A character’s sight and relationship to vision defines their place in Bloodborne’s narrative. We know that many characters within the narrative are seeking knowledge in the form or eyes or insight, but Bloodborne uses a more subtle language to reveal the truer nature of these characters and their ambitions. For instance, Gehrman “is obscure, unseen in the dreaming world,” indicating that his motives are hidden, since we can’t see all of him. Only when the dream begins to collapse at the end of the game does he occupy a single location and can always be seen there. Or when Eileen is badly injured and lies near death, she says "My eyes grow heavy..." There are a few different states of vision characters occupy within Bloodborne, and each informs their relationship to the world.
Characters with unrestricted vision are true in a way others are not. Very few characters have unadorned eyes, but those that do are honest characters who mean the player no harm. When Adella, Alfred, and Arianna speak to you with no obstruction to their vision, they speak truthfully and provide assistance. When there is an inkling of Adella’s jealousy, her eyes wander to Arianna while you speak with her. Adella's eyes betray her intent. When Alfred reveals his truer, darker nature, he does so while wearing a helm that covers his eyes. Another character whose eyes are unadorned is the blind Oeden Chapel Dweller, who is an honest, friendly man the entirety of the game, despite having no sight at all. An anomaly is Patches the Spider, one we know to be untrustworthy, but has the right number of unadorned eyes for a human. But Patches is not human. And for a Spider his eyes are somewhat lacking. Whatever make him a spider is unclear, but he is untrustworthy because his eyes, and perhaps his form, are not what they should be.
We also see that characters with restricted vision almost entirely restrict it of their own volition, and this is how we know they are naïve and untrustworthy. Early characters like the Blood Minister who performs our transfusion and Father Gascoigne have their eyes shrouded by bandages, as do Vicar Amelia and the Transformed Man found in the Forbidden Woods. The bandages imply an attempt at healing, but we know that the symptoms of the beast plague affect the eyes. Our “beastly idiocy” is counteracted by insight, represented as eyes. So these characters shut their eyes to the truth, and become beasts for it. Alfred restricts his sight when he commits his most beast-like act. In fact, the item description of the Gold Ardeo tells us that Logarius taught “acts of good are not always wise.” Since his band of executioners wear this helm, it connects a lack of wisdom to a lack of (in)sight. Similarly, the Bigoted Old Man hides his eyes under his hat and tells you nothing but lies. One character’s vision is restricted against their will: Annalise’s. Even though Annalise can’t be killed, she is not fully bound to her position, she is instead placed in an iron mask. Ignoring its clear literary reference, her punishment is not only losing her lifestyle, and castle, but her vision. Further, she is kept in a place covered by an illusion. She cannot see or be seen. That is the greatest punishment that can be inflicted upon her.
Other characters restrict their sight in the name of knowledge, thinking human eyes insufficient. Micholash and the School of Mensis wear cages on their heads to focus their vision and attune themselves to the Great Ones, but their knowledge is fleeting, on the edge of becoming vacuous. Their experiments result "in the stillbirth of their brains." We know that Rom is the most advanced scholar of Byrgenwerth, but Rom is Vacuous, empty. Rom rests within a great lake. We know that “great volumes of water serve as a bulwark guarding sleep,” which makes sense. It is difficult to see through water to the dream, water refracts and muddies our vision. Rom is stuck within the water, a place between dreams, and so she cannot see in either direction. Her colleagues assume ascension, but we know that her sight cannot penetrate the barriers of her cage. Another place adrift between dreams is the lecture building, where the students themselves have become like water, and their looks reveal that same vacuous nature. Their eye sockets are empty. Master Willem attempt ascension himself, but blocks his own eyes with a blindfold the Choir also wears in reverence of his teachings. Master Willem was “Disillusioned by the limits of human intellect” and “sought to line his brain with eyes,” but this leaves him a slowly mutating, malformed person lacking the ability to meaningfully communicate. Even if he is the most learned of NPCs we meet, he is unable to ascend his mind, since we find him unable to even move from his position at Byrgenwerth.
