[Indie Theorycraft Tuesday] Pick Up Angry Yeti? [Y/N]

Today's post is all about inventory items, and how misused they often are in games. My emphasis will be on indie adventure games, but this also applies to big-budget commercial games. In fact, I think I'll start with an example from Ninja Gaiden 2, which I was playing earlier.

At the second chapter of the game, while inside a fairly tall building with several floors, you encounter a locked door, with no key in sight. A fairly common puzzle so far, right? So you climb a couple more floors, dispatching a few enemies along the way, and personally I was thinking I'd face a mini-boss or somesuch who would be carrying the key. Nope, I had to look for it in a weird looking locked box hidden somewhere in a corner, which Ryu Hayabusa (the game's protagonist) opened with a kick.

Now Ninja Gaiden 2 is a game that's difficult to take seriously, given its dialogs and its obsession with leather and bondage, but that occurrence just baffled me. It's so utterly unrealistic, who hides a card key in a box, in the middle of a building? It reminds me of all those statue-and-gem puzzles in Resident Evil 2, which took place in a Police department. Who the hell designs buildings like that? To make things even better, the card key in question was cracked. I'm hardly an expert on these things, but I'm fairly certain that a cracked card can't be used for its intended purposes. That is, to unlock electronic doors.

However, truth be told, such things aren't a big deal in action games. They only make the player roll his/her eyes for a second and then carry on with the game. On the other hand, in adventure games, where storyline and charactes are the main focus, and the player usually has to pick up every single item on sight and then click it on everything else, poorly-thought out inventory items and related puzzles can really ruin the player's immersion.

An example is needed to better illustrate this point, and I'll pick another commercial game again, before I start discussing indie games. The offender in this case is The Longest Journey, perhaps my favorite game evaaar. During one point of the game, you meet a certain crow called uh... Crow, which later on accompanies you in your travels. How do you make him accompany you? By literally picking him up, that is, using the "Pick Up" function on him, after which we are lead to presume that the heroine of the game fits him in her pockets. A very (unintentionally) absurd moment in an otherwise brilliant game, but I always thought this was due to technological and/or budget-related restraints* anyway.

Sooo... moving on to indie games, then. I'll have to name some names, and before I do that I want to say that I deeply respect anyone and everyone who has ever dedicated a (usually big) part of his everyday time to create an independent game, especially considering that most of them charge nothing for their games. Moreover, there are some problems with design you seemingly can never avoid. That being said, the issue of nonsensical inventory items and their relation to the characters is very evident here.

My first example comes from the first chapter (and seemingly last, since the game appears to have been abandoned) of a game still in development called House of Whispers. The game starts with protagonist Jenni L'Amour visiting her friend Daffy in a local diner. Cue a convenient power shortage, and Jenni finds herself all alone in the darkness, as Daffy is missing. Jenni (and the player) decide it's best to investigate the place to find out what happened to her friend. All is fine so far.

Then, it happens. As you're exploring the near areas, you come across a human heart stored in a fridge. If you decide to interact with the heart, Jenni happily obliges with picking it up.

Wait, what?

It's bad enough that there's no obvious place that Jenni would put the heart while carrying it around (she is not carrying a bag or anything of that sort) the obvious question is why.

Why would anyone, let alone a frightened girl who has just seen her best friend disappear, pick up a human heart in such a nonchalant way**? And what would she ever hope to do with it? From a meta-gaming point of view, I as the player obviously realize that the heart is going to be used in some puzzle at some point in the game, having played so many games with crazy puzzles in the past. But that's exactly when good ol' suspension of disbelief gets thrown out of the window.

Another example comes from a highly acclaimed (and rightly so) game in the indie scene, Prodigal. The game's protagonist, Jacob, is contacted by his brother Mike, who had disappeared two years ago. Jacob decides to find and help him and this journey leads him in a spooky forest, with a very ominous cabin nearby. Once inside the cabin, he finds blood stains all over the place, in such patterns as to imply that something really nasty has happened there.

So what does Mr. Average Joe, all alone in a very unfriendly environment, searching for a brother who is apparently in deep shit, do? What is one of his (and the player's) first actions? To pick up a pair of blood-soaked boots.

Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Hell, who would even go near a pair of bloody boots in some unknown house in the middle of nowhere? I won't even touch the fact that such an object has no apparent use in the game's setting. I would understand picking up an axe for future use at that point, but a pair of boots dripping with blood? That scream you're hearing, that's the suspension of disbelief which just got thrown out of the window again. Poor thing.

Generally speaking, when interacting with my environment in a game, I don't want to think "Oh, apparently there's a puzzle later on that requires this dehydrated piranha! Maybe I'll combine it with this blowtorch and that chewing gum!***" What I want to think is that my character's actions make sense and are in accordance with everything we have seen or at least alluded to about him/her so far in the game.

