole rather than concentrating on individuals.

Every night you whisper the decisions your family should make to a sleeping Dan, who then happens to follow your instructions without realising why he’s doing so.

After making your decision, The Novelist even gives you the chance to compromise with another family member, ensuring that they don’t get too upset about not having their first choice chosen. In the example above, I chose Dan’s method of spending the inheritance money over others as I knew it would benefit the family more in the long run if the book sold well due to the advertising they purchased. I was then given the option to give a compromise to either Linda or Tommy, to which I chose Tommy as he wasn’t doing too well in education and could have done with more attention outside of the house. In doing this, I made Linda upset that we had no money to support her becoming a member of the art community, which in turn put a strain on hers and Dans relationship.

Parallels

I could see great symmetry in The Novelist and my personal life in the previous year since working on Twixel. Every decision that was made would have an impact on another family member, through no fault of my own, something I never thought about in my own world which working on Twixel. I’m sure many would be able to sympathise with this notion, as we’re all quite self centred most of the time, but through playing The Novelist it’s opened my eyes to that selfishness. For the most part I was on Dan’s side throughout the game, being annoyed at Linda for wanting to take time away from Dan’s book, whilst also being annoyed at having a needy child in Tommy. But it soon started to dawn on me that my actions in prioritising Dan were affecting the rest of the family, something I know all too well in Twixel’s development process whilst I shut everyone out of my life and made no sacrifices. It was a thought provoking game, and one which I feel may better me as an individual going forwards for bringing this all to my attention, something I can rarely say for other forms of media.

Being a ghost you can read what the family are thinking, allowing you a more in depth look into everyones feelings on a matter or what happened in the past.

So should you play The Novelist? Absolutely. It’s a fantastic game that puts you in some very awkward moments, pushing your feelings for the family as well as drawing memories from your own life into view. Some may find the 2 hour playtime a little short and the graphics a little mediocre compared to many games on the market these days, but both do the job perfectly of getting the point across that compromises are made in every situation you ever find yourself in, and that nothing is ever as clear cut as you’d expect. I can’t recommend the game enough, and hugely encourage anyone who wishes to feel moved or touched by the media that they play to go out and buy The Novelist now, you won’t be disappointed.

5/5

23/01/2015
Weekly Gaming: Lumino City (PC)

Hi all,

So this week I took a look at State of Play Game’s Lumino City, a fantastic looking adventure game where you’ll traverse a paper world that the artists created from scratch within an 8ft tall studio.

If you want to read the review I did of the game, click the link below:

http://www.gamrreview.com/review/92191/lumino-city-pc

Until next week!

Dan

12/12/2014
Weekly Gaming: Soul Axiom Preview (PC)

Hi all,

Sorry this is a little late but things have been hectic recently. Twixel is well on course to being released December 18th (after it was delayed by a month), and I’ve been playing many games to review for gamrReview.

This week, I look at Soul Axiom, a game by Wales Interactive, and one that looks set to be an interesting experiment.

To read it, click the link below:

http://www.gamrreview.com/preview/92197/deconstruct-then-reconstruct-the-world-in-soul-axiom

I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for your continued support,

Dan

07/12/2014
Weekly Update: The Hell That is Steam Greenlight

After 5 days on Steam Greenlight, these are my stats so far. I’ve got a long way to go, and I feel my trailer certainly isn’t helping.

Hi all,

I do apologise, but I think for the first time in almost 2 years I am not going to be writing a review for this Friday (SHOCK HORROR!) due to the recent release of Twixel on Steam Greenlight. Because of this gargantuan undertaking I am putting myself through, I thought I’d share some thoughts and feels on the whole process, and what I hope to do from here.

So, on Sunday I done it, I pushed the button to share Twixel with the gaming community that is Steam. I had been considering doing this for a while, but was concerned about the state of some of my promotional material and whether the game was actually finished enough yet to apply for greenlight. In the end, I decided that the sooner I get my game shown to millions of potential customers the better.

Alas, as you can see from the picture at the top of this post, I may have made a mistake. My trailer for the game (which can be viewed below), was one quick draft to at least show each level and 1 obstacles in each level in both 2D and 3D perspective. As it currently stands, I feel this is my greatest downfall in all of my marketing material, with the trailer making the game out to be really simple and all symmetrical. This isn’t the case, as I’ve spent the last few weeks working hard on over 50 new obstacles that will be completely random on both sides of the screen to push players to the max when it comes to difficulty.

In the coming weeks I really need to redo this trailer, as it really doesn’t represent the game well.

