SteamWorld Quest - Hand of Gilgamech

Writing this post my first thought was to start out with something along the lines of "this game might not blow your mind but...".

But... I don't actually want to say that, because I don't actually think it's a fair way to start a text on my feelings on SteamWorld Quest.

So let's begin somewhere else. The SteamWorld games seem to be a franchise in which the core idea, i.e steampunk style robots in a cartoony aesthetic, has been crammed into a variety of game genres. It started out with SteamWorld Tower Defense, which I had never heard of before researching for this post. I, however, started out with SteamWorld Dig, which I loved, and that brought me to check out more games in the series. SteamWorld Quest looked like my cup of tea and suffice to say, it definitely turned out to be.

SteamWorld Quest may disguise itself as a role-playing game, but don't be fooled. This is 95% a deck building game. You move your characters around and you find treasure (almost exclusively more cards) and can buy things (more cards). You can equip yourself with some gear, but other than that the game revolves pretty much entirely around cards. I didn't know this going in, but fortunately I am a closet super-fan of deck builder games. I have tried a fair few, from the regulars like Magic the Gathering (2013 is the best edition) and Hearthstone, to more obscure ones like Card City Nights and Runespell: Overture.

Making a good card game is not easy, but few things can hypnotize me like a well-designed one. Maybe it's the board game nerd in me. SteamWorld Quest dresses all the card playing up in a story that starts out with friends Copernica and Armilly out doing nothing particularly important. They quickly get involved in a much bigger story and joined by a few more heroes as you move along. The story is simple and a reason for all the card battling you're going to do. I am actually happy they put the money, time and effort on the gameplay here because I would've accepted any excuse to get on with my cards.

And the way the card playing is designed is just pure fun - SteamWorld Quest manages to get gameplay that feels both snack-sized and more-ish, it's easy to jump in and difficult to put down. It has no ramp-up time to get into, and the rules are simple to learn yet so much fun to proper dig into.

Combining cards certain ways unleashes combos and each turn is a joy to figure out which cards to play. You can combine cards between characters or try to build chains, it all comes down to what you want to achieve a certain turn. There are buffs, debuffs, weaknesses and resistances to take into account. Between fights it's fun to tinker with your decks and try to optimize combinations, there are many fun and interesting cards to play around with.

Though I rarely got game over in my playthrough on normal difficulty, I rarely felt completely safe either. There isn't a sure-fire setup, but I do recommend that as soon as you find a combination of cards that feels good, you try to keep things fresh by swapping in one of the other characters. The balance of the difficulty is pretty spot on, some times I even wondered if enemies leveled along with me, though I never grinded for levels. You can return to already completed segments of the map, but that also meant re-watching any and all cutscenes so I quickly decided against that and just played onwards.

For better or worse it is difficult to prepare for a match before-hand. Theoretically you could, since you can see your opponents on the screen before you engage with them. This means you could go into your decks and tweak the setup before starting the fight, to avoid fighting fire with fire, literally. Practically this isn't something you're going to do though. There are some foes that have really annoying skills, like despair which prevents healing or bleed which makes you take damage for every action. You might want to equip something to counteract that, and the game throws gear at you that offers protection against or boosting of a lot of different stats.

The game doesn't really provide you with much information around debuffs and what they do, mostly this is not an issue since you can deduce them fairly quickly. I would've loved more information about what the different masks of Orik do however. There are some that I am still not sure of.

None of that takes away from the fun of setting up combos and trying new cards though and it's so easy to slip into the "just one more"-mindset. I pretty much "just-one-more"-myself through this game, and it was a long time since I played a game so hard as I did this. It really speaks to the fun gameplay that it feels fresh and engaging all the way to the end, which I reached in just under 20 hours. I accidentally engaged the final boss without a solid healer and only managed by the skin of my teeth. But that only shows to the strength of the decks that no one character or type of cards is absolutely necessary, but it all comes down to the abovementioned combination and chain building.

The music is another good thing about the game, and the battle themes are even quite banging. Which is good, since you will be hearing them a lot. Apparently the composers (Erik Gudmundson, Pelle Cahndlerby, and Oscar Rydelius) are all from Sweden, which is a bit extra fun for me.

I briefly mentioned the main characters Armilly and Copernica - as mentioned they will be joined by a handful of other heroes before long and each new hero comes with a new deck of cards. They've done an excellent job of keeping each deck distinct from each other, and while I had my favorites I felt they were all useful and fun to play, if you make sure to make them work towards each others strengths and weaknesses. The characters are trope, but lovingly so. Their personalities also fit their decks and I not only enjoyed playing with all of them, I wished for more. It's almost crazy to say, but even after 20 hours I almost felt like the game was too short.

It is fortunate then that the game comes with a generous New Game +, in which you can try the hardest difficulty which not only makes enemies stronger, but also gives them new skills. I tried this for a bit and yeah... I was steamrolled immediately.

If you got this far and only end up remembering this final conclusion I am going to leave you with this: SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech is a solid Deck Builder game that makes time fly. It does one thing and it does it excellently. Play it.

Top 5 Eurovision Songs 2025

I haven't done a top 5 list in a while and what better way to get back to it than to celebrate the craziness that is Eurovision. If you're born somewhere in or near Europe, you've probably not been able to miss Eurovision but for everyone else out there here is a short explanation: Every year most European, and some that usually don't count as European, countries compete and celebrate in a singing contest. This has been going on since the 50's and started careers, like ABBA's. The quality of the songs is generally quite low, honestly, when compared to mainstream music. But it often has charm. And some je ne sais quoi.

I think the European countries care about the competition to varying degrees. Some take it very seriously. Sweden is one of those countries (where I am from). The UK is usually considered not very bothered, and for some reason their entry almost always ends up in the bottom ten. Some countries come and go, depending on politics (though the competition is trying very hard to be non-political) and funding.

As someone who grew up in Sweden it has been very hard to avoid Eurovision, and though I have always loved the concept I have honestly not given it much attention most of my life. I never follow the national competition to pick an entry, and only glimpse at the end result to see if there is a song or two worth listening to. Out of 35-40 entries, there are usually only a handful that are any good. But for some reason it has grown on me. The idea that different areas compete in something as joyful and completely subjective as music, I think it is great.

