LordDarias
BACKER
2014
I never finished This War of Mine, which is why I never left a review for it but its kind of creeping back into my thoughts lately so I think its worth it, if only for myself to explain why I have mixed feelings on it.
There have always been games about War, Spacewar! was the first Computer game (as in made for an actual computer and not a cabinet/console) but beginning in 6th/7th gen there was a bigger rise in contemporary war games. Now whilst gamifying human conflict wasn't necessarily less iffy when it was SciFi and later WW2 shooters, there was enough detachment from our current understanding of war in the modern day that it wasn't all that different to watching Hollywood movies about heroic american commandos fighting in France for the 1000th time. Silly and romanticizing conflict, but that's been such a constant for western (and others) culture that you would have better luck persuading the tide to turn back around than to demand this sort of thing stops being made.
It's a lot easier to spot the blatant propagandism and exploitation of death and violence when you're playing as highly equipped US/Nato soldiers killing waves and waves of poor people from the Third World fighting back with rusty Kalashnikovs. This is compounded by the long suspected but recently confirmed fact that these developers consult with the US military, which see it as an avenue for recruitment. If a Russian dev released "Operation Denazification" with a similar vibe to the average COD campaign, they would be sanctioned and boycotted out of existence.
"There is no such thing as an antiwar film" - famously said by Truffaut, commenting on how even the most gruesome depiction of conflict on screen will never approach the real experience and only serve to romanticize conflict and the spectacle of war set pieces. I think I mentioned in my Spec Ops the Line review that "Saving Private Ryan", a movie with a pretty harrowing and realistically depicted portrayal of the D-Day landings, boosted recruitment numbers for the army significantly.
I think if this is true for film and literature it's even more true of videogames, which by virtue of its interactivity and lesser editorial control by its creators will find it harder to steer the player to a conclusion of the brutality and/or tragedy of war, especially if its gameplay is driven mainly by viscerally satisfying "fun" combat.
This is why, after all the preamble I definitely could have edited down, I admire the effort of making a non combat war game based entirely on the experiences of civillians. This is not to say that this approach doesn't have its pitfalls or opportunity for exploitation of conflict for cheap drama, but I feel its more productive to the message. Quite frankly, I would be much more willing to play a game about the experiences of civilians during the Iraq War (perhaps in the format of something like Svoboda 1945 or Attentat 1942) than any number of Imperialism simulators.
"The Mechanic is the message" is proclaimed in the seminal work of Brenda Romero by the same title, a series of analog games demonstrating the power of pure game design as an avenue for storytelling. So what IS the message of This War of Mine and why does it throw me off?
This War of Mine is a survival (horror?) sim about 3 civilians in an unnamed conflict but implied to be the Yugoslav Wars, specifically the siege of Sarajevo. It's divided into 2 phases. 1 During the day living in a previously abandoned house and using your resources to craft and build the necessary amenities to carve out a semblance of normality in this chaotic situation. There will also be daily events such as neighbours asking for medicine, a valuable but infrequent enough to be unreliable trader etc. The second phase consists of raiding other buildings at night for resources, at first abandoned and later occupied ones.
The purpose of these survival elements is to highlight both the brutality and desperation created by these sieges and drive the player to be forced to confront themselves about the harsh decisions one might be forced to make when pushed into such conditions. Now, I am a first worlder who has only known peace, my grandparents were kids when the last war that affected people in my country happened, so excuse my ignorance if I have completely the wrong idea but when I was playing this game the thought that most popped into my head was "This seems more like a zombie apocalypse".
I am not so naive as to suggest that everything is cumbaya in warfare and indeed the Balkan wars were by all accounts brutal with snipers in sarajevo picking off civilians regularly. In the Siege of Leningrad in WW2 for example there were reports of cannibalism and murder to steal ration cards driven by starvation, so even civilians are liable to turn on each other when survival is on the line. However, when playing This War of Mine it feels so... forced? Everything is pushed to 11 so that you quickly have to abandon your humanity to survive, a pivotal moment being the first time you raid the home of an Elderly couple who are alert to your presence but do not fight back, leaving you to loot their home unopposed. Now this is a pretty effective moment in using the mechanics of the game to make a point about the player and the situation in which they're in and obviously placing you in these situations to force you to do these morally dubious acts IS the point of the game. The problem for me is it's pushed seemingly so hard and very little alternative is presented that it feels insincere and hollow.
The actual gameplay is compelling, it's quite absorbing and you grow to have some attachment to these characters even if they have in practice very little personality beyond moaning about the lack of cigarettes and/or running faster.
But again with the message, there is some attempt to portray the better aspects of civilians in war, you can help people out in exchange for resources or time but there doesn't seem to be much benefit and you yourself will be raided at night. Again this IS the point to make being a good person hard like in say, Papers Please, but it just doesn't seem coherent to how humans actually behave. I will reiterate that I'm not so naive as to believe that everyone got on famously in the Balkan wars but humans have only survived so far because of our general altruistic, prosocial attitudes. And from what little I've read of the Balkan wars it seems most people in the siege of Sarajevo helped each other out as much as possible (between the civilian population, obviously).
The game creates an almost hobbesian view of Humanity, so it can wallow in gritty melodrama, some of which is admittedly effective but ultimately rings hollow to me. It's preferable to most modern war games but I think it is still exploitative of recent conflict for pure entertainment value in a way that just weirds me out, personally.
There have always been games about War, Spacewar! was the first Computer game (as in made for an actual computer and not a cabinet/console) but beginning in 6th/7th gen there was a bigger rise in contemporary war games. Now whilst gamifying human conflict wasn't necessarily less iffy when it was SciFi and later WW2 shooters, there was enough detachment from our current understanding of war in the modern day that it wasn't all that different to watching Hollywood movies about heroic american commandos fighting in France for the 1000th time. Silly and romanticizing conflict, but that's been such a constant for western (and others) culture that you would have better luck persuading the tide to turn back around than to demand this sort of thing stops being made.
It's a lot easier to spot the blatant propagandism and exploitation of death and violence when you're playing as highly equipped US/Nato soldiers killing waves and waves of poor people from the Third World fighting back with rusty Kalashnikovs. This is compounded by the long suspected but recently confirmed fact that these developers consult with the US military, which see it as an avenue for recruitment. If a Russian dev released "Operation Denazification" with a similar vibe to the average COD campaign, they would be sanctioned and boycotted out of existence.
"There is no such thing as an antiwar film" - famously said by Truffaut, commenting on how even the most gruesome depiction of conflict on screen will never approach the real experience and only serve to romanticize conflict and the spectacle of war set pieces. I think I mentioned in my Spec Ops the Line review that "Saving Private Ryan", a movie with a pretty harrowing and realistically depicted portrayal of the D-Day landings, boosted recruitment numbers for the army significantly.
I think if this is true for film and literature it's even more true of videogames, which by virtue of its interactivity and lesser editorial control by its creators will find it harder to steer the player to a conclusion of the brutality and/or tragedy of war, especially if its gameplay is driven mainly by viscerally satisfying "fun" combat.
This is why, after all the preamble I definitely could have edited down, I admire the effort of making a non combat war game based entirely on the experiences of civillians. This is not to say that this approach doesn't have its pitfalls or opportunity for exploitation of conflict for cheap drama, but I feel its more productive to the message. Quite frankly, I would be much more willing to play a game about the experiences of civilians during the Iraq War (perhaps in the format of something like Svoboda 1945 or Attentat 1942) than any number of Imperialism simulators.
"The Mechanic is the message" is proclaimed in the seminal work of Brenda Romero by the same title, a series of analog games demonstrating the power of pure game design as an avenue for storytelling. So what IS the message of This War of Mine and why does it throw me off?
This War of Mine is a survival (horror?) sim about 3 civilians in an unnamed conflict but implied to be the Yugoslav Wars, specifically the siege of Sarajevo. It's divided into 2 phases. 1 During the day living in a previously abandoned house and using your resources to craft and build the necessary amenities to carve out a semblance of normality in this chaotic situation. There will also be daily events such as neighbours asking for medicine, a valuable but infrequent enough to be unreliable trader etc. The second phase consists of raiding other buildings at night for resources, at first abandoned and later occupied ones.
The purpose of these survival elements is to highlight both the brutality and desperation created by these sieges and drive the player to be forced to confront themselves about the harsh decisions one might be forced to make when pushed into such conditions. Now, I am a first worlder who has only known peace, my grandparents were kids when the last war that affected people in my country happened, so excuse my ignorance if I have completely the wrong idea but when I was playing this game the thought that most popped into my head was "This seems more like a zombie apocalypse".
