Demo Play Thursday - Guayota On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of #Guayota , from developers Team Delusion and publisher DearVillagers .

The screenshots on the web eShop page made the dungeons look really cool and that was the main reason why i chose to play it. i also thought the look of the characters was quite interesting and wondered how it would be incorporated into the story and world as a whole.

This demo is rather short and at times it feels like pieces of the story have been cut from it as things don't make too much sense at times. for example, we start on a big boat, and the next thing is we're on the beach with two small boats. at first i thought maybe we're dreaming or ship wrecked, but the other people who have landed are busy working. so did they leave us behind? did they let us rest, and if so why were we on the beach. 

Even tho the demo is short, it's full of inconsistences like this that really detract from the story as a whole. we're told our job is to record, and yet the first interesting thing we see on the island we don't record. nor is that something we can initiate ourselves, it's only at specific points the game wants even tho the island is full of new and interesting things we would never have seen before. there are other character interactions too that don't make sense with what they say to us and what they do.

It sticks out a lot as the point of the game is to tell a specific story of the indigenous peoples of the Canary Islands. with the demo as short as it is, i can't say if this carries into the final game, nor can i say if this is specific to the demo. most demos will say that some things are cut to avoid story spoilers, but this demo says nothing. 

The gameplay is something worth praising. the graphics are great, it's a stunner on Switch. the areas we visited looked interesting, unique, and clear. then there's the way light moves around the dungeons, too. the controls are tight and simple, and the puzzles were introduced in a way that was simple to understand.

After playing the demo for Guayota i'm left with the impression that it's a fun game to play, but with a forgettable story. it could be described as a good podcast game. if this demo isn't a representation of the final game, then they've failed with it 'cause after playing the demo i'm not interested in getting Guayota. the puzzle side of the game doesn't interest me and with the story being a mess, i'm not interested in that either.

Demo Play Thursday - The Land Beneath Us On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of The Land Beneath Us, developed by FairPlay Studios and published by Dear Villagers.

This demo is another that i chose to play because the screenshots on the #eShop page look cool. But i didn't read what the game was actually about before i played it so i was a little surprised that it was a Rouge Like. It doesn't reveal that it's a demo when you start, but it did have some cool music and story that got me hooked and wanting to play.

After an interesting introduction, we're dropped into a tutorial world that does a great job explaining what's happening and often has pictures. I feel like gifs or short videos would've been even more helpful. But after that we're dropped into the world and the difficulty is evident from the start. I feel like the tutorial does a poor job in setting what our expectation should be for the initial difficulty, but that could also be true to for the game itself as it's initial level(s) could be smaller and act as putting the tutorial into actual practice.

It's never made clear in this demo how long it actually is. I think i found out it's just the first task of completing Llosgi but i'm not sure as i think the demo broke and let me continue back to the main room without the reward i should've got. I should've been able to take that reward and upgrade my character, but when i went to do so i didn't have the item i got from beating the boss. I'm thinking i'm not supposed to see this and rather it's more that the demo broke.

To get to the boss, you have to travel to stages across the level. we have some choice by choosing a teleporter to take us from one stage to another stage. But i forgot from the tutorial and the game doesn't seem to remind us again so i had to try and learn as i went. 

This Rouge Like has a couple of mechanics in play. when you play, you're collecting gold that can be used across this run and at shops and item chests in the stages and you're collecting souls that are kept when you die and that can be used to upgrade your soul tech. But upgrading via soul tech never really felt like it did much. numbers increased, but in the actual game i didn't feel a benefit from it. especially compared to the things i would loot or could buy. This made playing the game feel more random and luck based than perhaps was the intention. i mention it in the video that it wasn't satisfising to beat the boss because i felt like i did it because i got lucky in getting epic items rather than because i had been levelling up and improving. 

Unfortunately for The Land Beneath Us, this demo has made the gameplay feel luck based rather than skill based and that's something i'm not looking for in a Rouge Like. Rouge Legacy 2 is example where the things i bring back when i die are used to improve my skills and my abilities and i feel it in game. the random luck element of that game is our character's class and skills. But because of our levelling up, even these feel like they get better. But crucially, those random elements have pluses and minuses about them and they're easily understood by the player so each run may not beat the game but each run has it's own uses. But because The Land Beneath Us is soo random and luck based, a couple of the runs i had felt like a waste of time. especially when the cost of upgrades ramps up quickly and yet i don't feel any benefit from them.

The Land Beneath Us has some great graphics and music and ideas. But the gameplay doesn't quite match that level of quality. it feels like it needs rebalancing at a minimum. As the game isn't out, i would still recommend playing the demo as whilst it's not the Rouge Like i'm looking for, maybe it's one you'll enjoy as there are some great aspects of the game.