Defining Goal Themes vs Goals

written by David Steffen

This post is in part based on ideas picked from the brain of my good friend Rachael K. Jones–credit where credit’s due!

I’ve talked in previous posts about the difference between goals and milestones. But on the subject of goals, I thought it’s worth breaking that down further into what I’m going to call goal themes vs goals.

Goal Themes

By goal themes I generally mean things which describe ideals you want to support in the whole of your long-term career in writing. Rachael’s list of goal themes are something like this, and I think most of these can apply to most people with maybe some alterations:

1. Improve my craft

2. Try things outside my comfort zone

3. Move toward positive change

4. Honor the people who’ve helped me

5. Look for chances to pay it forward

Note again that these are all related to goals, not milestones, because they are things within your control. You can do all of these things without it depending on the actions of other people. There’s a focus on improving craft, but not on sales or writing income, because those latter things require an editor to actually choose to buy your story. But the idea is that by improving your craft you’ll be setting yourself up to make more sales, and so on.

And the paying it forward and making positive change are great because they don’t just focus on personal success but in applying yourself to make the world a better place in some way (which you might be able to be more effective at if you have more personal success, mind you).

Your list of goal themes is something I’d expect not to change too much from year to year, because these are large scale pursuits that aim at general ideals.

Goals

Goals are specific aims that you are working on right now, and are best if they relate to one of your goal themes (because that’s how you pursue those ideals). Note that although some of the goals here are from Rachael, I also added in some others as examples of how you might pursue the goal theme.

1. Improve my craft
–exchanging story critiques
–workshops with your favorite authors
–writing more words

2. Try things outside my comfort zone
–public speaking
–slushreading
–guest hosting of podcasts

3. Agitate for positive change within my profession
–working with Women Destroy SF
–Supporting diversity with donations to diversity-supporting publications, volunteering

4. Honor the people who’ve helped me
–writing stories in honor people
–dedications
–jam or other personal goods for your friends

5. Look for chances to pay it forward
–sharing info with new writers
–introducing people
–critiquing
–read, share, and celebrate stories you think are awesome by friends and new writers

Anime Review: Blue Spring Ride

written by Laurie Tom

bluespringride There were a couple times when I thought I was going to drop Blue Spring Ride just because it’s not quite my thing, but it’s managed to surprise me; probably because the relationship between Futaba and Kou continues to be rocky beyond the point it would be in most girls’ manga, and in that way, it’s more realistic.

In junior high Futaba and Kou were friends on the verge of something more. Just before the summer holiday Kou asked Futaba to go to the summer festival with him, and she agreed, but later that afternoon at school she made a comment about hating all boys in order to fend off unwanted advances. Kou overheard.

When the time came for them to meet at the festival, Kou never showed, and when summer break ended, Kou did not return to school. He had moved away.

Flash forward to the second year of high school and Futaba meets Kou again, but he’s a completely different person from before. He remembers her, his crush on her, and is happy that he was the exception to her hating boys, but has no interest in picking up the relationship because they’re both different people now.

For her part, Futaba tries to reconcile the Kou she knew with the one she sees now and is not sure she can fall in love with the new version of him, who is distant, inconsiderate, and just a bit mean. It’s a poignant epiphany that anyone who’s had a failed reconnect with an old friend can sympathize with.

While Blue Spring Ride has a lot of potentially romantic moments between Futuba and Kou, they are largely thwarted by the characters themselves rather than external influences, and the show revolves more around acceptance, whether it’s accepting one’s own self for who they are and accepting that there are some things you just can’t change.

Probably the biggest shock is that the expected romance does not happen, which I mention because on the surface this looks like a romance series, but it ends up being more about dealing with the loss and learning to move on. Though it has plenty of comedic moments (including one of the most hilarious instances of a girl accidentally crashing into a boy I’ve ever seen), the final couple episodes realistically show the toll that Kou and his family have paid.

