Deadly Side-Scrolling Through Shadows: Mark of the Ninja

Copyright © 2007 by Klei Entertainment.

Thanks to Steam, I have a lot more access to indie games, which was how I discovered and fell in love with Primordia.  Around the same time, I came across another independently-produced gem: Mark of the Ninja, by Klei Entertainment.

Mark of the Ninja is a stealth-based side-scrolling platformer game, and while it’s been a long time since I’ve played a side-scrolling game (I think it was Super Mario Bros.), I’ve never played a stealth game before.  But this was a great first experience in the stealth genre.  You play as a ninja whose mission is to save Master Azai, defend the honor of your clan, and earn new tattoos that bring you closer to the ideal of the shinobi.  To succeed, you must use stealth to outwit, elude, and kill every guard who stands in your path.  If they spot you, you’re dead.  If they don’t, they’re dead thanks to a one-hit-kill sword.

Visually, this game is impressive.  The settings are appropriately dark and evocative of traditional Japanese architecture, mixed with modern lighting and ventilation shafts.  Traditional calligraphy is also nicely rendered in the fully-animated cutscenes, lending a mythical air to the ninja clan’s history and current objectives (and also looks a lot like Samurai Jack, come to think of it).

Copyright © 2007 by Klei Entertainment.

For the most part, the gameplay is very enjoyable and creative.  Since it combines a stealth game with a side-scrolling platformer, you can move around by jumping to different levels on the screen using a grappling hook and light-footed jumps into vents.  The game also immerses you in the art of ninja tactics: taking cover in doorways and behind plants when guards pass, disposing of bodies to avoid raising an alarm, and throwing darts to create distractions.  The gameplay also allows for line-of-sight targeting, meaning that your ninja can peek into other rooms or below floors to see where the enemy guards are, what distractions are available, and how best to time your attacks without being spotted.

If I have any complaints, it’s that the emphasis on stealth can be frustrating when the setting or the enemy guards aren’t cooperative.  If you’re spotted and face-to-face with a lone guard, you can’t just kill him and then hide the body.  Most likely, you’ll end up hitting him a lot and get shot dead.  And sometimes the guards won’t be in earshot of a distraction, making it hard to find a way to get behind them for the kill.  While this does force the player to think more creatively about how to clear out an area, it can also be an irritation when you just want to advance to the next level already.

Still, on the whole, I found Mark of the Ninja to be a great initiation to the stealth genre and a nice change of pace from the usual fighting games.  While I didn’t always appreciate the in-game puzzles like I would in Portal or Primordia, not to mention the lack of a strong story, its ethos and ingenuity are still incredibly fun and engaging.

Mark of the Ninja is available through digital distribution from Xbox Live Arcade and Steam.

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Bibliography: Mark of the Ninja.  Developed by Klei Entertainment.  Published by Microsoft Studios.  Platforms: Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows.  Released on September 7, 2012 (Xbox) and October 16, 2012 (Windows).

Flash Fiction: “Street Saints”

I’m aware how controversial organized religion can be, even in general terms.  Well, despite being a devout believer myself, I can’t help but add some fuel to that holy fire with a short “theopunk” story.

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Street Saints, by Alexander Paul Willging

Word Count: 1,032

Silvio pressed his forehead to the ground in reverence.  “Thy will be done, Most High Majesty.”

From behind, he heard a triple knock on the door.  As he got up, Silvio closed the small altar.  He went to the door and slid the peephole open.

“Hey, pater, I need sanctuary,” Reuben called out.  He rolled his eyes and shook a black pouch at the peephole.  “Like right now.  Guard’s just around the corner.”

Silvio unbolted the door to his cell and let him in.  The acolyte entered, clutching the pouch by his belt.  He went straight for the concealed altar while Silvio locked the door and went over to his humble stove, where the tea had started to boil.

“Was there any trouble?” asked the pater.  He poured the tea into a pair of ceramic cups and listened to Reuben setting up in front of the altar.

The acolyte laughed.  “Trouble?  No, not at all.  I think Horatio might end up excommunicated, though.  He said he’d keep the Vice Watch busy while I got out.”  He fell silent, focusing on the glass bottles he was setting out and the liquids he mixed in them.  “If they don’t know he had raw carmot by now, they will soon enough.”

It took another minute for the tea to brew.  As Silvio drank, he looked over the display on the altar.  A simple table under a white cloth, with the Holy Visage emblazoned on the wall above.  Two red wax candles burning.  And in between the candles, a bowl of dark orange liquid.  Carmot mixed with cheap elixir and a few drops of sacramental wine.

