Castle in the Darkness

This whole neo retro thing that has been emerging from indie games has been pretty great, I think. Being someone who grew up playing stuff like the NES, Genesis, and SNES, seeing new releases that are very obvious nods to the games of that era is most welcome. We even get the benefit of tighter controls, faster gameplay, and the implementation of various newer game design ethos that have come along recent years. So, we wind up with a game that is both nostalgic and fresh at the same time.

Lately, I've been fiddling around with one such game called Castle in the Darkness (henceforth referred to as CitD). It's been out for a few years and has a light metroidvania feel to it. Players are pitted as the last surviving knight in their castle after it was attacked, and who must now fight through legions of enemies in said castle to save the kingdom.

Visually, the game looks like something that could just as well have appeared on the NES. The sprite work is very well done and true to the period all while eliminating the flicker and other graphical shortcomings that Nintendo's old console was known for. Character and enemy design goes for a cutesy approach with players controlling their adorable little knight and proceeding to fight cute little enemies, all while helping cute little townsfolk. The bosses aren't so little, but still reasonably cute in their design, with some being impressively large, taking up a fair bit of real estate on the screen.

From the aural side of things, CitD covers the bases in therms of sound effects and music. From what I've played thus far, there haven't been any particular standout tracks. The tunes just do what they need to, harking back to the 80s with catchy, bouncy bleeps and bloops. It certainly fills the nostalgia quotient, but doesn't go above and beyond that.

As I mentioned earlier, the game has a light metroidvania feel to it. There are branching paths, items to find, and obstructions that can't be passed without finding these items. This results in a degree of exploration and backtracking just like in the days of Metroid and Castlevania, or at least installments in those series that involved exploration and / or backtracking.

With that there is plenty of marching through varied albeit castle-y environments as players stab their way through hordes of undead in search of doodads and bosses. Areas I've come across thus far have some pretty noticeable nods to Castlevania, particularly one zone with bits of clockwork gears twirling around which instantly made me think of the clock tower in Castlevania III.

CitD is pretty challenging too, with the game happily keeping count of how many times players die. After dying 50 times, an easy mode is unlocked for those who want to tone things down a bit, and even then the game poo-poos people for opting to take the easier route, implying that only wimps that don't play a lot of games would want to use it.

Personally, I don't find it too terrible, but then again I'm an old geezer who cut his teeth on games of this ilk. All it really takes is learning enemies' attack patterns, figuring out platform timing, and getting a handle on controlling your character. The last part actually takes a wee bit of practice, as your little on-screen knight has some momentum behind him when he moves. This results in him moving forward a tad after running, and a bit more after a running jump, so players need to be aware of this and learn to compensate for it while platforming.

As you've probably surmised, I've not yet finished the game, but it has been tugging on just the right nostalgic heartstrings thus far, so I've been inclined to yak about it a bit. Folks that like these indie games that hark back to times of yore may want to consider tracking it down. If anything, wait until a Steam sale. The game is already cheap and when those sales happen it can go for under a buck, so you don't have much to lose.

Read Only Memories: A Love Letter to Snatcher

While point-and-click adventures dominated PC gaming in much of the 80s and 90s, we largely saw a Western interpretation of the genre. Games of this ilk were a rarity in Japan, as RPGs were what folks tended to gravitate toward over there when they wanted a narrative heavy experience. That's not to say no adventure games ever came out over there, because they did, but they were a rarity by comparison, and developers' take on the genre was quite different. These games, while still having puzzles and whatnot to solve, were often much more focused on story and visuals with two of the most well-known games of this sort being Snatcher and Policenauts.

Both of these were created by Hideo Kojima before Metal Gear Solid became his primary focus in development, being heavily inspired by films like Blade Runner and The Terminator with their cyberpunk, film noire undertones. The games were a fascinating take on adventure games as they went about story, puzzles, and ambience in their own way. These days, they're largely viewed as classics, and only now are we seeing people put out a game that is very much an homage to them with Read Only Memories, a game that goes for this much more Japanese approach to adventure games.

Just like the games it's emulating, players set on a cyberpunk romp, exploring Neo San Francisco as they help a little robot named Turing figure out what happened to its creator, who also just so happens to be an old friend of the main character. All the while, visuals akin to late 8-bit and early 16-bit games fill the screen, and synth-heavy tunes stream from the speakers. It's something I'd expect to see on a Sega Genesis with a slightly more modern sensibility in terms of artistic style.

