Tag: pax

Geekscape Games Podcast: Bonus Stage – PAX 2018 Developer Interviews (Finally)

by Derek Kraneveldt

It’s finally here!

We know that it took way too long (and we’re not proud of it), but we ran into some (many) audio issues and day jobs and stuff. This was really our first time managing live audio, so apologies in advance for the worse than usual audio quality – we already have plans in place to make things sound way better next time around!

In any case, this episode is nearly TWO HOURS of PAX developer interviews. Learn all about a ton of neat looking games that you’ve never heard of (but should be on the lookout for).

A big thanks for Shane O’Hare for making the audio somewhat audible!

https://soundcloud.com/geekscape-games/bonus-stage-pax-2018-developer-interviews

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PAX West 2018: Valve’s Upcoming ‘Artifact’ Made Me Feel Like A Kid Again

by Derek Kraneveldt

I entered PAX West 2018 incredibly excited to demo an upcoming Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield-designed card game.

Keyforge: Call of the Archons is an upcoming physical card game from Fantasy Flight Games that does away with booster packs and deckbuilding, instead relying on the principle that every single pre-built deck for the game is unique (they actually note more than 104,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible decks). This mechanic still feels impossible to me, but as the last time I played Magic: The Gathering a few years back it largely felt like a game of “I spent more money than you, so I win,” I’m incredibly excited to experience the no secondary market necessary, unwrap and figure things out world of Keyforge.

The other Richard Garfield designed game at PAX (how can this guy have two totally different unreleased card games on display at the same show?), Valve’s Artifact was not even on my radar.

After spending nearly 90 minutes with the game this past Monday, you can bet that it’s on my radar now.

Artifact had possibly the largest booth of the entire convention. Huge, high resolution displays floated above the crowd (and the never-ending line for the booth), showcasing some of the exciting action happening across the dozens and dozens (and dozens) of desktops set up in the Artifact area. As I walked the show floor looking for new games to play, the flashing giganticism of Valve’s booth continued to catch my eye – sometimes I’d find myself stopping for minutes at a time, staring at cards and at plays and at mechanics that I simply did not understand.

By day two of PAX I’d decided that I needed to experience Artifact for myself. This proved tougher than anticipated, as based on the threads in the r/PAX subreddit, people had been lining up for the game as early as 6AM, and would spend hours and hours in line without making much progress at all. The line was apparently being capped for the entire day early in the afternoon. These lines were understandable based on the massive following for Valve’s own DOTA, which the cards and characters of Artifact are based on, and because PAX West was set to be the very first place where Artifact would be playable to the public. I wouldn’t find out until much later, but I imagine part of that line was also because of the insane swag that Valve was giving away to those that waited in line for play the title.

Eventually, after watching and watching and not quite understanding, I approached an Artifact staff member and asked for them to explain some of the basic mechanics. I’ve played a lot of trading or collectible card games in my years – I was in elementary school and obsessed with the Pokémon Trading card games for several years after it came out (though I had a NeoGeo Pocket Color instead of Game Boy, so I wouldn’t play a Pokémon video game until much later); I also retired in my (albeit small) town undefeated in Yu-Gi-Oh, my final exhibition coming down to an eleventh hour win that had my opponent throwing his discard pile across the room in frustration; I played Magic: The Gathering casually for years; and have also dabbled in the likes of Hearthstone and The Elder Scrolls: Legends among others. The super-friendly  Artifact employee explained just some of the ways that Artifact is different, in some ways simpler than typical card games, and in some ways much, much more complicated.

Artifact is in many ways simpler in that you’re not typically managing as many things as a typical card game. There’s no land or energy cards here – your mana simply refreshes in full and grows by one each round. You can have as many cards in your hand as you want, and never need to worry about discarding down to a certain hand size. There’s also no limit to how many cards you can have in play at one time (the board often gets pretty full) or how many cards you can play in a single turn – play will pass between you and your opponent until you both pass without playing a card, and you can continue to play cards as long as you have the mana to do so. This stuff is pretty easy to follow, and not needing to manage or worry about things like a hand getting too large means that you can take your time and slowly build up to some pretty insane combos – during my time with the game I found that I would often hold cards for some time as Artifact lets you play cards when the timing is right, rather than forcing you to play things just because.

Artifact is also very different in that at all times it’s kind of like you’re in three games at once. Each game of Artifact is played across three ‘lanes’, each of which basically being its own match (though certain cards and effects can trigger actions or damage in other lanes or across the entire board, for instance). Your goal in each lane is to destroy your opponent’s ‘Tower’, which can take 40 points of damage. Destroy two towers across any lane (or the same tower twice, though after a tower is destroyed it regenerates with twice as much health) and you win the game.

Each Artifact deck has 40 cards, and will contain five heroes of four different card colors (red, green, black, or blue) – most of the cards that you’ll play are associated with a color too, but you can only play a card in a lane if you have a hero of a corresponding color in that lane as well. This means that destroying your opponent’s heroes becomes a major factor of the game as well, as destroying the last hero in a lane will (at least temporarily) significantly limit what your opponent can do there. Heroes also have equipment slots, allowing you to equip a weapon, some armor, and an accessory, all of which can add effects to the hero, or increase its health or attack power. Heroes die, of course, but after a time will respawn randomly in another lane, complete with any equipment that they had when they were previously destroyed.

As I mentioned above, you and your opponent will take turns playing cards in a lane until you both choose not to (or can’t because mana). Your heroes and creatures will then attack each other (typically straight ahead, but there’s also a 25% chance that an opponent’s card will ‘pull aggro’ and draw attacks towards it as well, which can really screw things up. If a card isn’t blocked by an opposing creature, that card’s attack power will be deducted from the opposing tower’s hit points. Some cards also have abilities that can pass remaining damage to a tower after being blocked by a creature (think Trample in Magic: The Gathering), or a myriad of other effects that can cause damage, help you ramp your mana faster, and the like.

Destroying enemy creatures earns you gold which you’ll spend between rounds on equipment like weapons, consumables like potions, or even a ‘secret shop’ which often has very expensive, but very powerful, random equipment up for grabs. The ‘Shopping Phase’ is actually a huge factor in the game that I didn’t see as overly important at first, but became a game-changer once I’d actually begun to embrace it.

I think that describing Artifact makes the game sound markedly more complicated and harder to understand than it actually is – it truly feels like one of those “minutes to learn, forever to master” type of titles, and this was made clear when I finally sat down to play the game (the Artifact employee that I’d initially spoken to noticed my badge, and passed me to another employee who set me up with a specific time to demo the game, and I’m so freaking thankful for this). The setup here was pretty cool – the decks you’d play with were pre-built, and you’d have an employee with you to guide you through your first match against an AI opponent. Once you beat the AI, the game went into a matchmaking mode that would pair you with another player at PAX. If you lost, you were done, but if you won, you’d move on to the next round. Once you beat five opponents you’d go to another on-stage area where you’d compete more competitively to win some cool prizes.

My employee, who reminded me of a younger Clark Duke spent my first match over my shoulder telling me which moves to make and sharing some of the game’s basic controls. Certain things were explained more thoroughly than others, and while we made fairly short order of the AI opponent, going into my human vs. human match I felt as though I had absolutely 0 clue what I was doing. My employee left me (though he’d check on my periodically for the remainder of my Artifact playtime) and I legitimately wondered just how quickly I’d fail my first real match.

My opponent absolutely murdered me… for awhile. At this point, mechanics didn’t feel super clear to me, I didn’t take advantage of the shop phase, and I simply made many poor decisions in terms of card usage and placement. Each time my tower was hit or my creature was lost, however, I learned something. Eventually things began to click, I began to defend more efficiently, and then I began a goosebump-inducing comeback that elicited feelings that I haven’t felt towards a card game since my very first Friday Night Magic. I won my first match by one turn, and following the appalling way that I began the game, I wish that I could have seen my opponents face the moment that the ‘Loss’ screen popped up on their display.

I moved on to another match, surprisingly with a new deck built of colors that I’d not played yet. Rather than the mana-ramping that I’d experienced with my predominantly green deck previously, this deck felt predominantly red, and was filled with cards that would buff up my heroes (sometimes just temporarily), and cards that would do instant damage to my opponents creatures. This second match was neck and neck for its entirety, with my opponent taking out my second tower just a single turn before I’d be able to do the same to them. I lost, but I had a smile on my face the entire freaking time that I was doing it.

I stood up just as the employee that’d set me up came back over (I’d seen him just a few minutes before when the match was moving in my favour, and he’d seemed pretty excited that I was doing so well). He asked me what I thought of my time with the game and gave me a handshake before pointing me towards the swag / exit area. To this point I’d seen plenty of people walking around PAX with cool looking Artifact-branded reusable bags, but holy crap were there some amazing goodies inside. Anyone who’d waited in line for the game, after first getting a chance to play the game at its first public appearance, would receive two autographed, high quality art prints of the game’s characters (I’m still not even sure who these characters are but I can’t wait to frame them), and a branded bag that included a wonderfully soft t-shirt, an exclusive set of pins, a lanyard, and two copies of the game itself (the game won’t fully launch until November, but the provided codes also include beta access). This seems like an incredibly valuable package to give away to fans, and for those that waited hours upon hours in line, it must feel like a neat “thank you,” from the Artifact team.

I still have a number of questions about the game – like just how the game’s store, trading, and deck sharing systems will work – the $20 base game includes 10 booster packs and two pre-made decks with additional booster packs being a fair $2 a pop; players will also have the ability to sell or trade unneeded or unwanted cards; and Valve has also mentioned that they’re exploring the ability to ‘share’ decks with friends, just like players often do when casually playing physical card games. The game’s mechanics feel super solid, but I think that it’s systems like these that will make or break a digital card game without any free-to-play component for many players. Valve has also noted that they’re developing systems to see the game from becoming pay-to-win, and from Gabe Newell’s Artifact press conference from a few months back (see the full shaky video below) there are already big plans for Artifact from an eSports perspective.

Artifact simply made me feel like a kid again. It’s been a long, long time since a card game (physically or digitally) has had my heart racing, but drawing and playing just the right card at just the right time in Artifact did just that multiple times. I played a lot of phenomenal games at PAX this year, but in my many, many gaming conversations since the expo ended, Artifact is the game that keeps coming up again and again. Artifact was my #1 game of PAX West.

I freaking loved my time with Artifact, and I simply cannot wait to jump back into this world. Artifact launches on Windows, MacOS, and Linux on November 28th (with iOS and Android versions coming next year) for $20.

PAX West 2018: ‘Bee Simulator’, ‘Party Golf’, and ‘Leisure Suit Larry’ Made For An Eclectic Mix Of Experiences!

by Mikaela Maxwell

Sunday felt like my busiest day at this year’s PAX West. I had completed a couple of interviews (look for them on the Geekscape Games audio feed in the coming days) and game demos on Saturday (I get in depth with Damnview: Built From Nothing here), attended the Bethesda Gameplay Days event (which Derek wrote about here), attended a panel about casual cosplay make up, and we recorded a nearly two-hour long podcast, it was a non-stop day! But Sunday was booked to be busy on a whole different level, I found myself staring at my calendar and realizing I would struggle to even find time to pee! Never the less, I was stoked because I was set to start my day off with a bang… or should I say a BUZZZZZ!

Bee Simulator

I’m not really sure why, but in the days leading up to PAX West, Bee Simulator had become my most anticipated game – maybe it has something to do with knowing that Bees are so very important and yet it is proving difficult for us to modify our behaviour in a way that stops them from dying. Because I was so excited,  waking up bright and early on Sunday morning after a late night of podcasting was no problem at all. I found Bee Simulator on the 6th floor in the Indie Games Poland booth which was hosting a number of independent game developers. There were already a couple people there demoing the game and getting pretty into it, so I was excited pretty stoked when it was my turn.

