2015 Game Review Haiku, #24 – Kram Keep

Bloodsucking menace
Waits at the top of this keep
Collect powers, kill

–

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.

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.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #21 – The Tale of Kelda

Dragon takes your knight
Jump, slash, charge your magic blasts
Good to be princess

–

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.

Coma means to feel nothing and still get full credit for being alive

It’s interesting to see what an impact 2010’s Limbo from developer Playdead had on the gaming industry. It’s been almost five full years since the world got to take control of a young boy, wreathed in silhouette, on the hunt to find his missing sister. Since the world got to watch in horror as horror happened to this young boy for every misstep and mistake he–a.k.a. you–made. Coma doesn’t punish you in the same trial and error way as Limbo did, but it still evokes a somber, almost futile sense of dread with every jump and change of scenery. I dug it, but there’s problems. Also, questions.

What’s a coma? An extended state of unconsciousness. I’ve never been in one and hope to never experience it, but you never know what way life will go. More pertinent to the topic at hand–what’s Coma with a capital c? It’s a light exploration and adventure game by Thomas Brush, playable in your browser over at Adult Swim’s games section. Probably a bajillion other sites, too, but this is where I first stumbled across it, my new go-to site for small, bite-sized gaming experiences, like Insidia and Winnose from last year. It’s a casual platformer, with no fail state that I could find and a running time of maybe fifteen to twenty minutes, depending if you get stuck trying to figure out how to make it across that one big gap.

Coma‘s story is purposefully obtuse. You play as a tiny boy-thing, drowning in shadows. You are searching for your sister who, according to a bird-thing you befriend, is trapped in a secret basement. Along the way you’ll run into other strange critter-things who may or may not help you. There’s writing on the walls that maybe clue you in on the state of this realm and Pete’s abusive father, but again, it’s not really for the game to say. Is this boy in a coma? Is he trying to rescue his sister, who is the one in a coma? Is that big blobby queen creature a tumor? Not really sure. I both like that and don’t, as the game’s world is perhaps too ethereal and foreign to feel grounded in, so I have nowhere to even begin basing anything off of.

The controls are thus: use the arrow keys to move left and right, as well as the up arrow to jump. Personally, I’m not a fan of this, as I like my jump command to be binded to a different button than the movement keys as it can sometimes be tricky to press both in one direction and then up to leap over an obstacle. You use the mouse to advance dialogue by clicking on it. That’s it, which is more than enough for an exploratory platformer. Unfortunately, the fluidity of the jumping takes some getting used to and is not very accurate when you need it, such as jumping large gaps or from ledge to ledge. Plus, given that there is maybe one or two choices to make, dialogue should’ve scrolled automatically, with no input needed by the player.

A platformer with poor platforming controls should not be played. That’s a pretty obvious call, really. However, Coma is so gorgeous to look at and listen to that I urge everyone to push past the lackluster leaping to see the next screen, hear the next tune. I’m a sucker for fields where the grass sways and flowers bob as you brush past them, and that happens a lot here. There’s also a beautifully picturesque sequence involving a trampoline and clouds that I won’t say any more about. When Coma gets dark, it gets dark, and that’s fine, given the subject matter, but I much more preferred wandering around above ground than in the giant worm-infested darkness below.

Coma will most likely mean something different to everyone that plays it. For a short, relatively simple adventure gameplay-wise, reading a bunch of various interpretations about what Peter’s sister’s song means and the point of Mama Gomgossa’s ball game is nonetheless stimulating. Play, don’t trust the bird, and see what you see.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #7 – Coma

Don’t ring the doorbell
Some comas are eternal
The bird’s a liar

–

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.

At least the cynical swipes in DLC Quest are totally free

DLC Quest is a bit like a song or movie that directly references something from the same time period it was created in, and it could be anything, such as an actress or a movie or a made-up-word-that-is-now-totally-a-word like YOLO; the more time goes on and things change, the stranger it appears. It becomes a firm, unmovable companion to the mentioned item. DLC Quest is obviously about DLC, but it references a very specific time in DLC’s early, burgeoning years, and so it’s strange coming to it after things have, more or less, calmed down. At least it’s a decent little platformer, if a bit simplistic.