But what about you? What does the player see? Our vision is constantly changing the more insight we get. Many changes show us more and more eyes in places where they were not. But I think what’s more important is to consider how we are seen, how the game sees us. And the strange thing is, it doesn’t. No one describes seeing us. Annalise says “Away from my gaze.” But that line resembles her situation: a frail semblance of a power and position she no longer holds. She cannot see you through the blindfold of her mask. The one real exception is Iosefka. She says “Once the hunt is over, we can speak face to face, and I can see what you look like.” Iosefka will never know, since she is killed and replaced by an imposter, who like all others, describes your smell. Annalise calls you a “Moon-scented hunter,” and Imposter Iosefka notices your infiltration by your “moonlit scents.” Gascoigne’s daughter says “I don’t know your face, but I know that smell.” Even the Bigoted Old Man indicates that he “Can’t stand the stench o’ your lying breath.” The only character who should notice your scent first is the Oeden Chapel Dweller because he’s blind, but he doesn’t because “the incense must’ve masked your scent.” Arianna notes you have “a queer scent, but one I’m not entirely unfond of.” We might assume this to be the smell of blood, but she has an alternate to that line which ends “but I’d take it over the stench of blood and beasts any day.” I think way we are talked about tells us that our look is our own choice, and the way we define ourselves within the game. When killed by Gascoigne, he remarks “too proud to show your true face, eh?” We’ve largely taken this to mean he believes our beast, but it’s an interesting topic to consider more deeply.
What is our true face in Bloodborne? Is it the bestial face others see when we’re attacked on the streets of Yharnam? Is it the face we put on our character, then hide under hats and helms? Or is it the face that stares back at us from the mirror each morning? Or do we achieve something greater? We have three choices for the end of our Bloodborne story. We can keep watch over the dream, never ascending or escaping, stuck in-between like the Vacuous Rom. We can choose to forget the dream and awake anew, but this is what gives up our sight, as we shut our eyes to all that came before. Or we can choose to advance, to gain wondrous insight and surpass humanity becoming an infant Great One. We should take note that our new form possesses no eyes. What is our place in Bloodborne’s narrative? It’s our decision. If we awaken anew, we are accepting the vision of the world we awaken to. If we hold onto the dream, we keep ourselves in a limbo, with our gained knowledge, but unable to see beyond our prison. If we push on and are reborn as something new, we’ve given up what we were become something we simply cannot comprehend. The only character who guides us with unrestricted sight is the Plain Doll. She suggests we “find our worth in the waking world.” She could mean the waking world within Yharnam, or she could mean the world where we put down our controller. The world we really see. The ending you pick says a lot about you, and how you want to be seen.
Tuesday, November 3
Monday, October 5
The Beginner's Guide
Sunday, October 4
100 Games 2015
Most recent article: Candy Crush Saga
Here is a list of 100 games I will be playing over the next year. It's... daunting, and not the kind of thing I've ever done before, but it's also very exciting. I'm going to be posting about each one, giving a general impression, but mostly trying to find the most interesting aspect of the game and talk about that. If you have suggestions for future games, please let me know, and if you like what you read here, or think I'm missing an important point, speak your mind in comments. Thanks, and here we go.
Here is a list of 100 games I will be playing over the next year. It's... daunting, and not the kind of thing I've ever done before, but it's also very exciting. I'm going to be posting about each one, giving a general impression, but mostly trying to find the most interesting aspect of the game and talk about that. If you have suggestions for future games, please let me know, and if you like what you read here, or think I'm missing an important point, speak your mind in comments. Thanks, and here we go.
1.
A Mind Forever Voyaging
2.
A Ride Home
3.
Ace Combat 5
4.
Assassin's Creed: Recollection
5.
Babies Dream of Dead Worlds
6.
Bars of Black and White
7.
Beneath a Steel Sky
9.
Bloodborne
11.
Bushido Blade
12.
Cabela's Big Game Hunting
13.
Candy Crush Saga
14.
The Castle Doctrine
16.
The Cat and the Coup
17.
Chrono Trigger
18.
Combat
19.
Crusader Kings II
20.
Curtain
21.
The Dark Meadow
22.
Day of the Tentacle
23.
Day Z
24.
Deus Ex
25.
Digital Devil Saga
26.
Dungeon Keeper
27.
Dwarf Fortress
28.
Echochrome
30.
End of Us
31.
Ether One
32.
E.V.O.: Search for Eden
33.
Exploit
34.
Fallen London
35.
Fallout 2
36.
Fate of the World
37.
Grim Fandango
38.
Half-Life 2
40.
Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing
41.
Jade Empire
42.
Jet Set Radio Future
43.
King's Field II
44.
Kingdom of Loathing
45.
Kirby Super Star
46.
Knights of the Old Republic
47.
League of Legends
48.
Legend of Grimrock
50.
Lone Survivor
51.
Machinarium
52.
Madden
53.
Mass Effect 3
54.
Monaco: What's Yours is Mine
55.
M.U.L.E.
