Triptych: Damn Fine Coffee!

"Black Lodge" by Ashley Anderson

"Black Lodge Coffee Co." (t-shirt) by Mephias

"Black Lodge 2600" (download the full game here!) by Jak Locke

Triptych: It's Friday the 13th! Welcome To HELL

"The Silent Butcher" by Hillary White

Box Cover Art for Silent Hill II demake "Soundless Mountain II" (download here!)

"Silent Hill Minimalist Poster" by Jesse Lively

Indiesplosion!

A trio of indie games I've been meaning to post about for a few weeks: Stealth Bastard and Gunpoint are stealth-based 2D platformers, while Retro City Rampage is kind of a satirical 8-bit GTA demake.

STEALTH BASTARD: TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ARSEHOLE
Curve Studios
(PC, free download)

Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole has been described as the unholy spawn of Super Meat Boy, Portal and Splinter Cell. I'm not 100% certain what makes the protagonist such a bastard\arsehole, but robots and lasers definitely seem to think he's kind of a dick, and wish all sorts of ill upon him. Stealth Bastard offers 28 levels, a level editor, and is completely and unreservedly free.

Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole Trailer

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GUNPOINT
Tom Francis (Pentadact)
(PC, December 2011 release)

Gunpoint reminds me a lot of an updated Elevator Action, if that game was a lot more violent and had Batman's detective mode from Batman: Arkham Asylum (called 'rewiring mode' here). The game's not out yet so I haven't had a chance to try it out, but it looks fantastic and seems to have a pretty unique gameplay mechanism. The video below is a talk\playthrough of an early, very rough version of Gunpoint which nevertheless contains all of the basic elements of the more polished upcoming version.

Gunpoint Early Talkthrough Video

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RETRO CITY RAMPAGE
VBlank Entertainment
(WiiWare, XBox Live Arcade, release date TBA)

Retro City Rampage is insane. Lots of carjacking and criminal activity and random acts of violence, all in glorious 8-bit. It also looks highly referential, and packed full of classic videogame in-jokes and sight gags: everything from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game to Metal Gear to The Legend of Zelda II get satirised. The game world is huge, and the designers promise over 20 available weapons and 30 available vehicles (including but not limited to the TMNT van, the A-Team's van, and Doc Brown's DeLorean). I'm looking forward to this finally getting released.

Retro City Rampage Trailer

Retro Flashback: EmoGame

Back in the heady days of yesteryear, yesteryear here referring specifically to that wanton, innocent time spanning from 2002 to 2004, I recall discovering and taking perhaps an inordinate amount of glee in the free-to-play EmoGame series by developer StarvingEyes.

Essentially fan-service sidescrolling platformers with deliberately retro pixellated design, reminiscent of everything from Pitfall to Sonic the Hedgehog to cult PC classic Commander Keen, EmoGame and its sequels were particularly enjoyable and novel because not only were they clever and well-designed from a gaming perspective, but they were also predicated on a staunchly devoted and surprisingly well-informed knowledge of pop culture.

Although the final installment in the series was released in 2004, the EmoGame website is still up and all of the games still available, either as a download or for browser-based play.

NOTE: Every single one of the EmoGame games are NSFW and are highly offensive to pretty much anyone, ever. You have been warned.

EMOGAME 1

The debut features the likes of Chris Carabba of Dashboard Confessional, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, At The Drive-In's Cedric Bixler, and Tim Kasher of Cursive as playable characters, with guest appearances by (amongst others) Jimmy Eat World and A New Found Glory (not to mention less-than-glowing cameos by Creed, Courtney Love and Fred Durst.) While the humour, both here and in the sequels, leans at times towards the puerile, the game is packed with references, subtle in-jokes, and some pretty phenomenal level and puzzle design.

That, ultimately, is the point I want to get across here: given that EmoGame is a less-than-serious undertaking and takes regular pointed jabs at everything from Hot Topic to major-label commercial rock, it's impressive just how much talent went into making it.

EMOGAME 1.5: Alkaline Trio vs. Hell

Following on the original, EmoGame 1.5 is considerably shorter in length and focuses on Alkaline Trio rather than a revolving cast of playable characters. The story has something to do with the band dying, cutting a deal with God (who apparently is Bob Sagat) to get a second chance by killing the devil (who apparently is Skeletor,) and embarking on a journey through Hell to accomplish said goal. It makes about as much sense as any of the EmoGame plotlines, and is mainly just an excuse to toss in as many cute pixelly renderings of recognisable cultural icons as possible... In other words, if you haven't been sold on this yet, EmoGame 1.5 won't sway you, but if you played the first one and are totally stoked on the notion, it's as entertaining as the first.

EMOGAME 2: The Epic Quest Continues

A proper sequel to the original, with more than twice the number of playable characters, improved design both graphically and structurally, and more obscure shout-outs than you can shake a stick at. Conor Oberst and Matt Skiba return from EG1 and 1.5, respectively, along with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie, Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria, Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley and "The Wizard", Blake Schwartzenbach of Jawbreaker\Jets To Brazil, and tons more. It has something to do with Enrique Iglesias kidnapping a bunch of people in order to have sex with them, and the cast of Friends starting a band in order to brainwash the masses into a cult, and... You know what, fuck it, I don't even know.

EMOGAME 2.5: The Anti-Bush Game

Let's be honest, games are not a medium well-known for tackling political issues - and when they do, they tend to be as neutral and message-free as possible to avoid alienating anyone. Foregoing the musical premise of the previous games, EmoGame 2.5 allows you to play, for some reason, as Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and a fat-ass He-Man as they battle the evil villainy of the Bush Administration. While it's certainly no less offensive (and is unabashedly polarised in its stance,) the in-game political critique is nevertheless reasonably well-informed and sincere. It's not likely to convince anyone who might hold a differing opinion, but it remains an interesting and mostly-successful experiment in combining the disparate world of politics and videogames.

SUPER EMOGAME III

Sadly unlikely to ever be completed, Super EmoGame III never got past the demo stage (the demo, Purvolume vs. The Podicons, was available from the website for a while but looks to have gone the way of Internet purgatory.) There isn't a whole lot of information available on it, but from what I've been able to glean, it would have implemented some sort of fighting-game mechanic alongside the classic platformer engine. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll never know for sure.

StarvingEyes has now moved on to website and album design, and something they're calling "advergaming" - essentially, promotional minigames for bands, albums and media sites like Atom Films. It's a natural move for them - given their overtly fannish love of certain bands in the EmoGame series - and brings up a number of compelling questions on the nature of a medium which, while it likes to cultivate the impression that games stand on their own as consistently artistic ventures, has been commercial right from the start. I mean, with the emergence of product placement in the likes of Test Drive Unlimited and Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, why not just openly craft games that are intended to market something right from the get-go?

EDIT: My mistake, I was under the impression that all of these were available to download for offline play when, in fact, at least the first (and possibly some of the others) are entirely Flash-based.

I don't want to irritate starvingeyes by offering up the following sneaky, ninja-like method for obtaining his Emogame series for offline play - so if this is completely uncool, starvingeyes, and there's an alternative in place, let me know and I'll announce it here.

Having said that, the Emogame site hasn't been updated in a couple of years and so I think this is probably justifiable.

1. Download emogame1.swf.
2. Download the free Swiff Player 1.5.
3. Install Swiff Player.
4. Rock out.

Alternately, you can head on over to File2HD.com, plunk in the URL of whatever Flash-based game you want to download, click on the "Objects" tickbox, and right-click and save the appropriate .SWF file that comes up. Again, you'll want to grab Swiff Player as well.