Monthaly Oopdate: Sptember

Nice classic fantasy styled art for A Feast for Crows by  Stephen Youll

I have had two projects in nerdland this past month.  One was reading the fourth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series - A Feast for Crows.  I started this book because I had a coworker who was reading through them, and in our discussions of events within, I realized how much I had forgotten from this book.  And I also realized that I had skimmed through major parts of both book 4 and 5 in the series.  My reason for doing this is that I had been gripped by the plot of the series, and I wanted to know *what was going to happen*  So, admittedly, I tore through the books at a faster pace than I could read them.
  
Having done that, I took it word by word this time, and tried to enjoy the prose.   Martin has a distinctive writing style, marked most especially by the high level of detail in his fictional world.  These details fill a greater part of A Feast For Crows than the previous books in the series.  There is a growing picture of the last twenty years or so,  slightly fuzzier picture of the last one hundred years, an abstract vision of the last five hundred years, and after that everything seems to be unconfirmed myth;  Stories old Nan tells.

I would love to have a look at whatever timeline Martin works from.  Sometimes he's called the "American Tolkein.' and while at first listen, that description bothers me.  Perhaps just because I'm protective of Tolkein,  maybe because the comparison is too convenient, but I'd like to think it's because their aesthetics are so different that I reject this comparison.  Martin is grittier, with a harsher realism and less fantasy, certainly less whimsy than Tolkein.  However, after re-reading A Feast for Crows, I may have to change my tune.  Martin's painstakingly detailed world is something worthy of that comparison.  Lovers of Tolkien have long praised the richness of Middle Earth lore, even before reading the Silmarillion or Book of Lost Tales, the Middle Earth Mythos creates a sense of history in an entirely fictional world.  George R. R. Martin has also created a similar sense of history in perhaps a more specific way.  I feel that Tolkien paints his world in water colors, whereas Martin paints his world with Legos.  Millions of Legos.  I enjoy it, and I'm well on my way to finishing the next book:  A Dance of Dragons.  

Starseed Pilgrim fan art by Hipster Skeleton on Steam

The other project I've been working on this month is that I've been desperately trying to beat Starseed Pilgrim.  Yes, it's beatable, and I think I know how.  I've gotten close.  So very close.  Love the abstraction in this game.  It's interesting to me that this would be a game set apart from all the other choices I have.  Still, it's a game that is best left to the imagination, so I'd rather not spoil it for you.  Instead, I'll link you to some pages that reference it.  It really is worth playing, just for the first two hours getting to know it, if not the next 98 hours spent trying to beat the thing.

I read a great article on the game called 'The Five Stages of Starseed Pilgrim.'  I think this article does a good job of summing it up.  The writer calls it a 'fightclub game' - a game you're not supposed to talk about.  I hadn't heard that one before, but it more or less sums it up.  One final thing about the game is that there is a new game criticism website inspired by Starseed Pilgrim:  Starseed Observatory.   I just found it, but it certainly looks interesting.  

but then I read this article:  

http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/28/6078391/video-games-awful-week

I think it's important to remember every so often just how completely some people overreact to Feminist Frequency.  It's shocking, and I usually just avoid looking.  It's okay to disagree, but so many people throw their credibility out the window with these tantrums.  I guess they must really be threatened.  Joss Whedon (name drop) weighs in on this one, it's worth checking out if you can stomach the content.  Whatever the case may be, I'm still very hopeful for the future of Video Games as a medium.  The industry on the other hand... is anybody's guess.  

-D

Game Review: Mission Majority (Browser)

I first off would like to say that any criticism I have for this browser based platformer is from the view of someone who loves video games and grew up with the advent of Super Mario Bros.  I would still be criticising this game even if it were released by any political faction where you played as a donkey called Jack, a mellow-go-lucky pot leaf named Mary J. or as the Flying Spaghetti Monster named Bob.

So, Mission Majority, or GIOPI, 2014 Mission Majority if you are one for long titles. This game was developed by. . . someone.  The website mentions that the game was paid for by the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) and that it is not authorized by any candidate or their respective committee.

Now let us not fool ourselves, this game is designed to be some form of political propaganda although I cannot think of who the target audience would be.  Anyone of legal voting age would not find the level design to be engaging in the same way that the first level of Super Mario Bros. is engaging and entertaining, but we will get to level design later.  Anyone younger than 18 (probably) will not have their own credit card to donate or not understand why you have to use the arrow keys to move and no controller support.  Maybe the humor in the game is supposed to propel the player forward or instill a "so bad it's good" feeling.  I cannot say in anyway.  There is also no statement on the webpage as to whom the game is targeted towards.

