Electron Dance Highlights
Side by Side: At Sundown
Side by Side is a video series on local multiplayer games. This is the fourteenth episode of the fifth series.
Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and Gregg Burnell of Tap-Repeatedly go back to a game they encountered three years ago at EGX Rezzed - Mild Beast Games' At Sundown: Shots in the Dark.
Labelled a "hide-and-seek" shooter, players are invisible while lurking in the dark in this top-down multiplayer deathmatch. They can give away their location if they fire their weapon - provided a flash of lightning doesn't do it first. This makes At Sundown tense but when the tension pops, you often find players run around like headless chickens firing in random directions, desperate to fend off an invisible pursuer.
While At Sundown and concept-a-like Invisigun Heroes both entered the public consciousness in 2016, Kickstartered Invisigun Heroes beat At Sundown to release: Invisigun Heroes was done and dusted the following year while At Sundown just made it into digital stores this January. The two games are by no means identical but Gregg, having played both, admits he prefers At Sundown.
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Watch the video here or direct on YouTube.
Side by Side: Totally Reliable Delivery Service
Side by Side is a video series on local multiplayer games. This is the thirteenth episode of the fifth series.
Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and Gregg Burnell of Tap-Repeatedly know you are terribly tired of seeing local multiplayer open world slapstick physics delivery games with wacky vehicles but, hey, here's Totally Reliable Delivery Service from We're Five Games anyway. Somehow, the Side by Side team barely scratched the surface of this one, more prone to exploration than getting on with, you know, actual deliveries. Really, take a look at this one because they had a right laugh. Oh and before you watch the video, please note the open beta is available on Steam right now for no pennies.
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Discussion: Expect the Expected
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Sometimes I think the worst thing that happened to Valve was creating Steam because it took all the artistic videogame fire out of its belly. Say hello to the sleek new Valve 2, videogame rentier.
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Side by Side: On Trailers
Side by Side is a video series on local multiplayer games. This is the twelfth episode of the fifth series.
This time, Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and Gregg Burnell of Tap-Repeatedly are having a fireside chat about trailers for local multiplayer games. They talk about trailers for games gathered from across the series and beyond - they travel from Sportsfriends and Hellfront Honeymoon to Botolo and Videoball. What gets the thumbs down and the thumbs up? And why? What's Joel's favourite local multiplayer trailer?
If you enjoy the series, please like our videos and subscribe to the Side by Side channel.
Watch the video here or direct on YouTube.
Side by Side: Wand Wars
Side by Side is a video series on local multiplayer games. This is the eleventh episode of the fifth series.
This week, Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and Gregg Burnell of Tap-Repeatedly have a real treat for you - Wand Wars from Moonradish. This beautifully polished game casts players as wizards or witches fighting it out for possession of the magical sphere, a weapon that gets progressively more dangerous with each throw. Is it a sports game? A PvP? Co-op? It is all these things and more. Wand Wars has an incredible amount of game content.
If you enjoy the series, please like our videos and subscribe to the Side by Side channel.
Watch the video here or direct on YouTube.
The Great Descent
This is the final part of the Subnautica Season. Spoilers ahoy! This follows The Glory of the Infinite Sea, on Subnautica enabling accidental discovery, Beautiful, on the real beauty of Subnautica's design, and Cold Metal, of my disappointment with base building.
What are we doing here? Why would anyone put themselves through this?
Silence engulfed the dead city block but the silence was not absolute. Sometimes I would hear the soft, yet threatening shuffle of rotten feet. Or the click-click of a giant spider’s legs tapping across cobblestones. Or the gibber-speak of a malevolent apparition.
The Haunted Cathedral level from the original Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998) overwhelmed the player with dread and a terrible feeling of having passed through a veil that separates the reasonable, normal world from one into which no human should stray. This was not the first time Thief had conjured this atmosphere as Down in the Bonehoard had a similar ambience, but it had nothing on The Haunted Cathedral.
