Slow start at kids' church
Everything You Know Is Wrong by Weird Al Yankovic
Hi all. As per usual, not much to say about IRL stuff. I had my first day of "helping out" in kids' church, which pretty much amounted to sitting in on their sermon and then heading out to the playground to be another set of eyes on the youngsters while we waited for the main service to end and parents to come pick up their kids up. I did end up pushing a couple of kids on a tire swing-like contrivance for a little while, at least. And I planted a little bug in the children's pastor's mind: remember back when we were kids, we occasionally had a game day after service? ;3 I could bring plenty of consoles for that sort of thing. Shoot, I wouldn't mind paying for pizza.
I'm not still not quiiiiiite done with ASCRS. I've finished the manual, I implemented the missing feature I mentioned last time, and now I'm cleaning up the loose TODOs in the code. Most of them are things like checking to make sure that a player has permission when they ask to do cheat actions and sending them an appropriate message if not. If I can't report that it's finished and published, and hopefully that I've made a start on the next project, by my next LJ post, I'll be rather disappointed in myself. :P
Meanwhile, there's the looming question of what to focus on next. Forgotten Gates has been on the back burner for three years now. I'd like to complete that, but it's hard to justify the time it would take when I could be working on improving my skills in systems that are actually in professional use. The next What-Iffers title I had in mind, Star Furs, would be in Unity, which is at least widely-accepted in the indie dev scene...although it occurred to me that I also have Game Maker Studio which I never seriously tried out, and maybe it would be worth at least doing some prototyping in that. Another option might be to implement some scripting in Tabletop Simulator for that board game I was helping to design, The Errand of Zulga. Stuff like automatic board setup, maybe even something that generates a random layout. That hopefully wouldn't be a huge project, although I thought ASCRS would take a couple weeks if I buckled down to it. e.e;
We finally got another Ninja Burger session done this month, by me giving in and GMing twice in a row. e.e I've been watching through the classic Disney cartoons thanks to my brother sharing his Disney+ account, and I started with Adventures of the Gummi Bears, so I ripped offdrew inspiration from that and did a scene where we got an order from Tummi Gummi. The team came through to that world in Dunwyn Castle, and on their way out of town, they had a little misunderstanding with "the Crimson Avenger" (Cubbi Gummi's Zorro-esque alter ego), who thought they were thieves. Once they got out to the forest, they were almost able to make the delivery to Tummi, who was waiting around at an agreed drop-off point...but then Grammi Gummi came out and dragged him home for dinnertime with her home-made stinkweed stew. X9 So the team followed them back to Gummi Glen, and while our deliverator Ricky sneaked inside to drop off the food, Sean Connery used his Video Rental ability (a very vaguely defined power which is basically useless unless we let it mean he can magically produce whatever videos and equipment he wants and make it work anywhere) to blast an episode of Gummi Bears to distract them...the very episode which our team was now part of. X) On the way back to the warp pipe home, we found that Dunwyn Castle was under seige by Duke Igthorn and his ogres, so we had to fight them off to get through. King Gregor granted the team honorary knighthood for their service, which translated to a bonus to everyone's Honor score. ;)
On Zelda RPG, Ganondorf and Zelda went through the portal Big G had made and wound up near the top of Death Mountain. Ganondorf informed Zelda that Link would be there soon, with the implication that the three Triforce users would together be able to undo the flooding of Hyrule somehow. A couple of Zora showed up in the scene with a vague reference to maybe they got pulled in as a side effect of Ganondorf's portal; one of them panicked and ran to the water, the other one stayed and addressed the others. I thought at first it was one of our...less experienced players trying to insert themselves in an important scene, and indeed it took quite a while (like three weeks IRL) for a few rounds of poses to get done and reveal the twist: the Zora was Link, transformed.
