One Year of Steam Deck

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year. The Steam Deck is my way to play PC games that I’ve missed over the years. I played well over twenty different games on the Deck so far. Fear and Hunger 2: Termina stands out as one of my favorites. Its artwork is fantastic and it does an exceptional job at setting a mood like the Silent Hill games do.

The Deck also allowed me to play some old console games I missed, including Final Fantasy XIII. FFXIII was worth trying simply to fill in the gap and understand its contribution to subsequent games in the series. Although it’s a good looking game with a decent battle system, the story wasn’t my thing. I was unable to defeat the final boss and don’t feel compelled to keep trying. I must have liked the game well enough to put about sixty hours into it.

I prefer to run games at settings that don’t cause the fans to run constantly. It’s a trade-off between pretty graphics and playing in a quiet, fan-free environment. Sacrificing framerates for more battery life seems like a no-brainer, especially for visual novels, turn-based games, and other titles lacking fast-paced action.

I always knew I wanted to use the Deck as both a portable device and as a gaming PC substitute, so I bought the Valve-made Docking Station. Some titles are more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse.

The Deck recognized my external monitor immediately and had no issues connecting. The Deck seems to run warm/hot when using a 2K resolution. Depending on the game, even running at 1920 x 1080 can tax the system.

Since I chose the mid-tier Deck model, I bought a 512 GB microSD card. It took less than two minutes to install the card, test it, and format it.

Everspace (2017)

Miscellaneous Notes About the Deck

• The Deck occasionally loses its Internet connection. Selecting the network in the wifi list typically resolves it. It happens most frequently after waking from sleep.
• Browsing the store in Gaming Mode is easier than it was about a year ago. There’s still no way to see the system requirements for a game. While not strictly necessary, it would be nice to have an idea of what to expect in terms of performance.
• The “Back” button in Gaming Mode behaves in a confusing manner. Sometimes when I try to go back to the previous store page, it takes me all the way back to my library (or somewhere else that I was a while ago). It’s like the system forgets where the user was most recently.
• In about a year of using the Deck, the OS has crashed a handful of times. It hasn’t been frequent enough to be concerning.
• By default, installing applications through the command line (for example, using pacman) requires some tinkering to set up. Valve warns that every SteamOS update may erase applications installed in this manner.

More Game Highlights from 2023

• Endless Space 2 was exactly the kind of 4X game I wanted to play when I bought it. It’s an easy one to play handheld.
• Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising is a fascinating little game released over twenty years ago. Its setting is similar in spirit to the kind of possible future described in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It combines real-time strategy gameplay with third-person vehicle combat.
• Killer7 works really well on the Deck. Occasionally I found it easier to use a mouse for the aiming. It’s great that such a unique game is available on modern systems. Highly recommended.
  

I’m looking forward to everything else I can do with this device, like making 3D artwork.

Valve recently announced a new OLED model of the Deck with improved battery life. It’s more of a refresh than a full-fledged Deck 2. Seeing Valve continue to iterate on the device is a good sign that the company plans to support it for many years to come.

Resist the Call

Siren came out in North America in 2004. It tells the story of a group of people becoming trapped in a small Japanese village called Hanuda. It follows their separate journeys as they struggle to figure out what’s going on and how to survive.

Cozy night-time scene.

The game still has a reputation for being one of the more difficult survival horror titles for the PlayStation 2. Part of this difficulty lies in how different Siren is from its peers. The game is divided into distinct stages with explicitly-stated mission objectives. Instead of following a single protagonist from start to finish, Siren bounces around between a wide cast of characters. Many of these playable characters begin the early stages with nothing more than a flashlight (if they even have one of those!).

The Link Navigator eventually becomes a sort of “stage selection” screen for the player.

Stealth is a key factor in most stages. Siren’s most famous game mechanic is called “Sightjacking.” Players are able to see through the eyes of other characters in the level, including any companions that may be with them as well as the enemies present. It’s assumed that players will spend a fair amount of time watching the enemies’ behavior and positioning to strategize how to complete the mission. It’s still surprising that other games didn’t embrace this mechanic. To my knowledge, only one recent title borrowed it: Atama.

