Tales of Maj'Eyal

Gamers could be forgiven for being slightly world-weary at the moment, as they are forced to sit and watch their once-beloved hobby become an industry.  An industry in which publishers think it's OK to charge their customers £60 for something that doesn't work (and then lie to them by insisting that they have to connect to non-existent servers whilst doing it), or to release a game for £35 and then immediately ask for more money for different weapons (which should have been included anyway). It's enough to make a man turn to drink.

For example, look at Battlefield 3.  The game was released in November 2011 and cost £40-50 to buy.  After some time EA announced a load of downloadable content, and gave players the "chance" to gain access to it by paying another £40 up front for the "premium" version of the game.  What's more lots of people did this and there are now 2.9 million premium members - earning EA another $108 million in revenue.  Let's just go through that again. 3 million people happily paid twice for the game.  Well done EA.

In fact EA are the common factor in all of these examples (they publish Sim City 5, Dead Space 3 and Battlefield 3) but it would be a mistake to think that they are wholly responsible for this precipitous decline into micro-transactions, always-online DRM and money-grasping cynicism.  I mean, they are largely responsible and they're certainly the worst offenders, but they're not the only company who have come along to feast on your wallets.  Gaming is a big money thing these days and it attracts the same kind of shiny-suited and shiny-haired shysters who infest the rest of the known world, vacant soul-less incubi who look at something beautiful and can only see ways of milking every last drop of filthy lucre from it.

So it is with a profound sense of relief that I can report to you, dear reader, that there are still some good people out there, making games.  Tales of Maj'Eyal is a graphical roguelike (similar to Dungeons of Dredmor but without the facial hair), which has spent the last 15 years evolving into its current state and (whisper it) it's free.  In fact, not only is it free but the engine used to create the game is also available for other developers to use, as the whole project is open-source (so anybody can modify it or update it or play with it).  Now obviously a man has to eat so donations are encouraged, but they are strictly optional and left to the player's own integrity and honesty.   Donators are given extra things, like a unique character class or access to a vault in which to store items, but people who play for free are still able to access the whole game without any restrictions.  So there's a carrot but no stick, which makes a nice change from being treated like a pirate or an idiot or both.  How refreshing.

The game itself is pretty interesting.  Roguelikes seem to be all the rage at the moment (or maybe that's just in my little world) and TOME is a fine example.  It has its origins in ASCII based games such as Angband but it uses a tileset to make everything a bit more graphically pleasing and accessible and this commitment to accessibility is something which recurs  throughout the game.  If there's a part of you which has always wanted to try out something like this but you've been put off by the unrelenting difficulty and impenetrable interfaces then this may well be the roguelike for you.

Part of the reason for this, as already mentioned, is that the game doesn't rely on using ASCII symbols to portray its world (although the purists amongst you can still do that if you wish).  Instead things are presented clearly (if plainly) with pictures for different types of monsters - and trees, dungeons, mountains and so on.  Anything important (like an area's entrance) is usually marked with a sparkly effect until you use it and tooltips come up when you put your cursor over things to tell you what they are.  It may not be especially visually amazing but it gets the required information across and there is never any confusion about what is around you - a clarity which also extends to the interface.  Unlike some other, earlier, roguelike games most actions can be completed with just the mouse - no more trying to remember that q is for quaff and :s20 will search an area twenty times.  You can click anywhere on the screen and your character will move there automatically, you click on a monster to attack it and you select which skills to use and spells to cast by selecting graphical icons from a bar on the bottom of the screen.  You can even auto-explore an area, just press "z" and your character will happily delve away until they find something you need to know about.  It's all extremely user-friendly.

And TOME also softens some of a roguelike's traditional difficulty by giving the player more than the customary single life. Here your character gets extra chances as they increase in level and there are also items which can be used to resurrect them.  Again, if you are a purist you can choose for this not to happen - but for the rest of us it gives the ability to experiment a little with some of the more optional areas (which are clearly marked with warnings, so that the inexperienced player has nobody but themselves to blame when a foray inevitably ends in their character's gruesome demise.)  Death still comes often in TOME but at least the player gets the option of being able to learn from their mistakes without restarting the whole thing.

However, the game's greatest strength lies in its character creation and progression.  There are 25 classes and 10 races - but most of these are locked when you start and can be unlocked during play.  Each class and race has access to different skill and talent trees, and gain points to allocate to these as they increase in level.  These can range from making it easier to hit things with your sword or shield, to summoning creatures, to creating a rift in the fabric of reality.  I could pretend to sit here and tell you how many different combinations of class and race and talents and skills and spells there are but it's probably too large a number for my brain to cope with - suffice to say that it's a LOT.  Players really do have a remarkable amount of freedom in how to sculpt their ideal character and, as most races and classes (and some skills) are unlocked by completing objectives in the game even a "failed" playthrough can mean that the player achieves some kind of tangible progress.

There also needs to be a special mention for the sheer amount of work that has gone into the game's world. It is HUGE, with different factions (which the player can join or oppose), loads of dungeons, masses of monsters and thousands of different items. It has a persistent back story, with an over-arching plot, and there are many, many documents and books to be found which give background and detail to it all. This is a world with a history and it is there to be discovered by the player as they gradually progress through the game. For it to be offered up on a "pay what you want" basis really is quite extraordinary and to be applauded.

