Kotas Reviews Papers, Please

It's Indie Game Review Time again! Today we are looking at the indie game sensation that is sweeping...uh, something. This is the kind of game that I can honestly say I never expected to see made. Let me put it this way, if I told you I wanted to make a game about the exciting world of being an immigration officer reviewing the documents of those trying to enter your country, would you even give me the time of day? No? Right, well let's take a look at Papers, Please, the game that is about JUST THAT.

In Papers, Please you are a citizen of the fictional country of Arstotzka, and you are the "lucky" winner of the job lottery to become the newest immigration border officer. Each day you enter your station, open the window, and begin processing the paperwork of those trying to enter into Arstotzka. For each person you process, you are awarded 5 Arstotzkian credits, which you then use to pay the daily rent on your Grade 8 living quarters, along with food, heat, medicine, and other essential items for your family (wife, son, uncle, mother-in-law). Make any mistakes, and you get a citation (from the presumably better and automated Second Immigration Post just behind YOURS). After 2 citations in a day, you start to rack up penalties to your pay. Doesn't this just SCREAM excitement and adventure?

The gameplay goes something like this: Every day you wake up, read the state news organ paper to see what is going on in the world. Then you get to see your little person walk into "the booth" at the top of the screen. You receive the days instructions (only Arztotzkians can enter, anyone can enter, anyone can enter but they need a ticket, etc), and then you click the button to open the booth. Then you click the speaker to shout "Next". The would be entrant shows up, passes you their papers, and a little dialog about what they are doing commences via text boxes. You then have to determine if their papers are correct: Do they have all the right papers? Is their passport from the right issuing country and city? Is it expired, incorrect, or from a denied entry country? Once you've made a determination, you stamp it red (DENIED) or green (ACCEPTED), hand them back their papers, shoo them out, and call for the next person. Do this until the day ends, and you see how you did that day, and if your family gets to eat food or not.

The tools you are given are kind of annoying to use, as in keeping with the oppressive theme. To check the documents for accuracy (apart from the obvious stuff like marked "M" for gender when they are female), you have to open up the rulebook. To do this, you have to drag it to the document viewer, then open up the page to the right place. If you see a problem, you have to enter "Examination" mode. As the game progresses, you get more tools such as an interrogate option, a full body scanner, and my personal favorite, the DETAIN button, which sends the person off with little 8-bit silhouette guards to the execution grounds holding station. I'm sure they will be fine.

The graphics are muddy, grimy, and extremely low resolution, but it adds to the atmosphere of grinding totalitarianism. I admit I was absolutely shocked with the "full body scanner" option returned back fully nude (8-bit nudity is still nudity...terrible, terrible nudity) pictures, though there is an option to turn that off. Still, it's kind of...depressing and grungy. The soundtrack is a brooding dirge of a theme song, and no music at all during actual gameplay. The sound effects are what you would expect, with my personal favorite being the pseudo-gibberish that plays when you click the "NEXT" speaker. 

Essentially, this is a puzzle/detective game where you examine evidence and interview people to figure out who they are and if they belong there. Sometimes you find out they are concealing weapons (and then off they go with the DETAIN button). Sometimes they've spelled their name wrong, but otherwise check out. Sometimes they just don't have the right paperwork. Many of them have sob stories (I'm escaping an even MORE oppressive country, my wife and I are going to retire together, etc) and you play a small but important part in a thousand tiny stories. For example, at one point a man presents his papers and babbles on happily about how he and his wife are escaping a terrible place to start a glorious new life. He has the right papers. His wife however, who is right behind him, does NOT. Do you let her through anyway, and receive a citation? Or do you do what I did, and send her away without entry because she didn't have a ticket and you couldn't afford to get any more citations so that Little Billy could get his medicine? Do you merely deny someone entrance for trying to use a fake name, or do you have them hauled away?

Sometimes the booth is closed early due to a terrorist attack, which you can view through a little window at the top of the screen. The newspapers will occasionally inform you of weird stuff going on. For example, a notorious murderer escapes "some other country", and he shows up at the booth, using his real name. His papers checked out, so I let him in. Turns out, he murdered 3 more people in the new country. Oops. The first couple of days I was getting used to the controls, so I didn't manage to process the 9 people/day I needed to keep the heat on and food on the table, so after burning through our meager savings my son, uncle, and mother-in-law are all dead. On the plus side, I'm much better at processing people faster so my sick wife might actually live. The world of this game feels very much alive, but filtered through the perspective of this single cog in the glorious Arztotzkian machine, who is just trying to get through the day. It helps that the puzzle solving is also fun for me, though I don't know if it will be everyone's cup of tea. 

