Only a short post for now

Not a lot of actual accomplishment significance has happened in the last couple days, I think I'm finally recovered from being sick so I can't use that as much of an excuse anymore.

There has been some interesting things though, the other day I checked out my ISP and it seems they recently overhauled their plans, drastically improving them without telling us. Shadey, but forgiveable when after a single phone call they give you five times the bandwidth limitations and twice the speed for less money.

I am extremely happy about this. As self admittedly internet addicted as I am, this must be what it's like to grow your own drugs.

Other news, not much. I've negected game design in favor of playing the new game from Carpe Fulgur of Recettear fame, Chantelise, which I am awful at, and finally enjoying Limbo, which I didn't try on the 360 because I've never been interested in the arcade.

Chantelise is a wonderful dungeon crawler sort of action game, I am very bad at it but its enjoyable and amusing. It's spiritual prequel from the same translators and Japanese game makers, Recettear has been very influential for amusement among my circle of friends and this has the potential to be the same.

Interestingly I found a more hard/literal translation of the original Japanese dialogue and it seems at least all the charm in this was inserted by the translators, the original was very mundane by Japanese standards, slightly perverted and lackluster jokes you'd find in typical slice of life-esque anime. I'm fine with such, normally, but I'm glad they went a bit off the rails for these games. It adds a lot it wouldn't otherwise have.

Limbo on the other hand is something I'm far better at. I think if I have to pick that sort of puzzle/platformer genre you find in games like Another World(/Out of This World), Flashback and Abe's Oddysee are my singular favourite type of game. I don't know why, but I have so much fun figuring out the exact pattern of control and timing needed to get from one cruel puzzle to another in an endless cycle just appeals to me. It's a shame its a very small genre of games.

Add on a dark and morbid world, unexplained mysteries comprising the entire plot and artsy fartsy nonsense like its entirely in black and white and its like the game was made for me.

That's it for now. I have other ideas I may talk about later that are more complex, but for now I'm just taking a break with videogames. What about you guys? What kinds of niche elements to games make you love them?