Yu found the bootprints and telltale groove in the sand on his morning walk along the beach. He fished into his robes and pulled out a spyglass to confirm his fears. There was a tall ship on the horizon, sails billowing in the wind. They had pirates again. He pulled out a whistle and piped out a sharp, distinct call to alert the other islanders. Then he turned inland and followed the trail up towards the mountain. Not for the first time, he considered blowing up that damn rock. But then Skull Island might not get any visitors at all.
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He brought his son to the window to watch the shuttles launch. Under rocket power, it would be days before the shuttles reached the colony, but they started their journeys today. His son, only three, put his hand to the alumiglass of the window. “Look daddy!” he said, pointing to each one. “Shooting stars!” “Not quite, buddy.” He’d helped build the space colony, and one of the perks of that long and dangerous job was that he got to move his family up before the rush. He held the boy and wondered if he would even remember living on Earth.
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The crew looked down at the Devil’s Road and considered their odds. The road was prime salvage if you could make it. A line of pre-collapse automobiles that stretched for miles meant more steel and rubber than most salvagers saw in their lifetimes if you could avoid the devil. Flanked by the skeletons of old towers, it loomed over the dead highway. Black clouds roiled with electricity, casting lightning bolts down on anyone foolish enough to get close. They looked at each other and nodded. They just had to be fast. They revved the engines and started down the bluff.
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The Solitaire Conspiracy: A Mike Bithell Short Developed by Bithell Games Published by Ant Workshop Played on Nintendo Switch
The Skinny: A tense, techno-espionage thrill built from a deck of cards. Mike Bithell has some brilliant thoughts on game design and post/transhumanism. He’s also known for his tight, compact game design, compressing his point-of-view into tiny games. He made his mark with indie storytelling platformer Thomas Was Alone and cemented it with the robot detective game Subsurface Circular. His recent project The Solitaire Conspiracy mixes intense spy thriller action with an unlikely gameplay mechanic: a game of solitaire. Players fill the shoes of Spymaster, an analyst candidate tapped to save a shadowy spy network when a supervillain locks them out of their coordination software, C.A.R.D.S. Working with the last remaining analyst, it’s your job to coordinate scattered spy crews and get everything up and running, but in the world of spycraft, nobody can be trusted. As you play through missions and rank up, you gain access to colorful crews of operatives, each with their own suit and special abilities. Face cards represent not only the faction but individual members of the team, and placing active cards uses their team power. This can be things like shuffling a stack or redistributing a suit or moving a card of a specific value or suit around. They are powerful twists on the game, but in fitting the theme, they can hinder you as much as help. The UX is where the game really shines, with the board appearing as a virtual space lit in the slick blacks and scintillating neon of a cyberpunk wonderland. The design made it a bit difficult to read at times, especially playing in handheld mode on the Switch. Fortunately, there is a zoom feature that makes everything a bit bigger and easier to see. The cool sci-fi colors, along with the pounding, synth-filled soundtrack, lends a tension to the game that traditional solitaire lacks. Missions add both flavor and drama to the gameplay. I frequently found myself playing just one more mission to reach the next rank and advance the story, or get the report on a thrilling mission. The Solitaire Conspiracy is a masterclass in design and proves that engaging storytelling and slick aesthetics can spice up even the most mundane gameplay mechanics. Like most Bithell games, there are only a few hours of the main story here, but they’re a thrill ride. The Solitaire Conspiracy is available for download from Steam, the Nintendo eShop, and the Xbox game store.
In ancient times, we believed that the gods played games with the lives of mortals, pitting them against one another in wars for their amusement. They granted boons and bestowed curses. These days, we say that ‘God does not play dice with the universe.’ We take those stories to just be artistic license, or an attempt by primitive people to explain natural phenomena. So the giant cubes we found beneath the ruins were something of a mystery. They were too heavy to move, their markings couldn’t be deciphered, and their composition defied analysis. But somehow, I wanted to roll them.
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In this episode: Domon immediately forgets that he is injured, Rain also can heal Domon’s clothes, and George delivers a sinister ‘Bounour!’ Pllus, the Shuffle Alliance believes in the heart of the cards, and the nostalgia pilots look forward to a multi-episode training montage!
We built a new world on top of the ruins of the old. We raised vertical farms on the roofs of abandoned buildings and strung train lines between them like fairy lights. We fled the rising water and the poisonous smog to a place where the air was still fresh and cool. We still tell stories of the days when Humanity walked on the ground. But we gradually forgot which ones were true. When we need to repair the foundations, we draw lots and put on protective gear. We descend fearfully into the fog, knowing that here there be dragons.
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“Don’t worry, it’ll be an easy job,” the rogue said as we poured over the map of the abandoned temple. “If it’s so easy, what makes you think any treasure’s left?” I asked. “Well, there is a guardian. A giant serpent.” I pushed away from the table. He grabbed my arm. “No, wait. I scouted out the site. The guardian’s gotten too big. It can’t navigate the temple corridors. If we go in and out the back, it won’t be able to reach us.” It was a great plan, right up until the monster burst through the crumbling stone walls.
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The messengers rode into the free city bearing tidings of war. They sneered at the delicate architecture and laughed at the artists capturing the natural beauty of the waterfall at the city’s heart. They told each other this was not a city built for war and celebrated an easy conquest. The messengers expected the city’s leaders to cry and beg for mercy. They expected their warirors to panic until it was too late. Instead, they were given a day to respect the city’s neutrality and move along. Then the city fell on their master’s army like a wall of water.
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It was the day they changed the clocks. Men from the Ministry marched up and down the streets in their dark suits. They took down the old faces and replaced them with new ones that had strange symbols and hands that moved to unfamiliar rhythms. Later, there would be an announcement explaining to read the new timepieces, but it was impossible to say when. Most people stayed inside and hidden on Clockchanging Day, but he liked to watch them work. He was fascinated by the new puzzle each change brought. He wondered who in the Ministry got to design them.
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 