Category: Reviews

More JIGComp

The Jay is Games IF competition is now over, and winners announced. I got to disappointingly few of the games before the end.

I did play both Hoosegow and Roofed before the end, though, and Dual Transform I beta-tested, so that means I actually lucked into playing the top six games. Some thoughts about those games after the cut (mildly spoilery, but the real specifics are rot13’d).

Continue reading “More JIGComp”

Recent Playing: Ka, Vanitas, various XBox games

I’ve been moving horribly slowly through the JIGComp games and will probably not finish all of them. I did play all of Dan Efran’s “Ka”, however, and liked it enough that I have put my review over on IFDB.

On my iphone, I’ve been — playing is the wrong word. Tinkering around with the experiential artwork “Vanitas”, produced by Tale of Tales. Again, it’s not really a game, and this time it’s also not really a story, even in the vaguest sense: the app provides a virtual wooden box you can open and close. Each time you open it, there’s something new inside: a collection of odd objects, from coins and feathers and needles to skulls and flowers. The idea is an evocation of those old master vanitas still-life paintings, the ones that are supposed to remind us of the mortality of flesh and the brevity of human existence. I always really liked those for their elegance and technique. The “Vanitas” app functions in much the same way. You can play around with the objects in the box, turn them over with a prod of your finger, prick the soap bubble. Rotate the phone and they slide over one another. Things like that. It’s appealing for more or less the same reason that the paintings are, if you like those sorts of thing.

My XBox crusade continues, and I’ve tried Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (really so very much not for me); more of Fallout 3 (we are nearly done now, I think); Assassin’s Creed 2; and Rise of the Argonauts. Rise of the Argonauts makes me see in funny colors: the ways they’ve rewritten the mythology are not in support of especially compelling gameplay or story. Assassin’s Creed 2 has a silly framing story, but gets much better after that; I’ve only played a couple of hours, but I’m much enjoying the characterization of the protagonist (who seems to have been lifted from one of the spare non-speaking Montagues, and is keen on punching other young Italian men, and wooing women at balconies). Even better, it’s all about scampering around and over a period-accurate version of Florence. I’ll probably have more to say about that, and about Fallout 3, later.