When you go to the webpage, you are greeted by Giopi (as in G.O.P.) and given the motivation for playing the game.

Yes, the characterization you see for Giopi is how he/she appears in the game, bugged out eyes and all, but the design for the character would not be so bad if the rest of the level and characters did not look better than this four colored elephant.

The character seems out of place in the world.  Even the enemies (The Taxer) has pupils and eyebrows, but Giopi has toenails and stars on his jersey to go along with his blocky-eyed blank stare.  Prior to Level 1 starting the player is told that "the Taxer, Harry Reid and President Obama sent the job-destroying Taxers to stop you!  You need to avoid them, jumping on them suppresses their high taxes."  The Taxer is essentially a Goomba that only moves forward/backward and can only harm you if you walk into it, or if you do not land correctly on its head.  You are also charged with finding golden keys that "unlock the Senate and help Republicans win the majority this fall.  Each key represents helping Republican campaign get more volunteers."  So that is the players motivation.

Upon completing a level, you are awarded with a victory screen, the option to donate money to the GNSC, buy Giopi merchandise from their online store or join them, which I assume means join their mailing list.  The store contains simple merchandise such at a Giopi sticker, drink/beer coozie, T-shirts, posters and sweatbands all for a nominal fee ($6-$30).  What would have been smart was for the player to earn a certain discount based on how well they have done in the levels up to a certain percentage off, such as 5% for each level completed or after a certain score is reached.

The nitty gritty now.

The game stages are not well designed.  The controls are simple enough (Left Arrow: Move Left/ Right Arrow: Move Right/ Up Arrow or X: Jump), but there always seemed to be a half second lag after pressing the button.  I just chalked this up to being a browser game.  As far as aesthetics,  you are able to notice that the background and the platforms will sometimes not tile correctly, often with glaring breaks in the continuity.  I only noticed this in the second and third levels, which both use the same palette.  The final product comes across to me as being shoddily put together with little care about the people who will be playing this game because they want to, as opposed to people like me who have played this game because we were intrigued and amused by the premise.

There is also a striking disconnect between what the creators and how they want to keep the player alive.  If you notice in the top middle of the screen, the time reads 9861, which means I have 9861 seconds, or  2 hours and 44 minutes to complete this "collect three key" stage.  Even if the numbers do not directly correlate to a full second, that would still translate to almost 25 minutes to beat a stage (if 1= 1/4 second).  Directly under the timer is your life meter, consisting of four hearts.  As to be expected, with the loss of the final heart Giopi dies and you have to start the level over from the beginning and collect all the keys again.  There are no heart drops or items (aside from the keys) t0 be found throughout the level.  I do not understand the disconnect between having a timer that ends up being meaningless paired with a life meter if the game is meant to be an easy browser based platformer with really bad hit detection (more on that in a bit).

That big blue enemy is the attempt at variation to Level 2 and is called the Mudslinger.  "The Democrats' Mudslinger hurls false and empty rhetoric.  You can jump on them to mute their misleading words."  Believe it or not, I was excited by this enemy at first.  I figured that this would be the bad guy who throws blue bits of mud at you like one of the Hammer Bro. or a Venus Fire Trap, but no, the Mudslinger just stands there, not moving.  That is it.  Sure it's taller than the Taxer, but that is not much for enemy variation.  I should also mention that every time you kill an enemy, a short multiple second soundbite from one of a few Democrats during Obama's Presidency plays.  Because you squashed the Democrat, you are awarded with the enemies misleading rhetoric.

Okay, sure, I might be complaining about the game not playing by a traditional set of platforming rules and yes, I know that even in Super Mario Bros., there was no life meter and one hit killed, but there were power up mushrooms and invincibility stars.  The problem I had with only having four hearts that could not be refilled was that the hit detection in the game was atrocious.  To me, it seemed that unless the bulk of my character was landing on the enemy, Giopi would take damage.  Compare that to being able to stand on a platform with just Giopi's toes.

The only redeeming thing to come out of this game is that the music is not half bad.  I cannot place what it reminds me of, but it is a decent mix of NES era 8-bit music and early SNES era something-or-other with a hint of Paperboy thrown in during a certain section, but only because that was what I was reminded of.

