2016 Game Review Haiku, #17 – Covert Front, Episode 2 “Station on the Horizon”

Kara speaks and sneaks
Finding clues, foul scientists
Ugh, door lock puzzle

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

You’ll never find The Hunt’s Elk King unless you click everywhere

For short, atmospheric-driven point-and-click adventure games, I try to go in blind. Maybe, at most, I’ll read a brief summary of what it is all about, but I’m probably already interested in playing based on either its zany title or if a screenshot revealed an appealing art style. I figure I’ll learn along the way, and it’s not like I’m committing to some hundred-plus JRPG where there are many spinning plates to pay attention to. Well, for Running Zombie’s The Hunt, I read a bit more than usual before exploring its spooky wilderness, and I’m so thankful I did, because without that knowledge, I’d never have been able to complete it.

The Hunt is an otherworldly and horror-heavy point-and-click adventure game that has you tracking down the legendary Elk King, for reasons not clearly stated. This Elk King is a demon that has cursed the surrounding forest, as well as those that pursue it. Also, I keep mistyping it as Elf King, which Thranduil would not approve of–my bad. Before venturing off into the woods, you grab a gun, knife, and your trusty dog Arrow, which I can only assume is a reference to The Point. Anyways, along the way, you’ll find clues, as well as fend off animal attacks, all in search of a mythological creature.

Since The Hunt is a point-and-click adventure game you can play in your browse, one only has to click on things to interact. Some objects will display descriptive text when you hover over them, but not everything you can interact with does this, which leads to a lot of clicking on everything…just to be sure. The game’s developers also seem to like to hide pertinent items and puzzle solutions along the far edges of the screen, where many might not even consider examining. This is the bit I mentioned reading earlier that really saved my skin. In terms of your inventory, it’s mostly weapons and tools, and these items are often used automatically if the stars are aligned and you are standing where you need to be standing. However, using the shovel to dig up the grave makes perfect sense, but the shovel remains in your inventory afterwards despite being depicted as on the ground after shoveling the dirt. I don’t know. The whole interface and way the puzzles are obscured from view makes for extremely awkward gameplay, nearly to the point of frustration.

For example, take a look at the screenshot at the top of this post. I picked it on purpose. See those trees and flowers to the far right side of the screen? Seem fairly nondescript. No descriptive text comes up if you hover over that area. Well, if you click near the “mute” button, but not actually on it, you’ll push the plants away, revealing a boat that will help you get across the island. I stumbled upon this solution through brute force. Or rather, brute clicking. I did not feel rewarded afterwards.

Here’s what The Hunt has going for it: atmosphere and sound department. Also, the art style is loose and grainy, but easy to fall into, like Thomas Cole’s paintings, and the animal attack jump scares did their job, catching me off guard by how fast they happened. I say all this because there’s something here, a glimmer of potential in a dark cave full of red eyes. Hopefully Running Zombie’s next adventure will require less clicking in corners like a madman and more logically tough puzzles. Otherwise, I’m less inclined to chase down that mysterious Elk King. For those curious, I took the “approach” choice when forced, and it did not end well for me or my dog. Sigh.

This is my kingdom, where splatting globs of paint rules

I shouldn’t have waited almost four years to play Giant Sparrow’s The Unfinished Swan. Nor should I have waited to play it since downloading it for “free” back in May 2015 as part of being a PlayStation Plus subscriber. I mean, it’s a short thing, an experience completely capable of devouring within a few hours, which I did recently on my day off thanks to all them presidents and whales.

For some reason, in my mind, I had paired this with Antichamber, which I’ve not played, but what seems like a lengthy and somewhat obtuse puzzle game. One I definitely want to try, but worry I don’t have the brain capacity to handle right now. Both also have amazing styles, where color is king, but thankfully the puzzles in The Unfinished Swan won’t melt your mind. Instead, you’ll find childlike glee and fascination in a straightforward, yet somewhat depressing story about magical and imaginary beings and lands.

The Unfinished Swan tells the touching tale of a young boy named Monroe, who travels through one of his deceased mother’s paintings to reach a mysterious fairytale-like realm, chasing after the titular farm animal. As Monroe makes his way forward, he’ll learn about the king of this world, who is no super saint and will leave you a bit conflicted by the time credits roll. Actually, credits don’t roll per se, but rather unfold as you play through them, and it’s fantastic, right up there with other playable credits, like in Vanquish.

