My Week Unwrapped: December 4, 2017 – GNOG, Riddlord, Game Dev Tycoon, Passpartout: The Starving Artist, Gerrymander: Rig the Election, Neverending Nightmares and More

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Hi everyone and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I’ve been insanely busy, so this will be a long post, but I may have to keep some of my thoughts brief. As always, there’s videos if you want to see more of a game. Anyway, strap in and enjoy the ride!

GNOG

I’d been looking forward to KO_OP’s GNOG for quite some time now and it finally released! It’s a magical game with some issues, but one I’m so glad I had the chance to play. Read my review here and see my walkthrough here.

Riddlord: The Consequence

I didn’t know about Riddlord for that long, but it sounded like a good puzzler in the vein of The Room series, so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it’s riddled (haha get it?) with bugs and poor puzzle design. I wrote my first impressions here and have since completed the first chapter thanks to some help from readers. But the clue I was missing was something that disappeared before I needed it. That just made me even angrier at the game. It seems like this game was not really play-tested. While they put a lot of effort into the atmosphere of the game, it’s a frustrating experience and I can’t recommend it at the moment. If you do driver to grab it, you may want to use my walkthrough for the first chapter.

Game Dev Tycoon

In all honesty, these management sims never really appealed to me, but Greenheart Games sent me a copy of Game Dev Tycoon, so I have it a try. It’s not really my thing, so I can’t really say much about it. It does seem well-made, though I found some things confusing. For instance, each time I published a game, I only sold it for a few months and then took it off the market completely. I couldn’t tell why this was happening and whether I had any control over it, but it made no sense to me. It also meant I didn’t have a steady income, so every month I would have to pay my bills but I didn’t necessarily have any money coming in. It would stand to reason that as you publish more games, you’d have them all selling at the same time so you’d have more money, even if their sales dwindle. It would be something. But without any games on the market, I was always in the red. Perhaps I missed something. I’m not sure. But I wasn’t enjoying it enough to try and find out. If it’s something you like, by all means, check it out. You can also watch some of my gameplay video below to see what it’s like.

Passpartout: The Starving Artist

I need to spend more time with Passpartout: The Starving Artist. When I played, I didn’t have any ideas of what I wanted to paint, as I wasn’t prepared for the whole game being basically about painting on Microsoft Paint and then selling your paintings. Now that I know what to expect, I’d like to play more, but with a bit of a plan of what I’d paint. Right now, I don’t feel I’ve gotten far enough to really opine on the game as a whole, so I rather keep that for another time. Meanwhile, you can see my sad paintings in the video below, along with my mispronunciation of the game’s name.

Neverending Nightmares

Neverending Nightmares is another game that had been on my radar for the longest time. I thought I heard ages ago that it would be coming to iOS, but then forgot about it and assumed it was never happening. Then, out of the blue I got an email telling me it was releasing this week. I fired it up, all excited, and was impressed by the artwork, sound design, and entire atmosphere. It was definitely creepy. And it works well on touchscreens, since you’re mostly just tapping to walk and then tapping on colored objects — such as doorknobs or candlesticks — to interact with them. I was enjoying it to an extent, especially when it got more puzzly. But the problem for me was that it’s comprised almost entirely of walking, and that’s very slow walking. It’s my least favorite part of point-and-click adventures, and it’s basically the entire game. Your character can run, but only for about a second at a time. So I got tired of failing and having to slowly retrace my steps and figure out how to get past the part I kept failing on. I get that the walking pace is meant to keep the atmosphere spooky, but the repetition at that pace became too much for me. It’s unfortunate, because I was looking forward to it for so long and really wanted to like it. Anyway, you can still watch some of my video below and see if it’s something you’d enjoy.

Gerrymander: Rig the Election

I love the idea behind Good Egg Games’ Gerrymander: Rig the Election. America’s democratic system is in shambles at the moment and an embarrassment. Part of that is due to gerrymandering, and I think I’ll just let the game explain it to you. It’s a clever idea, and I especially like the humor and clean design. There’s even a Russian that makes an appearance! Unfortunately, I think the developers didn’t know how to monetize the game and ended up cheapening the experience with their attempts at doing so. It’s completely free to play, but each level requires a certain amount of stars and money in order to unlock it. The stars are earned by completing previous levels under a time limit. That’s fine. But the money you earn from playing a level once is never enough, so you have to replay older levels in order to continue with the next one. This isn’t the end of the world, since levels are randomized each time you play them. But it still gets tedious to replay stuff you completed just so you can play the new stuff. I also don’t see why you’re even making money off of elections. That explanation — if there is one — isn’t clear. It’s unfortunate, as I think the game can be a great tool for teaching about gerrymandering, but the message gets diluted through this tacked on system. Oh, and you can also watch ads for more money. I still think the game is worth checking out for educational purposes and some decent puzzling. But I don’t know how many people will stick with it to the end in its current state.

Hexa Turn

Hexa Turn is a neat minimalistic puzzler that’s about outsmarting a little triangle. You’ve probably played similar games, usually as part of larger adventure games. The goal in each level is to block the triangle from reaching the squares. You do this by tapping a hexagon, which prevents the triangle from moving onto it. You need to try and predict which action will cause the triangle to go where you want so you can block it in. It gets tricky and sometimes requires a bit more trial-and-error than I’d like, but I like how things are constantly shaken up through double-move triangles and freezing. It also has an unlimited undo button and no move count, so it’s pretty relaxed. If you’re looking for a new one-handed puzzler to chill with, you can certainly do worse.

Hydropuzzle

I downloaded Hydropuzzle while it was free, but I’m not sure if it still is. Im also not sure what to make of it yet. It’s an interesting concept, s sort of visual novel with about one puzzle to solve per chapter. I liked the first puzzle, had to somewhat guess to get through the second puzzle, and then got completely stumped on the third. If I ever get past that point, I’ll update my walkthrough and hopefully have more to say about the game. But as is I don’t have much of an opinion. If you can still get it for free, though, it’s worth checking out.

Faraway 2: Jungle Escape

And last but certainly not least, I spent a good part of my week catching up on Pine Studio’s Faraway 2 and got my walkthrough completed through level 17. I finished 18 but it’s a tricky one so the walkthrough will take a bit more time. But aside from a few complaints — mostly with controls — I really enjoyed the game. I also have some extra stuff to figure out, and I’m looking forward to that. Again, half the the game is free and then you can pay $2.99 to unlock the other half. So definitely try it if you like puzzle games.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this week, aside from some pre-release games I’ve been playing. This next week is also going to be insane, so save some money for the App Store! Anyway, I’m going to go collapse. Let me know if you picked up and of these games and what you thought of them. Until next time, that’s My Week Unwrapped!

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Philip (flip) Kromer (@mrflip)

    Anyone get through Hexa Turn? Stuck on 2.17 and need a hint (would prefer a hint to a solution).

  2. Philip (flip) Kromer (@mrflip)

    Figured it out. Anyone else who is stuck on 2.17 in hexa turn, here are four hints in increasing hintiness (use rot13.org to decode):

    Ba gur svefg zbir, hfr n serrmre ba bar bs gur bar-zbir gevnatyrf
    …fcrpvsvpnyyl, gur ybjre evtug bar.
    Hfr n qbhoyr zbir rnpu bs lbhe svefg gjb zbirf
    Qrsyrpg gur qbhoyr gevnatyr onpx gb gur gbc gnetrg.

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