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Time on Frog Island (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Seems that “cosy” is an actual genre these days, and Time on Frog Island pretty much fits in that box – there’s no chance of death, no real time limits (a couple of A-B time trials aside), and seemingly no way to fail.

The story follows you, a sailor who, having lost his wife (her having turned into a plant or something?) has shipwrecked on Frog Island. So called, because of all the frogs wot live there. And a toad. And an axolotl. But mostly frogs.

Your boat is trashed, and in order to repair it you needs parts. However, in order to get parts you need to complete simple tasks for the local residents. Most of these tasks are essentially fetch quests, although because the only dialogue is via icons and images rather than actual text or voice, it’s not always completely clear what is being asked, and some of the “missions” are multi-step. Things are complicated a little by the fact you can only carry one item at a time, some areas of the island are inaccessible until you do certain tasks, and you need to rest each night by building a campfire.

I say complicated but actually, there’s not much in the way of complication here at all. Even the trickiest of puzzles, such that they are, are trivial to “solve”. Really, it’s all about the events and the interactions rather than the quests. Cosy, see.

Once completed, in terms of rebuilding my boat and setting sail, I returned to see if I missed anything. Which, of course, I had. Turns out there’s a whole bit where you can brew potions and gain “frog powers”, like a huge licking tongue (hilariously, if you lick the toad you pass out), a pointless frog jump, and a not very frog-like short-term speed boost. The latter is handy for those timed sections I mentioned earlier, but I’d already finished them by then. Tch. Oh yeah, and you can ask one of the frogs to build you a house, providing you slip him some money. Which you get from selling things, or from planting a money tree.

I think I’m done with it now, as I can’t find anything else to do, and I don’t see myself playing it again, but that isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it or it isn’t worth playing – just don’t expect any challenge or depth.

Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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I’ve played some baffling games in my time but this may be one of the oddest in years. It’s sort of a visual novel, where you play as seemingly the subconscious of a very anxious girl who is sent out to buy some milk. Except, you also play as you, the player. And the girl knows it’s not real. Or is it? Or is it not real but her medication makes it seems like it is?

Or is the subconscious the real thing here and the girl just a puppet?

“Gameplay” takes the form of you, or something, responding to the girl when she talks to herself. Or to you. Or to both of you. Ultimately, if you’re supportive and encouraging, you get the good ending, and if you tell her she’s weird and stuff you get the bad ending. Along the (short) way, you find out a bit about her family and why she’s on medication for whatever mental illness she seemingly has. Or hasn’t.

Yes, it’s very strange.

Vampire Survivors (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Let it be known: I actually spent actual money (rather than money gained from selling farmed trading cards) on this Steam game. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. The things a Steam Deck make you do.

I’ve wanted it for some time. Yes, it looks a bit pants and yes it’s cheap and yes, yes it rips off the Castlevania aesthetic to the point of why-hasn’t-Konami-stepped-in, but there was something interesting about how you just get ridiculously overpowered and swamped by a billion baddies that meant I couldn’t not get it.

What I didn’t know, was that there a number of levels. I thought it just played out on a single one until you unavoidably get done in by the undead horde. Well, that still happens, just you’ve a number of areas to do it in. And, do them all and grab the right items and power them up in the right way, and you unlock the final boss, which I was definitely not expecting to be a thing.

As you inevitably die, play sessions end at 30 minutes whether you want them to or not (unless you’ve unlocked and enabled endless mode). Death swoops in and scythes you, and there’s no escape. Well, there probably is some escape with the right powers and upgrades, but I never managed to get it to work. With increasingly difficult waves of baddies coming in every minute you can’t relax – you have to zoom round collecting XP gems dropped by baddies to power up and keep a few steps ahead of them. With a number of different autofiring powers, from whips and fireballs to shields and spikes, several of which you can have running together, there are unending combinations of ways to kit out your character. There are loads of characters, each with additional skills or alternative starting weapons, to choose from too.

Vampire Survivors is very addictive, “suffering” from a severe case of Just One More go, and it was only because I completed it I managed to wrest myself from its grasp. Although I am very much open for more goes. There’s something about the random drops, the weapon combinations, and the Numbers That Go up which remind me a lot of Luck Be A Landlord. They’re totally different games, but they both give you the same feeling when you play them.

Oh, apparently there’s DLC. Oh no.

Vampire Survivors (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

Posted on Written by

Let it be known: I actually spent actual money (rather than money gained from selling farmed trading cards) on this Steam game. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. The things a Steam Deck make you do.

I’ve wanted it for some time. Yes, it looks a bit pants and yes it’s cheap and yes, yes it rips off the Castlevania aesthetic to the point of why-hasn’t-Konami-stepped-in, but there was something interesting about how you just get ridiculously overpowered and swamped by a billion baddies that meant I couldn’t not get it.

What I didn’t know, was that there a number of levels. I thought it just played out on a single one until you unavoidably get done in by the undead horde. Well, that still happens, just you’ve a number of areas to do it in. And, do them all and grab the right items and power them up in the right way, and you unlock the final boss, which I was definitely not expecting to be a thing.

As you inevitably die, play sessions end at 30 minutes whether you want them to or not (unless you’ve unlocked and enabled endless mode). Death swoops in and scythes you, and there’s no escape. Well, there probably is some escape with the right powers and upgrades, but I never managed to get it to work. With increasingly difficult waves of baddies coming in every minute you can’t relax – you have to zoom round collecting XP gems dropped by baddies to power up and keep a few steps ahead of them. With a number of different autofiring powers, from whips and fireballs to shields and spikes, several of which you can have running together, there are unending combinations of ways to kit out your character. There are loads of characters, each with additional skills or alternative starting weapons, to choose from too.

Vampire Survivors is very addictive, “suffering” from a severe case of Just One More go, and it was only because I completed it I managed to wrest myself from its grasp. Although I am very much open for more goes. There’s something about the random drops, the weapon combinations, and the Numbers That Go up which remind me a lot of Luck Be A Landlord. They’re totally different games, but they both give you the same feeling when you play them.

Oh, apparently there’s DLC. Oh no.

Adventure (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, the best Atari 2600 game. Well, one of the top three, anyway. I got “Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration” for Christmas and although I’ve played a fair few of the games, most aren’t actually “completable”, what with being mostly score-attack arcade titles. Adventure, though, has an end goal – take the Chalice to the Yellow Castle.

The game has three modes. The first is a shorter game with just one dragon, fewer objects and fewer rooms. The second is the “main” version, with the full quest, three dragons, mazes, etc. The third is the second game with objects in random locations.

The random mode is sometimes a bit stupid, because it can mean that (for example) the key to get into the Black Castle is actually… inside the Black Castle. There is a bat which wanders the map randomly picking up items, sometimes swapping them with other items (and hilariously it sometimes swaps whatever you’re holding for a dragon, who then eats you), which can allow you to get hold of these “trapped” items, but it’s hit and miss and may take aaaaages.

I ran through both of the first two modes, completing them (which only takes a few minutes) then completed the third mode six times. It’s a good game, brent.