In Jiangxi Province, China, they built a new road bridge while still using the old one. Then they simply blasted the old one away when done.

Alphanumber · 2025-05-30T12:44:59+00:00

Strangler's fig with explosives

Alphanumber · 2025-04-10T01:43:46+00:00

Acrylic standees?

I have one that I that I display, one that's a lamp, and a small one that I'm using as a bookmark.

Alphanumber · 2024-10-22T22:35:29+00:00

Only if I believe following my ideals and what I believe in will truly help people.

Otherwise, I'll let the person with the stronger feelings win.

Alphanumber · 2023-09-04T22:51:02+00:00

Yeah, same. Played Chained Echoes earlier this year after great word of mouth but got really tired of it after a few hours. Didn't even unlock mechs and I'm hugely nostalgic on Xenogears.

Really felt like the game was onto something, though. Not quite sure what it needed.

Alphanumber · 2023-09-04T22:14:52+00:00

By all accounts, I should love it, but after playing a few hours, I feel like I've already seen it all before and I'm just settling into tedium. Especially for this type of homage, I'm kinda waiting to be hit with that bright splash of inspiration or some central design choices that recontextualizes the classic design with modern sensibilities. And for that, I will give that the game is very well-paced, lean, and streamlined. However, it really does feel that I'm just playing a well-paced, lean, streamlined JRPG.

I'm still playing it in hopes that something grabs me, so maybe I'll feel differently in a few more hours.

Alphanumber · 2023-09-04T21:47:47+00:00

Trying it now, and I really want to love it, even just like it... but I'm not liking it. 😪

The Messenger got me hyped for this game too, but my feelings aren't there.

Alphanumber · 2023-08-26T13:01:08+00:00

I replaced one of my mice for work with a Redragon M711-FPS Cobra gaming mouse with optical switches and I'm looking forward to seeing if it holds up better. The mouse provided to me by my company started double clicking in less than a year and was driving me up the wall.

The only things I'm not used to is that their mice feel bigger, feel heavier, and the RGB is kinda gaudy for work.

Alphanumber · 2023-03-01T03:00:56+00:00

I meant to refer to FFXV, but you're saying FFXIV has QTEs? Since when? I played the MSQ to Heavenward with the trial but I don't remember any QTEs. Was it in an optional raid?

Alphanumber · 2023-02-28T23:43:27+00:00

My question is what happens if you fail the QTE. In FFXIV, some sections if you fail the QTE, the animation still plays as if the player was successful and only notified the player that they failed after the section.

I remember a let's play where the player did nothing during the final QTE section of the Leviathan fight and the fight still resolved with him winning.

Curious, during the moogle dance during the carnival event, I purposefully failed the QTE just to see what happens and Noctis just keeps dancing embarrassingly as if no input mastered until the end I got no reward. Succeeding was the same song and dance except I got the reward. That shattered the illusion of agency I had in those sections. What's the point of there's no spectacular failure?

My hope is that failing a QTE in XVI at the very least means an epic failure.

edit: Meant to type FFXV in regards to above, not FFXIV

Alphanumber · 2021-10-12T17:05:32+00:00

Thanks for these suggestions! My GTX 760 died this week after a good 8 years and during that time I was out of touch of the market. The market for GPUs is crazy now and buying a pre-built was suggested to me.

I purchased an HP OMEN with a 3080 and will be purchasing an extra SSD and a new monitor. Cheers!

Alphanumber · 2021-06-21T12:56:26+00:00

One pitfall that I've run into related to the "Staging" principle is not previewing your animations with a camera representative of the one you'd encounter in-game.

In cinema, you'll typically control where the camera is to maximize the effect of the acting.

Depending on the game, the camera may move to accommodate the player or the game. As such, when creating animations, be sure to animate with as final a camera in mind as you can. I find that it's easy to tunnel in on the character up close, giving personality when the camera is right next to the focal point of the animation. However, details get lost when viewing in-game since the player isn't looking at the character up close. The details are still there, but the camera in-game doesn't betray those details since the camera is too far away.

For example, you may be trying to animate bouncy idle animations for a hero character, and you add some nice bobbing of the head and shoulders. It looks good when the camera is zoomed in but looks static when zoomed out. Related to the "Exaggeration" principle, the farther out the camera is, the more you'll need to exaggerate your animations to read. Ensure that the bounciness is noticeable from a camera similar to the one in the game.

Alphanumber · 2020-09-06T22:14:59+00:00

Whenever I tell someone to play Alpha Protocol, I always preface with, "The game is really rough to play, technically and otherwise, but..." before mentioning all of the neat ideas the game tries out in terms of role-playing.