Naturally, this depends on the context of the game, so while I would expect a former demolitions expert to use TNT to blow up a wall as part of a puzzle, I wouldn't expect a 12-year old to do the same. Unless the 12-year old was some kind of weird prodigee with explosives, called Arzt.

* Then again, maybe I'm grasping.

** Unless they are a doctor of some sort. Or a deranged psycho, I'm not here to judge.

*** Rubber ducky puzzle in TLJ, anyone?

TL;DR version:

Remember, not everything wants to be picked up. Some things are just fine where they are.

Another way of putting it is this rule of thumb: If you wouldn't pick something up in real life, your character had better have a really good reason for doing so. Otherwise, your character won't seem realistic, and your audience might have trouble relating to him/her.

Did you miss these blocks of text? Neither did I.

[Indie Tuesday] A long awaited return

No, not mine. Although that was long overdue, too. But hey, a guy has to have his vacation, even if it's like twice as long than originally planned!

At any rate, this isn't about me. Last week, after literally years and years of waiting, AGD Interactive (formerly Tierra) finally released their third, and most anticipated, remake, Quest for Glory II VGA. I, as I imagine several others did, followed the project closely for years, only to face disappointment every time it was delayed, we're talking about a game that would have been delayed if it had been released in 2004!

Of course, I'm not blaming AGD Interactive about this, they're giving us a game that's completely free and which they created in their spare time out of their goodness of their hearts; to complain would make you a tremendous douchebag. I was just worried that the project would be eventually dropped off, as more important things demanded their attention, as it usually happens.

Thankfully, the game is finally here (visit its release thread on the AGS forums here) and it's glorious. Like the King's Quests remakes that AGD did back in the early 00's, it's completely faithful to the original, while updating it for a more contemporary audience. To be frank, I don't know about you, but I rarely find 16-color EGA graphics aesthetically pleasing anymore.

You can download the game for free at the AGD homepage.

TL;DR version

If you never played QFG2 back in the day, you probably won't stomach it now. Do yourselves a favor and download this VGA-enhanced remake, and enjoy one of Sierra's best adventure games ever (Roberta Williams wasn't even involved, which is an extra plus).

[Retro Tuesday] Loom revisited. Also, headaches

My head is killing me today, and I am feeling seriously dizzy. It shouldn't be anything serious, but it's annoying me enough to not be able to right anything properly today. Theeeeerefooooooore, this is going to be another one of those short posts accompanied by a YouTube clip.

Loom, a 1990 game by LucasFilm (currently LucasArts) is a very unique experience, even when compared to the other great adventure games released by the company in the early to mid 90's. One of the first graphical adventures to completely abandon the use of an inventory and related puzzles, the gameplay instead revolves around the use of a distaff and the musical tones the protagonist, Bobbin Threadbare, can play with it.

From a technical point of view, the game was fantastic for its age, especially the CD version, with VGA graphics and full speech. I played the game as a kid, when CD-ROM drives and sound cards were something I'd only read in magazines about, but the 16-color EGA graphics and PC speaker grunts had their own charm back then. Though I find that the 256-color VGA version is really beautiful even today, as it has aged really well. The music is also outstanding, as it should be in a game which emphasises its use so much, but what really stands out is the use of excerpts from Chopin's Swan Lake.

Loom's plot is fairly basic at first glance, as it is basically the typical story of an unwilling young man who is tasked with saving the world, but Brian Moriarty weaved (pardon the pun) a beautiful tale around this basic premise. I can't get into any detailed analysis at the moment due to my amazing nearly-exploding head, but I will say that the story manages to surprise me with its depth and maturity even on my current (second) playthrough, sixteen whole years after my first experience with the game. The game is also quite violent at times, though the violence makes perfect sense in the context it's presented in, something that was another departure from most LucasArts/LucasFilm games of the day.

Sadly the game wasn't as successful as its peers, which presumably is a direct concequence of its unique nature. We tend to idealize about those times, but the early to mid 90's were a time when adventure games were the FPS's of today, and Sierra/Roberta Williams were pumping one sequel after the other, with the predictable results of often low quality, bug-ridden games. In that context, especially when considering that there was no fan-driven Internet hype machine at the time, it wasn't at all surprising that people preferred Sierra's by-the-numbers sequel than a completely new, and sometimes perplexing game such as Loom.

If you would allow me to indulge into a "What-if?" theorycraf rant, I'd have to say that it really is a shame that Loom wasn't a big mainstream success. Had it been such a success, more games would have copied its unique point and click system, which isn't based on such arbitrary verbs or icons for such things as "Talk" or "Use" and so on. But more importantly, more games would have copied its unique approach to puzzles, and its lack of inventory, instead of the countless bullshit inventory puzzles we had to endure over the years. You know, the kind where you have to rub every single item in your inventory of 20+ items on every single part of your screen and hope for some results. Makes one wonder how much more intuitive adventure games would have been had this design convention been abandoned, but oh well.

