#oneaday Day 972: H, and Not the One from Steps

For one to become a fan of the visual novel genre, one has to be willing to deal with one of gaming's great taboos: the sex scene. You have to be willing to play games specifically marked as "adults only" and warning of explicit sexual content on the box; you have to be willing to explain that no, you're not actually playing a "porn game" (in most cases, anyway) — you're playing a game that just happens to have sex scenes in it, because there's a difference. You also have to be able to say that latter bit without coming across as defensive, which is very difficult.

A good few years back, I played several of what I then knew as "H-games" — specifically, True Love, Ring Out, Paradise Heights and Three Sisters' Story.

Of these games, two were pretty much out-and-out porn — Ring Out centred around a young girl who had been sold into effective slavery to repay her parents' debts and who was forced to compete in an all-lesbian sex-wrestling tournament for the entertainment of pervy, disgusting men; Paradise Heights centred around a guy who both lived and worked at the titular apartment complex and seemed to spend most of his time either spying on or having sex with the residents. Interestingly, though, despite the clear focus of these titles being the sex scenes, they still bothered to put clearly-defined characters and an actual sense of narrative in there — Ring Out in particular, despite its eminently silly premise, was clearly designed to be an uncomfortable experience as much as an arousing one.

Three Sisters' Story, meanwhile, was a title I actually can't remember a great deal about, save that it was a character-heavy visual novel in which you automatically attained a bad ending at the conclusion if you gave in to base desires and slept with everyone who proffered themselves to you.

True Love was perhaps the most interesting, though, being an actual dating sim rather than a straight visual novel. You had a limited number of in-game days to find your "true love" (from among the wide variety of potential lovers at school, of course) and had to choose how you spent your time each day — studying, training, doing art, going shopping, that sort of thing. How you chose to spend your time affected various statistics, and the levels of these statistics affected your relationships with the girls. It was actually a surprisingly complex game that had a surprising amount in common with Persona 3 and 4. I really enjoyed it — and my past enjoyment of True Love is perhaps a big part of the reason why I enjoy the Persona games so much now.

Here's the thing, though — at the time, I didn't really feel comfortable talking about the fact I'd played these games to anyone. The popularity of the Internet was still in its relative infancy at the time, thanks partly to the fact that broadband hadn't taken hold in this country yet, and I didn't really feel that comfortable discussing them with my real-life friends at the time. (True Love was an exception — several of us ended up playing this through concurrently while we were at university.)

The sex was the reason. There was an air of "shame" about playing these games, and not in a Squadron of Shame sense. Because there was sex in all of them to varying degrees, I felt uneasy about revealing my association with them lest I end up thought of as some sort of weird pervert. (In the case of Ring Out, I probably would be thought of as some sort of weird pervert — there was some messed-up kinky shit in that game. Except now I've revealed the fact I've played it to all of you. Yay! I'm a weird pervert! AND PROUD.)

Yet now I feel perfectly comfortable talking about these games, and even promoting them through a regular column over on Games Are Evil. So what's changed?

Several factors, I think. First up, my own attitudes towards sex have, naturally, changed over the years. Secondly, the rise of the Internet means that it's much easier to find like-minded people to discuss these things with, even if they're outside of your normal friendship groups. Thirdly, societal attitudes towards sex in gaming are changing.

We're not living in a completely sexually liberated age, of course — there's still a fuss any time a high-profile game such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age features bonking, and said games tend to skimp on the titillation by having characters writhing around in their underwear — but we're in a place now where people are at least a little more willing to consider the possibility that games might have some sex in them.

Part of this is the fact that the general demographic of "gamers" has grown up somewhat and is demanding more "mature" experiences for their money. Mostly, "mature" tends to be interpreted as "more violent, more swear words and more women in suggestive outfits". Sex is still seemingly considered somewhat taboo, so we end up with the underwear-writhing just described.

In 18+, adults-only visual novels, there's none of that. In these titles, sex scenes are explicit, sometimes quite protracted and, in the words of their manuals, "not always exhibiting the level of sensitivity required for a healthy relationship". They're often highly erotic and titillating, and more often than not obviously aimed at a male audience — or at least presented from the perspective of a male protagonist.

Are they necessary? Probably not. Having played through two paths of My Girlfriend is the President now, I feel that game's stories could probably have been told just as effectively without the flurry of shagging that occurs in the game's third act of four. Some visual novels even allow players to turn off H-scenes altogether, and console or smartphone ports remove said content altogether, thereby proving that no, it's probably not necessary.

They may not be necessary, but they're actually pretty effective in many cases — at least from my perspective. Staying with My Girlfriend is the President, I found the erotic scenes to be incredibly powerful — largely because the writers had taken such great pains to build up a massive amount of sexual tension between the characters before anything truly perverted started happening. As the erotic scenes unfolded, a very "private" side of these characters revealed themselves. What were their attitudes towards sex and physical intimacy in general? How did they define their relationship with each other? Did they see sex as an important part of a relationship, or just something fun to do?

