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The contest has concluded! Congratulations to Arsyad Kalua, Colton Olds, and DrPixel!
Hello and welcome to our latest contest on Pixel Pacas! In case you couldn’t tell, we really found Actual Sunlight to be a game that players owe it to themselves to try. Beyond a glowing review and interview with Will O’Neill himself, we’re giving readers a chance to experience the game free of charge! Thanks to the developer we’ve got three copies to give out!
Here are your options for entering our giveaway.
Option One:
1. Follow our Twitter account – @PixelPacas
2. After you’ve followed us, post the official contest tweet: Actual Sunlight’s serious narrative is intriguing and there need to be more games like it! Pick me, @PixelPacas !
Option Two:
1. Leave a comment on this post describing why you’d like to play Actual Sunlight.
Note that you are allowed to use both options! This will grant you two entries into the giveaway instead of one. If you do both, make sure you tell us your Twitter handle in the blog comment so the entries get paired up.
Our Actual Sunlight giveaway ends on Sunday – April 13th at 10 AM PST. Good luck!
If you’d like to stay in the loop about our contests and content our Twitter is always kept up to date. But if you don’t use Twitter, we also have a Steam Group that is updated whenever a new giveaway goes live.
Last week we reviewed Actual Sunlight and were drawn in by its intense narrative. Developer Will O’Neill was gracious enough to let us have an interview with him discussing the game’s creation and a little bit more. Today Pixel Pacas is proud to present this great interview!
Pixel Pacas: How did you get started developing games? Were there any independent developers you looked up to at the time?
Will: Actual Sunlight is my first game, but I have a much longer history as a creative writer. Eventually, I had the thought that maybe I should try to merge my writing into the world of the games that I also loved and had spent so many of my years living. I was definitely inspired to believe that it was possible through other very story-heavy games such as Christine Love’s Digital: A Love Story, as well as Kan Gao’s To The Moon. Atmospherically, I love a lot of survival horror games – Silent Hill 2 especially. The best written game of all time in my opinion, however, is Star Control II…!
PP: Were there any points during the development of Actual Sunlight that you feared it would not be completed? How long did it take to finish the project?
Will: I wrote it in the second half of 2012, and at that time was sort of restarting an earlier version of it that doesn’t really resemble what it eventually became. I was worried all the time. You worry all the time. I was so relieved when a lot of things started to click, and the pace of my writing on it really picked up towards the end of 2012, ultimately enabling me to release the very first version of it in 2013.
PP: What led to design decisions such as the RPG-esque visual style?
Will: I liked the idea of doing it in RPG Maker VX ACE because I felt it would be a way of commenting on the way Evan saw the world: Through the eyes of a person extremely trapped in himself and his own addictions, especially games. Of all the tools that somebody with my lack of experience and expertise could have used to make a project like this, I think I chose the right one.
PP: Did you have any expectations to how the gaming community would respond to your game? Have you been surprised at the response since its initial launch? Have things changed due to the Steam release?
Will: When I was finished, I knew that I had done something that was really quite good – definitely better than anything I had done in the past. Still, I was very surprised to see just how many people were really moved by the game, and how deeply. I have more than one letter that starts with ‘I never write to game developers’ and which then proceeds on for hundreds or even thousands of words. I’m very honoured by the things that people have shared with me in return for what I’ve shared about myself through the game.
It’s too early in the Steam release to know if anything will really change, but I doubt it – hopefully it will just be the same thing on a much larger scale. I’m really proud of Actual Sunlight and want it to be played by as many people as possible.
PP: Will you continue to pursue making serious, narrative-focused games in the future? What do these types of games offer players that is unique to the medium?
Will: These are definitely the kinds of games I will continue to make – before anything and everything, I’m a writer. The further I move away from that, the less I think I’ll be interested and the worse I know I will do. That being said, I would like to grow, and so I see myself moving towards some kind of greater interactivity. One of the things I’m working on now is in a more traditional adventure game format, so we’ll see how that goes!
I don’t know if they offer anything unique, but I think everybody ought to be up for a good bit of reading now and then. 🙂
PP: What made you decide to recreate Actual Sunlight in 3D and what is the current status of that project?
Will: My initial interest was in wanting to create a version of the game that would be playable on a Mac. As I started to mess around with lights and shapes in Unity, however, I quickly started to take it a lot more seriously. Ultimately, people didn’t seem to connect with it the way that they did with the original, but I’d like to continue development on it if the current version does really well on Steam. It’s very much an issue of not knowing whether or not I should dedicate the necessary resources to get it done the way it ought to be.
PP: What were some of the first video games you ever played? What do you play today?