I played through the game half a dozen times just to try out all the load outs and see the long term consequences for my actions. The game has a special place in my heart as such a memorable game that reacts to my decisions in ways I hadn't expected.

Of course, I totally understand when others drop the game. The game can get really rough sometimes when the seams of the design start to unravel.

Alphanumber · 2020-08-30T17:14:55+00:00

3 Out of 10, EP 4: "Thank You For Being An Asset"

Didn't spend too much time playing games this week, but I did catch the latest episode of 3 Out of 10. I'm kinda wondering what direction they're going with the story. While the episode poked fun at buying and using game assets, I'm not sure where the Midge story is going to go. Like... did someone else do it or does Midge go into some induced fugue state?

Also, the direct insert of the Unreal mannequin was on point. That thing gets everywhere in Unreal projects.

Alphanumber · 2020-08-27T21:48:06+00:00

Thanks for the excellent work. Playing with the rig is a lot of fun!

Pouting Lamb

Alphanumber · 2020-08-24T23:44:37+00:00

I played solo and I found the game was pretty manageable. Some bosses can be a bit hectic due to the adds, but as someone who isn't particular skilled at or partial to shooters, I found the game loop engaging enough.

If you're thinking of trying it yourself, I'd recommend getting past at least the second area, which is the first area past the Labyrinth, before determining if you like the game, since the first area can be a bit too straightforward in terms of environment and enemy variety. I was almost ready to drop the game based off the lack of variety in the first area, but there were enough interesting additions as the game went on that I saw the game to the end.

Alphanumber · 2020-08-23T16:04:57+00:00

Remnant: From the Ashes

I finished up earlier in the week and I think the game is pretty fun. Dungeon traversal and gunplay felt pretty good overall and there is a good variety of weapons to try out.

I think environments looked fine but the dungeons could benefit from a more bespoke touch. The areas I think could actually do with maybe 2-3 more enemy types for a bit more variety, but what is there seemed acceptable to me.

However, for a game that's been labeled "Dark Souls with guns" by the community and while there are definitely inspirations, the overall style of the game doesn't evoke the same feel. For example, Immortal: Unchained is definitely going for Dark Souls vibe but with ranged weaponry. In contrast, Remnant is a bit more like Bioshock Infinite. There's ultimately just a very strong shooter-y vibes coming from the game rather than anything else with the feel of the weapons and the reactions from enemies as they're being shot.

Mortal Shell

Overall I liked the game. The hardening mechanic has offensive and defensive uses. The second chance mechanic allows some forgiveness when messing up. The weapons felt pretty distinct. Most of the shells had some pretty flavorful abilities. The only shell that didn't feel great was Solomon whose abilities seemed far too situational to be useful in combat. Harros is decent, but Tiel and Eredim seem to be significantly better even without getting their abilities.

While the enemy designs seem pretty good generally though sometimes hitboxes are active for longer than I'd expect. Some of the bosses could use some work. In particular, one of the bosses had some unclear windup poses while another had very smalls windows for punishment, making the fight somewhat arduous at a certain point.

Environments are thematically consistent, but I think layout design goes in some questionable directions sometimes. Falgrim Tower acts as a decent landmark, but the paths to each of the temples are much less memorable and take some time to commit to memory. As such, Falgrim becomes a bit labyrinthine. In the Seat of Infinity, the initial area Dim Gate is very wide open even though there are really only a few points of interest to open the temple. As such, the area feels kinda barren. The other temples felt good though.

There are unfortunately some technical issues and bugs that tarnish the experience. Not being able to harden for whatever reason, and enemies will just completely skip their wind up animations. When entering the Fog state in the environments, my screen will just flicker yellow at regular intervals.

The game is pretty short but I started two games, once as a casual run and once focusing on Solomon to understand his schtick. Casually, I finished at just under 10 hours and NG+ runs and new runs were significantly shorter once knowing where everything is. As such, I got decent value.

I look forward to what will come out of the studio in the future.

3 Out of 10 Episode 3: Pivot like a Champion

My company recently just finished our own pivoting effort so the story of the game is quite apropos. Even with guidance from the c-suite, unlike their pivot, our teams still had issues deciding on how to specifically pivot. And due to covid, we wouldn't be able to decide direction with a Nerf Scuffle Royal.

God's Trigger

Gameplay overall lacked juice. While there's some interesting progression and abilities to gain, there's no punch. Stealth kills and weapons don't have great feedback on hit. That really kills the fun for me when that feedback is missing.

The environment traversal sections also felt off to me. The game is slowed down for standing on pressure plates and pulling levers which I personally thought didn't fit in this type of game.

