#(it could become a bit tricky to interact with a small world of islanders as one when you’ve been rendered functionally immortal after all)

[flowering-darkness]

hmm..

I should revisit the Destiny Islands Clio piece at some point

[inkweaver22-blr]

Welcome to chapter 14!

This one has been a long time coming, and I’m not just talking about how long it took me to write.

Fair warning: we see the return of why this fic is marked with an explicit violence tag.

Hope you enjoy!

AO3 Link

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Scattered Cicadas - Chapter Fourteen: Monkey Sees, Monkey Silenced

Tang is the Monkie Kid! Or should that be the Monkey Kid?

----------

Tang wondered why it had taken so long for a cycle like this one to happen. He tightened his grip on the Ruyi Jingu Bang as he solemnly watched the city shrink into the distance.

He and MK were swapped in this cycle. Tang was a young 24 year old delivery boy who lived above Pigsy’s Noodles and had a thirst for knowledge. MK, or Mr. Xiaotian, as Tang referred to him, was a 41 year old art professor at the local university who liked to tell Tang stories about the Monkey King.

That meant Tang was Wukong’s successor in this timeline. Or at least, he would be once he met the Monkey King at Flower Fruit Mountain. They were all currently on Sandy’s ship, sailing for the Flaming Mountains that surrounded the island paradise.

Tang took a breath as he felt the magic of the staff flow through him. He had noticed the transfer of the Monkey King’s powers into him the moment he had picked it up. It was very different to any other magics or powers he had in the past.

It was a raw, wild, and pure strength that dwarfed any of his previous skills in terms of power. Tang could feel it swirling inside him. The numerous different abilities all seemed to flow into each other and filled him to almost bursting with great destructive potential. He would have to learn how to properly control them to avoid causing too much collateral damage.

MK had managed to do so countless times before, and Tang himself had many experiences with learning new powers over the cycles. How hard could it be?

Tang turned his attention to the ring of volcanoes they were approaching. He wasn’t sure how closely he would have to stick to the original timeline, but decided not to push his luck with the more important events. That meant he would have to lose the staff when confronted by Princess Iron Fan.

That shouldn’t be too difficult. He may have trained with a long pole-type weapon, but it had been a long time since he had been able to practice. Not to mention how one wielded a staff was much different from how you would wield a guandao. Tang would have no problem losing this fight.

Now he only hoped he would be blasted in the right direction to land on Flower Fruit Mountain instead of into a pool of lava.

----------

Luckily for Tang, he was indeed launched in the proper direction. Landing on the beach would have hurt a lot more had it not been for his new power of invulnerability.

Tang watched as the waterfall curtain parted at his touch, making sure to appear suitably impressed. That wasn’t too hard considering he had always needed either Wukong or MK to open it for him in the past.

He entered the cave and looked around, calling out for the Monkey King. Tang approached the mural at the back of the cave, and felt magic flow into his eyes unbidden. The world around him turned into shining shades of gold as his True Sight activated.

Tang watched in awe as the figures on the mural seemed to come to life and began reenacting moments from the famous journey. He may have memories of actually living these events, but seeing them now was still something special.

In front of him was Wukong becoming Tripitaka’s disciple. Over there was Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing fighting with some demons. Off in the corner was MK, Mei, Pigsy, Sandy, and Wukong standing over his unconscious body. Then there was Macaque, the gold and silver twins, and Spider Queen. Bai Long Ma trotted past with Tripitaka on his back.

Wait, what?

Tang whirled back around to the forms of his family and himself.

No, he had not imagined it. Laying on the ground was the sleeping form of his normal 41 year old self. Projections of the five people he considered his closest family were standing nearby. Sandy and Pigsy seemed to be having a conversation, Wukong was lounging on his tail, and Mei and MK, who was in his normal young form, were looking around the cave.

MK’s and Tang’s eyes met.

The young man seemed to explode into motion as he grabbed the attention of the others and began excitedly pointing at the scholar. The five began waving frantically at him, and Tang, at a complete loss as to what was happening, gave a halfhearted wave back.

Their reaction to that was much more extreme.

MK and Mei were jumping in place as they hugged in joy. Sandy was grinning as he waved both arms even harder. Wukong performed a back flip before pumping his fist in the air. Pigsy looked like he was laughing so hard that tears were rolling down his face.

Tang was absolutely baffled.

Wary of some kind of trick, he looked around the cave once more. With his True Sight active, he saw no signs of anything that could potentially be a trap. He did spot one of the projections of Wukong smirk at him before turning to run out of the cave, however.

Squinting in suspicion at the still celebrating group, Tang decided he would deal with it later. Letting the magic fade from his eyes, he chased after the Monkey King. He did his best to push the strange encounter out of his mind so he could focus on the task at hand.

----------

Fighting Demon Bull King using the full strength of the Monkey King’s power had been quite the rush. Tang felt a little bad about all the extra damage he had caused, but most of it had already been dealt by DBK so he supposed it was worth it to take him down.

Sighing in exhaustion, Tang prepared for bed. As he moved around his small apartment, his eyes caught the glow of the street lamps reflecting off his window, making it shine gold.

Oh right. Those projections of his family from earlier.

With a groan, Tang decided sleep would have to wait. He took a seat in his desk chair and took a deep breath. It took a bit of focus, but he was able to push magic into his eyes and activate his True Sight.

The world turned gold and the group appeared to his left near the kitchenette. Tang swiveled his chair around and watched as they noticed him studying them and began to wave excitedly once more. It looked like they were all saying something, yet no sound emanated from them.

Well that complicated a few things. Getting answers from them would be a lot harder without them being able to properly answer.

“You know I can’t hear anything you’re saying, right?”

The group froze at that, before quickly turning to each other and discussing amongst themselves.

“To be honest, I’m not sure if I trust what I’m seeing,” Tang said, catching their attention once more. “You all certainly look like my family, and Wukong’s True Sight can’t be fooled. But I’ve been through quite a bit of cosmic bullshit to know to be wary of what appears to be people I care about standing over what looks like my unresponsive body.”

The group glanced down at said body and began to shuffle around in awkward embarrassment.

“So here’s what we’re going to do.” Tang pointed at the projection of MK. “You, MK, are going to do your best to act out what’s going on. The rest of you,” he turned to the others, “are not to offer any help or instruction in any way, understand?”

They all reluctantly nodded, looking confused.

“Good. Begin whenever you’re ready.”

Tang watched as the young man did his best to act something out. As the performance continued, Tang felt the suspicion slowly ease and a smile grew on his face.

“Well I know for certain now,” he said once MK had finished. “No matter the timeline, you will always be terrible at charades, MK. No one could ever pretend to do that poorly.”

MK exploded with indignity as the others laughed at him. He crossed his arms in a huff and only turned back to the group once Wukong ruffled his hair playfully.

Tang smiled again as he watched the interaction. Being a good actor came with the ability to tell when others were acting as well. The reactions he was seeing were much too genuine to be faked.

“Okay, I believe you aren’t here for any malicious purposes. But now that I know I can trust you all, how can we go about figuring this out?” Tang drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “I could ask you yes or no questions, but without the right ones we could go in circles for hours. Writing out the alphabet and pointing to each letter until we spell out a word would take just as long.”

Tang stood and tried to approach the group. As he did, their projections moved with him, staying a set distance away and phasing through the wall out into the open air. He moved back and turned in place. The group did not move with him this time, remaining in the spot they had appeared.

“Well so much for seeing if we could physically interact,” he said once he sat back down in his chair.

His family seemed just as stumped as he was. They all were talking back and forth before Wukong suddenly jumped up, waving for attention.

“You have an idea, Wukong?”

The monkey nodded before sitting in a meditative pose. After remaining still for a few moments, he took his hands and placed them on his chest. He pulled them away and cupped them before him and began to inspect them closely. It took a couple repetitions before Tang understood what he was trying to say.

“You want me to manifest my soul?”

Wukong nodded as Mei said something to MK, causing him to pout.

“Don’t tease MK, Mei,” Tang said as he got into his own meditative position. “There’s nothing wrong with not being able to act out complex ideas.”

The group all just stared at him in surprise.

“I may not be able to read bad acting, but body language is easy enough to understand,” he said as he began to focus. “Now give me a moment.”

Manifesting his soul while keeping the True Sight active was a bit tricky. He had learned this ability back during the cycle with the copy of Tripitaka sealed into a statue, but never had to use it at the same time as another power. It took him longer than usual, but he was eventually able to bring his soul forward.

It looked the same as it always did. Many strands of light loosely wrapped into the vague shape of a sphere and plenty of empty space in the center. The strand that pointed off into infinity was leading out the window above Tang’s bed. It had taken him a few cycles to realize it always pointed to the West.

“Okay, so what am I looking-” Tang trailed off when he spotted something new.

A second strand was leading off from his soul. It pointed in the exact opposite direction of the first, heading East. It ended at one of the little knots that represented the larger pieces of his soul.

It was positioned directly above the form of his unconscious body.

The others seemed to be able to see the strands as Wukong pointed at the knot floating above his body and began to mouth out a word.

“Start?”

Wukong nodded and pointed towards the strand leading out the window and said another word.

“End.”

Grinning enthusiastically, he finally pointed at the soul in Tang’s hands and said one last word.

“Now.”

Tang’s breath caught.

He knew the strand leading into the West was connected to all the remaining pieces of his soul and would eventually have an end once he reached the last one. He knew his soul looked the way it did to represent how much of it he had managed to gather currently.

