Squeeing over Laser Lords

Well, this is long overdue. My love for Laser Lords goes back for more than three years now, and every few months or so I look back at it again and remember just how much I adore this game. From the goofy voice acting, the clay models and claymation to the outlandish NPCs, convoluted plot threads and the overall cheesy and hammy tone of the game, there's little about it that I don't love. It pushes all the right buttons for me, and every time I think back to it it's like there's another thing for me to get excited over.

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~

That's quite the emotional reaction to a game I've never played! I've never owned a CD-i and the only other games on the system that do interest me run pretty well when emulated. Sadly, Laser Lords just doesn't work properly when emulated, so playing it is one of those things I will get around to eventually. One of these days I will buy a CD-i and a copy of this game and pray they both work and it'll be worth whatever price I have to pay for it.

Today's not that day. Today's also not the day that I write the first blog in a series of blogs about this game, as much as I'd like to talk about the game's themes or its game design, there is just too much to unpack and my interests are just not focused enough to do it. Perhaps when I do get my hands on it.

So, today is the day I'll just scream into the void about a random assortment of things about this game that I like or just feel like screaming about. And I feel like screaming a lot. Oh boy.

Zendo is my lizard husbando

I recently tried playing Nekojishi, which is a gay furry dating sim. I didn't get very far into the game since while the artwork is good, the writing was very generic dating sim stuff and felt like it was just pointlessly meandering without really immersing me in any way.

Basically, I didn't really feel like dating any of these catman. I would however totally date this interdimensional Star Lord:

<3 Zendo <3

Look at this guy. Look at his pimping cape. Look at those head-mounted mirrors he uses so he can see in front of him. Look at his rad headset. Look at that confident smile. Look into those loving eyes.

This guy is prime boyfriend material. This is a guy who knows his way through the Interzone. This is a guy who looks at you, invites you into his flying car to take you into space to send you on a quest to prevent the whole dimension from being compacted into a crystal. This is a guy who will gladly give you the gift of the cat so he can spend nine lives with you. This is a guy who is always willing to hep out with his sagacious advice and tutorials. This is a guy who will tell you how you feel about items you have just used.

Zendo is there when aliens give you the thing you seek. But the only thing that I seek is you, Zendo.

Kuruvians are groovy

Laser Lords is full of aliens and most of them are assholes. NPCs in Laser Lords frequently lie, cheat, deceive and attack you to get what they want.

There are aliens from many planets, and most are a mixed bag. Whether an alien is from an oppressed slave planet, the hedonistic space casino or the space nazi planet, there's good and bad. There's one exception to the rule though. And that is Kuru.

Sam

Kuruvians are some sort of bizarre dragon/lizard/dragonfly aliens and they are all wonderful, precious, amazing people who I hold dear to my heart. Every Kuruvian in the game is there to help you on your quest, some giving away advice for free while others gladly repay you for helping them.

While traveling between planets you can encounter one of two Kuruvian ships, both giving you general hints on where to go, what to do and who to avoid. Meanwhile, the two Kuruvian NPCs on planets you can talk to respectively want you to give them a Moolo Nut in return for a Ticket to Kuru and a Ticket to Kuru in return for a Fogger, a very useful weapon in one of the game's more fruitful sidequests.

One unseen Kuruvian is even the one who stole the golden fleece from the emperor of the galaxy, which reduced said emperor to an ineloquent stutterer and undoubtedly hindered the Argosian empire enough to make your quest much easier. Even when they don't directly appear Kuruvians are great.

Motherfucking Menkh

One aspect of Laser Lords that I really like is how many solutions there are to many of its mandatory and optional sequences. The game can be summed up as one giant sequence of events where you need to use the right words, items, knowledge, currency and combat to slowly make progress towards your main goal. There is one NPC who is set up to react to most of these methods, and to brutally shoot down all but one of them. It's motherfucking Menkh.

Just listen to this guy

Luxor is probably the first planet you go to, and sets up a lot of ways in which the game works. If there is a lesson Menkh teaches you, then it is that this game is a fickle being and is equally willing to lend you a tender hand as it is to punch you right in the face over and over until you figure out what to do.

Menkh is a priest guarding access to the temple of Koptos, the god of gold and grain. You really need to get into that temple, so you have to get past Menkh somehow, it is absolutely vital to finishing the big quest on Luxor. Menkh will not make this easy though. Here are the ways in which Menkh will screw you over:

1. Bribe Menkh with fifty taras: You can attempt to bribe Menkh with fifty taras as his dialogue suggests. Menkh will gladly accept you bribe and... That's it. He takes your money. He doesn't let you into the temple or anything. He just accepts your bribe.
2. Bribe Menkh with a Koptoin: Priests of Koptos love gold, so it stands to reason that they're obsessed with the solid gold Koptoins. If you give one to Menkh, he'll gladly take it and use it to fund the upcoming Koptoan Ball. That's it. 
3. Try to talk to Menkh: In any dialogue in Laser Lords, you can select highlighted keywords to talk with aliens about it or ask them about it. There's several keyword chains you can go through with Menkh, and none of them end with him letting you into the temple. In fact, if you ask him about the sanctification keyword he'll attack you!
4. Defeat Menkh in combat: You can fight Menkh and make him kneel before your might. It's not easy, Menkh is more armed than most enemies in Luxor so it's likely you'll have to retreat if you fight him early in the game. When you do defeat Menkh he... Does nothing. He kneels before you but that's it. You still can't access the temple.
5. Buy a temple pass: There is an NPC in Luxor who will gladly sell you a temple pass so you can access the temple. Buying this pass and showing it to Menkh causes him to tell that the temple pass is not valid since it lacks the Mark of Manu. 
6. Buy the Mark of Manu: If you confront the NPC who sold you the pass about its invalid nature, he'll tell you he cannot sell you the Mark of Manu and you should have known better than to assume a temple pass would be enough to get into the temple.
7. Ask Menkh to give you the Mark of Manu: You can ask Menkh to give you the Mark of Manu. He'll tell you that to get it, you need to be sanctified. If you ask him about being sanctified, he'll attack you.
8. Buy the secret password: A merchant in town offers to buy you a secret password that is guaranteed to get you into the temple: "Daphne Dances". If you tell Menkh the password he attacks you. Turns out that this password is a hoax, it Menkh's wife Daphne is a stripper on another planet and the merchant sells this password to aliens to mess with Menkh.

