Video Game Review: Wandersong

Pros: great story, thought provoking, variety of levels, no consequences for failure

Cons: no tutorial or guidance for most battles (so some were hard to figure out)

A young bard has a dream where he learns that the world is ending and a hero is needed to gather the Earthsong that could save everything. The next day ghosts have appeared in town, terrorizing people. He learns he can sing to the ghosts and understand what they say, which starts him on a quest to travel the world and learn the Earthsong.

It starts off as a standard quest, with a handful of puzzles you have to complete in order to solve each level and move on to the next area. What sets it apart is the twist that happens at the half way point, which I won’t talk about as it’s fantastic and I don’t want to ruin it for others.

The story, which starts off fairly superficial and lighthearted, suddenly becomes much deeper and darker, dealing with depression, the weight of expectations (yours and others’), feeling like an outsider, friendship, and what it means to be a hero.

The gameplay is generally straightforward with easy controls. My only complaint here was that there were no tutorials for the musical 'battles', which change each level, so at times I was left wondering what I was supposed to do. Some of them brought a white circle onto the colour wheel to tell you when to sing each note, but others were… strange. There was one level ending where you ping wires and orbs fly off. I’m still not sure what I was supposed to be doing but by fumbling around I somehow cleared it. On another there were white dots, and it was my husband who finally figured out you had to stand close to them and then do a frequency matching once the dots expand. On another level you could sing to attract butterflies but it wasn’t until I found and talked to the correct NPC that I learned you needed to attract 5 butterflies for the necessary action to happen. A more experienced gamer would probably have figured out the controls and actions faster

Another annoyance was that parts of the story were told in song, but the act of hitting the notes made it hard to read the text. In these cases the screen often jerked around to show different characters, which didn’t help, as the location of the colour wheel and text changed on the screen. The lyrics for these scenes were simplistic rhymes and the tunes seemed more like random notes than songs, which was unfortunate as the actual background music was fantastic and it seemed odd that the bard didn’t have more skill.

There was a nice variety to the levels, with one having you pilot a boat using the colour wheel, and another being a magic city where you have to get around without the ability to fly.

As someone who’s not very good at games I loved that there were no real consequences for failing/dying. You simply start again at the last save point (which is generally the next screen/puzzle so you don’t lose any progress).

On the whole I enjoyed the story and am glad my husband got me to play it.

For more information, here's the developer's website.

My copy was bought from the Steam store and played on a Linux computer (note: Wandersong isn't supported on Linux, but Steam play has a beta that does something to make it playable - Don't ask me, my husband sets this stuff up. BUT do check ProtonDB before you purchase something to be sure it will work with the emulator). 

Video Game Review: HUE

Hue lives in a world made of up black, white, and grey. His mother researched colours and one day disappeared. When he finds a light blue square, he learns she’s lost in the colours. To save her, he must finish the colour wheel and go to the university where she once worked.

This is a puzzle game, where you have to manipulate the colours on the wheel to get through and over coloured blocks. In some puzzles you have to move them onto pressure plates, others have jumping components, etc. Each level adds a new component. Every door you pass through is a save point, so while some of the puzzles are difficult, if you die you only lose progress from that room.

There are hidden potions to find, some of which are obvious and some of which a quite hard (one required replaying the full level three times before we found the hidden passageway).

The controls were easy, though there were times when I swore I was on one colour but when I left the colour wheel I was actually on a different colour (not sure if that was the controller, the game itself, or if we had our sensitivity too high). Also, some of the colours were so similar it was easy to mess up (like the pink and purple, and yellow was very close to the orange on one side and green on the other). This seemed deliberate, as it would have been easy to get hues that weren't confusing.

The story was interesting - talking about the mother’s time at the university and why she thought researching colours was so important. It’s fairly short, but it felt complete.

A few puzzles were frustrating, but on the whole the game was a lot of fun.

Video Game Review: Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa)

Never Alone was made by Upper One Games who:

... paired world class game makers with Alaska Native storytellers and elders to create a game which delves deeply into the traditional lore of the Iñupiat people to present an experience like no other.

Never Alone is our first title in an exciting new genre of “World Games” that draw fully upon the richness of unique cultures to create complex and fascinating game worlds for a global audience.

