Justice Playthrough

Teaching your game is kinda important, folks.

Page 52, Game 30: Star Escape, by Ampersand Game Studios

Fuck this game.

During this playthrough, I’ve found games I love, games I respected but that fell short, games that were clearly no more than trifles, games I simply didn’t “get” … but this is the first one that actively pissed me off.

And, yeah, I’ve avoided trying to be too snarky on some of these games, because charity. But you pissed me off, Star Escape. You pissed me off good.

This LOOKS like a professional product — a polished, cute game that should be a lot of fun. You’re just jumping from planet to planet, racing to get to the top of the screen and picking up stuff along the way. It’s meant to be played head-to-head on the same screen, but you CAN set the other competitors to be bots.

Massive Piss-Me-Off Problem #1: The bots have one difficulty setting: Older sibling who resents having to play with you and wants to kick your ass at this game so severely you break down crying and leave them alone. The bots are fucking MERCILESS. Once you fall off the bottom of the screen, game over! You lose!

So if you’re gonna learn this game, you gotta learn FAST. You have literal SECONDS to figure out what the controls are, because you are about to lose AT ALL TIMES.

This brings me to Massive Piss-Me-Off Problem #2: No documentation. In the narrow-ass windows of gameplay, I FINALLY figured out that A and D rotated me left and right, holding down on the spacebar charged my jump, and releasing spacebar caused me to actually jump. It took me at least a dozen games to figure this out; the first dozen games were literally a few seconds of me doing nothing while the bot was all “I win AGAIN, loser! You suck at everything! Why dontcha go cry to MOM about it?!”

Massive Piss-Me-Off Problem #3: Vertical learning curve. The only way to learn this game is with an opponent who is intentionally tanking to keep you in the race. (Though you can absolutely take yourself out with a shitty enough jump, no matter how gracious your opponent is being.) There’s no other way to learn what jumps are worth attempting, or even the rudiments of how the mechanics work. There isn’t even a fuck-around practice mode to try out.

These problems seem fixable; there might be a decent game here if the devs would graciously provide some mechanism for learning it. As it stands, this game was a miserable experience that I wouldn’t recommend for anybody.

Damn, today’s just been all about the extremes, hasn’t it.

Let’s get something queued up for the next session and call it a night.

Page 11, Game 13: PALACE OF WOE, by owch

“sort your self out”

Another video game. Looks like a lo-fi puzzler. Interesting.

For a hot minute there, I though I was actually gonna get two fantastic games in a row.

Page 47, Game 18: Ring of Fire Prologue, by Far Few Giants

A point-and-click neon noir set 40 years years in the future. You’re a London detective, investigating a very fucked-up murder. And your primary tool is: a search engine! Also, GPS. Punch relevant-sounding information into your cop smartphone, see what it pulls out of the cop database. Punch relevant-sounding addresses into your GPS and go there, to follow the clues.

In theory.

In practice … this is a partial prologue for a game that’s still under development. It’s meant to be incomplete. But for the life of me, I have no idea if I hit the end of the content I’m allowed to play, or if I’m just too thick to know what to do next.

Either is possible; the game warns you to TAKE FUCKING NOTES, since it is NOT going to hold your hand about what you need to be doing. Which, okay, cool; I’m actually feeling that. Definitely helps with that detective-investigating-a-mystery vibe. But I’ve entered every name and address I could find and I’m back in the victim’s apartment, stuck.

Even if there’s some clue I missed … didn’t the crime lab say they’d get back to me? Isn’t there more relevant information on the way? I get what the game is shooting for, but I feel like the game is giving me this passive-aggressive blank stare, patiently waiting for me to stop being such a fucking moron.

Unless, of course, that’s just all there is to this prologue version of the game. In which case some sort of “That’s all, folks! See you on release day!” message would have been REALLY appreciated.

This is a very, very, VERY cool looking game. I could see it being awesome. But based on my experience with this demo … I’m not so sure. It’s coming out in 2021; if I see it on Steam for cheap, what the hell, might give it another look.

Okay. What’s next?

Page 52, Game 30: Star Escape, by Ampersand Game Studios

“Intense competitive jumping in space”

Hmm. I do like jumping.

Oh.

My.

God.

Page 7, Game 9: NOISE1, by ChevyRay

Play this fucking game.

I linked to it in its name — I’ve been doing that for all these games just in case you were curious, but this is the first time it’s MATTERED.

