80 Days and the 'New' way to read

For a student of the humanities, I really dislike reading. Most of my friends from other faculties will disagree, because I do read a lot, but firstly I don't read enough for what I do, and secondly I don't necessarily enjoy the process. There are three ways that this issue is usually circumvented. First, I will try and read the damn thing, and if the writing is intriguing enough I will read on. If that fails, I will find a video or an audiobook of sorts that reads and summarises the material I wish to read about. Or lastly, I will wait for the book or essay to be presented in a more interesting format, such as the abovementioned video or audiobook. Poorly written books are, in my opinion, the lowest denominator of the written artform. Books that are unable to draw in its readers through its language are unworthy of read, and for that I'd even argue I like my books to be bias and heavily emplotted than treating me like an idiot by being overly expository. Mangas, for instance, is a higher artform than books, using visual images, intentional framing and placement of those frames for visual story telling, that often prioritises dynamic dialogues and character interaction over narrative and commentary. Visual novels and RPGs on the other hand, allows the player to be part of the narrative by giving player's choices to affect the outcomes and endings in the story. Both games and manga creates a stronger bond between the reader and read, providing immersion that I would say even the greatest of written novels are unable to achieve simply because it is so easy to enter this world via the visual representation and in RPGs, actually being part of that world.

80 Days, a choose-your-own adventure game created by Inkle, and writtten by Meg Jayanth and Jon Ingold, is a step forward for the interactive fiction genre for people not so enthusiastic about books like me. As I am writing I am on my third playthrough of the game, and it surprises me because the game is almost entirely text driven and I generally don't like reading as stated above. It may be because of the topic - Journey to the Centre of the Earth remains one of the books I remember fondly from my childhood to this day, and 80 Days is adapted from another of Jules Verne's famous novel - but I think there are things that 80 Days does more that allows for my attention to be held for so long.

The first aspect has to be the 'choose your own adventure' element present within the game, something derived from text-based MUD games in the earlier days and heavily inspired by pen and paper board games like D&D. And because of these choices, players will be exploring new towns and unlocking different story pieces each time they play - if they choose to do so, that is (I did) - and through that allow for multiple read through of the same adventure with very different stories. By taking on the form of a game, 80 days took the best of both world's of books and visual novels and created an unique experience that is neither dull and linear like books would be, nor so focused on character interaction that in is on telling the story and being an adventure piece. As much as I enjoyed the Zero Escape series written by the genius that is Kotaro Uchikoshi, it relied heavily on the characters and mystery to drive its plot, and the tightness in the world building and narrative kept it constantly interesting and enjoyable. 80 Days differs from Zero Escape by having very few memorable characters, (with Passepartout and Fogg being the only ones with any personality) hence sacrificing the chance to use well written dialogues to drive the narrative and plot, and relied solely on exposition - and it did that amazingly. 80 Days also differs from games in general by removing that more 'game-y' part of visual novels and focuses solely on text, instead of environmental story telling elements present in Bioshock and the upcoming We Happy Few, again, falls back on its strong writing to keep the reader enthralled.

Making this post any longer will be an ironic thing to do. Let me just say this, I am not quite sure whether 80 Days is a game, I definitely cannot say it is a good game, but it is an amazing read. I paid $15 for a book, and I read it 3 times. I had my friend read it while I watched and managed to see some new stories from that run too. It is a fantastic book and I do hope more of my future reads can exist in this very format.  

Most likely creating a new blog and importing all my game reviews there, then shutting this one down completely

Had my first argument on the internet for almost a year. Quite boring considering how little internet debaters changed during my break - they are still throwing around the same type of standard arguments, they still refuse to read before replying, and their rhetoric always involved paraphrasing the same nonsensical things they said in a previous post. If there is one takeaway from that experience, it's that you are not going to convince anyone on the internet. If I truly love people who cannot think for themselves and want to save them, I need another platform, I need to command authority and I need to work within the rules and system of this world to make sure people take what I say seriously. And I think that moment is about to come.

