Roguematch: A Nekomancer's Match-3 Love Letter

 A year ago, a dev from the Starstruck Games team reached out to me over Twitter and sent me one of the sweetest messages I'd ever heard. I wrote about it at the end of this post titled "Thank you, Readers."

To sum it up, they had read through my series of blog posts where I went on a quest for a good match-3 dungeon game and felt a sense of camaraderie. They too were in search of something amazing and kept falling short with what the world was offering. My blog was there for them at the right time, cheering them on.  Because of this, they gave me a free copy of the game with no demands for review or anything other than to say thank you. I got you.

That said, a review of Roguematch: The Extraplaner Invasion is overdue. As of today, I've put about 22 hours into the game, and it's pretty great. Now, is it without bugs? No, I mean, even with a larger team, we still had our fair share of bugs in Animal Cove. But I have to say that for a three-person indie team, Roguematch is pretty freaking clean, and it's a fantastic game worthy of a best-in-class study for a dungeon-based match-3 game.

Time to delve into the dungeon of many matches!

At its core, Roguematch feels like the answer to the question, what if you combined Binding of Issac's storytelling, dungeon crawling, and item building with the classic match-3 mechanics akin to those found in Candy Crush?  Bam, that's Roguematch!

Feya is all about moving fast and jumping out of danger

Each room you enter in Roguematch is a match-3 board where you not only move your character around on the board, shifting pieces as you move, but also you can make color matches to damage enemies that are definitely out to get you.

You have a health bar and each character you play has a different set of skills they can use. If you spend too long on a board, chaos pieces drop and increase the difficulty of the game, bringing a five-color matching system to a six-color matching system.

Sonya the nekomancer vs. the evil snail boss and his mini snail minions!

In addition, there are boss and mini-boss fights that have special conditions surrounding them. These are challenging fights. Some have really tight boards and rely on you pulling out all the stops with the items you've collected around the dungeon.

When you defeat a boss, you'll be presented with a stairway leading down further into the dungeon where the stakes are higher and the puzzles are meaner . . . where the questions remain: How good is your gear? How good are your matching skills? How lucky are you feeling, punk?

Each dungeon features all the dangers a harsh, extraplaner environment can dust you with

When you lose all your life, you're thrown out of the dungeon and graded on your performance. How many turns did you take, which bosses did you fight, what new items did you discover, and what stage did you make it to?

Sad Sonya is sad at her defeat

Of special note to me is the fact that one of the characters, Sonya, is a friendly "nekomancer," who went dungeon-delving in search of the "Nekonomicon." Any friendly nekomancer can be a friend to the Friendly Necromancer!

As originally posted on Twitter a year ago

The art style is extremely cute, very much in the style of anthropomorphized chibis, which I understand is a turn-off to some, but to others . . . well, it's just warm and inviting. Don't let that art look fool you though, cute does not equal easy by any means.  It's legitimately a hard game. In all of my 22 hours playing, I've never made it past the second dungeon. I've only ever unlocked the first two characters.  I got close once, but I failed on the final boss fight.

I have to say that since the beta that I played a year ago, Roguematch has really streamlined the story beats at the beginning of the game. Where once I was a little confused as to what was going on, now I fully understand why I'm heading into the extraplanar match-3 dungeon. Props to them for clarifying the story and getting the tutorial shaped up.

If you're up for a complex, but fun match-3 experience that meshes Roguelike and the matching of gems, I can confidently say this is a great game that belongs in your library . . . and that's coming from a guy who's reviewed a lot of match-3 games in my day.

Happy Dueling!

Surviving Unemployment with Peridot and Brawl Stars

So as this recent story goes, while I was unemployed, I honestly didn't have the stomach to play any PC or VR games at all! For me, that's pretty much the weirdest thing that's ever happened. The feeling I had was that I just lost all joy in doing the things I typically love. I know that sounds depressing, and yeah, it was. But that said, two mobile games helped ease the pain. 

Every day while unemployed I had a pretty strict morning schedule. I'd go to a morning meeting at 8am about job hunting, at 9am I'd go for a walk, and when I got back home, then it was time to hit the networking and resume circuit. If you're unemployed, I highly recommend keeping a schedule. This little routine gave my day some needed structure.

