Back in Alpha 1.3 of Picsie, one of the features I added was to have the windows position differently depending on if there were already Picise instances loading. This isn’t as simple as it sounds, and I ended up prostrating myself at the feet of Stack Overflow, begging for wisdom.
Here’s what I learned.
After mentioning the VVVVVV soundtrack in a recent post I thought I might carry on inflicting my musical tastes on an imaginary readership. So, in the first of a semi-regular feature on my favourite game video game soundtracks and general spamming of Bandcamp links, let’s kick off with… Bastion.
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Yesterday I mentioned that Sparki was the second Kickstart project I’d backed, and I thought it was worth pointing to the first. Sui Generis is, to quote the project page”an original open world RPG for the PC featuring dynamic story and physics based gameplay.” So what made it stand out from the crowd?
For only the second time I just backed a Kickstarter project, this time “Sparki – The Easy Robot For Everyone“. With luck it will manage to get the second half of its $60,000 goal by the end of May 2013.
So why Sparki?
VVVVVV is at once utterly charming and controller-snappingly difficult. Retro graphics, exquisitely responsive controls, a single gameplay mechanic and a pitch-perfect chiptune soundtrack come together to form one of my favourite games of all time. Certainly, my 3DS has been used for little else. Let’s talk completion and speed.
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A while ago on Reddit someone joked that they’d just written a 4,000 word essay without saving until they were done.
My hero. I can barely write this post without saving.
Let’s start with a confession, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, I am a save-scummer. Yes, I will shamelessly abuse save mechanics to achieve goals, to ghost a level, to make the best kill, to keep that health bar full or – depressingly frequently – just to beat the #£%&ing level at all.
Stealth games are my biggest failing here. Love a good stealth-em-up, me. Thief, Commandos, Deus Ex, Hitman, the whole slippery, shadowy lot of them. Even Dishonoured when the voice acting manages to not induce crippling boredom.
The problem is, I’m really just a bit crap at them. Commandos was an exception there, but when you consider that the player had total situational awareness and combine that with the slow, careful pace it was often more a logic puzzle than a combat game. Other than that, call me Captain Ineptitude. Skulker McDeadthief. Agent Clompenboots.
Hence save-scumming, the ancient and noble art of mashing the reload button until you make it another five pieces down the corridor and saving again. Save-scummers. You will know us by the trails of faded F5 and F9 keys.
But perhaps there is hope…
Let’s start by acknowledging that the latest entry in the series, BioShock Infinite, is a pretty game. Really pretty. Staggeringly pretty. The use of colour and depth, the tiny details and the sweeping vistas, it’s one of the best looking games to come along in a long while.
So why, with such great graphics, and what by all accounts is a story and an ending worthy of discussion and dissection, did I stop playing after only an hour, well before reaching the game’s main hook? Two reasons.
A friend bought me Limbo for Christmas and according to Steam I finished it in four hours. For significantly more than four hours the game has sat in the back of my mind, refusing to settle, and I’m finally able to articulate why.