Unfinished Games of 2020: Part I

Unfinished Games:

Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 1

Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 2

Unfinished Games of 2020: Part I

Unfinished Games of 2020: Part II

Last year I wrote the first (and second) articles of Unfinished Games of Awkward Mixture. As 2020 nears its end, here's eight more unfinished games. Some I played for hours, while others I experienced mere minutes. These are not the fairest reviews, but I wanted to clear these games from my mind, and my hard drive.

Reassembly: 

Time Played: 10 minutes It looked like a phenomenally addictive space game, where the player design their own ships. In ten minutes I decided it felt too much like an arcade game. This isn't a negative review, rather the reason I didn't play any more.

First Strike: Final Hour:

Time Played: 4 Hours In 2015 I played DEFCON, a nuclear war simulator. It's a fantastic game, but is meant for multiplayer, a game of global nuclear diplomacy. I played it against the computer, which is incompetent (and undiplomatic), and with my brother, but never with the full complement of seven players.

First Strike: Final Hour (4 hours) seemed like a good substitute. It's a single player game. Controlling one of four starting nations (and unlocking eight others) the player nukes all other nations into oblivion. Each nation is divided into territories, and each territory undertakes one action in real time. Actions include; research new technologies, expand into an empty neighboring territory, build offensive or defensive missiles, or fire missiles. The more territories the stronger the nation. This makes First Strike an unbalanced game, because some nations begin stronger than others.

War starts immediately after the short (one minute) diplomacy phase. The player chooses two ally nations. It's not a beautiful game, but it is straightforward, and the tech tree is good, though it is too truncated, and finished before the game is half over.

First Strike has three types of weapons; short range missiles that intercept enemy missiles, long range missiles, and secret weapons. Secret weapons are unlocked at the ends of the technology tree. Missile defense is a key part of the game. One technology even automates it, but it isn't perfect. A warning sounds if the player can launch defensive missiles. For some reason, this warning sounds even if missiles are flying over, aiming for some foreign territory. I wasted many missiles accidentally defending other people. And the automated defense occasionally fails to fire.

The computer is bad at the game. Their greatest flaw is their failure to expand. Some territories start empty, while others are emptied by repeated bombing. A territory can be recolonized repeatedly if emptied. The best strategy for success is encroach and suffocate. With the initial territories expand into empty areas. Build intercepting missiles in the second ring of territories. Use the inner most territories for research. Keep expanding, always building interceptors just behind the forward most territories. Once all the technology is researched build the best long range missiles in all inner territories. Bomb the enemy and keep expanding. Repeat until finished.

That's the problem with First Strike. If the player survives the initial chaotic barrage, and successfully expands, they can't lose. Eventually First Strike becomes a tiresome exercise in wrestling enemy nations into submission. The player is always busy, clicking three territories a second to keep producing, launching, and expanding. It is so fast paced that the repeated clicking was hurting my hand.

In conclusion, First Strike is fun at first, but it's repetitive in nature, has a stupid computer AI, and is taxing on the wrist.

Zoombinis:

Time Played: 5½ hours In fifth grade my teacher had a copy of Zoombinis on the classroom computer. I played it as often as I could. When the fifth grade dissected baby squids I remained behind to play Zoombinis (it sounded gross). My wife and I played it for five hours in January of 2020. The Zoombinis are cute little furry blue balls with four characteristics; hair, eyes, noses, and feet. There are five possible choices for each characteristics. For example, a Zoombini can have a green, orange, red, blue, or purple nose. An complete Zoombini might have a ponytail, one eye, a red nose, and a single spring coil for feet. With so many characteristics there are 625 combinations.

The Zoombinis flee persecution from the evil Bloats. They sail to found a new home, Zoombiniville. The player needs to bring all 625 Zoombinis to their new home to win. The player begins each round with sixteen Zoombinis. It's possible to roll a random crew, or hand select every attribute. Eleven puzzles challenge a players skills in observation, scientific and logical reasoning, knowledge of sets, comparisons, patterns, sorting, graphing, organizing, sequencing, and predicting.

