Monday, February 24, 2020
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Night In The Tower
When I was a young boy, my parents told me there were no such thing as ghosts. Growing up I really believed that. That's pretty crazy, right? Now we know ghosts are quite real and many famous trainers specialize in training the ghost-type Pokémon. It was Professor Oak and Elite Agatha who first speculated the existence of the ghost-type and it was because of their theories and the strange happenings going on at Pokémon Tower that they sent me, and Blue before me, to investigate and uncover the truth. I don't know what Blue endured within the tower before I got to Lavender Town, but I know he realized the prototype Silph Scope was absolutely necessary to see just what was really going on inside. I didn't know what I'd find inside, but I was confident that it wasn't going to be ghosts. They weren't real.
Professor Oak had sent me some urgent messages that I picked up at the Pokémon Center in Lavender. They sounded quite desperate. Apparently some of the other field research teams that he had dispatched to the tower had met with disaster. They had all abandoned the project. The rumors around town that whatever was going on inside the tower had involved Team Rocket somehow which I'm sure prompted Blue to take action in Celadon. It also explained why the Silph Scope was found among their stolen experimental devices in their headquarters.
"The tower is closed to the public until further notice," the attendant at the front counter told me as I entered the site. "Mr. Fuji is quite adamant that no one else be allowed to enter until a thorough investigation has been conducted."
"I was sent by Professor Oak," I stammered, hoping it would give me enough credibility to proceed.
"So were most of the others," she replied. "They didn't last very long inside. Neither did those Team Rocket members who forced their way in soon after. The tower is too dangerous right now."
"How so?" I asked. I knew the tower was used as a memorial for Pokémon that had passed on, but all the chatter around town of ghosts lurking in the darkness just seemed ridiculous to me. Ghosts weren't real.
"There was a team from Saffron City that went in about a week ago. Not a single one of them has come back. I personally won't even set foot on the first step up those stairs," she said motioning to the large winding stairway that worked its way up the floors of the tower. "Just forget about it and go home. I'm sorry if you lost a Pokémon dear to you, but it's just not safe up there."
She wasn't going to budge on the issue, but as far as I knew the tower was an open building day and night. There was no front gate, no locked doors, nothing to bar entry once this attendant had gone home for the night. Professor Oak's researchers had failed. Team Rocket had fled. Blue certainly wasn't inclined to come back after whatever happened to him. Not to mention a team of investigators from Saffron City had disappeared inside not too long ago. I needed to know what was going on inside and I was the only one with a Silph Scope that Blue assured me was necessary. So I waited patiently discreetly down the street from the path winding up to the Pokémon Tower and waited for night to fall.
As I had surmised, the tower was completely unguarded at night. The troubling rumors and the fact that it was a Pokémon graveyard probably kept most of the townsfolk far from the tower at night. I was the only one dumb enough to set foot inside after dark, and as soon as I stepped off the stairs my heart was racing. Even though it was early May and summer was just around the corner, the air was chilled. Even so, I was sweating up a storm as I crossed the first floor towards the next set of stairs leading up to the third floor.
The tower was dimly lit. Small candles burned on the memorials that were left for lost Pokémon, but there was no other light source. There were windows along the edges of the tower, but for some reason the moonlight was not making its way inside. As I passed by the memorials, I wondered, who had lit these candles if no one was allowed up here? I convinced myself that it must have been the team from Saffron City that were still lingering in the tower for whatever reason. I tried not to ask myself how they had survived for a week without access to food or water. Certainly they must have brought enough supplies. Right?
As my nerves began to falter, I popped the Silph Scope down over my eyes and glanced around. I was hoping they'd allow me to see better in the darkness, but sadly they did not. Everything looked normal through the lenses of the Silph Scope. Still, I wouldn't take them off now that they were on. They brought me some small amount of comfort and that was enough to get me to take those steps up to the next floor. It made me feel safe at first, but that began to dwindle with every passing moment spent in the tower.
Every passing step up across the floors of the tower and I felt a huge weight on my stomach pressing down and making me feel ill. I began to grow more and more terrified, jumping at every shadow flickering in the candle light. Eventually I felt like I was moving at a snail's pace as I made my way up the flights of stairs and across each new floor. It was deathly silent in here. Aside from the lit candles, that I hoped were being maintained by the Saffron crew, there was no sign or sound of anyone else inside. I felt tremendously alone.
It wasn't until the third floor that I realized I wasn't alone. I tossed out Dustin's Poké Ball and he was instantly on alert. I don't know what spooked him, but it didn't reassure me much. Still, I was glad to have the company as Dustin pressed forward one step ahead of me. Thanks to knowing the useless Pokémon move "Flash" Dustin's eyes managed to illuminate the darkness just a bit better than the candles, but a gloom still clung to the place.
