Old, but Still Creepy

Games and Books

I've always found it strange when people on gaming forms proudly proclaim they don't read books.  To me, it's like saying you never watch movies or listen to music.  There are a lot of interesting things written in books (both fictional and non-fictional).  Some novels have a surprising number of similarities to particular games.  Lets look at a few examples:

If you've ever played Myst, Riven or more recently Obduction you've probably noticed they all have a distinct vibe.  Unsurprising, considering these three titles are the products of the Miller brothers and their studio Cyan Worlds.  What do you think of when you look back on your experiences with these games?  Battered journals?  Classical architecture?  Strange statues?  How about cryptic messages or seaside locations?  "Piranesi" has all these things in spades.  Obviously, it has nothing to do video games in a direct sense...but I would be surprised to hear that Susanna Clarke has never seen or played any of these games.  At the very least this story feels inspired by Myst, if not an unofficial novel set in the same universe...or perhaps more appropriately - the same mental space.  Regardless, I would recommend "Piranesi" to anyone who is a fan of the Miller brother's games or likes setting they take place in, but doesn't want to have to deal with a myriad of puzzles.

The Dark Pictures Anthology is an episodic series of unrelated horror adventures with gameplay similar to what you would find in a Telltale title.  House of Ashes is the third of a planned tetralogy of such games.  The developers specifically mentioned H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" as a major inspiration, but if I were to guess at a source it would have been "The Wide, Carnivorous Sky" by John Langan.  Why?  Both game and novel - well, it's not really long enough to call it a novel...more like a novella or short story - have an uncanny commonality with (at least when view in terms of the broad strokes); Iraq war veterans fighting vampire bats from space!  Actually in the short story there's only one space vampire bat whereas the game has them packed into a cave up to the echolocators.  When you think about it though, that's pretty standard fare for video games.  The highest number of enemy aircraft any fighter pilot has shot down in a single sortie is about half-a-dozen.  By video game logic that's a poor showing in all but the most hardcore flight sims.   

Adam Nevill is, in his own words, a writer of supernatural horror.  Between numerous short stories and a bunch of full length novels, he's actually covered a variety of subgenres.  There are ghost stories by him, creature features, some slashers and even a little bit of sci-fi.  Adam Nevill has also penned the novel "Last Days" which is (somewhat amusingly) framed as a found footage style documentary with religious horror trappings.  In particular, the demonic entities in the novel are eerily similar to those found in Faith: The Unholy Trinity.  Granted, it could simply be a case of these two pieces of media taking ideas from the same sources.  Both stories also feature nefarious cults in the background, and protagonists of questionable mental stability.  Said protagonists must ultimately (in their respective stories) confront a seemingly undying antagonist in order to achieve resolution, though overall the situations both characters find themselves in are refreshingly small stakes compared to your average JRPG. 

Origin

I have mentioned the Wing Commander series in the past regarding innovation, a potential remake, and the novels.  With respect to that third topic, I expressed disappointment that the books fizzled out right as they were approaching the depth and complexity of a Falkland Islands style conflict.  When I wrote that I was thinking of it as an evolution in storytelling; advanced beyond the simplistic black and white of the Kilrathi-Terran War.  Little did I know at the time, it wasn't so much of an innovation as more of a return to the roots of the franchise.  

Chris Roberts is the creator of Wing Commander.  When asked in various interviews over the years where he drew his inspiration from, typical answers included things like the movie "Top Gun" and "Star Wars", as well as the TV mini-series "Battlestar Galactica" (the 1978 version).  The Kilrathi are basically a copy of sci-fi writer Larry Niven's "Kzinti", a race of feline aliens from the "Known Universe" setting.  What he tends to avoid mentioning is how much real-life conflicts trickled their way into his creative process.

The Falkland Islands War took place in 1982 between the U.K. and Argentina.  At the time Chris Roberts was 13~14 years old and living in Manchester.  For most of the world, the conflict was of minor concern (only worthy of a reoccurring two minute segment on the nightly news).  Obviously, for the two countries involved though, it was a much bigger deal.  There were carrier airstrikes, amphibious assaults and a fair amount of death occurring on those remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.  Three capital ships that played a major part in that war were Exeter, Coventry and Sheffield.  They are names that are also prominently featured in Wing Commander.  Looking at certain cutscenes in the first game, it's easy to notice Terran Confederation commandos who are dressed conspicuously like certain units that fought to secure the islands on land.  Aircraft operations during the war were typically conducted individually or in pairs with Harrier jets, in particular, performing air patrols in twos.  During these operations, it was common for British pilots to find themselves with no safe place to land except the carrier they took off from.  They were also outnumbered by a large margin.  Despite this fact, they were able to inflict losses on the Argentinian air force disproportional to their own due to the general (albeit marginal) superiority of their own aircraft.  This tactical situation (in broad terms) is almost identical to that found in the Wing Commander games.

