Scary Thoughts about 'Detention'

It's (almost) October again, and the month of Halloween always inspires me to experience and write about new horror experiences. The first game we're talking about this month is Detention, a puzzle exploration game set in 1960s Taiwan under martial law. You take on the role of Fang Ray Shin - called Ray for short - a girl who wakes up in her school with seemingly no one else around. She has to find a way out while avoiding various supernatural dangers.

Extracurricular Lessons (Gameplay)

Detention is a point and click adventure where the character moves along a twodimensional plane. In that regard, it's very by-the-books; you interact with objects by clicking them, you can drag items from your inventory onto interactable objects in the environment to use them and so on. You similarly enter doors simply by interacting with them.

The gameplay differs where the horror comes in. In Detention, you'll mostly encounter two types of ghosts - the Lingered and the Lantern Ghost, both of which must be avoided in a specific way. The Lingered are common humanoid ghosts that stalk the otherwise quiet halls of the school and will attack anything alive they come across. To avoid them, you need to hold your breath when they approach and they will simply pass you by. Holding your breath slows you down, however, and is only temporary - so you need to watch the Lingered carefully and pick the right moment to start holding your breath. Lantern Ghosts are much less common but also harder to deal with; when they approach you, the only way to avoid detection is to turn away, hold your breath and don't move. The Lantern Ghost will smell Ray, detect no signs of life and move on... unless you fail to take the proper steps, in which case she'll get grabbed and killed. Food offerings can be put down on the ground to lure away the Lingered, but this is required only once - when the mechanic is first introduced. I never needed it again after that, though I suppose it's nice to have for people who find the patrolling Lingered too unpredictable.

The enemies initially make the game rather tense, but they lose their impact pretty quickly. Having to hold your breath may seem scary, but the time period is generous and even if a Lingered detects you, you don't die immediately. All in all, they're easy to avoid and the penalty for detection is mild for Lingered. The Lantern Ghost is more threatening because it can kill you instantly, but it's very slow and uncommon. I died only once in the game, and this was due to an instant death trap that I thought was a bit cheap. I won't spoil exactly what happens, but I needed to hold my breath in a situation where it was never implied I should - the danger was not properly introduced like with the two aforementioned ghost types.

As quickly as the fear from the enemies may fade, the game's saving grace is that it is pretty short to begin with, so the enemies disappear once you start to get used to them. In fact, about halfway through, the game's focus shifts almost entirely to puzzles. The atmosphere and visuals are still disturbing at this point (more on that in the next segment), but the gameplay doesn't resemble a horror game anymore. There are no more hostile ghosts at this point. There are story reasons for this, but it makes the pacing feel strange; the 'hold your breath' mechanic loses all relevance at this point. If they wanted to shift the focus to puzzles, it might've been a cool idea to use holding your breath in a puzzle; like maybe a secret message will only appear if you're not making any sound. At least that way, the mechanic would've stayed relevant instead of being tossed out just like that after being your main method of self defense. Even so, the puzzles represent one of the game's greatest strengths. Many of them are interesting and inventive, though none of them are very hard.

One last nitpick: Certain rooms have important scenes or a particularly frightful atmosphere, and the main character cannot run in these rooms; she'll just slowly shuffle forward. This is fine for the most part, but sometimes you can enter these rooms before you have what you need to activate the scene, causing you to shuffle all the way into the room at a snail's pace only to realize you don't need to be there yet. You then have to slowly shuffle out of the room again. It's a slight waste of time, but nothing serious.

All in all, Detention plays like a point and click adventure. It has a few interesting mechanics to represent the horror part of its genre that certainly build tension when first introduced, but it gives up on them shortly before they get stale. During and after this, it focuses mainly on puzzles which are easy but entertaining and inventive. There are a few problems with the gameplay, but it works well enough.

Oppressive Atmosphere (Presentation)

The game makes a strong visual impression. People often describe life under totalitarian reign as "grey" or "colorless," something reflected in the game's muted color scheme. Its graphics are built up from both drawings and what seem to be cut out photographs, leaning strongly into the historic realities the game portrays alongside the supernatural horrors.

The animations of the characters are slightly robotic, although this is actually to the game's benefit when it comes to the monsters. It's hard not to feel a chill when you see a humanoid figure run in from the dark, back bent at an awkward angle and arms outstretched toward you. In terms of appearance, the monsters aren't terribly inspired - they are all essentially undead humans of varying sizes - but the sound design really picks up the slack there. When you're in a hallway with one of the Lingered, you can't miss the distant sound of their alternating coughing, wheezing and laughing. This is what makes it really tense when you're holding your breath and sneaking past them - you never know if a sudden cough or chuckle is just incidental, or because you were noticed.

There isn't a lot of music, and when it's there, it's mostly diegetic (for example, there is actually a radio playing the music that the player character can interact with, rather than the music only existing for the player). It's all authentic Taiwanese music, and I've been told many of the tracks used were actually banned in 1960 - a nice touch. The sound design compliments the visuals well, each major area has its own atmospheric sound with the occasional noise that'll make you question if it was just in the background or actually an enemy waiting just around the corner.

The game's visuals are mostly gray, but it makes good use of splashes of color here and there. Most of the game is pretty grounded, but you'll run into some rather surreal setpieces as well, which all look very impressive once you wrap your head around them. I think the environments are the strongest part of this game's presentation, strikingly depicting both the totalitarian state of Taiwan as well as the frightening supernatural setting.

All in all, Detention's presentation does a great job of building a powerful atmosphere. Sparing use of color, frightening sound design and surreal rooms and locations compensate for slightly weak enemy designs and animations.


Freedom of Expression (Story)

In Detention, you play as two Taiwanese students in 1960. They are called Wei and Fang. One evening they wake up in their school and find it abandoned. It seems everyone left because of a typhoon warning, but the bridge to town is out so they're stuck. You are mostly in control of Fang, a senior student to Wei, and it's up to you to find a way out of the school while avoiding the supernatural horrors and finding out what the cause behind it all is.

While Detention is a horror game, its story is more tragic than scary. It revolves around the lives of students trying to get by in a society where even a vague or merely speculative association with China or communism could get you imprisoned, tortured or killed. The story focuses on how this affects the lives of Wei and Fang and the choices they make under this brutal regime as young people trying to find their way in life. I'm keeping it very vague here because I want to allow you the opportunity to experience this story for itself.

Not unlike Silent Hill, the game employs a lot of symbolism and wants you to think about the meaning behind certain scenes without giving you an explicit explanation for them. And like Silent Hill, the game has multiple endings. They key difference here is that the ending you get depends entirely on how well you understand the story. Without clarifying the context, near the end of the story you are asked a few questions. Answering these questions correctly means you properly understand the story (or got lucky) and this will lead you to the good ending. Answering them incorrectly will lead you to the bad ending. The puzzles are tie in with the story directly, however, so if you can get to the end, you can probably figure it all out.

I don't want to harp on this too much as the game was obviously not made by native speakers, but the English translation has several grammar and spelling errors. It's not a game breaker, but the game is short and doesn't have that much text, so I feel at least a little more time could've been spent on polishing that part up.

All in all, Detention has a strong story that is more tragic than scary, and revolves more around students trying to get by under a totalitarian regime than about kids running away from actual monsters. It misses the mark a little as a horror story, but it's a great story nonetheless. It's sad and beautiful in its own way.

Conclusion

Detention is a solid game and starts out as very unnerving and tense, even if it gives up on being a horror game after a while. Its inventive and surrealistic puzzles and engaging story will compel you to keep going long after the monsters have exited the stage. Its atmospheric presentation, solid story and unique setting make it more than worth a look. However, there are minor problems with its animations, errors in its text and it's quite short - around 3 and a half hours - so take note of that. If you love horror or point & click adventures, you can't go wrong with Detention. It's on Steam here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/555220/Detention/

Other Thoughts

That's all I had to say about Detention, but there are interesting stories to tell about the developer, RedCandleGames.

This was news some time ago, but they actually developed and released a second game called Devotion. Unfortunately, due to a controversy involving something in the game that was interpreted as an insult towards the Chinese president, the company's right to sell the game was revoked and it was removed from sale on Steam - but not before it was also review bombed, apparently by sympathizers of the Chinese government. It's painful and tragic that a company responsible for such a beautiful story about freedom of thought and expression had their work censored from the Internet because of something so petty. I really hope Devotion will be sold again one day so I can share my thoughts on it as well, because seeing art get censored like this - now that is some real life horror.

_

That's all for today. Thank you for reading! I can't say for sure how many Scary Thoughts articles will be released this month, but at least I got this one done.

Preliminary Thoughts - Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

Recently, I finally started on the beloved franchise of escape room games, 'Zero Escape.' I binged my way through Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward in a matter of days and then started on the third game, Zero Time Dilemma. While I can't share my overall thoughts yet, I want to explain how the game negatively impacted my motivation to continue playing it. This article is going to be pretty negative, but that doesn't mean I dislike the game overall. I just want to articulate four main reasons it's failing to capture me the way its predecessors did - once my final thoughts come out, I'll have good things to say as well.

It's Worse in Motion

Games like 'The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker' look alright in screenshots, but you can only truly understand the beauty of their artstyle when you see it in motion. Suddenly, it all makes sense. Zero Time Dilemma is the opposite - like Virtue's Last Reward, it depends on 3D models, and its 3D models are a bit nicer and more detailed (mind that this is merely a relative improvement) - but the animations are very choppy, buggy or outright dysfunctional. Movements are universally strange and robotic and it's extremely noticeable even if the camera is too embarassed to show moving limbs most of the time. Lip sync regularly doesn't work, with a character's voice playing over a closed mouth. When characters get fatally injured, the game occasionally uses a ridiculous blood spray effect that's hard to take seriously as well. Combine this with generally uninteresting environments, and the only thing that saves the game's visuals are decent character designs and some genuinely good interface design and motion graphics. The little animations that play when you have to make a choice, start an escape room and finish an escape room look great.

Grab Your Popcorn

In my prior articles, I discussed the structure of the Zero Escape games, and how they alternate between Escape Room segments and visual novel segments. This game has no visual novel segments, instead opting to use lengthy cutscenes between escape rooms and choices. The lack of control over the tempo, combined with the slow and awkward animations I mentioned earlier, make it a bit of a drag. It's one thing to have lengthy cutscenes, but to have those cutscenes replace one of the key elements of your game just seems strange to me. On the surface, a visual novel segment may seem like the same thing as a cutscene, but the way they convey information is very different. In the first two games, you could read the main character's thoughts and see them responding to many things in their head - with these lengthy cutscenes, I sometimes forget who the playable character even is, and there are three of them. I'll go deeper into the structure in my final thoughts about the game.

Everybody's Changing

In the interest of not completely spoiling it, I'll keep this ambiguous, but there is a returning character in Zero Time Dilemma. I liked this character's first appearance, but in this game, they've completely changed their personality to be jaded and cynical. There is an in-story justification for it, but it still feels cheap and contrived; it's a change that wasn't earned or developed, we're just informed that it happened and are expected to just believe this complete 180. If it wasn't annoying enough to have to sit through long cutscenes with really bad animations, it doesn't help when the characters themselves also don't seem to care at all. I'm not too impressed with the new additions, either. I'd say a third of the cast are horrible human beings, a third just aren't very interesting and another third are actually likeable.

Chrono-illogically

Once the initial events of the game happens, the player is actually given many options as to where to start. You can choose between the three teams (the characters are divided into 3 groups, more on this in my final thoughts), and the events you can access for each team aren't placed in a linear order, but in a circle, with each event marked 'new.' It was so overwhelming, I actually just stopped playing the game after facing that. It's one thing to let the player choose which team to start with, but it's going a bit far to dump around 15 events on them all at once with no clear indication or where it starts. Now, there are story reasons why the game is set up like this. Each individual event does have a small flowchart, and once you complete it, you can see its place in the larger overall flowchart.

But Let's Not Forget (Conclusion for now)

To summarize, Zero Time Dilemma frustrated me with its ugly animations, lengthy cutscenes lacking in interaction, partially uninteresting and unlikeable cast and confusing order of events. That's why I've been much slower about progressing through it than I was with the last two games, and why I haven't quite finished it yet. However, I still intend to continue and finish the game, because there are many redeeming qualities. I want to elaborate on those in full detail when I share my final thoughts, but for instance, you'll notice I did't mention the actual escape rooms in this article - that's because the escape rooms are still fun. Not all the characters, scenes or visuals are bad either... and the biggest point of discussion next time will be the overarching story. With all that said, those were my preliminary thoughts on Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma.

_

And that was it for now! Thanks for reading. I wanted to capture my thoughts about the game and pin down what about it was frustrating me before I finished it, partially because I hope I'll change my mind. Maybe the animations get better when it really counts, maybe some of the characters turn out to be more likeable, maybe the game's structure will seem genius in retrospect. I look forward to writing my final thoughts and I hope you'll join me for those as well. Until then, have a good day! 

Miwashiba's RPGs

Today, I'd like to talk about a lesser known game developer called 'Miwashiba.' This Japanese developer has created various games in an RPG Maker program, specifically the WOLF RPG Editor. Miwashiba's games were initially released for free, but have since been released on Steam for a small price. In this article, I want to talk about said games - in a sense, this article will be a collection of mini 'Some Thoughts About' segments.

LiEat

LiEat on Steam is actually not one game, but a collection of 3 short games in the same series. It was released on Steam on February 26, 2016. LiEat takes place in a world where humans and dragons coexist; but the dragons in this world are magical, humanoid creatures that are each born with a special ability. The protagonist of all three games, Efina, is such a dragon. When people tell lies, she can allow them to manifest as physical creatures and eat them.

The LiEat games set a few standards that all of Miwashiba's future games adhere to: they're mainly focused on story, have bad endings you can run into if you fail critical battles or miss vital details and they all have truly adorable artwork. In LiEat specifically, the game looks alright in general, but the unique scenes drawn for important story moments are especially charming.

LiEat's gameplay is pretty basic. Outside of battle, you walk around and interact with objects and people from a top down perspective. Battles are much like in any turn-based RPG, and about as basic as it gets. The range of abilities is limited to attacks that hit single enemies, attacks that hit multiple enemies and healing. Aside from bosses, of which there are few, the enemies are also all the same.

The real fun comes before battles. After all, where would a lie detecting dragon be most useful? When solving crimes and mysteries, of course. At certain points a character will make a few statements, and these statements will manifest as little lie creatures. You need to fight the correct one to progress the story, although there's no penalty for fighting the wrong ones as well. The concept of listening to "testimonies" and figuring out the lies would return in 1BitHeart, but we'll get to that one a bit later.

There's a separate mystery in each of the three games, but there is an overarching story as well about Efina's true purpose. Dragons are always born to a specific human, for a specific purpose. But I don't want to spoil the story or its conclusion, so you'll have to play it to find out what it all leads to. Will you be able to find Efina's true purpose?

To summarize it briefly, LiEat is a set of 3 short RPGs with a focus on story, cute art and some light exploration and battling.

Alicemare

Alicemare was released on Steam on 22 November, 2016. It's quite different from LiEat and a lot more like other popular games made in RPG Maker and Wolf RPG Editor - it could easily be listed with games like Crooked Man, Mad Father, Ib and so on. While you can explore and interact like in LiEat, it has no combat and is purely based on exploration and puzzles. And while it still has cute art, it is tagged as horror and has some disturbing scenes.