Overall, this is Sim Paper Pushing, but it is very heavy on the atmosphere and world building and has lots of quirky, depressing charm. If you had told me I would enjoy a paperwork simulator this much, I'd have laughed at you, but there you go. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, Papers, Please gets a solid 2 smileys. And hey, it's $10. You should totally try out this game.

Kotas Reviews Magic the Gathering 2014 Duel of the Planeswalkers

Steam is both Best Thing Ever and Evil Incarnate. The convenience and ease at which I am able to buy games is great and terrible in equal measure. So a few weeks ago I noticed a buddy of mine had pre-ordered "Magic: The Gathering 2014 Duel of the Planeswalkers" for $10. Intrigued, I plunked down my money and pre-ordered it myself. It was released on June 26th, and I've been playing it off and on since then. This is my review.

Back in my ill-spent youth I was a pretty big fan of Magic: The Gathering, though I was never a "serious player" by any standards. I bought them regularly for a number of years, played in a few local tournaments, and stopped really playing shortly after Visions was released. I still have a large box full of them, and I played the heck out of the old Microprose computer game. Could I recapture the fun of my youth in a $10 video game? I decided to find out.

This game is clearly a piece of "promotional" software. Give the people a taste of what the game is like for a small sum of cash in the hopes that they will seek out "the real deal" and become steady customers of the crack that you are dealing. That said, it's a pretty slick piece of software. The game is a "no frills" sort of affair with a fairly intuitive interface. The game revolves around pre-packaged decks and unlocking cards to tweak them with through gameplay or with a microtransaction. You start off with one deck to play with, and unlock more through the single player campaign, as well as unlocking up to 30 cards within a specific deck. Because I pre-ordered through Steam, one deck (a mono-red speed deck called Firewave) came fully unlocked...though it is the first deck you unlock after the tutorial. Having all 30 "unlockable" cards already unlocked was nice for tweaking.

The Single Player campaign is a modicum of story bolted onto a series of fixed "encounters" with AI opponents. The campaign is divided into 5 Planes with 4 encounters each: 3 plane-themed encounters and a planeswalker encounter at the end. Winning an encounter unlocks a card from the deck you used to win (if any are left to unlock) and beating a planeswalker encounter unlocks that specific deck for use in future play. There are also some general Planeswalkers you can choose to fight for more deck unlocks. Other single player modes include Free-For-All, with up to 3 AI opponents and Two-Headed Giant, where you and an AI partner battle an opposing AI team. Winning here will unlock a card from a deck.

Multiplayer has the Free-For-All and Two-Headed Giant modes, along with a "Quick Match" randomized game from the waiting queue. You can host private games and invite-only games, or host/join public matches. There may be some sort of Tournament play available but I have not poked around too much in the multiplayer yet.

The "hot new feature" for this year's edition is Sealed Deck Play. The way this works is as follows: You open 6 virtual packs of cards and assemble the best deck you can from them. If you really hate the cards you get, tough, though you are given two "slots" with new cards in each slot. More slots are purchasable via micro-transactions. With your Sealed Decks, you can go through a single player campaign of 6 encounters to unlock up to 3 more virtual packs, play random AI matches, or take on others in multiplayer matches against their deck slots. Slots cannot be "reset" to get a new batch of cards.

The interface is pretty clean and easy to understand, though the timing for certain things (like creature abilities) takes some getting used to. The tutorial section does a pretty good job of teaching you how the game works, especially for us veteran players who might not be up on the current rules. Card animations are minimalistic, but the card images are crisp and easy to read (at least when zoomed in), though you might have to adjust the resolution from the defaults.

The Sealed Deck feature is generating a lot of "Pay to Win" complaints given that the only way to "redraw" cards beyond your 2 slots is to pay for additional slots and hope you get a "godly" set. There has been clamor (on the forums at least) to allow "slot resets. I think it's fine, given you pay $10 for the whole game, which is less than a single Sealed Deck tourney buy in. If you want to play computer Magic with a full range of deck building options and "true" Sealed Deck rerolls, well, I will point you to Magic: Online, which is the virtual equivalent of the physical card game.

On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces this game gets a solid two smiley faces. It's a perfect game for the casual Magic fan, and while it would be nice to have full deck customization, the ability to jump in and play quickly is a boon to time-strapped people like myself. For $10, it's a great value. If you like Magic: The Gathering.

Kotas Reviews FTL

Let's talk indie games today. For those of you who know my history, I don't play a ton of indie games. However, upon recommendation from an old friend picked up a game called FTL on Steam for $10. Did I waste my money? Read on to find out!

