#tetris effect gameplay

[algorithmquartz]

Just posted this on my channel! This is the first video I really feel proud of.

[gobstoppr]

Tetris Fanart.

I've been playing tetris while listening to horror podcasts. and yeah

[smbhax]

Playing Classic Score Attack mode in Tetris Effect: Connected on PS4.

Well, I guess I got a new tiny high score, 67652 pts. 'p'

Zoomed the view in and realized the gosh darned blocks are blurry. Blurry 2D in new games has become my biggest pet peeve of late! There was that blurry Shanghai game, a blurring of some of the game with a certain setting in Zachtronics Solitaire Collection--and now someone had the gall to make a blurry Tetris game!!! RAWHWHGAHGHA

[bro3256]

The source of the video game bleeps and bloops in media

Have you ever wondered what the source of those specific video game bleeps and bloops were from? Odds are if a show or movie had a character play a video game or if a scene takes place in an arcade than it's very likely that it uses the same distinct sound effects that originally were sourced from the Atari VCS (2600) ports of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. These ports are already historically important with Donkey Kong being one of the few Nintendo games to be released on non-Nintendo hardware and Pac-Man being one of the most anticipated releases for Atari at the time. Today these ports are often mocked for how butchered they are to the arcade originals but at the time these were fine ways to experience these arcade games at home.

So why are the sounds from these arcade ports used so often in media? You can pretty much thank the widespread use of a particular sound effect library and in this case the Series 1000 Sound Effects Library which initially released on tape in 1979 and released on CD in 1983. A good chunk of this library contains the same sounds found on another sound library called the Network Sound Effects Library.

The Series 1000 library however includes audio recordings of gameplay from these Atari games. Ever since then, these sounds have been used for many years and continues to be used to this very day. Before I showcase some examples of media using these sounds I would like to present the recordings from these games. The following is sourced from the Series 1000 Sound Effects Library which feature sound effects from Atari arcade ports.

If you're familiar with these ports than you can make out the specific sound effects present from these recordings. The distinct walking and jumping sounds in Donkey Kong and the dots being eaten and game over sounds from Pac-Man are the more identifiable sounds you hear. With this in mind here are a handful of examples of these sounds being used in media.

(Note: Due to Tumblr restricting one video per post I have compiled all the example clips in a single video so feel free to read below for the specific sound bytes used whilst the video plays.)

Arthur (1996)

The season 1 episode "Arthur Accused!" has Buster investigating an arcade which features sounds from Pac-Man as it eats ghosts and a faint sound of Pac-Man dying from a ghost.

Drake & Josh (2004)

The season 2 episode "The Bet" has Josh playing your typical video game but features several seconds of audio from Donkey Kong. Weirdly music from the Nintendo NES version of Tetris (Type-A specifically) can be heard when Josh is playing on his "handheld" which is clearly a red Game Boy Advance SP.

SpongeBob SquarePants (2007)

The season 5 episode "Atlantis SquarePantis" features a segment of Sandy in a retro inspired environment. The puzzle game segment features various cut up sound bytes from Donkey Kong including jumping over barrels and the walking sounds.

Chowder (2008)

The season 1 episode "Sniffleball" features a brief sound effect from Donkey Kong of Mario jumping over a barrel. (also what is this retro nonsense?)

Ted (2024)

The season 1 episode "Just Say Yes" features Ted and John playing Super Mario Bros. on the NES. For whatever reason no footage of the game is shown and the audio used is from, you guessed it those Atari games. Donkey Kong sound effects can be heard while brief snippets of Pac-Man can also be heard mixed in.

I could keep going but you get the idea. There are plenty of other examples you can find and I highly recommend checking out the Sound Effects Wiki if you're curious to see what other examples are out there. Linked below are the articles for the other sources for these Atari recordings.

Sound Ideas, ARCADE, VIDEO GAME - VIDEO GAME: ELECTRONIC SOUNDS, AMUSEMENT PARK, FAIR 01 Sound Ideas, ARCADE, VIDEO GAME - VIDEO GAME: ELECTRONIC SOUNDS, AMUSEMENT PARK, FAIR 02

I guarantee most folks nowadays aren't even aware that these sounds are from actual Atari games cause out of context they sound like generic bleeps and bloops. That's probably why it's so common to hear these sounds in media as unless you're a nerd like myself this is something you're likely not going to think about and I'd imagine the folks working with audio aren't gonna stop and think about where particular sounds come from outside of the library they're featured in.

[heartbeatbookclub]

What do you think the dokis favorite games are.

Personally, I genuinely think yuri would be into the fear and hunger games. The horror and lore in them just seem like they'd be right up her ally.

I think it's probably easier to assign them genres? I agree that Yuri would like Fear and Hunger tho.

