October Game Analysis: Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight

          Iteration. Inspiration. Polish. I choose these words to describe this game’s history as part of a series. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is the fourth entry in a series of games inspired by Cave Story. It’s a great 2D combat platformer that has you fighting enemies with a leaf. A leaf!? I know it sounds asinine, but the main character Kaho fights incredibly well with just a leaf. She’s also got a bow and arrow, but it feels so much more badass to strike your foes down with the edge of a red maple leaf. How does a seemingly fragile object deliver such impact? It may have something to do with the sprite animation or the sound effects, but whatever it is it works fantastically! For this week’s October analysis, I want to look at Momodora 4 (same game, just shorter to type).

          Playing Momodora 4 I immediately felt a sense of nostalgia. I don’t think it was the pixel graphics alone that did this. It was the wonderful feeling of playing something crafted perfectly. How did this game come to be? Through iterative design. The developer built a few games before this one and refined the mechanics with each entry. Over time the games improved until they hit this high point. Could they go any further? Or would it be a reskin of the same old thing? In this case, the series likely will not need another entry. You should not have to make a sequel or a prequel when the previous game does a good job. If you’re making another entry, make it different and unique. More importantly, improve on what worked for the game and get rid of what held it back.

          As I mentioned earlier, Momodora 4 plays like Cave Story, at least in most aspects. There’s no experience bar to power up your weapons, but the artstyle definitely looks like Cave Story and the combat mechanics are very similar. It’s as if the developer played Cave Story, then had some ideas on how to make it better. This is an example of inspiration at work. Anytime you play a game or watch a film or even read a book, you can generate ideas from those works and formulate something out of all of them. 

          This is a well-polished game. Notice the animations: not only are they fluid and smooth, but they also convey personality. Whenever the character Kaho stands still for an extended amount of time, she does an idle animation that shows her yawning. She seems bored that nothing is happening. Another example is when she jumps, tiny leaves fall beneath where she was positioned. It’s the little things that help sell a game on how enjoyable it is. Even the music is memorable. It conveys the perfect mood for every situation. When you enter Karst, it’s very silent and empty to match the loneliness of the abandoned city. However, playing music at the wrong time can ruin a mood. Always know if a soundtrack is needed for a specific scene and what mood it should convey to the player.

          A lot of work went into making this possible. It wasn’t done all at once, not everything fell into place, and it likely wasn’t fully formed when first concepted. Lots of ideas start out small and insignificant. But holding those ideas and looking back on them later can spark a new way to utilize them. Maybe you’ve got a game idea in your head, but you can’t make a game out of it yet. That idea could become a short story to start off with if it’s narratively focused. Perhaps it would make for a decent board game. Play with your ideas and see where they get you. You might stumble upon something you could never have imagined before. That’s how I see Momodora 4, something unexpected and almost impossible to conjure.

October Games Analysis: Fran Bow

          I have to admit something: I DO NOT fare well with horror games. I think it’s the mounting tension of being in a scary place awaiting the creepy monster guy who goes “ah-bloogy woogy woo.” You can just feel it building up so much that your neck hurts, and the anticipation far exceeds the horror itself. But I think the biggest reason I don’t enjoy horror games so much is that most of them rely heavily on jumpscares. Now there are tried and tested ways of executing a jump scare, but overdoing it turns the monsters from terrifying to obnoxious. The worst part is the volume on the sound effects they make tend to be louder than everything else! It’s like watching a movie in the theaters where the dialogue is spoken in near whispers so the audience has to listen closely, then a door explodes or something and somebody yells “WE”RE GETTING’ SHOT AT!” then your ears start to fall off and you have to pick them up off the floor. But enough about what horror games have done wrong; I want to look at what Fran Bow did right.

