Last Game You Finished And Your Four-ghts

Wilmot's Warehouse



I got this based on a friend's recommendation. I didn't realise it was on Switch - he played it on PC - so when I saw it was for sale on the eShop I thought I'd give it a punt.

It's a pretty simple premise. You are Wilmot, a little square-faced man who zips about a warehouse, organising stock as you see fit and fulfilling orders from colleagues. The gameplay loop is basically:

• Get a delivery of assorted stock;
  
• Organise what you can in 3 minutes;
  
• Colleagues arrive at the service hatch and request particular stock;
  
• You collect and deliver this in the space of a couple of minutes;
  
• If you finish this with time left over you get performance stars which you can use for upgrades;
  
• Another delivery arrives, including 4 new types of stock.
  

This loop occurs a couple of times and then you get a "stock take" phase where you can purchase an upgrade and then have as much time as you like to organise your stock. Upgrades include removing pillars (freeing up space to store stuff in the warehouse), a dash, and the ability to carry more stock at once. What makes it distinctive is that there are literally no rules to how you organise stuff. You get up to 200 different types of stock, and it's up to you how you store everything. It gets more difficult to fulfil your colleagues' requests simply because it gets harder to remember where you've put stuff, or there's less space to manoeuvre big loads (matron) so it's trickier to get across the warehouse in time to deliver everything. I think I failed to fulfil requests twice - but it just means you don't get more performance stars (and you receive a sassy warning from your manager, CJ).

I beat the game in about 6 hours. It's not complicated, and it is essentially gamifying busywork - at its core all you're doing is organising different coloured squares in a big box. But I found it weirdly engrossing and very characterful, and I would recommend it if you're a fan of gentle puzzley games.

gjones wrote:

I love how everyone has different rating scales - a GNamer magazine would be hell to edit.

That's why I put 'Recommended' next to the score - clearly needed!  That or I break out my 'Shadow of the Colossus is a 0/10 game' signature and start Mas off again.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Creaks is yet another example of a game that seems to have got buried under the other thirty weekly eShop releases. I'd never heard of it elsewhere other than in Balladeer posts.

Yep, there are a fair few indie gems on there (granted Creaks didn't quite reach 'gem' status in the end) that I've tried my best to sell and would love to talk about, but that I feel just get squashed under the sheer volume of stuff - not just on the eShop around these parts, but also on GamePass and older consoles.  Even bigger half-indie games like Sakuna: I think I'm still the only person here to have played it!  I wondered about starting an 'overlooked eShop gems' thread, partly because I could genuinely do with some more suggestions; but worried it'd just be me waffling on about the same three/four games I always waffle on about.


No interest in retro wrestling, pool, or warehousing here, sorry - although Creaks fulfils that same 'gentle puzzley games' niche, I'd say.

Balladeer wrote:

No interest in retro wrestling, pool, or warehousing here, sorry

What a terribly useful contribution!

Ah, I didn't mean to be rude!  I'm just aware that I'm skimming over three people's reviews in order to answers some questions, and wanted to acknowledge that I'd seen them, read them, and appreciated them without having anything to say on the matters or wanting to buy the games myself.  Put it badly though, didn't convey that at all.  Sorry. It's been a long week...  (For a short one.)

I'm interested in Pure Pool and Wilmot's Warehouse tbf, and they're both really well-written and persuasive reviews. 

eShop gem thread could be great, sure I might not play them on Switch but take Rain on your Parade an upcoming digital game which may go under the radar which I will be checking out on Game Pass, that I come back and go this is a bit of a gem.

Guess though I could just post in eShop thread hey this is good or bad or put here once I finish it.


DUTM come to Xbox a while ago and straight into Game Pass, which I did it the day it did drop and thought it was fine, like I come back to it when nothing else to play or it leaves. Well DUTM leaves Game Pass on the 15th, so I thought I'd better get to it.

I had heard fairly positive things about the game and know it is even getting a current/next gen update soon, meaning it must have been worth the effort to do that. And on paper this is seems like a Mas game as it's walking sim puzzle like with narrative elements, just you have things like Tacoma which is way better than this which just comes across as a cheap knock off version.

Basically play Tacoma instead unless you've already played that and want more of the same but not quite as good.

Balladeer wrote:

Ah, I didn't mean to be rude!  I'm just aware that I'm skimming over three people's reviews in order to answers some questions, and wanted to acknowledge that I'd seen them, read them, and appreciated them without having anything to say on the matters or wanting to buy the games myself.  Put it badly though, didn't convey that at all.  Sorry.  It's been a long week...  (For a short one.)

