Crashbook #27

13 thoughts on “Crashbook #27”

1. Lovely additions to the book of crash. I can say from firsthand experience that both Planets and Moons (of the Lifeless variety) are worth playing–I’d recommend a controller, but it’s not necessary–for the incredibly surreal and disorienting visuals. Basically platforming puzzlers. Go for the lifeless, stay for the moon. Or the planet.

   I’ve also had Cataclismo on my wishlist. It seems like one I’ll enjoy more as additional goodies are added, so I’m willing to wait. I’m a sucker for TD and this looks to combine lots of fun mechanics.

   Tried the demo (I think it was a demo) of Lorne’s Lure and really liked the art direction. It’s tough to make a really enjoyable game that’s basically about building and maintaining momentum, given that the “fun” often diminishes when momentum is reduced in any way; ideally you have a flow state where you’re moving, moving, moving. This one did a nice job spinning the plates, though it isn’t short on challenging moments. Few of the puzzles and maneuvers are actually difficult, but as you tend to second-guess yourself at high speed, what should be fairly straightforward becomes quite challenging. For some reason it reminded me of Severed Steel, despite their being quite different games.

   HM, was it you who mentioned Home Safety Hotline in one of these Crashbooks? It might have been John Walker over on Buried Treasure. It might have been both of you. My memory has aged like a fine wine. Anyway I got it on sale and it’s delightfully odd and creepy, so if you haven’t crashbooked it, I recommend you do.

2. The look of Whispers in the Moss reminds me of what people managed to make in ZZT.

   I’m enjoying Shogun Showdown. I feel like it’s focused version of something that I can’t quite place. The way that the board game Colt Express removes a dimension from RoboRally and renders it way more legible and approachable (and fun).

3. I played an hour or two of the Cataclismo demo earlier this year. It looked right up my “survival RTS” street. I did unfortunately find the building clunky, and some aspects of the enemy pathing and spawning a bit unintuitive (which is rather unfortunate after committing to constructions), resulting in a lot of redos. I hope to give it another pop in future.

4. Sorry everyone, I’ve been away for the last week in Wales, and been engaged in activities such as walking, board gaming and televisual watching.

   Steerpike: Thanks for the thumbs up for the Lifeless Games which I assume will be a TM brand name like ‘Endless’ soon enough. I liked the allure of them, but wasn’t sure if they might end up being a bit on the short and shallow side.

   On Lorne’s Lure – second guessing yourself at high speed is always the problem! I remember I became fixated on Boson X back in the day but then Ian MacLarty released a few extra levels which were even harder and I was like, ah, fuck this.

   Home Safety Hotline was indeed mentioned in Crashbook #23!

   Jordon: I wish I understood your reference to Colt Express/RoboRally as I am unfamiliar with both, but it sounds knowing and smart so I’ll assume it is both. Shogun Showdown sounds like the kind of game I would easily lose a week or two to.

   ShaunCG: As Cataclismo is in Early Access I’d hope the UI gets tightened up over time. But I’d love a good, fresh tower defence. (Comments then fill with 20 TD games I haven’t played or heard of in the last five years.)

5. I’ve played a decent bit of the Shogun Showdown alpha (or whatever) on itch.io and it is a neat little concept. I should probably buy the full thing though I am not too short of gaming stuff options right now… it is nice and snappy though. I mentioned getting bogged down in Inkulinati and part of the reason, besides the run being long, is that turns are pretty complicated and it is easy to screw yourself. In Shogun Showdown, well, it is also easy to screw yourself but you do it more quickly maybe?

   OK I was thinking of something that would actually be a roguelike deckbuilder–where you have integrated movement and comment unlike most Spirelikes but your attacks work by gathering stuff that goes into a deck which you have to fire off depending on what’s uppermost. Uh, let’s call it “Ace up your sleeve” because the conceit is that you’re gathering actual magic cards which get shoved farther and farther up your sleeve and you can only throw the two that are in your hands (literal hands) and whichever falls down next is random. OK so I was thinking that maybe Shogun Showdown really did that, except it doesn’t I guess, because the maneuvers go on cooldowns instead of being drawn from a deck. Oh I think I know what Shogun Showdown is the focused version of! It’s Endhall. Maybe, it’s been a while since I played Endhall. Anyway it’s neat that it’s kind of a stripped-down Breachlike instead of a Spirelike, in that combat is entirely positional, but also it’s different in that it does depend on a variety of particular attacks with cooldowns, and the build-up-combos-and-fire-them mechanic is something I can’t quite remember in any similar game.

6. Oh, right, the other thing I was going to say is that I think a bunch of the links are not clickable? Like the one for Lorne’s Lure.

7. Hey, yo, Matt, Imma gunna reply to your comments.

   ** DEFCON 4 ALERT ** LINKS MISSING **

   First, and let me apologise, I do not know what happened to all the links. I’ve been adapting the Thinky Games spreadsheet to assemble half of this Crashbook – and it looks like the links were the first casualty. This will not happen again. This will definitely never happen again.