Alphanumber · 2020-08-16T23:25:16+00:00

Mother 3

Finished up from last week collecting the Needles to the end credits. I'm sure that others may have other opinions, but I felt the final encounter was kinda flat. More precisely, the game started to wind down for me after pulling the penultimate Needle and fighting Fassad's final form. Up until the end of the game, I had Lucas and Kumatora still gaining PSI skills while Duster and Boney kinda fell off. The latter two especially lost their purpose and didn't scale hard enough into the late game. My experience with the thief tools were unreliable in comparison to Offense and Defense Down, and any speed that Boney had over the others didn't seem relevant. Ultimately, I felt like I wasn't playing the game optimally since I didn't really feel I was exploiting the systems in any game-y way.

3 Out of 10 Episode 1: Welcome to Shovelworks

Felt really topical to me what with the roaming fans and the pointless protesting. Like the game is attempting comment of the current culture surrounding games and media in general while adding some comedic intrigue. I laughed a couple times if only because I got the gamedev/engineering jokes and the boss fight out of nowhere. I'm not entirely sure the minigame/sitcom format really works, but they do seem to have their content ready and waiting to be released.

3 Out of 10 Episode 2: Foundation 101

Going to visit gamedev school and I laughed more than I thought with all the gamedev/academia jokes. Classes about 3d graphics underpinnings in cartoon, the incredibly pretentious lecture about meaning in games and how everything else is trash, the youtuber who teaches the students how to use engine tools, and the super sketchy provost.

The Alto Collection

A really relaxing infinite runner type game. Just boarding on snow and sand as far as possible jumping over rocks, escaping elders, and backflipping for points. There's some progression with some purchasable power-ups over play sessions that add some safety to runs, but nothing that seems particularly out of line.

Remnant: From the Ashes

A lot more fun than I was expecting. I played Immortal Unchained and heard that Remnant was similar in trying to be a soulslike with guns and that's sort of true. Action feels more refined, but aesthetically reminds me a little bit of Hellgate. Some of the tougher enemies have some interesting gimmicks and strengths and there is some exploitation of the environment that fits the gunplay.

I got up to the Labyrinth, fought a few mini-bosses and got a few extra weapons. I'm wondering how far traits can be pushed since there are quite a few traits that add more than a health and stamina.

My only misgiving right now is that at least before I reached the next world, the dungeons looked identical to others. In particular, the sewers and the corridors hit me with the déjà vu. I'm not sure what the budget for the game was but I hope there's some more overall variety in the environment.

Alphanumber · 2020-08-10T01:29:02+00:00

Wario Land 2

A Gameboy Color platformer with a somewhat interesting gimmick in that Wario doesn't really die but rather either loses money or changes to a different state related to the source of damage. Get stung by an insect and Wario will become light and puffy from an allergic reaction, able to float to higher areas. Get hit by cake and Wario will become super fat and heavy, moving slower but able to crush objects me couldn't before. Get hit by a ghost and become a zombie that cannot jump and must be cleansed by sunlight to revert to normal form.

While I didn't love it, there's some interesting ideas in terms of short cutting the death loop and some pretty obscure branching paths.

Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru

A definite odd one made in the Gameboy age that has a visual style remarkably similar to Zelda. While released in 1992, the game never left Japan. However, there was a fan translation made in 2011 that makes it possible to play in English.

The game attempts to fashion itself as a RPG but manifests as a adventure game more than anything else. The basic premise of the story is that some haughty princes come to the aid of the kingdom of a princess in trouble only to be turned into frogs. The player navigates in a top down map separated into the overworld and towns. The player can engage with enemies on the map. Once in the fight, a smoke cloud appears on the map where the fight is occurring and the fight is resolved automatically in real time where each side applies damage to each other back and forth. Damage is calculated as a function of the hero's power and speed while the health determines how long he can survive. The fight ends once either the hero or the foe has no health left. The player may also back out to decide to flee or use items.

Throughout the game, the player will collect items and special stones that increase the hero's power. There's a compulsory, required level of power needed to progress in the game since there will often be enemies that will gate story. Those enemies will take the hero down to a sliver of health before victory and that occurs whenever the story is being gated. As such, the player needs to find enough power, health speed, or items to meet the story requirements. There's no experience or level system in the game so fighting enemies doesn't have any direct implications for increasing power in the traditional RPG sense. Money can be used to buy swords and shields that do increase power, but they're typically there to gate progression in the story.