Sweden is sending KAJ with Bara Bada Bastu (Just Doing Sauna) this year. I don't personally think it's very good, but it's caused a bit of an upset for being out of Sweden's comfort-zone. Sweden usually sends pretty predictable entries, and Bara Bada Bastu is at least not that. For one it's a humorous song and it's sung in Swedish which isn't something that has happened in over 20 years I think. I respect the song for that at least.

I usually joke that Eurovision songs all fit in one of three categories;

1. Ballads

2. 90's eurodisco

3. Generic pop (this is where Sweden often falls).

But let's get on with the list. If you want a medley of all the entries this year to make your own mind, Youtube will provide. Obviously this is completely subjective, and my tastes are rhythm-heavy and high energy which is probably going to be reflected on the songs I have chosen.

I've got to start with some honorable mentions though:

Azerbaijan - Mamagama - Run With You: There isn't really much wrong with this song. It's slick and makes me bop my head, this could've been made by someone close to Pharrell Williams. It gets minus for not singing in their own language.

Croatia - Marko Bosnjak - Poison Cake: The song changes up things throughout, rhythms and style and keeps itself interesting and fresh. Minus again for not singing in their native language.

Spain - Melody - ESA DIVA: It was a close call between this one and my number 5 entry. This song starts off a bit slow but has as cool breakdown towards the end and it has been growing on me.

5. POLAND - Justyna Steczkowska - GAJA

Did I mention I like rhythm-heavy and high energy? Well, this is kind of exactly what I mean by that. This sounds a bit like the UK band Juno Reactor that I quite like. And you've got to respect anyone who can sing and dance with that energy (Justyna is over 50).

4. UKRAINE - Ziferblat - Bird of Pray

Ukraine have had a few good songs the last couple of Eurovisions. And Ruslana's "Wild Dances" from 2004 is considered a Eurovision classic. Bird of Pray tells a story and I love the way it meanders back and forth between more forceful and more gentle. It also feels very sincere and from the heart. 

3. ALBANIA - Shkodra Elektronike - Zjerm

Great beat on this one. Songs that give me a glimpse of where they come from, structurally and instrumentally, often fall high on my lists. I find one of the great strengths of Eurovision (and Europe) are all the different cultures that have different ways of seeing and doing things. Albania gives me some of that feeling with this song.

2. GERMANY - Abor & Tynna - Baller

Full disclosure, I am part German. That has never made me like any song from Germany however. No, not even the Satellite one. But finally Germany sends an entry in German! Melodic and rhythmic, it fits the language great. And she has a voice you want to hear more of.

1. AUSTRALIA - Go-Jo - Milkshake Man

Ok so my number one pick is Australia this year. The fact that Australia is even competing in a competition literally called EUROvision is worthy of an explanation. But long story short, Australia have been huge fans of the show for decades, probably more than most European countries. Apparently they get up in the middle of the night over there to watch it. For the anniversary in 2016 they invited Australia to take part and it was such a success they have been invited ever since. They always have good entries, but none that have been my favorites. But this year they have it, the one I think should win Eurovision 2025. It's fun, has a good beat and I could listen to it all the way to Eurovision. 

It'll be interesting to see if any of my favorites make it high on the lists this year, they usually don't. Käärijää with Cha Cha Cha was an exception, and that song definitely should've won over Tattoo.

Saint's Row IV: Re-Elected (2013/2022) - Review

 If you're not around to play a game series from the beginning for whatever reason, after a few years you'll be stuck with the first world problem of trying to figure out where to begin. The internet is shock-full of lists asking "which Castlevania is the best?" and "Which Super Mario game should I start with?". There are a lot of thing to factor in here - the series might have crossed over platforms you don't even have access to anymore. It might have evolved through different genres, meaning you have to figure out which ones suit your tastes. It might be unclear how much the games reference each other, meaning you have to start from the beginning to enjoy later parts more.

I've managed to end up having to make this choice recently with not just one but two games I am currently playing. Taking on the Assassin's Creed series I had over two handful of games to choose from (you can click the link to see how that went). Looking at the Saint's Row series I fortunately had less than half of that to choose from, but for some reason I went with the latest one (not counting the reboot).

What was my reasoning? Maybe it wasn't deeper than simply being the game that was on discount when I was looking to try it out. When investigating the older games (1 and 2) they also looked a little more serious and a lot more ugly than what I was after. So the choice for me was really between 3 and 4 in the end. 4 won out for unclear reasons and here I am, wondering whether I made the right choice. Can I ever really undo it by playing the third instalment afterwards?

Either way, the fourth game (this being the Re-Elected version, which includes all the DLC) has not been a bad experience. And maybe it could be interesting to read what the game is like for someone who has no previous knowledge of the series and judges it on its own merits alone. If you think so, read on.

Trying to explain the story of SRIV is not easy. Right off the bat it was pretty clear that things had been going on in the earlier games and this was a continuation on that, or at least so I think. There is going to be a lot of assumptions from my side moving forward here, assumptions and straight out guesses. But here we go; You play as a character who is the president of the world. But pretty quickly you learn that there isn't much world to preside over. Alien forces have destroyed it and caught you and your posse, the eponymous "Saints", in their mind game of a simulated world. It's unclear who they are, where they come from or what their motivations are, but these things honestly don't matter so much. In all the confusion one thing stands out clear as day - everything is just an excuse to allow you to try out crazy gameplay.

It's a very dark game, with the occasional neon.

And in this regard SRIV delivers. I am not generally a fan of games that make it their main goal to be weird, games like Goat Simulator for instance, which seem to be designed mainly for those special Youtubers who get their money from screaming a lot on screen.

But I do enjoy a game that takes an odd premise and still manages to build a somewhat interesting story around it, a game like Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a good example of this. While SRIV might lack a bit in the story department, in the sense that you get the feeling that everything is just a "free-for-all"-excuse for more mayhem, it does deliver on heart and character. SRIV has a lot of both.

