Demo Impressions Part 32

Featuring: BatteryNote, Blocks for Babies, Bloomtale, Jurassic Gym, and Mind Wave

If any of these still have demos when I post this, they’ll have a (*) as always.

BatteryNote*

Out Now

This one was such a surprise! I think I got this game mixed up with a similar looking game that’s one of those idle Tamagachi-like games. I thought I already checked out the steam page, so I didn’t. When I saw this as part of Next Fest, I thought why not put it on my list. Imagine my surprise when it was actually a story driven game! BatteryNote starts with you waking up from cryosleep within a spaceship. You’ve been asleep for a while and you lost your memories, but luckily you have your trusty AI you call Assistant to help you out. Assistant brings up your pastime and this game is where you’ll be doing just that. It seems that you enjoyed finding scrapped robots, bringing them into your warehouse, charging them, and then having conversations. Assistant thinks you partaking in it might jog your memory and good news! Assistant already found and brought in three scrapped robots.

There are three robots for you to converse with: Jessica who is a sassy table waiting robot, Devind R7 who is a proud military robot, and Surverry a surveillance robot. Once you pick a robot, it’s time to talk to them. First up, charging them. They won’t be able to turn on and talk unless they have enough charge and you’ll have to manage it. You have various charging options that will let you charge them more or not so it can lose some charge. You’ll then have a section where you’ll talk before the time advances and repeat. This repeats until they break, which will either be when you run out of time or if you overcharge them (past 100%). Before you start speaking to them , you also learn that these robots are anomalies. All robots are equipped with the ability to have their own personality just like humans thanks to their AI, but these three robots came out defective. Which means that you’re at risk of being hurt by them, but it seems the conversation is going to be more interesting than usual. Like how the surveillance bot stalked the people working in the building it was monitoring and is lusty towards those it perceives as loving it.

This demo lets you do the first couple conversation blocks with each robot. So far, I liked BatteryNote. I only conversed with two of the robots, but both of them were pretty interesting and unique. I didn’t notice this at first either, but all three also have their own color scheme. It’ll be interesting to see how the full conversations play out.

Blocks for Babies*

This was such a surprise for me. I did not expect to like this game and I really only put it on my list of “Demos to Play” since it seemed like an interesting twist on Tetris (and the last time I played one, I did enjoy it). Blocks for Babies is basically a mix of Tetris, Doom-esque shooter (though I never played Doom so going just off of vibes), and a roguelike. The Tetris section is pretty self explanatory, but this game does add corrupted blocks. These corrupted blocks don’t disappear when you clear that line, which turns it into a double edged sword. It’s helpful as you can still get clears when the blocks fall down and it makes a solid line, but you can really screw yourself over if you place it badly. So how can you clear the corrupted blocks? By shooting them of course! After every 12 blocks you place, you get to choose an area of the board and then you’ll go into a first person 3d shooter mode where you’re shooting the blocks within the area. The regular blocks are easy to take care of (if you want to destroy them off the board), but the corrupted blocks do give you way more trouble as they bounce/fly around, attack, and have more health. You have a shotgun to help you out, but you do need to keep an eye on your health (as it’ll be a game over) and your ammo (you’ll switch to fisticuffs if you have 0 ammo). You do need to hit so many blocks before you can leave, but once the lever appears you can get outta there and return to the Tetris board. Once you hit the requirement to proceed, you’ll get that board’s reward and then able to select the next board you want next. It tells how how many blocks you need to clear to proceed, how big the board is, and then the reward. Rewards vary, but you can get usable items, something that affects the whole run, upgrades, an extra chance, and gold. For items and affects, you get to choose between 3 randomly chosen cards. You’ll also know when a boss battle will be coming as it shows as a reward as well (yep, there’s boss battles). There’s also a store that you can access when not in a run, which is where you use the gold to buy some permanent things.

I’m already bad at Tetris so I’m doomed to not get too far in this game, but I still enjoyed this spin on Tetris.