Sightjacking is always from a first-person perspective.

The common enemy found in the game are called “shibito” (屍人, “corpse person”). They cannot be killed and after being incapacitated will always regenerate. Careful conservation of ammunition is required in stages where characters are fortunate enough to have firearms.

Shibito don’t remain static over the course of Siren. They slowly transform from humanoid undead into bizarre creatures that behave more like animals, including dogs, spiders, and flying insects. The creature design is easily a highlight.

The sounds these ones make is off-putting.

Siren's English-language release came after Silent Hill 2 and 3. Players would have likely been familiar with the mechanics of the SH series. Once players become accustomed to the combat mechanics in the SH series, it’s unlikely that they’ll actually get a game over. The combat in Siren feels different. The cast of characters are far more fragile. Plus, the enemies’ attacks are less predictable; they can alternate between strong attacks and fast jabs, much like the player can.

Despite these challenges, the nature of Siren's short levels means that re-doing a stage shouldn’t feel like a major setback. Replaying the stages is key to progression. Most stages have more than one objective and only one objective can be completed at a time. A stage is not truly cleared until both objectives are done. 

Even still, I recall feeling disappointed when forced to play a stage over after spending twenty minutes carefully navigating through the environment. It’s tricky balancing difficulty, tension, and fun. In some ways, Siren chose to emphasize the first two at the sacrifice of the last one.

It’s rare to get the drop on the shibito.

The story’s pacing is slow at first. With such a large cast, it takes time to get to know the characters and their connection to the village. Telling the story out of chronological order serves to make players feel the same bewilderment that the characters do. Something strange and dangerous is happening in Hanuda. We can’t help but empathize with the characters’ struggle to stay alive.

One element of Siren that may be difficult to discern is how true to life it is. Specifically, it captures many subtle elements of Japanese society and rural life that might not be readily obvious to folks who haven’t lived in Japan. Let’s look at some examples.

Appearance means a whole lot in Japan. We’re talking about how someone presents themselves: what clothes they wear and what that means to the people around them. When people see someone wearing a particular uniform, they tend to expect certain behaviors. (This phenomenon is likely true regardless of location, but seems to be more pronounced in Japan.) It’s alarming when patrol officer Ishida chases Suda Kyoya with gun drawn. At this point, Ishida isn’t a shibito. He’s likely drunk and may even be trying to keep Kyoya from speaking about the town’s secret ceremonies. Ishida’s behavior does not match his uniform.

Another character at odds with his profession is Miyata Shiro. He wears the stereotypical lab coat associated with his medical profession. Similar to Ishida above, Shiro’s murderous behavior does not match his uniform.

The facial technology used in Siren still looks pretty good even twenty years later.

Takeuchi Tamon wears his suit in an unconventional fashion for an academic; his style almost suggests a yakuza. Even his profile in the game’s manual calls him a “maverick” in academia. It’s suggested that Tamon has spent much of his life trying to uncover answers to the mysterious earthquake that destroyed his home in Hanuda 27 years prior to the events in the game. Perhaps his outfit is merely to reflect his monomaniacal obsession.

Tamon’s possession of a pistol is surprising because they are illegal in Japan. Shimura Akira, on the other hand, has a gun license that we find in one of the stages. Akira’s rifle is a Murata Type 22, a real weapon that was developed during the Meiji period.

On the topic of clothing, there are some small details that are easy to miss:

• Some of the shibito are wearing farming garb and wielding sickles. These outfits are common to rural Japan.
• Onda Mina’s white nurse’s uniform is still very much the norm for nurses in rural Japan.

The look of Hanuda village is also realistic. The cafeteria resembles a real small town restaurant, including the menus being posted on the wall. The houses, while out-dated, look authentic. There are even buildings made with corrugated metal. Players may want to spend a little time exploring the virtual streets of a random Japanese village just to see how accurate Siren is. I’m sure some readers are thinking “I know all this!” but it’s definitely an element of the game that went over my head when I first played it many years ago.

Akira is easily the most well-armed character for most of the game.