The character controls well, and I would even dare say excellent when comparing it back-to-back to Assassin's Creed: Unity, which I as mentioned played simultaneously. You get super powers that allow you to jump very high, run very fast, throw huge objects in people's faces and run up the side of buildings. And that is just mentioning a tiny fraction of all the skills you can play around with after a handful of hours into the game. The skills you get can be unlocked with currency, you can unlock other attributes with other currency. Some are found on the stages, some are got by completing quests. There is a lot to keep track off, but it manages to stay fairly easy to understand and use.

The map of the virtual city is littered with objects to interact with. I didn't understand the purpose to having fifteen shops where you could alter the look on your rides, buy a new t-shirt or load up on more ammo, especially not after a short while into the game where it becomes easy and quick to get around the city. Convenience, maybe? There also seem to be quests that are specifically designed for multi-player, somehow, I didn't get a chance to try these.

The game is overall never a challenge on normal mode, probably veered more towards having fun than giving you a real challenge. When I died it was mostly to fooling around and not caring, than genuinely trying to solve something. The only time the game made me scratch my head and reload over and over, was during a quest where I had to fight Giant Paul the Giant Soda Can. That guy blasted me with a laser that was essentially a none-dodgeable one-shot, even on normal difficulty.

You can tell that your character and their gang has a long backstory together, a lot of the quests allude to that. I often felt that it would've been fun to have played the quests and scenarios that this game references first, but the quests often hold up gameplay wise on their own, at least enough to be entertaining even if you don't get that extra oumph from fan service and nostalgia.

And there is a lot of whacky shit to do, that's for sure. I love that the game designers have not held back in the brainstorming sessions. Even character creation allows you to create something with pink chrome skin, if you like that sort of thing. In order to interrupt the virtual world that the alien Zin (as they are called) have created you need to break the code like some Neo on crack. You get to hurl your body, literally, against objects, save Santa from Evil Santa, use all kinds of weird weapons and have a gang of Gingerbread Cookies be your sidekicks. I can't emphasize enough that the pitch document for this game probably just had the words "MORE IS MORE" written in big, bold, red letters.

But generally it works, I am entertained. I like the characters, though I barely know them, and I have fun with the insane things that we get to do. Until at some point I can't help but feeling that even this golden treadmill, is still nothing but a treadmill. Am I asking for a sense of direction in all this mayhem? Maybe. There is just so much to do, so many characters to help and so many virtual pedestrians to run over that it actually manages to feel a bit... empty. When I am given these many toys to play with, I end up feeling like none of them are fun in the long run.

I don't want to tell SRIV to get a grip or to calm down. I think SRIV is doing exactly what it should and it is doing it well. But for us mere mortals it gets a bit overwhelming in the long run. SRIV is an all-you-can-eat buffet where after ten minutes of browsing you realize you're really just interested in the baguettes.

Limbo (2010) - Review

I personally think the indie game landscape is one of the best and freshest things to happen to the video game world. It was looking quite dark there for a while in the mid 00's, with triple A developers only hinging their money on the safest of bets, ergo the most predictable of games. The video game industry seemed to be caught in a loop of trying to predict and deliver exactly what video gamers wanted, which only led to games that no one fully enjoyed. Things were glum indeed and suddenly, almost as by design, developing tools became accessible and user friendly enough that any basement game designer could give it a go. It was a beautiful full circle back to the very dawn of computer and video games, when most of them were made by people just playing around on their machines, trying to create something that they themselves wanted to play and not necessarily make the most money out of.

Limbo, released in 2010 by Playdead, wasn't among the very first indie games, but in my mind it definitely belonged to the first batch of games that showed players what indie games could accomplish that triple A developers were missing out on or were overcomplicating. It was a game that dared to be simple and concise, something that video game designers seemed to have almost forgotten the art of. Instead of moving towards even more content, even more open world, even more customization, Limbo was a game that removed all of that and told the simplest of stories with the most straight-forward of gameplay, like the darker twin of Super Mario Bros.

I was deep into my World of Warcrafting when Limbo was released and had little interest for it at the time. And in all honesty, the only reason I decided to eventually check it out was simply because it still lingered in the back of my mind as a game that was part of a big moment in video game history, and as such at least something I should know a little more about than the name and that it seems to have huge spiders in it.

Puzzle platformers are really not my thing, I must admit. I also tried Braid and didn't like it, so I didn't have high expectations for Limbo either. I also suck at Mario games, but those I still enjoy playing every now and then. My problem with indie puzzle platformers have often been that focus has been so much on making interesting puzzles, that it seems that the most important part - good platforming - has been lost on the way. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to solve a puzzle and constantly failing because your character doesn't control well enough. This was one of my issues with Braid.

I found this to be part of the issue in Limbo as well. The character, who seems to be a young child lost or running through dark woods, controls just fine until you get to parts that require timing. The controls are super simple, you can go left, right, up and down and with "ctrl" (on computers at least) you can grab things. The child will automatically cling on to ropes and edges if you're close enough. That's all there is to it. But it doesn't always work well enough and your character will suddenly do a short jump where you needed a long one, or fail to climb over an edge in time. I'm not saying the controls are badly programmed, but they are not tight enough for what is requested.

So you have to be prepared for a lot of trial and error. Limbo will throw traps at you that reverses the rule of a previous trap, which just feels devious. Or maybe hilarious, depending on your mood for the evening. Some times the puzzle is on a time limit for varying reasons (rising waters being one) and you don't get much time trying different ideas. Some times you know exactly what you need to do but fail at execution for unfair reasons, see above.

I am not entirely sure what Limbo is trying to tell with the atmosphere, but there must almost be a subgenre of games that has the "lonely in dangerous woods"-feel. If you like the feeling of being alone in the world, everything out to get you and nothing making sense (and why would you, it literally sounds like a nightmare), while solving puzzles, I can recommend checking out the games Rymdresa and Year Walk as well. The black and white in Limbo really works in its favour, and it probably helps hide the fact that Limbo itself feels like only half a game.

