Last week I finished the playthrough for TR Underworld so it’s time for Anniversary! All part of my plan to play all the Classic-Lara games in reverse order.
For those unfamiliar with this game, it’s a remake of the first Tomb Raider, but with story elements adjusted to fit those of Tomb Raider Legend, which I’ll be playing next as part of this series!
For the first video I did some commentary, not only about the game but the series in general as well as some random musings. The rest of the segments have no commentary as I’ve been playing the voice activated Action-adventure In Verbis Virtus, and now my throat hurts quite badly.
Be sure to check out the polls below and tell me what you want for the rest of the Tomb Raider Classic Plays and what game series I should tackle next. If it’s not listed n the poll, you can add one!
Part I – Vilcabamba
Part II – Greece
Part III – Egypt – Temple of Khamoon
Part IV – Finale – Natla Mines & Atlantean Pyramid
If you like the video, give it a like and consider subscribing to the YouTube channel and of course here on the site.
If you read my Rezzed coverage you’ll know some of the best games there were those from Fireproof Games: Omega Agent and The Room Three, and that thanks to them, I discovered The Room One & Two.
The Room and The Room Two are puzzle-centric adventure games. As your almost silent protagonist you progress through a series of rooms solving intricate puzzles and slowly piecing the story of your predecessor’s research into the Null Element, a strange and otherworldly material and power source that slowly draws people close to it mad. During the events of the first game you’re following your friend’s footsteps, opening a puzzle box that draws you ever closer to the Null. During The Room Two however, you travel to rooms used by others who discovered the element, trying to escape from the endless maze of rooms and puzzles. The Room series, as stated by the developers themselves, is light on plot and following it will depend on each player—and they expect most to ignore the story altogether.
The Room revolves around giant puzzle-boxes, one per chapter. Each of them has multiple puzzles to solve, ranging from inventory to deduction, and solving one will open the way to another or give you an important item needed to complete yet another puzzle. The game starts you off easily but soon enough drops you into the deep end and you’ll have only your wit—and the useful hint system—to help you solve the puzzles.
Don’t get used to the tutorial, it won’t last long!
One of my favourite boxes is also one of the last in the game, where you have puzzles on the side that open as you find ways to generate and reflect light. They’re all wonderfully intricate and the way solving one puzzle opens up the others in a chain reaction is fantastic. I still replay this segment every so often.
This game is where you can most clearly see the Chinese Puzzle-boxes that inspired the development—as well as the Hellraiser elements that inspired the tone and atmosphere.
You learn plot elements through other people’s notes and letters!
The Room Two expands on its predecessors offering larger rooms with multiple locations and puzzles to complete. These puzzles become increasingly complex. One of the early rooms is a pirate ship and it took me the longest to complete of all of them, but every time I pulled a puzzle off I felt like a genius…until the next one stumped me.
The controls are very simple, consisting of just swipes and taps, but everything from turning a key to pulling open a drawer controls smoothly. To use the inventory items, you can tap for a closer look (needed, as some items are themselves puzzles) or drag them to use.
You also have a special lens. You find it in The Room and in its sequel, you first need to repair it before putting it to use. The Lens shows you hidden messages and lets you see and interact through objects made from the Null element. If you see an iridescent object or surface, then it’s time to pull out the lens! Point-of-view puzzles using the lens feature heavily in both games, so you first use it to make random symbols visible, and then rotate the camera to form numbers or letters with them.
I do wish the lids on objects opened automatically or with a tap. I was playing on my mobile, with very little surface area so I always had issues with lids. This was a game developed for tablets and while you can play it on mobile phones, I wouldn’t really recommend it. You’ll often squint or tap like crazy to find small hotspots and it gets a bit uncomfortable. Dragging items to hotspots proved a challenge as well, as the aspect ratio made it so my—admittedly chubby—fingers completely covered the item, so I couldn’t see if the item was useful in a given situation or not at all. And it might be my mobile, but playing the game violently drained the battery.
The lens reveals things hidden to the naked eye!
Visually it’s impressive, perhaps the best-looking game I’ve ever played on mobile. They’re the type of visuals you expect from a PC game. Puzzle boxes and rooms are intricately detailed and there are tons of tiny elements that bring rooms to life, from delicate wine glasses on a table to hay and cannonballs in the pirate room. The Room Two even features a full cinematic ending that before playing I didn’t ever expect to see running on my mobile.