In Alicemare, the player takes on the role of Allen, a young boy who ends up at a mysterious orphanage. Allen explores the dreams, or nightmares, of the other children at the orphanage and learns dark secrets about each of them as a result. As the name implies, the game draws some inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and its dreamlike setting, even featuring characters such as the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat.

The game has a good atmosphere, but is very simple in terms of actual gameplay. It also has many endings depending on a difficult choice you have to make at the end, but like so many RPG Maker games, a 'perfect' ending can be reached by collecting all the little collectibles.

All in all, I really liked the game's atmosphere and visuals, but its gameplay was very basic and its story rather ambiguous. But it's a short and easy ride, so if you're looking for something a little spooky and atmospheric, you won't regret trying it.

So, in short, Alicemare is a purely exploration based Wolf RPG Editor game with light puzzle solving and a mysterious and spooky atmosphere.


1bitHeart

1bitHeart is Miwashiba's largest and most ambitious game project... as far as I know. It was released on Steam on August 28th, 2017.

The game is set in Japan, in the nearby future, where technology has progressed to a point where it dominates the lives of everyone. In this game we take on the role of Nanashi, a young man who spends most of his time indoors. He's quite intelligent, but rather socially awkward. He meets a girl called Misane and learns of a frightening plot to take control of people via hacking, which is entirely possible in this technology-dominated future where everyone is hooked up to technology one way or another. Together, the two set out to stop this evil plot and hopefully make some friends for the rather lonely Nanashi.

1bitHeart shares some fundamental qualities with the prior games, like the cute art and characters and mystery aspect, but there are many notable differences and improvements. First off, while the game is still mainly exploration based, it's a 2D side scroller now instead of using the top down perspective the other games did. I think this was a good decision; it makes going from A to B a lot more straightforward, and it allows for larger side view portraits of the game's many characters, which really allows the game to emphasize's Miwashiba's incredible skill at designing cute characters. The portraits themselves are also larger and much more detailed during dialogue.

The game doesn't have turn-based battles like LiEat, but it also doesn't solely hinge on exploration like Alicemare. Rather, it has its own unique systems. First, when hackers attempt to hack the player characters, you defend yourself with a series of directional inputs; it's pretty basic. The real fun happens during investigations and the subsequent confrontations. There are various cases to solve in the game's chapters, during which you gather evidence and information. You subsequently use this evidence in discussions with suspicious characters, in what is more or less a rudimentary version of the Cross Examinations in Ace Attorney or the Nonstop Debates in Danganronpa. Miwashiba clearly expressed an interest in mystery solving gameplay in LiEat, and in 1bitHeart, it comes to fruition quite nicely.

Speaking of Danganronpa, the game takes some structural cues from that series. Between the chapters, you'll get the opportunity to give gifts to the characters that hang around the city and trigger unique scenes with them once you become better friends. This leads to one of the game's most impressive parts: There are actual dozens of characters spread across the city, and each has several fleshed out scenes that form an overarching story with a conclusion - which vary from heartwarming to sad to hilarious. The end goal, of course, is for these characters to become the main character's friends. And as I mentioned before, each character has a unique design. It's impossible to ignore the amount of love and effort that was put into this game. The backgrounds during dialogue could use a little work, though - they look like basic shapes with Photoshop filters applied to them. They do the job, but that's about it. They pale in comparison to the amazing characters.

Even so, there are things to criticize about the character interactions as well. Like I mentioned, you need gifts to build up your friendship with characters, but you need money to buy gifts. You get money by playing Tetris-type minigames. You can spend as much time befriending characters as you want between the chapters, but it'll take a lot of grinding to get enough money to befriend everyone. Fortunately, it seems the developer was aware of this weakness, as there is a secret in the game to acquire endless money, and thus, endless gifts. You do this by interacting with a secret panel in the virtual world where the minigames are played. I recommend this approach if you were planning to befriend all the characters. You probably don't want to be playing Tetris for hours just to get a few scenes.

The game's soundtrack is fine, but I was truly baffled by the clash between the art and the music during the first confrontation - when I was greeted with something I can't do justice by describing it. Just view the adorable characters and colors and then imagine this playing as you watch that:

But most of the tracks suit the game and its pleasant atmosphere just fine:

Minor gripes aside, 1bitHeart is a truly impressive leap forward for Miwashiba. The game is comparatively long, consisting of several chapters, has a cast of dozens of characters with their own designs, stories and interactions, it has its own investigation and interrogation gameplay for mystery solving and so on.

1BeatHeart

Miwashiba has created a follow-up to 1bitHeart called 1BeatHeart, although it's focused more on muder mysteries than hacking and making friends. The art is even more detailed in this one, although it sheds some of its cuteness. Note the more muted colors:

This game has been translated, but is not officially released on Steam yet. I don't know if there are any plans to do so, which is why I've held off on playing it for now. If it turns out there are no plans, I may simply download the free version and share my thoughts at a later date. You can try the game yourself, if you're interested: http://vgperson.com/games/1beatheart.htm Do note that it'll spoil some events from 1bitHeart, though, so play that first if you care about chronological order.

