For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Fortress Saga: AFK RPG on my iPhone 14 Pro. This game from CookAppsGames is also out on #Android.
Fortress Saga: AFK RPG has risen to the top of the gaming charts on #iOS so i was keen to see what it was about the game that was so popular. i cam away from this hour with the game very impressed with it. the team at CookAppsGames have created a highly accessible game, one with a great soundtrack, and even managed to combine the tutorial into building how the world works. Fortress Saga: AFK RPG also makes smart use of the phone's screen, making sure to not only avoid the dynamic island but also the curves at each of the four edges.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Howl. This game, from developers Mi'pu'mi Games, is out now.
I was curious about this game. it's visuals are unique and interesting but the trailer made the game look like it was really difficult, not just in terms of difficulty but also in gameplay. So i went into this demo hoping that it would give some answers.
This demo doesn't appear to be bespoke, it appears to be from the start of the game. on one hand it's good because we get the back story and tutorials, but on the other hand the tutorials aren't great and there's not much added to the story during this demo.
Frequent viewers will know i don't like the use of tutorial cards. this game does add a picture to the cards and tries to show the cards one at a time rather than all at once. but i don't think it works as the cards, when they come, feel out of place and not as useful as they would've been if they were shown earlier. i can't help but feel the game missed out on using the story to do the tutorial, or at least a large part of it. for example, instead of saying in the story that we were trained, why not let us play that. more backstory could be added, more character stuff and world building would help us care more. and once the tutorial finished, the game would start where it does in the demo.
In the video i complain that the tutorial cards are also underutilized. the biggest one was when a card told us how to turn on assist mode. it never said what that mode does, on the card, and just gave instructions on where to find it instead of giving us the option to turn it on from that tutorial card.
All this helped answer the question i had about this game in that it doesn't tell you enough and expects you to work it out for yourself. so it's not very accessible to new or less experienced gamers. So, as a demo, it does work as i now know this isn't the game for me.
This is a video of my playthrough of Abzû on my #PlayStation4. I have edited together all 3 parts into one long video. the cut between each video is a little rough but i don't think it gets in the way of enjoying this playthrough. there is no commentary either.
Welcome to Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday! Sit back and either watch me play through, with no commentary, the cup or leave it running in the background as BGM!
I play and earn all the achievements from The Pixel Zuoh Cup Revival! ( 2023/11/13 9:00～2023/11/20 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.
This week is the Pixel Zuoh Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/eREeSANOKVg. I think i did better in that cup than in this one!
It wasn't a great cup this week. i only played against two other players in two games. the rest of the games were up against the computer. i found it fairly difficult to make the needed matches for this cup quickly. it meant that whilst i got to the final boss a few times, i just didn't have enough time to defeat them. Without making the needed combos to get the big points, i wouldn't attack the enemies hard enough. so throughout this cup there are times when it looks like i'm about to make a big attack but i don't because i haven't triggered the attack bonus.
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Elite: Dangerous. I streamed this game, developed by Frontier Developments, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my launch model PS4.
Part 1, https://youtu.be/0tB-9Q96zZgl, went really well and surprised me with how accurate and responsive the motion controls were. This video carries on where part 1 finished. the goal, in game, was to do as the game suggested, take on some trials. This section continued on with the game not really giving enough information on how best to do things. there were a lot of labels so it wasn't too bad, but these small accessibility issues do add up.
Something worthy of praise is how the game has automated certain things. As this is somewhat accurate, the distances between planets and solar systems is vast. so to help with navigation, the game has a system where it locks-on to the planet, takes control of our ship, and gets us there. this has been used to help us dock at stations, too. Having such an accessible feature also becomes useful if the internet connection isn't good. if we lose it, we know what we were doing. if the connection stabilises, then we've probably arrived at our destination.
Whilst the game itself may not be fore everyone, it is well designed to be streamed from PlayStation Plus to us. So much so that i would recommend it.
This month's Splatoon 3 Salmon Run item is the Brinestone Boots and like the other Salmon Run items, my goal is to get the item twice and pick the best of the two to keep. This went better than last weeks Eggstra Work Event, https://youtu.be/fohHFUg29QU, not just in that my teams and i were able to complete all waves but also in that it was much quicker getting into a game and there was better rotation of the weapons, too. What was also nice was how the weapon selection today went from good to great. often in Salmon Run there's a weapon i really don't want to use. but today, there were a couple of "OK" and some i had a lot of fun with.
It only took 6 games to get the item twice, but as the video was short in comparison to my other Splatoon 3 videos, i did an extra video to get to 1,000 points. we also had a game where we went up against the King Salmonid but we were only able to do about half damage. There were many games today where there was great team work and i try to call it out when i see it. these games weren't just fun to play because we did all waves, they were fun because of the teamwork.
This weekend there is the 36th Maximus cup in Tetris 99. the prize this cup is a Super Mario RPG theme. I haven't played the game since the last cup, https://youtu.be/5t4uTf9zjAg, and i definitely felt rusty this time. it felt a lot more difficult and it felt like there were more mistakes. some of those are mine as i have a cold and was coughing. some were down the the poor d-pad on my #Switch Pro Controller. but it also felt like some of it is down to the game and it not registering my button presses. it's an odd sensation.
