2017 roundup: Work and games

Whoops, sure has been a while, huh? I'd hoped I'd write more blogs this year, but it seems I mostly did so in January and a little bit in May. I've had several ideas for blogs over the year, some better than others, but I enver build up enough motivation to sit down and really write any of them out. I hope I can still get around to some of them, since I would like to write about them. I definitely need to write some sort of Sorrowlad plot synopsis thingie at some point!!

For now though, I'll just go over my thoughts about 2017, things I've done, games I've played and such, should be interesting to look back to next year hopefully.

Internship

2017 has been quite the eventful year for me, looking back at how I started the year I can definitely say I've grown up in some areas! It was in December 2016 that I got the news I could start my internship at the Tax and Customs Administration (TCA) from March through August of 2017.

So I spent the first two months of the year just being at home, kinda relaxing period of my life but I can barely remember any of it.

I remember being pretty anxious to start my internship, it was my first real experience on the workfloor and working for the TCA was something I was really excited for during my studies, but once I started my internship there things ended up going really well. The first few weeks were mostly learning the ropes, but as time went on I got more and more autonomy, being able to go over cases and form my own thoughts about them and writing out letters and replies.

One of my main worries was getting along with co-workers, since there's a big age gap between myself at the age of 22 and the average age of employment at the TSA of above 50. I kept worrying I wouldn't be able to relate at all and things would be awkward, though as it turned out I wound up getting along well with the others. My supervisor was really helpful throughout my internship, always in a good mood and willing to help out. I mostly either sat with my supervisor or with another intern my age,  her internship started and ended earlier than me so she was able to alleviate some of my concerns and it was nice taking walks together, and just having someone my age who was also an intern to talk to. Kind of a shame I've not really had contact with her since, hm. That tends to happen.

Still, I am really glad I got to intern for six months, it was a good introduction to the 'real world' and gave me a lot of chances to apply theoretical knowledge in practice. I knew my internship was going to end in August though and that it would be back to job hunting from then on, which I really wasn't looking forward to.

The ceaseless, unending, horrendous job search

You know what sucks? Looking for a job as an inexperienced rookie still fresh from his first internship at the TSA in a part of the country with little demand for my area of expertise. Looking for a job was a tedious process of hunting the web for jobs, writing application letters, usually getting a negative reply or no reply at all and in the few cases where I'm invited to a job interview, going there and being told the same few lines over and over again.

"You come across as a very bright and academic individual."

"You're not very experienced."

"You're overqualified."

"Have you considered applying at a bigger office?"

"Have you considered applying at a smaller office?"

"We'll contact you when we find a suitable position."

I'd go away from most interviews thinking it went as well as it could have, I had left embarrassing interviews behind me in 2016, but it was still just never good enough, there was always someone else who was just more experienced than me, or lived closer to work than me, or seemed more socially mature than me. Someone less fusty and academic, someone with a more fitting study, someone who was willing to work in Amsterdam. It was a stressful period.

Work, work, work

In the end I was very lucky to land myself an interview at an office who provide financial and fiscal services, which went well enough to get me a second interview, which in turn also went well enough to land me a job in the fiscal department starting December first 2017.

It's still quite exciting to think about, even after I've been employed for a month. I've spent the past few weeks getting the hang of things, so 2018 is when I'll really have to prove myself.

 Aaaaaa, video games!!!

Enough about all that crap! Video games!! I've been playing video games in 2017!!!

I wound up playing quite some games over the year, no doubt fueled by the fact that I war earning money during the year so I bought some games on Steam as well as some emulation and a 3DS game! What better time to talk about them than mere hours before the year ends?!

Shovel Knight

While I think I finished Shovel Knight's base campaign and the Plague Knight expansion in 2016, the Plague Knight expansion came out in 2017 and it was amazing! 

I also wound up replaying the whole game, doing a bunch of challenges along the way. Of particular note was a run of Spectre Knight's campaign with a cheat code on that gave me permanent rail grinding at ludicrous speeds which actually made the game incredibly difficult and any precise platforming segments hellish. And it was awesome!

I actually intended to write a blog about this game, but I felt like everything had already been said about it, so I didn't end up going through with it. Seriously go buy it already, it's good!!

Roundabout

I've written about this in a blog already! But Roundabout was a hilariously cheesy FMV game and was quite wonderful. I can definitely see myself replaying this down the line.

Chip's Challenge 1&2

Another game I intended to write a blog about, Chip's Challenge and its sequel are action puzzle games, meaning they combine mind-bending puzzle gameplay with some dastardly timing-based challenges.

Overall I found the level design of CC1 rather archaic and often levels felt bigger than they needed to be, but CC2 improved on the original by a wide margin by including more interesting game elements as well as improved level design.

Of particular note was a level pack for CC2, called Mobi's Challenge, made by Mobius. It boasted 166 levels and it was generally more quirky and varied than CC2 was, which made it more to my liking. I had a lot of fun solving every puzzle and the game kept throwing innovative combinations of gameplay elements at me so every level felt fresh and exciting. I definitely recommend getting it if you get CC!

Resident Evil 5

I feel like this game gets a bad rep. RE4 was a great game, one I've played many times, so when I saw that RE5 was on sale for PC I decided to buy it despite having played it on PS3. I had fun playing through the campaign solo, I never felt like the AI is as bad as people say, and while the game suffers from just not having the superb level design of RE4 and too many actiony segments without enough downtime, it's still got a satisfying gameplay loop.

The DLCs included in the version I bought are neat too, the extra scenarios offer both a more classic survival horror campaign which was nostalgic to pay through and a fully action-oriented campaign to gun a way through. Plus, it has the best version of The Mercenaries minigame, which is all about high-score based play with a time limit, eeee, it's exciting! I actually wound up doing over half the stages with every character, I ought to get back to it and finish the rest up.

Wuppo

I bought Wuppo based on a video I saw calling it a mostly undiscovered gem, and I've got to agree with that anaylis. Wuppo felt like a very comfortable action/adventure game, with a good balance between talking with NPCs, combat and puzzles. It somewhat reminded me of Laser Lords with how the world felt internally consistent and how much emphasis there was on gathering info by talking to people and doing things for them. Another game I definitely need to give another shot sometime in the future.

