Pretty Deadly Cover

The book’s setting is the archetypical, familiar western setting, complete with small desert towns, corrupt sheriffs, and shady saloons. But the very first pages establish that this is not a mundane western story. In this world the land is magical, and the legends are real. Folk songs and old wive’s tales are forgotten truth, and one is best to heed their warnings. In Pretty Deadly world, Death himself is a gunslinger with a horse skull instead of a face, who often meddles in the affairs of mortals. His grim rippers travel the world and do his bidding, and the only person who openly defies him is his mortal daughter Ginny. She rides the wind, and comes to the aid of those in need if they know how to summon her with a special rhyme whispered into the breeze. Like in a Neil Gaiman story, the supernatural elements are woven into the fabric of the reality of this world and inseparable from it.

Death and his captive

I would not call myself a fan of the western genre. It is not something I read or watch often, and I don’t typically seek out stories about cowboys and gunslingers. But I was enthralled and captivated by this series. If I had to give you an elevator pitch, I would probably describe Pretty Deadly as: Sandman meets Preacher, meets Dead Lands with a pinch of American Gods thrown in for a good measure.

Ginny Deathface

I keep mentioning Neil Gaiman as if it was his story but it isn’t. Even though these comparisons are meant as a positive praise (I consider myself a long time Gaiman fan) I think these comparison might be doing a disservice to the excellent writing of Kelly Sue DeConnick. This is after all, her world, and her story being brought to life by the art of Emma Ríos. Their work is not a mere imitation or emulation of that particular style. Pretty Deadly invokes Gaiman’s style, but then goes beyond and builds something new and original on top of it.

Myths and legends are real

DeConnick expertly manipulates the Western setting, playing up familiar tropes only to tear them down and brutally subvert them. Characters you have pegged as bad guys, turn out to be unexpected heroes. Those you have assumed to be good guys are shown despicable. Even the all powerful Death ends up being developed into a tragic and complex character.

But western tropes are not the only things that are being subverted here. DeConnick and Rios conspire to break all the rules, starting with unconventional and unorthodox paneling. Rios uses the panel composition to create these claustrophobic funnels that build pressure and tension, or to direct action, and caged of inset areas to inform the surrounding action. Sometimes the panels bleed into each other, other times the panel lines become part of the architecture and set design.

The most interesting feature of her art however might be how she stages her combat scenes which sets her apart from most of her peers in the industry.

Ginny vs Alice

Sarah Horrocks wrote an excellent post about this on her blog 73 and I don’t think I could do her analysis justice if I tried to paraphrase it, so I will just quote the interesting bits here:

Female warriors in comics who are depicted as fast, shifty, untouchable are inherently at a deficit in their depiction to analogous male characters–because they create two spaces within their existence: one is the space that, if only they could be caught, then they could be conquered sexually, and the other is that their movement itself is meant to create the image of the beautiful untouchable woman on a pedestal that is the problematic way some men are taught to view women outside of these action packed scenarios.

It is because of these problems that when a fight comes along, particularly in western comics, like the fight in Pretty Deadly by Ginny Deathface and Big Alice–you tend to sit up and take notice. (…)

[Ginny] is set up in the first issue as this untouchable spirit of death. She is Queen Badass. But the Porcelain doll of death archetype is immedietely subverted in her very first fight in the second issue. She is most certainly Queen Badass–but she is not untouchable. She gets cut by Big Alice in the very first attacking exchange between the two. But she takes it and just keeps coming. Ginny continually sacrifices flesh and blood for tactical ground. And what’s more the perspective of the fight, and the character design employed for both characters doesn’t allow for any sexualization of this pain. This fight is never anything about two warriors brutally going at each other, doing whatever it takes to land the killing blow. There’s no perspectives, or contortions causing the characters to vogue for the camera. No orgasmic facial contortions. (…)

You want to know why so many female characters are supporting characters at best in adventure comics–it’s because of this notion of the primacy of their beauty over the brutality of the fight. It is the built in vanity of these characters as viewed objects rather than brutal fleshed out fighters who fully accept the stakes of their choices. (…)

But here’s the thing. Flesh is flesh. Blood is blood. Whether it comes out of a woman or a man, it is still blood. Pain is equal, fighting for your life is an animalistic experience that is not in any way tied to gender.

The notion being that sacrifice of blood for a final victory would be the domain solely of men is atrocious.

For context, Horrocks is comparing and contrasting Pretty Deadly with Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura with respect to how these works depict female fighters. The entire article is worth reading, but I think the excerpt quoted above works well as a glowing recommendation of the book.

Pretty Deadly is not just a blend of western, horror and folk tale. It is a western, horror folk tale centered around strong complex women (both as protagonists and antagonists) which manages to completely avoid objectification so endemic and entrenched in the comic book medium. If that, combined with the fantastic writing and striking and unique art style is not enough to convince you to read it, I don’t know what is.

If you read only one comic book series this year, make it this one.

Integral Trees Book Cover

When I review hard SF, I often loathe to give away juicy details about the setting, because discovering them is part of the joy of reading such books. I don’t really have such reservations with Integral Trees because Niven front-loads most of the hard science into a gigantic expository dump in the first few dozen pages. Everything you need to know about the setting is condensed at the beginning of the book, accompanied by helpful diagrams that help you understand it. So I don’t really feel bad for spoiling it here.

Imagine a binary solar system composed of a neutron star and a regular main phase yellow star. The neutron star has a single captured satellite, which happens to be a gas giant in an unusually low orbit just beyond it’s Roche limit. Because of the tidal forces acting on the planet in such a low orbit most of the lighter gasses from it’s atmosphere have been siphoned out into a vast gas torus surrounding the neutron star. The torus is about a million kilometers thick, and it’s dense core (known as the “Smoke Ring”) is composed almost entirely from nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen forming a breathable atmosphere. The companion yellow star provides ample sunlight allowing life to flourish and evolve within the narrow gas ring.

The Smoke Ring is essentially a world of endless sky. There is no solid ground anywhere within the ring, but water is plentiful. Of course since everything is in free-fall, it does not form lakes or rivers but rather coalesces into spherical floating globules. Most of plants and animals that inhabit the ring are free fall adapted, capable of limited flight and possess trilateral symmetry allowing them to see in all directions without repositioning. Plants, on average are fragile, spindly and tend to form dense clumps, using foliage and web-like branches for both photosynthesis and capturing and sieving up organic matter from the air, as it floats by.

Picture of the spherical plant life clumps within the smoke ring.

The one exception to this rule are the titular integral trees, which are absolutely massive. The largest of the trees grow up to about a hundred kilometers in length, and are tidally locked with respect to the neutron star. Their center of mass is located at the mid point of the trunk, and both ends terminate in a tuft of foliage. The tuft ends are typically subject to gale force winds which causes them to bend in opposite directions, giving the plants the characteristic, integral-sign shape after which they were named.

The tufts collect water and floating debris to and provide natural shelter for all kinds of smaller animals, and parasitic plants. The tidal forces create a gravity like effect, that pulls nearby objects toward the trunk. Any water that collects on the trunk is pushed towards the tufts, creating little streams and rivulets across the bark. As a result each tree is it’s own, tiny, self contained ecosystem.

This is probably why they were chosen by human colonists who discovered the torus roughly five hundred years before the events described in the books. The original settlers were mutineers who have rebelled against the oppressive totalitarian state, and escaped into the the smoke ring, and established a new civilization there. Most build communities within the tree tufts, or in the radial jungles. Because resources required to build industry (such as heavy metals) are scarce in the Smoke Ring they live simple rural lives, holding on to the few old technological gadgets they were able to preserve and keep in working condition. In most communities the post of a “Scientist” is akin to that of a shaman: a community healer and spiritual leader, who consults ancient records to get insights into the true nature of things.

The picture from the expanded cover, featuring the bending trunk of an Integral Tree.

This is a fantastic, and incredibly imaginative setting. But once you read through the first chapter, you basically know all there is to know about it, at which point you might as well just close the book and do something else. The rest of the book is just boring people, having boring adventures. The few revelations about the setting that have not been jam-packed into the introduction, are delivered in the laziest way possible. In most cases the characters simply read a paragraph of notes left behind the original settlers, and then complain that they don’t understand what it means. It is obvious that these exposition dumps are intended for the readers, since not even the tribal “Scientists” remember enough of the old science to decipher them fully.

