ei hytte (the cabin), an a cappella musical
Book, Music and Lyrics by Eric Matthew Richardson
Directed by Noah Watkins

During an unseasonable blizzard, two strangers become trapped inside one of Norway's many off-grid public cabins. Without access to electricity, phone or internet service, the hikers wait out the storm. Veronica is a true crime author, and Colin is a warehouse worker. Neither are inclined to reveal too much about their personal lives beyond that. Pressured by the forces of the unseen Valkyries, the strangers push each other to their breaking points.

#musicals #musicaltheatre #musical #theater #theatre #chicago #acappella #playwriting #Steppenwolf #festival #newplay #writing

December 31, 2023 - Day 365 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: **400**

Game: Dave The Diver

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 28, 2023 (PC)
Installation Date: Dec 31, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 43m

Dave The Diver is a 2D sideways-scrolling pixel-art* game that's part management sim, part fishing sim, part restaurant game, and part action-adventure RPG.

When Dave the Diver first showed up on Steam a few months ago, I was still very much of the "pixel-art-no-thank-you" mindset, so it was a pass.

Then I saw some folks raving about how good it is, and then the free Dredge DLC was announced, and I went back and added it to my wishlist.

As they're currently offering a "Dredging & Diving Bundle" on Steam which meant the game was cheaper than the sale price (by a couple of bucks), I decided to add one more game to my pile of shame, and then take it off again, and what a way to finish this project out.

It is REALLY hard to categorise, because it pulls gameplay aspects from multiple different genres, and it's probably best if I lay it out.

Firstly, to address that asterisk against pixel-art, the game uses pixel-art for the gameplay, but uses vector art for the UI, which is a great way to make the game feel up-to-date.

The game opens with Dave relaxing on a beach, drinking a beer, when his phone rings, and he gets a job offer. Queue plane & map intro cut-scene.

A guy named Cobra has offered Dave a job diving in "the Blue Hole", which is a procedurally generated environment that is different on each dive.

After a tutorial sequence, where you learn to catch fish with a harpoon (fishing sim!), you learn that you've been roped into managing a sushi bar as well (management sim!).

Dive twice during the day to complete quests (RPG gameplay!) and catch the fish that you then use at night to set the nightly sushi bar menu.

Oh, and you're also the sushi bar waiter; this takes partial gameplay ideas from cooking sims like "Cook, Serve, Delicious!" in that the various customers will order the things that you've added to the menu, and the cook (thank goodness!) prepares each meal, as you run back and forth serving them, and cleaning up after some detty pigs, as well as another mini-game where you need to pour green tea and fill the cup perfectly.

Some of the RPG gameplay elements like equipment upgrades and weapon upgrades are handled through unlockable "apps" on an in-game "smartphone", and given that there are a number of preloaded apps on the phone with locks on them, looks like there are more mini-games as well.

Somehow, though, the devs managed to pull this off in such a way that it all fits together seamlessly, and is a lot of fun as well.

So, there you have it; for my final game review of 2023, Dave the Diver is:

5: Excellent

#DaveTheDiver #2D #SidewaysScroller #FishingSim #ManagementSim #CookingSim #ActionAdventure #RPG #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

December 31, 2023 - Day 365 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 399

Game: Saints Row

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 23, 2022 (PC)
Installation Date: Dec 31, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 59m

Saints Row (2022) was a poorly received reboot of the Saints Row franchise. It's a third-person action-adventure RPG, that is, this time around, based around the founding of a criminal gang named "The Saints".

You play as "The Boss", and can choose from a set of pre-made characters, or build your own from scratch, so I lost track of how long I spent in the character creator.

In this case, I didn't go into the game completely unawares; I've played some of Saints Row IV, which was cartoonishly over the top.

I remember reading reviews of Saints Row saying that they wanted it to be more grounded, and to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, "...that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Maybe it's not quite as OTT as the last game, but grounded is not a word I'd use either.

I'm a little surprised at this point that the reviews were so awful, as it definitely feels a lot like the previous Saints Row games to me.

I'll probably slot in some further Saints mayhem between RPG sessions in the new year.

So far, Saints Row seems:

4: Good

#SaintsRow #ThirdPerson #ActionAdventure #RPG #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

December 31, 2023 - Day 365 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 398

Game: Beyond: Two Souls

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jun 18, 2020 (PC)
Installation Date: Dec 19, 2022
Unplayed: 377d (1y12d)
Playtime: 24m

Beyond: Two Souls is a third-person... interactive movie?

I picked a doozy for my final primary NewPlay. The game starts by presenting the option to play in the "original" non-chronological order, or the "remix" chronological order.

I picked "original", and then found myself in a cutscene with a mo-capped pre-transition Elliot page, and then an unexpected Willem Dafoe, setting up an interesting premise.

Whoever Jodie is, she's dangerous.