Now, of course, nothing is perfect and this otherwise excellent game does have a couple of small flaws.  Firstly it can feel a little bit pointless to be killing the standard monsters that litter the dungeons. There are usually a lot of these and it can sometimes seem that you are "ploughing" through them, rather than having to think about tactics or how to survive (the bosses are another matter entirely though).  They don't give much experience to the player, so they don't feel especially important, and it can be a chore to slaughter endless hordes of low-level monsters in order to get to the next exciting boss fight.

And the other problem TOME has is that its areas and bosses are persistent and carry over from game to game - so, for example, Bill the Troll is always to be found in the "secret" area at the end of the Trollmire.  The layout of the dungeons, the loot and the normal monsters are all randomly generated but the actual plot and layout of the game is the same every time - and this can make it a pain to repeat stuff you've already done when you (inevitably) have to restart.

However, these problems are ameliorated by the sheer variety of choices that the player can make with their character and the vast number of different approaches that can be used.  An Archmage, for example, plays completely differently to a Berserker - in fact an Archmage who uses fire plays completely differently to one who uses cold spells.  The game may keep the same objectives in place but it allows you almost total freedom in how to achieve them.  There really is an option for everybody and that can make repeating the same areas and fighting the same bosses much more bearable. 

So, there you go.  A whole new world for free, hundreds of hours of gameplay with nobody telling you to connect to a non-functioning server or treating you like you're a criminal.  Why not give it a go?  And, if you like it, then give the developer some cash.  After all you're an adult, it really is entirely up to you.





TOME is available from its own website, or from Desura (for $10) and it is also on Steam Greenlight, so go and vote for it.

Grimoire - Demo Released

Sit yourself down somewhere quiet.  Turn the TV & radio off, ask the kids to pipe down, and LISTEN.

Can you hear that distant thrumming?  A noise so faint, yet so insistent, that it's really more of a vibration in the earth?  In fact, now you've noticed it, it's not even really a vibration; more a portent, a suggestion of powerful forces massing beyond the horizon.

Because the horsemen of the Apocalypse are gathering my friend, the end of times is approaching and there is going to be a reckoning.  One of the great prophecies has come true. 

The Grimoire demo has finally been released, and history is trembling.

Regular readers of this blog will know which game I am talking about as I've already written about it twice.  I'm not going to go through the history again, (read the previous entries here, and here) but the latest news is that the much-promised demo has finally been released (link at bottom of page).  I'm going to be honest with you, there were times in the past few months when I doubted this would happen, but happen it has and the world is a richer place for it.

Grimoire is something quite unique, in that it is the product of one man's imagination and has taken him, at last count, 17 years to develop.  The game itself is a dungeon crawler, much like Wizardry 6 or 7, and it is, as you might expect, distinctly old-school in its presentation and mechanics.  It is never going to be a million-selling blockbuster, times have changed too much for that during its extended development cycle, but it's something that certainly scratches an itch for many people.  Having it appear here, now, feels like somebody has just been up into their attic and discovered a lost Beatles recording, or an unfinished Dickens novel.  It's a snapshot of another period in game development, it's something from another time, and it comes with all the benefits and drawbacks that entails.

To start with, Grimoire is acting a little bit like an old man who's been asleep for a few years and cannot deal with the world that he finds outside.  The demo crashes.  A lot.  It seems to do this more frequently on more modern systems and this is something that will obviously need to be sorted out before the game can be released.  Cleve assures us that he will do this, and there are ways the player can work around it, but it does still happen, so you should be aware of that.  In Grimoire's defence the game appears to run pretty smoothly within itself, it's just that it's having trouble dealing with the excesses of modern life and wants to go back into its cave every now and again.

The other main drawback I can see with it is that the user interface can be a bit awkward.  Each character has a button next to their portrait which determines the action they will carry out - healing, unlocking, examining an item, searching etc. - and this can be a bit cumbersome at times.  For example, if you want to identify an item then you need to select the spellbook icon to cast a spell, choose "identify" and the spell level, wait for a second, select the item, change the icon to a magnifying glass and then hold the item over the icon to see what it is.  It would have been easier to just cast the spell and then select the item you wanted to examine.  Similarly the inventory system is also a bit cumbersome.  You have a "banner" of boxes under the viewport which contain all the items not equipped by the party.  There isn't any way to sort these into any order (which makes it difficult to keep track of your loot) and I had filled all the available slots by the end of the demo anyway, which doesn't bode well for the full game.  However, these are small niggles and things that could be improved, they're not game breakers in any way or form and sometimes you just need to accept that if you want to play something different then you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Because Grimoire is, if the demo is in any way representative of the final game, something that is quite special and something that really does feel like the next instalment in the Wizardry series (and I do not say things like that lightly).  In fact it actually seems to improve on those games.  It does this in a variety of little ways - players are given three chances when rolling a new character, for example, instead of the famously frustrating "one strike" system in Wizardry 6.  The game will remember the commands used in your previous battle, so you don't have to enter them again, and you can also review those orders before starting any combat.  Similarly there is an "end battle" button which means you can duck out of any encounter which is too tough, at the price of having to load an earlier save, and you can even make the party walk automatically to a chosen point on the map.  These are little things, sure, but they make everything much more fluid and smooth than would otherwise be the case and they show the amount of thought that has gone into crafting the game's systems.

