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Always great to see a good artist begin a promising fangame.

Uprising (restart).

“Earth is a huge theatre in which the same tragedy is played under different names…”

- Much time has passed since the last visit of the Puppeteer in these lands. But the game is not played until the end and it’s time to start a new theater show!

This time have fun everyone, believe me.

This show will have a different ending, but I won’t tell all the secrets. ;)

Let it be a surprise for Y O U, my long-awaited Player.

- White Noise.

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Allegations About and Against Michael Kirkbride, Elder Scrolls Lorewriter and Concept Artist

This is probably going to need a disclaimer. (Note: I consider myself a neutral party, and I am writing this as a consideration over whether or not you should believe allegations against Kirkbride. I wrote this not only for any other neutral party’s consideration, but as a validity check over which allegations were true. Just so you know, yes, I did find that Kirkbride was a transphobe, if that’s just what you wanted to know.)

                                                 WARNING:             THIS REVIEW INCLUDES GRAPHIC CONTENT: Transphobia, body horror, NSFW art courtesy of Kirkbride, references to blood(After-post edit: no references to blood noted), references to rape, and vitriol.                                  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

By hitting “Keep reading”, you are agreeing that you have read and fully understand the disclaimer. Thank you.

The Allegations Themselves.

“Journalists can help people by telling the truth, or by as much truth as they can find, and acting not as agents of governments, of power, but of people. That is real journalism. The rest is specious and false.“  -John Pilger

Hello, it’s me, investigating whether or not Kirkbride is a horrid person. Hurrah. So first, I’d like to tackle allegations of transphobia. Oh boy, I’m already getting the anticipation I’ll get a lot of hate for this.

Okay, in order to get access to the allegations themselves, I had to ask an anonymous provider with a rather abrasive attitude (their name shall not be publicly written unless they deign to provide it themselves) for the link to the allegations themselves. Now, I have the list of allegations, and unlike my provider, I’m more than willing to provide publicly the link and list. So let’s get started, shall we?

(link: https://pixienorn.tumblr.com/post/171657835428/what-did-michael-kirkbride-dp-wrong/amp)

Allegations:

1. Transphobic and all-around rude comments to a transsexual man 2. Posting a game cover for a fake game called “Call of Duty: Ferguson” 3. Playing Vivec and Azura (among others) in an RP where he calls her an ‘heshe-bitch’ and symbolically rapes her with a spear 4. got into an internet disagreement that ended with him sketching a large insect drawing blood from a penis and explained that it represented his opponent 5. Depicting orsimer as caricatures of Asian men 6. The whole Queen Ayrenn/KINMUNE was his “robot OC from the future”; ie. that she was KINMUNE from the C0DA 7. Drew something he described as an “almsivi cronenburg fuckform” 8. Places emphasis upon intersex beings and sexual abuse in his writing

First and foremost, comments towards a transsexual person in question. Now, dear fuck, this is indeed horrible comments. For instance, threatening to, and I quote, I quote dear reader directly, “shove a rusty coat hanger into your uterus.” Just so you know, this is a statement to a transsexual man. I can agree, that is pretty goddamn disgusting to say to anyone, and even more disgusting in context: he’s threatening to rape someone and trying to trigger their dysphoria over them criticizing ESO. The one thing I cannot agree on is the idea that it is sexual assault. It’s a threat, which, as it turns out, is also legally punishable.

Link: https://semblio.tumblr.com/post/94064504778/wake-forest-ayrenn-akafox-okay-so

On the Call of Duty: Ferguson cover, I am not obligated to take their words, so I shall dismiss this allegation without proof of Kirkbride posting it.

Next allegation. The RP has little usage for deciphering Kirkbride’s character, because the RP specifically is supposed to be in the character of Vivec, not in the character of Kirkbride. It’s still odd and noteworthy for its odd portrayal of Azura (with a very choppy speech pattern) but that is not notable as being a good or useful allegation against him.

No comment made about the internet disagreement, due to a lack of evidence. If they provided either a screenshot of the argument or of the insect in question, then I’d cede this point to them.

I can understand where one would get the idea from (specifically, a caricature of Mongolian/Finno-Ugric men) and this is criticizable as being a racist depiction, but I leave it up to the beholder to decide whether or not this is a racist caricature.

On the KINMUNE pamphlet, I’d hate to say this but I can’t really care or note much about that. It’s what the man headcanons, I suppose, and I don’t think we can exactly take this as something wrong, unlike his very disgusting comments to a transsexual man, which actually were wrong, and are the singlehandedly most compelling argument here.

No, I’m not sharing the ‘almsivi cronenberg fuckform’, thank you very much. Also, another bit of note is that: 1. it was only meant to be distributed to a small amount of people and 2. it apparently might involve Mephala/be Mephala in some way. No comment.

Accusing him of an occurring spiritual emphasis on intersex beings is as solid as accusing Hinduism of an occurring emphasis of intersex beings as well. Heavy themes of sexual abuse are nowhere near as excusable as emphasis on intersex beings (especially because with the intersex beings one, he was directly inspired by Hinduism). I would like to state a rule of thumb for writing: if you can include anything other than sexual abuse or assault, DON’T INCLUDE SEXUAL ABUSE OR ASSAULT. That’s my stance on that.

Now then, that’s basically my view and take on these allegations in general. So, you might be wondering, what is my stance and what I’d like you to take in general from this?

Well, I will quickly note that the exact transphobic comments are 5 years old, a bit more, but that does not diminish the severity of them. I don’t think witchhunting the man for some incredibly immature and disgusting acts of his over 5 years ago will do any good for anyone, but I do think we should go out of our way to inform the general public, and I think we should at the very least demand an apology from Kirkbride himself. I would like to send my dearest gratitude to those who publicly surfaced and shared these allegations with the rest of the world, and thank my provider (who shall still be left anonymous) for gifting me with these documents, despite an admittedly impolite and apologetic (to Kirkbride, specifically) tone from myself in question.

TL;DR: Kirkbride is a transphobe who hates people disliking ESO, threatens people relentlessly, is immature, and altogether should publicly apologize to everyone he threatened, attacked, or in general was immature and rude to.

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some notes on HOME

By the way, HOME’s equipment has ludicrous Attack and ‘Spirit’ bonuses. I was quite confused about this, and thus, I observed the stats of the enemies and the playable characters. Upon this, I realized: HOME’s enemies have rather high defense and HP in certain Zones, and lack HP in others. However, the player characters have atrociously high stats. For example, at Level 1, Valerie has 75 Esprit. In OFF, (which is not the pinnacle of RPG combat, but still) Omega, the contrasting character to Valerie, will have 75 Esprit at Level 4. This is partly countered by the fact that Omega has a rather high level-progression-curve in its Esprit, but that counter is refutable by the Fang items; these items increment Esprit by an overwhelming margin, going from the Pointy Fang’s 115 to the Lucid Fang’s ridiculous 450.

.. I just wasted a nice bit of time to find this out. I’m going to take a nice break from OFF fangames..

That’ll be a nice break.

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Damn, this big bacon is beefier than I expected.

The Batter, Purifier of the Zones

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NEW - A nice game for cute children.

Before I begin: This review is more professional than my last (Elsewhere) as I feel NEW deserves my respect and consideration more than Elsewhere ever has. Now then, I shall review NEW.

By the way, yes, I am back. I will work on more reviews. But I won’t follow a schedule that is easy to understand in any vague sense, and I’ll just write reviews about what interests me at the minute. (Quick after-post edit to add tags here.)

                                    [ S P O I L E R S   F O R   N E W ]

                             [ P L A Y  N E W  I F  Y O U  H A V E N ‘ T ]

Part One: Foreword

Oh boy, a new form of padding. Now then, to preface this, I will warn you that I do enjoy NEW, and that I don’t wish its creator ill will, I afford them all proper respect, and I’m not going to talk about Mr. Evan Vasejeff (The creator of NEW).

Part Two: Plot Synopsis

The Batter is back, this time as a Prophet instead of a savior. This time, he has the goal of rendering all the Zones ‘safe’ instead of ‘pure’.