Because something struck me as interesting while playing Limbo - I am not so sure Limbo would've been noticed at all if it had been released in todays indie landscape. I am in fact sure it wouldn't be. Limbo in itself isn't much of a game, really. You run in one direction and  But what it represented when it was released meant a lot more than the game itself. It was what the game industry needed at the time. But now that we have indie games galore, we're spoiled with out of the box ideas and underdog design choices and a game like Limbo doesn't seem like a game that's out on a limb(o) anymore. In todays indie world Limbo seems a bit simple and tame.

But it wasn't back then. Back then it represented fresh and daring thinking, and no one can take that away from it. If you're like me, a bit curious about gaming history and gaming milestones, you could give Limbo a few hours of your life. Otherwise I think it's enough to just know what it once was, and enjoy the fruits of what it sowed.

Assassin's Creed: Unity (2014) - Review

 The Assassins Creed franchise has been actively lingering in the back of my brain ever since the first one was released in 2007. For some reason I never really got into it, even though the gameplay looked like something that I would enjoy - stealth and parkour. Since the first game came out the series has grown to a veritable smorgasbord of games and maybe it's taken me so long to get into it because I didn't know where to start. My hesitation has only added more games to the list.

Do I start from the beginning? The first games can be full of dubious gameplay and game design choices that make them difficult to enjoy with modern eyes and quality of life-wants.

50 shades of brown

Do I start in the middle? Where did they iron out the most kinks, where did they nail the story? 

Do I start with the latest? Who knows what good games I miss jumping the line all the way to the end? I could've made the smart thing and checked some list of "best games in the Assassins Creed series". But instead I did a pick of a handful with cool sounding names from a Steam sale a while ago, and decided to start with the oldest one out of that bunch. That game was Assassins Creed: Unity.

While I didn't know much about the game going in, I knew enough to have a general idea and expectation. The game largely fulfilled those expectations. The game is mostly about stealthing and parkouring. What I didn't expect however were how badly designed the game would be in those core areas specifically.

It seems clear that Unity expects you to be a returning AC player as it doesn't explain much about the premise of the AC game series. Because of this I can't really say much about it either - you play as a guy named Arno during French Revolution Paris. From being a sort of nobody you somehow become part of an assassinations guild, it is never explained where Arno gets his superhuman capabilities of climbing buildings. In actuality however, you're some guy in present time, hooked up to some machine that allows you to control Arno in a sort of virtual reality time travel. Some evil corporation is after you in this virtual world, though during my 20 hours with the game that never came to matter. Some of the quests and stages are centered around this fact that the world you run around in is actually inside a computer, or something like it, but that's the most you'll ever notice. Mostly you spend your time running up and down the streets of 18th century Paris, scaling walls and trying to complete different quests and tasks given to you.

And this is both one of the best and the worst things about AC: Unity. I love the detail of Paris and as someone who is quite interested in history it was fun to just run around and pretend to be there. I've heard that Ubisoft overall has tried to be as historically accurate as possible, while also trying to make a fun game and on one of these things I find that the game excels. Even though the game is now 11 years old it's beautiful and feels alive. They've made a lot of nice little scripts running throughout the city that make it feel like all the NPCs moving about are minding their own business, or mostly reacting appropriately to your often weird behaviour.

The story also has the potential to be interesting. It starts with a sequence about the Templars in the 12th century (or something like it) and this is continued in a struggle between the assassinations guild and somewhat unclear antagonists in the 18th century. There is a lot of optional information about things you come across and they were always a delight to read, with in-depth texts about characters, locations or situations. Some of the quests are quite interesting, like the murder mystery ones where you have to figure out who is the culprit and accuse the right person to receive the best reward.

A lot to do, not much of it fun though.

Combat is serviceable, with a possibility to block or dodge enemies and use different tools like smoke bombs and arrows to increase your advantage. Being able to jump people from above and stealth kill multiple targets is fun and useful.

Unfortunately it is all ruined by the one thing that needed to really work, the controls. If you're going to make a game that is so much about handling yourself, jumping from one building to the next, climbing up the side of clock towers and hiding from evil guards, those things need to not constantly be what you fail to do.

After having played other games that have some element of climbing, stealthing and jumping through hoops (Shadows of Mordor, Dishonored) I can say this game is by far the most poorly executed. In fact so bad that after 20 hours of playing, and a particularly frustrating sequence trying to kill the Beggar King but having to restart the mission around ten times because Arno wouldn't do what I wanted him to, I decided I didn't want to play this anymore.

It is clear that Ubisoft bit off more than they could chew. Or maybe the game was just exceptionally poorly optimized to my setup. I played it with keyboard on PC, and I toyed with the idea of trying to use a controller. But the problems I had with the controls didn't seem to stem from the control scheme, but how Arno interpreted my input and interacted with the world around him. It seemed almost arbitrary whether he would jump on to the next object or just randomly hurl himself off the wall and onto the street. Hiding behind objects to avoid being discovered I often ended up being stuck. Don't get me started on trying to get through windows, which was practically impossible. This quickly gets extremely frustrating when you have a handful of guards behind you shooting you in the backside.

And it doesn't end there;

• The menu system is incredibly obtuse, trying to find information about the quest I was on was way harder than it should be. 
• The minimap is littered with symbols indicating things you can do, but the overview map doesn't always correspond or contain the same symbols (I am aware you can filter), making it confusing to use. 
• It's way too unclear how you gain currency to unlock skills or improve your weapons.
• Even though it is supposed to be a stealth game, it is in no way clear how visible you are at any given time. While you get a good tool in the "hightened senses" that allows you to see enemies through walls, it was impossible to judge if someone was going to spot you based on light sources or distances. Some times I crept around in a fully lit church having absolutely no idea why some guards spotted me and some didn't.
• I really don't like Ubisoft Connect...

I just felt like for every moment I got to enjoy, the game had to give me two moments where I was extremely annoyed. That is just not a good enough ratio. It also doesn't help that a lot of the side quests got repetitive and I decided to try to get through the game quickly by focusing on the main story. But after the above mentioned harrowing experience of a complete communication failure between me and Arno I knew that it wasn't about me getting comfortable with the controls and it wasn't going to get any better.

This doesn't mean I am giving up on the AC series however, I still have a few games from that sale to check out eventually.

