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.