Humble Bundle Acquisitions: Guacamelee!

Imagine a bold artsyle, luchadores, and countless jokes about tequila.If this sounds at all interesting to you, go play this game right right now. It's hilarious and I thought it was a whole lot of fun! The game focuses on Juan, who, after an untimely death, is chosen by a mythical lacha mask to be resurrected and restore balance to a Day of the Dead festival as the ultimate luchador. Seriously. That's a perfect premise. I wanted to play a bit more before writing a post about it, but I didn't have time for it over the weekend. My 30 minutes of HBA: Live is right here and as you will be able to tell, I had a great time!

Humble Bundle Acquisitions: Surgeon Simulator 2013

I went into this game expecting one thing and getting something a lot weirder.

Firstly, there was a lot less blood than I expected. Actually, for the most part, this game is more or less bloodless which is especially surprising when you consider that "Blood Loss" is a key losing mechanic in this game. Sure, you get little blood spots on your hands and arms during a procedure, but as far as drops, puddles, pools, squirts, or sprays of blood, I was surprised by their complete absence. It was a good surprise.

The surprise that I didn't like was just how obscene the entire game felt at all times. Ripping out a person's lungs with my bare hands does not feel good, even when I know it's fake. It just felt very wrong, like I was desecrating something sacred. I've been a gamer all my life, so I've done some terrible things in the name of high scores and victory screens, but this was one of the actions I have felt least comfortable with. The somewhat cartoony visuals made it feel even more bizarre, and I can't decide if more realism would have been an improvement or not.

And the controls! My heavens the controls!!! They were simply terrible, and more or less seemed to be so intentionally. For me, that does not add a layer of complexity or mystery or anything else; it's just irritating. It made the game feel like you were playing Operation (which I imagine was point), except there's someone sitting behind and purposely constricting your movement the entire time. Eventually, you would want to punch that person in the face. While playing Surgeon Simulator 2013, there is no face you can punch, it's your own face, constantly slamming into a wall of terrible controls until you either win or lose, occasionally at random.

All in all, I'd put this game at a solid "Try it." I have no intention of ever playing it again, but it was a pretty fun time for a little while. Even better, I'd say to play it with a couple of friends, so there's someone to enjoy the antics with (just like the original Operation! :O).

Some Small HBA: Live changes

Whew! It was an exciting week. I loved streaming these first two episodes and I wish I had been able to do it sooner! And now that I have even a little experience, I'm going to make some changes .

Firstly, these shows need to be shorter. Two hours is just too long, both for myself and for anyone who might just sit down and want to watch from start to finish. I'm going to scale the shows back to 75 to 90 minutes, tops. If I'm really liking a game and I have more time, I may end to show and continue to stream a little after that, but I'm only going to hold myself to an hour or so.

Secondly, my critical analysis after the fact is going to be of a lower priority should life events cause me to be short on time. I have some stuff going on with work this week and that I need to do, so the Antichamber writeup suffered hard. There were no overt characters, but there was a lot of room for analysis of themes. In short, it would have been difficult and time consuming so I'm skipping it. Sorry, Antichamber. And I'm sorry to future games that may fall to the same fate. I love writing and writing critically, but between the writing and the streaming and the real life things, writing comes out third.

Finally, and this isn't a change so much as just a PSA, I've got a long way to go before I understand all the technical and logistical aspects of streaming. I'm still not sure what my computer and my internet is capable of producing, or even how to coax it to do so. So I'll be continuing to adjust settings here and there to get things to an optimum viewing experience.

Thanks to everyone for the support so far, especially Aubrey and, awesomely, my Mom.

HBA Wrap-up: Antichamber

Antichamber. It's minimalist, confusing, and fantastic. The easiest way to describe it is to imagine that the labyrinth in the movie Labyrinth swallowed the Portal games but left all the muppets and David Bowie behind. The design is sharp and physical laws of matter are completely disregarded for the player's benefit. I would definitely recommend it as both a puzzler and an exploration game.


HBA: Live #1 Antichamber Blind

HBA: Live #2 Antichamber Spoiled

Introducing Humble Bundle Acquisitions: Live!

This weekend my wife and I were talking about The Future. Long story short, I'm going to start a regularly scheduled show on my stream! This show will be Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 8pm to 10pm (Mountain time. That's 7pm to 9pm Pacific). The format of the show will be as follows.

Tuesday: I will pick a game that I received through a Humble Bundle and start playing it on my stream. I will have made an effort to go into it as blind as I can without any prior knowledge or opinions about the game. I'll provide as much charming commentary and observation as possible. Audience participation is greatly encouraged.

Wednesday: I'll do my homework about the game. Who made it? How was it received critically? Did it win any awards? Were there any scandals in production or afterward?

Thursday: We'll dive into the game for another two hours, this time armed with all kinds of context. I will again provide as much charming commentary and observation as possible. Audience participation will again be greatly encouraged.

Friday/Saturday: I'll write up an analysis/review of the game and put it here on the site.

Fun, right!? I'm very excited to get started, and Humble Indie Bundle 11 was released this morning. We're going live with Antichamber tonight! See you then! :D