And because of that change, I probably shouldn't have an opinion that can be scrutinised by the public eye anymore. I'm still going to do game reviews (like I have been for the past months) and I'd probably express my views in more extreme ways through writing satire posts. So that's the plan for the near future, launching those 2 new blogs under new names and staying out of traditional political commentary until I can do so again. I hope this is not jynxing that wonderful opportunity.

Invisible Inc. and Difficulty Settings in TRPGs

I am not a game designer, so everything in this post will be from a consumer and gamer's standpoint. 

2016 has been a great year so far, from Darkest Dungeon to Stardew Valley to Don't Starve Shipwrecked to The Banner Saga 2, game developers in 2016 has given me hundreds of hours of great experience of fun on games of different genres and playstyles, and made me excited to try out those that I don't usually enjoy, such as Doom 4 (I don't care I am calling it that). Compared to last year, I say we have an equal number of good games, and equal number of quality games so far, but nothing has quite came close to my favourite game of 2015 and 3rd favourite game of all time, Invisible Inc., by Klei Entertainment. 

As with other games that I deeply love, there are too many things to praise about Invisible Inc., albeit in this case more should be said because this game is still not receiving the amount of attention that it should have, so I am just going to touch on one aspect of game design today, namely difficulty settings. Many games these day allow for multiple levels of difficulty settings, and that is wonderful, because it shows that developers understand that difficulty is highly subjective and they want to cater to as wide an audience as possible, and allow hardcores, enthusiasts and completionists to enjoy multiple playthroughs and challenge themselves in games that they wish to experience again in an not-too repetitive setting. It usually comes in 3 stages, easy, normal and unplayable, and I am glad most games are self-aware enough to name the final level 'Insane', 'Lunatic', 'Nightmarish' so on and so for, to tell the player that they may not have a good time doing so.

The biggest issue with difficulty settings, I feel, as I have discovered recently by fiddling around with the different levels in Chroma Squad and The Banner Saga 2, is the issue of scaling. Both games, in my opinion, scales poorly when moved to the higher setting: In the case of Chroma Squad, your characters get knocked out way too easily because the game was designed with the idea of tight and swift battles in mind - both your opponent and your characters have very little HP, and even in the base difficulty characters can get knocked out easily by having 2-3 enemies ganging up on one character - and this works best when they can actually take 2-3 hits because it grants the player a sense of control over the battle. In The Banner Saga, similar things can happen because some characters aren't supposed to take hits, and the increased number of enemies and damage output from the opponent's side is devastating because characters can be downed in 1-2 hits with no way to revive them mid-battle. Chroma Squad has one healer out of 5 characters heals once every 3-5 turns, and Banner Saga has no healers that can give back strength, which is not only your HP but also your attack meter; again, there is no catch up mechanic available to allow for strategic maneuvering through a bad situation, say, being swarmed earlier on, taking a critical hit that downs a character, or missing a crucial hit that resulted in you taking unnecessary damage. In the highest difficulty setting, opponent AI characters are also smarter and will actively go after weaker characters, which would have been amazing in normal difficulty where you have more control over the game, but becomes merely a frustrating hassle in the harder settings where your turns become simply run and shoot an arrow, then run and shoot an arrow.  

As a veteran tactics and strategy RPG player and enthusiast, I think TRPGs and SRPGs become meaningless when that control is removed from the player. There are 3 main issues that are damning to the situation that I feel Invisible Inc. addresses and other games do not. Firstly, continuing from the previous paragraph, is how the strategy is lost when enemies are simply too strong, and you are simply running and gunning the opponent instead of thinking of ways to overcome the situation. Admittedly that can be fun in real time games, like Dark Souls, because being able to parry and dodge is part of the gameplay, and you feel your that your skills (in this case reflexes and quick thinking) are still being tested despite your enemy overpowering you. This is not the case on a grid-based, turn-based TRPG or SRPG because you are just moving your piece as far away as possible and using a range attack, or heal so that you can take an extra hit - this is fine the first or second time around, but it will quickly get old when you are doing it every. single. goddamn. time. The whole point of tactics is the test of one's ability to react to what the board presents to you, and play your best game depending on what the situation is, not repeating the same moves over and over again. 

And this leads to my second point: TRPGs are not puzzle games. In TBS2, I entered a challenge where I had to use an archer to kill an enemy while their HP was low, this was ok in Normal difficulty when AIs were dumber and dealt less damage, but in Hard mode the Archer dies on the opponent's first turn unless I A. Use the Archer to run and hit, which turns into the problem I mentioned earlier, or B. Move another unit to a specific position on the gridmap which does not block the AI from reaching the Archer, but somehow distracts them to attack this other unit instead. This is absolutely unacceptable. This happened before in Fire Emblem Awakening's Lunatic mode too, where units have to move to specific locations to distract other units despite making no tactical sense for the enemy at all, and essentially turns the game into a puzzle game - where upon every loss, you discover a perfect move to be taken to be memorised and repeated ad nauseam until you complete the map. Again, strategy should be reactionary and not formulaic, and if anyone wants to play a puzzle RPG they can go to Professor Layton or whatnot, I am not interested. 

Lastly, is a bad game design practice adopted from a similarly poor way to ramp up difficulty in real time games - hard=more enemies. In a real time shooter this turns that game into a boring horde clearing wave-based shoot out, like I heard what Destiny became at one point. In a war-based TRPG like Advance Wars where you can produce troops and have to make use of map layouts to win battles, this can be actually thematically sound and tactically interesting because you make use of choke points, sacrifice smaller units to set up traps for the enemies and it gives one great pleasure when one overcomes the huge wave on enemies despite having so much lesser troops to move than the enemy. In Fire Emblem the enemy just stands there and wait until you approach them, so they serve nothing more than time wasters. In Banner Saga more enemies mean that the already tiny gridmap is choked full of units and archers become useless because of the sheer difficulty of finding a spot to execute a range attack from, and physically weaker units like mages and thieves just get brutally slaughtered by smart AIs that can and will go after easier targets before taking on your tankier units. 

I wish to point out, however, despite all their flaws Fire Emblem, Chroma Squad and The Banner Saga series are still excellent games in this genre, and I will buy and play their sequels and DLCs without second doubts because the games are so amazing in their normal settings. My argument here is just that there is another game in the same genre that is leagues above these already excellent games.  

And now we finally come to the first part of this post's title, Invisible Inc. and why the game's difficult settings blows my fucking mind. To begin Invisible Inc. has 4 basic difficulty settings, Beginner, Experienced, Expert and Expert Plus, or as I like to call them Fun, Challenging, Exhilarating and Insane. Unlike most TRPGs Invisible Inc. recommends you to start off at their lowest difficulty. The first mode serves as an introduction to most of the game's mechanics, gives you a good number of turn rewinds to help you to learn how to strategise, and the game at this level still provides a good degree of challenge especially when you are not being careful. Invisible Inc.'s easy mode serves not only as a good tutorial but at the same time provides just enough fun and challenge for players who are learning the ropes to still enjoy it. I don't understand why game developers bother making easy modes that are so simple it takes away all the fun and challenge that nobody plays them. If a player is unable to engage the game at its normal difficulty, they probably are picking up the wrong game and should try something else instead, because in good TRPGs/SRPGs that properly scale their difficulty like Invisible Inc. strategy and tactics will evolve and you are forced to think deeper as you progress through the difficulty levels. I think what really works here is Invisible Inc.'s premise and gameplay as a stealth TRPG - hitpoints do not matter since everyone gets taken down or killed in one hit (which always hit, unlike every other game out there), and more enemies just mean that players have to be more careful in planning their moves because they only have so many rewinds if they screw up. In Beginner it is possible to exploit the rewinds to find out more about an unopened room or unexplored area, but with Experienced and Expert dropping rewinds to 3 and 1 respectively, (and an achievement for players to play with 0 rewinds on Expert to further disincentivise rewind exploitation and encourage careful play) players are forced to think more and take their time in making their moves, something which many TRPGs and SRPGs have forgotten about when designing their game. Invisible Inc. remembers that the grids and turn-based elements it is built on, and makes full use of the perks and limitations provided by these two basic elements. On one of my Expert playthroughs, I lost the game because I decided to open a door for no good reason, and this action attracted the attention of a guard whom I could not take down came along and murdered my entire team. Unlike puzzles which forces you to take specific steps, Invisible Inc. stays on the tactical side of the line that separates puzzle games and TRPGs by simply requesting you to not make obvious tactical errors and be careful of your every move.

