Monthly Update: October 2014

Madd MS Paint Skilz Yo!

It's that time of the month again, and I'm pretty sure I've used that opening before. . . but you know what?  Neither do I.

This is going to be a hectic month.  First off, Conklederp and I are getting married on Saturday (11th) so some of the posts early in the month might be sporadic, depending on how much I am able to get accomplished ahead of time.  We are presently (at the time of posting) preparing to make our way to Nor*Cal tomorrow, with our goal being ultimately in the south (by California standards) and we'll be back about the middle of the month.  Goodtimes shall be had by all and yes, "goodtimes" is a legitimate word.

I spent a good amount of time during September playing both The Elder Scrolls: The Arena and Path of Exile.  It would seem that the Diablo type of play that is PoE is more enticing and engaging than what I found with DOTA 2, which makes me a little sad that I'm not as interested as I was hoping to be with the free-to-play MOBA, but I think solo game playing is too ingrained in my system.  I did play a session of PoE with Chreekat for an hour or so a few weeks back and since then I haven't seen him on Steam playing PoE, so I'm hoping that I didn't tarnish the 37 hours he's put into the game, but it looks like he was on yesterday.  I on the other hand, have only quested for a paltry 26 hours.  Oh the humanity!

And this just in, I am a Steam Stalking Creeper, but no, I still haven't played Minecraft in any of its many iterations.  Line me up to be stoned.  Again.

What the hell!  While writing today's post, music from Dead Island: Riptide (composed by Pawel Blaszczak) has come up a couple of times and it's a lot better than it has a right to be.  Now I've never played Dead Island: Riptide, yet anyway and I'll get to it eventually, but this soundtrack (acquired through the Humble Deep Silver Bundle) is really good.  I'm tempted to even say that it's "beautiful," but. . . you know what?  No buts.  The track that just played, "Let it be Haven," was indeed a beautiful simple piano piece.  There I said it.  Cue the onslaught of hate.  Maybe, but probably not.

Let's briefly take a look at October.  I restarted schooling a couple days ago so I'll be trying to get ahead for the first couple of weeks seeing as how doing school work during a honeymoon so video gaming and said activities will not be as prevalent as normal, at least for the first half of the month.  Game-wise though, October will probably be fairly similar to September with PoE, Arena and I might even delve into Fallen Earth, which I just spotted as being an open world free-to-play post-apocalyptic adventure game.  If I'm able to find time that is.  Although in the next week, I'll be hoping to play another round of Mansions of Madness with our friends so I'll have more tales to tell upon our return.

So have a happy October and I'll see y'all when I'm around.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

The Alamo Drafthouse!!!

Alright, down to brass tacks.  tax?  Anyway.  Time to tell you about one of the best things in Austin.  Something that sets a precedent for all.  I'm talking about the Alamo Drafthouse.

What is the Alamo Drafthouse?  Well, put simply, it's a movie theater where you can order beer and food.  Yep, the legends are true!  And they are alive in Austin.  As a matter of fact, I just watched Serenity last week at the Alamo drafthouse -whaaaat?!  You read me right.  They also play retro and cult classics.  I'm hoping to catch a showing of Ridley Scott's Alien, for Sci Fi/Horror October!

My first experience at the Alamo Drafthouse was in, maybe 2005, when I visited Austin for the first time.  A friend and I watched Black Snake Moan, a forgettable movie starring Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci and Justin Timberlake.  It was about a girl who had a compulsive sex addiction, and a reclusive former blues musician who helps her break it by putting a big chain around her waist.  And also her sort of unstable fiancee home from the war.  I'll let you guess who played what roles. It was okay, I guess.  But what made the biggest impression on me was what they showed leading up to the movie.

We were seated your standard 15 minutes early; as soon as they let us in.  And as we waited for the movie to start, they played different old clips of blues musicians performing.  Some in color others in black and white.  I distinctly remember John Lee Hooker, who had passed away a few years earlier and was a favorite of my Dads.  So cool!  No shit-tastic movie-tunes that rule the horrible candy-box theaters of today, but a customized set of clips designed to set the stage for the movie.

Similarly, when I saw Serenity last week, there were clips from sci fi movies and from westerns.  Also occasional Joss Whedon clips.  There was Brisco County Jr.  There was Star Trek, there was Barbarella, Dr. Horrible (freeze ray),  and this hilarious clip of Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris in a doctor's office.  And then there was an actual preview, but it was for the Sci Fi retro-specials that month at the draft house.  

Another custom feature of the Alamo Drafthouse is to include is Public Service Announcements to keep your phones silent and not to talk in the movie.  They have all sorts of great PSAs to warn you.  One from Michael Madsen.  One form Homestarr Runner.  Joss Whedon, etc, etc, etc.  I'm telling you, this is quality stuff.  They have a one-warning system.  You get your warning and if you keep jabbering, you get thrown out.  Ruthless.  Perfect.  