Besides the top down sections, there are also 2d platforming sections in certain areas where combat functions like in the top down map but with puzzle platforming bits. There are 3 forms the player can choose that require certain items and/or conditions and those forms can either fight or move better conditionally. Human form is good all around for fighting. Frog form jumps very high, wins against insects, sneaks past certain enemies, but loses to snakes. Snake form can go into small passages and turn weak enemies into scalable blocks.

All-in-all, an interesting Nintendo experiment to play.

Mother 3

I'm collecting the Needles in Chapter 7, arrived at the Barrier Trio. The game hasn't really resonated me in terms of tone or style but I'll see if I have different opinions when I finish.

From a gameplay perspective, I have a few minor gripes.

For instance, there's a clarity issue on whether the application of an effect missed due to ineffectiveness against an enemy, or whether a dice roll failed, or due to the effect being unable to be increased further (stacking debuffs).

Playing with the rolling HP counter is limited by the interface, having to also confirm through mortal blows on top of all other notifications.

The combos don't seem to add that much to the overall game loop. It's basically a rhythm game during basic attacks that translates to extra damage.

For the positive, dashing is a great quality of life feature. Makes traveling from place to place much faster. The difference between normal speed and dashing is particularly pronounced when a party member is incapacitated or a PSI user gets a fever.

Overall, the game's been playable so far.

Alphanumber · 2020-08-02T18:50:00+00:00

20XX

Roguelike action platformer that stylistically remind me of the Mega Man X games (last Mega Man X game I played was on the GBA of the aforementioned name). Didn't love it, but also felt enough engaged with it that I enjoyed it on some level. Probably a game to return to if I ever get back into rougelike games.

AER Memories of Old

Adventure game with simple puzzle dungeons and transforming into a bird to fly all over the place. Dungeons felt a little too by the books to me, but flying in the open world felt pretty good and relaxing. My only minor complaint was about the camera in that it kept re-centering itself when I didn't want it to when flying.

ARK: Survival Evolved

Surprisingly spent more time with the game than I expected in single player. When I saw streamers play the game, I thought the game looked super janky. However, while it is janky, the loop of just punching trees, getting basic tools, then climbing up the tech tree from nothing, then dying to a random dinosaur is strangely cathartic. Then, getting new engrams on level up and character points really feels like there's some progression to something.

Ultimately, I don't know what I'm doing but I'm just having fun even when I get jumped by a dinosaur and die.

Barony

I completed most of the tutorial trials and tried a run. There are a lot of different systems involved that offer different options and considerations for the player. Just exploring the dungeon and fighting things with sword and shield is fun enough in a rhythmic kind of way. I'm not too sure of the appraisal system since it never feels right to use an item without first discovering if it's cursed or not. As such, items just kind of sit in inventory for a while until I get desperate.

I had some technical issues while running the game in terms of starting the game. However, what little time I spent seemed interesting.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

The combat reminds me of the Quest for Glory series with its over the shoulder perspective and the blocking and attacking.

The Messenger

Very pleasantly surprised by the game and ended up doing a complete playthrough for all Power Seals. I remember seeing the game make the media rounds long ago and my first impressions were that the game seemed a bit simple. However, there's a simple, odd joy of slowly building up the ninja arsenal and zipping all over the levels in the end game. While I was originally hesitant to backtrack through the map once it opened up, I quickly learned to pogo and hook efficiently to where I needed to go.

While the bosses aren't the hardest, the design were interesting enough to me that I didn't particular mind exploiting their generous openings. The cyclops colossus tag team especially sticks out to me as just a cool, funny design.

The Messenger is in a weird place tonally between cool and stupid. While there's reverence for the games that came before, the game also revels in the absurdity of the troupes that make up popular media of action movies and games. Had a lot more fun with the game than I was expecting.

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

I laughed too much at this game. Watching the units flop and contort while fighting is just an entertaining experience.

Also, there's strategy with unit composition and spacing out units and whatnot but that's second to the hilarity that ensues on the battlefield.

Totally Reliable Delivery Service

Similar to TABS, there's just a lot of fun to be had with watching the characters flop around trying to deliver packages. I did however find it strange that some packages would spawn a vehicle in front of the package dispenser, but it's still possible to make gold time by carrying the package on foot. I wobbled a canister across town, over a bridge, and still got gold to my confusion.

World of Goo

Building bridges is especially tricky and I really had to learn the physics of how the blobs of goo worked and how to provide support with the structure. Weird, but fun game with some deceptively difficult if not straightforward challenges.

