SLAPDASH - 60 MINUTES WITH DEVIL DAGGERS

Personally, I enjoy the aesthetic of the upcoming Doom game, set to release May.13.2016, and yes that's a Friday the 13th. Good one id Software, a bit campy but what else would you expect? The impression that the latest trailer left me with is that id Software is upholding the core values from the dawn of the Doom series. The original games, Doom, and Doom 2 focused on frantic circle strafing run and gun action in big open hell-scapes teaming with heaps of demons, big fuck off guns, flaming skulls and color coated key cards. As opposed to the bland corridor heavy space station shooter they gave us in Doom 3. The one constant being the oppressive atmosphere. In our current age of gaming, the Doom reboot looks like it could be a welcome change from the heavily scripted 'on rails' set piece shooters that clog the digital landscape and dominate much of the market. That being said, I cant help but wonder how it will be received by today’s gamers who grew up on COD and Battlefield. Simply put, developers aren't really making those shooters anymore. The FPS market has been dripping with carefully constructed blockbuster movie-esque titles for so long, the current generation of FPS players could very well balk at the simplistic, over the top style of game play that Doom is traditionally famous for. If only there were some way for the new breed of gamers to test the waters without having to dive in headfirst….

Enter Devil Daggers.

Devils daggers is a $5, “endless” first person shooter, set in a what is assumed to be a small infinite pitch black plane of someones own personal hell. I put quotation marks around 'endless' because no one has survived much past the 8 minute mark. It could have an ending, though I sincerely doubt it. And it doesn't really matter, as the goal is to stay alive as long as possible, and the average player (myself included) usually peaks at about 45-60 seconds for the first hour or two. Why so difficult? Well, the foes are as agitated as they are lethal, and much like a bad burrito from Chipotle, they can seal your fate quickly, with just one erroneous decision.

This shit was cutting edge in 1994!

Devil Daggers' core mechanic is circle-strafing fast paced first person shooting, and it feels incredibly fluid. This is due partly to the fact that the games engine and art design is very old school and strikingly similar to a higher resolution version of the original quake, albeit with slightly more complex visuals. This allows most PC's to easily run the game at 60+ frames per second, which is key, as everyone on the leader boards is theoretically on the same playing field regardless of the rig they have. Devil Daggers' descent into madness starts in a dark room with a lone dagger floating in front of you. Once you take hold of your basic weapon it multiplies, streams of red daggers spew from your hand, immediately plunging the user into dubious peril. The daggers can either be shot in short bursts, like a pump-action shotgun or can be spit out in a steady, viscous stream like shooting the Devils' sandblaster.

Evade Gismo's Kevin McKenzie demos Devil Daggers

As you begin to acclimate yourself to the oppresive surroundings, it becomes obvious you are walking on a small plane of stone or concrete, with a sudden drop-off around the edge that will send you plunging into dark nothingness with one misstep. Then, suddenly you hear a sound, it's coming from behind you – a gurgling, sinister spawning noise that could only mean that terrible is on its way. Abruptly, as you try to focus on the area the sound came from, a spire forms out of nowhere and releases a series of skulls and demon heads into the dark, and will continue to do so, until you erase it from existence by shooting at its rotating weak spot. Then another will form, and another and so on and so on. As time goes on things get more and more hectic with different enemies spawning in random locations at preset timestamps. The key to survival seems to be in directing your focus on the spawning spires, while at the same time managing the wave of floating skulls and demon heads chasing you down, but that knowledge itself will only get you so far. The game play feels as fluid as it looks, and you are always just a quick tap of the R key away from an instant retry, which really supports the “just one more game” feeling you are left with after any given run.

Certain enemies drop gems that power up your weapon when killed, allowing you to spit thicker, faster and more powerful streams of magical daggers as the frenzied action carries on. These power ups are very important not only to your progression past that elusive 60 second mark, but to your confidence as well. They will help you to dispose of the waves of enemies with greater ease, allowing you to free your focus to deal with more pertinent demonic apparitions. Like, say, the giant evil spider that sucks up your treasured power gems before you can get to them, or perhaps the twisted, flying Ogopogo-like entities that swoop through the air with equal parts grace and death lust... all while the super spires keep launching skulls for you to fend off … Yeah, she's a bitch, but its that kind of addictive action that keeps me in front of the screen for much longer than I originally intended to be. 

This game will have you seeing red.... often... 

If the early sales performance of Devil Daggers is any indication, the millennial crowd might just be interested in the style of game play after all. In its first 5 days, Devil Daggers has over 12,000 copies “sold” on steam through world of mouth alone. That's a strong start, especially in this day in age. Though difficult, this game is immensely rewarding in the same way that arcade shooters have been since the inception of the genre, with shooters like Robotron 2000 and Smash TV, with a wonderful first person twist. I can confidently say that Devil daggers is the love child of Doom, Quake and Geometry wars in the best possible way (video game relationships are complicated, okay?). And if that intrigues you, I suggest you pick it up.

Go to hell, have fun.

Devil daggers is out now on steam. 

Once you beat this score (you will) your better than me

----------------------------------------THIS JUST IN: TRISTAN BREAKS KEVINS SCORE!--------------------------------------------------

Sorry pal, i gotta say this game jacks my heart rate to an unhealthy level and i love it! It is as you said: very Intense and rewarding.

I guess i am better than Kevin...

Oh sheeit son! i did it again!

----------AND AGAIN! I'm not sure I can do that again though. So intense; had to calm down after this one. Hands were shaking a bit heh.  

