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thelongestdamnreviews · 6 years ago

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Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

HAHAHA YES I DID IT I FINALLY BEAT THE GAME THE CURSE IS BR--

Uh.

I finally finished the game this time, clocking in a time of just over 58 hours for Neutral route cleared and not really many sidequests done. While I played this run with a mod (if you’ve played the game, you’ll notice in the pictures some differences), I'll talk about that another time. I should note that I've given this game at least five prior attempts each clocking in at over 20 hours over the several years I've owned it, so this is a pretty significant victory in my eyes.

The Valerian Isles have been in turmoil ever since the untimely death of her king, Dorgalua. He passed with no heir, and a regent installed himself into rule, although his influence only really extended through the northern part of the isles. The Hierophant Balbatos has enacted a regime of ethnic cleansing in the south against the Walister, your people, and your leader has already been captured. Worse, the knights who torched your town years ago are headed your way and the only help you have are your sister and best friend...

Five versus three against your favor, and they’re all veterans versus you all never having taken the field. What’s the worst that can happen?

I'll be making a few comparisons to Tactics Ogre's sibling series, Final Fantasy Tactics, during this review and I apologize for making so many. Tactics Ogre originally was a Super Famicom game and it was ported to the PlayStation 1 and Sega Saturn before getting remade on the PSP quite a while later. I've never played any of the old versions prior so this is mostly new experiences for me.

Tactics Ogre is a turn-based tactics RPG. Field a small team of characters in a variety of classes and fight it out through a number of battles as you clear a swath through everyone standing in your way. Warriors use big swords, Archers snipe with bows, Clerics heal, Canopus wins entire maps, Wizards damage and rebuff with spells, and so on. Objectives vary between "kill all enemies" and "kill the enemy leader" with very few deviations. Instead of the almost constant limit of five troops that Final Fantasy Tactics imposes on you, you can field a maximum of 12, but the limit increases or decreases based on the map, and even maps near the end of the game won't let you take everyone along. Enemy troops will almost always outnumber yours, but you have the advantage of human intellect, grinding, and the ability to revive your troops to counter them.

I’m apparently really bad at taking screenshots of actual gameplay, but the anti-aliasing on the text broke on the enemy’s numbers for some reason, thus the picture.

Though this is a modern-day remake, the game still uses sprites for characters and the battlegrounds, but instead of having the ability to freely rotate the map, you can instead tilt the map overhead for a bird's eye view to plan your next move. And in the process, it looks like the maps actually are 3D models textured to look like sprites. One of the final maps in the story is a translucent bridge situated over a glowing pit, and you can actually adjust the camera to look into the pit for no reason other than it looks cool. Spells also have been given a visual overhaul as have the weather effects in battle.

It might be a little jarring to have such advanced effects shown alongside sprites and pixel artwork, but they at least put the PSP’s hardware to work with these.

The biggest difference this version has to its prior incarnations or its siblings is how different the class system is. Instead of individual characters having their own character level and class level, the classes themselves level up and characters no longer have a personal level. If you have Warrior at 22 and change Denam from a level 5 Wizard to one, his level jumps to 22. More characters of one class fielded at the same time level faster, as do people of a lower level than the average.

It's an interesting system on paper, but it's got more than a few issues. While you can take a new character and stuff them into a leveled class to use immediately, you'll have to babysit anyone who switches to a new class since they'll be stuck using weaker gear until they get back up to speed, due to everything having a minimum level to use. Classes don't unlock too often so you'll have to decide if what new things the class can bring to the group are worth the trouble of grinding the characters back to effectiveness. EXP and SP are rewarded once the battle is won and it doesn't seem to matter what anyone on your side does to affect the final number, so you're not penalized for someone being dead weight. Battles where you have to kill the enemy leader can be useful for quick EXP/SP, but random battles never have these conditions.

Characters have personal reserves of SP used to unlock new skills and up to ten slots to stick into them. Skills either boost stats, like boosting defense or max HP or boosting ranged evasion, or they grant passive bonuses like weapon skills or racial skills boosting the damage done with said weapon/against said race, or they enable the use of certain spells like Fire Magic or Dark Magic, or they give your unit class-specific actions like Fearful Impact or Speedstar. New skills unlock slowly as that class levels, but not all of them can be transferred to other classes.

Some skills slowly rank up as you use them and weapon skills are no different. You’re encouraged to get at least one weapon skill up to 2 for every character to unlock heavily-damaging Finishers, so you can burst down tanky targets or other dangerous foes.

Unlike in FFT where you can reasonably allow your characters to access the skills of prior jobs so you could have a Knight with Black Magick abilities, here skills and spells and equipment is a lot more rigid. A Knight and a Cleric can both use Divine Magic to heal allies, but only the Cleric can use resurrection magic. A Knight can use Axes and 1H Swords, while the Cleric can't. They both can use Hammers, but only female Clerics get the sole Hammer the class can use. You kinda need to plan out your characters to minimize wasted SP. While it's not in short supply, it can be frustrating to want to try something new with an old character and then have several of their skills not apply to the new class. There is one special class that can use almost everything any other one class can use, but only one character can use it and it comes at a heavy cost, as well as said class learning nothing naturally. Think Freelancer or Onion Knight from Final Fantasy proper.

Combat is speed-based like in FFT. Each class has a base Recovery Time as well as how much RT is added per panel of move. Then this is all factored against the weight of the equipment you have on and the RT of the weapon. Unique characters (either fully unique or named generics) almost always have lower base RT than generics, on top of some having unique classes and dialog opportunities in some battles. Every class has HP for living and TP to fuel special abilities and weapon finishers that unlock once the related weapon skill is at least rank 2, but some have MP which start at 0 to prevent anyone from using their strongest spells on turn one, the same way FFTA2 does it. You're given a turn order on the bottom of the screen so you can try to manipulate the battlefield to your advantage, such as seeing if a character might be within range to kill a healer before they can act.

But if things wind up not going your way, another new feature to the game is the Chariot Tarot, an in-game turn rewinding feature. This unlocks in your first non-tutorial battle and allows you to rewind up to 50 turns backwards, and it even saves the 'alternate timelines' you created in that battle so if your original plan turned out better, you can jump back to it. The game records your use of this but you can do a same-turn Chariot free of charge, to perhaps try to aim a projectile spell another way or if an attack you needed to hit got dodged. The game points out that repeating the same actions the same way will only bear the same results, so if an Archer is having trouble landing an arrow for example, it might be worth it to same-turn Chariot by firing from every different tile in range until you make your mark.

I didn’t test to see how many alternate timelines you could make, but having the ability to rewind at all is pretty handy.

There are three story routes across four chapters, but they branch off instead of being three full stories from beginning to end. There is one Chapter 1, there are two Chapter 2s, three Chapter 3s, and one Chapter 4 where they all converge again. Law route has no branches, but Chaos can branch into Neutral at the end of Chapter 2. Each branch has its own story sequences, but the roles characters play in them might change. Someone who is an ally on one route might be an enemy on another, someone may live or die or even be recruitable depending on how you go.

Once you finish the game, you gain access to the World Tarot, which allows you to travel time forward and backward, jumping to Anchor Points while you keep your gear and roster. There are several Anchor Points sprinkled through each route's chapters, but you can't merely jump to a specific story battle at-will. Don't go back to the start of the game and expect to zero-effort everyone you find though, as enemies will now scale to your level and their gear will too. The World Tarot gives you an opportunity to replay story battles or to tackle another route too. Beating the game also unlocks the CODA section of the game, four short but new chapters made originally as DLC for this version of the game, baked into the release we got here. Progress through CODA requires certain characters to be considered alive by the timeline used to access it, so you may need to replay a good portion of the game to make the new timeline 'canon'.

You still experience the routes as if you were playing them the first time, so Denam won’t try to change history even further. Though one chapter in CODA does meddle with history to save a friend...

When not fighting on the battlefield, you can buy new wares in shops, recruit new people in shops, or craft new items if you have the recipes and materials. Crafting can make very powerful equipment even early on, but the biggest caveat is that the process is very tedious. You need to make advanced versions of materials one step at a time, and it's entirely possible that something will fail and you'll lose the materials in the process. I believe one piece of Wootz Steel takes over 30 steps and again, there's the failure risk to consider. You will be save-scumming quite a bit when it comes to crafting.

You can also auction off recruited monsters for money that you can then turn around and use to buy the meat and other items processed from their bodies! Somehow it’s even worse than FFT’s Poach/Secret Hunt because you’re doing this to members of your own team...

The last option accessed on the map is the Warren Report. This is like the Brave Story of FFT, but it allows you to replay cutscenes as well as see an overall timeline of when events happen, and it has bios of damn near everyone you meet and fight and kill. And they're not one-liners either--some enemies are nth generation knights or one pirate is actually pregnant (and you killed her, you monster), and so on. The Warren Report also holds all of the Titles you earn naturally by playing or by doing specific side goals (so Achievements basically), as well as tracking the number of battles fought, Chariot Tarot uses, number of escapes, number of allied KOs, number of allied deaths, and how many people you've killed as well as to which clan they were affiliated. And finally, it functions as a music player.

War is hell. All of those people you kill aren’t just faceless goons. Just...the ones with names are the only people who show up here as opposed to every generic person having a bio.

The music in this version has been given a full orchestral overhaul, given the 70-some names used in the credits for all the instruments, and several songs have been lengthened and given new parts. The Warren Report also lists composer notes about the tracks, saying what kind of mood they were going for or talking about how difficult it was to get specific instruments to meld together. The game has a percentage unlocked stat for the songs and I want to believe that most of them unlock by hearing them and winning the battles where they play, but at least one is unlocked by the Titles you earn.

Okay, so that's Tactics Ogre. Move your troops around the battlefield killing people until you win, then move onto the next map. Buy or make new gear and spells and buy skills to keep your team in top shape, and experience the story across three different routes.

It’s been a while since I last went through FFT, but it didn’t show you dead civilians a few times, did it?

What's good? There's a lot of content here. You can be sated with a one-and-done like I've done, but if you want to do everything in this game, you might want to set aside a couple hundred hours. There's a bunch of side quests and extra dungeons, and one of them is even 115 battles long. And you need to do that one in one go or you have to start over, but at least you can save between the fights this time. And to get the most out of it, you need to do it more than once. Yeah. There is a lot to do here, to the point where I'd say that no other FFT can come close. I hope you like grid-based turn-based RPG tactical goodness because this game is full of it.

And variety too. There are a bunch of different weapons for each type, a bunch of spells for each element, a bunch of skills for each class, and a bunch of classes for each race. Even monsters have classes! Though Golems and Dragons really only get to change, but demihumans like Reptiles and Orcs get access to some classes Humans can use, while they also get classes only they can use too. And then you have Hawkmen who scoff at terrain differences and can fly everywhere, but they can only use a handful of classes.

I'm a fan of the music. I now wake to the Warren Report theme as opposed to E.S. Battle from Xenosaga Episode II like I have for the past forever. And speaking of sound, the death cries are pretty lacking, especially compared to the PS1 FFT's anguished screams, but that can be ignored...even if you hear them quite a bit.

If you're into customizing your troops, then this game will definitely scratch that itch, even with the restrictions on the skills I mentioned above. There is actually a strategy revolving around recruiting enemies off the field in order to get their gear and to get their skills. When enemies die in this game, they leave either a bag of loot containing some of their gear or valuable coins, or they leave a tarot card that increases stats of whoever picks it up and said card becomes a usable item in combat. Instead of crystals you pick up to learn skills, you instead intentionally kill these recruits and then Scavenge their skills onto someone compatible. And this doesn't get into the ridiculousness of Snapdragons or Cursed Weapons either, of which I didn't touch at all.

There is some good scriptwork here too, though it has the same quasi semi-Elizabethan/Medieval bent the way War of the Lions did.

What's bad? Strangely, I felt like at least Chapter 4 dragged on a little too long, and that doesn't even count the multi-stage final dungeon. This wasn't the first time my interest flagged since at least two other runs have gotten to the final dungeon and I just...stopped. I imagine part of it was due to me somewhat rushing through the game (at a snail's pace?) and just wanting to finally be done with it this time, but I kinda dreaded the final part of the game since I knew it'd take a while--but I was wrong there.

There are several fights where you're unable to leave, sort of like Riovanes in FFT. You assault the castle's gates, then you enter the courtyard, then you break into the throne room, etc. You can always save into another slot in case things go south, but then you have nothing to show for your efforts other than a little bit of knowledge for the next try and a need to get levels/gear/skills up to snuff. The final dungeon is also set up this way, with maybe 12 fights if you don't take any shortcuts, and that many more you have to plow through if your team can't take on the last enemies. At least it's a nice touch that there are sometimes alternate routes to the same goal, and yes the Warren Report tracks each of these different approaches if you’re a completionist.

I mentioned crafting's tediousness, but that's at least optional. A major gripe I had with the shop was the inability to compare the stats between the gear my people had on with what the store was offering. So I'd save, buy a few things, go to the Party menu, compare, maybe reload the save and buy less or different things... I get that it's a remake, but a Fitting Room option really would not have hurt this game one bit. Because each tier of gear gives boosts to different stats, it's hard to tell how effective something would be until it's in your hands, and I found money tight enough that I couldn't just keep a copy of every weapon and armor on hand just for this reason. You can use the page feature to see if whichever class is leveled enough to use the item in question, but there's no stat comparison and stats are kind of important here.

It would have been amusing for people you kicked out to get revenge, but this never happens.

I didn’t like how you still couldn’t see your starting position and the enemy before you commit to battle, the same way that FFT did it but not either FFTA. Being able to change your gear or classes or skills or so on this way would’ve been a nice quality of life change, if to just make things a little less tedious. Like knowing if you should keep your regular gear on or swap to Baldur while diving into the Palace of the Dead, to exploit Baldur doing heavy damage to the undead.

