Nahdia's Indie Game Thread

[Isis]

Did you think the characters weren't well calibrated or were underdeveloped? The first time you talked about Crosscode it seemed like you were saying something was off rather than missing, your second take sounds like "something was missing".

[Nahdia]

Can I say both? I think those weird moments at the end could have worked but... it would have been quite difficult with the way the game was set up. Gautham at least does get some development in the final dungeon before his sudden death. Though it is delivered in a somewhat hamfisted way and it makes him end up looking like a fucking lunatic, so that the game then tells you to feel bad for him and that he's a tragic villain is... odd. Sidwell on the other hand really needed more development somewhere along the line but again his final scene just... I don't see how you could make that make sense unless you add another chapter or something, I dunno.

[Tatsuya Kaname]

New recommendation: Deemo -Reborn-

[Saudade]

I remember enjoying life is strange a lot when i played it

[Saudade]

oooo have you played Bastion?

[Nahdia]

Yes! I love and all of Supergiant's games. Doing a replay through Pyre rn. Also Hades just had its official release and I never got it on early axes so I probably will pick that up soon.

[Saudade]

early axes

[Saudade]

Im playing through hades right now o/

[Nahdia]

lolphone posting

[Isis]

someone gave me a code for a 3 month free trial for game pass, if I don't actually like it and forget and cancel late it's like 4 months for the price of one and probably ok and etc.
Touhou Luna Nights looks fun and cute?
There's a lot of the kind of type of stuff that doesn't interest me anymore like shooters and RTS on here.
I told myself I'd finish optional content in Your Turn To Die next when I abandoned Underhero.

[Vi]

I've heard good things about Luna Nights, so if Castlevania is your thing, etc.

[Isis]

Yeah I usually like things marked Metroidvania

[Felissan]

I'll go ahead and recommend Terra Nil. It's a small freeware game expanding on a Ludum Dare entry, that I really loved and would enjoy seeing more people's thoughts on.

[Saudade]

Meg's voice actor is amazing

[Isis]

I beat Luna Nights

[Nahdia]

this weekend while in exile, i played Hades and the new Highway Blossoms DLC. The latter (it's another visual novel) I have clever thoughts on I will write about at some point.

Hades I don't really think I have anything special to add to the wider conversation going on. It's an

extremely

good game, very likely a top contender for GOTY 2020. Supergiant has never made a game that isn't very good (their other works are Bastion, Transition, and Pyre), but while I loved their previous works, this is undoubtedly their crowning achievement. There are plenty of gameplay videos out there so I won't go at length to try to explain that aspect, but I will say ever if you haven't been a fan of roguelites in the past, try Hades anyway. It's one of those games that I think transcends the usually boundaries of a genre's audience by how much of a joy it is to play. Not to mention any lover of games can appreciate the incredible craftsmanship that went into this game, even moreso than Supergiant's previous titles. It's both the little details and the broad strokes that make this game so great. Also, you can pet a dog!!!

Seriously, go play Hades. I've been playng it on my Switch, but it's also on Steam!

[Nahdia]

I'll go ahead and recommend Terra Nil. It's a small freeware game expanding on a Ludum Dare entry, that I really loved and would enjoy seeing more people's thoughts on.

gave it a quick try. may play some more tomorrow. my initial impression though is that it's very zen...i like that they have a mode where you can just turn the score off, because i feel like it's not the game where I would really want to be worrying about the maximizing my score aspect and more just want to enjoy my greening up everything.

[Isis]

I didn't think this thread was going to conspire against my wallet's interests so much

[Nahdia]

Actually huh it's almost October, wow. GOTY season is coming up.

In the Conversation: (* indicates a game I haven't played)

Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Crusader Kings III?
Death Stranding*
Final Fantasy 7: Remake*
Ghost of Tsushima*
Hades
Half-Life: Alyx*
The Last of Us Part II*
Ori and the Will of the Wisp* (but I plan to play it soonish)
Persona 5 Royal*
Resident Evil 3*
Spelunky 2
Valorant

haven't come out yet come out yet but the rest of the year in releases has:
the new Watchdogs game, Cyberpunk 2077, a new Assassins Creed

my own pick would be between Animal Crossing and Hades. I have hard recency bias rn so I'd have to get some distance before I confidantly choose between them, but dang is Hades good.

