Case #31 will have you going in circles

There’s something undeniably amazing about Case #31, but it’s actually unfortunately a sub-par gaming experience, severely hampered by things like pace and grammar and competent controls. However, the hint of goodness–possibly even greatness–is there, but you have to travel around in a circle for a good while to even begin to see it. There’s a fluidity to this wee game that is striking, like a mix of Bastion‘s levels zooming up from nowhere and Puppeteer‘s puppet show aesthetic, with background and foreground elements plopping down and getting pulled away as if all on strings. It certainly plays within the jam’s theme of “a game on a single screen,” wherein the screen is, more or less, stationary, but the dressings change to alter its look.

First, the nitty gritty. Case #31 was developed for Ludum Dare 31 in 46 hours using Unity3D through a team of six people. It revolves around–see what I did there?–a murder mystery in a dark, seedy town, though it ultimately feels like an unexplained excuse to shoot some cops. Basically, you, as a detective, end up upon a dead body and ultimately become a leading suspect, resulting in no other choice but to shoot down cops and make a break for freedom. Possibly answers, too, but I never saw Case #31 to completion despite several restarts. I’m writing most of this post a few days after actually playing Case #31 so it doesn’t bode well for the narrative when I can’t really remember any vital details.

The controls are fairly limited. You can move left and right with the arrow keys, sliding along the screen as if being carried by a merry-go-round. You can also jump with up or duck with down, as well as shoot your shooty thing. That’s kind of it. Your goal is to push forward to the right without taking too many hits. Unfortunately, there are no checkpoints. Or perhaps they are spaced far, far apart and I never hit one. Either way, once you die, you start over from the very beginning, which means button-mashing your way past the grammatically poor dialogue to test your skills again at shooting men of the law while not taking any hits yourself. It’s disappointing and off-putting, which is why I closed my browser after buying the farm three or four times.

In the end, there isn’t much here in Case #31, but a single strong concept. That said, it came in fifth place for the overall jam. With better controls, varied gameplay, enhanced AI, and copy-edited text with a more engaging story, this could be something really cool. I’d love to see a game with this style on the Nintendo 3DS, as the moving, cardboard cutout background elements would look stellar with the 3D slider turned up a bit. Until then, I’ll just go round and round and round, and you can do so yourself by giving it a go.

Five things make a post, so please stop uppercutting me to death

Things have been a little quiet over here at Grinding Down, and there’s a good reason for it, though I can’t reveal much at this time. Basically, I’m neck-deep in comic work and have been severely limiting my ferocious playing of videogames. Crazy, I know, especially since I’m right in the middle of my 2015 goal of seeing Final Fantasy IX‘s end credits–hey, remember when I wrote about how something always comes by and pushes me away during the second or third disc? Yeah, that’s what’s going on at the moment, but I have the fullest of intentions to get back to solving what’s really going on in that Black Mage Village.

That said, there has still been a few glimmers of activity, which brings us to this style of post.

FINISH HIM/HER, I CAN’T

I picked up the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection the other week during that crazy good PSN flash sale and have been inching away at it slowly. There’s not much to actually inch away at, seeing as these are literally just a column of enemies to three-round fight until you get to the end. Naturally, I remember everything a little different, back when I used to play these on my neighbor’s Genesis, and I don’t recall the computer AI being so difficult. I’ve even dropped the difficulty settings down to “very easy,” seeing little change. I won’t feel satisfied until they are all best, but for now I’ve only beaten the original Mortal Kombat (using Raiden, of course), though Goro still took a number of tries in the double digits.

Free-to-Pokemon nightly

I continue to use up my allotted five hearts in Pokemon Shuffle once a day, at night actually, just before Mr. Sandman comes calling. Strangely, since changing the system clock on my 3DS due to Daylight’s Saving Time, the game thinks I’m trying to pull one out from under it and has restricted my access to the “Special” levels. Unless I want to do blah blah blah–whatever, game. It’s not my fault you and the system don’t grok how the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour works. Currently, I’m stuck on level 120, unable to take down a Mega Glalie, which is forcing me to go backwards, grind my hearts away while occasionally capturing a new Pokemon. It’s fine, really. So long as my captured pocket monsters are slowly gaining XP every night, I’ll eventually be strong enough to hit level 121. You gotta believe!