The game is split into a few main chapters (and epilogue), each with its own look and mechanics. Clearly, the first chapter is The Unfinished Swan‘s most effective, opening to stark whiteness, with your only tool being tossing globs of black paint to reveal the world around you. You can use as little or as much paint as you want, and I found myself unable to not fill in the edges of the world to ensure I missed nothing. This is, in fact, only a slice of the game, with the other chapters relying on similar, but not identical mechanics revolving around tossing substances at things. Some work better than others; for instance, I disliked directing and climbing vines, and found getting stuck–and hurt–in the encroaching darkness to be strangely off-putting when compared to everything else up to that point, which never really threw danger in your face.

Naturally, color is used effectively from section to section. Golden crowns and orange footprints (gooseprints?) help direct you early on in The Unfinished Swan when you’re unsure where to go, and massive black-and-white city is fascinating to behold from afar. I constantly had the urge to jump into a spaceship and zip through it like in Race the Sun, but that’s probably just me. Later on, you’ll travel to another dimension where everything is blue, like unrolled blueprints, or desperately follow after a ball of light to not only survive the monsters stalking after you, but see where you need to go next.

Other than progressing forward linearly, there are balloons to collect, and these collectibles act as currency to buy power-ups, like being about to shoot paint in a hose-like fashion, and other goodies, like concept art. Do yourself a favor and buy the “balloon radar” toy as soon as possible, which will alert you as you get near a collectible. That said, I did not get all the balloons on my first playthrough, but similar to Rain, you can pop back into a chapter easily to find what you missed. Thankfully, not similar to Rain, these balloons are obtainable on your first go, so I only have a few left to snag. Mostly in the last main chapter, as there was a time pressure element at hand that caused me to ignore everything around me unless it served to get Monroe to safety.

So, I really liked The Unfinished Swan. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, based on only knowing how that first chapter played out from some Internet coverage, but that’s okay. In this day and age, it’s nice to not have everything about everything known to you beforehand. Also, more games need a button you can repeatedly press to have the main character call out for someone, anyone, à la Luigi’s Mansion. Despite nobody ever answering poor, lonely Monroe, I continued to push the button every few minutes, to ground myself and him in this world, to make noise.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #14 – The Unfinished Swan

See the world through paint
Casual shooter plus vines
Short, but sweet story

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

Going too far to cure the Curse of the Mushroom King

The Curse of the Mushroom King looks stellar, but inhibits every element of point-and-click adventure games that I absolutely loathe, which is a real shame as there’s a cuteness to its look and randomness. However, it never overshadows the frustration of clicking on every single thing a dozen times and brute-forcing your way ahead by trying every item with every other item in your inventory or object in the world until you want to rip the main character’s face off when he makes some snarky remark about you not even thinking about things logically. Phew. That was a long sentence. Keep it together, Abbamondi.

In Bad Viking’s The Curse of the Mushroom King, which can be downloaded for free on iOS and Android or played in one’s browser, you play as a character called…Bad Viking. Hmm. I’m not sure if “bad” is being used in the same way that my comics are or if he really is terrible at all things viking or if it’s just a nickname that stuck. Anyways, he gets on the wrong side of the Mushroom King fast by refusing to have some soup, getting cursed for his rudeness. The curse is that he’ll never again be able to enjoy the taste of PB&J sandwiches. This is upsetting to him, and I completely relate, but only if the jelly is grape and nothing else. In order to lift the curse, Bad Viking must retrieve an eclectic list of items–like a dragon’s egg and a banana–to make a special potion.

It’s a short–but not that short–point-and-click adventure game where you have a literal list of items to gather. This sort of scenario is fairly common for the genre. Unfortunately, while there may only be five items to collect in total, each item has multiple steps, with some paths crossing others before you can complete them. I’m okay with this, truly, but only if there is some in-game guidance. Don’t hold my hand, but at least give me an idea of what I’m supposed to be doing. Here, in The Curse of the Mushroom King, you barely get any nudge as to what to do next.

Let me give an example of a puzzle that I simply couldn’t understand; I was forced to look up the solution online. From the very beginning of the game, the bartender refuses to speak to Bad Viking until he has met the wizard. That’s all he says, and no other characters mention a wizard or give a hint to where he/she might be and how to summon them. Later, you find a stone plinth with a hole at the top by the tree with the bees; for some reason or another, if you place a cannonball in it, the wizard appears, ready to spit some mathematical riddles your way. Now, clicking on that stone plinth prior to placing the cannonball there gives no indication that you should do something like that or that even doing something here is how one could call forth a magical man from another realm. It’s a tortuous, convoluted puzzle, and only one of many more to crawl through.

