Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
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Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
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Nintendo.co.uk microsite – Wikipedia page
Next year, I’ll be blogging for 15 years. I have taken a look at quite a lot of games. Now, if you go back to the start of this blog, you might notice that I only started in May 2013. The three years before that, I wrote a personal life blog in my native language. I have since deleted that for personal reasons and started blogging in English in 2013. On my Dutch blog, I wrote an article about Another Code – Two Memories, but I haven’t written one for my English blog. Yet, I have mentioned it in 2014 in a top 25 list of my favorite DS games of all time. I have written an article on the Wii sequel called Another Code: R – A Journey Into Lost Memories in 2013. While my old articles aren’t up to my personal standards anymore, I still leave them up to see the growth I have gone through over the years. Now, these two titles became classics in my eyes. When Cing went under, I didn’t hold up hope of these games ever seeing a sequel or a remake. But, we got a big surprise this year. Suddenly, both games were coming to the Nintendo Switch and not only that, they were remade from the ground up. Did these two games grow like I did in my writing, or is it something that should be better left to the past? Well, that’s what I’m going to discover with you in this article. Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of the article, but now, let’s dive right in.
Editorial note: shameless self-promotion: if you want to see me and my buddy Klamath playing through this title… We started streaming it. So, more opinions can be found in the streams. Here is a link to the playlist.
The Remembering Of A Remake
In this game, we follow the adventures of Ashley Mizuki Robins. In the first part of the game, Ashley got a letter from her presumed dead father to come to Blood Edward island to meet him on the day right before her 14th birthday. On that journey, she meets a ghost named D, who has lost his memories.
In the second part of the game, we fast-forward two years. Ashley takes a camping trip to a lake. When she arrives at lake Juliet, she gets flashbacks from when she was very little. Not only that, she meets a young boy whose father wanted to build a holiday resort at that lake but was blamed for the pollution of the lake.
Since this game is a point-and-click game and is quite story depended, I’m not going to talk more about the story than the two small blurbs above. In terms of the story, this game tells a very heartfelt story with very nice life lessons. The writing in this game is extremely well done. The build up towards the ending of the story is very natural and stays true to the themes of the game. The biggest theme in this game is memories and history. Overall, this game is quite relaxing, and the story is never really in a rush to move forward.
New in this version is that there is voice acting. While not the whole game is voice acted, most of it is and the non voice acted scenes have little grunts and vocalizations to indicate the emotions of what’s being told. I have to say that the voice acting in this game is fantastic. I wish the voice actors of this game had more of an online presence, since I had a hard time finding other works by these voice actors. The fact that these voice actors didn’t really promote that they worked on this game on their socials is a shame.
The voice acting in this game brings so much charm to the game. For this article, I replayed parts of the original DS and Wii game and I kept hearing those characters talk in the voice of the remakes. They fit the characters like a glove, which is a hard thing to do since when you have voiceless characters… Everybody has their voice in their head, and that doesn’t always match up with the official voice acting.
Now, in terms of differences between the original games and this remake… There are quite a lot of things. On the Cing wiki, there is a long list of changes. But I would highly advise you don’t read that before you finished the game. Since, it contains a lot of spoilers. I can say this without spoiling anything. The list of changes on the game article page has no real spoilers. If you haven’t played the originals, you won’t really notice a lot of the changes. Especially because most of the changes are done to improve the flow of the game and the story. Other changes have been done because some puzzles used the special features of the Nintendo DS or the Nintendo Wii in unique ways.
Arc System Works worked together with several members of the original development team, and I have to say that it really feels like this is the definitive way to experience these stories. Both stories now flow into each other, and it feels more like one big story. If you didn’t know better, you could think it’s just one huge game with those major chapters. They have done an amazing job of translating the story into a modern area without destroying the original messages and atmosphere of the story.
Fuzzy memories make imperfections
In terms of visuals, this game goes for a cel shaded look. This makes the remake of the original DS game look more in line with the Wii title. In the original DS game, the game was played as a top-down puzzle game, with some moments you could see a 2D scene that you could explore.
Visually, this game is quite detailed and looks amazing. Yet, I have noticed some rough models here and there. A book here, a window there. Some of them really stick out like a sore thumb. Now, I might be very critical on these things since I review games as a hobby. But let me tell you this as well. Overall, this game looks amazing. Timeless even. There are only a handful of objects that could use some touching up.
I have the same opinion on the animations. Overall, the animations are fantastic. Seeing the first game in 3D was breathtaking. It brought the game to life in such a different way, and I’m all for it. There were a few stiff animations, but if you aren’t looking for them, I can guarantee you that you won’t notice most of them. I especially love the comic book style cutscenes where the characters speaking go inside their own square next to each other. The animations in these cutscenes add some charm to this game, it makes the more relaxing nature of this game shine even brighter.
The controls of this game are excellent. Sometimes the motion control puzzles are a little bit wonky, but overall they work perfectly. The only thing I really don’t like is how, by the press of a button, you can see the orientation of Ashley. Now, what do I dislike about this? Well, it has a sort of build in walkthrough attached to it. This is something that’s too easily accessible, and I have pressed the button too many times.
Something I’m mixed about is how the additional lore spots are now somewhat easier to find. In the original DS game, you could find special cartridges with additional story lore on them. In this game, the hiding spot is located on your map. So, if you have missed one, you can quickly see on your map in which room you need to look. Now, some of them are hidden in very tricky places. During the stream, I have seen Klamath walk past two of them several times. If you want all the additional lore, you will have to keep your eyes peeled.