The plot in DLC Quest boils down to a single sentence: defeat the villain, save the day. However, that’s not very easy to do at the start of the game, when your hero is stripped of even his most basic abilities, like jumping or moving left/right. To gain more moves, you need to purchase in-game DLC from a shopkeeper dude by collecting gold coins. Heck, there’s not even a soundtrack until you unlock it. This is the main hook, as well as the game’s satirical punchline, which you’ll absorb on loop. Each DLC pack is priced differently and has a short, amusing description, and the DLC, once purchased, immediately affects the game around you. Like the pet pack or sexy outfits pack.

The call to collect all the coins and buy every DLC pack, whether it sounds useful or not, is still strong. I did hit a lull towards the middle stretch, but then bought the Double Jump pack and was able to find my second wind, now having new places to reach and explore. The movement and jumping is not fantastic, but it works well enough; thankfully, the platforming isn’t too challenging. Alas, there’s a lot of backtracking to the shopkeeper, which is not fun nor made funny when non-playable characters comment on it to the hero. If this was a lengthier title, it would be unacceptable, but since this is a pretty short, bite-sized experience, I let the less-than-stellar bouncing and returning to the same dude slide and enjoyed my time exploring around.

While DLC Quest‘s main mission is obviously to lambast the idea of downloadable content, it also pokes fun at Achievements with an in-game system of their own called Awardments. Most of them pop with natural progression, but a few are tied to tasks like discovering a specific hidden hole in the wall or killing every person/sheep you encounter. I went after some of these, but not all.

So, here’s the funny thing: there’s another version of the game called DLC Quest: Live Freemium or Die! I don’t have it, but I could totally upgrade by…purchasing DLC for DLC Quest. With actual money. The very concept they are making light of. It’s not a big deal, really, just something I find amusing. Sounds like it is more of the same, with a new villain to take down and more DLC packs to purchase to help the cause. I think the Day One Patch pack is the funniest from the list I quickly scanned, but I doubt I’ll ever come back to DLC Quest.

It’s not a game I’d recommend everyone dropping their life to play right now, but it’s an enjoyable, wholly unique experience nonetheless. I can only imagine how bizarre it might seem in like ten years. Or 2087, when DLC has taken over Earth and is our new robotic overlords and they grind us up into data code to make new DLC for government policies.

There’s just no turning back in And Yet It Moves

And Yet It Moves has been in my Steam library and untouched for a pretty long time. Specifically, since July 2011, which is when I got it and a bunch of other not-known-at-the-time indie games as part of the Humble Indie Bundle 3. Man, I can’t even make an estimated guess as to what bundle we’re coming up to now, seeing as that whole process has evolved from just the occasional bundle to weekly happenings and themed promotions and a store and bundles about books and music and whatever else you can think of. Anyways, And Yet It Moves is not the first name at the top of my list of Steam games, but it’s pretty close, which means I see it all the time when logging in to the client, so I’m glad I finally sat down and played through it.

Besides being a famous quote said by Galileo, And Yet It Moves is a puzzle platformer, one where you turn more than you actually jump. Let me explain. The game’s main nifty shtick focuses on moving the player character, represented as a colorful man made of paper with wavy hair, through an environment full of hazardous obstacles. At any time, one can freely rotate the entire game world with the left and right arrow keys, transforming walls into floors and moving things like boulders and broken branches out of the way. Your goal is to basically navigate the environment and make it to the end safely, and you’ll have to be careful how you turn the world as our little paper hero can’t fall from very high and ends up maintaining momentum even as everything around him shifts.

There’s no real story to follow or even a thin set-up in And Yet It Moves. You’re just this paper man, stuck in a rotatable world. That’s okay, honestly, but it probably wouldn’t have been too difficult to come up with some kind of conflict. Maybe the paper man wants to find out who made him, how he is alive, where this rotating power came from. I actually thought we were getting somewhere along those lines during the last few levels, where everything begins getting LSD trippy and unpredictable. Anyways, the game features paper collage-inspired visuals designed by Jan Hackl, which are a treat to behold and watch move behind and in front of other visual planes, and a beatboxing soundtrack performed by Christoph Binder that really becomes its own when the vanishing platforms appear, your jumps nearly timed to the drums.

I only ended up getting seriously stuck in one spot, where there is fire involved. Little ol’ me didn’t notice that the flames change direction as you tilt the world, so you need to position them just right to set other things blocking your path ablaze. Other than that, trial and error and persistence are the key tactics here. There are other game modes to try like time attack levels, but this never felt like the sort of experience one should rush, especially given how slow the main character moves.

