I played through Bendy and the Ink Machine this month. This is a nice indie game with a retro aesthetic.

I will be covering some spoilers here, so don’t read on if you don’t want anything spoiled.

Gameplay

For me, gameplay over all was fun and entertaining. There was a combination of puzzles, action fighting, and scary-monster hiding.

Henry, the character you play, loses his weapon often. So gameplay transitions between puzzle solving, stealth, and fighting. I think this kept game play fresh and enemies interesting.

With that said, there were some moments that didn’t feel so good.

I played on the Switch, which was mostly fine, but there were some moments that it felt like mouse and keyboard were more appropriate. In particular, the corrupt Boris fight was hard because I couldn’t grab the ink globs fast enough and the second phase of the fight where Boris leap-attacks you if you are too far away was pretty unforgiving.

The last chapter, The Last Reel, was rough and in some ways disappointing to me.

Coming from the Boris fight, the experience was taking a bad turn because the gameplay didn’t feel fair. More specifically, the Switch controls didn’t seem to be working for me. (I’m primarily a PC gamer, so maybe that explains a bit too)

Clearing blobs from the wheel of the paddlewheel was a neat mechanic, but unforgiving if you don’t work quickly. Again, with the Switch controls, this was rough. If I spent too much time trying to aim for the control that makes the paddlewheel move forward, I would die.

After the paddlewheel, the onslaught of searchers, lost ones, and Sammy were a bit frustrating because it was too easy to die. I was unable to attack without getting hit. It’s possible my timing was just bad, but I think I was probably suppose to attack, turn around, and run away before the enemy attacked, which was too much on the Switch.

After this, there was the administration offices. I had to dodge the Butcher gang while retrieving blobs to create three pipes. This was a simple stealth sequence. I was tempted to cheese it by just running through the level, but instead I took my time to properly avoid the baddies.

Metroid II is one of the most memorable titles for me on the Gameboy. The game play, aesthetic, and soundtrack  are really good and create an immersive experience.

I remember being sucked into the alien world. The sounds and environment were strange and mysterious.

One memory that sticks with me is after defeating a metroid, sometimes the soundtrack/sound effects would change, giving the impression that my actions had somehow changed something, and adding to the suspense of what would happen next.

In all, this was a game that fully immersed me, encouraging me to explore and take my time, instead of trying to just get through each level. Investing the effort to solve puzzles was well worth it and gave a bit of an edge against the next baddie.

In 2017 Metroid: Samus Returns was released. This is a remake of Metroid II that sticks to the core of what made the classic, while bringing it up to modern times with some quality of life improvements and additional changes. It’s different, yet unmistakably Samus Returns.

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Being someone who wants to make games for a living, I find it disappointing how much I miss or don’t complete in the games I play. Time seems to slip away and I ask myself why I didn’t do more. One of my big goals this year and prior was to rediscover what I’m passionate about, what motivates me. Fantasy and games are two things I love.

July has been a month of reflection and trying to get back on track. Instead of talking about what and why hasn’t, I’m going to focus on what has happened and I want to happen.

Pre-patch Preparation

This month I’ve been preparing for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth. This includes taking care of some things so I don’t need to backtrack (ex. flying) and achieving some things before they go away for good (ex. artifact appearance).

First I want to reflect on my thoughts and feelings on flying being gated and in-game items (gear, appearances) going away after the expansion ends. I’ll bring Diablo III into this as well, as it has gear and other goodies it rewards players when they finish season achievements.

Flying

Even though it was way late into the expansion, I was able to gain my flying in Legion, something I didn’t do in Warlords of Draenor (previous expansion) . So this was a special feat for me. It was challenging given my availability, I am balancing games with family and side-programming. This means I have to be selective about what I invest my time in and it’s possible I won’t get what I want. It also means I need to be smarter about how I do things, something I’m still learning.

Not having flying during the leveling experience definitely helps with immersion. Flying makes it easier to escape and access areas more easily, but waters down or nullifies the experience of exploring and adventuring because the danger is no longer there and discovery isn’t as much of a challenge anymore. In this way, I appreciate what current and past expansions have done when they lock down flying. It makes the danger and achievements feel that more real.

With that said, achieving flying in Legion was a challenge and I had to step away from it at some point. I found myself stuck in progressing through the main storyline because of a reputation gate and my timing was off for dungeons and raids. I tried chipping away at the rep, but at the time I still had at least three factions to gain reputation with and it felt cumbersome.

When I came back to the achievement, I had a more focused effort by only doing world quests for one faction at a time and using WoWHead to get passed the quest blocker I was running into. I also finally knuckled down and completed some quests in raids.

I’m hoping in Battle for Azeroth I will have an easier time keeping up with the rep grind, I think that’s the biggest factor that made me step away. As much of a pain it was, being challenged to get flying made the expansion better. I experienced the full content when I would have skipped out on Suramar and missed the conclusion of that questline.