FunEffect.com

Semblante is a Global Game Jam entry from a team at the Catholic University of Paraná. As is typical with GGJ games, it's more of a prototype than a complete experience; just a single level.

What's notable about it is the atmospherics; darkness, an eerie soundscape, shadow enemies gliding in the depths. Periodically, there are overhead lights, and when you pass through the light, you glow for a time and can defeat enemies until the glow fades. Jumping atop them helps you not at all. Consequently, navigating the level is a combination of platforming and using the strategically placed lights to advantage.

Also, you can scream with the X key, but I don't believe this has a game effect.

Ostensibly, your character is named Jung, and you are exploring the recesses of your own mind.

You can see how a fuller treatment might be emotionally effective -- and certainly, the complexities of the human mind and its fears is a motif that lends itself to introducing additional gameplay elements over time.

This game is fresher than a Snapple, do you remember Snapple? It was in tight competition with Lipton Brisk. This game is brisker than a cute animal wielding a bazooka, who must be brisk lest he take too much risk.

We've already established that retro is a sort of cancerous fetish and/or celebratory exercise in practical limitations, it's one or the other, or both. We've seen retro sweep over the platformer genre like a plague of locusts, devouring every possible variation on physics, level design, goal-orientation, character development, and aesthetic. The term Metroidvania has been viciously defiled, mutilated strung upside down in a mock crucifixion. Now Zelda-style games are being descended upon, we can only expect a skeleton to remain in the wake. But for now, it's time to feast!

Mr. Kitty takes a lighter approach than something like Saturated Dreamers, but it's still ebullient in its pacing, occasional secrets, and fusion of the exploration motif with more modern conventions of control, pacing, and free-directional movement. There are only a few power-ups that enable you to proceed to new areas, and thus, only a few areas, but it's more of a snack to prepare you for the ritual immolation of yet another retro-genre at the hands of extremely talented people whose games are so good they make the genre completely turned out and exhausted, as a good lover should.

Minimalism. This game embodies the idea. From impressionistic graphics to a streamlined verbset of move and jump, this game does away with all unnecessary aspects of design and lets its superb ambiance and atmosphere shine through. I want to say La Monte Young would be proud, but the lush orchestral pieces probably wouldn't be to his liking. I dig them though. I dig this game, and you should play it.

Seiklus and other games based on exploration are muddled with their collect-a-thon hang-ups, but smartly the game takes a page from Knytt and makes discovering its landscapes a reward in and of itself. As you meander about the small worlds, the camera pulls back and you bring light to the area; the more you explore the more beautiful your surroundings get. Saying anything else would spoil the experience, so go and play this thing.

Spoiler-y musings after the break.

--break--

The protagonist complains at the outset that "there is too much noise." He goes through the ordeal of completing the game to ultimately commit suicide, where he is free of the problems of life and can obtain peaceful "silence." The four landscapes all share the motif of flawed beauty; the city area has industrial sludge perpetually running, and in one section you explore the innards of a dead majestic creature. When playing you have multiple dead ends that prevent you from progressing. These dead ends hinder your progress, but allow you to see more of the wonderful landscapes. It seems as if the protagonist wasn't able to appreciate this aspect of life, and focused on the less appealing bits. To me the game tries to argue the opposite. Sure, there is a lot of shit that goes on in the world, but there is a lot of beauty too. If you pull back and can appreciate it, you can make a life worth living --to throw your life away is foolish. Or something. The story is vague enough to allow multiple interpretations. It's an amazing experience regardless.

Some people really dig genre pieces, works that stick to convention and don't really deviate from the norm. You experience them because you enjoy the tropes of the genre and the familiarity of it all. This game is a standard hop-and-bop platformer, but if you have a platformer fetish like I do you'll most likely squeeze some enjoyment from it. Obake takes elements from Mario and Kirby and mixes them in a not-too-radical fashion, but does it with a decent amount of polish and a fair amount of charm.

You play as the titular Obake (Japanese for 'thing that changes') and take him through a six-world romp. The aesthetic is slightly off-kilter retro, and should appeal to fans of the 16-bit era. In your normal ghost-like form you can only move and jump, but if you press the down arrow you can possess an enemy. When you do so you gain their mobility and attack patterns, each of varying strength. The game takes Kirby's absorption motif a step further by also giving you that enemy's health. This coupled with generally low difficulty makes the game fairly easy, but it's fun to mess around with the various forms and explore the levels. The six worlds go a long way as well, so if you're into this sort of thing there's a lot of content to be played.

Nothing revolutionary, but a nice way to kill a couple hours.

And because I like you guys so much, here's an extra game at no additional charge: http://mogera.jp/gameplay?gid=gm0000000345
You play an albino deer,tripping on some psychedelic, that throws rocks at police. Enjoy.

After his recent retirement / migration to Flash, MDickie gradually has been releasing a lot of his old shareware games for free. Today he made four more of his old games freeware. To quote from his newsletter:

"The great game giveaway continues into the year of 2004, which saw a radical departure from wrestling projects. Popscene and Popcorn brought the managerial gameplay to two other entertainment industries, and were largely successful in doing so (although the original Popscene has now been rendered redundant by its polished remake). Meanwhile, Wrecked was my first stab at a sprawling adventure and sewed the seeds for Hard Time and The You Testament. It's crude by comparison but there are some interesting ideas at its heart. The quartet is completed by Sure Shot 3D, which I still stand by as one of my most innovative creations. Now that all of the above are free to play, they can be enjoyed by an even wider audience! Grab them now from the Downloads section..."

I haven't played all of those, but Wrecked (seen in the video above) has always been one of my favorites of his, even with that notorious "everyone just chaotically starts fighting with everyone for no reason" motif. Now you can download those four games and his older games for free, here. Continue reading

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

Ah, August! The month that, once outside of school age, we all wish would just go away so fall can come along and make us glad to go outside again!

Even the print mag industry can't wait for August to end, as I've already received the September issues for all the publications I get regularly -- even the British ones which are usually a month or so late. In fact, I even scored most of them a couple weeks previous, which means there isn't much to this week's Mag Roundup at all. A couple interesting bits nonetheless, though, if you'll just be kind enough to click onward for me...

Edge September 2009

Cover: Rage

It's interesting to compare this cover with the August Game Informer. I can't decide which I like more. Edge avoids the "sci-fi Marine" motif that I seem to see on GI's front page all the time, but it uses another cliche in the progress -- the "really ugly thing staring directly at you" effect, fabled to attract newsstand customers but really succeeding only at creeping people out. (EGM made this same mistake with a 2002 cover for Resident Evil Zero, one that -- if I recall correctly -- achieved notoriety around the Ziff offices for being one of the worst newsstand performers in the mag's history.)

The feature inside covers largely the same ground as GI's, but goes a bit further with long sidebars featuring Todd Hollenshead explaining the ZeniMax sale and John Carmack detailing the id Tech 5 engine in the impenetrable-yet-fascinating way only Carmack can pull off.

On that note, it's a pretty tech- and design philosophy- heavy issue of Edge overall. Other features include the Heavy Rain guy talking about where he wants to bring in-game storytelling in the future, a bit on Microsoft's Kodu Game Lab (an XBLA release so under the radar, I didn't even notice OXM cover it very much), and an overview (with quotes from chief tech dudes at Epic, Crytek and more) of future trends in graphic technology.

Also interesting, but so British it hurts, is a preview of Syntax Era, a one-off BBC comedy drama that depicts Clive Sinclair and his arch-rival Chris Curry as they strive to make their respective 8-bit computers the most popular in the commonwealth. Any of that make sense to you? If so, good, and hopefully you'll help me 'find' it after its October debut -- not like I'll ever have a chance to watch it otherwise.

PC Zone September 2009

Cover: Dragon Age Origins

PC Zone occasionally has really remarkable, tastefully-designed covers, which people don't appreciate enough because on the newsstand, they're covered in garish polybags advertising the DVD and all the features inside.

This issue is mainly E3 recap stuff, but it's still filled with actual humor, another underappreciated facet of this rag. To wit, this important sidebar from the FUEL review:

GamePro September 2009

Cover: Splinter Cell: Conviction

Not just a preview feature; a preview issue with nothin' but previews, reviews and the usual departments. This was therefore not too interesting an issue for me me, except for Sid Shuman's editorial predicting GameStop's demise at the hands of vengeful game publishers.

PlayStation: The Official Magazine September 2009

Cover: ModNation Racers

If E3 was last month's issue, this one is the post-E3 cleanup job, if you will. ModNation Racers did not receive that much notice amid the E3 clamor, but this feature (which is very infographic driven and easy to read) makes the game look more than a little fascinating.

More interesting in my own eyes: Doug Perry (formerly of Daily Radar, formerly of IGN, formerly of GameTap) wrote a couple freelance pieces for this issue, one in particular -- which covers the PS2 titles that most influenced the games of today -- being pretty darn neat.

Les Autres

   

The Ultimate Blu-ray Collector's Guide is exactly that, I suppose -- a compilation of all of P:TOM's movie reviews, along with a feature about Pixar and a bunch of posters. With only 76 pages, it's not a great deal at $10.

Game Developer's August 2009 issue is highlighted (in my opinion) by the middleware survey, which is approachable and explains the role these packages play to developers in a very concise manner. Interesting if you've seen brands like Havok and Speedtree get thrown around on forums and want to know what role they actually play in a programmer's mind. The Conduit postmortem, also, is a neat look at the internals of High Voltage Software as it tries to transform itself from a prolific for-hire dev to a spearhead for original IP.

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

Continue reading