The game uses its own role playing system, which is hard to analyse without a manual, but which appears to be suitably deep and complicated.  Characters are defined by many attributes, ranging from the commonplace, such as Wisdom and Intelligence, to the more unusual like Fellowship and Devotion.  It is unclear yet how these affect the character's performance but the demo gives the impression that there are a lot of calculations going on under the surface.  This system also seems to have been designed entirely from scratch by its creator so, in and of itself, it provides the player with something new to get to grips with and try to understand.

And this attention to detail and creativity also extends to the races and classes that the player can choose from.  There are 14 races in Grimoire and 15 possible classes and although these include the usual suspects (humans, warriors, clerics, thieves and wizards) there are also some more interesting and unusual options available.  An Aeorb, for example, is a weird one-eyed alien thing or the player could choose a Naga (a kind of Hindu snake man) or a giant or a vampire or a camp-looking lion.  Similarly the classes include Necromancers (yay), Pirates, Templars and Jesters.  The whole selection re-inforces the feeling that this is something different that is being offered here, that this is something that hasn't been focus grouped or sanitised - that this is a game which has been developed outside of the normal boundaries and which, as a result, is not content with just offering up the same old choices.

However, where Grimoire really comes into its own is in the world that is presented to the player.  Graphically charming, it is full of little details and asides which clearly show the amount of effort and love that have gone into it.  The writing is of an extremely high standard and the world's lore is present throughout the environment.  In fact, in one dungeon one of the discoverable secrets is a room full of inscripted poetry about (presumably) future adversaries - which is lovely to see at a time when any other game developer would have just filled it with loot.  There are also plenty of these secret areas to find, and the game manages to make this difficult enough to be satisfying without making it impossible.  In other games in this genre they would show that there was a secret area behind a wall by drawing the wall slightly differently.  This was hard to find at first but once you knew what you were looking for you could spot them from a distance.  Here the walls (from what I can see) look exactly the same and have to be manually searched with the cursor.  The "trigger" points also differ from place to place - at the top of the wall in one location, in the middle in another - so the player has to be thorough, and some walls don't even have a trigger, they're just an illusion the party can walk through.  However, the player can use spells to help them detect such things and the game will also keep an account of how much of an area has been explored, so those of us with low level OCD can sleep at night.

Grimoire is a labour of love and, if you're interested in this kind of thing, then I would recommend that you give the demo a go.  The Indiegogo campaign has also restarted, so you can pre-order the game from there if you like what you see, and Cleve is still insistent that the full game will be released in May (even though the demo came out three months after his original deadline).  I think that will be tight, to say the least, and if previous history has shown us anything it is that this date will almost definitely be revised(!)  However, he has got the demo out and it does appear that he is working hard towards getting the full game released at some point in the (relatively) near future.  Personally I am really excited to see what happens next.

NB:
Update 04/04/13 - Cleve has just released a much more stable version of the demo (1.31), which seems to have resolved all of the previous issues. Get it here. (Remember to still run as admin.)

If you want to keep abreast of current developments then check this thread out

If you just read this article and were very confused then read...

Grimoire : Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

The Grimoire Thing Just Gets Weirder

And Wizardry 6 : Bane of the Cosmic Forge

If you have downloaded the demo and cannot get it to work then..
1. Install it directly into your C Drive (i.e. C:\Grimoire) not into the "programs" directory
2. Ensure you are running it as admin (the 1.2 installer should do this automatically.)
3. Run in compatibility mode with Windows XP.
4. Check the thread linked to above to see if anybody else has had any bright ideas.
5. Pray to whichever god you hold dear.

A Beginner's Guide to Gaming

Games are quickly becoming the most popular form of entertainment on the planet and more people are playing them than ever before.  However, like most things they have evolved over time and now there are numerous conventions and shortcuts which are familiar to gamers, but which could mystify newcomers.  We love a righteous crusade against obfuscation and misdirection as much as the next gaming-based blog and we want to to help those of you who are stumbling about in the darkness.  So listen up!  Here are The Bane of Queequeg's top tips for games beginners.

Rule Number 1 - Never Go The Obvious Way
If you are playing a game and you have a choice of 2 paths always, ALWAYS, go down the one which doesn't look like the way forward.  If, by some hideous mistake, you pick the one which actually develops the plot, or which goes towards your stated objective, then make every effort you can to backtrack the other way.  It is extremely rare for game designers to put genuine dead ends into a game.  Every option usually has something at its end and you will be missing cool secret stuff by actually trying to achieve your stated goal.  In order to succeed you need to get every advantage you can, and this is only possible by exploring every nook and cranny.  If you actually try to do what the game is asking you to with the minimum of fuss, and in a timely and efficient manner, then you are likely to miss out on a huge amount of the content and finish some games in a ridiculously short time (Hi Dishonored!)  Games are designed for their players to be obsessive treasure and secret hunters not a normal well-adjusted person like you.  Remember this.

Trousers in Diablo III.

