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no sense of restraint
Feb. 13th, 2019 10:57 pmI got a few games during Steam's Lunar New Year sale, despite having an enormous backlog of games already and a dwindling budget. At least this time, I actually played them instead of letting them sit uninstalled in my library forever. Some thoughts:
Strange Telephone
Okay, this wasn't actually part of the sale, but I did have a coupon for it that was about to expire. Strange Telephone is a pixel adventure game where you play as Jill, a girl who wakes up locked in a strange room. A floating, living phone named Graham serves as her only method of leaving the room: by dialing any six digit number, Jill can connect to a random "world" which may or may not have something that will help her escape to her own world.
The creator cites Yume Nikki as a direct inspiration for Strange Telephone, and while they share the same pixelated, eerie-cute aesthetic and gameplay that focuses on finding items and using them to interact with the strange worlds you encounter, Strange Telephone is more directed and linear than Yume Nikki, and less unsettling as well. It's also much smaller in scope; even though the potential number combinations you can call exceed 3 million, there are only 10 or so world 'templates' available, and each world is the size of a single screen length. (Exiting the world by walking off screen sends you to another number based on what your initial dial, i.e. if you dialed 222222, then walked off-screen right, you'd be in world 222223. I called about 7 numbers (2 given to you at the start of the game, then 5 numbers from my IRL address book) and between them I managed to see every generic world within an hour. The variety comes from the creatures and interactable items you find within each world, but there are not a lot of characters or items either so the fun that comes from exploring wears out quickly.
Being an adventure/escape the room game, there are a fair amount of puzzles. Unfortunately, they're not done particularly well; the clues given are pretty vague (if any are given at all) and a lot of puzzles lead to alternate endings and thus end up being self-contained--having absolutely no bearing on solving the major puzzle of the game, unlocking the door in your room. Thankfully, it's easy enough to brute-force most puzzles just by using your entire inventory on any object or character you come across. Eventually something will happen.
I ended up clearing the game in about 4 hours (11 endings, all items, completed library) and while it was an enjoyable game I probably won't be returning to it again.
....and I was going to write more, but I'm falling asleep at my desk so I'll continue tomorrow.
Strange Telephone
Okay, this wasn't actually part of the sale, but I did have a coupon for it that was about to expire. Strange Telephone is a pixel adventure game where you play as Jill, a girl who wakes up locked in a strange room. A floating, living phone named Graham serves as her only method of leaving the room: by dialing any six digit number, Jill can connect to a random "world" which may or may not have something that will help her escape to her own world.
The creator cites Yume Nikki as a direct inspiration for Strange Telephone, and while they share the same pixelated, eerie-cute aesthetic and gameplay that focuses on finding items and using them to interact with the strange worlds you encounter, Strange Telephone is more directed and linear than Yume Nikki, and less unsettling as well. It's also much smaller in scope; even though the potential number combinations you can call exceed 3 million, there are only 10 or so world 'templates' available, and each world is the size of a single screen length. (Exiting the world by walking off screen sends you to another number based on what your initial dial, i.e. if you dialed 222222, then walked off-screen right, you'd be in world 222223. I called about 7 numbers (2 given to you at the start of the game, then 5 numbers from my IRL address book) and between them I managed to see every generic world within an hour. The variety comes from the creatures and interactable items you find within each world, but there are not a lot of characters or items either so the fun that comes from exploring wears out quickly.
Being an adventure/escape the room game, there are a fair amount of puzzles. Unfortunately, they're not done particularly well; the clues given are pretty vague (if any are given at all) and a lot of puzzles lead to alternate endings and thus end up being self-contained--having absolutely no bearing on solving the major puzzle of the game, unlocking the door in your room. Thankfully, it's easy enough to brute-force most puzzles just by using your entire inventory on any object or character you come across. Eventually something will happen.
I ended up clearing the game in about 4 hours (11 endings, all items, completed library) and while it was an enjoyable game I probably won't be returning to it again.
....and I was going to write more, but I'm falling asleep at my desk so I'll continue tomorrow.