I don't think Monika would be big into video games, and also she sucks at them. She strikes me as a big puzzle game fan. Tetris. She's a tetris wizard. Oh, and the Sims. One day she accidentally burns someone's house down and feels incredibly guilty...but grows progressively more cavalier in her demented actions towards her Sims. The other girls like to push Monika into different games, to varying effect. She's a real sucker for games like Undertale, though.

Sayori's favorite game is Minecraft. She'd probably like games that are slower paced and easy to understand. She's the type to abandon the tutorial and say "I wanna play a game, not read a book!" then shamefully trot back to the tutorial 10 minutes later after dying 30 times in a row. She also kinda sucks at games, but can be surprisingly competitive. She'll kick your ass at Mario Kart.

Yuri is big into RPGs. Every one of those quirky Earthbound inspired RPGs, she's played, and will gush about at length if you let her. She played through a bunch of old JRPGs too, but don't let Natsuki hear that...She gets into a game for its story, typically, and she also is kinda bad at anything more gameplay oriented (Like Hades) but she will keep trying to the point of heavy frustration because she wants more of that story content (Like Hades). She probably used one of those free trial versions of RPGmaker to try and make her own RPG (or one based on a book series).

Natsuki probably has the most varied tastes. She's big into shooters, probably plays a few battle royales and is somewhat toxic (typically as a joke). She's probably the biggest gamer and the most skilled out of the lot. And, consequently, the most competitive. She probably played a bunch of fucked up flash games as a kid. And, predictably, also a bunch of visual novels & JRPGs (don't tell anyone, but I think she mightve even played a few dating sims....)

Sayori gets them all into Minecraft. Natsuki thinks the idea's kinda dumb but gets really into building a cute little house. Monika dies like 12 times on the first night and hides in a hole. Afterwards Sayori helps her learn the ropes and they build a house together. She puts her bed next to Monika's. Monika is clueless. Yuri is quietly mining the entire time and occasionally types in chat rather than using VC.

Thanks for the ask, anon!

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 3 (Three-Way Poll)

Do You Remember (We've Been Through This Before) from In Stars and Time

vs.

Battle! (Summer Superstars) from Pokémon Masters EX

vs.

Connected (Yours Forever) [In-Game Mix] from Tetris Effect

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

Connected (Yours Forever) [In-Game Mix]:

A great song for a great game. It is absolutely worth watching this song alongside gameplay or the theater mode version of its stage, it is a visual experience as much as it is an auditory one.

[lazuliquetzal]

Tell me your thoughts about gameplay and story integration in video games :3

(THANKS ILY TOO!)

Video games are a super interesting medium because it's all about leveraging player behavior and choice. A lot of game design fundamentals are about giving the player freedom, or the illusion of freedom. The game maker sets the rules, and the player organically develops behaviors and strategies within those rules. If you want the player to act a certain way, you have to encourage them to act in that way. (Watch one of the bazillion analysis videos on Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 sometime.)

In games there are ways to punish a player (death, losing progress, jumpscares, etc) and there are ways to reward a player (score go up, unlock new thing, get more power, etc). Story can be part of that, and it can go beyond "play well = good end, play poorly = bad end."

I think, if you're going to use a video game to tell your story, you should really take advantage of it, you know? Flex the medium. Leverage the inherent immersion that comes with the player Interacting With The Game. Inscryption and Undertale are So Video Game that you can't adapt it to a different medium without significant rework. They are video games because they have to be video games. That doesn't make them automatically good, but a good storyteller would choose the medium that works best with their story and that confidence just oozes out, in a good way.

You don't even have to get all 4th wall meta with your video game plot. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the main Gimmick is that you have a time-traveling dagger. You can use it to make combat sequences easier, you can use it to solve puzzles, but it's also integral to the entire experience. The time travel sets up the framed narrative, which pays homage to the literature that serves as the game's inspiration. The central conflict is resolved with the time travel mechanic. In gameplay, you make mistakes, experience consequences in battle, learn and do things correctly the next time around, which is the Prince's entire character arc. Even basic game mechanics are part of the story -- when you save, you get "tips and tricks!" in the form of visions that will help you solve puzzles, but some of those visions are plot-relevant. The menu itself has flavor dialogue that is part of the narrative frame and is also hilarious.

Some other examples: Papers, Please! explores bureaucracy as a tool of dehumanization under authoritarian governements, and the gameplay is all fine print and form-filling and menus. In GOW 2018, there are enemies that have elemental weaknesses, so you end up having to switch weapons. (This is a really common thing to do: new area w/ new enemies requires new weapon.) You unlock the Blades of Chaos so that you can enter Helheim. The Blades also have a backstory, and using them means something in Kratos's character arc, it's a whole Thing. In metroidvanias, you unlock new abilities so you can access new parts of the story and find things you missed the first time around -- really good for worldbuilding and creating a sense of depth to a location (the world of Blasphemous comes to mind). Majora's Mask gives you anxiety.

