Completionist Challenge, update, RDR2, Uncharted Lost Legacy...

I decided to up the challenge level of my 'Completionist Challenge'!

I started in August with RDR2, but when I started this I had no clear end point for what I wanted to achieve.  I've decided that I will finish 10 games before I'm allowed to buy any new ones (though I am allowed to play things if I get them for Christmas - if I get Ring Fit Adventure I don't want to wait months until I can play it!).  This is my attempt to try and halt the terrible digital store habit that most of us have these days where we buy lots of games and never finish them.  (Seb's Dad is really bad when it comes to this!)

Anyway, I'm never going to totally 100% every bit of the games I play, particularly when they're games I can't play when Seb's around.  But I'm going for the trophy that says the game is completed and as much of the other stuff as I can do...

Onto RDR2, then.  I completed the Epilogue, and had a bit of a go at Online, and did as many of the additional things as I could face doing, and I ended up playing for 100 hours in total (yikes!).  That's 4 days, 4 hours and 6 minutes, according to the Rockstar Social Club app.

Proof that I completed the game!

The rarest trophy I received was this one, with a completion rate of only 4.2%.  I think this was for collecting all the fish.  I'm not sure people would have been happy if they'd known that having received their vital mission I'd wandered off and done some fishing in a remote lake somewhere.  But then there are some weird quests on here.  Posting fish and dead squirrels in the post is, let's face it, pretty weird.  These games make you do some weird stuff.

My rarest trophy

I have to say I couldn't bring myself to do some of the bad stuff in the game; I was (mostly) a good guy, and I couldn't bring myself to do a 180 and start murdering and robbing everyone just to get a better completion rate!

After the epic 100 hours of roaming the (not so) Wild West I thought I'd do a shorter game, so I turned to Uncharted: Lost Legacy.  This is a mini Uncharted featuring Chloe and Nadine - an all girl lineup!  I probably enjoyed it more than Uncharted 3.  (I still haven't played Uncharted 4, I think that'll be part of my challenge...)  Not as much random stuff to do here.  I never get many trophies with these, partly because I'm rubbish at finding those ridiculous treasures.  But hey.  I did it!  And it only took 8 hours and 45 minutes.  Hooray!

I completed it!

My rarest trophy here wasn't particularly rare, but the game didn't have loads of trophies.  Still, I found all the tokens and obtained the Queen's Ruby, with which I could wander around and find more treasures, if I wanted to...

Claudia Black did a great job with the voice acting, and the story was pretty good.  Uncharted games are always formulaic, after all.  I did find it odd that sometimes you can't do jumps that look achievable (if that's not the right way) and sometimes you can manage ridiculous jumps (because that's the right way to go).  It makes sense, from a linear story pathfinding point of view, but it's irksome!

Those are the two games I've completed so far, then, 2/10.  I'm going to have to find some shorter games to play, because stupidly I've started Assassin's Creed Odyssey.  Ho hum.  I'm also doing the third chapter of The Long Dark, though, so I'll count that.  Otherwise it will take me forever to complete 10 whole games. 

Parenting is hard sometimes.  Really cuts down on your gaming time.  ;-)

Ramble: video game music, not just for video games!

I've had a few things buzzing around in my head lately but none of them have actually made it as far as this blog.  Ah well.  The thing I've been enjoying recently, both my myself and with Seb, is video game music.  We've watched a fair bit of YouTube to do with music (more on that later) and I just drove home listening to BBC Sounds, specifically the new Sound of Gaming programme that was on on Saturday on Radio 3. 

Sound of Gaming is a new show hosted by Jessica Curry, and the first episode featured Grant Kirkhope, who has written music for lots of Rare games, and was the first western composer to write music for a Mario game.  I've seen The Completionist raving about Grant's music, so it was interesting to hear how he ended up being a video game composer, and how he feels about the job.

(Basically, he thinks games should get melodies stuck in your head, you should be able to hear the songs a million times without getting tired of them, and it's a hard job because you have to write a LOT of music for a game and sometimes all the direction you get is 'you're in a forest'..!)

If you've played video games then chances are you've had music from them stuck in your head.  Sometimes this may not be a welcome thing, but other times it's a pleasure re-living it.  If game music is good enough, there will be plenty of people out there doing their own versions.  Which brings me to what we've been watching on YouTube lately...

First off is the 8BitDrummer.  This guy made Seb get out the electronic drumpads he has and start playing again.  Seb was drumming along to his renditions of the entire Just Shapes and Beats soundtrack.  He's a good drummer, sure (I mean the 8BitDrummer, not Seb, though perhaps he will be great one day!), but also he's entertaining and chats with people messaging him as he plays.  It's great fun watching him.

Next there's FamilyJules.  This channel has some awesome stuff on it - brilliant guitar, but also some instruments you might not expect!  Or that you might expect, if you're thinking about it a lot, hmm...  I mean, one of the latest videos on the channel is a version of a piece of Zelda music that has a classical guitar section, and also an ocarina section.  Seb said he had never seen an ocarina before, though I know for sure we have at least three upstairs.  (I don't know why.)  If you like a blend of metal guitar, classical and ocarina, then look no further.

Moving onto something more serious, a ramble about music would hardly be complete without mentioning Lindsey Stirling.  She plays the violin, but she's played game themes, such as Assassin's Creed, whilst dressed as an assassin.  Other games include Zelda and Skyrim.  Lots of game soundtracks have strings in them, so plenty of material for violinists. 

Yes, plenty of material for violinists, that handily portable and versatile stringed instrument.  Another proponent of the violin is the highly entertaining Rob Landes, whose cosplay skills are on another level entirely.  I think I may have mentioned him before, but he has done tons and tons of game music videos.  This is his video about the evolution of video game music...

I think that's enough links to videos.  I love how much quality stuff is on YouTube.  I love that video games are inspiring kids to get into music.  Seb wants to be a video game music composer when he grows up, and apparently that's a common thing these days.  And why not?  And I love that the music in these games is being valued enough on its own merits to get its own programme on Radio 3.  That's Radio 3, whose focus is on classical music.  And they were playing a chiptune composition from Shovel Knight! 

What more can I say?  This makes me happy!!