I had a chance to chat with Lukasz Rosinski, founder of Varsav Game Studios, and the man who came up with the idea for Bee Simulator. It turns out that a couple of years ago Lukasz was reading a book about bees to his young daughter, and realized the lives of bees would make an awesome video game. The goal of creating Bee Simulator was to make a chill-out game that children and parents could play easily together, while facilitating understanding about bees lives and how they are endangered by humans. They came up with a way to turn the lives of bees into an arcade style game that has many elements of simulation and education. There are so many educational elements, but it simply doesn’t feel like an educational game. I quickly noticed that all of the little points in a regular game, usually during a loading screen, where you’re learning tips about gameplay, in this game you’re instead learning tips about bee life that are also helpful for playing the game.

Although the game is designed to play with children, it’s also designed to be challenging for adults. They have managed this by creating two different sets of mechanics for game play, one that’s a little more straight forward and puts more emphasis on speed and fun than on accuracy, and another that’s more challenging by requiring more accuracy, and requires more specific gathering strategies etc… Basically, the mechanics are simpler for kids (or Mikaela’s), but will be more complex for adults. For example, on the more challenging setting you need to collect the pollen in the right colour order in order to make the music play correctly and obtain the achievement, or go through smaller rings and come closer to natural enemies of bees such as frogs, wasps, and humans.

There are three different gameplay modes: a single player campaign, a cooperative mode that has you working together or having little competitions such as racing/dancing/collecting pollen, and a free flight mode that allows you to go back after finishing the game in order to find and unlock all of the achievements. Turns out bees use dancing as a way of leading other bees to the hottest pollen pick up spots! Who even knew there was so much to know about bees!? Well if you are like me and had no idea, and also like learning without realizing you’re learning, this game is for you, the amount of bee facts I picked up from this half hour demo are more than all of the other bee facts I have ever known. Bees are fascinating!

The world of bees in this game is designed after a huge expanse of Central Park for New York, which is about 1/3 of Central Park, but from the bee perspective you are playing in this is enormous. You also get a detailed inside hive perspective from the 5 roomed hive within a tree (that’s at risk of being cut down by senseless humans!). You start out in the hive, and one of the first things I noticed was the richness of the colours and textures and the beauty of the light pouring into the tree. The beauty of the game setting continues as you leave the hive and enter the big bad world of Central Park with dazzling colours and HUGE plants/animals/people!

The mechanics of this game seem pretty straightforward. I would likely be more comfortable starting with the ‘kids’ mode as it would allow me to fully play without being totally frustrated by trying to make things work, whereas more pro gamers would likely enjoy the challenges of the ‘adult’ mode. By visiting the queen be you receive quests, and can also receive side quests from other characters. The tasks you need to do are interesting and complex. For example: Bees are required to go out and pick up pollen, then need to bring it back to the hive, which makes you heavier and slower. However, like in real life if a bee needs more energy to pick up more speed to get back to the hive they may eat some of the pollen they have collected. It also tracks the amount of pollen you pick up throughout the game and you are required to pick up the amount an average bee will pick up during their life in order to finish the game.

This game isn’t designed to be stressful, dangerous, or fast paced. It is designed to create a chill environment that allows the player to relax and wind down while engaging in something interesting, either with their family or friends, or by themselves. The music throughout this game is perfect for creating that zen atmosphere. The composer for the sound track was none other than Mikołaj Stroiński, who was created the soundtrack for games such as The Witcher and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. You’ll also notice the graphics in this game are absolutely beautiful, AND it turns out the graphics team is comprised totally of women! I thought this was pretty neat as the video game industry has traditionally been a pretty male dominated field.

I learned soooo much about bees just during this demo, but you learn all this and more while you are playing, because these become things you need to know to be successful in the game. It is such a neat concept, as literally every game you pick up you have to learn something in order to play it well, why not make it something that actually applies to an important part of the world around you… BEES! There are so many more interesting details about this game, so make sure to take a listen to the interview I had with Lukasz on the Geekscape Games audio feed in the coming days! Bee Simulator flies onto Xbox One, Steam, PS4, and Switch later this year!

Party Golf / Wandering

Once I finished bee simulating I had a little bit of time to kill before my next appointment, so I decided to check out the 6th floor a little bit. I made it all of about 3 booths in before I became totally distracted by bright light and neon colours. I stopped at the Giant Margarita booth, promoting their games Party Golf and the newer Party Crashers to check out what was going on. By this I mean I slowly crept forward, repeatedly saying I didn’t have time to get into it, until finally I was playing Party Golf until they had to cut me off cause it was someone else turn. After which I immediately went and found Derek and brought him over to show him the next party game we have to buy.

I don’t have a huge amount of proper info to give about this game as I didn’t have time to stick around and talk to the developer about it or anything, but what I can tell you is that it is suuuuper fun and engaging… and it really had nothing to do with golf. Basically you control a golfball and your goal is to get it into the hole, the person who does it first is the winner. The game is available on Steam, PS4, and Switch, and is headed to Xbox One soon. It’s predominantly played couch-coop style in groups of up to 8 people.

You have the option to play randomly generated levels, not knowing what each landscape is going to look like, which was fine by me cause it was just super fun and simple and quick to play. You also have the option to customize each round that you play with over 300 customizable features. For example, the game I was playing at first was normal, then there were mines in the sky that exploded you in different directions on impact, then the bounce of our balls was drastically decreased which added a whole new level of challenge. We also played a mode where the goal was to bounce each other off of the screen, so naturally I was immediately out on most of those levels, but that was ok cause once you were out you could still mess with other people! Great fun!

When Derek and I came back we got the chance to demo Party Crashers in a topdown handheld switch style. This was basically a racing game, but similar to Party Golf, there are a bajillion different ways in which it can be modified to change the challenges. I have never so immediately been so good at a game, I was lapping everyone like it was nobodies business! Then the demo guy started trying to give Derek some instruction on how to get himself out of the corner… this was when I realized that I was not infact the brown car whizzing around the track, but instead the white car that was going in the wrong direction from the start line and stuck in a corner so badly that I was just handed a new controller to play as a different car… facepalm.

However, user errors aside, both games were super fun. With simple and aesthetically pleasing graphics, using lots of neon bright colours, and fun music to go along with it. I can see how they would be a hit at any party, and I can’t wait to play them at home with friends and lots of yelling!

After the Giant Margarita booth Derek and I had to rush over to an appointment at the Question booth to demo their new co-op horror game The Blackout Club. I won’t go into too much detail here as Derek wrote about the game right here; however, the game looks super neat. The premise is that adults are sleep walking at night in this small town that is cut off from the outside world and the teens in the town are trying to figure out what in the hell is going on, while trying in the daytime to get their parents, teachers, neighbours, really any adult to just believe that this is even happening. All the while they are at risk of being caught by The Shape, which could happen at anytime, as you won’t know it’s there until you close your eyes! Immediately, like literally less than a minute into the freaking tutorial for this game I was super freaked out! I can’t wait to play this one either. Be sure to check out the Geekscape Games feed to find our audio interview with Question co-founder Stephen Alexander in the coming days.

I ended up abandoning Derek at The Blackout Club so he could wait to get in on a group playing session, while I headed over to my appointment with Corey Clark of Balanced Media Technology. Balanced Media Technology is an amazing company that is harnessing the computing power of the gaming community to do data analysis for the medical field. Actually it is way more complicated than that and I am still working to wrap my head around it, but here is a little explanation from their website:

BALANCED Media | Technology is purpose driven to globally improve health, empower industry innovation, and assist problem solving through cross-disciplinary collaboration using gaming and computer science. BALANCED connects communities of developers, researchers, foundations, and industry in cross disciplinary collaboration allowing them to create tools and techniques never before available.

It was one of the most interesting and impactful things I came across this weekend at PAX West, and totally opened my eyes to the intersection between gaming/computing and the medical field. I will be uploading the audio interview I had with Corey, as well as writing an article about what I learned, so keep an eye out on the site in the near future for these!

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry

After having this amazing heartfelt, in-depth dicussion about power of technology in the medical field, I made my way over to the Theodore Hotel to meet with the team for Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry… I think the title speaks for itself pretty well, and I’m sure you can imagine it was a bit of a mindfuck to go from one subject to the next. That being said, if I hadn’t just been crying about the story of a kid curing his brain cancer with the empowering help of video games, I probably would have gotten into the Leisure Suit Larry mindset a little easier! But I managed to get caught up in the hilarity of this ridiculous game by the end of the demo.

The first of the Leisure Suit Larry games came onto the scene in 1987, with many more to follow, and the latest iteration, Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, is coming from developer CrazyBunch out of Germany. This game has the 1987 Larry Laffer waking up in 2018, with no idea how or why he is there, and really we never get into that, that’s not the point. Instead we get to see the cringe worthy Larry try to work his magic (or lack there of) on the ladies of the 21st century. Its is truly laughable. I don’t know what dating was like in the 80’s, but it certainly did not involve Tinder or Instagram and all of the foibles that come with every 21st century person having a phone glued to their face! Larry quickly becomes aquatinted with ‘Timber’, ‘Instacrap’, and ‘FarceBook’ as he tries to get to the woman of his dreams!

Honestly, I can see how this game would not appeal to many people as it is crass and cheesy and full of so many sexual innuendos… But I can also see how the ridiculous humour would totally appeal to those who aren’t a stick in the mud, or who have a fond little soft spot in their heart from the previous Larry games. I fall right into the middle there, I am totally into the raunchiness of this game, and until this point was 100% unaware that any version of Larry had ever existed (Sorry Jonathan)! I love that this game doesn’t take itself seriously, and goes out of its way to make fun of its hero at every possible turn. It does a great job of turning so many aspects of society that we so blindly accept into a freaking joke, allowing you to reflect on our own reality as totally ridiculous!

The art is fun and bubbly, the characters are hand drawn, and if you pay attention there are so many references hidden throughout the game. One of my favourite examples of this is when Larry goes to take a prototype phone he has found back to the companies headquarters and walks up to a large building that is clearly a giant phalus that sports a fountain right on top, providing us with a visual that any 14 year old boy would appreciate (along with most of my family I’m sure). This building has a rainbow fruit symbol on it, that is clearly supposed to mimic an Apple logo, but also very clearly supposed to mimic a vulva, especially when the elevator doors in the same shape open to let Larry enter. At one point Larry goes into a sex shop that has so many (barely) hidden images even the people who have worked on this game are still discovering little things here and there that they had neglected to notice until now.

The gameplay seems pretty straight forward – it’s a point and click game and seems as though it will indicate all the possible things you can explore as you work your way through this non linear story line. The main goal of the game is for Larry to increase his Timber score through dating various women, until it reaches 90% so he can date the super fine character Faith. There are puzzles throughout and lots to explore. This game has been designed by a group of millenials who aren’t afraid to poke fun at themselves, and honestly I can’t wait to give it a real shot! There are so many hidden gems buried within this game, I really can’t wait to see whats in store! Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry releases November 7th.

PAX West 2018: I Can’t Wait To Abandon My Friends In ‘The Blackout Club’

by Derek Kraneveldt

PAX West was filled with so many incredible, unforgettable games, coming from giant AAA developers with singular booths that were visible from across the show floor, to a dude and his wife showing off their wacky, unique cooperative game from a single corner table.

I played so many titles, and wrote down so many more that I simply cannot wait to check out (I’m allergic to cats, but Meow Wars looked hilarious, for one), but one of the most memorable, unique experiences that I had this year was playing (and observing) the co-operative magic that was The Blackout Club, from Question Games.

