ONE LAST GAME: to think games beyond pure entertainment

ONE LAST GAME is an intense 3 Minute game where you play a final game of checkers with a loved One.

Created for the GMTK Game Jam 2020, in ONE LAST GAME you find yourself sitting down at a table in-front of a checkers board with an old and rather unhappy man sat across from you. You proceed to play checkers, but it soon becomes apparent why your companion is so unhappy – there’s a war going on outside. It only takes three minutes to play through One Last Game but it’s a powerful experience that will stay with you for a long time afterward.

Check the full gameplay below:



This game is an experiment that can prove how powerful games can be to cast serious messages and some thinking about contemporary themes. ONE LAST GAME it is an excellent proof of how games can be media and convey content to broad audiences.

#GoGamers

Source of Madness: elevating the roguelike experience

Source of Madness is a side-scrolling dark action roguelike game set in a twisted Lovecraftian inspired world, and powered by procedural generation and AI machine learning. Basically, each time you enter a run inside the gaming world, you will find a completely new scenario with new monsters, challenges, treasures, and achievements. Even the creatures are always changing in Source of Madness; if you play it a thousand times, you will probably find a thousand different types of enemies.



Have a look into the Source of Madness’s mood and esthetics below:



I think I played very few games with a somber atmosphere like this one. The dark scenario with a disturbing soundscape made of monsters screams offers an experience that few platform games of this category can present.

This game touched my gamer heart in a special way: it received a lot of negative reviews because of the chaotic gameplay and interface, but, for me, it’s the big feature from the game. This roguelike is unique in its composition and programming. But the use of AI machine learning and procedural generation is nothing without the storytelling component. The uniqueness of the game comes from a perfect balance between the gaming architecture and the obscure Lovecraftian narrative full of mysterious (and bizarre) cutscenes and the direct references to the ancient ones from Mr. Howard Philips's mind.

Source of madness is a great example of good use of technology to create an immersive experience. However, it’s a great example, too, of how to blend the narrative layer with good mechanics that comes from the gaming code.

This game is in my top 3 from this year. Another indie game. One more for my list.

#GoGamers

The mysterious (and dark) experience of SILT

Silt is, undoubtedly, the most interesting game I played this year. It is an exploration game set in a surreal oceanic void where you need to possess aquatic creatures around you with a strange soul energy to solve environmental puzzles and travel deeper into the darkness. The gaming objective is to face giant deep-sea goliaths and harness their power to awaken a long-dormant force at the core of the abyss.



The narrative is full of strangeness in a scenario full of old creatures’ statues, unexplored ruins, and ancient machinery. The monochromatic elements in the stages were created by the artist Mr. Mead (you can check his work here) and it is an awesome feature of the game. The sound design is also another point to highlight: in Silt there is no music, we experience a kind of a soundscape that follows our path into the abyss.



The narrative doesn’t deliver a full explanation about what is happening, who are you, why are you diving in this dark world. But it doesn’t matter. Silt invites us to be co-authors of its narrative. Following some ideas from Dansky (2007, p.5), it is possible to say that “On the most basic level, narrative strings together the events of the game, providing a framework and what can alternately be called a justification, a reason, or an excuse for the gameplay encounters. At its best, the narrative pulls the player forward through the experience, creating the desire to achieve the hero’s goals and, more importantly, see what happens next”. The blend between the mysterious narrative and the beautiful-grotesque scenario is an ideal approach to create immersion through the stages.



Spiral Circus, the studio behind Silt, made a piece of art and an excellent example of how important the gaming indie scene is for contemporary times. I’m finishing the third level and am already sad for the end of the game. One thing is certain: this is a game I’ll play more than one time.

#GoGamers
#GoSilt
#GoSpiralCircus

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Reference:

DANSKY, Richard. Introduction to game narrative. BATEMAN, Chris (editor). Game Writing: narrative skills for videogames. Boston: Thomson, 2007.

Indie game of the month: STILSTAND

I’m always searching for strange indie games and, yesterday, I found this small treasure: STILSTAND. Well, in fact it’s not a game per se; it’s a kind of a dark, whimsical, and absurd interactive comic created by artist Ida Hartmann, exploring the despair and loneliness of a young woman living alone through a long summer in Copenhagen. You can check the trailer below:



The plot is simple, but the narrative is immersive and full of current issues from contemporary society. Amid the desire for isolation, there’s still a hope that one day, things will change for the main character. To reach this, she will receive some help from a bizarre shadow monster that lives in her apartment.

STILSTAND is a personal and hand-drawn tale about the high expectations and the fragile limbo of feeling stuck in life. It is a whimsical and absurd portrayal of anxiety, loneliness, and despair, and brings the player along on an adventure into the emotional landscape of a lost soul.



