Games I Have Played

[lea_hazel]

Broken Age: First heard of this game through alias_sqbr who warned that she can't explain what's great about this game without spoiling it (or something like that). This is accurate. The game contains the first of (presumably) two parts, and is structured around narrative symmetry. I adore narrative symmetry. The gameplay aspects are fun and diverting but don't take up a lot of time. I played a total of four hours, and although I may replay the game before the second part comes out, replayability is not the game's chief attraction. No, the draw is the endless, endless potential for meta and speculation. All of which is massively spoilery.

The dualistic theme of the story revolves around two kids, both of whom are sort of on the cusp of adolescence. Shay is a boy who lives in a post-apocalyptic space colonizing escape pod, which is sort of a home, school and playground wrapped into one. He's pampered and sheltered, becoming increasingly bored and starved for adventure as the game wears on. Vella is a girl who lives in a village where girls her age are habitually sacrificed to eldritch monsters called Mogs in a ritual called the Maiden Feast. Naturally the story opens when she's getting ready to be sacrificed herself, and naturally she must find a way to escape. The rest of her part of the game revolves around infiltrating another village's Maiden Feast in order to kill Mog Chothra.

You sort of go in assuming they're relevant to each other in some way, and collecting all sorts of little clues and curious bits of information to help you piece together a working theory. The ending gives you a satisfying shock (or just satisfaction if you guessed correctly) but leaves the greater mysteries teased for the sequel. More questions than answers! Someone meta with me, I feel so alone.

Unrest: I'm not sure how I stumbled onto this game, but I'm sure glad I did. This is the game I recommended to marina at the birthday party a few weeks ago. The game revolves around a fictional city in a fantasy setting patterned on Indian cultural themes, and as the title implies the political unrest is the major plot element, around which all else revolves. What I find most interesting about it is that, due to switching player characters regularly, the player has a harder time investing in any one specific character. This serves to put a strong focus on the city itself. Roughly, the characters exist to exposit about the setting, rather than the other way around.

The setting is full of fun, crunchy fantasy details like assassinated monarchs, runaway brides, giant powerful naga empires, corrupt priests and ascendant street gangs. Characters confront their beliefs and make decisions that expose their personalities and shape their future -- and that of the city. The game adds certain traits to characters based on their actions, they might be ruthlessly pragmatic, cool under pressure, too proud to accept help, and so on. Relationships with NPCs are measured on three scales of friendship, respect and fear. The gameplay details add a lot to the overall experience of the setting and plot.

Of course, the story and the decisions are the main draw. I do plan on replaying it, probably more than once. Like Broken Age, I spent about four hours going through the game, but I have confidence that a second and probably a third run will be just as entertaining. A rich setting and an uncompromising political story make it worth my while, and the fact that this is a smaller game from a smaller company means they do some interesting things that a best-selling game could probably never get away with. To whit, the lack of human grizzled unshaven protagonist.

Both these games are filed under the "story-driven" tag on my Steam account.

Sunless Sea: Oh, be still my heart. Speaking of setting as character, welcome to the unterzee! Fallen London's dark underground ocean, which extends from the city of London, to hell's headquarters, to the mouth of the void itself. To quote the tagline, 'lose your mind; eat your crew'. I have played untold hours of this game. Wait. *looks up* I have played thirty six hours of this game, and I've only just scratched the surface. Keeping a zee captain alive long enough to build up the ship and range far from the home port is a continuing challenge.

The game is in beta and it shows. Regular updates show aggressive and noticeable improvements. Between the first early beta, where I repeatedly starved, was always flat broke, and couldn't complete a single mission (and ate my crew) and the Steam beta, the game became playable and more. New ports keep being added. To keep things interesting, the map now shuffles when your captain dies, unless you choose to preserve it. The flavor text is every bit as entertaining as Fallen London/Echo Bazaar, the characters as odd, the stories as twisty, and terror is at least as dangerous as nightmares, if not more.

And occasionally I feel tempted to put Salt's Curse on someone. But such things must not be thrown around frivolously.

Dark Parables series: This one is faejilly's fault. I will never cease to mention this. It's a series of puzzle games on a theme of twisty fairy tales, which is hard to get bored of. There's about eight or nine games and they're all full-priced, so I can't quite justify playing all of them. But puzzle games are lovely and quite distracting, and the extra characterization generated by the odd crossover effect is added value.

Holy crap I rambled.