Mibibli's Quest

Mibibli's Quest is an incredibly bizarre sidescrolling platformer inspired by Mega Man I was led to by the same video that led me to get Wuppo. A trial version that contains pretty much the full game is available for free online and it's worth checking out just to see the concepts the game explores.

I found it a worthwhile and fun experience overall, though the game was too difficult for my liking so I ended up playing it on the super easy difficulty and still having trouble with it here and there. No shame in playing an easy mode though, if it makes the game more fun, as it did in my case.

Pokémon Sage

Remember that blog post I wrote about Pokémon sage's dex like two years ago?! Well, they released a new demo since then and it goes up to the third of eight gyms, so it's quite substantial! 

I thought the difficulty curve was a bit hokey, the second gym especially kicked my ass, and it's a Pokémon Essentials game so it's also rather laggy and choppy at times, but aside from that it was an incredibly faithful and well-crafted Pokémon experience, the writing, graphics and music all feel like they'd be right at home in an official Pokémon game. I eagerly await a full release of the game and definitely intend to give it a play!

Giana Sisters DS

Giana Sisters DS is a pseudo-remake of the old Giana Sisters games, rip-offs from the Mario platformers which I hate oh so much.

Giana Sisters DS is another sidescrolling platformer with tight and responsive controls and pleasant pixelated graphics and retro OST light on difficulty but heavy on charm. It was a blast to play through the game in sessions of 5 levels at a time and I tore through the game in a matter of a week or so, platforming through each stage. I recommend checking it out if you're into sidescroller platformers.

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams 

Like Giana Sisters DS, this is a sidescrolling platformer, though this game uses a 2.5D engine as well as a world shifting mechanic, which lets the main character, Giana, shift the game's world. The different worlds function as altered versions of each other, a cute dreamlike and a creepy nightmarish version of the same landscape which dynamically shifts along with the player with each having their own music and some gameplay elements that alter between worlds so you need to use both Cute Giana's twirl for air time in the sky and Punk Giana's dash to make it through narrow spaces and dash through obstacles and enemies.

The game's pretty difficult, but it's plentiful with its checkpoints and has infinte lives, so you're encouraged to explore and look for hidden gems as you get through the levels. I had a lot of fun playing through each stage and trying to collect every gem, and finished the Rise of the Owlverlord DLC quite recently, which introduced a few new gameplay mechanics and had several new stages to play around in. Another recommendation for platforming fans!

The Binding of Isaac: Antibirth

This one was a long time coming, I've found TBOI interesting for some years now, and I got into it as I was playing Giana. It dominated my free time for a while, as I suppose roguelike games have a tendency to, as RE:IS did for a while too.

TBOI is a kinda weird game, being about a young boy, Isaac, whose mother may have been commanded by god to kill it. It's got randomly generated floor layouts in which Isaac goes around shooting tears at enemies in a twin-stick shooter fashion as he collects various bizarre items that horrifically disfigure him. Tons of fun, that. 

I also opted to install the Antibirth mod, a fanmade expansion, over going for the official expansions. My reasons for that are complex indeed and not something I really feel like going into. I dunno if I'll ever try out the official expansions. Anyway, I like the expansion a lot, apparently an update's coming in the first quarter of 2018, exciting!!

Braid

Braid is a wonderful puzzle-platformer game by the dastardly Jonathan Blow, who later went on to make the horrific The Witness.

Braid shares a lot of the qualities I admire in The Witness, the high degree of polish and care, but what sets it apart to me is that the basic gameplay of Braid is actually fun and it has an engaging plot. Braid is all about taking the core gameplay of Mario and playing around with the concept of time. Tim, the main character is able to rewind time as he wills, which creates interesting puzzles and makes the gameplay very forgiving, as any mistake can just be rewound.

I really wound up liking the game, the game kept throwing novel concepts at me with the intricate ways the game messes around with time, but it was never so hard that it made me give up, I ended up playing through in about 5 hours buy enjoying it all the way through. Except like maybe two puzzles.

The game's plot is also made to be analysed, and I found some interesting meaning in it since many aspects reminded me of Tobias' blog posts. Quite fascinating.

Sonny (Steam)

THE SONNY REBOOT IS SUPERIOR TO THE FLASH GAME AND I WILL FIGHT YOU IF YOU DISAGREE. 

I intend to come back to this game at a later date. There is some lore that needs serious analysis. 

Night in the Woods

This is a game I'm still playing though! It's kind of like a visual novel you can platform through with various minigames along the way and it's lovely and I love it. 

I've still not fully beaten it, but this game's resonated with me in several ways. It has a very contemporary setting and deals with some relevant topics. While they might not affect me as much as they do the characters in the game, they remind me of things I read in the news and also sort of how it feels like to live in a part of the Netherlands that politics doesn't seem to be that concerned about.

Basically, it's good and worth checking out, but made for a certain type of person. And it's lovely and I love it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while 2017 was kind of a terrible year from a global perspective, 2017 was very kind to me, letting me grow as a person from someone still fresh out of university to someone with a fulltime job! Whoo, career prospects! I do feel like I've grown as a person because of that, comparing myself during job interviews in 2016 and 2017, the 2017 version of me is a whole more mature. 

I still have a lot of growing to do, as much as I feel I've grown in a professional way, I do feel like I've stagnated in other areas of my life. Hopefully 2018 can provide me chances to grow in those areas too!

Plus, video games. 2017 was a good year for video games, and I hope to keep buying and playing good video games in 2018 since I've got a steady income now. Woo!

Happy new year to all of you! Here's to a good 2018. With video games.

Non-violence in encounters: Rock, Paper, Devious

So, last time I took a look at how Taming Dreams handles its non-violent encounter system. The game takes what could be any regular combat system but dresses it up in a completely different way that is cohesive with the narrative to make encounters feel different without making separate mechanics for it.

But one thing is clear in Taming Dreams, non-violence is the only option you have. The nature of the foes you face makes using violent means nonsensical enough that it's completely impossible to the player to even attempt. This makes it rather unique, especially compared to the game I'm looking at today.

Renowned Explorers: International Society

Renowned Explorers: International Society, or RE:IS (the Dutch verb and noun for travel, love that), is a turn-based tactical rogue-like adventure game. Set in the loosely based on reality 19th century, you assemble a crew of three explorers out of a pool of 24 total explorers to go on expeditions and amass as much gold, status and research as possible to become the Most Renowned Explorer. 

