On Negative Behavior in Gaming

Posted by Trace on June 2, 2016
Posted in: opinion, video games. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

Niceness sometimes feels like a rarity in gaming.

I won’t lie, there’s a reason why it took until Overwatch (the reason I may have been quiet for a little while – ahem!) for me to even consider playing a team-based PVP game. People can be kind of awful, and while most days I can shrug it off when it’s directed at me, other days it can feed whatever negative loop is going on in my head. It’s certainly when I know it’s time to leave and do something else, but it’s a bit depressing when you realize that it’s not the person throwing abuses (and not even constructive criticism, but ones intended to just make people upset) that leaves, but the ones getting the brunt of the abuse.

I won’t get into the deeply rooted anger issues the internet seems to have always had but have become more prominent lately. It’s not my place to speak of it beyond what I’ve witnessed myself. It just always said a lot to me that games like League of Legends were forced to put together a system to heavily combat this very problem. It’s sadder I wish this was the gold standard for all online games, though I’m sure it’s extremely hard to pull off unless you’re a big company.

For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen too much of the wily internet asshole in Overwatch…yet. Ranked matches are coming, and with that competition I’m sure they’ll start coming out of the woodwork more. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to consider playing that, but if I do, I certainly intend on playing with people I know versus the mostly random people I’ve been playing with in Quick Play. It’s sad my assumption is I’ll have a bad time whether I’m a decent player – and I like to think I’m becoming one! – or not if I try to play with people I don’t know.

But that isn’t even out yet. No, there’s plenty people still complain about now, to the point I’ve seen someone wish our team would get hit by buses just for having one Bastion on the team, along with a string of other choice things (including the good old ‘kill yourselves’ line) that eventually lead us all to report him.

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Poor, poor robot, it’s not your fault people blame you instead of their own lack of skill in countering you.

Maybe I’ve finally hit the age of being Old, but it just baffles me nowadays why people get so worked up about things. The above example was the most extreme, but I have seen plenty of screaming people in my time playing. They don’t suggest, they yell. They curse, they insult. I rarely ever respond to these people and they go on my block list very quickly afterwards, even if what they’re suggesting is right, because it feels like you’re rewarding a tantruming child. On the other side of the coin, people who suggest calmly someone switch to someone I will often happily go along with, because I know this is crazy, but you can actually convey things without being a complete douchebag about it.

Wild, I know. Completely wild.

I’ll give them credit, though, they did make me decide something simple but important recently. A few nights ago, I saw someone completely being terrible to someone who clearly was playing a character they didn’t know well. I told them to lay off, of course, because we’re all learning, but realized no one else was bothering to shut him up. In fact, I rarely see anyone talking at all unless it’s negative, and that felt wrong. Since then, I’ve been making it practically a mission to compliment people as much as I can when applicable, going beyond that one upvote you can maybe give a person at the end of the match. This is especially true when I see someone doing something awesome and having a relatively low level, still. It felt like a small gesture, but I’ve been surprised at how happy people seemed to just get one nice thing said about them.

Even more importantly, I’ve seen something even nicer – my compliments have lead other players to chime in in agreement sometimes. I don’t pretend this idea is something revolutionary, but I certainly have been enjoying the game more the more positive I’m being about it. It’s something I challenge anyone playing a team-based game to try to do more often, especially in games like Overwatch where you can go without ever speaking to each other.

Doing something like this won’t get rid of the problems. It does, however, inject something to counter the assholes that doesn’t just involve blocking the hell out of them (though I thoroughly suggest you do that too and report if it goes beyond being a general jerk, your game experience will be better in the long run).  There’s always that saying that you don’t know what’s going on with the person behind the screen, and a single nice comment might be exactly what they needed in that moment.

I like to think that alone is more than enough reason to keep it up. It certainly doesn’t take much time to toss a ‘good job’ at someone who deserves it.

Accessibility in Gaming

Posted by Trace on May 16, 2016
Posted in: opinion, video games. Tagged: . Leave a comment

I, like many other gamers last week, have been immersed in a particular game. Uncharted 4 has been a long time coming and I’m happy to say it’s absolutely beautiful and has been a blast to play through thus far. This obviously isn’t an Uncharted 4 review, though, as I’m sure you guessed by the title at this point. No, this is about their option menu.

Games have never really had a huge array of Stuff to help disabled gamers. Subtitles are thankfully the standard, but even that has become an issue as they’ve become smaller and smaller to read. While I make do as someone with your typical sort of bad eyesight (I wear glasses, like a ton of the world does), I still have played games where I had to squint to read just the dialogue text, nevermind the huge amount of text some games boast. It always seemed like an easy fix to me, especially when I actually saw a game do exactly what was needed.

What was the fix? Give the player the option to pick their damn size. Tales of Vesperia and I’m pretty sure most Tales of games of late have at least one ‘font’ choice that is easier to read than its already fairly readable default. Life is Strange and The Walking Dead: Michonne upped the ante and gave the actual ability to make subtitles bigger as needed. Keep it as default or not, the point is, the choice exists for you to take it if you want to. It may seem inconsequential to people who don’t need it, but choice is vitally important to many that want to join in but may be blocked by some of the design decisions these developers have made. The fact they should technically exist for those same gamers to begin with makes the lack of customization even more hard to fathom.

HELLA

Pictured: Doing subtitles right (thanks, Ian Hamilton!)

Colorblind options have also become a thing that has recently become standard. I don’t remember when Blizzard finally implemented it in all their games – it feels like it wasn’t always there, but the company definitely has them in now – but I imagine it has really changed the game for people who have problems with it. Color is so important in games like Overwatch, something I found myself conscious of when playing during the beta. Having the option to turn on a mode that aids you in seeing the differences, in that case, can mean the difference between getting great at the game or not being able to follow the colored cues it gives you. While I’m sure people make do, the point is, they shouldn’t have to.