I was certain we were being watched and Dustin seemed to agree. His eyes darted from corner to corner, lighting them up like a flashlight. As we progressed he would often stop and jerk his head around to peer into the corners behind us, as certain as I felt that there was something there. Neither his psychic prowess or my Silph Scope revealed anything, though. Whatever was lurking out there was quick to elude us and by the fifth floor, I think Dustin was making me more nervous than comforted with his erratic scanning of every dank nook and cranny of the tower.
Stepping off the stairs to the sixth floor, I could hear faint laughter or perhaps weeping coming from the final floor above us. It froze Dustin and I in our tracks. I saw him tilt his head as he reached out to probe with his mind. I envied him a little, but he didn't seem reassured much by whatever his psychic scan revealed. The noises from above confirmed that we were not alone and that disturbed both of us. The hairs on my neck were standing on end and my entire skin was covered in goosebumps by this point. I could see my breath in front of my face in the dim candle light, even though it really shouldn't have been that cold. Every instinct in my body told me to run back down the tower and out into the safety of the moonlit night, but I'd come too far. I'd faced down Team Rocket just two days ago and I wasn't about to let some laughing or weeping creature scare me away from this tower.
I almost wish it had, though. What awaited above in the darkness haunts me still. I've never seen anything like it before or since. As Dustin and I crossed the threshold of the seventh and final floor of the tower, we found ourselves surrounded by bodies - human bodies. They were strewn about the room like rag dolls that had been tossed aside, draped up against the walls and memorials, unmoving in the flickering candle light. The laughter, and I was confident it was laughter now, seemed to be coming from all around us. I couldn't tell if it was coming from one of the bodies on strewn across the floor or not. It wasn't until I looked at Dustin, who was staring intently up at the ceiling, that my stomach dropped and I slowly followed his gaze upward.
"Have you come to play?" A young woman was clutching the ceiling like some kind of spider or lizard, crouched on all fours, but staring down at us from across the room. Her face and neck were contorted in ways that didn't look natural or comfortable and her mouth was in a wide, sneering grin. "My other dolls are broken now, and this one will soon be useless, too." The voice was seething, but held a hint of laughter.
The girl dropped from the ceiling like a rock, but managed to contort herself in midair like a cat to land soundly on her bare feet and the palms of her hands. I could see she was wearing what remained of a very tattered dress, or perhaps tattered red hakama of a shrine maiden. Her wiry black hair fell around her face like a frame, but her grin did not change from the mocking crescent moon she held when we first saw her on the ceiling. "Answer me!" She insisted.
"I'm not here to play," I shouted back. I don't know where the words came from because I was trembling with intense fear.
"You never had a choice!" she screamed and rushed forward at insane speed. Fortunately Dustin raised his right hand, a pendulum forever swinging in his left and the girl was thrown backwards across the room, slamming harshly into the wall. It was then that I saw it through the Silph Scope. It wasn't the girl that Dustin had attacked, but something inside her. A dark purple mass was attached to the girl and I could see the grin fade from her mouth as it began to coalesce behind her.
"Help me," she gasped in a strained, but normal sounding human voice.
"Dustin! Hit it again!" Dustin took a step forward with his palm extended and I could feel a shock wave of his Confusion psychic attack blast whatever creature had hold of this young woman. This time she was freed entirely and her body fell to the floor in a heap. What remained was a round, dark purple Pokémon with large eyes with red sclera surrounding little black pupils. It held that same sickly wide grin that was splashed horrifically across the girls face. I was looking at a ghost - a ghost Pokémon which until recently had only been theorized.
It looked at me and Dustin with some disbelief behind its twisted grin. It apparently didn't expect to be pushed out like that. Dustin protectively stood between me and the creature. Before my eyes, two more creatures materialized out of apparently thin air. One of them a gaseous purple and black ball with eyes and a mouth, the other a floating purple apparition with two detached purple hands floating in front of it. I was all but locked up in terror at this point, but Dustin and I both knew that I was in danger.
Dustin sized up the opponents squarely. His gaze passed from one to the other. Finally I urged him to action. He hypnotized the gaseous orb which the Pokédex would come to identify as Gastly and it slowly drifted down to the floor in sleep. I quickly tossed out a Poké Ball to capture it if I could and get it off the battlefield. I didn't have time to see if it was successful as the apparition with disembodied hands lunged forward with a gigantic tongue rolling out of its gaping maw. It looked as though it were going to lick Dustin, but he was having none of it. Confusion absolutely decimated the apparition later identified as Haunter. It left only the original creature, the leader of this mischievous trio, staring coldly at us across the room.
