while one can use the wiki, i view the core appeal here as being discovery. "oh, of course you can cook [insert] thing" or "oh, of course you get [this] from [that]" in a sort of deductive/only vaguely lateral way. despite the point and click reference its the best of that, theres no moon logic here

i must say the games fundamental core is somewhat genius: minutes long days, seconds long grinds, the dark itself hurting you- it boils down every genre standard to its most necessary form to cut down on boredom, then has a very "oh, that makes sense" point and click logic to its progression (contin

now for dont starve: i think this is the most successful implementation because its such a "to the point" game- Don't Starve, its in the name. every element is there for the general goal of "interesting resource management and longterm sustainability"- the theoretical goal of all, yet a rare focus (

when i say underdesign- i mean that features are added more in relation to literal thinking, genre tropes or personal fantasy that doesnt suit the project. "because its like real life, you get hungry, and die if you dont eat, so to eat you need to farm" that sort of thing is the biggest burden (cont

referencing dont starve in my darkwood review inclined me to give it a go again, after not touching it since i was 12... some larger thoughts first: the steam "survival game" is unfairly maligned critically. theres nothing wrong about the tropes in theory, so much as underdesign is a big problem (co

"yeah so if you liked the weirdness of the Dark Project you probably won't likek Metal Age as much because it's not as spooky or strange"
The Metal Age in question:

i have reached concession: i really underappreciated all these games the more i reflect on them! even though i thought they were great, their puzzle design is unmatched on the whole and i dont think it hit me just how true that was till recently as i watch someone play thru them

by proxy i also propose that Crazy Taxi and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup are, with much respect, Super Tetris and Super Minesweeper, and therefore are the best games of all time

it was hard to recommend months ago for any people who like to "legally download" their old games to "play on intended hardware" because there was no way to patch up any input delay, but apparently the new version offers fixes for that: no reason not to play it now! japan studio were a treat to us

one day i will go more obscure than this and reach gnosis once ive played both all the eurojank and simulations heavy grand strategy nerd games and all the input heavy infinite skill ceiling action/arcade games

reaching something like 33 games is bare minimum and i still dont feel ive got down enough of the games that really make me love the medium, and even for lots of the ones on the list i have pretty big complaints! but still

i dislike how all of these games have predictable series of events/tech trees usually and an emphasis on painting maps rather than economic growth or philosophical alignment. i really want a game purely built around cultural and economic power (cold war type play) more than direct warfare. one day..

and i dont get the impression this sort of thing is done justice as this is only limited to the evil scary creepypasta route anyways. i cant rationalize the logic that its ok for your character to be the type of person implied to do this in one ending but not another. in short: its tasteless to me

theres a section where where your guy non consensually forces a cutesy animal character to wear an item with absolutely all the 2012 creepypasta tropes thrown in and then cuts to a scene of a rose being deflowered. the absurdity of meshing this with scary video game story isms is unbelievable (conti

at worst it makes bits feel excessively theatrical and in your face unfunny, but i recognize im in the minority for not being entertained. but then the serious subject matter is fucked up to hell in terms of any legitimacy or nuance (continued)

not only does this lead to extendedly shallow sections (i.e. the zelda bit) but it also leads to me into absurd and surface level exploration of any topics. at this point the writing feels like tumblr posts trying to replicate homestuck without any of the edge with a dash of early creepypastas (cont

i would notably compare tobys approach to hideo kojima, where it feels like he just throws in whatever shit seems cool to him, but by the new deltarune chapters its kind of gone overdrive. the game throws in constant derailments with no consistency in depth or polish, especially in chapter 3 (contin

undertales whole design philosophy... doesnt really make sense? to me? i cant help but rationalize that bullet hells (traditionally fair genre built on mastery) and jrpgs (genre about managing inevitable damage) are opposed - you get a weak variation of both since toby doesnt eeven like grinding (co

DELTARUNE. yeah so, i hate to say it: i have a lot of connection to undertale/deltarune because i think they were the first meta games i played and led me to retroactively reading homestuck and thus getting into more and more interesting media, but on retrospect, i think tobys crossed a line here (c