The conversation at Gerudo Fortress went on amicably. Nabooru wanted to know why Esava asked about her family, and Esava was casually evasive, calling it an idle curiousity. He also brought up the old question about how the Gerudo, being almost all female, keep their population from crashing; he said there were legends in Termina that the Gerudo pirates would have their way with the crews of merchant vessels before sinking them, but he assumed that wasn't very accurate. Shemri said she wouldn't put it past pirates to act that way, but if things in Termina were not much different from Hyrule, then it wouldn't take coersion for a Gerudo of loose morals (which unfortunately has been their general culture for many generations) to find a willing partner in the seedier parts of Hylian towns. e.e She noted that the Gerudo Remnant was trying to change that aspect of their clan, but it was hard to get honorable Hylian men to be interested in marriage with Gerudo. Lexa was surprised by the idea of Gerudo wanting to get married, and Nabooru cheerfully confirmed it before telling Esava she had no immediate family she knew of but thought of the whole clan as her sisters. The chat ended with Esava heading for the food halls to replace the breakfast he lost on the floating Crimson Wolfos. u.u;
Kirby Star Allies:
I bought this game a couple birthdays ago with gift card credit, but I sat on it for over a year because I was hoping to play through it with family members. Not like I didn't have plenty of other, more exclusively single-player games to chew through. But I didn't manage to get people organized for it when we were together in Virginia for Christmas, and that big opportunity won't be happening anymore since our grandma and aunt have moved down here near us. So I finally decided to make that next after I finished getting all the achievements in Cadence of Hyrule that interested me.
So what's it like? Pretty similar to the last few Kirby games on Wii and 3DS. The special conceit in this one is that you can convert enemies into allies controlled either by the game or other players. It's nothing wholly new, you've been able to do that or similar things on and off since Kirby Super Star. This time, though, you're occasionally required to have a number of allies. There are segments where players run through parallel sections, hitting switches that open pathways for each other, and special minigames of sorts where the allies do things like form into a big wheel or an unstoppable train and crash along together (although I have to imagine those parts are really more single-player than the regular mode).
There's also a certain amount of interaction between the different powers. Most of the weapon-type powers -- sword, yo-yo, hammer, etc. -- can be imbued with elemental powers -- fire, ice, electric, etc. This increases their attack power, especially against certain elite mooks with elemental weaknesses. Even the bosses occasionally have such weaknesses -- for example, Kracko can be frozen by ice powers while doing a downpour attack. Some powers also have cooperative special abilities that can be triggered by one ally holding the up button to indicate readiness while another does an attack toward them. For example, a fire-power ally can be hit with a wind-power attack to launch a bunch of fireballs across the screen. Of course, anytime such special abilities are needed to solve puzzles, the game provides the powers nearby and gives a little tutorial icon reminding you how they work.
The constant presence of three allies certainly makes the game easier, but it also makes it more chaotic. You could do without them most of the time if you wanted and quickly acquire the needed number when they're required, but for bosses in particular they're both difficult to do without and confusing to have along. With three other entities shelling out attacks, it's tricky to see what's coming from the boss. However, the bosses were designed to soak up damage from four players, and many of them also move around the screen quite quickly and frequently, which makes it difficult for a single player to do more than get a quick hit when they're near.
One more thing to note is that this game feels shorter than most other Kirby games. There are only four worlds in the main story, with perhaps a bit more stages on average than usual, but still, it's done fairly quick. After that, there's the usual speedrun rehash mode, a boss rush mode, and an extra world which focuses more on powers puzzles and hard-mode versions of the bosses.
Bottom line? Still a Kirby game, still worthwhile for fans of the series, but disappointingly short. Try to get it on sale.
Sayonara Umihara Kawase +:
And here we have the third game of the Umihara Kawase 'trilogy', although they've come out with more since. I would say this is the one where they finally got the formula right. There's a bit more snap when you reel yourself in, which makes it easier to get up and around ledges. The diagonal casts are a bit closer to vertical than 45 degrees now, which is a little unintuitive, but it makes it less likely that you'll overshoot when trying to latch onto an underside corner. The fish enemies are even more likely to stun rather than kill than before, and they don't randomly poof into existence anymore. And the level designs are usually pretty fair, at least for somebody who has figured out (or looked up) the various emergent techniques of the gameplay. There is only one exit I never managed to reach, one which involves doing pretty much the strongest possible slingshot fling over a spiked cliff after some other tricky stuff to get that far. And there were a few bonus backpacks I didn't get either. Still, I was fairly satisfied with my completion level on this one.