He’s gone through a rough time in the years he’s been away and Kou isn’t about to open up to anyone about them. Against conventional storytelling, Futaba is not the magical girl that he suddenly can speak to either. She eventually comes to realize that even though they have a shared past she has to accept that he’s not the same person he was.

I had a good time watching Blue Spring Ride, although it’s a little slow at the start. Kou is difficult to like at first and it’s not until more of his backstory shows up that he’s of much interest as a male lead. The supporting cast takes a while to assemble since Futuba is coming off a failed reset of her social life since starting high school. Once everyone’s there the show is much more interesting.

Number of Episodes: 12

Pluses: Futuba is very likeable and relatable female lead, realistic depiction of how complicated relationships of any kind are, nice balance between comedy and drama

Minuses: Pacing is slow in early episodes, Kou is initially difficult to like, romance fans may be disappointed that Kou and Futaba are not a couple in the end

Blue Spring Ride is currently streaming at Crunchyroll and is available subtitled. Sentai Filmworks has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Penumbra, and Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

We Are Multiple Man

written by David Steffen

What superpower would you choose? Most classical superpowers are awesome for combat, but not all that practical in day-to-day activities. Super strength? Guess who’s going to get asked to help everyone move. Fireballs–handy in limited context, maybe, but modern life doesn’t require a lot of fire-lighting on a day to day basis. Metal claws–wouldn’t need to hold pocket knives but you could never get through airport security.

For my everyday life, I would definitely pick the power of Jamie Madsen, aka Multiple Man. Jamie has the ability to create perfect duplicates of himself, each of which is intelligent and has free will. There’s some limit to the amount of how much he can split, but the limit is quite high–something like 50 when he was in X-Factor and more as he masters his power.

Just think of how much you could get get done! If you have kids, you wouldn’t need daycare. Not only that, but if you have four kids, you could have one of you to watch EACH of your kids to give them personalized attention so watching four kids wouldn’t even be stressful. While you do that, you could also work to bring in money. Or more than one job simultaneously. Another one of you could head out to get groceries. Another one could be off taking vocational training. Or learning to paint. Or going on vacation. That’s only ten–you’d still have another 40 to go if you wanted to. Then at the end of the day, bring all of yourselves back to dinner, merge them all together again, and have a nice dinner with your family, reintegrating all the memories together as you spent all day one-on-one with ALL of your kids and got all the chores done (and went on vacation to unwind). That would be the coolest thing ever.

Unfortunately, I think I’m a little too old to expect sudden onset superpowers.

But that got me to thinking–just an ordinary human being has something kind of like that. Of course you don’t have multiple bodies, but more of a multiplicity of mind. Have you ever gotten together for a social gathering where you have people from work and neighbors and family members, and you find it awkward as you don’t know how to behave among them all together? In a very real way, that’s because you are a different person at work than you are with your family than you are with your neighbors, and the awkwardness comes because those different people don’t know how to integrate.

Everyone does this. They’re a different person when they’re being a father, or a son, or a brother, or at work, or as a customer at a store, or whatever. It’s not a result of dishonesty, but of compartmentalization–the traits that fit into that social group or environment dominate in that group.

So we’re all superpowered, really. The human mind is an amazing thing. Maybe as amazing, in its own way, as being able to spawn up to 50 bodies. Though, if someone knows how to make that happen, I’m in.

Based somewhat on Codex post:

I find it interesting (and sometimes disconcerting) how the human mind can compartmentalize or facetize and approach each differing circumstance or situation in such a different way so that in a way you’re a completely different person.

Engineer David is not Dad David. Writer David is not Engineer David. Grinder-Admin David is not Gamer David. Dad David is not Husband David (though those two are of course more closely related genealogically than some of the others). We all wear many hats. Some of us, like my good friend Bartholemew Cubbins, wear entirely too many hats and sometimes find it difficult to remove them or to pick the one appropriate for the occasion.