As I mentioned, it’s more a visual novel with a comic book layout structure. Most of the time you only click on the screen to move forward the dialogues/situations. Sometimes, there are few small puzzles very easy to decipher – but this is not the core of the game. STILSTAND is one experience to enjoy slowly and think about the crazy times we are living in.

Thirty-seven years ago, when I got my first video game (Atari), games were only about monsters, shootings, car racings, puzzles etc. Little Vince, at that time, never thought that, one day, he would play games with themes like depression, suicide, dementia etc. As I always say: games are media and part of contemporary culture. Games are mediums of expression and powerful platforms to send serious messages, too.

Thanks to the indie gaming industry for bringing us an exotic experience like this one. Not only an experience of entertainment, but a product that brings us to reflect about some common problems around us.

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•Platforms: iOS, PlayStation 4, Android, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, Macintosh operating systems 

 #GoGamers

STENA - mobile game (teaser trailer)

In November I will launch my new mobile game: STENA! Final tests are on the run! STENA is a reimagined version of the classic PONG arcade; but, instead of horizontal paddles settled for a two-player match, STENA has a circular scenario where, in solo mode, the player must defend the core of each stage with multiple paddles rotating 360º.

Check the teaser traier below:



#GoGamers

The Witness

Jonathan Blow is the game designer behind Braid, one awesome 2D platform game that uses time distortion as gameplay. In Braid, you can manipulate time to avoid death, solve puzzles, send a shadow to the future to perform an action, create “bubbles” of time lapse and many others cool mechanics. It’s one of my top 10 games. Check the trailer below:



In January of this year, Blow launched his new game: The Witness. Similar to Braid, it’s a puzzle game, but in a first person point of view. The mysterious narrative puts you in an abandoned and colorful island, full of digital screens. Each screen has a kind of an enigma that conducts you to the next one. Each puzzle solved gives you a small piece about the enigmatic history. You can check the main idea in the game’s trailer:



Points to highlight in the experience of the game:

1) Jonathan Blow recreates the classic mechanics of drawing a line through a labyrinth. Using colors, spatial restrictions, different shapes and logical reasoning, the game designer put the players’ mind to work, many times. The level of resolution of some puzzles is impressive.



2) The scenario is part of the narrative, and it works as a tool. Every single detail and object in the ambient contributes with the history. The island is full of statues and behind them there are hints for the plot. There are also some digital recorders with voices saying facts about the place. The colors of the trees, the direction of the light, the passing of time etc. everything could be an element for the story.

3) The game is full of references from movies, literature and other games. I found lots of similarities with Adolfo Bioy Casares’ “The Invention of Morel” book.

4) It’s a daring production. The Witness is a very artistic game. It explains little to the player and, most of the time, it’s essential to explore and use your mind to try to solve the puzzles.

I’m still playing the game, but the experience – till this moment – is strange, difficult and relaxing.

#GoGamers

Talking about my new mobile game DOMINAEDRO

Last week my new game, DOMINAEDRO, landed at the App Store. The game is a strategic puzzle that mixes dominoes and tic-tac-toe. It’s is an abstract battle between two players that uses pieces of domino as weapons.

The game, originally, was analogic and was launched as an independent title in the beginning of this year. After lots of positive reviews from Brazilian (and even European) sites I decided to transform the analogic version into a digital game.

The game is very simple and I will share the main idea of the rules below. The game’s grid is arranged with nine numbers randomly selected by the system. In a decreasing order: the highest number will be allocated in the center, intermediate values will be around the highest one, and lower values will be on the corners.



Your starting hand has 3 domino pieces. The player with the lowest sum of numbers in a single piece starts the game. On your turn, you must try to put a single piece in the grid respecting the following rules:

1) A number in a domino can only touch a piece with the same number, or lower, in the grid.
2) Like in a domino game, pieces connected on the grid must have the same numbers.
3) Every time you choose a piece, the system will point out the spaces allowed for allocating on the table.



You earn points by dominating a sum on the grid. For that, you should be the player with the highest sum of numbers around a value. In case of a tie, the sum of the second values of dominoes sets the winner. In case of a tie in both sides of the dominoes, the winner will be the player with more pieces.

The game ends when you cannot allocate more pieces on the grid. Each piece not allocated is worth -1 point. Values of the grid that were not completely surrounded by pieces are scored normally.

If a player has dominated all values in a row, column or diagonal, they win 4 extra points for each line. The player with the most points wins the game. Check a short video demo with the game mechanics below:



You can download DOMINAEDRO for free. Click here for more information. I’m waiting for your suggestions, critics and improvements.

Go gamers!