All Politics is Tentacles

Tags

Day of the Tentacle, Horizon Zero Dawn, politics, religion, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witness, theme

Major spoilers for Day of the Tentacle

Butch:

The kids have school today. THEY HAVE SCHOOOOOOOOL!

And Horizon Zero Dawn will be here!

I digress.

So I have come to the conclusion that Sony knew exactly what it was doing making Tentacle free last month.

Figured out how to get the contract out of the safe, that you have to go back in time to sign, so you have the money to buy the diamond, that will get everything back to normal. Which all sounds really silly, right? Silly. And it was….once. In a simpler time.

But….seriously….bear with me here…..

The contract is for a reality show that the mad scientist was going to do. He’s broke because he forgot to sign the contract, which would have been a sure hit. When you get the contract out of the safe, the IRS shows up. (Again, so silly! Silly, silly IRS!) They kidnap him, wrap him up in red tape like a mummy (remember the mummy? You have to paint him red and hoist him and you don’t remember any of this do you moving on), and hide him.

Why do they do this?

Because agents of the government worry that his reality show ratings would be too good, and distract people from “Important workings of the government.”

Can you believe that? The government caring about a reality show? The government worried about a reality show’s ratings? How ABSURD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That could NEVER happen! Oh, the hilarity!

Sony knew what it was doing, here.

Feminina:

SCHOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!! HZD!!!!!!

I remember encountering the mummy, but I never progressed to the point that I had to do anything with it.

But thanks, I guess, Sony, for this highly topical free game I couldn’t bring myself to play.

I didn’t do nothin.’ Mr. O’s turn at the console. He’s tearing through RoTR. He commented on the difficult nature of that fight where you’re under the ice and have to come up to fight people. Everyone finds that fight challenging! So, I guess, nicely done if they meant to make a really challenging fight. I still think they just wanted to use the rebreather for something big.

Butch:

Holy crap he’s THERE?

Now there’s a dude who likes to sprint.

Tentacle’s very topical. Disturbingly so. I sort of don’t like how well games predicted the future here. After all, so many games we play take place in terrible nightmare worlds.

I suppose I’ll just leave it at that.

Except, dude….Meatball was just in the kitchen going “One…One…Two….Four…..One….one…”

I said “The hell are you doing?”

He said “Just saying numbers.”

Air strike.

Feminina:

Air strike! NOW!

Off to yell at the dudes who somehow failed to complete yesterday’s air strike. I suppose they were too busy eating ice cream in this unseasonably warm weather.

Butch:

I’ll probably look good as a collection of sparkles.

Better that than a fireball. Too tired to be a fireball. I’d just sit there, waiting for someone to bring me fire coffee.

Feminina:

Seriously. Fireballs, always zooming around, whisking hither and yon, up hill and down dale…no thanks.

Sparkles have got it made.

Hang out. Replay conversation. That I can do.

Butch:

I just hope I get recorded drinking scotch, watching hockey, something like that.

With my luck, I’ll get recorded on the can.

Feminina:

You can increase your odds by spending a lot more time drinking scotch and watching hockey.

This is important! It’s your preparation for eternity!

Meanwhile, I should be eating ice cream pretty much nonstop.

Butch:

You don’t already?

Feminina:

Well, I’m not eating it right now, for example. This must be remedied! What if the Pattern gets me before I can make it to the store?!

Butch:

That’s why I took care of it.

And got wine.

OK: Finished Tentacle, and I hold that it was political commentary. The thing ends with you saving the day (surprise surprise), but you don’t do this by beating tentacle. You do this by getting tentacle to shoot his shrink ray at the Doctor, which causes the shrink ray to reflect back onto him, making him tiny. You then squish him.

In other words, the fact that Tentacle couldn’t resist making his enemies small so he could be powerful is what does him in.

I mean…….

So you save the day. But…..

At one point in the game, you have to change the American flag into a tentacle shaped wind sock, all red white and blue, because reasons. In one of those humorous “Oh, snap, they forgot to put something back” moments that we get in time travel stories, the last thing you see in the game, and, indeed what is over the whole credits, is the tentacle flag waving away. A big red, white and blue tentacle. Which, at the time, was supposed to be all “Ah, ha, so silly, now the flag is silly, so silly,” but now….

To end the story I have recounted with a messed up flag that looks like a tyrant, that can’t ever really be changed back because we can’t go back in time again….

No way this being free was a mistake.

Feminina:

Tentacle sounds very…telling. Ha ha, very silly…hm.

It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a democracy!

Sigh. I will totally not play it, even for the timely political implications, but it’s good that you did. Some interesting, off-our-usual-track material, and all the better to showcase our commie pinko liberal leanings and clarify our support for the homosexual agenda and what not.

[READERS ADVISORY: we are pinko liberal weirdos who support the homosexual agenda and what not. Seriously, it’s a great agenda, a lot of people are saying amazing things about it, you will not even believe how fabulous everything is going to be.]

Also, I played a little. Opened a couple of yellow boxes. (Interesting that the one I called the greenhouse is termed “the bunker” by the trophy. That’s a bunker? Huh. I guess…if you want to live on your own produce while bunkered up…OK. Practical, to be sure.)

Couldn’t remember what you told me to notice, so tried counting E’s? Was that it? It didn’t help.

Butch:

All fun and games…T SHIRT!

Yeah, we did well there with a game only one of us played. Hooray, us! Now we have to find some other commie pinko liberal gay game to play. Shouldn’t be hard. HZD could be a commie plot. We’ll soon find out!

Yeah that WAS odd. But yes: Bunker.

That was some good puzzlin’. What was the other one you got?

Circles that look like….aw, never mind.

Feminina:

I did actually find a couple of those circles in the landscape, and made sparks go light up some lines on the nearby obelisks. So that was…hm.

The main thing it made me think right off is, OK, we definitely have a super power. It’s a weird, low-key super power, but we were talking about how we’re walking around solving puzzles which could be very realistic and the kind of thing we, as people, could actually do. We talked about how we never see our own hands or anything, so it’s not at all clear HOW we draw this line to solve puzzles, but we do, and it’s on the edge of physical realism.

And that’s all well and good, but what’s NOT on the edge of physical realism is being able to mentally create (I guess?) a dot that makes sparks fly off a disk set on top of a wall we couldn’t reach and aren’t even standing close to anyway. That’s right out in the world of “things that are not physically possible outside of a game.”

And I don’t know if we’re meant to make anything of this, really: if it’s INTENTIONAL and MEANINGFUL that this is our superpower, or if it’s meant to sort of blend in the way solving puzzles with no hands does, or the way leaping effortlessly from ledge to ledge as Lara Croft does, which is pretty equally impossible but presents itself as possible.

And, regardless, what does this superpower mean about us and who we are in this game? I’m beginning to seriously wonder if we actually have a body.

I mean, we have a shadow, we’ve talked about that, but we’ve also talked about how this game uses reflections, and shadows. I just last night noticed that spot near the keep where the branches and a piece of metal make a shadow that looks like a woman sitting in a window.

Maybe my shadow is an equally false representation of who or what I am, you know?

Also keep in mind the common term “shade” meaning “ghost.” Maybe I’m just a wandering spirit.

Butch:

YES! YES! YES! FINALLY!

See….once again, you read things differently than I do.

You found this and started to be all “what does this mean about me?” Whereas I went “Wait…..these puzzles, which are EVERYWHERE [note how many appear on each obelisk…each one of these is OUT THERE] have to be looked at in just the right way…..” That means the design of this world had to be fucking PERFECT. Can you imagine how tough this was to design? To model? To make?

You can see where I’m going here.

It means we’re walking around in a game world so perfectly constructed that every detail about what you saw when you stood at a place was considered. It means we’re walking around in a game world where there are puzzles to be solved everywhere, and whoever MADE it put them just so.

And here’s the really cool thing: we both were toodling through, doing the technical line puzzles, LEARNING what we thought we OUGHT TO BE DOING, all the while running by all this stuff that was so painstakingly put there by who made the world. Stuff that was all around us that we failed to notice until (and we have this in common) someone else pointed it out (cuz Jr. saw the first one for me).

This isn’t OUR superpower. This is a marvel of game design, of WORLD design…. that in and of itself is metaphor.

And you talk on the sparkles: these puzzles, these non technical, world puzzles, are inherently different in the way that a) they sparkle and BOOM and have some beauty to them that isn’t just a black line, b) they are rarely, if ever, STRAIGHT lines, and c) they celebrate when you reach the answer (with a big whoosh and sparkles) instead of scolding you when you don’t (with a buzz and flashing red dots).

There’s a lot to unpack, there.

Feminina:

It’s true, these are much ‘friendlier.’ They give off a sort of cheery “yay you!” if you get them, and even if you don’t they just kind of keep sparkling at you as if to say “this isn’t it, but enjoy these twinkles while you work on it!”

Although the noise they make…that sort of raging inferno buzzing sound…I don’t know if that’s friendly. But energetic, it’s that.

Meanwhile, the other puzzles, as you say, give you annoyed noises and red lines if you get them wrong, as if to say “NO YOU ARE WRONG.”

The encouraging approach vs. the scolding approach. Are you more motivated by “nice, you can do it, it’s so pretty!” or by “NO YOU ARE WRONG.” (Or, if you’re not wrong, by a sort of “well, that’s no more than you should have done”…it doesn’t PRAISE you, certainly.)

Maybe two different people/factions were working on this island?

And yeah, I was thinking more about what it says about ME, but you’re right, it certainly says a lot about the island as well–whether or not it says that two different people/factions worked on it. (If they did, they must have worked pretty well together, since as you say, the whole thing is planned out to the minutest degree.)

Butch:

That and the whole science/religion thing.

It’s an interesting take on that dynamic (if it really is that) in that religion is usually the “tougher” one. “Get it wrong and HELLFIRE” and stuff. School is where we want you to do your best, and that’s ok. Here, the “sciencey” puzzles buzz, the other ones sparkle.

And it’s all worked out to a stunning degree. All metaphor aside, once you start noticing how subtle so many of the environmental puzzles are, and how complex, it is just jaw dropping technical game design.

Feminina:

You’re right, it is a very interesting take on science and religion (if that’s what it is).

I suppose devotees of the material world might point out that it does actually scold you for being wrong, in the sense that a lot of times you get eaten by a lion when you don’t remember the rules of living in lion country, or whatever. Maybe they see science as being no laughing matter and are trying to convey an idea of “look, there aren’t any lions HERE, but off this island it’s life and death and you’d better get it right.”

Meanwhile, the more religious side is like “yay, sparkles! Who cares if it’s life or death when you’ve got a nice heaven lined up!”

Definitely one of your friendlier religions, not the hellfire type.

Butch:

And yet one that seems to have turned everyone to stone…or something….I mean, the sparklies are very sparkly for an island so steeped in creepy.

Feminina:

Maybe it was the science that turned them all to stone.

They were messing around with…something…and the lasers going up to the arch, plus the yellow boxes they come out of, all speak more of science than religion.

Oh, and you asked many messages ago what the other yellow box was that I opened: it was the Shady Trees. I spent probably 15 minutes struggling fruitlessly with that the first time I saw it, and then last night went over, thought “what if–?” and boom, first try.

Going away and coming back later works wonders sometimes.

Butch:

So much to unpack! In a game about lines!

Dude, that going away and coming back happened to me so very often. If only it worked on the news.

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Sprinting Towards Destiny!

Tags

children, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, food, Horizon Zero Dawn, mystery, puzzles, romance, The Witness

Sidelong spoiler for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, spoilers for features of The Witness

Butch:

Just had a heart attack. Got Nugget a kid’s clock. So, a feature is you hit a button and it reads the time. Fine. Fun. Educational.

He hits it. I was in the living room, and, Femmy, I SWEAR it’s the same voice as the numbers in Rapture. I’m just chilling, and, from the other room, “One…..oh……one…” and I think I hit the ceiling.

