I’m writing this sitting at my laptop, watching my newly minted teenage son conduct a takeover of my Twitch channel and play Star Wars: Battlefront II online. This is a rite of passage that I hadn’t planned, but that seems to suit him perfectly. I’m not sure I recognize this kid. He’s not stuttering, he’s totally confident talking to a camera, and completely unconcerned that there are actual people watching him take on other players around the world.
Sometimes, this boy is so much like me that it hurts. He didn’t want to see a movie this year, just play multiplayer RTS games with me in the morning, go to lunch, then game online and on Twitch for the first time in the afternoon. I probably would have done the same thing at his age if given the choice.
He’s a challenging glimpse into what I was really like at that age. Reality doesn’t always line up with my perceptions.
I’m proud of the kid though. A lot of times I’m too close, all I see and hear are the irritating things that I want to correct, and it’s difficult to imagine the butterfly that’s going to emerge from this cocoon. Stepping back like this though, trying to see him through others’ eyes, I think I see it a little clearer. There’s a long way to go, sure, but I think through God’s grace, that he’s headed in the right direction.
It's time to get the band back together in Minecraft: Story Mode! In an uncharacteristic decision, I chose brains over explosives, meaning that I got the Episode 2 quest to save the brainy mage, rather than the TNT obsessed troll.
Then things got weird...
I'm sure this will work out fine, and that the remaining five episodes are just happy fun times, right?
This plot may sound a little familiar: Mysterious corporate entity invites you in as a volunteer "test subject" to test their new prototype gun. You progress through a series of white-walled chambers, sometimes encouraged by a semi-snarky voice.
Okay, it's basically the plot of Portal. But, in a well executed game, with enough of a different hook to make things interesting, that's not really a bad thing, now is it?
ChromaGun is essentially a Portal-style game, where you solve puzzles by mixing colors. Your only weapon is the eponymous ChromaGun, which fires blobs of super adhesive red, yellow, and blue paint. Combining two colors will give you orange, green, and purple colors as well, combining all three colors (or hitting orange, green, or purple painted objects with any color) will give you brown.
Using these seven colors on the walls, ceiling, and worker bots, you progress through eight chapters (roughly fifty rooms total) of puzzles.
The puzzle rooms are, with a couple of exceptions, well thought out, and gradually reveal new mechanics as you go. The plot, well, the announcer talking to you throughout the puzzles is male, so that's different than Portal at least. Plot isn't really that important to a puzzle game though, provided the game is fun, and this is.
Overall, I definitely recommend this game, it's a fun 3-5 hour set of puzzles, challenging enough for adults, but also kid appropriate. In fact, I'm probably going to let my ten-year-old have a go at it next week.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schedule This Week:
Mechwarrior Misadventures returns to Twitch on Monday night, 9:30-ish and running for a half hour.
Star Wars: TIE Fighter playthrough continues on Saturday
More World War II aviation history coming on Thursday.
Disclosure:
Pixel Maniacs provided me with a free key for ChromaGun and asked me to play it. No promises of positive reviews or anything else were provided in return, I just really enjoyed the game.
