[Game Journal] Duck Pond

[Duck]

I may as well make a game log here too.

Right now I'm gunning for at least 10 games in 2021 - let's see how that goes. Right now I don't have a very concrete game list, so let's take this one step at a time. Whenever I feel I've done enough to talk about, I'll post my thoughts here.

Game List:

Spoiler:

• Molek Syntez, by Zachtronics
• Super Mario 64, by Nintendo
• Pokémon Battle Revolution, by Genius Sonority
• Picross 3D, by HAL Laboratory
• Super Mario Odyssey, by Nintendo

Completed: 5/10

 

[Duck]

Finally, an update - Molek-Syntez is done! Way later than I'd like because had computer issues which obliterated my savefile, but better late than never.

Spoiler:

Molek-Syntez on the surface is a puzzle game about building molecules from other molecules, namely make drugs, medicine and hormones out of things like benzene, acetone, ammonia, water and sulfuric acid.

But really, like pretty much every Zachtronics game it's really about parallel programming. In this game, you basically control robotic beamers on a rail in a hexagonal grid, to manipulate the molecules with a few choice commands:

• Remove, add or shunt hydrogen atoms
• Pull, push or rotate the whole molecule
• Move the beamers along its rail
• Output a solution
• Eliminate a byproduct

Here's an example - credit to Rock Paper Shotgun.

When controlling the beamers you will end up tweaking three metrics:

• Cycles - how fast your solution is
• Symbols - how many instructions your solution has
• Modules - how many reagents and beamers your solution use

Normally your first few solutions will be average in one of these three, terrible in the other two, and optimizing them is part of the replay value.

To round it out, there's a modified Solitaire minigame - which is very hard - you can play between puzzles and occasionally you'll have a story break in the form of some text.

That's the general Zachtronics formula: a programming game, with metrics you can optimize and obsess and a hard minigame you can beat N times for achievements and with bits of story interspersed to expand the world.

Now that we've introduced the game, let's talk about how I felt about it.

As a puzzle game, it's OK. The puzzles - excepting the first few which are really more of a tutorial - aren't trivial, even if they aren't "I need to meditate and hope the answer comes in the form of a dream" either. There's a big enough amount of them, between the main campaign and the bonus campaign. The controls weren't very intuitive - I kept messing up the rotation and moving instructions - but it's not a massive inconvenience.

The solitaire minigame is fun - I'd install it on my phone if it was sufficiently cheap, which is really more than I can about of a lot of minigames out there.

That said, I didn't really care for it as a Zachtronics game. I know they can do better because I've seen them do better in almost every aspect. The game felt like just too little in general: too little building blocks, too little building space, too little puzzle types, too little story, too little charm. The controls were also

Other games had one or more of these elements but made up for them in another way. Spacechem had four different puzzle types and better controls, Opus Magnum had an infinite working area, TIS-100 and Shenzhen IO had lots of charm and you could tell just by looking that Exapunks had a lot of love put into it.

So, yeah, not a game I hate but it's also not going to be in my replay list for a very long time. If you like puzzles go with Spacechem if you want the hair-tearing experience or Opus Magnum if you want an easier (and prettier) game experience.

If you really dig the minimalist look of Molek-Syntez go for TIS-100 (and later on, maybe Shenzhen IO) and if you hated it, go for Exapunks.

As harsh as it might sound, Molek-Syntez feels like a dud. Don't settle for the dud, get yourself the good stuff.

Now, for the next game, I was thinking of doing Super Mario 64. A game I've started playing a lot of times, but never actually finished it.

 

[Duck]

All about Super Mario 64

Spoiler:

I think everybody here realistically knows about the game. It's the most speedran game on the planet (according to speedrun.com), it's iconic and it has spawned the 3D Mario franchise which produced other masterpieces like Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey.

So it was fun, and good for my "game education" so to speak but there's little to talk here that wasn't mentioned before. So, I'll mostly compare Super Mario 64 to Galaxy (the last 3D Mario game I played, since I don't have a Switch or a computer that can emulate one at a playable framerate) and see if the main issues I felt in this game were answered.

As a quick background, I did about 50 stars before I just got tired of the game and BLJed to final Bowser. Did most of the first 8 or so levels but decided to skip the third floor altogether.

