Games You Might Not Have Tried - ep 6 - Find New Games - Extra Credits

You know, we haven't been coming out with these as often as we'd like. It seems like there's only a new one every 6 months. We haven't done any of those other console or subcategory episodes yet. Unacceptable. So, we found a friend who can help us make them a bit more frequently. Audience, this is other Dan. Other Dan, audience. So, all right, you know the rules to these. These games may not be great, maybe not even good, but we promise that at least from a design perspective, they're interesting. Apologies if some of these have been out for a good while. We've built up a bit of a backlog of games we wanted to mention. So, let's get started. Cart Life. Man, this is a kick to the gut. It's Lemonade Stand with emotional impact. I know that sounds ridiculous, but this game makes you step into the shoes of someone trying to survive running a tiny food cart or a newspaper stand. It has moments that just make you stop and think.

For me, it was a moment I had playing an immigrant from Eastern Europe. I noticed that my character's hunger bar was low. So, simple, I'll go buy something to eat. I crack out the in-game map and wait for an exclamation point to appear or a mouse over to pop up as I highlight the different districts, but there's nothing. No UI elements to give me any clue of where to go. Just like real life. And I realized how much I never want to be in that situation. In a new town with little money in your pocket where you don't really speak the language and you have no clue where to go to get something as simple as a decent cheap meal. It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but it's a good example of what games can do. That unique power games have to, in some tiny, tiny way, let us walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Papers, please. This may be one of the finest examples of a game that can be thought-provoking without losing its ability to engage. I put it side by side with Cart Life because I really want to juxtapose the

two. Despite the profound moments I had in Cart Life, it's like some Eastern European cinema. It's something you have to work through. Something you know you'll be better for, but it isn't really engaging in the way that you want it to be. Papers, Please shows us that anything can be made engaging, and we don't have to lose the engagement to put you in another's shoes. The entire game is about being the guy who stamps passports at the border crossing, but it's riveting. It's filled with compelling gameplay, a drive to excel, and amazing moral choice moments that you might not even realize are there. But, you know, I've said too much already. It just came out on Steam. You should just be pausing this and going to play Papers, Please. Crimson Shroud. Yasumi Matsuno, the mind behind Ogre Battle, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story, decided to take a crack at delivering a tabletop role-playing experience on the 3DS. Crimson Shroud is the result. It's download only and probably 4 hours long, being, in his own words, more akin to a short story than a massive RPG.

It's a little text-heavy, but it's well-written with more flavor to the characters than we usually see in handheld RPGs. While it's far from perfect, if you've ever wanted the feel of playing through a D&D module while curled up around your 3DS at night, it's probably worth the price. Where else are you going to get to roll little dice with your stylus? Eador: Genesis. You have no idea how many hours lost to this game. It's one of those one more turn games that has you up till sunrise. It's like Heroes of Might and Magic with infinite content. It's made by a Russian team that's clearly put a lot of love into crafting the campaign. While seeming random, it does a marvelous job of always providing the player new surprises to work with as they go. Every time you think you've seen everything the game has to offer, you find out just how wrong you were. It also has a much better narrative than one would expect from this type of game. It's no great shakes, but it kept me interested and it made me curious about the world in a way that's uncommon in fantasy strategy titles.

Etrian Odyssey 4 You know, I never thought drawing your own map could be so much fun. For years I've wanted to get into this series, but I could never quite do it. It's the ultimate in old school dungeon crawling experience from the difficulty and bland presentation of the combat to the fact that you have to draw your own map by hand. Past iterations of this game have always frustrated me because they've never had the usability we expect from games today. But with the fourth outing, they really nailed that sweet spot between old school challenge and modern accessibility. The map making takes up the entire lower screen of the DS and gives you just enough to be a breeze while making every new step mapped feel like an achievement and a reward. Though it's not saying a whole lot given the field out there, Etrian Odyssey is certainly one of the top games in the RPG genre for the 3DS. Guns of Icarus Steampunk PvP Zeppelin fights. I am in.

This game puts you and three of your friends in charge of maintaining, flying, and fighting in a dirigible. You take one of the three very asymmetric roles, the captain, gunner, or engineer, in a hectic nail-biting dirigible dog fight. This is one of the best I want to do something awesome for an evening with three of my friends games out there. You may not play it compulsively on loop like some of the other PvP experiences out there, but if you want a unique and awesome time with a couple of friends, I'd highly recommend it. Rogue Legacy Rogue-like Metroidvania. What else do you want? It has the old school 2D charm of Symphony of the Night mixed with the procedurally generated castle that leaves you never knowing quite what to expect. I wish they would have gone even further with the concept, but just following a family generation after generation as they try and conquer the same ever-changing castle kept me engaged for hours on end. Will it change your life? Probably not, but if you're looking for a throwback that combines the great platforming action on the Super Nintendo's days with some roguelike hooks and more modern

game design, you might spend a long time looking for something that better fits the bill than Rogue Legacy. Warframe. Sometimes you need some run and gun, but you know what? Why not take it to 11? Warframe is a free-to-play co-op shooter. Yep, co-op and co-op only. It's not about competition, it's about grinding missions with your friends while being the most badass warrior in the galaxy. The first time you wall run or knee slide down a hill while popping off shots with a gun in each hand, you will be sold on it. It's pure escapism, but man, it's fun escapism. My 14-year-old self would have been so hooked. And finally, Sifteo Cubes. Yeah, technically these are a platform and not a game, but who cares? These things are awesome. There is so much possibility for design on Sifteo Cubes, I can't even begin to tell you. I mean, think of them like

LEGOs with tiny touch screens that know where each other are. Think about all the things you could do with that. Unfortunately, there's almost no content. I wish I could say go and buy these right now, but I really can't. If you got a pile of cash and interest in design and you want a diversion, these are totally worth it, but the game library right now is very small. A number of interesting indie designers are trying to do things with the cubes, but for all their awesome potential, right now the cubes may end up as paperweights for you after a few hours of play. Still, it's great to see new vectors of platform design, things which open up whole new worlds of play at a time when so many people are focused on simply delivering more of the same. That's all we got for you for now, but we'll be back with more soon. Thanks again for the help, other Dan. See you next time.