Chzo Mythos: 7 Days a Skeptic

Happy Halloween.  And today actually is halloween, so I guess this is the last time I can say that for another 11 months or so. 

7 days a skeptic is the second game of the Chzo Mythos, and sequel to 5 days a stranger.  It is a good companion to that game, and has many similarities, including theme, plot and gameplay elements. 7 days features a tightened up interface, which helps the sense of game flow.  Both games draw their strength through atmosphere and character.

Generally I find that the atmosphere comes from the writing, and the flow of the game. There's a bit of isolation, even though there are other characters available to talk with.  Also, the sense that anything could happen at any time helped to keep fresh my experience of the limited environment.  I was driven to progress the storyline.

Both games take place in a series of rooms, each contained in a single screen.  Over the course of the games progression, the player is free to walk through any of the available rooms and the plot will require a lot of walking back and forth.  I haven't played a lot of point-and-click adventures, so I don't know if this is common to the genre. It can definitely be frustrating at times, and I fully endorse the consultation of a walkthrough when that frustration moves in.

I think that both 7 days and 5 days really work with the limited space given:  5 days has about fifteen screens and 7 days has maybe twenty.  Part of the atmosphere of the game comes from the experience of being trapped in a limited space, which adds significance to every new screen that is revealed through play.  In addition, when an event takes place in a screen that was, up to that point, relatively inert- that screen gains a new characteristic and emotional response from the player (me).  Still other screens may never have anything significant in them, but they still reflect the potential of something happening.

The atmosphere is edgy in 7 days.  Solving a mystery in a very dangerous-- and sometimes horrific environment.  Yahtzee does turn the horror dial up a notch in this game, which I appreciate.  I wouldn't say the game itself is generally gratuitous, just occasionally gratuitous.  It definitely startled me a couple of times.

The music is also little bit better in 7 days.  It was actually written for the game, rather than stolen. And it seems more consistent -  the music in 5 days seemed to just kind of drop off sometimes like it got confused and just wandered away.

I enjoyed playing 7 days a Skeptic, and I recommend it to anyone who has played 5 Days a Stranger and enjoyed it.  You can play it on its own, but it really is best to start from the beginning.  Solid, Amateur, Point and Click, Horror.  What's not to love?   Happy Halloween.

-Dr. Potts

P.S.  I have continued on with the progression of the Chzo Mythos and started the third game (of four) Trilby's Notes.  With this game, Yahtzee has changed up the formula.  Instead of point and click, the character is now controlled using the keyboard, and actions are controlled by typing phrases like "type review of Chzo Mythos" or something more simple like "turn on light."  I've played through the intro sequence and a few minutes into the main story and it looks like the horror is ramped up yet again.  Along with the production value.

Also, though this is the third game in the series, it is more of a direct sequel to 5 Days a Stranger.

First Impressions: The World Ends With You (DS)

I've been playing this game for a couple of weeks, which was shortly after I earned the Vivi character in Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy.  I'd been trying to unlock Vivi for sometime and after I was able to, I felt like I accomplished something and I played for a bit after that, but I haven't picked the game up since I put The World Ends With You in my DS, which again, was a couple of weeks ago.  Now that the background context is out of the way, on with the initial critique.

The World Ends With You is an odd game from Square Enix.  I mention Square Enix first off because the first thing I think of when I see those two juggernauts of RPG's next to each other are two things, Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior/Quest.  I obviously know there are plenty of other properties associated with that one massive company, but that's what comes to my mind.  Oh, and I guess the Kingdom Hearts franchise too, but I've never gotten into those games as the idea of Disney characters in a Final Fantasyesque type story/setting/whatever it is has never appealed to me.  Anyway!, Square Enix = Overworld Exploring RPG's.  This isn't the case with TWEWY.

Initially, TWEWY feels a lot like an RPG that Atlus would have come up with.  From the character designs to the way the game is played, even the music is somewhat reminiscent of the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series.  Does this mean that the game doesn't work well, coming from Square Enix?  Of course not!  Just because a game company puts something out that breaks a mold that works very well for them doesn't mean that the game is going to be horrible.  It's a very non-traditional game that works on a lot of levels, even if I know I'm playing part of the game inaccurately.

The battles in the game are what makes this game very different than a standard RPG.  The battles are in real time, similar to how the Tales... games are run: wandering around an over world and entering real time battles.  The actions in the battles are determined by which "pins" the main character, Neku, has equipped.  Different pins do different types of damage and the actions are executed in any number of different ways.  From "slashing" an enemy with the stylus, to "tapping" empty space to shoot a projectile towards and enemy, or "scratching" an open area to cause area damage.  There are a lot more types of damage and actions as I've made it through, maybe 1/3 of the game and I haven't collected all of the pins yet.  And this is only half of the battle system.  The other half takes place on the top screen with your partner.  That half is controlled with either the control pad or the ABXY buttons (depending if you're right or left handed).  For that you're supposed to pick out the "correct" card in the proper order in order to execute a combo.  I don't play it that way.  For the top person, I just button mash, pressing the control pad in whichever direction my opponent is facing.  It's not great, but it's working out somewhat well so far.

