Tag: indie

Hollow Knight – A Nail? NO!

Posted on by in Gaming

Once in a blue moon, I’ll find a game that grabs ahold of me and doesn’t let go, regardless of how many hours I’ve poured into it. No game that falls under this special category is ever the same. Which makes sense, after all, we’ve talked about how our experiences are unique on this site before. How I view one game will be completely different to how you, dear reader, will see it. Different characters and their experiences will resonate with me than with you, as our personal history latches onto these plot threads and forms connections. One such game that has captured my attention over the last six months, is Hollow Knight.

Released back in early 2017 by Team Cherry, Hollow Knight took the indie world by storm, with its charming 2D graphics, enchanting worldbuilding, creative mechanics and challenging combat. Falling under the category of “metroidvania”, I was hesitant going into it as I’ve always been a bit crap at those types of games which affects my enjoyment of the game as a whole. However, Hollow Knight surprised me and kept me intrigued from the opening sequence, forcing me to “get good” and push through challenging fights, knowing what was on the other side would be worth the struggle it took to get there.

I see you over there Zote. You stay in the dark where you belong trash man.

You play as the Knight, a feisty little being armed with a nail and a can-do attitude. For reasons unknown to the player at the start, the Knight has found their way to the kingdom of Hallownest, a once vibrant kingdom that has fallen into ruin due to an infection that consumes the minds of those afflicted. The Knight journeys through Hallownest, exploring and combating the dangers of the underground ruins, searching for the truth of what happened and gaining new abilities along the way. Shortly after meeting Hornet, another individual (and the player character of the upcoming sequel Silksong!) who warns the Knight away from their chosen path, the Knight is faced with three spectral creatures – known as the Dreamers.

These three, known as Monomon the Teacher, Lurien the Watcher and Herrah the Beast have been put in a permanent dream state to act as seals on the titular Hollow Knight’s cage – within whom the source of the infection was supposedly sealed all that time ago. Needless to say, it wasn’t a permanent solution since the majority of the world tries to kill you and the evil orange juice that seeps from the forms it inhabits is literally everywhere. So, it’s up to the Knight to venture across the kingdom, wake the dreamers, fight the monsters, and cleanse the infection from the original Hollow Knight in order to save the world. Simple, right? Well… about that.

Tad fourth wall breaking there buddy but true. Now, give me money.

The lore of Hollow Knight is a classic example of the iceberg theory used by storytellers, where only a small percentage of the plot is stated outright and visible for the player to discover on a casual playthrough. Piecing together referenced events from character lines, journal entries and world design leads to yet more questions – something that I, as an endlessly curious individual, absolutely loved. To beat the game normally and never touch the game again would be a massive disservice to the tale that the developers at Team Cherry have woven. There are loads of bosses, collectables, lore tidbits, endings, and paths to follow that you simply cannot cover in a single playthrough. Heck, I’m on my fourth playthrough and still haven’t found everything that I’ve seen others come across in their playthroughs.

The combat is not inherently complicated, it very much follows the tried and tested method of hit the thing till it dies, though some of the bosses could just sit on you and it’d be over faster than you could say “Yikes”. You have a nail (for stabbing), three magic spells (for blasting) and charms that can buff these to a ridiculous level. Like seriously, long nail and mark of pride means I can have a weapon that’s bigger than like two of my character. Overcompensating a bit there, little Knight? Combining charms are the way to victory in Hollow Knight, with some boss fights tailoring themselves towards Area of Effect spells and others just needing a good stabbing to cut them down to size. Or, if you’re really fed up with the fight, just cling to the top corner of the arena and let your minions whittle away at the enemies health. Not that I’ve done that. No siree.

….This is fine.

Plus, there’s always something satisfying about toppling bosses and conquering difficult fights. It’s why games similar to Bloodborne and Dark Souls remain so dominant in the gaming industry – people enjoy a challenge. What I personally think Hollow Knight does better than those games, is it allows you to adjust your fighting style on the fly. There’s no committing to a fighting type at the character creation screen or balancing stats during levelling or having to restart from zero if you decide a style isn’t for you. Instead, you just take off a charm and add another. We all have our preferred play styles of course but Hollow Knight rewards you for being creative, after all, whether you kill the boss with the sheer power of spite or give the boss scurvy and wait for it to die of malnutrition, you win either way.

