Gods And Robots

Everything's going very well on the Steam Next Fest front, thanks for asking. Four days in, four demos down. Three days left, three to go.

Yesterday I covered Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore, a game about which I can unironically say I feel mildly excited. You can have that for the poster, Blankhans. I haven't played it again for all the obvious reasons but I've been feeling twitchy about not playing it. Always a good sign.

Instead, I gave some time to three other demos, all of which I'm going to cover in the one post today. It's not that I couldn't fill a whole post about each of them. Obviously, I could. It's not they aren't deserving of that level of interrogation, either. They certainly are. 

It's that there's not really all that much point in reviewing demos as though they were finished games. Most come with very clear warnings: they'll change. The final version may not resemble the demo too closely, if at all.

With that caveat, here's what I thought about what I saw. 

Stray Gods 

This is by far the highest profile and most hyped of the titles I chose to look at this time. It comes with not only a Wikipedia entry but also one at IMDB, which makes a lot of sense when you check out the development history, personnel and aspirations of this unusual project.

It was crowdfunded back in 2019, not through Kickstarter for a change but via Fig.co, since subsumed into the video-game-specific funding platform Republic. That's an interesting topic in itself but let me not derail my own post for once. 

The company behind the project, Summerfall Studios, is based in Australia and Stray Gods is their first game, which makes the intended reach somewhat surprising. The title's being developed simultaneously for PC, XBox, Playstation and Switch. It also has some stellar names behind the voices including, as I've seen it characterized, half the cast of Critical Role. 

If that all seems a lot for an indie studio in Melbourne making its first-ever game, the explanation, as usual, is a Big Name. The whole shebang, including the company itself, is the passion project of David Gaider, former lead writer at BioWare, where he worked on all the biggies- Baldur's Gate II, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age...

Pedigree aside, by far the most interesting thing about Stray Gods is the concept behind the game, which the Wikipedia article neatly sums up as "a video game that combines hallmarks of musical theater with interactive storytelling". Perhaps most intriguing of all is the specific, proximate inspiration, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's magnificent, ground-breaking musical episode "Once More, With Feeling".

That episode, first broadcast in 2001, went on to become the inspiration for every musical episode of every YA/Fantasy/SciFi TV show of the twenty-first century. Like Jimi Hendrix, it was an inspired original that spawned a lot of much less impressive imitations but on the evidence of the demo, Stray Gods isn't one of them.

I was a little concerned at the start that it might be. The opening scene with the band lounging around on the stage of a deserted theater at the end of an audition felt awkward and stilted. Even the voice acting didn't convince. I was worried the hype might once again have run far ahead of anything the game would be able to deliver.

By the time I reached the end of the half-hour demo I was mostly convinced everything was going to be fine. I still have a couple of minor quibbles but for the most part I found it an immersive, enjoyable and genuinely original experience. 

Any problems I have derive mostly from the plot, making it particularly inappropriate to criticize.  Plot is not always something a demo should be expected to explain in full and narrative flaws or plot-holes can't reasonably be assumed just because something doesn't seem to follow.  

This demo, constructed much more thoughtfully and commercially than most, makes no attempt to present a neat, complete narrative segment. Unlike almost any I've played, it doesn't simply give you access to the tutorial or the first chapter or allow you a time-limited run at the full game. Instead, it jumps from one stage of the storyline to another, showcasing some of the musical numbers, while demonstrating how the gameplay elements work.

By the time the demo ended, I had no sense, as I so often do, that I'd played and finished a short game. I didn't feel like I'd read a short story or watched a standalone episode of a TV show, either. Instead I felt, as ought to be the intention of every game demo, that I'd had a taste of something much bigger, something that left me wanting more.

It's a good demo, then, but will it be a good game? I think so, although I also think it's a hell of a risk. Graphically it's gorgeous to look at. The presentation is pictorial with limited animation, every scene being mostly a static illustration with movement provided by a shifting camera or a change of posture. 