When I’m wearing any of those hats, I can of course remember wearing the other hats, and I can remember what I was thinking when I was wearing those other hats and what was important to me and what was frustrating me and what drove me. But at the same time, those other Davids can seem completely foreign (until I become them again). It can all work out if they tag team when they’re supposed to, if the more unsocial Davids can be kept away from people.

I can see how that kind of mental adaptability can be a survival trait that comes out of natural selection. I can also see how mental health problems including anxiety disorders can arise when something in this three ring circus of mental and social arrangements gets out of whack.

–This aside brought to you by Woolgathering-Philosopher David when Engineer David is supposed to be in charge, because that’s how he rolls
(To be clear: not saying I have an anxiety disorder, not crying for help, my mind is wandering and I decided I wanted to put the words somewhere)

Use the metaphor of Multiple Man and my musings that it would be awesome to be able to split into different bodies to be able to get everything done, but how it’s amazing how we can already kind of do that in a mental fashion.

Anime Review: m3: the dark metal

written by Laurie Tom

Don’t let the fact there is a mecha in the opening credits fool you. m3: the dark metal is more of a drama than an action show, and it’s one of those series where what you see in the beginning doesn’t indicate anything about where you’ll be by the end.

At first glance m3 is rather by the book. An eclectic group of high schoolers are brought together in a special class to learn how to pilot the latest technological advance, a combat vehicle called a MA-Vess that is capable of exploring the mysterious Lightless Realm that is slowly swallowing the city they live in. But the story takes a much darker turn than the norm.

The Lightless Realm first appeared ten years ago and anything in its borders slowly becomes corrupted, turning into a crystalline substance called necrometal, and haunting creatures called Admonitions roam within it.

The eight selected students have no memories of what happened to them prior to the appearance of the Lightless Realm, but it becomes apparent that all of them have met before and have a latent telepathic ability. It’s not an accident that the eight of them are in the class because it turns out their shared history and ability to Link with one another is why they, and only they, are able to explore the Lightless Realm without being driven insane as quickly as normal people.

The series is a little slow when it comes teases out the mystery of how the Lightless Realm came to be and how the main cast is connected to each other, but for those who don’t mind the leisurely pace, each revelation feels well earned.

Though there are eight students and the story initially looks like an ensemble (happily gender balanced), Akashi’s story drives the plot more than anyone else’s and he’s initially not an easy character to like. He’s cold, disaffected, and it takes a while for the show to chip away at him, but chip away it does.

m3 is really a show about understanding more than anything else.

Even when Akashi begins to recognize his own flaws and tries to be a better person, he’s constantly failing to understand. He does a lot of things that would be the heroic, the wise, the right thing to do in other shows, and it tends to get thrown back in his face when he realizes that what he thought was brave and caring is actually very selfish and inconsiderate of the other person’s desires. Is asking someone in pain to wait for you until you return an act of kindness, or a selfish request that prolongs their suffering so you can see them again?

Though I mention Akashi specifically, most of the problems in the series originate from an inability to communicate, and not for lack of trying, which is ironic in a story featuring telepaths. m3 is not a happy show (though it does have a happy ending). It’s filled with missed moments, missed understandings, and the tragedy that everything that happened in this series probably could have been avoided if one person did not have a dream to share her culture with a wider world.

The series doesn’t pull many punches either. With eight key cast members m3 isn’t afraid of picking a few off, even when it feels really early to lose someone who still appears in the opening credits. Unfortunately, given the number of them, not all of the main characters are given the same level of character development. They are all visually distinctive enough that they won’t be confused for one another, and most of them are given enough scenes to show who they are outside of critical plot events, but the audience will not get to know them on the same level as Akashi.

This is particularly egregious in Heito’s case. The show makes a pretty big deal out of his insanity early on, and then he vanishes for most of the plot with scarcely a mention that he still exists, which is a wasted opportunity considering what we get to see of his pre-insanity self in flashbacks. I was a little sad that none of the characters seem to reevaluate the difference between his past self (once they get their memories back) and his current one, because what happened to him could have happened to any of them.