Part of what hindered me from playing Siren back when I first bought it was its difficulty; I never even made it to the game’s most notoriously challenging timed missions. I also found its story to be obtuse. Instead of making me intrigued, it served only to frustrate.

There’s one other factor that made it tough to play: Siren is a genuinely scary game. Or at least I found it to be particularly intimidating at the time. The shibito were the stuff of nightmares. I was used to zombies in other video games, but these weren’t the typical slow-moving shotgun fodder. There’s also a sense of all-encompassing dread throughout Siren. It feels apocalyptic. In many ways, the story is a tragedy. Siren achieves something uniquely terrifying in the survival horror genre.

Players collect artifacts throughout the stages like this one. There are 100 total in the game and all need to be collected to see the ending.

I still wish that we had the option to listen to the Japanese voices with English subtitles. The English dubbing is fine, but any translation/localization will necessarily make compromises and potentially miss subtle nuances. Including both audio tracks on a single PS2 disc may have proven impossible or too expensive.

I never parted with my original PS2 copy. I’m glad I held onto it. It’s unfortunate that the PlayStation 4 port didn’t offer any quality of life improvements (say, for example, save states).

It’s taken me many years to realize how much I appreciate what Siren accomplished. It’s one of the more brooding and dark survival horror games that’s ever been made.

Inspiring Vibe

Eastern Mind is a blog written by Bruno de Figueiredo. He calls it a “tumbleblog project.” It takes its name from the game by Satō Osamu. He published frequently after starting it in 2008 until he put the blog on hiatus in 2012. De Figueiredo continued writing in that time span. There’s a wealth of interesting thoughts and interviews on PostPlay and CoreGamers, not to mention the archive for COREgaming which was published contemporaneously with Eastern Mind.

After lying dormant for ten years, Eastern Mind returned in 2022.

Tripitaka (circa 1995)

The blog celebrates obscure Japanese media. Take, for example, Tripitaka, a game which has long been thought to be lost media. Only recently has a copy of Tripitaka gone up for auction, with the winning bidder agreeing to upload some game footage online. For more background information, check out De Figueiredo’s original post.

Readers are likely to discover something they’ve never seen before by exploring Eastern Mind. It’s how I heard about Humanity, a puzzle game released in May 2023. Readers should try the demo of Humanity available on the game’s Steam page. It reminded me of playing through PlayStation demo discs that used to come with video game magazines. These memories were likely activated because Humanity looks a little like I.Q.: Intelligent Qube (1997).

Humanity (2023)

It was serendipitous to see Maraganger mentioned on Eastern Mind. I’ve greatly enjoyed watching her videos on lesser-known video games that tend to focus on a vibe and/or aesthetic as opposed to more traditional game mechanics. 24 Killers is especially intriguing since it pays homage to Chulip (2007) and Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (1997). Which reminds me that I should really go back and finally beat Chulip after all these years...

Back to Wargaming

Returning to Tenkatōitsu

I recently opened up Tenkatōitsu again and played through the Battles of Nagakute and Yamazaki. It was good to see that even after more than a year of not playing the game, I still remembered the rules pretty well. The games played differently than the my first experiences, probably because the rules were second nature and I could focus a bit more on strategy.

The Yamazaki scenario had some interesting moments. For the first half of the match, Akechi Mitsuhide (the defending side) secured a comfortable Victory Point lead. His defenses held remarkably well. Hashiba Hideyoshi struggled with some nasty dice rolles that saw his armies suffer heavy losses. At this point, Akechi became a little overzealous and missed a good opportunity to retreat into the castle to wait out a siege. Hashiba made a comeback and started wiping out Akechi’s forces, quickly overtaking Akechi in victory points.

Hashiba’s army started to get crowded behind the front lines. I’d be interested to see other strategies to avoid the traffic jam that is likely to occur for Hashiba’s troops.