58.
Passage
59.
Planescape: Torment
60.
Populous: The Beginning
61.
Procrastination
62.
Quest for Glory
63.
Realm of the Mad God
64.
Rehearsals and Returns
65.
Resident Evil
66.
Risk of Rain
67.
Road Rage
68.
Secret of Mana
69.
Shadowrun
70.
Silent Conversation
71.
The Sims 3
72.
Skies of Arcadia Legends
73.
Song of Saya
74.
Spacechem
75.
Spacewar
76.
Starcraft
77.
Suikoden II
79.
Super Metroid
80.
The Swapper
81.
System Shock 2
82.
Thief II: Deadly Shadows
83.
This War of Mine
84.
To The Moon
85.
Transistor
86.
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
87.
Ultima VII: The Black Gate
88.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
89.
Uplink
90.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War
91.
Walk or Die
92.
The Walking Dead: Season 2
94.
Wing Commander: Privateer
96.
Xenogears
97.
Xevious
98.
Yakuza 3
99.
Yoshi's Island
100. Zork
I: The Great Underground Empire
Candy Crush Saga - Ascribing Amorality to Sugar
I feel like I know exactly the wrong amount sometimes. When playing Candy Crush Saga, I could feel myself getting angry at their methods, getting angry at the way the game uses fantastic engagement techniques to make you want to spend just a few bucks to complete a level. I don’t like feeling like I’m being extorted, but I also feel like I’m not fully appreciating how good the design of Candy Crush is.
Candy Crush is staggeringly popular, and brings in around a million dollars a day. I can see why. It uses tons of tricks and subtle pushes to make you want to keep playing. And when you were only a couple of moves from beating a level, it helpfully offers you the ability to purchase a few more. There are colours and sounds reminiscent of most Match-3 games, but there’re also elements that play on your competitive nature. When you beat almost any level, you’ll get a popup telling you about a player you just beat. Whether you pulled ahead of them in terms of level completion or you bested their score, the game congratulates you and makes you want to beat more people. It also doesn’t tell you how you rank really reflects on the world of the game. I know that I beat King52143578764 on this level, and that now I’m ranked #2, but I also know that I’m not #2 in the world. At best, I’m #2 out of all ten people playing on this partitioned area.
But it works. There’s a part of me that gets excited when I think of being one of the best scores on that level, when I think about being a goal other players aspire to. It’s ridiculous, and constantly changing. I know other people passed me while I was playing, and I know some of them beat my scores after I’d gone by. But I wasn’t shown that. I’m only shown my successes, except when my failures can be a revenue source.
I don’t hate games that want to make money. I buy games at full price all the time because I want the creators to be paid for their work and I want to support projects that interest me. But Candy Crush feels undeserving. It asks of me my time and money, but doesn’t seek to really give anything back.
The first time I failed a level, I automatically dove back in, because I wanted to beat it. That feeling was stronger than I wanted, but that’s what the game does. Anyway, when I tried the second time, everything fell into place. I won with a bunch of moves left, beat the goal score about five to six times over, and had tons of lights and sounds and points flash on the screen. This is where I felt most in the middle on my understanding. I felt like I was being tricked, like the game made my return great to solidify my sense of accomplishment, rather than providing me with the challenge I wanted, to make me feel like I should always win. But at the same time, that style doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Shouldn’t Candy Crush just make me feel like I could win if only I purchased a couple more turns? This was an early level, so maybe the game curves into that, but the truth is, I only have a half-understanding of this strategy.
Candy Crush is worth my time in the same way a McDonalds burger is worth my appetite. It will sate, but I’m probably going to look on it as a waste. I spent hours and hours of my life playing Bejeweled some time ago, and even in hindsight I don’t think that time was wasted. Bejeweled was a great way to relax, like meditating. Candy Crush’s sounds and visuals are a little too harsh to provide the same. I don’t want to play it, but I should learn from it, because it’s hooked its audience like few drugs can.
Candy Crush is staggeringly popular, and brings in around a million dollars a day. I can see why. It uses tons of tricks and subtle pushes to make you want to keep playing. And when you were only a couple of moves from beating a level, it helpfully offers you the ability to purchase a few more. There are colours and sounds reminiscent of most Match-3 games, but there’re also elements that play on your competitive nature. When you beat almost any level, you’ll get a popup telling you about a player you just beat. Whether you pulled ahead of them in terms of level completion or you bested their score, the game congratulates you and makes you want to beat more people. It also doesn’t tell you how you rank really reflects on the world of the game. I know that I beat King52143578764 on this level, and that now I’m ranked #2, but I also know that I’m not #2 in the world. At best, I’m #2 out of all ten people playing on this partitioned area.
But it works. There’s a part of me that gets excited when I think of being one of the best scores on that level, when I think about being a goal other players aspire to. It’s ridiculous, and constantly changing. I know other people passed me while I was playing, and I know some of them beat my scores after I’d gone by. But I wasn’t shown that. I’m only shown my successes, except when my failures can be a revenue source.
The first time I failed a level, I automatically dove back in, because I wanted to beat it. That feeling was stronger than I wanted, but that’s what the game does. Anyway, when I tried the second time, everything fell into place. I won with a bunch of moves left, beat the goal score about five to six times over, and had tons of lights and sounds and points flash on the screen. This is where I felt most in the middle on my understanding. I felt like I was being tricked, like the game made my return great to solidify my sense of accomplishment, rather than providing me with the challenge I wanted, to make me feel like I should always win. But at the same time, that style doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Shouldn’t Candy Crush just make me feel like I could win if only I purchased a couple more turns? This was an early level, so maybe the game curves into that, but the truth is, I only have a half-understanding of this strategy.
Candy Crush is worth my time in the same way a McDonalds burger is worth my appetite. It will sate, but I’m probably going to look on it as a waste. I spent hours and hours of my life playing Bejeweled some time ago, and even in hindsight I don’t think that time was wasted. Bejeweled was a great way to relax, like meditating. Candy Crush’s sounds and visuals are a little too harsh to provide the same. I don’t want to play it, but I should learn from it, because it’s hooked its audience like few drugs can.
Saturday, October 3
El-Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron - Solum Visio
El-Shaddai is a hack and slash 3D and side-scrolling platformer with very simple gameplay. There are 3 weapons you can switch between or steal from enemies that have various movesets and affinities, and a variety of interesting boss encounters that use the simple mechanics well. The game doesn’t sell itself on any of that. It’s all about the visual design and narrative concept.
Some angels have gone rogue, fleeing to earth and creating a pocket dimension to hide from God, rock and roll all night, and party ev-er-y day. God’s all Old Testament about this and threatens to send another flood, but our protagonist Enoch volunteers to round up the angels if God will spare the Earth.
Also, Earth has become the cover of a Yes album. And Tron. And several other aesthetics that can be represented in high-contrast colour palettes.
El-Shaddai is about as style-over-substance as I’ve ever seen a game be. It’s got solid design where the design is, like eschewing a health bar (or any UI) for the amount of armour your character or target wears. New elements to the combat are introduced far apart to make them easy to play around with and understand, but I don’t think it’s actually necessary. The gameplay is simple and the additions minor enough that its learning curve is more of a gentle bump.
I like the visuals. The colourful environments don’t pull focus from the play, keep a consistent aesthetic for any given area, and do change to represent the power of the beings you’re up against. I would almost expect the game to be a Soulsian difficulty wall, but even the more elaborate boss fights don’t give you a deep verb set. Enoch just doesn’t have enough moves to develop or master.
I like the actual story design less. It feels really pushed to the side, many times told in short clips between levels, rather than through the aforementioned visuals. We get glimpses of what the angels have brought to the humans, like a futuristic city or fertile mountains, but they interact with the player in very minor ways, or not at all. I also don’t need a narrator to tell me how half-angel nephilim eating one another works. I can be shown that, super easily. I get to see it happen, but I don’t get to draw my own conclusions.
And this game would be even better, weirdly, if the story was more open to interpretation. Because characters are constantly talking about it around me while I do some uninspired, finicky platforming, I don’t get invested in the story. I don’t have to engage mentally.
Maybe that’s the most damning thing about El-Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, that it asks nothing of me. There are no puzzles, the hack-and-slashing is easy button mashing, and the platforming is rectangles hanging in the void. The games sells itself on visuals and concept, but doesn’t back it up with engagement, which some people consider the core goal of game design. It might be worth playing for the visuals and occasional silliness, but it doesn’t have enough fullness to be worth your time.
Some angels have gone rogue, fleeing to earth and creating a pocket dimension to hide from God, rock and roll all night, and party ev-er-y day. God’s all Old Testament about this and threatens to send another flood, but our protagonist Enoch volunteers to round up the angels if God will spare the Earth.
Also, Earth has become the cover of a Yes album. And Tron. And several other aesthetics that can be represented in high-contrast colour palettes.
