I Know What I Did Last Weekend

Looks like I haven’t done a IKWIDLW for a couple of months, and it’s long overdue.

Dune: Awakening

Funcom dropped the latest Dune update Tuesday, and it’s been rough. They’ve been doing daily patches, the first day we couldn’t even get to the new overworld maps, and combat has been rebalanced so that we have to relearn how to stab things. But now that we’re a few days in, things have begun settling down. I was able to get to Arrakeen last night to talk to Duke Leto, who had Thufir Hawat program me with some new specialization tree stuff. Yeah, it’s weird. It’s all tied up with the new Landsraad system, where you have to decide upon a specialization track — crafting, in my case — then pick up missions for the Landsraad Houses to go to the new overworld dungeons and do stuff.

In my case, I was supposed to go to Research Station 152, a station where scientists endeavored to harness the power of Arrakis’ weekly Coriolis storms but mostly just made everything electrified. The dungeon can be tuned to several levels depending how many of you there are and how much challenge and reward you want. I pegged it at the lowest setting while I figure things out, and it was still rough. With the electricity. Still, this is the PvE content I wanted, but it will be more fun with more people.

Erenshor

I’ve been working my way through the achievements in Erenshor. Guildies will also have requests for loots they want. I’m leveling up my Reaver, so I’ve invited a few new guild members of the appropriate level to help me though. Last night we tore through the Lost Cellar. I spent a lot of time there on Moon Unit, because I wasn’t twinked to the gills like my Reaver, who has nothing but high level gear. I’m not sure I like how slow the Reaver is, and I may decide to take a step back and work on my Stormcaller instead as my official alt.

Game is still fun, and tbh I would rather be playing Erenshor than Dune. But, Dune is where my friends are. Erenshor is always going to be a single player game. That’s its whole deal.

Goblin Vyke

Dan at Indiecator wrote lovingly about this Recettear-like game, Goblin Vyke, where you play a goblin who has taken up running his father’s shop after his unceremonious death. You’ll have to deal with your unctuous high elf landlord, demanding customers, useless employees, and your own tendencies toward hard bargaining (some would call it: greed). But your shop won’t stock itself. Each night, you’ll have to dive into a deep dungeon and steal loot to sell at your shop. You are not a combat goblin; if you’re seen, you’ll likely die. But, maybe your enemy doesn’t have a weapon to hit you with because you snatched it while their back was turned.

Occasional quests and demanding customers will often give you specific items to obtain, and so you’ll look at your map, find the place where the items are likely to drop, and sneak down to grab ’em.

Selling is a “push your luck” minigame where you try to roll dice to hit target numbers; roll too high and the deal is off. Get it right on the money and you can try to get even more dough.

Lots of fun.

Dominus Automa

The developers of idle MMO Dominus Automa are iterating on their new characters and landscapes as they try to make their world look a little less like a series of set pieces and more like an explorable world you can explore.

I might run through the speed run again just to see what looks different (if anything), but I am still hoping the actual multiplayer stuff happens soon. Game’s going to live or die on its multiplayer — the whole concept was “your adventurer keeps adventuring even when you’re not online”. Given the entire demo, as it exists today, can be completed in way less than an hour, they’ve got a way to go. The programming your adventurer to adventure is still a lot of fun, so there’s decent bones to the game.

Bubsy 4D

The old SNES platformer is back, and this time it’s in 3D! It’s a mystery as to why a game actually called Bubsy 3D never, EVER, happened! They just skipped from 2D to 4D without any stops in-between!

Bubsy 4D is a self-aware platformer that very much pretends the terrible Bubsy 3D never happened by talking about it a lot. And Sonic and Mario get their due.

Bubsy is a sarcastic cat whose irreverent commentary stretches all the way back to the early days of console gaming. This latest iteration finds the fearless feline forced to flee to other planets to find the golden fleece stolen away by alien sheep. With him are a scientist rat friend, who thinks Bubsy is stupid, his girlfriend, who hates him, and his niece and nephew, who want to take him for every cent he has. The only place he can find piece of mind is traversing alien planets looking for the golden fleece and other collectibles that can even make him look like he looked in Bubsy 3D. If such a game had ever existed.

It’s casual fun. I liked the game back in the day, and Bubsy hasn’t lost his edge yet.

Dark Quest 4

The HeroQuest-like tactical RPG looks like what outside looks like now. Just can’t get warm, anywhere I go, I guess. I’m still unlocking new stuff, like the Gravedigger character who offers new, game changing, permanent buffs — like removing the death and fatigue system. Nice.

The game says I’m 68% of the way through it. None of the battles have been too terrible; they’re challenging enough to be fun but not impossible, and that’s just a great balance.

Seafarer, the Ship Sim

After unlocking the bulk cargo hauler, I’m pretty much done with the game. It was enjoyable for awhile, but there’s just too much work and too little fun. Other games, like the truck simulators, really focus on one core competency and they make that one thing as fun as they can. Seafarer, forcing you to do all the loading, unloading and securing of cargo, just gets tedious. The one part they do automate is the driving of the ship, leaving all the dull parts for the player to do alone.

I enjoyed the game, but I’m not seeing much that would keep me coming back.

I think I’m all caught up now. Look for another update in a month or two 🙂