dev, computing and games

Finished Professor Layton and the Last Specter (3DS),
and the bonus game that the USA version ships with, Professor Layton- Little London

This is the fourth installment in the Professor Layton series. The puzzles seem, on average, easier (maybe too easy?) compared to previous installments. But there is enough variety to keep it interesting, and the side puzzles like the model train set are fun and worthwhile.

Little London looks and plays a lot like Harvest Moon, if you isolate it down to all of the cutesy character interaction and none of the turnip farming.

I have a big problem with Little London.

The mechanics of the game are as follows: you have two stats, Wealth and Happiness, whereby Wealth is accrued from working at jobs and fulfilling requests from the various townspeople; Happiness is acquired also by fulfilling requests, however-- when you buy anything that costs X, X/2 will be added to your Happiness. Therefore, after unlocking the highest Wealth-giving quests in the game (and also the train ticket job), it's just a matter of buying expensive things over and over and until you reach the Happiness desired. Optionally, you can sell things (for less than was paid for) and buy them again to streamline this grind late-game.

Is this the kind of value system we want to be broadly promoting to people? Materialism??

Your character begins the game with a home and basic needs met. The Wealth is just for buying frivolous things. New furnishings, new clothes. Cosmetic accessories. These are great, sure, but to directly, numerically link the resulting happiness they provide with how much they cost feels totally unrealistic. Am I going to be ten times happier with a $200 curtains compared to $20? Should I really spend $5000 on a golden stuffed animal? There are some material things I've purchased which made me *less* happy, for example the Lion King for Super Nintendo.

 

 

August 18th, 2017 at 7:36 am | Comments & Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

>"Let's start playing pokemon sun!"

> Hi let's get you acquainted with the game. To start, choose your trainer profile image.
> How clever! (Although a little presumptuous) It automatically detected a female profile from my Nintendo account or something, so it shows me these photo options
> I pick the one in the top row, third from the left
> Everyone in the game calls me "My boy..."
> mfw

December 30th, 2016 at 10:21 pm | Comments & Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Obtained Star Fox Zero and Mario Kart 8 for Wii U and gave them a try. I am not loving the Wii U tablet-remote for Star Fox, but I get they really really want you to use it. The controls will take some getting used to. There are a lot of nice graphical improvements since Assault and lots of homage to the very first one. I think they are being slow in learning their lesson from previous installments, that people want a rail shooter. Not a third person shooter, not Uncharted with furries, not a land vehicle driving sim. Please get it through your head Nintendo.

In other news, began playing Professor Layton and The Last Specter

August 30th, 2016 at 12:14 am | Comments & Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

This might be the best game, ever. Reason: Can't remember the last time I've come across a game with literally zero grind. No repetitive action. For the 'meat' of the game, solving puzzles- each puzzle is different with no repeats, nor any cheesy reprising the same puzzle with an only-slightly-different flavor. Shouldn't be such a novel thing but it really is.

Also no puzzles that rely on pure anagrams, big-time number crunching, external knowledge of other languages / scripts.  Nice.

March 14th, 2016 at 9:09 pm | Comments & Trackbacks (0) | Permalink