Well damn. All that effort and none of it achieved anything substantial.

So, what do you do to get into the temple? If you give the local drunk some paddy wine he'll tell you that Menkh loves paddy wine and can't keep the stuff down. So, you bribe Menkh with some paddy wine and it makes him go take a peeing break, giving you access into the temple. That's right, the way into the temple is making the guard have to pee.

A drug PSA

Laser Lords does not shy away from adult content, the game looks like it could easily be for children at a first glance, but beneath that is a lot of stuff that would crank a game's ratings way past an E for Everyone. Whether it's an old woman asking you to cut off her head, claymation gore, prostitute NPCs or drug references, Laser Lords has it all.

Let's talk about the drugs. One series of sidequests resolves around the option to buy Stroke from the black market, a pretty obvious reference to cocaine. This costs quite a lot of money, and the NPC tells you flat out that it's a risky and unrewarding business to be flashing around your Stroke.

So, let's flash around our Stroke! There's so many uses!

1. Use the Stroke: You can use your Stroke. This will cause severe damage to your character and Zeno will admonish you, telling you that Stroke can be lethal and will likely kill you. Whoops.
2. Sell your Stroke to a mutant warlord: You can try and sell your Stroke to a mutant warlord, which he will supply to his slaves to work harder. In return, he'll tell you that he has no reason to give you anything in return and attack you. This deals a lot of damage and will likely kill you. Whoops.
3. Sell your Stroke to a casino hostess: You can sell your Stroke to a casino hostess, who will take it in hushed tones and offer you some money for it and leave. Sounds good, right? Thing is, you get less money than it cost to buy it. Whoops.

Well, none of that worked out well. Luckily, there is an NPC who has a very lucrative offer. She tells you she is a severe Stroke addict and her supplier wants 'special services' in return for Stroke, which she refuses to do. She's desperate to get her fill and will gladly give you 10000 taras for some Stroke, more than five times the purchasing price!

Seems legit

So let's give her some Stroke and make some mad cash!

Oh.

You just sold stroke to an undercover agent. She whips out her laser pistol and starts blasting you apart. This deals a lot of damage and will likely kill you. Whoops.

Don't deal drugs, kids!!

THE EMPEROR OF THE GALAXY

Argos is the hub planet of the Argosian empire, an empire whose infertility allowed an eloquent young boy to convince the people they need to expand and enslave other planets, which they justify with their genetic superiority and the degeneracy of those they target. They're space nazis backed by a powerful military-industrial alliance.

At the head of this is Lexandaller, the highest being on Argos, the head of the empire, a man whose cruelty is only equaled by his eloquence. He is among mightiest people in the game. Almost every NPC you talk to on Argos hypes him up as the shining example everyone should aspire to be yet cannot ever hope to match in brilliance.

https://youtu.be/k8XoTNDCYNE?t=9m15s

And so passes the emperor of the galaxy. Not with a bang, but with a high-pitched scream. It turns out the emperor of the galaxy is a scrawny teenager with voice that keeps cracking and a constant stutter. Aliens on many planets berate him as a little twerp and make other colourful comments, such as this particularly lovely one:

Can I just say that is a lovely face.

So yeah, Lexandaller doesn't live up to the hype. With his fleece stolen, he lost all of his eloquence, and when he drank a potion of eternal youth, he turned himself into a teenager. He forced himself into seclusion, and his death comes at the hand of a mirror given to you by the Gongor, a monster of his own creation. He who is built up as the highest being in the void turns out to be one of the more pathetic NPCs in the game.

Daphne Dances

You might remember that earlier I mentioned that one of the fruitless attempts to get pass Menkh is a fake password, "Daphne Dances", which turns out to be a reference to his wife on Fornax. At first this seems like just another way for the game to screw you over and like a waste of money, there might be more going on than first meets the eye...

How do you forget your own name anyway?

Egads, a dancing alien who has forgotten her real name. Hm, what do you suppose it could be? If you tell her "Daphne Dances", you can restore her memory and talk with her a bit to get some more flavour text on the game's setting and she is one of several NPCs who can give you a certain sidequest. This is wholly optional, as this sidequest isn't required to beat the game and there's other NPCs who'll also tell you about the sidequest, but it's still a nice way to reward players for keeping close attentionand connecting the dots. Laser Lords is full of alternate solutions and little rewards like that!

No Gold Star for you

One of the first main quests you're likely to encounter is the collection of four stars of virtue. You're never told outright that you need to do this, it's only vaguely referred to by some NPCs. Throughout the game there's four NPCs who will reward you with a Star of Virtue if you prove you have that star's virtue. Picking these up lets you listen to what the star has to say, which turns out to be advice on what to say when you find yourself "All by yourself in the dark". Odd.

You're never told outright why you need those four, and the only hint that there even are four comes from one line of dialogue which says that Humility, Compassion, Wisdom and Prowess are the four Virtues. So, how do you get them?

Oh.

You can find the Bronze Star of humility by searching for items in the depths of the sewers of Luxor. Quite fitting that the Star of Humility would be Bronze!

She's probably going to kill you if you give it to her.

The Silver star of Compassion is harder to find. It's not very compassionate to help someone just because they'll give you something you need, right? As it turns out, one of the very first NPCs you'll likely meet sends you on one of the longest quests in the game, the quest to get Lixir. This forces you to get the equipment to make it to another planet and engage in a long search for all the required ingredients. Only when you go through all this trouble to help a small girl's ailing mother without any promise of reward can you get the Silver Star inside the pendant the little girl gives you as thanks. 