So there's a lot of mechanics to the game in the video and even more in the full game ranging from roaming the expedition map to managing your resources on the world map, but it's the combat system that I want to focus on specifically.

Unique to the game's combat is its attitude system. All your actions in combat come in one of three attitude flavours: Aggressive attacks to physically assault your foes, devious speech to enrage, sadden and terrify your foes and friendly speech to excite, encourage and impress your foes. Each of these actions decreases an opponents will to go on by reducing their Spirit, or in the case of Friendly actions, they can also increase the Spirit of an ally. Aggressive actions work based on Attack and Defense while Friendly and Devious actions work based on Speech and Speech Defense. 

I am Peace Treatying the hell out of these sheep

These three attitudes work in a rock-paper-scissors way, Aggressive trumps Friendly, Friendly trumps Devious and Devious trumps Aggressive. In the case that your attitude trumps the enemy's generala ttitude then you get a defensive bonus. If you are in the attitude weak to the enemy's then you get a defensive penalty. If you are in the same attitude then you get a bonus to actions that trump the opponent's attitude. So being Friendly to a Friendly opponent can give you a big backstab bonus on an Aggressive attack!

Combat gets pretty complex.

While this sounds easy on paper, it's anything but in practice. Crewmembers generally fare better in one or two attitudes than the other, a Friendly and Aggressive fighter doesn't do well with Devious speech while a Friendly and Devious speaker isn't much help when being Aggressive. Further complicating things is that some enemies can adapt to your attitude, many human opponents will mimic your attitude while some will even try to counter your attitude. Some enemies also get stronger if you are in a certain mood. It may be tempting to be Devious to an Aggressive opponent but they might get a massive increase in Attack or Speech if you do that!

Oh god

Complicating things even further is that the attitude shifts depending on the actions you perform. Use enough Friendly actions and your attitude becomes Friendly, but keep in mind that once you are Friendly it only takes one Aggressive action to have that become your dominant attitude and it takes 5 Friendly actions to shift the attitude back to Friendly.

We can still be friends. Right?

While each attitude works similarly in that they all reduce the enemy's spirit bar, each attitude also has its own distinct benefits and drawbacks. Aggressive actions sightly reduce the enemy's mood and generally are focused on dealing as much flat-out spirit damage as possible. Devious actions lower the enemy's mood and give them negative status effects (Enraged, Terrified, Saddened) that reduce a stat by 25% if their mood is negative. Friendly actions uniquely give a large boost to the mood and either give a positive (Excited/Encouraged) or negative (Impressed) status effect that either lower or raise a stat by 25%, and they can also be used to heal allies and raise their mood and give the status effect.

So many emotions.

Since every attitude is good for something else and every enemy is weak to either physical attacks or certain emotions you'll often want to shift attitudes, making combat very dynamic and giving big importance to the order of actions taken and their effects on the attitude and the enemy's mood. This is especially important in encounters where you get special bonuses for ending the battle with a certain dominant attitude as well as temporary stat buffs depending on your dominant attitude.

Hooray for diplomacy! And also broken UI!

So overall the game and the combat do a great job at integrating the attitude system in a meaningful way, it's a unique system and it adds a lot of variety to the combat. It also gives the game more longevity, you might have kicked the oppressive emperor out last time by being Devious, but what if you make friends with the emperor? What if instead of convincing the Abbess to give up her treasure, you just knock her and her nuns to the ground violently? 

Turns out your party are a bunch of very nice people.

The game's comedic and light-hearted tone goes a long way in justifying the sometimes silly outcomes. Since every enemy and encounter in the game is beholden to the attitude system, you'll get into all sort of bizarre situations, such as llamas spitting on you to sadden you, hugging mummies, clown-sacrificing friendly cults and overly attached villagers who really want your shoes. Most battles are still against aggressive enemies but there's plenty of enemies who are devious or even friendly.

Well that doesn't sound so bad.

In most games an approach like this would be rather odd, but given that your characters are renowned explorers, it makes a certain degree of sense. Your goal as explorers is not to conquer other cultures by force, it's certainly a route you can take, but there's no reason why you can't just talk your way through villagers who think you're suspicious, or why you can't just send them off by being exceptionally rude. Likewise, if the expedition crew loses enough morale to a devious enemy or a friendly enemy convinces them to join their cult or give up the treasure then the expedition is a failure just as much as being sent away with violence is.

I can live with this game over.

In the end the game does a good job of having a sensible and unique take on the non-violence in combat idea. A Friendly run is just as viable as an Aggressive run and either approach will hit different roadblocks, but you'll often find that being flexible with your attitude will serve you well, you can spend a third of the battle complimenting the foe, a third shooting them with guns and a third telling them they smell funny and you'll likely do better than if you only took one approach. There is admittedly some silliness in how nobody ever seems to die or get seriously injured even in aggressive combat, two of your explorers are 14 or even 12 years old yet going on global expeditions, or how it only takes a few apologies to make up for shooting an abbey full of nuns, but that's just because ofthe lighthearted tone of the game, it's all part of the sanitized, quirky adventurous spirit the game has. Everyone can get along and men and women from all countries can band together to make great discoveries, find great treasures and unearth powerful secrets.

Yes, even the literal GHOST PIRATE can be convinced to be a better person. :)

It's absolutely one of my favourite combat systems ever, the complexity is staggering and the narrative and quirky dressing makes it all the better. It's no wonder I keep coming back to this game!

Non-violence in encounters: The hug is mightier than the sword

My, my, it sure has been a while since I last wrote one of these. I've been quite busy with my internship and been playing games a lot too. But there's one game in particular I've been playing a lot, Renowned Exporers: International Society, and its combat system got me thinking about how different games implement non-violent options into their encounter systems rather than allowing diplomacy or charms to avoid encounter mechanics altogether.

Killing with kindness

To specify that a bit, when I talk about encounters, I don't mean they have to be physical confrontations, rather they play out like traditional violent RPG combat with similar mechanics but a different, non-violent flavour. Violence is so entrenched in RPGs mechanically that basic terminology like combat, attacks and damage tends to have a violent bent even though the mechanics of an RPG don't have to be violent, hence the use of less loaded terms such as encounters, actions and rapport or spirit.