There's also the fact that visual novels tend to take place with the player "riding along" inside the protagonist's brain. The player is privy to the protagonist's innermost thoughts, feelings and desires, however shameful they might be, It's a uniquely intimate relationship between player and visual novel protagonist — not the same as playing a game where you feel completely "in control" of the characters, but one where the player feels "trusted" to find out things that, in some cases, other characters in the game world don't know. Next to that, seeing Our Hero putting his penis into someone is a relatively small matter.

And with all that, there's the fact that being turned on by something erotic is really just another form of emotional engagement. I'll stay with My Girlfriend is the President for now, but it applies to many other VN titles, too — if feeling happy, sad, amused, upset or angry is a valid emotional response to the things you're seeing unfolding on screen, why not feeling aroused or excited — or even just pleased for the characters?

There's a distinction between these incredibly explicit sex scenes and straight-up porn, I've found. Seeing, say, Yukino and protagonist Jun getting it on is hot, sure, and the amount of panting, groaning and screaming on the game's voice track (coupled with some truly stunning subtitles) makes it clear that these are scenes that are supposed to be hot. But they're not hot in the way that makes me want to, well, not to put too fine a point on it, fap.

They're part of a story; they're something that is happening with these characters. Sure, they're generally not saying anything meaningful to one another ("Mmmm… tch… slurp… aaaaaah") but they are demonstrating part of their relationship to one another. The meaning of that outweighs any desire to flop it out and go to town — and the fact that I'm not treated as an idiot or a prude is also actually quite refreshing. Let's also not forget that many VNs feature sex scenes that are not designed to be titillating at all — Hanako and Rin's scenes in Katawa Shoujo spring immediately to mind — and instead are there to provoke some sort of emotional reaction, or afford a deeper understanding of the characters. Sex is, after all, part of life, like it or not.

Doubtless there are people out there who fap to sex scenes, and the fact that many VNs offer the option to replay just the sex scenes would certainly back this theory up. But, y'know, you want cheap thrills, there are certainly easier ways to go about getting them.

I am, of course, coming at all this from a male perspective and I do not apologise for this in the slightest. I find these experiences engaging, compelling and, on occasion, erotic. And anyway, if we're being practical about this, what difference is there really between someone playing an eroge and the millions of people around the world who have read the Fifty Shades of Grey series? Think about that.

I'm off for a cold shower.

#oneaday Day 971: Y'All Should Probably Play This FTL Thing

Things weren't going well. The rebel fleet were closing in, and the last jump had put the UNS Scruttocks perilously close to a rather active star that was currently enjoying a period of intense flares. Pete, best pilot in the remnants of the Federation (which wasn't saying much) frantically struggled to power up the Scruttocks' FTL engines as the ship was rocked by the explosions of the overly-joyful sun.

It turned out that wasn't the only problem, though. A pirate ship, seemingly undeterred by the solar activity, stood staunchly in the path of the Scruttocks, matching its every move and doing its best to ensure that this would be the end of the intrepid crew's journey.

Andie ran from the bridge to her station at the weapons console at the rear of the ship. Lara followed her, splitting off at a rear bulkhead to head for the engine room. The undermanned Scruttocks was going to need every ounce of power she could give them if they were going to get out of this alive.

"Fire! Go for the shields!"

Andie didn't need to be told twice. She diverted power from non-essential systems, powered up the ship's missile launcher and laser cannon and took aim for the pirate ship's shield systems. The first missile sailed harmlessly past, while the first volley of laser fire was absorbed by their assailant's shields; the second struck true, the missile penetrating the shields and knocking out the shield generators, the cannon fire now free to inflict damage directly on to the enemy's hull.

The pirates weren't going down without a fight, though.

"Fire!"

"I am!"

"No, seriously, FIRE! Get out of there!"

Lara came running through the aft section, severe burns over one side of her body. Andie watched in astonishment as her determined crewmate headed for the medical bay. She smelled smoke, and knew that trouble was ahead. But if she could just hang on a little longer…

The air started to become thin; it became harder to breathe. Andie knew that Pete was trying to put the fire out by venting the oxygen out of the affected sections, but it seemed like the ship's oxygen distribution system had been damaged by the fire, as even though the weapons room was firmly enclosed, she was definitely starting to feel light-headed.

Lara came charging back through. "Come on!" she cried. "Help!"

Andie left the weapons controls on automatic and followed her companion through the aft sections of the ship. Sure enough, the fire had gutted the ship's oxygen distribution room, but the damage wasn't so severe it couldn't be repaired. The pair set about their important work, doing their best as the ship was continually rocked by impact after impact.

Finally, through the window they saw the debris of the destroyed pirate ship drifting sliently past. They had done it. The Scruttocks had survived another day, for now — all they had to do was get this oxygen tank back up and running before–

A loud bleep confirmed to the rapidly-weakening Andie and Lara that their efforts to repair the oxygen tanks had been successful. As they heard the air distribution system start up again, they breathed in heavily, gulping down the precious, life-giving air.

