Posts made by Chocobop

A thread for examining the new games of January! (Holy smokes ya'll, it's 2021!) Share your personal picks, interesting curios, and not quite there possibles...

.

Did you discover some small game that not everyone knows about?
Share that and let us know what it is about!

Already know a thing or two that interests you?
Make a list of your interests and/or possibles!

Don't know what's so great about an upcoming game you keep hearing about?
Ask here!

Don't follow gaming news that closely and just want to passively see what BigGames™ people care about?
This is the place!

~

Thread concept:

The basic idea is to list new games that you are interested in, as well as games you are potentially curious about or want to give wider attention to. You can briefly describe them or ask other people to help fill you in. The hope is that regular threads like these can act as a collective filter/discovery mechanism to help people decide what is worth checking out.

"New games" means any new title that is being released or ported this month in any capacity (not "backlogs/what you are playing this month"). The angle here is sharing your anticipation and promoting game discovery (as opposed to sharing comments about a first playthrough in progress - that belongs elsewhere).

.

• If you want a handy list that covers most of the major upcoming games of the month, here's a couple text lists of upcoming games:
  • Giant Bomb
  • Game Informer
  • Wikipedia

Feel free to post other lists or list videos of upcoming releases that you find useful.

• Final request: If you are the first person to mention a game please provide (at minimum) a short sentence description. (If it is a very big AAA release though, then don't worry about it.) This is a good convention that makes the thread more useful as a discovery mechanism, and especially helps out anyone who doesn't follow the news as closely as you.

@jdincinerator said in Backlog Sorting:

How do you guys sort out the backlog of all the games you want to play? I've got way too many games I want to play and I find myself without knowing where to start and how to summon enough enthusiasm to play them all. I was thinking of playing them in alphabetical order but I'm not sure if this is the best way to do this.

I like to let myself naturally be reminded of games I own (from someone bring it up on forums, podcasts, youtube, etc. or just naturally thinking about the game). If that little moment makes me go "I really want to play that now that I've been reminded!" I will put it on a short list of games I want to play soonish. I refer to that list whenever I'm unmotivated about what to play.

A thread for examining the new games of December! Share your personal picks, interesting curios, and not quite there possibles...

.

Did you discover some small game that not everyone knows about?
Share that and let us know what it is about!

Already know a thing or two that interests you?
Make a list of your interests and/or possibles!

Don't know what's so great about an upcoming game you keep hearing about?
Ask here!

Don't follow gaming news that closely and just want to passively see what BigGames™ people care about?
This is the place!

~

Thread concept:

The basic idea is to list new games that you are interested in, as well as games you are potentially curious about or want to give wider attention to. You can briefly describe them or ask other people to help fill you in. The hope is that regular threads like these can act as a collective filter/discovery mechanism to help people decide what is worth checking out.

"New games" means any new title that is being released or ported this month in any capacity (not "backlogs/what you are playing this month"). The angle here is sharing your anticipation and promoting game discovery (as opposed to sharing comments about a first playthrough in progress - that belongs elsewhere).

.

• If you want a handy list that covers most of the major upcoming games of the month, here's a couple text lists of upcoming games:
  • Giant Bomb
  • Game Informer
  • Wikipedia

Feel free to post other lists or list videos of upcoming releases that you find useful.

• Final request: If you are the first person to mention a game please provide (at minimum) a short sentence description. (If it is a very big AAA release though, then don't worry about it.) This is a good convention that makes the thread more useful as a discovery mechanism, and especially helps out anyone who doesn't follow the news as closely as you.

A thread for examining the new games of November! Share your personal picks, interesting curios, and not quite there possibles...

.

Did you discover some small game that not everyone knows about?
Share that and let us know what it is about!

Already know a thing or two that interests you?
Make a list of your interests and/or possibles!

Don't know what's so great about an upcoming game you keep hearing about?
Ask here!

Don't follow gaming news that closely and just want to passively see what BigGames™ people care about?
This is the place!

~

Thread concept:

The basic idea is to list new games that you are interested in, as well as games you are potentially curious about or want to give wider attention to. You can briefly describe them or ask other people to help fill you in. The hope is that regular threads like these can act as a collective filter/discovery mechanism to help people decide what is worth checking out.