Oh, and we can add And Yet It Moves to that list of games with fantastic, interactive end credits. It can stand proudly next to Vanquish, even if it doesn’t last terribly long due to the small staff behind it.

Let’s see, let’s see. So, from the Humble Indie Bundle 3, I’ve now gotten through two entire games–And Yet It Moves and VVVVVV–played Cogs for a wee bit, and have never even launched Crayon Physics Deluxe or Hammerfight. Maybe I’ll try to see what those last two are like sooner than later or maybe they’ll just have to be even more patient and wait a couple more years. I know, I’m so cruel.

That evil charro skeleton Carlos Calaca is no more

A problem of late is that I’m not getting to write about games immediately after finishing them up, and you can blame this on my dream goal of drawing a comic for every game I finish this year. See, in prior years, I’d write a haiku of said finished game and then, if warranted, I’d write some further and final thoughts about the experience, and I’d do both of these things relatively fast, with everything still fresh in my mind. For 2014, I beat a game, add its name to my ever-growing list, and sigh in sadness at just how far behind I am in these comics. Then, instead of writing about it, I either wallow in my own frustration or start sketching a comic for a game I beat months ago.

Now, the last few posts on Grinding Down have shown promise, as I got to cover the Puzzle Agent games quickly, am still currently playing Doki-Doki Universe, and only tapped into Charlie Murder a week ago, meaning I’m relatively caught up, but there’s a bunch of in-progress blogs on my dashboard that are beginning to grow mold. Seriously, green-and-purple fuzzy grass hairdoFor example, I still haven’t talked about my time with Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, Spyro the Dragon, or even Transistor, one of this year’s big AAA releases. Hopefully soon.

All of those two paragraphs are there to say this: I beat Guacamelee! the other night. It’s a game I started playing in April, walked away from due to a difficult boss fight, picked up again in May, walked away due to a difficult platforming puzzle section, skipped playing it entirely in June due to life falling apart, and then returned to it last night to polish off the final chunk of the game in one glorious go that nearly saw me twisting my Xbox 360 controller into plastic bits. Don’t let the cartoony graphics and bouncy tunes fool you…this is one of the toughest platforming games I’ve played since VVVVVV and not getting very far in Super Meat Boy.

If you’ll recall, humble agave farmer Juan Aguacate lives in a small village in Mexico and is in love with El Presidente’s daughter. Alas, an evil charro skeleton named Carlos Calaca attacks the village and kidnaps her, forcing Juan to go after them. The story never really gets in the way and is only told moments before and after boss fights. This grandiose journey will see Juan jumping between the realms of the living and the dead, jumping between ground and air-borne enemies to punch, kick, and throw, and jumping from platform to platform to reach new areas. Basically, there’s a lot of jumping. Thankfully, the jumping controls are really good, generally leaving any missed landings as your fault, and be prepared to feel the blame constantly, especially the parts where you have to both move and switch between realms in split-second decisions. They are grueling, but then at the same time, really rewarding to complete.

I’m still not 100% completely sold on Guacamelee!‘s combat. And maybe it’s because I was still using the same tactics and combats that I rocked at the beginning of the game at the very end of it, too. After a while, Juan will have some special color-coded attacks, like uppercutting or headbutting, but I found just mashing the punch button until a button prompt appeared over the enemy’s head, which means they can now be thrown, worked well enough. Even in locked-in kill rooms. So long as you can get a good thrown enemy to bounce around and knock down other beasts, you can pretty much keep everything under control. Thankfully, you also restore health at every save point, which are frequently scattered across the Metroidvania map.

Before the final boss fight, you get the option to warp back to previous locations to finish up any side quests or find more health/stamina upgrades. I decided against this as I was cemented in my goal to finish the game, afraid I’d just end up putting it down again for another month. Thankfully, after you take down Carlos Calaca and his second form, which, for me, took at least ten attempts, you can reload into the game right before the boss fight. So I can potentially go back and look for more stuff, if I’m interested. Honestly, I’m kind of interested, and it’s all thanks to a handy-dandy map that is constantly updating where hidden areas are, as well as your completion percentage. Good on you for that, Guacamelee! because really, I can’t be bothered to remember this stuff. However, I don’t think I’ll be attempting every jumping/warp portal puzzle left because…um, my hands just can’t take it, but it is fun finding the secret areas.