So we spin around back to Uncharted 4. Here’s their accessibility menu.

CilAJIcWgAAq6ZT

With bonus skeleton in the background, welcome to Uncharted!

This thing actually made me stop and pause when I first saw it. While this genre isn’t my usual, I do play a lot of games, and I do know this is…well. A lot of freaking options! I only intended on finding the subtitles option (which I turn on in all games), which I’m used to finding in the Audio section. I hadn’t even noticed the Accessibility section until I saw it wasn’t there and was wondering if they really didn’t have subtitles. Opening this up, I realized they had that and a lot more.

This is what all companies from here on out should strive to give. Uncharted has proven you can make a game and make it good and give people the ability to change little things to make it more playable to people of all levels. You may notice I turned off the repeated button presses. Otherwise known as quick time events, the game expects you to button mash at points to get out of holds or do something like push up a door. Some games are almost completely quick time events, or QTE for short, and let me tell you…they are hell on my wrists.

I don’t even have carpal tunnel, mind you, or don’t have it severe enough to find it stopping me from living day to day life or needing to do much more than not pissing my wrists off by repeatedly smashing things. That said, if I play a game long enough and with enough QTE and I come out of the game session feeling pretty sore in that area. It’s something I sort of just Accepted, but I realize now how bad a mentality that is. Some people don’t have that luxury. Some people have to pass up entire games unless they want to flare up their condition, and that’s terrible, especially when the game isn’t entirely that to begin with but a small section.

That’s just one option, though. Through this one screen, so many small tweaks to game play is available not only to allow people with disabilities to play but also allow people who might not be Amazing at this kind of game to get the experience by tweaking it just enough to make it a little easier. Yeah, I can see you hardcore players sneering at ‘easy’ mode, but with games becoming more and more a cinematic experience,  it’s no real shock to me that some want to play to enjoy the story more than anything else. As a test, I turned some of the easy mode options on and still could easily die if I wasn’t careful, so it still has a challenge.

This is how a game should approach this. This right here. Give the players choice. Turn things on and off depending on how you want the game to play. Honestly, this is such a huge step in the right direction, with my only complaint  being that I wish Naughty Dog would’ve give the ability to blow up their subtitles a bit (the actual spoken text in game is small, but at least the stuff you find, like letters and Nate’s journal entries can be blown up to be read easily). They did a really solid job accounting for all sorts of people. It’s something I feel we need to commend as much as possible so more companies do it. It’s not just ‘throwing a bone’ to these gamers, it’s literally opening your games to people who may not have been able to buy and play the game otherwise. Gaining a wider audience is never a bad idea. There is even groups and people dedicated to helping developers make their games the best and most widely accessible they can be (here’s an example of some guidelines right here). There’s no excuse anymore, not really.

I’ve been spotting more and more people talking about this topic, which makes me happy. There’s even a pretty big charity now called The AbleGamers Charity, who are focused on both education and finding ways to bring the joy of games to people who might not otherwise be able to play at all. As someone who has gone through rough patches with my own mental illness and finding solace in gaming, I can attest to the positive stuff that can come from being able to play. Here’s to more developers following in Naughty Dog’s example. They already have me hooked as a player for a while now, but I’m never against them finding new ways to impress me.

Slither.io and the joy of simple multiplayer gameplay

Posted by Trace on May 5, 2016
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

I don’t particularly remember where I heard about slither.io, though I imagine it was someone on Twitter. The game seems to be popping up a lot lately, and far be it from me not to try something popular. Going into it blind was something of an experience. I hadn’t known what to expect, and as I put in my name and loaded the game, I was even more confused.

It was clear fairly quickly that the general idea was to get bigger. I was a tiny snake in a grey pond of very large snakes. Reminded of the first level of Spore, I wondered if my objective was to go after things smaller than me. After collecting stray glowing orbs for a little while, I spotted someone who likely first came into the game. I rammed head-first into them a moment later.

My snake disintegrated in an instant. Hm, I’d thought at the time. Not like Spore.

Well, maybe a little like Spore. The idea of growing off the backs of others is, technically, the basis of the game. That little snake that killed me quickly gobbled up the orbs I left behind as I went to the score screen, growing larger. The difference, however, is the game equalizes things. Whether you’re at 400 or 40,000, you can make another player lose. They simply need to run into your body, and while it’s much easier to do that while larger, if you’re quick witted, you can end someone’s game from the first few moments of game play.

If you want to, that is.

As I loaded up again with this new information in mind, I immediately took on a defensive, scavenger style. There are plenty of orbs to go around, and I have no problem leisurely collecting things others hadn’t. Sometimes I spotted someone explode and I take a bit of what’s left over if it’s safe. Often, the larger players don’t even realize their ever expanding bodies caused deaths. I don’t actively seek out conflict, but conflict inevitably would come to me, especially as I got larger.

slither

How could you try to kill such a patriotic snek? 😦

It’s easy to spot the ones gunning to overtake you, for the most part. They glide alongside you, waiting for their opening to cut you off. Sometimes I simply go another way – especially as I got too big to follow. Other times, I moved just in time to watch their attempt lead to their own explosion instead. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I enjoyed seeing that happen. Sometimes death is your only reward for hubris.