So yeah. Tactics Ogre is pretty good. I think I still prefer the FFTs more but this isn't bad. It still plays like its sibling games, just the differences can trip you up a bit if you don't adjust to how TO works its classes and all. I think FFT and all are more accessible and more flexible, but if you've interest in other games like them, then Tactics Ogre is definitely worth a try. It'll keep you busy for a while, especially if you decide to dive into all of the content here.

Final stats.

#playstation portable #recommended

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bjkwhite · 4 years ago

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Dangerous Dangerous Dinosaurs DeDeDeDe Destruction

RePlay Productions

presents

Dangerous Dangerous Dinosaurs DeDeDeDe Destruction

This is a 'replay' of a gaming session. It does not reflect what happened at the table with 100% accuracy, and has been edited and condensed to provide a more readable, interesting, entertaining and educational experience. Hours of nonsense and off-topic conversations have been excluded for the sake of brevity and my own sanity. No dice rolls were altered, no consequences were changed. Names have been changed to protect both guilty and innocent alike.

The system being used is Escape From Dino Island, by Sam Tung and Sam Roberts, available at https://samnite.itch.io/escapefromdinoisland.

This replay is also available here, in PDF or epub format: https://bjkwhite.itch.io/replay

Please enjoy the circular escapades of these three good girls.

session one: is that really the name

Truth: Welcome ... to Dino Island.

Chaos: Well I'm not playing unless we immediately come up with a more interesting name than that.

Hope: Dangerous Dinosaur Island.

Order: It was called that even before the dinosaurs showed up. It's an amazing coincidence.

Truth: Before we get too sidetracked, has anyone looked at the rules?

Chaos: I mean I looked at them in the sense that I can see them there on the table.

Hope: I looked at the characters, I want to be The Engineer!

Order: I read through them, except for the DM parts because I thought you'd probably want to keep them a surprise. This is a Powered by the Apocalypse game? I couldn't find the stats we use, though, they're not on the character sheets?

Note: We weren't using the proper character sheets because I am a big dummy who didn't realise you have to download the demo files even though that's specifically mentioned on the game page as an Important Note. Thank you, carry on.

Truth: Oh, they're at the start of the character creation thing. Um, just a second ... Fit, Clever, and Steady. You pick +2, +1 and -1 for them, or for Hard Mode it's +2, 0, and -1. Just write them anywhere on your sheets once you've picked which character you want.

Chaos: Do we want to play on Hard Mode? How hard is Hard Mode? Or do we pick individually? I'm going to play on Hard Mode, and I will be, hmm ... The Soldier seems a bit too macho man for me, same with The Hunter ... oh, maybe The Survivor? Like a wild girl or something? Cave girl!

Hope: If you do that then I am expressly forbidding you from making references to that movie I haven't seen.

Chaos: You're really gonna have to narrow that down for me.

Hope: You know, the one you two always go on about, 'chickpea, chickpea', that one.

Chaos: Tay inna win, chickabee! Tay inna win! But now that you've put it in my head I am DESPERATE to play a Nell character.

Truth: Just to pour a little oil on these potentially troubled waters, might I also suggest the possibility of a Newt character?

Chaos: Gasp! They mostly come out at night ... mostly...

Hope: I'm okay with that one, even though it's another reference I don't get.

Chaos: Hope, she doesn't have bad dreams because she's a doll.

Hope: I might already be regretting this.

Order: There's not really a tanky character, is there? Maybe The Soldier. I feel like you people might need some protection.

Truth: Okay, so everyone's picked? Done your stats? Picked names and such?

Hope: I'm The Engineer, Clara "Widget" Wadjet, tiny and cute with huge glasses and messy hair.

Order: In a ponytail?

Hope: Twintails! But just little ones, because her hair is actually quite short. She wears overalls with colourful badges on them, and normally a flat cap but she lost it. Oh, and my stats are Fit -1, Clever +2, Steady +1.

Chaos: Well, I'm The Survivor, Tui Moon, an awkward baby, could be anything from a big ten to a small fifteen I guess, big dark eyes, huge mass of unbrushed unwashed hair. My stats are Fit +2, Clever +0, Steady -1. I spook easy.

Order: I'm The Soldier, Mackenzie Blue, but I prefer Max. I'm solidly built, with a calm and serious personality. I think I'm probably ex-military, working as a private bodyguard or something now, or maybe I just have that background. We'll see. My stats are Fit +1, Clever -1, Steady +2.

Truth: Okay, so let's get this thing set up. We've got a "Here's The Situation" sheet right here, and we can either roll or just choose from each thing.

Chaos: Hmm ... how about rolling first and then we'll see how we react to what we get?

Truth: Okay, a three ... you're here to explore or research.

Chaos: Just checking, but there's dinosaurs running around all crazy and stuff, right? Is it literally Jurassic Park or can it be, like, I don't know, completely different?

Truth: It can be completely different to Jurassic Park. I think the only constant is, like you said, there are going to be dinosaurs running around all crazy and stuff.

Chaos: One more thing, when does it actually start, like is it with these two arriving on the island, are they with a group, when do they meet the little wild girl Tui, is that the first scene, why am I asking so many questions all in a row without giving you a chance to answer any, when will I stop, am I even able to stop, why hasn't anyone interrupted me yet, why are you just letting me keep going?

Hope: I think we were seeing how far you could take it. Um, I think this is sort of a thing where we get dropped into the middle of the first crisis? Like in Frontier Kingdoms, you don't do the planning or see the slow start of a thing, you just roll and then deal with the first obstacle.

Truth: It's pretty similar to that—is everyone okay with you two being explorers?

Hope: Well, I was sort of thinking that maybe I got called in as an expert in repairs? And Max got assigned as a bodyguard or something? Oh, maybe she was already on the island? Actually this is quite hard if we don't know the situation.

Truth: The story pattern here is, you arrive on the island, you see your first dinosaur, something goes wrong, then it puts you somewhere with dinosaurs going crazy, and you have to get off the island and also maybe solve a mystery.

Chaos: Ooh, I like the mystery part. Maybe Widget and Max are a team already, like whatever reason they're here they got called in together? Because of my character's whole deal I think whatever went wrong had to have gone wrong like at least a few weeks earlier. So either they don't know about that, like they got contracted and never got told that things have gone crazy on the island, or maybe they're being called in to deal with one specific thing?

Order: It could be that we have nothing to do with the operations on the island. Someone is paying us to retrieve something here. Maybe we specialise in this sort of thing. Only nobody told us there were dinosaurs here.

Hope: I'm okay with that. It makes sense, right? We got paid to do this but they didn't tell us all the specifics. They left a lot of very important information out!

Truth: Okay, so it's Widget and Max being sent in to retrieve, let's see ... actually you don't know, you were just given some coordinates and like a tracking app on your tablet there, Widget. It was all very vague and mysterious, but the amount of money being offered made it hard to refuse.

Order: That's good. That works for me. Max has some debts she needs to pay. People she needs to look after.

Hope: Widget just has a lot of personal projects she needs funding for. She's building a teleporter! So far she's at the "explodes instantly" stage, but she's optimistic that with time and money she can get past that.

Chaos: I'm just the kid of someone on the island, I guess, not sure yet, let's see how things go. Tui might change significantly depending on events.

Truth: Okay, so each of you get a rumour at this point. Something you heard about the island. Widget, where did you hear that someone's engineering new species of plants and animals on the island?

Hope: There was like a Reddit thread about it, it was pretty much the only result when I searched the island's name—

Order: Dangerous Dinosaur Island.

Hope: That's the one! Anyway, someone did an AMA, like about how they got hired to work here but then got let go pretty quickly. Mostly the thread got treated as a joke, it didn't get many upvotes, not many people asked serious questions, but it did mention some genetic engineering stuff, it's not really Widget's area so she was just like "Boring!" and didn't pay much attention to it.

Truth: Okay, nice. Max, this maybe relates to how you got the job, but somehow you learned that getting work here normally requires a two-year contract and even the cleaners were getting paid seven figure salaries.

Order: It was from one of my military friends, passing on information about potential jobs. They didn't take it too seriously. Just sort of like, you might want to look into this if you need work.

Truth: You're still not sure if it's true, because whoever hired you two for this doesn't seem to be part of whatever's going down on Dangerous Dinosaur Island.

Chaos: Is that seriously the name.

Truth: If you have a better suggestion I'm sure we'd all be open to hear it. Anyway, Tui, I think this one's a solid fact for you. Compasses don't work right on the island.

Chaos: Yep, that one's true. Just spin around crazily. Makes navigating a hassle, I tell you.

Truth: So, for Widget and Max, how do you get to the island? Helicopter, boat?

Order: Can there be NPCs too? The pilot or whatever?

Truth: Of course, you can even have more people on your team if you want to.

Hope: Maybe we're part of a bigger group, but then something happens to split us up.

Truth: Let's keep that loose for now, see how things play out. So for the transport, probably a helicopter is easiest? Okay, so you get flown in, the weather is hot and humid, the island craggy and covered in lush greenery. Widget, as you're flying over the island towards the landing pad there's a clear area below you, and you see a herd of animals running across the plains towards the trees.

Hope: Oh, animals! Do I recognise them? I remember that Reddit thread so I actually get pretty interested, like are these something weird and new?

Truth: At first you think they're ostriches or something, some kind of large flightless bird, but then you realise, wait, those aren't birds. Those are dinosaurs! They're chasing something, but you only notice it as it vanishes into the trees, so you don't get a good look at it. The dinosaurs, though, what's Widget's dino-knowledge like?

Hope: Should I roll something?

Truth: Why not, roll your Clever and see what comes up.

Hope: 2d6 plus two then, this is kind of nostalgic almost, it's been ages since we did PbtA—oh, double fives, plus two is twelve! Widget is a complete nerd for dinosaurs!

Truth: Okay, here's a question for the group. What's cooler, classic scaly dinosaurs or feathered birdlike dinosaurs?

Chaos: Birdosaurs for sure.

Order: I agree, I like colourful feathered dinosaurs.

Hope: I like both!

Truth: Okay, so Widget identifies this pack of five brightly coloured, red and orange-feathered dinosaurs as Utahraptors, smart predators that hunt in coordinated packs. As you watch they disappear into the trees in pursuit of their prey, leaving no trace behind.

Hope: "Ah! Max! Dinosaurs! I saw dinosaurs!"

Order: "Of course you did, Widget."

Hope: "No really! It's not like that other time! These were Utahraptors I think! They had feathers! They were pretty."

Order: "Dinosaurs don't have feathers, Widget."

Hope: "No they do! They really do! Why would there be dinosaurs here? Do you think this is a Jurassic Park island?"

Order: "That was just a movie, Widget."

Hope: "It was a book too! Is that why we're getting paid so much? Nobody said about dinosaurs though, did they?"

Order: "Nobody really said much about anything. We get to the coordinates, we find the thing, we put it in this case." I hold up a sturdy case. "Then we go home and get paid. Let's not complicate it with dinosaurs, even imaginary ones."

Hope: "But I really did see them ... I think?"

Truth: Okay, fantastic. I'm already enjoying the Max-Widget dynamic. So, soon after Widget spots those dinos—or did she?—something goes wrong. I think you land safely at least, is Max flying the helicopter?

Order: Yes, why not. Just us two feels right.

Truth: So since I want to quickly involve Tui in this, I think things go wrong after you enter the facility. There's no one around, is the thing. One of the few things you were told is that this is an active research base, with dozens of permanent workers. You were given fake IDs and documents to get you inside, you're both outfitted like maintenance workers, but there's no need for any subterfuge because as I mentioned, nobody's around. So Max, what's your first hint that something's off?

Order: Aside from the place being deserted? The power's down. All the doors are stuck open, because they're the magnetic type. There doesn't look like there's damage to the facilities, but it's a mess.

Truth: I think at that point you run into Tui. What's your introduction scene like, Tui?

Chaos: They probably notice someone—or something—is watching them, following them, then there's a voice from behind them, like, "You guys are new." And you see this mass of hair and big dark eyes.

Truth: Okay, so, before Widget and Max can really react to that, there's an echoing screech from somewhere within the facility. Tui recognises it as trouble.

Chaos: Yep, she's like, "Great. Here we go again. Come on, new guys."

Truth: So Widget, in this situation who do you turn to? Do you trust this wild girl or do you wait for Max to make a decision?

Hope: Hmm. Hmmmm. I've gotten into trouble before on missions, when I decided things for myself, and Max is usually a better judge of people than me, so I turn to Max.

Truth: Max, what's your personal worst case scenario here?

Order: Aliens, probably.

Truth: So Max is thinking that aliens have taken over the island?

Order: Not specifically, she's just thinking, this better not be aliens. I think Tui goes ahead a bit and maybe stops and looks back? Max is still standing there, with Widget looking at her for her reaction, so she sort of sighs and nods and they follow after this strange wild girl, but at a distance.

Truth: Okay, Tui again, what makes you realise you're in serious trouble?

Chaos: Serious trouble, okay, probably different to what I usually have to deal with ... maybe I stop suddenly, hold up my hand, then there's that screeching again, actually quieter this time? But that's not great, because that first screech was a hunting screech, and this second screech is a let's-get-out-of-here screech, and I'm pretty sure the screechers aren't scared of us, so that means something way worse is around.

Truth: Yep, I think Tui could be right. The facility is, let's see, I was thinking mostly prefab buildings, efficient and boring designs, but what do you guys think?

Hope: It's all sort of boxy and metal, but quite wide, and there are lots of planters and things around. Flowers and ferns and flax plants, all kinds of greenery even inside.

Chaos: There are some more permanent buildings further along, but they're not safe. The dinos mostly avoid the prefab areas for some reason, maybe they don't like all the metal or plastic or the echoey corridors.

Order: There aren't any glass windows. There are grids of metal or hard plastic instead.

Truth: Right, in the long corridors especially, at the sides there are long gridded windows. This is a fairly flat, clear part of the island, but surrounded by jungle. The facility has been built up against a very steep hill, pretty much a cliff, but the window here looks out across a clear field, mostly bare earth, with a few vehicles and things, some fences, and then the jungle, and from the jungle hundreds of birds are just bursting into the air.