Greetings to Gracie

This should be no surprise to anyone, but I’m still playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf religiously and continuing to unlock slash see new elements of the game some years after its release. Such as finishing up Gracie’s Fashion Check quest four times, which results in the fashionista giraffe opening up a store of her own and upgrading your department store to fit all her swanky merchandise. Still need to pay off my house in full, fill the museum with more bugs, fish, and pieces of art, and get Katrina to open up a stationary fortune-telling shop in the town square. There’s always something to do, and even when there isn’t, just chatting up neighbors and pulling weeds is enough to satisfy me for fifteen minutes.

Not epic text, but bigger

Several weeks back, I saw word of another Dragon Age: Inquisition patch incoming, and usually these patches are just a long list of very specific catches/fixes that I might not ever notice or come across, but one item in this update stood out to me: Added an option to control the font size of subtitles. I’ve run into a lot of problems with the latest entry in the Dragon Age series–see here, as well as see here–but nothing got me to quit that game hard after only a few hours than its teeny tiny–nearly unreadable–text size. I’ve since loaded up the game again to discover that, yes, the text is much bigger and easier to read. Perhaps I’ll continue on with Girgna’s journey and actually leave the Hinterlands after Final Fantasy IX.

Unsuccessful hunter of monsters

Three times I’ve entered a physical store and tried to buy a copy of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate only to be told to scram. Well, no, not that. But mainly that such-and-such didn’t have a retail copy for sale. Now, I know I totally could go and order one from Amazon or download it via the eShop (actually, I can’t, as I doubt I have enough free blocks space for it), but that’s not my main operative. I want to go into a store and buy a thing and then have that thing in my hand, ready to be consumed. Me being me, I’m going to take this as a sign that I probably shouldn’t buy MH4U even though it seems like an interesting action game brimming with cats and cat-fed puns. This also happened when I tried to get Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Fire Emblem: Awakening, though I did procure a copy of the latter eventually. Meh, time will tell.

—

And there you go. Five random thoughts for a Friday.

Adding to the Backlog – A Mortal Game of Ages Beyond Time and Space Starring PAC-MAN

Well, Sony went and did it again, putting a crazy good sale in front of my face for the entire weekend, demanding I get in on the “I’d buy that for less than a dollar” action before time ran out. Naturally, this flash sale went live just as I was heading out of town, but once I was home, I scanned through all the deals and picked out five to add to my never stopping, never not growing backlog. Here, take a look at my grabs:

• Game of Thrones – $0.80
• Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection – $0.90
• PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX+ – $0.90
• Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (Episodes 1-5) – $0.80
• Rock of Ages – $0.45

For a grand total of…$3.85. Which, if you want a measuring stick, is less than my cup of coffee and breakfast sandwich from this morning. Hmm. Not a bad deal one bit, though, again, I can’t even begin to see the end of the tunnel where I get to sit down and seriously play some of these titles.

At this point, I haven’t even downloaded all the items, as I might need to delete a few things and make space–seems like those five Sam & Max episodes are large in size, as is Game of Thrones. Between these kind of sales and years of PlayStation Plus, my PS3’s hard-drive space is pretty bloated, and I know that Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots has a mandatory install thingy to plan for once I return to the series. Ugh. I’m forever dealing with juggling space, whether it is on my phone, my 3DS, my PS1/PS2 memory cards, or my other gaming consoles. It’s almost a game in itself.

That said, I did download and install Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection first, load it up, select Rayden (or is it Raiden?), beat a few peeps to their knees, and electrocuted Lui Kang for my first Fatality in some years. Probably since I was a teenager over a friend’s house or getting lucky in the mall’s arcade. I did have to look up how to do it, as both my muscle memory and regular memory for final moves has faded, but it still satisfied, even if that original Mortal Kombat both looks and operates like garbage.

Well, more games. At least these don’t take up any shelf space.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #25 – Off-Peak

Search for ripped ticket
In the strangest transit hub
This side of oddness

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.

Naut wants to know if there is life on Mars

Let’s see. I’ve experienced Scribblenauts from its earnest beginnings to its later, mega-popular forms, thought not all of ’em. I’ve also played Outernauts though Insomiac decided to take it all down off of Facebook some time back. A part of me would eventually like to try out Treasurenauts. Until then, at least I can say I played Naut, which, if keeping with the theme, should have been more amusingly titled as Nautnauts. I don’t know. I think every game title should end with the nauts suffix; yes, even you, Chrono Cross.

