• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Who rigged the contest?

  • NTC3
  • 08/28/2015 05:04 PM
  • 564 views
The Blue Contestant is a game that is rather unique, pretty interesting, and even gripping at times. It is also a game that is notably difficult to get into, in spite of the intriguing premise. It can be finished in 60-90 minutes; yet, I’ve only done so on my third try recently, which came about two months after the previous one. This is because while the gameplay accompanying its story is mechanically above-average, and has many interesting decisions, actually going through it is a process of a trial-and-error, and the errors are punished harshly to boot.

Aesthetics (art, design and sound)

As expected of the developer, The Blue Contestant almost completely uses rm2k RTP visuals and their edits. In particular, the contestant sprites are color-swapped edits of various publicly available models: you can notice the similarity between Blue Soldier and ABL Paradise Guards, for instance, but it works well regardless. Even better is the way opened chests change their colour scheme depending on which of the three contestants had opened them. There are also the very large outdoor backgrounds, like one above, and some similar images used for the battlers. The characters gesticulate during cutscenes very believably and such.



The mapping, on the other hand, is roughly what you would expect from a two-week project with rm2k assets. It all looks functional, but is never attractive, and there are plenty of outright bare rooms/areas like the one above. The actual design does get a lot more complex later on, with all the teleport tiles, ladders, jump points and such criss-crossing the level. In the Area 2 caves, there’s also fun to be had searching for the various treasure that’s often “hidden” from your view under the waterfall streams.

The sounds are also mainly RTP, and the overall music comes from a variety of places: according to the names in the music folder, there are tracks from Metal Gear Solid 2, Dune, Splatterhouse, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, though most is unlabelled. It’s fine, but not a lot actually stands out: the techno menu theme is probably the best, as it works very well alongside the minimalistic image and the “Play, Rewind, Power Down” options (never forgo being creative with these. There’s hardly a better way of immediately showing the player you have the imagination to be different.) Other highlights include the audience reaction sounds during key moments (i.e. cheering after you beat a monster, or booing after you paid 200$ for a chest and received 100$, for instance).

Storyline

Lysander86 again shows us the art of good intros that swiftly grab the players’ interest. A Blurred Line disguised its rather conventional “fight-the-power” plot through its now-legendary intro, where protagonist and antagonist occupied diametrically opposite positions, immediately creating the (ultimately unsolved) mystery of how they all got there. Blue Contestant’s intro is a simple typewritten letter to a certain “Andrea” that has a different aim. The problem with using game shows as settings is that the audience knows they’re not real, and this immediately lessens the stakes. TBC circumvents this by letting us know the titular protagonist is now mortally ill as a result of his involvement, and is about to reveal how it happened by narrating the story of that day through his letter.

The end result is pretty good. At first, the main draw is the way it portrays the whole atmosphere of a fierce competition: you’ll run into other two contestants taking treasure right before you, taunting you, pushing boulders to block certain paths and do other stuff most people would do for the sake of a life-changing prize. Even encountering the chests that are already opened and marked with either red or green colour is a good way of keeping you focused. There’s the Host, too, who’s entirely believable in his role as he goes through all the tricks of the trade to get higher rankings, and his frustration as certain bugs (and more) begin to crop up with increasing frequency. There’s even a commercial break at one point: a little rushed and generic-dystopia, but it does help explain why the competition is so fierce.



The last two letters are actually an abbreviation of "For You". Honest.

The characterisation throughout is light, but enough to carry this “short story in game form” in its creator’s words. You can tell the contestants’ different personalities, and understand how they shape their actions. At about halfway point, there’s an intrusion that instantly makes the game a lot deadlier, and the remainder is a guessing game as to who it was, and what will happen now, up until the final twist. For once, it works, and there’s a real “A-ha!” moment after all the little details that just seemed annoying or inconsequential at fist actually added up to something very different than what you saw the first time around. It works on a narrative level as well: you understand why everyone did what they do, and the tragic results are sad, but they also feel entirely deserved.

Gameplay

Like I’ve said before, The Blue Contestant is rather overwhelming at first. While the combat is traditional, and, as is often the case with Lysander86, rather limited, it is the class-switching system and the way equipment is found that are more likely to give you trouble. Essentially, few things are free in the game show, and if you see a typical treasure chest, know that you’ll have to pay a certain sum of money (gotten through defeating enemies and picking up money icons) to get whatever is inside. Similarly, there are six classes available for Blue (Soldier, Mage, Gambler, Medic, Engineer and Student), which share the same HP percentage (if you switch from heavily wounded Gambler to Soldier, he will be similarly wounded as well), but switching between them (in fact, just bringing up the class change screen) requires the use of the class points (CP), that are also found either on-map or as spoils of battle.Then, of course, there are the checkpoints. They’re the only way to save, they do not heal or restore anything, and though you can use them as many times as you like, there is usually only one checkpoint per area, and if you’ve made plenty of progress in it and don’t want to lose it all, you’ll have to trudge all the way back to it. The worst example is to do with the Area 1 boss, which appears without warning, and with no checkpoint to precede it either. You do get the choice to avoid fighting it and let another contestant handle it, and it’s really best to do so: I’m not even sure if it’s actually beatable in the first place.