I have always hated that about movies, people talking.  My most distinct memory of this frustration is when Jaconian and I went to see the Blair Witch Project.  Now, granted, that movie has become a bit of a joke now, but at the time, we were both really excited.  It was a new and creative horror movie!  Kind of out of nowhere, and I think we were the right people to appreciate what they had to offer.  Unfortunately, I will never know if that movie is any good, because these fucking people, RIGHT BEHIND US, talked through the whole. damn. thing.  This completely ruined the immersion and any sense of suspense, which I felt was a necessary part of the film.  I tried to watch and enjoy it anyway, and or the record: I still liked it.  But I just know that this movie could have been so much more in silence.  ugh.  Well.  The good news is:  that will never happen at the Drafthouse. 

Oh --- one more thing - if you actually *like* talking in movies, they've also got the opposite:  Quote-along movies! Usually comedies, they'll show Monty Python, or Mel Brooks or some Will Ferrel movie, and the idea is to quote all the time.  It's sort of a Rocky Horror style production, with noises and all that sort of bullshit.   I haven't been to one, but I think it sounds almost as awesome as their normal programming.  

Wow, I haven't even talked about the food yet.  Because, really, it's not that big a deal.  But they have a good system.  In front of every row of chairs is a bar, maybe a foot wide, with a lip.  You write down your order, clip it to the front, and a wait staff will come by intermittently and snatch it up, then bring you your food back.  The first Drafthouse I went to had perfected this system.  They used stadium seating, so the wait staff was a full food and a half to two feet lower than the viewer.  I usually didn't notice them.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for every Drafthouse.  The place I saw Serenity, I was in the front row, and it was not stadium seating.  The wait staff had to hunch and run by quickly.  It's unfortunate, and I hope they try to avoid this whenever possible.  Oh well.  It is nice to drink a beer at a movie, I'll tell you that much.

In conclusion, if you love movies: so do the people at the Alamo Drafthouse.  If you really love movies, then I think it is worth making Austin a destination in your travels.

-D


P.S.  I almost forgot:  I'm going to make an appeal to the friends of the State Theater to use an Alamo Drafthouse style business model.  It's worth a shot!  They just need a way to get the college kids out there.

Monthly Update: October 2013

Does anyone else question this?  This is the third month that we've done a regular "Monthly Update" with the current month in the title, although most of what I've said in these articles has to do with the previous month.  And I have now just answered my own question.  What I've just said would most likely then be titled "Month in Review."  That is now out of the way.

So during the month of September, I really got into Dead Island.  After playing L4D2 quite a bit, I remembered that I had purchased Dead Island in one of the Humble Bundles and wanted to play something else with zombies.  At first I wasn't sure about the game, which needed some tweaking in the keyboard input department, but after that first questionable hour, I've managed to put in 21 hours and I only recently started Act II (~33% complete).  You can expect a First Impressions article to pop up within the next week.  I've put some time in on Torchlight II and Symphony, which will also get their own First Impressions, hopefully soon.

I also just entered the world of smartphones which I last talked about.  I also picked up the Humble Android Bundle 2, because now I have another outlet for my gaming needs/desires.  As I may've stated in my previous article, I don't see the new phone becoming my go-to for portable gaming, that will continue to be my 3DS.  But, that doesn't mean I won't use if for such purposes.

For those of you interested in miniatures, Reaper is doing a second Kickstarter to promote their Bones line of miniatures.  I got in on their first Kickstarter and came away with well over a hundred high quality plastic-ish minis.  This time around, instead of having multiple tiers, there's the "Thanks $1" tier and then a $100 tier and the earlier you support, the earlier you will get your shipment of (currently) 140 miniatures of varying sizes.  With only a week in, they are already over $1,000,000.  If I didn't already have a backlog of minis that I needed to paint then I would definitely get in on this Kickstarter again.  I just don't know if I would be able to swing it this time around.  With hope, there will always be Bones III next year.

Lastly, Conklederp got me Antichamber because she's awesome/amazing and because we've been together now for over half a decade.  I played the game for about half-an-hour before accidentally deleting my saved progress as I didn't initially know how to exit out of the game.  I know now.  I'll delving in that strange world again soon, probably with Conklederp watching or watching her play.

And I need to get back to playing Papo y Yo and Penumbra: Requiem, although those games are pretty similar in their execution of puzzle-platformers, so I may have to put one on the back burner (speaking of which, I need to go drink some coffee) until one is finished so I don't make myself completely puzzled out. 

So that's where I am, here at the beginning of October 2013.  Nothing too new or out of the ordinary, just plodding along when I'm not at work.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

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.