"Preparing for jump to lightspeed," came Pete's voice over the comm system. "Ready in 3… 2…"

At that moment, a solar flare erupted. The Scruttocks' hull, weakened from the protracted battle, tore apart like a snail shell beneath a wellington boot. Its crew's last thoughts as they were suddenly cast into the silent vacuum of space?

"Bollocks."

That's a typical day in the life of the crew of FTL: Faster Than Light, a new independently-developed game that officially came out today. In it, players oversee the crew of a starship frantically running from the mysterious "Rebels" as they attempt to deliver important secrets to the remains of the "Federation". Little more context than this is given, and little more is needed, because FTL is a game about the struggle that is the journey rather than its beginning or its conclusion.

The most apt descriptions of FTL would draw comparisons to the board games Space Alert and Battlestar Galactica. Like those games, FTL gives its players a small number of crew members and a sprawling ship in which to deploy them, then continually bombards them with increasingly-unreasonable challenges until they explode, die, asphyxiate or reach one of a variety of other sticky ends. It is possible to "finish" the game by beating a final boss, but for your first few playthroughs at the very least, you'll be dead within half an hour.

FTL strikes a great balance between simple mechanics and depth, and presents its unfolding emergent narrative in a manner that is abstract enough to allow the player to use their imagination, yet explicit enough to make it clear to understand exactly what is going on at any given moment. Players can route power to different parts of their ship, fire weapons on specific systems of enemy ships, move crew members around to man stations, deal with intruders and put out fires, and even faff around with doors. Doors are very important. You might not think that they are, but the moment your remote door control systems get blown out and you're unable to vent your engine section that is currently on fire, you'll come to appreciate the power of being able to sit in the driver's seat and open the back doors without running the risk of asphyxiation.

FTL describes itself as a form of roguelike and there's certainly plenty of resemblance there — a randomly-generated challenge at the start of each new game, permadeath and a wonderful sense of unfolding, unscripted narrative — but it has a unique identity that is all its own. It's not trying to be Star Control or Master of Orion or anything like that, nor is it trying to be Angband in space — it's the personal story of a few brave men, women and slugs who want to make a difference in a turbulent galaxy. Whether they do so, or whether they end up suffocating as they run around panicking at the fact that half the ship is on fire and the pilot is in the process of being eaten by a praying mantis? That's entirely up to the player's skill and/or sense of sadism.

Either way, you should buy FTL because it's fucking great.

#oneaday Day 970: Shouldn't This Tell You Something...?

A new game-related Kickstarter is not really news any more, but when one gets halfway to a $1.1 million target just a few hours after launching, that's a clear signal that the public is very much interested in the proposed project.

The project in question this time around is Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity, a new title that promises to resurrect the isometric-perspective, real-time-with-pause combat, incredibly well-written RPG genre as exemplified by the Infinity Engine games of the late '90s and early '00s. Many of the key team members behind the quite astonishingly good Planescape: Torment now work at Obsidian, so the prospect of a new game from these creative minds is a very exciting one.

Very few details on the new game are available right now, but what I feel is interesting is the fact that such a huge amount of support has already been pledged to this project. Obsidian's justification for starting the Kickstarter in the first place was that it was difficult to get funding from major publishers for what they wanted to do — the Men In Suits believe that late '90s-style isometric-perspective RPGs won't sell, so the developers don't get to make them.

Except… "won't sell". Is that really true? As I write this, Project Eternity's Kickstarter page has pledges of $560,885. A few hours ago when I posted a news story on Games Are Evil on the subject, the figure was $238,296. According to Kicktraq, the project, assuming it continues at the current rate (which it probably won't), will finish at over 1,500% of its original target. Naturally the initial flurry of people will die down and the final total will probably be a little more modest than the currently-predicted $17.1 million, but it's certainly going to beat its $1.1 million goal comfortably.

This makes me ponder whether the big publishers, constantly chasing the megabucks, are really going about things the right way. Sure, the blockbuster titles most certainly are selling and making astonishing amounts of money, but they also cost a huge amount of money and time to make. Perhaps more importantly, the increasing "annualisation" trend that publishers are inflicting on popular franchises is starting to make longtime gamers resentful of these series. The regular appearance of Call of Duty has become a running joke, regardless of whether or not the latest entry in the series is any good or not. People still buy it, yes, and the games are unquestionably highly-polished experiences with well thought-out user retention and monetisation strategies but, well, is what you really want from a game something that has a well thought-out user retention and monetisation strategy? Or do you want something that is a memorable experience?

The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course. But practically speaking, at some point during the development cycle, an important decision has to be made. What is going to be the priority: business, or creativity? Do you make something that will sell, or do something risky that has never been done before? Do you make a shit-ton of people feel satisfied, or do you make a smaller number of people ecstatically happy?

