First Impression: imprint-X (PC) ~ Press That Button

Official website

Today, I’m bringing you something special. Earlier this month, the developers of this game send me a mail with a review copy of this game. But due to a very busy week, I was unable to get this article out in time. Thank you Morgondag for providing me with a review copy of this game. So, in this article, I’ll tell you guys and girls my honest opinions on the game. Oh, as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts about the game and/or the content of this article.

Side note: This game is also available on iOS & Android. 

2nd side note: I wrote this article as a sort of feedback/review article for the developers and let you guys and girls know about the game!

Puzzle and reaction game

So, the story of this game is rather interesting. The Steam Store page description tells us this:

A robotic virus is raging! Nano Bots called Wardens are enslaving people! You are one of the hacker clones, saving intellects by hacking into infected brains and defeating the mysterious Wardens; figuring out their correct button sequences.

The only issue I have with the story is that it should be more present in the game. I didn’t really know that this game had a story until I read the Steam Store page. I was able to make out some parts of the story with the visuals, but somethings make a bit more sense when you know the story. A little introduction movie could add so much in my opinion.

Something I really have to praise the developers of this game for is the UI. First of all, there are 6 worlds. The main menu’s background looks different when you beat a world. I seriously love that touch! Secondly, the developers use symbols instead of words in their options menu. Apart from the gameplay options, you won’t find any words! I would only change a few some minor things in the options menu and they have to do with the language options.

1. I would sort them alphabetically.
2. I would show the name of the language in their native name. Like my own mother language is Dutch, I would display that as “Nederlands”.
3. The Chinese Traditional language doesn’t fit right in the box. The “L” is dropped off, this could be fixed by making that box just a bit larger.

But the rest of the UI is pretty well done. So, apart from the things I mentioned above, it’s perfect!

In this game, you have 100 levels to conquer. So, to win a level, you have to press the buttons in the right order. When you do it out of order, you loose a life. The goal of this game is to press the buttons in the right order and/or at the right time. In most levels, the visuals give you a hint in what orders to press. But this game is pretty forgiving. If you fail a level, you can give it another shot right away. So, this game isn’t frustrating at all. Some levels can be pretty difficult to get the timing right, but once it clicks, the solution will come to you.

Chilling with this game

For a small developer team, this game looks amazing. The space theme that’s used in the game looks quite nice. It fits the story and atmosphere the game is trying to tell.

In terms of the visuals, I would make one change. You are able to zoom in and out with the scroll wheel. But, you can zoom so far out, that the background stops and you can see the edges of the level. I would restrict the zooming so you are unable to see that edge. Just look at this screenshot if you don’t understand what I’m trying to say.

The music in this game is really relaxing. I consider adding this game to my music library. This music is great to listen to when I want to relax or just chill out. Thanks to the music, I was in a sort of trance while playing this game. The music and the visuals click so well. It didn’t bother me that much that some sound effects sounded generic and sounded like stock sound effects, almost the whole sound design is pretty well done.

Something that is a big positive with this game is that the developers really listen to the players of their games. When I was preparing for this article, I sent them a bug report. And they fixed it before the game released. Also, when you write something on the Steam forums, they will reply and interact with the community! And that’s a big plus in my book.

Clicking away

The controls of this game are quite simple. You only need the mouse for this game. I recommend playing this game with an actual mouse, since I tried this game with a laptop trackpad and it’s just too difficult to play. But, trackpads aren’t designed to play games with in the first place.

In this game, you have various powerups. So far, I have played with one powerup. And that’s the slow down time powerup. Honestly, this is one of the biggest issues with the game. The powerup system. In my opinion, it’s quite unclear when and how you receive a powerup. Sometimes something floats over the screen and when you click it, you receive the slow down time powerup.

My first impression of this game is pretty good. This game might look and sound boring and repetitive, but believe me… Once you give it a chance, it might grow on you. Like it did with me. At first, I wasn’t enjoying myself, but the more I played, the more I enjoyed this game. And I honestly think that with a bit more polish; this game could be even better. Also, if you like what you see and read, this game is pretty cheap to get… So, what are you waiting for?

So, that’s everything I said everything, I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank the developer again for giving me a review copy. I enjoyed the game a whole lot. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Advertisement

First Impression: Minecraft Story Mode (Android) ~ Tappin’ That Adventure, yo!

Official website

Back in 2015, when I was at Minecon, I saw the trailer for Minecraft Story Mode. I actually attended the panel as well. And truth to be told, the game didn’t interest me at all. Which is really strange since I enjoy adventure games a whole lot, but this game didn’t grab my interest enough for me to put it onto my “to play” list. But in November 2016, I bought this game in a sale on the Android store. And now, I have to explain why it made it on the list of best games I played in 2016 as an honorable mention… So, let’s dive right into my first impressions of this game. When writing this article, I’m halfway into episode 4. There are 8 in total. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

This isn’t Minecraft!

