PEGBRJE: Night in the Storm and One-Eyed Lee: Prologue
Small lil experiences
Night in the Storm is an action game made by a group of indie developers for Global Game Jam 20, including Juancho Abad, Pablo Dapena, Mikel Ojea and DAKU. Players get to be a lighthouse keeper named Vera, and pilot her attempts to keep the place running while a massive storm blows in and attempts to ruin all of the boats.
Vera’s job is not an easy one, especially with how the lighthouse has been designed. On the bottom floor is the generator which powers the whole lighthouse and has been placed near a window that really should be repaired, as it will constantly get thrown open and allow for rain to flood the floor. This water will cause the generator to short circuit, and power to the entire lighthouse will be lost meaning that all of the other machines will fail as well. Floor three is where the rotational engine sits, which can become faulty over time or if the generator shorts, which requires players to repair it. On the top floor is the illustrious light itself, which needs to be operating at all times in order to ensure that the boats don’t crash; only problem is that the spare bulbs are stored back down on floor two with Vera’s bunk. As one might guess, Vera spends the majority of her time running up and down ramps to ensure that each of the pieces are working as smoothly as possible. Since the entire tower cannot be seen by the player, audio cues are placed to allow for understanding of when certain events occur, such as a lovely wind and creaking sound for when the window is thrust open and water begins to leak in the bottom.
It’s a polished little game jam title, one that will have you playing for a few minutes to see just how long you can keep every night-faring boat alive. It’s not meant to be inherently difficult, but any who venture will find themselves struggling against the elements as things are constantly breaking from the storm. Keep up the hard work, and Vera’s job will be easy as pie.
One-Eyed Lee: Prologue is a short narrative story by DarkChibiShadow, an indie dev who brought us the full visual novel experience of Lee earlier one with the tale of One-Eyed Lee and the Dinner Party. This is his origins story so to speak, and outlines exactly how he became the mysteriously eccentric figure that we are buddied with while in the next adventure.
As expected, players are treated to a visual novel prequel for one of the duo in the next game in Lee, an elf who resides with his family in a remote village. Unfortunately for him, he rejects his family’s traditions of remaining within the village and sticking with traditions, instead wishing to extend his sight past the wheat field barrier of his homeland and explore that which exists beyond. The plot follows his constant attempts at escape, and the fallout that he has with his family as they try reasoning with him to stay. Parallels are immediately formed between Lee’s struggles for his family to understand and the real-life family dissonance that occurs between many individuals raised in ‘traditional’ homes, ones that yearn for more than what their family’s life currently gives. The arguments of family believing that the individual was influenced by outside factors and that it couldn’t be their fault, the attempts at sympathizing and reasoning that they’ll grow in to their own if they stay, even the bizarre blaming of one’s self without acknowledging the individual’s own ability to choose. Lee goes through it all, constantly berating his family as they chastise him for misunderstanding his position for wishing for more, until it comes to a head by the very end.
Many will be able to relate to Lee’s struggles within this prologue, sympathizing with his ending choices that allow him to finally leave the old world behind and become the adventurer that we know him as in the later entry. There’s discussions to be had as to who is inherently ‘right’, but ultimately the situation doesn’t really call for that; it instead simply wishes for you to understand how Lee became the way that he is, for better and for worse. If you wish to know more about Lee before diving in to his adventures with Beracus in a bizarre dinner party, this is a good starting place to give you that little bit of context.