El-Shaddai is about as style-over-substance as I’ve ever seen a game be. It’s got solid design where the design is, like eschewing a health bar (or any UI) for the amount of armour your character or target wears. New elements to the combat are introduced far apart to make them easy to play around with and understand, but I don’t think it’s actually necessary. The gameplay is simple and the additions minor enough that its learning curve is more of a gentle bump.
I like the actual story design less. It feels really pushed to the side, many times told in short clips between levels, rather than through the aforementioned visuals. We get glimpses of what the angels have brought to the humans, like a futuristic city or fertile mountains, but they interact with the player in very minor ways, or not at all. I also don’t need a narrator to tell me how half-angel nephilim eating one another works. I can be shown that, super easily. I get to see it happen, but I don’t get to draw my own conclusions.
And this game would be even better, weirdly, if the story was more open to interpretation. Because characters are constantly talking about it around me while I do some uninspired, finicky platforming, I don’t get invested in the story. I don’t have to engage mentally.
Maybe that’s the most damning thing about El-Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, that it asks nothing of me. There are no puzzles, the hack-and-slashing is easy button mashing, and the platforming is rectangles hanging in the void. The games sells itself on visuals and concept, but doesn’t back it up with engagement, which some people consider the core goal of game design. It might be worth playing for the visuals and occasional silliness, but it doesn’t have enough fullness to be worth your time.
Thursday, July 30
Hearthstone - Whoa Whoa Whoa, It's Magic
Magic: the Gathering is an extremely popular trading card game that began in 1993. It’s gone through some substantial rules changes, and new ones are getting introduced all the time. What’s weird is that no game has ever taken it over. There have been a ton a of trading card games since, like Bakugan, Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Pokemon Trading Card Game, and today’s subject: Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
Don’t worry if you don’t know Warcraft, Hearthstone is simple and has a good tutorial, you probably won’t get lost. I’d recommend playing it, because it’s fun and shiny and new and deep.
But is Hearthstone a better game than Magic? I’ve invested more than a couple hours in both (although only money in one), and there’s really only one major change Hearthstone makes to the Magic formula. There are minor things it does, like using persistent creature health that end up as memory problems in games like Magic.
Magic is based on two concepts: 1) There are five colours of cards, each with unique abilities, flavour, and philosophies, and 2) You can only play cards of a colour if you have the correct resources available. Each colour of card requires different resources, so you can’t generally play a deck with all five colours, because you won’t have access to the right resources at the right times.
This principle is the most major element of the game. Benefits include a strong sense of identity in the mechanics and colours, and opening design space for fixing and accelerating your acquisition of resources. The biggest negative is that sometimes, from no fault of your own, even a deck built as well as possible, with all the right ratios and nicely mapped curve, will draw too many resources and too little action, or the reverse. These events are known as Mana Flood, Mana Screw, and Godammit, again?! Really?!
Most games that ape the Magic formula try to remove this problem by incorporating resources into other cards. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, you play bigger monsters by discarding smaller ones. In some other games, every card is an action and a resource, and can be played either way.
There are some interesting arguments for keeping this problem in Magic. I think one of the more important ones, or at least the main argument for why Mana Flood and Screw are good things, is that it’s very helpful for newer players. It’s not fun for them to have it happen to them, but every so often, when I newer player is playing a veteran, the veteran will lose because of it. It’s rare; veterans know what hands to keep, what resources they need when, and just can generally outplay newer players. But, that one time it does happen, when that new player beats someone they look up to, it feels great. This is actually a really important part of multiplayer design. It’s the reason characters like Ike exist in Super Smash Bros., or weapons like the Noob Tube in Call of Duty. These are not the best strategies in any of those games, in fact they’re often some of the worst. But when they work, they work well.
If every time you stepped into a new multiplayer experience, you just got wrecked by every better player, the game would lose its charm very quickly.
There are always random elements in games. In Hearthstone, the game I swear I’m talking about, your deck is always shuffled, who goes first is random, and because it’s digital, it can do some random things with greater ease than paper games can. And those all help the balance in a variety of ways. But it does change the resource management. Not as much as other games, but instead of asking players to build a base of resources with cards designed around increasing its efficiency, Hearthstone loses a lot of really interesting design space.
There are a lot of great things about Hearthstone: it uses small numbers, like most games should, the animations and characters have lots of flavour, the pool of cards is huge, and the player base is varied enough that you can find casual and challenging fun at all levels. Is it a better game than Magic? Couldn't say. Give it a shot, and see what you think.