Despite its flaws m3 has kept me interested week after week of its 24 episode run, making it one of the few shows I’d watch the night the simulcast went live, and I highly recommend it. There is enough material in m3 that I would like to give it a rewatch to see how everything was foreshadowed, and I think it’s a pity it hasn’t been picked up for US retail distribution as I would gladly pick it up on Blu-Ray/DVD for future viewing.

Number of Episodes: 24

Pluses: Thoughtful story, strong element of mystery, re-examines assumptions for how people should connect with one another

Minuses: It’s not clear whether time passes differently in the Lightless Realm or it’s a narrative oversight, character development is weak for anyone who is not Akashi, some plot details drop off or get ignored entirely later on

m3: the dark metal is currently streaming at Daisuki and is available subtitled.

Interview: Betsy Wollheim

Betsy Wollheim has an advantage unique in speculative fiction book publishing. She is owner, editor, and publisher of DAW and it is a private company. She recently won her first Hugo for Best Editor. She tells Diabolical Plots what she wants and doesn’t want from authors.

CARL SLAUGHTER: DAW has been described as a place to pursue a career, not just to get published. What happens at DAW that makes authors want to call it their home?

BETSY WOLLHEIM: DAW is a family business, we don’t publish by committee, and we consider our authors part of our publishing family. As a small company, we can’t compete in the “who will pay me the highest advance this time around” game. Not to say that we can’t or don’t pay large, competitive advances, we do, but they tend to be to authors who are loyal to our company. Sheila and I work too hard and care too much to publish authors who change publishing houses with each book or series. We want to know that our work will pay off in years to come for both the company and our authors. We’re in it for the long run and we want our authors to be also.

CS: You’ve described Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name on the Wind as the most brilliant first fantasy novel you’ve seen in 30 years. What is it about The Name on the Wind that distinguishes it from other first time fantasy novels?

BW: Prefer not to answer this question, if you don’t mind. After 40 years, you just know when you find something that is extraordinary.

CS: Are there any subgenres you are specifically looking for, any you definitely don’t accept, any you like but get too much of, any you like but don’t get enough of?

BW: I look for gripping writing, not specific subgenres. For me, it’s about the quality of writing.

CS: How many novel manuscripts submissions do you receive per year? How many of those submitted manuscripts do you buy? How many novels a year do you publish by first time novelists?

BW: Many, many, many submissions–electronic and paper. I don’t count them for sanity reasons. I *hope* to find many new novelists. I’m always happy when I find someone new–the more new good writers the better, I would publish a new author every month if I found one worthy. Most submissions have sub-par, not professional level writing, unfortunately.

CS: Do you read every manuscript or use slush readers?

BW: My staff pre-sifts the slush–I have far too much work, and unfortunately no clone.

CS: Are you hands on with revision? How extensive and how long is the revision process?

BW: How extensive depends on the novel and the author. Rewrites can take years, or not be needed at all and everything in between. Yes, I’m hands on.

CS: How far are you willing to go with a diamond in the rough, whether that diamond be the author or the story?

BW: As far as I need to. When I find a diamond in the rough, I will do whatever it takes if I feel that someone has the potential. I put Pat Rothfuss in the #1 New York Times slot with his second published novel.

CS: Do you meet with would-be novelists at conventions? How do you prefer to be approached? Verbal pitch, written pitch, sample chapters, full manuscript? Do you quiz the author about the story? Give them a yes or no answer on the spot or get back with them?

BW: I’ve always thought that “pitches” belong in Hollywood. To publish a novel, the editor has to have the entire thing. If a person has talent and willingness, any problematic aspect can be changed, but if a person can’t maintain for the length of a novel, he or she is not a novelist. Anyone can come up with a pitch. Show me the entire book. Anything else is useless. No, I would never meet with a “would-be” novelist. If you haven’t actually completed a full length work, you have no right to call yourself a novelist! The only “pitches” I consider are from my already published authors–they can sell me a book or a series with one sentence!

