Blog Archives
A Sellsword You Can Trust
Mercenaries are disunited, ambitious, undisciplined, and treacherous; they are powerful when among those who are not hostile, but weak and cowardly when confronted by determined enemies; they have no fear of God, and do not maintain commitments with men.
Know who wrote that? Niccolò freaking Machiavelli. Which is weird, because although I read The Prince in high school, I had no idea he played Sellswords from Level 99 Games. I guess that part went totally over my head.
Thrice the Pixels, Triple the Tactics
I’m occasionally overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy, the sense that no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to convince more people to play Pixel Tactics. I mean, I’ve already written about this gem from Level 99 Games twice (here and here) and apparently there are still a handful of people who have yet to check it out.
But it’s not too late. The third game in the series has just arrived, and there’s hope for you holdouts yet.
Triumph of Indines
I don’t have much of a history with fighting games. Oh, there was that time up at Rocky Mountain Pizza Company when a pack of older kids kicked me off the Street Fighter machine, and I owned both Power Stone games on Dreamcast (though they were 3D, so they don’t “count”), and I occasionally got roped into enduring a match of Super Smash Bros with my cousin — but other than those isolated instances, fighting games always stood out as a particularly silly genre, and anyway, I was too busy playing games like Baldur’s Gate II and Planescape: Torment. *raises pinkie ever so superiorly*
So when BattleCON: Devastation of Indines appeared on Kickstarter, I wasn’t exactly out of my mind with anticipation. Still, it was by Level 99 Games, and after gems like Pixel Tactics and the Minigame Library, I figured I’d take a chance. That was nearly a year ago, and now that I’ve played through a couple dozen matches, I can tell you exactly how disappointed I am…
Twice the Pixels, Double the Tactics
As it did for so many others, Pixel Tactics from the Level 99 Games Minigame Library took me by complete surprise. Here was a game every bit as deep as it was slight, as expansive and expandable as it was compact. At a mere fifty-two cards, including a pair of references, it had more game packed into its box than most full-sized titles cram into packages many times the size. So not only was I entirely unsurprised when Brad Talton announced its sequel, an expandalone version that could be merged with the original or not according to my mercurial whims, I was also decidedly pleased, raising a single well-groomed eyebrow at my monitor at the news. Indeed.
Well, it’s now out (along with a healthy restock of the first game, for those who struggled to lay hands on it), and after a few days of heavy play, I’m ready to tell you whether it’s a worthy extension of the Pixel Tactics namesake.
Discs of Indines
I don’t “get” Level 99 Games’ World of Indines setting. One minute its characters are brawling in the streets, the next they’re brawling in bars — I think I follow so far — and five minutes later they’re laughing over a friendly game of volleyball or soccer or speed-racer or something, and suddenly I’m not sure I grasp the nuances of this relationship. Weren’t they just barely angry with each other? Why are they now pals with that demon-faced dude? Are they just getting along so the artist won’t have to come up with a new set of fifty cutesy characters and the writer won’t have to invent fifty new names? Or is there really some sort of acid-trip story arc going on over here?
None of these fascinating question have anything to do with Disc Duelers, the latest title in the World of Indines. Flicking, on the other hand? Flicking has a lot to do with it.
The World’s First Real-Time Bar Fight Sim
The good ole saloon fight was basically the Old West equivalent of boardgaming. Feel free to fill in the blanks of this metaphor on your own.
Enter 7-Card Slugfest. This isn’t the first game to tackle the “bar fight” as its subject matter, though it’s definitely the first real-time bar fighting game. Y’know, short of actually punching someone in the face in a bar, because that gets pretty real-time too. 7-Card Slugfest is much less likely to end with a hospital visit, though anything’s possible when it’s set in the Level 99 Games World of Indines, which as far as I can tell is a colorful fantasy universe where everyone is perpetually pummeling everyone else in the face, whether Street Fighter-style in the BattleCON: War/Devastation of Indines games, as 8-bit phalanxes in Pixel Tactics, flicked discs in Disc Duelers, or, in this case, as a hot mess of raging testosterone in a poorly-lit tavern.
The Library of Minigame Library Reviews
The Minigame Library from Level 99 Games.
It’s always a relief to finish a series and compile an index (it’s a freebie article, so hey!), but I’ll confess I’m going to miss the anticipation of discovering what comes next in the Minigame Library from Level 99 Games. At least this collection has enjoyed enough success that we’ll be seeing another at some point, and Pixel Tactics will be getting a sequel sometime this summer! For your reading simplicity, I’ve compiled all my reviews below.
Mini-Review: Grimoire Shuffle
Minigame Library, Game #6: Grimoire Shuffle.
Back in the alt-text for the header image of my Blades of Legend review, I made some predictions about the remaining four games in the Minigame Library from Level 99 Games. I guessed (correctly) that Pixel Tactics and Noir would be good entries, underestimated Infinity Dungeon a bit, and supposed, based on the score over on BoardGameGeek, that Grimoire Shuffle would be “meh.” Reading the rulebook (which, let’s be fair, hasn’t been the Minigame Library’s strongest suit) didn’t do much to change that assumption.
So sitting down and actually playing Grimoire Shuffle was a pleasant surprise. Turns out, it’s a pretty slick team puzzle game. It isn’t on the same level as Pixel Tactics, but it definitely stands out as comparable to Master Plan in that it’s uncommonly smart for its size.
Mini-Review: Noir
Minigame Library, Game #5: Noir.
I keep reminding myself that each of the games in the Minigame Library from Level 99 Games were designed by the same dude, D. Brad Talton, Jr. It’s surprising because each of these games is a tight, self-contained experience, totally distinct from the others in the collection despite their shared designer and tiny size. Unfortunately, they also share the same downside: that they could have been even better if only they’d had more to them. In a way, the “mini” in “Minigame Library” is its biggest weakness. Master Plan would have been even more cerebral if only it contained a few more traps; Infinity Dungeon’s random wackiness stops being quite so random and wacky after you encounter all of its items, rooms, and characters after only a few plays; and Pixel Tactics demands “More!” so resoundingly that it’s getting exactly that later this summer.
Then along comes Noir, the glowing exception to this rule. Noir has exactly as many cards as it needs to be a great mystery game, and it’s easily the tightest out of a set of very tight games. “More?” you ask.
No. Noir isn’t interested in more.
Mini-Review: Pixel Tactics
Minigame Library, Game #4: Pixel Tactics.
So far in our look at the Minigame Library from Level 99 Games, we’ve seen the “surprisingly cerebral” Master Plan, the interesting but ultimately failed experimental team game Blades of Legend, and the not-quite-a-game-but-it’s-good-so-who-cares Infinity Dungeon. Between the inclusion of the first and last of those, I already regard the price of admission into this Library as a pretty good deal.
Well, buckle up! Because today we’re looking at two-person dueling game Pixel Tactics, which placed alongside even the games I’ve liked from this set, is a (mini) giant among men.
SPACE-BIFF! 