I am not so naive as to suggest that everything is cumbaya in warfare and indeed the Balkan wars were by all accounts brutal with snipers in sarajevo picking off civilians regularly. In the Siege of Leningrad in WW2 for example there were reports of cannibalism and murder to steal ration cards driven by starvation, so even civilians are liable to turn on each other when survival is on the line. However, when playing This War of Mine it feels so... forced? Everything is pushed to 11 so that you quickly have to abandon your humanity to survive, a pivotal moment being the first time you raid the home of an Elderly couple who are alert to your presence but do not fight back, leaving you to loot their home unopposed. Now this is a pretty effective moment in using the mechanics of the game to make a point about the player and the situation in which they're in and obviously placing you in these situations to force you to do these morally dubious acts IS the point of the game. The problem for me is it's pushed seemingly so hard and very little alternative is presented that it feels insincere and hollow.
The actual gameplay is compelling, it's quite absorbing and you grow to have some attachment to these characters even if they have in practice very little personality beyond moaning about the lack of cigarettes and/or running faster.
But again with the message, there is some attempt to portray the better aspects of civilians in war, you can help people out in exchange for resources or time but there doesn't seem to be much benefit and you yourself will be raided at night. Again this IS the point to make being a good person hard like in say, Papers Please, but it just doesn't seem coherent to how humans actually behave. I will reiterate that I'm not so naive as to believe that everyone got on famously in the Balkan wars but humans have only survived so far because of our general altruistic, prosocial attitudes. And from what little I've read of the Balkan wars it seems most people in the siege of Sarajevo helped each other out as much as possible (between the civilian population, obviously).
The game creates an almost hobbesian view of Humanity, so it can wallow in gritty melodrama, some of which is admittedly effective but ultimately rings hollow to me. It's preferable to most modern war games but I think it is still exploitative of recent conflict for pure entertainment value in a way that just weirds me out, personally.
I think its fair to say that indie farm sims are a tad overexposed at the moment, which is why it was lovely to play a game that felt as fresh and original in what it used the farm sim mechanics to achieve as Before the Green Moon.
I am not quite familiar with Turnfollow's output but at a glance they seem to make mainly narrative focused adventure games. That tracks because for all of its farm sim-iness Before the Green Moon is definitely more narrative focused than its contemporaries.
So whilst your overall goal in this SciFi world is to make enough money to take the space elevator to the seemingly more prosperous Green Moon through the usual farming stuff, the real meat and potatoes of the game is the cast of characters who inhabit the town and their interactions with the player, who as is the case with a lot of these types of games seems to bring everyone closer with their arrival overtime. This is conveyed in an understated way though, because if there is a word that characterizes these people and their interactions its "mundane"
Not since Wayward Strand have I seen in a game such wonderfully mundane, subtle and human characters who's short interactions and slowly getting to know them in a (lets say non-linear way) feels a lot more real and true to life than getting them to monologue about their innermost feelings after gifting them 10 apples.
Relatedly, It feels refreshing to have a farm sim with a romantic interest with the player which is developed simply by... well the characters developing a friendship/courtship between them, not a gamified "relationship ranked up!" type system. Not that I am fully against those, I have enjoyed those systems in Stardew Valley in the past but I think the alternative is better.
On the gameplay side of things you might be disappointed if you're expecting a super in depth farm sim, its fairly basic and I got very rich very fast (hot tip, buy the tri watering can ASAP, also save up for the rain poncho). Some of the mechanics/events are poorly explained and as with all Harvest Moon type games it feels a bit overwhelming at first when this entire town is thrown at you to get familiar with, but you slide into it after a few days.
The game's aesthetic is definitely going for a retro 6th gen look and I like the earthy tones used in the farm and forest with hints of green, with the town being the greenest of all with splotches of white, brown and blue. I found it appealing. The music is alright too.
Before the Green Moon has been sitting on my wishlist since it came out in March this year and Im glad I finally got to it, my expectations where not atmittedly super high for it but it definitely surpassed them and I am eager to check out the rest of Turnfollow's games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk
I am not quite familiar with Turnfollow's output but at a glance they seem to make mainly narrative focused adventure games. That tracks because for all of its farm sim-iness Before the Green Moon is definitely more narrative focused than its contemporaries.
So whilst your overall goal in this SciFi world is to make enough money to take the space elevator to the seemingly more prosperous Green Moon through the usual farming stuff, the real meat and potatoes of the game is the cast of characters who inhabit the town and their interactions with the player, who as is the case with a lot of these types of games seems to bring everyone closer with their arrival overtime. This is conveyed in an understated way though, because if there is a word that characterizes these people and their interactions its "mundane"
Not since Wayward Strand have I seen in a game such wonderfully mundane, subtle and human characters who's short interactions and slowly getting to know them in a (lets say non-linear way) feels a lot more real and true to life than getting them to monologue about their innermost feelings after gifting them 10 apples.
Relatedly, It feels refreshing to have a farm sim with a romantic interest with the player which is developed simply by... well the characters developing a friendship/courtship between them, not a gamified "relationship ranked up!" type system. Not that I am fully against those, I have enjoyed those systems in Stardew Valley in the past but I think the alternative is better.
On the gameplay side of things you might be disappointed if you're expecting a super in depth farm sim, its fairly basic and I got very rich very fast (hot tip, buy the tri watering can ASAP, also save up for the rain poncho). Some of the mechanics/events are poorly explained and as with all Harvest Moon type games it feels a bit overwhelming at first when this entire town is thrown at you to get familiar with, but you slide into it after a few days.
The game's aesthetic is definitely going for a retro 6th gen look and I like the earthy tones used in the farm and forest with hints of green, with the town being the greenest of all with splotches of white, brown and blue. I found it appealing. The music is alright too.
Before the Green Moon has been sitting on my wishlist since it came out in March this year and Im glad I finally got to it, my expectations where not atmittedly super high for it but it definitely surpassed them and I am eager to check out the rest of Turnfollow's games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfp2O9ADwGk
2022
A lot of things about Soulvars made a lot more sense when I learned it was originally a mobile game. Thats not meant to necessarily be read as me thinking the game is bad or anything, I dont have anything against mobile games but its one of those things where the limitations and design considerations of that platform jumps out at you once youre made aware of it.
Soulvars is an RPG. I guess a JRPG since its published by Shueisha (who apparently publish games now?) and all the screenshots are in japanese. It also describes itself as a deckbuilder but I am not sure I agree. Superficially its combat system of having a set of individual basic attacks and spells which you combine to make even greater spells and techniques are semi randomly loaded on your list of available spells in battle in a way reminiscent of a deckbuilder but I think advertising it as such will leave some disappointed.
Your skills are mostly determined by your equipment, which has the traditional RPG stats but also "soulbits" which act as essentially the games' cards. For example a flame sword might include 2 sword soulbits and 3 fire ones; if you had nothing else on that would be your "deck". Curiously for an RPG however, there is no levelling system. Its substitution for progression is a set of bracelets which I forget what the made up name for them are, which go up in "synchronisation" slightly per battle, higher sync unlocks the ability to spend resources to "purchase" abilities and stat upgrades. These abilities take the form of new combos of soulbits in battle like "flame" + "sword" = "flameslash" etc. This system ends up resembling both in mechanics and in its names the mantra system from digital devil saga, the plot gives a lot of atlus games some looks too, mainly DDS, Persona and Devil Survivor.
This system is in short, a blast. This game very quickly sunk its hooks into me as it hits that sweet spot of being just complicated enough to not be trivial to optimize whilst not actually being hard/discouraging. Its a good thing the combat does work because that really is all the game has going for.
Up until this point I was under the assumption that I enjoyed most RPGs for its story and setting and roleplaying and its gameplay second but this is honestly the opposite. The story, if you can even call it that is told in really brief dialogue exchanges very sparsely (like honestly 5 or 6 dialogue scenes in this 10/12 hour game) and basically a glossary of lore. Then almost at the end I think there is a twist? Im genuinely not sure the exchange was so brief and I think were not even told the actual information. Maybe the glossary updated with that idk. The music is good but I wish there had been more of it and more to the point another alternate battle theme.
For all the insubstantiality of the plot and the characters/party members having only theoretical personalities I quite like the setting. I really dig urban fantasy and its always been one of the main reasons why Ive been attracted to Persona and games like that. And at the risk of going all "Im not a JRPG guy but" most of the turn based RPGs Ive ever gotten into have settings like these or well, just not the standard fantasy stuff. Its part of why I dont have any interest in that new Hashino game. Maybe I just havent been shown the right examples and hell WRPGs go for the tolkien-esque fantasy too much for my tastes but I was kind of heart broken when I found out there was a hard scifi RPG for DS but it sucked apparently.