Coordination here is the key.  Left hand playing top screen with directional pad and right hand using the stylus on the bottom screen.  It's like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach.  All while being attacked.

As far as the storyline goes, it's a lot deeper and somewhat darker than I had originally anticipated and that's very much welcome.  That's all I want to say about the story as to not give it away for anyone (like me) who plays games four years after they've been released.  Even the fact that the game takes place in the Shibuya district of Tokyo and that I don't really know anything about that specific culture, I don't feel like I'm missing anything that's important to the game.  Sure, I'm sure there are things in the game that I'd be giddy about if I knew about Shibuya culture and the district itself, but it's something that I'm not too worried about.

I think it's safe to say though, that with 15 hours logged in so far, I would easily recommend this game to just about anyone.  Pokemon fans?  There's collecting.  RPG fans?  There's leveling of characters and items/weapons.  Action fans?  Battles in real time.  Rhythm Music game fans?  There's pretty awesome music.  See, a little something for everyone.  Except if you're only a fan of FPS', then you probably won't like this game, and you probably wouldn't own a DS anyway.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

More For The Rest Of Us. 

Full Review: Amnesia ~Justine~ (PC)

Amnesia ~Justine~ is a free expansion of sorts for Amnesia ~The Dark Descent~ and is included in pretty much any updated version of the game you download.  The game also comes with a 52 page PDF book titled Amnesia ~ Remember.  But, today we're here to talk about The Dark Descent's little sister, Justine.

Instead of a standard "full review" as we've done in the past, because everything that I would normally say "game-wise" I've already covered in my main post about Amnesia ~The Dark Descent~, so here I'll just cover aspects of Justine, and try to not give away any spoilers, but just generalizations.

The atmosphere in Justine is very similar, one might even say "identical," except that it isn't.  Yes, you're in castle-esque surroundings and you start the game in a groggy haze not knowing anything about who or what or where you are.  In the first room, a cell, your door is locked with a rope tied to it.  There's also a phonograph (kind of like a record player for you youngsters....... okay, like an MP3 player) that the rope from the door is tied to via a pulley in the ceiling.  You're first objective: get the door open.  

The game is brilliant in that once you figure out how to open the door, your mind will be ready to solve puzzles.  The "point" of this short (although still equally scary) game is to either "save" a person in a potentially deadly torture device by figuring out a way out of the room, or have them killed and you have an easy way out.  Some of the puzzles are a bit difficult to figure out and require trial and error, although in this case, a failed attempt means either someone else dies or you do.

There's the catch.  Death.  In Justine, you only have one life.  If you die, you're kicked out of the game, no helpful game text to encourage you on.  You have to start a new game now.  This was only somewhat frustrating as there was one particularly wet area that I couldn't figure out how to evade a fast moving monster through waste deep water.  My tactics became too elaborate, such as piling up boxes around doors, climbing up onto machinery only to have the creature hunt and fox guard the area.  Conklederp even freaked out when the creature screamed/growled/garbled "I can see you."  The frustrating part being that I was trying different ways I thought I had to evade the monster and it took me 10 minutes to get to that point in the game each time I failed and died and wanted to try again.

However, once I made it past that area and all the "scary" stuff that I'd been going through was no longer scary, the game gave me the finger and scared the poop out of me all over again.  Justine does a very good job of scaring you, letting you calm down long enough to realize that you're about to be in danger and then you are again and you only have time to run!  There's one puzzle, after completing the game twice that I don't have the balls to figure out what to do as I'm just too frightened.  Too frightened to stop and look behind me, to stop and look about the room, to figure out how to possibly save the man who I've killed each time.  Each time I've said "Sorry dude, you're going to die so I don't have to."  I wonder what that says about me?

I also want to quickly add, that the story in Justine fits into the world of The Dark Descent with a couple of items that connect the two story lines, which is nice and at the same time made me think, "Oh fuck I'm in the same world."  So yes, Justine's a really fun game that will take you maybe 30 minutes to complete, maybe an hour if you're like me and like to look at everything and maybe longer if you're a lot like me and have to inspect, read and ponder over every little thing.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Review: 5 Days a Stranger

(I want to quickly mention that I decided I should play '5 days' after playing 'Slender' for ten minutes and totally freaking out and being too scared to play Slender anymore  --that game is fucking scary.)

Happy Halloween.  This last weekend I played through 5 Days a Stranger, the first game of the Chzo Mythos; a PC game series by Yahtzee Croshaw, spanning 5 point and click adventure games of the 'Psychological Horror' Genre.