Before long it became clear that Akechi’s only hope was to pull back and try to eke out a draw rather than outright defeat. The most exciting part of the match happened when a retreating Akechi pulled Hashiba to a vulnerable position all by himself. Akechi pounced: all three units of Akechi’s clan were able to surround Hashiba. The dice were rolled and Hashiba… took some damage but managed to scrape by with his life. If Hashiba had died there, Akechi would have won regardless of Hashiba’s Victory Point total. Even though Akechi ultimately lost, it made for a memorable match.

Those familiar with Tenkatōitsu will likely know that leaders only die if their unit is wiped out and they fail to make a leader loss saving throw (rolling anything other than a 5 or a 6 on a six-sided die). That’s a %66.7 chance of losing the game based on the loss of one unit.

I decided to take a break instead of playing through the Sekigahara scenario. I’m looking forward to trying that battle again since I remember liking it the best out of the three scenarios included. Granted, it’s easily the most complicated and the largest in terms of the armies involved.

A New Game to Learn

While browsing around for other board wargames that might be interesting, I stumbled upon Empire of the Sun, a game about the Pacific War between the Allies and Empire of Japan from 1941 to 1945. The game has been around since 2005, meaning that it’s not too difficult to find cheaper copies available second-hand. I decided to buy a copy of the second edition (first printing) and see if I could puzzle my way through the rules.

Learning a new game can be tough, especially when it’s complex.

Re-reading my thoughts about other board wargames I was interested in trying back in 2021 (see the third paragraph from the bottom of this play report), I recognize now that I’m a little wary about buying games that were published more than thirty years ago. I’m sure there are plenty of great games from those periods, but I worry about how long the components will last. Will cardboard that was made in the 1970s or 1980s hold up for much longer? Perhaps it’s an unfounded fear. For the time being, I’ll continue to focus on games that were printed more recently.

Tenkatōitsu and Empire of the Sun are incredibly different. EotS is a strategic-level game, meaning that the scale is far larger (one hex in EotS is equal to about 150 miles and unit sizes vary but can be as many as tens of thousands of soldiers). On top of that, there are political systems that are absent from Tenkatōitsu. For one, the Allies need to keep track of the Political Will tracker, which measures the willingness of the American public to continue fighting the war. If it’s at zero when a turn ends, the Americans are forced to enter negotiations and the Empire of Japan player wins.

While Tenkatōitsu boasts about 534 counters, EotS only has 280 counters. Yet the games use their counters differently. For example, if players want to go through the full Pacific War almost all 280 counters will come into play. Players will likely never use all 534 of Tenkatōitsu’s counters.

EotS features a card-driven system. It allows for a high degree of replayability due to the high number of hands possible. Players take turns using cards either as Operations or as Events. It’s a great way to force players to consider their strategies carefully. Every card has an Operations Value ranging from 1 to 3. This number determines the amount of units that can be activated and their allowable movement points. The cards act as a limited resource from one turn to another. For example, only Event cards allow players to declare more than one battle hex at a time. Declaring multiple battle hexes can pin down armies that would otherwise be free to react to the main objective the player has in mind.

The components are a sight to behold.

The rulebook included with Tenkatōitsu was translated from French to English. There are occasional typos and phrases that sound a little odd. Yet the rulebook is moderately easy to follow for someone new to the hobby.

EotS is a lot more complicated. It’s been necessary to go back and re-read different sections more than once. Some of the more difficult concepts to get used to are the procedures for activating units, tracing supply lines, and determining Zones of Influence (ZOIs). I’ve found the rulebook a little difficult to parse at times. Thankfully, there’s a wealth of tutorials online.

The physical components are pretty solid. The mounted map is fantastic. It makes a sheet of plexiglass unnecessary. The cards are well designed and easy to read. While I like the colors used for the units, I wish that the counters had been cut as well as those in Tenkatōitsu. Granted, this printing predates that game by about two years. Eventually I might have to clip some of the corners of the counters that have extra bits of cardboard fluff – a process that I do not look forward to (I can easily see myself cutting a little too much off a counter). There’s a lot more counter stacking in EotS, meaning that having clipped corners might be worth it in the long run. The only other major downside to having the first printing version of the second edition is that the box is quite small. The counters will have to live in a separate plastic container for the time being.

The board looks great.

Starting in the second edition, a system was included to offer solitaire players an opponent called “Erasmus” (named after the evil robot from the Dune sequels). Erasmus is a set of rules and flowcharts to follow to make decisions for either side. Erasmus will never contravene the game’s normal rules, making it one way to learn some basic strategies.

Despite the complexity, I feel like I’m slowly getting a handle on the rules. It’ll take longer to understand what each side should be focusing on from turn to turn, but that’s part of the fun of playing. Peeking at what Erasmus would do in a given situation might offer some help, at least until I develop my own play style.

After playing a few turns physically, I downloaded the Vassal module for EotS and ran through the sample 1941 turn included in the rules a second time. Vassal is an application available at no charge to play board games. Being about to toggle the Zones of Influence is really helpful. It’s also nice to let the computer set up the scenarios for you. Of course, that process will become quicker as I become more familiar with the units and the map.

The Vassal module is well made.

Japanese history has always been a favorite, especially the Meiji period and the contradictions that emerged in Japanese society. The Meiji elites decided to adopt Western technology and concepts with the intent of expelling Western powers from the Japanese Empire’s sphere of influence. There was a determination to preserve Japanese traditions and customs (and invent new ones in the process; see the book Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan by Takashi Fujitani). Yet by adopting Western ways of viewing the world (including, for example, imperialism) did Japan not lose some of its unique, pre-Meiji Restoration identity?

Japanese history, like all history, was not preordained: any number of paths were possible for Japan. Reading about the Pacific War reveals the fierce disagreements among the elites about what the Japanese Empire should prioritize. Some hardliners wanted to conquer all of China. Others voiced concerns about over-extending Japan’s limited manpower and resources. In many instances, cliques of the Imperial Japanese Army essentially forced the government in Tokyo to pursue more aggressive land grabs.

Overall, I’ve been enjoying my time with EotS. It’s been fascinating to compare it to Tenkatōitsu. There’s a lot of variety in the board wargame genre. EotS might be my upper limit for complexity. We’ll see how I feel after I get a better grip on the rules.

Visual Novels: More Story, Less Game

After finishing Disco Elysium, I felt like I wanted to play some games that were purely focused on their stories. As much as I enjoyed DE, there were times when the game mechanics felt like they slowed the pace down.

So I started playing some more visual novels. What other game genre puts all of its focus on story? There are many VNs that don’t have any mechanics to speak of.

Higurashi When They Cry (Chapter One)

I’m a little familiar with VNs. The first VN I ever played through was Katawa Shoujo. It’s a remarkable team effort made by a group of people online. Despite its insensitive title, it has a decent story. It’s easy to tell that the developers meant well. It’s available for free online.

Next I played Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet. It’s a sad story. I enjoyed it, but don’t have much else to say about it. Only the HD version remains on Steam.

Higurashi When They Cry is likely one of the most famous VN series nowadays. The author goes by the pen name Ryukishi07 and is attached to write the upcoming Silent Hill f. While I’m lumping this one in the VN category, the author marketed the games as “sound novels.” He might have done so to compensate for his artwork? I mean, I like the quirkiness of it but I can understand why he would have chosen to emphasize another element of the games. The series is divided into “chapters,” with the first one available for free on Steam. There’s a fan mod called “07th-Mod” that adds a bunch of features to the Steam version. I’ve only read the first chapter but I’m looking forward to eventually reading the rest.

Recently, I played Kara no Shoujo after looking online for lists of the best horror visual novels. It’s a murder mystery story where the player takes the role of a detective investigating a series of murders in post-war Japan. Those interested in reading it should probably check a content warning list since it’s pretty dark with a fair amount of explicit imagery.

While I have enjoyed the story, I found the crime scene investigation sections a little unforgiving. The player has a limited number of actions per section, and it’s unclear which parts of the scene need to be investigated to find the best clues. I’ve reached the main bad ending and still intend to go back to get one of the other endings.

There’s a full HD-remake currently in development, so it might be wise to wait for that instead of buying the version currently available on Steam.

