Been playing the demo; I can heartily recommend everyone take a good look at this when it releases in a couple of days.
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I heard it was good. Apparently its also going to be on game pass (pc/xbox) and the playstation version of whatever their subscription service is
Second wind made a video thatās said a lot of what I wanted to say about Blue Prince. The games exceptional (in my opinion).
I thought it was a puzzle game, and it kind of is, but a lot of the puzzles are about finding clues and putting the answer together yourself rather than just using a Mensa brain to crunch the puzzle. Itās kinda roguelite, kinda deck builder, but at its core itās you looking at things, anything, everything, and trying to find the answers.
The core of the game has puzzles that are very accessible and rewarding. After the credits roll thereās even more content where the puzzles get gradually more esoteric. The world building is super deep too.
Itās not for everyone. It can feel slow as each run might only let you pick at a couple of threads. The RNG thatās part of the roguelike DNA can feel unfair if thereās a puzzle youāre dying to solve, and it doesnāt turn up.
Itās got a one more turn/one more run thatās had me in a chokehold for days. I āfinishedā the game after 16 hours, Iām currently at about 60, and Iām still finding new things every run
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How much notetaking did you do while playing Blue Prince? I want to play the game, but I keep reading articles about how great it is to need to take notes outside the game, and that idea doesnāt appeal to me.
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I am also very intrigued, and taking notes reminds me of my childhood and the old C64, Amiga and PC adventures. I would do it again if the game is worth it and it seems to be the case here.
Unfortunately I do not own any of the required systems. Hope it comes out on iOS one day
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I have an Excel Spreadsheet that I originally re-created for Office 2007 in the .xlxs format that is titled āAll Things Min Maxā and while the tabs are more things like āresume sent toā and āhouse costsā it started as sheets full of data for games like X-Com weapon comparisons and RPG notes and item lists and maps.
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To play the core game and finish it then you donāt need notes, but if you want to explore all the secrets and find and solve all the puzzles then you will absolutely need notes. Ive got about 4 pages of notes, and only 1 note on one page matters for the main goal of the game.
A lot of the fun in the game is working out the secrets though, and theres so much info it was impossible for me to remember it all without notes
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This talk is giving me Myst flashbacks, and I donāt think Iāve played that since it launchedā¦
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Stop making me want to play Blue Prince. Iām playing too many other games already. 
Of those games, Iād like to highlight Dawnmaker, which is part city builder, part deck builder, part solo strategy board game. Great for relatively short runs with a bit of a brain burn, and some nice meta-progression for each character as you beat each region and refine your starting deck.
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Taking a break from Blue Prince to try Evil Within 2.
I forgot I bought and installed this and thenā¦didnāt play it for months, so Iām relieved to find itās a visually slick fairly standard horror action game that takes all its cues from Resident Evil 4 (dilapidated environments, mutated enemies, idiot protagonist) except it also remembers to tell you youāre a broken down alcoholic ex-cop who has lost his family every 30 seconds. I had to stop playing at one point I was laughing so much, and itās fair to say thatās not supposed to be happening. The world is sort of interesting, but thereās huge cliches around every corner, and I canāt play it without feeling Iām doing so ironically.
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I finally gave the Calico app a try. First off, I donāt particularly like the game. I like the concept of a simple tile-placement game to create patterns that score points, but this one is too brain-melty for me. You simultaneously need to think way too hard about what you want to do while at the same time constantly adjust your plans because there is not mitigating the tile pool and it often doesnāt have what you need.
On top of that, the app has an utterly bizarre story mode that is essentially a series of puzzles and has you doing things like sewing uniforms for the one-armed military leader, collecting rainbow pins for the gay baker, winning food to feed some begging kid. All of this in some overarching story about a war and cats and quilts and stuffā¦of all the games to shoehorn a story mode, this one is one of the least well-suitedā¦
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The story mode is absolutely creepy and weird. Like āHereās a puzzle game about sewing and cats, and hereās its story mode, which is based on an unmade Fellini horror script. Enjoy!ā
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Anyone on Drop Duchy?
Been playing it and better than expectedā¦.
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I added it to my wish list when it released the other day, it looks good. AT the moment though, between Marvel Rivals, new season of Hearthstone Battlegrounds, and D4 is the current ARPG live service game in my rotation - I just have not needed to pick up anything new.
How is Marvel Rivals treating you? I bounced off it for some reason even though on paper I shouldnāt love it. I understand that a hero shooter like Rivals or Overwatch isnāt going to be super tactical, but Rivals felt really random and chaotic to me. I will concede that I didnāt learn any of the characters particularly well, and I know game IQ goes a long way in these kinds of games, but it didnāt suck me in.
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I am at 277 hours in itā¦so it sucks! 
What I particularly like about it is that it is balanced for casual, so almost all of the heroes are designed with low floors and high ceilings - as opposed to Overwatch where I think it is built for e-sports so most characters are built for high floors and high ceilings.
So an old man like me, can pick up any hero in Marvel Rivals watch a 5 minutes video on YT on how to use the skills, spend 10 minutes in the training area - and then be good enough in 4-5 games where you are at least average on most quickplay teams.
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Fascinating! I loved so much about Overwatch that I played it for kind of a while, and just never even got adequate, skillwise, so I eventually stopped trying. Rivals seems so well-done that I downloaded it just to ooh and aah over the presentation, but I didnāt even try to actually play it, because I assumed the skill floor would be too high. Maybe I should revisit that.
What Iām playing is Assassinās Creed: Shadows, because what I really WANT to be playing is Ghost of Yotei. Itās pretty goodāpremodern Japan is still a gorgeous setting for a game, and the season system suits me much better than Ghost of Tsushimaās region-locked seasons. I think GoT felt like it had a bit more soul, leaned harder into thoughtfully minimal UI, and the people seemed more lifelike (which was a bit of a surprise). But theyāre really pretty similar, and Iām having plenty of satisfaction just tooling around checking boxes in the usual open-world-game way.
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Yes, you should - Itās really fun. Here would be my recommendations of the heroes that are probably easiest to get into to try:
Vanguard - Thing (but works best as a 2nd tank). Magneto (probably the most well-rounded tank, and once you get a few games with him what seems like a lot, is really rather intuitive)
Duelist - Human Torch, Namor, Scarlett Witch and Star Lord are all really easy to pick up.
Strategist - Jeff and Rocket are both fairly easy to learn, I am a Rocket main. Cloak and Dagger is one of those, very low floors, but high ceiling as they have so many tricks it can be a little confusing.
I mostly play Rocket, Magneto and Psylocke these days - but I could never flex in OW, but I can in Marvel Rivals and can play about half the heroes competently enough for Quick Play. I only play Rocket in comp and I just get to Gold each season for the skin.
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