There's no easy answer, of course. But whatever you may feel about the sudden rise to prominence that Kickstarter has seen over the last year or so, I'm certainly grateful that it gives developers who want to prioritise the risky, creative side of development the opportunity to make something that they want to make — and that their fans want them to make — rather than what a marketing plan put together by someone who quite possibly has never played a game before says they should make.

So yeah. You should go back Project Eternity. (It's up to $585,632 now, incidentally.)

#oneaday Day 969: Hate Speech

The Wii U is too much money for last-gen technology. The iPhone 5 doesn't offer anything new. Kamiya-san should just die if he doesn't bring Bayonetta 2 to Xbox 360 and PS3. Terraria coming to consoles is a slap in the face for PC owners.

These are all genuine opinions I have heard voiced in the last few days by people of varying degrees of intelligence and coherence. Every time I hear something along these lines, it just makes me a bit sad. In general, despite regularly ranting and raving about all and sundry on these very pages, I try to remain as positive a person as I can when it comes to technology, games and the like. I find new things interesting and exciting rather than something to be cynically derided; I also take the firm belief that if something doesn't appeal to you, that's fine, but there might be other people for whom it does hold an appeal and you have no right whatsoever to piss on their bonfire.

There are obvious exceptions to the rule above — if something is a shitty experience for everyone, then yes, it should be derided. But none of the things I mentioned above are shitty experiences, and certainly don't deserve the negative responses they have received from some quarters. In some cases we don't even know enough about the experience in order to declare it shitty or not.

The Wii U in particular is an interesting case. The console isn't even out yet and people are already quick to predict its failure for various reasons; quick to criticise features that may change, or that no-one has seen as yet. It's almost as if people want it to fail after the astronomical success that the Wii enjoyed early in its lifespan. Bewildering.

The iPhone 5 has a similar problem. Nothing Apple could have announced would have made everyone happy. And sure, Apple have a real arrogance problem, getting people whipped up into a frenzy over cable connectors. But the fact is, the iPhone is still a fucking amazing piece of technology that we take for granted every day. There are plenty of people out there who haven't got one yet. Wouldn't it be nice if they could have the best possible version of this awesome gizmo if they do decide to take the plunge? Well hey, look at that, they can.

And then there's the anger about Bayonetta 2 being a Wii U exclusive. (Yes, someone actually did tweet a death threat at Kamiya-san earlier.) Bayonetta was an awesome game that not enough people played. Meanwhile, absolutely fucking everyone bitched about the Wii not having enough third-party support. So a prominent (if underappreciated) third party pledges support to its successor and everyone complains. (Well, apart from open-minded Bayonetta fans, most of whom seem to be more than happy to consider purchasing a Wii U purely to punch more angels in the face. Actual tweet from someone who is not me: "So Bayonetta 2 is going to cost me around £300. Let's face it, for the sequel to the best action game ever made it's probably worth it." I concur.)

Finally, there's the Terraria issue. This is perhaps some of the most obnoxious behaviour I've ever seen from the gamer community. Take a look. Essentially, the "problem" was that the Terraria developer, who abandoned work on the (already feature-complete) game in February of this year to spend some time with his new child (what a bastard!), had been teasing "something big" to the Terraria community. Said "big thing" turned out to be an impending console release of Terraria for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network (pleasecometoVitapleasecometoVitapleasecometoVita) — great news, right? A much bigger audience gets to play an awesome and underappreciated game!

NO! say the PC players of Terraria. YOU BETRAYED US WITH YOUR BASTARDISH DESIRE TO MAKE MONEY AND NOT GIVE US MORE FREE STUFF. What the f—

I… blargh. Seriously. Shut the fuck up and just enjoy life more. And get off my lawn while you're at it.

#oneaday Day 967: I Love You, Irina

I have already said a few positive things about batshit crazy visual novel My Girlfriend is the President on here and done a writeup over at Games Are Evil, but I feel it's worthy of another post as I'm still playing it. My initial writeups were based on a single playthrough, you see, and like any good visual novel worth its salt, there are several possible "routes" through the narrative. (Interestingly, once on a route, there only appears to be one ending and minimal decision-making along the way — something which I thought would bother me a lot more than it does, which is not at all.)

(Author's note: it is nearly 2am and I am tired, so I apologise in advance for incoherent rambling.)

Mild to moderate spoilers follow.

Currently I am about halfway through Irina's route. Irina Putina is the Rusian (sic) president who shows up early in the game's (fixed) first act and then sticks around for varying amounts of time in the remaining three, depending on which route you chose. She's a textbook tsundere in almost every respect, seeming abrasive, grumpy and quick to anger on the surface but regularly demonstrating that she has a soft centre beneath all the slapping. And to be fair to her, protagonist Jun deserves every single slap he gets from her.

