{"id":838,"date":"2013-01-30T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/30\/its-been-so-long\/"},"modified":"2013-01-30T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T19:00:00","slug":"its-been-so-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/30\/its-been-so-long\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s been so long…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been ages since I wrote here, but I\u2019m not dead\u2026 My time during Christmas break is usually terribly busy, and afterwards work hit again like a brick wall (was hoping the mad rhythm from last months was gone, but I was wrong).<\/p>\n

Anyway, I\u2019ve been doing some things related to Grey and my Indie Speed Run unfinished entry<\/a>, but you can read about it on Spellcaster Studios<\/a>\u2019 website\u2026<\/p>\n

Here, I want to talk about the games I\u2019ve been trying out lately\u2026 Besides the usual Christmas binge on new Triple-A games (Assassin\u2019s Creed III was pretty good, with some flaws, but still a lot of fun\u2026 The naval battles rock), I\u2019ve been working through my Steam collection, looking at games I haven\u2019t really tried. Here\u2019s my impressions on some:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Binding of Isaac\u201d is a procedural Zelda-like game\u2026 That said, I should have liked it, but to be completely honest\u2026 I didn\u2019t\u2026 The controls were cumbersome for my taste, and there was too little storyline to keep me entertained; this is the problem with most rogue-likes out there (not only indie, but also Triple-A, like Diablo 3); I\u2018m not the type of person that walks around doing the same thing over and over again without anything to drive me forward (usually story)\u2026 Exception to this is probably \u201cWorld of Warcraft\u201d, where I raid over and over again, but there we have the social component as well.<\/p>\n

Anyway, \u201cThe Binding of Isaac\u201d is a well made game, with a very cool aesthetics (both visual and thematic), so if you enjoy roguelikes, give it a whirl! <\/p>\n

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\u201cClosure\u201d is a puzzle platformer whose main mechanic is easy to understand if you see it, but kind of hard to put into words\u2026 Basically only things in range of light have any physical substance (or are visible at all)\u2026 That means that if you see a wall in front of you (using a source of light), you\u2019ll collide with it, but if you don\u2019t have a light shinning on it, you\u2019ll just pass through it.<\/p>\n

This mechanic works making very nasty puzzles that remind me of \u201cPortal\u201d: puzzles that look very hard, but when you finally overcome them, you think: \u201cDamn, this was so obvious!\u201d\u2026 So, the game gives you a pretty good sense of accomplishment and I had tons of fun playing this one\u2026 the music gets on the nerves eventually, specially when you\u2019re swimming around (music plays at a slower rate, which means it becomes just very very vey annoying, albeit atmospheric).<\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t spend much time on this one, to be honest, too little story going around\u2026 But the execution is top notch, has a good tutorial (which does a good job of converting an immense amount of instruction into something more manageable) and the overall feel is fun enough, if you\u2019re into this sort of thing\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like someone to make a Tower Defense game where you\u2019d feel more \u201cstory" on it, but I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s kind of hard. <\/p>\n

One of my complains about most of the strategy indie games is that how heavy they are from the start. Although this one has a good tutorial, after 2 or 3 levels I\u2019d already have too much to do\u2026 so, I didn\u2019t have enough time to absorb the previous concepts and I would be already buried in new ones\u2026 <\/p>\n

On that front, Blizzard games are the best\u2026 They introduce everything slowly enough in their games so that me, as a player, never feel overwhelmed by new concepts and ideas. Of course, what I\u2019m complaining about here is the inverse that most people complain (\u201ctutorial was dragging on for ages\u201d), but I think there\u2019s a balance in between.<\/p>\n

For me, when choosing a new game to play, I don\u2019t want to spend much time mastering some ground rules\u2026 I just want to get into the action\/story as fast as possible and spend one hour in the game without feeling overwhelmed, trying to figure out if I actually think I\u2019m going to have fun in the game if I commit enough time to it\u2026<\/p>\n

Ok, this post is big enough already, more to follow!<\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone! It\u2019s been ages since I wrote here, but I\u2019m not dead\u2026 My time during Christmas break is usually terribly busy, and afterwards work hit again like a brick wall (was hoping the mad rhythm from last months was gone, but I was wrong). Anyway, I\u2019ve been doing some things related to Grey and […]<\/p>\n

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