Still, things got harder as I got larger. It at least feels like you’re slower as you up your girth and it’s certainly harder to squeeze through tighter spots. More people consider you a potential target – especially since you’re so hard to miss in the first place! I know soon enough that any moment I could die by one simple slip-up. Still, I kept on going, watching others die around me. Most of the time, greed seemed to be the major mistake. They’re too busy gobbling up their fellow player’s remains to realize they’re leaving themselves open for attack. I purposely tried not to spend too long around the larger deaths – they bring a lot of people over very quickly. It’s not rare to see three deaths in one area happening in quick succession.

Of course the game eventually came to an end. At my best so far, I actually ended up in the number 2 slot with something close to 30,000 points. Getting onto the leaderboards, it seemed, also made me a target. That was the first game I legitimately felt a little paranoid the moment I saw someone wandering near me, and it clouded my head. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long after for me to make a mistake that ended that run. Staying calm, cautious, and alert was the answer to how to keep yourself from dying early.

It’s such a simple game, it’s funny to me how often I’ve come back to it since learning about it. I have said before I am constantly on the lookout for chill games, things that don’t take a lot of effort for me to play but are engaging enough to keep my mind and hands occupied when I need something like that. It’s strange to find a game like this a stress reliever, but it really does fit the bill rather nicely. And at the whopping price of free, there’s no reason not to at least try it.

You can play the browser version of the game here, with that being said. There is also a mobile version, though I vastly prefer the browser one if I’m being honest. I always feel like my finger is blocking my view which leads to my death on mobile. I’ll leave this on a fun tip – if you want skins, make sure you share your score at least once. It unlocks all of them!

In which Asagao Academy Managed to Surprise Me

Posted by Trace on April 28, 2016
Posted in: recommendations, review, video games. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

It’s been an interesting couple of days.

I had vaguely heard of a Kickstarter a while back, set to make a visual novel game with the characters being a group of Youtubers. Youtubers I watch, mind you, ones I’ve been a fan of for a while. I dig video game reviewers, especially funny ones, and it’s pretty rare for me to go my entire day without checking my feed at least once to see if any of them posted something. They’re my stress relievers, and I greatly appreciate the content they put out.

I didn’t really think much of the visual novel that was being presented as the product. It seemed a little strange, but everyone involved was on board and having fun with it, which felt like the most important aspect of it. If you’re going to involve real people with something like this, the real people better be involved. Either way, it was funded, and I promptly forgot all about it.

The game came out last week. Asagao Academy was presented completely free to play to anyone looking to romance some Youtubers. If it wasn’t free, I would’ve probably passed it up, but I felt like there was nothing to lose beyond probably feeling weird playing this. These guys are, for the most part, just a little younger than me (or maybe my age, I don’t even know), but it still really felt like it I wasn’t exactly a target audience here. I’m well past the age of fawning over Internet Celebs, but I knew I genuinely liked a lot of these guys (or at least the way they put themselves out there – I even sub to one of them on Twitch), and curiosity got the better of me. I downloaded it, assuming it wouldn’t take long for me to be weirded out and shut it off. I’ve written before how I do like Visual Novels, but I’ve never played one involving not only actual people, but actual people I watch.

Do you ever play a game that way exceeded your every expectation? A game that should’ve phoned it in but refused to despite the fact the premise is kind of hilarious? That’s this game. That’s this game in a nutshell. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but this game is stupidly charming.

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Also, the art is adorable.

The writing is excellent, weaving jokes fans would know, video game references, and decent attempts at dealing with serious subjects. The choice of making a named main character is excellent, because somehow it disconnected things just enough that I didn’t feel weird that these characters are based on actual people in a game that is 200% a romance game. The game is legitimately hard at points, so much so there was one route I had to spend a half hour trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I have played my share of visual novels, and on it’s face, without associating it with anyone involved, I could still see myself enjoying it for what it is. Youtube is never mentioned beyond jokes from their videos. Wipe the odd names some of them have in game (I still find it hilarious the Youtuber PeanutButterGamer is always called by his YT name and not his real one), and you probably wouldn’t even know this game was about real Youtube gamers. The music and visuals involved is also completely on point, which just supports the story as a whole.

It’s quite the complete package.

What’s more, the actual people involved in the game has dispelled the weirdness further by playing it themselves. I’ve hit the point I don’t know what I like more, playing the game or watching them play the game. Almost all the ones I’ve seen started out with them laughing about the whole thing, only to see them legitimately start enjoying it on the merits of the story and the characterization, too. And let’s be real, I may be a pretty big fan of brutalmoose, and him blushing at points during his streams when he’s playing this is a little magical. Maybe that’s just because that would probably be my reaction (or maybe I’d be cackling at having the hardest route, like a certain person has been doing), who knows.

Either way, I went from assuming I’d only play a little to playing the whole thing and writing an entire guide for it. Since it’s been written, the traffic on my Tumblr has skyrocketed (especially since it was linked by the creators, thanks for that, Illus Seed). In a way, it gave me a somewhat unique ability to see even a small bit of the demographics. It’s been so interesting seeing who has been visiting just by the little bit of data StatCounter collects. People from all over the world are playing this thing. Judging by the people liking the guide, there’s a whole range of ages too. I’ve seen people admit they never heard of them but now watch their stuff. I don’t know if the intent was to also drag in more people to their channels as well as make something fun for the fans, but I would be curious to know if they’ll be seeing any kind of viewer uptick in the near future. For their sakes, because their actual video content really are good, I hope it’ll be a boon for them. The entire handling of this game has been damn impressive and everyone involved should be praised for it.

As for me? I went back and tipped them twenty dollars after it was all said and done, because it not only was fun but HEFTY – even more so than a lot of visual novels I’ve actually paid for. In an age where people phone in stuff when they know it doesn’t have to be super serious, Illus Seed put together something well written and enjoyable. There were still parts I felt like I wanted to die a little in embarrassment because I was playing it (there may have been a form fitting speedo involved), but for the most part, it was this weird, perfect mixture of fanservice and just legitimate good writing and well-crafted story lines for each route. They travel a lot of well-worn high school tropes, but they manage to make each one pretty interesting. I’m glad I caved and tried it.

You can download it yourself here if you’re curious yourself. Links to people involved are also on that page – you might want to take a gander at their work. 😉

Unexpected Fun (is the best fun)

Posted by Trace on April 18, 2016
Posted in: opinion, personal, video games. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I’ll be honest, I’m not too big on team PVP games. I don’t know if that’s my inner shyness showing, that fear of pissing people off because I need time to learn before I’m not terrible, but it’s been a constant thing. Sure, I’ve joined things like guild PVP days in my past, playing stuff like WoW, but for the most part, it’s been a giant ‘NOPE’ for me. I generally am terrible at awareness in my own life, nevermind constantly figuring out how to not paint a giant target on my back in a game on purpose as ‘that person that basically is just asking to be sniped’. This is why, at best, I used to only raid – fights in most MMOs fall into patterns that I can memorize. Putting someone behind the seat of my enemies meant chaos.

That being said, Overwatch blindsided me a bit.Not because it existed – honestly, the idea was an unsurprising move for Blizzard, who seemed to recently be putting their hands in a lot of pots to try to broaden out from their two main IPs. What I didn’t expect was to feel much for it when I watched the initial stuff that came out, especially hearing it was a game that generally fell under a category I, as stated above, tended to avoid. But the more I watched, the more I realized something: I was excited.

I think it was the art style that pulled me in at first. Colorful with weird and interesting characters, it was kind of a feast for the eyes. Then I saw some of the game play footage and thought, you know, some of this looked fun. No, scratch that – it looked amazingly fun. Still, my general avoidance of the type of game won over in the end, and soon enough I forgot that initial excitement. I forgot about the game almost entirely, honestly, beyond noting the little battle.net icon once in a while.

I had forgotten I even signed up for beta.

Fast forward to this weekend. I noticed I had a Blizzard e-mail waiting for me and assumed it was an ad. It was, instead, an invitation to play in a stress test over Friday and Saturday, which apparently is to be the final one before launch next month. I considered it for a little while before firing up the installation. I had things to do the rest of the day, so it really wasn’t only until early evening I could give it a try. I was dismayed to find I was rubberbanding all over the place, though my internet is pretty stable and my computer has all that was needed to play. I decided to try later on, when it was quieter, to see how it was. Maybe, for some reason, it was beyond the scope of even my new computer’s abilities.

As it turned out, it had just been lag. It worked like a charm my second try. They must’ve got the kinks out entirely, in fact, because that was the last time I saw that problem. It was 10pm the first night I played, intent on only playing a few games. I ended up staying up until 2am and probably would’ve kept going had I not glanced at my phone’s clock. I was hesitant for a while to join in real games against anyone but AI, but soon enough I threw caution to the wind and decided to just go for it. I was a terrible shot but realized I wasn’t terrible at something very specific – support roles.

 

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Sometimes you and a robot monk just click (source: Blizzard)

 

I learned later the above character, Zenyatta, is one of the harder ones to master, but for some reason I just felt comfortable playing him. Maybe it hearkens back to my love of hybrid PVE characters, but he could hit things and also heal and also look pretty cool when he does his group AOE where he looks like he’s a shining beacon of healing awesome.

I fully admit it: I was that person who stuck to one character for a while. Eventually, though, someone else had him first and I knew having two of the same support characters wouldn’t be ideal for the team. So I decided to try out Mercy instead, and then I realized I really, really liked Mercy. That was the rest of the time playing, by the way. Me slowly realizing I love literally every support character. I love Lucio the most visually even though he’s probably the least I’m good at, if only because of the music aspect to his healing. More importantly, however, I was having fun doing this. Sometimes I was terrible and I felt terrible because I did terrible. Instead of letting it get to me, I pushed on and told myself the next match would surely be better – and oftentimes I was right. Sometimes I was amazing and I was practically glowing with the praise I got – sometimes actual ‘gjs’ thrown my way, sometimes silent thumbs ups by way of the page of what I assume were the best overall players of the match. While I’m sure playing with an actual team adds a lot more pressure than randos on the internet, I actually began to wonder if I could one day actually become decent in this. I also felt like I learned some things about the game and myself, too, which I will now present to you all in an exciting list format. Without further ado:

 

