Game Jolt - The Start of an Addiction

I recently discovered a website that provides free downloads of indie games. This is probably the worst thing for me to have discovered during exam week, because before long I had already downloaded an obscene amount of games to try out and it is safe to say, studying was the farthest thing from my mind. But they are good to take your mind off things in the evenings. I wouldn't exactly say the ones I've played are good to help you relax though, considering they're mostly tense thriller/horror games... But they're still good. And I have now realized I am a huge sucker for a good horror game.
I figured since I've already done reviews for films and podcasts it's only right that I do some game reviews too. So here goes.

1. Only Footsteps
Ok, I think this is the first game I played. It's pretty good. I mean, there's an interesting story to it I guess. And that is really the only thing that kept me going with it, but not much happens until the end. Basically you're in the snow and you have to find a cave and make your way through it to the center. You find notes along the way giving you pieces of information about you and about what's going on. The cave is the most interesting part though. You end up spending most of the game walking through really long, stone corridors to get to the center of the cave. And the character moves painfully slowly which is annoying. But once you get there it's interesting. The ending? It's weird. Be prepared for that.

2. Letter to a Friend
This one... This one is weird. It's alright, I think. Again nothing much happens, but there is a slightly more interesting story here. You're at this weird old subway station. It's dark. And you basically just explore all areas while you wait for the train. There isn't much to explore as you can only go so far. Some weird stuff happens. The train comes. That's it. It's a little creepy, but just make sure you explore every inch of the subway station otherwise nothing will happen. Note: You can't move past the darkness.

3. Fran Bow
Ok... This one gets a little disturbing. The art is cute, the story is cute... until she looks out the window, then the whole thing is just weird and disturbing. It still manages to maintain that cute element throughout though. Which is strange. I haven't gotten very far with it, but it's good. It's one of the few games on this list which isn't an RPG, ha. There is a much better story to this. Basically Fran's parents were killed at the beginning by a weird monster and now she's in a mental hospital and has to find her cat. He comes to her in dreams and tells her the medicine will help her find him... Weird, but that's Fran's main motivation for getting out of the hospital. That's as far as I've gotten, but it's intriguing. I'd better go finish it...

4. Anxiety: Lost Night
This is the only game in the anxiety series that I've played so far, and god... It's so frustrating! Where is the radio power cable?! Ok... The whole point of this game is to start the car. But it's not as simple as it sounds. There's something... unnatural out there in the woods around you. Don't look into the darkness for too long, or you just might see something you don't want to...

5. 7Days
I just played this properly before I started writing and ohhh... ohh no. No. Pretty sure I'm only on like day 4 now, but if this is day 4... I don't want to know what day 7 is. My heart was pumping like I was running a marathon. It really lures you into a false sense of security because the art is really nothing special if I'm being honest. It reminds me of Pixel Dungeon. So I didn't expect big things from this. But ohh no... The noises... There are running footsteps, always behind me. And the pixel blood stains... And that damn ominous music that plays in the library. And Sam... Who is Sam? He seems important for some reason. I mean his name is written in blood in a book and on the wall soo... Maybe the aim is to find him...? Who knows. But it's so tense... Here's hoping I make it to day 7 before I give myself a heart attack.

6. Hotel Remorse
So... This one. It's awesome. Pretty intense also. But awesome. There are a few loud noises so be prepared for that. You start off in a hotel room, a loud gunshot has been heard coming from that room and you have to find out what it was through finding the letters left by the guest who was staying there. The first letter is an obvious find. But here's a little tip for once you leave the room; don't waste your time checking any of those doors. They're all locked. Literally just go straight to the end of the corridor. After that it gets weird... It really got my heart racing. And beware; the hallways can kill you.

7. Bunker16
This is one of my top two favourite games of the ones I've downloaded. It is awesome. Really intense. As you can probably tell, I have a thing for intense games that get your heart pumping. It's a fun adrenaline rush. But I just love this game so much... The general outline of the story is that you are stuck in a bunker and you have to find a way out. Lucky for you the previous person to get stuck in this bunker has left his diary entries scattered around for you to find. You have to make your way through the entire bunker each day; explore literally everything. Find those notes, they're really helpful. Once you have exhausted all of your options, checked everything, go back to where you started and take a nap. Then the cycle will repeat... But usually with a difference... Watch out for disturbing faces at the ends of the corridors, and the creepy messages in German on the walls. Here's hoping you find an escape...

