Key

First off, before I start here, I do have to say that although I have not played the game myself, I have watched a lot of content that would give me the next best experience at knowing what the game is capable of and knowing most of the key features that go into the game. Don't worry though, I will in time give this game my time, but I do want to do a first impressions on it, just don't feel like paying for the game right now as I just bought a game that I'm going to be doing another entry on in a few days. So, now that that's out of the way, let's get to the game.

Enter The Gungeon follows a man with a gun, that's pretty much standard procedure, given the nature of the games title. The game is a roguelike/floor-by-floor style game, much like Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne, and considering those two games are some of the big influences for this game, you'd not be surprised to see a lot of similarities between the three games. Although the game does take a lot of influence from those games, it still has it's own unique traits that seem to make the game enjoyable. The guns are exceptionally well designed, and nothing feels the same as you go from run to run. The boss fights are difficult but not too difficult where it feels impossible. I did mention this in the post before this about the bosses, but i'll say it again. The bosses are beautifully designed and use a lot of "gun puns" that just add to the overall good feel that this game has to offer. Although I have not played the game myself, I can say that the controls seem to work really well whether you play with a keyboard or a controller, however I've always gone the keyboard and mouse route for these sort of games, just a more comfortable feel to me.

Graphically, the game looks fantastic. I'd say that it does take a lot of influence from Nuclear Throne more than Binding of Isaac, though Binding of Isaac is in it's own category of it's own. It's not at all a bad thing to take heavy influences from other games either, so I don't want to feel like i'm constantly saying this game feels like other games. It's a roguelike, so there's not much you can do that would shift away from those similarities, however they were good choices to be influenced from. But yes, the game looks fantastic, and it's really got it's own "i'm stuck in a gungeon" feel to it that adds that little unique twist to the game, and allows for an overall great experience.

Certainly a good choice to go with if you're interested in the roguelike genre as a whole, you can't really go wrong with the other two I mentioned as well, but this one has certainly made it's mark to be within the realms of "fantasticness" alongside the other two mentioned.

Key

Disclaimer: I'm fully aware that this game may not be considered an indie game, but it's a standalone of a game that isn't really considered an indie game. The reason I'm talking about it is because it did have an early access when I heard about it, so I feel it can be included. Plus, I just want to talk about why it pisses me off.

Anyway, Don't Starve Together as I mentioned is a standalone multiplayer version of Don't Starve. If you're unaware of what Don't Starve is, where have you been? Have you been living under a rock? Basically you play as a character who is fighting to survive under any means necessary. That means you have to hunt for your food, build a base, etc etc. Now, enjoying Don't Starve as much as I did when it came out, I figured a multiplayer version of the game would be a great idea, but I was wrong, very wrong.

The whole point of a survival game to me is being able to find your stuff and survive as long as possible by yourself. I enjoy the feeling of loneliness and the fear of death in these kinds of games because it really adds to the feel that the game is trying to bring out, however when you bring more people into the equation, it sort of makes it feel more like a competitive survival game more than just a survival game. I know what you're thinking? You don't have to play the multiplayer mode, Ki. I know that, but sometimes you are playing games with friends, and there's always one person that wants to play Don't Starve, which is fine. Sometimes i'm in the mood for it. However, that mood quickly changes to being pissed off when the other players you are playing with decide that the game needs to be played differently than you play it. Once that mutual goal is split into different goals, the game becomes frustrating and you find yourself doing things that you're used to doing and the friends you play with start to realize that you may be wasting your time, and at that point you start to wonder what you're supposed to really be doing. To me, games like this don't need an end goal or a set of plans, you're meant to survive in whatever way possible.

