Undertale [SPOILER-FREE REVIEW]

Small note: This game was generously gifted to me by my friend Melissa. Thanks so much for sharing this game with me, Melissa, and for making this review possible!

The moment I saw snippets of a Let's Play of Undertale, I knew I'd have to play it.  I had a feeling this was a game I'd want to experience fully. Absolutely nothing would prepare me for what was to come.

At its surface, Undertale looks like an unassuming, quirky, old-school RPG with heaps of charm, humour, and personality.  The battle system is unique, boasting the typical attack/flee/item formula of most RPGs, but with some new features: ACT and MERCY. ACT allows you to take specific actions with the enemies, and MERCY allows you to either flee or spare the enemy. Undertale, you see, doesn't require you to kill or even battle its monsters. You can complete the game without landing a single attack on an enemy. Also, the player is forced to dodge attacks in a bullet hell-style minigame. The enemy will fire attacks of various kinds and you will have to dodge them with a small red heart, which represents your player character. The game is also rife with fun little puzzles. None of the puzzles are too terribly difficult, especially after playing through the game once. Boss battles are satisfying, regardless of outcome, and reasonably dramatic.

The music, which is always a high selling point for me, is practically perfect--it's genius, really. It's self-referential--you'll notice the same leitmotifs popping up here and there with remixes and other melodies threaded with new ones. Each song fits its context perfectly. There is a lot of chiptune music that is backed by strings or other instruments, hearkening to the game's classic feel with a new twist. The soundtrack also features touching piano melodies, goofy themes for bumbling characters, the occasional disturbing low-frequency tune, and a few sweeping epics. I recommend listening to the soundtrack in the context of the game before listening to it solo.

It's difficult to talk about aspects of the storyline without spoiling anything, so I will omit that entirely and say that you simply need to play this game for yourself--Undertale needs to be experienced to be understood, and deserves the attention it requests. The game can be beaten from start to finish in about 5-7 hours, but I recommend playing through twice--10-14 hours altogether.

This game is very complex, and nothing is quite what it seems. There is an unsettling quality to the game that's hard to describe. I'm not sure if it's in the retro-styled graphics, the music, or something else, but there always seems to be something bubbling under the surface, even amid the lighthearted moments. The game itself is humorous; it never takes itself too seriously, all the while subverting and poking fun at typical gaming conventions. The fourth wall is frequently broken.

If you enjoy this game, you will certainly play it twice, and you'll enjoy going back to see the hints of foreshadowing, as well as Easter eggs. If the game interests you, I urge you: stop at this article, and don't read anything else until you've played it through at least twice. This game has a ton of layers. In some ways, it reminds me a little bit of Journey--ways that aren't evident if you haven't played.

I loved this game and I don't think I'm finished with it yet. It was an expertly crafted experience--fun, quirky, and just the right amount of heaviness. I can't stop thinking about it.  I honestly believe that every game developer, whether indie or AAA, can take notes from Undertale. The fact that this game was Kickstarter-funded and received over ten times the requested amount is a testament to the excellence that was produced here. It is transcendent of video games and offers a story that cannot be told through any other medium. My only regret about the game is that I didn't hear about it when the funding was underway.

Undertale is available on Steam for $10, and I really can't recommend it enough. If you want to talk to me about it, please get in touch with me--especially if you want to talk Journey parallels with me! If you want to leave a comment, please avoid any plot spoilers.

Gone Home

I finally sat down with an enormous mug of tea and turned all the lights off to immerse myself in Gone Home. Whenever I took a break for whatever reason, I'd come back to my own little world in the dark. I do recommend playing the game like this--it will involve and, perhaps, slightly unnerve you.

I've heard a lot of good things about Gone Home in the last several months, and while I'm a bit late on the uptake, I'm glad I took the opportunity to play it. Hot on the heels of being awarded Best Indie Game and Best PC Game at the 2013 Spike Video Game Awards, Gone Home is a hot topic among gamers.

There's been a lot of controversy on this game, mostly regarding whether or not it's a game and whether it's designed for "core gamers" or whatever. My advice? Stop trying to put labels on things and just sit back and enjoy the experience. And, if you don't enjoy the experience, don't get so angry about it. It's a waste of energy.

I'll get off my soapbox now to talk a bit about this beautiful game.

You play as Katie, who has just returned home from a year abroad. Your parents have moved into a new home, inherited from your uncle Oscar, and you're going to visit for the first time. As you arrive late at night, you find your parents gone and a note on the door from your little sister, Sam, telling you not to come looking for her. What follows is an exploration of the house to reveal the mysteries within, with your sister Sam narrating the events that have unfolded in their lives over the last year. You make a lot of discoveries about your family. Some are more startling and more quiet than others.

Gone Home is not a horror game. I cannot stress this enough. You will get tricked into thinking it is by watching trailers or even by playing through it yourself. It is not a horror game. You may get a bit unnerved by it in some instances--particularly since Gone Home does play off a lot of classic horror tropes. It was, originally, an Amnesia mod at first, after all. Gone Home subverts the flickering lightbulb trope and actually points the lights out directly as having faulty (but safe) electrical wiring. My personal favourite was walking into a bathroom to find a bathtub stained with red--and a bottle of red hair dye sitting right next to it. It is almost a deconstruction, but it's so innocently and playfully done that it's more a lighthearted play on your expectations than anything. It's not all innocent, though. There is a lot of struggle at the core of this game, including one theory that I will direct you to, but I will urge you not to read it unless you've played through the game at least once. I'll add that game creators The Fullbright Company have confirmed this theory to be true.

