How to be a videogame tester

Well this should be interesting. My prediction is that Space Quest II will fall just short of the first game, but will still remain in the same ballpark for the simple reason that the majority of categories will rate pretty similar. Its not as nasty when it comes to dead ends, but the story and the environments are not quite up to the standard set in Space Quest I. Here goes...

Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles in Space Quest II are a mixed bag. Pretty much every type of puzzle that had appeared in previous Sierra games makes an appearance here in some form. On the positive side, there are some pretty cool scenarios that require logical (and at times quick) thinking, such as the swinging rope in the ravine and the acid pool trap on the asteroid, and there’s only really one puzzle that stands out as being more on the “too difficult” end of the spectrum, which is the retrieval of the glowing gem in the swamp. It’s bad enough that the player has to “take a breath” before swimming through the underwater tunnel, but some players might never cross over the deep part of the swamp in the first place and therefore have no idea of its existence.  There are also some pretty illogical solutions, particularly when it comes to the Labion Terror Beast, and others are just downright annoying, like the vine and tunnel mazes. Finally, while I heard talk of multiple solutions to puzzles prior to playing, the second solution to these puzzles in every case seems to be to just avoid them altogether. Still, at least the dead ends in the sequel are nowhere near as painful as in the first one.
Rating: 5

Interface and Inventory
I’m not going to spend much time on this category. The interface and inventory hasn’t changed from the previous Sierra games, so the only thing to talk about is how the game makes use of it. Space Quest II does tend to bring out the worst of the movement issues found in the engine, but it actually seems that was intentional to give the player a challenge. Getting through the vine maze is stupidly hard at the faster speeds, as is opening and entering doors while being chased by droids and aliens. Having to type anything during time restricted scenes relies on the player being able to type exactly the right words at the right time (quickly) and then going back to the movement keys before whatever it is that’s chasing you makes contact. I saw no option but the slow the game down, which certainly took away from the intended urgency. On a more positive note, I don’t recall struggling with the parser once during the whole game (unlike Police Quest), but I’m not certain whether that has anything to do with me having played through the game before. I’m afraid I have to stick with the Sierra 5 for this category.
Rating: 5


Story and Setting
Space Quest II is pretty light on story to be honest. If I tell you what it’s about in a couple of sentences, it’s pretty obvious the thing doesn’t have much in the way of depth. “Roger is kidnapped by Vohaul’s goons while working on a space station and transported to his asteroid fortress. Instead of killing Roger, Vohaul sends him to the mines on Labion, where Roger escapes, avoids a couple of environmental obstacles, and finds a shuttle. His attempt to escape is halted by Vohaul, who transports him back to the asteroid fortress, where Roger is strangely allowed to roam free until he can find a way to the defeat the villain and stop his evil plan.” The whole thing feels pretty contrived and while Vohaul’s stupidity is part of the parody, his laughable attempts at villainy take any plot interest out of the whole thing. Thankfully, Space Quest II is genuinely, and consistently, very funny. It seems that any efforts put into the story were done so to allow constantly hilarious and often self referential bouts of humorous narration. Taken as a light-hearted adventure, I guess Space Quest II succeeds, but there’s so much potential in the series to go the extra mile and have both story and humour. Oh, and while I did come across two endings to the game, one of them was clearly not ideal, and should probably be considered a cherry topped game over.
Rating: 5


Sound and Graphics
Space Quest II pretty much reuses music and sound effects from previous Sierra releases. The theme music is exactly the same as the first game and the rare effects that pop up throughout the game will be pretty familiar to anyone that’s played any of the other Quest games on offer. As for the graphics, well they’re also similar to what has gone before them. The game switches between the greens, blues and yellows of the King’s Quest series (when Roger is on Labion) and the blues and pinks you would expect to see in a Space Quest game (when on Vohaul’s asteroid). None of it stands out as being really impressive (although the underwater cavern looks pretty cool) and the game lacks the variety seen in others such as Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. One new feature is the light effects in the tunnels which is caused by the glowing gem, but that’s achieved in the most simplistic of ways and nothing to write home about. All up I have to give Space Quest II the same as I did for the first one, which is yet another 5.
Rating: 5