Same. Voice.

The pattern is here.

Feminina:

Just called in an airstrike on your house.

Sorry, dude, it’s been nice knowing you, but we can’t allow this to spread!

Butch:

No one would blame you.

And, as the kids do not have school, I welcome it.

Feminina:

To distract you in your final moments…I did a little tramping about in the Witness. Got to the yellow box in that tiny sort of chapel place in the forest, but was baffled by the shadow puzzle and wandered off. Opened the door under the windmill and got through that back door out into the town. Opened that boxcar-crate sort of thing. Yay, excitement.

Went up to the top of the mountain and saw the snow I’d been missing…interesting, all those figures up there with their laptops and stuff. It looked a bit like an archeological site, as if they were in the midst of excavating/activating those arches and then…something. It turned them all to stone? Maybe?

Oh, and I saw the chips in the giant stone woman’s arm, revealing some rebar substructure, so she at least is not an actual person who was turned to stone, although the life-size human figures still could be.

Noticed that I am possibly a vampire, since no matter where I stand, I can never seem to see my own reflection, even though reflections are really big on this island. (Some very interesting visuals around reflections…like those roots on the side of the cliff that look like fish when you see them in the water, as well as the many strikingly clear reversed images of structures, trees, etc.) I do have a shadow, obviously, but shadows and reflections could be different magic.

Maybe I’m a starving vampire, trying desperately to reverse the thing that turned everyone to stone because I really want to eat them.

One could argue this explanation doesn’t make sense because I’m out roaming around in the sun all the time, but I say…am I? Or is this a brightly lit simulation with no real sunlight? Inquiring minds want to know.

Butch:

AH! The final puzzle in shady trees. That was a tough one.

You opened the door under the windmill? In the room with the movies? I haven’t done that! And I may never, as I am at the endgame, or what I think is the endgame. What’s there?

Yeah, that is where I now stand, on the snowy mountaintop. Interesting take. I’ve….done enough…that I can sort of see into the mountain….so I’ll just hmmm.

Though, again, not the happiest looking people. The two in the middle there, one looks like he is trying to hold the other, the one with the box, back, in a hostile way.

Certainly, we see a great deal of “tech” in these people. They’re modern. They have laptops. And yet, they all look confused. Lost.

Huh. I never noticed that about the reflection.

You’re noticing SO VERY MUCH except WHAT I WANT YOU TO FUCKING NOTICE!

Have you noticed….anything else? In the landscape?

I’m ok. I’m ok. Breathe.

You’re getting punchy with the vampire thing, though.

Feminina:

Yeah, dude, I dunno, you might just have to tell me what it is you want me to notice.

I mean…the landscape itself is kind of like a puzzle, though not a perfect square grid one. The river from above, on the mountaintop, makes the same line as on the screen there. And the black stone walls that run around town suggest lines making a path of some sort. Established paths are sometimes suggestively straight, or curved. Different regions could be like blocks of colors or what-not. Perhaps in some way the map on the boat refers not only to the type of puzzle in an area, but to the type of puzzle the area itself IS, as if you have to in the end walk over the entire island following a specific path.

But that’s all rather obvious and at the same time rather vague, since it’s not clear that that’s actually what’s going on, and not just a sort of thematic confluence, like the landscaper going for a layout evocative of puzzles.

Otherwise, I dunno, man. I have to say nothing in particular has struck me about the landscape. Other than it being very picturesque and frozen in time and so on, as we’ve discussed.

The doors under the windmill, in the room with the video screen? They just open onto a tunnel that leads up and opens into that building in the town with the crate inside. Another instance of doors taking you back to somewhere you’ve been.

Butch:

The landscape itself……..

Maybe….just maybe…..there are circles in the landscape…..circles that look a whole lot like the circles where you start your lines in the panel puzzles……

And maybe….if you tried…you could interact with them…..

Feminina:

Hm. Like that wall at the edge of town where there’s a circular hole and then a line knocked into the bricks? I could have sworn I tried clicking on that once, but maybe I only thought about it. Or maybe that’s not one of the instances you’re talking about.

Anyway, noted! I will investigate this feature of the landscape.

Butch:

There are many such instances……MANY.

That particular one….I can’t get that one to work….

Look other places. Like, EVERYWHERE.

Feminina:

Everywhere, you say? OK, I’ll look. I probably tried that particular one and it didn’t work and then I subconsciously decided that wasn’t a functional mechanic, and willfully didn’t notice any other possibilities.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Butch:

Look at lots of things from many angles.

The ONE game you sprint….

Watch, you’ll die 27 times a day at the hands of robot dinosaurs because all you’ll do is saunter.

Feminina:

I take exception to that! You wound me.

This is NOT the one game where I sprint. I ALWAYS sprint. My complaint about Grim Fandango was that I COULDN’T sprint. (I will forever maintain that sprinting in that game was totally impossible. Unless you looked at the options like some kind of nerd.)

I spent half of the Witcher 3 just running through the wilderness because I couldn’t be bothered to get on my horse.

This is the one game where I SHOULDN’T sprint, maybe. But sprinting itself is totally in character, and I will never give it up. When the robot dinosaurs get me, it’ll be because I ran headfirst into their ambush, not because I was sauntering.

Butch:

Ah, right, right. I have forgotten your sprinting tendencies. It’s been too damn long since we played a AAA game.

Some kind of nerd. Glass houses, Femmy.

And you know, while you couldn’t be bothered to ride poor Roach, who was awesome, you won’t pass up a chance to ride a robot dinosaur.

You certainly didn’t with Garrus. BOOM!

Feminina:

Dude. That’s harsh. Garrus wasn’t a robot.

Butch:

I know I know I know but I couldn’t resist.

Feminina:

It’s also true that I would still have romanced him if he had been.

Man, I hope there’s romance in Horizon. All this deep, thoughtful wandering around by myself has got me in the mood for love.

Butch:

Indeed. There damn well should be, what with all those dialog choices. And c’mon, after the end of the world what else is there to do? Hunt robot dinosaurs for food…..wait…..

Hey yeah! WHY are we hunting robot dinosaurs?

Hopefully, this shall be explained.

There’ll be romance in MEA. For certain.

Feminina:

I assumed we were hunting robot dinosaurs because they were hunting us: some sort of “kill or be killed” thing…although why they’re hunting us, when they presumably can’t eat us any more than we eat them…perhaps we’d better not ask too many questions.

All shall be explained! Maybe.

Butch:

One hopes.

I have this dark feeling like the way this game got developed was dudes were all

“Hey! I have an idea….wait for it….ROBOT DINOSAURS!”

“Oooo! Like….future cavemen and shit?”

“Yeah!”

“Dude….that is SO AWESOME.”

“Thanks!”

“So like, what will the cavemen be doing with the robot dinosaurs?”

“Fuck if I know! All I know is ROBOT DINOSAURS!”

“Hey, yeah! Good enough.”

But it IS supposed to be good. Positive thinking!

Feminina:

I can definitely see that meeting.

And every time someone suggests maybe a plot or something, or says “so how are we going to resolve this storyline?” someone else says “ROBOT DINOSAURS” and everyone cheers and high fives.

Because…I mean, really, what more do you need?

Butch:

I am slightly concerned about that, I won’t lie.

I’ll still play it, but I am slightly concerned.

Feminina:

Oh, we’ll play it. We were going to play it even before the good reviews. We can’t resist robot dinosaurs. And redheaded future cavewomen.

But yeah, there exists a distinct possibility that it will turn out to be a bit slight in the story department, reviews or no.

Butch:

There is always such a risk.

But the general feel I get from articles about hands on previews and such is that we need not worry. But then, I have gone into my little “no spoiler” bubble of late. Except for important cosplay updates and such. Ditto for ME.

Anyway, if it is slight in story, better bloggage for us.

Feminina:

It’s true, we can get almost as much mileage out of complaining about slight stories as we can out of digging into the details of complicated ones.

Plus, if things ever start to lag we can just type ROBOT DINOSAURS! and all will be well.

Butch:

Can we do that with other games, too? Seems a handy thing to be able to do.

Feminina:

Yes! Why not?

Surely ROBOT DINOSAURS is awesome enough that it need not have any actual connection to the game at hand in order to work its magic.

“So you still haven’t noticed the interactive circles in the landscape?”

“ROBOT DINOSAURS distracted me.”

“Say no more!”

Butch:

If we made a T SHIRT with ROBOT DINOSAURS we’d probably get sued. Too bad, really. It’s a good T SHIRT!

We should do a T SHIRT that just says “T SHIRT!!!!”

That would be great.

Dear God, the kids being home has sucked my sanity.

Feminina:

That would be great!

Back when people used to love kanji on everything (do they still?) I used to think it would be good to get a tee shirt that just said “tee shirt” in kanji. Because, you know, it would look really cool!–but be kind of a secret dumb joke.

I’m also getting a little weird in the head. Not from snow days, which I don’t have, but lack of sunlight or something. I’m hungry and feeling slightly hypoglycemic all the time, even though I’m eating the same as usual.

I assumed this meant I needed more ice cream, but that doesn’t seem to have solved the problem. I should probably try larger quantities.

Don’t tell ME I can’t eat half a gallon at a sitting.

Butch:

Winter, man. It sucks.

You’re not with child, are you? I hear people feel that way.

Resist wanting trophies.

That and I hope you aren’t sick.

You probably just want ice cream.

Feminina:

Oh good lord no. Bite your tongue, man. (Or your typing fingers, I suppose. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.)

It’s probably just about the ice cream.

Butch:

Just too easy to bother you with that. 

Probably is ice cream.

Now I want ice cream. One of the many things I miss since Mrs. McP started eating all healthy.

“Bite your typing fingers” doesn’t sound….right…..

Feminina:

Didn’t you say you had an ice cream maker? Just whip yourself up a batch and polish it off while she’s at work. She’ll never know.

Of course, that’s a dangerous habit to get into.

“Why does our budget say we’re spending $85 a week on heavy cream?”

“It’s…uh…a brand of floor polish. Haven’t you noticed how good the floors look? Also, ROBOT DINOSAURS.”

Funny Not Funny

Tags

Day of the Tentacle, politics, story, The Witness, theme

Minor spoilers for things in the Witness, major spoilers for plot points in Day of the Tentacle

Feminina:

I played a bit. Opened/activated the Yellow Box above the quarry. Observed that the laser from the keep seems to change color more than the one from the quarry, shifting from orange to blue…the quarry one seems to stay more blue. Hm.

Wandered off and poked around the town a bit. Finished a series of puzzles that turned on a cord leading into that blue tower, which I can’t get into yet.

That was about it.

Butch:

You’re killing me here, you know that.

And yes….the lasers do seem to differ in color somewhat.

So that’s….what…..two lasers? Three?

Feminina:

Two lasers. I have limited time, and nigh-unlimited puzzles.

I should go back to the birdsong ones, they were fun until the repetitive chirping started to drive me up the wall. I like the way the puzzle pattern looks kind of like a sound wave. Cute.

I hope all the lasers make a pretty rainbow at the end.

Butch:

That’s a fun one…..

There are many lasers.

Keep your eyes out on the way….look around…don’t sprint….

Feminina:

I like to sprint. It helps me outrun the Clue Mice who might otherwise catch up to me and point out things, distracting me from my busy schedule of checking out puzzles.

Butch:

The clue mice are good to outrun.

But not the ammo gnome.

I continued saving the world from tentacles. Froze a hamster, defrosted him in a microwave, had to give him a tiny sweater, you know how it goes. FUNNY! It’s FUNNY! Dammit!

It’s fun. And I have seven hours in, and it was free. Good escapist fun.

Feminina:

Glad you’re enjoying Tentacle! Rock on with that! It sounds funny-ish. Just, you know, not funny enough to make it seem worth my while to try to get into it again. But hey, someone should enjoy it.