The story is based around a traditional tale and features a young huntress named Nuna, who goes in search of the cause of a series of blizzards that is causing problems for her tribe.  An arctic fox helps her on her journey.

Chapters start with that segment of the tale narrated in Iñupiat (with subtitles) and illustrated with traditional art. The gameplay itself deals with a variety of dangers - a polar bear, a manslayer, the reaching hands of spirit children manifesting as the northern lights, etc.  Helpful Spirits are often there to aid in Nuna’s quest. The play animation is beautiful, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli style art.

Finding owls throughout the game unlocks short videos that impart cultural knowledge about the Iñupiat and life in Alaska.

The game can be played solo, with you switching between Nuna and the fox, or in co-op mode where one player controls Nuna, and the other the fox.

Some short cut scenes occur throughout play, rendered using the game engine, without any obvious visual cue to differentiate them from game play.  As a result, it wasn’t always clear when you were in control again, meaning it’s sometime easy to die not realizing that the cut scene was over.  But death simply rewinds to the nearest check point, which are so numerous you don’t lose much progress or become too frustrated if you have to replay a spot several times to get the actions right.

Early in the game, Nuna is provided with her main weapon, the bola, which is a traditional string weapon with several weighted ends that is thrown at prey to bring it down by having the cords entangle the target.  I personally found the bola hard to aim and fire, but I’m in no way an experienced gamer, so I expect that more practiced players will have no problem with the controls.  Having said that, the game was otherwise very easy to play, with the controls feeling very natural and responsive.

The game took about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to play all the way through, and was a fun experience.  It was really cool, afterwards, to watch the videos about the Iñupiat and see what life was and is like for them.  This seems to be an excellent way to learn about a different culture, and I’d love to see more games like this.

The game is available on Xbox One, PS4, and Steam (for Mac and PC).  My review was done playing the Mac version in co-op mode using a pair of bluetooth connected PS3 controllers.

Video Game Review: Choice of the Deathless

I don’t normally play games, and so don’t review them often, but I saw last week that Max Gladstone had a text based game set in the world of his Craft Sequence novels and - since the game was really cheap ($2.99) - I bought myself a copy.

If you’re familiar with choose your own adventure novels you’ll understand how this particular text based game works.  There’s no music or illustrations, just words on a page and options for you to choose between.

You start the game in the middle of a fight.  There’s no context, but you’re quickly given a series of flash backs that allow you to build your character, its background, and play several years of your life that ultimately land you back at the opening fight.

You’re employed by the law firm Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone, examining contracts, working with and battling demons, opposing a goddess, and making decisions that not only shape your life, but what ending you get in the game.  

If you’re one of those people who read choose your own adventure novels by holding the pages with various fingers so you could quickly flip back and try the other option, you’ll find yourself playing the game several times, because there’s no going back, so if you want to check out the other options you have to play again.  There are a number of different options and I played the game 3 time with quite a few left unchosen.  

There are 32 achievements to unlock, the first of which is “Die: It’s easier than you expect.”  You can’t get them all in one play through as the various endings all land you a different achievement.  And based on your choices, some endings aren’t available to you and are greyed out when you get there.

There’s some great writing, like this paragraph describing a meal in the demon dimension:

“Dinner turns out to be something best described as a steak if they made steaks out of sex and hope and joy, accompanied by a red wine with notes of autumn childhood happiness and a light finish of your first kiss.”

I made my husband - who plays a lot more games than I do and who hasn’t read the books -  play it through to see what comments he’d have about the story and gameplay.  First up, he said it wasn’t hard to understand the story, even without the background the books give of the world, though he did feel a bit blindsided by some of the situations as there’s no lead in to the various story pieces (so, for example, the scenes with demons don’t mention that gods are interactable beings).  He did have some minor complaints about the game play.  He wished there were customizable options so he could change the text style to white on black instead of black on white, as he finds that easier to read on a computer screen.  He also wished there were keyboard shortcuts so he could have tabbed through the options rather than scrolling down and clicking on them with a mouse.  He also wished the game marked what previous choices you made so you’d have an easier time trying the other options (since you won’t necessarily remember what you picked between game plays).  His final point was one I shared, which is that you can’t save your stats by character.  Once you reset the game, your stats for the previous game are gone so there’s no way to compare your results.