Personal tangent aside I quite liked Soulvars. If it had had a more substantial plot and didnt start to get samey towards the end (and also if its ending wasnt hilariously abrupt) It would be a personal favourite. It very wisely chooses to end itself after 10 ish hour.
Soulvars is an RPG. I guess a JRPG since its published by Shueisha (who apparently publish games now?) and all the screenshots are in japanese. It also describes itself as a deckbuilder but I am not sure I agree. Superficially its combat system of having a set of individual basic attacks and spells which you combine to make even greater spells and techniques are semi randomly loaded on your list of available spells in battle in a way reminiscent of a deckbuilder but I think advertising it as such will leave some disappointed.
Your skills are mostly determined by your equipment, which has the traditional RPG stats but also "soulbits" which act as essentially the games' cards. For example a flame sword might include 2 sword soulbits and 3 fire ones; if you had nothing else on that would be your "deck". Curiously for an RPG however, there is no levelling system. Its substitution for progression is a set of bracelets which I forget what the made up name for them are, which go up in "synchronisation" slightly per battle, higher sync unlocks the ability to spend resources to "purchase" abilities and stat upgrades. These abilities take the form of new combos of soulbits in battle like "flame" + "sword" = "flameslash" etc. This system ends up resembling both in mechanics and in its names the mantra system from digital devil saga, the plot gives a lot of atlus games some looks too, mainly DDS, Persona and Devil Survivor.
This system is in short, a blast. This game very quickly sunk its hooks into me as it hits that sweet spot of being just complicated enough to not be trivial to optimize whilst not actually being hard/discouraging. Its a good thing the combat does work because that really is all the game has going for.
Up until this point I was under the assumption that I enjoyed most RPGs for its story and setting and roleplaying and its gameplay second but this is honestly the opposite. The story, if you can even call it that is told in really brief dialogue exchanges very sparsely (like honestly 5 or 6 dialogue scenes in this 10/12 hour game) and basically a glossary of lore. Then almost at the end I think there is a twist? Im genuinely not sure the exchange was so brief and I think were not even told the actual information. Maybe the glossary updated with that idk. The music is good but I wish there had been more of it and more to the point another alternate battle theme.
For all the insubstantiality of the plot and the characters/party members having only theoretical personalities I quite like the setting. I really dig urban fantasy and its always been one of the main reasons why Ive been attracted to Persona and games like that. And at the risk of going all "Im not a JRPG guy but" most of the turn based RPGs Ive ever gotten into have settings like these or well, just not the standard fantasy stuff. Its part of why I dont have any interest in that new Hashino game. Maybe I just havent been shown the right examples and hell WRPGs go for the tolkien-esque fantasy too much for my tastes but I was kind of heart broken when I found out there was a hard scifi RPG for DS but it sucked apparently.
Personal tangent aside I quite liked Soulvars. If it had had a more substantial plot and didnt start to get samey towards the end (and also if its ending wasnt hilariously abrupt) It would be a personal favourite. It very wisely chooses to end itself after 10 ish hour.
Clearly, whatever it is most people on the site and the steam page got from this game was lost on me. I get what it was going for but I didnt feel engaged or intrigued, mostly annoyed and bored. I only have a vague understanding of the plot which I'm sure was intended, but really with these types of non linear-ish storytelling styles you'll either be excited and stimulated by it, trying to piece it all together or, well, bored and annoyed.
I came across this game thinking it looked a bit like "it comes in waves" which I really enjoyed but whilst there is certainly a comparison to be made, that one didnt pull all the cheap "lets cut away every 30 seconds" bullshit which probably works a lot better in film. I saw someone comparing this to the Lighthouse, which I can sort of see, but then Im not really sure why I liked that and disliked this.
At least it was only an hour long, but it felt twice that length to me. Maybe this sort of thing is more enjoyable on a second playthrough when its easier to piece it all together, like Paprika, but again I found the game to be insipid, so I am not too inclined to do so.
I came across this game thinking it looked a bit like "it comes in waves" which I really enjoyed but whilst there is certainly a comparison to be made, that one didnt pull all the cheap "lets cut away every 30 seconds" bullshit which probably works a lot better in film. I saw someone comparing this to the Lighthouse, which I can sort of see, but then Im not really sure why I liked that and disliked this.
At least it was only an hour long, but it felt twice that length to me. Maybe this sort of thing is more enjoyable on a second playthrough when its easier to piece it all together, like Paprika, but again I found the game to be insipid, so I am not too inclined to do so.
The Bookwalker was mildly disappointing. Not greatly, midly. Its setting and premise offered a promise the game couldnt really live up to but it remains a perfectly serviceable game. Im not entirely sure what it is the game messes up but I think I can elucidate a few reasons why I might feel this way.
If you played the demo like I did you might have been excited at the promise it showed. Half first person adventure in the house of a writer who is serving 30 years for an initally unknown crime, half isometric adventure game "atoning" for said crime by entering novels to extract certain artifacts ; hence the title : The Bookwalker.
In this fictional setting original works are no longer produced, the ability to enter worlds and manipulate them (as well as the scheme we are involved in removing elements from certain books to be transplanted into others for the benefit of subpar writers) has led to all new works being highly derivative of each other. And whilst I wouldnt say this is where the game's cleverness ends, it certainly is where it peaks.
I think the biggest missed opportunity is the fact that the novels we enter into are all entirely fictional. Obviously they are fictional since they are novels but what I mean is that they are made up by the writer of the game, they are not real. Its perhaps understandeable that making the novels fictional offers greater lattitude in setting up the various puzzles which the writer can choose entirely but I just cant help but think what a much better game it would be if we were entering the altered versions of classic works! Surely that would also greatly enhance the point of creativity being dead and new works being derivative. There would be a lot of mileage in exploring these works from new angles and clever puzzles somewhat based on an understanding of the original works.
Perhaps copyright law is to blame, there arent all that many novels in the public domain written after 1910 or so but even with older works I still feel it would have made an overall more solid experience.
The in-universe novels arent devoid of cleverness - there are themes of greed, the point of fiction, theres a climate change analogy in one of them and the last chapter I found particularly compelling in its setting but I think the game's second biggest misstep is that for a game about literature its characters are not very compelling nor does it have all that much to say beyond the surface level. The two main characters are not likeable or even very interesting and all the characters in the novels suffer from being 1. only shown in their specific chapters so there's not much time to flesh them out and 2. They are supposed to be 1 dimensional literally in-universe because the books you are stealing from were written by hack writers! Which is the lamest goddamned excuse I have seen to make the somewhat unrealistic function-as-personality that NPCs often have in videogames seem clever. There is also a running storyline through the game that touches up to danganronpa V3 in terms of its themes but without wishing to spoil, its resolution felt very unearned to me.
I have spent a lot of time railing on this game but in all honesty I didnt hate it. Its insubstantiality is also its greatest ally as the pacing is great and fast and did not outstay its welcome whatsoever in the 5 or 6 hours taken to complete it. The adventure game and turn based combat portions work fine and I found the general artstyle and GUI to be excellent, particularly the Isometric sections look gorgeous to my eyes.
The interaction between the two halves comes from the fact that whilst you cannot take anything out of the book for long, you can take anything inside, leading to amusing exchanges asking to borrow your neighbours' pickaxe or sledgehammer etc.
Its not a particularly tough game, in fact I was hoping for slightly meatier puzzles but it was fine, the game employs a semi-optional crafting system which shakes up the usual point and click inventory puzzles by including multiple solutions and a slight resource management element which also rewards diligent exploration of the relatively short levels.
Funny, this exact resource inventory puzzle idea I once saw proposed by Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame in a podcast I used to listen to back when I was an insufferable teenager, I wonder if thats where the devs got it from?
Overall, Im not mad at Bookwalker, just disappointed. I have since learned this is a gamepass game and I would certainly recommend it if you are subscriber to this service, otherwise I am not too sure but perhaps you will find it more compelling than I did.
If you played the demo like I did you might have been excited at the promise it showed. Half first person adventure in the house of a writer who is serving 30 years for an initally unknown crime, half isometric adventure game "atoning" for said crime by entering novels to extract certain artifacts ; hence the title : The Bookwalker.
In this fictional setting original works are no longer produced, the ability to enter worlds and manipulate them (as well as the scheme we are involved in removing elements from certain books to be transplanted into others for the benefit of subpar writers) has led to all new works being highly derivative of each other. And whilst I wouldnt say this is where the game's cleverness ends, it certainly is where it peaks.