I was pleased with 5 Days a Stranger.  The graphics and sound aren't great, it doesn't have brilliant gameplay by any means, but the plot, characterization, and general execution of the story are solid.  I put in about 3-4 hours to beat the game, and I would say that it was definitely worth that time.

I will admit that midway through day 3 I went to Gamefaqs to find help.  I had gotten to the point where I was walking back and forth, scouring each room, over and over again, and finding nothing.  The game was losing its fun, replaced by frustration. I was getting tired of the sound of my characters footsteps. So I did what I thought was best to preserve my enjoyment of the game- I cheated.  That is, I found a walkthrough and I followed it.

The general interface could use some work.  Sometimes I was trying to click on a menu item or action, and my character would just start walking to the corner of the screen where the menu is located.  This happened more than a few times, actually.  The gameplay quirks compounded my frustration at not solving puzzles, and I went back to the walkthrough whenever I felt this way, so that I could focus more on the unfolding plot. 

Though I may criticize, I think it is important to note that this is an amateur game, made by one person and the first in a series.  There are bound to be some bugs.  I don't think I could do any better. 

The story and the characters kept me playing.  And while the interface somewhat hampered the gameplay, and I couldn't figure out some of the puzzles, It was still an enjoyable gaming experience and I appreciate that.  After I broke the seal on the walkthrough, I had a great time playing through the game to the end.  

The gameplay of '5 days' is mostly a vehicle for the plot.  And while that vehicle may need some of its belts changed, and probably have the suspension looked at, the ride is worth it.  (Well look at that, a car metaphor)  

I recommend "Five Days a Stranger."  

Dvid

P.S.  I just started playing the sequel:  7 days a skeptic, and there are some things I am excited about.  First, the interface/pointer system is drastically improved.  I expect that this will greatly reduce the frustration factor with the game mechanics. 

A couple other details are:  it takes place in space.  That might be cool.  You play as the ships counselor.  I've been around the ship, and met the lead characters, and I'm excited to see how they interact as the plot moves forward.  Fun times!

This Just Happened.

I know this isn't the day that I "officially" put up posts, but seriously, this just happened.

I recently came back from Gamestop (recently as in the last hour, but before I stopped at Fred Meyer to buy a busket of cat food).  I don't go to Gamestop very often as their frequently inflated prices on both used and new games is very much a deterrent.  Sometimes though, they'll have a used game (no this is not a post about the "evils" of used game purchases, which I don't subscribe to) that you can't find new anymore for any particular reason (too old, limited release, game was crapped on by Game Informer and Metacritic).  

The point is, I was finally able to track down a used copy of SEGA's Infinite Space for the DS.  Yes, I could buy a new copy off Amazon.com, but not for fucking $77.  I had a $25 gift card from doing online surveys.  So I went to Gamestop, picked up Infinite Space and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, because a used copy was only $12.  Turns out with the two games I only owed 18¢ after using the gift card.

So now the point of this special edition post:  I know have more games for the DS than I have for any other console system I've had.  I owned maybe 16-20 games on the  SNES, 18 on the Gamecube, maybe another 15 or so on the N64, but I've just passed 32 on the DS.  I'm going to need to buy another game case, and really, these are the best DS game cases I've ever come across.  

That's all I wanted to say.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

They"ve Learned To Reproduce On Their Own

Impressions from Cooperative Gaming Co-Op #1: ARCADE GAMES curated by Zach Gage

This is how the installation looked from the outside

Okay everyone, so here is  my first in a series of posts giving my impressions of the games I played at the San Jose Cooperative Gaming Co-op's Arcade Installation.  As I mentioned in my previous post, this show was put on by my friend John Bruneau and James Morgan.

There were tons of games there, and they were all set up in Arcade Cabinets.  Each cabinet was curated by a different person.  The curators chose what games would be available to play, and also had a hand in the design of the cabinet.  I don't really have any pictures, so I can't show you, but there were some pretty cool designs.  Check out the cooperative gaming co-op's page for any updates or information.

The installation was essentially a free arcade featuring experimental and indie games.    Many or most of these games had an 'arcade' feel.  Games where the action starts instantaneously, and I died, I wanted to play again.  Given the chance, I would feed a bunch of quarters into machines featuring these games.  There was also a game-swap on site where you could take a game as long as you also left a game.  I didn't participate in this, but I imagine I will at some future date.

The Arcade was in place from Sept 28th to Oct 20th, but I was, unfortunately only able to visit once in the second to last week.  So there is a touch of Irony that I am going to be spending this time promoting an event that has already ended.  However, I also got to play lots of great games, and they will live on!  As will John and James, and the great artists, programmers, curators and appreciators of this event.  The next time I hear about something like this, I'm going to try to get out there sooner.

