Tag: Software

There are moments when a simple negative response seems a little too respectful, given what my conversation partner has just said. I wanted an option to throw a punch or maybe deliver a carefully selected and long sequence of curse words. But that would involve substituting my own standards and thinking for those of the character I’m controlling. So I decide to play it cool and aloof, maybe to show that my character can deal with anything. Then I launch a previous story sequence to see whether my intuition is correct or not. I make different choices than I did when first experiencing the content. But the results are ambiguous. After all, seven short narrative sequences aren’t enough to fully fill out another human being’s shoes. We are all too complex for that. But playing through them is enough to reveal what drives the seven characters and how stressful modern life can be. There’s no way to navigate it all without being stressed and without making mistakes. Somet...

Crimson Desert has received a lot of hype over the past few years because it seamlessly tries to integrate elements from Red Dead Redemption 2, Witcher 3 and Elden Ring, all while blending various MMO-like aspects. After all, the game was supposed to be an MMO at first, but it transitioned into a fully singleplayer action-RPG without microtransactions. That being said, the game doesn’t feature any leveling system or mob/box XP, however there’s plenty of loot for everyone to enjoy. The game’s story is quite straightforward, you’re almost killed at the beginning of the game, and you enter a pocket dimension called the Abyss from where you come back to life. Your focus is to find not only your brothers in arms but also gain revenge over the enemy leader who killed you. Along the way, you’ll also encounter many regions of Pywel, all of which have dozens of quests for you. Those can range from finding someone’s cows to battling one of the major enemy leaders who stopped ...

A direct line to the library archives is a great asset for a detective lacking access to modern crutches like the Internet. Searching for a company brings up documents that will reveal more about who’s leading it, as well as info that will help with decoding the symbols embedded in another photograph. We’re one step closer to discovering three wealthy Nazis who are hiding somewhere in America. The next move is to call a police station, looking for some extra details on one of the trios. Unfortunately, the Irish cop is not helpful. Other people were more willing to talk about Germans who escaped justice, but this Gardai didn’t give my investigator the time to actually say why he was calling. So, I need to go through the evidence once more, looking for other details to exploit. We have to look closely at some images, although one probably features too many people to be useful. Figuring out how the three Nazis look now will be tough. I think I have a clear idea of the...

For being so central to the macOS experience, there’s surprisingly little you can do to customize the menu bar, at least with the tools Apple provides. Some functionality has been added in Tahoe, but it still barely scratches the surface of what third-party apps are capable of. Thaw is one of those apps. A fork of the open-source Ice, it maintains the original app’s functionality, adds new features, and improves compatibility with recent versions of macOS, something Ice was starting to have problems with due to the lack of frequent updates. Hide non-essential menu bar items We’ve seen a lot of apps that let you hide icons, and it’s a wonder Apple hasn’t added this functionality to macOS yet. Thaw’s implementation is complex yet intuitive, just like it was in Ice, but it’s more refined and works more reliably in my experience. Some items will be visible at a...

Being the world’s most effective detective comes with high expectations, and that’s what John Morley, the main character in this game, is dealing with. He’s continually solved a variety of cases, and now a new, tricky case is pushing him to the limit in more ways than expected. He received for multiple months after sustaining injuries during his last case, but an English countess with a tragic past is bringing him a very tricky case to solve. Simply put, the countess’s daughter died 20 years ago in a very strange manner, and her murder was not solved up to this date. Clearly, the countess wants justice for her daughter, and she can’t put things to rest, which is where our fabled detective comes into play. The police have already closed the case by arresting someone random, so the countess wants someone with great qualifications to investigate the murder. At first, the game is pretty chill and exploring the locations feels very simple to do. However, as you go deepe...

Colonizing a new planet is never an easy thing to do, and it certainly comes with its fair share of challenges. Horizon Journey is a game that tries to recreate that in a way that’s very realistic, and it succeeds for the most part. The open world survival experience on a pretty interesting recreation of Mars is exhilarating, and the game does a very good job at conveying that sense of fear, struggle and figuring out how to survive properly. As you can expect, your first few steps on Mars will be difficult. You land with a ship, you have a rover to move around, and you slowly gather resources. As you get to a former base, you disassemble stuff and slowly start expanding the base. I like the unique approach that the game has in regard to terraforming as well, since you will need to do that in order to place larger buildings. The constant focus on resource gathering might end up becoming a tad frustrating. But it’s all with a purpose. You need to stay alive and acces...

With so many challenging games, it becomes difficult to just unwind and relax these days. And that’s where a game like Mosaica: Arboreal finds its perfect niche. It’s meant to be a fun, puzzle-solving experience where your primary focus is to unlock different mosaics found right in front of you. You play as a small forest sprite, which is both curious, but also very fragile. You try to solve puzzles and uncover the different characters found behind them. What’s interesting is that as you play, the forest starts talking back to you. Every puzzle you solve means you have tree spirits appearing and they are sharing fragments of wisdom. That’s interesting because it adds an innate sense of excitement and it pushes you to continue caring about the world and story as a whole. Maybe the most interesting thing for me when it comes to Mosaica: Arboreal is the fact that it starts more like a nature-infused puzzle, but as it grows, you end up accumulating a lot of things, loo...

Lady Sophie has stepped on a mousetrap one too many times, and I didn’t think to use the first aid kit she recently acquired to heal her up. She’s not actually dead, despite the lethal nature of the trap, but she’s on a 15-minute timeout. That means I only have two characters to work with, limited inventory space, and I might miss some information. For now, I’m leading all conversations with Nancy Walkers, trying to use her positive outlook and knowledge of the mansion to extract details. Then the detective moves in, aiming to get exact times and locations, to create a timeline for all characters. If Sophie is available, she can swoop in to bring the perspective of a family member. With less than one hour left on the clock, I’ll struggle to get all the details needed to nail down motive and weapon, even if I name the killer. My detective might have to take the loss, pick two new companions, and then attempt a more thorough investigation. Clue: Murder By Death is d...

What’s a good end for Geralt of Rivia? Is there a version of his world where his end doesn’t involve human or monster violence? Maybe he could end up retired, content to read rather than swing a sword, allowing the world around him to change without his meddling. Or maybe he, once again, succumbs to pitchforks as angry humans discover he hasn’t been receptive enough to their requests. I was trying to speak truth to power and befriend more creatures. I even met Triss and got to pet a cat. But the cards were unkind, and I found no way to gain reputation with the human faction without triggering another Geralt death. Still, the audience delivers a smattering of applause. Dandelion gains a fame level, which leads to a new inspiration. He can now sing about a Witcher who’s ready to get a tattoo. Unfortunately, I don’t draw that card for my next run, and Geralt dies after a big magic party while trying to make friends with as many cats as possible. Reigns: The Witcher i...

My four heroes are preparing to kill the Pale Apostle, who stands in their way as they seek to clean their hive. Galahad, Vladimir, Hercules, and Cupcake don’t have much equipment but do have complementary skills. The challenge now is to set them up for success in the coming battle, avoiding enemies with spikes while targeting the mini-boss. I win relatively easily, although Hercules takes more damage than I would like. My reward is a new trinket, and I choose one that poisons all opponents when starting a battle. It should help with crowd control during the tougher fights. I hit a trader next to pick up extra weapons to boost my damage dealing. I have three more battles until the end boss, and the challenge now is to conserve as much health as possible. Hive Blight is developed and published by OptizOnion. I played the Early Access version of the title on Steam. The video game uses easily understood auto-battler concepts to tell a story of resilience and cooperati...