Since the launch of the Greenlight campaign I decided it was time to release a beta of the game, one that could be played by many testers so that I could get as much feedback as possible on what they felt were the shortcomings. I’ve given the game out to 30 people so far, and out of those 30 I’ve had a fantastic response of…. 6. Whilst this isn’t amazing, I’ve had some great comments from those testers, with 2 of them asking for in-game volume controls (which I’ve now implemented), as well as highlighting many bugs on the obstacles themselves (some weren’t aligned correctly causing “glitches” to appear in the level). I also asked these testers what would be the price they feel would suit the game, with the average price so far sitting at £2.99, exactly the price I was looking for. Needless to say, I’ll continue sending out test builds of my game to these testers, and will take their feedback seriously so that I can make the best game I possibly can.

I call Steam Greenlight hell because no one ever warned me of the amount of arseholes on the internet. Not only does my no votes continue to increase at a worrying pace compared to my yeses, but some people decide to go out of the way to put you down for even working on something. I’ve had some commentators say things like “congrats you learned how to put cubes and squares on a screen thumbs down”, or “This took 10 months of development? Are you kidding me?”. Whilst harsh, they don’t compare to one person making a group of games called “The trash of Greenlight” where he’ll sort through the trash of greenlight so you don’t have to. In every instance of these comments I think the end commentator forgets that there’s a person behind this project, someone who is currently doing this all in his spare time whilst also working a 9-5 job and writing reviews at GamrReview. It hurts, but I’ve also had a lot of positive comments, so I must push through and ignore the haters. how can I improve this and hopefully get less haters? The trailer needs to be redone so badly, I feel it’s the thing people watch and then instantly judge the game on.

Over the coming days, and hopefully by the end of this weekend I should have a second test of the game available, one that will actually increase the speed of the stage on harder levels, as well as adding 3 additional levels for randomisation (rather than the obstacles appearing all in the same stages, so one stage can be seen as a practice stage and another the real test of skill).

Thanks for keeping updated with Twixel!

Dan

31/10/2014
Weekly Gaming: The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 5 (PC) SPOILERS!!!

So here we are at the final episode. It’s taken a while (7 hours so far), but its been worth it to see Clementine’s story evolve throughout the course of the Season.

So here we are. After 4 episodes of The Walking Dead Season 2 we’re finally here, the penultimate conclusion of what will happen with the group and Clementine herself. Given the insanity of what happened at the end of the last episode (Rebecca being shot in the head due to turning into a zombie) and all out war happening between the Russians and our group, I was excited and interested of what would come of everyone, expecting the series to conclude with Clementine by herself again.

Anyway, back to the start of the episode, where the consequences of the firefight are starting to play out. Luke gets injured and a few Russians die, with Jane making a return as she heard the guns going off and felt obliged to help. I was thankful of this conclusion as I was expecting the firefight to be a cop-out for the writers to kill off a bunch of characters easily without having to write them away. Regardless, once it’s over we take the Russian gentleman we stole the medicine from as hostage and tell him to direct us to his place with lots of food, and so the group embark on walking for hours to reach his safe, secret location. This all felt a bit strange considering we could all see a city from where we were standing in the last episode, yet no one suggested we go there.

Choices are big and heavy in this final episode, with everyones sanity and lives on the line with every choice that you’re given. It doesn’t help that there’s a separation in the group forming, making every choice all the more important.

During the hike, it’s determined that it’s too far to walk in one day, so the group takes a break in a generator sub station, ensuring they’re fenced in and can sleep easy for the night away from walkers. It’s here we start to see different sides to the characters, with Kenny being an emotional angry wreck like always, but being extremely protective of the baby, Jane being a loner that admits to liking luke and eventually joining the circle, and the others having a laugh and drinking. It was a nice moment, one which allowed everyone to loosen up for one night, joking about sex and things they done when they were younger, with Luke commenting how its his birthday. It was nice, but couldn’t last for long as the writers needed to cause some tension in the group, with Kenny getting annoyed at others for helping the Russian feel welcome to the group.

In the morning the group sets out for the house, upon which they come across some walkers as they’re about to cross a frozen lake. It’s here you come across your first big death of the episode, with Luke falling into the lake after bonnie says for Clementine to help him. His deathly stare underwater was pretty gruesome, and made sense for this death to happen after the warm campfire and stories that were told the night before, so I should have seen it coming in hindsight. This death causes a lot of tension in the group, with Kenny’s temper becoming all the more aggressive towards the Russian, and in turn causing the rest of the group to fear him. It doesn’t look good for everyone, but at least there’s hope: a car.

