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Wargroove (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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One of those games from ages ago that I was really looking forward to, but it took forever to come out and when it did, I’d sort of stopped caring. At least, enough to pay for it anyway. But for free, on my Steam Deck? Ah, gwan then.

Yes, it’s Advance Wars. Graphically and mechanically, anyway. In fact, in those respects, it’s so close to Advance Wars that I’m amazed the normally trigger-happy Nintendo Fun Lawyers didn’t set upon it like they do with all the Mario and Metroid fan games. Of course, it’s not exactly the same. It’s a fantasy setting a bit closer to Fire Emblem, with horses and caravans and archers (and tree people and giants and mer-folk and turtles?!) rather than soldier and tanks and bigger tanks and huge tanks – but most Wargroove units are effectively Advance Wars unit analogues. They’re just a bit unusual.

A big set of thumbs up for being like Advance Wars are that it plays as well as Advance Wars, is as addictive as Advance Wars, and fills a big old hole where Advance Wars hasn’t been for what, a decade or something now? Sure, there’s the remake of the first two games on the way, but who knows when that will actually land.

Wargroove is a perfect fit for a handheld, and really I should have bought it for my Switch long ago as I really enjoyed it. Even if the last few levels were clearly impossible and I had to knock the difficulty down a notch – whereupon I found that Hard is the default! Madness.

Pony Island (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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I aborted an attempt to play Pony Island on my Mac a few years ago, as you have to press the left and right mouse buttons at the same time at some point, and with a Mac mouse you can’t do that. I had a PC mouse I could have plugged in instead, but I also had eleventybillion other games that didn’t require that sort of effort, so it got shelved.

Until now!

Sure, the Steam Deck actually has no mouse buttons, but it does have a frankly overwhelming array of other inputs and a very good control remapper, so I very easily found something that worked for me and was able to restart – and complete – Pony Island.

It begins like a retro auto-runner where your horse jumps over things. Think of the Chrome Broken Internet Dinosaur Game and you’re there. But, it soon becomes apparent that this game is possessed by Satan himself, and it soon becomes something a bit different, including some programming sections, boss fights, and it actually literally crashing intentionally.

I found it a bit repetitive and although it’s short, it could have done with being a bit shorter. Even with all the “extras” Satan throws at you, it’s still mostly a not particularly interesting auto-runner, but the stuff around it kept me playing to the end.

Aperture Desk Job (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Yes, I have a Steam Deck. And you know what? It’s actually great. I was sure it’d be horrible and clunky and just a bit wrong, but actually, it isn’t. Well, OK, it is still a bit clunky.

To show off the ten trillion different sticks, buttons, pads, flaps, twiddles, surfaces and touchybits that the Steam Deck packs to ensure there’s a workable control method for just about every game you can throw at it, Valve created a free game in the Portal universe. Aperture Desk Job puts you in the shoes of a new worker at Aperture Science, testing a never ending supply of toilets for their ability to flush and accept a bottom.

Quickly this turns into something else entirely with turrettoilets and a slightly unhinged robot (in a Portal game? Never!) and a thinly disguised tutorial on how to use all those ten trillion inputs I just mentioned. Some point the guns. Some point the toilet. Some fire rockets.

Toileturret or Turretoilet?

It’s very short and not going to win any GOTY awards, but in Portal fashion it’s funny and a bit silly and is certainly great as a freebie. And! Lots of toilets!

Passpartout: The Starving Artist (Mac): COMPLETED!

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Ah, the life of a French artist, living off his art, being French. Literally being some sort of frog like a racist stereotype. In Passpartout, you are this frog painter, and it’s your actual art that you sell.

Well, I say art. With tools even Microsoft Paint would sneer at, it’s not easy creating a masterpiece. Thankfully, as it turns out, whatever algorithm the game employs to determine the value and demand for your painting seems unconcerned with skill and it’s more about colour and complexity, depending on your customers.

Take George, for example. He’s easily pleased. My simplistic pictures of legless caterpillars with giant eyes always sold to him. Mary, however, would sarcastically comment on their lack of complexity and Don simply couldn’t abide the colours I used.

After experimenting with colour schemes and shapes, it seems the more realistic the picture the less chance I’d had of selling it. Generally more abstract shapes (big blocks of cheese went down well for a while), cartoony characters (a number of pictures staring a muscular crab sold for a high price) and those ever loved caterpillars allowed me to progress.

By the third act, it was clear that my clients just wanted grey pillys with big eyes, so I plied them with many variations on the same theme. Eventually I created one that was grey and red, and the massive bid I received for it basically completed the game for me. Which is just as well, as after five hours of creating things that either didn’t sell or were virtually the same as previous paintings, I’d started to flag. There’s probably a message in the end sequence where Passpartout is said to have become very rich, but I suspect he was just a caterpillar sellout and drank himself into oblivion to save the agony of 50 years of repeating himself.

Here’s a load of my “arts”, for your perusal:

The post Passpartout: The Starving Artist (Mac): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.