That left the start.

Several pieces began to fall into place.

“You’re- You’re the voices I hear calling out my name at the start of each cycle.” Tang absently returned his soul and he stood and stared at the smiling group.

They nodded in affirmation.

Tang’s breath became shallow.

“Are you- Are you from my original timeline?”

The group burst into joyous celebration, nodding and giving each other high fives.

Tang sat back onto his chair in shock.

His family, his first family, were standing only a few feet away.

He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

A sharp pain flashed behind his eyes before he could do either, and he grasped his head as it began to throb.

“Gah!”

He glanced up to see the group now watching him with concern. Wukong was gesturing at his own eyes, closing them slowly in exaggeration. Despite the pain, Tang was able to understand the message.

“Turn off the True Sight?”

Wukong nodded.

“But- ack!” The pain grew sharper. “But I have so many questions!”

Pigsy glared sternly at him and pointed to his bed. Sandy gave a comforting smile and pointed at the ground they were standing on.

Go to sleep and we’ll be here when you come back.

“Fine. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Wukong shook his head sadly and held up three figures.

“Three days?!” Tang gasped as the pain continued to build. “Shit! Okay, fine. Three days.” Tang gave them all one last look over. “I’ll see you then.”

They all gave him a thumbs up and Tang released his hold on the True Sight. He sighed in relief as the pain lessened slightly. His apartment looked much darker without the golden light filling everything.

Tang made his way into bed, physically and emotionally tired. He hated that he would have to wait for his answers. None of this made any sense.

His head throbbed painfully as he tried to think about what had just happened. Resigning himself to not being able to come to any sort of conclusion on his own, he settled down to sleep.

At least he had three days to come up with the proper questions he would need to ask. Hopefully the rest of the cycle would continue as normal so he could get some answers.

----------

The Wukong from his own time had been right when he had told him to wait three days before activating the True Sight again. The massive headache Tang had from overusing it lasted the entire time. It had distracted him during the incident with the weather station on the second day, making him quickly lose control of his abilities.

The seal this timeline’s Wukong had placed on his powers so he could control them helped a bit. The sharp pounding had only receded to a dull throb, but Tang found it to be a drastic improvement. He was able to take down Red Son and rescue his family fairly quickly afterwards.

It was currently the evening of the third day and Tang was making his way back to Pigsy’s Noodles after making his final delivery for the night. He drummed the steering wheel impatiently as he waited in traffic. His headache was completely gone so he could finally get some answers tonight once he was alone in his apartment.

The nerves and excitement eventually got to him and Tang began to take shortcuts down less used side streets to get back quicker. A few blocks away from the shop, he turned down one final alley that was shrouded in darkness, not thinking much of it.

He really should have expected being forcibly pulled from the vehicle and slammed up against the wall.

Before Tang could react, something was slapped against his chest and he felt the access to his powers cut off entirely while his body became paralyzed.

“So this is the Golden Boy’s so-called successor,” said a familiar voice. “Can’t say I’m too impressed.”

Tang’s blood ran cold as he stared up into the sneering face of the Six Eared Macaque. He did his best to struggle but whatever the shadow demon had done had left him completely immobilized.

“Don’t know why he would pick a weak little human like you. Your kind has such terrible senses. You didn’t even notice my presence until it was too late.” Macaque eyed Tang up and down, frowning in disapproval.

“He could have at least found another monkey like us. Would have been way more thematic.” Macaque smirked as he held up a small purple gem with a spiked point. “Luckily I have a way to fix that.”

Sweat rolled down the side of Tang’s face as he watched in fear while Macaque positioned the spiked end of the gem against the base of his throat.

“You can thank me for this later,” Macaque said with a manic and sinister grin.

Macaque stabbed the gem into his neck.

The paralyzing effect holding Tang in place broke and he convulsed on the ground as purple electricity raced across his body.

The last thing he was aware of was the sound of Macaque’s laughter mixing with his own screams before he mercifully blacked out.

----------

Tang slowly regained consciousness.

He didn’t have the dream about the cave so that meant it was still the same cycle. Whatever Macaque had done hadn’t killed him this time.

Although Tang wasn’t sure if the full body ache and fire in his throat was a better outcome.

He was in a bed he realized, and there were faint voices he could just pick up.

Not having the energy to move, he did his best to focus on what was being said.

“-managed to remove the second seal blocking his powers, but left the one that allows him to control them,” said a voice Tang didn’t recognize.

“What about the choker? Were you able to remove it?” Tang recognized Wukong’s worried tone right away.

“That is one nasty piece of jewelry,” said the first voice with a sigh. Tang assumed it was a healer of some kind. “One of its effects is that should anyone other than the one who put it on the victim remove it, the victim would immediately die.”

There were several sharp intakes of breath.

“That’s only one of the effects?” Mr. Xiaotian was here as well it seemed. Were they all waiting for him? “What all does this thing do?”

“There’s only three curses I detected,” said the healer. “You’ve seen the physical changes of the first, and know the dangers of the second. The third is perhaps the most cruel however.

“Your young friend is no longer capable of physically communicating complex thoughts or ideas.”

What?

“What does that mean?!” Pigsy sounded angry, but Tang could notice the undercurrent of fear. “Are you saying he’s lost his intelligence?”

“Not at all. His thoughts will just be trapped in his own mind and he will be unable to share them.”

Tang felt fear begin to gnaw at him.

The healer sighed once more, this time sounding saddened.

“It is truly an insidious curse.

“He’s been rendered completely mute, so he can’t talk. If he were to attempt using sign language, he would temporarily lose the coordination of his hands and fingers. Anything he will try to write or type out would end up as incomprehensible gibberish.

“The best he would be able to do is point at things and shake his head yes or no.”

Tang was suddenly cold.

That was…

No.

No no no no!

He couldn’t lose his ability to communicate! Not this cycle!

He finally had a lead to how this had all started! He needed to be able to ask his family from the original timeline questions!

Who knew when he would ever have access to Wukong’s True Sight again? If it ever happened at all?

Tang struggled to open his eyes, hissing in pain as the light filled his vision. He raised his arm to block it out, only to pause at what he saw.

Hadn’t the healer said there had been a curse that caused physical changes?

Bright golden-yellow fur covered his arm, and his hand had been replaced with a paw.

Ignoring his protesting body, Tang sat up and looked around. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, but it appeared he didn’t need them any more.

He wasn’t in a hospital. The room was set up in a traditional style with the typical furniture one would find in a guest room.

Tang found what he was looking for when he spotted the full length mirror on the opposite side of the dresser.

He climbed out of the bed and made his way over, doing his best to move past the pain.

Tang stepped in front of the mirror.

A monkey with golden-yellow fur, cream colored face and chest, and silver face markings that resembled an open book stared back.

Around the monkey’s neck was a black metal choker, the flat side of the purple gem at its center.

“He could have at least found another monkey like us. Luckily I have a way to fix that.”

Ah. So that’s what Macaque had meant.

Tang pressed his trembling fingers against the glass.

He really shouldn’t be so surprised. It had happened to MK so many times that he should have expected it to happen to him as well.

So why did he feel so numb?

Tang opened his mouth to try and say something, to try and prove the healer wrong. To convince himself this wasn’t actually happening.

But the only sound that came out was a raspy breath.

“Hey, bud?” Wukong poked his head through the door, frowning at Tang in worry when he saw him standing at the mirror. “You… You really shouldn’t be out of bed, kid.”

Tang nodded blankly, shuffling back over to the bed and sitting down. Wukong closed the door behind him and made his way over to sit beside him.

“I bet you have a bunch of questions,” Wukong said.

Tang shook his head.

“No?”

Tang pointed at the door and then to his ears.

“You heard us talking?”

Tang nodded.

“Oh.” Wukong shuffled nervously. “Are… Are you okay?”

Tang took a shuddering breath. He turned to his mentor with tears in his eyes and shook his head.

“Oh, bud.” Wukong quickly scooped the younger monkey into his arms as he began to sob silently. “I’m so, so sorry. I should have been keeping a better eye on you. I should have been there to interfere and prevent this from happening. This is all my fault.”

Tang cried into the Monkey King’s chest.

He cried for the pain he felt at the hands of someone he considered a part of his family.

He cried at being forced into a different form unwillingly.

He cried for the loss of his ability to communicate

He cried for losing what may be his only chance to talk to his family from the original timeline.

He cried at the unfairness of the cycles and the universe in general.

Tang cried.

Yet he barely made a sound.

----------

“Hey, bud!”

Tang looked up from his meditation at the approaching Monkey King.

It was a few weeks later. Wukong had practically forced him to move to Flower Fruit Mountain in order to keep a better eye on him.

Tang didn’t mind. Without his ability to communicate, he couldn’t do his job at Pigsy’s Noodles anyway. Pigsy had let him keep the apartment, just in case he wanted to spend the night in the city.

Tang smiled up at Wukong as he stood. It was nice to be the one with multiple father figures for a change.

“So I think I may have a way around the communication curse,” Wukong announced brightly.

Tang’s eyes widened as he tilted his head in curiosity. It hadn’t taken him long to learn how to convey how he felt through body language alone.

“The curse only prevents you from communicating physically, right?”

Tang nodded.

“Well there’s a power I have that lets me speak to someone from a distance. I, uh, actually kind of forgot about it because my astral projections have a longer range so I don’t use it much.”

Tang snickered silently as Wukong rubbed his head in embarrassment.

“Anyway! How would you like to learn telepathy?”

Tang blinked as he processed that. Telepathy certainly wasn’t a normal power the Monkey King usually had.

It also wasn’t a physical form of communication. You instead projected your thoughts psychically to those around you.

Tang pumped his fists in the air and performed a back flip in excitement. Being a monkey had certainly made him much more nimble.

“I thought you’d feel that way,” Wukong said with a laugh. “Want to get started now?”

Tang immediately sat down and stared eagerly at his teacher.

“I’ll take that as a yes!”

----------

Telepathy had been hard to master.

The first weeks of the process had Tang randomly projecting his subconscious thoughts to anyone nearby. There had been some awkward moments when he accidentally projected things from previous cycles, but he was able to wave it off as daydreams.

It had taken some work, but Tang could now pick out a single person within a few hundred miles and send them a specific message. It was a tiring process, so he didn’t actually use it often, but he could do it.

He could communicate again!

Tang stood alone in the apartment above Pigsy’s Noodles and activated his True Sight.

He had done this a few times after the attack, just to be sure that his family would still be there.

Like the previous times, the group of five and his body appeared to the East of him. They all waved in greeting and Tang waved back.

Tang took a breath and looked MK directly in the eye.

‘Can you hear me?’

MK’s smile didn’t change as he eagerly watched on.

‘Hello? MK? Mei? Anyone?’

None of them reacted.

No.

‘Hello? Please! Can any of you hear me?!’

The groups’ smiles began to fade as Tang became visibly upset, his fists clenched and shoulders trembling.

No!

This wasn’t fair!

He had worked so hard!

Tang fell to his knees as tears poured down his face.

This had been his last hope. His last shot at trying to get any answers.

It hadn’t worked.

Frantic waving from the group caught his attention.

The five of them had knelt down to be closer to his eye level. They were all smiling gently, their expressions kind and forgiving.

MK placed his hands together, forming a heart. The others soon followed suit. Even Wukong.

It’s okay. We still love you.

Tang choked as his tears fell harder. He shakily put his hands together and formed his own heart.

I love you too.

Tang decided this was the only answer he needed.

----------

Bet none of you saw that coming!

I’m going to enjoy seeing you all try to come up with an explanation for what’s going on. :3c

Monkey Tang’s design is something I came up with myself. I’ll see if I can draw it out for a better reference.

Look out everyone! The plot is here and it won’t be stopping any time soon!

Until next time!

[fuse2dx]

August ‘20

Ruiner

Ruiner frames its action at an isometric tilt. There’s a lot of red; in the game’s interface, as the prominent colour of the neon lighting that adorns its stages, and in the blood that is frequently spilled. Its cyberpunk setting isn’t anything particularly new, but as a unifying aesthetic, the glitchy effects, and out-there personalities doing their best to cope in a dystopia do well to build a convincing and intriguing world. Stages are action packed and throb with electronic noise and big loud industrial bass hits, with the play being akin to an arena shooter; enemies surging at you in bite size, minute-at-a-time waves, with each of these closing out with a grading screen serving as the pat on the back to keep that dopamine rhythm pulsing. It’s a pretty hypnotic cocktail.

These stages evolve out of a singular hub city, and while it’s not particularly big, there’s just the right level of hubbub, and it has a lovely Hirusawa Susumu track acting as an excellent, melancholic mood-setter. Based on the size of its world and the the quick-fire action being split between a very small number of stages, it’s not surprising to say it’s fairly brief - I mean, how could it get so big? But what is important is that it’s plenty of fun and and has style by the bucketload. I got a good kick out of it.

Carrion

On one hand, a horror game where you play the horror is just the kind of flip on a genre that’s needed to freshen things up a bit. On the other, it’s one straight out of the spoof ‘Peter Molydeux’ playbook. What a carri-on.

... I’m sorry. After your initial escape from a lab, Carrion centres around a hub world, with individual stages then breaking off to allow for more specific themed stages. What you’re trying to do within these is to spread your big, goopy self around, where certain spots will act as save points but also count toward unlocking an alternative path back to the hub and opening up new routes in the process. What’s unique to this particular metroidvania take is that while there are new skills that open up new routes, your movement in general is uniquely freeform - point in a direction and off you go, free of any worries about platforming and the gravity that’d otherwise bind you. While it may not be the most precise movement given the size to which you grow - and boy does this become a point during some forms of combat - it does remain responsive, and quite fun to simply shamble about like a giant congealed blob of bloody, multi-toothed sinew-y mess. Everything scales up nicely on both sides of the fighting, with distraught pistol-equipped humans turning to shielded folks with flamethrowers, all the way up to drones and mechs that are just as mobile and / or deadly as yourself, even in spite of your own upgrades that allow for more ranged, varied, and sharper extremities. It’s not especially long, and is never so taxing as to demand too much expertise of you, but it is fun and importantly, quite unlike anything else out there.

Yoku’s Island Express

Pinball continues to feel like a lost art form to me, with the nuance of skilled play being more like a foreign language than another type of game you can easily pick up. Yoku, newly-appointed postmaster, is but a tiny little bug, and as such is indebted to these skills in his efforts to travel and clamber about an environment much larger than he. Flippers are casually littered about to shoot you from one area to the next, but there’s also plenty of sections you’re led to by the story that are small yet just detailed enough to play like a neatly sectioned off area of a complete table - complete with requirements for precise shots to move forward, and those inevitable moments where you have to sit back and watch as your ball falls with miserable, exacting precision between the flippers. Failure typically sets you back a few pickups, but given these are just as quickly re-earned, you’re never punished too hard - there’s certainly no three strikes and out mentality here. It’s a very friendly interpretation of pinball’s mechanics, and there’s a decent enough story layered on top, with its characters and art demonstrating enough pleasant charm that you can definitely see this being a great way to introduce pinball to a younger audience. That’s not to say it’s not enjoyable from an older player’s point of view - just that you know what’s being presented is a wisely palatable version of a classic hobby, rather than the arse-kicking ordeal you may be used to. 

Rime

I am certain that Rime would love me to compare it to a certain Fumito Ueda PS2 game. There’s the ultra-minimal scene that’s set as a boy washes up on an island; a sparse, beautiful, somewhat Mediterranean set of landscapes, and with very few ways to interact with it all that don’t involve clambering over things or shouting out in wordless desperation. But as you’ll have noted, I haven’t found it in myself to justify using that game’s name here. 

As much as I wanted to give this a chance, it often felt directionless, uninspired, and at worst, slow and tedious. The puzzles are derivative of any number of games I’ve played before, and the biggest danger is that you might assume as to their difficulty and over-engineer your approach, rather than not be able to tackle them. The platforming is simplistic and regularly drawn out with ledges, ledges, and more ledges to climb across and dangle from; even if you were to find a way to fall to your doom, as is tempting, it is unlikely to take you back much further than a few seconds. Crucially, there’s really very little to sink your teeth into on any front, and even when the game does finally start to weave some plot threads into the game’s canvas, it’s well into the latter half - long after I’d already racked my brains for any hint of an allegory that’d fit, and given up on expecting one. Sadly, to the point that the actual story felt like a cheap afterthought when it did finally start to unravel. This bounced off me much harder than I’d expected - I came away wishing it had forged a bit more of an identity and a purpose rather than just an aesthetic strung together with some weak elements of play. 

If Found

As far as interactive elements in visual novel-type games go, If Found has a different approach to most. The story’s primarily told by means of a diary - one that’s full of witty observations, personal reflections and enigmatic sketches - that you actively erase as a means to push events along. The diary belongs to Kasio, a trans girl returning to their small Irish hometown after a stint away at university in the city; a return that’s not met in the warmest or most understanding fashion. As a mechanic, the erasure of this diary is loaded with meaning; peeling back layers of a scene often matches a more poignant set of observations, and the scrubbing of such personal details away offers a painful reflection on an identity being chipped away at. It’s very much a story about finding one’s self, about coming of age, and as it rides these highs and lows it does an excellent job in making you ride along these alongside the characters, and it does one hell of a job to make you think about the compassion that you both see and offer in the world outside. I’ll put my hands up and say that there are some elements of the story running in parallel to this main one that didn’t gel with me quite so well, but this is a minor footnote to an otherwise highly enjoyable play through. In a short space of time, Annapurna have done a great job in winning me over with their publishing choices - particularly in holding up the kinds of voices and ideas that fit these smaller titles so perfectly. 

Double Kick Heroes

It’s a rhythm game. I like rhythm games! It’s about a zombie apocalypse. Oh no. It’s... a heavy metal rhythm game? Ok, maybe we can work with this.

After a trailer name dropping a bunch of familiar artists - Jinjer, Carpenter Brut, Gojira - what surprised me straight off was that none of these licensed artists featured in the game’s story mode. They’re all sectioned off in a separate menu, and while on the bright side they’ve each given a unique stage with a visual theming in keeping with the bands in question, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Instead, all tracks throughout the story were composed by just one person, and with only a small handful of featured musicians being included to diversify things. It starts with more (arguably) palatable hard rock numbers, but goes up to and includes grindcore, death metal, black metal and the like, meaning that not only is it going to put a lot of folks off right away, but that it’s asking a heck of a lot for one composer to cover all of these sub-genres with the appropriate care. While it was refreshing to hear some types of music I’d normally not expect to hear in a game, some tracks inevitably grated, and while I enjoyed some others, I wasn’t ever bowled over too strongly either.

The story itself is fairly by the numbers. It sees an on-tour band fighting back against a zombie uprising, and has unsubtle references to any number of heavy artists, albums and songs shoe-horned in at every opportunity. It also bears the hallmarks of its dialogue being written by someone that has a very particular sense of humour which personally all fell very flat. While the team undoubtably do love music, the over-enthusiastic style rubbed me in a similarly uncomfortable fashion as Jack Black does regularly, with his half-comedian, half-musician schtick. The gameplay itself is based around the drum parts of its songs also corresponding to different weaponry on your car that holds the hordes back, and while this on its own can prove tricky, higher difficulties also mounts other expectations - like steering your vehicle, or alternating pedals to shoot different parts of the screen. Some of my frustration with all of this is likely my own fault for having chosen to play on the ‘Hard’ difficulty, but traditional wisdom feels a little bit lost when you can still get damaged when your combo meter is racked up well into triple digits.

In all, Double Kick Heroes presented some pretty unique gaming scenarios; like having to work out the best controller configuration to play blast beats with, or asking out loud “did I just hear the words ‘we are Genital Absolution’ coming from a Nintendo console?”, and it’s clearly a small team working on something they really care about. I respect that. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping, but I hope they’re proud of what they’ve created.

Manifold Garden

A puzzle game taking significant inspiration from the works of M.C. Escher is a pretty good starting point in my eyes. It being presented in a wonderful manner certainly doesn’t harm either; from the UI all the way into the game, it’s beautifully clean and defined, opting for delicate shading rather than messy textures, and with its intricate, recursive geometric patterns, you’ll likely find cause to stop and take stock on a regular basis.

One button looks after your basic interactions with the world (pushing, picking up, and so on), with your other crucial way of interacting with the world being the ability to approach a surface and then assign it as ‘the new down’ - spinning everything about an axis, planting your feet to it, and changing your perspective on everything. There’s a nice steady introduction of puzzle pieces as you ease your way in, but they all stem gracefully from these simple mechanics. That I - not the world’s greatest puzzle gamer - was able to enjoy this without every getting too stuck may hint at it perhaps not being as complex as some puzzle fiends might desire, however this amounted to me coming out the other side with great waves of satisfaction, and nought but positives to say. I would go so far as to say that it’s the most fun I’ve had playing a puzzle game in a long, long time, and to boot it’s also perhaps the game where I’ve used the screenshot button the most copiously. Wonderful stuff.

[wherethestoryhasimagination]

As a Pallet cleanser...

I’ve posted a bit to much Meat. And so before I dive on in to Candy, which, from the impressions I’ve gathered, contains terrors greater than those found in meat, I’ll be providing some ‘Candy’ of my own, hopefully in a form reminiscent of thin mint cookies.

I’ll be making as wholesome, happy, and generally carefree a post as I can possibly make.

I’m going to be BluHing out my thoughts and ideas for things I would Hope for, dream of, and expect to possibly see in various percentages of those three of-

Animal Crossing.

As Animal Crossing has progressed through the Years, more and more chances for Player agency to influence the world have come to be. even going so far as to give you an official government job where you help to plan/fund Public infrastructure & The Arts. An update was even added at one point that would let you have more control over what Villagers were in your town; something practically impossible in past games, & in the pre-update New-Leaf.

I expect this trend to continue, though how it continues may vary; my Hopes for the hypothetically possible, & Dreams for the incredibly unlikely as follows.

Furniture Creation; it can be tricky getting that last piece of a set that just never seems to be in stock. but if you had a way to get furniture pieces that are not in your catalog, such randomness would be relieved… There’s even already ways to change some pre-existing pieces of furniture by bringing it and a set of gems to an npc in retail… severely limited in that form, but… a definite precursor to being able to get the furniture you want by using resources you have. and while it is a spin off I know little about, I believe Pocket Camp actually Does have a more tangible form of ‘crafting’. it even has an official Quarry to dig in.

extensions on the new ‘burst collection’ mechanic introduced in Pocket Camp; Pocket camp introduced items such as fishing nets and honey for gathering fish and bugs faster than one could with a rod or bug net. in a new game without micro transactions, a number of things could be done to balance the effectiveness, cost, and availability of items that help make it easier to get things; like rotted turnips & candy attracting ants, but elaborated upon.

improved mail system; just a little thing here. maybe a Villager you had been best friends with, but who had to move away, could send you a postcard inviting you to visit, should you ever wish to do so, with a Picture of their new town on it.

Food options; even if they are as useless as eating has always been, more options would be nice. like actually getting to partake in the displays that appear on some holidays, or being able to actually eat some pudding, like what some Villagers claim to have accidentally eaten 23 servings of from time to time… And hey, if some villagers have favorite foods, getting it for them could be a nice thing to do. maybe going to Brewsters could serve a purpose other than buying coffee till you’re given access to Gyroid storage, or working a small, part-time job.

semi-open world feel; even if it’s just an illusion, it would be groundbreaking for The Flanking Cliffs to finally give way to nature. even if the Cliffs are just sometimes replaced by massive clusters of impassible, unchopable trees that serve the same purpose. a tiny bit of variety in world wall could help. but full, low restriction openness is the dream… maybe have rivers a little bit wider than most, that you could eventually make crossable with foot-Bridges…(trains and such have their own bridges already of course, so you can still take the train to new places) … you know what? yea… Building Bridges… uniting the World… I like that. from now on, my hypothetical Animal Crossing game will be called ‘Animal Crossing Bridge Builders’.

Wood?/new tree mechanics?; the Ax is one of the least used tools. and once you’ve got the trees you want exactly where you want them, it begins to feel like Time slows down… The World only changing when you or villagers make it change, or with the seasons. a bit more of a purpose to trees could be an incentive to experiment, or to pay more attention to The World, as you watch new saplings grow far more frequently than you ever did when planting new trees was a one-off aesthetic setup. Plus, if furniture crafting does become a thing, you got to get materials somewhere.

‘More’; exactly as it says on the tin. More fruit types, more tree types, more Villagers… a simple expectation, but one worth note.

extend on the mining thing from pocket camp?; I’m mostly thinking of this for the sake of a single gag… The mining place underground is randomly generated once a week or so… And poor Mr. Resetti… Another job change has resulted in them being tasked with helping facilitate the process that… Resets, the underground so that you’ll always have fresh access to the resources you need.

(huh… food, crafting, fishing, foraging, mining… this is starting to become more and more like Stardew Valley, only without an official farmland)

Balloon Presents; you ever wonder where those balloons come from? maybe you could give something back. Perhaps you could release things up into the air, where someone, somewhere will eventually get it. 

‘Island Search’; an excuse for the ability to Design, shape and all, your very own island. after all, the Ocean is so big, that of course you’ll end up finding an island that matches what you want. The ultimate in Player agency over control over their environment; such as also being able to send invitations, or approve applications for Villagers so that they can come and live on your island. and, depending on how ‘north or south’ your island is, the seasons may pass normally, seem to always be summer, or so on.

non-real-time option; this is likely a dream that would be divisive. Real-time has always been a staple of the series. a mechanic that always has been. Well, like what was done with Breath of The Wild, even the most fundamental core aspects of the series should be open to revision and review, to see if it really is the best possible option. What if sleeping in your Bed could actually pass time? what if you didn’t have to be caught in a cycle of only being able play for however long it takes you to find the ore & money rocks, the new buried objects, and such, before the majority of everything new in the world that day has been expended, leaving the chance for you to stale the remaining time you play by running through pre-treaded ground, or for you to simply skip time anyway and change the date to, for example, see if what you want in the store or such shows up. (the ability for the gameplay loop to avoid turning stale could also be avoided with any other number of changes that could be implemented) this is just a possibility worth keeping in mind. also, next, as a possible middle ground that could help branch the two different time options…

Live events; like how Splatoon has Splatfests, and Smash has select Spirit events, there could be special happenings that follow a Real-realtime structure. like, ‘all furniture you’ll find by shaking trees will match your favorite Color this week!’ or, ‘manta-ray migration! the Villagers are going to be celebrating this event as they would a holiday sometime this week’(perhaps on the first available in-game day you play that week, so that it isn’t restricted to only a 24 hour window that some people would be more likely to miss)

more Amiibo Villagers; this might fall under ‘more’, but wouldn’t it be amazing if a majority of the amiibo released had villagers associated with them? I for one, would love to have an Octopus Guardian Villager Friend.

better character creation; the game has partially approached this, with things like beak accessories, but, what if you could be an animal like the other Villagers? And, perhaps, if you opt-in to this, The game could eventually Generate an Npc version of your Animal based on various actions and interactions the game slowly gathers as you play. An Npc that could then be found by other Players in their Worlds. so that there is always a new face to meet… there is a lot of variables here, and naturally, it would need to be monitored to prevent those with unkind intent from tainting the world, but if the game could Generate new Villagers, rather than being limited to a set of pre-made Villagers that would seem to be a drop in the bucket by comparison… and for you to know that the character you’ve met, who is kind and friendly to some degree, was created based off of a Person in the real World who is not all that different from you? To have a Worldwide Community of People able to see that no matter who you are, or where you come from, that you can be kind? That we can learn to love eachother, both despite and because of our differences? …

I’m not going to say it could lead to World Peace, but I won’t say that it won’t lead to World Peace.

Sable; ‘oh Hello! How are you doing today? My sisters can help you if you wanted to buy something, but if you wanted to make something yourself, I could help you figure it out’

Years of countless Players sharing their Love and support for Sable has grown into a warm feeling she will always have with her in her Heart… She will Never doubt herself or her value as a person ever again… And if you still choose to talk to her every day, She will still want to be your Friend.

Permanence vs drifting; It is nice to work hard, and make something of the town you live in… Developing bonds with your Villagers… Till you know every bump, crack, and turn in it… till it becomes Home… But, more and more traveler elements have been introduced… Campers, and mobile homes. even the towns of other players accessed through your dreams. Perhaps you could explore the world, like the Villagers who visit your town are, ready to see who you might meet, and what you might see… and who knows… maybe one day, you’ll stop. You’ll look around. You’ll feel the cool air against your skin. You’ll see the sun start to set beyond the mountaintop. You’ll sit by the campfire, and see smiles on faces… and just maybe… After how long it has taken you to reach this moment… You might decide…

That you are, right now, exactly where you want to be…

That you’ve finally made it Home.

[crossroadsdimension]

World Collision -- Chapter 13

Rescue Mission: The Plumber

Flare-Up’s words hung over everyone else with a grimness that Myra didn’t like the feeling of. It caused her to pace around the wall of the chamber they were in, small and cramped as it was, forcing others to move out of her way – except for Luthor and Brainiac, who she walked around because of their computer equipment.

A hand reached out of a shadow as Myra passed it, grabbing her shoulder, and Pitch stepped in front of her.

“And what do you think pacing is going to help?” He raised an eyebrow, looking down at her.

Myra pulled back sharply, startled by his appearance. “I-I don’t know! I just…I just feel like I need to move, do something, but I don’t want to go out there and get caught, either….” She trailed off, uncertain as she shifted from one foot to the other nervously. “It’s just…we’ve got a time limit now? I’m not…I’m not sure what that’s going to mean for us.”

“You and Flare-Up have good heads on your shoulders; you’ll figure something out.” Pitch gave a sneering smile. “Although, your fear is most delicious.”

“Pitch, don’t pull a Darkrai!” Flare-Up called sharply as she came over.

Pitch pulled away. “I would never.” His voice was smooth, but there was something else in it, too. Myra wasn’t able to figure out what it was, because Pitch pulled into the shadows again and didn’t say anything else.

Flare-Up looked at Myra. “You, Luigi and Seeker are heading out. They know the lay of the land here, and have some ideas concerning where the others might be found.”

“Y-you’re not coming with us?” Myra asked in surprise.

“Someone has to stay and make sure the base is well defended while the other is away.” Flare-Up’s gaze sharpened. “Seeker and I agreed to switch off on that position. He’s waiting for you by the pipe.”

Myra hesitated, then nodded and moved over to the pipe, where Seeker and Luigi were already standing.

“We’re going to check out a few places we know to be old haunts for the people we’re looking for,” Seeker explained. “Are you ready?”

“I-I guess. Who are we looking for?”

“My brother,” Luigi said. He adjusted the green cap on his head.

“And anyone else who would have allied with him,” Seeker added. “Mostly, we’re looking for Yoshi. If Daisy or Rosalina are mixed up in this, either we’ll meet them along the way or another group can find them and rescue them when we come back. There’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to find them right away, if this area is the largest of the ones we could possibly run into out here.” He slipped into the pipe, ducking his head a little as he called back, “Come on! We don’t have all day!”

Luigi promptly jumped into the pipe after him, and Myra quickly followed.

The land above was just as they had left it when Myra, Flare-Up, Luigi, Crystal, Peach, and Bowser had dove down into the pipe moments ago. The fact that their caravan of trucks was still sitting right outside was something that made Myra nervous.

“Shouldn’t we be…hiding these?” Myra quickened her pace as they moved out of the courtyard and through the mushroom-themed town that surrounded the castle. “I mean, they could notice that they’re still out here.”

“Flare and Luthor are working on an idea,” Seeker replied. “They’ll be gone by the time we get back.”

Myra looked back at the circle of trucks as they disappeared from her sight behind a building. “If you say so…”

“You seem like a bit of a worry wart, Myra; relax.” Seeker looked back at Myra. “Being nervous can help to keep you on your toes, but I think you’re pushing the line at least a little.”

Myra gulped. “S-sorry. It’s just…this world looks so weird, it’s hard not to be nervous.”

Luigi frowned at her disapprovingly, causing Myra to duck her head.

“I can get that, but there are stranger worlds out there than this one,” Seeker replied. “Trust me, there are just some things that I didn’t quite believe when I saw them at first. You get used to it after a while, though.”

Myra hesitated at that, then nodded a little. “I-if you say so. So, where are we going first?”

“Well, Yoshi’s probably where the rest of his kind are usually found, which is usually an island.” Seeker inclined his head in thought. “If Bowser’s Castle and Peach’s Castle ended up getting merged together, I wouldn’t be surprised if Yoshi’s Island ended up becoming merged with another part of the landscape. We’re gonna have to find it first, though, and that might be a bit tricky, depending on how big this place is.”

“So, we’re going to be out here for a while?” They stepped out of the mushroom town, and Myra looked around nervously at the open plain they’d stepped onto. “Out in the open? I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like it, either, but there are some things that we just can’t avoid right now.” Seeker looked over at Luigi. “Do you have a vague idea about Yoshi Island’s location?”

“Hmmm.” Luigi tapped his chin, then nodded. “It’s this way!”

Luigi started to trek towards a rather dark-looking forest that was just off the path. Myra swore for a moment that she saw him hesitate before shaking his head and moving forward with his head held high.

Seeker shrugged and followed after him. “Come on, Myra. We don’t have all day.”

“R-right!”

The group stepped into the dark woods and were instantly in more shadows than the clouded sky usually left them in. Myra stayed as close to Seeker as she could in order to not to lose him as a result of the darkness.

“There must be something wrong with these woods,” Seeker commented. “No forest in the Mushroom Kingdom can be this naturally dark.”

“Ah…” Luigi looked back at them with a somewhat nervous expression. “That…depends. Are-a you talking about the one with-a Alien Shrooms still hiding in it or-a ones that are-a just overgrown jungles?”

“…There are Alien Shrooms still living in the Mushroom Kingdom,” Seeker said flatly.

Luigi nodded. “Oh yeah.”

“What are those?” Myra asked cautiously. “A-are we gonna run into them or—“

“I don’t think so,” Luigi replied quickly, the movement barely seen in the dark woods. Maybe a little too quickly, but Myra wasn’t going to think on that now. “They-a don’t like to interact with the rest of us very much. We won’t find them.”

“You saying that makes me think we will,” Seeker muttered. “I’d rather not get Shroomified by one of those things.”

“What?” Myra let out a squeak of alarm.

“Don’t worry about it, Myra; we’ve got other problems to worry about.”

Luigi nodded quickly again. “Yeah! Come on – we still have to find Yoshi!”

They quickened their pace on the barely-seeable path, Myra keeping as close to Seeker as she possibly could in order not to lose him or Luigi. He didn’t seem to mind it very much, so she kept doing it as they moved forward.

“S-so, what does Yoshi look like?” Myra asked. “Is he a human?”

“Yoshi’s….” Seeker trailed off. “Well, he’s not human, but he is a person. My family call him a dinosaur, but he’s not really even that.”

“Yoshi is a Yoshi,” Luigi said matter-of-factly.

Myra frowned. “That doesn’t tell me a lot….”

Luigi shrugged.

“Yoshi are hard to explain,” Seeker said. “If we see one, I’ll make sure to point him out. Just watch out for a lizard-looking creature with a large head and maybe some spotted eggs bouncing behind him. It sounds weird, I know, but that’s pretty much the only way I can describe it.”

Myra’s frown deepened, but she didn’t try to press him for more answers. It was obvious she wasn’t going to be able to get any from Seeker if he wasn’t sure how to describe what a “Yoshi” looked like.

“…Do they all have the name “Yoshi’?”

“Well, it’s the only word they can say, so it’s really the only one that they answer to.” Seeker shrugged. “The one we’re looking for is green, if that helps.”

Myra blinked. So they came in different colors, too. She hoped that Seeker and Luigi would know the one they were looking for on sight, at least.

The path they were following started to widen a little as gray light started to filter through the trees. Then they stepped into a large clearing with no trees above their heads and –

“That is not supposed to be here,” Seeker said flatly.

Myra blinked a couple times, then frowned as she looked over the large, mechanical-looking building that took up about half of the already-large clearing. “What…what is it?”

“A factory is my guess. Whether or not it’s one of Bowser’s or someone else’s remains to be seen.” Seeker cracked his knuckles. “And it looks like it’s still running, so we probably have to trash it in case the Dark Arms are using it.”

“Do you think they could be using it to make – to make MindTech?” Myra asked. She swallowed nervously, not liking the idea that had just popped into her head.

“Maybe. We’ll have to be on our guard if that is what they’re using this place for.” Seeker started towards the large, metal doors that were right front of the large metal building. “Come on, you two.”

Luigi immediately started after Seeker, causing Myra to hesitate only for a moment before she was forced to run after them in order to keep up.

“I bet I can shut it down,” Luigi commented as they came up in front of the doors. “Maybe we can use it.”

“Maybe. We’ll have to see what it is that’s waiting for us inside.” Seeker looked over at Myra, then back at the door and pulled back a fist. Bright blue fire suddenly covered his arm, and he slammed it forward.

The resulting loud CLANG! from his fist colliding with the metal caused Myra to jump back in surprise. Her eyes only widened when she saw that Seeker’s fist had left a large dent in the doors, with a crack in the seam where the doors met.

