Gangneung: First Contact

So, I’m in Gangneung now:


This is situated in South Korea. I’ll be here until this Friday, and then I’ll come back at the end of November.

South Korea is a very interesting place. After Brazil and Russia, I really wanted to try and live in a country more technologically and socially advanced, just to check the differences and enjoy the better level of live.  We lived very well in Russia, but Adler had plenty of issues. In Brazil, we lived adequately but the problems of the city and the country really affected us, and we managed fine but we would not want to live there for long periods again, we would go back just for tourism and in a while….so, South Korea sounded attractive. The only thing is that my son has started school and after considering this and other variables, we decided that this time I would go alone. This is not the best thing in the world, but just for a year and 3 months and with a total of 5 trips back while being there we thought it would be ok after all…

The trip itself was nothing special after having done plenty of other transoceanic flights, but it’s true that Turkish airlines is really good, nice food and nice movies to watch while flying^^.

The first contact I had with the country was of course in Incheon Airport (Seoul). On the passport control, after scanning mine with a machine, an automatic voice told me in Spanish to put my index fingers in two fingerprint readers. IN SPANISH. After that the check lasted 2 minutes, if that much. This is the first thing I loved.

The second thing I loved was free wifi without registering anywhere. Just connect to the open network and use it….after other airports, this was amazing. The third thing I loved was going to the airport shops and seeing signs about leaving the suitcases outside to not bother people…and people doing so, with suitcases in the corridors, unsupervised, while the owners could not see them. Do you know how that feels, especially after Brazil??

At this point I knew. Whatever happened later, and whatever problem I found in the country, culture or in the project, I was going to love this country….

Since Gangneung is actually pretty far from this airport, I went to the information post. I had been told there was a bus that went directly, so I asked about it. They told me its timetable, which exit to use to get there and what to do and wrote everything in Korean, so no problems there^^.

The bus was pretty awesome, its seats were huge, only 3 per row, soft and comfy. The only problem is that the trip was more than 4 hours…the last 2 felt very long, especially because we got a couple of traffic jams.

During the trip I looked around, but I got a bad day for sightseeing since everything was covered by a low cloud and it was raining. I could see it’s a very green country, but not like Brazil (which is green but clearly tropical, with really huge plants and trees), more like France or Germany, but with different vegetation. There was a surprising amount of agriculture going on, I could see plenty of people working in small fields under the rain, even if it was Sunday. And lots of lights and leds in the road indicating different things, I noticed that too, they seem to love leds and lights….

Gangneung is a coastal city after the mountains where the Winter Games will take place. The mountains themselves are rather low, 700-1000m, but I’m told it snows enough in winter to do snow activities in there. The feeling I got was like a big town or small city, with some main roads but afterwards plenty others with no sidewalk, areas with small houses and not much people or traffic. Unlike the airport, nothing was in English and people don’t really speak it apart from at the office and at the stations (and even then, at the office I’m really surprised by the fact that plenty of people working for Olympics do not speak English well enough to communicate without help, which is not ideal….), so I realized it would not be easy to live there without getting the basics of the language…but I had been warned about it, so it was ok.

The first days were very nice and interesting. The area is very calm,  as I said like a small town, with some particular details that you associate with east-asian culture like plenty of neon lights, (k-)pop, cuteness everywhere, typical school uniforms, some big shopping malls (but it's a town so it's shopping streets full of little shops), very well packaged food even if it’s fruits, extreme politeness, face masks, etc…. It has stuff to do around, with bars and clubs, restaurants, bike paths and parks, and a curiously varied expat community, bigger than usual because in this country English teachers need to be native and there’s plenty of people from abroad teaching.
I found a very small apartment for me on the second day, small but ideal for this period, and it even included a bike (well, “included”, it was the bike of someone that lived there before and left it, and the man renting the place said he was going to throw it away, so instead I’m able to keep it^^) I will be using to move around. I also already ordered some furniture online, which is currently travelling towards it, and in general this first contact went very well.

