“Behold,” the mad scientist proclaimed. “My latest creation!” He pushed a lever and the cage door opened. A wolf padded out, tongue lolling, with a prodigious set of antlers on its head. The other supervillains glanced around nervously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely it would do something cool, like unhinge its jaw and spit fire at any moment. Instead it spun around in a circle and lay down. “Uh, not to criticize, but what is the benefit of this experiment?” “I taught myself a good deal about genetic recombination and cloning techniques. And doesn’t he look majestic?”
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The sword master spent years as an apprentice. He spent a decade traveling the world, plying his deadly trade and learning all the things they don’t tell you in a training hall. Once he had learned everything the world could teach him, he retreated to the high mountains, and spent another decade alone in meditation. He then announced that he had formulated his ultimate technique, and began taking on students. He spent the rest of his life training others in the way of the sword. He died of an infection from a paper cut he received while writing his memoirs.
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Kunai Developed by: TurtleBlaze Published by: The Arcade Crew Played on Nintendo Switch
The Skinny: Ninja Robot Tablet Action
In the distant future, a lone robot awakens to save mankind from the AI Apocalypse. With an energy draining sword and an emoji-displaying tablet for a head, he sets out to save the small band of human resistance fighters, along with the rest of the world. While its story is a bit thin, Kunai delivers a pleasant and fast-paced Metroidvania experience. In addition to the aforementioned sword, a variety of upgradable guns are also at your disposal as you traverse a variety of technology-infused forests, floating mountains, and futuristic cities. You travel on foot, with the ubiquitous double jumps, and with the games’s eponymous standout feature, the kunai, a pair of grappling hook-like knives that allow you to scale walls and swing along ceilings with ease. The game gives you a huge amount of freedom early in the game, delightfully disrupting the traditional gameplay loop of unreachable ledges and unjumpable pits. The controls are fun and intuitive, letting the player navigate quickly and easily.The game is presented in a faux gameboy pixel art style, with grayscale backgrounds. Enemies are painted red, while Tabby and his allies are blue. While it doesn’t have the flash of Ori and the Blind Forest or Hollow Knight, the sprites are easy to see, and charmingly designed. Backgrounds are surprisingly detailed and cleverly imagined. The game rarely slows down, except in a few sections which involve navigating courses consisting of hazards like bottomless pits and rooms full of spikes. These parts of the game feel separate, and a bit archaic. Fortunately, they are quite close to save sections, and the game gives a Super Meat Boy try try again feel. While Kunai doesn’t have the narrative weight or graphical artistry of some of the bigger Metroidvania titles, it is a fun and fast-pace game with plenty of charm, and is well worth your time. It is available on PC from Steam or on the Nintendo Switch from the Nintendo eShop.
She woke up laying on the wall. Always a heavy sleeper, she hadn’t noticed the shift, and fumbled with her comforter in confusion. Had something tipped the house over, she wondered. Nothing seemed out of place, except for her. She carefully made her way over to the door and dropped into the hallway. When she finally managed to crawl her way to the living room, she took a look outside through the picture window. The view outside was normal. Only her orientation and gravity had changed. She paced the walls and climbed the floors, unsure of what to do next.
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I Walk With Monsters #1 Written by Paul Cornell Drawn by Sally Cantirino Colored by Dearbhla Kelly Published by Vault Comics
The Skinny: Hunting monsters, both supernatural and human
Jacey and David hunt monsters in rural America. Jacey grew up with her brother Jace on a farm, and they both knew what their father did with the hands who came to briefly stay and help out. That was until Jace was sent away to stay with “An Important Man.” Now, she searches the backroads and dark underbelly of the heartland, searching for a clue to what happened to him. David’s story is more complex. Paul Cornell’s dialog is a treat here. It has a simple elegance that works really well to convey character. Jacey snaps with defiant boredom while in the clutches of a serial killer, and the short, rote dialog between her and David in the next scene quickly conveys that they have been at this a while. The extraordinary has become routine. And when that all falls apart, the flashback scenes deliver very effective menacing dread. Sally Cantirino’s art with Dearbhla Kelly’s colors create a moody and oppressive atmosphere. Figures face the reader and challenge their notions of comfort and security. With a palate of browns and dark yellows, they evoke an endless autumn, a dark and dying world. I Walk With Monsters gives an intriguing glimpse into a world of monsters, serial killers, and rich, deep characters. You can find it digitally through Comixology, or in print at Your Local Comics Shop.
He was a demon of small things, a little god of petty aggravations. He blew out candles, spoiled milk, and broke horseshoes. All the little things that nudged humans slowly out of the light and into the darkness. He never got any credit. A bigger demon would inevitably swoop in and corrupt the souls he set on edge. He didn’t mind, though. As human technology improved, it just got smaller, and fell further in his domain. Now he blew spark plugs, cracked phone screens, and erased hard drives. The greater demons didn’t understand, but soon it would be his time.
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One day he found a red lily on his doorstep. There was no note, and no hint of where it had come from. He shrugged and brought it inside. More flowers followed. Finally, he waited at home and caught a raven leaving them. It cawed up at him and then turned away, as though embarrassed. He looked up the behavior and found it was a courtship ritual. The butcher never figured out why the bird had imprinted on him, but he put a cage for it in the corner of his shop, and they were both happy with the arrangement.
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In this episode: The Magella Attack Force, um, Attacks. Eledore is back to help out, and somebody on the team is spying on Shiro. But who could it be? Plus, Genias continues his slide into super-villainy and Karen loses her head.
She’d worn the mask for a festival. It was a beautiful piece, with bright paint and lapis lazuli eyes, and she’d felt like a goddess wearing it. But when the festival was over, she hung it on the wall and returned to her everyday life. It was a few days before the mask spoke to her with the goddess’s voice. The goddess doled out blessing and duties to the woman, who was unsure of herself, but dared not refuse the calling. She danced on the temple steps and took off her mask, but the goddess was not finished wearing her.
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The man stared at his phone in consternation, swiping at a 3D map of the hollowed out asteroid back and forth with jagged swipes of his fingers. “Where are you trying to go?” I asked. “St. Dominic’s Cathedral,” he said. “You can’t get there from here.” “Why not?” He asked. I pointed upwards. The tips of the cathedral’s grand spires pointed down at us from the the ceiling of the mile-wide chamber carved into the rock. “Oh, thanks,” He said. He stepped out into the square and ignited his jetpack, scattering trash everywhere. “Tourists,” I muttered, cleaning up the debris.
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 