GWJ Conference Call Episode 473

Halo 5, AC: Syndicate, Life is Strange Complete, Hearts of Stone (Witcher 3), Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Dreadhalls, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, Dragon Quest Heroes, Downwell, Our Knitting Games, Your Emails and More!

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This week Julian Murdoch, Allen Cook and Shawn Andrich are joined by the real power behind GWJ, Jeff Beeman!

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00:01:45 Halo 5
00:23:15 Persona 4: Dancing All Night
00:27:43 Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
00:32:48 Dragon Quest Heroes
00:35:35 Downwell
00:37:15 Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
00:41:33 Life is Strange
00:42:40 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Hearts of Stone
00:43:33 Dreadhalls
00:45:57 Our Knitting Games
00:56:42 Your Emails

One of my favorite knitting games was Burnout Takedown on the old XBOX.
I easily clocked +200hrs on that game, and was playing every night for months and months.
At the top tier, there were a couple of Formula 1/ Indycar models that would annhililate the competetion. But you'd have to drive flawlessly as they'd disentigrate with the slightest contact.
Instead I'd choose the Super Assassin (in red).
With that car, and my experience I'd win most online races, and completed some of the longest races (3x 10 minute laps) without crashing.
This experience would be almost trance like (assisted by my own music choices). Wierd for such a fast paced game which specialised in moments of pure intese insanity. But when you got in the zone, you'd be so far out in front and away from all of the carnage.
Still one of my top games all time.
IMAGE(http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/burnoutparadise/images/f/fd/65-assassin-super.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080824074217)

So other than Julian, this episode is hosted by people we yell at when the website doesn't work!

Yay ZZT!

I absolutely loved that back in the day. The game included the world editor with it. That's where I spent most of my time making my own worlds (maxed out the room limit multiple times building out whole cities and adventures). I taught myself its simple object scripting and it was my first introduction into programming.

F-19 Stealth Fighter was an excellent game and probably the first flight sim that helped me understand how to use countermeasures and the advantages of avoiding ground radar. In fact, I used a lot of what I learned in F-19 to do better at other modern sims.

Overall I seem to do better with traditional dogfighters, but I loved the rewards and progression in F-19 that made it feel like there was a point to doing well in your missions.

Why is there not a remake of Interstate '76 by now! Dammit, Activision! There's your next big thing!

After the podcast, I realized that Her Story is a great example of a mystery that actually feels like a mystery and not a pixel hunt, so I thought I'd mention it here.

Rat Boy wrote:

So other than Julian, this episode is hosted by people we yell at when the website doesn't work!

"I have a very particular set of skills, skills that I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."

Most recently, Fantasy Life hit our household as the ultimate knitting game. It's an easy game to play while doing other stuff, and it's great fun.

Farming Simulator is another excellent knitting game. Just fire it up and grind away.

doogiemac wrote:

After the podcast, I realized that Her Story is a great example of a mystery that actually feels like a mystery and not a pixel hunt, so I thought I'd mention it here.

That's what I was yelling during the podcast.

Football Manager for me as a knitting game. Can just leave it running in the background when I want to do other things and you can always play it at your own pace.

Before he fully appreciated what they meant, my son (age 11) thought that Yoshi's Woolly World would be the best example of a knitting game.

The only knitting game that came to mind for me was Rocksmith, when I'm just playing songs I already know by heart just to relax. I'll crack open a beer after the kids go to bed and pull out the guitar and hours will disappear.

Crazed Java wrote:

F-19 Stealth Fighter was an excellent game and probably the first flight sim that helped me understand how to use countermeasures and the advantages of avoiding ground radar. In fact, I used a lot of what I learned in F-19 to do better at other modern sims.

Overall I seem to do better with traditional dogfighters, but I loved the rewards and progression in F-19 that made it feel like there was a point to doing well in your missions.

Man, I loved F-19 Stealth Fighter. Flight sims are what got me into PC gaming and F-19 was the first one I really delved deep into. It had such a perfect mix of complexity, fun, and the reward/progression stuff you mentioned are what's missing from most modern flight sims. There was such a rush getting your jet back home and landing at the airbase, then seeing how well you did and what sort of commendation, promotion, or medal you might have earned. I would love to see another flight sim along this vein but with modern graphics and capabilities.

For me, Diablo 3 is the perfect knitting game- I fire up my whirlwind barbarian and just spin through rifts while watching youtube videos. (I do look more for talky lecture videos that don't require eyeballs, but not exclusively.)

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a brilliant game! Last Saturday I inflicted it on the crowd at a dinner party I went to, and it was *amazing*. We had 1 person with a laptop looking at the bomb and 6 people in the living room solving the puzzles, each with a few pages of the bomb defusal manual. That way each of us only had 1 or 2 jobs/puzzle types to deal with, which helped spread out the stress a lot as well. We only stopped when someone realized it was 2AM (no one had noticed), with the promise of a dedicated evening to it being arranged soon. Can't recommend it highly enough.

"Keep talking..." sounds fantastic and I was actually reminded of one of the last Conference Calls when you were talking about games in education. This sounds as if it could be a lot of fun in an ESL-classroom, especially when I think about practicing descriptions... (Might be a good drinking game as well... *cough*)

My Number one knitting game of all time would be "Baldur's Gate", I guess. Best way to relax actually, because I've played it so often over the course of the last 15+ years that it almost runs automatically. As it is rather text heavy, it might not seem like a knitting game per se at first glance, but it really calms me down more than any other game I can think of. While playing BG, I even catch up on my Netflix queue from time to time.