Question Games is a tiny developer with some not-so-tiny talent. The company was founded a few years back by Bioshock series veterans Stephen Alexander and Jordan Thomas and has since grown to six developers. The company released their first game, The Magic Circle, a hilarious-sounding dark comedy about game development, back in 2015, and earlier this year announced the multiplayer, tense, atmospheric The Blackout Club.

Mikaela and I had an opportunity to chat with company cofounder Stephen Alexander, which will be released in audio form on the Geekscape Games feed in the coming days (I also gushed about the game during our Day 3 coverage of PAX here), but I simply couldn’t wait to share how excited I am for this game.

Here’s the synopsis to get you started:

 You are a teenager from a small, modern town. Each morning, you awaken covered in mud or scratches, with no memory of the night before. You’ve heard of sleepwalking – but this is different. Sometimes you lose entire days.

There are others like you. Your new group of friends bonded over this shared secret, forming a club to investigate the cause of these BLACKOUTS. Together, you discovered a network of bizarre underground tunnels, hidden just beneath the surface of your quiet community. An uncanny, disorienting music beckoned from below.

You hesitated. But last night, your best friend vanished – and now, a mysterious group of adults wants to eliminate you. You must strike back, capture their activities on camera and expose them to the world.

The game feels realistic in that the kids (you and your group play as 14-17 year olds) are observant, know that something seriously wrong is happening in town, and the adults just don’t believe them. For some reason the town is an internet dead zone, so the kids make a plan to capture undeniable evidence, commandeer a vehicle, and bring it somewhere they can share it with the world.

Prior to jumping into the game’s multiplayer, I had an opportunity to play through a short single player introduction / tutorial that introduced you to the world, and the unseen, horrific creature that lives within it. The game launches in 2019 and is currently testing in beta, but artistically the game already looks and feels extremely stylized and impressive. The introduction had my character at home awaiting their parents return, and as I explored the house, the game’s impressive lighting system, and the detail put into often throwaway objects like furniture or even the texture of the spackling on the wall became immediately obvious.

In the introduction, the sun begins to set and then things begin to get weird. Objects flash and words show up where they weren’t before, and shortly thereafter it’s time to find a place to hide from ‘The Shape’, a physical creature that you can only see when your eyes are closed. Yep, the controller has a dedicated, easy to reach button that exists only to close your character’s eyes, because The Shape is a huge (and hugely unsettling) part of The Blackout Club. More on that later.

Once introduced to the world and some basic mechanics, I spent some time observing multiplayer matches before joining one of my own. In the world of The Blackout Club, the adults not only don’t believe you that something is wrong with the town, they also literally become your enemy after the sun sets. Once they go to sleep, the adults become ‘Sleepers’, enemies that can’t see (except in certain cases), but can hear very well (be conscious of where you’re walking, as different ground materials make different amounts of sounds), and basically exist to try to take you down, and once weak enough, drag you to where The Shape can get you.

This mechanic is super interesting to me, and almost gives certain elements of the game an I Am Legend feel. Some of these enemies are literally your parents, or your neighbours – people that you wave to as you walk by, people whose BBQ’s you’d attend in the Summertime. You don’t want to hurt them, and you absolutely can’t kill them. Stealth and avoidance are your best weapons, but you’ll also don items meant to distract, like firecrackers, which when thrown will attract Sleepers to wherever they land, or tranquilizer darts (which I’m not sure how these kids are finding) which will put a sleeper to… sleep, meaning one less enemy to worry about. A friend can also pin a Sleeper down in order to allow others to escape, but that same Sleeper will get up just a few seconds after being let go. Before rolling out on a mission, each player can also choose a ‘hero’ item, like a grappling hook to make climbing easier, a crossbow to shoot tranquilizer darts from afar, or a taser to easily incapacitate a Sleeper who may grab them.

In the PAX demo, players saw one section of the neighbourhood (where the missions happen), which is a set locale that has procedurally generated elements like enemy or consumables, or even open gates, garages, or windows. The demo gave two objectives, which were also procedurally generated, but from what I saw/played consisted of either collecting evidence or cleaning up after a previous botched mission, and then heading into the spooky underground mazes (think the sewers in Derry from IT) to find a missing member of the club.

In the matches that I saw, things seemed to go decently well. Most of the people in the room didn’t know each other, and started off a little uncomfortable, but it became pretty clear pretty early that things would be rough unless they communicated. People snuck around, revealing positions of Sleepers or which house the group needed to enter, or keeping watch while someone closed their eyes to locate The Shape, which is attracted to mischief or sin, or the player who was causing the most ruckus. If the shape gets you, you become an AI controlled Sleeper yourself. Other players can go up to you to snap you out of it, but if you’re put under three times, it’s game over for you, and the mission is failed if all players are put under at the same time. You also probably don’t want to stray too far from your group for a couple of reasons – if something finds you, you’re pretty much screwed if you’re alone, and if the group stays together you get a ‘circle of friendship’ buff which makes your stamina regenerate faster. Stamina, which is used for things like sprinting and climbing, is pretty important, so the more of it you can retain, the easier a time you’ll have. Both groups I watched mostly stayed together, and one group even made it through the missions with all of its members still awake.

The game gets very tense very quickly, and one thing that was hilarious and terrifying is just how much teamwork goes out the window when the players are surprised by The Shape, or overrun with Sleepers. In both missions that I watched, The Shape didn’t seem to pop up until about halfway through – during one session, nobody knew until one player screamed out “HOLY SHIT THE SHAPE IS FUCKING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME EVERYBODY RUN.” As instructed, everyone ran, loudly and in different directions, and in a Live together, Die alone moment, once everyone was split up The Shape made fairly easy work picking players off. It seemed to disappear for a time before popping up at another opportune moment, and because teamwork had been all but abandoned by that point, it wasn’t too long before each player had been put to sleep.

Both missions that I observed were about 20-30 minutes long, and when I finally sat down to try the multiplayer mode (as opposed to the single player introduction that I’d played earlier) things went much, much worse. My team did not accept my attempts to communicate, was totally silent the entire match, and things ended about seven minutes after we’d started as The Shape already had us all (and probably caused each of us to nearly jump out of our seats more than once). It was an embarrassing attempt, and I’m pretty sure I saw the employee explaining the demo chuckling at our deserved misfortune.

Of course, through multiplayer you’ll be able to customize your kid (there were a bunch of clothing and colour options, even in this early demo), and missions will give you experience that you’ll be able to use to make your kid better at stuff like cardio and technology (a certain perk tree gives you access to things like drones, meaning you can scope out an area from afar), among other things. Perks are in the form of a card system, and you can swap out your load before attempting each mission.

I was so, so into The Blackout Club. The game looks beautiful, and the world feels as though there are so many interesting stories that could be told here. It feels like a crazy mix of Left 4 Dead and Stranger Things and IT and I Am Legend (novella) all in one, and I simply can’t wait to learn more about The Shape and the mythos of the world, while probably failing miserably and having fun (and being terrified) doing it.

The Blackout Club is one to watch, and it releases in 2019 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Geekscape Games Podcast: Level 169 – PAX West Day 3

by Derek Kraneveldt

Courtney, Mikaela, Derek, and Jake break down what they saw and played during the third day of PAX West!

THIS EPISODE:

Mikaela pretends to be a bee (and makes everyone cry). Derek goes crazy over horror titles Observer, The Padre, and The Blackout Club, Jake talks about Pizza Titan and compares it to Crazy Taxi, while Courtney digs deep into Felix The Reaper and the Xbox Adaptive controller.

The group chats about these games, topics, and more:

Bee Simulator
Party Golf
Party Crashers
Observer Switch
The Padre
Felix The Reaper
Able Gamers
Xbox Adaptive Controller
Pizza Titan
The Blackout Club
Balanced Media Technologies
Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry
Broadcaster Royale

ONLY! On the Geekscape Games Podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/geekscape-games/169-pax-west-2018-day-3

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Geekscape Games Theme Song: Winter Frosts – MmcM 

Outro – The Offspring – All I Want

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PAX West 2018: Mikaela Is Already Addicted To ‘Damnview: Built From Nothing’

by Mikaela Maxwell

My second day of PAX began by heading to the Grand Hyatt to meet Juan De La Torre, Edu Verz, and Fernando Ortega of Brainwash Gang and Sindiecate Arts, the creators of Damnview: Built From Nothing, to demo and talk about the intriguing-sounding title. I found them hunkered down in the lobby on some couches, setting up to play on a computer with an Xbox controller. It was so totally casual, and not crowded or loud, which was a great departure from the rest of the PAX set up. I arrived a few minutes early, so I tucked myself away in a corner to quickly watch a gameplay trailer, as I hadn’t had much to go on to prepare for the interview (which you’ll be able to hear on Geekscape Games this coming week). Immediately, I was struck by two things: “oh god what have I signed myself up for, this doesn’t look like a game I would ever be drawn to,” and “wow this looks really interesting and I’m so glad I have signed up to find out more about it.”

Going into this meeting, I didn’t really know what to expect, I had just enough information to be hooked in, without enough to anticipate anything. The description I got of this game was: “I can’t share the name just yet as it’s unannounced, but the game is a simulation sandbox world examining occidental culture and its different social classes – conceptually it’s easy to relate it to Stardew Valley, where a set of systems put together the overall gameplay experience, except it reflects our western capitalistic society and its effect on our human spirit.”

I basically read this and thought: I LOVE Stardew Valley, plus capitalism IS awful… so YES! I am so in. In fact I’m pretty sure that was my exact emailed response. 

Upon meeting up with the guys we immediately watched the trailer again, this time with sound on, and what a difference that makes! The music accompanying the trailer is hauntingly beautiful and spells out a wonderful story. I am still wondering if the story at the beginning of the trailer is a symbol of the possibilities and random chance of life/the game, or if it is actually a storyline that is present within the game. As they explained the game things got a little bit clearer and I got more and more invested… Oh my goodness I can not wait to play this game in full! 

The style of characters in Damnview is pretty great. The landscape is drab and gritty, giving you the impression of a defunct society. It is done in an 8-bit style, but smoothed out a little to be more accessible to a wider audience. The characters are anthropomorphized animals, all different kinds, and from what I saw this seems like a great choice! Something about playing a game that can sometimes feel depressingly similar to real life is made much more enjoyable when you are a moose. Its funny that I, and obviously many other people, love to play games where you are basically living this characters life and going through the day to day tasks required to hold down a job, eat food, have a place to sleep. This game has all of those things and more, there are a wide variety of ways in which you can play the game, and goals you can choose to work towards. What you are doing really depends on what it is you are trying to accomplish and you get to choose what that is. It all just depends what kind of lifestyle you want your character to lead, what you want to put effort into,  and what kinds of challenges you wants them to face. 

Damnview: Built From Nothing takes life simulation to the next level. Every single thing you do has a legit consequence that impacts your game play. Accidentally crash your car, cool you have to pay for repairs now.  Late for work because you crashed your car, cool you’re fired now. Lost your job, cool you can’t afford to pay rent, guess you better find a good street spot to sleep now. Can’t catch a break and wanna get off the street, maybe you sell a little bit of weed, make a little bit of money. That feels pretty good, don’t need to sleep on the street any more, maybe you sell more drugs and with that strategy manage to move up in the world. Just hope you don’t get caught cause then you’re going to jail. End up in jail, welp now you gotta figure out how to work that system. Are you gonna smuggle stuff in and get ahead in prison, or are you gonna play by the rules in hopes of getting out earlier? 

On the other hand, you stay and work all the hours at work, cool you get a promotion, maybe you buy the laundromat, now you can move up in the world and maybe someday you can buy yourself a nice house and a nice car…. Literally the options are endless! Amazing. 

I got to watch Edu, one of the creators, play the game throughout our interview, which was great! He made driving look really easy, he got through his daily tasks quickly and went about his day fairly nonchalantly. If you want to hear the interview that we did during this you will have to keep an eye out for our up coming Geekscape Games podcast in which we will be compiling all of our audio interviews with the developers we spoke to over PAX weekend.

After finishing our interview I asked for a chance to play. I prefaced this by letting them know that I’m not so good at the video games, but actually as soon as I started playing it felt pretty easy and natural to navigate. The character I was playing worked in a laundromat, so I got into picking the clothes, putting them in the washer, making sure to separate colours/blacks/whites (which made my heart so happy as this is a constant battle in my household), choosing the right heat setting, etc etc. So it actually became quite involved to do this laundry, and customers were piling up, and as soon as I stopped getting any direction I messed up all the loads of laundry, and likely lost the guy a bunch of customers. 

Once I had thoroughly messed that up I was about ready to change gears, and headed out to the street to drive the car around. Driving was super intuitive, with straightforward controls that made sense, although may take some getting used to. One thing that really stood out for me is that you have to drive properly! I mean I failed miserably at this, but in the game there are consequences for your driving ability. So you need to make sure you are stopping at stop signs and using your turn signals! I joked that playing this game, people would learn to drive a little better in real life too… probably not though. You also have to think things through and put in some practice time to work toward a goal, for example if you are going to be robbing a bank, well you better be a good driver before you do that, otherwise you are never going to get away with it. 

This game is definitely situated in a capitalist, consumer driven society, and although your character is not necessarily born into a particular class, you definitely find your place within the class structure and deal with the daily consequences of that. One acute and very realistic example of this is the stamina bar. As you do tasks and spend time being awake your stamina bar will deplete. If you are working a well paying job then you will be able to afford higher quality food and your stamina bar will go up quickly. However if you are working an entry level job, you will only be able to afford junk food, which won’t raise your stamina as much and you will have to do all of your work with less energy to get you through the day. Gah! The struggle is REAL!

Basically I am so stoked for this game, and if you have enjoyed playing Stardew Valley type games and have any amount of social consciousness, I think there is a very good chance you could enjoy it too! 

So keep a look out for it next year on PS4 and PC. And if you want to hear me talk about Damnview even more, you can hear me talk about the game on this episode of the Geekscape Games Podcast.

PAX West 2018: Bethesda Gameplay Days Was #AlmostHeaven

by Derek Kraneveldt

Yeah… the Copilot Music + Sound rendition of Take Me Home, Country Roads from the Fallout 76 trailer is still stuck in my head.

https://youtu.be/FRPeYP6gS-s

The song opens with the line ‘Almost heaven,’ which is exactly what Bethesda Gameplay Days just a few blocks away from PAX West 2018 felt like.

If you’ve been listening to Geekscape Games for any amount of time, I’m regularly gushing about one Bethesda release or another (Prey remains one of, if not my favourite games of 2017, and I truly believe it to be an overlooked gem), so putting a bunch of new Bethesda releases under one roof, giving attendees Vault-Tec party hats and noise makers, and offering up Bethesda game themed adult beverages (and bottles of Nuka Cola Quantum for the kiddies… and for me) made Bethesda Gameplay Days my #1 must attend event of PAX Weekend. The company was showing off a ton of stuff, including Rage 2, The Elder Scrolls Online: Murkmire, Quake Champions, Prey: Mooncrash, and The Elder Scrolls: Legends.

Apparently the event was must attend for a lot of people, as before long the lineup stretched all the way down an alleyway and around the next block. The Hard Rock Cafe that the event was hosted in was big, but not huge, so these fans must have been truly dedicated – I simply can’t imaging that the alley smelled very good, and I absolutely can’t imagine that the line went very quickly.

Jake, Courtney, Mikaela, and I were among the first people inside (a huge thanks to one of the community managers who put us on the VIP list), so I immediately grabbed a Fallout 76 themed Quantum Quocktail (a neon-blue, sweet as hell drink that was super freaking delicious), and then saw a giant Vault Boy approaching the tricentennial photo booth. Each of us were handed a cool (and creepy) Vault Boy mask, a Vault-Tec noisemaker, and a Vault-Tec party hat, and then we were able to pose with the Vault Boy in a cool GIF-oriented photo opportunity. It was super cool.

mmmm. Themed drinks.
The shirt was pretty cool.

We collected our soft and subtle Gameplay Days t-shirts, and then Jake and Courtney decided to sit down for a bit (and then Jake immediately changed his mind when he saw an empty seat at the Rage 2 demo – listen to his thoughts on this episode of Geekscape Games), while Mikaela, who hadn’t eaten anything yet the entire day understandably wanted to check out the food situation… so I ditched them all and ran up to the rooftop bar to play The Elder Scrolls: Blades before there was much of a wait. Turns out that there was no wait, and I immediately sat down and jumped into the demo.

Jake was enRAGEd.

The demo (which was the same build offered at E3 where the game was announced) gives you an example of two ‘dungeon’ sections of the game, but of course the staff was quick to note that this was just a tiny snippet, and that you could expect to see so much more in the full game. I played through a forest section, and a traditional dungeon area, and regardless of the setting it’s clear that this game is freaking gorgeous. I’ve played some great-looking mobile games before, but the graphics in The Elder Scrolls: Blades felt like they were on another level. Amazing light streaming in through windows, particle effects in the air, detail on the weapons. It looked unreal. Hell, I wish that Skyrim (vanilla) could looks closer to Blades.

The controls were unreal. Bethesda noted that they built the game with gamers of all skill levels in mind, so to move you can either simply tap where you want your character to go, or you can use traditional first person two virtual analog stick controls. Both felt great, and you can switch back and forth between them at any point, without actually doing anything. Multiple points throughout the demo I went to take a sip of my drink, and naturally started just tapping on where I wanted my character to go instead of using the two analog sticks that I had just been using. Combat is just as fluid – you’ll hold either side of the screen, and let go at the appropriate time, to use your sword attack. Alternating between holding the left or the right side of the screen with build up combos for additional damage, and there are several magic options and a block button on the bottom. You can also, again at any point, switch orientation of the device to portrait. The controls will reorient automatically, and it’s just as freaking comfortable to play this way with one hand. This looked cool in Bethesda’s initial E3 demo for the game, but being able to actually try it solidified my need for this game to release as soon as possible. I’m naturally still very curious about the town mechanics, or the story for the game itself, but mechanic, gameplay, presentation, and control wise, it still feels crazy to me that this is playing on a freaking cell phone. You can hear me gush about the game even more on this episode of Geekscape Games.

Following the demo, I grabbed some food (super tasty buffet style, including salads, dips, vegetables, sliders, pulled pork sandwiches, chicken wings, the best strudels that I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and much more), and then decided to head back downstairs to meet up with the others.

I had so much fun here. It was cool and casual – we were able to just sit in our booth to eat, drink, and chat, and would go off at random times to check out another game peek at one of the panels on the second floor. There were a ton of giveaways over the two days as well, including themed consoles, tables, a Blades themed iPhone X, and more.

A cool souvenir opportunity that I’d never actually seen anything like before was a custom penny press for Fallout 76. You put in three quarters and one penny, and could choose from four designs – after cranking a ton the penny was pressed into whatever design you chose (which apparently was harder to line up than anticipated, as more than one person in our group ended up doubling up). I, of course, needed a set of all four designs, and we also grabbed an extra set to give away on a future podcast, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Also, I thought that it was pretty cool that all of the proceeds from the penny press were donated to Habitat For Humanity.

We all had a blast at Bethesda Gameplay Days. It was unreal to jump into this cool, casual environment, be able to catch up with Jake and Courtney (I feel like this was the first real quality time I’d been able to spend with the group, as Friday I felt like death and we all instantly split up when we arrived at PAX), have a few drinks and some good food, and be surrounded by some fantastic games from my favourite publisher. My hype for The Elder Scrolls: Blades has skyrocketed even higher, I’ve now pre-ordered Rage 2, and I walked away with some neat, original feeling swag, and one of the ever elusive photos where I look genuinely happy.

A huge thanks to Bethesda for hosting the Geekscape team at Bethesda Gameplay Days – our experience was truly #AlmostHeaven.

Geekscape Games Podcast: Level 168 – PAX West Day 2

by Derek Kraneveldt

Courtney, Mikaela, Derek, and Jake break down what they saw and played during the second day of PAX West!

THIS EPISODE:

Derek was in awe of Bless Unleashed, Courtney died of Dysentery (or at least learned about it), Mikaela fell in love with Damnview: Built From Nothing, while Jake fought Nazis in Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics. Plus, we all had a blast at Bethesda Gameplay Days.

The group chats about these games, topics, and more:

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics
You Have Dysentery – Meaningful Gaming in Education
Bless Unleashed
Damnview: Built From Nothing
Makeup Talk Forever
Bethesda Gameplay Days
Rage 2
The Elder Scrolls: Blades
Cantankerous Cats
Chessex
Gris

https://soundcloud.com/geekscape-games/168-pax-west-2018-day-2

ONLY! On the Geekscape Games Podcast!

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Geekscape Games Theme Song: Winter Frosts – MmcM 

Outro – Everything Is Going To Be Okay

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PAX West 2018: Mikaela’s First Day At PAX West Started Off With A Bang!

by Mikaela Maxwell

My first day at PAX West 2018 started off with a bang! 

Well, actually the day started with Myself, Derek, and Jake rolling into Seattle to meet Courtney at one in the morning just aching for sleep. We managed to attempt to sleep for a while, Courtney and I did alright, Jake and Derek not so much. Then woke at the crack of 0630 (ugh…) and attempted to start our day, knowing we wanted to leave at 0730 so we could get our badges early and get cracking. Well, we woke up at 0630, but definitely didn’t leave on time as an exhausted Derek had to take a work call, and then proceeded to become a barfzilla. By the time we left we had to hustle to get our badges and then I literally had to run away from our little posse as I was ten minutes away from being late for my first ever PAX game demo and interview. I have no idea how, but I made it with about a minute to spare, and immediately dove into my first gaming experience of PAX West 2018.

The Gardens Between

The Gardens Between was absolutely beautiful from the get-go which is part of why I wanted to play it in the first place. It kind of feels like you are wandering through a magical wonderland and the landscape around you is made up of clues that tell you the story of the characters you are playing. The story was super cute, I didn’t know going in what the story was going to be but it looks like it’s about young best friends who live right next-door to each other. I only got to play a few levels, but it definitely seems as though there is a bit of a sorrowful atmosphere, leading you to find beauty while navigating through loss and change (this however could totally be me projecting my own assumptions onto the game).

Immediately upon sitting down I began to ask questions about the game, and was informed that I should play the game first and let it speak for itself as it’s designed to be pretty immersive, then we could talk about it. I’m glad I went in feeling mostly blind, I felt like a blank slate ready to soak up everything this story had to tell me. I would say great success on the immersive front; as soon as I started playing I totally was not distracted by where I was  and what was going on around me. I was caught up in the story that was being told through the beautiful art and music, without any words, and very literally interaction between myself and the characters.

In the demo you get to walk through about three levels and it wasn’t until the second level that I realized I had no real concept of what was going on around me and was totally caught up in what I was doing. From the outside I didn’t expected it to feel so engaging without being able to actually control the characters at all. Instead of having any ability to control interactions between the characters and their surroundings, instead you are only controlling the flow of time. You are going forward and backward in time, which moves the characters forward and backward in the landscape, which has an impact on the outcomes of the few things that need to be changed to progress. You are just are kind of going forward and backward time and that’s all you have. However, you get totally caught up in trying to figure out what is trying to be accomplished. It’s a super interesting way of telling the story, and I  don’t think I have every actually really seen anything like this before. 

After playing the demo I had the opportunity to interview Matt Clark, programmer, executive producer and co-founder of Voxel Agents; bringing us the magic that is The Gardens Between.

