Free Games Profile - 5 Games I've Been Playing That Cost My Favorite Price.

Not so long ago, I posted on my Tumblr a list I'd seen somewhere else about awesome free games. I like awesome, and free is right in my price range at the moment, so I've checked out a few of these in the last week or so, to answer the question: Do you get what you pay for, or are there good free games out there? One of the games is a pretty complete alpha of an inexpensive project, one is a free-to-play, also known as “freemium”, where you get a feature set for free, but there are additional options/content available for purchase. Yet another takes the structure found in Mafia Wars-type games and turns it on its ear to produce something very interesting. The last two are complete, finished and free, no strings attached.

The first game I want to talk about is also the oldest. Cave Story, originally called Doukutsu Monogatari, was developed by one man over five years, a labor of love. The PC release is an old-school platform adventure that is most similar to Metroid, with weapons that level up when golden triangles are collected. The story follows a robotic (or maybe cyborg) soldier who wakes up in a cave with no memory and stumbles into a village of friendly creatures who are under assault by a mad scientist and his hench-things. The action is familiar in an old-school way, very difficult in spots and the story progresses in unexpectedly interesting directions. The version of the game translated from Japanese to English became so popular that a remake of the title with enhanced graphics was made for the Wii, and a 3D version is coming to the 3DS. This one is a lot of fun, and there are several endings and bonus levels to discover.

The surprised looking Lunchbox is named Balrog. I just wanted to type that.

In the same vein of free platforming action game is Spelunky, with retro graphics and random level generation, Spelunky is fun, but it makes no claim to be fair. The cave explorer is reminiscent of Indiana Jones, complete with hat and whip, and in the opening levels there is a golden idol which can be collected that triggers a rolling boulder trap when touched. You start with a limited supply of basic tools, 4 ropes which allow climbing up into areas that you can't jump to, and 4 bombs which allow blasting through floors and walls. Other items can randomly be found through the levels as you collect treasures, fight monsters and attempt to evade deadly traps. There's a lot to discover in this game as well, secret areas, occasional NPCs to interact with, and in a nod to Temple of Doom, even sacrificial altars to Kali.

Snakes... why did it have to be snakes...

The free Alpha release of Desktop Dungeons reminds me of a cross between Realm of the Mad God and classic roguelike dungeons, only on a smaller scale. Every dungeon is a single screen large, you start out with the possibility of four races and four basic classes to choose from with special abilities, and if you can level up enough to defeat the boss monster in the dungeon, more features unlock with every win. The game is random, very difficult, even less fair than Spelunky in some cases (sometimes it really isn't possible to do much of anything as every monster you can reach kills you in one hit.) However, individual tries at the randomly created dungeons don't take very long, so a lot of dying and restarting makes this one addictive. Also of note, this game has altars to various deities who your character can choose to worship. The gods give piety for completing certain actions, and penalize piety for others. For example, a warrior god might grant piety for every monster killed, but penalize for casting spells. After several days spending more time than I'd like to admit on this one, I've beaten the dungeon only three times, once each with a warrior, thief and cleric.

This game has no business being this addictive. I may drop the $10 for the finished game.

Another free game that I've actually been playing for a while now but only recently got back into is the fantastic Echo Bazaar. On its surface, Echo Bazaar looks like a Facebook game. You get a number of turns that refill slowly with time, you train skills by repeating actions over and over until a higher level of skill unlocks a new action to grind and train on. There are several things that separate Echo Bazaar from the pack of games released by Zynga for Facebook however. First, though you need to connect through Facebook or Twitter, Echo Bazaar is separate from the social networks aside from the ability to tweet short ads for the game for bonus actions once daily, and the ability to interact with friends and followers who also play. The setting is a Victorian London that fell deep beneath the Earth, claimed by the dark Masters of the Bazaar. Hell is literally so close they have an embassy, and demons and strange creatures walk alongside grubby urchins and gentlemen and ladies in a twisted and vaguely Lovecraftian setting dripping with mystery. Echo Bazaar also tracks decisions made in the course of telling your story, and makes those choices relevant enough that each player's experience is unique. My personal character is a debauched rake and hedonist, using a silver tongue and his wits to seduce, gamble and write poetry in society while searching for the Ultimate Game, a poker game with the Heart's Desire as the prize, and the Immortal Soul as the stake.

