Procedurally Generated Stories

Every time I find an interesting article online (mostly about digital games, game theory, analysis, etc.), and I don’t have the time to read it, I put it in a bookmarks folder named “Readings”. Once in a while I open that folder and start catching up with nice stuff, discovering new games or theories. This time, a review by Rock Paper Shotgun captured my attention; it’s an article about Unexplored, a roguelike that brings procedural generation to another level. Technical considerations aside, I am amazed by the way this game allows the player to build alterbiographies – i.e. the stories that players generate from their interaction with the game.

Procedurally generated games tend to facilitate the creation of stories by the players’ experiences; emergent narratives are in their DNA, so to speak. However, Unexplored has the ability to add consistency to those stories. It happens thanks to (relatively) simple exploits, like randomizing backstories – Character X has been slain by Monster Y – and involving a crafting/enchanting system that allows to mix, experiment, and create meaning by playing. The combination of equipment, enemies, level design, and randomly generated backstories produces always different results.

So far, I have been through a good dozen of games. All of them were exciting and intriguing.

In a playthrough my mage discovered so many powerful magic items that he became almost unstoppable, but a foolish mistake – disabling a switch I mistook for a trap – prevented his progression through the dungeon, as it became impossible to open a door. I had to jump over a cliff to go deeper into a cave, in order to find another path. This move resulted in a high risk / high reward situation, as I reached the lair of a dormant dragon. Sneaking around, I could find some diaries that told me where to find key objects, and hidden treasures.

Another playthrough went south when my rogue found a magic bow, equipped it, and discovered that it was cursed (so it was impossible to remove it). Plus, the bow had a major malus: every arrow shot with it didn’t quite reach the target, swinging around randomly. I had to progress by throwing unknown potions at enemies, hoping they were explosives, and avoiding conflict until I found a scroll – three levels later – that removed the bow’s curse. Unfortunately, my character died in the next room, because I forgot how to properly swing a sword while struggling with that useless bow.

Yesterday I played as an adventurer which was so lucky to find a lot of potions of strength on the first level: by drinking them, he became able to use two huge poleaxes, and the playthrough evolved very aggressively from there. Obviously. He was a death machine, blinded by rage and blood lust, always searching for bigger opponents to slain. Too bad he encountered, as a random boss fight, an alchemist. He could nothing against his fire, and died miserably.

These stories make for a great example of what Unexplored can do: generate experiences that can be told as independent narratives, with different backgrounds and a very little setup by the developers – except for that huge work that PCG requires “behind the scenes”. It works so well that at some point you could find yourself playing Unexplored to build a story, rather than progressing into the dungeon or achieving some impressive feat. And I think this is awesome.

One-night stand: Dino Park

Last night I had some troubles falling asleep, so I reprised my experiment with Android unknown games.

To be quite honest, this time I didn’t last long (zing!): luckily enough, sleep caught me after half an hour of play. In that short time, I got the chance to play Dino Park, a business simulation game mixed with swiping (?) mechanics, that allows the player to build his own Jurassic Park with more PEGI T-rated, and kid-friendly, dinosaurs.

Dino Park is a simple game, as in: after playing for a little while you probably already have seen it all, or most of it.

It starts with a short tutorial in which the player has no freedom at all, being forced to tap on specific icons on the screen in quick succession with very few explanations. Tap here to open your park, tap there to find your first dinosaur, etc. Now that I’ve played some recent Android games, I noticed that this trend is really popular among mobile game devs. The more a game is complex, the longer it takes to complete this “holding hand” kind of tutorial. The player doesn’t discover anything on his own, every crucial information is automatically provided by the game on a silver, shining plate. I started to wonder why this happens. Probably the huge amount of games that saturate the market force developers to shoot infos at players in the minimum time given, in order to allow them to play as soon as possible, and stay on the game. Or maybe is just a matter of audience, and platform: due the short time to play, you want to learn all the rules quick. Or something connected to the interface – or all these reasons together, plus more. Nevertheless, it’s intriguing.

