Once upon a time I made a blog about video games. And this is what's left of it (mostly tweets).

1 April

Frostpunk’s final timelapse of the player’s entire playthrough is a lovely cherry on top of an excellently designed game.

# 2020/04/01 - 02:13 — published on @commandergaroo

Frostpunk (PC) — 9/10

It’s not often I reach the end of a city management game. Well, for one thing, city management games don’t usually have endings — but the addition of a meaty narrative is exactly what kept involved until the end.

# 2020/04/01 - 01:55

I can’t believe we made it! See, I’m worth putting in charge of the apocalypse!

# 2020/04/01 - 01:43 — published on @garooscreens

Well, I guess I’ll go to hell then

# 2020/04/01 - 01:41 — published on @garooscreens

Wow, you really pay for how good and beautiful Frostpunk is by way of interminable freezes every time the game saves, once your town is big enough to matter.

# 2020/04/01 - 00:27 — published on @commandergaroo

30 March

This is gorgeous — I just spent half an hour lying on my floor, looking at the kaleidoscopic ceiling

# 2020/03/30 - 20:45 — published on @commandergaroo

This game is amazing #SevenScrolls

# 2020/03/30 - 15:20 — published on @garooscreens

@deadendthrills:

Thumper. [deadendthrills.com]

# 2020/03/30 - 12:56 — original tweet by @deadendthrills

@ff00aa:

CGA graphics looked good if you used the NTSC composite output 😯 [youtu.be]

# 2020/03/30 - 12:53 — original tweet by @ff00aa

29 March

@benz145:

It’s interesting that VR players who use joystick locomotion end up using room-scale movements much less often. Watching people play HLA with joystick; where I would have just taken a step forward, people are doing lots of micro movements to adjust their position.

# 2020/03/29 - 21:38 — original tweet by @benz145

I’d never wanted to buy Seven Scrolls because, um, the art, but after getting it for free from itchio I immediately bought it on iOS

# 2020/03/29 - 18:39 — published on @commandergaroo

28 March

Has no one modeled The Fountain’s space tree in VR yet?

# 2020/03/28 - 23:21 — published on @commandergaroo

Aaaannd ten minutes of virtual swimming is all that I can take.

# 2020/03/28 - 20:08 — published on @commandergaroo

Freediver: Triton Down likes to spawn the player with the head right above the water, which makes sense for the subject matter and is also extremely unsettling. (I can’t swim.)

# 2020/03/28 - 19:51 — published on @commandergaroo

Wolves in the Walls is fantastic

As far as passive VR narrative experiences go, they’ve done an excellent job of adding interactivity to make you part of the story without it feeling forced.

# 2020/03/28 - 15:57 — published on @commandergaroo

Huh, I didn’t even know Minecraft Earth was out. It… doesn’t make a great first impression, does it.

# 2020/03/28 - 11:35 — published on @commandergaroo

@CodeerStudio:

Procedural animation in 10 steps

#madewithunity #unitytips #unity3d #gamedev #indiedev

# 2020/03/28 - 09:46 — original tweet by @CodeerStudio

27 March

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this ‘game’ here before, but there’s no better time to start making daily offerings to pagan idols (it’s free)

# 2020/03/27 - 22:51 — published on @commandergaroo

@phacktweets:

Surprise! Tilt Brush is available right now on PlayStation VR!

I wrote some mildly curated words:

[blog.us.playstation.com]

# 2020/03/27 - 16:04 — original tweet by @phacktweets

26 March

I’ve been thinking all afternoon about how I’d go about designing my own escape-room VR game but, like all my ideas these days: this too shall pass.

# 2020/03/26 - 20:53 — published on @commandergaroo

Well, that’s The Room VR finished, in three hours according to Steam. It’s… okay, I guess. My bad for expecting too much, but I feel like Fireproof has done so much with touchscreen puzzles, they could have made more of an effort to take advantage of VR.

# 2020/03/26 - 20:48 — published on @commandergaroo

The Room VR (PC) — 6/10

# 2020/03/26 - 20:03

Needless to say, my appreciation of the game isn’t helped by having played Alyx earlier this week. I particularly wish I could teleport freely to explore the scene — take a hint from Valve and use lighting to emphasize active areas, instead of restricting my movement.

# 2020/03/26 - 15:44 — published on @commandergaroo

There’s a puzzle early on where you have to move an object around in your hand to activate it, and I wanted a lot more of that.

# 2020/03/26 - 15:42 — published on @commandergaroo

Looks like I’m 3/4 of the way through The Room VR… which makes sense considering the price. I’m not sure why they had to make a new game instead of porting the old ones, when very few of the puzzles actually take advantage of VR. It’s… fine, I guess 🤷🏻‍♂️

# 2020/03/26 - 15:41 — published on @commandergaroo

I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong with it, but Fireproof Games needs a new wood shader / textures / something. Big wooden structures have always looked a bit cheap in The Room games, but VR makes it that much worse.

# 2020/03/26 - 14:20 — published on @commandergaroo

25 March

Finally! I feel like it’s taken me forever to get there this time around (already played it on Xbox a while back) but Steam only says 15 hours played, which is not all that unreasonable.

# 2020/03/25 - 21:02 — published on @garooscreens

OH MY GOD I HATE MY DUMB GAME-CONDITIONED BRAIN

# 2020/03/25 - 18:44 — published on @commandergaroo

Yesterday I left Alyx after encountering three heavy Combines in ten minutes and I don’t feel particularly impatient to get back in. I wish Valve’s first AAA VR game didn’t have to be a Half-Life game.

# 2020/03/25 - 15:14 — published on @commandergaroo

@iamleyeti:

Empires to Ages: Storytelling Lessons Learned in 14 Years at BioWare [youtu.be] is a fantastic talk about TRUST and how you build TRUST with your TEAM. Must watch for every #narrativedesign people

# 2020/03/25 - 14:54 — original tweet by @iamleyeti