Seeker slipped his hands into the cracks and started straining against the metal. There was a low creaking sound as the doors slowly opened under Seeker’s hands.

“How did you do that?!” Myra looked between the dented door and Seeker. “Do you have some kind of fire power that…that makes you stronger?”

Seeker laughed. “Not quite. What you saw was actually my Aura.”

“Aura?”

“My own life force, basically. It works like how your and my sister’s power works.” Seeker motioned to the open factory doors with his head. “I’d go over the specifics, but we’ve got a factory to investigate and not very much time to do it. Maybe I can fill you in on the details of my powers later.”

Myra nodded as Seeker stepped through the thin entrance he’d made and into the factory interior. Luigi scrambled through after him, leaving Myra the last one to slip through and into the building.

She stopped short as soon as she got just inside the entrance.

“U-uh…” Myra gulped as she looked up. “Wh-what is that thing?”

“Looks like a mecha of some kind.” Seeker put his hands on his hips as he looked up at the large, mechanical, human-looking thing that was standing in front of them. The painted-on outfit it had looked similar to Luigi’s, except there was red instead of green. “There’s something about the design of the overall thing that looks really familiar, but I can’t quite place where I’ve—“

The dark eyes on the giant mecha suddenly lit up a bright, angry red, causing Myra to take a hesitant step back. Seeker instantly put up his fists as Luigi hesitantly did the same.

“I’ve fought things bigger than this.” Seeker looked at Myra and Luigi. “Let’s do this!”

The mecha started to move, slowly lifting up a large boot and slamming it down into the ground in front of them. A metal hand was raised, clenched, and brought down in a fist over the three of them.

Luigi and Myra shrieked as they scrambled out of the way; Seeker merely leapt to the side in order to avoid the attack, which left a large dent in the floor as the fist was raised.

“There’s someone piloting this thing!” Seeker yelled as the fist started to come down again. He moved away from Myra and Luigi, and the fist followed, trying to come down on him as he leapt out from under it at the last second. “The cockpit is up in the head, right between the eyes!”

“I knew it!” Luigi looked up at the head with wide eyes as Myra’s hands started sparking with purple flames. She didn’t know what she could do right at this point, but if there was something she could do with her powers, she was going to take the opportunity as soon as she saw it. “I’ve seen this design before!”

“You have?” Myra looked over at Luigi in confusion, blinking at the fact that his voice had somehow lost its accent.

Luigi nodded quickly. “I….I’ve built something like that b-before. B-but it didn’t look like this! It’s gotta be—“ He cut himself off with a shriek as another fist started to come down in their direction, and Myra and Luigi split in different directions as the fist came down in the floor.

“Less talking and more thinking!” Seeker called. “We need to find this thing’s weakness and get through to the guy in the cockpit! Luigi, do you think you can get up there?”

“M-maybe?” Luigi squeaked. “This one looks a little better armored than mine was!”

“Everything’s gotta have a weakness, right?” Myra responded. “Maybe it’s that thing’s eyes?”

“Do you think you can get an attack up there?” Seeker rolled to dodge another fist.

“I can try!” Myra’s hands were covered in more purple flames, and she quickly melded them together into a sphere. The movement was a lot more fluid now.

The head of the mecha turned sharply to look at Myra, causing her to jump at the sudden movement. “U-uh—“

“Move it!” Luigi yelped as a fist came down at double the speed on their heads. They barely managed to get out of the way before it crashed down with enough force to cause the floor to buckle and bounce Luigi and Myra into the air. “That was close!”

It quickly turned into an improvised game of Whack-A-Mole, with the three humans scurrying around down below as the mecha continued to pound the ground in an attempt to squash them into a horrid, flat mess on the factory floor.

“I-I can’t hit it running like—“

Pew!

Myra cut herself off in surprise as a bright blue, perfect sphere of energy suddenly shot up the arm of the mecha and slammed through the mecha’s left eye.

“Someone get up there!” Seeker yelled. “I’ll keep the mecha distracted down here. Climb up one of its arms as best you can!”

“Okey-dokey!” Luigi called back.

The ground shook as the mecha slammed a fist into the ground near them, and Luigi instantly started climbing up the metal fist and shimmying up the metal arm like he had been training for this moment his entire life.

Myra looked down at the sphere of fire she was still holding in her hands as Seeker turned his attention to the other fist, jumping back every time it landed and leaping forward again to dent it with Aura-covered fists before it moved up into the air again.

She looked back up at the face again, then poured more energy into the sphere in her hands as the arm Luigi was crawling up moved the fist above her head.

“Myra, move!” Seeker yelled.

“Eat this!” Myra threw the sphere of purple flames – now twice as big as her head – up at the face of the mecha as Luigi reached the metal thing’s shoulder.

The flames connected with the face of the giant mechanical thing and exploded out over its nose. A good portion of it went in through the broken eye, causing the fist that was going to slam down on Myra to stop just long enough for her to notice it above her head and scramble out from under it as quickly as she could.

“Good shot,” Seeker complimented as the fist he was pummeling started to spark. “What were you hoping to do with that?”

“I-I’m not sure?” Myra looked at the fist that hand landed on the floor next to her nervously. “Distract it?”

Neither one of the fists moved as Luigi scrambled around the neck of the mecha’s head and reached the open eye socket with an acrobatic ease that Myra was sure she’d never be able to master.

“Well, it looks like you did something,” Seeker acknowledged. He jumped up on the sparking fist and started to make his way up the arm. “Come on; we should get up there and back Luigi up.”

Myra swallowed nervously, then nodded and started to climb up the other, still-intact fist. “Why were you attacking the mecha down here when you could have thrown another attack up there?”

“It’s good to take out the weapons as well as the head of the thing,” Seeker replied. “I’ve played a lot of video games where you have to weaken the thing before you can really destroy it; I know what I’m doing.”

Myra frowned, wondering at Seeker’s logic. “Video games?”

“Yeah. I guess that doesn’t ring much of a bell, huh?” Seeker reached the mecha’s shoulder moments before Myra reached it on the other side. He reached over, grabbed the lip of the eye that he’d smashed, then swung himself into the chamber that was inside the head.

Myra remained perched on her shoulder of the mecha, looking worriedly at the opening into the mecha as the light in the still-intact red eye flickered and died. She considered scrambling over like Luigi had, but making her way up the metal arm had been difficult. It was slippery and there hadn’t been very many handholds, and she didn’t want to end up falling off the mecha’s chest and getting hurt.

She was starting to consider sliding back down the arm when a loud, bawling shout came from inside the head: “MARIO!”

“M-mama mia,” groaned another voice.

Myra blinked in confusion. It sounded like Luigi’s, but a little bit deeper.

The metal sculpted to look like an ear suddenly jolted outward, making Myra stiffen and grab onto the metal shoulder underneath her a little more tightly.

Seeker pushed the ear aside like a door and looked down. “Hey, Myra.”

Myra looked up in confusion, but took his offered hand and let him pull her up into the chamber that was inside the head.

She blinked in confusion when she saw Luigi bawling over a rather portly man wearing a similar outfit to the one that had been painted onto the mecha. The rest of the chamber – aside from the minimal walking space between the “ears” and a chair in the middle – was filled wall-to-wall with machinery.

Something about it sent a chill down her spine, but she wasn’t sure why.

“Luigi, Luigi, I’m okay.” The man tapped one of Luigi’s arms, tugging at the green sleeves a little.

“I-I know!” Luigi continued sobbing. “I-I-I’m s-s-so ha-ha-happy!”

The other chuckled weakly.

“Um….” Myra looked at Seeker in helpless confusion.

“That’s Luigi’s brother, Mario,” Seeker explained. “The two of them are pretty famous around here as the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom. Just…give him a minute. Luigi will recover himself.”

“But…Flare-Up said we didn’t have time,” Myra pointed out. “Don’t we still have to find that Yoshi guy you were telling me about?”

“Yoshi?” Mario turned his head to look over at them, confused for a moment before recognition sparked his eyes. “Ah! He is down here!” He rapped a hand against the metal floor below him.

Luigi stopped bawling and sniffed loudly. “H-he is?”

“Mm!” Mario nodded and rose to his feet before jumping up and slamming down into the metal. The square under his feet suddenly gave out, and Mario jumped in mid-air in order to prevent himself from falling down into the hole. “He’s-a just been running down there – Yoshi!”

Something clanked below them, and a green head came up, a glazed expression in the eyes. Seeker was behind him in an instant, hands glowing with a blue fire that he slammed into the back of the creature’s neck.

The creature – Yoshi – froze as something sparked on the back of his neck, and he would have fallen back in except that Luigi and Mario grabbed him and pulled him up out of the hole with little effort.

“Now that we’ve got that settled, we’d better get back to base,” Seeker said. “Finding you was a lot easier than I’d been expecting it to be, Mario, but I’m glad we managed to find you when we did.”

“I’m-a glad, too,” Mario said, nodding. He looked over at Myra. “And who is this?”

“I-I’m Myra,” Myra replied. “Um…nice to meet you?”

Mario smiled brightly, his expression making Myra want to giggle a little at the smile and mustache combination. “Nice to meet you! Thank you for helping Seeker!”

“Come on; we’ve got a lot to fill you in on.” Seeker started for the open door. “A lot’s happened since we got involved in this mess, and you’re definitely going to want to know what’s what.”

“Mm! Let’s-a go!”

Luigi promptly started bawling again.

