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Dordogne: competed!

Posted on 07/06/2025 Written by Xexyz

One of the disadvantages of the proliferation of games that are available, through Game Pass, and PS+, and the Switch Online service, and the thousand-odd games sitting on shelves and in boxes and on the internal storage of the Wii and Wii U and 3DS and Xbox 360 and PS3 and Switch and Playdate and PS Vita and N-Gage and … anyway, one of the disadvantages is that there is always something new to discover, something new to play. I will spend some time, maybe a couple of days, with an utterly charming game, but then something new will come along and I’ll put it back on the “to be completed” list. Or worse still, I’ll forget to do even that. For some games, that will be the end of the story. For others, they will get a reprieve – often spurred by me reading a retrospective piece in Edge, or being recommended the game by a friend, or (as is the case with Dordogne) facing the possibility of losing access to the game due to it being removed from Game Pass.

Which is a long way of saying I went back to the game, last played last June, and I completed it.

The artwork remained stunning until the end of the game, especially the underwater section.

The story was, in the end, a lot harder-hitting than I was expecting, with young Mimi uncovering arguments between her father and late grandfather, and older Mimi finally finding the reason that she was never allowed to see her grandmother again. Towards the end of the game there was an affecting exposition of delayed grief, and rekindling of missed connections. The text harassment from her father segued into concern from her mother and a sense of regret. It was a surprisingly complex relationship.

Definitely worth playing, and I then spent a little time going back through the story to collect stickers, words, put together new scrapbook pages, and complete one of the rhythm games more effectively (a top tip for that – don’t use your mouse, use your trackpad).

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, PC

Populous the Beginning: completed!

Posted on 02/05/2025 Written by Xexyz

Level 24, Journey’s End, feels like a culmination of all the stages so far. You start on a small area of land, with established Green enemies to the North and Yellow wrapping around the world to the East and West. All other tribes are well established, and very soon after starting the level the Greens cast a land bridge to start attacking. As soon as you’ve seen them off, the Yellows come across the existing causeway to the West and attack from another side. And while that’s going on, very often Red will sneak in from the other side – although sometimes Yellow will have stopped them before they get to you. Basically, you spend most of your time fending off attacks and not actually building proper defences, let alone expanding and preparing to attack.

I had to restart the level a couple of times because I was finding I just couldn’t get established quickly enough. My first task was to build some training huts for preachers and firewarriors, who I then stationed up on the North coast, waiting for the Greens to make their first move. I turned off all spells other than swamp, and once I had one of those in my pocket I turned on lightning and swarm. At that point Green made their move, so I cast swamp just at the top of the landbridge they created and waited for their shaman to advance. Her death meant that my buildings survived, more or less, and I was able to station a row of fire warriors across the bridge to fend off further attacks. I built a couple of guard towers to the West, and put fire warriors in those, but again the big defence against the Yellow shaman was a swamp, which I cast as she tried to come into the village.

With both passages bolstered by a few more fire warriors and preachers I concentrated on building huts to generate more followers, with the occasional refresh of the swamps to the North and West. Unfortunately I started to run out of wood and my followers were running into the swamps to try to get to the trees on the other side; I had to move the swamps further away from my village to carry on building. At this point Red decided it was a great idea to attack from the East, but to do so they had to travel through the Yellow village and by the time they got to me there were only a few stragglers to see off.

I continued to build, and turned on the erode spell so I could get rid of the causeways to the West and East, allowing me to properly focus on the Greens. I hadn’t bargained on the Yellows then starting to attack by balloon, or the Reds getting in their boats. Lots of guard towers with firewarriors along the coasts solved those issues, plus I then got to steal the balloons to create even more defences along the North. After the Greens had attempted, and failed, another skirmish, I took my shaman and a few firewarriors in a balloon to the North and used a few earthquakes, fire rains, and the angel of death to reduce their threat. I flew around a few times and destroyed all the training huts, but I couldn’t quite finish them off before a massive Yellow army started to attack and I needed to return.

This turned out to be fortuitous, as Yellow had overstretched themselves and I was able to load up their newly-emptied balloons with my own firewarriors, with a few preachers, and journey over to their village and wreak havoc. At the same time, Red were attacking them from the other side, and Yellow seemed to be spending more energy decimating their numbers, so it was a relatively easy move to then just fly south and kill off Red through liberal use of swamps and earthquakes.

And then back up to Greens, who were building quite an army up. Angel of death, volcano, earthquake, fire rain, and swamps placed all around the shaman reincarnation site, and the level was done.