The only thing is that you get the option to stay on the board you’re on and I have no clue how you’re supposed to proceed if you do. I selected it by accident and I swear the “Blocks Left” kept increasing rather than decreasing.

BloomTale*

This was a game I actually found out about through instagram and I instantly wishlisted it. After all, who wouldn’t want to put together flower bouquets without having to worry about doing it wrong or making it appealing or wasting/ruining flowers. I was so excited when I spotted that this got a demo during Next Fest so I played it of course! BloomTale starts when you get a letter from your Grandma one day leaving the family flower shop to you until she returns. You, of course, go to take care of the shop. Once there, you come across a cat named Bel who will help you out get the hang of things as while you do have some background with flowers, you don’t know how to handle a shop (plus you the player needs some tutorials haha). Oh and, well, you the player seems to have the power to understand animals. Yeah, there must be some kind of magic going on here. Especially with how vague your Grandmother was in that letter. Anyway,

Every day you’ll get a set of customers, both in person and online. The in person customers are the locals here and along with their orders, you’ll also get a small story to go along with their order. Like a little girl comes in asking for flowers based on how they look and you get to learn why. Or how someone else is sprucing up their work desk. While online orders are quick, including what they want and the reason for it. No matter if its in-person or online, the way you complete it is the same! An order can ask for a specific flower(s) which then you can switch to the screen and clip one for them. They can also ask for a bouquet, which you get to make yourself as you make it with the flowers they want, pick the filler, pick the wrapping and bow, and wrap it! Though, it isn’t as easy as just being told what flower(s) they want. You can be told straight up what flower they want or what color they want for their flowers/filler; or you can be told what meaning they want for their bouquet (or flower order). Luckily, you do have a handy phone app that gives you the meaning for every flower you have in stock and you can reference this anytime. Technically, this does give you some freedom if you have multiple flowers under a meaning (like happiness or gratitude). Once you have their order all set, all you have to do is give it to them where you’ll be graded with stars and paid. Once you do all in-person orders and all online order slots (yep, you won’t be doing every online order you’ll be getting so choose wisely), the day will end, the stars are tallied, and you’ll get more money based on how well you did.

BloomTale is a cute game so far and I liked it. It was pretty cozy and I liked talking to the various characters that popped up during the first couple days that the demo includes. I also did like making the bouquets like I thought I would when I saw the trailer reel and I liked the inclusion of Creative Mode where you can just build bouquets that you dream up. I’m looking forward to this one even more now.

Jurassic Gym*

Out Now

After playing a lot of demos for these idle games that sit on your screen (either as a taskbar or floating somewhere else) I found that I prefer ones that are mainly idle with minimum interaction. I just don’t want to babysit it. A lot I play surprisingly hit above that interaction threshold, or have some annoying aspects to it, but I finally found another one that does! And even better, it was one that I was hoping I would like. That was Jurassic Gym!

Jurassic Gym sits on the bottom of your screen and as you can probably guess from the title, you take over a gym for dinosaurs! Don’t worry, it’s pretty low maintenance and the tutorial is quick and easy. You don’t have access to much at the beginning, of course, but basically you buy equipment, set it down anywhere you want, and then hatch an egg to get your first dinosaur. Yep, instead of recruiting them, you hatch your own gym dinos. You can even name them! It seems you can hatch as many dinosaurs you want, but you do need to wait as the timer ticks down. From what I can tell, all the available dinosaurs have a rarity level and each species has their own scaling stats (which also serve as their starting stats). Which basically means they’ll gain that much when they level up that stat. Then, you just let them get to training as they’ll decide what equipment, and thus stat, they want to train. Then they’ll train until they run out of energy, rest, and then continue. So why are you training these guys? Well, to send them to compete in competitions! You can choose between three different slots in a competition and if a dinosaur hits that stat minimum you can send them off to compete. They’ll be away for a while and you’ll get the rewards once the timer is up and you click for them to return (btw you’re told how long they’ll be away and what rewards you’ll get).

