Choose Your Astronaut’s Own Adventure: Lifeline

by ThomasNo Comments

Yesterday I wrote a bit about Mr Robot 1.51exfiltrait0n.apk, which is a fun, solidly-written game with some game-stopping programming issues. Today, it’s Lifeline, a game I saw tangentially mentioned in an article about Mr Robot.

Mechanically, Lifeline is similar to Mr Robot. You’re in contact with someone via a texting app. You have a limited number of responses (two instead of up to three). Because that person is doing things in the gameworld, their text conversations are spaced out: if it takes Taylor four hours to walk somewhere, he might contact you in four hours when he’s there. ((Or in two hours if he’s bored and wants to tell you what he’s seen so far.))

The setup for Lifeline is this: astronaut crashes on a moon, contacts you for help, you help him try to survive. I went in expecting The Martian. While the game starts off like that, it later turns into something like, oh… Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

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ChooseYourOwnAdv3nture.php: Mr Robot

by ThomasNo Comments

I’ve been playing the Mr Robot phone app game, 1.51exfiltrati0n.apk (.ipa on iOS), which would be fun if I wasn’t so worried that the damn thing crashed again. The game, from Night Sky Studio (partnered with Telltale Games) simulates a text messaging system.: you find a phone and start receiving texts on it. The gameplay is done through your responses to the texts. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure book that way. A cool thing: although the game is called “Mr. Robot” on the app’s icon, the notifications on your actual phone come from “ECorp Messaging”, the faux-app inside the game.

While the game is described as a real time game, it’s actually just keyed off of timed events: you end a conversation with D, and then one hour later, E texts you. The frustrating thing is because these gaps exist, I don’t know if I’m waiting on the next message or if I’m in a strange game state where I can’t advance through the storyline.

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#RPGaDAY 2016, Day 18: Using Relationship Maps

by ThomasNo Comments

This question is spawned from the IndieGameADay thing, which pokes fun at ((I’m being charitable.)) #RPGaDAY with questions such as

  • What kind of shit-fit did you throw the last time someone tried to schedule your convention game in a ballroom like you’re playing fucking Pathfinder or something?
  • What was the very saddest thing you wrote on an index card? and
  • What is your fondest memory of a game you thought was fun before you knew better?

But they had a really interesting question for day 2 — once you take out the snark — about relationship maps which was What game created your most elaborate relationship map? How much of it did you actually use?

Well now!

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