Monthly Update: November, 2019

It's NoShaveNovember.  Or NoNutNovember; you know what, forget that one as there is a lot more shadiness to it than I previously thought, but I will leave the hyperlink up for informational purposes.  Or NaNoWriMo. Be it what you will, we are here and have been for just over a week.

The first week of November for me became an odd conglomeration of busy (in the best way possible) from playing two games I received from Xinthus for the special #Indieween event of #IndieSelect.  I picked up, played, and reviewed Sagebrush and Back in 1995, both on the Nintendo Switch.  Sagebrush was a great debut game from Redact Games about PTSD, religion, and the lengths people go to to feel like they are a part of a large group and cause, while Back in 1995 was a 2016 release by Throw the warped code out that aimed to capture the look and feel of survival-horror game although it kind of fell flat about a third of the way through.  I wanted to get those articles out before the Monthly Update since that is kind of the point, getting the word out about the games after playing the games and the days of the week just did not line up as well as I had planned.

I did start playing The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings last month and I have been having a blast.  I was a little worried about starting it up since I had a great time with the first game and I knew that CD Projekt Red had created the REDengine which was different from the Aurora Engine that was used for the first Witcher game and I had read beforehand that the fighting/combat system was completely overhauled.  I was a little demoralized when I found out that based on the Arena tutorial that the game felt that I should play on the easy difficulty setting.  But in all honesty, I am okay with that as in my opinion, there are almost too many options for combat this early in the game.  The first Witcher did a great job of pacing out combat, especially with regards to what each spell sign does and the most effective way to use them.  But the music is great, the story is becoming more-and-more developed, the voice acting is at the level that I now expect from CD Projekt Red, and I am still enjoying the moral ambiguity that some of the side stories take you/Geralt down.

And speaking of moral ambiguity, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is doing a number on me.  I started whatever the Chapter number is when Byleth regains consciousness mid-war earlier in the month and you are now fighting former students who are members of the opposing armies.  I thought I would be okay with it, until I run across characters like Leonie, who I had help out with the Black Eagles a number of times with missions early on.  Going up against Seteth and Flayn also was not a pleasant experience, even more so after having done some of the optional paralogue events.  That one was really rough.  I am also really not looking forward to running into Raphael because even though I only used him once during the school year, I frequently enjoyed talking to him and he always seemed to be in good cheer.  Run away Raphael, run!  Stay out of this horrible war!!  And then, even the members of the Black Eagles, their little sayings before/finishing attacks are getting to me.  Like with Dorothea who used to say "All roses have thorns," now says "Only thorns left on this rose," but the line is delivered in a way that just makes you sad, like she is beaten down even more with the continuing war.  Or at least it makes me sad every time I hear it.  Like I decided to take the path that lead these students into a war (granted war would have happened regardless of the path you choose, but I still feel guilty).  My next playthrough when I choose a different school is going to be difficult because I am going to want to recruit the entirety of the Black Eagle House, but I am sure that you are only able to recruit a limited number of students; I only recruited Ingrid by the end of the school year not really knowing how the story was going to go.  I guess I have a lot to say about Fire Emblem: Three Houses considering I have been playing for 85+ hours and have yet to write any kind of dedicated article.

We did manage to get in two games of Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition last month, playing two scenarios from the Horrific Journeys expansion: the zeppelin, and the train stories, with only the cruise ship story left to do.  Bloody hell I love this game!  And then remembering that there is another expansion out there too, plus the Streets of Arkham expansion that we don't have yet either (that has been out for two years now).  The only theoretical downside to Mansions is that some of the scenarios say they take up to two hours to complete, which usually means with our group will take three and-a-half up to four hours.  I would not be surprised if we got the group together again this month to play another scenario.

And speaking of physical games, our Ravenloft group is firmly at level 3 in The Curse of Strahd, although I would not be surprised if we reach level 4 by the end of the next session.  We had an encounter where a group of enemies who were too powerful and actually had our group retreating.  I felt a little bad leaving one of the NPCs alone to face the danger that had, up to that point, already killed four NPC guards.  I felt like having this type of an encounter is not too common because you want the PCs to feel somewhat powerful, or at least able to eek out a victory when they thought that they were close to failure.  I will say that had our group stayed up in that room, we most certainly would have died, but through no fault of our own.  The DM was just rolling like a crit-crazy mad man and we apparently did not notice the effect that radiant damage was having on the bad guys.  I just thought it was pretty exhilarating having to flee from an encounter.