While I was out on a walk, I would pull out my phone and start up a game called Peridot, which is made by Niantic (you know, of Pokemon Go fame).

My Peridot waiting at the end of the sidewalk, ready to play catch with me

Peridot is a super cute AR game where you hatch cute baby pets and grow them into adults. It has the whole Tomigatchi thing going for it, but without the constant annoying real-life, real-time electronic whining. Basically, you care for your Peridot, feed it, play with it, do daily quests, and it grows up and becomes your best friend. But you don't want just one! You want a whole generational tree of Peridots.

To be honest, when I first discovered Peridot, it kind of made me mad. WIMO had tried to do the same kind of hatching game with inherited DNA traits in our mobile game Unnatural Selection. I saw this and was like, man, why didn't we just do this?  You have one body with morphing of parts -- a peridot can look like any number of four-legged creatures. The art savings must be huge!

In fact, Peridot plays into that morphing by giving badge hunters an assortment of Peridot body "archetypes" for you to hunt after.

So many archetypes!

For instance, if you hatch a peridot with the Bee Wings Plumage, Fuzzy Material, Bee Stripe Patern, Antenna Horns, and a yellow and black body, you unlock the Bee Archetype.

What's the buzz about DNA?

. . . and the resulting Peridot has a little bee flare to it.

His little robin hood hat adds the perfect flair

For a while I didn't even care about the Archetypes, I was just after hatching the rarest 4-star genes to see if I could get something crazy. The best I got was four of the 4-star genes. At the time I was surprised they didn't try to steer collectors into having higher gene ratings with an achievement system.

In fact, the big thing I kept thinking to myself over these six months or so of playing Peridot was . . . man, how does this thing even make money? It just felt like there was no motivation for players to spend. I mean, you could buy a few outfits or get an extra nest or two, but all those things come in time if you just play the game.

It's been interesting to watch the folks at Niantic bend and tweak and balance the game to be more profitable, and I think they may have actually arrived at something brilliant with the latest patch.  Now Peridots can have "chaos traits," which elevates the DNA to a really new and crazy level.  Chaos traits are basically elongated or extreme body features that you get to name and personalize.

Two chaos traits in one!

Now you have a solid reason to use the Eggs Ray consumable (to see a baby's DNA before you hatch it) because the sub-game is now trying to get as many crazy Chaos traits on your Peridot pet as possible. It's kind of genius.

I honestly can't wait to see what they come up with next because the stuff they're adding just keeps making this game better and I feel the pull to purchase more often. I'm actually proud of what they've done with this game vicariously for them. 

So, to sum it up, Peridot was just a nice comfort moment I had during my 9am walks while unemployed . . . as much comfort as I could manage between freaking out about the situation I found myself in as a 52-year-old game designer who was out of work and not making progress with employment.

~~

The other mobile game that provided me some comfort was one I've talked about before on this blog: Brawl Stars. 

I didn't start playing Brawl Stars until about 2 months into unemployment. This was my "late at night" comfort game after I had done all the job hunting I could during the day. 

Unlocking Mythic stars is the best!

By the time I was 2 months into unemployment, I had finally stopped beating myself up for the situation I was in and accepted that I had done everything right in my career to this point and it wasn't my fault for being in this situation. It just . . . was.

Anyway, I was surprised that Brawl Stars had grown its hero roster so wide! Where once I had unlocked pretty much all of the heroes save for a couple Mythic characters, now I had tons of catch-up to do.  After months of not playing the game, I was happy to see them add all these new skins, emotes, sprays, and unlockable items. New events were hitting the game on the regular. All in all it was just a way more fleshed-out experience for me.

I decided to choose a new character and just take it all the way up as far as I could.  When I found Lola, I really liked her and decided, yup, she was going to be my new number one.

I'm a dirty Lola main!

What I like about Lola is that you could use her power to duplicate her and just completely wreck face with her double attacks.  In addition, you could use that same duplicate shadow character to get out of tight situations by shielding it while it stood in place and you run away. It's actually a great decoy as well!

Side note, my wife hates this game because of the music and the look of the characters. *insert sad face* I guess she'll never know why I found comfort in a silly little PVP experience on mobile, but to me, it's always been a well-designed experience with a lot of smart decisions. Unlike Peridot, I get why this game is successful. The pull to purchase is strong. Battle passes always do that to me. I love this little game!