¿Donde esta la Bibliotech?

The Jade Star of Wisdom/Knowledge (the game uses both, Laser Lords is sadly not perfect) requires two steps. To even initiate the exam of knowledge you first have to show proof that you have mastered the basics of rhetoric or gained a vision quest. This means either showing the Silver Spoon of Rhetoric or a Robe of Vision, the rewards for completing these exams. Or you can just buy a Silver Spoon cheaply from another NPC entirely, Laser Lords does love to give you alternate solutions! The exam of knowledge itself can be tricky, you need to figure out the answer to a few riddles and find an NPC who has the answer highlighted as a keyword, but the reward is vital to your quest.

His accent even slipped into his dialogue. Good grief.

You get the Diamond Star of Prowess by beating this guy up. That's it.

So, there's the four Stars of Virtue. Bronze, Silver, Jade and Diamond. That's rather odd, isn't it? Something seems to be missing.

He seems like a nice guy.

The game never makes a deal out of this outright, the concept of a Gold Star is only referred to once by a single NPC early in the game who boasts that he got his Honour Badge by burning down an old woman's house and will get a Gold Star for what he does to you. 

One can only assume what the Gold Star stands for, it's not mentioned elsewhere so my personal theory is that it's the Gold Star of Cruely. Not really a virtue, now is it? So of course you have no use for it on your quest. You can never earn the Gold Star, and you should be thankful for that. This is just a teeny, tiny little thing that feels like the developers put in there to flesh out the whole concept of the Stars a bit more, but so out of the way that it won't warrant a moment's pause for anyone but the most obsessed folk. Folk like me!

Phony accents

Laser Lords has over a 100 NPCs and few of them share the same voice. This being a 90s game, that means you can expect a lot of ridiculous voice acting. Everyone sounds like they are from the hammiest and cheesiest sort of cartoon. My love for it is equally boundless and infinite. The voice director and voice actors must have been having fun because man are the outcomes absurd, regardless of how important or insignificant an NPC is, you're never quite sure what they will sound like.

This would be absolutely great by itself, and it is, but Laser Lords goes just one step beyond. Laser Lords absolutely knows that its accents are ridiculous and it's never clearer than when an NPC reveals their accent is fake inside of the game.

https://youtu.be/o5YiDghTmZA?t=13m26s

https://youtu.be/6EdKE9xzG7A?t=6m17s

Codes of Wisdom

Laser Lords is all about making incremental progress to long-term goals. One series of such goals is learning all four pieces of the eight collections of wisdom the game has. There is one for each of the seven planets which details the overall philosophy of those in power of the planet as well as the Voidal Murmurs, which are linked to the four aforementioned Stars of Virtue.

Each piece of wisdom increases your maximum HP, so collecting wisdom is crucial to the game's combat since there will be times when you're forced to fight and every bit of extra HP helps since the game's combat system is not exactly refined. Once you collect all four pieces of one philosophy you can recite it to an NPC who wants to hear it and gain a reward for it. Oddly enough most of these rewards are not necessary, usually there's another way to get the reward or the reward itself is something such as giving you back all nine lives, but the surplus rewards can often still be sold for extra money so your efforts are not wasted.

This wisdom tends to be scattered all over a planet and requires asking NPCs about them, giving them the right items or using the right item in the right places. This process is usually quite arduous, collecting all of a planet's philosophy tends to only happen later on in the game since some of these pieces of philosophy are gated off quite well. The process of gaining a planet's philosophy requires thorough exploration of that planet, by the time you can recite the philosophy you've already experienced it first-hand.

And then this happens.

Oh.

Well, that was easy, wasn't it?

Lunchboxed

Laser Lords is absolutely stuffed with content, much of it optional. This means that for much of the game you're not quite sure what is and is not a sidequest, nor whether the path you are on will give you an item vital to your quest, a monetary reward, a useful item which is nonetheless not mandatory or nothing at all.

There is one sidequest that absolutely takes the cake though. There is a sidequest that can be initiated by talking to a member of an underground resistance movement that intends to take down the Argosian Empire from the inside. To do this quest you need to go say the right words to the right people and be careful you don't reveal your intentions to the wrong people or they will attack you.

Well, that's a handful. What could the reward be?

So, you give the guy your lunchbox aaaaand it turns out to be a bomb. You die.

Congratulations, your reward for this sidequest is that you become a suicide bomber and lose a life!

Doppelgänger 

For as much voice acting as there is in Laser Lords, the protagonist is surprisingly silent. Even though you can recite philosophy and ask aliens about certain keywords, there is no dialogue for any of it, and all of the narration in the game is done by Zendo.

There are clues in the game that hint at what the protagonist sounds like. Delicious clues that lead to an amazing revelation that forever changes the way you imagine conversations happening.

Two NPCs in the game use the same sprites as the player does, and are clearly meant to mirror the player character somehow. The first of these appears in the game's casino is a back-alley copy of Russian Roulette. Prodding him about his backstory reveals that just like the protagonist he was picked up by Zendo to go on the quest, but he clearly didn't care much for it and became disillusioned about it. This is already a kinda funny idea in itself, but it gets even better when you hear his voice and see his face.

https://youtu.be/o5YiDghTmZA?t=3m26s

Throughout the whole game your character has been this pixelated, mute figure, but suddenly that all changes when you see what is obviously meant to be your parallel. Suddenly that little figure has a face and a voice, and it is the most surfer dude face and voice imaginable. That's amazing. And what's even better is what you get to do to him.

You can play a game of Fast Blast with him, where you repeatedly pass each other a blaster and it sets of a random chamber each time. One of six holds a death charge, so you can imagine what happens when the selector chooses that chamber.

Don't mind if I do! ;0

This process goes on until either six rounds pass, or someone gets blasted. This can be save-scummed pretty easily, and the reward for it is a whopping 120,000 taras, more than enough to get you through the rest of the game easily without any monetary worries!

So as it turns out, one of the most effective ways to play the game is to buy your way into most secrets and items, and all you need to do is brutally murder your doppelgänger!

When you're all by yourself in the dark

As I mentioned, there are two NPCs who mirror the player character. You can find the first pretty early on on your playthrough, but the second turns out to be the last NPC you meet before confroning the game's main villain!

I like how they set it up like that, by the time you get there you'll have probably forgotten about Fast Blast, so for a moment you might think he's back for revenge!

You can try fighting him, but if you beat him he just flees and you can't progress.

Unlike the Fast Blast guy though, this guy is an actual copy of yourself, though unlike most games you actually get to talk to him. The set-up of this conversation is that moments before it the main villain, Sarpedon, briefly appears and shoots a laser at you. Your mirror image will then tell you the laser actually killed you , you just haven't realized it yet, and that your quest was futile from the start.

Zendo would never betray me!

Zendo no! ;-;

Thought this was some sort of escapist power fantasy? Think again!

It's almost like it's a game to them. A video game. 

This throws quite the curveball at you. Thus far the game never implied anything like this, so it really comes out of left field. It's so sudden that for just a moment you might consider there's some truth to it. What if the game is pulling an eleventh hour twist?

No amount of talking will get you out of this, and neither will combat or offering money or items. There's only you, yourself and the unusual darkness behind the character's portrait.

You are all by yourself in the dark.

Turns out collecting those stars of virtue wasn't for nothing! This is where the tangled mess of quests to get them all comes back to haunt you if you didn't get them all. To get past here you need to recite the philosophy of the four stars to prove you are virtuous enough to face Sarpedon to yourself.

He's so casual about it.

All-in-all this encounter could have easily been with any sort of gatekeeper, but I find the choice to make it a mirror image of the player character a fun one to take. After all your questing through the void, after exploring all those planets and all those alien cultures it still comes back to this one dude with his stupid face and his stupid accent. 

Because of course, he has the very same accent as the Fast Blast guy. Which to me solidifies that, yes, that is definitely what your character sounds like. Every conversation you imagines you had with aliens was filtered through that voice coming from that face with that expression. I love that.

Might makes Right

One facet of Laser Lords I like is that it plays around with language a whole lot, and what NPC to better represent that than a rhetorician?

Laser Lords logic is the best brand of logic.

This whole conversation is worth a listen, really, so I'm linking it here, there's some alliterative bits, such as the following, but the real meat here is the ridiculous trail of logic that is meant to lead to you concluding what the first Codicil of the Commercial Code is, which is Argos' guiding philosophy.

Astonishingly alliterative articulation. Applause!

Might makes Right! It all makes sense now!

It's interesting to see the game try and stumble its way through more linear dialogue trees such as the rhetoric examination, which turns out to be a series of true/false questions leading up to twisting words so that "Might makes Right" actually refers to military might being used to give citizens the right to have leisure through some amazing leaps of logic . Laser Lords does this a lot where it just takes a bunch of concepts and throws it at you, and honestly I'm all for it. It's about as deep as a puddle but I will gladly flop around it like a hyperactive toddler. 

Also, this bit of dialogue where you can only select one keyword amuses me. Like, this part of the game is set up as a test but you only have one option here and it's the correct one. It's literally impossible to fail this part of the quest. 

It's also obviously referring to the Great Man Theory, which is a load of nonsense, but it perfectly fits into the hodgepodge of awful rhetoric that Argos represents. It's almost like Laser Lords has something to tell us. Something to comment on. Something regarding society.

Social commentary for dummies

I've heard someone say Laser Lords is the best Star Trek game there is, because most of it is about exploring alien cultures that mirror aspects of humanity. I don't know how accurate that is to Star Trek, but it definitely sums up Laser Lords quite nicely. Every planet in the game is about some aspect of humanity and some of the NPCs talk about these aspects in ways that clearly guide the player to either condemning or agreeing with them. Though usually condemnation, because misery is just much more fun, isn't it?

The Ancient Egypt-like Luxor is largely about power struggles between different classes of peoples and prophecy. Argos is thoroughly in control of the planet, but their puppet regime of Koptoans have plans of betrayal by awakening a god to take down Argos, while the repressed Gameans also wish the awaken Seb, but to liberate Luxor from both Argosian and Koptoan rule. Though it turns out things might not be that simple.

We'll get back to Seb.

Fornax's orbital space casino, the Seminum Omegan, is all about pleasure, addiction and the divide between haves and have-nots. On the one hand there's a lavish casino where the richest people in the void gather while in the halls of the casino the destitute roam, hunted by a stand in for the police and bounty hunters eager to make some quick cash, and on both sides there's people hopelessly addicted to stroke or the gambling life.

Ravanna Rollout? More like Ravanna Wipeout.

Tekton is a futuristic planet mostly devoid of humanity populated by droids with the bare minimum amount of cranial matter they need to operate, and as such lacks inspiration and creativity and has a single-minded goal of reaching peak efficiency by establishing a rigid order that everyone has to fit into. But as it turns out, this order is entirely made up by one fully sentient cyborg who makes all this stuff up as he goes along and along the way created a brittle system that constantly gives him headaches and is liable to short-circuit every droid there is if a single contradiction is made. Tekton is a planet which is forever looking to progress and expand.

The leader of the robot uprising, everybody.

Woo is the exact opposite, it is a natural paradise where every animal is free to do as they will and the chaos of nature has created a stable equilibrium. Everyone does what they wish to do, and as such they all fall into predictable roles. It's a planet in which a predator will gladly ask a prey if they want to be eaten and the prey won't hold it against them. It's a planet where plants are held in the highest regard and violating a flower will instantly kill you. Woo is set up as a sort of paradise, but what it amounts to is a planet that is stuck in a pre-societal state that is firmly rooted in its status quo and will never evolve beyond it. There is plenty for all, but if you are a prey then you shall never be anything but food for the predator.

