Northern
Tale by Realore is another game like My Kingdom to the Princess. Far north, the
three daughters of the king have been abducted and cursed by an evil witch and
now their father and his men travel the lands of summer, autumn, and winter to
find them. The game is both very beautiful and quite difficult. There is an
overkill of objects to pick up at the beginning of every level and it’s far too
easy in many levels to work in the wrong direction and find yourself in a dead
end. Yet the game also is very nice to play and a lot of fun. The graphics, the
few, but beautiful cut scenes, and the demanding gameplay make it a game
definitely worth the money.
Dark
Parables: The Red Riding Hood Sisters is the fourth game in the Dark Parables
series by Blue Tea Games. Again, you are sent out as a detective to find out
more about a strange occurrence. This time, a strange woman has appeared in a
French forest, commanding a group of huge, black, red-eyed wolves. The Red
Riding Hood Sisters, a group of huntresses founded by the original Red Riding
Hood, are supposed to help you, but it turns out you will have to help them
instead. As every Blue Tea Games production, the fourth Dark Parables is very
beautiful and has a great gameplay. It’s a
FROG (Fragmented Object Game), meaning that instead of looking for a
list of objects in the search scenes, you are looking for parts of an object.
The story evolves slowly throughout the game, you unlock several short stories
connected to the main story. The Collector’s Edition also includes a little
prequel story that tells how the portal was opened and the mist wolves were unleashed into the
world. As FROGs are rare among the huge group of HOGs out everywhere, Dark
Parables is always worth a shot, and the story of the game is very well told,
too. A good game, even though most people might want to wait for the SE with
it.
FTL: Faster
Than Light by Subset Games is not a casual game in a strict sense. It is out at
GOG and Steam by now and it is priced like a casual game (for non-members at the
usual portals like BFG and GOG). It’s a space strategy game with a few nice
twists. Instead of putting groups of ships against each other, you travel with
one ship through the galaxy, trying to bring information from one end to the other.
You will encounter only one enemy ship in a sector (not in each sector, but in
most), but will have to use your weapons strategically to bring it down. In addition
you have to route and reroute power inside the ship every now and then,
balancing out shields, weapons, life support, controls, and drive. Battles
bring you scrap (the currency) and droid parts (that you can use, once you have
a droid control center). You upgrade the ship and the systems and you can unlock
various types of ships over time. Yet the game is terribly hard, there is so
much that can happen (from fires and breaches of the hull to invading aliens),
and there are many, many ways to die. I have yet to make it to the end once
with a ship, sector 5 (half time) was the furthest I have gotten so far. The
game gives you a new, randomly created galaxy every time, so you can’t just
learn which sectors to avoid, you have to make up a strategy for dealing with
all the problems every time – which makes the game great and challenging. FTL
is going to test your frustration tolerance, that much is for sure. But if you
tolerance is high enough, it’s a great game to get and it will keep you
occupied for a long time.
That’s it with the casual corner this
month, see you all at the end of October!
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