After the cutscene, I found myself playing as child Jodie. This was where I ran into my first issue with the game. I'd picked mouse & keyboard to play with, but given that this was originally a console release, it really isn't designed for mouse & keyboard, and the controls just felt weird.

Switched to controller, and things started to make more sense.

The hard part of trying to provide more of a review is this: explaining what happens next goes into spoiler territory, and so... I won't.

Because the game relies on mocap, and was originally released in 2013, prior to Elliot Page coming out as a trans man, I found playing as adult Jodie in the next section somewhat disconcerting, and in a way that I really can't quite put into words. Not enough to make me not want to play, but enough to break immersion.

This is not a critique of the game, rather an acknowledgement of how events in the real world can affect my perception of a game.

I really enjoyed (and completed!) one of Quantic Dream's other games, Detroit: Become Human, which is what lead to me buying this and Heavy Rain in a bundle last year.

Based on past experience, I'm interested in continuing this playthrough of Beyond: Two Souls; so far, it's:

3: OK

#BeyondTwoSouls #ThirdPerson #InteractiveMovie #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

December 30, 2023 - Day 364 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 397

Game: MOTHERGUNSHIP

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 17, 2018
Installation Date: Sep 7, 2019
Unplayed: 1576d (4y3m24d)
Playtime: 16m

MOTHERGUNSHIP is a bullet-hell FPS built in the Unreal Engine.

I immediately ran into problems when I tried to run it, because it did not want to play well with multiple monitors, insisting on running on the left-most monitor (which isn't my main). No options in-game to choose which monitor to run on.

Putting it into a lower resolution and windowed mode somehow made things worse, because it pushed the window chrome AND the back button off the top and bottom of the screen, respectively.

Eventually I got it running on the main monitor, and away we went. You're a nameless pleb dropped into combat on a spaceship, receiving instructions from an army General, and a tech, delivered by VO and a text-box in the middle of the screen.

You're wearing some kind of exo-suit, and you can see your robotic hands at the bottom of the screen, and you're sent off to start punching sci-fi cartoonish turrets.

When you die (oh, and you will die), you're immediately resurrected to keep fighting, with the "General" lampshading this.

A few rooms in, and you can start buying gun parts with the coins you collect, and then you can build and rebuild your weapons, into whatever wild assemblies you can imagine.

I was pretty tired last night, and it's only just occurred to me that the reason I couldn't buy parts in one of the shops was that I didn't have enough coins. There was just an error box icon that would appear when I tried to pick up gun parts, which I thought meant I'd run out of room or something. It didn't make it clear *why* I was getting that icon.

Which highlights one of the issues with the game. The ship(s) are bright and colourful with a lot going on, and the UI just kind of tends to blend in with everything else on screen.

I don't usually highlight the engine that the game is built in, but sometimes games have a certain "feel" to them that immediately registers as the game engine, and when I checked, I wasn't surprised to find it was an Unreal based game (no Unreal splash at the start, though!).

If bullet-hell shooters are your thing, this might be worth picking up on special, but I probably won't be back; they're not my thing, so for me MOTHERGUNSHIP is just a bit:

2: Meh

#MOTHERGUNSHIP #FPS #BulletHell #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay

December 30, 2023 - Day 364 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 396

Game: Wasteland 3

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 29, 2020
Installation Date: Dec 21, 2023
Unplayed: 9d
Playtime: 54m

Wasteland 3 is an isometric squad-based RPG with turn-based combat mechanics.

Apparently it's all RPGs all day here. Less "all", and more "this afternoon", because I ended up spending all morning cleaning out my desk and sorting screws.

Yeah, I forgot my ADHD meds, and today has been erratic. The kicker was discovering that I'd doubled up on a day count back in early October, meaning that instead of only needing to play one extra game per day for three days, it was two extra games today, and two tomorrow to hit my "400 new games" goal.

Anyway, turns out I've had a bunch of cool isometric RPGs just sitting in my unredeemed Steam keys spreadsheet; it's suddenly an embarrassment of riches, between Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, BG3, and now Wasteland 3.

Having not played the previous two Wasteland games, I thought it was some kind of post-apocalyptic FPS, but instead it's a post-apocalyptic RPG set in a nuclear winter affected Colorado.

The game starts out with a cut-scene talking about what happened to the Desert Rangers after the events of Wasteland 2 (and providing enough information for context), explaining that the Desert Rangers are on their way to Colorado to meet with "the owner of Colorado" to seek assistance for Arizona (I really need to look at a US map).

Looked at the map, got distracted. Anyway, things do not go according to plan, and you get ambushed on your way, and off the game goes.

Looks like I've got a lot of RPGs to play in 2024, because Wasteland 3 seems:

4: Good

#Wasteland3 #Isometric #PostApocalyptic #RPG #Gaming #Project365ONG #Project365 #NewPlay