Rant's over, here's the intro of the game, alongside with some of the first few areas. I have to confess, listening to Bobbin's voice after all these years is a strange feeling.



There's also a speedrun of the entire game on YouTube, where some nutso finishes the entire game in 27 minutes. I haven't watched it, but it should make for an interesting watch for people who want to find out more about the game but don't want to play it. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he skips every single cutscene. At any rate, you can find said video here.

TL;DR version:

"The last leaf of Autumn."

[AGS Tuesday] Engine update and new games

I've talked about the Adventure Game Studio (AGS for short) engine before, but for those that weren't around, it's a freeware game engine that one can use to create (bet you can't guess it) adventure games. It was primarily designed to create Sierra SCI games, but it's customizable enough to create all sorts of variations of adventure games, including direct control, text parser-based and other nifty stuff like that. In fact, some people have even created platformers and fighting games using this engine.

Now that the intro is out of the way, last week (approximately) saw the release of the latest version of the engine, V. 3.0.2. As one would expect, it sports a number of changes and fixes from the previous version. For the full list and a download link, click me.

With that, I thought I'd mention a few of the games that were released lately. I haven't really finished them yet as my backlog is already huge and it's catching up with me (Soviet Russia and all), but it's obvious they're all quality releases.

Quest for Yrlog: A fantasy adventure with a twist. Your master has devised this devious plan, only to have a warrior, a rogue and a sorcerer show up at his door and threatenin to stop him. As his faithful imp minion, it's up to you to stop them before they do so! For more information, screenshots and a download link, visit this thread.

Dread Mac Farlane 2: Yes, this is a sequel. You can find the original game here. As with the original, it's based on a French comic book I've never heard of, but French comic books are good, no? It features the story of a girl who "grows up in Neverland with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, who wants to become pirate like her father she never knew." The graphics are amazing for an indie game, so it's worth dowloading it, so check this thread.

Space Quest IV.5: A game created in the same style as those SCI games I mentioned earlier. Fans will appreciate the retro feeling. Check out its thread here.

Nanobots: This was the AGS game I was expecting the most, and it pains me to admit I haven't really gotten the chance to play it yet. It's by the same people that have brought us games such as Spooks and What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed, so it's bound to be interesting. I'll get back to this game next week, with (hopefully) detailed impressions. In the meantime, you can learn more about it in this thread.

TL;DR version:

In This Post: Free games, and a freeware engine to make your own. If you're even remotely interested in adventure games, knock yourselves out.

(I'm a bit bored right now, does it show? Hurr).

[Indie-gaming Tuesday] Limbo of the Lost (LoL)

Never before has the abbreviation "LoL" worked on so many levels.

I'm certain that the Internet-savvy among you have already heard about Limbo of the Lost, the game that so blatantly copied its graphics from about half a billion games. Seriously, they're so many that people have made a Wiki where they collect all the games Limbo of the Lost stole from.

I won't detail the whole story behind this game since the wiki does a really good job at it, but here's the gist of it: The game was "created" by Majestic studios, which is basically comprised of three people in their mid-to-late 30's from Kent, England, with their (now defunct) official site being a Geocities account. Wait, it gets better.

These three have been apparently been working on the game since the early 90's, since there's even a handful of screenshots from an Amiga version around. Which I find highly amusing, as those screenshots, and especially the main character, have nothing to do with the released version of the game on PC's. If anything, this raises the question if these people were indeed working on the game, or just waiting for more sources to steal from. I'm mentioning this especially since the current version of the main character looks exactly like Edward Norton's character from The Illusionist, a movie that's only a couple of years old.


As for the old version of the protagonist (seen here), I could swear I've seen him before, even though I can't quite say where exactly. I want to say I've seen him in Shadow of the Comet, but I know that's not right. I also feel like he was some sort of native American in the game where he originated from, but again I'm not too sure about that. In the off-chance that I'm wrong and he's an original creation, well, mea culpa.


(credit for this picture: Xabora from NeoGAF)

To make matters worse, the actual game is, according to most sources and from what we can see from in-game videos, an absolute pile of shit. The original graphics are atrocious (unaltered Poser models are unacceptable in free games, let alone retail ones), the voice-acting is worse than a House of the Dead game, and the gameplay and story seem to be unintentionally hilarious. I don't make a habit out of judging games without playing them, but some things are obvious. See for yourselves in this video which includes the intro sequence and the first 10 minutes of gameplay.

What makes my mind boggle is how this game ever managed to find a publisher. Assuming that nobody noticed how bad this game was, or perhaps that they did notice and decided it'll sell as a cult-"Oh my gods this game is unbelievably shitty"-hit, how could this game have passed whatever passes for quality control these days, when it has so obviously stolen from virtually most of the big-name games in recent years? I really can't wrap my head around that.