Studio Focus: Frontier

I couldn't think what to blog about (I think playing RDR2 has melted my mind, I just keep getting Bon Jovi's 'Dead or Alive' in my head).  So, I've decided to write about another UK games developer, Frontier.  Frontier has a special place in Dad's heart, even if not so much mine or Seb's - he had the original Elite (released in 1984) on the Spectrum and then the Amiga (it had better graphics).  He says this is because he liked flying space ships and selling things, but I expect that's a simplification.  Elite has certainly influenced a lot of games, and continues to be a big success in its latest incarnation, Elite Dangerous (PEGI-7).

Elite on the Spectrum!

But it's not just about Elite.  Frontier's founder, David Braben, has been hugely influential in the world of computers than just the area of space-trading games, some fruit thing... (now I'm thinking about Forrest Gump).  But more on that later...

Braben released Frontier: Elite 2 in 1993 and in 1994 he founded Frontier Developments.  In 1995 the next Elite game, Frontier: First Encounters was released.  And in 2003 along came a massive new IP - Rollercoaster Tycoon.  Originally published in 1999, Frontier managed the 2003 X-Box port, and created the two expansion packs for Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, "Wacky Worlds" and "Time Twister".  And in 2004 the entirely Frontier-created Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 was released.

In the mid-2000s Frontier struggled, as the The Outsider was abandoned due to removal of publisher support.  (I wrote previously about the struggles Revolution had in the mid-2000s, before they started self-publishing.  And, like Revolution, Frontier also turned to Kickstarter in 2012.)  What was a dark time has, thankfully, turned around, thanks to changes like self-publishing and also opportunities to work with Microsoft on things like Kinectimals.

“What's interesting now, as the dynamic has changed, and we no longer have to persuade a publisher, but we have to understand those risks and take them ourselves,” Braben described. “I think the world has changed. We've seen a lot of new approaches to games, that I think in the older days probably would've been really hard to get through. And there are a lot of perceptions, I think, in how you market a game ... that you need a character and all this sort of thing, and without that it won't sell ... that lead to games going down a different route."

 - David Braben talking to James Brightman (GameDaily.biz) in 2018

The Kickstarter game in 2012 was Elite: Dangerous (PEGI-7), and that has been followed by a whole slew of successful games.  There's 2016's Planet Coaster (PEGI-3), 2018's Jurassic World Evolution (PEGI-16) and the brand new Planet Zoo.  You might have seen some YouTubers starting to play this.  It looks fun!  And educational.  ;-)

So today Frontier is busy creating new space-related content, as well as releasing new games like Planet Zoo.  They have over 400 employees working for them, with their headquarters in Cambridge, UK.

But the fruit, thing, then..?  I'm guessing you know I'm talking about Raspberry Pi.

In 2003 David Braben, Jack Lang, Pete Lomas, Alan Mycroft, Robert Mullins and Eben Upton met at a computer lab at Cambridge University and thought about the problem of getting more kids into coding.  Why wasn't coding being taught at school?  Where were the people they needed in the industry?  Where were the people applying to be students?  The world needed a cheap computer that was easy to program.  And so they created the Raspberry Pi. 

The BBC weren't interested, despite their history with the BBC Micro.  But Rory Cellan-Jones, a BBC journalist, recorded David Braben talking about the Pi and posted it on his blog, and it went viral.  The BBC still weren't interested, but there was so much demand that the foundation could do it all on their own.

There are code clubs, coding is on the national curriculum... things have definitely changed for the better.

(Check out this article in the New Statesman (2017) for lots more Pi facts!)

So, that's Frontier.  Not only have they made space-trading what it is today, they've hugely influenced sim-type games and David Braben and the Raspberry Pi foundation have given kids around the world the chance to have access to a cheap, programmable computer that can be used for all sorts of things. 

Hooray!

Follow them on Twitter @frontierdev.

Just started watching: Kindly Keyin

Actually, we have been watching Kindly Keyin for a while now, but I just hadn't gotten around to mentioning it.  :-)

Seb says he's his joint number one YouTuber along with DanTDM.  It's great to have found him, since Seb loves watching him and he's totally family friendly.  However, he does have less appeal to grown-ups watching than some other YouTubers!

The thing I wonder about the most is how he stays sane.  I've looked through his last 50 videos and a massive 42% of them are Baldi-related.  Playing that much Baldi-related stuff would certainly drive me insane - I never knew there were so many strange Baldi mods out there.  What a terrifying world we live in.

(Because I am a sad, sad person I have made this pie chart showing my analysis of Keyin's videos.)

Kindly Keyin's last 50 videos (as of 7th September 2019)

I think Keyin is about 30 and lives in California.  It's hard to find out much about him.  But that's ok, it's great that he's actually managed to retain some mystery.  One thing we do know is that he had a baby in February.  Little Seth is, I suppose, one of the first kids to grow up with a famous YouTuber for a dad.  Not only does he have that, he's also starring in some pretty cute Father/Son Minecraft videos with his dad.  (He likes to play with the keyboard, understandably.)

I find the whole YouTubers growing up and having kids thing fascinating - I wonder what changes the arrival of DanTDM's kid will bring to his channel!

Anyway, I think Seth's arrival has made Keyin more watchable, if anything, since now there are baby comments dropped in that parents will appreciate (such as about tummy time in today's giant baby one that Seb was watching).  Having a baby is the biggest thing you'll do in your life, so it's great to see a dad looking after his kid on YouTube.  Perhaps this affects me more since Seb's dad gave up work to be a stay at home dad, and I know there's not a lot of positive Father/Son stuff out there.

Anyway, if you like Baldi (if you are a child of a certain age), then Kindly Keyin is ideal for you.  And if you're watching him as a grown-up with your kid, chose a Father/Son Minecraft episode.  They really are cute.  :-)

And I'm just gonna say, I'd never heard of the name Keyin before.  Is that a thing?  I guess it's a thing.  ;-)

Completionist Challenge, starting with RDR2!