Anyways, the stylistic and explorative Naut is from Lucie Viatgé, Tom Victor, and Titouan Millet, members of the Klondike collective. According to their website, they come from the north of France and are not (er, naut) in fact a delicious ice cream treat that comes in over two dozen flavors and includes choco tacos, ice cream sandwiches, and stickless bars. I’m not familiar with too much of their other game work, but if it is anything like Naut, count me in. Or, at the very least, count me in to begin sifting through their, surprisingly, large backlog.

What is Naut all about? That’s not really something easily answered. You might as well be asking about the meaning of life. Let me steer you in a direction though using the developers’ own words: wander around, drive through the desert, hear what the cosmos has to tell you. While some elements might remain the same, everyone’s experience with Naut will be slightly different. For me, I immediately took our leading astronaut and goofily ran him/her over to the car, and then proceeded to drive around Mars and see its sights. Which consisted of strange plants, additional houses with odd inhabitants, and large rock formations, as well as a lightning storms. I watched the day turn into night and then back into day. Lastly, before deciding I had seen my fill of the Red Planet, I honked my car’s horn enough times to lift both it and its drive high into the air, far enough to no longer be able to see the alien ground below; naturally, I had the astronaut exit the vehicle and fall to his/her…feet. Yup, no fall damage, no fall physics–but that’s okay. It was still a beautiful descent.

Visually, I think Naut is out of this world, pun fully and gleefully intended. It’s a whole lot of pink and pastels for this Martian frontier, but it works, presenting this unknown planet as friendly and inviting, something you shouldn’t be scared to explored. You should be excited, like a kid getting a birthday gift early. The piano-lead soundtrack is melancholic, but adaptive, changing depending on whether you are driving at high speeds or galloping on the ground. Either way, it is at once calming and unnerving, reminding you that you are alone out here, but that that’s a-okay. Mars is both empty and massive, yours for the viewing. Interestingly, you can play Naut with a second player, navigating your collective way from one home to another, which sounds like fun, though I will probably never get to experience it.

Curious to see Mars for yourself? Good at clicking on links? Then grab a free copy of Naut over this way (or drop the developers a few bucks) and enjoy those outer space lightning storms as much as I did.

All cities are mad, and that includes Bernband’s The Pff

There are a few cities I’d really love to visit in the near future, with no set goals. No scheduled events, no locked-in attractions to see, no deadlines. I just want to be there and observe, to walk around like I’m stuck in ankle-deep quicksand. I’ll limit the following list to inside the United States, but let’s go with Boston, Providence, Charleston, Seattle, and Austin. Perhaps in that order. Actually, it doesn’t matter; I’m not picky. Now, I’m not exactly sure where Bernband‘s main city is located, but I can cross it off my imaginary list, as it has been both enjoyed and explored.

Bernband is, to mock the Gone Home haters, a “walking simulator” set in the strange city called The Pff, which has me scratching my head, but I guess that’s the point. Thankfully, I don’t have to say it out loud, only write it. Immediately, I feel like a foreigner, stepping foot into another world. An artificially pixelated one at that, which is a bit nauseating at first, but the sensation fades. Same goes for the hypersensitive mouse speed, which is akin to a first-person shooter, something I didn’t expect here.

The goal of the game–if you want to label this a goal–is to simply explore and take in the culture, and it’s fairly linear and uneventful at first, but you’ll eventually begin to see some interesting sights, as well as have options of where to go next. You move with the WASD keys, can jump, and pressing “escape” instantly closes the program–that’s all there is here, with no HUD or even a pause menu. I played for about twenty minutes and stopped after a hole in the floor returned me to the starting area, though I’m sure I didn’t see all the sights.

Despite being set in an alien city, there’s a lot of familiarity to gawk at, such as a hopping bar scene, a classroom, a car park, and so on. Plus, elevators and doors, though the elevators are more like transporters. Instead of being peppered with a range of human bodies, rooms and hallways are stuffed with alien lifeforms of all shapes, colors, and quirks. Actually, for a quick moment after I launched the game, I thought I was back in Calm Time, which had me panicking as I didn’t want to have to murder everyone in The Pff while chasing down a ghost. Thankfully, this is not a spooky game, though there is strangely a sense of coldness and dread, especially once you move away from the livelier sections of town and end up in, more or less, empty hallways. Music and sound effects are sparse, but used effectively, like that alien tinkling away in the urinal or the one tooting its horn.

