Onward I trudge through this verbose reporting on a long since past festival… someday I’ll get the hang of making editorials that are succinct and relevant. Perhaps when I don’t have a day job and am therefore living out of a box. Or possibly when I develop superhuman reviewing powers; I’ve been eating toffee in ungodly quantities (thanks Holidays) and I’m sure superhuman writing powers are a shoe-in for side effects. Irrelevance aside, here’s another installment of my experiences at Indiecade. Enjoy!
Note: I am not a game critic. I play games, and I get excited about games. Prepare for gushing, not invested inspection and critique.
I. Fucking. Love. Geometry Wars. There I said it. I played Evolved until my thumbs were unsure they’d ever be able to function properly again, and now they’re gearing up to dump a third installment into my lap. Which not only has new gameplay, but also apparently has all the old stuff in there. Which means I’ll obviously have to go back and conquer all the old games all over again cause why wouldn’t I do that, are you crazy? Unfortunately, the cold hand of reality slapped me in the face during my demo session: I learned the sad truth that either my Geometry Wars skills have taken a dramatic hit over the past few years, or (and this one, I feel, is more likely) I was never as good at is as I believed I was. They had a high-score competition set up at their booth: if you get top 3, you get a T-Shirt. Sure, I came kind of late in the day when some crazy GW savant had already skyrocketed the score, and sure *excuse excuse excuse* the point is, I didn’t do it. I didn’t pull it off, guys. I will not be deterred, however. I’m sure my future holds spending far too much time attempting to reclaim my honor by neglecting productivity and once again putting my thumbs out of commission. This installment is pretty similar to the previous, except that now the playing field can be a 3Dimensional shape. The competition was held on a round-ended cylinder (like a pill), and even that simple shape already had my head reeling. You also have new special abilities, and a little friend that follows you around and helps you collect multipliers (though currently, that friend is easily mistaken for an enemy and oft scares the bejeezus out of you). The music is reminiscent of the previous installments, which is a good thing. Basically if you’re already a fan of Geometry Wars, you’re looking at another installment of the thing you love, but with a bit more content and a few new twists. I dunno about you, but I’m excited.
The premise of this game, like many others at Indiecade, left you with that ‘lol, what did that just say?’ impression: Set during the Cold War, the game offers up a situation where Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev have been kidnapped by an unknown extremist military force, lead by *sschhrzzzspoilierssszchh* who plans to use nukes to fix the world Etch-A-Sketch style. The two leaders decide to work together to prevent world catastrophe. Gameplay is of the topdown stealth variety, and the art is all pretty and pixelated (we all know how I feel about pixels at this point). Regan totes a katana as his default weapon, and Gorbachev a blowdart whose darts are tipped with KGB poison (you are assured that it’s very effective). Each level requires strategy (or at least much more skill with Leeroy-Jenkens-ing than I or my cohort had) cause it’s a one-hit-kill kinda scenario. You can pick up weapons off of fallen foes, so Regan doesn’t always have to be melee. In the end, it wins cause its one of those games you can sit down at with a friend and have a really good time. Which brings me to the story that goes along with this game: During Nightgames my buddy Ryan and I spent some time with the OUYA, which is where this game was gloriously introduced to me. We spent a good amount of time tearing our way through the levels and having a blast, until we came across one room that would be our undoing. Its hard to describe in words, but basically you worked your way through some hallways and ended up in a giant room full of a bunch of guards. We kept dying on the bunch of guards. At this point, A bystander came up to tell us that he was admiring our work from afar, and that he was rooting for us. After realizing that he ran the booth and was possibly attempting to get us to leave, we decided on one last go, using a last-ditch tactic: go in the room, kill a couple of them, then shut the door so they can’t shoot us. We quickly realized how far ahead we didn’t plan, as guard after guard piled up against the closed door. Finally, with our jaws grimly set, we had no choice but to open the door, literally scream like partners in a buddy cop movie, and attempt to take out a dozen or more guards in a game designed for stealth, strategy, and taking down one enemy at a time. Foe after foe miraculously fell… until the last asshat decided that shooting me was a good idea, and was good enough at it to get the job done. I can’t accurately describe the tension and excitement that laced the air during our final shootout, but it was exciting enough that I’ve been anxiously waiting to purchase the game so we can finally take that level, and the rest of the game, down.
