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smalltimes · 2 months ago

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Games I played in Winter 2024-2025

Tunic - The best game I've played in a long, long time. If you like zelda games, do not read reviews or look up a synopsis. Buy this and play it. Fear the eyes of the far shore.

Animal Well - THIS is how you make a metroid-vania. I'm still reeling at how goddamn good this is. Just the densest concentration of puzzles and exploration, sick art style, perfect and thicc like a pound cake.

Book of Hours - buuhhh, what to even say. I don't even know if I like this game. It's like a mosquito bite that I just want to keep scratching. It has taught me a new definition of insanity. Playing this makes me feel the same way I felt when I first started playing Civ 5.

Hollow Knight - Danny DeVito "I get it" meme, I see why people are so tied up in knots about Silksong. if I were 14 again and couldn't afford to buy games, I'd want this the most out of everything on this list, just for the depth and challenge.

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye - It finally felt like it had been long enough since Tohru died for me to revisit this game, but I still thought about him the entire time. Nothing has really come close to how good the base game is, and this DLC captures 95% of that magic. The only flaw is how it's meant to slot into the main game rather than stand alone, so for someone like me who was just revisiting it to play the DLC, the ending didn't entirely work for me. Still, I get what they did and how they did it, and they made the right choice. I dreamt a happy dream about this game the night after I started playing it, and beat it the next morning.

Chants of Sennaar - This game was made for me, specifically. I wish the last couple levels were much longer, but partly because I just wanted to be in this world more. I really hope the creators of this do more with this style, and damn I wish there were more linguistics-based games out there. Banger soundtrack too.

Crypt Custodian - I had middling hopes for this one. The art style is cutesy, the movement is floaty, and the story seems silly right off the bat. I could not have been more wrong about everything. The combat is so crisp and reactive. It's a wonderful balance between forgiving enough that I never felt like I was being cheated, but difficult enough that I never one-shot a boss or even beat one without taking a hit. The world is vaster than I imagined it could be for a game of this scale, but fast travel is easy to come by. Even in my initial playthrough I never felt like I was being railroaded or having to backtrack and comb through areas again and again to figure out what my next step would be. Instead of a New Game+ or something there's a built in randomizer. Why is this the first game I've ever played that thought of this! Lastly, the story isn't really a story like a linear game would have. Each zone is an illustration of each of the characters, and they all fit together to paint a picture of what the afterlife is for our pets and other wild animals. An absolute masterpiece.

Yoku's Island Express - What if a metroid-vania was a tropical-themed pinball table? So cute and innovative, a delightful little 10-hour adventure that never felt like a slog or back-track city. One of the funniest sequel-bait endings ever; I hope they make one!

Talos Principle 2 DLCs - Another game specifically made for me. DLC 1 felt like a great little happy ending tying up the loose ends from the main story. DLC 2 was such a fun chill island vacation, felt like a victory lap. DLC 3 has some of the hardest individual puzzles I've ever experienced in a video game, but I'm proud to say I beat every last one without any outside help. If you think you can get down with Portal but with the humor swapped out with philosophy, this is that game.

Case of the Golden Idol - Absolutely blew me away, such a cool way of telling a story. Like, what if Where's Waldo committed a murder and you had to figure out not only how and why he did it, but also the occupation and favorite food of the victim's niece. Very Obra-Dinn: dark, funny, and precise. It's a little weird though, I played a bit of the demo of the sequel and it felt like diminishing returns, but I'm optimistic I'll enjoy it once I get around to buying the full version.

Balatro - Honestly the soundtrack is the biggest selling point, which is weird to say but what they do with it is kind of incredible. I get why it was the year's hottest new thang, and I totally got sucked into it for a good long while. At the end of the day it doesn't replace STS for me, though. Too mathy at higher levels, not vibes-based enough to jump in and have a fun run. I wish I had bought this for my phone instead of on Steam.

Celeste - Best, snappiest, and most precise platformer since super meat boy. An 8-way controller is a must though, I got so mad at my x-bone controller so many times that I stopped playing halfway through the B-sides, but that's not really the game's fault.

Transistor - Still my favorite Supergiant story after all these years. A tragedy for the ages. No other game does what this does with combat and encouraging you to switch up your gameplay. I spent hours in the Sandbox just trying out different combos and options. I think some reviews at the time disliked gating story elements behind your gameplay choices but in my opinion that's the point. The game isn't that hard and you don't need to play in a style you dislike for very long. Oh, and get the Sea Monster at Junction Jan's.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - Not as good as the first one, but damn near close. A little more combat-focused, a little less platformy and movement-based. Much fewer escape-sequences, which is a huge relief, and I loved the new central hub. Felt like they had a really good thing going on with the first one that just needed some cleaning up and polishing, but they wanted it to be more like hollow knight or something and went too far in their tuning.