"New games" means any new title that is being released or ported this month in any capacity (not "backlogs/what you are playing this month"). The angle here is sharing your anticipation and promoting game discovery (as opposed to sharing comments about a first playthrough in progress - that belongs elsewhere).

.

• If you want a handy list that covers most of the major upcoming games of the month, here's a couple text lists of upcoming games:
  • Giant Bomb
  • Game Informer
  • Wikipedia

Feel free to post other lists or list videos of upcoming releases that you find useful.

• Final request: If you are the first person to mention a game please provide (at minimum) a short sentence description. (If it is a very big AAA release though, then don't worry about it.) This is a good convention that makes the thread more useful as a discovery mechanism, and especially helps out anyone who doesn't follow the news as closely as you.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 12! In this last episode we can't be sure who exactly cut the rope bridge, and we find that the wizard sure is a happy fellow.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 12, Crown of Wisdom and Finale
Youtube Video

Thanks to everyone who watched the whole thing. If revisiting old mac stuff interests you, here is the youtube channel "YYsMG" mentioned in this episode. I'll catch you next time!

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 11! Expect delight when our solutions work first try, the long lost Brendan Fraser movie, and getting caught off guard by the new version of the maze.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 11, Crossing the Boardwalk and 3D Maze Curveballs
Youtube Video

@JDINCINERATOR @bard91 I think the reason why it seems "all the rage" right now (and not just a good game getting its praises) is because of the cast of side characters.

I don't know about "tasty", but these are the ones that I think are fun to say:

Let's Go Pikachu
Barkley: Shut Up and Jam!
VVVVVV

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 10! Expect musings on how the random scenario displays conventions of modern randomizers, making progress by discovering a dead end, and working on the new mine tunnel puzzle. Featuring a couple punks who shouldn't be getting the better of us.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 10, Underwater Skeleton and Exploring Crydal
Youtube Video

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 9! Expect discoveries of several changed rooms, unpleasant excursions into dimly lit water, and the unmistakable memory of a 2nd quest skull.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 9, Random Game Scenario With A Brand New Riddle
Youtube Video

A thread for examining the new games of October! Share your personal picks, interesting curios, and not quite there possibles...

.

Did you discover some small game that not everyone knows about?
Share that and let us know what it is about!

Already know a thing or two that interests you?
Make a list of your interests and/or possibles!

Don't know what's so great about an upcoming game you keep hearing about?
Ask here!

Don't follow gaming news that closely and just want to passively see what BigGames™ people care about?
This is the place!

~

Thread concept:

The basic idea is to list new games that you are interested in, as well as games you are potentially curious about or want to give wider attention to. You can briefly describe them or ask other people to help fill you in. The hope is that regular threads like these can act as a collective filter/discovery mechanism to help people decide what is worth checking out.

"New games" means any new title that is being released or ported this month in any capacity (not "backlogs/what you are playing this month"). The angle here is sharing your anticipation and promoting game discovery (as opposed to sharing comments about a first playthrough in progress - that belongs elsewhere).

.

• If you want a handy list that covers most of the major upcoming games of the month, here's a couple text lists of upcoming games:
  • Giant Bomb
  • Game Informer
  • Wikipedia

Feel free to post other lists or list videos of upcoming releases that you find useful.

• Final request: If you are the first person to mention a game please provide (at minimum) a short sentence description. (If it is a very big AAA release though, then don't worry about it.) This is a good convention that makes the thread more useful as a discovery mechanism, and especially helps out anyone who doesn't follow the news as closely as you.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 8! Expect voice acting out of nowhere, defeating a conspicuous assailant, and wondering "why are deserted cities always in deserts?"

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 8, Main Game Clear
Youtube Video

The next episodes (ep 9-12) will be tackling the random game scenario, if you want to check those out. Beating this game was a big trip down memory lane. I think it was more satisfying bringing myself back in time than the more overt goal of completing this "white whale".

