Depression Quest

This game is not fun.

Nor is it particularly enjoyable at all.

That's the point altogether, however.

Depression Quest is a unique second-person choose-your-own adventure-style narrative. You play the role of a twenty-something person who is unsure of where his or her life is going. You have a job that you hate and a project that's going nowhere. You have a girlfriend, named Alex, a dedicated student who loves you very much.

As you follow the story, you learn that the character you are embodying is clearly very depressed. The aim of this game is to follow the life of someone living with depression: to enter his or her mind and to follow the daily struggles and stresses. It's meant to increase awareness and help people understand why people suffering from depression act the way they do. Finally, it's meant to help eliminate the stigma surrounding depression and mental illness.

This game takes its subject matter very seriously and the story is tastefully told. Ultimately, what you do is up to you. I played through twice to see the different endings. The first time, I made the same decisions that I personally would have made. The second time, I made some different ones, resulting in a very different ending. There are 3 other endings that I did not see, making 5 in total.

The story evolves based on your choices. You may notice, as you make choices, that some of them are in red and stricken through the middle. You are unable to make those choices if you become too depressed.

Because its subject matter is heavy and has been written with utmost precision and care, this game is also very triggering if you have experienced depression in the past. If you are currently experiencing depression, I recommend playing with caution. Please be sure to heed the description of the game at its beginning.

The game is a a sensory experience as well, with a soundtrack playing in the background that will adapt depending on how you play. Colours will fade away the worse your depression gets, and static will build up both on images, and in the music.

The game was created by a small team of developers, and has won a number of independent game awards, including Best Narrative. I have also learned that it was given the Steam Greenlight very recently. The game was crafted with Twine, which is a text-based game creator, and will be the first Steam Greenlight title to be created with the engine.

If you are able, I would encourage you to donate to the game's developers. While you're able to play for free, donating will send some of the proceeds toward iFred, an organization seeking to educate people about depression and remove the stigma associated with it, as well as help pave the way for other games by these same creators. Even a few dollars would be helpful, I'm sure.

My only complaint about this game is that it would have been nice to have non-gender specific pronouns for Alex, and maybe even the ability to name your partner yourself. That's very minor, however, and I was still able to completely immerse myself. It might have made the game more relatable. I realise that this may have been a limitation of Twine's capabilities, but nevertheless, an observation.

This game deserves a lot of recognition for its accomplishments and for its importance in the realm of gaming and bringing awareness to people who are suffering. Like I mentioned before, it's not a fun or enjoyable game, but it is an introspective on the lives of people living with depression.

400 Years and i saw her standing there

These two games are a pair of Kongregate games that B13 found initially and passed on to me because he thought I would like them. He was, predictably, correct.

i saw her standing there

This little platformer won't take up more than ten minutes of your time. You play as a little guy (who is, in fact, a lowercase letter i), and you can navigate using the arrow keys, with "up" to jump. You see a girl standing there, and then, it turns out, she is actually a zombie. Your goal, at every level, is to avoid the other zombies, and get your girlfriend into her cage so she won't bite you, either.

It's a very simple game, in both gameplay in style. You jump and navigate across simplistic, 1-screen platforms, and lead your zombie girlfriend to her cage. It is set up carefully, nonetheless, so that your goal is clear and you are set up for success. All zombies in the game will follow you and attack you, however, so you have to take care not to let them trail too close behind you.

The tone is lighthearted and fun, and the soundtrack aptly reflects that. As you play, you have a cheerful acoustic guitar tune to encourage you. The game also has a sense of flow about it, creating an ease of play that isn't typical in a zombie-themed game. I recommend giving it a play--it's simply adorable!

400 Years

This is a game that I would classify in the "experience" category. There is something very unique and ambient about this game that suggests something further than your typical gameplay.

To begin with, the music is very relaxing and zen-like, and the graphics, while retaining a certain retro quality to them, are actually very beautiful. You play as a stone entity, most likely a deity of some kind, who awakens, sensing that there is a coming calamity to prevent. You are given the ability to speed up time as required, and can cycle through several years in that fashion. As the name suggests, you have 400 years to accomplish your task.

As you speed up time, you watch the world grow and flourish around you. Bridges are built, and trees and other plants grow. A number of time-sensitive objects are integral to your progression in the game. For example, you may need to wait until a tree grows big enough for you to climb it in order to get to another area.

One of the crucial points of the game occurs when you meet a community of people who are afraid of you, but are also very hungry. You help them, and you don't receive a thanks, suggesting that the sole purpose for this rock entity is to help those people and stop the calamity.

This game is also a little on the short side, and shouldn't run you much more than 20 minutes. Don't be afraid to use a few extra years than you think are necessary--you have plenty of time.

I received an iPad last week, and I have a couple of games to play on there to review. As always, if you have any recommendations, please send them along!

- K8-bit

Demons vs. Fairyland, Bleed for Speed

I received an e-mail from Kongregate with a list of games that were new this week, and thought I'd pick one at random, as I didn't have the first idea what to write about this week.

I went on Newgrounds and flipped through the "Popular" section to select a random title from there, as well. Here are the games I chose.

Demons vs. Fairyland

In this tower defense style game, you play as the antagonists: the demons. You have kidnapped the children of Fairyland, and Fairyland's residents are trying to come back to collect them. As the demons, you spend the entirety of the game defending the children and keeping the citizens of Fairyland from taking them back.

The game has a number of options available to you. Firstly, you are able to customise difficulty and earn bonus experience based on what you change and to what degree. You can also earn points, which can be used to improve your roster and upgrade.

This was what my set up looked like.

You get three different monsters to choose from, and you can upgrade those the higher the level you play. Each monster has two different "ultimate forms" to choose from. Archers rely on speed, Puddle of the Monster has powerful magic at its disposal, and Haunted Houses contain skeletons for physical, ground-based damage.

The game spans 12 levels and you can replay them until you're satisfied with your result. The aim is to finish each level with 1 or more of the fairy children still behind. The best case scenario is that you have all five and none of them have even been touched by Fairyland's denizens. If you are able to get through a level without any of the children being touched, you earn three stars.

Another option you have, when dealing with the fairy kingdom, is to use spells to get them out of your way. If you happen to notice that some of your monsters didn't do a very good job at keeping one of the bigger creatures away, you can pause the game and send a Chain Lighting spell after them. You can set up totems for your monsters to steal gold or mana as well, which will help you expand or upgrade your monsters.

One of the earlier levels.

Stylistically, it's a very fun game, with cell-shaded backgrounds and quirky pixel characters. The music isn't too distracting, which is a good thing. One of the things I liked about it was the fact that you knew if you didn't have the right setup within the first couple of waves, and you have the option to restart.

I didn't play around with the difficulty customisation too much, but I recommend giving it a shot if you're looking for a challenging tower defense. I didn't have too much trouble playing it through on normal setting, but there was just enough of a challenge to keep it interesting.

Bleed for Speed

This is a bizarre and somewhat eerie avoid-style HTML5 game, in which you play a white blood cell navigating an apparently endless series of blood vessels. The aim is simple: you navigate the blood vessels, avoiding the nasty clots at all costs, and allow your white blood cells to multiply while letting as few die as possible.

The graphics are stylish but a little unnerving. The sight of a dead white blood cell is as off-putting as you'd expect.

A pair of dead white blood cells in the lower left corner, in case you didn't feel like sleeping tonight.

The higher your white blood cell count, the faster you go. The game's camera zooms out, as well, allowing you a broader view of the obstacles in your path. You can control where the white blood cells go by sending out a pulse, i.e., clicking directly beside the cell. The cells get happier the faster you go, which is also a little creepy.

Happy little white blood cells!

The only problem I experienced was that the music would skip and the game would chug a little the more white cells were added to the mix. This is likely, however, HTML5 platform over the game.

The game lasts as long as you make it, and keeps track of your high score. Mine was a meager 4295, and I think the most white cells I was able to keep alive at any point were about 9. I recommend giving it a try if you're looking for something weird and different, and if you like to challenge yourself by beating your own high score.

I had a couple of other games I'd like to review, but I'll save those for another time. Next week I'm going to talk about two of my all-time favourite indie games, and may do another post after that.

Sorry for the late update this week! Our ISP was acting up yesterday and wouldn't let me complete my posts. We're back to our regularly scheduled program, now.


-K8-bit

Square Madness and Idle Idol Head

It turns out that one of the cool things that comes with tweeting your indie video games blog is the fact that occasionally, you get in contact with other indie game lovers or makers. In this instance, I got ahold of a dev by the name of Daniel Albu, who makes Flash, HTML5 and Android games. He has an extensive portfolio, as well as an impressive list of awards, but today I'd like to specifically discuss his recent HTML5 game.

