Prologue

If you haven't tried it already, go to the Steam store page and type "prologue" into the search engine.  You will get a long list of games that can be played for free.  Most of them are not very good, but a few might appeal to you if you have a particular interest in what might be an underserved niche.  Two examples that come to mind are Alder's Blood: Prologue (a horror themed strategy/tactics RPG) and Empty Shell: Prologue (a game that feels like GTFO, but plays like Teleglitch).  They are demo games at heart, but not every free game falls into the category of a sample that is trying to rope you into buying the real product.  In fact, there are a number of completely free-of-charge video games on Steam (as well as other online software distribution stores) that aren't covertly trying to get you to spend money. 

The oddly named Buriedbornes is one such example.  It's basically a dungeon crawling RPG with a somewhat Dark/Demon's Souls vibe to it.  The art is static, but well drawn and it has all the fundamental mechanics you'd expect from a game of this type.  The only complaint I have with it is a persistent online requirement despite being a single-player game.  Normally, that wouldn't be an issue for me except that if the servers are down then you can't play.  I guess that's the real price you pay for this free game.  

Another game that got special mention on the "Three Moves Ahead" end-of-year-discussion podcast was Ardor.  It's a very small, tightly designed turn-based strategy game.  At first glance, it has a chess-like feel to it.  Upon further examination though major differences start to become apparent; hexes instead of squares, only one player-controlled playing piece, and a deck-builder card mechanic instead of a simple "I go, you go" approach.  The ability to unlock new cards and upgrade already acquired cards after each level is neat, and keeps Ardor from becoming an overly linear experience.  Even so, it does have a handy "revert back to the beginning of the turn" button - a very nice feature to have in the event that you miscalculated something important.

On the less analytical side of things, there are some nice free games out there as well.  Take the VR-supported game Dagon, for example.  It is an accurate retelling of the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name.  Player input is minimal, but the narrator and environmental design do an excellent job of setting the mood for this horror tale.  

Speaking of horror, the Faith Demo is not actually a demo.  It's the first entry in a trilogy of games.  The graphics and sound are very retro (I mean we are talking Apple II retro here).  Despite the simple presentation, the game is actually pretty darn scary thanks to some well crafted tension building scenes.  The overall ambience is surprisingly good too.       

First released on Steam way back in 2014, NaissanceE is a walking sim, but not just any walking sim.  The environments in this game are positively intimidating in terms of size and scale.  It is almost as if the game is deliberately designed to make you megalophobic.  Thankfully, there isn't anything in the game that is out to cause you harm other than plain old gravity, so exploration and discovery are really what this game is all about. 

There are a number of other games I could cover such as the beautifully stylized Sailing Era with its anime inspired character and scenic 2.5D harbor towns, but I think I've provided enough examples for this blog post.  In general, I think games are too expensive these days.  Thankfully, there are a few good ones that are totally free. 

Unseen, But Not Undiscovered

I read a statistic that claimed half of all the people who play video games are female.  While my first instinct was to cry "bullshit," I've since thought about it a bit and come to the conclusion that if we're counting casual titles with really bare bones gameplay then, yes, it's most likely accurate.  A good example would be the hidden object subgenre of puzzle games.

Sort of a digital evolution of those activity books for young children, the primary mechanic of hidden object games is to look at relatively static pictures and find things from a provided list.  The closest I've ever gotten to playing one of these games is a free flash title called 6 Differences.  In the case of that game it's a dreamlike visual tale about pulling an all-nighter in a big city.  The storytelling is practically nonexistent and there's no dialogue.  However, in the case of many hidden object games the story is much more prominent with text driven conversations and narration.  Plots also tend to by centered around mother/daughter relationships.  I should point out that not all these games are about ponies, rainbows and other "girly stuff."  A lot of titles feature themes straight out of pulp novellas.

Another interesting aspect to the hidden object subgenre is the way the games are marketed.  They tend to be downloadable only, include free trail versions, are very cheaply priced and have low system requirements.  Personally, the artwork and certain story elements remind me a little of point-and-click adventure games.  Especially when it comes to the relaxed pace and overall style.  Unlike adventure games that I played in my youth though hidden object games tend to feature an integrated hint system.

While not something I feel terribly compelled to get into, I have to admit it's a category of video games that I knew nothing about until its existence was pointed out to me in a video courtesy of Extra Credits.  Kudos to them for shining a light on what is a rather low profile part of the gaming industry.

Fear Done Right

I'm a big fan horror in video games. Especially when it's mixed in with a bit of space sci-fi. Sadly, I've been disappointed by all the media that has recently carried this particular theme.

Prometheus (the film) was poorly thought out. Dead Space 3 had way too much action. Aliens: Colonial Marines was simply dull. The reason for these failures can be traced to one key point. Escapist Columnist, Shamus Young, thinks Aliens is really about Ellen Ripley.  I disagree.  Don't get me wrong, she's a great character and gives the audience someone to root for...but as I mentioned before in this blog post, it really comes down to primal instincts and anxieties.  So, to make what I'm getting at explicitly clear, let me show you a way to make an Aliens game done right.

Horror co-op might actually work here (link)

You wake up from hypersleep alone and disoriented. Your in the belly of an old starship. Outside the cryo-chamber it's dark claustrophobic corridors lined with cold metal. From here the player can explore three decks. A-deck is astrogation and consoles for various ship systems. Here you can figure out what the hell is going on and get a map. B-deck is the living quarters. Medical, the galley, airlocks and space suits are all here. You can also find a motion tracker. C-deck in engineering. You can rig up an incinerator unit, set the self destruct and prep the escape pod. The nest is also here. Including crew who woke before you...or what's left of them. You see...there is an alien on board. It isn't aware of you at first, but after a short time it takes notice. It's smart and patient...it might stalk, it might lay an ambush or it might simply avoid the player for awhile to create a false sense of security. A flamer will keep it at bay, a motion tracker will warn you when it's close. Beyond that though your pretty much defenseless.  What do you do? Zap it out into space? Set the self-destruct sequence and bail? Program the ship to fly into a sun?  What about sending out a distress signal?

It's up to you. Things are open ended and there are multiple ways to finish with some endings better than others.  There's also a number of side objectives you could try to complete. Rescue cocooned shipmates, figure out what happened from "Mother" or use an auto-doc to remove the alien egg sitting in your chest - Surprise! Meanwhile, doing anything requires you to navigate using a flickering flashlight hearing the ping of your tracker. Is that a bulkhead or the alien holding perfectly still? maybe you could send some fire that way but your flame thrower is already sputtering. Maybe you should make a refueling run or weld some doors shut and barricade a few air-ducts. Maybe don a spacesuit and go EVA to reach another part of the ship with worrying about the xenomorph...that is assuming you have the oxygen.

Would this game draw critical praise for being terrifying?  I think so. Would it sell like crazy?  Probably not.  I think it could be done well in nine months (unlike the game we ended up with), but it would be short and have to be sold as a $20 downloadable game (DLG?) possibly on Steam.  So for that reason alone, the above is pretty much ensured to never happen.  Gearbox might have tarnished their reputation a bit with Aliens: Colonial Marines, but they made a lot of money, and most gamers don't have any clue who Randy Pitchford is.  Still and idea is an idea.  

Deceptively Complex

When it comes to video game graphics often times the most common things we encounter in reality are some of the hardest to create in-game. So much so that even now with three decades of entertainment software development experience much of what should be taken for granted still stumps the greatest minds of the video game industry.

Take wind for example. Aside from a lot of smoke and mirror tricks the only game series I've played that really took this weather phenomenon into account was Zelda. Kind of strange when you consider that the cartoon visual ascetic of Wind Waker doesn't exactly demand a realistic depiction of air currents. Then again the fact that Nintendo designers tried to tackle the ethereal problem of wind in video games might be why Zelda: Wind Waker is one of the best received games of the series since its 16-bit days.

Water and fluid dynamics are another aspect of games that has never really been depicted in a believe manner. From Dust managed to depict water on a grand scale thanks to recent improvements in CPU processing power, but when it comes to an on screen individual interacting with liquid H2O the DLG Hydrophobia is the only one that comes close. Sadly, water is pretty much the only thing good about this game. Maybe the developers suffered from tunnel vision? And as a follow up question why isn't there a single game studio that understands crushing darkness and cold increases with underwater depth?

