11/4/15 Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes for $14.99. “Co-operate in following convoluted directions” speaks to something deep in my soul. My sister and I breezed through about half of the game; then the Morse Code blinker defeated us several times, and we got discouraged. Maybe someday we’ll return. I’m just listing it here for completeness.

11/8/15 Indiegala freebie:

• Realms of the Haunting (1997): Gremlin Interactive (Sheffield, UK) [14 hrs]

The 90s-game-generating machine was left on overnight by mistake, and this is what came out. Full-motion video, first-person shooter, graphic adventure, horror fantasy, haunted house, lava caverns, secret society, time pedestal, demon labyrinth castle shotgun psychic sword hell knight brain ghost sarcophagus dimension church prophecy dragon crystal UH OH SOMEBODY SHUT IT OFF! A fascinating lump of creativity, made with palpable enthusiasm in every respect, bursting with nifty ideas, and offering undeniable spooky-dream atmosphere. Also: unutterably stupid, frustrating to control, has a couple of truly infuriating sections. A ridiculous camp delight AND totally unrecommendable. Glad to have taken the ride. Never again!

12/14/15 GOG gives away Worms Forts: Under Siege. In checking my heart I find no interest whatsoever in trying this for even a minute. Noted, heart.

12/21/15 GOG gives away:

• Bio Menace (1993): Apogee Software (Garland, TX) [played for 2 hrs]

I try not to overstate the role of “nostalgia” in my enjoyment of things but this one fits the bill. The bright-lit EGA “Commander Keen” aesthetics — depthless, chipper, toylike — offer me a sense of comfort by fond association. I didn’t play this one at the time and probably would have found its gore distasteful. The first of three episodes was all I needed, just as it would have been in 1993.

12/30/15 “Humble Bundle: Eye Candy 4” for $6 gets me six games. Why on earth did I buy this? How did I justify it to myself? I honestly can’t recall. The “eye candy” theme means that all the games have striking art styles; I guess I just got intrigued by the screenshots and made an impulse buy? Exactly what I swore not to do ever again? It’s a mystery.

• Dyscourse (2015): Owlchemy Labs (Austin, TX) [played for 1.25 hrs]

“CHOICE” IS A FALSE GOD. I keep saying it, but do they listen? This is standard choose-your-own-adventure, i.e. pick a path arbitrarily and it leads to an arbitrary outcome, all in a flavorless scenario about which you have no reason to care. There’s no writing to speak of, just a tree of tropes. They think you’ll want to do it again and again to explore the other branches simply because you know other branches exist. Not I. Anyone who thinks “Dyscourse” is a good title is not someone I want telling me a story. “Eye candy” rating 2/5. (Where 1 is Smarties and 5 is peanut butter cups.)

• Lumino City (2014): State of Play (London, UK) [4 hrs]

Stiff, self-involved adventure game with essentially no functional plot, just a twee aesthetic. Its only intention is “build a cutesy world out of cardboard and get credit for it.” Well, they done it! Do you see “Filter > Blur Gallery > Tilt-Shift”? Do you hear “turntable-crackle-03.wav”? If so, congratulations: you’re having all the feels. Eye candy rating 3/5.

• Plug & Play (2015): Michael Frei and Mario Von Rickenbach (Zürich, Switzerland) [.25 hrs]

Not a game: an animated short in the artsy-deadpan tradition, translated directly into interactive form. Click, drag, plug, etc. to progress through the surreal vignettes. The very simple interactivity is handled intelligently; this should serve as a case study for how to think about the point-and-click paradigm, which happens to mesh very well with the stop-and-go aesthetic. Competent art! Eye candy rating 4/5.

• 2064: Read Only Memories (2015): MidBoss (San Francisco, CA) [played for 1 hr]

Very finely retrostyled cyberpunk throwback, but clearly much more thought has been put into being #GENDERWOKE than into being #GAME. For the most part you’re just here to read a linear mile of geek-written text, strained and oblivious, which unspools onscreen at an indefensibly slow pace. Sure, fine, X get to choose mx own pronouns — but when do X get to have FUN? Mx patience ran out within an hour. Eye candy rating 4/5.

• Apotheon (2015): Alientrap (Toronto, ON) [played for 2 hrs]

A beautiful idea: a game that looks like it takes place on the side of an amphora. The graphic concept has been realized with care and taste. But in play everything is just a little too far apart; there are just a few too many factors to juggle; the world is just a tad too empty. Slight things, but they make a big difference to the amount of pleasure. I came to a door that crashed the game every time I tried to enter, and decided I wasn’t actually having enough fun to bother troubleshooting, so that was that. Eye candy rating 4/5 at the outset, then 3/5 after you’ve gotten used to it. I guess those diminishing returns are exactly what “eye candy” implies.

• The Next Penelope (2015): Aurelien Regard (Paris, France) [played for 2 hrs]

Top-down racing, with some shooting and bosses and other stuff thrown in. Moderately “retro” new wave neon color scheme, and a CRT ghost effect if you want it — but no pixels, which shows admirable restraint. The intent is to be clean and zippy, and mostly it is. Very impressive for being a one-man show. But racing games always frustrate me; they end up being about my physical relationship with the controller, and that’s not something I want to care about. Eye candy rating 3/5.

1/4/16 “Humble Square Enix Bundle 3” for $1 gets me 6 games. I buy it solely to assuage my curiosity about Life Is Strange; the rest is bonus.

First game is The Last Remnant, which my brain instinctively rejects as inappropriate for intake; a blinking red X appears over it in my Terminator’s-eye view. A brain is a mysterious thing, but I’ve learned that it’s best to do as it says. (I’ve learned the hard way.) So no Last Remnant for me.

• Life Is Strange (2015): Dontnod Entertainment (Paris, France) [3 hrs]

This is only the first of a five-episode series, and six months after I paid a dollar, it was made permanently free as an enticement to buy the rest. Oh well. It was quite good and I feel duly enticed; if the complete series drops below $8 I will buy it.