So, for now, I'm going to dedicate my time to talking about the games I played.  Many are available to play online-- for free!  So I will provide links to that.  It's not the same as an arcade, but we can't have everything all the time.  So, without further ado, on to the first cabinet:

ARCADE GAMES: curated by Zach Gage

• Shoot First by Teknopants

Shoot First is a two player co-op game with action that reminded me of Gauntlet.  It was really tough though, and I died really fast.  There were some subtleties to the control I didn't quite figure out.  You can collect stuff and upgrade weapons and all those sweet RPG elements. Randomly generated levels, like Diablo. I heard you can also call this genre: rougelike.    
Shoot First is available for Windows and there is a download link.......here.

• Chang Chang by Michael Brough

I really liked playing this game.  This is another 2-player game.  It is kind of like a variation on Chess, or like a very low-fi tactics game.  It pays in real time, and each piece can move in any direction while the time is running, destroying any opponents pieces that come into contact with the fuzzy bars protruding at different angles.  
Available for Mac and PC.  You can download it here as part of a package called kompendium, containing nine different two-player games, all by Michael Brough.  What's really cool about this game is that it is tailored for two people to be able to play on one screen with one keyboard.

• Rescue: the Beagles by 16 x 16

Rescue: the Beagles was interesting.  The visual was really nice; I like the art style.  The gameplay was kind of frantic, and pretty harsh and unforgiving.  I just kept dying!  I think, perhaps, once I get a hang of the gameplay, I'll have more fun.  In the meantime, I enjoyed the graphics and the challenge.  I dont know what platform it's available, but you can download it here.

• Super Puzzle Platformer by Andrew Morrish

This game is tons of fun.  Highly intuitive but very challenging.  Charming graphics.  This game feels like an idea that was waiting to be made real.  Let me tell you the idea, and you'll see:  You are a little jumping platform guy with a gun, trapped in a puzzle game.  There are blocks falling from the ceiling and you have to shoot them to destroy them.  Combos and weapon upgrades follow.
You can play it free in-browser, so go do that, it's fun!   Also available to download for PC and Mac.


ARCADE was a fun cabinet with great variety. Entertaining, interesting and challenging.  I think to really crack into these games would require at least one dedicated weekend of hardcore gaming. 

Full Review: Amnesia ~The Dark Descent~ (PC)

Amnesia ~ The Dark Descent ~ is a first person survival horror game developed by Frictional Games in Sweden.  The game was first released in 2010 and was offered as part of the Humble Indie Bundle IV.  I now give here my full review:

STORY

The story is told in a slightly odd and very non linear fashion.  Initially you begin as a player  and do not know who your character is or where you are.  Most of the character back story is told while exploring areas of the castle and you come across diary entries and journal notes, both from your character Daniel, and other former inhabitants of what you soon discover is Brannenburg Castle.

It might've just been me being slow on the uptake of what the hell was going on story-wise, but it took me about half of the game (we'll say roughly 5 hours in) to put one and one together and figure out that the "Shadow" that was "chasing" me was really/also the strange meaty tendrils and masses that will populate areas and cause damage as the game/story progressed.

Once the entire story is realized, just before the "final confrontation," I felt that in whole it was a pretty good story.  There were some things I did have questions about though, but I will cover those in the "Final Thoughts" section at the end.

GAMEPLAY

Game play in Amnesia is pretty basic.  You move with the WASD keys, and look with the mouse, standard PC controls for an FPS.  You can also "shift" sprint and crouch (which I modified to the "C" key instead of the left Control key (I think that's what it's set as initially).  You also have "Tilt Left" and "Tilt Right" keys (Q & E keys) and I'm not 100% sure what these are intended for.  There were a number of times in the game when your character seemed like he was faltering, but those only lasted for a moment before completely blacking out.

Did I mention running/sprinting?  Because you do a lot of that in this game.  There are a number of monsters, well, three anyway that I can think of and you have to run the fuck away from each and everyone of them.  Maybe an experienced player could run around and "tilt" their way when avoiding some of the faster moving monsters, maybe that's what the tilt keys are for.

Amnesia is basically a point-and-click game.  You wander from room-to-room, see an item, pick it up and look at it in your inventory all the while wondering when you're going to use that sturdy surgical needle next.  It actually reminded me a lot of Shadowgate 64: Trial of the Four Towers, in that they were both FPS games that didn't involve any real "fighting" and you went through rooms in a castle and solved puzzles to progress to new areas.

Another really cool/fun thing with Amnesia is that you're able to manipulate a lot of objects in the game.  Cabinet doors, drawers can all be opened by clicking on "where" you want to grab a hold of then moving the mouse in the direction that you want to pull that object.  Some larger objects such as boulders and wooden beams can only be moved by clicking on them and then walking in the direction you want them moved.  Some objects seem ridiculously light, such as barrels, which you can pick up and hurl across the room as the same you could do with a book.  Most of the objects in the game don't do anything, but are there and you can pick them up and throw them.  They have no purpose, but it helps to solidify that this world is "real."