There are three different currencies here. Amber is the most plentiful which you’ll use to buy things from the shop and upgrade equipment. Then there are medals which you’ll gain by doing competitions. Medals technically aren’t currency, but accumulating them unlocks more things in the shop (new equipment that will train different stats or multiple stats, new decorations, and new floors), unlock new competitions (which get harder as they’ll ask for higher stat minimums and even have team slots where competing dinos combined stats need to hit the minimums), and let you upgrade your equipment (which ups the EXP gained and Amber output). Then finally, there’s Meteor Chunks which lets you raise the rarity chance for the eggs. The demo doesn’t include everything, of course, but apart from the obvious not letting you unlock everything in the shop or hatch every dinosaur, it does look like you’ll be able to upgrade your gym. When you put down new equipment, it’s named the “Main Room” and you can only put down 10 equipment pieces. So I’m guessing as you unlock more, you’ll unlock more rooms.

I really liked Jurassic Gym. It’s so cute and I really liked how it was mainly an idle game that I didn’t have to babysit. You do need to keep an eye out for when a competition ends, but that’s it. I really liked how the different shop items had humorous short descriptions and I loved how each dino has their own animations for the various equipment. It’s pretty obvious which ones they excel in and it’s pretty funny seeing them trying to train with equipment they’re not suited with (ok that sounds mean, but it’s the truth). I’m definitely going to be getting Jurassic Gym once the full game comes out.

MindWave*

Sometimes you’re just in that WarioWare kick and sometimes you happen to come across a WarioWare-like game. This is when I found Mindwave. Mindwave has you play as Pandora who is entering the Mindwave Tournament. Though, she gives absolutely no fucks. In this universe, everyone has a neural port in the back of their neck and Mindwave is a game that utilizes it. It’s because it takes place within people’s minds and you experience bursts of their thoughts, memories, and feelings in the form of microgames. Pandora managed to get herself a ticket to this tournament and while she isn’t too enthused about it, she has her eye on the prize. All she has to do is make it through all the rounds and thus, climb the Mindwave Tower. Luckily, she isn’t alone as her friend Smalls manages to sneak in. I do wonder how he’s even going to play since everyone is registered but him, but in between rounds you do get the opportunity to talk to other contestants to pass the time. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to talk to everyone. I went back after completing the demo, and you can actually talk to the person Pandora goes up against in Round 1!

This demo includes the tutorial and the first round of the competition where you go against a colorful and cheery mind. You can later learn that this mind (or set of microgames) is called Starlight. So far, I love the game. This game definitely gives off a WarioWare vibe and I liked all of the microgames that were featured. It’s simple, but still has some difficulty injected in. I was able to easily tell what the game wanted me to do, the speed up and ad pop-ups did make things more difficult (plus, there were some microgames that are a bit harder than the others), and the boss microgame indeed felt worthy of that title. All the microgames felt simple and unique. Even with the microgames that utilizes two interfaces together (like mouse and arrow keys).

I also want to mention that it was a great idea to have the game themed around diving into different people’s minds. It not only tells us something about the character we’re facing, but it also helps bring out a lot of creativity and uniqueness. It’s too early to really say, but the two minds we saw (Pandora’s and Starlight’s) were unique to one another in both the microgames and the art. I do wonder if we’ll see microgames repeat (in terms of them appearing in multiple people’s minds). Talking about the art, I love the art direction here and the animation. Starlight was a particular highlight for me as I was not expecting it and I loved the art direction and the multiple animated transitions between microgames. And when the person you’re in the mind of gets revealed, it was definitely a “oh yeah, that makes sense” moment for me haha. The music was also quite nice here as well and I was bopping to Starlight’s theme just like she and the little doodles were in the transition animations.

So yeah, really liked Mindwaves’ demo and looking forward to the full game.