It was a great interview about what inspired the creation of this beautiful game, and the challenges faced in creating it… However, you will never get to hear it… because apparently I didn’t hit record.

As it turns out, the flashing red light means the recorder is picking up sound. Solid red light means recorder is recording that sound it is picking up. Who knew. Well probably everyone. Everyone except the flustered nervous Mikaela who, along with Matt, had actually basically just killed it on her first audio recording interview… oh well. Lesson learned. 

So I will sum up, albeit poorly, what stood out for me. 

One of the things highlighted by Matt was that one of the more challenging aspects of making this game was designing a game that went forward and backward in time as its main mechanic. It’s not like a first person shooter where there are already a whole bunch of different ways to do that, they actually had to create the basics for the way this game works. Now he used the technical lingo that many of you would certainly understand, but that I was thankful to have recorded knowing that I would have needed him to break it down way more if I was going to have to explain it myself… 

Another interesting tidbit that stuck with me was their inspiration for this game. According to Matt, this came from one of the scenes in the movie Minority Report, where they are scrubbing through memories back and forth. The concept of scrubbing memories evolved into a story about two best friends, with the use of this super interesting mechanic to tell their story through pictures and music. 

I wish I could remember more of what he had talked about, it was so interesting! 

But I will instead just have to wait until sometime next month when I can buy and play through this whoooooole game. The Gardens Between will launch on PS4, Switch, and Steam.

Soundfall

After playing The Gardens Between, I had an hour or so until my next appointment. I spent some time making sure I knew what I was doing with my recording device in order to hopefully not mess up again. I also got a chance to wander around the Expo Hall a bit, and man is it overwhelming! But overwhelming in the best way possible – everything is huge. Huge banners hanging from the ceiling and booths that are made to look like epic fortresses. So many big bright screens, so much amazing art, so so so many people! Its pretty incredible. 

The second game I got to play today was Soundfall, described by Drastic’s technical designer and cofounder Julian Trutmann as a music driven dungeon crawler. This game is from a newer developer, Drastic Games, who have been around for about 2 years. I was drawn to Soundfall initially because the concept of a game that is meant to be played to the beat of music, in combination with the beautiful art style, really appealed to me. Going into the demo I was a little bit nervous as I am not the strongest player when it comes to shooting games, but luckily for me Julian volunteered as tribute to play with me (which secretly meant he would end up being my shield and my reviver when I didn’t get outta the way in time to avoid being annihilated by enemies). I was actually super grateful for this as it meant that I got to experience the game without dying immediately. 

I was reassured that you only have to use one joy-stick and a couple of buttons to control all the things, which is helpful when you’re trying not to panic and die. Before starting, Julian explained that the whole point is to attack on beat in order to get boosts. Although I understood that logically before hand, as soon as I got into the game that information flew right outta my head and it became mash the attack buttons and try to remember to run away when someone is attacking you! At one point I had to cross over a bridge type structure, which required you to jump from pad to pad, but the catch was you could only jump if you hit the button on the beat. I definitely did not realize this initially and only made it over because I was button mashing enough to occasionally hit it at the right moment. Once we died and had to replay that part, on the second time around I actually recognized what was happening with the connection to music… which should have been helpful, but really wasn’t, it turns out I need a little practice at hitting things on the beat…

We did manage to make it through the first level though! Upon entering the second level, there was a distinct difference in music style between the two which created a much harsher higher pressure feeling atmosphere. It was interesting to see how intensely music can affect that atmosphere and feeling of a game so completely.

It was quite neat to see different elements of the landscape bouncing along and lighting up to the music, and to see the impact of actually shooting on the beat (which I’m pretty sure I only every did coincidentally) was pretty cool. You also get to wield this huge awesome looking sword, and it feels pretty danged rewarding when you kill the bad guys. Julian mentioned that the style of the game was quite challenging, that said, it was totes worth it. It’s beautiful to watch and if I wasn’t scared of being attacked around every corner I could definitely just wander around bopping along to the beat. 

I also had a chance to interview Julian about the creation of this game, so make sure to keep an ear out for that podcast following PAX weekend!

https://youtu.be/sO8I7_-tyG4

Stormland

The Stormland demo from Insomniac Games (in collaboration with Oculus), was hosted at an offsite about ten minutes from the convention centre at the 1927 Events Space. I walked up and opened the door, and immediately fog started pouring out onto the brightly lit sidewalk.

Here, I became excited.

I walked into the dimly-lit space and had to push through a plastic room divider that felt like I’d walk through the other side into a butchers freezer, but actually you walk into the amazing 1927 Event Space. I fell in love with this space when we visited for ECCC, all of the exposed brick and raw wood, so dreamy. Today, this was adorned with vines, puffs of cloud, and Stormland paraphernalia, all seen through a haze of fog. I checked in and walked around the space before getting in line to play the demo. It was kind of eery to see so many people together in one space, but separately totally immersed in a different world. There were about 10 people demoing at a time, so all of them were wearing an Oculus headset with headphones and controllers in each hand. They were all moving around in their little space and quietly exploring the empty air in front of them with their swinging arms. VR just makes people so danged vulnerable. It’s like all of your senses are transported off to this video game world, and your poor body is left in realtime without any awareness or defence. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BnKGVQoAbjP/?taken-by=geekscapeforever

This demo actually allowed people to take their time playing the game, so when it finally got to be my turn it was nice to know I didn’t have to rush and could just experience the world around me at my own pace. We have PSVR at home, but I realized when I got there that I have never actually had the opportunity to us an Oculus before… Let me tell you, it is GREAT! The screen is very clear and the controllers… Well, the controllers are outta this world! The closest I can come to comparing them to something is basically its like putting your hand into the hilt of a sword that has the perfect little area for buttons that your thumb hits easily, as well as a trigger finger button and a button that your middle fingers can hit so it naturally feels like you are grabbing things! I am floored by how freeing the controllers felt and how intuitive they were to use. That being said, it may have felt so intuitive because the games controls are just that intuitive. 

As anyone who has heard/read me talk about video games will know, I am frequently caught in the battle of trying to properly use controls while getting myself stuck in a corner staring at a ceiling/wall/floor/anywhere but where I need to be looking to get away from whatever is attacking me. This game, however, was incredible in that there are so many different ways to move around that it didn’t matter where I ended up cramming myself – I was able to get out and get to where I needed to be! In talking with Chad Dezern, Chief Creative Officer of Insomniac Games (look for my audio interview later), he really highlighted how much effort they had put into developing movement mechanics that felt smooth and natural and easy. They definitely hit that outta the park on this one!

The Stormland demo has you playing as an android who is on a mission to find his android buddy. A satellite voice guides you through learning how the mechanics of the game work and toward the path of finding your friend. You learn how to climb and how to glide and you ‘slipstream’ which is basically just flying overtop of the fog at a faster speed, which is basically incredible. 

At one point, as I was about a third of the way through learning how to do all of the things, I struggled to figure out how to attach my new guns to my outfit. I dropped one and lost it immediately, and after desperately searching for a while the woman who was there to help with the demo eventually just said not to worry about it, as I’d find more guns along the way. After giving up on the gun I looked down and realized that my mechanical chest was waaaay too close to my face, and not only that, but my arms had some how become criss-crossed. After about ten minutes of trying different strategies of menu combos and recalibrating at least 3 times, she called someone else over, who once again made us relcalibrate… and then finally just made me quit and start over again. By this point I was feeling pretty queasy, but I wanted to expereince more of this incredible world! So I rushed through the beginning part again and made my way to where I had been. I got to blow up some stuff and jump over things, climb walls, and glide off cliff sides. It was quite a magical surreal experience. 

I sadly had to stop the demo before I got to the end, otherwise I would definitely have been barfing all over the place. Nobody wanted that. After recovering for a little while I got to have a conversation with Chad about the creation of this game, and it really just got me more excited to see how it all comes out in the end. As much as I don’t want to admit it, this amazing open world VR game really has me seeing the value in the quality of the Oculus Rift!

Geekscape Games Podcast: Level 167 – PAX West Day 1

by Derek Kraneveldt

Courtney, Mikaela, Derek, and Jake break down what they saw and played during the first day of PAX West!

THIS EPISODE:

Derek is sick, but LOVES With Friends Like These. Jake plays Ace Combat and won’t let Courtney talk. Mikaela plays some AMAZING VR on Oculus Rift and gets FOMO because there are so many games at PAX West!

The group chats about these games and more:

The Gardens Between
Soundfall
Stormland
Battletech Panel
Marvel Battle Lines
Driftland
Aground
With Friends Like These
Fortnite Offsite

We’ll be posting two addition PAX West episodes while we’re here, so stay tuned tomorrow night, and Monday!

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PAX West 2018: ‘With Friends Like These’ Is Weird, Adorable, and Super Cooperative

by Derek Kraneveldt

I’ve just barely begun to walk the expansive show floor at this year’s PAX West (my first time at the expo, aside from that time I borrowed a badge for like 30 minutes), and it’s freaking tough not to be immediately overwhelmed.

There are incredible, unreleased games everywhere. As far as the eye can see, in absolutely any direction, you’ll see a myriad of titles that you’ve never heard of that look like the coolest things that have ever existed in your entire freaking life.

Seriously, this place is amazing, and I’m so excited to peruse the floor, to play more games, and to buy buy buy buy buy (or pre-order).

But today, I fell in love with a beautiful, simple, weird co-op game called With Friends Like These.

The game comes from Shy Kids Club (which I accidentally labelled as simply Shy Kids Games in my still to come audio interview, so apologies for that), the husband and wife duo of Nicole Lawson and Craig Brown from Canberra, Australia. With Friends Like These is set to be their first retail release after finding some success with game jams in the past, and I think that it’s pretty clear that they’ve come across something special with the mechanics at work here.

See, With Friends Like These is a co-op title (there is also single player, so if you’re all alone, don’t worry) where two players control parts of the same ship. One player can move the ship, while the other controls the ship’s single gun. It sounds really simple, but can get complicated really quickly, as who is doing what changes depending on whether the ship is in the air, or in the water.

To start, it’s pretty hard to get used to. In many instances I had just been controlling the ship, and it took way too freaking long for me to figure out that this was no longer the case. As time goes on, however, your brain gets used to it, and you begin to better anticipate and prepare for just when these switches will happen. The game does a phenomenal job of forcing verbal communication between you and your gaming partner, as timing is crucial – near the end of our demo, a giant, angry monster was chasing us and frequently shooting different coloured projectiles (one player is blue, one is pink, and each can only destroy enemies or projectiles of their respective colour), we had to time just when our controls would switch (again, the players have no control over this, it happens automatically when you switch between moving through water and air) so that we could keep our momentum, and so that the player who would become the gun could immediately shoot the already incoming projectiles.

I just made it sound way more complicated than it is. As I said, after a few minutes of play, you’ll get used to the mechanics, and it becomes all about timing, teamwork, and communication, and it’s so much fun.

Naturally, it’s beautiful too. Nicole does all of the gorgeous art for the title, and Craig says that she’s pretty weird, so, for instance, in an area that needed a gate, she added a slug that was vomiting rainbows instead. Even during the short demo, there were a lot of interesting, hilarious moments that you could easily miss if you weren’t paying attention.

Also, that story tho. Here’s the synopsis:

Everyone on your home planet is super bored and over worked! So you and your bestie have decide to take everyone on a trip to crazy time planet where everyone can let off some steam. Unfortunately, things go wrong and you crash into Super Chill world, your friends don’t realise they’re on the wrong planet and start to cause chaos. It’s up to you to collect up all your friends before they cause too much damage and drive the super chill residents insane.