In terms of sound, both Room games have wonderful soundtracks. The main theme for the games has become of my favourite videogame pieces, both soothing and eerie at the same time if you can believe it. Speaking of eerie that’s the music’s direction in each room. It can be as subtle as a single tone, almost a whistle, to more intense pieces, often with dissonant cords to take you over the creepy edge into disturbing. It all plays fantastically into the madness theme and with the visuals and the sound effects—creaking boards, whispers, and even footsteps—they all make up this lovely atmosphere of fear. I sincerely recommend playing this game with full volume. If you don’t you won’t get the true experience.
Sometimes, items are puzzles as well!
Conclusion
With The Room Three soon to hit the Apple App Store, now is the time for you to go play these two games. They are outstanding puzzlers with an intriguing plot. If you’re like me and you love a brainteaser, then you’ll enjoy The Room and The Room Two
Monument Valley is a puzzle game for iOS & Android, in which you help a princess explore strange monuments left by her people, restoring them to power.
I first heard about this game during this year’s BAFTAs, where they nominated it in pretty much every category. It won the Best British Game and Mobile & Handheld awards. Once I finished watching the awards, I decided to buy the game on the Google Play Store and I even got the expansion pack.
As this is a mobile game, you control everything through taps and swipes. You tap on the screen to where you want the princess to move and you swipe to interact with the environment. There are cranks to turn, and segments of the environment with small stubs on them that you can move horizontally, vertically or even rotate the stage, to help the princess move along the monuments. Each level ends when you approach a certain tile and the character places an increasingly intricate geometrical piece on it, the Sacred Geometry, which is central to the plot, which I won’t comment on due to its simplicity. Anything I say will ruin it for you.
Some stages shift around and rotate, showing new rooms and puzzles.
The mechanics are simple but the stages will take some trial and error as you learn to properly navigate them and make use of the different movable pieces. I’m certain one of the inspirations for this game were the works of M.C. Escher, as you have to take perspective into consideration. For example, something that is far away can be an adjacent platform if you turn the camera in a particular way. Perspective is central to many of the Monuments. There is one in particular where a door takes you to another one, placed in a different perspective so that now you’re walking on what you thought was a vertical wall. At certain times I had to turn my mobile around just to see things from the character’s new point of view. It was these moments, when the game took perception into consideration, where it truly shined for me and left me awed.
The Forgotten Shores expansion adds new levels and different mechanics, such as these twisty corridors.
It’s difficult to talk about Monument Valley’s sound as a separate thing to gameplay. There is a soundtrack and the music is beautiful and ranges from subtle soothing melodies to haunting ones and even some upbeat adventure-y tunes, but also every stage is essentially a giant music box and interacting with them generates its own music, from pulling cranks to pressing a button that shifts the entire stage around. It’s almost as if by playing, you’re composing the stage’s music. It didn’t matter what level it was, this always made me smile.
I do wish the stages were longer. This is a game, like many mobile ones, meant for short play bursts and as such, the different monuments take at most ten minutes to complete. The Lost Shore—the 8 level expansion—has longer levels but still not long enough. It doesn’t detract from the marvellous experience, but it did leave me wanting more. Some of the later stages get complicated but as an experienced adventure gamer used to intricate puzzles, I felt as though the game could’ve given me much more than it did.
The visuals are minimalistic but gorgeous. Each monument is a work of art—if I could I would frame and hang them on my wall—that would make M.C. Escher blush, and it’s a joy to watch these music puzzle boxes change and move around to reveal new rooms and alcoves. The developers at ustwo must’ve known this because they added a camera mode for you to turn the world around however you want for screenshots. They even built in some of the more popular Instagram filters.
Conclusion
Monument Valley is a wonderful game, one of the best mobile games I’ve ever played and while I do wish there was much more and a higher difficulty, what is there is breathtaking and you should all play the game right now!
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 puts you in control of four characters, searching for answers in a hostile island and a way out, before fear consumes and changes them—literally so.
I still remember the announcement for RER2. It came during a week when female members of our community were under fire and the women’s role and portrayal in games were under debate. When they announced Clare was coming back, I honestly thought, “This is what we need, one of the original female badasses, Clare Redfield!” Capcom definitely nailed the timing for their announcement.
And that is one thing Resident Evil: Revelations 2 does right: character portrayals. Clare isn’t the same girl we met in Resident Evil 2 but one of the senior Terra Save agents. She’s strong, decisive and courageous, but without losing her humanity, which is harder to do than you’d expect—most of the times writers just cross the line into Impossible Hardass.