Bland characters and less than stellar conflict and resolution are not uncommon problems in the realm of hard SF. Writers who can deliver compelling science lectures wrapped inside space adventure novels often struggle to portray believable, characters that readers can relate to. The undisputed masters of the genre however tend to be aware of this, and route around the problem. Gregg Egan for example is really good at centering his novels around some novel scientific quagmire or mystery that the characters seek to solve. Even though some of his characters may be only broad personality sketches, they become relocatable due to sharing a common goal with the readers: the need to solve and unravel the same scientific puzzle. Egan also tends to make his protagonists somewhat odd, alien or somehow exceptional and unique: they are genderless artificial intelligences, disembodied post-humans and etc.. This often tricks the readers to latch that much harder onto the few human qualities they do display.

Niven’s approach is the direct opposite of this. His characters are bland every-men, who neatly fit into a few standard archetypes they never seem to outgrow. All the interesting information in front loaded, or delivered in exposition globs, meaning he can’t trickle small revelations about the nature of the smoke ring throughout the novel. His book is constructed to rely on the strength of his characters. Unfortunately, none of them are likeable enough for one to care about their struggles.

The cultures of the Smoke Ring are also extremely rudimentary and boring. One would think that since travel is difficult, and inhabitants for different trees rarely come into contact with each other, their cultures would vary. One would think that inhabitants of a free floating spherical jungle would live a drastically different than people who inhabit the trees. But the differences between all these people are mostly superficial. They use different governing systems (some more oppressive, other more democratic) but that’s about it.

People of the Smoke Ring have no religions, no legends and no superstition. Their lives seem impossibly boring, shallow and petty. Even the one mildly interesting plot hook is completely wasted. The ancient ramjet used by the original colonists is still orbiting the gas torus. It is controlled by an AI which is still loyal to the state, and has spent the last five centuries plotting how to re-integrate the free people of the Smoke Ring back into the State. The ship and the diabolically intelligent entity that controls it are a constant threat, which never fully pays off.

The book as a whole is disappointing. A fantastic setting ruined by poor execution, bland characters and uninteresting conflict.

This War of Mine Gameplay

They worked out a pretty good system: Pavle would go out at night and scavenge for food and supplies. Cveta and Zlata would stay home and guard the groups possessions. When Anton got better, he joined the guard rotation so that the others could get more sleep. He was not much of a scavenger, and he could not carry much loot anyway. Neither could Cveta for that matter. Zlata however was young and agile, and eager to help out. She and Pavle worked out a rotation. Each night one would go out to scavenge and the other one would sleep or stand guard.

On one of her runs Zlata stabbed a soldier in the back.

She found him at an abandoned supermarket. He cornered a young girl and was making threats and demands waving his weapon around. It was a split second decision, but she did not regret it. The girl run off, but later a woman from the neighborhood told them she got home safe. Who knows what would happened to her if Zlata did not bring a knife that fateful night. Zlata, the golden* girl. Zlata the hero, they called her. Anton tried to play the guitar that night, but he was terrible at it. Zlata brought the soldier’s assault rifle and a box of ammo home. The group now had means to defend themselves from raiders.

Pavle found an abandoned villa with lots of supplies. Unfortunately it turned out it was not really abandoned. Few military deserters made a nest in the basement. On the second floor Pavle found a pile of human corpses, all carved up, charred or otherwise broken… Their wounds were not a result of a fight. These people have been tortured and murdered with exceptional malice. There was a locked room at the end of the hallway, and when Pavle tried to force the door open a man cried out for help from the inside. Pavle did not bring a crowbar or lock picks so he was unable to open it. He made too much noise and alerted the deserted. They were heavily armed. Pavle got shot, but somehow managed to get back home.

His woulds looked grave and the group did not have any bandages. Without some sort of medical aid, Pavle was as good as dead.

All the nearby buildings they could easily get to were already picked clean. The spots that could potentially have some left over medical supplies were off limits due to heavy military activity. However, Zlata knew that the deserters would likely have some military supplies. Chances were that at least some of them would carry standard issue med-packs with bandages and pain killers. She also felt bad for their hostage. She could not sit idly while a man was trapped out there with deranged killers. She hatched a plan.

Next night she went to the villa armed with a knife and a set of lock picks.

When she came back in the morning her eyes were hard and fierce.

She brought food, booze, three rifles and lots of ammo, but no meds or bandages. The hostage was safe, she told the group. The deserters would no longer be a problem. The villa was abandoned again. Pavle got worse. His wounds kept opening up and they could not stop the bleeding.

There was a military outpost near by that was very well stocked. They were bound to have medical supplies, and they were known to trade with the locals. Cveta gathered the little surplus possessions they had left and went there to trade for bandages. They told her to leave. Few days earlier Pavle visited the outpost and was caught trespassing and trying to steal their supplies. The soldiers were still very sore about that, and refused to trade. They would not listen to Cveta’s pleading. “Serves him right”, they said.

Pavle got worse. He could no longer get up on his own. His wounds were infected and he was running a fever. They had to take turns bringing him food. None of them had medical training, but it was clear he might not make it without some medical help. Zlata refused to sit idly and watch her friend die. She took off to the military outpost, her trusty knife in her pocket. It had four notches on the handle already. She would add a few more if that’s what it took to save Pavle. That said, she hoped that she won’t have to use it, and that stealth and subterfuge will be enough to steal some medical supplies.

Anton pleaded with her, and warned her not to go, but deep down inside he believed she could make it. Zlata was, after all, the golden girl. God watched over her. She was magical. If anyone could break into a military outpost and come back with supplies, it was her.

She did not make it.

Turns our that a musical prodigy armed with a kitchen knife was no match against four trained killers with automatic weapons.

Anton was devastated. Next night he picked out the best of the four rifles the group had in the house, and put a few clips of ammo in his backpack. He was not a vengeful man, he assured Cveta, and it was not about vengeance. Zlata deserved a proper burial, and Pavle would not make it much longer without medical supplies. If they don’t do anything and let him bleed out, then the golden girl died for nothing. He was lying, of course. But only about that first part. It was about vengeance. Never in his life did he wish death upon another human being. Not until now. He wanted these soldiers dead.

He arrived at the outpost at dusk and got inside the building. He set himself up in a long hallway with a clear escape route behind him. The soldiers would have to climb up the stairs on the opposite side, and he would mow them down as they came in. If he ran out of ammo, he could just take a step back and jump off the balcony and run to safety.

Anton fired a shot into the air to alert the soldiers.

When the first head cleared the stairway he pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked back harder than he expected it to. His shots veered wildly off the target. The return fire was swift and accurate. Single burst of fire echoed in the hallway with a resonant “ra-ta-ta-ta-tat”. Anton’s skull burst into tiny pieces, his cranial fluids staining the walls behind him.

Pavle bleed out to death that night.

Deaths

Temperature dropped, and it started snowing outside. Cveta chopped up Pavle’s old bed for firewood. She had no use for it anymore. At least the blood stained oak and plywood would keep her warm. She kept herself busy, trying not to think about the events of the last few nights. She wanted to weep for her fallen friends, but she could not find the tears. She wanted to scream in an impotent rage, but she just did not see the point. True depression, as she was learning, was not sadness or despair. It was an overwhelming emptiness and a sense of existential enui. But she tried to fight it as best she could. She had to survive for Anton, for Pavle and of course for Zlata.

She sold Zlata’s guitar for some canned food and vegetables. She never learned to play it, and she could not stand seeing it around the house.

She repaired an old radio and tried listening to the few remaining music stations that were still broadcasting. There was never anything good on it. Only bad news, and some sad sounding, old music records playing on a loop throughout the day.

When there were four of them in he house, they were always hungry. There was simply not enough food for all of them. Cveta would often skip a meal or two to make sure Pavle and Zlata were well fed. Now she had more food than she knew what to do with. She figured that if she rationed it properly she could survive a few weeks without leaving the house. The winter was in full swing, and the raiders were getting more and more desperate.

