[HEADING=1]Cleril Calamity Studio Review [/HEADING]
Let me preface this review by stating that I am biased. I have played very few independent games in my life, the vast majority of my gaming experience having been put together by large corporations. To make matters worse is what little previous experience with indie games I have had, because the only independent games I?ve played before were made by this guy.
Benjamin ?Yahtzee? Crowshaw, the Escapist?s Zero Punctuation, is the only indie dev I?ve played a game of before- and I have played almost all his games. In terms of something being your only experience, this would be like showing someone who has never previously seen a movie all of Quentin Tarantino?s films and then expecting them to like Boondock Saints. It?s still Boondock Saints, but it just doesn?t match up to what they?ve gotten used to. So, take any criticism I have of Cleril?s games with a bit of reservation, and know that what praise I give is truly deserved.
Now, into the review-y bits:
[HEADING=2]Haven:[/HEADING]
Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jnhj2mzinme
http://www.mediafire.com/?jnhj2mzinme
Upon turning on Haven, the first thing to greet me was a sequence of floating poems, and an image of a person sitting at a computer begging the question of the player ?Do you think?? This is a bit jarring as an in-game literary device. It lacks something in subtlety, and would be a more major flaw were it not at the single most defining part of the game- the beginning. While it is not a subtle way to express the artist?s point of view, it puts the player on the defensive, not of their character, but of themselves from the very beginning, creating an interesting mood that lasts through the rest (of what there is) of the game.
Once you are done with the off-putting (not to say it?s bad, just unusual) initial dialogue, you take on the roll of none other than Cleril the bard. My first thought was that this was a clear-cut case of a massive literary ego. But if Dante fucking Alighieri thinks that casting yourself as the main character is fine, who am I to judge?
The game has an atmosphere that could be described as varied or schizophrenic, depending on what connotation you wanted to put to it. My first act as Cleril the Bard was to be kidnapped by a jester, and forced through a set of wacky puzzles set to whimsical backgrounds. Within a few minutes of my release from the clutches of the trickster, I was underground, exploring an old mineshaft to find a disappearing girl?s father, only to have the adventurous mood shift to a grim feel, and eventually discover the horrific fate of the family. This scenario, while being interesting, doesn?t exactly help the games case for me because, while during parts of the experience create a true emotional response, others simply appear emo. A fascination with sorrowfully marked gravestones and satanic imagery is evident in this scenario, as it is in other games produced by Cleril Calamity Studios.
The game play is different from either Haven or The Fall(en). Whereas Haven played more or less as a non-linear exploration game, and The Fall(en) played more or less like a book, Peekaboo was a semi-linear adventure game in which you find the previously mentioned four gems. Two of them are found by solving some relatively easy puzzles given to you by gargoyles. The puzzles are fun, but it is a little troublesome when I say that something is ?relatively easy? considering that I?m about as good at adventure games as Michael Atkinson is at being the attorney general of South Australia (I had to look up which region of Australia he was attorney general of on Wikipedia to make that joke).
And two are found by enduring sequences that almost made me piss myself (in my defense, it was late and I?d had about 5 sodas) involving death (again) and playing hide and seek with a little boy. I won?t talk about exactly how the sequences play out, but I will say that if you do everything perfectly, you?ll be frightened and if you fuck up you might well be terrified.
Once you?ve collected the gems, it?s time to venture through the big stone door. Upon doing so, you find yourself on a bridge, that decides to blow up behind you as you run across it.
[img_inline caption="London bridge is falling down!? align='center' src=?http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/TylerBurdensAlterEgo/londonbridge.jpg' height='263' width='350' href=?http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/TylerBurdensAlterEgo/londonbridge.jpg?]
[img_inline caption="DEATH?s a *****! (see what I did there?)? align='right' src=?http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/TylerBurdensAlterEgo/death2.jpg' height='263' width='350' href=? http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/TylerBurdensAlterEgo/death2.jpg?]
Once you cross the bridge (which you better do fast because failure to do so will kill you), you find yourself in a room, meeting with death for the third time in the game.
You proceed to have a drawn out conversation with him, going through many dialog options progressing you to the end of the game. It?s very similar to The Fall(en), but as a part of a larger game the process comes off beautifully rather than simply bizarre. However, there is some confusion that can be caused by the scene.
I played through the final conversation with death several times to see all that he had to say. The first several times I played through the conversation, death eventually responded with something along the lines of ?none escape? (I couldn?t tell exactly what was said) and then killed me. Having long sense come to the conclusion that the message of the game was ?nobody can escape death?, I was ready to give it extra points for the subtlety of its delivery by simply setting up a scenario where, try as you might, all your actions up to that point culminate in nothing but death. However, on my final play through, I managed to convince uncle Reaper to release me so I could tell my story to the world.
And then?
The game went into a sequence lasting several minutes where the words ?smoking kills? are repeated incessantly. Then it gives some exposition about how the house was haunted because the son (who I believe was the child you played hide and seek with, but am not entirely sure) wanted to die so he murdered his family and took up smoking to kill himself. You go to your boss with this story, and he promptly fires you, presumably because he didn?t want you to say that smoking was bad in his newspaper, or maybe because he thought the story wouldn?t sell, or maybe because he was bipolar- because nothing else would cause the manager of a newspaper to fire a veteran reporter due to one flop story.
Put simply, the game play was fun, but also exceedingly easy. I applaud Cleril Calamity Studios? efforts to make an actual story arc to follow in Peekaboo, and think that the story came really close to excellence, but the smoking ending just came off as awkward and preachy (keeping in mind that I am an officer of my schools Anti-Tobacco League). The environments and soundtrack of the game came off perfectly, and inspired genuine fear in me. The fascination with dark imagery I mentioned in the Haven review was evident, with pentagrams and tombstones up the ass- but, as a horror game, this really was the time and place for them. Despite the message getting a bit confused at the end, it was a fun and somewhat interesting experience that I would recommend. Especially if you, like me, enjoy adventure games but aren?t good enough to play harder games without consulting a walkthrough (which I admit to doing many times throughout Chzo Mythos).
[HEADING=2]Conclusion:[/HEADING]
Cleril Calamity Studios? games aren?t absolutely perfect. Peekaboo was a bit easy and had a bit of a convoluted ending. Haven was incomplete and was just a bit emo at certain points. The Fall(en) is hard to even classify as a ?game?, as its really more like an interactive book, or a choose your own adventure essay that you have to take part in multiple times just to get the author?s full intent.
All said and done though, Cleril Calamity Studios is a solid indie outfit. While I wasn?t really into The Fall(en), Peekaboo was a good game, and what there is of Haven was excellent. All of the games I played were highly inventive, and at least somewhat intriguing- yes, despite not really liking it, even Fall(en) falls into the inventive and intriguing category. I look forward to further releases by CCS, and hope that Cleril continues to refine his gameplay, while not losing his creativity.
On a side note not entirely related to the games I played, according to Cleril?s Escapist profile, he plans to someday work for either Bioware, or Bethesda. A lot of people who go from indie to working for a major company tend to lose some of the creativity they displayed as an indie creator (in movies and music anyway, as I said- no real indie game experience here). However, as a fan of both these companies? games, I really hope he is successful in his goal of working for them, and that he keeps his creative spark in doing so. Judging off of his games that I have played, I think that his involvement would be a real asset to either of the companies.
Cleril Calamity Studios' Escapist fan group can be found here:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Cleril-Calamity-Studios
