Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 312

If you build it, will they come back?

World of Warcraft and Detroit have responded similarly to dwindling populations.

Live-action graphic novel stars sludge-monsters from the planet Zygon

Comicbook commedia dell’arte.

Find joy in the little things with Petrichor

"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." - Pablo Picasso

This morning, it rained. I watched from inside, warm and happy to be there instead of underneath a punctured sky. Each droplet bolted to the ground like a bullet, heavy, fast, exact. The sound of rain, calming but always carrying a slight tinge of destruction, reminded me of the metaphorical clock ticking—all the work I hadn't started yet. I left the window, the rain with it, and didn't give them either much more thought.

Until hours later, when I played Petrichor.

Petrichor begins much the same way I began my day. Underneath shelter, rain drizzling down outside my enclosure. A fire crackles in front of you, commingling with the delicate pitter patter of water meeting earth. When a prompt appears over the fire, telling me to take my first action, I pause. I don't know why, but for a second I can't bring myself to do it and interrupt this lovely introductory moment. Maybe because I didn't want to lose that moment of anticipated suspension before beginning something. Or because I know anything entitled Petrichor, which is the name for the pleasant smell that follows a rain shower on a hot day, will be about enjoying the little things. Regardless, as a generally impatient person, I found the impulse curious. So, of course, I followed it.

"Remember The Sound Of Now" - Δ 

I stay with that opening screen for at least a whole minute, unmoving. My eyes and mouse itch toward the red umbrella discarded a few feet away from my character. But I persist, trying instead to soak in (har har—inadvertent rain humor) as much of my surroundings as possible. The fire and the shadow it casts twitch together in a rhythmic dance, as a stream of water falling from the mouth of my cave seems in contrast almost made solid by its steadiness.

I remember the game's description, urging me to "Remember The Sound Of Now - Δ." I bring to mind my own experiences of petrichor, that humid and mildly earthy scent, before taking a deep breathe and finally standing up.

The short point and click adventure game that follows takes me back and forth across a small wooded area that provides simple environmental puzzles. My trusty red umbrella companion is my only vehicle for progressing through the subtly surreal adventure. As I quickly learn in the first area, passing through a solid stream of waterfall will burst my player character into a million tiny fibers that regroup in her previous position. Only by flourishing my trusty umbrella allows me to pass through the stream unharmed. As designer and programmer Matt Rohr says on the game's dev log, Petrichor is "fascinated by the idea that something as normal as walking or even using your umbrella as a hook could be qualified as a sort of 'casual magic.'"

Each ability you need to progress is gained easily, by finding a nearby piece of parchment and drying it out by a fire. The game does not suffer whatsoever from the simplicity of its mechanics. If anything, I fault Petrichor with not being minimalist enough at times, and needlessly forcing me to backtrack on one too many occasions.

But perhaps even the monotony of the backtracking has a purpose. The copy for the game's trailer, for example, reads: "we wandered the woods / and bathed in fractured walls / it was all so useless / and beautiful." The two main developers of the Sundae Month team (which is Matt, and artist Eric Winebrenner) tend to provide only the most cryptic messages as explanation of Petrichor, hinting at the "eternal rain leaving puddles" and a "path [that] calls you back."

Certainly by the end of the game, I am left with more questions than answers. But, incredibly, this doesn't leave me dissatisfied. Culminating into a heavy downpour, the climb that leads up to the final exchange in Petrichor reminds me of that slight danger I often sense in the sound of rain. My mind flashes images of souls cleansed in baptismal waters. Or the earth flooded—destroyed by the very element that gives it life.

When the game finishes, I return to the beginning again, rain quieting back down to a gentle patter. I think back to my morning. Somehow, I feel guilty for having spent more time and attention on a game's rain showers than real earth's rain showers. But if I hadn't played Petrichor—if I'd never observed how each droplet that hit the ground burst into a ripple, or never heard the gentle strings of its lovely soundtrack by Jack Yeates—I wouldn't thought twice about what I saw while glancing out my window.

