Vagrant Story in Action

Creature Creativity

Despite the tendency for fantasy media to look to the past for inspiration, the nature of fantasy bestiary has evolved over the years.  There's a big difference between kobolds in Dungeons and Dragons versus the original fairytale ones.  Another good example would be Santa Claus' elves as opposed to J.R.R. Tolkien's elves.  In fact, Gary Gygax (co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons) came up with several of the IPs more iconic monsters based on some cheap plastic figurines he bought.  Three of the most notable examples are owlbears, rust monsters and bullets.  In fantasy video games too, it's possible to see original creations.

The first Bard's Tale (released way back in 1985) is one of the earliest examples I can recall with regards to seeing an entirely new kind of fantasy creature.  For the most part, the game simply uses bog-standard fantasy monsters.  However, there is one standout exception, the ghostly "lurkers"/"maze dwellers."  Of course, the original Legend of Zelda came out for the NES the following year...and that game introduced a whole slew of new creatures ranging from Moblins to Octoroks.

More recently, with Witcher franchise has introduced some new kinds of beasts into the fantasy lexicon.  There are the Arachas, which appear to be the result of combining a flowering plant with a giant hermit crab.  Another example is the Nekkers, a race of burrowing humanoids that feel like a compromise between a ghoul and a goblin (not to be confused with the video games Ghosts and Goblins or Ghouls and Ghosts).  One other standout monster in Witcher II is the Draug.  At first, I thought this was what would happen if Treebeard the Ent decided to take up a great sword and set himself aflame.  In actuality, though, it's a kind of malevolent spirit that appears on old battlefields in the form of a golem made of shields, armor and weapons....that also happen to be on fire.

Possibly the longest list of original fantasy bestiary (in a game trying to emulate a high fantasy setting) is Dwarf Fortress.  I think this is in large part due to the game not needing 3D models or animation for its creatures.  The amount of variety is also impressive, ranging from the goofy and harmless (flesh balls and floating guts) to nightmare inducing (green devourers and pond grabbers).  Unlike more recent editions of the Monster Manual for Dungeons and Dragons, Dwarf Fortress isn't afraid to have creatures that are more than just something that's out to ruin your day.  A wide variety of real-world animals are in the game, as well as not-so-real-world anthropomorphic versions of most in-game animals.  Some are not especially interesting, such as osprey men and rat men.  One I do rather like though is the utterly worthless slug man.  Basically, it's a child-sized slug with a pair of arms and hands which it uses to drag itself across the ground.  Even so, its slow.  It doesn't fight well, and can't be butchered for anything of use.  The slug man is just some random creature one might happen upon in the shade by a riverbank...perhaps munching on some local vegetation...

Aberrations aside, above ground flora is about what you would expect (not counting the specially designated evil zones).  Underground, on the other hand, has an entire original ecosystem built on caverns filled with forests of oversized mushrooms and fungi.  Fantastical subterranean creatures exist as well.  There is a species of primate (called Drunians), large herbivores (called Draltha) and even Molmarians (basically a naked mole rat configured like a centaur).  Some creature are not hostile, but can cause problems.  Crundles and Golaks often frighten dwarfs because of horns and claws, in the case of the former, or big tusks in the case of the latter.  Jabbers are giant dodo birds that can be domesticated and even taught how to fight.  The same is true for the somewhat misnamed beak dogs (in truth they look like Final Fantasy Chocobos with parrot coloration).  Werebeasts are another feature of Dwarf Fortress.  It is possible to come across a generic lycanthrope, but just as likely to encounter something more exotic like a werehorse or weretapier.

One last tidbit I wanted to mention is...well...what the website TV Tropes likes to call "our dragons are different."  Contrary to the norm, dragons in Dwarf Fortress can't fly (some do have vestigial wings though...).  Carp started off a bit counter to expectation, too, in that they were incredibly strong and aggressive - able to rip the arm of an unsuspecting fisherdwarf in one go.  Whether this was a coding error or a joke is hard to say (perhaps the former became the latter?).  Regardless, more recent version of the game have humbled the mighty carp by turning it back into something that resembles the real thing.

Insane Depth

Dwarf Fortress was once described to me as a game from a divergent timeline, one wherein video game development took a strange turn around the year 1980.  Instead of games slowly getting better and better graphics, the emphasis was placed entirely on under-the-hood environmental simulations, physics calculations and algorithmic generation.  In this alternate universe everyone is content with ASCII graphics because anything more advanced would draw processing power away from what really matters - emergent storytelling.

The Chronicle of Syrupleaf was the first Dwarf Fortress story I ever read.  At the time, I though the game was an interesting little curiosity.  However, I didn't dwell on it.  Later, I read Oilfurnace and it was only then that I began to see the potential of the game to inspire people to tell stories.  More recently, there have been epic sagas such as Honeystoker and Monster Slayer told with narration and artwork via youtube.  It's impressive stuff that can suck you in over time.  Almost paradoxically, the simple presentation invites your imagination to create vivid images that surpass anything that could be made from polygons and 3D animation.

I can remember the first time I played Dwarf Fortress.  nearly a decade ago, I started the game up in Adventure Mode and, not knowing the ins and outs yet, proceeded to explore a wilderness area at night without properly specing out my character.  Even though the visuals were quite crude, the game does a good job of conveying a mood.  Trees blocked my line-of-sight as I made my way up a forest-covered hillside.  Soon, I was discovered by a pack of wolves which (sensing an easy meal) proceeded to attack me.  A brief melee ensued and after being injured I attempted to flee, leaving a trail of blood behind me.  Predictably, the wolves finished me off not long after.  Welcome to Dwarf Fortress!  This game has one of the most brutal difficulty curves in video gaming history.  As fans of the game are wont to say though, "losing is fun!"

I think I'm going to give the game another proper shot in Fortress Mode.  It's an intimidating prospect since (by the developer's own admission) the UI is terrible and there's no in-game tutorial to speak of.  It appears these hurdles will be mitigated when the eventual Steam version of the game is released.  Even so, I'm kind of curious to try the original out so I can accurately compare it to new version when it eventually becomes available. 

   

In Control

It seems that Remedy Entertainment's latest game, entitled Control, is a surprise hit.  I haven't dug into it much yet, mostly because I'm waiting for an optimization patch so I can play it at a respectable framerate on my PS4.  Even so, what I have experienced reminds me a lot of the SCP Foundation.

In case you haven't heard of it, the SCP Foundation is a creative/collaborative writing website dedicated to highlighting stories about the weird, terrifying, and darkly humorous.  The framing device is a shadowy government agency (Secure-Contain-Protect) that has amassed a huge collection of artifacts and entities with supernatural properties.  True to the Foundation's namesake, their job is to keep paranormal anomalies out of the mundane world we all inhabit.  If you are familiar with the "Men in Black" film franchise, the "XCOM" video game IP, the "X-Files" TV series, or the tabletop RPG "Delta Green" then you probably already have a good grasp of what SCP is all about.

At the the time this blogpost is going up, there are around 2,000 entries in the SCP database.  Each follows an intentionally dry/clinical format reminiscent of declassified government documents...although some sections retain the [redacted] label in parts for stylistic purposes.  My tastes tend to lean toward the lovecraftian stuff with some of my favorite entries being the following:

SCP-30 "Homunculus"
SCP-55 "Unknown"
SCP-79 "Old A.I."
SCP-106 "Old Man"
SCP-2406 "Colossus"

If you have played Control and are familiar with SCP, then the similarities between it and the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control) should be obvious.  It's nice to see an attempt to adapt the themes of SCP into a video game, but it's also worth mentioning that there already are several free fan-made games such as SCP - Containment Breach and SCP: Secret Laboratory as well as a demake of the former.  The first two titles are played from the first-person perspective with gameplay similar to Outlast or Slender: The Arrival.  The demake is pretty similar with the main caveat being it is a 2D sprite based side-scroller.  They are neat games, but only really have niche-appeal.

One other piece of media that Control draws a lot of inspiration from is the bizarre horror novel "House of Leaves."  I must confess, I have yet to read the book.  I did get the chance to thumb through a friend's copy a long time ago and was surprised by the formatting.  Certain pages had text spiraling like a vortex, or reversed lettering so that it was only legible in a mirror.  In other places the text was overlapping, scattered piecemeal across the page, or even arranged in little boxes.  It was all very meta, and the crux of the story is about a house that has interior dimensions larger than the outside...much like the "Oldest House" in Control.  

KSP2

The orientation of Duna in this picture is all wrong
It should be shaded vertically, not horizontally

Some new titles were announced at Gamescom 2019, but the only one that stood out to me was Kerbal Space Program 2.  It's great that this spaceflight-sim is finally getting a sequel (even if it isn't the original design team that is working on the game).  Based on the limited information that is currently available it sounds like this will be truly sequential in that it will be adding new technological advancements, as well as expanding the scope to include interstellar exploration.  However, there are a few worrying inaccuracies in the trailer...and also some aspects of the game that remain unaddressed despite being vital components of the experience.  Let's start with the good stuff.

The thing that I think everyone will notice right off the bat is all the graphical enhancements made to the rendering engine.  I'm not talking about the trailer.  That is entirely made up of pre-rendered cutscenes.  Rather, what I'm talking about is the short clips that we've seen thus far of gameplay.  Surprisingly,  KSP2 is using Unity once again.  Considering the scale of the game though I wonder if the developers had to write a bunch of custom code in order to make the time and distance scales that the game deals in manageable.  Regardless, it's nice to see all the classic parts making a comeback, along with old Kerbonaut favorites like Bob and Valentine.  As for new things...wow...as far as I can tell there are some really impressive pieces of hardware such as the Project Orion and Daedalus spacecrafts, as well as a VASIMR drive.  It's a bit more sci-fi than the original game, but I like it because it feels like a natural evolution for KSP.  Now for the more troubling stuff.

Good on the developers for showing the rocket buring retrograde here
But I don't think a ringed world and moon could be that close  

Scott Manley very astutely pointed out a few scientific inaccuracies which I have relayed in the picture captions attached to this blogpost.  They aren't deal breakers, and for all I know they might have been done intentionally in order to create more spectacular visuals.  Either way though, I hope they are fixed by the time the game launches.  Those matters aside, the real make-or-break feature here is the way the development team decides to tackle research and missions.  Back when the original KSP was still in early access Squad (the original developers) introduced a "career mode" which utilized three currencies called science, funds and reputation.  It was a neat idea on paper, but in practice proved to be both boring and unrealistic (with regards to how space agencies actually operate).  When you get down to it all human endeavors involving outer space amount to three things:

• Advancement of Scientific Understanding
• Achievements in Human Spaceflight
• Improving Infrastructure for Profit

Any human designed mission is going to be one, two or all three of these things.  So, I don't see why it needs to be any different for Kerbals.  That might sound bland, but if done correctly I think it might be possible to provide players with a dynamic mission tree that fosters a compelling single-player campaign.  Whatever they end up doing though it shouldn't be reduced to the level of "get points so you can get more points."  If I wanted that kind of experience I would play a cookie clicker instead. Obviously, sandbox mode can still be an option in addition to being an excellent stepping stone into multiplayer (a feature already announced for KSP2).  I just hope sandbox mode isn't the only way to play the game at launch.  For a 60 dollar retail product, I expect there to be a bit more to this one the the original.