I want you all to play this game, to get the true ending, to get all 112% of progression ticked off a list and to be jointly outraged and amused by the chaotic memes that the community has come out with (looking at you Pale King memes). Plus, all the expansions with additional bosses are all free so… go punch Grimm in his stupid face and then immediately regret your choices. Go fight the gods of Hallownest and get absolutely stomped by the Pure Vessel. Try the Path of Pain and break your controller in blinding rage. Play ping pong with Zote’s stupid face and read all his precepts for success (seriously Zote has the most written dialogue in the game, and I hate him).

Grimm over here being Edgy TM

Anyways, that’s Hollow Knight, joining Spiderman, Octopath Traveller and the original Spyro trilogy as one of my favorite games.

Till next time,

CaitlinRC

*-*-*-* Personal Update Ahead *-*-*-*

I do apologise for the heavier lean towards podcast episodes and tabletop RPG’s that this year has taken. Between the launch of Dice and Suffering, my frankly bonkers work schedule and trying to find a good balance between my endless personal projects, I haven’t had much time for much else. I love all my projects, so I’m not quite willing to let any of them go just yet, meaning I collectively spend less time on each in an attempt to ensure that I actually sleep at some point (madness, I know).

The support the podcast has been getting is phenomenal, the continual support of MindGames as an entity has been heartwarming and the enthusiasm for my YouTube compilations makes me smile – especially all of your snarky comments.

Regardless! Next week will be the final episode of Into The Waste that we recorded before I decided to put that D&D campaign on indefinite hiatus. I am starting a new world and you’ll get to see that in all it’s chaotic glory in a few months but I thought I’d wrap up the episode I have left in my files and clear the way for a whole new world (cue Aladdin music). Then we’ve got season 2 of Blades In The Dark / The Black Lotus Gambit which is four episodes in as I’m writing this and is shaping up to be a doozy.

If you’re interested in hearing me run my chaotic worlds of TTRPG madness, go look at Dice and suffering on any podcasting platform 😊

If you want to hear what kind of characters I play when someone else is the puppetmaster, I’m a permanent fixture in the Dungeons and Junkiez team over on Visionaries Global Media, where I play anything and everything – from wholesome to psychotic.

*-*-*-* End of Personal Update *-*-*-*

Röki – Walking In A Winter Wonderland (With a troll):

Posted on by in Gaming

Back in October, which seems like it happened a decade ago, I was at EGX in London. After being lucky enough to get a Press Pass for the event, I spent quite a few hours scrolling through my emails, searching for games that I found interesting or ones that I thought deserved a little more love in the indie section. One such game was Röki, an adventure game that follows a young girl named Tove, who is trying to rescue her brother from the claws of the monster that kidnapped him.

In the short demo that I got to play, I was immediately immersed in a fairy-tale world. So, when the full version of the game was released on Steam a few days ago, I immediately threw myself into it. Over the course of a weekend, I completed each chapter of the story, trying my hardest to appreciate and discover every corner of my surroundings. Though I will say that spider is horrifying, I nearly threw my laptop across the room when I first saw it and the NOISES IT MADE WERE TERRIFYING OK.

Look at these gorgeous woods, it reminds me of the woods near where I was born.

Point and click adventures tend to be an experience of trial and error. For games with less well-thought out puzzles, it becomes a rage game, where you try combining anything and everything in a desperate attempt to progress the story. Röki, thankfully, has managed to avoid the puzzle pitfall. The puzzles were instinctive, cleverly interwoven into your interactions with the world. It didn’t feel like the plot was being held hostage until you finished collecting several shiny stones; it instead feels like a genuine obstacle standing between Tove and her brother.

From a technical standpoint, Röki is a masterpiece. Upon opening the game, you are greeted with sweeping vistas of a snowy mountain range. The forest stands out on the snowy background, managing to seem inviting and ominous at the same time. You’re greeted with icy lakes, towering trees, and crumbling castles – the likes of which we associate to the stories that we read to our kids at bedtime. These gorgeous landscapes are enhanced by the lighting engine that Röki implements. When you’re working with the sheer white snow of a mountain landscape like that of Tove’s home, it can be hard to make each explorable area unique enough to interest the player. In fact, arctic explorers must contend with a type of mirage, in which the snow makes it look like there is land on the horizon.

