Demo Play Thursday - ISLANDERS: New Shores On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the #NintendoSwitch version of ISLANDERS: New Shores from Coatsink.

I'n my personal time, i have tried the original ISLANDERS game on PS4. whilst i appreciated the art and music, i kept butting up against it's rules and logic. With this sequel, i had hoped that the puzzle aspect would've been tweaked a little and focus would've been put on to the user experience with the game. unfortunately, playing this demo was perhaps more confusing that when i played it on PlayStation 4.

Simply put, ISLANDERS: New Shores came across as a Soulslike. the rudimentary tutorial failed to teach the buttons, with iconography that would be confusing to Switch players, rules that can only be learned through experience, and bonuses that are only spotted when they're briefly mentioned on screen at the result screen though how to get the bonus is never taught to the player.

The game is too quick with the information and this was evident from the start when loading the demo when the message about high scores and auto saves was on screen for 3 seconds or less. it took completing the first two island, if not all three, before i saw all the bonuses that were applied for the score. with such a chill atmosphere, it's weird to see information appear and disappear so quickly.

With randomly generated islands, it's unclear if the islands i played in this demo would be the same as what other players had. if they are, please let me know. this island generator makes it difficult to know how the high score system works. it's unclear in the messaging if the game itself generates the islands so everyone is playing different levels or if the developers used Ai to generate the levels in this game and everyone is playing the same. 

After playing the demo, i know ISLANDERS: New Shores isn't for me. i bounced off the first and you can hear my enthusiasm diminish whilst playing this demo. i'm not saying it's vibe is bad, i enjoyed the art and especially liked the music. i just don't find it approachable and to me it feels more like an expansion of what worked from the first with none of the changes i felt it needed to be even better. So as a demo, it worked for me as i know that it's not for me.

Backlog Conquering - Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition On PS4 - Part 9

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

It finally happened, i got to the boss fight. well first i had to finish the fight that crashed on me during the previous part. but once that was done the same combination of tricky platforming "puzzles" and fights with enemies had to be tackled. one of the things that slowed me down was actually a simple bit of platforming going up to the top of the temple! But once i was there i aimed to defeat the bos ... and failed. that fight with the boss was unlike anything we've encountered so far. for me, it felt like an unnatural spike in difficulty. i spend around 30 minutes of this part failing over and over with the boss, not really understanding how or why. so there'll be at least 1 more part!

You can watch other parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/y20ZZ5IllmY

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/OxoUuZ8dYno

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/aSABHs1VrF4

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/RkrZPlBT1f4

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/WZHkHZEaD0Q

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/VMNT2XpjDhE

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/RX5hM88wIyM

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/TJZAYKYTjrM

Stories on Tuesday - Visual Novel: I.B. - Part 6 - Chapter 6

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the iOS version of Visual Novel: I.B. from Entabridge. 

This is Part 6 and it covers the game's fifth chapter titled The Future.

You can check out the previous parts at these links:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/yclMfGCp1Uo

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/pKZdQNymjhk

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/I0W5ejOVq6I

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/TenlvcJHmDk

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/I7g8FoFqT1Y

Cloud Monday - F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch - Part 1 - No Manual Saves

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

This is a game i've been wanting to try for a while. the artwork of the world looked so good and i've always been curious as to what type of sidescroller it would actually be. But as part of this series, the most important question is going to be how suitable is it as a game being streamed to my #PS4 via the cloud.

The answer so far is that it's not that suitable. that's not a knock against the game for how good it is as a game. this is about how suitable it is and how well adapted it is for the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Platform. The biggest problem F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch has is that there are no manual saves. the biggest issue this platform has is that there is only a 20 second warning before disconnection.

Another potential issue is that the game zooms out quite a lot. the world on screen does look great, there's no issue with the artwork tho the pop-in can be a little distracting. a couple of times in this part the video we're playing gets some macro blocking or stream tears. because the camera is further out and our character on screen is therefore quite small, these disruptions are quite noticeable and do impact gameplay.

As for the game itself, i'm mostly enjoying it. getting around the world is easy and there are a lot of little short cuts and places to check out. the combat is taking a little time to get used to, you'll hear me say more than once that i would like a dodge. as we're early on, i'm still unlocking abilities. as for the story, it's not revealing too much right now but that could be because it feels like we're still in the tutorial first main mission. some things have been teased and i'm looking forward to playing again in Part 2.

Mobile Friday - Pompo: Backpack Heroes - Good Graphics And Mechanics But Wasted Story And Tutorial

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Switching Pompo: Backpack Heroes from developers Tae won Go and Dave Studios on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I checked the App store on Friday and saw this newly released game topping the Free to Play Charts on the Japanese App Store. i was really curious as to why this was doing so well so that's why i've checked out Pompo: Backpack Heroes.

