Playlist (August 2020) (Patreon)

Hey everyone. Mark here with your playlist  for August. As always this is a quick look at three games I've been playing recently. And, so, without further ado let's jump right into it. Video above, article below. Which to choose? You decide!

Fall Guys

So, unless you've been living under a rock for the past month, you've probably played - or at least seen - Fall Guys. But just for completeness sake, let me give you the elevator pitch: it's a 60 player obstacle course, where chubby bean-like blokes stumble their way past rolling balls, spinning blades, and perilous gaps. Basically, it's Takeshi's Castle, by way of Fortnite, with a bit of physics fun in there.

It's clearly the fad hit of the summer, but with good reason: it's really easy to pick up and play, and it's fun! The first level is always a goofy, mad-dash, knockabout party. But as the rounds go on, people get eliminated, and the stakes start to rise, it becomes really intense.

It also fixes the problem I have with battle royale games, which is pacing. PUBG and its pals are half an hour of slow accumulation and waiting, and then five seconds of intense action before, inevitably, I get killed and have to start from scratch. Fall Guys is fun immediately, which makes it really easy to binge.

Sure, there are problems here and there. The team games aren't much fun, and it basically feels random whether or not you're going to get eliminated. And sometimes the grab move can lead to griefing and general bullying. Oh, and then there's the cheaters - screw them.

No idea if this game will last into 2021, but I think this is exactly the sort of mindless distraction we need right now. 

Carrion

Carrion has a brilliant idea at its core. You play as a monster - something between the xenomorph and The Thing - and you terrorise an entire secret base full of soldiers and scientists. The execution of that idea, though? Hm, it doesn't quite stick the landing.

That starts with combat. In some ways, it works great: it feels great to tentatively reach a tentacle out from a vent, grab some unsuspecting baddie, and then drag them into your hidey hole before munching them to bits. But other times I felt completely out of control and basically just mushed my gross pink body towards the enemy faction while mashing buttons and that seemed to do the trick.

Then there's the Metroidvania element: it's an okay Metroidvania, but it would have been just as much fun as a more linear game that built up challenges in sequence. Like, there's no map and while it's pretty easy to navigate the world, I didn't want to be lost and backtracking - I wanted to be causing fear and destruction!

Also, the game's got this interesting puzzle aspect that, again, is better as an idea than in execution. Basically, your health bar dictates what powers you have access to. At full health you might be able to use, say, a dash move that smashes through walls - but that's gone at half health, and replaced with something else. That makes combat interesting, but it's also tied into puzzle solving which just becomes a chore as you find ways to heal or hurt yourself to get through the next locked door.

All in all, this is a cool game and I would recommend it - but it's full of weird little design decisions that always held me at arms length and, ultimately, stopped me from having the motivation to finish it. The death knell was that I put it down for a week, picked it up, and had absolutely no idea where I was going. Sorry, I've just got better things to do.

Hyper Light Drifter

I'm not sure why I decided to play Hyper Light Drifter, but here we are. This is a game that I've tried a few times over the years but, for whatever reason, it didn't stick with me. I do remember it being a little finicky at launch, before the devs updated the game and added in more generous invincibility frames - so that accounts for one bounce-off moment, at least.

Anyway, this time I played it properly, and finished it. And it was really enjoyable! 

This is basically a cute and easy-going Zelda-inspired game. It works like this: there's a central hub town with shops, and then the world juts off in four huge spokes - which represent the four major areas of the game. In each spoke, you'll explore until you find these magic gem things - which let you unlock access to a boss. Kill all the bosses, and you can come back to the hub area and face off against the final foe.

The game is pretty open for exploration - you can tackle three of the areas in any order you like. And it does a lot without words: beyond a few tutorial messages, this game speaks through pictograms, clear feedback, and environmental storytelling.

I mostly just enjoyed the combat system which is fast and frenetic. You've got a great dash move for juking out of the way of bad guys, and you'll swap between shooting and slashing. Cleverly, your gun recharges when you use your sword, which keeps you constantly attacking, forces you to get up-close-and-personal, and removes the need for boring ammo pick-ups and the like.

Overall, I really liked the game. It does feel a bit small and simple in its scope, but it's nice to play something so restrained. I don't know why it took me so damn long to finally dive into this staple of the indie game scene, but I'm glad I finally did.

And there we have it, a short one this month. Thanks for watching, and I'll chat to you again soon! Next month is September which means the launch of Spelunky 2! Exciting stuff. Bye.