“Getting caught with carmot can only get you excommunicated,” Silvio murmured.  “Transubstantiation is worse.  A life sentence in the oubliette.  And only two people in the history of the Ecumene ever tried it.”

Reuben frowned at the concoction in his bowl.  “But it’s got to be worth it.  True beatific vision.  Out in the open, you know?”

The pater nodded and passed him a cup of tea.  They shared a quiet toast and watched as the bowl’s contents began to swirl and bubble on their own.

One more day until the Theophany.

—

An hour after sunrise, the streets of Roma Nova were filled with white and gold banners.  Somber-faced paters in red vestments formed a vanguard near the main procession, leading scores of the Faithful to the front steps of the Solar Temple.  The sky was clear and the air was heavy with the scent of incense.

“Great is Our God!” the paters chanted.

“And Holy is His Name!” the faithful responded.

“Holiest of Holies!”

“Most High Majesty!”

And so the chanting continued as all gathered in front of the temple.  The Hierophant stood behind the altar with his arms raised to heaven.  His attendants were busy adjusting the diadem on his brow and the hem of his robe.

“Through this mortal shell, His Majesty of Heaven speaks!” the Hierophant thundered.  His lips were coated with a layer of angel’s tongue, the mystic balm used by the prophets of old to raise their voices to the crowds.  “Behind the veil of this earth, the Light of Heaven shines eternally!  And though the Ecumene is fleeting, it is also the Body of God Himself!”

“Hail, Most High Majesty!” the faithful cheered.

Normally, at this point in the rite, the Hierophant would recite one of the sacred mysteries and apply it to a major issue of the day.  But he was concerned.  Reports had surfaced of carmot being sold in the streets and young men becoming secret apostates.  The Vice Watch believed that a group might attack the faithful with ghouls summoned from Tartarus.  The Hierophant took them at their word and had rewritten the ceremony script to be short and succinct.

Let the fools try an attack; they would find the crowds gone and the Temple Guard lying in wait.

“Your Majesty be blessed as You have blessed us,” the Hierophant continued.  He took up the pitcher of sacramental wine and began to pour it into the chalice.  “Let us share in Your Glory and be counted as Your Children.  Let us hear from Your Own Voice—”

He froze.  It didn’t occur to him until right after he had poured the wine into the chalice.  Now he saw what was wrong.

The inside of the chalice had been coated with a dark orange fluid.  Now that the wine had mixed with carmot, an alchemical reaction was occurring.  The Hierophant stepped back from the altar as a plume of thick white smoke and heat erupted from within the cup.  He heard the Faithful stir with excitement as the smoke spread out over the altar and down the temple steps.

And then, deep within his bones, he heard a voice from within the smoke.

“PEACE BE UNTO YOU, MY CHILDREN.  AS YOU HAVE ASKED, SO NOW WILL I ANSWER.”

“Hail, hail!” the crowds cheered.  The Hierophant trembled in fear—and not just in fear of his God.

“THIS DAY IS SACRED UNTO ME, BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT ANOTHER CUSTOM.  I GAVE THIS CITY TO YOUR FOREFATHERS THAT YOU MIGHT SHARE MY JOY, BUT YOU HAVE MADE MY CITY A PLACE WITHOUT LAUGHTER.”

The crowds fell silent.  No one stirred, not even the Vice Watch.  How could they?  They’d failed to stop this illegal theophany.

“LET THE TRUTH OF THE ECUMENE BE KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE LAND.  YOUR GOD IS DEAF TO THOSE WITHOUT JOY IN THEIR HEARTS AND IN THEIR DEEDS.  SO HAVE I SPOKEN!”

Slowly, the smoke cleared and the light faded.  The air was still ringing from the divine Voice that had cut through their ears and minds.

The Hierophant fell onto his knees.  He distantly heard the clamor of the masses and the few paters trying to hold them back with futile words.  A few of them, though, were probably stirring up the crowds to revolt.  He knew the Vice Watch would try to round up any apostates, but there was no point in trying.

A schism was inevitable.  The Ecumene would surely fall apart.  After centuries of pious rule, the Voice of God had finally broken through.

—

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Seeing Through Web-Friendly Glasses: Dennou Coil

Copyright © 2007 by Madhouse.

You don’t see a lot of kids in cyberpunk stories, probably because the genre is geared toward a more mature audience and has a bleaker view of life.  But as we enter the post-cyberpunk era, that may change.  We’ve already seen a young girl protagonist in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, and in the world of anime, we’ve got Dennou Coil, also known as Coil: A Circle of Children.

