By Bixyl Shuftan
Yours truly has been busy, both in real life and Second Life. Still, I have a little time for gaming. Over the past several months, I've been on a few. So here's a short mention of each. Oh, and trying out each of them is for free, one you won't need to pay for if you want to go for longer.
The Planet Crafter
In most space games, you blow things up and create a lot of destruction. So here's one in which you build something: creating a habitable world from a hostile one. Welcome to Planet Crafter.
In the game, you play the part of a man convicted of crimes offered a pardon if you get a hostile world terraformed to the point it can support life. But it won't be easy. Your small air tank won't allow you to step far from your craft without an infusion of oxygen, you only have a small amount of food and water on board, and your small crafting machine can only build a few items from local metal and ice.
You can build a few basic heaters and drills to help heat and thicken the air, and windmills and solar panels to power them. As the planet begins to slowly change, more building options are unlocked. And you're going to need them, especially food growers. Exploring offers plenty of rewards, more supplies such as food, rare minerals, blueprints, and more. But don't forget to keep an eye on your air supply, and it's a good idea to keep at least one or two oxygen bottles just in case you make a wrong turn somewhere and can't get to a building of yours in time.
Planet Crafter is available for sale on Steam. It's recommended you download the demo first. It ends when you reach your first goal. But by then you'll have decided whether or not this is a game for you. Personally, I feel it has a great theme, and an adequate challnge.
For now, the game is single player.
Girl Genius: Adventures in Castle Heterodyne
Some
readers will recall the online comic "Girl Genius," a steampunk-themed
(or "gaslamp fantasy" as it's artists and writers Phil and Kaja Foglio
call it) tale of the adventures of Agatha Heterodyne, a once ordinary
girl who discovers she's a "spark," or mad scientist. Good news for it's
fans, there's now a game based on the tale, or rather the part in which
Agatha enters and tries to restore Castle Heterodyne. While reading the
comic isn't necessary to play the game, it does make it more
interesting.
The
game starts with Agatha, the character you control, having just entered
the castle, impersonating one of the numerous people sentenced to the
place. Unfortunately, the mechanical mind behind it is even madder than
some of your relatives (which is saying a lot). Your first step is to get a tool to help you out, and you soon have your
trusty wrench. You've also brought one of your creations, a trusty
dingbot, to get into places you can't reach yourself.
You go about avoiding the castle's traps, and solving puzzles. You're soon build a bench to create more tools, such as a means to cross chasms, and a coffee machine to help you recover lost health. And your journey brings you into contact with characters readers of the comic will recognize, some helpful, others trying to stop you.
Like with Planet Crafter, the game has a free demo that allows you to try before you buy. It ends just after Agatha's first big challenge to defeat the castle's mechanical minions. But you can be assured this is only the beginning.
Girl Genius: Adventures in Castle Heterodyne is single player, as there can only be one Agatha, as that one impostor is soon about to find out.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789370/Girl_Genius_Adventures_In_Castle_Heterodyne/ Palia
Palia is one of a new genre of MMOs, the "cozy MMO." While in other multiplayer games fighting is either a big part of the action or the big thing, and you can easily get yourself hurt or killed, this isn't the case here. Palia is a game with no player death, and you proceed more or less at your own pace.
Players play the part of one of a number of humans, who for some reason have been appearing around the world of Palia after supposedly being gone for thousands of years, for reasons not yet known. The player appears at a temple, and after being greeted by one of the local Majiri is shown to Kilima Village, which has been integrating other humans. The player is given a plot of land to build a home and garden, and various villagers provide some simple tools and a few words about them.
As time goes on, you'll improve your relations with the various villagers, some who are more happy and curious to see you than others, as well as improving your various skills which range from foraging to cooking and even bug-catching. You can sell what you gather at the general store, though some people will also take certain items off your hands. And you can also improve your home from the tent you initially get.
You'll also be going on quests, some to help out your neighbors. Others are to explore the runs of nearby structures to try and find out what happened to the humans of the old world so long ago. You'll find various clues, which eventually get the attention of people from outside and bringing in a new character interested in what's going on.
But the game is very much an MMO. You can make friends with other gamers, and request items (to keep people from advancing too quickly, you can only request things you've had at least once). Showing off what you've done with your house is also part of the game, and you can vote on how other houses look, as well as putting up yours to be voted on. There are also occasional festivals in the game, in which you get tickets based in part on how well you did and part on how well everyone else did. Oh, and the "flow trees" that you'll need for better wood, they take at least two people to chop down. Fortunately people in public chat point out where they are, as well as nodes for pallium ore.
You can also customize your character, and house. But certain modifications such as player pets can only be done through real-life money purchases, which is how the game makers get their money. There's also games of "Hot Pot" you can play with other players.
Palia is available on both Steam, and Epic Games.
Want a more detailed review of one of these games, or want to see more? Let us at the Newser know.
Bixyl Shuftan
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