Five Nights At Freddy's is Overrated

It's Halloween, which means it's time for the obligatory horror game review. Tonight's game is Five Nights at Freddy's, the latest indie sensation to wet the pants of YouTube "let's players" proclaiming it to be the scariest game they've ever played. Hold it there, chief, you're telling me a game about friendly animatronic animals at a children's pizzeria/playground/arcade is supposed to be scary? What's that? They come to life and roam the building's halls at night attempting to murder anyone they find so they can stuff the human remains into an empty animatronic suit? Well, that's a start, I guess.

In Five Nights at Freddy's, you play a security guard tasked with spending the night at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza to keep an eye on the robotic band members, who're set to "free roam mode" every night because they (supposedly) need the exercise to keep their servos from locking up. Except, really, they're trying to murder you. You have to survive six hours each night (roughly eight minutes in real time) by flipping through camera feeds to keep track of where each animatronic character is so that you can close the doors to your office when they get close. What's stopping you from keeping the doors closed all night, I hear you ask -- a limited power supply. Using the cameras, turning the lights on, and locking the doors all consume power.

Therein lies the game -- a simple matter of clicking through camera feeds, watching the screen, and closing a door at the right moment without using too much power -- but can such a simple game succeed at eliciting genuine horror, or are the masses simply overreacting? The answer is a little bit of both, but more of one than the other. How much you'll be scared by Five Nights at Freddy's depends heavily on how much of a wuss you are, and on how much you can suspend your disbelief and immerse yourself in the security office's confines.

Journey: Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - Review

Journey is a somewhat difficult game to classify, or even to describe. At the time of its release, I remember reading a handful of reviews all struggling to put into words what makes it such a good game, with their final recommendation only offering the promise that it is, in fact, a good game and that you should absolutely play it. "It's one of those games you just have to experience for yourself." Having now played the game myself, I can't elaborate on it much more than that, other than to say it's indeed a really good game.

Journey is what I guess you would classify an "art game" -- a short two or three hour game with simplistic gameplay meant to tell a metaphoric story through its use of visuals and music. Perhaps what's most impressive about Journey is that it's an art game where interactivity is crucial to the experience; it's an art game that gives the player goals and obstacles that require problem-solving and careful platforming and navigation to surmount. And the experience of making the journey from the outskirts of the desert all the way to the summit of the mountain truly is a beautiful one.

Narrating The New Stanley Parable, 2013 Edition

What can I say about Galactic Cafe's retail release of The Stanley Parable that I haven't already said in my previous article on its original, free source mod? The problem now, as it was then, is that any kind of description of what The Stanley Parable is, or why it's absolutely worth playing, would spoil its mystique and ruin many of the pleasant surprises in store for gamers unfamiliar with its premise. So the best I can do is attempt to describe its setup as basically as possible, and to describe its allure as vaguely as possible.

The Stanley Parable is a first-person adventure game of sorts, albeit one far from the typical adventure game formula. The Stanley Parable fits in with the crowd of games originally popularized by Dear Esther, wherein you simply walk around a setting and experience an unfolding narrative. Where TSP distinguishes itself from the crowd is the way it embraces freedom of choice and player agency; whereas games like Dear Esther force a rigid storyline upon you, TSP allows you to explore off the beaten path and shape its very course, all in terms of how you choose to react to the narrator.

You play as a man named Stanley, a droning office worker whose job is to sit at a computer terminal pressing buttons on a keyboard as commands stream in through the monitor. Stanley relishes this job and feels contentedly satisfied with life pointlessly typing away at the string of commands. But one day, the commands stopped coming in, and Stanley faces a choice: does he get up to investigate, or does he stay at his post and wait for the problem to solve itself?

The Dream Machine: Chapter 4 Review

Evidently it's been nearly 16 months since I reviewed the first three chapters of Cockroach Inc's The Dream Machine. When I played those three chapters, I was immediately hooked and couldn't sing enough praises for the game. An interesting story with great narrative pacing, intelligent brain-teasing puzzles that felt incredibly natural and plausible in context, and a fairly unique atmosphere and visual style had me anxiously awaiting the release of chapter four. And yet it's taken nearly two years since the release of chapter three for chapter four to finally become available.

Fortunately, chapter three didn't end on a major cliffhanger -- there was still obviously a lot of the story yet to be told, but it sufficiently resolved one prominent story arc before promising others. Chapter four picks up right where chapter three left off; after rescuing your wife Alicia from her own dream, you realize that you have to do the same with the other residents of your apartment building in order to shut down the landlord's haywire dream machine. Chapter four thus consists of a self-contained dream sequence as Victor goes into the dreamscape of his elderly neighbor Edie. 

Evoland: A Little Rough Around the Edges

June has nearly come to an end, and I still haven't written a single article. It's tough working six days a week, but it doesn't help that I've been trying to play three games simultaneously. So I figured I'd try to play through a short indie game and write a quick review of it, and on an impulse bought Evoland for $9.99 on Steam. Less than 48 hours later, and before I'd actually started playing the game, Evoland went on sale on both Steam and GOG for $4.99. So the lesson learned is this: never buy a game unless it's on sale, because it will surely go on sale immediately after you buy it.

Evoland is supposed to be a nostalgic tribute to classic action/adventure/RPGs like Zelda and Final Fantasy. The gimmick, here, is that the game progressively "evolves" from the historic roots of video games up to something more modern. The gameplay begins at its most basic, with visuals reminiscent of the original GameBoy; as you play, you unlock extra mechanics (like background music, health meters, save points, etc) and watch as the graphics steadily upgrade themselves to that of the early GameCube. It's an intriguing premise that does manage to kindle nostalgic memories of fonder times, but is the game itself any good?

Unfortunately, the full game experience doesn't quite deliver on the great potential of the premise. We've all replayed some of our favorite games hoping to relive childhood passions, but the problem with Evoland is that it merely reminds us of other games, without offering much substance of its own. That's good for jogging fond memories (which is without a doubt fairly low-hanging fruit), but the experience rarely transcends simple nostalgia. It's basically like the game is trying to stand solely on references without having its own unique stamp to tie everything together. Don't get me wrong -- the "evolution" gimmick is very unique, but that's not enough to carry the weight of a $10 game. 

Phantasmaburbia - Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

Phantasmaburbia is an indie RPG set in a small suburban neighborhood that, overnight, has become host to a large population of ghosts and dark spirits. In the middle of the night, four teenagers are woken up by ghostly disturbances in their houses; seeking weapons with which to defend themselves, they each meet with a friendly spirit who helps them quell the ghosts in their homes. With their new ghost buddies, the four protagonists set out into the neighborhood on their own personal quests, but soon come to join forces to defeat the demon responsible for awakening the evil spirits and casting their families and neighbors into unwaking slumber.

The premise itself is pretty interesting, but there's a whole lot going in this game's favor. It has a really nice atmosphere (thanks to the visual design and the music), an engaging and unpredictable story, pretty decent character development, fun battle mechanics, clever puzzles, and several interesting twists on the typical RPG formula. Certain elements of the game even remind me of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. And with a single playthrough lasting 10-12 hours, with good pacing throughout, I had a very wholesome, fulfilling experience with Phantasmaburbia.

As usual, if that summary isn't enough to convince you, I have more thoughts on the game after the jump.

Vampire Lemmings - An Indie Game Review

Vampires! is a (wait for it....) vampire-themed puzzle game by CBE Software, the developer behind the recent sci-fi adventure/puzzle game J.U.L.I.A. and Ghost in the Sheet. Vampires! plays loosely like the classic Lemmings game (except with vampires) -- it's almost dawn, and the vampires have to get back to their crypts before the sun comes up. The problem is that they seem to roam through hallways almost aimlessly, so it's up to you to help them avoid traps and make it back to the crypt safely, before sunrise. 

The game is played from an overhead perspective with small, self-contained map scenarios. Using the mouse, you click on tiles to alter the environment while the vampires drone ever onward through the hallways and intersections. Your primary interaction is rotating tiles so that you can shape the path you want the vampires to take, even rotating a tile while a vampire is currently in the tile. At first, all you have to worry about is patches of sunlight, which kill the vampires instantly if they walk into it, but things quickly become more complicated.

The Top 10 From 2012: Free Indie Games

With 2012 now a distant memory, it's time to reflect on the year's greatest achievements and rank them in order of their success. Since I hardly ever play new releases, I can't compile a list of the top ten releases from 2012. Instead, I'll be highlighting some of my best articles from 2012. Shameless self-promotion with an opportunity to get some of my favorite pieces on the front page again. Huzzah.

I didn't play as many free indie games as I would've liked in 2012, so this list isn't much of a "top 10" -- it's more like "the only 10" ranked in order of preference. Some of them were a little disappointing, but the top half of the list were all outstanding, and even the bottom half showed a lot of potential. Continue reading for the full list.

Insert Stairway to Heaven Reference: Skylight

Here's an interesting little game. Skylight is a first-person indie platformer by Moment Studios with a simple goal: ascend a flight of platforms to reach your home at the top. The arrangement of platforms is randomly generated each time, and landing on a platform causes it to play some kind of musical note, so that the soundtrack progressively generates itself as you go along. There's not a whole lot of complexity to the gameplay, besides landing your jumps and trying to build up a new high score, but the whole experience is pretty relaxing and enjoyable.

At least in theory. For as much potential as Skylight has to be a nice, relaxing game, I actually found it kind of frustrating. For whatever reason, I had problems consistently landing on platforms and controlling my momentum while using the first-person camera. It became much easier in third-person, but it was a little less immersing seeing my little robot character on screen. Even after a few dozen attempts I'd only managed to make it 30% of the way through the game, and it only gets harder the further you go, with platforms becoming more and more scarce and the sky becoming darker until you have to rely on the light of a headlamp to see.

I kind of wish, therefore, the game were a little easier to complete, with more complicated strategies for building high scores; as much as I enjoyed sailing through the air and generating random musical goodness as I went, it was incredibly frustrating for me to fail so badly (as the result of simple, easy mistakes) at what should be a relatively easy task. I feel like the purpose of the game is primarily to enjoy the aesthetics, rather than to master the nuanced challenge of platforming. Either way, whether you're interested in the aesthetics or the platforming, you can buy Skylight for $2.49 from the official site or on Desura, or as part of Kyttaro Games' current Bundle in a Box (provided you beat the current average price). 

Averse Reactions to Eversion

Seems like indie platformers are a dime a dozen, and indie platformers "with a unique twist" are even more common. Eversion is an indie platformer with a unique twist. Initially evoking nostalgic memories of the likes of Super Mario World, Eversion quickly takes a dark turn to the strange and twisted. The gimmick, here, is that you can use a special ability to "evert" into alternate dimensions -- essentially different versions of the same level with different graphical styles, background music, enemies, and hazards. Navigating to the end of the level and collecting all of the gems along the way requires clever use of the different dimensions.

Eversion is pretty short; it only took me about 45 minutes to reach the ending, despite spending a lot of time dying and replaying segments of each level. Despite being so simple, the game sometimes reaches levels of "Nintendo hard" that had me dying repeatedly because of stiff controls and unpredictable hazards that required me to die, learn the hazards, and memorize the layout in advance. Using the everse function to navigate the maps is a decent idea, but it's a little annoying when you know you have to evert but can't find the right spot in the level to do so. 

I wasn't terribly impressed with Eversion. Indie platformers have to be really special to stand out in my eyes, and Eversion seemed kind of average. When I reached the end, I was happy to be finished with it and didn't have any desire to go back collecting gems for extra secrets. If you're curious to give it a go, you can download it for free on the official site, or you can buy the upgraded HD version on Steam for $4.99 or as part of Kyttaro Games' current Bundle in a Box (pay what you want, minimum price of $0.99). 

