Shadowgrounds
developed by Frozenbyte (Helsinki, Finland)
first published November 4, 2005 by dtp entertainment (Germany/Austria/Switzerland) & November 9, 2005 by Plan 1 (Finland), for Windows, €29.99
first published in the US April 25, 2006, by Meridian4, for Windows, $29.99
[trailer]
[website]
~800 MB
Played to point of exasperation in 2.5 hrs, 2/15/15–2/24/15.
The second of four-or-so “Humble Frozenbyte Bundle” games, as included in the “Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle” that I bought on September 30, 2011. (Actually, it was the third in the pictured order — which I’ve been taking for the order in my spreadsheet because why not — but the second was its sequel, so naturally I’m playing the original first.)
The whole “in space no one can hear you scream” ambiance of Alien works on me: it’s unnerving! So I don’t really understand Alien-head fans who obsessively return to that environment like it’s a clubhouse — not just to have that particular nightmare but for other kinds of fun too. Such as this game, which puts on the whole Alien show like it’s just one of the pre-installed desktop themes, like ‘Autumn’ and ‘Brushed Steel.’
I mean, in the world of pop culture clearly it is just one of the pre-installed themes; this thing that I’m claiming to find bewildering is a very very old phenomenon, basically going all the way back to the 1979 release of Alien. The influence of Alien on videogames is, I daresay, second only to the influence of Tolkien. (I dared say it but I didn’t think too hard about it so feel free to knock that down in the comments.)
I further will note that I am perfectly sympathetic to the idea that “a haunted house” can be a fun place to have a birthday party or play checkers or whatever, so why not Alien?
I see haunted houses as representing the stratum of fear implicit in all houses; a haunted house is the shadow side of the good feeling of home, and it secretly brings some of that good feeling along with it. What is the good feeling that casts Alien as its shadow? I guess something similar, some kind of cozy snowed-in feeling, which I suppose I can get behind. But the presence of the organic-nausea Giger stuff spoils that for me. Flesh and sex are not good things to be afraid of! I get disturbed by “body horror” elements in movies and games not so much because they are close to home for me personally, but because they feel like being inside someone else’s dysfunction, and I am scared of the threat other people may pose to me if they are addled by such stuff. The thought of H.R. Giger himself is far creepier than any alien.
The game started out kind of engaging, despite the completely schlocky/campy writing, acting, and animation. The shadows and sense of foreboding were effective enough to make me want to walk around and fix the panel, get the keycard, shoot the bugs, whatever. But after about an hour of play it had become clear that as far as dramatic vision went, that was nearly all there was going to be: despite the ostensible storyline, the game was mostly going to consist of occasional new weapons and occasional new enemies to match. As I’ve said repeatedly, the “buy upgrades” paradigm is of no interest to me; neither is ammo-rationing. Nonetheless I was still willing to stay the course and play it all through, just to get the benefit of one more game’s particular offering of flow-state reverie.
That plan, however, is contingent on a game being a reliable collaborator in the effort to maintain the flow state, which this game proved not to be.
The character movement is just a tad clumsy, such that my guy would often get accidentally pinned to some detail in the environment, the corner of a crate or something, while trying to back away from the oncoming hordes of identical aliens, and get mauled. This alone is frustrating enough, given that shooting it out with aliens is the game. But worse is that the game has no proper save mechanism — it lets you die up to 5 times while trying to finish a level, but die one more time and you’ll have to start it over from the beginning. Each level is about 30 to 45 minutes long, which means that if you are near the end of a level and die that sixth time, you are being rather severely punished. Any new content is hereby withheld until you go back and do another half-hour’s service to this stupid game.
Like I said a few entries ago, I want to learn my lessons while moving continuously forward. There’s a hateful mindset out there that would call such an attitude “spoiled” or “entitled,” but I see it as enlightened about the true nature of practice and learning, which is that they are a continuous progression. If a video game is supposed to be a potted hero’s journey, that journey shouldn’t be the onscreen character’s but mine, the player’s, in which everything I do is moving me further toward my goal. So what kind of aesthetic sense does it make for my journey to consist of watching my avatar reenact the same piece of the narrative over and over?
When the impediment in the game is a puzzle, my state of stumped-ness contains its own hidden forward motion, as I mentally work my way toward a solution. But when the impediment in the game is having my character’s physical progress stolen out from under my feet because I didn’t do it well enough, that’s the game admitting that the narrative journey in the game really has no intrinsic relationship to the player’s journey. Being punished for exposing this fact has a kind of petulant tyranny to it: “No! no! no!, that’s not how you’re supposed to play this game! The way this works is, by this point, you’re good enough to defeat this boss, and it’s satisfying. But you screwed up the plan, so go back and do it again, my way!”
(Such petulance is implicit in schoolteacherdom, when students are chastised for having failed to learn from the teacher who is doing the chastising. “No! no! no!, that’s not how this is supposed to work! The way this works is, I’m a great teacher, and then you know the material! But you screwed up the plan, so go back and do it again, my way!”)
Anyway, you can imagine what all this is getting at: Near the end of level four, I found that I’d died my final death and was faced with the choice between repeating an already-indifferent 30 minutes of this game I don’t care about or particularly enjoy, or just declaring the game dumb. (I meant to type “done” just now, but this way works too.) I was in no rush to decide so I figured I’d let the matter sit for a few days.
Somewhere in that time I read online that the game had a “twist ending,” so I figured, fine, I’d just suffer the repetition and push forward to see that ending. However, during the interval, the laptop computer on which I’d been playing had to be commandeered for other purposes and ended up being taken far away from me, thus making it impossible for me to continue from the same savegame. Having already steeled myself for boredom, I was able to accept that fate had sent me back to the start of the whole game — fate, which has none of the petulance of a schoolteacher and so doesn’t offend me — and so I just began again on another computer. I figured I could be back to the place I’d died in level four, and on my way forward into the rest of the game, within 90 minutes.
However. After about 45 minutes of play, I had reached the end of level two; while the screen was showing the loading screen for level three, I closed the game and took a break. A few hours later, upon returning and starting it up again, I found that apparently, since I had not actually entered level three, my game had been saved with level two considered to be incomplete, and so I would have to do that level all over from the beginning yet again.
Just to be clear: this is not how games should work.
So that was the last straw. Especially considering that the next game at bat is the sequel and appears to be more of exactly the same. I don’t need this!
The game has its charm, but so do literally thousands of games out there. In such a landscape, there’s no reason to settle for masochism if it’s not my bag, and I’m proud to say it’s less my bag than it’s been in a while.
Compiling all the links and release data and whatnot for these entries is masochistic enough for me, thanks!
I read what the twist ending is, and then watched it on Youtube. The attacking alien monsters actually came to save humanity, by preventing us from using a weapon that unbeknownst to us would have destroyed the entire solar system. Think of that!
Now none of you need to play either. You’re welcome.
Most of the same Finns as last time.
Lauri Hyvärinen: project lead
Juha Hiekkamäki, Jukka Kokkonen: programmers
Ilkka Kuusela: cinematics/scripting/writer
Joel Kinnunen: writer
Ari Pulkkinen: composer/sound designer/writer
Timo Maaranen: lead artist
Tero Rickström: level design