Rule Number 2 - Improve Everything
Let's talk about crafting.  There was a time, in the really early days of gaming, when you were given a spaceship, or a small round yellow pill-eating thing and left to get on with it.  Gradually, however, players began to be able to improve their on-screen representatives; usually by levelling them, buying new equipment or picking up stuff that was being stored in a crate somewhere.  This greater flexibility came about organically over a period of many years but it suffered a major innovation relatively recently.  For in a game development meeting somewhere, somebody must have suddenly sat bolt upright in their chair and shouted "Eureka!  Why not let the players make their own trousers?" and that is where we are at today.  These days any game worth its salt will let the player combine materials in order to make their own equipment, clothing, weapons etc.  Of course the downside to this is that now everybody is wandering about loaded down with bits of twig and scraps of cloth - like one of those hoarders who think that their flat-filling collection of plastic bags will come in useful one day.  Games  - treating you like you have a mental illness since 1975.

Rule Number 3 - Nick Everything, You Might Need It
This rule counts double if you are playing a Japanese game (you can tell, all the characters will look about 13, with huge spiky hair and they'll be dressed like an Australian's nightmare) but in most games you can walk into somebody's house, go up to their bedroom, rifle through their underwear drawer, take out their favourite pants, put them on your head whilst shouting "I'VE GOT YOUR PANTS ON MY HEAD!" and they will not even bat an eyelid.  In fact they'll probably be asking you to go and get them 5 lots of wheat from the next village along as you do it.  There are notable exceptions to this, such as the Elder Scrolls games, but in most cases you can take whatever you want, from whoever you want and nothing will happen.  Go on!  March on in!  Help yourself!

Probably a Rocket Launcher.  Or a Sword of Crafting. Or a Master Key

Rule Number 4 - Crates Are The Most Important Things Ever.
Nobody knows when crates officially became the most important thing ever.  One day there were no crates and then the next... there they were!  Everywhere!  Thousands of the buggers, infesting every game ever made and just demanding to be smashed!  I know that, in the real world, 4 foot high wooden boxes are usually limited to warehouses and military storage depots - probably not places you come into contact with every day - but in games they are unavoidable.  And, not only this, but they have a wide range of purposes.  You can pull them and push them, you can break them, you can jump on top of them to reach high ledges and baddies will often store critical security passes or fantastically valuable items in them.  If you see a crate then ignore everything else and go and try to see what it does straight away.  You won't be sorry.

Rule Number 5 - You're a Mapmaking Superstar Hero
Don't worry about getting lost.  Once again game designers are here to help you.  They are your friends.  In almost every game made since about 1990 the player has had access to an automatically completed map, and often this will take the form of a "minimap" displayed in a corner of your screen.  What's more, if you are playing pretty much anything released after Grand Theft Auto III then that map will also show you where all of the locally accessible minigames and sidequests are as well.  It doesn't matter if you're Batman, the Dragonborn, a kid stuck on a tropical island or an Eastern European low-level hoodlum, it will be there.  You need never pay any attention to your surroundings again, but do remember to check it occasionally in order to make sure you haven't missed any dead ends (see Rule No. 1).

Big bloody Jessie.

Rule Number 6 - Nothing Bloody Matters
I first noticed that nothing bloody matters in games when Bioshock came out.  In Bioshock there are these huge guys in diving suits called Big Daddies and they are TOUGH.  They have a drill for a hand and they're about 8 foot tall - they take a lot of beating.  Wow.  Proper challenge huh?  Well yeah, they killed me loads of times but nothing bloody mattered because, when I died, I was reborn in a chamber about 20 metres away.  And, as if that wasn't bad enough, the Big Daddy was still as damaged as when I left him.  All I needed to do was continually run at him and wear him down until he stopped getting up.  Nothing could hurt me and what could have been an epic encounter became something totally devoid of challenge or accomplishment.  For me that ruined a game which had loads of other really good bits in it, but it's something that is present, to a greater or lesser extent, in most games.  Whether it's restarting missions or autosaving your progress every time you go through a door, you will have ample opportunities to correct your mistakes and do that perfect run - so don't fret.  Relax!  Enjoy yourself!

Rule Number 7 - Baddies are Stupid
Right, picture this.  You're an evil genius with control over a small army of hand picked mercenary henchmen.  You know that, somewhere, a pesky hero is plotting to get into your secret volcano base to rescue some hostages or whatever else it is that bunch do for kicks.  The only way into said base is through a massive security door - 5 layers of military grade strengthened titanium - impervious to anything less than a tactical nuclear weapon.  And, obviously, you need a way to open this door so that you can go to the shops and get your milk, so you have a key.  What do you do with this key to keep it safe?  If you are a normal evil genius you make sure it is either on your person or in a big vault INSIDE the security door.  However, if you are a game's evil genius then you will place that key in (almost definitely) a crate or (less likely) a desk drawer OUTSIDE the door - so that the hero can easily gain access.  If, for some unexplainable reason, you don't do this then you will ensure that you leave the base's extensive network of ventilation shafts unlocked and unguarded.  If you're playing a game and you can't see the way forward then just look about for a bit, there will be some unspeakably stupid security lapse just around the corner - guaranteed.

A panacea for the world's ills

Rule Number 8 - Mutant Healing Powers
You will find yourself getting shot at a lot in games (or stabbed or run over, or whatever.)  Try not to worry too much though because, once again, the system is there to help you.  Most game characters make Wolverine look like a little old lady with a dodgy hip and they can usually recover from life threatening wounds by merely applying bandages or eating some kind of herb.  If you're playing one of those games with the swords and the dragons and that then it'll be a potion which miraculously restores you.  If you're playing Halo then all you need to do is crouch behind a crate for a few seconds and you'll heal yourself.  Sometimes you're even allowed to stop time while you do it.  Basically if you ever die in a game then you're probably a terrible loser.

