Her brother’s missing, Paper City burns and a mysterious arsonist, the Red Man stalks the streets and kills everything in its path. He’s after Amber and there’s only one person who can help her get to the bottom of things, Ted E. Bear. This is Bear With Me.
Continue reading Review: Bear With Me – Full Season
Tag: Film Noir
Bear With Me – Episode 2 Playthrough
Last week I published a preview of the second episode in the Toy Noir episodic point & click adventure game Bear With Me.
Along with that preview, I posted the first part of the Bear With Me Episode 2 playthrough I recorded while getting the article together, and this week I’m following up with the rest of the episodes, I hope you enjoy them. Continue reading Bear With Me – Episode 2 Playthrough
Preview: Bear With Me – Episode 2
Last year I played the first episode of the Toy Noir point & click adventure game, Bear With Me, where you play as crime fighting duo Amber Ashworth and the retired detective Ted. E. Bear, on the search for Amber’s missing brother, Flint, as well as trying to uncover the identity of the mysterious Red Man while trying to stay one step ahead of him, as he’s after Amber.
The first episode in the season, released in August 2016, ended with a cliffhanger as Amber and Ted leave the confines and comfort of Amber’s home for Paper City, the home of all toys, a place drawn from Amber’s imagination. Continue reading Preview: Bear With Me – Episode 2
Detectives & Dames – Writing the Hardboiled Genre
During my holidays between Christmas and the end of 2016, I decided to jump into one of my story projects and get it going. I had my second novel to finish editing (second draft at around 40%), but decided to instead push on one of the story premises I’d posted some time ago, the Sci-Fi noir “The Song.”
As I sat at home, thinking what I should write, which story to pursue, this one kept coming back to me, with new details, new side-stories that branch off from the main one as the character listens to more of the same hypnotic melodies.
The Song is different to the other premises in that I had already written a few pages of it before I proposed it as another one-shot, and going back to it and advancing I remembered just how difficult it is to write Hardboiled stories, a genre I often and wrongfully call the same name as its film counterpart, “Noir.” Continue reading Detectives & Dames – Writing the Hardboiled Genre
Preview: Bear With Me – Episode 1
Bear with Me is a new point & click adventure game. Yes, it’s episodic, because they’re all episodic now. Strangely, when I got the press release offering the review code it didn’t mention anything about it being just the first episode of the season, so imagine my surprise when, preparing myself for a long playthrough I find myself facing the dreaded sentence “End of Episode One.”
With that bit of discomfort out of the way, I have to say I enjoyed the first episode greatly. The game is full of wonderful atmosphere, a genius combination between childhood innocence and youthful imagination and the grim bitter reality of the Noir genre. When you have a convincing private detective in a teddy bear, you know you’re in for a nice adventuring romp. Continue reading Preview: Bear With Me – Episode 1
Rezzed 2015 – Knee Deep
I love Noir—the style, the tropes, the characters, everything. It’s one of my favourite genres. So when I saw Knee Deep on the Rezzed floor I had to take a shot. Also, someone I know with really good taste in adventures recommended it, so you know, double shot. Continue reading Rezzed 2015 – Knee Deep
Mob City – Season Review
And I’m back! Happy New Year to all of you! Let’s start the year with the nice review for Mob City! Let’s get on with it. For what I did or didn’t do during my holidays, you’ll have to wait fo this Sunday’s Attic Cleanup!
Mob City is Frank Darabont’s new project, after his departure from AMC’s hit series, The Walking Dead, set in 1947 and based on real-life events and the lives of both criminals and the police, as chronicled in the 2010 non-fiction book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City, by John Buntin. Originally titled L.A. Noir after the book, the title changed to the current one due to similarities with Rockstar’s fantastic game L.A. Noire. Continue reading Mob City – Season Review