And speaking of fleeing from encounters, let us leave this where it is.  We have 22 days left to figure everything else out before the end of the year in 53 days.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
There'll Be Scary Ghost Stories 

#IndieSelect / #Indieween: Back in 1995 (NS)

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Back in 1995 from publisher Ratalaika Games and Degica Games, and developer Throw the warped code out through Xinthus' #Indieween event for #IndieSelect.  The game was given and received without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and the experience be shared through social media channels.  All of the words in this article, unless otherwise noted are my own from my own experience playing the game.

In Back in 1995, you play as the character Kent who is on a mission to get from the top of the building he is currently on, to a red-lit tower off in the distance for some unknown purpose or reason.  That is all of the information that the player is given when they start the game.  So when the character of Kent comes across the first enemy in the game, a floating round blob with arms and is surprised by its existence, you begin to wonder why this particular story is even being told.  Or at least that is what I was wondering.  Or is Back in 1995 just here for the sake of nostalgia?

Back in 1995 is a throw-back designed game to remind the player what it was like to play survival horror games of the 1990s with fixed/dynamic camera angles and tank controls (apparently they're called tank controls), which means that no matter which way the camera is facing and the player is facing, up on the controller is always forward movement, left is always rotate left and so on.  there is even a faux CRT TV display slightly warping the playable screen since flatscreen TVs were far from the norm in 1995.  And the graphics are about on-par with a game that would have come out in the mid '90s and considering that Back in 1995 is trying to bank on the nostalgia for games like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil and Silent Hill which came out in 1992, 1996, and 1999 respectively, Back in 1995 never seems to reach that level of survival horror that all of these games are able to generate.  I should also point out that Back in 1995 was first released in 2016 on PC and only on the Nintendo Switch in May of 2019.  

I bring this up for a couple of reasons, first and foremost, Back in 1995 does actually feel like it was designed and released in 1995, but in an unpolished kind of way on one front, but too advanced for the type of game that would have been released in 1995 on the other.  I think.  Yes, the graphics, especially when you take off the CRT filter, are pretty ugly and the CRT filter does really make the character models look smoother, more rounded, and muddies the pixelated features for the best.  What seems too advanced for 1995 is the moving camera, presumably a security camera that follows Kent as he explores the various buildings that he finds himself in.  The moving semi-static camera is more in line with the dynamic Silent Hill from 1999 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica from 2000.  That being said, the semi-static-dynamic camera is not without its faults, as the texture wrapping on a lot of objects like walls and floors, heavily distorts straight lines to the point where objects can seem unclear as to what they are supposed to represent.

One of my other critiques is that Kent seems to have only some knowledge of what is going, being described as "a mess" but doesn't seem to know why there are monsters in the building.  While exploring, Kent does come across various newspaper articles describing events that seem like they could lead up to monsters appearing in our world, but the appearance of the monsters seems directly connected to Kent wanting/needing to go to the Tower.  But Kent comes across locations, like a rooftop encampment and stairwells blocked with heavy furniture that implies that these events have been going on long enough for society to have begun breaking down and defensive measures to have already been taken.  And as previously stated, the player is also given no reason for Kent wanting to go to the Tower.  All we are told is that he wants to go there, and everyone he has come across seems perfectly fine with helping him get there although no explanation is ever given.

My last critique of Back in 1995 is its self-categorization as a survival-horror game and while it does tick off a lot of the checkboxes for what constitutes a game of that genre.  You play as a lone person in a building full of close quarters.  There are monsters/creatures of supernatural origin, often moving slowly but still deadly.  There are non-traditional camera angles that do not allow for full visibility of the environment.  There are puzzles to solve to access other areas to further progress.  Some weapons have limited effectiveness along with limited amounts of ammunition.  But the lack of a cohesive narrative is really the main thing that is holding Back in 1995 from being a fun survival-horror game.  And games that I do not find to be fun, are not fun to continue playing.

