Online Saturday - Squad Busters - My First Hour, 10 Games 5 Wins. It's A Game Of The Year Contender

This Saturday i tried out a new Mobile multiplayer game called Squad Busters. It's from Supercell  and is a cross over with their other games. This means, characters from those games are in Squad Busters and can be on your team. I've never played a Supercell game before so i don't have much context as to who the characters are or what game they're from. It didn't matter. i honestly think this is something that fans can enjoy but also those, like me, can enjoy too.

Squad Busters is a PVP game where 10 teams face off against each other. the aim is to get the most emeralds. to do so you start with one character and have to defeat monsters to earn coins. earning coins means you can open chests and get more characters. once you get 3 of the same character, they fuse into one larger character meaning you can get more. every time you open a chest and get a new character, the price increases. Eventually you start attacking the larger monsters or other players to get money and emeralds. once one of your characters has no health, your team gets smaller but chests drop in price so you have a chance to rebuild your squad. each round is 4 minutes long and you're slowly pushed towards the center of the map. along the edges, prickly vines appear whilst in the center is a huge emerald mine. if you loose all your characters, you're out. if you survive until the end, the team with the most emeralds wins.

If that sounds a little complicated, don't worry. Squad Busters has a fantastic tutorial that'll introduce most of these concepts to you as you play. i'd argue the game is deceptively simple at first as it can need a lot of strategy. the players you can use in a level are limited to those you've collected, either via post game chests or from the shop. So if you don't have Gregg, you're unable to cut down the coin trees. There are characters that can heal your squad, characters that can summon monsters for your squad, characters that can attack at range, and characters who attack close up. which ones of these you get pick from the in-game chests as you build your team can have a big impact on your results.

As a mobile game, it was great that there was no additional download when the game started and there were no ads being forced upon us. the screen layout looked well designed for the #iPhone14pro screen with it's rounded corners and #DynamicIsland not being an issue at all. what's probably more impressive is how easy the controls are. when you move, you don't attack. when you don't move, you attack. it's nice and simple but more importantly it's effective and makes the game very accessible.

Squad Busters not only is a Free To Play Mobile Game of the Year Contender, it's also a Multiplayer Game of the Year Contender on any platform. Supercell have crafted a game that that's equally simple and strategic, accessible and deep, and i lamented in the video that it's only out on mobile as it would be a lot of fun on a pocketable portable or #Switch. 

Version 4.326.10 played

Mobile Friday - Dragon BUURRP! - I Can Recommend This Game Now, But There's Potential To Be Better

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Dragon BUURRP!, from developers Wemade Max.

The name grabbed my attention but it wasn't the reason why i chose to play it. the screenshots from the iOS store looked really cool. i used to play Monster Strike and this looked like something similar. so those two things together made me excited to give this a try.

It starts with a little story that was enough for me, tho it's strange we have to progress the story ourselves instead of it doing it manually. then we're straight into the game. it was a little much as on screen it's trying to tell us how to play as well as trying to tell us what each of the enemies do. all it needed was to separate them. thankfully the controls are simple and so is the premise, so it was easy to get into.

The tutorial goes silent until after the game. It's a shame as we're playing the full game so we're suddenly faced with the choice of three and it takes a second to understand what's happening. thankfully, this first level of the game is easy so i imagine it's harder to loose than win so what ever we pick is probably fine. I didn't know how long this first section was and it kept on going. the game could do better with this first time playing. 

the tutorial is one of the bigger problems with Dragon BUURRP!. the tutorial is basic and does the bare minimum. thankfully, the game is still very accessible and there doesn't seem to be any penalty for failing as it all goes towards earning money that can be spent to improve your character. after each run, the only thing kept is the money you earn. so when you do another run your character has the improved stats from levelling up but all the moves are back to zero.

 as we played we unlocked the ability to play as other dragons, challenge mode, and the tutorial introduced us to equipment. But after an hour it felt like there was still a lot left to be explained. it's possible the tutorial will address it later. the biggest example of this is at the end of the video where i looked at the main menu and all the notifications.

Even tho Dragon BUURRP! has these shortcomings, the basic gameplay is great. i had a lot of fun playing this. the graphics are good and the enemy design and introductions are clear standouts. the music is fine but i would've liked more variety. in the video i say i wanted something more epic for the boss battles, but what there is is fine. 

With a little work, the game as a whole could make a top 5 game of the year list easy. as it stands, just from the basic gameplay alone, it's top 10. but as i was playing it i kept thinking of ways the game could grow. i feel that there's a lot of potential with Dragon BUURRP!, it's a question of how well the developers will support the game. there have been a few patches already since release so i hope this will continue. i recommend it as it is, but it's also small enough that it's a game i can recommend you keep on your phone and come back to over and over again. 

Version 1.0.6 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Europa On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Europa, from developers Novadust Entertainment and Helder Pinto. This is the most recent update of the DEMO. i don't know when it was updated, but it did update before i played it.

I had seen a little of this game before i downloaded the demo, but i hadn't worked out if this was just a generic title or if it related the the moon of Jupiter. So part of me wanted to try out this demo because it looks good, but i also wanted to see if i would be able to answer if it is related to Jupiter.

Going in, i didn't know what the story is or what the point was. the demo does give us a little bit of story via collectable pages to a diary. i think i found them all, they're yellow beacons you can see as you explore the world, but they never told me what my point was. Nor did playing the demo itself. i came away intrigued by the story and wanting to know more, but i also had no idea what the point of any of it was.

This is a little surprising not only because of the length of the demo, and i imagine the it's direct from the start of the game, but also because such focus is put on us from the story we've collected. It's clear we're important to someone and there was a plan. But i don't know if that plan has failed or worked, or as i assumed that we're actually further into the future than expected. the story starts with us at a grave but with no real sense as to who this grave belongs to. either i missed it or it's not explicit enough.

