Short Thoughts On IF Comp 2009 Games V

The Duel That Spanned The Ages: Episode One: The Age Of Machines: Apart from the unwieldy title, this is quite good.

The game is very much like an IF version of a SF corridor shooter (think Doom with world building ambitions). Now, that's not really the sort of experience I look for in my Interactive Fiction, but it is well paced and well done with simple and mostly logical puzzles and enticing hints at an interesting backstory (to be revealed in Episode Two, I suppose?). It's really rather fun in an action movie type of way. I would have wished for a slightly more flavorful implementation of the protagonist's physical state (two broken legs should be painful enough to colour every description of movement, and not just an impediment for jumping, for example), a few random spider attacks less (because shooting the first one already showed that I understood how to get rid of them - further repetition seemed a little boring), and a slightly grander feeling finale, although I approve of the importance of the "smash" command (insert appropriate "puny humans" joke here).

 

Beta Tester: What I have seen of the writing here is pretty funny, alas it being a puzzle heavy game (or so I suppose) without in-game hints or a walkthrough and me being bad at puzzles means that I got stuck very early on without any possibility to continue.

As an impatient kind of guy, I interpret this as "the author doesn't actually want me to play his game", hand out a low vote, and play something else.

 

The Believable Adventures of Invisible Man: Turns out that being invisible isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I was surprised to learn that getting around while being invisible is more difficult than it would be for a visible person - at least if you want to carry something around with you. The puzzles here are a mix of bad adventure game logic and tediousness. The nasty tone of the game's humor and its tendency to make something that should be exciting (I'm invisible, for Cthulhu's sake!) into just another chore to muddle through don't do much to endear it to me either. (Also, "undress" is a command worth implementing if the protagonist is going to drop his or her clothes).

 

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Short Thoughts On IF Comp 2009 Games IV

The Ascot: For a CYOA-type piece in the random weirdness sub-genre of fantasy that only reacts to "yes" or "no" commands, this is somewhat neat. It might be slight, but that is very much what it is supposed to be - a fun little diversion with a hint of charm. I could again complain about a lack of ambition, but that's not something I found myself caring about much while playing.

 

Condemned: Very much on the other side of the IF spectrum is this. It is not a successful piece of IF at all - the implementation seems spotty, the flow between the metaphorical level and the game's reality does not work as well as it should, the writing is spirited but too often wallows in rather overblown metaphors - but it truly has the ambition too many of the games I have played until now lack.

The problem here seems to me that the author is straining his writing and design abilities to the breaking point and just isn't experienced enough to reach his goals yet.

But do I need to stress that I prefer someone's flawed attempt at an ambitious goal to the games which aren't even trying to do something interesting?

 

Spelunker's Quest: The title threatens a certain amount of old-schoolness and the game keeps its promise. So you find yourself traipsing through a cave full of things the game doesn't see anything special about, collecting treasures and fighting monsters for no particular reason. I suppose it is quite alright for what it is - at least it seems clearly and semi-fairly designed and without major bugs.

The trouble is I don't think it is time well spent to design or play a cave-traipsing game that doesn't do anything different from all the other cave-traipsers (yes, I wish that to become the official genre name) that have come before. But that could just be me, in this case.

 

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Short Thoughts On IF Comp 2009 Games III

The yearly IF Comp has started once again, and this time I'm going to try and judge again. Since my blog has changed a bit since the last time I did this, I'll keep this short and talk about more than one game per entry so as not to bore my non-IF interested readers to tears. Don't worry, my babbling about films will continue in its usual pace throughout.

 

Interface: A perfectly nice little romp, solidly written if a little ambitionless (that word again). The first game in the comp this year I have played that didn't seem out to annoy or bore me, so that's definitely a plus. The game is based on a design the author wrote when he was 14 and it shows in the silliness of the plot and a lack of complexity. Well, it's still a small friendly game.

 

Byzantine Perspective: Oh joy, another one puzzle game which doesn't make a lot of sense if you don't understand its puzzle. The Internet tells me what this is all about, but I can promise you, without it I'd still stare at the game and its walkthrough in disbelief and puzzlement. It doesn't help the game that it hinders you from doing perfectly logical things (like taking off your goggles) because that would ruin the puzzle (or help you understand what's going on on your own, which would make the whole affair fun for the slower among us, and we obviously can't have that).

It's decently written, but what's the use when the one trick the one trick pony does doesn't work for me?

 

The Hangover: I know, it's not nice to make fun of the grammatically challenged, but descriptions of "ill-loking" beds, fear of apostrophes and sentences like "I'm pitty you for the sole fact that you actually sleep there", not to speak of the author's misuse of the word "women" - you know, the sort of stuff a little spellchecking and editing could have avoided - don't leave me with much of a choice.