FTL was produced as a part of a Kickstarter. It is in fact one of the first successful Kickstarter projects to actually hit the market. It is a strategic space simulator, with elements of Rogue-like style games. What does Rogue-like mean? I'll get into that later. The premise of the game is that you are a crew of three who has discovered vital information for the Federation so that they can turn around their otherwise losing battle with the Rebellion. Who is the Rebellion and why do they fight against the Federation? Who knows, but trust me, they are the bad guys. This game is not heavy on story, though it does have a relatively interesting lore.

When you start, you get to pick your ship, customize your crew if desired, and set off on your epic journey through 8 sectors, trying to stay ahead of the Rebel Fleet and deliver your information to the Federation leaders. The graphics are...minimalist, as befits its Rogue-like origins. You can figure out what everything is, but this game would be right at home on an NES (except for the backgrounds, which are much nicer). Everything is shown from a top down perspective of the inside of your ship, which has the rooms laid out. You have stations for weapons, life support, medical, shields, engines, and piloting. If you have a drone system, you have a room with that in it. There are also subsystems: Sensors, Auto-Pilot, and oddly enough, Doors. Some of these systems can be manned for bonuses, though Piloting MUST be manned if you want your jump engine to work.

Sectors are made up of a number of randomly generated "jump points" that you move through by waiting for the "jump meter" to fill, and then pressing the Jump button. The meter only fills if your engines are not disabled and you have someone manning the Pilot station. When you jump, you get to pick which jump point you go to. Each jump point only connects to a number of nearby jump points. Some will be marked with things such as "Store" or "Distress Beacon", indicating the type of encounter you are likely to have there. If your sensors are high enough, you can sometimes see if a ship might be there too.

When you jump, you receive a text description of your random encounter. If it is a non- combat encounter, you may make a choice to do something, or elect to just jump to the next section. Sometimes your choices lead to positive things, like gaining a crew member or some supplies or Scrap (money). Other times you get negative things like a ship invasion or hull damage. You can also get a "mixed bag" result which gets you a good and a bad thing together.

If a ship is there, they may be friendly, neutral, or hostile. Friendly ships are like any other non-combat encounter. Neutral ships are usually mercenaries that you can ignore, hire, or attack. Hostile ships initiate combat. Combat is a real-time affair, though you can pause at any time to issue orders and evaluate the situation. Weapons start off uncharged, and once they are charged you aim them at the enemy ship. You can target individual systems on the other ship too, though the crew may attempt repairs. If your sensors are good enough, you can see the contents of the individual rooms of the other ship and not just what systems are where. Different weapons have different effects: missiles ignore shields, beams can hit multiple targets but are blocked by shields more easily, and lasers just hit hard. Some weapons cause fires when they hit. Fires are bad because they consume your oxygen and damage systems. If you run out of oxygen, your crew will die of asphyxiation. How do you put out fires? Well, either your crew can (not super effective, but easier to manage for small fires), or you can vent the room with the fire of oxygen. This can be harder to manage than you might think, but through a combination of good door controls and the pause button can be managed.

You can issue orders to your crew to man various stations, fend off boarding parties, put out fires, and repair damaged systems and hull. It sounds complicated, but it is more like "tell your guy where to go, and they will do what is needed", though they may take damage. You can heal your crew by sending them to medical, so long as the medical bay has some power. Power is a constant source of micromanagement, especially before your ship is upgraded. Your crew can be one of several races such as Human, Engi (friendly borg), Mantis (exactly what it says on the tin), Slugs (ditto), Rock Men (ditto), and so forth. Crew that are assigned to tasks get better at those tasks and learn skill ranks if they do things enough, so they will eventually specialize if you keep using the same people for the same things.

Your ship can be equipped with weapons such as ion cannons, missiles, and lasers, along with semi-autonomous drones that mostly attack, but can also do things like repair the hull or systems, or defend against enemy missiles. The rest of the ship can be upgraded too, and is mostly a two step process. The reactor determines how many bars of power you have to distribute, and your level in all your systems (but not subsystems, which require no power) determines how many bars of power you can assign to a particular system. So you might have 10 bars of power to distribute, but you could only put 3 into weapons if you haven't upgraded that system. Lastly, you can install equipment which does things like "pre-charge the weapons for a fight", "heal crew throughout the ship a little bit if medical is online" and my personal favorite "recover drones if you jump after winning a fight", which saves a lot in parts.

Upgrading the ship is accomplished by spending the money of the game, Scrap. You gain scrap via random events or after fights. You can spend it to upgrade your ship, or to buy weapons, drone schematics, hire crew, or supplies like missiles, drone parts, and fuel. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention you have a limited fuel supply for your engines and a jump consumes one fuel? I probably did. Anyway, you have full control over what systems get upgraded, but you are at the mercy of the Random Number Generator (RNG) as to what weapons you will get or have available for purchase.

