“You guys can’t envision the final collapse of capitalism? Incredible!”
What’s the easiest way to steer clear of nonsense spewed out by so-called “generative AI”? Pick a date and avoid anything made after it. It’s an extreme approach to this problem, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Even if we pick a date from many decades ago, there was already so much stuff made by real people that no one will ever see, read, or experience it all in a single lifetime. For instance, webcomic artist Randall Monroe estimated that “by sometime in the late 1500s” it was impossible to read every work published in English. That’s not counting all of the fantastic work written in other languages.
I’m still considering what year to use as a cut-off point for myself. It needs to include Elden Ring at least (haha), so that would make it at least early 2022.
Another approach is to be far more cautious about new media. Put those critical thinking skills to work and ask questions like:
Major studios and companies are likely to embrace this insulting technology on a bigger scale than small groups of artists and entertainers. One of the easiest ways to avoid the slop is to stay far away from triple-A studios.
We can make a small difference by voting with our wallets and attention. Artists who take a firm stance against generative AI deserve to be supported.
2024-12-13
2024 is almost over. I played quite a few games this year. Here are some brief thoughts about them (in alphabetical order). There shouldn’t be any major spoilers, but readers who are especially careful about them should probably not read below this line.
Antholoy of the Killer
I’ve already written quite a bit about my love of Stephen Gill-Murphy’s little indie games, so I won’t retread old ground. This little series is great fun. Highly recommended.
Buckshot Roulette
Cool little indie title. The addition of multiplayer is what sold me on it.
Dead Space (2024)
I enjoyed the first six hours the most, which features some solid gameplay with nice environments. After that, however, I found that the game overstayed its welcome. The story is unoriginal and uninspiring. Not something I would recommend or ever play again.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
A deeply flawed experience. I enjoyed FFVII: Remake quite a lot. The developers handled story beats with aplomb and found a great balance between drama and comedy. The combat felt like a refined version of that found in Final Fantasy XV. My expectations for Rebirth, then, were fairly high. It seemed like Square Enix knew what they were doing.
Unfortunately, Rebirth is not what I was hoping for. It’s not to say that I hated it, merely that I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.
Here is a list of the major issues that I had with it:
I don’t mean to sound overly harsh, of course. It’s obvious a lot of time and effort went into the game. Despite the criticisms above, I enjoyed the game enough to put over sixty hours into it. If I had truly disliked it, I would’ve simply stopped playing.
To balance out my critiques a bit, here are some of the reasons I kept playing:
I have no idea what the third (and final?) entry will look like. I’m hoping for something closer to Remake, which felt way more cohesive. I will still give it an honest try whenever it may release.
Growing My Grandpa
Love the aesthetic and overall vibes. Inspiring.
Higurashi When They Cry
As I write this, I’m about four hours into the final chapter of the Higurashi series. Reading through the series has been a highlight this year. I originally read the iOS version of chapter one in 2018 (gosh, has it been that long?). Nowadays, the first chapter is completely free to play. Chapter one works as a stand-alone story if readers prefer to stop there.
For those curious about the rest of the chapters, rest assured that there are some incredible moments throughout the series. It transcends its flaws to be something that anyone interested in reading horror visual novels should try.
The House in Fata Morgana
Overall, I enjoyed my time with the characters in this story. Its localization is well done and the prose is readable and sounds natural for the most part. I like it about as much as I like Higurashi Ch. 1. In fact, its pacing is better than Higurashi’s in some ways, since Higurashi is occasionally over-burdened with unnecessary fluff.
The horror elements are fairly sparse, which could be disappointing to some readers. The story that unfolds is interesting enough that I felt invested the whole way through. The main cast of characters grow as people over the course of the game. It’s pleasing to see such satisfying character arcs.
The House in Fata Morgana suffers from a few repetitive sections: long passages where the plot isn’t advancing and the writing isn’t refreshing enough to keep a reader interested. This verbosity seems to be a problem common to visual novels. Perhaps having a more merciless editor would help? I don’t want to come down too hard on this VN in particular, of course. I’m describing an issue I have with VNs in general.
More than anything else, what drew me to The House in Fata Morgana is its artwork. Moyotaro has made some truly beautiful characters. There’s a gentle grace to the characters. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the visuals in visual novels are just as important as the quality of the prose and story. When I hunt around for new VNs to try, I can’t help but judge them by their aesthetics. Am I willing to spend however many hours looking at this artwork? If not, I move on.