Playing Irina's route directly after Yukino (the titular "girlfriend" — actually better translated as "childhood friend") is interesting. On Yukino's route, a huge deal was made out of her history with Jun, particularly a key event in their past which made them the close friends (and, later, lovers) that they are in the game's story. On Irina's route, the pair are still very close to one another, but Jun's attitude towards Yukino is markedly different, at least so far as I have progressed. The pair still play with one another — Yukino's "puppy" impression is particularly adorable ("Wan! Wan!") — but over time as Jun becomes increasingly aware of Irina, he becomes self-conscious about his relationship with Yukino and about how he is stringing her along and making her jealous.

Jun, just in case you haven't read my other entries on the subject, is a bit of a dick at the start of the game. Specifically, he's a wannabe sex pest, constantly making inappropriate comments and lusting after his female friends, most of whom know exactly how to put him in his place. It's worth bearing in mind that he is a teenage boy, however, and consequently is wracked with perpetual horniness and no outlet into which to channel this energy. Moreover, his "harassment," as he calls it, doesn't escalate beyond ill-chosen words and an occasional bit of peeping at things he shouldn't. His actions are regularly completely inappropriate, of course, but he could also be much, much worse.

It's this thoroughly objectionable nature that Jun has at the start of the story that allows him to take such a bold personal journey over the course of the narrative, even as utter insanity is unfolding around him and his friends. By beginning as a heavily flawed character, a pervert, he has the potential to grow and change into something better, and the girls of the story provide the catalyst for him to change. In the case of Yukino, he learns to respect and respond to the feelings of others; in the case of Irina, he learns restraint and gentleness. (I can't speak for Ell or Ran as I haven't played their paths at all yet.)

It's actually quite touching to see. We first witness Jun going through some changes on Irina's path when she comes with him to a judo class and shows him her passion for the sport. When he ends up pinned beneath her and starts teasing her about her breasts, she gets absolutely furious at him and storms out. Normally, Old Jun would have just shrugged this off, but he actually feels bad that he has hurt her feelings by mocking something she loves so much. He goes out of his way to try and make things right — even more remarkable given that he knows she's going to leave in a couple of weeks and thus he could just as easily stay out of her way. His feelings grow, and he realises that he wants to make her happy, to give her the opportunity to be a "normal" girl for those two short weeks rather than the "girl president" position she's been lumbered with.

It's an interesting twist on what happens with Yukino's path. When Jun and Yukino become lovers, Jun stands by her, swears to support her and goes out of his way to help her complete her mountains of work — without her knowledge in some cases. As he grows to love Irina, however, he seemingly wants to provide her with an "escape" from reality for a short period, to let her be "herself" rather than the "Rusian Fairy" facade she normally has to keep up.

I really love that a game with such an utterly nonsensical overarching plot as My Girlfriend is the President still has such wonderfully-defined characters and a genuine sense of emotional engagement in its narrative. The game is absolutely masterful at building up sexual tension in particular, meaning the player is right there with Jun throughout, feeling the electricity of every stolen glance, flushed cheek and hesitant word of affection.

That sense of involvement, of being inside the heads of the characters? That's why I love VNs. There are few other places in gaming where you can have such profound experiences.

#oneaday Day 965: Geometry Makes the Best Games

Being "in the zone" is a curious experience. On the one hand, it's enjoyable and satisfying, whatever the context — sports, games, music, writing — but on the other, it can be terrifying. The second you become aware of your own "in the zoneness", panic strikes. Your pulse races and you worry that you will fall out of said zone any moment. You struggle to maintain your "in the zoneness" but as you become more and more stressed, you get more and more likely to make some sort of critical mistake until, eventually, you give up and go and do something else.

This is the feeling you are constantly battling against while playing Super Hexagon, a new iOS game from Terry "VVVVVV" Cavanagh.

In Super Hexagon, you play the role of a teeny-tiny triangle attempting to not meet a sticky end against the various walls that are being inexplicably flung at it from outside the screen. Or perhaps it's attempting to escape a maze without crashing into any walls. Or… well, it doesn't really matter what it actually is. It's an abstract, "pure gameplay" game in which the aim is simply to survive as long as possible. In essence, it's similar to those "endless running" games that are so popular on mobile platforms right now, with the difference being that you're rotating a shape around a point rather than jumping, ducking and sliding.

In your first couple of games of Super Hexagon, you're likely to last a matter of seconds — five at most. This brutal level of difficulty will likely be enough to put many people off immediately, and that's fine. Stick with it, though, and you'll find yourself increasingly slipping into "the zone" as you survive just a tiny bit longer each time, your skills consistently improving as you learn to spot the various patterns that come your way — and how to deal with them.

Then, of course, you make the mistake of thinking "gosh, I'm doing quite well this time" and plough straight into a wall while 0.05 seconds away from beating your high score. Then, you will immediately tap the screen to try again and be unable to break this cycle for at least half an hour. (Consequently, I do not recommend playing Super Hexagon on the toilet.)

