A new game that I’d play

37 thoughts on “A new game that I’d play”

1. I agree on both counts: a) I’ve never played a video game (was deeply annoyed and bored during one attempt after being goaded to play at a party), and b) I, too, want to see what this game is about!

   1. If video games are not your thing, that’s okay. (I don’t like football/soccer at all and find watching other people do sports boring in general.) But I won’t judge all games because of a single one played in an unsuitable environment.

      Today’s games range from funny to sad, fast to slow, 2D or 3D, simple to complex etc. There may be a game or genre waiting for you out there.

2. I’m guessing it’s a Mario Bros. type game with tasks & levels

   I hope the developers build in sufficient ‘catness’ to make this different! i.e. One guides Cat towards an option to jump, but Cat spots an inviting warm window or radiator & promptly goes there instead for a kip.

   There’s other interesting distractions that thwart the players intentions too such as Catnip toys & birdies on twigs!

   1. Instead of indirectly guiding the cat, the developers could use some kind of “gravity” towards warm spots, cardboard boxes, freshly washed clothes etc.

      If the cat heals by sleeping, those places could boost the effect.

3. Kowloon Walled City no longer exists; it was demolished in 1994.

   1. Yes, I know, but they can still set the game there.

4. The desire you feel regarding this game is what “gamers” feel on a more regular basis and about a variety of games 🙂

5. I’d play the heck outta this.

6. I used to be very much into particular video games. The most interesting video game that I know of is Portal. That one was very clever and very funny.

   1. Portal is sublime, its sequel maybe even better. They’re definitely the funniest games I’ve ever played. If I had to choose a game to impress upon non-gamers what the medium is capable of Portals 1/2 would probably be top of the list.

7. Jerry, if you’re interested in games about cats, I have two very good, very different suggestions: The Purring Quest (where you basically play as a cat going about its day and is rather zen in its approach), and The Cat Machine which is a fun and absolutely adorable puzzler with lovely physics jokes and others thrown in.

8. Looks like a cool game and I would like to play it if it were on a system I could get access to. Personally, when I played video games, I liked ones with a deep story that didn’t require me to have fast reflexes. Kind of like a novel you participate in. So thanks for saying “to each their own!”

   1. What system(s) would that be? I for myself hope the game comes out for Linux.

      1. PC is about all I have access to – time was, I would have liked it for PS2.

         1. With PC you mean Windows, I presume. I know it’s a common equation today, but a false one since other OS’ like Linux also run on PC hardware.

            Consoles were never my thing, because my preferred control method is mouse + keyboard, even for jump & run games.

      2. There is a fun app in the Ubuntu store called Oneko (neko is Japanese for cat). It is not a game but a small cat chases the cursor around the screen.

         1. Although I’m not into such desktop slapstick normally, cats are a special case so I may try it out, thanks. 🙂

         2. Oneko (neko is Japanese for cat).

            That one was around when I first got an X environment working on Slackware in about 1995, and I recognised it from a port to Windows 3 which I’d seen in about 1991. I’m pretty sure it’s a lot older than that (in GUI terms, maybe even back in the Dark Ages of the pre-11 GUIs in the 1980s).

   2. Do you know the game Oxenfree? I played it through recently and liked it very much. It’s a kind of playable novel in 2D with great atmosphere, graphics and audio. Your decisions involve mostly timed choices in conversations that change some outcomes at the end.

      You may read some non-spoiling reviews before, though, as people’s opinions about Oxenfree seem to range from outstanding to crap depending on their preferences and expectations.

      1. Haven’t seen that one – I haven’t had time to play video games in several years, though I still love them.

         1. A saying I know is “if you don’t take the time, you will never have it.” (translated from German)

            If you love video games, maybe you should reserve a little time for them in your life. 🙂

            1. Good point. I may at some point in the future – at the moment I’d rather use the time for writing.

            2. A couple of years ago, I came back to gaming after years without it and discovered how much I’ve missed it. I also “didn’t have time” (i.e. didn’t take it) so I started to make appointments with myself for playing. It helped to make gaming a part of my life again.

