The Crimson Diamond
I went into it because I enjoy the old Laura Bow games and this looked similar, but it stands on
its own feet well. The premise of a minerologist getting involved in sleuthing is fun, and there's
puzzles around trying to do your job and examining rocks, so it's more than just flavour text.
The use of a text-parser over pointclick is a welcome change for me. Point&clicks are great,
but text-parsers really make sure you know what actions you're trying to perform (especially
as Crimson Diamond doesn't allow the word "use"). I think they did a good job of giving plenty of
synonyms too, it was rare for me to be stuck trying to find the word it accepts. I also found
the interactivity with the other characters much better than in The Colonel's Bequest. In Bequest it
often feels like any time you try talking to someone they just shut it down immediately, and Crimson
Diamond was starting off in that vein, but as the characters warm to each other you can talk to some
of them about a lot, and asking them about the things I found ended up being something I looked
forward to.
Baldur's Gate 3
Something I've found interesting so far is how compact the world is.
It seems there's something big happening around every corner and I'm a bit split on it.
On the one hand I feel like it respects my time more than if they built a huge empty world
(which was the style at the time), but at the same time one of the things I've enjoyed about
my small forrays into irl D&D has been the expanses of normal breaking up the exciting.
I sorta feel like it'd be difficult to find a middle-ground between RespectMyTime and GiveMeBigMap
without doing the oldskool thing of isolated locations and a 2D world map between them, so I'm not complaining.
In terms of gameplay I've really been enjoying the turn-based battles, I could never get the hang of
the realtime/pause combat of the first BG or Icewind Dale (and Neverwinter Nights to a degree).
I love the many opportunities to use the Speak With Animals/The Dead spells, they rapidly became my
favourite spells in the game. Was upset that I couldn't pair them to speak with a dead ox tho :P
Sailwind
This little sailing game has ruined other sailing games for me :P. It captures the
difficulties of sailing and navigating in the age of sail in a way I've never seen before.
The gameplay involves picking up cargo and sailing it to its destination (there's also like
trading mechanics but I'm bad at it lol), on small jobs this means following a compass heading
until you can see the island you're after. Longer voyages require keeping track of your
longitude and latitude.
It also goes for a realistic approach to the mechanics of sailing, you gotta keep your sails
pointing the right way in relation to the wind, and if you're facing dead into the wind you're
basically stuck.
A big downside for me is that it takes a loooong time to get anywhere. Moving between
archipeligos will take up a fair chunk of your irl day.
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