A landmark in the continuing development of what I might call “TV games”: adds a few layers of finesse to the model established by The Walking Dead. The writing is basic but never outright asinine, which for a video game amounts to a triumph. The atmosphere of dewy poignancy is laid on awfully thick, but I don’t mind because it’s all been done with such skill. The choice to give the protagonist a “sit silently and feel sentimental” action in most locations is inspired. Not only is it apropos as high school emo, it’s also exactly the mindset to which the storytelling mechanism is making its appeal: if you meditate on and in this environment, a sense of rich but ineffable narrative meaning will emerge. Just like it does for teenagers.

…

Special bulletin! 12/19/19: $3.99 sale for the rest of Life Is Strange. I said I would, so I did. [15 more hours]

Undeniably captivating. By far the most cinematically fluent TV game I’ve yet experienced. “Best Lighting” for sure! The nuts and bolts stagecraft is so commandingly professional that you can’t help but go along for the ride, regardless of all its many glaring flaws and shortcomings. Yes, the game’s ambition outruns its actual sophistication; pretty much every big effect in the script feels underearned and a bit immature. But only a bit — and I mean that to be praising with faint damnation, because considering how wildly emotional this game wants to be, just coming within shouting distance of its goals is an astounding achievement. I was truly riveted, and, against my better judgment, moved. By hook or by crook, it wouldn’t let me be otherwise. A masterpiece of presentation.

…

Back to the Square Enix Bundle.

• Tomb Raider (1996) (“Tomb Raider I”): Core Design (Derby, UK) [played for 3 hrs]

Deservedly a classic. I played through a friend’s copy in 1997 (thanks, Mary!) and it left a strong impression that hasn’t faded. Tomb Raider brought a new firmness and snappiness to 3D gameplay, and a new sense of rumbling menace to the fantasy of subterranea that has been the central offering of computer games going all the way back to Adventure. As with Dark Forces earlier this year, I am struck by just how well its particular geometric brutalism has aged. The subject matter, the gameplay, and the aesthetics are all complementary: it gives the sense that everything is exactly as detailed as it ought to be and no more, which is something that can’t always be said for its fancier descendants.

I’m giving myself another paragraph here for some musings about Lara Croft: I think she’s a fascinating counterexample to the notion of “objectification” as connoting something intrinsically oppressive and demeaning. She is manifestly a sex doll created by sophomoric male programmers, but she is also you, the player. There’s no way to play the game for any length of time without coming to identify with her. How can she be “objectified” if she is the subject? The answer is: she’s both and neither, because the “object / subject” model is a crock. In games, first-person and third-person are often freely interchangeable, and “the male gaze” can easily be twisted into a Möbius strip. (Also, I think Lara’s pornographic quality actually helps the game insofar as it makes her look less ridiculous than she otherwise would; the intrinsic grotesqueness of her polygonal form is conveniently masked by the blind spot of conventional sexual exaggerations.)

My memory from 20 years ago turned out to be so unfaded that playing again felt unnecessary, so I stopped after the first few levels. Plus I recalled disliking the increasingly yicky environs and skinless monsters toward the end of the game. Who needs it?

Next up in this bundle are Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider III, neither of which have I ever played. I expect that someday I will indeed give them each a spin, but my 3 hour tour of Tomb Raider I completely sated my Tomb Raiding appetite for the moment, so I’m leaving these for later.

• Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014): Square Enix (El Segundo, CA) & Airtight Games (Redmond, WA) [9 hrs]

Alternate titles include “Ghost Detective: Who Has A Hat”, “Also A Vest: Ghost Man”, and “Bad Boy Ghost Cop: He Is A Tattoo Guy.” A well-meaning, expensive-looking game, full of valuable assets, all of it completely squandered because there’s no gameplay to flatter the content. For example, they neglected to include any parts where you feel smart, or experience the thrill of discovery. The only mechanic is: click on every item from a checklist. Oops! That’s supposed to be the back end, not the front end! The whole thing smells like project mismanagement: plenty of artists and programmers, but is anyone steering this thing? A cautionary object lesson for game designers. (Direct comparison with its excellent contemporary The Vanishing of Ethan Carter could be illuminating.)

1/14/16 “Humble Weekly Bundle: Full Motion Video” gets me 11 wacky live-action-based games, several of them classics of a sort — a campy sort — and one of them a recent game that was on my wishlist, for only $5. Fine.

• The 7th Guest (1993): Trilobyte Games (Medford, OR) [8 hrs]

An artifact. When my father finally brought home a computer with a CD drive (circa 1996-7?), I eagerly borrowed this from either the public library or Blockbuster video, to appease several years of curiosity. Magazine screenshots had seemed to promise unprecedented immersion and delicious haunted house ambiance. It delivered a bit of that, but mostly I found the actual product a lazy mess — an incoherent script and puzzles shamelessly cribbed straight out of Sam Loyd and H.E. Dudeney, the original trees from whence fall the oldest possible chestnuts. Furthermore several of these puzzles simply aren’t fair. (Tryst by my crypt for details.) 20 years later, this was a somewhat interesting memory to have turned over with my spade, and I didn’t mind devoting a few hours to swapping chess bishops and the like, but the game still feels like a sham, built more to be sold than played.

• The 11th Hour (1995): Trilobyte Games (Medford, OR) [7 hrs]

Wretchedly unimaginative sequel. I had known it existed but not much more; I am stunned to discover that it takes place in the exact same rooms, in which you have to solve a nearly identical set of puzzles. The gall! The only dimension in which it demonstrates any sort of ambition is the sheer quantity of moronic, tasteless video: there’s a lot more this time. But to what end? An Elvira pinball table has the good sense never to make you stop playing pinball so that it can tell you some stupid-ass story about what Elvira did yesterday afternoon. That would be idiotic design, right? Whatever entertainment value Elvira’s presence brings to a pinball game (probably the Standard Elvira Quotient, defined as “none”), it is at least brought to the whole, in the present, in a way that tries to enhance, rather than interrupt, the playing of pinball. Whereas The 11th Hour tries to get you to watch an hour’s worth of sub-Elvira trash while waiting to do puzzles. Come on.

Google says I’m the first to use “sub-Elvira.” A sad comment on the state of games journalism.

Have been thinking of retiring this log but eh, I’ll at least go to the end of the year. Why not. Still would prefer to be doing multi-paragraph entries about books and movies. If only I could consistently get my brain to stay the course! Working on it. In the meantime here are some mostly bad games I played mostly very briefly.

