#apocalypse never

Warning:This article may contain spoilers and the content inappropriate for children…or may not contain.But get the children away from the screen just in case.

It was the rainy day just like this one. I was in my room watching  porn the stars, when I’ve noticed the body hanging in the opposite window. Neighbor hung himself. While examining the scene I’ve found his laptop with unfinished article. I’ve got the laptop and went home. Later I got arrested for break-in, but before that I managed to post this article on tumblr. Enjoy!

1. Blight Dream

Blight Dream is an exploration adventure game, where you play as a girl, suffering from memory disorder ( don’t confuse with amnesia ), whose goal is to regain memories from the blank period of her life. But there’s one little problem-it seems that your brother isn’t really excited about you getting back your memories, that’s why he’s watching your every step and prevents all your attempts to remember. So, watch his movements and try not to get caught by him. But is it really your brother, who you should be afraid of? Play and see for yourself. Beside interesting plot, this game has high-quality visuals ( character’s 3D-models are similar to ones in remake of FF3 and CP:Blood Drive ) and wisely chosen soundtrack.

2. 1BeatHeart

Here goes a sequel-spinoff to 1bitHeart, without friend-making and QTE-scenes though. This time the main character is Misane-chan, who, along with Nanashi, is solving various murder cases in resort hotel. Gameplay is very similar to Ace Attorney games, logic is pretty simple, so, as long as you’ve played any detective games-you’ll be fine even without hints. Like it’s predecessor, 1BeatHeart has wonderful presentation – beautiful art and sprites along with catchy soundtrack and quality voice acting.

3.The Hanged Man

The Strange Men Series is probably one of most known game series in rpg-horror community, and, no doubt, one of the most interesting. Here goes the last game in the series, which concludes the main plotline, and makes clear some things, that were hanging in the air since the Crooked Man. The Hanged Man  introduces us new protagonist – Will, a bit unstable, but still nice boy with active imagination, who’s searching for his missing friend. Along the way he’ll meet many of our old acquaintances from previous games. Once again, game has fully voiced cutscenes, with quality voice acting for an indie-game. Gameplay, though, is more simple compared to predecessors, most of the game you’ll be exploring various locations and  solving puzzles, there’s no action cut-ins, except for quite complicated final chase. Overall, the Hanged Man  is an interesting game and very decent conclusion of the whole series.

4.Farethere City

Here goes the game, made by Segawa, the author of our favorite End Roll. Farethere City was her first game, and it’s bit more simple in terms of gameplay ( for example, there’s no rpg-elements and game’s world isn’t that big ). But when it comes to story, City is as good as ER, both sad and moving,-game starts with little kelp  (Mr.Turnip?) named Pigula, who has recently moved to a new city and wishes to open a shop, but something is definitely off with both city and our  hero. Visual part is as bright as one in the End Roll (including a bit of stylish disturbing artwork).So, if you liked End Roll and still want more, I highly suggest playing Farethere City.

5.June Bride Nightmare

What a beautiful wedding…and how quickly it turned into a nightmare. Our protagonist, Yuno, was so close to finding her happiness with the man she loves, but ended up being the only surviving person on her own wedding, and now she’s forced to play hide and seek with the mysterious maniac in the church, where wedding was held. Every time the maniac appears, you have a choice to sneak past him or to run for it by performing a QTE. Game has an interesting story, good gameplay and wonderful presentation. Even if you are far from  romance ( like myself, heh ), Bride still leaves the strong impression, especially the bittersweet true ending ( there’s also secret ending, but it isn’t that good, really ).

6.Little Red Riding Hood’s Wolf

Who doesn’t know the tale about Red Riding Hood? Famous tale indeed, and has many various interpretations, in most of them the girl gets eaten by wolf one way or another. But not this time. In this game granny is dead from the very beginning, little Red Riding Hood and the wolf are working together in order to find the murderer. Story is interesting and have some nice plot-twists (personally, I liked how the theme of split personality played in here ) and characters are nice. When it comes to gameplay, LRRHW plays like any other rpg-horror, so if you aren’t new to genre, you’ll easily beat this game in a hour or so. It’ll be quite pleasant hour.

7.Stray Cat Crossing

If you constantly play rpg-horrors and still haven’t got tired from amnesiac characters, I highly recommend you to play Stray Cat Crossing. First thing, that catches the eye is very detailed sprites and pixel artwork. Other one is dark atmosphere of haunted house with stylish designs and some grotesque well-animated cutscenes. Gameplay is mostly consists from searching the right items and solving simple riddles, but there’s also one frustrating chasing scene at the end of the first section of the house. Story may lack originality, but still good and teaches us to forgive, this time not others, but yourself, since sometimes there’s things that are beyond our control. And despite ending being optimistic, closing credits are a bit creepy.

8.Three Ghostly Roses

You find yourself in the strange place, greeted by mysterious man in the blue cape, you don’t remember anything about yourself, except for the name. Edmund Brigham. Doesn’t ring a bell? Nope, it doesn’t. To find out about your past and your purpose, you’ll need to carefully explore every corner of the dark and unwelcome world, before it’ll start to fall apart. TGR looks very similar to NES games and has wonderful original soundtrack, which perfectly fits to dark atmosphere of the haunted world. Also game has pretty unique battle system, where you watch the enemy’s movements and try to exploit it’s weakness. And, there’s no healing items, you recover HP by defeating the enemies, but despite that, difficulty level is quite fair.