8. Lurking
Ohh man, this is my favourite one. I really want to know what happens at the end, I'm so close to finishing it. You start in a dingy little room with a hospital bed and a night stand. This room serves no real purpose. It's just the starting point. Once you leave things are going to go dark. The key to this game is to make noise. Audio pulses allow you to see. But they're also the thing that will get you killed. See, you're in some kind of testing facility. And you have to pick up the audio tapes you find along the way. Each one provides another piece of the puzzle needed to discover what happened here when the experiment went horribly wrong. Avoid anything that emits a red pulse at all costs. Those are the test subjects. They will eat you. Your noise attracts them. Anything white is harmless. Anything yellow, like the computers and boxes, can be picked up and thrown to make a noise. Make your way through the facility, room by room, and explore everything. Find those audio tapes. And try not to get eaten along the way...

These next two games aren't on the site. They're flash games, but they're awesome so I thought I'd share them.

9. Every Day the Same Dream
Basically, break the cycle. That's all I'm gonna say. It's awesome, the art is very clean and sharp and I love the music. It's a quick play once you figure it out. The ending was a little shocking to me though. Gotta catch that leaf...

10. Coma
And to complete the list, this is my favourite game of all time. The art is awesome, there is a really nice story to it and the music is so beautiful. Makes me want to cry... If I were to describe my aesthetic, this game would be it. I don't want to spoil anything, just go play it.

Homework, The NoSleep Podcast and Writing.

So it's been a little over half a year since I last wrote something here. Life kind of got in the way... I was supposed to blog about the summer but I kept putting it off and before I knew it I was back in school and starting on the path of GCSEs and they had us drowning in assessments and homeworks which was so much fun. In the first week I had a difficult time adjusting to my new classes and schedules, but that never lasts long and the fact that there were numerous more assessments in this first month than we had last year is making me feel as though I've been in school longer than I actually have. It feels like it should be January. It's horrible, I hate that feeling. It's like waking up and thinking it's Friday, only to feel crushing disappointment when you check your phone. Not good.

I also feel like there's no breathing space between homeworks now. Last year there were usually one or two days a week when you wouldn't have any homework to do, or you could at least afford to put a few homeworks off until the next day, but now if you don't do a homework the day you get it they very quickly pile up as they just keep coming every day. Eventually you'll be crushed if you don't know how to manage your time well. There's never a day when I don't have to write at least two things down that I have to do for the next day, and then just when you get tick a whole bunch of completed stuff off your list you get another whole bunch of stuff to add to that list. It's a never ending cycle of stress and tears, it's just beautiful.

No matter how much homework I have to do, I always find time for the NoSleep podcast. This is my new obsession. I had become almost completely absorbed by stories on Reddit NoSleep shortly before I discovered the podcast, but it becomes very difficult to focus on reading stories online when you spend most of your day surrounded by other people. I would start reading a story on the train on my way to school, and would then spend the rest of the day itching to finish it. But I didn't want to walk around with my face glued to my phone, and ignoring people at lunch time just to finish reading a story definitely wasn't an option either. So the podcast is perfect. They basically take all the greatest stories from NoSleep and get awesome narrators to read them with great sound effects and really great background music by Brandon Boone (definitely check his stuff out on bandcamp, it's great to study to).

Listening to stories on a podcast is so much easier than reading them from your phone. I listen to it when I have any time alone or I have to walk somewhere. It's a nice break from listening to the same Blue Oyster Cult albums on a constant loop. Also the narrators have amazing voices. They are all such talented voice actors, but it wasn't long before I had pegged three of the narrators as my favourites; Jesse Cornett and Jeff Clement (who both do a lot of amazing work on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, which is also awesome) and also Peter Lewis. They each have such different voices but there's something about each of them that makes me want to listen to them talk all day long. I sometimes download episodes I've already listened to just to have one of their voices in the background if I don't feel like listening to music. So, yeah. I think it's safe to say I might be slightly obsessed with this podcast... And yes, I do realise I sound like an advertisement. But no, that's not what this is.

Another major thing in my life right now is my writing. A while back I found a story I wrote when I was about five years old and it was, uh... interesting to say the least. But it made me think about how much my writing style has changed and developed in 10 years. I want to do something to, I don't know... mark the milestone, I guess, of  a decade of creative development. So I'm working on a story at the moment, and providing it goes well and I finish it before Christmas I was considering recording a reading of it and my old story and putting them on my youtube channel as a sort of "Then vs Now". I want to do something different with them other than just posting about them, and I think recording a reading of them would be cool. I don't know... That may not even happen, but it's a nice idea to me. We'll see how that goes.

I was going to end this by talking about Halloween, but you know what I changed my mind. I think we all know that I could write three ten page long essays on various aspects of Halloween and how much I love them, so I'm just going to say that so far my only plans for Halloween involve going to see a horror movie and I'm pretty excited. Let's leave it at that before I go off on one about everything spooky...

