5.6.16

Strange Games (As If Your Life Is Not Strange Enough)

Several weeks ago (Wait, WEEKS?) I accidentally met one of my colleagues from my early years in this company.  We haven't met for like, four years since our on-the-job-training and not much changes except I recognize on of his friends (that was actually ALSO MY acquaintance) was forgot my name *sad face*. So after small talks like, how are you doing, where are you placed now, etc., etc., he then said:

"Btw I still read your blog, and I noticed that sometimes you seems disturbed (Actually the Indonesian word for this is "alay" lol), why was that?"

I just laughed. Okay the good news is people still read my blog lol and he blogged, too, so we kind of follow each other blog although he's been dormant till now. I was quite surprised because it's been too long. Thanks loyal reader! Lol. And the bad news is, as a blogger, your life becomes more and more predictive. Like, when you are disturbed, people can see it in your writing. You tried to hide it once or twice but it's not always successful. I no longer care now actually. I can just laugh it off lol.

Life Is Strange is my current favorite game. Really love the gameplay and ambience. Dark enough to be my thing. If only The Sims has this kind features lol. Illustration by me.
Anyway, I've been playing games again for several days now. I am a seasonal gamer and when I play, I spend hours and hours. Since I rarely go out and I've been paying my fasting debt (I know, it's a shame because I'm such a procrastinator) so to kill the time I just play the games. They are mostly on PC. Mobile games are interesting, too. They are just too short to fulfill my interest.

Well to feed my satisfy, my game has to meet 80% of these criteria (lol):
1. ARTWORK
As seen on my post here, no matter how suck the game is I will still play it if the artwork took me fancy. Whimsical or fairy-tale-ish creature will be an additional value.


2. GAMEPLAY
Must be RPG (Role Playing Game) or another simulation alike. Puzzles are also interesting. And psst, my guilty pleasure is playing casual cooking games lol. But it also a simulation game so it's okay. Sometimes I play fighting games, too, but I'm too terrible for the casual ones. Arcade, racing, sports, shooting game (like Counter Strike perhaps?) are not my game.

3. STORY
It's actually impossible if a game has no story lol but what I need is a game with REAL story. The Sims has no story actually but it's an an exception because I can do almost anything to recreate my life in a virtual world. 

4. TIME LIMIT
I hate time limits or something that make me competing to be as fast as I can. Like racing. It's a big NO for me. I need a timeless adventure without the need to rush or compete with anyone.

So I think I'll never play online games. I'm a hot headed when it comes to competition so I better keep my distance lol. Well here are some of the games I've played in these several days. Some of them are cleared and the rest is on progress - whether I forgot my own progress or too stressed to continue. Remember that the list are not sorted so I could say their stars are each five.

CHOCOLATIER on PC

Chocolatier 3: Decadence By Design is a casual simulation games I recently finished playing. The story is about a CEO candidate of a chocolate factory of a left the-once-famous-in-the-world chocolate factory because of some family problems. One of the owner asked us to help the factory to be running and successful again but in order to do that we have to be approved by each family members. We'll received some orders and requests to make chocolate and other derivative products. We have to travel around the world to buy ingredients and then back to our factory to make chocolates.

This is my current belonging. I've finished the games so the rest is to play it freely, making profits and selling chocolates all over the world.
One of the cities view. The building consists of several markets, factory and hotels where the customers are.
Here are the recipe panels. You can assign which factory will manufacture which products here.
As the game progressed we'll have several factories in the world and our wealth will be increased. I enjoy this game because it helps me to try to be a CEO, predicting the markets, you know, minimizing production outcomes to maximize the incomes. Well, a fun business simulation. Besides, everyone love chocolate, right!

More links: 1

FABLE III on PC

The good thing from Fable III is I can choose genders. I played the warrior princess (Not Xena lol) and do the quests. The game set in the medieval era: WELL JUST MY FAVORITE ERA in the world. So in the game my mission is to take back my kingdom from my wicked brother. My boyfriend-potential-to be was slaughtered in front of me (*tears*) and I was expelled from the palace. Then the adventure begins.

This is my character running around the town. I kinda forget my quest lol.
I love talking with every NPC available in the area.
The Maps. Ahh I love maps. Especially medieval era maps.
I can upgrade my outfit (in this game I choose the pirate outfit combined with warrior-princess skirt), weapons (fyi, my favorite weapon is a sword, because it's best for the close range combat and faster than heavy weapons such as hammer), and armors. The spells I could mastered are varied and good thing is I can combine each two of the 4 elements. I chose the fire and thunder. In this game I have a dog following me everywhere. He will dig treasures and important hidden keys hidden in the area. I enjoy this game so much but I paused the game because I forgot the story lol so it hasn't cleared yet.