Another big improvement is that you unlock access to new stages by reaching exits in what would've been called 'practice' mode before -- you don't have to go through previous stages with a limited number of lives, you go straight to any stage you've unlocked and play as many times as you need to beat it. In fact, 'survival' mode as it's now called is not even available until you reach and beat an ending stage.
For art style, they went full 3D on this (apart from the far background), and it looks much more consistent than the previous game. Also, since this is the plus version (a remake), it has smoother and richer models than its original. Still, you don't play these games for the art, as whimsical as it is. You play it for the tricky stretchy rope-swinging mechanics.
Bottom line? If you're only going to play one game of the series (or at least the 'original trilogy'), play this one. If you plan to play them all, though, you might find it disheartening to start with this and then encounter the clunkier ones.
20XX:
I've recently started in on the buildup of games the Epic Games Store has handed out for free. 20XX was at the top by virtue of being alphabetically first. ;)
20XX is an affectionate spoof of the Mega Man X series. The name is a reference to the ambiguous year mentioned in the intros of several Mega Man titles. 20XX has little story to speak of; there's an intro that shows some robots rampaging through a big city, some scientists saying unconvincingly that everything is under control, and the call to action for our protagonists, Nina and Ace. Then you're pretty much launched into the first stage with no further explanation. You're fed "datalore" as you progress, should you care to look it up in the pause menu, about the various upgrades you can collect and enemies you're facing. The texts depict a world where tech companies have become humorously corrupt and skirt safety regulations in the name of progress (and presumably profit, although their choices don't always turn out very smart in the pursuit of that), and semi-sentient robots like the protagonists, called "contractors", are sent out as disposable agents to clean up rogue robots.
The core gameplay is, as you'd probably expect, extremely similar to the Mega Man X series. Nina is a shooter and Ace is a sword-wielder, and both can collect and use the special weapons of the bosses they defeat, with a wheel of weaknesses for those bosses against each other's weapons. There's wall-jumping, dashing, and lots of general platforming. You can find armor pieces that increase your capabilities -- air dashes, quicker mega-shot charges, cheaper special weapon usage, etc.
Where 20XX is different is that's it's a Rogue-lite. Each stage is randomly generated from a set of platformer obstacle courses strung together and populated with enemies (it's hard to tell how random they are with the enemies). It's also more RPG-ish in the amount of upgrade-collecting you do than Mega Man X. You can find such upgrades by exploring optional side-paths or challenge rooms, buying them from the occasionally-available shop, and completing stages within a given time. You'll even be given the choice after beating a boss of whether to grab their special weapon, a random upgrade, or just some currency.
Personally, I don't think the Rogue-lite aspect works all that well for this style of game, though it was an interesting experiment which I applaud the developers for trying. 20XX, being primarily an action-platformer with challenges that can reasonably be overcome with pure skill, does not benefit all that much from random upgrades changing your strengths. Certainly some upgrades, especially amongst the armor parts, are more useful than others, and working with what the game happens to pass your way can provide some interesting challenge, but it also feels a bit frustrating. Another consideration is that it's really not that difficult or time-consuming to complete a run in this game. Most Rogue-types gain longevity by making it difficult, sometimes even largely luck-based, to actually win; 20XX only takes a few runs taking an hour or so to get used to the game and have a good shot at completing it. Once you've done that, it doesn't feel like there's all that much motivation to play more, unless you really want to beat it with the various modifiers they provide to make it more punishing. Maybe I'd find it more engaging if they forced those modifiers or at least gave some tangible trophy for doing them, but yeah, I'm pretty satisfied with just finishing the base game on the highest difficulty.