The Forgotten City - Kinda like if the Talos Principle and Outer Wilds had a lil baby. A little short but nailing the true ending is pretty satisfying. The less said about it the better, to keep its secrets, but it's essentially one big time-loop puzzle that's solved through talking to people and exploring this little Roman town. Absolutely loved the implementation of Galerius giving you the option of not having to redo things you've already unlocked or allowing you to go back and do things a different way. Like, for instance, one of the people is poisoned and dying, and you have the antidote. At the beginning of each loop you can give Galerius the antidote to give to her, run over and give it to her yourself, or let her die. The best part is, each of these three choices has a real impact on what happens that day, and what dialogue and information is unlocked.

Chicory - Lovely little adventure, good puzzles, top notch exploration, sick-ass boss encounters. I can't imagine how annoying it would be if you were only playing on controller without a mouse, though. Cute furry world where everyone is named after food. I was named pierogies.

Death's Door - Absolutely killer worldbuiilding and soundtrack, the vibes are almost completely perfect, and for the most part I loved the unique boss encounters. There are many weird or untuned things that bugged me, though, like getting completely stun-locked in corners and the weapons and upgrades being largely unnoticeable. The Gemsbok just did a video on this game, and it made me realize my biggest problem with the game. Past the first time you see each zone there is no sense of adventure. You walk (or mash the roll button) through a zone, clear out all the enemies, and find there's nothing to discover other than collectibles only accessible via a power you'll get later on. Literally only 1 of these 24 collectibles have a puzzle attached to it (and that being the only real puzzle in the game), so it felt like half my playthrough was spent roaming around The Overgrown Ruins looking for one more secret to check off my to-do list.

Myst - A classic for a reason, there was a ton in here that I forgot about. Very rough around the edges but that's like its whole thing y'know.

Hyper Light Drifter - One of those games that introduced the whole genre of Metroidvanias to me. So glad I revisited it and finally beat the last boss after 8 years. It's funny how much smaller it is than I remember, but the qol is on the money and the combat is as tight as it ever was. Just a fantastic game that I'd rate way higher if I wasn't already familiar with it.

Night in the Woods * So, this isn't really a game I guess, more of an interactive novel. If I didn't relate to the main character so much I think I'd be more gung-ho to dive further into it but it just makes me depressed. lol.

Toki Tori 2+ * Make no mistake, this is a full-ass adventure game, on par in terms of scale with HLD, Ori, and Yoku. The wild thing is that it presents itself as some sort of phone game or a Block Dude. Truly bizarre and devilishly challenging, but unfortunately once the world becomes open I lost track of my objective and didn't want to slog through the esoteric overworld and backtracking to hunt down a hidden path I missed 5 hours ago. Some day I'll find a guide and wrap this up.

Myst 3 - Coming off of the mind-bending difficulty that is riven, this felt like a day at a theme park. Great puzzles, totally immersive and inventive worlds, short and sweet, if a little silly at times.

Peglin - What if slay the spire was a Peggle? It can be fun and a challenge, but so, so annoying when one bad bounce that was out of your control ruins the whole run. I guess STS has that too, when your deck gets a bad shuffle and there's nothing you can do, but it feels like it happens way more often on the pegs. Also, a lot of the bosses can be totally steamrolled without too much thought, which is a little bit of a letdown since it doesn't really matter what your build looks like. As long as you keep in mind how you're going to beat a couple bosses like the painter and dragon, any other boss just doesn't matter.

Dredge - VERY fun fishing game, honestly doesn't even need the cthulu stuff. Doesn't overstay its welcome, and the ending is satisfying and earned. The most fun I had was just the first 3-5 hours rolling around, making money and upgrading my boat. There was a point where it felt more like a slog than a fun time, but I pushed through it and realized it wasn't that big of a push. Still, that's not exactly what you want.

The Sexy Brutale * It sells itself as a grand time-loop puzzle thing in the vein of Forbidden City or Outer Wilds, but it really isn't. Yes, everything takes place in one big mansion, but there's no exploration to be had here. Now, I'm a little further than halfway, solved 5/8 of the main story missions, and I can say that decisively because each of the cases is in a discreet wing of the mansion that is only unlocked once you've solved the previous one. It is intensely linear in a way I was not expecting. Don't get me wrong, it's lovingly crafted, and each puzzle feels unique, creative, and rewarding to solve. But between the checklist vibe of the progression gating, the rocky and sometimes clumsy controls, and repetitive animations, the game largely falls flat. Swing and a miss.

Little Inferno - Cute and fun, a neat little 2-hour experience. There are some surprisingly deep themes that poke in every once in a while, but ultimately it's little more than a bedtime story. A small mark against it, apparently I had already played and beaten this years ago when it came out and had no memory of it whatsoever.