Defibrillating Russian Mini-Horror: Fibrillation

Fibrillation is a short first-person psychological horror game by Egor Rezenov, currently available on Desura for $1.99 or as part of Kyttaro Games' Bundle in a Box (minimum price of $0.99). Officially dubbed a "mini-horror" game, Fibrillation takes about 20-30 minutes for a single playthrough as you wander about mysterious landscapes and locales, trying to figure out where you are and what's going on as you attempt to escape from a mysterious black cloud. 

Unlike other so-called horror games, the horror in Fibrillation isn't based on blood, gore, startle scares, menacing foes, or dark creepy environments. In fact, according to normal horror conventions, Fibrillation isn't much of a horror game, but it still manages to skirt the edge of the definition with enough bizarre content. The horror stems mainly from disorientation; you walk down a corridor and then suddenly find yourself in a completely different, unnatural area, trying to find a way out. It's a little unsettling, especially when compounded by the mysterious skull shrouded in a black cloud that seems to stalk you through the environments. 

All the gameplay really amounts to is walking. There's nothing to actually do in the game and there are no clear objectives. You just walk forward looking for the next new area, just so you can progress the game. When I first started playing, I really wanted a better motivating factor to continue going forward, at least some kind of basic explanation of who I was, where I was, or what was going on -- some kind of hook to lead me forward. It wasn't until the second half of the game that hints started cropping up and it finally became clear what was going on. The game became much more interesting at that point, and I really liked the gameplay mechanics of the final "decision," which didn't even seem like an option when I actually played it.

Unfortunately, parts of the game are intentionally boring and repetitive, in order to lull you into a state of complacency to make the disorienting changes and bizarre events effective. There was one part where I spent about seven minutes walking through a seemingly infinite span of corridor grids, my eyes glazed over from the sheer monotony, waiting for something to happen. Fibrillation is definitely not a game for people seeking instant gratification, and it has a couple kinks and flaws, but it can offer a decently cerebral experience for anyone seeking something a little different and out of the ordinary. 

A Vague and Confusing Process

I'm not really sure what to make of Process, a free indie game by TrainYard in which you're given 20 minutes to stop a train from an accident that will send it flying off the rails at high speed. It's basically a point and click adventure game rendered in a fully 3D, first-person perspective; you explore a few train cars solving puzzles and trying to find a way to escape from the train's inevitable fate. Process boasts some good atmosphere and an interesting premise, but the execution of its gameplay made it difficult for me to appreciate the game as a whole.

The thing that bothered me most is that everything is so intentionally vague. There's something to be said for games that leave themselves open to interpretation, but you really need to have some kind of concrete foundation upon which to base your conclusions, which Process makes no effort to establish. There are some really bizarre "cutscenes" that remain completely unexplained, and the ending offers no hints as to where you are or what's really going on. The ultimate effect was for me to sit back with no idea what I'd just played and no idea what to make of it.

The game's vague intentions even permeate the gameplay, with many of your actions not producing a clear effect on the environment, and with some of the puzzles not following a clear logical direction. There's one control panel, in particular, that's meant to fix an "unknown error" message that pops up when you try to engage the emergency brakes, but there's no indication anywhere that it has any connection to the brakes, it's not readily apparent how you're even supposed to interact with it, and it's not even clear what you ultimately have to do with it. You just kind of bumble around doing random things, not really understanding what it is you're actually doing.

I don't understand what Process was really all about. The game's development blog claims that "it's a game about predetermination of events and the subjectiveness of perception of the surrounding world," which sounds like kind of a pretentious way of saying they wanted to have weird, vague, unexplained things happen in order for different players to experience and interpret them differently. That's an interesting idea, but I'm willing to bet most people had very similar, confused reactions to the game as I did. If you're interested in trying it out, you can download it here. 

Impressions of Blackwell's Asylum

Blackwell's Asylum is a short, free indie stealth-horror game by students of the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment, and is currently available on Steam as part of a spotlight for the winners of Intel's Level Up 2011 contest. The competition was designed for indie game developers to create game demos, with selected winners receiving a little bit of funding and the potential to develop their demos into full games. I hadn't heard of this at all until the spotlight appeared on the front page of the Steam store. But as a fan of horror games, I decided to give Blackwell's Asylum a shot. And it ultimately disappointed me. 

