I had very specific desires in mind this week
as I perused the new indie games like a Catholic
priest moonlighting as a crosswalk attendant.
I'd decided I was undergoing trial separation
with anything that could be remotely described
as 'open world' or 'procedural'.
It's not that open world games and I don't
both love you anymore, viewers, they can still
take you out at the weekend to hunt through
the bins for crafting materials, but I have
needs that I have to fulfil elsewhere.
I'm going to play a nice linear, crafted story
that makes me feel clever, not like an unusually
well-scrubbed homeless person who can leak
rubber cement from their armpits.
Nor indeed like someone strapped to a conveyer
belt drawing inexorably into the world's most
boring doomsday machine, so that's most walking
simulators out.
No, I'm going to play a 2D point and click
adventure game, take myself back to a simpler
time, when if there was an object you need
in a high place you couldn't just exploit
the physics engine, you'd have to combine
a toasting fork with an extension cord and
a sticklebrick and click on something two
pixels wide because trying anything else will
make the game obstinately fold its arms and
call you a stupid prick.
Unavowed is an urban fantasy game that the
Steam user tags seem to think is an RPG, possibly
because someone was having a stroke.
It's only an RPG in the sense that the game
itself is playing the role of a 2D point and
click adventure game.
It was developed in something called Adventure
Game Studio, there's a little giveaway for
the sharp-eyed expert.
You play an average dork, or dorkette; you
choose your gender at the start.
Which just goes to show how far behind Assassin's
Creed really is.
What?
Oh.
Yes, I suppose getting to pick your gender
is technically role-playing, but then again,
avocado is technically a fruit but you wouldn't
put it in a fucking crumble.
Anyway, you are some flavour of bland pleb
with one of three bland backstories who gets
possessed by a demon and goes on the rampage
before they get exorcised by the Unavowed,
a secret society of paranormal detectives
pledged to fight evil.
Gotta say, guys, that sounds pretty fucking
'avowed' to me.
Probably more 'avowed' than most people.
Also, it's rather a grand name for three dudes
who share a flat.
Consisting of a genie, a half-genie lady with
a big bum, and a bloke who does fire magic
in a trenchcoat and a big hat and an enormous
sandwich board with the phrase "WE'VE READ
A FEW DRESDEN FILES BOOKS" daubed across it.
Anyway, now that the demon has put your bland
pleb face atop the Most Wanted list you have
no choice but to join the Unavowed.
You've got no supernatural abilities or indeed
any perceivable qualifications besides a very
bland face but I guess the washing up isn't
going to do itself.
It transpires that none of your new colleagues
can so much as run a D&D campaign so it falls
to you to take the lead, recruit some new
talent and undo all the piss artistry your
demonically possessed self imposed upon the
city of New York.
Now, if you have read a Dresden Files book,
then you have my sympathies.
Don't give up, there is always help out there.
But if you have, then the world of Unavowed
will seem very familiar.
It's your fairly bog standard urban fantasy
"magical races have lived in hiding among
us for centuries and must be pretty fucking
shit at it because literally every bookshop
in the world has an entire section devoted
to stories about them" bollocks, so it's a
modern day city full of demons and wizards
and fairies and clumsy analogies to contemporary
race relations, and as such Unavowed is a
touch derivative, theme-wise, but I think
that's forgivable as long as it's serving
up an engaging enough little yarn.
Having said that, I'm not sure if that's thanks
to or in spite of the usual adventure game
trappings.
Some of you may know that I have some history
with the Adventure Game Studio community from
way back.
Basically I hung around until they stopped
feeding me like a feral cat, but also because
I felt adventure games were too limited, and
so was Adventure Game Studio, more to the
point.
You can have the loveliest art in the world,
and Unavowed does have some lovely backgrounds,
but there's always something dodgy about how
the animation's integrated.
Doesn't help that every character in Unavowed
spends 90% of their time standing like they're
waiting for a bus.
Waiting for a bus on the street, waiting for
a bus in the ethereal realm, waiting for a
bus in the back of a speeding boat during
a tense pursuit with a sea monster.
Every character also has one action pose that
they occasionally slide in and out of as naturally
as an articulated sex toy switching modes
from sensitive to violent buggery.
The broader problem with adventure games is
that the challenge is having to navigate your
way along one specific thread of logic.
If it's too obscure, like you can only prod
the angry octopus with the garden hoe and
not the souvenir miniature of Nelson's Column,
then it gets annoying.
But if it's too obvious, like the only things
you can interact with are a fat dog and a
hole shaped like a fat dog, then it gets boring.
You've got to walk a fine line between solutions
making sense but being obscure enough that
you feel clever for figuring them out.
Unavowed is more on the fat dog side of things,
you only ever have access to small numbers
of rooms and half the time you can progress
just by exhausting dialog with everyone.
I did feel clever figuring some things out,
there's a bit with a duel where you have to
find the loophole in the rules that springs
to mind, but for the most part I rampaged
through the chapters barely slowing down.
Part of that might be because you can choose
which two helpers to bring along each chapter
and so the puzzles have to be laid out in
such a way that any combination of characters
can solve them.
Which reflects thoughtful design and is all
very impressive, but it's impressive in the
way that plate spinning is impressive.
Yes, very skillful, but I'm going to want
that plate back soon so I can finish eating
my dinner off it.
See, when you're asked to pick characters,
you don't have any idea what the chapter's
gonna be about or whose skills or experiences
are most appropriate, so your choice is always
going to be completely arbitrary.
And unless you really do want to start a boy's
only treehouse club I'm not convinced it's
worth it.
But I'll get back to the story because I do
like the game and I only want to piss on its
shoes, not right down the back of its neck.
It's about as deep a story as you'll get in
an AGS game; despite the limited locations
it succeeds in creating a sense of a much
bigger world, largely by letting our imagination
fill in the blanks, bear that in mind, We
Happy Few.
Bear that in mind, Vampyr.
And every other game that tried to fully create
a big world and ended up being about as fun
and involving as pulling your trousers round
your ankles and filling them with half a ton
of wet sand.
And while the Dresden Files style wizards
in New York malarkey is basically the equivalent
of Harlequin Romance novels for lonely men
in their 20s, I liked the characters, they
all had rounded backstories doled out both
through implication and, yes, admittedly dialogue
trees, but parceled effectively across multiple
between-chapter downtime bits, they don't
vomit their GCSE results at you the first
time you seem remotely interested.
And despite a few glaring holes the plot had
some interesting twists and in the end I was
engaged, and that's all you can ask for, really.
Well.
It's not all.
I could ask for a hand job but I'm pretty
sure you didn't bring the cream or the Long
John Silver costume.
