A Moment on the Soapbox

I've been pretty light on the posting again recently, I realize - sorry about that.  It occured to me last weekend, as Witness for the Prosecution was about to close on Saturday, that I've been doing theatre almost nonstop for the last six months.  There hasn't been a week since June that hasn't involved either rehearsal or performance almost every night of the week.  That's absolutely not a complaint - I'm loving being back into it - but I have to admit I've felt a bit weary the last few weeks, so posting here has taken a backseat.  I hope to have something fun for you to look at and play this weekend.

Right now, though, there are two things I'd like to bring to your attention which I hope you'll be interested in.  The first has been dear to me for a long time, and that's the yearly Child's Play charity, which just kicked off for 2010.  Since you're reading this site there's a better-than-even chance you've heard of Child's Play already, but in case you haven't:  for the last seven years, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade - with the help of Kristin Lindsay and other lovely, talented folks - have run a charity to deliver games and toys to children's hospitals all over the country (indeed, all over the world).  It centers around the holiday season for the fundraising and gift-giving, but sick kids and their families use these gifts year round while they're stuck in the hospital.  In the span of its existence, Child's Play has raised over $5 million in contributions.

As someone who spent more than his fair share of time in hospitals as a child, let me tell you with absolute certainty that this charity is extremely important.  My truly good memories of hospitals are few and far between, but every single time I remember playing the vector-engine Star Wars game with my mother in the patient lounge at Texas Children's Hospital, it makes me smile.  Almost nothing could be more helpful to a frightened sick child than comfort.  Distraction.  Fun.  Hospitals are scary places for anybody, and can be doubly so for kids.  If you've never heard of Child's Play, or hadn't planned to donate to them this year, please do.  Feel awesome when you click that button, because you are awesome, and I know exactly how much your donation will mean to someone.  If you were already planning to donate, I was happy to learn that Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh is on their recipient list for the first time this year.  If you feel like donating to them specifically, odds are pretty good I know some of the kids you'll be helping personally, and I thank you ahead of time on their behalf.

The second item is considerably more frivolous, but hopefully still of interest to some of you.  Mathew Kumar, another games writer up in Canada whose work has appeared in Edge, Gamasutra, Eurogamer and (my favorite) Rock Paper Shotgun, has just released the most recent issue of exp., his personal short-form videogame magazine.  I purchased and really enjoyed the first two issues of exp. (one - two), and I'm looking forward to reading his latest, which covers (among other things) VVVVVV and Dragon Quest IX, two of my favorite games of the last year.  In a surprisingly generous move, he's made a PDF version of this issue of exp. called "minus infinity" available for free right here, and you can go read it now online if you like.  If you want a hard copy - as I will - they're $6 and can be had over here.  Congrats on churning out another issue, Mathew.  Can't wait to read it.

Alright, that's it for now.  Back with something free for you to play tomorrow or Sunday.  Promise.

Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 63: Organ Trail

It's Halloween, kids, and you know that means I really have no choice but to pick something silly and shlocky to give you for your Free and Worth Every Penny installment.  Luckily, the game makers of the world are in the mood to provide just such fare, and Ryan Wiemeyer, Ben Perez and Micheal Block of The Men Who Wear Many Hats have come through in fine form with a playable beta of their humorous spin on a childhood classic.  Join me as we travel on the...

You'll forgive me if I make this a piece short on words and long on funny screenshots, because come on.  You know what The Oregon Trail is.  I don't need to describe that for you.  This is that, but with zombies.  As described on their product page...

Quote:

Organ Trail was an edutainment game developed in 1971.  Schools across America used this game as a teaching tool to prepare children for the impending zombie apocolypse and dysentery. Re-live your childhood with this faithfully emulated version of Organ Trail for the Apple-II.

So what's changed from the game you actually remember playing back in the early 80's?  From a gameplay standpoint, almost nothing.  You'll still stock up at the beginning on the East coast, picking your difficulty level and your limited supplies - though now you'll need mufflers, batteries and spare tires for your station wagon (see what they did there?), rather than oxen and axles.  You'll still travel to the West, hitting cities and landmarks along the way.

The map looks a little different, though.

