gatewalkerreviewsthings

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Moana

Late to the party on this one, but I watched this with the wife and sprog the other night and I have to say it’s easily fighting it out for Best Disney Move I’ve Ever Seen. 

First up as a note, Moana is coming on the heels of Brave, Tangled and Frozen, movies that each change up the “Disney Princess” formula in their own ways. Moana takes that a step further, with the titular character insisting on screen that she is not a princess at all. But more importantly, she spends most of the movie being more courageous than Maui is and being very competent in getting stuff done on her own. Particularly in physically demanding things like climbing a giant rock spire and pulling off cool sailing stunts, she holds down the role of an Action Girl really well.

Moana really holds down 100% of the agency in this movie. Maui isn’t really there as her partner, he’s more part of her story.

Now that, moving into the gamist side of things, is what makes Moana a difficult piece of media to take much from to bring into interactive fiction. If it were a game, it would be a solo game and the one player would not be controlling the demigod of the wind and sea Maui. Moana is the one who makes all the decisions and is the one who’s actions drive the plot, Maui is closer to the Genie to her Aladdin(though even that is an unfair comparison, because I would say that Jaffar is the one who drove the plot in Aladdin, not the titular character). Moana even has the opportunities to give up and go home, more than once in the movie, and does not take them. Not because she’s prodded or reminded not to, she’s expressly told it’s okay if she just can’t handle it, told that if it’s what she wants she can go back. It’s her own decision to not. That is PC levels of agency(I feel like I’m overusing that word, but it’s what works here), no question about it.

What it does bring to the game table however, is two very neat things. First, a spectacular introduction to the depths of lore and myth to be found in the pacific islands. Most games shamelessly borrow from European and often East Asian mythologies, but few others. There’s a lot to be found in stories from other parts of the world, and seeing some of them make the big screen in such a beautifully presented way is exciting. The second thing that a movie like Moana could serve as for further fiction, is as a starting point. The movie is done, Moana’s journey to return the heart of Te Fiti is self contained and doesn’t have much room for altering with games or even fanfic. But what does she do at the end of the movie? She goes home and she teaches her people how to voyage again. There is no settled down for a happily ever after here, there is instead a moving onwards to the next adventure. And THAT is a fantastic place to leave a story. This was not the end of the adventure for the great explorer Moana, this was not the totality of her life and deeds, this was just her origin story. What’s next? Well, that’s for her fans to decide. 

[gatewalkerreviewsthings]

Final Fantasy 5: Fiesta Edition

Or: Restrictions Aren’t Always A Bad Thing

For those who aren’t familiar with it, the Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta is a yearly event where fans of the game break out FF5 and play with a modified ruleset. Details about the event can be found here: http://fourjobfiesta.com/

The interesting thing about this, is how restrictions and challenges can breathe new life into something that has gotten old hat. Before the fiesta started running, I played FF5 maybe twice. Once on the PS1 version, once again later on the GBA. Since it started I’ve played the game again at least 10 times, often using the Berserker Risk challenge to ensure I get dealt the worst class in the game. Now, why would I do this? In fact, why is the fiesta as popular as it is, and why especially is Berserker Risk chosen as often as it is? It’s really just the other side of the coin to Option Paralysis, working within a restrictive framework is really just taking the pieces you’re given and trying to make something that works out of them. When every option is open to a player, many get bogged down looking for the “best” one, and just as many can’t handle feeling like they’ve wasted time if the option they pick is “wrong” so they just stick with the first thing that works without putting in additional effort. A ruleset that has an impartial outer force, in this case Gilgabot, assign them what their options are allows players to just ignore everything not in those 4 classes. They have to make it work, have to beat the game and possibly even the optional superbosses, with this very limited toolset of 4 classes. It’s a challenge, which people like, and has the perfect mix of clearly defined limitations while allowing for freedom to choose how you apply what is within those limitations. 

