Group Question

I have noticed that there has not been a lot of activity probably because we all have lives and don't always have to play and then review a game. I personally have been working on my on personal gaming blog that can be seen here. My site is more of an editorial/dev diary for a project I am working on.

So I was thinking why not expand this blog to more general game news and analyze that.  I say that because it takes less time to have an opinion on say Xbone DRM news than play and review a game. Of course this  is just one way to expand our conversation on video games. Plus it give me a shamless plug for my site.  So everyone discuss, give a yea or nay , or just ignore if you want to roll like that.

Side note - if anyone wants to help collaborate on my blog or drop some info(I give credit to my sources) feel free to get in contact with me.

Now Playing Cthulhu Saves the World

From Cthulhu's Steam page:

The lord of insanity, Cthulhu was all set to plunge the world into insanity and destruction when his powers were sealed by a mysterious sorcerer. The only way for him to break the curse is to become a true hero. Save the world to destroy it in an epic parody RPG journey of redemption, romance, and insanity!

So when I say Cthulhu Saves The World is already one of my favourite games of 2011 you can be sure I've not been swayed by its astonishingly precise pastiche of early 1990s JRPG cliches, strident synth music, chunky menus and all. It's simply a really clever, hugely enjoyable game, and it's as much honest tribute as cheeky spoof.  -Eurogamer

It's rare to find a game that is both entertaining and genuinely funny, and so far Cthulhu Saves the World is both.  -Joystiq

Scheduling an RPG as a game club game makes me a bit nervous because of the genre's generally intense time commitments, but I think this game could inspire much nostalgia-filled conversation about the RPGs of days past, so it's worth a go.  HowLongToBeat says 7 hours.  7 hours seems manageable.  Are you ready to laugh?  I'm ready to laugh!

Cheers,

Danny

A Smartly Scoped Auto-Runner

The Button Affair is a side-scrolling platformer where the player-controlled character, Enzo Gabriel, is constantly running to the right.  As a player, you have limited control over Enzo's positioning on the screen, but you are in control of actions that allow Enzo to overcome the many deadly obstacles that litter his path to freedom.

I generally don't care for auto-runners.  I can't count how many endless runners on iOS I've abandoned.  I played and enjoyed BIT.TRIP Runner, but that enjoyment was fleeting, and I put it down after playing it for less than 90 minutes.  I loved the ways in which the music was so intimately tied to my actions in BIT.TRIP Runner, but the levels quickly became frustratingly hard, and the game lacked any kind of checkpoint system.  When I died, I was forced to play the level from the beginning.  I died often.

To me, The Button Affair is a less interesting game than BIT.TRIP Runner, but unlike BIT.TRIP Runner, The Button Affair did not outstay it's welcome.  The game consists of only three levels, and each level has a generous checkpoint system.  To a certain extent, all auto-runners not utilizing random level generation require some amount of trial and error from the player.  The Button Affair is no different, and I died numerous times before I was familiar enough with the level to progress past it.  When I died however, I was dropped back to the last checkpoint terminal, and was spared the frustration of having to commit the entire level to memory.

The Button Affair does experiment with a few novel features as far as auto-runners go.  First, the player has some amount of control over Enzo's velocity.  Pressing the right arrow speeds Enzo up, pressing the left arrow slows Enzo down, and in certain situations, releasing the right arrow stops Enzo completely.  Second, when Enzo reaches a checkpoint in a level, the player must input a specific pattern of keys to progress.  Neither feature is revolutionary, but they added enough variety to the gameplay to keep me interested through to the end.

Finally, the level of quality this game exhibits for being a free download is impressive.  The art and animation are great, the story is funny and genuinely enjoyable despite being so simple, and the gameplay is smart and expertly tailored.  The only complaint I can leverage against The Button Affair is the completely artificial choice the player is presented with at the game's conclusion.  I was given the choice to either save the girl who had been my partner in the heist or walk away with the jewel I so desperately wanted to steal.  I played this final sequence twice to see the consequences of both actions, and the game very clearly presents one choice as the "correct" choice.  Enzo was a fine protagonist, but as a result of the game being so brief, he was a character who lacked depth.  As a result, I thought it was strange that the developers expected me to know whether Enzo truly desired the girl or the jewel.  On my first playthrough, I got the "bad" ending because my vision of Enzo differed from that of the developers.  I did not like being punished for making the choice I honestly thought Enzo would've made in that situation.

