The First Play Thread of First Plays

[Tobal]

I put some time into Little Witch as well, its less anything to do with harvest moon types (no farm plots, no dating) and more to do with puzzles which require the right potion from picking up ingredients. I did grind most of the upgrades but it's not worth doing for the witch hut at least (lvl2 for everything), barely improves the potion grind and remains a right chore to do and badly need some QoL improves (it is early access i hope something happens). Can only recommend increasing the bag size.

not played in a few weeks after getting few quests from the 'mayor' and carpenter which seems more of the same, perhaps if i grind out those quests the game opens up more from the potion grind. 6/10 so far.

[Blobcat]

Sounds interesting. Not played any puzzle games in a while. I'm close to being done for a while with stardew (got back into it starting a new farm at the start of April when I had Covid, just got the clock in year 5 and slowly filling a barn with ostriches) so want something new to dip into.

[Lebowski]

Sounds interesting. Not played any puzzle games in a while. I'm close to being done for a while with stardew (got back into it starting a new farm at the start of April when I had Covid, just got the clock in year 5 and slowly filling a barn with ostriches) so want something new to dip into.

its more life sim than puzzle game, its about learning new potions cataloguing the environment (plants animals) and learning and using spells and potions to open new area or solve problems and explore the woods. there is a story element too where your trying to help the nearby village and bring it back form being abandoned.

I put some time into Little Witch as well, its less anything to do with harvest moon types (no farm plots, no dating) and more to do with puzzles which require the right potion from picking up ingredients. I did grind most of the upgrades but it's not worth doing for the witch hut at least (lvl2 for everything), barely improves the potion grind and remains a right chore to do and badly need some QoL improves (it is early access i hope something happens). Can only recommend increasing the bag size.

not played in a few weeks after getting few quests from the 'mayor' and carpenter which seems more of the same, perhaps if i grind out those quests the game opens up more from the potion grind. 6/10 so far.

I think a six is unfair its a great game and still being worked on, the complaints leveled at it could be leveled at any of these sort of games as theirs aways a grind in these type of games, i really enjoyed Stardew valley for the exploration and story Ive enjoyed this for taking elements from that game and taking it in a different direction, its early access and yeah it probably needs a few QOL Improvements but then most of these games Do. Collecting and crafting bait in animal crossing drove me up the wall at times as it required you to scour the beach dig up bait x 100 then craft each one individually and still fail to catch the fish you where after.


its got a 9-10 on steam so far so lots of people are enjoying whats here.

[Tobal]

I think a six is unfair its a great game and still being worked on

its got a 9-10 on steam so far so lots of people are enjoying whats here.

Well i don't work from game press average where bad games get 7/10, 6/10 is above average to me.

There just isn't enough to variety at the stage i'm at the game, small play area, no farming, no custom building, no combat, no fishing, no collections outside of filling the book for ingredient descriptions, no affinities to level with the NPC's. So far it's getting carried by the art direction and researching new potions for the environmental puzzles, i've only come across a few potions needed to improve the town like street lamps and grinding the upgrades by sell potions gets a real chore quickly and for some reason the potion upgrades are complete trash and they should completely remove the wait for the dryer, is a fictional game anyway why force me to wait 17-19secs for processing 1 or 2 raw materials.

hopefully updates will come, they posted a roadmap which will address some of the 'no' stuff, but there have been zero updates since it's EA gamepass release 2 months ago.

[Lebowski]

Well i don't work from game press average where bad games get 7/10, 6/10 is above average to me.

There just isn't enough to variety at the stage i'm at the game, small play area, no farming, no custom building, no combat, no fishing, no collections outside of filling the book for ingredient descriptions, no affinities to level with the NPC's. So far it's getting carried by the art direction and researching new potions for the environmental puzzles, i've only come across a few potions needed to improve the town like street lamps and grinding the upgrades by sell potions gets a real chore quickly and for some reason the potion upgrades are complete trash and they should completely remove the wait for the dryer, is a fictional game anyway why force me to wait 17-19secs for processing 1 or 2 raw materials.

hopefully updates will come, they posted a roadmap which will address some of the 'no' stuff, but there have been zero updates since it's EA gamepass release 2 months ago.

