anyone ever heard of unravel? itās one of my absolute favorite games, and itās message and experience will never leave me. youāre a lil yarn fella exploring the memories of an old lady, and uncovering a heartfelt and realistic story of growth and loss along the way. absolutely gorgeous scenery, puzzle design, and metaphor of a game.
it does all of this with absolutley zero words. the only thing you hear from the game is ambienceā¦and the music. i need to talk about the music.
one thing thatās always stood out to me about Unravelās music is that itās based completely on violin. composed and preformed by frida johansson and henrik oja, itās a work of art (and awesome for studying!). i love this choice of experimenting with an emotional instrument to describe different areas: it succeeds so naturally in capitalizing on the emotion. your character goes through areas themed with sun, snow, water, ice, forests, and metal, and the music compliments it every step of the way. the environment changes pallette after pallette as you experience the story through a vessel of expression that admires and fears the world around it.
you are a yarn cat reminiscing on the good and bad of life. you go through trials and triumphs just like anyone would. but in this journey through the eyes of a wordless red thread of destiny, you experience life to the fullest. this thesis is reflected to its full potential in the music.
frida and henrik are masters of expressing emotion through music alone and i will always admire them for that. never have i heard a question, statement, and exclamation interpreted so thoroughly through instrumentals. they handle cord progression and storytelling so extremely well. the sequel, Unravel 2, continues this emotional-musical trend while incorporating additional instruments, giving the game a collaborative and heartfelt feeling. they add guitar and digital doodads that groove endlessly in their own ambient way, further expanding the style of the unravel games. the music of this game (series?) is a friend to you on your journeyāempathizing and playing with you through the ups and downs. itās a masterpiece of design and i will never stop preaching praises for it.
please play the game (and itās sequel with a friend!!) on steam. i am on my knees. please. it isnāt covered as much as it needs to be and deserves all the love it receives. the message is timeless, the music is wonderful, and the puzzles are worthwhile. itās an absolute indie gem that will never leave you for as long as you live.
.-.
this was something different for me, and a bit of a ramble-tumble, and thatās ok. iāve always admired video essays and rants on social media that feel like persuasive essays. iām been experimenting with wordplay and sentence structure recently, and wanted to give something like this a try :]. itās unprofessional since iām no expert, but iām noticing something and commenting on it to the best of my ability. thanks for reading!š
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Iām going to start this out by saying right now that Iām basing my review of Nintendo on what they showed in the Treehouse as well as the main direct. So the score is going to be based on what we know by the end of day three of the treehouse, and the same for the other groups if they had additional presentations after their main show.
So letās start with EAā¦.Oh EAā¦.
Starting out with the Host Andrea Rene, who I feel got stuck in a rock and a hard place with this weak presser, as sheās known for being a better host for her other appearances. Honestly, I somewhat had to honestly cringe on her segment with Respawnās developer Vince Zampella due to the weird comment about getting to hold a light saber. Like I donāt know if she was trying to be funny, sarcastic, or sexy here? I was confused with it. Again, I donāt blame her for the conference, but I didnāt feel like she was a good fit for this given the response. Then again, I donāt think that anyone could have made that Conference work.
As for the games shown, I have a few thoughts.
Battlefield V looks nice, presentation wise, but given that itās mostly a cinematic trailer, we didnāt really get to see a lot of in game footage. What we did learn though from Dice was that the environments are now destructive, and you can dive roll out windows (which might be interesting if youāre into that) as well as having movable artillery (which didnāt happen in the last game) which could be useful if youāre into that. Also they reiterated the lack of Loot Boxes and premium passes, yet didnāt mention anything about a deal with microtransactions. On top of this theyāre bringing back a Battle Royal to the game.
Thereās not much I can say on this other then what has been said already, although the fact that itās pretty much what DICE has been doing in regard to the main series anyway. Given that leveling up has some ties to currency, Iām wondering if in lieu of loot boxes theyāre just going to microtransaction this game. What has me a bit worried about the Single player aspect of the game is that thereās hints that itās going to be tied into the live service which makes me think that itās going to be limited play offline, and for someone that prefers playing mostly off lineā¦
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order had no trailer at all. Just Respawnās Vince Zampella explaining what it is. Iām not even sure if they were planning to have it be something to be presented (why even mention it if itās not ready to be?) but it was a really odd vibe with that moment. The game itself doesnāt seem to have a lot going on. What we know was that itās taking place between Episodes III and IV, and deals with a padawaan that escaped from Anakinās moment of being nutty and you can use lightsabers. However, unless this is Kaanās story weāre kind of running into the whole āLuke not being the last Jediā story thus nullifying the line that Yoda said somewhat. Unless he or she never takes the Jedi oath. Ā I mean, sounds cool, but we donāt even know what sort of type of game it is. We do know it will be out during the Holiday season 2019. So thatās a plus, but I would think that weād at least have gotten a quick moment of something to see.
Star Wars Battlefront II made me roll my eyes a bit, as it was repeated trailer footage over and over, which personally annoys me, but I guess was the only thing they had to show. So we saw the new Solo Content, Yay āI guess? And learned weāre getting an expansion for the Clone Wars with Obi Wan, Grievous, Dooku and Anakin showing up for that. No surprise that EA had the Director of the game saying that they made some mistakes over EA actually apologizing for their horrible practices. Yeah, no EA, you donāt get a pass for any of the BS you pulled this past year.
