Vidya Gaems General

glennmagusharvey

Three giveaways going on on GOG simultaneously, two goodie packs and one (bundle of) game(s). There's the thing above, then there's these two:

https://www.gog.com/game/inkulinati_goodies_pack
Soundtrack and wallpapers from a game called Inkulinati. I don't know much about this game, nor do I know when this will end.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/alien_breed_trilogy
This is the game(s) - the Alien Breed trilogy. Should have a day and change left on it. Again, games I don't know much about myself.

lrdgck

https://www.gog.com/en/game/biing_sex_intrigue_and_scalpels
I'm not gonna lie, this doesn't really appeal to me, but for sake of completeness I'm gonna post it. (Also, this way Glenn won't say he beat me to it, hehehe.)

glennmagusharvey

Not the kind of thing I really felt like promoting, so I sorta ignored it. Thanks, for the sake of completeness, I guess?

lrdgck

You know, I wouldn't mind at all if you deleted these posts in name of not promoting.

Stormtroper

Note to self: GMH and lrdgck love porn videogames and promote them whenever they can.

glennmagusharvey

lol. lmao

lrdgck

Free softcore alert: https://www.gog.com/en/game/figment

glennmagusharvey

lol
it's rated T for fantasy violence, language, and crude humor
you big dummy

glennmagusharvey

Free game: https://www.gog.com/en/game/lorelai

Looks like a point-and-click horror game.

glennmagusharvey

https://ea.com/games/battlefield/legacy-sunset

glennmagusharvey

glennmagusharvey

free game: https://www.gog.com/en/game/neurodeck_psychological_deckbuilder

glennmagusharvey

https://www.gog.com/en/game/ticket_to_ride_poland this will apparently be a thing soon.

I will leave it to @lrdgck to crack a joke about this.

glennmagusharvey

ooh https://www.gog.com/en/game/trinity_trigger

lrdgck

I will leave it to @lrdgck to crack a joke about this.

It's a video game adaptation of a board game. Haven't played either, but it feels like it could be more enjoyable on a tabletop.

Still, you asked for a joke, not an opinion, so...

*ahem*

You can travel to Poland... but why would you?

lrdgck

Free game alert: https://www.gog.com/en/game/alwas_awakening

A retro platformer. Looks like something you guys might play.

glennmagusharvey

Thanks! And yeah, it's a metroidvania platformer.

I actually bought this (and its sequel, Alwa's Legacy) on itch.io before, but I haven't played it yet.

lrdgck

By the way, is that a widely recognized genre? Heard it a few times, but still had to go check TVT to see what it means and it doesn't entirely fit the contexts I heard it in. Like, a platformer with RPG elements?

glennmagusharvey

lrdgck wrote: »

By the way, is that a widely recognized genre? Heard it a few times, but still had to go check TVT to see what it means and it doesn't entirely fit the contexts I heard it in. Like, a platformer with RPG elements?

Not that. Broadly speaking, "metroidvania" is basically a non-linear exploration action game, typically a platformer. The idea is that you move around a game world and gradually accumulate abilities/items/etc. that will let you explore more of the game world, which is non-linearly organized. Metroid was one of the earliest franchises to explore this format, with the first Metroid game putting the player in a big maze with various obstacles and having the player figure out where to go to find the "keys" to "unlock" more parts of the maze. The Castlevania series later joined in on this as well with Symphony of the Night, hence the genre name, though SotN was actually inspired by The Legend of Zelda -- which is actually very similar structurally but just looks different because it's not a sidescroller.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metroidvania

glennmagusharvey

TIL: according to that article, either Enix (who made Brain Breaker) or Falcom (who made Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu) created the metroidvania genre.

(And Falcom also created the action RPG with their game but that's a separate genre. Well, perhaps not that separate considering that there are some similarities in the way sequence is organized even in more recent Ys games.)

lrdgck

Seems to be coming together now. Although I'm curious what it means to be a non-metroidvania platformer, since that definition feels pretty broad. I mean, having to backtrack to open some previously closed-off route seems like a common gameplay element.

glennmagusharvey

A good example of a non-metroidvania platformer is one where you just go through it level by level sequentially.

In addition to a generally seamless world, Metroidvania games typically have some amount of backtracking, and often have some degree of non-linearity -- not just in "you can go forwards or backwards" and "you can go left/right/up/down", but frequently also "you can go to area B or area C first" -- i.e. you can choose which of different upgrades to get first. And that's not even counting "sequence breaking" -- i.e. doing things outside of intended game order (which may or may not be accounted for by the developers).

Here's an example of non-linear sequence: You explore around a game and find that there are passages too small for you to get through, doors with a particular color that you can't open, and weird-looking walls that seem suspicious. Let's say you explore around, and the first and only item you can find is a size-toggling spell that can make you smaller. Now, you can additionally explore places that you need to be small to get into, and you explore further and find a key that opens those doors. And you explore around some more, and you find a hammer that can break open the suspicious-looking walls...but you realize that you never went through any of those previously-locked doors to get to the hammer, so that means you could actually have gotten the hammer before the key! (Speedrunners like this stuff because it makes deciding which item to get interesting. And they get especially interested if, say, they find some weird way to get the key or hammer before getting the size-toggling spell...)

Different games may implement the exact features differently, and so the "metroidvania" label, like any genre label, is ultimately somewhat vague at the edges.

lrdgck

For the record my frame of reference was Iji, which somebody in here a few years ago called a metroidvania, but the TVT entry says is a borderline case.

lrdgck

Free game alert: https://www.gog.com/en/game/deep_sky_derelicts

Sci-fi Darkest Dungeons, seems like?

Stormtroper

My first encounter with the term Metroidvania was with Cave Story, which after learning more about these games and the term itself, it's really not a good description of Cave Story. The Metroid-sounding theme when you pick up some items certainly doesn't help. It's not a TVT thing but I've always thought tropers tend to like Metroidvanias.
Iji probably wouldn't count since to a larger extent it's lineal; (IIRC) you can't backtrack to previous levels and there's always a "next place to advance to", although it definitely encourages exploration within levels.
The way I can most succinctly explain it is that they're mainly exploration platformers where you're supposed to find on your own places to get the ability to get to more places. Like the overworld in Zelda games but platformer.
In other stuff, I watched a bunch of FFX videos recently, I never minded it before but now I find a bunch of issues with the dialogue, voice acting, animations, etc., I wonder if it's me or the game hasn't aged as well as I once thought it did.

glennmagusharvey

I think it's often presumed that a "metroidvania" is a 2D sidescroller, though I personally don't think the definition should be restricted to them.

Historically I've considerd the Zelda games to be not metroidvanias because they're not interconnected enough (and the same applies to Cave Story, in my opinion), but given that some games considered metroidvanias aren't that interconnected either, I'd say it's arguable that the Zelda games are metroidvanias too.

Stormtroper

I personally don't think the definition should be restricted to them.

I find it an arbitrary restriction, but then again we live in a world where a game fits a different genre if it's first person or third person (shooter) or vertical or horizontal (shmup).

glennmagusharvey

Things that are not part of the Touhou series: https://www.giantbomb.com/lunatic-fantasy/3030-38588/

Stormtroper

Also:

glennmagusharvey

...I need to get a tri-wing screwdriver for myself.