Fran Bow first impressions

Fran Bow First Impressions.

While only the alpha demo is available to play at the moment, Fran Bow is an interesting, unique point-and-click adventure game that deserves exposure. The story in Fran Bow is a horror-thriller in which Fran’s parents are seemingly killed by a demon of some sort; she manages to escape the house with her cat, Mr. Midnight, and collapses in the woods. Fast forward a few days and Fran is in an insane asylum, and she wants to leave to find out how her parents met their grizzly demise.

In gameplay terms, Fran Bow plays like your typical point-and-click adventure, look around the environment for items to find and combine and people to talk to in order to progress. What makes Fran Bow utterly different from most other games in the genre is the use of its visual style. It looks like a fairy-tale illustration on an almost Tim Burton level of strange, which definitely works in the games favour due to its unique mechanic, a bottle of pills. Whenever Fran takes one of these pills, the world around her is temporarily transformed into a horrific, twisted realm where everything is either dead or dying, and ghosts hang around deformed/dead counterparts of people in the real world. If you find yourself stuck on a puzzle, it usually helps to pop a pill and see if the twisted world can provide a clue.

At the time of writing, Fran Bow has an active IndieGoGo campaign with 5 days left before it ends. While the developers, Killmonday, have already surpassed their goal of $20,000, extra money will be used to add extra languages and hopefully get the game onto platforms like the WiiU. The game is also on Steam Greenlight, so if point-and-click is your sort of game then this is definitely worth a vote. Killmonday are hoping to get the game released in Q3 2014, and if the rest of the game is as fun and disturbing as the current alpha demo, then Fran Bow will definitely be one of the better point-and-clicks to be released in a long time.

Official website: http://franbow.com

Steam Greenlight page: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=170953686

IndieGoGo campaign page: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fran-bow-a-very-creepy-point-click-adventure-game

Prison Architect review

Prison Architect Review

Please Note: This game is in its alpha stage and is still being developed so certain aspects of the game may change before release. Therefore please take any criticism from this review with a pinch of salt since it may be changed/removed prior to the games full release.

When you think of the construction/management simulator genre of videogames, chances are you might think of games like Theme Park, Theme Hospital, Roller Coaster Tycoon and various others. At first thought, building a prison might not sound as fun as building the worlds greatest theme park, but there is a surprising amount of things to do and situations to consider that make Prison Architect not only good, but can keep you playing for hours if you know what you’re doing.

As the title suggests, Prison Architect puts you in the position of designing and building a prison from scratch, keeping inmates calm and making the most efficient prison you possibly can. When you start the game for the first time, you’re given the option to build a small, medium or large scale prison. You have 24 in-game hours to build a basic prison, which should consist of a holding cell, showers, canteen, office, kitchen and a yard. You should also make sure that your prison has electricity and water running throughout.

This is a small section of the first prison I made.

As you can tell from the screenshot, the somewhat simplistic graphics have a certain charm to them, and for a game like this, trying to make everything look ultra-realistic may not have worked as intended, so I think the simple approach to the presentation was a smart call on the developers part. Of course, improvements to the graphics may happen as the game is further developed but I think this style suits the game well.

In terms of gameplay, Prison Architect is very much like any other construction/management simulator, build a basic structure and expand from that. You have a budget to work with as well so any very complex building will have to wait until later on. To get more money to build a better prison and facilities, your best option is to get a grant; these grants will give you a generous amount of money to use, but in return there are certain conditions you have to follow. For example, you may receive a grant for $40,000 and the condition is to build an infirmary, morgue and execution chamber. The other main gameplay feature of Prison Architect is the prisoners themselves. Trying to keep them in check and not have a full-scale riot on your hands can be hard if you don’t provide adequate facilities for them.

One way to try and prevent this from happening is by hiring guards. As you might expect guards will patrol the prison keeping the prisoners in line and will not hesitate to bring out the batons if things go sour. Other staff members you can hire include a warden, doctor/nurse and a janitor. These members of staff are nearly always at risk because if a riot does break out, there’s a reasonably high chance that one of them will be injured/incapacitated. If a staff member is injured and out of action, you can’t just hire another one straight away since the hiring system works on a cool-down timer.