For those wondering, I’m playing this game on my Asus ZenPad 8S. So, yeah. In any case, let’s talk about the story as spoiler free as possible.

At the start of the game, you get to choose how your character looks and the gender. Right after that, you are thrown into the game. In this game, you go to a building competition to decide who goes to EnderCon. But, it doesn’t take long before something horrible happens. A monster gets loose that tries to destroy the world.

Before I take a better look at the story, I have to say, that I find it sad that people bash the story and the game because “it isn’t Minecraft”.  Minecraft is a sandbox game, a game where you have full control of the situation. But that’s a rant for another time.

This story is made more interesting thanks to the subplots that are going on. Since for most of the story that big monster “takes a backseat”. The whole story is written pretty well in my opinion. I enjoy how the dynamic works between all the characters. And how each action you take, changes the dialogue of the game. And something I truly like is that at certain points, the story branches off. Like you could choose between two heroes you could save, and your start of the next episode would be totally different. But that’s to be expected with a TellTale game.

Something that makes the writing even more interesting to me is that the developers made an interesting attempt into trying to implement all the subcultures of Minecraft into one story. The Redstoners, YouTubers, Builders, Adventures… they are all present in some way in the game.

About the story, there is one thing that I think would improve the game, in my opinion, is a sort of skip button or speed up button. I think that would be a great option for people who are playing through an episode again.

Sit through this game

Something I saw other people be disappointed with is the fact that this game has way less gameplay than Minecraft. But, that isn’t a bad thing in my eyes. That isn’t the main focus of this game. The main focus of this game is to tell a story using the Minecraft setting and lore.

The gameplay is your typical adventure genre gameplay. It’s very close to point and click gameplay. So, the first gameplay element is the dialogues. You can choose between 5 dialogue options to react to a certain situation. The 5th option is pure silence. That isn’t available in every dialogue, but hey, it’s there. The only nitpick complaint I have with this is that in some cases, that time runs out way too quickly. By the time I have read the options, the time is nearly up and then I still have to decide which reply to go with. Thank you for the pause button at least!

The second element of gameplay is the exploration. I have to admit, I would have loved a bit more exploration in the game. The exploration parts are way to easy in my opinion. Yet, I can forgive the game for that, because you can beat various situations in different ways. This gives the game more replay value. You also solve puzzles in this game and so far, no puzzle has really stumped me. Maybe in the later episodes, I have some harder puzzles, but so far, I haven’t gotten stuck at all.

And the third gameplay element is the quick time events. Oh dear lord, the quick time events. I have nothing more to say that they are sometimes pretty annoying to play.

So, the final gameplay element is the combat. And I have to say, this isn’t great on Android. The combat is slow and when you miss an attack, you can’t attack again before the animation is finished. I don’t enjoy the combat sections very much.

The rest of the package.

Now, let’s talk about the other parts of the game. First of all, the music and sound design. The music is good, but this soundtrack isn’t one I would listen to outside the game. It loses its charm without some visuals.

The sound design is pretty well done. Because most of the sounds are from the great sound design by C418 for Minecraft. So, no complaints there. Also, the sound packs way more punch when you play this game with a headset.

The voice acting in this game is pretty good. I have played this game once while I was on the train and I forgot my headset, and I truly missed the voices. Yeah, they are that good in my opinion.

Visually, this game is pretty good but not perfect. Maybe it has to do with my tablet, but sometimes things didn’t render for me. I remember one scene pretty well.The gang was feeling on horseback, and the horse for the main character didn’t render always. So, the main character was floating away. Apart from the very few creative liberties the designers took, the game looks like an adventure map built in Minecraft. And I have to applaud the designers for that!

The atmosphere and visual presentation of the different areas you visit are pretty great. There isn’t a place I would change or adjust.

So, I have to praise the controls for the most part in this game. I was afraid that this game would control pretty poorly on Android, but I was surprised. This game controls pretty great on my tablet. The only problems I had with the controls were during the quick time sections, but thankfully, I was able to redo those sections and not make my mistakes.

Oh, before I forget, there is something truly annoying in this game. The download speed for the episodes is just way too slow. At first, I thought it had to do with the download speed of my tablet, but no. I have tested it with various speed tests and downloading large files from the internet. It has to do with this game, I’m sure of it.

I think I said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. There are a few things I have left for the review, but nothing that special. In any case, it’s time to wrap up this article up.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then… have a great rest of your day and take care!