Rule Number 9 (and 9a) - Pick Your Battles
This rule has a sub-rule.  The sub-rule is that anything that is released on a yearly basis is a rip off - whether that's FIFA, Madden, NHL, Tiger Woods, Call of Duty or whatever.  There is little substantive difference between, for example, FIFA 12 and FIFA 13 and certainly not enough to justify another 50 quid.  If you feel the need to buy these games every time they come out then fine, you go ahead, I'm not your Dad and it's your money; but accept that one day you will come home drunk from the pub, stick 12 in the Xbox instead of 13 and you won't even notice the difference.  Now games like FIFA are probably the most obvious example of this but, in fact, lots of games are extremely similar - this is, after all, why I am able to draw up lists like this.  There's nothing wrong with that but there is also a bit of a revolution going on in gaming at the moment.  Kickstarter has made it much easier for developers to raise funds and this, combined with the ability for them to sell directly over the internet from their own sites to the consumer, has meant that they are much freer to make the games they want to, rather than the ones that they are told to by the big publishers.  There are thousands of games being made and some of them are actually trying to do some really interesting things - or at least not just serving up another "open world" first person shooter with a minimap and weapon upgrades.  So get out there and see what's on offer.

You go, Tiger!

Favourite Item in Gaming #1

Dungeons of Dredmor - Parachute Pants

+10 Dodge - because you can't touch this.

Proteus - we're not in Croydon any more.

There is a Buddhist centre in Croydon. It surprises you when you find it because it's right on the High Street in amongst all the hustle and bustle, the strident adverts, the temples to commercialism and capitalism.  It has a small, peaceful garden where you can sit and rest and gather yourself before venturing out again into the pell-mell, the crush, the frustration.  Proteus is like that garden. It's a small oasis of calm and peace in the middle of the busy, overwhelming world that we live in. It's a soothing balm for your soul.  It's lovely.

Bit like Croydon

Proteus is an "explore em up" created by Ed Key and David Kanaga (I bet they hate it being called that) and it does away with most traditional game components.  There's no shooting and there are no enemies or treasure, and instead the player is left to explore a world rendered in blocky graphics and minimal sounds. Let's be honest, that doesn't sound like a great game, does it? But the wonderful thing about Proteus is that it is so much more than just a sum of its parts. It reminds me of Yeti Hunter in that respect; each component is pretty basic but when they are put together they create something quite magical.

When you start the game an eye opens on your screen, as if you have just woken up (or fallen asleep and started dreaming) and this sets the tone for the rest of your experience. The world that Proteus provides for you is very similar to our own - with trees, clouds, rain, the sun and the moon - but also quite different. There are secrets hidden away and there are things to see, hear and enjoy all around.  You can go wherever you like, and night will fall and seasons will pass.  The sun will rise and clouds will form overhead and you are free to explore its similar yet different landscape to your heart's content.  It reminds me of going for a walk in the Summer in the English countryside. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but the quality of the light in it and the sounds that you hear evoke exactly the same feelings. It brings back clear memories for me of being a child and walking through a local nature reserve in the sunshine.  It's a brilliantly peaceful experience and there's something quite wonderful about that.

Toowhit.  Toowhoo.

Tonight, for example, I spent about 5 minutes following an owl. It hooted when I got near and then flew off to another tree. I thought it might guide me somewhere but it didn't seem to and eventually I lost it in the forest.  Another time I followed some things which looked like rain drops but they were singing and flowing along the ground and then they formed a spinning circle round me and the screen faded, and I woke up somewhere else.  There were insects there, on the next island, which looked like Japanese characters, but I somehow knew they were dragonflies.  I followed a frog as it hopped away from me.  Later on I stumbled into some bees, who chased me from the flowers they were pollinating and I went careering down the hill, back to the sea, and, always around, there were standing stones, giant tree trunks, odd statues on hills and other things which demanded to be investigated.

This sceptr'd isle

The screenshots may look quite primitive and blocky but they don't do Proteus justice for two reasons.  Firstly they are not moving, which is important, and you also cannot hear the sound effects which accompany them.  David Kanaga does a wonderful, minimalist, job in creating the soundscape for this world and it deserves a special mention.  Audio effects are often linked to events on the screen and you create your own soundtrack as you move through the environment.  Sometimes these connections are obvious things, such as rain falling or crickets chirruping at night, but they can also signify when you are near certain scenery or which season it is.  They accompany the game extremely well and make it a much more immersive experience than it would be otherwise.  They are an integral part of the world and it really wouldn't work without them - they are what brings it all alive.  As I said above, the game is much more than just the sum of its parts and the sound is a major reason why this is the case.

 I recently wrote something about how playing Super Mario Galaxy with my 3 yr old son saved my immortal soul from the scourge of eternal hellfire.  He played a starring role in that story but it did raise some interesting questions for me about the role of video games in parenthood.  I felt a bit bad about using him to keep me sane whilst taming my inner demons, and so I have been looking for other ways to teach him how to use a mouse and become accustomed to computers than those which involve violence, or which demoralise him by being too difficult.  Proteus is perfect for this.  There's no way to die, there's nothing he can do wrong.  I give him the mouse, and give him the keyboard (he just presses "W") and then we can talk about where to go and what to see. "Let's go there and see what that is", "What are those statues doing?" "Daddy, it's raining!" "Look at the size of this hill!"