Afterwards, you should also remember that Area 2 enemies often ignore you when you’re on the same level as them (even right next to them at times), but will cheerfully drop down from above. This includes boulders, which could probably kill you with gravity alone, but instead prefer traditional turn-based combat as the way to settle scores. Oh, and if you find a Teleport Tile in Area 3, you probably shouldn’t use it, unless you really want to go and clean up the preceding areas. All in all, in order to truly go through it and enjoy the experience it’s best to follow these three rules I’ve devised. One: Game is not timed until a certain point in the narrative (and even then, the timer is very generous), so explore as much as you can and do not rush. Two: enemies do not give XP and the money/CP gain from victories is negligible, so avoid them unless you can see good treasure nearby. Three: Medics rock.



Class change screen. Medic is right above the "unclassified" Blue.

When you’re presented with the Class Select screen at the very start of the game, you’re told what each class is like, but the actual numbers and abilities are a mystery. Thus, it’s not until you play as one that you’ll discover “The only class that can heal themselves but is weak during fights” is but a “truth from a certain point of view.” Sure, the base Attack/Defence is low, and that is exactly why you’ll begin most battles with a Booster Shot, which raises them to Soldier levels. Afterwards, it’s possible to either spacebar-mash through, knowing you can heal back all the reduced damage with Healing Touch, or to bring fights to a swifter end with a Poison Syringe: instant 50 or so damage is enough to leave most enemies half-dead, and can even put them down in a single turn. These skills are not too expensive (4,3 and 5 SP, out of a pool of 40), and so they can last you a while if you follow Rule 2 and avoid unnecessary encounters. Once you do run out, Medic’s field abilities will come into play.

On map, you can occasionally find human-shaped tiles on levels that restore all HP and SP, and are normally the only way to restore class’s SP, since Ethers and such are removed from the game. They’re obviously useful, but you’ll rarely find them when you need them most. Instead, Medics can convert them into portable versions, giving you a restore-all item that can be used at any time needed, especially during fights. By the end of the game, I used them about 2-3 times and still had 3 left, as a reward for careful exploration. Then, Medics are also the only class that can actually see what they’ll pay for in chests, due to their X-Ray Scope accessory. My approach, then, was to pay for equipment for Medics, Magicians and Engineers, and the healing items/bombs, while ignoring everything else. This is because those are the two other classes you’ll regularly need to get to bonus content: Engineers can operate switches to remove barriers to good stuff, while Magicians activate Teleport tiles. It’s not that the other three are useless: they do have their own dynamic and it’s entirely possible to finish stretches of the game with them. Nevertheless, you’ll never actually need them the way you will need Medic/Engineer/Magician trio.



Drain; because everything else only scratches them. It's good that you can get blood from the stone after all.

Once you get the hang of it, the combat itself is not too complex, though superior, to, say, A Blurred Line. Like in ABL, enemies are very simple: if they have any skills, it’s either a strong attack (that often ignores defence) or to attack normally twice. It’s all notably unflashy for what is supposed to be a game show intended to wow its viewers. Classes, though, have around 3 abilities each, which usually include a very strong attack (Engineer’s only skill), a defence/offence buff and something unique, like Student’s Analyse Weaknesses scan move, or Gambler’s Low/Medium/High Risk Bets that might or might not steal money from the enemies, money you’ll not really need either way. We’ve covered the Medics, so let’s look at Magicians, as they become the most powerful class if you’ve been diligently upgrading them at the Power tiles. Boulders aside, all enemies have elemental weaknesses to be exploited, and a level 2 spell of the right element (Lighting for Knights/Water creatures, Fire for Cyclopi, Ice for dragon, etc.) can finish them off in a single turn. While you can technically have fun with it early on, it’s best to wait until you have Drain 3 or 4 and upgraded equipment before seriously fighting anything with the Magicians. This is because it’s the lowest-initiative class, one that’ll always act after the enemies do, and low defence/inability to heal quickly are deadly in group fights.

I suppose I also ought to mention the ranking system at the end of the game. It's cool, I guess, and does track a fair bit of stats like chests opened, monsters killed, number of times saved, etc. I can tell that knowing how well you did according to game's parameters and trying to beat one's score (or that of other people according to the online page that might still be around) is an important factor. For me, though, it never really mattered either way.

Conclusion

The Blue Contestant is a solid, interesting short game. While it’s not as good as it could’ve been, it still warrants a playthrough on its own merits. Should the gameplay become too much for you, then follow the rules I’ve laid out above, and you should experience it with the minimum of interruption.