For a while now it has bothered me that both Dad and I sit there and browse the PS Store/Steam looking at new games when we have loads sitting there that we've never finished.  (Dad is worse than me - he hardly finishes anything, for various reasons.)  I don't know why I do this - I have plenty of games that I've been meaning to finish, but what with work and Seb it's hard to find the time.  Especially if they're PEGI-18 and I don't want to play them while Seb's around.

I have games sitting there that I know will be fun, like Uncharted 4 and Dishonored 2, and I was given Assassin's Creed Odyssey for my 40th birthday.  My main problem is that I like open world type games where I have loads of thing to distract me, and I find it hard not to try and tick every box.  (I have to accept that I can't complete everything though, I'm not good enough to do the elite combat challenges in Assassin's Creed, like all the Elephants in Origins.)  But hey, I do a lot of the stuff, and I do the main story, so that counts.  I just don't have the time as a parent to be any more completionist.

One day I will get a platinum trophy...  They have eluded me as yet!

Anyway, I challenged Dad to finish some things, and I'm going to try and finish something I had been enjoying but stopped playing for a while - Red Dead Redemption 2 (PEGI-18).  Now, I know I won't get 100% completion on everything, but I'm going to do the main story and as much of the other stuff as possible.  I've already been playing it for (apparently) 2 days, 3 hours and 29 minutes, and I'm a little over halfway complete.

I am Arthur, the likeable murdering gang member...

I'm sure other parents have this problem with playing 18 certificate games - you only have a while each night while your child's in bed to play.  And you can't stay up as late as you used to, because you have to get up for work, and make your kid's lunch and get them up...  You know what it's like, if you have a kid.  Not that I'm complaining..!!

Thanks to the Rockstar Social Club you can get loads of progress stats.  Here is where I am currently:

...not good at being a bandit but great at exploring...

...which goes with the survivalist skills I guess...

...but not a big fan of weapons really...

...met lots of strangers but only halfway through missions...

...doing well apart from those gang hideouts...

...and one type of robbery (but I have had several baths)...

...and I don't know what those shacks are!

I'll keep you updated with my progress!  And we challenge YOU to try this too...

What games have you been meaning to finish for ages?

Game Review: Steamworld Dig 2

So, Steamworld Dig 2 (PEGI-7).  Seb has been playing this and he told me I should play it too - we've both finished it now.  And yet Dad, who bought it in the first place, has not finished it!  (He's not very good at finishing things.)  It was a great game to play on the Nintendo Switch, really suits the small screen pick up/put down format.

I hadn't played Steamworld Dig, Steamworld Heist or Steamworld Quest, so this was my first introduction to the Steamworld series.  There are five games altogether in the series now, you see - the first was a tower defence game, then the 'Dig' games are platformers, 'Heist' is a turn based strategy thing, and 'Quest' is an RPG card game with deck-building.

As you might have guessed, Steamworld Dig 2 follows on from Steamworld Dig. You play as Dorothy, a robot who looks a bit like a frog.  She's trying to find her friend Rusty.  (In the first game you play as Rusty.)  Quite what has happened to Rusty is up in the air until the end of the game.  You have to hope he's not gone over to the dark side, but that's what the game keeps telling you.  A secondary (but not unconnected) objective is to find out what's causing the earthquakes that are affecting the planet...

The game functions a bit like Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight.  You roam around, able to access new areas as you gain new powers.  The game pretends you have freedom about where you're going, though it's actually not giving you much choice.  Although you can dig tunnels, there are some bits you can't dig through - you have to go where the game wants you to.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, when it's telling a story, but it does feel like it's pretending to offer more freedom than it is.  Perhaps I feel this more acutely because the time I've spent with games like Terraria and Minecraft, which let you dig wherever you want to!

Dig, Dig, Dig

As you follow the story there's plenty of exploring, mining and fighting to be done.  You end up in the town of El Machino on a regular basis, purchasing upgrades and talking to the inhabitants.  One of them wants you to collect artefacts for him; in return he'll give you blueprints to upgrade yourself even further.  There are three boss battles, the last of which took both Seb and I numerous attempts (I did give up for a while and make myself more powerful).  And along the way, there are lots of caves with puzzles to solve, which will net you cogs for upgrades or artefacts to swap for blueprints.  Helpfully, when you've completed everything in a cave it ticks it off on the map.

I like the 'steam-powered robot' vibe, and the western theme is fun.  The music is annoyingly catchy.  It's a very well put together game.  Image & Form are to be congratulated for their skill in making different game formats accessible.  This is a great game for both kids and adults.  They've taken the Metroidvania style game and made something that holds you by the hand a little more, and not to its detriment.  They've done the same thing with the X-COM style Steamworld Heist Heist and the RPG card battler Steamworld Quest.  I can't even hazard a guess at what direction they'll travel in next!

Ramble: Fortnite World Cup!

We were talking about something at work today that comes up on a regular basis - kids playing video games at night when they should be sleeping.  I have to admit I can't offer much advice as to how to make this stop, since I was often playing until some unearthly hour on my Amiga.  Now I'm a parent, I understand kids not wanting to stop (because I was like that too), but also part of me is doing the parenty "they're going to turn into a brain dead couch potato!" thing...

The topic came up again because of the Fortnite World Cup.  It says something that people are talking about this at work, even if it is in the context of how terrible it is that kids are doing this instead of studying.  Normally they're just talking about football, or cricket.  E-sports must be hitting the big time!  And indeed, money-wise, it's a very big deal.  The solo winner, a 16 year old from the USA nicknamed "Bugha", won $3 million!  (The final standings are here.)

That Fortnite dance...

"Wolfiez", the 15 year old British teenager who placed second in the Duos, won $2.25 million with his Dutch partner.  His mum was quite entertaining to listen to, though you can hear the despair of mums (and dads) all over the country in her words:

"It's not been a straightforward journey with Jaden, if I'm honest with you I've been quite against him gaming.  I've been more pushing him to his schoolwork.  I've actually thrown an Xbox out, snapped a headset, we've had a nightmare."

So, what do you do?  Do you let them play loads in the hope that they make you millions of dollars?  Let's face it, that's not very likely to happen.  But if they are good, it's best to get them to the top ASAP while they have peak reaction times.  What a conundrum!