Super Chill planet is made up of water and air floating around everywhere. Players have to work together to navigate their way around and find their crazy friends. While the blue player flies the ship in water, the pink player will zap pink ‘bullets’ that teleport your friends back to the bus. When the ship flies into air, the roles will swap, the pink player will then fly and the blue player will zap blue bullets. You also have to match the colour bullets to the colour of your friends eyes.

Yeah. I love it (and you can hear me gushing over it on today’s Geekscape Games episode).

With Friends Like These will launch in 2019 for PC and Switch. Take a look at the trailer below, and be sure to let us know what you think! Look for my audio interview with Craig on Geekscape Games later this week!

Get Your Drill On In ‘Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure’

by Natalie Kipper

I have had a love affair with Falcom’s Gurumin ever since Mastiff brought the action RPG to the Playstation Portable all those years ago. My PSP has since kicked it but Gurumin lives on. It has recently seen a release on Steam as well as the Playstation Vita and Playstation TV via the PS Store. To my delight, the title will soon be coming to the Nintendo 3DS as a digital release, Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure.

The game’s twitter account had an “Ask the Publisher” chat with fans  this week. They revealed that even in the handheld’s 3D mode, the game will still run at the full frame rate. The 3DS edition will also have more costumes than the previous Steam version. While only a digital release is planed at this time, should there be enough demand, a physical release would be considered. And for those purists, a Japanese voice-over DLC will be available post-release.

Gurumin 3D at PAX west

Gurumin 3D still does not have a definitive release date but given that PAX West attendees will have the first chance to play the game, you can rule out any time before September 5. In the meantime, you can check out the game’s soundtrack which is now up on iTunes. The funky fresh beats will make you prisoner of dance (wrong game?).

‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ Hits Wii U This Week!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Well, we’ve known that it’s been coming since all the way back in August, and now we finally know when Wii U owners will be able to jump on Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode hype train minecart.

The game (well, at least the first episode of it) will launch for the console on January 21st at the Telltale-standard $4.99. Additional episodes should be available within the next few weeks, and the game’s season pass (covering episodes 2 through 5) is available for a cool $19.99.

Telltale notes that this version of the game will ‘feature off-TV play and mirroring, so players can continue the story on the Wii U GamePad controller, as well as seamlessly integrated touch-control options that allow players to use the joysticks and buttons or simply tap and guide the story directly on the screen at any time.’

Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner stated that “Working with Nintendo, we’re tremendously excited to be bringing our unique style of storytelling to Wii U for the first time, and we couldn’t be happier to be kicking things off with a series like ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ that allows players of all ages to craft their own adventure across the Minecraft universe.”

The game features a pretty incredible voice cast, starring Patton Oswalt as male Jesse, Catherine Taber as female Jesse, Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West, John Hodgman, and Paul Reubens.

We’ve been loving the game so far (though we’re a couple of episodes behind at this point), and while we’ve been playing on other platforms thus far, that off-TV play is very alluring.

Have you been playing Telltale’s latest? What are your thoughts so far? be sure to sound out in the comments below!

‘Minecraft: Story Mode’s Fourth Episode Arrives Later This Month!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: I’ve been a huge fan of Telltale Games’ star-studded Minecraft: Story Mode thus far (keep up with my ongoing thoughts about the title here), and I was ecstatic when the publisher surprised us with the game’s second episode just a few weeks after releasing its premiere worldwide (and the third episode just a few weeks after that).

Today, Telltale revealed that the game’s fourth episode, titled ‘A Block and a Hard Place’ is also set to release rather quickly, and will hit worldwide on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS and Android on December 22nd.

In Episode Four, with the fearsome Wither Storm more dangerous than ever, Jesse, Reuben, and the crew discover there is one thing that can destroy the command block at the heart of the monster – but they’ll need to brave the perils of the Farlands to find it. As uneasy allies and ailing friends threaten to tear the group apart, can they defeat the Wither Storm in their final battle? And what sacrifices must be made to succeed? Find out in Episode Four’s epic ‘Wither Storm Finale’ that will turn the page on one chapter, before adventures may begin anew…

Episode five is set for 2016.

The game features a pretty incredible voice cast, starring Patton Oswalt as male Jesse, Catherine Taber as female Jesse, Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West, John Hodgman, and Paul Reubens.

You can take a look at the first screenshots from ‘A Block and a Hard Place’ below, and let us know if you’re excited to play!

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‘Minecraft: Story Mode’s Third Episode Arrives Next Week, Watch The Trailer!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: I’ve been a huge fan of Telltale Games’ star-studded Minecraft: Story Mode thus far (keep up with my ongoing thoughts about the title here), and I was ecstatic when the publisher surprised us with the game’s second episode just a few weeks after releasing its premiere worldwide.

Today, Telltale revealed that the games third episode, titled ‘The Last Place You Look’ is also set to release rather quickly, and will hit worldwide on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS and Android. This continues the simultaneous worldwide release schedule that the company began with their Game of Thrones finale, which just launched a couple of days back.

In Episode 3, trapped and running out of time, Jesse and crew must discover a means to locate Soren, the final member of the Order of the Stone. They’ll see sights and wonders beyond belief, including the horrors lurking beneath the starless sky of The End. Only Soren’s knowledge can help push back the all-consuming Witherstorm, but will it be enough to save the world?

The game features a pretty incredible voice cast, starring Patton Oswalt as male Jesse, Catherine Taber as female Jesse, Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy (who I just realized was Lee in The Walking Dead), Corey Feldman, Billy West, John Hodgman, and Paul Reubens.

Take a look at the trailer for next week’s episode below, and be sure to let us know if you’ve enjoyed the game thus far!

Geekscape Games Reviews: ‘Minecraft: Story Mode – A Telltale Games Series’ UPDATE ONE

by Derek Kraneveldt

When MineCraft Story mode was revealed all the way back in December of 2014, gamers everywhere (myself included) were, well, confused as hell, mostly.

Sure, we were absolutely excited for Telltale’s ingenious crafting team to wrap real characters and a thick plot around what is arguably the most addicting title of our generation, but also wondered how this was even possible. Telltale is renowned for creating incredible, harrowing, heartbreaking tales filled with tough choices and dire situations, but based on properties that have already told their own lore and have their own stories.

So how could Telltale turn a family-friendly game that has no real characters, about using your imagination (and a lot of patience) to build things (that never look as cool as they do in your head), while basically avoiding everything once the sun goes down, into a story that gamers young and old will actually care about?

Well, it turns out that they could do it pretty damned well.

In Minecraft: Story Mode, you’ll play as Jesse (voiced by either Patton Oswalt or Catherine Taber, depending on the gender that you choose). As with many of Telltale’s other titles, as soon as you begin playing through this first episode, “The Order of the Stone”, you’ll feel as though you’re being introduced to a living, breathing world; Jesse and his friends Olivia, Axel, Petra, and Rueben feel and act as though they’ve known each other forever, and to my surprise, I instantly felt a strange connection with these blocky characters.

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Jesse and his/her pals love to build, and at the start of the episode they’re heading to EnderCon to enter a building competition. The prize? A chance to meet Gabriel, Warrior of the legendary The Order of the Stone (a group of builders and best friends who teamed up and were able to defeat an Ender Dragon). Things go sour pretty quickly (and then REALLY sour pretty quickly after that), as a rival buiding team sabotages your group’s build and you’re forced into the forest in order to search for your scared pet pig, Rueben.

One thing that I have to note is just how freaking hilarious the dialogue in Story Mode is. It’s absolutely a kid/family friendly title, but almost every few moments of gametime I found myself laughing nigh-uncontrollably at the incredibly funny, more-often-than-not-ridiculous words coming out of each and every character’s mouth. The game essentially opens with a reference that only Redditors will understand, and right from that opening moment, you’ll know that you’re in for a treat.

It wouldn’t be a Telltale game without tough choices, and while the decisions that you and Jesse will have to make are tough, it would be impossible for them to match the will-stick-with-you-forever choices that you’re forced through in the company’s more mature titles. That being said, I was legitimately surprised with just how hard some of the choices were. It certainly had me wondering if a child playing the title would have the same hesitations as I did, because I’m sure at times I was way overthinking things.

It was really interesting even playing through this game at all after titles like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. I expected the absolute worst at every turn, and at every moment. That super cute pig? I was expecting it to die every five seconds. Oh, all of these characters are best friends? Which one won’t make it out of the episde? Possible love interest? How long will she last? It’s crazy just how much Telltale Games has taught us to not trust anything in its titles, and that probably led to me taking far longer than necessary to make these sometimes arbitrary decisions. It’s rough stuff.

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I’m pretty happy to report that Minecraft: Story Mode is absolutely gorgeous. Yep, it looks like Minecraft, but the assets have never looked as smooth or as crisp as they do here. Of course, this is also the first time that Minecraft characters have needed substantial animation (including lip syncing), and the team at Telltale have done a phenomenal job here. It had actually been about 18 months since I had logged into my Minecraft proper account, but as soon as I finished “The Order of the Stone”, I jumped on my laptop and once again began building. Here, funnily enough, I already felt like this world was missing something. Somehow, in just one episode, Telltale has truly added a substantial element to the heart of Minecraft, and the world feels just a little more lifeless without it.

The soundscape of the game is equally impressive. You’ll recognize many sound effects from the main game, and the many crisp samples that I didn’t recognize fit in perfectly. Voice acting is stellar as always with Telltale titles, and with a voice cast consisting of Patton Oswalt, Catherine Taber, Ashley Johnson, John Hodgeman,  and Corey Feldman,  among others, I’d be pretty shocked if it wasn’t. The original music for the game sounds fantastic, but I didn’t hear much of C418’s incredible tunes from Minecraft proper, and that made me sad.

Honestly, as an inctroduction to this world and these characters, there isn’t a lot that Minecraft: Story Mode‘s first episode could have done better… Aside from run, of course. It is a Telltale game, and as incredible as they are at creating gripping stories, tough choices, and well-written characters, Telltale’s engine has been used for just a few too many years at this point, and it definitely shows. My playthrough of Minecraft: Story Mode‘s first episode certainly had less technical issues than the past few Telltale titles that I’ve played (though this is also the first Telltale game that I’ve played on the PS4), but weird pop-ins, stuttering framerates, and glitchy animation still happened a little too often not to notice.

It’s an episodic title, of course, so the absolute biggest success of Minecraft: Story Mode is the fact that I’m already desperate for more. For Telltale, it’s another quality introduction to what’s likely to be an incredible tale, but this time around the whole family can play it. I’ve watched enamoured children play Minecraft numerous imes before, and have witnessed them develop their own characters and create and play their intricate own stories; Minecraft: Story Mode feels as though it’s been pulled straight from one of these vivid imaginations, and it’s all the better for it. Bring on episode two.

‘Minecraft: Story Mode – A Telltale Games Series‘  Episode One: The Order of the Stone scores a blocky 4/5.

Update One: Episode Two – ‘Assembly Required’

As always, there are some light spoilers in the text below.

Well that was fast. Just two weeks after the first episode of Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode debuted worldwide,  the company surprised gamers everywhere by releasing a second episode to coincide with the launch of the game’s retail version.

For a company that typically releases episodes on a bi-montly basis, it was exciting to be able to play another chapter while the first was so fresh in my mind. Episode two is fittingly titled ‘Assembly Required’, and has Jesse and friends set out on a journey to find the remaining members of The Order of the Stone.

One common complaint that a lot of gamers have with some Telltale titles is that often it feels like your choices don’t actually matter. Yes, the decisions are still tough, but often it seems as though the end result is identical, albeit with a slightly different cutscene. Yes, you may head down a slightly different path, but those paths seem to converge again nearly immediately. This complaint goes out the window with this episode, as based on one your choices at the end of ‘The Order of the Stone’, you’ll either be headed to Boom Town, in search of Cory Feldman’s Magnus the Rogue, or Redstonia to locate Elegaard the Engineer. My playthrough of the episode had me sent to Redstonia, and it’s apparently far different than the other option. The game’s launch trailer focussed mainly on Boom Town, which looks like a completely different experience from what I played. This change should substantially enhance the game’s replayability, and seeing as when you again meet up with Axel, who has Magnus in tow, the pair goes on about the action-packed experience that they just had, I’ll likely be replaying the episode sooner rather than later.

