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Diary of a Witcher : Part 1

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During the Steam summer sale, I purchased a copy of "The Witcher 2". I started playing it in Eyefinity on my PC but the frame rate was a bit poor and it really needs a gfx card upgrade to run sensibly. If I was on just one monitor I've no doubt my 7870 would laugh in the face of it, but a resolution of 5,760x1200 is just too much.

I want to hold off on upgrading until the new range of cards is released later in the year. As I've never played the original game I figured I'd play that first while I wait.

It runs on my three screens really well, although there is a bug which means the cut scenes only work if you turn the lighting down to basic. This isn't a disaster as it all still looks lovely. Being an older game I can get good frame rates too so everything is nice and smooth.

The hot waitress
You play the game as Geralt, a Witcher. I'm still not 100% clear on what a Witcher is, though it seems to be something to do with slaying monsters. So far I've only played a couple of hours into the story, I've defended against a castle siege though the Salamandra (the bad guys) managed to escape with some mutagens. I've saved the life of Triss Merigold by creating a magic potion and then I slept with her. The next day we all split up to try and track down the Salamandra, I headed South and seem to be in a village called Vizima.

I visited an Inn and got chatting to one of the waitresses, she seemed hot. The next thing I know, she's outside being hassled by some bandits, so I killed them and walked her home. She told me to meet her in a barn the next night with some wine. That's as far as I've got up to now, I'm guessing if I do as she asks then I'll be getting lucky again! I'll let you know how that pans out next time.

Tex Murphy: Under A Killing Moon

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Before I got my new shiny triple screen setup which you can read about over in this post: Triple monitors, calibration & Eyefinity. I decided to do some old school gaming. I'd recently learnt thanks to Niaz (@gospvg on Twitter) that a new Tex Murphy game was coming out. This had me tremendously excited as I had fond memories of the series.

I still had the games on the numerous CDs they came on, but as they were designed for a time before Windows these games ran in MS-DOS. This meant it wouldn’t be a trivial matter to get them running on modern PCs. Fortunately while searching the web for a method to do just that, I stumbled across the GOG website at http://www.gog.com. This made it possible to purchase the games at a very cheap price ($9.99) download them and run them in Windows! I decided for the stress free life and to get playing the games sooner rather than spend my weekend trouble shooting, I'd just pay up.

I'm glad I did, the whole process was very simple and I'm sure I'll be using GOG.com again in the future!

Once back in the game, the memories came flooding back, it was very nostalgic! The one thing that struck me more than anything else though, were the clunky controls. This was a first person point & click adventure game. But, this was in the day before "mouse-look" had been discovered. So instead of moving with the traditional WSAD keys, you moved with the mouse. Looking up and down was done with keys! It was most bizarre and I never truly got used to that. I was able to get by, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't hamper me somewhat.

The graphics engine was very dated too, but really after the first few minutes I wasn't bothered by that. The story line was interesting enough to keep me playing to the end, even in the tricky "stealth" section towards the end which was made far worse by the control scheme.

I played the game over a weekend, the voice acting is dodgy in places, but overall the writing is excellent and the video sections are both funny and move the story along nicely.

If you have missed out on this series of games I suggest you give them a shot. Just be patient with the controls and allow yourself to get to the bottom of the mystery. I'll be attempting the follow up "Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive" and the sequel to that "Tex Murphy: Overseer" soon before the new game comes out later this year. Hopefully they will have fixed the controls in the new game!

Thomas was alone – I am a shape

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I spent some time Sunday morning sorting some of my steam collection into two categories Ignore & Play.

The ignore included games I had already completed on the consoles like Bastion & Walking Dead. It also had a large collection of games that I had no interest in playing like Amnesia, The Ball & many more bundle games.

The play obviously had less games but these were titles that I was keen to enjoy like Hotline Miami, Kings Bounty, Dear Esther & Thomas was alone.

I did not really know what to expect having only seen a few screenshots & read some posts on UGVM about the game.

It's a puzzle game, which if you do not enjoy I suggest you go back to playing your generic shooter.

Mr Maker on Cbeebies has a section about shapes. Singing along to the annoying "I am a shape" (Youtube it). Your nightmares have come true, you are indeed a shape, a rectangle to be precise named Thomas.

Thomas sets off on an adventure meeting various shapes helping them reach the level portal to advance.

The game takes a leaf out of Bastion & has a narrator explaining each new character. Their thoughts on the surroundings & other shapes. Each shape has it's own unique skill in they can jump higher, go through small gaps or float. Claire is my favourite shape so far, she is a big blue square that can float on water. I'm enjoying the puzzles & the narration.

I tried initially with keyboard control but soon ended up plugging in a 360 controller which thankfully after a few button configs works perfectly.

I tried to play Penny Arcade Adventures but after a while got bored it reminded me quite a bit of Costume Quest without the adult humour obviously. Thomas was alone on the other hand feels fresh & interesting.

Thomas was alone – I am a shape

Posted on Written by

I spent some time Sunday morning sorting some of my steam collection into two categories Ignore & Play.

The ignore included games I had already completed on the consoles like Bastion & Walking Dead. It also had a large collection of games that I had no interest in playing like Amnesia, The Ball & many more bundle games.

The play obviously had less games but these were titles that I was keen to enjoy like Hotline Miami, Kings Bounty, Dear Esther & Thomas was alone.

I did not really know what to expect having only seen a few screenshots & read some posts on UGVM about the game.

It's a puzzle game, which if you do not enjoy I suggest you go back to playing your generic shooter.

Mr Maker on Cbeebies has a section about shapes. Singing along to the annoying "I am a shape" (Youtube it). Your nightmares have come true, you are indeed a shape, a rectangle to be precise named Thomas.

Thomas sets off on an adventure meeting various shapes helping them reach the level portal to advance.

The game takes a leaf out of Bastion & has a narrator explaining each new character. Their thoughts on the surroundings & other shapes. Each shape has it's own unique skill in they can jump higher, go through small gaps or float. Claire is my favourite shape so far, she is a big blue square that can float on water. I'm enjoying the puzzles & the narration.

I tried initially with keyboard control but soon ended up plugging in a 360 controller which thankfully after a few button configs works perfectly.

I'm playing a Steam game, hopefully unlike my previous effort (Penny Arcade Adventures) it looks like I won't get bored & give up.

Papers, Please: sending people off to die

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Quite a grim game, it must be said, and difficult as well.  You play as a border control official in a 1980s communist country, and must verify passport details and grant or deny access.  As you work through the game, the complexity of your task increases - entry tickets, entry permits, work permits, ID cards, fingerprint searches, X-ray scanning ... all of this serves to slow you down, you make mistakes, and you serve fewer travellers in a day.

And serving fewer travellers is bad, as you get paid per traveller and it's not just you relying on your salary.  You will find yourself faced with choices over who gets the needed medicine, and whether food is affordable.  Couple this with days ending early due to terrorist attacks, and you may soon find yourself alone.



The game's currently in beta and ends after a few days.  There are some intriguing plot narratives which start to open, with people asking you to refuse entry to a certain individual to protect them, cards passed across with secret society details, and husbands and wives broken up.  There's a repeat character that turns up with fake details each day, and I'd be intrigued to see if he ever gets everything together.

It's brutally hard to keep your family well, and for the final game I hope there's an easier mode (maybe unlocked after playing the main difficulty, which highlights the difficult conditions in those countries at the time) where you're not expected to earn quite as much.  Even after much practice, the third day still saw me with virtually no savings to carry forwards.


I recommend that you all play this at some point, whether it's now or when it's eventually released.  Details can be found at http://papersplea.se/.