A buddy once asked if I thought a good plot could carry a crappy game, and my answer is no. You can't absorb the story if the primary mode of interacting with the story is unplayable. If the gameplay is detracting from the story, then you should make a movie or write a novel. Video games are experiences: gameplay should serve story, story should serve gameplay. *Tetris: Effect Voice* it's all connected!

I just enjoy it when stories are told in mediums that suit them best. It's satisfying! It's fun! Makes my brain go :D

[hardcore-gaming-101]

I.Q Remix+: Intelligent Qube

It’s a challenge to figure out how to follow up on a puzzle game. The temptation’s always there to introduce more mechanics, to increase the complexity and provide a suitable challenge for experts of the original, but that can just as easily throw off a perfectly maintained balance. Intelligent Qube‘s designer Masahiko Sato once discussed how he originally planned to feature more complex cube shapes, until he realized that it made the game too complex and unpredictable.  Another option is to rework the presentation, using the same classic gameplay but bringing in new sights and sounds to revitalize things (2018’s Tetris Effect is a famous example of this working like a treat). But that’s a big risk to take when Intelligent Qube‘s tone and feel is so uniquely crafted by its stark visuals and haunting soundscape.  Perhaps it was due to the jump to the next generation, as a title that came just weeks after the PS2’s Japanese launch, that it was decided to try both with the next game in the series. I.Q Remix+: Intelligent Qube provides a new take on the gameplay and visuals, and while the attempt is noteworthy, it also results in a weaker game and the most visually abrasive title by far.

Read more...

[cipheralreviews]

Game Review: Tetris Effect: Connected

General opinion: Positive.

Tetris Effect: Connected is, obviously, a tetris game, with a modern graphical twist. It has classic and VR modes, both of which have their own pros and cons, but are also both worth checking out if you have the ability to. With several different modes, Tetris Effect: Connected offers a lot of different styles of gameplay for varying skill levels.

Starting off, I want to give the game devs credit where credit is due: this game absolutely slaps for it's visuals. A tetris game in the Unreal engine is certainly a choice to make, and they pulled it off really well. Sparkly particles, glowing animations, and surreal visual effects bring a magical experience to a classic arcade game, no matter if you play it in VR or on your screen.

It has both a main campaign where you play through different levels in a story-like sequence, as well as other, more casual AND more intense gameplay options. Marathon modes through themed levels, gimmick modes where you clear "corrupted" blocks or deal with mind boggling effects, and calm modes where you have no game over are all available to play, giving variety for any kind of player.

On top of this, they have colourblind modes of various kinds for the game stages themselves. You can play with classic colours, custom level patterns, or modes that add patterns and colours that make it easier to distinguish the blocks from each other. There's also multiple difficulty levels, ranging from beginner to hard, so you can adjust how many lines you want to clear per level.

The final point I want to praise is the audio experience. It's amazing. There's unique, original tracks made for the game, and the "title song" (used colloquially because it's not actually the title screen song, but it is the one from the first level in the story mode) is ABSOLUTELY incredible in my opinion. Heavy beats that are influenced by the ways you turn, flip, and drop blocks paired with each level having individual themes to them that inspire and match the music playing make it both engaging as well as good to listen to on its own.

And now the negatives...

One major issue I have with this game is that the story mode does not have options for speed, nor do they have a "no game over" setting. This means people like myself, who have visual processing issues as well as mobility issues, have a harder time clearing levels and unlocking the next theme in line. Some levels have rapid speed ups and slow downs that are a bit jarring, and while I understand the fact they might not be able to give the option to not change the speed, I'd have really liked if they'd given an option to have no deaths. It meant, for me, that I got stuck on several levels that I otherwise would have really enjoyed because they went from speed level 3 to speed level 8 or higher all within one lines difference. Having this option for the story mode would have improved the experience immensely for me, as I'm still stuck on the last level in the easy mode.

The only other thing I'd add as a problem is that if you're photosensitive, it could get painful very fast, especially in VR mode. They do have options to turn down or off particles, change graphics settings, etc. but that doesn't change the fact that there are strobing lights on some levels that you cannot turn off.

The above limits the people I can truly recommend the game to, which is genuinely unfortunate, because I know several people who would LOVE this game, if it had the accessibility features mentioned.

Final notes

Overall, it's a great game that brings a really nice, fresh twist on a game that's a decade older than I am. It really justifies itself as an iteration of tetris, much like Jacob Geller has said.