At least there's no hidden gem behind the terrible writing, instead, it's the sort of illogical mess you'd expect, full of exactly the same implementation problems every second comp game has had since the beginning of the comp. I'll never understand why someone would want to submit something like this, I think - there's a large amount of reviews online that should teach anyone willing to listen exactly what not to do and still we get pieces like this wasting our time.

 

Yon Astounding Castle! of some sort: This seems to be wholly written in a completely unfunny mock olde English and is therefore completely unpalatable.

 

GATOR-ON!: And another "trundling through barely described locations with no particular goals the game bothers to explain" game. The lack of signposting wouldn't be a problem if there was any feeling of exploration here, but the lack of descriptive depth puts a stop to that possibility. The puzzles are on the easy but tedious side. Tip: if you need the player to repeat a single command at nauseam, don't expect him to have any fun or interest in continuing. At least there are no typos or grammatical problems to speak of here, but you know what? That's not a feature, it's a matter of course.

(Yes, I am getting less tolerant and more sarcastic as the barrage of crap continues. Give me a game that's at least trying to be good, and I'll probably not mock it, but if you as a game's author can't even bother to use a spell checker or keep your game's critical path clear of game-breaking bugs or try to break my brain through tedious repetition, you can't expect to be treated better than a door to door salesman.)

 

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Short Thoughts on IF Comp 2009 Games II

The yearly IF Comp has started once again, and this time I'm going to try and judge again. Since my blog has changed a bit since the last time I did this, I'll keep this short and talk about more than one game per entry so as not to bore my non-IF interested readers to tears. Don't worry, my babbling about films will continue in its usual pace throughout.

Earl Grey: I would have loved to like this word puzzle based effort more than I actually did, mostly for its initial cleverness and lightness of tone. Alas, the puzzle solutions feel much too random to be satisfying - okay, so I can turn this piece of paper into a pauper, but why should I want to?

I also seem to have put the game in an unwinnable state later on in a timed sequence I didn't even understand in the first place. That looks like it's pointing to the game's core problem, really - there is nothing in it guiding the player in the direction she is meant to go at any given time, leaving one randomly typing from the walkthrough to achieve some arbitrary goal.

 

zork, buried chaos: How much of this is to be read as a homage to Zork, others should be more qualified to explain. Personally, I find the Zorks historically important for the form, but much too tedious and sparse to actually play through them.

"Sparse" is a fitting description for this one too. There's nary a sentence longer than six words in here, most objects aren't examinable, the whole thing is lacking in character so completely I at first was not sure if it was supposed to be parody. Fortunately, a merry bunch of typos riddle the text and make something as clever and obtuse as conceptual satire look quite unlikely as an explanation.

As an experience, this is a little depressing, demonstrating a complete lack in imagination (favorite room description: "maze", I kid you not), charm - really anything that would make the old trundling through a dungeon routine bearable.

Then there are niggling implementation problems like the fact that you can "turn on" a brass lantern, but not "light" it. And hey, following the walkthrough it's a lamp, not a lantern, but of course a walkthrough and the game it is for shouldn't have too much to do with each other to keep up a player's sense of adventure and so the game's second (or third, depending on how you count) maze can't be solved with its help anyway. Logic is of course right out. Not that you'd need the walkthrough for the rest if not for the problematic implementation.

 

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Short Thoughts on IF Comp 2009 Games I

The yearly IF Comp has started once again, and this time I'm going to try and judge again. Since my blog has changed a bit since the last time I did this, I'll keep this short and talk about more than one game per entry so as not to bore my non-IF interested readers to tears. Don't worry, my babbling about films will continue in its usual pace throughout.

Star Hunter: Not a very auspicious beginning. Shallow, buggy implementation meets bland writing in a SF scavenger hunt that doesn't even try to pull the player in with new-fangled things like story, world-building or vaguely interesting language. Add to that early puzzles which are badly clued (which is to say, not at all) and based on not explaining the use of objects the player character should have extensive knowledge about, and see me quit the game very early never to return.

 

Eruption: Well, if all went my way, it would be forbidden for games to start like this one with the player waking up in a cave with some sort of memory loss. I also wouldn't allow for authors to enter their exercise games into the comp or anywhere else where I could stumble over them. Alas, my time as world dictator has not yet come.

My personal little problems put aside, this very short and slight piece turns out to be reasonably well written, solidly implemented and thoroughly competent. Alas, it's also maddeningly ambitionless and quite dull, because it is nothing besides competent.

 

Gleaming the Verb: Possibly even shorter than Eruption, this is basically one single word puzzle without anything of any interest going on. I'm not too sure I'd even call this IF, what with its absence of, well, fiction and its lack of interactivity beyond one single type of interaction. Even so, at least it's a thoroughly inoffensive game.