If you happen to still be intrigued at this point about Mission Majority, just do a google search and it will pop right up; before the game is taken down.  Before playing you are required to give your name and email address although from what I read on reddit, there is no verification process so you are able to plug in any name and email address and still play the game.  I only made it to Level 3 before deciding that I had experienced enough to write an article about poor game design, but you are able to make your own decisions and conclusions.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes

MIDI Week Singles: Woodman - Mega Man 2 (NES)

Today's track is brought to us, originally from the musical minds of Japanese composers Takashi Tateishi and Minami Matsumae, but today is brought to us from Floridians, The NESkimos.  

"Woodman" from Mega Man 2.  Nintendo Entertainment System - 1988.

Mega Man Soundtrack, Vol. 2.

NESkimos Battle - Perfect Selection.

Music composed by Takashi Tateishi & Minami Matsumae

"Woodman" is one of my favorite tracks from Mega Man 2 and the cover that The NESkimos do is a fantastic rendition.  The NESkimos tend to not do straight covers of the music when compared to other video game cover bands such as The Advantage, but often remain true to the original vision of the song.  I love how this cover starts out with the band playing the boss select music followed by the drum intro straight from the 8-bit cartridge then seamlessly goes into the band playing the music from Woodman's stage.  This song translates perfectly, not only into a metal rendition, but also as a listenable song outside of its video game context.  I also love the slow down section (musical knowledge is failing) before repeating the melody for a last time.

In a few weeks I'll be doing a more in depth look at The NESkimos as well as other groups who have done metal covers of video game soundtracks, but in the meantime, feel free to give a listen to what The NESkimos have on file over on their music page.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Learned All I Know By The Age Of Nine.

Game Review: Wizorb (PC)

Wizorb is a game that came bundled with Humble Indie Bundle 6 over a year ago and based on it's premise of a conglomeration of Breakout and a Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy NES era RPG, this game should be right up my alley.

First off, I am not particularly great at Breakout and its many clones.  No, this does not mean that I suck at video games.  As it happens, I apparently do not have the stamina to play multiple levels of Breakout with a limited number of lives.

In Wizorb, you take on the role of Cyrus, a wizard tasked with saving the kingdom, or the world, I am not too sure on that point.  Once the story portion is completed, you are sent out to reclaim what was rightfully, someone elses, I think.  The plot, as far as I can tell, is a pretty generic JRPG plot but instead of playing a strapping young lad kicked out of his respective village, you play as an old man wizard/sorcerer/mage.  Maybe you have to rescue your daughter?  Suffice it to say, I do not expect any significant plot twists to occur.  Maybe the main villain is your son?  We will have to just wait and see.

After the not too long/deep story/exposition part of the game, you are then taken to the level where the Breakout-ness happens.  As you break blocks to clear the stage, you are often awarded with either nothing, gold, gems for store purchases, extra lives, vials that refill your magic meter, and eventually magical bits that can temporarily slow you down or reduce the size of your wand/paddle.  Magic is used to cast spells, the first two being a wind spell that moves your magical projectile (the ball) in the opposite direction and the other spell being a fireball that causes damage just like your blue ball of magical goodness.

So far, the game should not be too difficult, but often completing a stage requires additional support.  Throughout the stages, you can find shops to purchase temporary upgrades to your staff/bar-thing, extra lives or vials to refill your magic meter.  One time I bought a staff upgrade thinking that it would be permanent, but it turned out to only last the length of the stage and my staff was back to its normal size (after four hours) at the beginning of the next stage.  All the other times I have purchased extra lives in the store as I have found them to be much more valuable.  Apparently there is also a magnet of some-sort, but as I have never purchased it, I could not tell you what its application is.  Maybe it does not bounce the ball but just grabs and holds on to it instead?

So keeping all of this in mind, my initial impression was that I did not like the game.  I loved the visual aesthetic and the newish take on Breakout, but I found the level to be comprised of too many stages to be able to progress through to and defeat the level boss.  Being able to make it through I-do-not-know-how-many stages in each level and defeat a boss was too much for me the three or four times I tried out the game.  A few months later I came back and decided to give the game another go.  This time I used a controller and I noticed that if I did not make it to the boss, I did not have to start back at Stage 1 of Level 1, but I started whatever stage I was currently on, but with all of the blocks back in their original starting position.  I believe the game must have updated at some point, for which I am very thankful.  

It is also highly probable that the game has always operated this way and I just did not notice, but which is sad because since finding this game-saving-fact out, I have put in two hours into the game.  I find that I play a lot better with a controller and not playing through out TV set.  Something about the distance away from the screen seems to give me less time to react to where the goody magical blue ball is going to land.