          Fran Bow is the only point-and-click game I’ve played in the horror genre. In Fran Bow, you play as the ten-year-old titular character as she sits in a bed in a mental hospital for children. She’s been diagnosed with psychosis, likely caused by seeing her parents brutally maimed before her. Fran doesn’t know what is happening and neither do you. All you find out is she needs to find her cat Midnight and her Aunt Grace. To do that, she needs to escape the hospital. This is where the game introduces the point-and-click mechanics. You find out that you can click on things to get items, you can use items on the environment, and you can ever combine items to make new things. Common mechanics for this kind of game, but then you obtain some pills (Duotine) that were locked away in a drawer. You can only get them after you master the basics and once you click the pill bottle icon, you transition into the alternate reality. The first time is always horrifying as the drastic change in scenery strikes you with fear. What the hell are these pills? They’re supposed to make you better, but they just give you hallucinations! But that’s not the weirdest part; the story strays far from reality.

          At the beginning of the game, you’re given information that Fran is quite possibly insane. At first, I believed them. Sure, she did see a spooky demon outside her window the night of her parents’ deaths, but that could have been her imagination. The medicine she’s taking is clearly giving her hallucinations. Yet, some parts of the game are accessible only whilst using the pills. Otherwise, you can’t progress. It convinces the player that maybe she does literally enter another reality when consuming the medicine. Over time, it becomes more easy to buy in to the fact that Fran can see a different world other than the one she inhabits. At one point, she enters a peaceful world that has magical creatures based on nature and insects. Seasons can change at the turn of a clock, everyone is exceptionally well-mannered, and virtually nothing goes wrong. To remind the player that they still aren’t safe, occasionally something dark happens such as seeing some of the demons and listening to their enticing words inviting Fran to take the easy way out and commit suicide. At the end of the game, the player is left with an ambiguous ending. Was Fran truly insane and everything that happened was part of her imagination? Did the events of her imagination then affect the real world and have real world consequences? Or was it all real and all the bad things went away suddenly and inexplicably? I would like to believe everything turned out fine, but the main themes of the game lead me to think otherwise.

          Fran Bow covers themes such as human psychology, mental health (specifically in children), love and loss, suicide, and the duality of mankind. They cover so much that I could not possibly write it all here. It’s some dark and heavy stuff to look at, let alone experience. And yet, we also have positive themes show up such as curiosity, enlightenment, hope, and acceptance. I would say duality is the most prominent theme as it plays out through the entire game. Towards the beginning, Fran’s skeptical of her surroundings, is more likely to do mischievous things, and has no problem being rude to everyone around her. As the game goes on, she becomes more polite and grateful. She learns to be more open to ideas and concepts. Towards the end, she goes back into a negative state of mind being filled with agony and hate. Then at the end of the game, she’s back to being happy.

          This game was amazing to play through. It made me think about things I normally wouldn’t such as how is the healthcare in mental hospitals? Are all patients treated this badly? What happens to someone who’s stuck in a sort of psychotic limbo where everything is real, and yet nothing is real? How would a child react to such vividly disgusting imagery? Fran takes it pretty well. She’s calm and collected seconds after seeing something disturbing like a skeleton with an umbilical cord hanging from its abdomen with the fetus still attached to the other end. Maybe she’s surprisingly strong willed… or maybe she thinks it’s not real.

          There’s just too many questions to ask and far too much to cover at once. The biggest point I wish to make with this analysis is this: horror games should be more like Fran Bow. Not necessarily a point-and-click, but something that prompts you to ask yourself what you should be afraid of. Something that doesn’t rely on jumpscares, but is subtle in how it presents its horror. Something that leaves the player with doubt on what just happened. Was any of that real? Were any of the characters real? Is the hero insane or gifted? I suppose not all monsters can be fought. And if they can, the fight will never truly end.

October Games Analysis: My Night Job

          For the entirety of October (or at least four weeks) I plan to play one game per week for the sake of analyzing it. It could be seen as a review, but I’m not necessarily trying to convince readers to buy the game. I may encourage them to try it, but it would be mainly for design study. The rule is I play the game once per day for a week, then move on to the next game and do the same until I go through all four. I don’t have to finish them; I just have to play them thoroughly. Also, since it’s October these games are coincidentally horror themed. This week’s game is My Night Job.

          I heard about this from Extra Credits. Every so often they suggest some games for everyone to look into. Taking their advice, I bought this and tried it out. What you do as a player is run through this huge house and save people from monsters. It plays a little like Metal Slug with zombies and victims inside a mansion. The goal of the game is to rescue one hundred people. You may escort up to ten people at a time and you take them to a landing pad outside. A helicopter shows up and picks up the survivors. Depending on how many you save depends on how much money you get and then you are given either bonus money, refilled health, or a shotgun.

          As simple as it sounds, this game is brutally hard. It starts off with few monsters ruining the place, but eventually the overrun the house and start breaking rooms. If they break three rooms in the house, the whole place falls apart and you lose. If your Health reaches zero, you die and must start all over. Fortunately, you as a player have several useful mechanics to help you such as picking up weapons to fight with. Your default punching attack is terribly weak, so finding a chair or a shotgun is essential to doing any real damage. As for victims to save, some will actually help you by either fighting alongside you or they give you something useful when saved. The nurse gives you an injection needle that brings you back to life if you die, for example.

          Knowing all of this, I have some issues with the game. First off, the controls are confusing at first. Nothing is listed for movement, but I think it was designed that way because they don’t want you to rebind movement keys. You can rebind other hotkeys, but you’re stuck with the arrows for moving. They also consolidate your actions to the left side of the keyboard. A is for dashing, S is for jumping, and D is for attacking. Again, sort of confusing to get used to, especially the jumping, but it’s not a bad setup.

          One of the biggest flaws to me is how little your character stands out. By himself, his design is unique. If you converted his image into a silhouette, he would still be recognizable. But when you enter a room with a ton of moving things such as bats, zombies, victims, and hellhounds the character becomes almost impossible to spot. It’s easy to lose sight of your position. Losing your sense of location in the game world can result in getting killed unexpectedly among other things. Sometimes I would enter a room without realizing it because I couldn’t see my character. Giving him a bright outline and pushing him towards the front of the screen could raise his visibility.

          However, this is by no means a bad game. It’s pretty good. For one, they come up with this dynamic that creates a lot of tension. You have to save people whilst also killing monsters and keeping the house from being destroyed. Any time a room turns red on the map, the camera pans to it to emphasize its urgency. It’s telling you “GET IN THERE NOW!” Most first timers (like myself) will end up being far away from where they need to be when that alarm goes off. After multiple tries, you start to plan out a path for patrolling rooms. You start thinking about which places will most likely be next for being overloaded with monsters.

          Weapons are essential to winning this game. You can pick up anything with a little arrow over it. That arrow helps point out what in the environment is interactive. Without them, I might not realize that I could lift that guitar and slam it down for heavy damage. The weapons also have durability. After several uses, they break. Not only does it raise tension, it keeps the player constantly looking for a new weapon to try. It encourages variety of weapon use. That being said, there is one weapon that absolutely destroys EVERYTHING in your path: the chainsaw. Somewhere in the basement is this one time use weapon. All you do is pick it up and just run. No need to swing; charge your enemies and watch them fall before you. If this thing didn’t have durability, it would be the go to dominant strategy. It works as a last resort mechanic when everything else has gone to hell.

          But what about the inhabitants of the mansion? All those people trapped inside. Why should you bother saving them? For one, you need to in order to beat the level. Second, they earn you money which determines your score. Third, they affect what you get whenever you turn them in to the helicopters. And finally… they look so human. I know it’s pixel art, but they have good appeal. Their animations make them stand out from each other so it doesn’t feel like all I’m saving is the cheerleader. You start to feel a sort of connection to them when you have them all near you trying to stay alive. And it’s always so sad when monsters attack them and they scream for help (it’s even more heart wrenching when they die). 

          My Night Job is quite an interesting game. It’s definitely something you will need to try over and over again in order to get good at. It’s also a well-designed game with only a few flaws that stick out. Worth looking into.