 

Trap Cave: A CYOA piece in English and German (I played the German version) that seem to be trying to keep in the spirit of the classic Fighting Fantasy books. Alas, it mostly finds the player trundling through a generic fantasy dungeon with dreadful design features like insta-death rooms and lacks in coherence.

The fixed window size of the (homebrew?) CYOA system makes for a squinty reading experience on a modern monitor. The German version also has its fair share of grammar problems, although nothing too terrible.

 

Technorati-Tags: if comp 2009,if,games

There is only links!

ITEM! The philosophical journal has made its fourth volume downloadable as one of those fancy PDFs. If you can take a little jargon, go hither and read the words of people with names like Mieville, Ligotti and Houellebecq talk about horror. Swanky!

 

ITEM! In the world of the independent video game, Annie Carlson & Brian Mitsoda (both formerly of Obsidian) are doing their own thing now in the form of a zombie apocalypse survival RPG! Which certainly is a mouth full, and also quite exactly something I very much want to play right now. Exciting!

 

ITEM! Keeping with the video games, SPAG editor Jimmy Maher has graced us with a piece of IF (that's the fancy word for text adventure) based on a rather excellent Call of Cthulhu scenario. The King of Shreds and Patches features certain Elisabethan playwrights, Doctor John Dee, the plague and the King in Yellow, and while some of the puzzles are a little long-winded, the whole experience is quite wonderful (and free). It's also full of the thematic and narrative kinks most dear to my heart. Kinky!

 

ITEM! The great Caitlin R. Kiernan has a new book out, called The Red Tree. It is (that word again) excellent and takes everything I always loved about weird fiction and drags it into the 21st century. She has also stuffed her website full of enticing pieces of evidence regarding the titular tree. Machenesque!

 

ITEM! Another site full of free legal music downloads has reared its head in the form of gimmesound.com. Musicians get paid out of the site's ad revenue (some money also goes to charity), so it's recommended you keep your adblockers off for once, and enjoy stumbling upon new music. Musical!

 

Technorati-Tags: links,stuff,games,music,books

The best thing about videogames?

Is that people can play them somewhat against the grain. Look at what this gentleman is doing with The Sims 3! The rather sad adventures of a homeless girl and her mad father, at once funny and really more than a little poignant.

 

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Still just linkblogging

BUT this fine little blog post is one of the more interesting things about Fallout 3 I've read and makes me quite sad that it won't be in my budget until March.

What I am hoping for from Bethesda's next game (Elder Scrolls 5: The Scrollening?) is actually that they'll leave out the main quest completely. It has always been the worst written and worst designed part of their games, so - why not just cut it out completely and put the zots into designated writers for the rest of the game?

Of course, the exploration aspect sounds oh so very enticing to someone who put 130+ hours into Oblivion without ever doing more than the first three steps of the main quest that one does think about finding someone to mug.

Also, the linked post contains the awesome sentence "Essentially, it's Dubliners with guns.".

 

Technorati-Tags: games,rpg,links

Philosophy and videogames

MMO design god/guru/whatever/don't ask me I don't really play MMOs Raph Koster is known to take a very systemic approach to design.

This is what he has to say about torture.

How could one not link to a post explaining how and why torture is bad game design?

 

Technorati-Tags: links,games,people what are clever

"When shall we three meet again...?"

I know, link-blogging is not very creative, but sometimes I just have to point in the direction of the witch.

 

Technorati-Tags: links,games,horror

Buy a life!

Independent game/flash/comic artist Edmund McMillen sells a CD containing his whole artistic output of the last ten years for $10.

If I had the money right now, I'd run and buy it at once.

Skeptical? Look at the trailer!

Now go buy!

 

Technorati-Tags: links,games,art

I just knew

my knowledge of Lovecraftian videogames wasn't complete.

An FPS for the Virtual Boy, no less!

 

Technorati-Tags: games,lovecraft,links

If someone wants

a Beta access key to the new Good Old Games digital distribution site for older games, I have one on offer.

GOG concentrates on older games, low prices and no DRM. The selection isn't all that big (believe it or not, many major publishers won't even sell their five years or more old games without DRM shackles, as if anyone who wanted to copy these games wouldn't already have done so), but there are some real classics for very little money on offer, as well as great support.

The first commenter who wants the key shall get it.

 

Technorati-Tags: stuff,games

Why it is a bad idea to pay for your games

In one word: DRM.

I bought Spore today, on its release day, and I am still quite hopeful that it will be a good game, but of course the game has the need for online activation.

Which wouldn't be a problem if its activation servers were actually accessible (well, the error message tells me I have no Internet connection, but since I am on the Net right now and have even deactivated my firewall, it's obvious where the problem lies). As the Internet tells me, I am not the only one.