9.Dreamfarer

Good sleep is important, isn’t it? It definitely is, but not for the people in Dreamfarer, who don’t need to sleep at all. In the society, described in the game, sleep is considered something out of ordinary, since no one’ve slept and seen a dreams for a long time. Yet, little girl, who has an ability to travel between other’s dreams, accidentally gets into a dream of a man, who is currently in comatose state in the hospital. To get back to reality, you’ll need to swap between girl and the man, since both of them see the same things from different perspectives, and help the inhabitants of the dream world. Dreamfarer is one of those games, which start as cute adventure and get darker and darker towards the end. This game has amazing fully redrawn graphics and stunning artwork (there’s literally tons of CGs ).

10.Shirakami-sama to Yon-no-Oni 

 Our next game is perfect if you are tired from jumpscares, suggestive  content and brain(or heart)-breaking stories. Shirakami is very heartwarming game about friendship between boy and four demons, who help him in search of his cousin, who went missing while preparing to upcoming festival. Game has warm atmosphere of small village, strong with it’s traditions, beautiful illustrations and interesting gameplay, based on main character’s perception. There’s 3 endings in total, to see all of them you’ll need to beat the game 3 times (it’ll take from 3 to 5 hours in total ) and every time story goes the different way. Currently, game ia available only in russian and japanese.

11.From The Next Door

When you see something extremely cheap-it’s always suspicious. In case of food it might be rotten ( not always though ), in case of newly acquired house-get ready to deal with abomination living next door ( and no, I don’t mean neighbors ). Usually, when you notice paranormal activity in your house-you try to get away from it as far as you can, but in case of our heroine Namie ( who is as “smart” as Ayumi Shinozaki in CP: Blood Drive )- you’ll wait until things will get reeeeally ugly. Despite main heroine’s stupidity ( or thanks to it ), the game came out really creepy and interesting. Additionally I would like to praise game’s stylish visuals reminiscent of GBC-games and good work with setting the right atmosphere. And, once again, if you’re not the sensitive type-I suggest you playing in complete darkness with headphones on.

12.Hansel

Despite the game’s title, you will meet neither Hansel nor Gretel, instead you are playing as twin brothers, one of them is timid and another is sharp-mouthed (oh well, they’re both little rascals, no matter how you look at it). Hansel is nice adventure game with variety of references to famous old fairy tales, good humor, adorable visuals and quite unexpected ending ( two endings, to be exact, since another one is unlocked after beating the game for the second time). Game is relatively short ( 30-40 minutes ) and puzzles can be easily solved without a guide.

13.Lavender

Lavender presents another look on the Rapunzel’s story, in which there’s no prince and evil witch isn’t that evil. Your goal in this game is to descend the tower to retrieve your birthday present, solving various unique puzzles ( from feeding plants to playing chess ) on your way down. Lavender has quality pixel graphics and overall good presentation, which helps to create the feeling that you’re traveling through old storybook. Personally, I really liked the game’s normal ending, but there’s also a secret one for those, who like, when plot starts to turn grim and bloody.

14.Dudley and The Mysterious Tower

There goes a new title, developed by Sen, but don’t expect second Mad Father or Misao. Dudley is far more simple in terms of both plot and presentation. But it doesn’t mean that the game has nothing to offer. You play as a courier, who has an important delivery to tower’s owner, and his dog. Each floor of the tower is designed as a puzzle, in order to solve which you’ll need to switch between courier and the dog, who can do things courier can’t ( like seeing ghosts and talking to other animals).To climb the tower and see the contents of so-called “delivery”  you’ll need about 40 minutes, so if you have some free time-be my guest.

15.Apocalypse Never

Twenty Ninth commission for hibikayyy

Image from Colonel’s blog

A recent post on Colonel’s blog made me realise a small misinterpretation in my translation of Apocalypse Never. Where in the English version, Seryozha finds condoms in his bathroom, it turns out he’s actually meant to find hair bands. The word used in the Japanese script is “ゴム” ("gomu"), which can mean a variety of things, like rubber, eraser, gum, condoms, and latex produced from tree sap. HOWEVER, the word intended was “ヘアゴム” ("hair gomu"), which means hair band.

“I recently noticed that the "gomu" that was thrown away in the trash can of the English version of Apocalypse Never was translated as a "condom"... It was meant to be a "hair gomu" or a "hair band"...!!!! A RUBBER BAND FOR HOLDING YOUR HAIR BACK!!!!

But I found it really amusing so I don’t care if it’s left like that!! It honestly made me burst out laughing. But now I’m really curious, what would have caused a situation where something like this would have been tossed in the bin? Who threw it away? Was it used or unused?? I hope people will enjoy the slightly-adult English version of “Apocalypse Never”. (*_ _)

[-From Colonel’s post]

Lenni Khariton Arensky - From Colonel’s blog

Climate Expert: Young People Think The World Is Ending. There’s No Science For Any Of It.

Michael Shellenberger has been an environmentalist for decades. But, he recently came to the realization that the hysteria surrounding climate change and the view of a looming apocalypse were overhyping and even mischaracterizing our ever-changing globe.

As a father to a young daughter, Shellenberger realized that young people were being fed a narrative that’s scaring them into thinking the…