Following yet another recommendation from Rock Paper Shotgun, I decided to give this small little indie game a try.

The game address the theme of governmental surveillance. The Big Brother. It’s definitively a reference to the US’ Edward Snowden case from 2013.

But unlike what traditional dystopian stories generally do, Orwell puts you in the shoes of the oppressing regime. To be more fair, you control a simple security agent, which makes you more a pawn than a King. It’s a similar position that you take from the excellent Papers Please. Following the rules and d questionable things is part of your job. You need to put food on the table after all. After the first negative (or at least not constable) impressions, you will get used to the job, and things get easier to digest.

Your official job is to track terrorist threats, listening to phone call, see video camera feeds, and read social media from targets. But these tools are available to spy on virtually all citizens, potential criminals or ordinary folk alike.

At very beginning of the game, the country suffers a major terrorist attack and the country is in a political crisis. It’s your job to find the responsible ones. You even have a lead. He might be innocent, but your investigation opens connections. Connecting one person to another, like teacher-student, neighbors, father-son, brings you new potential suspects.

A wonderful thing that I noticed while playing is that, without direct intervention of the game, reading the news, I created some conspiracy theories. I was trying to link dots, trying to see the “big picture”, trying to make sense of the chaos of facts and information. The game throws at you several misleading information, and like real life, you will have to filter what is relevant and what is not. It fascinated me.

The mechanics of the game are quite unique. Not revolutionary, but unique. If the theme is close to Papers Please, the gameplay reminded me of Her Story. Using trial-and-error and some deduction, you try to reveal the missing gaps. If you didn’t like Her Story, don’t worry, here the story is more traditional. Everything is scripted like and adventure game. You will not make a relevant change in the course of the story during game.

As a short game, I liked very much. I heard that they are doing a sequel, which is good news. I will be glad to try it also.

PS: yes, the game Orwell is a direct reference to Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) and his book 1984.

Like Batman Arkham Knight, this game of the Assassin’s Creed franchise was launched in a very rough state. There are thousands of videos in the YouTube showing crazy situations, mostly because the AI, but also due to the poor collision detection and graphical glitches.

And as Batman, I played the game long after the launch, after the developers patch the patch of the patch of the patch of the game.

And as Batman, I played a buggy game.

At the time I played the second game in the series, Assassin’s Creed 2, I did not comment in the blog. I don’t even recall if I had a blog at the time (in fact, I did have, because I played it in 2010, and it was mentioned in the 2010 in review). Anyway, it was one of my favorite games of all time at that point. I really enjoyed every bit of it. And I appreciate it even more when I finally when to Italy and could see in real life the places that I have been before in the virtual life.

Back to Unity, it felt flat to me.

The visuals are great, I cannot deny it. Seeing the Eiffel Tower at the horizon (even for a brief moment because the main game is before its construction) was full of emotions. The crowd ragging against the monarchy is super cool (the crowd on the streets are not, because the pop and change visuals in front of you), the buildings are also very detailed. The character models are good, but the uncanny valley occurred to me: all seemed creepy.

The gameplay is the typical Assassin’s Creed fashion. The main difference here is that it does not work right. I believe that the developers wanted to put so many climbing and parkour points across your path that very often the character does something different that the player intended. It starts to climb in a weird point or get over an ordinary table. I had several moments that I died because I was not in full control of the character. The combat is ok but the armors and weapons all feel the same. There is no special strategy here.

The story is laughably bad. The MAIN character is boring. The main one. That Arno starts begin an anti-hero that is converted to a blindly good hero in a snap and is moved mostly by boring motives. I could not care less. The girl follows the same path. The secondary characters, in most part, are not good and when you think they are going to grow in the story, you have to kill them. That is, in fact, a kinda problem in the AC universe, because they are built to assassinate people, their opponents, so most story lines end on killing them before some good conflict emerges

[story plot here]

The recurring structure of the story is:

1. There is an enemy
2. You are sent to kill him,
3. By doing so, you discover that there is, in fact, a bigger boss

And the cycle repeats. It is not an accident that I cannot remember a single villain.

The side quests and collectibles, all boring. When finding a chest containing… nothing… is fun? The only collectibles that I compelled to do is open the map climbing strategic towers and evolving my own bar to a certain level that it generates loads of money. Getting flags or chests or entering the catacombs were too dull to for me.