As mentioned above, Space Quest II takes place almost entirely in two environments, Labion and Vohaul’s asteroid compound. Labion does have a pretty organic and open feel to it and it’s actually refreshing that it’s not handled in the repeating grid format that made some of the King’s Quest games seem like they occurred on a planet the size of a football field. The same can’t be said for the asteroid, which is limited to five levels, with only a storage room or a bathroom found on each. There’s also a real lack of personalities in the game, which doesn’t make for particularly thriving environments. The only time you see anyone that isn’t a droid on the asteroid is when you go to the bathroom, and even then you can only see legs coming out of the bottom of cubicles. After the likes of Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry (and even the first Space Quest) had numerous people (or at least lifeforms) that interacted with you, Space Quest feels a bit lacking in character. At least the atmosphere is given a boost by all the scenarios Roger finds himself in, many of which require action rather than dialogue or item application to solve. The atmosphere is given a boost by regular action based threats. It’s a mixed bag, so I’m going with yet another 5.
Rating: 5



Dialogue and Acting
This is where Space Quest II shines! The game really is very funny, and once again showcases how talented the Two Guys from Andromeda were at making the player laugh while killing them in a plethora of horrible ways, and then mocking them for it. They also proved once again that they can shamelessly plug other Sierra games from within the game itself without coming across as greedy attention seekers, with Roger dreaming of being Leisure Suit Larry while unconscious and held captive by the hunter on Labion. They’re also often self referential, poking fun at their game’s limitations and their own efforts at producing a quality product. The game was short, and not hugely satisfying, but it was entertaining enough to recommend. Despite all this, there’s no improvement in the way dialogue is delivered, and it’s still all just description and narration, so I can’t go higher than 6.
Rating: 6

So it seems that Tim Schafers Double Fine is considering producing a classic-style point-and-click adventure game.  Because the genre has been commercially dead for a while, theyve opted to start by raising pledges of $400,000 via Kickstarter -- and theyre up to about $1.6 million already.  Seems a lot of people would love to see something new from one of Lucasarts adventure game greats, and Double Fine has established its own solid reputation as a purveyor of quirky, funny, and fun-to-play games.  And this new downloadable gaming era makes distribution, duplication, and marketing costs much easier to deal with.  No word yet on what the game will be, but its looking like this just may happen.

Seems there may be a bit of a point-and-click renaissance in the air.  Woo-hoo! 

Written by Ilmari

Blade Hunter’s secret diary, part 3: I feel like I am getting so close with Karyn after our night together. It’s good that my case requires me going and asking her for information. It’s so nice to bask in her radiance frequently!

The game is going like a blaze and I seem to be progressing quite nicely! I am just hoping I haven’t lost an crucial item… But now I am getting ahead of myself. A brief recap of the plot thus far: some bad drugs killed mayors daughter, Chandra, who had a best friend called Jake, who knew Chandra had been hanging with a guy called Chen, who was then turned into slimy goo by a guy with an eye patch. An eventful first day, Id say!

Last time I had just returned to home from my nightly adventure with Blades girlfriend, Karyn. I decided to head down to her office right away, since she had said she might help me in analysing stuff - and I had plenty of stuff I had got the previous night from Chen’s apartment. I started by giving Karyn the drug patch, which she promised to give to lab boys to investigate. The analysis wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, so that didnt provide me anything new to do yet. I also gave her the paper I had found in Chen’s safe. Karyn didn’t recognise the symbols, but suspected it was some archaic dialect of Mandarin Chinese. She also suggested visiting some Chinese scholar and I knew right away who to call!

Bearded, underpaid fellow, who has no idea of references to modern world-- yes, clearly a scholar!

My Chinese friend in the warehouse complex could translate the paper, which told that Rise of Dragon was soon about to happen and target was Hollywood water reservoir. The paper also contained a reference to Bahumat, who according to the scholar was an evil magician living in year 3000 BC. Bahumat could turn himself into a dragon and he tried to rule the world. Bahumat was killed by a white magician Gin-Su or Knife (I can see where this is heading…), who banished Bahumat to netherworld for 5000 years, but got himself killed in the process. The old Chinese knew also a prophecy of the return of Bahumat:

But Mr. Tarantino said there would be some dogs here!

With nothing else to do, I went to visit Jake again. He was pleased that Chen was dead and told me that Chen had had some connection with Chinese mafia, who was working in some warehouse right under the nose of City Hall. I tried to show him the evidence I’d collected, but nothing useful came out. He did take one of my chocolate bars for safe keeping. I hope this act of charity will not come and haunt me in the future.