Despite being on the offensive, the Royal Navy had to take great pains to escort and protect it's supply ships due to the extreme distance from any friendly port.  The infamous Exocet missile that damaged and sunk several British warships is also represented in Wing Commander in the form of the Kilrathi "Skipper" torpedo.  While technically a torpedo in-universe and not a missile, it's worth noting that the dumb-fire missiles in all the Wing Commander games make up for their lack of guidance by having a bigger warhead.  When the captain of the nuclear submarines HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano, he did so using unguided torpedoes (deliberately because he wanted the extra punch they carried over newer designs).

As the series progressed, Wing Commander became more and more World War 2 in space.  However, that is not how things began.  The fighters the player flies in Wing Commander 1 and 2 are sleek like jets.  Enemy capital ships can launch missiles or strike craft the way a frigate or destroyer that fought in the Falkland islands War might launch a Sea Dart or send up a helicopter.  In the first game, capital ships lacked and special defenses (such as phase shields) and were as vulnerable to conventional fighter attacks as any real-life warship (both then and now).  Certainly, the Kilrathi (who were shown surrendering in certain cutscenes in the original Wing Commander) became more and more like stereotypical Imperial Japanese with a bit of Islamic terrorist sprinkled in later on.  Personally, I'm glad they chose not to make them South American, though something more nuanced would have been better than the xenophobic characterization we ultimately got. 

Shrunk to Excellence

I often write about the 4X genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) of games here on this blog.  Stellaris, Master of Orion, Space Empires and the long-running Civilzation series are some of the go-to examples, but as I have mentioned in the past none of them were my introduction to this particular strategy subgenre.  That honor belongs to Spaceward Ho!  Originally launched in 1990 the game has since gone through a number of revisions and updates with the current version 5.0.5 released in 2003.  As one might notice, it's an old game, and fairly simple despite all the updates.  In-game technological advances are represented by simple numerical values with bigger being better than smaller.  There aren't any alien species to choose from just different styles of cowboy hats to represent each faction.  Heck...the "galaxies" don't even have stars, just planets floating in the void of space.  Any notion of realism is discarded; starships can look like giant cybernetic sharks or have a giant boxing glove on a spring strapped to the front of them.  The appeal of the game doesn't lie in its presentation, but rather the underlying mechanics.  Many times over the years, I have wondered if there could be a game that bridges the gap between the simplicity of Spaceward Ho! and the modern sleekness that has since been introduced to more recent 4X games.  Tactical battles, for example, consist of nothing more than rival vessels blasting each other back and forth with no way to implement maneuvers or formations.  Perhaps a bit more could be done there...?  Until recently this sort of game was merely a hypothetical concept born out of wishful thinking and an overactive imagination on my part.  As it turns out though, such a game exists and is appropriately named The Final Theory.

In fact the title of the game is less about the meta aspects of 4X design and has more to do with the in-game goal itself.  In order to win, the player must develop an unproven scientific device capable of remaking the entire galaxy.  There's a lot to do before getting to that point though so let me go over the gameplay.  Much like "metal" in  Spaceward Ho! starship construction requires a finite resource called "tacknium" found in certain sectors of the galaxy.  Final Theory doesn't bother with individual planets or even star systems, nor does it care about colonization.  Instead, it cuts off the beginning and end bits of most 4X games in order to focus on the most exciting parts that tend to happen in the midgame.

Much like Isaac Asimov's original "Foundation" trilogy, the galaxy has already been fully populated and now consists of four renegade factions as well as the remnants of a once all-encompassing interstellar empire.  Color coding is the only visual difference between each of these five rival entities (unless you want to buy some cosmetic DLC that provides alternate looks to each faction's starships).  Incidentally, the ships themselves are divided into traditional nautical nomenclature: frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battlecruiser, battleship and dreadnaught.  Each ship type is made distinct by the offensive and defensive weaponry at its disposal.  Battles take place on a two-dimensional hexagonal plain.  Ranges, firing arcs, movement speeds and the potential to inflict damage (based on whether a particular weapon system is more effective against shields or armor) are all factors to consider.  Thankfully, turn-based combat means that the player can take as much time as they like weighing the pros and cons of each of their many options.  The hulks of destroyed ships act as obstacles, adding another dynamic to the battlefield.  This variety of things-to-be-considered also extends to the strategic layer of the game in that each sector has a specialization.  Sometimes this consists of the ability to construct ships of a certain class.  Interestingly enough, once built, the vessel is moved to a "reserve" from which it can be deployed to any sector containing construction facilities regardless of the category.  This is an especially important mechanic to keep in mind since each faction (including the player's) can only move one fleet per turn on the galactic map.  So, sometimes deploying an all new fleet is quicker than moving an existing one to a desired location.  The size of individual fleets is also limited, but can be expanded by taking control of sectors that specialize in increasing that particular stat.