A lovely idyllic house, perfect for a fairy tale to take a dark turn.

Every aspect of Röki has an incredible amount of thought put into it, from the character designs, to the ambient sounds of the forest that you are exploring. The world of Röki is a living, breathing organism that deserves your utmost respect and from my time with the game, I am more than willing to give it that. Footprints will trail behind you in the snow, the wind blows through the trees, ravens will spook if you get too close. The birds sing and the trolls grumble as you walk past. It feels alive and bustling, yet you feel alone. Tove is on her own, in a world that she has only experienced in bed-time stories. Whenever I closed my eyes in Röki, every sound cue and background noise painted an elaborate picture of the world around Tove, a beautiful canvas forged through song.

Although beautiful, Röki is a remarkably dark game when you start to look below the surface. Littered across the forest are trolls that have been petrified by the sun, left frozen and alone until the end of time. A nearby church is filled with gravestones, that on closer inspection are those of children, taken at a young age and never recovered. A tortured soul who drowned in a lake now dwells there, dragging unfortunate souls to meet the same fate. Tove’s journey is not an easy one, it is more than a simple adventure to rescue her brother. It is about forgiveness, empathy, and hope where sometimes we find none.

LOOK AT THOSE MOUNTAINS AND FORESTS. SERIOUSLY. ITS SO PRETTY. SO SO PRETTY.

Personally, the plot hit close to home. It is a layered tale of loss and redemption, told through the eyes of a young girl who has been forced to grow up too quickly. Through exploring a magical forest, filled with whacky and wonderful creatures (plus a few of the more… deadly variety), you begin to uncover the story of a family in distress, whose dispute has had serious ramifications for the forest’s ecosystem and wellbeing. In her quest to rescue her brother and reunite with her father, Tove manages to piece back together the broken shards of a family of powerful beings – the Guardians of the forest.

If you don’t want any spoilers from the main story, then I’d recommend stepping away from this article now, purchasing the game on Steam, playing it through, eating a large amount of chocolate to recover emotionally and then come back to continue reading! I’m going to talk about a big spoiler from later in the game, because I feel it’s well worth talking about.

God I love mythology. And their gods. Ehehe.

So, SPOILERS AHEAD:

At the start of the game, your brother Lars, is taken by a monster through magic portal. Your father was last seen under a pile of rubble and wooden beams, begging you to take your brother and run.  Although not explicitly stated at the start of the game, its clear that Tove’s mother has died – as well as that the loss is recent. Since the loss of her mother, Tove has had to take on the role of caregiver in her household. From caring for her little brother, to stoking the fire, to cooking for the family, this little girl can do it all. Yet, she shouldn’t have to. Her father is deep in grief over the loss of his beloved wife, leaving Tove alone in her own grief and pain.

As the game progresses, you are tasked with waking the three guardians of the forest – the wolf, the stag, and the bear. You learn that there was a fourth guardian, the raven, but she was outcast into another dimension with her son, a result of her falling in love with a human. Each of the guardians were responsible for a season in the year, as well as working with one another to keep the forest in balance. When the family fell apart, so did the forest they protected. Now the raven, seeks her revenge.

Get thee back satan, THIS IS MY BEDROOM. MINE.

With each of the guardians you wake, Tove is forced to walk through memories that she tried so hard to suppress. These memories are about her mother – key days that they spent together and the days that followed her loss. Facing the past, is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Whenever I think back on the people that I’ve lost, the memories that I’ve desperately tried to forget, it brings a tightness to my chest and a pain to my heart that is hard to describe. So, for Tove to face those memories, to battle through them, all to save her little brother from a mythical creature that is most definitely beyond her abilities to win a fight against, is incredible.

