First Impressions: Blackwell Legacy (PC)

I've mentioned in the past that I have a subscription to the google + account of Indie Game News, wherefrom I get a lot of my favorite Pak Watch featured games.  One thing I have noticed about Indie Game News is that they report a lot about point and click adventure games.  For this reason, I have paid more attention to that particular genre of late, and It has piqued my interest.  I pitched the idea of playing an adventure game to Jane, and she was really into the idea.  I review the best rated games at Adventure Game Studio, and settled on Blackwell Legacy.  Jane approved of my choice, and we started playing.

So far, so good.  The writing and voice acting is solid, though it takes a minute to get used to the sort of stiff flow of conversation that happens by necessity when you control the flow of scripted conversation.  It's really fun to play two-players, putting our heads together and solving puzzles.

That said, the game falls into the same problem so many games fall into:  when you can't solve a puzzle, and you just click on everything in one location, go to another location, click everything there.  Go back to the previous location, click things, talk your way through every conversation tree.  Check gamefaqs.  The answer is just some small detail you neglected, and thank god the game has begun to flow again.

When it is flowing, Blackwell legacy has interesting characters and a compelling story.  I happily anticipate the next time we get to play it.

-D

Pak Watch Deluxe: Point-and-Click Adventure games

This is a Deluxe edition of Pak Watch because it features 4 games instead of my usual one or two.  I recently completed 'Six Days a Sacrifice, and I wanted another taste of the point and click adventure genre.  It appears that this genre is thriving on the internet;  when I started looking, I just kept finding new and interesting information about the genre, least of which is the Adventure Game Studio community.  More on that later, for now, some games:

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Shardlight

Developer:  Ben Chandler and Francisco Gonzales
Publisher:  Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games

Shardlight is a post-apocalyptic game, that I can find minimal information about, and the same four images over and over again.  But I really like what I see, and I'm very interested to see how it works out.  I love the post-apocalyptic genre, and the 'world of junk and ruin' aesthetic looks solid here.  I can't speak for the story, but here's hoping.  

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unprintable MAGENTA
Developer: Fitz
Publisher: (Unknown) 

Another link I got from Indie Game News.  Unprintable Magenta has a strange, low-production visual style that piques my curiosity.  It looks to take place in a modern, superhero setting, and has plenty of room for silliness.  I appreciate that.   

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Thimbleweed Park
Developer: Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick
Publisher: Kickstarter, kind of.  
 
Maniac Mansion is back! Or at least, the creators of that classic game are back, with a very successful kickstarter for a new game called Thimbleweed Park.  Viewing the promo video for said kickstarter, I think we can count on a true retro delight.  There are hilarious referential jokes all throughout the kickstarter page.  Have a look if you have any interest at all. 

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Project Scissors: Nightcry 
Developer: Hifumi Kono and Takashi Shimizu
Publisher: Playism games

And one more game with celebrity developers: a horror game from the makers of the Clock Tower series and the director of JuOn (the grudge).  That was enough to get my attention.  Then I got scared after viewing some of the images.  Maybe I don't have the guts to play this game.  Do you?

-D

Frmonthly Frupdate: Frebruary 2015

First, let me show you this ridiculous and hilarious animated gif of Mario going completely berserk ala "the Night Santa Went Crazy" by Weird Al.  I got this from BrandonDeSanta in the Retro Video Games google+ group, though I don't know if he's the one who made it.  You can just watch that and laugh for a while if you like.  This is just one of the gems I encountered over the past month.  

I consumed a lot of Sci Fi this month.  The best of which was a movie called 'Predestination', based on a Robert Heinlein short story called 'All You Zombies.'   I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I definitely recommend the movie.  I was pleasantly surprised and impressed.  I will be reading the short story... shortly.  Beyond that, I watched two Keanu Reeves movies:  Constantine and Johnny Mnemonic.  Constantine is great, a very stylish and well-shot movie.  I'm kind of a sucker for God vs Devil possession movies and action adventures. Johnny Mnemonic was kind of hokey and dated, but still lots of fun.   Additionally, I read Neuromancer by William Gibson, which is sort of a sequel to Johnny Mnemonic.  The common link is the character of Molly, who is awesome (and called 'Jane' in the film version for some indiscernable reason). I've got the book version of Johnny Mnemonic coming soon.  Fun fact:  Johnny sold his childhood for a measely 80 gigs of memory. 

