Night in the Woods (PC, 2017)

 "You're Mae. Your grandpa is dead. You're all alone at a station, somewhere in Possum Springs. Someone is blocking the door to the only way out. You need to give him something so he will move away."

Can a game be about that time when you've just become an adult, life feels like it's yours for the taking but also like you have no idea how to do it? Night in the Woods seems to think so.

The introductory quote is from my 10 yo and describes the very beginning of the game. Night in the Woods was a game I hoped we could play together, having the idea that it would be a nice little mystery-solving puzzler. But it's not really that and it's clear that me and my 10 yo experienced the game quite differently. But we both enjoyed it.

We follow the cat Mae as she moves back home to her backwater hometown of Possum Springs, one of those places that barely remembers its glory days of when things actually happened around there. Some of Mae's best friends still live there, working jobs that they hate, trying to make the escape that Mae has already made and returned from. A lot of the game is about their dynamic as a group of friends, the feeling of not knowing where you belong and navigating what it means to be an adult.

While Mae walks and jumps around her hometown, we converse with her parents, her old neighbours, people who knew her when she was a child and before she moved. We also find there is a kid missing and Mae starts to think that there is something weird going on - will people believe her or will they think she is just trying to get attention? We help our friends with their every day problems and try to rekindle the spark of being a teenager without a care in the world.

The smooth, popping graphics is one of the things that drew me to the game in the first place. It's fun to see the characters wag as they talk and the eyes rolling around in their heads as they're looking around. The game controls definitely feel optimized for a gamepad, on PC with regular WASD and spacebar for movement and C for interacting. The game keeps it really simple though and you will never struggle to do the right thing.

Personally I found that Night in the Woods had a good balance between mini-games and story. Mini-games is all you could call it really, you will find yourself in situations where you get to try to press the right thing at the right time. Maybe you're helping your friend move a sofa, maybe you are trying to steal a battery out of a car, maybe you're trying to stab your best friend in a play-knife-fight. Each mini-game is fun and didn't outstay its welcome. They didn't feel like they were necessary for the game either, but they were a nice way to break up the pace and make it not all about talking. To my kid it was too much talking.

But I was actually quite shocked at how much this game hit home with me. I am sure not everyone will identify with Mae's short story in Possum Springs, but to me it was like looking in a mirror. I have been in pretty much that situation, albeit for other reasons. Moving in to a small, back-water town. Hanging out with people who have lived there their whole life, none of us kids anymore, none of us quite yet getting the idea behind being an adult. We had these conversations, we had these thoughts and feelings. That juxtaposed sensation of being on top of the world and completely lost at the same time. Feeling like you're in your own little corner of life and no one understands you. Now, 20 years on from that part of my life, hanging out with Mae and her friends turned out to be a nostalgia hit for me I had not anticipated.

The 10 yo had fun with the mini-games and the mystery (because there is one, but it's not the main focus of the game), to me Night in the Woods turned out to be a bit more than just a handful hours of fun. It's worth noting that I played the "Weird Autumn Edition" which seems to be the definitive edition, a sort of director's cut which includes content that was cut from a previous version. I am not sure any other version is available any longer.

Reading up on the game before I started writing this I found out that there is a whole nother side to it that I won't be commenting on in this review, as it is completely unrelated to the game itself. 

I really enjoyed my stay in Possum Springs. We finished it at around 8,5 hours, and some of that was spent by my 10 yo not wanting to continue the story and just explore the tiny town. Your mileage might vary, depending on how your journey to adulthood turned out, but only requiring a few hours of your life I think you wouldn't regret checking this game out.

Here is a nice little short animation Youtuber Worldwidewebuser has up on Youtube.

GoldenEye N64 - A Retrospective

I love going to boot sales and flea markets, you never know what you are going to find. My hopes are always on video games (other than sports and The Sims games, they seems to be the only thing I find) and nostalgic stuff from the 90's. I was over the moon when I found a handful of Mighty Max stuff once. Or the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles Board Game.