Emotions are high in this pen-ultimate episode, with everyone questioning everyone else’s decisions. Here we have Jane bereaving the loss of Luke after he died in the lake.

Kenny eventually gets the car working, but not before we see even more tensions in the group, with the group seemingly becoming divided in two. Jane and Kenny with the baby (AJ for Alvin Junior) on one side, with Bonnie, Russian man and Mike on the other. During the night when everyone’s asleep you go outside to see what’s disturbing your sleep, only to find Bonnie, Arvo and Mike trying to escape with all of the supplies. I held them at gunpoint, but gave in and let them go, only to get shot by Arvo. From the looks of it, you were always going to be shot by Arvo, you were just given the illusion of choice. After waking up in the car with Kenny and Jane (plus AJ), you’re told that they didn’t take the car and that the bullet passed straight through Clementine, so she’ll be fine. It’s in here you still see tensions within the group, with Kenny and Jane bickering and shouting at each other over disagreements as to where to go with the car. Eventually, you come across a pile up of cars, and in the chaos of walkers coming over whilst Kenny explored, the group is split up with a crashed car and no where to run. At this point, you’ll take control of Clementine and will be tasked with walking through woods during a blizzard, meaning you can barely see 5 metres ahead, so avoiding zombies is best. This whole part was made to make sure the player felt hopeless, that they’re bound to die here with the snow and zombies both freezing and killing Clementine.

Eventually, you find Kenny at a service station, and after a bit of time Jane returns, without AJ. Throughout the whole episode Jane has always talked of getting rid of the baby, which may seem heartless, but it’s a logical choice considering the group has no food and doesn’t know where to go, so at the moment Kenny doesn’t see a baby, he flips, starting a massive fight between Kenny and Jane. You try to get involved but it’s hopeless, with the two adults fighting to the death it seems. You’re finally given one final choice in the game: To shoot Kenny (who’s about to kill Jane) or to look away. No matter the choice, it seems Kenny will always die, even though I personally chose to shoot him due to how much of a risk he was to everyone’s continued survival. He tells me with his dying breath that I made the right choice, and that I must survive. It was a sad farewell to an otherwise likeable character, but when the game constantly gets you thinking about survival, he wasn’t the best of people to have along for the ride. We find the baby in a car, to which Jane said she done it so we could see Kenny’s true side, to ensure we made the right decision. I forgave her and so we walked on back to the superstore we were in Episode 3, where supplies are found and a new group of people are met. So concludes the season.

Possible one of the hardest (or easiest if you’re cold hearted like me) decisions of the show so far, choosing between a reliable and intelligent character and one you’ve known for a while feels like more of a decision over logic or heart rather than who’s the better character, with Kenny being heart for how long you’ve know him, and Jane being the intelligent survival choice.

Edit: Upon reading up on the possible alternate endings, I’ve found that actually, the game differs hugely in what happens. Unlike the first season of The Walking Dead which would always end the same way with Lee dying and Clementine walking alone, the second season allows either Kenny or Jane to live, and then proceeds to either go back to the store (from Episode 3) with Jane or to proceed on to Wellington with Kenny. This seems insane considering how many different choices players are going to make, and can become a logistical nightmare for the team in the third season.

I enjoyed my time overall for the whole game eventually. What started quite weak quickly turned into a proper decision making game, one where I thought my decisions were irrelevant until they actually started having a lot of weight behind them. Looking around online, it seems that there are so many possibilities for the third season, meaning I can’t believe how open this season was, for the players and the characters in the story. I look forward to The Walking Dead Season 3 now, which surprises me given how much I wasn’t enjoying this season at the start. These final few episodes really turned it around for me. I’d hugely recommend this season to anyone that has played season one, and would recommend they get through the first few episodes before truly making a verdict on whether they liked the game or not, as I was surely turned around by the end.

Episode Score: 5/5

Overall Score: 4/5

17/10/2014
Weekly Gaming: The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 4 (PC) SPOILERS!!!

With Episode 3 leaving on a high point in my books, ensuring I felt a little more for the characters and was genuinely interested in where they would go, I was looking forward to playing episode 4, will it suffice to my expectations?

After enjoying Episode 3 last week, I was looking forward to getting my teeth into episode 4, with the shit storm 3 left us with. For those of you who haven’t played, Episode 3 finished with the group managing to escape from the superstore and start making their way through the hoard of zombies disguised as zombies themselves with Zombie guts all over them. You finally come across radia? who has been bitten by a zombie, and its your choice whether to cut her arm off or to kill the zombie biting her. As I’ve been playing this season through as fairly heartless and logical, I went for her arm, ensuring she wouldn’t get infected and would at least live to see another day.

