E3 2019 round-up

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

I’ve been a pretty big fan of some of Supermassive Games’ efforts in the last four years, starting with Until Dawn, so at E3 I jumped at the chance to go hands-on with their upcoming Man of Medan, the first entry in the Dark Pictures interactive horror anthology series.

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Each standalone release in the series promises to explore different horror themes, and the section I sampled focused on the “home invasion” trope, though played out a little differently than usual. The game’s cast of five twenty-somethings – loving couple Alex and Julia, Julia’s brother (and self-professed ladies’ man) Conrad, Alex’s younger brother Brad, and Fliss, the captain of the chartered Duke of Milan – are out for a pleasure cruise in open waters when their boat is overtaken by modern-day pirates one evening as a fierce storm approaches. Though the pirates won’t say what it is they’re after, they’re clearly searching for something and not above exacting some violence on their hapless hostages to get it. A bruised eye, a severed ear and more may be in store depending on how you play your cards.

Neither the gameplay nor the graphics are really all that different from the studio’s recent offerings – we’re still in the same console generation, after all, though this will be the first Supermassive game to be launched on PC as well – but considering how photorealistic character models have looked in their past games, that’s not a bad thing. Water effects are a mixed bag at this stage, with extremely impressive rainfall from the onsetting storm running down window panes, while the agitated ocean waves tossing the boat back and forth are less so.

Much of what you as the player do is still relegated to watching the drama play out in cinematic fashion, interspersed with frequent timed decisions and Quick Time Events. Want to mouth off and put up a front to the pirate leader, or meekly comply with his demands? Given the choice of untying one of your fellow prisoners, who do you go for first? Should Conrad quietly sneak off the boat to safety or go for the unattended knife and attempt a heroic rescue on his own? It’s all up to you, and the characters’ relationships with each other, their personal traits, and something the game referred to as “bearing” are constantly changing as a result of your choices (or lack thereof), with on-screen messages to remind you that there are consequences.

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Though the game eventually leads to an even more disturbing new set piece – the Duke of Milan eventually runs afoul of an abandoned ghost ship – the demo ended before I got the chance to board it. While all five of my characters made it through more or less intact, it’s possible for some of them to die even this early on. This being a Supermassive release, the whole game can be finished with everybody remaining alive, or with the entire cast meeting their demise, along with various combinations in between.

It’s definitely not groundbreaking considering the developer’s previous work, but as a fan of schlocky horror, Man of Medan is right up my alley and I cannot wait to hoist anchor and set sail with the full game when it releases August 30th on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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Lost Words: Beyond the Page

Having seen what E3 had to offer this year, I can safely say that Sketchbook Games’ Lost Words: Beyond the Page made the biggest leap in my personal book, going from a game I’d not heard of before to one of my top games of the show in record time. It may not be flashy or bombastic, but it delivers in some key areas that are oh-so-important. It’s also one of the very few times a game has been able to make me choke up on the strength of a fifteen-minute game slice alone. Speaking with Mark Backler, the company’s founder, I was able to experience one of the loveliest demos I’ve seen this year.

The gameplay is split into two main sections. Players take on the role of Izzy, a young girl who’s been given a diary by her grandmother and plans to use it to become a better writer. One part of the game is devoted to actually exploring the diary, using it to learn about Izzy and her family, her hopes, dreams, and personality. This is done in a unique style, by actually running and jumping across lines of text as they appear in the diary, with certain purple words causing something to change or appear on the page. It’s wondrous and whimsical, and the writing perfectly captures Izzy’s worries, insecurities and annoyances toward her younger brother.

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Then there’s the fantasy land of Estoria, the world that Izzy actually dreams up as she’s writing her diary entries. Here the player similarly controls Izzy’s alter ego as she embarks upon her quest to become the new firefly guardian after her grandmother, the previous guardian, has passed the torch on to her. Since it’s Izzy’s story to write, events in Estoria mirror what happens in Izzy’s real life, and I had a fantastic time reading between the lines, so to speak, as the world of Estoria helped me understand more about Izzy’s personal life.

Both halves of the game feature on-screen text; there’s even an excited “Whoooooooo!” as Izzy slides excitedly down a hill. But there’s another, more novel way that words factor into the gameplay. Certain words can be lifted from their surrounding text by using an on-screen cursor (the “firefly”, in Estoria) and used to affect the environment by doing exactly what they say. For example, pulling the word “Rise” out of its scene’s descriptive text or from a book the protagonist carries specifically for this purpose and then dragging it over the ground will cause it to lift up, making high ledges accessible, while dragging the command “Unlock” over a gate will cause it to swing open and reveal the path forward.