A while back I went to a boot sale and actually found some interesting video games. Wetrix and GoldenEye for the N64. Wetrix I had only heard of (and trying it out it didn't seem particularly interesting) but GoldenEye... we go way back. I already own a copy, that I got as a kid and played to bits with my friends. I only own the cartridge though, and this copy was complete with box, manual, inlays and all. Of course I had to have it. As I was deciding to buy it, the seller - a man about my own age - came up to me and started chatting. It was obvious he was very reluctant to let go of the games, but I tried to ensure him they were going to a loving home.

As I came home I wanted to see if they worked. I have often thought back on all the fun I used to have with this game back in the day. We had all kinds of unofficial playing modes, like "Terminator" where one of us played with +10 health and everyone else was -10. With proximity mines or grenades there could be so much clutter effects you'd get serious slow downs. But thinking back I was still unsure how much it would hold up today. I had actually avoided revisiting it so that my memories of the game wouldn't be spoiled by the reality that it just wasn't very good anymore.

I thought maybe the graphics, the controls, the gameplay overall just weren't up to what I'd enjoy now, or maybe especially what my kids would enjoy coming to it without the rose-tinted goggles. I've revisited other loves of my youth and come out disappointed (the Narnia-series is an example).

But now I had to test my new copy, there was no reason to avoid it any longer. I sat down with my 10 yo and gave it a go. And we had so much fun.

Everything was just like I remembered it. If I had thought my modern self would have trouble with playing a shooter on the console I was dead wrong. The controls are just great. Sure aiming isn't perfect, but in multiplayer that just adds to the fun. The levels are well designed, the music is awesome. The weapons are fun and allow for fights that are more on the serious side or completely bonkers "let's blow ourselves and everything else up too"-type. My kid absolutely loved it. He never wanted to stop playing it. He hasn't wanted to play anything else with me since we tried it - this game has trumped Minecraft, Lego Jurassic World, Mario Kart 8, you name it.

My first console, but not my last.

This game hasn't even aged, it is just as good as it was when it was released and if you're sitting on a copy I really recommend you break it out with some friends. I still consider this one of the very best multiplayer experiences out there.

But I have a confession to make - I have never once played the single player mode of GoldenEye. I vaguely recall trying the first stage, but never even made it through that. With the multiplayer being as fun as it is, and considering how many hours I put into that part of the game I was a bit confused as to why I never got further into the main campaign. It's James Bond after all, one of my favorite franchises.

Revisiting the game made me want to give it another, or more honestly a first, real go. So I started up the first stage, The Dam, put it on easy and ran out to do some spying. Or so I thought. The controls are completely different from multiplayer and I struggled to move anywhere. Whereas you use the joystick to move and the L/R-button to target in multiplayer, in single player you use the joystick to target and the yellow buttons/D-pad to move. My brain could not wrap itself around this control scheme and I constantly aimed into the sky while I got shot in the face. 

No wonder I gave up so early. The control scheme is so bad I had completely scrubbed the experience from my brain. I just can't understand why they would go with two completely different ways of controlling you character, and then use the weird one for the main campaign. In a way I am glad they did though because I am sure we would've never spent all those hours playing multiplayer if it had used that way of controlling the characters. Playing old games, or PC ports of console games, I have had to get used to a lot of odd control schemes and I usually don't mind (having to use IJKL on Moonlighter recently was a new experience).

But this one wasn't just odd, it went contrary to endless hours of hardwiring in my brain and I realized I wouldn't be able to break through that muscle memory any time soon. I guess I am going to have to watch a Let's Play of the campaign instead.

AQUA: Biodiversity in the Oceans - Board Game Review

What if you play Cascadia, but under water? Well, let me introduce you to AQUA: Biodiversity in the Oceans. Any draft game will feel similar to other draft games to a certain extent, but AQUA borrows a lot of its identity from Cascadia - which is understandable since Cascadia has some great core ideas. It does mean however that unless you really love this game style specifically, you might not need AQUA if you already own Cascadia. But let's dig down a bit deeper, does AQUA have any original ideas as well?

The game in AQUA is to create underwater habitats/coral reefs to attract certain animals. To do this you draft hexagonal pieces of reef that need to be fitted with other pieces in certain ways to allow for you to place animal tokens. These habitat tokens look just like in Cascadia, even down to your starting zone, except one is on land and the other under water. One major difference here between AQUA and Cascadia is that where Cascadia allows you to put your habitat tokens wherever (you score more points for fitting them certain ways though), you must fit them following certain rules in AQUA. Also unlike Cascadia where you place animal tokens every turn, in AQUA you can only place an animal token once your habitat tokens line up to fill certain requirements.

At first you can attract smaller animals, and once they are placed in certain patterns you can attract larger animals for bigger points. There is a lot of strategizing when you choose between fast, small points or try to build for larger, harder to reach points - just like any good draft game should be. There are also a lot of optional requirements to meet for extra points. Trying to keep the end game in sight while making good choices here and now works well in AQUA. There isn't much antagonizing between players, while you can pick a habitat token you don't really need simply to mess with someone else's well laid plans, it's difficult to completely ruin someone's day like in LUDO. This is a big plus point for me as it's easier to convince my kids to play something where they'll always feel like they have a chance.

The game itself is heavy, literally - all the habitat and animal tokens are in gorgeous, chunky card board that are easy to handle and fun to look at, there is some great value for money here. When I first opened the box I was worried that all the tokens would be thrown around, since the game comes with no bags to hold them. Turns out the game itself provides you with a setup that you build inside the box that allows you to store your tokens just perfectly when you want to put your game away.

I mentioned in my review of Cascadia that even my 5 yo can play it with some minor help, this is even more true for AQUA where the playstyle is very adaptable depending on who you are playing with. In essence the game is just about matching colors and trying to build shapes. Me and my kids usually just play with the face value points, whereas more seasoned players can opt in for all the extra requirements to try to gather more points. Or not - the simplest form of AQUA is a nice, quick little fix of board gaming that works well, and is easy to set up, understand and play.

It seems to be standard nowadays that draft board games come with some sort of solo mode - a fascinating trend in board games, that I hope never goes away - and AQUA has one too of course. It doesn't change much of the setup, you simply play the game as usual but try to beat certain challenges. The rule book (which has a nice, luxurious feel to it) comes with an extensive highscore board to compete against other players, or just yourself like a chaser of points in a Tetris game.

AQUA borrows a lot from Cascadia but has its own identity, though maybe not enough unless you're really into this kind of gameplay. AQUA might even be even more adaptable to different skill levels but in the end the choice probably simply comes down to what you prefer - to play with bears or whale sharks?

Cascadia - Board Game Review

 As someone who loves to play board games, but is surrounded by people who mostly don't, I am always desperate to find anything that will encourage them to want to play with me. So when my 10 yo looks over my shoulders while I am on a board game hunt and says Cascadia "looks like a fun game", the small chance of having found a board game he'd want to play was all the excuse I needed to buy it. He is an extremely picky board game player.

He is really into animals of all kinds, so I can see what caught his interest. In Cascadia you are tasked to build a park, or biome if you prefer, and meet certain requirements to make your animals thrive. In reality you can place your wildlife tokes any way you like as long as you respect the limitations on the habitat token. A bear can only go on a token with a bear on it. But if you want the big-bomba-points you want to place your tokens very carefully and thoughtfully indeed, to meet your animals needs. Bears might only want to live in pairs and hawks don't want to be near any other hawks, for instance. It all translates to having to place your tokens according to certain patterns depending on which animal it is.

The habitat tokens in turn represent different areas of nature - river, forest, mountain and so on. Each token can represent one or more such areas. The more of these areas you connect together, the more points you score at the end, of course, and is yet another variable to factor in as you expand your park.