Cave Story+ - Oddly enough another comparison to super meat boy in this list, it looks and feels like exactly what it is, a flash game that somehow got developed into a full-ass game. Surprisingly good though! I did not care for a lot of the humor that felt very lolrandom reference-based, but i guess that was just that era.

Vision Soft Reset * I got stuck on a difficult platforming section directly followed by a very tough fight, and gave up after maybe 30 attempts. Maybe I'll go back to it some day? The time travel aspect a very cool concept, and well implemented, but the game just feels a little too rough around the edges and flash-y. I really wanted to like this game more, but I think it's for someone else.

A Short Hike - Short is correct. A busy little furry island to chill out in for a few hours. Good dialogue and characters. Don't try to just beat the game, that's not the point. Do all the sidequests and talk to everyone, and take your time.

Dorfromantik - If they made A Quiet Year into a video game it would be this. Extremely chill, way too chill for me, but I could imagine how someone would get super into this.

Minit - If this was a free flash game it would be one of the best. I beat it in 1, maybe 2 hours, and had some fun, but I'm glad I got it off of Epic's giveaway

Played but not Beat:

Darkest Dungeon - I might dive into this for real some time, feels more punishing than XCOM but I like the combat setup and basic gameplay loop. I worry that there will be a point that the game becomes unwinnable or soft-locked, and I won't realize it and waste a ton of time.

Snakebird - Actually just a phone game, but cute and devious puzzle design a la Baba Is You. might never boot this up again unless I'm desperate.

Up Next:

Myst 4

Undertale

Enter the Gungeon

Kentucky Route Zero

(*) Asterisks indicate that I didn't finish the game.

#video games #tunic game #animal well #book of hours #hollow knight #outer wilds #chants of sennaar #crypt custodian #talos principle #case of the golden idol #numbered lists #yoku's island express

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askagamedev · 9 months ago

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Related again to Concord: back in 2016, when Overwatch and Battleborn released simultaneously, I read somebody online say that Overwatch succeeded not because it was a better game, but because it had characters that teenagers were horny about. I know this was a joke, but is there any truth in that? I imagine the main target user of online shooters is mostly male, and in their teens (or ok with juvenile themes). Do games with characters that male teenagers are used to find sexy sell more?

"Sexy" is a subset of the twelfth principle of animation that's applying here - "Appeal". "Appeal" generally means "visually interesting", which we can break down into different aspects. For things to be visually interesting, some things we want to consider are interesting shapes, exaggeration of key features, and paring down the unimportant details so the important stuff stands out more.

The first thing we want to look at is shapes. When we look at characters, the first thing we see is their silhouette. Silhouettes need to look different from each other or they're dull. Different shapes are much more interesting to look at. Our eyes are trained to pick out things that are visibly different, so having the characters be comprised of different shapes makes them stand out more. Look at how Hsien-Ko here has so many sharp angles and different elements to break up her design. The wide belt, the different colored tunic, and the enormous arms that show the broad A-shape of her body.

After shapes, we want to exaggerate their key features. Beyond than the basic shapes, we want certain details about the character to be memorable. It might be a fancy mustache, a waistline, a color swatch, a hairstyle, a particular bit of clothing that makes the character unique. The key features should stand out and draw attention to themselves! Hsien-Ko's attacks all come from inside her massive sleeves, which have the enormous yellow accent on the end. This is on purpose - you can tell at a glance where the attacks will be coming from when she fights. Her body also has extra detail - the belt and tunic stand out against the darker other colors to draw your eye and tell you that this is where she is vulnerable. The hat and talisman identify what she is - a Jiang-shi.

Beyond that, human eyes get confused if there's too much to look at. We want the signal to be as strong as possible. This means we want to pare down and simplify away extra unnecessary details. The important bits about the gameplay must stand out, and all the other stuff should fade into the background. Too much to look at feels overwhelming or "busy".

Look at what happens to her clean design when there are a lot of additional details added. She looks pretty, but there would be so much context lost if this were used in a game - how does she fight? What's important to look at? This takes us from a clean visual design that conveys a lot of information to a more generic "sexy" design that doesn't tell us much else.

Consider what this design looks like when built in the Soul Calibur character creator - the extra details from the hat, sleeve belts, hair danglies, shoes, etc. all break up the look and make things look messy. The "same" design here just doesn't work as well, because we can't apply these same principles as well.

Making characters sexy is a shortcut to making them appealing, since sexy characters lean into the principles of appeal in specific ways. Sexy characters do work these core concepts of appeal, but appeal is essentially universal. The main purpose of appeal here is to convey information quickly about the character in a direct visual way. We do this through using interesting shapes, exaggerating the important details, and paring down the unnecessary extras.

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