Episode 4 begins with telling you whether your decision was meaningless and stupid regardless, just to ensure you have fights and tension later on with the rest of the survivors. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, we all knew that radia couldn’t survive amongst the hoard whilst either bitten or bleeding profusely, but it was how they treated and made Kenny act afterwards that truly was annoying. He becomes a mess, blaming it all on yourself (Clementine), and causes tension in the group where there should be none. It felt extremely contrived, which I suppose is a given at this point considering some of the flaws in the plot so far, but it still felt weird to have something so logically correct be reduced to a problem later on purely for story-tellings point.

The opening of episode 4 takes off right where the action got started in episode 3, ensuring players are able to go through one of the most daunting experiences of the season so far. Amongst all of the zombies, people break down, and tensions are high, ensuring the start of the episode has the most action of the series so far.

Once the zombie hoard is done, it’s then a case of reuniting with the group whilst Rebecca struggles with her labour. This is where you’ll get the chance to get to know a fairly unknown character in the series so far: Jane. Jane is a master when it comes to killing zombies and surviving, meaning she’s fantastic for clementine to be hanging around to learn more survival skills. Jane will teach you a few killing techniques, like kicking a zombies leg then stabbing them in the back of the head with a screwdriver to get the job done. You’ll spend 20 minutes going around a trailer park killing zombies with Jane at your side, trying to find the others. Eventually, you’ll come across Luke and Sarah, who are held up by zombies covering a trailer. You manage to rescue them, but its here that you’ll have the option to save or kill Sarah, who seems to have lost her mind and cannot physically move when the zombies are coming. I managed to save her, but it seems like either way, she was going to die, with the player having no ability to change this outcome. You aren’t applauded for saving her, and if anything are actually told you made the wrong decision later on.

Once you’re back at the camp, the Rebecca is definitely in labour, and so the group will have to find a safe place for her to have the baby. I decided to team up with Jane again, given how useful she is and how found of her character I was becoming. Going with her we found a man that we robbed for his drugs, whilst also finding a whole store and gift shop on a second floor, ensuring zombies wouldn’t be able to get to us. It was during this sequence that we started to see some of the flaws in Jane’s character, with her becoming quite angry and a bit unpredictable at the touch of a button. Clementine was then tasked with finding the others and telling them of the store, which gave me a chance to learn a bit more about everyone else in the group. A bit of playing was done, and we found a jacket which would come in handy for Rebecca during the childbirth, but nothing story wise happened, it was all more for character building, something that makes me sceptical as it could only mean these characters are going to be killed so soon after I get to know them.

Rebecca manages to finally have her baby, much to the delight of Kenny, who becomes somewhat weird in his maternal instinct towards this newborn. The baby is certainly going to come with his own challenges for the group.

Finally, the hoard comes, and after some action of holding the zombies back, Rebecca finally manages to have her baby. In doing so, the group seems to relax a little, but they’re not out of the woods yet, with many having not eaten in days, and Rebecca getting weaker all the time. The group decides to move out, at which point they’re greeted by the gentleman we robbed earlier, who’s brought with him a group of russian gangsters that all have guns pointing to our heads. The situation gets a little out of hand, with Rebecca zombifying by the minute, Clementine is given the decision to kill her or shout for help. Yet again I done the logical thing which was to shoot her, which then ended the episode with gunfire going off from all sides. I can’t help but feel that this was only written into the episode to ensure most people died out before the final episode, as the group was fairly large,

The episode overall was alright, I enjoyed the character building moments that allowed clementine to learn more skills but to also think on who she can and can’t trust in the group, and what she should do if worst comes to worse. I don’t feel this one was as strong as the previous one, but it certainly sets the series up for a nice finale. One thing kept bugging me though through my playthrough, was on how I didn’t really care about the character too much and was making more logical decisions than emotional ones. I can’t help but think that in the first season all the group you joined up with were in the same situation, you had been together through the start of the walkers and were a tight knit group, making peoples deaths all the more emotional. In this season Clementine is introduced to a group of strangers that already know each other: they’ve been through their hardships and have trust in one another. The entire season so far has just made me feel like an outsider, not thinking about the group and constantly thinking about myself, something the writers may have realised and worried about in the games development. I dunno, I’m just throwing that out there as it just keeps bugging me that I don’t have the same connections to characters as before. I suppose we’ll see next week how things pan out.