Regarding your health and sanity meters, they will slowly regenerate although you are able to find "healing potions." If you happen to be "killed" by one of the monsters, you will respawn/regain consciousness in a nearby room.  There was a point in the game where I decided to "fuck it all" and not bother healing myself and if I ran into a monster, I would let them kill me, knowing that I would respawn/come to near by and just continue with what I was doing before I "died."  This mentality quickly took away a lot of the fear and "survival" aspect.

Near the end of the game, I seemed to hit a mental wall and ended up visiting gamefaqs in order to solve some puzzles.  They weren't complicated puzzles mind you, just difficult to figure out.  Like [SPOILER ALERT] combining the copper tube and the sturdy surgical needle (which I figured out on my own), but then injecting it into the skull of a fresh (as in only a day old) corpse in order to have blood pour out of the open tube end, which you then injected yourself with so that you could have an important anti-fungal antibody in order to access a "locked" area.  Yeah, had to look that one up.  I also looked up a map for a large open area that required a lot of running and I was moderately low on lamp oil.

GRAPHICS

From someone who grew up with the original NES, pretty much any game that comes out is going to have beautiful graphics.  Amnesia is no exception.  Shadows in this game move and dance as you think they would in a more-or-less haunted-type castle.  I really don't have much else to say on this front.  The game looked good with the graphics engine in the game ramped  all the way up although I didn't give it a try at the lowest setting.  Maybe I should have, considering this is a full review, but oh well.

MUSIC & SOUND

The music in the game was composed by Mikko Tarmia and was very nice.  Nice in that it was very unobtrusive and didn't distract from whatever may or may not be lurking around the next darkened corner.  The majority of the in game music is dark ambient, designed to maintain the mood of the game.  I've listened to a bit of the soundtrack, not extensively, but again, it's good mood music.

The sound effects in the game are also really well done.  Cringe-worthy really.  There's a good number of squishy and "splotch" type noises when you throw a chair at a fleshy, bleeding, pulsing mass emanating from the ceiling/floor/wall.

SANITY EFFECTS

As I had previously mentioned in my first impressions, that I was really excited to see that another game aside from Eternal Darkness implemented a sanity meter to a horror game.  In the game, this was represented by a brain and brain stem that would shrink and pulse color as you went more and more nuts.  There were also textual descriptions such as "Head is pounding, hands are shaking" and ". . ."  Warping of the screen, seeing hissing cockroaches scurrying across are all visual cues that your sanity isn't as sound as you would like it to be.  You can also hear people screaming, voices saying things "get out of here" or "what do you want?!" as if they were just behind you.

All of these are designed to continually unnerve you although I didn't find them as interesting as in Eternal Darkness, but while those sanity effects worked in that game, doesn't necessarily mean that they would work well or translate to Amnesia.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really enjoyed Amnesia and is the case with any game that I like, there are also things that may have bothered me, but not to the point that I'm going to not like or hate a game.  There were a number of times that I was getting quite frustrated though, which was usually due to my lack of lantern oil and trying to avoid whatever that noise was that's right behind me.  Or running from candle lit room to candle lit hallway to bit of moonlight coming through a crack in the roof just to avoid going insane all because I have no lantern oil.

All in all though, despite some frustrations, this was a really good, fun game.  I was frightened when I was supposed to be, even if it wore off just as quickly.  I would highly recommend this game if you haven't already played it.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Darkness Comes

P.S.  So I just found out that the "Justine" tab when you start up the game leads to a pseudo expansion game.  I'm excited to start this now, or at least when it starts getting dark.

P.P.S.  A really cool part in the game was when I went into a room with only one exit, I picked up something (a diary entry most likely) then there was a growl behind me and banging on the door.  The game told me "Hide, you have nothing to defend yourself with" so I ran into wardrobe I had just finished checking (and knew that it was empty) and closed the door.  The outer door burst open and I could hear the "thing" growling, grunting and breathing heavily while it stomped/shuffled around the room.  I heard it leave after, maybe 20 seconds but even then I hung out in the wardrobe hoping that whatever it was wasn't going to be "right there" as I opened the door.  It wasn't, but it was still pretty fricken scary.

Video Game Music Composers: Results and Analysis

First off, sorry this post is two days late.  That's what happens when you, meaning "I," work in the social services industry and stay up late playing video games or general internet putzing, only to wake up around noon and have to leave for work before 2pm.  It's called poor time management.

So now on with the results and analysis and not make it sound like a college freshman's term paper.

As I stated in the previous post, I was a little surprised that people generally didn't know the composers of some of the more famous video games, albeit, older video games, but maybe that was a problem with the questions that I posted: were the games too old?  Or is it that people are not as interested in the composers of video game music.  

For the survey questions, I had to be game and not series specific, as in "Do you know who wrote the music to Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II in the US) (1991)?"  I couldn't say "... who wrote the music for the Final Fantasy series" because there've been a number of composers besides Nobuo Uematsu, over the years who've helped from about Final Fantasy X on.

