Mario Kart World is cartoon physics at its finest

I found myself struggling to write about Mario Kart World because I wanted to open with ‘Its Mario’s World and we’re just living in it’

The Mario Kart franchise is about video game characters racing in go karts with heavily exaggerated physics and incredibly unlikely random weaponry. Aaaand  you probably already know that.

I remember a PC gamer friend telling me that the Switch 2 having a party game as their big launch game was mistake. My reaction was ‘huh, I guess Mario Kart can be a party’ and ‘Isn’t Mario Kart 8 the best selling Switch game so wouldn’t that make Mario Kart a solid bet for Nintendo?’

And, at least for our family, Mario Kart World has been a winner. To be fair, we occasionally revisit Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart 7 and played tons of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe so we were always going to be an easy sell. But Mario Kart World may become our favorite so far.

(The idea of an open world Mario Kart still feels kind of strange. I personally am in it just for the races but I do like the option of cross county races.)

Instead of boring you with details about the game, since people far better qualified than I am have published plenty of articles about it, I want to comment on one key element. That Mario Kart World leans even further into the exaggerated physics, getting us even closer to a Looney Tunes cartoon.

You are now able to do jumps and flips simply by accelerating. You can grind in rails and even things like telephone lines, although I don’t know if grind is really the right term. You are a cartoon pinball and the world is your cabinet.

Something I have come to realize as I grow older as a gamer is that the casual audience is a quiet giant. I am paraphrasing but I remember James Ernst saying at a convention that a designer asking him if a pub game like Pairs had any sales potential and Ernst’s response being ‘Have you met people?’

Mario Kart World is not a work of literature in video game form (which definitely exist) but it is a ton of fun.

Katrielle Layton deserved a better video game

 When my wife, then fiancé, wanted to bring me back to the world of video games, two of the things she did was get me a DS and a copy of Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Worked like a charm.

The game is a collection of puzzles that are strung together by the story of Professor Hershall Layton (an archeologist, gentleman and the possessor of one devil of a top hat) and his assistant Luke Triton investigating a mysterious town. Unlike many games that have puzzle-like elements, the action stops in the Layton games and you actually solve a puzzle that has little to do with the actual story.

For me, at least, the Layton games were right hot stuff.

Earlier this year, we decided to try out Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, the seventh main game in the series. Professor Layton has mysteriously disappeared and his daughter Katrielle has taken up the mantle of the detective and puzzle solver. It started out on the 3DS but was also released for the Switch.

Critics viewed it as one of the weakest entries in the series. And I have to agree.

From what I read, it is the first game that didn’t have Akiro Tago work on the puzzles, on account of him passing away. And the puzzles are definitely weaker. More than that, instead of one fairly serious story, it’s a collection of fairly light hearted stories. The story elements lack the weight and gravitas of the earlier games.

But…

We did still have fun.

And it comes down to this. Even a weak Layton game is still a Layton game. Better than nothing is a very weak argument but it is an argument. 

But, while the puzzles aren’t the best, I could forgive that. The story is what really drags the game down. While the Professor Layton stories were bizarre to the point of nonsensical, they still had drama in the context of the settings. Not only is this game broken down into individual, only loosely related, stories, some of the cases would fit right into Richard Scarry’s Busy Town Mysteries. While a couple of the cases are more serious, the overall tone feels like the intended audience is small children, not a general, all purpose audience.

The funny thing is that the three main characters all have the potential to carry a much stronger story. The story we were given made both my wife and I rush through the story elements so we could get to the puzzles.

All said and done, I’d recommend the first two Layton trilogies to anyone who likes puzzles without qualification. Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, on the other hand, gets lots of qualifications. It is okay as our seventh Layton game but it shouldn’t be anyone’s first.

Toem celebrates the amateur photographer smart phones have made of all of us

Indie cozy games are a big part of our family’s video gaming. And Toem is one that everyone but the cat enjoyed and that’s probably just because she doesn’t have opposable thumbs.