   Is this one of those comments where you’re just looking for a convenient segue for your latest thoughtstorm? I think it might be.

   ‘Ace up your sleeve’ oh man, just trademark and patent that shit now. Buy the domain, get the t-shirt. I was reading through your second paragraph and I was thinking, dang, I’m missing a lot of knowledge to parse what you’re conveying. Endhall is too long ago for me to remember the gameplay (I just watched a video and still didn’t quite remember how it work) and I haven’yet t played Slay the Spire – although I do finally have a copy!!

   So congrats Matt: you made me feel old and out of touch. DOUBLE COMBO STRIKE :: MAX POINTS

8. That was not one of those comments where I’m looking for a convenient segue for the latest thoughtstorm! It was one where I was happy that I had something to say that was on-topic for one and then in the second paragraph a thoughtstorm just happened.

9. HOWEVER I am perfectly satisfied to find a convenient segue to my latest thoughtstorm. In this case starting by explaining some of the stuff I was talking about. And correcting some typos (like in the last post I meant “on-topic for once“).

   OK, so the thing about “integrated movement and combat” (“comment” was another typo) is kind of the thing I’m always banging on about with roguelikes. In a game like Slay the Spire, and as far as I can tell you can substitute Knock on the Coffin Lid in for most things I’m going to say about StS, you move on an overworld map and many of the nodes have combat which takes place on a totally different screen. Slice & Dice strips this down to where you don’t have any active movement, the map is just a line of dots on the bottom of the screen representing the twenty fights you go through in order.

   Whereas in a roguelike like nethack or Brogue, you move and fight on the same map. There’s no in-game mechanic where NOW YOU ARE FIGHTING THIS MONSTER, you can attack one of the monsters (usually) near you or not. A big part of these games is (often) managing who to fight where and when, and not getting overwhelmed by mobs, which is not a question in StS/KotCL/etc.; it’s not like you have to be careful how to fight enemies from one node to keep the enemies from the next node from showing up and cold-cocking you. This aspect also holds for Broughlikes like Cinco Paus, you move and fight on the same grid and you want to get your back against the wall so you’re not getting ganked by two frogs at once. Often these games are “gridbumpers” because you attack by bumping into enemies on the grid.

   Then about positionality, in the Spirelikes it matters very little where characters are on the screen. StS will line enemies up left to right but IIRC (except for one exception which is a spoiler) absolutely nothing is ever determined by this, it’s just aesthetic. IIRC in KotCL maybe this had an effect? In StS some things are affected by top-to-bottom position, and enemies can be “back rank,” but movement isn’t part of combat.

   So Shogun Showdown is all about positional combat. You and your opponents’ attacks are like, hit the space you’re facing, hit both sides, hit the next opponent in that direction, etc. Maneuvering the space in order to manage which opponents are threatening you is super important (I would sometimes hurt myself by killing a non-threatening opponent that was blocking an opponent that was about to unleash an unlockable ranged attack on me). And it matters that you’re fighting a lot of opponents at once. In all these ways it’s more like roguelikes than spirelikes (or coffinlikes) to me, even though it’s on a simple seven-space line. I guess in many ways it’s more like Cinco Paus on a line than Into the Breach on a line? But it’s not a deck in the strict StS/KotCL way because you aren’t drawing your attacks from a larger deck into a hand, each attack has a cooldown. And then the combo thing I was talking about is that you don’t make attacks right away, it takes a turn to load an attack into your queue and then you can use your turn to fire off your whole queue, so you can do things like use an attack that switches you with the next enemy combined with an attack that hits the next enemy in line to take out those pesky ranged guys before they can shoot.

   OK the thoughtstorm was going to get into more ideas for Ace Up Your Sleeve but it’s too long. One thing was thinking that a challenge for it would be coming up with moves that had interesting effects on the grid context. Another was if the cards were themed around Tarot (which would maybe require changing it to Cards Up Your Sleeve but that’s way worse, boohoo) I could have a flavor text for the Death Arcana which went “The Death card is often taken to signify major changes. In this case it changes whoever it hits from being alive to being dead.”

10. NICE okay let’s start with a word in all capitals.

    In Coffin Lid – and let me take a moment to appreciate your efforts to inject some italics into your comment – it is pretty much the same deal. Front/back rank but nothing about a literal position that the, er, traditional roguelike draws upon. Fights In Tight Spaces even squeezes the concept into the title– how will you navigate these small spaces while killing everyone?

    Oh and there you go: Fights In Tight Spaces is a deckbuilder which has you worry about space and movement. Eek, I think someone’s already done Ace Up Your Sleeve.

11. Joel did you realize that Fights in Tight Spaces can be sung to the tune of “Nights in White Satin”? It is not your fault that this is running through my head but I am sharing it anyway.

12. If that’s what you need to do to see yourself through the anxiety of election night, knock yourself out.

13. Would prefer to just literally knock myself out, honestly.