With that said, there's three games in particular that have these elements that I've played in recent times and they all take a different approach to the idea. These games are:

1. Taming Dreams

2. Renowned Explorers: International Society

3. Undertale

Taming Dreams

If you're reading this blog then you probably know what Taming Dreams is. Taming Dreams is an episodic non-violent character-driven RPG for mobiles made by one very particular person. There's only three episodes released so far, and chances for more episodes are looking grim, but the game does an excellent job of integrating its mechanics and its story.

You ever tried whacking your bad thoughts with a stick? Not a good idea let me tell you.

Since the game's encounters pit the party against their own or other people's thoughts manifested in a physical form, referred to as Miasma, they cannot rely on sheer physical force to fend them off. Rather rather have to rely on a combination of skills gained from mementos, equipment with important sentimental value, or from Miasmon that have previously been tamed. 

Yes Mardek, good demonstration.

The encounters have their fair share of complexity, every character and Miasmon have sentiments (basically elements except more emotion-based), an emotional state, possible moods and personality runes to keep track of. It all combines into a surprisingly robust encounter system that is fun to play around with and explore synergies within.

Yeah just cheer up your nightmares. What could go wrong?

These are all interesting intricacies that further distinguishes the game from feeling like other games but also does a good job of integrating the narrative and character into the encounters themselves. Dealing with random Miasma is a lot less jarring than having JRPG heroes mercilessly beat down anything and anyone that stand in their way but then taking pity on the boss who's sending all those mooks their way in the first place because the narrative demands it.

WOULD YOU SLASH A MODESTOAT WITH A SWORD?

Another thing of note is that there is an asymmetry between the enemy and player actions, Miasma attempt to destroy the will of your characters to go on by overloading them with emotion while the player attempts to build rapport with the enemies to tame them. Rather then lowering the enemy's will bar, you raise their rapport bar. It's no difference mechanically but it totally suits the game's themes, it's a distinction made for the sake of the narrative.

Don't worry Deugan, the Anxark won't bite you, it'll only break your mind. :)

And that's what the encounter system in general boils down to, you could take all these same mechanics and dress them up differently and wind up back with a regular violent combat system. I don't think this is inherently a good or bad thing, but I do think it's interesting when compared to...

Oh, wait, it's past midnight. Well, then that comparison can wait till tomorrow for now. I think I'll go to bed and cheer up my nightmares a bit.

A stack of nostalgia

Recently one of my siblings moved out of the house, though when I went to his room today to see what was left I saw a very familiar stack of PC CD-roms in his desk.

There's all sorts of stuff in there, regular PC video games, 25-games-in-one compilations, edutainment software and some miscellaneous stuff like pension fund planner software, carshow software, a geography project and some encyclopedias, including one of human anatomy with a naked man and woman on the cover. Oh my!

Lots of nostalgic stuff in there, mostly the video games of course. All of it, I 100% assure you, legal. Totes legal. No burned CDs or anything here.

With that said, let's just dive right in, see what I've found and what I remember about all this!

Dune 2000

Here's a familiar game. It's Dune 2000! Apparently based on a literate series by the same name, Dune 2000 is a RTS game, I think one of the early RTS games too? I recall this game having FMV, which is of course delightful, and some of it was probably way too mature for a child to be playing, but then it's not like I ever got anywhere in this game anyway, I was a kid, knowing barely any English, so I mostly just let my brother play it instead and watched. He and I used to do that a lot, it was fun, given it was the sort of game that was fun to actually watch.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

A pretty big-name game, I think. I remember playing Prince of Persia on DOS and how precise and unforgiving the game was, though this game here came out much later and is a 3D platformer sort of game, I guess? I suppose you could say it has a lot of that parkour stuff where you need to navigate a giant 3D space filled with traps with some combat on the side, with the game's gimmick being the ability to reverse time, provided you have enough sand. I also liked watching this game, though I think at some point it got too difficult for my brother, perhaps I should try it myself and see how far I can get.

Super Speurder: Rekenen

Well, this one is probably gibberish to non-Dutch people! If I had to translate, I'd say it was something like "Super Sleuth: Maths". You can guess this is edutainment! I always liked edutainment as a game, especially when they merged the education and the gameplay together so it felt like a puzzle game rather than a lesson. This game was about navigating the ocean in a submarine, solving math riddles and dealing with nautical foes. I recall it being somewhat difficult, though mostly due to the gameplay and not the puzzles.

Super Speurder: Techniek

Another Super Speurder! This one has the protagonist, the enigmatic character in the coat with the ridiculous collar, and the villain, the insane scientist, on the cover. The theme of this game was physics and mechanics. You'd navigate around this 2D screen with a ton of doors collecting parts for a vehicle, like a solar-powered car or a miniature plane by solving all these physics puzzles, like stuff about balancing a scale, use of pulleys, electricity grids, that sort of technological stuff.

De Brand Slakkenrace

Oh man, now we're getting real obscure. This is a Snail Race game by a dutch brand of beer. Yeah. It promotes itself as "The slowest race in the world as an exciting computer game" and boasts having online play against the best snail racers in the world. I dunno if it actually has online play, I only ever played against the AI. The game itself is pretty simple, there's a 2D racing path in some sort of forest and you need to avoid obstacles such as bouncing tires, BBQs and oil slicks and use try to use boosting pads to speed up and get to the finish before your opponent. I sometimes played this and I have doubts it'd run on my modern PC. 

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Back to something more well-known, it's a 4-CD bundle of Red Alert 1 plus its expansion packs! This is another RTS game like Dune 2000, set in an alternate timeline after WW2 in which there's a war between the Allies and the Soviets as the game describes them. I know the later Red Alert games would get very silly, especially Red Alert 3 with its hammy FMV and ridiculous units, but Red Alert 1 mostly kept things about as serious as it can be for a story about a time-traveling Einstein. I don't think I ever got far, though, due to being real bad at RTS games as a kid. Probably still am today. 

