If King's Quest were a Movie

The 2015 version of "Cinderella" is my favorite live-action remake of the Disney classics.  In no small part it's due to the cinematography.  Heavy reliance on practical effects do a lot to give the film a texture lacking in the later more CGI plastered productions.  Although, it's also my understanding that filming was somewhat troubled because of it.  The pumpkin carriage (made of wrought iron) had to be redone with lighter materials in order to make it manageable by the iconic four mice turned to white horses.  The fairy godmother's dress had an impressive arrangement of LEDs built into it that would shine different colors depending on the spell she cast.  Sadly, the effect wasn't picked up by the camera due to lighting conditions.  And then there is the blue dress that Cinderella wears to the ball.  Originally, it had bit more of a silver tone (perhaps a nod to the original animation), but was changed in post production to a much more vibrant shade of blue in order to stand out more.  Yves Klein would have surely approved of the change though the thing that amuses me most about the color alteration is the original ball dress (belonging to Ella's mother) being pink.  It almost feels like a reference to princess Arora's dress in the 1959 animated Disney film "Sleeping Beauty".  

"Make it pink!"  

"Make it blue!" 

Anyway...getting back on topic, there are so many shots in this film that would make great background wallpapers for a OS display.  The thing is some of the visuals (viewed as still screens) also feel a bit like they could be from a modern entry in the King's Quest franchise.  Certainly, the story fits like a glove...or should I say slipper?

It's true that the creator of King's Quest, Roberta Williams, was heavily influenced by classic fairly tales.  King's Quest II, III and VI, in particular, have some thematic similarities to the Cinderella story.  To point out specific examples, the entire plot of King's Quest II revolves around the protagonist's (King Graham) quest to find princess Valanice.  This bride-to-be is trapped in a tower, access to which requires the opening of three locked doors.  She herself is the daughter of a father of royal lineage and commoner.  King Graham also has a fairly godmother that attends the wedding at the end of the game.

King's Quest III does a bit of a gender flip with the concept by making it a serving boy (not a girl) forced to cook and clean for an evil wizard (and old man) named Manannan.  Ultimately, the boy escapes his oppressive circumstances and even rescues his sister along the way.  Fast forward to King's Quest VI and our boy (reveled to actually be a prince, and son of King Graham) follows in his father's footsteps by attempting to rescue the princess Cassima (a woman he only ever met once).  She (like Valanice) was locked in a tower by the royal vizier after the death her parents.  Granted that game has more in common with Arabian Nights than Cinderella.  None-the-less, whenever I sit down to watch the 2015 film I find myself thinking, this is the closest thing I ever seen to King's Quest in movie form (both thematically and visually).     

Resident Evil has it's Moments

 

Senua's Screenshots

 

Weird Music Associations

This is probably just me, but for whatever reason I sometimes make weird associations with songs and video games.  The fundamental cause is always the same; I happened to be listening to a particular song a lot while also playing a particular video game around the same time.  Even so, the game and the song don't really have much in common...and yet my brain will act as if the two are somehow interconnected.  Here are three such examples.

IXION is a space sci-fi themed survival city-builder along the lines of Frostpunk or Outpost.  It has an interesting visual aesthetic and moody soundtrack to go along with it.  The story is compelling, but the gameplay leans really hard on micromanagement.  So, take that as a plus or minus based on your own gaming preferences.  The song that I somehow got stuck in my head while playing IXION is "Edge of the Universe" - a retro synth tune done up like something you'd hear in an early Madonna album.  I guess one could argue that the song does have some association with the game since they both use outer space as a core theme, but if you watch the music video that goes with the song then you'll realize very quickly that these are very different pieces of media.    

If you have ever played Factorio then you know that Satisfactory is basically a 3D version of that game minus the swarming bugs.  To give a slightly longer explanation though, Satisfactory is a logistics and manufacturing game that is designed to teach you so much about factory production that you might almost be ready to try the real thing after mastering the game.  Sadly, it seems to be stuck in early access hell.  Hence, I haven't booted up the game in a long time despite never uninstalling it from my hard drive.  When I was playing it regularly though, I often listened to an odd (alternative rock?) song while driving in the car entitled "Ghosts (Silent Gloves Remix)".  The lyrics are downright bizarre, but the song itself has a nice vibe that, in my mind, melds well with the vaguely jaunty mood of Satisfactory.  

This final example has got to be the strangest of all.  I used to be big into the Wing Commander series, and at one point was obsessively playing Wing Commander III after finally upgrading my PC hardware to the point that the game was actually playable.  It so happened that around the same time the movie "Batman Forever" came out.  I had no interest in the film...although, that new 2022 "The Batman" movie isn't half bad...anyway...I digress.  The hot song that went with that summer blockbuster was "Kissed by a Rose" which came up on the radio a lot.  This song has absolutely nothing to do with Wing Commander or military sci-fi, and yet I have inexorably tied it to a WW2-in-space combat flight-sim featuring humanity's war against an alien race of anthropomorphic felines.  Yeah...I think it is weird, and I beat anyone reading this thinks likewise.

On a final note, I just want to address the absence of regular posts on this blog.  It began with nothing being uploaded for the month of December (2023) and will likely continue to be irregular for the foreseeable future.  I've had a lot of things going on in my life that have dragged my attention away from video games and I don't know when (or if) I will refocus on the hobby.  Still, I will post here if I have anything I want to mention about them...so please don't assume this blog is dead...yet.    

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