New Things in the First Seven Days of June, 2013

There are some good things, some amazing things and a very sad thing in the world known as the only planet in Sector 001 known to contain living life.  There's actually a lot more going on than what I'm about to go into, but this is what I'm qualified to discuss.  

First off, the sad news.  Last Wednesday (June 5th) Precursor Games, the company that was born from the wreckage of Silicon Knights and are the creators of Shadow of the Eternals, the "spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem," has cancelled their Kickstarter campaign with less than two weeks remaining and with less than 10% of their goal reached.  One can say that the lack of "funding" was due to the negativity of a Kotaku article, or the known lawsuit against Silicon Knights.  Basically, blame can be placed almost anywhere, if you're the kind of person that needs to place blame somewhere to feel better.  Despite the closing of the Kickstarter, I still see the light at the end of the tunnel, I still have hope.

Last Wednesday, L.D. Robots talked about the current Humble Indie Bundle (8).  I'm not sure when this happened, probably after a week based off of previous HIB's, but the HIB has multiplied to now include four additional games (Tiny and Big in Grandpa's Leftovers, Intrusion 2, English Country Tune and Oil Rush) on top of the seven games that are already listed.  And, now a total of ten soundtracks.  That's just damn amazing/awesome.

A side note with the HIB, is now they're offering a Weekly Sale.  The premise is the same as with the regular Humble Bundle, that you have the option of splitting money between the Humble Bundle people, the game developers, the EFF and Child's Play.  But, instead of waiting months for a massive collection of games and soundtracks, each week there'll be a selection of games offered at a name your own price, price.  The first week (Which ran from May 30th - June 5th) included The Walking Dead, Back to the Future: The Game, Poker Night at the Inventory and some other games that I've since forgotten.  Each week it looks like a new set of games will be up for the now formulaic "name your price."  This week (Week 2) are a collection of Serious Sam games, of which I know nothing.

In another corner of the internet entitled "Take Even More of My Money," Amazon.com has entered into the Online/PC Indie Gaming ring.  After only briefly browsing the store, Amazon's Indie Gaming store looks a lot like Steam's store, with frequent sales and even HIB-esque in that from June 6th - 10th Amazon is offering three free games (Huntsman: The Orphanage, Dynasty of Dusk,  and The Curse of Nordic Cove) when you purchase one of their listed indie games.

Lastly and not video game related, Entertainment Weekly released a picture of Evangeline Lilly as her non-canon character of Tauriel in the upcoming movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  You can read about it here.  I feel like there's going to be a splintering of fans into "I Hate It" and "I Like It," which is going to happen anytime Jackson/Walsh/Boyens make any changes/additions to Tolkien's Middle Earth.  I personally am going to hold any judgement until I actually see the movie.  Yes, I can be a hypocrite and say that something is/will be bullshit at the slightest hint of something I don't like but then say I'll hold judgement, but that's just me.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And I'm Waiting Patiently

Another-Another Humble Bundle of Awesomness

Yo, how's it going?  I'm just stopping in really quick to mention that my sister Mz is in town, and so I'm going to be a bit distracted and won't likely have any posts ready any time soon.  She rode her bike sixty miles yesterday, which is pretty badass.

I also want to mention that the Humble Bundle 8 has some games that I like and have reviewed here.  So, you should go there and give them some money for games.  You should probably have already done this, and signed up for their mailing list, and thus - already know about the Humble Bundle 8.  But I didn't really have a post ready, and so I thought I could talk about that.  Humble Bundle 8 includes games: Dear Esther, Thomas Was Alone and Proteus.  All excellent games.

In addition, there are other games, which I don't know anything about.  They might be good, they might be excellent.  Gee, maybe I should buy the Humble Bundle 8.  I guess I could buy it for a penny or something.  Normally, I make it a point to always exceed the average and get the full bundle.  The average is usually like 8 bucks.  No big deal.  You can afford it.

Alright Dear Reader, if you go and get this bundle today, you will have made this purchase with just under 14 days remaining.  Unless you are from the future, which you more than likely are.  Days, Weeks... Years?  If you're from about six months in the future I'd like it if you could answer a series of questions for me. 

First:  Did the Giants make it to the playoffs?  Second:  Did they win?  Third:  Do you still enjoy your Humble Bundle Purchase?  Fourth:  Do you think it was worth the money you paid for it?  Fifth:  Is 'The Wolverine' any good?  I really hope it is, but this will be the fifth time Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine, and I can't help but wonder how long this can go on.  