I think the biggest missed opportunity is the fact that the novels we enter into are all entirely fictional. Obviously they are fictional since they are novels but what I mean is that they are made up by the writer of the game, they are not real. Its perhaps understandeable that making the novels fictional offers greater lattitude in setting up the various puzzles which the writer can choose entirely but I just cant help but think what a much better game it would be if we were entering the altered versions of classic works! Surely that would also greatly enhance the point of creativity being dead and new works being derivative. There would be a lot of mileage in exploring these works from new angles and clever puzzles somewhat based on an understanding of the original works.
Perhaps copyright law is to blame, there arent all that many novels in the public domain written after 1910 or so but even with older works I still feel it would have made an overall more solid experience.
The in-universe novels arent devoid of cleverness - there are themes of greed, the point of fiction, theres a climate change analogy in one of them and the last chapter I found particularly compelling in its setting but I think the game's second biggest misstep is that for a game about literature its characters are not very compelling nor does it have all that much to say beyond the surface level. The two main characters are not likeable or even very interesting and all the characters in the novels suffer from being 1. only shown in their specific chapters so there's not much time to flesh them out and 2. They are supposed to be 1 dimensional literally in-universe because the books you are stealing from were written by hack writers! Which is the lamest goddamned excuse I have seen to make the somewhat unrealistic function-as-personality that NPCs often have in videogames seem clever. There is also a running storyline through the game that touches up to danganronpa V3 in terms of its themes but without wishing to spoil, its resolution felt very unearned to me.
I have spent a lot of time railing on this game but in all honesty I didnt hate it. Its insubstantiality is also its greatest ally as the pacing is great and fast and did not outstay its welcome whatsoever in the 5 or 6 hours taken to complete it. The adventure game and turn based combat portions work fine and I found the general artstyle and GUI to be excellent, particularly the Isometric sections look gorgeous to my eyes.
The interaction between the two halves comes from the fact that whilst you cannot take anything out of the book for long, you can take anything inside, leading to amusing exchanges asking to borrow your neighbours' pickaxe or sledgehammer etc.
Its not a particularly tough game, in fact I was hoping for slightly meatier puzzles but it was fine, the game employs a semi-optional crafting system which shakes up the usual point and click inventory puzzles by including multiple solutions and a slight resource management element which also rewards diligent exploration of the relatively short levels.
Funny, this exact resource inventory puzzle idea I once saw proposed by Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame in a podcast I used to listen to back when I was an insufferable teenager, I wonder if thats where the devs got it from?
Overall, Im not mad at Bookwalker, just disappointed. I have since learned this is a gamepass game and I would certainly recommend it if you are subscriber to this service, otherwise I am not too sure but perhaps you will find it more compelling than I did.
1972
Me, rating A Trip to the Moon(1902) 2 and a half stars on letterboxd : "Special effects are a bit corny 🤓"
2023
A lovely surprise, this is a really cool little roguelike (which I generally dont like) with 0 tutorialisation. The process of learning the game's language and objectives and finally succeeding in a run is incredibly satisfying. It can be frustrating at times, sure, but the game is also wisely quite short (my winning run came after 50 minutes) and whilst there are a few ancillary mechanics introduced as you progress it keeps you on your toes, discovering new ideas instead of just waiting for the best run.
I heard there was a game called Cinco Paus a while ago which had a similar design ethos, but I was kind of scared off cause it looked way too obtuse for me to stick to it, this game imo is just opaque enough to be satisfying to solve but not so opaque that it becomes maddening. I might be way off on Cinco Paus though, maybe its not all that bad .
It is moreso a roguelite than like, Im pretty sure a first run victory is impossible? But it takes a few runs to even figure out what the hell is going on with the game anyways, so I dont think anyone should mind. And again its a short snack of a game.
The artstyle is appealing, forest themed, colour pencil drawn style. The plot of the game is simple too, but it fits. In all honesty I think theres not all that much to say because everything about the game is best experienced by yourself, its short but its also cheap (like less than 3 euro).
I heard there was a game called Cinco Paus a while ago which had a similar design ethos, but I was kind of scared off cause it looked way too obtuse for me to stick to it, this game imo is just opaque enough to be satisfying to solve but not so opaque that it becomes maddening. I might be way off on Cinco Paus though, maybe its not all that bad .
It is moreso a roguelite than like, Im pretty sure a first run victory is impossible? But it takes a few runs to even figure out what the hell is going on with the game anyways, so I dont think anyone should mind. And again its a short snack of a game.
The artstyle is appealing, forest themed, colour pencil drawn style. The plot of the game is simple too, but it fits. In all honesty I think theres not all that much to say because everything about the game is best experienced by yourself, its short but its also cheap (like less than 3 euro).
2018
Its the first Supergiant game Ive sort of enjoyed. Its combat is similar to Bastion but a lot more satisfying and readable. Nevertheless, the action does tend to get lost in the billowing dust cloud of combat which turns into a goddamned bullet hell by some of the later chambers.
Its focus on greek myth and dialogue is admirable and I can see how the two phases of the game are appealing to a lot of people but I quickly found it tiresome. My eyes just sort of glazed over and I sighed as a new wave of monsters showed up. It just gets boring because the random elements dont really change the gameplay significantly. It becomes tiresome to die just at the end of a long run and have to do it all again. And yeah, that is the point of the narrative but Id rather play a game that didnt play out like this.
I admit I have never liked roguelikes, and hades not changing my mind on this is unsurprising, but I am glad for the "god mode" I swiftly turned on after a few runs and I can safely say that was the right call. Essentially after every loss your damage reduction gets increased by 2% up to a total of 80%. That got me enough of an advantage to eventually beat an escape attempt.
Spoilers, I guess.
That doesnt actually end the game, in fact it takes 10 whole successful runs for the game to actually, properly "end". And quite frankly, fuck that.
Oh and also I found the stock sound effects really distracting, might just be a me thing but still.
Its focus on greek myth and dialogue is admirable and I can see how the two phases of the game are appealing to a lot of people but I quickly found it tiresome. My eyes just sort of glazed over and I sighed as a new wave of monsters showed up. It just gets boring because the random elements dont really change the gameplay significantly. It becomes tiresome to die just at the end of a long run and have to do it all again. And yeah, that is the point of the narrative but Id rather play a game that didnt play out like this.
I admit I have never liked roguelikes, and hades not changing my mind on this is unsurprising, but I am glad for the "god mode" I swiftly turned on after a few runs and I can safely say that was the right call. Essentially after every loss your damage reduction gets increased by 2% up to a total of 80%. That got me enough of an advantage to eventually beat an escape attempt.
Spoilers, I guess.
That doesnt actually end the game, in fact it takes 10 whole successful runs for the game to actually, properly "end". And quite frankly, fuck that.
Oh and also I found the stock sound effects really distracting, might just be a me thing but still.
2019
My quest to play every game that directly influenced Pentiment is slowly coming to an end. All that's left is Darklands, which I'm slighlty putting off on account of its uhh sizeable prep time lets say.
I think I quite enjoyed Mutazione. I think its narrative around an outsider but not a stranger to the town helping soothe the troubles of a found family in a pseudo sci-fi setting through the power of gardening makes for a compelling tale. I think it works that her being new to this dysfunctional family in the form of a village works well in why they are seemingly willing to divulge their supressed issues although it does slighlty push credibility at times. It does make Kai seem kind of incredibly nosy. Yes we are controlling her but there being no pushback seems... odd.
Mutazione's DNA is apparent in Pentiment as it honestly seems to have influenced several aspects : namely the day night cycle with events which advance time forward, the VO-less dialogue using other elements, namely vfx but also font color to add to character voice and the "being a stranger arriving at a village". In all honesty, of all the games played so far I think its the one ive enjoyed the most. Its less ultimately deflated than Oxenfree and less boring than Night in The Woods.
In general though I enjoyed the various narrative threads relating to adulthood, love, old age, marriage etc. I wasnt however a massive fan of the main thrust and storyline, which takes up quite a bit of the runtime. I sort of enjoyed the ending, which subverted a particular expectation I had . Going Into Spoilers Now :
From pretty much minute one I thought "Okay that thing he took really just bought him a week so hes going to give me a crash course on mystical gardening so I can become his successor when he dies at the end of the game" And I guess the game anticipated this cause its not what happens but Nonno did actually intend for a variation of this. I guess I enjoyed how it was actually Nonno who needed a life lesson in not burying his guilt away although being completely honest, I must not have paid attention to everything because I was a bit lost on the details of the ending and the actual uhh "incident" lets say. Perhaps this is intentional or maybe I just wasnt paying enough attention but either way it does slightly sour me a bit on the ending even if I enjoyed it otherwise.