Results:

21 People took the quiz

21 People answered the first question

20 People answered the first two questions

19 People answered questions 1 - 9

17 People answered questions 1 - 10

With just this information, you could say that some people became frustrated with the questions and quit.  With the two extra "skipped questions" on question 10, I think that people gave their answer but may not have pressed the final "submit" button.  Maybe.  That's just my guess.

Now the questions portion.  For this, I will just list the game, the system and years they were released, rather than type out the question in its entirety.

1)  Super Mario Bros. NES (1985):  14.3% knew that it was Koji Kondo.

2)  Mega Man 2  NES (1988):  5% (or one person) knew that Takeshi Tateishi & Manami Matsumae.

3)  Dragon Warrior/Quest  NES (1986):  0% knew that it was Koichi Sugiyama

4)  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link  NES (1987):  0% knew that it was Akito Nakatsuka

5)  Final Fantasy IV / II  SNES  (1991):  26.3% knew that it was Nobuo Uematsu

6)  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night  PS1  (1997):  0% knew that it was Michiru Yamane

7)  Donkey Kong  Arcade Game  (1981):  0% knew that it was Hirokazu Tanaka

8)  Killer Instinct  Arcade/SNES  (1994):  0% knew that it was Robin Beanland

9)  Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness  PC  (1995):  0% knew that it was Glenn Stafford

10)  Metroid  NES  (1986):  0% knew that it was Hirokazu Tanaka.  (5% or 1 person guessed that it was Koji Kondo).

Looking at this list, you can easily see that I grew up playing on Nintendo consoles.  I didn't realize I didn't have any Sega games on there until just now.  However, I feel that even if I were to have put Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) or Golden Axe (1989), that I still would have similar results.  And the answers would have been Masato Nakamura and Tohru Nakabayashi respectively.

With the games/music that I chose, I felt that they are very representative of popular music from video games.  Music from these games are frequently covered by video game cover bands (Nintendocore is a thing).  And whenever "the best Castlevania" game comes up, Symphony of the Night is right up there in being one of the most popular in the series.  It would be like asking someone, "Who wrote the music to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back?" and getting the response, "Oh yeah, I love that movie.  The best one in the series.  Oh um, yeah, I don't know who wrote the music.  John Williams?  Yeah, I think I've heard of him."

This leads me to four possible conclusions.  

1)  That some/most people who play video games do not pay attention during the credit sequence to who wrote the music for the game.  This could stem from these same people either not finishing the game to get to the credit sequence, or just being the type of people who do not sit through film/TV credits.

2)  In a number of games released (I'll just say on the NES since that's where most of my early gaming background is rooted), game composers' names were misspelled/mistranslated, a pseudonym was used, they were lumped in with "Programmers" or their names were not included at all.  In the case of Castlevania, Satoe Terashima was listed as "James Banana."  To find out real names and identities takes a bit of detective work, which could just be too much work.

3)  Video game soundtracks before the internet became standard in every house/phone/car/bathroom, were fairly difficult to obtain if you lived outside of Japan.  I first saw them at Star Trek conventions lumped in with the anime soundtracks, and even then, their prices would be astronomical.  Well, $70 for 45 minutes of music is astronomical to a 13 year old.

4)  The majority of the video games that I've listed are by Japanese composers and a lot of the times I have trouble either remembering their names or how to spell them.  I am sure there is a "thing" in our brains that makes it difficult to recognize and remember names and words that we do no recognize, especially if they are not in our native language.  If this is an actual thing, then I am sure that it would apply to not remembering/recognizing the above names as well.

One possible explanation though for why people knew Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu is that they are more known in the United States market than possibly any other Japanese video game composer.  Nobuo Uematsu has toured the United States on multiple occasions with Final Fantasy: Dear Friends.  Koji Kondo has also been states-side with Play!

The question basically comes down to: "Why don't people know x?"  For that, I have no definitive answer.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Truth Is Out There

Introduction to a Theory about Video Game Music Composers

"This is the first entry in what I hope to be a series of posts about composers/programmers of music in video games.  And not just any composers, but composers that we either don't know much about or have miss-attributed soundtracks to.  What do I mean by "miss-attribute?"  Okay, when you think of the music from the Legend of Zelda series, who comes to mind?  Right, Koji Kondo.  Except that he didn't write the music for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.  That soundtrack was composed by Akito Nakatsuka.  Who is that you ask?  In short, he also wrote some of the music for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!"

The above was my going into what was originally planned as a series of about nine to ten posts, focusing on individual composers and why some soundtracks are miss-attributed to them.  As an avid collector of soundtracks, I had thought that knowledge of video game composers would be about as prevalent as knowledge of film music composers.  Granted I only know of a couple by name, and those're some of the big guns: Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo, Koichi Sugiyama, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, Robin Beanland and David Wise.  