It’s all about Kafka!
With Clare is Moira Burton, Barry’s daughter and the most foul-mouthed character in all of Resident Evil. What I like most about Moira is she shows significant growth during the story. At the start she refuses to even hold a gun because of a childhood trauma, but by the end she manages to push herself beyond it. I liked that development and it feels real and believable…you know, even with the crazy genetic monstrosities.
The rest of the main cast consists of Barry himself, coming to the island where the plot takes place (I’ll get on that in a bit) a few months later than Clare and his daughter, hoping to find answers to her fate. Barry is a rock of a character, acting as the strong and collected one to his companion, Natalia, an 11-year-old-ish girl. Where she falters he’s there to offer support and as such he doesn’t evolve as much as the rest, but is instrumental in the other character’s development.
The nonsensical skill tree
RER2 doesn’t waste time in setting up its premise. During the opening cinematic, an assault team attacks and captures all Terra Save workers at their yearly corporate party. When Clare wakes she’s in a mysterious prison with Moira and fitted with a strange metal bracelet. The bracelets change colour depending on the person’s state of mind, going from green to a deep red the more frightened they become. The island is home to savage mutants like those found in Resident Evil 4 and 5 and there’s a woman, The Overseer, constantly taunting them and driving them closer to fear and despair.
Clare and Moira’s half is all about survival and finding out and stopping The Overseer’s plans. Barry’s half is about finding his daughter, arriving on the island 6 months after Clare’s initial chapter, following an SOS. He meets Natalia, a young girl surviving on her own, and with the mysterious ability to sense monsters and even their weak spots. She met Moira & Clare in the past and guides Barry to where they last saw each other.
Tourniquets are the way to go…unless you’re out of herbs!
The story itself is the usual Resident Evil fare of crazy viruses and deranged genetic experimentation that ultimately becomes so out there you lose all interest in it. But in its episodic storytelling, RER2 splits the reveals very well between its two story arcs, keeping you interested and asking questions until it finally shows its hand. The works of Franz Kafka, The Metamophosis in particular, are at the core of the plot, just taken literal and to the extreme. This game’s writers don’t believe in subtlety.
The narrative split might be good but the pacing is uneven between the Clare and Barry segments—some are plot-heavy while others are combat-centric—and it doesn’t take long for you to learn or figure out everything about the story, making some of the last episode’s climaxes fall terribly short.
Resident Evils have always supported their narrative with documents strewn around the environment and RER2 continues this tradition but there are too repetitive and useless documents. I don’t mind backstory if it adds to the experience, but it feels as though they enough documents to make sure that you’d pick up at least one. It’s even worse considering much of what the documents tell you the characters later mention in cutscenes.
In terms of visuals, they’re around the same quality as Resident Evil 6’s, which isn’t surprising considering they both use the same engine. For this game, it’s not graphical quality that I look for, because I know it’ll be good. What I care about is the little details and the overall environment and creature design, which are some of the elements the horror will hang on. One thing in particular that stood out for me was how bad the lip-synching was. I played the game originally with Japanese audio (more on that later) and even switching to English didn’t make the lips sync-up with the words. In fact, the lips barely move.
Monster design differs greatly between Clare and Barry’s segments. Clare’s enemies are more akin to the wild enemies from The Evil Within, self-mutilated and with heavy body modifications, while Barry’s are more traditional RE monstrosities and desiccated zombies. Clare’s work very well the first time they show up, but lose their effectiveness as a visual fear stimulus very quickly. Barry’s on the other hand remain effective for much longer, especially since they are very difficult to kill if you don’t target their Ouroboros core.
Bleeding is extremely dangerous in RER2
Sadly, the environments themselves are dull, drab and lack any form of atmosphere and rehash locations from previous titles—prison facilities, derelict villages and ruined buildings. There’s even a moment in Episdoe 2 where you must survive an assault from enemies while inside a building, killing enemies before they jump inside. Sound familiar? Setting the game in a wider open area presents challenges, that I understand, but I do wish they had done a better job, made them much more interesting. The environments also clashed with the accounts from the documents—you should have seen more remnants of the previous occupants, more signs of violence. Instead of helping the immersion, this clash countered it.
Clare’s enemies are fast and strong!
