Strange Free Games: Every Day the Same Dream

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Taro Omiya

The theme for this year’s Global Game Jam was an image of an Ouroboros — a snake eating it’s own tail. It’s supposed to be representative of how things in life are commonly cyclic, and as such, many games revolved around this theme. Of course, one short flash game has already beaten them to it: Every Day the Same Dream.

Every Day the Same Dream is playable on Molleindustria’s website.

Every Day the Same Dream is a mostly black & white game themed around the 80’s lifestyle. You play as a faceless, every-day businessman who repeats the same chore every day: wake up, go to work, deal with the traffic, and sit in your cubicle, clicking through things. It’s quite an extraordinary existential game, where everything is made to look bleak and terrible.

But wait! There’s hope! The point of the game, as the Let’s Play video above demonstrates, is to break this cycle. The gameplay is so bleak, it demands that you push the boundaries, and break the rules of the game.
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Weekly Game Music: The Impact Site (Pikmin)

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Taro Omiya

There’s a relatively lesser known Nintendo game called Pikmin. Everything about it should have been a blockbuster: Mario series creator and video game legend Shigeru Miyamoto designed the game. Nintendo themselves show-cased the game as a demonstration of their new console, Gamecube’s abilities to handle numerous characters and their AI. Some people argued this was the first game to get Real-Time Strategy right on a console. And yet…it fell through everyone’s radar. A shame, since the music in the game — such as The Impact Site, composed by Hajime Wakai — is wonderfully organic to match the wild-life nature of this game.

Pikmin has a relatively simple plot. Captain Olimar, a space captain cruising through space on a vacation, collides into an asteroid, and gets marooned on to an unknown planet. Unfortunately for Olimar, this planet is treacherous. Every creature, including spiders, are large and vicious. Worse, the planet’s atmosphere is toxic to Olimar, and he must rely on the month-long air supply left on his ship. His only path of escaping this planet — retrieving every lost spaceship piece, and repairing his ship — seems like an impossible task. Yet, as Olimar hopelessly scavenges his immediate surrounding, he encounters a loyal plant-based humanoid creatures that he names, “Pikmin.” He finds breeding these species to create an army is rather easy, and uses them as forces to defeat enemies and gather his lost spaceship parts.

Pikmin plays a lot like a Real-Time Strategy game. As Captain Olimar, you direct an army of Pikmins to handle different tasks, such as building bridges, fighting enemies, and carrying spaceship pieces. Olimar uses his whistle to gather Pikmins within a certain radius, and throws them to handle the selected tasks. Pikmins is breed by carrying dead enemies into their home-base, Onions. As there’s only a month of air supply available, your time in gathering all the spaceship pieces are limited.

Pikmin was released on the Gamecube, and later, ported to the Wii. It’s dramatically improved sequel was only released on the Gamecube for the US.

Extra!

Title: The Forest Navel
Game: Pikmin
Composer: Hajime Wakai

Title: 2P Battle
Game: Pikmin 2
Composer: Hajime Wakai

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Strange Free Games: Global Game Jam Edition

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Taro Omiya

Alright, here’s a dump of all the games I ended up loving from the Global Game Jam 2012. Going in no particular order…

Susie’s Summer Home

Yay, my game! It’s a maze where you play as Suzie, attempting to escape her haunted summer house. Best played with no preconception of the game.

Largely inspired by Yume Nikki and Paper Mario. Seriously.

You Again?

Here’s a rather incomplete game that, despite seeming to have no ending, have an extremely promising gameplay. You Again? is a simple dodging game that changes music and graphics as you collect power-ups and collide into enemies. You Again? has an interesting transition: enemies makes you older, until you eventually die of old age. In the after-world, however, colliding into enemies reverses your age, therein allowing you to reincarnate again.

It’s hard not to like the excellent graphical and musical effects this game played. Where it lacks in gameplay, this game excels in presentation.

#Snake2

#Snake2 plays like a terrible Japanese advertisement, and it’s well worth your time to play it from start to finish.

Tenderizer

Typically in a game, you want to stay alive. In Tenderizer, it’s better to be dead. An excellent, moody platformer about a lone soul who wants nothing more than peace. Yet, in this grainy black-and-white world, death is the only way.

Eurydice

Here’s a call-out to my pals from IGDA DC: Eurydice is a game with absolutely no graphics, only sound.

Wait, what?

Yup, a game with no graphics. The entire game is narrated and played via audio, and you have to be careful in what choices you make. The narrator will provide the actions you can take, via a text-adventure fashion. It’ll confuse many new gamers, for sure, but the old text-based guys will feel right at home.

Immaturity

A strange game with a foreign gameplay. Immaturity is a puzzle game where your action is recorded as a ghost, and you use this to solve puzzles. It’s pretty short and uncomplicated, but as a prototype, it’s very promising.

BIG HELL

Here’s a strange HTML5 game that I personally wasn’t sure what’s going on myself. BIG HELL is a simple communication game where you talk to other characters, and learn about their story. Then…you become that person.

I’m not sure if there’s an actual ending to this game. Still, its presentation and narrative are truly commendable.

Ascent | Descent

Another call-out to my pals from IGDA Albany! What’s a game that’s programmed by you? Well, the Game of Life, of course! Ascent | Descent adds an extra twist where Game of Life are the blocks you have to use as stepping stones to your final destination.

GPS: Gracius Princess Savior

OK, I couldn’t resist this sorta-strange, sorta-not game, since it’s very fun. Here’s GPS: Gracious Princess Savior from South Korea. It’s an adorable 2D puzzle game, where death is a necessity. An all-around adorable game.

Day of our Lives

Day of our Lives is a strange visual novel, where your choices leads to a different conclusion at the end of the day. Game’s story is with little surprises: you wake up, go to high school, meet up with your girlfriend, and then the school explodes.

And then you wake up. Then go to high school. Then meet up with your girlfriend. The school explodes.

…then you wake up.

An extremely intriguing story, with a rather disappointing ending. As they say, though, it’s the journey that counts, and this game certainly has one!

Don’t be square aka “The revenge of the psychedelic boring boxes” aka “vice versa”

Most people don’t like abstract art…unless it’s moving. Well, it’s a lucky day for you guys, because D.B.S. is most definitely a moving art. Granted, the gameplay is a little pointless: collect all the shape, and move on to the next level. Worse, the game loops itself, really deprecating the art factor. Despite this, it’s a visually pleasing game, and I definitely recommend giving it a spin.

Past Life

Past-Life is another game where you have to die. Unlike the last few games, though, you trigger your own death, rather than succumb to it. It’s a very neat 2D puzzle game, where you can die only so many times.

Trapped! In the Chamber of Eternal Darkness

And my favorite game from Global Game Jam 2012 is…Trapped!

Seriously, awesome game all-around. A simple (if typical) gameplay with excellent music, artwork, and presentation. I’ve got no complaints on this game. Well done, team Miniboss of Brazil!

Note: yes, I admit, this really doesn’t classify as a strange game, but I recommend it all the same.
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Weekly Game Music: like stars (CLANNAD)

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Taro Omiya

A while ago, I’ve mentioned that one of my favorite parts about doing this series is that I discover games I’ve never played before. Here’s one of those games: CLANNAD, a visual novel that became an inspiration for many mangas and animes. One of its trance music, like stars by zts, is a sorrowful but hopeful tune that sets the tone for this tear-jerker game.

CLANNAD is a slice-of-life story that chronicles the life of Tomoya Okazaki from high school to parenthood. Tomoya leads a inward, negative life in high school. His delinquent life can easily be connected to his terrible relationship with his father. Recently, Tomoya’s alcoholic and angry father accidentally dislocates his son’s shoulder, forcing Tomoya to quite his sports team. Likewise, his father becomes apologetic and distant, only worsening Tomoya’s life. Despite these misfortunes, Tomoya befriends the sickly and low esteem Nagisa Furukawa. Together, they attempt to start a drama club.

CLANNAD is a visual novel where you converse with other characters. Like a choose-your-own-adventure, there are multiple choices that will lead to multiple different stories. Most interesting in this game are the dream sequences, where Tomoya dreams of being one of the only 2 living things in a barren, soulless world. Tomoya himself has no body in this world; instead, the other living thing, a girl, provides a body for him using a robot-like toy. The lights that appears here also mirrors those in the real-life sections. Once all of them are gathered, the true happy-ending is unlocked.

CLANNAD was released on the PC, PS2, PSP, PS3, and the Xbox 360, in Japan only.
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