The main complaint I have with this game, and indeed a lot of other people have the same complaint; is the price. It’s available on Steams Early Access store page for £19.99/$29.99, which is a lot for a game that is still in alpha. And there are three more purchase options available, for £22.99 you’ll get the game and the soundtrack and artbook once they are completed. For £25.99 you’ll receive the game, soundtrack, artbook and all the other games in the developers library. (Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON and Mulitwinia) And finally for £32.99 you get all of the above and you can create a prisoner that will be in the game when the next update is rolled out.

You get to name and write a bio for a prisoner, but is it really worth £32.99?

Overall then, Prison Architect is a very competent construction/management simulator with lots to do and it has the potential to keep you playing for hours; however the price may be a major turn-off for most people seeing as though the game is still in an alpha state. If you are interested and don’t mind parting with a bit more money, you’ll have a good time but after a while you may feel you overpaid for it. Otherwise your best option is to either wait for a proper release (which may take some time considering how long its been in alpha) or wait for a sale.

Prison Architect is available now on Steam Early Access for Windows, Mac and Linux. Prices start at £19.99/$29.99

Papers, Please review

Papers, Please Review.

Working at a border checkpoint may not sound like everyone’s idea of a fun time but Papers, Please, the self described ‘dystopian document thriller’ makes the somewhat mundane activity of checking passports and various other documents not only engaging, but also surprisingly fun.

Papers, Please is set in an alternate 1980’s communist state called Arstotzka, and it puts you in the shoes of an individual whose name has been drawn from a lottery to run the border checkpoint. Things start out easy enough, the sole condition being only letting Arstotzkan citizens in, while turning everyone else away. As the game progresses new conditions and paperwork are introduced to make your job harder.

At the end of every workday, you come home to your family and have to figure out how best to split your wages. The ideal situation is to pay the rent, and provide heat and food for your wife, son, uncle and mother-in-law. However, if you don’t earn enough during the day, or get too many citations by making mistakes then you won’t have enough money to go around, so you may have to choose between heat and food. Your workday may even be cut short by a terrorist attack, and that will mean even less money.

The inclusion of a family really gives another sense of depth, perhaps even urgency to the game, since you want to provide for them but you will almost always never have enough money for everything, so trying to choose between heat/food can be quite hard since going without one may mean that a family member becomes sick, which means that you have to provide medicine for them to get better. This is another drain on your already scarce income, but if you don’t supply medicine then the sick may die. If you decide to buy medicine but not food/heat, then someone else may get sick and so a dilemma starts; do you take care of the sick and put the rest of your family at risk, or just ignore the sick entirely and focus on the healthy?

Going back to the main gameplay, your main tool in the checkpoint booth is your state-issue journal; this journal contains a map of Arstotzka and all the surrounding countries, it also contains descriptions of each country including document issuing cities and districts. Your other main tool is your approval/denial stamp that, as the name suggests, lets you approve or deny entry into Arstotzka. The sound of the stamp when it hammers down onto the passport is satisfying in a rather strange way.

While more documents are introduced into the gameplay, the core conditions of approval may change. For example all Arstotzkan citizens only need their passport for entry, while people from other countries will need their passport and a valid entry ticket. If they do not have this secondary item or it is invalid in anyway, even if the passport is OK, they will be denied entry. This gets more complex as the game goes on with as many as 5 pieces of documentation on your desk at any one time.

Documentation isn’t the only thing that you have to deal with at the booth; people may sometimes give you items like a brothels business card. Other things you have to deal with are bribes, instructions from secret underground organizations and even your own superior depending on your performance. As the days progress, relations between the countries may sour and new conditions may be introduced, possibly due to actions that you have, or have not taken.

The presentation is simple, despite this the game looks good and the animation of the next person entering/exiting the booth is especially nice. There is virtually no voice acting apart from some mumbles. There is no soundtrack apart from the opening theme, which is very distinctive due to its very heavy, Soviet inspired beat.

Papers, Please is a game like no other in the best possible way. It takes an activity that seems boring and mundane and makes it fun and engaging. There is nothing else quite like it and it will be referenced in the future for a comparison. While the premise may turn some people away, for everyone else it’s a trip definitely worth taking. Just remember to bring your passport.

Papers, Please is available on Steam for £6.99/$9.99, GOG for $9.99 and the Humble Store for $9.99