11th October
Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This week, we feel the benefits of being positive to people we’ve never met, we enjoy our learnt skill in a game as we hunt for its platinum trophy, and we try out a bizarre game for Steam Next Fest.
What have you been playing?
Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.
Kind Words 2, PC
I hadn’t realised the game was so close; it wasn’t until Victoria mentioned she was interviewing Kind Words co-creator Ziba Scott – it’s a lovely interview by the way – that I noticed the sequel was here right now, and so with a bit of a start, I rushed to try it out.
It’s funny: Kind Words 2, like Kind Words before it, is the most gentle and unassuming game you’re ever likely to play, and yet it thumps like Mike Tyson. Within minutes, I was winded. The game had found and imported some old Kind Words data, helpfully, which included letters people had sent to me about an emotionally challenging issue I was having at the time, and so, suddenly, they were back in front of me. Oof. It was like pulling an old journal out from under the bed. And then double-oof: it happens to be an issue that’s ongoing in my life, which has taken a turn for the better recently, I’m glad to say, but which has been a lot in the intervening years. All that came rushing back in moments; I’d forgotten how effortlessly profound Kind Words can be.
Kind Words 2 isn’t actually very different to Kind Words 1 to begin with. That small bedroom where you send and receive letters from other people: that’s still there and it’s still a core part of what you do. The major new parts of the game are all outside, where you can have direct conversations with other people, though you don’t do this in real-time: they log on and reply to the few messages you’ve sent, and there’s a limit to how much you can send. The limitations are of crucial importance to the sanctity and safety of the game. But my initial experience of Kind Words 2 was exactly as with Kind Words 1: I just sat there for a while, happily writing nice things to strangers in the hope it might lift them up a bit.
The remarkable thing about it all was that though I intended these notes to make someone else feel better, with every wave of positivity I sent out, I began feeling better too. In lifting them up I was somehow lifting myself up. It’s just words, it’s just intention, but it in practice it’s a kind of magic. It’s amazing to me how powerful these simple things can be.
-Bertie
Elden Ring, PS5
I know, I know, Ed’s been playing Elden Ring again: groundbreaking stuff. But after hundreds of hours I’ve now got a new target: the platinum trophy – the true mark of an Elden Master. I’ve got two trophies left to get, both relating to endings, and yes I know there’s a trick to ticking these off without all the effort but I decided to do proper playthroughs instead.
The first is the Age of Stars ending. For this I started a second save file, opting for a bleed build based on Eleanora’s Poleblade, which is quite frankly disgustingly good. So far I’ve completed Ranni’s questline, beaten Malenia (for the lolz), and am well on my way through Crumbling Farum Azula to the end. Where my first run of the game was with an intelligence magic build, it’s been great fun getting properly stuck into melee, armed with my knowledge of the game and its secrets.
The second ending trophy I need is the basic one. For this I returned to my first run, in which I completed the base game and then swapped to a bleed build to complete the DLC. Now, for the first time, I’ve started NG+ to essentially speedrun the game, and while I knew I’d be a bit overpowered for this, I very much underestimated my stats. Using the Dryleaf Arts kung-fu, I’ve been cathartically bopping dragons on the nose to beat them in a matter of seconds, charging across fields towards only the most important (and iconic) of bosses to laugh at their feeble attempts to scratch me. It’s been absolutely filthy and I love it. In under three hours I made it from the start of the game to beating the Fire Giant, which is absurd when that took me seemingly forever back in the day. Next up is beating Malenia (again, for the lolz) and then acquiring that platinum trophy.
And then… what? Am I finally done with Elden Ring? Is it over?
-Ed
Drive Beyond Horizons, PC
I’ve been rattling through a few demos ahead of the Steam Next Fest deluge that starts today, and one of them is for this, Drive Beyond Horizons. I don’t often feel the pull of driving games, but something about this one grabbed me. The idea is really strong, I think: blending survival and crafting with driving. You start in the middle of what feels like an apparently endless American desert (although there’s a distinctly Russian feel about the game, so maybe it’s a desert area in Russia, I don’t know) and you have to drive through it, but the road is very long and your means of transport are very bad – an all but scrap-heap-ready husk of car. The game begins, then, with you in a small garage, picking up items and attaching them to your banger of a ride, which doesn’t even have doors by the way, before heading out onto one never-ending road that takes you… somewhere.
Oh, and there are zombies. As you putter down the enormous strip of road, you’ll come across the undead either standing directly in your way or shambling around outside places you want to get into – places like garages which contain the kind of car parts you’ll need to both keep going and smarten up your ride a bit. Scrub a bit of that rust off and get a smart matt black paint job going: the zombies will appreciate it when they go headfirst over your bonnet. “Oh sweeee-” Bonk! “Uuurgh.”
There’s the makings of a good game here but it’s a long way off the kind of quality it needs to realise it. Zombies don’t even make any noise as they shamble aimlessly about, and when you hit them, it feels like colliding with a particularly obstinate clump of Marmite: you just rapidly slow down – there’s no satisfying thunk! The car also feels boring to drive, which is a shame, given it’s the centrepiece of the game. At the moment, it all feels very basic.
Yet, there’s an inherent compulsion to it, to drive along that road and see what’s at the end of it, and that’s why I love the idea, because when a game doesn’t have to explain your motivation to you, it’s hit upon something strong. I only hope the team can polish up its manifestation of the idea to match the inherent potential.
-Bertie