One more thing I'll say is that the second-to-last stage is annoyingly difficult for the wrong reasons. There are lots of high-pressure platforming sequences with fast-moving platforms and quickly alternating static hazards plus whatever enemies they threw in, and sometimes those are strung together with no safe spots for quite a while. On top of the general difficulty, this means that when you do fall, you could be set back quite a ways to the last solid standing space (at least you're only damaged instead of losing a life). Almost as annoying is the background for this stage, which has capsule-shaped "energy streaks" whizzing by and scrambling your eyeballs. @.@
As usual, it's easier to talk about the bad than the good. The good is that they do manage to achieve a solid-feeling and largely fair Mega Man X-style core gameplay. The controls are responsive (although your movement is a little sluggish starting out because you're expected to collect speed upgrades) and the challenges are usually humanly possible to get through without damage even not having seen it beforehand. It does get a little bullet hell-ish, especially since they make the bosses (which you might come across in any order aside from the last two) more difficult as the game goes on primarily by adding extra turrets and such in the boss room. Which armor pieces you've come across (which includes an option which lets you dispel most enemy bullets with a mega-shot) can make a big difference in such situations.
Bottom line? If you're a fan of oldschool platformers, you'll probably find this at least worth playing. Don't have sky-high expectations, though.
Among Us:
You'd have to be fairly cut off from Internet culture to not have at least heard of Among Us. It's been the darling of meme culture and game streamers for the past few months. It's actually been out for a couple years now though, since June 15 2018. It went viral rather recently, probably in part because people are stuck away from each other and Among Us is a quick social game that can be played over the Internet. Of course, there are other such games in existence, some of which are probably around as fun and well-crafted as Among Us, and it just happened that this one was picked up by the popular zeitgeist. C'est la vie.
The premise of Among Us is that a group of cartoonish, color-coded astronauts are thrown into a ship (or a base) together and assigned a number of tasks. The tasks are simple mini-games ranging from pulling a lever to pushing buttons in order to zapping asteroids with a turret gun. These tasks are spread out at different stations around the ship, and some of them involve multiple parts at different stations -- for example, in order to fuel the engines, you first have to head to storage to grab a container of fuel. Once everyone finishes all their tasks, you win! Yay!
BUT WAIT! Amongst all the astronauts, one (or two or even three if the host is feeling monstrous) is randomly selected to be an IMPOSTER! +.+ The imposter's goal is the opposite of the rest of the crewmates. They are able to KILL the other crew, slip from place to place through the vents, and sabotage the ship to do things like shut off the oxygen, turn out the lights, or temporarily seal doorways. If they manage to whittle the crew down until there are as many imposters as crewmates, the imposters win.
So why don't the imposters just slay everybody with impunity? Because anytime a crewmate finds the body of one of their fellows, they can report it and everyone is suddenly drawn into a meeting. A discussion is had, and everybody votes on whom they think they should TOSS OUT THE AIRLOCK (with one of the options being nobody). If there's a winning vote, that astronaut is tossed out, and the game informs everyone whether that was an imposter and how many imposters are left. Crewmates can also call an emergency meeting by pressing a button in the conference room ONCE EACH PER GAME, instead of needing to find a body. Finally, there's a cooldown preventing imposters from killing over and over. They have to try to make an assassination while nobody else is around so they can distance themselves before the body is found, then go around pretending to do tasks like all the others while waiting for their next chance.
My Ninja Burger group tried out Among Us this month, and it's quickly become a go-to favorite. A given match is likely to take less than ten minutes, possibly very much less if the imposter is careless or unlucky, but you can easily play it for hours. Being a regular crewmate is cathartic and relaxing, as you mill about doing easy minigames and keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior from your fellows, gradually working toward completion of your tasks (although I have yet to be in a match that actually ended with the tasks getting done). Being an imposter, despite the fact that you have greater control than anybody, is HEART-POUNDINGLY STRESSFUL at first. *.* You have to think about appearing productive to other crew members, catching victims alone and disappearing before anyone can see you with the body, and manipulating the ship to your advantage with sabotage. It's especially nerve-wracking if, like our group, you use video chat for your discussions. >.>; But if you actually do pull off a win as the imposter, the sense of fiero is powerful. MUAHAHAHAHAAAA! >D
One more thing to note: it's much better if you have a group of friends to play it with that you actually know. It works okay with random Internet matchmaking, but you don't care as much that way. In fact, some people will drop from matches immediately if they're not selected as the imposter. e.e
Bottom line? At a $5 price tag (or free with ads in the mobile version, though I recommend the PC version for its more responsive control), Among Us is easily worth giving a try. Just beware, you may not look at your friends the same way again. >)
Click to viewHi all. As per usual, not much to say about IRL stuff. I had my first day of "helping out" in kids' church, which pretty much amounted to sitting in on their sermon and then heading out to the playground to be another set of eyes on the youngsters while we waited for the main service to end and parents to come pick up their kids up. I did end up pushing a couple of kids on a tire swing-like contrivance for a little while, at least. And I planted a little bug in the children's pastor's mind: remember back when we were kids, we occasionally had a game day after service? ;3 I could bring plenty of consoles for that sort of thing. Shoot, I wouldn't mind paying for pizza.
