Single Player Games Are Here To Stay

I have been playing a ton of both Apex Legends and Red Dead Redemption 2. Both of these games are at the top of their respective genres. Apex is the most played online multiplayer shooter right now, and Red Dead is one of the bestselling single player games of all time. In my (strong) opinion, the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 lives and breathes. Its characters complete tasks with or without you and its environment responds to your every action. The closest online multiplayer games have come to this amount of character exist in Overwatch and Apex Legends, both of which have shied away from character customization in an effort to inject story into their playable characters. But these characters can only interact with each other and their worlds so much. Their unique ability to bring together people online will always be profitable. Loads of people like me play Apex with their friends halfway across the country, but even more just want to take the reigns as Arthur Morgan, a man with the innate ability to fight for the ones he loves. Arthur Morgan loves over a dozen characters, each of which has a different relationship with him. The difference between Red Dead 2 and Apex is that when a character in Arthur’s world is in danger, I care for that character. When a character in Apex is in danger, I don’t yell, “Lifeline noooooo, I’ll protect youuuuuu!” I yell, “JAKE (my friend’s name), I’M COMING FOR YOU STAY ALIVE!”. The difference here is not minimal. I don’t love the world of Apex Legends. I love interacting with the world of Apex with my friends. Single player games let me experience a world how I want, when I want, with interesting characters that I care about. Single player games are here to live, breath, and die for players.

[2] Arthur Morgan’s beard grows with or without you in Red Dead 2.

[3] Lifeline’s intricate detailing and character design shines bright… but does it even matter?

A great example of a character that has died for players is Ezio from Assassins Creed (AC) 2, AC: Brotherhood. And AC: Revelations. In AC 2, players literally taught Ezio how to move in one game, helped him avenge his family for his entire life in another, and then ceremoniously watched him die in his final game. Players were given a character to learn and grow with, whereas in games like Apex, players are introduced to characters near the middle of their lives, given access to them for a handful of minutes, watched them die, then rinses and repeats until the break of dawn. The next night, the characters are exactly the same and in perfect health. You see, these characters aren’t living without the input of players. My inclination for single players never going away lies in the fact that players like seeing evolution. If in Apex Legends 2 (TBA) these characters are older and more skilled, I think most players would be okay with it. We as humans and storytellers want progression, we want characters to change (for better or worse), and we want characters to learn from each other.

[4] Ellie was a scared little girl back then…

[5] Ellie is a badass now.

My most anticipated games right now are The Last of Us Part II and God of War 2 (TBA). I’m not only excited about the new mechanics and challenges that the devs will throw at me, but because I know that these characters will be older, wiser, and more badass than I ever knew they could be. Ellie will not rely on Joel anymore and (let’s be real here) Kratos will probably die sacrificing himself for his son. We were shown as players that Kratos could become a better father by the end of the game, and now, after almost 20 years of guiding this character’s growth, we will ball our eyes out saying goodbye to him.

To put it bluntly, I don’t see very many Twitch streamers crying when they see Bloodhound die in Apex…

Sources:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Viva Piñata Taught Me How To Let Go Of My Pets

One of my favorite games of all time is the Rare cult-classic Viva Piñata. From its unique economy systems to its incredible art direction, Rare put out a game unlike any other I had ever played when it first released in 2006. But this blog isn’t a review of Viva Piñata, this blog is intended to dive deeper into the more impactful moments I had within the game, and how games can teach you about purposeful choice for a greater good.

It starts out easy: Having soil in your garden attracts cute little Whirlms (VP’s version of a Worm). You’re taught how to convince a piñata to stay in your garden through love, taught how to romance two piñatas, are treated to a delightful minigame and cutscene of the two piñatas dancing together, and finally receive an egg of a new baby piñata you helped conceive. It’s all a lot cuter than it sounds, trust me.

Whirlms are so cute, aren’t they?