Hope: Oh dear. Is my dino-knowledge helpful here? Can I guess what's coming?

Truth: You can guess and then Tui can confirm or disagree.

Hope: I don't think she gets specific. Just maybe, "Oh, is something big heading this way?"

Chaos: "T-REX! RUN!"

Truth: Okay, so at this point I think we should go over the last three "Here's The Situation" points. First, you know one way off the island. Do you want to choose or roll?

Order: Well, the helicopter we came in on seems obvious, unless that t-rex destroys it.

Hope: Let's do it like before, we roll and then decide if we want to ignore it.

Truth: Okay ... one, call for rescue at a radio station.

Order: Maybe that's a potential option, but I think the helicopter is our clearest exit.

Truth: Okay, so now, why can't you just leave? I'll roll, three, you've got to wait out a storm.

Order: Well, maybe there's a storm rolling in, but more realistically I think there are two things stopping us. One, there's a t-rex right near the helicopter. We have to lure it away or deal with it. Second, the helicopter needs refuelling or it's not going to make it back to the mainland.

Truth: Those are some good obstacles. Okay, I'm going to say that the refuelling station is right there, but yep, with the t-rex around actually getting the fuel into the helicopter is a major issue. The other thing is, you've still got your job to do. Without whatever it is you're supposed to retrieve, neither of you get paid. Oh, and finally, there's a mystery that needs solving. This is kind of appropriate, I rolled a five which is, 'Why are your compasses malfunctioning, and which way is north?'

Chaos: See? It wasn't just rumour. I knew it wasn't just my compass that's screwy.

Truth: There are also a few other things to keep in mind. One, there are dinosaurs here, and that's super weird. Two, what's the purpose of this facility? And three, clearly something bad happened here. Tui might have some of the answers, but she definitely doesn't know everything. Anyway, right here and now you've got a t-rex bursting out of the trees, letting out an ear-splitting roar, then pausing and sniffing the air. You've got a really great view of it through that gridded window, inside this prefab metal and plastic corridor that suddenly feels a whole lot flimsier than it did a minute ago. What do you do?

Chaos: Do I know this area pretty well? I'm trying to think where I've been hiding for most of the time. You said there was a cliff nearby, like the thing's built up against it? I'm thinking that dinosaurs aren't great at climbing. I think I've got a little cave nest up there, with a rope ladder to climb up and down. I saw the helicopter and came to check out the new guys, then all this happened.

Truth: That's all good, and as for your question about knowing the area, I think you've got a move for that.

Chaos: Oh yeah ... huh ... okay, I sort of have a move, Been Around The Block, I can roll if a place gets mentioned, but it's mostly to see if I know how to get there. What is this place anyway, where we are now, what rooms are off these corridors?

Truth: Mostly storage and workshops near the helicopter pads. It also leads into the more permanent part of the base, although Tui, you mentioned earlier that it's much more dangerous in there.

Chaos: I did, yeah, me and my big fat mouth.

Hope: By the way, even if compasses don't work properly, do we still know where our mission target is?

Truth: It's in the more permanent part of the base. Is Max or Widget the navigator?

Hope: Oh, good question. Um. We could both roll plus Clever, and whoever gets the highest normally does the navigating?

Order: I got a four.

Hope: Twelve, Widget has a map on her tablet, I think. Not just the tracking device thing, or whatever it is that detects the retrieval item, but maybe there's a map of this island and the facility?

Truth: Hmm. Hmmmm. Is there though. Did they have that information, and if so did they provide you with it. Oh, I know the situation. You have a topographical map of the island, with the location of the facility. You also have the coordinates of the item you need to retrieve, and that tracking app to actually locate it once you get close. You have been told that if you can access the base's computer system you might be able to download a map. However, the power's off.

Chaos: But maybe not in the permanent parts? Maybe just in this area?

Truth: There's no power in any part of the research base, because the backup generators were not switched on.

Order: I knew there were going to be backup generators. There are always backup generators.

Truth: By the way, this is all fine because we're still setting things up and getting context, but you guys have to do something about the whole t-rex situation you're in. Maybe this is a good time to review the basic moves? They're very descriptive. You can Run!, you can Look Over There!, which is the distraction move, you can Hide!, you can Take My Hand! which is to help someone who's in trouble, you can Just Do It! which is when you're doing something under pressure, you can Fight!, and you can Hold On To Your Butt! which is the general action movie move. By the way, if it's a group action, like if it's all of you choosing to Run!, then the person with the lowest stat rolls.

Hope: I'm guessing that might be me, with -1 Fit.

Truth: Yep, it would be. However, even if you fail, the other two get away safely, unless they choose not to.

Hope: Oh, that's sort of interesting.

Chaos: Don't gotta outrun the t-rex, just gotta outrun the little nerd.

Order: It makes sense, I like that rule. Should we run, then? I think that's what Tui yelled at us to do, and seeing a t-rex and hearing it roar, it seems like a sensible option.

Hope: I guess I'm rolling then? Okay, here goes ... ten! Terror gives me wings!

Truth: Is that with your minus one?

Hope: Oh. No, it's not. Terror gave me ... water wings?

Truth: Partial success, so either you're still being chased, or you run into something else bad.

Hope: Something else bad is more interesting.

Truth: Okay, so the three of you just run for it from this enormous terrifying t-rex, through corridors and past storage rooms and workshops and what look like some kind of testing stations, kind of medical? You're not sure. Max has kept up her exercise regime and Tui's had a couple of weeks of hard cardio training but Widget isn't used to this type of nonsense, she does her best but it's just a bit much for her. I think Max notices her doing that breathless miming I gotta stop thing and pulls all three of you into the nearest room—you're a pretty good distance away from the t-rex at this point, and maybe it didn't even see you, maybe it wasn't even chasing you, none of you were really looking back. Anyway, you're in some kind of medical room, first aid station sort of thing, there are a couple of stretcher beds, plus cupboards with supplies, stainless steel countertops, and through a couple of open doorways you can see what look like a storage space with shelves, and maybe a test lab or something with lots of counters and equipment. It's pretty dark in here. The only light comes from one of those gridded windows.

Chaos: What time is it?

Truth: Late afternoon, the sun is just starting to set.

Chaos: Yep, great, fantastic.

Truth: The place is a complete mess, by the way. The floor is covered in medical supplies and scattered pills and sticky goopy patches where bottles have smashed. It's quiet, though. You've got a chance to catch your breath.

Hope: I get out my inhaler and take a long puff, I'm still panting but to Max I'm like, "I ... TOLD ... you! Dinosaurs!"

Order: "You did. I should have listened. Dinosaurs. Wonderful." While I talk I'm opening that case, the one I'm supposed to put the item in once we retrieve it. Inside is this gear I have on my sheet, except instead of an assault rifle it's a compact SMG. I get it out and load it and attach the flashlight, and also check my handgun, make sure it's loaded and ready.

Hope: Oh yes, we have gear! Oh, I have a headlamp! And a toolkit, and my tablet. My toolkit is in a backpack, it's a really fancy one with compartments and like little trays that pop out, I made it myself and it's the most precious thing in the world to me, aside from Max.

Chaos: Aww. I've got a spear, apparently, and a 'terrible stench'. Sorry guys, showers have not been a priority lately. I think instead of the spear maybe I have something smaller? Could it be a machete?

Truth: Where did you get that from?

Chaos: Hmm, maybe I just had one? Maybe I'm just a machete kid? No, okay, it was my dad's. My parents were working here, my mother was a scientist type, and my dad ... actually yeah, he was a scientist too, but he was like an insect guy, hacking through jungles to get to them, and my mum was more like, technical stuff, quantum physics or something, I don't know, I never understood what the heck she was talking about.

Truth: Okay, you've got your dad's machete. Could you all roll plus Clever for me, real quick.

Order: Four.

Chaos: Four.

Hope: Nine?

Truth: Okay. What's Tui's reaction to Max pulling out a bunch of weapons?

Chaos: Intense interest. Just starts babbling away like, "Is that a gun, what type of gun is that? I've got a machete, see, it was my, um, well, it's mine now, it's pretty cool, right? Who are you guys? Why are you even here?"

Order: Max ignoring her, mostly keeping an eye on Widget.

Truth: Widget, you sat on one of the stretchers or something, to catch your breath?

Hope: I didn't even get that far, just a counter. Oh, no, I tried to hop up but I was too short, but there's a little stool there, so I sat on that.

Truth: While Tui jabbers away at Max, and Max checks her weapons, you notice something weird about this room.

Hope: Oh no. What is it?

Truth: You're not sure. There's just something weird about it. Something out of place, or something missing, you can't quite put your finger on it. So, what do you do?

Order: Is this a quiet spot? Can we use safety moves here?

Truth: Ah, I didn't talk about those—and no, remember you didn't roll a full success on your Run! move, so even though it might seem like you're safe, when you open the menu it's like "You can't rest with enemies nearby."

Chaos: That was a weird place to take it but I understand what you're saying perfectly.

Truth: Anyway, once you do get out of trouble properly, there are some moves you can do. Scavenge, to get stuff, Lay Of The Land, to figure out where you are and what's around, and Instruct, which is when you're guiding someone through a tricky task. Anyway, for now the focus is on Widget, who's getting a weird feeling, like something's wrong.

Hope: "Um, guys? Can you both just be really quiet for a second?"

Order: Max stops noisy gun-checking instantly, then shoves her hand over Tui's mouth.

Chaos: Tui goes to protest but then sees the serious look on Max's face and decides to be quiet.

Truth: Without Max's clattering and Tui's chatter, you can all hear it. From nearby—one of the other rooms, either the storage area or the lab, you can't tell for sure—there's a sort of, chirrup, chirrup.

Order: Like a bird?

Truth: Not any bird you've ever heard. It's otherworldly, deeper and with an alien resonance. It's disturbing on a primal level.

Order: Alien birds. I knew it. That's just in Max's head. She's still not 100% convinced this is a dinosaur situation. Maybe the aliens have time travel technology. That's why aliens are so dangerous. You never know what they could be up to.

Chaos: Do I recognise it at all?

Truth: Do you recognise it. Roll fortune, 1d6.

Chaos: Three?

Truth: It's probably a dinosaur.

Chaos: Amazingly useful, thanks so much. Tui definitely says that though. Hisses it in a loud whisper. "Guys! That's a dinosaur! Probably!"

Order: I holster my pistol, check that my knife is loose in its ankle sheath, then get the SMG's strap over my shoulder and hold it at the ready. From here, can I see into the other rooms?

Truth: It's dark, but basically you can. The storage room has tall shelves, and it's even more of a mess than this room. It seems to go back quite a way. The other room has a lot of counters with equipment on them. It looks bigger than this room.

Order: "Stay here. Watch that door." Indicating the door we came in by. The other rooms, I'm picturing the entrances as being quite close to each other? The storage room at the far end of this room, then the lab room to the left or right.

Truth: Yes, that's how it's laid out. The lab room to the right.

Order: I approach cautiously, my SMG at the ready. Flashlight off, for now.

Truth: That chirruping is infrequent, a gap of between around six and twelve seconds between each. It gets louder as you approach the two rooms. Roll, let's see, I think Clever is probably the most fitting.

Order: To figure out where the sound is coming from? That makes sense to me. Four, I can't do it.

Truth: No, you can. It's definitely coming from the storage room.

Chaos: Haha, oh no.

Order: I glance back at the others, just checking them, then switch on my flashlight as I step into the storage room, sweeping around to cover the corners.

Truth: There's a crashing noise, but you don't see anything. Tui, Widget, what are you doing?

Chaos: Freaking out! I get that this big tough woman with the guns is like, soldiering or whatever but you don't go looking for dinosaurs! You get away from them!

Truth: So are you running?

Chaos: I really want to but I'm staying put for now, but I am on edge, man. On. Edge.

Hope: I want to help but I know this is Max's area, and I know she wouldn't bug me when I'm doing my thing, so I'm doing my best to just keep quiet and let her do her job.

Truth: Okay, so both of you jump a bit at that crashing but neither of you do anything. Max makes her way deeper into the storage room, disappearing around the corner of a shelf, carefully sweeping her light around, making sure not to miss anything. So when the dinosaur comes crashing out of the other room, she's not in a position to do much about it.

Order: Rats, but fair, but rats.

Truth: Question, out of Tui and Widget who's the shortest?

Hope: Let's roll for it! Five!

Chaos: Four, I'm just a tiny bit teeny-weenier.

Truth: This dinosaur is almost exactly the same height as Tui. It has a rounded bony head with spiky horns and a short beak and even in this dull light its blue and green feathers are magnificent. Widget, you recognise it as a Stygimoloch, a herbivore, but extremely territorial and very keen on establishing dominance.

Hope: "Headbuttasaurus! HEADBUTTASAURUS!"

Truth: Widget freaks out and yells, Tui?

Chaos: "HEADBUTTASAURUS!"

Truth: Tui follows Widget's lead. The dinosaur chirrups and looks around but, oddly, doesn't seem to even notice you. Instead it charges at the wall opposite the lab entrance, crashing hard into it and making a noticeable dent. Now that you're looking, you notice a bunch of other similar dents in the wall.

Hope: I knew something was weird! Um, um, Max is still in the storage room, the dinosaur is between us and her?

Truth: Yep, and now that it's finished with that wall it's looking towards the, let me just roll ... the storage room entrance.

Hope: Oh no! Max! I, um—oh, this one, Look Over Here! I want to do that!

Truth: PbtA remember, you trigger a move by doing something, so what are you doing?

Hope: Jumping up and waving my arms and yelling, like, "Over here! OVER HERE! MAX THERE'S A HEADBUTTASAURUS HERE! WAAAAAH!"

Truth: That'll do it. Roll plus Clever, as ironic as that might seem.

Hope: Eight, plus two is ten!