Playing through it, the game ticks a lot of the right boxes as a fan of Snatcher, although it does feel a tiny bit more like a visual novel than an adventure game. A lot of one's time is spent in conversation with people either chatting or trying to get information out of them. So, the most players have to worry about in these situation is the kind of persona that they want the main character to project, usually selecting from a nice guy answer, a dickish answer, and something in the middle. The answers do matter in that there are multiple endings to the game and they're impacted in part by what Turing thinks of you once it's over, making it something to keep in mind.

This isn't to say you'll spend your whole time talking to people, trying to solve a crime. There still are some puzzles to solve and other non-conversational activities, many of them quite novel. Nonetheless, that is what a majority of one's time will be spent doing, so have a cup of tea ready and settle in for some reading.

Thankfully, the story is good. Solving the mystery of Turing's missing creator takes a fair bit of sleuthing, and feels very noire while going about it. There isn't anything that is hugely novel about it, but a cast of charming characters with some nice plot twists keep things interesting. ROM does try to touch on some social issues, but it doesn't feel like the game is being preachy about it. If the player wants to sit down and have a good think about them, they can go down quite the rabbit hole, but that's on the individual, as the game doesn't dwell on the stuff, simply putting it out there as food for thought instead.

Fans of games like Snatcher and Policenauts should seriously think about giving Read Only Memories a shot. It really does a good job of revisiting the sorts of games these were, rare gems in their own time that didn't get the attention they deserved when they first came out. From recapturing the aesthetic to giving us a nice little cyberpunk story, the game will be most welcome to folks who miss this sort of adventure game even if it does lean a little bit more toward feeling like a visual novel.

Bardbarian: Protecting Your Village Through the Power of Song (and Expendable Underlings)

Tower defense and shoot 'em ups aren't exactly two genres that I instinctively put together. Both have their charms, but they occupy distinctly different realms in my mind. However, some folks actually decided to squish them together into a single game: Bardbarian. (The name seemed familiar, as I'd seen in on Android before, but I didn't actually decide to take the plunge until it came to PC.) While the idea works surprisingly well in the early game, due to the ability to gather gold and buy upgrades, later on difficulty becomes trivialized as you run around with a team of elite, overpowered minions that lay waste to pretty much everything the game throws at them.

In Bardbarian you play as Brad. He used to be a barbarian who was responsible for defending his village from the hordes of goblins, orcs, and demons that attacked with all too much frequency. One day, he felt that the axe just wasn't doing it for him anymore and decided to follow a new calling, that of the bard. So, with a song in his heart, he slapped some strings on his axe, started plucking away, and inspired the other defenders in town to do the fighting for him.

Brad's sole responsibility is to defend the big, glowing crystal in town from the waves of attacks. There's a vaguely tower defense feel here, except without the towers. Enemies still spawn from three points on the map and march along until they get within striking distance of the crystal where they will proceed to wail on it.

In order to fend these things off, you'll have Brad run around, playing songs to summon different units that will follow him around and do the actual fighting, as well as a few ditties that act as buffs to enhance offense, defense, and movement speed. The whole thing feels almost like a bullet hell shooter, especially on later levels, since most of your units as well as the enemies specialize in projectile weapons. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing, so quite enjoyed all of the juking and dodging. It gets even more complicated if you find yourself getting overrun and need to fall back to protect the crystal because you'll still need to dodge these bullets, but sometimes actually have to run in front of them to protect the crystal. So, this leaves the player deciding whether or not to sacrifice one of their minions or a bit of Brad's health as the situation is getting dire.

For a good while, hitting this level of intensity can be quite fun. However, killing enemies rewards Brad with gold and over time you really start grinding this out to spend on various upgrades. These include improving structures in the town, enhancing Brad's own stats and abilities, and, most importantly, leveling up the various units available. This becomes a problem when everything gets maxed out because then players find themselves in a situation where much of what they have at their disposal is rather overpowered. What once was a grueling test of skill suddenly becomes a pushover. It's kind of a drag, as it takes the wind out of the sails for the game to an extent.