Let me paint a picture for you. I play Don't Starve Together with a good friend of mine. Any games we play, I never get salty when things don't go the right way because it's all in good fun. However, in Don't Starve Together, all those chains break loose and I find myself getting frustrated and annoyed with the players that i'm playing with because I keep wanting to do things to help out the rest of the team like building a base of operations and making sure there's an unlimited access to food. However, whenever I take the time to do that, my teammates decide that they want to continue to venture further and further away from the base leaving me to go out alone to find the supplies that I need. I understand the aspect of having to go out and fetch supplies and hunt food, but at least have it be a team effort, instead of one person doing it, then having that person get pissed off because I decided that a home base was a good idea. In their opinion, they decide it's not a good idea, and the game becomes less of a team game, and more of a competitive "let's see who can survive longer" game, and that's not fun to me. In his defense, he does give himself the proper build and supplies to last longer, but how much does that really help with the enjoyment of the game? I'm not just going to go out and kill mobs and let that be it, if I wanted to do that, i'd just play an action adventure game. I like to feel submerged into the game, which always leads me to build the base that I want to build. Once the frustration and disagreements hit, the game becomes less fun and eventually I just turn it off and end the call. I feel as though with this kind of game, both teammates or all teammates need to realize that both killing mobs for supplies and building a good base of operations are two great ideas. Once that mutual understanding is met, the game can be as exciting as it's meant to be.

This is no way means the game is bad. Honestly, the multiplayer version of an already great game is fantastic. There's even mods you can install to make the game even better, like minimaps and different characters that weren't originally included in the game. Unfortunately, I'd much rather play the solo game rather than this one. At least until I find someone that wants to play the game that it's meant to be played.

Key

Although I do play a lot of indie games, there are still quite a few that I have never played, but I have made plans to do so. Some I will never play even though they look interesting, but the ones i'll mention here are ones that have caught my eye and will make their debut in my steam library at any given time. So here we go...

First on the list we have Stardew Valley



I was and still am a big fan of these types of 2D RPG'esque style games. I remember playing the **** out of Harvest Moon many moons ago, and that's more the reason why this game caught my eye as soon as I heard of it's release. I hear it's a lot of fun and there's a lot to it, more than what you can see in screenshots. This will definitely be among the first games I check out when I feel the time is right. Which will probably be very soon. I feel the urge to sink myself into a game like this, so I feel it's the perfect game to do so.

Next on the list is a game i've actually had in my Steam wishlist for a while, and even through all the sales it's gone through, I still have yet to pick it up.


The Forest

I believe as of right now, the game is still in it's early access phase, but from what I've seen, it looks pretty cool. It doesn't look like anything too mindblowingly great which is why I have hesitated to pick it up, but one of these days, I will have the urge to play a game like this again. To me, it looks like another Minecraft-esque survival game. However, the tags "horror" and "open world" are what have drawn me into it for this long. No idea when I'll plan to pick it up or even play it for myself. I'm comfortable just leaving it to watching Youtube videos for the time being.

The next one is one that I really want to play, like really bad, but to me it seems like there is a lot going on. It's none other than Subnautica.



Again, it is in early access, much like The Forest, but unlike The Forest, this game actually looks incredibly promising in it's current stage. I've seen a few Youtube videos on it so far, and to me, it looks like a game that is both original, and could potentially allow for hours of awesome gameplay. I am a sucker for games that allow you to go underwater and explore, because the ocean is so vast. A game that allows for such a vast experience really sits well with me.

The last one on the list for now has to be a game that I have seen a lot of videos on, but have yet to check out for myself for unknown reason. I'm talking of course about Game Dev Tycoon.



There are a lot of these type of "simulator" and "player management" style games out there right now, but Game Dev Tycoon seems to have caught my eye more than those ones have, unless you count Euro Truck Simulator and the like. I've not checked this game out for myself yet for one reason: i've pretty much seem what it has to offer in the videos that i've watched. However, I do like to give games my fair share, and I know an experience at a personal level can be much different than an experience through video. No plans to check this game out in the near future, but it is one that I would like to play if not just for the experience and to say that I have played it. Also seems like a game that I could play if I was bored and had nothing else to play.

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

This is the only one on the list I've played. It was an interesting concept at first, but as I started progressing through the game it got boring pretty quickly. Cool idea, but just not enough to do to keep it from feeling overly repetitive and somewhat lifeless.