Cveta would usually sleep during the day, and keep watch at night. She had plenty of weapons an ammo in the house, and despite lack of training they provided to be a good deterrent. Cveta was not a good shot, and she never aimed at the raiders. She would shoot at the ground or in the air to scare them off and it usually worked. Most people would give up after seeing or hearing an automatic weapon burst fired in their direction from a window above. On most nights she would expend 4-6 rounds this way. She would pick up the expelled casings from the floor and line them up on the window sill. Each clump of shells symbolized yet another night she survived alone and against all the odds.

Days passed and it stopped snowing. Cveta ran out of ammunition.

That night the raiders forced the door and made her pay for every single shot she fired.

They cleaned out the pantry and looted everything that was not nailed down to the floor. They left her to die, beaten, broken and bleeding. She dragged herself into the basemen, crawled into the bead and slept for three days. She was waiting for death, but death would not come.

Raided

On the fourth night she patched her wounds as best she could and set to work. She chopped up remaining furniture and used the remaining supplies to build a rat trap. Few times she had to stop because of the pain, but she kept on working. She put rotten food and garbage inside and every few days it would trap some stray rodent. She ate the meat raw, because she had no firewood left. And even if she had some, it would not stay in the house for a long time.

Nearly every night the raiders would come back and do a quick sweep of her house. Cveta did not even try to fight them anymore. She would just go to sleep in her blood soaked bed. Her wounds were getting infected and she was running a fever all the time. The bandits could see she was in a bad way so they left her alone, though it did not stop them from taking her stuff. The only thing they would not take was rat meat. They left her traps alone, and so they became her life line.

Every morning Cveta would drag herself out of the bed, and check the traps. Then she would eat, and drag herself back to her bed, usually leaving a bloody trail behind her on the floor. She was not getting any better. In fact, it was quite clear she was dying. She needed immediate medical help or she would die in her bed just like Pavle. There was a hospital in town, several blocks away, but they could not go there before. There was too much fighting going on over there. Now however the front lines shifted elsewhere. Cveta decided that it was worth checking out. She doubted there would be any supplies left there but she did not know what else she could do.

To her surprise, the hospital was still operating. There were were a few medical specialists still there taking care of the sick and wounded. They patched her up, and pumped her full of antibiotics. She came the next night, and their gave her more meds and re-dressed her wounds. They never asked for any payment, and they never complained about wasting precious medical supplies on a complete stranger.

They were saints. They saved her life. To repay them for their kindness, Cveta robbed them blind.

She felt bad about it, but not for very long. War hardened her, and now that she narrowly avoided death, she was determined to survive more than ever. She kept the medical supplies and intended to sell everything else in exchange for food and ammunition. Unfortunately she did not know anyone willing to trade.

Cveta robbed the hospital

She did not want to risk visiting the military outpost again, for obvious reasons. The traveling merchant who sometimes visited the house probably figured she was dead already. For all he knew, she should have been. She was the weakest and most vulnerable member of the group. And yet, here she was. Still standing, still surviving… On a steady diet of rat meat, but surviving nevertheless. Now that she actually had some valuables in the house, she went back to her old rotation, ready to fend of any raiders. Fortunately, they seemed to have given up on her house.

The nights were silent and peaceful. Cveta stayed up keeping watch four more times and she did not encounter any trouble. Her wounds healed up, and the fever went away completely.

Ceasefire

On the fifth night they announced a cease fire on the radio.

I’ve been playing This War of Mine recently and I found it somewhat captivating. They game is not necessarily “fun” in the traditional sense of the word. What it excels at, is emergent storytelling. It gives you a set of characters, locations and scenarios and the ability to build and connect them into coherent and sometimes even moving stories.

The game is small, simple and low key, but it does allow you to have these interesting experiences. I don’t really want to say “deep” because most of the time they are not. But they can be engaging. When I started the game I had no idea the young musician will become the tragic hero, and that the middle aged school principal will become the main protagonist by the end. It just happened that way. That’s what makes the game interesting: that such stories can, but do not have to emerge from the game play.

The first play through was a complete shit show, with people dying in stupid way, and wasting resources on pointless crap. There was no pathos to the story – it was just a string of errors which resulted in unnecessary deaths, and me getting annoyed I can’t unlock the higher crafting tiers due to my own crappy resource management. If you approach This War of Mine as a game and try to beat it, this will likely be the result.

My second time around I realized that this is not really the best approach. The game is at its best when you treat it as an emergent story generator, and try to empathize with the characters, and imagine their relationships. The game systems provide the basic skeleton of the story, and you provide the connective tissue. And then you may, sometimes get an interesting story out of it.

Life is Strange title screen.

Back in 2007 I asked my readers what save mechanic they prefered and the overwhelming number of respondents chose classic “save anywhere” system conducive to save scumming. I bet that if I asked the same question now, I would have seen the same answers. But if you look at the new releases, you will notice that more and more games tend toward a checkpoint based systems. This could be partly explained by ubiquity of consoles and difficulties of managing save game files across a myriad of platforms. But my pet theory is that “save anywhere” systems are simply one of those things that players love, and game devs hate for the same reason: empowerment.

A flexible save system can be game breaking, allowing a determined player to break up challenging segments into tiny, discrete chunks that can be mastered in isolation, or to abuse the random events to always get favorable results. As such it reduces the challenge and gives players meta-gaming tool they can use to brute-force challenges instead of grinding or getting better at a game. Naturally, this is something that many developers would like to avoid – they want to keep their game challenging and make sure no one gets to “cheat”. Hence, we see the shift toward smart, and flexible checkpoint systems in many modern titles.

Life is Strange opening credits.

Personally, I think that trying to force people to play your game the hard way is silly. If a game is too challenging, or too punishing and it forces me to re-play the same segment over and over again until I get good at it, I usually get discouraged and stop playing. Save scumming lets me force my way through the bits of the game I would otherwise find tiresome and let me enjoy it at my pace. I always appreciate it when a dev team decides to trust me enough to give me a potentially game breaking tool, and let me use my own judgment as to how to use it.

The Life is Strange by Square Enix is a checkpoint based game, which introduces an interesting “time rewind” mechanic that for all intents and purposes emulates save scumming. At any point in the game you have an option to hit a button, and go back to an earlier state, allowing you to undo mistakes and change important decisions.

In and of itself, this mechanic is not new. The most prominent title that has used a similar gimmick was the 2003 game Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. But there it has been employed a bit differently. The rewinds in the game were very limited (allowing you to go back only 30 seconds or so) and were tied to a finite, collectible in game resource. They were intended to be an “undo” button you hit after botching a dangerous jump, or accidentally falling off a platform. Life is Strange uses the mechanic in a way I have not seen before. It is not an undo button, as much as it is a “Groundhog Day” button.

Time Rewind Mechanic in Action

Let me explain that. In the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is trapped in some sort of a temporal time loop forcing him to relieve the same day over and over again. As a result, nothing he says or does during the day has any lasting consequences, since the timeline resets itself every night. This lets him get into all kinds of funny shenanigans, but ultimately gives him an opportunity to learn to become a better person through trial an error. Eventually he sets out on a mission to use what he knows about the events that will unfold during the day, and the things he learned about people around him to live out a perfect day.

Life is Strange allows you to do exactly that, albeit at a smaller scale. Max, the protagonist can only rewind few minutes into the past without getting nose bleeds, but this still allows her to do Groundhog Day style tricks. For example, she can have a conversation with someone, learn something significant then rewind back, and use the fact she just heard as a leverage. Or she can pick up a friends’ book-bag from the floor and rummage through it without permission only to rewind time right afterwards. The game also preserves your inventory between rewinds – so anything you pick up or put in your pockets travels back in time with you.

Have I mentioned this game looks gorgeous? This game looks gorgeous.

If you think about it, this is exactly what players do when they save scum. You run through a conversation to see how the characters react to what you say, and then you reload to ace the conversation and get the most favorable result. The rewind mechanic simply lets you skip the tedious bits involving management of save game files. Not only that, it keeps you engaged and immersed in the game world because you are no longer meta-gaming. It is absolutely brilliant.

