Rule of Rose
An unlucky girl…
You play as Jennifier, a girl who has the worst luck in life. Having lost her parents, she begins he travel across the land in a bus only to be interrupted by a boy who asks her to read a story. Once she starts to read this hand-drawn tale however, she begins her own tale.
Leaving the bus stop, she follows a winding path that leads a mansion. Approaching the gate, she notices some children beating a sack with sticks. Working her way around the fence that surrounds the mansion, she follows a boy that leads her into the mansion and through the house. Wondering lost through the mansion, Jennifer hears the children laughing but can never find them. Finally being lead to the attic brings her face to face with the boy she had been following The boy asks her to read more of the story she had started on the bus. After reading more of the story, she hears the children chanting around a grave. Once she finds the grave Jennifer digs the grave and opens the casket only to find the sack the children were attacking earlier.
Jennifer then sits down in the dirt and while the children surround here. They tell her that she is filthy and then they pour water over her. Trying to flee from them, Jennifer is knocking into the wooden casket and taken away against her will. She wakes to being tied to a pole and having to follow the orders of the Red Crayon Aristocrat Club, a collection of girls who follow the rule of the rose, in order to live. The children and their strange ways are not the only threat, however, with other creatures and people standing in Jennifer’s way to an escape.
Notes:
- This game is quite strange. It’s classified as a survival horror game and lives up to that genre. It has many moments where unseen giggling children can be quite unnerving. It also uses the traditional string instruments usage that marks other horror games to good effect.
- This game contains some interesting themes that may not strike the casual player. It seemingly contains sections of bondage and domination by the younger girls over the older Jennifer. This is not in a sexual sense but a psychological one. The younger girls, after having kidnapped Jennifer, threaten her into taking actions like collecting butterflies for them. It also has many scenes of animal torture including stuffing a dog into a bag and dangling said bag on a hook.
Screenshots (Beta):
Audiosurf
Imagine a mash-up of Wipeout and Guitar Hero. Now add to that the ability to use any song on your computer and you have an inking of Audiosurf. Using an algorithm to compute the rise and fall of the track along with placement of blocks, this game has as much reply value as number of songs in your music collection and then some.
The basic idea is that you direct your vehicle to collide with colored blocks that were placed in time to the background music. While an interesting idea all by itself, Audiosurf adds the ability to use any song you own to create a new route. The game then mixes it up even more by adding three different degrees of difficultly, number and speed of blocks, with different characters that embody different types of play. Maybe you would like to collect a single color, collect and save blocks as you go or even play along with a friend, this game as all of those options.
Once you have mastered a single song and racked up a high score, you can post your scores and compare with anyone else who has ever played that song. Even if you do not like to compete with other players, you can compete with yourself to get personal achievements that can later be used as bragging rights from your Steam account page.
Notes:
- I first had in mind to just play the demo, which I did, but found I liked the game so much that I just had to buy it. The demo gives you the ability to test the gameplay with a limited amount of characters and only five songs. Depending on your song selections, you can get over a single hour’s worth of play in one sitting.
- I recommend that your song selection be songs both that you are familiar with and that have a steady rhythm to them. While some songs that have off beats or even mixed beats can be fun to play, the pacing of the level to match the song can slow gameplay at times.
- If you purchase this game via Steam, you get along with it the soundtrack to The Orange Box.
Screenshots:
I write things
Hello. I'm Dan. I write things.
Bio: frequently obsessive, sometimes neurotic and occasionally whimsical.
I'm a part-time student.
I work two part-time jobs.
I try to write every day.
Contact:
dan.cox [at] videlais.com