[mnniska]

Game of Fika on paper

Last week, we made a Faction-based treasure hunt tea and coffee-generating game, played in workplaces! Allow me to explain. 

I am attending a design course specifically focusing on ubiquitous games - that is, games which are played in the real world and not only via a console, PC, cellphone etc. Games where the magic circle is extended beyond the computer screen. It’s interesting because when the area of play is extended to the real world, reality in itself more or less becomes a game. An ubiquitous game can give feedback in the form of lights, location-based apps, newspapers, twitter feeds, band recorders hidden away, QR codes or phone calls - it is limitless in input and output but limited in that it must be compatible with the conventions of the real world.

I’ve just started experimenting but it is very interesting how different the design process becomes when play can happen anywhere and the input methods are so diverse. So far I’ve cooked up two ubiquitous thingymajigs, below is an overview of one of them.

A game for a workplace!

So! I go to a game design school on an island in the middle of the baltic sea. All of the game design students typically hang out in a common building, called the F building. We work on videogames each day, we talk, we go to lessons and we hang out in this building. The building also contains a lunchroom where people can microwave stuff and sit together to eat.

So here’s an idea - let’s put a game in the F building. Let’s take this work environment and put in a game which is played simply by visiting the F building and interacting with it on a daily basis. A game designed for workplaces. The main reason for designing a game for this setting is that I had an excellent testing ground for the game already, which would allow me to iterate properly.

I came up with a vague concept - have a box, which generates free tea or coffee if users interacts with it.

It was a very simple system, a jumping off point. The interesting aspect was that the box would be a person in itself - going through character development and changing based on how people treated it. This really scratched a narrative itch I had, but it did not much more.

At this point, I decided to ask a couple of my fellow classmates also attending the course if they’d be interested in joining (you get more points by cooperating!). I joined forces with three friends and we continued defining it.

But what do you DO?

The problem with the initial concept was that it was very strictly a quest -> reward system, with each quest being hand crafted. It required constant inputs from the game creators. The game was a conversation between artist and player - constantly requiring original inputs from the artist to work and providing no framework for play.

That was not in itself a bad thing, but with three more people we needed a bigger scope and in order to push the game to places beyond our particular F building, we’d need core mechanics - a game loop which players repeated over and over that was not dependant on constant inputs from creators.

We also had no clear goal of the game - it was a set of quests leading nowhere.

So then this happened

“Fika” in Swedish means to have a cup of coffee/tea with something sweet on the side. It’s an opportunity to get together and talk while consuming things.

We set up two factions - Coffee and Tea. The game would not only feature one box living in F, it would have two, each responsible for producing either coffee or tea. This way players could invest themselves in two different sides - it immediately creates tension and sets up a clear goal - beat the opposing faction by performing a core mechanic. The team who plays the most wins.

Mechanics for checking in

But we still needed a core mechanic - an action which users performed each day, built into their routine. In short - a way to register their devotion to their faction. We had a couple of different options. We could use twitter - each box could have an account - to check in people could either tweet @ the box or post a photo of the box. However this is a rather tricky core mechanic and requires twitter - not exactly a low barrier of entry. We mulled this over a while and finally came up with the concept of small boxes.

Open up a box, get some food, feed it to royal box, get tea or coffee. 

Small boxes are hidden away in the workplace (starting at ten boxes in total). Players gain XP for their faction by finding a box and checking it in with their preferred faction. This way all of the initial play is in the form of finding objects and checking them in - no twitter or download requirements, one simply begins play. With this another mechanic emerges - hiding boxes in the building after checking them in so that the opposing faction cannot find them. Thus the core loop becomes find box -> check in box -> hide box.

This seemed like a somewhat engaging core mechanic. We decided to continue defining this system and try to employ it!

Except for the act of finding and hiding boxes, we wanted to define how interactions between players who are holding boxes would play out. What happens when a player of the tea faction holding a box meets the player of a coffee faction? Can the coffee player do something? We did not want to resort to struggling since that could easily escalate. We needed a mechanic which would encourage players of different factions to engage with each other while still not souring the mood. Initially, we figured a player could get a box simply by asking for it - thus the delivery of a box would have to be secret. However this seemed a bit transparent and too easy for defending players. Then, we came up with the bribing system.

By providing a person carrying a box with their preferred hot beverage (either coffee or tea), the person carrying the box is forced to hand over their box in exchange for delicious tea or coffee. This approach carried with it a set of benefits. First and foremost the act of giving would be a mechanic, which we felt rather pleased at. It also meant that to use this mechanic to defend one would have to put in some effort.

Our hope is that team play is further encouraged as well using this tactic - the two factions can have coffee or tea bearers, waiting at the opponent’s box, ready to offer tea/coffee in exchange for boxes. By constantly communicating a team can organize themselves to defend their small boxes, ensuring they gain all the glory.

Rules detailing bribing!

All of this XP gained leads to level ups, going from level one to five. The higher the level, the better a team’s coffee or tea deliveries will be. The first team to reach level five wins the game.

That’s the basis of Game of Fika. We defined this design in a little less than a week and are preparing the physical components of the framework this week, meaning we are yet to launch the game. Next week ( 13/2/2017 ) we are running our first iteration of the game. Excitinggggg 

The royal boxes for Coffee and Tea, ready for feeding. Just have to add an XP bar! 

I hope you enjoyed this brief design overview of Game of Fika. I will be reporting how the first week of play went in my next blog! Did players enjoy the game? How many of the people visiting the F building played? Did people use the bribe mechanic? Did people organise themselves into teams? All will be answered, with the help of testing!

Until next time!

/Sebastian and/or Mnniska

[entergamingxp]

The 20 best PS4 VR games you really have to play • Eurogamer.net

PSVR is an ideal entry-point to one of the most exciting things going on in games at the moment. It’s relatively cheap compared to the alternatives, and while it can be a nightmare to wire up for the first few times, it tends to work well with small play-spaces.

More importantly, it’s backed by a platform holder that has made some wonderful games, whether it’s the disarmingly charming Cockney gunplay of Blood and Truth or the glorious platforming gauntlets of Astro Bot Rescue Mission.

Given the limited size of PSVR’s catalogue, it’s been surprisingly tricky to pick just the 20 best PSVR games. But we have had a go. What do you reckon?

Editors Note: Eurogamer is continuing to relaunch its series of ‘best games’ features, and today we’re refreshing an existing list – the best PSVR games that Ian wrote for us last year, with various new additions since 2019 and beyond. You’ll continue to see more platform lists appearing on the home page in the coming weeks, with the aim to update them several times a year as new releases supplant a given system’s existing library.

How we’ve arranged our best PlayStation VR games list

We’ve broken down the following list into rough order of beginner, intermediate and experienced, starting with the easier games like Astro Bot and ending with the games that might be a bit more suitable for those with some experience in VR. Suggestions for beginners are mainly static affairs, whilst intermediate and experienced games provide increasing levels of motion that may cause discomfort to those new to the medium.

All the games on this list can be enjoyed whatever your level of VR experience though, so don’t discount them just because you don’t think you fall into the right category.

Oh, and of course, this isn’t a definitive rundown. We’ve not been able to sample every single PSVR game out there, so if you think We’ve missed something wonderful, please do share your suggestions!

Astro Bot Rescue Mission

Astro Bot himself may not smack of ready character in the screenshots, but his adventures turn out to be far more than an elegant suite of platforming gauntlets: they’re genuinely memorable and even rather lovable.

The trick here is that the player is an acknowledged presence in the game world: you often sit in the centre of a map as the tiny robot you control scampers up and down, around you and overhead.

A suite of power-ups, meanwhile, send grappling hooks and water jets out of your DualShock, which also opens up to collect any doodads you come across.

Energetic, tightly-packed level design combines with spectacular bosses in a game that almost – almost! – competes on Nintendo’s level.

Want to read more? See our full Astro Bot Rescue Mission review and buy now from Amazon.

Tetris Effect

Tetsuya Mizaguchi’s reworking of the greatest game of all time is pretty special without VR, of course, folding light and sound into the mixture alongside falling blocks and brisk rule-changes.

But with VR it becomes something entirely surprising: a strange, deeply emotional experience as you move through darkness and colour searching for the perfect score. Beads ripple on the wind, whales coalesce out of sparks and mankind travels from desert caravans to the surface of the moon: Tetris Effect’s real trick is to bring positivity, wholesomeness and a total absence of guile to the purest puzzler imaginable.

Want to read more? See our full Tetris Effect review and buy now from Amazon.

Moss

Moss is easily one of the best titles available for the PSVR at the moment. The game is set in a stunningly realised storybook world that’s brought to life by the kind of polish that can only be achieved when creators have poured their hearts and souls into a project.

Our plucky heroine Quill is the highlight, of course, exquisitely animated and full of personality despite her tiny size, but she’s not the only star of the show.

Moss makes you a part of the game too by casting you as your very own character called The Reader. As this ghostly presence you not only have direct control over Quill, but you can also reach into the game world to push, pull and interact with objects. Or you could just stare lovingly at your own reflection in babbling brooks.

These interactions give you a believable connection with the game world and help you form a bond with Quill in a way that just isn’t possible with traditional video games.

Moss is best played from a seated position but it encourages you to lean forward and explore the environment, as if you were inspecting a magical model village. Whether you’re a complete beginner or video gaming veteran, Moss needs to be in your VR library.

Want to read more? See our full Moss review and buy now from Amazon.