Zone 0 introduces us to Valerie, who is written better than HOME. I’ll write further about him in the Characters section. After a few puzzles, we head off to Zone 1.

Zone 1 is mostly similar to OFF, except Dedan is missing and replaced by a overweight idiotic chef. This chef (named Gabriel) is introduced to be malevolent and idiotic from his first appearance, all the way to his last, where you render him into a bloody corpse.

Zone 2 turned into a more pathetic hellscape than usual, with the nice aesthetic addition of a Japhet corpse on the roof. By the way, the Mall looks beautiful awful now. The game introduces a red herring (Oedipus, a little girl whom The Batter ends up beating to hell and back) before you meet the final villain, Angela, an insane spirit infesting a mannequin that The Batter summarily destroys.

Zone 3 is this time played backwards, with The Batter going from Area 4 to a mythical Area 0. All the while, you are pestered by Sonovan, an odd-talking priest and general narcissist, who eventually fights The Batter, is beaten, quickly jacks up Valerie (just play the game if you want to understand this better), then gets killed by The Batter, who mercy-kills Valerie at his own request. You then go and defeat Gazmel, who is, in his own words, Satan.

Zone 4 (or, The Echelon) is a miserable hellscape that is actually just a part of The Room, maybe. You meet ‘Vincent “Ivius” Corsacoff the 2nd’, who I shall permanently refer to as ‘Ivius’, as his actual name is incredibly long and annoying. So you head onto a roof, where you talk to Ivius, going on to fight him, before inevitably winning, and going to The Room itself.

Of course, The Room is a strange mindnumb I won’t be going into too much, as I feel like getting this poor-quality plot synopsis over with.

Part 3: Characters

The Batter - As I mentioned, he’s a prophet instead of purifier. His goal is to make the zones ‘safe’ instead of ‘pure’, and he seems to be more mellowed out now. On occasion, he interrupts himself before carrying on with a thought (ie. he comments upon Oedipus’ mention of comics named ‘Batteur and Boxxer’ by stating “What kind of trite do you read? "Panic in Ballvile" is obviously-” before cutting himself short and carrying on the dialogue.) and generally, The Batter seems altogether more.. human than before. Other than that, he is mostly the same character as before, and still a bat-wielding protagonist.

Valerie - The cat we (don’t really) know from OFF. I can state something about NEW’s characterization of Valerie: It was executed very well! Mortis Ghost has stated that Valerie was more soft-spoken and shy than The Judge, and NEW does indeed follow through with Mortis Ghost’s stated character of Valerie. He comes across as a shy, introverted, socially awkward cat, and that altogether works very well for him. He’s also the new Guardian of Zone 0.

Zacharie - I’ll say more in the Merchants category.

The Judge - Our favorite, eloquent cat! .. except, he’s taken Hugo’s place. Also, unlike Hugo, he’s not that nice. Or innocent, really. He’s become corrupt with absolute power over the world, and as such, has used his raw powers of creation to muck about, creating demonic feline entities known as Jury, which replace Secretaries in NEW. Of course, the implications of this are quite large in scope, and will take up a portion of the Lore section.

Part 4: Music

I will state this immediately: This fangame has some incredible tracks. These include: My personal favorite, Awesome Miniboss, Crying Girls Part 1-2 (which are actually samples of Is Dancing Till Her Head Explodes, from Alias Conrad Coldwood’s album Crying Girls), Dented Helmets on TV, Stay in in Stay (A remix of Stay In Your Coma), and Funky Bucket of Nasty Noises, among plenty others. Its soundtrack complements the game, and it’d be an incredible mistake to play it without listening to its excellent tracks. One warning for headphone users though: the miss sound is awful, and it’s rather loud in comparison to the other sounds.

Part 5: Basic Enemies

The enemies in this game are well-designed, with inventive competence names and lovely art. They’re well-made, and this fangame clearly had a lot of care put into it. However, I have never had to grind so much in my life. The enemies are rather harsh, and you will suffer. Before anyone tosses an ‘git gud’ in my face, I did. After a while, The Batter will be so high-leveled that bosses fall in a heartbeat against his bat’s blows and his add-on’s.. cuts(?). Now then, on to the next section.

Part 6: Merchants

I think everyone reading this knows of my distaste, my violent hatred of fangames using Zacharie as a merchant? So, who is the merchant of NEW?

.. this guy. Zacharie. But, just look at his face. Look at that face. I.. I can’t be mad. To be honest, I found this incredibly amusing. I simply cannot be mad. His face.. It’s absolutely hilarious. Zacharie is absolutely ridiculous in this fangame, and I cannot be as vitriolic as usual. Sorry.

Carrying on, I almost feel like NEW mocks Zacharie in a way; outside the mall, there are two statues of Zacharie with his mask as how it originally looked. What does The Batter have to say about this? “A statue of Zacharie when he looked less pathetic.” All throughout the game, The Batter insults Zacharie. Here’s another line of this, as an example: “I'm tired of this wild goose chase. I've went through one too many things. One of those horrific things being friends with Zacharie.” Finally, Zacharie repainted the mall an awful pink color, which The Batter is clearly disgusted by, including making a comment about Zacharie having poor taste.

Altogether, I feel like NEW uses Zacharie in a way that I can’t be mad at.

Part 7: Lore

NEW takes place after the events of OFF. The Batter returns, and fights 4 Purifiers instead of 4 Guardians, and it seems the original 3 are dead. The world is a corrupted shade of a corrupted world; it is broken to the point of being unable to be fixed. One actually gets the sense that The Batter is righting wrongs, and fixing the world.

But, let’s talk about the position Hugo filled, and that The Judge fills. In the events of NEW, The Batter is looking for The Judge as he makes the Zones ‘safe’. It turns out The Judge has taken up the mantle of Creator and God, and has become corrupted by his new-found power. Which implies quite a few.. unpleasant ideas. If the power Hugo had can corrupt someone with as pure intentions as The Judge, was Hugo also corrupt? If NEW’s idea of how the next Creator takes power (basically, how The Judge offs The Batter) is correct, does that mean any number of individuals could become Creators in their own right, merely by killing The Batter at the apex of his quest?

But let us leave behind these thoughts, and carry on; we are nearly at the end, and I have more reviews to do.

Part 8: Does This Game Fit In With OFF?

Yes. I hold NEW as my personal pick for an unofficial OFF sequel, and I am proud in that. Its lore doesn’t contradict OFF’s; in fact, it follows the lore as closely as possible, and its lore, whilst small, is worthwhile to notice and consider. I believe that it adds on to OFF’s weird world.

Part 9: Conclusion

I hold this fangame in high esteem. I view it as an example of what one person, with naught but a computer and a dream, can achieve. In the end, though, I suppose NEW asks us a question. A very important one, and one I’ll state directly.

Would you like to start a new game?

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Out of all things, I really wasn’t expecting commentary on my review. First and foremost, I would like to say, thank you for commenting on the review, despite your statement that I just insulted the game.

Of course, I understand the sentiment. I did say that I 'hate its horrendously disgusting being.’ I won’t backtrack on that. I did compare the experience I had with it to sitting in a tram as a hipster blathers to you uselessly.

However, I would like to direct your attention to what should be the most obvious piece of actually constructive criticism. I mentioned ‘Yuko’, a character who, as I stated several times, wasn’t introduced properly or set up earlier. In case if you didn’t notice, I went on to criticize how the game can’t even try to set up Yuko, who you were sent on the behalf of. Aside from the fact that I’d like to know who I’m sent on the behalf of, it also is worth noting that I mention Yuko 13 times in the review I made; a character whom I even state I doubt the existence of in the game. If you play through Elsewhere (something I wholeheartedly say you should do AFTER the game gets along in development.. something that hasn’t happened since 6/5/2018) then you will notice something shocking: I mentioned Yuko around 11 times more than the game did, and the implication of that is the game should not tell me I’m being sent on the behalf of someone who I don’t even know!

