thorn

Well, I got to the end of the game yesterday. I found I enjoyed it much more this time around than previously, possibly because I knew most of the puzzles and didn't get stuck wandering around aimlessly. The art is beautiful and the music remains one of my favourite game scores even now. I also liked the arc of the relationship between Boston and Maggie, where they start off antagonistically snarking at each other, proceed through Maggie frustratedly telling Boston to go away and do his own thing, and end up depending on each other and working together. Brink I wasn't such a fan of, but that's kinda the point. My only real criticism this time around is that there's too much pixelhunting. It's not always obvious how many exits a screen has, and some of the exit hotspots are tiny. Two examples that stand out for me are the path outside from the base of the museum spire (next to the ruined door that doesn't open, which I assume was an area that was removed late in development) and the lower reaches of the map spire, which I managed to walk through without finding the monster nest and the beach because it's not obvious that they're there. Similarly, the background art is so detailed that sometimes the objects don't stand out, such that the only way it's possible to know there's anything there is to pass the cursor over it. Aside from that one quibble, it's a really good game. Not on the level of LucasArt's best, but still worth playing.

Zeus, I've worked out what to do, but it's not especially logical. I'll give you three hints. The first one is very vague and references your last post, the second tells you where to go and the third tells you what to do there.

Zeusthecat has inspired me to replay The Dig. Thank goodness it happened during Steam Sales, as $2 is less than the worth of the time it would take to find the box that is currently holding all my games (due to me moving house recently and planning to again very soon), and then the disk within it. Zeus's posts have been an excellent walkthrough for when I get stuck. Mainly due to non-obvious puzzle designs. For instance, it really annoyed me that the colours of the crystal rods don't relate to the colours of the doors that they open. And the fact that you need to use the stick to hold down the pressure plate in the tomb, otherwise you won't realise that the pile of dirt outside is important, is just irrational. I figured a pressure plate is a pressure plate; it's made to be stood on. I got as far as I could and checked this thread again to see if Zeus has any hints, but it turns out he's stuck at the same place as me. From previous plays, I know some of the plot points that still have to occur with Brink: , but I can't recall what I do to spark them off. I suspect there is some pixel-hunty object that I've missed somewhere. Oh well. I don't possess Zeus's level of honour. I don't mind checking a walkthrough.

My sister recently gave me her old Android tablet and asked me to set it up as a games/educational funtime "be quiet for five minutes please" thingy for her four year old. I've installed a new launcher that will keep her in a sandbox and not let her change any important settings. Can anyone suggest any good games for a child (she's a girl, but not an especially girly-girl) of her age?

With one exception: Escape from Monkey Island. It's all reasonably well written, but the dialogue trees just go on and on and on... And it's not just the player selecting an option, Guybrush saying a sentence then the NPC replies with a sentence or two; the responses go on for paragraphs! Disclaimer: Working from memory here.

There seriously aren't any hints we can give. Just keep kicking.

Welcome to the puzzle Tim Schafer regards as his least successful ever!

Weren't the controllers meant to have touchscreens in the middle? Has that been axed, or are these still prototypes?

From memory, they said that the money for the physical rewards has been partitioned away from the rest of the Kickstarter money. The game's budget was calculated based on what was left after it had been taken out.

Or that even. I always just randomly wacked him.

Woah. I never knew that was what I was meant to be doing!

Well, I'm sold.

I have a better feel for what it's about, yeah. But I'm still going to take a 'wait and see' approach. I find the quazi-multiplayer aspect a bit worrying. What if I get the game months after release and all the planets have been claimed and bird species wiped out? I hope they're going to be spreading new players out across the universe in an organic fashion.

*shrug* He had five minutes to talk about the game (well... actually a bit less because of Joel McHale's inane questions) and all we know about it is 'combat and exploration'. I've seen two minute pre-rendered trailers that told me more than that. Who knows? Maybe the game will live up to his hype and actually be amazing. But I think they fumbled this reveal and remain unconvinced for now.

I disagree. I love space exploration games. 'Pretentious' really means 'I think my work is greater than the sum of its parts but can't prove it.

'A bit of combat and a bit of exploration' is not a good explanation of gameplay. He talked something about it being online, but I don't know whether I'll be playing against other humans or the computer. I don't know to what extent the world is persistent. I don't know what the hell I'll be doing. The trailer showed pretty landscapes, but I got no sense of the gameplay from it. I think it'll be pretentious because in the interview he was incredibly vague whilst also talking like it was completely revolutionary. I don't think it can live up to that hype. Also, bear in mind that 'A bit of combat and a bit of exploration in a procedurally-generated universe where every star is real and can be visited' is a pretty solid description of Spore. And we all know how that turned out.

I've watched the trailer. I've watched the interview. And yet I have no idea what this game is. If the game's developer can't explain what the hell it is, I have no hopes of it being completed. Or if it is completed, for it being anything other than a pile of pretentious goo.

Then he started a Full Throttle playthrough and it was never finished. Here: http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/7736

Incidentally (because this discussion reminded me of it), backers of DFA might have seen the video of Tim Schafer playing Full Throttle. He took so long to find the lock picks that I was literally shouting at the screen It's such a strange thing that I'd remember the game better than the guy who designed it.

Oh, it's totally logical and fair. But it's the one puzzle that I would never, ever have thought of myself without checking a walkthrough.

This one is my least favourite puzzle in any LucasArts. And yet it makes perfect sense once you know the solution. But still... haaaate.

In the past, the sales have been giving Northern Hemisphere season titles regardless of where you live (I'm in Australia). This is the first time they've varied it. By default it comes up with Spring Sale for me, but clicking on Featured Items at the bottom flips it around.

If you haven't played it yet, Ico + SotC HD.

Uhh... You might want to talk to her again. That's not what she said.

Because it's made out of potato flour.