As it turned out, this happened to be one of those instances where when you grow up with a particular thing, like a dad who collects and chops/cuts and stacks firewood, that you think that all dads do that.  Turns out a lot of dads do not drive out on county roads looking for felled trees or asking people who have had trees cut  down if they would mind if their wood was taken out of their gutter.  Who knew that wasn't normal?  Turns out knowledge of who the composers of video game music are and what games they've composed for is not common knowledge.

I found this out when I put up a survey seeing if 1)  If people knew who wrote the music to a particular video game and 2)  If they knew, then they were to put down their answer by name.  My theory was for example, that if someone would think that because Koji Kondo wrote the music to Super Mario Bros. that they might think he wrote the music to Dr. Mario.  Or, as in the first mentioned example of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!. 

In the following post I will give the results and my initial analysis of the data that I collected from the survey (which when I last checked was only 20 people).  So with this in mind, I will now leave you with a couple youtube-ified tracks from various video games soundtracks that I absolutely love:

Tooth & Claw by Robin Beanland : Killer Instinct

Overworld by Koichi Sugiyama : Dragon Warrior

Sacrifices by Yuzo Koshiro : ActRaiser

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Can Just Hear It Now

P.S.  If you would like to take the aforementioned survey, here is the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XSYPF3N  And please do not look up any information before taking the survey as I am/was trying to find out people's existing knowledge.  Thank you.

Cooperative Gaming Coop

Saturday I hopped a train to San Jose and swung by my pal John's Art installation.  This installation is a combination of an arcade and a game swap.  There were lots of cool games there, and some finely decorated cabinets.  I'll see if I can get a list of the featured games, so that we can look up an play the ones that are available.

Alright, that being covered, go ahead and check out the website for the gaming coop.   John also has his own website called ArtFail.  And a Tumblr. He's always doing video games as art events and stuff. 

There weren't many people, so I didn't get the full effect.  However, for the same reason, I got a lot of one on one time with the curator (John) so I got the scoop on a lot of games.  There's a crazy game that is sort of like real-time chess.  Another that was commissioned by occupy oakland, 2-players where you fly through a maze and hit switches to mark your distance.  Great flying controls.  Another game where you rescue beagle puppies, really fun.  Oh man, there was another called like Super Puzzle Platformer, I think.  That game is solid gold.  Then there was a really sweet fighting game that sort of played like smash bros but had an atari look.  Yeah, too many good games to count.  All totally free and independently made with heart and elbow grease.  

I'll fill in more on this event as I get better information.  I do know that they had one of these: A Winnitron, which they called Winnitron SJ. Winnitron is the product of an indie gaming collective in Winnipeg, Canada, and they license out the Winnitron design to others to make their own arcade cabinets full of indie games.  Click the links above if you want more info.

I want to play some of those games again.  Like the platformer where you just walk and jump, but when you die you go to a parallel world where the ceiling is the floor, and then later you kind of jump between the screens and it's a puzzle platformer and the graphics are nice, remind me of cavestory +.   Oh, and the MIT game where you slow down the speed of light and thus increase the range of the visible spectrum, but it controls like complete shit, which stunts the whole experience.  Neat idea though.

Okay, again, trying to end this post.   I would like to organize it into a series of previews, when I can get some titles for yah.   TTFN.


***Edit:  I just remembered one of the games:  Nidhogg!  This game is stupid amounts of fun.  It's two players, so you absolutely must have a second player to have all the great fun available.  I highly recommend playing it in an arcade cabinet if you can get to one.   

***10/16/2012: another edit:  I got the games list.  You can find it here:  List of games featured at Cooperative Gaming Co-op.  I will be reviewing the games I played and looking for links to play them online.

Horror games and preview of the Chzo Mythos

is this mansion... spooky?

Happy Halloween everyone.  Or at least, Happy Halloween month.  Being October, the month of all Hallows eve.

I'd like to review a horror game for October, but unfortunately I am not able to review my game of choice,  due to some platforming restrictions combined with a lack of time, dedication, and computer competence.  But I'll talk about the game, or series of games, and maybe it will pique your interest and maybe you'll try them out for yourself.   In the meantime, I'll also direct you to a previous post about a survival horror game I gave impressions on:  Lone Survivor.

The series of games I would like to refer you to today are called the Chzo Mythos, by Ben "Yahtzee" Kreshaw.  Kreshaw is well known for his Zero Punctuation series of game reviews at The Escapist.  These videos tend to be hilarious, and exceedingly harsh.  I highly recommend them. I was delighted and intrigued to find out that he had tried his hand at game creating, and had produced a whole series of games in the psychological horror genre.  They seem to have received accolades of some kind. 

Ben Kreshaw put together the first game in the Chzo Mythos - 'Five Days a Stranger' - In 2003, long before he began his reviews for the Escapist.  I think it is noteworthy that Chzo Mythos makes use of the Slender Man mythos and imagery. I am very curious to see how these games will play, and even more so, knowing that such a harsh critic was the progenitor for this series of Psychological Horror - Adventure Games.

idunno, looks pretty sweet to me.