Gamer’s Thoughts: The struggles of a game blogger

My name is NekoJonez, at the time of writing this article, I’m 23 years old. Apart from writing this blog, my hobbies are playing games (duh), watching anime, going out with family and friends and acting on stage. Also, at the time of writing, I work full-time in the education sector and I also follow evening classes in applied computer science. I have quite a busy and eventful life in my opinion. And I’m enjoying it. All the high and low points. But there are a few struggles I want to talk about, and here they are. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on them in the comment section down below. 

I have to play a new game each and every week!

Usually, I write about a game every week. And I try to take a look at a different game each and every week. Thankfully, I don’t care if the game is old or not and I also collect games, so I don’t have a shortage of games.

The struggle is in managing my personal life, playing the game and writing the article. It’s not the easiest of things to do in life.

I have to admit, that there are a couple of games I haven’t finished after I had written my first impression. Games like Elebits, Okami, Rachet and Clank and Magical StarSign are a few examples. In the past, I continued playing the game until I had finished it. But now, I stop playing it sometime after I have written the first impression.

But since the start of December, things are sort of changing. I have been playing games I haven’t finished or I have finished in the past. Games like RollerCoaster Tycoon, Hyrule Warriors and Fantasy Life come to mind.

We could possibly start a discussion about how I might be burning out of writing or something along those lines, but the reason is quite simple. I just felt like playing those games again. Trying to finish them up. I made a text file with games I have finished and can review when I haven’t played a “new” game in that week.

In the past, I asked the question if a reviewer can review a game twice. And I want to add a little bit to that section of the article. I think an updated review is possible, but should only be created if something huge changes. For example, a (fanmade) patch for a (very old) game that improves quite a lot or adds a lot of content. Another example is that a game gets an expansion pack that changes the whole game. Or games like Minecraft can be review twice in my opinion. Some updates change the game quite a lot and make old reviews… well, be out of date.

But for my blog, I have made a promise with myself. I won’t review a game twice since I still keep true to this statement from the original article:

But I try to only review a game once. While I replay games from time to time, also the ones I have written about, I think it’ll only create confusion for your readers. Or it would look like you have an article that praises and bashes the game. And that’s not a good idea.

Professional or not?

It’s not the first time I have asked myself this question. Should I go more professional with my blog or not. I have received a couple of emails from ad companies that offered me to be paid for writing my articles.

Currently, I think I will stay the way how I am doing things at the moment. While I would enjoy it when my articles would reach a greater audience, I wouldn’t enjoy writing anymore. I’m afraid that I will loose my passion and my creativity when I go professional. So, I choose to continue to write this blog as a hobby. Oh, and before somebody gets confused, what I mean by “going professional” is that I’m writing this blog for a living. I’m still going to try and make the best content I can make for this blog, no matter if I do it professional or not.

I see my blog as a sort of weekly diary of my gaming life. A lot of people strive to make their hobby their job, but I think that’s not the best thing to do. Since when you get bored with your job, you also get bored in your hobby.

Besides, I don’t want to give up my current job. As a child, I have dreamt to either work with computers, become a teacher or do something with writing. And as an adult, I can tick every box in a sort of way. I’m doing something with my love for writing stories and that is this blog, I’m doing something with computers and that are my evening classes. While I haven’t become a teacher, I work in the education sector, so I have come pretty close. My life is going the way I wanted and like I said in the introduction of this article, I don’t want to have it any other way.

When people from all around the world read my article, even when only 5 to 10 people read my article about a certain game I played, I’m happy. Because I was able to entertain and/or inform somebody about a game.So, I’m even more honored when developers use my contact page to offer me a chance to review their game. It gives me a special feeling inside. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like that somebody thinks that my writing, opinions and such are good enough to take time out their day to email me and give me a chance. So, thank you for all those opportunities.

Also, my biggest fear is that I’m going to burn out on gaming. Since my childhood, gaming has been one of the biggest ways to relieve stress and enjoy myself. It’s an amazing medium to connect with people and enjoy myself with friends and family. It has so many positive memories connected with it and honestly, it’s something I don’t want to loose. Ever. And the reason why I think I’m going to burn out on them is quite simple. Because I will see every game I play as work. Even when it’s not. Also, I’m convinced that game reviewers have to review games that they don’t enjoy and have to put on a face. Or companies pay for a good review to drive sales. And I want to say true to my opinion. Without any censor or editor. I just want to be me and nothing else. And that’s one of the biggest reasons why writing this blog will be a hobby of mine. A hobby that I love doing, I might add.