I also have a good amount of respect for the game itself after playing through it. I don't think there were any puzzles that were illogical or fiendishly difficult. The art looks exceptional and the game has a natural flow to where you should be exploring next, things I would not expect from other world builder games. The unpleasant parts just have to do with the (primitive) parser itself and having to have the map directions for the mine maze.

Whether or not the secular trend of increasing development budgets is due to graphics or not, it's fair to believe that money hasn't been in proportion to quality increases. And based just on qualities increases that I value, I would doubt that too (if quality has even gone up in certain areas).

I can't confidently claim to know how profitable the gaming business is now compared to 2001 or something, but it seems to be more profitable than ever. This is much more relevant than inflation, although that doesn't also mean it isn't profitable to increase the base price this gen either. I imagine budgets have ("rightly") ballooned for so long because it is more profitable to do so. I'd even speculate they might become unprofitable if budgets increased too conservatively, given other market participants who are willing to outspend you on development.

Funnily enough, it is rumored that the XSX is being sold at a 100 dollar loss, the PS5 is similar, and the XSS is being sold at a larger loss than that. Consoles are less profitable than ever.

@sazime Me too. After completing the LP, my best guess is that the player is supposed to avoid them, probably using the offer mechanic as the intended strategy.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 7! Expect a recheck of the game world, grabbing a much needed shield, musing why we can't aim properly, and being dismayed that we are both overweight and cursed.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 7, Stone of Stability & The Hidden Passage in the Maze
Youtube Video

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 6! Expect statues to not be very talkative, walking through a cryptography challenge, and we decide against taking the pants off a dead guy. Featuring a powerhouse enemy that we simply throw ourselves against.

Enjoy Shiren the Wanderer music in this one. I think this is my favorite episode actually, owing to the sequence of realizations that occur. I can appreciate that for other viewers, though, this episode does have less visual variety.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest episode 6, Map Drawing and Getting Lost in the 3D Maze
Youtube Video

Let's talk about World Builder software using the context of the game so far...

Here's a link for the instruction manual for world builder, if you want to thumb through what using this software was like.

The way World Builder works, the only "entities" in the game are characters (player, monsters) and objects (things you find on the ground and which generally go into your inventory when clicked). All graphics come from these entities together with the background painting for the current room. The background is completely fixed, so to get any kind of animation -- like at 15:45 for the Elven Plate armor chest rising out of the ground -- you have to add and remove dummy objects to the scene using code. Objects like these are marked as immovable and non-interactable by the player, so they don't wind up in the player's inventory.

On the title screen (the first image of the thread), even the little dot that shows your menu selection is an inventory object. I think it is actually two separate objects, because the dot can move between two possible menu selections and I'm pretty sure an object's graphic doesn't have an (x,y) position. (Such a simple menu screen is actually very advanced for World Builder.)

If a game wants an object to be oriented or "posed" differently when you find it laying on the ground and then later, say, stick the object somewhere special as a puzzle solution, it has to create multiple versions of that object and juggle them around properly. It's also probably why objects we find in chests/coffins/etc. aren't visible, but you can drop most of them once they are in your inventory.

I'd speculate the 3D maze was accomplished by making the background a painting of just the floor and ceiling, essentially a blank canvas, and then creating a dozen or so objects for every possible "rasterization" of a wall section or scenery object. Then the code would have to place/hide the right combination of wall objects depending on what each room is supposed to look like from the direction you entered.

Let's Play Fantasy Quest ep 5! Expect a string of successful puzzle intuitions, our bloodlust to be stoked by clearly ignorable enemies, and reaching the most intimidating area of the game.

Fantasy Quest LP episode 5, Dragon Deals, Elven Armor, and Finding the Underground 3D Maze
Youtube Video

BTW, since I was discussing world builder software in the last episode: here's a page on mac garden to scroll through and see what other world builder games looked like.

@sazime said in Let's Play Fantasy Quest: old school puzzle adventure on the Apple Macintosh:

I've been enjoying it! I haven't played a game like this in a looooong time. It's neat to see one I haven't played being poked and prodded.

Nice to hear :) By "game like this", do you mean an old/retro adventure game or just any adventure game more generally?