Finally, I played through Doki Doki Literature Club. Most folks have likely heard of it. It’s worth checking out. There are two versions of DDLC, one that’s free and one that features more content.

Background Artwork

Higurashi When They Cry (Chapter One)

I noticed after reading some VNs that I really admire the background artwork. The character artwork tends to be the main focus of VNs. With that said, there is usually the same amount of care and effort put into some gorgeous backgrounds. I was interested in finding out how the artists put these backgrounds together. There’s a uniformity to the backgrounds seen in, for example, DDLC that made me wonder whether the artist was using 3D modeling in the process. While I don’t know for sure, I browsed online and stumbled across a VN development blog for a project called Aurora’s Nightmare. The blog post titled “How Backgrounds are Made” offers some insights into one artist’s process. It’s pretty informative and I hope to find more artists pulling back the curtain.

Summer Reading 2023

SPOILER WARNING: The following paragraphs contain spoilers for all of the novels discussed.

This summer, I’ve been reading a lot of (mostly sci-fi) novels. This year has rekindled my love of sci-fi in all sorts of media. I’ve been playing video games set in space (including Endless Space 2 and Everspace to name just two of them). There’s something calming about the vast, unknowable reaches of the universe.

I felt like writing a few words about the books I’ve read.

The Dark Forest (2008)

Liu Cixin’s follow-up to his 2006 novel The Three Body Problem follows humanity’s response to the threat of invasion by the Trisolans. Humans have about 400 years before the Trisolaran fleet will reach the solar system.

The Wallfacer Program is an initiative designed to prevent Trisolarans from understanding humanity’s true strategy. Trisolarans, unlike humans, broadcast their thoughts to each other and lack the ability to hide their thoughts. Although Trisolarans are able to spy on humanity thanks to their subatomic artificial intelligences (the sophons, described in greater detail in The Three Body Problem), they still can’t penetrate human thoughts. The Wallfacers are given access to enormous power and resources in order to create strategies to fight the Trisolarans.

We spend most of the novel following Luo Ji, a lazy professor who breezes through life in a nihilistic funk. He is chosen as a Wallfacer because the Trisolarans seem intent on murdering him for reasons that become clear as the novel goes on.

The story starts to feel like one written by Philip K. Dick once Luo Ji enters hibernation for 200 years and is awakened in the future. In this future society, every surface can be used as an advanced touch-display computer. These surfaces constantly show advertisements. Most humans live in large underground cities, complete with artificial skies. Despite the passing of two centuries, people are still paying rent. Dick’s stories frequently feature bizarre dystopian societies like the one described here.

Luo Ji describes this horrifying world of the future as a “utopia.” Is this the author Liu Cixin revealing his own political views? It’s hard to look at the society described as anything more than “what if the status quo but with more technology?”

Luo Ji spends a fair amount of the story pining after a fictional woman that he dreams up. This section is fascinating and speaks to modern alienation and narcissism. It also feels like a plot thread that wouldn’t be out of place in a Murakami Haruki novel. Unfortunately, it becomes far less interesting because Luo Ji is able to use his Wallfacer status to find someone that matches this fictional creation perfectly.

Luo Ji’s fictional love interest made flesh is named Zhuang Yan and she’s easily the worst part of the story. It’s not her fault, of course. She doesn’t feel like a real person. She is a flat character without any motivations. She seems to exist only to make Luo Ji happy. Their rapid courtship and marriage feel unrealistic. Why would she marry this unremarkable professor who doesn’t seem to care about the future of humanity? I’m not entirely sure what the author was trying to accomplish with Zhuang Yan, but it ultimately didn’t work for me. Is her only purpose to give Luo Ji a reason to keep working?

Luo Ji is an interesting character – like most good characters – because of his flaws. For most of the novel he feels hopeless about humanity’s future and decides to stop worrying about it and enjoy his privileged life as a Wallfacer. He eventually figures out the Dark Forest theory of planetary civilizations. This theory argues that the universe is a dark forest and each civilization is like a hunter moving from tree to tree, trying to spot threats and avoid others entirely.