I'm not still not quiiiiiite done with ASCRS. I've finished the manual, I implemented the missing feature I mentioned last time, and now I'm cleaning up the loose TODOs in the code. Most of them are things like checking to make sure that a player has permission when they ask to do cheat actions and sending them an appropriate message if not. If I can't report that it's finished and published, and hopefully that I've made a start on the next project, by my next LJ post, I'll be rather disappointed in myself. :P
Meanwhile, there's the looming question of what to focus on next. Forgotten Gates has been on the back burner for three years now. I'd like to complete that, but it's hard to justify the time it would take when I could be working on improving my skills in systems that are actually in professional use. The next What-Iffers title I had in mind, Star Furs, would be in Unity, which is at least widely-accepted in the indie dev scene...although it occurred to me that I also have Game Maker Studio which I never seriously tried out, and maybe it would be worth at least doing some prototyping in that. Another option might be to implement some scripting in Tabletop Simulator for that board game I was helping to design, The Errand of Zulga. Stuff like automatic board setup, maybe even something that generates a random layout. That hopefully wouldn't be a huge project, although I thought ASCRS would take a couple weeks if I buckled down to it. e.e;
We finally got another Ninja Burger session done this month, by me giving in and GMing twice in a row. e.e I've been watching through the classic Disney cartoons thanks to my brother sharing his Disney+ account, and I started with Adventures of the Gummi Bears, so I ripped offdrew inspiration from that and did a scene where we got an order from Tummi Gummi. The team came through to that world in Dunwyn Castle, and on their way out of town, they had a little misunderstanding with "the Crimson Avenger" (Cubbi Gummi's Zorro-esque alter ego), who thought they were thieves. Once they got out to the forest, they were almost able to make the delivery to Tummi, who was waiting around at an agreed drop-off point...but then Grammi Gummi came out and dragged him home for dinnertime with her home-made stinkweed stew. X9 So the team followed them back to Gummi Glen, and while our deliverator Ricky sneaked inside to drop off the food, Sean Connery used his Video Rental ability (a very vaguely defined power which is basically useless unless we let it mean he can magically produce whatever videos and equipment he wants and make it work anywhere) to blast an episode of Gummi Bears to distract them...the very episode which our team was now part of. X) On the way back to the warp pipe home, we found that Dunwyn Castle was under seige by Duke Igthorn and his ogres, so we had to fight them off to get through. King Gregor granted the team honorary knighthood for their service, which translated to a bonus to everyone's Honor score. ;)
On Zelda RPG, Ganondorf and Zelda went through the portal Big G had made and wound up near the top of Death Mountain. Ganondorf informed Zelda that Link would be there soon, with the implication that the three Triforce users would together be able to undo the flooding of Hyrule somehow. A couple of Zora showed up in the scene with a vague reference to maybe they got pulled in as a side effect of Ganondorf's portal; one of them panicked and ran to the water, the other one stayed and addressed the others. I thought at first it was one of our...less experienced players trying to insert themselves in an important scene, and indeed it took quite a while (like three weeks IRL) for a few rounds of poses to get done and reveal the twist: the Zora was Link, transformed.
