#switch
#switch
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Modeled in the style of a board game, Lightfingers is a party heist game that plays out like a living diorama. Players take turns rolling dice, moving around a board, and strategically playing cards on their way to be the first to get away with four bags of loot. As they perform heists they draw unwanted attention from guards and will have to duck them or stash it away before their inevitable capture to avoid losing it.
What’s striking is how well the materials of the game are well realized. There’s a physicality to the board and all the playing pieces. Characters feel like living miniatures, and a wonderful little mechanical action precedes movement as a tiny arm lifts, moves, and flips tiles of the board as they’re uncovered. When the game moves from its turn based back and forth to the heist action sequences, everyone comes together to interact with its playset style environments. The attacking player controls their character, while everyone else pulls and turns plungers and cranks to operate the deathtraps of each secure location.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
With a focus on momentum and aerial combat, Speed Brawl brings one of the best feeling combat systems of modern memory. It combines elements from popular time trial platformers alongside mechanics of tag based fighting games like Marvel Vs. Capcom to create a brawler with a wide range of expressive tools to master. It brings together the need to shave off seconds to get that gold ranking, and the desire to build even more elaborate combos in training mode. All of this is wrapped up in fantastic and varied character designs, each with their own distinct playstyle and synergies.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Shooters live on spectacle. A good shooter can get by on satisfying gunplay, but an exceptional one often enhances it with strong aesthetics and world design. Aesthetically, Shikhondo has it nailed. Its detailed, illustrated style evokes both modern anime and traditional Japanese ink paintings, with subtle animated touches. The animation itself uses popular paper doll style techniques, with small distortions to the illustrations to give them a bit more life. It’s an impressive look, and even the UI feels stylish. But even with this close attention to the art direction, Shikhondo has some major inconsistencies, which damage both the art and its readability as a game.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
I was totally wrong about SNK Heroines. It’s not the followup to SNK Gals’ Fighter nor the girly themed KOF14 style game I got on first impression. In fact, it completely ditches the familiar mechanics of King of Fighters or any other SNK fighters and goes for a pared down approach to tag style battles.
It’s astounding how many genre conventions SNK Heroines has stripped away. For instance, you can’t even crouch. You won’t deal with any high low mixups, or even any jumping cross ups, since blocking has now been moved to a Smash Bros style block button. Blocking can even be used in the air to do an air dodge, or combined with a direction to perform a dodge roll. Dodge rolls can even be done during blockstun for a small amount of meter.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Before you start Unexplored the first thing you’ll see is a few words from a man at a pub. He’ll tell you a story about the dungeon you’re about to enter, and for a few drinks he’ll tell you a few more. This is Unexplored being upfront with its intentions.
Most roguelikes are obsessed with the player story. They make their on the ever golden promise of emergent play–the idea that by jamming enough systems and variables into play they’ll eventually combine into a endless set of unique situations.
Unexplored is built in this same foundation, but proceeds with narrative as its first concern. More than the usual sets of enemies and situations, Unexplored is concerned with creating a history to each dungeon. It adds an archaeological aspect, connecting floors and laying out clues in writing.
By Amr (@siegarettes)
I started Airheart captivated by its beautiful world. A land set in the clouds, rendered in painterly style, populated with appealing mechanical designs. The story seemed intriguing too, setting up a journey through the clouds to the top layer, with revelations waiting for me. Instead I was surprised to find that Airheart was almost free of direction. Ascending cloud layers and upgrading my machine provided an implicit direction, but after the tutorial it was largely free of objectives or guidance. So I wandered the clouds, fishing, fighting bandits, and scrounging up enough money to try and push higher each time.
For a while this provided a pleasant grind. Flying about the clouds and catching fish almost put in the same mindset as thatgamecompany’s Flow. There was a similar relaxed vibe, and a back and forth between the layers that recalled the same changes in intensity. That all changed after the first plane crash.
by Amr (@siegarettes )
Some games use their user interfaces to great effect. They become expressive tools that communicate mood, give tactile sensations, or reveal and obfuscate information as contributions to the narrative. Then there’s Frost, which gives a somewhat interesting digital deck building game all the fussiness of a physical board game.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
I’m a sucker for a good racing game. Hell, I’ll hang around for longer than I’ll admit for an OK arcade racer. So when All-Star Fruit Racing showed up looking like it had stolen SEGA All-Stars Racing’s drifting I jumped on it. Seriously, the drifting in those games is incredible.
All-Star Fruit Racing’s drifting, as it turns out, is not incredible. It’s not even good. In fact the driving in general is underwhelming and by trying to build on this middling foundation All-Star Fruit Racing ends up with an inconsistent and mundane racer.