Improvements in lighting and particle physics have helped fire enhance its look in the world of video games, particularly in titles like Far Cry 2. Unfortunately a major byproduct, smoke, is still lacking. Sad really...smoke has played an important role in the history of war and is even mentioned prominently in Sun Tzu's 2200 year old book The Art of War yet all these war-themed video games drop the ball with regards to this aspect of man's first great weapon.

Four-Legged creatures are fairly difficult to animate. Just ask the developers of Red Dead Redemption. Horses don't move the same as dogs which in turn don't move the same as bears. Ever wonder why there aren't many games that feature elephants, large birds, or certain types of insects? It's because humanoid creatures are much less likely to get hung up on world geometry since they are more vertically oriented.

Foliage or more specifically leaves and grass tend to be very resource intensive to render onscreen. Because of this a lot of designers resort to using deceptively simple textures which seem okay in the distance, but under close inspection look extremely fake. Crytek made it their mission for a while to crack this nut and to some degree they were successful. Since then other companies such as Naughty Dog have followed suit, but sadly I still see a lot of trees in games that look like they were made by Lego.

Video game characters must really burn through the hair spray because if I got a dime every time I saw a character with gravity defying helmet hair I would be a rich man. Even depictions of long hair tend to come off as several textures chained together or worse yet clip like crazy through the characters clothes or shoulders. It's sad really...I can think of a few characters like Geralt from the Witcher 2 which have well-rendered hair, but other characters he interacts with end up with hoods, hats and stubble instead. So, consider this final entry the next big hurtle in gaming - realistic hair! Chances are the first game to really pull it off probably won't even get much recognition for it.

There you have it - wind, water, fire, four-legs, foliage and hair. They may be common enough in our daily lives, but in the digital world they're illusions within illusions and tricks within tricks designed to fool the eyes even more so than the rest. I'm not much into Zen Buddhism, but I can see why its devout followers have such an appreciation of the natural world. So much of what we see in gardens and parks is far more complex than most people give it credit for. Unless of course your a game designer...in which case mother nature has probably given you a few harsh lessons in humility.

Remetal Gearance

I'm not opposed to new terminology in the game industry. In particular I really like the recently introduced term DLG (Down-Loadable Game) to help distinguish between DLC, which implies that the download is simply adding additional material to an already existing game. Especially since "Inide Game" is a somewhat overused term often referring to any game with a low budget and small team of developers. Rather than its originally intended meaning of an independent group working outside the influence of big game publishers.

That said terms like "transfarring" seem completely unnecessary and Kojima Productions latest attempt at wordsmithing has spawned the word "revengance" which comes across as bad grammar...or at the very least a typo. But this isn't the worst nomenclature to come out this console generation. The Nintendo Wii for example was originally supposed to be called the Nintendo Revolution, a far more suitable name when you consider that its motion control system was attempting to be a major departure from other gaming input methods at the time. While we're talking about motion controls I can't help but briefly touch on the fact that the Sony Move and Sub-Controller have to be some of the most uninspired names for such devices. It doesn't help Sony's cause that the PS VITA has a lackluster name combined with two equally valid ways of pronouncing it. But it's not just Japanese game companies that struggle with the English language.

Microsoft had their motion sensor peripheral codenamed "Natal" before it eventually became "Kinect" which in my opinion wasn't much of an improvement. Especially since the "K" in the beginning stinks of Midway Games' inability to use the letter "c" whenever it happened to come up in the beginning of a word. Did I mention people get paid to workshop this stuff? Considering how many game titles have the word "requiem" or "rising" in them I can't help but think there is a lot of no-talent copy-cats when it comes time to choose names. Then again you'll also get very bizarre cases of Bethesda suing the creator of Minecraft for using the word "scrolls" in their upcoming title while Nintendo goes and releases Skyward Sword just over a week after Skyrim unmolested. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I heard someone say Elder Scrolls: Skyward Sword either intentionally or by accident in the bottom half of November, 2011.

Regardless, the day is done and who know what tomorrow will bring. XBox720 seems unlikely and PS4 will definitely not happen considering the number 4 is unlucky in Japanese culture, sounds too much like the word for death in their language. Then again "PlayStation Death" complete with jet black casing and screaming skull logo sounds a lot better than some of the focus group tested crap the game industry has been puking out lately.