I ended up stopping when I came across the forth enemy in the game, being some pink balloon looking thing with legs and a Mog-like pom-pom attached to its top that moves very quickly.  It does not do a lot of damage when it hits, but when you get swarmed by two or three of these things who can make fast attacks against your two types of slow attacks ( currently a wrench, and pistol).  Running is also not an option in this game and your walking speed is just slow enough to not be able to stay ahead of these creatures.  I realize the tactic for these creatures is to probably just walk briskly away from them while trying to lock on to the item you need to pick up and then get out of the area before they can do too much damage to you.  Even in Resident Evil, the developers were smart enough to never put you in a confined space with three zombie dogs.  Yeah, I know.  Git gud and all that.  One thing that I had not considered, was that having multiple save files was very much a thing, especially in Resident Evil when you could accidentally find yourself without any ammunition and would need to go back to a previous save, rather than trying to fight a hunter with a combat knife.  Multiple save files was oddly something that I did not think of until my only way to progress meant having to saunter through a couple rooms of those fast creatures with only one bottle of pills (for healing) and starting out at 46% health.

I really wanted to fall in love with Back in 1995, but after putting a couple of hours into a game that can be completed in an hour, being stuck on a puzzle that I had to look up a walkthrough to solve and even then the solution did not make any sense, I feel that I may have to just stop playing a game that I have so many issues with.  It almost seems like the developers wanted to create a game that played like old survival-horror games, put all of the elements in their game, but the final product fell flat.  Having all of the ingredients for pound cake does not mean that you will be able to make a great tasting pound cake by.  Back in 1995 does do a great job in executing creating a game that mostly feels right for the era that they are setting the game.  Perhaps if there had been some type of fictional backstory as was the case with The Adventures of Elena Temple as the reason for having the game existing.

I may pick the game back up again some time and really hunker down against those quick little bastards, but in the meantime, I have more on my plate that is more fun than a tasteless poundcake.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Show Me Things I Really Ought To Know

#IndieSelect / #Indieween: Sagebrush (NS)

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of Sagebrush developed by Redact Games and published by Ratalaika Games on the Nintendo Switch as part of #Indieween, the seasonal event for #IndieSelect created by Indie Gamer Chick and maintained by Xinthus.  The game was given and received without expectation or promise of a positive review, only that the game be played and that experience be shared on social media channels.  All of the words and descriptions in this article, unless otherwise noted, are my own from my own experience playing the game.

Sagebrush is a first-person walking simulator mystery, but walking simulator in the best definition of the term.  This is also coming from a person who has loved Dear Esther, Gone Home, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and Layers of Fear, among many other games that have been described as such.  In-game, you have a standard walking speed with the L/R-trigger buttons letting the player run, the A-button which lets you interact with an object and the X-button which lets you look at/through your inventory.  The visual style of Sagebrush is one of the aspects that really drew me into the game when I first saw the trailer a couple of months back as it utilizes a pixelated landscape in a 3D space, but it is done in a way that does not feel like it was due to poor use of engines, but more of a purpose aesthetic.

One thing about the trailer that I immediately picked up on and did not seem to be hidden by the developers, were the similarities to the People's Temple Agricultural Project at Jonestown and the suicide that happened there in November 1978.  Everything from a large religious organization following a charismatic figurehead living off of the land in an unspecified location (250 miles NW of Albuquerque, NM which would technically put it somewhere in SE Utah) to the suicide that the player is told that happened some years before the game takes place are all derived from the events at Jonestown.  The in-game location of Black Sage Ranch also has some similarities to the established Rajneesh movement and settlement of Rajneeshpuram founded in north-central Oregon in the early 1980s, except that there was no mass suicide as there was in Jonestown (which is an important distinction to make) and the Black Sage Ranch is significantly smaller in size of location and the number of followers.

When I started Sagebrush, I found myself 100% in.  The voice acting sounded well delivered and genuine, which was a bit of a contrast considering the graphical look of the game, almost like you would expect the dialogue to only be text-based, which would have worked as well.  Even the beginning of the story pulled me in as I find suicide cults, apocalyptic cults, and other extremist Christian organizations tantalizing, partly because I grew up Catholic so I have that background to draw on, but also because I find it interesting to see what people from various walks of life will do in the name of a charismatic religious figure, and what that figure will do to maintain their power/hold.  I really feel like the target demographic for this game.  As I started to explore the seemingly derelict compound, I did start to wonder why I had gone there.  Yes, there is the dialogue between the two women with one telling the other that she noticed a hole in her heart and that a man named James could help her, but why you start out outside the locked main gate in your car when the ranch is seemingly empty confused me a little.