If you have played any point-and-click adventure game, you’ll know what to expect here. Personally, I compare this game quite a lot to Broken Sword 3, but without the platforming. You can explore the environment, and you have to solve various puzzles. Something unique is that you can also take pictures. And let me tell you, keep every mechanic the game teaches you in mind. The fact you can take pictures is something that is going to be quite helpful during the solving of the puzzles.
The only complaint I have is that solving some puzzles have a bit too much menu work involved. I especially remember one puzzle in the first part of the game where you have to weigh coins. Instead of them being all five on the table, you have to take them from your inventory each and every time. And the annoying part is that the last two you used, move to the last spot in your inventory. There are a handful of puzzles where some quality of life improvements would be very welcome.
Relaxing with puzzles
There are some amazing new features in this game as well. One of my favorite things is that you can access a big board where all the relationships between the characters are mapped out. Not only that, when you open the profile, you can read a small note about them. If you click on Ashley’s profile, you will read a small hint on what to do next. So, if you put this game down for a while, you can catch yourself up quite quickly.
Also, something I adore is the attention to detail in this game. For example, in one of the puzzles, Ashley digs into a building blocks box. After she found what she was looking for, you will notice a small building she built next to the box with the blocks she took out. There are various other moments like this, and it adds to the charm and realism of this game quite a lot.
The more relaxing nature of this game not only comes through the visuals and gameplay, but also through the music. The music in this game is a rather calming and relaxing soundtrack. The main motive is piano through the whole soundtrack. Other major instruments are violin and acoustic guitar. The soundtracks fit this game like a glove. Now, it is tense when it needs to be, but it never steps out of its lane. It keeps being that relaxing soundtracks that brings this game more to life, and I have no complaints about it.
The biggest strength of this game is the charm of it all. The writing, the music, the sound effects, the puzzles… It all flows together so well. While the game is only roughly 15 hours long, if you know what you are doing, it’s a very enjoyable time to play through. In this remake, the game also auto saves now but outside of cutscenes, you can save at any time in 15 different save slots.
Currently, I’m over midway in the second part of the game and I have been enjoying it quite a lot. While the game has it’s minor shortcomings like some rough object models and some annoying menu’ing during puzzles… I’m falling in love with these titles all over again. If you would ask me if the remakes or the originals are better, I’d have to say both. Both versions still have their charm but if you want to experience both these titles, I’d really advice to go for the Switch version. Since, it brings both titles together in a lot better way.
I mostly have minor complaints about these remakes. Like how silly it is that you can only have ten pictures saved and deleting them is a bit too fincky. But overall, the issues I have with this game are mostly minor. Maybe a bit more time in the oven or a polishing patch will bring this game to perfection.
A lot of other reviewers are giving this game lower marks since it’s slower paced or it’s a remake of a rather obscure duology. I personally disagree with these lower scores. These two games deserve another chance in the lime light since they are quite amazing games. I personally don’t mind the slower paced gameplay, since it’s refreshing to be able to wind down with a slower game. On top of that, if you look at the care the developers put into remaking this game and bringing it to modern audiences while not chaging too much to alienate fans of the original is such a fine line to walk on… And they never fell off that line in my opinion.
I can totally understand that this game isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. But, the complaints that this game is linear and doesn’t have a lot of replay value, I find ridiculous. I mean, does every game need to have a lot of replay value and let you explore a wide open world? No, it’s okay to play a game where you need to go from point A to B. It’s okay that the story looses some of it’s charm because you know how it’s going to end. It’s how that experience impacts you, that’s what matters.
The reason why I’m so happy to see remakes of these DS and Wii titles is because we now have remakes of amazing titles like this one and Ghost Trick for example. Now, because these two games have been remade, I’m holding out hope that Cing’s other titles like the amazing Hotel Dusk and it’s sequels are being remade as well. And if they are, I hope the same team is working on them since the love and care they placed into remaking these two titles is amazing.
I remember Klamath’s reaction when I suggested this game for streaming. He was worried that it was going to have low numbers and not a lot of interest. But, after our first stream, he started calling this game a hidden gem. I mean, if this game can have that kind of an impact on somebody who loves point-and-click games and the fact that we had a very high number of viewers watching our streams, it must mean something.
This game has a lot of impact and I hope that others who enjoy puzzle, adventure and/or point-and-click games give this game a chance. It’s something different especially since it’s slower paced but if you let it take you by the hand and if you walk along the journey, you won’t regret the powerful journey you are going on. It’s a journey that will stick with you and sometimes a memory will pop back into your head. You’ll remember the fun and relaxing times you had with this game. While the game isn’t perfect, the positives far outweigh the negatives and it’s one of those games where going along with the ride is the most important. Since, the ride of this game is one of the best point-and-click games I have ever played.
And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m curious to hear what you thought about this game and/or the content of this article. So, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below. I also hope to welcome you in another article, but until then have a great rest of your day and take care.
Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Coral Island developer Stairway Games has responded to the lack of Switch port, blaming the recent layoffs at Humble Games for leaving console versions "in a place of uncertainty".
The cosy life-sim game received over $1.6m in Kickstarter funding. However, some backers who specifically backed the game for a Switch version are angry at the lack of news for a port. Other backers have claimed requests for PS4 keys have been automatically upgraded to PS5 without consent.
At present, the game is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (plus Game Pass), but not Switch.
