alias_sqbr

For electric_challenge.

I'm not usually super into game soundtracks, and actually turn the music off in a lot of games. I can't think of any where I am inclined to just listen to the soundtrack for fun.

But Bastion's use of music is amazing, perfectly integrated with the gameplay and working with the writing, voice acting, and art to create a really unique experience. For example, Build that Wall/Zia's Song is a good song in and of itself but utterly heartbreaking in context. Listening to it now legitimately brought a tear to my eyes ;_;

The soundtrack is by Darren Korb and can be listened to on their site.

Transistor used music really well, and from what I've heard Pyre does too. Supergiant are good with music!

I was boggling that I hadn't done one of these since June then looked at my post titles for the last few months and remembered how sick I was for a while there. But I managed to draw some stuff anyway through the fog :) Also I got a copy of Manga Studio 5, which does some lovely lines and painting...that make my computer cry :(

All art has transcripts/descriptions at the link.

Prettiest:

Snow White and Red Riding Hood

Most interesting:
News From The Sea: A little fantasy comic adapted from this short story I wrote. Created for a Comic Books and Graphic Novels course. Transcripts in chapter 2.

As far as I can tell I got...120% for this comic? And that's getting less than half of the available extra credit. lol coursera. But it was fun!

( Person of Interest, Avatar: The Legend of Korra/The Last Airbender, Guild Wars 2, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2, Red Dwarf, Bastion, Dr Who, Original, Game of Thrones, The Hobbit, Fresh Pretty Cure )

I've been meaning to play this game for ages, but was finally prompted by the realisation that I could play the copy we got super cheap ages ago on my Mac laptop.

It's as beautiful and bittersweet as I was told it would be. Very understated, almost all of the game is getting the protagonist from point A to point B past various enemies in the remains of a floating city, all shown in a simple isometric view. The wry, melancholy narrator and gorgeous soundtrack combine with the simple but beautiful art to evoke a US-frontier-inspired fantasy city turned to ash. The story itself is fairly simple, doled out by the narrator in tiny pieces as you go from place to place, but I found it really affecting and beautifully told.

The combat is very flexible, I found some sections incredibly difficult but a lot of them were optional and they'd probably be easier if I wasn't such a mindless button masher. Anyway, the difficulty didn't ruin the game for me because there's a "no sweat" mode where you come back from death with full health, the only downside being you miss out on certain achievements and some XP. There's one enemy where my only "strategy" was giving myself all the "damage enemies when they hurt you" passive abilities and watching as they slowly cut themselves to pieces on my corpse.

Here's the trailer. If you want to check it out it's only $4 for the next four hours.

nb: while I think it does some really interesting things with it's historical parallels, it's possible indigenous players might find the POV frustrating.