Resident Evil 4 (2024)
Excellent remake. I found some parts to be a little tougher than the original, but overall the team did a great job on this one. Both titles are still unique enough that there are good reasons to play both.
Resident Evil Village
Really enjoyed this one. It’s funny that after the seventh title didn’t meet Capcom’s sales expectation, the follow-up went back to the tried-and-true Resident Evil 4 style of gameplay. The setting of Village is more appealing to me compared to the setting of RE VII. Nothing more cozy than gothic horror in a cold, snowy castle.
Soma
I bought it specifically because I heard it had a decent narrative. Pretty cool experience overall. I’m especially glad that the game has a mode that allows players to completely ignore the stealth mechanics (something I have zero interest in).
Armored Cored VI
What I’ve played so far has been pretty fun. I’m not familiar with the rest of the series. The difficulty seems to be a bit gentler compared to From Software’s other offerings.
Nidus
An arcade game with a unique control scheme: players control both a flower and a wasp simultaneously and must use both in tandem to fight off insects and other creatures. The psychedelic artstyle is interesting.
Nightmare Kart
An impressive indie kar racer that pays loving homage to Bloodborne. It’s free to play, and includes a solo campaign game and local multiplayer. Highly recommended to folks who enjoy Mario Kart.
Pseudoregalia
A neat little indie 3D platformer title. It feels more like a proof of concept than a completed game, perhaps owing to its original inception as a game jam entry. Overall it’s pretty fun to play around with the protagonist’s moveset.
Steins;Gate
About an hour into this one so far. I’ve heard some good things about the story overall, so I’m optimistic.
Unicorn Overlord
Only completed one or two missions so far. Not sure if I’ll enjoy the gameplay enough to see it through to the end, but I do intend to go back to it.
Xanadu Next
When I bought this one, I was in the mood for something akin to a Japanese take on Diablo. Xanadu Next isn’t quite Diablo, but it’s not a bad little dungeon crawler, especially for something that was originally an N-Gage game from 2005. There’s a good sense of progression as you buy ever more powerful equipment and level up.
Fear & Hunger
I played Fear & Hunger: Termina first and greatly enjoyed it. The first game is just not as interesting to me as the sequel. Maybe I’ll go back to it eventually?
Gris
It’s all right. Decent art style. Just need to go back and finish it.
Hylics 2
It’s solid. I think I enjoyed the first one a bit more. Possibly because I’ve used RPG Maker before and found Hylics to be an impressive achievement considering the limitations of that engine. I think when I go back to the sequel, I might try the easier difficulty option. I’m uninterested in overly difficult turn-based combat.
In Sound Mind
I picked this one up on a whim (it was quite cheap). It’s a first-person puzzler with light shooting mechanics. It’s not a bad game. It has a decent aesthetic and gameplay. Its writing is a little weak and I can’t help but feel it’s not handling the serious topics all that well.
Morodashi Sumo
For true sumo fanatics only. It’s pretty great.
The Silver Case
killer7 is one of my favorite games. I’m not familiar with much of suda51’s other games, and, in effort to rectify that, I decided to give The Silver Case a shot. I think I would like it more if it completely eschewed any adventure game mechanics. Specifically, I don’t really like how the movement controls work. It slows down the story a bit too much.
I do like the style and I know I’ll go back to it eventually. Probably just have to be in the mood for it.
2024-12-08
I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) is one of the films exclusive to Netflix that I re-watch any time I re-subscribe. It tells the story of a live-in nurse/caregiver who moves in with an aged author of horror stories. The author is clearly meant to be a not-too-subtle reference to Shirley Jackson, who wrote some creepy tales like The Lottery (1948) and The Haunting of Hill House (1959).
The film feels like an experiment in atmosphere, mood, and sound design. It’s light on plot to the point of feeling more like a dream or basic ghost story told around a campfire. Out of all of Perkins’ films, this one is the most difficult to recommend due to its vibes-based approach to filmmaking. If the recent success of the even more experimental and surreal Skinamarink (2022) is anything to go by, however, there is an audience hungry for films like this one.