Truth: Okay, so let's see. Hmm. Okay, full success, what happens is that Widget jumps up and gets the dinosaur's attention, and it charges at her instead of into the storage room, but fortunately Widget has the quickness of wit and presence of mind to leap aside, and the dinosaur goes rushing out the entrance of this little medical room and crashes into the far wall of the corridor outside.

Order: I rush out of the storage room, I see the dinosaur?

Truth: Yep, out there in the corridor, the light's a little better out there. You come out of the storage room just as the dinosaur crashes into the wall.

Order: I'll run forward, shove Widget further away, check Tui's position, then shoulder the SMG and shoot the dinosaur. This is my Soldier special move, Kill Or Be Killed. Rolling plus Steady, seven plus two is nine. I kill it but use up the whole magazine doing it. Better safe than sorry.

Truth: Yep, you empty an entire magazine's worth of bullets into the dinosaur, and it slumps to the ground, beautiful feathers matted with blood, croaking out a final chirrup before dying.

Order: I have an extra clip here, I'll reload.

Truth: Tui, Widget, your reactions?

Chaos: Just kind of in awe, like I have never killed a dinosaur, I've hacked at a couple while they were trying to get me but never actually managed to down one. That was insane, her shooting a dinosaur to death. I'm speechless.

Hope: I think I'm maybe used to Max doing this sort of thing? Or maybe not, maybe I've never seen her in actual combat before. Just probably beating people up or disarming people, never actually shooting anything. So I'm a bit shaken.

Order: After reloading my gun I turn to Tui. "Does noise attract them?"

Chaos: "Uh. Maybe?"

Order: Narrowed eyes, writing off Tui as useless for intel from this point forward. I check on Widget. "Are you okay?"

Hope: "I think so ... that was a dinosaur, Max. You just killed a dinosaur."

Order: No real response to that. There was nothing in the storage room? I go and check the lab area, where the dinosaur came from, sweeping quickly.

Truth: No other dinosaurs in there, it's clear. What are you two doing while Max does that?

Chaos: Going out to the dinosaur. I've never seen one like this. Not up close, not when it wasn't trying to eat me or whatever. I reach out to hesitantly touch it, my hand shaking. "Oh. They're soft. The feathers are soft."

Hope: I'm hovering in the entrance, my attention split between Tui out by that dinosaur and Max checking the other room. Half of me is expecting something to jump on Max in that room, and half of me is expecting the dinosaur to come back to life and jump on Tui.

Truth: Neither of those things happen. It's eerily quiet.

Order: Can we Scavenge? I call to Widget, "See if you can find anything useful. Medical supplies, drugs, anything."

Truth: Okay, so this is you and Widget? Do you involve Tui?

Order: I tell Tui to stay out there, and to yell if she sees anything moving.

Chaos: "O-Okay, boss!"

Truth: So, for a safety action it's the person with the highest stat who rolls, so it's Widget again. Roll plus Clever to see what you find.

Hope: Eight plus two is ten, I find something good I guess!

Truth: Oh, and it's time for our first Tell A Story segment! Who wants to tell a story?

Order: I have something in mind. It's 'Why You Enlisted' except it's actually about why I partnered up with Widget. This is while she's sorting through boxes and jars and bottles, and I'm helping by shining my light and holding things. Also processing recent events. So I start with, "I was recommended against partnering with you."

Hope: Not really listening properly, focused on finding useful stuff. "Huh? Recommendations, what? Wait, what? By who?"

Order: "Your old boss. She loved you, don't misunderstand. She just said you were ... well, she didn't think you were suited to field work."

Hope: "I mean I get where she was coming from, this stuff is terrifying."

Order: "I thought she was right, at first. That's why I chose you. More than any of those others, I thought you were someone who needed protecting."

Hope: "Well, again, I'm not disagreeing."

Order: "But just now, when that dinosaur came charging out, and I was in the storage room. You didn't run, or freeze up."

Hope: "I guess not ... oh, this might be useful, put it in the maybe pile ... but, I mean, I was freaking out. I wasn't really thinking. I just sort of ... reacted."

Order: "You're always thinking. Even when you're freaking out. You did exactly the right thing to get the threat away from us. From both you and me. I'm glad you're my partner, Clara."

Hope: I stop sorting, and smile up at Max. "I'm glad you're my partner too, Mackenzie! Okay, I think this is stuff we can use." DM, what stuff can we use?

Truth: For a full success, you find some sedatives, which can either be administered orally or via injection, some pretty powerful stimulants in pill form, and enough supplies to make a basic first aid kit.

Chaos: Oh, can I carry that? I have an 'old backpack'.

Hope: Sure! Widget was just sort of frowning about how to jam it in with all her stuff, so she's happy to hand all the medical stuff over to Tui. "By the way, this is weird but ... what's your name? Why are you here?"

Chaos: "Oh. I'm Tui. Tui Moon. I came here with my parents. They're like. Scientists. Uh. How about you?"

Hope: "Call me Widget, and that's my partner Max, we're with—"

Order: Max very smoothly cutting Widget off. "We should move. Widget, is your thing picking anything up yet?"

Hope: "Oh right, I should probably check that." Is it picking anything up?

Truth: I'll roll fortune, since it's pretty much chance as to whether you're close or not. Oh wow, a six! Yes, you're getting a strong ping. It's coming from deeper in the facility, the permanent parts. You have a definite direction.

Hope: "The ping says that-a-way!" I start marching off straight towards the ping zone.

Order: I'll let Widget lead the way, but I'm concerned about my lack of ammo. As we walk I'm mentally reviewing the last dinosaur encounter, going through each step of it, what I did wrong, what I did right. This while also keeping good situational awareness.

Chaos: I'm keeping quiet and just following along behind. I'm sort of thinking, like, I don't get what's up with these two, but they definitely seem to have more of a clue than I do, so maybe I'll just follow along for now. Plus they came on that helicopter so they'll probably leave on that helicopter and probably they could squeeze me in, right? I'm little!

Truth: You're not concerned about heading into the danger zone?

Chaos: Not so much! I mean you saw what Max did to that dinosaur, she's a dino-killer! I feel pretty safe with her around, I don't mind telling you. Plus I've been curious about some of the stuff in there. I only got to see parts of it, and mostly while it was getting built.

Truth: So, let's see, just thinking about one particular aspect of this ... okay, well anyway, the prefab part of the base ends, in another door-that-should-be-shut, but right now it opens on to like a flashy corporate foyer. There's something of a nature theme, lots of plants around, subdued lighting—whoops, no, there WOULD be subdued lighting if the power was on. Without it the atmosphere is a bit gloomy. It's not exactly open, it's crowded with hanging plants and such. Go ahead and roll me Clever real quick.

Hope: Seven plus two is nine!

Chaos: Three, Monique thinks I'm dumb.

Order: Eleven, with double sixes.

Truth: Okay, wow, if only this game had crits. It's not a big thing anyway, but both Max and Widget notice that there's absolutely nothing dinosaur-themed here. In fact most of the decorations, pictures on the walls, and even the name above the big curving reception desk—STRANGE CHARM DYNAMICS—all seem to be more of the quantum physics variety.

Chaos: Oh snap, they've opened a time rift! AU portal! ...I definitely don't say, since I noticed none of this and wouldn't understand it even if I did.

Hope: "What ... is this place?"

Order: "It doesn't matter. We get the item, we get back to the helicopter, we leave."

Chaos: "What's the item? Guys? What's the item?"

Hope: "Just a thing that's important to someone." I think Widget catches herself then, Max is probably busy frowning at something, so Widget shuts herself up and changes the subject. "Oh, anyway, Tui, you said your parents are scientists, what fields?"

Chaos: "Just like bugs. And weird stuff. I don't know." Tui gets a bit, like, don't-want-to-talk-about-it when her parents are mentioned. I am deliberately leaving their fate in a state of quantum flux, to go with the themes we've got here.

Order: Schrödinger’s Absent Parents.

Chaos: You got it! Oh, anyway, maybe there's a map here, like a guide to get to the other areas?

Truth: Yep, it's not detailed but very clear. Cross-referencing Widget's direction-finder and the map, it definitely looks like the thing you're after is in the main laboratory, which is right this way!

Chaos: I feel a huge 'but' approaching.

Truth: It's completely collapsed. That part of the facility is underground, or at least lower than this part. There are stairs leading down but the entire roof has fallen in. You might be able to squeeze through, with time and effort, but it looks pretty unsafe.

Order: Is it just this part that collapsed?

Truth: Looks like it. Everywhere else is weirdly fine.

Order: Does it look like the work of dinosaurs?

Truth: No, it pretty obviously isn't. It's too precise for that. This whole foyer area, there are a few knocked-over pot plants and things like that, but it's not all messed up. Not like that medical room. The blocked-off stairway looks deliberate, like planted explosives deliberate.

Order: "Somebody really didn't want anyone getting down there."

Chaos: "Or, like. Anything getting out."

Hope: "Tui, how long have the dinosaurs been here? Were they here when you arrived?"

Truth: They're a pretty recent arrival. Maybe three or four weeks. It's been hard to keep track of time for Tui.

Chaos: What the DM just said, except in Tui's voice.

Truth: Feel free to embellish, I'll correct you if you're really wrong. Or maybe I won't. Teehee.

Chaos: Your mask is slipping, DM, we can see the evil beneath. "Well, um, it all happened pretty suddenly. Like, there were some general warnings? But those happened all the time so everyone was just like, pffft. But then, yeah. Dinos everywhere." Tui kind of trails off there. Remembering some stuff she's been trying not to think about.

Hope: "Well, um, oh, maybe we could try to find those backup generators? Get some lights on at least?" I just had another thought, don't we need power to operate the fuel pump? For the helicopter?

Truth: That is such a good question. I think you do need power. I think that's your big obstacle, getting the power back online.

Hope: The path to that area isn't blocked, right?

Truth: Probably not. The generators aren't marked on the foyer map. They're more of a background thing, why would visitors or general staff need a map to them?

Hope: I guess that's a pretty good point. Where would generators be—what IS marked on the map?

Truth: Let's see ... landing pad and maintenance, that's where you came in. The prefab part. Aside from that you've got the offices, the lab, IT, living area, and the control room.

Order: Is it literally labelled 'The Control Room'?

Truth: No, this is mostly Max's interpretations of the corpspeak labels.

Hope: Can I roll to guess which would be the most likely to have the generators nearby?

Truth: You don't have to roll, your guess is that they're near the IT section. However, it's possible that they could be activated remotely, maybe from the control room.

Chaos: Oh, I can use my move here! Since places got mentioned! I want to roll for the control room. Oh man, double 1s! Nobody was stupid enough to let me anywhere NEAR the control room! I got no clue!

Truth: Is there anything special on a miss for that?

Chaos: The DM will tell you the reason you swore you'd never go back.

Truth: Hmm. The control room is dinosaur central. It's by far the most dangerous part of the entire complex, at least that you've seen. You are terrified of it. There is nothing that could make you go there.

Chaos: I say nothing but fervently hope nobody mentions going to the control room.

Hope: "Maybe we could try the control room?"

Chaos: "Nope! Nope nope nope, you do not want to go there, trust me, BELIEVE me, that is the exact opposite of a place you want to go. Seriously. For real reals."

Order: Max is instantly suspicious. "What are you hiding."

Chaos: "I'm not hiding anything! It's all out in the open! I'm telling you, the control room? Is dinosaur GROUND ZERO. They're having a dino party up there, it's crazy. I'm not lying, it's true! Why would I lie!"

Order: "I don't know. Why?"

Chaos: "Huh? No! Don't twist it around, I'm telling the truth! Widget, you believe me, don't you?"

Hope: "Well, I'm not really sure ... Max is usually pretty good at reading people ... so if you ARE hiding something this might be a good time to tell us about it?"

Chaos: It also might be a good time to consider, AM I hiding something? Do I have some sort of secret agenda going on?

Truth: That's up to you, Tui Moon. I do have an NPC goal chart here, want to have a little peek for some inspiration?

Chaos: That could be helpful, although I did just think of something. Maybe there are other survivors around, and maybe Tui has a good reason to want to avoid them. I think that's the thing she's not talking about here. The thing she isn't mentioning. It's not JUST dinosaurs you have to be careful of, on Dangerous Dinosaur Island. Then again she hasn't seen anyone else for a few days. It could be that they all got eaten, or escaped.

Hope: Does she tell us that?

Truth: She doesn't get a chance, because this slightly tense moment is interrupted by a nearby screeching.

Chaos: "Oh crap. Screechers. They're the worst. They always show up in groups and they, like, talk to each other. It's so flipping creepy."

Order: I have my SMG at the ready, looking around for possible exits. Where are we? Back at the reception desk?

Truth: I think so, clustered around the map.

Order: Snap decision, we head for the IT department. Widget probably mentioned that the backup generators are near there.

Hope: I don't know for sure though, don't be disappointed if I'm wrong!

Truth: Everyone roll Clever for me, just for fun.

Chaos: Oooh it is NOT for fun you LIAR. I got a nine though, that's not too bad.

Order: Five.

Hope: Six plus two is eight!

Truth: Max is distracted organising everyone and focusing on conventional threats. You're all heading through towards the IT section, the foyer is a big open dome sort of thing, but paths are formed and areas are closed off by big thin hanging walls, do you get what I mean? Plus pot plants and stuff, and sculptures, it's all very nicely designed but nothing's just a straight path, it's always curving or with a water feature in the middle or something. It's really fancy but very stressful to navigate through, especially with all that screeching around. Anyway, Max does a good job of getting you moving in the right direction and covering both ahead and behind, but the thing she misses, that Tui gets first and Widget gets a second later, is that the screechers doing the screeching aren't the ones hunting you. They're the distraction, and the coordinators, for the completely silent screechers who are already in place.

Hope: Noooo that's so creepy and scary, I don't like that, nooooo~

Truth: There's one more thing about them, these screechers. They're really good at keeping still, and they can angle their feathers to create a kind of camouflage effect, which means sometimes you won't even see them until ... they ... STRIKE!