The only thing it may still cause issues is the food. Food is amazing, similar to Chinese and Japanese, really tasty and healthy…but there’s plenty of things that are spicy, very spicy. And I cannot handle that…so unless I’m with a local or an expat with experience, I go to a place I already know and order the same thing, which may make me bored of the thing fast if I don’t manage to get a wider selection of places…

I’ve also heard that some processes of the burocracy are very very slow, and for example getting a simple SIM card will not be easy…but there’s open wifis with really good speeds everywhere, so it’s not a big concern at the moment….

Anyway, all in all I’m very happy with this new place I’m getting the chance to discover^^

New Graphic Adventures

Since I discovered the GOG page, I also discovered that graphic adventures, one of my favourite genres that has spent some years without new developments, actually have survived and there are some new ones available.

Made mostly by indie companies, these new graphic adventures may not be innovative regarding gameplay, but they transmit a similar feeling as the old ones, using today's graphics.

In the past months I have bought (always important to buy games if you want similar ones to be produced in the future) and played some of them. I have not finished them all, but all of them seem to be really great. I'd like to comment on a few of them:


Deponia: This is the first game I found in GOG that was mentioned as a very nice and new graphic adventure, while being funny like the original ones (Monkey Island, Day of The Tentacle) or some others (like Discworld). I was afraid I would find it childish or stupid, but there was an offer for this game, so I decided to get it and try it.

The game puts yourself in Deponia, a world made of trash. You're Rufus, an idiotic young guy who invents all kind of things, usually resulting in injuries and mayhem. He wishes to leave Deponia and reach the Elysium, a futuristic floating palace that has no contact with the Deponians.  After one of his latest inventions, he ends up causing Goal, a girl from Elysium who is exploring the planet, to fall into Deponia's surface, rendering her unconscious. From this point, Rufus will try hard to make her recover from her fall and bring her back to the palace together with him.

First, the graphics are rather awesome. Everything is made out of 2D drawings in high resolution, and I believe the animations are also very nice. The music is good, without being specially memorable. The gameplay is simple and traditional, point and click style, and you don't have any inventory limitation (which is also traditional and funny sometimes, considering the amount of clutter you carry around). All this is technical stuff, and even if it is nice to have good graphics and good interface, the most important things are other ones.

Graphic adventures are usually based and evaluated on their plots and their puzzles. Deponia's plot is a kind of traditional "Distress Damsel" plot, but it is well executed. The best part are the characters, clearly defined and interesting. The world setting itself is quite weird, impossible to actually be functional but still interesting. You're curious to learn all the little details of this society, and as the plot advances, you want to know what will happen next. The main character is idiotic, but he does try to do good things, even when making a couple of bad decisions.

The puzzles themselves are rather hard. The logic behind them is quite twisted, and some particular ones are too obscure or illogical for my taste, it's hard to think that certain actions will work as the solution of a particular problem. Nevertheless they are interesting. Mixed with the normal puzzles, there are sometimes "mini-game" puzzles, which you can skip if you want but that are usually very interesting, while possible to do.

The humor in this game is ok, maybe not very smart, or maybe not that good, but good enough that I enjoyed it while playing. Comedy is a very subjective thing, and evidently it's not the same as some of the works that advertisements says this game resembles (like Discworld), but it's still good.

The game ends in the middle of the action, since this is supposed to be the first out of 3 games, but I enjoyed it very much in the end. Since I wanted to know how the story continued, I got the second part too.

Chaos on Deponia: This is the second Deponia game. It has mostly all the strengths and weakness of the previous one, with a few differences: First, in this game we see more of Goal, who was unconscious most of the time in the previous one, and we can get a better idea of her character. This makes her more interesting, before that we didn't know anything about her. Some other characters are given also more definition, and the plot becomes more complex and important. All this is good. The bad parts of this game are that some jokes and puzzles are...cruel. They make the main character a stupid mean person, while during the first game he was just stupid, but with good intentions. Some things are not really funny, even considering black humour, and I didn't like that part. I will talk about later, but Harvey's New Eyes manages to do cruel things while making sense, being funny using black humour, and keeping the characters interesting. This one does not achieve such things. Still, the plot remains interesting, the puzzles and worlds to explore are quite nice, and I definitely want to play the third and final part, whenever they release it.

A New Beginning: In contrast with Deponia, this game has a more serious approach, while still having humour in it. The company that developed it is the same, but in this case they tried to made a morality tale, to give awareness about environmental problems. However, the game does not feel preachy, and is interesting and compelling.

I haven't finished this game, but what I've seen and played has given me great sensations. The animations and graphics are all very detailed and high resolution 2D drawings, but not as cartoonish as with Deponia. The music is nice, the voice acting is good, and in general it seems a very good game.

The plot is interesting, involving time travel and surviving in a post-apocalyptic environment (at least, that's what I've seen so far). The puzzles are logical so far, while still being hard, and there is also an occasional "mini-game" puzzle, which are always fun to solve. I don't know if this will be true during all of it, but it's certainly worth to play.

Edna & Harvey: This is actually two games, "The Breakout" and "Harvey's New Eyes". I finished the Breakout and I'm currently at the beginning of the second one.

The Breakout explains the story of Edna, a mental patient who wants to escape the clinic, together with her imaginary friend Harvey, a bunny toy. Edna does not remember anything, but believes that she's quite sane. While trying to escape, she will interact with other patients and doctors, while remembering more and more about her past with the help of Harvey.

The graphics and animation in this game are 2D, cartoonish and very simple (compared with Deponia). However, the voice acting is very good. The puzzles are quite logical, which is surprising for an asylum, but it makes the game less frustrating, since what you need to do makes sense if you speak with the people around you. The music is great, very simple while managing to transmit lots of emotions, specially in the most serious parts of the game, or in the flashbacks.

The plot is amazing. You can guess what's going on and what will happen in the end after the first 5-10 minutes, but it doesn't stop it from being amazingly done. The gameplay makes you do things that clearly show that Edna is insane, and it's stuff that you do yourself, a nice touch to provide immersion. I liked a lot the humour used in the game, crazy and surreal sometimes. However, the game has quite serious moments, and it's not only some whacky adventure. The game is not very hard or long, but the experience of playing is really a great one, very recommended.

Harvey's New Eyes follows the adventures of Lilli, a little girl in a convent. There are elements in common with the Breakout, but it cannot be considered a direct sequel. It works in a very similar way, with improved graphics and animation. I have not finished the game yet, but so far it's also great, with lots of really really dark and black comedy. As I was commenting before, Chaos in Deponia has black comedy, but it seems cruel in there. In Havery's New Eyes, on the other hand, it fits quite well with the game, showing that something very dark and twisted is going on, in this world and in the twisted mind of the main character, who seems quite innocent while being clearly disturbed somehow. The gameplay also helps in the experience, in which you're doing terrible things yourself. The game so far manages to be funny while being very, VERY dark. Just as an example, a narrator explains everything that is happening in a kid-friendly and excited way, while you can see that reality does not match that description at all, like when you find an active bomb buried in the ground.

 The Cat Lady: I have only played 5-10 minutes of this game, but I already love it. I read it's a psychological horror graphic adventure, and it seems exactly that. The graphics may not be the best, but they're creepy and beautifully detailed, also 2D drawing-based. The interface is a little weird, and the animations are a little bit clunky. However, the voice acting, the atmosphere, the music and images seem great, really really creepy. Another example of a game that should be considered "art", I believe.  I'm at the very beginning, but as I mentioned, with just 5 minutes I got all these sensations, and not many games can pull something like that.


And that's all for the moment. I haven't tried yet Book of Unwritten Tales, which seems that it's also going to be very nice, and I need to really play and finish Harvey's New Eyes, A New Beginning and The Cat Lady. There's also the third part of Deponia in the near future, some other games that may not be a traditional graphic adventure but that I will try, plus the Double Fine new graphic adventure still in development, that may be really awesome, we'll see...

In any way, it seems that this "dead" genre (according to the big publishers) is still offering great titles that are totally worth buying...