Last one from the “Monochromatic” Bundle.

• Oquonie (2014): David Lu Linvega (= David Mondou-Labbe) (Tokyo, Japan) [2.5 hrs]

A snazzy little doodad from a couple of digital nomads. Maze-puzzle as objet d’art in classic hipster/art-school style: bold, meticulous, superficial.

March 10, 2015: I buy the three DROD games I’ve never played, on sale for $7.82 at GOG. One of them, the last and longest one, remains unplayed today, but I’m still feeling my DROD marathon of last year and think some more delay is in order, so for now I’m skipping over it; this is just to wave at it out the train window. (And I still don’t feel ready to return to that Star Wars bundle, either.)

March 17, 2015: “Humble PC & Android Bundle 12” for $3.88 gets me nine games, seven of which are new. I had played none of them until now.

• Tetrobot and Co. (2013): Swing Swing Submarine (Montpellier, France) [14 hrs]

I bought the bundle just for this. A worthy sequel to Blocks That Matter, which at the time of the sale I had posted about just the previous week. Better-than-average puzzles on a smooth difficulty curve. Still quirkily tactile, albeit a bit less so. Charming, flavorful music by the same guy. Low-key and genial; suitable for all.

• Titan Attacks! (2006): Puppy Games (London?, UK) [2 hrs]

It’s good old Space Invaders, with glowing faux-pixel graphics and some added structure and variety to satisfy modern expectations. Not to say it wasn’t briefly diverting, but I get the impression that this developer likes fiddling with lighting effects more than he likes designing games.

• The Inner World (2013): Studio Fizbin (Ludwigsburg, Germany) [5 hrs]

Oddball cartoon graphic adventure; well-intentioned and cute to look at, but irritating to play. The wacky whimsy is all too German, and the translation is dubious (LOOK AT MOSS > “That has moss written all over it.”) Everything moves too slowly, and the nonsensical puzzles are mostly under-indicated. Kind of dumb, frankly.

Next in this bundle is Ironclad Tactics, a game so overwhelmingly not my style that I am skipping it. For now? For good? I don’t know what to tell you. See below for more on this subject.

• Eufloria HD (2009/2012): Omni Systems (Folkestone, UK) [played for 1 hr]

An exceedingly boring game about conquering featureless circles by waiting for grass to grow; pitched as “relaxing,” but bland pastels and ambient synth beats aren’t my relaxation style.

• Solar Flux (2013): Firebrand Games (Glasgow, UK / Merritt Island, FL) [played for .5 hr]

Irritating momentum-nudging game of collecting space dots; I think it wants to be a somber cousin to Angry Birds.

• Toast Time (2013): Force of Habit (Bristol, UK) [played for 1 hr]

Cutesy “retro” arcade shooter (with a particularly deadly case of FAKE PIXELS) where you’re a toaster that bounces wildly around the screen. Has some appeal but it’s clearly a phone game not really meant for computers.

June 10, 2015: Almost three months pass with no games added to my list! Good for me! Then GOG gives away Battle Realms for free so, yes, I click on it. Free is free.

It’s a real-time strategy game about warring clans in ancient Japan. I don’t have any interest in playing that, and never did.

When I started methodically going down my list like this, it was because I really thought that by dutifully playing each and every game, I could retroactively justify my senseless acts of compulsive acquisition, and maybe broaden my palate in the process. But I’m older and wiser/dumber now, so here are some facts: 1) Acts of compulsive acquisition aren’t actually senseless, and need no justification. They’re compulsions — what’s not to understand? And dwelling on past compulsive behavior, hoping to retroactively redeem it, only makes it loom larger in my life. If you regret something, just move on, dude! 2) My palate isn’t set in stone, but come on, it’s not a magic moonbeam either. I have certain tastes! No need to deny them indiscriminately.

So okay, that’s Battle Realms.

June 15, 2015: I pay $1.00 for “Humble Indie Bundle: All-Stars” because I’ve been meaning to play World of Goo for years and I’m happy to pay $1 for it. It happens to get me two other games, one of which is new to my collection.

• World of Goo (2008): 2D Boy (= Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel) (San Francisco, CA) [7 hrs]

The best “physics game” from a moment in time when physics games were suddenly the hot thing. Build towers and bridges out of ever-sagging rubbery triangles: this is a task well worthy of having a game built around it, and you’ll know it as soon as you try your hand; it’s immediately satisfying to play with. Most physics games fail to strike the right balance between freedom and constraint, but World of Goo pulls it off. The tasks are well-defined, but because the system is so blobby and imprecise, executing any given solution always requires flexibility. And the Dr. Seuss trappings are an inspired match.

• Dustforce DX (2012/14): Hitbox Team (Portland, OR) [played for 1 hr]

Looks like a platformer, which I would usually play through, but is actually just an elaborate speedrun course, which doesn’t interest me. Also the anime-like emotional tone implicit in the character designs and the music really turns me off.

Oops, off the list for a second: a game was given away for free by Indiegala on August 1 (of 2019) that looked like it might be my kind of thing, so I played it. Forgive me.

• Adventures of Shuggy (2011): Smudged Cat Games (= David Johnston & collaborators) (Littleport, UK) [6 hrs?]

A game out of time: a deep stack of very mildly puzzling one-screen things to do, which is a cheerful format from 30 years ago. “Puzzle-platformers” these days usually aspire to being actually hard. This does not, though the enemy-avoidance does test one’s patience. But in a friendly way. Charming, well-executed, and inconsequential (though I suppose the “avoid your past self” rooms have some slight interest). Downright old-fashioned! Great for kids, I’d think.

And then another dinky giveaway from Indiegala distracts me on August 17.

• Puzzle Chambers (2017): Entertainment Forge (= Darko Peninger) (Pančevo, Serbia) [about 3.5 hours]

Unremarkable number-placing logic puzzles but with a charmingly gratuitous narrative presentation: the puzzles are on the floor of a Saw parody scenario and little characters walk and talk their way through. I stayed with it for the freewheeling homegrown dialogue, which is sprightly and dorky and unselfconscious, as though an eager preteen wrote it.

Back to the list.