Don’t worry if you don’t know Warcraft, Hearthstone is simple and has a good tutorial, you probably won’t get lost. I’d recommend playing it, because it’s fun and shiny and new and deep.
But is Hearthstone a better game than Magic? I’ve invested more than a couple hours in both (although only money in one), and there’s really only one major change Hearthstone makes to the Magic formula. There are minor things it does, like using persistent creature health that end up as memory problems in games like Magic.
Magic is based on two concepts: 1) There are five colours of cards, each with unique abilities, flavour, and philosophies, and 2) You can only play cards of a colour if you have the correct resources available. Each colour of card requires different resources, so you can’t generally play a deck with all five colours, because you won’t have access to the right resources at the right times.
This principle is the most major element of the game. Benefits include a strong sense of identity in the mechanics and colours, and opening design space for fixing and accelerating your acquisition of resources. The biggest negative is that sometimes, from no fault of your own, even a deck built as well as possible, with all the right ratios and nicely mapped curve, will draw too many resources and too little action, or the reverse. These events are known as Mana Flood, Mana Screw, and Godammit, again?! Really?!
Most games that ape the Magic formula try to remove this problem by incorporating resources into other cards. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, you play bigger monsters by discarding smaller ones. In some other games, every card is an action and a resource, and can be played either way.
If every time you stepped into a new multiplayer experience, you just got wrecked by every better player, the game would lose its charm very quickly.
There are always random elements in games. In Hearthstone, the game I swear I’m talking about, your deck is always shuffled, who goes first is random, and because it’s digital, it can do some random things with greater ease than paper games can. And those all help the balance in a variety of ways. But it does change the resource management. Not as much as other games, but instead of asking players to build a base of resources with cards designed around increasing its efficiency, Hearthstone loses a lot of really interesting design space.
There are a lot of great things about Hearthstone: it uses small numbers, like most games should, the animations and characters have lots of flavour, the pool of cards is huge, and the player base is varied enough that you can find casual and challenging fun at all levels. Is it a better game than Magic? Couldn't say. Give it a shot, and see what you think.
Wednesday, July 29
Way of the Samurai 3 - Historical Sunglasses
Japanese culture is very interesting to me. Not so interesting that I’ve ever really sat down and studied it, more through the occasional glimpses into attitudes an perceptions. I wasn’t sure what kind of accuracy I would find in Way of the Samurai 3, but I was excited to see what the designers and developers decided was important about experiencing Japanese history.
Way of the Samurai 3 is the tale of you as a samurai who has just been through a violent and horrific battle, trying to discover what your place in the world was, and what you want it to be now. It seems to be set pretty concretely within the Warring States period, with that kind of historical chaos reflected in the game.
Here’s what I did in my playtime: Picked radishes, slept in a shack, defeated a bandit on the road, joined the local regent to shore up castle defenses, fetched supplies, wandered for a while, joined a bandit clan, took over the bandit clan, and made war on the local regent.
In 3 in-game days. In Skyrim I’d still have been learning to smith iron.
Permadeath is a weird concept to me, just because it seems so antithetical to games. But then, it’s strange that we ever came up with anything else. Games needed to keep you playing, keep you pumping in quarters or hours of your life. There was a system representing the number of attempts you had to play, which became lives, which became save points, which has become autosaving. And now iterative death is back in a big way.
Way of the Samurai 3 comes off like it’s a Japanese Skyrim experience, promising a growing character and changing open world, but it doesn’t deliver in an accessible way. When I spend hours building my character, acquiring weapons and slick sunglasses, I want that character to stick around; I’m invested in him. When he dies and is effectively gone forever, that’s running seriously counter to that desire.
The game has save points but no autosaves. And I’ve been spoiled by autosaving. Many of us have died nine or more hours into a play session without saving, and losing all that time is immensely frustrating. Way of the Samurai just sees that moment as the end of my story. I can choose to ignore that and go back to my save point, but then I find the whole treatment incongruous.
Is this a Binding of Isaac style iterative attack on a varied and practicable gamespace, or is it a Skyrim style empowerment fantasy where I, a lowly wounded warrior, grow to be the greatest Samurai in the land, on the backs of my power and servants? Way of the Samurai 3 balances precariously somewhere between, in a way that I don’t think is meant for me. I would like to delve into this kind of world, but preferably with options beyond “fight” or “grovel.”
Extra note, while searching for an image to accompany this post, I saw some nutty things. I don't think there's really supposed to be any historical accuracy here.
And while that's silly and neat, it'd be nice if the game would've led me to it and not to the boring fetch quests and characters that I found.