So after as semi-disastrous first impression of Wizorb, I definitely plan on giving the game the time it deserves.  At least until I become so frustrated/aggravated/annoyed with my general lack of skill in the game that I give up entirely.

Happy Monday!



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconain
Igniting the Paralyzed Soil

What I've Learned from The Walking Dead: Season One (PC)

Let me first say that I love The Walking Dead franchise (comic, TV show and now video game) and the game is a great accompaniment to both the comic as well as the TV show.  While I have noticed some crossover with at least one character from the TV show and comic, I really hope that at some point a character from the game makes it into either the show or the comic.  I am now going to move away from gushing about how great this game is and how well the voice acting and art is, and instead talk about one of the main story telling aspects in the game.  The act of choosing how the story unfolds and your choices in that story.

The Walking Dead warns you upfront that the seemingly random and meaningless choices you make will affect the other characters in the story as well as the outcome of the game.  From what I could tell, the large story points are going to happen no matter what your choice is, but it is how the other characters react to your earlier choices is what I am trying to get across. 

In the game you play as native Georgian by the name of Lee who is charged with taking care of another survivor named Clementine.  Throughout the entirety of the game, which is comprised of five episodes told in roughly two hour increments, you play as Lee, making his decisions and sometimes influencing the choices and opinions of others. I was thankful that I was never asked to play as Clementine as I do not feel that my reactions to these situations would be accurate compared to that of an semi-orphaned eight year old girl during a zombie apocalypse.  Often times, text will pop up on the screen following a response you made that says "Clementine will remember that" or "Kenny will remember your loyalty."

It is these situations that make you start to really question your responses.  Add on top of that that most of your responses have to be made within a certain amount of time (decided by a varying speed decreasing timer-bar at the bottom of the screen).  There was a short time while playing that unless I saw that my response had some kind of impact on the other characters, I would be disappointed or felt that the situation did not really matter as to what my stance/response was.  I had become spoiled by the very game while I was playing that game.  These important choices are later shown to you at the end of the chapter and compare your choices to everyone else who has played the game.  

This is where I feel the game gets interesting.  I first heard about this aspect of the game from Gus Sorola on one of the Patch Podcasts (although I do not recall which specific episode) where he said that he likes finding out when his choices were not in the majority with what everyone else chose.  While I too am excited to find out that a choice I made was only made by 6% of other players, I am not going to tailor my playthrough with only this thought in mind.  Some choices I can guess what most other people have chosen, but pretty early on I was able to establish the kind of person I wanted to play Lee as being.  I would like to think that I was able to maintain his integrity throughout the entire game.  

There were two instances that I reloaded the game because the response I gave was not how I thought Lee was going to deliver the line.  In one instance, I yelled at Clementine to do something when I read the response as a calm suggestion.  This was only one of two times that I doubled back from a choice that I made.  The second time was when I thought I was backing up one character with a particular response, but ended up supporting someone else, so I reloaded.

What I have found to be great about this game is watching someone else play through, which is what I did with Conklederp after I had started playing.  However, what I quickly realized was that we made a lot of the same decisions, including the important story choices that showed up at the end of the chapter.  Out of the 26 possible choices that the game tallied, Conklederp and I differed in only seven instances.  70% similarity is fairly significant, at least I think so.

I would eventually like to share what my choices were, but that might have to be saved for a later time as everything would end up being a spoiler.  If you know about a key event coming up, that knowledge might lessen the emotional impact of having to make a decision within only a few seconds.  It could be the difference between saving one person instead of another or deciding who to trust and who could be detrimental to the survival of the group.  That will be a spoiler heavy post.

The Walking Dead contains three separate save files so I think I may decide to go through the game and make all the opposite choices that I made the first time through just to see how much the story differs, but I do  not think that my emotional stamina is up for it at this point.  Maybe after I finish The Walking Dead: Season Two, which I just started a few days ago.

I now leave you to have a wonderful weekend with a scene from happier, simpler times.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I'm So Worried About Everything That Can Go Wrong

MIDI Week Single: Following Stanley - The Stanley Parable (PC)

Good Wednesday everyone.  Apologies for the lack of a MWS last week, see my Friday post for hilarity and excuses galore!

Today I wanted to share a gem of a song from a gem of a game.

"Following Stanley" from The Stanley Parable. PC Game, 2013.

Bits of Music from The Stanley Parable

Game Developer: Davey Wreden (Half-Life 2 mod) / Galactic Cafe (remake)

Music Composed by: Blake Robinson

There have been only a few times in my life that I have burst out loud laughing because of a music cue.  When this song came up while playing The Stanley Parable, I couldn't help but giggle quietly to myself.  The music is so perfect for what's happening in the game at the time that music kicks in.  Then when the semi-choir comes in with their "Buh-bup-puda-da-duh" bit, that's when the laughing took over full force.

