This is an excellent game in every respect. Executes perfectly on the goals you set. I really appreciate the positioning of the text section with the angled bar, and the little emotion icons that come out of the characters heads. And the sex, that's great too.
covertoperator
Recent community posts
I was trying out parsec for the first time, and most of the games we tried were lame or didn't work without a gamepad, but this game works like a charm!
The four game modes are simple fun and once you've tried each, you can mix and match them to make more complicated games.
One bug report: when you unlock custom mode or a new rule for it, you have to press "A" on the gamepad to proceed. But there is no equivalent button for the keyboard. We didn't have a gamepad, so we had to close the game each time we unlocked a rule.
This game gives the players much more narrative power than most games. It's good about enumerating the domains where players have infinite narrative power, and where they must look to the game master.
I've been wanting to run games in a "Forgetful Sci-Fi Trolls" setting, and I'm happy to finally find a rules system that works well for it.
Bug on start (mac OS 10.14 Mojave, which is pre-Catalina)
$ /Users/covertoperator/Downloads/SlamFighterII-Mac64.app/Contents/MacOS/SlamFighterII-Mac64 ; exit; Mono path[0] = '/Users/covertoperator/Downloads/SlamFighterII-Mac64.app/Contents/Resources/Data/Managed' Mono config path = '/Users/covertoperator/Downloads/SlamFighterII-Mac64.app/Contents/Mono/etc' Player data archive not found at `/Users/covertoperator/Downloads/SlamFighterII-Mac64.app/Contents/Resources/Data/data.unity3d`, using local filesystem Abort trap: 6 logout Saving session... ...copying shared history... ...saving history... truncating history files... ...completed. [Process completed]
Abort Trap: 6 is the important part, I think. An error code or something. I can do testing on request.
I have the same issue. The camera cannot move beyond the range of -90 to 90 in any direction, using auto-targeting or manual. I cannot see the asteroid in mission two. It is stressful.
edit: I see you answered this below. I wasn't able to it.. what coordinates should it say on the screen when I am looking at the collision location?
Good: Evocative gameplay. Minimalist text-adventure style inspires imagination. Easy to explore and have fun without much risk of dying. World Building is pleasant with just enough detail; I'm taking inspiration for running sci-fi tabletop RPGs.
Bad: Little to no agency as a player. Control scheme (clicking on small buttons) is annoying.
Here's some additional instructions:
Water occupies the entire accessible area, and it can go through every tile type except Trees (it can go through the Farm tile, despite what the tutorial claims).
Water does not travel diagonally. Farms and Villages cannot connect to each other if the path is blocked by trees, and they cannot follow a path diagonally.
In the download, I get the app, and I get a "LWS_Launcher.app"
LWS Launcher throws an error when I run it, "LWS_Launcher.app" is damaged and can't be opened.
But I can run the app just fine on its own. It opens to the menu and I can click on Mercury, but when I get to the level select screen, clicking on a level doesn't do anything (besides play a 'click' sound).
MacOS 10.14.6 running on a Macbook Pro from mid 2012.
Graphics cards are: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1 GB, and Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB
I did not really enjoy this on its own, but I can see groundwork building up a to a great full version. (mild spoilers)
The graphics are good. The VN parts show emotion in the classic manga way, but don't go over the top. I like that.
Billing this as a puzzle is a bit of a stretch. The items gathering part was close to a puzzle, but didn't give you much information, so it didn't even feel like a problem-solving exercise. It felt like "interact with all the things and then move on."
I enjoyed the beginning of the part where it brought up what Kat's disappearance would mean for others, but there was no bite to the insult because (regardless of the canon), it didn't feel to me that Kat got herself into this situation. I would rework this part to include Kat hurting/insulting her [spoiler], and didn't get to apologize for. Bonus if she finds out that part of the ritual caused the hurt in the first place. Then you can add introspection later where Kat realizes what she should have done differently, and grows out of her immature mischievousness.
Rating of this short version is 4/10, but if this game gets a full version, I expect I'd give it 6/10.
The visuals and panel layout are a masterpiece!
Dino is a fun foil. I like how ze teases Avery for chickening out on something that ze can't do anyway.
I enjoyed the worldbuilding, but there is not enough 'show, don't tell.' in this first episode. Especially the reference to 'clicks,' would be improved by just integrating the money context into the dialog. For example, Avery: "five clicks was a lot of money for us back then!"
I had trouble reading the font, though it got easier by the end. I also would have preferred an e-reader layout as opposed to the print layout.
Review:
The levels are puzzle-like, but have a tense/action feeling that you don't find in puzzle games. Overall I enjoyed playing the game and seeing the characters succeed.
The writing was tense and conveyed the emotions of the protagonist in a way that matches up with how you feel after completing each level. However, the story was not engaging because the characters only have goals, not personality.
I felt really cool using the terminal interface, as it had some unique communication things in the beginning, and the parts where your platform is hacked, are surprising. Unfortunately, they didn't use it as much as I expected. This made the typing-to-interact interface a little annoying at the end.