Way of the Samurai 3 is the tale of you as a samurai who has just been through a violent and horrific battle, trying to discover what your place in the world was, and what you want it to be now. It seems to be set pretty concretely within the Warring States period, with that kind of historical chaos reflected in the game.
Here’s what I did in my playtime: Picked radishes, slept in a shack, defeated a bandit on the road, joined the local regent to shore up castle defenses, fetched supplies, wandered for a while, joined a bandit clan, took over the bandit clan, and made war on the local regent.
In 3 in-game days. In Skyrim I’d still have been learning to smith iron.
Way of the Samurai 3 comes off like it’s a Japanese Skyrim experience, promising a growing character and changing open world, but it doesn’t deliver in an accessible way. When I spend hours building my character, acquiring weapons and slick sunglasses, I want that character to stick around; I’m invested in him. When he dies and is effectively gone forever, that’s running seriously counter to that desire.
Is this a Binding of Isaac style iterative attack on a varied and practicable gamespace, or is it a Skyrim style empowerment fantasy where I, a lowly wounded warrior, grow to be the greatest Samurai in the land, on the backs of my power and servants? Way of the Samurai 3 balances precariously somewhere between, in a way that I don’t think is meant for me. I would like to delve into this kind of world, but preferably with options beyond “fight” or “grovel.”
Extra note, while searching for an image to accompany this post, I saw some nutty things. I don't think there's really supposed to be any historical accuracy here.
Sunday, July 19
Echochrome - Relentless Motion Sickness
Echochrome is a perspective-based puzzle game that makes me want to throw up after about five minutes of play. I’ve tried many times and from different angles to see if I’m doing more damage to myself than I need to be, but nothing has helped. It’s the kind of game that makes me need to lie down, not least of which because it’s frustratingly hard.
The puzzles in Echochrome are clever, and the way it makes me think about space is interesting, but in the opening bits of the game I pressed a button and accidentally skipped the tutorial and could not find my way back to it, so most of my puzzling was left to self-discovery. Fortunately I’d learned enough to have a stable foothold and after a quick lie-down waiting for the room to cease spinning, I got through a few puzzles.
It really does feel like the game is intentionally trying to make me sick. Even the visual effect for hitting a checkpoint is nauseating.
The game is clever. It’s fun to figure out all the neat perspective tricks you can do, but I never felt the puzzles were inventive, like the system would let me find my own solution. It always felt like there was a right way I wasn’t finding. You can connect pieces of each area together seamlessly and your character can cross over them, but only if the connection is pixel-perfect. Countless times I would push the Go button and the figure would take a step, see my shoddy work, and turn away in disgust.
Echochrome has a staggering number of user-designed levels that seem so complex that I have no interest in hunkering down to learn them. It’s that kind of thing that happens to new Magic players when they hear about Legacy. I don’t know if the tutorial would’ve helped my feel much less stupid. The basics aren’t complex, but their iterative execution is intolerably precise and slow, made worse by a goal time for each puzzle.
As far as pure puzzle games go, try Professor Layton. Those puzzles have great variation, theme, and a hint system that lets you decide how important a top score is.
Echochrome is cool, really, it’s just not what I want. I imagine it was hard to make, and its visual trickery is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t give me those great “Aha!” moments like other puzzles seem to. I feel bad that the makers clearly worked on realizing this vision, and I couldn't even give it two hours. But it's just one of those things. Some people can't watch 3D movies, and I can't play Echochrome.
The puzzles in Echochrome are clever, and the way it makes me think about space is interesting, but in the opening bits of the game I pressed a button and accidentally skipped the tutorial and could not find my way back to it, so most of my puzzling was left to self-discovery. Fortunately I’d learned enough to have a stable foothold and after a quick lie-down waiting for the room to cease spinning, I got through a few puzzles.
It really does feel like the game is intentionally trying to make me sick. Even the visual effect for hitting a checkpoint is nauseating.
The game is clever. It’s fun to figure out all the neat perspective tricks you can do, but I never felt the puzzles were inventive, like the system would let me find my own solution. It always felt like there was a right way I wasn’t finding. You can connect pieces of each area together seamlessly and your character can cross over them, but only if the connection is pixel-perfect. Countless times I would push the Go button and the figure would take a step, see my shoddy work, and turn away in disgust.