I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House takes a lot of inspiration from Shirley Jackson’s writing. Although I haven’t read it in years, The Haunting of Hill House is an excellent gothic ghost story. The 1963 film adaptation remains one of my absolute favorites. I can re-watch it again and again and find new things to like about it. Osgood Perkins’ filmography is just as rewatchable.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015) has more of a plot and traditional story structure than I am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. We follow some Catholic school girls as the boarding school closes down for the Christmas break. The film takes its time to build tension. Like all good horror, it features themes and subtext. In particular, The Blackcoat’s Daughter focuses on loss and grief.
Gretel and Hansel (2020) is a re-telling of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale. I remember enjoying it, but unlike Perkins’ other films I have only watched it once. It would likely pair well with Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) as a double-feature.
Recently, I finally caved and rented Longlegs (2024); I missed it in theaters. Renting a movie reminded me of all the countless times going to the video rental stores over two decades ago. It’s remarkable that no online service has leaned into the video rental store aesthetic. A missed opportunity.
Longlegs is Perkins’ first film with a straightforward procedural structure. It wouldn’t feel out of place as a monster-of-the-week episode of The X-Files. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not sure yet where I’d place it in Perkins’ overall filmography, but my knee-jerk reaction says it ranks among his best.
I hope Perkins continues to make films for many years to come.
2024-11-11
There are spoilers for Elden Ring below.
My first character was a strength and faith build. I don’t remember why I chose faith in particular, but it was a smart choice for a first playthrough. Incantations are handy for the numerous healing spells, including some that cure nasty status ailments that are difficult to deal with otherwise.
Stubbornness saw me stick with a regular old broadsword for most of the game. It’s not a bad weapon, but I should’ve been a bit more willing to experiment with all of the different options. I didn’t engage much with Ashes of War either, another mistake. Ashes of War allow for a lot of weapon customization free of cost.
I tried to go through the most of the game without referencing a guide as much as possible. Occasionally I would take a peek if I was really stuck or wanted to know how to get more of a particular smithing stone. Once I neared the final boss fights, I looked up how to get specific endings. I completed Ranni’s quest since it opens up a lot more of the game world, including Nokron, Eternal City; the Lake of Rot; and the Moon Altar, to name just a few.
Trying to see and do everything on a first playthrough was probably a bad idea since it made the game feel like a slog. There’s just a lot of game – maybe even too much.
Upon reaching the Haligtree, which is full of tough enemies, I finally caved and looked up a guide to find some better weapons for strength and faith characters. I settled on the Blasphemous Blade and was blown away by how powerful it is. It’s so strong that one can’t help but wonder if it’ll eventually be toned down a little.
As difficult as the game is, I think that the inclusion of Spirit Ashes – NPC summons that can aid players in boss fights and other encounters – balances out the difficulty somewhat. It’s still a shame that we don’t have difficulty sliders. Sometimes it’d be nice to explore the Lands Between without fear of being crushed like an insect. Or to recommend the game to friends who don’t like or play tough-as-nails games.
For my recent second playthrough, I went for a dexterity and intelligence character. Sorceries appear to be more powerful in terms of raw damage numbers, but maybe that’s just because there are so many different damage-dealing sorceries compared to incantations. (That could also just be my poor memory: I remember using the lightning bolt incantation way too much.) I picked up the Moon Veil katana early on and have used it through most of the game. I’ve also completed Ranni’s quest again simply to get her Dark Moon Greatsword.
Some bosses that gave me a lot of trouble the first time weren’t so bad this time around. I beat both Queen Renalla and General Radahn on my first attempts despite not practicing on either for nearly two years. I don’t think I knew that you can re-summon the NPCs for Radahn’s fight, which makes him a lot more manageable. In general, I prefer a casual approach to the boss fights rather than trying to tackle them all on my own.
A memorable moment: I brazenly went into the boss room for the Sage’s Cave, forgetting that the enemy is an invisible assassin. I managed to barely survive thanks to the Raya Lucaria Soldier Ashes. The NPC helpers could see the boss and helped me aim my sword swings.
I really like Elden Ring, especially the setting and environments. There are still some parts that I wish were different. The Draconic Tree Sentinel fight is a pain, for one example. There’s also a noticeable dearth of Rune Arcs for those playing offline. I think it’d be better if they were purchasable in unlimited quantities at a high price. As it is, I avoid using any of them, too worried that I’ll die stupidly (not an unreasonable concern) and feel like I wasted an extremely rare item. Comparatively, I never felt too worried about using the occasional Ember in Dark Souls III or Human Effigy in Dark Souls II. Maybe it’s the fact that players don’t receive a free Rune Arc upon defeating a boss?