Stardew Valley seems kind of interesting though, I used to love the Harvest Moon games as well. Might be something I check out soon.

__________________
Music Blog / RYM / Last.fm / Qwertyy's Journal of Music Reviews and Other Assorted Ramblings

Key

I'm actually planning to play Stardew Valley tonight so there'll probably be a "first impression" entry on it this week. Seems like a lot of fun so hopefully I enjoy it.

Key

For me, when it comes to games, or indie games more specifically, there has to be a certain characteristic about them that make them worth playing over and over again. More specifically when we're talking about roguelike dungeon crawlers like Diehard Dungeon, the game has to be exciting enough to put the amount of hours into the game that it allows.

Yes, you heard me correctly, Diehard Dungeon is yet another roguelike dungeon crawlers that has got quite a bit of playtime out of me. You play as a character with a sword and a chest following you around at all times. The gameplay style is very reminiscent of Binding of Isaac in the sense that it is a top down, 3D'esque dungeon crawler where you go around and kill mobs, but that's not all it offers.

You have chances of finding treasure chests and treasure rooms where you can "roll" for a chance for something good. But, if you get too greedy and want to get more out of the "roll", enemies will spawn and you'll have to face them to move on. It's rather interesting to add a concept like that, because in most roguelike dungeon crawlers, greed is the biggest weakness. You want more as quickly as possible, but sometimes, it can have it's negative outcomes.

The combat system is pretty simple. You have a sword. Can't get much more simple than that. The only thing that could differentiate this game from any other dungeon crawlers is how difficult it actually is. I've found myself dying multiple times on the first floor. You have a choice at the beginning of your run to go to the upper floor or lower floors, and each time, the difficulty curve is changed between the two floors, but that doesn't necessarily mean either/or is going to be easier than the more difficult floor. Obviously, choosing the more difficult floor at the beginning of your run will allow you to find more treasure and loot, but at the cost of losing all your health and dying quickly. You have to keep those types of things in mind.

Onto my favorite part, the graphics. As I mentioned before, it does have a bit of 3D'esque style graphics, but it's also mixed with pixelated graphics that suit the game really nicely. There's a lot of games out there that will try the pixelated graphics in a way that doesn't really work for the game, but in this games case, it works wonderfully:



It's definitely got the old school feel to it without it being too old school.

Recently I haven't been playing this game as much as I like to, but when it comes to rogue like games, this one is definitely top notch.

Key

I want to talk about the stigma that revolves around the concept of Early Access games. The reason for this is because it seems as though there are two sides to this argument, and both sides are very strong in their opinion. On one side, nobody wants to have to pay upwards to 20-30 dollars for a game that isn't even complete, and on the other side, people don't mind spending the money to help the developer or developers involved turn the game into something that could potentially be amazing. I want to talk about which side I fall on, and shed some light into the topic in general.

So, as you can see above, the definition of an early access game is pretty obvious. You're paying for a game that hasn't been completed yet. You're probably thinking "really?, you're going to buy a game that hasn't been completed?" Well, for me, yes, I don't mind paying the money to play a game that already looks interested before the game even gets complete. There are a lot of games that are going the early access route, and a lot of them are already fantastic. Games like DayZ, or 7 Days To Die, ARK: Survival Evolved, and The Forest to name a few. These games even before they are officially released are still in development, but as it stands now, they are already a lot of fun to play. I mean...it should give you a pretty good idea as to how much fun they are as I have over 20 hours in 7 Days To Die alone.

From my experience, most early access games aren't meant to be a way for someone to just throw something together in 10 minutes and attempt to release it. Almost every single time i've checked out an early access game, the game is either close to being completed, or the game is so polished at it's current state that it's fun to play, and exciting to see the updates that come along with it. Most of the time, when i'm looking at the Steam store, the last thing i'm worried about is whether or not it's an early access game, because I'm probably going to enjoy the game regardless. Sure, early access games will come with their share of problems like FPS issues, graphics bugs, crashes, etc. But at the same time, you have to be excited for what the game could become if the developer decides to continue on with the game they've attempted to make thus far, which leads me to my next point.