You'll still deal with running out of supplies along the road and needing to try to find people to trade with.  You'll encounter zombie hordes you need to cross that substitute for the rivers of the original, with suitably creative options for doing so.  You'll still go hunting, though it's called "scavenging" now and there's a lot less wildlife than there was before.

The worst part is, I'm only gonna be able to carry back half that shopping cart anyhow.

And of course, as a hallmark of the series, random events will still bless or curse you every so often along your journey.  Some of these have been predictably customized for the new setting...

...Sorry, hon. I didn't see him in the back seat there.

...and some of them are old friends.

Are you effing serious? I'm still dealing with dysentery in the zombie apocalypse? Sigh.

Why does the game carry a beta label?  Well, because it isn't finished.  It's playable through to the end, to be sure, but there are pieces notably missing - try to talk to people in town, for example, and you'll get no response - and parts of the game will occasionally bug out.  I had a trading screen get garbled on me early in the game and had to start over, costing me 10 minutes or so of progress.  The full list of features planned for the final game but not yet implemented includes:  saving your game, music, "lots more art", an updating map, extra minigames, a better ending, and conversation.

So you'd be forgiven for deciding to wait for all that stuff to make it in, before giving this a try.  But I'm glad they put it out now anyhow, and I'm glad I played it.  It's an idea that rests entirely on the seasonal appeal of its theme - if ever I was going to play a zombie themed Oregon Trail parody, Halloween weekend is when I was going to do it - and the idea really doesn't suffer much from not having all that extra stuff.  You still manage resources, rationing food and tweaking your pace as you go.  You still get sad when somebody dies.  You still hate that goddamned dysentery message.

So did I make it to Oregon?  I did, I'm pleased to say.  ...Well, mostly.  Ryan had a pretty serious fever, and he didn't make it.  But four of us did.  That's better than I used to do in elementary school.

Have fun beating my score. I might've overdone it with the bullets.

There you have it:  your free Halloween-themed time waster for the weekend.  If I may make a request of the Internet for next year, though:  something other than zombies, hm?  They're beginning to be seriously played out.

Organ Trail is...

• a clever twist on a classic game.
• clearly unfinished, but playable and enjoyable in its current state.
• full of bits that made me smile, even if hunting is still a pain in the ass.
• a good use of a half hour if you have fond memories of the previously zombie-free series.

No download necessary for this one, just a Flash-supporting web browser.  Get your zombie on by clicking right here.

"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers.  This piece also appears there.

What is This Game, Why Can't I Stop Playing It

I've offered this one up as a Free and Worth Every Penny entry for Mike to do - if he doesn't take it I surely will myself.  But I want to tell you right now to go download Super Crate Box.  Between this and Super Meat Boy (which is sadly not out yet on the PC but I've been playing on the 360) I have just about all the retro super-hard platforming I can handle, and I love it.  I started out this evening playing a leisurely round of Civ V, but then Super Crate Box came along and it was all jumping and shooting all the time.

What the heck is it?  Well, it looks like this:

...and the gameplay is exactly as insane as it appears.  You're on a single-screen layout, not dissimilar to the original (pre-Super) Mario Bros arcade game.  Enemies are spawning at the top and making their way to the bottom, also not unlike Mario Bros.  What is unlike Mario Bros is, of course, the obsession with crates.  They are your only scoring mechanism - the more you get, the better your score - but every crate forces a new random weapon on you, and it's frequently an unpleasant surprise which one you get.  You need to manage the constant weapon switching and avoid enemies while collecting crates until you die, which will happen A LOT.

And that's it.  But it's great and free.  A longer writeup will come from me or Mike later, but for now, just go get it.  You'll want a gamepad, I imagine.  I certainly wouldn't have wanted to play it with a keyboard.

Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 61: Sombreros

After last week's Free and Worth Every Penny installment, Space Funeral, I kind of feel like I need to give my brain a rest.  Not that there wasn't merit to the trippy, musically rich horror of last week's game...  but as I said in the comments, it made me feel like I'm getting old, because it just wasn't for me.  You know what is for me?  Gun.Smoke.  Anybody else remember that?  I played that game for days as a kid.  If you did too, then this week's title is right up your alley.