Competitie Manager 2000

A lot of the CD games I found were football stuff, your Pro Evolution Soccers and Fifas, nothing I care about. But there's one game that stood out; Competitie Manager 2000. It's a football competition manager sim, but with a twist. There's FMV commentary and game analyses from Wim Kieft! WIM FUCKING KIEFT! The star, the legend, the overlords of football commentary Wim Kieft! I don't know anything about football but I do know that Wim Kieft is the best thing since canned bread and everyone must bow to him in reverence for his infinite wisdom. Also the game itself is both a management sim and a 3D football game but for me the management sim parts have always been more memorable, and of course the brilliant FMV scenes with Wim Kieft.

THE BEST GAMES EVER
Dubbel-CD 50 games

Next there's a compilation of 50 games on two CDs. A bit much to talk about them all, so let's just over any notable ones. There's Doom, Hexen and Quake for FPSes. Alone in the Dark II, Magic Carpet, Transport Tycoon, Sim City 2000, Theme Hospital for 'Adventure'. There's a Sam & Max game! I have some of them in my Steam folder I need to get to. Hm, there's Warcraft II as well. 

Then there's Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, Day of the Tentacles, Dungeon Keeper, System Shock (Made by CH people, I think!), Carmageddon, Go, X-Com and Heroes of Might and Magic 2. Haven't played all of those, but some of them do interest me. Might try some of them, see if they work or not.

Aerokid

Another edutainment game. This one is a series of puzzles centered around an airport, such as checking in bags, assigning passengers to seats and apparently a basic flight sim. It also has some bonus games like a colouring tool and an ABC-wordgame. I recall playing this, vaguely. I don't think I ever did the flight sim part good, I mostly did the colouring minigame.

Redcat: De Reusachtige Letterraket

Another Dutch title, it translates into "Redcat: The Giant Letter Rocket"Oh my god, this game has a video walkthrough. It is pretty much the typical crappy 3D edutainment game. It has an obnoxiously cool cat as a protagonist and a rat and dog as the villains and it's all animated in 3D and it's awful and it's amazing, and there's singing and the OST is like a really bad protoSplatoon OST or something? The gameplay is 3D platforming with bad controls interspersed with these word-recognition puzzles. There's also combat and weapons and a health system, and any command you give Redcat has voiced lines and it's the worst thing, which is the best thing.

GTA2

You've probably never heard of this game. It's the second game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Real obscure stuff! Yeah, this is on the same list as kiddy edutainment games, I just played games like this too. GTA2 was a  3D bird's eye-view crime game. It's pretty much like recent GTA games, you can steal and drive cars, run over or kill pedestrians with weapons and do missions for all sorts of criminal organizations. I dunno if I played it much, I probably mostly watched my brother play it. 

JoeJoe

What am I even looking at here. The game's cover is this except there's also some very poorly drawn deviantArt anime OCs there. Apparently this game is pretty much just an advertisement for a paid 'real SAFE, real FUN, real INTERNET' online browser for children. Doing a bit of research online shows that this is pretty much a scam and that the browser doesn't offer any real security for kids and just comes with some crummy edutainment software. It costs like 60 guilders a year! Since this was back when the euro didn't exist yet. Anyway, the game comes with an Arkanoid/Breakout-type game but that's it basically.

Trick & Treat
De Budget Serie
De Kometenknaller
Howie's Avonturen

Well, that's a mouthful. It's a "Budget Series" from Trick & Treat, specifically "The Comet Shooter" in the "Howie's Adventures" series. Another edutainment game, this one a comet shooting game where every comet is a math problem and you need to shoot the right rockets. It's not in 3D like that Red Cat game and the protagonist isn't trying be all cool, he's more the congratulatory type who is always saying how well you're doing and how much you're learning. This is pretty much the sort of game right at home on a public library PC.

LocoKid

Hm, looks a lot like Aerokid. This is pretty much the same concept, except with different games based around railroad systems and for younger ages. Again, I mostly recall doing the colouring minigame.

Winnie Poeh en de Honingboom

Here's an 'animated storybook'! It's Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. This one has a video walkthrough of the English version. This game is pretty much what it says on the cover, it's a series of screens of Winnie the Pooh doing things and you need to click on certain things to advance the game, so it's mostly like a point and click adventure game I guess. It does have pretty good production values, I recall liking it.

De interactieve rekenreis

More edutainment software. This one's "The interactive math trip", which is a series of maths puzzles taking place all around the world. I rather like this one, you're accompanied by a pink frog and a beige cat on a quest to find the mathemagician (rekentovenaar), and after completing all puzzles it turns out you're the mathemagician!! The game had a nice variety of visuals and puzzles, doing additions, subtractions, division, multiplication and fractures. I recall some of the levels being sharing pizza in Italy among cats, making a house out of lumber in America, planting crops across the Nile, a ski-lift in the Alps, making snowmen on the North Pole, snail fractions around a wrecked ship undersea, mixing fruit drinks on Hawaii and probably more. Nice game.

That's quite a lot of games! I might see if I can get any to work, most edutainment software probably doesn't run on Windows 10, but there's a few other games that might be worth a shot.

Also nice to just think back on a time when I played stuff like this, that's so long ago now!

Roundabout

Roundabout is a 70s B-Movie Full Motion Video driving/3D platforming/revolving limousine driver simulator game and it's absolutely wonderful. It was released in 2014 by No Goblin and I got it during 2016's Steam Winter Sale for only two euros and it was definitely worth the purchase.

Meet Georgio Manos

In the game you take on the role of Georgio Manos, master of nonverbal communication and the world's first revolving limousine driver and drive around an open world, pick up passengers to drive to their destinations and partake in challenges, all coated in a wonderful layer of 70s FMV cheese. It's a game with an absolutely ridiculous and silly premise and plot but with surprisingly challenging gameplay, as it turns out that driving around in a revolving limousine is not actually the easiest task out there.

There's also a skeleton

As I said, the game is roughly divided up into three parts: Open world exploration, Wacky Taxi-style passenger rides and challenges and during each of these parts you take control of a constantly revolving limousine which is controlled with the D-Pad.

During the open world segments, you're free to explore the area you're in and hunt for a variety of collectibles which can be used to buy new cosmetic upgrades and unlock new special abilities for your limousine which can be used to explore the city in new ways or help out finding collectibles or navigating safely.

Yes, new upgrades! Exciting!

