Cute Games: Costume Quest

Happy Frankenstein Friday* and welcome to the Halloween Cute Games special I promised. Cute Games used to be filed under “Intermezzo” or at least titled with it, but as Costume Quest is a larger, non-browser game, it simply counts for “Otherworlds”.

And I finished it right in time for a review before the big night!

All pictures that are not marked “screenshot” come from the official site (make sure to watch the trailer!) and belong, together with the screenshots, to Double Fine Productions. Who’ve got a great logo, too (Siamese twins in Victorian bathing suits? Epic win.).

... which of course belongs to them, too.

The PC version that I played is rather new and was launched just two weeks ago while the console version has been out for a year now. I guess the basic game play and control are a little bit easier there, but maybe I’m just not used to games without mouse use. When I played it the second time – yes, I did, as I didn’t take any screenshots earlier – I had grown to it, but I had a severe case of optimising my computer before. If your PC isn’t the latest in technology or made for gaming, you could suffer from the same problems that I had: slowed down reactions (lethal in fights) and lagging.

Without giving away any spoilers, the plot is as follows:

You are the new kid in the neat little town of Auburn Pines, and it’s Halloween, the best day of the year. While being out trick-or-treating, your twin is being kidnapped – being mistaken for a giant candy due to their embarrassing candy corn costume – by a candy-stealing monster, and you’ll be grounded FOR EVER if you return home without them.
Gladly you’ve got some spirit and an awesome costume so you can head after those candy thieves! You way will not only take you to the Autumn Haven Mall and the rural surroundings of Fall Valley, but also let you achieve what your mother told you to do and make some friends (which are just as nerdy as you).

one of my favourite dialogues during the game

Wren without a costume

The twins are Wren, the Halloween-adoring first-born, and Reynold, the candy-loving younger. I myself chose Wren to be my hero, as her stubbornness and fierceness reminded me of myself, especially in 4th grade. You start out with a transformer-like robot costume and are able to collect up to ten more during the game, and nearly all of them bear some pop culture reference.

My favourite costume from the whole game is probably the Pumpkin King (actually it’s only “pumpkin”, but the player is strongly reminded of Jack’s first appearance in Nightmare Before Christmas) or Jack O’Lantern. He even does a little jig after you win a fight.

My second favourite was a surprise for myself: My Pretty Panacea. I’m not even a fan of the robot unicorn (if you don’t know it, google it. I dislike the music so much that I don’t want to link back to it) or My Little Pony (although I guess I’m somehow growing interested, at least in modding). But its attack animation and limit break are too awesome to ignore.

below: comparison: non-fight costumes (from left to right: Wren as Pumpkin, Everett as Knight, Lucy as My Pretty Panacea)

The fights are pretty much like every other J-RPG, except this one isn’t from Japan. Of course your enemies grow with you, but there’s nothing you can’t do with awesome costumes…

yes, your enemies explode into candy

While your heroes in this game are kids and it is quite kid-friendly, it’s definitely not a game for children. I mention this because these two things are often confused. Though you don’t really kill the monsters and there is no splatter involved, most of the pop cultural hints and the nerd humor are better and more appreciated as an adolescent or adult.

All in all, Costume Quest is an awesome game. A little short, maybe, but in return at least the PC version comes with an ad-on, Grubbins on Ice, that takes place some months after Halloween (reports on that before Christmas). I’ve got no stars or grades system (and I don’t want one), so I can only recommend it to you. Enjoy!

* recurring every last Friday before Halloween. For more information, look here.

Preparations Again: Halloween

Primaly I wanted to split the Halloween preparations post for this year into several parts, each dealing with another way to celebrate this holiday. But now there’s only one week left and I don’t want to push and force things, so this concept will have to wait until next year.

Instead I’ll bring the anticipation for October 31st to you through the medium of…

… Computer Games!

Indeed. And this is only the first part. A second one will follow (but rather in the form of a Cute Games issue)!

First of all I’ll have to admit that I’m a little bit of a browser game addict. Not really a severe case, but I truly like my daily dose of Poupée Girl.* One of the greatest things with these pretty, well-designed flash-based games are the “events” that turn up with every larger holiday (in the case of Poupée Girl not only western, but also Japanese ones).

Long story short, one of these holidays is traditionally Halloween, and here we go with some of the awesome gadgets, outfits and objects the creators of my major waste of time (just kidding) made for it.**

Halloween background without Halloween items

Poupée doesn’t only host the aforementioned events through special items but also changes the background for most of them. While this is quite nice, the really interesting part is what happens when your doll wears something from the event collection.

Halloween background with Halloween items

I really can’t decide what I love most about this room design. Probably the interesting pattern mix from bed and floor, but the patched Sally Ragdoll-like rocking horse is awfully cute, too.

