Summer Plans Made Too Late and a Birthday Weekend Update

There's a lot of covering up of pass details, but I can assure you that Hikau, the Robot is a fun game. —Taken with an iPhone 8 

There were a couple of things I wanted to try out this summer that, unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to do—the major one being a trip on the local water taxi.

This was on me for buying a season pass way too late into the season (Mid-August)—and finding out that the taxi's hop-on hop-off service only operates on Saturday and Sunday. My Dad was working on the deck over the summer and since we both managed to frequently get Saturdays off, I wanted to be present to help him when he needed it—especially when the heat managed to break. 

The other one was a Grub Street virtual class and they had some really neat ones including one on writing unlikeable characters and a scriptwriting workshop. I'm not worried about missing them—I feel like they'll come up again regardless of season. 

However, I do have one day trip left back to Boston to start off the birthday weekend—and to properly close off summer. This trip is going to be a little different and will be more of a proper downtown tour. I'm going to post the highlights as I go on Mastodon—with later crossposting to Twitter*—and will probably do a longer blog post about it later on next month. 

What else? 

Shipwreck Lane will be a review for October. I might sneak a poll in next week to see what game I should review before the end of the year. 

Hope you all had a good summer! 

*I no longer use Twitter on my mobile devices, meaning that I don't log into Twitter as much as I used to.   

Islets & Islanders—An All-Accommodating Getaway Package

Even if I took this photo in mid-May, I enjoy having an early sunrise in the summertime. Not so much the late sunsets though for some reason. —Taken with an iPhone 8 

Summer and I do not exactly get along. Sure, there may be more opportunities for adventure and spectacle with a local fireworks show—unrelated to US Independence Day—but it is the extensive heat that sours what is otherwise a low-key season. Walks were something I would usually avoid in summer more or less because, well, I usually end up in a aura of moisture about ten to fifteen minutes in—sometimes after I make it across the street. While it might be a bit of bummer, the little things like a Dairy Queen Blizzard treat,  or going to a family reunion at a lake house make the season worthwhile. The ideal summer image of a tropical island vacation also sounds promising with two games making up a vacation package of easy-going fun.

One of many quirky and lovable characters who reside in the sky islands. —Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode) 

The first stop in this vacation cruise is a journey to the skies where a chain of once-connected islands lies scattered across the clouds in Islets—a game developed by Kyle Thompson for Armor Games Studios. The official website describes the game as “A Surprisingly Wholesome Metroidvania” and, while I think it fits the adventure to a tee, it also does not do the game proper justice. Even if I was alternating between this game and Tears of the Kingdom back in June, I found Islets to be a vibrant and refreshing change of pace. This starts with our main character, a warrior mouse named Iko, who sets forth on a journey to join the sky islands together again and he is far from alone as a competing warrior, an overzealous show-off named Snoot, manages to tear down Iko’s boat by merely revving his own airship. Once Iko crashes onto the lush green plains of Northstable Island, his quest truly begins with a simple tutorial and some low-fi beats from the game’s composer, Eric Thompson.

The controls are very easy to get the hang of—even if I sometimes forgot I could do forward rolls—and the power ups are the usual standard metroidvania fare. Players familiar with Hollow Knight will recognize the double jump and Islets's own approach to wall-clinging abilities where Iko can just climb straight up to the top. When Islets does its own thing, though, it does so it a cool fashion from arrows that can create contrails for platforms to airship boss fights which feel like something out of Cotton, Darius, or Turrican. 

The big innovator which fully gives Islets that refreshing change of pace is the exploration itself. While Iko might not have the expansive move set of someone like the Knight, the act of reconnecting the islands acts a series of power-ups to encourage backtracking. Each time I added an island back to the chain, the journey back through them almost felt like new with additional pathways sandwiched between adjacent ares instead of a mere trek around the map. The visuals themselves, while not as detailed as Hollow Knight or Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, still breath life into the aerial archipelago and the characters who fly about them and the hub town, Sky City. If the links between islands are like powers-ups, the characters and how they develop act as pieces of lore, in which denizens tell Iko about landmarks and points of interest.

An unexpected highlight of Islets, which puts some arcade-like action into a Metroidvania. —Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode)  

Even for a game that makes simplicity shine in everything from world-building and character development to gameplay, there are some rough patches of turbulence—mostly in the form of boss battles. While I found it really cool that said bosses and normal enemies had projectiles that were easy to see—and simple tells of attack prep with a few exclamation marks—the big behemoths felt like they took forever to defeat. Even if these fights get tedious after awhile, the sword-fighting does not feel out of place. The variations between the difficultly levels are not much to write home about either—the more difficult the setting, the stronger the foes are. They also develop more complex bullet patterns between each tier, but it feels more subtle with the most notable difference being in the first boss’s second phase with both easy and normal modes being completely identical.   

The last little niggle deals with Islets own version of health and ammo bonuses—a roulette of additional perks which range from the afermentioned to adding extra power to every other attack and in-game currency you can use in Sky City for other perks. This is another one of Islets’s neat twists to the metroidvania formula and most of them are not that difficult to obtain. The ones that pose some trouble seldom require extreme coordination or reflexes, making Islets easy to fully complete. As for the rewards, even if there is a choice whether to play it safe with a health increase or risk it for gold, the variety in choice sometimes varies greatly. The incremental increases offered both with said pickups and the Sky City stores might prompt players continuously go for the former, but considering how easy it is to gain funds, there is some breathing room. 

Islets might lack the palm trees of a tropical beach resort in both in the literal and figurative sense, but it is still a metroidvania that manages to both accommodate newcomers and challenge the pros simultaneously.

This island reminded me of Windwaker while I was building the mills and cities. I couldn't help but think of Windfall Island. —Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode)

The next destination is a proper cruise from one island to the next where the cities, tourist attractions, and even the agriculture turn the vacationer to a full-time construction worker in Islanders—an indie game developed by Grizzly Games. Unlike the intense focus on finances, budgeting, and proper zoning in similar titles like Sim City, Islanders focuses more on just developing the procedurally-generated islands into livable spaces while aiming for a high score. Each island requires a certain amount of development and points before the player can start an expedition to the next one and the key to a quick getaway is, well, zoning by building type. Each building can benefit from either adjacent structures—like mills and fields—or by the surrounding resources, which can significantly bolster the score. Even if a player reaches the expedition cap, they can still continue to further develop the island with fountains, parks, and towers among other options. 

Even if the sessions can be short—usually between one to two hours—Islanders has quite a bit of depth with its gameplay with situations that require some out-of-the-box thinking. There may be islands where the game provides you with multiple wooden piers (or plateaus) in order to make up for the lack of land mass. Some locales might even provide you with major buildings and exclude the smaller producers—think sawmills without lumberjacks or mills without fields. Even particular buildings like the Shaman’s Hut involve some pixel-perfect placement to get the highest amount of points possible, and to make up for the reduction if there is a mansion nearby. 

This deceptively simple gameplay loop kept me enthralled with Islanders with each session I played while the 3D visuals and music evoked that relaxing island atmosphere. There are both tropical and snowy islands alongside many interesting geographic variations which help keep the game fresh. For those who just want to get creative, the game also includes a “sandbox mode” that takes the scoring system out completely. Both modes make Islanders into a game that embraces the best aspects of summer—a laid-back day at the resort with a crossword puzzle and piña colada. (Other drinks are available.)     

Top: Another one of my favorite builds in Islanders, featuring some of the 
Bottom: A tour guide contemplates a price hike in Islets. —Both Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode) 

From sky back to the seas, the full vacation package contains a duo of pick-up-and-play titles that manage to balance both challenge and difficultly. Islets might have boss fights that feel like in-flight delays, but the journey across and between the sky islands provides a fresh take on metroidvanias for veterans and newcomers alike. The follow-cruise with Islanders suffers the opposite problem with (sometimes) short sessions, but the gameplay is engrossing enough to keep the momentum. Whether you are big into metroidvanis or want the therapeutic experience of constructing an island city without noise pollution, this vacation package has you covered! 

Islets In Sum: Brave Mouse Discovers New Technology. Epic Monsters Still Rampant: 8.5 out of 10 

Islanders In Sum: Urban Development at Its Ideal (Albeit Brief)—Tranquil and Deceptively Easy: 9.5 out of 10 

Goldeneye 007: The Making of an N64 Classic—Gaming Memories are Forever

Probably my favorite cover in the entire Boss Fight Books series— Taken with an iPhone 8  

I was barely seven when Goldeneye came out on the Nintendo 64 and the only opportunity I had to play the game would not be until a few years later when I slept over at a friend’s house. We booted up the game in the late hours of the morning and, while my memory is a bit vague about what levels we played or whether his Dad rented or owned the game, we spent two hours having a blast in multiplayer. With the game now a part of the Switch Online games catalog, I was able to experience that same joy again through the single-player campaign…after I figured out the updated control scheme. Yet, it is the story about how the Goldeneye 007 game came to be which made me appreciate it even more with a recent addition to the Boss Fight Books lineup. 

Written by English professor, Alyse Knorr, Goldeneye 007: The Making of an N64 Classic is a book that provides an in-depth historical account into the how Rare developed one of the Nintendo 64’s legendary titles. There are two editions to this specific book—a regular paperback and a deluxe hardcover with design documents, pictures, and even a bonus chapter on how they developed the game’s soundtrack—and I backed the the latter during their Kickstarter campaign. No matter what edition you buy, Knorr’s in-depth account of both the game’s development and the James Bond franchise itself remains the same. Everything surrounding the Goldeneye 007 game gets through coverage—the history of Rare and Ultimate: Play the Game, what led to them and Nintendo claiming a license to Ian Fleming’s suave spy in 1995, the James Bond games which came after, etc—and the chapters dedicated to a specific aspect of development feel very much like an extended, behind-the-scenes feature for a film or television show. If you are wondering what the secret to Goldeneye’s memorable multiplayer was and how it came to be, or how they worked on the in-game models and animations, Knorr has you covered.

If you want to know how Grant Kirkhope and Graeme Norgate managed to make the iconic James Bond theme fit onto an Nintendo 64 cartridge, you will not be able to find it in the standard, paperback edition. It felt weird to me that there was a bonus chapter smack dab near the end of the book between the one on multiplayer and the other on the Nintendo 64’s struggles during Goldeneye’s development alongside how the team dealt with the violence in the game—with feedback from Nintendo and even MGM. The transition between them does not feel abrupt or awkward, but the absence of Kirkhope and Norgate’s contributions did not make any sense to me. If I instead decided on the standard edition, it would be the only setback to an otherwise well-detailed account.

The drawings, diagrams, and even reference photos do feel like a nice bonus feature with the deluxe edition. For someone like me who only had brief experiences with the game, it was cool to put faces to names, see how particular places and actors transitioned into in-game models, and how the menu’s manila folder UI developed into the file select and mission briefing screens. Players passionate about gaming history and development will be spoiled rotten with motion capture models, sketches of in-game areas, original design documents outlining what Goldeneye would be, and so much more. Both these additions and the bonus chapter combined make the deluxe hardcover feel more like the definitive edition of Knorr’s book, making it worth the US $29.95 price tag—double the price of the standard paperback at US $14.95.  

Even so, every edition of Alyse Knorr’s Goldeneye 007: The Making of an N64 Classic does the game justice in the same Boss Fight Books style—where personal narrative weaves itself with academic rigor. Compared to the other books I enjoyed—Matt Margini’s Red Dead Redemption and Gabe Durham’s Majora’s Mask—Knorr’s own experiences not only entwines itself into the stories of Goldeneye’s development, but compliments them gracefully. Her love for Goldeneye shows in both her personal experiences, and her own research and interviews with the development team. Anyone interested in the history of first-person shooters, gaming in general, or just fondly remember playing this game will find themselves with the perfect martini of a book—shaken, not stirred.   

In Sum: A love letter to a classic, late 1990s video game that goes above and beyond, but somewhat blows its cover with an extra chapter in hardcover that, while still thoroughly researched, would work better in both editions. Even so, it's a rich dossier—4 out of 5 Stars   

Boss Fight Books does sell the deluxe hardcover as an e-book for US $11.95 (at time of writing) in case you are interested in both the bonus chapter and the additional design documents, but do not want to shell out US $30 or prefer reading it in a digital format.