Psychological and Survival are definitely my two favorite subgenre's within the larger Horror genre of games.  I don't care much about blood and gore, or action.  What's more important is fear.  Terror.  Some third word I can't think of.  That is the draw to horror games for me.  These games can scare me even when I'm not playing them, like, when you reach a point where you just don't have the guts to go any further, and you turn the game off and despair.  Silent Hill did that for me.  I ran like a sissy and hid the game at the bottom of stack of heavy boxes.  Then I crossed myself and begged forgiveness for all of my sins.

But to create and maintain such a strong psychological response to a game takes real skill.  We've talked before on this site about losing immersion in a game.  Some games can lose immersion and it never really comes back.  Like when there's just too much ammo, and you don't fear running out anymore, or when you figure out the trick to a game is to just low kick everybody.  Or when the enemies die in only three different ways, and they bleed out the neck when you shoot them in the foot.  

A careful management of the known and unknown is important.  As the player adjusting to a new game, you can't know what you can get away with.  If you are susceptible, like me, this will lead to you moving very carefully and jumping at every shadow.   But eventually, you might get tired of being scared, and just get suicidal.  Running headlong into the night to see if there is, in fact, anything down that alley.  This can break immersion pretty heavily, if you find out that there really isn't anything to be scared of.

This is why the games flow is important.  At different points along the way, the designers will have to put the smack down on the cocky fucks who think they don't have to be scared anymore.  GIVE them something to be scared about.  Make it different from what has come before, and thus unpredictable.  The Unknown is where the fear comes from.   Exploit it!

Okay, I think that's all I have for right now.  On a separate note, I just watched Cabin in the Woods.  That movie was great fun. 

First Impressions: Amnesia ~ The Dark Descent (PC)

I've been playing this game for a bit.  Steam says that it's been for about three hours, which is pretty decent amount of time to get a general feel for a game.  Some might even say, that it's the first impression of the game.  Eh, eh?

I started this game a few weeks ago, one night because Conklederp wanted to watch me play a game.  Any game.  And I had this game called Amnesia: The Dark Descent from the Humble Bundle 5 and all I knew about it was that it was an FPS survival horror game.  Sounded like fun considering it was probably around 11pm and I didn't have work the following morning.

Upon booting up (do people still say that?), the game lets you know that there will be enemies in the game and that it would probably behoove you, the player, to run the fuck away from them as you are unarmed and they will most likely kill you.  That's always a good thing to know.  And as the game was progressing, it gave out hints/reminders that running away from "monsters" will keep you alive even though I spent three hours in the game before I came across anything that could kill me, outside of the invisible bipedal water monster bastard.  But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Once the game started, I had to acquaint myself with the controls and basic mechanics so that I wouldn't go spinning in circles instead of sprinting forward at the first sight of danger (a la Slender: The Eight Pages).  Your health meter is represented by a physical heart that subtly decreases in size and healthy-looking-ness as you accrue damage and you're given a textual example, such as "A wound is bleeding quite badly."  I was also excited to find out that the game implemented a "Sanity Meter," which, to my own knowledge, has only existed in one other game previously.  I believe the game also said something about if your sanity dropped too low (by witnessing horrific events or by being in the dark too much, that crazy shit would happen and you would die.  Now you're able to regain sanity and health by completing puzzles in game, but that just usually means that you'll be healthy for the next set of darkened hallways.

That brings up another point about the game: the Darkness comes.  Ho-fucking-boy does the darkness come.  Throughout the game, or at least the first four hours of it that I've played, you will periodically find tinder boxes to light candles/torches and lamp oil to use in your hand lamp.  This must be some pretty thin oil too as your lamp will burn through a half-full canister in maybe a minute; probably less though.  I rarely would have my lamp "on" for more than a couple of seconds in order to preserve what little oil I did have left.  And the tinderboxes, I would hoard those like ink ribbons.  The early areas in the game tend to load you up with tinderboxes making you think that you'll be able to find one in every bookcase or desk drawer.  If only we knew then what we know now four hours in.  The game will also give many options for lighting things to give you light.  In a single hallway, you'll easily find three or four torches that you could light and while it would make the hallway nice a pretty, it would not be advisable as you would be out of tinderboxes and left in the dark.  This did in fact happen and I was scared near shitless the entire time.

At the moment, I'm currently in a large hall area with a fountain containing either a corpse or just the statue of one.  The only sanity effects I've witnessed have been warbliness of the screen and once cockroaches were crawling over the screen for about 20 seconds then disappeared. I'm enjoying the game, but sometimes I'll get frustrated with not having any lantern oil and having to sprint between lit candles, so much so that I feel like it takes me out of the game.  So with four hours of game play in (I played another hour since I began writing this article, hence the one hour discrepancy), I'd like to try to finish and figure out what the hell's going on.