Many indie cozy games have a strong emotional core, some serious feels after you dig a little. A Short Hike is built on Claire’s relationship with her mom and Lil Gator is about the title character’s relationship with his sister. Even Unpacking unpacks the story of the unseen protagonist.

Not Toem! You are just a cute little Arthur-like critter (you know, an aardvark that doesn’t resemble an aardvark in any way) who is going around taking photos and helping people. Wheeeee!

Seriously, the level of sweet, lowkey joy in Toem is pretty high.

While there is a goal, to find and photograph the titular phenomenon of the Toem, the game is really about exploring the black-and-white, hand drawn world of the game. 

Your photographer has been sent off into the world by their nana who has also given them their antique camera. You travel to each new area by bus. But you don’t buy bus tickets with money. No, you earn them by getting stamps from helping people out.

And it is a world of quirky, individualized inhabitants. All sorts of strange but always friendly creatures. Toem is not just a harmless world but an uplifting one. It’s a quirky world but one that makes you feel welcome.

Smart phones have made amateur photographers out of all of us. Toem is a celebration of that. Toem takes something that so many of us do all the time (photography), something that might already be a game in a way, and makes it own game out of it.

Echoes of Wisdom turns Zelda into a Swiss Army knife

 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom may be my favorite Zelda title. It is also almost assuredly the easiest one I've played. Those two things are definitely linked. Echoes of Wisdom isn't fun because its easy but because of the way that they made it easy.

Echoes is also the first mainline Zelda game that has a Zelda, not a Link, as the protagonist. (The games take place in many eras and the fantasy land of Hyrule apparently has very little imagination when it comes to naming kids) There were a couple of third party games that had you play Zelda but those were so legendarily bad that Nintendo denies that they existed.

And this is why that matters from a gameplay standpoint. (Representation is important too)  This Zelda does not play like a Link with a different graphics. Instead, she has her own, very different, play style.

Zelda's main power is summoning echoes, which are either objects like rocks or monsters that are on her side. She can also telekinetically move things around in a limited fashion. Oh and she can actually turn into Link for very short periods. Which is actually the only way Zelda can engage in combat.

As the game progresses, you of course level up. You can summon more powerful stuff or more of the little stuff. You can become Link for a longer time with more powerful weapons.

This Zelda is a different archetype than Link, who fits the dashing swordsman paradyme. She is a squishy wizard. Certainly nothing new in the greater world of video games and RPGs but it is new to the Legend of Zelda.

And, like virtually every Legend of Zelda game since at least Link to the Past, Echoes of Wisdom has lots of puzzles. But with all her powers, Zelda is like a Swiss army knife. Like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom before it, there are multiple solutions to every problem. 

And the echo summons alone offer so much flexibility that the game is less about finding a solution that works and more like picking which solution you like the most. At a certain point, Zelda can summon up her own army of monsters and stacking beds ends up being a technique you can exploit until the end of the game.

Everyone in our household has ended up playing through Echoes of Wisdom except the cat. And, with a few exceptions, we rarely felt like using the the Link transformation. The toolbox of echoes just gave us so many other ways of solving problems.

Echoes of Wisdom is a 2D game, one that looks like it would have been released on the DS if that was still an option. It is definitely much smaller in scope than Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. We were afraid that it would be too small and too simple and too limited.

Instead, Echoes of Wisdom offers endless choices. It isn't as challenging as earlier games but it gives you new ways to explore.

The Suika Game - a master class in fidgeting

 Lately, our household has been unwinding with the Suika Game, a fruit-themed video game.

It’s certainly an example of a little game that could. It was originally developed by the company Aladdin X for a digital projector. Customers liked it so they released in Japan for the Switch. And exposure via social media led to wider Switch release.

It’s a puzzle game where you are dropping fruit into a container and the game ends when the container overflows. The puzzle bit is that when two fruits of the same touch, they combine to form the next largest fruit, with the watermelon (Suika in Japanese) being the largest.

A big part of the appeal is that the fruits follow physics, at least to a certain degree. Fruit will bounce and roll after they are dropped. I am not convinced that the fruits’ masses are all that realistic but the shifting fruit definitely makes the game more interesting.

I was actually quite shocked that the Suika Game wasn’t designed as a mobile game. It’s exactly the kind of casual game that you can easily waste hours on your phone with. It totally fits that model.

There have got to be hundreds of games like this. Probably thousands. Human beings love pattern recognition and fidgeting and that’s all these games really are. They tap into something that is hardwired into us.

I know Tetris didn’t create this genre but I do think of it as the definitive example of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the most successful example. Six shapes. Utter simplicity. Endlessly fascinating. The Suika Game doesn’t have that simplicity but it does inspire that compulsion.

I don’t know why the Suika Game clicks so well, although the uber cute fruit and the physics has to be a part of it. It’s got plenty of competition. But it succeeds in entertaining and relaxing us.

I was a good dad and played Super Mario RPG

 Our son enjoyed Super Mario Wonder so much that he wanted to try the next ‘new’ Mario game, the switch version of Super Mario RPG. However, he got bored with the JRPG elements. Since daddy loves RPGs, it fell upon me to play through the game.

Well, I do love RPGs. Tabletop RPGs are my true love but I have played the odd JRPG in my day. So playing Super Mario RPG wasn’t a painful experience.

Super Mario RPG started out life on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in  1996 and was developed by Square, the same company that created Final Fantasy. No, I didn’t know any of that when I started playing.

I have dabbled with the RPG side of Mario before with Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario Origami King (please refer to the first paragraph about why) but apparently Super Mario RPG is where it got started.

And Super Mario RPG may be the shortest, simplest JRPG I have encountered. Heck, there are even some straight up platforming sequences. (That I did abysmally at) Super Mario RPG isn’t just built for folks who have never played an JRPG before. It’s built for folks who don’t have any interest in playing another one.

With that said, an RPG of any kind lives or dies by its story. You don’t play D&D for the minis or the dice. Well, you might but you’d be in the minority. You play it for the story.

And, yeah, Super Mario RPG’s story is a solid reason to play the game.

Even by 1996, the basic pattern of Super Mario games was established and worth poking fun at. And Super Mario RPG lovingly makes fun of how often Bowser kidnaps Peach and also has a lot of fun with the idea that Mario has been become famous for all of his heroics. The cutscenes depicting Mario as a heroic mime are hysterical.

Yes, the actual story involves a big bad who is mean enough that Bowser signs onto Team Mario (Having both Bowser and Peach as party members is a high point) and you do have to restore the cosmic balance. But the tone remains jovial rather than dire. Of course, world shattering threats are pretty routine for Mario, which the game cheerfully points out.

I played the game in easy breezy level and I also didn’t play clever. I fought everything to level up the party and constantly stocked up on mana potions so I could spam the biggest attacks. And that worked just fine. I may have missed some items but we got to see the story.

Super Mario RPG is pretty lowkey and pretty simple. It’s not Final Fanrasy with a Mario reskin. But we enjoyed it.

Secondhand Dave the Diver

While I haven’t played Dave the Diver myself, I have watched my wife play through the game. Which is how it works in our home, really. I focus on tabletop and she focuses on video games. And from an outsider’s viewpoint, Dave the Diver is a pearl of a game (rimshot)

In Dave the Diver, you take on the role of the eponymous diver, a pudgy guy whose chief characteristic is just how sweet he is. Seriously, Dave is prepared to help out anyone and everyone.

After a magical spot of the ocean where fish from every biome spawn is found, Dave is cajoled in to catch fish for a sushi restaurant. A restaurant that he then has to run. The main beats of the game are beautiful dives to hunt for fish and a restaurant management simulator. Along the way, Dave also discovers lost civilizations, uncovers corporate conspiracies and battle legendary monsters. Also, he plays a bunch of mini-games.

Oh, and it’s look is a love letter to retro gaming.

And the amazing thing about Dave the Diver is that it pulls it off. The wacky hodgepodge of gameplay mechanics interlock and compliment each other. I think the story is fun, engaging and occasionally touching. And Dave is the kind of lovable hero you either want to be or want to know.

It’s certainly not flawless. The controls can be clunky, to judge by the complaints I’ve heard. And some of the mini-games seem a little forced. Like bolting on one more thing into the kitchen range.

But, at the end of the day, Dave the Diver just radiates cheerful, silly fun. It is an escapist journey into a world of sushi and adventure.

Scarlet/Violet opens up Pokémon

Last year, I watched my wife play Pokeman Arceus. (Yes, I know the full name is longer than that but I've never heard anyone actually call it anything but Pokeman Arceus) At the time, it struck me as an ambitious experiment. It did a number of interesting things but it fell short in a number of ways. In particular, it clearly started poking at the idea of an open world, sandbox Pokeman game but it didn't make it all the way.

Now I've been watching my wife play Pokeman Violet and, quite frankly, it delivers on what we both hoped Arceus would be. It's still not a perfect Pokeman game and it's still not a perfect open world sandbox but it comes a whole lot closer. (Frankly, I don't think there can be a perfect Pokeman game. I think that the whole point is eternally finding new spins on catching super-powered monsters for cage matches)  

In Arceus, you didn't actually have an open world. You had patches of open space. And, more subtly and more importantly, there was a linear story structure.

There is an overarching story to Scarlet/Violet. However, in addition to having a legit open world map, you have eighteen individual steps/adventures to open the endgame. However, you can do those steps in any order you choose. We are pretty sure there is an ideal order but you don't have to follow it. More than that, there are a lot of side quests, some of them the size of the 'story' adventures. You don't need to do them to complete the story. And that also means that there is plenty to do after you complete the storyline, which is one of the hallmarks of an open world, sandbox game.

There are elements that Arceus had that I liked that aren't in Scarlet/Violet. In that game, Pokeman could actually attack the player. It brought the idea of being in a world full of wild animals that had incredible superpowers to a whole new sharpness. I mean, if I lived in a Pokeman world, I'd be scared to go outside. But I can see how that might mess with gameplay and the tradition of having your superpowered monsters do all the heavy lifting.

If you don't like Pokeman or don't care about Pokeman, Scarlet/Violet won't change that. However, it takes the formula of gym battles and hunting in the tall grass and makes in shiny and new.

Mario Maker 2 is an art studio

Our son likes to create his own goals and personal narratives in video games.

Enter Mario Maker 2.

Mario Maker is a virtual construction set that lets you build your very own platformer levels for Nintendo’s mascot to go through. More than that, it has a variety of different art settings so you can live as Mario through the ages.

Man but this thing was made with our child in mind.

One of my earliest computer game experiences was Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set. And, to be honest, I suspect that is a game/tool box/experience that would still hold up today. And the Mario Maker series is exactly like it for Super Mario games.

There is a story-mode that also serves as a tutorial for the frankly ridiculous number of tools that you have at your disposal. As opposed to Mario having to rescue Princess Peach for the upteenth time, he is earning money to rebuild her castle after it accidentally gets destroyed. Which I think is an adorable concept.

But our son isn’t interested in the campaign mode. He’s interested in creating what are more like art instillations than more functional levels. Which is absolutely wonderful. It turns Mario into a pure act of creativity. Whenever we get a new video game, there’s always the question if it will be good for us, Mario Maker 2 has quickly proven to be good for us.

I already consider video games to be an art form but Mario Maker 2 is an art studio.

(And yes, you can share designs via the internet but we’re not having our son share stuff with strangers on the internet. Says the guy whose positing this to strangers on the internet lol)

Yoshi’s world is beautiful

 After my wife finished Kirby and the Forgotten Land, we needed more cute video games in our lives. So she found the older title of Yoshi’s Crafted World.