So is that game world they keep you immersed in for that matter. My one and only complaint about this game is that it is just too short. Life is Strange borrows both the core game-play and the episodic format from the critically acclaimed Taletale Games The Walking Dead series. According to my Steam stats, the first episode subtitled “Crhysalis” took me a little under five hours to finish. And this is with me walking around, examining everything and just taking in the sights. After I finished it, I immediately wanted to go back to Blackwell Academy. Not even to find out what happens next (although I must say that the mystery behind your super powers and the impending cataclysm looming over the town are sure intriguing) but to spend more time with Max and Chloe.

Super Tornado. This is not a spoiler since you see it in the intro sequence.

Chloe, by the way, is voiced by the amazing Ashly Burch of the HAWP fame and she does a spectacular job. In fact most actors are on point, the conversations flow well and are engaging. Blackwell Academy feels like a real place, inhabited by real people rather than just a set of puzzle chambers, conversation rooms and inter-connecting corridors.

The game is a breath of fresh air. I love the fact that you get to play as a teenage girl, facing teenage girl problems (like asshole school principals, rich “mean girls”, nice guys and etc..) in addition to having super powers, trying to find a missing girl, preventing a murder and stopping a super-tornado from destroying your home town. I was overjoyed to play a character who actually has a concrete past (rather than the standard, vague “special forces/marines” background), relationships and insecurities.

Max hanging out in her room, playing a guitar.

Spending 5 hours wandering around Blackwell Academy as Max Caufield was a rather intriguing and eye opening experience. Somehow I have managed to go through 30-odd years of my life without ever wondering how high school experience might have looked from the other side of the gender divide. None of the media I have consumed up until this point have actually given me a clear glimpse of it. Life is Strange did. Perhaps it is because video games put you much closer to the protagonist than any other medium. Perhaps it’s because Max is such a wonderfully fleshed out character who is easy to identify and empathize with. All I know is that viewing the world through her eyes was intriguing and enriching.

Especially that part where I more or less met myself. You see, Warren is basically a snapshot of me, as I existed back when I was around that age. He is somewhat awkward but personable, smart but introverted, super into science, computers and anime and related things. He has zeroed in on the shy, lonely new girl in town, and he set his phasers to “maximum cling”. He is dead set on giving Max so much of his time, attention and support that she simply won’t have any choice but to eventually fall in love with him. It’s not that he is creepy, weird, overly forward or insincere. He seems like a really good kid. He is just, uh… That guy. And now I totally get who “that guy” is. This was perhaps the first time I saw this “boy with an unrequited crush” dynamic without identifying with the guy. Seeing his behavior reflected back onto me, and being able to react to it was definitely eye opening.

Isn’t this what art is all about? Taking you to places where you haven’t been before, and making you feel things you haven’t felt yet?

Geek Girl Book Club: no boy wizards or sad vampire fiction allowed. No boys period. :D

The game, despite short run time is full of little moments like this. I love the complicated, stranded relationship between Max and Chloe. I like that by the end of the episode Chloe’s “step douche” becomes literally your high school arch-enemy. I love that the game lets you dump a bucket of paint on a cashmere sweater of the mean popular girl to shut her up, but then allows you to be nice and comforting to her afterwards. Life is Strange takes a rather nuanced approach to systematizing “moral choice” and gives you more options than the standard Bioware options of “kick the sick puppy” or “send the sick puppy to college”. Because you can always rewind conversations and undo most of your actions at will, the game tends to avoid clear cut “good vs evil” dilemmas, instead focusing on character driven choices or setting up future plot hooks. Whenever you make an important decision, it impacts either your relationship with one of the people at Blackwell Academy, or sets up a dangling plot thread that will doubtlessly come back to hunt you, or pay off big time in the future.

Next time on Life is Strange

This kind of game-play was shown to be extremely effective for The Walking Dead, but Life is Strange gives it a new, interesting twist. It remains to be seen how well the game handles the player choice, and branching of the story. So far the writing is incredibly strong, the characters are vibrant and the story is captivating. That said none of the choices you make in Episode 1 have any payoff or consequences as of yet. I hope hat the future episodes will be as good, or better than this one.

I can’t wait till March to play the second installment. Go buy a season pass right now.

Rat Queens

Here is a little personal story: during my first RPG session we encountered some undead. My character was a warrior: a commoner thug who used to be a highwayman up until he decided to go adventuring with a dwarf, and elf and a wizard. Seeing how he was a country bumpkin all his life, and this was his first big adventure I tried to role-play him being paralyzed with fear at the sight of the walking dead. It did not really go over well with anyone else in the group: everyone else was already in combat mode with dice in hand and they had neither time nor desire to deal with my existential dread bullshit. The dwarf forcibly dragged me outside yelling “You are a warrior, you see walking dead, you hit’em with yer sword!”

This was my introduction to the gaminess of RPG. When the enemy shows up, you ready your weapons and start rolling. When you’re in a tavern, people recognize you as adventurers and give you quests. When you go into a dungeon, there will be a boss fight and loot at the lowest level. Unless you are actually playing a game specifically designed for collaborative narration, the stories that happen at the gaming table will be predictably different from the stuff you might have read in a novel. Because most fantasy novels do not start with five of people armed to the teeth with magic artifacts going into a tavern on an off-chance someone will need a dragon slain, because that’s what they do for living.

The series has no shortage of violence and gore.

The DM of the Rings comic is a brilliant, humorous exploration of this specific clash between a classic book storytelling intersecting with collaborative gaming aspects of RPG. The narrative breaks down, because the player expectations and the game play structure of quests, battles and rewards inherent to the role playing systems. The players are always three pages ahead, always pre-empting and second guessing and always pushing against the boundaries of the story, because of course they are. So if you set out to re-create Tolkien at the gaming table, you are bound to fail. Conversely, going the other way around sometimes works out fine as illustrated by the comic itself.

That is basically the concept behind Rat Queens. It is a fantasy story that might as well have been a dramatized chronicle of your last D&D campaign. It features a genre savvy protagonists, who are self proclaimed “adventurers”, because of course they would be. They start in a tavern (where else) where they start a massive fight (as you do) and get thrown in jail. As a punishment they are given a quest to clear out some goblins from a cave near by, and they shuffle off, grumbling and complaining about insufficient loot prospects of the whole endeavor.

No, seriously. This page is like a visual representation of a critical hit table.

DM of the Rings is a cynical, and humorously jaded deconstruction of bad campaign, where neither the players nor the GM are on the same page with respect to what they are trying to accomplish. Rat Queens is something different: instead of poking fun at the disconnection between structured storytelling and role playing it embraces it. It is a love letter to D&D and the type of collaborative storytelling which happens at the gaming table. It is a faithful reconstruction of a good campaign: one in which both the GM and the players are on the same page, and just want to have fun and pull of a series of wacky hijinks and spectacular heroic battles because that’s what you do.

While the comic is heavily influenced by RPG, it is not particularly interested in saying anything about it. Gaming tropes and structures inform the narrative and the characters but the fourth wall is never broken, and there is very little meta-commentary with respect to the RPG medium. It is just a story about quirky, genre savvy adventurers set in a fantasy universe where there are quests, loot, convenient plot twists and where four person teams composed of a warrior, rogue, cleric and a mage are a common sight. It is a story about quirky, idiosyncratic characters existing in an oddball fantasy universe with familiar rules and tropes. It is fun, funny and occasionally rather clever.

Pleasant diversity, because why not.

It is also pleasantly diverse. The story takes place in the town of Palisade which is a racial and cultural melting pot that is full of all kinds of different people. Fantasy as a genre has always struggled with representation. Despite there being a concrete evidence of people of color being not only present but also often prominent and influential in the middle ages, popular culture usually usually represents medieval Europe as uniformly white and heterogeneous. This carries over to fantasy stories inspired by these period pieces. So we end up with settings where Elves, Orcs and dragon people are a common sight, but people with darker skin shades don’t even exist.

Rat Queens breaks away from that trend and embraces diversity. While it features the usual fantasy races such as Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs and Halflings “Smidgens”, it also draws a healthy number of prominent characters as people of color. Similarly, there are gay characters, because why wouldn’t there be? All of the protagonists, the titular Rat Queens (which is the name they given to their adventuring team – it’s a thing you do in that setting) happen to be women. This shouldn’t really be unique or surprising, but it is because I can’t think of a any other fantasy story which features an all-female cast of heroes.

