In The Charnel House Trilogy, I found a box full of dirt and worms in a train compartment, where a groaning freak was protecting it. I understand what that box represents, but I'm perplexed by The Charnel House Trilogy itself, a side-scrolling, low-resolution, point-and-click adventure that depicts a series of unsettling images that never coalesce into a story worth connecting with.
That isn't to say that The Charnel House Trilogy's three-chapter mystery is overly secretive, only that, unlike the train it takes place on, it never arrives at a distinct destination. In fact, one of the game's central enigmas is overtly revealed in much of the preceding dialogue, causing later events to land with too little weight, their power sucked away by lines that unearth secrets before they're given enough time to fester and simmer. This occurs in the game's central chapter, Sepulchre, which was originally released as a standalone short in 2013, and is notable for its overt but unsettling story of Harold, a man on a train. Yet like so many allegorical works, Sepulchre is not really a story about a man on a train--it's a story about mistakes and consequences, about how a single choice sets devastating events into unstoppable motion.
You can finish the trilogy in under two hours, so this statement isn't exactly true.
It's difficult to analyze a game like this without divulging key information, and almost every detail of Sepulchre--its main character's profession, the name of the aforementioned groaning freak, the state of the train's windows--points to its obvious conclusion. And its that lack of subtlety that proves the chapter's ultimate unraveling. This kind of setting has been used in a similar manner in fiction many times before, leaving the game's individual sights and sounds to provide most of the impact. I did find myself pulled in by some of these details: the high-pitched buzz that punctuated an important moment, the horror of the lights blinking off and on again, and the troubling sight of particularly oversized luggage among them. Yet given all the foreshadowing, I was only mildly disturbed; with the wind snuffed from Sepulchre's sails so quickly, I could only wonder which path it might take to arrive at its obvious finale.
Sepulchre is bookended by another story, told in chapters titled Inhale and Exhale. Inhale is remarkably short, and unusual in how it almost parodies other point-and-click adventures, to the game's overall detriment. The Charnel House Trilogy is hardly humorous, so Inhale's self-referential in-jokes, such as the heroine's sarcastic description of an object behind a lamp that clearly isn't there, sets a tone the ensuing adventure doesn't follow through on. It is an odd prologue, providing some background on Alex, The Charnel House Trilogy's other main character, but its out-of-place humor, its focus on puzzles, and its failure to adjust object interaction dialogue after certain story events make it a poor tone-setter for what's to follow. (Alex's reactions to books in her bookcase, for instance, make no sense once the related puzzle has been solved.)
Ah, yes. They're always catching a ride to the end of the line, aren't they?
Exhale is the final and longest chapter, and its story is simultaneously more straightforward and more vague than Sepulchre's. The events that led to Alex's presence on the train are plainly exposed, yet the game's attitude towards her is more positive than its ultimate depiction of Harold. Alex's choices drove her towards her predicament, yet her horror is not self-made in the way Harold's is. Alex's role as victim allows The Charnel House Trilogy's horror elements to finally bloom, driving Alex to learn hair-raising truths, and intriguingly, to interact with her past more directly than Harold does. Alex's awareness of her unusual circumstance is the game's most successful narrative beat, as it happens. She accepts the supernatural turn of events, and uses it as an opportunity to grow. What she discovers is horrifying, but where Harold can only accept fate, Alex tries to direct it.
There are other players in this story whose roles are left mostly unexplored, though The Charnel House Trilogy's conclusion hints that there will someday be answers to lingering questions. If you wonder why I haven't described the game's puzzles in much detail, it's because there isn't much to describe. You have an inventory that holds objects like your wallet, or cigarettes and a lighter, but most of the time, the dialogue informs you what you must do and where you must go; your interactions aren't usually puzzle-solving so much as they are direction-following. The Charnel House Trilogy is focused almost exclusively on its story, a story I wish impacted me more than it did. Inhale's in-jokes about adventure games and video game reviewers left me cold; Sepulchre's obvious foreshadowing neutered the story before it had any hope of grabbing me. It was Exhale that pulled me in, and its final, unresolved events left me longing for clarity, yet thankful for story strands that give me something to chew on. Overall, however, I am left puzzled by The Charnel House Trilogy, not because I don't understand it, but because its mishmash of themes and tones can't find a way to coexist.
Poor Esteban has a bit of an image problem. The shy, blue bull wants nothing more than to collect vibrant decorations to use in his art to share with the world. Sadly, due to his perfectionist nature, he is never satisfied with anything he creates. That is the conceit of the Insomniac-developed Slow Down, Bull, a game set up to donate half its profits to Starlight Children's Foundation, a charity aimed at improving the lives of children and their families. Slow Down, Bull is an item-collection game with wisdom to share for the overachievers in all of us. It's a fair game, if not an innovative one, pleasant to the eyes, though unfortunately held back in places due to rigid controls and some frustrating level design.