I played Guacamelee! on Steam with a Xbox 360 controller, and I really can’t imagine someone using mouse and keyboard here. I mean, maybe. Um, maybe. But my tiny, one-sided controller-loving brain just can’t picture it. There are so many moments where you have to respond in less than an eye blink, and I’d say the controller is the way to go. Just my two cents. One day, it’d be fun to experience it co-op, but then that would mean co-op jumping puzzles, and my heart is all adiós a mis amigos.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #43 – 400 Years

A calamity
Is coming, have to stop it
E to plant chestnut

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Tower of Heaven is a tough, rule-stacking platformer

Much like with Persist, I am finding myself drawn to platformers that really mix the genre up so that it is no longer simply about jumping left to right, down to up. Those simplistic actions are totally fine, given that that’s where this genre really began with Super Mario Bros. and Alex Kidd in Miracle World, but eventually the premise wears thin, and there needs to be something else tossed into the machine to create a different style of play.

Again, in Persist, you lost abilities, like being unable to swim in water or even jump, which made traditional platforming problematic and demanded you figure out a way around regardless. In Fez, which is probably more puzzler than platformer, you could rotate the level to traverse to new areas, find hidden secrets, and see everything in a new light. Braid had you playing with time. Sonic the Hedgehog, which I’ve never been good at, placed more of an emphasis on speed than straightforward platforming, and 3D titles like Jumping Flash! took advantage of a rather unique and challenging perspective for platforming purposes, with the camera locked in first person mode, which made leaping to extreme heights both exhilarating and disorienting. And awesomely, I could list other examples, but I think that’s decent for now.

Well, in Askiisoft’s Tower of Heaven, our game of the moment, there’s a rule book you acquire early on, and if you don’t follow the rules, you die–plain as paper. Designed to look like a Game Boy romp of old, this challenging platformer looks more innocent than it really is. By the time you pick up the second or third rule, it’s just as difficult as the masochistic platformers of this past generation–I guess I can say that now since we’re moving on to the next one with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One finally exiting their respective dungeons–namely, Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be the Guy. It’s difficult and leaves nearly no room for error, especially once you can’t go left, touch the side of blocks, and even touch other living beings. But I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.

The plot. Yup, there’s a plot. You are a lost soul, represented as a dark shadow of a human figure, and you are attempting to climb a…tower. Where does it go? Well, the game’s title should clue you in, but I couldn’t tell if that was meant to be taken literally or figuratively. A mysterious voice from above does not believe you can do it and begins to throw wrenches into your plans when it becomes clear you are unwilling to walk away from your heavenly goal. There’s some religious text at the very end that kind of confused me and felt like it was there to be “deep” and “thoughtful”, but really added little to the story. In each level, your goal is to reach the staircases and continue up. However, as you progress, the voice from above will place specific restrictions on you (such as you can no longer hit the left key or touch the side of walls), and these rules eventually stack on top of each other, meaning you have to constantly be aware of all the things you can’t do, as well as what you can. At one point, you weren’t even allowed to check the rules menu; if you hit the button to bring up the list, you exploded into pixels. It’s a fantastic gameplay idea, though it makes for tough towering.

All that said, here’s about nine minutes of me going through the motions for Tower of Heaven‘s first few levels. Warning: my mic audio is very high and airy, and I’m still tinkering with my settings to learn what works and what doesn’t for recording purposes. Again, if anyone has any tips, I’ll take ’em. Just throw them at my head; I’m using OBS now to record gameplay footage and a LogiTech headset.

I played more after the video ends and was able to beat Tower of Heaven after about twenty or twenty-five minutes on the final few levels. I came very close to giving up entirely though, that’s how challenging it got. When the rule states that you can no longer touch living beings like butterflies and grass, well…you begin to notice that stuff is all over the place. Anyways, the ending was simply okay, if a bit muddled in its own revelations and heavy religious tone, but I dug it nonetheless. Just like in VVVVVV, you get a stats screen at the end, and mine showed that I died a total of 154 times, which I am totally not ashamed of. If you’re into retro games with some challenge, this one is definitely worth checking out.