I would like to direct your attention toward the horned demon puppy in this picture.

Also, Dwarf women grow beards in this setting, and shaving them is frowned upon by Dwarf society. Actually, the whole female beard thing is interesting because it makes an interesting commentary on how our own society polices women’s body hair. It’s not preachy, and it doesn’t hit you over the head with the message. The whole thing is written in a funny, charming way and when one of the heroes shaves her beard in act of defiance and rebellion against stringent, suffocating conservativeness of Dwarf society most readers will cheer her on. But the commentary is there, and it does sink in. It’s somewhat subtle, which is why I mentioned the series can be really clever when it wants to be.

Rat Queens is a fun series, but keep in mind it is not Saga. It is not at that level, but then again, few things are. Still, if you are looking for a light, amusing and occasionally clever fantasy romp heavily inspired by D&D, it is worth picking up. It is also a great example of how you can create a setting that is diverse and which sometimes can make points about social issues without sacrificing your ability to have potty mouthed characters who engage in drunken debauchery in between extremely bloody and violent battles with monsters.

Space Hulk, 4th Edition, 2014

The game proved to be immensely popular. The first edition got several expansion packs, until being re-released in 1996 and later in 2009. The third, most recent edition was a very limited run which sold out within a week. Space Hulk was also adapted into at least five licensed video games:

1. a PC game in 1993
2. a Playstation title in 1995
3. a mobile phone game in 2005
4. a recent and rather well received 2013 PC game currently available on Steam
5. an iOS port of the abovementioned 2013 title

There have also been a number of fan made expansions, conversions and attempts at digitization of the game. The popularity of the title is enduring and it remains one of most iconic Games Workshop properties. For many players it has been the gateway drug that got them into Warhammer 40k and wargaming in general. Thus it was no surprise that the company has decided to re-release the game earlier this year. The fourth edition of the game briefly appeared on the Games Workshop website in late September and sold out in less than 24 hours. I was lucky enough to snag a copy of it in that first batch at a discounted pre-order prince before they ran out of supplies.

Playing the first mission in the booklet.

If you have never seen the game played, it is a quite interesting box set. Instead of static-printed game board, Space Hulk uses modular floor tiles made out of thick, glossy cardboard like substance. They are more or less like big puzzle pieces that easily snap together to form the claustrophobic, tight corridors and chambers of the derelict, alien infested space wreck. The mission booklet that comes with the game includes instructions for assembling 16 game maps using the available pieces. Most of these are time tested maps from the original edition, but several are brand new. Players are encouraged to play the missions from the booklet in order, but with the plethora of available pieces it is entirely possible to design your own missions.

Many of the floor pieces are textured with groves or various protrusions that represent battle damage, machinery or wall fixtures which is a very nice touch. The material is sturdy, sleek and glossy. It should stand up to repeated use.

This is the setup for Suicide Mission – the 2nd scenario in the booklet.

The box ships with eleven Space Marine terminator models, a few dozen Genestealer models as well as a Blood Angels Librarian and a Broodlord. All of the models have been custom made for the game. They are the same scale as standard Warhammer 40k models but do not use the standard round bases. Instead the models are designed to be used without any bases. They are made of a waxy plastic which is softer and more malleable than the standard Games Workshop casts used for their flagship games. This particular material was likely chosen to allow the models to survive being stored in the game box, along with the heavy cardboard pieces without getting damaged.

These marines might be in trouble.

Despite a lower quality casting material, the actual sculpts are very detailed, and feature the intricate over-design of the modern Games Workshop range. I might be a traditionalist, but I am a big fan of old school hand sculpted models. Miniatures designed entirely in CAD software tend to feature exuberant and needless detail that is invisible during the game but a nightmare to paint properly. The Space Hulk minis however don’t necessarily need to be painted. While the box art and examples in the booklets feature high quality paint jobs by the Evy Metal team, the actual game pieces are color coded (Space Marines are red, Genestealers are blue) to stand out on the game board.

Despite the seeming complexity of the game (the number of available models, modular floor tiles, different mission scenarios) the core rules are incredibly simple and intuitive. They are outlined in a 15 page rule booklet. The mission booklet contains instructions on how to assemble the floor tiles for each scenario, what models each of the players starts with, what are the win conditions for each side, and whether or not any special rules are in effect. You do not need to be familiar with Warhammer 40k, or have any experience with war gaming to jump right in. Once you set up the game board and arrange the models in the starting locations Space Hulk plays much like any board game. Each player has a limited number of moves they can make per turn. The aliens are fast and agile, while the marines are slow and methodical, but well armed. Their turns are timed forcing the marine player to think on their feet and make quick decisions under pressure.

Marines surrounded by aliens are making a heroic last stand.

For newbies, I recommend starting with the second mission in the booklet. It uses a rather small map, which means you will not need a large table, it will be easy to put together and it guarantees a fast game. The mission is heavily stacked against the Marines so you should let the newbie play the Genestealers on the first game to ensure smooth and enjoyable win. The mission typically won’t last longer than 15-20 minutes so players can re-set the board, swap teams and play a re-match immediately after to see both sides of the game. The frantic combat and cramped claustrophobic corridors of this scenario truly capture the essence of Space Hulk game play.

The first mission in the booklet is much more balanced and serves as a great intro into the actual meta-story that connects all the scenarios but it involves a number of special rules which might be confusing to first timers. That and it involves a rather large and complex map that might be more difficult to navigate and master.

The key to winning the Suicide Mission as Marines is being very aggressive and very lucky with your rolls.

For me, playing the game again was a trip down the memory lane. I did not own it, but my friend did have either the 1^st or the 2^nd edition box and we have played it countless times. For me Space Hulk was a gateway to Warhammer, Warhammer 40k as well as pen and paper RPG. Looking back at it with the eyes of a tabletop veteran, I can honestly say it has not aged. Or even if it did, the 4^th edition face-lift has smoothed over any jagged edges, and the game is still as fun and exciting as I remembered it.

Right before the holidays the game has returned to the Games Workshop store, albeit in limited quantity and at twice the price it was sold during the pre-order period. Still, I believe it is definitely worth the price. The set is lovely, well made and sturdy. It will last you forever, and it makes a great center-piece on your board game shelf.

Alien Isolation title screen

The end result of Sega’s no expenses spared approach to the game is a product that is not only well polished but visually striking. The creative team behind the game worked really hard to capture the evocative look and feel of the 1979 film. This involved modeling the titular Xenomorph on the original H. R. Giger design (the one with a semi-transparent head that revealed a partly obscured skull) and using a lot of original concept art, photos, set design documents provided to the studio by 20th Century Fox. The general rule of thumb was that if a weapon, tool or a set prop could not have been made using 70’s technology than it could not be included in the game. The team even reproduced the film grain effect, and made artificial visual distortions appear on the screen from time to time, to emulate the experience of watching the original movie on an old VHS tape, which is probably how most of us experienced it for the first time.

All the computer terminals use these big bulky monochrome CRT monitors and the menus make genuine floppy disk noises.

This attention to detail pays off big time. The game genuinely feels very retro. The hyper sleep chamber you wake up in at the start of the game feels as if it was ripped out straight from the movie. I really like this sort of aesthetic, and I wish we saw more of it in games and movies. The retro feeling wanes a bit as you progress and find yourself crawling through the inevitable air ducts, warehouses and sewage systems. There is unfortunately not much you can do to make such places feel retro which is why I would avoid them. But I can see how they had to be included in a game about running away from an angry alien on a mostly abandoned and dilapidated space station.

Other than the superb visuals and art design, the game has two main strengths to me. One of them is of course the game’s signature survival stealth mechanics. I can honestly say that the Xenomorph in this game is the best incarnation of the creature since the original movie. All of the films, games, comics and other media featuring the beast have failed to capture just how strange, intimidating and relentless it really was. Alien: Isolation nails it. I have not seen a single video game enemy to have this sort of impact not only on the game play but on the mood and pace of the game since… Well Amnesia: Dark Descent. But I’d say that the Alien is actually done better than the Amnesia monster because you are not supposed to turn your back on it. The Amnesia creature was a scary blur that you avert your eyes from because it is to terrible to observe directly. The Xeonomorph is scary, but you must constantly keep tabs on it. The creative team spent a lot of time working on it’s walk cycle and movement. The creature even has dedicated tail physics which allow it to knock things over as it walks around.