Once you’ve got a healthy, thriving family of worms living in your garden, you begin to attract Sparrowmints. These sparrow lookalikes will only visit your garden if you’ve got worms as residents. But in order for you to begin to romance these birds together, you must have a family of worms, and each Sparrowmint must eat one whirlm.

Evil-Eyed Sparrowmint

Let me remind you that in November 2006, when Viva Piñata launched, little Julian was a 10 year old. My experience with animals was quite different from a normal 10 year old. By the age of 10, my parents had donated two dogs (RIP Wrinkles, RIP Coby) that were starting to get old. That was it. The only “problem” with our beloved pets in my parent’s eyes was their age. My parents wouldn’t consult my sister or I, we would just wake up one day and realize that our dog was gone. In both cases, they took us to eat breakfast at a restaurant and explained to us that they didn’t want us to remember our pets as sick or in pain, so they donated them to families they knew could help handle the stress of a sick animal when the inevitable happened with age. By the age of 10, I had yet to experience a death, let alone the death of an animal I had loved.

So, when a game asked me to kill a newfound pet I was caring for (a fucking adorable one at that), I took a second to think about it.

“There has to be another way for me to romance this Sparrowmint,” I thought to myself. I tried waiting it out, and kept romancing my Whirlms in an effort to convince the sparrows that the worms would go nowhere, and that seeing a buffet of worms would get their bodies all hot and bothered enough to just want to romance anyways. They had an evil look in their eyes, and it was no surprise. Rare knew exactly what these Sparrowmints were for… teaching children about the harsh realities of animal husbandry.

No luck.

I didn’t know the word for pacifism at age 10, but by-golly I was desperate for some in this game. I wasn’t ready to see one of my pets die. I walked around my garden and looked for clues to a secret way of romancing sparrows when I suddenly heard the cheers of children coming from within the game. I looked back at where the noise came from and saw one of my sparrows eating candy off the grass. It then received a pink heart over its head (the universal sign for “I’m all hot and bothered now”). It was ready to romance. I wondered where that magical candy on the ground came from, then looked over at my second Sparrow. It was crouched over, and looked like it was going to attack one of my Whirlms. “Here it comes,” I thought to myself. Rare must’ve had a hunch that some players wouldn’t find killing their pets as easy as others, so they implemented a system where the piñatas begin to fulfill their own requirements for themselves if the player take too long to complete the deed.

The first death of a pet I experienced was in a game. After the death of the cute little Whirlm, kids cheered, candy fell out, and my other pet Sparrowmint ate his candy guts.

And yet, I wasn’t traumatized. The family of piñata Whirlms I spent the last hour raising and caring for went on about their wiggling business, and the two Sparrows went in to their house to romance. I was again treated to a cutscene of two sparrows flying around each other, and an egg landed in my garden with a soon-to-be-hatched Sparrowmint inside.

I expected to be hurt, but Rare’s masterpiece was so good at easing me into death that I felt progress instead of pain. I quickly readjusted to my newfound population, and began to worry about how to attract a nearby Fudgehog that was lurking in the background in all its colorless goodness.

Fudgehog: my favorite piñata in VP

By the end of my prime Viva Piñata days, I was literally begging new visitor piñatas (which you can’t forcibly control) to eat my pet piñatas in hopes of increasing the diversity rate in my garden.

It all got better from there when I realized that these deaths weren’t the end of the world. These deaths were simply codas leading to new beginnings, cuter piñatas, and gardens full of more bustling critters than I could have ever dreamed of as a 10 year old.

Growing up, my parents were quick to trade in old for new. We never had a car for longer than 5 years, and we always got rid of pets that were too old for us. Now that I’m older, I have Rare’s timely cult classic to thank for my ability to say goodbye to those I’ve cared for. I now realize that my parents were only trying to prevent us from seeing our cute pups in a pitiful manner. They were protecting us from the harsh realities of life, whereas Rare was quick to shed light on those truths. Viva Piñata taught me how to kill that which I worked so hard to achieve for the bettering of my world. Sure, its ways of animal husbandry are gruesome, but what in life isn’t?

