PLAY THE ANIMATION! Epic Seven!

Hello. GMTamarinnehere.

In this sweltering summer, what dessert comes to your mind first, Heirs?

Refreshing watermelon? Sweet ice cream? 🍉🍦

For me, GM Tamarinne, colorful parfaits are the first thing that comes to mind when I think of summer desserts~!

Eating sweet ice cream topped with plenty of fruits and cookies makes the heat feel like it's disappearing right away! 🍨✨

What toppings would you like to put on your parfait, Heirs?

Please let us know your own delicious parfait toppings in the comments according to the event participation form!

We will send "Leif x2" to all Heirs who participate~!

■ My Own Parfait Topping Pick! Event

[Event Schedule]

8/6 (Thu) ~ 8/12 (Wed) 23:59 

[How to Participate in the Event]

- Leave a comment following the form below to complete your participation!

※ Form: Nickname/Server Name/Write your own parfait topping!

* If you use a different format or include special characters other than those listed in the form, you may be excluded from the event. Please make sure to leave a comment in the format above to ensure your participation is registered correctly!

[Event Participation Rewards]

- All participants: Leif 2

※ Rewards will be sent to your in-game mailbox on 8/14 (Fri) . (Storage period: 7 days)

[Please Note!]

- If you do not provide the correct nickname and server, you will be excluded from the event.

- Rewards will be sent based on the 'Nickname' you provided when participating in the event.

  ※ If you change your nickname, you may not receive the rewards properly.

- You can only receive the event reward once per account, and duplicate entries will be excluded from the reward list.

(You cannot participate in the same STOVE community event held in other language regions.)

- For more details, please check the  [Event Policy].

Thank you.

First, the story goes like this. 

Where anomalies and mutants appear Chernobyl Exclusion ZoneThe protagonist, who carefully observes while searching

Former  stalkers or bandit members who have become zombies due to anomalies

*Stalker, Bandit: The two major factions clashing over Chernobyl in Stalzone. 

Just  kill  them

Carefully observe your surroundings and farm useful items from boxes or corpses.

Then, the sky begins to twist due to the strange power of Chernobyl!

After many twists and turns, mission accomplished!

(As expected, the best way to end a mission is a helicopter escape)

Ugh, freeloaders.

The protagonist, who delivers the mission results to colleagues worried about him and looks forward to a reward vacation.

My precious!

??????????????????????????????????????

A scene I've seen somewhere before?

 No way???

I'll curse you, suka.

The game begins. 

An extraction MMO shooter that combines the world of the post-apocalyptic masterpiece 'S.T.A.L.K.E.R.' series with Minecraft's unique block graphics, known as 'Stalzone (STALZONE / Stalcraft-> old name. I think they changed it to avoid being mistaken for a Star-knockoff.)', is capturing the attention of FPS users with its unique, strange charm. The deadly survival mechanics and hardcore gameplay hidden behind the crude visuals offer a unique sense of immersion.

So, not Starzone, but Stalzone Let's start the review. 

First, let's start by dying like a beginner.

■ The threat of 'The Zone', a land where the laws of physics have collapsed

The setting of Stalzone is 'The Zone', a dangerous area where the laws of physics collapsed and strange anomalies run rampant after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. Players belong to factions such as 'Stalkers', explorers who gather for resources, or 'Bandits', outlaws, and engage in survival battles.

The in-game environment does not allow for even a moment of carelessness. Radioactive zones hidden in the bushes, invisible gravity anomalies,

and the constant attacks of bizarre mutants threaten the player.

■ The tension created by hardcore PvPvE and 'Lost Backpacks'

The core fun of Stalzone comes from the unpredictable PvPvE structure. In dangerous areas, battles occur frequently not only with AI enemies but also with players from other factions. Especially in PvE, the Bandits are not passive but extremely aggressive. 

They set up fire zones and flank to surround you, so what if you camp?

The floor is cold.Suka!

When you die, your equipped main weapons and armor are kept, but the farming materials collected in that area are dropped on the field in the form of a 'Lost Backpack'. Raiders cannot open this backpack directly; a unique economic system operates where they can list it on the auction house or sell it to a fence NPC to sell it back to the original owner for a price.

Replaced with a shop screen because I couldn't kill anyone and only died.

Camping play targeting the path back to base and the psychological warfare between users trying to protect resources create extreme tension at every moment.

But! Nevertheless, poor  this Stalzone is not just full of wolves targeting sheep.

There are also dogs that protect the sheep!

Lucky, a nameless good person, thank you so much. 

■ Balance of convenience and growth: Integrated personal storage and barter system

A personal storage system is provided in major safe zones, including the initial base, 'Artiman Headquarters'. This storage, which can be used through the storage manager NPC or shelves at each base, is linked to global bases. Players can minimize resource loss due to death by storing barter materials and emergency supplies brought back from the field at the risk of their lives.

This safe-zone-centered routine forms a virtuous cycle leading to resource collection, base return, storage, and equipment crafting, presenting long-term growth goals.

Of course, there are times when you ruin everything by thinking, "I'll just farm a little more and then go."

Just like retail investors who go broke trying to sell stocks at a higher peak.

■ Clear likes and dislikes: Terrible repetitive farming and the limits of solo play

The downsides are also clear. The amount of materials required to craft high-tier equipment in the mid-to-late game is enormous, requiring a serious level of repetitive work (grinding).

Also, as you enter higher-level areas, users in parties (squads) tend to control farming areas. Because of this, the stress and entry barriers for solo players are quite high. Ping issues when connecting to overseas servers and some monetization (BM) elements are also considered disappointing.

And the worst downside. To add a part you must be careful about, Stalzone is an open world, but there are separate instances. 