Dennou Coil features a modern-day world where augmented reality is commonplace, easily accessed through glasses linked to the Internet.  The series follows a girl named Yasako and her elementary school friends as they explore the AR world, encountering sentient viruses called Illegals and dealing with the mystery of “obsolete Space.”  Complicating their daily lives is the presence of an antisocial encoder named Isako, a motorcycle-riding cyberspace agent named Tamako, and various urban legends about glasses and cyberspace affecting the real world.

As a protagonist, Yasako is nice but not very well-informed.  Half the time she seems to exist solely to ask questions so everyone else can explain the world she lives in.  Sure, she’s useful for the audience to understand what’s going on, but she doesn’t seem to have much beyond that until late in the show.  Her friend Fumie is much more appealing, both in design and personality; she’s quick-witted, adventurous, and has more experience with cyber-tech like metatags and obsolete Space.  Their friends are about the same personality-wise, with Daichi being more rambunctious, Denpa being more humble, and Haraken being more secretive and cynical.

That said, the really interesting character is Isako.  She has a mysterious past, a cold facade concealing a warm heart, and enough skill with encoding to drive the plot instead of react to it.  But as fascinating as she is, she does redeems Yasako as a protagonist in that their interaction brings out more of Isako’s past and true nature.

Visually, this show is pretty cool.  It gets into augmented reality and how people can interact with it in the real world.  The idea behind the glasses is nothing new; so far, Google Glass is the top candidate for a real-life version.  But the show is more focused on how kids would react to augmented reality, giving their experience more weight as they try to outrun an aggressive antivirus program called Satchii and collect metabugs like it’s a popular online game.  The glasses in Daikoku City are basically wearable smartphones that don’t make a rarity out of face-to-face contact.  Some of the story does make the technology a little too magical, especially when it comes to the Illegals, the “other side,” and Miss Michiko.  But this isn’t bad since Dennou Coil is more of a magical girl show translated into the science fiction genre.

According to director Mitsuo Iso, the show’s key theme is about the distance between people, often highlighted in the show as the distance people put between each other with technology.  But that’s only one side of the drama.  There’s also the fact that the main characters are students in their final year of elementary school, about to make the transition into adolescence   Their kid-friendly view of the world is about to change as well, as their use of the glasses goes beyond a fun hunt for metabugs into an awkward and painful metaphysical journey.  The kids’ stories they told each other about virtual ghosts and demons are investigated, confronted, and integrated into the world that the adults know.  It’s like cyberpunk is cutting away its grim edges to fit a younger audience, only to mature again in due time.  Appropriately enough, most people call this show “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex meets Hayao Miyazaki.”

Being a blend of science fiction, magical girl, and slice-of-life genres, Dennou Coil is kind of kid-friendly cyberpunk, where adult hackers are replaced with schoolkids and evil corporations are replaced with schools and municipal authorities.  Plot-wise, it’s similar to Serial Experiments Lain, but more socially adjusted.  Friends and families are more commonplace and crucial to the plot than they are in Lain’s world.  Ultimately, I think it’s a sign of where cyberpunk and science fiction are headed in the twenty-first century.

Dennou Coil is available through NHK Educational TV and Siren Visual.

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Bibliography: Dennou Coil (anime).  Directed by Mitsuo Iso.  Madhouse (studio).  NHK Educational TV.  May 12, 2007 – December 1, 2007.

Flash Fiction: “Mad, Bad Science”

As terrible as they can seem, mad scientists are kind of cool, what with their white lab coats and crackling Tesla coils and plans for changing the world by way of aggressive science and engineering.  But no one ever said their plans were guaranteed to actually work.

Enjoy!

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Mad, Bad Science, by Alexander Paul Willging

Word Count: 535

Smoke filled the corridor as everyone ran screaming from the fires—everyone except for Dr. Jon Stark, who knew all too well what was going on.  He grabbed a white lab coat from the rack on the wall and slid it on, thanking the Almighty that this year’s budget allowed for fireproof fabrics.

“Marge!” he called out.  “Marge!  Extinguish fire!”

The laboratory AI buzzed for a second—probably an overworked processor—and responded, “Command accepted.  Extinguishing fire.”

The ceiling panels slid open, as nozzles emerged to spray down the lab with pink retardant foam.  While Marge the Machine tended to the cleanup procedures, Jon did his best not to slip on the sticky substance coating the floor and frantically searched for his assistants.

Just because he was crazy didn’t mean he didn’t care.

—

“Goddammit, Jonathan!  That’s the third time this month!”  Sheila furiously wiped the foam off her cheek with a towel.  “When are you going to put in some proper safety protocols?”