First post btw, so: "Hi"!

Brainsmith wrote:

First post btw, so: "Hi"!

Hi! Welcome aboard

In re: Keep Talking, there's a similar (though almost certainly scaled down) game in the Jackbox Party Pack #2 which came out a couple of weeks ago. Harpo Marxist and I played it over Halloween - fun stuff, and it was obviously going to get really frantic if we scaled it up to 4 people (the game's max).

MMOs and 'clicker' games are my knitting games. Marvel Puzzle Quest was right up there until I finally stopped having fun with it. Right now I've gone back to SWTOR ostensibly for the story, but there's something nice about just bowling over hordes of enemies while listening to an audiobook

I really enjoyed this episode. Especially Julian's reference to Sundog: Frozen Legacy. I too spent hours on that game on my Atari ST. A very deep and involving adventure game that has now become my favourite genre

I too really got into SunDog, on my Apple IIc. I never finished it, and a bit ago hunted around to see if there was a way to still play. I found an Atari ST emulator, and closed my eyes as I also went for a disk image that someone had up. It was still kind of fun to play! (Still didn't finish it, though.)

What modern games would people suggest playing that are in the same vein as SunDog?

The one game I miss and amazed there was no sequel for was Pokemon Snap for the N-64. I loved that game!

In the caverns, the Jigglypuffs would be singing at the end, it reminded me of a ride at Disneyland.

Y_T

I haven't played Her Story, but does that count as a mystery game since there isn't actually a correct answer? Maybe that makes it more of a mystery game. I don't know.

Also, how am I only hearing about the thread of the week now? A forum thread dedicated to games nobody else played? All I play are games nobody else played!

Another also: Mario Maker fans don't despair. The game is getting a lot of play at the DoubtingThomas household, so be comforted that some of the GWJ staff loves the game even if the podcast regulars don't talk about it.

Spoiler:

It's definitely in my top ten for 2015, and it may make the top five. So when we do those lists, it will get its due.

Yay_Taco wrote:

The one game I miss and amazed there was no sequel for was Pokemon Snap for the N-64. I loved that game!

In the caverns, the Jigglypuffs would be singing at the end, it reminded me of a ride at Disneyland.

Y_T

Just watched a "Did You Know Gaming" video about Pokemon Snap that was fairly interesting, particularly as it was not originally intended to be a Pokémon game or a photography game!

I'm a little disappointed that we're discounting "those iOS tap games" as Knitting games, because to me those Match-3 games embody the idea for me. For the past few months, whenever I have a few minutes to veg out, my go-to game is You Must Build A Boat.

It's not quite multitasking - I find that I can activate the pattern recognition and motor skills parts of my brain without too much effort, so a 15-20 minute play session is almost as refreshing as daydreaming or taking a nap.

I guess my "knitting game" for the past few months has been the Brawlhalla beta, which, as it happens, has just opened up - well worth checking out if local/online multiplayer platform brawlers are at all of interest. Generally I'd go for something with a bit less adrenaline, but with a baby in the house, what would usually be relaxing rapidly becomes sleep-inducing, and a quick succession of matches is perfect when it's my shift with a restless infant. And unlike previous times I've dipped my toe in these waters, I haven't experienced the controller-snapping frustration of being occasionally (alright, frequently) inept and badly outplayed, instead enjoying trying to roll with the balance changes and playing ranked without really caring about progression.

Alz wrote:

I'm a little disappointed that we're discounting "those iOS tap games" as Knitting games, because to me those Match-3 games embody the idea for me. For the past few months, whenever I have a few minutes to veg out, my go-to game is You Must Build A Boat.

It's not quite multitasking - I find that I can activate the pattern recognition and motor skills parts of my brain without too much effort, so a 15-20 minute play session is almost as refreshing as daydreaming or taking a nap.

Yup. Marvel Puzzle Quest is a deep old timesink, and I'm champing at the bit for the imminent release of Magic: The Gathering Puzzle Quest....

I felt like going down the path of "tap games" was something we definitely could have explored in relation to knitting games, but it also could have opened up a whole other track of discussion! Before the podcast, Allen mentioned You Must Build A Boat. My tap-tap knitting games are: Heroes Charge, Final Fantasy Record Keeper, and (occasionally) Marvel Puzzle Quest.

I don't really go with knitting games. I like new experiences and to be engaged. If I want to just switch my brain off I switch the game off and watch a tv show. I've never just got into a mechanical routine with a game and I doubt I ever will. Even my favorite mmo, Guild Wars 2, demands engagement as dodging and positioning are critical.

Regarding Certis' points about game story, I agree completely. Games do character and world building like no other medium, but interactivity usually makes for weak narratives. Even games with relatively good story like The Wicher games, do best when the story takes a back seat to world and characters.

Doesn't the last Sherlock Holmes game match the criteria of the open mystery game? As far as I remember there isn't a "solution" to the cases.

The Rise of the Tomb Raider is a timed exclusive, it will be coming to PS4 and PC.