3/5

10/10/2014
Weekly Gaming: The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 3 (PC) SPOILERS!!!

With the previous episode not getting off on the right foot for me due to (in my opinion) not much happening, I was looking forward to Episode 3 to see if Telltale games have managed to better themselves at character building and the circumstances around said characters would make for better story telling and character progression.

With Episode 2 of the second season of Walking Dead not really gripping me, I was looking forward to jumping into episode 3 to see what would become of the group of characters being slaves in a supermarket, considering how angry and psychotic one of the characters behaved at the end of the last episode. This was certainly going to be a better episode if not purely for the fact the season has to make a lot of plot points to tie it all up nicely within the next 2 episodes, so with more characters, more deaths and more decisions, I was hoping for the best.

The episode starts out by introducing you to a few new characters at a new place: a superstore that has been barricaded and held up. We’re told the group currently occupying the place has done such a good job of holding up that they have electricity, guns, water and are even starting to grow their own food to ensure they constantly have a food source once the rations run out. The new characters you meet are just as diverse as the rest of the characters you’ve met so far, with Reggie being a kind and sincere gentleman (who is in charge of ensuring you don’t cause a ruckus and are introduced to others safely), Mike being a harsh but up front kind of guy, and Jane being a loner that seems to have survived by herself quite well before being captured and turned into a slave. (we are told she was found with zombie guts and blood all over her, meaning she knows that this is one way to hide from zombies from our past experience in the first season). The group is told to get an early nights sleep as they’ll be working around the clock tomorrow.

The group are held up and constantly watched by their superiors, ensuring that they don’t do anything out of line. It’s out here in the courtyard that you’ll actually have time to make your plans to escape, with Clementine and her small physique being put to good use in sneaking and gathering resources.

On your first day of working you’re introduced to more characters that work throughout the superstore, and are even made to work for a lot of it, refilling ammo, cutting branches etc. to please Carver, the brains behind this operation. Throughout all of it you’re told this is for the best, to ensure you continue to survive and to ensure that everyone trusts each other after your group escaped once before. Throughout all of this, Carver takes Clementine aside and speaks to her one to one, asking her what it’s like to be raised in a world like this and also saying that him and her are alike, that they’re strong and need to do what has to be done in order to survive, unlike the others. It was a nice moment, one which showed a bit more of Clementines bad side which we rarely see. She may act nice, but she has to be strong in order to continue living in this hellish world.

The “storm” that’s fast approaching is in fact a massive amount of zombies that are invading the superstore. Using this storm to their advantage, the group decide they’ll escape among the chaos, a wise decision but one with many troubles.

After a few days of hard work, the group work on a plan to escape this “prison” by getting a walkie talkie to Luke, who managed to never get captured in the first place, and activating all of the speakers outside the supermarket to attract the hoards, ensuring their escape is masked even more. With Clementine being the smallest character, you’re kind of forced into doing most of this work for the team yourself, a task which is annoying, but allows the rest of the characters quality time to start up arguments on how they should proceed. Nick is definitely quiet in this episode, which may be because many players may have had him killed in the last episode, meaning the writers of this episode couldn’t factor him in through fear of many players not having him to begin with.

Once all is in place, the final day is upon your group, all thats left now is to proceed with the plan. As Clementine you manage to sneak into the managers office, start up the microphone, and set about attracting the hoards of zombies to the building. It’s here that your group will be stopped by Carter at gun point, to which Clementine manages to dissolve the situation by jumping on him and disabling him. What follows next is pretty gruesome, but needed in progressing Clementines story and narrative for future episodes: she watches as Kenny beats Carver with a crowbar. You can choose to walk away from this, but I felt it was best if Clementine saw this, to ensure she was strong for the future episodes.

Decisions are reasonably big in this episode, with their consequences up front and deep. Here, you’re given the choice to kill the zombie, or cut Sarita’s arm off. I made the latter decision myself to ensure she survived (I won’t know if she did or not until the next episode).

Overall the Episode was a lot more interesting than the previous one, with decisions left and right, all making me question what I actually wanted to do. There were many different groups of people making me choose between them, and I never knew the right thing to do. This episode was a perfect example of how The Walking Dead works best, with many different factors making your decisions all the more important, but with little time to make those said decisions. I found myself constantly regretting any decision I made the second I made it, with was a fantastic feeling from any game. If the last two episodes play out in any way like this one, then I’ll be happy and would have had a fulfilling and fantastic experience. The tension is building on Clementines journey north, and I for one and happy to see where this is going.

4/5

03/10/2014