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Doshin the Giant (GC): COMPLETED!

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Oh Doshin, you big lump with your slow legs and your slightly inappropriate belly button. Such a relaxing game, even when the disasters come and threaten to destroy all your little people and their houses and monuments and chickens.

Slightly spoiling the relaxing gameplay was a bizarre bug I came across which is probably due to the fact I was running this under emulation and via a Steam Link: Two islands I’d set up and had my people building stuff had all their buildings deleted every time I looked at the list of monuments I’d not yet built. Very odd, and took me ages to realise that was the cause so I probably played for five hours longer than necessary.

That aside though, the slow pace and the nice music and the simple gameplay is always a joy. Even if everyone dies in the end. Oh, spoilers, sorry.

The post Doshin the Giant (GC): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Bulb Boy (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Bulb Boy is a nice little walk-and-click adventure game and it was very cheap recently. And by nice, I mean horribly grotesque and full of demonic imagery and guts and dead things and maggots and evil spiders and a giant monster made from your own poo.

There’s a story, although nothing is ever spoken or written down. It’s all gestures and speech bubbles with pictures in. Given the content of the game, that’s probably for the best. I don’t really want to understand fully why there is a giant headless turkey “pecking” about in the kitchen.

I mean, just look at the screenshots.

It’s only a couple of hours long, but I certainly enjoyed it. The puzzles were never too clever or too obtuse, and the sections where you had to navigate hazards provided variety. In fact, the only real complaint I can make is that when you die and your little lightbulb head is horrifically mutilated in some way, it takes just a bit too long to restart. Oh, and I came across a bug where I put an egg in a place and it was supposed to pop out another place and it didn’t, so I had to reload. Aside from those, though – recommended. Just wash your hands afterwards.

The post Bulb Boy (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Sanrio Characters Picross (3DS): COMPLETED!

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I was convinced this took me around 40 hours, but no, just under 28. It just felt much longer than the other picross titles I’ve played on the 3DS, but it’s about par for them.

There’s not a lot else to say, really. It’s picross, with Sanrio (think Hello Kitty) characters as the puzzles. There are loads of stickers to unlock, but they’re of little use as you can’t take screenshots, but the main picross is the same picross as picross ever was.

The post Sanrio Characters Picross (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Burly Men At Sea (Vita): COMPLETED!

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I was going to buy this for the Switch on a number of occasions, but never got round to it. And then it appeared on PS+. My Vita came out of retirement, and after twice as long updating it as it took to play the game, I’d completed it.

And then completed it again. And again. And again.

You see, this story about four bearded sailor brothers is somewhat short, but that’s only part of the point. At various points in the story you can make a choice (although it isn’t always obvious there is a choice!) and the story takes a new direction. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll end up back at the start ready to begin a slightly different adventure.

I really love the art style, and the text is humourous. There isn’t much in the way of puzzling or gameplay of any kind, really, but it’s an enjoyable set of sea tales nonetheless.

The post Burly Men At Sea (Vita): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Car Quest (Switch): COMPLETED!

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My first impressions of Car Quest were, it has to be said, less than favourable. It had, as I mentioned on Twitter after my first hour’s play, a definite air of “My First Unity” game about it, not least because of the sparse, blocky environment that just screams “I can’t draw but I can sellotape geometric shapes together”. You, a car, don’t fit within this style either thematically or graphically, and it feels like a placeholder that was never replaced with a giant marble or something that matches the rest of the game.

Blocktacular! You’ve successfully written the first paragraph of your Car Quest diary post!

I can’t really say my second impressions were much better. The basic aim is, you see, to drive your car through this blocky world, finding rotating shapes known as artefacts. Each one opens a new route or area in the world, invariably as far away from your current position as possible so as to artificially extend the length of the game. As you drive around, you collect batteries, which you need to open portals to other areas and so the game is lengthened further as you collect these – which require no skill, just time.

Well done for informing the reader about elements of the game! Some parts of the game require artefacts, and others require time consuming item collection.

My third impressions? Well, near the end of my first hour I hit something new. Puzzles. Things to push around, tiles to drive over quickly in sequence. Clever driving stunts. More started happening – a level with a night and day warp, which raises a water level to ad a new dimension to the puzzles. Some sheep to herd. Timed sections, a maze, and more. Slowly, the game was becoming more.

Over time you may notice new features added to the levels! Like a maze! Or some sheep to herd! It’s blocking incredible.

In terms of gameplay, I was actually starting to enjoy it. The plain graphical style actually started working. I still couldn’t figure out exactly why you were a car, and how Lord Blockstar – who is King, despite being a Lord – the transparent floating head WHO NEVER SHUTS UP managed to convince you to help repair his world by doing all these things.

I do tend to state the obvious. In fact, in the game, I even tell you I state the obvious.

Every time you collect an artefact, of which there are approximately seven zillion, Blockstar tells you you’ve just collected and artefact. And, after opening a new area (which the camera pans to in order to show you’ve opened a new area), Blockstar tells you you’ve opened a new area. And when it’s obvious where to go next, he tells you where to go next. All. The. Sodding. Time. It’s maddening. And then there are all his puns, many of which are block or brick related and they hurt. 

You’ve just finished reading that paragraph but there’s another paragraph to read next!

Car Quest isn’t a difficult game either. In fact, there are only really two difficult things: forgetting where to go next (even if you’re shown, then told by Blockstar, it’s too easy to get disorientated on the map – not least because everything looks the same), and not knowing if you’re doing something not quite right, or aren’t supposed to be doing it yet.

I get the feeling you’re going to sum up the game for the reader now.

To sum up, Car Quest is an oddity. It’s not very well designed, it’s not short of problems, it has too much unnecessary to-ing and fro-ing and the damn lordking guy needs gagging. The car physics don’t feel right, and there being a car not a ball or similar instead doesn’t make any sense. The world of Blocktaria is just too abstract and plain and bizarre. It shouldn’t work and I’d be giving it a 1/5 and telling you not to play it.

But. BUT. Give it an hour or two. I know that’s a big ask. But do that. Play it. Ignore the “college game design project” feel to it and just let it happen. Something clicks, and even though you can see it shouldn’t work, it’s actually fun. A sort of guilty pleasure. And as you groan at yet another “blockcredible” or a 14th loop of the main world to collect yet more batteries, you’ll realise that somehow, you’re enjoying it. It’s not blocktacular, but it’s certainly blockisfactory.

The post Car Quest (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.