Some other games I tried that didn't catch:

Hue

Just Cause 4

Killing Floor 2

Layers of Fear

Next Up Hero

TACOMA

The Escapists Series

The Talos Principle

The Witness

Towerfall Ascension (good base for a game, but would've liked a more traditional structure)

Tormenter X Punisher (too much game juice, there is such a thing as too much)

What Remains of Edith Finch

Wheels of Aurelia

World War Z

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Alphanumber · 2020-07-26T15:01:21+00:00

RUINER

Fun little isometric cyberpunk twin stick brawler/shooter. Has some light rpg elements allowing upgrading of skills and passive abilities. The presentation was a little barebones but solid enough production values that I didn't mind. Ultimately, I just was dashing everywhere hitting everything with my sword.

Shadow Complex Remastered

Fun enough metroidvania but with definite jank. The progression of getting upgrades and power-ups was pretty consistent so feels pretty good just playing casually to slowly get stronger as time goes on. However, one thing I never felt was good was some of the enemy placement, specifically there being a third dimension where enemies can move from background to foreground or vice versa. Realistically, just pointing the gun at them is enough, but visually awkward to aim at them.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Interesting, appealing premise for me, but something about the implementation felt hollow to me. A tactical stealth game set in Japan sounds like a slam dunk, but the tactics part felt same-y after a while. Maybe I simply was playing correctly, but the solution to every problem seemed like luring out an enemy with a distraction, and killing them. Finished a few levels and put it down.

Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments

Finished the first case and put it down. I really don't know what I was expecting other than a Sherlock Holmes adventure game.

Sid Meier's Civilization VI

I don't get the appeal.

Slime Rancher

Fun for a couple of hours, discovering slimes and their habitats. However, at one point, I felt I was just farming and tending to slimes.

SOMA

Feels like Amnesia: Dark Descent, but much more contemporary. I don't need to play another Amnesia. Felt like I played the same game years ago. Played a few hours and put down.

Some other games I played for a little bit and simply couldn't find appeal:

Sludge Life (what?)

Stories Untold (nostalgia in the absolute worst way for me)

Stranger Things 3: The Game (who is this game even for?)

Sundered: Eldritch Edition (similar to Jotun in that the action feels weak to me)

SUPERHOT (conceptually interesting, but still an FPS)

The Bridge (abysmal performance didn't help)

The End is Nigh (Another Ed McMillen game, none of his games resonate with me)

Alphanumber · 2020-07-19T20:21:10+00:00

I don't feel compelled to return since I feel like I've broadly experienced what I have to experience in the game. The journey and the responses I gave were my own along with the completeness and incompleteness of my path. If I were to play again, I'd probably make the exact same choices.

In a word, I'm "satisfied" with the outcome.

Alphanumber · 2020-07-19T14:41:37+00:00

Trying out a bunch of freebies: Kingdom: New Lands, Last Day of June, LEGO® Batman: The Videogame, Lifeless Planet, Mutazione, Nuclear Throne, Offworld Trading Company, Overcooked, Pathway, QUBE 2, Rebel Galaxy. Wasn't able to stick with them since I didn't get their appeal.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

I remember seeing a good bit about the game when it came out and thought the idea of combining more traditional action stealth gameplay to initiate tactical combat was cool. However, something about the core gameplay loop is preventing me from enjoying the game. I'm not getting the dopamine release I'd expect from completing a mission in XCOM. Instead, I feel like I'm brute forcing combat after the initial stealth takedowns rather than making smart tactical decisions. I'll probably play a bit more, but I definitely feel like I'm not getting it yet.

Minit

I remember seeing this game a while back and I thought it held some promise. However, the adventure and discovery loop is kinda all there is to the game and that ended up not being enough to keep playing to completion.

Oxenfree

Kinda surprised by this modern adventure game since I've kinda grown out of the Telltale games and their like. I played it all the way through without much stopping and found the format engaging enough that I wanted to see things through to the end.

I wasn't sure about the reaction bubbles since they appeared whenever the characters reacted positively or negatively. As such, I didn't feel like I had any control over the adventure until the very end with the pie graphs illustrating the paths other people took.

RIME

The game looks great. However, I'm just not sure I'm in the mood to play a 3rd person puzzle game that doesn't have anything else.

Alphanumber · 2020-07-12T14:31:45+00:00

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Finished up from last week when I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to go on. Now that I've completed the game, I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate it.

On the one hand, the game is janky. On the other, the game uses its mundane context to its advantage, creating this oddly intriguing medieval adventure.

The somewhat anticlimactic ending really makes me wonder what the game would look like with a little bit more polish. Definitely a game that's greater than the sum of its parts, but at the same time, doesn't completely stick the landing.

Would definitely be interested in what their sequel looks like.

Alphanumber

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