Zarf Updates

Yes, it's winter. We got a dusting of snow, which isn't definitive (ask me about the Halloween snowstorm of 2011). But I've decided that December 8th was "Nighthawk's Solstice":

Therefore, winter has started.

In recent years I've saved up my winter reviews for the January IGF dump. And indeed I played quite a few games for IGF first-round judging. (Including The Thaumaturge.)

However, I'm not on the narrative jury this year. (Don't worry, you'll be quite happy with my replacement...) So I'm okay with dropping my opinions for the games that are already released.

In fact I only played one of today's games during the IGF judging phase.

• Phoenix Springs
• Rise of the Golden Idol
• The Gap
• 49 Keys

Phoenix Springs

• by Calligram Studio -- game site

I added this to my list when I was hunting for detective games. Indeed, that's how it starts: a hunt for your little brother through the decaying neighborhoods that he notionally (really? unreally?) inhabited. You hunt clues and interrogate the squatters, with a fine topic-board UI as your Watsonian assistant.

That's just the first-chapter flashback, though, and a much stranger cuckoo is nesting in it. You're on the train to Phoenix Springs, a desert oasis community of entirely uncertain status. Psychological experiment? Simulation? Prison? It smacks of The Prisoner (or Severance if you're much younger than me), perhaps by way of Philip K. Dick. Tripped-out acid-poster animation gives the proper dissociative aura to it all. Ooh, was someone riffing on Scanner Darkly? I didn't think of that until now.

The topic-board remains front and center, orienting the story in the idea of detective work even as the context goes spinning off into neon clouds. Everything you do is solving mysteries -- just not the mystery. You won't find anything even remotely resembling closure; as a Prisoner fan I wouldn't have it any other way. Recommended.

(A note: the "Solution" option in the game menu links to a walkthrough on the developer's web site. Don't feel bad about using it, or other hint sites. The puzzles aren't read-the-author's-mind but they can involve blind clue-hunting in a very large landscape. But, equally, don't play from the walkthrough. It gives a straight-line path which skips a lot of illuminating side investigation.)

Rise of the Golden Idol

• by Color Gray -- game site

I heard somewhere that the Color Gray people were working on a deduction game that wasn't a Golden Idol sequel. And maybe they are, but this one came out first. (I see Netflix snagged the platform rights for the mobile version, so I suppose it was a case of "Netflix's bag of money changed the roadmap.")

They did, at least, think really hard about how to write more Golden Idol without just making more of the first game. To wit:

• We've moved into the (alt-) 1970s.

• The art is weird stodgy hand-painted style instead of weird stodgy pixel art. But still exactly the same style! It's like someone worked backwards from the chiptune version of a song to the original, but now it's on a banjo. This is an impressive achievement, really. Good job.

• The gameplay is deeper: a main story with chapters and scenes within each chapter. Clues sneak up and down between the layers. You have to think about the whole, and what you've previously learned, in order to understand each new part of the game.

• The story holds together better; it has a more intentional shape.

The first game's arc was "what is this golden idol, and what does it even do?" By the end that question was answered. The DLC chapters were just watching more people use the idol, which is why the whole thing felt a little played out. (And why I was hoping for a fresh start in the next game.)

Obviously the designers couldn't repeat that. Instead, they focus on a new use of the idol. A new set of (1970s) characters run into the thing, experiment, make discoveries, make plans... feud, make secret plans, backstab each other... Of course they do. But it starts with a classic X-files-ish rabbit-hole and ramps up to a big climax at the end. With plenty of fun twists and flashbacks and surprises in between.

Yes, it's still all basically squalid squabbles -- none of the characters are likeable in any way. But there's a more consistent core cast and they have recognizable arcs through the course of the story. So it works.

(I think this one was on the IGF list, but I didn't play it then. I bought it after release like a regular schmo.)

The Gap

• by Label This -- game site

A dying man explores the corroding memories of his life to answer the really important questions: "Why was I such an asshole to everybody? And was it worth it?"

This is a nicely done example of its genre: the psychological exploration with a lot of trippy flashback scenes. To be sure, that's a really well-explored genre at this point. You're losing your mind, your wife has left you, there's probably something quantum going on. Diaries, glitchy visuals, and light-weight puzzles.

I am being overly snarky, I know, sorry. (It's not like I haven't written this trope! More than once!) I found The Gap generally satisfying. It doesn't go on too long. The puzzles are of the "do what's in the author's head" type, but almost all of them are well-clued. (Or they put up a notice of the form "You haven't found all the clues for this one" and then you know to back off.) I got stuck and looked at hints a couple of times, but it was near the end and I was hooked at that point.

The future world (2020 through 2050-ish) is well-envisioned, both in the progression of technology and your personal timeline. The art direction is great; sharp environments and distinctively surreal dream-worlds. The story, well, I didn't feel like the characters really came alive. You-the-protagonist are a two-note figure: "I love you!" vs "Go away, I'm working myself to death." Everybody else spends the game reacting to that. The voice actors give it a good solid effort, and indeed any single scene works fine. I just never got to the point of rooting for anybody.

If you're interested in the psychological-walking-sim genre, this is worth looking at.

(Disclosure: I played a free review copy for IGF judging.)

49 Keys

• by Michele Buonanno -- game site

Look, it's a puzzle game about alchemy which is within epsilon of being a text adventure. And it's a computer adaptation of a puzzle book (49 Chiavi). Of course I played it.

There's not much to 49 Keys but it's an interesting construction. I wish I could read Italian, because I'd love to compare this to the book. The puzzles I played are not obviously suited to puzzle-book form. This game is much closer to a classic parser game: USE KEY ON LOCK or PUT INGREDIENT IN BEAKER. You're figuring out combinations of ingredients from contextual clues. And the navigation is exactly what you'd expect if you asked a text game to add a clickable map.

I thought some of the alchemical-assocation puzzles were underclued, and others were basically filler. The whole game is really just three major puzzles. And the UI is a bit janky. (More modal than it needs to be.) But it's nicely illustrated with a creepy occult vibe. Worth killing an evening with.