If you liked this review, please go and check out Jacob Geller's video Tetris Effect And Other Games With Immaculate Vibes! It's the video that introduced me to this game, and he makes some really interesting observations on tetris and marble games, and how they interact with their history.

Additionally, I post these in my free time, but if anyone has movie, game, or series recommendations, please feel free to send them in! I really do love reviewing media, and if I can turn this into an actual job it would be incredible.

[thevikingwoman]

Top Ten Video games

thanks @keturagh for the tag!

as this list shows - I'm not young, and I started out with PC gaming, where truly my love for gaming was built. It was hard to pick 10 games - for being a "gamer" I don't actually play a lot of games, and there's only a few games that really stick out as truly noteworthy over time to me. Criteria is muddled - games that are great, games that are fun, games that defined a moment for me. Yes, there's a certain amount of nostalgia too here. I've by internal logic excluded text-based IFs from considerations.

Tagging @myreia @galadrieljones @galadae @roguelioness @redinkofshame @lilas @coldshrugs @allaganexarch @a-shakespearean-in-paris if you want! And anyone else! tag me!

Civilization

I refuse to pick one, but I'll probably go with IV if I had to, just because of the music and I think it's where they introduced cultural victory. Civilization was the first video game I brought with my own money, and yes that's an old pic of all the boxes (I don't have the Civ I box 😭but I still have the disks and manual). I also have Civ VI, but no new pic. Civilization is genre defining, a PC gaming defining game - there is no other game like it.

2. Diablo II

I played so much Diablo II - it was such a fun game full of fun gameplay. It was also the first game I truly played online - meeting new and wonderful friends and got embroiled on online drama! Diablo II was just sheer fun, from the builds to the loot to the secret cow level. The cut scenes were phenomenal, the one above is still one of my favorites of all time - the shattering of the world stone. Tyrael was possible my first video game crush, yeah just the wings and voice, don't @ me

3. Warcraft III

I played so much Warcraft III. The gameplay was fantastic, just a great RTS. It had humor, but also possibly the most heartwrecking storyline I've played - the fact you get to play out Arthas decent into evil was a stroke of gameplay and storytelling genious. Coupled with this era of Blizzard's cinematic department, the hands down best cut scene ever. This remains a top game for me.

4. Mass Effect

What can I say? Mass Effect is fun to play, has a pretty great and well written story - it's one of a kind to be honest. I don't do shooters, but I do do Mass Effect.

5. Pharaoh

I love city building and this was the best one. IS the best one, as this is remastered on steam. I'm currently playing this, and this is from the other night. I love this! pyramids! logistics! production! bright colors!

6. Dragon Age Inquistion

would be weird if I didn't include this one, right? I love the game and I love all the stuff that lives in my brain because of it. Also I do think the combat is fun? I think mechanics and environment wise it's also the best of Dragon Age.

7. Assassin's Creed Odyssey

I had a hard time picking between II (best boy Ezio, Desmond), Origins (pyramids! BAYEK and AYA, the mature story!!) and Odyssey - in the end I think Odyssey won because of the feel of AC - assassin, the vast explorations, the many quests, and ofc yelling in DMs over lost love. Not to forget - clop, clop, clop, the fake minotaur quest.

8. Jedi: Fallen Order

Look, I don't like platformers or difficult combat, but story mode hit the spot, and the story was SO good. Cal Kestis is my son in my heart, the story and his character touched me.

9. World of Warcraft

well, the sheer amount of time and investment I put into this game count for something. At some point it seemed like half the world played it, for good reason. I don't think I can go back, but WoW was the first MMO I truly enjoyed, and I love the art style so much. and I got to turn into a demon for massive damage, and endlessly frustrate my healer. Infinite mana, baby, just heal me

10. Master of Orion II

another old 4x game, this just hit the spot somehow.

other contenders: Geometry War Retro Evolved, Tetris, the MasterMind game my dad coded himself and we had a vicious family competition for the leaderboard, Settlers III, Heros of Might and Magic (but I don't recall which version I loved the most), and Warlords (the original DOS game)

[algorithmquartz]

New video! I felt called to do another collective tarot and oracle reading. You should watch my reading if my words or video thumbnail catches your attention! 💖🌸

[aokozaki]

Puyo-Puyo is really fascinating because like, it's basically cousins with Tetris, due to the crossover, cousins of classic block clearing puzzle games.

But whereas the mechanisms my which Tetris works (try to make as many clears with a line piece to score tetrises) is fairly easy to learn, to the point that even lay people can look at gameplay footage and be like "oh he should try and move this here to make a nice well"

(Which is, very different from being able to plan and execute those inputs when played at-speed - it's just that even lay people can see what the Tetris players are aiming for at any given time).