• The camera: Jesus Christ the camera sucks in this game. A lot of the time all I wanted was basically Zelda's Z-Targeting - get the camera behind me so I can focus on what's going on. I know Galaxy already had an automatic camera, which also wasn't perfect, but was better than what I had with SM64.
• The controls just kinda felt ridiculously floaty, the worst part was trying to aim the cannons with some level of precision. I don't know if this is because I was using a PS2 controller instead of a proper N64 one (although in theory PJ64 should have made the analogs work with about the same precision) or if it's just the way the game was made but they didn't really feel good.
• Swimming / Flight controls were even worse. I always hate these controls in pretty much any game actually, although I will say that Galaxy managed to have a fun-ish swimming control scheme when you're holding the Koopa Shell. I think Odyssey's capture system could help solve this but I can't talk from experience so, meh.
• The level system. On one hand, Galaxy streamlines the process a bit - no need to walk to another room to get into a different world - but it also makes the level progression very rigid and fixed within those worlds which isn't very nice. I liked being able to do Stars out of order here and I know that is the case in Odyssey, so that's also nice. (I also know this most definitely was not the case in Sunshine, which is kinda terrible actually).
• The bosses were just kinda ehhh. Until you met Bowser which was just annoying to fight instead of fun hard (to me at least). Galaxy did have fun bosses in general, the comets added some nice difficulty too - I remember spending weeks to beat Daredevil Bouldergeist, which is more than I can say about most other bosses in the Mario Franchise.

In general, I think that the franchised evolved in a good direction. I don't think I'll keep playing the game very often, but I can see why people would like this game to this day. All in all, not a bad game if you don't access to Wii / Switch Games but if you do, just play Galaxy or Odyssey.

As for my next game ... I'm thinking either finally play a Hat in Time or Stardew Valley.

I bought HiT a long time ago only to discover my computer couldn't run it then but I have a better computer now, so I should probably check it out.
And I love SDV, but I'm also that stressed obsessive person that can't get past Spring Year 1 or play the game without Timespeed / Chests Anywhere due to FOMO, so, finally sitting down and completing a run of the game could be fun.

 

[Duck]

So, as it turns out my PC still can't play a Hat in Time without freaking out and I'm having a number of issues that having to constantly set up the mods on SDV is just annoying so, here we go with something completely different: Pokémon Battle Revolution.

Spoiler:

Since it was the last game in the Stadium-like franchise, I'll admit that I was a bit curious on how it worked and yeah, I can see why Nintendo didn't do it again.

While, strictly speaking PBR has more leagues and different battle styles than its predecessors, unlike Colosseum, there isn't a Story Mode and unlike Stadium and Stadium 2, there isn't a rental system. So if you don't have one of DPPHgSs, you won't be in a very good place.

You start the game with one rental pass, and can get 4 more as you beat certain challenges but none of them are particularly great. But part of the fun is using your own sets against the trainers, so it's not completely bad.

Still, let's see how the game is laid out.

Out of the 10 colosseums (the game modes), only 3 are your straightforward "beat N trainers and a boss to win" formula. And only 2 are unlocked by default. Beating them will unlock another, which will then unlock two others and so on until everybody's unlocked.

One is the Gateway Colosseum which forces you to use a rental team during the first part of the game. Upon beating it, you can use that team anywhere else.

So far so good, but like I said, there isn't a rental system. You get one rental team when you begin the game, and can get 4 others by beating other colosseums (and then beating the Gateway Colosseum with that team). When the post-game comes around the Gateway Colosseum adopts Battle Factory rules and lets you nab other trainer's Pokémon as you beat them, but it's a bit too little too late by that point.

Waterfall Colosseum are 1v1s best-of-fives. And here the problem starts apparent. You see, the game is balanced around the crappy rentals and not actually competitively viable Pokémon. So, if your Pokémon have good IVs, some EV investment and a good item you'll likely make short work of those battles.

Neon Colosseum will have you and the opponent's Pokémon dumped into a pool and you'll choose them at random. This is demoralizing since you're trading your good Pokémon for stuff with terrible sets and in fact, the major difficulty of these battles is dealing with your own Pokémon.

This is also where the bad AI becomes even more apparent, because now you know for a fact the sets of some of these Pokémon, so you have stuff like an Empoleon with Ice Beam using Grass Knot in a Staraptor. Frustrating place all around.

Sunny Park Colosseum is unremarkable except for the fact that it has Little Cup open in the post-game.

Magma and Sunset Colosseums are round-robin and classic tournament structure. There's presumably some random variation there but I beat them once fairly easily and just moved on. In fact I even gave up the last battle in the round-robin one since I knew I had guaranteed I'd get to fight the boss and I wanted to save time.

Courtyard Colosseum is unremarkable in the first run but in the post-game it gets a new battle style. You have essentially infinite battles (with one, maybe 2 Pokémon on longer streaks) without resting in between. The only way to restore health and PP outside of battle is by rolling it in a roulette. I got to six without taking any damage and actually rolling a couple of PP restores before deciding it wasn't worth my time to get the prizes at 50 and 100 streak.

Stargazer Colosseum is the main event. On the first run you battle all the bosses again until you get to the final boss, and on the post-game it becomes the only colosseum that's actually balanced for a competitively viable team.