There are a couple of other game modes that do remain challenging simply because they don't incorporate any of the enhancements that one can find in the shop. One is an escape mode, where Brad runs from a wall of demons trying to achieve the greatest distance possible, all the while dodging pits, monsters, and projectiles. It's not a bad mode, and serves as a bit of a time waster. If anything, it feels like something one would expect to find in the realm of mobile gaming. The other way to go is survival mode where Brad runs around the arena, picking up minions to help him, while trying to stay alive for as long as possible. This mode actually does push the player surprisingly hard, especially when you consider how boss spawning works, as it's on a timer. So, if you're taking too long to kill one boss, you could well find yourself in a situation where suddenly you have two bosses to deal with since another just spawned. This is the mode that feels the most interesting in the long haul, as it actually manages to maintain a decent level of challenge.

It's a shame that Bardbarian becomes so easy once players have unlocked a bunch of the stuff in the shop. For much of the game, it provides a decent challenge and manages to be enjoyable, but once your minions start getting overpowered the fun really takes a nosedive. Even the tongue-in-cheek silliness isn't enough to make up for this. The game was originally released on iOS and Android, so I could see the game being harder there where one has to tap to move Brad around as opposed to using more traditional controls, but that just isn't the case on PC.  The combination of genres and attempts at humor should have made this game pretty good, but the lack of difficulty later on makes it feel like a waste of time in the end.

Mini Metro: The Strangely Appealing World of Connecting the Dots

After being in Early Access for quite some time, Mini Metro was finally let out into the wild on Steam this year. It's a game where you build subway / light rail systems with what seems like a simple goal: serve as many passengers as possible and last as many days as you possibly can. There's only one thing that you must never ever do, and that's let your stations start to get overcrowded. If you do, it's game over.

See, it sounds simple enough, but after a couple of weeks of your subways being a success, everyone in town will start wanting to use the thing and suddenly you've got a whole lot of busy stations on your hands. What started as a nice, relaxing experience then turns into a frantic race against time to build new stations, add more trains and carriages to busy lines, and a quick prayer to the gods of RNG that the game will award you that one thing you really need to save your entire subway system from certain doom. Translation: you'll never get tunnels when you really need them. "I can't need that many tunnels," you said.

There is a pretty interesting mix of cities featured in the game. While we do get some no-brainers like London, Paris, and New York, we also get to play around in places like St. Petersburg, Sao Paulo, and Cairo. One thing that I noticed very quickly regardless of the level is that you'll invariably have to deal with bodies of water, be it a river (like the Thames in London) or small islands / reclaimed land (Osaka has a lot of these). So, right off the bat, players need to think about how they'll make use of limited resources, be it tunnels / bridges for crossing the water, or whether to have multiple lines cross the rivers, or just leave one to deal with as much of the bridgework as possible.

If anything, this is the big thing that players need to keep an eye on while laying out their subway networks. How many extra lines do they have? Any extra trains available? Tunnels? Wouldn't it be nice to have an interchange for increasing capacity at a station. Will I get an extra carriage next week to help take some of the strain off of the blue line? Once things get rolling it always feels like you have barely or not quite enough tools on hand to accommodate all of the people trying to get around town, which pours on the pressure as stations start flashing and making beeping noises warning you of overcrowding and an imminent game over if you don't do something about it soon.

Of course, the question is how do you do this, because there are a lot of options. You can add another train to the line, and even then you have to decide if it will go in the same or opposite direction of existing trains already on it. Alternately, you could toss another carriage on a train, or, if you're lucky and have one in your inventory, upgrade a particularly busy station to hold more passengers via an interchange. Then again it may make more sense to add a new line that runs parallel to parts of a busy line to help take off some of the strain while at the same time servicing other far flung areas. Decisions, decisions.

With all of this going on, the game's simplistic, almost soothing presentation provides a sharp contrast. The screen looks like a map you would expect to find in a subway with colored lines representing the various train routes and little symbols for the stations. Meanwhile, it's hard to call the music "music" because it's more or less a series of pleasing tons that radiate from the speakers, adding new layers with each additional line, train and station. For all of the chaos that builds up in the game as stations begin to swell with passengers, the very basic approach to aesthetic does its best to provide a bit of a calming oasis.

At first, I was tempted to look at Mini Metro as a straightforward casual sort of game to whittle away the waning moments of an evening with before going to bed, but the more I play it, the more I appreciate just how much it will challenge the player by steadily ratcheting up the pressure. This is something one could spend a lot of time on if they let the game suck them in, especially if you're the sort who loves leaderboards. The game lulls people into a false sense of security with its minimalist presentation, then starts sinking its claws in one map at a time. I'd say it's something worth looking into for people who want a strategy game that's tries to do something other than the usual turn-based / real time, campaign-heavy approach that the genre is known for. Sometimes getting commuters around town is ten times more stressful than fighting off an army of tanks.

