Playlist (May 2020) (Patreon)

Hey everyone. As usual, you can watch this month's Playlist on YouTube by clicking the play icon above. Or you can read it as an article, below! Also, by request, the video has full captions like the main GMTK episodes.

Ring Fit Adventure

When the lockdown kicked off, I quickly ordered a bunch of stuff to keep myself sane. A huge LEGO set, a whole stack of books, the new Animal Crossing, and - as soon as I could find it in stock - Ring Fit Adventure.

If you don't know, this is Nintendo's latest exercise and fitness game, just like Wii Fit. This time you strap one joycon to your leg, and put the other in this crazy ring. The ring can then be squeezed and stretched, but there's a huge amount of tension to it so it works out your arms when you do so.

From there, the game guides you though all sorts of exercises that you must mime, from running on the spot, to squeezing the ring, to doing yoga, to crushing the ring against your abs.

What's bonkers is that the game is presented as this cute, on-rails RPG - all done in the Zelda Breath of the Wild engine. So you'll fight monsters, do side quests, have boss fights, craft items, and travel across worlds. It's light and fluffy and definitely doesn't require much brain power…

But I'm finding that it provides the perfect motivation to keep me playing on a regular basis. The game constantly mixes up what you're doing - perhaps one boss forces you to only use arm-based exercises. Then you'll need to paddle across a lake, which involves your abs. Then you'll need to swap between different colour-coded exercises to get bonus damage against colour-coded enemies.

And there are great ebbs and flows to the game. Moments where you take a break to craft some smoothies, and then huge boss fights that will leave you absolutely knackered. Plus, doing a couple stages is about the perfect length for a fitness session, for me.

Now, I can't speak to the game's actual power as an exercise product. I'm not sure if I'm going to look like Schwarzenegger by the time I fight the final boss - probably not. But as someone who has struggled to maintain a regular exercise routine, I have to say that Ring Fit has lasted the test of time so far. Every other day for well over a month, I've logged in and done a couple levels. And because it touches on every part of the body, and leaves me with achey joints and wobbly legs, i'm guessing it's doing something.

All told, I'd easily recommend this one - provided you can find it in stock, that is.

Lonely Mountains Downhill

This is a delightful game about riding a mountain bike down a perilous low-poly mountain path. It actually reminds me of one of my favourite things in games, which is riding vehicles down Mount Chiliad in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Watching the vehicles careen off the edge is hilarious, and managing to take every corner and get to the bottom safely is hugely satisfying.

So this is that one moment, as a whole game. It's the sort of thing that will live and die by the quality of the game's physics and controls, and thankfully they have been honed to perfection so you can just focus on improving your skills, you reactions, and - importantly - your knowledge of the mountain.

The game has a really elegant way of easing you in. At first, it simply asks you to get to the bottom of the mountain: doesn't matter how long it takes, and how many crashes you do. You can just enjoy the scenery. Then it asks you to do it again, and this time either do it quickly, or do it without crashing much. 

Once those are done, even more strict demands are made of you. But by this point, you've become so much better at controlling the bike, and so much more familiar with the layout of the track, that it's not as impossible as it once seems.

Despite the subject matter of careening towards certain death, I actually found the game rather relaxing. It's something enjoyably playful to do while listening to podcasts, with just enough of a progression to keep you engaged. It's a good'un, check it out.

Planet Zoo

One of the things I want to do with Game Maker's Toolkit is explore other genres than the ones I usually touch on. Such as strategy and simulation games. So, to that end I've been playing a whole bunch of Planet Zoo. This one comes from Frontier, who did Planet Coaster. But this one's got a few less rollercoasters and a few more rhinos. 

So you'll build a park out of paths, fences, trees, and decorations. And then buy animals and plop them in your habitats. You'll then need to adapt those habitats to keep your critters happy, like making sure elephants have water to swim in, and shy animals have houses to hide in. You'll have to think about temperature, the origin of the plants in each enclosure, and the number of animals in each pen.

Ultimately, the game becomes this balancing act of trying to make a zoo that you can run profitably, but also one that is fair and kind to the animals. And in fact, the game won't let you get far if you're not thoughtful about animal welfare and conservation. While cash can be used to buy trees and low-grade animals, you'll need special Zoo Bux to buy the best critters like lions and giraffes. But the only way to get those is to release animals into the wild. And the happier than animal is, the more money you get.

So where games like Planet Coaster are about constantly building more and more stuff, Planet Zoo is more about constantly turning over your existing menagerie. You'll get animals, make them happy, get them to breed, and then release them into the wild - so you can afford even more exotic animals. It's an interesting twist on the genre.

Planet Zoo also has a very good tutorial, I feel. The game has this story about a cartoon villain who bank rolls all the zoos but doesn't care about animals. In each level, you're plopped into an existing zoo and asked to step in and fix things. Maybe cleaning all the water and improving the welfare of the critters before the inspector comes in six months time. 

This means you don't have the daunting task of starting with a blank patch of land and the goal to "build a zoo". You're guided gently into the process with a bunch of small tasks to show you how the different systems work. And even when the story mode does ask you to build from scratch, it asks you to have your zoo fit certain criteria, which gives you goals to work towards.

Overall, this is a really good game. Though, there are certainly some fiddly things in there. Like Planet Coaster you have free rein over building stuff which means it's possible to construct absurdly elaborate parks - but if, like me, you just wanna do stuff simply you might find that it's needlessly complicated at times. Also, employee work zones are frustratingly finicky to set-up, leading to all sorts of AI pathing issues that I shouldn't have to deal with.

Other than that: this is the only game to make me frustratedly ask "why aren't my hippos mating" and that deserves some recognition. 

Thanks so much for reading, I'll see you next month