In one way, it’d be nice to see Bernband expanded into something more traditional, with a full-blown story and characters and some kind of goal to complete, whether it was reaching a destination or collecting a set number of items along the way. In another, that might ruin what was captured here, that feeling of being a stranger in a strange land, where all you can do is look upon your surroundings and learn.

The untouched stealth games in my collection

I’m either just about done with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater or totally done with it, now ready to bounce back to focusing on putting Queen Brahne and her big queeny bum in their respective places in Final Fantasy IX. That said, my recent time of crawling lovingly slow through tall grass or donning a gator mask and gently wading through a marsh past enemies has reaffirmed that I love stealth games. Sure, I don’t love them as much as I enjoy roleplaying games, especially the Japanese ilk, but I’d put them right under there in the number two spot, rubbing shoulders with point-and-click adventures.

Glancing over both my tangible collection of games and ever-growing digital stash, I realized I have a ton of stealth games still to play, still to compare to Snake’s skills and style from the Metal Gear series. Oh, and for those following along, the next three to conquer–Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes–will be all new to me; I hope I can get through them in time for the recently announced release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain this upcoming September 1.

Let me talk briefly about a few other stealth titles that I’m champing at the bit to try, but am resisting in order to not take on too many games at once. Hopefully I can experience all of these sooner than later.

Counterspy

A recent PlayStation Plus freebie for March 2015. CounterSpy is a 2.5D side-scrolling stealth game from Dynamighty, with a stunning, stylistic look. It comes across like you’re playing a Cold War propaganda poster. It’s not a traditional stealth game, but I’m looking forward to sneaking through enemy bases and stopping nuke launches without anyone being the wiser. It sounds like some of the camera angles can be problematic.

Thief

Another freebie for PlayStation Plus users, though I don’t remember if I downloaded it this year or late last year. Oh well. I have it on my PlayStation 3, and though many reviews were critical of Thief and disappointed in how it turned out, I still want to give it a try. The idea of shooting out torches with “water” arrows is amusing.

Dishonored

Let me come clean: I have not given Dishonored a fair shake. I have the game in two forms actually: the “Game of the Year” edition for PlayStation 3 and a free digital copy on the Xbox 360. Yup, I bought the game and then a few weeks later got a free copy. Whatever. I only really played it once and found the first true mission–where you have to eliminate High Overseer Campbell–a real disappointment. The stealthing is so clunky and finicky, and I totally flubbed my way through it, murdering more people than I preferred for a silent assassin. Maybe I’m terrible at Dishonored, or maybe I need more practice.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell

I’ve never read any of Tom Clancy’s Sam Fisher-driven books, but they seem like solid action-lead espionage adventures. Interestingly, the primary focus and hallmark of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell , especially the gameplay for the first game in the series, is a heavy emphasis on light and darkness. Players are expected to use shadows to their advantage. This sounds like a fun mechanic, similar to Snake’s reliance on camouflage in the jungle. Plus, I’ll take any chance I can to don thermal goggles and spot hot bodies from afar.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Look, I know that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is more of a military turn-based tactical alien invasion/planetary defense strategy game than anything strictly stealth-oriented, but there does appear to be some elements of stealth in the gameplay to appreciate. I’ve never been a huge fan of the RTS genre, but there’s something intriguing about this one, something that I did enjoy in Fire Emblem: Awakening–permadeath. That risk/reward of popping out from behind a rock and not instantly evaporating an alien, which results in your named soldier buying the farm.

Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark

Originally called Stealth Bastard Deluxe: Tactical Espionage Arsehole, the renamed Stealth Inc is yet another PlayStation Plus freebie that I downloaded and then never played. Its gameplay has been likened to both Metal Gear Solid and…Super Meat Boy. Not sure how the latter of that comparison works, but I’ll give it a whirl nonetheless. It seems to come packaged with a serious case of attitude, too.

Hitman games

Though I had a horrible time with Hitman: Blood Money, I still have a few more to try, such as Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Hitman: Contracts. I’ve also only played the first level of Hitman: Absolution, so, much like how I treated Dishonored, I need to dig into this one a little more. I am a big fan of taking Agent 47 and dressing him up in a range of colorful costumes to get him through a scenario, but some of the mechanics from those earlier titles are a bit too wonky to grok. Like tossing coins and strangling dudes with wires, both of which I imagine are extremely important to master in order to remain undetected.

