Dungeons of Hinterberg was one of the highlights of last year for me. The puzzles scratched the same itch as the shrines in Breath of the Wild did, and the combat was fun enough to make me not wish I could skip it. It was a lot of fun. Might have to dip back in for a new game + run once I'm done with Avowed.
I've been replaying A Way Out with a friend and just started rewatching the WP stream you and Austin did when that game dropped, which is what ultimately sold me on it as something I had to play. Any chance you could put the band back together and stream Split Fiction?
My 7yo and I loved the Carmen Sandiego Netflix show, I'm excited to spend a little more time with that character. I'm worried the game isn't going to be that great, but it might be better than lot of the random PBS Kids games that occupy her time.
I didn't realize Split Fiction was actually coming out so soon. When I saw it announced I figured it was always going to be an indeterminate amount of time in the future. I haven't tried to play It Takes Two with the kids because the characters seemed shit, but this one looks like a winner.
I appreciate these write ups for upcoming games I may be able to play around or with my kids, depending on if they see it as more of a Daddy game or something that looks fun to them.
You mention Switches in your household mostly being Minecraft machines right now. It brought to mind 2 things I wondered what your thoughts might be on them:
1) How much hassle have you run into getting various devices running Minecraft being able to talk to each other so that others can join in and play together? We have an Xbox, 2 Amazon Kids tablets sideloaded with Google Play to install Minecraft from there, a phone, and a Windows PC and getting the versions talking to each other is a challenge sometimes. We also technically have Minecraft on Switch, but that version seems to not want to talk to anything else in the house, so no one plays it (what a waste that was).
2) Knowing you're well-versed in Roblox at this point, I'd be curious how that vs Minecraft compares in third parties being able to develop relatively novel experiences. We've tried out several add-ons with Minecraft, and whenever they deviate from the core gameplay, it always feels tacked on or held together by the digital equivalent of duct tape and rubber bands. Meanwhile when I hear about things like the dress up games in Roblox, it sounds more fully formed there. We're a straight no on Roblox in our house, but I was always curious if that was any better in that platform (leaving aside all the red flags of moderation that lead us to say no across the board to it)
1) It's a gigantic pain, especially when you factor in weird networking quirks. The thing that bothers me the most is not being able to just boot up Minecraft and play on any device I own. For example, my iPad's battery is pretty poor these days but is otherwise in good condition, so I thought I might play with my kids on the PlayStation 5 on the TV. Well, besides it costing $20 for another copy (fine), I couldn't play multiplayer over LAN (basically, anyone playing on the same network) without paying for PlayStation Plus. What a joke. These days, we're mostly playing Minecraft on iPads and playing via LAN, though.
2) We haven't deviated past the basic Minecraft stuff, but I have been temped to start paying for Realms. The basic thing that kids want is "more stuff," even though there is plenty of stuff in basic Minecraft and the limitations actually lead to decent creativity. Roblox gives you far more flexibility, but is itself opening a huge can of worms. It's too bad you can't, say, limit a child to just playing on experience in Roblox, like a Dress to Impress.
“I love co-op games, but I have no one to play them with!”
Ah, adulthood.
;_;
Dungeons of Hinterberg was one of the highlights of last year for me. The puzzles scratched the same itch as the shrines in Breath of the Wild did, and the combat was fun enough to make me not wish I could skip it. It was a lot of fun. Might have to dip back in for a new game + run once I'm done with Avowed.
Yeah, everyone I know who played it was happy they tried it.
I've been replaying A Way Out with a friend and just started rewatching the WP stream you and Austin did when that game dropped, which is what ultimately sold me on it as something I had to play. Any chance you could put the band back together and stream Split Fiction?
Haha, we'll see! I did start playing Split Fiction with my eight-year-old, though. Stay tuned for thoughts on that early next week.
My 7yo and I loved the Carmen Sandiego Netflix show, I'm excited to spend a little more time with that character. I'm worried the game isn't going to be that great, but it might be better than lot of the random PBS Kids games that occupy her time.
I didn't realize Split Fiction was actually coming out so soon. When I saw it announced I figured it was always going to be an indeterminate amount of time in the future. I haven't tried to play It Takes Two with the kids because the characters seemed shit, but this one looks like a winner.
I appreciate these write ups for upcoming games I may be able to play around or with my kids, depending on if they see it as more of a Daddy game or something that looks fun to them.
You mention Switches in your household mostly being Minecraft machines right now. It brought to mind 2 things I wondered what your thoughts might be on them:
1) How much hassle have you run into getting various devices running Minecraft being able to talk to each other so that others can join in and play together? We have an Xbox, 2 Amazon Kids tablets sideloaded with Google Play to install Minecraft from there, a phone, and a Windows PC and getting the versions talking to each other is a challenge sometimes. We also technically have Minecraft on Switch, but that version seems to not want to talk to anything else in the house, so no one plays it (what a waste that was).
2) Knowing you're well-versed in Roblox at this point, I'd be curious how that vs Minecraft compares in third parties being able to develop relatively novel experiences. We've tried out several add-ons with Minecraft, and whenever they deviate from the core gameplay, it always feels tacked on or held together by the digital equivalent of duct tape and rubber bands. Meanwhile when I hear about things like the dress up games in Roblox, it sounds more fully formed there. We're a straight no on Roblox in our house, but I was always curious if that was any better in that platform (leaving aside all the red flags of moderation that lead us to say no across the board to it)
1) It's a gigantic pain, especially when you factor in weird networking quirks. The thing that bothers me the most is not being able to just boot up Minecraft and play on any device I own. For example, my iPad's battery is pretty poor these days but is otherwise in good condition, so I thought I might play with my kids on the PlayStation 5 on the TV. Well, besides it costing $20 for another copy (fine), I couldn't play multiplayer over LAN (basically, anyone playing on the same network) without paying for PlayStation Plus. What a joke. These days, we're mostly playing Minecraft on iPads and playing via LAN, though.
2) We haven't deviated past the basic Minecraft stuff, but I have been temped to start paying for Realms. The basic thing that kids want is "more stuff," even though there is plenty of stuff in basic Minecraft and the limitations actually lead to decent creativity. Roblox gives you far more flexibility, but is itself opening a huge can of worms. It's too bad you can't, say, limit a child to just playing on experience in Roblox, like a Dress to Impress.