As the player succeeds, bringing more Zoombinis to Zoombiniville, the difficulty for the puzzles increases. My wife and I found the earlier difficulties childishly easy, which makes sense, as the game was made for children. But even in the second difficulty (there are four levels of difficulty) the later puzzles, especially the Mirror Machine and the Bubblewonder Abyss, require patience for a perfect score. We never finished it, either because our save data was erased, or we became bored after five hours. I could enjoy teaching it to my son, but many it wasn't challenging enough for my wife and I.

In conclusion, Zoombinis is a logical puzzle game, where the player guides blue creatures with different features to a new home of safety. Its intended audience is preteens and young teenagers, but adults may find it enjoyable as well.

Heat Signature:

Time Played: 9 HoursHeat Signature is the third game by indie developers Suspicious Developments. While their first game, Gunpoint was fine, this one is a wreck. The player controls a rebel pilot in a fictional galaxy. At a local hub the player chooses their first character, buys weapons, and selects missions. Every mission target is on a spaceship. Missions goals include assassination, abduction, rescue, theft, and hijacking a ship.

The player captains a tiny ship, whose only ability is to attach to the airlock of an enemy ship. Once inside the character deploys a number of lethal and non-lethal weapons, along with shields, teleporters, and other devices. The player can eliminate every guard, or achieve their objective by stealth. If discovered, guards trigger an alarm. Depending on the ship, the alarm has different effects. Some alarms teleport in elite soldiers, while others start a countdown timer. If the timer runs out the mission fails, even if the rebel is still on the ship. A key aspect of moving about the ships are the doors that require the correct key card. These key cards are held by guards, or taken from computer consoles, but either way their pale outline is difficult to see. If the player is beaten in combat, guards, for an inexplicable reason, throw them out the airlock instead of killing them. In this event, the player remotely controls their ship until it bumps into them. They are then free to dock with the enemy ship again.

Combat is so quick, the player needs to pause constantly to win. Pausing also allows the player to look around the ship. Unfortunately it isn't possible to move the camera around the ship, or zoom out, while paused. And the visual effect is cluttered. The rooms, even those on elite ships, are oddly crowded with unnecessary detail. These visuals have no effect, but distracts from the useful information. While the player can normally defeat three enemies in a battle, powerful enemies with shields are nearly impossible to beat. Shields block all forms of damage, and have to be disabled first, a tricky proposition.

Completing goals earns liberation points and cash. The easiest way to earn these two is to take the most difficult assassination mission available. You're going to blow up the enemy ship. But you can't do it with the one you have! Fly around the galaxy looking for a fighter class ship, not a tanky transport. Invade it, capture it, and fly it toward the target ship. Most ships have some sort of missiles. Combat between ships is very rudimentary, but sneak up behind the enemy and start blasting away, preferably at their engines. Sometimes they'll try to fight, but most of the time they run. With enough damage the ship starts to break apart. Either blow up some of the ship and board the remainder, or blow up the entire thing to eliminate the target. Either fulfills the mission requirements.

With enough liberation points the character liberates a planet, or solar system, or whatever, and then they retire. The player chooses a new rebel. The problem with Heat Signature is it is repetitive; after five ships you've seen them all, but also, there is no feeling of progression. Retired rebels don't contribute or feel connected to the new heroes.

After six hours I began to ask myself all sorts of questions, because the tutorial poorly explains the objectives. What do characters carry over from one to the next? What is glory? What is the purpose of liberation? Even at nine hours it felt as if there were still too many areas to conquer.

In conclusion, Heat Signature is a galaxy where revolution is only possible by invading the same few ships over and over again. It's depressing, but I had more fun ignoring the core mechanics, capturing a small ship, and using its missiles to blow up larger ships. It's even sadder. Eventually that becomes boring.

Recent:

Hearts of Iron IV: Paradox Games play Best with Friends Part II

Relevant:

Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 1

Awkward Mixture's Video Games of 2019: At Least I Played A Game Made Last Year

Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 2