As a piss-poor excuse to post this lovely Travis Pitts Pacman illo, I’d like to ask which video games are occupying your time these days.
I’m just an occasional player – I get frustrated easily, but I have enjoyed Monument Valley, 1010 and Limbo a fair bit on my iPad.
As a card game, Scooby Snacks is a great variation on Blackjack/Pinochle that the whole family can enjoy. It’s very cheap too.
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r139/badartdog/pacman2_zps3pzcjtku.jpg
On the DS: Smash Bros and Advance Wars: Dark Conflict.
On the PS4: FIFA, Shadows of Mordor (great fun) and the superb Bloodborne.
But the best game I’ve played lately is a tablet/mobile game called A Dark Room. Text-based, costs 79p on the App Store and is the cleverest video game I’ve played in years. It strips everything back and shows you the anatomy of a truly great game mechanic. Highly recommended.
I’ve just finished playing that – got a bit tired of stoking the fire, but it was impressive how the story built and stoked the imagination with not much more than text.
http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/
Play it again. This time don’t use swords.
Won’t that just mean it takes longer? A bone spear isn’t much use against a soldier.
Or are you saying there are multiple endings?
Don’t bother with the spear. Just use your fists – they level up way fast and pretty quickly you become a walking death machine. Makes exploring the map a lot easier.
Really clever little touch. Didn’t notice it at all first time around.
There’s another storyline if you don’t build huts – which is easier than it sounds.
Sounds almost Taoist – no weapons, no huts – use the Chi…
I might try that – it’s the sort of game that you can leave running in the background.
I’ve found that picking up only smooth objects (avoid anything sharp) gets you to the bridge faster, where the Third Fist is hidden!
The James Brown dancing shoes are what you really need to take you to the bridge. I’m not sure about the Third Fist, but the Baby’s Arm is certainly a surprise, but of limited use. Waving it about causes some alarm, but it quickly wilts under pressure.
James Brown dancing shoes don’t work in areas of low funk. Basically, if you so much as sniff a bog troll, you may as well be wearing clogs.
What I’d recommend is that you cast Majestic Aura, ideally using the haunted bass guitar you find in the Nazi hideout, and then put on the Rainbow Fright Wig and the Revealing Ball Gown. Whatever you do, don’t accesorise it with the Tyre Iron – the game will try to talk you into it, but just keep hitting “no”.
Once you get to the bridge, you’ll need to fight about half a dozen Miniborlands, and possibly a MechaDurst if there’s a full moon, but once they’re all dead you should be able to stack their corpses, form a platform and jump up onto the bridge. The Third Fist is in the middle of it, but you’ll need to ensure your character is well lubed and has the High Flexibility trait before you collect the item.
Good luck!
No huts means nobody to staff the smokehouse, which means no cured meat, which means no trips to the Dusty Path. I can’t see that working at all.
You can get an endless supply of cured meat from the houses you’ve “beaten” and turned into supply points (marked “P” on the map).
Trust me, it’s doable. I’ve finished the game sans huts, and it took half the time.
Yebbut – how do you get out on the dusty road in the first place? You need cured meat for the first time you go out on the map, and you can’t make it without huts or buy it.
You can get out on the map without meat.
You start on “zero” food, but that’s enough to get you to the nearest house. Beat that and it becomes a “friendly outpost”, full of cured meat. Then you go to the next house, turn that into another outpost and so on and so on.
You never need to cure any meat in the village if you don’t want to.
I’ll try that – but I think in the PC version I am playing that isn’t possible. The ’embark’ option is greyed out until you get food.
Gosh. Where to start. 2 year old son and I are working through both versions of the brilliant Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, interspersed with Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing on the PS3. Daughter plays along too, when she can be distracted from Minecraft on the iPad. I have to say Minecraft is the best thing I’ve played this year – fun, collaborative, utterly absorbing – I’d also give a shout out to The Room on the iPad for sheer loveliness.
(We also do sport, dancing and occasional conversation too. We are a broad church.)
Thanks for the Dark Room tip Bingo – will give it a go.
Yep thanks for The Dark Room heads up Bingo.
Plague Inc on tablet has helped while away the odd few moments. There is something disturbingly entertaining about creating a virus capable of wiping out humanity.
Quell : Reflect is equally fun. A simple logic game that is both challenging and relaxing.
Also for simple relaxation whilst listening to music on the train – Drop 7
I’ve never even seen, let alone played, a video game (at least not since the days of Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pacman). I can’t understand how you lovely folks find the time to work, take care of kids, watch films, read books, come here AND play video games! I’m beginning to suspect that I might be sleeping too much.
My son is addicted to Minecraft, but it’s been temporarily usurped by Lego Marvel Super Heroes which I’m told is also fun for adults (I have no idea….) As an ignoramus, all I can say is it looks amazing.
I’ve just started the Lego Marvel Super Heroes. There’s a lot to be said for playing a Lego Hulk and going around lifting up buses and slugging it out with Lego Abomination.
The game is brightly-coloured fun, and should appeal to those who grew-up with the Marvel of the 60s and 70s.
Yeah even as a non-player I can see how good it is. It’s completely taken over from Minecraft, which I thought impossible!
It’s still stupidoku for me. Hate the damn things. Hated them for years. Braised arse cheeks.
These days I don’t have even the time or the attention span for video games, so it tends to be ones on the iPhone / iPad that can be picked up when I have a few minutes to kill…..
Currently its Threes on the iPhone – a supposedly simple game where you match 3s, 6s, 12’s… etc to generate larger an larger numbers on the grid. Horribly addictive.
Also dipping in to Caveman on the iPhone – which is basically Lemmings (the greatest ever video game without question) with Cavemen as the characters to avoid copyright infringements (probably).
Won’t lie.
I love the Lego games. Currently on Lego Batman 3
In the odd hour a week that can be carved out for such things, still chained to Destiny (and at times it feels like being chained). While children, with time to do such things, are levelled up to the cap and have vaults full of exotic armour and weapons I am a level 23 and have just one legendary autorifle to my name.
It’s a cruel mistress – thrilling in the moment – particularly on the three-person raids that are a brilliant combination of FPS level and multiplayer team action a la COD. But half an hour with no loot at the end of it can feel a lot like grinding to no purpose.
On the verge of giving up and doing The Last of Us – overdue – but keeps sucking me in for one more play.
This blog post seems as good a place as any to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the date that this masterpiece was first uploaded to the internet:
Alto’s Adventure, on the iPad.
The visual quality of Monument Valley (also recommended) combined with really well-pitched learning curve and addictiveness. Thoroughly recommended.
I am toying with revisiting Skyrim while I wait for Fallout 4, but I am quailing at the necessary commitment. The first (and so far only) time I played through it all, my final save game was 275 hours. I enjoyed pretty much every one of those hours, and at least I didn’t waste them by playing golf or something, but can I really do that again?
I’ve just finished playing Far Cry 3 on the Xbox 360.
It’s a bit like Grand Theft Auto, but on a tropical island. You can roam anywhere you like, use lots of different vehicles and shoot loads of baddies with various weapons.
I hadn’t played a video game all the way through for years but this one really got to me.
Far Cry 4 on the PS4 next.