A little context may be required before jumping into the game proper.  There's a rather infamous NES cartridge that's received more than its fair share of attention on the 'net over the years titled "Action 52".  A compilation of universally awful mini-games, its reputation for being unbearable to play led to a TIGSource collaboration earlier this year where members were challenged to re-make the ideas of the Action 52 cart into something more respectable.  Sombreros (along with another 'net darling, Streemerz) was one of the more successful products of that venture.

The original Sombreros was a vertically scrolling shooter in which you shot guys, dodged cars, and collected sombreros.  (Apparently the hats were stolen, and as the sheriff you needed to get them back.)  I'm not going to embed it, but if you want to see it in action, it looked like this.  From that inauspicious seed, Dustin Gunn has grown a much richer experience, in which an offensively stereotyped corrupt politician is trying to take over an offensively stereotyped Mexico (Dustin describes the game as "inspired both by the vaguely racist original game and countless western movies and games").  You must shut the would-be dictator down.

This doesn't look good for our hero.

The basic mechanic is classic top-down shooting - arrow keys to move around, X to fire a pistol with infinite ammo in the direction you're facing.  You'll square off against an army of bandits, both on foot and in vehicles, as well as several boss characters.  All of which would make for an entertaining but standard experience, if not for the extra effort Sombreros puts in to set itself apart.  Most notably, the nameless sheriff has a recharging "dead eye" power - a label I use because it functions very similarly to the one in Red Dead Redemption.  At any time, holding down C will freeze the action and allow you to carefully place up to 6 shots that will be fired as soon as you release the key.  The power is recharged by collecting drops from fallen enemies - sombreros, of course.  In addition to being useful for crowd control, you'll need to master this ability if you hope to beat the much more challenging showdown fights and boss battles.  Also welcome (and similar to Gun.Smoke) is the ability to strafe - holding down X will keep you firing in that direction no matter where you move.

Beyond those mechanical improvements, Sombreros differentiates itself through variety.  While a relatively short game (a speedrun video of under 20 minutes exists, but I'd say that an hour or so is a more realistic runtime for most players), it packs in a lot of stuff to do.  You'll encounter enemies on rooftops you'll need to take out with carefully placed dynamite throws.  You'll do one-on-one quick draw showdowns against increasingly fast marksmen.  You'll make your way through a minefield of exploding hot peppers (...yes, really) as the game mixes bullet-hell dodging with its shooting action.  You'll cause donkey stampedes.  You'll beat a boss by literally tearing him in half...  and then beat him again when both halves come back to fight you later.  And at the end, if you're very lucky, you'll use the power of sombreros to save the town, and all of Mexico with it.

I can't believe I wrote that last sentence.  "The power of sombreros."  Sorry about that.

Now that's a hot peppe-- I'm sorry, I can't do it.  It is a fun level, though.

I'm not going to try to convince you that Sombreros is a life-altering experience, or even that it will give you anything to think about.  I love my art-house games, but this is not one of them.  And sometimes that's great;  this weekend, deep thought wasn't my goal.  I wanted something silly, quick and challenging, and this fit the bill nicely.  If you're in a similar mood, I recommend checking it out.  As long as you can get past the overt and not-really-all-that-funny stereotyping (oh look, you shoot a pinata as a checkpoint.  Yup.  I get it.), there's a lot of gameplay to like here.

Sombreros is...

• fast, challenging and tightly controlled, like a good NES knockoff should be.
• at least 100 times better than the Action 52 "game" that inspired it.
• backed by pretty great visuals and a fun soundtrack, since I didn't mention that above.
• a silly diversion that I'm grateful to have stumbled across.

If you'd like to give it a spin, it's under 10MB and can be picked up at Dustin's site, Sniper Diplomat.  Windows only.

"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers.  This piece also appears there.

Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 59: L'Abbaye des Morts

"An obsolete videogame for a dark passage of history."  That's how the creator of this week's Free and Worth Every Penny feature pitches his own game.  Kind of a strange angle to take, isn't it?  Sure, retro-style titles have been in fashion in the freeware community for awhile now, but to label your own work "obsolete" seems a bit harsh.  Then again, you could argue he's just setting the tone - I'm not going to lie to you, this game's kind of a downer.  But I think it's also something really special.  Welcome to...

