colinlegameboy

[colinlegameboy]

Coincidence

They say the universe ain’t lazy

So if something seems too clean

If things line up too perfectly

Then there is something that it means

A sign from some strange higher power

Telling you what to expect

In a way that is confusing

Rather than being direct

If such things were up to me

I wouldn’t keep folks guessing

Because depending on your mood

It might just be depressing

Tell me what I need to know

Or don’t say anything

In some cases, ignorance

Will leave a lesser sting

[colinlegameboy]

Innocent

Do you think I give off a vibe

Of cleanliness, both heart and mind

Cause if you stare at them too long

You’ll find you couldn’t be more wrong

I’m stained with filth behind the curtain

Horny thoughts and dreams of hurting

It’s no wonder no one stays

The truth scares all of them away

[colinlegameboy]

Score

The current score is 4-10

I think I’m gonna win again

My opponent is dismaying

Dunno what game we are playing

But I have a stupid grin

As I go for another win

When my rival turns away

Pieces become my entree

[colinlegameboy]

Yammering About Manticore: Galaxy On Fire

Indies are the saviors of gaming. Probably not news to anyone deep enough into gaming culture to be reading a post from some rando on the internet about games. While Western AAA is too risk-averse to do anything but the same 5 genres for the rest of time, indie companies and devs are constantly serving up games in one of two categories- Something entirely brand new you've never even considered before, or a reimagining of a preexisting concept.

Several of my old favorites have been reimagined this way, mostly 3D platformers and boomer shooters. But one very specific niche constantly eludes me- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

Now you might say, but Colin, there are several indie space shooters. Yes. There are. And they are all either based on Star Fox or something more heavily sim-like akin to X-Wing. The level-based, free-roaming feel of Rogue Squadron hasn't really been done yet in my opinion.

The closest thing I've come across in recent memory is Manticore: Galaxy on Fire, which despite my earlier ramblings, A: isn't indie and B: doesn't really come that close to Rogue Squadron in the grand scheme of things.

Manticore is apparently the third game in the Galaxy on Fire series by Deep Silver, which was mobile exclusive save for this one making it to Switch, where I played it. You may have heard of Deep Silver from Dead Island and Kingdom Come Deliverance, so it's interesting that they have this weird little mobile series in their back pocket as well.

The gameplay is... Very Rogue Squadron. But like. It somehow doesn't feel the same to me? Maybe it's just the pull of Star Wars itself that elevates Rogue Squadron, but also it doesn't help that the environments in Manticore consist of space, space with buildings, space with a big ass planet in the background, and more space.

Rogue Squadron had all sorts of different environments and planets to fly around as well as levels in space. That adds a lot to the magic. Manticore is lacking that magic. It's a fine enough game on its own, but it ain't gonna replace Rogue Squadron anytime soon.

I do have to wonder why no indie devs have tried to attack that particular niche. I guess they would need a pretty big budget to get as varied of level design as Rogue Squadron. Here's hoping one of these days someone gets around to doing it. Or someone remasters Rogue Squadron. Dunno which has a higher chance of happening first.

[colinlegameboy]

Yammering About Spark the Electric Jester 3

I don't think I've ever gone out of my way to play a game series out of chronological order. But, with Spark the Electric Jester, two things kept me from doing so- One, the first game is entirely different from the second and third, being a 2D platformer rather than a 3D one. Two, I had heard that 3 had the better gameplay. So, I figured, if I was going to play any of the games, I might as well play 3.

This was not a mistake until much later, but we'll get into that.

The gameplay itself is very fun. Indie devs consistently prove to Sonic Team that reinventing the wheel is just an exercise in frustration- Just make the weird little man go fast and you're golden, and boy does he go fast.

It feels really good to zip through the levels, to the point where I didn't really feel like exploring them- Just making Spark break the sound barrier as much and as long as possible.

There's also some DMC style combat which.... You'd think I'd like more considering the games I like, but it's really just kinda there. It's not bad mind you, but I definitely prefer the zooming over the fighting.

So that's the gameplay out of the way. Now to get into the story. And hoo boy. What a story. Spoilers follow.

Now, to reiterate, I have not played Spark 1 or 2. I haven't even looked up their stories on Fandom, or anything. So you can imagine how I must've felt when everything took an insane left turn to reveal that an evil AI consumed the world and everyone's been dead for centuries. What the fuck.

The story started with Spark being mad that he couldn't get his paycheck because the internet was down, and ended with an existential crisis, multiple anime-as-fuck moments (including one at the end that I nearly lost it at), and Spark taking over as the new AI while Fark, the Shadow equivalent, gets a new body.

...And then the credits roll into a Friday Night Funkin parody.

I hope you can see what an insane rollercoaster I was taken on. I don't even think knowing the previous two games' plotlines would have prepared me for this nonsense. It's certainly not an experience I'll forget anytime soon.

[colinlegameboy]

them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT

biologist:

[colinlegameboy]

If you see this on your dashboard, reblog this, NO MATTER WHAT and all your dreams and wishes will come true.

[colinlegameboy]

[colinlegameboy]

dear USAmericans,

VOTING WORKS!!!

French people showed up, French people voted, turnout was higher today than it has been since 1997, and we kicked the far right to 3rd place

a week ago, the far right was the biggest party in France, we were slated for a far right parliament, prime minister, and government

this week, we voted against them en masse and we won!

VOTING WORKS!

you're up next in November! it's very rare we get to say this, but this one time, take example on the French! show up and vote!

because VOTING WORKS!