The Faceless Double

Miwashiba has created an impressive library of adorable and interesting RPGs, but it's clear the well of creativity has not run dry. In fact, 'The Faceless Double' is currently in production, and is listed on Steam as 'coming soon' as of writing this article. We don't know a lot yet, but I'm already hooked just by reading the description:

"In this world, there sometimes appears a comet that grants wishes.
It is said that the comet will grant any wish – however, payment for a granted wish takes the form of a curse.
The people of this world called the comet “God”.

When Double awakened, he had lost his previous form.
He can’t remember how this happened.
Cloena proposes to Double that they embark on a journey to seek out God, in order to remove the curse."

Having a faceless, cursed figure seek out God sounds like a fascinating premise and invites you to speculate who this character, 'Double,' was before he lost his form and whether the 'God' in the story is benevolent, malevolent or neither. Either way, this journey of discovering one's purpose has been a prevailing theme in all of Miwashiba's games right from the start and I can't wait to see what new form it will take in this next adventure. From eating lies to exploring nightmares to saving the future from hackers to seeking out God - we're definitely going into new and exciting territory!

Closing Thoughts

I've been wanting to write this article for a long time. I discovered Miwashiba's RPGs just last year and immediately fell in love with the charming art and interesting settings. 1bitHeart is easily my favorite of the bunch, pushing both the art, mechanics and story to the best they've been, but all these games are worth playing as far as I'm concerned.

I'm also excited to try the game I haven't played yet, 1BeatHeart. I genuinely considered putting off this article to play through it first, but the game looks and feels so different from the other games that I think it needs its own article. I'm especially looking forward to seeing what Miwashiba makes of The Faceless Double as well, and hope we can expect an English version. Speaking of which...

Translators are often unsung heroes, so I want to give a quick shoutout to the individual who goes by 'vgperson.' If you've seen any Wolf RPG Editor or RPG Maker game from Japan translated to English, there's a good chance it was done by vgperson. They also make original works, and translate many things besides games as well. Check out vgperson's website to see what I mean: http://vgperson.com/

In writing this article, I misspelled Miwashiba's name as 'Miwashibi' and 'Miwashabi' various times, proving that I'm not good with Japanese names. I hope I haven't left any of those errors in here.

_

And that's it! Hopefully, I've convinced you to try at least one of these games! Or if you've tried them already, can you let me know what you think? Are there obscure RPG Maker or WOLF RPG Editor games I should know about? All comments are appreciated.

He Who Fights Spoilers

Instead of talking about a specific game, today I want to talk about a 'trend' that's been hitting gaming YouTubers in particular - accidental minor spoilers turning into major spoilers due to well meaning audience members - and the people who make those spoilers even worse by trying to fight them. Since I didn't want to post actual spoiler images, most of the screenshots are just random.

Nobody likes spoilers. Every good story has a flow, a structure, it builds towards something with all its twists and turns. Learning any of that in advance can disrupt that flow or even ruin the entire build-up. But in spite of that, some people intentionally reveal important plot details to people just to ruin it for them, just to get a rise out of them.

Spoilers can hurt for videogames in particular because you play an active part in discovering where the story goes; in some games, your choices can even change the story altogether. This is why people who watch Let's Plays tend to like blind playthroughs of videogames - so they get to experience that sense of discovery again, vicariously, through another person. However, playing games with an audience exposes you to many responses, and sharply increases the risk of being spoiled on the game. Trolls revel in ruining the experience for a public figure, and by extension, their audience. But sometimes the well intentioned fans can be just as bad, albeit unintentionally. I'm going to talk about two kinds of situations where well intentioned people can ruin a game and both of them hinge on underestimating the power of hindsight.

Secret Meanings

In well written stories, there will often be a few lines of dialogue that have an impact. Maybe a character suddenly reveals their true motivations in just three words that change everything, or maybe simple comment flips everything you thought you knew about the story around. The power of these lines is often the context in which they're said, or the build up, so the line doesn't mean a lot by itself in theory.

If an iconic line occurs in a videogame, fans will often say the line to a content creator playing it by posting it in the comments or chat, depending on the platform. This isn't done maliciously, these people probably believe that the line won't mean anything to the person playing the game. But the problem is that several people will be thinking the same, causing the phrase to be posted multiple times, which will inevitably make the player think about its meaning. And depending on the line and the times at which people say it, said player might figure out way more than they should know at the time. Games that depend heavily on their story, like Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club, suffer from this in particular. I want to use the latter to give a clear example, but skip this next part if you don't want spoilers.

[Doki Doki Literature Club spoilers start here] - - -

The big twist in Doki Doki Literature Club is that the club president, Monika, is self aware and knows that she's in a videogame. She begins to interfere with the player's attempts to interact with the other girls, which eventually culminates in a scene where the phrase 'Just Monika' pops up - it's Monika's demand that you focus on her and no one else. The phrase quickly became an in-joke among the fans, many of whom love posting 'Just Monika' under the comments of any video and in the chat of any livestream. When confronted, they'll usually be coy and proclaim they said it because Monika is their favorite character. But because the phrase will come up so often, the player will inevitably suspect Monika of being behind the game's events - which she is.

[Doki Doki Literature Club spoilers end here] - - -

So, all in all, just because the line doesn't make sense out of context, that doesn't mean it won't spoil things if it's sent to a content creator playing the game blind. Particularly when combined with the kind of well meaning audience member I want to talk about next

Just Making It Worse

This particular trend is why I wanted to write this article. Sometimes the response by well meaning fans can turn what wouldn't have been a spoiler into a major spoiler. To illustrate, imagine the following two scenarios:

1. Fans are making comments like I mentioned in the previous part, removing a line of dialogue from its context and posting it in the comments of a video or the chat of a livestream.

2. The content creator makes an oversight, and uses material from future events in the game as a thumbnail or social media post (for example, there's a unique shot of the main character with a shocked expression - this expression happens when a major character in the story dies, but the content creator doesn't know and cannot tell from the expression).

These things risk spoiling parts of the game for the content creator, but some fans are so zealous in wanting to point that out that they cause the spoiler. Even just responding with "shut up, that's a spoiler" or "there's a spoiler in the thumbnail, just letting you know" makes the situation worse. This guarantees that the content creator will start to speculate on what the line of dialogue or the content of the thumbnail actually means, creating the situation that the well-meaning commenter was most likely trying to prevent.

I saw this trend come up a few times for YouTubers like Lucahjin and NicoB, who regularly play story-heavy games. They both had some occasions where a certain character portrait was used for a thumbnail in one of the videos, and instead of letting it go, fans had to unleash a flood of comments on the video criticizing the "spoilers" in the thumbnail - that no one unaware of future events, including the content creator - would have even known about.

When you see something that could potentially be a spoiler, the only winning move is not to play. It would be best if a moderator was informed in private, who can then decide if the comment or message should be edited or removed. And when it comes to a thumbnail, it's best to let the player know after the game is done; if no one says anything, no one would be the wiser anyway.


In Conclusion

It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to any information about future events in media, especially when addressing to content creators playing games in a public space. Vague references to future events, as well as quotes, are risky business, especially because they're never said in a vacuum - the content creator will likely get the same quote or reference from many people. But people who are vigilant about pointing out these spoilers can make things worse, because they turn possible spoilers into certain spoilers.

I hope this is something young audiences learn as we and the Internet continue to grow, but until then, the only real solution is to not respond publically and to have moderators take care of it.

_

So, that was another article! Instead of focusing on a specific game, I tackled a trend surrounding games this time. What did you think? Was it a worthwhile topic, or should I stick to specific games and series? Have you ever been in a situation where people spoiled a game for you, even though they didn't mean to? All comments welcomed!

Some Thoughts About 'Puggsy'

Puggsy is an obscure puzzle platformer for the Sega Mega Drive. It was released in 1993 and has since been forgotten by all but a few passionate fans; it's the very definition of a cult classic. Like with so many games, I have a history with this game, but only recently actually played it for the first time. I first heard about it when an old friend sent me a music track from it over ten years ago; then I rediscovered it much later when another friend talked about the game and how revolutionary it was. It seems like it was fate for me to try out Puggsy and see what all the fuzz is about.

Puggsy is a bit shorter than many of the games I usually cover and I want to emphasize what's unique about it, so this article might be a bit shorter than usual.

Presentation

Puggsy is a good looking game. It makes a great first impression by showing off a bit of 3D animation, which caught me completely off guard. The Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES could pull off a few polygons at most.

The game continues to impress during gameplay, with detailed sprites and backgrounds. There is a lot of variation in stages, and all of them have a distinctive colour to them. The same goes for the characters - Puggsy in particular has many frames of animation, although his design is a little strange. It's hard to say what he's even supposed to be, beyond being some kind of alien.

The bosses have the opposite problem, if you want to call Puggsy's strange design a problem; their designs are recognizable and their sprites are very detailed, but they have barely any animation at all.

Puggy's soundtrack is excellent and features many tracks of varying atmospheres. It had catchy, powerful tracks like I had come to expect from the Mega Drive after playing the Sonic games but really pleasant and atmospheric tunes as well. Here are two great examples of music from the soundtrack, so you can draw your own conclusion as well. I had actually heard these tracks before playing the game and they were a big factor in getting me to finally try it:

In short: Puggsy's presentation is great but the bosses barely have any animation, which is a shame.

Gameplay

Puggsy is an early puzzle platformer. It has the usual actions of running and jumping, but there are a few key points that make the game unique. With how common simulated physics are in games nowadays, it may not seem remarkable to a modern audience, but Puggsy is one of the first games of its kind of have such physics. Objects can bump into each other, bounce around, fall and slide - they each have unique properties like their weight and shape, which plays into puzzles.

It doesn't end with just the physics. Puggsy has the ability to grab and hold onto items. The idea of picking up items had been pioneered by earlier platformers such as Super Mario Bros. 2, but you can specifically adjust the height at which Puggsy holds items. Combine that with the physics, and you can even use an item to grab on to a ledge and push yourself up with it - a vital part of the gameplay that took me longer to understand than I'd like to admit. On top of that, many items have a specific use - guns can shoot, for example. With so many unique items with their own properties and uses, Puggsy can present you with exciting physics puzzles that no other game could make at the time. Even the physics based puzzle platformers of today usually don't have as many factors to consider.

All this does lead to Puggsy being complex and relatively slow compared to the flashy, reflex-based games it shared a console with like Sonic. Maybe that's the reason why the game never really got the success or acknowledgement it deserved; it's surprisingly ahead of its time.