The Gardening mechanics were interesting, I think they were simple enough to not distract from the main narrative goal of the game but engaging enough I found them gratifying to build. I did not even really question if it was a bit trite how literal their application and relation to the village was. I did however laugh at a serious moment near the climax of the game when Mori's trying to comfort me over the fact that Kai's grandad is about to die by telling me about how when she was mourning, he told her about "A SPOOKY SONG". Sort of undercut the dramatic moment, perhaps.
On the minor asshole nitpicks, I found Kai's sleep animation funny, cause she seemingly undresses and lays down in a single movement like she's ragdollizing. Probably wise to not linger on a teenager undressing but, you could have just shown her in bed directly after a black screen or something? Idk. Also never has it been more obvious that a character moving towards or away from the foreground is just her this.transform.ScaleX and Y being manipulated (yes, be in awe of my light Unity experience). I do enjoy the detail of one of her socks being longer than the other which of course has to switch when she rotates, neat touch.
So yeah, I enjoyed Mutazione and get to tick its box in both my Summer List and Pentiment Inspiration List, how productive!
EDIT : I suppose its fitting that I forgot to mention the aspect I most enjoyed : the art and sound design are excellent
I think I quite enjoyed Mutazione. I think its narrative around an outsider but not a stranger to the town helping soothe the troubles of a found family in a pseudo sci-fi setting through the power of gardening makes for a compelling tale. I think it works that her being new to this dysfunctional family in the form of a village works well in why they are seemingly willing to divulge their supressed issues although it does slighlty push credibility at times. It does make Kai seem kind of incredibly nosy. Yes we are controlling her but there being no pushback seems... odd.
Mutazione's DNA is apparent in Pentiment as it honestly seems to have influenced several aspects : namely the day night cycle with events which advance time forward, the VO-less dialogue using other elements, namely vfx but also font color to add to character voice and the "being a stranger arriving at a village". In all honesty, of all the games played so far I think its the one ive enjoyed the most. Its less ultimately deflated than Oxenfree and less boring than Night in The Woods.
In general though I enjoyed the various narrative threads relating to adulthood, love, old age, marriage etc. I wasnt however a massive fan of the main thrust and storyline, which takes up quite a bit of the runtime. I sort of enjoyed the ending, which subverted a particular expectation I had . Going Into Spoilers Now :
From pretty much minute one I thought "Okay that thing he took really just bought him a week so hes going to give me a crash course on mystical gardening so I can become his successor when he dies at the end of the game" And I guess the game anticipated this cause its not what happens but Nonno did actually intend for a variation of this. I guess I enjoyed how it was actually Nonno who needed a life lesson in not burying his guilt away although being completely honest, I must not have paid attention to everything because I was a bit lost on the details of the ending and the actual uhh "incident" lets say. Perhaps this is intentional or maybe I just wasnt paying enough attention but either way it does slightly sour me a bit on the ending even if I enjoyed it otherwise.
The Gardening mechanics were interesting, I think they were simple enough to not distract from the main narrative goal of the game but engaging enough I found them gratifying to build. I did not even really question if it was a bit trite how literal their application and relation to the village was. I did however laugh at a serious moment near the climax of the game when Mori's trying to comfort me over the fact that Kai's grandad is about to die by telling me about how when she was mourning, he told her about "A SPOOKY SONG". Sort of undercut the dramatic moment, perhaps.
On the minor asshole nitpicks, I found Kai's sleep animation funny, cause she seemingly undresses and lays down in a single movement like she's ragdollizing. Probably wise to not linger on a teenager undressing but, you could have just shown her in bed directly after a black screen or something? Idk. Also never has it been more obvious that a character moving towards or away from the foreground is just her this.transform.ScaleX and Y being manipulated (yes, be in awe of my light Unity experience). I do enjoy the detail of one of her socks being longer than the other which of course has to switch when she rotates, neat touch.
So yeah, I enjoyed Mutazione and get to tick its box in both my Summer List and Pentiment Inspiration List, how productive!
EDIT : I suppose its fitting that I forgot to mention the aspect I most enjoyed : the art and sound design are excellent
Played for Backloggd's Game of The Week 13-21/06/2023
Yep, that sure was a game inspired by manhunter, except with more straightforward puzzles and without the horrible sierra arcade sequences. Its a good enough cyberpunk murder mystery with some decent music and the art is certainly convincing in terms of looking like the original Manhunter. The story ends on kind of a sequel hook but gamedev being what it is Ill be surprised if part 2 or 3 see the light of day, but either way, it was a neat 70 minutes
Yep, that sure was a game inspired by manhunter, except with more straightforward puzzles and without the horrible sierra arcade sequences. Its a good enough cyberpunk murder mystery with some decent music and the art is certainly convincing in terms of looking like the original Manhunter. The story ends on kind of a sequel hook but gamedev being what it is Ill be surprised if part 2 or 3 see the light of day, but either way, it was a neat 70 minutes
Is it better to be overambitious and fail than to be competent but safe? Is a story well told made bad by a poor conclusion? I think those two questions sort of give my opinion on Harmony: The Fall of Reverie away but there is a lot more to it.
I think there are broadly two schools of thought when it comes to branching in Visual Novels/AdventureGames/narrative focused games etc. As mentioned in a previous review, I will call 1 the "Jon Ingold" school wherein the branching is almost entirely opaque. Not to say you will necessarily be entirely ignorant of how your choices or actions will affect the story (even in Heaven's Vault there's a few "will you do X or Y?" moments) but you'll not be allowed to see the internal workings of how the story determines the way forward. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" as it were.
Chrono Trigger, Heaven's Vault, (I believe some Silent Hills follow this model as well but I have not played them so I cannot confirm) follow this model and its easy to see why. Its perhaps easy to lose all mistique and worry the player will try to engineer the story rather than experience it, making choices for what they think they want out of it rather than let the designer lead in reaction to their natural choices. On the other hand its no secret this can cause a lot of frustration, there's a reason why a lot of games come with Flowcharts and the like and in a way; gaming the system and engineering the story can be a lot of fun, like solving a puzzle in a way.
On the other hand the "Flowchart Method" used in a myriad games can also be a double edged sword, it can make the story less mysterious, the story's cohesion may be broken with blatant save scumming or become frustrating in a different direction wherein a player will not understand how to navigate said system instead of a designer changing the story on the fly in response to user input.
Similarly there is a subcategory I'm going to call the "Uchikoshi Method" which I guess technically should be the Yu-No method but whatever I shill for the man. This is a transparent method of branching wherein the act of using the flowchart to your advantage is not only allowed, but made diegetic and canon to the story. This has its own set of pitfalls and honestly I'm planning to write an absurdly long piece about VLR when I replay it soon so I'll leave it for then.
Now, why did I spend three paragraphs subdividing VNs here (by no greater authority than myself btw)? Well, in relation to my point about HTFOR's overambition, this game appears to combine all three methods described above into one. Yeah.
I can definitely see the motivation behind this. Harmony puts a lot of stock into its flowchart, every single mechanic is related to its navigation; for better and for worse. If nothing else, I admire the courage in making something whose writing and planning must have been a right pain in the ass and it somewhat works.
But before I get into that in depth I should lay the groundwork for the rest of the game. Harmony : The Fall of Reverie is set in Atina, a fictional city state in the mediterranean run by a sinister corporation, a sort of cross between Hong Kong, Valencia and Athens or something along those lines. Although everyone speaks like they're Bri'ish but never mind.
You play as Polly, who comes back after many years to her hometown after her mother's disappearance. Quickly, she discovers she has become Harmony : An Oracle for a parallel world named Reverie, composed of Aspirations which are personifications of Human's emotions: Bliss, Bond, Power etc. With this power she can see the future, which manifests as being able to see the ingame flowchart in universe. Together with these Aspirations, Harmony's choices lead the story forward of an unfolding intrigue involving the sinister corporation, her missing mother, love, freedom etc.
I really enjoy the aesthetic aspect of HTFOR, the expressive 2D art, the 3D and 2D environment art, the music and sound design, these are all great. The voice acting is decent too (Oh and I inmediately noticed when Nora spoke I was like "Hey that sounds a lot like Philosophy Tube and lo and behold Abigail Thorn shows up in the credits) and the writing is from a first playthrough at least, pretty good, nuanced and entertaining, a lot of focus is given to mythologies and stories, social injustice and the sacrifices made for change.
Im not well versed enough in greek myth to make much sense of it, Polly is actually short for Polyhimnia ; a muse. The communal center turned house where they all live is called the Naiads, which I believe were Greek nymphs? I quite liked the detail of Chaos' paint changing slightly within scenes, it was a nice touch. This ignorance is however why I enjoy this site, whichever blind spots I may have someone else will fill in and give their perspectives on the matter which I can read and get a broader view of the work.
