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Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 (PS4): COMPLETED!

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A spoiler free, hopefully, entry in my diary here because I know how important no spoilers are in this series. Which is why when I was streaming it I was a bit annoyed to have someone send me a message containing a massive spoiler. Luckily, I didn’t check messages until after I’d passed the reveal but still… why do people do this?

Anyway. I was back in Arcadia Bay! Literally before the storm, but in fact before Max came back and before Rachel Amber disappeared. We know how that ended up, and Chloe didn’t, so I’m not sure where the story is going to go here.

In Episode 1, Chloe and Amber first become friends, but very little of seeming importance happens (bar the spoiler). Chloe goes to school, plays a bit of D&D, skips school, winds up her mum’s boyfriend, stays out late and generally is the embodiment of angst. Without Max’s rewind powers, the game’s gimmick instead involves Chloe’s mouth – she can get her own way by smacktalking people using a mechanic not unlike the fights in Monkey Island. It’s a bit jarring at first but makes sense after a few.

Unfortunately, they’ve replaced Chloe’s voice actress with someone who isn’t bad, but absolutely isn’t Chloe so the whole game feels wrong. The music isn’t a patch on the soundtrack to the original game either, and it was just as important as the story there. There’s also a bug where the HUD is mostly off the screen so can’t be seen, and there’s no way, as far as I can make out, to fix this without buying a new TV.

Thankfully, although it took a while getting there, the story has taken off in Before the Storm and I’m on board for the rest and really want to see how it pans out.

So far then, it’s a B-Team Life is Strange, but I went in pretty much expecting that. If the story stays good, then that’ll be more than enough to justify its existence. Let’s hope so!

Spoilers follow in these two videos showing my playthrough:

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Bye-Bye Box Boy! (3DS): COMPLETED!

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You know, the positive thing about having my Switch stolen by my daughter is it means I get to play other games on other systems now. Like this, which I bought ages ago when it was on offer then promptly forgot to do anything with it.

Like the first two Box Boy! games, both of which I really enjoyed, Bye-Bye Box Boy! is a puzzle game where you create a chain of boxes and use them to traverse a level, avoid dangers, press switches, and so on. For the most part, it’s the same as the other games, but some worlds here have new gimmicks, like teleportation boxes, baby boxes you have to help navigate to the goal, bomb boxes, and remote control boxes.

It’s also a lot easier than I was expecting. I managed every single level, without struggling, collecting every crown on my first try. Of course, now I’ve completed it there are more – no doubt harder – levels that have opened up, but I don’t remember the other games being as simple as this. Maybe I’m just wise to the tricks now.

Still excellent though.

The post Bye-Bye Box Boy! (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Yellow (iOS): COMPLETED!

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That podcast that I do, you know, the ugvm one? Well, Luffer was on it this week and he told us all about a mobile game called Yellow. It piqued my interest, despite being a mobile game, so today I looked it up and discovered it’s free. Free! Something I read said it was ad-supported, but I didn’t see any, so not sure how that works. Free!

It also does the other thing that negates the issues I have playing telephone games, buy having sensible, touch-screen usable controls. No virtual sticks and buttons here. Ticks all round.

Click to view slideshow.

The game itself is a set of 50 puzzles where you have to turn the whole screen yellow. The thing is, you’re not told how to do this, and the puzzles are all different (with only a few sharing similar ideas). You have to not only work out what you’re supposed to do, but how to do it.

Some involve pressing shapes in order, others need you to move things around. There’s a Rubik’s Clock type one, a couple involving wordplay, and one with RGB sliders – only they’re not exactly RGB.

None of them are especially taxing, and the whole game is only around an hour long, but it was fun, and clever, and that’s more than enough a free game needs to be.

The post Yellow (iOS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Universal Paperclips (Web): COMPLETED!

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It’s one of those clicker games, only this one plays out in several phases. First, there’s the Grow Your Paperclip Making Empire, then there’s Take Over The Earth With Paperclips, and finally, The Universe Needs Paperclips. They’re my names, by the way.

Across these three phases, instead of just one “currency”, there are a number that build up different things or make your production more effective. It adds a bit more to the proceedings than your usual clicker game, and in fact – relatively at least – there’s not actually that much clicking. It’s happier for the most part just idling while you click every so often to spend what you’ve earned.

I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but it’s worth a play through at least. Which you can do so here, for free.

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R-Type Dimensions (PS3): COMPLETED!

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Well that came out of nowhere and has now gone whence it came very soon afterwards.

R-Type Dimensions is one of this month’s PS+ titles, and since my daughter stole the Switch this evening I thought I’d have a look. And I looked, and played, and completed it.

It’s R-Type, as in, the original arcade game. Only you can press R1 and swap between original graphics and music, and new graphics (a new art type, if you will, oh ho ho ho) and music – much like how you can with the Monkey Island remaster and Wonderboy: The Dragon’s Trap. As it’s just the original game, it’s short and it’s impossible.

R-Type was always too hard for me to complete, but it’s one of a relatively small number of games in the genre that I enjoy. Thankfully, you get infinite lives here, and I needed over a hundred of them to complete the eight levels. It was fun. Some of the baddies are impossible to hit. And that’s that.

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