This becomes prominent in the climax of the game, where Tove faces off against the creature that took her brother. It turns out that Röki is the son of the raven guardian, who is desperate to have her son accepted by the world that cast them out. She is merely a mother that wants her son to have a normal life, though she really needs to work on her methods because child sacrifice through dark magic is not the best approach. In our eyes, she is the villain of this piece but from where she stands, she’s doing what she must. To her, a random human child’s life is nothing in comparison to the happiness of her own offspring.

Aw sweetheart. Back when you thought it would all be ok.

It is in the finale that one of the most emotional sequences in gaming makes its appearance. I’ve spoken before about games like What Remains of Edith Finch and Drawn to Life, with their powerful plots. However, Röki rockets to the top of that list in my minds eye, because it feels so heartfully genuine and real, that it is remarkably similar to some of the nightmares that I have had due to my ongoing battle with PTS. Tove is forced to relive the day of her mother’s death, which depressingly, is also her baby brother’s birthday. You sprint around a forest, desperately trying to track down the ringing phone that could bring medical help to save your mother. Yet every time that you have it in your grasp, you are teleported back to your parents’ side who beg you to do something, that only you can save her. It’s a harrowing but powerful moment.

Anyways, this review has gone on much longer than normal. If you haven’t played Röki, please do check it out, the folks at Polygon Treehouse are talented and extremely lovely. Have a good week everyone, remember to wash your hands and wear a mask. Remember to follow the site, follow my twitter @OurMindGames and like/comment!

CaitlinRC.

Ten Candles – We Fear The Dark For A Reason:

Posted on by in Gaming, Other TTRPG's, Real Life, tabletop

As my final term at university passes by, I often sit back and reflect on how far I’ve come. From admitting I had mental health issues, to starting medication, to starting Mind Games and preparing to go out into the world as a fully-fledged adult – it’s been a hell of a journey. A big part of that process has been the time I have spent with my friends. Since I don’t really drink and the university clubbing scene is the definition of a panic attack for me, I tend to stick to sober events. Watching films, playing video games, chatting with friends and sucking at minigolf, I’ve done it all. My favourite thing to do though, is play board games with those friends. Especially ones that stay with you.

I’ve spoken before about Dungeons and Dragons on the site and anyone who follows my Twitter will know that I’m currently running a campaign for some friends. However, the world of tabletop gaming is not just D&D, much to the shock of many. Thanks in part to the afternoons I’ve spent in board game cafes with my friends from school, and to communities like Dicebreaker – I’ve gotten to explore the genre that I love, a bit more deeply. From Dead of Winter and Betrayal at The House on The Hill, to Call of Cthulhu and Band of Blades, there’s a massive range of games out there for you and more are being developed every single day.

If you read my Betrayal article, you’ll know what these are for.

One tabletop game that has really hit close to home for me recently is the horror RPG, Ten Candles. There aren’t many games that can stun my friends into silence for more than a few seconds, yet Ten Candles manages it. Every decision that my players made were given an extensive level of thought, detail and care, before committing to it. Considering these are the same players that tend to throw fireballs first and ask questions later, it’s an astounding difference to witness. So, what is Ten Candles? Why am I committing an entire article to it? Why should you play it? Let me tell you.

Humans have always feared the dark. Though when you delve further into it, it’s more a fear of the unknown. We can cope with what we can see, what we know is there. It’s a quantifiable problem that we can take steps to combat. In the pitch black, you don’t know what’s there, what it’s doing or whether that prickling on the back of your neck is it creeping ever closer. Ten Candles is played mostly in the dark. Once you finish creating the characters you will tell the story with, you turn off any lights in the room. Your only illumination is by the ten candles sat in the centre of the table.

And we are alive.

The sky has gone dark. No sun, no satellites, no phones or GPS. Power grids have failed across the continents and the world you know has been plunged into darkness. Creatures known only as “They”, stalk the shadows, cutting down the last remnants of humanity as you struggle to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. “They” will claim your life in the end. That much is certain. Ten Candles isn’t about survival or “winning”. It’s a game about loss and hope, about finding light in the darkness and making your last moments of living worthwhile.

This is how to grab an audience’s attention.