The gameplay has nothing to reflect about that I didn’t already write: it’s a path from zero to hero paved with capitalistic dynamics, and portrayal of animal conviction (stretching a little here, but stay with me) as a legitimate form of profit.

There’s a mechanic, however, that I enjoyed for some reason. In order to obtain new dinosaurs, you have to dig – more excavation-related imaginary, yay! – and uncover fossils. To physically do so, the player has to swipe on the screen, removing some dirt, and then combine pieces of fossil puzzles. On the other hand, I felt like there was a severe discrepancy between the resources given to the player to complete the task, time, and outcome. Unlocking an excavation site has a price, which increases after every attempt, forcing the player to be more efficient – or to wait until the in-game earnings are enough to open the app again, and give it a new try. Plus, it requires too many pieces to fully complete some fossils, and those pieces are often hidden under rocks: to destroy rocks, the player has to use a pickaxe (having 3 of them at the beginning of each excavation) but they rarely are enough. So, the choice: spend a rare in-game resource to obtain 3 more pickaxes, or watch a 30-seconds ad. I found myself watching way too many ads in the first ten minute of play, with a disproportion between playtime and advertisingtime.

That’s all, an uninteresting post for an uninteresting game I guess. Next time I will try to find some more particular title on the store, for sure.

One-night stand: Drilla

There are poor name choices, and then there are VERY poor name choices.

Drilla‘s title falls into the second category, hands down.

In my second straight sleep-less night (yay!) I decided to keep observing how mines are depicted in public imagination, taking mobile games as a starting point. So, after Pocket Mine 3, the choice was Drilla: an endless idle crafting game in which the player has to turn on, and then watch working, a mechanic drill. Excitement went over the rooftop here, didn’t it?

yep, that’s a watermelon

The gameplay is quite essential: after turning on the drill, the player should tap on the screen to gather materials while the machine keeps digging in a (truly) endless vertical descent. If the drill runs out of fuel, a few taps on the screen are enough to solve the problem. If the player gathers too many materials, it is sufficient to upgrade the storage part. This is where Drilla becomes odd to me: all you have to do is tap every now and then, sometimes very fast, then upgrade the machinery in a engineering-like interface, and go back to endless tapping on the screen. While the dynamic here is the same as Pocket Mine 3 (gather, obtain money, buy upgrade, repeat), Drilla’s progression is just too straightforward to present any type of uncertainty nor contest to the player.

Plus, there are some design choices that elude me. The minimal interface doesn’t help in creating atmosphere, and tends to create distance between the player and the game. Sometimes UI elements are right in the active section of the screen, being a disturbance for the gameplay. On the other hand, I found the upgrade menu very neat, with a touch of engineering and blueprinting that fascinates me. However, I wonder: what’s the meaning of the pistols, bones, and other unrecognizable stuff that appears in the background after the drill digs towards the center of earth? What’s their purpose? What should they represent? I don’t know, maybe they are meant as comic relief. After all, there is also a level in which the machine digs through a watermelon for some reason.

As I anticipated, I can see no challenge at all in Drilla, except for the required patience that the player should invest in the game to keep going, reaching new levels and upgrading the drill with fancy (?) stuff. The player becomes almost a passive observer with no influence at all on the overall experience, except for those few moments in which he/she should upgrade the machine. It feels like the game is trying to show, through procedural rhetoric, how maintenance works. How human work is increasingly being replaced by automation, and the man’s intervention is required just to upgrade, repair, or turn on some machine. This dynamic is exasperated, as Drilla keeps working even if you leave the game in the background: while I changed tab on my smartphone, in order to take some notes for this post, it kept digging. I left it at 12.927 and resumed at 15.411. Automation at its best.

Anyway, what’s interesting for me to notice is how mines are depicted in media such as videogames: always with the same palette, items, and designs. Verticality is a prevalent, if not needed, element. Horizontal excavation has been limited to a supporting role, mostly. This brings a sense of vertigo in mining games, a feeling of entering the unknown, representing that exploration of darkness that obsesses humankind since the dawn of time – and that we see depicted in every media.

