First Impressions: Proteus

Wow.

Attention everyone:  Proteus is my new favorite game.  

You may remember this game as Crazy Atari Graphic Style First Person Game from my little shpiel on the PBS video The Creativity of Indie Games.  For a preview of this game, watch that video, as there are clips of it throughout.  Not to mention a bunch of other games I plan on trying.

Proteus is a game I would like to go on and on about.  But I would rather you play the game, and come talk to me, and then we can both go on and on about it.  For now I'll mention some facts:  It is available here, for $10.  I suggest you buy it.  It plays Mac and PC and Xbox 360 and is available on steam.   

Here's a picture:

The first impression I had was one of relief when I realized nothing in this game is trying to kill me.  

It is a first person game, and Jaconian: You will be happy to hear that you can invert the Y axis.  Generally, the menus are minimalist, so I am glad they included this little option.  The controls can be a little slippery, so I hope it doesn't trigger motion sickness. 

Here's another pic:

If you go to the website for the game, you can download it.  You can also read all sorts of acclaim for Proteus.  It's all true, but I think, rather then spending your time reading that, you should just buy it, play it, get your significant other to play it, if you have one.  

I think you could probably buy this game as a valentines present and get away with it.  More pics:

I've put in about two hours, and I'd like to put in some more. 

I want to also mention that this game does an excellent job of mixing the music, sounds and graphics together.  If I had to sum up the effect in one word it would be: Pleasant.  I think this game might be a really good winter time game, and there's not much winter time left, so download it now.  Thanks.  And you're welcome!

-D

Dear Esther (and the value of patience and follow-through)

Today, I am posting a stream-of consciousness.  

Today, I finally played Dear Esther

Today, I beat Dear Esther (2.4 hrs)

Today, I learned a valuable lesson about patience and follow-through.

Today, when I was playing Dear Esther, I spent the first hour or so struggling with the collision detection.  I wanted to walk to places that the game seemed to not want to let me.  But it wasn't clear.  "This rock seems no larger or more difficult to scale than any other rock. And yet, I cannot pass over it." Alright, fine, I'll swim around.  "Which button is to swim?  Okay seems to be working, but hey, why am I drowning?  Which button was it?  I'm pressing that button.  What the fuck?!  Stop drowning!"

Today, I said, to myself, things such as this:  "fuck this game.  This game is stupid, I hate this game.  I am so pissed off!  Raahhhh!"  

Today, I asked: why was there no sound?  This game is so nice visually, why isn't there any sound?!  This is so dumb.  

Today, I broke with the writing convention I have been employing.  

Okay... I guess I've got it.  I'll just keep going on the sort of path-like spaces.  Path of least resistance.  Just keep moving forward, don't worry about what I'm missing...  Well, shit.  It looks like I'm actually getting somewhere.  That's nice.  Lala la, I think I want to explore over here.  Dammit... fucking rocks.  Oh, hey, maybe I should go over there.  Yeah, that's it.  Okay... la la la.

Oh wow.  That's really pretty.  This is pretty damned cool.  Finally!  This is really working for me.  Okay, I see, it makes sense that I can't run or do anything, really.  If I moved to fast, I'd miss out on this stuff.  Dang, I think this game is kind of like, pretty cool!  Still no sound though, what's the deal?

...oh.  My headphones were plugged in.  ... oops...
...
...
...


Okay, this game is beautiful, I love this game.  I have to play it again now, because I missed out on the sound, so like, half the immersion.  Oh well, I don't think it's long.

What a great game, I'm going to recommend this to everybody.

...
...
...
So, yeah, I pushed through a lot of frustration to get through Dear Esther.  If I had given in to the frustration I felt for the first 30-45 minutes or so, I would have missed out on what turned out to be a great game.  Really great game, truly!   I can only recommend to people that, during the early part of the game-  Don't bother trying to swim.  It will only lead to heartache.  Also: check to see if your headphones are plugged in.

Video game visual art

I come back to this image a lot.  I like it so much.  I don't own The Secret of Mana, and I don't necessarily have enough time to play it all the way through.  And also, I don't have a partner to play it with, which is important.  But I do have the soundtrack!  And I do have this image.  

Viewing this image gives me something akin to playing the game.  The cartoon characters against a backdrop of lush beauty seems to convey to me the meaning of this game.  As if the 30 hours of gameplay can be compressed into a single image.  

I decide to look up the author of this image.  His name is Hiroo Isono, and he has bunches of very similar work.  In fact, the above image is essentially one of his regularly produced images that features the Secret of Mana characters.  I really like his stuff!

Now, we in America weren't lucky enough to get Seiken Densetsu 3, which would have been Secret of Mana 2.  However, I see that Hiroo Isono's was also hired to do the art in that game, and also Seiken Densetsu 4.  This makes me glad, because I really do love his style.  Check him out, there are some good galleries online.