On top of the 4 difficulties, different aspects of the game are also customisable to allow for even more advanced play, or cater to different type of playthrough like the previously mentioned no rewind run; this again, is a display of understanding and respect for catered experience to different players by giving options to its target audience, and not just pandling to a wider audience, sacrificing artistic vision for the sake of marketing to non-tactics lovers and new players. Other mechanics in the game, such as pulling off risky revivals with hard-to-obtain medical resources, that players need to decide to carry along with them or not because of limited inventory space, and having the option to leave an injured agent behind to rescue them later, or being able to lure large groups of enemies into a trap, or take control of robot enemies to deal with human ones... the list goes on for the tools Invisible Inc. gives the player to deal with tough decisions. It forces you to plan out carefully on the grid because movement is limited and you need maximum awareness of the terrain, and take as long as you need because that's what the turn-based element is for.

In fact, after spending 100 hours on the game, I would say its asking price of $25.50 (with the amazing DLC) is worth it even if you just replay Beginner mode over and over again, because the game's dynamism and challenge is not lost even on its most simple difficulty, and yet it is enjoyable by anyone who is willing to sit down and accept the game's challenge to your mind. If all else fails, rewind. The game is still not everybody - it can get very stressful very early on, I personally took 5 tries to get the hang of Beginner mode - and that is not fun to some people. But upon scaling that steep learning curve, what you will find is a game that is all about thinking and deep strategising that keeps you asking for more. Now try Experienced, Expert, Expert Plus, Endless and Endless Plus, or create your own challenges. As much as I would love to sell this game more, it is not the point of this post and I am going to end the discussion here. But if you are reading this and have not tried it, I do highly recommend it, it is a good introduction to the genre but at the same time also one of the finest of the genre and one of the toughest in the genre. Perhaps I will feel the same way about XCOM 2 when I eventually play it, but for now Invisible Inc. sits comfortably as my favourite game in my favourite genre. 

The Emplotment of Darkest Dungeon - Life, too, is a game of chance

There are few games that have kept me so enthralled like Darkest Dungeon. I will play the game late into the night, and wake up the next morning wanting to do nothing but play Darkest Dungeon. Chroma Squad, Link between worlds are probably the only games that I can remember having the effect on me thus far. I have owned the game for 5 days and sunk 65 hours into it, and I have literally done no work over the past few days, except grinding and figuring out the deep lore and battle mechanics of this wonderful little thing. My obsession caused this great foulness.

I am writing this because I feel many reviewers of this game are missing the point about what kind of game Darkest Dungeon is. Launch up the game and the first line you see before the title screen reads "Darkest Dungeon is about making the most of a bad situation", and that's what the game is in a nutshell. The game hates you, the RNG is all fucked and the stats, hit rates and damage rolls you see on screen are probably all lies. But that is ok, because that is what Darkest Dungeon is supposed to be. You receive a letter from the Ancestor telling you to clear his hell-infested manor and collect the treasures and heirlooms that remain behind after he was killed by the villagers - and outside the game world, Red Hook Studios is the Ancestor, inviting you to "go to hell" (this is literally the thumbnail of the trailer). You know clearly what you are heading into, and yet in the face of hell you complain it is difficult and unfair? That is really quite strange considering you accepted the invitation from the bloodstained Red Hook and "now, like him, you are a part of this place".

The naming of the game is appropriate too. Some dungeons are dark, others are darker, and in the darkest of dungeons, weakness cannot be tolerated. And this is not only about the weakness of the players' skills - because things will go wrong no matter how well you plan your moves - it is also about the weakness of the heart. Stress is a meter on the heroes that do nothing until you reach a breaking point. What will you do when everything in the game starts going wrong? Will you also become like the characters hitting the 100 stress mark, and start hating on the game for being unfair? Or accept that you are battling the darkest of hellspawns and the evilest of abominations, and it is going to be unfair. Stay FOCUSED, be COURAGEOUS and become POWERFUL, then push on till the tasks' end. This is a game that trains the heart to be brave; and for me, also to accept loss and humiliation and understanding that nothing in the game nor in life will go as well as planned.

Coming out of the Darkest Dungeon, I think it has made me a better person. Strangely enough, I have not rage-quit the game simply because a favourite character dies, or a random crit change chains into a series of unfortunate events. "How quickly the tide turns", exclaims the snarky narrator when a terrible blow lands, and life is like that too isn't it? Life, too, is a game of chance. And my life had been pretty awesome up till this year. Graduating from university this year, I was intending to continue to grad school before everything started falling apart. My father was diagnosed with a disease incurable in the sanitarium and was forced to retire way earlier than he intended to, and suddenly I could not afford going to grad school and not take home any substantial income for the next few years. Job hunting has been excruciatingly hard in this bad economy and things do not seem to be getting any better. I cancelled a total of 4 plans for graduation trips, and while everyone is spending money on celebrations and travels, I spent $25 on this very special game that reminded me that to be alive is a terrible fate in itself. Danger lurks at every corner and things will always go wrong. And when disaster strikes, we try to make the best out of it. I got a game to escape the stress from the outside world, but in turn the game itself stressed me out so much more that made me more determined to make things right in my real life. The task ahead is terrible, and weakness of the heart cannot be tolerated. Rather than sulking and blaming fate to be unfair and cursing the gods who have inflicted this suffering unto my life, I'm going to fight those demons and come out on top. The first step to that victorious end, ironically, is probably to stop playing Darkest Dungeon.

There are more things I want to praise the game about, especially how the cast of heroes seem to be a bunch of social outcasts or demon hunters who are here because it makes sense for them to be here. Thematically, the designers have made such a coherent game inspired by Lovecraftian mythology, and the dark gritty world feels perfectly insane and terrifying. But perhaps that can be left for another day when I have time to analyse why each hero is there in the first place. The backstories you hear from the Ancestor's memories are surprising intriguing and very fitting to the setting. The lore of this game is nothing short of amazing, and I hope I will have time to write about it soon.

Subverting Expectations - Papers, Please, the missing 'Happy Ending' and growing up in Singapore

This post will contain spoilers, obviously.

Papers, Please was on sale recently on Steam, so I decided to fork out $20 and buy it for a few friends. The two people who have tried the game liked it enough to spend about 10 hours each getting all the endings and achievements, and I'm really glad that people can relate to why this is my favourite game ever. 

There is probably an infinitely long list of things I want to praise about the game design and narrative, so I've decided that I will break it down and try to go through it part by part. After recently playing Undertale and being a fan of how that game loves overthrowing the player's pre-conceived notions about rpgs, I want to talk a bit about how Papers also did that but in different ways. 

We all want that good ending in some way or another in gaming. Having grey-area-ed, and downright terrible endings, is definitely nothing new in games. But I honestly cannot think of any game that had given me the experience quite like Papers did. The first ending I got was Ending 20, what I like to call the "Arstotzkan Dog" ending. Growing up in the Nanny State of Singapore, I guess that would have made the most sense. In fact, I think I would have gotten the "Too Honest" ending first if I could figure out how to pass the EZIC documents to the Inspector earlier on (yea it's pretty simple, I was just being dumb). It made sense considering the upbringing, anything wrong pops up hand it over to the Police and let the State handle it. Defiance of the law is generally not a good idea, and not intuitive at all. Together with the added consequences of credits penalty and a sickly, starving family, that seem about the right thing to do. When ending 20 played, I felt proud... for a moment. Until I realise the Inspector and his family was probably just stuck to this brutally mundane job forever, and forced to make decisions that betray the heart day in day out. Ending 20 is not that happy ending I wanted. Next.