Other than that, I did criticize how the skill ‘Strangle’, which I will admit is not implemented, should be changed from doing 30 damage at 15 CP, as certain other skills, such as the example I chose, ‘Special Homerun’, does 160 damage for the same cost.

I will admit that, several times, that I did insult the game in what I recognize myself as being more ranting (I even mention this as ‘ranting’ in a paragraph before I try to perform a character synopsis). However, I don’t go out of my way to insult the developer themselves. I wouldn’t, and I’m actually incredibly offended that you try to tell me off for insulting developers, yet you go on to call me a dick, tell me I had nothing of substance, and you even try to tell me how to do my writings, or technically how to have my opinions!

For this review, I didn’t, and I won’t any further, try to frame these as critical analysis or a professional review. Yes, I do think I know enough to criticize a game, and especially to criticize a fangame, but I don’t plan on pretending to be an expert. This blog is specifically for my ‘Art, thoughts, and weird junk’. I don’t put ‘Professional game reviewing’, and I don’t expect people to take this review as a full, well-orchestrated analysis. I even dropped the format I like to use to frame it more unprofessionally than usual. I would also like to say that I am incredibly insulted that you would then carry on to have the sheer unchecked audacity to tell me that my reviews ‘aren’t very constructive’, and to tell me that I, with my little-known blog, shall ruin EVERYONE’S want to create a fangame! Oh, and, just a brief mention, I’m not required to respect a work, especially something I revile.

I apologize for the last paragraph, as I feel it’s less polite overall than what I’ve tried to be, but I will state that I can feel the bite of pride, even whenever someone criticizes my work - or, as you more accurately did, tell me how to write my opinions and reviews - and I will admit that I feel this has been rather petty altogether. Altogether, I have some final questions that I’d like answered. My blog is very small, and this entire review only got 3 notes. What.. what attracted you to criticize this, and not any of my older works, where I clearly tried to frame my opinion as more professional? Is it because it’s my most recent? Do you know the Elsewhere dev? Are you the Elsewhere dev?

Altogether I don’t have any plans to respond any further to this, as that would be a level of pettiness I don’t want to touch. By the way, don’t take this personally. It was just my two cents.

Elsewhere Demo (Elsewhere 0.2.3) - Please kill me. Please.

I’d like to preface this with the notice that this is a demo; it’s incomplete. However, it’s still horrid and I still hate its horrendously disgusting being.

Keep reading

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Elsewhere Demo (Elsewhere 0.2.3) - Please kill me. Please.

I’d like to preface this with the notice that this is a demo; it’s incomplete. However, it’s still horrid and I still hate its horrendously disgusting being.

Okay, I’m not going to blunder about trying to explain this thing’s garbage plot. Instead, I’ll get directly into this thing’s horridly disgusting being. So, how would I explain Elsewhere (0.2.3)? Well, it’s basically like.. sitting in a subway tram. A dirty, strangely moist tram. Some hipster walks in, wearing a godawful V-neck and twisting his horrible mustache around. He looks at you, then proceeds to walk over, sweating and blathering about useless dreck. Heh. Hah. It’s pain. You want to die.

Yes, playing Elsewhere makes me want to die. It’s absolutely disgusting. The most disgusting thing you’ll easily spot is the horrible artwork. Awful facesprites, disgusting character sprites, and horrible enemy sprites. These awful sprites.. made it almost impossible for me to even play this entire fucking game. If you can give me a noose, I’d probably begin to hang myself rig

Okay, got sidetracked there. Moving on, I will mention something that also makes me want to die. This game mentions one ‘Yuko’ character. At this point, you’re probably rolling your eyes. “A game mentions a character, so what? Do you hate continuity?” No, I don’t. That’s why I hate Yuko. Yuko is a character mentioned for no apparent goddamned reason other than, I assume, a set-up for later on. However, the main character, Clyde, acts as if you already know who this Yuko is, despite the game never mentioning this Yuko or showing Yuko’s face even once. Not even once. The game can dedicate an entire faceset to Clyde, but not even toss us a paltry image of Yuko.

As I thought about it, I came to a conclusion. “Maybe Yuko is the name of the dev’s player, and they forgot to change it! Yes, that’s it!” Little did I know, that innocence.. it was misguided. 

For those of you who don’t know, RPG Maker 2003 uses a simple system for displaying things like a custom player name. There is a small list of characters within the game that are playable/in there for whatever reason, numbered from 1 to some arbitrary number. Going by this game, “Player” is in number 5. So if the developer wants to make the game output the player’s custom name, they would put this string into the text: “\N[5]”. Unedited, it looks like this: “\N[n]”. What it calls upon is hero number ‘n’ (in this case 5) and outputs the ‘N’, or the name of the hero.

I thought the developer forgot to put in an “\N[5]” and instead misguidedly typed in their test name. However, the textbox mentioning Yuko looks like this: 

“\N[5] and I were sent here on behalf of someone named "\C[14]Yuko\C[00]." You wouldn't happen to recognize the name, would you?” (The “\C[14]” and “\C[00]” determine the color a portion of text; in this case, changing it between gold (the “[14]”) and the default color (the “[00]”).)

Yes, there it is, the contradiction, the elimination of my theory. The developer, as such, either had to forget to mention Yuko, or for some horrific reason seems to believe they don’t need to. I don’t know what would run through someone’s mind to make such a horrid and counterproductive decision, but I fear that may be the reason.

So, let’s assume that someone out there in the around 5 or so people that will read this looks at my ranting, and screams out: “What, no mention of the characters? No discussion on how it fits in with the lore?” Well, I shall talk about the characters. You chose your cyanide, now I must deliver it on your silver platter.

So it turns out that the characters are about as lackluster as the art. By that, I mean they’re absolute garbage. The main character, Clyde, lacks most of a personality other than the leftover traces of the archetypal energetic, excited, and heroic 'personality’ that so many blank and forgettable characters possess. 

They introduce a cat, Syrup, who is basically a more pathetic and depressing version of The Judge. I don’t mean intentionally pathetic and depressing, just so.. bland and sad to witness, it is comparable to watching two unmanned cement mixers smash into one another. I shall speak no more of Syrup.

The final character that is actually mentioned so far is one Yuko, which I already complained about. So there is no character to be mentioned.

Within the game’s files (which I will admit I am liberally digging around in) there exist five other notable characters: ‘Sprinkles’, ‘Copper’, ‘Clover’, ‘SoundTest’, and ‘Password’.

Sprinkles is, as far as I can tell, either a poorly drawn rabbit or a lopsided cat. Their title, ‘Delirious’, does not seem to match their mannerism of walking or facial expressions at all. Whether this is due to a poor understanding of what ‘delirious’ means, or gross incompetence, I shall never know.

Copper is a TV-headed individual whose apparent actual name is ‘CU-713 M.III’ (does the developer even know what ‘M.III’ means? Why is Copper ‘Mark III’ of its type?)  This character lacks a proper character sprite, instead only possessing foul facesprites.

Clover looks like an angel. A permanently annoyed and irritated angel, matching my personal feelings on this game. She (I’m going to bet Clover is a ‘she’. After all, fangames seem to have a penchant for the ‘Zone 3 female follower’ thing.) has the title ‘Saigai’, which, on the note of that, I will thank the developer for forcing me to look up their weeb terms. Apparently, ‘saigai’ stands for ‘disaster, calamity, misfortune’, which sums up my experience with this beta very well.

Of course, I also possess the skill list. Clyde, in my opinion, has a horridly boring skill list, that clearly isn’t complete, given that this game is a beta.

Sprinkles is the healer of the party, and.. none of these competences bear any indication of having healing effects. None of the competences have anything to do with ‘delirious’, by the way, except for two or three.

Copper has competences that I assume are named after the first things that the developer saw when they opened up a ‘Beginning Programming for Dummies’ book, and some sci-fi jargon that is absolutely meaningless.

Clover is still horribly weeaboo, as indicated by the fact that her competences are named after random Japanese terms that mostly bring up anime and shit. Among note of these are ‘Bokusatsu’, which brings up “Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan” as its first result. Bokusatsu apparently means ‘Bludgeoning’ or ‘Eradicate’, and is not just a horrid misspelling of ‘bukkake’. Another random Japanese term I do not need to know, and never wanted to know. Yay.

