Video Game Review: Strange Horticulture

Strange Horticulture is a video game developed by Bad Viking and published by Iceberg Interactive. It's an interactive story where you play a character who's recently inherited their uncle's plant shop. As you help patrons by giving them the flowers they ask for, you gain pages in your botany book that help with the identification. Letters and other interactions lead you to locations on a map where you can find new plants for the shop. Meanwhile, a horrible murder has taken place and people involved with it come to you for various forms of aid.

The game is a lot of fun. I love plants and herbals, so putting the book together and reading about the plants was great. The story has several points where you can choose between 2 plants to give someone, a decision that impacts future options and the ending of the game. There is some mention of the occult, and you have the ability to personally kill one person. I've gotten 3 of the 8 endings so far. The game also has some mapping puzzles to solve, which keeps things interesting. A few of the puzzles were challenging until I figured out their trick. The visuals are gorgeous, including the petable cat that sits and sleeps on the counter. It's a point and click game, so there's no time based stress involved. The controls are easy to figure out and it takes about 6-8 hours to play through the first time.

I highly recommend the game if you like plants, the occult, and simple puzzles.

Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts

Saw the trailer for the game Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts recently and am VERY interested in playing this when it comes out. Alas, there's no release date yet, just 2025. Here's its Steam page, if you want more information about the game.

TV Show Review: Fallout Season 1

IMDb listing

Pros: interesting character arcs, some great plot twists, good action sequences

Cons: lots of blood and gore, some nudity

Lucy MacLean leaves her mostly idilic nuclear fallout vault to rescue her father who’s been kidnapped by raiders. She is wildly unprepared for the world she finds on the surface.

I have never played the Fallout games though I watched part of a playthrough once (can’t say which game it was). So while I knew a handful of facts about the Fallout world (Pitboy, mutants, vaults), I was basically coming into the show blind.

I had concerns about the amount of gore in the trailer. I’m not a fan of gross humour/horror. So I watched the first episode as a test. And then kept watching. While there is a fair amount of gore, strategically closing my eyes at the right moment has helped (and the moments are generally telegraphed, so this worked well for me).

There are 3 main protagonists whose stories interweave, and they’re all compelling in their own ways. Two of them (Lucy and Maximus) have fairly simple backstories and motivations. The Ghoul’s story gets more and more complicated as the series progresses. The world’s complexities makes achieving their goals a real challenge. Watching Lucy confront her beliefs and see how she’s forced to change in order to live in this new world was heart-breaking. Ella Purnell is brilliant showing the progression from Lucy’s naivety to survivalism. Similarly, seeing who the Ghoul used to be before the nuclear blasts and wondering what’s brought him to this low point is interesting.

The set designs were beautifully done. I loved how they reinvented technology based on the divergence of history. The VHS style videotapes were kind of fun, as were some of the robots.

There were a lot of great fight scenes in a variety of locations. I appreciated that they were all fights for survival, rather than feeling cleanly choreographed. Everyone fights dirty in this world, or they die.

The story had some excellent plot twists (though, apparently many of these are known game storylines, so may not be surprising to those who’ve played them). I was happy that so many questions were answered by the final episode, while leaving enough to segway into a second season.

If you’re ok with gore and some nudity (one episode has a weird scene where a group of people derobe), then give this a try. The acting is great, the characters compelling, and the story shockingly good (especially compared to some other video game shows lately *cough* Halo *cough*).

Video: When You're Married to a Helldiver

I've been watching some youtube videos of people playing Helldiver 2, so this video by the Warp Zone made me laugh.

The Escapist video team starts Second Wind

I'm not sure what my audience here is interested in, so I'm basically posting the kinds of things that interest me. I've been watching the video game youtube channel The Escapist for years. I remember when Yahtzee Croshaw and Jim Sterling did poetry jams. The last few years the channel grew and added a lot of new shows and personnel. One of my favourite shows there is the D&D campaign Adventure is Nigh (season 1).

A few weeks ago, The Escapist's parent company fired the editor-in-chief, and the entire video team quit in protest. They've created a new company: Second Wind. So far their youtube channel's uploaded a few videos either wholesale from The Escapist (if the creator was an independent) or a modified version (if the creator was a full employee, whose IP videos belong to The Escapist). 

So, Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation, a sarcastic video game review show, has been reborn as Fully Ramblomatic. It's a fun show so long as you're ok with adult content and swearing. I also enjoy Design Delve (if you're interested in what makes video games work behind the scenes), and Cold Take (if you like to consider the philosophical side of games). I'm hoping they start a new D&D campaign too.