At the very end, I had a few warriors join me by boat to finish the job

I actually replayed this level to try out a different tactic, destroying the Yello balloon factory first and then concentrating on the Greens. With no balloons, and the paths eroded, Yellow and Red spent most of their time attacking each other, and I finished Green off relatively quickly. This might be one of my favourite levels of the game, with the different ways it can be played.

Shaman in balloon really is the key to victory

And so to the final level. There was a cutscene, showing my shaman passing on the mask to a female follower, and then becoming a god. The last level no longer has a reincarnation site, and you can cast spells anywhere, with no distance limit. You still have to build up mana, and you have to create your village and train warriors and preachers and fire warriors and direct people to do stuff, but it’s a nice bridge to the other Populous games where your power comes from above. You can see the idea of the beginning here, a prequel in every sense. There are differences, of course – in the first two Populous games you don’t have the same control over building placement or follower actions, but maybe that’s just something reflecting the seniority of the god.

Anyway, you would think that infinite range and starting with a settlement of 50 followers would make the final level easy, but no. The other three tribes were intent to fight each other, but my village was in the middle of their settlements. I was attacked by wave after wave of enemies, and I restarted the level with the intention of resisting just a little longer. I trained up some preachers and fire warriors immediately, to repel the attacks, and then I set up guard towers to allow the fireballs to hit before the enemies got near. Once I’d fortified enough, I built up the erode spell so I could cut off access to a couple of the tribes, allowing me to again focus on just one. I eroded the pathways close to the opposition villages, meaning that all the trees growing on the route could be harvested for my buildings.

The Reds were first to fall. I probably attacked them before I was really ready, since I had relatively few warriors trained and my spells were only half charged. I destroyed their temple and fire hut, and they were left rather disorganised. I withdrew quite quickly as they were attacking my little army, but I could see they were also getting beset by the Yellows on the opposite side of their settlement. In fact, the Yellow army must have finished them off, as their reincarnation site collapsed while my people were nowhere near.

Given this third-party war, I scrolled over to the Greens to stop them sending forces to bother me. I cast some volcanoes and earthquakes, very pleased that I didn’t need to worry about getting my people anywhere near. I killed the shamans multiple times, laughing at my omnipotence. The Yellows were next on the list, with me converting a bunch of preachers in the middle of their village to sow discord and mistrust. All this time I was expanding my village, training up specialists, and getting ready for attack. Having survived the multiple incursions at the start of the level, and built up my forces, the end of the game was just a lot of fun. Half my armies stayed behind to guard against the Greens, and the other half went to fight the Yellows.

I laid waste to the Yellow town before most of my followers got there. The shaman ended up in a volcano, then in the centre of a fire rain storm, then falling into the crack of an earthquake. The Yellow buildings were destroyed by tornadoes, ground eroding beneath them, and the angel of death. It was a rout.

And then onto the Greens. No need for anyone to stand guard at home any more; the full might of the army marched to the Green town and flattened it.

By the end, my armies were just a little overpowered

An amazing game, 27 years after it was first released; possibly – no, probably – the best game ever. I’m glad to have finally finished it, though I will, of course, be returning. In fact, I have noticed that I have the official expansion pack, Undiscovered Worlds, as part of the package I bought on GOG, so I’ll be trying that out very soon.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, PC

Buzzled: picross times three

Posted on 17/04/2025 Written by Xexyz

In Buzzled, every hexagon space is either yellow or black. Each has a number. Each row has a sum of some of those numbers, coloured yellow or black. You have to work out which hexagons should be yellow (or black) to lead to the correct sum.

So, for example, on the bottom-left row here, you can see that only one of the 1s can be coloured yellow, and anything greater than a 1 should be black. The 5 on the far right side must be black, since that column has a maximum sum of 4 in yellow. The top-left row, not yet filled in in this screenshot, can only be configured in one way, with the 2 being yellow and all others being black.

It’s similar to picross in a way, but with a different labelling convention and a need for more complex sums.

This screenshot is of the ‘expert’ level; I completed it in 9 minutes 17 seconds. There’s also a ‘mini’ and a ‘classic’ mode, with smaller grids. And there’s a ‘master’ mode, where you are instead just told the number of hexagons that need to be a certain colour. I’ve not quite worked out the maths behind that one yet.

You can play Buzzled at https://puzzmallow.com/buzzled – and you can try Collections and Quickflip while you’re there.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: PC

PolyTrack: try try again

Posted on 16/04/2025 Written by Xexyz

PolyTrack is a Trackmania tribute – almost identical gameplay mechanics, but with digital controls, simplified driving model, and a very stripped-back graphical style. It’s even simpler than Virtua Racing in many ways, with the car having a polygon count almost in the single digits. This simplicity means that it runs incredibly smoothly, even in-browser at https://kodub.itch.io/polytrack.