There’s some random skill called ‘Strangle’. It does 30 damage at the cost of 15 goddamn CP. It’s not even 100% accurate! For contrast, The Batter’s ‘Special Homerun’ does 160 damage at the cost of 15 CP. It’s not 100% accurate either, but at least it can do 160 damage, and that’s not even factoring in variance for either!

I guess I’ll be going on to fitting in with the world of OFF.

I’m strangely disgusted by even typing that, because it’s offensive to OFF to type those words in a review of Elsewhere. It’s rude to OFF to even dare to compare Elsewhere’s shitty, nonexistent lore with the complex lore of OFF.

To put it simply, no, Elsewhere does not fit in with the world of OFF. It has a horribly hideous graphical design, and its characters lack any slight semblance of a personality, or even a semblance of a character. Yes, this game lacks what makes a character.. a character.

By the way, on note, I mentioned Yuko 13 times (including this time) and I’m certain that this mysterious character doesn’t even exist in any manner, because I have no reason to.

Should you play this game?

You can’t hear it, but I’m laughing as I type those words. I am laughing, because that question doesn’t even need the slightest semblance of an answer. That question is, in all entirety, already answered by me a thousand times over in this entire horrid review.

No. No, you should not.

What do I think of this game?

Well, it’s shit. It’s a horrible beta, and it looks like sludge and sewer-water. I know it’s a beta in 0.2.3, but it hasn’t even been updated in nearly a year or two! I’m working with what I have, okay?

I don’t hold anything against the developer, okay? They could be a nice fellow, I don’t know them. All I know is that Elsewhere is horrible and disgusting.

As I began to get up, I sighed. A single, upset, disappointed sigh. A sigh made from a place of disappointment and annoyance. All the words in the English language don’t give me as much a way to reflect my sheer irritation, my incredible disdain for this game.

So that, is my final thoughts on Elsewhere’s Beta 0.2.3.

A sigh. A single, irritated sigh.

[outofoxygen]

Revisiting HOME

I’m revisiting HOME, because I felt I was too unfair in my last review of it. As such, I will be ignoring my last attempt to review it. [Spoilers for HOME]

HOME is an OFF fangame created by FelixtheJudge, who also was the creator of several Don’t Starve Together mods, which are now left sadly unfinished. I will note that Felix has unfortunately passed, and give my regards to those who knew him. I would also like to mention I have nothing against FelixtheJudge himself, and I think the guy was a very talented individual. Now then, preferring not to dwell on depressing matters, I shall turn towards reviewing HOME.

Part 1: Plot Synopsis

HOME is a fangame in which you play as Pablo, or The Judge. After being awoken in Zone 0 from his rest, he goes outside to find The Batter standing before him, who then declares his intent to purify the world. After The Judge applauds his goal, he then marches back inside, only for a premonition of The Batter’s potential for harm to hit him. He then chooses to head off to Zone 1 to warn the Guardian.

Zone 1 mostly plays out similarly, just this time you venture to find Alain (I’ll talk about him later) in the basement of Pentel. You then voyage off to the Meatworks to fight Pentel himself. Of course, you head off to Shachihata, meet The Batter and optionally fight him on a roof, then go off to Alma where you fight Dedan.

Zone 2 also plays out similarly, this time allowing you to wander the residential area instead of being booted out quickly. You then head off to the Library, where Japhet reveals himself on the roof. This time, however, you rescue Valerie (somehow alive) and head off after allowing The Batter to kill him.

I don’t need to repeat myself for Zone 3, do I? This time, you don’t get the pipe minigame though. Sad.

Zone 4 is, however, a new zone. It’s edgy, and it’s full of diseased inhabitants and crazed gunmen. In an OFF fangame. If you haven’t played HOME and haven’t reached Zone 4, let me tell you, I’m not joking about that. The lovable elsen are depressed, diseased, and/or a gun-toting maniac looking to riddle your cats with bullet holes. You fight Shachihata, the apparent postman turned into a crazed burnt general in Zone 4, before heading up to fight the Guardian herself, a kind-of lame Hugo ripoff. Oh sorry, you fight The Witness, a fluffy black cat with an add-on. You’re supposed to snipe the add-on, by the way, because The Witness is overpowered as all living hell. So after suffering through fighting The Witness, our favorite capped, bat-toting Batter runs up and smacks The Witness real hard with his cast-iron.

Then, you’re forced to go on a romp through the purified zones where The Judge decides The Batter is awful, despite being rude and churlish to The Batter before he ran around the purified zones. Well, you finally head off to the Courtroom, a depressing slog.

Anyways, flowery bits aside, you fight The Batter in the end (removing the choice) and you win. There’s two endings, one where the Judge’s party gets wiped in The Batter’s dying moments, leaving The Judge a sick puppy. The other ending is a happy-go-lucky ‘the world got fixed, yay’ that lacks the potency of OFF’s ending.

Part 2: Characters

The Judge - Our favorite enigmatic, eloquent, knowledgeable feline. Unfortunately, it’s hard to keep a character enigmatic whilst keeping them playable, so.. he’s an eloquent, knowledgeable feline. However, The Judge has to pause every five goddamn seconds to get exposition, so he’s an eloquent feline. I guess it works. Either way, he’s The Judge we all know, this time just with a pure-good paint on.

Alain - Here’s where I get to praise HOME for a character. Alain is written entirely as a neutral character. He is only looking out for himself, and he only seems to really care about himself. He’s selfish and starving, and only follows along with The Judge to prevent himself from starving. He is, however, loyal enough to stick around, and in the end chooses to stick around with The Judge and crew. I’d say he turns out well enough in his ending.

Valerie - To be honest, he’s played as The Judge 2.0. Of course, from what we know, Valerie was a shy, soft-spoken cat who enjoyed books and soft, cool colors. However, here, he basically acts like a second Judge. I, to put it bluntly, think it’d be better if he was killed by Japhet. Yeah, The Judge might have sat around on Zone 2′s roof, screaming at the top of his lungs, pretending the echoes belong to someone, someone he used to know, but his party could’ve dragged him off to finish the game. It’d give him a reason to hate The Batter. (Edit for clarification: The reason being: The Batter is just standing around and doesn’t even assist him in helping to remove Japhet from Valerie. That’s what I was thinking when I wrote this.)

Jozlyn - This.. ‘character’ is the anti-Alain. An original addition, Jozyln is a ‘cute’ ditzy lunatic with barely any good character to speak of. She’s annoying, the token girl, and basically serves little purpose other than filling up The Judge’s party. Every time her facesprite appears next to a textbox in the game, I feel like I’ll have a stroke and an aneurysm at similar times. That hideous ‘:3′ she includes next to every. fucking. sentence. is nowhere near charming or endearing, and instead gives me minor brain damage and a serious migraine. Honestly, I hope no one on this Earth likes Jozlyn, because if you like Jozlyn, then I don’t think you know what a good character is.

The Batter - Yet another point where I get angered intensely by HOME’s lacking characterization. The Batter in OFF is a focused and dedicated purifier. His mission is not presented as wholly evil; in fact, it can be viewed as good in some circumstance. However, I hold the stance that The Batter’s mission was entirely neutral, as he did destroy the impurity, but also took down the whole broken world of OFF with him. However, HOME took the liberty of personally raising its middle finger in The Batter’s face, then shooting him in the knees and head. By that, I mean it took no time to examine the good and neutral parts of his mission, and instead painted him as purely evil. The Batter is, even worse, portrayed as a horrendous dick. Yes, The Batter was entirely apathetic to the suffering of elsen. Yes, he clearly didn’t care about the loss of innocent lives. But, in the end, The Batter wasn’t so much of a dick as he was an apathetic stoic until the very end.