The present storyline, against Abstergo, was only briefly mentioned. There is none in this game that reveals anything.

The overall feeling is that I had to finish the game for the sake of my compulsive behavior. No reason to recommend to anyone, except if you are French (I suppose it would be awesome to have your own city mapped like this).

[Edit: I pressed publish by accident. Some games added]

Length is an important variable for a video game. It is a bit curious, because for the similar prices, even the shortest game will be much longer than a movie. But among its peers, games do have a scale.

Many companies advertise the amount of hours to finish their games. There is even a great website called, you guessed it, GameLenghts that tracks how long users take to finish the game. There is a second site, and my favorite in the market, called How Long to Beat, that I feel more complete.

Bigger is not Better.

Most games suffer from a syndrome that most players never reaches the end of it. Sometime not even half of it. Many games do have achievements triggered when the player crosses the line. I currently have being playing some short games that I felt much more fulfilling. Some let me wanting more. But honestly I feel that wanting more is a better feeling “this game never ends!”.

I believe the story driven games should have a more concise length. It could be delivered in chunks, for those that want more. Open-world games, like GTA and Skyrim/Fallout, are understandably really long, allowing the players explore various things.

Here is a list of some games that I personally never finished.

• Divinity Original Sin: this one I will finish soon. But it entered the list because I’ve played many games in the between.
• (²)Skyrim: yes yes… I know. After not liking the previous installment, I came to this game knowing that I would struggle. After meeting The Witcher 3, it now seems likely to be played again
• Borderlands 2: I played mechanically. Despite knowing that it is a nice game, I struggle to do it so brainlessly
• (¹)Bioshock Infinite: I started, I felt a bit fake and the story never hooked me
• LA Noire: I am in a very late mission, but I think the saving I got is lost, so I might never finish it
• (¹)Dishonored: I started but soon uninstalled to open space to play The Witcher 3 expansions.
• Transistor: I installed in my Linux notebook, but I rarely used to play games
• Alan Wake: it’s a bit stressful to play. Also, I was not having time to play at night to fully appreciate it
• (¹)Half-Life 2: I always stop in a certain point than something happens that I move on
• (¹)Spec Ops: The Line: I played a bit and did not think it was amazing, but I feel it will surprise me
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent: I loved the whole concept, but by the end of a session I feel exhausted because of the level of fear and stress.
• Hitman Absolution: I stopped in a given level than I moved on.
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: I liked the like story and the gameplay. But the game seems endless. I might play it more
• Alien Isolation: the same as Amnesia. I always feel that I like horror games, but I feel very stressed out after while
• Invisible Inc.: the same as Transistor.
• FEZ: I liked the puzzles, but there are several of them tooo obscure for the to find fun on solving.
• (¹)Enslaved: Odyssey to the West: I liked it, and I feel it is good. It is installed, waiting to be played.
• Psychonauts: I played a lot before Steam having a cloud save and my PC crashing
• (¹)Metro 2033: felt another FPS at the time.

And the list goes on…

In a list of more the 200 games I own and played, it is comparatively short list. Most of them are long games.

In bold, some that I try to play it again in the future, mostly because there are some that I liked so far, and I feel shame in not getting it to the final. I wanted to say that the others will be played in the future, but knowing that I will buy newer games, it is not honest with myself 😛

(¹) Edited on 2021-09-20: Finished!

(²) Edited on 2023-03-09: Finished Skyrim at last!

My notebook is not new. I bought the Yoga 2 Pro almost 4 years ago. Two years back, I got annoyed with Windows, so I decided to install Linux in it. I was scared because on the contrary of most my PCs that I assembled myself, the Lenovo had a warranty and possibly custom hardware.

As I told, the attempt failed. It was giving me too many headaches. Also, I generally use my notebook to also program and develop games. And because the Unity Editor was not available (not at least in a reasonable version), I was kinda forced to migrate back to Windows10.

About 3 months ago, I decided to give it a second shot. In case I was not clear, I use Linux in the desktop, in a dual boot, for about 15 years. I saw Ubuntu entering the market. But since I start to systematically be involved on making games, the necessity of Windows started too. Back to the experiment. It was a requirement for me that the general performance had to be great. Not good, great. I would prefer to keep on the Debian-like distro because I’m familiar to. Ubuntu family if possible. So I selected both Kubuntu and Lubuntu for a ride.