Of course, it's not just Lola I like to play . . . gotta play them all! FRANK SMASH!

So, there you go. I'm giving it up to Peridot and Brawl Stars today for helping me through unemployment as the only type of game-playing I could stomach. Thanks for being a couple of nice distractions.

Happy Dueling!

Diablo 4, Season 3: Surf's Up, Satan!

 About two weeks ago, tragedy and mercy struck me simultaneously in a weird way. 

1- My mom's house was diagnosed with a case of black mold, and come to find out, I had been breathing in some nasty stuff for a couple of weeks while living there.

2- My real estate agent and her husband, Dylan, who are also really good friends in Utah from way back, invited me to stay in their basement apartment while everything got sorted out at my mom's house. 

This was great news for me for a few reasons. I was in a better, safer place that was also closer to my work here in Utah. Even better, my buddy Dylan plays a lot of the Diablo IV . . . and thus I'm once again delving into the magical game known as Diablo IV!

Coolest Necromancer Shield eva!

Dylan decided to play a Druid and loved how his character looked like a big burly, surfer dude. He was dubbed Hanzel the surfing druid, and I made a necromancer surfing sidekick for Hanzel named Kelp.

Hanzel and Kelp, Surfing Outcast Buddies Against Demons (SOBAD)

As the story goes, Kelp got caught in a most unrighteous undertow and, koo koo kachoo, ended up almost dying in the ocean. When Kelp washed up on Hansel's surfboard, he mysteriously could summon skeletal surfer buddies to ride the waves with him.

If you read that last paragraph in a stereotypical California surfing voice, you've got the basis for our entire role-play while playing Diablo IV. Cha, Dude! It's totally like that!

Hanzel, the Bronze Legend.

We're currently level 30-32 playing Veteran II and Chilling in Act 4. Good times! It does definitely get out of hand with surfer terms and role-play. My surfer voice sometimes slips into a quasi-Bill Clinton. I'm working on it! 

 Chat GPT just served up 10 great suggestions for battle cries that I'm going to have to use next play session:

• "Shred the Shadows" 
• "Hang Ten on Hell's Waves" 
• "Demonic Wipeout" 
• "Barrel Roll with Beelzebub" 
• "Radical Exorcism" 
• "Soul Carve" 
• "Demon Dunk" 
• "Demon Tide Takedown" 
• "Surf's Up, Satan!"
• "Wicked Wipeout Wraiths" 

Unfortunately, Season 3 is just about to wrap up . . . or I guess you could say fortunately, it will wrap up. The word on the street is that Season 4 is going to be game-changing for Diablo 4.  I can't wait to check it out.

Kelp's ride is appropriately themed.

It is great to be able to enjoy playing a game again. Saturdays are all about doing laundry and "Shredding the Shadows" with Hanzel. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some fun stuff with these characters before the season change puts them back into the eternal realm. 

Happy Dueling!

What's happened, where have I been, and what's going on

Man, it's been a rough 3 months. On Jan 15th, WIMO Games brought us all into a Teams call and dropped the bomb. The company couldn't secure funding and that was that. We were to get a month's severance pay and then WIMO would be no more. KABOOM!!!

It's too bad, really. The third VR game we were working on was super cool. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say anything about it, but let's say I was busy learning the ropes on how to build randomized multiplayer VR dungeons. C'est Le Vie. Unfortunately, anxiety and panic set in pretty quickly for me once I interviewed for a senior designer job at KingsIsle, and I was their second choice. Ahh well.

In retrospect, part of the problem I had with finding a job is how the rules of the game have changed. Resumes have changed. Companies put fake jobs up to bolster their image. Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software picks through your resume and auto-kicks you out if you don't match the job description's keywords, and let's not forget . . . I haven't even interviewed for a job in 26 years.

To make matters EVEN WORSE, the game industry imploded on itself. It's really no fun competing against designers with Blizzard experience in their resumes. 

I was pretty lost and nothing seemed to be working. I was having sleepless nights, pacing the floor at 3am, and suddenly friends and family I hadn't talked to in a year were now on my weekly call list. Survival mode is what it was all about, my friends. I got my first taste of collecting an unemployment check, and let me tell you, I am grateful for that money, but it wasn't anything like what I was used to. SURVIVAL MODE ENGAGE! 