STUFF I LEARNED AND THOUGHT ABOUT WHILE PLAYING OVERWATCH

  1. Support characters are under-appreciated by the game itself.
  2. Like for real I may be salty it seems like you can never get ‘MVP’ if you’re a support character that’s lame
  3. One time all of the team but me died and I rezzed them all and it was how we captured the area, we would’ve lost the game in that moment
  4. THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN MVP MOVE TO ME
  5. Snipers are the worst
  6. Playing support characters mean you get sniped in the head a lot
  7. See: giant target on back
  8. I constantly found myself amazed at the hiding spots people found though, people are damn creative when it comes to shooting me in the head ya’ll
  9. I tried other gameplay but I don’t think I’ll ever be good at sniping to be completely honest (gotta know your weak points)
  10. LEAVIN’ IT TO THE PROFESSIONALS
  11. I apparently have the ability to be that person who swears out loud at a video game
  12. (I freaked out my cat when it happened)
  13. Planning pushes to overtake a group with strangers is hard
  14. (People didn’t talk much in quick play it seems)
  15. But it felt so good when shit came together and we did it
  16. Some of the most epic moments I experienced came from when we all banded together without a single word and messed shit up
  17. Route 66 is the absolute worst map
  18. I don’t think I ever won a single game on that map
  19. Related, turrets are the worst
  20. Guys please stop ignoring the turrets and the guy who turns into a turret
  21. Guys stop what are you doing
  22. Okay I guess we’re just going to keep running into it instead of killing it cool
  23. (but it is a joy to be that character that turns into a turret, one time I was that robot and so many people died because it was me and a Mercy player)
  24. I legitimately want to learn about these characters???
  25. Some of them have the cutest designs oh gosh
  26. My one true wish is to learn how to play Zarya so I can be a giant badass lady with pink hair
  27. I’m pretty sure I could easily lose a day with this by just going ‘one more match’ over and over
  28. (by pretty sure I mean ‘yes definitely’ because I lost the entire day playing this game this way)
  29. It was worth every insane second, even when I was trying not to tear my hair out at frustrating things
  30. Shit, I need to order this game, don’t I?

Oral Storytelling and the Age of Podcasts

Posted by Trace on April 14, 2016
Posted in: horror, podcasts, recommendations. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Podcasts have come a long way, haven’t they? I admittedly feel like I got into them late, but they’ve become a weekly friend for me now for drives and when I’m just in need for background noise for whatever reason. The sheer amount of content that now exists insures you’d never end up without something to listen to if you want it.

My tastes have shifted a lot since the airwaves – or internet tubes? – have started to get clogged with Stuff to listen to. I started simply with the two Cracked podcasts, both of which are essentially comedy ones. Then I realized true crime and urban legend related podcasts exists and I added a few more on (Sword and Scale, if you’d like to know, is my favorite of those). And then?

Then I learned about Welcome to Night Vale.

This article isn’t really going to be about WTNV, though. I love WTNV, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like every praise about WTNV has been sung before. Still, I would be remiss not to mention it, as it catapulted me into the world of story podcasts. I don’t know if a lot of these podcasts are a direct result of the runaway success of WTNV, but man it seems like they’re popping up all over, much to my joy. Some are pretty new in the grand schemeof things, but already have me as hooked as I am on some of the TV shows I watch.

It’s honestly a little fascinating these are entertaining me so much, though it’s human nature to enjoy orally told stories, isn’t it? I mean, how different am I with my iPhone than people who used to listen to radio dramas? To people who used to tell stories around the fire? Perhaps it’s the imagination needed to really enjoy these things, where something like television just hands you the visuals. Whatever it is, there’s something special about this medium, and I wanted to celebrate and hopefully suggest to some of you something (or more than one something!) new to listen to. The list is in no particular order, they all have a special place in my heart. They also are the ones I listen to almost immediately when they get updated and then get really sad when I have to wait for a new one.  Oh, and if you happen to like Night Vale? All of these probably would be right up your alley. My tastes run along the strange and unusual and fantastical lines. I also am focusing entirely on longform fictional podcasts, where it’s telling a story instead of separate stories each episode (though maybe I’ll make a list of THAT one day too – we’ll see!) With that said, on to the suggestions.

 

1. The Bright Sessions – A podcast performed to resemble psychiatry sessions lead by the main character Dr. Bright, a woman who specifically treats people with…extra ordinary abilities. Each episode follows a single patient’s session – as of writing this, there are currently four patients in total. Through these sessions you learn about the struggles these people have with these powers they have, a thing I was pleasantly surprised to listen to. With so much focus on how awesome it is to have abilities in a world mostly without them in general superhero media, it’s a unique take on well-trodden ground and it’s what I think drew me the most to it. What also is impressive is how this podcast weaves what are currently very separate people into a much larger narrative by connecting them all to Dr. Bright. After all, why did this woman sign up to specifically treat people like this? Why does she even believe people like this exist? Is there a larger aim to her focus? Is she part of something bigger? You’ll have to listen to find out. On a side note, I always love when there’s some great representation going on, and this podcast already can claim to have it as well as a really solid voice cast. I’m surprised it took me this long to find this thing.

2. TANIS – Where is Tanis? What is Tanis? These questions spin around this podcast, and they’re complicated ones to be sure. Following Nic Silver’s search for information, it’s hAard not to immediately get sucked into this strange mystery As Nic explains in the first episode, it all starts with a short story that soon catapults him into places unimaginable, with twists and turns that might give you whiplash at points. It’s beautifully unfolding, with some episodes legitimately putting me on the edge of my seat and wanting to wail when there isn’t more episodes after. It’s soon apparent that the search might not be a good idea after all, and the feeling of dread starts to really kick up as the episodes continue on and Nic goes deeper and deeper into places he probably shouldn’t go to. The podcast boasts an excellent, compelling story along with some really solid voice work.

The Black Tapes – Do you like The X-Files? I ask this of anyone I suggest this to, and if their answer is yes, I shove this podcast at them. Journalist Alex Reagan is the host of this show, and she soon sets her sights on the mysterious Dr. Richard Strand and his institute to disprove the paranormal. Strand and Alex are an absolutely perfect match to follow, and the push and pull between them as they start to delve into his Black Tapes – mysteries he has yet to solve. Unsurprising to absolutely no one, most of these mysteries are creepy as hell, and the longer the show goes on, the more you find yourself wondering about the safety of the characters involved. It is especially strong in its second season, where shit has really hit the fan, truths are starting to come out, and things are starting to fit together in a puzzle piece you weren’t quite expecting. If anything, this show has one hell of a duo for it’s main characters, and honestly I’d suggest it on their interactions alone. That the story it’s telling makes it hard not to go ‘one more episode and then I’ll stop’, I’d say this is a real winner of a podcast.

