For my momentous first post, why don't we talk about a completely messed up free game? (That's a compliment, by the way.)
Please note | this post contains references to a game dealing with content including violence, grotesque descriptions and images, and presentations which may shock the viewer. Discretion is advised.
Before I dive into the game itself, I would like to introduce the free game websites that I tend to visit for games such as Black ink crow, which is the free game I will be talking about today. Many may be familiar with the famous free games translated into English such as Mad Father (congratulations on the recent remake!) or The Witch's House, both of which were first released on free game websites online. Two of the largest/most famous of these are Freem and Free Game Mugen (夢現). All of the games posted here can be completed without paying a cent, and almost all of them are made in some form of RPGツクール (RPGMaker's Japanese name). Dismissing these free games would be a mistake, since some of the most interesting stories and gameplay concepts come from free games!
One caveat is that the websites and games are first in Japanese (though some good ones get translations). After studying Japanese for a couple of years and completing the native proficiency exam, I've been playing a ton of Japanese games, so my impressions come from the original language version. I'm one of those weirdoes who wants to play a game in the "originally released language" to get closer to the creator's intended messages etc. (especially after recent localization debacles) but my writing/impressions posts are all going to be in English. (For now...)
However! Today's game apparently also has an English translation (and Korean one) on itch.io? So please do check it out in case anyone reads this and finds it interesting!
Back to the game we're looking at today. Black ink crow is a short RPGMaker game developed in VX Ace (so you don't need to download any Runtime Packages to play it) by creator space debris in summer of 2017. I stumbled on it entirely by accident, as it was on the Pickup Games section on the front page of Freem, and immediately the first image caught my attention:
I'm a big fan of bleak-looking games and this image has got it all -- poverty, industrial smog, questionable political posters, an a headless man? So I figured that it would be good way to procrastinate on my paper. Although the game is quite short, its contents did not disappoint in the least.
The game's description lists it as 10 minutes long (I clocked in closer to half an hour after searching every single thing I could) and its description is as follows, translation mine:
The main character, "Crow", works at a corporation while attending regular sessions with a psychiatrist. He has lost his head. Please recover his head.
Since it's so short, I encourage everyone to just go download it and play it themselves instead of reading about it. However, I will mention that it provides some really good social commentary on the concept of stress and pressure that comes from "suppressing individuality" (this is especially visible in the "company environment" in Japan which the game is based off of).
The game starts with our protagonist having some... trouble (in a variety of ways) during a psychiatrist visit and realizing that his head is gone. Perhaps you can guess from his name, but his head is a crow head (and everyone else also has bird heads despite their bodies being human). (There's some symbolism here, but let's not get into spoiler territory...) Players will travel through an increasingly surreal and bleak set of environments on their quest to get his head back as he is scheduled for a lobotomy the next morning. Through each place Crow visits, the player learns more about his mental state, the conditions he has been subjected to, and his society as a whole. Depending on the choices the player makes, there are two endings possible: a Bad End and the True End. Both of them are worth exploring, in my opinion, but I always try to get every end like it's an addiction... Anyway, here's a hint: the ending you get depends on "what you answer the Barn Owl" within the company.
I don't really review games, especially since I find it difficult to say that a game is "bad", so there won't be any numbers or stars attached to this post. However, the game itself is fascinating -- as is space debris' other work, which I might eventually cover -- so I highly recommend those who enjoy Earthbound-likes to give it a shot.
Find Black ink crow for free on:
Follow the creator, space debris on:
Thank you for reading up to this point!
Storm
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