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PC gamers: Blackwell, Rogue Book, Final Fantasy 14, Chicken Cop
The PC Gamer team wearily walked into the office from the rain-drenched sidewalk and took off the drenched windbreaker. The PC Gamer team gathered around the cork board to discuss the latest clues of the case. Explore the dark and dangerous alleys in the game this month, Robert solves supernatural crimes in the Blackwell Five Parts, Robin expands his deck in Roguebook, Daniela discusses community and Motherhood, Luke joined the chicken police: paint it red!
Cracking the case in Blackwell Quintilogy-Robert Zack
We all have our own “end a long day” game, where we can relax without the ability to react or fully open the brain. For me these days, those games are Dave Gilbert’s Blackwell series. They are 2D point-and-click adventures in vintage models-they wait patiently when I click through the scene to every detail, they are 100% dubbed, and their jazz soundtrack is like from a New York subway.
After playing Gilbert’s latest game, Unavowed, I came to the Blackwell series. The game is set in the same universe, and the supernatural whispers in the shadow of beautiful New York City. Although Unavowed is probably the best point-and-click game of all time, it is interesting to see Gilbert and his studio Wadjet Eye Games climb to the top of creativity through the Blackwell series.
Gilbert uses ghosts and supernatural phenomena to explore serious themes.
There are five games in total, following the socially awkward spiritual medium Rosângela Blackwell, who wanders in a New York City that is mainly night-time, looking for lost souls who need help to pass on the afterlife. She did this with her spiritual guide, Joey Mallone—a mean and humorous ghost that looked and sounded like a PI from the 1950s and also belonged to Rosa’s late aunt Lauren. Wizard.
Joey and Rosa’s dynamic is a peculiar one-his nasal dictionary, through which he calls Rosa a “baby” or “baby face”, in stark contrast to Rosa’s apparent dryness and neuroticism in New York . You may not feel good about them right away, but their relationship provides comedic relief and moments of contemplative reflection in due course. This is the core of Rosa’s journey from a rudderless young adult to an experienced media.
Gilbert used ghosts and supernatural phenomena to maturely explore some serious themes. Suicide, depression, and mental illness all appeared-young lives disappeared prematurely, a businessman who was heavily in debt, a musician who drowned his talents in alcohol. Their unforgettable lifelike stories and lonely ghostly existence make you invest in helping them enter the next field—whatever it is.
Once it gains a foothold, the series will enter the rhythm of journalistic investigations, when you listen carefully to people looking for key names and locations, and then enter them into Rosa’s computer to unlock new locations or dialogue options. Once you have collected the information, you will return to the ghost and try to get them to accept the fact that they are dead to evoke their memory.
No game can capture the spirit of a real-world city like Blackwell captures New York. The diversity of the city’s residents is well reflected, and the hand-painted locations are clear at a glance.
I also really like to see the obvious creative progress through this series. You can feel that writing and artistic works mature with the roaming protagonist of its existentialism. By browsing the Blackwell series of games one by one, you will witness the creative journey of one of the best writers in the video game.
Turn your deck into a big book in Roguebook-Robin Valentine
In deck games, less is more. In other words, you are usually making a small deck, take every opportunity to give up cards, and think carefully before adding anything new.
You are looking for predictability. You want the cards that make up your game’s winning combination to appear, so you don’t want your draw to be diluted by inappropriate things. In a game like Slay the Spire, the ideal deck might have only five cards, creating a reliable sequence that you can complete every turn.
The feeling of refining the deck to its purest essence is a tactical excitement, but it is not very interesting conceptually. Your instinct is to grab every cool new thing and feel that the possibilities in front of you are expanding. Stingy on your deck is unintuitive and will make the final stage of the run a rote thing-you have done some useful things, now you only need to prove its actions.
It is fascinating that the total rejection of this idea makes Roguebook stand out. In essence, this is a game similar to Slay the Spire, but it feels quite different.
Roguebook hopes that your deck will continue to grow. As you add more cards, your character gains powerful perks, many of which will be further enhanced by adding more cards-and you have little chance of trimming. You are not refining the new parts into a perfectly balanced machine, but fixing the new parts to the bulky combat engine, trying to find greater synergy, so that each addition becomes a boon rather than a burden.