More links: 1

FRAN BOW on Android

The ambience, the artwork and the story just met every aspect of my interest. I mean, it's so dark, whimsical, disturbing, full of metaphor but beautiful. Reminds me so much of my early illustration style hehe. In this game, a girl named Fran Bow one day wake up in a mental hospital after a brutal tragedy afflicted in her family. Several days earlier she watched her parents being killed and when she ran away to the forest, she passed out while her cat is missing. The grown ups don't believe her story so one day she ran away again from the mental hospital, looking for her cat everywhere. Her cat is a small black cat named Mr. Midnight (so cute, right?). During her search she was haunted by a goat-headed demon that always showed up suddenly (I sometimes jump of surprise lol). Eventually she will meet her cat again but the problem doesn't stop there. She has to find a way to go home.

Fran Bow and her cat, Mr. Midnight. This is the scene where Fran Bow lost in the forest.
The reunion! Fran Bow's first encounter with Mr. Midnight after her flee from the mental hospital.
The interactive dialog affects your successful on the mission. And you can choose to be kind or grumpy here.
The interesting thing is this horror-thriller game has the option to switch Fran Bow's vision to the ultra reality world. She'll take the pill (called Duotine) and boom, the vision changed into a dark, disturbing and dreaded world. I don't put it in here because it was too disturbing. Another interesting thing is by playing this game, you'll find yourself in the world that is like an interception of Alice in Wonderland's, Stephen Hawking's The Shining and Edgar Alan Poe's world. Yeah. So dark. I recently finished this game series (all five including the demo) and want some more because not many Android games is this interesting to me.

More Link: 1 2 3
MACHINARIUM on Android

I played this game on my Galaxy Note and the note has broken *tears* so I haven't continue the game. The screenshot below is taken from Google Play. I play this game with the same reason as I play Fran Bow: the artwork is so splendid. The story is simple and somehow remind me of Wall E. A small robot's simple adventure, I must say. Not a disturbing one but still whimsical in a good way. Not much to say because I haven't finished it yet.

Machinarium gameplay. Your character is the small robot on the left second floor room.
More Link: 1
 
LIFE IS STRANGE on PC

I have a lot of words to say for this game but in conclusion: I LOVE THIS GAME. Really, it's like combining The Sims 3 and Fran Bow, maybe? Only, in The Sims, you can really customize your character and Life Is Strange (LIS) has one generic character (remind me of Yuna from Final Fantasy and well LIS is also from Square Enix, duh!) named Maxine Caulfield, preferred to be called Max. You can see so much disturbing scene in Fran Bow but in LIS the horror is more science-fiction-ish than fairy tale-ish. Plus, the soundtrack is awesome. So much feeling. I really enjoy playing this game because it's just all in one package of my interest. Thanks to K for recommending this since two years ago lol.

I choose the episode 3 scene as I saved my games on two slots. This slot started in eps 3. My current game is on eps 5.
So, Max is a senior student in Blackwell academy who has a big interest in photography. Her traits are clumsy, very indie, and quiet but in a good way. One day she found out that she has ability to rewind the time. By using her right hand, she could rewind several amount of time and undo some events except her memory. She saved many life by using her power. With Chloe Price, her long-time-no-see childhood best friend, Max's curiosity brings her to a strange adventure, in order to find a missing student named Rachel Amber (happened to be Chloe's best friend) and solving another bizarre mysteries.

Great thing is it has a lot of option which will affect the story. So it has more than one plot to be played, making us wonder to may be replaying it again with different decision. Funny that I focus on other things during this game like, how to be friend with Victoria (the mean girl) or save Kate Marsh's life. You know, I love side quests lol so in every RPG I played I've done so many side quests because I hate to finish a good game in a short time. I need more time to wander and talking with every NPC here and there.

You played Max (the left girl reflected in the mirror). Here you can interact with the objects around you by clicking your mouse. Just choose the interaction available on the written annotation.
You'll find many heart warming (and heart breaking) scene in this game. Because the moral story is really about friendship mostly between Max and Chloe. I cried several times because I feel touched and also related with the story (not the disturbing part of course lol - ah, spoiler here!). Ah I'll blab too much in only one long post if you ask me about this game too far lol.

The heart warming scene as written on Max's journal. Good thing to keep your track when you pause playing the game for a while.
And the game is very artsy! OMG Max's journal is like mine. Psst, I wrote a journal since middle school and still happening lol. Right now I'm still stuck at episode 5. First, I've been too nervous playing the level and I don't want to finish it too soon!

I'm in love with Max's journal! So artsy.
More Link: 1 2

So those are my list. I won't say sorry for the long post because it's your fault you read this page lol. And well, some people will say that playing game is wasting time. Maybe right if you played it too much and abandoning other important things, but for me it's "a really good wasting time" because where do you think I have this slightly-beyond-mediocre English writing ability? Mostly from games of course because I read everything on the conversation happening in the game. And the knowledge are so wide. Please, making this complicated game will include one strong team with a bunch of difficult technique and researches. So stop saying that gaming is wasting time OMG. But whatever, it's your call lol.

Well, till then and happy fasting!

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