I read a couple other Sci Fi novels:  Kindred, by Octavia Butler, a time travel story about Slavery.  It was a harsh read, but well written.  Also, Wind up Bird Chronicle, which wasn't straightforward sci fi, just very strange like most Murakami.  But I really like Murakami for his strangeness. 

In Gaming news, I beat Starseed Pilgrim.  FINALLY.  It was pretty cool.  I was tempted to start over again from the beginning, but resisted.  I really, really like that game.  Next, I revisited Six Days a Sacrifice, of the Chzo Mythos by Yahtzee Creshaw, and managed to beat it quickly.  I enjoyed that series, and the final game ties together a lot of thematic points and characters.  It's not perfect, but I appreciate the effort.  Playing that game has got me in the mind to play more point and click adventure games.  We'll see what the future holds!

In other news, I'm looking forward to a move in February.  The plan is to get my own apartment at a more convenient location.  Should be fun!

-D 

P.S.  Another Funny animated gif, gotten from Google+ user Miss Electro Head

Why I'll Never Be Able To Write A Full Review About "Among the Sleep."

Among the Sleep by Krillbite Studio is a game and a concept that I love.  I even fell for their pitch on their Kickstarter back in May of last year and I'm glad that I did because the game that I played was fun and beautiful yet haunting and fairly dark in its tone.

After I finished going through the game, which took me just over two hours, I was at a loss as to how to write a Full Review article.  I started, stopped and had to step away.  I came back a couple of days later, wrote more about the story in the game while trying to be ambiguous enough so as to not give away key plot points that I would not want to spoil for anyone else reading who had yet to play.  Then I scrapped the whole thing.  Again.  About a month later, I came back to writing a new article taking the approach I took with Dead Space and Assassin's Creed (of which I still haven't published yet) where I just talked about how I personally played the game while still giving my impressions.  This post did not even make it past a first draft.

I know exactly what it is with this game that prevents me from writing a full-on article too.  It is that I keep mentally comparing it to another games approach to a similar topic but by even mentioning which game that is will spoil the storyline.  Now, I am one of those people that does not want anything spoiled for me when I go to watch a movie, a TV show or read a book.  I do not even like it when people verbally speculate about "who did it" during anything involving a mystery/whodunnit.  I can even point out the exact day and time (after doing some research into Doogie Howser M.D. broadcast dates) that I noticed this first bothering me.  It was between 8:15 and 8:45pm on Wednesday October 31st, 1990.  I might be a little neurotic.

Perhaps this was an underlying cause for not being able to write about a game that I would love to see everyone who has ever played a video game play; unless you cannot play in the first person perspective due to motion sickness issues, which I at times experience and cannot fault anyone for.  I cannot play Doom 2 for more than 15 minutes at a time because of this issue.  The point is, I do not want to spoil anything storywise about this game.  Sure, you play the game from the perspective of a two year old, which is what first got me interested in the game.  At the time I had some money and was more than willing to throw it at Krillbite Studio to see their game come into fruition.

I cannot even say how the game affected me other than it did effect me.  I will not say how it affected me as that too would give something away that I want other people to experience first hand without outside influence.  This game should be played in a silent room.  The point is, Among the Sleep is a beautiful game (which I've already said).