For the thousandth time, he tried to be patient.  “I told you, risk is inherent in our line of work.”

“Building a defense against laser weapons doesn’t mean we have to build our own superlaser!”

“Well, how else are you going to test its defenses?  The General’s very insistent that this defense plan is the very best.”

Sheila growled in aggravation and chucked the towel at Jon’s head.  “I’m done arguing with you.  You get two points from me because you saved Tony from burning to death, but that’s it.”

Jon nodded.  He still had her cooperation, and that was all that counted.  Sure, it was federally-mandated cooperation, but why split hairs about it?

—

A beautiful May morning, ripe for field testing.  Jon slid his goggles into place and turned to the assembled military officers with a grin.

“Gentlemen, I give you Indra’s Hand.  The last resort against insurgent laser technology.  Why bother with anti-laser shielding when you can diffuse incoming laser attacks with an even stronger laser?”

“Quick word of advice, boss,” Tony whispered from his station.  “Take the evil cackling down a notch.”

“I wasn’t cackling, I’m just enthusiastic.”  Jon cleared his throat.  “All right.  Activate Channels One through Six, and align by five degrees northwest.”

“Channels are open.  The Hand is aligning now…”

The desert wind was picking up.  That could be a problem.  Jon briefly imagined Indra Himself reaching down from the heavens to scatter his laser beams, enraged at this technological terror.  But what was science if not a chance to spit in the eyes of the gods themselves?

He smiled as he hit the switch.

—

Six hours and an ambulance ride later, Dr. Jon Stark sat at Sheila’s bedside.  He doubted she could hear him in her state, but once he got her cerebral implant working, he was sure he’d find a way around that.

“To hell with the General,” he was saying.  “I know we could’ve got that superlaser working.  And if I ever find enough DNA to reconstruct Tony, I’ll make sure we’ll do it right next time.  You have my word, Sheila.”

He took her silence to mean she was in agreement.  When had he ever been wrong about that?

—

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Dig That Discworld Sound: Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

Copyright © 1994 by Terry Pratchett.

On the whole, I love Terry Pratchett and his wonderfully-written Discworld novels.  So far, I’ve been a fan of such stories where Death is one of the main characters, usually having to do with him taking an interest in humanity and all the funny and sad things that come of it.

That said, Soul Music is a bit disappointing.  Not a bad story, just not one of the best.

Susan Sto Helit is a young woman attending a ladies’ school in Quirm who finds out that she has inherited her grandfather’s business: being the Grim Reaper.  Naturally, she’s resistant to the idea, but Grandfather has gone on holiday to forget all the troubles of being the cessation of life.  Meanwhile, a trio of young and desperate musicians in Ankh-Morpork become the start of a wild new sensation–Music With Rocks In–thanks to a mystic guitar bought at a mysterious shop.  It’s up to Susan and the wizards of Unseen University to find a way to contain all this madness.

For the most part, I liked the parts of this story that had to do with Susan, being her debut novel.  She’s a very logical person trying to deal with all the irrational and mythical elements of her grandfather’s world.  Her conversations with the Death of Rats and the raven are always engaging, with her as the straight man to their wisecracks.  Even Death’s assistant Albert gets a semi-heroic role near the climax, though he’s mostly a cynical housekeeper with sardonic commentary.

That said, when it came to musician characters like Imp and his band mates, I wasn’t that drawn in.  Yes, Cliff the troll is pretty articulate and thoughtful (for a troll), but Glod is a one-note dwarf character about gold and poor bargaining skills.  Imp–later known as Buddy–is less of a character and more of a walking plot device.  Their conflict with the Musicians’ Guild is a little interesting at first, though it gets old pretty quick.

As much as I enjoy Mr. Pratchett’s wit, I found myself groaning at the sheer number of puns and allusions in this book.  There were so many veiled shout-outs to Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Blues Brothers, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and punk rockers that after a while I wasn’t reading so much as going through the motions.  I know it’s all based on a bizarre magic that created Music With Rocks In, but the mysterious magical entity doesn’t do much except persist.  There’s no real threat, just a series of rock music and music fan parodies with no end in sight.  And when it’s over, there’s no lasting impact.  Just some vague memories and back to life as usual.

If I were the sort of reviewer who rated works (and I’m usually not, I swear), then I would rate Soul Music as a three-out-of-five novel.  It’s not the worst Discworld novel ever written–not when great characters like Susan and Death are involved–but it’s not the best either.

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Bibliography: Pratchett, Terry.  Soul Music.  London: Victor Gollancz, 1994.