When you come across a yellow star, you can pick up a passenger who asks you in a FMV cutscene to take you to a certain location or perform a special task. These tasks vary from driving over pedestrians, ramming over mailboxes or chopping grain, but the meat of the rides is taking the passenger through a series of checkpoints while collecting coins along the way and trying to minimize the amount of times your car crashes in a giant explosion.

Don't worry, Georgio definitely won't crash his limousine. Probably.

When you drive across a blue star, you can play in a variety of challenges to compete with friends or the global high score list to see how well you do. These challenges vary from a game of hot or cold, speedruns, pedestrian eliminations or good old destruction derbies.

In all these segments good play is rewarded with streaks for perfect driving, achievements for meeting certain passenger ride requirements and good scores while sloppy driving is punished with the limousine blowing up in an explosion. Mercifully your limousine instantly respawns at the nearest  or latest checkpoint and the passenger rides are generous with giving out checkpoints.

Of course Georgio has no need for checkpoints.

The highlight of the game is definitely the cutscenes though. They use a combination of Full Motion Videos obviously filmed in front of a green screen and stock footage, combined with amazing voice acting and a 70s B-movie vibe which gives the whole game a delightfully cheesy tone which does a lot to add to the game's memorability and humour. The cutscenes always give an extra push to progress further through the game just to see what figures you'll be driving around next and how the plot advances.

Seriously FMV is wonderful and more games should have it.

The game starts out rather easy, the first area you get to explore is pretty easy to maneuver, there's not many obstacles or much traffic to worry about, and the first few rides serve as learn-by-playing tutorials that explain basic movement in relatively safe environments, but as the game progresses the areas become increasingly more dangerous and some rides start having extra obstacles such as requiring you to travel over the sea, jumping through the air (yes there's a jumping limousine mechanic!) or having cars rain down from the sky.

Yes Georgio, you read that right.

Still, the game manages to stay fun throughout these challenges by knowing to focus on its main mechanic, driving around the revolving limousine, and avoids frustration by not making the player have to replay long stretches should they die. And death will happen a lot, considering you're driving around in a revolving limousine.

I would say my only issue with the game comes from the open world exploration part, as collecting every collectible becomes very hard once there's very few left since even the upgrade meant to scan for them only gives a hint if one is close. Likewise, there's not that many checkpoints in the open world bits, so it can sometimes be annoying having to respawn in a distant location when looking around for that one last collectible somewhere.

I'm sorry Georgio.

This is only a gripe if you are like me and want to do most of the open world exploration though, the player is perfectly free to ignore it and playing the game by just doing all the passenger rides alone is still a fun way to play the game by itself. Picking up passengers generally doesn't take long since the drop-off points of passengers usually end up being near to the pick-up point of the next passenger. It's definitely still an enjoyable game after all and for a very good price point considering the game comes with a big discount during Steam Sales.

See, no need to worry, Georgio.

So overall I'd definitely recommend checking the game out! It's a driving game with a twist and a memorable experience!

Lessons from Luxor 2: Enter Amentet

You might have read my blog about Laser Lords from a few hours ago called "Lessons from Luxor", of which this blog is the continuation. After all, while one verse of the Sooth Song has been learned, we're nowhere near awakening Seb or finding Petra.

As with the previous blog, I'll mostly be referring to this video. With that said, let's dive right in!

Do I look like the kind of guy who'd cheat you?

Going to the right after finishing talking with Baahka, there's another screen with a wandering NPC and a house. Once more let's assume the house is entered first, which occurs at 6:12. There we find another NPC, what looks like an old man with a cane. Surely a friendly face worth talking to.

MY ACCENT IS THAT I HAVE NO INDOOR VOICE

Quite an accusatory man, and with a lovely pair of lips and cheeks. If asked for his Name he explains he's Sinuhe and he's a goldsmith. Right away he seems much less friendly than Rahman or Baahka, but he is quick to explain why.

There are some keyword paths that can be taken, but most of them end up being about Usert stealing Sinuhe's Gold Necklace. Sinuhe asks the player to steal the Necklace from Usert and give it back to him, offering he'll pay to get it back. What's rather interesting is that asking for the payment prompts Sinuhe to say this:

DO I SOUND LIKE THE SORT OF GUY WHO'D CHEAT YOU?

This is a crucial moment. When you prompt Rahman to explain what he can give he says he'll richly reward you, while Sinuhe here simply asks the player whether he seems trustworthy. Baahka and Rahman certainly seemed trustworthy, but does the same go for Sinuhe? It's also interesting to note that Gold is a conversation topic for both Baahka and Rahman who both consider it a greedy pursuit, while Sinuhe seems to be taken by gold and money given his craft.

Either way, Sinuhe does clue the player in on where and how they can get a Gold Necklace, which might be useful to have. Another path of keywords also makes Sinuhe mention that to enter the city Amentet, you need a password and he tells the player it's 'Seb Sleeps'.

Never talk to strangers because there could be dangers.

Coming out of the house at 7:15, there's still one more NPC wandering around, what looks to be a little girl. If you try to talk to her...

You'll never get some jiva with that attitude!

That's all she has to say. Hailing her, asking for her Name, saying a Word, none of these prompt any response. Of course, she gives an obvious clue that you should kneel down to speak to her. This both teaches the player some NPCs will only speak to them if certain conditions are met and of course how to kneel and crawl. 

Once the player kneels, either Hailing or asking for a Name makes Nebka introduce herself. As far as I know she's the only NPC in the game with the same reply to Hail and Name, so that makes her rather unique. She's also one of two NPCs to have the 'player must kneel' requirement to be spoken to, and one of few NPCs who is a child.

Nebka mostly speaks in little rhymes and about her mother. The former give some more worldbuilding and gives the player an alternative way of learning the Amentet password 'Seb Sleeps'. This is rather important since it clues the player in on the fact that there can be multiple ways to learn the same piece of information, should they hear it from both Sinuhe and Nebka.

One interesting rhyme Nebka has is that Amentet is full of monsters, such as the Remren, the Hakar and the Priests. While it has already been implied there would be combat with the Hakar if you ask Baahka the right questions, Nebka also implies that the Priests of Koptos are monsters, foreshadowing the player might have to fight them too.

Should have told Sahti that Baahka sent you.