Dustin and the Gengar appeared to be having some kind of intense staring contest and for a moment I wondered if they were engaged in some kind of psychic battle. It was unfortunately too late that I realized this ghost Pokémon was using one of my beloved techniques against us! Dustin was sound asleep and this creature was somehow feasting on his dreams and gaining strength. How could I have been so stupid? I fumbled for Dustin's ball to withdraw him and protect him, but before I could, a faint sound came trickling in from somewhere. It was the soft sound of a flute.
I didn't have time to be puzzled by this because Dustin was instantly awake and taking action. He leaned forward to send a final blast of Confusion at the Gengar which squealed in pain and then suddenly vanished into the night. The candles flared up dramatically, enveloping the whole room in bright light before returning to a normal, healthy glow. The gloom that had been hanging around this place had been lifted. I saw the faint blinking light of my Poké Ball and knew I had captured that one gaseous orb. I took a deep breath and felt like a huge weight had been lifted. I'd forgotten completely about the faint flute music.
"Are you all right?" I asked rushing over to the young woman who had been tossed backwards by Dustin's psychic attack.
"I am now," she said in an exhausted tone. "Thank you."
I didn't really know what to say. Dustin had done most of the work. I had been practically frozen in fear. I helped the woman to her feet. She looked around at the other bodies. She frowned.
"They are alive," she said. I wasn't sure how she knew what I was asking in my head. "I can sense them breathing, dreaming. They are just weak. That Pokémon was playing with us like toys and draining our energy. We might not have made it much longer if you hadn't shown up." Her voice was raspy and quiet.
"Stay here with your friends," I said. "I'll go get help."
"No need!" came a loud voice from the stairway. Dustin, the girl and I all snapped our heads in his direction, surprised by the announcement. Standing at the stairs, we saw an old, bald man in a kimono beside an old woman in a purple and white dress leaning heavily on a cane. The man looked genuinely ecstatic while the woman had a dark grin spread across her face. "We saw you come in armed with that scope there and knew we had to follow. I'd been waiting for Agatha here for days to help me investigate the tower and it appears her predictions were correct. There were ghost-type Pokémon in here!"
"May I?" she asked, pointing at the Poké Ball that now held Spectre the Gastly. I handed it to her. I'd like to reiterate, I had no idea who I was talking to at the time. As a newcomer to Kanto, I didn't realize I was in the presence of two well known authorities on Pokémon in the region, one of them a member of the Elite Four. All I knew was I was exhausted from this ordeal and they were here to help. It had been a long night. In my exhaustion, I never even noticed the flute clutched in the old man's hands.
Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.
Current Team:
Bill's Storage: Kiwi (Pidgeotto), Vesper (Zubat), Spectre (Gastly)
Old Man Daycare: Charlie (Pidgey)
Professor Oak had sent me some urgent messages that I picked up at the Pokémon Center in Lavender. They sounded quite desperate. Apparently some of the other field research teams that he had dispatched to the tower had met with disaster. They had all abandoned the project. The rumors around town that whatever was going on inside the tower had involved Team Rocket somehow which I'm sure prompted Blue to take action in Celadon. It also explained why the Silph Scope was found among their stolen experimental devices in their headquarters.
"The tower is closed to the public until further notice," the attendant at the front counter told me as I entered the site. "Mr. Fuji is quite adamant that no one else be allowed to enter until a thorough investigation has been conducted."
"I was sent by Professor Oak," I stammered, hoping it would give me enough credibility to proceed.
"So were most of the others," she replied. "They didn't last very long inside. Neither did those Team Rocket members who forced their way in soon after. The tower is too dangerous right now."
"How so?" I asked. I knew the tower was used as a memorial for Pokémon that had passed on, but all the chatter around town of ghosts lurking in the darkness just seemed ridiculous to me. Ghosts weren't real.
"There was a team from Saffron City that went in about a week ago. Not a single one of them has come back. I personally won't even set foot on the first step up those stairs," she said motioning to the large winding stairway that worked its way up the floors of the tower. "Just forget about it and go home. I'm sorry if you lost a Pokémon dear to you, but it's just not safe up there."
She wasn't going to budge on the issue, but as far as I knew the tower was an open building day and night. There was no front gate, no locked doors, nothing to bar entry once this attendant had gone home for the night. Professor Oak's researchers had failed. Team Rocket had fled. Blue certainly wasn't inclined to come back after whatever happened to him. Not to mention a team of investigators from Saffron City had disappeared inside not too long ago. I needed to know what was going on inside and I was the only one with a Silph Scope that Blue assured me was necessary. So I waited patiently discreetly down the street from the path winding up to the Pokémon Tower and waited for night to fall.