I’ve been watching this project excitedly for some time now – funded it on kickstarter and have been digitally following the developer around like a lost child, begging her to do a Ladies of Industry podcast with me. It will happen, just you wait. Sentris is a music puzzle game, where you drop little blocks that represent a note from an instrument into a multilayered spinning disk that basically represents a sheet of music. As the disk spins and the blocks pass over the 12-oclock position on the circle, each note placed there will play. Its a little hard to describe, so if you’re confused just go over to the site and watch a demo. The puzzle aspect of the game is that there are blocks in the wheel that you’re trying to fill, sometimes with specific colors. So you’re making music, but also using timing and planning to solve a puzzle. I will say: I love this game, but I suck at this game. I mean, I can solve the puzzles, but I can’t ever make anything sound good. I watched the developer stand on stage for like… an hour during night games and just bust out tunes like it was no big deal. Tch, musicians. Irregardless of my ability to make anything that sounds more musically soothing than a herd of overenthusiastic elephants, I always enjoy sitting down and giving it a whirl! There’s something beautiful about combining music creation and gameplay, and I can’t wait to see the finished results.
Groin Gravitators
by MolyJam Team: Andrew Gray/Colin Capurso/Josh Douglass-Molloy/Jonathan “Satan is Lord” Voss
I don’t even know what to say about this game. It’s another one of those games that show off how far game development as come (hah). Someone can feasably laugh about how hilarious it would be to make a game where David Bowie and Peter Molyneux try to hug as closely as they can without touching groins, and then just… make it happen. In 48 hours. (this was another game jam baby, this time from MolyJam) People can make games for shits and giggles, and don’t necessarily have to worry about investing copious amounts of money into getting it done. I love it. There honestly isn’t much to say about this game except to explain what the point is, which again, is to get two dudes as close as you can without their dongs touching. Its more difficult as it sounds. Control directions are tied not to movement, but instead to acceleration. You can’t stop that groin, you can only speed it up or slow it down. Youd think it would be easy enough to get the groins close and then have them drift at the same speed – ‘flying casual’ if you will – but its not. It just isn’t. Possibly because the two of you can’t stop laughing. When you finally DO get those peens pretty close to each other, stars erupt in a giggle-inducing particle effect of joy, and you basically drop the controller. So good.
So, that party that I was talking about last time? Yeah, turns out more epic things happened. This is a story about Alligator Jesus. There I was: out front of the house doing my best to not let my excitement get the best of me and to make a good impression on a cluster of strangers, when up walks a man in white pants, a sports coat, white fedora, and (I believe) loafers; bedazzled with golden rings and ring cuffs (that he made, by the way) in the image of geckos, godzilla, and a finger. (I know, I know. A finger? I don’t even know how else to explain it. He had a finger coming off his finger. It had one on the inside too so when you shook his hand it was uncomfortable) On his lapel glinted another golden lizard, and at his neck was either bolo tie clasped with yet another golden lizard, or possibly a golden lizard broach. There was definitely a plethora of lizard bedazzlement going on. Also, he was carrying a box of cookies.
I know, this story is already taking forever and I’ve only covered his approach.Its important you understand that he had a presence about him. He offered us some of the cookies (I declined, I don’t take no candy from strangers! Though, I know plenty of people that partook and he wasn’t lying when he said they were just normal cookies) and we proceeded to dive head first into this person’s life story. I won’t cover it all, but here are some snippets from the conversation:
- This guy is a photographer, and every picture we saw while we were checking his portfolio involved the subject (himself) invariably flying through the air.
- He used to organize Juggalo gatherings in Florida
- Once while attempting to pay for a dinner that he took a lady and her family out to, he was told “your money’s no good here”, by a man who then revealed some ICP tattoos. Though free meals are nothing to turn your nose up at, he was unsure this made a good impression on the parents.
- He once recovered a stolen Takashi Muramaki ring worth over $700k
- Is/was the art director at the World Erotic Art Museum
- Told me that he does “Shamanistic Anthropomorphic Interpretive Dance”???
I get a little fuzzy on all the other things he told us. I’d have never remembered that much, except that I was fervently writing down as much of the words he was saying as I could. At some point, I wandered off to socialize some more. I went to the rooftop sometime later, and was telling some new friends about this mythical creature that I’d encountered. Just as everyone started to give me a look as though I’d lost my mind, I caught sight of a white fedora just outside the circle. Excited, I pointed ‘THAT’S THE GUY’! As the group waddled over to inspect my stories come to life, he took off his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster. Somehow unfazed, I asked without preamble if he was carrying a gun.
Of course not, he just carries his wallet in a shoulder rig. Cause why wouldn’t you?