The conversation at Gerudo Fortress went on amicably. Nabooru wanted to know why Esava asked about her family, and Esava was casually evasive, calling it an idle curiousity. He also brought up the old question about how the Gerudo, being almost all female, keep their population from crashing; he said there were legends in Termina that the Gerudo pirates would have their way with the crews of merchant vessels before sinking them, but he assumed that wasn't very accurate. Shemri said she wouldn't put it past pirates to act that way, but if things in Termina were not much different from Hyrule, then it wouldn't take coersion for a Gerudo of loose morals (which unfortunately has been their general culture for many generations) to find a willing partner in the seedier parts of Hylian towns. e.e She noted that the Gerudo Remnant was trying to change that aspect of their clan, but it was hard to get honorable Hylian men to be interested in marriage with Gerudo. Lexa was surprised by the idea of Gerudo wanting to get married, and Nabooru cheerfully confirmed it before telling Esava she had no immediate family she knew of but thought of the whole clan as her sisters. The chat ended with Esava heading for the food halls to replace the breakfast he lost on the floating Crimson Wolfos. u.u;
Kirby Star Allies:
I bought this game a couple birthdays ago with gift card credit, but I sat on it for over a year because I was hoping to play through it with family members. Not like I didn't have plenty of other, more exclusively single-player games to chew through. But I didn't manage to get people organized for it when we were together in Virginia for Christmas, and that big opportunity won't be happening anymore since our grandma and aunt have moved down here near us. So I finally decided to make that next after I finished getting all the achievements in Cadence of Hyrule that interested me.
So what's it like? Pretty similar to the last few Kirby games on Wii and 3DS. The special conceit in this one is that you can convert enemies into allies controlled either by the game or other players. It's nothing wholly new, you've been able to do that or similar things on and off since Kirby Super Star. This time, though, you're occasionally required to have a number of allies. There are segments where players run through parallel sections, hitting switches that open pathways for each other, and special minigames of sorts where the allies do things like form into a big wheel or an unstoppable train and crash along together (although I have to imagine those parts are really more single-player than the regular mode).
There's also a certain amount of interaction between the different powers. Most of the weapon-type powers -- sword, yo-yo, hammer, etc. -- can be imbued with elemental powers -- fire, ice, electric, etc. This increases their attack power, especially against certain elite mooks with elemental weaknesses. Even the bosses occasionally have such weaknesses -- for example, Kracko can be frozen by ice powers while doing a downpour attack. Some powers also have cooperative special abilities that can be triggered by one ally holding the up button to indicate readiness while another does an attack toward them. For example, a fire-power ally can be hit with a wind-power attack to launch a bunch of fireballs across the screen. Of course, anytime such special abilities are needed to solve puzzles, the game provides the powers nearby and gives a little tutorial icon reminding you how they work.
The constant presence of three allies certainly makes the game easier, but it also makes it more chaotic. You could do without them most of the time if you wanted and quickly acquire the needed number when they're required, but for bosses in particular they're both difficult to do without and confusing to have along. With three other entities shelling out attacks, it's tricky to see what's coming from the boss. However, the bosses were designed to soak up damage from four players, and many of them also move around the screen quite quickly and frequently, which makes it difficult for a single player to do more than get a quick hit when they're near.
One more thing to note is that this game feels shorter than most other Kirby games. There are only four worlds in the main story, with perhaps a bit more stages on average than usual, but still, it's done fairly quick. After that, there's the usual speedrun rehash mode, a boss rush mode, and an extra world which focuses more on powers puzzles and hard-mode versions of the bosses.
Bottom line? Still a Kirby game, still worthwhile for fans of the series, but disappointingly short. Try to get it on sale.
Sayonara Umihara Kawase +:
And here we have the third game of the Umihara Kawase 'trilogy', although they've come out with more since. I would say this is the one where they finally got the formula right. There's a bit more snap when you reel yourself in, which makes it easier to get up and around ledges. The diagonal casts are a bit closer to vertical than 45 degrees now, which is a little unintuitive, but it makes it less likely that you'll overshoot when trying to latch onto an underside corner. The fish enemies are even more likely to stun rather than kill than before, and they don't randomly poof into existence anymore. And the level designs are usually pretty fair, at least for somebody who has figured out (or looked up) the various emergent techniques of the gameplay. There is only one exit I never managed to reach, one which involves doing pretty much the strongest possible slingshot fling over a spiked cliff after some other tricky stuff to get that far. And there were a few bonus backpacks I didn't get either. Still, I was fairly satisfied with my completion level on this one.