I enjoyed playing The Button Affair, but this experience does not change my opinion of auto-runners.  Had the game been much longer, I believe I would've either grown frustrated, similar to what I experienced when playing BIT.TRIP Runner, or grown bored.  As it exists however, The Button Affair was smartly scoped, fun to play, and did not suffer from any kind of tedium.

Cheers,

Danny

Experience It And Derive Your Own Conclusions

Much of Kentucky Route Zero is dependent on players' interpretation of the game's events along with the dialog choices players make while playing.  Because of this heavy reliance on player interpretation, I'm not sure spoilers impact this game as severely as they do other narrative-driven games.  However, I will be discussing a few specific events that occur in Act I of Kentucky Route Zero, so if you're on a media blackout for this game, come back and read this post after you've had a chance to experience it for yourself.

Otherwise...

Kentucky Route Zero moves at a very deliberate pace.  Like the game, main character Conway travels along the backroads of Kentucky without urgency.  All through Act I, the game's pacing has been nothing but slow, a stark contrast when stood next to most of the video and board games I've been playing recently.  This slow pacing is a thing I quickly grew to love.

My favorite moment in the game occurred when Conway had to walk up a large hill with a busted leg.  Conway stood at the bottom of the hill, I clicked once on the landing at the crest of the hill, and Conway began his slow, beleaguered trek up.  As a player, there was nothing more for me to do until Conway finished climbing.  Many games actively avoid presenting players with lulls in interaction with the game's systems for fear of losing player interest.  The developers at Cardboard Computer obviously do not share this fear.  They never shy away from design decisions that force players to slow down, and I think the game benefits because if it.  As Conway limped up the hill, I paid a special attention to the spectacular environment art and equally spectacular ambient soundtrack that had been working so hard to create a setting I enjoyed exploring.  I actually had time to digest what I was experiencing.

This game, at least what Act I had on display, is a game with little player agency.  The only decisions I was allowed to make were dialog decisions, and these decisions had absolutely no influence on the arc of the main story.  However, while the main story barreled along a set path no matter what input I provided, the dialog decisions I did make had a HUGE affect on my perception of the story the game was trying to tell me, or rather, the story I was imprinting upon the game.

A perfect example of this was an encounter Conway had toward the beginning of the game.  Here, a man at a gas station asks Conway about the dog he is traveling with.  The three choices I was given in response were:

• "His name is Hunter."
• "Her name is Blue."
• "Just some dog: I don't know his name."

Right away when presented with these choices, I knew Blue and Conway had been together a long time.  Conway is a private man of few words, but he has always opened himself up to Blue.  For 11 years, Blue has been at Conway's feet for every story he's told.  She may be old, but Blue is the most vibrant thing in Conway's life.

This is the story I chose to tell, but another player's Conway might be traveling with a strange dog he picked up off the side of the highway only hours before the encounter at the gas station.  Again, the dialog choices I made had no impact on the overall story, but given dialog options that are so disparate, something I've never seen in story-driven games, helped me craft a very vivid and personal narrative.

More than anything else, Kentucky Route Zero feels authentic to me.  The setting, events, and inhabitants are unbelievably strange, but everything included in the world feels like it has purpose.  Admittedly, Kentucky Route Zero does not offer much gameplay in the traditional sense, but it has given me a welcomingly weird (I'm talking Twin Peaks weird!) interactive world that I want to explore more of.

Cheers,

Danny

Humble Bundle 8

The Humble Bundle 8 is live!  As of Friday afternoon, for $6 you can net 7 well-received indie games, 6 soundtracks, and Steam Keys for all 7 games!  The games bundled this time are Hotline Miami, Proteus, Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, and Dear Esther.  If any of these games make your insides tingle, speak up, buy the bundle, and I'll be sure to cement part of your purchase into the club's schedule of upcoming games!

Cheers,

Danny