Echochrome has a staggering number of user-designed levels that seem so complex that I have no interest in hunkering down to learn them. It’s that kind of thing that happens to new Magic players when they hear about Legacy. I don’t know if the tutorial would’ve helped my feel much less stupid. The basics aren’t complex, but their iterative execution is intolerably precise and slow, made worse by a goal time for each puzzle.As far as pure puzzle games go, try Professor Layton. Those puzzles have great variation, theme, and a hint system that lets you decide how important a top score is.
Echochrome is cool, really, it’s just not what I want. I imagine it was hard to make, and its visual trickery is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t give me those great “Aha!” moments like other puzzles seem to. I feel bad that the makers clearly worked on realizing this vision, and I couldn't even give it two hours. But it's just one of those things. Some people can't watch 3D movies, and I can't play Echochrome.
Tuesday, July 14
Lone Survivor - A First Foray
I don’t know that this is a good intro to the horror genre. I’ve played Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 4 in the past, but the former I played with a friend so we could laugh and be afraid together, and the second is really more of an action game. Horror games have always been fascinating to me, this idea of exploring something that’s genuinely awful, something that express a fundamental weakness of being alive. The Souls games touch on these themes and have some attractive body horror, but I find them more interesting than frightening.
So I chose Lone Survivor as the first of my horror excursions because its art style made me think I could handle it. And I can, for the most part. I even went so far as to obey the horror rituals of turning off all the lights, cranking the sound, and playing alone at night.
The game is freaky. There’s a great sequence in a tunnel early on that shows me just how intricate creating horror is. Pixelated or no, the creeping darkness, shlupping monsters, and cacophonous soundtrack create some real fear deep in my gut. This game reminds me why I get afraid of the dark.
Lone Survivor also does a great job of showing me what a real engagement curve looks like. In most games, I can get a feel for what’s happening. When I have to backtrack in a Zelda or Souls game, I know what enemies will be where and what they’ll be doing. But Lone Survivor changes its enemy layout in ways that keep me cautious and on edge.
Lone Survivor is about the horror I can see coming. It doesn’t actually work on surprise or jump scares. It takes the time to show the player that something’s ahead, and lets them fret and stress over what that thing might be. There’s one scenario where you can see an enemy through the barred window on a door. The enemy isn’t significantly different from the others encountered so far, except that it’s easily twice their size. And the first time you see it is not the time you need to interact with it. It’s a promise. It’s the game telling you that this thing is coming, and letting you panic for all the time you need.
Silent Hill 2, which is lauded as one of the best horror titles of all time, does the same thing with the first appearance of its iconic monster, Pyramid Head. There is a cutscene introduction to the monster, but your very first encounter is just seeing it standing there, behind some bars, unmoving, waiting for you.
Lone Survivor has some mechanics that I don’t like as much, like upkeep of hunger, thirst, and sleep. I’m not sure of all the effects surrounding these stats, but they provide more annoyance than the tension and desperation they’re supposed to evoke.
Otherwise, the game is a great collection of mystery and horror. The few NPCs are appropriately creepy, you get a great sense that your character is probably more than a little wrong himself, and the world keeps getting more upsetting and twisted. I haven’t yet finished the game but I do want to go back to it. I feel like it’ll give me an unfamiliar sense of satisfaction, a sort of relief that I think is a valuable first real step into the genre.
So I chose Lone Survivor as the first of my horror excursions because its art style made me think I could handle it. And I can, for the most part. I even went so far as to obey the horror rituals of turning off all the lights, cranking the sound, and playing alone at night.
The game is freaky. There’s a great sequence in a tunnel early on that shows me just how intricate creating horror is. Pixelated or no, the creeping darkness, shlupping monsters, and cacophonous soundtrack create some real fear deep in my gut. This game reminds me why I get afraid of the dark.
Lone Survivor is about the horror I can see coming. It doesn’t actually work on surprise or jump scares. It takes the time to show the player that something’s ahead, and lets them fret and stress over what that thing might be. There’s one scenario where you can see an enemy through the barred window on a door. The enemy isn’t significantly different from the others encountered so far, except that it’s easily twice their size. And the first time you see it is not the time you need to interact with it. It’s a promise. It’s the game telling you that this thing is coming, and letting you panic for all the time you need.
Silent Hill 2, which is lauded as one of the best horror titles of all time, does the same thing with the first appearance of its iconic monster, Pyramid Head. There is a cutscene introduction to the monster, but your very first encounter is just seeing it standing there, behind some bars, unmoving, waiting for you.
Lone Survivor has some mechanics that I don’t like as much, like upkeep of hunger, thirst, and sleep. I’m not sure of all the effects surrounding these stats, but they provide more annoyance than the tension and desperation they’re supposed to evoke.
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