Title: Thimbleweed Park
Type of Game: Adventure, Point-and-Click
Developer: Terrible Toybox
Publisher: Terrible Toybox
Released: March 30, 2017
Platforms Available: PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Platform Reviewed: PC
Level of Maturity: Teen 13+
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Firing up Thimbleweed Park on my phone, I couldn’t help but grin. As a guy who’s been point-and-clicking since floppy disks were a thing, I was curious to see how this deliberately retro game would hold up not just on mobile but on PC, Playstation Xbox, Nintendo and Mac same time!
Let’s get this out of the way: Thimbleweed Park looks old. Really old. We’re talking “EGA graphics from 1987” old. It’s a bold choice, especially considering some of the gorgeous adventure games that have come out in recent years. Games like Grim Fandango, Broken Sword, or even the later Monkey Island entries showed how the genre could evolve visually while keeping its puzzle-solving soul.
But you know what? The ultra-retro look works. It’s not just nostalgia – though there’s plenty of that. The pixel art is sharp, detailed, and surprisingly expressive. Plus, it runs smooth as butter on mobile, which is a big plus in my book.
The game follows five quirky characters as they stumble through a murder mystery in the oddball town of Thimbleweed Park. The writing is clever, with plenty of fourth-wall-breaking jokes and pop culture references that had me chuckling.
Puzzle-wise, Thimbleweed Park doesn’t pull its punches. If you picked “hard” mode like I did, be prepared for some serious head-scratchers. The multi-character gameplay adds layers to the puzzles that I really dug. Switching between characters felt natural on the touchscreen, making it easy to try out different solutions.Speaking of touchscreens, this game feels right at home on mobile. The point-and-click interface that once needed a mouse now works perfectly with taps and swipes. I found myself pulling out my phone for quick puzzle-solving sessions during lunch breaks or while waiting for the bus.
What really struck me about Thimbleweed Park is how it captures the spirit of classic adventure games while making smart concessions to modern gaming. The hint system, disguised as an in-game phone hotline, is genius. It preserves the challenge for stubborn old-schoolers like me while preventing casual players from getting permanently stuck.For all its retro trappings, Thimbleweed Park feels fresh. It’s not just imitating the past; it’s building on it. The developers, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, clearly know their stuff. They’ve taken lessons learned from decades of game design and applied them here, resulting in an experience that’s both familiar and new.
Is it perfect? Nah. Some jokes fall flat, and occasionally, the puzzles cross the line from challenging to frustrating. The ultra-retro graphics might be a turn-off for some players, especially those used to more visually rich adventure games. But for me, Thimbleweed Park hits a sweet spot. It’s a game that respects its roots while embracing the convenience of modern mobile gaming. It’s the kind of game I can lose myself in for hours or play in short bursts, perfect for my not-as-much-free-time-as-I-used-to-have adult life.
If you’re an old-school adventure game fan, Thimbleweed Park is an easy recommendation. It’s like finding a lost LucasArts classic, but one that plays nice with your smartphone. And if you’re new to the genre? Well, prepare for a weird, wild, and wonderfully brain-teasing ride.In a mobile gaming landscape often dominated by quick-hit puzzlers and endless runners, Thimbleweed Park stands out. It’s a proper, meaty adventure game that just happens to fit in your pocket. Whether you’re a veteran pixel-hunter or a curious newcomer, it’s well worth your time.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a murder to solve and a cursed clown to deal with. These puzzles aren’t going to solve themselves!
Steam (PC, Mac, Linux): Available for $19.99. You can purchase it directly from Steam.
Xbox Store (Xbox One): Available for $19.99. Check it out on the Xbox Store.
PlayStation Store (PS4): Available for $19.99. You can find it on the PlayStation Store.
Nintendo Shop (Switch): Available for $19.99. Purchase it from the Nintendo Shop.
App Store (iOS): Available for $9.99. Download it from the App Store.
Google Play (Android): Available for $9.99. Purchase it from Google Play.
Epic Games Store (PC): Available for $19.99. Purchase it from the Epic Games Store.
GOG (PC): Available for roughly $21. Purchase it from GOG.
Official Page: Visit the official Thimbleweed Park page for more information.
Subreddit: Join the discussion on the Thimbleweed Park Subreddit.
The post Thimbleweed Park: The Body is Starting to Pixelate appeared first on WePlayGames.net: Home for Top Gamers.
Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
I will admit that you really have to be in the right mood to take on a new MMORPG… Tarisland is an MMORPG, isn’t it? It is just Amazon Games that is trying to distance itself from whatever stigma they have made up in their minds for that term, right?
It is here now
Anyway, mood and mindset… you have be ready, to have it within you to go through all the opening stages and the slow progression and the tutorial moments and whatever else is between you and playing the damn game on your own terms.
And it would be fair to ask whether I was in a receptive state of mine, willing and able to go through the pedestrian opening stages that tend to characterize any MMORPG. There is a dichotomy in play at the start of any such game, where the first, say, 20 levels or so, can be the best part of the game… the way the first 100 moves can be the best part of a Civilization game… or where those early levels can be bothersome, boring drag that makes you want to log off and do something else.
I had earlier this week walked away from the EverQuest II Anashti Sul Origins Server because I simply could not stomach the idea of going through those first 20 levels yet again.
But there was also nearly 20 years of history and maybe 50 characters of weight behind that choice. So maybe it wasn’t a fair assessment as to my ability to jump into a new game based on that.