I find this track in particular, when compared to the rest of the music on the album, to have a driving melody.  I don't know if I could stand still for longer than a second in the game while this music plays.  I'd give it a go, but I'm trying for the "Go Outside" achievement so that means I can't play the game for another 1598 days.  I do have the original mod for Half-Life 2, but I've only dabbled in that and I haven't tried to figure out if that music is in there.  Now if I could only remember how to get the "Following Stanely"  bit to come up.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Full Review: Alone in the Dark (DOS/PC)

So a few weeks back I gave Alone in the Dark a spin because 1) I bought during Gog.com's winter sale earlier in the year and 2) I wanted to play something that I have never played before and 3) a game that I had through my Gog.com account that I did not have access to on my Steam account.

First off, before beginning to play, you have the option to play the game as either private investigator Edward Carnby or the daughter of the recently late Jeremy Hartwood,  Emily Hartwood.  From what I can tell, the game does not change at all depending on whom you choose to play, but that may not actually be the case as I have only gone through the game once and with Edward Carnby.

Some background first though.

Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 by Infogrames originally using the DOS operating system, later ported to 3DO, Mac and RISC.  I played the DOS version of the game and upon opening the game (post installation), it automatically opened up DOSBox and I had no issues at all with the game running an it never onced crashed.  I had some issues with the controls, but I will get to that later on.  One thing that surprised me was that the game was already in a semi-wide screen mode, although I am not sure as to the specific aspect ratio, but it was wider than the standard 4:3.

If you are anything like me, you probably have not played Alone in the Dark, but are aware of its existence as a video game.  I also knew that it was a horror game of some sort and only right before purchasing the game did I learn that it was the progenitor to the Resident Evil series of video games (1 through Code Veronica X anyway).  Yes, I know that Sweet Home is the granddaddy of survival horror, but as far as a "haunted" house with a person locked inside full of creatures, puzzles, fixed camera angles and plenty of instant death events.

The first of many times you can die instantly.

STORY
Regardless of whom you choose to play as, your initial motivation for entering the massive house (named "Decerto") is to locate a piano that either has immense value or was a family heirloom, again depending on your choice of characters.  Once you find yourself locked inside the mansion, your sole objective is to escape by solving a number of puzzles involving found items throughout the mansion.  You know, like in Resident Evil.

The depth of the story however is found by reading/listening to journal and diary entries found throughout the mansion.  With the exception of only a couple of books, these journals are not required to further the actual game play, so you could hypothetically go through the entire game without knowing anything about any of the characters, monsters, villains or the motivation behind anything else that is going on.  Combined that with the fact that you have a limited inventory, there is a good chance that a book picked up will immediately be put back down to make room for an item that might be needed later on.

One thing that I picked up on was how much of the material was reminiscent or directly borrowed from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.  The "that book" that is brought up in the book (on the right) is later told to be the Necronomicon, a fictional demonic book created by Lovecraft.  Even the name "Abdul Al Azred" is a variation on the pseudonym that Lovecraft created when he was five years old after reading 1001 Arabian Nights.  Fellow weird author Arthur Machen (whose stories and autobiographies I love) is also referenced as the editor of one of the books in the game.  It is little details like this that I love to see in video games.

GAMEPLAY

How to play the game is probably what took me the most getting used to.  Keeping in mind that the game was played through DOSBox meant that moving was with the arrow keys and the controls were not customizable.  It actually reminded me a lot of how the first Resident Evil played, if you were forced to use a keyboard instead of a controller.  I am not 100% sure when WASD became the mainstay for pc gaming, but Alone in the Dark used the "more traditional" arrow keys to move around (I know now).  Moving around is what I did for about 90% of the time.  

Running though is probably what caused me the most problems, with reference to a couple of specific areas.  In one particular stage, your character is required to run across a bridge that begins to crumble and fall once it is touched.  Thankfully there was a bit of space to start running on approach to the bridge.  In one instance it took me 2m45s (I used a timer) before I could start running.  Running is achieved by pressing up a second time after your character is already walking.  The problem (apparently from what I have read) is that modern computers run faster than those of 1992 so it is not as simple as pressing Up Arrow twice, but has to be timed correctly.