Tell me more about the themes, so we can at least get a thoughtful post out of it.

The surprisingly mutable nature of history? The way that historic “heroes” like Washington and Franklin and so forth would be less mythical and more goofy and perhaps even disappointing if one were to actually meet them in person?

Butch:

That’s good stuff on the founding fathers!

There’s also a beauty contest in it! Yes, the evil tentacle in the future is a despot who likes human beauty contests! (And if that’s not a theme…..) and you have to win it by cheating! (That’s what the fake barf is for!)

Life imitating art imitating life. Like I asked before….is anything funny anymore?

And you use the mummy as your contestant. It wins despite being dead. Which…..well…..you do the themes.

Feminina:

Seriously? The evil tentacle likes beauty contests?

STOP SEEING THE FUTURE, Double Fine!

I’m glad I’m not playing that. Can’t handle it. But you carry on.

Nice that the mummy had a role to play, though. Chekov would approve. “If there’s a mummy on the mantelpiece in the first act…”

Good, strong narrative. I appreciate that. But not enough to play it.

Butch:

Yup. Beauty contests in which human “pets” are entered (cuz the world is run by tentacles, you see), you cheat to win, and everything about the “winner” is fake, from dentures, to a laugh track from a clown balloon to the spaghetti hair.

Pets. Cheating. Fakery. Fooling those that would judge you.

Seriously.

Nothing is funny anymore.

Feminina:

Fascinating.

Showmanship. Appearance is everything. Do whatever you have to do to win.

Yeah, not that funny.

Butch:

OH! And purple tentacle’s super weapon is a shrink ray designed to make humankind too small and weak to resist. Not to better them, but to belittle them into submission.

I kid you not.

Everything has themes, man. Everything.

Feminina:

Everything.

Oh, and is the tentacle the judge of the beauty pageant? Because that implies that in addition to being made insignificant, humanity has also adopted the evil ruler’s standards: when those in power are fakers, they reward fakery in others, thus elevating liars and schemers like themselves.

This isn’t a theme, it’s a 2×4 of our worst priorities upside the head.

Butch:

I know. This game was supposed to be funny….. and it was….in the 90s, when things were normal.

Yup. The tentacle judges. OOO! And the prize?

Dinner for two at “Club Tentacle,” which he owns.

You know? Maybe it wasn’t an accident they made this a freebie in the month that Trump was sworn in.

Feminina:

Seriously. Someone was rooting around in the old games section and thought “hey, it sure would be fun to revisit the days when everything about this was ludicrous!”

Political commentary from PS+?

These are dark and ominous times.

Butch:

Art is commentary, man.

Feminina:

Indeed. And so, perhaps, is picking which art you want to highlight by offering it free on PS+ in January 2017.

Speaking of free, did we have anything this month that I’ve totally missed?

Butch:

Nothing all that impressive.

We muddle through until Horizon. Another four days.

Feminina:

Muddle it shall be!

Just as well, really. We wouldn’t actually want to get sucked into something that would keep us from flinging ourselves at Horizon like starving robot wolves attacking a delicious robot dinosaur…hm. Was trying to be topical there, but I’m not sure it really works.

Games Other People Play

Tags

children, Horizon Zero Dawn, King's Quest, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witness, trophies

Minor spoilers for King’s Quest

Butch:

Don’t have all that much. Watched Jr. play Batman and take out a boss without dying once. He’s getting good.

I played King’s Quest for a goodly while, which was highlighted by a truly meta moment. This episode focuses on you, the King of Daventry, reuniting with your estranged teenage son and going on an adventure. So last night, solved the first in a series of puzzles, and the son was all “Hey, aren’t you going to say how well I did?” or something, and your character gives a very paternal lecture, all “Now son, we have only done the first one! There are many trials ahead…[it goes on a good long time]….after all, this is the simplest one! Your generation relies too much on reward for the simplest of things. The adventure should be enough!”

And then a trophy popped for finishing the puzzle.

Which was pretty damn sweet. Well played, King’s Quest, well played.

Feminina:

Ha! Nice. I like to see a bit of amusing meta in a game.

I don’t have anything either, because Mr. O’ was playing Tomb Raider. And, you know, that’s great, it’s nice to be able to share the pleasure of a a game I’ve enjoyed, etc. etc., but…I was using that console!

I’ve gotten spoiled with him not playing anything, so I get to use it whenever I want.

Oh well. Marriage takes work and sacrifice, as they say.

And tonight is my turn to play, so I’ll see if I can get to your Yellow Box.

Butch:

It was a nice touch. Good use of trophy. Especially as they were kinda mocking the whole idea of trophies, which do deserve to be mocked.

Marriage: Doesn’t it just?

You gotta start hiding the disks. Only way.

Is he into the idea of Horizon?

Yellow Box or the….you know…..other….stuff…..

Feminina:

Nope. There is no other stuff. The Yellow Box is my sole focus in life.

Sole. Focus. Forever.

You’re the one who was all pro-Yellow Box, man.

“Yellow box yellow box yellow box! There’s always a yellow box!” you kept saying.

He seems meh on Horizon, and to be pretty much keeping Andromeda as his next big thing instead, but he might get into it if it looks interesting while I’m playing it. As it seems that it may, if it’s as good as we’re determined to positively think. (It’s gonna be so great!)

Which would be good because we’re going to have potential problems if he doesn’t, because then HE’LL start playing MEA while I’M still playing Horizon, and I’ll be constantly wracked with jealousy and terrified of spoilers, but I suppose that’s the chance we take.

Marriage. Work. Sacrifice. Etc.

Butch:

There is always a box, and it SHOULD be a focus just…. keep an eye out.

Mr. O’s either raised his standards or has gotten another hobby. Unlike him. He used to play everything.

But it’s for the best. He’ll tear through it in a week or two, as he do, and then when you get around to playing it, the console will be yours.

Would you rather be a day on, a day off? With ME calling to you? No.

Feminina:

Yeah, he’s been focusing on non-game stuff, like work or book-reading or some damn thing. You know, piffling trivia of that nature.

But now he’s getting into RoTR, so he should be back in the fold. He was looking for the Baba Yaga poison last night, so I think he’s moving right along, as he does.

Butch:

Who has time for that?

He certainly does move right along. He’ll be through before HZD hits.

Speaking of which, now I get it. NOW I get it. Why you were all up into the whole female, red head thing.

Kotaku: Bring On The Horizon: Zero Dawn Cosplay

You were just jealous that The Witcher gave me such a great cosplay character.

Feminina:

Yup. That’s it all right.

Butch:

See, I know you well enough to know that you probably already have everything you need to do that cosplay already.

Feminina:

Well, I need to get a giant bow like that. The ones I have aren’t nearly as fancy.

Thinking Positive. And Creepy.

Tags

Horizon Zero Dawn, making games, puzzles, romance, The Witness

Vague spoilers for puzzle types and locations in the Witness

Butch:

I shall continue to be positive. We’re six days away from positive. Let’s be positive. (Not that we’ll play it as soon as it’s out, but it’ll be there to make us happy.)

So I’m in my little no spoiler bubble for HZD but I did notice that they have touted that there are no loading screens. This made me say, at first, “Oh come on, none? Not even fast traveling?” I’ll believe it when I see it. But here’s a question: Let’s say there are no load screens. Is that…good?

Now, no doubt load screens are bad for immersion. I give them that. But load screens also give one time to catch one’s breath, to have a slug of booze, and, for that matter, serve as a place marker, like “Ok, now we’re on something else, so if you want to stop and go make dinner this would be a good place to do it.”

So while I’m all for immersion, and it would be a hell of a technical feat if it were true, I’m not so sure NO load screens is a positive.

Thoughts?

Feminina:

That’s a very interesting question. As you say, load screens, although essentially artificial breaks in what could be continuous activity, have been incorporated into our play style–much as commercial breaks serve a purpose on TV.

“Time to take a break! Go to the bathroom! Have a drink! Maybe even turn it off for the night and come back later.”

With NO load screens–with a completely seamless, continuous flow of activity–we have to decide for ourselves when to do these things. That’s a taxing mental load there!

On the other hand, there are no load screen outdoors in giant games like Fallout 4, so if we’re out roaming around for hours on end (which we’ve all done!) we have this same experience of having to decide for ourselves when to pause.

I personally am also in the middle of playing a game with no load screens (though, granted, also no particular ‘action’), so perhaps the transition will be easier for me.

But yeah, if there are literally NO load screens, if you just click to start the game and you’re there, or if you go through a door into a building and you’re instantly there…that will be quite the technical feat.

One pressing question arises: where will they put the helpful tips?

Speaking of games I’m playing, I did a few puzzles. Finished up in the quarry, went back to the forest, finished in the trees and am now down in that lumberyard sort of area on the other side of the stream from the quarry. Got a couple of lines of screens to do there. Everything is going great. Totally, totally great.

Those shadow ones got pretty weird and complicated by the end, huh? It was cool.

Butch:

TWO Yellow Boxes! You are CRUISING man!

You know it’s killing me that you haven’t….you know…..

Is this part of the being ahead? Are there times when I’m woefully behind you where you’re all “Oh my God why doesn’t he GET TO THAT????” Or are you too busy playing games to notice?

I did like that whole bit with the shadows. I liked pretty much all of it.

Here’s a question: That bit, in the trees there, is the load screen. (Speaking of load screens. It all hangs together.) Or at least the screen you see before it starts loading and you see the shapes. You know me, always reading into things. I wonder if they picked that for a reason or it was just pretty.

I have no knowledge on this.

As for the other topic, at least don’t make the load screens when you go in and out of buildings. Bethesda games? So cool when you’re running around all over the map seamlessly. Then you get to town, you want to check out like 25 houses, and load screen every time you go in and out. UGH!

The Witness, though, isn’t really a catch your breath kind of game. You can throw up your hands and say “Ah, fuck it, I’m having a drink” whenever without worrying “Is the fight over? Is the scene over? Is there some really important plot twist five minutes away?” HZD seems like a game that IS more like the typical game in that you can step away at a very inopportune time, or need a break to catch your breath.

It will especially be a feat in a game that, by all accounts, looks really, really good. And has technical flourishes!

Kotaku: I’m Just Saying, Look At How Horizon’s Protagonist Turns Around On Horseback

Check THAT shit out!

“One pressing question arises: where will they put the helpful tips?”

Oh dear God…..I FORGOT ABOUT THOSE!!!!!

Feminina:

THE HELPFUL TIPS, man. WHERE WILL WE FIND THEM.

That looks pretty sweet, all right. I’m into it. I mean, initially I only ordered it because it had a red-haired female protagonist and ROBOT DINOSAURS, but now I think we might actually like it.

Butch:

You have very simple standards.

Feminina:

Well, those are my very most basic standards. Preferred add-ons include looting, romance, fancy dress balls, heists, and where possible, a group hug ending. I have high hopes for at least some of these.

Ha. I’m going to make up a scorecard with boxes to check off for all the things I want, and that will add up to a final score for every game.

Red hair? Check
Loot? Check [probably]
Fancy dress ball? Check [we can dream]

And I did notice that the lovely orange trees are the load screen. I don’t know if it means anything. Maybe not. I mean, something’s gotta be the load screen, and the orange trees ARE pretty.

Although, purely from a practical standpoint, it must mean, at least, that they’re telling us “this game is not just puzzles. There’s something going on here.”

Because the OBVIOUS load screen, if you just wanted “smack ’em in the head obvious this is what this game involves,” would be, you know, a grid with a line, maybe.

They don’t choose that (because it’s not attractive and not immediately that interesting): they choose a pretty scene. A forest, and just a single screen…makes you wonder “what’s happening here?”

And, too, it’s an autumnal scene. Could be a forest in the fall. The melancholy beauty of the end of summer, when we know the cold of winter is not far off.