As I had surmised, the tower was completely unguarded at night. The troubling rumors and the fact that it was a Pokémon graveyard probably kept most of the townsfolk far from the tower at night. I was the only one dumb enough to set foot inside after dark, and as soon as I stepped off the stairs my heart was racing. Even though it was early May and summer was just around the corner, the air was chilled. Even so, I was sweating up a storm as I crossed the first floor towards the next set of stairs leading up to the third floor.
The tower was dimly lit. Small candles burned on the memorials that were left for lost Pokémon, but there was no other light source. There were windows along the edges of the tower, but for some reason the moonlight was not making its way inside. As I passed by the memorials, I wondered, who had lit these candles if no one was allowed up here? I convinced myself that it must have been the team from Saffron City that were still lingering in the tower for whatever reason. I tried not to ask myself how they had survived for a week without access to food or water. Certainly they must have brought enough supplies. Right?
As my nerves began to falter, I popped the Silph Scope down over my eyes and glanced around. I was hoping they'd allow me to see better in the darkness, but sadly they did not. Everything looked normal through the lenses of the Silph Scope. Still, I wouldn't take them off now that they were on. They brought me some small amount of comfort and that was enough to get me to take those steps up to the next floor. It made me feel safe at first, but that began to dwindle with every passing moment spent in the tower.
Every passing step up across the floors of the tower and I felt a huge weight on my stomach pressing down and making me feel ill. I began to grow more and more terrified, jumping at every shadow flickering in the candle light. Eventually I felt like I was moving at a snail's pace as I made my way up the flights of stairs and across each new floor. It was deathly silent in here. Aside from the lit candles, that I hoped were being maintained by the Saffron crew, there was no sign or sound of anyone else inside. I felt tremendously alone.
It wasn't until the third floor that I realized I wasn't alone. I tossed out Dustin's Poké Ball and he was instantly on alert. I don't know what spooked him, but it didn't reassure me much. Still, I was glad to have the company as Dustin pressed forward one step ahead of me. Thanks to knowing the useless Pokémon move "Flash" Dustin's eyes managed to illuminate the darkness just a bit better than the candles, but a gloom still clung to the place.
I was certain we were being watched and Dustin seemed to agree. His eyes darted from corner to corner, lighting them up like a flashlight. As we progressed he would often stop and jerk his head around to peer into the corners behind us, as certain as I felt that there was something there. Neither his psychic prowess or my Silph Scope revealed anything, though. Whatever was lurking out there was quick to elude us and by the fifth floor, I think Dustin was making me more nervous than comforted with his erratic scanning of every dank nook and cranny of the tower.
Stepping off the stairs to the sixth floor, I could hear faint laughter or perhaps weeping coming from the final floor above us. It froze Dustin and I in our tracks. I saw him tilt his head as he reached out to probe with his mind. I envied him a little, but he didn't seem reassured much by whatever his psychic scan revealed. The noises from above confirmed that we were not alone and that disturbed both of us. The hairs on my neck were standing on end and my entire skin was covered in goosebumps by this point. I could see my breath in front of my face in the dim candle light, even though it really shouldn't have been that cold. Every instinct in my body told me to run back down the tower and out into the safety of the moonlit night, but I'd come too far. I'd faced down Team Rocket just two days ago and I wasn't about to let some laughing or weeping creature scare me away from this tower.
I almost wish it had, though. What awaited above in the darkness haunts me still. I've never seen anything like it before or since. As Dustin and I crossed the threshold of the seventh and final floor of the tower, we found ourselves surrounded by bodies - human bodies. They were strewn about the room like rag dolls that had been tossed aside, draped up against the walls and memorials, unmoving in the flickering candle light. The laughter, and I was confident it was laughter now, seemed to be coming from all around us. I couldn't tell if it was coming from one of the bodies on strewn across the floor or not. It wasn't until I looked at Dustin, who was staring intently up at the ceiling, that my stomach dropped and I slowly followed his gaze upward.
"Have you come to play?" A young woman was clutching the ceiling like some kind of spider or lizard, crouched on all fours, but staring down at us from across the room. Her face and neck were contorted in ways that didn't look natural or comfortable and her mouth was in a wide, sneering grin. "My other dolls are broken now, and this one will soon be useless, too." The voice was seething, but held a hint of laughter.
The girl dropped from the ceiling like a rock, but managed to contort herself in midair like a cat to land soundly on her bare feet and the palms of her hands. I could see she was wearing what remained of a very tattered dress, or perhaps tattered red hakama of a shrine maiden. Her wiry black hair fell around her face like a frame, but her grin did not change from the mocking crescent moon she held when we first saw her on the ceiling. "Answer me!" She insisted.
"I'm not here to play," I shouted back. I don't know where the words came from because I was trembling with intense fear.