Actions in the game, such as picking up items, opening doors, searching objects was all done with the spacebar, but each action had to be selected separately via the ingame menu.  Later in the game, jumping became an available action which, again, had to be individually selected by going to the menu, highlighting actions then going down to "Jump," going back to the play screen and pressing the spacebar when you wanted to jump.  This aspect of the game took quite a bit to get used to, especially when faced with a killable monster.  Oh yes, some of the monsters were either impossible to kill with your conventional weapons (Saber, shotgun, revolver, dagger) and had to be killed via solving a puzzle, such as placing a mirror in front of a Gorgon-like demon.  

The biggest problem that the controls presented was that timing when attacking enemies was crucial.  When swinging a knife/sword, the character would bring the weapon back and somewhat slowly, swing the weapon in the facing direction.  A miss would often mean that the monster would get their attack in first and since the character staggers with each hit, will usually mean that escape is impossible as their attacks happen faster than you can recover from their initial attack.

Losing key story items, or placing an item down that I felt was not useful was something that I constantly feared.  Granted items that I placed on the ground could be retrieved later, but finding out which room that knife that I thought I no longer needed was something that I rather would not do.  

GRAPHICS
As you can tell from the the previous pictures, the graphics for the game are antiquated by the graphical standards of today.

But keeping in mind that Alone in the Dark was released in 1992 and that the file size for the entirety of the game is 253 MB in size.  That the game could fit on four hard floppies.  You know, a 3.5 floppy.  However, after a few minutes I was able to acclimate to the graphics pretty quickly and I was not bothered by the sharp angled pixeliness of the world I was playing.  

There were only a couple of screens where Mr. Carnby was so far away from the camera that he appeared to be only a colored mass of pixels with little resemblance to his actual body shape.

SOUND & MUSIC
The music for Alone in the Dark was composed by French composer Philippe Vachey.  Unlike a lot of the previous survival horror games I have recently gone through (Outlast, Penumbra, Dead Space), the music here is somewhat more memorable, not that I could immediately recall a song without listening to the soundtrack, but after listening through the entirety of the 28 minute album, I can recall specific cases when the music was cued up.

There were a couple of purely atmospheric tracks such as "Growing Fear," "Terror" and "Watery," but that is to be expected, especially in a survival horror world.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I really enjoyed playing Alone in the Dark and from beginning to end I probably spent about three hours playing, even with the frequent instant deaths just from exploring.  I quickly learned that I needed to save after I did almost anything that required the use of an item.

I will confess that I used GameFAQs a bit while going through simply because I did not want to screw over myself by running out of lantern oil, of which there was a limited supply and at least three rooms/areas in the game that required you to have your lantern lit otherwise the game would not let you enter those rooms.  I did not feel like I was cheating, with the exception of looking at a four screen map that I had to navigate by lantern in an otherwise blacked out maze with the only lit area being a circle around you, Dragon Quest style.  There were additionally a few puzzles that I could not solve without ManiacMansionFan's help, but I still see it as asking another person, in-person, for help or advice, like what we used to do with NES and SNES games.  But in the end, I still feel good about myself, so it could not have been that big of a transgression.

In the end, I am glad that I played through Alone in the Dark despite its graphical and control limitations due to the time the game came out.  It is like going back and watching the first season of The Simpsons, you know it is that you are watching and even though it is still pretty rough around the edges, it is a fun game that helped create a genre that I absolutely love.  And soon I will get to Alone in the Dark 2.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Vengeance from the Grave


P.S.  I thought I would leave you with a screenshot of how I felt upon safely completing the game.

Yes, it's the classic 1980's jump of victory!

It's Been A Hell Of A Week

Apologies for how I've been posting for the last week.  Last Friday I was unable to post because I didn't plan ahead, went to work on Thursday night, got home Friday morning, went to sleep, woke up at 2pm, packed for a trip down to California, sat in traffic for an hour when the commute usually takes 18-25 minutes, boarded a plane eventually arriving at my parents' house 8:45pm thoroughly exhausted.

Wednesdays MIDI-Week Single ended up not happening partly because of forgetting the aforementioned computer cable at the aforevisited parents' house and only receiving it on Wednesday afternoon shortly before going to sleep so that I would be awake enough to go to work Wednesday night, which is what I did again last night (Thursday-Friday).

And now I sit here at 7:30am wondering how to salvage what it is that I'm meandering on about so that I can go to sleep and wake up around 1pm to start my day.  So on that note, I'll see you on the other side, hopefully refreshed and full of zazz.

Not that you can tell, but it's now 2:35pm and I have semi-groggily awoken from my slumber where myself and another person were in combat with some sort of ice dragon that was reminiscent of dragging a butter knife along a wall of rocks.  It was not super effective.