Music is largely absent from the game, coming in during high-stress sequences with the appropriate tense music and almost at random during investigative and exploration segments. These pieces are moodier and eerie but the volume is low, almost like background noise and often drowned out by other sounds. It left me to wonder what the point was. The moody bits are very good but with the bland environments, there’s not much they can do to help the immersion opportunities the visual side already squandered.
I played the game in Japanese first, as I often do with Japanese games. I still used English text for subtitles. I have a less than rudimentary grasp on the Japanese tongue but I can tell right away when the English script is departing radically from the Japanese one. For example, Moira doesn’t curse in the Japanese version, not as much, but instead says “Saiyaku,” which literall means Disaster but you can take it—transliterated—as “This is the worst!” which is also Barry’s common catchphrase, a shared mannerism between parent and child. The voice acting is generally good but I find the Japanese to be superior, as there’s a lot more strength put into the performances. The American cast falters during emotional sequences. Pedro’s actor in Japanese sounds genuinely terrified and panicky during the Episode 2 village sequence, while the American doesn’t and the emotion he portrays doesn’t match up with the character’s body language.
Natalia can sense monsters, even through walls. Pretty handy for stealth-kills!
The gameplay remains very much like Resident Evils after the 4th instalment, with the over the shoulder camera and aiming. It’s a style I like very much and allows me to headshot enemies as much as I want to, which I enjoy doing, just to test my accuracy. You can instantly switch from the main characters (Clare & Barry) to their partners and you’ll need to as most of the ‘puzzles’ revolve around doing two things almost at once with the characters, such as pulling levers in separate rooms. Only your main characters carry weapons, the secondary ones have melee attacks and are just there for support really. Though the AI partner did finish off a few enemies for me when I was out of ammo.
Battle Points (BP) are back, used to upgrade your characters with the obligatory skill system, increasing some of your base abilities and the effectiveness of items. Some of the upgrades are pretty useful but most are worthless. For example, one of them increases how effective Green Herbs are, but even without it they already heal you completely. The only point in getting that ability is unlocking the one further down the tree. The tree itself makes no sense, with abilities having thematically unrelated ones as prerequisites. The previous Green Herb skill is a prerequisite for the Charged Melee attack skill, for example.
RER2 gives you a dedicated “Pick-up” button that works well for consumables but the game then alternates between it and the “Use” button so many times I found myself shouting “Make up your mind!” at the screen. At some points it prompted me to pick up items with one button then with the other, leaving me irritated and confused.
Speaking of weapons, RER2 features a crafting system for secondary items. You can use bottles to make up to four kinds of bombs—Molotov cocktails and smoke bombs for example– and cloth for tourniquets, as a minor healing kit and to stop the bleeding effect, and disinfectants, for clearing your HUD of monster goop. The latter isn’t really useful due to the very small number of blinding monsters. Weapon upgrades return from the previous game and they work exactly the same, providing mostly passive bonuses such as increased damage, capacity or reduced recoil. Golden Upgrades give your weapons new powers. They aren’t necessary but they do help, especially the rare ones, and I found myself exploring the dreadfully bland environments looking for secret chests.
In terms of enemies and combat, Clare’s are much closer to the original RE series’ bullet sponges, taking in tons of damage before falling—though headshots help and it’s why I go for them. Barry’s on the other hand are much closer to the Resident Evil 4+ style of enemies with weak points. Bosses, for either character, fall into this latter category, with a single weak point you first need to reveal before actually damaging the boss.
Language Moira!
Conclusion
Resident Evil: Revelations 2’s gameplay and characterization make up for some of its design and narrative flaws, and while it’s not the deepest of stories it will keep you hooked until the end and beyond if you like to indulge in the RPG-esque raid mode. It’s a flawed game, definitely, but worth a shot, even if it fails at the horror half of Survival Horror.
Originally released in 1999 Grim Fandango is one of the last adventure games released by LucasArts. It combines Mexican folklore with a Film Noir plot and stars the grim reaper himself…well, one of them anyway.
Fantastic world combining Noir and Mexican folklore.
Superb voice acting and music.
Revamped control scheme.
Bad:
Clunky inventory system.
Peyote-logic puzzles.
Review
I won’t deny it. I was excited when I saw the news for the Grim Fandango remake. I remember playing it when I was younger, about a year after release, in 1999. I borrowed the game from a friend—you know, back in those days where DRM and serials weren’t a thing.