Square Madness

I really enjoyed this game. Its design is simplistic, yet stylish. You play as a rotating black square, and your aim is to collect other black squares while simultaneously avoiding red squares. The smaller black squares, which are more difficult to obtain, give more points than the larger ones. As time goes on, the pacing of the gameplay gradually increases, but not to the point that it's ever terribly noticeable. It is well-paced enough that it is never fast to a stressful degree.

I actually found this game to be quite relaxing to play. One of the things I and fellow thisindiegameblog contributor B13 noticed was that it was easier and more enjoyable to play to avoid the red squares than it is to play to collect the black squares.

Case in point, I played to collect the black ones, and he played to avoid the red ones. My high score was somewhere around 1180. His, well...

Needless to say, he put me to shame.

If you continue to play this game long enough, you enter a sort of state of flow, meaning you can become completely focused and absorbed in the gameplay. The music and sounds were a nice addition, never too distracting or loud.

What I liked was that the game was simplistic enough that it didn't require a tutorial, but not mind-numbing in its simplicity. It's a good game to simply play, and since it's HTML5, it's very accessible. It's good to play if you're looking for a distraction, or if you're looking for something to help you focus.

Idle Idol Head

Firstly, I have to give bonus points (not that I give out any points at all, but you know) for the title.

Almost a year ago, when I played Journey for the first time, I had the pleasure of playing alongside fellow first-timer MrConkin. It turned out, when I did a Twitter search, that the user had a handle of the same name, and I've been following him on Twitter ever since. He also has a blog, where I learned he is a game developer. I don't mean for this to sound creepy, but I've been following his work ever since out of sheer curiousity.

Recently, I looked to see that he had posted Idle Idol Head up to Newgrounds, so I went over to give it a play.

The game begins with a quirky, fun cut scene with crisp, colourful graphics and fluid animation. You play as a deity named Moai, who is shorter than the others and wants to grow taller so he can ride roller coasters and get chicks. A character by the name of Rapa offers to help Moai. If he collects all the switches, shaped like Easter Island heads, Rapa will make him taller. And the adventure begins.

The character below Moai looks somehow... familiar...

You start out simply playing through levels to collect the switches, but then you can acquire other gameplay methods to help you collect different coloured switches. Once you collect all the switches in one level, you can progress to the next. If you manage to pass the level without dying once, you will get a star.

There are 30 total stars that you can receive in this game, and other than beating levels without dying, you can also perform tasks for other characters to
get them. Thankfully you can replay levels from the main menu, since Newgrounds saves your progress, so if you died on the first run-through of a level, you can re-play it to collect the star later on.

The gameplay consists of navigating Moai through a series of walled-in areas. You must avoid the walls, or else you will die. Running into just about any surface will kill you, though there are three different power-ups you can attain: flowers will turn you yellow and light your way, pools of water will turn you blue and also help you water plants, and fire will turn you red and help you melt snow. These different gameplay mechanics
contribute to the difficulty level of some of the puzzles.

In addition, the game has a gravity system that gives some weight to Moai as a character, and adds depth to the gameplay. He can be physically influenced by wind, allowing it to change his direction.

My favourite part about this game was the unique gameplay, coupled with its colourful style. The game was challenging enough that I was unable to collect all 30 stars on my first playthrough. Despite playing the whole game from start to finish, I still find myself wanting to go back to collect the rest. If I had one complaint about the game, it would be that some of the shout-outs to other games are a bit too obvious and break the fourth wall a bit. I liked the game's design and characters enough that having obvious shout-outs was a bit jarring. There's a shout-out at the final level, though, that was subtle and really well done. I won't say what it is, because I found it a pleasant surprise after playing through.

Both Idle Idol Head and Square Madness, interestingly enough, had similar styles of avoid-the-obstacle gameplay. It was by pure coincidence that I ended up reviewing them side by each, but they are satisfying for different reasons.

I have updated the blog a bit with a new link about "Funding the Dream" for indie games that need a little help along the way. Also, under "about thisindiegameblog", you'll find  a bit more about the blog, plus brief bios for B13 and I. As always, if there are any games you'd like us to play and potentially review, send them our way.

-K8-bit

TRAUMA and Tower of Heaven

I'm going to talk about two games I played yesterday. I actually played a lot of games yesterday, but these were the two that stayed with me the most.

TRAUMA

I'm going to start with a link to the soundtrack's BandCamp page. Listening to it will give you a good feel for the kind of atmosphere it gives off.