You are The Guy In The Chair. Somebody has hacked the system where they’re being held prisoner, but they need help from somebody, dear God ANYBODY, to get them out of it. Someone to twiddle the security settings and distract the guards and the like.

That someone is, naturally, you.

The presentation is pure ASCII art — but don’t worry, you’ll understand what everything means very quickly. This isn’t Dwarf Fortress. Within minutes, the graphics somehow go from being a “limitation” to just another part of the lo-fi atmosphere.

You interact with the world by typing commands. There are moments where you’ll have to type those fuckers FAST, too; Death By Typo befell my poor friend on several occasions. This game is basically a series of puzzles, and there are moments when you have to really freakin’ NAIL the timing. Particularly when–

No, fuck that. No spoilers.

The closest comp I can think of is, no shit, Portal. Maybe without the dark splatstick sense of humor, but in terms of rolling out both its puzzles and the tools available to solve them, the gameplay gives me a HUGE Portal vibe, in the best way possible.

Did I mention this fucker is ASCII art? Did I mention you interact with it by TYPING?

Like Portal, it’s paced beautifully, and gives you enough game to be satisfying without overstaying its welcome. I finished it in about two hours or so, and that felt more or less perfect.

There are a few rough edges. There’s one command, SCAN, that seems somewhat awkwardly integrated into the game. A few of the error messages are misleading; you’ll get the same error message for trying to interact with a non-existent object as you will trying to hit an object that’s simply cooling down. One early stage actually contains misleading information about a mechanic, leading to the next puzzle being much harder than it should be. A given noise can only distract one guard at a time, which you have to figure out yourself by trying (and failing) to do NOISE 2 when both of them are in the correct position. (“Got the one, DAMMIT, the other one still didn’t hear it! Okay, wait a bit, try again….”)

Whatever. These are quibbles.

This is an achievement. This is art. This is worth your time.

The Bundle has long since closed down, but you can buy this on its own for $10. I assure you it is more than worth the price.

This one’s gonna be a bitch to follow. Who gets to try?

Page 47, Game 18: Ring of Fire Prologue, by Far Few Giants

“Serial thriller told through a search bar”

Is this one interactive, or just a story? Let’s find out!

Oh good, a video game entry! I like the ones I can directly engage instead of just reading through the rules and giving my impressions; seems more fair to the work involved and more fun for me. Gives me a much better experience.

Page 23, Game 9: Dawndusk Dream Sewer, by rbatistadelima

Welp. I have no idea what the fuck just happened.

I do not know what this is. Is this someone’s profound artistic statement? A desperate cry for help? A joke?

It’s a video game with old-school isometric 3-D graphics, like Crystal Castles, only pinker. In it, you play a “meat husk” who must explore and listen to the bleak pontifications of this cutesy sewer’s inhabitants. Eventually, you will be given two choices. One is meaningless. The other is whether or not to die.

You will ultimately choose death, if only to see what happens.

There are no ninja turtles.

This game makes me think of Strindberg and Helium, save that I’m not remotely confident it’s actually tongue-in-cheek. It could be deadly serious. It could also be saying something about the juxtaposition of the grim pointlessness of the world and the inherent silliness of the medium. It could also be that the creator has found this review of their game, and is already laughing so hard at my confusion they can barely breathe.

Existence means nothing.

There is only the sewer.

Up next: Page 7, Game 9: NOISE1, by ChevyRay

“A posthuman stealth/horror terminal-operated unicode space opera.”

Ah, we’re in for a nice wallow in the bleakness of existence, I see.

So be it.

Back to the land of micro-RPGs we go.

Page 37, Game 14: Mossy Mechanics!, by Diwata ng Manila

You and your buddies are all sentient piles of moss, awakened by the Other Mother. Now go do stuff. Or don’t. Your game, bro.

My exposure to the mini-games in this collection is making me and Jasmine both realize that we need to venture out in to the space ourselves, which I mean in both the non-bitchy AND the ultra-bitchy ways.

The ultra-bitchy way is, of course, that the barrier to entry is just INCREDIBLY low here, just SO much lower than I would have anticipated. Some of these games clearly have a tremendous amount of thought and effort behind them, but others, emphatically, do not. Mossy Mechanics, despite being in its “4th Edition,” is clearly one of the latter. Three pages of rules, clumsy and uninspired mechanics, and a dashed-off “Eh, just figure it out for yourself” vibe to the vast majority of actual gameplay. COULD this be fun? Look, with the right people, ANYTHING can be fun. Sitting around a table with some scraps of paper and one pen to share between you can be fun if you guys are good at making it fun. In my mind, what makes a game “good” is not whether or not it’s “fun” with the right people, but how much work the game is willing to do to make “fun” the most likely outcome. Mossy Mechanics leaves the responsibility for “fun” very firmly on your shoulders.