The Witness - This character.. she also disgusts me. For a different reason. The Witness is a shoved-in plot device and, unsurprisingly, massive mary sue. For some unknown reason, The Witness is inexplicably overpowered, and cannot suffer damage lest she renders your party entirely wiped by her overpowered abilities. RNG forbid you get a status effect on her, because if you so much as touch her with a single one, she will be ‘targetted’. See, if The Witness is Targetted, she will automatically perform her annoying 100 damage attack, thus causing annoying amounts of damage just because she may have gotten poisoned, stopped, insane.. Just don’t get a single status effect on her, or else she’ll maul you to shit.

Part 3: Basic Enemies

I’ll make this simple: The basic enemies don’t fit in with OFF. At all. Aside from odd style differences at random points, only a few enemies have the hand-drawn and quirky feel of OFF’s enemies. I couldn’t imagine fighting a Burnt and one of HOME’s countless enemies side-by-side. The Plague Doctors, at least, look slightly like they come from OFF.

Part 4: Merchants

Okay. If you’ve read my criticism about merchants from CONFINIUM: Act 1, then you know I hate how that masked chucklefuck always seems to he-he-he his way into every single goddamned fangame from here to Mars. Is it that hard, that physically excruciating to try to think up another merchant who you can’t just copy-paste that whole ‘Show me the colour of your credits’ speech from? Zacharie is a well-made character, and I have no problem with the way he’s written in OFF itself. However, every single fangame has to have him ripped straight from OFF, with a bland ‘amigo amigo he he’ personality.

Oh, and there’s another merchant named ‘Viola’, but I don’t think she’s too important. Especially since I hate her character too, because it’s blander than the taste of bleached cardboard. By the way, I think I mentioned that Viola was a tumor, and I stand by that fully.

Part 5: Lore

It takes place in the world of OFF, so obviously it uses OFF’s lore. Zone 4, also Bordeaux, is basically just a hellhole because a disease came along and screwed over the whole place. Let’s just hurry along to Part 6 so I can finish up.

Part 6:  Does This Game Fit In With OFF?

Does this game fit in with OFF.. Does it? I’m partly confused about what to say. There’s points where I think HOME is genuinely clever and enjoyable, and I don’t hate the story. Unlike CONFINIUM: Act 1, I clearly don’t enjoy HOME immensely, but I also don’t hate the fangame, to be honest. I guess it could? But I’m not sure on that.

Part 7: Conclusion

Now that I’ve gotten this far, what else can I say? This revisit just reminded me that it has more than 1 tumor (specifically 4), and it reminded me that there is a few things I like about HOME.

However, would I recommend this fangame? Maybe. Probably. I’d recommend it as an example of a highly polished fangame, and as an example of an okay fangame, but not as an example of a good fangame. There’s better fangames, and I know plenty.

Altogether, play CONFINIUM or NEW instead of HOME if you want. That’s this revisit wrapped up.

[outofoxygen]

I have returned, yes

Hi, I’m back from a hiatus.

Now then, I shall inform you all that I am considering doing more game ‘journalism’. By that, of course, I mean I’ll post criticisms/ramblings about random games I just have sitting around.

So far, here’s a list:

1. Redoing my review of HOME

2. Reviewing the fangame NEW

3. Reviewing Ib

4. Reviewing [hack hack] Elsewhere

5. Reviewing either CONFINIUM Act 2 [OR] However

[outofoxygen]

About my HOME Analysis.

To be blunt, I feel as though my analysis was biased and unfair. I might rewrite it sooner or later, but until then, I’ll consider my other drafts.

[outofoxygen]

Highlights from Mortis Ghost’s OFF 10th Anniversary Stream

“Would the Batter dab?” “Probably not.”

“I am certainly the worst video game creator.”

“Would Zach dab?” “…Yes.” “You can draw it! It’s canon!”

“I won’t dab. I’m sorry. I won’t.”

When asked what he was most proud of in OFF, Mortis said the community/fandom !!

“What’s wrong with Zacharie’s neck?” “He has a big neck.”

Bad Batter CONFIRMED asexual

As for whether The Batter is ace too? “It’s complicated, but he could be.”

“Is The Batter’s name Mark?” “It could be!”

Turns out Hugo is cutting the piece of meat he’s holding – not eating it!

“What have you done, my dude?”

The Batter was created the second the game starts!

“Baby Mortis made this game.”

“What’s behind Zacharie’s mask?” “A face.”

Mortis’ favorite artists, or the ones he draws inspiration from, are Van Gogh and Hideo Kojima !

“Are you my Dad?” “I don’t think so? If so I would be a bad Dad.”

Mortis’ favorite words in French are amitié (friendship) and nourriture (food)

The first time The Batter and The Queen meet is during the final boss battle with The Queen

When I asked Mortis for any game writing advice, he said: “You have to follow your art.”

[outofoxygen]

hello OFF fandom I still exist sometimes lmao

So I actually missed almost all of Mortis Ghost’s 10th anniversary stream today, just caught the very tail end of it. :C

But I gleaned these fresh bits of lore, as answered by Mortis Ghost, from the tags! If anybody has additions or edits for anything that might be a little off wrong, feel free!

Batter’s real name is “The Batter” / “Le Batteur”

Batter “sees the player as an efficient tool to help him in his quest”

Does the Batter look like a monster or is it symbolic? “This is the entire point of the game: do we see someone different when we know them? Do we see them as uglier if we know them?”

Batter is not the same being as the elsens

Bad Batter is asexual; as for the Batter being asexual, “It’s complicated, but he could be.”

Batter is an Aries

Batter is “not a fun guy”

Batter doesn’t exist before the beginning of the game

The first time the Batter and the Queen meet is during the final boss battle with the Queen

Batter x Zacharie is possible in an alternate universe

Zacharie likes the Batter; “[Zacharie] is a nice guy, he likes a lot of people”

Sucre “can be a lesbian if she wants”

Batter would not dab

Zacharie would dab

Zacharie could have a very large collection of masks

Nothing is wrong with Zacharie’s neck, he just has a large neck

Zacharie is Capricorn or Cancer

Valerie is very shy, the opposite of the Judge

The add-ons are physically like halos. They are the physical incarnation of promises, or friendship links, between Hugo and the Guardians

Enoch has a Russian accent

Hugo is holding meat, not a blanket

The black substance coming out of an elsen’s neck is “black matter”, “like engine oil”, “something very messy and black”

[outofoxygen]

SO mortis ghost just finished a stream for those who missed it here are some interesting bits:

inspirations

Silent hill was a major inspiration. For instance, a lot of the music was inspired by it. Also, near Enoch, there are two rooms, one to the left one to the right, that are shaped like S H respectively. The Aries ending was very influenced by Silent Hill.

Killer 7

he was inspired by a lot of japanese artists, especially hideo kojima

tidbits about the game 

mortis chose an orange x for the title screen simply because it looked cool

he likes Japhet’s music best

apparently there was a glitch where if you tried to talk to Zacharie from the side in one of the train stations, you would move slower for the whole rest of the game

Alma is a real station in Brussels

mortis thinks Sucre’s outfit is the best

this line by the Judge is taken from the song “We Will Become Silhouettes”

mortis wanted to avoid too many puzzles with numbers, but by the end he was tired and out of ideas

He likes the official ending more, but more people in chat voted for the Judge ending, and he said its nice because that’s voting for hope

Somewhere over the Rainbow was chosen for the end because there is a link between the game and the Wizard of Oz, he says figure out the link yourself

characters

Enoch never actually changes size, it’s just perspective shifts

The Batter has just two eyes; the lines above his eyes are eyebrows (jokingly: he’s sleeping all the time so his eyes are closed)

The Batter does have hair, it’s just very short black hair

The Batter was created when the game starts as a puppet for the player.

Therefore, the first time he met Hugo and the Queen was when he was fighting them

so when the queen says “you will not lay a hand on the son who brought us into the world” she is not including the batter in the “us”

The Batter’s appearance does not change in the Special Ending, it’s just what the player is being shown that changes

mortis claims he “doesnt know” the relationship between Zacharie and Sucre

the answer to the relationship between Zacherie and Sucre is “in your kokoro”

People in chat wanted to know if Sucre represents something; he said not really, she’s just herself

Chat was saying things like “sucre is the trans icon we all need” and otherwise talking about Sucre being trans, he was basically “why not?”