There aren’t any overly complex rules or time-consuming preparations to make in order to enjoy Ten Candles. All you really need are candles, paper, pens, some regular dice (6-sided) and something to dispose of/burn the paper slips in. Time is marked by the extinguishing of candles. For each failed conflict (dictated by dice rolls), a candle is darkened. If you don’t fail any conflicts, a candle will go out eventually. The end comes for us all, eventually. When you have one final candle left, the Last Stand begins. This is the final scene of the game in which every character will die. It’s inevitable.

Once every character has perished, the final candle is blown out. You sit, in complete darkness and listen to a recording your players recorded as their characters at the start of the game. Their voices, speaking words of hope and sorrow, are haunting, especially with their death scene ringing in their ears. When the recording ends, you all sit there in the darkness – lost in your own thoughts and reflecting on the dark journey they will have taken over the past few hours.

Before the lights go out and the game begins, you must create your characters. Characters are made up of five characteristics – Virtues (positive trait), Vices (negative trait), Concepts (who are you), Moments and Brinks. Your Virtue, Vices and Brinks are made by the players either side of you – allowing totally unique characters to be made in every session. Your Concept and your Moment are entirely your choice. A Moment is a scenario in which your character can find hope. Be that reuniting with a lost family member, taking down one of “Them” or finding somewhere safe to stay the night, these Moments provide you with another dice in the Last Stand – increasing your chances of achieving something significant in your final moments.

As much as I didn’t discuss the Establishing Truths phase, these three lines are what stays with you.

Brinks are a bit different. A brink is what your character is like when pushed to the edge. What do they do when faced with loss or grief? Do they fly into a rage? Were they a murderer before this all began? The possibilities are endless. As the players decide the Brink for the person on their left, this means that the GM is also involved. The GM plays as “Them”, and they have seen one of the players at their breaking point. This means the players Brink is kept secret. Meanwhile the player to the right of the GM gets to decide what form “They” take in the session. Do they worship the moon? Do they shapeshift? Do they mimic voices? What powers do they have?

This story is not a happy one. It is a joint tale of hope, desperation, fear and co-operation in the darkness. Although the GM is there to lead the story, they are not in control of everything that happens. Sometimes, it is up to the players to narrate what happens. Everyone at the table works together to weave a story they deem worthy of telling. Their interactions, their moments of hope and loss, their eventual deaths – they all must have meaning and weight behind them. At the end of the world, you are what will be the difference between the light and the darkness.

We may be destined to die but it is up to you how it happens.

If you can, I’d suggest playing this yourself. You can get a PDF of the rulebook or a paper-copy from cavalrygames.com to support the creator Stephen Dewey – a very talented developer. It is an experience that I feel will stay with you for a long time and bring your friends closer together.

Till next week,

CaitlinRC.

Stories Untold – We All Must Face What We Have Done:

Posted on by in Gaming

As we have covered many times over the last year, I am not a fan of horror games. Any enjoyment that could be derived from being scared, is ruined by the paralysing anxiety that accompanies it. I tend to avoid any and all horror like the plague – better than safe than sorry. However, when it comes to psychological horror, I’m a bit more open minded. Psychology has always fascinated me. People often like to joke that those who like to study the inner workings of the human psyche, are either wanting to understand the “unstable” or are “unstable” themselves. Obviously, it’s a whole load of rubbish but there is a grain of truth in there.

Humanity, as a species, strives to understand what we often deem impossible to comprehend. We quantify and label, document and test everything and anything we can get our grubby little hands on. There’s so much we know about the world around us yet so little we understand about how our own minds work. With words alone, we can change a crowd into a mob, start a rebellion, incite cruelty and bring joy to those who seek it. I’ve never been good at understanding emotions, particularly my own. Anger, hatred and cruelty are all foreign concepts to me.

So, when a game claims to be a psychological horror, I am curious as to what hidden truths it will strive to extract from the gold mine that is the human mind.

Stories Untold, is one such game. Presented as a four-part episodic experience in the style of old school text adventure games, it weaves such an intricate web that when the finale arrives, it knocks you flat on your back and holds you there – controlling every rise and fall of your chest. Even when you know what is coming, repeat playthroughs allow you to notice every subtle link and minute detail that builds such a vivid picture in your mind, it’s as if you are standing there, watching it all unfold in front of your eyes but are powerless to do anything to stop it. I love it.