Statik

Statik is a puzzle game like no other. Not only is it incredibly immersive, but it also nails the balancing of its puzzles, making them tricky but not unfair. Its crowning glory, however, is the ingenious way it uses the Dualshock 4 controller to ground you in its virtual world.

You play a test subject whose hands are trapped inside a series of increasingly complex puzzle boxes and as you grip your controller in real life, your virtual arms mimic your real world movements.

The only way to remove the puzzle boxes is to tinker with your controller until you find the right combination of button presses to help move the puzzle on. Sometimes you may get stuck for a long time, twisting and turning the controller in your hands.

Fiddle around with the buttons and thumbsticks for long enough, though, and after a while, something will click – and when it does finding that solution is unbelievably satisfying.

Statik may be one of the least physically taxing PSVR games out there, but that doesn’t stop it from delivering a truly memorable – and physical! – experience.

Beat Saber

To watch Beat Saber in action even for a second is to know how to play it. There’s a scrolling runway of coloured beats. There’s a coloured lightsaber in each of your hands.

Give into the chug and drive of the soundtrack and rhythm-match until all the energy in you is completely drained.

Beat Saber is a shirt-drenching, furniture wrecking treat, and one of the most kinetic and engaging VR games out there.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew

Previous Star Trek games have tried to forget that this series is really about colleagues arguing about moral philosophy. Luckily Ubisoft puts this stuff right to the fore, with a VR game in which you can bicker and disagree as much as you want. Even the simplest objective can get wildly out of hand here – it’s just a tragedy that you need so many VR-owning friends to get the best out it all.

Want to read more? See our full thoughts on Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

Ultrawings

Moving into the more ‘intermediate’ PSVR games, Ultrawings isn’t the most exciting of flight sims but it’s certainly one of the best you’ll find on PSVR.

Hidden behind the rather basic graphics is a relaxing and immersive game that really nails the sensation of flight, complete with sudden lurches in your stomach if you decide to pull off some of the more extreme maneuvers.

Played out almost like a VR version of PilotWings, you take to the skies above a group of tiny islands in a series of small, single seater airplanes and must complete short challenges in order to earn enough cash to upgrade your way to new planes and landing strips.

While your first take-off and flight may feel a little intense, the majority of your time in the sky will be quite comfortable, and there are plenty of options available to help you feel more settled.

Crucially the cartoony visuals hide some excellent in-air physics that, when combined with the audio of wind rushing past your ears, provide the illusion of flight in a way that no other PSVR game can.

For the ultimate in relaxing VR experiences, turn off the in-game music, stick on a Spotify playlist and enjoy the freedom of soaring over the ocean to your favourite tunes – it’s magical.

Rez Infinite

Long before VR, Tetsuya Mizuguchi made a game of light and fury so overwhelming in its impact that emerging from each play session felt a little bit like pulling your head out of the drum of a washing machine.

With VR, Rez is better than ever: a simple shooter enlivened by an ingenious paint-and-release mechanic in which you rush through forests and temples and canyons of data purifying the machine. Absolutely stunning.

Want to read more? See our full Rez Infinite review.

Polybius

Jeff Minter tinkering with VR is enough of a pitch by itself, even before you chuck in Polybius, the name of one of gaming’s oldest and strangest urban legends.

Regardless, this is still an absolute rush of a game that dazzles even if you know what you’re in for. Racing forward and blasting everything in your path is the wonderfully simple basis for an arcade shooter that delights in surprising you with twists and kinks every few levels.

If you’re after psychedelic score-chasing, LLamasoft has you covered, and with no motion sickness pretty much guaranteed.

Want to read more? See our full Polybius review.

Blood and Truth

Blood and Truth drops you into Oi Guvnor London Tahn for a Richie-’em-up that departs from the formula in that it has charm and an easy wit.

You’re an ex-soldier brought back to the family firm when a bunch of numpties start mowing too close to your lawn. Know what we mean?

Anyway: lovely gunplay, glorious production values and a real knack for silly moments of interactivity make this a surprisingly engaging treat. Sold!

Want to read more? See our full Blood and Truth review and buy now from Amazon.

Superhot

Superhot still feels like a rush. Time, right, only moves when you do. So when you control your movements, reaching for weapons, throwing broken bottles, chambering a fresh round, you also control the pace at which the panoramic violence erupts around you.

It’s astonishing really that a game whose short levels and breathless pace already thrust you right into the heart of the action manages to feel even more immersive in VR.

On top of that, the game’s white-box environments and shattering crystal bodies look wonderful in the private theatre of a headset.

Want to read more? See our full Superhot review and buy now from Amazon.

Red Matter

Out there in the wilds of the Solar System, a one-step-removed Soviet society has left some worrying mysteries for you.

This is the scene-setting for Red Matter, a sci-fi exploration puzzler that makes up for its short running time with spectacle, a real sense of heft to your interactions and some properly ingenious puzzle design.

Red Matter has solved so many of the control issues that can plague ambitious VR games that it should probably be a set text somewhere. But that makes it sound like it isn’t any fun, and it really is.

Want to read more? See our full Red Matter impressions on the site.

Thumper

Thumper is a sort of intestinal rhythm-action horror game: you race a chrome beetle along a cosmic razor blade while music pounds nails into your ears. It’s brilliant. It’s brilliant however you play it, but in VR it’s just a bit brillianter. There’s something about being alone in the darkness with this horrible thing, travelling fast, deep underground, far removed from the rest of the world. VR is so good at transporting you. With Thumper there is a real pleasure to going somewhere absolutely wretched.

Want to read more? See our full Thumper review.

Paper Beast

Eric Chahi returns to the material physics of From Dust with a VR game that is impossible to forget. Visit a strange virtual world where flimsy beasts made of pure papercraft data come together to form rich ecologies. Solve puzzles but also marvel at the imaginary wildlife, and get to the heart of a world that’s driven by vast tidal forces. Unmissable.

Want to read more? See our full Paper Beast review.

Sairento

And finally, here are some for the more advanced user, starting with Sairento.

Oh, but the heads you’ll lop! The walls you’ll run! The assassins’ frozen stances you’ll slide around before dispensing justice with bullets, swords, all kinds of sharp and glinting horrors.

Sairento is The Matrix and John Wick transported to futuristic Japan and delivered with that thrill of immediacy that VR is so good at conjuring. A violent wonder and a game with a rare sense of style.

Want to read more? See our full Sairento impressions on the site and buy now from Amazon.

Skyrim VR

What does it take to make one of gaming’s most well-travelled worlds feel fresh again? It turns out that VR will do the trick, bringing a new sense of scale and immediacy to an RPG that’s already bursting with magic and violence.

Trees loom overhead, caves beckon you down into the darkness and there’s a real shock in store when you first come across that bear in the game’s opening few minutes.

Skyrim VR is the perfect excuse to venture back into one of the most storied of game landscapes, and it’s a decent way to wait out the years before a sequel finally appears.

Want to read more? See our Skyrim VR impressions and buy now from Amazon.

Resident Evil 7

For a horror game with a real sense of focus and purpose, it’s brilliant to see Resident Evil 7 embracing VR as an option for those who can afford the kit and handle the occasional bouts of nausea.

The end result is surprisingly effective. You might feel a little unwell if you race around Capcom’s haunted world too quickly, but the jump scares have never been more effective.

A series that trades in atmosphere has lost none of its horrible magic in the transition to the PSVR headset.

Want to read more? See our full Resident Evil 7 review and buy now from Amazon.

Firewall Zero Hour

Perhaps the cleverest thing that Firewall Zero Hour does is to opt for the slower, more tactical gunplay of games like Rainbow Six over its twitchier brethren.

This makes this multiplayer shooter a perfect fit for VR, while excellent controls and level design come together with one of online gamings’ most pleasant communities to create a bit of a treat.

Forget the bland name, then – and absolutely do not get it confused with Bravo Team, which is a bit of a stinker – and forgive some awkward lobbies. This is the real thing.

Want to read more? See our full Firewall Zero Hour review and buy now from Amazon.

Ace Combat 7

Ace Combat 7 saw Bandai Namco’s dogfighting series take to new heights, and if you’ve got a PSVR there’s a whole new sensation available when soaring to through the skies. The VR missions here might well be limited to a small handful, but what beauties they are – immersive, action-packed and genuinely thrilling, they’re a surefire way to show off the impressive qualities of Sony’s headset. A must-have, if you’re a PSVR owner.

Want to read more? See our full Ace Combat 7 review.

No Man’s Sky VR

Hello Games’ opus was always sold on the premise of transporting you to some far away fantasy, and what better way to do that with VR? This isn’t some siphoned-off experience, and is rather the full No Man’s Sky – that’s all the impossible vastness of it – served up in virtual reality, a concept that’s as mind-boggling to play as it is to contemplate. Indeed, it’s easily the very best way to play this brilliant game right now.

Want to read more? See our full No Man’s Sky VR impressions.

What was previously on the best PSVR games list?

As we continuously update this best PSVR games list with new releases, games have to be removed to make room – but are still absolutely worth your time.

The games removed from the March 2018 list are:

Beginners: The Lost Bear, Rec Room, Job Simulator

Intermediate: Farpoint, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood

Advanced: Doom VFR, Raw Data, Sprint Vector

As well as this, here’s a round-up of some hidden gems worth looking at if you’re after even more best PSVR game suggestions:

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/the-20-best-ps4-vr-games-you-really-have-to-play-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-20-best-ps4-vr-games-you-really-have-to-play-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net