Alright, I'm out of questions for those of you from the near-future.  I'll have to come up with some new questions for long-future readers.  And some way to read the responses without having to wait around until the day you finally post them.  Until then, remember back in May, 2013?  Gee, seems like just yesterday,

-D

First Impressions: Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP

Another Humble Bundle game!  The Humble Bundles are the best thing ever.  By the way, there's one going on right now.  11 more days. Upon reviewing my files, I recently discovered that I've bought five Humble Bundles.  Which probably accounts for about 35 of the 50 or so games in my steam account.  I'll probably never play them all, but I'm glad I gave Sword and Sorcery EP a look.  So far, at 2 hours in, I am having a great time.

The game is beautiful in a neat 'retro' way that captures my heart.  I can't explain it, but the graphics and design really mesmerize me.  The visuals are great, the sounds and the animation are also great.  Everything seems to fit in the world, and no element clashes to pull me out of my absorption in the game.  I've enjoyed the sound so much that I decided to download the soundtrack (another perk of the humble bundles).

The story follows a character known as the Scythian.  She is wandering around looking for something called the Trigon, which appears to simply be a triangle.  Except using the 'gon' suffix like a pentagon or septagon.  She encounters some people along the way to help her and some others who are trying to hinder her.  And the whole time the graphics and sound are just great.  

The controls took a little getting used to.  My only real problem was that I didn't realize that I could double-click to direct  the Scythian to walk or interact with items.  I thougth I had to hold the button down, which does work, but it also is the same action that I use to look around the screen.  Mixing the two of these up was frustrating, but since I figured it out, the controls have given me no trouble at all. 

The name is kind of stupid, and so far the writing is pretty stupid as well.   For example, the lumberjack that the Scythian meets early on is named "logfella."  And then the dog she encounters is named "dogfella."  The thing about the dialogue is that it seems to be speaking directly to the player, and not to the Scythian.  The other characters in the story will speak of the Scythian and not to her, and the Scythian herself uses the royal 'we' whenever expressing herself verbally.  After playing the game for a couple of hours, the dialogue has started to become charming, instead of annoying.  I think this comes from the consistency of the silliness.  The game seems to break the fourth wall as a rule, instead of an exception, and this somehow works.  

There are some themes that I don't really understand.  One is the 'EP' theme.  I am guessing that the inclusion of EP in the title is to indicate that the game won't be very long (I have been playing 2 hours and have 47% completion) and that maybe it indicates that the soundtrack won't be very long, as an vinyl record EP runs a standard of about 25 minutes.  The menu screen for the game prominently features an image of an EP vinyl record.  The record reacts to the players menu choices.  Another theme is the triangle, or 'trigon' theme.  Triangles feature in all of the menus, and also as the main source of conflict for the Scythian.    

I want to throw in that the lead character, the Scythian,  appears to be female, based on the sound of her grunts as she swings her sword. However, she is not portrayed as 'super-feminine' - a nice departure from so many of our video game heroines.

The game is available for eight bucks on steam, but I got it for much less, given it was a Humble Bundle.  I probably dropped $20 bucks on Humble Bundle V, and still the games were about $3 apiece.  hells yeah.

-D

I want to also make a quick mention that there was a reference to Al Jaffee in this game.  Yes, that Al Jaffee.  I think that was the precise moment that the silly dialogue began to win me over.  

Also, I want to mention again that the Humble Bundle 7 is out right now and has 11 days to go.  Pay what you want, can't beat that price!

First Impressions: Cogs & And Yet It Moves (PC)

I've had Cogs for sometime, although I do not remember which Humble Bundle it was bundled with, but I have always liked the look of the logo (mission accomplished).  Sadly though, last Friday (as in 12/7) was the first time I played Cogs, and that was only because Coolman asked about it.  So it was that I discovered that Cogs is a game that I will not be playing a great deal.

First off, the game could be described as a "casual puzzle game," but for me, it's a frustratingly beautiful puzzle game.  The puzzles are all variations on the sliding block puzzle.  That might be a decent description, but here's a screen cap:

In this puzzle, you have to move the three gear pieces so that the gear on the left is touching a gear piece, which in turn is touching another gear piece and finally, has another gear piece above that one so that it's touching the gear attached to the propeller.  This particular puzzle is multi-sided, which at first is intimidating, but once you quickly realize that you only have to solve one side at a time, it's pretty simple.  Sort of anyway.