In Slow Down, Bull, you don't control Esteban so much as you guide his direction. The bull dashes forward across colorful 2-D landscapes. You can alter his course only by pressing two buttons which steer him left or right, accessing these buttons either by the clicks of a mouse, or the triggers on a controller. You bounce off walls to gain speed, avoiding dangerous obstacles and wandering creatures that inhabit the worlds, while collecting decorations ranging from buttons to shells and googly eyes--which follow in a floating clump behind him--for Esteban's beloved art projects, all within a time limit. Ramming trees and hedges along the walls causes them to drop decorations as well as stars, which add a multiplier bonus to the items you collect, while picking up random spawning clocks provides a few extra seconds.
Holding down both buttons allows you to charge, but watch that stress level.
Stress is the central element to watch for in Slow Down, Bull. It quickly builds up every time you steer, as well as when you hold down the buttons to briefly charge forward. Reaching the breaking point causes Esteban to become enraged and lose control, sending him on a path of destruction, trampling decorations into useless grey clumps. Hitting one of the many meandering inhabitants scatters your inventory onto the ground. And the inhabitants become impossible to avoid if they're right in front of you when Esteban snaps under pressure. Running straight, bouncing into walls, or splashing into a pool of refreshing water causes Esteban's stress levels to fall back to normal.
The progression in Slow Down, Bull takes its cues from many popular mobile games. As in Vector or Candy Crush Saga, levels are split into sections, each ending in a locked gate. Opening the gate requires you to collect a set number of hoof prints (replacing the more common stars), which are gathered by reaching point objectives during levels. You can collect up to three colored hoof prints in a level. The required number of decorations needed to gather all three is displayed by a progress bar that fills with every payload of collectables dropped into bins that dot each level. Finishing a stage rewards you with a single hoof print, but moving on from a section can require multiple attempts.
In some levels the action gets too hectic, leading to some frustrating moments.
Slow Down, Bull is challenging, though mostly in a positive way. As your bull-steering expertise grows, so too does your ability to gather even more treasured goods. You will begin to notice the areas in levels which promise to yield a high number of trinkets, as well as recognize the best times to turn in your collection of items before returning to nab some stars in order to eventually yield an even larger surplus of decorations. In many of the more well-designed levels, gathering two or even three hoof prints occurs smoothly, leaving you feeling both rewarded and satisfied. However, this isn't always the case.
There are a few levels that are far too trying in their attempt to stop your decoration-collecting schemes, made more difficult due to stiff controls. These stages waste little time swarming their rooms and corridors with vase- and window-carriers, blocking all but the narrowest of escape routes. If you can imagine awkwardly steering a bovine rocket through these obstacles, as you try to gather random souvenirs while an angry bull hunter gives chase, knowing that one mistake means a restart, then you have a sense of just how aggravating this game can become. Better controls could have made things flow more naturally, but sadly they only exacerbate the issue. When you're presented with too many obstacles (and you will be), trying to make precise turns to dodge them becomes a useless endeavor. It becomes especially difficult when much of that fight is against Esteban's fickle stress level. During the worst moments, for example, trying to hastily avoid every danger onscreen merely enrages the stressed-out Esteban, who runs directly into the very enemy you're desperately trying to avoid in the first place. Let's just say that Esteban isn't the only one occasionally hitting his head against a wall over events in Slow Down, Bull.
Esteban can move quickly. Watch out for obstacles!
The playful, clever art design, however, is wonderful, and kept me from staying too irritable with the light-hearted Slow Down, Bull for long. The aesthetics shrewdly mimes what you would expect from a child's imaginative art class presentation. Popsicle sticks make up barriers encompassing scenery crafted of pieces of green and yellow construction paper, creating a colorful grassland field, where blue patches of water crumple and bend as Esteban tramples across. In other areas, colored pasta makes up the shells of a sandy beach, and pink flowers attached to sticks bring the beautiful pink hues of a cherry blossom tree to Japanese-themed stages. Esteban himself is made up of blue and purple hatching lines of a crayon or colored pencil. This drawing technique is further highlighted in the game's adorable cut scenes, which star Esteban and other characters such as his sassy feline sister Mango and the relentless bull catcher Annette.
Despite some nagging issues, Slow Down, Bull is charming, with plenty of good messages to share for the whole family. During some cut scenes, the game takes a moment to provide lines of encouragement, from the value of hard work to never giving up on your goals, even if what you create, be it art or otherwise, isn't quite perfect. It's fair to say that the game would sit well with children or parents looking for a game with a cheerful nature and some worthwhile advice--though some of the more difficult stages do tarnish the theme. Still, Slow Down, Bull is a mildly entertaining little adventure, worth a look if only to help support a good cause. And that's something of which I feel Esteban would calmly approve.
No comments:
Post a Comment