I’ve been playing the game recently, going through it once more and I realised I didn’t remember a thing about it. I couldn’t remember the solution to even a single puzzle, which to be honest is perfect for a review. So let’s get to it.
How it all starts: with hole-punched card!
Grim Fandango puts you in the shoes of Manuel “Manny” Calavera, an agent for the DOD, The Department of Death. As an agent his job is to find the recently deceased and depending on their personal history get them the best deal possible on their trip to the afterlife. If the soul has been especially good, they can get a direct trip on the Number Nine express train to the Ninth Underworld. If there are dark spots in their bio, the options range from lying in a coffin shipped by mail to a walking stick for the long journey.
At the start of the game, Manny’s been in a slump, only getting bad clients and cheated out of new ones by his colleague, Domino. Deciding to take matters into his own hands—and yours—he intercepts one of Domino’s clients and claims her for his own, thinking she’s assured a spot on the Number Nine. But it turns out his bosses rigged the system and have stolen everybody’s tickets. With Meche, his would-be client, now lost in the underworld and the conspirators pursuing him, Manny sets out to find the girl and stop the bad guys…but mostly find the girl.
The lovely Meche Colomar!
The story is a traditional Noir plot. There are conspiracies, intrigue, betrayals and deceit at every corner. But it is a Tim Schafer and LucasArts game so there is plenty of comedy as well, mostly from how surreal the world and locations are. Unlike other LucasArts games there aren’t many pop-culture references, instead they take jabs at familiar Noir tropes and poke fun at how we all imagine death and the afterlife to be. It is however a darker game than other in the Lucas catalogue.
The story plays out in four acts or Years, each with a different location, new characters and new pieces to the conspiracy. I loved the Year transitions. Years 1 and 2 end with Manny in a precarious position, stuck at a dead-end café and a broken down ship respectively, but the opening cinematic for the following one show him turning those around—the Café into a successful nightclub and casino called Café Calavera and the ship into a mercantile vessel. And all of it without losing sight of his goal of finding Meche and get her to the Ninth Underworld.
In the end perhaps, but in the meantime we all dance the Grim Fandango!
Manny as a character is one of the best in adventure games. He’s both selfish and selfless at times, he cares even if he has to manipulate and cheat. He’s not an angel, but he’s not evil either. In essence, he’s a very human and relatable character, with strengths and flaws. The supporting cast on the other hand is a collection of extremes and Noir tropes, from the sultry femme fatale to the extremely greedy villains. But that isn’t to say they aren’t as interesting as the main one. Each has their unique personality and they make you want to know more about them. Glottis, for example is one of my favourite characters. He’s a Mechanic Demon, first acting as Manny’s driver and on the way becoming his loyal companion…and comic relief. Meche starts off as the typical good girl, but shows more strength and determination you would think she had. The central characters all grow during the story, and that is rare in adventure games.
Manny’s inventory…grrrrr
Grim Fandango’s visual style takes its inspiration from Mexican “Dia de los Muertos”—and in fact it is that exact day at the start of the game, the only time when the dead can visit the living. All characters look like Calaca figures, walking skeletons. When Manny reaps a soul, what comes with him isn’t a ghost but another bony figure. Environments area mix of 1930s aesthetics, such as you would find in classic film Noir, and Aztec architecture. There are high-rise buildings and race tracks with Aztec colour tones and even temple-like structures in the last act, but there are also more traditional Noir locations, such as the Poet’s nightclub The Blue Casket or even Café Calavera. The locations and character designs draw you in as much as the voice actors and music do.
The game uses static environments with 3D objects and characters and fixed camera angles. The remake improved on the character models, though considering they’re all skeletons there wasn’t much to improve. Mostly they just made the faces more detailed. But they also improved on the lighting, and this bit adds a lot more to the game’s atmosphere, especially at the start. Now light streams through Manny’s blinds, falling on him in stripes as if it were the office of a Noir detective.
Good solid advice!
The game also features FMV both during gameplay, such as when opening the mailing machine’s door or the elevator in Rubacava, and for story cinematics. The latter mostly take place between acts or at significant moments, such as when you pull up the SS Lamancha. The remake doesn’t change anything about these, nor did they have to because they work perfectly well. In fact, the best thing about them is the original development team went to great lengths to make sure the characters and environment in the FMVs looked exactly as they do in the game’s engine—called GrimE and based on the Jedi Knight engine, no SCUMM for Grim Fandango—so that players always saw familiar faces.