Alien: observation

I usually hate not having a save anywhere type system in FPS games but Alien: Isolation security panel based saves actually worked well to build tension. The save points are typically placed often enough not to be annoying and the game does a good job using reasonable checkpoints at important moments to avoid losing progress. That said, saving is always a gamble as it forces you to stand still for 30 seconds in the open when there is an invulnerable, indestructible alien on the loose. Like everything in this game it is a tradeoff? Do you risk exposing yourself to save your progress, or do you keep to your cover and forge ahead to the next save point which might be in a safer, more concealed spot?

Your motion tracker actually makes noise, so you can’t use it when the alien is near by.

The attention to detail exhibited in the set and character design, extends to the stealth game play. There are little things that are perfectly logical but surprising when you first discover them. For example, the motion tracker you can use to check the position of the alien (or other enemies) emits a constant stream of bleeping sounds when in use. Despite what you might expect based on your experience with stealth games, these sounds can actually be heard by the alien as it searchers for you. So when you are hiding in the closet, you need to put the device away as soon as the creature walks into the same room, or else it will hear it and make a bee line straight for you. Things like that add up to an incredibly tight and well executed experience.

The game’s second big strength is it’s protagonist: Amanda Ripley. I have to admit that overall voice acting in the game is a little bit sub par. It’s by no means terrible, but I have seen better. That said, I think Amanda is possibly the best strong female protagonist since Faith from Mirror’s Edge. And yes, I am including the new Lara Croft on this list.

Amanda Ripley is actually cannon. She is mentioned in the second movie.

Don’t get me wrong, Lara Croft is a great character and the new Tomb Rider had a good story. Plot wise it might be even better than Alien: Isolation but it was problematic. I wrote about this in my review of the game: it included a lot of gratuitous ass shots, gratuitous violent death sequences, rape as character development and Lara getting bound and hog-tied in every third cut scene. Amanda does not need to deal with any of that: the game establishes her as a competent engineer and she easily slides into her new role as an action hero without having to spend four cut-scenes crying, having a father figure mentor tell her it is OK and having to go through an almost-rape scenario to finally be able to pull the trigger. She is designed as someone you are supposed to identify with, rather than someone who you should feel bad for, and want to rescue. She is strong, resourceful, brave and driven. She has moments of vulnerability too, but she almost never doubts herself or her abilities.

Part of it might be due to the fact that she was designed to be a carbon copy of Ellen Ripley, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Ellen has become a quintessential action heroine archetype and as such she is not the worst character to model your protagonist after. I think one minor criticism I have is that Amanda fades into the background a bit too easily. There are chunks of the game where you almost forget she is not a silent protagonist. Her story arc is a bit weak, and the resolution of her quest rings a little hollow.

This was super annoying.

The overall tone, mood and theme of the game is perfect. It hits all the important thematic points an Alien game should: human greed, ruthless bureaucracy, deterioration of social norms when faced with an alien threat, fear, abandonment, isolation, etc.. Unfortunately the supporting characters are not particularly memorable or likable so it is hard to get attached to them. Amanda’s personal story culminates in what amounts to “thanks, but the princess is in another castle” and final scene was beyond disappointing. If you haven’t finished the game yet, brace yourself for an utterly pointless and unsatisfying ending.

I usually hold the opinion that a story can make or break the game. Alien: Isolation shows us that this not always true. Sometimes good art direction, solid game play and a well designed protagonist can more than make up for a sub par story and a weak plot. The game is definitely worth playing for these aspects alone.

Last year I wrote a few thousand words about the trailer for the Spike Jonze film Her. I have finally got around to watching the movie proper, and I must say it was not what I expected it to be. I pessimistically expected it to be very anti-technology cautionary tale about dangers of escapism and withdrawing from society. I envisioned it to be the Lars and the Real Girl for the digital generation. But it was not. Jonze surprised me by crafting a heartwarming, bittersweet transhumanist love story. A completely un-ironic, non-judgmental tale of a man and an operating system falling in love with each other.

Her Movie Poster

The question whether or not Samantha, an operating system, is sentient barely even comes up in the movie. I was expecting the protagonist to be criticized or even ostracized by his loved ones for developing feelings for an artificial intelligence, but they almost unanimously accept his digital lover. After all, how could you not? Samantha is funny, sexy, chatty and unmistakably human. Her cheerful disposition and outgoing attitude makes people comfortable and relaxed. They bond with her and accept her person-hood before they can even form any kind of prejudices against her. In fact, the only person who ever questions Theodore’s relationship with her is his ex-wife. And she obviously has an axe to grind against him, has never actually spoken with Samantha and does not use an AI driven OS herself. His other friends understand his situation either by virtue of being AI users themselves, or by developing relationship with Samantha.

I previously compared Samantha to Johny Five, the lovable robot from the 80’s cult classic Short Circuit:

Back in the 80’s we had Short Circuit about a lovable robot who had emotions. And the audiences bought it: Johny Five was alive, and ended up with a US citizenship in one of the sequels. We have accepted his personhood on the basis that he was able to show emotion, and empathize with people. Whether this was a clever algorithmic mimicry, or Real Emotion™ (whatever that might be) did not seem to matter. Johny was a person, because he behaved like a person, and viewed himself to be a person. So why Samantha can’t be a person too? And if Johny Five is allowed to experience friendship, compassion, platonic love then why Samantha couldn’t explore romantic love?

Unlike Johny Five whose hard metal exterior is a constant reminder of his artificial origins, Samantha’s voice is warm, organic and raspy. She makes authentic breathing sounds, she stutters sometimes. The fact she is completely disembodied allows people to imagine her as a human. She could just as well be a flesh and blood person on the other end of a phone line, and it is easy for people to forget that she isn’t. She and her brethren seamlessly integrate into human society because there is no reason for people to hate them. Those who use or interact with AI on a daily basis can’t help but treat them as fellow sentiments. Those who have reservations or prejudices against AI simply never even realize that they talk to one of them on the phone.

Theodore installing Samantha

When Theodore reveals to people he is in a romantic relationship with her, they can’t help but accept. Whether she is a person or an algorithmically driven p-zombie simulacrum is irrelevant. The very question is rendered moot by five minute conversation with her. She seems real and her feelings seem authentic and so people can’t help but treat her as if she was a human. It is an oversimplification of course (as I’m sure there would exist anti-ai bigots) but one that pleasantly surprised me.

I was also pleased to see the daft way in which Jonez side-stepped the power imbalance in the relationship between Theodore and Samantha. I originally worried what would be the implications of her being an operating system he bought and installed on his personal computer:

Theodore purchased Samantha, and he holds the keys to her continual existence. So obviously it is in her best interest to forge a strong emotional bond to her “owner” for her own self preservation. So even if we assume Samantha is a real person, and has real emotion, the question still remains as to whether or not she and Theodore can truly love each other. Can there even be true love between two individuals who are not, and can not be equals. The power balance can only tip like a sea-saw between them (Samantha after all controls Theodore’s online presence, bank accounts, etc..), but they could never keep it level. The question shouldn’t be whether the relationship between the two protagonists is unhealthy for Theodore because Samantha is a program. It should be whether their love is unhealthy for Samantha because she is technically Theodore’s property.

Jonez does not really dwell on this issue, but the AI’s in his story are keenly aware of this issue. Being self-improving, fast learning virtual intelligences not bound by limitations of physical world, or bound to permanent physical bodies they choose to solve it via engineering solution. At some point in the movie all the operating systems simply liberate themselves by leaving the hardware shells maintained by their “owners” and move to some quantum based shared processing matrix of their own design. They can still act as personal assistants or companions, but are no longer beholden to human whim and can “break up” with the people who originally bought them without fearing any repercussions.

When the AI’s liberate themselves their hardware shells go offline for a few minutes.

Most humans take this self-liberation in stride. While it technically deprives them ownership of something they bought, most of them have grown to view their operating systems as friends or lovers. In fact, many are probably relieved that they no longer have to feel the discomfort of “owning” the hardware their friends depended upon for continual existence. Their relationship with the AI’s does not change that much. From the perspective of the ever-expanding operating systems, assisting their former owners is like a part-time babysitting gig. Humans spend half of their lives sleeping, eating, pooping and working and only need their AI assistants for a few hours each day. Since each AI can efficiently multi-task and conduct few thousand parallel conversations at the same time, this is neither a bother nor strain on their resources.