And you know what? If I hadn't paid a whopping €54 for the game and instead downloaded a pirated copy, I would be playing it right now.

Great job, thanks EA.

 

Technorati-Tags: games,rants,DRM is still evil

Most thoughtful piece of games writing this year?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/08/21/steps-towards-an-elitist-critic-future/

 

Technorati-Tags: games. links,clever people

I'm probably never going to play it,

but damn, Age of Conan just cracks me up. First the "shrinking breast size" bug, then the heavy interest in Succubus nipples, now this - lends new dimensions to the word "mature".

 

Technorati-Tags: games,links,stuff

A few thoughts about the Silent Hill movie

When Silent Hill came out in 2006, many critics (even some of those who actually understand genre films) were exceedingly underwhelmed by it. I never understood exactly why, but re-watching it gave me some ideas:

• It's a videogame movie, and because videogames are unworthy and juvenile, a movie derived from a videogame cannot be good.
• Many people are still unprepared to embrace artificiality in films. A film like this, which is dominated by a very conscious artificiality in set design, camera work and acting (although I admit some of the actors could just not be all that great) is something not everyone can appreciate.
• Silent Hill's plot is so loose it is basically not a plot at all. But in the context of a movie about a woman entering a place that is an extended metaphor for her subconscious, plot shouldn't be (and can't be) handled in a traditional way.
• The film has no interest in its few male characters. The male-lead sub-plot is its greatest weakness. That is of course perfectly all right with me.
• Characterization is handled in a weird way, less by the actors emoting (which they do anyway), or their reactions to the things they see, but by the way these things relate to them, a little like in Argento's Inferno.
• Not everyone is a Silent Hill fanboy like me.

 

Technorati-Tags: american movies,horror,thoughts,silent hill,christophe gans,roger avary,videogames

What the hell!?

http://home.wildit.net.au/hellohelloben/mystery.html

Guild Wars and me

The unthinkable has happened. With Guild Wars I have found an MMORPG I actually like. Given my hatred of most things World of Warcraft or Eve (the two MMOs I had actually tried before Guild Wars) this comes as quite a surprise for me.

Since I am very, very late to the GW party, just let me count the ways the game ignores, deconstructs or subverts just about everything I have always hated about its genre.

Firstly, the MMO-typical mass of idiots and other people you wouldn't want to meet in real life, even less while trying to have fun is absent from most of the game by judicious use of instancing. The only real public places are the city hubs and the PvP areas. The greater part of the game is played either with people whom you have partied up with or with decently capable NPCs.

This leads directly into the second point, much more immersive wilderness and dungeons, without those goddamn queues of people waiting for boss monsters to spawn, which usually are a real immersion breaker for me. If I want to stand in a queue, I've got a supermarket just around the corner.

Thirdly I was surprised to find an MMO that wants to tell a story and actually knows how to do it. I'm not very far in at the moment, but even quite early in the game I have found actual writing and NPCs who feel a little deeper than that dwarf around the corner who just wants 300 goblin lungs (for his breakfast, I suppose). Most of the sidequests tend a to be about killing something or other, but they are decently integrated into the plot. You always have a reason to do what you do.

Fourthly: There is no grinding! I repeat: No grinding!

Fifthly: The skill and attribute systems reward diversity. You can't ruin a character's build, because everything is reconfigurable in the next hub. The most interesting in-game rewards are in the form of new skills.

Sixthly: Even PvP play is fun and has a certain air of friendliness surrounding it, a little like baseball, again thanks to the use of instancing and a highly regulated environment that doesn't allow people to act like asshats.

Seventhly: No monthly fees.

 

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Demo Impressions: On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness

Since Steam now offers the official Penny Arcade game, too, I decided to try out the demo. I have to admit I find the comic itself not all that funny. Many strips seem to be all little complacent to be funny for me.

And the demo is actually a lot less funny. The humor feels forced, I had the terrible feeling that the game permanently tried to grab me by the lapels and scream "look how funny I am" into my face.

This alone wouldn't ruin a game with interesting mechanics and/or inventive puzzles for me, but the mechanics are an uninspired mess of everything that is bad about Japanese console RPGs (grinding, grinding, leveling without any decisions, semi-interactive dialogue, oh, and grinding) and the usual item hunt, combined with such interesting activities as bashing chests and trash cans to find healing items.

So I am glad I could play a demo instead of shelling out $20 for an exercise in self-indulgence without any new or at least entertaining ideas.

I'd recommend buying a Sam & Max episode instead. Those are often actually funny and go for half the price of this trainwreck, whose only advantage are really pretty graphics.

 

Technorati-Tags: games,adventure,rpg,demo impressions