I’ve been playing DQ Builders alongside They Are Billions, which weirdly share a common theme of building a safe zone against hordes of monsters. They are obviously worlds apart, but the way they handle this one thing is kind of interesting to compare.
DQ Builders is, as should be obvious from being part of the DQ series, a relatively safe and easy game. Monsters don’t really have a chance to damage your structures, unless you build everything out of dirt, and for the most part they don’t attack on their own. You have to trigger the fights yourself. Still, the sieges are at least attempting to have high stakes, and I like the idea that you can spend a lot of time building things that are useful in terms of village life, aesthetics, etc, but don’t actually add to your defensive capabilities. Of course, since it’s all very structured, you don’t really have to choose between the two, you just do both.
They Are Billions really puts the conflict of building out vs. defending your existing terrain into sharp relief. Your economy can only grow with expansion of space, but the more you expand the more difficult it is to defend that space. But if you don’t grow your economy, you will not be able to build the more advanced defensive structures and offensive units. On harder difficulties this becomes less of a balancing act and more of a “walking the tightrope as people throw sharp objects at you and scream profanities, and also you’re drunk” act.
The real killer is that most of the game is actually pretty safe. As long as you can defend from the wandering zombies, you’re okay, which leads to a false sense of security. When the horde comes, your defenses will be put to the test, and even one little zombie making it through will kill everyone. It’s easy to think that you are safe when you are definitely not.
Playing They Are Billions gave me a sort of anxiety in DQ Builders about this balancing act, even though there’s nothing actually pressuring you in the latter game.
bought a switch to play xenoblade 2 and it’s thoroughly absorbing despite all aggressive anime nonsense. the xenoblade games are the best clickers ever made tbh
After ignoring Shovel Knight for several years, I’ve started Spectre of Torment and man is that fun. Good platforming, and you’re given the tools to save yourself from death if you’re quick and lucky enough.
I started playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game for the GameBoy today on my lunch break (I’ve started this a few times since it came out, but never gave it much time, because trading cards). I’ve played the actual Pokemon TCG exactly once two decades ago, so I don’t know how well this is at emulating the experience of playing the TCG, but it’s a pretty good lunch break game. It takes like, 2 minutes to learn how to play (the tutorial is actually pretty decent at teaching you how to play without wasting too much time), and you can spend a good amount of time engrossed in a battle. I wish the game would re-shuffle your deck at the beginning of a match if your initial shuffle turns up no energy cards, though, because that is really frustrating, especially if you don’t get a card that allows you to re-shuffle your hand. This probably becomes less of a problem once you start winning more card packs to build better decks.
Also, the music is pretty decent, nothing stands out, but at least it’s not dental drill shrill nonsense. Mainline Pokemon game music has always aggravated the hell out of me (with one exception), so it’s nice that Hudson (RIP) just grabbed an in-house guy to do it.
(The font is really bad, though, and for some reason, they used the standard Pokemon GB font for only your character name, so it looks even worse when your character is mentioned).
(And, your player character is way cooler than Red – check out his bitchin’ bandana!)
there’s one of the route tunes in RGBY (I WILL FIND THIS, GIVE ME TIME) that i prefer to nat’l park, plus lavender town, so i guess most of my fave GB tunes are pokemon tunes
II’m playing some weird Metroidvania called Dandara that was released on everything a few days ago
I have to admit it intrigued me because having a black woman as your main character for your videogame is seen as suicide, who would do that in 2018
It’s a Brazilian game and the eponymous Dandara was a famous figure in Brazil who fought against slavery.
Here she is basically a goddess in a city called Salt? Ok
The twist in this one is that you do not walk. Instead you gravity rush from one salty platform to the next, by swiping.
There’s a short range gun too.
It seems optimized for touch controls but I imagine playing with sticks works too. It felt extremely awkward at first but pretty soon I was going through levels at mach speed.
Trees coming out of a black void. The graphics are not very great, honestly. Neither is the art direction. But it always looks appealingly off, like a lost Genesis game
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