Another big improvement is that you unlock access to new stages by reaching exits in what would've been called 'practice' mode before -- you don't have to go through previous stages with a limited number of lives, you go straight to any stage you've unlocked and play as many times as you need to beat it. In fact, 'survival' mode as it's now called is not even available until you reach and beat an ending stage.
For art style, they went full 3D on this (apart from the far background), and it looks much more consistent than the previous game. Also, since this is the plus version (a remake), it has smoother and richer models than its original. Still, you don't play these games for the art, as whimsical as it is. You play it for the tricky stretchy rope-swinging mechanics.
Bottom line? If you're only going to play one game of the series (or at least the 'original trilogy'), play this one. If you plan to play them all, though, you might find it disheartening to start with this and then encounter the clunkier ones.
20XX:
I've recently started in on the buildup of games the Epic Games Store has handed out for free. 20XX was at the top by virtue of being alphabetically first. ;)
20XX is an affectionate spoof of the Mega Man X series. The name is a reference to the ambiguous year mentioned in the intros of several Mega Man titles. 20XX has little story to speak of; there's an intro that shows some robots rampaging through a big city, some scientists saying unconvincingly that everything is under control, and the call to action for our protagonists, Nina and Ace. Then you're pretty much launched into the first stage with no further explanation. You're fed "datalore" as you progress, should you care to look it up in the pause menu, about the various upgrades you can collect and enemies you're facing. The texts depict a world where tech companies have become humorously corrupt and skirt safety regulations in the name of progress (and presumably profit, although their choices don't always turn out very smart in the pursuit of that), and semi-sentient robots like the protagonists, called "contractors", are sent out as disposable agents to clean up rogue robots.
The core gameplay is, as you'd probably expect, extremely similar to the Mega Man X series. Nina is a shooter and Ace is a sword-wielder, and both can collect and use the special weapons of the bosses they defeat, with a wheel of weaknesses for those bosses against each other's weapons. There's wall-jumping, dashing, and lots of general platforming. You can find armor pieces that increase your capabilities -- air dashes, quicker mega-shot charges, cheaper special weapon usage, etc.
Where 20XX is different is that's it's a Rogue-lite. Each stage is randomly generated from a set of platformer obstacle courses strung together and populated with enemies (it's hard to tell how random they are with the enemies). It's also more RPG-ish in the amount of upgrade-collecting you do than Mega Man X. You can find such upgrades by exploring optional side-paths or challenge rooms, buying them from the occasionally-available shop, and completing stages within a given time. You'll even be given the choice after beating a boss of whether to grab their special weapon, a random upgrade, or just some currency.
Personally, I don't think the Rogue-lite aspect works all that well for this style of game, though it was an interesting experiment which I applaud the developers for trying. 20XX, being primarily an action-platformer with challenges that can reasonably be overcome with pure skill, does not benefit all that much from random upgrades changing your strengths. Certainly some upgrades, especially amongst the armor parts, are more useful than others, and working with what the game happens to pass your way can provide some interesting challenge, but it also feels a bit frustrating. Another consideration is that it's really not that difficult or time-consuming to complete a run in this game. Most Rogue-types gain longevity by making it difficult, sometimes even largely luck-based, to actually win; 20XX only takes a few runs taking an hour or so to get used to the game and have a good shot at completing it. Once you've done that, it doesn't feel like there's all that much motivation to play more, unless you really want to beat it with the various modifiers they provide to make it more punishing. Maybe I'd find it more engaging if they forced those modifiers or at least gave some tangible trophy for doing them, but yeah, I'm pretty satisfied with just finishing the base game on the highest difficulty.