The Second Wind crew's great and it's really impressive how quickly they've bounced back with this channel and content. I'm looking forward to see what new shows they come up with and watching them for years to come.

Vintage Story: a Minecraft style survival game

 A few weeks ago my husband and I started playing Vintage Story, a video game that looks like Minecraft, and plays in a similar style, but which emphasizes the survival aspects. There's a limited lore implying a previous society collapsed (you find ruins of it all over with storage vessels containing some supplies and on rare occasions scrolls containing bits of story). 

The main enemy are called drifters, which come in different varieties, and every now and then there are 'temporal storms' which causes your screen to darken, the visuals to waver, and drifters to teleport in around you. The game also has animals that will kill or damage you (namely wolves, but boars and rams can do some major damage too). Staying underground too long causes the gear at the bottom of the screen to turn left. Apparently bad things happen if the greenish colour disappears (I know you start fading in and out but we haven't let it go out completely yet).

Survival is the real test though. The game requires you to progress through the ages of man, starting at the stone age - knapping stone and flint tools to get meat and wood. You find seeds via storage vessels and wild crops. Then you can start farming. You originally harvest ores from the surface and have to find coal or create charcoal to smelt the ores (burning plain wood can't get hot enough) so you can mine. Making a windmill helps with the smelting, but takes time as you need a lot of flax fibers to make the cloth for the sails.

My husband deals with most of the mining, metal working and building. I tend to do more of the animal husbandry (we've got bees, pigs, and chickens), farming, and cooking.

The game makers are very friendly towards moders, which is great as we had to modify a few of the metrics. We've slowed the hunger rate (it starts unreasonably high) and added a keep inventory feature when you die (I die a lot so this would have earned a rage quit from me otherwise). We've also got a mod that allows for chiseled features, which is how my husband made the exquisite balcony on the house.

The game goes through the 4 seasons in a condensed year, which is cool as the colours of trees and plants change in autumn, getting more faded and white entering winter with the lakes freezing over, then to green, and finally a burst of variety for summer.

I took some screenshots so you can see our farm. This is the back of the house. We have 2 ponds. Below the windmill are my leather tanning and food preservation barrels. 

The front of the house. I built my farm onto a lake so I wouldn't have to worry as much about watering it. Off to the right, just out of view, is my apiary, also on the lake. Make sure to fence off your farm as the bunnies will eat your crops otherwise (and the 2 high fence areas are because we found out in winter the snow makes the ground high enough for bunnies to jump over a 1 high fence). 

A close-up of us on the balcony! You don't get to fully customize your characters - there are only a few model options. 

While trying to find salt for food preservation (found in deserts WAY to the south, like a real world hour's worth of walking to the south) we found jungle trees. I brought home some saplings, vines and flowers to create a little oasis near our farm. This shows the full play screen (the green gear, inventory, map and stats are from the basic game, the upper weather/time chart is an added mod, though the time can be accessed by hitting 'c'). 

My jungle without the extra info, and a wolf that tried (and failed) to eat me.

Like Minecraft it's an open world building game/adventure. It's a massive time sink (so keep that in mind) but also a lot of fun. The game costs 15 Euro and is available on PC, Linux (with some fiddling - check out their system requirements for info), and Mac (though apparently they won't be updating Mac OS after 2020).

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). 

Not a Review - Nier: Automata

Pros: great characters, interesting story, wonderful soundtrack, lots of action, variety in locations and battles

Cons: lots of unanswered questions at the end, some questionable content

Thousands of years ago aliens invaded the Earth and used machines to wipe out most of mankind. Now the remnants live on the moon and have created androids to help them retake their home world. YoRHa sends combat unit 2B and scanner unit 9S to Earth for reconnaissance and to help the resistance wipe out the machines. But they discover a new type of machine, one that looks human.

As I’ve said before, I’m not a gamer, and while I’ve played a good number of games, starting with the old Atari, Commodore 64, and original Nintendo Entertainment System, I’m terrible at them. I do love watching my husband play games though, especially ones with interesting stories. So when my husband got me to play the first level of Nier: Automata I didn’t expect to spend over 100 hours finishing the game.

First off, I played it on easy mode. This meant there were times when the game quite literally played itself (though, for the record, one of the 2 times I died was because I didn’t realize I could turn off the auto-fire system, which forced me to stay in an arena with constantly spawning enemies 20+ levels higher than me).