With Puyo-Puyo, the central mechanisms of building a stack such that when you clear one quad, it causes more Puyos to clear as they fall to fill the empty space (!) is a lot more abstract and a different kind of mental planning and stack building that it's much harder for a layperson to picture.

Like, you can talk about the so-called Tetris Effect in two parts: Playing the game enough that you start (day)dreaming about it, or seeing something like needing to pack a bag and mentally "tetrising" the objects into tight stacks.

The former happens with basically any game you play enough (we keep seeing the Binding of Isaac in our sleep...) but the latter is very specific to Tetris, it feels like?

Because Tetris' mechanism of stacking and packing things together is way more generalized and common a problem, than Puyo-Puyo or Dr. Mario stacking. Which are both more "abstract" a problem and only really apply to themselves.

[smbhax]

Playing Classic Score Attack mode in Tetris Effect: Connected on PS4, vs the level 4 ("Average") CPU!

[thon717-y2rapidprototyping]

A summary of The Brick Breaker games

Similarities

Gameplay Mechanics:

Brick Breaker, Peggle, Bubble Bobble, Tetris, and Pong all involve player control over elements to clear or destroy objects.

They use a simple, intuitive control scheme that is easy to pick up but offers depth for mastering.

Objective:

The primary goal in each game is to achieve high scores by eliminating objects or blocks (e.g., bricks, bubbles) or by achieving specific objectives within a time frame or set of conditions.

Addictive Nature:

All five games share a "one more try" quality, where players are motivated to keep playing to improve their skills or achieve higher scores.

Differences

Game Mechanics:

Brick Breaker involves bouncing a ball to break bricks.

Peggle features aiming a ball to hit pegs and clear the screen.

Bubble Bobble is a platformer where players use bubbles to trap and pop enemies.

Tetris involves rotating and placing falling blocks to clear lines.

Pong is a two-player game where players control paddles to hit a ball back and forth.

Perspective and Control:

Brick Breaker, Peggle, and Bubble Bobble use a top-down or isometric view.

Tetris is viewed from a top-down perspective but focuses on block placement rather than movement.

Pong is viewed from a side perspective, focusing on real-time paddle and ball movement.

Game Progression:

Tetris and Pong increase difficulty gradually (e.g., faster falling blocks, increased ball speed).

Brick Breaker and Peggle feature level-based progression with increasing complexity.

Bubble Bobble progresses through levels with increasingly difficult enemies and more complex layouts.

Success Factors

Simple Mechanics and Learning Curve:

Tetris is widely recognized for its simple but deep gameplay mechanics, contributing to its long-lasting appeal.

Pong and Brick Breaker succeeded in their eras due to their straightforward controls and engaging gameplay loops.

Visual and Auditory Feedback:

Peggle and Bubble Bobble use colorful graphics and satisfying sound effects to enhance player engagement and reward.

Innovative Concepts:

Tetris and Peggle brought fresh ideas to their genres, which helped them stand out and succeed.

Potential Issues and Revisions

Pong:

Issue: May feel too simplistic and repetitive for modern audiences.

Revision: Introduce power-ups, varied ball speeds, or different game modes to add variety.

Tetris:

Issue: While classic, the challenge lies in maintaining player interest over time.

Revision: Incorporate new game modes or features to keep the experience fresh, such as multiplayer modes or customizable themes.

Bubble Bobble:

Issue: The platforming and bubble mechanics might feel dated compared to modern platformers.

Revision: Update graphics and add new levels or mechanics to align with contemporary gaming standards.

Brick Breaker:

Issue: May lack depth after a certain point.

Revision: Introduce new types of bricks, power-ups, or special abilities to extend gameplay variety.

Peggle:

Issue: Can become repetive after a while.

Revision: Add more diverse peg types, challenging objectives, or a story mode to keep players engaged.

[videogaems]

Steam Next Fest - June 2024

Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers It feels easy to say 'Balatro Clone'. BUT if you say that about this game, you are openly admitting that you only see playing cards and have no nuance, just like everyone said. Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers (Or D&DG as I'm going to refer to it, to save my little fingies the typing) is a roguelike blackjack battler. Those words feel confusing to stitch together but just follow me.

You choose your suit (different suits have different abilities, and the game equates this to difficulty) and begin playing blackjack against an opponent. You are always able to see their cards, unlike regular blackjack, and whoever of the two players wins does damage to the other players health pool, amounting to the difference between your final hands. Going over 21 results in your hand value being reduced to zero, in which case be prepared to take 17 full points of damage to the face.

As you win against opponents, you will acquire new cards for your deck, much like Balatro. Your opponents will also be acquiring these cards, much unlike Balatro.