This is a game where the commands are "walk", "look around" and "sit down and take in the view" (and no, I've not made that last one up), so it is an absolutely perfect thing for a bit of adult child interaction.  It makes a welcome change from collecting things, hitting things and falling off platforms into black holes and while it's obviously not quite the same as actually taking a walk in the open air, it's as good as you're going to get in Britain in January. 

Proteus is still in beta stage so it's not quite finished yet and I have encountered a few instances when it won't load properly from the desktop shortcut, but you trust that this will all be sorted out by the time it is released.  You can visit the world by going to its website and buying access to the beta for about £5.  It is also going to be released on Steam on Jan 30th.  Why not give it a go and try out something truly unique?  I'd recommend it.


PS - Since writing this Proteus has been released.  An updated version is available on Steam for £6.99 (currently 10% off too.)  I still think you should give it a go.  ( & that bug has disappeared.)

Making choices in The Walking Dead

I sat there in the dark, slack-mouthed, staring into space and trying to make sense of what I had just done.  At the time it had seemed to make perfect sense, in fact it had seemed to be the only option.  What's more it had, in a small way, been heroic.  I had voluntarily taken a burden from somebody else onto myself.  I had taken the load from a friend, possibly the only person I could really trust, and saved him from unimaginable heartache.  So why did I feel so empty?  And confused?  And shocked?

The Walking Dead is an adventure game which tells the story of Lee Everett, a recently convicted killer, and a disparate group of other survivors of a zombie outbreak.  It is presented in 5 linked episodes much like the TV series or the comic book on which it is based, but it is a computer game and this means that it differs from those in many important ways.  The very fact that it is a game imposes certain restrictions and requirements upon it, and sometimes these can make it appear a little awkward, but it also allows it to soar far above other media in many really, really important aspects.

So, firstly let's talk about the stuff which is less than stellar.  The Walking Dead is an adventure and, as such, it contains plenty of puzzles.  It uses puzzle solving to move you through the (excellent) story and it signposts how to do this in extremely clear ways.  You will often be placed in a situation where you need to, for example, fix a piece of machinery or reach a certain place.  Your movement will be limited to a small area and objects of interest will be clearly marked on the screen (although this can be turned off), just waiting for your click to select them.  Puzzles are solved by inspecting every item, talking to every character and working out the correct sequence of actions.  Sometimes the game will impose a time limit in order to hurry you up a bit, but more often that not you can run about to your heart's content trying out different combinations and chatting to the other people present.  These puzzles are sometimes quite varied, and the solutions can be tricky to find, but it is usually just a case of searching the environment until you discover the correct item to use.  Once you've done this then they aren't difficult but it can be frustrating until you do, and sometimes the puzzles can appear to be there just to break things up a bit.

And combat is another area which is often the central focus of a game, but which appears a little out of place here.  This usually takes the form of a quick time event (e.g. press the button that appears at the bottom of the screen repeatedly), or it uses the mouse to aim a weapon, or a kick or whatever at the attacking zombie.  This is pretty basic stuff (although there are a couple of well done set pieces) and it can get frustrating when you die because you're not ready, but I'm not sure how else it could have been handled.  In much the same way as the puzzles, it appears to be there in order to provide a change of pace and, in the case of the combat, to give the player an adrenaline rush in between all the talking and problem solving.  It does its job I suppose, but I wouldn't play this game if you're expecting some kind of CoD clone, or a high-octane arcade experience.

Quick!  Click on that circle! Quick!

However, these things have to be present precisely because the Walking Dead is a game. It differs from the TV show or the comics because the person playing it (you) is directly involved in the action. TV and comics are not interactive, you are a spectator, but in a game you are a participant and you drive events to a greater or lesser extent. This means that it is necessary for the game to involve you in things like combat, or solving problems. Sometimes this can appear clunky and a bit forced, as it does here, but if the game resolved these situations automatically then the player could feel sidelined, or that they weren't playing a game at all but having an experience more akin to reading one of those "choose your own adventure" novels. The puzzle solving and combat, as said above, serve to pace the game but they also draw the player into the whole thing and involve them in every aspect of it. The player feels that they are in control of everything that happens and this is important because it is this sense of involvement which enables games to do things that other forms of media can't.

The Walking Dead is actually really about making choices.  You are asked to do this throughout the game, and they have a direct effect on how the story unfolds.  For example, if you choose to save one person instead of somebody else then that person may die, and be gone forever.  If you argue with somebody then they may refuse to help you in the future when you need them and so on.  Most of the game is spent within a group of survivors, made up of different characters with their own motivations and priorities, and you have to bear all of these in mind while you wend your way through the game attempting to keep you and yours safe.  The zombies themselves are pretty unimportant.  That may seem a strange thing to say in a game where most of your time is spent avoiding bitey, shambling, rending death, but ultimately they are merely a device in order to put characters in difficult interpersonal situations and the choices you make are almost always about how to deal with other human beings who are responding to an overwhelmingly hopeless situation.  Right at the beginning of the game a character tells you that "people go crazy when they lose everything" and that is a theme which runs throughout.  What's more, as the game progresses, and society breaks down further and further, the (time restricted) moral choices you are asked to make become more and more difficult.  You will find yourself starting to do things that on the face of it are utterly morally abhorrent but that, in the situation you find yourself in, make perfect sense.