Here's hoping my next update won't take six months for me to write.

I wrote a thing

So it's not the story I've been planning to write, but I wrote a short based on a writing prompt I saw on Max Kirin's tumblr. I thought it would be good practice to write something shorter before I try writing a much longer story (or even a book, ahhh!). I wrote it over three days and it turned out a lot better than I thought it would, though I'm not sure about the ending I gave it. I think I was just in a rush to get it finished. I listened to a lot of saloon music and wild western mixes to get my head in the scene. I got to do a lot of research into the old west, like clothing and the lingo. You have no idea how many times I googled 'when was *insert object here* invented' while I was writing this story...

Anyway, you can read it here if you'd like;
Afterclaps in the Afterlife
Note: Afterclaps is Old western slang for "unexpected happenings after an event is supposed to be over."
Also I found this awesome website with an A-Z of old western cowboy slang. You can find it here. It's pretty amazing.

I don't have a title

So I'm trying to start writing again (I know, again) and I'm finding it really difficult this time. I think the reason it seemed a lot easier to get started in the past was because I wasn't doing it right, I wasn't planning it properly. It's been mostly silly stories up until now and I tend to just dive right in and try to start writing from page one with no idea what my plot is, who my characters are or what kind of a back story they have. I've never been able to write more than two short chapters before, which is alright I guess with no planning, and I think that's because I had no idea where my stories were going so it was all just meaningless dialogue and description scenes. Boring. I don't know how I expect to do any better this time, I mean I can't even write an engaging post here, but planning has got to help. So that's what I'm doing. I've been tagging a few posts about writing advice on tumblr for the past few months, and I've finally got them together to help me make out a clear and concise plan, and they help me make sure I know what I'm doing at every stage.
So far I've got a plot, my main characters and what drives them. Also some of their secrets and ulterior motives and what's going to change them throughout the story. I haven't got any names for them yet, but that will come later. I'm currently trying to write out a detailed timeline of the plot, and it's really difficult. The most annoying thing is I now know where I want the story to go, but I don't know exactly how to get it there. And do you know what's even more annoying? I don't even have a concrete title for this thing yet. I have a few ideas floating around in my head, but I just don't know what to go with or whether any of them are even that good.
One thing I know for sure is that writing is never going to be easy. But my problem has always been my inability to keep going when it gets particularly tough. It's so easy to give up and I always do. But I found some advice on tumblr from Neil Gaiman, and one particular point stuck in my head;

That's what I'm going to do. My goal this time is to finish writing this story, no matter how bad it seems to me. All I need is to get a first draft finished and I'll have something good to work with. I can fix any flaws at a later date. I get so excited when I think about sitting down to write this story, so I guess I'd better go finish writing out that timeline...

Happy New Year

It's hard to believe that it was a year ago that I was writing a silly post about all the things I loved and hated about new year, especially the whole "new year, new me" thing. I cringed so much when I read over that post again.
This year I've changed my mind. It's time for a new me, and I'm ready for it. It'll be fun.  I definitely intend to keep my new year's resolutions this year. I don't think I ever have before.
So, this year I plan to:
1. Eat more fruit
2. Drink more water
3. Read more books
4. Blog more (and blog about more intersting stuff ahhh)

I don't think those are too hard to do, except for that last one... Just the standard stuff. I was really hoping I would get caught up on Supernatural by the end of the year, but that was probably a bit too ambitious. 2014 has been really great though. We had national croatoan day of course.

I discovered my favourite band and my favourite TV shows. Skukduggery Pleasant came to an end which was quite sad, I still haven't finished the last book, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing how it all ends. Also, on Christmas day, my dad and his girlfriend got engaged! That was a beautiful way to top everything else.

I'm not gonna go in too deep and write paragraphs of stuff so I'll just leave it here and say that I'm wishing you all an amazing 2015. Hopefully we'll get those hover boards sometime soon...

Actual famous people

On Saturday 25th I was at a Film and Comicom. It was pretty awesome. I went down early, at 8.15am, the doors opened at 9. I cosplayed Hannibal Lecter, and of course no one knew who I was... But there were some really amazing cosplays there; I will definitely have to up my cosplay game for the next comicon. The last comicon I was at wasn't really as good. I didn't recognise any of the guests who were there signing autographs, bar one person who was in two episodes of Doctor Who. I only stayed for two hours last time. This time I spent about 9 hours there... It was a bigger venue (I think) and they actually had panels and talks and a cosplay parade. The cosplay parade was pretty cool. People who signed up walked across the stage and displayed their cosplay and any special moves they had. The two judges then awarded first to third places. I'm not sure if there were any prizes though. They had two women come on stage after who were like a tribute act to the Frozen sisters or something, but they came dressed as Elsa and Anna and sang two songs from the film, and I must say I thought they were pretty good.
And there were actually some recognisable guests! Oh yes! Billy Boyd, Billie Piper, Paul McGann, Anjli Mohindra, to name a few. You had to pay for autographs, but we were able to get photos with a few people. I got some photos with people in really awesome cosplays.
And if course I spent all my money before 11am so my lunch was a chocolate biscuit and a bottle of water... You don't ever enter comicon and expect to leave with much money left.

Getting into character

Hi I'm Hannibal Lecter, but my friends call me Hannah. Or at least I like to think they would if I hadn't eaten them all... *giggling*
I just wanted to let everyone know that due to recent circumstances I won't be holding my own dinner party for Halloween this year. I have chosen to spend Halloween out of the country, possibly Christmas too. And even more possibly, the rest of my life if everything goes to plan. I also want to bring up the matter of the mess that was left at my house. I'm not saying it was my fault and I'm also not saying I was there, but you might not wanna go upstairs... Yeeaah... Also, you can have the house if you want it. If you can clean the blood up you can have it my friend. Also, if he's still alive, I want to make a formal apology to Mason Verger. Sorry about the face... I mean it'll heal, right? I'd like to say it was nothing personal, but you were rude and obnoxious and YOU RUINED MY FAVOURITE CHAIR. But I hope Margot is doing well... I would apologise to my other patients for the things I've done, but you know what, they're all hopefully probably dead. Hah!
Before I go I want to say hello to the person that tried to kill me, under the orders of my previous psycho best friend and patient of course... But still, you know who you are and I know where you work.
Well, happy Halloween everyone!

Welcome to Night Vale (and Dublin)

On Thursday I went to Dublin with a my mum and a friend to see the live Welcome to Night Vale show. It was about a 2 hour train journey to get to there. My friend had made a glow cloud using an umbrella, and it was fairly big and poofy. We got some brilliant looks from people at the station and on the train. Almost as soon as we stepped off the train we were approached by a girl and she asked "is that the almighty glow cloud? All hail." That made me so happy.

Our hotel looked a little like the hotel in the God Complex...

We then went on to check in to the hotel, and again there were some hilarious looks from people in the lobby. After checking in we went out for a little walk and discovered the Dublin Writer's museum. I was in heaven... It was such a beautiful building. We were given little things that were like some kind of old mobile phones, and they were for the audio guided tour. You press numbers on them according to each display case and when you hold it to your ear two people talk you through everything. I learned that Bram Stoker was actually born in Dublin, and I found a very interesting sounding book by Flann O'Brien called At Swim-Two-Birds, which the audio guide told me was a novel about a man writing a novel about a man writing a novel about a group of people who turn the tables by writing a novel about a man writing a novel about them. And I can't even write a book about just being a teenager...

The furthest from the hotel we travelled during our time in Dublin was a 10 minute drive, and that was to get to the Olympia Theatre for Night Vale. Even though we didn't travel far I swear I have never seen more Subways (as in sandwich shop Subways) in one little area. There were at least 9 or 10 we spotted.
After getting dinner, it was time to get ready for the show! We went in full on cosplay as Cecil and Kevin. When we got there however, we quickly realised we were the only ones in very out there and obvious cosplay... But we met a girl at the merchandise window who was wearing a Night Vake t-shirt and a lab coat and she asked for a picture with us and the glow cloud. Everyone loved the glow cloud! The show itself was just brilliant and hilarious. Cecil looks a lot skinnier in person and it kind of surprised me, but he is so brilliant.
After the show we decided to queue and get a poster and as we walked to the back of the queue everyone around us began proclaiming 'all hail' at the glow cloud, in unison! It was so overwhelming beautiful... We met some lovely people in that queue. Earlier yesterday I got in touch with a few people on Tumblr who were at the same show as us, and of course they all remember us as 'the people with the glow cloud'. That's so brilliant, they all thought our cosplays were awesome I can't even begin to comprehend all of that...

The next day we had breakfast at a Starbucks that was not far from the hotel. Got a salmon and cream cheese bagel, that's always nice. I saw a sign for pumpkin spiced lattes and I just had to try one as it's something I've seen mentioned all over Tumblr and I've always been so intrigued by these halloweeny lattes. Oh dear goodness, it was the best drink I've ever had... I just have it check if it's something you can get here because I would love to get another one. Heaven in a takeaway cup.
After we checked out, we left our bags at the hotel and went to the Wax Museum. It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be, a lot bigger also. They had a horror section which was my favourite part. It was just fantastic!