Maybe the best thing is to see how good they are at it.  If they're high level at their game of choice whilst still getting decent grades at school, maybe they could get to pro level.  If it does get serious, it's not the end of the world.  They can always go back to school later on.  Perhaps when they're older they'll even be wiser about their subject choices!

Perhaps as Seb gets older I will change my mind about this subject.  But I feel the chances of him being so good at a game that this is even a potential are so tiny that I can rashly say this without fear of it coming back to bite me.  You know in four or so years I'll be shouting at him to "stop playing and do your homework!".  It's impossible not to worry that your kid is wasting their time playing games.  At the moment I fear it's him bugging me to stop when I'm trying to play as often as it is the other way round...

And if your kid is a girl child?  Unfortunately online gaming can be a pretty toxic and unfriendly place for girls.  Often I've found it's better to disguise my gender (not something that's easy to do with voice chat!).  As ever, if your kid's playing online a lot, make sure you take an interest in your child and what they're doing online.  Support them.  What happens online can be as important as what happens "in real life". 

Girls might not like the teenage boy-filled land of Fortnite, but there are plenty of other games girls can excel at.  E-sports is one area where there really should be no barrier to equal competition between the sexes; if there is a barrier, it needs to be removed quickly.  (Keith Stuart's article Not one of the Fortnite World Cup's 100 finalists was a woman.  Why? is worth a look, if you're interested.)

I guess what I'm saying is that if your kid qualifies for the Fortnite World Cup then support them, they're going to need your support.  But if they're just playing all night for no reward and getting bad grades, maybe throw the Xbox out of the window.  ;-)

Ramble: When games make the world better

Usually when games are mentioned in the news it's in a negative way.  Recently a story in the Guardian got me thinking about the positive aspects of gaming.  It can be an escape from your problems - we all know that - but it can be a real leveller for people.  Friendships you make in games can be just as strong as those In Real Life.  (After all, the teamwork required to conquer a dungeon in World of Warcraft can really bond you with your guildmates!)

The story I read recently was about Elite Dangerous: How a video game community filled my nephew's final days with joy.  Michael, aged 15, was autistic and loved Elite Dangerous.  He had terminal cancer. 

"For us, it was a lifeline: I spent time with Michael in the game world as he tried to escape the suffering of the real one."

His uncle tweeted about him playing and Frontier saw the tweet - Frontier visited brought him goodies in the hospital.  Other players sent their best wishes.  Then Frontier's Zac Antonaci offered to put together a script for a short story set in Elite, with Michael as the hero. 

The way everyone got together to give Michael the best days of his life towards the end brought tears to my eyes (and I'm on antidepressants, not much makes me cry these days!).

There's another story that touched me in a similar way, published by the BBC a few months ago: My disabled son's amazing gaming life in the World of Warcraft.  Mats had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.  When he was 11 he started online gaming, and he could interact with everyone else without them knowing his situation.  Online he could run, fight, do whatever everyone else could.  He became Lord Ibelin Redmore, and sometimes Jerome Walker.  He was a member of the Starlight guild.  When he was 24 he wrote a blog where he talked about WoW being his escape.  He shared his blog with the Starlight guild, who had had no idea about his situation.

"There my handicap doesn't matter, my chains are broken and I can be whoever I want to be.  In there I feel normal."

When he died, aged 25, his father wrote about his death on his blog and gave an e-mail address for anyone who wanted to get in touch.  To his surprise, more and more e-mails arrived.  Starlight pooled money so that those who could not afford it could travel to Norway for the funeral.  Though they'd never met In Real Life, guild members travelled hundreds of miles to see him off. 

In a less serious way, another article about gaming in the Guardian rather cheerfully points out the positives of gaming for everyone: It's ironic, but gaming can be an escape from our hyper-connected, screen-filled life.  Games can be a form of mindless mindfulness.  They take your mind off the things for a while (though of course avoidance of big problems in the long run is not helpful...) 

"It seems counterintuitive, but gaming provides for me the kind of peace and relaxation that's becoming harder and harder to find."

Games have structure.  They have rules.  (Unlike Real Life!)  And if you like a game that other people like, you're part of a club.  You have something to talk to other people about.  In the case of those with Autism, this can be a massive thing.  Liking the same game as others your age gives you social openings with your peers.  This little video from BBC's Newsround sums up some of the positives here: How Minecraft is helping kids with autism.

So, then, games aren't all bad.  I know I'm biased.  And we all know it's not good to spend your whole life playing them.  But they can be a great leveller.  They can provide friends.  Spend a few minutes reading the first two articles on here, cry a little, and you'll see what I mean when I say games can be a real force for good.

Just Started Watching - Games Done Quick!

This week it's the Games Done Quick event - speed runners are, er, speed running various games for charity (Doctors Without Borders) until the early hours of Sunday morning.  Speed running (basically completing games as quickly as possible) is a mad thing. 

We were looking through the archives of GDQ videos on YouTube and last night decided to watch the speed run of Crypt of the Necrodancer, in super hard mode.  I can't get far in that game at all, let alone at that difficulty!  (The one clap thing is pretty hilarious, too.  Spootybiscuit asks for only one clap per person, synchronised, at the end of each floor, so as not to put him off his game.)

To start with, I was watching the highlights reel of Awful Games, which is great - I can't imagine why people would play Awful Games for years so that they can set speed running records!  It seems like a special sort of torture.  There was one called Super Hydlide which had the slowest frame rate I've ever seen.  These are not games you'd generally be able to sit through long enough to complete, let alone dedicate your life to completing as quickly as possible!

Anyway, definitely recommend you check out their YouTube videos.  Hours and hours of entertainment there.  :-)

Leicester Comic con

Ok, so it's not as big as a lot of the other Comic cons, but Seb always wants to go!  This year he had me making a Royal Hypno Flower costume from Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare.  I wish I had more time and skill - I would have done the headdress thing differently at the very least.  But he seemed happy enough with it!  Last year I had to do a Cone-Headed Zombie, so he's managed to be obsessed by the same thing for a whole year (though with some gaps in between for other obsessions...)

Seb

Royal Hypno Flower

There were some great gaming costumes there; check out Andy Douglas Photography for loads of brilliant photos.  Here's one from his page, of Aloy (which was my favourite costume there).

Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, copyright Andy Douglas Photography

Seb appears to expect us to go to Comic con every year, though we find it quite stressful (it's busy, noisy and hot!).  But hey.  He also managed to get a McDonalds Mario toy with a flagpole and two more zombie plushies, so he had a successful day out.  :-)

Happy 10th Birthday Minecraft!!!

I can't imagine a world without Minecraft (PEGI-7).  It has been everywhere for so long now.  Our house has a LOT of Minecraft lego, foam weapons, plastic figures, plushies...  And we've bought Minecraft four times (I think) - mobile, Vita, PS3 and PS4.  Never on the PC.  Though I suspect that might change...  This might help explain why Minecraft has just become the top selling game of all time, overtaking Tetris!

We've spent days of our lives in Minecraft worlds, and yet we've never managed to get to the End and kill the Enderdragon.  Somehow we get distracted by building castles, or treehouses, or massive defensive walls.  Well, us grown ups do, Seb just likes to replicate other games he likes inside Minecraft.  I think Geometry Dash parkour was one of his most interesting ones!  And despite having some 'goals', like the Enderdragon, it's fun just to mine, and explore, and craft.  It's a strange game, it has something for everyone.  I suppose that's why it's still going strong, after 10 years.

We've watched a lot of YouTubers playing Minecraft, particularly Squid, Stampy and Sqaishey.  Adventure maps, Cave Den, Stampy's Lovely World - Minecraft is probably the first thing we went onto YouTube for.  (Now we sit down every day at least once and watch YouTube together.)

Now they've announced Minecraft Earth - I don't totally understand what this is, but I expect we'll find out soon enough!  It sounds interesting.  But much like non-console versions of Minecraft, I'm wary of it!!

I have to admit I haven't "liked" Minecraft as much since Microsoft took over, with their cross-platform version and their monetisation.  Perhaps this is partly because it meant the end for Stampy's Minecraft videos.  But things move on if they're going to survive, I suppose.  If you don't own the "new" PC version of Minecraft, like us, it has 50% off as part of the birthday celebrations.

A few things then, that I will mention before I depart...

ThinkNoodles has been playing through all the old versions of Minecraft (there's a 'flashback' option in the Minecraft launcher):

This is interesting from a development/programming point of view, since it shows the evolution of the game from something that really NOT interesting at all.  (The jumping Steves are pretty hilarious, though.)

This Cave Den made me laugh so much - it's the one where Stampy and Sqaishey "split up":

And if you haven't read it, you should read Keith Stuart's book "A Boy Made of Blocks".  It's a BRILLIANT read, and shows how important Minecraft is to some kids.  It's not just a game, it's a way of expressing themselves, of socialising within an understandable and controllable environment.  Buy it and read it, it's awesome.  :-)

Ta ta then, and watch out for Herobrine!

Happy 10th Birthday Plants vs Zombies!

I can hardly believe that it has been ten years since the first Plants vs. Zombies game!!  (The 10 Year Anniversary was May 5th.  Of course there's another big 10 Year Anniversary coming up next week, but more on that another time!)

Tweet from PvZ creator George Fan

Seb is a MASSIVE PvZ fan, as you can probably tell from our Instagram feed.  He's recently got back into it in a big way, and he's been collecting plushies from eBay as fast as he can get the money to buy them...  Whenever zombies (or plants) come in the post we all have to formally introduce ourselves to them.  Then we have to play PvZ with them (Seb controls the game and we have to put the plants down).

Sometimes I feel like our lives are being taken over by zombies wandering around muttering 'brains' every few seconds.  Our house is a zombie-filled madhouse.  We're still playing PvZ 2.  And we have a massive collection of plants and zombies that we've drawn and laminated, so that we can play with them.  Oh, and Seb went to Comicon last year as a PvZ zombie.  He's getting me to make a Royal Hypno Flower costume for this year - I have the weirdest mum jobs!

Anyway, onto the PvZ anniversary fun.

Zack Scott has done a (lengthy) interview with the game's creator, George Fan (who also created Octogeddon).  Zack Scott has done a LOT of PvZ videos and he's kid friendly, so if you also have a PvZ obsessive in your house check him out!  (They might not be super keen on the hour and a half interview video, though!)

One of our favourite YouTubers, Zebragamer, has started a celebratory series playing through PvZ 2, so that's also worth a look.  He's great fun to watch, whatever he plays.

So whether it's PvZ (PEGI-7), PvZ 2 (PEGI-7), PvZ Heroes (PEGI-7). PvZ Garden Warfare (PEGI-7) or PvZ Garden Warfare 2 (also PEGI-7), why not play a bit of PvZ this week?  If you haven't played the original games, you should.  They're brilliant!

Oh, and also you should eat some tacos!

Hooray!

Studio Focus - Revolution Games

For a while now I've been thinking about writing about some UK game developers, and I thought I'd start here...  I have a happy place in my heart for Revolution Games.  One of my favourite games of all time is Beneath a Steel Sky, and I've bought Broken Sword games numerous times in different formats.  (Who doesn't love an evil templar mystery?!)  Admittedly, I didn't like the 3D adventures so much.  It seems like it was a case of new technology being adopted just for the sake of it - it's a joy to me that traditional point and click adventures are having a bit of a comeback.

The studio came to mind again this week with the announcement that they were making a new game called Beyond a Steel Sky.  The original game was created with Dave Gibbons, a comicbook artist famous for his work with Alan Moore on Watchmen, and he'll be working on the new game too.

Revolution Games is based in York, UK, and was set up in 1990 by Charles Cecil, Tony Warriner, David Sykes and Noirin Carmody, all of whom still work for the company.  Their first game was Lure of the Temptress, which was released in 1992.  You can download the original version of the game for FREE on GOG.com.  Their second game was my beloved Beneath a Steel Sky, in 1994, also available for FREE on GOG.com.  The game follows Robert Foster and his lovable (and offensive) robot Joey.  I love a good sci-fi yarn, and this is a great game, without too many impossible puzzles!