Limetown – Ten years ago, an entire town’s population completely disappeared without a trace. This mystery is central in the Limetown podcast, which has recently been revealed to have a season 2 in what this listener hopes will be the near future. Unlike TANIS, which is also centralized around a mystery about a town, this podcast cleverly decided to present it’s story in the format popularized by Serial, a well-known true crime podcast. Each episode feels like you’re actually following along on someone’s search to reveal the mystery of what happened and it does this kind of storytelling very well. I almost fear saying too much and revealing something you really should listen to, so if you like paranormal stuff and you like Serial, you’re probably going to really love this thing.

 

And that’s it for the moment! I’m sure there’s plenty more I haven’t come across – feel free to make your own recommendations if I’ve glaringly omitted something (you know, so I can add it to my list of stuff to listen to).

It’s Rex Manning Day!

Posted by Trace on April 8, 2016
Posted in: movies, personal. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

Empire_Records_poster

It feels appropriate on today, of all days, I talk a little bit about my history with Empire Records.

The movie came out when I was ten – dating myself a bit there, I think to myself, even though I openly admit my age – but I only knew of it a year or so later, browsing my local video rental store. The place was small, certainly not one of the chains that existed back then, with a tiny area of video games (my usual go-to spot), a few rows of older movies, and walls lined with the newer stuff. By then, I was allowed to go on my own – it was about a block from my house – and I remember often spending an hour or so just slowly going up and down the rows.

For some reason, for the longest time, I had wanted to rent Reality Bites. Do not ask me why, dear reader, I must have been pulled in because it looked So Adult. Or maybe it was the cover, who knows?

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Pictured: something apparently visually pleasing to tiny me

But I was shut down when I asked if I could get it from my mom, who correctly assumed the things in the movie weren’t really age appropriate (also, the movie is terrible, thanks for saving me from being bored, mom). So here I was, still looking to take my first real leap into not-cartoons and Kid Stuff, and I came across Empire Records that day in the store. Every single person on that damn cover were people I wanted to be friends with or wanted to be, and I knew immediately this clearly was to be my new Reality Bites. I Wanted to see this thing.

Times were fairly different back then. The whole ‘too young for this movie’ thing wasn’t really enforced as much. I brought up the movie to the counter and the guy probably looked at me and looked at it and probably thought ‘Good enough. At least it’s not some gorefest’ (I fondly remember the B-Horror movie VHS covers, as an aside) and promptly handed over my rented copy.

As it turned out, the movie was probably way too much for someone like me. At eleven, the kind of things Empire Records dealt with were issues that were only just starting to form as things I’d eventually see around me and have to deal with myself. I’d venture a guess that most of the more somber, important scenes went right over my head, and it was probably for the best – maybe it’s not such a great idea to learn about self-harm, sexual harassment from an older dude (ugh, Rex Manning, amirite?), and drug abuse from a 90s teen comedy. Still, some of the overarching messages did leave a lasting impression.

I wanted that kind of life. Not the bad stuff, and there’s a whole lot of bad stuff in the flick, but to be part of a group of misfits. I was always the oddball of my group, so seeing a movie that was practically dedicated to oddballs was great. For all of what could be considered wrong with this flick, I still feel, to this day, it’s got one of the more believable character interactions, even though some of the characters were a little much. One of the biggest things that stuck with me is the idea that you don’t always pick the people you work with or interact with, but sometimes even the most wildly different personalities somehow mesh together. The idea that you might not get along all the time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t care when that person is hurting or doing something self-destructive. It’s weird, little lessons like that that I gained from this, along with what felt like the beginning of what my taste in music would be going forward for a long time.

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Just saying though, Mark was my favorite character.

Watching it years later, I always have to laugh at how much the critics panned this thing. It’s still pretty terribly rated on Rotten Tomatoes, though far better rated by regular old movie watchers. In a way, it feels appropriate, given the movie’s general anti-establishment (I mean, ‘damn the man’ was a rallying cry in this thing) message. I never did get this kind of life experience – honestly, music never was even a huge thing for me growing up, so no music store job for me – but I still look back on this thing fondly. If there were ever a movie to show what kind of teenagers existed in the 90s, this certainly would be a decent one to point to. I feel like it says a lot, too, that the movie is over twenty years old and references to it is trending on Twitter as I write this.

So Happy Rex Manning Day everyone, hope you kick that asshole out of your store.

Guilty Pleasure

Posted by Trace on April 2, 2016
Posted in: opinion, video games. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

One of the things I remember most about my grandma – who moved across the country when I was young and passed when I was in my teens – was her book choice. Crosswords and romance novels, all the way. The romance novels are the ones I remember the most, and certainly remember giggling over as I got older and understood what the covers were showing.Still, she made it no secret she enjoyed them, and I still find myself remembering her when I notice them in book stores or at the library.

There’s still some impressively great – and sometimes funny – covers, by the way. Keep on keepin’ on romance genre.

I didn’t really get the appeal. I didn’t get it when I was a kid and I didn’t get it when I was a teen and I didn’t get it in my twenties, especially when Certain Romance Novels came out – I’m sure you can guess which ones. But I get it now, and it’s not because I actually sit and read the books my grandma used to pour over.

No, I have a guilty pleasure: visual novels.

Granted, visual novels as a whole aren’t always romantic. The game genre has been exploding lately with games that tell stories that barely have romance, if at all (though I don’t think I’ve ever come across one /devoid/ of romance completely, it just takes a major backburner). But I’ve sort of been sucked in, especially when I found out how weird some of these games are. It’s the good kind of weird, the kind of weird that’s both funny and sometimes incredibly endearing and well-written.