Much like Trackmania, the courses are short but deceptively tricky to complete. There are (usually) a few checkpoints throughout the course, and you can restart from those if you want – but the time does not reset, meaning that if you want to log a decent score you’ll need to restart from the beginning, again and again and again.

The physics seem very internally consistent, although it can be hard to judge when you’re racing on the wall or the ceiling, with only the downforce (upforce?) on your car keeping you aloft. As you work through the courses, there are some that are a bit overly complicated in terms of finding the route – especially the tower at the end of the Summer series, where you climb up high through various ramps and half-pipes, and then have to drive done the wall outside (made more complicated by the fact the camera doesn’t snap to the back of your car, so it’s effectively reversed on the way down). I have completed all the default courses, but some of the “community courses” are just a bit too obscure or long-winded.

You can watch ghosts of anyone on the leaderboard, and race against them. I came nowhere near.

Again like Trackmania, there’s a course designer. There’s a way to import and export designs (as well as game progress) through text. Here’s a fun, easy course from me.

PolyTrack14pdHKH1dCCCGAGefS7oY1usPABPlg5auY3ZKg5aUTDx6Xft1Vvnnz5Vl3K2wXsHnmmy5mE4QkHIUrAz8AmmbPOCA23BEJHisWgcn5fKmqxFKqiQoZ7C2fNmpsPzO7aAzyfvMuujFyVthpgbZSciWNEfl4peLPbpiaW01hckpss8EzpFt4i27ZmK55TvH3bAjQvth7TjtDzVo3aA9eNSNphJTd2peTd9zlodrqGLiIk51jiF93CuZXgPzUixNaNqFdDJUfckej1P6P0lEGvQmoPsXDfCleCc7HvKXryrj37lfuRWX4zqQ4hSjbuuyY5b1uFQ4I5qCeLQjGMWi

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: PC

Hero GP: 6000 mph

Posted on 14/04/2025 Written by Xexyz

Hero GP is a brand new Game Boy Colo(u)r game, released via itch.io for download to play in any emulators but also able to be used on a GBC itself via a flashcart or on an Analogue Pocket. It is obviously inspired by Hang On, but the constraints of the GBC make the game more streamlined, with more immediate controls and with a simpler game structure. Within a few minutes of buying the game you’ll be at the end of the first track, possibly even doing well enough to unlock the second.

And possibly not. Despite the console’s limitations, this game is fast. This doesn’t show too much in terms of following the track – it’s a very standard 8-bit style single straightish road where the curves just simply nudge you along in the opposite direction a bit – but instead in terms of avoiding your opponents. As you ride along, you will see another rider appear ahead of you, and you’d better get out the way because you shoot past them in less than a second. There’s no speed indicated on the display, but if feels as if your opponents are going about 10 mph, and you’re going 1000.

This disparity in speeds does reveal the stark cheating of the AI, with you catching up to bikes near the end of the course who are going half your speed, and so should never have the lead that they are enjoying. Some of the frontrunners are, at least, going a bit faster than the gold-coloured mopeds who seem to be reversing, but none of them have anything like your speed.

There is one possible exception. I’ve played through 22 races, and never have managed better than a second place; I’ve never seen the rider in first. A single collision in a race seems to mean you’ll not win; luckily a second place is good enough to unlock the next stage.

The levels are all visually distinct, and through an emulator the saturation seems quite harsh – but I suspect this is an attempt to make the game look polished on actual hardware.

It’s a fun game, technically impressive, and the races are short enough to give it an addictive edge. I recommend it.

Hero GP, the latest high-speed handheld racer from Rocketship Park, is available NOW!Grab it! Go play!thalamusdigital.itch.io/hero-gp-game…#GameBoy #GameBoyColor #AnaloguePocket #RoadRash #RetroGaming

— Thalamus Digital (@thalamusdigital.bsky.social) 2025-04-13T23:28:52.798Z

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: Emulation, Game Boy Colour, PC

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93: A Playdate In The Back Room of Ann Summers
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Blood is the unintentional theme of this episode, not just in the titles and contents of the games but also in that it’ll make your ears bleed. Maybe? Frankly, I wouldn’t risk it. All that mess for no real benefit, and we wouldn’t want a lawsuit on our hands anyway.

However, should you decide to listen against our strong advice not to, you will find that deKay, Toby, Kendrick and (Fresh Blood) Harry have prepared some tasty meats to sate you. Discussion about the coming Season 2 of Playdate games, rumours about the new PlayStation handheld console (and, relatedly, the PS6), Ys/Trails in the Sky crossover remake shenanigans, and the death of PS+ Stars, the rewards scheme you’ve never heard of until just now. Plus, additional snacks in the form of these games.

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