You play as an inmate of a women's asylum trying to escape the facility by hiding from the patrolling wardens. It starts out very interesting, with a great deal of atmosphere and a unique visual style almost reminiscent of something you'd see in a Tim Burton movie. Everything looks warped and distorted, lending the environments a very uncanny feeling; the sound effects are minimal but do a sufficient job of layering the atmosphere on top of you. As promising as these aesthetics are, however, the gameplay felt kind of boring to me, as I'll explain in the full article.

Ben There, Dan That! - Review

Ben There, Dan That! is an indie point and click adventure game that tells the story of a typical day in the lives of Dan Marshall and Ben Ward. After escaping from a Peruvian jungle in a prologue sequence (in which Ben uses an absurd, jury-rigged assortment of inventory items to revive Dan's lifeless corpse), the two pals start a new adventure of repairing their television so they can watch Magnum PI. Just as they finish this task, they're abducted by an alien spacecraft and have to solve a series of inventory-based puzzles to escape in time to catch the end of the episode.

Created by Dan Marshall and Ben Ward, you play as their in-game personas in an adventure that spoofs, references, and pokes fun at the tropes and conventions of classic adventure games. It's a very intelligent, self-aware game that breaks the fourth wall in both subtle and ludicrously obvious ways. It's a game that had me laughing at the written dialogue and interacting with everything, trying all possible combinations of actions to find more bits of hidden lines and easter eggs.

The Sea Will Claim Everything - Review

The Sea Will Claim Everything is the latest point and click adventure game from Jonas Kyratzes, a man who has built up a reputation for creating charming and thought-provoking games. In TSWCE, you visit the Lands of Dream through a special window which allows you to see, travel, and interact with the various elements of the Fortunate Isles. Your window initially connects you to the Underhome -- a living, biotechnological house that's been damaged by goons threatening to foreclose on it. As you help The Mysterious-Druid get Underhome back in shape, you find yourself on a much larger quest to free the citizens of the Fortunate Isles from the political and economic oppression of Lord Urizen.

If I had to describe my experience with TSWCE as simply as possible, it would have to be "a clever, quirky, emotionally-engaging experience in a whimsical realm of fantasy and reality." The gameplay elements are ultimately nothing to write home about, but this game drips with charm and made me connect to its world in a way that I don't often experience. From the wonderfully vibrant hand-drawn visuals, to the offbeat descriptions of nearly everything on every screen, to the brilliant soundtrack, to the elegantly poignant characters, to the game's clever handling of the fourth wall, I found myself deeply engrossed and sad to see it all eventually come to an end.

Narrating The Stanley Parable

*Note: this review article is of the 2011 HL2 mod. For my review article on the 2013 retail release, click here. 

The Stanley Parable tells the story of a man named Stanley, who works for a company where he's known only as "employee number 427." Every day, he sits at his desk in room 427 pushing buttons on a keyboard, following the commands that stream in through a monitor. He relishes this job, always happy to press the buttons when the orders arrive. But one day, the orders stopped coming in. Puzzled at this unusual circumstance, Stanley leaves his post to find out what's going on.

You assume control of Stanley as he gets up to leave his post, searching the building for answers. A narrator tries to tell Stanley's story a certain way, describing Stanley's thoughts and your actions. But given that you're in control of your perspective, you have the free will to follow his narration or to disregard him and do your own thing. Numerous junctions present themselves with two options, and the story branches into entirely different paths depending on your decisions.

The Stanley Parable is an intelligent bit of metafiction. It's a story about a story, told by a narrator who realizes this is a video game. It explores concepts of free will, gets you thinking a little more deeply about video game design, and offers some witty commentary on the process of playing a video game. It's one of the smartest mods I've ever played, and it's presented with lots of charming style, which makes it truly stand out as an exceptional source mod that is absolutely worth playing.