One-night stand: Pocket Mine 3

My nights have become extensions of my days, as in: I’m struggling with insomnia.

In order to fill the blank between “staying voluntarily awake” and “finally being able to sleep for a couple of hours” I’ve tried to: read, watch Netflix, browse the internet, write, listen to music, and – last but not least – play games. Yesterday I decided to make the most out of that (wasted) time by trying any interesting game in the Android store, and write a post on it the day after. So here we are.

The rules are simple: I choose a random game without reading its description nor looking at screenshots, download it, and play it until I enter snooze city.

For the first entry in this series I picked Pocket Mine 3: a roguelike, dungeon crawler, endless scroller, idle game (che alla fiera mio padre comprò).

Pocket Mine 3 in action

Pocket Mine 3 captured my attention for its title, as lately I’ve been working on some projects that involve mines, their depiction in media, and their representation in the collective imagination. It was fun to see how certain tropes found place in a well crafted gameplay, that revolves around simple mechanics and minimal input by the player: all you have to do to play Pocket Mine 3 is tapping on squares, so that your little miner can destroy said squares/blocks of terrain, digging deeper into a procedurally generated mine until you reach the bottom (or your pickaxe expires, monsters kill the miner, or the edge of the screen touches him/her). It’s interesting to notice that the player knows, since the beginning of each level, how deep he/she should dig to complete it; this is a key element that helps to manage resources – namely, the pickaxe durability or special abilities – adding a bit of tactics to the gameplay.

There are a lot of different blocks in the game: normal terrain, minerals, explosives, treasures, monsters, and unbreakable ones too. Each category gives a specific feedback, and costs a different amount of pickaxe durability to be mined, but almost everything is drawn from mine’s collective imagination. There are, as you could expect, a lot of minerals to collect in order to gain money (isn’t mining all about capitalism, and profit?); the crates contain mostly explosives, or gas, that should facilitate the progression through the mine; there are treasures, such as rare mushrooms, herbs, or antiquities, to exchange with useful goods. The rhetoric is always the same: dig, gain, get better equipment, dig more lucrative stuff, gain more money, get even better equipment, etc. Destruction brings money, money brings more tools, better tools bring more destruction.

While Pocket Mine 3 drawns from the collective mine’s imagination, it must be noted that mostly of its aesthetic choices come from western culture: the TNT dynamite, bombs, and characters meet the common depiction (already seen in Spelunky, for example) of such imagination. Aesthetics are quite pleasant to look at (even for tired eyes), and the palette is the one you would expect from a game inspired by mines: brown, gold, red, and metallic colors mixed with some pastel dyes.

What amazed me the most about Pocket Mine 3 is its well-made combination of elements: for a roguelike such as this, it was impossible not to insert a series of randomizing elements (diverse characters, equipment, etc.). Developers did it in a way that winks at gatcha games, with booster packs, collectible cards/heroes, multiple elements that involve level-up mechanics. There are even daily, weekly, and monthly challenges to unlock special equipment (so there must be a team always producing new content behind this game: cool!). All wrapped up by a veil of microtransactions, of course; however I noticed that the player can obtain certain boosts and benefits by watching short advertising videos, which is a nice compromise.

As expected by a game like this, it becomes addictive soon: a simple gameplay (with a basically flat learning curve), plus endless possibilities given by PGC tend to create a winning mix, especially for me. Nevertheless, if tonight insomnia strikes again, my partner will be another game.

I beg to disagree 5

There are things, in our world, that you must like. If you don’t, you are a moron.

I can list some: The Queen, Tarantino’s movies, Guardiola’s Barcelona, pizza, dogs.

Anyone can have an opinion on everything. However, certain things can be addressed by personal taste, and personal taste alone. Some topics have a technical backbone instead, where arguing is allowed if done properly.

Here’s my argument for today: Persona 5 sucks.

Now that I have your attention (and rage, and hate), follow me. Please.