For me, I turned to my faith and my church. I didn't know what else to do. I was stressed, lost weight, stopped enjoying the things I typically loved (like playing games), and stopped doing anything extracurricular that wasn't searching for a job or going on long walks. Basically, I was destroyed and needed help putting myself back together again. They picked up the tab on groceries every other week for me and provided job-hunting advice and training. It was a life-saver. I've spent more time on my knees the past 3 months than I have in the past . . . I dunno . . . year or two? Maybe three? 

(side note: THANK YOU to everyone I knew who was there for me networking, help, talk, and support.  Y'all have been wonderful friends.)

The end of the unemployment story is this . . . I got a job at my old company back in Utah. Now the hard part is coming back into something that is a semblance of living well. I've been in survival mode, and until everyone in my family is safe and has new jobs, things are a bit different for me. I need to sell my old house and buy a new house. As you probably know, moving is really really hard. I wish I didn't have to do this, but here we are.

Despite my buddies at the Ruff Talk VR podcast talking me up (23:18-24:38 -- Discussion on WIMO's closure, and a shoutout to me for attempting to stay positive despite it!), I'm not a superhero that was unaffected by all this. It was incredibly tough, but I've done what I had to do. The closest I got to staying in the gaming industry was interviewing for a Marketing Producer role at Zynga. They took a pass on me because I was overqualified. It's ok, the salary in my new job will be more than that role was going to pay anyway. 

 . . . so anyway . . . it's not for lack of trying, but for now, I'm out . . .

Does this mean I'm done with the gaming industry and this blog is a thing of the past? Nah. I don't know if I'll ever ditch the blog. It's super therapeutic, I love to write, and once a state of "normal" is achieved again, I might be able to post more often. As for the gaming industry, I'm not sure. I have dreams of having a side hustle indie game company of my own. There's a VR game I want to release on side-quest. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it just yet, but . . . I have dreams! 

Happy Dueling!

Tom Purdue -- Level Design Examples

Battle Bows Level Design Example

Battle Bows is a cooperative VR Archery Tower Defense game where you protect your castle from invading balloon enemies. 

For the first update of Battle Bows, I was tasked with creating a level design that would feature four main enemy doors instead of two. Crafting a complete level of Battle Bows meant the following also needed to be considered:

• Bringing interesting verticality with ramps, bridges, and ruins
• Congruity with ramp, bridge, and ruin themes from the original design
• Ensuring all external pathways ended at the two doors into the castle
• Adding towers and buildings where enemies could pause, exit from, and hide behind
• Ensuring there were interesting pathway loops to build tension and enemy pileup
• Completing outer pathway connections to each other
• Completing a Boss Pathway that circled the entire castle
• Finishing with more side pathway connections

Fleshing out the Winter Keep Level Design

The level was first set up using a series of PowerPoint images to accomplish this. This was then reviewed with the Design Director and artists to ensure the concept and the greybox level could be created from the design. 

During the greybox phase, I asked the artists to scoop the level upward on all sides so the castle was sitting at the bottom of a bowl-like valley to help bring even more verticality to the level. Two artists then coordinated with me while finishing the level's visuals to completion, adding pockets of trees, craters, fencelines, skyboxes, icebergs, and more.

The final Winter Keep environment for Battle Bows

I then mapped out dozens of enemy pathways, hidden targets, and exploding barrels during the greybox phase and on into the polish phase until the final product was completed. 

Finishing the Story in Asgard's Wrath 2

I just finished up Asgard's Wrath II today. I've thought about writing about this game a second time or a third time beyond my initial thoughts, but every time I went to write about it, I don't know, I kind of just felt like I'd rather be playing it. If that's a good sign, take it! 

Now, I don't think this is a good "get your feet wet" in VR game at all by the way. Since it came bundled with the Quest 3 at launch, I heard some chatter here and there that perhaps this game was good enough to be the thing that gets a person to buy a VR headset. I don't know about that. A game where you stand still like Battle Bows or Walkabout Minigolf might be better. You could end up pretty dizzy on this title if you aren't prepared for it. That said, Asgard's Wrath II is a must-play title once you're ready. 

