Originally published at: http://statelyplay.com/2018/10/27/stately-scrying-what-were-playing-this-weekend-26/
As you may have heard, I’m on west coast time this week and I can’t quite get my head around it. I’m waking up way too early in the morning and going to bed right after the sun goes down behind the San Rafael Hills. At least I think those are the mountains I’m looking at. To be honest, after driving around this county for the last 4 days, I don’t know east from west anymore and am wondering how everyone who lives here doesn’t have constant headaches. I’m a simpleton.
Nevertheless, time never rests and neither will our attempts to look into the future and see what we’ll be playing on our devices this weekend. See what’s planned after the jump.
Battlestar Galactica Deadlock and Insomnia: The Ark
https://youtu.be/Pd_g_9WFfvoRebecca, that priestess of the dark temporal arts. Here we are again.
Statelies, it really has been a week of Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, with that spiffy new DLC expansion. Anabasis is marvelous. It does the show justice, and spit-shines a bunch of the main campaign in the process. This is how it is done. Also, it has triggered a rewatch of the BSG miniseries, which will undoubtedly lead to a rewatch of the entire four seasons. Which will lead into the odd but endearing Caprica. All of which shouldn’t really happen, given it was less than a year prior to doing exactly that. But as Tricia Helfer did say, this has all happened before. And it will happen again.
Elsewhere, I’ve been snuggling up to a real oddity. The best kind, really. An Eastern Bloc action-adventure-RPG tumult by the name of Insomnia: The Ark. The cocktail is one part Metro, one part Bioshock, a dash of Dark City and served in an Outcast seidel. A sumptuous beast, with all the quirks you’d expect. You’re enlisted in the station military after being cracked from your cryogenic tube, and all is not well on the Ark. You spent your time wandering around the dank interior of a vast space station, not unlike the now-demolished Kowloon walled city. A conurbation as dense as the lore and narrative, it’s a dark, somewhat forlorn noir experience to traipse around this busted-arse catacomb of steel and bestial decay. Insomnia has a branching storyline with twelve or so possible outcomes, and to the game’s credit, I’ve thus far had absolutely no clue where the narrative forks are. Just playing the cards I was dealt, and letting the chips fall where they may.
Recommended, if Slavclunk is your bag. [and whose bag isn’t it, really? -ed.]
-Alex Connolly
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for PC via Steam, $40
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for PS4, $40
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock for Xbox, $30
- Insomnia: The Ark for PC via Steam, $30
Return of the Obra Dinn and EXAPUNKS
https://youtu.be/_rOIUUVFRKcI will not be playing the Big Horsey Cowboy Game this weekend. There are too many boat murders left unsolved! That’s right, I’m playing everyone’s favorite insurance adjustment simulation, Return of the Obra Dinn. I didn’t think any more games would come out this year that would challenge Into the Breach for the top spot on my GOTY list, but Obra Dinn has consumed my waking thoughts. It’s one of a scant few games that actually makes you feel like a detective. A detective with a supernatural ability to explore the final moments of poor souls on the most cursed sea voyage of all time, but a detective nonetheless. I really don’t want to go much deeper into describing the mechanics, because realizing what the game was asking of me is maybe my favorite moment in any game I’ve played this year. Just know that if you’re interested at all in early 19th century seafaring, deduction puzzles, or death, you should be playing this game.
The other game that has my attention this weekend is the new Zachtronics joint, EXAPUNKS. It’s one that’s explicitly programming-focused, and like TIS-100, there’s a printable manual that goes along with the game. TIS never really caught my interest [heresy! -ed.], but the wrapper around EXAPUNKS is much more palatable to me. You play a hacker in a cyberpunk version of 1997 who is infected with the Phage, a mysterious disease that slowly turns your body into computer parts. Hacking is how you pay for the costly medication to stave off the infection, and the manual for the programming language is actually an in-universe ‘zine. It kind of rules.