CS: What are the most frequent questions you receive from writers at conventions/workshops?

BW: What are you looking for? To which I respond: “professional quality writing.”

CS: Advice to aspiring writers?

BW: Join a writer’s group. Don’t be defensive about criticism. Don’t try to write like someone else. Write from inside you.

Carl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

Game Review: Depression Quest

written by David Steffen

(editor’s note: I am not here to comment on “Gamer Gate”. If you are here to comment on that, don’t. Any comment getting into that topic will be deleted. I only heard about the game due to the debacle, and I decided that I would like to play the game for myself and judge it on its own merits. So here we are. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, and you want to see a big ol’ heap of Internet ugliness, Google “GamerGate”–I think it occupies about half the Internet by now.)

Depression Quest is a multiple choice text game released by Zoe Quinn in 2013.

On the game page is this statement:
The goal of this game is twofold: firstly, we want to illustrate as clearly as possible what depression is like, so that it may be better understood by people without depression. Hopefully this can be something to spread awareness and fight against the social stigma and misunderstandings that depression sufferers face. Secondly, our hope is that in presenting as real a simulation of depression as possible, other sufferers will come to know that they aren’t alone, and hopefully derive some measure of comfort from that.

DepressionQuest This is a cause that I am sympathetic to. I know many people who have suffered through depression. Some who are still fighting through it, some who seem to have met some kind of livable equilibrium, and others who have died at their own hand. So, I heartily support the goals of this game. Most of the time I play games just for fun and for mental/dexterity and for no other reason, but I am not opposed to other goals.

In the game, you play a person who is struggling with depression, trying to get through everyday life. You have a significant other and a job, but even small things can be a struggle–trying to get your work done or trying to socialize with your partner’s friends.

As the game goes on, you have to make choices, most of them allowing you to either try to actively improve your life by telling people about your depression, by seeking counseling or medication, or to avoid trying to improve your life by telling people there’s nothing wrong, and avoiding your problems.

From the beginning, some options aren’t available to you–usually the suggestion for a solution that someone who doesn’t understand depression would make: “don’t worry about it”, “just go and have fun”, so on. I thought that was a clever way to emphasize how depression can make you feel powerless. If you make choices that avoid your problems, more of the options will be blocked from you as the game goes on. I don’t know from personal experience whether the account of depression in the game is accurate or not, but it seems reasonable from where I’m standing.

I think that the game succeeds at both of the stated goals. It’s free to play, so you can try it out before you decide if you want to donate or not. If you don’t like it, no loss. If you do, consider chipping in. And, it also succeeds at being interactive, so it’s actually a game.

I recommend it.

Visuals
Despite being a text game, it does have some visuals–a set of polaroids at the top of the screen showing relevant images, like bottles of pills or something.

Audio
The game suggests using audio, that it’s an important part of the game. But I didn’t, because it was easier to find time to play it with the sound muted, so I wouldn’t bother other people. So I can’t comment on this.

Challenge
Not challenging, per se. It seemed like the “best” choice was always relatively clear.

Story
Good enough story, though a bit on the PSA side.

Session Time
No save feature, but you can leave it running in your browser easily enough and the game won’t be going anywhere.

Playability
As easy as multiple choice.

Replayability
Definitely some, to try to see how your choices affect the outcome.

Originality
This happens to be the second game I’ve played about depression (I reviewed Actual Sunlight right here last week), but this one did it better. So definite points for originality, and for succeeding at making it interactive.

Playtime
I don’t remember exactly, I think it took me maybe a half hour to play through once?

Overall
The game is free to play or you can donate what you like. The website says that a portion of the proceeds goes to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. I am wary of donations where “a portion” goes to a charity without saying WHAT portion, it could be 1% for all I know. I recommend trying the game. If you feel it has value, consider chipping in some money to support both the developer of the game and the hotline in some undefined proportion.

Game Review: Gone Home

written by David Steffen

Gone Home is a first person story exploration game released by The Fullbright Company (which has now been rebranded to be simply called “Fullbright” in August 2013.

2014-10-08_00004 June 7th, 1995. 1:15am You’ve been traveling Europe for a year. While you were gone your family inherited a house from your weird Uncle Oscar and your parents and younger sister Sam have moved in. You arrive at the new house, expecting a warm welcome from you family, but no one’s there. Why? You explore the house as you try to find out what has happened and where everyone is. You are completely unfamiliar with the house, so you don’t know anything about the layout, how rooms are arranged or anything. The game keeps a handy auto-map to help you keep track of where you’ve been. From time to time you discover a clue that points you to look in a particular part of the house, and the auto-map very handily marks the spot for you.

One thing that set this game apart from me is a storyline with a homosexual character who seems like a real person, not something I see too often.

Visuals
A lot of work obviously went into the visuals to make it look really nice and to give the environment ample details. I don’t know if other people experienced this, but my computer was actually a little laggy on the display–seemed like it took a little more resources than a game of this kind really needs.

Audio
Superb voice acting–I felt like I was listening to the journal entries of a real person.

Challenge
Not challenging. If you like exploration and gradual reveal of story, you should like this game, but apart from exploring as thoroughly as possible–some notes might trigger the marking of secret spots on the map or other extra clues so if you missed the note you might have trouble. I found the important notes without any undue effort, they weren’t hidden or anything.

Story
I really enjoyed the story on this one, and tying it into the exploration of the big house was the main appeal.

Session Time
You can save at any time, so easy to set down.

Playability
Easy to play.

Replayability
Not really.

Originality
Not high on originality, but not every game has to be. I appreciated the gay storyline, that did set it apart.

Playtime
It took me about 2 hours to finish the game.

Overall
The list price on Steam is $20. I enjoyed the game, but given the short playtime and low challenge I thought this was somewhat too much. I’d recommend catching it on sale if you can.

Movie Review: Her

written by David Steffen

Back in April I reviewed the Ray Bradbury Award nominees for the years as their deadline for nomination approached–I reviewed all the ones I could get my hands on, but there was one movie that wasn’t yet released on DVD–titled “Her” written and directed by Spike Jonze.

The movie takes place in 2025 in a world that’s very recognizable, but with some differences–holograms being commonplace and artificial intelligence has advanced to stages we haven’t reached yet. The protagonist is Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) who writes heartfelt letters on behalf of complete strangers for hire. He has just upgraded his personal operating system–which is more than just an OS in the way that we use the phrase and more of a personal assistant. He chooses for the OS to have a female voice (voiced by Scarlett Johanssen) and she names herself Samantha. He hits it off with Samantha and soon their relationship becomes more than just user-computer. Theodore is lonely, having little personal contact with anyone and clinging to the threads of an estranged marriage which he has been stalling on signing the divorce papers to end. He does have one friend Amy (Amy Adams) who is also struggling with her relationship.

As Samantha gains experience with the world she grows from a basic and functional assistant into a real person with real desires. The physical angle is a complication, of course, since she has no body, but they try things to work that out. Pretty soon, she starts changing as she develops faster and faster.

I quite enjoyed this movie, in large part because I found the relationship very plausible, and the movie even managed to make it seem not creepy (even though it is rather creepy). What I really liked about the movie is that I thought it was one of the better AI treatments I’ve seen in a movie–it was quite sympathetic to her and her situation–what it would be like to process the world at a much faster rate than the humans you’re dealing with, to try to be a facsimile of a person when you’re really not, and so on. I highly recommend it.