Thought arising from this: we have pink trees suggestive of spring blossoms, and green trees suggestive of summer leaves, and orange trees suggestive of autumn. Is there an area of bare winter trees I’m not remembering? A snowfield somewhere? Or is winter not referenced on the island, meaning, perhaps, that it is in fact yet to come? Meaning, perhaps, that all of this is just a prelude to winter? And since winter is thematically suggestive of death, is this all, perhaps, just an extended metaphor for life? We roam around solving little puzzles, figuring out bits and pieces of things an an often-inexplicable world, and then the end comes? Leaving us, perhaps, knowing more about certain things but still largely as baffled as when we began?

Hm. Had to ask the internet because I wasn’t sure if there might be some obvious snowy landscape I’d seen but was obstinately not remembering. It looks as if there’s a snowy bit, but I haven’t seen it yet. (Way to spoil, self!)

So perhaps the seasonal references are not specifically a theme of the game in the way I just speculated. Still, some nice poetic wordage for the morning, so I’ll leave it.

As to your question about being ahead, I think I’m usually too busy playing something else to notice. Although with Rapture, I had so much stuff burbling around in my head that I wanted to discuss, I did kind of feel like “you have to play more!!!!”

And we’ve talked about how similar this game is to Rapture in some ways, so I can see you experiencing similar feelings of frustration. Sorry, man! I’m doing what I can!

While carefully failing to notice the thing you want to talk about just to annoy you. There’s that.

Butch:

In this game, yes. High hopes. I also demand BEBHBBs, hot sorceress sex, dream sequences and ROBOT DINOSAURS!

There’s some hope.

Maybe “Mild sexual themes” is “Hot sorceress sex.” Could be.

You know what there WILL be?

Yellow boxes. Because there is ALWAYS a yellow box.

Which, yeah…..I……could’ve told you that there were snowy bits……. seeing as I’m at one……..

Jeez. Wait for me to tell you “Hm.”

What else did you spoil? Unsee! Unsee!

Too busy playing to notice. Sigh.

What’s driving me particularly nuts here is that the thing(s) are not in any linear anything. It isn’t all “Oh, ok, he’s almost done with Wendy, so next is Frank,” it’s “When is she going to fucking NOTICE??????”

Grumble.

Feminina:

We’re going to have a very interesting composite scorecard for the blog, once we start providing our own ratings.

I think you’ll be stuck with mild sorceress sex on this one, though. You know, sort of haphazard smooching, a flash of bare shoulder, and a nice fade to black.

Think of the teens, man! Won’t someone please think of the teens?!

And quickly remove all the interesting explicit content we know they’d like. They can look for their porn on the internet like everyone else, damn it.

But I will never notice what you’re thinking of. I’ll be at the end of the game thinking “I wonder what it was I was supposed to notice? Oh well, probably nothing thematically interesting.” Heh.

And sure, you COULD have told me there was a snowy bit, but you WOULDN’T, because you wouldn’t want to spoil. Whereas I can just spoil myself with impunity.

But I didn’t. I saw the one landscape with the frozen (?) statue leaning against a post or something, and then I was like “OK, there’s snow later, my theory is disproved” and I closed the browser window.

Although speaking of frozen dudes and other tragedy, I meant to mention that bit on the walk in the castle garden, after the hedge maze…when things get kind of blurry? And there’s, like, spilled darkness or something, and a half-marked human figure in shadow spilling out of a bucket?

I saw that a while ago, and it may be the creepiest thing so far. Even more than the dog. I meant to say something about it at the time, but forgot. Probably blocked it from my memory.

What is that? Were people carrying night around in a bucket, or was it just black paint that’s giving me the creeps for no good reason?

Don’t answer that. Rhetorical question.

Butch:

I could’ve HMMED! I’ve been waiting to Hmm for YEARS here! This is my moment of HMM!

This was up on the parapets there, right? Sort of in a corner? Said shadow has it’s hands sort of raised in apparent distress?

Haphazard smooching. I guess we’ll have to deal. We’ll make up for it in MEA. (You know, it does occur to one that DAI was raunchier than the other DAs. Think MEA will do the same?)

And you agree with me. You liked seeing Geralt in action.

When you finally meet some heavily armored, moody bug thing that can make his armor vanish in a flurry of laser lights, only to do….uh….whatever it is they do in graphic, strong sexual content detail, we’ll lose you forever.

And I may give up games.

Feminina:

Oh man, that’s going to be great. I can’t wait for the laser light show.

Ooh, or…take a trick from the Witness, and we’ll be able to go into dot mode and remotely trace lines from the top button on our lover’s clothes, and then as they turn seductively around, we drag the line all the way down their body, and their clothes disappear with it.

And wind up draped over a statue that’s staring at us and probably is part of a puzzle that we’ll have to pay attention to later if we want to unlock the door and get out of the bedroom, but never mind that now.

I think there’s a big future in sex scene mashups from different games. Someone on the internet should get on that.

And yes! Thank you. Parapets was the word I was looking for.

And yes, the shadow has its hands up, as if to say “I’m unarmed, don’t hurl paint at me!” or perhaps merely to implore the heavens. In any case, it doesn’t look relaxed and happy. I noted it as the first non-statue suggestion of a person, and wondered if I’d see more, but so far I haven’t.

It was weird, though. Very weird.

Butch:

Uh….oooookaaaay……..

While I lack direct evidence, I’m utterly sure someone on the internet has.

And….can we move on now please?

As you mention people in the Witness, another thing I noted is that the more spiritual/natural a place is, the less likely you are to see a person in it. The forest, temple, monastery….I don’t remember anyone. And the one place where man tried to “conquer” nature, I guess, where he tried to use it to get higher (the treehouses), there’s that burned thing with a weeping man that I can’t get to.

Feminina:

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has. I’m not going to look, though. Some dreams are too sacred to be realized in the harsh light of a computer monitor.

That and I don’t need IT flagging my search history.

Yeah, not much else was up there with the person/shadow. A bit where things get kind of blurry and you think “is something the matter with my screen? Or my eyes?” and then the shadowy figure, and some other sort of spilled paint/tiny endless pit of darkness. The darkness and/or the figure (what the darkness does to the figure?) certainly seems to be the takeaway.

And we never see it get dark here (just say “hm” if there are whole nighttime scenes I haven’t gotten to yet), so maybe darkness HAS somehow been isolated or trapped and is a danger to the bright world.

Hm.

Butch:

Oh right SHIT! It wasn’t just stuff on the floor! There was a little “cutscene” like thing, wasn’t there? I forgot about that…… I remember the paint thing because I went back there to look for……something…..but I got that scene thing a long time ago (I’ve had this game almost a year, after all).

I, too, have not seen night. Though we’ve been to dark places, for sure. Under the temple, under the windmill….

Indeed, in those places, the whole point is to find the light. Under the temple we had those dark rooms, and tried to find JUST the right way to use light to “see the answer.” The dark under the windmill gives us the most clear depiction of themes. And, if you recall, the game starts with us coming out of a dark tube into the light.

So night? No. Dark? Lots.

Feminina:

Well, now you’re remembering more than I am, because I don’t recall anything I’d describe as a cutscene. Just spilled paint (if it IS paint…ominous music), and the strange blurriness, and the human figure.

But yeah, lots of darkness underground and so forth, but it’s never night. Quite unlike the Rapture, where it was frequently night at odd times. Which was weird in another way.

Butch:

Well, not a cutscene per se, but as close as we get in this game.

Feminina:

A likely story. You’re keeping something from me.

As you should.

Butch:

I am. The cutscene. With the nudity. ALL the nudity.

Feminina:

Damn it!!!! Must get back to the parapets! Hell with the forest/lumber yard!

Butch:

Oh there’s nudity there, too.

WHAT Lumberyard? Am I missing a lumberyard?

Feminina:

That’s just what I’m just calling that area below the forest, across from the quarry. Because…um…trees…and they were harvesting trees to go with the rocks…more of a sawmill, maybe, than a lumber yard. But that’s the general idea.

Butch:

Ah. Makes sense. A place with NO YELLOW BOX.

What were the puzzles there?

Feminina:

Dude…there’s not a yellow box, but there’s a cord that runs to the yellow box above the quarry. I need to solve these puzzles to light up that cord to open up part of the puzzle on the box so I can get into the box.

This is the continuation of the forest you specifically told me to go to. I’m TRYIN’ to stay focused, man. And believe me, it’s hard…so many exciting things in other places…could be going back to the sun temple…could be checking out the town again…

The puzzles look to be Tetris blocks and trefoils combined. Good times.

Butch:

Ah right! That.

Well, you didn’t activate the treehouse one, or the greenhouse one, or the jungle one….

Or the…..stuff……

Feminina:

I know! That’s because I wasn’t trying to focus! I gave my “heck with this let’s go do something else” inclinations free rein.

Right now I’m controlling my natural magpie urges and powering through the point where I start to get bored with a puzzle type, specifically for you.

It’s because I was so impressed with the no-meat, no-cilantro chili. Otherwise, I would have been out of here by now.

Butch:

It’s ok. Soon….when you see…..stuff……then magpie away.

Cuz yellow boxes, as nice as they are, aren’t obelisks……

Feminina:

Nice! Nice use of vague terms and ellipses. You have learned well from my sterling example.

Let’s Get Excited for Something Good

Tags

Horizon Zero Dawn, reviews, story

No spoilers, except for the main character’s name in Horizon Zero Dawn, if you care about that

Butch:

So now I want it to be Feb 28th, not just because we’ll be eight days closer to the end of Trump and I’ll be past more of kid birthday season, but because it looks like HZD is very, very good.

Remember how I was all “Hype gives me hope?” Well, they lifted the review embargo eight days before release, and the reviews are good. Currently sitting at 88 on metacritic (even TW3 was 89, cuz haters gonna hate), and it sounds right up our alley. Long, good story, great characters, good acting.

About. Fucking. Time.

I could use this.

In terms of things I’m playing right now, I continue to have nothing. I have been reduced to checking to see if HZD has shipped.

At least the ratings are funny. Rated T for “Alcohol and Tobacco reference” and “Mild sexual themes.”

What is a “Mild sexual theme?” I wanna know.

“Hey dude, remember that time in college when you had a sip of wine and hugged that guy? Wild times man…..Rated T times…..”

Feminina:

“I think I actually touched that guy’s knee! It was so sexually themed, in a totally mild, Parents-of-Teens-Approved way.”

I have very little. I wandered a bit. Solved like one puzzle.

Stared at the three hanging gourds opposite the three panels on either side of that temple-looking place for far too long without making any sense of them. Wandered away.

Eagerly awaiting news that HZD has shipped. Could use a big game with a story not entirely based on the speculation in my own head. Not that this isn’t deep and themey and all, but…one likes a change of pace. After Rapture and Dear Esther and now the Witness, I’m starting to feel a tiny bit burnt out on suggestive vagueness and eerie mystery.

Butch:

Right there with you. And I admire your stick-to-itiveness. I played The Witness with several long breaks (indeed, taking one now). You’ve just gone full throttle. Time for a break, I agree.

Especially now that we know HZD is good. It has gotten very universally good reviews. I’m into it.

Plus LONG. Reviewers are saying it’s taking them 55,60 hours to plow through the main story, which, for us, is, maybe a 398472598 hour game.

Cruel of them to allow reviews eight days ahead of launch, knowing that we’ll just wear out hitting refresh on the package tracking page for NO REASON cuz it won’t be here for a week no matter what.

Feminina:

Long is good. We can do long. I mean, it’s MOSTLY good. We’re going to have Mass Effect: Andromeda hanging over our shoulders whispering to us to hurry up, but for the most part long is good.

As long as it’s not all shards and junk, I mean, but it’s doubtful people would be that excited about it if it were.

Butch:

People say it’s not shards kind of long. Good kind of long. Finding stuff actually matters, fleshes out story, etc.