Once you meet up with some of the Order’s additional members, it becomes pretty clear that some of Ivor’s jealous musings during the last episode weren’t all crazy, and that the Order of the Stone isn’t all best friends and heroics like the stories say. It actually bears a far more powerful message than I’d anticipated from such a family friendly title, and between all of the jokes, hilarious dialogue, and insane antics, there’s actually a lot to learn from the characters here.

The episode does recycle a few of the funniest moments from the previous episode, including another button-mashing montage, but that moment was so enjoyable in both chapters that I really didn’t mind. Combat is light and fun, and players who are familiar with Minecraft proper will likely use different techniques than new players will on certain enemies, which is pretty neat, when you think about it.

Unfortunately, it seems as though the technical issues with Minecraft: Story Mode have not only persisted with this second episode, but they’ve actually gotten a bit worse. Regular stuttering is noticeable from the game’s opening moments, and in a particular scene featuring an ever-growing Wither Storm, it seriously felt as though the framerate had dipped to single digits. Again, it’s a great looking game, but the constant technical issues on a system as powerful as the PS4 is truly disappointing, and seriously shows the age of Telltale’s engine. Of course, I want them to focus on making the fantastic experiences that they’re known for, but these games would be far more immersive with a much needed update to the Telltale Tool.

As I stated in my thoughts on the game’s first episode, Minecraft: Story Mode feels like Telltale watched an imaginative child play Minecraft, and in turn developed that imagination into a well-written, hilarious game that ranks among Telltale’s best. As a major fan of Telltale’s more mature titles, I truly didn’t expect to enjoy this family friendly offering just as much as I am. I’m glad that we saw the game’s second episode so soon, and I really can’t wait to see, choose, and play what happens next. I’ll reiterate that is a fantastic use of the Minecraft license, and gamers, regardless of age (as long as you have basic reading skills) are in for a treat here.

Oh, and just wait until you hear the game’s unexpected f-bomb.

Geekscape Mobile: Universal Update Adds iPhone Support To ‘This War Of Mine’

by Derek Kraneveldt

11 Bit Studios’ This War of Mine was always a game that felt made for touch devices, so I was beyond ecstatic when the title officially released on iPad and Android tablets back in July.

This War of Mine is premium title (that bears a price tag to match) with a fantastic interface, incredibly gorgeous, stylized graphics, made-for-headphones audio, and a message that’s absolutely impossible to ignore. It’s a game that’s likely sucked up more time on my iPad than any other, and with it comes an experience that I’ll likely never forget.

If you’re unfamiliar with the title, “in This War Of Mine you do not play as an elite soldier, rather a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city; struggling with lack of food, medicine and constant danger from snipers and hostile scavengers. The game provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle.”

You really have no idea of the choices and despair you’re in for with this title, and even with that, I’d emlore you to give it a shot.

Today, This War of Mine became even more portable, as 11 Bit Studios’ latest update has added Universal support to the game. According to the update notes, this comes after a “massive amount of requests from you for the smartphone version,” and that the new version “has been created from scratch to work flawlessly on smaller touch-screen devices while keeping the same level of emotional engagement in stories about civilians in war.”

I’m actually a little scared to play this one on the go, as This War of Mine can be a tremedously depressing experience. In any case, I’m glad that the developer has listed to the requests, and has given players another device to play the celebrated title on.

You can take a look at the trailer for This War of Mine below, and you can pick it up on the App Store for $14.99 right here.

Already played the game? Are you an emotional wreck because of it? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

Surprise! The Second Episode Of Telltale’s ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ Is Available Now!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Well, that was quick, and definitely atypical of a Telltale title!

It’s only been a few weeks since the developer launched the first episode of the already-awesome Minecraft: Story Mode (check out our review of the first episode here).

Today marks the launch of the retail version of Minecraft: Story Mode for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC, and to celebrate, the company has just launched the second episode.

Yep. No months of waiting, no vague and mysterious trailer. It’s called ‘Assembly Required’, and it’s available on all platforms (well aside from Wii U, which is still on the way) today!

“Premiering ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ this month, we’ve been overjoyed by the reception from both the Minecraft community and fans of Telltale across the world diving into the all-ages adventure and making key decisions that will craft their own stories throughout the rest of the season,” said Kevin Bruner, CEO and Co-Founder of Telltale Games. “This week, we’re happy to offer the game on a special disc at retailers worldwide, including access to the thrilling second episode, ‘Assembly Required,’ which will feel like a completely different chapter for players depending on their paths taken in episode one.”

I love Bruner’s last sentence in that statement. Telltale games are sometimes criticized for having most of the important choices ultimately lead in the same direction, but with the vast, open, free world of Minecraft, it seems like things may be different this time around.

You can take a look at the trailer for ‘Assembly Required’ below, and be sure to let us know what you think! My thoughts on the episode will be up, well, as soon as I get a chance to play it!

Meet The Voice Cast In The Launch Trailer For Telltale’s ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: It’s still pretty weird (and exciting) to me that Minecraft: Story Mode is even a thing, and after what feels like years of waiting (okay, it’s only been a number of months) Telltale has finally released the first chapter of the incredibly anticipated title.

The first of the game’s five episodes is called ‘The Order of the Stone’, and it’s now available (digitally) on PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, and OS X. iOS and Android devices will get the episode on October 15th, and the game is also headed to Vita and even Wii U at a later date.

The retail ‘Season Pass’ edition of Minecraft: Story Mode is still forthcoming, though it should be noted that it includes only the premiere episode on the disc (the rest, of course, will be downloaded once they release), and be available for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC on October 27th in North America, and October 30th in Europe.

In Minecraft: Story Mode, playing as either a male or female hero named ‘Jesse,’ you’ll embark on a perilous adventure across the Overworld, through the Nether, to the End, and beyond. You and your friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect; slayers of the Ender Dragon. While at EnderCon in hopes of meeting Gabriel the Warrior, Jesse’s friends discover that something is wrong… something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and you must set out on a quest to find The Order of the Stone if you are to save your world from oblivion.

The season will feature Patton Oswalt as male Jesse, Catherine Taber as female Jesse, Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West, and Paul Reubens. Additional casting details for the season are yet to be announced.

As expected, Telltale notes that Minecraft: Story Mode is an adventure for all ages, so expect some tough choices, but nothing The Walking Dead level.

Take a look at the launch trailer for the game below, and let us know if you’re looking forward to jumping in!

‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ Will Premiere In October!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: It’s still pretty weird (and exciting) to me that Minecraft: Story Mode is even a thing, and after what feels like years of waiting (okay, it’s been a couple of months) Telltale has finally revealed just when  we’ll be able to play the first chapter of the anticipated title.

The first of the game’s five episodes is called ‘The Order of the Stone’, and it’s set to (digitally) hit PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, and OS X on October 13th. iOS and Android devices will get the episode on October 15th, and the game is also headed to Vita and even Wii U at a later date.

Minecraft: Story Mode, interestingly enough, is even getting a retail edition. The physical version will include only the premiere episode on the disc, and be available for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC on October 27th in North America, and October 30th in Europe.

In Minecraft: Story Mode, playing as either a male or female hero named ‘Jesse,’ you’ll embark on a perilous adventure across the Overworld, through the Nether, to the End, and beyond. You and your friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect; slayers of the Ender Dragon. While at EnderCon in hopes of meeting Gabriel the Warrior, Jesse’s friends discover that something is wrong… something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and you must set out on a quest to find The Order of the Stone if you are to save your world from oblivion.

The season will feature Patton Oswalt as male Jesse, Catherine Taber as female Jesse, Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West, and Paul Reubens. Additional casting details for the season are yet to be announced.

As expected, Telltale notes that Minecraft: Story Mode is an adventure for all ages, so expect some tough choices, but nothing The Walking Dead level.

Are you looking forward to the game? Sound out below!

Telltale’s ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ Is Even Headed To Wii U!

by Steve Norman

Today Telltale Games announced that Minecraft would be making its debut on the Wii U in the form of Minecraft: Story Mode. I know, many of us were upset to hear that it wouldn’t be the Minecraft we all know and love, but Telltale Games anticipated this and released a sweet trailer to ease your pain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb7D8APneOA

Minecraft: Story Mode will feature the voice talents of Patton Oswalt as the main character, Jesse. It also features stars such as Ashley Johnson, Corey Feldmen, and Paul Reubens. I can’t say what they game will be like, except that knowing Telltale, it is sure to be fun and episodic.

There is no official release date for Minecraft: Story Mode, but there will be a playable demo at the upcoming PAX Prime, and we’ve been told that the first episode will be released before the end of 2015.

Minecraft fans rejoice—the world needs saving, and only you can save it!

PAX Prime 2014: Zero Point Software’s Carsten Boserup Talks ‘Interstellar Marines’!

by Shane O'Hare

One of the highlights for me this year was sitting down with Carsten Boserup from Zero Point Software to talk about their amazing looking game Interstellar Marines.

Interstellar Marines and the team at Zero Point software have been through a lot. Development on the game started almost ten years ago and began on the Unreal Engine. Due to licensing costs and downsizing, the team changed over to the Unity Engine and the team was reorganized. The finished product is now approaching, and it appears all the hard work over the past 10 years, and all of the hardships Zero Point has gone through through have finally paid off.

Interstellar Marines takes place in the “believable future”. The devs wanted to make a game that blends realism and gameplay, where you have to rely on your CO-OP team. Players will take up one of four positions in a squad of, well, Interstellar Marines. This game isn’t your normal FPS, as you have to pay attention to your surroundings and really coordinate your movements with your team. An entire squad of guys with sniper rifles, or running off on your own is going to get everyone killed, and trust me when I say that this game is going to kick your ass.

The title will be released in four parts; the Prologue takes place at the training grounds for the ITO (future NATO), this serves as the games tutorial and multiplayer component. The campaign will take place over three separate story lines dubbed “The Trilogy”. Players will find themselves out exploring the universe encounter genetically modified creatures while humanity is on the leading edge of first contact.

The game features an interesting RPG like mechanic with what Zero Point calls their “Suit System’. Players will be able to level up their characters building a unique gameplay experience. Levels are procedurally generated and you will need to explore them multiple times, and objectives can be taken in any order the players wish.

Interstellar Marines is currently on Steam Early Access, and the COOP will be added this week on September 18th!

Stay tuned for my hands on with the single player and CO-OP experience later this month!

PAX Prime 2014: ‘Tetropolis’ Combines Metroid & Tetris! And Its Awesome!

by Shane O'Hare

One of the highlights of my trip was getting a hands on with the most unique Indie game at PAX Prime 2014, Tetropolis.

Now you may be asking yourself, “How on EARTH can NextGen Pants combine two drastically different games?”, well I’m about to tell you!

You play as a discarded Tetromino. You came out into the world destined to be a complete, four square piece. Aspirations of being a T or an L, but alas out of the machine you were missing your last cube. You are quickly discarded, some unseen force deems your garbage. You fall into a pit of other Tertrominos. This is when the cinematic ends and the player takes over.

I quickly got my bearings and moved forward, finding a lone cube piece sitting there. I rolled over and soon the main character was born. Born of two less main characters. This is where the demo and the journey began.

Tetropolis plays like your standard Metroidvania style game. Going through levels, finding power ups and items, and back tracking with said new power ups to get a little bit further. If you can’t figure it out by it’s name, think Metroid and Castlevania.