#WooSucks

Hive is a hive of space wasps and Ravanna is the hub world of Sarpedon and his evil cronies. Neither planet is very interesting or worth talking about, they're both combat gauntlets for the most part and don't have many NPCs to converse with. I am unsure if this was wholly intentional or perhaps just a result of budget constraints, but I suppose that neither the collectivist hivemind nor the irredeemable evil of Ravanna have as much potential as the other planets.

Bonus points for including a goblin though!

And then there's Argos. Argos is like everything wrong with humans melded together into dystopian empire. It's a delightful combination of scarcity, fascism, capitalism and imperialism. It is the most richly populated planet in the game and next to Luxor it has the most cohesive culture. Despite its outwards hostility, it's a planet in which you can freely engage with most of the NPCs, meaning you get given plenty of insight of how Argos works both from its fervent supporters and its detractors inside the very empire itself. It's easily the best planet in the game and I will not be convinced otherwise.

Argos is roughly divided into five districts: The Arcopolis, which holds both the Academy where minds are refined into loyal servants of the empire and the Gymnasium where warriors hone their body and virtue, Lyspaceum which is the center of the empire's military might, the offices of Corinth which is the economical and propaganda district and the Agora, where the undesirables and the shady gather.

How convenient that every sector lies in an easily defined direction!

Throughout the game you'll have to explore and district, and they're all packed full of NPCs. And oh boy, do they have things to tell you. Argos is where the game cranks things up a notch further, and all pretenses are dropped. There's no beating around the bush anymore on Argos, and it is amazing.

I liked you better when you were giving me directions.

Some juicy alternative facts.

This all sounds very complex. Like a military-industrial complex.

Capitalism!!!!!

However, the shining crown of Social Commentary and the only reason I included this lengthy section in the first place is one of my favourite conversations in the game. It's simultaneously a completely ridiculous conversation when you stop to think about it, yet also eerily prophetic. It's a point where the game totally breaks the keyword principle to deliver a chain of dialogue with the sole intent of making a point. And the voice acting here is actually completely on point, it's the most elaborate and focused one conversation in Laser Lords ever gets.

It's time for some Data Production.

And all that from a game that came out in 1994, with no age restrictions! What I really like about this is how the tone of the dialogue here is perfect, the voice actress totally captures the sheer level of banality of this propagandizing mission. Here she is just telling a random alien from who knows where about how they are going to massively screw with statistics to create the appearance of an uprising on Luxor so that public support can be generated for laser-strafes on villages in order to make more profit from selling their grain.

Attacking a remote location under the guise of a fight against terrorism for the goal of harvesting its natural resources to fuel your economy.

Jeez Laser Lords, you are more relevant today then you where when you first came out. 

Mummy Jesus

So, Luxor has been mentioned a few times so far. The main theme of the planet is its prophecy, that the god Seb, the son of the gods Koptos and Gamea, will be awakened and liberate Luxor from the iron fist of Argosian rule. Luxor's philosophy, the Sooth Song, sums up how this all ties together pretty well:

"Oh Mother Sysis is our source,
She blesses, heals and feeds,
When prophecy fulfills its course,
We'll plant once more her seeds."

"Koptos is our Father,
King of the sun and rain,
Unless we gather gold for him,
He'll burn away our grain."

"Sysis and Koptos mated,
In fields beneath the skies,
Flowers and grain pollinated,
Seb was born from their sighs."

"Seb the son of Sysis and Koptos,
Will scourge the evil Empire.
Gas shall rid the void of Argos.
Seb the son shall be its sire."


Amazing singing voices. Absolutely amazing.

There's a variety of NPCs on Luxor, and most can be divided into three camps: Followers of Sysis, followers of Koptos and those sympathetic to the Argosian Empire. These groups all have their own interpretation of this Sooth Song and the prophecy, as nothing in Laser Lords is ever simple or easy.

She sings this line too. Blessed be her voice.

The Gameans, followers of Sysis, believe that when Seb is awakened, he shall free Luxor from the Argosian Empire and restore Luxor to as it once was. This means the Koptoans will lose their power and Luxor shall revert to its original name, Gamea, and become a peaceful planet of flowers and fountains once more, rather than a planet that worships gold and grain.

Gas the space nazis. How ironic.

The Koptoans take a decisively more warlike look on it. When Seb awakens, they shall work together to overthrow the Argosian Empire and found their own empire to rule over, supplanting the current role of Argos as the leader of the void. Rather then be a tribute planet, they shall receive tribute from all other planets. Luxor will maintain its name and stay a planet of gold and grain.

Yeah, who has ever heard of a fictional prophecy coming true?

The Argosians and Luxorians who have allied themselves with them show little concern over the prophecy, however. They are wholly content to continue exploiting Luxor's fertile grainfields and large supply of gold for their own ends, even if it means thinning the population.

And then, it turns out perhaps none of them really got it right.

Ah.

It's not a war if you gas your enemies, honest!

Seb has clearly allied himself to one side, and that is his own side. Seb has no interest in restoring Luxor to its original form, nor does he plan to aid the current ruling class. There won't be a Gamea or a Luxor, but only Gamelux, a vast empire in which there will only be Sebines and plenty for all. For this sake, Argos will be gassed and the Empire shall crumble, then Seb and his offspring shall 'spread his seed on every planet'. 

So, both the Gameans and Koptoans did get parts right. Seb certainly intends to engage in chemical warfare with Argos and free the people, and spread prosperity and fertility through the void. What they did not account for, is that Seb has no interest in picking either side, he is the son of both Sysis and Koptos, so by divine right all Gameans and Koptoans should now bow to him and spread the fruits of Luxor to other planets.