As vague as the story can be at times, I still admire this sort of story-telling. It’s just enough to get the imagination working. It reminds me of a blog post on W. F. Smith’s blog, Prismatic Wasteland, which discusses lore in the context of tabletop role-playing games. Leaving ambiguity in the story allows for discussion among the playerbase as well.
Elden Ring shines at embracing the weird. I remember wondering what the “Two Fingers” could possibly be when playing my first character. Was it an organization? The name of a creature with two fingers on each hand? I was genuinely delighted to enter the Two Fingers’ chamber in the Round Table Hold and be greeted by a giant hand with two fingers.
2024-02-11
South Scrimshaw: Part One is a visual novel written and illustrated by Nathan O. Marsh. It’s structured as a documentary film about “brillo whales,” a fictional species that inhabit an alien world. It’s available for free on Steam. It’s a relatively short read, taking about 90 minutes to complete.
The game appears to have been made using RenPy. It’s nice to see RenPy continue to be used.
The writing is quite good. Marsh is clearly passionate about the world and has put a significant amount of thought into crafting a convincing alien planet. The documentary framework is consistent and believable.
Marsh’s illustrations have a water colour quality to them. There are a great number of illustrations in such a short work.
My only issue with the game is the use of “AI” synthesized voices for the voice-overs. I understand that there was likely no budget to hire voice actors. Nevertheless, I think artists and game designers should resist the temptation to use “AI” in their projects. Making use of these tools is fraught with dangers, including copyright questions and ethical implications. For instance, if synthesized voices become accepted, what happens to working voice actors?
“Part one” implies that there will be more. After such a strong start, it’ll be interesting to see where this project goes. Even if part one is all we get, it’s a self-contained story in its own right.
2024-01-22
I’ve followed Stephen Gill-Murphy online over many years. He has maintained a web presence in a variety of locations.
The sands of time have worn grooves into my brain – bad ones that have left me unable to remember precisely how I stumbled upon Gill-Murphy’s stuff. Space Funeral was probably the first of his games that I played. It was inspiring to see someone have so much fun with RPG Maker. Gill-Murphy has written at length about his experiences in the community that formed around RPG Maker. Space Funeral appears to be a small protest against many of the established tropes common to that community.
Gill-Murphy has in recent years moved onto Unity. Again we find him playing with the possibilities allowed by the tools. Most of the gameplay in his works involves exploring environments and reading snippets of text. While there’s always a wry sense of humour at work here, one can’t help but appreciate the quirky characters that populate his works.
Keep in mind that he has explicitly stated that he makes games “out of hatred and scorn” back in a 2017 talk given at an indie developer conference (folks who wish to hear him say this line can hop to 38 minutes and 30 seconds). He walks it back a little in the same video by saying that it usually comes down to a feeling of “affable incomprehension.” Gill-Murphy manages to pull it off by injecting genuineness into everything. His art is honest. Gill-Murphy isn’t presenting us with doodles because he’s making a comment about the art world. He embraces doodles because they’re fun. He has cultivated an aesthetic and voice. I love his little worlds that I get to explore.
His latest project is a series of games that feel like interactive comics (or zines). Their titles all follow the pattern: [A Body Part] of the Killer. Their protagonist is BB, a yellow bunny person with pink hair that covers one of her eyes. She is a zine-maker and the plots follow her as she finds herself the target of one killer or another.
Gill-Murphy collaborated with Alex Degen on this series. Degen designed cover art for each game and some art assets used in each title. The cover artwork does a great job at capturing the mood and happenings of each entry – just like good movie posters do.
There are already eight of these games to play. Each one is unique in its specific plot as well as some of the mechanics employed to tell the story. I frequently found myself wanting to inhabit these places. There’s a comforting beauty in the games. The pacing for each instalment is brisk. The writing is genuinely funny. I especially like BB’s reaction to finding out the identity of the killer in Blood of the Killer: as BB is being chased, she keeps shouting “WAIT” in a frantic effort to placate the killer’s thirst for blood.
A ninth entry is apparently in development. Gill-Murphy has said that he intends to put all of the titles together in a launcher application once the series is complete.
Gill-Murphy’s work is most effective at encouraging others to take a crack at creative outlets. After finishing his games, I’m usually left with the thought, “Hey, I could make simple little games like these.” That’s worth a lot.
2024-01-19