There is also some pretty good LGBT representation, though one character only revealed they were (I want to say NB? Their profile said they had a legal pronoun change and they say they like short hair as it helps them not be mistaken for a woman but I swear Polly refers to them as her at one point but maybe I misread?) at a particular, missable node. There are however at least two other gay characters.
Now, about that branching. I do think it works for the most part, there is a surprising amount of complexity to the game which tries to marry a lot of things. Essentially, your choices are somewhat transparent in the sense that as the story is divided into acts and scenes, which are further subdivided into nodes, your actual visibility of how the story will unfold is limited firstly to the current act or subact, which helps to make things less overwhelming and secondly by the node visibility being tied to various conditions, which you may choose to unlock if a choice mentions which nodes will be revealed as a result. There is also the bond crystals, essentially certain actions favour certain aspirations and other require their cooperation, thus you need to weigh up who you're helping and how that affects the decisions near to you. Furthermore, each act ends with a decision requiring a certain amount of bond crystals from one or more aspirations and further still there is a global running tally of how many bond crystals you have acquired and favouring a certain aspiration in this factors into one of the final choices in the game!
That sounds like a lot, doesnt it? Thats cause it kind of is? But it also kind of isnt. For the most part the game straddles the line of choices being tough to make (though that may be the executive dysfunction talking) but not overwhelming, though I did feel at times that I was always making the worst decision. Now, in theory that can work (Disco Elysium comes to mind) but there is something about your choices in the various acts locking you out of choices in subsequent acts that always feels like a kick in the teeth. Its that thing that theyre trying to have their cake and eat it too, have engineerable short term choices (the individual nodes can be fucking tiny as well, like 2/3 lines of text at times, although it does make the pacing pretty tight, I clocked in 5 hours and it felt like 3) with opaque long term choices which force you out of certain paths. And again, in theory Im fine with that, but at points it just fucks me up.
Case in point : the ending, which I am going to talk in general, nonspecific terms, but some people are really sensitive about these sorts of things so feel free to leave now if youre bothered by this sort of thing : I do recommend the game despite it all and I honestly would welcome more perspectives about it.
The game definitely acknowledges the ridiculousness of the complicated flowchart and demands and needs of the various characters and aspirations which pull on Harmony from a thousand different directions but its still a bit much. And well, if you are planning on playing this game : go all in on at least 1 aspiration! Dont attempt to keep each in balance cause honestly the game seemed disappointed I went for that, which kinda blew but again I have only seen 1 playthrough so perhaps I am misreading it. This is sort of the issue in reviewing any game. I have "finished" it but I have nowhere near enough of a perspective to judge it holistically, but at the same time making oneself fully familiar with the systems of these games can be either extremely hard or ruin the enjoyment entirely, thus making the exercise moot.
Another thing is that there was a choice relating to the future of the city state and what would have been to me the most interesting option became locked because of choices I had made previously and which IMO makes no sense why.
Actual Spoilers Now :
I led a goddamned revolution against MK, couching myself upon the outrage of the populous against its corpo masters but because of some minor bullshit in how I handled the situation later, the option I had to choose was basically status quo liberal democracy : Cringe! I could have also chosen some bullshit thing related to the ancient cultures that created the aspirations in the first place but the way it was phrased it sounded like we would be ruled by a city full of those greek Statue profile pics from Twitter with names like "Retvrn to Ancient Virtue" and only talk about how women having any autonomy is how Rome fell or whatever nonsense.
So Im left with a sour aftertaste. For all its faults I think Harmony is interesting and honestly it kept my attention its entire runtime, so its just doubly tragic how it couldnt stick the landing. I would still recommend if you are interested in branching narratives and a mixed collection of mediterranean cultures.
I think there are broadly two schools of thought when it comes to branching in Visual Novels/AdventureGames/narrative focused games etc. As mentioned in a previous review, I will call 1 the "Jon Ingold" school wherein the branching is almost entirely opaque. Not to say you will necessarily be entirely ignorant of how your choices or actions will affect the story (even in Heaven's Vault there's a few "will you do X or Y?" moments) but you'll not be allowed to see the internal workings of how the story determines the way forward. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" as it were.
Chrono Trigger, Heaven's Vault, (I believe some Silent Hills follow this model as well but I have not played them so I cannot confirm) follow this model and its easy to see why. Its perhaps easy to lose all mistique and worry the player will try to engineer the story rather than experience it, making choices for what they think they want out of it rather than let the designer lead in reaction to their natural choices. On the other hand its no secret this can cause a lot of frustration, there's a reason why a lot of games come with Flowcharts and the like and in a way; gaming the system and engineering the story can be a lot of fun, like solving a puzzle in a way.
On the other hand the "Flowchart Method" used in a myriad games can also be a double edged sword, it can make the story less mysterious, the story's cohesion may be broken with blatant save scumming or become frustrating in a different direction wherein a player will not understand how to navigate said system instead of a designer changing the story on the fly in response to user input.
Similarly there is a subcategory I'm going to call the "Uchikoshi Method" which I guess technically should be the Yu-No method but whatever I shill for the man. This is a transparent method of branching wherein the act of using the flowchart to your advantage is not only allowed, but made diegetic and canon to the story. This has its own set of pitfalls and honestly I'm planning to write an absurdly long piece about VLR when I replay it soon so I'll leave it for then.
Now, why did I spend three paragraphs subdividing VNs here (by no greater authority than myself btw)? Well, in relation to my point about HTFOR's overambition, this game appears to combine all three methods described above into one. Yeah.
I can definitely see the motivation behind this. Harmony puts a lot of stock into its flowchart, every single mechanic is related to its navigation; for better and for worse. If nothing else, I admire the courage in making something whose writing and planning must have been a right pain in the ass and it somewhat works.
But before I get into that in depth I should lay the groundwork for the rest of the game. Harmony : The Fall of Reverie is set in Atina, a fictional city state in the mediterranean run by a sinister corporation, a sort of cross between Hong Kong, Valencia and Athens or something along those lines. Although everyone speaks like they're Bri'ish but never mind.
You play as Polly, who comes back after many years to her hometown after her mother's disappearance. Quickly, she discovers she has become Harmony : An Oracle for a parallel world named Reverie, composed of Aspirations which are personifications of Human's emotions: Bliss, Bond, Power etc. With this power she can see the future, which manifests as being able to see the ingame flowchart in universe. Together with these Aspirations, Harmony's choices lead the story forward of an unfolding intrigue involving the sinister corporation, her missing mother, love, freedom etc.
I really enjoy the aesthetic aspect of HTFOR, the expressive 2D art, the 3D and 2D environment art, the music and sound design, these are all great. The voice acting is decent too (Oh and I inmediately noticed when Nora spoke I was like "Hey that sounds a lot like Philosophy Tube and lo and behold Abigail Thorn shows up in the credits) and the writing is from a first playthrough at least, pretty good, nuanced and entertaining, a lot of focus is given to mythologies and stories, social injustice and the sacrifices made for change.
Im not well versed enough in greek myth to make much sense of it, Polly is actually short for Polyhimnia ; a muse. The communal center turned house where they all live is called the Naiads, which I believe were Greek nymphs? I quite liked the detail of Chaos' paint changing slightly within scenes, it was a nice touch. This ignorance is however why I enjoy this site, whichever blind spots I may have someone else will fill in and give their perspectives on the matter which I can read and get a broader view of the work.
There is also some pretty good LGBT representation, though one character only revealed they were (I want to say NB? Their profile said they had a legal pronoun change and they say they like short hair as it helps them not be mistaken for a woman but I swear Polly refers to them as her at one point but maybe I misread?) at a particular, missable node. There are however at least two other gay characters.
Now, about that branching. I do think it works for the most part, there is a surprising amount of complexity to the game which tries to marry a lot of things. Essentially, your choices are somewhat transparent in the sense that as the story is divided into acts and scenes, which are further subdivided into nodes, your actual visibility of how the story will unfold is limited firstly to the current act or subact, which helps to make things less overwhelming and secondly by the node visibility being tied to various conditions, which you may choose to unlock if a choice mentions which nodes will be revealed as a result. There is also the bond crystals, essentially certain actions favour certain aspirations and other require their cooperation, thus you need to weigh up who you're helping and how that affects the decisions near to you. Furthermore, each act ends with a decision requiring a certain amount of bond crystals from one or more aspirations and further still there is a global running tally of how many bond crystals you have acquired and favouring a certain aspiration in this factors into one of the final choices in the game!