Persona 5 is a game that bored me to the bone and, while I recognize some of its amazing design choices, I truly can’t understand why people went crazy about this game.

Let’s start from the pro’s: incredible art and visual style. Seriously, Persona 5 has…personality. Character. It doesn’t go unnoticed. Sometimes it reminded me of Jet Set Radio, with that incredible attention to detail and boldness. It just appears and sounds great.

Speaking of which, the soundtrack is simply amazing. SFX are also perfect, and while the English dub is a stab to the ears, I found intriguing that the team allowed users to download Japanese original voice over for free.

I also recognize that mechanics and dynamics work as they should – the game is polished, it is complex, deep and interesting to some extent. However, I can’t see any reason why this game should be a positive experience.

no further comment required

Simply put, Persona 5 is a simulation of Japanese adolescent life, mixed with a gatcha-style system that forces the player to collect, breed, and train monsters to fight with. That’s it. Nothing extremely new, nor exciting. In between long and redundant dialogues, there is a lot of grinding (as expected from a JRPG), dating (?), and collecting stuff.

The first dynamic – the Japanese adolescent life simulator – mixes interesting mechanics with long, dead times, and lots of planning. For the equivalent of a whole year (or so) the player is forced to plan every daily activity according to a schedule that is partially forced by the game’s events, resulting in an everlasting work life simulator. Frustrating, to say the least, for those adults that already have to plan their week outside of a digital game. If I turn on my PS4 I would like to engage in a different set of activities than those I face on a daily basis.

Let alone the planning: what about reading redundant dialogues for hours, with characters repeating the very same concepts for three, or four times? I tried to fast-forward some dialogues, timing them. It takes several minutes for the player to even skip parts of uninteresting plot discussion. For a time-consuming JRPG this should not be a surprise, but in Persona 5 it still feels as “too much”. Too much of the player’s time wasted in reading endless lines of text.

Not to mention the repetitive sessions of lectures where the player has to answer a question, and take note of what the teacher says in order to pass some tests afterwards. Sure, you can learn something from this. But be aware not to call Persona 5 a game for learning.

Then we have the pocket-monsters system: I am familiar with Persona’s gameplay, so this was the best aspect I found in the downsides of the game. While the personas are intriguing, and well characterized, the excitement fades after a few minutes of play: as frustration ensues, the player realizes that the very same feeling of growth, and breeding, can be achieved with any gatcha on Apple or Google Store, for example. Which, again, would eliminate the frustration of a GoogleCalendar-meets-dating-sim gameplay.

At some point I wondered: is it me? Am I too much critical with things I don’t like? Perhaps. I searched for negative Persona 5 reviews, and didn’t find one. Metacritic is a praising party. The best I could find is this post on Gamasutra Blogs, but it still doesn’t sound like a genuine critic to this game.

So yes: maybe I am a moron, a contrarian, a grouchy type, the only person in the world who didn’t like Persona 5. Amen to that. I prefer it this way, than praising something just because the rest of the world did.

MEH: Mass Effect Hangover

Never criticize something until you try it: this is the main reason that encouraged me to play Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Other than that, there was an ember of hope in my heart, a glimpse of possible redemption for a game that received mostly negative feedback from both critics and players.

Now that I have finished it, I can have my say on a game that probably should not have existed.

The face you make when you play Andromeda: a mix of anguish and surprise

Let’s start from the premises: despite a controversial ending for the original trilogy, Mass Effect was still a big thing, an IP that could not go wasted. It would have been a mistake to let it die without further exploring its potential, from both narrative and gameplay perspectives. I agree on this, and in fact the Andromeda project got me hyped. At first.

As long as the development (and the huge marketing campaign) continued, I started to doubt a lot about its quality. It’s a thing I have: if you need to overpublicize a product, in my mind I start seeing it as a possible failure. “Any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king” (sic.), so to say. That’s why I didn’t buy the game at day one. Thankfully enough.