The thing for me though, is that I've never had an aptitude for these kinds of puzzles.  I just get really frustrated when I have one or two pieces of the puzzle figured out, but then realize that I need to move everything around in order to get a much needed piece three to it's ending place, but that ruins where piece one and two are supposed to go.  

As I mentioned, all the puzzles are variations on the sliding block puzzle and not all of them involve gears.  There are puzzles that use steam or colored steam to fill up the appropriate ballons; two sided puzzle where a piece has two sides and each side of the puzzle has to be turned to look at the back to make sure the corresponding piece isn't messing up the solution on the other side.  And I forgot to mention (or you could just look at the left hand side of the above picture), there's a timer and a move counter, so you're encouraged to complete the puzzle in as few moves and as fast as possible.  It's a pretty brilliant take on an early kids game.  Lazy 8 Studios has made a really beautiful game that was, admittingly, somewhat fun to play with other people.  So, when I got frustrated and couldn't figure out a solution, I could pass off the mouse/keyboard and let either Coolman or Conklederp have a go, I just may not be playing this game solo.

And Yet It Moves is yet another puzzle game from Broken Rules, although it's in the form of a platformer, but there's twist; pun only slightly intended.  Like any platformer, you have your character and move them from point A to point B.  There are some baddies that are reminiscent of the kind you'd find in Little Big Planet, i.e.: passive and there to be in your way.  The twist with And Yet It Moves, is that you're able to rotate the world 90 degrees in either direction.

The world in this game is beautifully created to look like pieces of colored paper products have been torn and crumbled to create environments.  The effect is not as distracting as it sounds and it is very easy to learn where you can stand and where you fall.  Black non-paper = bad and you will fall.  Which is where rotating the screen comes in.  For example:

That black area will swallow you like it owns your soul.

But, upon rotating the camera 90 degrees, you can safely land on a new surface/ground.

That's the basic gist of the game.  However, you do have to be careful with how far you fall, either by jumping or by constantly rotating the world as you will constantly gain momentum and you're little paper person is not indestructible.  There is a skill (one they teach you in game) about hitting the ground at an angle so you can land from any height/speed safely, I just haven't been able to master it.  And thankfully, when you die (which you will, and possibly very frequently), you don't have to start over, but from one of the many check point paper people who populate each map.  Additionally, they will point you in the right direction you need to go, literally.  They will point you in the direction (with their little paper fingers) you need to go in order to find the next check point, and each one you come across is like it's own little victory.

So there you go, two readily available games.  Both are fun in their own rights but I think I'll be playing And Yet It Moves more often than I will with Cogs.  But again, that's just because sliding block puzzles aren't really my cup of tea.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

27 Down, 46 To Go

Humble Indie Bundle part VI (III in the US?)

First off, appologies for not posting anything on Monday the 17th.  Conklederp, Dr. Potts and some other friends were away during the weekend, I needed time to recover and I didn't have anything set up to post on Monday after we got back.  I will be covering that all in my next post on Monday.  

But this post is about:

That's right, there's another Humble Indie Bundle out there.  This one was released about two and-a-half days ago and the sale ends in 11 days, or on October 2nd, 2012 at 4pm PST.  When I first looked at the page (post receiving the email that announced it's birth), there were over 120,000 purchases.  Currently there are 193,590 purchases of six games and five soundtracks.  The set up for this bundle is pretty much identical to the previous bundle and my post today will be very similar except that the games that I still don't know much of anything about, will be different than the previous games that I didn't really know anything about.  So there's that.  Except that I have heard of Torchlight, but I don't know anything about the game except that it exists.  Does this lack of information make me a bad gamer?  Nope!  It just makes me an uninformed one, but I'll be less of one by the end of this post.

So onto the games!

You know what, I just recommend going to the Bundle website and checking out the compilation trailer that they've set up for people like me to watch who don't know anything about any of the games.  And really, that's one of the things that I love about the HIB's (is that a thing?), that I've never heard of many of the games, and probably wouldn't've (that is a thing, J.K. Rowling does it) heard of these games if they weren't part of the HIB (it's now a thing).

But, before I leave, I feel like I need to have the obligatory "make you feel guilty for only wanting to pay $1 for five games and five soundtracks."