Sweet Zelda, Yoshi’s Crafted World makes Kirby seem like Call of Duty!

I have a weird opinion of Yoshi, Mario’s dinosaur buddy. I think he’s a great character and an adorable design. But ever since I found out he exists, he has always felt like his own thing who just happens to be in Mario games. 

Mario doesn’t seem to show up in the crafted world so that just reinforces my view :D

Plot: Baby Bowser broke the magical Sundream Stone and the Yoshi’s have to go through platformer levels to put it back together. No, it’s not Shakespeare.

But, as someone who’s just watching the game, what is incredibly striking is the setting. Yoshi is traveling through a wonder land of kindergarten  crafts. If the kindergartners were very talented and had access to infinite recyclables.

The folks behind Yoshi’s Crafted World went all in on their design aesthetic. I understand an earlier game was a yarn world so this is clearly part of the Yoshi brand. The crafted elements are so fully realized that I have to assume they made real models in order to code them. And you can replay levels from the other direction so each element had to be fully rendered from both sides.

I may not end up playing Yoshi’s Crafted World but I am really enjoying seeing it. I can understand why some folks make money playing video games for other people to watch. This way, you can appreciate the artwork that went into creating the game. The lighthearted whimsy of Yoshi makes Animal Crossing look like Silent Hill.

This time I ramble about Pokémon

 I am a table top gamer. So why is this the third time I’ve written about video games in a week?

I have not been playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus but I have been watching my wife play it. And it definitely makes an impression.

While I am not an expert in disturbingly wide world of Pokémon, I have played Pokémon Yellow, Pokémon Sun, Pokémon Snap and Pokémon Go. And I’ve seen two episodes of the anime. So, I have an idea of how Pokémon works.

And Arceus (I am not going to type out the whole name every time) does shake up the mold. Keep in mind, if you strip away improvements in graphics and refining elements, even I could tell that Yellow (one of the earliest games) and Sun (one of the later games) followed the same formula.

 

I cannot help but compare Arceus to The Legend of Zelda:Breath of the Wild. That’s because I don’t play a lot of video games and have a very small pool of references. Breath of the Wild, of course, has a vast and sprawling environment, one that you can explore with only a few limitations. 

I’m not sure Arceus is a true open world sandbox. As opposed to one giant map, it is made up of admittedlt big zones and you can’t cross from one zone to another. Still, it’s a lot more open than any Pokémon game I’m aware of. You are much more engaged with the actual  world and interacting with the environment. (I love the fact the _human_ can hide in the tall grass)

The most interesting part of the environment is, as you’d hope it would be, Pokémon. While this is the not the first time we’ve seen them as an actual part of the biome (Pokémon Snap has done that very well twice) or free roaming Pokémon, it’s still a step away from the old formula.

This is the first time in a video game that nice seen Pokémon attacking humans. (I know it’s happened in movies and cartoons) Pokémon basically have every super power in the book. Actually having them try to kill you is scary and a welcome addition to the experience.

I probably approach video games from my origins as a table top RPGer. What is the world and how can I interact with it? Can I create my own narrative on top of the one that’s been bundled into the game? 

Arceus isn’t there yet but it’s closer than any other Pokémon game I’ve seen. 

I want to explore Kirby’s forgotten land

 While I am more of a table top gamer, I married into a video gaming family. Nintendo in particular. Before my marriage, I couldn’t have picked Kirby out of a lineup of Space Invaders aliens and now I’ve played at least three different Kirby games.

(Kirby is a silent but heroic pink blob who can gain the powers of enemies who eats alive. And he is somehow adorable instead of a soul-destroying horror)

So, when the demo for Kirby and the Forgotten Land, every member of the household who isn’t a cat played through it. I had to look up to find this out but this is the first Kirby that’s a 3-D platformer, as opposed to a 2-D one.

And if you’re like me, you need someone to explain that a platformer is a game where you follow a path full of obstacles, puzzles and enemies. And a 3-D ones means the developers can make the environment more complex.