Of course, this is a recognisable trope, gaming’s take on Orpheus’ descent into hell to bring back Eurydice. The player must journey into a type of Hell to retrieve something of importance. Dark Souls has plenty of it but I am here to discuss Subnautica’s Orphean descent, in which the very depth of the ocean itself is terror.
I warn you, though, reader. Descend further into this bottomless trench of words and you will hear the screams of spoilers and the thunk of ALT+F4.
Discussion: Sausage Souls
Hark! the herald angels sing, "Glory be to the sausage king." Oh yea, I have completed Stephen's Sausage Roll.
I renewed my attack on the Sausage game for the Ouroboros-spinoff book I am working on. I knew I was missing something important and needed to address it. It is likely I'll dedicate a new essay in this book to Stephen's Sausage Roll but I thought it would nice to have a comment thread on it first.
These comments will be sausages all the way down and completely naked. There will be no ROT13 here.
I mean, if you like playing puzzles and you're wondering whether to play Stephen's Sausage Roll, here's my capsule review:
- What a rush
If you want some detail, rando who is planning to play Stephen's Sausage Roll:
- Be prepared for the occasional bottleneck, particularly The Great Tower
- Do not judge a book by its first world, you're really playing for what the game becomes
- It is a hard game but in a satisfying way
- There are a handful of what feel like Monte Carlo levels (e.g. Wobblecliff) but generally you think the levels out, not guess
- Do not read this thread or go looking for spoilers, because someone will spoil Dead End
- You do not spoil Dead End
- No, you really do not
Anyway, I think it's time to hand over to the comments.
Side by Side: Daka Dara
Side by Side is a video series on local multiplayer games. This is the tenth episode of the fifth series.
This week, Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and Gregg Burnell of Tap-Repeatedly take on their first digital board game, Daka Dara by Chris Fibsch, based on an old West African game called Dara. There are two phases to the game. In the first phase, known as the drop phase, players put out their counters one at a time in turn, preparing the ground for the second phase. The second phase is referred to as the "move phase" which is far too genteel a name. Joel prefers to call it COUNTER CARNAGE. Because it's all about COUNTER DESTRUCTION.
An interesting curio with music that wants to make you rip your ears off with a pair of pliars, it delivered a comedy Side by Side moment which never fails to bring Joel to tears. Although he does have to tell people which bit he finds hilarious.
If you enjoy the series, please like our videos and subscribe to the Side by Side channel.
Watch the video here or direct on YouTube.
Behind the Poster
This is the first in a series of short musings on Control.
When I want to write about a game I like, it takes way longer than you might think. There’s an obsession to assemble an artwork of words that befits the title, something that feels as unique as the experience it delivered. That process never feels like a natural consequence of a great game; it’s not as if a game is an untapped seam of minerals and all I had to do was mine it for words. I’m looking for an essay that gives me peace, that looks like I've bled the memory directly onto the page. Write. Delete. Write. Delete. Go to bed. Format the drive. Start again.
I feel some remorse over my brutal carelessness towards a game which inspires derision. I can be cavalier with the words as all you have to do is swing that axe and the job is done. But what about the shrug game, the “meh”? How much brain juice needs to be expended on something that’s, uh, okay, I suppose? I will send my finest soldiers to the four corners of the world in search of exotic prose that conjures the most average of reactions. Now that’s real tricky, I think, as I write up my feelings after three hours of Control (Remedy Entertainment, 2019).
Side by Side: SSMP
Side by Side is a video series on local multiplayer games. This is the ninth episode of the fifth series.
This week, Joel Goodwin of Electron Dance and Gregg Burnell of Tap-Repeatedly float around a very indie take on Spacewar! in SSMP - short for Shoot Shoot Mega Pack - by Actual Humans. While it offers a four basic competitive modes which involve a variety of shooting each other or crashing into things, SSMP lets players craft their own modes by selecting mechanics from the large set of ingredients. Simple, easy to pick up, short rounds. The perfect party game.
If you enjoy the series, please like our videos and subscribe to the Side by Side channel.
Watch the video here or direct on YouTube.
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