My other problem with The Curse of the Mushroom King has to do with its art style, which I enjoy greatly from a cartoonist’s perspective. However, the colorful graphics make it hard to tell what it either an item or thing you can interact with. Nothing is highlighted differently when you hover your mouse over it, which resulted in my clicking like a mad fiend on everything I could before moving on to the next scene. You also end up having a ton of items in your inventory within a few minutes of playing, which meant I needed to try every combination of items possible, even if it didn’t make sense logically. I remember struggling with this issue in Deponia.

Sure, without a doubt, The Curse of the Mushroom King is nice to look at, but a soundtrack, dialogue tree system, and better way to distinguish interactive areas from background art would help make this a stronger recommendation. As is, there’s too much pixel hunting and guessing going on here. That said, a few other games from Bad Viking look intriguing, like The Dreamerz and Escape to Hell, so we’ll see if these problems are persistent across the developer’s other work. In due time, of course. I’m still feeling cursed from this one.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #10 – Jasper’s Journeys

A witch stole your cat
Fifteen levels stand in way
Don’t understand fruit

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.

This Isolated Subject is going nowhere fast

Man, I really wanted to finish Isolated Subject. Stopped on the seventh level, out of what I believe to be a total of twenty. It’s not that I’m too dumb to solve its multiple dimensions-based puzzles, though I suspect the later levels get really tricky once you are warping between four different worlds and juggling multiple super-powers. It’s not because the game is abusing some sort of free-to-play scheme and is only letting you play the first half at no cost and then demanding you pay cash money for the last chunk. No, it’s because I hit a point where I simply couldn’t play it any more due to extreme lag, a real enemy to games involving any sort of precision, and there are some tight jumps to do here, as well as switching between various phases.

Isolated Subject was developed by a user by the name of crneumre and is hosted over at Armor Games, a site I like for introducing me to the Deep Sleep series. In this puzzle platformer, the world is divided up, with each realm living by its own unwritten rules. In one world, you might be able to jump higher, and in the next you can walk on air. The test subject, who looks a bit like a robot alien and is totally okay with being sacrificed for the greater good, must learn these tricks and use them in collaboration to collect white cubes, which allow you to go through the exit doorway to the next level.

Nearly nothing is explained to you other than the basic functions: move with the [A] and [D] keys, with [W] letting you jump; pressing [1] and [2] will warp you between the separate realms; lastly, hitting the spacebar loosely connects you to both realms, giving you both powers to use. At least that’s what I think is going on. Again, it’s not clearly explained, probably on purpose, but that doesn’t make it any less intriguing and surprising when you discover you can walk across large gaps or clear out chunks of wall in your way. It’s all about experimenting, and thinking outside the box when even your best shots of experimenting fall flat.

Unfortunately–and I’m not one hundred percent certain whether this has to do with either the game or the browser or maybe even the website, though based on Isolated Subject‘s comments section I’m inclined to believe I’m not in the minority here–the game lags. I don’t understand why, but it is beyond frustrating, especially when you are trying to make a jump. Or simply switch to the other world, but it’s not registering your button presses. I also then ran into a situation where, right before a snippet of lag took action, the game registered me pressing the button to walk to the right, and thus that action became stuck until I reset the entire level. Boo. This was right when things were getting truly interesting, with level seven introducing more than two worlds to explore.

And so I must walk away, never to know if the subject in Isolated Subject ever stops being so isolated. A shame really, as there is some cleverness here to witness, and a good ramp in terms of complexity and difficulty. When it comes to puzzles, graphics can always take a backseat. Perhaps you’ll have better luck than I did. Perhaps the world never hitches for you, constantly rotating, like clockwork, as it should. Maybe some of us are destined to lag, to fall behind, and that this is the universe’s new way to separate the weak from the persistent. Perhaps this is a sign.

Journey to the Center of the Sun dreams up your new purpose

I questioned whether I should consider Journey to the Center of the Sun as a game I completed in 2016, seeing as it took no more than ten minutes to get through, ends abruptly, and doesn’t actually deliver on the promise of journeying to the center of the sun. That said, there’s definitely something here. A seed of an idea, an ocean of style, and it has the potential to be something grander, so I’m giving it its due in hope of pushing it forward to evolve into a more fulfilling experience.