The visual style is part comic-book, part animated movie cel, part book illustration. It feels extremely familiar to me; I've seen more stories told this way than I can count but mostly on a flat, paper page, less often a screen. The quality of the art is excellent, all the characters expressive and immediately identifiable, the backgrounds effective but unobtrusive. 

The visuals by necessity must take second place to the soundscape, this being a musical. It doesn't matter how pretty the pictures are if the songs don't land. They did for me, although I had a few moments with the lyrics, which at first I felt weren't always as mellifluous or as smart as they needed to be. 

That feeling thankfully faded as I found myself drawn by the music into the story and the characters, which is, ironically, where I feel the game may lose some players. It really is a musical, not just a game with songs and that could be a turn-off for some. 

I'm not an aficionado of musical theater but I like it well enough to be passingly familiar with the form. I enjoy the interplay between words and music it relies upon to create emotional heft. I have to make a little effort to push past the meniscus that screens the reality of the musical from our own but once that surface tension breaks, I'm inside the bubble and swimming happily, not drowning.

Many people never make that leap. A lot never get past the logical disconnect of characters moving from speech to song and back as if it's perfectly normal conversation, let alone some of them singing and some of them talking as if there's no difference between the two. 

In setting up Summerfall Studios, Liam Gesler, one of the three co-founders (The third being Elie Young.) said he wanted to create "a fun, emotionally-rewarding interactive experience that is accessible even to those who don’t consider themselves gamers." In Stray Gods, I wonder if he and his partners haven't made something more accessible to non-gamers than to anyone likely to self-identify that way.

"Gamer" these days is such an unhelpful descriptor, anyway. Most everyone games now. Without a doubt, musical theater as a form is far more niche than gaming. Musicals always fill theaters and the screen version has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years, after a long spell in the doldrums, but it's still something of a Marmite moment for many; you either really love musicals or you can't stan' 'em, to lift a line from one of the greatest of them all, Singing in the Rain.

For true gamers, I'd guess acceptance or otherwise will come down to how good a game Stray Gods is. Pretty pictures and catchy songs are all well and good but what about the gameplay? 

Pretty good, I thought. Surprisingly so, even. There are the expected dialog choices, where you get to give positive, negative or nuanced responses at key points in the conversation. Those are as well done as they are in most professionally-made games of the kind. There's also one moment in the demo when you 're asked to choose a character trait and the game is described, among other things, as an rpg, so I'm guessing there's an element of character development in there, somewhere. 

The best part of the gameplay for me, though, came during the songs themselves. At various moments a set of options pop up along with a timer that ticks down pretty quickly. You have to pick a response that will clearly affect the direction of the narrative but it also changes the lyrics of the song. 

It's very clever and I found it highly engaging. I'm not normally a fan of quick-time events, which this kind of is, and I don't generally approve of timers, but instead of finding it stressful or annoying, I found these in-the-moment decisions immersive and compelling. 

There was just - but only just - enough time for me to read the options, assimilate the meaning, assess the implications and make a decision. I found it exciting in a way dialog options in narrative games rarely are for me. 

I'm fairly sure that's all down to the musical structure, which makes the whole process feel more like having an emotional reaction than making an intellectual choice. For that reason, I suspect it may alienate and infuriate others in the way it engaged and entertained me.

And that, I think, is the takeaway from this excellent demo. If the job of a demo is to allow someone to decide if a game is or isn't for them, this hits all its marks. It's half an hour long and I guarantee that well before the end you'll know for sure whether this is a game you'll want to add to your wishlist or cross off your list of possibles for good.

You can probably guess which way I jumped.

Well, that ran long! Apparently, if I don't review a demo as if it was a full game, I review it as a demo at just the same length. I wonder if I ought to break the other two out into a separate post after all? I guess we'll see how it goes... 

Robotherapy

This one should be a lot quicker. The demo only took me eighteen minutes and the main thing I have to say about it is I can't see how they're going to make it into a full game.