But we're here to talk about gaming and I will do just that, but in more of an update form.  Again.

In the last week, I started playing Dota 2, all thanks to Chreekat and Vorlynx.  I'm presently still going through the tutorial, specifically the one where you play through the center lane 10 separate times with one of 20 characters.  I've gone through this one tutorial four times already and while it has become a little repetitive, the variation in the character design and their abilities is what's keeping the game interesting.  I have a feeling that this is a key feature of a MOBA.  I will be going back soon.

The Bioshock 2 DLC, Minerva's Den is also progressing nicely, although I have since forgotten how/why another early Big Daddy has come to life amidst the ruin of Rapture.  I think that was covered in the intro/beginning of the game, but it didn't seem all too important.  Also, why is it that only your character is able to use the Vita-Chamber?  And thanks to that article, it makes sense why every single enemy doesn't use the modern wonders of Vita-Chamber, from Ryan Industries.  I guess I must have glossed over that somewhat important plot point.

I also started Dragon Quest VI after deciding that I needed to step away from Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D on the 3DS.  I had reached a point with the game that it was not fun anymore and that I was only playing because I felt obligated to finish the game.  As I told Dr. Potts this weekend, the game play reminded me a bit like Super Meat Boy except with a limited number of lives. The charm to Super Meat Boy is that you have infinite lives and being able to pass a level is determined by the players stamina whereas in DKCR3D, you are reminded frequently of your dwindling life counter and dying is just as easy.  Dragon Quest VI  I feel is a much needed old school JRPG, of which I realized I hadn't played in, at least I think, a very long time.  Maybe not since I finished Dragon Quest V back in June 2012.

I'm going to call it a day and I will see y'all next week for a more concise and less free flowing post/article.  I just needed to get back on the wagon after missing last Friday and Wednesday.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Just Can't Figure It Out

Wee-mini-pre-impressions of Skyrim

I just played Skyrim for an hour, which in Skyrim time works out to be about five minutes.  My settings are just about at the very bottom of the graphical settings, and it runs pretty well.  The framerate isn't great, but it's definitely playable.

The good:  yep, this game is gorgeous.  Even at low, low settings, it is a sight to behold.  The ease of wandering combined with the graphics and sound and I can see how I can waste a million-billion hours in Skyrim.  I enjoy looting and building my equipment, making choices about how heavy I want to run etc.  I really love my Spark spell so far, and I think magic will be an important part of how I play this game.  I also enjoyed building my character, even if it wasn't anything special.

Also:  Butterflies.  There are butterflies.  nice touch.

The not as good:  I'm still getting adjusted to the controls.  I need to increase the mouse speed, but I can't do that in-game.    I made an important change to make both mouse buttons correspond to my attacks - this was helpful.  And at first when I was looting, I just kept dropping things without meaning to!  It was aggravating.  Another thing that annoys me a little is that you can't climb up onto things.  Like, there's a rock in my way and I can jump half way the necessary height, and if my character would just grab hold and lift herself up.  But alas.  I can swim in armor, but I can't climb.  Seems like a strange oversight given how explorable this game is.

My next order of business is to wander around for the forseeable future.  I don't care to die any time soon, so I am somewhat concerned, as I'm still getting a feel for the battle system.

I think I'll check out morrowind soon.

-D

P.S.  Gosh darned if I can't seem to get my screencaps working right.  More to come!

Difficulties and Deficiencies in the First World

Todays  is brought to y'all from my phone, because I accidentally left my computer cord/charger at my parents' house down in California over the weekend. I did however remember the charger for my phone so I will do the majority of my needed computer needs via phone until then.

This also means that video gaming for this week will be done primarily on my 3DS as pretty much everything else aside from word processing will eat up what little battery power I have left. Which is fine with me because I'm about this close to saying "fuck it all" and leave the game without defeating the final boss, but that might be for another post.

This will also force me to finish the book I've been reading for the past month as well as the previously mentioned PSP games.  I think the next book on yhe lost is an audio book so I'll be listening ti Blood Meridian by Cormack McCarthy and the physical book is supposed to be Science Fiction and I haven't decided which book will cover that BINGO square.

In closing I will say that typing a post on a touchpad phone keyboard is a bit of a pain in the ass, regardless of the orientation of the screen. Wednesday's MIDI Week Single is looking to be fairly minimal, but we'll make do.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Gardening Game Design, Planning Stages and Replay Value

In my ongoing series of posts about Game Design informed by Gardening, or general Garden Simulation, I have yet to touch on the subject of Pest Management.  This is due in part to my own feet-dragging approach to dealing with garden pests in my own garden.  Still, as I prepare to break down and buy an insecticidal spray, I reflect on some of the things that have been working so far, and how they might play into a Gardening game.