This was also my first time playing an RPG and I was shocked at how much fun I found all the levelling up battles - otherwise known as the grind. I thought that would be boring, but I enjoyed exploring the world and seeing (and killing) the wide variety of machines.

The game play automatically switches from regular mode to side scroller at times, with additional switches to air ship mode. Some of the side scroller switches were annoying (moving to the left suddenly changes to moving forward - a real pain when there’s a chest or something you need to get that’s just before the screen change and the game flickers you between modes). For the most part, it was cool seeing the different modes and the first chapter models all three (which is why my husband insisted I try it).

The reason I kept going after that first chapter was the story and characters. You start the game by playing as 2B. She’s mostly unemotional and her dialogue plays well with 9Ss complaints about their workload (side quests as well as official missions). The voice actors are absolutely incredible. Kira Buckland as 2B and Kyle McCarley as 9S especially deserve a lot of credit for making me care about the characters. They’re so expressive and made the characters fell alive.

I’m not sure if this has been done in a video game before - and it’s kind of a SPOILER - so if you don’t want to know what happens later in the game, skip to the next paragraph but… there comes a point where you get to the end and … the game starts again. Only this time you’re playing as 9S. The first time through you don’t really know what’s going on and there are so many side quests (some you can only do a certain points in the game) so getting a second chance to do some of those and to see the world before things change again, was really cool. Playing as 9S also comes with a new ability - hacking. And hacking allows you to find information about the old world. I also loved that you learn the back stories of some of the antagonists during this play through, and start to feel bad about killing the machines.

The world-building was mostly well done. The final boss battles left me with questions and exposed some holes in their backstory, which was unfortunate.

The world is fun and there were several hidden areas to explore off the regular map (that is, the sections you’re officially sent to for missions). I found the variety nice. There’s a desert, a ruined city, an amusement park, a factory, a forest with a castle, and a sunken city. 

You fight a nice variety of machines, which are modified for their environments. The boss battles are all unique, with side stories.

The soundtrack was wonderful. Each section has its own themes and there are some really haunting vocals. 

We didn’t know there was a previous game until I started looking up hints late in game play. It’s fairly clear there are a lot of callbacks to the original Nier, though I don’t know the full extent.

The game did have some problematic elements. Like when my husband was finishing off the achievements, we learned there was one for looking up 2Bs skirt 10 times, and another for playing as 9S without pants for an hour. I liked 2B and 9Ss main outfits, but couldn't stand the torn clothing they gave A2. We had a DLC that added battle arenas that gave each playable character a new outfit. I immediately switched A2 to the nice fully clothed hunter style outfit, but refused to use the skimpy lingerie 2B got and I really don't know what to say about the... apron thing for 9S.

Towards the end I was getting burned out. The game goes on for quite a while, and if you do all the side quests and fishing and everything, well, it's a LOT. While I enjoyed playing as a new character for the final sections of the game, I was unhappy over why that character was necessary.

On the whole I really enjoyed the game.

Video: Granny Horror Game in Real Life

I enjoy Screen Team's videos and they're back after a hiatus. While I haven't played the Granny horror game they're doing a live remake of here, this video is well done - and quite creepy.

Kickstarter: Daedalus video game

I got an email this morning about a kickstarter SF game Daedalus. I'm still reeling from the results of the US election (no, I'm not American, but this election effects the world). This morning I woke up feeling lost in a dystopian future I never expected to be a part of...

Anyway, on to the game. It's a Telltale style quick time event game detailing the final month of an orbital exploration crew's tour when things start to go wrong.

Here's a proper synopsis from their kickstarter page:

The game takes place in the hard sci-fi After Reset™ universe. In the 22nd century, several years before the "Reset" (a thermonuclear apocalypse that nearly ended human civilization), the crew aboard the Daedalus Space Station is eager to return home from a yearlong orbital exploration of Venus and Sun. Only thirty days remain until the next crew rotation, but Matt Cramer, an astronaut from the crew, begins to has unnatural dreams full of horrors that are about to become a reality.

Yet as the days count down to zero, strange events begin to unfold. Crewmates succumb to accidents or rumors of murder, communications go dark, and everyone grows increasingly on edge as conspiracy theories abound. Though help is on its way, you must survive long enough for it to arrive.

The kickstarter is to fund the first episode, though some of the rewards are for season passes. They mention in the rewards that it will be available for PC, Mac, and Linox via Steam and Gog.

Got to Catch ‘em All

Pokemon Go is becoming quite a phenomenon.  And I’ve jumped on that band wagon.  Not without some misgivings though.

