CHANGE IS GOOD. SUMMER RETROSPECTIVE.

So summer has come and gone, with a mighty twelve games out of forty six passing the hurdle. There are two types of developers in our community, type one is your everyday average Joe wanting to create his dream game to share for consumption of the Internet. The second type of developer are the unsung heroes of the Internet not focusing on creating their rpg magnum opus, but instead deciding to experiment and push the makers boundaries. Let's take a peek at this phenomenon.

So why surrealism?
Basically to offer a challenge to the community. In the past we had themes of "escape" "Sequels that should never be made" and "Remake a scary movie". What the problem with these is that they were very generalised in nature and you easily work around them to suit your needs. With this train of thought you would be making the same games that you've always been comfortable in developing. Surrealism was to suppose to counteract this, to effectively make you develop games you never thought were possible. Make it less about systematics of tried and tested formulas and instead concentrate on creating stories and game play systems that were never seen in RMN. As a collective we all fascinate over systems that have never actually changed in the past ten years, we need new ideas and new ways in creating games. We're in a state of creative stagnation, plain and simple.

However it doesn't have to revolve all around surrealism to promote such a change. Off the top my head I can name German expressionism, cubism and provoking an emotional response as a possibility. The former being art movements that have different styling that can in theory be applied to games.

For example German expressionism revolves around black and white colour tone, twisted jagged environments, no music, title cards and exaggerated physical performances. This can be easily translated into the game medium.

Emotional response is a whole different beast that doesn't belong to any art movements but instead it's the combination development techniques that provokes an emotion from the audience. This can be both positive and negative, for example with positive spectrum you can place any Disney/pixar movie that made you happy. The opposite which is negative can be judged in how extreme it is, the best example of this is irreversible perhaps the only movie I've ever seen that made me walk out in disgust and curse the people behind it for daring to create such a film. No I'm not planning on seeing a Serbian Film. The only game that simulates this is Beautiful Escape and that speaks for itself.

Basically look beyond rpg's and our community, there's a whole world of inspiration and you shouldn't worry about what the standard norm is in developing games. Because let's face facts, there's no universal standard.

Hopefully we've earnt the inclusion of a genre tag, at least.


You know it makes sense.

Contest comments
My commentary is short and to the point. Reason being, is that I feel that Max and Calunio have covered all bases with the appropriate feedback and I would be effectivly repeating them in regards to the key points of each of the entries.

I'm Scared of Girls
I never heard of Moga before the event, a unknown developer hiding out on a tumbler blog far far away from the dark gaze of RMN (based on assumption). The game contains custom graphics, albeit very similar to cave story and has a incredible haunting soundtrack. Through the journey in the underworld with the sensation of isolation and sinister dread following your every move. With the running motifs of a television being the only real life object to give any sense of normality to the proceedings, you do have to applaud Moga in managing to pull off such a game in a short space of time.

There have been complaints about retracing your steps after being teleported back to hub area but I feel that it's the best piece of level design in the game. It gives motivation to the audience to keep on playing after clearing a gem that was once blocking an inaccessible area, along with the strange twisted environment you honestly can't tell where you'll end up next.

My only beef with this game lies in the revelations of lamb being a guy revealed pretty early on in the game. If it was only subtly hinted at throughout the narrative without giving any answers then the game would be a lot more better in the long run.

Zephyr Skies: The Winter Sage
When I first saw the game page go live, I was honestly disappointed with Psy_Wombats and his motley crew of pirates. Did they even know what surrealism was? During the following weeks my expectations kept up on rising with all the dazzling screen shots and promises of amazing game play mechanics. Fuck Surrealism. I wanted to get my hands on this rpg. In the back head I kept thinking of myself in how they incorporated the theme, my main theory was how the game presentation was going to be shown in a unconventional way and have some strange narrative juxtaposition. Come judgement day, I unzipped the file folder and prepared myself for this unholy beast. Catching a glimpse of the 593 maps that were in the game dictionary, this is it. The impossible game was made, a fully fledge rpg in thirty days. Now all I had to do was start it up...

Ten minutes of wtf.

I am a fool. It felt like a massive slap across the face, at first I was angry. Thinking stuff about how they lied to everyone who were following this for all the wrong reasons. What would would happen if a new member came across this?

-_- This looked good, I got excited about trying it. So, I download and start the game, watch the opening, error message 1 appears and I'm jerked halfway through the game to boss fight, kill him in 1 hit with ultima just to get 3 more error messages as he runs down the hill. Completely lost and confused, I closed the game cursed at my computer and opened firefox to come say how annoyed this game has made me.


I understand how the game is supposed to be, but it's honestly rather annoying. Meh, not my kinda thing.

So,you just thought to trick some people and instead of an rpg game you created a stupid tetris game..Could you at least not have this game in the rpg category cause since it's only this tetris thing it's not concidered an rpg?Ok,funny,congratulations but dont trick others to download this and then spend time playing something they didn't want to.

I felt your pain

It took me half a hour to brighten up and realise that it wasn't me being cheated or lied to at all. It was my false expectations brought upon by pretty screen shots and an fabricated (yet very clever) game page, this is the horrible truth of vapourware and how we worship them as the golden beacon of our community. The games that we subscribe to and grant praise based on a false constructed illusion, we want them. But the reality of it all is that they simply don't exist.