What makes the novel worth reading are all of the plans and strategies people come up with to respond to the threat of imminent destruction. Most of the plans fail in spectacular fashion. There’s also a healthy serving of weirdness throughout the story.

Echopraxia (2014)

This novel by Peter Watts is a sequel Blindsight (2006). We follow Daniel Brüks, an unlikable biologist who is swept up in events outside of his control and understanding. Brüks finds himself fleeing Earth on the ship Crown of Thorns after a confused attack on a Bicameral Order base in the Oregon desert. The Bicamerals are people who have modified themselves so much that they have become a sort of hive mind. They also eschew the scientific method in favor of a sort of faith-based research.

Blindsight asks, “Is consciousness an evolutionary dead-end?” Watts confesses in the appendix of Echopraxia that he doesn’t have much more to say about consciousness. Instead, Echopraxia is concerned with other questions about baseline (i.e., non-augmented) humanity’s eventual obsolescence. Watts even tackles questions about science-as-act-of-faith. For example, the idea that any data interpreted by a human can’t be trusted since our perception of reality is anything but reliable.

On board the Crown of Thorns are Jim Moore, a soldier and the father of Siri Keeton (which makes Jim our main connection to the characters of Blindsight); Rakshi Sengupta, the ship’s pilot; Lianna Lutterodt, an augmented woman who wants to eventually merge with the Bicameral hivemind; a collection of Bicameral hivemind members; and Valerie the “vampire.”

Vampires in this setting are described more thoroughly in Blindsight. They’re another species of humanoids that were brought back from extinction by humans. They’re far more capable than baseline humans: stronger, faster, and – most importantly – smarter. Despite their strengths, they suffer a condition called the “Crucifix Glitch,” which causes their brain to short circuit if they see right angles. Only medication can prevent this glitch from happening. Humans bring them back from extinction to exploit them. There are hints at the end of Blindsight that the vampires on Earth have revolted against humans. Echopraxia continues that thread.

Watts’ prose is fresh as ever. The story has a brisk pace. The characters feel well-constructed. I ultimately enjoyed reading this one, but it still feels like it’s just not as good as Blindsight. For those who haven’t read Blindsight, it’s freely available (under a Creative Commons License) from the author’s website. (Echopraxia does not seem to be distributed under the same license.)

Starfish (1999)

Peter Watts’ first published novel is set in a deep-sea facility called Beebe that harvests energy from underwater thermal vents. The people that live and work in the facility to keep it operational are chosen based on their unique backgrounds. These people call themselves “Rifters” and it quickly becomes clear that they have all traumatic pasts. Although their reasons for staying in such a hostile and terrifying environment differ, most of them find the deep sea to be the only place they feel comfortable.

Content Warning: There are some heavy topics discussed. Although this review won’t get into the details, anyone interested in reading the novel would be wise to check out summaries online.

Despite its difficult subject matter, Starfish is an incredible book. It’s an easier read than Blindsight; it’s also more chilling. Watts does an admirable job at describing the horrors of the abyss. It’s not only the fear of some gigantic sea creature that might take a bite out of your leg: the constant darkness, high pressure, and isolation are arguably more threatening. Even worse is the effect that this hostile environment has on the cast. The characters slowly embrace the abyss and eventually they recognize that they’ve all changed irreversibly. Most of the characters take to sleeping outside the station at least part of the time. It feels wrong in a horrifying way.

Reading Starfish made me wonder what a darker, more psychological version of Subnautica might look like. People who enjoyed playing Subnautica may appreciate this book.

There are two sequels: Maelstrom and βehemoth. All of the novels in the Rifters series are freely available online (distributed under a Creative Commons license) from the author’s website.

Annihilation (2014)

Before getting to the novel, we’ll take a look at the film adaption which was released in 2018. The film follows a group of highly educated women specialists as they enter a mysterious Area X under the auspices of “Southern Reach,” presumably a secret organization run by the US government. Our protagonist is the biologist of the group, who has a personal connection to Area X: her husband is a member of a previous expedition to the quarantined zone who returns home unexpectedly after being missing for eighteen months.