More diverse relationships is one of the things their adding so the dating aspect will come, I'm not sure they will let you farm ingredients as its more about exploration and cataloguing the area. fishing and cats are being added though and no doubts lots more too like stardew i can see this being one of those games that adds more and more if it picks up a following.

[Lebowski]

Played a bit more of this last night and one thing that hit me is how each new material you need you have to work out how to get it. you get hints on how to get stuff, and 9 times out of ten its all pretty easy but also pretty adorable, working out how to get the flowers from the skittish birds or how to collect bubbles from the giant lizards near the pond spring to mind of nice systems that aren't overly complex but also fun to do.

They could potential add things like Flower beds to grow your own ingredients in the witches garden, and create a way to tame or capture animals in a sort of menagerie or pet style set up so you have an on hand daily supply of materials.

[Tobal]

Went back to Little Witch, and 2 hours later finished... about 5 quests after the lamps, stops before anything gets going. Can still carrying on afterwards grinding the potion dailies to upgrade inventory/storage and the witches hut. If it where up to me the fox kid gets throw back into the vines, far to many times has the little crap taken and left the villagers item lying around.

[Neon Ignition]

Balan Wonderworld
Finally started the game having downloaded it from PSPlus meaning it was finally available for the right price
I'd actually forgotten what the game was supposed to play like so the experience went:

1 - "Hah, this reminds me of Nights"
2 - "Huh, it's actually really like Nights"
3 - "Oh, we're going all in on the Nights, nice!"
4 - "Oh god, they actually made a game based on the walking bits..."


Because of the context of how I'm playing it I'm finding myself going easy on it but by god, talk about the definition of a misguided project.

[Asura]

Because of the context of how I'm playing it I'm finding myself going easy on it but by god, talk about the definition of a misguided project.

Interested to know how you get on. Honestly? I hated it. But I was playing it on Switch; there was that, plus it performed terribly despite looking much, much worse.

[Neon Ignition]

It seems to be running fine on PS5, I imagine it's one of those games where when it gets frustrating it will be easy to walk away from it. So far, it's very easy but it's very clear to see why SquareEnix wasn't impressed with it

[Neon Ignition]

Half a game it turns out. Can't really stick with Balan any further. It was fine up till a point but but there's a tipping point where it starts to get fussier about its platforming and level design and the slight trace of amusement you're getting vanishes.

[Dogg Thang]

Maybe this game deserves its own First Play at some point but I got Stray last night and started playing it. You play a cat in a cyberpunk world. You can pretty much only do cat things, such as walk around and run and jump and drink water and scratch your claws on furniture, Although you do meet a friend at a certain point and that opens up some other options. But even just walking around and doing the cat stuff is so beautiful. It feels wonderful. And the world is lovely - not anything we haven't seen before but done really well.

I have no real idea how much there is to the game. There doesn't seem to be all that much to it so far but it's really nice.

[hudson]

I watched my kids play this today. So charming and then it threw them when things started getting cyberpunky. They were loving it. The cat cuddles transferred through the duelsense were really cool.

Looks lovely, but man the music is chef's kiss.

[Dogg Thang]

Yes the music is beautiful. The atmosphere generally is fantastic. Overall, I’m really loving it. The movement of the cat is so good and it feels like this exact same game as a person wouldn’t be close to as good. There are some chase sequences that I’m not a huge fan of, only because the game over screens take me out of the experience - they remind me of Silent Hill Shattered Memories in that regard. But everything else is wonderful.

[Neon Ignition]

My Friend Peppa Pig
Well, the presentation is absolutely on point. It literally looks like an episode. There's barely any semblence of gameplay to it though and, I hate myself for knowing this, but most of the cast voicing isn't from the show which lets it down a little. However, I'm willing to give it all of its merit badges back for having the sheer bravado to actually contain a Performance/Quality Mode option. It not only has the option but it tangibly makes a difference too with Quality boosting the resolution up noticeably. Given the nature of the game there's no impact on the performance either so it feels like an amazing troll of the option. Love it.