My guess for the most prevelent industry pick is The Last of Us Part II or maybe Cyberpunk 2077 depending on how its release goes. Some publications will also throw Animal Crossing: New Leaf in there for its cultural impact in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

[Isis]

There's a spelunky 2?
Its weird to hear there is a sequel since I just barely managed to beat it and am aware of tons of stretch goal stuff you can do that I def don't feel up to accomplishing

[petapan]

it just came out, was kind of a low-key release

loved the hell out of the original freeware game but don't know if i need more of it in my life

from looking at a few videos seems like there's a lot of new stuff though

[Ythan]

Ghost of Tsushima is just Souls for scrubs.

[Nahdia]

happy christmas i'm bumping this thread today:



Murder by Numbers is half visual novel (on the slightly more interactive side of things), half picross. Both of these halves are well made and are supported by loving crafted visual and music. There's even a really impressive animated intro sequence! And yet I struggle with whether I would recommend this game to anyone. The reviews are mostly positive so maybe the issue I take with it is a

me

thing.

As I said, the individual elements of this game are good. The best way I can sum up the game is that it's all the investigation portions of an Ace Attorney game, but instead of just clicking on stuff to find it, you need to solve a picross puzzle too. Fun! And really, the writers do deserve a lot of credit here. I'm not done yet though the mysteries I've solved have been a bit simpler than an Ace Attorney game (to be fair, there's no equivalent to the trials so they really only have half the space to deliver). That said, the flow and pacing of the writing is nice. The characters are charming. And there's a great balance of humor, mystery, and tension throughout. And the picross element... well, you'd have to try to mess that up, really. It's a perfectly serviceable picross game.

Here's the problem though. These two halves really don't fit together. And that's not for lack of trying! It's not like they just slapped two separate games on top of each other. The developers clearly did put some thought into how they could make picross part of the narrative and how they could make the narrative lend itself to... well, more picross puzzles. But despite that it just doesn't work. And I hate to say it, but the problem is actually at the very base level. The very core conceit of this game is, for me at least, fundamentally an unworkable one. Combining a detailed visual novel and a puzzle game that isn't really related to that narrative (I mean, the pictures you draw are of usually of clues... but if you've ever played picross, you know the pictures tend to be a bit of a stretch) just does not work.

It would be one thing if the visual novel aspects were like, waaaaaaaay toned down. And I

like

visual novels. Heck, I like

this

visual novel. But constantly having to go back and forth between having to be thinking about the mystery ("okay, where am I going to look for clues now? what evidence should I present here to get my next lead?") and having to play picross is jarring no matter how much they try to mesh them together. I also like picross, but both visual novels and picross are things I have to be in the mood for. And this game demonstrates to me that it is decidedly not the same mood. I tend to like putting on a podcast or something while I play picross, but I can't do that, because as soon as I finish the puzzle I'm now straight back to reading. It's like having a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a bowl of spaghetti aglio e olio, and having to alternate between a spoonful of the ice cream and a bite of the pasta. Both are good, and it's not like you're making them gross by mixing them together in the same dish, but consuming them at the same sitting is unpleasant.

The reviews are favorable, so I guess not everyone has this problem. But it really is too bad because I can see this game was crafting with a lot of love and it is a really polished final indie product. And for a very fair price too; it's on sale on both PC and Switch right now! But as it stands... I'm not sure I'm gonna finish Murder by Numbers. Part of me wants to struggle through it to see what happens in the game since I have started to get attached to these characters. But I just find myself disengaging so rapidly.

[petapan]

imo when the puzzles aren't really connected with the story/environment in an adventure game it's just lazy design. i've been obsessed with picross the past few months but i don't want a narrative surrounding the puzzles, i just want to tap the boxes

[Nahdia]

i'd stop short of calling it lazy because it's obvious they put a looot of work into this game. it just doesn't work despite all that work