What we’ve been playing – haunted pirate ships, space monks, and chefs

24th May 2024

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 read about sailor superstition to scare a boat full of pirates, we voyage across space in vast gothic monasteries, and we learn a hard lesson about communication in an outrageous kitchen.

What have you been playing?

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We’ve Been Playing, here’s our archive.

Banished Vault, PC

I was preparing for a Banished Vault interview with creator Nic Tringali recently (I’m working on writing it up now), so I took some time to familiarize myself with the game. I’d missed it last year when it came out; it arrived alongside Starfield, which more or less eclipsed it. It’s only a small indie game. I’ve been meaning to play it ever since Chris gave The Banished Vault five stars in our review.

I’m glad I did. What fascinates me about Banished Vault is how a game can pack so much atmosphere and intrigue without seemingly trying to. It’s a space game, Banished Vault – really it’s a maths game disguised as a space game – a strategy puzzle based around using real periodic table elements to craft the resources you need to continue on your space journey. I know that sounds dry and unappealing because it does to me too, but mix the setting in and I can’t stop thinking about it.

In the Banished Vault, you’re a monk-on-the-run, in space. You live in a gigantic interstellar gothic monastery that flies through space trying to outrun a mysterious sweeping darkness called the Gloom – and you’re one of the only monks left in the universe because of it. Fascinating, isn’t it?

What I especially love is how sparingly this is portrayed. There’s no lengthy exposition, just a trim splash screen giving you the high-level story before your space-chase begins. It doesn’t quite give you enough, and this is where I think the skill of the storytelling lies. It lays out this really juicy predicament and then backs away, making you come forward in a need to find out more. That push-forwarding is mental investment on your part; that’s all a game or story can ask for.

Of course, it helps that it’s really artfully done. There’s an eerie loneliness to Banished Vault, illustrated by delicious, gothic black-and-white pencil artwork. Less is more! I like this approach a lot.

-Bertie

Overcooked: All You Can Eat Edition, PC

I don’t quite remember what happened the last time I attempted Overcooked but mentioning I was planning on playing it this weekend with a friend elicited a concerned look from a family member – apparently my last venture into the restaurant world was not a good one. All you need to do is prepare dishes to order and get them out to customers in time. I couldn’t have been that bad at it…

I was. I ended up getting really irritated with myself when we didn’t get three stars for a service (you need a specific amount of these to pass a level) – especially because my friend was floating around the kitchen, completely organized, while I was falling down literal and very obvious holes I ‘didn’t see’ (totally not an excuse). At one point I was so done with being rubbish, I spun around with a fire extinguisher like a carbon dioxide Catherine wheel, waiting for the inevitable zero star rating to land.

One big thing I learned this weekend was that, although I write guides and some people naturally assume you’re good at games because of this, I am simply awful at giving verbal instructions – especially under pressure. Somehow, asking for a plate or fire extinguisher became impossible when the music sped up and the clock counted down. It did help somewhat that there was an unspoken agreement between us about what jobs each of us had, especially in levels where we were on separate platforms. My friend was in charge of cooking rice, cleaning dishes and throwing ingredients across the void while I had to chop and fry said ingredients. A lot of vegetables and meat were yeeted across rivers that day.

Despite the spike in my stress levels, I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed this much over a game. I can see why Overcooked is so popular. I’m already pumped up for the next round. We will succeed!

-Marie

Dungeons & Dragons, tabletop

On three separate days last weekend, I played in three separate Dungeons & Dragons games, because apparently I’m obsessed. One of them is a prelude to the new high-level Vecna ​​campaign, which I’ll be streaming – tease, tease – and the others are Icewind Dale and Ghosts of Saltmarsh. For what it’s worth, I also have a Curse of Strahd campaign on the go as well. It’s a lot, and I worried for exactly that reason that I was overdoing it. But what surprised me at the weekend was how positive I came out about D&D at the other end.

That might sound like a surprising thing to say, given the amount of games I’m in, but there’s a concern I have about D&D that comes from the mathematical foundations of it. I sometimes feel there are too many ‘right ways’ of doing things, too many correct formulas, which inherently stimulate creativity in the game. I’m speaking from a min-max point of view here, which I know can be destructive in a creative setting but it’s hard to ignore. To a degree, it’s the way D&D is built, and however much it emerges towards role-play freedom, there’s always a maths shackle looped around it. The unfortunate consequence of this is characters and encounters built in the same way, which in turn leads to sameness and boredom.

But at the weekend, I didn’t feel any of that. Arguably the stand-out encounter came from a group of lowly level twos, who had the daunting task of overthrowing a pirate ship with a dozen enemies onboard. We couldn’t take them in a straight fight so we had to get creative. We decided, then, to scare them. We traded on sailor superstition and dropped a fog cloud on the boat and filled it with spooky things on – whispering, juddering, doors and window hatches that banged and flapped. Meanwhile, we approached. We used the ensuing chaos to pick off stragglers before boarding the ship, singling the captain out and winning the day. Bravo us – it was a bit more flavorful but I’m keeping it brief. Suffice to say, though, we won not by leaning on our mathematical rigor but by using our imaginations, and it was tremendously satisfying and atmospheric as a result.

Similar moments happened in all three games that weekend – memorable storytelling moments – and it reminded me of the power D&D can wield. I can’t wait to see what the revised 5.5 ruleset introduces later this year; I hope it encourages it even more.

-Bertie