-Tanner Hendrickson
- Return of the Obra Dinn for PC/Mac via Steam, $20
- EXAPUNKS for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $16 (on sale)
Ascension, Puzzle Page, Pixel Puzzle Collection, Destiny 2 and board games
https://youtu.be/zRRZ9mTq9E4Ascension’s newest expansion has made the best first impression yet, which mostly means I’ve played it a bunch and still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. My other iOS gaming is likely to be the continuation of my recent classic puzzle kick. I tried out Puzzle Page, which emulates the newspaper puzzle grab bag experience, but it hails from the wrong side of the free-to-play tracks. It did introduce me to a few types of puzzle which were new to me, and I was particularly taken with the Word Slides, which add a spatial element to anagrams. Unfortunately, the stand-alone app for those has some troubling design choices and takes ad support to an extreme which had me studying the mystic arts so I could open a third eye to roll. So I’m left with Konami’s picross nostalgia machine, which would better evoke my childhood if my memory weren’t so terrible. But, still, picross.
I’ve fallen back into Destiny 2 on PS4, though I still don’t have a crew there. I think what draws me to the game is simply that I played so much of the first that the basic controls and flow feel comfortable. Were I to go back and give Fallout 4 a second chance, I’d be relearning everything and would either have to lose my existing progress or cope with no tutorials. Destiny is moderately pleasant and has a very low barrier to entry for me. Plus, their Halloween event is kind of neat.
My neighbor plays Magic, and has managed to persuade my son to play. I don’t know where that’s going. Though I loved it myself for years and years, I’m sort of hoping it doesn’t catch on and push out other games as it so easily can. I want another run at Space Marine Adventures (an absolute delight of which I was informed by There Will Be Games)! I may also finish off the Carcosa campaign for the Arkham Horror LCG, but I’m finding that I relate better to the smaller-scale stuff at the beginnings of the campaigns. Once you’re exploring other dimensions and warping fundamental reality, the narrative gets away from me a bit. But it has made me reflect on the fact that I want no game crossover so much as AHLCG/Shadowfist.
-Kelsey Rinella (Yes, Kelsey is back!)
- Ascension Chronicle of the Godslayer for iOS Universal, free
- Ascension Chronicle of the Godslayer for Android, free
- Ascension Chronicle of the Godslayer for PC/Mac via Steam, $10
- Puzzle Page for iOS Universal, free
- Puzzle Page for Android, free
- Konami Pixel Puzzle Collection for iOS Universal, free
- Konami Pixel Puzzle Collection for Android, free
- Destiny 2 for PC/PS4/Xbox, $80
Stardew Valley
https://youtu.be/pHUqhYslji4I’m stuck playing Stardew Valley mainly because I’m on vacation and my game options are extremely limited. Not that I’m complaining. I’m having a blast with the newly released iOS version of Stardew Valley despite some niggling UI issues that I’ve stumbled upon after giving it a few hours’ run-through. I’ve even told my middle kid that he can use my Switch on the flight home as I’ll be content building my farm on the iPad.
In other news, Terraforming Mars is still really good despite its faults and I wish it was on iPad as well. I could see myself playing pass-and-play all the way home with the kids but, instead, now we won’t speak for four hours. Oh well.
When I get home, I fully expect to dive into Return of the Obra Dinn and EXAPUNKS. RotOD is from Lucas Pope, creator of the transcendent Papers, Please! and looks to carry on in that game’s footsteps by giving you more to think about than winning or losing. EXAPUNKS is from Zachtonics and I don’t think I need to say more. Unfortunately, gaming on a laptop is a pain while traveling, so they’ll have to wait until Monday.
My kids are asking to buy the latest Rockstar monstrosity, Red Dead Redemption 2, so they can play on the Xbox when we get home. To be honest, while it looks fascinating, it also looks so god damned depressing and nihilistic I’m not sure I see the appeal. I’m not sure I understand why anyone wants to feel shitty for 60 hours straight, but, then again, I haven’t played a GTA game since Vice City when they were still winking a bit at the player, so maybe their stuff just isn’t for me [your current favorite game is Stardew Valley for fuck’s sake. I’m guessing their stuff ain’t for you, chief. -ed.]. Not sure I want my kids up to their necks in misery, either, though. I’ll be batting this one back and forth for a while, I think.
-Dave Neumann
- Stardew Valley for iOS Universal, $8
- Stardew Valley for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $15
- Stardew Valley for PC/Mac/Linux via GoG, $15
- Stardew Valley for Switch, $15