6/21/15: “Humble Jumbo Bundle 4.” $4.19 to beat the average gets me six games. A week later they add three more for a total of nine. I only bought it because I was curious about The Stanley Parable.

• Outland (2011): Housemarque (Helsinki, Finland) [played for 9 hrs]

Platformer with a parity-switching mechanic, as lifted from Ikaruga. Color-swapping obstacle courses are a good idea and there are some satisfying individual rooms, but the game as a whole is bland and repetitive. It’s a fake Metroid-like; actually just a linear guided tour. Art direction is superficially competent but the atmosphere doesn’t really cohere. Also it’s all too dark to see, and the character gets too small. Yet another one where I played up to the final boss and felt no need to finish it off. Frankly I should have stopped much earlier.

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is an “empire-building” game in generic D&D fantasyland. I pass, without hesitation.

• Mercenary Kings (2014): Tribute Games (Montreal, QC) [played for 1.5 hrs]

Lively cartoon action, excellent pixel animation in the style of Metal Slug, but ultimately this is a systems game rather than a progression game — collect collect collect! upgrade upgrade upgrade! — so it feels essentially static. The trailer tries to wow you with the overwhelming combinatoric possibilities for weapon configuration, which for me is a red flag.

Endless Space is another “empire-building” game, sci-fi this time. Keep in mind I can’t even get into Civilization. Pass.

• The Stanley Parable (2013): Galactic Cafe (= Davey Wreden & William Pugh) (Austin, TX & Sowerby Bridge, UK) [3 hrs]

A clever comic performance, well worth the whole $4.19. Essentially the inversion of the Life of Brian “think for yourselves” joke: here the classic Authoritative British Narrator Voice wants to tell you a stirring interactive tale about thinking for yourself, but gets petulant when you don’t do exactly what he says. Wasn’t I just saying that choice in games wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Gratifying to see it punctured with such panache. Well staged and well delivered. I laughed aloud twice! Imagine that!

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II is a Diablo-style “Action RPG” that’s not particularly well liked. Considering that Torchlight is a beloved one of these and I didn’t even like that, I don’t think this is for me. Pass.

Screencheat has no single-player mode so that’s that. Pass.

• Freedom Planet (2014): GalaxyTrail (= mostly Stephen DiDuro) (Waterloo, NY) [played for 2 hrs]

Overt Sonic the Hedgehog throwback. Well-built, but insufficiently tasty for me to want to go the distance — I never having been that much of a Sonic fan to begin with. Also the interstitial storytelling is truly unbearable, spastic furry-minded infantilism, and there is an incredible amount of it. Consider me off-put.

• Coin Crypt (2013–14): Greg Lobanov (Philadelphia, PA) [played for 1 hr]

Battle using tokens in order to win more tokens, being careful never to run out of tokens. A worthy idea, but the presentation isn’t rewarding enough for me to want to put in the time learning the deck, the stats, etc. The more tabletop-like the game mechanics, the more look and feel matter to me.

September 3, 2015. A free giveaway from Indiegala:

• The 39 Steps (2013): The Story Mechanics (Glasgow, Scotland, UK) [3.5 hrs]

Not a game but a so-called “visual novel,” i.e. a straight-ahead narrative presentation with nominal interactivity (e.g. “click the door to enter”) but no functional choices. The John Buchan book is a good choice of source material for such a thing, and all the illustration and audio has been done with a modicum of taste and care. The adaptation is certainly faithful and respectful. The effect is very similar to filmstrip presentations of olde: very mildly effective, and pleasantly soporific. Plenty of flaws too. I would love to see more and better work in this direction.

September 24, 2015. Free on Steam for a day, as a promotion for the remake thereof:

• Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (1997): Oddworld Inhabitants (San Luis Obispo, CA) [played for 6 hrs]

A big hit from years ago; glad to have finally played it. Attractive, tactile, atmospheric graphics with a stop-motion feel; wiggly-woggly story and character design have real spirit; gameplay distinctly superior to the rather similar Heart of Darkness. But: it is demanding, and one of its demands is a SEVEN SECOND WAIT every time you die, which happens constantly. After 6 hours of play I did not feel myself to be 6 hours into a game; more like 4 hours into a game and 2 hours of SEVEN SECOND WAIT. I really wanted to see it through but, alas, that degree of time-wastage is unendurable even for me. I wish someone had patched it to change just that one thing. Instead they remade it entirely, in ways that mostly seem to detract. A shame.

November 2, 2015. A free giveaway from Indiegala:

• Litil Divil (1993): Gremlin Graphics (Sheffield, UK) [played for .25 hr]

You know the type: “half-baked, underdesigned game, but containing cartoon graphics that can be made to look good in screenshots on the box,” from the golden age of same. (A British Amiga game, in fact: the belly of the beast.) This one seems to have its charms, but still, why subject myself?

November 3, 2015 — the next day! Yet another free giveaway from Indiegala:

• Lucius (2012): Shiver Games (Helsinki, Finland) [played for .25 hr]

Play as approximately ‘The Omen’ and kill your family one by one. Not sure that’s a good or tasteful concept, but I was willing to give it a chance because I’m a pushover for Mansion Horror. But this immediately reveals itself as ill-built. Feels like it has stray nails sticking out of it and I don’t want to cut myself.

Present day again! My sister tells me she saw a game she thinks I might like, and then a couple weeks later some nerds I know are all abuzz about the same game… so I say fine, it’s a sign and spend a full $14.99 to play it. Was that really advisable? Is that really something I should be doing? What can I say.

• Untitled Goose Game (2019): House House (Melbourne, Australia) [3+ hrs]

Art! Not big art, but little art — which is simply to say that it makes you feel and think about things that aren’t other videogames. In a better world, that would be the baseline, but it’s not, it’s special, so let’s celebrate it. I adore the idea of responsive piano accompaniment and I’m very impressed with the execution… I just wish it hadn’t been famous classical pieces, whose vivisection I couldn’t help but find distracting. Oh well. The goose is a beaut. The situational dynamics, the emotions in play and the overall social vision, are so very much healthier and clear-headed than in most other games. The fresh air here feels like happiness offered on the level, not a sentimental escape offered to the needy. I think that’s why the game has become a sensation; it’s so immediate and obvious to anyone who touches it. I’m all for it.