Rochard w/ Soundtrack:    $14.99

Shatter w/ Soundtrack:      $11.49

S.P.A.Z.:                                $09.99

Torchlight:                           $14.99

Vessel:                                   $14.99

Dustforce w/ Soundtrack:  $12.99

And you can't even buy the S.P.A.Z. or Torchlight soundtracks on their own, so let's call those ones "rare" and maybe put them at $8-10 a piece (which is a steal for video game soundtracks, which I've spent upwards of $30 in the past for a 3 CD set).

Total Cost:  ~$95.44

Anyway, the point being, don't be a douche (used or otherwise) and pay more than $1 for these games, if you're into that sort of thing anyway.  And if you want Dustforce with it's soundtrack, you'll have to fork out a whopping $5.80.  And keep in mind that you can decide how much of your purchase price goes to the people at Humblebundle, the game developers and the Child's Play Charity.  That's all on you.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Bells Are Getting Louder

P.S.  And if past experiences hold true for this HIB as well, there might be an extra game tagged on sometime after the first week.  And even if you already bought the Bundle, you'll still get the extra download code.  So the only other reason to wait is because payday is on Monday and you want to feel less guilty about buying five more video games.

Okay then, Introductions:

Four switches, I wonder what they do?

Hi, I'm David.  I've got nicknames too, like Dave.  And Doctor Potts and Potts Ivy.  And DAMP, I guess (stands for Dave-a-ma-Potts).  And everyone in my family got "Pots and Pans" at some point or another.  I'd like to requisition a drawing of me decked out in armor made entirely of pots and pans.  Anyone?

The earliest games I can remember playing were on the Atari 2600, with wood paneling.  That wood paneling was such an absurd aesthetic choice that it has stayed with me forever.  Atari gets a thumbs up for being so silly and memorable.  The 2600 also had some fun switches, one was a reset button which would bounce back into place when you moved it, and one was an on/off switch that would stay in place, I think.  Here's a picture!  (Doncha just love the internet?).  Sometimes I would get distracted by playing with the buttons when the games wouldn't work- they often had trouble working.

Check out Ian Bogost for some modern Atari programs and video game theory stuff.

I was, like Jack, active during the Nintendo/Sega console wars.  I learned to appreciate and also despise advertising campaigns during that time.  I distinctly remember Sega using a lot of aggressive and negative attitudes in their commercials, as well as made-up industry terms (blast processing anyone?).  I consoled myself by saying that they were just jealous that the SNES had much better games and was, overall, the superior console.  I was probably a bit biased- an avid reader of Nintendo Power- but hey, I was making this up on my own.  And I learned a little humility over the following years, as I watched my sad Sega friends lose their favorite hardware maker.  I will definitely want to write more about the console wars.

I've also been a big fan of RPGs.  In fact, the first non-Nintendo console I bought was a Sony Playstation, just to play Final Fantasy VII.  I agonized about this decision.  I had been following the hype leading up the FFVII, the disappointing news that it would never be released for the Nintendo 64, and, as a matter of fact, Square was breaking their Nintendo-exclusive relationship that had done a lot to make the Super Nintendo such a fantastic system.  But yes, I bought a Playstation and Final Fantasy VII (with Bushido Blade Demo) and shortly thereafter got it modded so I could play burned games.  Oh, technology, changing the way we make our consumer choices.

This is what it has come to:  Sonic on the cover of Nintendo Power

A couple of years ago, I bought a Nintendo DS, again, to mod the thing, and play emulated NES and SNES games.  That's the last name-brand gaming hardware I bought.  I have dropped out of the console world, and now play almost exclusively on the PC.  I think it was the expense that drove me away from consoles.  And also, roommates.  I always had a roommate or good friend with all the latest hardware, so I would get my fix there.  I weaned myself away from all the latest stuff, and now I find myself with no TV, but a decent enough PC.   And not nearly as much time as I had way back when.  The world of Steam, and $0-$10 Indie games is my gaming world now.  I like it.  I've played some great games:  Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip.Runner, Braid, Cave Story, Everyday Shooter and more.  Sometimes I miss the fancy AAA titles, but not most times.  Mostly I miss the time, all that time that I had to play 40 hour RPGs, all those weekends burnt.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to make breakfast.

#Console Wars, #Atari, #Introduction