Sometimes they also launch very small items that trigger another “special” background. This year on Halloween it’s bracelets, optionally with ghosts, pumpkins or black cats.

special background

They even animate these backgrounds:

special background with some alterations. spot the differences. ;)

In this picture you can also see my favourite clothing items from this event. One thing I appreciate very much in flash games with vector graphics is the amount of details one can zoom into.

hat from the "room" outfit

And once again I wish I had these clothes in real life.

Aaaaw, and the stockings!

detail: ragdoll hair bow

I’m actually thinking about replicating this bow for myself, maybe a little bit smaller, but esentially a look-alike. I only need a solution for the needle, I don’t think I want this near my hair, at least not this pointy.

detail: dress and apron neckline

The hue of the dress is awesome, there should be so many more Lolita dresses in this colour!

awesome apron detail.

* I do realise that most of my readers might actually know these pictures already because they play Poupée Girl themselves. If you do, feel free to add me, this is where my doll lives.
** Also, please note that this post is by no means an advertisement and that I write this out of mere enthusiasm for what I think is cute design.

A Beginning and An End

… And something that goes on.

The beginning is of the time with my new glasses. Finally I got them and it’s way more comfortable to be able to choose between contacts and glasses than to wear contacts only. Furthermore I tend to nod off when watching moving pictures late at night, and it’s not too healthy to do that with small pieces of plastic in your eyes…

I found it hard to get an exemplar that would suit me – my old glasses (which broke into pieces about two years ago) had been nearly perfectly circular, just like Harry Potter’s. But as you can see, I’m quite happy with the oval shape that was the roundest I could get. ^^

The end is the one of our recent roleplay adventure. Today we had the last session in the city of Angbar during dubious events involving one of the aldermen and a manufactory. It all went out well of course, with each of us coming out of the city decked with honour, gratitude and more money than before. Now Tanwen will rest until – estimated – October, but another adventure will come, this time in the world of Grim(m) fairy tales! But most probably not sooner than the second half of August… we’ll see.

And the thing that going on is perhaps the most serious matter in this post. In short, I relapsed, kind of, to the disease I had during the spring. I had to go back on taking antibiotics, but gladly I recognized it soon enough this time so I was able to get to the emergency service about 24 hours after the first sign of illness so I’m definitely doing quite good for the circumstances. The thing that bothers me most is that I’ve got to change some things if I don’t want it to become chronic. It’s nothing too hard, but I miss just the possibility of eating as much sweets and meat as I want. Well, I’ll get used to it. :)

And there, my little update for today will end as I’m supposed to stencil at least four t-shirts until Thursday.

Tanwen and Roses

Just one night until Lilibeth’s visit! I’m pretty much excited and the weather is said to be going to be good, so it will be splendid to take walks and show her the city.

As I told you before we started a new The Dark Eye RPG adventure yesterday. We are a group of six heroes with the Satyr as our game master. Starting in the city of Angbar (pretty inspired by German Augsburg) the group consists of horasian roofer-with-special-interests-in-reallocation-of-properties Titus Brigonetti, played by Bambi, garethian rapier and poison specialised assassin Liskaju Fuxfell who’s the alter ego of our newbie Luna, Simon’s (he’s also entirely new to the system) mathematically gifted thief Thoma Mueller who is incognito as an accountant, the Elfin as Ysilt von den Weiden, beauty- and powerful witch of the circle of the Seeresses of Today and Tomorrow and her raven familiar, horasian charming equilibrist-from-a-good-family Giavan Karisia, character of the Scoundrel, with his well-mannered dog Claudio and finally my character Tanwen Finnsdaughter Nendrum, priestess of Tsa, the everyoung goddess.

Tsa is the goddess of life and everlasting change, of birth (and rebirth), learning-by-doing, the fairy folk, children, beginnings and creation. Her signs are a lizard biting its own tail (for the circle of life), eggs, rainbows and dawn. I chose her for the challenge of playing a character who is bound to hurt nobody, especially not with weapons of any kind, as someone who is open-minded and always eager to try new things (especially crafts).

Tanwen Finnsdaughter Nendrum, uncoloured

Tanwen was born as the only daughter of Ynlais Nendrum, a witch of the circle of the Beauties of the Night and Finn Phileasson, a thorwalian (kind of a viking) bard in Havena, capital of the Principality of Albernia where witchcraft and magic are strictly forbidden – the reason why Ynlais left for good when her daughter was four years old, leaving her with her father to sail to Thorwal where she lived until she was thirteen.
She returned to Albernia and met her mother once again who sensed the gift of magic in her, just to send her to a monastery of Tsa to hide it. Tanwen herself never noticed these abilities but grew into the community of debonair goddess-winsome crafters, artisans, adventurers, healers, midwives and (most of them being all of it) clerics. She mainly concentrated on her talent of goldsmithing and precision mechanics as well as cooking, sewing, everything concerning instruments and singing, souls and acrobatics (uhm, well, it may seem a lot but it isn’t for a priest of Tsa). She’s a little bit spleenish and may appear like a child sometimes, but she feels no need to show off her skills as a soul-healing, well-educated cleric when there are robins or sparrows to watch.
Her most reliable companion is a little wooden toy mocking a sea serpent that an old carver from her fathers Ottajasko (a kind of tribe) made for her when she was a child. One of the rare things to make her angry are stagnancy and lethargy as well as unjust behaviour (or what she sees as such). By the way she’s a synesthete smelling, seeing and hearing colours.