I know there is a _lot_ that the full game will have that the demo doesn’t even hint at. However, one thing that drew me in and made me want to play the full game is the environment.

In the opening cutscene, Kirby and other inhabitants of his pastoral Arcadia are pulled through a portal into a new world. And it is a very promising world. 

Kirby finds himself on the outskirts of an abandoned , overgrown city. Flowers growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. Crumbling skyscrapers with vines. We are talking on sad, quiet end of ‘After Man’, post apocalypse. Nature is reclaiming what once was civilization.

And it sure looks like a world made by and for humans, not the adorable creatures of Kirby’s normal worlds. Although I’m pretty sure they will inherit it.

I don’t know if the game will be able to live up to the promise of the setting. My Kirby experiences have had the little pink guy in playful environments. This is Kirby hanging out in a world steeped in tragedy and loss, a forgotten land… Hey, that’s where the name comes from!

I know that the game play is going to consist of jumping, and pushing and eating the souls of your enemies and wearing them as your skin but it’s happening in one evocative place. I do want to guide Kirby on his adventures but I also want to explore this world.

Should Mario Party Superstars be this much fun?

 Mario Party Superstars reinforces to me that Nintendo has refined history and nostalgia to an exact science. Using a hundred mini-games and five boards from the earliest Mario Party releases, it is asking players  to dive back into an idealized past like a Norman Rockwell video game time machine.

(That would make a great name for a Rolling Stones cover band)

And for me, it works. Mario Party Superstars has been a really fun gaming experience.

But here’s the thing. It’s only the second Mario Party game I’ve ever played and the other one is Super Mario Party, the other one for the Switch. I have zero history or emotional connection to the older games.

I don’t think this is some kind of argument that the older games are the best and you young whippersnappers don’t know what it was like back then. (You don’t know what it was like to stay up until eleven to watch a grainy Doctor Who rerun with bad reception. And I hate you because I wish _I_ didn’t know what it was like. Streaming is AWESOME) I think this proves that you’ll get quality of you cherry pick anything to an inch of its life.

Frankly, as a board game/video game hybrid Frankenstein that uses our old enemy Roll-and-Move as a primary mechanic (I still love you, Backgammon), Mario Party is an odd beast. I’m shocked that I enjoy it as much as I do. As a serious ‘game’, it’s lacking but it really makes the party part work.

Our child forces us to find out about Among Us

 Our son recently became enamored with an Among Us plush, which meant that we had to find out what Among Us is.

… So, let me get this straight. It’s a video game where Mafia/Werewolf is the core mechanic?

Oh, who am I kidding? I bet it’s one of over a thousand video games that uses the hidden traitor(s) mechanic. The only reason I don’t know about any of them is because it isn’t used in Animal Crossing.

And the two minutes I spent researching Among Us via google made it clear that it wasn’t just pointing fingers and accusing each other. There is also other stuff you have to get done or lose.

Which doesn’t make it any different than the dozens of board games that also use the hidden traitor mechanic as a core concept. I’m kind of OG so Shadows Over Camelot or Battlestar Galactica is what I think of but I also know that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Still, while Mafia/Werewolf is a simple activity, it’s easy to see why it’s popular and has inspired so many more complicated games. People lie. 

When the Resistance hit it big, none of my gaming groups were into social deduction so I was a little bewildered. However, hearing about playground games of Among Us (with all the kids wanting to be invaders), it’s clear that social deduction is not going anywhere.

Mario Kart: because life is serious

 We used Christmas as an excuse to introduce our son to the world of Mario Kart. Which had the same result as introducing him to chocolate or French fries. Instant hit.

Someone once described Prince of Tennis as Dragonball Z as middle-school tennis and taken up to eleven. Well, Mario Kart is Dragon Ball Z as go kart racing and kept at ten. (Because Prince of Tennis is INSANE)

Mario Kart combines go kart racing and open warfare and drops the cast of the Mario franchise (and now some other Nintendo characters) It is silly and frenetic and random as all get out.