And ME ain’t going anywhere. We’ll know we have many many months covered. Your problem will be keeping your spouse away from ME and spoiling.

One thing on this ‘long’ I found interesting: there’s a pretty good consensus that the main story is just as, if not more compelling than the side quests. Weren’t we talking about how that’s rare?

Feminina:

We have talked about that. On various occasions, I think. Certainly with Fallout 4 not that long ago…

Butch:

Indeed. This might have good bloggage past “HOLYSHITROBOTDINOSAURS!”

I am officially excited.

Feminina:

It’s going to be awesome! I sure hope.

Butch:

I was hoping before, but now I’m pretty convinced. 88 on metacritic 78 reviews in. Plus Patty Hernandez at Kotaku is usually pretty spot on.

Plus ROBOT DINOSAURS!

Feminina:

I am pretty excited about something big that’s also completely new. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love me some franchise games, but coming to something brand new with which we have no history whatsoever–that’s always good for some thrill of discovery.

Butch:

Man, I can’t remember the last time I played a big, AAA game that was a new universe. I had played Witcher games, Tomb Raider games… I guess AC4 was new to me….

You, at least, got to meet Geralt’s world for the first time with TW3. But, as much as I love those games, that world wasn’t THAT unfamiliar. Swords, spells, hot sorceresses, etc. I’m not complaining, but it certainly wasn’t robot dinosaur new.

I’m also glad that MEA is in a “new” place. It ISN’T ME4. It seems to have enough ME to make people like us happy, but still have enough new to be…well…new.

I am hyped.

Feminina:

It’s true, the Witcherverse was new to me, but not new in the sense that I’d never seen anything like it. Robot dinosaurs has a high novelty factor, for sure. If it also turns out to have other good features like story, character, etc.? So much the better!

Butch:

Amen!

And it seems to. So nice.

Where’d you get yours, Amazon?

Feminina:

Amazon all the way. Points! So many points!

And free Prime shipping! I’m so easily bought.

Butch:

Figures.

I did Best Buy. Cuz coupons.

We’ll compare useless pre-order bonuses.

Feminina:

We will. But we both know that if it doesn’t come with a figurine of a limbless, headless, bikini-clad woman’s torso, it’s basically meaningless.

Butch:

Wow. Extreme callback to a game we didn’t play. Props.

It’ll probably just be a costume for Aloy. That’s the main character, you know. Or multiplayer points but OH WAIT! This game HAS no multiplayer! How novel!

Feminina:

[checking the calendar to see if it’s next week yet]

The Speculation Continues

Tags

mystery, puzzles, The Witness

Spoilers for various things that exist in the Witness, although not for what they’re doing there, because we have no clue

Butch:

So last night I woke the kids up and finished the Witness!

No, no I didn’t. I couldn’t fall asleep and I’m so very, very tired. I haven’t gotten that little sleep in so very, very long.

Feminina:

I played some! I went to the forest and the quarry, like you said. The real forest this time. And the shadows on the grid is a cool mechanic, and totally underscores what we were just saying, that we’re suspended outside of time or however you put it. Because that obviously only works if the sun is in the right place, meaning it will only work at the right time of day, when the sky is clear…but there’s only one time of day, ever, and the sky is always clear, so it works whenever we happen to go by there. Which is convenient, but not the way things work in the real world, or even in a realistic fake world.

And on the one hand: so we’re in a game, duh. I bet the shadows don’t shift in Super Mario Brothers, either. (Maybe they do in the newer ones! I don’t know.)

But then, it’s NOT just a self-contained puzzle game world, because it includes BBC video clips, and quotes from people outside the game world. So we’re in a game, or at least a fake world full of puzzles, but we’re meant to KNOW we’re in a game. Which is why it’s interesting.

As you well know, having almost finished it even if you didn’t actually finish it last night.

Butch:

Well, the shadows don’t shift in those games because time doesn’t matter, or, at least a time based metaphor doesn’t matter.

But then….another way to read this is not that the island place is “outside of time,” or a place where time stops, per se (any more than any other game world. I mean, time moves….oddly….even in realistic games. That fight will JUST HAPPEN to start right when Lara shows up….that dragon will wait to appear until JUST then….even if we go and cut down eight rabbits and gather three moldy flags…or not….but I digress). It could be time DOES pass here, just like it passes in Lara’s world, or Evelyn’s. But, as you say, the shadows work in the forest (good mechanic, I agree). So does that mean they ALWAYS do, or are we here at the exact “right” time? Witnessing something requires being in BOTH the right place and the right time. Maybe our anachronistic friends came by when the shadows were off, literally or metaphorically, in their world, this one, or their own heads.

Well, I was going to bring up something similar like us knowing it’s a game, but I’m so tired I’m stumbling over myself, so I’ll throw this out there with the idea that we’ll digest and talk on it after the weekend.

As you mention “in a game” and “know we’re in a game,” time to talk about “game” and all that.

Now, when this came out, it did NOT get hit with the “walking simulator” insult like Rapture did. Of COURSE it’s a game! Puzzles! See?

But what had me thinking this weekend was how WE’RE approaching it. We’ve come up with reams of bloggage about it already. That said, USUALLY when we get all bloggy we’re talking about themes and meaning from narrative. We analyze traditional narrative, as applied to games. Usually.

This game (we’ll go with that) has no traditional narrative at all. That I’ve seen. There’s no characters, no sense of conflict past “These are puzzles so I will do them,” no sense of threat, no nothing. And yet, here we are blogging like hell about it anyway.

So…instead of discussing “Is it a game?” cuz that’s silly, what IS this game? We talk about how games are like interactive books/movies/whatever….is this one more like a piece of interactive visual art? An modernist installation to end all modernist installations?

I don’t know as much as you think I know.

T SHIRT!

Feminina:

It’s true, I suppose, that we could imagine that this was a real world but that we’re only getting the highlights of our time there, or something.

The other times when I wandered by here and couldn’t figure out how these shadowed squares worked…maybe it was because they DIDN’T work yet, not because I just hadn’t figured it out! (Yeah, let’s go with that. All the stuff I haven’t done yet is because it’s not even possible to do! Maybe this is also the case with your impossible puzzle!)

I guess it is kind of like a modern art installation, isn’t it? Especially if you’re nearly done and still don’t know exactly what’s going on. It’s possible that there is no exact thing that’s going on, that it’s all weirdness and possibility open to interpretation…life and art are what you make of them, etc.

Oh, and I also got into the quarry (trefoil thing!), and saw all those statues of guys in robes, and doves. I would say “what is with the guys in the robes and the doves?!” but I’m beginning to wonder if that kind of question is even worth asking.

Maybe nothing is with them. Maybe they just are how they are.

Butch:

I shouldn’t have given you that out with the timing, should I have?

But yeah….I’m sure the impossible puzzle will be nothing any minute now…..

I’m not sure of anything….there’s a big difference between “nearly done” and “done.” And, as I said, I’m at what I very much believe is the end game but, like every other game I’ve played, that doesn’t mean I’ve DONE everything. I KNOW I still have four honeycombs to find. So I could find out more when I’m done, but maybe you have to be DONE to get it, or it can’t be got. Who knows?

Ah! The trefoil mechanic! You are FLYING! Almost as if you’re missing something.

The quarry was also interesting as it was a place that seemed like it was not done with whatever it was doing. It seemed still….active? Like, here was a place where someone was doing something and got interrupted….tuned to stone? Taken to the rapture? What? Lots of other places looked like they had fallen into disrepair, or had just been left there, but this one looked as if stone was being cut, stuff was being DONE and then poof, it wasn’t. At least I read it that way.

Feminina:

Oh, I’m missing everything. I’m just hopping around. “Check out the bird sounds! Aw, these are driving me bonkers. What else you got? Hey, check out the shadows! Ooh, this one looks hard, let’s go check out the quarry!”

Sorry man, I magpie. It’s how I do. I’ll try to stick with the quarry and/or the forest (I have a suspicion that you have to finish them both to get both sides to open on the puzzle that’s up on top of the quarry under the…bom bom bom…YELLOW BOX…but don’t tell me if that’s wrong) until I accomplish something, but I promise nothing.

I agree, the quarry, especially with the ramp and the lift that still go up and down, has an unusually functional feeling. People could totally have been quarrying stone there right up until they turned to stone themselves. Or whatever. Although the stuff outside looked a little more worn…some fallen rock and branches, etc.

Although that platform in the colorful swamp also still turns, and it seems equally likely to predate the screens and cords, assuming anything predates anything in any meaningful way.

Butch:

The mighty irony is that the more you hop around the LESS likely you are to miss what you’re missing…..

I mean, Yeah, the yellow box……

The thing you’re missing you don’t even know you’re missing it……

Things.

Hmm.

In the quarry, though wasn’t there a place, in the middle there, where the rocks were all half done? It was more than “this stuff works,” it was like “they were halfway through getting this carving out of the bedrock then stopped.” Nothing else in the game, at least as I recall, seemed to be a work in progress. Maybe it was something that still worked, but here, stuff just stopped mid shift almost.

Lots of stuff “works.” But everything else seems put together. Finished. The quarry does not.

Feminina:

So…I’m working really hard to miss something here, is what you’re saying? I shouldn’t even be ABLE to miss this thing I’m missing, what with all the jumping around?

Well, what can I say. I’m good at ignoring things that aren’t the very extremely specific thing I’m looking at. Narrowly focused attention! It’s good for some things! Like cataloging!

Ah, I see what you’re saying about the quarry being unfinished, as opposed to simply working. It’s true, it does look as if they could have been right in the middle of something, where other locations don’t show any sign of ‘recent’ (who knows what that means) human activity.

Hm. The greenhouse kind of suggests that, in that greenhouses need regular tending or else they turn into overgrown jungles, but it’s perhaps less explicit than the quarry.

Butch:

When you don’t miss it, you’ll know.

T SHIRT!

You are a librarian to your very core.

The greenhouse was the other one that came to mind. Telling they are the two most modern ones.

Feminina:

Ha! That’s a good T shirt. I look forward to suddenly not missing the thing I’ve not spotted so far.

The greenhouse and the quarry do seem sort of the most modern…ALTHOUGH, somewhat less so, the hedge maze would theoretically also require regular tending to keep it so tidy, and hedge mazes are not necessarily modern.

But nothing is overgrown at all…making me think either time is not passing (or everything in the world is fake), or else someone else has been here a lot more recently than it seems. Or is STILL ON THE ISLAND, but hiding from us!!! Perhaps a groundskeeper is stealthily creeping around behind us, trimming the hedges and mowing the lawns (with an old-fashioned push mower so as not to disturb the quiet), to keep everything nice and tidy.

It’s like a resort!

The staff, who probably live in some impoverished backwater village underground or something, remains invisible, while the guests toddle around amusing themselves with the manufactured mysteries of the place and imagining they’re getting “such a wonderful experience of the real island!” but in fact have no idea.

Damn it, this is all a luxury vacation spot, isn’t it?

Butch:

Hmm. Good point about stuff not really growing….though….remind yourself of hedge maze the closer you get to the end.

It does seem a bit like a resort. Those couches with cushions? I’d totally chill there, read a book, look out at the pretty.

I mean, if it wasn’t surrounded by petrified, terrified dudes.

Feminina:

Terrified petrified dudes harsh my mellow. Be assured I will be mentioning this in my Yelp review.

“Scenery was beautiful and staff very discreet, but was not fond of art selection: will not stay again until statuary is adjusted to reflect a more soothing mood than the current ‘anguished horror’ motif. Entirely too suggestive of the eternally complaining peasantry I came here to avoid.”

Butch:

That would probably only knock it down half a star.

Those were very nice pillows.

The Witness: Leading Us to God? Or to Madness?

Tags

Day of the Tentacle, politics, puzzles, religion, story, The Witness, theme

Plot spoiler for Day of the Tentacle. Lots of speculation and possibly spoilery details about the Witness. 