I 

died here 

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

That's right, if you die in an instance, your remains don't stay, and all your items melt away. I don't know if it was intentional, but I almost quit the game here. 

■ Overall Review

Stalzone is a masterpiece that precisely captures the dark and alluring atmosphere unique to the genre within crude block graphics. If you approach it lightly just by looking at the visuals, you might be frustrated by its bitter spiciness, but it provides irreplaceable enjoyment to users who enjoy precise gun mechanics and the hand-feel of hardcore extraction farming.

That's it for the review of Stalzone, a game I will continue to enjoy! 

Finally, Stove is currently holding a launch commemorative event.  If you click the photo below,  it will link to the event page, so I highly recommend you get the benefits and enjoy it. 

I'm off! Even though all my items are gone! Having overcome the reality check, I'll head back into Chernobyl! 

This has been Kkemaseon! Thank you!

Do you guys usually like games with a high degree of freedom?

I really like games that are incredibly playable and (as I feel) have a high degree of freedomso I enjoy them.

Games like Dark Souls where I have to break through various paths to experience the route I want to take,,

and games like Zelda where you explore are often intended to give the user more overall freedom in gameplay,right?

However, the game I'm reviewing today felt a bit different.

It felt more like a game where you follow a single plot enjoyably and meticulously than other games!!
<Loco Motive: The Royce Express Murder Thumbnail>

I bought Loco Motive: The Royce Express Murder to play a mystery game where you solve a murder case,
but rather than playing a game, it felt like watching a comedy mystery animation from start to finish, and it felt like the player's UX sense was tuned more to this.
It felt like the player's UX sense was tuned more to this.
<😶A murder has occurred, but the atmosphere is more cheerful than expected?😶>

The story begins on the luxury train 'Royce Express' in the 1930s.
Wealthy railway heiress Lady Unterwald gathers people on the train for an important announcement, but an unexpected murder case occurs, and
three people who seem completely unsuited for the case three people get involved.
They are Arthur, a fussy lawyer; Herman, a mystery novelist who accidentally became a detective; and Diana, who moves while hiding her identity..
<Spoiler Alert>

The player controls these three characters in turns, viewing the same event from different locations and perspectives.

 'Murder on a luxury train', 'suspicious passengers', 'three people who must find the culprit'It has the familiar grammar of a mystery.
Doesn't it sound like a pretty classic locked-room murder mystery just from the setting?

But when you actually play it, the atmosphere is quite different.
The case is serious, but the people are strange, the conversations keep veering off in weird directions, and the characters show a lot of expressions and movements even in trivial actions.

So, from a certain point on, I think it's a game where you can be as curious about
the characters' lines as you are about finding the culprit!
This game is really talkative

(every single one of these diamonds is an interaction)
and so many things come back as dialogue,

if you talk to a person, there's dialogue, if you examine a strange object, they say something, and if you use a weird item, the character reacts!

(You can even interact with the trash can)

Plus, the characters' unique ways of speaking are strong in almost every conversation, 
so it feels more like watching an animation than reading text.
(In fact, this game is also a work that received particularly good reviews for its dialogue, voice acting, and character animation.)
So I felt that the reason I clicked on objects in the game changed from

to solve puzzles
to 'What would they say if they saw this?'
little by little!

(I think you'll find that this combination and use of items is more about what the characters would think rather than how we would combine them in real life.)
And it is a UX-friendly game that is kind to the player.
You can easily identify interactive elements on the screen, the character's reaction itself can be a hint for the next action, and the controls and buttons used in the game are also very simple.
The controls and buttons used in the game are also very simple.
(Movement is done by moving left and right using A or D.)
If you get really stuck, you can even get hints by phone within the game.
It felt a bit like a developer's tip guide.
Of course, that doesn't mean every puzzle is perfectly intuitive.
Some puzzles have the unique logic of point-and-click games where you think, 'You use it like this?' (I actually felt it from the early tutorial.)
(If you combine them, do they get stronger..? Why?)
But these shortcomings don't feel overwhelmingly huge!
That's because I felt this game was 'like an animation'.
Unlike typical mystery games,
three characters move individually,
and events that happened in different places later connect into one, 
and the space between them is filled with countless lines, expressions, gestures, and gags.

(This cutscene also moved in multiple frames to make one expression!)
(It's like an American animation)
So rather than feeling like I was creating the story,
it felt closer to walking through a very cheerful event that had already been created,
so this point-and-click logic didn't feel forced, but rather like finding the characters' tendencies.
<Then is it bad as a mystery game??>
The reason Loco Motive is fun is becauseit knows quite clearly what kind of mystery game it is.
The goal of this game seemed closer to putting the player on a train full of strange people, making them get involved in cases, and making them enjoy the conversations and situations that occur in the process, rather than making the player a master detective.
making them get involved in cases and making them enjoy the conversations and situations that occur in the process, rather than making the player a master detective.
So I think the intense sense of achievement when solving a difficult puzzle might be relatively weak. 
Instead, the situation, dialogue, and characters followed each other quickly, so the story didn't feel boring even if the sense of achievement was weak.
<Target audience I want to recommend to>
1. People who like adventure games that follow characters and stories rather than being stuck on complex mysteries for hours,
2. People who like pixel art characters moving and reacting in detail, and people who enjoy reading the characters' banter one by one,
3. People looking for a game like a comedy mystery animation that you can play yourself.
Conversely, if the most important thing in a mystery game is

a strong sense of achievementthat 'I solved the case by combining clues myself without any help', please think carefully about the game!

<One-line summary>
It's a mystery game that sits you in the passenger seat until the case is over and keeps telling you fun stories rather than making you a master detective~

(Play this instead of anime)

What is the length of Kim Ddatsung's nose?

<3.9cm/5.0cm>

I really like American animation, so I played it enjoyably.

Thank you for reading~~