Day of the Tentacle Remastered (2016) - Review

Deciding to revisit some childhood memories by replaying old Point & Click (P&C) Adventure games with my kids has turned out to be a blessing and a curse. I'm always happy to see them enjoy "real" games, as I like to think of anything that isn't just clicking and combining random stuff (wait a minute, that describes the average P&C game).

But it turns out they enjoy them a lot more than I expected them to. Maybe more than I ever did when I originally played them, probably fueled by the fact that we get to complete the games unlike what I managed on my ownsome. Especially my 6yo daughter loves the experience of sitting together and trying to figure out the puzzles. Now she nags me every day for us to play some more. A blessing and a curse.

Unlike my memories of Secret of Monkey Island, I remember clearly not getting very far into Day of the Tentacle as a kid. Having replayed it now as an adult, I really can't blame my child-self for failing at this. Day of the Tentacle epitomizes everything that I worry about when playing a P&C game i.e the puzzles being obscure to the point of almost being impossible to solve. Day of the Tentacle requires some next level out-of-the-box-thinking to finish without a guide and there are puzzles in there that will haunt me forever. Oh and just a warning here, I will give some examples of these puzzles so if you haven't played the game and don't want any tips, beware.

Day of the Tentacle is technically a sequel to Maniac Mansion, a game I have never played. Fortunately it only vaguely references that game (at least to my knowledge) and it doesn't feel like you need to know anything about Maniac Mansion to fully enjoy this game. Because even though Day of the Tentacle is a P&C game that is hard as nails, it is very fun and probably one of the best examples of the comedy from writers Tim Schafer, Dave Grossman and Ron Gilbert who also made the beforementioned Monkey Island game and the sequel to that.

The original Day of the Tentacle was released in 1993 and the remastered version adds some updated graphics and a very enjoyable commentary track that runs throughout the game as you play it. This style of updated graphics worked so much better than the one they used in The Secret of Monkey Island, as they've basically kept the original style but smoothed out the pixelated edges which makes things a bit easier to see.

You control friends Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne as they get thrown across time to stop the evil purple tentacle from taking over the world. Hoagie gets stuck 200 years in the past and Laverne 200 years in the future, while Bernard stays in the present. A big part of the gameplay is adjusting the timeline so that whatever Hoagie does in the past changes conditions in Bernard's or Laverne's timeline. This is a very fun concept and used brilliantly throughout the game, it also ups the ante for your guesses on how to solve different problems. One of my favorites is when Bernard puts a sweater in the tumble dryer for 200 years so that when Laverne gets it in the future she can use it to warm up a hamster that has been frozen for 200 years. 

The controls are the good old SCUMM controls with the option to use different verbs with different objects in your surroundings, verbs like "push", "open" or "pick up". In the remastered version you get a wheel of options that works very well, much better than solution they went with in the remastered version of the Secret of Monkey Island.

When I played it as a kid I never got further than getting Laverne out of the tree. Finally getting to play through the game properly was exciting and fun. I remembered some puzzles in the beginning but very quickly we got stuck and we pretty much had to use a walkthrough for 80% of the puzzles in the latter 3/4 of the game. 

Like any good game, a good P&C game needs both a good story and good gameplay. Day of the Tentacle delivers. I usually get annoyed when I constantly have to consult a walkthrough, but the characters and the story of Day of the Tentacle kept me curious and I didn't mind checking lists. 

But how hard are the puzzles anyway, you might wonder? Let me give you one example...

*deep breath* In the future, Laverne needs a tentacle to move from the place he is guarding. To make him move she needs to make him chase after some humans. To let the humans out of the prison you need to remove the prison guard. To remove the prison guard you need to give him a dinner invite. To get the dinner invite you need to win the human exhibition contest. But Laverne has no human to compete with. So you get a mummy in an upstairs room and put roller skaters on him so you can roll him around. You also need a name tag that you get from one of the other guys. Then you need Hoagie to send you pasta that he finds in a cupboard, use it as hair on the mummy and comb it with a fork. All this is to win one of the three competitions needed.

There are definitely puzzles in this game I would've never been able to figure out or even guess at.  Maybe not even figure out with the old and tried tactic of just combining everything in your inventory with everything you see. Since you play as three different characters, in three different setting and with three different inventories, it just makes the variables so much larger. I don't feel dumb playing this game, I just accept the whackiness of it.

But fortunately everything else about the game is so well done and written, you forgive it and you want to continue trying. I definitely did as a kid, I threw myself at the problems many, many times and I even managed to figure out that you needed to paint the Kumquat tree fruits red so that Washington will think it's a cherry tree and chop it down, meaning it disappears in the future and Laverne falls down.

But then I couldn't figure out that Laverne needs to send the diagram of a tentacle to Hoagie so that he can give it to the woman who creates the American flag, turning a flag in Laverne's timeline into a tentacle costume so that she can move around freely. Yeah... I never got past that part. Until now.

If you tell me you've played through Day of the Tentacle entirely without help, you have my eternal respect. It is probably the most difficult P&C game I have played, simply because of the somewhat random and jokey nature of the puzzles.

But the game is full of memorable characters and gaming moments that will make it worth your time and frustration. The game manages to stump you but make it all the more rewarding when you figure something out. It deserves its place as one of P&C games finest, especially considering when it was released. There have been many good P&C games since then, but few as fun and funny as this one.

Grape Escape - Board Game Review

What's in a name? That which we call a board game, by any other name would be as fun.

Or would it? I am guessing I am not the only one who has once or twice pondered, what even counts as a board game? In Swedish we make a distinction between games played with a board, i.e literally board games (brädspel), games played with cards (kortspel) and other type of table top games (sällskapsspel). My brother was annoyed when I called Arboretum a board game, because even though you'd might think it would count as a card game he thought of it as a table top game.

Semantics, one could say. And one would be correct, in a way.  In the end all that matters is that it is fun. But maybe not, because when I tell my family I want to play a board game and we end up playing Mouse Trap, I feel cheated. Not because it is bad, and it is quite bad, but because it doesn't feel like a board game to me, but more like a toy.