Escape to Obristan was my second ending. It is the route that you will absolutely fall in love with Jorji, who hands you his forged passport despite you detaining him (at least I did), in order to repay your kindness from earlier. It is the one route that felt powerful, the player can confiscate passports illegally, in order to stealthily bring his family over to Obristan. You can run alone, but the game sends a man to tell you not to forget your family, and the way this shakes up the gameplay mechanics is really quite special. Jorji forces your first compulsory citation unto you (taking away any chance of a perfect run), and the game teaches you to break the rules that it had set for you; I love it when games do that. Speaking of family, this also feels like the most heartwarming of endings despite it being similarly gritty and painful to go through as there is that moment of fear that the rest of your family will get stopped by the Obristan customs, but all of you get through in the end. But what awaits across the borders is another communist slogan in the same vibe, "Obristan above all". We just escaped from one hell to another. Next.

The final 'big ending' is the EZIC takeover. Looking at how the rest of the endings went I had a feeling that this was going to be bad before it came. Perhaps it is clouded by my own perception that such a resistance led by fanatical violence upon innocent border guards will never work out, but I think the ending speaks for itself. You have helped to bring the resistance to victory. The ending slogan "Glory to New Arstotzka" seem to signify that the supposed change that was to come after the violent takeover was only at the superficial level. How will the next regime rule? There is a Chinese saying that translates roughly to how the effect of medicine will not change if you simply change the water used to boil the concoction without changing the prescription first; this seems to apply perfectly here as EZIC seem to have no new solutions to change the nation. You are still the poor border inspector like the end of Ending 20, and the nation is simply being ran by a new ruling class like in ending 18. Nex... But wait, there's nothing else left.

One side achievement one can attain, and by far the best one in my opinion, is for upgrading one's apartment. The upgrade does virtually nothing for your family except making rent and heat become more expensive as your house gets 'better' without ever showing you any visual representation of an upgrade. But we all want to climb that ladder to the top, a drive that I think is inherent to all humans, and we try whenever possible to make our lives a little less grim even if all we get are bragging rights and nothing substantial. We want to have reasons to convince ourselves life is getting better, perhaps to eliminate any desire to end it in a state of despair. So you keep upgrading the flat from grade-8, to grade-7, 6, 5... and the game stops you right there. "Grade 5 is the best for workers." Oh. I didn't know to be thankful for putting a stop on that fantasy that my in-game family can live in luxury one day, or should I be pissed off that this is different from this apparent 'meritocratic' nation that I live in? I sit down and question the state of meritocracy in Singapore from time to time, how skewed the system is towards people of higher classes, how terrible it is to be a late bloomer and how prejudiced people are by race, gender and place of birth for no apparent reason. In the end, regardless of what kind of meritocracy Singapore claims itself to be, I will be staying in a grade-5 apartment one day till death, and at least Arstotzka is kind enough to say that is because it is the best apartment I can get, while the Singapore government will wag its finger and tell me it is because I didn't perform well enough. And by that they mean my scores at the national examinations at 12 were not amazing enough (despite being in the top 10% of scorers) because the top schools don't need anyone else other than the 1%.

Before I delve any deeper into whine-zone I want to again thank Papers, Please for helping me rethink my life. Growing up as a pessimistic boy and plunging deeper and deeper into the depths of fatalism had helped make the connections I had when playing Papers. The happy ending does not seem to be there, at least not in this life, or not in this world. Perhaps I will need to find my answer in religion, or perhaps I am just looking at the wrong life goals. Or perhaps we will just fade into oblivion after we are dead, and even this sadness is a pointless emotion. 

Undertale - Something Special

Is Undertale the greatest game of all time? Hell no. Is it perfect? No. But I'll say the premise and setting it gives itself makes it almost faultless or immune to most criticism. Did I love it? Totally. Did I enjoy it more than Invisible Inc. (Fuck you Invisible Inc., btw)? Not at all. Invisible Inc. is a well polished, beautiful to look at, and immensely addictive and competent game that is right up my alley with its turn-based and grid-based combat. Undertale is some weird shit that made me cry, twice, while playing a video game - something I've never experienced before. If anything Undertale is different, it's that game you have never played before, it's the game you never have to play again after you are done with it, but it is also the game you may never forget. 