There’s also incredibly badly written and wince-worthy ones, but hey, just like books, there’s good and bad, right?

My own tastes really do lie in the odd ones. Not ones filled with porn, which obviously exist, but ones with ridiculous scenarios that somehow work. The most popular one I can think of is Hatoful Boyfriend – the pigeon dating sim – but there are others now that toe the line of absurdity in a wonderful way. There are ones that are basically parodies of VNs but still are written in a way that make them perfectly acceptable and fun to read VNs themselves.

jurassicheart

This is a thing that exists (and it’s magnificent).

I’m really heartened by the quality I’ve been seeing lately out of the VN community. A part of me wonders why I’m surprised – in the end, they truly are just short stories (or books, because some of these games boast a /hefty/ amount of words) that just happen to have pictures  and branching paths. Now more than ever, it feels like people are turning to these things to tell a story that maybe wouldn’t fit neatly anywhere else. With easy-to-use software to make them, I assume the amount available will just keep going up.

I laughed them off for a long time. I don’t actually even remember the first one that really changed my mind, but it’s been a steady stream of weird and hilarious stuff since then. There’s really no shortage anymore, either. You can pretty much find these things anywhere, from consoles to your smartphone to, obviously, your PC. Some cost money – there’s a whole lot on Steam, in fact, with one going for something like forty dollars (and boasting a gigantic amount of text) to completely free ones that someone made as a fun project.

It’s almost a shame VN get a bad rap. The early days were undoubtedly full of stories that were flimsy and only existed for the X-Rated art, but it’s not really like that any longer, not really. Even the ones with the sexier footage contained within are starting to get bulked up more and more by actual decent romance stories, ones worth reading, where the story and build up comes first. You know, like every good romance story should have.

It’s that rap, though, that kept me quiet about liking them. Not anymore. No, there’s a ton of good stuff out there if you look for it, and I highly suggest you do. I have seen everything from a silly VN involving a cat cafe and characters that actually turn into cats to one that is a horror game involving really hard subjects to a VN that’s just a character dealing with college and the relationships he or she forms while in it. If there’s a subject you like, there is probably a visual novel that exists or will exist one day. Hell, there’s VNs you will find that you will go ‘I cannot believe someone thought of this’, they’re so out there.

I mean, after all, there’s already a romance VN where the girls are manifestations of tanks that is in terrible taste but exists, oh, does it exist. The sky’s the limit, folks.

Oh, the stories unfinished.

Posted by Trace on March 29, 2016
Posted in: personal, video games. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I have a problem.

A restarting and completionist-to-a-fault problem.

 

Glancing at just my Steam games, I am sitting on one hundred games. Many of them were bought during Steam sales, of course, cheap little things I thought ‘oh, I might want to play that one day’. A few were extra games from Humble Bundles in the past. But however they ended up in my list, they’re there. Then you have my much smaller game collection outside of Steam, including all the stuff I own on random consoles (Playstation and my 3DS having the most space on my shelves). I look at this collection I have amassed and realize something.

I have beaten so few of these games.

It’s not that they’re hard or that I haven’t picked them up at all, mind you. My tastes usually run the lines of RPG, point and click, adventure, platform, puzzle, sim, and the like, and many I at least started to play. We’re not talking about games like Dark Souls where getting thumped around a lot might cause someone to throw a controller away in anger and give up. These games are entirely beatable by me, I have the ability to finish it if I sat my butt down and picked up whatever is the farthest file and finish it.

But I don’t.

Taking a break from a 80+ hour game is normal. People do it all the time for multiple reasons, coming back to it when they feel like it and have the time to devote again. I realized in the last year that isn’t how I apparently roll, though. No, when I pick up a game again a few months later, I suddenly want to restart from the beginning, because I feel like it’s been long enough that I somehow forgot everything that came before. Or I’ll come back to a game and decide it’s not a perfect enough game. Or I’ll start it up and realize I missed one thing (this is usually the RPGs) and no, I cannot continue, I must restart this game and make sure I get everything or there’s no point. Nevermind the missed thing is just a conversation I can look up online, since literally every game in the history of ever at this point is or is going to be at some point uploaded to Youtube, no, my file is Officially Ruined.

I jokingly call it video game OCD to friends. I shrug it off as something funny, but in truth, I do sometimes wonder if it is my own issues slipping into my playing. Of course I see the differences – I certainly don’t get anxious like I do when I end up in a ‘pure O’ cycle, which is one thing I’m diagnosed with having to deal with. Still, it’s this strange pattern I constantly feel beholden to, and when something is wrong with my file, I decide it’s easier to literally restart and lose so many hours than to just keep going and forget what little thing I missed.

Sim games seem to bring this odd tendency out in full force. I bought Stardew Valley recently because I absolutely love farming sims – if you’re an anxious person, seriously, try to get into one of them, be it SV, Harvest Moon, Story of Seasons, whatever, it’s so relaxing – and the most appealing thing was the promise that no really, you can go at your own pace, don’t fret about missing things. Yet I’ve played quite a bit of it and have yet to get to Summer, Year 1. It isn’t because I haven’t got the hours in to be able to be at that point in the game, it’s because I keep deciding I haven’t made the best of the first few days and I just can’t have that. As relaxing as these games are, my own need for perfection seems to get in the way of enjoying it for what it is. It’s only a few hours, I’d tell myself, except they start to add up when it’s multiple save files. Still, still, at the very least I haven’t gotten to the point I have a ton of things to lose, my one saving grace here.

saves

Not shown: files I deleted to reduce clutter. File 3 is my longest game.

