Comment on What is your favorite indie game?
Flagstaff@programming.dev 3 weeks agoI really hope the sequel does more with dungeons than just ricochet/geometry puzzles. CrossCode’s incessant use of those in dungeon after dungeon was what made me stop playing.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not a sequel, just their next game! Combat and UI look similar so far. They’re doing dev streams on their discord
I thought crosscode had the best puzzles haha. The way they built it out with the elemental system, the enemies that required puzzle mechanics you had learned, the tight timing where you had to send a ball flying and then race it to various objectives, the myriad of subtle environmental puzzles in the overworld. Could go on and on, but yeah the VRP is the game’s central mechanic so if you simply don’t enjoy lining up your shots then I imagine the game would be pretty rough lol
Flagstaff@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Not sure what “VRP” is unless you just mean ricochet puzzles, but mind you, I did play 95% of the game. It felt just too same-y after long enough (it was the plot and environment that had kept me going), and then I just gave up and finished through some YouTuber’s play-through and I confirmed that I had apparently quit at the start of the final dungeon, because it just felt like… more of the same timing-&-angling annoyances with no more originality. Zelda was far, far more creative and I think the game just could have done more with items or different weapons, or something, though I know much of it is based on your character being a specific class that was fixed pre-game… It just ultimately wore me down, sadly.
Right: *successor, not “sequel.”
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Virtual Ricochet Projectile :p
It’s the game’s in-game (Crossworlds) terminology for the charged shot that bounces around, yeah. They cover it in the tutorial but the main cast basically ‘nerd emoji’s’ Sergey and they simply refer to it as “balls” for the rest of the game lol
But yeah, like I said, you just don’t like the central mechanic. It’s valid. This is the main point of contention for the minority of people who don’t click with the game, as is evidenced by filtering for negative reviews on steam
But imagine if you didn’t find it to be an annoyance, and instead found it to be inherently satisfying? One of my favorite parts about Crosscode is how unafraid they are to present you with puzzles that are not only difficult to solve in the typical sense, but also difficult to perform once you know what to do. It’s a rare treat, most games instead lean hard only into one direction (purely cerebral puzzling or purely focussed on action)
It’s a game that just gives and gives, and to the contrary of your experience, I found the constant innovation of the puzzles throughout the game is what brought it from A to S tier. I finished the final dungeon wishing there was more game to play. Imagine my delight when the DLC dropped and added another 20 hours of timing & angling goodness. Replayed the game 3 times over the years.
And yeah, frankly we should compare it to Zelda, the most celebrated and beloved puzzle adventure series of all time developed and supported for 40 years by one of the largest and most influential video game companies of all time. No joke, I think this is actually exactly where Crosscode stacks up. It’s up there for me with my favorite Zelda titles
Flagstaff@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Oh. It’s been literal years so I totally forgot that initialism, but while we’re at it, the second “C” in “CrossCode” is also capital.
It’s smooth as butter, yeah, but I think I would prefer a game focused on a different character class/weapon. I remember some progression of concepts but I guess didn’t really connect the dots (even though I don’t think I looked up a guide more than once or twice briefly).