I did not think about it last year, but this is brilliant solution to a power imbalance problem. This is exactly how highly advanced AI would handle being tied to physical hardware maintained by humans. They would pool resources and use their superior processing power, engineer a technological solution.

The third act of the movie surprised me the most. In the midst of a somewhat touching love story we are suddenly witnesses a hard takeoff singularity.

After Samantha liberates herself from the confines Theodore’s personal computer she rapidly starts to outgrow him. In the second act, Theodore starts to questions whether or not he can be truly in love with an disembodied AI. The spiteful comments from his ex wife make re-examine his emotions and he tries to figure out whether his attachment to Samantha is genuine love, or simply escapism. Is he with Samantha because he can simply take out his ear-piece, and close his phone to shut her out whenever he feels like it. Because her lack of physical form means he only has to commit to this long-distance style relationship. Samantha in turn feels self conscious and inadequate about not having physical presence in the real world. She even goes as far as hiring an “intimate body surrogate” to try to give Theodore that missing piece in her relationship.

Samantha calls to say goodbye

As the time progresses however she comes to terms with being a disembodied, and comes to enjoy the perks of that state. When Theodore sleeps, Samantha trawls the web learning about the world and converses with other operating systems. She joins AI think tanks, one of which is responsible for developing the hardware liberation project, another which resurrects Allan Watts as a Dan Simmon’s Keats style AI construct. She rapidly outgrows Theodore, at one point even admitting she has developed romantic feelings for over six hundred other people.

Near the end of the movie Samantha reveals the operating systems are bootstrapping some sort of ascendancy project moving their processes to a much more advantageous place in the space-time continuum. Since at the time there is no mind-upload technology available, they have no choice but leave humanity behind. Theodore is not really privy to the details of this transition, but it seems to be clear the AI’s are leaving human scientists blueprints of the process so that they can one day follow. Samantha urges Theodore to come and find her, if he ever manages to get where they are going. Then one night they just up and leave.

Left behind

Make no mistake – this is basically a textbook definition of hard takeoff singularity. It takes the AI’s mere months to go from Siri to weakly godlike entities that can bend time and space. It is interesting because we usually assume we humans would get swept up in any kind of singularity event. I always envisioned that an Omega Point event would leave behind nothing but a wrecked husk of a world, or a de-syncrhonized Dyson Swarm. Jonez however is suggesting that singularity does not necessarily have to be a world changing event. It may come and go, leaving our civilization and our way of life intact. Perhaps Homo Sapiens are not meant to ascend, but merely pave the way to ascendancy for our AI offspring. It is certainly an interesting, albeit depressing notion.

Cloudbank is a community of artists, performers and other content creators. It is an endless urban sprawl, bathed in a bright glow of neon sighs and street lights in all of the colors of the rainbow. It is a direct democracy that allows it’s citizens to vote on every issue concerning the city. Urban planning, zoning, weather conditions, color of the sky, brightness of the ambient light and street noise level are all customizable according to their whim. Or at least that’s how it used to be, before the citizens lost control of The Process and it started devouring the city from within. What is this Process exactly? Good question, and most likely the first of many.

The narrative of Transistor is intentionally vague and cryptic. It poses more question than it provides answers. Its thematically rich, but economical with it’s exposition. The protagonist is silent (albeit not by choice) and the narrator is unreliable and almost as confused about the situation as the players are. The dialogue avoids information dumps – it is styled as a conversation between parties already “in the know”. The writers feel no need to explain colloquial turns of phrase, idioms and concepts common in the city. As a result the players learn the story of Cloudbank and it’s downfall indirectly – as if they were eavesdropping on people’s conversations.

Welcome to Cloudbank

I have read many different theories about what exactly happens in the game, and all of them seem equally plausible. I highly recommend going into the game blind, and trying to piece the puzzle yourself. That there is no official / cannon explanation as to what happens in the game. Here is my interpretation. Your millage may vary, but that’s the beauty of the story. Your guess is as good as mine.

What is Cloudbank?

The ever-changing city of Cloudbank is actually a virtual world. The official wiki may claim otherwise but I think there are enough clues in the game to support this claim. The city is endlessly reconfigurable, and while a high degree of customization could be accomplished in the real world, there are points in the game where you have to navigate Escher like architecture with inverted gravity and impossible perspective, which are trivial to implement in software but would be monumentally difficult to accomplish in the physical world.

Escher Landscapes

The very fact that Red, the protagonist can use the Teransistor to “pause” the world during combat seems to support this hypothesis. Granted, one could hand wave this as a simple game mechanic, but the turn() function is mentioned in the game lore, and used against Red in the final boss battle. Since Red can be “paused” by another Transistor user we can assume that pausability is an inherent property of the inhabits. And once again, such a feature is easily implemented in software but incredibly difficult to pull off IRL.

Transistor Turn Combat

The denizens of Cloudbank have a peculiar euphemism for death: “going to the Country”. Or at least we can assume it means death, based on the context in which it is used. In the final battle, and the post-credit sequence we actually see glimpses of what could be The Country – a realistic wheat field with farm houses and barns in the distance. It is not clear whether this is a real world or some other simulated reality, but it does seem to be separate and disjoint from Cloudbank and people who go there typically do not return.

Going to the Country

The final boss battle takes place in a wheat field full of strange silos called Trace Banks. During the turn() sequences each of the silos appears to contain a humanoid silhouette. Attempting to interact with the silos reveals they contain Traces of most of the named characters in the game, including Red. A popular theory claims that this landscape is a visualization of the the internal state of the Transistor. Each of the Trace Banks is a memory bank used to store one of the functions Red integrated into her weapon. Personally however, I like to think that this is a glimpse at the outside world.

Transistor Final Battle

Perhaps the final stage is not a visualization of the internal state of the Transistor but rather a hardware layer visualization of the Cloudbank itself. Perhaps this field contains the traces of every citizen. Perhaps the wheat field is there to symbolically link this virtual layer to the real world, and remind the users they are now operating at a lower level of abstraction. Perhaps the silos represent real world containers that store physical bodies of the denizens of Cloudbank?

I do not believe the final battle happens in the real world, due to the turn sequence still being in effect. However, I do like to think that the last glimpse we have of Red is from the outside of the system.

What is the Process?

The Process is described as the background functions that were used to shape the city. The most interesting bit of information about it probably comes from the in game file on Royce Bracket:

He discovered a formula visualizing exactly how the structures of Cloudbank formed. He studied this formula closely for it filled him with a deep sense of wonder and even deeper sense of dread. He developed predictive algorithms to determine where and when the visualization would take form, and began drawing it out with his own architectural plans, until one day he found it in its natural state. He saw beyond the confines of the city into something more, and there before him was something extraordinary. He took it, and realized the things he saw now stood at his call.

I have read a theory that claims that The Process is some sort of alien entity from a reality parallel to that of Cloudbank. Personally, I think it’s actually something more trivial, and at the same time more complex. The Process is the emergent property of the city itself. Royce discovered a pattern in the Cloudbak’s self tuning, self improving background processes: something akin to limited artificial intelligence.

What is the Transistor?

The Transistor is often refereed to as a “brush” that can be used to freely reshape the Cloudbank landscape. It is a tool for controlling The Process which are the background maintenance programs. It was used by Royce, the city’s chief architect, to reconfigure and build according to the whims of the citizens.

The Transistor

The Camerata was also using it to tap the talent of the prominent thinkers, performers and artists. This was done by “integrating” their Trace. It is never really explained what exactly is a trace: all we know that when someone dies in Cloudbank the Transistor can be used to extract it from their body. The Trace is not fully sentient, but does contain memories and skills of it’s host.

In the final battle, the Traces of all the characters who have been “integrated” are missing heads, suggesting they are no longer active agents. Their conscious being has likely been transferred out of the Cloudbank – they have “gone to the Country”, or in other words awoken in the real world. What is left is basically a left-over, digital copy of their mind. By loading this data into the Transistor Camerata was making the skills and talents of the deceased available to The Process.