I would die for these people.  Genuinely.

And this is all very well written.  The way that things gradually slide and the way that your decisions become more and more influenced by the desolation around you is extremely well done.  You find yourself assessing the other people in your group to see who will be most helpful if things go badly, or sacrificing less favourite companions in order to secure the safety of your friends.  It shows you things about yourself that you probably didn't know before, and possibly wouldn't want to know now.  It takes you in, you can't avoid it, and it confronts you with that in a way that I'm not sure I have ever experienced before.  This is a game with extremely adult themes, and subjects which may be taboo in the rest of the gaming world are not forbidden here.  What's more, it makes you confront the consequences of your actions in all their protracted and realistic glory.  It doesn't give you any easy rides, it doesn't spare your feelings and it is certainly not interested in making your life comfortable.

In fact it is one of the game's greatest achievements that it takes the player with it as it makes its descent into chaos and destruction.  It can be a shocking and horrific experience (and it can also throw up moments of real beauty and emotion), precisely because the player is a direct participant in the action.  You're not watching somebody on screen do something awful, YOU are doing it.  You're pulling the trigger, you're leaving somebody to die in order to save yourself, you've become a part of this awful, desperate existence - and that can take some getting used to.  No other medium is able to do that and it's why games can be so effective and affecting.  It's completely different to being a passive observer of something, you are much more emotionally involved than you would be if it was a TV show, and that only happens because this is a game and you are allowed (and expected) to influence its events.  The triumph of The Walking Dead is that it grabs this chance with both hands and exploits it fully.  It's probably the most emotionally engaging game I have ever played.  When it finished I wanted it to carry on so that I could find out what happened to all its characters in the future and there were times when I didn't want to believe what it was showing me.  I made connections within it that lasted well after the game ended and it made me spend time in a dark room coming to terms with the choices I had made.

The Walking Dead is not a perfect thing, by any means, but it is something quite unique.  It uses the attributes of its medium to conjure up emotions in the player like nothing else I have ever played and if you are interested in something different, something genuine and something quite, quite brilliant then I would urge you to give it a go.




The Walking Dead is available on PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Apple products.  Consult your relevant marketplace.

Super Mario Galaxy and How It Saved My Soul

As you may be aware, there is a whiff of controversy surrounding games journalism at the moment.  Some fella got his picture taken with some crisps, and then a young lady threatened to sue a Scotsman - it's all very dramatic.  Anyway, in order to join in with the burning, purging wind that is sweeping through "people who write about games" I have decided to be transparent about my own motives from now on.

I hate Nintendo.

Look at them.  LOOK AT THEM.  (Especially the one on the right.)

I hate them, I hate their cutesy wutesy ways, their stupid plumber, their Miis, their insistence on friend codes and their complete inability to design any character that isn't some kind of messed up woodland animal in shorts.  I hate the way they sell themselves as master innovators whilst simultaneously releasing the 6th version of Super Mario Bros and I hate the way that they have diluted the brave, strong spirit which kept gaming pure with their ridiculous pandering to the masses.  Nobody should have to see Harry Redknapp clutching a pretend tennis racquet and playing pretend tennis with his family (who is that guy second from left anyway?) but this is what Nintendo have done.  This is what they have embraced.  They've become something so inoffensive that it offends me.  They make my skin crawl - it's all so wholesome and happy and cheesy and they all love each other and there are no wars, nobody suffers and it's all done in primary colours with plinky-plonky music and just..... ugh.  (He looks Australian, maybe he's their Australian friend or Harry's accountant or something.)

Now hate is a strong word.  It means a deep, abiding and almost physical dislike of something.  It's a primeval force, it has its own power and, if harnessed correctly, can feel like a burning, holy flame inside of you.  However, when left to its own festering devices it can also be intensely damaging, eating you up from the inside - like a parasitic worm, or those flies who lay their eggs in spiders.  You've got to keep an eye on your hate levels, they require careful monitoring, and in my case those flies are hovering pretty close.  So I decided to do something drastic.  Something out of the ordinary, something that to another man may sound trite but which, to me, represented as much of an ordeal as climbing Everest would to an octogenerian tetraplegic - I decided to play a bit of Super Mario Galaxy. 

Kill or cure - right?

Now, I'm not stupid.  I realised that this was going to be difficult, hazardous even.  There was a chance that I may have come away from it with some kind of sense of hope or, at the very least, humming a catchy tune.  I needed a wingman and there was really only one choice - my 3 year old son.  I had tried, oh god had I tried, to inculcate some decency in him.  He had learned how to use a mouse by running around pre-cleared levels in Torchlight II.  He knows what Minecraft is, and has destroyed many a promising castle, but once he had experienced the brightly coloured wonderland that is Nintendo I had lost him and his world had become full of moustachioed plumbers.  I didn't want his world to be like that.  Certainly not when he's 3, he can do what he likes when he's older, but I was desperate and I needed help.

So, we settled down together to play Mario.  This is probably how Harry Redknapp felt when he first gripped that pretend racquet with Jamie.

"Daddy!  Get the star!  Daddy!  Get the star!  Daddy!  Daddy!  Daddy!  DADDY!  GET THE STAR!  TALK TO THE PURPLE MAN!  TALK TO THE PURPLE MAN!  What did he say Daddy?  What did he say?  WHAT DID HE SAY?!?!?" 