GISMOS_06 - GOD DAMN PAL

Tristan, Kevin and old man Petie boy help themselves to a big bite out of the old conversation pie. We take a new and possibly improved format for a test spin. Pete compares Kevins mancave to Silent Hill 4 'The Room.' Kevin wonders if anyone saw the latest James Bond 'film' and does anybody really care? Impressions on Mr.Blows latest game 'The Witness' are also heard to have been remarked.  A gawd awful intermission song takes place....sadly and we talk about our questions for the week: What are your favorite and most memorable game mechanics? Which do you prefer the game character improving or improving as a user? and what does EA origin have to do to win you back as a consumer, assuming you were one to begin with. All this and so much more right here in the Gismos! 

We encourage you wonderful listeners to participate. It's much more fun that way. By any means you feel is necessary- write us, rate our podcast subscribe and ask questions, fuck make a statement just so we know your alive and paying attention. And again folks, thanks for using your precious time to hear us out, we know its the most valuable thing you can afford us.

In spite of all my clicks, I am still just a rat in a ... clicker game

The Monster Summer Game, Valve’s gamification of this year’s Steam Summer Sale is a self-proclaimed homage to the “56 trillion” gamers hooked on the newest genre of non-game to numb the skulls of players everywhere: Clicker games.

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Look, it's on a pixelated CRT machine! Charmed, I'm sure!

Non-games are similar to games; they involve some kind of activity, and usually some accumulation of points or currency in exchange for the activity, which can then be spent to enhance the completion of that activity. Non-games are linear, yet without end, and frequently invite you spend money to play more frequently, for longer bouts, or more efficiently. The chronology of non-games doesn’t go very far back; it has not been until recently that the leisure to game has become so widespread, that our leisure now also needs leisure. Non-games strike me as a syndrome of the iPad generation: minimum-input, take-anywhere, play-anywhere monetization shells. They are the pinnacle of casual diversion, designed not to stimulate the mind, but to stuff it up with cotton. Farmville. Proteus and Mountain. Clicker Heroes. These games would not be popular unless there were a significant group of people out there who either:

1. Game often enough that they seek much lower-impact gaming experiences between bouts of “proper” gaming;

2. Don’t play “normal” games at all but seek lower-impact fun / diversion.

I will admit, I prejudged clicker games based on mechanics alone. I mean, come on: nearly every PC game in the past 20 years has been a “clicking” game to some degree, insofar as clicking is a gameplay mechanic. Gaming intensity in RTS game is commonly measured in terms of Actions Per Minute - on PC the vast majority of those actions tend to be clicks. Having played Valve’s tribute to the genre today, I can testify that the clicker genre might more accurately be called “nothing-but-clicking” games. Aside from the 10-15 minutes I spent gradually lowering my mouse-arm off of my desk into a completely relaxed position in the crotchal area, and figuring out the optimal clicking rhythm, the game immediately became an exercise, and not a game. There’s no interaction or development whatsoever. Just an infinite highway of...more clicking.

Clicker Games turn their mechanic into a kind of engine. Not a game engine; rather, your clicks become the fuel powering an engine that propels you forward through the diverse audiovisual landscape of the clicker game. Much like browsing for porn in this era of recommended video sidebars, what you’re really clicking for is to see what you’ll be clicking next. In the Steam mini-game, you’re clicking on weird android-zombies named Greg and Lola until you reach a boss-level with a giant crab-arm pirate-tank who takes 10-20 times the clicks the previous goons did. The music changes. The target is larger. Then you click him to death, and it’s onto further, minor variations on the Greg & Lola concepts. Each day at 10am, the game resets, and the enemies & backdrops take on a new visual theme. There is added value, in that you're on a team with at least 1000 other players, amassing clicks to whittle down the enemies. But it sure feels like you're sitting there alone, pawing at your button, speeding down a road that turns in downward spirals. This is the Clicker Highway and I’m pretty sure it leads straight to hell.

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To the man with the battered mouse, six hundred MILLION BILLION CLICKER POINTS !!

I suppose it’s decent amusement, but as a passionate gamer, I acknowledge ethical design issues with regard to game like this. The Skinner Box - a Psychological experiment apparatus, containing a rat, a button, and a feeder-bottle of heroin-laced water - tends to produce fairly predictable results. Give it time to get hooked on the reward, and that rat will literally click that button till it starves to death (addiction studies in the modern day prove that what goes on in the Skinner Box is much more nuanced than that; but that’s for another article). Literally defined, this is learning. But nobody will argue that a rat’s experience of life is enriched by the Skinner Box. I direct this point back towards Clicker games. Any good game will consume your attention span. Battle arenas, epic quests, & sandboxes suck you in with their unique gravity; but at least they leave you with something to talk about and reflect on. Many games are games because the decisions made by players significantly affect the game-state, which motivate further decisions from the player. In a clicker game, nothing matters. Clicking barely even regards space-time as a thing that exists, for it traps the mind in the first dimension, teetering on a single pinhead-point of homogenous repetition. Much like Warhol-era pop art, Clicker Games insult the audience’s intelligence and the value of their time.

Step into the wild world of unethical game design, and this could be YOU !!

However, their popularity cannot be argued with, and this is a wave I intend to ride all the way to the bank. Keep an eye out Autumn 2015 for my first original Clicker Game, called Hammer & Nails Simulator, where players smash increasingly large and extravagantly decorated nails into surfaces of varying density and thickness. Hmm. Maybe I’ll just call it Smashy!