There is also a mechanic of some cards being manually 'Exploited' (Read as: Activated), but in order to Exploit a Card, you must have Advantage (Read as: Points). This isn't explained well in the game *at all* in my opinion, but as you can see I figured it out using my brain and eyes, much to my chagrin.

I don't think I'll be Wishlisting D&DG, but it does the thing I like: It's a weird spin on a concept you know. And it works! I'll be curious to see if this catches on with the Balatro crowd, but I will certainly recommend it to roguelike and deckbuilding fans.

Dungeon Clawler I won't lie, when I saw that this was a dungeon crawler where you play a crane game to fight people, I automatically assumed this was my shit. I will say that it's kind of my shit, but it's not as 'my shit' as I originally thought it would be. Gameplay is cool and straightforward, you get two chances per turn to drop a claw into a claw machine and pull out symbols. The symbols you pull out will have some kind of effect (swords do damage, shields block damage, etc). By winning fights, you amass coins and new symbols to add to your crain machine that have varying effects.

By and large, the game is a cool idea but I'm not wild about execution. Now, Baron Mind® that this game is still in development so the following critiques may not apply someday BUT:

The art style is that kind cel-drawn images squash and stretch to imply movement, but it ends up kind of looking chinsey. It was the first thing I noticed, but maybe that's just because of how offput I am by that artistic choice.

Second, a banger of a soundtrack, even if it is just a remix of the Type B song from Game Boy Tetris, it's pretty good. But, zero sound effects. None at all, which filled me with discontent. I'm seeing attacks, I'm getting shields, I need noise.

Again, probably not a Wishlist for me but good execution on a great idea.

Tactical Breach Wizards

This was probably the breakout hit for me this Next Fest, and I will absolutely buy this day one (And hope the demo works after the fest is over). The third in the Defenestration Trilogy by Tom Francis - Which also includes Heat Signature (maybe one of my favorite games of all time) and Gunpoint (A game that, years after it came out, I found out I have a friend whose brother did the music - small world).

In Tactical Breach Wizards, it is the modern world, but magic exists. You are a team of magic users who are also a SWAT team. And when I say SWAT, I want you to imagine all the straight-to-DVD action movies that are marketed to the people who are military nerds, but never actually joined the military - It's that. I mean, one character is effectively Gandalf in Desert Camo with an M14 that has a staff sticking out of it, another has a wand with a laser sight and a silencer. It whips ass.

Gameplay is a lot like XCom, with one cool feature being that your wizard can see one second into the future, so after finishing your turns, you can forsee how the enemy will react, and rewind your turn as far back as you like, as many times as you want in order to achieve your desired outcome.

Honestly, I could rave about this game for a while. The gameplay, the style, the writing, everything is just aces, and this immediately breached the door to my Steam wishlist and killed everyone inside. Can't wait for August.

Caravan Sandwitch

I was unsure how to feel about Caravan Sandwitch. You play a girl who is returning to her hometown after a long time away, and reuniting with friends while driving a van.

The art style? Fantastic. Really just an absolute dream to look at and play. The setting? Eh... Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of games that don't hold your hand to explain the world lore, and just kind of let you figure it out through context. Caravan Sandwitch does try to do that, but it falls short, and you end up feeling like a third wheel to these characters, rather than being in the shoes of the character you're playing.

While you explore, the game will have pillows sitting about in hard-to-reach places that effectively serve as collectible lookout points, where your character will just chill and observe the surroundings. These moments are peaceful, and personally I'd love to see more games do something like this, in an effort to make the player really observe the effort put into the environment (A thing I fail to do often)

However, other than that, Caravan Sandwitch didn't really grip me and I probably won't keep up on it.

Dustborn

Another entry in forgettable-single-name-game-titles-that-are-portmanteaus. Dustborn has you follow a group of characters in a band, traveling across the country on a tour in an effort to get to Nova Scotia, which seems to be some kind of safe haven in a military-state America.

Again, the Art style in this game is fantastic, everything is very comic book stylized, even the button prompts, but the demo jumps between moments in the first couple hours of the game without giving you a lot of info as to what is going on. I was surprised when combat was introduced, and thrilled when it included a baseball bat that you can throw and retrieve like the Leviathan Axe in God of War. Well, not quite like the Leviathan Axe... it's posited that way, but ultimately ends up being a ranged attack that just automatically returns to you. Combat was very floaty and just didn't have that je-ne-sais-quois that makes combat feel good.

The game also contained a rhythm action sequence that was reminiscent of Gitaroo Man, another fave of mine, but that wasn't enough to make me want to follow up.