The simple, addictive, abstract nature of the game brings my love affair with Geometry Wars 2 to mind. Both are completely different types of game, of course, but both also have a lot in common. Both tend to have relatively short play sessions, both have an aesthetic so abstract that it stirs the imagination to a surprising degree, and both have a relatively low "penalty" for failure. Mess up and you're back in the game within a second or two to try again.

This latter quality is one of the most important factors in making a game "addictive". Super Meat Boy is another game that understands this — fail a level in that and simply by pressing a button, you're trying again, with no loading breaks, no obtrusive "You Failed" screens or statistical breakdowns, just a tap of the "Retry" button and an immediate response. Geometry Wars 2 did this; Super Hexagon does this. Because it's so simple and habit-forming to just tap the screen to retry after a failed attempt, you get locked into a compulsive cycle, determined that this time is the one, that this time you'll be able to progress just a little bit further and hear Jenn Frank's voice whispering the name of a shape with even more sides at you.

Super Hexagon is out now for just 69p. Grab it from the App Store.

#oneaday Day 961: I am Thou

I wrote a piece about Persona 3 over on Games Are Evil earlier today. Go read it, please.

I have, as you may have guessed from the fact I chose to write about Persona 3 today, been playing Persona 3. I have been meaning to play the extended FES version for many, many years now and have started several times. This time I intend to finish it, including battling my way through The Answer, which I understand is a bit of an ordeal. Then, if I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I will proceed to play Persona 3 Portable as the female protagonist.

I fucking love Persona 3 and 4. They are still my favourite games of all time. I own the first two for PSP/Vita, too, but found the first one a little hard to follow plot-wise and haven't delved particularly deeply into 2 yet. Fortunately, each one stands quite nicely by itself — though 3 and 4 are nicely interconnected, even if certain aspects clash (why do the kids in P3 need Evokers to summon their Personas, but the ones in P4 don't?).

My love for these games stems primarily from the fact that they push all my gaming happy buttons. I love JRPGs and I love visual novels, and Persona 3 and 4 combine the best bits of both genres. You have a simple-to-understand, hard-to-master combat and character development system; you have an in-depth storyline tackling very "human" issues. You have "saving the world" drama; you have characters dealing with personal crises that can, at times, seem more important than impending disaster. Somehow the game manages to avoid pretty much every cliché that critics of JRPGs hate to create an emotional, mature experience with an absolutely badass soundtrack.

The highlight is, of course, the cast of characters throughout. And as I said in my piece over on Games Are Evil, the interesting thing about Persona is that it's not only the heroes and villains who "matter" in the grand scheme of things. The "Social Link" mini-stories that arise as the protagonist gets to know his new school friends and people in the community are fascinating plotlines to follow through in their own right, and help to lend a greater sense of poignancy to the overarching narrative of the Persona-users attempting to Sort Shit Out. In other words, everyone has their own demons to deal with — sometimes these are literal demons, others they are the barriers we create for ourselves: fear, anxiety, shyness, a lack of self-belief. Watching the protagonist touch the lives of these people and be there with them as they come to terms with their own issues gives the small game world a much greater feeling of "life" than almost any other RPG I've played.

It also, once again, highlights the difference between Eastern and Western game design philosophy. When it comes to RPGs, I am firmly in the Eastern camp. I am yet to come across a Western RPG that has captivated me in the same way as the Persona series. You can rant and rave all you like about the beautifully-rendered worlds of Bethesda adventures or BioWare's (increasingly questionable) storytelling chops, but, for me anyway, no-one has the Japanese beat when it comes to interpersonal relationships and a sense of "human" drama amid supernatural chaos.

#oneaday Day 960: Moe Moe Kawaii... Wait, What Are You Doing...?!

Where do you draw the line between art, entertainment, sexist nonsense and porn? It is a rather fine and difficult line to walk, particularly when the definitions of all of those terms vary enormously from person to person according to their open-mindedness, experience with various works, gender and general social attitudes. It's a particularly pertinent question with regard to the genre of games that I seem to be spending a fair amount of time with at present — the ol' visual novel.

The current game I'm playing is called My Girlfriend is the President. I will refrain from talking about it in too much detail as 1) I haven't yet finished it and 2) I will be doing a READ . ME column on the subject for Games Are Evil this Sunday. Suffice to say, however, it is utterly bananas — and yet, there is a slight sense of discomfort while playing. Not enough to prevent me from enjoying it, but just enough to make me think that it might, in fact, be deliberate.

The tension stems from the game's protagonist, whom in TV Tropes terms is probably best described as a Chivalrous Pervert. He openly admits to sexually harassing women and getting turned on by ogling his female peers in a less than honourable fashion. He takes every opportunity to make a smutty comment just to "try his luck". And he's a peeping tom. In short, he should be an immensely dislikeable dick whom any self-respecting player wouldn't want to spend any time inside the head of whatsoever.