But the non-bitchy way this makes me kinda want to start getting stuff of my own out there is how, despite the weird half-assedness of this actual ruleset, it’s very clear to me that SOMEBODY has had a blast playing this. Some goofball created a game for their buddies where they sat around pretending to be sentient moss, loved the hell out of it, and then had a grand time trying to translate that experience into some simple rules. Did they do a GREAT job of turning that experience into rules anybody could just pick up and play themselves? No. No, they did not. But they clearly had a lovely time doing it. And I suspect that for every nine people like me who pick up this ruleset and are all “Meh, this is nothing,” there’s gonna be a tenth who’s going to be all “Roll-play as MOSS? Oh, that’s fuckin’ HILARIOUS!” and puts forth the mental energy necessary to make this game come to life.

For real, sincerely, that’s pretty cool.

On we go, to Page 23, Game 9: Dawndusk Dream Sewer, by rbatistadelima

“Come forth mortal, the sewers beckon!!”

Will there be ninja turtles?

There might be ninja turtles.

…

…

I…?

…

Okay, let’s get fuckin’ weird with it.

It will be Page 50, Game 7: Arigatou, Ningen-san!, by by Michelle

At its heart, this game is about consent, and how consent makes everything okay.

You have just moved into a new neighborhood, and the local critters are desperate to be touched. They would like you to pet them, please, using the touch screen on your mobile device. (Though your mouse will do if you must.) And by “pet” they mean “hideously deform.”

You find a creature. You touch the creature. The creature will inform you how it likes to be touched. Adorable music plays. You “pet” the creature, causing them to contort their bodies in ghastly, unnatural ways, all while horrifying squishing sound effects emerge. All the while, hearts drift up to the top of the screen indicating their deep, deep satisfaction with the Lovecraftian parody of a massage you are administering.

You “pet” the creature, causing its satisfaction level to rise and rise until finally it indicates that you’ve massaged it to completion and OH MY FUCK I just got that and I feel so filthy, and the creature wanders off, leaving you free to find the next one.

I won the game. All the creatures were waiting for me back at my house, presumably for me to … erm … “pet” … at my leisure.

I feel disturbed, and not great about myself. Also, the game is adorable and hilarious and Jasmine and I were laughing at a whole lot of it.

It is, very definitely, a thing that exists, and not a thing I need to ever think about again.

Cleanse my palate, random number generator.

We move on to Page 37, Game 14: Mossy Mechanics!, by Diwata ng Manila

“A game about being sentient plants”

Sure. Yes. Plants. Nice friendly plants. I’m in.

Well wasn’t that just topical as all hell.

Page 54, Game 17: Lacrymo Tennis 2016 (+ 2018), by Les Jeux d’la Tête

Les hommes are protesting! Something! Probably not what we’ve been protesting lately, because the French have their own shit going on, but, you know, protesting! But oh, no! Les gendarmes! Police brutality is truly the universal language, and those cochones are indiscriminately chucking tear gas into the crowd!

But luckily for the crowd, you happen to love democracy almost as much as you love sports! So you’re gonna dive in there with your tennis racket and send those canisters of war crimes back where they came from!

This is a very, very silly game. In the base 2016 version, you’re constantly windmilling your tennis racket around and around, meaning you need to position yourself to swat the canisters off the ground during the upstroke phase of the animation. In the more advanced 2018 version, you actually control swinging your tennis racket with a mouse button. You thwack, you cough, you thwack some more.

There’s a real game under here somewhere, but whoever wrote it clearly was not in possession of enough fucks to bother bringing it out. What, precisely, am I being rewarded for here? Am I trying to swat the canisters while they’re in the air? That’s more challenging than just thwacking them from the ground so I’d think so, but no, there doesn’t seem to be any inherent reward for that. What makes the tear gas exhaust me faster? Will my lungs last longer the less time the tear gas hangs around? I’d think so, but I’m weirdly uncertain. How do I, like, DO WELL at this game?

I’m honestly not sure.

But randomly smacking police stupidity with a tennis racket makes for a perfectly acceptable way to kill fifteen minutes or so.

And this sumbitch is free! Go click the link at the top of the page for some old-school Flash game excitement.

What’s next? Will it be as topical?

