Today’s demo is called Vigil - Blood Bitterness. It’s a… it’s a game demo about… uh. It’s umm…
I have no idea what the hell it is. I didn’t know what it was before downloading the demo, I didn’t know what it was while playing the demo, I don’t know what it is after playing the demo, and I’m reasonably sure I won’t know what it is or was for the rest of my life. In fact, I don’t want to know. If you know, don’t tell me. I want to die not knowing.
Anyway, you start off as a black and white guy or thing in a black and white… room or thing. You can move by clicking where you want to go. Also, there’s a yellow thing in the whatever you’re in. Let’s stick with room.
You can click that for a larger version, but don’t expect it to help.
Anyway, being an old hand at point-and-click adventure games from back in the Monkey Island days, I click the weird yellow thing, and a little movie plays, which I’ve uploaded to YouTube here.
Okie-dokie. That’s the second most confusing in-game movie I’ve ever seen.
I find my way into some other room where there’s a bunch of windows. Have a look.
I tried to capture some video in this room, too, because it’s funny — under that clock or whatever the hell it is, there’s a box or a coffin or something. It’s the only thing in this enormous room you can actually click on, and it subtly indicates the nature of its interactivity to you by flopping around like it’s having a seizure. Unfortunately, Fraps decided it didn’t enjoy the first movie I made it record and refuses to record anything else inside this game, not even screenshots. I can’t say I blame it. I have to use Print Screen and paste the pictures into Photoshop from here on out. Which is okay, because we’re about done.
Tired of wandering around not being able to click on anything or do anything or go anywhere, I check out my options. There’s a place where I can review whatever clues I’ve gathered. I can rewatch the confusing movies here. There’s also a section for notes.
I click on them hoping for some notes from the developers like “Uh, sorry about this demo” or “Look, I’ll call you tomorrow and explain the whole thing” but the notes are blank. They’re a place for the player to make notes. Which isn’t a bad feature at all, really. I wouldn’t mind if more games let you pause and type in reminders to yourself that you could refer to later.
So, I leave myself a note:
And then I leave the demo.
Rating: In keeping with the spirit of this demo, I give this game grape eyepatches out of a possible floating teapot.
15 responses so far ↓
1 mattias // Mar 26, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Yay, another great demoman.
2 JaZz0r // Mar 26, 2008 at 8:56 pm
What is the first most confusing in-game movie?
3 Derek // Mar 26, 2008 at 9:11 pm
From now on, I am rating on a scale of cow nazi to floating teapot.
4 Rollie // Mar 26, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Devoured your face? That’s pretty kinky.
5 SmackleFunky // Mar 27, 2008 at 12:15 am
I have this game, and have played it for a bit. They key to finishing the demo is right click… You can actually right click. Not all point and clicks have this feature so it is easily missed. Of course, upon finishing the demo you really don’t get any further insight than you have gotten so far.
It took me a little bit longer to realise that right clicking *on* something doesn’t make a difference, but you have to right click (anywhere) while standing in a certain position. At which point something completely random and non-obvious may, or may not, happen.
I stopped playing the game when at one point I clicked on a black thing next to a white thing next to another black thing, and it turned out that the black thing I clicked on was in fact… nothing, and my character then proceeded to walk into this nothing and fall to his death.
6 Alek // Mar 27, 2008 at 6:37 am
Heh.
Snipering.
7 CitrusFreak // Mar 27, 2008 at 8:13 am
The little steam notification thing popped up last night (I think it was last night anyway) and told me you were playing this demo. I bet myself a dollar this demo review would follow.
I now owe myself $1.
8 Pixi // Mar 27, 2008 at 8:33 am
lol CitrusFreak :D
Can I please get the dollar ?
9 Christopher // Mar 27, 2008 at 8:39 am
I actually played it last week, and then had to play it again last night to get the screenshots since Fraps pooped out. So I suffered twice. I hope you appreciate that.
10 tm.Mr.Sin // Mar 27, 2008 at 10:31 am
It looks like it’s trying to be all cool like SIN CITY.
11 Carpenter100 // Mar 27, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Okay, so I actually played the demo, and here’s what you do: You click the orange thing (apparently face-devouring is an important crux of the game, thanks to my research) then right click on the white box to open a door thing. You run down the sanctuary to the rolling coffin thing, and click on it. Watch a non-sensical cutscene about how your going to escape the palace thing, and then you walk onto one of the circles in front of the block, and right click. Then you pray (The guy you just talked you told you to pray in front of him) and coffin-man slides into the floor. Then you go back to the starting room, move up the blinding white hallway, and right click on the black square in the hall. The door to the right closes, and after some gear-whirring noises, the other door opens. And when you walk through it, a screen pops up that says, “You succesfully completed the Vigil: Blood Bitterness demo”.
That’s it. I didn’t know what I was doing at all, and it took me 5 minutes. Maybe if it was longer so we could get some more story, or there was any kind of smart design by a smart team, instead of the emo Frank Miller-wannabe fuckwits who made the game so incredibly hard to wrap your head around. Oh, and through my browsing of the internets about this game, I heard that if you mess up in the wrong spot, you have start all over again. But the bitch is that you never know when you fuck up. It might take your traveling through a few rooms before you notice you can’t do shit.
I would feel like I wasted time playing this, but it didn’t take any longer than 5 minutes. Dear God, why is it so short? Is it because they want to “hook you”? Or because they don’t want you to realize what a shitty point-and-click it is?
This constant attempt to seem adult and mature, and “edgey” keep beating so many horses so that I’ve lost count. Fuck Vigil. Fuck Freegamers, damn idiots that they are.
12 Mashakosha // Mar 28, 2008 at 7:52 am
This is boring. Can I go back to kicking people into spikes/other painful objects now?
13 chris12 // Mar 29, 2008 at 12:20 pm
whats the first worse most hard game?
14 alitheg // Mar 31, 2008 at 4:25 am
Second most…i’ve ever seen is a monkey island joke guys.
15 ClearlynotaRobot // Jun 6, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Which, in turn, took the gag from get smart, making it the SECOND most original use of the gag. How meta.
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