Pokemon came out on TV in Canada when I was in high school.  I’ll admit that I liked the show and watched it everyday, but I might not have admitted it to you back then.  As with a lot of “things below my age” I was somewhat ashamed of my enjoyment in the show.  This was true of other cartoons I watched including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sailor Moon.  But I liked the shows.  They gave me half hours of escapism from the lousiness that was high school and daily life.  I NEEDED these shows to keep myself sane, to get through the days, the weeks, the years.

But at the back of my mind - and when anyone else was around - I was ashamed of my love for cartoons.  

It was with extreme reluctance that I set up my Pokemon Go account.  I downloaded it “just to see what it was like”, even though my husband didn’t care one way or another and no one else was around.  I played it “just to see if it’s any fun, you know, not because I’m actually interested.  I just want to see what everyone’s talking about”.  

The first time I went outside to play - I didn’t have a data plan for my iPad (my only tablet device) so I had to play in places that had wifi, which meant my house and the nearby community centre - I imagined people were looking down their noses at me, criticizing my decision to play a ‘child’s’ game.  While one guy with a young kid looked at me funny no one else even noticed I was there, or cared.  Still, I felt like a looser.

When I turn on the app the cartoon theme song plays in my head: “I want to be the very best, like no one ever was…”

I went to another wifi spot with my husband, but the connection was spotty and it drove him nuts that I couldn’t play the game properly, despite obviously wanting to.  So we went to the mall and I got a data plan.  I spent the next few hours running all over the place, getting pokestops and catching a ton of new pokemon.

A few days ago I went back to the community centre because it’s got several nearby pokestops.  I used a lucky egg, which gave me 30 minutes of double the xp.  During that time I hatched 2 eggs (near hatching when I started), evolved and caught several pokemon, and hit those pokestops several times.  I had so much fun.  And I didn’t feel bad for running around like a lunatic.  I didn’t care what others thought.  I HAD FUN.  And isn’t that what life’s about?  Enjoying ourselves?  Doing things that make us happy?

That evening I saw this video by the School of Life on Imposter Syndrome:

And it struck me: the people who point fingers and say I shouldn’t do things ‘because of my age’ do things they’re ashamed of too.  They just make themselves feel better by harassing others so we stop enjoying the things we’re doing.  

You know what?  I’m sick and tired of letting other people - people I don’t care about, people I don’t know, dictate what I can and can’t do, what I can and can’t like, what makes me happy and what makes me ashamed.  I am an adult, whether I like so called childish things or not.

Who are they to tell me I can’t read YA novels if I enjoy them?  Who are they to tell me I’m too old to watch cartoons if they bring me joy?  Who are they to tell me I’m stupid for playing a kids game if that game gets me outside, exercising without thinking of it as exercise and feeling generally ecstatic?  Who are they to tell me I’m not a fan just because my way of enjoying something is different from theirs?  Why should their opinion of me matter?

Oddly, in most things it doesn’t for me.  I’ve reached an age where I generally don’t care what others think of me anymore.  I have my own opinions on things and I don’t need others’.  But this game took me back to my youth, when wanting to fit in was more important than accepting who I was and just being me.

I like myself.  I’m proud of who I’ve become.  And I’m done with feeling ashamed for liking the things I like.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go out and Catch ‘em All!

Book Review: Song of the Deep by Brian Hastings

Pros: great female protagonist, fast paced, variety of challenges, illustrations

Cons: too short! (though not for the intended age group), inaccurate science

When Merryn’s father doesn’t return from his day’s fishing in a storm, she builds a submarine and goes looking for him.

This is a middle grade book, designed for ages 8-12, though it’s suitable for those outside that range as well (there are a few scary bits, but nothing 6 year olds couldn’t handle, and the short chapters make for good bedtime reading).  While the science isn’t accurate, I was impressed that the author mentioned some of the challenges of working and using a submarine (like what to do for air).  

Merryn’s a highly motivated character.  She doubts herself a few times, wondering if her quest is futile, but forces herself to keep searching regardless.  Along the way she encounters some fantastical sea creatures and faces several types of dangers.  I also appreciated that there was no physical description of her.

The story’s well paced, with a variety of challenges for Merryn to overcome, some using her wits and others her mechanical know how.

There’s black and white artwork throughout the book, illustrating some of the wonders Merryn encounters.

This book is a tie-in to the video game of the same name, which follows Merryn’s quest.  The author wanted media his daughter could appreciate that focused on attributes outside of looks.  And he’s succeeded as far as this book is concerned.

As an adult I found the book an entertaining, quick read.  I’m sure kids are going to love this.