Hope: Ahhhh stop this bus I want to get off! What do we do! Are they attacking?

Truth: I'm going to freeze the scene like three seconds before the first one attacks. Give you what's going to happen if you do nothing. First, there's going to be a really loud screeching from all around you. The attack signal. Second, the screecher that's nestled among those plants just a few metres from Max is going to leap at her, and the screecher that's on the hanging wall around half a dozen metres from Tui is going to leap at her. Third, the rest of them are going to come running in from all angles. That's the bad news. The good news, although it's not that great, is that these things aren't that big. Just about the size of large cats.

Chaos: I mean you describe them like that but honestly it doesn't make me feel good? If you say the horrible dinosaurs leaping at our faces are cat-sized? That's not actually better?

Truth: So, that's what will happen if no one does anything. Tui, you've spotted the one about to leap at Max. Widget, you saw the one that's going to leap at Tui. Max, you haven't seen anything. What do you all do?

Hope: I, I grab whatever's closest and I just throw it at the thing! I don't know, it looks kind of small, like only about the size of a large cat, it might work!

Truth: Whatever's closest, okay, I'll go ahead and roll fortune to see how appropriate it is ... six, wow, okay, you lucked out there. What did you grab?

Hope: I was thinking maybe a pot plant but that doesn't seem like a six, really. Oh, maybe we're passing a sculpture, and it's sort of spiky, you know sometimes there are sculptures made from a bunch of plastic pipes? Do you know what I mean? Anyway, the thing I grab is a solid heavy piece of plastic pipe and it's just exactly the right shape and size for desperately throwing at an awful dinosaur cat thing.

Truth: Okay, we'll do your roll in a second, Tui?

Chaos: I leap at the thing with my machete! I think maybe I've run into these things before, I know they hunt in packs and talk to each other but the other thing I know is that even though I'm small, I'm bigger than they are, and if I leap at them first they usually run away instead of leaping at me.

Truth: Okay, hmm. I think for Widget it's a Look Over There! roll, for Tui it's a Fight! roll, does that sound about right? Widget, you roll yours first, it might affect Tui's roll. Oh, but I think roll with Fit rather than Clever.

Hope: That's fair. Eight, minus one is seven, just barely a partial success.

Truth: Okay, I forgot to say take plus one for your excellently throwable piece of modern art, but it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Let's see, partial success on a distraction ... the dinosaur notices you. Okay, we'll deal with that in a second. Tui, your fight roll? Plus one for your weapon.

Chaos: Seven, plus two for Fit, plus one for the weapon, just barely a ten.

Truth: Okay, nice, full success gets you ... oh, this is interesting. You've bought a precious moment for someone to help you. It's kind of nice that there's no real 'take down a dinosaur' move.

Order: Except my one, the special move for The Soldier.

Truth: True, it really does make it a special thing for you. Um, anyway, let's think about this for a second ... so this all happens at once, there's that hideous screeching from all around but before either of the screechers can leap Widget grabs that pipe and hurls it at one, knocking it off the bit of wall it was clinging to, and Tui just charges full tilt at the one in the plants, swinging her machete and just barely clipping it as it leaps, drawing blood but ... no, actually, that one runs away, leaving a trail of blood behind, but Tui sees two creeping up through the plants, and Widget, that one you hit has its beady little eyes set firmly on you now, scrambling to its feet in less than a second. Max. Even though that happened in just a couple of seconds you're now fully aware of the situation. You've got Tui near you, with more of those things creeping up, and Widget a little way back, with a screecher about to leap at her. What do you do?

Order: Focus on the one about to leap at Widget. Snap shot from my SMG, just one bullet, then yell "TUI, RUN!" while I get to where Widget is, full focus on that one threatening her.

Truth: Okay. Okay. This isn't your kill move, I'm getting. I think it's Take My Hand!, because you're putting yourself in danger to help someone else. I'll give you yelling to Tui as a free action, so just roll with, um, I think Steady, to keep it together, keep calm, and maybe even hit that thing when you fire.

Order: Six, plus two is eight, partial success.

Truth: You miss with that one bullet, in any case, and now you have to choose. Either you two get separated from Tui, or you get Widget out of trouble but you'll be in even worse trouble.

Order: We're separated, that makes a lot of sense to me.

Truth: Okay, I'm going to cut at that point then. Max is the focus character, she sees Tui, she sees Widget, she yells to Tui to run while shouldering her SMG and she fires that one shot and we cut to black. For a few seconds, silence. Then heavy breathing, hard footsteps, we see Tui doing what Max told her, running hard out, all that hair trailing behind her, machete in hand, through this dimly lit foyer, she passes a sign and the camera stops to focus on it: IT DEPARTMENT. Tui has run out of the shot, and we see a couple of cat-sized shapes run past the IT sign after her. Back to Widget and Max, Max has some bleeding scrapes on her arm, Widget looks unhurt but stressed and scared. You two aren't running, you're backing away from something—or a pack of somethings—that Max is taking carefully measured single shots at. We see another sign. CONTROL CENTRE.

Chaos: So it IS just called that.

Truth: Yes, it is just called that now, I don't know, what do you call a control centre except a control centre? It's the control centre!

Order: And the most dangerous place to be, according to Tui. Can I do a flashback, for the sake of narrative convenience?

Truth: Mark one Weight, and maybe. What's the flashback?

Order: I want some way of talking to Tui, either a walkie talkie or an earpiece.

Truth: Hmm. We won't do that just yet, let's see how things go and what makes for a more interesting story first. So, the situation is that Tui is running into the IT department, where the backup generators probably are, and Max and Widget are headed up some stairs to the control centre. Both of you are being pursued by screechers. What do you do?

Hope: Oh, could I maybe use my special move? Jury-Rig, whip up a makeshift solution to a problem?

Truth: What's the problem, and what's your solution?

Hope: The problem is all these dinosaurs, so my solution is—oh, I have something! The doors that are stuck open, could I get one to close somehow?

Truth: That sounds reasonable. You scurry ahead while Max covers you, working on something to get this door shut and sealed. Roll it.

Hope: Okay, here goes ... eight, plus two is ten, I did it!

Truth: Yep, and you didn't even trap Max on the other side, which would've been the consequence for a partial success. Max, want to tell us how it went from your perspective?

Order: I didn't really understand what Widget was babbling about, but I got that she had a plan, so I focused on keeping those screechers back. Like Tui said, they're smart and they work together, but that's not always an advantage. If they were stupid they might just mob us, which probably would've taken at least one of us down. But they were cautious, hanging back, retreating when injured, and probably a little fascinated by the loud noises of my gun. I used all of that to keep them at bay while Widget worked, then when she called for me to join her I trusted her completely and did just that, the door sliding shut and sealing behind me. "Widget. How did you do that?"

Hope: "Complex technobabble! Excited and completely incomprehensible explanation! I didn't know if it would work but then it did and the door's shut!" Can I get it open again?

Truth: Maybe!

Hope: I'll take it! So where are we, actually? Are there a whole bunch of dinosaurs on the other side of this door with us?

Truth: No, it's oddly quiet. Dark too, the sun has set by this point, so the only light is from Widget's headlamp and Max's flashlight. You run your lights over dozens of screens, abandoned coffee mugs, the whole place silent and still. For now, you've bought yourself time to take a breath. Think about what you want to do as a safety move while we head over to Tui!

Chaos: Hi. I'm in the dark, aren't I.

Truth: Ooh, you very well might be. Nothing on your sheet that could be used for light?

Chaos: Nope, just my machete, my ragged clothing, some edible plants, my backpack, plus the medical supplies we scavenged. And of course, my terrible stench.

Truth: Okay, well, I guess first let's see how screechers feel about the dark. That'll be a fortune roll ... three, they can take it or leave it.

Order: In the dark, their screeching could lead other predators to them.

Truth: True, so when it gets dark they become ... completely ... silent.

Chaos: Well that's just GREAT news, isn't it. Oh, I want to roll my thing—wait, am I running from them still? Should I do a roll for that first?

Truth: No, we come in on Tui inside the IT department. It's a big open plan office, with the computer mainframe stacks in a separate room. Tui's crouched inside a cubicle, trying to control her breathing and listen for movement.

Chaos: Did I give the screechers the slip?

Truth: Anything's possible!

Chaos: Uh huh, yep, it sure is. Okay. Okay. I remember the others talking about turning on the power, and that it's probably in this area where I am. Can I use my thing to see if I know where the generators are?

Truth: Sure, maybe some things are clicking for you, maybe Widget described what generators look like and it's ringing some bells in your memory brain.

Chaos: That's a weird way to put it but okay, here I go rolling ... six, crap, my memory brain is utter bunk.

Truth: Nope, you remember it pretty clearly. You were actually in this IT department when everything went crazy and the dinosaurs showed up. You hid in the generator room with some other people. But you were the only one to get out alive. Everyone else got eaten. In the generator room. While you hid. And had to listen. And that's why you don't want to go anywhere near the generators.

Chaos: I really hate missing on that move, I truly do. Okay. Um. Hmm. I'm kind of stuck, then. Maybe that's Tui's scene here? She has a flashback and then just sort of cowers in the dark? Back to the others?

Truth: If you're okay with that, if there's nothing else you want to do?

Chaos: I'm good for now, maybe Max and Widget will figure out something that might help me in my position.

Truth: Okay, we'll go back to Max and Widget. Are you doing a safety move?

Order: Maybe scavenge again, mostly looking for a way to remotely activate the generators.

Hope: That sounds good to me, it might solve our problem instantly! Well, one of our problems. Sort of.

Truth: Sounds like a plan, tell a story and roll plus Clever.

Hope: I guess it's my turn to do one, let's see ... oh, something inefficient that infuriates me, the layout of this place! "Don't you think it's weird, Max? Nothing about this place makes any sense to me. Even putting aside the dinosaurs, and the collapsed roof blocking those stairs, it's just so inefficient. What even IS this place? What were they doing here?"

Order: "I don't know." I'm thinking about those rumours I heard, about the two year contracts and the ridiculously high salaries. I'm thinking, you don't have to pay anyone if everybody's dead. I'm thinking, maybe it wasn't dinosaurs who killed all the workers. I'm thinking, this feels big, and wrong. "Probably nothing good."

Hope: "That's for sure! I don't know about you, but I'm starting to feel like this is the worst job we ever took. We should've listened to the boss. She tried to warn us."

Order: "Did she? I don't remember that."

Hope: "When we signed off, when we took the contract! Usually she's like 'break a leg, you two!' but this time she was just like, 'good luck out there'. I should've listened to her."

Order: "Huh." Should Widget roll now, to see if we turn up anything?

Truth: Oh right, the roll! Yes, do that.

Hope: I'm a clever girl I'm a clever girl I'm a clever girl—yes! I am a clever girl! Eight plus two is ten!

Truth: So when Max says 'huh', it's because she found a soft red glow, and when Widget examines it, yep, that looks a lot like the button that will start the emergency generator reboot process.

Hope: "Bingpot!" I press it instantly with zero hesitation!

Truth: There's a pretty satisfying heavy clunking noise. The light turns green. Nothing else happens.

Hope: "Uh..."

Order: "Did it work? Do we need to do something else?"

Truth: Tui, you hear a sort of whirring noise.

Chaos: I think I was just sitting there with my head down. When I hear that noise my head whips up and my machete is in my hand, gripped tight and at the ready.

Truth: Back to Max and Widget, you two don't hear anything, until the fluorescent lights flicker on, and the screens around you come to life one by one.

Hope: "It worked! We did it, Max! We did it!"

Order: "We pressed a button, don't get too self-congratulatory."

Truth: Back to Tui again, the lights are coming on, and the mainframe area too, all those computers booting up, and there's a sudden chilly gust of air—this area is usually kept cold, for computer efficiency purposes. You also hear a scuttling, lots of small things moving quickly and suddenly.

Chaos: Gulp.

Truth: So, I actually think this counts as you overcoming the first obstacle, restoring power, so you all get to pick an advanced move.

Hope: Oh, exciting. Let's see, I can either gain the ability to build something big, with the help of you two, or I can make a bomb. I'm not really so into bombs? I'll take the construction thing. Oh, maybe I can figure out how to get past that blockage!

Order: I think I'll take Close Quarters Expert. I've observed these dinosaurs. They're just animals, like anything else. I'm confident I could take one in a fight.

Truth: What does that move do? Give you a bonus when you fight?

Order: When I Fight! I improve my result by one level, so a miss becomes a partial and a partial becomes a full.

Truth: Wow. That's pretty powerful. How about you, Tui?

Chaos: Are we likely to enter any kind of 'wilderness' in this thing?

Truth: Doesn't really seem like it's going that way.

Chaos: That's what I thought. In that case Fade Away seems a bit useless, so I'll go with Hoarder. I can pull stuff out of my backpack and maybe it's useful!

Truth: Now the other thing that happens is what's referred to as an 'Extinction Event'.

Chaos: Well now, doesn't that sound lovely.

Truth: Let's see, I'm just ... no, okay, I got it. For Max and Widget, up in that control room, some of those screens that flicked on show images from camera feeds, around the island. You see jungle, hills, big rocks, little rocks, weird rocks, mundane rocks, and of course a few dinosaurs doing their dinosaur biz. There's one feed in particular that catches your attention. It shows a wide view outside the prefab part of the base, with the helicopter landing pad, and there's your helicopter, still sitting there, still safe. That t-rex is asleep in the background, but that's not what you notice. The thing that you notice is the sky. The clouds are moving very strangely. Almost like they're vibrating, and some of them are jumping backward, like the footage from the camera is caught in a three second loop, except just for that one part of the image, that one cloud.

Order: "That ... is not normal."

Hope: "On the bright side, the helicopter looks fine? Yay?"

Truth: Tui, down in the IT department you don't see any of that. You're underground, probably, as far as you can tell, or in any case there are no windows. The lights are on now, and the computers are booting up, and every few seconds you feel a distinct ... pulse. It's like everything shakes, except not physically. You feel a warm wetness on your lip. Your nose is bleeding.

