Different Class

When I went to log in to Nightingale yesterday, I noticed the minimally interactive banner (You can click it and it changes very slightly but only once.) at the top of the screen announcing the Steam Spring Sale. It doesn't feel much like Spring outside but if Steam says it is I guess it must be. 

As time goes on I become more and more enmeshed in the Steam ecosystem I resisted for so long. I used to see people talking about Steam sales and shake my head at the idea of anyone falling for such an entry-level marketing ploy. Now I hear the news and go "Ooh! I wonder if there's anything good?"

There wasn't, not really. I can't claim to have gone through the entire list line by line but I flicked all the way to the end of the main page, where what I imagine are meant to be the most enticing offers are, and didn't see much I was interested in. Not at those discounts, anyway.

Of course, there were some very heavy reductions, some of them even on titles I have wishlisted, but they're games that regularly go on sale. Horizon Zero Dawn : Complete Collection, for example, has been 75% off several times since I put it on my wishlist.

The problem with that one and several other bargains I noticed is that the cost isn't what's stopping me. It's knowing I won't play them. I don't even claim free titles from Prime any more unless I'm almost certain I'm going to play them almost immediately. 

Horizon Zero Dawn looks great in principle but in practice I'm pretty sure the gameplay wouldn't suit me very well. £9.99 may not be much but it's still a waste of money if the game's just going to sit there in my Steam library gathering virtual dust. Rather than buying it because it's on offer I should probably just take it off my wishlist.

There's an argument for culling the list quite severely. It's full of titles that have been on offer numerous times without triggering a purchase. For most of them, though, that is price-related. Discounts between 20%-40% just don't seem generous enough to make me think "I'd better jump on that!"

Even at half-price I rarely bite. There are four titles on the list at 50% or more off in the current sale but I haven't gone for any of them... yet. In every case, what that tells me is that I'm not really as keen to play them as I thought I was when I put them on. All of them are titles I wishlisted after playing demos in various NextFests and as I've said a few times, for a lot of games an hour-long demo is probably about as much as I ever needed.

There's also the salutory fact that the last several games I bought in Steam sales I either haven't even started yet or, worse, played for a while then somehow forgot to finish. If that was because I wasn't enjoying them it would be one thing but actually my hit rate on picking games I enjoy is extremely good. I'm just very bad at sticking with them for long enough to get to the credits.

Then there's the issue of timing. When I put Coreborn on the list, for example, I had space in my schedule for a new MMO/Survival title. Now I really don't, even at 70% off.

Perhaps most important of all, though, is that a lot of the games on my wishlist just aren't very expensive to begin with. If I wanted to play them - as in right now - I'd be happy to pay full price. For a discount to work its magic it needs to be attached to a game I'm already teetering on the edge of buying anyway. Then even a small reduction is enough to nudge me over.

And that's how I came to buy Class of '09 last night. I've been thinking about it ever since I somehow stumbled across a playthrough on YouTube a few weeks ago. There are lots of playthroughs of the game on YouTube. I'm going to embed one here but please pay serious attention to the warning that comes with the game itself:  

This game contains reference to sexual themes and explicit criminal acts such as drug solicitation, substance abuse, homicide, physical assault, sexual assault, fraud, and self-harm. 

Boy, does it ever. And the rest. That's just scratching the surface of the ways Class of '09 could offend, upset, disturb or outrage. If you're ready for it after all that, go ahead, don't let me stop you.

Tell you what, let's just have the intro. I'm not convinced clips work out of context and I'm not expecting anyone to watch a whole playthrough.

I've played two games of Class of '09 now. I think that's how it works. You just keep playing in the forlorn hope of getting any kind of acceptable conclusion. Catharsis.

My first run, Nicole hung herself. That was cheery.

My second run she's hiding at home because she thinks something she posted on the internet is going to get her school burned down by extremists. Compared to some of the endings I've seen, that doesn't really seem like such a bad outcome.

If Class of '09 was just sweary, boundary-breaking shocksploitation, obviously I wouldn't be here writing about it now. It's a lot more than that. It's witty, smart, funny, sweary, boundary-breaking shocksploitation, with very good voice acting. 

It didn't surprise me in the least to discover there have been attempts to shift the property to other media. It would make a great animated TV show, not least since one of its acknowledged inspirations is Daria. 

A Kickstarter looking to fund an anime based on the game raised $132k on a 35k ask last year, enough to make an 11 minute pilot episode. That's yet to come but there's a three minute teaser made for the Kickstarter that's really good.

It'd be nice if that all goes somewhere further than a pilot but for now the game's the thing and I plan on playing it plenty. I particularly appreciate the structure, which seems to resolve itself into shortish, TV-like episodes as you hit the inevitable buffers on every playthrough. More games should come in bite-sized chunks.

When I've seen a lot more of Nicole's fractal life, no doubt there'll be another post. There are supposed to be thirteen endings but how many branches before you get to them I couldn't say. It's too early to make any solid statements about how looped the gameplay is or whether there's ever any real sense of progress or achievement. I suspect there isn't and I imagine that's the point.

The one thing about the game that slightly worries me is that it's the sole creation of one guy, Max Field, who might just possibly be a bit of a dick. Here's an interview with him that kind of gives that impression. I'm not entirely comfortable with all of this supposed female psychological insight coming purely from a male perspective, either, although that leads onto a whole corridor of doors I really don't want to open.

He sure pisses the racists off, though, so at least he has that going for him.

Anyway, judge the work, not the creator, I guess. I can recommend an entertaining, if not entirely helpful, book on navigating that cultural minefield if anyone's interested. I liked it more than Rachel Cooke from the Guardian did but I can't argue with most of her criticisms. It's all over the place.

And we're getting off the subject again, aren't we? Back to the game. Or should I say games?

There's a sequel called Class of '09: The Re-Up, too, which I cannot imagine not wanting to play once I'm done with this one. It may have to wait for another sale though. At the moment it's a derisory 20% down although there's a double pack of both games (That I now realise is the one I should have got.) for 45% off.

I guess sales do have their uses, on occasion.