So I downloaded Tarisland yesterday morning and spent a bit of time with it while I ate my lunch, and I wasn’t very many bites into that before I decided I hated the game.
It wasn’t the cut scenes, though I did think that the gunship in it looks suspiciously like a rip-off of WoW… was it going to be a WoW clone after all?
Yeah, not at all borrowed from Azeroth
It wasn’t the annoying way you had to go through a ten second flourish every time you wanted to look at a different class in the character creation tool.
He’s a warrior
I mean, seriously, did nobody think that maybe a tool tip or a title or something that would just tell you what each of the classes are on the left hand side of the screen would be a reasonable idea? Instead you have to click on each one and go through their demo reel before you can even see what they are.
But you only have to do that for a bit, not constantly, so I could get past that.
I wasn’t bothered by the art style, which felt more like what the Daybreak team was trying to achieve with EverQuest Next than WoW’s particular flavor of stylized art, but whatever. I am good with it.
The rather minimal of character customization options and the rather minimal effect they have on your look… are kind of par for the course for titles of Asian origin. The most noticeable thing you can change is your hair style, and really only the color of your hair in that set of options has any effect on how you look at even a slight distance.
The slider for height felt like deciding if you want to be 5′ 9″ or 5′ 11″ for range of options, while the size of your head… there is a slider for the size of your head… basically changed your hat size in a range of maybe five notches… maybe size 57 to 62 in scale.
Can you even tell what head size I chose?
But that was fine. I’ve literally seen so much worse that I couldn’t care about it save to note it in passing.
I did find the fact that there are still some sex locked classes… ever the hallmark of Asian MMOs… to be a bit irksome, but I was going to make a paladin and could be either sex with that class. Paladins are bi-sexual… or ambi-sexual… or something.
And, I will admit, the lack of support for screenshots was annoying. There is an option in the menu to go to a photo mode where you can take posed pictures of your character.
Welcome to the photo studio
There are bunch of options within that UI and you can set yourself with or without the UI… though why it would take a picture with the UI is beyond me. At least I think that is why there is the option to hide the photo UI, to keep it from being in the picture… though trying is, you get no UI either way… so why?
Once you take the picture it saves it away for you and I had to dig around to find where it chose to secret these shots. They end up in the Pictures directory on Windows, which I guess makes sense, but I thought of half a dozen other places they could be… all based on how OTHER games store pictures… before I ended up there. And you end up with a bland post card shot that I guess you’re supposed to post to social media or something.
This isn’t all that interesting, honestly
That feels like a lot of work for very little value. So to get the few screenshots shown here I had to mash the Print Screen button, then tab out and paste the clipboard into Paint.net. I could have gotten FRAPs setup to take screen shots, or the nVidia overlay thingy, but I was a few minutes into the game and didn’t want to break stride to find out if I remembered how to do either.
Oh, but I did get my first name choice. I wonder if that speaks to the popularity of the game on the North American server?
There were other little annoyances as well, things that felt like they shouldn’t have been a problem for any company that had ever shipped an MMO before, but nothing game breaking.
On the good side, they do get you right into the action. Once you get past the cut-scenes when you launch the game… and you have to see them EVERY TIME you launch the game… you are doing something fun, like killing things.
Void Fiend I shall end you!
The combat is very ability oriented and reminds me, at first glance, more of a Guild Wars 2 style of combat that WoW, with a limited set of combat skills available, though I haven’t played GW2 in years so don’t take offense if you disagree strongly with that characterization.
They even throw you into a group right away to go through a mini-boss fight… though I suspect those are all NPCs in my group as opposed to actual people.
NPCs or the most boring set of name choices ever to be in a single group… I mean, “Janet?”
And you take that group and fight a dragon and have to go through some simple boss fight mechanics that get shouted at you… Catherine gets on you about going here or avoiding that, though at least never quite gets to “more DOTS” level of raid boss… and things happen.
Look, I am tanking a dragon two minutes into playing!
Things do fall off a bit after that as you get into the more normal introduction tour of the game, but at least it gives you a taste of what could be achieved.
Summing up so far: Some minor annoyances and a modestly above average intro.
So what is the issue? Why “hate” in the title of the post.
Let’s talk about movement controls.
I am old and set in my ways, so for a classic, over the shoulder, fantasy MMORPG I am good with two movement control schemes, both based on the WASD keys.
The first is the way that WoW and EverQuest and frankly most western title in the genre handle it, which is A rotates you left, D rotates you right, and if the game decides you need to strafe left or right, you probably use the Q and E keys for that. Boring but reliable.
Sure, you can also mouse turn using the right mouse button on your mouse… I did try not to use the word mouse three times in that, but failed… and some people will get very upset if you do not do this in certain circumstances… but it isn’t the only way you can turn.
The other method is the first person shooter way of life, where the cursor controls where you face when moving and the WASD keys make you move, with A and D allowing you to strafe left and right.
This is what Valheim uses, along with every first person shooter I can recall off hand, mostly because mouse aim is a requirement.
I prefer the first, but can adapt to the second at need with a short transition.
What I cannot abide is how Tarisland has decided to setup their movement controls, which is the same way that V Rising chose to do it, where it is mostly the FPS model, but you need to hold down the right mouse button to engage directional control. And I get why you might want to consider this in a title where you might need the cursor free to do other things.
