Sometimes you play a game and can tell right away that it’s going to give you Thoughts™, but that wasn’t the case with Technotopia. My time with it started out the same as any other game, doing my best to get absorbed into the world it crafted and gameplay mechanisms it implemented, all the while taking notes on the side to prepare for the inevitable review. And then things changed. The narrative beats slowly began to go off the rails and I went from raising an eyebrow occasionally to having one permanently cocked. Futurist stories have the capacity to hold up a mirror to our current world or speculate on what tomorrow may bring, and yet Technotopia frequently feels like it gets so lost in critiquing what’s happening now that it forgets to provide that extra layer of futuristic abstraction. This is less satire, and more someone stating their beliefs directly to the player. And let me say, some of those beliefs are … questionable to say the least.
Tag: Building
Minami Lane Review
It’s a great time of year for cozy games. With the weather getting colder (though where I am it’s still unseasonably warm) and the days shorter, there’s nothing quite like curling up with a welcoming game. Well, maybe not literally; it’s hard to curl up at a computer desk without getting into spine-mangling poses. Be that as it may, jumping into Minami Lane at this time of year turned out to be an excellent choice on my part. It’s a brief experience, but one which I absorbed in bite-sized portions, making it seem longer than it actually was. And for my money, if you like the idea of a city-builder game but get easily overwhelmed, it’s well worth a look.
Coin Factory Review
I don’t know if I get Coin Factory, and that’s weird, because really, what’s there to get? It’s a game about making money, plain and simple. It’s so straightforward on the face of it that the tutorial can be completed in less than a minute. And to be clear, I understand what the goal of the game is: place down tiles to create a little money-making engine until you’re able to generate ten trillion dollars and buy the Box tile that ends the game. Continually tweak and optimize your designs so that you can cut down the time it takes to buy the Box on a given level, or branch out and try different maps to test your skills under an assortment of restrictions. It’s really not that deep, which is why I find it confounding that it baffles me so. Perhaps, then, it’s silly for me to be writing about a game that on some level I find completely inscrutable. However, it’s my hope that in doing so, I’ll be able to achieve some level of clarity on what Coin Factory is trying to do, and whether it succeeds.
Olive's Game Garden 