Shelter

Shelter is a third person badger simulator from Might and Delight and it’s a game which requires you to act as mother to five cubs: protecting them, feeding them and guiding them to safety. It’s more linear than I had expected but the unusual subject matter and pastel palette make it a feast for the eyes and the noggin. The drama of the story has driven me to write an open letter to one of its characters.

 

To Spiky, of the badger family:

Spiky, you were not my favourite of the litter. However, you made it clear that you were a badger with survival instincts. You did not wince when Stripey was battered against rocks by the river’s current. You did not mourn when a hawk’s talons snatched Spotty. You cried out only when your belly craved more turnips with which to fatten yourself.

Spiky, this planet does not support sufficiently large ecosystems to satisfy such a turnip lust. Even as the forest burned and our family dwindled I fed you. I had to, you were the only cub left and your greedy little whelps distracted me from the grief.

When the hawk came for me. I knew you would not help. You hid your engorged belly as best as you could among the grass and ignored my struggle out of cowardice. You left me to die.

My only solace is knowing that your overeating will lead you to some form of badger diabetes and you will likely die hungry and doubtless, alone.

Your mother,

John Hendry

Shelter is a beautiful game. It’s reminiscent of The Animals Of Farthing Wood in its brutality and its charm. I highly anticipate seeing more from Might and Delight. It’s available from the their website or can be added to your sett on Steam.

Shovel Knight

Ahhh late! Late again. Sorry, so sorry. I was just so busy playing shovel knight that the Monday deadline became a distant memory. Shovel knight is a modern game that is altogether SNESlike. It sports a rather fetching restricted colour palette, a chip-tune audio track and some bloody good retro gameplay to boot. I found myself rather fond of the game for the most part. It has a lovely sense of humour and genuine character that is rare in the modern shit maelstrom of games on steam.

The game requires you to play through well designed platforming levels, using your shovel and wits to down-attack your way to the evil .. castle. I don’t remember its name. Does it matter? Leave me alone I’m tired!

I found the controls really quite excellent and the different unlockable spells really make you feel like you’re making choices and playing the game your own way. Levels introduce new mechanics frequently enough to prevent the game from becoming stale and boss encounters are enjoyable and unique (if sometimes a little bit clichéd).

The check-pointing in some levels needs work. I found a lot of checkpoints were placed in such a way that I had to do a fair bit of faffing before I could get to the bit of the level I was failing on. It’s something Super Meat Boy got right and I was surprised that I hit shitty checkpoints quite so frequently. I also found that the punishment for death (losing money) is overly severe. You can reclaim your money Dark-Souls-style by picking it up from where you died but dying several times in a row means that it’s lost for-fucking–ever… goddamn I’ve lost so much money in this game. It’s really an odd choice for a death mechanic and one which doesn’t really fit. It’s a modern concept shoe-horned into a retro game. I don’t understand the reasoning for punishing players in this way instead of just… letting the money accumulate endlessly, it’s not like money is a finite resource, you can easily just replay levels and accrue what you need with minimal grinding. The floating bags of money are a distraction and the loss of money is adding insult to injury, particularly in later more tricky levels.

It feels like the game is much too short and more emphasis is placed on increasing player punishment with the hopes of pleasing completionists (and masochists). Personally, I would have preferred a greater RPG focus, and more places to go, things to see and ways to spend the money. Most of the map encounters are merely a one-off duel, and I’m sure they could do more with the inter-level dream sequences.

I feel as though I’m digging into the game to much here, it really is quite fun to play and people who don’t nitpick and tear games apart will easily be able to ignore these gripes and embrace the warm blanket of nostalgia that the game wraps around you.

If you liked platforming in the late 80s and early 90s, I’d definitely dig deep into your pockets and give this game a go.

Contract killer: Sniper

CKS is a bold new sniping game which breaks sniping tradition by having you do as little actual sniping as possible. You’ll be required to take on a number of targets and, as often as not,  you’ll clumsily gun them down with an assault rifle or other gaudy tool of death, just like real snipers don’t.