Actually no, no I do not. I do not get why somebody would chose this control model as it seems inferior to me that the previous two methods I outlined. On find out this is the way the game played I immediately went into the settings in the hopes I could remedy this… but the settings options are so minimal as to be laughable. And there was certainly nothing in there to deal with the movement controls… probably a side effect of the game being on mobile as well as PC. So I was cut off.
I have taken this tack before and had somebody get quite annoyed with me when I said this was why I immediately stopped playing V Rising. Their annoyance in that moment came from the fact that I could not immediately articulate why “just holding down the right mouse button” was a problem for me.
But I can do so here. The reason is that I don’t use a mouse on my home machine, I use a Kensington Expert Mouse trackball.
Kensington Expert Mouse… old picture, but I have the same mouse still
And with the trackball and button configuration, holding down the right mouse button any time I want to move… which would be pretty much constantly in any combat if the intro demo is to be believed… is pretty much a non-starter as it probably requires more pinky finger endurance than I posses that being my go-to right mouse click finger.
So, easy on a normal mouse, kind of tough, or at least annoying, on my trackball.
And I am committed to that trackball. I have been using variations of that same heavy ball model trackball since the late 1980s. I am so committed that I have on the bookshelf behind me another one, still new in its box, just in case the current one fails and I find out that whoever owns the brand these days… Logitech owned it last I checked… has discontinued it. I am not letting things go down the way they did with that G15 keyboard in the picture above. No way!
Now, I am not completely unreasonable on this. If our group decided that Tarisland was really the next game we wanted to play, I would probably find a way to deal with the issue. But that seems unlikely to occur and for a free MMO that I do not have any real investment in beyond the 25GB download. It is easier to let it go that try to get invested with that particular barrier in place.
But it does answer the one question about Tarisland that I have been harping on since it was announced, which is whether or not it was really the blatant and obvious WoW clone that some in the gaming press made it out to be long before they ever cast an eye on the actual game.
The answer to that, in my book, is “no.” If a game is going to adopt a different set of movement controls, then it isn’t doing a very good job of being a clone.
That, however, is me getting into details. I could point out the combat skills and the hot bar arrangement and the character models and probably many more things that would disqualify it from that appellation in the eye of a discerning fan of the genre.
But if you want to just say anything with a stylized art style, over the shoulder point of view, quests, and tab targeting combat is a WoW clone, then there are a lot of those to be found beyond Tarisland.
A philosophical question more than a literal one I suppose.
So Tarisland goes back on the shelf. The headline of this post is somewhat hyperbolic. My reaction to Tarisland doesn’t rise to anywhere near the level of hate. It just has a control scheme I tend to avoid because I find it awkward to use. In that dragon fight, for example, where, as a melee class, I was deep in the fight, I was unable to tell at times if I was even facing the mob because the camera and movement inputs do not respond the way I expect.
Maybe I’ll try it on the iPad. Maybe it will be the MMO that I actually enjoy on a mobile device. There are a few posts over on r/mmorpg saying it is more a mobile title ported to PC than the other way around. Who knows.
Related:
We are officially in summer, with the summer solstice having passed just yesterday. Happy Midsommar to all who celebrate. May your sacrifices protect you and bring a bountiful harvest once more.
I was a bit surprised that the Steam Summer Sale did not kick off yesterday. Steam has a pretty solid track record of landing summer and winter sales on the first day of each season. But this year it won’t start until the 27th. [Addendum: Though if I had looked back to 2023, I would have seen it didn’t start until the 29th, so just another issue in my brain.]
So no post about that today, as I had sort of planned. Instead, some things are launching or announcing dates for launch. Time for a pass through that I guess!
Tarisland goes live today, doesn’t it? Technically it is going live world-wide and will have launched everywhere on the list by the time this post gets published. At 11am eastern time it was supposed to go live here in North America, the last of its launch regions after Asia, Europe, and South America.
Now here and Free to Play
Derided repeatedly as a WoW-clone in a world where it is tough to be an MMORPG without that comparison, it is available on PC, Android, and iOS as a free to play title.
I have said several times that I wanted to give it a try, if only to see if all this WoW-clone talk had any merit. But I have I downloaded it yet? I have not. Maybe it will strike my fancy this weekend.
Anyway, there is a launch announcement with details on how to join in on your platform of choice. They have even partnered with an emulator to try and make the game playable on MacOS. You need an M-series Mac, no Intel models need apply, and there are hoops to jump through, but you could make it happen if you were dying to play.
Finally, looking at that logo, is it Tasisland or Taris Land?
Meh, I’m not going to worry about it.
Amazon Games, fresh off their good times trying to pretend New World isn’t an MMORPG, has announced the launch date for their next venture, Throne & Liberty, which promises to bring online RPG gameplay into a new era.
Throne and Liberty and totally not an MMORPG
Also it is multiplayer. And a lot of people will be able to play together. I mean, they literally use the word “massive” later on in the text to describe the PvP and PvPvE experience. It is almost like it is… I don’t know, another MMORPG?
Amazon, why won’t you say that? They have literally banished the term from their web site. They make zero MMORPGs if you believe what they say.
Anyway, a title that I nearly put on the “won’t ship in 2024” list for my new year’s predictions… seriously, it was on there, then I realized I had one too many for the point count, so I removed it, will in fact ship in 2024, landing on September 17th.
So I dodged that bullet. That and the whole refusal by Amazon to use the term “MMORPG” are the key takeaways from this bullet point.
Valheim has apparently hit the level of success where somebody felt they needed to make a board game out of the experience.