That sounds like a lot, doesnt it? Thats cause it kind of is? But it also kind of isnt. For the most part the game straddles the line of choices being tough to make (though that may be the executive dysfunction talking) but not overwhelming, though I did feel at times that I was always making the worst decision. Now, in theory that can work (Disco Elysium comes to mind) but there is something about your choices in the various acts locking you out of choices in subsequent acts that always feels like a kick in the teeth. Its that thing that theyre trying to have their cake and eat it too, have engineerable short term choices (the individual nodes can be fucking tiny as well, like 2/3 lines of text at times, although it does make the pacing pretty tight, I clocked in 5 hours and it felt like 3) with opaque long term choices which force you out of certain paths. And again, in theory Im fine with that, but at points it just fucks me up.
Case in point : the ending, which I am going to talk in general, nonspecific terms, but some people are really sensitive about these sorts of things so feel free to leave now if youre bothered by this sort of thing : I do recommend the game despite it all and I honestly would welcome more perspectives about it.
The game definitely acknowledges the ridiculousness of the complicated flowchart and demands and needs of the various characters and aspirations which pull on Harmony from a thousand different directions but its still a bit much. And well, if you are planning on playing this game : go all in on at least 1 aspiration! Dont attempt to keep each in balance cause honestly the game seemed disappointed I went for that, which kinda blew but again I have only seen 1 playthrough so perhaps I am misreading it. This is sort of the issue in reviewing any game. I have "finished" it but I have nowhere near enough of a perspective to judge it holistically, but at the same time making oneself fully familiar with the systems of these games can be either extremely hard or ruin the enjoyment entirely, thus making the exercise moot.
Another thing is that there was a choice relating to the future of the city state and what would have been to me the most interesting option became locked because of choices I had made previously and which IMO makes no sense why.
Actual Spoilers Now :
I led a goddamned revolution against MK, couching myself upon the outrage of the populous against its corpo masters but because of some minor bullshit in how I handled the situation later, the option I had to choose was basically status quo liberal democracy : Cringe! I could have also chosen some bullshit thing related to the ancient cultures that created the aspirations in the first place but the way it was phrased it sounded like we would be ruled by a city full of those greek Statue profile pics from Twitter with names like "Retvrn to Ancient Virtue" and only talk about how women having any autonomy is how Rome fell or whatever nonsense.
So Im left with a sour aftertaste. For all its faults I think Harmony is interesting and honestly it kept my attention its entire runtime, so its just doubly tragic how it couldnt stick the landing. I would still recommend if you are interested in branching narratives and a mixed collection of mediterranean cultures.
2014
A cool core combat that is seemingly just made more cluttered and messy for the sake of a metroidvania style progression at odds with itself. "Oh cool I discovered a secret, what do I get?" a piece of concept art...
The combat starts so elegant and ok maybe a bit easy with how deadly you are but still the enemy progression does help to ameliorate this. But then they just keep handing you more and more tools, most of which are either pointless cause in the heat of battle you wont remember you have them or worse, made purposeful only by the game forcing you to use them for certain enemies i.e "can't hit the enemy with the dorito shield unless you have the cool ranch powerup!"
I still genuinely enjoyed this game for most of the runtime, sure the bosses were kind of easy but whatever they were mostly cool. Anyways I didnt finish cause at what I assume is the final level they just suddenly ramp up a relatively easy game to bullshit "lets hit em with 10000 things to deal with" type challenge. This is usually manageable cause you're mobile and deadly and can take out the threats before they overwhelm you, not so much when these are big bullet sponges who spam projectiles that freeze you and you get stunlocked.
And Im sure Ill get a "skill issue" but I genuinely do not care, as I said the game had already far outstayed its welcome and even if I was just about to face the final boss I do not care, he can rule the world for all I care I just need to get this out of my system before I play something better
The combat starts so elegant and ok maybe a bit easy with how deadly you are but still the enemy progression does help to ameliorate this. But then they just keep handing you more and more tools, most of which are either pointless cause in the heat of battle you wont remember you have them or worse, made purposeful only by the game forcing you to use them for certain enemies i.e "can't hit the enemy with the dorito shield unless you have the cool ranch powerup!"
I still genuinely enjoyed this game for most of the runtime, sure the bosses were kind of easy but whatever they were mostly cool. Anyways I didnt finish cause at what I assume is the final level they just suddenly ramp up a relatively easy game to bullshit "lets hit em with 10000 things to deal with" type challenge. This is usually manageable cause you're mobile and deadly and can take out the threats before they overwhelm you, not so much when these are big bullet sponges who spam projectiles that freeze you and you get stunlocked.
And Im sure Ill get a "skill issue" but I genuinely do not care, as I said the game had already far outstayed its welcome and even if I was just about to face the final boss I do not care, he can rule the world for all I care I just need to get this out of my system before I play something better
2023
It's clear from just a glance that Dormin, developer of "A Hint Of Purple" has played and enjoyed Disco Elysium. Taking DE's general character artstyle and text system is not at all a bad or hollow idea, these are loved for a reason and indeed AHofP is not trying to be DE. Its a visual novel rather than an RPG which uses the dramatic device of being "stuck in one's own head" to tell a very compelling narrative.
This is one of those games which is hard to write much about because its short (30mins) and I genuinely want more people to play it (its free on steam) so I think I'll just drop a spoiler warning here, please come back to read the rest of it and maybe even start a bit of a discussion about it.
AHoP does a rather clever thing in recognition of an issue a lot of branching narrative games fall into where they struggle with the balance of providing a nebulously defined "meaningful" choice and keeping the scope of the game manageable.
There are people for e.g who accused Pentiment of "Your Choices dont matter!" and I genuinely wonder what the hell those people are talking about. In conversation with Disco Elysium and Pentiment and the like, which are games less about how you bend the world to the will of you, the player and more about how your character reacts and approaches this world. AHoP goes for a risky gambit : Your character is a victim of an accident only alluded to at first, who has become totally paralyzed from the neck down, requiring 24/7 care and being unable to speak or communicate, even.
I can definitely see some who would dislike this dynamic, your character being unable to speak, pretty much all dialogue choices amount to how your character is thinking about the people around her, unable to meaningfully reply to any of them. As strange as it sounds however, there is still meaning to be found in this, the cast of strangers who's lives we get smaller or bigger glimpses of appreciating someone who will just listen to them, implied poetic justice for a character who was previously forceful and self centered.
This last point is of course where I imagine the game will lose a lot of you. Personally I found it compelling and it worked, but I can begrudgingly admit it will come across as a bit trite to some. And even I have to admit theres one or two small moments where I thought the game was going to shit the bed but thankfully never did.
There are also flashbacks from before the accident in which you have more explicit control in how she dealt with these issues whilst still within the bounds of her implied personality in the present, which strikes that golden balance of player and author collaboration that this medium is all about
Its not just people who are alone, who are struggling with work, growing old, abusive partners and having to grieve the loss of a loved one who is still alive and denying closure through continuing to live.
There's just something fascinating about it, the vicarious grief, anger, desesperation of not being in control of your body and seeing your partner ruin their chances at happiness by taking care of you, the seemingly vestigial Disco Elysium element of speaking to your prefrontal cortex who has their own voice. I think the highest compliment I can give this game is that when I'm done writing this I want to play it again to see If I can understand what I might have missed the first time around. Also that it made me tear up a bit; and that the music is good.
P.S I love you Maude and I hope your boyfriend makes a full recovery
This is one of those games which is hard to write much about because its short (30mins) and I genuinely want more people to play it (its free on steam) so I think I'll just drop a spoiler warning here, please come back to read the rest of it and maybe even start a bit of a discussion about it.
AHoP does a rather clever thing in recognition of an issue a lot of branching narrative games fall into where they struggle with the balance of providing a nebulously defined "meaningful" choice and keeping the scope of the game manageable.
There are people for e.g who accused Pentiment of "Your Choices dont matter!" and I genuinely wonder what the hell those people are talking about. In conversation with Disco Elysium and Pentiment and the like, which are games less about how you bend the world to the will of you, the player and more about how your character reacts and approaches this world. AHoP goes for a risky gambit : Your character is a victim of an accident only alluded to at first, who has become totally paralyzed from the neck down, requiring 24/7 care and being unable to speak or communicate, even.
I can definitely see some who would dislike this dynamic, your character being unable to speak, pretty much all dialogue choices amount to how your character is thinking about the people around her, unable to meaningfully reply to any of them. As strange as it sounds however, there is still meaning to be found in this, the cast of strangers who's lives we get smaller or bigger glimpses of appreciating someone who will just listen to them, implied poetic justice for a character who was previously forceful and self centered.