Now, if you haven’t played it and want to do so without any spoilers – stop reading now, go play it and then come back with the experience fresh in my mind. Do come back though, I’ll be lonely otherwise. For those of you who are still reading, lets talk spoilers. The first three chapters each seem to have their own standalone story, meanwhile the final chapter links all of them together. I’m going to talk about each chapter in turn. The four chapters are titled – The House Abandon, The Lab Conduct, The Station Process and The Last Session.

Don’t pick up the phone. You never know who is on the other end.

The first episode, The House Abandon, follows the more traditional style of text adventures. You, the player, drive up to your family’s holiday home. After starting up the generator and unlocking the front door, you’re given the chance to explore the building – reminiscing about your childhood and the fond memories that the old walls hold. Eventually, you find your way to your bedroom and find your old computer – that your father dug out of the attic, along with a copy of a very familiar game, the House Abandon. Upon booting up the game, the power goes out. When everything flickers back to life, it’s all changed. The welcoming house becomes filled with stains, broken windows, dead carcasses and ominous writing on the walls. Instead of a kind note from your father, the note in your hand spits cruel, terrifying and hateful messages – to the point where it seems to burn into the palm of your hand.

A phone rings, breaking the uneasy silence that you have fallen into. You hear breathing down the phone and soon you realise that you are not alone anymore. Creaking floorboards, flickering lights and blaring alarms all echo around you, as if the house you are sat in, playing the game, is the same one as in the game itself… You struggle to distinguish between the actions of your player exploring the house and those of the individual sat controlling those movements. Negative emotions and memories pour out of the protagonist like a tidal wave, culminating in the door behind you creaking open. The computer accuses you of an unknown crime, demanding that you admit that it was all your fault. It barrages you with insults, hurling abuse until you at last type the words “It was all my fault”. It’s response? “Finally.”

Not an ominous setup at all.

In The Lab Conduct, you play as Mr Aition – a volunteer who has agreed to take part in a series of experiments conducted by Dr Daniel Alexander. These experiments are performed upon an object called “artefact 23”, which was recovered from a crash site for further study. Locked in the isolated laboratory, you use various machines such as an X-Ray, sound wave generators and high-powered lasers on the object. At first glance, the artefact appears to be an animal heart of some kind, whose heartbeat we restart. However, upon exposure to extreme frequency sound waves, it explodes and reveals a metallic sphere.

As a child, you’re always told not to stare at the sun, or it’ll hurt your eyes. Well, in Stories Untold, don’t stare at the hovering metallic sphere or it’ll knock you over, draw some blood and “connect” you to its inner core. You know, just normal things. Once connected, you walk through the spheres memories – reliving the crash, reaching out to a silhouette for help and waking up in a hospital bed, covered in wires and recovering from a torture session. When you pull out the wires, an alarm goes off. You, Mr Aition, hear that alarm as well. Yet again, the events seem to be occurring at the same time. Once you instruct the creature to leave their room, Dr Alexander recognises that you are causing this and begs for you to stop. Yet, you do not stop. You release all the spheres. They converge on you and as the world fades from around you, the last words of Dr Alexander ring in your ears – “Someday Mr Aition, this will haunt you.”

Don’t go out in the snow alone. People don’t come back.

The Station Process is a chapter that leans into the love of puzzle-solving that echoes in the hearts of most gamers. Using a microfilm reader with a guide on it, you, only known as “James”, must decrypt a series of signals and submit the correct code in order to pass on the relevant messages. The puzzles involve decrypting Morse Code, observing patterns and adjusting frequencies. Nerd that I am, I adore them. After all, what’s the point of studying Computer Science if you can’t show off your understanding everything occasionally? As you complete the puzzles, your fellow communication tower operators talk about something coming, attacking supply teams and ripping entire cabins out of the earth.

One of the signals you intercept is a distress signal that details how the rest of the world has been collapsed by the creatures that now stalk the mountain range that your cabins are situated on. They beg you to lock your doors and stay inside, but fate has other plans for you. When the main transmitter is knocked out of place, it’s your job to go fix it. When you’ve done so, you hear the voice of Station 2, a kind female voice, seemingly going into shock – unable to feel her legs and just wanting to rest. You can’t help her; you can’t help anyone. When you finally get back to the cabin, it’s not the one you left. It’s the bedroom from The House Abandon.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong.

Clearly, there’s an overarching plot between these episodes. These lingering threads are all pulled together in The Last Session. As the opening credits play, they pause and pull back to reveal that you’ve been watching a TV show. Your character, James Aition, is wheeled by Dr Alexander into an empty room with a cassette recorder and prompted to try and recover the memories of what happened before he arrived in hospital. It is revealed that you were involved in a nasty car accident and had been in a coma for two weeks prior to the events of the game. Your last three attempts at recalling the accident had ended in panic, with the truth being mixed in with fantasy such that you couldn’t tell which was which.

The game proceeds to take you through the previous chapters. You return to the communication tower and examine the microfilm – which now displays a police report about the traffic accident you were in. Your sister, Jennifer, was trapped and critically injured and the other driver was found dead, with an empty bottle of whisky in his hand and stinking of alcohol. However, upon solving a puzzle, you hear a testimony of a friend of said driver, claiming that the guy had never spoken about alcohol before and would never imbibe like that – especially considering he was a former police officer. He accuses James of foul play.

Never been a fan of hospitals. Don’t think I ever will be.

We burst into the emergency room, to James’s heart stopping on the gurney and a haemorrhage threatening to destroy any chances of resuscitating him. Upon the doctor’s orders, you restart your own heart and drill into your skull – saving your life. As the drill approaches, you startle awake in the computer desk from The House Abandon. It details a leaving party being hosted by your family, to celebrate James going travelling with his friends abroad for several months in the new year. After having a few drinks and being gifted a nice bottle of whisky from his dad, Jennifer asks James whether he can give her a lift home. Unfortunately, you can’t say no to this choice (trust me, I tried).

As you stagger to the car, forget to take the handbrake off the car and drive faster than is safe, even when sober – Jennifer slowly realises that James is drunk. She begs him to slow down, to pull over, to just stop, but he does not listen. He goes faster, eventually crashing directly into oncoming traffic. When he awakens, he drags himself out of the car – leaving his sister in the burning wreckage. Terrified of going to jail and wrecking his reputation, James decides to frame the other driver by pouring alcohol on him, removing his fingerprints from the bottle and planting it in the dead driver’s car. When the police arrive, James collapses from his injuries and wakes up in the hospital room with Dr Alexander. The doctor takes James back to the TV room, stating that he will report what James said to the police.

Sometimes telling the truth, is the hardest thing to do.

More than anything, Stories Untold is about consequences. You must live with the consequences of your actions. Your choices affect more than just your life. They ripple, like pebbles on a lake’s surface, spreading further and further out until they form tidal waves that threaten to consume the lives of so many. In this case, James’s actions caused the death of his sister, the grief of his family, as well as the death and attempted framing of an innocent man. His panic at reliving what he had done, his refusal to accept the horrifying reality of his memories – all these lead us on this journey through the shattered remains of a young man’s mind.

Anyways, I hope you’ll all think a little about the stories that you tell and whether they are stories that you’d want people to hear about or not. If not, make positive changes. I believe in you. Like, comment and follow the site – both here and on Twitter @OurMindGames for future articles.

Much love,

CaitlinRC

Kindergarten – Mean Girls Has Nothing on These Kids:

Posted on by in Gaming

People often reminisce about their school days, speaking fondly of teachers, playground games and the friendships they made. I only graduated from school a few years back, but I do the same, especially in the occasional meetups that I have with my old friends – in between the carnage that is university. As a military brat, I went to several different primary schools, but I can confirm that none of them were quite like the experiences of the New Kid in 2017’s indie puzzle game, Kindergarten and its recent sequel – Kindergarten 2.

It’s your first day at your new school and something is… not quite right. Whether it’s the ongoing missing child case, the murderous janitor and his beloved mop or the class teacher’s strange fondness of killing off her students, it doesn’t take a detective to realise that something is amiss at this school. If you want to make it through your first day, you’ll have to face the bully, befriend your fellow classmates, kill those who cause you problems and avoid several different forms of poisoning. You know, normal kid stuff.