Game Review: Actual Sunshine

written by David Steffen

A ctual Sunshine is an RPG-styled story of depression released by Will O’Neill in April 2014. It follows the life of young single overweight

professional who is struggling with depression. He lives alone, is unsatisfied at his corporate job. Every day is a struggle, trying to get through the day of work, trying to connect with women, trying to do something with his life instead of just sinking into video games to avoid trying to do something with his life. As the game goes on, Evan experiences good days, bad days, changes at work, failed interactions with women, and more. Evan expresses his stories about depression by making up fake scenarios in his head conveyed in text, imagining he was a celebrity being interviewed on a TV show about his depression, talking to an imaginary therapist, etc.

An in-game note suggests that the game is at least somewhat autobiographical, which makes it a little awkward to criticize it. It’s not that I doubt the authenticity of the story, or the difficulty of living with depression. I don’t suffer from depression, but I have close family and friends who do, and some who have given up hope and committed suicide. It is a horrible thing to go through, which is misunderstood by so many. I heartily approve of something which helps spread the conversation about depression so that those who haven’t been through it can understand some small part of what the depressed are going through.

But, and this is a big but for me, this is not a game. Yes, you have control, but as far as I could tell there was no branching of the storyline, nothing that I would do that would make any difference in the outcome. Maybe that’s meant to be a meta-statement about how you don’t have control of your life when you’re depressed? I don’t know, but if you put something up on Steam and charge $5 for it, I want to have some effect on it. To me it was kind of like buying a book online that’s advertised as a novel and only finding out after buying it that it’s a cookbook. It’s not that cookbooks are inherently bad, and the shape of a cookbook is similar to a novel, but I’d be pretty annoyed to find it full of nothing but recipes.

RPGLook If you’re interested in the idea of a game that simulates the experience of depression, I recommend instead playing Depression Quest (which I’ll review next week). Depression Quest is interactive, and lets you see the choices of your actions trying to cope with depression–you do have an effect and there are choices you can make that will end better or worse than others. It is also free to play with donations accepted, so if you’re not sure what you’ll think about such a game–I suggest you give that one a try and give a donation if you thought the experience was valuable.

Visuals
Typical for the era of RPG the RPGMaker.

Audio
Not a lot of audio that I noticed, but one redeeming factor was a sequence where the protagonist imagines he’s a celebrity being interviewed on TV about his depression and his answers are all humorous-like off-the-cuff comments like you’d expect to hear from an actor talking about their life, but instead are actually dark comments about his depression but made quite creepy by the laugh line audio overlaid on it.

Challenge
No challenge. It’s just going through the motions to pass through the game.

Story
Things happen, and things change in the protagonist’s life, but I think it would be charitable to call those things a story. It’s more of a slice of life than a story to me. The imaginary asides in text about the imaginary tales of Evan’s life I did not find as enthralling as the game seemed to think they should be.

Session Time
Can save at any time you’re not in the middle of a cut sequence, so usually pretty easy to pick up and put down at will.

Playability
Nothing to it.

Replayability
None.

Originality
I admit, it’s the first time I’ve seen a game based around the experience of depression. There’s probably a reason for that–it’s not an easy thing to base a game around. (I’ve since played Depression Quest, so the other is technically the 2nd game on the subject I’ve played)

Playtime
It took me an hour to play through the game–and that was with me exploring everything I could find to explore.

Overall
The list price on Steam is $5. I would not recommend it. If you find the idea of a game experience describing depression appealing, I suggest trying Depression Quest instead.

GAME REVIEW: Papers, Please

written by David Steffen

Congratulations. The October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled. For immediate placement, report to the The Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint. An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a Class-8 dwelling.

Papers, Please was released by Lucas Pope in August 2013, a first person multiple ending pattern-matching ethical conundrum game. This is just another one of those games about immigration documentation processing. Exciting, right? Actually, hear me out. I was skeptical, too, but the game came highly recommended. The game is billed as a “dystopian document thriller”.