This genre subversion could be done for one of many reasons, but I'm of the belief that it was done to put you directly in Katie's shoes. She's in a new house for the first time, both of her parents are gone and her sister has posted an unsettling note on the door.  Of course Katie would assume the worst, and of course the surroundings of this new and decidedly creepy house would send chills down her spine.

Even though you don't ever meet any of the characters, their stories are very human and relatable. You have the younger sister, Sam, who is telling a sort of coming-of-age story. You have Terrence, the father, who appears to be a failing author. Then you have Janice, the mother, a park ranger who is feeling distanced from her husband. Lonnie is a character introduced by Sam, who doesn't have a voice of her own other than the notes she has written to Sam. Oscar is the deceased former owner of the house--your great uncle--who apparently "went psycho" before he passed away and is said to be haunting the house. You, as Katie, are less fleshed-out in comparison. All you know about Katie is that she is a straight-A student, an overachiever with trophies, ribbons and old homework assignments punctuated throughout the house. As you explore the house, you learn more about each character and why they are absent from the house.

Finding little notes, letters and documents throughout the house is made that much more believable when you notice the setting of the game: 1995. Audio cassettes and VHS are littered throughout the Greenbriars' home, as well as handwritten and dot matrix printed letters. Sam and Lonnie run a zine that they print themselves with their own art and label-makers, and Sam's own short fiction can be found throughout her belongings. Lonnie has made a number of mixtapes for Sam to enjoy, and a small part of the gameplay involves you finding these tapes and playing them while you search the house. You won't find burnt CDs, Blu-Ray players or cell phones filled with text messages in this game. You will find a believable and era-specific paper trail.

At its core, Gone Home is an exploration game that shows you pieces of each character's individual story and allows you to draw your own conclusions based on the evidence. The obvious difference to this is Sam's story, which is told explicitly to you by Sam herself as you make your way through the house.

The game has striking, detailed graphics that reveal interesting details about the inhabitants of the house. The music is also very good, reminding me of my own time in the 90's with its angry female-fronted punk rock, and the sound effects and lighting are immersive and moody. Below you'll find a trailer for the game, which keeps in as much of the mystery as is fitting. The voice acting is phenomenal--some of the best voice acting I've heard in an independent title.



The focus on the dark underlying themes in Gone Home is a little blurred, which adds to the realism of the game's story and setting. Reading the article revolving around the Transgression above will reveal just how underlying that theme is. The game is, at its core, a very real and intricately connected series of stories that will make the player wonder what happened after the game's end. While there is room for a sequel, it would, most likely, have to operate under a different engine, and have a different tone.

The story made me cry at the end, but not for the reasons I was expecting. This game was deceptively hopeful and unexpectedly triumphant. I don't want to spoil the love story, so I'll simply say it's a refreshing alternative to your typical boy-meets-girl with some very real struggles--another part of what makes the story so human.

As a little bonus, my name is Katie, so whenever Sam was addressing the playable character in story, I felt as though she was talking to me directly. That just made the game ever-so-slightly more awesome for me.

I will agree with others who say that the price is a little high for the amount of playable time from the game, but it's something I'll get over pretty quickly. I do wish the game was, at least, a little longer, or had a bit more extra content, but hopefully the extra price is paving way for more games from this company in the future.

Congratulations to the Fullbright Company for this achievement. They took away Best Indie Game and Best PC Game for Gone Home at the Spike TV VGAs on December 7, 2013. This is a huge leap for indie gaming, and I'm glad I was finally able to play this worthy game.

If you appreciate an involved, intricate story, I urge you to give this game a play.

-K8-bit

Cheap games and charity

I've found a way for you to get some sweet indie games on Steam. For cheap. If you don't have Steam yet and you haven't heard of this, you may want to jump on it!

If you're into indie games and/or Steam, there's a good chance you've heard of the Humble Bundle. Essentially, you are given the opportunity to buy a collection of Steam games at a price that you set. When you purchase this bundle, you are giving money directly to three parties: the developers, the charity, and the Humble website through a "tip". The tip is the smallest suggested contributor, with the developers being typically at the top and the charity not far behind. You can customize where you want your money to go, though.

There is only a $1 minimum donation, however if you reach the suggested minimum, you will often unlock better games. With the Humble Origins Bundle, you will unlock Battlefield 3 and the Sims 3 after the suggested minimum donation of just $4.82, which is the current average of what people are giving. That is a very, very minimal price to pay! If you look at the "top contributors", some people have paid thousands of dollars to contribute to the charity, developers and the Humble website. These people deserve extra thanks, because I doubt Humble would be able to function in such an inexpensive way if those few didn't contribute so much.

A new feature to the Humble website is the Weekly Sale, which has a different bundle posted every week. This sale is courtesy of PewDiePie, who you've likely heard of in some capacity or another. Love him or strongly dislike him, Pewdie has been using his fame to help get funds for his Charity: Water campaign, bringing clean water to those in need. The Humble Bundle Weekly Sale provides a different set of games every week and a great deal, plus you get to contribute to the ongoing clean water campaign. It's an all around win situation. A win-win-win-win, really.

The current weekly sale is 5 games. Amnesia, well known title that it is, is the unlockable one in this bundle. After paying the donation average of just $2.74, that title will be yours, along with the other 4. Amazing.

If you can spare the extra, please do donate a little more. It's a great cause all around--you're helping indie game developers, charities, and the kind folks who are allowing you to purchase these games at such reduced cost.

I'll be back to reviewing games again very soon. You can blame Animal Crossing for this dry spell...

Also, I finally got Steam! Add me!

-K8-bit