So basically Seb isn't out to restore Gamea to a peaceful, fertile planet nor instill a warlike, theocratic empire, but rather he intends to instill a peaceful and fertile theocratic empire. You know, right after he gasses the current empire.

What's in a name?

One of my favourite aspects of Laser Lords is how it names things. People, places, items, concepts, Laser Lords has names for all of them and most of them follow a theme. So, let's unwind from all that heavy stuff with social commentary as lethal gasses and just look at some wonderful naming schemes.

Being the typical Egyptian-themed planet, the names of people in Luxor sound appropriately Egyptian. There'snot much to it, you have names like Nebka, Rahman, Seb, Koptos, Hotep, Menkh, Teb, the list goes on.

Argos is where it gets more interesting, visually it takes a lot after ancient Rome and Greece, and we have already seem how this affects the way they name places, but the way they handle names is a little more complex. Most characters have their names derived from famous and fictional figures, often scrambled around into anagrams or otherwise altered, though some are just puns. Let's look over these, shall we?

Emdea - Medea
Thesia - Hestia
Aleus - Sounds like Alias
Tantalia - Atlanta
Acteon - Actaeon
Dyseosus - Odysseus
Cynicus - Sounds like cynic
Scardansa - Cassandra
Scrono - Cronos
Astal - Atlas
Remesh - Hermes
Hemeprotus - Prometheus
Sodipud - Odipus
Lexandaller - Alexander
Milos - Milos
Dorpana - Pandora
Memnon - Agamemnon
Plenyope - Penelope
Neclo - Cleon
Dimas - Midas
Axja - Ajax
Gongor - Gorgon
Leneh - Helen

Some of these took me longer to figure out that others. My personal favorites are Scardansa, Hemeprotus, Lexandaller and Dyseosus, those just sound like kinda cool names. They shall be the names of my three sons and daughter.

Some Argosians also like to use the word "zook" as a stand in for a certain word.

I love fictional curse words

The Creegs who orbit Fornax in their space casino/seed bank called the Seminum Omegan have some especially colourful names. This is where things take a turn for the silly. You have wonderful names such as these:

Erectum
Flacidek
Eunuchus
Flateus Dan
Proctus

Figure out what they and the name Seminum Omegan mean for yourself. The place also has two distinct terms, fornaxed and fornaxication, the former of which refers to being broke and the latter, well...

Yeah.

The droids of Tekton follow a simple naming scheme based around their functions, hopefully these will be easy to figure out.

In-Put, Assimilator Droid
Dok-Tor, Bionicologist Droid
Graft-On, Bionicologist Droid
Swit-Chon, Prower Doid
Tran-Smit, Production Droid
Reef-Raze, Poet Droid
Gro-Ing, Cloning Droid
Out-Flo, Shipping Droid
Fen-Der, Shield Assembly Droid
Pro-Fit, Sales & Marketing Droid
Too-Bee, Philosopher Droid
De-Bug, Repair Droid
Dee-Fusion AKA the Variable, last organic on Tekton
Co-Fusion AKA Prime Ass, the autocrat of Tekton

I am not making that one up.

Much like the droids of Tekton, the animals of Woo have punny names based on their species, or in some cases names they rhyme.

Yo Kai-ti, the coyote
Yee Nah-hai, the hyena
Ah Ga-zel, the gazelle
Ti Lo-pan, the antelope
Rom Bok, the roe-buck
Ow-Li, the owl
Lu Po, the bear
Chim Pan, the chimpanzee
Pa Chi-zi, the chimpanzee
Sap Ah-jo, the sapajou
Mon-Kee, the monkey
Ka Pu-chin, the capuchin
Han U-man, the hanuman
Tran Tu-la, the tarantula
Ma Dil-oh, the armadillo
To Fu, the frog (???)
Yet Ti, the yeti
Masters Lao, Wao and Tao, the bears of healing, song and flight.

Yeah, most aren't that hard to figure out so long as you know the names of the species they refer to.

Yes, they all have clay models. Yes, they are a taxidermist's worst nightmare.

Now, let's take a look at the names of some products you can buy in Laser Lords, such as drinks, food and medicine. There aren't too special, but I like how they gave them all unique names and some flavour text anyway. Plus I get to show off more amazing clay faces.

Luxorians grow the best grain, and the best beards

Rad goatee, dude.

Lovely Dreamworks eyebrows.

If only real medicine was this descriptive.

Now we can really get down to fornaxicating!

And finally, the game of course has to have some acronyms somewhere, right? There's three recurring acronyms and they're all great.

Turning the universe into a crystal is one way to achieve unity, sure.

USURP

STATQUO

Rad tunes

Laser Lords doesn't have a lot of music, and most of it goes unused, but what little music does get used is worth listening to!

Seriously the clay models are amazing, please make more games with these

Seriously, look at them. Look at them!

You will always live on in my heart, Sam

EVERY GAME SHOULD HAVE THIS.

Closing Thoughts

So, that took a while. I've written several blogs before, but none of this scope. This blog also took much longer to write than the rest, I started this a week ago as I am typing this now! 

I do get these cravings for Laser Lords from time to time, so writing about it like this is a good release of that, since it's so hard to find anything about this game elsewhere. I can rest easily now, knowing that I have written more about Laser Lords than anyone in the whole world.

That ought to be good for a Gold Star, yes?

Sam & Max & Mania

Hooray, a new blog! I hope to write these more consistently than I did last year.

I recently beat Telltale's Sam & Max series, a set of sixteen episodes point-and-click adventure games spread out over three distinct seasons. I quite enjoyed the series, so this blog is my way of getting my thoughts on the series a bit more structured and also serve as a recommendation of the series.

I got Sam & Max quite a whole before I actually played it, I think I got it during the 2016 Winter Steam Sale, but then only started playing season 1 after August 2017, and then when I finished that I delayed seasons 2 and 3 until January 2018, which I then both played without any breaks.