Please Odin… now in physical form
This will be a crowdfunding campaign and run by another company, which is probably good because Iron Gate has like three devs and they still have a biome to finish some time this decade. The campaign will be run on Game Found, an off-brand Kickstarter clone for board games which you can find here.
There is a teaser video, but I am not going to bother to embed it because it is 17 seconds and tells you less than I’ve already written. If you are interested you’ll have to go sign up at Game Found to get alerts as to when the campaign will go live… as they haven’t bothered to tell us yet.
The next stage of the Equinox expansion hit yesterday, which included the launch of the Paragon store in game, which allows you to take those rather pricey SKINs you can make with the new SKINR utility and list them on the market.
Want to buy a lime green Harpy SKIN?
And, of course, it is a mess. The store front is there and you can do some sorting, but as an online shopping experience it rates ahead of the Pokemon Go in-game cosmetic store, but only just barely, and Niantic at least has the poor excuse of having to work within phone sized devices.
Anyway, you can find it in game… not easily, but you’ll get there if you persist… and read the CCP optimistic take on it here. Or you can go over to r/eve and see what players think. It isn’t pretty.
CCP’s decades spanning desire to make a successful first person shooter game despite all the signs indicating it is a bad idea carries on with a new round of EVE Vanguard testing which starts… wait, it started yesterday, didn’t it? Yes.
The Solstice is here… which means it will just get darker from now on
The play test… because it is still in alpha so all two dozen fans will get angry and remind you of this should you criticize any aspect of it… features a second map, weapon SKINs, and… um… well, there is still just one gun, but you can now change its stats with chip sets you can find in game.
The play test runs to July 1st, so there is plenty of time to join in. You’ll need to download it in the EVE Online launcher because CCP is determined to handcuff this potential corpse to its one viable game. And, of course, they are offering SKINs to people who join in… which feels kind of odd now that they have blown up the SKIN market with SKINR, but whatever. That is the bribe they have to offer.
You can read more about it here.
Finally, over at Blizzard they are cranking out yet another Hearthstone expansion. It isn’t exactly a “month with a vowel in it” level of phenomena, but they do seem to get two or three out every year.
Maybe the WoW team could learn something from them.
Or maybe not, as Hearthstone goes where it pleases with the lore, with the new expansion being called Perils in Paradise, featuring a lot of perhaps unlikely Azeroth activities on the splash screen.
Perils in paradise
Anyway, among the features of the expansion are tourist cards that act as a conduit to bring in cards unrelated to your class in order to spice up your deck. Blizz is also introducing catch-up packs, which I think was mentioned back at BlizzCon where I made some joke about ketchup packs… wait, here is the joke… was it worth it?
How this helps you with deck building I don’t know…
Anyway, those are here now. The whole thing launches on July 23rd and you can read more about it here.
That is what I’ve got for Friday. Did I miss anything?
Enlarge / New research lends further credence to the "population crash" theory about Easter Island being just a myth. (credit: Arian Zwegers/CC BY 2.0)
For centuries, Western scholars have touted the fate of the native population on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) as a case study in the devastating cost of environmentally unsustainable living. The story goes that the people on the remote island chopped down all the trees to build massive stone statues, triggering a population collapse. Their numbers were further depleted when Europeans discovered the island and brought foreign diseases, among other factors. But an alternative narrative began to emerge in the 21st century that the earliest inhabitants actually lived quite sustainably until that point. A new paper published in the journal Science Advances offers another key piece of evidence in support of that alternative hypothesis.
As previously reported, Easter Island is famous for its giant monumental statues, called moai, built some 800 years ago and typically mounted on platforms called ahu. Scholars have puzzled over the moai on Easter Island for decades, pondering their cultural significance, as well as how a Stone Age culture managed to carve and transport statues weighing as much as 92 tons. The first Europeans arrived in the 17th century and found only a few thousand inhabitants on a tiny island (just 14 by 7 miles across) thousands of miles away from any other land. Since then, in order to explain the presence of so many moai, the assumption has been that the island was once home to tens of thousands of people.
But perhaps they didn't need tens of thousands of people to accomplish that feat. Back in 2012, Carl Lipo of Binghamton University and Terry Hunt of the University of Arizona showed that you could transport a 10-foot, 5-ton moai a few hundred yards with just 18 people and three strong ropes by employing a rocking motion. [UPDATE: An eagle-eyed reader alerted us to the 1980s work of Czech experimental archaeologist Pavel Pavel, who conducted similar practical experiments on Easter Island after being inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki. Pavel concluded that just 16 men and one leader were sufficient to transport the statues.]
As a long-time fan of MMORPGs, I was happy to give Tarisland a try. Even better, it’s free, and codes give you the option to earn extra goodies. It all adds to my experience as a mage, destroying groups of enemies with frost or fire, depending on which specialization I feel like having at the time.
Tarisland features quite a few resources that you need for different upgrades and aspects. From crafting and collecting materials to upgrading your Inscribed Stone, you need resources to do it. Plus, resources like Vigor take a long time to replenish. If you feel like exploring another fantasy world full of stories, look at our list of Genshin Impact codes for even more free goodness!
The post Tarisland Codes (June 2024) appeared first on GameSkinny.
New MMORPGs are rare these days. To a lot of people, Tarisland may be a pleasant surprise for those looking for a modern, competent MMORPG. Luckily, we’re here to help you get started with 10 tips for Tarisland.
Despite just launching, and being an MMO designed for both mobile and PC, Tarisland is surprisingly fully featured. In fact, the game has enough going on that it can be a bit overwhelming. We’re hoping the tips below will help with that!