Speaking of actors and music, there isn’t anything bad to say here. The sound design is outstanding. The soundtrack mixes the jazzy tunes you need for the Noir vibes with traditional Mexican music, in the process creating a new style that instantly brings the name Grim Fandango to your mind. Hell the music is so good there were moments I stopped progressing just to take in as much of it as I could. It’s the kind of videogame music you’ll buy the soundtrack and listen to it every day!
Voice acting is superb, particularly because most of the actors are native Spanish speakers, making them much more authentic and convincing, but also because as actors they give strong performances. I often complain how screams and shouts in games feel half-assed, but in Grim Fandango the actors give their all and remain convincing no matter the situation.
Finally, there’s the gameplay and this is where I have a problem.
I hate the inventory system for Grim Fandango. I sincerely do. Instead of the grid-like inventory used in other LucasArts titles or the horizontal list-like inventory of games such as Sam & Max, you can’t see all the items you have at once. Manny’s suit is your inventory and every time you need an item, you’ll have to scroll through the entire inventory. Worst still is that it doesn’t remember what the last item you looked at was, and it even gave me the impression that the item positions changed from one look to another. I knew an item, a piece of bread, was two items to the right when I first looked, but the second time I had to scroll even further. It ties nicely with the item-drawing animations, as the inventory is essentially part of it but it’s clunky and can make you waste a lot of time. It actually made me grateful there aren’t any item combinations, because that would’ve bene a terrible hassle.
You’ll find traditional Mexican/Aztec designs and colours throughout the game!
As this is a LucasArts game, the puzzles are almost exclusively inventory ones and they are generally in the moon-logic realm. To be honest, I’m now convinced Schafer and his team were on peyote while designing some of these, because you would have to bombed out of your head—or be a long-time adventure gamer—to figure them out. For one puzzle you need to figure out the combination of numbers and days for a winning betting ticket using pieces of casual conversation, a plaque for a statue and the complaint of a worker. For another, you’ll drink alcohol with gold flakes just so you can have some stripsearch time with a sexy officer to get her metal detector. See what I mean?
As you progress, however, the complexity lowers and the last act has generally easy puzzles, which is slightly disappointing.
One of the best aspects of the remake for me is they built in a fan patch, released years ago, that changes the control scheme from the tank-controls the game originally had—inspired by Resident Evil, popular at the time of the game’s release—in favour of point & click controls. It’s much more comfortable though the originals are still present and work really well with the added gamepad support.
There’s tons of commentary to hear and enjoy!
I mostly played the game using the original rendering, which you can switch to at any moment in the game’s menu, but I did enjoy the developer commentary. In commentaries we often hear from the designers and storytellers about something fun they did, but this commentary is from the entire team. From their field trips for environment design ideas to the struggles to program certain things in the game, to how many pieces of different engines they cobbled together to build Grim Fandango. As a software developer, it was fascinating to know the ins and outs of the development side of this great title.
Tim Schafer mentions something very interesting during the commentary. He states that the game happened because of the amazingly talented people that came together at the time, but also because they and he infused in the game a lot of what was happening in their lives. And that if they decided to make the game now, it wouldn’t even get close to what we have, even if they made it with the best of intentions.
The original visuals aren’t the prettiest, but I still prefer to play with them!
Conclusion
Grim Fandango is a hell of a ride. There are grievances with some of its design decisions, especially with the inventory and the original controls, but they don’t really detract from the outstanding experience. It’s a folklore story with Noir soul, and one of the fines adventure games ever released. And I think Mr. Schafer is right, this game couldn’t be made today and have it make the same impact.
During Rezzed I was constantly amazed by the fantastic games on show, but I don’t think any of them struck me as strongly as Beyond Eyes, developed by Sherida Halatoe and Team17. If the latter name sounds familiar, they’re the studio behind extremely funny the Worms series. But what they had wasn’t a zany free-for-all between grubs, but a beautiful, serene and somehow both heartwarming and heartbreaking game. Continue reading Rezzed 2015 – Beyond Eyes
I have something to confess…I have never played Thomas Was Alone. I just knew what I read about it. Still, when the opportunity to interview Mike Bithell on his new game came along, I didn’t miss the chance. And I believe my lack of knowledge on his earlier work let me focus entirely on the new game, which is pretty damn cool! Continue reading Rezzed 2015 – Volume
This one was strange. A game about escaping from a coffin and which you played from inside one. When I first read the press release for Rezzed I said to myself “No way in hell!” but this was my first Rezzed and if I didn’t do it I know I would’ve regretted it. Continue reading Rezzed 2015 – Taphobos
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
Every time I saw the booth for The Weaponographist there were three things in common: first, I couldn’t do anything but chuckle at the silly name. Second, Danny the developer was helping people play and offering commentary and talking to everyone around—he’s a really nice gent. And thirdly, it was full.