And then, of course, in 1996 Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars was released.  Not only was this an atmospheric puzzler set in Paris, with possible romance on the cards between George and Nico, it was responsible for a puzzle so annoying that it has its own Wikipedia page: The Infamous Goat Puzzle!  1997's Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror was great fun too, but for me things went a little downhill after that, when things went 3D.

The Infamous Goat of Lochmarne Castle

In 2000 they released In Cold Blood on the PlayStation (their first 3D game), a game that I never managed to get very far in (I seem to recall that since it's the protagonist's memories, every time you die he says "no, it can't have happened like that", or something similar).  They also released Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado.  Following this Broken Sword hiatus, things went 3D for George Stobbart in 2003's Broken Sword III: The Sleeping Dragon. According to Wikipedia, the switch to 3D was the only way Revolution could get publishers for their games.  Suffice it to say, this doesn't sound like a super happy time in the studio's history.

In 2004 Revolution changed from being a designer and producer of video games to being purely game designers.  Staff were let go.  Changes in the market had made times bad for independent developers.  Using this new model, a number of former Revolution staff were taken on by Sumo Digital to make 2006's Broken Sword IV: Angel of Death.

What Revolution moved to a couple of years ago, because it was difficult to survive as an independent developer with a team of 15-20 people, was move to a freelance model, which some call the Hollywood model. We'd pull people together for a team project, then everybody would dissipate and either get together for the next one or not. Clearly that suits us, in that our overheads are lower, but it also creates a wonderfully dynamic working environment.

When people join it means that they really care about the project. They know that they're going to work with us for an X number of months and for X fee, and everybody really wants to make sure, from a personal and professional level, that the project is good as it possibly can be. It's a very exciting and very interesting dynamic. Personally I much prefer it to staff, where there are much more complex dynamics going on in the relationships between people. Some of the people that used to work at Revolution before we downsized a few years ago got jobs, while some of them decided to work with us again on a freelance basis and I'm delighted to have them back.

- Charles Cecil speaking to Mark Walton (Gamespot) in 2012

Thankfully, the dark times were not to continue forever.  By the end of the decade, with digital distribution, it was possible to self-publish.  Also, with the rise in mobile gaming, in 2009 Revolution was asked to produce some versions of Broken Sword for iOS.  This relationship with Apple continues with Beyond a Steel Sky, and the new versions brought Broken Sword to a new audience.

Broken Sword V was announced in August 2012, with a Kickstarter campaign.  New methods of funding meant that Revolution could control everything themselves, instead of being under the mantle of a big publisher.  The game returns the series to its original 2D roots, hooray! Broken Sword V: The Serpent's Curse was released in 2013.

And that brings us up to today, with the recent announcement of Beyond a Steel Sky.  The game looks gorgeous, from the images on their website.  It's due to be one of the launch titles of Apple's new "Apple Arcade" subscription gaming service, though apparently there will be a concurrent PC launch.

I just hope Joey's in it!  :-D

Revolution, then, a brilliant UK game developer - I hope they have many years of creativity to come!

Follow them on twitter @revbot.

Ramble - 23 great PS4 games for kids..?

So, this popped up from PlayStation on my twitter feed the other day: 23 great PS4 games for kids available right now.  Since this is the very thing that this blog is about (family friendly gaming), of course I clicked on it!  But were there any fun surprises waiting for me?  Have they missed some obvious family friendly games?  Hmm, well, no.  And to be honest, it's a sort of disappointing list.  And why are there 23?  They could have just made it the 20 best.  It's like they were trying for 25 and they ran out of ideas!  Anyway...

I should say here that I'm not totally clear what PlayStation were thinking with "kids" - little kids, or teenagers?  Because though a lot of  games on here have low certificates, they're not really fun for little kids. Like their number 1 game on the list - FIFA 19 (PEGI-3), also NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 (PEGI-3), Everybody's Golf (PEGI-3), even Rocket League (PEGI-3).  By their nature, sports games don't have a lot in them that's offensive, hence the low certificates.  But that doesn't mean they're good games for kids.  (If you have a teenage boy chances are he's heavily into FIFA, but he's probably not going to want to play with his family...)

Gang Beasts (PEGI-3) is a crazy party game, so we'll go with that (admittedly I haven't played it).  As is Overcooked! 2 (PEGI-3). 

There are some PlayLink games like Chimparty (PEGI-3) and the card game classic Uno (PEGI-3).  I don't know how I feel about playing Uno on the PS4.  I think part of its charm lies in the physical act of playing with cards.  Hmm.  Also, Melbit's World (PEGI-3), which I have never heard of!  (So I will not comment further.)

There are lots of LEGO games on the list - Lego Movie 2 (PEGI-7), Lego Marvel's The Avengers (PEGI-7), Lego Harry Potter Collection (PEGI-7), Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PEGI-7).  Fair enough, Lego games are fun, but they're all pretty similar just with different stories.

There are some classic platformers, like Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Collection (PEGI-7), Spyro Reignited Trilogy (PEGI-7), Ratchet & Clank (PEGI-7).  Good fun, sure.  :-)

LittleBigPlanet 3 - one of the best games on this list...

Then there's Yooka Laylee (PEGI-7), which has co-op mode and some multiplayer games for four players, so truly a family game that everyone can get involved with.  And LittleBigPlanet 3 (PEGI-7) has a fun multiplayer (though I have to say the third game is not my favourite).  And Tearaway (PEGI-7) is awesome, though single player.

Minecraft (PEGI-7), don't really need to say much about Minecraft!  You know what Minecraft is, surely?!  Unless you've been living under a rock or something for years.  I believe the list's Dragon Quest Builders (PEGI-3) is "Minecraft inspired" but I haven't played it.  Single player though.

Bringing up the rear of the list is Singstar Celebration (PEGI-12), which is ok, but hey, it's karaoke.  I'm not sure it's a fun game for little kids.  And no. 23 is, terrifyingly, Monopoly Plus (PEGI-3).  I would like to see a three year old play Monopoly.  (Perhaps the PS4 version is very different..?)

The more I think about this list the more disappointed I feel.  Some truly great games are not on here, and some rather poor games have made the cut.  For instance, you could buy Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition (PEGI-7) for only £5.79 at the moment.  You could get the charming Unravel Yarny Bundle (PEGI-7) for only £9.99.  How about Rayman Legends (PEGI-7)?  Or one of our family multiplayer favourites, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (PEGI-7)?

I'm thinking that maybe PlayStation had some sort of agenda when putting this list together.  Perhaps we shall have a family think and put together our top ten games for kids.  Hmm....!

My final word on the subject - probably best not to get FIFA for your 3 year old.  ;-)

Still watching - Stampy!! He's BACK!!! w/ Dreams

Yesterday was an exciting day in our house - Stampy was back, with a 'Let's Play' video about the Early Access release of Dreams!

There hasn't been a Stampy video since Christmas, so we ordered Chinese and all sat down in front of our telly to watch it.  Hooray!

Dreams (PEGI-12) is a perfect Stampy 'game', if indeed it is a game, and the Early Access version launched on 16th April.  It costs £24.99, if you're interested in trying it out.  I've talked about it briefly before, but it's sort of a game maker, more than a game.  You can create incredibly complex things in it, graphically, musically - just awesome stuff.  So you can either surf other people's 'Dreams', or make your own.  Or both!

Stampy's big idea for this series is that he'll think of a simple theme or word, and everyone can try and make a Dreams creation about it.  Tag it with the word/theme and 'Stampy', and he'll make a video showing his creation and other people's.  Sounds like fun!  In his video he gives us the word 'spoon', so if you make something to do with spoons, tag it with 'Spoon' and 'Stampy' and maybe he'll look at your work.

I'm using too many exclamation marks, but I'm excited!!!

Seb's keen to try it, but I worry that it will be too complex for him.  (Seb, however, vehemently denies this.)  He has big ideas, but rarely has the patience to learn how to do things.  Perhaps this time it will be different, since he's such a huge Media Molecule fan.  (HUGE fan of 'Little Big Planet' and 'Tearaway'.)  I guess we shall see!

:-D

Ramble - Google Stadia - the future of gaming?

The big reveal this week, then, was Google Stadia.  But what is a stadia?  Well, I shall tell you: a stadia is a measurement of length (about 185 metres).  Alternatively, it is the plural of stadium (an athletic/sports ground), which is probably what they were going for.  The Google c.185m doesn't mean that much, after all.

Stadia is not, as some thought it would be, a games console.  Instead, it's a streaming service.  The present setup is with Chromecast, so you'd plug a Chromecast dongle into your telly.  Your Google controller will connect directly to the service, and the service will broadcast back to your Chromecast setup.  Nothing is happening in your house - it's all happening remotely, up there in the Cloud.

The intention is that eventually the service will (I keep seeing this quote) "run wherever YouTube is".  Also, you won't have to use a Google controller, but with a Smart TV you'd be able to plug any USB controller in and use that.  What's intended and what's actually possible at this stage are two different things entirely...

The only games announced so far as Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Doom: Eternal, which aren't at all family friendly.  Since the service is due to go live later this year, you have to hope lots more games will be announced soon.  Google have said you'll be able to do couch co-op and there'll be parental controls, which shows they're at least considering family gaming in their setup.

A remote gaming service, where a console isn't needed, has been mooted for years as the future of gaming.  Every time we're coming up to a new generation of console, people start asking whether it'll be the least "console" generation, or whether we'll be looking to the Cloud instead.  Considering we're hearing a PS5 could be coming as soon as this Christmas, it seems like Sony aren't writing off consoles yet.  So far, internet speeds have meant that Cloud gaming hasn't really taken off.  The last thing you want when playing competitive multiplayer is latency!  Google say you need 25Mbps for it to work at 1080p 60fps.

(Apparently the average internet speed in the UK is now 46.2Mbps, though we're paying for fast internet and when I tested it a moment ago we were only getting 24.2Mbps.  The only good way to get that 25Mbps (or more if you want 4K gaming!) is to go fibre all the way to the front door.  For those of us who have to put up with fibre to the exchange and copper to the house, that might not be an option...)

Slow internet - it makes us all mad...

It's an ambitious service, then, and the "reveal" has left us with plenty of questions.  Various people have been attempting Cloud services for a while, with varying levels of success.  PS Now has been around for a while, though many of the games are older (most are PS3), and PlayStation let you download games if your connection isn't brilliant.  Also, you can't use if if you're under 18.  (But that's because you can't go online with a child account.)

My biggest question is, "How much will it cost?"  PS Now is £84.99 a year, so maybe we're looking at something similar.  They have been VERY quiet about costs, though.  And to get big games on there, you'd have to give publishers a way to make money.  If they can make more selling either digital or physical copies direct to the consumer, it's hard to see why publishers would want to shoot themselves in the foot and make them available via Stadia.

I guess we will just have to wait and see...

March 2019 PS Plus: The Witness

In February, PS Plus didn't really have any family games to offer, but March's lineup (now only two games, since there are no longer going to be PS3 and Vita downloads) includes The Witness (PEGI-3).  I'd heard a lot about how good this game was, but I'd never played it.  To be honest, I still haven't, since Dad and Seb have been playing it together.  I think perhaps it has melted their brains since at the moment Seb is giggling maniacally and Dad is calling him Mr Ploppy.  Ah well. 

The Witness throws you straight into the game, with no preamble.  It reminds me a lot of Rime in the way that you are just there, on a mysterious island, trying to figure out what on earth is going on.  I suspect, like Rime, you never actually find out what's going on...  After arriving on the island it's just puzzle after puzzle, which can be intense!  As you walk around the beautiful surroundings you discover new challenges: there are more than 650 puzzles, some of which are optional, thankfully. All the puzzles are solved in the same way, by drawing a line on a grid to get from one point to another.  There are different rules for each puzzle.  This doesn't sound that exciting, but it's keeping a 7-year old quiet for a surprising amount of time (and Dad hasn't wandered off or started looking at his phone), so it's obviously more exciting than you'd think.  :-) 

One of the maze puzzles in The Witness's pretty world

If you have PS Plus, download it and give it a go.  It's a great "couch" game for everyone to sit down and try and work out the puzzles.  Alternatively you can all sit there and shout at one person trying to solve the puzzles as if they are in the Crystal Maze.  Hehe.

Article - The argument for playing video games with our kids

This is a refreshingly positive article: The argument for playing video games with our kids, by Elissa Strauss.  The author definitely hits upon a few things that I wholeheartedly believe in, namely about this being a huge part of our kids lives; we shouldn't abandon them to make their way in it all by themselves.  There are a lot of opportunities for learning, like social skills (such as teamwork and conversation), psychological aspects (resilience, and so on) and with games like Minecraft you can tackle science stuff as well as things like ethics (the author points out it gives you an opportunity to talk about why you've killed something in the game - I know for ages Seb was very against killing the animals in Minecraft!).  Definitely worth a read.  And the book she's advertising (Raising Kids to Thrive in a Digital World by Jordan Shapiro) sounds interesting, too...

Ramble - YouTube & money money money

This year has so far been a bit rubbish for those of us who watch YouTube a lot in this house.  Which is all of us, since we watch things together on the telly.  Stampy and Sqaishey have disappeared - apparently they're getting married this year, which is nice, but I miss them on YouTube...  Then there's Squiddy, who seems to have gone a bit haywire.  He was very strangely hyper in the last video of his we tried to watch, plus he's blaspheming a lot... he doesn't feel safe for kids to watch any more.  I suspect he's deliberately trying to attract an audience who can give him money on Twitch etc, rather than the kids he was getting before.  It makes me sad though.  Having to unsubscribe from one of your (previously) favourite YouTubers is like cutting off a friend who has let you down.  Boo.

Squiddy has made me feel like this...  :-(

I've been trying, largely in vain, to find some new family friendly YouTubers to watch.  Seb's been watching Tewtiy playing Plants vs Zombies, since he's gotten back into that in a big way.  We're still watching Zebra Gamer, Dan TDM, Paul Soares Jr and ThinkNoodles.  But a lot of the old gang aren't playing things that we're finding all that appealing.  Somehow it feels like YouTube isn't as easy to watch.  It's certainly not easy to try and find new family friendly YouTubers.  Discoverability is poor.  And I get fed up of watching loads of YouTubers to find out whether or not a) they swear and b) they're really annoying.

Perhaps YouTube's becoming a little outdated.  The main problem seems to be that people aren't making videos for fun any more, which might have been how it worked a while back.  Now they're desperately trying to make some money.  YouTube ad revenue clearly isn't paying enough.  A lot of people stream these days, with subscribers paying a monthly fee, and donating money as they play.  You can also have subscribers on YouTube, for instance ThinkNoodles and Dan TDM charge £4.99 a month to get perks such as custom emojis and money off merchandise.  Paul Soares Jr has a Patreon thingummy where if you give £5 a month you get access to his private Discord server, so you can chat with him and other fans.  Various people are trying money making ventures.  I don't know what works best.  I'm not sure I like anyone enough to give them £5 a month though...

I was going to recommend something, but I'm not sure what we've enjoyed enough lately to give a glowing review.  I like that Paul Soares Jr has started a new Minecraft series.  But to be honest, I'm feeling a bit down on YouTube at the moment!  So... here's an amazing Planet Coaster rollercoaster, on Channel5 Gaming.

A-MAZE-ING...!!!  

Edit - I just realised one solution (der!!).  Watch some old videos!  This never seems like an option when you log into YouTube on the telly and it just tells you the latest videos by your subscribers, but it could be a solution.  I mean, there are 649 videos in Stampy's Lovely World playlist!

Game Review: Love you to Bits

Seb's latest obsession is Nova the robot.  We love her to bits.  And the crazy thing is, she's not even in the game much, because at the start of it she's BLOWN INTO TINY PIECES BY THE EVIL DR EROS!!  Yes, we've just finished Love you to Bits (PEGI-7).  What a wonderful little game!  Well worth the £3.79 it currently costs on Google Play, plus it goes into your family library so that you can all play it.  And it looks totally amazing on our new Samsung Tab S2.  (In fact, I'd recommend you play it on a tablet if possible, it's a bit small on a phone to spot all the details.)

LOL I just realised I sound like I'm doing a lot of product placement.  I'm not getting paid for this.  Honest.  ;-)

The game's a point and click puzzle adventure.  Generally you can solve the puzzles by wandering backwards and forwards picking up everything and checking to see if you can then use the things you've just picked up.  Sometimes, though, you have to do things in a certain order to progress.  And some of the levels definitely had us stumped for quite a while.  And we did not find all the extra collectables.  Boo hoo.

The premise is that Dr Eros (evil dinosaur scientist), who created Nova, attacks at the beginning of the game and blows her apart.  You (as her boyfriend) then have to find all the pieces and reassemble her.  Also, you can collect objects that contain her memories, and feed them back into her.  All her memories can be accessed via the computer she's hooked up to, and can be watched over and over.  They're cute little animated stories.  Some are very funny, and some tug at the ol' heartstrings.  

Reassembling Nova and giving her her memories back

So, in each level you're on a different planet; you have one part of Nova you have to find, and a couple of memories.  When you obtain the piece of Nova you can teleport back to your ship and see your progress, and watch any memories you've found.  Gradually you get more and more invested in both Nova and Kosmo.  We really wanted to get them back together, despite the sticky issues surrounding robot/human relationships.  (We aren't going into that with Seb.  But hey.  Blade Runner.  That's all I have to say about that.)

It's hard to say what my favourite level was.  'Matter of Perspective' was clever, with lots of platforms you had to rotate around to get to different sections of the level.  It took a lot of thought.  And 'A Dungeon in Panels' was fun since you wandered from comic book panel to comic book panel, becoming larger and smaller as you did so.  That said, there are a few moments I found a bit questionable.  For instance you do kill some people.  'Trapped in the Lab' is a sort of evil lab where they're doing some sort of crazy monster construction, but is it right to kill people who work there so that you can put your girlfriend back together?  I really don't know.  But perhaps I'm overthinking things...

I should also mention the music.  When we first played the game, Seb said the music at the start was the saddest he'd ever heard.  Great compositions - they add such a lot to the atmosphere of the game.  Despite its cartoony graphics it has a lot of depth to it.  

Totally recommended!  Great fun to play together as a family.  It took all our brains to complete it.  :-D