At the end of the run, a good deck will have multiple complementary strategies. As you progress, the battle has not become more predictable, the battle will only become more complicated. When you hit the final boss, you are thinking every turn.
Is this a better way? Not necessarily-it has its own shortcomings, including making you more subject to probability. But as someone who has been obsessed with deck builders for hundreds of hours, how refreshing and exciting it is to make clever modifications to the formula.
Playing the role of others in the story of “Final Fantasy XIV”-Daniela Lucas
After sharing a lot of exciting new information for the upcoming Endwalker expansion and celebrating everything about Final Fantasy XIV at the FFXIV Fan Festival in May, the game’s music director Masayoshi Soken took the stage and revealed that he has been working with Fight against cancer. This revelation shocked fans and his colleagues because he kept the whole thing secret. He said that he didn’t want anyone to worry about, and revealed that he worked hard for the fans to help him move on. “Video games can really be cured,” he said, and everyone was holding back tears on stage.
This was an incredibly poignant moment that resonated with many players, and they soon began to share their stories about how FFXIV and its community helped them, whether it was through association with the characters or through the Make friends in the game. My story is a bit mundane. No decisive friendly meetings or special story beats saved me—I found that the cure was the simple sight of strangers doing their things silently.
My daughter came back in 2018. Although it was a joyous moment, many people joked that I never had time to play games, but I found myself very isolated. It was difficult to adjust, and I found myself diagnosed with depression and stuck on the sofa. At first I thought I could no longer play FFXIV-how can you promise to play any dungeon when you might have to quit at any time to feed your helpless little potatoes? I am afraid of letting anyone down. “At least I can craft,” I told myself when I finally mustered the courage to try to return. When I parked my character in Uldakh and slowly started to make my production log, other players would run past me to interact with the market or express emotions to friends. It feels good to be in the crowd—even if not in real life, there are still real people behind these roles.
In the end I tried some short demos and raid boss battles. The more I logged in, even if it was only 15 minutes at a time, the less lonely I felt. Just knowing that I can exist in a space with other people, even if it is not “real,” I feel powerful. I can be part of someone else’s journey. All those short moments, those snapshots of life when other people submit tasks and teleport to town, are enough to make me feel more human and more like myself. Thousands of people helped me get out of a dark place just because they were in FFXIV, they didn’t even know. This is the healing power of the game.
Slap the long wing of the law in the chicken cops: paint it red! -Luke Kemp
With a title like this, and heroes named Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken, I will always buy this game in the end. Then there is another Epic Games Store promotion with a £10 voucher, which is mine. Is it what I expected? Not true, because I am not entirely sure what will happen, which is why I bought it.
Chicken Cop is a black detective adventure, all characters are animals. And the chicken police has a sense of humor. Well, as long as you can overcome the terrible influence of one of the protagonists such as wearing a leather jacket.
The Chicken Cop-as you may have noticed from the screenshots-basically processed the animal’s head onto the human body in Photoshop. To be honest, I can’t tell whether the most funny and ridiculous moments that occurred were deliberate. I am very confident that it intends to attract the “furry” market. There are brothels. I had no problem with this, but when I met a lemur in high heels and a tight dress staring at me without blinking, I had to lie down.
Despite the absurd decorations, the figure sleeves of the game still proudly wear black tendencies. With some sledgehammer subtle references to Raymond Chandler, the main voice actor seems to have been told to do his best for Humphrey’s impression of Humphrey’s “black tendency to wear proudly on the game’s digital sleeves” Bogart. Most of the content is even presented in black and white, and colors are only occasionally used for dramatic effects. I think it can also help cover up the photoshopping crack.
The writing and acting skills are good, and I was surprised to find that there is actually a little serious detective subject. It seems impossible to fail where you draw the main conclusion, but I like the fact that I can mess up suspicious interviews-failing to get all possible information from them-and choose to continue what I got instead of focusing on try. I can also confidently say that no other game I’ve played has been so effective in conveying the sexual tension between chickens and cats.
There are some optional parts in the story, so far I have eaten them all. Part of the reason is that I learned that these scenarios can unearth information related to the case. However, in most cases, I think this is because playing the chicken cops is one of the most surreal experiences in my life-I don’t want to miss any of them.