Demo Driver 8: Unmechanical (#416)
Tim Burton has so damn much to answer for.
I’m just going to lead off here with what I think is a pretty simple thesis: if your game can’t sustain a demo that lasts for at least half an hour, you might not want to put out a demo in the first place.
I blew through Unmechanical‘s entire demo in about 15 minutes, and that was with a bug that made one puzzle take longer than it should have. That’s really short. Flash-game short. And I make that comparison for a good reason, too, because Unmechanical has definitely been sipping from the cup of Flash gaming, namely the vague and surreal cup that places an emphasis on a clever look and environments over actual narrative.
That’s not necessarily to disparage games that are all about clever looks and environment; some of them are, in fact, quite fun to play. But it’s a tricky line to walk. For every game you can think of that was a fun play while mostly being based upon looking neat, I can think of a dozen that missed the point of those great games in favor of the surface elements. Unmechanical feels more like the latter than the former.
Telling Stories: The attraction
Anyone who thinks that sexuality doesn’t define you as a person has never been a teenager.
I don’t mean that as a positive or negative thing, but as a statement of fact. Sure, my experience as a 16-year-old boy staring at girls and being very interested in them isn’t the sole defining characteristic I have as a person, but it had a lot of influence on my development as a person. It informs some of who I am now as an adult, half a life later. It affects a lot of the person I am, and my comfort level with it affects the things I’ll do and talk about.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure that no one reading this is terribly interested in a detailed self-analysis when it comes to my particular bedroom preferences. That’s not the point here; this is a roleplaying column, after all. It’s about the way that your character’s sexuality can influence your character, and how broad a field that can be overall. There’s a lot going on there, and even if you don’t intend to have your roleplaying circle around it, it’s worth addressing.
The Final Fantasy Project: Final Fantasy III, part 4
Artwork from a sketch by Yoshitaka Amano
Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen: I’m in some real trouble here. I kind of expected that by this point in the project I’d be halfway-ish through the game, like I was with Final Fantasy II, but darn if there isn’t a lot of good stuff going on here and if we’re not even at the second of four crystals. This is not going to be a shorter jaunt, it seems. I’d be much more upset about this if Final Fantasy III weren’t a joy to play.
Albeit one with some reservations. I mean, we’re up to the Tower of Owen now, and this dungeon pulls in a lot of stuff that really could have remained by the wayside. Sure, it was cute when you had me turn my entire party into miniature versions of ourselves for about a year, but now you’re asking me to turn the group into a bunch of toads. Toads! Go home, designers, you’re drunk. At least it’s not something you need to keep up for the whole dungeon.
Hard Project: Magic: the Gathering
Some splices are doomed to die on the operating table.
I’ve had Magic: the Gathering in my life in one form or another since I was eleven. The Revised edition came out in 1994, and that’s when I started playing, scrounging up enough spare cash to pick up a couple of booster packs by mowing lawns (and occasionally bugging my parents for an allowance). It wasn’t the most efficient way to assemble a deck, and in fact was downright bad for making something functional, but the point is that I did it and I somehow even managed to win on occasion. To this day, I have no idea how.
Of course, for a game that’s survived this long it’s had a few video games, but for years there was nothing except a PlayStation game that was widely reviled as a biotoxin. Now we’ve got the annual Duels of the Planeswalkers games – which are just limited versions of the card game – and Magic Online, which is exactly like the card game right down to you spending money to buy virtual booster packs that include no actual cards. Why are we here with a game that’s been out for years with no games based upon the worlds and art and characters, just a series of digital recreations of tabletop games?
Demo Driver 8: Magical Drop V (#218)
This isn’t how I remember it, but I’m not sure whose fault that is.
I’m going to be totally honest with you, folks; when I saw the title of this demo come up, I was excited. Magical Drop and I have some history.
When I was a younger man going through a rather dark time in my life which I like to refer to as “the end of college,” I was first exposed to Magical Drop, specifically the second game in the franchise and specifically its Super Famicom release. Was it the most original title? of course not. But it was large, colorful, and very Japanese in the way that a puzzle game featuring anime drawings of the various tarot cards can be. It was a charming experience.
So I was sincerely bolstered by the thought of playing the game again in a new incarnation, because who wouldn’t be? Like any franchise, it’s nice to see the original developers still making new versions of…
Oh. Oh, it’s a new developer. Oh dear. Oh dear.
Recent Work
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Chocobo Dash
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Eliot Lefebvre 