I’ve seen the film twice since it released – most recently only a few months prior to this writing – and have greatly enjoyed it both times. The filmmakers working on this project were willing to eschew marketability for strangeness.

We need more weird films. I love to see movies that are unlike anything I’ve seen before. Annihilation fits into that category nicely. It’s an easy one to recommend to others since it has a digestible story. Although it leaves some room for interpretation and doesn’t explain everything, most viewers should be able to explain briefly what happens in the plot. Of course, films that leave us with more questions than answers are a treat.

I’m a big fan of “what if” stories that wonder how difficult it would be to communicate in any meaningful manner with intelligent life from other planets (Blindsight may be the gold standard in this category that I’ve read so far). The best stories are the ones that wonder if communication wouldn’t be utterly impossible. Our feeble human brains can’t fathom exactly how alien that other life might be. There may be no common ground whatsoever. In fact, we may never know that attempts to communicate were even made. The film Arrival from 2016 was a big let-down due to how easily the humans overcome the language barrier.

Annihilation imagines alien life as being incomprehensible. During the conclusion of the film, interviewers ask the biologist what the creatures wanted. She says she doesn’t know. She explains that she doesn’t know whether the alien life was even aware of her.

Jeff VanderMeer’s novel is quite different from the film. It’s not surprising; concessions have to be made when adapting any material from one medium to another. The DNA of the novel can be seen in the film. It feels like the filmmakers wanted the core feeling of the novel and the freedom to take it and do their own thing with it.

The characters are unnamed in the novel and instead are only referred to by their job title. The novel is presented as the written record kept by the biologist. The team sent into Area X is smaller, with only four members: the biologist, the psychologist, the surveyor, and the archaeologist. The psychologist is the leader and is slowly revealed to use hypnosis to control the others.

The characters spend a great deal of the story investigating a subterranean structure (the biologist insists on calling it a “tower” while the others refer to it as a “tunnel”). This structure is combined with the lighthouse in the film. We learn far more about the biologist’s past in the novel.

Both film and novel are easy recommendations. The novel is short — just shy of 200 pages — and is the first part of a trilogy; the sequels are Authority and Acceptance.

The Sad Discotheque Detective Story

He bought Disco Elysium back in 2020, shortly after he had also purchased a shiny, new laptop computer. The game’s system requirements appeared to be surprisingly low, meaning that his laptop -- which boasted no graphics card -- *should* be able to run it.

INTERFACING [Medium: Failure] – The laptop *could* run it. Not well. But it could.

Disappointed but still happy to support independent developers making overtly political games, he promised that he would someday have a gaming rig to play the title.

Maybe he would finally get around to building such a PC himself. He had only been talking about doing it for the past four years.

……

Two years later.

He finally has a device which can play the game: a Steam Deck.

The game consumes time. One or two conversations can easily take up an hour or two of real-time.

It’s easy to get lost, even though the setting is fairly small. He struggles to make progress; he worries that he’s not making the best choices.

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] – He’s not making the best choices.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success] – He really should have watched someone else play the game for a little while to get the hang of it. Too late.

He is at the end of the game and he finally understands how to plan ahead for success.

The writing is incredible.

COMPOSURE [Godly: Failure] – And difficult to emulate.

Those who have not yet tried the game should be aware that, at the end of the day, it should be viewed as an interactive story. There is no combat.

……

There’s nothing else quite like Disco Elysium out there. Perhaps there will be someday. There seem to be enough fans of the game.

Unfortunately, there was some reason why there may not be a sequel (spiritual or otherwise) any time soon. He tries to remember…

DRAMA [Trivial: Success] – Oh yes. The people who actually *made* the game have lost control over its future. At least for now.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] – The game wants to be free; free from the greedy cretins who had no part in its development.

For the time being, those who enjoyed getting lost in the world of Elysium should read the novel called A Sacred and Terrible Air written by Robert Kurvitz. Kurvitz is the lead designer and writer of the game.

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] – You know. The writer who was forced out of the organization that made the game.

This book is also set in the world of Elysium. Upon its release nearly ten years ago, it apparently sold a mere 1,000 copies. In some ways, the game only exists because the novel failed.