The levels themselves are actually giant Tetrominos that, if the player reaches a control room, can move and rotate them around in order to solve puzzles, get around obstacles, or reach the levels boss fight.

The controls are very easy to learn. Left stick rolls your Tetromino around like a ball, while the right control stick rotates you in place. A button makes you jump, X uses abilities, and Y transforms you to other shapes you acquire.

The version I played at PAX, you can play too yourself! Head on over to their Kickstarter Page and get the demo RIGHT NOW for free!

The atmosphere was really great, I had a strong Oddworld/dystopian vibe going while I played it. Ominous machinery and propaganda posters adorned the level. The Developers said that there is going to be a strong narrative throughout the game. They said they wanted it to specifically not be in any one language, that the narrative would move forward just on visuals alone. The one thing you can understand in ANY language is Tetris, and they wanted to have that ubiquitous appeal come through with Tetropolis.

I am personally going to back this game, the little that I got to play on the show floor sold me. It was cute and endearing. Balanced complexity and ease of use very well.

Fore more information on Tetropolis head on over to their website HERE.

Donate to their Kickstarter HERE!

PAX Prime 2014: My Hands On With ‘This War Of Mine’, The Most Important Game Of Our Generation

by Shane O'Hare

This War of Mine is quite possibly the most important game of our generation. It touches on a subject that hasn’t been touched before in gaming. “In War, not everyone is a soldier”.

http://vimeo.com/88892328f

I got to the 11 Bit Studios booth shortly before my meeting with the head writer, Pawel Miechowski. Another 11 Bit Studios employee got me set up with the game and told me Pawel would come over and meet with me. I started up the demo and was greeted with a randomly generated start. The game is a side scrolling, point and click style pseudo-adventure game. You can choose a survivor character and move them around the map. Double clicking will make you character run, but that will create a bubble of sound around them that enemies will react to. There are points of interaction around the map that you, well, interact with: Wardrobes, doors, cabinets, piles of rubble, various types of furniture, and a workbench.

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I was greeted with three survivors, each with their own stats. One was an expert salvager,  one was a “good cook”, and another was handy. Of course, they each also had negative attributes assigned to themselves. One of them was slightly sick, while everyone else was tired and hungry. When left alone, the characters would talk with each other about the trials and tribulations of the war. I quickly got the three survivors starting on bettering our house. Clearing rubble, opening doors and cabinets and building some furniture. The day is spent working on your shelter, while the night is spent scavenging. When the clock ran out, it was time to prep my refugees for the night.

I was presented with the night time menu. Each character had to be assigned a job. The three options I had right off the bat where “Sleep. Guard. Salvage.”. I assigned one to each, and then went to the salvage map. Here I could choose between locations that I could scour for materials. I went out to a run down building and proceeded to go from room to room. This is where the atmosphere really shines through. The building was foreboding, and frankly kind of scary. Graffiti adorning the wall outside was a bit…bothersome.

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Going from room to room, slowly I was so engrossed with what I was doing. The roar of the convention center seemed to vanish as I was focused on getting supplies for my shelter. As I crept through another room, a red circle appeared on the screen. I automatically assumed it was an enemy, and the circle represented noise coming from the upper floors. This is where I really took note of how the player saw things. Everything outside of the players view was blurred and darkened. As I went up to a door to look through the keyhole, a cone of clear vision spread across the room. Walking up to ledges and holes in the ground, a small beam of the players vision shot down through to what was below. As I got to the last room, the noise ultimately turned out to be a small animal, obviously trying to survive like we were. I found a letter in a dresser from a distraught husband, lamenting about his wife’s passing. He noted that they buried the handgun she’d used to kill herself in the back yard. Backtracking through the house, a new item of interest appeared on the ground. The broken gun frame. Something I could fix with gun parts, if I had enough.

Back at the main shelter I dropped off the goods I found, and recanted the nights goings on with the others. One of my survivors had gotten sicker, and another extremely tired. Things were starting to get a bit overwhelming. I crafted a bed with the little wood I had, and found some herbal medicine for my sick character. The day went moreso the same as the first day, and as the night approached I didn’t realized in depth this game was going to get.

Night came and I picked the character who had the least afflictions and sent him to a house. Upon getting to the house I immediately saw that it was occupied. I slowly crept around the inhabitants. Stealing the little supplies they had. I started to feel bad about it, which I guess was an intended effect. I made my way back up from the basement to the main level, and hid as the man of the house walked by, and this is where things got heated. He noticed that the front door was open, and started a thorough search of the home. My hiding space was soon discovered and a fist fight broke out. I defended myself, but had to kill the man. The fight alerted the wife, and she came at me with a knife. Again, I had to defend myself. Immediately I wasn’t that upset with the situation, now I could explore the house freely but my character was fairly hurt. Upon getting back to the shelter my actions at the house became apparent.

War

Upon entering the shelter, my character went on a tirade about how bleak the entire situation was and started to break down about having to murder some people. He now had the “Sad” and “Depressed” status affliction, and the other characters in the home talked about how bad everything had become. It was at this time Pawel came over to see if I was ready for my interview but looking at my face he said “You looked pretty engrossed, I will let you play some more. Come find me when you are ready.”

I played for a few more days and nights. It felt like I was making one step toward progress, and two steps back to a bleak reality. My characters were starving, hurting and falling apart.

Interview

Then back up with Pawel and started asking him my questions.

He told me that the idea of the game came from an article called “One Year In Hell”. The article recounted the tale of a man surviving the Bosnia war from the 90’s. It really showed how in war, it’s not just soldiers on two sides fighting. The people that were just living a normal life up until that point were the biggest victims. After reading the article, him and his team at 11 Bit did a lot of research on the authenticity of the piece.

They wanted to make a game that was very mature, and that focused on serious mature themes. The horrors of wars was an obvious choice. They wanted the game to be fun but still stay grounded in reality. They made the conscious decision not to have the soldiers be from any specific army, making the combatants as ambiguous as possible.

Each character that you can play as will be extremely different from each other. When I asked him how things like murders will affect different people he said “Each character is different. Not only from their abilities, but how they react emotionally. Our AI system is EXTREMELY advanced, and probably one of the most unique features from our game. When someone has to commit and act they don’t like, they will react differently than the next. Things like books, or building a radio from parts is a great way to bring their morale up.” He went on to say that the game has it’s own language. How everything comes together, be it how characters interact with each other or the environment. It has it’s own voice.

The war will eventually end in the game, it’s not an endless survival game. Pawel said “But you won’t know when it will end. Because in the real thing, people ACTUALLY surviving have to survive under the idea that the war will never end. So we wont tell you when it will end, and it will change each time, but it will eventually.”

Final Thoughts

The little I got to play of this game sold me. I sat at the 11 Bit Studios booth for what felt like only a few minutes, but turned out to be almost an hour. Talking with Pawel, I learned how passionate the guys at 11 Bit Studios are about this title. Coming from Poland, a country that has been plagued with war for centuries, they wanted to tell the Western world a story that is rarely told. It touches on the subject of war and doesn’t pull any punches. When playing, and my characters were revolted by the actions they had taken, I was taken aback. Usually in games, when you do something you aren’t “supposed” to do, you either have to reset or get a slap on the wrist. At the most you are penalized points. In This War of Mine, your characters are DEEPLY affected by it and it will carry on with them for a while.

This game is on point to become one of the most important titles of this generation. It grabs you by the collar and forces you to see the side of war that is rarely mentioned.

This War of Mine is slated to be released by end of year and will be available on PC, OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android.

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Into The Pixel Wants Your Video Game Art

by J.C. Marquez

 

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Video games, such as The Legend of Zelda, Journey, and Super Mario Bros. have inspired artists from around the world to create some amazing artwork. While many works from these artists are currently being used as wallpapers for smartphones and computers around the globe, the coordinators from Into the Pixel would like to give these artists and their creations the spotlight at some of the biggest gaming events of 2014–and it could be you.

Now entering its eleventh year, the duo consisting of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Entertainment Software Association are accepting submissions for their Into the Pixel gallery. All selected artwork will be featured from June 10-12 at E3 2014 in Los Angeles followed by stops at PAX, D.I.C.E., and SXSW. Last year’s group of selected entries (16 in all) featured popular franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, the highly-anticipated Destiny, and The Last Of Us.

Artists looking to submit their artwork can do so by clicking here. The deadline for submissions is March 28.

Geekscape 303: Wrapping Up PAX Prime With Noah, Garrett and Ash!

by Jonathan

PAX Prime is over and it’s time to sift through the ashes! The brain trust of Noah Roman, Garrett Medina and Ash Paulsen join me this week to discuss everything that they witnessed in Seattle! What were the highlights from the weekend? How is PAX different than E3? Is the 2DS still a joke? What games are we looking forward to the most? Were there any indies that jumped out? Does Garrett play too much Pokémon? And Ash and Garrett talk about meeting Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune! It’s a packed episode of video game talk so you’re not going to want to miss it!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:17 — 22.2MB)

Geekscape 302: It’s All About Videogames With Jake108!

by Jonathan

Jacob Lopez is Geekscape’s longest running videogame writer! Six years ago, Jacob (known as Jake108 around these parts) asked to do a preview of Halo 3 for the site and the rest is history. Now on the verge of GTA 5, Batman Arkham Origins and the rest of the Fall releases, Jake and I sit down to talk about what’s exciting and not so exciting. We also provide an update on the PS4 vs XBox One debate and discuss the drawbacks of buying on Day 1 Also, Josh Jackson calls in to offer his 2 cents on the debate and talk about why he’s not going to replay Wind Waker and a familiar Geekscapist calls in to talk about removing my skin! Yippee!

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:22 — 25.4MB)

Kirby’s 20th Anniversary Celebrated With New World Record!

by Derek Kraneveldt

I couldn’t help but smile when I read this.

In celebration of Kirby’s 2oth, 536 people gathered at PAX to set a new world record. 536 people, most of them in Kirby garb, blew chewing gum bubbles simultaneously. This beat out the previous record of 304 (a difference of 232).

Record Breaking Event

This was a really cool piece of news to me. I have extremely fond memories of growing up with Kirby: Kirby’s Adventure was actually the first game I ever finished. This record was a great idea and hopefully they can hold onto it for some time!

From the press release:

Nintendo fans found a spectacular way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the iconic Kirby™ video game character. On Sept. 1 at the PAX Prime conference in Seattle, 536 attendees gathered together and set a new Guinness World Records® achievement for the most people blowing a chewing gum bubble simultaneously. Participants had fun blowing bubbles that resembled the round, pink Kirby and helped Nintendo of America celebrate, after a representative from Guinness World Records confirmed the official record-setting count.

The new world record added to the growing excitement about Kirby at PAX Prime, where attendees had an early chance to experience Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition for the Wii™ system. Launching Sept. 16, this commemorative game collection includes six classic Kirby games on one disc, plus a commemorative booklet, a music CD and an interactive timeline that gives players a fun way to explore Kirby’s colorful history. Since debuting in 1992, Kirby has starred in 22 video games that collectively have sold more than 33 million units worldwide. His distinctive appearance and unique ability to inhale enemies and copy their abilities have made him a fan favorite for two decades.

“Kirby is no ordinary character, so it’s not a surprise that his fans would go to extraordinary lengths to mark his 20th anniversary,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Nintendo is proud to have such a dedicated and enthusiastic following. Between this new world record and the upcoming launch of Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition, it’s turning out to be one heck of an anniversary party.”

According to Guinness World Records, the previous record was 304 participants, achieved by Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Oct. 27, 2010. Participants in the Kirby-themed record attempt were instructed to chew their gum for at least one minute and then blow and hold bubbles for 30 seconds.

Record Breaking for Kirby!