I am aware that there are some very realistic, very detailed racing simulators out there. Because I am one of those people who actually reads the editorials in Penny Arcade. Mario Kart is the opposite end of the spectrum. Even gravity is optional (although physics is always required) 

I am pretty sure that the video game that I logged the most hours on is Animal Crossing. Mario Kart, while it has a vastly faster tempo, fulfills a similar function for me. It is decompressing. I know some folks take it very seriously but the fact that I don’t have to is very nice.

Mario Kart is not as insane as the Smash Bros franchise because that is a mascot explosion. However, I honestly think it’s more casual gamer friendly. It has found a happy home in our home.

Some closing thoughts on Cozy Grove… for now

 Well, I finished the story portion of Cozy Grove. At least until they release more content.

Cozy Grove, as I’ve written about before, is a video game that is best describe as Animal Crossing with ghosts for villagers. Not a 100% accurate but that’s good enough for you to know if you’d want to play it or not.

Before the social and pandemic strife that has been the last couple years, I’d never heard of Iyashikei as a genre at all, let alone one for video games. And now that’s just about all I play :D

Iyashikei is a Japanese term for healing and is used to refer to works that are decompressing and soothing. Man, it’s a handy concept to have found out about.

Okay. Spoilers

Spoilers

You have been warned

Spoilers 

Okay, the story part of the game (as opposed the decorating and landscaping part of the game) has you interact and council seventeen different ghosts. Getting through them all will take between three and four months since Cozy Grove has slow paced, daily gameplay.

The first fourteen ghosts are relatively recent passings and their stories are interconnected. However, the last three are ghosts from ancient times.

And, while their stories were interesting enough, I did not find the ancient ghosts as evocative or as  engaging as the other ghosts. It was like the last chapter of a book was actually from another book.

That said, I got literally months of relaxation out of Cozy Grove. It was well worth the playing for me. And if they add more ghosts, I’d play some more. But, for the moment, I’m back to being focused on Animal Crossing :)

Our household is excited about Animal Crossing DLC

 The one video game that everyone in our family plays is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Which is really a way of saying that I play it too :P My wife and my son are way more into video games than I am.

Anyway, Nintendo has announced the last major free update to the game and the first paid update. I won’t be surprised if it isn’t the last, seeing as how Nintendo is in the business of making money.

There is a crazy amount of stuff being added to the game. If this is how Nintendo is ending this version of Animal Crossing, they are doing it with barrels of dynamite instead of a whimper. I can’t even appreciate all of what’s being added since I don’t know the history of the game, unlike my wife who knows who a lot of the NPCs getting added in are.

But what I wanted to comment on is the DLC that you’ll have to pay for.

It’s basically a whole new game.

A whole new area will be added, an archipelago where you make design and decorate vacation homes for the various anthropomorphic creatures that inhabit the world of Animal Crossing. It is the reincarnation of an earlier game in the series, Happy Home Designer.

I have often compared Animal Crossing to the Can-D and dollhouses from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch because the world cannot have enough Philip K Dick references. The archipelago expansion, where you have even greater control over the environment, pushes that comparison even further.

If the trailers are to be believed, you will be decorating and furnishing and landscaping with a speed and ease that wasn’t there before. You can make your visions of the perfect getaway digitally real. You go from doing everything by hand to divine power.

Animal Crossing is not part of the video game paradigm where you are an action protagonist. Instead, you are an artistic protagonist. Which isn’t unique but isn’t as common.

Animal Crossing, at its heart, is a detailed, interactive dollhouse. And apparently Nintendo not only knows that but will figure out how to take it up to eleven..

Wishbringer: nothing but words and whimsy

 Honestly, if I were to say which Infocom game has the biggest impact on me, other than the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which also I formed my choice of authors to read even up to the point, it would be Wishbringer.

