19th July
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing. This week, Bertie makes it to Room 46 and also tries his hand at speedrunning, and Tom O pretends he’s not playing Rematch.
What have you been playing?
Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.
Blue Prince
Watch on YouTube
Room 46, at last, and I almost didn’t open it. I almost flubbed it.
I’d set up the moment well. I’d gotten to the Antechamer with plenty of steps to spare and I knew where to lift the final lever to reveal the fabled door – I had the groundwork laid, as it were (I’m trying not to give anything away) – but for some reason it didn’t occur to me at the time that it was possible. I almost ended the day because I thought I’d run out of things to do until – pop! – the idea occurred to me. ‘I can do this.’
I made a hash of it. I went backwards and forwards at least one more time than I needed to, and came perilously close to running out of steps, but eventually, I pulled that lever and revealed the door – gasp! – and went to go and try it. I was out of keys at this point and assumed it would be locked, though, so I was as much crossing things off for the next run as expecting to find anything. There were also mysteries yet to be solved so I didn’t think I was near the end – an end – to the game. But then I placed my hand on the handle and opened the door and the screen faded to black, and a long outro cinematic played, and the credits rolled.
I felt odd.
It didn’t seem right somehow. The game didn’t seem finished. Of course, it never does claim to be. There’s actually quite a lot of encouragement to keep going once those credits roll and you re-enter the mansion again, so there are deeper things still to discover. But some of my enthusiasm for the hunt has faded. I’m not sure how to feel about this weird partial ending yet.
-Bertie
Guess the Game, my phone
In the interest of not being exceedingly boring, today I am properly writing about a game that isn’t Rematch, although it’s more of a game of games. I’ve been passing a few minutes after dinner each evening by dazzling my son with my extreme competence at Guess the Game.
I can’t remember exactly when this arrived, but it was around the time Wordle spawned a million niche variations. Given my job has been video games for over 20 years, I’m pretty good at Guess the Game, which is especially great when I’m sitting next to my son who believes he knows everything and I know very little (because I don’t play Fortnite).
“That’s Tekken 7,” I’ll casually say, as if it’s nothing. Boom! Got it in one, my son’s head spinning as he realises his father’s genius. “What about this one?” he asks, a face with about as much clue as there is food left on his plate. “Onimusha,” I’ll nonchalantly offer up, as if it’s all a walk in the park to me. “There are loads of them,” my son says in reply, clearly hoping I can’t pick the exact one.
“Warlords” I say, half guessing, half hoping, half expecting to need to Google it if that’s wrong.
“Damn, how do you do it?” he says. “I am simply a god,” I should reply. I don’t. “Just know a lot, don’t I.”
He’s impressed, for now.
-Tom O
Jetrunner, PC
I’ve got a lot of time for games that are straight to the point, and Jetrunner is definitely straight to the point. It just begins; there you are, go. I like that.
Jetrunner is a first-person acrobatic speedrunner shooter. If you know Neon White, it’s a bit like that. If you don’t know Neon White then think of a dextrous first-person shooter like Mirror’s Edge, but make the entire point of it seeing how quickly you can clear a level.
There are a few considerations to clearing a level. The primary one is shooting the glowing blue bullseye targets you’ll see hovering around. But in order to do so, you’ll need a gun with laser blob ammunition, which is either supplied in a very limited quantity at the start of a level, or not at all, meaning you’ll need to separately pick it up from somewhere on the level. Miss your shots and you’ll put pressure on your ammunition reserves.
Secondly, you’ll need super-jump pick ups. You can jump normally as a baseline move, and dash, and wallrun, and slide, but the super-jump is the level-linking ability you’ll need to really get around. Your consideration becomes your route, then. Follow the obvious route and hit all your jumps and shots and you’ll finish the map in a silver or gold time, but if you want to go higher, to get the special badge, you’ll need to rethink your way around. Look again: are there any shortcuts you can take? This is the game.
The implementation is great. It reminds me of the Trials series of games in how immediately replayable it is. You try, you fail somehow – you fall into the water – and then, whoosh, you rewind quickly and you begin again. It’s almost instantaneous, meaning there’s very little downtime, if any, between attempts. And that’s crucial because it’s the incremental progress you make as you puzzle a level out that is the looped experience of the game.
Jetrunner is bright, playful, enthusiastic and, from what little I’ve played of it, very well made. There’s a Jetrunner demo on Steam now.
-Bertie
