Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (iOS)

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons begins with a storm at sea and a boy in a small boat losing his mother to the waters.

The unlucky boy, recalling this, is hailed by his brother in the present.  Dear old dad is coughing and hacking as if he’s about to breathe his last.  The boys must load him onto a crude wooden cart and make their way down the hill and over a multi-level wooden bridge with levers and cranks.

Easy, right?  The boys have to work in tandem using only your thumbs to maneuver them to grab the cart, give a boost up to another level, and coordinate all.

I like the puzzles, and managed to get them to the bottom of the hill ever soooooo slowly.  Pulled the lever to move a section of bridge.  Climbed a rope and turned the crank…doh should have positioned dad and his cart on the lift first.  Now having trouble getting both boys back over to grab and move the cart.  A little frustrating but doable.  I’ll just need to do it in small increments so as to not go buggy from the controls.

The game uses the Unreal Engine so all of the landscape is beautiful and sharp.  The characters themselves are rather cartoony.

Fallout Shelter: Death in the Wasteland

My Vault is getting huge and I’m up to 66 Dwellers out of a possible 200 I can have.  

Early on, I wasn’t attached to any of my little Dwellers, but now I have favorites that I know by name.  I’m highly protective of all of them, and grab new Dwellers who show up at the Vault door and quickly drag them in to safety.

There are some new creatures which can show up in your Vault that look like mutated gophers.  They might be just a bit tougher than Rad Roaches.

An uglier upright form of these showed up at the Vault door one day.  They blasted the fully enforced door down like it was paper, and blew past my two reliable door defenders (no Raiders ever get past them to the second or third room).  Gleefully they went through each room and got as far as the third level !!!!! Before my Dwellers took them out.  As many as four Dwellers died in the attack, something that hasn’t happened in ages.

I’m glad I give armor and a weapon to each Dweller as soon as they arrive.  No Dweller is without defense, but many haven’t been trained in Strength and Endurance, if they’re in rooms where Agility or Intelligence is important.  I had just moved my “best” people up to the top rooms the day before the big raid. Good thing.  I’m going to work to get everyone in tougher shape if the attackers are going to be tougher.

I sent three of my best Dwellers out yesterday morning and I usually will bring them back home before day’s end.  (sniff) I forgot about them till about midnight when I was settling in to sleep.  Only one died, and another was close this morning.  A good Overseer watches out for their Dwellers, tsk.

Tiny Screen Adventures: in Rapture With The Wrench

Figure “A” handy wrench

It’s all good now.  I’ve made my way into Rapture and have Andy Ryan guiding me along.  I was able to save and load so we’re off.

Floating towards the city in the bathosphere , I thought what I thought of it in the past: what a magnificent underwater city, it’s too bad it didn’t work out.

Then you’re inside and a guy with long hooks for hands kills another guy right outside the bathosphere.

You move with your left thumb and turn/look up and down with your right.  Coordinating the two makes you glide along smoothly but it’s hard for me to maintain.

As you can imagine once I was attacked from out of the darkness by a crazy, my thumbs went wild and I swung the wrench all over ending in my death.  

That was quick.

Tiny Screen Adventures: The Longest Journey

Save after every conversation is my new motto.   Many aren’t long, but our girl April is…the B Word.

You traditionally try to talk to everyone in this type of game to get information about the game and the world.  I take the most polite options offered but she still manages to blast everyone she meets with some rudeness.

We appear to be on a future earth but it isn’t a sleek future.  Everything seems grungy.

Except for this park, of course.  

I’m hoping our April snaps out of her eternal witchiness and becomes likeable soon or she’s sailing over the next cliff she comes to. 

Tiny Screen Adventures: Syberia

I hoped I would be spending a short time at the train station in Barrockstadt, but I’m still working to find a way to get the train moving again.

Because it has a clockwork mechanism, it needs to be wound up again before the journey can continue.  I found a winding tool of sorts.

In order to get my immobile train up there I need to:

Open some locks so a tugboat can pull the train forward.

Fix a mechanical bandstand for three University regents who must have graduated from Three Stooges University.

Recover a mammoth doll from a paleontologist who creates wine as a side hobby.

It may not sound like much to do but the path to accomplishing anything is very long.

Merry Christmas!

Bioshock: Looking For The Ladder

I’ve been fiendishly finding games for my iPod and could not resist old favorite Bioshock.  It isn’t compatible with the iPod but works fine on my phone.

It has been a long time since I played so I just started and I’m looking for a way up into the building so far without success. 

As you can see, the screen is dark and I am horribly distracted by the terrible glug glug drowning noises my guy keeps making.  Ack. 

Still, very cool to enter this world again from the comfort of my snugly couch.

Dragon Age Inquisition

For the first time in years I had a computer game to ask for for Christmas. I haven’t even installed it yet but every mention of it I’ve seen so far makes me expect a great adventure.

Happy Gaming!

Tiny Screen Adventures: The Longest Journey

I have this for PC and I now recall I didn’t get very far in the game.  I had been thinking it was some technical glitch, but I can see now that I stopped dead after The Longest Most Awful Conversation in all my gaming history. The two women pictured below have an interminable dialog about the apt. building they live in and its residents and everyone’s love lives.  I thought I was gonna die.

I could not escape the conversation until every annoying tidbit had been discussed. JSM. 

Muttering terribly I made sure I saved the game once I was finally released.

As a side note, inventory items are combined by dragging one item on top of another.

I shall report back once I escape Slime Central.