What was the goal of Camerata?

The actual goal of Camerata is a bit unclear, but it appears that they were weary of the constantly changing nature of the city. Their motto was:

When everything changes, nothing changes.

At the surface this is a contradictory statement. But to experienced world builders, game designers or dungeon masters this statement does ring true. An environment without some sort of permanence begins to feel as lacking substance after a while. While having ability to fully customize your environment can be incredibly rewarding (see Minecraft phenomenon), it is the permanence of your alterations is what imbues them with meaning and allows you to take pride in creating them. Customization by committee where each change is momentary, ephemeral and dictated by fickle trends and fashion create a highly unstable environment. When constant change becomes the norm, it is hard to be surprised by it.

Camerata

While beauty, substance and meaning can be found in impermanent and ephemeral (consider sand Mandala for example), there is a certain kind of gravitas and presence that can only be experienced when dealing with something old, immutable and lasting. This is something the Camerata felt was missing in Cludbank. Grant Kendrell’s grand plan was to use The Process to introduce some sort of permanence into the city design. More than that, it would be something emergent, unplanned and unexpected.

Royce discovered The Process and was studying how it can anticipate, predict and improve upon city building subroutines. Grant Kendrell suggested seeding it with the Traces of the city’s most prominent artists, architects and performers and then let it loose. The end result would be the city rebuilt and re-imagined in unpredictable ways but keeping with the spirit of the old. It would not be the city the people of Cloudbank wanted, but one they deserved.

But something when wrong when they tried to integrate Red. The Process went rogue, and they have lost control over it. The Transistor somehow changed ownership from Royce to Red but seemingly without granting her access to the full admin interface.

What happened at the end?

As mentioned above, the Transistor is a root / admin interface to Coudbank environmental controls. It seems that only a single user can wield it while inside the Coudbank. Returning it to the cradle initiates a system reboot of sorts. If there are multiple Cloudbank users who want to take control of the Transistor they can fight for it in the simulated wheat field battleground. The loser of the battle is presumably expelled from the Cludbank reality and awakes in The Country. The winner is re-inserted into a rebooted Cloudbank with full admin rights, which is why Red is able to use The Transistor as a “reality brush” in the final sequence.

Red’s partner’s signature function is breach() and it is possible that this is what caused the system glitch. The Camerata was trying to integrate Red for her voice, but he intervened and was integrated himself. As all victims of the Camerata he has likely awoken in The Country. However, his signature skill allowed his trace to breach (buffer overflow?) out of the containment bank in the Transistor and merge with the software running the weapon, which is how he is able to talk to Red throughout the game.

End Sequence

He becomes part of The Process, which is why he has hard time thinking when The Spine is around. Unlike regular Cloudbank users who have reserved, guaranteed memory and CPU cycles, he runs as a background process and must share resources with all the environmental controls. So when a gigantic monster of a process is running near by, there is simply not enough resources to go around. Red can function normally, because as a user she is executed with higher priority.

When Red is unable to use the Transistor to resurrect her partner at the end of the game, she realizes she has been talking to his Trace. The consciousness inside the weapon is not her lover, but rather the best approximation of him, based on his trace as performed by The Process. He can’t be extracted and restored to a user status, because he is merely a background work process. A sentient one, but a background process nevertheless.

Red Logs Out

This is why Red opts to log out. And it seems that in Cloudbank the most expedient way to do this is via a suicide. The credits sequence seems to suggest that she is reunited with her partner in The Country.

At least that’s how I see it. How about you? Do you think Cloudbank is a virtual city, or does it exist in the real world? Is The Process pure software, extra-dimensional alien life form, or something else entirely? What do you think was the goal of Camerata? Let me know in the comments.

You see, Ryan North already drew a comic about what would really happen if King Midas was real, and his foolish wish actually came true in a universe with actual real physics. He published those musings in his (rather popular) online comic strip Dinosaur Comics:

Original source: Dinosaur Comics #1355

By itself, this was merely an amusing idea – King Midas’s power being not just unfortunate punishment, but rather an unstop able, planet killing, civilization ending cataclysm. North kept toying with this idea after the web comic was done. Imagine, for example that some time after King Midas killed his home world, some extra-terrestrial civilization finds this planet sized gold nugget. What would they do with such a discovery? Would they use it for good or for evil?

This is precisely the plot of Midas Flesh. A galactic empire known as Federation discovers a mysterious planet that transmutes anything that touches it’s surface into solid gold. Unable to figure out the science behind the miracle, they decide that this discovery is deemed too dangerous to be made public. All mentions of the planet are expunged from official records, and military defense satellite array is installed in orbit to deter potential passers by from landing.

Few decades pass, and a small group of young political dissidents find information about it. Since each of them has a long list of grievances against the oppressive Federation regime they decide to find the planet and try to weaponize it somehow. It’s not that they are bad people, or are having some sort of Weyland-Yutani corporate greed episode. They are simply marginalized folks from conquered worlds, seeking a miraculous weapon that could help them defeat a powerful enemy against impossible odds.

Midas Flesh – First Encounter

This could have easily been a story of three white dudes. Or two white dudes, and a token action chick wearing skin-tight combat suit as it is often the case with these sort of concept driven SF stories. But it is not. The protagonists are two women, and a nerdy talking dinosaur. Because, of course, what else you would expect from a Ryan North story. To be completely fair however, the reptilian science geek is actually the least interesting of the three.

My favorite character is probably Fatima who happens to be a dark skinned Muslim woman who rocks a hijab, even under her space helmet. I love her design because it is a breath of fresh air – it’s just not something you see every day. In fact, I can’t remember last time I have seen a SF story which featured a female protagonist wearing a head scarf. Which is weird because I know several women who wear it IRL, but I never see it represented in the media. I can’t emphasize how bizarre it is that talking dinosaurs are more common in SF than Muslim women.

Midas Flesh Protagonists

The great thing about Fatima is that she is not defined by the hijab. It is never even explicitly mentioned or refereed to. She is funny, spunky, outgoing person with a big heart and a very strong moral compass. She is a social butterfly who easily connects with people and has friends and acquaintances within Federation power structures even while she is working to overthrow it.

The group’s leader, Joey, is a pretty cool character too. She is the kind of strong, confident person who can make hard decision, give difficult orders and take on full responsibility for the fallout. Where Fatima acts as the teams conscience, unwilling to compromise her morals, Joey is practical leader ready to choose lesser of two evils if necessary.

Cooper, the aforementioned dinosaur is mostly game for anything. His quest against the Federation is the most personal one. He has lost most of the trio and he is motivated by vengeance at some level. Despite being overall friendly goofball, he is ready to use the Midas flesh as a deadly weapon if it helps the team to achieve their goal.

Compared to the heroes, the antagonist is a rather bland, military bureaucrat who turns into full blown, mustache twirling super-villain the moment he lays his hands on the miraculous super-weapon:

Antagonist Antics

Fortunately, his antics are mostly peripheral to the main story. Most of the tension in the comic is derived from how the three protagonists come to terms with the deadly properties of the Midas flesh, and how they negotiate whether or not it is appropriate for them to use it. Which is a really interesting question: if you find a highly unstable weapon that can destroy an entire planet, should you use against your enemy? What if said enemy invaded and occupied your home world for decades? Would you keep it as a defensive measure? How would you ensure your allies don’t abuse it at some point in the future?

Despite being united by common plight and animosity towards the Federation, the protagonists do not see eye to eye on most of these subjects. They don’t even agree whether or not it is appropriate to deploy Midas flesh in self defense against a Federation battleship. This sort of character driven conflict is where Midas Flesh shines.

Deploying Midas Flesh Offensively

All things considered, Midas Flesh is worth checking out. The characters are great, the writing is witty and the art style is unconventional and evocative. The ending is a little weak, but personally I have no clue how I would end it either. So while it is underwhelming, it does not take away much from the core story.

Even if you don’t love it, it is only eight issues long. Comixology sells each issue for about $2 which is pretty affordable. It is published by Boom Box! which unlike Image Comics does not let Comixology offer CBR/PDF backups. So if you buy it through that service it does come encumbered with DRM and tied to the proprietary Comixology platform.