Freedom Planet and Waxing Nostalgic for the Genesis

After being engaged in a grueling staring contest with it as the game sat in my Steam library for months, I've finally gotten around to playing Freedom Planet. Its aesthetic had caught my eyes as it screamed 16-bit. The character designs, the environments, and the use of color all brought back a flood of memories from the heyday of the Sega Genesis. The game really does bare a resemblance Sonic the Hedgehog and it isn't just how it looks but to some extent how FP plays as well, as it does go for the "Gotta go fast!" mentality that is so prevalent from Sega's series. All the while, there's an element of exploration from trying to find all of the collectibles scattered around a level. Part of me kept thinking that I should be annoyed by this while playing the game because it does make for bit of a stilted experience from all the zipping around at full throttle, then slamming on the breaks to look for stuff. However, that just wasn't the case. The ambience of the game, combined with the platforming, and boss fights made me enjoy FP quite a bit and overlook that.

For someone who quite likes revisiting games of old and has a soft spot for the Genesis, FP really is something special. It can't be said enough how much the developers nailed the whole 16-bit Sega era in terms of visuals and animation here. The game looks like something straight out of 1994 or so when games on the Genesis were starting to look really good. There's a lot of detail without going overboard, smooth animation, and the color palette really pops off the screen.

The levels are actually really big. While there's a clock counting up from the start of each stage, I quickly began to ignore it. Exploration has always been a big thing to me, as I've mentioned before while playing Skyrim, so poking around and finding all of the things was far more of a priority than speed running the game to complete stages in as little time as possible. I'd go so far as to say that speed running the story mode levels on the first playthrough does FP a disservice. A lot of the fun comes from poking around trying to find everything, It brings back a lot of memories of playing Metroid and games of that ilk, just methodically checking every nook and cranny.

About the only area of the game that left me with mixed feelings was the voice acting. While it is very good, there's just so much of it. The cut scenes are very long in FP. They have a Saturday morning cartoon vibe to them, and do bring out the occasional chuckle, but they really do a number on the game's pacing. After downing the boss for a level, while I do like a bit of a break for advancing the story, a bit more brevity would have done wonders here. This is pretty much the one area where they game falters for me.

While the voice acting was a bit much, the music is amazing, and I can't get enough of it. The composer really nailed the feel of 16-bit platformer soundtracks. Thematically it's spot on, and the instrumentation does an interesting job of straddling itself between the bleepy bloopiness of the 90s and more current sounds. It's easily one of my favorite soundtracks to come along in the last few years.

With the huge wave of pseudo retro games to come out in recent years, there's just so much to choose from. Action games, RPGs, platformers, adventure games, you name it. Players have some hard choices to make when considering picking up a game of this ilk, but I'd definitely have to recommend Freedom Planet. It does so many things right when it comes to recapturing the feel of Genesis-era action platformers. If you like Sonic and have a soft spot for video games of the early 90s, you owe it to yourself to check this game out.

Review: Tower of Guns (PS4)

Tower of Guns aims to try and mix a few popular ideas that show up in other indie titles, with the biggest one being procedurally generated levels, but a floaty control scheme and generally unintuitive gameplay makes this tower not worth the climb.

Video Review: Momodora III (PC)

Mr. Nash offers a video review of the indie title "Momodora III."

Review: Aaru's Awakening (PC)

Aaru's Awakening is an electronic version of patting your head and rubbing your belly. Some players will be able to “get it” right away because of some quirk of neuro-synapses or extra fibers in the corpus colosum, that important bridge between the left and right hemispheres of your brain.

For this writer, the game felt more like I was patting my head, rubbing my belly, hoping on one foot while trying to learn a dirty Russian limerick and deking between high-heat laser beams. That's my way of saying, the game isn't easy. In fact, most of my advancement felt more like an accident than anything connected to competence or “gam3r skillz.”

Review: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC)

If there’s one thing that is an unequivocal downside to the increasing fidelity and realism of computer graphics, it’s the over-saturation of detail. Horror games are perhaps the worst offenders. What used to be creepy tableaux are now all too often gore drenched packages of jump scares.

An Early Look at Lords of Xulima

Retro-styled RPGs are certainly becoming a thing of late. There have been no lack of crowd funded projects going that route and several small teams have been throwing their hat in the ring as well. I'm certainly all for it being a fan of these sort of games. Today, we'll be taking a look at Lords of Xulima, which is also trying to tap into many of the things folks find appealing about RPGs of old.