BUS: Bro U Survived

I dislike this game on name alone, and playing it didn't really help much. Points to it for having customization options to let me have a handlebar mustache, but this game just kind of boils down to a co-op zombie survival game in a cartoony style where you have to drive a bus sometimes. I only clocked 26 minutes in this game, and to be fair, I was playing solo (What, I'm supposed to make friends?), but this game didn't hold me for very long. Even as I write this I'm trying to remember much about it, and it just ended up being very forgettable.

Wizard of Legend 2

Hell yeah. HELL YEAH. I forget how I even found out about the original Wizard of Legend, but it's a fun roguelike that I recommend. I was unaware that a sequel was even in the works, so this was a delight to find out about, and an even bigger delight to play.

Players will play the role of a wizard attempting to complete a legendary challenge, with the idea that each run is a new wizard's attempt, since the last one died. Choose spells of different elements, speed, and power, and try to find combinations that mesh well together. I had a lot of fun using a wind vortex to pull all enemies to me, and then hitting the lot of them with chain lightning. Even for a demo, I could see myself sinking a lot of time into this (and I'm hoping it's still playable after Next Fest). This one makes the Wishlist for sure, and I'm looking forward to the release.

Aloft

I found Aloft very disappointing. Yet another first person crafting survival game with the hook being that eventually you make a glider that you can use to zip around the world.

The demo is in Alpha, as the devs will make known quickly, and the game made known to me quickly, since I encountered a bug early on that I had to visit the steam forums to make sense of. While going through the tutorial prompts, after collecting leaves and wood and shit like that, I was prompted to craft a Glider at the Glider station. Oh boy, it's finally my time to fly! But wait, I don't have a Glider Station. What's more, I can't build a Glider Station. Where is the Glider Station? Is this 'Glider Station' in the room with us right now?

Eventually I learned that this is a bug - the game is supposed to give you more prompts to guide you up the mountain in the game, where you will learn how to make the Glider station, and THEN you are supposed to get the prompt to build your glider. To drive that point forward: The. Tutorial. Is. Bugged. The thing that teaches you how to play the game does not work correctly. I know it's Alpha, and I know I don't make games, but this seems like such an oversight.

Finally, I made my Glider, and took off. It was... fine. The camera cuts to third person when this happens, but your character is so stiff and rigid flying around. It felt cool to zip around, but it didn't feel good if that makes any sense.

Maybe I'll circle back around on Aloft when it's in Beta or 1.0, but this just wasn't it for me.

Goblin Cleanup

But this was!!! Play as a goblin henchman whose job it is to clean up and reset all the traps in the dungeon before the next group of heroes arrive! For some reason, gamified mundane shit always gets me, and this game was no exception.

Goblin cleanup is almost beat-for-beat a reproduction of Viscera Cleanup Detail. Instead of a mop, you stab a slime and poke bloodstains with it until it soaks them all up (and dies?!). Instead of washing the mop, you feed the slime to a mimic, so on and so forth. Some improvements include:

Structure. You're given a list of tasks to complete, and they are checked off as you complete them. As a person with ADHD Inattentive Type, lists are key for me, so this was a big improvement over Viscera Cleanup Details approach of 'Clean until you're done and we'll tell you if you did good'. I'm neurodivergent with a praise kink, you've gotta tell me I'm doing good while I'm doing good.

Scanning. Hitting Q at any given point will highlight on your HUD where there are still items to be cleaned up. Massive improvement over Viscera Cleanup Detail, where you just have to kind of eyeball it.

I liked this! A lot! I could see myself buying this, or even just going back and trying to finish the level proper before NextFest is over.

Pawn Planet

I'm a massive mark for shop-owning games, and even more so if the game has a mechanic for haggling. Pawn planet has both, and by and large, I enjoyed it. The premise is simple, you run a pawn shop on a remote planet. Aliens come in an buy the stuff you have, or try to sell you things. When they approach the register you are given stats on the customer, like Anger, Knowledge, and Greediness. Using this, as well as the condition of the item you are buying or selling, you haggle on a price until one of you coughs up the cash. After the day is over, you can buy supplies to repair the items to make your money back.

Some days, there will be an auction at a storage planet where you roll the bones and bid on a Storage Locker of random items, storage wars style. Not going to lie, this had me hyped until I got fleeced on a board game I paid way too much for.

Other days, you will travel through a portal and ostensibly raid an alien base in order to murder civilians and take their stuff to sell. Okay, so the game doesn't say that, but the game also doesn't explain who these people are or why you are shooting them in the face. This section was underwhelming - The shooting isn't super tight, and you just sort of strafe and click on the aliens until they blow up. Not to mention there was some confusing placement of items in the alien base; Why are you putting what is obviously a safe in this room if it is not intended that I should try to crack it open and steal the rest of whatever was left in these creature's will?