Chaos: Ah yes, the universal sign of weird nonsense, sudden nose bleeds.

Truth: And I think that's where we'll end this session!

Hope: Oh no! It makes sense to stop here, but oh no! I'm really looking forward to the next one. I hope we don't all die!

Order: That was fun, I'm looking forward to continuing as well. We overcame the obstacle, but the mystery remains.

Chaos: It's definitely a blast, but at the same time I'm pretty glad it's a one shot. I've already sort of had enough of dinosaurs. Plus I'm kind of remembering, like, there was a reason we moved on from PbtA? I'm not saying it's a bad system. Just like, yeah. You can have enough of a thing.

Hope: I think it works really well for this, though. What I mean is, there wasn't any time when I felt like it being PbtA took away from the experience? But then again I don't really think about mechanics too much. Um, I like the character classes, I think we all got to pick something we like.

Order: I don't usually play a soldier, but it fit me better than I expected. I'm glad I didn't pick The Doctor, which was my second choice.

Chaos: Honestly I'm not completely on board with Tui, but I think that's mostly just one shot syndrome. You know me, I'll always take a novel over a short story, a TV series over a movie. I need time to get to know someone! Anyway, yeah, this is good times. I'm looking forward to the second part, where we all get put in a zoo after being sucked through a dimensional portal into Dinosaur Universe.

Hope: I have a question. How much of this game is in the rules, and how much did you make up?

Truth: There's a lot of stuff to draw on here, they did a really good job providing a lot of little hooks. I'll probably talk more about that once we've finished properly, but for example, every area has some prompts for potential problems and so on. I had to modify a lot, especially with the power being off, but the example problems and incidents in the rules were really useful. Like with the medical room where you had a rest, the prompt was something like, there's a dinosaur in here high on pills and looking for more.

Chaos: Oh wow, headbuttasaurus was high as a kite.

Truth: That's why I was randomly rolling for its reactions.

Hope: What about things like the lab being blocked off, was that in the rules?

Truth: Yep, one of the prompts for the foyer, your path is blocked. Oh, and here's something to consider between sessions: maybe, just like the labs being blocked off deliberately ... dot dot dot...

Chaos: Oh. The power was also turned off on purpose. Oh man. What the flip did we do.

Truth: We'll find out next time, maybe? I guess we'll see!

#replay #ttrpg #escape from dino island #actual play

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pinkuboa · 8 years ago

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"Those who play games are fools giving away their money to those who are clever enough to develop games. Nobody will create game for you for free. Beside, games make you stupid. No such people can earn from playing them, bla bla bla" (In short, games take you tons of thing but give you no good thing) - said my Biology teacher

Nobody will create (a) game for you for free.

*stares at the RPG Maker & Flash community* Yeah, sure won’t. Nope. Bunch of greedy money grubbers here.

Your teacher sounds like a STEMLord: they wouldn’t find value out of anything that didn’t contain educational material on one or more of the STEM fields. I don’t know if you wanted a rebuttal to this or if you just wanted to show this to everyone to get a laugh, but hey, I’m gonna make one anyway.

I think there’s some good stuff you can get from games. When I play a multiplayer game I enjoy a community experience with friends. We make strategies together if we’re doing something cooperative, we make strategies against each other if we’re doing something competitive, but we always have fun with It’s like a sport, but I don’t have to trigger my asthma this way. We share new expereinces together and become closer to each other. When I make new friends over multiplayer, I learn new things like “How do I speak Dutch” or “Hey wanna know this piece of trivia?” It’s like playing a board game but funding those nice programmers, artist, sound designers, and computer geniuses who brought us this wonderful tech. :v

Hell, even if I play the same single player game that one of my friends did, we still become closer. My dad & I quote Sam and Max to each other all the time - it makes us laugh even when we’re not playing it.

When I play a single player game, I get some stress relief, just like how I would watch a movie or read a book. It may be more expensive if I get a triple A game for 60$, but I’ll probably spend anywhere from 12 to 30 hours playing it the first time around (I like shorter games!), and will replay it over and over again. If I play it for 60 hours, it means I spend one dollar an hour for something that entertains me for well, 60 hours. I paid 30$ for Tomodachi Life one summer. I spent around 400 (shut up) hours on it as of the last time I checked my 3DS stats. 400 divide by 30 is .075. Rounding up, I’ve spent 8 cents per an hour on something I (sadly) enjoy. My money went a long, long way to make me happy. That’s an extreme example, but you know.

Movies, which also tend to be mindless entertainment, are, erm, less cost effective. Say you got a 2 hour movie and I pay 8$ to see it in theaters. I spent 4$ for 2 hours of entertainment. If I buy a DVD when it comes out at 30$, it’s 15$ per an hour for a single sitting. Sure, things are much cheaper on streaming sites, but that adds up over time (like 120$ is a year round netflix subscription nowadays, twice as much if you’re ordering DVDs as well).

Books can be more cost effective: if I read a book, I can get anywhere from 1 to 20+ hours of enjoyment out of it, so it’s a nice use of my money (and even better if I get it out of a library!) But, well, if I re-read that book, I’ll get the same story over and over again. That’s not true for most games: with most games, you can find new things to explore, new ways to do things, and have at least one fresh new experience from the time before. And hey, you can’t make a multiplayer experience out of a book or movie (unless you’re MST3king it).

I’m not sure where your teacher got “playing games makes you stupid”. I mean, I’ve played one or two games that make me feel dumb for even playing them, but that’s because they were low quality games. I guess they just see a bunch of high school kids playing things like CoD and how they spend more time distracted by that than doing their work, but the same thing can happen with sports, music, & arts as well. Hell, the kid could be programming something in their spare time and get distracted. Whatever.

But still, educational games do exist. They’re mostly aimed at children, but I’m sure there’s at least a handful or more aimed at adults. Games that teach kids history and science (which your teacher shouldn’t be putting down since hey, the more people interested in science the better), games that encourage practicing reading and math, and games that help develop reasoning & critical thinking. Maybe your teacher still won’t like em or see them as a sub par way to get kids into learning, but if they get the kids more interested in stuff, isn’t that a good thing? Not everyone engages with stuff in the same way.

There’s simulators out there that aren’t just Goat Simulator 2.0. Those actual simulators will teach you the basics of (or at least give you an introduction to) farming, economics, history, truck driving, programming... heck, you have a well researched historical setting, you’ll learn about stuff like that from there. Even Oregon Trail taught us about good money management, the perils settlers faced back in the day, and what Andy’s favorite pizza topping is (peparony and chease).

Even if they’re not out to teach, games can give you something to think about. The Bioshock series comes to mind. OFF gives you morality stuff to chew on as well. There’s more examples, but I don’t play as many deep games as I could. OTL

Does your teacher consider reading fiction useless? Or watching a fictitious movie pointless? Ask them what their favorite non-fiction movie is. Ask ‘em what they got out of it. A better understanding of people? Some deep thought provoking moral? Maybe. What they really got was entertainment. Stress relief. Something to put their mind to that isn’t their work. Does your teacher regret spending money on these things because they didn’t teach the teacher anything?

If they answer something more nerdy like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or a Superhero movie, ask them what was the point of memorizing all that lore and all those character names. What did they get out of it? What did they learn? You didn’t. I don’t think they will, but you know. Do they like dramas like House of Cards or the Blacklist? What did they learn about that? Well? Or is it a case of “my media is more sophisticated than yours?” I guess - but that’s only because TV & movies have been around longer. Give games time to catch up.

Games give us the same thing Books and Movies give us: entertainment. It’s “useless” in the sense that it doesn’t further any scientific progress or anything, but it’s not useless when we need a break from things. There’s nothing useless about wanting to enjoy yourself, as long as you don’t let it consume your life (the same can be said about work!).

#long post #why do i write these #pink talks #video games #rpg maker #dang dirty developers conning people out of their money #(you have the right to ask for money come on)#colored-in-sapphire

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freebetalerts-blog · 6 years ago

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Woking v Watford: Huge underdogs to at least get a goal

(New post on FreeBetAlerts.com) - https://freebetalerts.com/2019/01/05/woking-v-watford-huge-underdogs-to-at-least-get-a-goal/ #Football, #Freebets, #Tips

Woking v Watford: Huge underdogs to at least get a goal Please share.

Opposing Watford may not be the worst bet in the world but for a slightly safer option look no further than goals at both ends here, says Jamie Pacheco… “Woking are averaging over two goals a game this season in the league and their current form when it comes to scoring is even more impressive. Their last eight games in all competitions have yielded 24 goals for them and you’d have to go back to mid-August, 28 games ago, for the last time they didn’t score.”

Woking v Watford Sunday January 6, 14:00Live on BT Sport 2 Opportunity of a lifetime for Woking This is the stuff of dreams for a club like Woking. A big home tie in the third Round of the FA Cup that will boost the coffers, give the whole place a lift and make it a day to remember for years to come for everyone at the club. But perhaps best of all is the fact that plenty of people around the club will genuinely believe this may not be the last match their team will be involved in regarding this year’s edition. A profitable replay at Vicarage Road would be as good as a win for the money men and if you’re going to be having a real go at a giant-killing act against a Premier League club, then Watford on home soil isn’t a bad draw for you. Their FA Cup form to get this far is no fluke. They’re currently second in the National League South table, just two points behind Woking and with two games in hand. Curiously, it was Torquay that they beat in the First Round Proper (1-0) before going on to beat Swindon (also 1-0) in the next round. Both games were away from home. Are Watford going to have a go at FA Cup glory? It will be interesting to see how seriously Watford take the FA Cup this year. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t take it as seriously as possible. A good start to the season means they’re eighth in the table and they’d have to go on an absolutely disastrous run for there to even be any talk of relegation. But only Javier Gracia knows what the exact plan is. He may go all out in the competition or he may decide it’s a good chance to find out a little more about some of his less busy players and give his big guns a breather. That could mean that the likes of Tom Cleverley, Stefano Osaka and Nathaniel Chalobah could all get a game here if that proves to be the case.If you’re going to be brave and take on Watford, it’s unlikely to be because of historical stats. Unsurprisingly, this is unfamiliar territory for the hosts. They’re playing for the first time in the FA Cup third round since 1996 and have never beaten top-flight opposition in four attempts. Similarly unsurprisingly is the fact they’ve never played Watford before. But stats are only one part of football betting. Sold out it may be for this one but Kingsfield Stadium has a capacity of just over 6,000 (2,500 seated) and the pitch is unlikely to be of the same standard that ‘thoroughbreds’ like Roberto Pereyra and Gerard Deulofeu are used to. So hardly a familiar sort of setting either on or off the pitch for the Watford men. Add to that the fact that his match arguably means a hell of a lot more to the Woking players than the Watford ones- other than a desire for avoiding embarrassment – and you start to believe this may not be that straightforward for the Hornets.If you want to accuse me of just regurgitating FA Cup clichés, then go ahead. But 1/6 on the Premier League outfit is no price for me given the circumstances. There are two decent ways to go about things. Take Woking on the Double Chance market at 7/2 on the Sportsbook or lay-to-back Watford at 1.23 on the Exchange.The only reason I’m not going with one of the above bets is because I have a better one in terms of value. Watford have kept just four clean sheets all season in the Premier League and have kept just one in their last 11 when they went and beat West Ham 2-0 away. We’re not suggesting Woking’s attackers are in the same class as what they face in the Premier League week-in-week-out of course but you can only score goals against the sides you’re facing. And there have been no shortage of those. Woking are averaging over two goals a game this season in the league and their current form when it comes to scoring is even more impressive. Their last eight games in all competitions have yielded 24 goals for them and you’d have to go back to mid-August, 27 games ago, for the last time they didn’t score.We should assume Watford will get one so it’s not hard to make a case for ‘yes’ on both teams to score at 6/5.It would be foolish to try and pick a Watford goalscorer at this stage, given the uncertainty regarding what sort of side Gracia might pick. But if the big names play, you might like to know skipper Troy Deney is 5/6 to score anytime, while the classy Pereyra is 7/5.If like me you believe Woking can get one, then here some names to consider. Max Kretzschmar has 12 goals this season and is rated 7/2 to score anytime. Jake Hyde has 11 goals and is the same price. As is winger Jamar Loza, whose 11 goals this season include four in various Cup competitions. The trio are all 12/1 for first goalscorer honours.

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operationrainfall · 7 years ago

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Title EARTHLOCK Developer Snowcastle Games Publisher Snowcastle Games Release Date March 8th, 2018 Genre RPG Platform PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, XBox One Age Rating E for Everyone – Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood Official Website

EARTHLOCK might seem like a strange choice after my last RPG review. After all, it was also crowdfunded and developed by a small indie group, so it might seem as though I was stepping into a trap once more. But I’m nothing if not an optimist, so I decided to give EARTHLOCK a shot. It’s actually been on my radar for a while, ever since I saw it listed on Steam and Wii U as Earthlock: Festival of Magic. Turns out it’s a good thing I waited, since this is the most complete version of the game. The question is, was this indie RPG worth the wait? Or should I have left it on my wishlist?

It’s quite evident early on that EARTHLOCK was inspired by RPGs of yore. Several of the typical tropes can quickly be checked off. Mysterious energy source providing magical creatures? Check. Sinister forces at play trying to take over or destroy the world? Check. Band of merry miscreants brought together in common cause? Double check. Honestly the plot is the least interesting thing about the game, despite dropping you into a compelling and rich world. But that’s not to say it’s necessarily a bad thing. Much like Legrand Legacy, EARTHLOCK is more of a loving tribute to the games of our past than just trying to cash in on our nostalgia.

If only you were playable, sweet Frogboy…

One of the things I like most about the game is how well streamlined many aspects of it are. Ranging from the combat, the exploration, the side quests and the crafting, every major part of the game is easy to implement and typically easy to understand. Take crafting, for example. So long as you have a recipe and the right ingredients, you can turn them into new weapons, items and other goodies. Most important are Harvesting seeds, which your lovable bookish Hogbunny Gnart specializes in. By watering plants grown on Plumpet Island or in pots found in cities, you will have more than enough raw ingredients to craft the majority of your healing items, which has the upside of you rarely needing to spend money in stores.