I knew eye patch meant no good

Bingo! Now I’ve got the address of Johnny Qwong, the henchman

I went straightaway to Qwong’s house. It was a huge villa, guarded by armed patrols walking on the roof. I couldn’t get in, but I could go down the sewer, although the local bum tried to warn me.

Rats? Great, I can start grinding!

The only thing I could access in the sewers was a locked box.

What’s that on the box? A treasure map?

Oh for Pete’s sake! I guess I should have studied electronics!

The lock went out with one of my explosives and I was not too happy to find out a mess of wires waiting me.

Yes, a minigame! Just what I was expecting!

I knew that this is where my wire tester was going to be handy. I had to tap into Johnny Qwong’s phone line and listen to his Vid Phone conversations (wireless technology must have been forgotten by then). The manual had pretty good instructions. I had to make three connections: red wire to positive, blue to negative and yellow to ground. My first attempts were not successful.

I guess I should leave changing the light bulb to more capable hands

It went on like this for almost an hour and I was already planning on rants of how bad puzzles developers could think of. I had noted that I could connect the wires, whenever both the meters were pointing on green area, and when the pointers went back to red, I was fried. My first idea had been that I had to be quick enough - the wire tester had three wires, and I thought I had to plug them all in before the pointers returned to red zone.

It’s good that Blade knows, when this contraption is ready, because I sure don’t

Getting back to Blade’s apartment, I took a look at what Mr. Qwong had been chatting with his buddies. He had received one call from “voice of Bahumat”, who now revealed his name: Deng Hwang. Qwong was told to stop all further delays in the production schedule and to check progress in the warehouse. I then remembered Jake telling me about Chinese mafia having a warehouse near City Hall, where I traveled now.

Any suggestion what these might be?

I tried using one of my explosives with it and the results were far more satisfying than I expected.

If his career as a detective doesn’t work, Blade could become a demolition man

Getting back to the main map, I noticed a new place: Deng Hwang’s corporation headquarters. This proved to be another dead end.

But I was just going to sell these fine leather jackets!

I then returned home to see if Johnny Qwong had been notified of the explosion. Indeed, the news had reached even Deng Hwang, who reprimanded Qwong for failing to do anything to prevent the damage. He also asked Qwong to visit him in the headquarters. Soon I watched a cut scene.

He sure doesn’t like mistakes

Nice to know they care for me

Session time: 2.5 hours
Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

No doubt, the Online Challenge feature is getting more and more attention. To fully gamify the entire world, the Android games designed have to be able to connect to someone from different corners of the world to some extent.

So, allow me to have a new post to make this big announcement for my Quoridor Board Game - a Beta version of the Online Challenge is available now!



Previously, i promised that if the number of ratings have reached 100, the Online feature would be added. But to everyones surprise, the feature comes earlier. A beta version of the feature has been integrated.

Something to note is that, the initial stage of the Online Challenge could only connect you to a randomly assigned opponent. In each game, in order to avoid some monkeys who spend too much time idling, each side is required to make a move (pawn moving or wall placing) within 90 seconds. Furthermore, if you are playing this Quoridor Board Game not at the peak time (when is the peak time ya?), you might have no luck challenging anyone...

A good experiment to prove the online feature works is to have 2 devices playing at the same time. Here, i assume that your internet connection is 100% stable. Else... you know... oops :) All i could say is that, it would be further improved in the future.

This is my first time featuring a real-time turn-based game. Of course, all the dirty back-end stuffs are implemented through a third party API. Lets see how this magic goes...

Police Force offers the opportunity to experience law enforcement like never before! Battle on the front line of crime as you take command of the policing for a thriving German city. Emergency calls come thick and fast, dynamically generated to put your organisational skills to the test. Perform uniform patrols to keep the city safe, in a huge open world, complete with night and day scenarios and changing weather.

Features:

Deal with serious accidents, set up radar speed traps, or hunt for car thieves whilst the routine of city life continues. Experience dealing with everything from bank robberies, to a hostage crisis, to murder!
As in any large city, public order is of paramount importance and you will be called to deal with outbreaks of disorder where your decision making skills are critical to keeping the peace as you hold the thin blue line!
Your police team is fully equipped with the latest in modern equipment, including handcuffs, high speed response vehicles, radios and firearms.
Your successes will be rewarded with promotion as you climb the career ladder and strive to receive special honours in a career mode where only the finest officers will make the grade!

Publisher: Excalibur Publishing
Developer: Excalibur Publishing
Genre: Simulation

Release name: Police.Force-FASiSO
Size: 574MB

Download :

Click to Download