               Since you’re a little out of touch, here some more suggestions from different genres:

               Her Story
               SOMA
               Firewatch
               To the Moon

               Good story-driven, narrative games may even give you new ideas for writing, who knows?

            3. Firewatch ended up being a bit disappointing to me.
               Games like these are so often put forward as examples of intelligent, ‘worthy’ games and yet I think they just do what an above average TV melodrama would do, and they seem too keen on neutering the aspect of games that makes them so powerful, which is the interactive part.

               Games like Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture and Firewatch look beautiful, and have serious storylines, with good voice acting, but almost always the narrative incidents happen off-screen. You pick up voice-recordings, or data-files that progress the narrative, and in Rapture’s case you just go around what is essentially a film set listening to voice actors perform little snippets of drama that elucidate moments from the past. You’re not involved in the storyline in any significant way.
               To me games like that might as well not be games at all. They should be radio plays, or films. If a game has a storyline the best thing it can do is place you in the middle of it, like the original Half-Life back in 1998. That was sci-fi hokum but it progressed the storyline simply by putting you in the middle of it and forcing you to muddle through. It showed you but it didn’t tell you. The story should not be ‘told’ in the first place, it should simply reveal itself all around you as you play. To not take advantage of gaming’s main draw, the interactivity, is a shame.

               The next big step forward will be when a developer manages to marry the gameplay of Valve’s best stuff, like Portal and Half-Life, with the human drama of the games you mention.

            4. I didn’t play Firewatch yet but plan to do some time in the future. Yet I have no problem with so-called “walking simulators” or games that put you in the role of an investigator after the story events happened, if it’s done right. They certainly are not less a game than others as long I have enough freedom of movement and interaction.

               Half-Life immersed the player like no game (I knew) did before, but also showed todays limits of real time interaction with computer-controlled characters. This uncanny valley is avoided by games that put most or all events in the past, for the price of not being “there” when things happen(ed).

               Then there are the games that mix both approaches, like System Shock 1+2, SOMA or Oxenfree. You discover past events by investigating places and media but you also live through the present situation, being placed somewhere in the middle of the whole narrative. For me personally, these can be the perfect blend of undisturbed storytelling and immersion.

            5. Sorry, broken link. -> uncanny valley

   3. Try The Purring Quest and The Cat Machine. They’re on PC, but may also be on Xbox and/or PS1 (I wouldn’t know).

      1. The Cat Machine doesn’t look like it has a deep story (or any story at all) like Rohvannyn mentioned. Or does it?

         1. It’s not really a story, but it does have lovely mechanics, adorability, and hilarious physics jokes. It’s a puzzle game that never frustrates you. It’s very relaxing for a puzzler.

            The Purring Quest, on the other hand, has a story and a very zen approach to its gameplay. It has beautiful artwork and deserves much more recognition than it ever received (just like The Cat Machine).

9. As one of the side quests in Fallout 4, the Lone Wanderer is tasked with saving Erin’s cat, Ashes, who has wandered out of the safety of Vault 81 into the dangerous nuclear wasteland. I am proud to say that I have saved her. Two or three times.

   1. You’d think the cat would learn.
      But if you’d ever known a cat, you’d know it wouldn’t learn.

10. Hey Jerry, this is a game that might interest you:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2G54w8H4oM

    It’s called Abzu, and it’s a meditative underwater PC/Playstation 4 game. You control a deep-sea diver. There are no fail-states(you can’t die), it’s very beautiful and it has no specific narrative.
    I’ve yet to play it, although I played Journey, the game that Abzu’s director previously worked on, and that was wonderful.

    I’m sure people say this all the time, but gaming isn’t just Call Of Duty in the same way that movies aren’t just The Fast And The Furious.

    1. Apologies for the unintentional embedding. I don’t know why it did that.

       1. WordPress does that automatically if you just put a YouTube URL into your comment. Put it in a a href tag and it stays a link.

11. Cross-over with Phantasy Star, anyone? 😉

12. Those Graphics are very Blade Runnerish, if that’s a word.

    1. No matter what, it’s an apt description. 🙂

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