Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 250

Capturing the eccentricity of The Grand Budapest Hotel in a videogame adaptation

The tangible world of The Grand Budapest Hotel becomes interactive.

Sanctuary is what its name promises, only with more synths and beauty

“Why are you treading on the grass, you dummy?” 

I had that thought at least a dozen times while playing Sanctuary, Connor Sherlock’s synth-y, first-person walking simulator. There are dirt paths to walk on but much of the ground is covered by grass. Sometimes the shortest path to wherever you’re going, which is nowhere in particular, is to tread on the grass. The grass is sprouting out everything, even what appears to be snow, although it shimmers like something closer to crystal meth. As these crystalline formations crunch underfoot as if it were the crackling background noise of a vinyl record.

That is no accident. Sanctuary has all the crackling warmth of vintage media. Beyond the crunchy audio, its visuals have the artifacts you’d expect to see on old-fashioned film. There is, of course, more to Sanctuary than its artifacts. Its universe is luscious and full of rolling surfaces to amble over. What little hard architecture exists in this universe—a church and a bridge—is extremely simple. These structures are collections of blocks, only slightly more involved versions of Stonehenge. Nothing here will detract from nature.

And why should it? Sanctuary is beautiful albeit aimless. Its music, which feels like a deep cut from the “Late Night Tales” series, is perfect for getting lost in. It plays so long as you are walking. And so you keep walking, lest the music stop. There is no larger reason to go on, you have no higher purpose, but this one feels high enough.

You can download Sanctuary for free on itch.io.

Playtime with TimePlay, the horrible pre-movie advertising game

How movie ads have merged with games.

Arm wrestle burly fish in this adaptation of Hemingway's philosophy of manhood

If you've never read Ernest Hemingway's 1952 novel The Old Man and the Sea there is now an abridged version in which you arm wrestle a marlin. It's a videogame with the superb title of The Old Man Club, which not only refers back to the novel's title, but may also allude to a critique of those who have interpreted Hemingway's writing as expressing a supreme form of manliness.

embody everything that is considered to be traditionally masculine 

In The Old Man and the Sea, the masculine reading is found by those who seek it in the struggle of an aged man, who wrestles for three days with a large marlin on the end of his fishing rod. He's determined not to let go as prior to this the old man experienced an 84-day streak of foul luck that saw him unable to catch a single fish. Upon eventually catching his aquatic adversary, the old man has to then bat off sharks that eat the majority of his catch while heading back to the dock many miles away. 

All of these events are turned into arm wrestling matches in The Old Man Club. At first, the club's interior appears to house only a lion-headed bloke (referring to the old man's dream of his African childhood in the novel) and a salmon-headed fella who are both up for some elbow-to-elbow ruffian action. Below the neck, they are each distinctively hardbodied: thick forearms, chiseled all-over, streaks of body hair from chin to dick. They embody every shallow trait of what is considered to be traditional manliness and you must beat them in a competition of strength, will, and determination.

Slam the back of their fists against the wood of the table for victory and the panels in the club will start to disappear, revealing more opponents for you to take on: a muscled dolphin, a couple of shark bros, and of course, a hulking marlin. You win each arm wrestle by clicking a button on the screen as frequently as possible. It's a proper test of endurance and grit that appropriately tests your physical capability.

This performance of bravura is what Thomas F. Strychacz sees in many of Hemingway's novels and that he confirms many have used "to consolidate a philosophy of masculinist modernism," as he writes in his book Hemingway's Theaters of Masculinity. The idea here being that manhood is primarily gained through acts of violence. We see this in The Old Man and the Sea and especially in the ceremonious bullfighting in Hemingway's earlier novel Death in the Afternoon. Those who subscribe to the supposed "philosophy of Manhood," as coined by Joseph Waldmeir in his praise-heavy essay on Hemingway, would also trace similarities in more modern texts such as Fight Club. 

anyone needing to prove their manhood is an unnecessary pastime 

The problem with worshiping this idea of masculinity is that it makes manhood unattainable to many and champions the most boorish traits known to, well, man. And this idea of gating manhood has hardly been left in the past either, as it still thrives to this day, especially with the prominent "bro" and "lad" cultures, encouraging goofish acts of prickishness to others mixed with an unhealthy dose of self-harm masked as a good time that often involves downing excessive amounts of alcohol (and often other drugs) to prove oneself as part of the group.    

