Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘A Magical Tale: Cavern Crawler’ and ‘The Trolley’
Darkness and Sadness
A Magical Tale: Cavern Crawler is a 2D dungeon delving game by Dark Light Games, an indie studio in England. Players will assume the role of a plucky protagonist looking to make their way through the various dungeons in the hopes of reaching the end and winning the grand prize. Now to find out what the prize actually is.
Using WASD to move and JKIL to fire small projectiles, players will attempt to acquire the key in each cavern that will open the door so they can do it all over again. The key is not always visible at the start of the level. That means that there are many scenarios in which puzzles need to be solved in order for the key to appear.
The puzzles usually have a theme for the region that they are in, such as the lava-centric puzzles of the Fire Cavern. Enemies may be a part of the puzzle as well, like how some cannot be destroyed by the player’s weapon, requiring some more creative thought.
When an enemy dies, they drop small pellets that can be collected, filling the bar on the bottom right side near JKIL. Once this bar is full, the next attack players make is a massive ball capable of hitting multiple enemies which can be very handy in tight situations. Unfortunately this ball cannot be ‘saved’ without not shooting, so expect to lose this shot often and have to build it back up again.
This may sound relatively small in concept, but make no mistake; A Magical Tale has more caverns than you can imagine. With the most recent update adding two more, there are seven total regional caverns to visit with their own plethora of levels within, each ending with a boss that uses the level’s themes against you. There are no upgrades or customizations to worry about, only good ol’ fashioned cavern crawling. If that’s an itch you’ve needed scratched, then this game is here for you.
The Trolley is a narrative game created by Essay Games, an indie studio focused on American civic history-based games. This one in particular takes place in the 1950s, encompassing the removal of the trolleys that littered the American countryside and looking at how it affected the USA as we know it.
While in first person, players will follow a protagonist who is tasked with the slow process of dismantling a trolley station in a fictional American Rust Belt city. Much of the game is spent moving from location to location and answering small prompts that will drive the monologue of the player.
Each decision will then build on the monologue, taking it in different routes to explore why the trolley system is being removed, how the player feels about it and the events that preceded the work being done. Once at the worksite, the game shifts slightly to a search-and-execute style, as the player has three tasks to complete and needs to find them in the trolley yard. They are not ‘labelled’, so players will need to use the descriptors given and the layout of the yard to figure out where each location is. Thankfully they do not need to actually ‘do’ the job, only approach the location and select ‘Ok’ to initiate the process.
Outside of giving players a sense of sadness and despair at the loss of actual public transit, The Trolly also incorporates some intriguing techniques to assist in its delivery; namely the use of ‘slow mo’. As players approach a trigger for a monologue or for a workplace task, the game will slow down to allow for the text to appear. This can be a bit jarring at first, but is a fantastic indicator that players are in the space that they need to be in. It also gives players the time to read and make the monologue decision without having to pause the game outright, giving some semblance of fluidity in the game. If players do not want to perform a task at the yard they can simply leave the trigger location, but once the event is complete the slowmo section is removed.
While it originally invoked fear of bringing about The Trolley Problem due to its name, The Trolley instead brought the sadness that comes with the end of an era, dismantling a staple of the American countryside and shaping the future as we know it. Your mileage may vary depending on how close this hits for you — it will feel more personal to North Americans than say, Europeans — but the feeling of sadness at a service being retired is universal. The game may be fictional, but its topic definitely is not. As a North American who lived near a train track myself that rarely gets use, it definitely hit close to home.
If you enjoy cinematic sadness, this is your game.
Do be aware that when in Windowed mode the mouse does not lock — I was stuck in Windowed mode and this caused a few issues with trying to move around.