Lastly, there are some intriguing stealth games coming out later this year, such as Volume from Thomas Was Alone‘s Mike Bithell, Invisible, Inc. from those fine folks at Klei Entertainment that previously amazed me with Mark of the Ninja, and probably some others I either don’t remember or know they exist yet.

As you can see, there’s plenty of material for me to crouch-walk my way through, even if it takes me an eternity. If you can think of any other great stealth games I should try out, let me know, and I’ll add them to my mental list.

Healing radio frequencies are Naked Snake’s escape

I’m actively not looking up every secret or Easter egg for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but a scan through its Trophy list revealed something I never even knew existed back when I played the game in 2004 slash 2005, on the good ol’ PlayStation 2 in my bedroom at my parents’ house while home from college. I’m specifically talking about healing radio frequencies, seeing as I already knew how to make Snake throw up after spinning him in circles via the surgery screen.

In short, there are special frequencies you can tap into to hear a song play and get your health healed at the same time. Music really is magical. There are eight in total, and once you dial in to them, they stay in your menu of codec options for future use, such as when you run out of life medicine, so long as you don’t mind kicking back and digesting a tune or two. Trust me–I don’t mind, not when the songs are this good.

For those that wanna try ’em out yourselves, drop to one knee and switch to any of these following frequencies, though they might be different for other difficulty settings than Normal:

• 141.85 – “Don’t Be Afraid” by Rika Muranaka
• 142.09 – “Sea Breeze” by Sergei Mantis
• 143.32 – “Sailor” by Starry K.
• 144.86 – “Jumpin’ Johnny” by Chunk Raspberry
• 145.83 – “Salty Catfish” by 66 Boys
• 146.65 – “Rock Me Baby” by 66 Boys
• 148.39 – “Surfing Guitar” by 66 Boys
• 148.96 – “Pillow Talk” by Starry K.

Before I go and confirm anything, I have to wonder if any of these groups are real. I’m no Matt Pinfield from 120 Minutes, but I’m pretty up and up on music, especially fascinating with stuff from the 1940s through the 1960s. Clearly, Chunk Raspberry is a punny play on Chuck Berry, but that still could be someone imitating the legendary pioneer of rock and roll music.  Is the name Sergei Mantis a nod at Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid? Was he originally a lead guitar player in a sultry jazz band before becoming the kind of man that reads your memory card data and tells everyone how much you love the Suikoden series? Not that I mind that, of course.

Okay, I did a little digging. As it turns out, all of the healing radio tracks were actually written by Norihiko Hibino, who selected song titles and artist names as a parody of music in the 1960s. I’m not sure if Hibino played all the instruments as well, but regardless of that…yowza. Pretty cool. I’m a big fan of Starry K already and would totally buy a t-shirt after one of their fictitious concerts. Since discovering these frequencies, I listened to all eight of them in a row to get a Trophy, but have popped one or two, not while injured, but when just chilling in some heavy brush or atop a cliff, enjoying the view. No one tells Big Boss how to his music; I know the years don’t match up, but it would’ve been great to have a Bruce Springsteen track in there as well.

I’m not 100% thorough when it comes to calling everyone on the codec, in every new situation or desperate moment, but I can’t recall these radio frequencies ever being brought up. By Major Zero, by Para-Medic, by Sigint, by EVA. I imagine people just stumbled on to them by accident at first. Either way, I think they are one of my favorite Easter eggs ever; it would’ve been one thing to just include a Chuck Berry song in there, but to go to the effort to write a song to mimick Chuck Berry and the times…that’s some Hideo Kojima-esque level of dedication.

Also: one of the healing radio frequencies should’ve played Snake Eater‘s main theme, which fully recovered Naked Snake’s health and stamina, as well as made him invincible for a short period of time. You know it’s a good idea.

It takes a princess to save a knight in The Tale of Kelda

Don’t you hate it when, in the middle of spinning and swirling and dancing with your one true love in some fantasy-quality grassy field, a ferocious monster snatches away your significant only, leaving you standing there, burning for justice and revenge? I know I do. And so does Kelda, the star of The Tale of Kelda, which was another high-up-on-the-list entry, in terms of votes, for the GameBoy Jam 3 from last year–yes, I’m still nibbling away at it–of which I’ve also tried out two other strong contenders in the names of Roguelight and Meowgical Tower.