There's much to like about the game. graphically it's impressive and whilst it doesn't look the sharpest, i actually liked the smooth look to it as the art design looks like it was chosen with this, probably due to the limits of the Switch in mind. i enjoyed the music, too. Our character looks a little like an animated hobbit but that's fine. the animals and robots look great and distinct. i did feel that some of the buildings tho looked a little Star Wars.

Except for one place, the game does a great job of leading you from place to place, from beacon to beacon, and even helps show there are other collectables to find. But it did faulter when it came to finding the third energy ball thing. 

another little missed opportunity is that there is no link to get the game from the eShop. this is more surprising when the demo ends with a trailer for the game and takes us back to the home menu. we've played it and watched a trailer for it, so why no have a link to the eShop to Wishlist it or buy it.

My concern is that there are these little things throughout this demo. i can't say one way or another now if the game itself will have many other little things that would take away from the overall experience with the game. It is a good demo and one i'd happily recommend to new and experienced players. but i think i would also recommend Wish-listing first and waiting to see how polished the game ends up being.

Backlog Conquering - Tearaway: Unfolded On PS4 - Part 4 - A Surprising Twist

Near the end, i genuinely thought that Part 4 of playing Tearaway Unfolded on PlayStation 4 was going to be the final part. there had been hints of trees in the clouds and i thought that might be cool to see and be the final step. but when we were catapulted towards the entrance/exit i thought this was it. and then it wasn't and then i ended the video.

I honestly wouldn't have minded if the game ended there. i didn't feel that the story of our character was complete, but i would've accepted that the game had shown everything it was going to. Now it's not finished and who knows how much more there'll be, i'm a little concerned. i'm wondering how the game will be able to keep things fresh or if it'll just repeat everything we've learned so far.

Tearaway Unfolded continues to be a fun game. i really enjoyed swinging my controller to sound the bells and discovering the hidden area with the Elk was nice. But the camera is starting to annoy me. the game should've either taken full control like the early God of War games or let me take control. right now we're both in control and we seem to have a differing opinion of where it should be. Ai should be used for things like that, it should learn how i play and where i want the camera. Also, how would have you made a snowflake?! 

Stories on Tuesday - When the Past Was Around - Part 1

*Apologies for all the noise in the background. it's been a very windy and rainy day here in Japan. i did try waiting a few hours before recording, but the weather never improved so i had to start. Even now, around 4 hours later, it's still rough outside. The noise is from my audio, so over on Ko-Fi from tomorrow there'll be a version that's just game audio.

Hello and welcome to Stories on Tuesday. we have a new game and it's When the Past Was Around. I'm playing this on PS4.

I'm not a big fan of point and click adventure games so once i saw the pointer appear on the screen i was a little concerned. i often find the game logic is different to my own logic and it can be frustrating trying to work out what the game wants me to do, when all i want is story.

Thankfully in this part, there was only once where i was truly stuck but there were a couple of times i needed to think about things. I think we're about half way through the story so maybe next week's part 2 is all i need to finish the game.

So far, the story telling has been done with no audio commentary from anyone in the game. it's been told via pictures, sometimes moving, on the screen. i don't mind this approach too much, but it does mean how i interpret the story and what the game's story actually is could be different. I'm hoping that by the end of the game i'll get a complete picture. but at the moment, i don't think i'm quite grasping the story they're trying to tell.

Cloud Monday - Far: Changing Tides - Part 2 - It Needs Manual Saves As A Cloud Based Game

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Far: Changing Tides via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 1, https://youtu.be/fELEYPvIhEc, i talked about how some aspects of the game's design work well as a game being streamed from the cloud and other aspects didn't work well. that holds true after Part 2, but what has solidified for me is that the lack of a Manual Save feature in Far: Changing Tides is too much of a hinderance to the point where i wouldn't recommend streaming this from the cloud.

I do think that Far: Changing Tides has some other gameplay issues, namely the platforming, but it's the save system that holds it back. it does have an auto save feature and we saw in this video that it puts you right back where it saved. The only issue is, i didn't fully know what was about to happen. so when it started and we're heading straight for a wall and i was carrying something, i kinda had to just let it happen. i don't know why there couldn't have been an auto save as the boat game to a standstill or not something in the boat itself that could do a manual save, like a hammock. 

It's hard to trust the auto save when i see it saving in the middle of the ocean for no apparent reason and then not saving when we reach once populated areas.  we're only given a 20 second count down before we're kicked off the service if there's an issue. and in a game where not much happens for long stretches of time, or there are periods of non story related busy work, i feel that we're going to end up having to do a lot of it again because of the auto save.

I'm not saying that Far: Changing Tides is a bad game. the music is good and atmospheric. i'm enjoying the art design and watching the world pass by. but actually playing it can feel a bit of a chore sometimes when all i want is the story, and it's not been great at telling it either. it's left it up to interpretation via environmental story telling and i'm not sure i've understood it fully. 

if you want to play Far: Changing Tides, i'd recommend downloading it as it's only 2.12GB. i feel that loss of HDD space is better than the possible loss of progress due to the auto save.

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - Using All 6 Dragons In The Dragon Carnival

In Pokemon Unite there is a dragon Carnival taking place. this brings items to buy, challenges to complete, and new game mode. In this video i use all 6 available dragon type Pokemon in the new "Full-Burst Battle! Dragon Dustup" quick battle mode.

In this mode, it's only dragon types. i already have Duraludon so i started with it, but thankfully all the other dragon types are free to use in this mode. Out of the 7 matches i took part in, my teammates and I won 5 out of the 7!