The outraged reactions that Andromeda generated served as confirmation that my money had to stay in my wallet, very far away from this new Mass Effect game. Technical issues, huge bugs, design flaws scourged this title since its release, apparently.

For a long time I ignored it existence, until a friend gifted me with a physical copy, saying – more or less – “Keep it, it’s garbage.”

A free game is a free game, I say.

So I played it – for practical exercise and, why not?, curiosity. With that hope I mentioned, to see something in a game that was probably underrated. Plus, I enjoyed the original trilogy (ending included). There was a lot involved, but my expectations were low. Yet, I was still too optimistic.

My very first reaction to Andromeda has been: “Are you kidding me?”

No, seriously. As soon as the game started I had the feeling that something was wrong. The character editor was awkward, like some textures were missing and props were copied directly from some game of 15 years ago. Menus and interface reminded me of the first Knights of the Old Republic. Actually, the whole experience was similar to that: it felt like retro gaming, except it wasn’t supposed to be.

In Andromeda every character, including the main cast, is poorly animated. They look like plastic dolls moved by the goofy hands of a toddler. Their facial expressions are unnatural, as in “hard to believe”, and they often seem ill or broken. Hair, eyes, textures look like they were put together by chance, or in a rush. Which is probably what happened, but I will get to it later.

Advancing through the game there was a lot that made me thumb my nose: staying on the characters, they felt like (bad) copies of something already seen, especially from the previous installments of the Mass Effect franchise, but also borrowed from Dragon Age. They made me revalue Inquisition characters, which are an awful lot.

Dialogues and conversations are a fair of triviality, poorly written or extracted from 90’s movies. A problem which extends its ramifications to the whole narrative: every branch of plot, or sub-plot, is contaminated by a lack of originality. Everything happens in a straight line, and the player always can predict what will come next. There are no blind corners to turn, just a series of (unfortunate) events that feel as “already seen”.

Speaking of which, the whole game recalls many other titles of the past for a lot of reasons. There is a lot of redundancy with the original Mass Effect trilogy, plus some recycled cliches (and scenes) from the Dragon Age franchise – nothing tragic, I imagine that there was a huge influence by the designers’ previous works – but I have seen also some resemblances with many other games: Halo, Gears of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, etc.

Creating something of completely original might be utopia, I reckon. However, mixing ideas together and taking inspirations are practices that have been done better in the past.

So I wonder: why? Why a studio with that huge budget and great talent was forced to release a product so flawed? Time? Resources? Pressure from the publisher and from the media? I cannot find an answer, but it is just sad because there was much potential, in Andromeda, that went wasted.

Take the setting for example: a brand new galaxy, full of unknown species and planets to discover. In my mind I imagined it completely different from the Milky Way, with alien races involved in different political conflicts than those already seen in the Citadel. But I also figured the possibility of life forms not yet evolved enough to travel through space. From a certain point of view Andromeda meets these expectations of mine, as Relictum, Kett and Angara fit the context and forge a believable weave. Planets are a pleasure for the eyes, but soon they become boring. There is no charisma flowing through Andromeda, no sense of wonder. It is far away from the feeling of exploring new worlds given by No Man’s Sky, despite its slow (and boring, to many) gameplay. I would add that the lack of “known” places/names deprives the player of the gratification that comes from stepping on Mars, on Jupiter, or reaching Alpha Centauri. Defending Hyperion and reclaiming Heleus is not the same thing as protecting Earth, the emotional link is nearly not-existing.

Same goes for the protagonist’s story (and background): Pathfinder Ryder has nearly no charm, his/her personality is a bunch of banalities held together by the shadow of Commander Shepard. He/She is a poor copy, moved by trivial motivations and bound to predictable actions. A mere puppet in SAM’s hands, which is a strange excuse to make him/her special, as every other Pathfinder met in the game (Salarian, Turian, and Asari) should have the same connections or potential. Except the protagonist is Alec Ryder’s son/daughter, hence has some special link to the original SAM. Probably acceptable. Surely lame.

This lack of charisma tends to hold characters far away from each other. Even when the circumstances should point towards a comical relief, all sounds forced and awkward. Interactions with crew members are just odd, romances included: I had the feeling that they were there “just because”, as if they were a mandatory assignment to put in the game. Not a thoughtful design choice, nor a natural consequence of well made character design.

I know that my criticism often tends to be too negative, but I cannot stand this kind of shallowness coming from such great designers and programmers. Because Andromeda also includes elements of excellence, in my opinion: details and features that surprised me a lot.

First and most important, the combat system. I did not engage the multiplayer action, but enjoyed the feeling of mobility and multi-dimensionality during firefights against the AI. Profiles are also a great idea, and they work exceptionally well in certain situations were switching equipment is crucial for a quick turn of tables. The whole combat system entertains, without becoming boring, except in the last part of the main narrative arc where it tends to bee kinda redundant. But that’s just because the Meridian quest is redundant by itself.

Then, there are the details or the features: scanning stuff with SAM can be quite satisfying, and I mentioned planets as a bright side of Andromeda’s design. In particular, there is an attention to detail that sometimes is too much – an example is the new Krogan homeworld, a desert where heat is obviously dangerous, but damage could be prevented by…just staying in the shadows. I mean, dude, you were able to make THIS and yet the main character moves like he has some serious neurological issue? Come on.

Some scripted cinematics are also very inspired, like in the old Mass Effect’s they draw on the cinematographic language to deliver specific messages. And they work well, most of the times, acting as a good interlude between boring plot cliches (or including them, but in a fancy way).

Last but not least, I would spend some words on the ending. It is shallow, predictable, and it leaves a sour taste. Mostly because of its lack of emotional attachment, which is not properly built during the many hours of gameplay, but also because it winks to a (predictable, again) bigger picture for a sequel that will never come, as the studio that created Andromeda has been shut down and the IP is probably dead.

It might sound harsh, but probably this is for the better. I mean, I hope that the guys behind the game have found new jobs and are working on some spectacular new projects. Seriously. But I also strongly believe that certain stories, or projects, should be closed when they need to be closed. Trying to shear the sheep too much could be counterproductive, or dangerous. And Mass Effect: Andromeda is the proof of this.

The Avery Effect

My adventures in the world of mobile gaming continue, ranging from puzzle games to shooters and card games.

Today I would like to spend some words about Avery, a digital fiction created by the combined effort of Mixed Bag and NODO studios. When a friend advised me to play this game, I expected a textual adventure not far from a game-book, more or less: dialogue trees masked as choices, with intersecting paths like those one can create using Twine, to name one tool.

Avery does something slightly different, though. It implements the technology of an artificial intelligence, IBM Watson, in order to simulate a conversation with a sentient being: in the game Avery is an AI with fragmented memories that asks for the player’s help in order to find out what happened to her and to her lover, Morgan. Exploring the delicate theme of romantic relationship between man and machine, the game offers a compelling illusion of actually talking to some intelligent AI, at least for a while.

It looks WAY less legit than it actually was

What strikes me the most about Avery is the clever use of a bot as a central play (and narrative) element: all you have to do in the game is type messages that could – or could not – trigger a plausible reply from the AI, advancing in the plot. The process is similar to the Eliza/Doctor bot created by Joseph Weizenbaum back in the 60s, which simulated a conversation with a computer by using a transformation pattern – to simplify, some stuff you typed made the program answer in a certain way, mostly with questions. In Avery’s case the answers are most likely “neutral” scripted narrative bits that do not sound too odd in almost any case, while forcing the story to progress even if the player is not able to find the proper keyword. This is one of Avery’s greatest limits, however: soon enough the player realizes that his/her contribution is very limited, restrained by many technical boundaries. At some point Avery appeared to be busy in a sort of monologue, where my only job was poke her every now and then.

Sooner or later a breakdown is inevitable, I think, with this kind of technology; even if the developers worked around its limit in a very elegant way. It is “The Eliza Effect” (Wardrip-Fruin, 2009) curse: at first it looks way better than it is in reality, but eventually the illusion fades as soon as the player realizes what is going on behind the curtains. Neither the use of a colored language by Avery nor audio/video elements mitigate this feeling in the long run.

Still, there’s a lot to praise the dev team for: the use of keywords is a cool “meta” mechanic, for example. Almost an inside joke for the technology they used, but also a way to contextualize their fictional environment: Avery literally requires the player to input some highlighted words, unlocking narrative elements as they pop up. And speaking of pop ups, it comes to mind a double-edged sword of this game – namely, notifications. In some circumstances, Avery asks the player to let her “elaborate” data clusters, becoming idle while so. After a certain amount of time the game sends a notification directly to the phone, when Avery is ready to chat again. A clever way to keep the game’s flow always balanced, but at the same time a constrain for the player that has to wait minutes, if not hours, to be able to advance into the game again.

At the end of the day these are minor issues, anyway: the story is quite interesting and Avery succeeds in making the player wanting to know more, to see the end of a narrative thread that lurks deep into emotional attachment, ethics, and platonic romanticism.

Prey for me

Let me tell you a story.

I was playing Prey. Seven hours into the game I faced some difficult gunfights against various alien foes, but things went south and I felt kinda frustrated.

“Why didn’t they implement a viewfinder in the HUD?” I asked loudly, to no one.

Then, I noticed that there was no HUD in the first place: no health bar, no ammo counter, nothing.

At first it looked like a normal design choice, but suddenly doubts started popping up in my head like notifications on a busy smartphone. It was odd that a game like that had important information hidden from the player. Too many gameplay elements relied on instant feedback, and as a (noob) game designer, I would have implemented a HUD for sure. So why Arkane Studios, full of professionals, wouldn’t?

Moved by suspicion I checked the settings, just to be sure.

Guess what I did find out?

Yes, I discovered that I am an imbecile.

When the game started I disabled the subtitles, because they irritate me when I play: I don’t want to read what I’m listening, they kinda ruin my suspension of disbelief. However, while changing that setting I might have turned off the whole HUD. Completely. Absolutely. Gone. Kaputt. Adios. Ciao.

I played a third of the game without visual help.

(no further comment required)

On the bright side, I must say that the developers made an excellent job in creating a game that is fully traversable without a HUD.

Ok, aiming is a bit difficult if the viewfinder is disabled, but things work out pretty decently nevertheless. Actually, some visual elements in the interface were almost unnecessary. The objective indicator, for example, makes things too easy to find, removing all the fun in searching for the right place. Talos I is a great environment for exploration, so I toggled that off again alongside some other things: after playing for so long without a HUD, to me the screen felt too overwhelmed with information.

I prefer discovering stuff on my own, now.

A new phobia

“Good morning Morgan“, says a silken pre-registered voice. “Today is Monday, March 15th, 2032.”

The black screen fades to a sci-fi room, as soft rock music starts playing in the background.

This is how your journey starts. This is how Prey is reborn.

I’ve been waiting for this game for twelve years (no kidding). Back in 2006, the first Prey was a delightful surprise: a sci-fi shooter with horror/gore-ish elements, a twisted story, and excellent level design. Not to mention mechanics, strange weapons, and a truly inspired world building. There was clearly potential for more, A LOT more, in that setting. It looked like the start of a new franchise, in that golden era of videogaming that gave birth to Assassin’s Creed, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Portal, just to name some.

In fact, during E3 2012, we got this juicy teaser trailer:

It still gives me the chills, honestly. I mean, come on: sci-fi bounty hunting in the same universe as Prey, with an expanded lore that panders to Star Wars (Coruscant, anyone?), Cyberpunk, Cowboy Bebop…what more could I ask, as a fan?

Yet, things rarely go as planned. Prey 2 was cancelled, the software house disbanded (if I remember correctly), and the project became an echo in the distance. Vanished, or not, then vanished again. Until Arkane Studios surprised us all, announcing a reboot (that probably isn’t a complete reboot, but that’s another story). Arkane Studios. The very same guys behind Dishonored, one of my favorite franchises of all time. Aaaaand obviously my hype senses started tingling again.