"You never had a choice!" she screamed and rushed forward at insane speed. Fortunately Dustin raised his right hand, a pendulum forever swinging in his left and the girl was thrown backwards across the room, slamming harshly into the wall. It was then that I saw it through the Silph Scope. It wasn't the girl that Dustin had attacked, but something inside her. A dark purple mass was attached to the girl and I could see the grin fade from her mouth as it began to coalesce behind her.
"Help me," she gasped in a strained, but normal sounding human voice.
"Dustin! Hit it again!" Dustin took a step forward with his palm extended and I could feel a shock wave of his Confusion psychic attack blast whatever creature had hold of this young woman. This time she was freed entirely and her body fell to the floor in a heap. What remained was a round, dark purple Pokémon with large eyes with red sclera surrounding little black pupils. It held that same sickly wide grin that was splashed horrifically across the girls face. I was looking at a ghost - a ghost Pokémon which until recently had only been theorized.
It looked at me and Dustin with some disbelief behind its twisted grin. It apparently didn't expect to be pushed out like that. Dustin protectively stood between me and the creature. Before my eyes, two more creatures materialized out of apparently thin air. One of them a gaseous purple and black ball with eyes and a mouth, the other a floating purple apparition with two detached purple hands floating in front of it. I was all but locked up in terror at this point, but Dustin and I both knew that I was in danger.
Dustin sized up the opponents squarely. His gaze passed from one to the other. Finally I urged him to action. He hypnotized the gaseous orb which the Pokédex would come to identify as Gastly and it slowly drifted down to the floor in sleep. I quickly tossed out a Poké Ball to capture it if I could and get it off the battlefield. I didn't have time to see if it was successful as the apparition with disembodied hands lunged forward with a gigantic tongue rolling out of its gaping maw. It looked as though it were going to lick Dustin, but he was having none of it. Confusion absolutely decimated the apparition later identified as Haunter. It left only the original creature, the leader of this mischievous trio, staring coldly at us across the room.
Dustin and the Gengar appeared to be having some kind of intense staring contest and for a moment I wondered if they were engaged in some kind of psychic battle. It was unfortunately too late that I realized this ghost Pokémon was using one of my beloved techniques against us! Dustin was sound asleep and this creature was somehow feasting on his dreams and gaining strength. How could I have been so stupid? I fumbled for Dustin's ball to withdraw him and protect him, but before I could, a faint sound came trickling in from somewhere. It was the soft sound of a flute.
I didn't have time to be puzzled by this because Dustin was instantly awake and taking action. He leaned forward to send a final blast of Confusion at the Gengar which squealed in pain and then suddenly vanished into the night. The candles flared up dramatically, enveloping the whole room in bright light before returning to a normal, healthy glow. The gloom that had been hanging around this place had been lifted. I saw the faint blinking light of my Poké Ball and knew I had captured that one gaseous orb. I took a deep breath and felt like a huge weight had been lifted. I'd forgotten completely about the faint flute music.
"Are you all right?" I asked rushing over to the young woman who had been tossed backwards by Dustin's psychic attack.
"I am now," she said in an exhausted tone. "Thank you."
I didn't really know what to say. Dustin had done most of the work. I had been practically frozen in fear. I helped the woman to her feet. She looked around at the other bodies. She frowned.
"They are alive," she said. I wasn't sure how she knew what I was asking in my head. "I can sense them breathing, dreaming. They are just weak. That Pokémon was playing with us like toys and draining our energy. We might not have made it much longer if you hadn't shown up." Her voice was raspy and quiet.
"Stay here with your friends," I said. "I'll go get help."
"No need!" came a loud voice from the stairway. Dustin, the girl and I all snapped our heads in his direction, surprised by the announcement. Standing at the stairs, we saw an old, bald man in a kimono beside an old woman in a purple and white dress leaning heavily on a cane. The man looked genuinely ecstatic while the woman had a dark grin spread across her face. "We saw you come in armed with that scope there and knew we had to follow. I'd been waiting for Agatha here for days to help me investigate the tower and it appears her predictions were correct. There were ghost-type Pokémon in here!"
"May I?" she asked, pointing at the Poké Ball that now held Spectre the Gastly. I handed it to her. I'd like to reiterate, I had no idea who I was talking to at the time. As a newcomer to Kanto, I didn't realize I was in the presence of two well known authorities on Pokémon in the region, one of them a member of the Elite Four. All I knew was I was exhausted from this ordeal and they were here to help. It had been a long night. In my exhaustion, I never even noticed the flute clutched in the old man's hands.
Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.