You can name your ship and your crew, as well as select the gender of any human crew. I recommend not bothering. Why? This game is a Rogue-like and that means a few things. First, no save/reload. You get one save game, period, so while you can resume a game if you stop playing, you cannot reload a previous save ever. Second, perma-death. That's right, if you die, you die. And trust me, you WILL die. A Lot. "But Will, this sounds pretty harsh!" Yes, yes it does. It is okay though because whole games can be played in about an hour or so, and you can unlock new things even if you don't win the game. My first game ended terribly in Sector 4 when I forgot to close the outer vents to the ship and my crew choked to death on my incompetence. The next game, I got a little farther. In fact, I haven't ever beaten the game, though I've seen most everything it has to offer. It has two difficulty modes labeled Easy and Normal. These labels are lies. The actual difficulties are You're Gonna Die and Fuck You. A lot of the difficulty comes from the random nature of the game. I cruised through one game all the way to Sector 8 without any real issues...only to find I hadn't upgraded my ship NEARLY enough to take on the final set of encounters. Other times you'll get jumped in Sector 3 by a pirate ship during a solar flare and both of you will roast to death.

I really, really enjoy this game. The random nature of it means you never know exactly what you are going to get on a playthrough, and the fact that a full game is fairly quick means it is easy to pick up and put down. There is a mildly steep learning curve, but the in game tutorial gives you the basic controls while the deeper strategies will emerge as you try different things. There are a ton of things to unlock (new ships and layouts, several tiers of achievements) that keep things interesting even if you haven't beaten the game. The gameplay is unique and entertaining, reminding me a LOT of some of the other "ship simulators" I played years ago (like Star Trek: Starfleet Captain or Command or something like that), in a compact package. The story is...well, nigh non-existent, but that is okay because this is not a very deep game. What will hook you is the gameplay and the thrill of discovering new encounters you've not seen or choosing alternate paths on different play throughs.

Overall, this is a fun game that was well worth the $10 I spent on it. On a scale of 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces, I give it a solid 2 smiley faces. It is a great casual game, but it has a lot of gameplay depth to keep you coming back for more. The story is a bit thin and the graphics are modest at best, but I had a great time with it.

Kotas Reviews Angry Birds for Chrome

So, due to my frustration with not being able to get my tablet on Friday, I downloaded Angry Birds for Chrome. It was free, though with ads. I guess? I never saw any ads during the whole time I played, but it was labeled "Beta", so maybe that's why.

I won't go into the mechanics too much (because everyone should know them by now): It's a lot like Worms, actually. Which is awesome, because I loved Worms back in the day. You have a slingshot launcher, and different ammunition, trying to hit stationary targets located around/behind/under various obstacles. You have standard birds (just arc and hit), tiny birds (expand into three shots, not much power), triangle birds (have a charge forward fast ability), bomb birds (explode, natch), and egg laying birds (the eggs are also explosive). Your targets are little round pig spheres that grunt.

The graphics are simplistic and cartoony and very, very cute. The birds are colorful and distinct. The pigs are delightfully round, and come in a variety of sizes and armor (read: pots on their heads). You get points for smashing obstacles, squashing pigs, and not using up your allotted birds. To beat a level, you must squash all the pigs. You are ranked from 1 to 3 stars on each level, with the star rankings given for a certain number of points that varies based on the level. On some levels I only got one star for roughly 50k points, but got 2 or 3 stars for the same amount on other boards.

There are a TON of levels in the base game, and lots of add-on levels from Angry Birds Seasons, which has seasonal themed levels. There are little tiny animated cut-scenes that tell the story (what there is of one): Pigs stole your eggs, and the birds are mad about it. You can retry any level an unlimited number of times. Or you can use the Eagle.

The Eagle is part of their monetizing scheme. The base game w/ ads is free. To see more than the first level or so, you need to log in with your Google Account. You can pay to suppress ads for a week ($0.99), or forever ($3.99). You can also buy the Mighty Eagle ($1.99) to help you bypass tough levels. They give you a free use of it in the first "batch" of levels, so I used it on one level that I found hard. I then went back and beat that level legit, so I don't know how useful this is.

This is a pretty awesome little puzzle game, perfect for the casual crowd. I can see why it is almost a phenomena. Given the monetizing scheme (really? $3.99 for the no ads version? On the phone/tablet it's $0.99!) is inconsistent, I'm not thrilled with how they do that, but hey, I can play it for free at home, and I don't find I need any of the add-ons. I will probably buy the Angry Birds Space sequel for my tablet, because I do enjoy the game.