Haha, sorry, I was drunk and sassy. AND I HATE YOU. (I don't.)

Rum wrote:

Haha, sorry, I was drunk and sassy. AND I HATE YOU.

I KNEW IT

masofdas wrote:

eShop gem thread could be great, sure I might not play them on Switch but take Rain on your Parade an upcoming digital game which may go under the radar which I will be checking out on Game Pass, that I come back and go this is a bit of a gem.

Guess though I could just post in eShop thread hey this is good or bad or put here once I finish it.

That's the other thing: is it providing anything new/helpful to anyone here but me? I'm not sure. Anyway if anybody else wants to make the thread then I'll contribute to it, but I'm wary of making it myself.

I enjoy reading good, well-written and well-thought-out reviews, and excitable and enthusiastic posts in the 'What's eShopping About' thread.  Besides, "No interest in retro wrestling, pool, or warehousing here" shows why an eShop Gems Thread would be a rubbish idea on here. I apply this to myself as well to be fair. Probably like most of you, I know what I like, I know which forumite's recommendations I value the most, and I know what to keep an ear and eye out for anyway.

That's all fine and understandable, definitely where I stand too - but regardless of how anyone sees my recommendations, you and everyone else should still try What The Golf? I'm willing to bet your dad's house/the price of any indie game you choose that any member of this forum who tried it* would like it. Other games come and go based on people's tastes, but What The Golf? abides.

*Apart from maybe Mas, who only seems to like artsy indie games and bigger games; and Kriken. I don't think I've seen them recommend a single indie game.


Anyway I picked up Florence on the topic of overlooked indie gems; and if anyone knows of any run-and-gun eShop games that might tickle my nostalgia senses for Gunstar Heroes, I'm in the market for recommendations there.

About which...

Spoiler:

Yeah, I think I'll avoid Florence. Things like that, I always think: there are so many bloody terrible and sad things happening to people globally and locally in the world anyway, please don't fabricate fictional ones.
So instead the complete opposite attitude of

The Hex is written by Daniel Mullins of Pony Island fame, a game that's on my personal to-do list. It has a similar subversive feel about videogames and videogame characters, where 6 lost gaming souls are in a pub, and the landlord knows there's going to be a murder. Then follows a moment of reflection from all characters, where you play through their previous adventures, and see how they got here - one's a platforming mascot, a 1 on 1 fighter, an RPG sorceress etc. etc.
Given the grim/dark tone, I was worried that the game was going to dwell on the most edgy "but what if the cute mascot was secretly an arsehole" - the Robot Chicken-isation of characters, which honestly I'm really tired of. However, it skirts it slightly, and thankfully all of that is eventually written into a coherent story. There are still some irks with this - the usual problem occurs in that it's very funny to poke fun at generic turn-based fighting, but then don't make me do it. But it just about has enough humour to keep you interested in the next character. And it pokes fun at director commentaries which I've not really seen before.

Er... 5/6

I see Florence got the best rating and was even mentioned on the indie showcase as something Annapurna was behind as it's one of their best.


Who likes badly acted FMV games from Wales Interactive (That's about all they do now anyway)? This guy and that's what I got. If you also like badly acted FMV and already played the classics such as Night Trap then you could do worse than The Complex, you could do better as well mind.

masofdas wrote:

I see Florence got the best rating and was even mentioned on the indie showcase as something Annapurna was behind as it's one of their best.

It was certainly better than I Am Dead!

Jimbob wrote:

Yeah, I think I'll avoid Florence. Things like that, I always think: there are so many bloody terrible and sad things happening to people globally and locally in the world anyway, please don't fabricate fictional ones.

If I've given the idea that it's a sad game then I've done it wrong! It's bittersweet, but overall positive - albeit the sort of clichéd 'your dweams can come twue' positive that always makes me roll my eyes a little.

Hex genuinely sounds really interesting, but I should probably actually play Pony Island first.