Almost two weeks ago, (November 6th) Krillbite released a one chapter free DLC expansion to everyone already owning the game; and if you purchase the game after todays date, that the DLC will already be included.  There is this great independent studio way up there just north of the northern 58th parallel called Krillbite Studio and they have made this great game with some financial help from the rest of the world.  It is a beautiful thing.  All of it.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
We've Been Heading North


P.S.  If anyone needed evidence as to my claim about the beauty of this game, you have it now:

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

Full Review: The Starship Damrey (3DS)

I saw The Starship Damrey sitting all by itself a while ago in the Nintendo eShop.  The title by itself sounded interesting, but it was the description of the game that caught my attention.  I was told that The Starship Damrey was essentially a point-and-click game, but you are given no introduction. “With no tutorials, explanations, or hints provided, the game was created with the intent that self-discovery and experimentation be an integral part of the experience.”  How to do things is all learned by "doing" in this game.  As the disclaimer for the game says:

There are no explanations as to what button does what, the game is all trial and error.  I realize that can be a turn off to some gamers, but to me it was a selling point.  That's what I like, that the developers, Level 5 (Professor Layton series, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch), have faith that the player will know what to do and if they don't that they will not be afraid to experiment.  Now, with all that in mind, let's get down to our review.

Gameplay

The Starship Damrey is basically an old fashioned point-and-click game, like Shadowgate or Deja-vu,  with the main difference is that you play in a three dimensional environment.  The majority of the game is spent controlling a robot via remote with audio/video capabilities.  You are able to "point-and-click" various objects around the ship although where you're going and what your mission is, is pretty much unknown for most of the game.  One major departure from other point-and-click games is that the robot you control is only able to hold one item at a time.  This might seem like a hinderance, but the issue only comes up once or twice in the game where you wish you could just learn to hold three things with your mechanized arm/hand.

There was one point in the game where I couldn't figure out how to "click" something that I knew I needed to click and had to look it up on gamefaqs, but I don't see it any differently than if I had asked a friend, "Hey, how do I do this one thing that I can't seem to do?"

Story

I'm going to leave this section almost blank as finding out the story is part of the game and the experience.  I will say that the story is pretty well done for a short-ish three hour game.  I will say though that the story was pretty engaging and everything that I initially had questions about while playing the game were answered by the end.  Like, why the hell are you stuck in a box for the whole game?

There were only two instances during the whole game that I was forgetting about the story because I couldn't figure out what to do.  It did take me out of the game as I started thinking about the mechanics of the game and tried to think like a game designer, such as "Now what would be the purpose of having a robot carry around a cookie tin filled with oil?  If I were a game designer, where would I want the player to put this?"  I'm not going to cite the game for that as it's supposed to be difficult and there were times when I went around to every room I could access and looking at every screen/view I could, trying to figure out what to do with that damned oil.  Eventually I did figure it out (on my own) and felt very accomplished once I located, um, what it was that I was supposed to locate.

Graphics

I thought the graphics in the game looked great.  I was very impressed, considering it was an $8 download game, albeit from a reputed developer like Level 5.

I don't know really what else to add about how the graphics were/looked.  I was impressed; I thought they looked good; I felt the art fit the world and didn't seem out of place.  It was a good looking game.

3D Effectiveness

The 3D effects in the game never felt overdone, blurry or even out of place.  There wasn't anything that was flying out of the screen at you and I felt having the 3D slider at 50-75% helped to add depth (pun not intended) to the visuals.  The game could be played just fine without the 3D effect turned on.

Most of the effect was in the visual screen of the robot in the foreground with the environment pushed out in the background.

Music/Sound

There is a very distinct lack of music in The Starship Damrey, which works very well.  With the exception of one or two musical cues, all the sound in the game is ambient background noise and practical sounds.  Everything that makes noise in the game sounds how I imagine a robot aboard a space vessel would sound.  It was a pretty minimalist score.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed The Starship Damrey.  It was a fun game that updated a style of gameplay that isn't made too much anymore.  Because games of the early '80s had many limitations, point-and-click were pretty common, so to find that type of game today and not only looks great and plays great, but also expects a lot from the player and doesn't treat them like a novice, that's something that I really like both about the game and Level 5.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental