Villager

 

Game: Villager

Developer: partnano (Twitter: @partnano)

Platform: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android

Play in browser here: https://partnano.itch.io/villager

Gotta love crafting games. They're almost like the zeitgeist in regards to gaming mechanics in both big-budget games and microgames such as this one. Some of the best craft games out there are still played to this day, such as Minecraft, Forager, and Stardew Valley at the peak of its popularity. But let's say you're a poor college student, like me, who is short on cash and don't want to spend too much money on your vidya gamerinos, and just want something bite-sized to take-in. Well, if you want that, you can definitely give Villager a shot.

Developed by small game dev partnano, and playable in-browser via pico-8 software, Villager is like if you took Stardew Valley and Forager, and compressed them down to the size of a marble with graphics reminiscent of a SEGA Genesis game. Your goal in this game is to essentially take the resources around you, via wood and stone, and create a village to appease villagers that spawn randomly as you build. It's kind of like a city builder game where you build a town with available resources, though this feels more hands-on than say SimCity or Cities: Skylines.

There are multiple resources to keep track of:

-Wood and Stone: Building materials.

-Food: Feeds you and villagers.
-Population: Count of villagers that are present.

-Happiness: Essentially the status of your town which helps keep people staying around.

Buildings require materials and certain prerequisites to fulfill. Doing so allows the player to build more structures, create more storage for supplies, and boost the happiness of the townsfolk. Happiness gets too low, people will start leaving. So despite its simple premise, there is a little bit of depth to crafting. It's not exactly Minecraft or Forager levels of deep, but it works nonetheless.

It's a pretty simple game with loads of charm that above all is free to play. Since it's presented via pico-8, it also comes with partial controller support. So if you don't want to cumbersomely play with a keyboard, just plug your controller in and have some fun... and realize fulfilling work and mundane chores is considered self-fulfilling. Humanity is weird.

Swans - To Be Kind

Album: To Be Kind

Artist: Swans

Released: May 12th, 2014

Genre: Post-rock, experimental rock

I've decided to do something a little different today. I've recently become very interested in music as a medium of artistic expression. While most people can attest that they may not be a movie watcher or a video game player or a sports fan, I cannot name a medium that brings people together more than music. Let's be real here, everyone loves music. Whether it be a casual listen to their favorite song by their favorite band or hardcore listening to some experimental soundscapes in the underground music scene, try to name someone that honestly isn't a fan of music that isn't being super contrarian. Now, I'm not incredibly musically inclined. The most "talent" I have from a music standpoint is an average singing voice. But today, I thought I would try to talk about some albums that I absolutely adore. Some by artists you may know, others that are literally who unless you have done some browsing here and there on music discussion boards like the /mu/ board on 4chan. 

That being said, I'm gonna gush about one of my favorite albums of all time, To Be Kind by Swans.

Now I know what you're probably asking: "Who on God's green Earth are Swans?" I'm glad you hypothetically asked. Swans are a long-running experimental rock outfit originating from New York City. They formed in 1982 during the height of the no-wave scene, a sect of underground music that exemplified a nihilistic sound that was abrasive and heavy. Swans have been spearheaded by frontman and multiinstrumentalist Michael Gira ever since the band formed in the early 80s to their reformation in 2010. Over the course of the band's history, they have had multiple shifts in sound and lineup changes. While they started off as a no-wave, industrial rock band, before evolving into post-rock and gothic rock. After their breakup in 1997 and a myriad of side projects, the band reformed in 2010, bringing in a more evolved sound of their work in the 90s.

Swans from 2012 to 2016 would release a trilogy of heavily acclaimed albums, and at the centerpiece of this trilogy is the album To Be Kind, a behemoth of a record that has a run time of over 2 hours. Modern Swans have been known for their long, repetitive soundscapes, cryptic lyrics, and complex instrumentation, and it's showcased excellently on this album.

If I could describe this album simply, I'd call it a massive wall of sound that crushes the listener under its impressive size. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the track "Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture," a gargantuan track not only in length at over 34 minutes but also in pure sound. The instrumentation is so immense that it makes a listener like me feel like I'm coming to grips with something larger than life.

I should probably mention that given the length of this album, and the style of sound Swans are going for, this is not an album that I can pop on and just have the most casual of listens, like popping on a favorite tune because of the awesome riff or great singing. This is an album that requires the listener to be patient and disciplined when taking it all in. Tracks on this album have a hypnotic, repetitive sound that may sound jarring at first, not to mention kind of simple, but the progression of the tracks as they go on make for a compelling listen, like on tracks such as "Just A Little Boy" or the opening track "Screen Shot." The former having an otherworldly, spiritual atmosphere to it, and the latter sounds like the song is pulling you into another world.

That's not to say some tracks aren't accessible to a casual listener. Songs like "Oxygen" and "A Little God in My Hands" are great tracks to familiarize yourself with Swans' sound, not to mention their relatively shorter run times make for an easier experience.

To Be Kind to me is liking having a larger than life experience and realizing one's insignificance in the grander scheme of things. Whether it be the mantras on the song "Some Things We Do" that have lyrics that represent humanity at its most primal of actions, or celebration of being alive and breathing on the song "Oxygen." There's a very humanistic theme to this album, representing how little the human experience matters, but also not taking it for granted. 

To Be Kind is not an easy album. It's not an album that relies on a few catchy songs to bring you in or a hard-hitting riff that gets your headbanging. This album is more of an experience in witnessing something so large that it makes your existence seem trivial. That being said, this album isn't bleak, but more of witnessing yourself entering a plane of existence beyond comprehension.

If you're looking for something challenging to listen to or something different, I definitely recommend To Be Kind. While it's not an album I would start off with within Swans' immense catalog, I'd say either The Great Annihilator or Leaving Meaning or better places to start if you want to ease yourself in, it's still a fantastic experience that I can't recommend enough.

maskless

Game: maskless

Developer: Kultisti

Platform: Windows/MAC

Download Link: https://kultisti.itch.io/maskless

Masking is a personality trait most of us can relate to. We often create a mask to fit in among the crowd, be it a religious institution, a social club, or school. Places where peer pressure can be a common occurrence. We often try to fit into places because abnormality is often frowned upon in culture, like being of a different sexual orientation or gender identity. Masking also applies to me, having Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism that affects my social intelligence and behavior. I often put a figurative mask on because of my low self-image. As much as I try to act normal, there are times where I wish I was normal, even if the definition of normal is subjective depending on the culture.

So along comes itch.io developer Kultisti who admirably attempts to bring to light masking in an artful way in their game, maskless. Maskless is a short, atmospheric side-scroller where you play as a nameless figure who dons a mask to fit in with the crowd that seeks to pressure them. Along the way, you meet a myriad of other nameless characters that have decided to not conform with the norms of the majority, living their lives out in the forest, pursuing their passions.

While the game is very direct with its message, the narrative is generally up in the air in terms of what you take from it. The dialogue is cryptic, but not alienating. It very much pushes the themes of conformity and individuality, even if some of the dialogue's execution left me scratching my head.

Visually speaking, Maskless I would say is more visually driven than it is dialogue-driven. The minimalist visuals are definitely charming to look at. It doesn't bombard the senses and keeps things simple in execution. I enjoyed a few aspects of the visual direction. I liked how the representation of time is constant, shown in the clock as a "gift" from the norm, and how their clothing is represented by the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

I did have some minor issues with grammatical errors, but that can be forgiven. Another thing is while I am open to open-ended storytelling and theory crafting, I mean, I have gushed enough about Robert Eggers' film The Lighthouse with my friends and family, I think in maskless the execution fell short to some of my desires. It's a great proof of concept that I'm glad exists, but I just was expecting a little more "oomph" if you will out of the narrative.

Still though, I found maskless to be a charming little game. Game time lasts roughly 10 minutes, so it's a short adventure. While I was hoping that the narrative had a little bit more impact, I can certainly say it's worth checking out. The visuals and art direction are really interesting, and the themes I'm sure most people can relate to. Check this game out and "feel free to feel free."

Coming Out Simulator 2014

Game: Coming Out Simulator 2014

Developer: Nicky Case (Twitter: @ncasenmare)

Play in browser: https://ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014

I don't pretend to know what it's like for one to come out as LGBTQ+ in this day in age. The closest that I could come to relating to it is coming out with my non-belief in the religion I grew up in, which I've stated which one it was in a previous post, I'm sure. I do not wish to appropriate coming out as areligious/agnostic in the same vein as coming out as LGBTQ+, but having played this game and talked to people who identify themselves within such community, I can certainly draw parallels. I'm sure some of my peers may not appreciate my disaffiliation from their church, but the only thing I will ask if you respect my decision to follow my own path in life. That being said though, I'm looking to talk about this game, which, ironically, was in my suggestion section on itch.io for well over a year or so. Combined with my burnout and ultimate canceling of my video for Swallow The Sea, a game I was looking forward to talking about, I pretty much said "what the hell" and gave it a shot.

Coming Out Simulator 2014 is a small, visual novel-esque game about the game's developer, Nicky Case, and their semi-fictionalized story of coming out. The game is mostly dialogue-based and is interesting in the fact that it remembers the words you have used in conversation, which ultimately have consequences in how conversations progress. Your conversations take place between Nicky's boyfriend at the time, Jack, and the former's hyper-conservative Asian parents.

Judging by the premise of this piece, you probably expect things to go all hunky-dory, right? No, but seriously, it goes about as poorly as you might expect. As fictionalized as the game may be in Nicky's story of coming out, there is still truth to behold in the story of many people who live in these real-life situations. 

From an artistic angle, I can say this game excels in a lot of areas. I do like the sort of anonymous, faceless characters, enough emotion gets communicated through body language to give the player an idea of the emotions being conveyed. Despite the sound effects being public domain, I like the sort of atmosphere it gives this game, especially with the ticking clock in the dining room scene creating a sort of tense atmosphere as you go through dialogue.

If there's any criticism I can throw at this game, it would probably be that the idea of choosing your words carefully is kind of misleading, as the game itself tells you that there are no right answers. The game kind of sets the fictionalized version of Nicky up for failure no matter what, which while I can understand from a thematic standpoint of coming out being a sort of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, it kind of makes the branching dialogue kind of meaningless, and kind of shoots down its replayability.

Despite having had a little bit of criticism for its lack of replayability, this game still holds a lot of value for those who are still "in the closet" about certain aspects of themselves. It could very well be a good piece for those who aren't openly LGBTQ+ or even open about being of a different religious persuasion or lack thereof. Coming Out Simulator 2014 has a lot of goodwill to it and is certainly a good video game piece that is encouraging of self-worth, despite the negative outcome the story presents. The game is a short, roughly 20-minute experience, but I do believe it's worth your time, whether you're looking for something relatable or looking to get some perspective.

VEKTOR 2089

Game: VEKTOR 2089 [Early Access Mode]

Developer: Impbox

Download Link: https://impbox.itch.io/vektor2089

MSRP: $5.00

If there is any genre that I get absolutely giddy over, it's futuristic racers. My zealous love for the F-Zero series knows no bounds and it has been absolute hell for me to not get a new installment since F-Zero Climax. So, I do what I can in this troublesome time of F-Zero drought by playing games of a similar caliber, be it WipEout and the clone games it inspires, FAST RMX which while good didn't quite scratch that F-Zero itch, for me at least. I've been on the hunt for a futuristic racing game to sink my teeth into and itch.io has definitely showcased its fair share of futuristic racers. One that caught my eye that I wanted to give a try was VEKTOR 2089.

Developed by Impbox, VEKTOR 2089 is a top-down futuristic racer with retro-inspired graphics and fast-paced racing action. I am a little hesitant to cover this game, as it isn't entirely finished. Heck, it's going through some graphical revisioning as I speak, which is great to hear. I'm very glad that this game is still being worked on, as itch.io has had multiple cases of unfinished projects being abandoned over the years, which saddens me. But I digress. 

Right off the bat, what attracted to me this game is the aesthetic, not to mention the great gifs that sell the fast-paced racing to a tee. The pixelated graphics along with the 60 FPS framerate were enough to drag me in, though I was almost already sold on the fact that it's a futuristic racer, so, in a way, I felt some sense of obligation to check it out. I assumed that it was going to be similar to Impbox's PICO-8 racing prototype that he also has on his profile, and my assumptions were correct to some fields and wrong in others. 

Graphically the PICO-8 concept and VEKTOR 2089 are similar in track design and controls are similar in concept with left and right arrows to steer and z to accelerate. VEKTOR 2089 adds on to these concepts with the brake acting as also a drift function to navigate turns better. The boost has been moved from the up arrow to the SHIFT key, which is weird on my end since I'm used to the PICO-8 game's controls. On the topic of controls, I like to play my racing games with a controller. That sounds all well and good, but I find the controls on a controller to be different for some strange reason. I find myself comparing the different control schemes to Kirby Air Ride's "Top Ride" mode where your two machines had two different control styles: one being based on the direction of your control stick and the other based on left and right turns. I like to use the latter control style as I find it easier to utilize, and that's all well and good when using a keyboard. Strangely though, the control scheme for a controller is based on the former vehicle's description, and I had a hard time adjusting to that. I do wish that there was a way to adjust the control layout for using a controller, and I hope that gets addressed.

VEKTOR 2089 boasts multiple racing modes: championship, where you race on multiple tracks in a set order and whoever accumulates the most points after four races wins, single race, where a single event is held on a track of your choice, time attack, where you race to get the fastest time on a track, versus mode for up to 4 players and "hotseat" for competitive time attack, similar to TrackMania. You get a lot of variety for your modes and the vehicles you can race as, with five unique vehicles across multiple different race teams that have different stats. You can also have gif replays by hitting the F9 key, which I would utilize, but with my keyboard having the "FN" key, it's fairly awkward to utilize. Other modes include a track editor and a vehicle editor as well, which I wish I was well versed with pixel art to use, but alas I am not. Still, very neat features to include.

The music for this game is stellar as well, with it being composed by French electronic music group, Dubmood. Their electro-chiptune tracks complement the game's vibe very well. Here's a link for their other music undertakings on Bandcamp.

I do feel like there is a lot of potential to be had here. I like the aesthetic, as I love futuristic racing games, the music is great, the art direction is great. I just wish the controls when using a controller were consistent with the keyboard controls. Maybe what I say will be outdated and get addressed, but I am looking forward to the future of this game. Check out yourself if you want!

I'll Take You To Tomato Town!

Game: I'll Take You To Tomato Town

Developer: adamgryu

Download Link: https://adamgryu.itch.io/tomato-town

Shopping is fun... I guess? I don't know how to start this. I guess I could start with some commentary on people getting quarantined due to COVID-19, but eh, I don't really feel like going all-in on that joke as that horse has been beaten to death faster than a Reddit meme template, but I digress. Instead, let's reminisce the moments of shopping for your buddies, who need arbitrary shit stuff from the store and it is your responsibility to get said stuff. Which is the premise of I'll Take You To Tomato Town.

I went shopping for myself today and it was somewhat relaxing despite the hysteria right now. Tomato Town, however, is anything but relaxing. You have 3 minutes and change to find all the items your friends are looking for and leave the store in a reasonable amount of time. It's like a reverse retail worker's nightmare, where instead of trying to maintain your sanity throughout the day of taking care of customers, you're trying to maintain your sanity by finding the mustard in Tomato Town, which if you don't know the layout of the store by memory, is going to be near impossible unless you look in a very specific spot :/.

But what are the nice parts of I'll Take You To Tomato Town? There are quite a few things that can be said like the graphics were nice and colorful and the in-game physics are hysterical, wherein whenever you pick an item off the shelf, all the other items next to it go flying and make a huge mess. I also like the informal way your friends on the phone tell you to pick up their stuff from the supermarket. The informal tone and irreverent nature of it add some level of mockery towards you as you feel like you're being tortured in some way by your friends.

I do kind of wish that the game had more space to work with and that the placement of items didn't feel so arbitrary, but the game is free to play so I can't really complain too much, even if the other customers like to push you around and obstruct your movement and vision. I definitely feel like this game likes to push you around as if it's supposed to be some form of torture for the shopper as some form of catharsis for retail workers. 

So once you get all the items your friends need, they call and tell you that the card they lent you has no money on it! Aw shucks, those darn rascals! So now you have to steal as much inventory as you can without getting caught and then leave the store. If the store closes before you leave or you get caught by the security guard, it's game over for you.

The game isn't super deep or an allegory of shoplifting or hoarding or friends who lack envy for the torture they put you through. However, it is a simple fun game to play during the time that you may be sitting at home during potential quarantine or you come across this blog by poor chance and have to put up with my mediocre writing ability. Whatever the case may be, do give this game a shot and have some fun!

Verdict: Would Strangle My Friends Over the Phone/I Finally Found the Mustard!!!

Cosmic Rochambo

Game: Cosmic Rochambo

Developer: Sean Dick

Download Link: https://dean-sick.itch.io/cosmic-rochambo
MSRP: $5.00

I suck at keeping this thing active, but here goes nothing! HEY KIDDOS! DO YOU LIKE ANIME!? Yes, you do, you dorks. You can't go anywhere without finding something anime-inspired. It's like a disease with no cure! Okay, so that's a bit melodramatic, but still, so much of media nowadays has taken a ton of influence from Japanese animation, most notably, the shounen genre. Now, for all you non-fluent anime denizens who think all of anime is most likely a gateway to child pornography (that sounded a lot better in my head), shounen is a genre of Japanese media that mostly caters to adolescent boys. Most shounen anime or manga is usually something action-adventure related with epic battles on an over the top scale, so stuff like Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, My Hero Academia, One Piece, Bleach, Attack On Titan, the list goes on and on. So with my tirade of describing anime out of the way, you might be wondering what this has to do with the game at hand? Well, Cosmic Rochambo, and its sister game, Rebop Blasters take heavy influence from the shounen anime genre. I'll get to Rebop Blasters in a second, but I first want to discuss Cosmic Rochambo.

So the premise of this game is that you and your adversary are having a duel of epic proportions. You are fighting in space! Your controls are basic: if using a controller, you use your joystick or d-pad to move around and press any of the face buttons to perform a superpowered dash attack or tap to parry. Your goal is to beat and bang against your opponent until they hit the edge of the arena. Do this a set number of times and you win. There are multiple arenas to face-off in, such as a cube, a sphere, or a very large arena that in my opinion is super disorienting and I don't exactly recommend fighting in. You can choose the color of your fighter as well, and that's pretty much the gist of it.

I enjoy the presentation of this game. It's vibrantly colorful and pleasant to look at, though there could be too many effects for those photosensitive. The game definitely hits the vibe of being an epic battle in an alternate dimension where you're zooming around and fighting and martial art fisticuffs ala Dragon Ball Z. It's a cool multiplayer game that you can have couch co-op play with. I do kind of wish there were online capabilities with this game, but it's a good proof of concept.

If there is any sort of criticism I can throw at this game, it would probably be the functioning of the AI. The AI is kind of inconsistent with their difficulty setting, with, in my experience, easy being super aggressive and the hardest difficulty being fairly passive. The most you get out of their difficulty is when your dash attacks collide and you have to perform certain inputs to win the minigame. The harder the AI, the faster they perform the inputs. Speaking of which, when you get into these situations, I recommend using the D-pad for directional inputs, as the joystick is not always that responsive for those inputs

Despite some criticisms I have with the game, I did enjoy my time with it. I highly recommend giving it a shot and as I am writing this, the game is currently free to pick up off of itch.io, as they are having a COVID-19 quarantine sale across the site. Go nuts!

A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes

Game: A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes

Developer: Not Sailor Studios

Download Link: https://notasailorstudios.itch.io/a-game-about-literally-doing-your-taxes

Pretty self-explanatory, no? A game about doing your taxes. No one likes doing it, and those that do are lying. Tax day is the most painful day of the year for anyone that receives a paycheck. Handing your money off to the government who uses the money for the budget of multiple programs: military, space exploration, garbage trucks, public transportation, and a myriad of other things I could spend all day listing off. So here comes a game by Not Sailor Studios that looks to turn doing taxes into entertainment, or at least tries to make taxes become entertainment, then again I'm not entirely sure that's the whole point of this whole game.

A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes is a game about literally doing your taxes. You separate your junk mail from tax, bills, and checks and file your tax returns over the course of 7 days. Okay, so what's so special about it? Well, I don't want to give to much away with this little write-up. What I will say, however, is that this game is like a deconstruction of doing taxes, and repetitive, mundane work. You sort through your mail and throw away the non-necessities of life all for the sake of paying your taxes so you can be a good, upstanding citizen.

There's always the on-going argument whether taxation is theft or not. Or even if taxation is a good thing. This game isn't going to answer these political questions, but it does give some insight into the mundanity that is... well, taxes. There are some darker elements to this game, but I don't want to spoil the surprises this game has to offer.

I'm not going to sit here and act like this game is a "we live in a society" meme but there is some commentary on the state of society, at least here in the United States, about the state of taxes and how overwhelming it can be. If there's anything that can be said, it's that kids should be taught in school how to do their taxes, though that may put accountants out of a job. Taxes are dumb, but this game certainly isn't. Check it out!

Waltz with Bashir

Film: Waltz with Bashir

Director: Ari Folman

MPAA Rating: R

Release Date: 2008

Recently, I've been on a sort of movie watching binge, as I've experienced a slight burnout in regards to playing video games. Factoring that in with my computer's motherboard getting damaged, becoming absolutely unusable. So, I'm out of a reliable computer for the next couple of weeks or so and I'm gonna be bored out of my mind. That being said, however, I've been meaning to talk about a movie for a while, as it has been a hot minute since I have talked about a movie I've watched in recent times. I could look at something better established like Taxi Driver but I feel like I wouldn't really bring anything new to the table as far as discussion goes. So, why not discuss a film that is not often talked about? I guess this is the part where I start talking about Waltz with Bashir.

Waltz with Bashir is an animated war documentary about the grit of the 1982 Lebanon War. The film/documentary centers around filmmaker and Lebanon War veteran Ari Folman who has no recollection of the war he served in. In order to regain his memory of the war he served in, he reaches out to his friends to help him remember his days as a soldier in the war. Each friend he reaches out to gives their personal experiences of the war.

Waltz with Bashir presents itself as an animated film/documentary hybrid, combining documentary coverage with animated visual storytelling. I was not familiar with the 1982 Lebanon War before watching this film, so learning about the conflicts that happened was a new experience for me since it was never covered in my high school history class. Getting first-hand accounts from the veterans of the war was welcome, considering the United States' lack of involvement in the war.

The combination of personal accounts alongside animated visual storytelling is done masterfully with its use of animation and color. This film was animated entirely in Flash, which took 4 years to fully animate, and for a flash animated film, it looks incredible. I love the use of color the film uses. It looks filthy and gritty in the best way possible. Combining the personal accounts with the color, lighting, and animation make for a haunting experience when watching this film, not to mention the grit and violence that is showcased as well.

A lot of anti-war movies are set in a World War II setting, mainly cause the stage that was set was so spectacular and dramatic. Anti-war movies often show the drama and grit of war, but can't help but show off their acts of heroism and victory alongside the drama, in movies such as Saving Private Ryan or Hacksaw Ridge. In Waltz with Bashir however, there are no heroes in this story. This isn't a country like the United States going into the heart of war to save the day. In this conflict war crimes and genocide are committed. There are no acts of heroism in these accounts. There is no outside force coming to stop the conflict and take the glory. Evil is committed, but it's stated bluntly and neutrally. It's like having a nightmare where heinous acts are committed, but you can do nothing about it.

I think Waltz with Bashir touches upon the themes of anti-war better than any other movie I've seen. We have themes of guilt, evil, and international indifference that is peppered among the personal accounts, combined with the lack of heroism and intervention in the conflict. When Ari regains his memories of the war, he feels the guilt for doing nothing to stop Sabra and Shatila massacre, feeling as guilty as those who actually carried the genocidal act. That guilt had an effect on me as I began thinking about why the United States or any other foreign superpower didn't intervene in the injustice that took place among the hundreds, if not thousands, that were killed. It got me thinking about the U.S.' involvement in foreign conflicts and the importance of foreign policy, even if my mind and intellectual capacity is not necessarily at that level to discuss it.

Thinking back on watching this film/documentary, it does get me thinking about the brutality of war in a way that often doesn't get looked at in most anti-war films, the ones I have seen at least. This is a graphic, violent, hellish account of war and the atrocities committed in the Lebanon War. I *really* want to recommend this movie so badly, but the content and the language barrier may prove to be an issue. Perhaps it wasn't an issue for me, but I don't want to force this on people. What else can I say about Waltz with Bashir? It's an incredible film that gets you thinking about foreign conflicts and global superpowers' involvement in them, or in this case lack thereof. Its animation that helps paint the picture of the grit of war is stellar and memorable. Combine these aspects with the personal accounts of the war, you get a very haunting film/documentary of a conflict that shouldn't have been ignored

Verdict: 10/10

Critters for Sale

Game: Critters for Sale

Developer: Sonoshee

Platform: PC/Mac/Linux

Download Link: https://sonoshee.itch.io/critters-for-sale

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1078420/Critters_for_Sale/

Surrealism as a definition has transformed from describing the art movement of weird imagery in the early 1920s to essentially designating something as weird or bizarre. I've had my run-ins with surreal games in the past with stuff like EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY, a game that is strange and nihilistic in presentation and tone respectively. Now let's take the strange presentation of that game and combine it with the mechanics of another game I have covered, Hell, and you get yourself one of the most bizarre and entrancing concepts I have played since restarting this blog.

Critters for Sale is a point n click game with themes surrounding the experience of death "from the comfort of your seat." The playable demo contains two out of five total playable vignettes. Each vignette centers around a different location in a different era of time, with themes centering around death and immortality amongst other themes. With multiple choices to make in this game, you must choose wisely in order to live. The game's two playable vignettes are "snake" and "goat," the first centering around receiving a text message from deceased pop star Michael Jackson to attend a club near your apartment, and the second where you traverse the Arabian Desert in Jordan accompanied by a goat and experimental hip-hop group Death Grips frontman Stefan "MC Ride" Burnett in search for a mystical cave.

Critters for Sale's presentation was what caught my eye when searching for a game to play and this certainly did not disappoint at all. The black and white, grainy presentation and nightmarish tone reminds a lot of Hell, a game I previously mentioned. The old school FMV presentation and animation seem almost next level in comparison. The atmosphere of the vignettes is otherworldly, like a strange dream you'd have at night. With casual conversations with a dead celebrity to traversing the desert with a cryptic man, this game really hits the weird factor that comes from a dream.

Critters for Sale is a strange game with a lot of potential. As of writing this, it is currently still in development and will get a full release on Steam once it is finished. I can't wait to see what else Sonoshee has in store with this game. Its presentation and atmosphere are great and I hope to see this game get weirder as time goes on.

Smashing Super Twins

Game: Smashing Super Twins

Developer: Mark Swindoll

Platform: PC

Download link: https://marksw.itch.io/smashing-super-twins-fight

I liked playing Super Smash Bros. Melee from 2012 until around 2018. I got into the game by watching a match between old school Captain Falcon player Jeff "SilentSpectre" Leung face off against Ice Climber player Robert "Wobbles" Wright in game 2 of their loser's semis match at a tournament called "Mango Juice." I was really into playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl at the time and seeing people playing Melee so quickly and optimally really intrigued me. Video in question below (coarse language in the video, so fair warning):

Long story short, I ground out the game, found out I wasn't quite good enough, had a bad experience at a tournament one year, so I stopped playing. Then Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out and I haven't really looked back.

So why bring this up? This seems like some needless information, yeah? Well, I guess context is important when explaining my experience with this franchise. So coming into Smashing Super Twins, I thought it would be important to share such experience. Needless to say, Smashing Super Twins is like a bootlegged version of Melee where you can only play as one character, have one move, and can guard. It's ironically the fairest version of any Smash Bros. game I've played in all my years of playing these games.

Smashing Super Twins is very straightforward: knock your opponent off the stage more times than them and you win. No advanced tech, no character selection, no wavedashing, no l-canceling, no tripping, no rage mechanic, just you against the opponent in a one-on-one duel to the death. This is strictly a multiplayer game and has no AI to it, so find a buddy, or a willing person, and challenge them.

The game has quite a similarity to Divekick, wherein you can only attack in midair. While in that game you had essentially only two buttons to work with, Smashing Super Twins gives you more options in movement, like in the main Smash Bros. installments.

Is the game silly? Yeah, considering that the music of the game is a reversed version of one of the tracks from Melee, that being the Final Destination theme. It was made for Duplicade 2015 after all, where the goal was to make a 2-player arcade experience that lasts about 30 seconds and is essentially supposed to be designed as a bootleg. Overall, it pretty much succeeds.

Throughout my years of playing Super Smash Bros., this is one of the strangest fan games I've encountered. It's not super complex, but it doesn't need to be. It's a harmless bootleg that's pretty funny. I'm surprised the Smash fandom doesn't really know about this thing or even talk about it. I can see it being played at Smash Summit as like a silly side-tournament or something. I'm sure twitch chat would get a kick out of it.

Hell

Game: Hell

Developer: ahintoflime

Platform: PC/Mac

Download Link: https://ahintoflime.itch.io/hell

We all have our own vision of what Hell looks like. We imagine it as fire and brimstone, gnashing of teeth, or perhaps as just a state of mind. Our personal concepts are often based upon religious principles or off of the Divine Comedy, which, ironically, got accepted into religious canon in some sects of Christianity, but I digress. Hell is an interesting concept that has often been tackled in video games. Games such as Doom and Dante's Inferno have you battling in the depths of Hell itself, while games such as Agony have you stealthily exploring the place. So yeah, we often get depictions of Hell widely accepted in the likes of being a terrible place to be, but what about emphasizing the "state of mind" aspect of it? Well, you're probably not going to find an easily accessible game to play. The closest you'll probably get to Hell being a state of mind is in ahintoflime's effort known as Hell.

Hell is a game that was made for A Game By Its Cover 2017, a game jam where you create a game based off the cover art of a Famicom cartridge created by Famicase. Setting some self parameters for himself, such as creating a game in a genre you don't like, ahintoflime developed a point & click game for the jam that explores Hell. The game has some items you can pick up that can affect your playthrough interactions. The game is a short point & click adventure that lasts roughly around 5 minutes of play time.

It's interesting how Hell presents itself. You're not entirely sure where you are in this world. The only clear thing is that you are dead and you feel mopey. The graphics are presented in a black and white, grainy aesthetic, that is very reminiscent of grainy black and white stills you'd find in a history textbook. It's a very moody world that is being depicted here. I'm not entirely sure if it's Hell, but I guess we can assume it is Hell. After all, you are dead and you aren't exactly in a chipper mood.

The world does feel rather interesting though. It feels like a nightmare that plays more off of the fear of the unknown and surrealism. Hell also likes to play off of other types of fears too, like the fear of giant bugs and clowns and the like. It just feels like a very strange nightmare that you can't wake up from, even though your short play session will say differently. If there was any complaint to be had from my end it would that I wish there was more to explore and the path wasn't so linear, despite the branching of paths.

Hell is an interesting game that I kind of wish had slightly more depth to it but considering it's a small project, I feel like that'd be asking too much from it. For what you get, Hell is an interesting experience that is neat to look at and interact with. For a genre he doesn't like, there is quite a bit of potential to be had from ahintoflime's game. I wonder if he might try expanding upon this concept in the future, though I'm not sure if he would entirely want to. But who am I to judge?

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK

Game: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK

Developer: Nathalie Lawhead

Platform: PC/Mac

Download Link: https://alienmelon.itch.io/everything-is-going-to-be-ok

I'm the "weird one" when it comes to my group of friends that I have in real life. When I'm in the mood to, I will often show some stuff to my friends that I find entertaining and see their reactions to said stuff. Some are adventurous and end up laughing worriedly at the stuff I share while others are completely averse to the idea. Perhaps it's to keep their sanity intact, or perhaps they just aren't very adventurous. I don't know. It is a great mystery. I guess I can call myself adventurous when it comes to media in general. I'm always looking to try out something new or something that I haven't experienced before. Will this get me in trouble in the future? I don't think so, but I do find it weird that a lot of people aren't willing to step outside of their comfort zones. Then again, I come from a flock of people that, wording this carefully, tend to be closed minded. They aren't really looking to try something that is way outside of their comfort zone, which on the one hand I get, but on the other hand, it is slightly frustrating in terms of sharing interests.

So why am I bringing this up? Because I'm about to share is pretty weird, even by my standards. That is Nathalie Lawhead's EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK, easily one of the weirdest pieces of media I've come across since discovering YouTube Poops back in 2007 (which I still enjoy to this day). EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK is a collection of small games and interactive pieces of media bundled together into a single package. Every single one of these vignettes is like a strange fever dream: it's weird, it's horrifying, but at the same time intriguing.

What has stuck out to me about Lawhead's projects, like Electric Love Potato and ARMAGAD (which I still need to play), is the presentation of her projects. Nearly everything is presented in a way that is hard to describe. I can't call it zany just for the sake of it, because that would more than likely come off as callous. It seems more like reveling in one's own weirdness to the point of just owning it, but at the same time, it feels grounded in a way where it comes off as a natural personality. Maybe it's because she's able to present her weirdness through her coding skills. Her presentation reminds me a lot of something that Adult Swim would spotlight or ask a commission for.

Such presentation is well expressed in EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK. Much of the vignettes talk of suffering and pain in a very nihilistic way. It's like the message it's getting across is that life's pain and suffering can't be solved by surges of forced optimism and "ignorance is bliss." This is especially exemplified in "PAGE 2" where when you ask the cute cartoon character if they are okay, they say that "everything is perfect" or "nothing is wrong" when they are clearly suffering from being impaled. When you ask for some words of wisdom from the character, they spout a motivational poster with random phrases that are just as meaningless as advice given on perseverance and finding meaning. As if needing "more of 'X'" is just not gonna cut it. I even got a randomly generated poster that said: "Optimism is never enough." Needless to say, that is very much true.

It's not just physical suffering. There is also social suffering! Like on in "PAGE 18" where your goal is to try to socialize in a conversation without making it awkward. This is difficult because ultimately you're in a conversation that you don't care about and when the conversation gets around to you, you are struggling to answer with a topic that is related to the conversation. If you go off topic, you increase your awkwardness level. It's an introvert's worst nightmare come to life!

With much of these vignettes, there is also some social media actions you can utilize in-game if you connect your Twitter account. For instance, "PAGE 6" has you creating your own nihilistic cult after finding out your wife is pregnant with someone else's child. When you reach the end of the vignette, you can name your cult and tweet about the members that committed suicide with you off the edge of a cliff. Yeah, this game is dark.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK is a surreal fever dream of a game that is super intriguing to look at and play. Its nihilistic commentary on hardship and suffering is something to behold and is very relatable for those who have struggles in life, which is pretty much everyone. While I'm not one to think nihilistically, or at least not yet, I do appreciate some of the heavy realities that Nathalie Lawhead brings to the table with this game. For some of us, life is misery, and no amount of optimistic perseverance can save us from it. Sometimes, we just have to live through it and there isn't much we can do about it. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK is a game that I had the utmost pleasure of playing. It's quirky, dark, and at times pretty funny. Its presentation is stellar and its commentary on life is profound as well, even if I end up not entirely agreeing with it. Maybe I'm not supposed to though? I don't know. I'm not sure if I know anything anymore.

and i made sure to hold your head sideways

Game: and i made sure to hold your head sideways

Developer: Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson

Platform: Browser

Play here: https://q_dork.itch.io/and-i-made-sure-to-hold-your-head-sideways

I've stated before in my post about Kill Baby Hitler that I'm not too crazy about visual novels. I'm not one to immediately write them off as hot garbage without playing them myself, but I will say they aren't my cup of tea, mainly because of how drab the presentation can be. Interactive fiction can be done well if given the right application of its tools. One of those games that I have come across in my recommended feed on itch.io was and i made sure to hold your head sideways. 

And i made sure to hold your head sideways is an interactive fiction game made by Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson for FLATGAME Annual Jam 2016. The main idea was to create a game or visual novel utilizing the basic fundamentals of the Unity game engine; essentially using the game engine at its most basic of functions. The interactive fiction piece, without giving too much away, tells the story from the first-person perspective of our main character recounting the events of a party they and a friend went to while attempting to help the latter sober up before things got out of hand.

Normally, as I've stated before, interactive fiction isn't necessarily my forte. What I will say though is that this piece did manage to keep my attention because of its presentation. Its story is told very much like in a pop-up book format, from my perspective at least, and using the arrow keys to form the illustrations to continue the story I found to be incredibly charming. It also helped to keep me engaged while reading the story as opposed to just clicking away through heaps of text. Coupled with the black and white color scheme, it maintains a simple and intimate aesthetic, like the coupling of memories piecing themselves together when thinking back on an event that happened.

I also liked the way the story zigzags along as you progress through the story, like literally zigzags. As in the camera jumps from one picture to the next in a zany way. It helps give the game some personality. The music itself has this ambient vibe to it as if recalling a memory from the past. I found it charming, to say the least.

I was pleasantly surprised by and i made sure to hold your head sideways as far as interactive fiction goes. I enjoyed the personality this little game had, how you pulled the pieces together like a puzzle. While this hasn't fully changed my opinion on interactive fiction as a whole, it does help take the idea of giving some more in the future a chance. Perhaps I'll cover another interactive fiction piece on this Frankenstein monster of a blog.

Planetarium

Game: Planetarium

Developer: Daniel Linssen

Platform: PC

Download Link: https://managore.itch.io/planetarium

I love space! Space is super cool. Realizing you live in a universe where you are as insignificant as a speck of dust is both saddening yet intriguing to think about. Teams are always on the search for exoplanets, especially ones that could potentially be teeming with life. Now, I could always boot up Space Engine and explore the far reaches of a procedurally generated universe, or boot up Elite Dangerous and live life as a space trader or explorer in the Milky Way galaxy. However, sometimes, I just want to look at cool looking planets that could potentially host life on them. I could search for them in Space Engine, but that can be a bit of a hassle sometimes. Sometimes I don't wanna put in the work and just have planets be generated for me in a piece of software. That's where Daniel Linssen's Planetarium comes in.

Planetarium is a software which generates planets. It generates planets based on the lettered characters that are typed in, essentially acting as a seed for what planet gets generated. There are millions of combinations of letters you can put into the system to the point where it's futile to figure out just how many exactly you can generate. All planets that are generated are Earth-like planets that have the potential for life. You can also rotate the planets left and right, along with looking at their moon system when applicable. You can also take screenshots of planets you think are cool and save them in a folder.

If your goal is searching for Earth in Planetarium, you're going to be spending a lot of time with this software. It's not so easy as to type in "Earth" and you get a planet accurate to the proportions and geography of Earth. You're going to have to sort through a lot of planets before you find one that closely resembles Earth. It more than likely is one of 150 secret planets that you can discover in this software, which is one of the reasons to keep searching for planets to generate. They are elusive, so it'll take some creativity to find them.

I haven't fully uncovered Planetarium's secrets, but my love for astronomy does bring me back to software such as this. Planets are cool to look at, and if we ever get technology powerful enough to get a visible look at exoplanets, perhaps our fundamental understanding of how the universe works will continue to change. Until then, we can always imagine what Earth-like planets look like way out in the cosmos, with Planetarium giving us an albeit pixelated start. 

Rain

Game: Rain

Developers: DDRKirby and Kat Jia (Cocoa Moss)

Platform: Browser

Play here: https://ddrkirbyisq.itch.io/rain

Got another weather-based game to speak about. Previously, I took a look at the game Wisper, a game where you control the wind to help an island's inhabitants. This time I'm taking a look at something a little bit different. Instead of wind being our weather pattern of the day, this time we'll be accompanied by rain. The rain has this sort of vibe of to it, like somberness, sadness, and sometimes intimacy. There seems to be this feel to rain where you just want to stay indoors and cuddle with someone or something and just hang out and stay dry as you listen to the rain pelt the roof of your home and the thunder rumble in the distance. The collaborative work of DDRKirby and Kat Jia have a somewhat different approach to rain though, with Kat Jia commenting how they and their programming partner love the feeling of walking in the rain. These two try to invoke this sort of wonder through their collaborative project called Rain.

Rain is an atmospheric flash game where you control a child walking through the rain. No enemies, no time limit, no end goal. You simply just walk in the rain and soak in the atmosphere. The atmosphere of this game is great. The graphics have this intimate, childlike drawing to them, and having you play as a kid sort helps with this feeling of innocence as you walk through the rain. The sound design is also rich, with the pelting rain and the booming thunder in the distance. All of this, coupled with the soundtrack, give this game quite a bit of personality.

It's kind of hard for me to put into words the kind of feeling Rain is looking to invoke, to me at least. The mood I get from this game is a sense of childlike wonder of playing in the rain, without the baggage of getting sick from being in it for too long. All of the elements of this game combined give this sort of intimate feel to it, like a passion project from somebody, even though it is small in scale.

Rain is a short, but sweet little game. If you're looking for a small game with a good sense of mood to it, I recommend playing this game. It's not exactly grandiose in scale, but it doesn't need to be. Sometimes some great mood setters come in a small package.

Wisper

Game: Wisper

Developer: Sunshore Studios

Platform: PC

Download link: https://sunshore-studios.itch.io/wisper

Where the wind blows, no one knows! The weather is known for its unpredictability. Chaos in its most natural form here on planet Earth. But what if we were able to tap into that kind of power and harness it for good? Well, for one, you get windmills, which we have already accomplished. But what if we were to harness it for good? Well, you still get windmills. ...okay. Then how about harnessing the power of the wind to help those in need? Okay, technically you still get windmills. Look, I'm trying to segway into talking about the game Wisper.