There is no way to discuss Undertale without spoilers. So there won't be a disclaimer but I'll state it because I want to. 

Like almost everyone, I went into the demo knowing nothing and wrecked shit up pretty badly. I killed Toriel, killed some other monsters, stole all the candies and did some other stupid shit. By the time I bought the real game I knew I wanted to try the Pacifist run, but at the same time, I told myself to just be myself. When the game started I noticed that Toriel actually tells you not to whack the Dummy, something I didn't realise in my first playthrough. I realised one of the frogs told you to use mercy even if names didn't turn yellow, and it turned out to be the key to sparing Toriel. I love Papers, Please, I love details, and once I notice them I'll follow them. And upon exiting the ruins it was not really about playing a Pacifist run anymore, it was about learning the weird ways you could end a battle non-violently because honestly the Fight mechanics is pretty lame. I knew about Undertale, but it didn't bore me to play the run to get a True ending, with all the little hints and the cooler mechanics in the Act option, it almost felt like that was Toby Fox's intention, and the proper way to play the game.

In the ruins I (me, the person playing, and not the playable character) bonded with a small monster called Migosp. Migosp only attacks you because his friends are there and he doesn't want to feel like a loser beside his friends. When all his friends are 'defeated', Migosp stops being aggressive. For the most part, I am Migosp, I try to do things to impress people all the time, and frankly speaking it is when people are not around and I don't have to pretend and entertain others, I'll feel really at ease. That's part of the reason why I write on this blog that no one reads and no one judges - Migosp is not a monster, in fact none of the monsters are monsters, they are just like us - and the only monster is, well, you, you who True Reset-ed the game and started a Genocide run. You, that Papyrus and Sans couldn't identify as a human. 

I fell for the whole build up to Papyrus' Blue Attack. And when it came, I couldn't stop laughing for whatever reason and quickly texted my friends who dropped the game to quickly pick it up again. The new mechanics introduced with Undyne, Mettaton and Muffet were all really fun, and may I just point out how smart Toby Fox is when he fucks with rpg standards yet again. In other games, some bosses have attack you can dodge and block, which makes no sense, if I'm a boss I'll polish my skills so hard to ensure I hit 100% of the time and kills shit. That's why Photoshop Flowey's attack hit so hard and are mostly undodgable, and you win because the other 6 humans interfere in the battle. For the rest of the game, NOBODY is trying to kill you unless you are on Genocide run (cue Undyne battle) and that is why their attacks are full of holes. Think about the Asgore fight, it wasn't hard at all. 

In the end, Papyrus remains my favourite Undertale character, but everyone who has played Genocide will quickly fall in love with Undyne too. Too many stories these days are driven by the sole fact that characters have IQ of 0; none of the mediums - movies, dramas, animes and games - are spared from this form of poor writing and narrative these days, and that is why I strongly believe that writing needs to begin with writing characters. This is where Toby Fox really got it right, from Flowey to Toriel to Sans, hell even Vegetoid, Aaron, Temmie and all the monsters I still can name despite them being so irrelevant to the main plot, all of these characters are unique with agenda. I'm currently watching this cartoon called Adventure Time and up till this point it is just being weird for weird's sake - if any character is even half as interesting as Snowdrake, Ice hat or The bird that carries you over an disproportionate distance, it would be a better show - but writers these days don't seem to understand having majestic plotlines and shocking twists is boring as hell without characters consistent to the world and plot to play out the story. I believe I've talked about this before in a previous post, needless to say, I think Undertale really nailed it with the character driven narrative here. 

At the end of the long journey on the Pacifist route, Sans congratulates you for enduring all the pain believing that this was the right path despite it being so tough. This was the first moment I broke, and I honestly don't know how to explain why. To some extent it felt like Sans was talking to me about my life, and the rest of it was how the bullet hell boss levels were really damn tricky and made you want to give up and just whack the shit out of the opponent. When the Asgore boss fight started and he broke the Mercy option, my heart broke. I didn't cry, but seeing him hold his head down to not face the player, and trying to force himself to kill the player is really painful to watch. The ending boss fight of the True Pacifist run was fun and at the same time such a satisfying end to the game, learning that Flowey kept you in because he just wanted you to keep playing. "Let me win", cries Asriel, and tears flowed down my face a second time, as I lifted my hand from the keyboard to take Asriel's hit. But the world refused to give up.