That isn’t the case with the current game I’m considering going back to.

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky was a title that slipped under my radar until nearly the time the second game came out. I happened to come across this article (tw: suicidal stuff, yeah, you read that right) about how much work it was to translate, and a part of me felt almost obligated, as a JRPG fan, to give it a shot. People were raving about it, anyway. The problem is, it is notoriously hard to 100% it. There is a ton of hidden quests that practically dictate you either accept you’ll miss something or follow a walk through.

I followed a walk through.

Thirty or so hours into the game a few months ago, I screwed up and missed something and that was that. After a month break because I was so frustrated for not saving, I picked it up again, restarted. Then Fallout 4 came out, I put the game down for that. Then life happened, other games happened, and now we are here. I realized I’d like to keep playing the other day and eventually play the second one as well, which I own.

My file, for the record, was perfect at that point. There was no reason to reset but I wanted to anyway, even though I knew that was just asking for me to burn out replaying and never finish. I was well into Chapter Three, I would be losing a ton of work for nothing. And it was tempting, I won’t lie. Fighting the urge for once, I found where I left off in the guide – I’m on my way to seeing everything, no sense stopping that now – and picked up where I left off. I double checked and made sure I did certain things just to be extra careful I didn’t screw up my file, but that was about it.

I don’t remember the last time I had that span of time between playing and didn’t restart automatically. As of writing this, I’m nearly done with this chapter’s side stuff and I can soon concentrate on the main story. The urge to replay is mostly gone now, replaced with enjoying the new content I’ve never seen before. I know, novel idea, right? As for Stardew Valley, that first file, the one that’s just begun in the picture above, is the one I have decided I am sticking with, come hell or high water. No more restarts. I don’t even have the excuse about marriage that most of these farm sims have – I literally can marry off my little character to anyone available, no matter what gender.

I am slowly retraining my thinking, much like I am retraining my thinking with everything involving my mental illness. It’s just a little strange when you realize just how much it seeps into everything, even your favorite hobby.

Games and Moral Choices

Posted by Trace on March 28, 2016
Posted in: opinion, video games. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

A fight has broken out between an old friend and a new one. Each intend on getting you to side with them. You know you’re about to pick the person who lives and the person who dies – who do you choose?

A loving monster blocks you from your exit, not wishing to see you come to harm, just like all the rest that left. Do you kill her when she challenges you?

A homeless man picks through the garbage. He’s nearly caught by the owner, but luckily the owner asks you to go check out what the noise is. In the conversation after, do you insult him?

 

Games have come a long way since I started playing them over twenty-five years ago. Morality has taken a new focus as people have begun to demand things that are not only entertaining but make you pause to think. Some people gladly go through multiple runs of these games, intent on seeing both sides, enjoying all the content available. Why wouldn’t you, after all? Even if it all leads to mostly the same ending, there’s fallout you didn’t get to see. It makes sense, I know it does.

And yet, and yet.

I cannot think of one game I ever purposely did not take the ‘decent person’ route. There have been attempts, of course, to play the other routes. I’m so set until I hit the first big decision and it all crumbles. I don’t want to be mean to people. I don’t want to berate someone unless it calls for it, unless there is a reason to be stern instead of kind. I don’t purposely pick the good choices, but when I play a game and play it as me being the character, it just sort of happens. Are there moments when I don’t pick the nicest option? Certainly, but it’s always for a reason.

I love the games that give me a reason. It feels sometimes very few make me want to pick the meaner option, since the meaner option usually just ends up being needlessly cruel. The worst part is, a lot of times I don’t even particularly like the good option either, because sometimes you want to yell at someone without literally burning all bridges. It’s something I think a lot of companies – Telltale and Bioware come to mind – are trying to get better at, but they’re not quite there yet. I have hope that as both perfect their own systems, grey areas will show up more and more often.

Still, it’s hard not to appreciate the effort going on as we speak to build games that have very clear messages about morality. It’s even harder not to appreciate games that really reward you for being a kinder person in a world right now that isn’t very kind at all. I remember a few months ago, when Undertale first came out, Toby Fox expressed surprise at how much his game blew up in terms of popularity. I wasn’t. Just as I need reasons to take a less kind route in other games, this game gave players ample reason not to hurt anyone. It isn’t just the promise of the true ending that’s dangled in front of someone, the the characters themselves were likable enough that hurting them seemed to give a lot of people pause. I saw some Youtubers go on to do the ‘kill all’ run and fully admit they felt bad doing it while they did. That’s when you know you did something right, I think.

And here’s where some Undertale spoilers come in. It’s honestly funny to me that one of the most memorable parts of that particular game of choices – attack or show mercy – is not at all part of the story at all, but at the very end. No, not the end of the game, but literally the end of the file. You’ve done all you can, you got the best ending – True Pacifist, as most call it – and you close the game. Maybe one day you think, you know, I’d love to see the other route. I’d love to fight the hardest boss of them all. Instead of loading the save file immediately, you’re instead greeted by Flowey, who reminds you that you literally got the happiest ending possible. Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to reset because you have that ability?

letthemgo

So, please…

I closed the game soon after, never resetting it to the beginning. It’s the first game that I ever played that questioned that particular decision in this forceful a manner and it was entirely effective, as it turned out. If I had any thoughts of playing through and getting the far less kind path, it was gone in that little blurb of speech.

It’s those kinds of moments, the ones that get under your skin, that truly elevate a game that uses these kinds of decisions. It’s these kind of moments I hope to see more of as games march ever forward.