One aspect of The Final Theory that initially confused me was the various resources that the player accumulates and spends.  Aside from the aforementioned tacknium (needed for ship construction) there are engineering points, development points, and enriched tacknium.  All three can be acquired simply by controlling sectors that produce them in small, but never ending quantities.  Engineering and development points can also be gained through victory in combat.  The former is used to upgrade a particular class of ship, unlocking new abilities and allowing players to tweak the relative strength levels of armor, weapons and shields.  Development points work similarly, but are for smaller more specific upgrades.  Typically these sorts of modifications increase the damage or reduce the cooldown time for one ability found on a particular ship class.  Despite the name, enriched tacknium is only tangentially related to regular tacknium and is used solely to detonate a special bomb capable of wiping out an entire fleet (while simultaneously creating a nice new deposit of tacknium to mine).  There's also "data" that is gained through conquest and needed to trigger the final theory device that ends the game.

A few other gameplay mechanics worthy of note are as follows:

• A new harvester can only be placed in a sector every other turn.  This somewhat limits how fast any of the four upstart factions can expand their fleets.
• Access to a sector can temporarily be blocked once every four turns using a FTL disruptor.
• Starships can be recycled for half their original value in tacknium.
• Once a faction reaches a certain size they can launch a propaganda campaign once every other turn in an attempt to gain control of a neighboring sector.  The chances of success depend on a number of factors that I won't bother going into here.  Needless to say, it serves as  a nifty way to snatch up sectors of limited strategical value.

As you can see, there are a number of subsystems at work in The Final Theory.  Overall, it's still less complicated than say Stellaris, and yet not as simple as Spaceward Ho!  Some of the mechanics might feel needlessly restrictive but, much like rules for a well thought out board game, they exist to present the player with lots of meaningful decisions...and at the heart of it, isn't that what strategy gaming is all about?     

It Should Have Been A Game (for a new year)

Returning to this blog for 2022 is the awkwardly abbreviated I.S.H.B.A.G.  On the docket for this entry is the long-delayed horror film "Antlers".  Set in a rundown town someplace in Oregon, the story follows three of the locals: an elementary school teacher, a sheriff, and a neglected boy.  In fact the movie is based on a short story entitled "The Quiet Boy".  The neat part of this particular tale is its child protagonist.  He exhibits all the signs of domestic abuse: malnourished, disheveled, friendless, and prone to killing small animals.  It's easy to assume he is the victim of a traumatic upbringing, and in a way that's true, but as the story unfolds the situation reveals itself to be a far more bizarre set of circumstances.

The word "wendigo" is used by certain Native American cultures to describe an emaciated foul-smelling humanoid monster that radiates cold and is driven by an insatiable hunger for flesh.  At some point in the past the concept was transmitted to white settlers who interpreted it through their own cultural lens.  The result was a reimagining of the wendigo as a variation on the werewolf myth, though (for whatever reason) was envisioned as having horns or antlers...almost as if it was "were-elk".  Two other key differences between wendigos and werewolves are a weakening that occurs the more they eat and a continuous transformation rather than one triggered by a full moon.

Getting back to the film, the cinematography and creature designed are excellent.  There's also an interesting subtext about opiate abuse and social decay, particularly how addiction can erode a person's humanity leading to the destruction of families and communities.  Unfortunately, it's not well integrated into the overall plot.  Worse still, the movie places so much focus on the school teacher character and her own backstory that the other characters don't have much time to develop over the course of the film.

So, how would this benefit from being a game?  Well, for one thing, spending more time with each character really isn't a problem.  Better still, it would allow the player to more fully immerse themselves in the challenges the boy faces on a daily basis.  Setting traps, gathering roadkill, avoiding bullies, and generally trying to keep his father-turned-wendigo from going on a cannabalistic rampage.  The film also doesn't do a very good job of communicating to the audience why the boy is so dedicated to his family (even under these dire circumstances).  There are some vague hints of a religious upbringing, but it feels like the child-protagonist of "Antlers" needs a more overt justification for acting the way he does.  As far as genre goes, I think a retro/classic point-and-click adventure game style like The Last Door would work well or something a bit more modern mechanics-wise like The Lake, Life is Strange, Oxenfree, etc.

Cutting between the the boy, teacher and sheriff would allow for smooth transitions between scenes and allow the player to view things from a broader perspective.  Segments featuring the sheriff could be a bit like a detective game.  Meanwhile, the teacher could almost be an antagonist of sorts; trying to uncover the boy's secret.  On a final note, the movie doesn't address the fate of the original wendigo.  Maybe even in a cruel twist the game could allow players take control over the monsters at one or two points in the story.  Doing so could work extremely well as a way of showing how the they become more and more "famished" with each passing "meal".  The film did a poor job of communicating this crucial fact during the climax of the story.  In a game, though, it's easy - just show the health bar slowly drain.