Here’s the plot, which is far-fetched, but fun in a Pixar-like fashion: you wake from a vivid dream with a new purpose in life, which is to be the first human ever to fly a rocket into the sun. Your first goal is to get hold of a rocketship. Unfortunately, after finding one on your apartment building’s rooftop, you discover that it’s going to cost you $8 zillion to purchase. That’s quite an expensive rocketship, as well as an indeterminately large amount of money in reality. Might as well said it costs $567.9 million billion trillion jillion zillion.

Obviously, what really sold me to give Journey to the Center of the Sun a shot are its visuals, which are childish, but dripping with style. They are both vibrant and gloomy all at once, and they help distract you from the silly nature of the plot whereas if these were highly detailed people and environments you might just walk away from it entirely for being too goofy of a game. Some scenes look nicer than others, especially the sewer and inside the coffee shop, but there’s a foundation here to grow from. Evidently, this game from Chad Lare was inspired by onegameamonth.com and its “solar” theme from July 2015; you can read more about his thoughts postmortem its release over at his blog.

A couple of critiques, because now’s the time. I found transitioning between scenes involving doors to be jarring, as you’re stuck inside the doorway when in the next area and have to move out of it first before exploring, instead of simply appearing outside of the doorway. A bit hard to explain, but if you give the game a go–I’ll link to it in the last paragraph–you’ll see what I mean. The UI for the dialogue trees is a bit strange, though not a deal-breaker. Lastly, and I don’t know if this had something more to do with my browser since I didn’t download the Windows version, there’s no audio, which could really help give the ultra atmospheric visuals an extra punch.

I’m curious to see either this style or Journey to the Center of the Sun develop. Really, I’d be happy with either outcome. Until then, give this a shot, especially if you aren’t a big fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Trust me on that last bit.

The terse answer to Can You Escape is yup, but only to level 9

I’ve been asked before, in real life, if I’d like to participate in one of those “escape the room” scenarios that are mega popular right around Halloween time. Or possibly other times too, but that’s when these scenarios can take the scaring to a whole new level. My gut response each and every time is to scream noooo and run away, arms flailing, never looking back. It’s not that I don’t think I have the brains to find my way out or even mind working cooperatively with friends (or strangers), but the idea of being closed in a small room with no immediate way out is enough to set me on edge…before I’m even in the room. Heck, I can barely handle waiting in that tight foyer on Disney World’s Haunted Mansion ride.

All that said, I have no problem playing digital versions of “escape the room,” and even seek these out now and then, as they often provide somewhat logical puzzles to figure out, which gets my brain muscles to flex for a bit. Can You Escape, which is one of the more lackluster attempts at a creative title about escaping a place, missing even enough energy to add a question mark at the end, is free to download from Microsoft for the PC or mobile devices. I grabbed it for my laptop, seeing as it now rocks Windows 10 and all that–plus, when it comes to pixel hunting, the bigger the screen the better.

Can You Escape takes place in a tall apartment building, which is purported to house a number of exceptional residents, with varying tastes and lifestyles. However, you won’t actually meet any of them per se, but you will get to explore their apartments and then escape them after you are done poking and prodding around. You begin in the lobby, but slowly ascend, with each room offering more and harder puzzles to solve before moving on to the next occupant’s home. I was under the assumption that you got fifteen levels to play here, which sounded like a fine enough deal for something that is free to download, but you only actually can play nine levels before you have to drop some cash. More on that in a bit.

To escape an apartment, you have to find the key that will open up the elevator–which defies logic and opens directly into each person’s place, acting as a front door anyone can step through–and to do that you’ll first have to solve a number of other puzzles that will eventually lead to the key or result in you creating a makeshift key. The number of puzzles and the difficulty level goes up every floor. There are clues all around, and you’ll do a lot of clicking, to and fro, gathering a small amount of items in your inventory to be used elsewhere or combined with another obtainable item. If you have a mediocre memory like me, you’ll also take pictures of clues with your cell phone. I do wish that some areas where you can click were made more obvious, as there was one apartment with a toy train and set of tracks on the floor that I didn’t know was clickable until I watched an online walkthrough after getting stuck. Also, a few items are difficult to decipher based on their picture only, so a description could have helped.