The Old Man Club doesn't necessarily have a view either way on all the masculinity its transferred from word to sketched graphics. But interpretation of it, as with the novel that it's based on, is entirely equivocal. That said, surely we can accept that anyone needing to prove their manhood is an unnecessary pastime and, if it were to be entertained as a viable idea, then it must constitute more than raw knuckle-headed strength, right? 

You can download The Old Man Club at pay-what-you-want price on itch.io.

Journey���s greatest gift to videogames was telling us all to shut up

Journey returns to PS4, and with it, the gift of quiet

The Last of Us soundtrack is getting the beautiful vinyl LP it always needed

"Whoa. Look at this place!" Ellie says as you walk through the doorway, into an old record store. You're on your way to Bill's hideout and this abandoned town is the first place that lets you truly grasp Ellie's alienation from our own world. It's not that she just doesn't listen to records. She's not some teenager who doesn't care or understand obsolete pieces of art work. To Ellie, a record is a foreign artifact—like a moon rock or ancient Egyptian scroll. It's a difference in the age gap that no one from the world before the outbreak would've had to experience.

But vinyl wasn't the worst thing the world lost, so you don't respond. Instead you walk to the back where the wall's been caved in. You find a piece of tape, some alcohol, and a single bullet. Satisfied, you turn to leave.

To Ellie, a record is a foreign artifact 

Ellie is there, paging through the records. "Man, this is kinda sad."

"What is?"

"All this music that's just sitting here. No one's around to listen to it."

The Last of Us is a game that understands nostalgia. After all, its very title implies an end to something long since corroded. Most of its aesthetic beauty and emotional core relies on that sense of what has been lost forever—something that somehow seems both the same and completely changed, and leaves behind that bittersweet taste of the tangible and impossible.

When I want a soundtrack to score my darkest moments of nostalgia, I reach for Gustavo Santaolalla's twangy ode to "the times before." Gustavo Santaolalla is a man also understands what it means to lose something forever, and have it still remain in the physical world, which is why he was a perfect fit as composer on The Last of Us. In his childhood, he watched his home country of Argentina descend into unrecognizable chaos during the period of a military dictatorship known as the Dirty War. After being jailed several times and blacklisted, he left for America.

Gustavo Santaolalla's twangy ode to "the times before" 

On a thematic level, nothing could fit The Last of Us's soundtrack better than vinyl—a medium that keeps at least one foot squarely in the past—so it's great that the two will coalesce in an upcoming release. With gorgeous original artwork from Olly Moss and Jay Shaw, the LP also mirrors the physicality of the music (and game). Santaolalla was known for recording parts of the score in bathrooms and utilizing many unconventional instruments for their more tactile sounds. In his tracks for The Last of Us, such as "Vanishing Grace," Santaolalla often lets the notes fray and reverberate, making the listener keenly aware of its acoustics, and the emptiness of the space it exists in.

The LP also marks the record company's (Mondo) first dip into videogame music. There's no word yet on how many copies will be sold, so you might want to get ready to jump when sales open tomorrow, on July 22nd. It'll include all the music form the original game, as well as the beautifully executed Left Behind DLC.

The I��upiat's voice in videogames continues with Never Alone's upcoming DLC

Foxtales takes Nuna and Fox on a nautical journey up the Noatak River.

FIFA 16 is slowly discovering the existence of women's soccer

Alex Morgan will be the first woman to appear on a FIFA cover.

Videogame based on Moby Dick lets you wreak havoc as the white whale

Header image: Poster for 1976 theatrical re-release of Moby Dick.

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After Captain Ahab's whaling ship, the Pequod, has been destroyed by the white whale he's been hunting across the globe in the final scenes of Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick, he says the following: "Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

It's clear that Ahab has come to hate the whale with an unmeasured scorn. It took one of his legs prior to this final conflict and has since obsessed over killing it. Now accepting his defeat he hopes that, even beyond death, he will pursue and hunt the creature down. For Ahab, the whale is an ultimate adversary and is the curse of his life and whatever traces of life he may experience beyond the final curtain.

my white whale seemed to be doing a tribute to Scarface 

But since the novel's popularization at some point in the 20th century (it took upwards of 50 years for it to be appreciated as widely as it is now), this famous duel of man and monster has been understood as a metaphor, for it is not the whale that is Ahab's undoing, but his infatuation with killing it. Now we remark that someone's "white whale" is the object of their fixation.

However, there is nothing metaphorical about the white whale that you embody in Nick Barr's videogame adaptation of Melville's story. In Pequod, you have to make sure of that by raising this lurching, blubbery body from the ocean's surface and bringing it crashing down on to the decks of the ships that hunt you. The idea is to gain power by destroying boats in order to work your way up to Ahab and the Pequod, rising to the might of the white whale in the final scenes of the novel. 

But, while metaphor is absent here, fantastical embellishment certainly isn't. As you progress through the chapters of the game, destroying the 'boss' ship to finish each level, you can gain powers to aid in your whale's body-flopping fight tactics. It may be an enormous narwhal-like horn, or a huge buzzsaw that spawns when you destroy a ship, or a bomb that orbits the whale and explodes upon impact with a vessel.

All of these powers are procedurally generated so you never know what you're going to get. At one point, my white whale seemed to be doing a tribute to Scarface with a laser cannon hovering by one of its flippers, and so, as I rose from the seabed to gain speed and air time for the biggest impact, I'd murmur "Say hello to my little..." and as the whale broke the ocean surface, an almighty boom of "FRIEND!" Hey, it seemed fitting at the time, don't judge. 

That's not the limits of Pequod's creative add-ons. There are also ships that act as wooden submarines—appearing underwater rather than on top of it—as well flying ships that you need to batter with the tip of the whale's stub-nosed maw during a particularly high jump out of the water. Those are the biggest variations, but the scarier ones are the shapes that the boss ships can take—there's even one that appears to have teeth and a black hole for a mouth. In any case, none of them measure up to Ahab and the Pequod itself, and the only way you can reach them is to avoid dying at all, essentially becoming the invulnerable bad-ass whale that Moby Dick is reputed to be. 

You can download Pequod at a pay-what-you-want price over on itch.io.

Clouds Below lets you unfurl your wings and soar over beautiful vistas

It's not easy to jump out of a plane, y'know? I will do it for the first time in approximately two weeks from 7,000 feet in the air. I might be shitting myself. But worse is all the prep up until that moment—about 30 seconds of freefall—as it's a lot of hassle. I've had to join the British Parachute Association, pay £149 in advance, and will have a 30-minute tutorial that will help me not die when dangerously flinging myself out of a hollow tube with wings in the sky.

All that, plus I have to endure my mother's frets. "I couldn't do that. What if something goes wrong? Why are you doing that?" Well, ma, there are several reasons. I have a fear of heights that causes my knees to tremble uncontrollably when faced with a drop. I also get an urge to jump off in such a situation. I think that's my mind's logical way of overcoming said fear, which is madness. Perhaps I'm worried that one day that urge will take over. If so, that will probably be how I die. And so my hope is that by jumping from really high up (out of a goddamn plane) I'll satiate that bizarre request in my brain forever more. 

clouds stretch out below as if an ocean of cotton 

Other than that, hell, haven't you ever wanted the feeling of flying? Don't give me any of that airplane nonsense, either. I don't recall Superman having to deal with sitting in a cramped chair, watching movies for hours on end, and getting by on little to no sleep while a baby screams in his ear. That's not flight. That's just long-distance endurance. Granted, I'll only be falling, technically, but I'll have my arms out and I've heard it'll be quite blowy on the way down.

As this event in my life is coming up rather sharpish I'm on the lookout for ways to prepare myself. And as I don't have living room access to Birdly—a full-body virtual reality device that gives you the sensation of soaring like a bird through the air—I'm having to settle on playing games such as Clouds Below. 

The short description of this game is: you play a kid with eagle wings instead of arms and magical wind powers who is trying to chase a massive bird towards the top of a mountain. The longer version is the same but with a lot more "ooh" and "ahhh" along the way to compensate for the glorious sensation of launching yourself into the air, a spiral of gust, and then unfolding your wings to glide between sky islands while the clouds stretch out below as if an ocean of cotton. It's all very pretty.

And I want to emphasize that this kid doesn't just perform a regular jump. One of the buttons does but it's pretty useless when you can twirl upwards to about ten times the height at the press of another button. I did this a lot, especially in the beginning, almost missing out on an entire town of snoozing huts as I dared to soar over the top. Later, this cluttered terrestrial exploration gives way to larger stretches of space made for you to fly across, toward beautiful distant vistas. You also need to operate wind-based contraptions, using your powers to send colorful fans into a tiz, and soon after, making practical use of that upwards gust to bounce off large red drums to new heights. 

All of this is much more impressive considering that what is currently available is a prototype that was hashed together in just seven weeks by a team of five. Sure, there are some hitches here and there, but certainly nothing major that takes away from the experience. Mostly, it's a delightful if brief flight from one ledge to another, giant aerospace between you to soar majestically, and the beautiful visuals do a good job of making that feel special. 

You can download Clouds Below for free on itch.io.