Likewise, he said why not to any ideas for the Batter’s sexuality

Zacharie may survive post game; when asked, mortis just said “maybe” repeatedly

Hugo is cuddling meat not a blanket 

(said jokingly) The Batter hates anime, would not dab, and likes dad jokes

Zacharie on the other hand, would dab

The Batter would be an Aries and Zacharie would be a Cancer

story/lore

The game takes place on post apocolypse Earth

The internet no longer exists

After you run away from Enoch, if you look around before going to the train, the world is starting to turn black and white already. This is because Enoch as a guardian powers the zone, and he is exhausted from chasing you

The add ons are the physical form of the promises the guardians made to Hugo, as well as their friendship

mortis said the focus was on telling a story over sending a particular message; that the story comes first and then any messages come through it

things he enjoys

Steven Universe

Yuri on Ice

Naruto

(But never watched Fullmetal Alchemist)

Japanese animation in general

Yume Nikki

Animal Crossing

Cave Story (loves but never finished)

other

mortis is a contraction of his first and last name, and he loves ghosts

He still likes OFF, but has more criticisms about it now

mortis enjoys seeing cosplayers a lot

The thing he’s most proud of from OFF is the community

someone in chat said “I feel like mortis is dissapointed in the fanbase” and he was like WHAT NO please don’t think that

Hes happy so many people like it even tho he made it when he “was a baby mortis ghost”

at E3 he wants to see: easy games, Captain Falcon, F Zero (with slow motion moves), Metroid, Despacito 2

He doesnt like pineapple on pizza, but doesnt judge people who do

he wants to create another game, not in the same universe, but just in general he really wants to

This has vertical banners to celebrate the 10th aniversary

He created a free comic called Dr Cataclysm he encourages people to look at

There MIGHT be more streams in the future, but no promises

He named his character my dude which led to such great lines as “What have you done, my dude?” and

[outofoxygen]

a brief thought

Les Rallizes Dénudés need more attention.. pretty good band, little known.

[outofoxygen]

A Critical Analysis of CONFINIUM Act 1

“Bis Vincit, Qui Se Vincit in Victoria”

Yep, we’re off on a detour to talk about another OFF fangame! Just do note I’ll try to put aside the fact that CONFINIUM is, in my eyes, probably the greatest OFF fangame made so far. Well, let’s go.

Part One: Synopsis

I forgot to do this for HOME, and I greatly regret that. I also regret that I might spoil the plot of CONFINIUM Act 1 through this; so, please go and play the game before you read further.

Alright. The plot of CONFINIUM Act 1 is this: The main character (Pilot; that’s not his name, but it’s unimportant to know his real name) has the goal of defending 3 Zones from all hostile forces, foreign or domestic. After the introduction, you are sent to Zone Jupiter; an 5th Zone technically.

You then meet your second character, Navigator (his name is also unimportant), who gives you the combat tutorial before you both fly off. You are then sent to Zone Saturn, where you encounter ectoplasmic entities and the mysterious Alpha. You then head back to Zone Jupiter.

It turns out the spectres have raided Jupiter while you were gone. You eventually make your way to a swamp, where you pick up a third character (named the Toad Prince), and head off towards a hospital. You enter, blunder around, then meet with Omega, and after a nice scuffle, you are sent off to Zone Pluto, to kill Epsilon.

Zone Pluto is most entirely empty, and after a long while wandering about, you eventually enter the mysterious Theatre. It is here that Epsilon will be fought; first, there are questions to answer about the Frog Prince. After you answer them, Epsilon is to be fought and beaten. After defeating him, you complete a few unique puzzles before reaching one of the most unique battles to exist in an OFF fangame.

You fight an amalgamation of the Add-Ons, Trinity. It takes place in a minigame that looks visually similar to the Magic Pipe minigame; it also bears heavy resemblance to a classic shooter-style game. After you shoot it down, it crashes into the Nothingness, splitting a barrier between the Three Zones of OFF and the Three Zones of CONFINIUM. Altogether, it’s amazing and I’d recommend it in a heartbeat.

Part Two: Characters

Pilot (XT-98) is quite the interesting character. He is devoted to his duties as a servant to the Crown, and genuinely believes he’s fighting for the greater good. He has almost a child-like innocence surrounding him, and is quite balanced against his companion, Navigator. However, sometimes, it seems that his innocence and cheer can break under strain.

Pilot is rather good in combat, and he doesn’t suffer from immense stat/skill weakness. He is rather balanced, and his competences are set similarly to the Batter. He uses an revolver, along with Navigator, has a rather good-looking combat sprite.

Navigator (XT-71) is also a unique character. He appears to be more cynical than his compatriot, Pilot, and acts more maturely than Pilot does. He has, of course, discipline and dedication to the cause of His Majesty’s crown. 

Navigator functions well in combat. He works akin to Alpha, which is an Add-On I nearly revere just because of his major applicability in combat, which should give you an idea what my stance towards Navigator is combat-wise. He has a good battle sprite, and generally is well-rounded.

Frog Prince is the third character you get. He is a child, who is rather ill. He generally is somewhat unmemorable and sadly rather stock for a child character. Altogether, he sadly doesn’t feel like he can ‘fit in’ with the world.

Frog Prince functions similarly to Omega, with condition cures and esoteric attacks. However, Omega had some competence problems, and as such so does Frog Prince. His combat sprite, however, is not that bad. He uses hockey sticks in combat.

There are three new guardians: Naamah, Guardian of Zone Saturn; Lamashtu, Guardian of Zone Jupiter; and Sucre, Guardian of Zone Pluto. What’s that? is an OFF fan raising their eyebrow at me mentioning Sucre as a new guardian? Well, I don’t have a good way of stating that she’s the guardian of Zone Pluto, so I marked her as a ‘new guardian’.

Naamah is the first Guardian you talk to, and generally seems most brash. She has the most Dedan-like personality of the three, and even mistakenly attacks you in her introduction. Her design is unique, and she stands out enough to be unique-looking.

Lamashtu is the second Guardian you get to meet, and she is infinitely more calm than the first Guardian mentioned. However, I noticed something. Her design is obviously reminiscent of a ‘kitsune’ as portrayed in anime; I looked it up, and the first humanoid picture that showed up indeed agreed with this hypothesis.

Sucre is the third Guardian; you will be introduced to her in Zone Pluto have probably remembered her from OFF. She is pretty much just herself from OFF, but with more dialogue. Her dialogue is still rather short.

Part Three: Basic Enemies

The enemies all fit in with OFF’s style and feel, and they aren’t overpowered. Generally, they all have unique descriptions for Wide Angle. The competences have interesting names, and good animations. Altogether, the enemies you get to fight in the game are interesting-looking and would fit in with OFF rather well. There’s not much else to say about them.

Part Four: Merchants

I’m doing merchants separately from characters to explain something I don’t like about how people do OFF fangame merchants. Lore is in Part Five, by the way.

Omni is the merchant in this game. Zacharie is just a secondary character, to put it simply. Omni’s design is interesting, looks unique, et cetera. Same compliments I gave in Characters. HOWEVER.

I feel like people believe merchants that aren’t Zacharie have to be portrayed one-or-two-ways. Let me give an idea of what I’m talking about. For this, most people only see a road splitting two separate ways. The left way is to make your merchant Zacharie reskinned and renamed. The right way is to try to go for something different, and cast a gamble on whether or not your character is appealing.

CONFINIUM’s dev, if you are reading this, I love your game. You are one of the best developers I’ve ever seen. Now then, Omni clearly fits too damn well with the left path. He’s one of those witty-and-quirky-merchant-that-breaks-the-fourth-wall characters that seep into some otherwise good fangames. It’s an cancer too many developers fail to excise from otherwise good fangames. HOME has a tumor in the form of Viola, a specialty merchant. 