As remarkable and advanced as it is, though, Puggsy is not without its faults. I won't judge it too harshly for the occasionally glitchy physics, as it is one of the first games to even have such a thing, but there are others parts of its design that can be criticized. For instance, the game is at its weakest when it tries to be more like the aforementioned flashy reflex-based games. Some stages basically require you to run a long distance or fight a lot of enemies without any real puzzle solving. In those stages, the slow and complex gameplay goes from beneficial to detrimental quite quickly. To make matters a little more confusing, you can't just jump on enemies, you have to hold down when you land on them to truly defeat them. Fortunately, stages focusing on combat or reflexes aren't too common and the vast majority of them center around puzzle solving. A same problem arises with the bosses, however; the focus shifts from puzzle solving to reflexes and timing. Particularly egregrious was the dragon boss, which required you to actually jump into it when it opens its mouth to damage it, against all common sense. The only boss that really fit the rest of the game was in the Badger Mill, as his battle was a switch puzzle.

A few minor things to note before we close this section: To prevent confusion, there's always an arrow at the top of the screen to point you to the exit, ensuring that you'll spend your time on solving the puzzle and not wasting your time figuring out where the exit even is. You can also gain power ups. The shades give you an extra hit, while the shoes give you an extra hit and allow you to move faster and jump higher. The shoes are a must-have for the stages that depend more on running and fighting enemies, making them significantly less frustrating.

In short: Aside from the occasional weak stage and bosses, Puggsy truly was a revolutionary game with its physics and puzzles. It's a shame it wasn't acknowledged for its highly advanced tech and design at the time.

Conclusion

I streamed my way through all of Puggsy and it took me about 5 hours to beat it. I loved the visuals and music from the very start but it took a while for the gameplay to "click." Once it did, though, I had a great time solving the puzzles and exploring its world and all the ways objects could interact. If you're the kind of person who enjoys puzzles or simply loves to marvel at technological achievements in retro games, give Puggsy a look.

I expressed this thought on stream, but I wonder if there's any chance at all we'll see a revival. Puggsy's credits proudly proclaim that a sequel is on the way, but we all know that never happened.

It's really quite sad, considering what a technical marvel the game is, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this weird alien potato fellow to get a Kickstarter campaign or spiritual successor of some kind. If it happens, I'll let you know and share my thoughts on that.

Thanks for reading! The lovely community on Steem has really reignited my passion for writing about games and I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read my articles, even if you're just here to skim through. If you have any thoughts on Puggsy, please let me know in the comments.

Some Thoughts About 'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night'

Ritual of the Night represents another Kickstarter project by a group of dedicated developers to revive a series the company that originally made it abandoned. In this case, the man at the helm is Koji Igarashi, the designer of famous PlayStation classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a spiritual successor, a revival of Symphony's flavor of Metroidvania which is sometimes called Igavania after its designer.

I was recently able to experience this game, and streamed it from start to finish. I'd like to share some thoughts about it. I'll focus on what the game learned from its predecessors, and to contrast, on what's brand new.

Ancient Rituals, New Rituals (Gameplay Comparison)

Ritual of the Night draws from many of its Castlevania predecessors. Like any Metroidvania worth its salt, it offers a huge area to map out and explore as you gain more abilities and knowledge, but it's easy to name a few specific inspirations.

The game draws from Symphony of the Night - including its name -  but actually has very strong parallels with Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow. Like Soma, the protagonist of those games, Miriam absorbs the abilities of the demons she fights. In Soma's case, he collected their souls; in Miriam's case, she collects their "shards" - which is functionally the same thing. In fact, Miriam's abilities as a Shardbinder are a logical evolution of that system after Order of Ecclesia had its own iteration with Shanoa's Glyphs. Soma could equip an offensive, defensive and passive soul - 3 in total. Miriam can equip 5, and the additions can be attributed to modern hardware. The GBA and DS don't have many buttons to manouver with and no joystick, so the Directional Shards that Miriam can use could never work on those systems - they require 360 degree rotation, after all. These new shards offer Miriam some mobility and attack options no other Castlevania hero has had. and the sheer amount of shards in so many categories means you could play the game a dozen times and still find new synergies.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has a town with friendly NPCs. Like in Aria and Dawn, these NPCs buy and sell items. Like in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the townspeople also give you quests. There are also many parallels between Ritual's story and that of another Castlevania, but you'll have to play it to find out which. Another point about the town - Ritual of the Night has dedicated crafting system. Johannes, the Alchemist, can craft all sorts of items for you - and even food items, which give you permanent stat increases. The permanent stat increases represent something completely new for the 'Igavania' genre. I had an absolute blast trying to make as many dishes as possible. I've always really appreciated games that incorporate cooking, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Paper Mario (I will use any excuse to bring that game up) - after all, what's more relatable than improving yourself by eating good food?

Miriam also moves at a good speed and has many possible ways to attack enemies depending on your preference. Guns, swords, spears or a good kick to the face; whatever suits you, and every playstyle has secret combos to discover and experiment with. These combos can even be mastered so they can be used with even more weapons. Combine that with the aforementioned shards, all of which can be upgraded in two ways for even greater effects, and you've got hundreds of ways to play. The variation is truly impressive.