Summer is Coming!
I live in California, so I don’t worry too much about winter as even when it is bad… storms and rain… that is generally good for us. Summer though… it is going to be a hot one. It was already up in the 90s this week and the first official day of summer, June 20th, hasn’t even arrived yet.
On the good news front, we got a heat pump central forced air system for the house, so after 17 years in our place we will have air conditioning in the summer. We’ll be getting solar installed at last early next month so we’ll have the electricity to drive the heat pump which, while it is energy efficient, still draws power.
But that is neither here nor there for this post. I wanted to list out some things coming up in June. I know, isn’t that what the “Coming Up” section of my month in review post is for? Sure, but I forgot some things, found out about some new things, and I’ll put pictures and links in this post. So let’s go!
Yeah, that was Wednesday, but you’re not too late if you want to participate. There is a whole page dedicated to the beta, what content will be available, and how to join here.
The War Within 30 minutes or it is free
The War Within is, of course, the next expansion due later this year for retail WoW. Being somewhat divorced from retail since early in Shadowlands, I have some mild interest in the expansion, but going to retail these days is like going to a foreign country… they do all the same stuff as us… or classic… but it is all slightly different and awkward for a naive traveler like myself. But I’ve been over all of that already, haven’t I?
But a beta… I haven’t done a retail WoW beta since Cataclysm, and we saw how that went.
2021’s huge indy survival success, Valheim, will be making the move to MacOS as the developers look for new markets to conquer.
Are there apples in Valhalla?
I guess it will be on Steam. Does Microsoft Games even support MacOS? Maybe? I don’t know.
But Iron Gate assures us that it will support cross-play, so if you setup a server for you PC buddies and a friend with a Mac shows up, they can play too. I don’t have a Mac anymore… I mean, technically there are at least three MacOS computers in the house as I write this, but I do not actively work or play on the Mac these days.
I suppose if I am listing things out I need to include this. The big old Equinox expansion is coming on Tuesday.
Equinox – Seize Control – June 11, 2024
We shall see then who exactly is seizing control and whether or not null sec will be upended or if it is a great big nothing burger. The ship SKINR should be neat, depending on how they plan to tax people to use it.
The jump back to a more authentic 2006 experience with the EverQuest II Anashti Sul Origins Server is slated to land this month. The beta is slated to end on June 13th… so maybe the following Tuesday, the 18th? Or maybe the 14th? We’ll have to see.
Anashti Sul is a mystery in her way
It may seem a bit odd to go back 18 years for a 20th anniversary celebration, but the 2006 experience marks the settling point for the game, where it finally decided what it was for the moment and moved forward with content. I wrote my views on this decision a while back, and plan to give it a peek when it shows up.
Pax Dei is entering Early Access. What does that mean? All sorts of things I suppose and they have a whole post about it.
Coming to Early Access
As a title it has been kind of on my watch list… I subscribe to their Discord server news channel so updates there show up in the blog’s Discord server… you can join if you like here… but given all the other stuff I have on my list for June, I feel like Pax Dei might not make the cut… especially since they want $40 to be a founder. I already have $40 unplayed games in Steam, I am not sure I need another.
Also, there will be pwipes. I don’t have time for that. Call me when it ships.
The first day of summer, the summer solstice, and Steam is usually pretty good about kicking off the Steam Summer Sale on that day.
Will I buy anything? That is always the question. As noted above, I have my share of unplayed titles already, and I bought a bunch over the Winter Sale… and then ended up playing Valheim.
My Steam Played Stats
You can see your own Steam stats over at SteamDB.
Also, as it came out last week, when you cannot pass on your Steam titles. You die, your account is dead… unless your give your kids your password and have family sharing on or something. I am sure there is a work around, but it is just a reminder that nothing “digital” you buy is actually yours. (Word is GoG.com might let you pass things on to your heirs, but there is paperwork involved.)
You want to have access to something it needs a physical… though even that isn’t a guarantee. Sonus loves to brick their older sound systems and Spotify is bricking their car player later this year… though you might get a refund after a lot of outrage at their “fuck you” attitude about the whole thing… and all sorts of “smart” home devices end up getting bricked by Google or whoever buys the company then discontinues them.
Anyway, side rant there. But for our new heat pump I got a dumb Honeywell thermostat. No Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no other connectivity or ability to host Russian bot nets, and no way for Honeywell to shut it down without showing up at my doorstep.
Tarisland, Tencent’s everybody-says-it-is-a-WoW-knockoff MMORPG title is set to go live on Windows, Android, and iOS on the second day of summer.
Coming soon and Free to Play
Tencent is promising all the things, diverse classes, challenging raids, a flexible talent system, excellent graphics, all in a free to play package with a cash shop that I am sure will have all the usual items in it.
Still, it is the first MMORPG from a big player to hit our market since maybe Lost Ark.
As with everything Tencent has a big post about joining in on the fun. We’ll see if I can find the time for it come launch day.
Children of the 90s… or maybe those of us who were young-ish adults of the 90s… hear me and weep. What might have been the first instant messenger platform I ever used, ICQ, is going away on June 26th!
ICQ Logo Evolution
This was one of those one-two punch bits of news where I was saddened to find that ICQ was going away, but first I was surprised it was even still around.
What to say? Way back in the day we used to use it to tell people to log in for a zone in TorilMUD. I kept the login going well into the 2000s with Trillian. Somewhere along the line I let it go, forgot the password, couldn’t remember my number, and basically moved on.