Butch:

Man….I can’t win.

I play games to get away from reality (among other reasons). I certainly play games like Tentacle to escape into a silly world where putting things in time traveling port-a-potties is something you do.

So last night I learn that Purple Tentacle takes over the world by running as the GOP Vice President, takes over when the President goes crazy, then promptly amends the Constitution so that humans have no rights.

It’s really getting to the point where nothing is funny anymore.

Best to stay with deep. And nudity. It is almost Friday, after all.

Feminina:

Yeah, see, I don’t need that. I’m going to say I totally saw it coming and that’s why I quit Tentacle so early.

On-the-nose political commentary is not what I’m after right now.

What I am after is confusion and pretty scenery, which the Witness reliably delivers.

So. I went to the forest.

Ha ha, dude. You just thought it would be funny to send me off somewhere where I’d have to pay attention to sound, didn’t you?

Now, this was a nice twist, and I liked the way a momentary sense of ‘Wait, birdsong? Is there something alive here after all?” turned into “no, those are speakers…and that’s the same birdsong over and over, when I stand right here…”

I don’t have, probably, the keenest ear for pitch and so forth, so I did four or five of them and then got tired of it (argh, enough already with the warbling bird and the ringing phone and the wolf howl!), but I’ll go back later. In the meantime, I wandered over into the ‘town,’ or more accurately the ‘three or four buildings close together,’ and found the wall where the Tetris blocks are combined with Pac-Man dots. Did a couple of those before bedtime.

So I didn’t get anywhere major, but I did some things.

And no political commentary to be found. Very refreshing.

Butch:

Yeeesssss…..you saw it coming…….We can go with that if you like.

That’s the jungle! Those aren’t trees! They’re bamboo and shit! You’ve been living in metro Boston too long, can’t recognize a tree when you see it.

In my defense, I did not sent you there. But that’s ok, cuz you were gonna get there eventually anyway. And it’s next to the greenhouse, so ok.

But yeah, a cool mechanic if there ever was one. One where headphones helped no end.

Indeed, this game took some shit when it came out because people criticized the fact that the game is pretty much impossible to complete if you are hard of hearing. (Spoiler alert! This area has a….YELLOW BOX!) Now, I sympathize with people who have physical difficulties. I don’t want to sound cold. But is it really up to a game to make sure everyone can finish it? I don’t know how I feel about that. You?

(It’s interesting no one bitched, or at least didn’t bitch as loud, about this being equally impossible if you’re colorblind. But I digress.)

It was neat that, once again, we get a sense that things either USED to be alive here and were “preserved” in some way (stone, recordings, etc.), or any semblance of life was brought in (as a recording, as a representation of someone from some other place). You’re right: they AREN’T birdsongs. They’re a preservation of a birdsong that already happened.

Either of the options I present raise interesting questions re the player.

Pac-Man…Oooo! The ones where you had to hit every single intersection of everything? That was the last time I had a “wake in the night three days later” moment.

Feminina:

Dude, some of it’s bamboo (a weirdly creepy little dim bamboo forest maze, too), but some of it is these very tall, mossy trees. Non-bamboo trees. You go back and check.

Fine, I picked the wrong forest. I’ll look for the forest you were talking about next time. Or some time. I don’t know when.

And yeah, the recorded birdsongs do make you think…is everything here, including me, just a preserved example of something?

There are museum-like elements here: certainly the statues in their various poses, the wildly different environments existing feet away from each other…the recorded snippets of quotes from different people (interesting thing I meant to note: at the end of one I heard a few nights ago the woman reading the quote kind of sighed and said “what?”–like, she was no longer reading a passage but was actually speaking for herself. To ask a question suggestive of “what’s happening” or “what do you want”…interesting). This whole world could be seen as a sort of museum of pretty or interesting earthly or human-type things that someone or something thought were cool, and has preserved in some way.

Maybe I myself, the PC, am similarly preserved, as an interesting example of how humans like to solve puzzles. One could imagine some vast entity wandering over every now and then to see what its amusing little consciousness remnant is currently up to in the puzzle terrarium. This would account for the fact that even though we apparently have a body that casts a shadow, we never see our hands manipulating anything in the puzzles, we can’t jump off cliffs, we can’t sit down on things or pick things up…

Or maybe we are actually conventionally alive (in some fashion, anyway), but we’re still in a fake world, like a fish in a tank or a guinea pig in a nice cage, or–the thought cannot be avoided–a rat in a maze.

If the world–or at least the island that is all we can see of the world–is fake, who built it? And why?

All we can do is keep solving puzzles.

Butch:

The forest I reference was by the QUARRY and the KEEP. You are by the TOWN and the GREENHOUSE. Big difference!

Sheesh.

Preserved. Yup. Especially as where you start is very artificial. You start at the end of a big metal pipe. That does suggest something very synthetic.

I never thought about it like a museum, but you’re right. Even the map on the boat looks more like the map you’d get to guide you around the zoo than a more traditional map of a place. The areas are little stylized drawings, like the pictures of lions and hippos and snack bars you’d get on a pamphlet.

I didn’t notice the pause and what, but, as you mention the recordings, something I’ve meant to bring up now that you’ve found a few: they’re in different voices. These aren’t one person narrating your experience. Or, at least, it doesn’t look that way on the surface, as some are male, some are female, etc. But then, what you noticed could be read as there’s some director behind the scenes telling them what to read and how. So are these recordings all coming from the same person/source/God/whatever or not? I was assuming not, but now you have me second guessing myself.

All we can do is keep solving puzzles in the hope….dare I say…the FAITH that, if we just solve enough of them, all the answers we want will reveal themselves. We’ve been blogging about “What do you think this MEANS? Who do you think MADE this? What is our ROLE? What is our relationship to whoever DID this?” which are all questions a lot of very intelligent philosophers, religious thinkers and scientists have asked for centuries, and will for centuries more. And they do so thinking, hoping, believing that there IS an answer, or answers, that can be known.

Mrs. McP, the scientist, believes this with a zealous fervor. That every question can and should be definitively answered. It’s why she does what she does.

And we certainly believe this from the game. We both think that when we get to the end we’ll know…if not everything…a hell of a lot more.

Which is, well, faith.

All this from a game about drawing lines.

Impressive, no?

And we’ll talk A LOT more when you find….hmm.

Feminina:

It’s true, wandering around a mysterious world solving individual puzzles in the hopes that somehow it will all add up to the answers to all the questions you have about where you are, and why, and who made it…it is all suggestive of faith. Sort of.

I mean, one could also argue that “who made this world?” and “why am I here?” and “what is it for?” are questions that are traditionally ANSWERED by faith, not asked by it. Philosophers and religious thinkers ASK, but religion is there to provide the answer, and faith…well, faith is there to help us accept the answer even when it doesn’t make sense.

Which could be what’s going on here, but I’m not sure.

We are definitely taking the role of a questioner, and the scattered quotes from other religious seekers definitely give our search a religious cast, but I think it’s premature (at least from where I am) to conclude that the answer is going to be ‘God’ or even ‘a being of godlike power.’

We’ve also had quotes from scientists, after all, and while ‘natural evolution’ seems an unlikely explanation for what we’re seeing, it could turn out that, say, a random wormhole storm has pulled all these things from different regions and different eras into one temporal bubble, and then the few surviving people built screens as a big project to keep themselves sane, or something.

Or maybe I AM the mastermind: maybe I built the screens myself, and then erased my memory so I could start over again fresh, just to have something to do with my eternity. Maybe this is the 8 millionth time I’ve done these puzzles, and I just begin again every time, because what else can I do, stuck here…trapped on this deserted island, as the saying goes.

Which, yeah…”What would you take with you to a deserted island?” is a famous question. Maybe everything on this island is someone’s answer…or maybe it’s random.

We can only keep solving puzzles in the hope–though I do not have faith on this point–that there is an answer somewhere.

Butch:

Yeah, that’s what I’m getting at. We’re having faith that all of our solutions to the puzzles of the world, our of our attempts to answer, will add up to the GRAND answer.

Maybe it’s more suggestive of science. “There is an answer to be found, and, if I keep on plugging and applying reason, I shall find it.”

I let you go there because, you were doing so well listing all the things you’ve found. The sciency, technological puzzles, the recordings, the statues…..you forgot one: The obelisks.

Those obelisks.

Which do not seem to be part of the modern, sciency pattern of the panels, now do they?

Hm.

Feminina:

I don’t know if I do have faith that it will add up to the Grand Answer. I mean, I HOPE it will all make sense, but as we’ve noted, the payoff is not always equal to the buildup in weird mysteries.

Which is true in life as well as in games. Sometimes the explanation is unsatisfying. Still, I agree it’s a bit more like science. “If I can solve this one…and this one…and this one…I’ve learned something! One tiny piece of the whole!”

As for the obelisks, I don’t know, they don’t seem necessarily non-sciencey. They hum, which makes me think of a power source. I could see them being nicely stylized batteries or something. Sleek and black and shiny, like our gaming consoles. A more modern aesthetic than most of the technology we see, but it could still be technology.

Or it could be magic! I don’t know!

Butch:

AH HA! Look at THAT metaphor! Payoff not equal to buildup…

And note: We’re coming at this as…..less than pious people. There are LOTS of people who expect either science or religion to lead to a very definitive Grand Answer. My in laws believe that they will be up there with Jesus in a big purple chair and all will be revealed.

And, as a non pious person, I doubt my in laws will get their big purple chairs. Maybe, if we’re lucky, there’ll be a pattern or some shit.

Hm. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Feminina:

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of the big purple chair…”

It’s true, we have our godless liberal tendencies inclining us to a skeptical reading. If we were more pious people we could easily take this whole thing as a parable.

Say, we’re meant to see the island as symbolic of the world, and we have only to look around at the world to see that it was obviously designed for some purpose, and that the Maker has clearly left clues as to His (or Her, but let’s be real, it’s His) intentions for us, if we are only willing to seek them out. Maybe each puzzle represents a spiritual test, and the overarching story of the game is of a person overcoming barrier after barrier placed in our path by godless technology and the material world in an attempt to keep the soul from the knowledge of God. Maybe the answer in the game isn’t as simple as “God did it,” but whatever the answer is, it REPRESENTS the ultimate answer in real life, which is “God did it.”

That’s downright inspiring, man.

It is interesting that, whether we see this quest for knowledge as religious or scientific (or some combination: early science was basically a religious enterprise, after all, an attempt to understand God’s creation), it’s presented as a fundamentally lonely journey. There is no one else here to help (or to hinder).

This isn’t religion as commonly practiced, with a community of other believers sharing and affirming one another’s faith, and it’s not science as commonly practiced, with a community of other scientists directly collaborating and/or building on one another’s work. (Though there is a long tradition of mystic hermits in religion, and of lone geniuses in science…and an equally long tradition of not paying nearly as much attention to the many, less interesting people who supported and assisted the hermits and lone geniuses, but that’s perhaps neither here nor there.)

Whether by choice or not, this quest we’re on is one we must do alone. Which now I think about it makes it feel more like a religious quest, since we hear it said that each soul must find its own way to God, where we don’t hear that each person must find their own way to gravitational theory or something. Although current teaching methods do try to stress individual or group discovery over rote memorization, so we can’t rule out that it’s all part of some big lesson plan.

This is deep, all right.

Butch:

Full disclosure: I stole the “big purple chair” thing from a Frank Zappa song called “Elvis has just left the building.” Should probably cite that.

As for your parable, well…..I’m not sure that’s not….hmm. Hmm. You’ll get to a serious HMM about all that at some point.

So I will just hmm for now.

Good point about us being alone. If anything, the other “people” in the game, that is, the statues, have, to this point, only served to make things more confusing. Why are they stone? When are they from? ARE they people?

I’m trying to remember how many of the statues seemed “alone.” Usually, we see the statues in big crowds, like in the keep. They were all over the damn place. I can remember two that stand out as being alone (one’s right in the town there, you’ve probably seen it), as well as one other that’s a little off the beaten path, and those BOTH are in a position of divine reverence: the dude in the town is looking up at the heavens, arms outstretched, palms up, the other is on one knee, reaching towards the heavens. The others, the crowds, like in the keep, are certainly busy with earthly pursuits, be they fighting, or sitting on a throne, or courting, or what have you. Alone=more traditionally religious. We are alone.

Keep all this in mind if and when you get to the endgame. I wish I could talk about some stuff.

Deep. I know, right?

It’s a game about tracing damn lines.

Feminina:

Right. Big purple chair. Thank you, Zappa!

Interesting point about the statues that are with other statues being the ones who are seemingly engaged in human pursuits that involve other people (playing music, speaking from a throne, answering a door), while the ones that are alone (I’ve seen the dude in the town, not sure about the other one) appear to be imploring the heavens.

Perhaps we’re one of the solitary ones who will not be distracted by human things, but must engage in lonely quests for Truth?

I say ‘must’ because it may not be that we have a choice…the dude imploring the heavens in the town doesn’t look exactly HAPPY about it. I get the sense he’s just as likely to be wailing “why, God, why?” in reference to some impending or recent disaster (perhaps the one that wrecked the tower he’s standing next to?), as he is to be singing the praises of the good Lord.

Perhaps we, too, are seeking answers after a disaster, more than we are looking for a general Truth just because we hunger for Truth.

Here again the question arises: is “The Witness” meant in a religious or a forensic sense?

Ooh, also I wanted to say, nice use of the vague “hmm” and “you’ll see a thing at a point” there!

Butch:

Elvis has just left the building, those are his footprints right there.

That one in the town especially seems like a seeker. And he’s so central. You’re MEANT to see that.

I tried to figure if he was looking at something specific, but couldn’t tell.

But yeah, he looks very unhappy. I wonder….I did that particular yellow box last (or, what I figure is last, based on trophies), which means, if that was the natural progression of the game (and, given the town has every single other thing), that particular “why God why” dude was “close” to whatever. THIS CLOSE. About to figure things out? About to…what?

I’m not sure we’re ever supposed to know if it’s religious or forensic….though….Hm.

Feminina:

Interesting thought! The heavens-imploring dude might have sensed himself about to turn to stone and said “why, why now?! I’m so close!”

Maybe we’re going to turn to stone at the end as well. Maybe all the other statues represent people who were seeking the truth in their own way, and they didn’t find it either.

Hm…I could see that for some of them, like the musician and the woman on the throne (seeking truth through music/art, and through power), and maybe the fencers (seeking it through athletic feats and/or combat), but I’m not sure about the Secret Servicey guys at the doors. “We seek truth through guarding and serving others”? Seems a stretch.

Butch:

You mean the guy pointing at the thing?

Too much?

Too much.

But on that….

Found any other videos? I’ve only found one more….the “third” one, I suppose…and it would be relevant to this….

Feminina:

Is one of the sword-wielding Secret Service guys pointing at a thing? I haven’t been back there in a while.

And no, I haven’t found any other videos. Although I also haven’t been back to the windmill in a while, but I assume there would be more of those honeycomb patterns involved, and I haven’t seen any of them out and about recently.

Butch:

One of the more modern ones. And I’d like to take credit for my brilliance, but Jr. saw it, not me.

Yup. Honeycombs. And I’m still missing four. FOUR!

I hate knowing that.

Feminina:

Wow. That’s a lot of honeycombs hidden out there somewhere. In such a small, contained world you’d think finding all the animus fragments wouldn’t be so hard!

Though I do them a disservice to compare them to animus fragments, since these do at least provide you with something if you collect them.

All right, I’ll look for pointing statues. Pointing at things. Next time I’m there.

Butch:

Take your time. Cuz I’m still not sure what it does.

Well, the second honeycomb I found behind a door with a puzzle, much like the first one you find. And there are a couple doors I’ve found (maybe you have, too) that certainly remind me of the type of door that one would have to open to get said honeycomb. These puzzles are impossible. Indeed, Jr. and I refer to one of them (it’s near the sun temple) as “the impossible puzzle.” So there’s probably a honeycomb in there. But…well…impossible.

It’s too bad because based on the two I do have there’s some crazy, crazy themeage there.

Feminina:

The Impossible Puzzle sounds great. Can’t wait to meet it.

And I’m not generally a proponent of this, but are you going to get to a point where you just look it up on the internet in order to finish the game with that information?

Butch:

I WOULD if it was necessary to finishing the game, but I don’t think it is. Platinuming? Yes. Good bloggage? Yes. But finish? Doesn’t seem so. It’s so off the beaten path as to be missable.

We cheat to finish.

But we do occasionally say “So, want to take another crack at The Impossible Puzzle?” And we do, and we stare, and we say “fuck it.”

Feminina:

Well put.

Determined: Cilantro is of the Devil

Tags

food, mechanics, puzzles, The Witness

Some vague spoilers for areas in the Witness

Butch:

Well, my kids got in trouble so they lost games, then I had to cook, then had to watch sports teams lose, you know how it goes.

I miss AAA games. Even if HZD isn’t great, I’m gonna love it just because. It’s been so long for us we’ll be like sailors in port.

Oh, I found a vegetarian bean/squash chili that doesn’t have cilantro that I’ll make next time you come over. Cuz that’s the kind of friend I am. You know how hard it is to find chilis without cilantro?

I repeat, how the hell did you live in New Mexico without eating cilantro?

Today on PFTL, we talk about food. Because we are punchy.

Feminina:

Well, since we’re discussing food, here’s the story: my mom also hates cilantro, so anything she cooked obviously didn’t have it. We didn’t eat out that often, and when we did we’d mostly eat at the restaurant where she worked (employee discount!), and that place didn’t really use it either that I recall, possibly because it was run by a white dude who may or may not have hated cilantro (I have no evidence on this matter) but who in any case apparently had no historic affiliation with it. Once in a while we’d eat somewhere else and encounter it and I’d think “for the love of all that is holy, what’s the matter with this food???!!!!!”

It would be the cilantro.

And there you have it. It’s not my fault, according to the NY Times!

Like the guy at the end of the article, I have encountered it many times since the first one, and I can tolerate it now in small amounts where before I really couldn’t eat it at all, but I still don’t enjoy it. Although the cilantro pesto is an intriguing thought.

Cilantro aside, I played a bit last night. Got stuck on one of the treetop panels, and, feeling the heavy weight of responsibility to show progress (already that excuse is so handy!), I went back to the greenhouse instead. But, you know, that taking a break and coming back later with a fresh start thing can be really helpful, because I had been hung up on that one where I was thinking “there are too many colors, this just doesn’t work!” and now I thought “aha, I just have to look at it through the colored panel.”

That was pretty cool, all those different greenhouse rooms with the different colored lights. Eerie and disorienting. It was interesting how the basic scene of a room full of plants appeared so different in different lights.

Then I took the elevator up a couple of floors to where the cable is broken and it won’t go any further, and then I said “hm,” and quit because it was time to go to bed.

But at least I did a couple of things.

Butch:

I have touched a nerve. I still accept you as a New Mexican. Even if they don’t.

And yeah, I left the trees and came back several times.

That colored light was a neat mechanic. And it encourages you to look at things from all sorts of angles.

Hm.

And it’s another case of the game being very good at making the very simple very interesting. That whole area is the exact same thing you’ve been doing since the beginning of the game: put like things with like things. But by adding this one little change, they made it feel COMPLETELY different, like it wasn’t like the early puzzles at all.

That’s damn neat. And something other games aren’t good at. Most games, it’s “Oh…another Kevin wave…I GUESS it’s different because that Kevin has a flamethrower…” The Witness, the subtle change is so major.

This game is large. If you look at your automatic upload to PS+, it tells you how many panels you’ve done. I’m up around 400 (plus…well…), and never once, not once, did I have an eye rolling feeling of “Oh, THIS again?” I can’t remember another game I could say that about. Even games I absolutely love have the occasional “THIS again?” moment. To have a total lack of that in a game with, essentially ONE mechanic is pretty damn amazing.

Feminina:

Looking from different angles. Hm. (I appreciate that, until now, neither of us went with the obvious “seeing things in a different light.” But then I had to bring it up, so half points to me.)

I’m also slightly intrigued by the way you phrased this type of puzzle as “put like things with like things.” It’s completely true, but it’s kind of the opposite of the way I’ve been thinking of it, which is “keep different things separated.”

It works out to mean exactly the same thing, obviously, but you’re emphasizing the unity of like things, and I’m emphasizing the separation of unlike things. So…I guess we’re both equally segregationist, but your ad campaign is better?

Damn it, there goes my chance at a White House job.

Butch:

Hmm. This game DOES reveal much about one, as good games do.

And my fondness for games of old. Tetris blocks. Pac man dots. Etc.

You know, in trying to figure your route around the island, did you do the quarry? Or…something in a forest? Cuz you did the sun temple, and then you somehow got to the treehouses, and walked to the greenhouse…. you took a boat, didn’t you?

Don’t do that, mentioning politics. Nudity. Nudity is better than politics.

T SHIRT!!!!!

Feminina:

I went by the quarry, but I couldn’t get into it. I should go back and take a look at it now–I might have learned some things that would be useful.

And the forest…well, there were the pink trees? We talked about the pink trees. And there were the red trees. I wandered around among the red trees, but couldn’t make much of them. Should probably go back there too. And of course there are the orange trees. And there’s the bamboo-type stuff by the multicolored swamp.

So basically: forest, maybe? I might have been there? But in terms of doing anything, not really.

Butch:

I can’t remember what you needed to know at the quarry. I know I did it late. The glassworks was first, that I remember, then the one in the trees…..

And well, there’s the trees by the windmill there, with the apples you missed. Then there’s a BIG forest by the keep, between the keep and the quarry if memory serves. One big enough for a…..yellow…..box…..

Feminina:

OK, OK, I’ll go back and look at the forest. And the apples were the pink trees, I did those. At least as many as I could see when I was there that time.

Yellow box, yellow box, yellow box.

I believe the quarry is Tetris blocks, a square and a two-square I think, but with that trefoil-looking thing added on the bottom. I know more about the Tetris blocks now, but the trefoil is still a mystery. So on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t bother going back anytime soon.

Butch:

Yeah, that trefoil thing was a mystery for me for a long time. I forget where the hell I learned about that.

I also think there are blue tetris boxes there.

Yup.

You didn’t clear the apple orchard? How did you get to the windmill? I know you’ve been to the windmill.

Feminina:

I just saw a blue Tetris box in the treetops! That’s why I left, man. I couldn’t figure out what it wanted. I’ll go back later.

There’s apple orchard besides the pink trees? I did all the pink tree puzzles I saw. Then I went to the windmill, which as you know is right by the pink trees. Which, yes, have apples on them if you want to get picky.

Speaking of apples and weird stuff, I noticed the plate with one apple, partly sliced, sitting on it. Looking completely fresh. Not even a little brown. Either someone was JUST there, or the apple is not a normal apple. Or this is not the real world.

Butch:

Nope. The other forest has no apples. Totally different mechanic.

And see also the pristine couches and fluffy pillows. Nothing has messed those up.

We’re lost in time…..

Feminina:

We are lost in time, aren’t we? Nothing changes unless we do something. Which is really the case in any game, which does nothing without the input of the player, but often there’s the illusion that the world exists and will carry on without us. Here, there’s no such sense.

I kind of think if we weren’t here puttering around solving puzzles, puzzles would remain unsolved forever (or, well, until someone else came along to solve them). This world isn’t alive, really. It’s suspended, or crafted, or something.

How Far Ahead Need We Plan?