Whatever the truth behind this story is, we'll probably never find out since the people responsible for this mess have seemingly disappeared. I don't blame them for that, and I don't offer any sympathy for them as they deserve whatever comes to them, but I have to say I do feel kind of bad for their families. C'est la vie, I guess.

I could easily imagine that after reading all this, you'd be somewhat intrigued by Limbo of the Lost and the story behind it, if probably for the wrong reasons. I've been there, myself. Trust me when I say that life is too short to waste time and money on something as shitty as this. For that reason, here's a video of the game's ending, hopefully it'll satisfy your curiosity and you'll move on to other, more worthwhile things.



On the bright side, this catastrophe of a game release has inspired some people to get creative and give us some laughs. It ain't all bad!

In other news, I rented the new Alone in the Dark game today, and while that's been receiving some fairly bad reviews itself, I'm still looking forward to playing it. Alone in the Dark 3 will always be the definitive game of the franchise for me, though. If partly for nostalgia reasons.

TL;DR version:

Remember kids, stealing and plagiarism is bad. Especially in this era, where Internet sleuths investigate every little detail about you and your products. So do yourself a favor and don't end up like the dumbfucks responsible for Limbo of the Lost, a game worthy of ridicule and little else.

And if you're a douchebag and still decide to steal assets from other games, thus helping to give the indie scene a bad name, at least make sure your game is actually decent. Do us all a favor, or the universe will most likely assplode as a result of having two games like LoL around.

[Adventure Monday] Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice

I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm a huge fan of the Ace Attorney series. Even though it's been only two years since I played the first game, then called Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, it has become one of my favorite series in gaming, among other long-time faves such as Castlevania or the Legend of Zelda.

No small feat, to be sure, but since apparently today's post is all about honesty, I have to confess I had set my expectations rather low for the latest entry in the franchise, Apollo Justice. Not only because changing the whole cast from previous iterations is an idea that rarely, if ever, works, but also because thanks to a major fuck-up the publisher's part, the previous entry in the series, Trials and Tribulations hasn't been released in Europe yet. So basically us Europeans jumped straight to the fourth game in the series from the second one. Thanks for that, Capcom.

The following is my first impressions after having played through the first case and most of the second one in the game.



I have to say, the (almost) entirely new cast was what worried me the most at first. Aside from a couple of returning minor secondary characters, we're only treated to cameos of former protagonist Phoenix Wright, and Emma Skye, who played a central role in the fifth case of the first game.

And these characters... Nick and Emma have changed, perhaps a bit too much from the previous games. Apollo Justice takes place seven years after Trials and Tribulations and while that's enough time for a person in real life to become bitter and melancholic, but this is a game, and these are characters which were introduced as cheerful and optimistic to us. Seeing them all brooding and cynical feels a bit strange, to say the least.

As for the rest of the cast, they certainly lack the charisma of their predecessors. Apollo is funny, but lacks that special charm that Phoenix had, with his "Chords of Steel" tag-line especially making me want to bathe myself in H2S04, and while Trucy, his sidekick, is quite adorable, she feels almost a carbon-copy of Maya. They not only share a rather quirky personality, but they also share several mannerisms to the point that, at times, I could swear that the creators took Maya's sprite and repainted it as Trucy. The secondary characters are as nuts as ever, and they get the job done, but nobody really steals the show.

Naturally, since I haven't finished the game there's still a good chance I'll be pleasantly surprised by the time it's over. I won't be holding my breath about that, though. If anything, I'm still slightly worried over its writing. One case in specific really stood out to me, as the whole "mission" where you had to find 15-year old Trucy's stolen panties, with her making all sorts of awkward comments on how "My customers will be waiting to see my panties at night" and somesuch felt a little bit too much like Pedobear territory for my taste. While I did laugh at times, it was also rather embarrassing to go through. And videogames, especially good ones, really shouldn't make their audience feel embarrassed for playing them. I'm looking at you, Soulcalibur IV, with your scientifically-enhanced balloon animals, I mean female warriors.

Lastly, I can't help but think that removing an excellent character like Phoenix Wright from the spotlight of the series was a bad move. Nick had that certain something that characters like Guybrush Threepwood did. Guybrush wanted to be a pirate, in other words an adventurer, and Nick wanted to be a lawyer because he believed in truth and that it's worth fighting for it. Both things most people can and will relate to. Apollo just comes off as a scared kid who's trying his hand at something that looks cool, and the difference between the two really shows.

TL;DR version:

George is missing virtual characters from a game he played like 17 months ago, and also hopes he won't have to search for any more panties before he finishes Apollo Justice.

The game is still pretty fun mind you, despite my bitching.

P.S.

I've apparently been banned from Xbox Live, and for no apparent reason. That's great.