So, what is Wisper? It is a game where you control the wind to help those in need on the island of Sunshore. You must rid the island of the troubles that plague the inhabitants, and bring good fortune back to it by using the power of the wind. Solving the problems of Sunshore's inhabitants has you collecting tokens that represent the curse on the island and return them to the shrine so that good fortune may return to the island.

When I first saw Wisper, I found the game bearing a resemblance to Flower, a game that saw its initial release on the PS3, and a game I played briefly when it was showcased at my city's art museum for its special exhibit about art and video games. While it bears such resemblance, Wisper has a different approach than Flower. The latter was looking to get an emotional experience out of the player. I'm not going to act like I should be comparing Wisper to Flower on a fundamental level, as I don't think that would be fair, considering that Wisper is a senior project made by a small team at a university as opposed to a full-fledged game released on the PSN storefront. That means we've gotta be more laxed in attitude when looking at this game.

Overall, this game is pretty laid back in attitude. Even in the troubles that the island's inhabitants are going through, the game is really upbeat and relaxed in tone. The problems you have to solve range from helping a child swing on a swingset to help rebuild a sandcastle to getting a gust of wind for a child's kite. Yeah, not exactly superheroic duties to be had here, but help you provide nonetheless. Anything will do for your friendly neighborhood gust of wind.

I think my only major issue with this game was getting used to controlling the wind. The controls feel slightly alien at first, but over time I got used to them. Something else I should probably address is that you may want to complete this game in one sitting, as I have had issues reloading my save file. I'm not sure if this is a widespread issue, but I thought I might as well address it.

Overall though, I enjoyed my time with Wisper. There's a lot to explore and the island is quite large, with plenty of space to move about. It's pretty impressive for a senior project, and I do wish Sunshore Studios the best of luck out there when it comes to making games. Maybe I'll look at something totally new from them in the future. Who knows? Wherever the wind takes us!

Sundered

Game: Sundered

Developer: Thunder Lotus

Publisher: Thunder Lotus

Platform: PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Switch

ESRB Rating: T

Sundered is a metroidvania/rogue-like hybrid game. You take control of the character Eshe, who has been taken hostage in a haunted, Lovecraftian-like world where man and machine meet cosmic horrors. You must traverse this world, accompanied by a mysterious artifact that communicates with you throughout your journey, telling the lore of the land and tempting you to embrace the horrors this mysterious world has to offer. Along on your journey, you collect artifacts called "elder shards" that you can choose to destroy to keep your humanity intact or return them to shrines to enhance your abilities in new ways. These changes are permanent, so choose wisely.

If I was going solely by presentation alone, Sundered would be a 10. The visuals in this game are absolutely stunning. The artwork and animations are all hand drawn, just like in Thunder Lotus' previous venture, Jotun, and they do not disappoint. The animations are silky smooth and flow beautifully. Not to mention the colors are beautiful as well, with them being vibrant yet at the same time evoking an eerie feel to the world around you. The meshing of machine and Lovecraftian horror is also meshed very well too, like two worlds that were never supposed to collide in the first place, as all hell would break loose. The designs of the monsters, especially the bosses, all evoke this eldritchian horror to them that is super otherworldly in its presentation.I'm so glad they released a digital artbook in the newsletter they had, as the artwork is just gorgeous.

Presentation is all well in good, but unfortunately, Sundered's gameplay and mechanics are a bit of a mixed bag in terms of execution. The idea of a metroidvania with randomly generated elements thrown in seems like a neat idea on paper, but in practice in Sundered, it's a bit messy. Sundered's level design is a mix of randomly generated rooms in set boxes on your map screen, along with unchanging spots to sort of act as landmarks for exploration. When you die, the layout of the randomly generated rooms changes. This ultimately makes exploration unnecessarily cumbersome and frustrating at times, especially when you get overrun by a horde of enemies at random.

Speaking of which, enemies sometimes come at you in hordes when a gong sounds in the background. These hordes come in randomly except in certain areas where enemies infinitely spawn, and depending on your current health and resources, can instantly kill an explorative outing you've set on. Dying though is a small setback, outside of the world rearranging itself, and brings you back to the hub where you can get upgrades in your skill tree by spending gems that you obtain by defeating enemies and killing bosses. If you want to survive your outings in Sundered you're going to need to do a lot of grinding for gems, so you'll want to invest a lot of your gems into "luck," which increases the number of gems you obtain from killing enemies.

Combat against your enemies involves a lot of mashing the attack button, making combat slightly mindless, since you are given a bit of leeway when it comes to taking damage at first with your shield that you can upgrade that tanks hits before it breaks, leaving you incredibly vulnerable. Since hordes of enemies come at you in this game, the developers made combat centered around mob control, so your attacks have wide arches and big hitboxes, allowing you to deal with enemies easier. You also get finishers and charge attacks to help deal more damage. When you're in a pinch, you can use your cannon to deal with a large crowd of enemies. One of my gripes is that I wish that there was more enemy variety in the game itself. Each of the 3 areas has roughly 4 or 5 different enemy types that get tougher depending on their color coordination. I'd normally be more forgiving of this, considering there is only 3 areas to explore, but as massive as these areas are, and the fact that the third area rehashes some of the minibosses in area 2 as enemy variants, it's hard for me to ignore.

The scale of boss fights in Sundered is immense. Despite there being 4 boss fights per the direction of the resisting or embracing mechanic (6 in total), these boss fights are big and brutal. I do have some gripes with how repetitive and boring the Hysteria fight is, but the fight against Legion and Salvation is one of my favorites with how much it has you on your toes in the fight. The designs of these bosses are done very well and fit with the art direction the game is going for. I'm also glad they included the ability to refight these bosses to your own discretion.

Sundered is one of those games I truly wanted to be love at first trailer watch, but after having a hands-on experience with the game itself, I can't say I was fully enthralled with it. Exploration in this game can be a chore at times and the game itself can be a bit of a grind, plus the combat is a little mindless, but the boss fights are fun and the art direction is absolutely stunning. I overall did enjoy my time with Sundered and I am currently doing a full resist playthrough on and off right now. As flawed this game is at times, I consider Sundered to be one of the more underrated games of 2017. Give it a whirl if you haven't already.

Final Verdict: 7/10