The Tale of Kelda, from Sinextra Game Studio and which obviously has no obvious connection with The Legend of Zelda (obviously), is an action platformer, starring the princess herself, which would make Anita Sarkeesian quite proud. It kind of reminds me of when Jade, a journalist, was sent to rescue Double H, an armored soldier, who was kidnapped by the evildoers in Beyond Good & Evil. If only we can get a true take on this notion from Nintendo with the Mario series, and no, sorry, Super Princess Peach was not the best effort, given that most of her power-ups rely on emotions, like joy and rage. Y’know, because all women are emotional.

Moving right along, Kelda deals in simple actions: moving left and right, jumping, double jumping, slashing with her sword, and charging up a magic projectile. That’s it. You’ll use all of these skills to complete each level, with the level’s end identified by a road sign and an arrow to follow. You have five hearts, and a set number of magic spell uses, though killing enemies and breaking pots will reveal extra pick-ups to refill those meters. All in all, it’s a straightforward experience, with little challenge, though there is something extremely satisfying about slashing a skeleton archer to death before it can loose an arrow your way. The platforming is rudimentary and never really tasks with you anything too challenging, but it gets the job done.

A few quibbles, of course. Kelda occasionally would land on the edge of a platform, and she’d sort of get stuck in-between the geometry. I never felt truly confident leaping to another ledge and slashing at an enemy awaiting me there. Lastly, I was able to cheese the final boss by standing in one spot and perfectly timing four or five magic projectiles in a row. Oh wells. This is a jam game, after all, and still a solid stab at the theme and all its limitations.

I have a few more entries from GameBoy Jam 3 downloaded to look at, though I will never experience all 239 creations. Certainly not at my pace, at least. Regardless, stay tuned for more retro-themed adventures and my avant-garde thoughts on ’em. Long live princesses.

Awakener has young adventurer Fadi performing a number of tasks

Evidently, I still have a bunch of Ben Chandler’s earlier point-and-click adventure games downloaded on my laptop, waiting patiently. Ready to be played, like good little patients. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. That is, only if I use my mouse cursor to click on them and hit “run.” That might not sound like a tricky puzzle, but some days, some cold, tired, lonely nights, it can be a true struggle to do anything other than crawl under the heated blanket with a cat and burn the dark hours with a continuous stream of Netflix. That said, I decided to check out Awakener over the weekend and was surprised to discover it was both a short and straightforward experience, peppered with wall-breaking humor and flashy animations, like when Fadi finds the dagger.

Here’s the deal. A nine-year-old boy called Fadi thirsts for adventure much in the same way a drowning man thirsts for air. Er, no. That’s probably too dramatic. So, when asked to retrieve a potion from the local store by his Aunt Sylvia, he sees this straightforward challenge as much more, as a not so simple task. With point-and-click adventure games, it never really is anyways. In order to retrieve this potion, this Spirit of Hartshorn, which should be potent enough to wake the sleeping man outside his aunt’s home, Fadi will have to jump through some non-literal hoops, supplying people he meets with just what they need to give up whatever item they have to help him progress. I mean, that statue isn’t going to dress itself.

As it turns out, Awakener takes place across a single screen, though it does scroll left and right, so you could argue that it is like three rooms connected with no loading. This is not a detriment, as some developers can do a lot with a little. I personally liked the bite-size environment to scour, as it never felt overwhelming, and the backtracking only took a few clicks. You’re in a sort of open market area, with a couple houses and a bar, though you can’t go inside anywhere; no worries, as everyone you need to converse with for puzzle actions is outside, getting some fresh fantasy-limned air. Just like Chandler’s other earlier works, such as Fragment and ~airwave~ – I Fought the Law, and the Law One, the characters and environments are brightly colored, zany, with some nontraditional takes on geometry.

Awakener‘s puzzles are all item-based, which means speaking with someone to figure out what item they need or how to get the item they already have. You’ll never hold too much in your inventory at one time, which keeps things pretty simple to figure out. The solutions are fairly obvious, like helping an assassin on her assassination quest, though I did get stuck for a minute or two on how to obtain the soldier’s pike, not realizing it was a timing issue. Also, if I recall–it’s been a few days now–all puzzles are solved using a single item on a second single thing, with very little item combining at play.

Ultimately, this is a short, early comedic stab from Ben Chandler, one still worth checking out if you have a few minutes to spare and like clicking on things. The dialogue is amusing, especially if you are a fan of adventure games and can take a few jokes at a genre you enjoy, though don’t expect much in the sound department. You can grab a free copy of the game over this a-way.