Welcome to the Void
Welcome to the Void
This is where I post by appreciation and criticisms for various art and other things I've experienced. I hope you find my comments insightful, and if you haven't seen something on here that I recommend, go check it out!
A top down cosmic survival horror with dystopian sci-fi aesthetics encompassing a romantic tragedy.
That's quite the description honestly. If there's anything to praise it by, it's the conceptual depth. There are many, many layers to what is going on in this game, and the story hits the sweet spot where the average joe player can understand the basics of what is going on and what needs to be done, but past that there is so much obscurity and disconnection between the implied lore of the world.
You are a robot- a cyborg- a cyborg of cloned human biomass and mind also known as a Replika attempting to find someone within the depths of a industrial mining facility, and you're going to find that person at any cost. Pretty much any further details beyond that become hazy as your own identity and sense of self is effectively ephemeral at this point. The fact that you are playing as a mass-produced clone means that there are countless other clones of you who are at play in this story as well. On top of that, there are also split and recursive timelines in this plot!
You'd think that saying all this would constitute as spoilers, but there's about 50 other concepts that I haven't even touched on yet. The King in Yellow, sacred geometry, cognito hazards, predestination, number stations, the weave of reality, existential crises, immortality, incomprehensible gods, war drama, extra sensory perception, hexagons, indescribable objects, personality degradation, lovecraft references, nationalistic censorship, radiation sickness, nihilism, ?birds?, forbidden rituals, grandfather paradoxes, tarot, nature vs. nuture, east asian mythology, surveillance states, german societal and miltiary structures, synchronicities, pareidolia and shape decomposition. Could you meaningfully piece together what this story is about based on those pieces? Even then there are still more topics you could probably bring up.
I'll reel it back. In the beginning of the game, your objective and sense of obstacles is actually rather straightfoward. You will meet a variety of clones of other people, and come to learn how and why they operate as they do. You will learn about empires and rebellions. You'll learn how to survive in the hellish landscape you're in. Ration your ammo, maximize the use of your limited inventory space and solve metaphorically (and metaphysically) significant puzzles while surviving disfigured infected masses of flesh blooming from your clone brethren. You will find a myriad of notes to assist you in grasping the circumstances, as well as critical information to solve puzzles. Expect to get lost in the mazes and expect to feel despair as your resources dwindle against undying bio-machines.
All things considered, this game is intense. It's definitely possible to beat this game, and its mechanics are reasonably easy to accomplish if you know how to put your wits right, but it IS a challenge.
And why do all this? What's the light at the end of the tunnel? Well, you made a promise, and you will keep that promise. It's a promise you must follow through on. The cries of suffering ring out through the cosmos and you can hear them. Every version of you can hear them.
The story for this game honestly scratches an itch that many games do not. Everything has a logic to it. You can feel the creator's logic behind everything, but you cannot know it all. I personally love when the scope of the story is beyond me, but that my part as the player is still crucial anyways. On top of that, the art is great with its cold and apathetic aesthetic. The music and sound effects have a strong identity that can easily get into your head and make you feel exactly what you need to feel. The gameplay is fairly par for the course, but very polished. The puzzles are definitely unique, but expect to collect a lot of items and then juggle inventory management. All in all, I would heavily recommend Signalis for anyone who needs a strong dose of depth and thought, and is a sucker for tragedy and love.
While I'm here, I'll include my favorite explainer with a white board and his 7 1/2 hour long presentation on what even happens in this entire game. I strongly recommend you play the game yourself before watching this, as the game is best experienced with naivety and confusion.
By Porter Robinson
I would like to start this review by providing context for my relationship with Porter Robinson's music. Back in middle school, I actively recall loading up Pandora and playing the radio that progressively transformed from C418's serene Minecraft music to hard bass EDM. Among this list of EDM artists, was Porter Robinson. Pandora really enjoyed feeding me his song "Spitfire" and "The State". I thought it was alright, but later on I got floored by his album, Worlds. I won't go into Worlds for this review, but initially I didnt even know that the artist behind Worlds was the same one behind Spitfire. You could tell he was a person of rising standards.
It was a bit strange to listen to Nuture when it initially released. Worlds seemed to explore fiction, the internet and existentialism. Nurture on the other hand is a sort of genre on its own, or at least it feels like a genre that I do not know the name of. It's softer, including acoustic instruments blended with kinder synthesizers. It dives into what I can only describe as the highs and lows of being a human with passion, dreams and nostalgia. As with most music albums that I listen to, I did not fully appreciate the album on the first listen to it. but what hooked me first was the song Wind Tempos.