The game takes between an hour and a half and two hours to play, which is good value considering the cost of it on Steam.  It’s available there for all major operating systems as well as at the Apple app store, Google Play and the Kindle.  You can find all the buy options here as well as play a demo.  Steam also has a trailer for the game.

If you liked the books you’ll love this game.  If you haven’t read the books but love choose your own adventures and/or the idea of being a lawyer who deals in magic, then give it a try.

Game Review: Little Inferno

Pros: fun, quirky items & explanations, takes about 6 hours to complete, letters from various people create a story around the burning, good graphics (mix of cute/creepy), music is repetitive but not annoying

Cons: some of the combos are hard to figure out, which gets frustrating, only supports a single touch point (tetronimos, for example, are hard to place as you can't rotate them)

In a future where the weather is getting colder, the Tomorrow Corporation has created Little Inferno: Entertainment Fireplace so little boys and girls can burn their toys and stay warm.  Burned all your toys already?  Then buy new ones from the catalogues they send you!  You get coins for burning things and stamps for completing special burn combos.  You also get letters from the owner of the Tomorrow Corporation, the Weather Man and a little girl who wants to be your friend.

This game is so much fun to play.  I've played it through twice already.  The items you're buying are a mix of cute and creepy.  For example: "Corn on the Cob: Made with all-natural, high-fructose corn syrup!  Also doubles as car fuel."  Put this in your fireplace, light it up and watch the kernels pop.  Or "Raccoon Plushie: So cuddly and adorable you can't not hug him!  May contain rabies."  He makes little raccoon noises and froths a bit at the mouth when you burn him.

The music is fun and though it gets repetitive, it's never annoying, which is so important when you're listening to it for several hours in a row.

My only complaints were that a few of the burn combos were really hard to figure out (I ended up googling one and trying combos for at least half an hour for another).  There's also only a single touch point, which is fine for most of the items, but it meant that with some items, like the tetronimos (or tetris blocks) it was very hard to place them specific ways before burning them.

The Tomorrow Corporation has its own website with more information on the game, including a free download of the soundtrack.  Rated for Teens due to crude humour and drug references, it's currently available from the Apple app store ($5 Canadian), Steam for Windows (and soon for Mac and Linux, though it's $10 there), and the Wii U eshop. 

Here's the commercial:

Video Game Review: Journey

By: That game company

Pros: esthetically gorgeous, easy game play

Cons: limited story, only available on the PS3

I'm not usually one to review video games, namely because I don't play them often (though I enjoy watching my husband play them, provided there's a good story).  But this game is so beautiful and unique I thought I'd mention it here in case there are people who'd be interested who otherwise wouldn't hear about it (it has won several game awards but I only heard of it recently).

You're a red robed character in a desert.  Walking (or sliding) through the sand to stone ruins, you sing to unlock swirls of magic that allow you to fly for short periods of time.  Your goal, told only through images, is to get to a split mountain top.  Along the way you're given a friend (another player on the playstation network) who can help by keeing your magic charged via proximity.  If you get separated from your friend, you may get connected with other players as you continue on but only one at a time.

The game play is easy, using only the two analog sticks (one to move and one to control the camera - which is what tripped me up the most) and two buttons (one to sing and one to fly).  You can also tilt the controller to look around, though using the sticks was easier for me.  In a lot of situations the computer seemed to put me where I needed to go, though finer control is needed towards the end where you fly to and walk over thin platforms.

On two levels of the game mechanical monsters attack.  If they hit you they take your magic tail, decreasing your flying abilities.  Beyond that, the game is about exploring the beautiful scenery and following the mostly linear path to the mountain peak.  If you get a good friend, you can use each other to keep flying higher and higher without needing an outside magic replenishment source.

Unfortunately it's only available on the PS3.  It's around $10 to buy and only takes 2 hours or so to play (depending on how much exploring you do), but it is a beautiful game and something a new player (or hesitant player) can master quickly.  So if your significant other isn't into games and you want to share your hobby, this is a good one to try.  It's also got soothing, almost meditative music. 

Here's the game trailer.  It starts 30 seconds in.