Unravel 2 byĀ Coldwood Interactive Ā came out the day of the conference, which was a nice change of pace. I will say this much the creative team was nervous, but showed a great deal of love for Yarny and his new companion. The fact that this is local co-op is a plus, and seems to be a fun game. Already Iām loving the blue Yarny and it looks like itās going to be a strong story. The one thing that was rather sad about this game is that itās not coming to the Switch and āapparently according to the development team via Twitter āthey donāt have the resources to do that, even though this game and the previous one would have been a good choice for the Switch. The fact that the team said it wishes they could do it makes me wonder if EA is sending any money the way of the Originals teams that they have. If not, they should start considering porting games like this to the switch because I can tell you it will sell even more over on that console then the Xbox and PS4.
Sea of Solitude is yet another Indie that I would say saved the EA presser from falling into a F grade and leaves it at an E. The creative director from Jo āMei games, the creators of this game from Germany, Cornelia Geppert, was extremely cute and excited to be on stage. Her infectious excitement made people applaud even more when they put the trailer on the screen. The thing that caught my attention about this game is that it covers the idea of depression and loneliness in a very strong and very direct way. The designs of the monsters and the story about a human becoming a bird like creature, which I think has ties to German folklore is really cool and again, I wish this was coming to the switch, although we donāt know at this point if it will or wonāt. If EA was smart it would allow for it.
And then EA decided to screw up the love that was being given to them via the indies by pulling outā¦a mobile game of Command and Conquer.
Command and Conquer: Rivalsā¦I have words about this. The original game series was a Real Time strategy game that had a lot of complexity to the creation of the game play and the set up to maintain and manage your resources while taking out the opposing team. The last game of this nature from the Command and conquer franchise came out in 2013, on PC, and then Victory was shuttered. Which leads us to the new game. Command and Conquer Rivals is mobile and while the team does boast some former members that worked on Command and Conquer a lot of the game play relies on the idea of tapping the smart phone screen. Thereās no camera movement so youāre in a static place and canāt see whatās around you to figure out what you need to do. Given the reaction to Rivals so far, it seems like people are not too happy with the situation. This game, apparently, is trying to get in with the Clans like games. Which makes me wonder if weāre going to see a lot of money grabs from EA on it.
Something slightly worse was the whole shoutcast that was put up by EA, and that I wound up skipping because it seemed way too staged. The fact that itās also a one vs. one deal makes me think that theyāre going after the Pokemon go crowd as well.
The final piece from EA was the Bioware game that Iāve been dreadingā¦
Anthem, isā¦in a wordā¦Sad. I donāt mean itās sad in the sense that itās physically depressing to see as it has the same sleek Bioware style, thatās not the issue. I expected nothing less from Bioware and the team behind this game. My issue for the sad comes from the fact that itās a Game as a Service, or GAAS. Which means itās on line all the time, and that means if you have crappy internet connections you may as well skip this game. While they mentioned that the game will have no loot boxes, there was nothing about no microtransactions, and, given the nature of the game and the whole āWe have content for years to comeā it makes me think that this is going to end up catering only to people who like to play Destiny. The fact that normally fans of Bioware tend to like RPGs, and thus more single player affairs over multiplayer affairs makes me think that EA is trying to use Bioware to grab at the GAAS players. Now, on the one hand, itās true that there are a lot of players that like GAAS games, and Iām not saying that theyāre bad. The issue becomes, again, if you donāt have the net for it, and given the FCC crap that just went through it makes me wonder how badly this whole thing will work out. Also if you donāt like Always online games you may as well pass on this because thatās all this is going to be.Ā
How do you manage to make Iron Man fighting Monsters seem dull. Great Job guys at doing that.Ā
We also saw notices about Fifa 19, and itās practically become a monopoly given that Konami and another studio lost their license of the Championship and another tournament from Soccer. Not much changed Ā other than some sort of mini game, and then we had Madden and NBA, and I think that was it. I didnāt pay much mind to a lot of it because after seeing the indie presentation it felt like EA had lost touch with what makes for a good presentationā¦.
So over all I would give EA an E, the indie area of their presser was nice and gave some bit of hope, but the over all presentation of mostly Online games and sports games, felt like EA has forgone making actual games and is now pretty much a version of Blizzard Activison.
unravel? unravel!!! (read my awesome unravel music rant here!!)
some old art i posted on deviantart once and forgot about. background panels from ign! the unravel title was traced and recolored + blurred from the one in the game!
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šµ MUSIC NOTE - what is their playlist like? their favourite artists? do you associate a particular song with them?
coldwood in general i really associate with lovecraft in brooklyn, but augur and lane specifically i associate with the resurrectionist (of course lol). and i haven't thought a lot about what music is like in coldwood actually! youve given me a good prompt
š SHOOTING STAR - if they could make any wish with no repercussions, what wish would they make?
oooooh ouch. well augur's is pretty obvious - he would want his "experiment" to succeed fully and permanently. and honestly lane is pretty content with his life. i think he'd probably just wish for all his old stuff before death back. which would then of course clutter up all of augur's space lol
