Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘TinkerQuarry’ and ‘Sushi Master VR — 寿司職人VR’
I guess they both… have a lot of slicing in them?
TinkerQuarry is a horror RPG created by Hallowraith, a solo indie developer and comic artist based in the USA, and features the music of Antriksh Bali. Players are a self-named protagonist waking up in a strange plastic room, only to find themselves confronted by a terrifying corkscrew-wire dog that challenges them to a race. From here, players will need to explore the plastic house and find out who they are, how they got here, and how to get out.
Much of the time spent in TinkerQuarry is looking topdown at our protagonist in the retro-style of RPGs, with the 2D sprites maneuvering through rooms, collecting items, and interacting with objects and local denizens. Items are separated into categories, with the equipables being able to swap out with others in order to boost the stats of any party member.
Also in traditional RPG fashion is the turn-based combat, with players in a party of four using skills that use SP and items to inflict different effects. There is a slight ‘twist’, as TinkerQuarry uses the altered style of turn-based those that have played Final Fantasy would know it better as the ATB or Action Time Battle bar.
For those unfamiliar, essentially each character in game has a swiftness bar that fills up. Only when it is filled does that player get to have their ‘turn’. This allows for faster characters to get more hits in, but this means bosses could as well. It’s not a combat system that everyone enjoys (I’m among the non-enjoyers, unfortunately) but TinkerQuarry gives an ‘auto’ system to allow for players to have the game perform combat simulation for them if they wish not to engage.
Where TinkerQuarry truly shines, however, is in its world. Taking loose inspiration from the ballet ‘The Nutcracker’, it plunges the player character in to a hellish world of toys that wish for nothing more than to be left alone. While Peter the stuffed rabbit helps our player character, he also calls us by a different name; Adeline. The farther the player delves in to the house, the more messed up the revelations become as the implications start to pile up.
There is also the added benefit of choices impacting how the player is perceived, which many may attribute to games like ‘Undertale’. It’s hard not to create the comparison as the game goes on as implicit decision become that much more important. Everything the player does could effect the others of the world, and I cannot say much else without delving too far in to spoilers.
TinkerQuarry is a peculiar game. I cannot say I thought I was enjoying myself at first, and then suddenly a few hours past and I kept playing. By all accounts it is a style of game I’m not really the target audience for, yet I cannot put my finger on why I was so engrossed. Perhaps it is the mystery and atmosphere, using my love for musical ballets to add darker themes. Maybe it is the fantastic sound work that I kept on in the background while writing this. Maybe it is none of that, and I just really enjoyed my time.
Nevertheless, even if you aren’t a fan of ATB, you might seriously enjoy your time here in the Dollhouse. After all, why leave? All of your best friends are here.
Notice: When I wrote this, I played on the stable version of the game that came out in 2019, titled version v.1.1.0. There is a new version as of August 18th 2022 called the ‘development version v1.5.02’ in which Hallowraith is updating the art and patching some things. I wanted the original experience, so I cannot comment on the updated version yet — but if you like the original, I can easily assume you’ll enjoy its updated version.
Sushi Master VR — 寿司職人VR is a VR simulation game created by menonon, an indie VR dev in Japan. Players get to… well, make sushi? I’m really not sure how this might be confusing, but yes players make sushi.
In the VR space, players will get to be a part of a conveyor belt at a shushi restaurant, meaning that the belt will continually keep moving while players attempt to make sushi for it. The goal is to get a basic understanding of the operations that go in to restaurants that use this system — I cannot comment on their popularity or how common they are, as I’ve never actually been to a restaurant like this. I can only assume they are more popular in Japan (sushi is from Japan after all, shocker I know), so this would be the basis for understanding.
I don’t have much else to say as I don’t have a VR headset to test the fluidity of the gameplay. The entire game is in Japanese from what I can tell, but the pictures and characters are clear enough that the association for what is needed can be made quite easily.
If you want to experience a basic understanding of conveyor belt sushi creation, then this might be a great way to find out.