Next from the “Monochromatic” Bundle.

• NaissanceE (2014): Limasse Five (= Mavros Sedeño) (near Paris, France) [5 hours]

Astounding! A masterpiece. Awe and disorientation. Pure symbolist architectural immersion, the poetics of dreamspace. Escher/Blade Runner/Brazil/Star Wars/House of Stairs/House of Leaves/Mandelbrot/Lovecraft et cetera et alia. You are neither welcome nor unwelcome here; just as mankind is neither welcome nor unwelcome in the universe. It worked on me at a deep level; it’s still ringing in my head. These hallways aren’t exactly my personal dream, but they’re close enough to resonate; this sort of light and shadow has real meaning for me, not just hypothetical meaning. Wonderfully sensitive and effective use of music, including tracks by noted experimentalist Pauline Oliveros (used with her approval). The game makes the best possible case for her music, I’d say. Just a spectacular overall impression.

(Is it uneven and arbitrary? Is the actual gameplay sometimes infuriating? Does it lack a proper ending? Yes, sure, all of that — so what?)

Remarkably enough, this game has been free since last fall. If you’ve got a Steam account and you have any interest in artsy games, you really ought to give it a look.

• Betrayer (2014): Blackpowder Games (Seattle, WA) [played for 2 hours]

Superficially a nice try: cold, crisp, otherworldly black-and-white with flashes of blood red. 1604, abandoned American colonial outposts. Wind in the grass, slow-loading muskets, the cawing of crows. Sounds like it could be a worthwhile dreamy-spooky experience. But the rest of the design is pure reflex and repetition — buy weapons, buy ammo, kill screeching skeletons (!), read scraps of paper, etc. etc. etc. Both the game and its big empty world are underrealized. I’m guessing this team of developers tried to go independent, started out ambitious, then ran out of time and money. That or they just didn’t have quite a full enough vision.

Oops, and I bought a new game. It was clearly a mandatory game, for me, and I decided it would be more satisfying to play it while it was still hot. People I know in real life are playing it right now; why not join the party, right? So I spent $14.99 + tax to buy:

• Baba Is You (2019): Hempuli Oy (= Arvi Teikari) (Helsinki, Finland) [41 hours]

Hats off, gentlemen! A fantastic game; an all-time game. It goes straight to my short list of greatest puzzle games, and that’s a list that matters to me. Those were 41 dense hours; this thing is jam-packed, and I am, I daresay, a strong puzzler. It’s incredible just how much of that time was been spent having the so-called “aha” experience — the thrill of transformative insight, prized by puzzlers. Immensely satisfying! Fluxx Sokoban is a nifty enough gimmick, but nifty enough gimmicks are literally a dime a dozen these days. Baba Is You distinguishes itself by the puzzles themselves, which are uniformly excellent and extremely numerous. There are tricks and surprises and meta-gimmicks and all that, but what really counts is that sense of of enthusiastic commitment to its own materials — the designer is genuinely interested in his system, and so has arranged for you to take a self-guided magical mystery tour of everything cool he found while exploring it. These puzzles are never here to prolong your playtime, which is to say to delay you from being done: they’re here to show you something that wants to be shown. They are etudes and this is a book of etudes.

I’ll allow myself some additional paragraphs here because I’m feeling so enthusiastic. The self-devouring logic of the puzzles has delightfully been carried over into the game structure, which might sound like an obvious design move but it really isn’t. Game design is generally myopic and obsessive about its pet forms; the value of rigid hierarchical concepts like “overworld map” and “hub worlds” and “bonus content” mostly goes unquestioned. Here those concepts are all gently tweaked into absurd Möbius loops. Is this screen a level or a map? Am I going up or down in the hierarchy? Are these normal levels or bonus levels, or does this whole group of levels constitute a bonus level, or what? What is the thing, or set of things, that I need to complete to get it to say that I completed something? It’s all deliberately been made screwy. Which is what this stuff deserves. Every artform needs to be always exploding a little bit, if it wants to stay alive. This had some real life in it; it is not rigid.

Computer entertainment, being an extension of animation, has more complete a freedom than any other medium I can think of: it can be truly anything. The breadth of genres demonstrates this capacity, but individual games rarely do — too many preconceptions running the show. Ideally, playing a new computer game should give a least a little of the feeling of experiencing some new slice of “TRULY ANYTHING,” some new discovery that was found floating through the universe of the human mind. This one did, god bless it!

More Star Wars Bundle.

• Star Wars: Starfighter (2002): LucasArts (San Francisco CA) [played 1 hr]

A simplistic, forgettable fly-and-shoot; too slick to be charming and not slick enough to be seductive. The “sixth generation” graphical style still feels like it hasn’t been fully broken in: for fleeting moments, the space battles can look impressively like the cinematic real thing, but for the most part the world feels dull and empty. The overall sense is of programmers eager to get home to their families; the game plays like a contract fulfilled. Plus: the menus, the packaging, the GUI, the primitive CGI puppet storytelling — these were the years when things started to get real ugly.

• Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002): Raven Software (Middleton, WI) [22 hrs]

This comes after Dark Forces and Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. Amusing for a third installment to be called “Part 2: II”; not sure I’ve ever seen that done anywhere else. (This on top of the usual Star Wars colon overload.)

This was new to me and turned out to be very satisfying indeed. Wonderfully on brand — Billy Dee Williams as the real Lando! — and just the right amount of gloss. 3D action games were well on their way out of the awkward phase by 2002; the surfaces are inviting again, soft and glowing, the figures are doll-like. Gameplay felt a tad cruel at times, and the whole thing ran too long, but keep in mind that I’m not actually very good at these games. Lively level designs full of variety and interest. Much obvious inspiration from Half-Life, and why not. The opposite of Starfighter: feels like a labor of love.

Plenty more Star Wars to go but I need a break so I’m gonna mix in some of the next group.

March 6, 2015, $4.50 for “Humble Weekly Bundle: Monochromatic.” Four games (plus one more that I already have). The theme is black & white graphics. It looked like a neat mix of stuff so I went for it, again breaking my oath to only buy when I had a specific interest. (Eventually I did start sticking to it, but it took a little while to sink in.)

• Closure (2012): Eyebrow Interactive (= Tyler Glaiel + collaborators) (San Diego, CA?) [9 hrs]

A close relative of The Bridge, i.e. another well-intentioned Braid-alike from the years when they were rampant. This one has a very fine concept: if a surface isn’t lit and visible, it isn’t there. Unfortunately there’s often a lot of finicking to be done between conceiving of a solution and executing it. Meanwhile you’re putting up with somewhat overbearing Tim Burton ‘zine stylings and repetitive music. I prefer my puzzle games with a meditative rather than a goth vibe; it’s all about the headspace, after all. The puzzles make a nice exploration of the mechanic but there are probably too many of them, and it seems to me they’re in the wrong order: the third of the three groupings is both the easiest and the most aesthetically engaging. Nonetheless: pretty good.

• Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!” (2013): “Dietrich Squinkifier (writing as Deirdra Kiai)” (Santa Cruz, CA) [1.25 hr]

Not just indie but truly “alt.” I find this sort of thing invigorating, just as I find art by children invigorating. It’s “about gender and the economy” (uh-oh!), but only in the most simplistic ways, which given the medium I think are probably the best ways. At the “be! creative! be! creative!” summer camp I attended as a kid, hippie progressive political ideals were never actually preached, but they were deeply embedded in the camp’s conception of creative freedom. This game is in every way like something made at that camp: the real Social Justice agenda is the one implicit in its defiance of any received aesthetic standards. It is neither serious nor a joke. It is neither well made nor poorly made. It is qualityqueer. More power to it.

By the way, Dominique Pamplemousse is now “name your own price” which means you can download and play it for free if you’re curious. (There’s also apparently a sequel.)

Those links both go to itch.io, an absolutely vast expanse of “be! creative! be! creative!” alt- games, mostly free, by creators at all levels of talent. If you want the real indie, this is where it is. Dipping into itch.io is the equivalent of seeing the unknown bands at the local performance space. Some of it’s like drunken karaoke; some of it is already signed with a major label. Whenever I stop by and glance at the storefront I’m intrigued and tempted, but I don’t think I have the stamina to wander into that thicket alone without guide or companion. If anyone wants to join me in occasional joint expeditions, though, let me know! Could be fun.

Not quite ready to quit this practice yet, but paring it way down.

Finishing up the Humble Indie Bundle 13 as purchased 11/11/14, two games to go:

• Eldritch (2013): Minor Key Games (=David and J. Kyle Pittman) (Frisco, TX / Novato, CA) [played 1 hr]

Minecraft as Lovecraft (well, “Lovecraft”), which is an inspired dreamspace equation: pixel-simple, toylike, hushed, spooky subterranean 3D space. Consistently raised goosebumps but not adrenaline, which for me is a rare threading of the needle. As usual with roguelikes, my interest lasted only as long as the novelty.

• Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (2012): DrinkBox Studios (Toronto, ON, Canada) [played 3 hrs]

A handheld game, clearly conceived as “Gish does Katamari,” but with all the quirks ironed out. Plus a pile of standard-issue gimmicks — magnets, moving platforms, rocket packs — to prevent it from being too transparently boring. It’s still boring, but at least it’s cheerful and means well. I regret playing for 3 hours.

Two days later, 11/13/14, GOG gives away Mount & Blade. I impulsively click to claim it, even though it’s not the kind of game I care about in the least.

• Mount & Blade (2008): TaleWorlds (Ankara, Turkey) [played .75 hr]

No story or goal; it’s just a Medieval Dolls Playset For Big Boys. I have no medieval fixation and thus am uninspired to play with the dolls. It’s also ugly: like a lot of marionettes being clacked together in the middle of nowhere. I spent several minutes trying to make the guy’s face look like mine. He was killed by looters almost immediately.

Two weeks later, 11/29/14, GOG gives away The Witcher 2. I impulsively click to claim it, even though it’s not the kind of game I care about in the least.

• The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (2011): CD Projekt (Warsaw, Poland) [33 hrs]

Despite being a ridiculous Game of Thrones-style high fantasy porn/gore/politics/snooze-fest, and despite being a goddamn RPG crawling with pointless systems, and despite wasting the player’s time shamelessly, extravagantly… it kept me under some sort of spell and I went the distance. It’s a fancy piece of work; the environments are lusciously pretty and full of detail. It suckered me into trotting back and forth through its virtual parks for hours on end, and I can’t deny I got something out of that. I always felt dumber after playing, but also more relaxed. Way to go, Poland! (Please note: not a recommendation.)

One month later, 12/25/14 GOG adds Akalabeth: World of Doom as a free game. I impulsively click to claim it, even though this is a game of historical interest only. I’m declaring it skippable. Can you blame me?

I think it was clicking on Akalabeth that made me stop and take a look in the mirror. I could only justify all this reckless acquisitiveness if I actually played the games. So a few days later I started blogging my way through the pile. That’s right, I’ve finally caught up to myself from 4 years ago!

At that point I made an oath to myself that I wouldn’t buy any more games unless I actually wanted them. Alas, it only took about a month before my resolve was tested by the “Star Wars Humble Bundle.” 12 games (a retail value of $137!) for 12 dollars. Purchased 2/10/15. In my defense, I did actually want about half of them.

So: here comes a massive overdose of STAR WARS®: EPISODE MERCH®: ATTACK OF THE STAR WARS®: THE STAR WARS® RETURNS-branded space-fantasy-action-style American entertainment products, fun for the whole family. In chronological order of release.

• Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995): LucasArts (San Rafael, CA) [13 hours]

One from my past, one with feelings invested in it. Unexpectedly gratifying to return, for the first time in probably 20 years. Not a 100% perfect memory-capsule — I accept that such things can’t exist — but it managed to bring back a lot more of my 1995 sense of things than I thought likely. The simplistic Doom-era 3D is so wonderfully clear: all surface, no interior. Fundamentally comfortable, confident, inviting. The level design is varied, novel, fun. The now-primitive slideshows and MIDI music feel strong and eager. Just a worthwhile imaginary place to be, splendid puppet theater. I feel like kids today would still enjoy this, low resolution and all.

• Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997): LucasArts (San Rafael, CA) [14 hours]

The release of this game marked a dividing line for me: I had just gone off to college, which I felt as a sudden distance between me and the world of new games. Playing the demo of this game in my freshman dorm room might well have been my very first time experiencing “Huh, so I guess this is what the young people are up to these days” — now one of the basic emotions.

The same moment also marked a dividing line in the overall aesthetics of 3D games, which is why the games of the “Playstation era” still feel foreign to me. The first games in full polygon 3D were markedly uglier than the clever fake 3D of the earlier Doom style, and the sense of space and proportion tended to be all out of whack. This game tries to turn that into a feature, offering mind-bendingly vast structures assembled into weird, maze-like levels. At first it all struck me as unwelcoming and a little nauseating, but the style grew on me the longer I played. Big chunks of it seem to be trying to recreate the spatial impact of Luke Skywalker falling down that colossal shaft and getting sucked into a duct. That’s a charmed image, worthy of this kind of exploration.

There are several inventive experiments, like the Titanic level where you race through a tilting, plummeting spaceship. They don’t all work but that doesn’t make them any less intriguing. The swordplay mechanics are clumsy at best. The music, collaged bizarrely from bits and pieces of John Williams, is distracting. The chintzy live-action interludes just are what they are. All around: more ambitious and sloppier than its predecessor. But again: I think the kids could get into this.

Some freebies (with no trailers):

• Marie’s Room (2018): Kenny Guillaume and Dagmar Blommaert (Bruges, Belgium) [.5 hrs]

After I play Gone Home Steam tells me that I might also like Marie’s Room, a free half-hour game. But I don’t! It’s just someone’s exercise in set-building — yup, good job, very pretty lighting — with some truly terrible middle-school storytelling stuffed into its pockets after the fact. (“Dear diary, I saw that man again!”) It received a bunch of positive press, which just goes to show that you still can’t trust the world of games to know wheat from chaff.

• System Syzygy (2018): Matthew Steele (Boston, MA? not sure where this guy is) [7.5 hrs]

System Syzygy is free free free and is a loving homage to some games from 30 years ago that I feel very fondly toward, (Namely these three). The genre here is puzzle grab-bag with some degree of “metapuzzle” that ties it all together at the end. (As readers are probably aware, I was involved in the development of some metapuzzle grab-baggery lately, so this sort of thing was on my mind.) This guy did good. Sure, it has the problems endemic to the genre — unevenness, occasional unrewarding opacity mixed in with the rewarding opacity, and some puzzles that are more “interesting” than they are fun. There’s one puzzle here that’s about five times harder than any of the others (it’s a triple-decker Lights Out variant) and it shows up early on. But really this is a class act aimed at a very narrow nostalgia market — mine — and I’m grateful. (The EGA-style graphics are excellently accurate to the era.) I chomped through it hungrily in two days.

Meanwhile in backlog business. On November 7, 2014, GOG gives away Little Big Adventure for free. I think it was to promote some kind of “Vive la France” sale. Who cares, right? Free.

• Little Big Adventure (US title: Relentless: Twinsen’s Adventure) (1994): Adeline Software (Lyon, France) [played for 2.5 hrs]

(This game is 25 years old and has no real trailer. The thing above is what a retro-repackager threw together for a recent Steam release and only contains footage from the first 10 minutes of the game. But that’s what there is.)

This is a game that I owned and played to completion in 1995. At 16 I was still young enough to be enveloped by the reality of every game I played, to be subsumed into its order-of-the-universe, and I remember this game being both intimate and expansive, like the best toys, in a way that set it apart as something special. The text and story were awkward — so in fact was some of the actual gameplay, though I got accustomed to it — but the basic sensory make-believe of the thing felt pure and true and welcoming. Like a beloved dog: it can’t speak but it has heart anyway, and is attuned to the things that matter. The game left a sweet, soulful, animal impression that I can still access today.

I hadn’t replayed it since, and I was truly looking forward. I thought I had a treat, and a sentimental journey, in store. I am thus very sad — pained! — to report that the mechanical problems with this game have aged terribly, to the point that I don’t think it’s possible to recapture that feeling and revisit that dream. Or at least it wasn’t possible for me this month, with the degree of impatience and frustration that currently inhabits me. Having to replay the same first 10 minutes of action over and over and over and over because of the stubbornly unhelpful save system; being punished for the very faintest of navigational miscalculations by getting stuck in an inescapable loop of damage until the character dies. These things hurt my feelings today in a way that at 16 they didn’t. Have I gotten softer? Harder? More impatient? Less masochistic? All I know is I couldn’t stomach it enough to get past it, to breathe the dollhouse air and smell the little Lego flowers. So I had to stop. It made me sad but that’s how it is.

November 11, 2014: I buy in to “Humble Indie Bundle 13” for $7.48, a price chosen to Beat The Average and thereby net me nine games. It’s been almost five years and I still haven’t played any of ’em! Here they are.

• OlliOlli (2013): Roll7 (London, England)

Well, this one wouldn’t start. I don’t know why. I tried several different things but it just wouldn’t. As you can see it’s not something I’m too torn up about. Still have about 150 games to get through, so there’s no time to be precious. If it won’t run, I’m not playing it. Next.

• Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (2011): Shadow Planet Productions (= Fuelcell Games & Gagne International(= Michel Gagné)) (Seattle, WA) [7 hrs]

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is snazzy concept art in motion, by a real animator guy. The art direction is the point. Heck, even the title is art direction! And to sustain that art direction is a serviceable, unremarkable, good-natured game. (It reminded me a little bit of Guacamelee in this respect.) The trailer is absolutely representative in every way. If you want to play around with a thing that looks like that, this is the game for you. If you want more than that, I have sad news.

By the way, world: this game took me 7 hours because it mistakenly defaulted to my DUMB SLOW graphics processor instead of my SMART FAST one, and I didn’t realize what was going on until I was at the final boss. I thought the game was deliberately slow and meditative. “Atmospheric.” Kind of frustrating that way, but I figured it was their choice! The fast way that it’s supposed to be is much, much better. Too late for me!

