Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Masks’ and ‘Life In Captivity’
48, 48, I have no puns for 48.
Masks is a narrative game created in Twine for subQjam 2019 by samplereality. Inspired by the Hong Kong protests of the same year, players will find themselves locked in a university campus with nowhere to go. All they know is that they cannot give in.
As with all Twine games, players make small decisions that propel the narrative forward by selecting bolded text. Depending on the order in which they choose, the events of the narrative can change to reflect how the player has decided to ‘read the experience’.
As stated earlier, this story follows a courier in a probably-not-too-distant future that smuggles items around for revolutionaries. Unfortunately, they have been cornered inside of a university, and need to find a way out of the situation but are only armed with the box they were smuggling and whatever they can find.
What makes Masks so interesting is its inclusion of external mechanics, which is something rarely seen in games that utilize Twine. After establishing the scene, players are introduced to two resource bars on the top left to give context for certain safety factors. As the story progresses, these resources will fluctuate and ‘influence’ the health of the protagonist, adding to the atmosphere and desperation that is already present.
I cannot say much more due to spoilers — narrative games are hard to describe because of this — but I can say that Masks is a prime example of what Twine can do when people move past the ‘books but clicking’ mentality. Quantifiable resources, constantly changing pages for added effect and even choices that alter the already existing text. It is a short one, but one that can be used for reference on just how engaging a simple piece of fiction can be.
Life in Captivity is a merger of two puzzle styles to create this bizarre puzzle game created by JohnLee Cooper, an indie dev based in Canada. Players will attempt to solve the sliding challenges of Sokoban while also dealing with Conway’s Game of Life; meaning block creation and chaos.
This game is hard to explain for those that may not know what Sokoban is or who Conway is and why he made a Game of Life. In short, Sokoban is a style of puzzle in which players attempt to push blocks to specific locations on a map without trapping themselves due to the inability to push more than one block. John Conway created a cellular automaton game called ‘the Game of Life’ which follows mathematical principles for cells to divide and thrive. Both are interesting titles in their own right but JohnLee Cooper decided that this could become even more interesting if the rules were brought together.
At its base, Life in Captivity uses Sokoban for its goal; players are trying to push blocks on to squares in order to continue to the next level. Players cannot grab the squares, nor can they push more than two at a time, so planning is required or else a restart is necessary. Where the Game of Life comes in is that the squares are actually cells and can be iterated upon by pressing the spacebar. Once pressed, the rules of the Game Of Life apply to the squares AND the square that represents the player; multiple squares touching will multiply, while those alone will die. If the player square ‘dies’, it turns white and is no longer operable, which will also require a restart on the level. Each iteration will also increase the ‘turns’ in which a player takes, which is the only noticeable metric that is recorded by ‘par’ on the top left. This means players are free to explore the map without fear of losing that high score, while retaining the limiting factor of a par.
What makes Life in Captivity so strange is how well these mechanics work together, even when you know that you have no idea what is going on or how to solve the next puzzle. Sokoban are difficult as is, but have a tendency to devolve as the puzzle game goes on if nothing ‘fresh’ is ever added. The inclusion of The Game of Life instantly takes this away. Now you have to think of more than just the sliding of blocks but how their positioning relates to how they would divide.
Unfortunately, for many this might be a bit too much. By the fifth level I was beginning to question my own ability to understand squares. The nature of bringing these two styles together means that there is a lot of preplanning, experimentation, and understanding of math which many may not find all that enjoyable.
However, from a technical standpoint, the game somehow brings these two mechanics together in a brilliant fashion. Even if I can’t solve it, I can at least appreciate it from here. Give it a shot if you like technical puzzles that go beyond what one might expect, or if you really like listening to some surreal music — it was a surprise, but a welcome one.