“Dad came back from the war a vegetable, I swore I’d never turn out the same way.”

The protagonist is a potato headed berk named Gruffles Testosterone. Apparently he’s too tired of the military’s red tape and protocols and just wants to murder a few chumps. Luckily some private military core bint has hired Grizzle McMurderclogs to take pot shots at thugs in the street. I’m pretty sure there is an actual plot underneath all the stupid pretence of taking down gangs but my brain was too advanced to really comprehend it, I might as well have tried to understand a baby’s sense of humour or what dogs dream about.

I have to say that I purposefully failed to snipe people at most points. I preferred to shoot at people and miss, or get them in the foot. Somewhat roleplaying a bumbling buffoon of a sniper who keeps dropping bullets everywhere. I wanted the PMC to reconsider their hiring policy and maybe screen people for neurological defects before employing them, there’s a game idea in there somewhere.

Speaking of neurological defects, I find shooting dudes in the dick endlessly entertaining.

It’s the small things in life that count. *Raise eyebrows for double entendre*

About 3 missions in I was required to plant a bomb, I did so and then decided to just stand around and wait. The enemy guards riddled me with bullets for a minute and a half. The bullets might as well have been feathers because they did sod all damage and I continued to stand defiantly. They should have been terrified. One day I will play a game where enemies freak out if you just soak up bullets like the fucking terminator.

After absorbing thousands of pounds worth of bullets, the timer hit 00:00 and the bomb hilariously failed to explode. The men kept shooting at me with their airzookas, slowly nipping away my health. At 10% health, I realised that I was actually invulnerable and ended their meaningless lives with a sigh. It really cheapened the already worthless game for me. It’s not a game if you can’t sodding lose. Even my toaster can fail if I press the buttons incorrectly. Oh and then the bomb exploded.

5 human beings died to allow for this beach ball sized explosion to partially scorch a bin and some bollards.
I could literally do more damage than this in real life by myself, without a gun.

Oh and it’s barely worth mentioning at this point but as the sun shines and the grass grows, the leaves fall and the rivers flow, tonnes of trivial bullshit exists to be bought for this game with real money. Nutters and 7 year olds of the gaming world rejoice.

Don’t play this stupid non-game. Chuck on a load of washing, it’ll take more effort but it will be more rewarding that this casserole of bollocks.

Spider-man

Wooo it’s nearly Halloween, and in that vein I’ve decided to play a spooky game about spiders. Well okay, no. It’s just Spider-man but it is horrifically bad so it still counts!

Gameplay is identical to Subway surfers because original ideas terrify marketing executives. To save on money, Spiderman runs jumps and slides across rooftops in 3 neat little lines. Players must swipe left or right, up or down in order to maintain Marvel’s bottom line. Players are encouraged to buy the usual slurry of free game tripe in order to prevent Stan Lee’s collection of golden helicopters from getting dirty.

 

12 Litres of glowing yellow fluid? Maybe these will cure my sudden urge to run only in straight lines.

It’s not all running and jumping over boxes that appear out if nowhere though. You also have to collect vials of yellow fluid. Strangely, the game doesn’t inform you why this is until after you’ve completed a level so you’re treated to a little introductory section where you can only assume that Spiderman has taken to collecting vials of piss in some kind of deranged urine obsession.

It’s really a shame that Spiderman has become unashamedly shit in this iteration. It isn’t the first crappy Spiderman game and it won’t be the last but there’s so much potential for Spiderman games to be good that it’s a pity to see the opportunity squandered.

Playing this game is like meeting an old friend in a pub who tries to hard to impress you with tales of becoming a writer and then you find out that he works for the daily mail and is looking for people to join his full body massage class. You just want to get as far away from him as possible so you can get back to ignoring him until he has a crisis and threatens to commit suicide by overdosing on Calpol.

