Well, FINALLY. A brave soul has at long last taken the completely logical step of modding turn-based Pok mon-style combat into Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The mod is called Monsters, and no, it doesn't feature fiery lizards and and squirting turtles and yellow electric squirrels (sorry, I don't really know much about Pok mon, which is going to become quite clear). Instead, your monsters are props from the game, like chairs, boxes, tables, wine barrels, and stoves.
After a brief intro where you find an orb and rub it with some orb wax, you unleash some sort of... I don't really know what it is. A powerful spirit that wants to play Pok mon against you? Something like that. After fleeing the energy being, you encounter an angry walking suit of armor, and a small friendly crate who fights it for you. This crate is your first Pok mon, and it has a single power, wood aura, which flings boxes at your enemy.
With your trusty crate (fully voiced, and quite well, by the way), you can visit various rooms and find opponents waiting for you. Use your crate to defeat, say, a stove, and you gain a power from that stove. You also gain experience points to increase your level, and can evolve into other forms. I presume actual Pok mon works in roughly the same way?
I played for a bit and it's fun. I evolved my crate into a chair, gaining a dust storm power, and then evolved from a chair into a stove, gaining a smoke power. Then, I tried to alt-tab out to read the manual and the game crashed, so don't do that. But do download the manual, as it lets you know what sorts of powers do best against which sorts of monsters.
I started over and became a chair again, and then tried to take on the boss of the level, which turned out to be quite a powerful monster and not as warm and cuddly as the various pieces of furniture I'd been battling with. I think I'll go back to fighting tables and wardrobes until I've gotten a bit better.
This is a really fun mod and a very unusual idea: bringing turn-based furniture combat into a game famous for having no combat at all. You can grab it off moddb.com.
Not every> RPG has to be a roguelite now, y’know. Sometimes it’s nice to kill and kill and kill without having to overly worry about getting killed. The hyper-violent Bloodsports.TV is the toon-styled sequel to post-apocalyptic Diablolike Krater, whose setting made it catnip to Jim back in 2012, but he came away feeling let down. The unpleasantly-named (at least, if like me, you grew up in an area mostly populated by wealthy farmers who positively revelled in vulpine slaughter) Bloodsports.TV is an amped-up sequel/spin-off which appears to borrow liberally from Borderlands’ aesthetic. The manic tone too, it seems. Will this a more characterful ARPG make? … [visit site to read more]
Developer Kan Gao released the first free *shudder* 'minisode' for To The Moon at around this time last year, and now another has been released, completely free. While it's the same sort of length as the first (around 20 minutes), Gao suggests that this one is "a tad more...important, plot-wise". Once again, you're stuck in a hospital playing as the two main scientist characters of To The Moon, as protestors do protesty things outside.
If you own To The Moon on Steam, you should find that the DLC has already been registered to your account. Otherwise, you can download it here. You don't need to own TTM, but it will probably make more sense if you've played that first.
With Sigmund Minisode 2 out of the way, Gao will be resuming work on To The Moon's full-fledged sequel, Finding Paradise. Meanwhile, one of Freebird's pixel artists, Jordan, is still in hospital undergoing chemotherapy; if you'd like to help out with either kind words or donations, there are details of how you can do so here.
It’s difficult to accept that Hotline Miami – the sound of the future – was three long years ago. It’s more difficult still to accept that there might not have been anything which put quite such a fire under me since. This foul-mouthed ‘guide‘ is one of my favourite things I’ve ever published here, and I’d love to know how to commune again with the part of me which made it. I can’t see Hotline Miami 2 [official site] doing it, because despite controversial content the surprise factor probably isn’t going to be there. I’m sure it will be an interesting evolution of HLM’s rhythmic brutality, but can it manage OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS again?
Anyway, there’s a free prequel comic out on Steam. I probably should said that to start with instead of picking fluff from my navel. … [visit site to read more]