You can play Petrichor for free here. Sundae Month, as a student game dev collective, has a few other worthwhile free games here, and are gearing to release another, more larger scale surrealist game called Levity.

Contemporary Indian fiction becomes impossible architecture in Somewhere

Somewhere’s nonsensical worlds have a very real-world meaning.

Sunburn charts a deadly path through the cosmos

Progress through defeat. 

Everyone at the CIA is playing a puzzle game named Kryptos

Games at work are good for national security

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions attempts to improve on perfection

It’s all in the neon-soaked details.

MINIDAYZ lets you play DayZ without the cruelty of other players

I'd been playing DayZ for no longer than two hours when it first happened to me. Jogging tired and hungry across knackered pastures, I heard a gunshot ring out into the air; an enormous clap that could only have come from a deadly long-range rifle. I dived into the xeric dirt and stayed still. After about a minute, he came over speaking hurriedly in pidgin English. All I understood of it was "don't fucking move." So I didn't.

He took my measly pickings: a tin of baked beans found next to a grimy stove, and a flashlight that was stuffed into the corner of a rundown barn. I remember entertaining the idea of cooking the beans with the heat of the flashlight's bulb when looking hopelessly at my inventory once. When he was out of my pockets, he strung teeth-sounds together that, I think, was his way of telling me to run northwards and to not look back. It didn't matter; he shot me anyway in mid-sprint, probably just for kicks. Asshole.

This is how DayZ's dispersed community of online players have learned to play the game. With growling stomachs to feed, parched maws to quench, and sprinting zombies restlessly hunting them for brains and blood, they survive through selfish, ruthless, and cruel acts. They have to, or so they say.

being held captive by others in DayZ as if it were a real-life war zone. 

As a new player, it feels brutally unfair when you're first robbed, even if you have nothing of value. You spend those first formative hours learning how to deal with hordes of zombies (you run away fast) and training your eye in the school of scavenging. It's enough of a struggle as it is, especially with permadeath stripping you of progress over and over.

Sure, I'd read about the stories of people being held captive by others in DayZ as if it were a real-life war zone. I knew about it and was expecting something to happen to me. But experiencing that first robbery felt like a low blow. And although I didn't realize it would be at the time, it ended up being the final straw for me; I haven't played the game since.

What might bring me back is a single-player version of DayZ. And I know I'm not the only one who thinks this as I've seen other beaten-down players asking if they can play DayZ offline, by themselves, in its forums. "The game will never have this," is always the annoyed answer, "but there will be mods when it's fully released," reasons one person's reply.

A single-player standalone goes against the entire design of DayZ and what has made it so popular. But I don't care. It would be ideal for getting to grips with the world before having to deal with the savage and uncaring players who have worked their way up to the status of prat-ass warlord. Dealing with them when you're starting out is like Mussolini's 100,000-strong army of tanks and flamethrowers crushing Abyssinia's helpless defense of camel riders and war drums. I'd wear a learner's 'L' plate if I could, but that would probably make me even more of a target, actually.

Well, anyway, it turns out there is a single-player version of DayZ. Sorta. MINIDAYZ is a fan-made game based on DayZ that has been picked up and promoted by Bohemia Interactive (creator of Arma, of which DayZ was originally a mod for). Yeah, it's a 2D, top-down take on the game, but it's practically the same sans the online functionality. I'm still terrible at surviving the zombie apocalypse, that should go without saying, but at least I don't have to fear the humiliation of being stripped down and searched by a power-mad Rambo wannabe every hour or so now.

You can play MINIDAYZ in your browser but need to have a Bohemia Interactive profile first.

An exclusive excerpt of The Art of Game Design

The game begins with an idea. 

Here’s what it’s like to play Steel Battalion in a tricked-out refrigerator box

A notorious game is reawoken.