Other bugbears included the fact that when you buy an item, only that item will come to your shipping bay, and you must remove it before you can buy another item. So in a situation where I needed three separate items, I needed to leave the computer, go to the shipping bay, retrieve it, and return to the computer... three separate times. Also, when traveling to the storage planet, I had to click where I wanted to go on my computer inside, then go outside to the spaceship to leave. These are small grievances, but the question and the sometimes vowel remains: Why?

This one gets a rec from me, I didn't spend too much time with it but I did enjoy it overall. Hoping that the finished product has a bit more polish.

The Alters

From the trailers I've seen of this game, it seems cool, but I didn't get far enough in the demo to really see the meat and bones. Which is to say I didn't get far enough to see any of the titular Alters. I, instead, ran headfirst into some radiation at some point, and lost about 10 minutes worth of progress that I just didn't have the nerve to redo, so I bailed. Luckily, these NextFest demos seem to not have expired, so maybe I'll go back and give it another shot.

In the meantime, there are a lot of Death Stranding vibes, a game I loved, and a base building mechanic similar to XCOM, yet another game I like. I think this has legs, and I enjoy the idea of alternate versions of the main character helping him out, but again - I didn't get there.

I dunno... seems neat.

Demonschool

This came at the recommendation of a friend, and I simply could not wrap my head around it. I'm a real sucker for teenagers at a weird school doing paranormal stuff, but the combat system felt very obtuse. One character only buffs, and two characters only attack. You choose the actions they will take but just kind of clicking around (not actually selecting the skills, just sort of running the character into targets), and then they play out those actions once your turn has concluded. Which I sort of get why, but it's still very disorienting. I only stuck around for two combats, so I can't say this is for me, but if you're into visual novelesque storytelling with Into the Breach Combat, this may be your cup of tea.

Reka

I think I remember seeing a trailer for this game during the Wholesome Direct or Cozy Direct or whatever the hell in 2023, but it seemed cool, and it is. This is effectively a base building game, except you're a young witch training under Baba Yaga and the base is a giant chicken house that you can drive around. It's pretty tight. Your character only looks like a haunted doll, regardless of what features you choose, and the controls are very floaty but I think this has a lot of potential. My first action once getting my Bird House was to see how big I could make the platform it sits upon, and the answer is 'pretty big'. This was one of a few demos that I actually saw through to the end, so I think that says quite a bit. Hoping the full release has some meat on these Chicken House Bones.

Thank Goodness You're Here!

I'm going to file this one under Biggest Disappointment of the Fest. I typically try to give games about 15 minutes at least so I can get a feel for what they're doing. This demo was 13 minutes long. It being by the creators of Untitled Goose Game had me excited, but ultimately you just kind of run around and slap things and everyone has a funny British accent. I was very un-wowed by the game, and very wowed when the demo ended so abruptly. Oh well, I suppose.

Tiny Glade

Not so much a game as it is a toy, but oh boy is it a fun one. Intuitively whip up little castles with no problem, and then walk around with them in the first person. I was so charmed by this that I called my artist wife in to sit down and take a look at it, and I didn't need to explain anything about it before she had build herself a little castle. You build little castles! What's not to love? I'm hoping there's more to it in the full release, or at the very point that the price point reflects what it is exactly.

Tiny Bookshop

Another one I saw in a cozy direct that I had my eye on that ended up kind of falling flat for me. This game boils down to a shop simulator, which I'm a huge fan of, obviously. But then there's the whole aspect of have percentages of book genres, and how many books you have affecting your likelihood to sell... it just didn't hook me in the way I hoped. The art style, however, was very good, and it's a delight to look at. This might be another one I take a stab at when I'm in the right headspace.

Wild Bastards

I heard Void Bastards was good, but I never actually played it. Wild Bastards seems pretty neat though... you are a couple of Wild West Robots (hell yeah) who are venturing across the galaxy and resurrecting your dead team members with a magic ship. Levels consist of beaming down to a planet and taking out enemies meticulously while not being killed yourself. You can only take down two team members at a time, but you can hotswap between them which is a neat mechanical way of changing weapons. Unfortunately, once I got my third team members, I was summarily shithoused by a bunch of plants and my run was ruined. Still, I had a lot of fun and I will be keeping a close eye on this one. Maybe not a day one buy, but certainly something to pick up.

That's my NextFest, folks. Love it or hate it, I love videogames and I like that demos are coming back in vogue. Til next time.

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 2

Battle! (Summer Superstars) from Pokémon Masters EX

vs.

Connected (Yours Forever) [In-Game Mix] from Tetris Effect

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

Connected (Yours Forever) [In-Game Mix]:

A great song for a great game. It is absolutely worth watching this song alongside gameplay or the theater mode version of its stage, it is a visual experience as much as it is an auditory one.