Unfinished Games:
Unfinished Games of 2021: Part II
Unfinished Games of 2022: Part I
Unfinished Games of 2022: Part II
ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove
Time played: 27 minutes
I remember playing the original ToeJam & Earl on my friend's Sega Genesis over twenty-five years ago. I remember hating it. I kept falling off the edges of the map. Then I had to locate the elevator to climb up again. Or I was always being squashed by a giant hamster in a hamster ball. Apparently I wasn't hip, groovy, or with it.
I recently replayed the original on a RetroPie. My opinion, along with my skill, has improved over the past two decades. My five and eight year old sons also tried it. They enjoyed ToeJam & Earl enough to reach the halfway point. Despite my experience, TJ&E still requires significant skill, or at least, significant time and dedication to finish. The main problem: the game doesn't have a save feature, and it takes a long time to complete. We never finished it, but recently I got a free copy from Epic Games of the 2019 remake, ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove.
I admit we didn't play much. It didn't hook my sons, who decided it wasn't worth their time. They'd rather play Fall Guys, Shovel Knight, or Overcooked 2.
From my brief experience, Back in the Groove seemed like a straight remake, changing little except the visual style.
Overboard!
Time Played: 112 minutes
On July 3rd, 1935 I set sail as Starlet Veronica Villensey from England to America. Overboard! Is an homage to the classic Hercule Poriot mystery novels. Someone is murdered, and a detective has to figure out who done it. But Overboard! upsets the player's expectation. Instead of playing as the deductive detective, they play as the murder. Instead of solving the mystery, they must thwart the investigation.
After the opening scene, where Veronica tosses her husband overboard in the middle of the night, she returns to her cabin, sleeping in until 8am. The game begins, and the player, controlling Veronica, makes decisions. The player directs her to different locations. The player tells her who and how to speak to people at those locations. The player tells her to interact with objects. Time passes during each action. The other characters, who are a regular who's who of murder mystery archetypes, move about, living their lives. At the end of the day, the ship arrives in New York harbor and a final confrontation results (a finale arrives sooner if Veronica reveals her crime). At the assembly, the detective tries to solve the murder. He asks the other characters to reveal any valuable clues. Veronica defends herself with dialogue chosen by the player. If the detective uncovers the evidence, Veronica ends the game in jail. This is the worst failure.
Overboard! is intended for multiple playthroughs. My first six attempts landed Veronica in prison. Each attempt I learned more, feeling my way forward by trial and error. Characters follow a predetermined path that only changes if Veronica interrupts them. On my seventh attempt I succeeded in avoiding arrest. This wasn't the “best” ending. I was told by my accomplice, that I should “do it again” because I had convinced the detective that my husband died by suicide. You don't get life insurance for suicide. I needed to frame someone.
But after this seventh attempt I was tired of repeating this game. I take my freedom as a minor victory and set sail for new games.
MultiVerse
Time Played: 6.4 Hours
In mid 2022 Player First Games teamed up with Warner Bros. Games to release an open beta of a platform fighter similar to Super Smash Bros. Called, MultiVerse, Warner Bros. packed their game with characters from Adventure Time, Rick and Morty, DC Comics, Looney Toons, Scooby-Doo, and other lesser properties.
I played with my two sons and we discovered a few features. This game makes combat more complicated. The mechanic, Attack Decay, makes each attack of the same type, inflict less damage and distance than the last. The player is forced to perform combos to win. Secondly, it seemed to be difficult to knock people off the map.
And finally, we couldn't do a three person shared screen 1v1v1 multiplayer. It was difficult enough to figure out how to do 2v2 (when my wife agreed to play) or 1v2 (when she didn't).
Note: You can still play this game offline (you might need to have already downloaded it). Also, it is very easy now to play a Free For All mode.
The beta has ended, with a full release planned for 2024. We stopped playing long before the beta ended. Neither myself nor my children found it fun compared to the classic formula of Super Smash Bros.
5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel
Time Played: 46 minutes
As I mentioned in a previous article, I started playing chess again during the pandemic. I've since stopped, but I decided to try another chess variant. Unlike Pawnbarbian, 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel, is very much a chess game, and not a game skinned and themed to seem chess-like. On the other hand, while Pawnbarbian was a straightforward game to play, 5D Chess is almost impossible without multiple hours of practice.
In 5D Chess, pieces move through time, between timelines. The past can be changed. You move pieces on the present board, but can send units back in time, creating alternate timelines. If any one of your kings is checkmated you lose.
You can't move units in the past, but if you send a piece back in time, the players take turns moving until that timeline catches up with the present timeline. Then they take turns playing both timelines. This process repeats if additional timelines are created.
If a piece is sent back in time, creating a new timeline, that piece is no longer in the current timeline. In this way it is possible to have more than the usual number of pieces on one board. For example, a player could send a queen back in time. This would result in one timeline having two queens, while the present timeline has zero.
The game comes with features like chess puzzles, the ability to play against other human players, and a CPU opponent with five different difficulties.
I completed a few puzzles and defeated 3 regular CPU opponents, losing once.
Even so, I still don't really understand both movement and checkmating. Units, especially knights and bishops, move oddly (though, I assume, logically) across timelines. One serious problem: it seems too easy to checkmate compared to normal chess. This is because there are too many move options for units. The other compound factor: there are too many kings to defend. Each turn adds an additional king in the past that needs to be defended.
The player also must learn opening traps, which are more abundant than in regular chess, and can lead inevitably to defeat.
In 5D Chess offensive maneuvers are easier than normal, and defense almost impossible. There are so many places in the past that can't be defended. This means, 5D Chess rarely leaves the early game, and never makes it out of the mid game into the end game. It's an early attacking game. If chess regularly has dozens moves, with the potential for hundreds, 5D Chess often ends after ten or twenty.
If you are interested in watching a grandmaster's opinion, watch American GM Hikaru play 5D Chess on YouTube.
For anyone interested in chess, 5D Chess is a deeply interesting variant, but also, mechanically, a gimmick, and one you'll tire of quickly.
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