After 60 hours


Er... I think I liked it? I don't know if this is just inevitable old age, but I felt like

i.e. I was sort of being carried along, and that I was missing a lot of stuff. Certainly at the start, I was completely reliant on my 3 assistants to do everything, and just in general there was a very vague sense of what was required - it's unusual to have a big adventure like this that's reliant on quests, and letting you spend a lot of time without a main quest of any kind. I think I got the hang of it once I realised that really the world was more of a linear traditional Zelda (i.e. a main path, but side things going on if you'd like) than an open world Elder Scrolls; it's just the linear progression was controlled by quests (and sometimes arbitrarily) as opposed to gear-gating. This also meant that side-quests just disappeared - again this felt vague, but I suspect would be explained away by the sort of people that explain that Dark Souls' really obscure stuff is "obvious if you read all the inventory notes" (it's not).

Anyway, that all sounds a bit negative. I enjoyed the world itself; that all my mates from my home town were like "yeah alright chosen one whatever mate!"; that I got to meet and swap out 2 pawns alongside by PA, and it wasn't a big deal for them to go away, it was like having special guest stars (or... quest stars...) and levelling up, baddies that were troublesome at first ended up a piece of cake - and I was even contributing to their demise at the end.

That second ending was wack though

Er... 8/10?

Haven't got much to say on that one Jim, I would like to play sometime, yet it just be another game in my collection.


Rain just come out on most things and has reviewed well. If those reviews and a quick trailer, I feel I may have bought this on the eShop but thankfully launched straight into Game Pass. As it's just fine, due to they're being games out there that do the whole you're something doing silly things such as Donut County, Goose Game, Katamari to name a few, and personally I would spend the money to get this on the eShop on one of those.

Now I have played them and guess if you have what something else like those then Rain is an option, just I would wait for sale myself.


I got sent a code for this and out of these two game I feel this is worth it's money more and then that's still a push at £17 I believe on Xbox for a 3hrs narrative game. Why I think it might be worth looking at as the story is interesting as I get Twilight Zone sort of mystery vibes from it, just the ending seems to just end and the lack of polish might put some off.

I'll wind up getting Rain On Your Parade someday.

~



I finished Good Job!. The title could be my review. 

Good Job! is one of those smaller-scale, lower-key games that Nintendo occasionally releases onto their eShops. There were plenty of those on WiiWare, DSiWare and even on the 3DS eShop, but there’s precious few of them on Switch. Personally, I’d like to see Nintendo do more of this sort of thing, as their experimentation can really pay off, and deliver us some really fun and refreshing experiences that slot nicely between their bigger-scale and bigger-budget titles. Good Job! is a an great example of this. 

As far as I know, this is a style of game that Nintendo haven’t toyed about with before. Good Job! Is a 3D isometric physics-based puzzler where you control the son of a company boss. You literally work your way up the corporate ladder (metaphorically represented as a multi-storey building) and go through different departments while carrying out assorted tasks and earning promotions. Your various duties include all sorts of things that loosely relate to the world of work, from fixing the wifi in the Finance department, to making sure all the rooms are heated in the Cryogenics department, to arranging production lines in the Robotics department. All while you’re beavering away, there’s a scoring system in place that assesses you on the speed in which you carry out your duties, but also downgrades you on the amount of environmental damage that you cause as well as on the total cost of that damage. Still, you only need to pay attention to speed/damage/costs for S ranks, and as far as I can tell those are just for completionists’ sake. Without any pressures, there’s a really generous - and therefore fun - degree of freedom as regards how Good Job! lets you go about your work. 

This is a very entertaining, well-made and playful little game that keenly rewards your curiosity and outside-the-box thinking. Going into more detail about it would maybe spoil the experience of it just a little, so I’ll simply not. I’ll say this though: it’s absolutely worth experiencing. Conveniently enough, if you’ve got a Nintendo Switch Online account, you can try it for free for the next week (19th-25th April 2021) by downloading it off the Japanese eShop. Definitely do this! By being free to play, any qualms I have about the game’s cost and eventual sameyness are immediately cancelled out. Recommended in a big way, 8/10.

Dragon's Dogma remains on my wishlist, waiting for me not to have another Capcom action-adventure on my plate. Good Job could be too after that write-up! Irritating that it's on the Japanese eShop.

I was never as excited about RoyP as some outlets would have had me be. 'Next Untitled Goose Game' my backside.

Balladeer wrote:

Dragon's Dogma remains on my wishlist.

Same. Japanese Skyrim was what that game looked like to me, but the "Skyrim" bit puts me off so I'm interested now that it seems more Zelda-ry. Might pick it up for dirt on 360 - do the current versions of it differ much Jimbob?