2014-10-03_00002 You work for the government of Aristotska (a country reminiscient of Cold-War era soviet administration), screening people entering the country. Day one is straightforward, because you’ve been told to turn away anyone without an Aristotskan passport. But the government responds to public pressure by starting to allow others through. People start slipping through who don’t belong and the government responds by adding new kinds of documents that you have to check–often checking one document against another for consistent information, checking the sex of the person against the ID (with body scan as a secondary check), scanning for contraband, arresting wanted criminals, etc. You have to pay for food and heat for your family, medicine if your son gets sick, other expenses that you can’t always predict. You get paid for each person you process, but your pay gets docked for making mistakes. The rules change every day, and to support your family you have to be both fast and accurate.

That’s what you might call the main focus of the gameplay, but there are quite a few other elements. A revolutionary group is just starting to get their foundations, and because you hold a position of relative importance they want to pay you to make selective mistakes that favor their group. But the Aristotskan government inspector is watching your every move, so you’d better consider very carefully what kinds of requests you want to take. Meanwhile, there are violent attacks on the border which close the office early for the day and which you can help stop. People coming through the gate may make requests of you–helping a recruiter find workers, offering to buy or sell items. The most poignant are ethical choices where a man’s documentation is all valid, but before he leaves the booth he asks you to let his wife through–you soon find her passport has expired. Will you let her through to meet her husband or will you follow orders and turn her away?

2014-10-03_00003 There are some moments of levity in the game–mostly around one guy who is gleefully criminal. After a body scan turns up something suspicious, you ask him what it is, and his response is “Is drugs!” But much of the game is quite dark, thinking about what it must be like for all these people trying to cross from one country to another, and weighing the ethical decisions when you’re torn between doing what’s right and what’s legal according to the laws.

There are twenty different endings, depending on the choices you make. The easiest to reach happens when you run out of money–you are thrown in jail for the crime of debt. You can reach other endings depending on whether you support or reject the revolutionaries (and whether you get caught supporting the revolutionaries), and other choices.

There is so much going on in this game, plenty to keep you entertained. Just the core challenge of checking documents is hard enough with all the changing rules and time limit and penalty for mistakes, and then all the ethical choices and storyline branching makes it all the better.

Visuals
Simple 80’s era visuals, but adequate.

Audio
Music/audio that fits the visuals. I like the inarticulate garble the loudspeaker makes when you call the next person in line.

Challenge
This game is moderately challenging with a reasonable learning curve. The first day is easy–just need to check the country name. As the game goes on there are more things to check and more documents which can reveal discrepancy. I got significantly better with practice, but in the later levels it was still a challenge.

Story
Good story. The main objective of the game is to make sure that you and your family survive by processing enough immigrants and making few enough errors that you don’t get penalized. But there are other branches along the way that can lead to different endings. You can choose to support or resist revolutionaries at several points in the story, you can choose to let people through who engage your sympathies or if you will always stick to the policies.

Session Time
Pretty fast. The game auto-saves after each day. The clock is ticking on each day so if you’re not paused the time is slipping away every moment. Some of the days are cut especially short if there’s an attack on the border. You can get a day in with just a few minutes.

Playability
Easy to learn, hard to keep track of all the little details that change from day to day. If you make a little excess cash you can make your life easier by purchasing some booth upgrades that will give you shortcut keys to cut down on mouse interactions.

Replayability
Quite a bit of replay potential here. There are many different endings which you can reach by making particular choices. Each country in the region also has a special token that can be obtained by helping a person from that country, but the path to those are not always obvious either. Your save file lets you reload from any previous day and it keeps track of multiple different branches, so you can go back to day five and make different choices in that day and try to process more people and after you finish that day you can load from either branch.

Originality
Very, very original. I never would have thought that a game about processing immigration paperwork could be anything but extremely dull, but the game both provides challenge in the manner of attention to detail, but also various ethical conundrums.

Playtime
I’ve spent about 8 hours playing this game, I think I finished a full run through in 5-6 hours, then went back to replay some different paths.

Overall
The list price on Steam is $10. Very reasonable price. Great game. Easy buy.