When I purposefully killed Spiderman I was given the option to “Continue free” which implies that it isn’t always free which is a horrible thing to know and fills me with pure contempt. I know it’s the standard for free games but it shouldn’t be because it’s shit and Marvel should fucking know better.

That was too cheesy, where did you get your writer’s from- The talentless hack dimension? Woah… meta.

On top of all of the awful game mechanics, the game’s writing is hilariously abysmal. I’ll post a few examples.

Who would have guessed that a person who wears skintight lycra and covers their face with a mask would have body-image issues?

That doesn’t look like “acne” and you know it Spiderman.

If your eyes, nose and mouth are bleeding right now, don’t blame Ebola. Blame Spider-man.

Halloween special

Start putting up your Christmas tree, it’s the beginning of October! It’s nearly time to burn an effigy of a man lived 400 years ago but before that we have to celebrate an old Celtic or possibly Christian tradition which has been fashioned into a western version of Dia de los muertos.

Nevermind all that though. Halloween is really all about encouraging childhood obesity and putting pumpkins on EVERYTHING.

Obviously, small developers have tried to make a quick buck out of the celebration by littering the play store with a plethora of poxy little pustules and I’ve cobbled together a few of the most pestilent.

HALLOWEEN MYSTERY

This game is about as mysterious as a 3×3 tile shifting game can be. Which unsurprisingly, is not even a tiny bit mysterious at all. It’s about as much fun as skating through sick.

Maybe I will, I certainly couldn’t be less lucky right now.

HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE

Picture an adventure in your head. Imagine a treasure, a backdrop, an epic tale of overcoming danger concluding in  a thrilling conclusive apex. Did you picture 3 minutes of identical pumpkin jpegs cascading towards you? Was your backdrop a tiled wallpaper of skulls? Did the music from your vision continue forever? If so, congratulations! You’ve could make Halloween adventure games for a living and/or may have irreparable brain damage!

“Game design is for twats” – The developer

HALLOWEEN SPA

What says Halloween more than a spa where you can dress a woman up in vaguely Halloween based clothing? A spa where you can dress up a woman in Halloween based clothing and draw cocks on their face with makeup.

I’m such a child. Also, can’t believe they used cucumbers instead of pumpkins… amateurs.

YUMM HALLOWEEN

This game has you put your fingers in the mouth of a creepy little 3D demon for as long as you can. Leave your fingers in there too long and his mouth snaps shut and you lose. It’s actually somewhat disconcerting and might give you a psychological jolt for about 4 second but that’s 4 second more than  the other games in this list.

“See? No gag reflex!”

LITTLE COMMANDER HALLOWEEN

As this game loads, the logo for “Intel software” appears so I was briefly expecting a treat but was instead greeted with a trick! This game is the original little commander only with pumpkins lazily slapped into the heads of the enemies. It’s also got some pretty horrendous graphics. Come on intel, you’re supposed to be a giant in the tech industry. Anyone would thing this game was made by a solitary cheese coated recluse.

The luftwaffe’s attempt at fear mongering was weak at best.

FOOLZ: FEAR OF HALLOWEEN

This is probably even more half-arsed than HALLOWEEN MYSTERY. The goal is to save some poorly animated plebs from death by performing a multitude of interactions similar to “Dumb ways to die”. It would probably be the best game in the list if it didn’t force you to sit and watch your points add up after each level. It takes about a second to get through 10 points so if you’ve just scored 200 points, you’ve got a 20 second wait until you can play the next minigame. Shit. Actually horrifically shit.

“Only commies use fewer than 4 fonts per screen.” – The developer

That’s enough horrors for me, I need to go out and buy mini toothbrushes to disappoint this years’ trick or treaters.

I sincerely doubt there’s even such a thing as a good Halloween based android game. If you know of one that isn’t total garbage, let me know about it and if I agree, I’ll review it proper before the month is out!