Too many good things have been written about Undertale, and this piece is probably an unnecessary and poorly written piece compared to all the amazing articles on the internet documenting this amazing feat. But Undertale was something special that clicked with me on an emotional level, and really shows how narrative in gaming is so, so reliant on mechanics, and how narrative in general needs to take into consideration of writing good characters. I'm officially adding Undertale onto my List of games that I'll force my friends to buy and refund them if they didn't like it, alongside Papers, Please. And to this date, no one has asked me for a refund for these 2 games. 

Just one last point, Spider Dance = tune of the year. 

Tweek x Craig x Love

It took me about a month but I finally managed to finish my first watch of the entire South Park series. Part of the reason for this long journey was to play its spin-off game The Stick of Truth - which was an awesome experience - but I'm more glad that I finally watched South Park. As one journey ends, I found something special in an episode that is now my favorite episode of the show. 

Tweek x Craig (Season 19 Episode 6) came at a pretty bad time for me. This is my last year in school, and because of that I'm leaving a part of my life behind, including someone whom I dearly adore but have no wish to contact ever again upon leaving school. I have always believed that Love is a tricky little bastard who likes to play with our lives. I've had faith that Love will finally get tired of the endless trails it has led me upon, and set me on the right track one day. But slowly I think I'm honestly getting too old for all this shit, these endless cycles of hope and despair, excitement and disappointment, joy and tears, and tears, and tears. In some ways I'm turning into the whiny little emo bitch I was at 17, and I really think anymore of this nonsense with love will simply degrade my character further and straddle me away from the person I want to become.

This episode, alongside the two perfect song cues The Book of Love and Say Something, opened up a lot of things that I have been meaning to say. On one level it is the typical South Park nonsense - a non-issue is invoked and escalates way out of hand because of misunderstanding and confusion, and ends in a non-typical ending that can only be described as 'weird'. The sub-plots, that helped explore different characters' developments by showing their reaction to this issue - Craig's dad, Tweek's dad, Randy, Stan, PC Principal, and Cartman (who struggles with his own homosexual tendencies) - were well placed to balance the plot and bring in other opinions in this conversation on sexuality. I quite enjoy South Park's style of toilet humor, and watching an episode warrants sometimes a chuckle, and sometimes a round of hysterical laughter. Tweek x Craig was the first episode that I cried throughout.

Where friends saw how the two poor boys were forced together as a gay couple by societal pressure in order to showcase and represent South Park's newfound politically correctness and progressiveness, a real love story bloomed beneath this strange twist of events. 'Love doesn't follow a plan', screams Tweek when he was staging a break-up with Craig, and it doesn't. Tweek, a boy who is literally named after his twitchiness and jumpiness who claims everything is 'too much pressure' for him, becomes a confident actor that pulled off a heartbreaking performance in front of the school after Craig told him he could do more than he thinks he could. In retrospect, the Yaoi painters probably got it right, the tsundere Craig who is lonely, strong and nonchalant is a protector, and the twitchy, scared and meek Tweek needs that protection. In a scene where Tweek watched Craig plays Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Craig is smiling and Tweek is talking normally - a rarity to both of these characters throughout the last 200 episodes.

Love works in the most unexpected ways, some fall in love but regrets it forever, some are forced into an arranged marriage but finds love anyway. What hit me, I think, is the transformation of Tweek and Craig's character from the one dimensional scaredy-cat and emo-boy respectively to the vibrant characters they were at the end of the episode; because that what love does to you, I guess, bringing out who you are, whom you thought you could never be. Sometimes I still wonder what I can become if I do find Love one day; but what the heck, it's really not for me to decide, and I'm starting to stop caring.

Say something, Love, I'm giving up on you.