Samus Aran'd Friends

 

Tedium and Cruelty

Difficulty in video games is a deceptively broad topic since the challenge can come in many different forms.  Depending on the game, what's called for could be lightening reflexes, system comprehension, group co-operation, or supreme patience.  On top of all that, there's one other point worth considering - the attitude of the designer(s).

To paraphrase something Rowan Kaiser said on the "Three Moves Ahead" podcast with regards to Darkest Dungeon II, 'I can see why the developers made the game that way, but I wish they hadn't.'  It's a sentiment I can relate to.  I was only ever able to finish the original Darkest Dungeon after a judicious application of mods that collectively lessened the grind and provided a nice variety of tools to negate some of the more punishing RNG elements.  I don't hate roguelikes, deck builders, or games that use percentage values to denote the chance of success.  However, my tolerance for these gameplay mechanics hinges on the overall difficulty of the game.  Perhaps an especially egregious example is in order?  To illustrate the viewpoint I'm trying to convey, lets look at another game - Fear and Hunger.  

Developed in RPG Maker, Fear and Hunger is the product of a single intelligent, but deeply disturbed mind.  The game features graphic violence and nudity (as well as all the horrible associations and wildly inappropriate topics that exist between those two things) plastered over a grimdark fantasy setting.  Basically, the world is like that of a Souls game with the edginess cranked up to the max.  Personally, I don't see why the sole developer of Fear and Hunger went through all the effort considering most of the 'adults only' content detracts from (rather than adds to) what the game is really trying to accomplish.  Even in gratuitous horror stories, sometimes less is more.  Anyway...the combat mechanics are turn-based, more akin to a 16-bit JRPG than anything else.  I could go into more detail, but there are already some excellent videos about the way the game is played on Youtube channels such as "Zuldin" and "Super Eyepatch Wolf".  Suffice to say, Fear and Hunger comes across as a video game that really hates the player.  Well...maybe that's a bit disingenuous, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that fans of this game also have masochistic leanings.  Even so, a lot of the brutal challenge can be mitigated by player knowledge.  Specifically, item application, secret areas, class capabilities, and combat tactics all go a long way toward making the experience less trial-and-error.  The game even has a tutorial area of sorts, though it is very much of the show-don't-tell variety. 

So, I'm sure to the unfamiliar this sounds an awful lot like a Soulsborne game or some kind of fantasy take on the survival horror genre.  The thing is you can't grind for EXP, nor are there any random encounters.  Additionally, unlike Silent Hill, Resident Evil or pretty much any iconic entry in the survival horror genre, Fear and Hunger has mechanics like random item distribution, procedurally generated environments, soft lock traps (both time and location based), as well as enemies that have insta-kill attacks that come down to a literal coinflip.  There's even a merchant selling restorative items that are actually deadly poisons.  Oh...and the save system is deliberately unreliable, plus the game sometimes crashes.  It's all very arbitrary, frustrating, and (when combined with the game's generally downer endings) comes across as more than a bit nihilistic in a post-modern way.  Given the rise of meta-modernism in media, it feels "old hat" to me.  Why do people still insist on deconstructing fantasy tropes these days when G.R.R. Martin popularized doing that way back in 1996?  Build something new from the ruins already, I say!  Actually, the developer of Fear and Hunger did change things up a bit with his sequel Termina, but that's a game for another blogpost. 

Despite activating pretty much every trigger warning there is, Fear and Hunger does have a degree artistry to it.  Unfortunately, much like Darkest Dungeon (I and especially II) there's a whole lot of meanspirited, obtuse and downright hostile game design piled on top.  Let me put it this way, if the developers of these games were table-top RPG hosts (DMs, GMs, etc.) they would rarely explain the rules, never let their players do anything fun or cool, and would most definitely take every opportunity to torture characters in disturbing detail.  To anyone that happens to be nodding their head while reading this and saying to themselves "sign me up", I have to insist that you consider holding yourself in higher esteem.  I enjoy a challenge, but finishing a crushingly difficult game isn't a rite of passage.  Nobody is going to look up to you, let alone care that you beat these or any other hard video games.  So, having made that perfectly clear, I have to ask, are you sure you don't have better ways to spend you limited time and money than on these killjoys?              

R.I.P.

"You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget"

Cormac McCarthy
(1933 to 2023)

Pricey Propositions

A little over a year ago I tried to gift a game through Steam to a family member for their birthday.  Unfortunately, Steam rejected the transaction because we weren't living in the same country.  I actually submitted a troubleshooting request hoping to navigate around the obstacle, but the customer support representative basically told me to give a gift card or forget it.  I didn't want to give a gift card because it's the thought that counts (getting someone something they didn't even know they wanted).  The expense wasn't an issue.  So, with a heavy heart, I had to give up on the present idea even though it wasn't this way before.  I had used the same system to give games on previous birthdays.  So, what changed?  Steam, in their infinite wisdom, decided to introduce regional pricing.

Basically, regional pricing is a way to sell games in countries that are generally too poor to purchase them at their suggested retail value.  To give an example, a hot new release might go for 60 dollars in the USA, but in Argentina it could be quarter of that price or less (when comparing currency conversion rates).  The reasoning here being that the average income in Argentina is much lower than in America.  So, on paper this is a method which can net some extra sales and a bit more profit than would otherwise be possible when using a universal pricing strategy.  It's by no means a new concept even in the video game industry.  The Final Fantasy series has notoriously always been slightly more expensive in Japan than other regions.  Of course that started off in a world where everything was physical media.  Now, in this age of digital distribution, there's a big 3-letter problem with this business strategy - VPN.

Provided you have a Virtual Private Network client, it's not especially hard to purchase games in cheaper territories without living in (or even visiting) them.  In other words, regional pricing is great in theory (publishers and Valve Corporation get to make more money while people in poorer countries get to play games that would normally be too expensive for them to afford).  However, in practice it's easily exploited and abused.  Recently, publishers on Steam have been drifting back to the old system which, in turn, has led to a lot of finger pointing on social media with statements that can be summed up as one of the following:

• It's those cheating digital boarder hoppers that ruined things!
• It's the fault of the governments of those poorer countries for not getting a handle on inflation!
• It's the greedy publishers who are to blame!

You get the idea.  In truth, all three groups are being terrible in their own ways, but I'd like to single out publishers for a moment because of what I see as a fundamental flaw in their reasoning.  Someone who jumps through a bunch of hoops to get a game for cheaper might not have bought the game at all if it were only available for purchase at a higher price.  It's very much an extension of corporate views on internet piracy.  Just in case anyone needs a reminder, an illegal download of a game doesn't necessarily equate to a lost sale.  There are plenty of games people pass on that they would have played had the price been a lot cheaper (or free).  When it comes to enthusiasts of this hobby of ours many have free time aplenty, but not a whole lot of cash to burn.  I can see how this regional pricing exploit was one way to stretch an otherwise limited gaming budget.  Alternatively, it's possible that most corporations are well aware of all this and simply don't care.  Maximizing profits is the ironclad mandate by which they chose to function...right down to exploiting cheaper labor markets to reduce development costs...funny how it's okay if they do it, but unacceptable if anyone else does.  Oh well, maybe I'll at least be able gift games digitally again some day.        

Vermis

Simply put "Vermis" is an extremely limited print run of an official guide for a video game that doesn't actually exist.  That might sound like a strange thing to publish, but it's really an artbook designed to inspire the reader.  What's most interesting about it, I feel, is trying to reverse engineer what kind of game it's supposed to be referring to.  Overall, the images and accompanying text are very evocative with a great deal of emphasis on trying to drawn out the reader's imagination.

Most people who have viewed the book and shared their opinions online, seem to think it's basically a Dark Souls clone.  Since the art in the book isn't really trying to replicate actual screenshots, I can't confirm or deny this assertion.  That said, I don't see why Vermis couldn't just as easily be a JRPG, CRPG or some sort of dungeon crawler.

While there isn't a whole lot in the way of mechanics, stats or rules, the content of the book is actually quite extensive.  The early pages are dedicated to status ailments and character archetypes.  There are some example starting items, nods toward a good and evil alignment system as well as some basic attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Faith and Will).  After that there's a page dedicated to six known deities:

• Ghylak the Cursed
• Dorvus the Truth
• Murgo the Relentless
• Gurvek the Great
• Marko the Oracle
• Ketereth the Wrath

From this point on the guidebook starts to get into what is presumably the actual meat of the game.  The first location is "Greengrave", a garden for the dead.  Twelve different possible encounters are mentioned; half of which are (understandably) skeletal undead.  Run-ins with NPCs are also detailed and, in a neat little flourish, even feature quotes of dialogue.  A pseudo-map (one of many found in the book) show how to reach the next area - "The Pauper's Catacombs".  

As you can probably surmise, the format is a linear explanation of how to progress through various areas with tips on solving puzzles and avoiding traps.  Chalked throughout are baroquely named objects such as the "Ring of a Thousand Eyes" or a sword bearing the name "Memory of the Stinger".  The locations have similarly florid designations such as "The Silver Swamp", "The Pestilent Mines" and "The Flutewood Forest".  

The art itself is consistent from beginning to end owing to it all being the work of a person by the name of "Pastiboo".  It's deliberately dark and sometimes a little murky but, much like the text, the goal is to spark the imagination.  I'd have to say that the general impression is one of eerie foreboding with a melancholic bent.  Unlike a lot of artists who dabble in this style, there isn't much in the way of gratuitous nudity or attempts to appeal to gorehounds.  If anything Arthurian legends seem to be the primary inspiration. 

On a final note Vermis ends somewhat abruptly deep underground in a drowned labyrinth.  Given that the book has the roman numeral "I" in the title, I think it's safe to say that another installment might be forthcoming.  Whether or not part two ever sees the light of day is anyone's guess.  Still, it is such an oddity of gaming, I thought for posterity's sake I would at least mention it here.