Current Team:
Bill's Storage: Kiwi (Pidgeotto), Vesper (Zubat), Spectre (Gastly)
Old Man Daycare: Charlie (Pidgey)
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Results Of MSSA's 10Th Annual Online Championships For High Schools
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| Northcliff High School grabbed the 'lion's share' of titles at MSSA's 10th Annual Online Championships for High Schools. |
Teams from aroundd the country gathered at schools, or at previously approved locations, to fight for glory and honour.
Judging by the winners of each gamee title, it is becoming clear that certain schools are beginning to take ownership of the title. The schools are blessed with hard-working and dedicated educators who give up their own time to ensure the success of the school and the learner.
It is interesting that with the educator moving from SAHETI to Redhill, success has followed the educator, which further re-inforces the belief that without proper management, the team has even greater odds to overcome.
Another encouraging feature is that more provinces saw teams being awarded High School Provincial Colours. With five (5) provinces seeing colours being awarded, it is clear that Gauteng and Western Cape provinces no longer totally dominate esports in South Africa and that there is a more general standard of excellence than ever before.
It should be noted that Provincial High School Colours are awarded immediately to the members of the team who win each and every game that they play in such 10th Annual Online Championships for High Schools.
The members of the teams that have finished in the top three also immediatel qualify for 2020 National Team Trials. It is at such National Team Trials that MSSA shall select its team to attend International Esports Federation's (IESF) 12th World Championships - Eilat.
The winners of MSSA's 10th Annual Online Championships for High Schools are:
Also read:
- Ensuring gender equity in esports.
- MSSA celebrates its women who have earned Protea Colours.
- Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
- Entry fees for Provincial and National Championships
- How school clubs affiliate for the 2020 season.
- 2020 Calendar of Events
- The various events held by Mind Sports South Africa.
- Why schools and universities should invest in esports
- New National Team Selection Criteria
- Selecting the national Protea teams for Mind Sports South Africa.
- The road to Eilat
- MSSA to nominate candidates for IESF's International Referee Workshop.
What Is SOMA's Safe Mode?
Tomorrow we will be releasing SOMA for Xbox One and along with this comes Safe Mode. This is a new way of playing the game that will also be available via Steam and GOG at the same time.
Since we announced Safe Mode there have been a lot of questions about it, so we thought this would be a good time to answer some of those and to clear up a few things. Here goes:
What is Safe Mode?
It is a version of the game where you cannot die - you are safe from harm. The game's various creatures are still there, they just won't attack you. If you've heard of the SOMA Steam mod "Wuss Mode", by steam user The Dreamer, then you should know the basic idea. The important thing to point out is that we don't simply turn off the creature's ability to attack and harm you. Instead, we've redesigned their behavior. Our goal has been for Safe Mode to not feel like a cheat, but for it to be a genuine way of experiencing the game. So we've considered what each creature should be doing, given their appearance, sound, and voice.
You can pick between Safe Mode and normal mode when starting up a new game.
Is the game still scary?
This obviously depends on what scares you, but the short answer is: yes, the game is still a horror game. However, since you can explore without a constant fear of failure, you will no longer have that type of tension. For people who aren't great at handling that aspect of horror gameplay, their journey through SOMA will be a lot easier in Safe Mode. But if it is the overall atmosphere that gets to you in a horror game - and, above all, the central themes - then game will still have plenty to be scared of.
What is the major difference in gameplay?
All of the puzzles, events, and so forth are still there. The big difference is that you'll no longer have to sneak past enemies. You don't need stealth in order to complete the game. Monsters might sound and act more threatening if they spot you, so there is still an incentive to being careful, but it's no longer mandatory to keep hidden. This will also allow you to explore some of environments more carefully.
Why release it now?
We actually considered releasing something similar at launch, but chose not to because we felt it would make the core intent of the game too unfocused. As people started to say that they really wanted to play the game and experience the philosophical sci-fi narrative, but couldn't because of the monsters, we started considering doing something about it. People liking the "Wuss Mode" mod was a good sign that we could solve this. However going back to a game you have already completed is not tempting so we put it off.
What eventually tipped the scales was the Xbox release where we wanted an extra feature to make the launch more interesting. Adding some sort of no-monster mode felt like the best option, and so Safe Mode was born! It also felt like it had been long enough since the original release, and the intended version of the game had been played and evaluated enough. Adding a new play mode wouldn't be a problem.
Will it come to PS4?
Yes! We hope to have it ready about 2 months from now. Sorry for not releasing it now, but a couple of issues have kept us from doing a simultaneous launch of Safe Mode.
I hope that clears things up! Let us know in the comments if you have any other questions!
Since we announced Safe Mode there have been a lot of questions about it, so we thought this would be a good time to answer some of those and to clear up a few things. Here goes:
What is Safe Mode?