 

 

Pokemon: Status effects

Plenty of people have criticised the pokemon universe for it’s barbarism and shameless cruelty, typically complaints are lobbed at the enslavement of pokemon, a clearly sentient species. Towever, that’s not the only way the universe is deranged. Here’s a brief appraisal of the common status effects which plague the poor beasts during battle.

1. SLEEP

Sleep in non-human animals refers to how the behavioral and physiological state of sleep, mainly characterized by reversible unconsciousness[1]

What kind of sleep constitutes “slumber”? Reversible sleep. Exactly the kind of sleep Pokemon aren’t affected by during battles, because they can’t be nudged back into consciousness. Not only that but they can be attacked and physically damaged to the point that they can’t wake up. This doesn’t sound like sleep to me, it sounds like paralysis.

2. PARALYZE

Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor.

Oh yes, pokemon can be (temporarily) paralysed. Any trainer who doesn’t pull a paralysed pokemon back into its slavery sphere is must be some kind of sadist. “Oh no antagonist trainer, my pokemon is merely unable to move its limbs. Please continue to beat it senseless.”

3. BURN

A burn is a type of injury to flesh or skin caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, friction, or radiation.^[1]

Fair enough.

4. POISON.

Toxins are poisons produced by some biological function in nature, venoms are usually defined as toxins that are injected by a bite or sting to cause their effect, while poisons are generally defined as substances absorbed through the skin or gut.

Venom/poison pedantry aside, this ailment represents pure villainy from any trainer who uses it. Ignoring all other barbarism, pokemon battles are meant to be gentlemanly pursuits ideally. Why then, is it socially acceptable to poison another persons pokemon? It’s an effect that persists beyond battles, causing a lasting, pervasive state of unnecessary suffering.

“Hello fellow pokemon enthusiast, your Koffing has poisoned my Charmeleon, do you have anything that might help cure it?”

“Fuck you, it’s your problem now.”

5. CHARM

Seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person, to lead astray, as from duty, rectitude, or the like; to corrupt, to persuade or induce to engage in sexual behaviour.

Okay, again… this doesn’t really seem like a status effect. It’s not something you’d think could be suddenly employed during battle. I suppose that if you were a Pokémon and another Pokémon batted its eyelashes at you instead of trying to remove your intestines, you might be temporarily disinclined to fight back. I doubt Pokémon want to become bloodthirsty drones for their captors. Trainers must have hearts of ice.

6. FROZEN

Hypothermia (from Greek ὑποθερμία) is a condition in which the body’s core temperature drops below that required for normal metabolism and body functions. This is generally considered to be less than 35.0 °C (95.0 °F).^[1] Characteristic symptoms depend on the temperature. In mild hypothermia there is shivering and mental confusion. In severe hypothermia there may be paradoxical undressing, where a person removes their clothing, as well as an increased risk of the heart stopping.^[1]

So, if you actually froze, your body functions would cease. You’d die. Instead, the condition Pokémon get exposed to is more likely to be hypothermia, which is still fairly capable of causing death. Surely the only reason this status effect is even legal is that it’s comparatively rare. I doubt deaths get reported much. From the wiki article it seems like the most common aspect of hypothermia is actually confusion.

7. CONFUSED

The term, “acute mental confusion”^[1] is often used interchangeably with delirium^[2] to describe a pathological degree in which it usually refers to loss of orientation (ability to place oneself correctly in the world by time,^[3] location;^[3] and/or personal identity^[3]) and sometimes accompanied by disordered consciousness (loss of linear thinking)^[3] and loss of memory (the ability to correctly recall previous events or learn new material).

Ah, now this seems like a good old fashioned case of mental breakdown. Probably a result of repeated brain trauma from events where Pokémon get paralysed, burned, frozen, beaten or poisoned.

I think it’s safe to assume that everyone gets confused from time to time but it’s rarely the case that someone would punch themselves in the face as a result. Surely Pokémon would just forget where their keys are or wonder why it has to fight for beings that would happily leave it for centuries inside of a computer. No wonder confusion is one of the most common effects.