She also gives the player a sidequest to get her mother Lixir, a restorative Potion, but unlike other sidequests Nebka can only tell that Lixir can only be received on another planet. This makes it clear to the player that not every quest has clear intrusctions of where to go and what to do, in this case the Lixir quest is probably one of the final ones the player will be able to accomplish before the end of the game, I assume this was done on purpose to make it clear for the player that not every quest can be solved right off the bat.

Halt, alien!

Continuing on at 8:30, there is another empty screen. Well, mostly empty. There is a lizard dashing around but as far as I know it's not possible to interact with, so not much to say about it really. Not sure why this filler screen exists, perhaps to put some distance between the houses we've seen so far and Amentet.

Speaking of Amentet, the next screen over has a solid gate guarded by an armed guard. This is the first NPC so far to walk around carrying a weapon, so that should immediately clue the player in that not every NPC is unarmed. So far if you tried to attack any of the NPCs they'd just flee, but certain NPCs can fight back. Still, no reason to attack NPCs randomly. 

There's a variety of accents on Luxor.

Hailing Mahkent just prompts him to ask for the password into Amentet. This is an important gating moment since it forces the player to use the Word function to both remember the password from Sinuhe or Nebka and then say it to Mahkent.

If the player has not used the word function so far this might also prompt them to go back to previous NPCs and look for any words to remember from them. They could also try to use the Name function if they've not already since Hail leads to a dead end, but the keywords there mostly lead to some more worldbuilding, this time from the point of view of a Koptoan.

A bit overconfident, perhaps.

Though this information is interesting, it's not actually useful for finishing the game. Much of the dialogue you can have with NPCs is flavorful, but only some of it is actually useful in your quest. It's up to the player to figure out what information is useful and what's not.

Once the player does say the password, Mahkent opens the gate and gives a new line of dialogue. This is another important moment since it shows the player saying words is a way to get past gates and how to prompt NPCs to tell them more. 

If the player at any time experiments enough with words they can figure out that saying a word is the same as selecting a highlighted keyword, so selecting the keyword people or remembering and saying the keyword people leads to the same results. This is important since not every keyword an NPC replies to is one they bring up themselves. Usually when these keywords exist the NPC prompts the player to say a password or asks the player a question, but sometimes these keywords need to be intuited based on what you need from the NPC in question.

Mahkent also tells the player they can enter and warns them not to speak to women or try to enter the Temple of Koptos, but this is a rather confusing lesson since speaking to the women in Amentet doesn't actually lead to any punishment, though the Temple of Koptos will be somewhat of a puzzle to enter.

Lessons Learned

From Sinuhe it became a question whether every NPC can be trusted, while we've also learned more about Amentet and the Koptoans from Nekba and Mahkent. There were also some more gameplay lessons:

-There can be multiple sources for the same piece of information.

-Some NPCs have special requirements before they talk to you.

-NPCs react to said keywords just like selected keywords.

-Some NPCs require you to remember and say keywords to progress, not all keywords can be found by regular dialogue.

-Some NPCs are armed and capable of fighting back.

Now that Amentet has been reached, a lot of paths suddenly open up. There's still verses to be learned and people to meet.

Lessons from Luxor

You might have read my blog about Laser Lords from July 2015 called "An analysis of parody, satire and intentions; A tale of Lasers, Lords and -isms part 0: Prologues, introductions and the apathy of Eunuchus; or making Corelis go insane", which is quite the title. I had intended to write more blogs like it, but didn't get around to it, likely since the topic is rather complex and Laser Lords is a substantive game with tons of NPCs to consider, so it'd be hard to keep track of.

I've recently rekindled my interest in Laser Lords, I hope to acquire its audiofiles which seem to have been lost on the web, but for now I thought it would be interesting to tackle a more cohesive topic, namely the design choices made on Laser Lords' 'tutorial planet' to determine how the game teaches the player how to interact with its various NPCs and other basics of the game. For this I'll be using images and a video playthrough made by YouTube channel BrokeBackBros LousyLay.

Introduction

The video starts with the game's intro, which explains the overall goal of the game to stop an extra dimensional being of condensing the universe into a crystal. That's quite the task, of course, so the game knows to guide the player on their first steps with a cutscene suggesting the player start on Luxor. The game then does something very important, which is give the player three goals to accomplish on the planet Luxor which do not directly relate to the overall main quest.

There are as follows:
-Find Petra
-Learn the Sooth Song
-Awaken Seb

For a short introduction, Luxor is an Egypt-inspired slave planet to a large space empire, known as Argos. Argos instituted  an oppressive and theocratic ruling class on Luxor consisting of Koptoans, followers of the god of death, gold and grain Koptos, who seek to betray Argos and expand their religion across the whole Void with the help of the sleeping god Seb. Opposed to them are the oppressed Gameans, followers  the goddess of fertility and flora Sysis, who also seek to awaken Seb, but to free them from both the Koptoans and the Argosians. Both the Gameans and Koptoans follow the same code, the Sooth Song, which concerns Sysis and Koptos' status as Seb's parents and Seb's destiny to free Luxor from Argosian rule.

The game itself doesn't give an introduction like this and doesn't require the player to read its manual to find it out either, but it makes it easier to discuss the game in this blog. The same goes for the controls which can be accessed through an in-game help menu but basic movement can be intuited just be regular play.

Once the player beams down at 2:45, they do not actually see any NPCs on the first few screens, these screens only serve to give the player a safe zone to practice movement in, which works in a sort of grid-based fashion, and lets the player use movement keys to move around, to jump, to crawl and to descend/ascend traction beams (which function identically to ladders) and handle staircases. The menu would have also ikely have been brought up by now, showing various options such as Hail and Name. These screens also show off the planet's Egyptian vibe Which helps to explain the planet's culture.

Come in! Come in! Have some Jiva.

Once the player walks far enough at 3:08, they come to a screen with a wandering NPC and a house. At this point the player can either talk to the wandering NPC or enter the house, for the purposes of this blog I'll follow the video and assume the player enters the house first.  

Inside the house, there is another wandering NPC. At this point the player should be able to intuit they need to Hail the NPC. Once they do this, they are taken to this screen.

At this point they also hear the AMAZING VOICE ACTING. 

This is a very important moment and a very important screen, since dialogue with NPCs is the main purpose of the game and what most gameplay consists of.

There are several things that draw attention. First there is the lovely face of the NPC you are talking to, which paired with the voice acting helps keep every NPC distinct, though this part of the screen is static so it's otherwise not too important to talk about.

More importantly, the word Jiva is clearly highlighted, and is the default highlighted word in these sentences. I believe it's also possible to select Void, but the game clearly guides to player to pick Jiva first by making the NPC tell you to take it.

Then when you select Jiva, two things happen. The NPC gives you the Jiva, which is an introduction to item management, and starts to talk about Jiva since it's the keyword you selected. This is the main way conversation works, by saying a highlighted keyword the NPC goes in more detail about it. It's also good to note that Zendo, the reptile from the game's intro serves as your guide through the game's menu by telling you you have received an item.

The next dialogue option is Starman, which prompts the NPC to hand out a sentence which obviously contains multiple keywords by asking the player what they are after, Gold or Glory, but also allows the player to ask about Luxor. From here the player can get used to the way the game handles its dialogue and get some information about Luxor as well as Argos, showing that it's valuable to talk to NPCs in detail since they can give the player useful information and more detail about the game's world.

If you choose the right keyword, you can get a discussion about how the NPC misses his son who has been taken by Argos and he asks the player to SAY 'Rahman' (the NPC's name, this can be found out by choosing Name rather than Hail) to his son if you find him and to richly reward the player if they bring any news from his son. This is another important moment, since it's the first time an NPC makes a request of the player with the offer of a reward in the form of a subquest. It also shows that while you may be on Luxor right now, this quest requires you go to Argos to complete it, showing that not every quest in the game is contained to just one section or even planet.

That's quite a lot to take in from just one NPC! It's good to note that Rahman is an overtly friendly NPC, he freely offers you an item, information and gives you a quest, and there is no way for Rahman to be angered with a player, meaning the player can safely faff about with Rahman. If the player says something or does something that does not make sense to Rahman he just gives a standard "I don't know about that, Starman." reply, which also has the Starman keyword in it which shows that even is the player messes up they can still get access to a keyword for it.

Once the player is done with Rahman, they can examine their inventory and see the Jiva he gave you. Looking at it reveals it's pretty much Luxorian coffee, and if the player uses the item then Zendo says it restored your life force. At that time the player could ask Rahman for more Jiva and receive it, but it's not possible to ask Rahman to give you two Jivas at once, if you do that Zendo tells you he's no longer has Jiva and Rahman gives his "I don't know about that, Starman" reply.

So, time to move on!

I am Baahka

Once outside the house, there's still the other wandering NPC. Once more, the player can either Hail her or ask for her Name, asking her Name makes her reveal she's Baahka and a priestess of Sysis, but for now let's just Hail her.

THE MOST AMAZING VOICE

Unlike Rahman, Baahka does not offer the player an item, but she does give a variety of other keywords. This could also serve as the player's first introduction to the dialogue system, so like Rahman Baahka is still an overtly friendly NPC who can't be prompted to leave or attack but freely gives out information.

There are a few interesting things about Baahka. Much of her dialogue centers around Luxor's lore, which can be overwhelming to a first time player since she talks about the history of Luxor and its religion in contrast with its current state. 

One keyword that stands out is Sacred Songs, since it directly ties in with one of your quests on Luxor, namely to learn the Sooth Song. If you choose this keyword, Baahka tells you she's sworn to sing only the first verse of the Sooth Song, and then sings it for the player, at 5:20.

Not only is Baahka a wonderful singer, but she also marks the first tangible achievement the player makes in their quest on Luxor and introduces the concept of Recital and Codes of Wisdom. Since the game says you've learned Verse 1 of the Sooth Song, you can look around the menu and find that in the Recite menu it now says you have a quarter of the Sooth Song, clearly indicating the player needs to find three other verses.

Of course, there's 7 other Codes of Wisdom. So much Wisdom.

Trying to Recite the Sooth Song doesn't work, since you only have one verse, but the emptiness of the screen makes it rather clear that there's more to learn than just the Sooth Song, which is in fact true as every planet as a Code of Wisdom they live by and there's eight in total. Acquiring these Codes of Wisdom not only allows the player to Recite them to satisfy certain NPCs but also increases your maximum health, though that's not relevant quite yet.

Interestingly, choosing this option also doesn't give the player any keywords, prompting them to try to either Hail Baahka again or try asking for her Name, which reveals that even at the end of a chain of keywords the player can just starts over with the Hail or Name function.

Baahka also has important information to reveal about two of your other Luxor quests, namely Seb and Petra, though the video doesn't cover this. If you ask her about the Shrine of Life she says it's a lovely secret garden where Petra sings and if you ask about the Sebine Seal she reveals Seb is sleeping in his crypt and what you must do to get into the crypt. This makes Baahka a very valuable source of information, further pushing the player to diligently converse with NPCs.

Yet another piece of wisdom Baahka holds is that Sahti is the high priestess of Sysis and to speak with her you need to SAY to her that 'Baahka Sent Me'. As with Rahman, this prompts the player to say something to another NPC. 

At this point the player should have figured out that using the Word function, they can REMEMBER a highlighted keyword, and that both 'Baahka Sent Me' and 'Rahman' were clearly words you need to remember not only because the NPCs told you to, but also since the keywords had apostrophes around it to show it's a word you should remember. Not all words that need to be remembered are this clearly telegraphed, but any word which is telegraphed like this is worth remembering.

Again, a lot learned from one NPC.

Lessons learned

From Baahka and Rahman we've learned quite a lot about Luxor's religious and political situation, fleshing out the game's lore and world, but we've also gotten some lessons in basic gameplay such as:

-How to talk to NPCs using keywords, Hail and Name

-That NPCs can give you items and quests by choosing the right keywords 

-That NPCs can recite parts of a Code of Wisdom for the player to learn

-That the player can remember words and recite complete codes of wisdom.

And most importantly, that NPCs are worth talking to. I think this is the most crucial lesson to learn from the first two NPCs, the player should by nature feel at ease talking to NPCs since the game hinges on its NPCs to give out most of the game's items, quests and information.

Of course, Luxor still has ample NPCs left, and not all of them are this honest and nice. There's still lessons to be learned.