The basics of the game are pretty simple overall.  You can explore an area, and end up finding a physical key and/or a clue in the form of a note or an oddly placed tape deck that leads you to either another key or a place to use a key you just found.  With the help of a map found in the first area, locating the next location is never too difficult, often requiring you to move halfway across the compound, all in the proverbial shadow of the church on a hill.  As stated above, you do have the ability to run, something that always unnerves me a bit in walking-sims because why do you need to run unless it is away from something?  Even though the ability to run is there in the game, I have often found myself walking from a communal meeting hall, down a dirt road, through a rotting/dying cornfield, through an exposed hay storage area, and to a storage shed.  I could have run and covered the distance in about 2/3rds the time (I have not calculated the actual time/distance though. . .yet), but something about walking seems more fitting for the type of game this is.  That was until I became confused as to where to go next and decided to retrace ALL THE STEPS and decided to run around like a mad person.

A lot of what Sagebrush is about is establishing an atmosphere of unease.  The player is told as the game begins that they are headed to a religious compound where hundreds of people had committed suicide, which would have you immediately think that this is going to be a purely information gathering game.  But because it is a video game, the player is conditioned to anticipate an adversarial force to be engaged.  In Amnesia: The Dark Descent and SOMA, you had to avoid creatures often in enclosed areas in order to continue the story, whereas, in Gone Home, there was an air of something bad that could happen while in the familiar space of a family home, yet there was nothing of the sort that happened.  In Sagebrush, you could find yourself alone in a garden shed looking at your map wondering where to go next and then you hear floorboards creek near you.  You could pass through a door and begin to explore a room only to have the door that you just entered a few seconds earlier slam closed while you are 10 feet away.  Nothing has happened to you directly, but the environment plays on our expectations of what video games are combined with the in-game information that we are supposed to be alone on this derelict ranch.

In the end, I have one main criticism of the game, and two minor critiques.  The biggest criticism is that there is no reticule or crosshair to visually focus on when you are trying to interact with objects such as letters, books, light switches and the like.  Games like Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs have perfected the tiny white dot reticule that I only notice when I want to interact with an object, otherwise my brain easily fills in that white space with the surrounding environment.  I can understand not including crosshairs specifically since that could be an indication that there will be guns or other weapons to be used later in the game, but some kind of a reticule would have been most welcome.  The number of times I felt like I was making minor adjustments with the camera in order to read a journal or flip a light switch seemed to happen on a fairly frequent basis.

The two minor critiques are just that, minor, as they did not detract from the quality of the game, nor did they make me decry that Sagebrush was unplayable.  The first is that I inadvertently gained access to the final area earlier than I should have, not through a glitch, but because I apparently noticed something before it was revealed through letters/journal entries.  When this happened, I still had not entered either the Mines or the Cleansing Room but was told that it was now time to answer all my questions and head to the Church up on the hill.  I probably could have shaved 45 minutes off my final time by skipping out visiting both sites, but that would have left out very important pieces of the puzzle.  In two other similar instances, I was able to read two letters through a window of a trailer that gave additional information that I should not have been able to access at that point, and in another case, I could examine a bed through boarded up windows before I had access to the house I was about to explore.  The last critique was the voice acting by developer Nate Berens as Father James, which I was not able to buy as the voice of someone who was supposed to be as charismatic as he was depicted.  Granted the depiction of Father James in pixelated paintings could be an inaccurate visage of the character, but even the one instance when you did hear him mid-sermon, I was expecting something similar to Jim Jones, but what I heard instead sounded like a mid-20-year-old guy who was unsure of himself and not the established leader of a congregation.  I recognize that that would be quite a feat for an independent studio to come out with, but it was still something that I thought about toward the end of the game.

Other than that, I loved Sagebrush, even more so because it is the first game from Redact Games and there is so much that was done right.  The atmosphere is creepy and confusing in the way that mysteries are supposed to be were all on point. Even the story which was not original in a lot of its content (they do admit that the game pulls heavily from real-world apocalyptic cults), it was how the story was told and the pacing that were all effective.  I should also mention that Redact Games, from my own perspective, does a good job of not creating a narrative that demonizing religion as a whole, but instead how people can distort religion to their own aims and drag down the people who have placed their physical and spiritual trust in.  It can be a slippery slope that is handled well.

There is so much more that I could talk about regarding the story, the environment, and especially the end of the game, but I would rather people experience this on their own without outside influence.  I now wish that I actually bought this game instead of receiving it from Ratalaika Games through Xinthus, but hey, if I can find a way to buy someone a download code for the game, if you think you would like a 1-3 hour exploration experience and are not offended by commentary on religion and cults, we should talk.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Caught up in the Fable, I Watched the Tower Grow