Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Remnants’ and ‘Pixelry’
Pixels 4 Lyfe
Remnants is an exploratory game created by June Flower, a solo indie dev specializing in 2D pixel work. To showcase that, players will be following an unnamed protagonist on their adventure down an abandoned facility in the hopes of… well, that’s to find out.
With a cape and simple movement controls, the protagonist will go from room to room, interacting with everything and anything they can. Nearly every object in every room can be investigated, with the majority getting a short description and an opinion from the protagonist. Flashing objects are the key ones, lit up to ease their recognition of importance so that players can go over and grab them to solve the puzzle of the floor.
Now, this may sound a tad scary for some, but rest assured the puzzles are mainly about picking up an item and placing it in a specific location to cause an action. Rarely do the puzzles get more complex than that, and it is for a good reason.
The main draw of Remnants is not in its complexity of design, but in its complexity in aesthetic. Each room is lovingly poured over with themes and items, and given an appropriate yet artistic name. They are almost too chaotic to be joined together by floor, but that is the beauty of it all; even when all of the rooms feel individually designed to match that certain aesthetic, the overall floor still has a sense of cohesion.
Maybe it is the connectors between each room as they transition, or maybe it is the layout that allows for the chaos to feel as if it is going from one to another. Maybe it is the dialogue that the protagonist has, discussing each item interacted with and noticing similarities between others or a narrative between rooms. I’m not necessarily certain, but I never felt like the rooms were so isolated that they did not fit in with where they were placed.
This is what makes Remnants so interesting, a hands-off approach to story telling that lets players get as much (or as little) as they want out of the floors. You may just want to see the gorgeous art with a backdrop of experimental music, or maybe you want to click on every item and find a hidden narrative path.
Pixelry is a chivalrous adventure created by Eveland, a small indie studio that was originally based in Spain featuring the works of Emilio Coppola and Andre Mari Coppola. Originally coming out in 2012 on Desura (now that is a throwback I was not expecting), players would assume the role of a silly peasant attempting to perform the ultimate cinematic dream; win a jousting tournament and marry the princess.
The game is broken down in to two major sections, revolving around the act of dueling and the events that can assist to prepare. Duels are what allow the player to progress in the story and are easily the most important gameplay loop to figure out. As expected, players will be charging towards their opponent with their lance and shield upon a trusty steed in the hopes of scoring a hit on the enemy while avoiding hits.
This is done using two different input methods; the up and down arrow keys will move the shield between three positions that need to correlate with the opponent’s lance, while space bar will loop the player’s lance between those same positions. It feels a bit like those two-handed cognitive games where one hand needs to be thinking separately than the other so that one can always make a hit and avoid being hit. There are some ‘cheats’ around this, such as always moving the lance and shield together at the last moment to block and hope, but part of the fun is figuring out just how each player wants to alter their gameplay. This of course loops until a victor is found.
Outside of jousting is a myriad of events and possibilities in order to make the player’s jousting more efficient and deadly. Money can be made helping out with the shop through a small mini-game or by participating in races. Money can then be used to upgrade the player’s equipment from their horse to their armor to ensure that they are able to survive deadlier hits and dish out stronger blows.
To avoid exploiting these mini games for cash, however, players can only perform each game once until they’ve done a duel. There is also a ton of customization to be done so that players can truly feel as if they are representing themselves in the arena, even with a joke name like my Sir Loin.
If the grandiose setting and over-the-top performances aren’t a clear indication, Pixelry is at its best when you know of the source materials it is poking fun of; A Knight’s Tale for example. The fact that a tournament will give away the hand of marriage of the King’s daughter is ridiculous enough, but to follow the rags-to-riches story just makes it that much more silly. And yet, that’s also what makes it fun in both the narrative and the gameplay.
Getting to level up your knight as he defeats a series of opponents (some much more dastardly than others) while embracing the joke is the most fun you can have with a jousting game, and I encourage anyone that loves this style to relax and just get those lances ready. Sure there could have been a bit more ‘poking fun’, but that doesn’t stop it from being fun.