I remember being furious about some lemons life handed me. I won't go into details, but upon playing a mashed playlist of songs I threw together while working, Wind Tempos came on. Even with how burned out my head was with bitter thoughts, the song was able to slowly pick up my mind and carry me away to somewhere more beautiful. To me, it's rare for a song to have that kind sway over me. It caused me to realize that this album was made with a serious heart. So I sat down and listened to the album with real intention.
This album is one of the more powerful forms of music I have come across. As someone who struggles with stress, anxiety and the slew of other things life puts in front of happiness, I realized Nurture is an ode to the pursuit of remaining genuine and appreciative of life. There is a song that has made me cry multiple times, and there is a song that I danced to with my wife for our wedding.
You can tell by the timing between Worlds and Nurture that the album is a product of Porter Robinson's transformation and growth as a person. I will refrain from being parasocial, but I'm glad that there is someone out there that made the decision to be honest of their pain, and to make something beautiful out of it.
Porter Robinson is a successful musician. My recommendation for his music would be marginal for his own success at best. Instead I recommend this album for anyone who is reading this review. If you feel like you are struggling to remain genuine in a world that does not nuture such behavior, and you feel your ambition warning, this album understands that struggle, and it might just help you a little bit.
By Neal Shusterman
I picked up the first book of this series because of the striking cover art, as shown in the image.
The hook summary on the back describes of a futuristic utopian Earth that has gained ultimate peace and prosperity through the guidance of a "perfectly" benevolent AI. Death by age, disease, or injury is no longer a concern to the people of Earth. All is well, save for the fact that the AI cannot allocate enough resources to keep in pace with the exponential growth of the population.
To counterbalance this, a group of a select few people are assigned to be "Scythes", who are obligated to kill (or Glean as they say in the books) a portion of the population.
I found this premise very interesting, and the book rewarded my interest. It follows what it is like to be introduced to the Scythedom society who are treated as fearsome elites.
In honesty, when I first got the book, I was hoping it would reflect on the more existential parts of death. You would imagine that killing people for a living would have you often questioning what it even means to die. Neal Shusterman somewhat dodges these questions, and for good reason.
Writing about the experience of death, the meaning of death, and the afterlife deals with such an unknown, yet touchy subject that it can easily cause more problems for reading than it's worth. Rather, the Arc of a Scythe series often deals with the morality of killing and the general power struggle dynamics of an elite society.
Regardless of my expectations, the story of the first book was so engaging that I ended up buying the other two books. The pacing and twists of the series are where Shusterman's strength shows. Though certain elements are the standard twists that have been used among stories a little too much, but in all, he is a very good writer. I found the end of the series very satisfying.
As with the other entries in this review series, I recommend reading these books. These books are good if you're into character drama, action, political drama and a dash of sci-fi.
I suspect that many people, like me discovered Picayune Dreams through AndyLand's Youtube Channel.
Truthfully, I did not pay much attention to this game at first. I have a high filter for internet noise, but after seeing Steam eventually recommend the game, I took a good look at its trailer, its reviews and its $5 price tag and thought it wouldn't hurt to try.
I'm glad I did. This game drops you right into action without even knowing how anything works or why you're even here.
The mechanics are rather simple, and after your first few failures (this has rougelike elements), you'll get the gist of how the game works.
What really strung me along was the story. Through repeated runs you can begin gathering that your circumstances are not as senseless as they seem to be.
There's a rather tragic and personal story that develops as you progress through the game.
I'll say that the true ending of the game (which requires some jumping through difficult hoops) leaves some things to be desired, but overall I'm very satisfied with Picayune Dreams.
Had I known what was in store, I would have gladly paid double for what I got the game.
I actually enjoyed it so much that I've scrawled together some fanart for the game that you can see in the Gallery.
If you want to check out Picayune Dreams on steam, click here!
They have a free demo for you to try!
(PS: Don't enable the "Amnesiac" upgrade from the main menu of the game if you wish to actually see the story)
I feel like this is a good way to start off this category of the website. The Fox and the Bird is a metal fusion album from the band, Ok Goodnight. The band has made some singles and EPs but this appears to be their first fully-fledged album, and it's a great album at that.
The album is one of those story-focused types, which seems to be rarer than I'd like them to be. It follows the titled Fox and Bird as they embark on a journey to end the drought that is plaguing their home. Lyrics for the songs can be found on Genius Lyrics, and I advise following them to understand what is going on. There is some debate on the YouTube comments about what the lyrics are, and the different interpretations have a large impact on how the story is affected by it.
The metal fusions of jazz, fairytale and folk make this album very unique, and Casey Lee William's vocals definitely shine through during key moments. Overall, this Album is an adventure of hardships, despair, and the tragedy of kind creatures in an extremely unforgiving world.
PS. If you ask me, The Bear and The Crocodile ought to be swapped in their order on the album.
Here is the first song of the album: