Since its cold and I am home for winter break, I figured I'd take this early afternoon to, once again, attempt to play through Anchorhead, a game I have been dying to review on this blog. Before I get into why I haven't gotten around to that yet, I guess I should tell you a little background information about this game and what not...
I'll start by saying that a lot of my friends like to tease me and tell me that I'm way too 'dated' for this generation, or whatever. The reason they say this is because they're convinced I should have been my age about 20 years ago due to the fact I've got a huge affinity for 90's dramas about FBI Agents, I'm oddly obsessive when it comes to checking my email, I still call people from landlines, and I really like text-based games.
For those of you who don't know what that is, a text-based game is a video game that uses text and text-input commands, rather than graphics. So it would look something like this (italicized for emphasis):
This would be a piece of the story, something like describing what the
character may be looking at, explaining what lies North, South, East,
or West, what actions you can do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
> Here is where you type in a basic command and hit 'enter'
And here is where the command is received and the story continues.
Simple and straight forward, yes? I really like to play games like that, I find them really fun because you can imagine the scenery and characters and its basically like an interactive book.
Anchorhead, created in the late 1990's, is a text-input based, Lovecraftian horror adventure game. For those of you who are fans of Lovecraft, Stephen King, or Welcome to Night Vale, this game will probably peak your interest.
The game follows an unnamed female protagonist who recently moved to a small costal New England town (much like most Stephen King books) with her husband, an aspiring writer (once again, so King), to inherit a mansion his very eerie, distant, and now dead family member left him. There, the protagonist feels very lonely and isolated in a big creepy house which resides in a lonely, gloomy, cold, and rainy town. Sounds cool right? Well it gets better.
As if it wasn't unsettling enough that you're alone in an empty unknown place, but you (the protagonist) also happen to uncover an evil that threatens the town that obviously, you have to stop. Without spoiling what it is, the evil that you have to face is very based off of Lovecraft's stories (hint: think monster-entity like). The entire game takes place over the course of 2-3 days, and it requires a lot of puzzle solving and exploring. The reason I relate it to Welcome to Night Vale is because, well, Night Vale itself is like a goofy-Lovecraf type horror, and Anchorhead requires that you explore and get familiar with where you're going and because of that it brings this odd sense of familiarity that I believe you get from keeping up with WTNV.
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| I guess my explanation of text-based games wasn't needed |
The reason I'm not reviewing Anchorhead right now is because I have yet to finish the game, oops. When I first started playing it in the fall, I was too proud to look up walkthroughs or maps, and it took me ages to finish the first day and I just became annoyed with exploring and not making the story move forward. So I stopped.
The second time I picked it up, I used a walk through to help me when I got stuck, and I actually made it really far until my friend accidentally closed the window and I lost all the data. That was so frustrating, I was so mad.
This time around, I say "screw it, I'll use the walkthrough to get through the parts I already solved myself quickly," and hopefully actually finish it. When I do, since I already made this post, I might make a short review giving it how many stars I think it deserves, a little more about the story, etc.
For those interested in the game, you can play it here (the Wiki image above is the same version I've linked). The walkthrough I've used/am using can be found here, and here is a map of the game (its a massive file, you've been warned).
Wow, I'm sorry that this post is so text-heavy, but I guess that makes sense based off the content? Either way, I'm sorry it is a whole lot of reading this time.
Anyway, I'm back and blogging you guys! If you didn't notice already, I changed the background of my blog to be less distracting (and more fitting with the Scream theme I've got going), let me know what you think!
Now excuse me, I've got tea to drink and a Lovecraft-based creature to stop from destroying the town of Anchorhead!
♥ the 'real' Tatum Riley
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