Can You Escape is fine. It’s not good, and it’s certainly not great. The puzzles do range from obvious to obtuse at times, but nothing will break your brain, and completing a puzzle about matching symbols do different heights still sends out satisfactory vibes through your body. Well, it does at least for my body. For a free download limned with the constant clutter of ads and that looping drum beat, it’s fine. I just wish they gave you all fifteen levels to play and locked other non-essential content behind a pay-wall. Here’s how the money breaks down for those stuck in the same boat that finished more than half of the levels and kind of actually want a little more:

• All-in Package – $1.99
• Bonus Levels 1 – $0.99
• Bonus Levels 2 – $0.99
• Remove Ads – $0.99

Yeah. It’s weird. I’m under the assumption that “Bonus Levels 1” gets you levels 10, 11, and 12, and that “Bonus Levels 2” will provide you with the remaining three–surprise, surprise, the game doesn’t really provide you many details. You could buy both those options together or simply get the “All-in Package” for seemingly the same price. Even still, I don’t think this is worth the money, especially after the developers give you nearly half the game for zero cents. A shame; plus it means that I won’t get to put Can You Escape on my completed list of games for 2016. Boo. I like finishing things.

A quick bit of research–in other words, Googling–shows that Can You Escape 2 is also available to play for free as well, but only to a point. There’s also a ton of in-app purchases for more levels and origamis (?). Hmm. I think I’ll steer clear from here onward, finding escapism elsewhere, where you get what you get, and you get out with what you got.

Follow or disregard instructions in Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist

Here’s the honest truth: if I had just taken some more initiative last month and played Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist when it was released like a good little soldier boy, it most assuredly would have made my top five favorite games for the year. Sorry, Time Clickers, but let’s get real; you would have gotten cut fast, seeing as you don’t hold a candle–in terms of a singular, satisfying experience–to Dr. Langeskov. Still, the in-game feedback forms are right, as this title is far too long for consumption, but one should never complain about a free lunch.

Before I describe Dr. Langeskov to you in my own fancy words, allow me to share its amusing description on Steam:

A 15 minute heist game by Crows Crows Crows & Directed by William Pugh (The Stanley Parable). Slip into the soft-soled shoes of the mastermind responsible for the greatest heist- oh god I can’t do this any more, i’m joining the strike. good luck writing the steam description.

Right. Once you load up this “heist game,” you’ll begin to realize this is not a traditional, straightforward experience on your end. Instead of controlling the player moving through the mansion, avoiding pitfalls and dangers like a pro, and stealing the cursed emerald for reasons unknown, you are the one behind the curtains making everything happen. I mean everything–lighting, weather effects, making the lift rise. Without you, the tiger would never get released. You are the man from Omaha that flew into a strange land via a hot air balloon and is getting things done. Honestly, it’s the sort of off-the-wall interactions you’d expect from The Stanley Parable‘s William Pugh, with the action being focused around a gleefully playful narrative and whether or not you want to listen to the narrator’s instructions or do things as you please.

So, just like in The Stanley Parable, you are guided from one location to the next with the help of a cheeky, about-to-lose-it narrator that speaks directly to you and often openly to himself in a nervous, captivating manner, voiced by British comedian Simon Amstell. When he notices you, he immediately puts you to work behind the scenes, seeing as there has been a worker strike. His tone is never ornery, and even when you decide to not do what he says and push buttons clearly designed not to be pushed right now, he handles everything with a nervous laugh before ushering you onward. He is not an all-knowing being, commenting on your choices from a cloud of snobbery. Look, I’m not going to be doing a top ten of my favorite British narrators in videogames, but if I did, he’d be pretty high up there, rubbing shoulders with Thomas Was Alone‘s Danny Wallace and The Stanley Parable‘s Kevan Brighting.

Since Dr. Langeskov is fairly short and somewhat non-linear in that there are a handful of different things you can do as you go along, I won’t spoil too much about each room, especially the final area, which had me grinning from ear to ear as chaos and comedy collided into one fantastic conclusion. But my suggestion is this: take your time. There’s a lot to look at in terms of posters on the wall, post-it notes, papers strewn about, and all of it feeds into the bigger picture. I’m not gonna lie–some of the “fake” game posters look intriguing. Much of these elements are highly detailed in the same fashion as things were in Gone Home, an aspect I greatly appreciate, not just because my eyesight is poor.

I played through Dr. Langeskov twice and did not find the grappling hook. Curses and shouts. Shaking fists and fiery eyes. I’ll go back one more time, most likely, to see if it indeed does exist, as well as to gobble up each and every strangely placed pretzel. More games should contain pretzels as collectibles. If Dr. Langeskov does anything for our industry going forward, please let it be that.