Image Sources

Hades And Its Delicate Use of “Roguelike” Elements

Pairs well with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Soundtrack

Announced at the 2018 Game Awards via a stunning player story trailer, Hades is Supergiant’s newest addition to its library of tight, fast, and detailed games. Hades puts players in the shoes of the prince of the Underworld—Zagreus. He has acquired some newfound knowledge of his existence, and wants to join the rest of his family on Mount Olympus.  From its perfect setting that redefines “dungeon crawling” to its developer’s historic presence in the action-RPG genre, Hades delivers the goods through a fresh lens on the Roguelike genre.

But first, let’s examine the magical genre we now call “roguelike”, which Hades borrows elements from. During the International Roguelike Development Conference in 2008, all in attendance gathered to define this new genre of roguelike games. They split the list between High Value Factors and Low Value Factors. In the end, they classified roguelikes as having some or all of the following gameplay elements: 

*Hades uses this element at least loosely

High Value Factors

*Random environment generation (each time you die and come back to life in Hell, the rooms and caverns reset)

*Permadeath (loosely—some currency is saved and used for upgrades or unlocking new weapons)

Turn-based

Grid-based

Non-modal

*Complexity (the combat and the variation in weapons allow for various types of play)

*Resource management (one must always keep track of health, gold, and other currencies throughout the run)

*Hack 'n' slash (we’ll get to the impeccable combat system soon)

*Exploration and discovery (getting further and further through the chambers of Hell unlocks new opportunities for bosses, new opportunities for Olympian boons, etc.)

Low Value Factors

*Single player character (this world revolves around our protagonist, Zagreus. Every character is specifically looking for him, all enemies auto lock on, etc.)

Monsters are similar to players

*Tactical challenge (again, we’ll get into this during combat)

ASCII display

*Dungeons (all rooms are procedurally molded together on-the-fly)

*Numbers (lots of numbers are involved in every run, and one is always calculating how many upgrade runes are necessary in their current run to unlock the next perk of choice)

Source

Hades falls deeper into this genre of games into what we now so commonly call the roguelite subgenre. According to Game Maker’s Toolkit, a roguelite carries upgrades across deaths, while roguelikes do not. That’s a pretty straightforward way of thinking, and that’s the way we’ll categorize Hades for the remainder of this blog. Let’s get to it.

THE SETTING

Notice the first difference from traditional roguelike games: we’re not going deeper and deeper down through cavernous dungeons, we’re going up through the layers of Hell on our trek to Mount Olympus. The Underworld is a dark, grimy, off-green tone that adds the right touch of drama and urgency to move on. It feels like a death trap is in every corner, and each room could send you back to your demented bedroom…

Supergiant Games has no shortage of beautifully vibrant worlds. From the start with Bastion, Supergiant has given players rich environments, complex color-palettes, and thorough level design. It’s no surprise that Hades’ world includes the aforementioned details throughout its randomly generated chambers. Little details like breakable Greek vases, destructible pillars, and spirits of the dead floating around the world help to keep your eyes moving around the screen at all times. I keep wanting to find new artifacts to interact with, new characters to dialogue with, and new enemies to wall slam against a pillar, watch it crumble into pieces on top of them, then finish them off with one more hit of my weapon.

Hell may be a character, but it’s certainly not the only one.  Hades understands it’s History, and not the only way. It seems like I’m constantly discovering new family members trying to help me break free. Their special “Boons” spice up the gameplay enough for me to want to get to know them. Each of their Boon’s dealing really on a thematic characteristic of them or their weapon of choice. Athena and her shield integrate nicely into the mechanics, while Poseidon and his aggressive boons compliment it nicely. These characters give off stronger boons when you interact with them by giving them gifts. By giving them gifts and favoring them, they grant you with special items that can increase their chances of appearing in the labyrinth. It’s like spending Time with them at a family function.  ongoing…