The post game has 8 sets of 4 trainers - doubles only - and it's actually kinda fun. It's what I was hoping throughout all the game, shame it only came in after 5 hours of tedious battles.

The visuals and the audio are fine, like, they aren't state of the art but they've held up pretty well for the most part considering it's a 14 year old game.

If you wanna play it, then I suggest you focus on meme or gimmicky teams, or maybe a challenge - like only Pokémon below 300 BST allowed - in order to make it a more enjoyable experience.

I can definitely why the critics panned it, and given those reviews and the poor sales, why Nintendo didn't make another Stadium like.

 

[Duck]

So, here's my report on Picross 3D.

Spoiler:

Picross, or Nonograms, is a grid based 2D game in which you discover which of the squares need to be filled based on numerical clues. Picross 3D is the natural 3D extension - given a box of blocks, based on clues, figure out which blocks you need to carve.

There isn't a lot to say here since puzzles games are usually very straightforward with their mechanics - it's really just a matter of thinking - but there were a couple of things that put me off the game a bit.

I think the UI could be improved. The raycaster isn't always precise so I often broke the wrong block by accident. This wouldn't be that bad by itself, if it weren't for the fact that a number of puzzles were gated behind stars - which you gain by doing a number of things, including "perfect solutions" -, so I often felt the need to restart the puzzle from scratch to deal with that.

There's zero story and while it isn't necessarily a requirement for puzzle games, it's a bit of a nice touch, specially when you see games like Spacechem and Opus Magnum pulling off very good stories behind their puzzles.

I'd recommend the game if you like normal Picross, but wouldn't say it's a must play. If you really want a puzzle suggestion, check out the original Picross 2D (or any number of Nonogram apps)

 

[Duck]

Wow, so ... this is a thing, lol.

I just finished playing Super Mario Odyssey and I can see why it got all that praise, yes.

Spoiler:

It was a fun game and it's full of charm. The only things I hated about the controls were the RC cars in Metro Kingdom, it felt like a great direction for the Mario franchise.

I discovered I cared a lot more about actually doing the challenges instead of finding them, so the huge open world aspect wore out quickly for me, but between the Talkatoo and the hinting Toad directing you to Power Moon locations, things worked out pretty well most of the time.

The few times it didn't, the internet's there to help. The one thing I'd complain is that some of the bosses aren't well telegraphed. Like, I legit needed to look up how to damage the Lakeside Kingdom octopus.

Still, a bit of a minor quibble, great game overall, would recommend.

I have recently caved in and bough Pokémon Sword, so, I guess that's the next game I'm gonna play, lol.

 

[Duck]

I guess this thread exists. So, I played Potion Craft.

Here are my thoughts

Spoiler:

It's a cute game but it can get very repetitive in a way that I personally don't quite enjoy, but I can see why other people might like.

The main conceit of the game is that you're an alchemist and makes potions by combining ingredients, which mechanically means moving a potion around a map with each ingredient having its unique movement pattern.

That part is fine enough, if it were only the map exploration and trying to grind out the perfect, most efficient routes for every potion I think I'd have liked the game more but there are two problematic mechanics.

1) You don't have infinite resources (fine by itself) and there is an ingredient economy subject to fluctuations both in price and availability (fine by itself). This means that after a while you need to reinvent the recipes you already had even if they already were optimized and it can feel a bit frustrating ... that is, until you're rich enough that you can more or less just buy everything and just keep clicking the recipe button.

I get that it's realistic but I don't think it's fun. Then again, it's a hard thing to balance. If we had say, a sense of exactly how many resources we're going to get each day or each week or something like that, or if we had infinite resources of a given type during a time segment (like a week or a month or the first X chapters) I think the game would be better since we'd be able to plan out stuff ahead of time.

2) Transmutation. OK, so while Potion Crafts is an alchemist simulator, the majority of the game is really more of a potion brewer simulation. Transmutation is when you use potions and certain machines to create substances like substances that can be transmuted into certain salts that affect potion movement on the board.

Transmutation is very repetitive because it needs complex potions that like do laps around the board, and you need to do transmute things a lot to get through the end of the game. And most of the salts aren't even that useful, like there are 2 salts that I think are interesting (3 if you count the Philosopher's Salt which is like the last thing you do in the game) but they're not interesting enough to be worth the hassle.

All in all, I enjoyed the game, but I think that the game is best played to like, Chapter V (out of X, as of now) unless you're really into economy simulators and is willing to grind things out (ba dum tss) every time the economy shifts.

Also, a petty complaint but it has ridiculously big loading times for a game that doesn't really seem to do anything intensive. Not sure why that's the case.

I give it 7 / 10