Novella
If I had a machine that can peek inside peoples dreams then this will be the result. This is perhaps the most personal game he's made out of his rm career, spilling the inner subconscious into a shareable product that anyone can play is brave move on his part. Not only is Novella eye candy but it's the perfect surrealist game on the list, representing not only the authors inner desires, fears and repression but manages to pose many questions that can be open to interpretation.

To me, this game reminds me of the first ever surrealist film Un Chien Andalou which seems totally nonsical to the average viewer but to many people who try to translate the symbolism, whislt applied to their personal experiences and that of the authors then you can hell of lot of intellectual fun, plus it makes you feel like a smarter person ;)




Sisters storybook
First impressions would make you scoff at this little gem. "Bah, rtp graphics!" some may say. However the overall execution of all the mechanics the and game play reversals provide an sweet enduring experience. But deep within the story and mise en scene you start to see cracks beneath the surface suggesting that there's an underlying darkness to every moment you spend in your sisters dreamland.

The way the game is presented to the player gives room for interpretation to what is really happening. It is a subjective experience, the audience might play sisters storybook straight up and take it as some cute little adventure. Other players might go against this train of thought and attempt to come up crazy theories, if anything the whole package reminds me of a Roald Dahl novel.

Overall I've enjoyed this game

Fire Woman
What would you get if you replace Bill Murry with the human torch in groundhog day? A pyrodoom fail, ho ho ho. But in all seriousness, fire woman wasn't actually that bad as it was made out to be. Even though there's a massive glitch that makes you repeat the same old routine over and over again I feel that it works in it's favour. From being a potentially boring game it accidentally turns into a metaphor for being in purgatory, forever lost battling the same old inner demons (monsters) over and over again where there is no escape from the confinements of the your personal hell. And for that I do have to say pyrodoom was a genius.


Weird Dreams
This is a grinding game, plain and simple. You either spend most of your time using the DBS to gain the upper hand or you'll receive a premature game over. I would also like to point out that the story content doesn't seem that out of place or peculiar to give justice to the overall theme. That being said I did mildly enjoy playing through the opening scenes until I came across the first boss who pulverised me for not leveling up. The balancing there needs to be reworked to accommodate casual players... Can't believe I just said that :|

Marie Goes to Space
Julev is an incredibly imaginative person, I would never of played any thought to giant women of unimaginable proportions popping down buildings. Can't even come up with a logical nor symbolic meaning to what did transpire in my short playtime. WELL DONE! :D

Eomnium Project
Seangrais effort was hit and miss. The general idea of exploring the main protagonists subconscious and memories was terrific in theory but the execution was the total opposite. Truth to be told a game breaking bug foiled my plans on completing this entry which was a shame because I never found out what was actually happening in the narrative.

The game play stands out in a bad light, big empty maps designed around a slow walk speed plus only one save point in the game created frustration on my part. It was a good enough attempt regardless of the bugs and design choices that plagued it.

Aetherion
Team Losers have a considerable reputation with events. Highly polished game play with amazing production quality always made them a treat to see. Krisanna's artwork and Anaryus coding is the drawing point in this short RPG, the progression of the narrative juxtaposition with the battle system reeks with awesomeness. So what was the problem?

This is the best technical game that came out of the contest, but because it diverted so far from the theme with the only identifiable factor being drawn from the Krisannas monster designs, we couldn't really of placed it in the top three games. However even though it did not manage it, I believe that it's inclusion as runner up should be seen as honorable mention rather than it being placed number four in the numerical order. In all honestly this game should be featured at some point in the future because it totally deserves it.

Beyond the Gate
There's a responsibility for developers that have to maintain whilst diving in real life issues, with the heavy burden of avoiding a potential outcry if they mess it up. It's a balancing act and I have to give to Sam that he didn't do too bad of a job. I do have to make comment on the main protagonist being a tad over dramatic in particular points in the story, and the inclusion of the grim reaper as a salesman did come across as odd yet convenient for game purposes. To me personally I couldn't find anything distasteful but perhaps that's because I'm not that well informed about the topic nor been close to anyone who was affected. Regardless it's well built and the narrative did drew me in, so congrats on that aspect.

Esoterica
The opening sequence was the most memorable out of all the entries. With all the cars and camera panning creating an illusion of a commuter city this left me with the impression that this is large scale story. Unfortunately the quality dips from time to time, one moment you're dodging bullets in the fun game play sections and it drops the ball with the poorly presented cutscenes. I never understood why there was a option to skip game play as it was the bright spark that gave Esoterica it's substance, and the fact that there was a option at the end for the creator to offer the player a explanation about what the story was actually about was a massive misfire. Not letting the audience come to their own conclusions and instead opting to give a some what logical explanation is abit of a insult to the player base.

Transition
There's a hell of a lot of fire balls being thrown around the place, visually speaking the mist and surreal imagery with flying bat babies portrayed this in a sinister light. Constantly being chased by a giant flying demon as you progressed was pretty neat, but the thing is the game appears to revolve around dodging fireballs and memorising their sequences, which might appeal to some players but it didn't really give a good impression in terms of variety. I did like it, epically with arcade nature of the mini games. But it will frustrate you.

Conclusion
There wasn't that many games that challenged me in terms of experience nor surrealism. The problem I spotted on day one was the amount of game profiles popping up after only a few hours, and in that respect the theme might not of been fully realised in that short space of time. Hopefully future events will continue to challenge us as a community and continue to produce amazing products for us to share and play with.