In Asgard's Wrath II you are a god that can take possession of human spirits that ask for your help. As the story goes, Loki gives you this power (or teaches you this power? I was never quite sure on that point) in the Original Asgard's Wrath game. In Asgard's Wrath, you take on and follow the story of the Norse Pantheon. For AW2, you travel to Egypt and deal with their pantheon.  Loki tags along, of course, sowing trouble along the way.

Choose your hero!

The title divides your story's main quest into "sagas" where you follow the stories of the four heroes you possess:

Abraxas with his sword, shield, and axe at the ready

Abraxas -- This is pretty much your standard human warrior/tomb robber. His kit is mostly sword and board, which is perfect for learning how to play the game. It makes sense he's the first of the four you assist. His throwing axe is really fun to chuck around as well. I especially liked how you could hold it spinning in the air and direct it in any direction. 

Water weapons and a song of destruction are Cyrene's way to victory

Cyrene -- Your second playable hero is a "river naiad." It's a pretty different play style but if I was to describe the character in D&D terms it would be a Water Genasi bard. Man, I would love to play D&D with this character. She has a shield/harp in one hand, a little jellyfish turret, and an eel-like sword. Aside from the final character, this was probably my favorite to play. Strumming to send out blasts of notes was a highlight.

Alivida is ready to throw down a few grenades and explode them

Alvilda -- The third playable hero is an elf who specializes in the bow and arrow. It's a little difficult to manage, but you can switch around her arrow types between a piercing arrow, a ricochet arrow, and a multishot arrow. Also in her kit is a shield (which I rarely used) and a really great explosive mine.  My favorite thing to do with this character was to throw down a mine and shoot it. If you spec'd your character in a certain way, shooting the mine with a piercing arrow would send up a star that then broke into several heat-seeking arrows.  Really fun!

Remember kids, your head is your best weapon

Djehuty -- Finally, your fourth playable hero was an entity that is now near and dear to the Friendly Necromancer's heart. Djehuty (strange name, cool hero) could rip his head off and possess creatures. This could then siphon off divine shielding from them and cause them to attack other enemies. He also had a staff/spear that could cast bolts from its tip, be thrown, or slash enemies. He also had a necklace in his possession that served a few purposes: a shield, a whip, or to create portals (like in the game Portal 2). I had some trouble playing him at first, but eventually he became the character I'd beat the game with.

In the game, you're also assisted by a companion that helps you, not only in battle but also as a mount that you can ride around the world.

• Subira -- a shadow panther that can remove shadow obstacles in puzzles.
• Pa'ahkhet -- a bird that lets you glide across platforms (much like riding a shield in Zelda)
• Wahka -- an ape that casts magic totems to help raise puzzle pieces.
• Mereret -- a hippo that can cast shadow bolts to dispel evil entities.
• Viggo -- a boar that eats grubs and throws them up to freeze traps or free glued objects.

Each of these has a skill tree with its own abilities. I never quite got the hang of reviving them in the midst of battle, but they were always a helpful distraction during combat.

Viggo and I share this affinity for food

Probably the coolest feature of the game was my favorite design/lore integration: God puzzles. As a god that inhabits a mortal, you would encounter puzzles in the game where you could release your mortal and assume the form of a god. I talked a bit about it in the previous post, but truly this puzzle-solving mechanic in VR was extremely satisfying and really made sense. The back and forth of moving hero and god around to solve an environment puzzle is a great design that blends well with the game's lore. 

I spent far too long on this water pipe puzzle

The main hub is where you can craft, buy, and sell. It's also where you have your own personal room for you to relax in and keep all the trophies you collect. The crafting was pretty simplistic. Some might find this a bit less exciting in the VR space. There are crafting games like Township Tale where you physically work a bellows, bang an anvil, and hammer nails.  In this game, however, it's more like ensuring you have the ingredients, clicking a button, and letting one of your god friends do the crafting. I liked it because it wasn't physically demanding, which can be a relief.

Let the gods do the crafting!

Much like a souls-like game, you can leave a projection of yourself around the world to point to objects and things of interest. I had a lot of fun pointing at cave openings or at particularly hard-to-see puzzle spots. At first, it was really fun to see these everywhere. It was a bit sad to see most people abandon this mechanic in the later sagas of the game. I'm just as guilty though. It's so easy to forget as you go on in the game.

Yet another successful Loki Rift closed!