I realize a lot of the board games I wanted as a kid were actually these semi-toys like Mouse Trap and Ghost Castle. And Grape Escape. For some reason I never really got to play them. They were always out of reach. Some friend might have had them, maybe I saw the ad for them. They seemed to so cool, like so much fun. So when I saw Grape Escape in a Second Hand store I had the opportunity to give in to my inner 10- year old. Of course I had to do it.

I should've known better though, having tried Mouse Trap and knowing what a disaster that is.  Mouse Trap is neither fun as a game nor as a toy. While the idea of a Rube Goldberg machine that you can set off to trap your fellow players is an interesting one, the execution is extremely poor. The slightest cough or vibration sets off the trap meaning you spend a lot more time trying to set everything up than actually playing, or having fun. I guess this explains why I never got to play them as a kid, adults around me felt the same way then as I do about it now. When my kids asked to play Mouse Trap I had to work really hard not to let out a huge sigh of boredom. I am glad they did not ask for it often.

Grape Escape, released in 1992 (this Swedish version in 1993) has a simpler machine, for better or worse, and instead you get to cut, saw, crush and mangle little grape figures made out of clay. The game itself is beyond simple - roll a dice and move on 1-4. One side allows you to jump ahead on the board and one side lets you operate the grape crushing machine. Getting through the board takes no time at all and often you just end up trying out the different ways of maiming your grape instead of actually playing the game - forget teaching your kids right from wrong with this game, it's just about having fun destroying things.

Once you've done that though, there isn't much more to it. Yet again it is way more hassle setting up the machine than you'll end up having fun, and I doubt that there is much longevity in the concept even for the most evil little child. One of the main issues is the instability of the structure itself. It's probably not an easy thing to design something that is supposed to work with some few plastic parts and be able to cut through clay grapes without harming any actual fingers. But it's also not easy enough to put together for young kids to play with it on their own, unless they literally just play with the parts. Putting the whole machine together and making sure things don't pop off every three seconds takes some brain power and steady hands. Kids get just as frustrated as adults trying to operate the thing.

The end result is something that is prone to fall apart and not really good at the one thing it is supposed to do - smash grapes. But it does it somewhat well enough, especially if you give it a helping hand here and there and so it provides some 20 minutes of chuckles. 

Is it worth keeping around the huge box for though? Definitely not, like Mouse Trap this game is not a keeper.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (2009) - Review

You've probably had the experience of watching a movie and realizing half-way through that you've already seen that movie and just completely forgot about it. Have you ever had the opposite though? Where you are certain you've already played a game and realize you definitely haven't, half-way through? No? Just me then I guess.

The original The Secret of Monkey Island was released all the way back in 1990, and while I am old now I was too young then to play it at launch. No matter, I definitely got around to playing it at some point while growing up. I remember the bar with all the pirates, the word-fencing, the annoying boat salesman. Yeah I pretty much remember finishing The Secret of Monkey Island.

So when I decided to introduce my kids (6 and 11 yo) to this little gem I thought I basically knew most of the puzzles and we would breeze through. I felt like I remembered all of the game even though many years had passed since I last properly played it, though my memory of the actual ending was a bit hazy. True enough, we got through all the way to Stan without much trouble - sneaking through the forest, getting shot through a cannon and feeding rabid poodles rancid meat (don't worry, they're not dead, just sleeping).

The game puts you in the shoes of Guybrush Threepwood, an up-and-coming wannabe pirate. As he goes around trying to prove to the real pirates that he has what is needed to be one of them, the bad guy LeChuck (the meanest pirate and also a ghost) kidnaps Threepwood's newfound love Governor Marley. The story might be whacky (in all the good ways!), but the gameplay is straightforward. While this wasn't the first game to use Lucasarts famous SCUMM system (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) it works great here. Maybe some young-uns don't like the idea of having to choose a verb with an item to solve puzzles (which was a novelty then, before this you had to type the verb yourself which was a guesswork in and of itself), I personally quite enjoy this system. Newer P&C games will automatically choose the right verb, but that is making things a bit too easy I find.

You can't beat the original. Can you?

Ok, it's probably more of a time consuming gimmick nowadays, but I like it, ok? Unfortunately the version we were playing was the Special Edition, which means they added voice acting and completely revamped graphics. Unfortunately because, old trout that I am, I also definitely prefer the original graphics. My kids did not however, and two against one the revamped graphics won out. 

They're ok and in some parts, in all honesty, they make it easier to make out which things you can interact with. But they're just... ugly... compared to the lovely pixels of the original. The Special Edition also provides background music, which was quite nice, I must admit. While the voice acting was perfectly serviceable, a character like Stan works best as a silent antagonist if you ask me. He really grates after 10 seconds. The Special Edition also keeps the verbs, but hides them and your inventory behind buttons ("I" for things in your inventory and "Ctrl" for using verbs), clearing out your screen. I actually found this less user-friendly, but maybe that is just me.

The revamped graphics adds quite a touch.

After we had dealt with Stan and Guybrush leaves the island with his ragtag team I slowly start to realize something. As he sets foot on the beach of Monkey Island it hits home. I don't recognize any of this! I am having a proper Berenstain Moment as we start to make our way through the jungle and make friends with Bob and the Cannibals. 

I knew that the game takes place on Mêlée Island and never thought to question why the game was called Monkey Island. But half the game actually takes place on Monkey Island, a half that I don't have any memory of playing. The memory I have of playing and finishing the game, is actually of me playing the first half over and over. I never actually made it to Monkey Island as a kid!

So while the first half of the game went swimmingly and I still knew most of the puzzles, I had no clue what to do once we got to Monkey Island. Me and the kids managed to figure out quite a lot of the puzzles on our own, otherwise we resorted to a walkthrough for some of the trickier ones (both the boat sections for example).

Actually getting to Monkey Island felt... wrong. It felt out of place. It felt like it was tacked on and didn't fit the atmosphere of the rest of the game. While Mêlée Island is dusky, moody and piratey, Monkey Island is its polar opposite with sunny beaches and literal monkeys running around eating bananas. I always loved the perpetual night time of Mêlée Island and didn't feel comfortable running around getting a sun tan on Monkey Island. Most importantly, it didn't fit the internal feeling I had of the game. An image I now have had to severely revise.