Will: Oh man. I’m 33, so I grew up in an Atari 400 world – the first games I played were old-school Electronic Arts games like M.U.L.E, Mail Order Monsters, Archon, and titles similar to that. Later on I went through early consoles and early PC gaming especially, loving all of the classic Sierra and LucasArts adventures and a lot of other things as well. Right now, I’m into a lot of other indie games, both big and small. Been playing a lot of Nuclear Throne, but I also feel like games such as Horse Master and Save the Date are quietly the most awesome things out there. Papers, Please was also out of this world incredible, and deserved everything it won.
PP: For all those who have yet to experience Actual Sunlight, why should they give it a try?
Will: You won’t necessarily relate personally to Evan Winter if you play Actual Sunlight, but I tried to write him in such a way that even someone who is not like him could understand why he feels the way that he does. If you slow down and invest yourself in it, and don’t try to project your own judgments, I think you’ll find yourself in the middle of a really unforgettable experience.
A big thanks goes out to Will O’Neill for taking the time to participate in our interview! If you’re interested in playing Actual Sunlight, you can grab it on Steam.
Developer: Armel Gibson
Platform: PC – Web
This post is part of a series on The Pirate Bay Bundle.
When loading up 45 Guys 1 Brain for the first time I was certain it had to do with zombies. Not only does it have “brain” in the title, but the color scheme is various shades of green and there are tiny little people wandering about! As it turns out, it’s not about zombies at all.
In the game you have to guide a group of 45 pixel people through a stage, starting from the top left to reach the bottom right. Of course, there are various walls, gaping holes in the floor, and electric gates that impede the otherwise simple trip.
Each character is controlled at the same time too. Using the four directional buttons for group movement you must find the best way to keep the majority safe on their trek through stages. The first stage isn’t too bad but by the time you get to the last, it’s likely that most of the tiny characters will end up dead.
There are only four stages in total but that’s all you need to see that the idea behind 45 Guys 1 Brain is quite solid. Even though you only need to keep 10 alive to pass a stage, there’s fun to be had retrying a few times to increase your best score.
Developer’s comment: What the fuck is a pirate bay bundle?
Developer: Epic Games, Vision Software
Publisher: MicroProse
Platform: PC – GOG*
Real-time strategy (RTS) games were big in the 90s on PC. Thanks in large part to Command & Conquer, there was a sudden deluge of other games hoping to work the same magic. It worked in some cases but often not entirely. 7th Legion was one game born of the RTS boom and it stands as an average attempt with some newly introduced flaws.
At least the storyline is kinda neat. The Earth has been nearly destroyed due to pollution, leading the world’s government to send people into space while the planet recovers. Of course, only the smartest, strongest, and riches humans get to go. Everyone else is left to toil on the now inhospitable Earth. 7 generations later, the chosen people return to claim Earth, but the citizens left there aren’t going down without a fight.
The “chosen” are basically depicted as a Nazi parable in color choice, salute, and mindset (they are the ‘best’ specimens of the human race). It’s because of this fact that it is incredibly odd how 7th Legion lets you play as them if you wish. There are two campaigns but anyone playing should probably choose Legion’s side.
Gameplay is all about upgrading your base, increasing troops, and working through the fog of war to find and destroy enemies. Any competent RTS offers the same. Where 7th Legion attempts to be creative is with a power up system, shown as five cards on-screen. These are used to strengthen your side, lay waste to enemies, and the like. The enemy can also use them against you which is when you’ll feel how overpowered some are.
Bringing the game to modern machines appears to have caused some issues, however. The biggest is related to troop control. The game wants players to click quickly to move troops somewhere and then hold click to open up a menu that makes troops aggressive or defensive. Thanks to faster computers, the pop up menu usually comes up immediately during a routine click to move troops. Sometimes this leads to troops not being able to move at all since you haven’t issued the “quick” click command to do so. As of now there’s no fix for it officially from GOG.
7th Legion was the first RTS I ever played and I cherish it for that reason. Still, I wholly recognize that the game does not stand up as anything special in the genre. It has some cool troops mounted on dinosaurs, but that’s really the best you get. Online functionality has also been removed from the re-release, making it much easier to skip over this game.
1 out of 5 alpacas
Review code provided
About our rating system – *Affiliate Link
Developer: Nippon Ichi Software
Publisher: NIS America
Platform: PS3
Back before I became a curmudgeon old games reviewer, I spent hours upon hours in Diablo and Diablo II. There was something incredibly appealing about clicking away at enemies in these ARPGs. As such, upon hearing about The Witch and the Hundred Knight I found myself intrigued – if a bit wary. But, curiosity persisted and I’ve ended up playing it. So, is this a game worth pursuing?
Maybe. First, let’s get all the basics out of the way. In this game you start out as a teeny, cute blob creature (supposedly male). A crude, cruel witch finds and names you Hundred Knight because it sounds cool. After a brief tutorial session with her, you’re brought back to the real world where she introduces herself as Metallia and that you are now completely under her command.
