Game-related ramblings.

Month: December 2020

Scratching That Itch: The Secret of Tremendous Corporation

This is the forty-second entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. This particular entry in the Scratching That Itch series is also an honorary member of the Keeping Score series, which discusses games and their soundtracks. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

It’s time for another random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. It’s The Secret of Tremendous Corporation, by dos (along with Konrad Burandt and PaweÅ‚ Radej). Its tagline in the bundle reads:

Discover the legendary Secret™ and save the game industry!

Very well, dos. I guess I can find time in my busy schedule to save the game industry.

Say Farewell To Flash With Stinkoman Level 10

As always, you may click on images to view larger versions. Although in this case they may actually be smaller versions.

Readers of a certain age may remember the online cartoons from The Brothers Chaps: Homestar Runner and friends, most notably Strong Bad and his emails, were very popular in the early 2000s, in the heyday of Flash. Today, Flash is basically defunct, and indeed will go away for good in a few days, with the close of the 2020 calendar year. Today, the internet runs entirely on Google ads, popping in and choking the life from any website you might be foolish enough to read (even this blog has some, I think… they don’t show up for me when I’m logged in, but I think they’re there for all of you), but in the early 2000s websites were things you could actually use, and you could even watch cartoons or play games right in your browser without worrying that the almighty algorithm would bombard you with creepy personalized ads for years afterwards.

The Homestar Runner cartoons were (or are, I guess, as new ones still appear sporadically) hilarious, and The Brothers Chaps made a few Flash games for their site as well. The largest of these was Stinkoman 20X6, an homage to early Nintendo Entertainment System platformers like Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden based off of one of Strong Bad’s emails. The game was released episodically, with new levels added after the old, but it was never finished. That’s right: fifteen years later, just a few days before Flash disappears, the tenth and final Stinkoman level is here.

Death Before Dishonor, Part 1: Separation Of Church And State

This is Death Before Dishonor, a series in which I attempt to play through Dishonored with a self-imposed, semi-permadeath rule designed to make me improvise my way out of trouble, rather than re-loading an earlier save. For some background, read the introduction to the series first. Also be advised that, unlike most posts on this blog, this series will contain spoilers. For spoiler-free thoughts on Dishonored, read my original posts about the game. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

And so, my second adventure as Corvo Attano begins, and this time I’m forcing myself out of my old perfectionist habits by forbidding myself to re-load saved games when things go wrong. As I work to take down the corrupt government of the city of Dunwall, which has completely mishandled the deadly plague ravaging its citizens, I will try not to kill anyone unless I have to. But I suspect I will have to before long. When I’m spotted by guards I’ll need to deal with them, because if they take me down, I’ll start over all the way back at the beginning of the mission. Let’s see how this goes.

I wrote this up in the introductory text, but I’ll repeat it here just so we’re clear: this series will have spoilers, so read on at your own risk. If you are looking for spoiler-free thoughts on Dishonored, I refer you to my original posts about it, written back in 2013, about a year after its release.

Scratching That Itch: Hemophiliacademics

This is the forty-first entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our next random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is Hemophiliacademics, by Jacqueline Bryk. Its tagline in the bundle reads:

Vampires apply for grad schools to save their unlives.

Vampires may be mainstays in horror fiction, but we all know what the true terror is: graduate level education.

Scratching That Itch: In Another Life

This is the fortieth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

It’s time once more for a random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. This time we have In Another Life, by Lauren Bryant-Monk. Its tagline in the bundle reads:

A game about meeting your love from a past life

That’s right, readers, romance is in the air.

Scratching That Itch: Orison Of Mercury

This is the thirty-ninth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

What will the random number generators select this time, from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality? It’s Orison of Mercury, by .. Yes, the developer is, apparently, known as “.”, although the game page says that Orison of Mercury was made jointly with Mint for the Antholojam. Its tagline in the bundle reads:

The lonely work of finding a new home.

I am intrigued. It sounds like it’s aiming for a meditative, affecting experience.

History Lessons: Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

Other History Lessons posts can be found here. This post makes many references to the entries for Dragon Quest III and Phantasy Star. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

I have been slowly playing through the early Japanese-style role-playing games, although I haven’t managed to do so in the right order. I most recently played Dragon Quest III, but then realized there were a few other games released before it that I also wanted to play. The first of those is Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, which was only released in Japan, in September 1987 (placing it three months before Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star, and five months before Dragon Quest III). In fact, there were two different games with that title, both based on the novel of the same name. The game for personal computers is a top-down action role-playing game, but the game for the Famicom (rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the Western market) is a first-person, tile-based dungeon crawl role-playing game in the mold of Wizardry or Might and Magic. It’s this one that proved popular, eventually spawning the Shin Megami Tensei series which rivals Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest in popularity in Japan, and has more recently enjoyed some crossover success in the west. The franchise includes the Persona series of spin-off games, which may be the most successful internationally. I had no idea that this series traced its roots all the way back to the earliest Japanese console role-playing games, so I was intrigued to try out the very first entry.

Scratching That Itch: Purple Chicken Spaceman

This is the thirty-eighth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. This particular entry in the Scratching That Itch series is also an honorary member of the Keeping Score series, which discusses games and their soundtracks. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Once more, the random number generators have spun up and spat out a selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. It’s Purple Chicken Spaceman, by Holmade Games. Included in the download is the Purple Chicken Soundtrack, which means this post is also an honorary Keeping Score post. Purple Chicken Spaceman’s tagline in the bundle reads:

Are you chicken enough?

Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m chicken enough.

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