I had a go on PS3 before I played it on Switch. I'd say you're fine as long as you pick up the "Dark Arisen" version and not the base game- I think that one has a bunch of quality of life stuff. Both versions are like a fiver on 360.

Yeah - without spoiling too much, you get what are basically much better fast travel options in the updated version. It might've gone in the sea without that.

Toree 3D has been getting lots of good press lately, and I’m happy to add to that in my own small little way. It’s a 3D platformer (with some slight horror teases) that uses a distinctively N64-like aesthetic. That visual style is used meaningfully here though, as Toree 3D deliberately and genuinely feels like it’s been ripped out of 1997. With its cutesy mascot, tight controls, poppy soundtrack and short levels it reminded me very much of Chameleon Twist, just with a lot more pace and without an elongated tongue to use. Remember Chameleon Twist? You should, it’s better than whatever fucking dogshite you’re currently playing.

There’s just nine levels here, but they’re all fun and straight to the point. That’s reflected in the game’s price: you’re getting about an hours’ worth of entertainment for your 89p, and I think Toree 3D’s lifespan is perfectly balanced with the cost. There’s not a whole lot else to say about Toree 3D, other than to for me to recommend you go and download it. Without the scope or budget to be so, it’s not quite the new A Hat In Time. However, it makes me curious to see what the developers might do next. There’s a really solid foundation for a bigger and more ambitious platformer here, and I’m looking forward to that. 7/10.

Name aside I'm quite intrigued by Toree 3D, imma wishlist this.

Underwater levels tend to be a little more miss than hit for me. The submarine section in Super Mario Land is something I have a lot of nostalgia for, a light little schmup nestled towards the middle of what was my first real video game. There are some games set underwater that are pretty cool, like Bioshock, but I can't think of many off the top of my head that I love. Maybe the swimming in International Track & Field? Either way, who doesn't like a coral reef? That was the main appeal of giving it another go, seeing a bunch alien neon fish and having a big old explore in an environment I don't usually enjoy.

I've owned Subnautica for quite some time, ever since Cool Ghosts covered it in one of their videos, but I've never got around to spending much time with it. Over the past week I felt the urge to give this indie survival darling another go and while I'm still not massively enamoured with the genre, I think Subnautica is well worth a go for anybody curious.

You begin the game as a shipwrecked survivor of a spaceship, stranded in an endless ocean. That's an intimidating start point. But like an intrepid explorer you'll quickly take to the water, grab yourself some fish to cook back in your escape pod, pick up a load of minerals that you can turn into things. The escape pod comes with a bunch of recipes that give you a steer on crafting things like batteries, scanners, and eventually more advanced things like vehicles. There's a lot of variety which gives you a pretty good steer on what you should be trying to do with your time scavenging. All of this is balanced against hunger and thirst meters, and they're not too punishing as long as you stay prepared. As the days roll by you'll hear radio messages that point you towards exploring the different regions in the game. There are a lot of different biomes full of their own oddities, and the tropical theme is bursting with colour. It's fun gradually taming the oceans, first with hodgepodge oxygen pipe networks placed at strategic locations, and later with fully fledged underwater bases that harvest energy from geothermal sources. There is a really good sense of natural progression as you become more comfortable moving out a little further from your escape pod, creating more advanced equipment, and eventually setting up new bases in different biomes.

While I do think the progression is quite well balanced in terms of the rate you discover new resources and recipes, I did find myself tiring of the loop before the game ended. The map is quite large, and there are things like beacons that you can place in a bid to create landmarks, but in the end the game is just a touch too slow for my liking. The swimming is fine, the vehicles are fine, it all handles well enough but you move quite slowly. In the end, I chose to turn on invulnerability so I could just focus on seeing the new without having to replenish at my bases (and to be fair, there is a mode that lets you play like this from the start). There's nothing wrong with the balance of the game, it was more just out of convenience. It's quite satisfying and novel building underwater bases, so I just stopped wanting to do the exploration for a bit, and instead focused on making things inside cool environments. There is a lot of stuff you can furnish bases with, as well as stuff like alien containment tanks, so there's a lot to get your teeth sunk into. You aren't punished too severely for dying, but even so I'd reached a point where I was content to be left tinkering, and exploring without danger.

There's a bit of a story, which is less notable for what it covers and more the rate the beats are delivered, which help keep things ticking along smoothly.

All told, Subnautica is a good game, perhaps a great game if you're really into exploration or survival, and it's coming to Switch in May so if you're interested it could be worth a go.