All in all, Ritual of the Night is the sum of many great ideas across the Castlevania franchise with improvements across the board and a few great new ideas. It plays it fairly safe, but it's everything a revival of the genre could hope to be.

Rebirth (Presentation)

Ritual of the Night got a lot of flak when the first gameplay footage came out. With weak lighting and a distinct lack of vibrant color and contrast, people began to worry that they might have another Mighty Number Nine (a famous example of a Kickstarter game that failed to meet expectations) on their hands. But instead of ignoring the fans or labeling them as haters, the dev team took the criticism to heart and delayed the game to overhaul the visuals completely. And the results really do speak for themselves - Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night turned out very pretty indeed. It's fascinating that Ritual of the Night represents a rebirth for its particular kind of Metroidvania, but that the game itself also had such an extreme overhaul.

The characters and enemies are all very distinctive, and the amount of detail is appreciated - for example, each weapon has a unique look and each equippable hat or headpiece shows up on Miriam in game as well. You can also customize various other facets of Miriam's appearance, like her hair, hair color, skin color and clothes, among others. There are a few decorative objects in the background that could use a few more polygons, though, and Miriam's swimming animation is very odd and basic (she basically stands upright and waves her arms a bit). But while there are minor rough edges, all in all the game looks beautiful.

The game has voice acting, and I feel the voice actors did a good job. Unfortunately, there are some problems with how the game uses the voice acting; for example, some attacks will cause Miriam to call out the name of the attack or some other vocalization, every single time the attack is used. In a hectic battle where you're trying to sneak attacks in every second, hearing Miriam's voice clips repeat can get pretty grating. This is purely a problem with the implementation of the audio. For example, why not give a voice clip a 10-second cooldown after it's been used so you don't get so many repeats? Many of the voice clips could've used a few more takes, as well, just for variation. Implementation aside, though, the performances are great. It should also be mentioned that the game stars David Hayter, famous for doing the voice of Solid Snake, as Zangetsu. It also stars Robert Belgrade, who did the voice for Alucard in Symphony of the Night on the PlayStation. It's a real treat to hear David Hayter's gravely voice from Zangetsu, and seeing Robert Belgrade symbolically return to the role he's most known for is poetic, not to mention his excellent performance and deep voice.

The soundtrack is brilliant and I have no gripes with it whatsoever. Michiru Yamane, the genius composer responsible for so many classic Castlevania soundtracks, handled this game's soundtrack and she outdid herself again. Every track represents the atmosphere of the moment or environment perfectly, and many of them instilled a sense of wonder in my as I listened to them. The Garden of Silence is one of my favorite tracks:

The game's presentation has a few rough edges in its visuals and audio implementation, but the plentiful creative designs, great looking models, great performances and excellent soundtrack make it a treat worth experiencing. 

Shards of a Story (Narrative)

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's overarching story is very similar to the Igavania Metroidvania's that came before at its core. A castle has been summoned from Hell, and it's up to our hero with her special powers to send it back where it came from. The backstory is a little different, though, as there's no Dracula in control of the castle this time. Rather, the castle was summoned by Gebel, a Shardbinder (people who can absorb and use demon powers, like Miriam), as revenge for how the Alchemists sacrificed the lives of so many Shardbinders to summon demons to our world. As Miriam and Gebel were friends, she makes her way to the castle to see what has happened to her old friend and what has driven him to take such drastic measures - and to stop him by force if necessary.

As usual, I don't want to spoil the story, so I'll keep this vague:

There are a few emotional moments in the story, and while they are well written, we spend so little time with the characters that the impact is lessened a bit. The game is definitely not focused on its story too heavily, with much of it hidden in optional conversations with the alchemist Johannes and on the bookshelves you can encounter. You spend much of your time exploring, and it can be easy to forget all about Gebel and the tragic story of the Shardbinders when you're just running through the halls kicking demons to death and having a great time. But even though the time you spend with them is limited, the characters are pretty well realized and the dialogue is enjoyable. Miriam in particular is a very likeable protagonist with a friendly and enthusiastic demeanor, in contrast to Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia who was (justified by the story) lacking in emotion and expression.

In short, the story is fine; it offers enough justification to move the game along and has interesting and entertaining characters, but it mostly stays in the background and can easily be ignored, for better or for worse. This does mean that when emotional scenes come along, they may be less impactful.

Conclusion

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is everything it sets out to be. Learning from the best ideas of its predecessor while implementing a few new ones, it's truly a revival of the 'Igavania.' It's big, it's fun and there are more ways to play than you can count. Its visuals thankfully got a necessary overhaul before release, and the results are a shining example of how taking feedback to heart can lead to major improvements. There are rough edges, but it's hard to be judgmental when you see how far the game has come. The game's audio is fine, with only some repetitive voice clips potentially harming your immersion. The soundtrack is a magnificent work of art. The story, like the game, is classic - but with new elements. It unfortunately stays in the background to the point that you may not get invested, but this will vary from player to player.

_

And that's it. I had the pleasure of streaming this game, and it was a really amazing experience for me. Streaming the game definitely helps me get my thoughts out as I play through the game. If you've played Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, did you enjoy it? What were your favorite Shards? How did you customize Miriam? All thoughts are welcome in the comments below and I'd be happy to answer any questions.