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Recordkeeping: Bad Water COMPLETE [IFComp2019]
So it's IFComp time and I'm kind of down, actually. There's a few things that've been weighing on my mind, and they leave me energyless and disinterested in video games. It's easy to see that, because my playblogging has slowed way, way down.
For that matter, IFComp this year is packed full of "two hour" and "more than two hour" games. I'm still not sure why you would enter a 2+ hour game in a competition that explicitly says nothing over two hours counts for your score. Maybe it's to protect a poor ending, maybe it's just for competition brand exposure. Whichever, I find it sort of fatiguing.
Still. I will do my best to give my earnest opinions on five games at least, as one does.
What do you have for me, random button?
Game 1: Bad Water
The description: A surprising new spin on the "wander-and-wonder" game genre.
A tribute to an obscure early 2000s indie game. Can you guess what it is?
This took me: 1 hour 30 minutes.
My take: Well we're in the deep grass on our first shot here. In the interests of curiosity I looked up what game it's paying tribute to, and it's an obscurity indeed. "Bad Milk" was released in 2000 on the nose and is about drinking some ... well, Bad Milk and getting stuck in FMV hell, trying to solve puzzles and navigate a dark maze to get out of your own head while taking mysterious phone calls.
Bad Water, here in 2019, is about drinking some tainted water and getting stuck in FMV hell, trying to solve puzzles and navigate a dark maze to get out of your own head while taking mysterious phone calls.
The apple has not fallen far here, is what I'm saying. If I had ever played Bad Milk I would probably have been like "OH OKAY" and known more what to do.
I've never played Bad Milk.
I got stuck in that dark maze for like an hour, was befuddled when the endgame asked me to put numbers I'd never heard of into a combination lock I didn't realize existed, turned to the walkthrough and rubbed my head in confusion at what I was being asked to consider 'clues', and then cheated my way to both the "bad" ending (where you do everything The Voice tells you to) and the "good" ending (where you, uh ... do some arbitrary things and then you win).
The 'puzzles', such as they are, are extremely abstract. Count the number of times a dog barks and open a door only on the even barks. Notice how many times someone hiccups. Get cryptically spoken at in reverse.
Now, I -can- say that the "bad" ending being... well, bad is well-clued. The Voice is almost always accompanied by the sound of leaking, dripping, echoing water, and bad water is what got you in trouble in the first place. So it's pretty obvious something's wrong there.
Also the game's title is "Bad Water" so y'know hey.
But ... those really were some heavily underclued notpr0n-edition befuddle-puzzles. And there was that godawful dark maze, where I eventually resorted to hand-mapping the thing.
How do I grade a game that's a perfectly faithful tribute to something I haven't played, flaws and all? This is probably a good game for SOMEbody, just not for me.
I'll give it a 4/10.
For that matter, IFComp this year is packed full of "two hour" and "more than two hour" games. I'm still not sure why you would enter a 2+ hour game in a competition that explicitly says nothing over two hours counts for your score. Maybe it's to protect a poor ending, maybe it's just for competition brand exposure. Whichever, I find it sort of fatiguing.
Still. I will do my best to give my earnest opinions on five games at least, as one does.
What do you have for me, random button?
Game 1: Bad Water
The description: A surprising new spin on the "wander-and-wonder" game genre.
A tribute to an obscure early 2000s indie game. Can you guess what it is?
This took me: 1 hour 30 minutes.
My take: Well we're in the deep grass on our first shot here. In the interests of curiosity I looked up what game it's paying tribute to, and it's an obscurity indeed. "Bad Milk" was released in 2000 on the nose and is about drinking some ... well, Bad Milk and getting stuck in FMV hell, trying to solve puzzles and navigate a dark maze to get out of your own head while taking mysterious phone calls.
Bad Water, here in 2019, is about drinking some tainted water and getting stuck in FMV hell, trying to solve puzzles and navigate a dark maze to get out of your own head while taking mysterious phone calls.
The apple has not fallen far here, is what I'm saying. If I had ever played Bad Milk I would probably have been like "OH OKAY" and known more what to do.
I've never played Bad Milk.
I got stuck in that dark maze for like an hour, was befuddled when the endgame asked me to put numbers I'd never heard of into a combination lock I didn't realize existed, turned to the walkthrough and rubbed my head in confusion at what I was being asked to consider 'clues', and then cheated my way to both the "bad" ending (where you do everything The Voice tells you to) and the "good" ending (where you, uh ... do some arbitrary things and then you win).
The 'puzzles', such as they are, are extremely abstract. Count the number of times a dog barks and open a door only on the even barks. Notice how many times someone hiccups. Get cryptically spoken at in reverse.
Now, I -can- say that the "bad" ending being... well, bad is well-clued. The Voice is almost always accompanied by the sound of leaking, dripping, echoing water, and bad water is what got you in trouble in the first place. So it's pretty obvious something's wrong there.
Also the game's title is "Bad Water" so y'know hey.
But ... those really were some heavily underclued notpr0n-edition befuddle-puzzles. And there was that godawful dark maze, where I eventually resorted to hand-mapping the thing.
How do I grade a game that's a perfectly faithful tribute to something I haven't played, flaws and all? This is probably a good game for SOMEbody, just not for me.
I'll give it a 4/10.