Bit creepy there Nugget.

Kindergarten, like many indie games, was a big hit on YouTube. I’ve lost count of how many lets-plays there are of it but despite the content saturation, I think Kindergarten is one of those franchises that deserves every second of screen time it gets and more. At its core, the Kindergarten series are puzzle games. Each mission has a different set of requirements, but they are simple in nature. There are no ridiculously complicated codes to break or extremely vague clues that cause more confusion than assistance.

I think this simplicity mixed with darker themes and side-splitting hilarity is what has allowed it to retain its popularity, with the sequel being met with pure excitement than with mild trepidation, which happens with a lot of indie games. With a cast of goofy, multi-dimensional characters, there’s a lot more depth to Kindergarten than you’d expect to see from it. From Bugg’s dad having left him, to the twisted relationship between Ted and Felix, it can really make you think – as you watch your character get obliterated by the robot girl with a death laser.

Your friendly neighbourhood murderer, I mean Janitor.

Part of the appeal of puzzle games like Kindergarten is the sense of achievement it provides you. Whether it’s dying in a hilarious way, completing a mission or just trying something unexpected, the game actively rewards you for doing so – often the rarer Monstermon cards are unlocked this way. I don’t know whether it was intentional on the game designer’s part or not but this idea of experimenting, learning and trying new things is like what we try to teach kids from a young age (Just without the murder). It perfectly mimics that sense of childish glee that you see on a toddler’s face when they discover Playdough for the first time.

Being able to enjoy things just because they’re funny or ridiculous, is something that you often miss out on if you struggle with mental health issues – especially for depression sufferers. You lose interest in your hobbies; you struggle to smile at something that used to reduce you to fits of laughter and it just all seems… dark. You don’t see the point in laughing or smiling or going out of your way to try and escape the negative spiral you’ve been caught in – you feel you deserve that sadness, that emptiness. It’s a toxic cycle that is extremely hard to break out of. I speak from experience in that department.

WHY THE SPIDERS FELIX.

So, having a game series based around being childlike, messing around and completing the whackiest list of tasks on the planet – like pouring spiders on a child trapped in a hole, is more than just an excuse to laugh. It’s like being handed a get out of jail free card from that negative hole that you’ve been trapped in. Instead of having spiders thrown on you, someone throws you a rope and helps you climb out, even if it’s just for a little while. That time in the light, in the sense of happiness and genuine joy, makes surviving the next bout of darkness that much easier.

Plus, I think we can all relate to a few of the character’s in the game. Although exaggerated, the missions they set you are a lot deeper than you think. Let me talk about a few, from my point of view:

  1. Cindy’s Flower – Throughout this mission, Cindy has you do her bidding. From traumatising poor Lily by pouring a bucket of blood on her head, to potentially beating you to death for not giving her money whilst playing a game of “house”, it’s clear that this is a toxic relationship. Considering that Cindy is extremely young, it makes you wonder – why is this her idea of a good relationship? Why does she have a breathalyser?
  • Nugget’s Nuggets – Simultaneously the most beloved character and the whackiest, Nugget is certainly an odd case. For him to trust you, he asks you to complete various tasks to gain five nuggets of friendship, before he will truly talk to you. Apart from the poisoning you bit and killing off the school bully, he seems desperate for a friend that he can trust – especially now that Billy is missing. He’s lonely. And in this deadly school, that’s a dangerous thing.
  • Cain’s Not Able – In the second game, you meet the brothers Felix and Teddy. Where Felix is bossy, confident and conceited, Teddy is shy, underconfident and eager to please. Their family’s business is wealthy and powerful, so Felix wants the full inheritance rather than having to share with his brother. So, he enlists you to help kill him. Depending on what path you take in the mission, you can help betray Teddy and kill him – ignoring his pleas for his brother to love him, or let Teddy know of the plot and help him seek his revenge. It’s an incredibly dark mission, not so subtly influenced by the bible story of Cain and Able.

The examples I’ve given are just a drop in the ocean of the potential talking points surrounding Kindergarten. So, give it a shot if you haven’t, it’s well worth the time! Plus, Nugget is best boy.

Till next time,

CaitlinRC.