Conclusion

If I had to say one thing I could try and improve on, I have to say the ending of my articles. Since that’s the part I rewrite the most. I seem never able to close my articles in such a way that I think I wrapped it up.

So, in conclusion, what I tried to talk about in this article is that I might take a look at a game I have played in the past because I tried to finish a game I already reviewed. Also, I’m not going professional with this blog because I’m afraid I’ll loose gaming as a hobby and/or I’ll burn out on it.

In any case, thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing this article. Next week will be an article on a game again, so stay tuned for that.

I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Gamer’s Thoughts: Why RollerCoaster Tycoon ruined Tycoons for me.

Link to my review

Lately, I have been playing the old PC games in my collection. While I’m highly enjoying myself. Some thought is actually popping up here and there. It’s a feeling that the Tycoon games could have been so much better. But when I played Zoo Tycoon, it actually hit me. RollerCoaster Tycoon spoiled me with features so that I start to enjoy myself less and less in other tycoon games. And in this article, I’m going to try and explain why. Why do I enjoy the original RollerCoaster Tycoon that much and why don’t I enjoy other tycoon games? Also, fair warning, I haven’t played a lot of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, and I bought the expansion packs years later. So yeah, I always played the vanilla version of the game. Feel free to leave a comment on the content and/or your opinion on this article. Do you have a similar thing with Tycoon games and/or with a different game & genre? I’m curious to know. In any case, enough stalling. Time to put these thoughts on paper.

What are tycoon games?

I haven’t, to be honest, played a lot of Tycoon games throughout the years. But before we continue, we have to agree with a tycoon game actually is. Even the Wikipedia article on Tycoon games gives a pretty vague definition.

So, let me be clear for this article. With tycoon games, I mean games where you are an owner of a company where you need to run it. So, for example: in Game Dev Tycoon, you are the owner of a game development studio and you need to make games and manage the finances.

A few games I have played that it that played that fit that bill are RollerCoaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, Game Dev Studio, Game Dev Tycoon, SimCity 3000 and Lemonade Tycoon. And honestly, I don’t think I have played other Tycoon games. The genre honestly interests me, but why don’t I play a lot of it? I blame the excellent game RollerCoaster Tycoon.

Addicted to RCT

So, I have been playing a lot of RollerCoaster Tycoon lately. I have finished 7 missions so far. I’m playing with the two expansion packs installed. Something I wasn’t able to do when I played this game in my childhood.

I have rarely played the sequel RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. I remember one time picking up an expansion pack by accident before I knew how expansion packs worked. Yeah, I didn’t know that I had to own the base game. I have played the game recently, but I was let down by the interface. The interface of the original was more accessible than the sequel. But, that’s an article for another time.

After RollerCoaster Tycoon, I played RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. But that game interests me less than the original game. But the game has a ton of features I would love to have in RCT 1, but I enjoy myself a lot more with the original.

Why is RCT so good in my eyes?

Why do I love RollerCoaster Tycoon so much? Maybe it’s because it’s the first game that introduced me to the Tycoon genre. And let’s be honest, it’s one of the best games created in the Tycoon genre.

I remember playing Zoo Tycoon and always comparing it to RollerCoaster Tycoon. “Oh, you can do research in this game too.” That’s one of the sentences that went through my head. Other similar things did as well.

I was also disappointed with the fact that your guests were able to go off the paths and walk to other animal cages/exhibits.

The building system is the best system I have seen in tycoon games. There a lot of things you can’t do with it, like curved paths. And that’s the charm of it, it’s simple and easy to use. You don’t need a lot of buttons to create something amazing. I rarely had to struggle with the controls. Something I had to do with the recent games in the franchise.

The biggest reason why I enjoy RCT so much, I think, is the simplicity of everything. Most things are just one click away and/or one button press away. The interface has all the options you could wish for and I love to use it. Also, the game is easy to play but difficult to master. The game has just enough depth to be challenging & fun and to avoid being overwhelming.

In the more modern Tycoon games I played, there are way too many little things that I can do and/or have to pay attention too, I rarely remember checking them. And that makes the game more difficult for me and less enjoyable.

I have only two complaints with the game. And that is that some missions are ridiculously difficult and some better mod support would be great. You can add custom scenarios but it’s difficult to create your own custom scenario. Thankfully, there are a lot of tools floating around on the internet to aid with this.

In conclusion

Writing this article has been interesting. I honestly can’t explain why I compare the tycoon games I have played with the original RollerCoaster Tycoon. Possible factors are nostalgia and the gameplay, but I can’t pinpoint it.

I also considered the fact that I don’t really like tycoon games and that RCT is just an exception. It was a rather interesting question to think about. And this article was the best way I could explain it.

In any case, thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!