One more thing I'll say is that the second-to-last stage is annoyingly difficult for the wrong reasons. There are lots of high-pressure platforming sequences with fast-moving platforms and quickly alternating static hazards plus whatever enemies they threw in, and sometimes those are strung together with no safe spots for quite a while. On top of the general difficulty, this means that when you do fall, you could be set back quite a ways to the last solid standing space (at least you're only damaged instead of losing a life). Almost as annoying is the background for this stage, which has capsule-shaped "energy streaks" whizzing by and scrambling your eyeballs. @.@
As usual, it's easier to talk about the bad than the good. The good is that they do manage to achieve a solid-feeling and largely fair Mega Man X-style core gameplay. The controls are responsive (although your movement is a little sluggish starting out because you're expected to collect speed upgrades) and the challenges are usually humanly possible to get through without damage even not having seen it beforehand. It does get a little bullet hell-ish, especially since they make the bosses (which you might come across in any order aside from the last two) more difficult as the game goes on primarily by adding extra turrets and such in the boss room. Which armor pieces you've come across (which includes an option which lets you dispel most enemy bullets with a mega-shot) can make a big difference in such situations.
Bottom line? If you're a fan of oldschool platformers, you'll probably find this at least worth playing. Don't have sky-high expectations, though.
Among Us:
You'd have to be fairly cut off from Internet culture to not have at least heard of Among Us. It's been the darling of meme culture and game streamers for the past few months. It's actually been out for a couple years now though, since June 15 2018. It went viral rather recently, probably in part because people are stuck away from each other and Among Us is a quick social game that can be played over the Internet. Of course, there are other such games in existence, some of which are probably around as fun and well-crafted as Among Us, and it just happened that this one was picked up by the popular zeitgeist. C'est la vie.
The premise of Among Us is that a group of cartoonish, color-coded astronauts are thrown into a ship (or a base) together and assigned a number of tasks. The tasks are simple mini-games ranging from pulling a lever to pushing buttons in order to zapping asteroids with a turret gun. These tasks are spread out at different stations around the ship, and some of them involve multiple parts at different stations -- for example, in order to fuel the engines, you first have to head to storage to grab a container of fuel. Once everyone finishes all their tasks, you win! Yay!
BUT WAIT! Amongst all the astronauts, one (or two or even three if the host is feeling monstrous) is randomly selected to be an IMPOSTER! +.+ The imposter's goal is the opposite of the rest of the crewmates. They are able to KILL the other crew, slip from place to place through the vents, and sabotage the ship to do things like shut off the oxygen, turn out the lights, or temporarily seal doorways. If they manage to whittle the crew down until there are as many imposters as crewmates, the imposters win.
So why don't the imposters just slay everybody with impunity? Because anytime a crewmate finds the body of one of their fellows, they can report it and everyone is suddenly drawn into a meeting. A discussion is had, and everybody votes on whom they think they should TOSS OUT THE AIRLOCK (with one of the options being nobody). If there's a winning vote, that astronaut is tossed out, and the game informs everyone whether that was an imposter and how many imposters are left. Crewmates can also call an emergency meeting by pressing a button in the conference room ONCE EACH PER GAME, instead of needing to find a body. Finally, there's a cooldown preventing imposters from killing over and over. They have to try to make an assassination while nobody else is around so they can distance themselves before the body is found, then go around pretending to do tasks like all the others while waiting for their next chance.
My Ninja Burger group tried out Among Us this month, and it's quickly become a go-to favorite. A given match is likely to take less than ten minutes, possibly very much less if the imposter is careless or unlucky, but you can easily play it for hours. Being a regular crewmate is cathartic and relaxing, as you mill about doing easy minigames and keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior from your fellows, gradually working toward completion of your tasks (although I have yet to be in a match that actually ended with the tasks getting done). Being an imposter, despite the fact that you have greater control than anybody, is HEART-POUNDINGLY STRESSFUL at first. *.* You have to think about appearing productive to other crew members, catching victims alone and disappearing before anyone can see you with the body, and manipulating the ship to your advantage with sabotage. It's especially nerve-wracking if, like our group, you use video chat for your discussions. >.>; But if you actually do pull off a win as the imposter, the sense of fiero is powerful. MUAHAHAHAHAAAA! >D
One more thing to note: it's much better if you have a group of friends to play it with that you actually know. It works okay with random Internet matchmaking, but you don't care as much that way. In fact, some people will drop from matches immediately if they're not selected as the imposter. e.e
Bottom line? At a $5 price tag (or free with ads in the mobile version, though I recommend the PC version for its more responsive control), Among Us is easily worth giving a try. Just beware, you may not look at your friends the same way again. >)