Let me go on to the second cancer: just making Zacharie your merchant. It’s a poor excuse to not have to gamble for uniqueness, and the one thing that prevents making a Zacharie clone from being the worst type of OFF fangame merchant. It’s a sad thing to see someone do; it doesn’t allow you to do something original. At least Omni and Viola have new personalities; once you play OFF, you’ve talked to every Zacharie merchant in every fangame.

The unique path is something I’ve seen done twice: Continue Stop Rise has a sweet old lady as their merchant, and However has a strange butterfly man that calls himself your God, and the embodiment of capitalism. (He also declares you shall go to hell if you refuse to hand him credits.)

We need more unique merchants in our fangames. Just take the gamble, no one will think less of you for it. Well, that was a fine rant about what I hate. Now I’ve got to pray someone notices it..

Part 5: Lore

CONFINIUM’s lore focuses on the 3 other Zones, and mostly consists of building them up. King Batter (or His Majesty) owns a military force, and is using it to fight the spectres. The Toad King gives two of the three guardians gifts for the King, which ultimately poison and kill His Majesty.

I’m not sure what else I can really state; I don’t want to pad out this review after the ‘Merchants’ section. Oh well.

Part 6: Does This Game Fit In With OFF?

I would say yes. It has the feel of OFF. It has a similar quirky vibe, and it has the style Mortis Ghost employed to make OFF. The art design for the three other zones is unique and stands out against the standard OFF asset-using fangames well. However, this is only Act 1, so I can’t fully state.

Part 7: Conclusion

CONFINIUM is a great game. I cannot deny that. I am eagerly awaiting Act 2, and I want to know if the developer is planning any other projects in the meantime. However, there are some problems I’ve mentioned. The merchant is sadly just a reskinned and renamed Zacharie, Sucre is literally just copied from OFF, and Lamashtu is strangely just an kitsune in OFF.

Either way, I’d recommend it. It’s the closest to top-of-the-shelf we have in our OFF-themed games we have (with OFF being the only thing I can think beating it) so far, and it doesn’t suffer from any major drawbacks.

It’s an excellent game, quite the cut above some other fangames. It stands out, and it’s a well-designed experience. It’s not among the strange and unique fangames, but not everything can be as odd as However and NEW.

[outofoxygen]

An Critical Analysis of HOME

“I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” -Space Funeral; derived from Network

HOME is an OFF fangame made by Felix, may his soul rest in peace. His work is one of the most well-known OFF fangames, and is generally one of the most well-loved. I don’t like it, at all. So I shall eviscerate it. (Oh, and I spelt CONFINIUM wrong.)

Part One: Characters

The first character I shall start with is the Judge. Now, the Judge is one of the most well-loved characters in OFF, for good reason. He is witty, intelligent, enigmatic, mysterious, and knowledgeable. He’s altogether one of the best characters in OFF. However, he makes for a poor protagonist. How?                   Well, the main the problem with having the Judge as a protagonist is that one of his main attractive features is his enigmatic and mysterious behaviors, which are enabled mainly by his knowledge and intelligence. Whilst you can write the Judge as a intelligent protagonist, the main problem with making him a protagonist or even mainly playable is this: You remove his mystery and enigma.                                                                                                                    A protagonist, by nature, reveals their thoughts and knowledge to the observer, and even more so in games. The Judge is a mystery because he has knowledge that you don’t, and a whole story to him you don’t know. He’s altogether mysterious because he’s opaque, whilst Felix made him transparent with HOME. This kills his allure as a character. At least he’s still somewhat verbose.

Another major point is that he’s not that good in combat. The Judge is lacking in competence power, with only physical and special (or magical) attacks; yes, you can argue this allows him to engage both physical and spiritual enemies, it limits his ability to the party damage-dealer, when there are some characters better at doing immense damage per turn.

I shall now go to Alain. Alain is probably one of the better-written characters in HOME, and he generally conveys the idea of an churlish, starved cat. He is practical and has the ability to keep himself rather calm, but he also lacks strong morals and clearly doesn’t concern himself too hard with his fellowship’s opinions or worries. However, his backstory is painfully edgy, and his meeting and dialogue seem to convey an general ‘grimdark’ feel for him, though he thankfully drops this motif later on.

I can sing the praises of Alain’s potency in combat any day. He is, luckily enough, one of the most powerful characters you can obtain, rivaled only by Valerie, The Batter, and Alpha. He possesses one of the greatest utility competences imaginable in the form of Leeching Palpate, which allows him to continue absorbing health from the opponent whilst his party dies around him, along with the only Neutral attack in the game, thus ensuring that Shredding Palpate (which reduces enemy resistance to Claw attacks) is effective against mostly any opponent, except those already resistant to Claw (which their resistance will get degraded anyways).Thus, he is possibly the most versatile fighter in the game.

Valerie. He is mostly notable as The Judge’s brother, who dies in-game due to Japhet. In HOME, you can save him... after Japhet gets to his 2nd phase. At least it’s not the phase where Valerie is completely gutted, but I’d like to know something. Can anyone explain how he’s supposed to be alive after having his throat and innards mangled by a bird? Also, Mortis Ghost stated that Valerie was shy and soft-spoken, whilst in HOME, he keeps talking. Talking and talking and talking.

Oh boy. Valerie’s combat prowess. Aside from a death rate rivaling Epsilon, he’s obviously a glass cannon. He has one of the best potentials for damage, practically converting him into a nuclear warhead just through spamming a Break, then using the correlating Aneurysm to lash at the opponent with immense power, rendering them lying bloody and brainless on the ground.

On to Jozlyn! Now then, let me immediately ruin all potential to beat around this bush: Jozlyn is an annoying idiotic mess that makes me want to strangle her and myself. She is basically what happens when you grab an funnel and force the whole ‘LOLrandom!’ archetype and a stock ‘girl’ personality into a cat. She is the token female character of the cast, which OFF didn’t require or use. Not only that, but her ‘quirk’ of constantly adding ‘:3′ to every single damn line that the world had the misfortune of existing is disgusting and disturbing, at the very least.

Jozlyn might be forgivable if she is at least usable in combat. Maybe she can one-shot something? Is she an massively useful quasi-enemy targeting character, like Epsilon? No. No to both of these hopeful dreams. I almost gag thinking of having to use her in combat. Her main skills makes it evident that Felix couldn’t even THINK of making her slightly strong. Whilst Epsilon had rather weak multi-target attacks, not only could he not run his mouth 24/7, but also he had the advantage of something called ‘buffs’. Jozlyn just stole Omega’s ability to use curing competences and ran off.

The Batter. I’d imagine everyone who has played OFF has a strong opinion of him. Is he a mass murderer? Is he just someone trying to end an broken world before it can get worse? Is he a child murderer? Well, ignoring these questions, you can say something: He’s a stoic, dedicated, pious man, who is short-sighted, doesn’t care about the means, and is too blinded by his goal of perfect purity to care about the harm he causes. Of course, his personality is wiped in HOME. How, you might ask. Well, consider the following:                                        Given that we’re playing from the Judge’s point of view, he’s the enemy. However, it seems that Felix ignored that he has a personality, he’s got goals, and he’s not just some thoughtless mass-murderer. He is at the very least morally ambiguous, yes, but just having him be the dedicated typical evil archetype dilutes the narrative of OFF heavily.

Now, you might wonder, how can you state the mechanics and ability of an enemy as I have with the playable characters? What, are you going to say he’s too easy or strong or something? Well, the Batter is playable in the later part of Zone 2 leading up to the boss fight, and OH YESSSSS. He’s immensely strong, tears down enemies quickly, and comes with Alpha, who has the ability to endlessly heal your party. The downside is they’re AI controlled, but still, he’s not awful, he’s a LIVING GOD. Now then, time to move on from characters.

Part Two: Themes and Genres

HOME has some pretty obvious themes and genres, like OFF. They’re both quirky, surrealist role-playing games that have dark themes, like death. OFF pulls this off (haha) well, and OFF is, in my opinion, able to prime itself off of dark humor. Whilst yes, you can disagree with me on this, in my eyes, it is consistent of dark humor: it subverts some of the darker parts with comedy, such as Enoch is an absolutely detestable, merciless, and evil potential-metaphor-for-capitalist-businessmen, but he has an hilariously small face and an very notable way of speaking that highlights some of the humorous prospects of him.