Still, it was quite a thing back in the day. I told somebody I had a 5 digit ICQ number… but it might have been a 6 digit number. This was like 25 years ago or more, right? I had it before I had a Yahoo account, and they sent me a 25 year anniversary notice last year. (I noted the 24th anniversary message they sent me, but decided that didn’t have to be an EVERY year thing.)
Anyway, that was all I had for June. Did I miss anything? I mean, at least anything there is a chance I might play? I am not really primed for things like the Elden Ring expansion of whatever is going on in FFXIV.
Today I learned Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert is working on a new game, which he describes as "Classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park". Well, hello there!
Work on this project actually started several months ago, but it only came to my attention this afternoon thanks to TimeExtension. I have since done more browsing, and come across some posts on Terrible Toybox, as well as Gilbert's own Mastodon page.
Now, admittedly there still isn't a huge amount of information on Gilbert's upcoming project at this time. The game doesn't even have a proper name yet, and rather has been labelled as Game Name TBD on Terrible Toybox's website. Meanwhile, Gilbert has been using the hashtag #rpgtbd to tag his social media posts.
Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
A 60-year-old pilot flying a small plane reported engine trouble before making an emergency landing on a Long Island Beach.
The pilot, flying with a 59-year-old passenger, reportedly lost power to his Cessna mid-flight, but was able to aim his small plane towards Cedar Beach, where he successfully crash-landed his plane. — Read the rest
The post Small plane flips into "headstand" as pilot crash lands it on a Long Island beach (video) appeared first on Boing Boing.
Cancellation Watch: Status updates for the sci fi and fantasy shows on the broadcast networks, cable channels, and streaming services as well as breaking news on the currently airing, returning, and upcoming genre entries.
3 Body Problem (Netflix, Status: Renewal Possible): This show took the Number 1 slot in the Nielsen Streaming Rankings the week of its premiere, pulling in an estimated 1.4 billion minutes of viewing. It is also still in the Netflix Top 5 after five weeks, so the viewership for the show is quite strong and I would say it has a good chance for renewal at this point.
The Orville (Hulu, Status: In Limbo): There is still no official word on a fourth season of this show, but creator Seth McFarlane seems to be sure that it will happen. In a recent appearance on The Mike Henry Show, he made the following comment: “The Orville was a passion project, I say ‘was’ but I don’t really mean ‘was’ because there will be more”. That does not confirm a renewal, though, and Hulu has remained silent on the status of the show. But if fans continue to make some noise to support the series (it is currently doing well in our poll), perhaps it will be back at some point.
X-Men 97 (Disney+, Status: Renewed): This show did not make it into the Nielsen Streaming Rankings the week of its premiere, but word is that viewership on Disney+ has been strong. It was picked up for two seasons in advance, and a third is already in development (though not officially greenlighted), so I expect it will stick around for a while.
Ark: The Animated Series (Paramount+, Status: Renewal Possible): This series was released with almost no advance announcement, and it did not make it into the Nielsen Streaming Rankings for the week of its premiere. But Paramount+ has been giving it some promotion since then, so perhaps it could stick around into a second season. The second half of the first season will be released later this year.
Skull Island (Netflix, Status: On the Bubble): There has been no word from Netflix on this animated MonsterVerse entry since it premiered in June of 2023, and its chances for a second season are looking grim. Executive producer Brian Duffield made the following statement on Twitter: “Scripts are all done and I hope it sees the light at some point – think we got unlucky with timing and story changes in the bigger ‘Verse”. This one may have fallen victim to schedule shuffling due to the strikes, and fans should make some noise to support the show if they want that second season to happen.
You can see the status of all the shows from the current season at our Cancellation Watch Page.
Amazon’s Fallout received a second-season renewal last week, and the announcements for The Witcher, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Star Trek: Lower Decks do not impact the 2023-24 season score. We currently stand at 23 renewed sci fi and fantasy entries (43% of shows tracked) vs. 11 cancelled and ending (21%). Below are this season’s numbers, and you can see the list of shows and keep up with the score throughout the week at our Cancellation Watch Page.
| Show Count | 53 | ||
| Cancelled | 6 | 11.3% | |
| Ending | 5 | 9.4% | 20.8% |
| Renewed | 23 | 43.4% | |
| On the Bubble | 5 | 9.4% | |
| Renewal Possible | 14 | 26.4% | |
| Mini-Series | 6 |
Be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates. And for the latest news and discussions on sci fi and fantasy television, follow r/SciFiTV
Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and you can see the premieres for all the upcoming genre entries at this link.
The post Cancellation Watch: 3 Body Problem Tops the Nielsen Streaming Rankings, The Orville Gets Another Non-Update, and More appeared first on Cancelled Sci Fi.
Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
One of the most stunning PlayStation games in recent years, Ghost of Tsushima, will no longer be exclusively relegated to Sony’s hardware. In just two short months, Sucker Punch Productions’ samurai epic will launch on the Epic Games Store and Steam with everything PlayStation fans have enjoyed, as well as better…
[Gruesome story alert! Skip this post if you're squeamish.]
A walk to school turned ghastly yesterday when a teenage girl spotted a severed body part in a Long Island park.
The student was walking with her friends when she discovered a man's left arm. — Read the rest
The post Gruesome: Teen girl spots severed arm on walk to school in NY — leading police to severed head appeared first on Boing Boing.
Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...
The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
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