TRAUMA is a point and click adventure game that requires you to explore the environment to acquire photographs. There are 4 stages to explore, and 9 photographs are hidden within each one. Each stage is a dreamscape that the injured--and unnamed--main character explores in her subconscious. The main character is recovering in a hospital from a car accident.

In order to explore the environment, the player learns to paint a number of symbols with light. Interestingly, the light looks a lot like a car's headlights, in reference to the trauma the main character has suffered.

The game's difficulty isn't particularly high, but some of the photographs can be in tricky, out-of-reach places. Each stage has three separate alternate endings, brought on by symbols that are learned in other levels. What this means is that if you learn the symbol to cut something for one stage, it will be integral for the original finale of that stage. You can, however, use it in other stages to produce a different ending. Once you achieve all three alternate endings and the original ending in a stage, you unlock a photo radar that will help you track down any missing photos. This is extremely useful as some of them are hidden very well.

What I find interesting about this game is that it explores some facets of the main character's identity, but it's all very subtle. She doesn't come out and say much, but the player can tell she's disgruntled with her parents for forcing her down a path she didn't want to take, and not supporting her with other desires she had in the past. She was always struggling to meet their expectations, but perhaps they were too high. The "What they expect" stage is very implicit of this. Because the game rarely says anything outright, it makes some narrative decisions that allow the players to draw their own conclusions.

Reading other reviews online, I noticed that the voice actress, Anja Jazeschann, was criticised, in some circles, for not putting enough emotion into the narrative and thereby distancing the player. I would like to take this opportunity to disagree. The character in this game is not just recovering from her trauma, but also stuck in a period of deep unhappiness that, to me, sounds like she's been suffering from for awhile, but hasn't really begun to address it until she is hospitalised. The alternate ending implies that her problems are there to stay, as well. As such, the voice actress' hopeless tone is both accurate and immersive.

This game was somewhat reminiscent of MYST for me. When I was playing MYST, I always found the intense puzzles to be a distraction from what, in my mind, was the true star of the game: the moody and atmospheric environments. This game delivered what I've been wanting for a long time.






Tower of Heaven

This game was simply beautiful, and I mean that in the most literal way possible: the graphics were simple, boasting a palette akin to that of an old school GameBoy (and, in fact, inspiring the palette for this blog), but still managing to achieve stunning visual effects. The music was almost too good to be true. For chiptunes, they achieved a beauty and quality that I didn't expect. If you want to see what I mean, here is the soundtrack, also available for purchase on BandCamp. I love the soundtrack; it's one of the main highlights for me, especially the track Indignant Divinity. Wow.

One of the first things I noticed about this game was how hard it was. The creator even has a disclaimer stating as much. You will probably get frustrated getting to the end, but it will be worth it. You'll feel accomplished, too. You get unlimited lives, which is great, because you'll probably need them.

Imagine if you will: you're on a timer to defeat the already dangerous level, then you're told you can't touch a certain colour of block, the sides of any blocks, nor can you walk left. If you do any of these things, you will die. Also, touching so much as a vine or a blade of grass will kill you in later levels. Oh, and you're timed, too. That is what happens in this game. You receive a tally of deaths at the end. I got 297. Yikes.

You start the game and you're alone on the stairs to a tower where a deity lives. This deity is insulted at your insolence for daring to climb up his tower, and he threatens you with smiting if you don't get to the next level in the right amount of time.

It's a platformer with some puzzle elements. Usually the levels are arranged in such a way that it becomes very difficult for you to complete them without dying at least once. Or at least five times.

I very much enjoyed the game, particularly for the atmospheric quality the soundtrack and graphics give it. Some levels were frustrating because I'm really bad at games but that made it all the more satisfying when I got to the end. What I liked about the difficulty level was that while yes, the game was very hard, it was never hard to a point that I didn't think I could do it. The unlimited lives helped with that, I think.

Here's a clip of a Let's Play of it, as it's a Newgrounds game and it sadly doesn't have a trailer. It's not a very long game, so if you really want to get the full experience I recommend only watching a few minutes.



That's it for those two games! I recommend trying them both. If you have any recommendations for me to play, give me a shout in the comments section.

This is the first actual post here at thisindiegameblog, so I wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks for reading. I'm a big lover of indie games and I feel that the more indie games are talked about, the more they'll be played, and the more they're played, the better the creators will be recognised. Happy New Year! May 2013 be filled with many new wonderful indie games for us all to play!

-K8-bit