A game with secrets and souls as currency, be a thief, thug, scholar or some combination of all these.

The last of the free games I've been messing with recently is one of a category of games recently made available on Steam. I'm a big fan of free-to-play MMORPGs and multiplayer action games that make their money from a dedicated fanbase willing to part with a little cash in order to get something extra. I like the model a lot, in some ways this is the basis for Echo Bazaar. How much I like the structure, however, depends on how much content is behind a paywall. If the game has only a small amount of free content and makes me cough up cash for the full game, it isn't “Free to Play,” its a demo, and I feel cheated. A good way to get around this is to make most of the purchasable content earnable in-game over a long period of time. A few well-known games deserving of their own articles do this, including Dungeons and Dragons Online and League of Legends. Steam just put up access to Champions Online, Alliance of Valiant Arms, Forsaken World, Global Agenda: Free Agent and Spiral Knights.

I've been burned by F2P games before, this one seems worth the time investment.

I started on my “play to evaluate” on Spiral Knights, as I want to give each of these a fair shake on their own merits before judging them. Trying to play them all at once would ensure at least one game doesn't really get played nearly long enough to get a proper review. I started with Spiral Knights for two reasons, one, it was the most different of the five titles in presentation from other games I've been playing recently. The second reason lies with the developers. Three Rings is an independent studio that practically introduced me to the Free-to-play concept with their game Puzzle Pirates, that released in 2003. I wanted to see what these guys could do with a more ambitious project. Spiral Knights is best described as an Action-RPG like Legend of Zelda, but with a robotic, almost Lego, feel to the characters and multiplayer dungeons and towns. The game is very pretty, controls smoothly and is a lot of fun in party. The currency to enter a dungeon, resurrect when dead or craft items is “energy,” which can be refilled with time, real money, or tanks can be bought using in-game currency. Bonus! It passes my litmus test for “is this really free?” I looks forward to pushing into content and seeing where the content boundaries before it really makes sense to pay are.

I anticipate I'll revisit this topic many times as I do a LOT of gaming, and don't have a whole lot of budget for it, so finding my diversions without opening my wallet beyond WoW and Gamefly subscriptions takes up the time not spent writing, reading, looking for work or doing tabletop RPGs. I'll find the best and the worst that money doesn't have to buy, and come back and report on my findings.

When the Stars Are Right – The Cthulhu Mythos

With the notable exception of Edgar Allan Poe, there is no other writer whose works influence the modern horror story more than the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. For those of a geeky persuasion, I'd argue that Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos is even more important than Poe's body of work. Concepts, if not specific names from the stories and books written in the 1920s are found in film, comics, games and other books, even those who hold no official connection to the mythos. I've written about the Lovecraft-inspired board game Arkham Horror before, in brief, but today I'd like to go into the bigger picture of the Cosmic Horror subgenre.

The man... er, thing Himself, Great Cthulhu.

Lovecraft himself grew up a sickly, highly intelligent and obstinate boy who loved the antique and obscure, feared insects and night terrors that haunted his dreams, and was vaguely contemptuous of anyone not of Anglo-Saxon descent. His life was characterized by poverty, limited social interaction with any outside of the (usually female) people he lived with, and he wrote mostly in obscurity during his lifetime. His publication of horror stories in pulp magazines of the time (most notable Weird Tales) starting with Dagon, in 1919. His stories began a friendly correspondence with other authors of his time, including Robert E. Howard (of Conan the Barbarian fame) August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith.

His friendship with Derleth, his tendency to “ghost write” tales for other writers while incorporating elements of his own pseudomythology into the works, and his openness concerning other writers using elements from his writing in their own works are largely responsible for his modern popularity. Elements of Lovecraft's stories appeared in the works of his contemporaries, Howard and Derleth in particular. The phrase “Cthulhu Mythos” was coined by August Derleth, who took up the mantle of writing stories in the fictional universe created with Lovecraft's ideas upon the author's death in 1937.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft.  1890-1937.

The Lovecraftian style of horror stories, also known as cosmic horror, are characterized by common themes, the primary of which is the utter insignificance of all of humanity, and the rejection of any belief in a benevolent deity. The intentional or accidental pursuit of Forbidden Knowledge in the course of science, art or even forensic pursuit of mysteries allow characters in Lovercraft's tales brief glimpses into terrible truths about evils vast and alien with death or insanity in short order a typical result. Gods in these stories are ancient beings usually ignorant of the human race with terrible powers best left unknown. Cthulhu himself is neither the most powerful of these entities, nor is he the theological center of the mythos, but the short story The Call of Cthulhu was notable in that it was the first tale where all elements now recognized as components of the style were used.

One of the most popular creations within Lovecraft's stories, the fictional Grimoire called The Necronomicon, has become so popular and entrenched in the world of horror fiction that there have been many who insist it is real. It was first referred to in the story “The Hound” in 1924, as the creation of the fictional “Mad Arab” Abdul al-Hazred, originally titled al Azif. Since inclusion in Lovecraft's stories and those of his contemporaries, the Necronomicon has appeared in many films, comics, games and other horror stories and novels. Several books bearing the title “Necronomicon” have been published by various authors over the years for sale in bookstores.

A Shoggoth, a creature made mostly of eyes and tentacles that has nothing to do with Japan.

The deities and alien races of the Mythos are many and varied, most stemming from a particular fear of the author, and given elemental associations/affinities later by August Derleth. Cthulhu himself, a great winged horror who lies dreaming in the sunken city of R'lyeh is worshipped by cultists, and will one day awaken “when the stars are right”. Nyarlathotep, a god of many names and faces, has had more contact and interference with the human race than any other deity in the mythos, at one point in history taking the form of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Yog-sothoth, Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Azathoth and many other deities haunt both the waking world and the Dreamscape, where more than a few of Lovecraft's stories are set, with their dread influence. Elder and Alien races and creatures such as the Great Race of Yig, the Flying Polyps, Nightgaunts, Elder Things, Hounds of Tindalos and Shoggoths are more commonly physically encountered by humanity, usually with fatal consequences.

Games and gaming in particular have taken elements of Mythos stories to tell horror stories and act as background for horror games. Chaosium, Inc. produced the definitive Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG in 1981, and many editions later, it remains one of the most popular horror RPGs, with player-character “investigators” typically encountering mythos elements in the course of solving some sort of mystery in a 1920s setting. Video games have also embraced the Mythos in many, many horror titles, notably in the Alone in the Dark series of games, the Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth game released for PC and consoles, and recently the popular indie horror title Amnesia: the Dark Descent.

The incredible cover of Call of Cthulhu, 6th ed. Also a song by Metallica.

I've personally done a lot of reading, research and work in the area of horror gaming, one of my greatest campaigns to date was a Call of Cthulhu game set in the back room of the hobby shop I'd managed at the time where the table was set up in the middle of 4 “walls” of black curtain to produce a theater “shadowbox” sort of effect. The light was a single bulb on a dimmer switch set to only allow enough light to read character sheets, and I was fortunate enough to have as a co-game master a former theater associate who sat behind the curtains controlling lighting, music and sound effects during sessions. These elements, combined with my pre-game speeches reminding players to fight the urge to crack out-of-character jokes to break the horror mood which is why we're really all playing, made for a very, very effective horror campaign where the group successfully completed the mega-scenario Masks of Nyarlathotep. Anyone else out there have any mythos-related experiences?

Unexpected Treasures from 1988.

 I've been reading for a very, very long time. Long enough that I can't remember a time when I couldn't. Very early on, I was fascinated by “swords and sorcery” epic fantasy, even more than science fiction. I have a very clear memory of seeing a picture of Gandalf battling the Balrog and not knowing what it was, but feeling that it was awesome. So I read the Hobbit, and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and then one summer, something amazing happened. Amazing things didn't happen in 1988 in Cicero, IL very often, and certainly not to pudgy curly-headed Irish kids who wore thick glasses.

Not this. This didn't happen. Not to me, anyway.

As kids, my brother and I would ride our bikes down the alley maybe more often than the street out front, and one summer day we found several boxes. I never really knew much about the person who put the boxes out by the garbage to be thrown away (I have a vague recollection of thinking someone said he was a pastor who moved out of the neighborhood.) This mystery person will certainly never know what they did for me. Inside the boxes were dozens of fantasy and sci-fi novels. C.S. Lewis, “choose your own adventure”, Twistaplot, even most of the collected Lone Wolf books and Steve Jackson's Sorcery! Whoever it was who threw the boxes of books away, they affected my life profoundly.

I think now that this series was the best part of those boxes.

I frantically dragged boxes down the alley to save the precious contents from the rain that was starting to fall, and looking back on it, I'm not sure I got them all. I wonder what treasures might have been ruined by water hours after I'd decided that I'd gotten “enough”. The trove of books in the boxes was in uniformly good condition, and I sat in the basement that summer sorting them into piles to be looked at later. I'd read some Narnia and Tolkien already, and I'd gotten a bunch of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” from the Scholastic Book club at school, but there were a LOT of those “adventure game/books” that I'd have never known existed otherwise.

Yeah, I still did the standard stupid kid stuff, played with toy guns (which was dangerous, because back then, toy guns looked real, and in my neighborhood there were more than a few young people out there with the real thing) set off fireworks, begged my Dad to go with me to put my allowance into Ms. Pac-Man, Elevator Action or TRON a quarter at a time... but there were those books. I'd already been an unusually bookish kid, winning a toy dog who wore a “Sherlock Holmes” kind of outfit for 1^st place in the 1981 MS Read-a-Thon  competition at the Cicero Public Library. I was the winner by over 25 books.

Some of these were really pretty hard. All of the gaming from my childhood had a difficulty level modern gamers wouldn't tolerate.

I can honestly say that those particular books, that particular summer before we owned a computer, and when I only owned 2 games for the NES, shaped me into who I am today. My first Piers Anthony was in there, so was my first exposure to something called the Mail Order Hobby Shop. A catalogue was in the bottom of one of the boxes for the mail-order game supply business set up by TSR, inc. I'd known about and played Dungeons and Dragons nearly three years before, but inside the catalogue was a whole new world. I excitedly showed my find to my mother, but she was no help there. She thought video games were a waste of time and money, that I wouldn't like Lord of the Rings because you had to “read between the lines”, and D&D was “that game that the people at church think is Satanic.”

This was the catalogue from the summer AFTER this story takes place, which exposed me to my first Gen Con.

I'll give my parents credit, though. They didn't forbid me any of the activities that, once I got a taste for them, I chose to devote a lot of time and thought into, even if they didn't understand or really approve of them. I got more fantasy novels from garage sales, ordered a set of Lord of the Rings miniatures from the 1989 version of that catalogue, and even got my Dad to take me to Toys 'R Us to buy my own D&D Red Box, and later taking the longer drive to a mall game store for the Expert Set. (That is definitely a subject for another article, maybe two)

Yeah, looking at these covers hit me with serious nostalgia while writing this.

Oh yeah... those books? Though I lost a bunch along the way, since that summer was almost 25 years ago now, I still have about a third of them, paperbacks sitting proudly on our shelves.

5 Things That Sucked About C2E2.

 Yesterday, I did a top 5 style post (The most popular post on this blog to date, incidentally) and for today, I humbly submit a counterpoint, where I want to discuss the “less than perfect” parts of my C2E2 experience.

Limited food options and walking to the train in 30° weather makes me a Sad Panda.