Nevertheless, I bought Prey last Christmas as a gift to myself (yes I do such things). My desire to play it with the right mindset was so pressing that it remained bagged since last week. Seriously. More than six months there, untouched.

So far, Prey meets my expectations (and sometimes it surpasses them as well). At first I expected a Dishonored clone, with a sci-fi setting; it is not far from being so, but it also has its own peculiarities. For example, level design looks more intersected to me, and less vertical. Unlike in Dishonored, there are a few possible paths to advance or overcome obstacles; however the combination of powers and weapons creates a good mixture for the player to experiment. Which is great.

Despite a very enjoyable gameplay, Prey’s charisma lies in its setting: recalling to Alien and a pantheon of sci-fi horror myths, the game builds upon a sense of anxiety that derives from uncertainty, suspicion, and distrust. There are enemies, in the game, that can morph into any object. Imagine entering a room without being 100% sure that a chair is, indeed, a chair; a mug is a mug; or a book is an actual book. Well, an actual digital 3D depiction of a book. Whatever: you enter this room, and suddenly a phone starts vibrating, swinging its way towards your avatar. Then it transforms into a huge spider-ish thing that seems made of living ink, and jumps towards the screen.

Cool?

Not-at-all.

Because it works, it makes you feel uncomfortable in any given situation. Just like the original Prey did, even if with different takes: I remember very raw scenes, and creepy situations as well. So there’s also a sense of heritage, a preservation of what the franchise represented, or brought to the table in terms of uniqueness – or character, at least.

This approach is clever, I think. Forcing a new kind of phobia into the player, suggesting that nothing can be trusted anymore, reworks all the consolidated patterns built during years of videogaming. And makes Prey a worthy successor of its namesake.

Oh, and remember:

Monumental

I bought a new phone.

A gaming phone.

To be honest, when I chose the Nubia Red Magic to be my next smartphone mobile gaming wasn’t in my plans. It just was the best quality/price option for my priorities (actually: it was a true bargain, all considered). But then again, I got a gaming phone in my hands for the very first time, and it was just a matter of time before I started exploring its full potential.

After a shockingly easy first attempt at Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds I decided to dig deeper into the Play Store, and try as many good Android games as I could. I asked my friends for some advice, and got a pretty decent list to start with.

The first game I decided to download and try is Monument Valley. This little gem has been on my wish list for a while, and finally I gave it a try. I was not disappointed, on the contrary I found a marvelous crafted game that mixes excellent level design with delicate aesthetic choices.

Requiescat In Pace

Elegance is the first word that comes to my mind when thinking of Monument Valley.

It is elegant in the way levels intersect with each other, recalling Escher’s visual style, and creating nearly impossible geometric connections thanks to a well developed isometric point of view. Some scenarios are astonishing, jaw-dropping: of all, the box level showed so much charisma and attention to detail that I instantly fell in love with it.

It is elegant in its storytelling, as the playthrough builds upon a story mainly told with essential titles and short dialogues. They say that synthesis is a gift for great storytellers, and this game demonstrates that one can narrate something appealing by using just a few words. Plus, the aesthetic design helps in building a consistent world, a setting with great appeal.

It is elegant in its visuals and sounds, both minimalist and really inspiring. The pastel colors remind me of children’s books and artwork, but then there is this mix with Unity’s 3D voxel elements that creates an odd contrast, pointing towards modernity, and adulthood. In the meantime, delicate audio strings keep your mind relaxed enough to stay focused, and think about the next move. Clever, efficient, charming.

The overall experience pays back the player with a melancholic vibe, and although it doesn’t last long, Monument Valley is one of those games that leave a bittersweet scar on the player’s mind. For good, I mean.

I surely look forward to play the second episode, but first would like to let it sink a little bit more in my memories, and crystallize there.

Silent, and elegant.