At midnight the Scoundrel left as he was bound to catch his train to Kassel as he went to a rock festival pretty early today. It’s only four and a half day but I’ve got to admit that I miss him. While he is gone I’m taking care of his tree (Steve II’s like a pet with photosynthesis) and he brought me a single rosebud that slowly opens its petals. I think it will be in full bloom when he returns.

Plus, my gloves, shin pads and gumshield for Savate finally arrived but this is something I’ll tell you another day. I’m pretty tired and tomorrow morning there’s a call at the doctor’s waiting for me. And, of course, a day of waiting for Lilibeth.

With Heart and Soul – Characters: Self Insert

A comment from my fairy pen pal IRis on my Steampunk character’s introduction made me think of how much of us gets into a role as soon as we put it up. This post is most understandable for role players or LARPers, but maybe the others are interested, too. If not, skip it.

IRis asked me, whether Honoria wasn’t very much like myself, was she. Uhm. Yes. She is. But when I take my roleplay files I find that most of my characters are hot-tempered and curious, wear green-toned clothing and take pleasure in dancing and singing.  But, in return, there are characters who wear mostly blue, are scheming and vengeful and think that cooking is something that happens to others. My Steampunk characters are a good example of how different roles that base on yourself can be.

1. Honoria Whiteberry-Clapham, aristocratic Historian of Arts.  The one who started the fire. Honoria’s manners are pretty refined, her education magnificent, her clothes tailored by the best. She knows how to act in high society and is known for her performances at soirées as well as her knowledge about arts and a quite romantic mind. She loves a good dance and spends most of her holidays in the country with her huge family whom she loves dearly. Her language is – matching her social status – flowery but not too silly. Most of the time.
2. Hephzibah Blacksmith, working class medic. Has never seen a university from the inside and learned her profession from the old doctor across the street. Bright and good at her trade, she is a respected member of the lower class. Her contacts to the underground has caused her a few troubles, but after all, she gets along quite well with most of the dubious persons she’s surrounded by. Her environment made her grow up to a hard cored, cynical and self-confident young woman who might not be the most precious flower in the garden, but one of the most lasting ones.
3. Gemma Bennett, identity disordered journalist. Normally, Gemma is a quite shy and cautious young woman who works as a writer for the Londonian and rather  moves in the middle class amongst small tradesmen, clerks and older ladies of the society than amongst high aristocracy or the lowest criminals. She takes pleasure in walks in the park and drawing. Her other side that occasionally comes out is an habitually coquettish, slightly aggressive hot-head who is a stunningly good fighter with knives and aware of all her femme fatale devices.

These three character don’t seem to have very much in common – if you don’t know me.

I personally think that the different aspects of one’s real life character that can be acted out in roleplay make the whole thing just more interesting. Who ever thought that a wallflower could be a convincing prostitute, a shy, clumsy guy could play a cocky playboy and the rough-and-ready rugby player would make an excellent gentleman?

I think it’s not a shame to live out several sides of your personality though roleplay characters, far from it! More likely, I see it as a healthy, nearly therapeutic opportunity for character development. I guess I wouldn’t be who and like I am today without my roleplaying characters and the resulting explorations of attributes, traits and characteristics I’d never noticed without.

The First Sprouts

The sugar peas on the window sill are doing quite good as you may see from the title.

I’ll plant them into earth this week as I’m going to visit my family during the Easter holidays and therefore am not able to water the cotton. Putting them into the tub with wet newspaper wouldn’t work either as we don’t have windows in the bathroom and the boys aren’t here, either.

Some minutes ago Bambi dispatched the order for some DVDs and I went along and ordered my beloved Anne of Green Gables and its first sequel. :)

I’m not too chatty at the moment, as you may have noticed, due to my academic assingment that is growing quite pleasantly, by now I’ve got about a quarter of the demanded continuous text.

Along the way I am pondering about a new LARP character. No, not Steampunk this time but purest fantasy as it will be an elf. The biggest obstacle to a good character development is her name, at the moment, but I think I’ll ask IRis for help there… ;)

Well, I’ve got to increase my word count to 2000 minimum now, so

Good-bye.