Sam & Max form the Freelance Police, a sort of buddy-cop pairing of Max, the psychotic hyperkinetic rabbit thingy (seriously that's Max's description), and Max, the somewhat less psychotic straight man/dog in a suit. They apply their curious brand of justice through a liberal application of cartoon violence and absurd adventure game logic while making inane observations about everything and everyone around them. It's quite lovely.

The titular Sam & Max

My playthrough of the series was my first real exposure to Sam & Max. Sam & Max started as a series of panel-based comics which are much more mature while there was also an older LucasArts point-and-click adventure game as well as an animated series, both of which were more child-friendly but I think that just makes Max' violent demeanor and Sam's non-reaction to that all the funnier.

Saving the world! With guns!

The first season is the descriptively names Sam & Max Save The World. The first episode does a good job of getting you used to the way the game works, with a simple first puzzle to figure out: Having to retrieve an object from a rat in your apartment by giving him swiss cheese. Along the way you need to solve brain-teasing puzzles such as figuring out you need to open the door to the cheese-filled closet, shooting the regular cheese with your gun to make it swiss cheese and engaging in a dialogue tree with the rat to convince him through means fair or foul to give back the item he took from you.

This is the meat of the game, as most of the game takes place by either clicking around the area to investigate objects, talking to NPCs and figuring out how to correctly use objects in your inventory. Episodes tend to be structured in a way where your first task is to examine everything you can and exhaust all dialogue options to get as many items and information as possible. A lot of these examinations and dialogues are not required to beat the episode, but they're always worth doing just to see all the dialogue as it's quite well-written.

Episode 1 does a good job of accustoming you to the logic of the series, most of the gameplay in this episode takes place in Sam & Max's office and neighbourhood, which are recurring locations throughout all of seasons 1, 2 and parts of season 3. These locations also contain various recurring characters, because there's few things in these games that aren't recurring as you find out in episode 2.

I hope you like the office, you'll be seeing it a lot.

You also get accustomed to omnipresent item in your inventory, your trusty gun. While you can try to shoot everyone, the gun is never really used for such obvious purposes and most uses of the gun are a bit more esoteric than just "shoot gun at criminal", which sets up how generally things aren't really straightforward and puzzles where you just need to use an item on someone or something tend to require some (il)logical reasoning as to why that item needs to be used there.

Episode 1 also sets up that a lot of puzzles are solved by first meeting the right conditions before you can solve an item by using an item, many puzzles take the form of a chain of requirements you need to meet before you can solve it, such as telling an NPC to go somewhere else because you need them there to solve a puzzle or giving them an item to alter their dialogue and behaviour. 

You'll also learn along the way that Sam & Max has no game overs or really any failstates at all. You can mess up as much as you want, take as much time as needed and experiment to your heart's content with using items since the series has no time limits or ways to lose the game. This actually rewards the player for trying everything rather than punishing them for it, since a lot of incorrect uses of items can still lead to funny observations of scenes.

Progress in the episode can also be roughly divided into chunks, as is the case with most episodes. Usually every chunk of the episode requires you to solve several puzzles to get through one major obstacle, after which another obstacle is revealed which is the next chunk of the game. Usually this ends with a final showdown with the chapter's villain in an enclosed area with a limited set of available items, characters and objects as a final test of wits. Sometimes items you get or characters you can interact with during one chunk of the game won't come in handy until another chunk of the game, which can lead to the feeling that they are red herrings, so if it seems like something's just not working out there's a chance it's just not relevant yet. 

Caption this with an inane observation from max!

So, that's episode 1! All-in-all it does a very good job of setting up how the series as a whole works. I'll admit that it took me some time to adjust to the game, I've never played many adventure games and sometimes the game expects you to make leaps of logic which is a tricky balancing act since different people have different thought processes, but I find that as the series goes along you do get a bit more of a feel for how the game wants you to think. While things always make sense in hindsight, there's still moments where you're left wondering how you were meant to figure it out though.

From episode 2 onward the stakes get higher and higher while the situations get sillier and sillier, I adore the sheer and unashamed ridiculousness of these games. But as much as things change, some things stay the same. Sam & Max was from what I've heard made on a rather tight budget, so the developers were quite economical with their voice actors and locations. Areas such as the office, the city streets, the car and Bosco's Inconvenience Store and Sybil Pandemik's job-of-the-week return in each episode.

Personally I think that this decision was a genius move on the part of the developers, as the way they keep giving new content and context to these areas allows for them to have a whole slew of running gags and it all works out beautifully. I never felt a sense of dread when going to explore an old location, but always found myself wondering what was new. The same happens when old characters pop up in later episodes, I think it's far better to design your game this way than hamstringing yourself by always having to make new characters and location exclusively on a tight budget.

This is an exceedingly smart way of driving.

My rankings of season 1's episodes from favourite to least favourite would be as follows:

4 > 5 > 2 > 6 > 1 > 3

This ranking is mostly based on how much I like the general theme of the episode and how much use they get out of it, so for example episodes 4, 5 and 2 focus on the White House, the internet and a television studio respectively which make for interesting locations whereas episode 3's main location is a casino which they don't really get as much mileage out of as they could have.

This also somewhat vaguely ties in with how much I enjoyed the puzzles, though chapter 3 might have been the one I needed the least help with so to some extent I think I do sometimes like to really have a brainteaser.

Max sure is enjoying himself

Season 2 of Sam & Max can roughly be summed up as "more and better". The second season uses the same engine as the first, so the gameplay is unchanged, as is the general design philosophy of the game. Episodes are still broken down into chunks and there's still recurring characters, some from season 1 and some newly introduced ones, but the episodes are overall less formulaic and the plot more complicated as well.

While season 1 has the stakes rise every episode by making you work your way through a conspiracy level by level, getting closer to the real culprit along the way, episode 2 is a lot twistier and turnier, it's never quite clear how it all fits together even if it all starts to make sense by the end of the series. Episode 1 has a gag where you can see a chart of the villain's plan, but making such a chart would be much harder for season 2, and I can appreciate that.

