The Indiest Indies and Avoiding the News

I have had two tasks this week:  Play some very indie games whose classifications as actual "games" might be questionable AAAANNNND avoid all the pre-excitement, pre-reviewing, of the very soon upcoming (March 21st--unless you're one of those Origin Access people) Mass Effect:  Andromeda.  My success at these two tasks is a bit of a mixed bag.  I've played the indies and tried my best not to read the news.

Some of the pictures, apps, and messages you see in "A Normal Lost Phone"

In a partial effort to distract myself from the mania of pre-release (still haven't pre-ordered!  I should win a prize) I decided to purchase a couple of low-priced indies.  I started off with the very straightforwardly titled A Normal Lost Phone which is shockingly about a lost phone.  The entire premise for the game is that you have found a phone and you are trying to figure out to who it belongs so you can nobly return it (it's that way in my head anyway).  As you read through the numerous messages you start to build an image in your head about who the owner of the phone and get an idea about the events surrounding the loss of the phone.  It's a little jarring to read an extremely harsh message demanding that the owner of the phone stop attending a board game club.  Jeez, what did this kid do to make people so mad?

There's a bit of a game-y aspect as you unravel passwords and dig deeper into the story, but really, that's about as "game" as it gets.  The plot thickens as you learn that the owner of the phone is keeping some very personal secrets from his family.  I don't want to spoil it so that's all I am going to say.  To learn the truth about the owner of the phone you need to pay attention to the details and read everything.  I will admit that A Normal Lost Phone isn't a game that everyone will enjoy and at times it can seem a little pushy about some of the issues that are relevant to the story, but overall I thought there was a valuable lesson to be taken away from the slow unraveling of the secrets of a stranger.

Looks can be deceiving....that's true of this game and the story.

After I finished my phone investigation I decided to switch gears to being a real detective (or not....but no spoilers!) and gave Her Story a whirl.  Her Story is a bit like piecing together an intricate murder puzzle using very short video clips.  Part of the challenge is trying to figure out which queries to pose to get the right videos that will drop a vital piece of evidence so you can keep the chain moving along.  Eventually you start to get some kind of idea about what actually happened to Simon Smith--but, if you're me, you have no idea if your theory is correct.  I made some solid progress and felt like I had a somewhat clear idea then I just couldn't think of any new queries to move the story to where I felt like it was absolutely the truth.  I found Her Story to be enjoyable despite the fact that it's not really a traditional type of game and there's really no winning or losing.  I found myself thinking about the story at odd times--like right before I fell asleep or in the middle of doing something at work--and there aren't a lot of games out there that have made me work so hard to figure them out.

The part of my tasks that I utterly failed was my personal mantra to "avoid any early Andromeda stuff."  It's not that I'm not interested...the multitude of Andromeda themed entries I've written should tell you something about that.  I really want to form my own opinions independent of what I read on other reviews, but I also am intensely curious about the follow-up to one of my favorite game series.  So I've read a few things and, sadly, they don't seem to be great.  I'm a little bit disappointed to hear that but also hopeful that those early hours are just the slow ramp up to something great--apparently EA only allowed reviewers to write about the first few hours of play.

I'm crossing my fingers and doing my best to ignore the multitude of Andromeda themed articles popping up on my Facebook feed.  I can't wait to start my new journey on the 21st!