Blips: A Moment in Time

Source: Dead Sea (Chrono Cross)
Author: Alice Kojiro
Site: Gaming Symmetry

I've noticed some recent chatter about PS1 classic Chrono Cross on Twitter recently, and nothing pleases me more. If you put me to the question, I might even say the game is my all-time favorite. So, not only have I been bathing in this praise for something I love, but Alice Kojiro over at Gaming Symmetry has written at length about the most memorable area of Chrono Cross: the Dead Sea. How validating it is to know that someone else has recognized the profundity of the Dead Sea section of Chrono Cross. There is nothing else like the Dead Sea. Kojiro's piece is part of a series of articles about taking on the role of an embedded explorer recounting their journey. It's lovely work, and gets at the heart of what makes the Dead Sea special. Please check it out.

As for my take, well, traversing the Dead Sea's frozen-in-time, city-engulfing tidal waves is perhaps the most formative gaming experience I've had. Apologies for the hyperbole; I wouldn't expect it to have the same effect on someone else, especially if they were to play it for the first time in 2014 after hearing me gush about it. But for me, in the time of my life when I played Chrono Cross (late high school), it was a revelation. The game, as a whole, is gorgeous. I'm not sure there's another game that's used the full spectrum of the color pallet in such subtle, effective ways. And the Yasonori Mitsuda's original score bests all contenders. There's an emotional range in Chrono Cross that is presented through character dialogue, but the music and prerendered backgrounds really provide the weight and ambiance for everything to work together. The Dead Sea simultaneously represents awe and loss. Unlike blockbuster disaster movies and apocalyptic game sequences, the Dead Sea's "impact" is both halted and never-ending. It's quiet, contemplative, and cold, and I'll never forget it.

Blips: Fall Fling

Source: Untold Riches: An Analysis Of Portal's Level Design
Author: Hamish Todd
Site: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Portal's a pretty smartly designed game. I played it for the first time a few months ago, and was impressed by inventive physics-based puzzles. Portal has proven to be a tremendously influential game in terms of environmental storytelling and making your standard block-pushing minigame even more boring that it already was. There's just something kind of amazing about staring into a portal you've created and seeing an entire area, just waiting to be stepped into. It has a similar appeal to mirrored surfaces in games; offering moments where you can see your character and the world around you from a different perspective than the one offered by the game's camera.

Now, the article by Hamish Todd that I wanted to share is all about Portal's physics –specifically the "fling" technique. The picture above illustrates what flinging is all about. Basically, you set up a situation where you jump from a height through a portal on the ground, only to emerge from a wall portal with he forward momentum gained from your quick descent. The result is that you are flung forward through space. The fling ends up becoming one of Portal's core conceits, sometimes asking that you rotate or shoot a new portal in midair to change trajectory. It seems so simple, yet it hadn't really been done before –not like this anyway.

In his article, Todd walks through a number of different puzzle rooms from Portal and some of the extended challenges, showing how many different ways the fling was implemented (some great illustrative GIFs in there too). The fling was a naturally occurring phenomenon in the game engine before it became central to Portal's gameplay, as if it was something to be discovered. This reminds me of how Devil May Cry's air juggling mechanic was born out of an Onimusha glitch where enemies weren't falling to the ground after being launched above you. It's a philosophy of looking at something that happens unexpectedly and embracing it for what it is. How refreshing.