It was one of their few beginner games, which meant that I was actually able to finish it :D And if it was aimed a younger audience, well, that’s what I was at the time :P

But it also was seriously charming and told a solid narrative. The puzzles were real but so was the story.

You are the postman of the island village of Festeron. Delivering a last minute letter ends up with you having to rescue an old lady’s kidnapped cat. Oh and thwart the Evil One who has changed quiet little Festeron into the dystopian Witchville. Save the cat, save the world.

The titular Wishbringer, which also came as a glow-in-the-dark plastic rock with the game, was an artifact that could cast seven different spells. But, here’s the clever bit which I didn’t really appreciate as a kid. Most of the spells could be used to solve puzzles but you could complete the whole game without using any of the spells. It’s a way of organically helping inexperienced players without changing the story. 

For me, Wishbringer bridges the worlds of Zork and Hitchhiker. Zork is just a map full of puzzles while Hitchiker is a series of scenes telling a rather convoluted story. Wishbringer is a map full of puzzles but they come together as a coherent story.

Wishbringer is a whimsical, slightly fractured fairy tale. As an adult, I might find it less challenging as a game (maybe?) but I would still enjoy it as a story.

Nearing the middle of Cozy Grove

 As I wrote a couple months ago, we started playing Cozy Grove. It’s a video game about being gently helping unhappy ghosts let go and pass on. And we’ve made it to about the halfway point.

Short version: the game has kept us engaged and want to keep playing. So, that’s a thumbs up.

Here’s a recap: You are a spirit scout, a branch of scouting that is into wildernesss skills and helping the restless dead find peace. And you are stuck on an island that is full to the bursting with unhappy ghosts. Who are all pretty friendly. At the worst, they are rude but they will still talk to you. You don’t have to worry about the dead trying to horribly murder you.

While there is a plenty of crafting and decorating for you to do, the heart of the game is fulfilling literally hundreds of fetch quests. And, slowly, you find out each ghosts story. As opposed to random, faceless ghosts, you have a small collection of ghosts, each with their own story to explore. 

And so far, those stories range from the melancholy to the seriously depressing.

Every time you level up, the island expands and you get a new ghost so we haven’t seen everyone yet. But none of the stories have been ‘inappropriate’ and forced us to edit them for our seven-year-old.

 

None of the stories are that surprising. We’ve only completed one but they all seem to have plenty of foreshadowing.

Cozy Grove hasn’t been shocking or surprising but it has been a slightly sad way to decompress.

Cozy Grove. Come for the ghosts. Stay for the R&R

 Cozy Grove is the latest Iyashikei game we’ve tried. It’s a Japanese genre that is about healing and decompression, no conflict and often about nature.  It’s actually much more of an anime genre than a video game one but Animal Crossing was our introduction to it. (Which might be why the other two video games we’ve tried aren’t Japanese)

In Cozy Grove, you are a spirit scout, a gender neutral branch of scouting that is devoted to camping, outdoor crafts and exorcising restless ghosts. Wait, what was that last one?

You are stranded on the island of Cozy Grove which is positively teeming with unhappy spirits. Who are all incredibly friendly anthropomorphic bears. The game consists of low key fetch quests, resource gathering and decorating the island.

And Cozy Grove is a slow burn, even compared to Animal Crossing. You will run out of resources and fetch quests for the day and it won’t be too difficult to reach that point. As opposed to Animal Crossing, where you could catch fish and bugs all day long if you felt like it.

I have to make a special note of the music and graphic design. It’s a lot of fun to see areas burst into life after you’ve helped someone or added light to the world. But the music is what really sells the feels of Cozy Grove. I could listen to the soundtrack for hours.

We still have a long ways to go before we complete the game. While the stories are melancholy (these are ghosts after all), I hope there isn’t any twist like you’re actually dead all along or the bears are all restless because they killed the last scout. I want this to be Iyashikei to the end.

Animal Crossing was a quiet revelation for me. Cozy Grove isnt quite as immersive or impressive but it has its own strength and poignancy. So I will see where its story goes.