#WeeklyGameMusic: Anna (Device 6)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

Anna opened her tablet, launched the web browser, and clicked on a link. It was a blog post, first starting with a nonsensical sentence, “#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.” What followed immediately after that was a Youtube video. And right below that? A paragraph, describing exactly what she did, five seconds prior to her reading this sentence. Now it’s describing what she’s doing right now. That’s weird, she thought, but didn’t think twice about it as she clicked the Youtube video, Anna by Jonathon Eng. As she listened to its jolly and romantic tune, she heard a doorbell ring outside. Excited, she jumped up, answered the door, and carried her new package back to the kitchen: Simogo’s award-winning game, Device 6.

Anna wakes up. She’s not in her kitchen anymore. In fact, she doesn’t even recognize this small, circular room. How did she get here? How much time has passed? Where did her phone and tablet go? Before going to full-panic mode, Anna stood up from the dusty wood-plank floor and thought carefully. “I was playing Device 6,” she recalled, “an interactive fiction that uses the most of my tablet’s capabilities.” Indeed, Device 6 was a fascinating mystery nove-, er, game. The word often twisted and turned, like shape poetry, requiring the player to turn their phone/tablet to read further. Every once in a while, old vintage photos and sound effects would pop-up to help the reader’s imagination. Most important of all were the puzzles. “Oh, the puzzles,” Anna thought, “like that part where there was a yellow frame with a 4-digit number on it! The minor detail seemed unnecessary until the game revealed an image of an electric safe — locked by a 4-digit password — that you can interact with. It was a wow-moment, where I realized the clues to the game’s puzzles were scattered around in the story’s text itself.”

“But wait, I feel like I’m forgetting something important,” Anna pondered, “how did that game start? What were the first few sentences?” She closed her eyes, pushed hard on her forehead, until finally, it came to her. “Yes, the game started like this:”

Anna wakes up. She’s not in her kitchen anymore. In fact, she doesn’t even recognize this small, circular room.

A few, silent moments passes before Anna exclaims, “well shit, this is creepy!” Shaken and confused, she scans around the room until she find a large, wooden door. “Gotta start somewhere,” she told herself, and carefully approaches the door. As she grabs its doorknob, she notices a yellow frame hanging next to the door, with the number, “2006” imprinted on the bottom. “That’s going to be important,” she noted, and pulled the doorknob open.

Notice: Bowler Cap, Corp. would like to kindly remind you that Device 6 is available for iPad and iPhones. Please enjoy, and have a nice day!

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Unreasonable Behaviour (Off)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

This week, we listen to yet another sad music, although it’s a rather different kind of sad compared to Gone Home. I’m also going to be unconventional, and select a dark track, Unreasonable Behaviour by Alias Conrad Coldwood for this week’s cult hit freeware game, OFF. Compared to the more popular Peper Steak — an offbeat swing music that plays during the normal battle sequences — Unreasonable Behaviour brooding tone better fits with the actual mood and narrative of OFF: dark, twisted, and a terrifying deconstruction of JRPG tropes.

Developed by yet another one-man team, OFF is a very French take of JRPG (FRPG?). You, the “puppeteer,” are suddenly dropped into an unusual world where you take control of the Batter. A quick walk leads Batter to a Cheshire cat named Judge, who politely introduces both the Batter and the player to a world composed not of earth, plants, wind, and water, but rather, metal, meat, gas, and plastic. What is there to do in such a bizarro world? Simple: do what the main character says, and purify the world from evil, first starting with the ghosts, and eventually to the violent guardians of this universe.

Much like the older Final Fantasy games, OFF uses random encounter and an archaic turn-based battle system where the party attacks after their cooldown time is over. This does mean that while selecting an attack, enemies can attack your party as well. That said the battle system isn’t exactly known to appeal the fans. Rather, it is the fourth-wall breaking story that progressively gets more complex and violent that turned this game into a cult hit. Much like Spec Ops: The Line, the player’s action is constantly in question as he or she blindly follows the Batter’s direction…and watch in horror as the world steadily loses its unique colors.

OFF is a free PC game that was originally written in French. A translated version is freely available at Starmen.net.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Gone Home (Journey’s End) (Dust: An Elysian Tail)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

Oh man! I’ve been dying to tell about Dust: An Elsyian Tail, a game made by a single Korean-American. But first, the music: from Hyperduck Studios comes a touching credits music called Gone Home (Journey’s End). Can you hear all that rain pouring from your eyes?

The game’s story starts with Dust waking up in a forest, and having a terrible case of amnesia. For one, there’s a floating, talking sword flying towards him, vaguely informing him the journey he must overcome. For another, there’s a squeaking nimbat following the sword, claiming it’s hers. And lastly, they’re surrounded by monsters. You know, a typical video game hero’s morning.

As it turns out, the game has a lot to give. For one, the game has very tight combat and platforming controls. Outside of the quick one-two-three combos, Ahrah, the talking sword, can also pull out the dust storm that sucks everything in and hit them multiple times. Fidget, the flying nimbat herself can cast magic, which combined with the dust storm creates devastating attacks. Outside of combat, the map is organized in a Metroidvania fashion. Unlocking new skills also allows Dust to traverse places he hasn’t before. And the story of Dust is surprisingly pure, which despite having only a few twists, is endearing on its own.

Dust: An Elsyian Tail was originally released as a downloadable on Xbox 360. It is currently available on Playstartion 4 as a downloadable, and Steam for PC, Mac and Linux.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Life is Beautiful (Deadly Premonition)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music.

This week’s music is…the creepiest…most haunting…and downright scary music track in horror games’ histor- AH HA HA HA! No, sorry, I can’t do this. I mean, this horror game, Deadly Premonition is famous for being so bad, it’s good. So of course this week’s music is the one that hilariously breaks this game’s serious mood, Life is Beautiful by Riyou Kinugasa, Takuya Kobayashi and Hiromi Mizutani.

Deadly Premonition should hit the Twin Peaks fans’ funny bone with its story. Greenvale is currently housing the mysterious serial killer, the Raincoat Killer. His first victim, Anna Graham, was found pinned into a tree in a T-pose, with her stomach cut open. Naturally, a crime so deliberate would attract FBI agent Francis “York” Morgan attention, as he investigates various clues at the crime scene to profile what has happened. But first, York needs to pass through the red room. Because Twin Peaks.

Despite being labeled a horror game, Deadly Premonition is mainly an open world game with lots of side quests. It shares a lot in common with Majora’s Mask in that each citizens has their own schedule, and taking on side quests involves knowing when, where, and who to talk to. Honestly, these open-world portions are where the game shines the brightest, with distinct characters, funny dialog, and lots of bugs to make fun of. Action sequences are clearly indicated when the world suddenly darkens with a purple haze, doors no longer lead to the same place, and violent “shadows” (zombie-like creatures whose dialog often flip-flops between whether they want to die or not) start appearing. In this mode, weapons are utilized similar to Resident Evil 4, where any long-range weapons requires stopping in-place and aiming. In comparison to the open world portion, these parts are frequently panned.

Deadly Premonition was originally developed on the Xbox 360. The improved versions are available on Playstation 3 and PC via Steam.

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