One of my favorite things about early access games is the fact that even before the game is released, you can help the developer out by supporting their journey to finish a game that you would like to play. From what I can tell, the reason a lot of developers are going the early access route from the get go is for that reason, to gain a fanbase and to get some monetary support for their work. I honestly don't mind dishing out 10-20 bucks to help a developer make a game that they've wanted to put their soul into. Especially when, like I said, the game already looks polished and exciting even before it's initial release date. I say this, because a lot of early access games have successfully made it out of early access and have become full games, with continuous updates from the developers, and for the developers, they now have a steady and consistent flow of commentary coming from their fanbase. It's a really good marketing strategy to get your name out there, even if it means you have to label your game with the "early access" stigma.

At the same time, I do understand that people don't even want to touch early access games for the reason that it does cost money to buy a game that isn't finished, but again, it can be worth it in most cases, and it's always nice to see the development process of a game, and to see that the developers truly care about their product to dish out as many updates as they possibly can. Makes the 10-20 bucks you dished out to them seem far more worth it.

Key

PART II

Believe it or not, there are still a bunch of games I have not played, but have felt an itch to do so. So that's what brings us to a second part for this little series in here. Let's get right to it.



Golf With Friends is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You play mini golf, with your friends. But god damn it looks like a good time if you get enough people to play. I could see myself spending quite a lot of time with some good friends trying to beat each other out on the various stages that this game already has. It's currently in it's early access stages, but the developer does update it frequently. Looks like a hell of a lot of fun, and will hopefully be experiencing that fun soon. MB Golf With Friends session, anyone?



I've seen a lot of people play Papers, Please but i've never actually experienced it for myself. From what I've heard, it is quite an exciting game and can be a lot of fun depending on the way you play it. I'm not too familiar with what it's about or what you do, but it does seem like an interesting and original idea. I don't know if I have any urge to play it anytime soon, but I would like to see what the hype is all about that surrounds it. It's gotten pretty good reviews on Steam as well, so that's always a plus.



Along with Papers, Please, I've also yet to try out The Stanley Parable, and again, there's a lot of hype around this game and it's gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews. I've never really understood what it's about, although I have seen some gameplay here and there. I know it's also meant to be funny in some ways, and I suppose I could get behind that.

Key

I recently picked up Stardew Valley and gave it a little spin. I'm not exactly sure how to feel about the game as a whole yet as I haven't really gotten too far into it, but I did play enough of it to give myself a good idea of what to expect.

As I mentioned in one of my posts before, I was and am still a pretty big fan of Harvest Moon, and so when this game was set for release, I checked out the screenshots and it was very complimentary to that game, and I mean very very complimentary. The games main goal is for you to play as a farmer to build up your land and make money, but the cool thing is, it's also got RPG elements thrown into it that you really wouldn't expect from a "city builder" / "farm simulator" type game. I really like the overall feel of the game where you attempt to make your farm, and make friends along the way. From the experience that I've had with the game so far, the interactions you have with the other people in your town seem really cool and it looks like you can attract those towns people to fall in love with you, or end up hating you in the long run. I also spent a little bit of time going into other peoples houses without their permission, which seems like a fun part of the game that I haven't really dove into much yet.

You probably think that a game like this wouldn't do well as an RPG because of the fact that you're basically playing a much more dumbed down version of Minecraft, but with RPG elements. I don't mean that in a bad way. The two go together really well, and especially with the way modern gaming is going nowadays, this one does a very good job of taking you back to the older style of gameplay and it allows you to do whatever you feel like doing with your town.

The only gripe I have with the game so far is the performance aspect. I've had a few times where my FPS dropped significantly due to rainfall or other aspects like too many pixels on the screen. However, my PC can handle things like that because I've played Minecraft and other higher graphics intensive games in ultra quality with no issue. That's probably more the fault of the game still being made by an indie developer.