Kubuntu was the one that I tested before. I like KDE since version 2 but again failed in deliver a blazing fast experience. In the notebook, the boot time was several minutes. Even Windows 10 was a couple of seconds. I decided then to format and install Lubuntu.

Lubuntu is an Ubuntu derivative using the LXDE desktop environment. Super light. Man! Boot was fast and when ready it consumed a fraction of RAM of both Windows and Kubuntu. However, during my 4 weeks test I was giving too many little problems. So I decided to make another switch.

Xubuntu is fine in a 13 inches monitor. Then came to the software selection. Lubuntu was super short on preinstalled stuff, which I like because I generally don’t use them anyway, but Xubuntu came with some. The good news is that the selection does not consume much of the drive space and are light enough in case I really want to use them.

I had to install Steam and it works nice. Unfortunately, GOG’s Galaxy does not have currently a Linux version, so the games have to be installed manually one by one. Also, your play time will be not computed, nor you will be alerted about updates. A second negative point is that most GOG’s games do not use the new cloud save feature, so playing a bit in the notebook and a bit in the desktop is only for games that progress do not matter. Fingers crossed for the future.

Finally, I was looking for a game engine that works on Linux. Unreal, as I found, works, but you have to compile it yourself. GREAT 🙁 I did it. It took hours and the result was too many crashes and too big suite to work in a notebook. I was once again looking for a lightweight engine. I tested Godot and liked. But it is still lacking.

Then I found out that Unity is, in fact, releasing in an alternative channel (through forums) the update engine for Linux. I installed it too. Crashes a lot but it works. I’ve being playing the game developer in the notebook ever since. With the excellent Visual Studio Code editor, it makes my days fun.

After 2 months and half working most of the time on this notebook, I can be happier man but in general I am already one. It is fast, close environment that I face when I deal with cloud Internet stuff and free. I plan to migrate to a newer machine in the next year, mostly to get a better amount of RAM memory and battery life. Currently, it lasts 3 hours, which is by any means a shame for a mobile device.

I bought The Swapper yesterday because I heard good things about it. And man, I loved the game.

It is a platformer puzzle game, like the classic Braid, but the major feature is the ability to create a clone of yourself and migrate the controls to it. It might be considered a form of teleportation, but your old ones will still be there. It opens opportunities for several interesting challenges. It also uses, [minor spoiler alert] at mid-game, a similar feature as VVVVV that is changing the direction of gravity. The puzzles have a nice and steady evolution in difficulty, combining the new features each time they are added to your repertoire.

The only thing that I was a bit confused it the collectible orbs. For a completionist like me, and a pleasing game like The Swapper, I felt compelled to collect of them. But the counter that shows in the UI does not have a one-to-one relationship to the amount of orbs you collect. At the beginning of the game, it is one-to-one, but in later stages, each orb you get adds you dozens into the orb counter. It is confusing to track the general progress you are making. I guess the developers wanted to make the reward the player more the more complex the puzzle is, but I did not feel this way. These orbs are not just optional. In order to progress, you have to collect a certain number of them to open locked areas. But in most cases, you have to collect almost all orbs possible to reach the required number, so it turns out to be even more useless the multiple orb value per orb collected intended feature. Minor complain thou.

The game have a very great visuals. Dark and a bit spooky, but not in the way of horror games. It is designed to be just uncomfortable, just like Limbo and (presumably Inside, but I didn’t play it yet). But unlike Limbo, it rarely inputs pressure. You are always in a lonely and calm journey. It imprints the sense of loneliness, desolation, mystery and insanity.

The overall theme is a science fiction. During the game you face several dialogues and recordings of a technological discovery. It presents the theme in a more philosophical approach, similar to Talos Principle. However, due to the super short texts and obtuse ways to tell it, it does not feel very mind melting like Talos. It was a bit unsatisfying. A professional scientist would never write a log in such enigmatic way. It would be much clearer and direct to the point. This obtuse style of storytelling is typical on horror and mystery games, novels and movies. They rely on telling the audience so little that you do not understand the meaning way to the end. Despite it, I like the approach.

The game is short, which I would say that is a plus, because it gives the sense of completion and that it is not dragging you for hours for the sake of appearing more substantial.

I recommend this game. One of the best indies and best games overall I played this year so far.