This last point is of course where I imagine the game will lose a lot of you. Personally I found it compelling and it worked, but I can begrudgingly admit it will come across as a bit trite to some. And even I have to admit theres one or two small moments where I thought the game was going to shit the bed but thankfully never did.
There are also flashbacks from before the accident in which you have more explicit control in how she dealt with these issues whilst still within the bounds of her implied personality in the present, which strikes that golden balance of player and author collaboration that this medium is all about
Its not just people who are alone, who are struggling with work, growing old, abusive partners and having to grieve the loss of a loved one who is still alive and denying closure through continuing to live.
There's just something fascinating about it, the vicarious grief, anger, desesperation of not being in control of your body and seeing your partner ruin their chances at happiness by taking care of you, the seemingly vestigial Disco Elysium element of speaking to your prefrontal cortex who has their own voice. I think the highest compliment I can give this game is that when I'm done writing this I want to play it again to see If I can understand what I might have missed the first time around. Also that it made me tear up a bit; and that the music is good.
P.S I love you Maude and I hope your boyfriend makes a full recovery
In this adaptation of the the Boris Vian novel of the same name (written under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan) you play as Rock Bailey, the world's strongest Volcel. His efforts to remain celibate lead him to be kidnapped under mysterious circumstances , and he must get to the bottom of why and who is behind it.
If To Hell With the Ugly excels at something it is style. The gorgeous mid 20th century cartoon art style and jazzy music really lend themselves to the charm the game has going for itself. The game consists of adventure game detective sections moving the investigation forward, paper mario style turnbased battles with pseudo QTEs and the odd stealth section. They all work reasonably well to convey the tone and pace of the story and on normal difficulty arent particularly challenging but that suits me just fine, personally.
The only thing that bothered me slightly is at times the videogame adaptation clashes slightly with the established story (which I have not read but I can only assume is the culprit for this) and we get one of my least favourite gameplay tropes : "Win the battle in gameplay but lose anyways because the plot demands it". I guess its to be expected and there are also some sections where it just feels like the 90s thing where movies were adapted into point and click adventure games by just gracelessly inserting inventory puzzles into roadblocks for the player to continue the story. Admittedly they are easy here but arent usually complete busywork, so they strike some sort of balance for the most part.
Rock Bailey is an interesting protagonist, he's not particularly likeable but he's interesting to play as for the most part. The story's pretty fast paced in general and events move so fast it can be sometimes hard to take stock, but admittedly from what I have gathered this is pretty faithful to how the book is written. The humour and absurdity give way to certain... surprising elements I wasnt expecting and the ending in particular I imagine won't be to everyone's liking but feels appropriate. What thematic throughlines I could gauge on a first playthrough are mainly about the vapidness of at the time contemporary american culture, the worship of superficial beauty and superficial friendships.
It occurs to me something Ive been thinking for a while, why is it that videogame adaptations of novels seem to (usually) exceed in quality that of film adaptations? Surely one audiovisual medium should translate to the other easier than literature which is not. Now obviously there are great movie adaptations that people love like goldeneye, escape from butcher bay etc, and Im not blind to the fact that most movie adaptations were rushed tie-ins given the same importance by the studio as the colouring book and matching tea-towels, thus a tendency for them to be bad, whereas a book adaptation is more likely to come from a genuine desire on the part of the designer to adapt a beloved work. But even with all this I can think of more examples of good games based on books or short stories than films. Metro, Witcher, I have No Mouth, the dead money DLC, Disco Elysium kind of, Parasite Eve, Pentiment and Edith Finch arent strict adaptations but take a lot of influence etc. I don't know, maybe I am just cherry picking but I think there's something to this theory. Perhaps precisely because Film and Games are more similar there is less room to change and add or maybe its the structure of Book and Game being more active in involvement of the audience than the more passive nature of film? Idk if anyone has any thoughts on this or wants to call me an idiot youre welcome to respond in the comments section. For Further Reading, the game's lead designer shared an article on the subject of adapting the novel into a game which I found enlightening
As for To Hell With The Ugly it was a lovely surprise, a short game at 3 hours long which didnt outstay its welcome although ends rather... abruptly? Intentionally of course but I can see it being off putting to many.
If To Hell With the Ugly excels at something it is style. The gorgeous mid 20th century cartoon art style and jazzy music really lend themselves to the charm the game has going for itself. The game consists of adventure game detective sections moving the investigation forward, paper mario style turnbased battles with pseudo QTEs and the odd stealth section. They all work reasonably well to convey the tone and pace of the story and on normal difficulty arent particularly challenging but that suits me just fine, personally.
The only thing that bothered me slightly is at times the videogame adaptation clashes slightly with the established story (which I have not read but I can only assume is the culprit for this) and we get one of my least favourite gameplay tropes : "Win the battle in gameplay but lose anyways because the plot demands it". I guess its to be expected and there are also some sections where it just feels like the 90s thing where movies were adapted into point and click adventure games by just gracelessly inserting inventory puzzles into roadblocks for the player to continue the story. Admittedly they are easy here but arent usually complete busywork, so they strike some sort of balance for the most part.
Rock Bailey is an interesting protagonist, he's not particularly likeable but he's interesting to play as for the most part. The story's pretty fast paced in general and events move so fast it can be sometimes hard to take stock, but admittedly from what I have gathered this is pretty faithful to how the book is written. The humour and absurdity give way to certain... surprising elements I wasnt expecting and the ending in particular I imagine won't be to everyone's liking but feels appropriate. What thematic throughlines I could gauge on a first playthrough are mainly about the vapidness of at the time contemporary american culture, the worship of superficial beauty and superficial friendships.
It occurs to me something Ive been thinking for a while, why is it that videogame adaptations of novels seem to (usually) exceed in quality that of film adaptations? Surely one audiovisual medium should translate to the other easier than literature which is not. Now obviously there are great movie adaptations that people love like goldeneye, escape from butcher bay etc, and Im not blind to the fact that most movie adaptations were rushed tie-ins given the same importance by the studio as the colouring book and matching tea-towels, thus a tendency for them to be bad, whereas a book adaptation is more likely to come from a genuine desire on the part of the designer to adapt a beloved work. But even with all this I can think of more examples of good games based on books or short stories than films. Metro, Witcher, I have No Mouth, the dead money DLC, Disco Elysium kind of, Parasite Eve, Pentiment and Edith Finch arent strict adaptations but take a lot of influence etc. I don't know, maybe I am just cherry picking but I think there's something to this theory. Perhaps precisely because Film and Games are more similar there is less room to change and add or maybe its the structure of Book and Game being more active in involvement of the audience than the more passive nature of film? Idk if anyone has any thoughts on this or wants to call me an idiot youre welcome to respond in the comments section. For Further Reading, the game's lead designer shared an article on the subject of adapting the novel into a game which I found enlightening
As for To Hell With The Ugly it was a lovely surprise, a short game at 3 hours long which didnt outstay its welcome although ends rather... abruptly? Intentionally of course but I can see it being off putting to many.
2023
Es una novela visual algo surrealista ambientada en la localidad de chapinero en Bogotá. Tiene un cierto realismo mágico? No soy experto literario asà que no sé sà se puede clasificar como tal pero a mà me lo pareció. Los modelos, la lluvia y el argumento del taxista llevando a personajes coloridos de todos los sectores de la sociedad se arropan en una estética de cine negro. Está bien hecho.
Me hizo reĂr alguna vez y llegas a ponerte en el papel de taxista lidiando con la ciudad y los clientes bastante bien. Eso sĂ, tuve que parar a buscar en la RAE un fleje de palabras puesto que hay bastantes tĂ©rminos de lĂ©xico de Bogotá especĂficamente y luego de Colombia y/o America latina más generalmente. Me agrada saber que dicen mano ahĂ tambiĂ©n. La mĂşsica está bien conseguida.
El final es... bueno la verdad prefiero no decir nada por que el juego es gratis al fin y al cabo y dura como 1 hora asà que jueguénlo y ya tenemos la tertulia en los comentarios sobre el final?
Me hizo reĂr alguna vez y llegas a ponerte en el papel de taxista lidiando con la ciudad y los clientes bastante bien. Eso sĂ, tuve que parar a buscar en la RAE un fleje de palabras puesto que hay bastantes tĂ©rminos de lĂ©xico de Bogotá especĂficamente y luego de Colombia y/o America latina más generalmente. Me agrada saber que dicen mano ahĂ tambiĂ©n. La mĂşsica está bien conseguida.
El final es... bueno la verdad prefiero no decir nada por que el juego es gratis al fin y al cabo y dura como 1 hora asà que jueguénlo y ya tenemos la tertulia en los comentarios sobre el final?