Side quests are as simple as talking to someone to generate them, satisfying their request and then reporting back. While many of them are simple fetch quests and hunting trips, they still provide good experience and other rewards. Best of all, the game makes use of mysterious froggy Onurasi statues to offer a way to warp back to the HUB area of Plumpet Island. It flows like delicately interconnected clockwork, and the upside is that you’ll always know what you’re supposed to be doing, though you are given leeway to wander about.

You can grow nearly all the ingredients you need from your beautiful garden.

Like many classic RPGs, there is a varied cast of characters, and for the most part the tone of the game is whimsical and somewhat laid back. You’ll eventually recruit a group of six very different characters, all with their own personality quirks and distinct combat utility. While part of me does feel there was a missed opportunity not allowing characters to change into different classes and thus offer more replay value, the variety here is still appreciated. That is especially true because each character has two different stances they can alternate between in battle, which provide very dynamic combat options. For example, your thief Amon can steal and poison or switch to a gun-toting stance, which allows him to hit high-flying foes. Another example is Taika, your loyal stormdog who can use elemental breath attacks in one stance and protect the entire team from the elements in another. You can probably tell there’s a lot of nuance in combat, and that’s one of the things I most enjoyed about the game.

Much as I liked the combat, this boss was a giant pain in the ass until I found the Cloak Talents.

One thing the game does differently is the use of Bonds between characters. You can go into battle with two pairs of characters. As they fight together, their Bond will increase, unlocking passive perks (such as immunity from poison or increased critical attack chances) as well as additional Talent Points (more on that later). Each pairing provides different benefits, so it’s in your best interest to constantly change up your teams, since you’ll never know what the next battle may require, especially the boss battles. That Bond is also used for your Super moves, which are essentially powered up versions of their regular attacks that hit multiple targets. While I may have been a bit underwhelmed by the Supers lack of visual and audio flair, they were nevertheless vital in battle.

Additionally, the higher your Bond, the more times you can use the Supers, which is why you never want to go into battle with a pair of units at anything other than max Bond. The only thing that detracted from my desire to max out the Bonds with every character was when I discovered the max level cap for all characters is level 20. While not every game needs to max out at 99, the moment I reached that precipice I lost a lot of interest in casual combat, since doing so only provided a minor amount of Daler (currency in the game) and occasional items for crafting. It didn’t ruin the game for me, but I do hope that Snowcastle Games has designs to implement DLC for EARTHLOCK later on that increases the level cap and gives more areas to explore.

Though I enjoy the battles in the game, I do have to admit they lost their luster in the latter part of the adventure. This is because I had maxed out my levels about 20 hours before I beat the game, which turned the last third of the game into a grindfest. Not for levels, but to get items for crafting and especially for Talents. By using the Talent Board, you can equip your character with Stats, Abilities and Perks. Stat Talents are pretty basic increases to things like Armor (boosting your DEF and Magical DEF) and a variety of others. Ability Talents open up new attacks, but are pretty much character specific, so don’t get too excited about crazy combinations. Perk Talents meanwhile are passive bonuses that help you in combat, such as allowing you to auto revive or providing an extra turn when you dodge an attack. The only catch is having Talents to equip on the Board and having enough TP to equip them, since each placement requires one TP. Luckily, each time you level up or increase your Bond to a certain point, you’ll get more TP. The only thing I didn’t much like about the Talent Board was that you couldn’t remove Talents, only swap them with different ones in your inventory. I would have loved an option to clear my Boards and reapply Talents, but that’s sadly not possible. Overall though, I felt the Talent Board opened up your options in a positive way.

The Talent Board was reminiscent of similar systems in some Final Fantasy games, and opened up some nice options.

Visually, EARTHLOCK is a delight. There’s a certain handcrafted charm to the design, as is evident in the well drawn portraits that show up when the game loads or in the distinct feeling of each area of the game’s world. While the character models are a little more primitive, I still thought they did a good job of exhibiting distinct personality just in their visual style. Though the music in the game is fine, I found it to be really quiet when playing the Switch portably. Anything less than turning it up all the way left the game sounding muted. Even when dialed all the way up, the sound effects lacked the distinct punch or memorable tunes I associate with many classic RPGs. Still, what’s here is obviously lovingly made, so I am not saying this to be cruel, but just to offer my honest appraisal of the art. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but there’s a lot more good than bad.

This handsome gentleman will assist you with all your warping needs.

While I enjoyed my 70 something hours playing EARTHLOCK, I do feel the need to summarize some of my irritations with the game that kept it from a perfect score. Even though overall the game runs fine, I’ve encountered some odd quirks. Perhaps the most perplexing is how one tutorial says to use the X button to activate abilities on the world map, when Y is what actually activates them. This was a bit problematic early on, since you need some of those abilities, such as Gnart eating berries or Amon excavating scrap, to satisfy side quests. More serious was in a couple of dungeons I was exploring and managed to loop to the beginning of one area from its own exit. Visually, the game has a few oddities as well. The Mirror enemies would knock themselves backward with their own attacks, often pushing them off the screen, meaning I couldn’t see their health meter or tell when I was targeting them. Also, the way icons are stacked over character’s heads during battle to indicate buffs or debuffs is very hard to translate in a coherent way, especially when there a bunch of them.

It’s a pretty wide world to discover.

While I do like the crafting aspects of the game, it’s sometimes hard to know where to go to get the right items for recipes. Many are only found in quests or by hunting monsters, which was exacerbated since the bestiary doesn’t show you what their drops are. Also, since you mostly craft all your items, I wish there was an option to split a crafted item into its component parts to use to them in crafting higher tier items (Spud Blast and Spud Blast+, for example). Lastly, I wish you didn’t have to return to the HUB area of Plumpet Island to warp to other Onurasi statues. In a game so well streamlined, it would have made more sense if you could jump from any statue to another one.

The camera mostly behaved on the world map, though occasionally I encountered issues like this.

All in all, I’m glad I finally got the opportunity to take this game off my wishlist. I did enjoy my time with EARTHLOCK, and felt I got a really solid little RPG for $29.90. Though there are some quirks that prevented this from a perfect score, there’s a lot more to enjoy, from the crafting to the combat to the characters. While I do wish the plot was a bit more elegantly crafted, since it mostly felt like a haphazard rollercoaster ride, what’s here is a worthy effort. If you are nostalgic for the RPGs of yore and want to play one on the go, you need to pick up EARTHLOCK on your Switch.

Never forget, Gnart is the very best Hogbunny!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″]

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REVIEW: EARTHLOCK Title EARTHLOCK

#classic rpg #Earthlock #nintendo switch #SnowCastle Games

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 7 years ago

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Oh! I wanna hear your hyper critical opinions towards p3 (and p4 if youre up to it). I am genuinely curious as to what it is!

pDSOAPFADFJIOA;FJIA;JF;DA Ahhhhhhh if only I wrote down everything I said (I did this over a year ago). under the cut cause long:

It was easier cause I was ripping it as we played and I had some nitpicks in the dialogue (more so with like “WAIT THAT MAKES NO SENSE!” or “WHY ARE YOU JUMPING TO THAT CONCLUSION?!” kinda thing rather than a translation error). But I can’t really specify what it was cause it was so long ago. The only one that comes to mind is when they’re jerks to Naoto, it must be how she’s talking in Japan cause like.......they’re really, REALLY rude to her. Like, they do realize she has a right to be suspicious of them right? Like, don’t get me wrong, I loooooooove the animosity in some way (great foe-yay/rival shipping yay fodder for me to ship her with the MC ahuhuhu 8U) but dang I wish they made more tension (and made it even). That’s actually the one thing I thought the P4 anime did right (and trust me I don’t think that anime did a lot of things right, esp concerning Naoto...ironically XD), they really built the tension between her and the group very well. Anyway I want to go into more detail some other time, maybe when I replay the two games, but for now I’ll give you a general overview).

Ok so all and all I think P3 and P4 are fine the way they are. They did a good job with them. P3 for being Hashino’s first hoorah into the series (also didn’t have enough time or money to include everything and had to cut stuff, LIKE THE FEMC! ;W;), and P4 for.....having such....a small.....budget....and....not a lot of time....and.....the company was struggling.....Like dang man I’m surprised we got P4. So like, compared to P5, I’m a lot easier on these two cause in one case Hashino was trying to find his style, and the other he was struggling with working with almost nothing (P5, however, didn’t have any of these issues).

Ok so like.....My biggest issue with P3 is mostly it’s characters and character relationships. P4.....I wish we could’ve hung out with Naoto earlier (even before she joined the team, that would’ve been interesting if the MC and her met up and attempted to draw more info out of each other about the case), and I wouldn’t have minded if they added more to the murder plot.

P3....ngl the first act until Aigis show’s up is.....so....slow.....and boring....and no one is really likeable imo. I hated Yukari, I hated Junpei. Mitsuru seemed interesting but she wouldn’t hang out. Akihiko....didn’t really care for him, but I couldn’t hang out with him. I couldn’t hang out with Yukari or Junpei if I wanted to (Yukari won’t hang out till around Aigis joins anyway, I remember from my last playthrough we tried, it was an NG+ and she snubbed us). Kenji is a moron (don’t hate him, feel bad for him, but god so boring), Kaz is a moron, didn’t do Yuko the first time (should’ve I did like her, hate I only got the first rank the first time I ever played through P3), I didn’t like Chihiro (she started off fine but was kinda creepy later on), can’t hang with Fuuka unless you have maxed courage cause eff me (not like I can ever remember her gd link anyways that’s how forgettable it is, I don’t even like Yukari but at least I remember her’s). Basically......the SL sucked balls. Major balls (I liked Maiko, the Star dude, the old couple, the Hermit, and the Devil......I guess the Tower too he was ok, and....that’s it....for outside teammate links aka Aigis and Mitsuru). Silly was not a happy camper when she popped P3 in after having fun with P4 (and esp after being told P3 was a GAZZILLION TIMES BETTER!!!!1!), tbh I took like a 4 month break from P3 and replayed P4 before I picked P3 back up (after Aigis showed up I def enjoyed it a heck of a lot more after that). Now, P3′s plot is really good and very solid, it’s P3′s strong point. My issue is that.....everything P3 does is for the sake of the plot. It does it well, don’t get me wrong, but everything about the characters is only happening cause “plot demands it.” They never felt super fleshed out, and it’s probably why they feel a little odd (maybe even flat-ish) in the spinoff games (even more so than the P4 team), cause the spinoff games aren’t relying on their (P3′s) plot. I also don’t buy a lot of their friendships (esp the males teammates with the Male MC), Yukari and Mitsuru’s is....ok (I don’t like how the game makes it feel like “oh you have a dead dad? me too! let’s be friends” as a thing, I know she’s just trying to relate and sympathize but.....I’ve seen that as a complaint come up by a lot of people, for someone so popular Yukari isn’t much of a people person in this regard, from how the game frames it that is). Also the fact you can’t friend girls. There’s not a lot of bonding moments in the game, there’s more than P5, but I still don’t feel as close to the team as I should even by the end. And gawd, Ryoji? Wut I’m friends with him now? How? When? I like the guy but I don’t think he likes me. You’d think he’d want to hang out with me cause.....PHAROS! ;W;

There’s more but I don’t want to leave you hanging, but anyway it’s just....I have a lot of issues with how the characters are handled. They’re good characters, I wish there just....more to them. But the thing is.....THIS IS AN EASY FIX! You’ve probably heard me say about the P5 manga/anime “a change in medium can do wonders” or something like that. That’s cause I have P3 to look at. The manga and movies do wonders for P3 my problems with P3. There’s more bonding, character relationships are improved yadda yadda. Yes there are issues within the manga and movies themselves...... but they do a lot of good things too. One of the things the movies did was actually......influenced by it’s P3P remake (aka establish a relationship with Ryoji, yay!). Oh man, P3P/the FeMC fixed sooooooooooooo many problems (it also added some even more awesome duality to a game that already had a lot of duality going on with it), I can talk to Yukari and Junpei from the get go (and they treat me different, and more pleasantly than when I played as the dude), I can actually hang out with the guys (and I DON’T automatically have to date them, in fact I have to work to date them, every single one), the stats for character requirements are laid out more fairly like in P4 so by the time someone is available I can probably talk to them (without having to kill myself trying to manage my social stats).But man, the first act just flows so much better when you’re able to bond with your teammates (also Rio and Saori are great SLs!). Even tho they don’t change the female SLs pretty much at all (making it veeeery gay XD), it does feel like it is at least a friendship by the end (even tho I’m literally dating everyone and you can’t tell me otherwise! 8U). I also love her personality comes across more clearing (and varied) than the males, there’s a more clear progression of her psyche than her male counterpart (it’s still there, just not as obvious, and I love how they’re inverted to each other~! :D). It’s just, with P3, the really minor changes go a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way. The only thing I would change with P3 is the minor stuff. Just add more scenes (that don’t take up time) to the game, on both sides. Gameplay wise add more SLs, alternative SLs even. Heck, if they remade the game, I think being able to go to new places would be cool (and it’d be where you’d meet your new SLs) cause man you’re in a city, you deserve to do more stuff! It’s just the little things man, the little things can make a big impact! It says something that probably my fav Persona fanfic and fav Strain42 Persona parody comicis the P3(P) ones, even tho P4 is my fav game. You change a few things around, even the medium, and it makes a difference.