1. McCormick Place Venue was Out of Touch With Needs and Schedule of the Show. Without exception, the C2E2 event staff was courteous, helpful, and all around did their jobs. This is important because quite a few of these people who deserve praise and credit were working as volunteers. The facility staff, getting paid to do a job, don't deserve as much praise or credit. Frequently rude and almost universally ignorant, they detracted from the event.
   Venue management deserves some blame as well. On Saturday, the largest day for a 3 day show, you do not, I repeat, DO NOT close down all the restaurants in both food courts right before the three biggest panels let out, leaving a little pizza stand, nachos or barbeque as the only meal options for hundreds of people in the whole venue. Also, if you have someone directing attendees to charter shuttles, that person should know where they go. I didn't appreciate the long cold walk from Union Station to Clark and Lake to catch my train because a moron put me on the wrong bus.

2. People Stopping in the Middle of A Crowded Aisle for a Photo Op Every convention has their fair share of people who, for some reason suddenly forget that they are in the middle of an aisle with lots of other people and suddenly stop to gawk. I'm used to that, even if it annoys me. Usually, however, you can walk around the slack-jawed nerd and keep moving after a few seconds. This is not true if someone in a costume stops in a congested spot and poses for a picture, as you have gawkers, the people involved, and all the empty space around the cosplayer where more considerate folks don't want to ruin the picture. Occasionally, I saw where people chose to do this, and thought, “Wow, I could find you a less convenient place to do that, but I'd have to do some math first.” It is flattering if someone wants to photograph the costume you worked hard on... have a little consideration and do it somewhere you won't cause a geek pileup.
   
   

   

   Awesome costume, but trapped in the roadblock, I'm almost too busy hating you to notice how hot this is. Almost.

   
   
   
   
3. Non-existent Event Security Put Featured Guests At Risk During one of the panels I talked about yesterday, Tahmoh Pennikett was talking, and sniffling, and talking, and sniffling. He apologized for the sniffles into the mic, as the air in the venue was messing with his sinuses. Several minutes later, a helpful fan rushed up the side of the stage to hand him a pack of tissues. Good on him. But wait, a random dude ran right up to a celebrity guest without so much as a “Halt, who goes there?” with an object in his hand. Tahmoh, who is a Muay Thai kickboxer, said “Man, I didn't know what that was, and I almost took you out.” Even if he was joking, this could have gone bad in a lot of ways. DON'T let fans run up on your guests, especially Sci-Fi fans who are used to having potentially dangerous stalkers.
   
   

   

   Forget what I said up there, seeing Helo destroy a random nerd would have been AWESOME.

   
   
   
   
4. Hall Layout Was Spectacularly Inefficient This compounds the issue I talked about in #2. certain aisles were cramped way too tight, others with a lot of unnecessary dead space, and some booths had side tables that extended into places where people needed to get by. In a few spots, I'm sure some ADA regulations were violated, as there was no way a wheelchair could get through. I understand that different lot sizes cost different prices and creating those parcels is far from an exact science. I may have mentioned before that I put together shows like this professionally (though mine never got this big.) Either the lots for booths were just drawn up badly, or the people who didn't stay in their assigned areas needed to be kept in line. Safety for your attendees comes first, and lanes being that cluttered could cause a hazard if evacuation became necessary.
   
   
5. Do Three Things Well... Rather than 1 thing well, and 4 kinda “Meh”. The main focus of this event is comics, for sure, and comic-related parts of the show were solid. Quite a few of the other areas of the event need additional support and attention, or they need to be excised. I've worked with a lot of the guys and gals involved in the gaming areas, and I've seen what they can do with proper support. “Support” in this case isn't a mention in the con program, a room with a bunch of tables and a hands-off kind of “Good Luck, Buddy.” Putting someone in charge of an area and then basically leaving them completely alone isn't delegation, it is neglect.

Don't let the fact that this post is longer than the last one make it seem like I had a poor time at the con... it really was a spectacularly run show, and my eye may be more critical having run these things myself. Honestly, #1 & #2 got to me the most, and there's nothing the show organizers could do about those. Anyone else have any gripes from this show or ones like it?