It will be Page 50, Game 7: Arigatou, Ningen-san!, by by Michelle

“An interactive story about squishing animals”

Erm.

By “squish,” you better damn well mean “hug enthusiastically,” game. You do look adorable, so that’s what I’m going to hope for.

Looks like the Playthrough would like me to learn something about the immigrant experience.

Page 20, Game 12: Far From Home, by ehronlime

This one’s an indie tabletop roleplaying storytelling game, somewhere between a one-page and Apocalypse World in complexity. The players are all strangers in a strange land, attempting to thrive in a culture not their own. Seems to be taking some cues from Apocalypse World in terms of giving each player a kind of archetype to play (“The Seeker,” “The Exile,” The Transient,” etc.), but without as much mechanical distinction.

This is a very rules-light game in general, but with enough structure to feel like it’s still, you know, a game. Like a lot of storytelling-style games, this one looks like it’s going to depend very heavily on its players for a sense of direction; I feel like if you’ve got one or two players willing and able to lay down a solid structure, the game has enough substance for everybody else to work within that.

More so than a lot of games like this, however, this one feels like it REALLY needs you to lay down a strong sense of the world you’re in, and a reading of the rules leaves me concerned that it’s on the players to figure that out. If you’re going to explore what it’s like to live in a culture not your own, seems like you need a pretty firm sense of both where you are and from whence you came, and the game doesn’t seem to spend a lot of time encouraging you to figure those details out. Heck, it was a ways into the game before I figured out that it was encouraging you to build a fantasy or sci-fi world to explore together. But the rules don’t devote much space to that.

However, the rules also don’t specify that every interaction you have with the culture you’re living in should be as racist and condescending as humanly possible, so at least there’s a lot more room to explore nuance than the previous game had.

This isn’t one I’d be eager to play, necessarily, but if someone I trusted was eager to run a session of it, I’d gladly ask for a seat at that table. It strikes me as a tad underbaked for my liking, but overall, not bad.

All right, RNG. Are we gonna keep doing the immigrant thing?

Page 54, Game 17: Lacrymo Tennis 2016 (+ 2018), by Les Jeux d’la Tête

“No one does bourgeois revolution quite like the French.”

Is this a sports game? A revolutionary game? Both?

Let’s find out!

Back to video games we go.

Page 5, Game 14: Four Horsemen, by Nuclear Fishin’ Software

Maaaan. Talking smack about a one-page RPG adventure is one thing. But this … this is clearly somebody’s baby.

This is an interactive-novel style game about four kids of a Foreign ethnicity — two locally-born boys, two refugee sisters — making their way in a country that will take every opportunity available to be over-the-top racist as fuck to them. I suspect there is one absolute hell of a game hiding under this one, but I simply was NOT feeling it. The story is awkwardly presented, and I was too confused about the basics of what was happening to be fully engaged. (Are they ALL refugees? No, just the girls. Is this a new home they’re creating? No, it’s just like an afterschool clubhouse. Do they ALL have families they can go home to, or is it just James? I … think they do? I’m still not sure. Why is that racist local just a slightly palate-swapped version of Tough Girl? That HAS to mean something, right?)

There’s a crafting system that seems weirdly inconsequential. There’s a resource-gathering mechanism that I’m pretty sure is meant to make me feel how frustrating it is to not be able to afford anything and just get by on scraps, but it just felt clumsy and arbitrary.

Meaningful decision points felt few and far between. Most of the time, it’s just click and read, click and read, click and read.

I really, really want to be engaged by this game; it’s very clearly coming from someone with something to say. But my experience was just too frustrating. The ending I got was clearly a terrible one, but for the life of me I’m not sure how I got there or what it all meant. I wasn’t moved, I was just … annoyed.

Also, no fascists were punched, ever. Extra frustration.

Ah, well. They’re not all gonna be winners.

Perhaps the next one will be better.

And that next one is Page 20, Game 12: Far From Home, by ehronlime

“A game about immigrants and outsiders”

Ah, looks like I’ll be staying with a theme here.

Hey, it’s the first LARP I’ve stumbled across!

Page 45, Game 25: Plasty: A Thing of Beauty, by Tinker Taylor Publications

You and your friends get together and pretend to be in the waiting room of a plastic surgeon’s office. Why do you want plastic surgery? What do you hope to get from it? Talk about it with each other.

That’s the game.

Up next: Page 5, Game 14: Four Horsemen, by Nuclear Fishin’ Software

“Leave home. Start anew. Punch racists.”

Aw yeah.