And yet he's not. At least part of his perpetual horniness can be attributed to the fact that he is a teenage boy, and consequently subject to the same hormonal urges that all teenage boys find themselves afflicted with. His supposed sexual harassment never leads anywhere, as his female peers are all well aware of the fact that he is a wannabe pervert and thus make sure he doesn't have the opportunity to do anything truly inappropriate — not that he actually would given the opportunity. Several of them even take every chance they get to toy with him, making him more and more wound up and frustrated while at the same time making it clear that they are the ones with the true power in their relationship.

And alongside all this perversion comes the fact that, at heart, he doesn't want anything bad to happen to these girls. He takes every opportunity to attempt to prove his "manliness" and "protect" them, even if they don't really need protecting. He gets embarrassed, flustered and overexcited if anything actually does happen, and when it comes to his adorable childhood friend (the titular President) he is — for the most part, anyway — respectful and sweet.

It puts the player in something of a quandary. Since the game takes place from the perspective of this horny young gentleman, we're frequently subjected to his male gaze sizing up the bodies of the people he's with and pondering what's under their clothes. If he thinks there's the chance he'll see something naughty and the girls in question aren't in any actual physical danger, he'll stand by and watch rather than preventing something embarrassing happening to them. But when the chips are down and Bad Things are happening, he's the first to spring into action in an (often misguided) attempt to keep them safe — usually with hilarious slapstick results.

So what does all this mean? Is the game itself sexist, or is it simply putting the player inside the head of a protagonist with definite sexist tendencies? Or is it somewhere in between?

I don't know for sure. Whatever it is, My Girlfriend is the President is most certainly a gloriously guilty pleasure that I have absolutely no shame in saying that I am enjoying a great deal right now!

#oneaday Day 959: Free iOS Games That Don't Suck: Zookeeper Battle

From a personal perspective, I have grown to pretty much loathe the mobile gaming industry. I find it interesting to write about for my day job, but as time passes, I find myself wanting less and less to do with it in my free time. It has become abundantly apparent that "free to play" or "freemium" is seen as the way forward, with most developers believing it impossible to get your game seen if it costs money up front; and when developers do release something of comparable quality and price to something you'd see on a dedicated gaming handheld — see: anything Square Enix puts out — everyone seems to complain, even if they wouldn't hesitate to pay $20+ for, say, a PSP or Vita title.

Consequently, it's a genuine pleasure when I come across an iOS game that doesn't feel like it's violating my wallet and badgering me to do things I don't want to do. It's even more of a pleasure if said game falls into the "free to play" category and doesn't feel in any way exploitative to the player, nor does it feel like a cynical, lazy clone of something else.

I present to you, then, exhibit A: Kiteretsu's Zookeeper Battle.

Zookeeper Battle is a "match-3" puzzler of the Bejeweled Blitz mould. You have coloured shapes — in this case, zoo animals — and must swap them around to make groups of 3 or more of the same colour either horizontally or vertically. Doing so causes them to disappear and more to fall down in their place. It's the player's aim to do as much of this matching as possible against a tight time limit.

In the case of Bejeweled Blitz, players are simply competing for a high score, but in Zookeeper Battle, it's a head-to-head competition against another player — and live, rather than asynchronous. Matching animals adds to a player's attack or defense score for a round, and after time has expired the two players will attempt to smack seven shades of shit out of each other. Attack points are absorbed by the opponent's defense points, after which they translate directly to damage. Whoever reduces their opponent's life bar to zero first — or whoever has the most life remaining at the end of five rounds — wins. It's simple, effective and incredibly addictive, and regular "quests" with custom backgrounds, greetings and other non game-breaking goodies on offer help provide incentive to play regularly.

What I find quite surprising about Zookeeper Battle is that it does most of the "freemium" tricks that I abhor so and yet somehow manages to come out not being obnoxious. There's an energy (sorry, "CP") bar throttling how much you can play in a single session, for example — but it restores quickly and the game also provides you with five "energy drinks" to restore it for free upon first booting it up. It's also pretty rare that when I sit down to play Zookeeper Battle that I want to play more than one or two matches anyway, so in practice, despite energy systems being the worst thing that has ever happened to gaming, here it's not too obtrusive.

The same goes for the in-app purchases. Zookeeper Battle allows players to spend real money in exchange for "booster" items, all of which allow the player to counter special "attack" items that may be sent their way during a match. The thing is, though, these paid items aren't actually that helpful and are certainly no guarantee of winning, as all of the "attack" items either lose their effects after a few seconds or are easily countered. In other words, a system that could have easily become "pay to win" is more a system that just doesn't need to be there at all — like the energy system, it's a shame it's there, but it doesn't really get in the way of the core game, which is solid.