Metallia is a monster. She might look like a swamp witch but her meanness never skips a beat. It’s hard to recall that many games where you actually are forced to work under someone who could be quantified as evil. With that weird perspective in place, you go about doing things that you know are wrong but simply have to do anyway. That’s where all the ARPG hacking away at enemies comes in.
The Hundred Knight can equip multiple weapons and get to work beating on everything in sight. Well, there is a bit more strategy to it than that. There’s the ability to chain together multiple weapons for greater attacks, as well as types of weapons which enemies are weak or strong against. The latter is particularly annoying as you may have to frequently switch out weapons when dealing between two distinct creature types.
Another, stranger, feature of The Witch and the Hundred Knight is the GCal system. GCals are effectively a timer placed on you throughout every stage. Work through the whole thing before the GCals deplete or you’re dead! Luckily, there are a variety of ways to replenish it but I still died a lot before figuring out the most efficient methods. That honestly might be one of the biggest issues with the game: Its obsession with systems.
This genre of game doesn’t necessitate massive complexity. And yet, the experience is filled to the brim with them. And for all that work, you can basically ignore 80% of them. Perhaps some will find them intriguing, but that was not a favorable aspect in my opinion. No doubt many will be bothered by Metallia’s attitude as well, but I dug her no-holds-barred cruelty… and was much disappointed by the designer’s intentions with her outfit.
Visually, many have suggested it looks like a game from the PS2 era but I just don’t see it that way. The character models might be simplistic but they honestly looked really good to me. Similarly, the backdrops were nicely fanciful. The biggest problem with them were that foliage would often obstruct the playing field view. The soundtrack definitely meshed with the visuals, and maybe even did it one better. Every song had a real “character” about it and that made levels more enjoyable than they otherwise would’ve been.
It’s a shame, then, that for as simple as the experience could be that it wasn’t all that compelling in the long run. The Witch and the Hundred Knight doesn’t contain that engaging spark that more famous games such as Diablo managed to have. Without it, you’ll simply have to get by on enjoying the visual design, excellent soundtrack, and unusual narrative. All told that’s not a horrible thing but it could have been better.
2 out of 5 alpacas
Review code provided
About our rating system
Developer: Will O’Neill
Publisher: Will O’Neill
Platform: PC – Desura, Direct, Steam
Depression is difficult to comprehend for anyone not suffering from it. Even those who live with depression can find it incredibly difficult to pin down in any certain terms. Despite being an affliction that people all over the world suffer from, many even fail to recognize it as a real issue. It’s likely some with that mindset will somehow stumble onto Actual Sunlight. Perhaps playing the game will shift perceptions.
Actual Sunlight stars Evan Winters. He is not a spry, spiky-haired teen nor a grizzled marine as per gaming conventions. He sits somewhere in the middle as a dejected, completely average guy. Every day he heads to work in an office with people who he either dislikes, or likes, but they don’t return those feelings. If you’ve ever felt alone or like a loser then try and amplify that many magnitudes over. Then maybe you’ll have the slightest inkling of how he feels.
Evan is down and painfully so. Playing the game basically involves interacting with nearby objects and people, most of which gets Evan to discuss the item in question. Usually, this results in spiteful comments about himself or others. Sometimes darkly humorous, it’s easy to see that he’s far from a healthy mental state. Regardless of what he says the reader is left with a tangible feeling of hopelessness. As the game progresses you can see as daily life pushes him further down.
Actual Sunlight tells this story primarily through Evan’s thoughts and the brief discussions he has with others. Interestingly, the visuals recall retro RPGs, with a top-down perspective and NPCs milling about. However, beyond interacting with the surroundings there’s little traditional gameplay to speak of. I’m much more compelled to call this a visual novel, despite the direct control scheme.
Lately there have been games launching that focus on telling a story directly from the creator – likely sharing very personal details. If that’s not your cup of tea then that’s a shame because you’re missing out. It was hard to play Actual Sunlight to completion, even though it took only an hour. I ached, perhaps for Evan, but in part for my own lived experiences. I was compelled to see how Evan’s plight would play out. I wanted to hear his thoughts and experience second-hand what that kind of life was like for him. Because the narrative doesn’t offer some sort of sappy conclusion it felt all that more real.
I couldn’t care less about droll storylines that get pumped out in games continuously because they impart no emotional impact. Games like Actual Sunlight need to continue hitting the scene. Maybe we’ll eventually see other developers test the waters.
4 out of 5 alpacas
Review code provided
About our rating system
Developer: Ritual Entertainment
Publisher: Activision
Platform: PC – GOG*
SiN is a very unusual game with an interesting history. Back in the 90s, people were quickly being spoiled with first person shooters. Little did players of the time realize that a landmark title was about to launch in 1998 – Half-Life. Poor SiN also wanted to be that next great game but knew they would have to compete against Valve’s creation. So, they rushed to complete the project and ship it just a few days before Half-Life’s launch. Despite that, it was SiN that ended up as a footnote in FPS history.
It’s a bit of a shame considering SiN did a lot of neat things. The storyline is mostly adequate, dealing with a main character named John Blade, corporations, and evil people with power. Yeah, it’s not the most incredible tale ever but it handles itself well as a hokey b-movie style creation. Most of what makes it impressive is purely gameplay-based.
The shooting is solid and even shows the specific damage inflicted on enemies (mostly). For example, shooting a guy in the chest will tear off a bit of the shirt and cause a mess. Shooting in the legs will make them crumple as if their legs were really injured. Overall, firefights are intense but fun. It also helps that there’s a wide variety of weapons to mess around with. Another very neat feature is the level of control given to players for accessing computers to mess with security systems and otherwise hack stuff. It doesn’t feel like a minigame so much as actually interfacing with a simplified computer which is weird but very neat.
As with many FPSes of the time, SiN utilizes its own random control scheme. Okay, it’s not random, but would not be considered standard today. Buttons are mapped often to correlate to what letter the word starts with. For example, the action of talking to other players being mapped to T. However, this applies to most of the functions meaning you’ll have to learn the goofy specific controls. Or, you can rebind any and all keys but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth to just get accustomed to them.
Although it was once available on Steam alongside SiN Episodes, it can now only be purchased digitally via GOG. On that storefront it includes the Wages of Sin mission pack. There’s a lot that feels really weird about SiN Gold but it’s also a pretty competent shooter. Those who love the genre today owe it to themselves to check out more obscure titles such as this one.
3 out of 5 alpacas
Review code provided
About our rating system – *Affiliate Link
On April 29th, 2013 the domain name PixelPacas.com was purchased. We immediately secured a host and began working behind the scenes to create our ideal gaming site. As we approach the first anniversary, we’ve been thinking long and hard about alpacas.
Alpacas are no doubt great, but do they really represent our site? It took a lot of consideration but it has been decided that, no, they don’t! Now that we’ve entered the month of April we are finally ready to announce the new name for our site. Are you ready?
Come the first anniversary, we will be re-branded as Pixel Goaties! 2014 is most definitely the year of the goat in games. Thanks to the likes of Escape Goat 2 and Goat Simulator we were finally able to realize our deep adoration for this animal.
Look forward to another year of great content at Pixel Goaties, the site formerly known as Pixel Pacas!
Developer: Coffee Stain Studios
Publisher: Coffee Stain Studios
Platform: PC – Steam
Out of nowhere it seems that 2014 has become the year of goat games. First there was Escape Goat 2 and now there is Goat Simulator! If you ever felt that simulator games weren’t quite niche enough then this should show you that – yes – there really is a sim for everything out there. Of course, upon playing, you’ll likely realize that the “simulation” part of the title isn’t quite accurate.
Well, I don’t know. Do goats lick everything and have obscenely long tongues? Can goats climb ladders, jump on trampolines, and wreak absolute havoc? Maybe. At least in Goat Simulator you can do all of these things, as well as perform even more ridiculous feats. Although the game isn’t tremendously expansive, it provides a hilarious experience while it lasts.
As a goat, you meander around. The player can jump, lick, and ragdoll out. There’s no real story to speak of and the only goal is to complete a handful of missions. Missions ask for certain high scores or actions. Sometimes the names of said missions are funny, as are what triggers their completion. Although there aren’t a ton to play through they do offer at least an hour of gameplay. Beyond that, fun can be had screwing around with your ridiculously wobbly and sticky-tongued goat.
The sad thing is that Goat Simulator wears itself out relatively fast. At least, that’s true right now. Once Steam Workshop support really kicks off it will lend itself to many new user-created levels to enjoy. Checking out some of the best from the community is definitely recommended because the default world provided is quite small, although peppered with hilarious parts. Goat Simulator is not just the only bovid simulator out there but the funniest!
3 out of 5 alpacas
Review code provided
About our rating system
Developer: OVERDRIVE
Publisher: MangaGamer
Platform: PC – MangaGamer*
Like many of my age group, I was in love with the Power Rangers as a child. There was something about these “super sentai” heroes that enigmatic, yet entirely alluring about them. Perhaps it was their total and complete coolness that sucked many children into their world. For a while, I probably even wished to become a Japanese-style superhero. Unlike those who let those dreams fade as they grow, Yuuki Yamato was unwilling to relinquish his dream. One day he comes upon a mysterious Memory Collector who will grant him any wish at the price of every memory he has. Yamato agrees and becomes Stryker Zero and thus begins Dengeki Stryker.
April 8th, 2014 