Tags

Day of the Tentacle, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect: Andromeda, preview, puzzles, romance, The Witness

Spoilers for a Day of the Tentacle plot point and for puzzle types in The Witness

Butch:

All I got is tentacle. I got the dime out of the gum. You needed a crowbar! You then can use the gum to use the magic fingers which wakes the guy up so you can get the wet sweater, which you dry for 200 years so Laverne gets a small one in the future.

Of course.

So hopefully you have some witness.

But, even if you don’t, I was pondering something else game related.

So we both have Horizon pre ordered, and we’re both looking forward to playing it, yes? So, too, many other folks from the sound of it. There is hype. Hype abounds.

Now, hype is fine. But lately, what seems to accompany hype is videos of actual gameplay. Gamespot, the other day, had a video about the combat, which features clips from the FOUR HOURS of hands on gameplay they had. People seem to like these “Let’s Play” videos. The full skill tree available in horizon was released by the publisher, and is making the rounds on the game sites.

Now, I’m all for reviews. I’m all for little snippets at E3. But when we’re getting into FOUR HOURS worth of hands on, and skill trees, and really specific gameplay stuff, I don’t want that. I want to go in cold. And yet, this very revealing method of hype seems to be taking hold.

There’s gonna be a lot of it. We’ve seen all this with Horizon, and the game doesn’t release for…well, two weeks, but when this thing I’m thinking of came out, it was a full month. A MONTH!

And it seems specific to games. You wouldn’t see a movie get hyped with “Watch the first 32 minutes here!”

I’m not sure why people want this. I don’t.

So dish on that. Unless you have the witness. 

Feminina:

Ah, the crowbar. I knew I needed the dime to wake the guy, but I didn’t find the crowbar. I’m going back to try again!

No. No, I’m not.

I did some Witness, but as you no doubt know, the updates on that can tend to be like this:

“I did three or four puzzles. I’m still in the treetops.”

So there you have it. I did some stuff, but didn’t go anywhere except farther along the path that I’m gradually unfolding. It’s the green one, with the Tetris blocks and the stars. Head hurts, but making slow progress.

As for hype, well, movies are a little different because you can watch hours of gameplay and barely scratch the surface of a game, while watching half an hour of a movie would be 25% of the whole experience. I’ve been to preview screenings of TV shows where they’ll show you the first couple of episodes or whatever, in hopes of sucking you in, and I think that might be a closer analogy.

Or sometimes at the end of a book there will be “the first chapter of the sequel!” or “the first chapter of the author’s new book!” which is similarly offering advance information about something to get you interested.

Regardless, I’m with you in not wanting that much advance information. Well, that and I don’t have time to gather that much advance information. I mean, I can’t be sitting around at work watching 4 hours of gameplay footage. I have blogging to do! (Kidding, work! Partly kidding, anyway.)

But even more than not having time, I actually don’t feel any particular desire to have that much information. I rarely read the ‘bonus’ chapter of the next book, because I figure I’ll either read the next book or not and I don’t need a big gap between the first chapter and the rest if I do. And I don’t need a ton of advance information about the game, because I’ll learn about the game while I’m playing it…I have other things to think about in the meantime, and trying to work out some sort of optimal strategy for skill development for a character in a game I haven’t even started yet seems silly since I’ll probably have forgotten it by the time the game gets here anyway.

Maybe if this were the only game I were going to play this year, and it’s this huge, monumental event for me…? I could see dedicating a ton of advance time to it in that case, maybe. Building the anticipation and what not.

But the way we play, I don’t think this type of build-up is necessary or effective. Of course, we’re not the only players in the world, and if it works for other people, they’re welcome to it. I don’t think getting all this information in advance is a WRONG approach, it’s just not mine. But if it gives someone else more enjoyment from the game overall, rock on them.

I think this is just another of those instances where the preferences of the largest and/or loudest part of the market do not represent our preferences. Which is fine, as long as they still do the plain old boring stuff we do like, such as make and release games that we want to play.

Butch:

You and Double Fine. Just not getting along.

I know the feeling in the Witness. I do. Those treehouse ones were fucking HARD. At least you figured out that they could go in different directions. I did not. Until very late.

I dunno, man. I feel on on the E3 stuff. Like, at E3, they showed the bit of UC4 from the bazaar through the car chase where you’re hanging on a rope behind the jeep. That was good. Gave you a good taste for things. But four hours, you’re going to show A LOT. Especially if it’s the FIRST four hours.

That, too. Give me enough to know I want to play it.

I’ve even given up on reading every tid bit about MEA. Bioware is trickling out these “Get to know your squadmates!” videos. I’m not watching them. I’ll get to know my squadmates when I play the thing, thank you very much. Why WOULDN’T I want to get to know my squadmates as I play?

Though, in other bioware news, they’re now saying their new, currently unshown/unannounced IP will be OUT by March 2018. So that’s interesting. I’m expecting a whole TON of it at E3. Which means I’ll likely be disappointed.

Agreed that it seems silly to try to strategize too much in advance. And it hurts the experience. Games, especially open world ones, are really about discovery, more than a book or movie. You don’t explore a book world. Telling/showing where stuff is, even rather obvious stuff, is silly.

We are so very often in the minority. Which is funny, as we take it so seriously, sorta.

One thing I do like about all this hype: it means, usually, that the devs have confidence it’s good. They might be overconfident, sure, but when devs have something they fear will be a disappointment, they don’t generally give large chunks of it out beforehand. It’s the opposite of other products, really. Bud light spends so much time telling you it’s good and you want it because if you just tasted the stuff you wouldn’t want it. Games, when they know they have a stinker, hide it until it releases, even a big budget game. So when I see every other article on game sites being new chunks of a game? Even if I don’t watch them, gives me hope.

And hope is good. We don’t usually commit to a game from a dev we’ve never played before so early. I mean, this LOOKS good, but I don’t have the confidence that I would from Bioware or CDPR or whatever. So I’m already starting with more skepticism than I would with, say, MEA.

Feminina:

I have to say, at this point I am going to be highly skeptical of anything Double Fine does. At least this one was free!

Different directions is key. And the fact that even though you have to include all the blocks, and outline all the shapes, the block doesn’t have to be ‘in’ the shape that it is, it can be in some other, connected shape…so to speak. You know what I mean.

Maybe there’s just an endless appetite for this kind of entertainment stuff because people don’t want to deal with the actual world right now. And who could blame them?

Also, we’re not the audience for ANY kind of advertising on this because we already bought it. It’s possible that if we were torn between this and something else, or really not sure if we wanted to play it or not, this kind of information overload could help us make the decision. Ideally, from the company’s standpoint, we would decide in favor of buying it, but maybe they’re betting that even if it turns some people off (“I didn’t realize THAT was what gameplay looked like! That’s terrible!”), those are people who might be loudly vocal in their disapproval if they bought it on less information and then didn’t like it.

I dunno. Again, we’re not the audience here, but it apparently works somehow for somebody. And it doesn’t hurt us in any way that I can see (maybe it lessens the thrill of discovery to have already seen this stuff before you play, but that’s no problem for us if we’ve ignored it), so…meh. I guess in the end I don’t really have much of an opinion about it.

Butch:

To each their own. Even if they’re wrong.

Different directions is SO key. Which is why missing it was a bit of a setback.

I take heart in the fact you’re still missing a lot. Hm

I do not blame. I’m trying to live in a cocoon made of food, games and booze.

And yes on the previews, except (and here’s what I don’t get) flooding GAME sites with this stuff is so weird because people who go to game sites are people who probably make decisions to pre order or not. Putting an ad on TV, to get to people who do not go to game sites to get the word out, ok, but this is preaching to the choir.

But then, the vast majority of people who are going to watch football games have likely tasted Bud Light, and have made up their minds on same, but we still see Bud Light ads, so maybe preaching to the choir is all part of marketing. What do I know?

I’m still gonna avoid the overhype.

And MAN I hope this game is good.

Feminina:

You have NO IDEA how much I’m missing. Incalculable quantities of things. I have one trophy so far, out of 8 zillion hidden (and hence, based on your helpful explanation, non-spoilery story-based) trophies, so I have basically seen, like, one thing.

It was the hedge maze.

Oh, and the creepy dog on the cushion, but I didn’t get a trophy for that.

Butch:

The good news is that there’s no way NOT to get all those trophies and still finish the game.

Except…….one………

This being ahead is kinda fun.

Feminina:

Being behind is strangely guilt-inducing. Like, “I should be doing more! We don’t have anything interesting to talk about and it’s all my fault!”

I salute you for handling this burden so gracefully all those times when things were normal and YOU were behind.

Butch:

Being half Jewish with an Italian mother has me uniquely prepared to handle the burden of guilt.

This has been a good exercise in empathy building.

Which we won’t need come HZD time, as it releases on Nugget’s birthday, so I will not play, and you will, and the universe will right itself.

Feminina:

I will breathe a sigh of relief on that day. Until then, I must slog ahead, weighed down by the responsibility of making progress.

Still in the treetops!

You know…I think I can blame my distractible magpie tendencies on guilt! “See, the reason I abandoned the temple in the desert is because I was kind of stuck and I felt SUCH a responsibility to report some progress, I was just COMPELLED to wander off and find something else to work on just so I could say I wasn’t still in the same damn place I was three days ago!”

Yup. I’m going to be working that excuse pretty hard, I think.

Butch:

There will come a moment where a) your mind will be blown and b) your magpie/completionist tendencies may well cripple you.

And for that I apologize.

Feminina:

I will philosophically resign myself to a crippling mind-blowout, with the knowledge that at least Horizon and MEA will intervene to delay the full effect.

Butch:

There is that. Relax with robots and romance.

T SHIRT!!!!!

Feminina:

If only we could be sure the robots and romance would actually be in the same game.

Maybe THAT’S why everyone is interested in four hours of gameplay footage: they’re desperately scanning for signs of romance!

Don’t think I won’t romance a robot dinosaur if I have the opportunity. You know I will.

It’s T for Teen, though…they’ll probably steer away from robo-romantic bestiality, more’s the pity.

Butch:

It’s a huge open world! A world that big MUST have romance!

And I know you will. Which speaks volumes.

I almost wish they wouldn’t steer away. You’ll have so much pent up lust that you’ll romance a krogan. Though you probably will anyway.

Feminina:

I certainly won’t rule out romancing a krogan, should the opportunity present itself.

I mean, a krogan can be kind of cute, in a big, gruff, sort of way. They’re not as angsty as I tend to prefer, but their entire body is kind of like armor, so there’s that, and one could certainly imagine one with a dark secret in his mysterious past.

Butch:

Watch. They’ll have a moody one. And your heart will be lost.

Feminina:

A moody krogan who skulks around the place brooding over a dark and secret past! I’m already swooning.

Especially if we have to go find moldy flags.

Butch:

I’m going for the BEBHBB*.

Of course.

Probably playing as one, too.

Feminina:

We all have our paths to follow.

Butch:

If a BEBHBB romances ANOTHER BEBHBB….does the universe end or something?

Feminina:

I would be very wary, which is why I’m going for the moody krogan.

But there’s only one way to find out, and I’m counting on you to investigate. For science.

Butch:

Someone must. Someone must.

Though, from the posters and stuff, I’m not seeing an obvious BEBHBB. There’s a blond, and an asari…

Maybe they’re just keeping their aces close to the vest.

Feminina:

I was going to say, what is there is no BEBHBB? I suppose you’ll have to fill the role yourself and romance someone else, but…surely not the same.

It’s like expecting me to fall for someone cheerful and even tempered, whose past is an open book.

Butch:

That’s how I handled it in DAI. My Morrigan sister wound up with Sera.

Sacrifices must sometimes be made.

Feminina:

We do what we must.

And at least this way the universe doesn’t collapse on itself, which is perhaps a plus.

 

*Blue-eyed, black-haired BioWare babe