If you've read other installments of this column over on Colony of Gamers, you may remember Locomalito as the author of the superlative side-scroller Hydorah.  While Hydorah was a throwback to the days of the 16-bit space shooter, L'Abbaye des Morts goes considerably further back for its inspiration, taking its visual and aural cues from the early 80's and the ZX Spectrum.

In terms of plot, though, it goes much further back than that, which I freely admit is the real reason I wanted to write about it.  From Locomalito's description of the game:

In the 13th century, the Cathars, who preach about good Christian beliefs, were being expelled by the Catholic Church out of the Languedoc region in France.  One of them, called Jean Raymond, found an old church in which to hide, not knowing that beneath its ruins lay buried an ancient evil.

...This little game has been created at nights during our vacation in southern France.  The whole style is spontaneous and sincere, straight out of our trips in the region during the day.  Be sure to visit the Languedoc if you feel somehow attracted by the game ;-)

We must assume, I think, that monk Jean Raymond is probably a fiction, and certainly his adventures as presented here are not drawn from history.  But the Cathars were quite real, as was their violent expulsion from France under Pope Innocent III in the 13th Century.  More on that in a bit.  What sort of a game am I asking you to play here?

For the most part, it's a straightforward action-adventure, though it's a completely nonviolent one on the part of the player.  You have no weapons, and indeed no actions available to you at all other than to run, jump and duck.  It's a game entirely about escaping death, and as you'd expect from the fellow who brought us Hydorah, that can be infuriatingly difficult at times.

You will come to loathe rooms like these.

You are given 9 chances to collect the twelve crosses scattered in the catacombs by your former monastic brothers before facing the evil that lies at the bottom and hopefully claiming your freedom.  Checkpoints abound, and extra lives are scattered about in limited supply, but make no mistake, this isn't a game like VVVVVV where you keep trying until you succeed.  Run out of lives, and it's back to the beginning for you - expect this to happen at least once while you get the hang of things.

Expect, also, to scratch your head more than once about how to proceed; many of the rooms are puzzles in one way or another, and the clues to those puzzles are not always presented clearly.  It's unfortunate that a game with such harsh penalty for failure requires so much experimentation to succeed, as those design choices would seem to be directly at odds with each other.  Luckily, this is mitigated somewhat by the brevity of the game as a whole - once you know what you're doing, getting to the end in 20 minutes is a reasonable proposition.

Let me give you a hint I wish I'd had - this room is really important.

Unfortunately, I can't fully talk about why I think this little game is so neat without delving into spoiler territory, but let me dance around it a bit by saying this:  what Locomalito has essentially done here is to use a video game to write a martyr tale... to craft a myth.  The title's hero may not have been a real person, but his religious order was real.  Their persecution was real.  The churches like the one under which you explore and fight for your life were and are real.  Pick any pseudohistorical figure whose story has become a jumble of fact and legend - King Arthur, Robin Hood, Homer - this is how they begin.  Real events occur, and somewhere along the retelling a sword is pulled from a stone, or perhaps from the waters of a lake.  The sad story of a criminal fleeing to live in the forest becomes the great legend of a rebel who overthrows an unjust king.

And here, the story of a monk who hid in the catacombs under a church to avoid persecution becomes the legend of a hero who braves death to stare down the Devil himself.  Is it great storytelling?  No, it's an antiquated ("obsolete"? perhaps so) and occasionally frustrating video game.  But you know what?  Twenty-four hours ago I didn't know much of anything about the Cathars.  And now, however briefly or immaterially, I've been one.  This is precisely the sort of thing that keeps me playing games.

L'Abbaye des Morts is...

• a unique experience by an unquestionably talented developer.
• not exactly a history lesson, but it might prompt you to go find one.
• a little bit frustrating and depressing, but not in ways that deterred me from playing.
• a strange little game that I'm very glad someone wanted to make.

It's a tiny game - under 3MB, though sadly Windows only - that can be had for the low price of clicking right here.  A poster, DVD cover, manual and soundtrack are also all available, because Locomalito is serious about his freeware.  Long may he continue to be so.

"Free And Worth Every Penny" is a column I collaborate on with Mike Bellmore at Colony of Gamers.  This piece also appears there.