This doesn't mean I think The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is a bad game. I still think it is one of the best P&C experiences I've had and probably one of the best P&C games there is. The writing is just superb, Lucasarts at its height of funny and whacky. There are many memorably characters, scenes and puzzles in this game and I thoroughly recommend it.

But the Secret of Monkey Island from my childhood memory is gone. And that stings a bit.

Maize (2016) - Review

Are "weird games " a genre? Maybe they should be. It's hardly a new phenomenon, just look at that fish person game for the Dreamcast. I think games just allow themselves better for exploring some really odd ideas, for me the interactivity of the game medium seems to mean I have a lot more patience with the shenanigans of other people's minds. I am the complete opposite with literature and film, where I find whacky or seemingly arbitrary story beats tiresome. But there is something about being part of the crazy, not just observing it, that makes it a lot more interesting to me. Suddenly I am ok with whacky and seemingly arbitrary.

You'll see a lot of corn, and a lot of gags.

Coincidentally (?) I've ended up playing two fairly weird games simultaneously, Saint's Row IV and Maize. But where Saint's Row IV is shock full of crazy things to do, Maize is a much more straightforward and simple game, I'd even like to call it a walking simulator in how scaled-down it is in its gameplay elements. In that way it has been interesting to play these two games side by side, since they've chosen to approach the idea of whimsical from opposite ends of the gaming spectrum, and both have succeeded with that goal in their own ways.

In Maize you wake up in a corn field and make your way around. You initially find and explore areas like a farm house, a silo and a barn. The atmosphere is suitably creepy, you have no idea where you are, who you are or why you're doing what you're doing. In the initial part, before you find your choleric side-kick, you feel like it could go either way and just as well be the setup for another Resident Evil game. 

But it doesn't take long before you realize that the theme of the game seems to be "stupid", you will hear and read a lot about it. Almost everyone you encounter, either directly or indirectly, are referred to as stupid or idiotic at several points in the game and none more than yourself.

You'll end up picking up the oddest things,  like a cut-off hand, a chair or a water cooler, some times just to collect them or put on your head, some times to put them in places and/or combining them with things to advance the story. The game blocks your path when needed in not very subtle ways (perfectly fitting with the theme though) so you won't spend much time running the wrong ways and it is by no means a difficult game. 

You rarely pick up things that make sense.

It's probably easy to think it's barely worth your time - the puzzles are rarely more difficult than finding an item and putting it in the right place, and the right item and right place are always very clearly marked. There is no danger at any point, nor risk to fail. There are almost no mini games that require timing or anything that requires much of any thinking - maybe this is also intentional to fit the theme of the game.

So what's left is the writing - the story and the characters. And it's a story so charmingly odd it keeps you curious and smiling the entire time. Or not. I feel this game could probably go either or with most people. Either you go along for the ride, or you find the humour neither funny nor interesting. I guess it was my kind of chuckles however, and definitely that of my kids (6 and 11 yo) who ended up loving this game.

The game seems to be set in the 80's.

The character roster is small, you won't come across many... things... to talk to. But your side-kick Vladdy makes up for that, a smart choice to not make the game feel too lonely and silent as you mostly run through areas that seem to have been abandoned not too long ago. Figuring out what has happened and what was going on in these abandoned rooms and corridors is part of the mystery, and it will keep you interested throughout the roughly 4-5 hours the game takes to play. The less said the better, this is one of those games where you want to go in knowing as little as possible for the best experience.

I just got to respect a game where the creators had an idea and decided to run with it even though it probably made little sense on paper. It's one of those "you get it once you see it" kind of things. The end result is entertaining enough, and worth your time if you want something unexpected that might give you a chuckle.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (2024, PS4)

The algorithms of the internet probably knew how I felt about Suikoden I and II when it suggested a Kickstarter of its spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes for me back in 2020. I played the first Suikoden back in 2016, and Suikoden II not long after - really enjoying both of them, so when I saw that "the old team" was getting back together to create what essentially was another Suikoden, I was hype.

After having thrown my money at 505 Games I started to eagerly wait. And wait. I already covered this in another post - but it took 4 years for Suiko... I mean Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes (ECHH, yeah the name might not be the strongest point) to finally be released. Just to quote myself to save some breath;

"To their credit, the development team were very informative and transparent about the ups and downs of the developmental process. So much in fact that I stopped reading the steady flow of updates that came to my inbox not long after I had backed the project. I realized that the game would either be a thing or not be a thing (as is the way with Kickstarter) and basically stopped thinking about it for a year. And another year."

Long story short, the game arrived eventually and I (almost) immediately started to play it. Was it worth the wait?

Firstly, it is worth noting that if you wanted more Suikoden, ECHH delivers. The story themes, the gameplay elements, the character developments - they're all there and handled just as well in most cases as their inspirations. You can tell that a lot of the same people have handled the design and that the game comes from a source of genuine love for the material and the originals.

You play as Nowa, who goes out to vaguely seek fortune but quickly sees himself embroiled in something much larger. Before long you control whole armies against Dux Aldric who threatens to become the new dictator of the lands. The story is epic in its own way and just like Suikoden (1 & 2) always managed to stay on this side of far-out, unlike series like Final Fantasy (where I am often not entirely sure what is going on), the story in ECHH feels grounded and urgent. If you're worried that political intrigue will bore you (but how could it, have you not seen Game of Thrones?) don't be worried - the politics is just a backdrop for exploring all the characters that fill these games.

And while ECHH has some flaws (which I will get back to) I must say that the characters is where it absolutely excels. The thing that made Suikoden different from other JRPGs back in the day was the promise of being able to meet/collect over a 100 characters and build a home for them all. ECHH is no different. And you'd think that with a gallery of characters that large, most of them would feel underdeveloped, uninteresting or bland, but they don't. It's of course practically impossible in one playthrough to get to really know every single character, even if you don't run around and seek out all the optional ones, but ECHH manages. Every single character I came across made me want to know more about them, try them out in battle (when possible) and seemed like they had some thought behind them more than to fill a roster. 