Xulima is an overhead isometrically viewed RPG with first person combat sequences. There is a very obvious level of influence from classic role-playing games like Ultima and Wizardry as well as more modern offerings such as Divinity and Legend of Grimrock.

Review: The Last Tinker: City of Colors (PC)

If games could be disassembled and broken down into their “ingredients” The Last Tinker: City of Colors would form neat stylistic piles of Viva Pinata, Little Big Planet, and platforming action and sensibility of Banjo-Kazooie. That doesn't prevent The Last Tinker to convey a charm all it's own – it's often cheery and light-hearted even if though the storyline's main message is a Sesame Street take on BioShock Infinite's racist underbelly and there's an ominous tone throughout (if you think about it too hard).

Review: SteamWorld Dig (PS4, PS Vita)

The big push in indie gaming over the last few years has proven to me that I will always gravitate to functionality and game design over visual/auditory design. On the rare times that you get the entire bundle, it's a gem worth picking up. Steamworld Dig definitely fits well in both categories, being a well-designed and implemented game but still pretty to look at and appreciate.

You play the robot prospector Rusty who has been given his Uncle Joe's mine and trusty pick-axe (well, not so much given as picked up of his corpse… but that's neither here nor there).

Strata Quick Impressions (PC)

In search of a puzzle game that isn't a Tetris clone, match three, et cetera?  Maybe Strata would be something to look into.  Jeff takes a look at this puzzler where you have to match colored ribbons with squares below.

MirrorMoon EP Quick Impressions (PC)

Tackling space exploration and puzzle solving while going for a rather unique aesthetic, MirrorMoon EP quietly made it's way to Steam the other day.  Jeff has spent some time with the game, and gives some early impressions of it.

Review: Hexodius (PC)

Back in the day twin stick shooters were a great way to unwind with some mindless mayhem, use one stick to move your on-screen character and the other to shoot in a desired direction. There were so many games to get this right over the years with classics like Smash TV, Total Carnage, and Robotron. In recent years we've seen a bit of a revisiting of this sub-genre of game with titles such as Geometry Wars and Waves leading the charge.

Hexodius is the latest attempt at bringing twin stick shooters into the modern era, but it fails terribly in making a compelling experience by forgetting why these games are fun in the first place. Instead of having fast-paced action that players can dive into whenever they want, we're forced to slog through an incredibly dull story mode first, and only as new areas are unlocked there do we start to also unlock new arcade areas to play in. Even worse, the arcade modes are dreary, uninspired dross themselves.

Hands-On Preview: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (PC)

As the introduction movie played, with it's water-colours and inky sketches as a voice-over provides a monologue about Van Helsing (well, his son), I couldn't avoid the easy and extremely apt comparison to Diablo III, though scaled back in scope and art assets. And voice actors.

Interview: Teddy Lee (Mutant Blobs Attack!)

Formed in 2008, Drinkbox Studios's first game was the warmly received Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!!!, a launch title for the Playstation Vita, which also recently appeared on PC. Teddy Lee, a designer on Mutant Blobs Attack, gives us a little bit of his time to talk about how the game came together, how the inputs of the PS Vita affected gameplay, how the puzzles were designed, sets the record straight on the controls, talks a little about their next game, Guacamelee, and the biggest challenge indie developers face with the onset of the next generation of consoles.

The introductions please: Name, the education/career arc that brought you to the game industry, what you do at Drinkbox and your role on Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack.
Hey, my name is Teddy Lee and I was one of the designers on Mutant Blobs Attack.  I have a University degree in Computing, which is more of a participation ribbon than anything else. I actually got into the industry because an interviewer took interest in these small games that I had made using game making software.  Since then I've jumped through several job positions until I landed here at Drinkbox Studios.

News: Indie Dev Tools Getting Kickstarted

Indie tool developer GarageGames recently announced their first Kickstarter campaign for their new development package, the 3 Step Studio.  Those who are familiar with GarageGames have recently benefited from the open source licensing of the company's signature Torque engine, and now the company looks to spread some more love with this newest toolset, which they seemingly intend to release for free.

Review: Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (PC)

Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack debuted on the Playstation Vita in the early part of 2012 to much critical praise. Since it was essentially a launch title for the system it put to use some of the touchscreen/pad capabilities of the system. While such support on PC might have made the game more "Visceral!" it still fares quite well as an action puzzler.