Ok onto P4. Now P4 is the opposite of P3, with P4 it’s strong point is it’s characters. The characters drive P4. P4 is character based, P3 is plot based. P4 the plot takes a back seat. This is fine, it works in P4′s favor, like how the plot worked in P3′s favor. P4′s plot is ok, it does a great job with supporting the characters. Sadly I understand if you wanted more murder mystery (or just mystery) in a murder mystery game. And in P4′s defense, again, it had a barebones budget and not a lot of time and the company was doing pretty bad and P4 still came out pretty great (was the most popular before P5 came out, lord knows if it may even come out on top again if it gets an updated graphics/gameplay remake). And it’s also really hard to keep a murder mystery going for about 70-100ish hours (and only finally solving it in the last 1/5 of the game). Also P4, like P3 (forgot to mention that above), sticks to it’s theme really well. Even making it solving it/obtaining the good ending routes semi-difficult. Sure you can deduce Adachi, but tbh it’s also difficult. They do a pretty decent job building the guy up as a friend (even more so in P4G due to the SL). Izanami is also well hidden. The game makes you work and it rewards you.

Now if I were to change stuff.....it’d range from minor to major depending on what we’re talking about. Minor would be adding more scenes of Naoto bonding (she needs it cause the late game doesn’t do her justice), and like I mentioned above, I think have a deduction off would be interesting (Naoto’s SL was one of my favs cause of how we solved a gd mystery, god I’m so mad that never made it into the anime, even as an ova, it could’ve been a great team-building filler one too). Another thing I’d add would maybe be.....something similar to quests, but instead you have to solve a mystery (which means talking to people, and investigating areas), it can range from finding a cat in a tree or finding a bully or whatever. Just something minor that can give the mystery lovers something fun to do. I’d also have Izanami/gas station attendant be an SL (she originally was the Empress before giving that to Margret). Oh I’d also like to take Margret out on “dates” (c’mon gimme dem fun shenanigans). And.....now this can be minor or major (depending on what they do, but it’s probably more major), add another red herring. I don’t care how.....but....it would help draw attention away from Adachi. Maybe they’re added from some of the mini mysteries you solved, maybe they squeeze an extra dungeon into the game some how-some way (doubt it for the later, that’d be a major change), but another red herring would be good.

For a Major change it’d be restructuring the plot a looooooot, adding more dungeons for more red herrings. I would actually make Dojima a red herring. He originally was suppose to be the killer (but they thought that was too dark, understandable), with Adachi as the red herring instead. Other than that I’m not exactly sure how they’d overhaul that. I mean, if they made a P4 game based off of P3P’s route (aka different route/game, different killer), I’d like to see their prototype stuff play out. Short-haired ice queen Yukiko, delinquent/bully Rise, Pretty boy Naoto (actual boy this time, also make him dateable.....what? I like Naoto 8U), 1st year MC, Female Teddie, Adult(?) Kanji, Dojima as the killer, Adachi as the red herring (Chie and Yosuke are actually pretty much the same). I’d really like to see that.

But tbh, I don’t really know where to start in giving P4 a major overhaul (except to go with the prototype set up), possibly cause it’d mean introducing/creating new characters. But P5? I do, oh man I know where I would start (P5 is where I’d make my major changes left and right, no minor changes here...except maybe dungeon 1), I’d make soooooo many changes to P5. But that’s for another time (not now, it’d take too long). 8U

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thelongestdamnreviews · 6 years ago

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Rockman EXE WS

I'm using a translation patch, so the title screen's been changed.

After going through Network Transmission, I decided to try the other Battle Network-flavored sidescroller platformer Mega Man, Rockman EXE WS. This game for the Wonderswan Color actually released a month before Network Transmission in Japan (almost to the day even), so I guess this game actually came first. For the first clear, it took me around 38 minutes, a second clear at 1 hour 18 minutes, 100% at 1 hour 23 minutes, and finally the third loop was finished at 1 hour 42 minutes. There is a translation patch that I used to understand the text and story too, thus the English in these screenshots. I'll call the game by the Japanese title but I'll use English names for characters and stuff, to keep it easier on everyone.

TLDR The Good

Great spritework - While the quality might not be equal to the GameBoy Advance, I was kind of impressed by how well-done the sprites were. Some enemies are different sizes compared to how they are in the regular Battle Network game, but you can still tell which one is which easily. Just be ready for them to attack differently than you're used to! MegaMan has a pretty big variety of sprites, from his aggressive pose becoming a regular standing animation to having a critical health pant, and every Style has one of these too! Even minor things like changing the shape of his Buster in different Styles wasn't glossed over.

Interesting concepts - Not only do you eventually get Styles that change your element as well as certain parameters, you can slot in up to four different chips for immediate use. Some chips are single-use, while others replace the Mega Buster with an infinite-use attack while activated and some others provide some sort of buff as long as they're equipped.

Replay value - Considering you need to go through the game twice to see everything due to the way the game's set up, there's a reason to keep going after seeing the credits the first time. I'm not sure if you can 100% the game in just two rounds, but three doesn't take that long either.

Though the elements change based on the Style, your charged shot will always behave the same even if using HeatGuts or WoodShield, unlike the home series.

TLDR The Bad

Please do stop the music - I'm not sure where the blame lies with this (the composer or the hardware) but it sounded like none of the songs had actual held notes, instead there was quick two-note warbling in quite a few songs. None of the songs really stood out to me, not that I played it for very long for any one to catch on, but I dunno if they'd be better if they were simply on a different system or what. Consider that the original GameBoy had catchy tunes and even the Mega Man games that didn't have ports of the NES games' soundtracks counted there too. What happened?

Level design/difficulty - I can't condense what I have to say about this to a short paragraph, so watch for the several later in the review.

The story flow is pretty messy - It seems to follow the basic plot of the first Battle Network (Lan receives MegaMan, they murder scores of viruses and Navis, they destroy the LifeVirus) but the way the mini plots of each stage are handled is jarring because there's no real transition. Like, you start one stage "investigating the net for WWW rumors" and you transition to one of the stage branches and suddenly Lan is on a train whose braking system is malfunctioning? What? But this too is tied back to the way levels are designed, so buckle up.

Didn't Battletoads have a stage where you stood on and climbed snakes ("Karnath's Revenge" I think)? That explains what the devs were going for on the difficulty!

Lan Hikari has just entered the fifth grade and receives a NetNavi of his own, MegaMan.EXE. Together, they thwart a Navi causing havoc in their oven and uncover a nefarious plot by terrorist organization WWW, and fight against their Navis and evil operators. In 2D! Again.

Though Rockman EXE WS is another sidescroller game in a series that is RPG based, it's not too comparable to Network Transmission other than a few things that are in common with both. A big departure is that the game is extremely linear--instead of picking zones to clear and having a general progression through the game, you have only a small number of stages you go through in a set order, though there are branches that determine what the second half of some stages are and this determines who you fight at the end of the stage. Because there are only two branches in stages 2, 3, 4, and 5, you need to play through twice to see the other version of those stages. You can't merely get to the end of one stage and then decide to play it again going the other way.

You still destroy viruses and sometimes get chips to use, but almost all of them are "single use and they're gone" types. The game thankfully will auto-reload any chips you use provided you have more in storage, but there is no money and no store so you're unfortunately stuck with what you find, and there is no Folder so chips are gone forever once spent. Some chips found lying in the field on their own are actually infinite-use, like the Sword series that replace your Buster with their chip, toggled on or off. There aren't any PowerUPs to find, instead some chips and all of the Styles mess with MegaMan's stats. HeatGuts increases his attack power, AquaCustom has a fast charge, ElecTeam has faster movement speed, and WoodShield has higher defense, with HubStyle having the buffs of the first three with reduced defense instead.

You can pretend you're Zero if you want, but Sword chips are a little hard to use since you can't walk and swing at the same time. You can still do a repeating two-hit combo on the ground and attack in the air at least.

There are also three "equip for effect" chips that apply their effect as long as they're in your loadout and aren't consumed on use. AirShoes increases jump height, AreaSteal increases movement speed (stacks with ElecTeam/Hub), and Undershirt increases defense (stacks with WoodShield and somewhat helps Hub). These are kind of like X series upgrades though you can take them off at almost anytime, like to keep AirShoes from sending you into overhead spikes when you need a short hop. While having any or all of them equipped takes up slots other offense/recovery chips could use, the tradeoff is almost always worth it. And since I'm on about chips, I'm not sure if there's an actual limit on the number of the ones you can carry.

A new feature of the game is your connectivity to Lan. You start with three "bars" and depending on stage factors, it lowers or disappears entirely. At one bar remaining, you lose the ability to pause and thus can't change chips or Styles, and at zero bars you completely lose the ability to use chips, even the "equip for effect" ones! All of these situations seem to be scripted so it's not tied to performance, and you gain all of your bars back in the hallway before the boss room and in the boss room too. It's not really a notable system but it can inconvenience you a little bit in a couple of places. Losing the ability to even pause is kind of ridiculous though.

Most stages start with a 'neutral' kind of theme and you then transition to an entirely different one at an arbitrary point, and this is one of the problems I had with the game. There's no warning at all when you come to a stage branch, other than there just being two ways to advance, and sometimes a branch doesn't move into a new area but is just a side area to pick up an item before you go back to the main path. Stage branches are categorized by going up or down and you're left in the dark as to what you'll face on the other side, though people familiar with the first Battle Network can probably guess who either on the Navi taunting you on entering or by the way the stage looks. It's absolutely jarring to be in an area and then it shifts into something completely different just because you slid through a passage or something. Imagine if Castlevania games had zero transition corridors or even doors at all.

Hey wait, that’s my line!

I'm not really sure how cohesive the story is if you're not familiar with the first Battle Network game. There are story segments between stages, a primary reason to start the next stage, a small story section for each stage variant, and then back to the between stage story bits--but because of the branch system, you might have characters pop up you didn't see before, or you might end up with continuity errors like facing ElecMan near the end of the game and Lan knows who Count Zap is despite not facing him before. You can actually fight him early in one of the branches, but it's not a guarantee and Lan is never directly shown looking up WWW members or anything either. It's kind of like watching a clip show, where you have these "best of" moments presented without context and you'd probably be lost if you weren't familiar with the source material.

You have nine lives (continues) in every stage, refilled to max when you start a new one. You're going to need them. I found myself getting knocked into pits by enemy attacks fairly often, or I'd botch a blind leap, or so on. It felt like X6's level of unfair bullshit as opposed to NT's pretty difficult but still workable difficulty. MegaMan is pretty slow, I guess to account for the two speed upgrades he can get, and for some reason he seems to slow down when he hits the ceiling...and for some other reason, he seems to catch on the corners of some platforms like he can jump again to save himself, but that doesn't work. The stage layouts aren't as bad once you've been through once at least, but going in blind kind of necessitates save states, which I'm not ashamed to admit that I abused this time. Checkpoints aren't always generously placed, either.

*The Price is Right game over horns*

And the disappearing platforms gimmick is probably the worst in this game as opposed to any other Mega Man game I've played. Usually they appear in a pattern of two with them 'leap-frogging' through the sequence. Here, several of them only have one appear at a time, so you need to use the block to be where you need right when the next block in sequence appears lest you hit your head on it or have the block you're standing on disappear. SnakeMan's stage is great for this, and again you'll be going in blind the first time through so you'll need to redo that section more than a few times to not only get the timing down, but know where you need to be when the block appears. Not all of the disappearing blocks are this way, but then the ones in SnakeMan's stage aren't over spikes...

You can only get some chips by having other weapon chips, like to destroy a wall. Even in stage 2, Lan will point out a wall you can demolish with GutsPunch...that you get in the next stage if you go on the correct path. Later on, there's a wall you can punch with ColdPunch, which is just an Aqua-element GutsPunch, and actual GutsPunch does nothing! And back in stage 2, ColdPunch does nothing to the wall Lan mentions. Why is the game set up this way, other than to pad out playtime? Why can't you just use either one? There's a wall that requires a specific Sword chip too for no real reason. Said wall in stage 2 is actually why I had to do three playthroughs for 100% because I apparently didn't pick the most efficient order of branches.

Because there's no grinding and because you can permanently expend recovery chips, you better use as many lives as you can to learn the boss' pattern before you go all-in since you'll potentially put yourself into an unwinnable situation if you burn everything too early. This came up in NT too, but at least you had the option to escape and save and get more chips then.

Poor ElecMan can't beat Air Man! Also, I used WoodShield Style a lot in these screenshots, but I used ElecTeam a bunch too just for the movement speed boost. AreaGrab was the very last chip I got so I needed something to get me off of the default move speed.

There are six stages but you unlock a seventh after you finish the game once. You get to keep all of your chips and Styles for the second and future loops so you'll eventually have your pick of all the Styles and all, and you can apparently unlock a boss rush kind of thing when you finish and unlock its hardest difficulty when you 100% the game. I didn't bother with this. PharaohMan kind of, uh, gave me a terrible impression given how much of a difficulty spike he is so early in the game.

I really did like the Styles though, and being able to switch at almost any time made for some nice flexibility. The Mega Buster is probably the best weapon in the game, especially if you have an element advantage. Chips on the other hand are kind of hard to use considering the WonderSwan's control setup, so you'd have to take your hand off of the movement buttons to use/toggle one of the chips or finagle a good setup in an emulator like I did. That part kind of tapers off the more equipment chips you get, but it's still kind of troublesome. But yeah, I really wish there was another sidescroller Battle Network that had the best features of Network Transmission and EXE WS and the home series. But that's just a silly dream game I guess.

The WonderSwan itself. A to jump, B to fire, X1-4 to move, Y1-4 deals with the chips. An interesting control scheme since some games could be played vertically, but would probably come off clumsy on real hardware.

Overall, I don't think I can recommend this one. There are some nice ideas but they're put in a game with a pretty haphazard plot and malicious stage design in some places. It's very hard and I can't see a reason for it to be other than to pad out the game length since it can be finished three times in an afternoon, albeit with save states. Without, you'll probably be stuck for longer and I can't see your frustration levels staying low with some of the things the game throws at you. Nice ideas, but the execution just doesn't work for me.

They seem to have moved MegaMan's left eye (his left) down a little too far for the HubStyle mugshot so it kind of makes him look crosseyed. Maybe that's where the defense cut comes in?

#wonderswan color #not recommended

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