pastel games

I've occasionally blogged on "fun stuff" like the Submachine Games before along with some other games like Mancala. So in that same spirit I thought I'd mention the Pastel Games website which has a number of interesting point-and-click games by Mateusz Skutnik (including the newest entry in the Submachine series).

submachine 5: the root

I've talked about the submachine games before. Here is Submachine 5: The Root by Mateusz Skutnik.

zombie jamboree (part one)

The Kingston Trio: Zombie Jamboree


And, if you are in a time-and-zombie-killing mood, you might want to check out Sean T. Cooper's simple, but entertaining series of free online Boxhead Games.

Also, you may have seen some of the books in Open Court Publishing Company's series on Popular Culture and Philosophy which brings together a group of authors to philosophically unpack the content behind the Harry Potter novels, South Park and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm in the middle of checking out The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless. (I'll probably do a review in part two of this blog entry once I'm done)

For some reason zombies and zombie movies have been more on my radar these days. Both Shaun of the Dead and the remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead were on tv earlier today. And a few weeks back Land of the Dead (starring John Leguizamo) was on. And during the days in between I've been making ample use of the bargain DVD bins at Walmart and Blockbuster in order to further explore the genre.

To begin with, I would argue that George Romero's 1990 remake of his own Night of the Living Dead is actually one of the all-time greatest films (one of my favorites in any case). It is a well-crafted story centering around seven personalities who arrive at a farmhouse while being threatened by zombies all around them. In spite of the small cast (not counting the zombies of course) and minimal setting, Romero manages to pack a surprisingly rich set of interactions and relationships, invoking issues of race, gender, age, family into a story full of suspense, conflict, social commentary and irony.

Most subsequent zombie films are similar in the sense that they explore zombie outbreaks in the confines of a specific (even if large) area such as a shopping mall (Dawn of the Dead), an army base (Day of the Dead), in and around a graveyard/mortuary/medical warehouse (Return of the Living Dead) and an airplane (Flight of the Living Dead... which could have just as easily been called Zombies on a Plane).

An interesting exception is George Romero's Diary of the Dead. The somewhat self-referential movie follows a group of film students and their professor who were working on a horror picture out in the woods when they get news of the zombie outbreak. But since the group has at their disposal a Winnebago full of gasoline and video equipment, the characters are able to travel to different locations and settings sense of the impacts of the zombie phenomena. (a hospital, a militia headquarters, a middle-class home, an upper-class home, etc.) which gives a more varied and global sense of the scope of the zombie problem. In fact, unlike many zombie films which portray localized outbreaks caused by some mysterious virus or chemical spill, in the Diary of the Dead the cause leans more to the theological. The basic rules of life and death seemed to have changed all over the world simultaneously. As one of the characters in another Romero zombie film explains, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth." In any case, Diary... contains a bit more social criticism and philosophical reflection than most of the other films in the genre, and I would argue that after Night... it is the second-best zombie film I've ever seen.

to be continued...

submachine games

I think I will take a momentary break from being serious and will mention some games I've found online. The Submachine series is a collection of trippy, eerie, poetic, odd, surreal, mysterious, intriguing, puzzle-solving point-and-click adventures. You literally only need to use your mouse to interface with the game. I started with Submachine 1 which is relatively short and gives you a flavor of what the logic of the games is like. Submachine 2, 3 and 4 are much "bigger" games with more rooms to search through and more complex puzzles. (Although 3 stands out as having very little narrative. Basically you can move freely through a mostly monotonous "dungeon" and solve a sequence of logical/mathematical puzzles) Submachine 0 is the smallest of the bunch. I would say FLF is more "impressionistic" and less logical. It is bigger than 0 or 1, but not as difficult as 2-4. I would recommend playing the games more or less in the order given, both because of the increasing difficulty and also in order to appreciate the unfolding story.

Submachine 0: Ancient Adventure
Submachine 1
Submachine 2: The Lighthouse
Submachine 3: The Loop
Submachine 4: The Lab
Submachine FLF (Future Loop Foundation)

More "Grenada-esque" games:
darfur is dying
el emigrante
where is the beef?
bunny vs. world