• Tower of Guns (2014): Terrible Posture Games (= Joe Mirabello) (Sharon, MA) [played for .5 hrs]

This game isn’t for me but that’s okay! It seems like a great idea: randomized, hard, shoot-or-be-shot 3D obstacle course, not too long (pitched as lasting “a lunch break”). You acquire more options the more times you play, so there’s a sense of long-term progression even as it repeats itself. (People really seem to love that, these days. Anything to avoid the sensation of stasis!) Atmosphere is half-silly, half-menacing. No real investment in the specifics but enough atmosphere to transport you, in the spirit of long-ago Quake et al. No drooling demons, just big cartoon cannons. No anger, just danger. I approve. I think this guy did great. (Way to go, Sharon, MA!) But the thing is… I’m not very good at first-person shooterizing, I never have been and I never will be. When I play first-person games I’m always in it for the exploration and the sense of make-believe. Tower of Guns expects the player to be in it for the game. Uh-oh! Waiter!

• Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs (2013): The Chinese Room (Brighton, UK) [6 hrs]

Hell of a subtitle. Amnesia is of course the sequel to Amnesia. Another haunted house walking tour with the same plot: “oh god, who’s responsible for these unimaginable horrors” (answer: you; see title for details). As in the original, anticipating the monsters is scary, and dealing with them isn’t. But there’s plenty of anticipation to go around. The first hour or so, in which basically nothing happens, had me absolutely gripped. After that: whatever. The storyline is Sweeney Todd does Dr. Moreau, which is probably a smidge more interesting than Dracula does Lovecraft from the first game, but the writing runs long and repetitive and pretentious, and tangles itself into pointlessly confusing knots by the end. Some people complained that the gameplay was too simplistic and linear compared to the original; personally I’m very happy to be led by the hand down a straight hallway, so long as it’s a rewarding enough hallway. This game means well but could have used an editor.

Also: “Weird ungodly classical music from a nightmare world” gets written into a lot of horror games and movies, but it’s harder to compose than you might think. There’s a piece in here that does a fine job of it. Kudos!

• Jazzpunk (2014): Necrophone Games (Toronto, CA) [2 hrs]

High-energy post-retro nonsense! Actual nonsense; silly nonsense. Hipsterism, to be sure, but at least the kind that picks and chooses its influences with panache. I laughed aloud at truly stupid crap because the proceedings were properly manic and stylized. (e.g. you dial the Kremlin and the voice that answers informs you that you’ve reached “Kremlins 2: The New Batch.” That would be unfunny in a movie, but in the middle of a conceptual tornado it managed to surprise and amuse me). These days pastiche is the fundamental mode of all culture, so pastiche-as-comedy is no longer viable. Mad Magazine is a fossil. Yet Jazzpunk manages to seem like something rather than nothing, by channeling it all through the psychedelic inanity of a primitive 3D engine, where it can no longer be passed off as well-formed. It can’t be “merely lame” because it’s too far gone toward real madness and/or incompetence. This kind of prank-dream is probably as close to Airplane! as we can get in a post-Quentin Tarantino world. I admired it for being near-frictionless, un-game-like: it really is just a comedy experience that happens to be interactive. I’ll forgive it whatever it needs to be forgiven, because: it’s some new sort of thing, of its own invention, and god bless it for that.

Maybe some of the principle is the same as those Firesign Theatre albums that used to delight me as a kid despite my understanding them almost not at all. Are my feet on the ground? No? Is everything whirling around? Yes? Excellent. That’s artistic insight enough for me! I say live it, or live with it!

• Risk of Rain (2013): Hopoo Games (Seattle, WA) [played 1.5 hrs]

Another game with a simple foundation (shoot monsters and don’t die) on top of which a towering skyscraper of ADD-ONS POWER-UPS CHARACTERS UNLOCKABLES etc. has been built. It’s depth, but it’s cheap depth. If you want to evolve checkers you can either invent “Chess” or you can invent “Hellz Yeah Balancepunk Checkers!!” in which a deck of cards has been added that determines each player’s special power for that game, and the board is randomized before play so that certain squares impart abilities when you land on them, and so on and so on. (I just now coined “Balancepunk.”) To me it seems like the unimaginative way forward but some people really love this sort of thing and are convinced it’s the future. “Is the system more complex? Is the path to mastery ever longer, and paved with ever more bric-a-brac? Does it contain 200 of something that I can try to collect all 200 of? Woo-hoo!”

Personally, I’ll always be a foundation-dweller; I’m compelled to explore the cellar thoroughly but not to try to get to the roof of the unlockable skyscraper. The cellar of this game is a decent little run-around-and-shoot game with a serious case of the tinies. Everything that matters is about 6 pixels big. But: they are real pixels! They never overlap or change size. Gotta respect that. Also the music is really very professionally done, for what it is. I had a 60 minutes of fun poking around, and then 30 minutes of “oh it expects me to want to really get good at this?” and then I stopped.

• The Novelist (2013): Orthogonal Games (=Kent Hudson) (San Francisco, CA) [2 hrs]

I like indie games and their ambitions and their pretensions. I really do. Mix it up! Experiment. Throw weird stuff at me. Get things wrong sometimes. By all means!

This is an experiment that doesn’t work because it isn’t good enough. It’s not fun or interesting to play. That’s okay! Keep going, everyone!

Was gonna complain about “choice” here but it started to balloon so I transferred it to its own entry, which may or may not get rounded off and posted at some point. In short: “choice” in games is a false god. Nobody really cares about “choice” and it doesn’t mean what game designers want it to mean.

This game makes you chooooooooooose every day between whether dad’s precious time and energy is spent on himself, on mom, or on little Johnny. Once you’ve chosen, you get told, very somberly (molto sombrero), that the person you chose felt better! as a result of the choice! but alas! the two you didn’t choose felt worse! as a result of the choice! And now… on to the next choice! This is framed as mature food for thought but to my mind it’s reductive in an immature way. Loving your family is nothing like keeping a tally of points for each person; or at least it shouldn’t be.

As is often the case in computer games, the designers’ compulsion to build the model in the first place is far more revealing about human nature than any insight that they managed to put into the model. And this model is really super simplistic. It’s basically a 9-question “what are your priorities?” quiz from Modern Dad magazine, rendered in the style of Gone Home — you slink quietly around the 3D house and look at their stuff. Ostensibly you’re a ghost haunting a family’s private spaces, but it’s more like you’re a PLAYER haunting a NON-GAME, trying not to be seen.