Cascadia is a drafting game, as such a certain amount of wildlife and habitat tokens are put up on the table for the players to draft in turn. This simple system has been twisted and turned around in loads of games by now, in Cascadia the trick is that habitat tokens and wildlife tokens are put into the pool together and you need to choose one combination. The habitat token might not come with the animal token you need, but that's how it goes and adds to the strategic thinking. The draft pool gets refreshed with each draft meaning there is no "last" person left with the bottom of the barrel, a game design choice I like for this game. 

Certain habitat tokens will reward you a pine cone token if you place an animal on top of them. The pine cones can be traded in for benefits during your drafting, such as altering your options - which often comes in handy when there is yet another fox in the draft pool and you really need that last salmon to finish your run.

And that is pretty much it. The easy set up and concept lends it well for playing it even with younger children. My 5 yo can play this, with some strategic help, since the basic idea is just to put the corresponding animal on the right picture on the habitat tokens. As such it is very easy to get into while there is a lot of strategizing to do if you really want to get the big points. As with most drafting games there is tactic in choosing between whatever you need next or whatever your opponent needs next. 

Overall however I find drafting games like Cascadia to be far less antagonistic than classic games like Monopoly or Ludo. While you can try to outmaneuver your co-players by drafting what they seem to need, it is difficult to completely prevent them from making any sort of progress. For better or worse the game is more about building your biomes individually and see whoever planned it out better, and less about sticking a wrench in someone else's works. This just makes it yet another reason why it works well to play with children, in my book.

Cascadia won Adult Game of the Year 2023 award here in Sweden and I can see why. It's easy get into, it's adaptable to play with people less experienced and you can easily dig deep trenches of strategy if you are so inclined. And who doesn't enjoy building parks? Apparently my 10 yo, as it turns out he doesn't like this game either (I really do though).

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes - I Waited 4 Years For This

Or at least close to.

As someone who really enjoyed Suikoden 1 and 2, I was immediately intrigued when I heard a spiritual successor by no one less than the original creator Yoshitaka Murayama was looking for funding on Kickstarter in mid-2020. This was also before I had had a few bad experiences with Kickstarter so I eagerly threw my money at a physical copy and started waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

To their credit, the development team were very informative and transparent about the ups and downs of the developmental process. So much in fact that I stopped reading the steady flow of updates that came to my inbox not long after I had backed the project. I realized that the game would either be a thing or not be a thing (as is the way with Kickstarter) and basically stopped thinking about it for a year. And another year.

I had genuinely given up hope on the whole thing towards the end of last year and sort of just started seeing the updates as another junk mail to delete. 

But then one of the updates caught my attention (fortunately). The subject line asked for my personal information so that my physical copy could be sent to me (and also to pay for shipping, more money into the void I thought). It was easy to submit, but I was nervous and shaky nonetheless. It almost felt unreal to actually be at this stage, finally. After I had submitted my information I set my mind to another year of waiting, or maybe just not receiving anything at all.

But then one day, not long after, when I came home it was there in my postbox waiting for me. My very own copy of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. I have waited so long for this game, actually forgotten about it and written it off as a myth not going to materialize that I didn't really know how to handle that physical manifestation in my hands. My mind was empty. I couldn't muster excitement about something I had considered dead and non-existent for so long. I had also missed that poor Murayama-san had passed just before the release of this game and heard of it the day after I had received my copy (coincidentally? Who knows).

So now I think that whatever I end up feeling about the game - whether it was worth the wait or not - it will hold a special place in my heart because of the journey, because of the symbolism. This Kickstarter story ended up on a mixed note. I am glad I got the game, I believe it will at least be entertaining but of course playing it will will also fill me with sadness knowing Murayama didn't get to see the final reception himself.

I will start the game up soon. I haven't finished mentally preparing myself for it yet.