It is a version of the game where you cannot die - you are safe from harm. The game's various creatures are still there, they just won't attack you. If you've heard of the SOMA Steam mod "Wuss Mode", by steam user The Dreamer, then you should know the basic idea. The important thing to point out is that we don't simply turn off the creature's ability to attack and harm you. Instead, we've redesigned their behavior. Our goal has been for Safe Mode to not feel like a cheat, but for it to be a genuine way of experiencing the game. So we've considered what each creature should be doing, given their appearance, sound, and voice.
You can pick between Safe Mode and normal mode when starting up a new game.
Is the game still scary?
This obviously depends on what scares you, but the short answer is: yes, the game is still a horror game. However, since you can explore without a constant fear of failure, you will no longer have that type of tension. For people who aren't great at handling that aspect of horror gameplay, their journey through SOMA will be a lot easier in Safe Mode. But if it is the overall atmosphere that gets to you in a horror game - and, above all, the central themes - then game will still have plenty to be scared of.
What is the major difference in gameplay?
All of the puzzles, events, and so forth are still there. The big difference is that you'll no longer have to sneak past enemies. You don't need stealth in order to complete the game. Monsters might sound and act more threatening if they spot you, so there is still an incentive to being careful, but it's no longer mandatory to keep hidden. This will also allow you to explore some of environments more carefully.
Why release it now?
We actually considered releasing something similar at launch, but chose not to because we felt it would make the core intent of the game too unfocused. As people started to say that they really wanted to play the game and experience the philosophical sci-fi narrative, but couldn't because of the monsters, we started considering doing something about it. People liking the "Wuss Mode" mod was a good sign that we could solve this. However going back to a game you have already completed is not tempting so we put it off.
What eventually tipped the scales was the Xbox release where we wanted an extra feature to make the launch more interesting. Adding some sort of no-monster mode felt like the best option, and so Safe Mode was born! It also felt like it had been long enough since the original release, and the intended version of the game had been played and evaluated enough. Adding a new play mode wouldn't be a problem.
Will it come to PS4?
Yes! We hope to have it ready about 2 months from now. Sorry for not releasing it now, but a couple of issues have kept us from doing a simultaneous launch of Safe Mode.
I hope that clears things up! Let us know in the comments if you have any other questions!
Pocket PC - The Forgotten Era Of Handheld Video Gaming?
Fr Mark Higgins writes-
Back in the early 2000s I was an owner of a Pocket PC, I managed to persuade my grandparents to buy me one when I was about 16, I owned, to begin with an HP Jornada 525, later on I had a NEC Pocket Gear 2060, then I had an Axim X5, before finally settling with an HP IPAQ 2495, this probably spans the years of 2002 to 2007, so that's a lot of devices in a short space of time.
Anyway, sites like PDArcade existed because PDAs were a major platform, albeit a niche one, for video games. There were other websites dedicated to PDA gaming reviews such as pocketgamer.org, forums dedicated to discussing Pocket PC gaming like, if I recall, pocketmatrix.com, and even Pocket PCs particularly marketed as gaming Pocket PCs, such as, I think some of the ASUS models. Peripherals existed like control pads to make gaming even easier.
Back in the early 2000s I was an owner of a Pocket PC, I managed to persuade my grandparents to buy me one when I was about 16, I owned, to begin with an HP Jornada 525, later on I had a NEC Pocket Gear 2060, then I had an Axim X5, before finally settling with an HP IPAQ 2495, this probably spans the years of 2002 to 2007, so that's a lot of devices in a short space of time.
Anyway, the reason I had so many of these things was because as a 16 or 17 year old I managed to find my way into reviewing games for Pocket PCs at a website now long defunct called PDArcade.com, in fact, eventually I more or less ran the news side of the site by the time I was 20. The site was pretty popular back in the day and we made a lot through ad revenues and I got a share of the pot.
Anyway, sites like PDArcade existed because PDAs were a major platform, albeit a niche one, for video games. There were other websites dedicated to PDA gaming reviews such as pocketgamer.org, forums dedicated to discussing Pocket PC gaming like, if I recall, pocketmatrix.com, and even Pocket PCs particularly marketed as gaming Pocket PCs, such as, I think some of the ASUS models. Peripherals existed like control pads to make gaming even easier.
And then, of course, there were software companies, often producing really, really impressive titles. PDA gaming, developer side of things, was a return to the days of 8-bit because games, that were selling 10000s of copies were being made by tiny teams of programmers. PDA game development also was a work of real creativity because often Pocket PCs did not have that much storage space. Some companies really excelled at being able to produce games that looked amazing, perhaps at times reaching close to game boy advance and they did so without the size of game going beyond 20mb.
There was also a thriving emulation scene and at the end of its era the top Pocket PCs were able to play, without problems, all 8 bit, 16 bit and even 32 bit systems- that's quite something, considering that we are talking 2007 being able to play PS1 games released only 5 years previously- it would be like today playing a PS3 game on an iPhone using the hardware of the iPhone.
Perhaps if there is interest I will post some more on this subject, because I might well be one of the closet experts out there on it. I must have reviewed close to a hundred games for Pocket PC and played even more. The pictures in this article give you an idea of the kind of thing you could find on Pocket PC.
Prices varied and top rate games reached up to $30 I think, but generally a top tier title would be something like $14.99. The place to buy games were the now defunct websites handango.com pocketgear.com and of course directly from the developers. Usually you bought the game on PC and then transferred it over to your PDA but it was technically possible to to everything from the PDA.
There was a lot of innovation, creativity and excellence in the short lived Pocket PC gaming system. Of course there were ports and a lot of the pictures show this, but alongside ports, developers pushed the limits of the system. Some memorable and excellent companies producing high quality were Hexacto, Ziosoft, PDAmill, Momentum games, Crimson fire, eSoft Interactive and many more.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Hiring: Project-based 3D Artist
Title: 3D artist
Focus: Polishing environments and props
Type: Full-time, project-based (approx. 1 year)
Last day to apply: 4th of November 2018
After 3 years of hard work, we are now close to finishing one of our new games. We want it to look amazing, and to accomplish that we need more (hu)manpower.
This is where you come in.
We are now looking for an experienced 3D artist, who will focus on environments and props for our upcoming horror game. Our ideal person loves horror, and is able to convey atmospheric environments and terrifying scenes through 3D art. The position is full-time and project-based, lasting for about a year until the new game is ready to be shipped.
What will you work on?
We are quite a small team, but we consider that our strength. As an environment artist you will get to work on every level of the game, ranging from small props to whole levels. This means your contribution will greatly influence how the final game looks, plays, and evokes emotions.
Here are some of the things you will be working on:
- Creating basic models that make up the levels, such as walls and floors
- Modelling props of various complexity, both with and without the help of concept art, and often having to take gameplay concerns into account
- Constructing particle systems, both by drawing textures and using parameters in our editor
- Combining various techniques to create special effects, such as flowing water or fire.
If you want to know more about Frictional work practices, you can check out the introduction post of Rasmus, who will be your closest teammate.
What are we looking for?
You have to be a EU/EEA resident to apply.
The person we're looking for is creative, driven and most importantly self-sufficient.
Since the position is project-based, we are looking for a person who can start as soon as possible, end of November the latest.
Here are some essential skills we require:
- Excellent skills at adapting to a style and taking it to a finished state
- Strong self-drive and ability to organise your own work
- Interest in and ability to do research for interesting prop and environment solutions
- Love for working on a variety of tasks
- Fluency in English
- Team communication skills
- Knowledge of game design
- A Windows PC that runs recent games (such as SOMA) that you can use for work (unless you live in Malmö and will work from the office)
- A fast and stable internet connection.
- Excellent skills in 3D software. Modo preferred
- Familiarity with Zbrush/Mudbox/similar
- Excellent skills in Substance
- Excellent skills in Photoshop or similar software
- Familiarity with issue-tracking software
- Experience in classic/non-PBR workflow.
- Love for horror and narrative games
- A major role in completing at least one game
- Great free-drawing skills
- Experience in level design
- Strong game design skills
- Experience kitbashing/working with modular sets.
What we offer:
- Flexible working hours, a no-crunch approach
- Opportunities to influence your work flow
- Variety in your work tasks, and ability to influence your work load
- Participation in Show & Tell of games, having a say in all aspects of the game making
- An inclusive work environment
- A possibility to become a permanent employee.
How to apply?
If all of the above piqued your interest, we would love to hear from you! Send us your application 4th of November the latest - but the sooner, the better.
Please attach all the following:
- Cover letter (why you should work with us, what do you bring to the table)
- CV
- Portfolio (link or PDF)
- Examples of works that have inspired you or blown you away.
Send your application to apply@frictionalgames.com!
Privacy Policy
By sending us your application, you give us permission to store your personal information and attachments.
We store all applications in a secure system. The applications are stored for two years, after which they are deleted. If you want your your information removed earlier, please contact us through our Contact form. Read more in our Privacy Policy.
By sending us your application, you give us permission to store your personal information and attachments.
We store all applications in a secure system. The applications are stored for two years, after which they are deleted. If you want your your information removed earlier, please contact us through our Contact form. Read more in our Privacy Policy.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Brave Browser the Best privacy-focused product of 2020
Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.
An extremely productive year for Brave
Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.
Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.
The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.
Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:
"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"
Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.
Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now
If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.
The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.
AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.
For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.
Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.
Earn Basic Attention Token (BAT) with Brave Web Browser
Try Brave Browser
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