The characters fill different roles in the games - a lot of them will be able to join your group as fighters. Some will help boost your characters with combat buffs or give you new features in different ways, like faster run speed, bigger bag space or fewer random encounters. Some will improve your castle that you get not very far into the game (by JRPG standards), with everything from theaters to hot springs to vendors. There is a mini game TCG, Beyblade (though called Beigoma in the game) and egg racing to mention a few. 

The game is shock full of content to explore when you don't feel like taking part of the politics of the main story for a while. The mini games are of varying quality and while I didn't get around to trying all of them, I enjoyed the ones I did (the card game in fact reminded me a little bit of the card game Shotten Totten 2). You can tell that a lot of these were probably after thoughts in the sense of stretch goals rather than content originally meant for the game, but I still found they added to the overall experience and to the atmosphere of the game.

While I had fun exploring the different characters and learning more about them, I found the world they live in lackluster and empty. It's varied enough with the standard desert, forest, mountain and ice areas. But both the cities and surrounding areas feel cramped and uninspired compared to the characters you play with. I tried to think of an RPG where I love the settings and remember them fondly years later, places like FFVII and FFIX. What is ECHH missing that these games have? I realize that it's a matter of details, nooks and crannies, little areas that you want to explore, the people you meet, objects that hint of lives being lived. In ECHH every house you enter looks the same as the next and you can't even go up to the second floor. People say and do nothing of interest and just feel like backdrop. I usually run around and explore everything in towns I enter, talking to everyone. I quickly lost interest in that in ECHH, only interested in finding the inn and the armory and moving on. There are some exceptions though, Castle Hirganthia towards the end is really cool and some cities hint of interesting concepts, like the Sand Shark people the Shi'arc (took me way too long to get that word pun too).

Doesn't this look like a place you want to live in?

But the world settings aren't really something I remember fondly, or at all, from the original Suikoden games either. There too the strength was in the story and the characters driving it forwards, so maybe it makes sense that that is where ECHH would put its focus as well. It definitely doesn't make ECHH (nor the Suikoden games) any less fun to play, but I still can't help wondering what if...

That being said, I loved the graphics and especially the character sprites. My kid couldn't stop commenting on how much it annoyed him that the player characters didn't have the same graphics as the surroundings, them being regular 3D, but this never bothered me. Would it have been even better with full sprite work or faux/modern style sprite work like in Octopath Traveler? I think so, but the design they chose to go with works too.

The combat in ECHH is something I never grew tired off. You've got six characters fighting simultaneously (though some characters count as two because of their size) on screen, their stats deciding things like combat order, crit chance, physical damage done and taken, magical damage done and taken and so on. Some times your choice of action changes your order of execution, and I found it confusing that I had to do the inputs based on party order rather than speed. This meant that whoever was first in your party was the one to receive action input first, even if they were the last character executing them. This never stopped being confusing to me, even though it probably is the most logical way of handling it.

Fortunately everything else about combat is fun and easy and doesn't outstay its welcome. It helps that there are literally scores of different characters with completely different fighting styles to explore, and even though they're not all equally strong and useful, they're all interesting. Add to this different "hero combos" in which certain combination of characters can unleash extra strong attacks together. Every character also have a varying set of runes that they can equip, which can give new skills, new magic or extra stats. There is even an "auto" feature in which you, sort of FFXII style can program your characters to fight according to certain parameters. While this works well, I enjoyed combat enough to always want to keep control over what was going on. And in case you're curious, my main party consisted of Nowa, Zabi, Gieran, Yusuke and Kogen. The final character was most often Seign for the Hero Combo, but I ended the game with Yuferius.

Add to this that all these different characters come with different voice actors and that you can choose freely between English or Japanese spoken dialogue (ok, some actors voice several characters, but the credit list is looong).

They even got Motoi Sakuraba himself to do the score. While I am not as huge a fan of Sakurabas' as some people, there is no denying he is a skilled composer and he does a good job here. The battle tunes, always a litmus test of good composing in my book, are doing a good job at getting you pumped while not getting annoying after the 100th time.

As mentioned ECHH is essentially a carbon copy of the original Suikoden, in all the good ways. But also in some of the bad ways. The loading screens (on the PS4) are so plentiful and long that I started doing exercises during them to offset some of my sitting and to feel like I was at least doing something useful rather than just waiting around. The inventory is also so confusing that it must be copied from the older games, though I don't remember it, because otherwise what the heck is this system doing in this game. Items stack in completely random numbers, meaning some will stack up to 2, some 3 some 5 and so on. It doesn't help that you start with an extremely underwhelming bag size and throughout the entire game I struggled to fit items that I came across, constantly having to decide which items to keep and which to throw. 

The duel system from the Suikoden series is also in ECHH, in which a certain character is pitted alone against an enemy. The fighting consists of trying to match the right type of attack based on the dialogue the characters are having, in a rock-paper-scissor way. Sounds cool on paper, doesn't work so well in reality. I don't recall it being a problem in the original games but it feels completely random and arbitrary in ECHH. I managed the first few I came across but towards the end I got sick of having to trial-and-error my way through them and just used a walkthrough for those fights specifically. Other than these situations, ECHH is not a particularly difficult game, and I only rarely struggled.

This next point wasn't a problem for me personally, but some times it was quite far between save opportunities. I clocked close to an hour at one point. If you're old-school this won't faze you, but it does mean that your playing sessions require a little bit of planning and timing.

While I feel like these are things you might want to know going in to the game, I really don't want anyone to avoid what is otherwise a great game over these flaws. 

So in conclusion, Eiyuden Chronicle is a game made with pure love for the genre and especially the inspirations Suikoden 1 and 2. While it has some flaws, everything else works so nicely that I fully enjoyed my 60 hours with it. The characters, the story, the gameplay - it made me just flow through the game and I never felt bored. And I feel like I haven't even mentioned half the stuff the game throws at you yet, there is simply so much to do. So when the credits rolled I knew I was really going to miss all the crazy creatures and people I had come across and I could finally conclude that yet, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was worth my money and it was definitely worth the wait.