This is a classic example of something I said the Stray Gods demo wasn't, namely an experience that feels satisfying and complete in itself. There's no introduction or tutorial or anything. It's straight into the game, straight into the narrative, then straight out the end. 

The premise is very simple: robots have killed all humans and replaced human civilization with their own. Unfortunately for them, it hasn't made them any happier. You, a robot, of course, play a therapist who treats other robots for their psychological issues. In the demo your clients include a robot poet who suffers from imposter syndrome and a robot who's coming off a bad romantic break-up. 

Also you try to treat your dog one time. Doesn't go well.

If it wasn't for that that last line that I threw in deliberately to change things up, you'd probably get the impression this was a fairly serious, if humorous, conversation game, where the goal is to solve problems and progress by doing so successfully. 

Nah. That's not how it works at all.

Robotherapy is a nihilistic, satirical, sarcastic, self-indulgent, surreal sprint through an irrational, illogical, unrealistic world. At no point did I get the remotest impression I was meant to take any of it seriously.

The game breaks the fourth wall all the time. It has a narrator, but only when it remembers it does. At one point the narrator asks the player if they'd like to do the narrating instead. Couldn't do a worse job of it.

The titular Robotherapist, whose name is Smokes because he smokes cigarettes all the time, not because, as you might have imagined, what with his being a robot and all, because smoke comes out of him somewhere, isn't qualified to practice as a therapist. He also isn't suited to the work and has no idea how to do it. It is possible to be a qualified Robotherapist in his world, something we find out when Smokes meets Back, who is one, but on the evidence it wouldn't make much difference either way.

You may have noticed the odd names: Smoke, Back. By the time Smokes meets his second patient, W/E, pronounced Whatever, you'll be well aware that names here have been chosen mainly so Smokes can riff off them like Abott and Costello doing Who's On First, something he does well enough that I did, once, laugh out loud.

Gameplay consists of two things: clicking dialog choices or clicking to jump or fire missiles in action sequences. It may make a difference which dialog choice you pick. It does not make a difference when or if you jump or shoot. 

The action sequences, which occur either in Smokes' dreams or in the Mindseum, an advanced form of therapy taught to Smokes by Back after the empathy trick he showed Smokes doesn't work any more, exist purely as narrative devices and parodies of similar sequences in games where they'd actually matter. You can jump or not jump, shoot or not shoot. It makes no difference.

My run-through consisted of eighteen minutes of really fast clicking. The dialog spools at a very comfortable reading pace for me, something so rare as to be a recommendation in itself. I generally read well over twice as fast as any game wants to feed me the words so it was relaxing to be able to go at natural pace for once.

The writing is funny although definitely not as funny as the writer thinks it is, which is why I put "self-indulgent" in that list of adjectives back there. That's fine. More than enough gags land to make the experience an entertaining one. The robot characters are all sufficiently well-defined to make spending time with them amusing, although Smokes is not anyone you'd want to spend time with, let alone pay for the privilege as his clients must.

I don't need to describe the visuals. The screenshots do it all. The game looks like that, all the time. I liked looking at it.

The problem I have with Robotherapist, if it even is a problem, is I can't see how it's going to be a whole game. If the demo reveals any narrative through-line I didn't really catch it. There's Smokes personal and professional development, I guess, with the hint of a potential romantic relationship, but I can't see caring whether he learns to be a good therapist or gets a girlfriend or sorts out his own existential ennui as motivators to make it to a Game Over screen. Caring about whether his patients get cured, even less.

It'll probably depend on how funny you find robots being no better at being alive than the humans they replaced, I guess. I found it funny but probably not funny enough to pay money for. I wishlisted it but I doubt I'll buy it. 

I'll play it if it turns up on Prime for free one day, though, which it very likely might. It's the sort of thing they like, over there.

Phew. That was longer than I intended, too. Can we fit the last one in? Hmm. Dubious. I feel I have quite a bit to say. Don't really want to rush it.

I know. I'll play another demo today, then I can cover that one and the one I didn't do today in a double-header next time. Yep, that's a plan!

My work here is done. Time for a coffee!