Merychippus to all who celebrate!

AGR Day 25 GOTY: BLUE PRINCE Unquestionably my GOTY. This game started slow for me ("why are there so little interactions?") but once I got a specific room, the whole thing blew wide open. TL;DR: This is the new MYST. It has reached that level of greatness, uniqueness and puzzle cleverness 1/5

Gee I wonder what my AGR Day 25 GOTY will be? It's a real wonder, it can't be the game I haven't shut up about since it came out and haven't featured here yet, what a mystery it's gonna be. See ya tomorrow, then!

AGR Day 24: HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG After a long wait, it's finally here, it's Silksong! And it more than makes up for the wait. This game is challenging, beautifully crafted, the controls are tight and the map is GIGANTIC. Some design decisions boggle my mind though, I'll get into that 1/4

IT'S FUCKING CHRISTMAS (Decent) Game studios close during Christmas time. Let them rest for Pete's sake. The game will be fixed when they come back. Just tough it out, goddamn. Anyways Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays

once again you fools have prejudged someone based on their previous patterns of behavior and existing incentives

Gamers. It’s time

AGR Day 23: ARC RAIDERS The game surprised the hell out of me, not because of its stellar sound design, or the ARC's amazing AI (although they're really impressive), but because its game design is balanced in a way that encourages friendly gameplay in a PvPvE environment. That's tough! 1/3

This is funny to me because when I made redacted documents for NITE Team 4, we used the black highlighter tool and anticipated that players would mouse over it to get details, so we just replaced the text with NICETRYNICETRY. Our hacking game thought about security more than your government lol

aint no way lmfao

Every Perfect Dark level has a hidden piece of cheese in it. You can't interact with them and there are no rewards for finding them all. I found them all

tl;dr: GenAI and game design concepts traditionally referred to as "AI" (enemy behaviors, pathfinding, etc.) are not the same thing, and I'm on my knees begging people to learn the difference, lest we see more bullshit claims like what The Escapist put out re: Blue Prince.

AGR Day 22: THE WANDERING VILLAGE This is a multi-level city builder where you have to manage your villagers and also the giant beast you're living on top of. You have to constantly adapt and prepare as your giant home lumbers through different biomes, affecting your crops, water supply, etc 1/2

There is no AI used in Blue Prince. The game was built and crafted with full human instinct by Tonda Ros and his team at @dogubomb.bsky.social. It is the result of eight years of development, fuelled by imagination and creativity, and we are extremely proud of what Tonda has achieved.

AGR Day 21: THE ALTERS What makes you, you? This nail-biting survival game has the best philosophical theme I've seen in a game since Talos Principle. You're stranded on an alien planet and the only way to survive is to clone yourself by choosing different paths in pivotal moments of your life 1/4

AGR Day 20: ESCAPE SIMULATOR 2 As a giant puzzle nerd, I love escape rooms and the second installation of Escape Sim adds better graphics and a different variety of interactions with some really clever puzzles. I used the hint system a bit and they can be hit or miss, but I had a great time 1/2

AGR Day 19: DISPATCH From ex-Telltale devs, this is a fun story about a superhero turned "guy on the computer", directing a bunch of supervillains seeking redemption. The characters are fun, fleshed out and well acted too! There's an overreliance on "fuck = funny" but it's still solid writing 1/3

Can a big mac do the needful and at the very least make the word "memorial" accurate?

Oh! I have to shoot at the guy? Is that why I lose 93% of my pvp battles?

Honestly some of the biggest loser shit I've ever seen

AGR Day 18: BLOOD TYPERS Great idea for a game! You move around and attack by typing words in a throwback PS1 style survival shooter There's a wide variety of guns that change the way you type attacks, which I found very clever. To keep it fresh, all the levels are procedurally generated too 1/2

"they don't know how to express the idea" here's rian johnson's storyboard for knives out pick up a pencil and a napkin

NEW from me on @gamedeveloper.bsky.social: I wasn’t going to write about the Larian AI backlash. Then I woke up at 5:30 this morning with a whole dang blog in my head. How can you know if your workers are “okay” with using genAI tools if you have so much power over them should they push back?

oh….okay

And 4/4. Cheers to @iamgrahams.bsky.social for compiling these, and to our Discorders for pulling them together.

AGR Day 17: ELDEN RING: NIGHTREIGN It's more Elden Ring! Kinda! I love the changes they made to movement in Nightreign; no fall damage, you sprint as fast as Torrent and you get to use those big ass vent trampolines all by yourself! I also enjoy that you can use ANY weapon you get 1/3

The thing thats so insidious about using AI this way is that one of the main ways artists get hired are studios looking for art references and they find us and reach out. This is removing a major avenue to get work if they can just generate nameless derivations of our ideas.

AGR Day 16: SKIN DEEP If you like Immersive Sims, then this is the motherlode! You're the "insurance" when some cats get their spaceships invaded by pirates and there are so many different ways to dispatch these guys, it's honestly impressive! Blendo Games went silly with it and it works 1/2

Generative AI: worsen your reputation and mildly lower your productivity in one easy step.

we are tapping the sign once again

game devs need unions so when your boss tries to tell you all to use AI you can tell him to eat shit

"Everyone is more or less OK with how we use it" Or they don't want to tell you how they really feel because they don't want to lose their job. This sucks ass, btw.

Human artistic creation rules

AGR Day 15: HELL IS US This is a harrowing souls-like game that utilizes a knowledge system similar to Outer Wilds. I was blown away by the environments, which contrasts with horrific acts of human cruelty as you explore an area in the middle of a civil war I felt some Bloodborne vibes too 1/3

*yelling from inside the getting kicked in the nuts factory* it's actually insane that you guys won't come in here

If you're having a bad time you always have the option of taking an edible and rewatching Hundreds Of Beavers with your cat

There’s this thing I like to call LinkedIn writing where people describe some normal ass daily experience as if they’re telling a grand parable that always has to end with how this experience is actually good for the business grindset mindset

AGR Day 14: RHYTHM DOCTOR A fun rhythm game that uses only 1 button, and it's amazing the amount of mechanics they can fit in there with that. The music was boppin' and the characters were unique & charming! It's kinda crazy what they pulled off for those boss fights (no spoilers). Play it on PC!

AGR Day 13: WHEEL WORLD Another short n sweet game, this time about bike riding! The controls are smooth and the environment looks very pretty, not to mention the chill soundtrack playing as you ride around looking for challengers. It was pretty easy, not gonna lie, but very cozy and relaxed 👍

AGR Day 12: CONSUME ME A semi-autobiographical game about dieting that really surprised me! I really like the silly and cute art style, especially the faces. This game's got good faces. The mini-games are fun too and it felt really rewarding how you could combo actions for more time. 1/2

Man it feels really weird to me because I played the game for about an hour and bounced off hard once I met the weird paintbrush folks To me it was just another turn-based RPG with a good story, like Persona, which I also never got into. Anyways, good for them, but that many noms is a bit excessive

Oh ho ho ho yeah This looks fantastic!

AGR Day 11: IS THIS SEAT TAKEN? A cute logic puzzler where you have to give people their perfect seats, and boy are these people picky. Big fan of the art style, they've got those cute snipperclips type faces and everything else is bathed in warm colours. It's a nice cozy game to sip tea to.

Stealworkers

I don’t think I need to watch the game awards but I’ll enjoy watching the reactions on Bluesky

Ok I changed my mind, I want everyone to use GenAi but only to produce the filthiest, most legally damaging porn featuring wholesome Disney characters and various real-life Disney executives.