Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Ominous!’ and ‘David’
One word titles only, please.
Ominous! is a turn-based JRPG by Dusty Tome Studios, an indie team scattered across the USA. Originally on kickstarter as a touted ‘Choose-Your-Doom’ RPG, players follow the life and times of the intern and totally normal guy Murphy. Upon awaking in a strange circle surrounded by fire and bones, he begins to recall the events that lead him here. Or at least, that’s what he hopes he is doing, because as players soon find out Murphy’s memory is a bit shot.
In terms of recognizable aspects, Ominous! is a traditional turn-based RPG. Players will wander around semi-open maps, interact with strangers to understand the world, occasionally get in to fights with random encounters in a turn-based combat environment, and accept quests to further the plot.
As Murphy is an intern — and extremely lazy — all of his combat abilities are flavoured around his relative uselessness, even mocking how silly he looks during some of his own abilities. His intern tricks allow him to use MP while the Colour Guard uses ‘pep’ gained in battle.
It’s this flavour, however, that sets the general tone and aesthetic of the game; namely that Ominous! is somewhat open ended due to Murphy’s inability to properly remember how events of his past go. In their wandering, players can trigger quests that will become permanent fixtures of the plot which then alters what the main objective of the chapter may be.
Murphy can also be accidentally killed by random events, such as falling down the stairs in the dark, forcing the ‘future’ Murphy to retcon what has occurred as that would not be possible. It gives the energy of an unreliable narrator, figuring out their own life and memories on the fly while also trying their best to sound factual.
There’s a sense of unknowing agency in this chaos, that you can set Murphy down different paths even if it is not the actual case; especially since the ending gives you so many ‘trophies’ based on certain outcomes you achieved.
I normally have a hard time recommending a lot of turn-based RPGs, but if you like silly stories centred around an unlucky man recounting his own past horribly, then this might be exactly what you need. The characters are even voiced! Talk about surprises.
David is a combative action ‘platformer’ created by Andrew Armstrong, an indie dev who goes by the studio name Fermenter Games. Players are greeted by a benevolent voice that introduces them to David, a small square. From here players will work with David to beat back all of the bosses to claim victory over all things evil.
David has a gift unique to him, and it is this gift that will allow players to be able to fight against these strange shaped monstrosities. By pressing and holding the mouse button near David, time begins to slow down as something begins to build. This is David’s ‘slingshot’ which can be charged up to fire a mass of colourful projectiles that destroy everything they hit.
Cheeky symbolism aside, it is the combination of these powers that allows players to get these shots off, as they can drag the aura circle currently around David to aim the slingshot better than just leaving it centered on themselves. Once fired, the shots scatter around before returning in a brief moment, making David unable to fire.
The David references do not end here, because the things that David is fighting are terrifying. Amalgamations of shapes, they dwarf the small square many times over and are made of many moving parts that will alter their course as players alter David’s. The only way to combat this — besides firing and hoping they don’t smother David while waiting for the shots to return — is his agility.
David can jump numerous times along walls, in the air, and all places in between to get out of harm’s reach. Combined with the bullet time, David is able to masterfully dodge out of the way while attacking the boss in various ways as the landscape and bosses change.
Describing itself as a strange combination of Shadow of the Colossus and Angry Birds is not necessarily out of pocket for David as the entire game is centred on these boss fights. There are two difficulties per boss, and each boss utilizes its theme to shape itself and the arena to make each fight that much more hazardous.
Once you get through all the ‘small frys’, the main boss can be taken on for the grand prize, only to realize that there is more to fight within the game. From survival arenas to a strange basketball minigame, David offers way more than it may appear.
If you like simple aesthetics utilized to their fullest while also enjoying boss fights that can be taken anywhere (even mobile!) then you might love David.