You see, Danny Garfield (one of the developers) from Puuba did something very interesting for his game. He put up a challenge: the best three times clearing the demo would get free games at the end of the day! When I spoke to him and tried my hand at the title a few times, I couldn’t beat even the lowest of record, while the guy next to me had already broken his own like four times. In fact, he came back the second and third day and did the same! By then he was playing at ludicrous speed!
Check out that combo and Goop-count!
The title came from a brainstorming session. Danny tells the story and I will paraphrase it as I didn’t have a recorder on me at the time: “So, me and Dave, the other full-time member of the team, were talking about t and throwing out names. At some point, I just said ‘The Weaponographist!” and he gave me a look and said ‘What does that even mean?’ I started thinking ‘He…draws…weapons? He draws weapons! Yes! That’s it!’ And the name stuck!”
The Weaponographist tells the story of Doug McGrave, famed demonslayer-for-hire. When he’s passing by a town, a Witch asks for his helps against a demon incursion but because she can’t pay his high fee, he refuses…so she curses him. The only way to lift the curse is to save the town. The problem is the curse itself. Everything he holds turns to dust eventually, from his weapons to his gold and even his experience level.
Too handsome to get cursed, eh, Doug? Next time just take the job!
Because of this, the currency you use in-game is “Goop,” a weird secretion left by monsters. It’s not that it’s currency in the town but it’s what they’re willing to take from you in form of payment and as proof of your demon hunting. It ties nicely into the plot while still being completely disgusting! You’ll use Good to upgrade your basic combat skills by weapon categories, so that you get more out of your weapons next time you use them. You can also—Danny mentions—have someone lift bits of your curse, lowering the speed at which everything degrades.
The game handles a lot like the classic game Smash TV, a run-and-gun. You go through square rooms filled with enemies and once cleared you go on to the next until you reach the boss. At the start, you only have your fists as weapons but killing enemies will sometimes make them drop theirs for you to pick up. But be careful, because of the curse all weapons in your hands will degrade over time. Every attack drops the weapon’s durability by a given amount. It’s actually quite interesting how you need to strategically pick up items and make the most out of them before picking up another. Some weapons are much more powerful than others and will have fewer hit points. You can carry a main weapon and secondary ones, which tend to have very little health, but on the other hand, they’re pretty powerful. My favourite was Dog Collar because with it I left flaming patches on the ground wherever I went. It was so cool!
The demo only had the first stage of the game, a few rooms with random enemies and a badass T-Rex boss with pulsar cannons, but the enemy variety was clear right from the start. I must have fought over 20 unique enemies in that short demo, from Satyrs throwing their horns as boomerangs to mobsters with Tommy Guns, and it’s so much fun you won’t care about the anachronisms or the weird creatures. It’s just top-down killing fun!
I did mention to Danny it would be awesome if the bosses dropped weapons, similar to Dark Souls’ Boss Soul Weapons and he gave me a bit of a bewildered look and said, “That is actually an awesome idea…I think we can add that!” Good to know I could have some positive effect there.
The most interesting aspect of it all, for me, is the Combo System. Killing enemies starts up a combo, and the longer it goes, the higher your stats are. This is because your Combo is actually your character level, constantly degrading, so you need to keep it up with kills so it doesn’t go away. If it does (as it will at the start of every new run) then you’re back at level 1.
Danny describes the game as being Rogue-light. There is the death and upgrade mechanic we see in many rogue-likes but you don’t lose the character.
So many rooms, so many enemies!
From a development standpoint I was curious about the game’s engine, thinking it would be another Unity title, but Danny surprised me by telling me the entire thing had been done in Java. They built their own engine and made the entire game for it, which is always awesome when you consider how small the team is: two developers/designers and about 4-5 artists working freelance.
The Weaponographist is coming out very soon. The demo hits in 3 weeks on Steam and the full release three weeks after that! For those of us who attended the event and played at the booth, there were flyers with an early access code to the demo. And you can bet your ass I’ll be streaming it soon to show you all just how fun this game is!