The reason this works with FF5 specifically is how well balanced the game is. By which I mean how horribly unbalanced the game actually is! So many classes have skills that allow a player with good game knowledge to just destroy even the more problematic sections that any given group of 4 classes will probably give you the tools you need for an easy win if you both have the right knowledge and apply it correctly. The key word here, and what keeps it fun, is “almost”. My own current batch is Thief/Berserker/Beastmaster/Chemist. Chemist is a horribly overpowered class...most of the time. Against some bosses there is little it can do besides just not die ever, which you’d think would be enough but when only one out of your 4 characters has the power to bootstrap themselves to immortality AND that character has no offense to speak of...well, you enter the realm of “I can’t lose this fight, but I can’t win it either.” Chemist’s power got me to the final dungeon at level 25 with no issues and really only minor help from the other classes throughout world 2 and the beginning of world 3. But the Cleft of Dimensions was another problem entirely. Suddenly enemies have the power to kill my entire team in 2 hits. Bosses have devastating counterattacks. Even with Chemist’s ability to cheese things out..I simply did not have either the offensive power or raw durability to win. Beastmaster has one single shot of good offense with Release, which you have to recapture after every time you use it. Berserker’s offense is actually bad, unlike what you’d think from the class’s name, due to how their best weapons require a good Magic stat to get the best use out of(who’s idea was THAT, seriously) and while the Thief can use the strongest weapon in the game quite well, said strongest weapon has a 25% chance of making you waste a turn trying to run from a battle every time you swing it. 

This is where the fun really happened. I needed better options. I needed reliable offense or reliable survivability. The answer to the latter would be tor grind levels until I had enough HP to win, but that’s boring. The answer to the former was much more fun. Use the tools I was given. My solution was to go find a rare monster, the Stingray, who has a rare drop, the incredibly strong Dragon Whisker whip, whips being the weapon of choice for Beastmasters. Then to put the Equip Whip skill on my Berserker and give HER the Dragon Whisker. My Berserker goes from missing often with damage values that are wildly variant when she hits to reliably connecting with consistently high damage. Use the tools in the toolbox, make it work. The result? I’m now halfway through the void and foresee no issues until the final boss, but he’s always a bundle of fun. 

Where the mindset behind the Fiesta converges with Game Design and GMing theory is simply that sometimes it can be more fun to play in a game with less options than normal. Now, restricting a player’s options IN PLAY is never a good idea. If they want to try something, it’s best to let them. Restricting at character creation is where the fun happens. Now I mostly run and play Dungeons and Dragons, and it’s divergent games like Pathfinder. Tired of games where magic is always the solution? Run a game with no primary spellcasting PCs allowed. Or perhaps a world where there simply are no Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics or others who can use whatever magic they want. Maybe a setting where all spellcasters are hyper specialized rote casters like Warmages and Healers. Find the over centralizing options, or the classes that can do literally anything, and remove or replace them. Changing the tools in the toolbox changes how the players respond to things, which can turn old boring encounters(”come on, we dealt with a vampire LAST campaign” etc) into new and interesting things. Dealing with any intelligent undead foe when you have a cleric and dealing with the same undead when you don’t are two VERY different things. 

Or, if restricting isn’t your thing but randomness is, try randomly generating classes. Start as a band of commoners or warriors or experts, basic NPCs with no special abilities at all, and have some force leave a number of Powers(equal to player count +1 is the best, I think, so that even the last one to choose has a choice. Also one leftover for them to recruit an NPC with or give to a new character if someone needs a new character) that change them to a real class. Let them choose which ones they want and watch them rise to the occasion of solving the problems of the game with a different set of tools.

Obviously this approach isn’t for everyone. But no single game concept ever is. 

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A Gamist Review Blog

So I do a lot of interacting with fiction, though mostly interactive fiction such as tabletop RPGs and almost exclusively as the Game Master. I play videogames, read books, watch movies, and glean ideas from all of these things for my GMing. 

In the wake of a good friend of mine managing to break into Actually Being A Professional Author, one mister Joseph Brassey, I’m going to try my own hand at some “professional” writing from the reviewing side instead. While his first solo book Skyfarer will be covered here, this won’t be exclusively for books. Instead I’ll cover all of the fiction I engage with, with an eye towards how it could be inspirational or influential for interactive fiction, essentially how well it works as fodder for turning into a game/inspiring similar style games, or even how good of a base it is for that old transformative fandom standby of fanfiction. 

Wish me luck!