Another change is that this season tends to have tiny chunks to start out with before they play the opening sequence, which is a nice way of getting into the episode without being immediately overwhelmed with options. This is most noticeable in episode 1, where it starts with a quick tutorial chunk but from there on out it goes in all sorts of directions, it's definitely more ambitious than season 1's episode 1 and makes up for season 2 only having 5 episodes.

Season 2 also takes the opportunity of being the second season by referring back to bits from season 1, such as short detours to season 1 locations or characters from season 1 who didn't get to do much being expanded upon. Of course this is not at the expense of new characters and locations of which there are plenty! The role of the Sam & Max's office and neighboring streets has been reduced somewhat and season 1's running gags are referenced but not strictly enforced anymore.

Overall I definitely prefer season 2 over season 1, they took an already polished, well-made product and polished it even further, and in doing so created an excellent point-and-click adventure game.

Overall my preferences this season are as follows:

4 > 5 > 3 > 1 > 2

Episode 4 made an especially strong showing by making full use of its time travel gimmick, which made for a lot of funny moments, clever eurekas and downright absurdity. Episode 5 meanwhile manages to be a great way to cap off the second season and manages to make a better lasting impression than season 1's finale. I also fondly recall episode 3 and its horror theme and it might be the episode I did most of the figuring things out just by myself for. I was rather rusty while playing episode 1, so I got stuck frequently which hampered my enjoyment a bit, and it had a bad case of introducing objects early on that only become relevant in the very final chunk, which made them feel like red herrings.

The long-awaited third season

If season 2 was "better and more" then season 3 is "one step forwards and two steps back". Season 3 saw an increased budget, higher production values and a new engine. But sometimes more isn't better, and in this case I feel like a lot of these changes were more of a detriment than anything.

The most noticeable change is how movement was altered from pointing to a place and Sam walking there to being able to directly control Sam with WASD or by dragging the mouse in a direction. This makes playing he game one-handedly a lot more awkward, a shame since I liked doing that in seasons 1 and 2, and it also means that when the camera angle changes you need to reorient yourself. It basically makes moving around harder to do, and while I understand it works out better for consoles it made me enjoy the PC experience less.

I also have several issues with the increased budget and production values, or rather how they weren't really used well. The art style in seasons 1 and 2 was very cartoony, bright and pretty simple for characters and locations alike, but in season 3 every locations, both new and returning ones, has a more grungy, dark and realistic look. I really do not care for it at all and I think it clashes with the cartoony character designs. This is less of an issue with the characters, the old ones still have their old designs and the new ones are somewhat less cartoony but still quite cartoony overall, but that still makes them stand out next to each other and next to the scenery.

The game also has a lot more cinematic touches, there are more cutscenes, the lighting system has been revamped. This is nice when it works well, but I noticed the game has a lot more animation errors as a result, such as times when Sam would be stuck doing a weird animation after teleporting, instances of characters being blocked by objects due to weird camera angles during conversations, really unnatural and distracting lighting effects on character's faces (Superball's sunglasses are the world offender) and times when facial or bodily expressions just come out looking weird or not fitting the dialogue very well.

These problems to me feel like the developers, Telltale Games, felt that they needed to modernize the series to be more cinematic, but they just didn't do a good job of it so the cinematic feel comes across as somewhat janky and the basic gameplay suffers as a result of it.

Don't let this make you think I didn't enjoy the game though! At its core it's still very much a Sam & Max game, the charm, wit and heart is still there and this season is the most unpredictable and diverse thus far with a more complex plot as well and a few genuinely emotional moments here and there too.

There are characters both new and old, just as in season 2, though I did miss some of the prominent season 1 characters who didn't get to appear much in season 3. I suppose they felt that going to Bosco's and Sybil's every episode would be a bit much by the third season, and you'll spend very little time this season in locations from past areas, and ones you do find yourself in have been redesigned anyway.

One noteworthy thing was the inclusion of Max' psychic powers, which he can channel through Toys of Power for various puzzle-solving and hint-giving effects. These powers are using through a first person perspective, which can be awkward at times, but they are a fun way to change up the gameplay and are good tools for adding more variety to puzzle-solving. Plus it is just fun to read minds or look into the future.

Overall my preferences this season are as follows:

5>3>2>4>1

Episode 5 definitely stuck out as the best episode of the season. It's the big climax of the season and the series and it's a worthy end to it all. There's just a lot going on in this episode and a lot of plot threads come together. It's also the most nostalgic episode of the season with the most references to past seasons which made me enjoy it more. Season 3 has a fun first chunk which lasts just shortly enough to not overstay its welcome and the two chunks that follow just have a nice flow of puzzles and narrative I really digged. Episode 2 has a unique take on how the chunks work by letting you freely switch between four filmreels for different chunks, though I did feel there were too many annoying mole people this episode. Episode 4 sort of felt weird since it was the climax of the supposed story arc but then the real climax happens in episode 5, and just in general it wasn't as memorable as episode 5 was. Episode 1 was when I was still adjusting to all the changes which coloured my perfection, but I also don't really like how much of it takes place on the kinda dirty and bland streets rather than nice-looking interiors and it also was divided into too many self-contained chunks for my liking.

Also can I just say that these two are adorable?
I totally ship them and you cannot and will not stop me.

So, that's Sam & Max! I'm really glad I got these games and strongly recommend them if this write-up made them sound fun. They're roughly 30 dollars in total as a bundle and they are sizably discounted when on sale so it's worth it to put them on your Steam wishlist or wherever else you can buy them from.

I think it is a shame that season 3 didn't really live up to the high bar set by season 2, but it was still a satisfying set of games in its own right. I really doubt we'll ever see a Sam & Max season 4 but I'd be totally down for a Sam & Max reboot with an entirely new supporting cast. 

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.