This was going to be tricky.

But gradually, despite a few tantrums along the way (and that was just me) I came to a dawning realisation - maybe, just maybe, my prejudices and preconceptions had been wrong.  Maybe, just maybe, underneath its sickly sweet exterior Super Mario Galaxy is really a truly great game because, actually, it does a lot of things that great games should do.

Jesus

Firstly, it gets the difficulty level exactly right -  and this was made clear to me when I played it with my son.  One of the simplest ways that it does this is by giving its players plenty of lives. These come from a variety of sources; attached to "letters" from other characters in the game, or as a reward for collecting 50 of the ubiquitous star bits that litter the environment. On some of the more difficult levels it gives you one right at the start, which you cannot fail to collect if you wish to do so. This means that the consequences of dying are minimised and players are encouraged to retry levels in order to succeed. As I have said previously, what is important in a game is not dying as such, but what is lost when you do.  In SMG the player is usually returned to the last checkpoint reached (which is unmarked in this game, but is shown with a flag in the sequel.) If the player loses all of their lives then they are returned to the spaceship base and have to restart the level from the beginning.  The number of lives the player has really only tells them how many chances they have to complete the level that they are on - there are no consequences further than that. So if, for example, you want to hand control over to a small child who insists on repeatedly jumping off the first platform they encounter until you just can't take it any more, then you should remind yourself that it doesn't really matter.

On some early levels, and certainly on the spaceship which serves as your home base, it is impossible to die. This is perfect for getting used to controls, for trying out new things or for stopping incipient meltdowns without jeopardising progress. On the other hand some of the later levels, or the prankster comets, give the player a challenge worthy of games such as Dark Souls. Where SMG does well though, is that it allows players to choose the level of challenge that they wish to experience because once the player has progressed a little way into the game they are given plenty of choice on how to proceed. There are barriers to this (some worlds are only accessible after a certain number of end-level stars have been collected) but it is perfectly possible to complete the game without finishing every level. This enables the player to pick and choose their challenges and means that, if one world is proving difficult to complete, they can still progress by going to a different world instead and trying that. The game doesn't really care which order you complete the levels in, it only cares about how many stars you have collected in total - and the worlds vary a great deal in their layout. Some are wide open spaces with easily avoidable enemies, whilst others are strictly confined and full of the lava, moving platforms and bombs with angry faces that you would expect from any Mario game. The player is free to pick what to do next and is able to try a more difficult level before moving to an easier one in order to make some progress if they grow frustrated.

And this leads us on to another aspect of SMG which is genuinely great.  It provides the player with a wide variety of ways to play the game.  Yeah OK, these pretty much all involve Mario but this IS Nintendo we're talking about.  He can be turned into a giant spring, a rolling boulder or a bee.  He can shoot flames, freeze water or fly - and many other things besides.  He skates and he swims and he rides around on Yoshi.  He races various other people, flies birds and chases penguins and, if you get bored of that, you can do it all over again as Luigi.  The gameplay changes from level to level and often even within the same galaxy.  It breaks things up extremely well and means that, if the player gets frustrated trying one thing, they can go somewhere else and try something completely different.

Not only this, but we haven't even mentioned the comets yet.  Comets appear above different galaxies once certain conditions are met and change the way those levels work.  They can have a variety of effects - some impose a time limit, others leave Mario with only 1 life, while others make him race a version of himself.  Some of these challenges can be extremely... um.. challenging, and it's lucky that the game can be completed without beating any of them if you so wish.  However, they provide yet more variety to an already diverse feast and that is no bad thing.  Everywhere you go in SMG there are secrets to discover and hidden areas to explore.  Lumas (the resident star creatures) will TRANSFOOOORRRMM! into different new worlds when fed enough star bits and there are lots of areas hidden away within levels for the intrepid player to find.  In fact there are a total of 242 stars to obtain in the game, while it can be completed after finding only 60 or so.  This isn't anything unusual for Nintendo, one of the great strengths of their games has traditionally been the amount of hidden stuff to find, but SMG feels even more epic in its scope.

And that's it really.  There I sat, with my son shouting almost incoherent commands into my ear (interspersed with "It's alright Daddy, it doesn't matter" when I fell off a disappearing platform for the 50th time), while my whole worldview changed around me.  Let's make no bones about this - Super Mario Galaxy is in many ways the perfect videogame.  You may, like me, resent the primary colours, the characters and the whole Nintendo mythos - but it doesn't really matter.  Because, underneath it all, the game is structurally the equal of any game ever made.  The mechanics of it are so perfect, so tight and well-designed, that everything else is trivial.

So, as I finally vanquished Bowser and my son whooped with joy "YES DADDY!  YOU DID IT! YOU BEAT BOWSER! CAN I GET THE STAR DADDY?  CAN I GET THE STAR?  CAN I GET IT? CAN I?  CAN I GET THE STAR? CAN I?  DADDY!  DADDY!  DADDDYYYY!!!" that was the realisation that came fully formed into my mind.  It was as if my previous self had disappeared, and I'd been reborn.  There may have been some kind of celestial choir, who knows, but as I handed the controller over to my faithful wingman to administer the coup de grace and collect the final star I realised... I couldn't hear the flies any more.

Everything was going to be alright.

DISCLAIMER:  I don't really think that about Nintendo.  Well, not much.  Sue me.