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As engaging as that is, the true heroes of Lost Words are its musical score and Izzy’s voice actress, which together made it possible for me to become emotionally invested as fully as I did. With an estimated playtime of only about three hours, the soundtrack has to quickly establish the carefree world of the game’s opening to allow later events to become more powerful. Similarly, there’s not much time to connect with Izzy, and actress Sidonie Maria, whom I learned was actually a part of the development team when she recorded what was assumed to simply be temporary voice-over, does a fabulous job being relatable as the young heroine from the very first second, in what may well turn out to be one of my favorite voiced roles in a very long time.

With a story penned by Rhianna Pratchett, players will surely also have a worthwhile narrative to look forward to when the game releases in December on PC and all major consoles. Based on my memorable experience with the demo, I plan to be one of the first in line to play the finished product.

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The Suicide of Rachel Foster

The Suicide of Rachel Foster features exploratory gameplay not unlike other titles from the past few years such as Gone Home and Tacoma. This basically means that players spend much of their time scouring the game world from a first-person perspective, occasionally jumping in to resolve a dialog choice or some light inventory-based puzzling, but otherwise generally letting the game tell its story. Daedalic is publishing, and Justus Jeromin was on hand to tell me more as I played through the demo for this mystery adventure developed by 101% Games and Reddoll.

To immediately avoid any misconceptions, players do not take on the role of the titular Rachel Foster. Nicole, a young woman with a troubled family history, has just been informed of her father’s passing and told that she’s inherited the large mountain hotel where she grew up. Against her better judgment, Nicole heads to the now-empty hotel to collect some personal belongings and officially wrap up this transaction when a terrible snowstorm traps her in the vacant building. With no chance of getting away, Nicole begins digging into what skeletons, literal or figurative, may be buried in her family’s past, and soon learns that not all was as it seemed with her late father.

If this story setup sounds at all familiar, then you’re probably thinking along the lines of King/Kubrick’s The Shining. That is no accident, and while Rachel Foster may be less bent on providing murderous scares, it’s hard not to get at least the slightest of shivers from being trapped in a spooky large hotel setting with not a fellow soul in sight. Nicole is in touch with another man via telephone, so there is someone to bounce some dialog off of, but that’s little comfort when the storm is howling outside and you have to head down to the basement.

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Early sections of the demo required me to travel to various parts of the hotel, like the grand ballroom and the family’s apartments where Nicole spends some time in her childhood room. Although there is a map of the hotel hanging behind reception, I was pretty impressed by how well I was beginning to get the lay of the land on my own, as the hotel’s logical layout immediately started etching itself into my mind. Realistic graphics, smart level design, and detailed set dressing naturally helped.

I chose to stop playing early, as I dearly want to experience the whole game without too much being spoiled ahead of time, and I already know I’m going to want to move much slower and take in my surroundings at my own pace. While I can’t say for sure what direction the story will take, it seems unlikely that it will just follow tired horror-movie tropes, and who Rachel Foster is and what role she plays in Nicole’s story remains, as yet, a mystery to me. Other fans of environmental storytelling won’t have long to wait to find out right along with me, as the game is scheduled to release “soon” on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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Adams Ascending

A one-man passion project from Nick DePalo of Parable Worlds, Adams Ascending stars a young boy named Adam, who’s seemingly waiting at a campsite for his father to arrive to spend the weekend grilling hot dogs and telling spooky stories. As Adam begins exploring the surrounding environment, he narrates a few anecdotes of their previous camping trips. After encountering some areas that seemed only half-rendered in the gameworld (something I attributed to an incomplete demo build), I was just starting to wonder where this was going when the game abruptly threw a curveball.

Suddenly the campgrounds around Adam began to disappear and be replaced with metal walls and floors. It turns out Adam was on a spaceship Holodeck the entire time, instantly throwing up dozens of questions in my mind. But there was no time to consider more; the reason the computer had to pull him out was because of a mechanical malfunction that is now causing the entire spacecraft to catch fire.

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While running to escape the flames, Adam’s dad contacts him via communication channels, instructing him to get on an escape pod and flee without him. Under protest, Adam has no choice but to comply. The final scene of the demo featured Adam in his shuttle, sobbing, as the vessel behind him bursts into a million pieces. What comes next I have no idea, except that there will be some action elements blended in, but Adams Ascending certainly got my attention in a brief space of time. If you want to check it out for yourselves while waiting for the full game to release sometime in 2020, first on PC before possible console ports to follow, a pre-alpha demo is available to download on Windows and Mac to anyone who signs up to the developer’s newsletter.