Dedan is able to abuse his Zone’s denizens/elsen, but he is not only rather hilarious to read the lines of, but his incessant swearing and vibrant expressions of speech give him an obvious personality, and adds some comedy to him. As such, I rest my case that OFF involves dark humor heavily.

Now then, I don’t think HOME is good at this at all. The first thing I don’t like is that most of both Dedan and Enoch’s lines are torn right out of OFF, and it’s very heavily notable. I didn’t like the fact that Dedan and Enoch just use butchered versions of their canon implementations, and it’s absolutely awful.

HOME is even worse at adding in black comedy, with its general tendency to seem pretentious (with the whole forcing-you-to-walk-through-purified-zones and having The Witness, or Edna, try to tearjerk you for things the Batter did, not you), and even worse, it takes itself too seriously. It’s annoyingly haughty, and it tries to leave an impact it can’t. What’s even worse in my eyes is the fact that it has to include an credit song that’s supposed to be sad, just because one was in OFF.

OFF made it so I can’t listen to Judy Garland without bursting into tears, but HOME didn’t have that impact. Another, more severe problem, is that in the true ending of the game, the world gets fixed again, and everything’s happy. That’s too sappy, it’s not the dark game I came for. OFF seems to be able to point out the fact that if we don’t stop a destructive force, then it will ruin everything to the point where we can’t repair it. HOME undermines this with the whole damn happy ending sludge that tosses away one of the most profound parts of OFF. 

Yes, it’s nice to have hope, it’s nice to have games that end with hopeful endings. I know that barely anyone can handle continual barrages of hopelessness, sadness, and misery, but it’s OFF! We’re talking about one of the more dark indie games you can find out there! We are not talking about some damned happy-go-lucky good funtime game. We’re talking about Unproductive FunTime’s greatest, most recognized work, not some damn stupid romp-in-the-fields-of-happiness-and-sunshine by an AAA developer!

Part Three: Plot

HOME has a simple plot: basically, it’s OFF but you’re the Judge. You’re not purifying anything, just wandering around casually and killing spectres, ghouls, and burnts. You fight the Guardians, then wander into the purified zones, before entering an semi-trippy area, before reaching towards the end. So... what’s wrong with HOME? Well, guess what! It tries too hard!

HOME added an Fourth Zone. Whilst this is no problem normally, (in fact, the fangame CONTINUUM does this rather well with 3 zones! And yes, I just gave a shout-out to CONTINUUM.) HOME makes Zone 4 (or Bordeaux) grimdark and edgy to the point it makes Alain’s semi-edgy appearance in the beginning look happy-go-lucky. It’s a GRIM SAD WORLD that has elsen committing suicide left-and-right, gun-elsen, and, worst of all, an wannabe guilt-tripper true guardian who is rather annoying, and lacks an personality. Or a reason to be, just like Bordeaux.

Then, afterwards, HOME basically takes a fat ol’ hit, and announces: “Dude, like, what if you had to wander about those purified zones? That’s, like, deep, man.” So that’s what it does. Yep, you have to stroll through those zones you didn’t purify, fighting transparent shades of guardians. Yay. Whilst grinding through actually good-looking plague doctors. Yay.

Finally, skipping to the end, HOME gives you the Judge either interrupting the Batter at the switch-point, or him about to slaughter Hugo. Of course, you get either to the bad end or the good end, respectively, so it depends whether you get the ‘hooray yay happy’ ending or the OFF-style ending. So, you don’t really get the choice of siding with the Judge or not.

Part 4: Supporting Cast, and Main Enemies

For any OFF fan, Zacharie is one of the most notable supporting characters, given his mercantilism and natural charisma. HOME adds a new merchant. Oh boy. They keep Zacharie, and the new merchant, Viola, isn’t purely awful.

Now then, on to my FAVORITE part. The notable bosses. Dedan is still an loudmouth that has a tendency to hit elsen, whilst Japhet is rather new. Japhet is now, instead of being an mainly tragic character, just an insane evil douche who wants to kill Valerie. Oh no. Enoch, my favorite OFF character, is luckily untainted by any filth, due to his small screentime.

The Queen still uses the monologue style that was interesting and new in OFF, but predictable in HOME. She still has original and new dialogue, but instead of fighting someone who destroyed her world, she’s just angsty about the fact that the Judge kinda softened in up for the Batter accidentally. At the very least, the Queen has interesting dialogue at the end, now. You even get a choice at the end of it, and that’s beautiful.

Sadly, I don’t think there’s really any opponents left, but there also isn’t really any supporting cast. So I’ve got to wonder: What else do I have to list for this short section? Nothing. So, on we go.

Part 5: HOME’s Basic Enemies, and Combat

HOME, for the most part, uses OFF’s combat system due to having the same engine. HOME, however, has different enemies and competences, obviously striking something new (just like how CONFINIUM has new competences, that are also good!) and original. The enemies are interesting to observe, and truly help to build a feel for the game. They have interesting-sounding and looking competences, and they have great designs, as mentioned.

HOME is not only superb at this, but even excels to a point it should be looked at for an idea of how to make competences for OFF fangames, and for looking at good designs for monsters that fit in with OFF’s aesthetic and feel. Given that I’ve spent quite a bit insulting HOME, I can still announce that it gets OFF’s enemy and competence feel right.

Part 6: Did Felix get OFF’s Feel Right?

Hell yeah. HOME does feel like an OFF fangame, and it does things that are unique and interesting, like any good OFF fangame. HOME conveys OFF’s feel with the ability Felix had to not only draw OFF’s style of art, but he sometimes even nails the quirky writing that OFF had. The music of HOME fits in remarkably with the game, and it sounds like Alias teamed up with someone else to produce music for the game.

HOME also has the good luck to have been made by someone so creative, as Felix was truly able to design new areas. The maps for Zone 4 fit in well with the areas Felix made, and so do the new book pictures. HOME just has an excellent feel, and I can see Mortis Ghost actually announcing it as the spiritual successor to OFF. There are, of course, other fangames that are also equally beautiful and appreciable, such as CONFINIUM, which I wholeheartedly recommend, and even plan on analyzing later; DOLL, which, despite its anime-style and strange characters, is appreciable; Continue Stop Rise is enjoyable, and is fun to play; and Play Ball is a humorous game intended as a joke game, but it isn’t finished, like CONFINIUM.

But, Felix had a good sense of feel and lore for OFF, and applied this to HOME. However, I do believe it’s time I head to the conclusion, no?

Part 7: The Conclusion.

HOME is an enjoyable fangame. The characters (especially Jozlyn) are not the best (except Alain), and the plot has an ending that tosses OFF’s main point out, but it’s playable, and Felix definitively knew how to write rather well. He was able to write excellent lore and establish an nearly perfect feel for his game. HOME has unique monster designs, and nice competences. You can enjoy the game, and you could potentially cry at some of the turns in the plot.

It’s a lovable fangame, and it seems to actually strike its way out well in the general nice lineup of fangames, especially given its general acclaim in the fandom. HOME could’ve done quite a lot better, and some of its characters and themes were poor, but it was never truly awful. I’ve seen worse games, you’ve probably seen worse games. It deserves its place among the lineup of good OFF fangames, and I must say that you should play it if you haven’t.

Either way, HOME is still good, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to play an OFF fangame. CONFINIUM, in my eyes, is a good fangame for an OFF fan who loves the style of OFF’s storytelling a darker themes, but HOME is more suitable for a general audience.

All in all, my verdict on it is that HOME is good, and I’d recommend playing it. It’s beautiful with its general feel that truly rivals OFF, and it’s got select dialogue that’s excellent.

[outofoxygen]

Hello, developer of BURNT here. I'd like to try to relieve some pressure by updating you all on something: a character design. This is Jericho. You'll probably know him by the end of the game, ah ah. He's the "Chief of the Spectres", if I'm correct. Well, that's all for now. Expect more shortly.