[colinlegameboy]

[colinlegameboy]

YOU hates terfs

[colinlegameboy]

[colinlegameboy]

Just looked at a blog where the header description said 'sometimes I reblog posts I like so I don't forget them'.

And I feel like that, right there, explains so much about how the site has changed in the last few months.

People now think reblogging is an unusual behaviour, rather than a default.

Tumblr newbies, please, for the love of baby Jesus, reblog the posts you like. That is the whole reason the site exists - for you to collect all your shiny fandom objects in a single space. Which you can organize to your heart's content. Or not organize at all, if that's your jam.

Our blogs are intended to be collections of posts, not collections of likes.

[colinlegameboy]

What Am I Writing For

I’ve been on this poetry kick

Spitting out decent rhymes

That follow rhythm pretty well

With room for mistakes sometimes

But that’s not what I set out doing

No, not even close

I wanted to write something bigger

Something far more verbose

For closing on a decade now

I’ve written up a storm

About a world and characters

In urban fantasy form

I’ve restarted a few times

Even done so recently

And if I had the motivation

I’d write more, easily

But that’s just it, cuz in the end

There is no motivation

I earn nothing from the work

That goes into creation

I feel like there’s no good way

To show the world my story

At least not to get paid for it

I don’t even want glory

I’d like to live off doing things

That I prefer to do

And writing is my favorite craft

It’s all I ever knew

But we don’t have the kind of world

Where I can make that choice

So I’ll just push aside my story

Stifle my creative voice

I guess it’s lucky that I’ve found

This rhythmic poet’s knack

Because I know that otherwise 

My left brain’d gather plaque

Still, it honestly does suck

Not being known enough

For someone out there to say 

“Hey, I’d pay for his stuff”

[colinlegameboy]

Trip

I have a nice vacation planned

A trip up the West Coast

Stopping at whatever places

Interest me the most

It’ll be a well earned rest

From my unstable life

It used to be nice and plateau-y

Till I had some strife

One second I have a new job

The next, I’m kicked right out

No good reason given for it

What a bunch of louts

But with this trip, this utter bullshit

Won’t be in my mind

I can relax and do cool things

At least for a short time

Obviously, it’ll end

I’ll return to the grind

Of either searching for a job

Or doing the one I find

In the two months until that trip

I may or may not work

It all depends on if my luck

Decides to be a perk

[colinlegameboy]

Yammering About Dodo Peak

I tend to reserve Yammering Abouts for when I actually beat a game, but if I get far enough into one to have things to yammer about I suppose I can let it slide.

Dodo Peak is a mobile game ported to PC. All the game, none of the trappings. No microtransactions, no time-based lockouts. Neat.

As for the game itself, it's a strangely compelling mix of Q-Bert and Snake. It has the isometric hopping and collecting from Q-Bert, but with every baby dodo you collect, you have to keep it in mind as it starts following you, itself being susceptible to the same obstacles your main dodo is. This makes for a pretty engaging game that I was having a good bit of mindless fun with.

Until it decided to be a dick.

The third world of the game spikes the difficulty up an insane amount. One level- The one that made me quit- Has a very tight window of time to grab a Dodo and get through some obstacles. I can't really describe it well enough in text, but just trust me, it is not fair in the slightest.

My guess is that this difficulty spike was in place when there was some sort of time-based lock on trying levels that you could do away with by spending money, but that's not here now. Now, it's just a needless difficulty spike that saps the fun out of the game for me. I've got better things to do than send endless dodos to their spiky doom.

[colinlegameboy]

Yammering About The Silent Age (Spoilers)

As a writer, I love stories in video games, and in few genres is story so prominent than in the point-and-click adventure genre. With little control over the character save for clicking, a massive chunk of the game design comes down to writing, namely dialogue and what your main character has to say about the things, places and people around them.

If you want to split it all into three main chunks however, I would say point-and-clicks are one third narrative design, one third puzzle design, and one third environment design. The Silent Age mostly nails all three.

In terms of the narrative, we have here a Cold War-era time travel story. Normal dude Joe, a Vietnam war vet turned janitor for the DOD, is thrust into the role of time-traveling hero in order to stop a coming pandemic. And after a bunch of bumbling forward- A bit too much in hindsight- He destroys the research data for time travel, is shot forward in time, learns his coworker was a Soviet agent, and... Brings back the virus, an event foreshadowed brilliantly earlier when one of the other characters attempts to circumvent getting shot after Joe tells him about getting shot, only to get shot a different way. Realizing his folly, Joe shoves himself in a cryo chamber to save the planet.

Now, I honestly expected the game to end there... But it doesn't. Joe wakes up in a hospital, puzzles his way out into the doctor's office, and finds out it's 2012. The game ends with a few somber images of Joe settling into his old life but clearly having trouble completely letting go of what happened to him.

It's a wonderfully dark tale, with an ending that definitely makes the player feel for poor Joe. But what about the other 2 thirds?

For puzzle design, I beat 99% of the game on my own, without a guide. I'm not trying to brag, that's to point out that I tend to need a guide at a few points in most adventure game playthroughs. Silent Age has some great puzzle design that makes great sense, giving you hints through Joe's dialogue.

The environment design aids in this with one simple, but extremely effective quality of life bit- The items you are able to pick up will always be brighter than the background. This one design decision ties everything together so neatly, and makes Silent Age an easy recommend for those not quite versed in point-and-click adventures- No moon logic here!