In comparison to the first two heroes, it felt like the third and fourth hero had less real estate to their stories. The game certainly did try to distract me at high levels with Loki rifts and long never-ending fights though, so you got depth here if you allowed yourself to be distracted.

The boss fights were truly epic and typically involved scripted moments where you would grapple enemies and use their weapons, projectiles, and tails against them. There's nothing quite like making a dragon slice its own head off with its tail.

Sure, why not?

In particular, the final two boss fights were outstanding. They both took a couple tries for me to master them, but what a wild ride they were. In the final battle, it sent you through a few stages where you would alternate combat and platforming in a crazy ride to the finish line. I can't tell you enough how much I enjoyed those final fights. I'm hoping I can go back and play them again with a different hero.

Now, I fully agree with IGN's 10 out of 10 rating for this game, but I must take a moment to call out a couple game breaking bugs that I experienced that wasted a couple hours of my time. The most notable was when you're supposed to put Mereret into one of her ghost-busting platforms in the Spillways, but for some reason, my game state got out of sync and the platform was stuck on the lower level instead of rising to the top level as it should. I spent so much time wondering how to get on that platform, wandering back and forth. What eventually fixed it for me was logging out of the game and back in. Upon my return, the platform was raised to the position it should have been.

I was so relieved when this platform raised up after relogging

This happened a couple of other times, but I had learned my lesson from the bug in the Spillways. If it felt like something was amiss, I'd always log out and back in before retracing my steps a few times. It helped to reset an area that had become "stuck." 

Another example of this was in a God puzzle where you need to move giant wind machines around a large area and fly from platform to platform with Pa'ahkhet. I left the area to do some crafting and when I came back, the wind machines couldn't be moved and there were no animals to crush for me to use their souls so I could move around said wind machines. Log in and back out and viola . . . fixed.

Aside from a few moments like that, I truly did get a good 50-60 hours of incredibly enjoyable gameplay from this title. If you're looking for a good, fantasy-based adventure that's AAA quality in the VR space, Asgard's Wrath II is waiting for you.  It's a great game.

Happy Dueling!

Quest to Cantrip Completion in Wizard101

I decided to log back into Wizard101 and see if I could recreate some of the magic that's there for me, and quickly discovered that, yes, indeed, there is magic! Specifically cantrips!

I love "fun" magic! Teach me your ways Abner!

Yes, Wizard101 friends, that's how behind the times I am with Wizard101. I'm over here giving the breaking news on stuff that happened in Spring of 2022. I mean, if I really want to come clean here I'm still playing in Fall 2020 content, which means that Abner has all kinds of things he wants to talk to me about!

Abner looks to be Wizard101's Town Crier like Mickey Dugan was for Pirate101. Got it.

I haven't even played a round of Beastmoon . . . I'm a little intimidated by it to be honest. Anyway, Abner pointed me over to good ol' Pigswick Academy to learn more about Cantrips and before you could say Alla-ka-piggle, I was doing magic flips in the air in front of Hampshire Buttersfield with my "fun" magic.

Flipping out over Cantrips

. . . and then I just sat there doing backflips, making rainclouds, floating my spell book, and casting invisibility over and over while I listened to the Ruff Talk VR Podcast. From the looks of it, the "purchasable" Cantrips kind of max out at level six where you can get a second mark and recall, which is pretty great!

These dudes are really making me do a lot of backflips for a Second Mark . . .

After that it was a 1-2-3 punch KO on cantrip research:

1. First up was a fantastic read-- the cantrip leveling guide over on Final Bastion. It looks like Jennifer Soulstone mathed it all out and has multiple paths for leveling all written out. Man, I love invested people like this. Good on you, Jennifer!
2. The next stop in my cantrip googling adventure was to go look at the cantrip lists over at Wizard101 Central. 
3. And then finally, the last piece of the puzzle seems to be Crafted Cantrip Treasure Cards, which Wizard101 Central also had the deets on.

Ok, GOT IT. I'm all caught up on cantrip information, now to just put it to good use by downloading Moonlight for my phone and Sunshine for my PC and viola, I'm burning energy by casting Roll Dice over and over on my phone that's streaming from my PC while I'm watching TV with the wife.

Wizard on the phone.  Man, I need a steam deck . . . it'd be so much easier than this.

Welcome to Cantrip Energy Grind 2024 y'all!

Happy Dueling!