The game does a fantastic job however at making you feel submerged in your farm, instead of it feeling like just another knock off of some other game. It's got a really rich soundtrack which I will talk about in another post, and it uses pixel graphics at it's finest. There's certainly a lot going for this game, so i'm excited to see what comes of it when the next couple builds arrive. It's got potential to be one of my all time favorite games, but we'll see what happens as the development process continues.

Key

Did you really think I was going to go the whole month without talking about one of the best releases of 2015. Hell, I'd even go as far as saying that this is the best release of 2015. Is it my game of the year for 2015? Quite possibly. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I am fully aware that this may not be an indie game, but...it did win an award for the best independent game of the year, so given the nature of that award, it gives me the right to talk about it, so i'm going to. I make the rules here, not you.

I'm going to start this off by saying that I'm not a huge fan of sports based games. Hell, I know they can be fun and super competitive, but in my earlier years of playing video games, I was never hugely into the basketball / baseball games, unless you count the countless hours I put into Ken Griffey Jr's Major League Baseball for the N64, but I digress. This game is perfect for the people that never really had a good experience or an experience at all with a sports game, because this game brings together both a sports related game and turns it into something revolutionary.

You may know Psyonix from another popular game they made known as Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars, which at the time, I didn't even know existed, and man do I wish I could turn back time and play it, because Rocket League is it's successor, and done so in all the right ways. Psyonix as a developer is quickly becoming my favorite developers in this day and age because first of all, Rocket League has managed to not only brings in millions of players worldwide, but they've also managed to bring in countless dollars of sales while also maintaining a pretty good price tag for the game. Not only that, but every DLC that Psyonix has released for Rocket League has not exceeded 2$, which to me says more about the community engagement over the money they make. A lot of companies will make a great game and sell the game at a ridiculous price of 50-60$, and continue to release DLC's that also match that price tag, while not even bothering to make the DLC's interesting or engaging. Psyonix took a different route and decided from the beginning that it's more worth it to engage with their fanbase and give them great things for the game at a reasonable price. To me, that just makes the game far more enjoyable, because I'm not having to break my wallet every single time I want to buy some DLC's to make the experience that much better.

As I mentioned earlier, Rocket League has brought in millions of players around the world. Recently, they even added cross-platform play through Xbox One, so now you can play Rocket League from your PC with players on Xbox One and Playstation 4, which to my knowledge, is the first of it's kind. What better way to make the game that much better then to make it so everybody can play. It's a smart move on their part, and again, they have still managed to keep the price tag for the game at a fantastic deal. So, if you have any of those consoles, get your hands on it, it's worth the 20$.

Now my experience with the game has been a bit of an odd one, because although I have almost 150 hours in the game, I played this game pretty heavily when it was released, and then I took an extended break from it, only to come back to it recently and have fun with it again. When I say that, I don't want people thinking that the game stopped being fun for me. Honestly, more of it was due to being too tired to really get the full experience of the game, which I enjoyed from the beginning. The game has managed to so far stand the test of time for me, because a lot of the time, i'll play a game for about 50-60 hours before I start to get bored with it. Rocket League as I mentioned has gotten close to 150 hours out of me, and it continues to grow with every day I feel the urge to play it. Which is nice, because I like getting excited over a game that I was once super excited to play at it's release. There are times where I will get frustrated when I get thrown into a team that doesn't know what they're doing, but then i'll find a team that knows how to play the game really well, so that makes up for it. The recently added basketball servers are also really cool, though I will say that it definitely takes a different take on the Rocket League formula, but again...it's done really well and doesn't take away from the fun of the game. With the hundreds of different ways to customize your vehicle, mixed with the ranking systems, and even the streams for the tournaments that are held, my experience with Rocket League has overall been nothing short of excellent.

Two of my all time favorite DLC's that were released for this game would have to be the addition of the Delorean from Back to the Future and the Batmobile from Batman obviously...



It gets me excited to think about what Psyonix has next up their sleeve, because with each update they've put out, it's only made the game better each time. I've not been disappointed with any of the recent developments of the game, so it'll be cool to see where they take the game next, and i'll be right there with my car ready to play.