The first, and most compelling method of pest management comes in the planning stages of gardening.  The idea is to grow plants that will attract beneficial insects, which will do the work for you.  I've leaned on this approach pretty heavily, however, this came about by happenstance, not by careful planning.  Now I obsess about my next garden and how I'm going to plan it better.   What's nice about Vegetable gardening is that the plants are all annuals, which will die off after a season, creating an opportunity to start over again.  This can be a good thing .

This is very similar to how I've approached Sim City 4.  I've made maybe eight different cities in that game.  The first was a disaster, and I just ran and hid from the havoc I had unleashed.  The second city went much better, but still, I learned some things which I was eager to apply on my next city.  By the third city, I hit a plateau, and, try as I might, I couldn't really improve on my model.  That didn't stop me from trying a few more times, though.  There's something captivating about those beginning stages, designing a layout to avoid typical pitfalls.

I have a similar experience when I play Settler's of Catan. I find that during the early stages of play, I feel compelled to start the game over again - to place my tokens differently, because I know what I did wrong.  I wonder if this might be a palpable experience of the oft-talked-about Learning Curve.

Learning can be fun!  I said it.  But seriously, maybe that's what's going on here.  Thinking about Knytt and Starseed Pilgrim, those games had the most delightful learning curves.  Starseed is highly cryptic; really all it tells the player about their goal amounts to a hill of beans.  Yet, through repeated play, I was able to figure out goals, and increase my skills many fold.  This growth in my play experience drove me to begin again time after time, until I hit a plateau and dropped the game.  Up to that point, Starseed Pilgrim was a very potent gaming experience.

Knytt lays out very basic goals and controls.  Then reward the player with an unfolding world of many environments.  The learning curve here is to learn what the purpose of the game really is (hint: to enjoy yourself!)  My compulsion to restart Knytt was based on finding out where I could explore that I didn't before.  This curve was considerably shorter than Starseed Pilgrim, but still delightful and also free of charge.

Here's a random list of games with Learning Curves I have particularly enjoyed:

Starseed Pilgrim (PC)
Settler's of Catan (Board Game)
Blokus (Board Game)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series (Playstation)
Wave Race (N64)
Goldeneye 007 (N64)
Final Fantasy XI (PC)

Okay, those are a few to get the ball rolling.  It occurs to me that there are a variety of different Learning Curves of different character.  And it is possible to reach the end of a learning curve - the final plateau, so to speak, but how often do we actually get there?  There are people who can do things in Street Fighter games that I have never had a hope or a prayer of ever doing.  But it seems to me these games boil down to reflexes, rote memorization and practice, practice, practice.

Then on the other hand, there are games that start easy and stay easy, and just amount to a slog from point A to point Z.  I felt God of War was kind of like that - good thing the visuals were so great.  I've been complaining that games were too easy since the snes days, and it's usually these games that are very easy with one or two tough spots.

What are some of the best Learning Curves you have encountered?

MIDI Week Singles: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Ending (SNES)

So I decided to combine the first weeks popular-cliched choice with last weeks semi-random and go with the "Ending" theme from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

"Ending" from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 1991

The Legend of Zelda : Sound & Drama.  Disc 2, Track #40

Record Label: Sony (June 22, 1994)

Music Composed by: Koji Kondo

I have no data to back up my assumption, but I feel that when most people think of the music from the Legend of Zelda franchise, that the "Overworld" theme or "Zelda's Theme" are what come to mind.  That is the case for myself as well, but the "Ending" from A Link to the Past is one of my favorite themes from these games.  It makes me a little sad that this theme has not been reused since 1994, or if it has then I apologize for not knowing about it.  I admit that I have not played every Legend of Zelda game (specifically Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages, Minish Cap, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds and I have yet to finish Twilight Princess).

My love for the song could also have to do with the fact that I figured out how to play it on my trumpet back in high school and it was one of the songs that I would warm up with before band practice, even while in the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh!, it was a staple warm up song for me.  I find it to be a great fanfare-type piece that fits with the rest of the music from the game surprisingly well considering that this is the one and only time in A Link to the Past that this particular theme is heard.

Really, it is a great song from a game that has a great soundtrack.  You cannot really go wrong with 23 year old music from Koji Kondo.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental