Dear subscribers, if you feel like chatting about anything at all from the February edition of the newsletter, please speak your mind in the comments here.
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It sounds to me like your poor 80 Days experience is due to interface issues, because I had no trouble with it on the iOS version.
iPhones: they’re safe from government spying AND better for games. Is there nothing they can’t do better than Android?
Hi Eric, nice to see you in the comments again. I still haven’t listened to your Matrix Revolutions podcast after the great Reloaded one.
Yes I suspected the interface issues I had were more Android based. I think I hadn’t had these issues I probably wouldn’t have parted ways with the game like I did, that it caused me judge whether I *realllly* wanted to more spend time with it. It magnified small issues (like I was failing to “achieve” anything).
I think the only way to keep your communications truly private from the government these days is to use cardboard and string to create a network they can’t get access to. But that doesn’t play Netflix.
How’s that Spellrazor? I’ve had a tab open with the Itch page for over a week now, but can’t seem to take the plunge.
I’m sad to hear about your issues with 80 Days’ UI. I was torn between getting it on Android and PC – obviously going with PC now.
I’ve not spent a lot of time on Spellrazor. You can spend a lot of time navigating the console (which is like Her Story in terms of interaction) but I exhausted it without finding much in the way to progress the story so far.
There are a lot of diary entries inside the game which I find stretches the sense of disbelief a little far. The arcade game seems not too difficult but somehow I can’t get further than level 5 – constantly worrying about missing secrets I think. Lots of spells which I find overwhelming. The presentation is really nice though. Or course: it is free.
I avoided the 80 Days pc version initially because I heard the graphics were not great, but that may be fixed now.
Using the word lots a lot.
I believe that 80 Days is now available for the PC on Steam if you ever want to give it another shot!
Well that’ll teach me not to read comments
I guess I’ll have to wait another year for the next Brasure comment after that embarrassing snafu.
I’ve completed 80 Days multiple times on an Android phone and didn’t run into any of the issues that have foxed Joel (even though I did the same thing in my first runs and tried to backtrack; I didn’t encounter a dead end). I do vaguely recall finding the inventory screen a bit fiddly but it was certainly not something that dominated my experience.
My only substantive criticism of the game is that there are certain areas through which it’s very difficult not to be channelled, though I gather they did address some of these in free content updates after I had stopped playing.
The trading is a massive gamble, at least until you’ve played enough that you know how to pursue routes including specific destinations. I think I’ve only successfully flogged high-value items in the matching location a couple of times, though it’s an awesome feeling when you do manage to pull it off.
Thanks for the AR shout out, Joel. You’re right that it has mostly gone without comment, although we have had a few lovely comments on the site itself. Outside that I think your newsletter and Jonathan McCalmont’s Ruthless Culture are the only venues which have remarked upon it. The general disinterest rather vindicates the decision.
Shaun, when I was trying to move things between cases I was always ending up with “do you want to sell this” or the item opening up when I just wanted the case view. Then trying to get the cases you scroll so I could move something around… If there was an easier way, I didn’t get it.
I’m still sorry that AR is closing (I finished your ridiculous podcast a few days ago) but I think that’s for my benefit. If you don’t feel like you were getting anything out of it then, well I guess it’s the right decision. As everyone tells me, we don’t get paid for these sites so it has to be for us at the end of the day. If that makes any sense whatsoever.
Oh, I certainly got something out of doing Arcadian Rhythms, even towards the end and during its quietest periods! But those returns were diminishing, and I decided I’d rather direct my finite free time elsewhere rather than double down on AR.
(The thought crossed my mind to experiment with my AR writing by self-imposing constraints and requirements, as I could have improved my craft through doing that, but I remember well that all my previous experiments were generally failures in terms of readers and responses. I could do it just for myself, sure, but fresh scenery felt more appealing to me. Besides, AJ was moving halfway across the world again – this time leaving the Xbox behind – and no one else seemed that into it any more.)