Steam Sales - The Unemployed Gamer's Best Friend

While I discussed previously in general some low-budget entertainment options for the "salary impaired" geek, I'm going to talk about computer games.

PC games, in particular, are a hobby many geeks enjoy, as many of us have game-capable rigs, and (generally speaking) easier and better online play make the PC a choice over the console for a few genres of video game. Some types of game, most notably the MMORPG are all but unrepresented on consoles, and the RPG offerings (with the notable exception of the JRPG) on the PC tend to have a broader scope.

Bias confession, I have an Xbox360 and a Wii, but I prefer to game on the PC, as RPGs are my favorite genre, and I grew up on old school adventure games. Being a PC gamer, more than anything except playing Dungeons and Dragons, (yeah, with books and dice) shaped me into the geek I am today.

Problem. Console gamers short on cash can roll down to the nearest Gamestop and pick up a used title. PC Gamers don't have that same kind of (legal) option. So what is an ethical gamer who is chronically short on cash due to lack of employment to do?

Steam. The digital delivery system run by Valve that used to be buggy, intrusive and a big pain a few years back has come a long way. I've lost discs for games I paid retail for, with no (again, legal) options for being able to play them without rebuying the game. Steam may be a form of DRM (many geeks' least favorite letters), but if you buy something there... you're all set if you want to reinstall it months later.

And what about the cash flow problem? Steam runs sales ALL THE TIME. Weekend sales, mid-week sales, "We just felt like it" sales. I've picked up titles that launched at $60 for $10, and little titles that I'd have never heard of without Steam for under $5. Some of the deals I've gotten were, truth be told, on games that were on my "gotta play this later" list, and were a year or so old, but I've seen titles only a few months after release at over 50% off. Not too bad, considering that I have a lot of free time I didn't have before, I just can't blow all our money on games. I can spend a little of it, and stretch the heck out of that dollar on Steam by watching for those sales.

And I don't even have to put on pants.

Geeking Out (On a new Budget)

Looking at the entries I've posted, I want to make sure that this blog isn't all about being unemployed, and not at all about geekery. After all, It'd be easy to devolve into just whining about how bad life is (truth is, it really isn't) or carrying on with inspirational little stories that could have come from anyone. I want, occasionally, to write just about geeky things, and more often, to write about where geeky things and not having a job intersect, and how they interact. This post is gonna kinda like that second one.

I've been very fortunate to have in place a lot of geeky things that don't run me a whole lot of money, whether it means rewatching Dr. Horrible's Sing a Long Blog on Netflix streaming, playing one of the (many, many) boardgames acquired during my years at the hobby shop, or World of Warcraft. Lots and lots of WoW.

I know a lot of geeks are divided on the subject of WoW, but as I've been playing since open beta and when my wife and I were apart, it was the easiest way to spend lots of time together without lots of money, I'm definitely in the "pro WoW camp". Dungeons, levelling, crafting items, PvP, working as a team in a guild, and, yes... raiding (just killed Nefarian for 12/12 normal!) has been a lot of my gaming over the last 6 years. I spent a lot more going out to bars, and my wife and I have had a lot of fun. It may be a treadmill, but I know all the other hamsters.

Also, in the "low cost" geekery, I run several roleplaying (think D&D, not computer) campaigns for a group of friends, lately using the Savage Worlds system. We get together once a week (most weeks, unless schedule or illness forbids) have a potluck meal and I run an adventure for the group. Currently running Rippers (Think Van Helsing meets League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, if either movie was GOOD), Deadlands (Gunslingers, Zombies and magic in the Weird West), and Sundered Skies (Hrm... harder to explain this one... I'll go with "DDDDWWWWAAAARRRVESSSS INNNN SPPPAAAAAACCCCEEE!")

Luckily, my existing geek hobbies were fairly inexpensive for the amount of entertainment I get from them. I will set aside a few dollars to purchase Dragon Age 2 when it drops... more about that another day.