Dear Esther, Don't Come Back

* Note: this review is of the 2008 Half-Life 2 mod, not the 2012 retail release version.

How many years have I put off playing Dear Esther? Apparently four, by the looks of it, as the original Half-Life 2 mod was released back in 2008. When I first heard about it, I was intrigued. Experimental first-person narrative storytelling in a video game? A ghost story that emphasizes exploration and offers a uniquely haunting atmosphere? It sounded great, but for some reason I never played it. With the recent Steam release of a newer, updated version of the game, I thought maybe it was time to finally getting around to playing it.

And boy was it underwhelming. When the screen faded to black at the very end, my only thought was "that was it? This is the critically-acclaimed game everyone's been talking about all these years?" It does more than just "stretch" the definition of what constitutes a video game -- it brazenly defies it with practically zero interactivity. Even though the writing is rather poetic and the voiced narration is well-done, the story lacks any kind of narrative thrust. And so, I was not impressed with Dear Esther. More of my thoughts after the jump.

In the Bleak of Winter: The Snowfield

There are certain kinds of games that warm my heart, even when their atmosphere is chilling my bones. The Snowfield is one of them. Everything about it makes me feel cold, vulnerable, and depressed as I wander through the stifling aftermath of a recent battlefield, clutching my wounds and fearful of freezing to death as I try to help the grieving and wounded soldiers around me. And yet there's something ever-so-slightly optimistic about it that, in the end, lifts me up from the grim bleakness that I feel from playing it.

Made by students of the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, The Snowfield is really more of an experiment in video game design than it is an actual "game." It's an interactive experience with a primary goal/objective that you can fail to complete (and thus die), much like any other game, but its general presentation and mechanics might be a turn-off for some. But if you're the kind of person who values and appreciates atmosphere, then this is one you don't want to miss. It's free and can be played here, in your browser with the Unity Web Player plug-in. More of my thoughts after the jump.

Abobo's Big Adventure Does it All

Do you remember the 1980s, back when arcades were still immensely popular and the concept of the home gaming console was just entering people's understanding? If so, then you should play Abobo's Big Adventure. Even if you don't remember that glorious decade, I'm sure the history books have taught you all you need to know to appreciate this game.

Abobo is a tribute to the classic Nintendo Entertainment System that hit the US in 1985 (and 80s pop culture in general). You play as Abobo on a quest to rescue his kidnapped son, Aboboy, by playing through eight NES-themed levels. Each level has its own unique gameplay styles much like the games they reference, such as Double Dragon, Zelda, Contra, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros, and Pro Wrestling (among others). Just watch the trailer, and everything will seem right in the world.

Abobo is a real treat to play. Its gameplay styles are all wonderfully faithful to the source material while also adding enough stylistic twists to keep the game interesting. Not to mention, Abobo is just a fun character to control, and the humor, animation, and design make his adventure absolutely worth playing. You can play it on its own website or on Newgrounds for free. 

It's also worth mentioning that I had only ever played about a half-dozen NES games in my life (Duck Hunt, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, etc), and yet I was still able to enjoy Abobo's Big Adventure and pick up on most of its references. So that just goes to show you that it really is quite good at what it's going for. 

How Low Can You Go: Limbo

So let's talk about Limbo. It's an award-winning indie platformer about a boy in limbo. He encounters all kinds of dark horrors on his quest, solving puzzles and avoiding the many, many death traps that lay in wait. Or, in my case, hitting every single death trap. Multiple times. And having to buy a new keyboard because it got smashed to bits in an unrelated incident involving the wall and projectile force.

Limbo is a difficult game that has you dying constantly. Some people praise its difficulty as being uniquely challenging in a world of games that hold your hand too much. It's definitely true that mainstream games are a little on the easy side, but that doesn't make Limbo's difficulty necessarily good. It borders on the gray area between satisfying and tedious, leaving the game a mixed bag of fun and frustration. Which, coupled with other major problems, leaves me disgruntled with this art game.