While I would perhaps prefer that Zookeeper Battle dispensed with this freemium crap altogether, I appreciate that such monetization strategies often prove somewhat lucrative for developers — certainly more lucrative than asking for a single, one-off "price of admission". What I believe Kiteretsu should be praised for in this instance is incorporating all the usually-obnoxious freemium mechanics in such a manner as to not be obtrusive to players who don't want to play — and, more to the point, not to provide such a massive advantage to paying players that it just makes the game completely pointless to play at all.

The only thing that is a real shame is the fact that the Game Center leaderboards for the title have, as usual, been rendered completely useless by cheating players. The current number 1 player in the world has apparently won over two billion games. Assuming an average of three minutes per game, this would mean that the player had been playing for six billion minutes in total. To put it another way, this would equate to a hundred million hours or 11,408 years. I'm pretty sure the game hasn't been out for 11,408 years. I'm also pretty sure that iPhones haven't been available for 11,408 years. And I'm fairly sure that the person in first place isn't over the age of 11,408 years.

Oh well. I can be happy with my performance so far. Feel free to challenge me — I'm Angry Jedi on Apple's Game Center, so feel free to add me if you have an iOS device.

#oneaday Day 958: Gratuitous Self-Promotion (And Promotion of Others, Too)

Hello! How are you? Great!/Sorry to hear that! (delete as applicable)

I have something to share with you that I've been working on recently. Some of you may have already seen what I've been up to; it may be news to some of you. I thought I'd share it here, though, in the hope that I can get more people looking at it.

I'm talking about the website Games Are Evil. I was a contributor there a while back in the post-Kombo years, but was then lucky enough to score my gig at the late GamePro. I kept abreast of what the team was up to during and after my time at GamePro, and always felt a certain degree of "attachment" towards it, even during the times when I wasn't actively involved.

So when it became apparent that the site was in need of a bit of a "reboot" and resuscitation, I was keen to step forward while I had a bit of free time on my hands. I'm lucky enough to have a flexible (and well-paid) enough day job that I have time to take on a "pet project" like this as well as fulfilling my other responsibilities, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to gain some experience in running a site as well as experimenting with some "alternative" directions and content strategies.

That "alternative" thing is key. Having had some interesting conversations with a couple of my friends in the PR industry in recent months, it became clear that a lot of representatives were becoming frustrated that the vast majority of gaming sites focused on the upcoming blockbusters, while "B-tier" titles (for want of a better term — I'm not saying their quality is lower, only their profile) went forgotten, or were barely acknowledged with a somewhat dismissive news story. As such, I felt that there was clearly a gap in the market for a site to cater to the "niche". Since Games Are Evil was not particularly beholden to advertisers or investors, the time was ripe to launch something of an experiment — a video games site that deliberately eschews stories regarding things like the Call of Duties and the Mass Effects of this world in favour of smaller-scale titles and interesting stories from around gaming culture. My original manifesto from when I took over can be found here, if you're curious.

Since taking over the reins at GrE, I've launched a series of regular columns from a range of talented and enthusiastic writers keen to write about their passions. These columns are becoming the main focus of the site, supported by a few daily news stories and occasional reviews when we have code to hand. Each column has a tight, narrow focus and concentrates on a specific genre or aspect of gaming culture, meaning that readers of Games Are Evil will be able to follow their favourite niche and get to know the writer of said column in the process rather than having to scroll through page after page of news which might not be relevant to them. The model which I wanted to follow with this was the way old-school 1up used to work — people came for the personalities rather than necessarily the specific content of the articles. It's too early to determine whether or not this has been successful or not so far, but I am very proud of what the team has achieved to date — we've seen some great columns ranging from comprehensive roundups of Minecraft news to in-depth explorations of obscure strategy games.

Here's some handy links for you to find your favourite column and follow it:

Distant Worlds — a weekly roundup of news from the MMO sector. What's new, what's hot, what's not.
FreePlay — a weekly delve into free-to-play and freeware games to sort out the "must plays" from the microtransaction-riddled crapfests.
Insert Coin — a weekly exploration of arcade machines, arcade restoration and arcade culture.
READ.ME — a weekly foray into the world of visual novels (I do this one!)
Swords & Zippers — a weekly roam through the colourful worlds of Japanese role-playing games (I do this one too!)
Tactical Tuesday — a bi-monthly deep dive into some of the most obscure, underappreciated and fascinating strategy games available for PC.
The Craft — a weekly roundup of what's new in the world of Minecraft.
The Vault — a weekly dive into the annals of history to rescue underappreciated or forgotten classics from obscurity. Fans of the Squadron of Shame will be right at home here.

It's early days for the site's new direction as yet, but things are starting to come together nicely. If you've been reading the daily new content, thanks! If you haven't, please feel free to check it out. Leave a comment on articles you'd like to discuss. And please, please share anything you happen to read that you find interesting, entertaining or just plain awesome. With your help, we can make Games Are Evil into the go-to destination for "alternative gaming".

Gratuitous self-promotion (and promotion of others) now over. Normal business will resume tomorrow.