The game starts strong with a story introduction that hints that this group of characters  might be accidental heroes. But the next hour or so with the game almost ignores all of that. what i played didn't match the set up at all. if the game hadn't started so strongly with it's story and characters, then this wouldn't have been much of an issue. but because it does and them seemingly ignores so much of it, it really sticks out as a waste.

A new world is introduced to us by a character who seemingly knows about it. But that's it. the game makes little to no effort in tiring the game's mechanics into the world it's introduced. For example, the game introduces miners as a way to earn extra money. but this isn't done via a story beat, it's not done via a tutorial either. it's introduced as a mission that needs to be completed, there are no explanations as to who these miners are, where they are, or how it ties into anything in the game.

Pompo: Backpack Heroes is simple a bunch of mechanics tied together with great art and ease of gameplay. The game has a character who seems to know the world, but that character never acts as our guide or even helps with a tutorial. The weirdest part of the gameplay is how we started with a group, lost the group, and then spend no time trying to find our friends. instead a summon mechanic is added. and like most things in this game, there's no reason given for it, it's not tied into the story or the game world, and there's no summon animation. 

But Pompo: Backpack Heroes is mostly easy to play at a basic level. there are menus and abilities and power ups that i never touched in this first hour and it didn't seem to matter. that's not to say they won't in the future, but for now the game's lack of a tutorial and explanations don't seem to matter much as we're able to stumble through the opening section. However, a major mechanic, that i didn't expect, was introduced near the end of the video called Rebirth.

This concept is one i know of as it used to be popular in mobile and idle games a decade or so ago. but it's not one i've seen much of nowadays. essentially put, when the game starts to plateaux and you're unable to make any more progress or level up you're meant to use the Rebirth mechanic to rest some of your stats and gain a new currency that can be used to enhance your team. But with no tutorial on how best to use it, i can only hope that the game's missions are designed well enough to force the player to do it at the appropriate moment.

Pompo: Backpack Heroes looks great, with our team looking like Pixel Art but the world having a more water color look to it and there are giant monsters that look huge and very different to our team. the music is nice to, tho the gaps between songs/loops could've been dealt with better. the screen is smartly used, too. i only noticed one small issue with the Dynamic Island and a small issue when levelling up the miners. the placement is smart and enabled me to play most of the game with just one hand.

Pompo: Backpack Heroes is a fine game but there is so much wasted potential. if you're looking for an idle game that's easy to quickly pick up and play that maybe feels a little "retro", then this would do fine. but understand that even tho it makes a fantastic first impression, that's the only time any of that matters. it's possible the game will remember it's story later on, but in this first hour it doesn't and i can't guarantee it will.

Version 1.0.4 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Pokémon Friends On iOS

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the iOS version of Pokémon Friends from The Pokémon Company.

The Pokémon Company released Pokémon Friends this week across Switch and Mobile. On Nintendo Switch, the game is released as a cheap base version with optional DLC. but on Mobile, there is a free to start TRIAL/DEMO of the game as well as the Paid DLC base game and optional Paid DLC. The free to start nature of this version of Pokémon Friends is why i included it as part of the Demo Play Thursday series and not as part of Mobile Friday.

In this free to start version, we're severely limited in what we can do. we can only do one set of puzzle per day, when the base game lets us play many. there are further limitations in the amount of Pokémon Plushes available to make, puzzles in the game, and there are no quest puzzles from the town's folk.

From what we get to play, i enjoyed this game's approach to new players. it felt modern. a key example is that the tutorial messages only appeared when they were needed instead of overloading with messages at the start. another great approach is how for each puzzle there is a gif/video showing the type of puzzle it is. we saw something similar to this in the Hogtie demo, and just like that it doesn't reveal the actual answer to the puzzle. when it came to putting our plushes on display, i greatly appreciated that the game didn't rely on the shadow of the plush and instead put an icon on screen showing exactly where it would be placed. 

As a free to start game, Pokémon Friends isn't great as it's just too limited. but as a trial/demo, this version of Pokémon Friends works great. if you're curious about Pokémon Friends, try this before you buy the base game on your platform of choice.

Backlog Conquering - Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition On PS4 - Part 8

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

In Part 8 i tried a few more times to complete the Mine section by doing the third Mine challenge, but again i couldn't defeat the final boss. so i gave up and decided to go after the game's final boss. this final area has some decently hard platforming but what was really evident was how much harder it was getting from place to place because of the enemies. it was full of them! Thankfully the checkpointing seems to be keeping up with this pace so whilst i died a few times i was never far from where i was. The biggest disappointment was that the video ended with a game breaking bug.

You can watch other parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/y20ZZ5IllmY

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/OxoUuZ8dYno

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/aSABHs1VrF4

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/RkrZPlBT1f4

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/WZHkHZEaD0Q

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/VMNT2XpjDhE

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/RX5hM88wIyM