Neofeud for "Indie of the Year"!

Hey guys, it's that time of the year! If you liked Neofeud, please consider voting for it for 2017 "Indie of the Year" on IndieDB!


If you haven't played it yet, you can find Neofeud on Itch.io https://silverspook.itch.io/neofeud or on Steam! http://store.steampowered.com/app/673850/Neofeud/

Here is some background on the game:

"The art, writing, programming and music* of Neofeud was created by one person, Christian Kealoha Miller, also known as 'Silver Spook'. He also performed half of the voice acting. Christian is a Native Hawaiian, born and raised in Hawaii. Neofeud is a Dystopic Cyberpunk adventure game in the vein of Blade Runner, but with an overlay of Game of Thrones-like political intrigue, and 1366x768, hand-painted, stylized visuals.

The art, stories and gameplay of Neofeud are a reflection of my experiences as a STEM teacher for the underserved youth of Honolulu’s inner city. Teaching robotics, programming, and sustainability is an often difficult, stressful, and even Kafka-esque endeavor -- being in one of the richest, most beautiful places on Earth, yet dealing with families with working parents, who are living out of a van, or sleeping on the street. It is hard trying to keep the kids out of gangs, off of drugs, and on a path towards better opportunities, such as the ones I had growing up in a slum area of paradise while going to an upscale private school. I made Neofeud to be a fun and engaging game in and of itself, but I also wanted the player to think about the society in which we live, as well as the one which we may be heading toward if nothing is done."

Here's a roundup of some of the articles this year on Neofeud:


Read the rest of this article from Native Hawaiian Print Pubication, the Ka Wai Ola.

"A Diamond Of Storytelling In The Scrap Pile... The characters of Neofeud are developed so much more than characters in nearly any other game I’ve recently played" --Sprites And Dice

"'Cyberpunk-Fueled Noir.' Reminiscent of Beneath a Steel Sky and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream... The art, gameplay, music and story come together to deliver a solid game." --Indie Ranger

“An ambitious, atmospheric cyberpunk scenario and essentially the work of a single person (voice acting excluded). Oh, and it might also be one of the best adventure games I have played in a while... The world building is something else. It has a thickness, a density to it." --IndieGames.com

"This spectacular and complex story will take at least 12 hours to play through, and the writing is excellent and enjoyable." --3rd Strike

"Science fiction at its most raw and visceral... Neofeud doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable subject matter. It gave me chills and made my stomach roll... It made me uncomfortable to listen to and watch…but that is the entire point. I can’t turn a blind eye in the game, and I certainly can’t turn a blind eye in real life." --Steamshovelers

"An immersive cyberpunk adventure game... Echoes of H.R. Giger and William Gibson... [Christian Miller] knows what makes a quality game." --Brandon C. Hovey

"I loved the quirky but fantastic hand-painted visuals, the gruff, cynical humour." --Gaming Respawn

Here's one of my favorite Neofeud reviews from Steam user Jungle.James who really went deep into the larger ideas explored in Neofeud, and seems to have really 'got' what I was aiming for with this cautionary tale:

Neofeud is the most visionary game on Steam evocative of the creator's passion, sparing what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain could have been. Never have I seen a game produced by such a small studio translate a vision so well.

It is a point and click adventure game wherein each line of dialogue is voice acted, and each scene has a MSPaint charm while expressing pure imagination, for example a chateau's ceiling where there is a painting of nearly infinite patterns, reflecting the royal's fascination with the godhead of technological transcendence.

In sum, Neofeud considers the following:

- UBI controlled slums filled with transgenic and outdated synthetics / androids deemed non-sentients and refuse.
- DRM cigarettes.
- Hypermodernity through a Baudrillardian simulation and simulacra of "consensus reality" interested rulers.
- The sythesis of the contemporary prison and military industrial complexes.
- Scepticism of the motives from those like Elon Musk who promote optimal adjustments to capitalism or late stage capitalism. Authenticity in social movements and how they're frequently co-opted; references to Public Enemy vs Kanye West.
- What dwells in the abyss that is the coming convergence of science, technology, and society.

If any of those topics interest you on a philosophical, economic, or social level and would like those topics paired with often times silly voice acting (for the better overall end results), please play Neofeud.

edit: A lot of soul went into this project, and it shows.

And here are a few more interviews I did surrounding the game:

A discussion on games, gaming and life with Christian Miller ( talking with Brandon C. Hovey)

Another interview with Erik Meyer of IndieGraze

And here is one final review by Fitz (Talos voice actor and a cool creative guy generally) on the also cool site of CaptainD (I am a Patreon of his!):

"The soundtrack -- created by Silver Spook himself -- consists of various flavors of electronica; an obvious choice, given the futuristic setting. And indeed it fits in perfectly. It's minimalistic when it needs to emphasize the dreariness of the slum world. Action sequences, in turn, are punctuated by a pounding beat -- whereas a distorted piano plano creates a watercolor-like backdrop to some of the game's most powerful moments of existential reverie. As mentioned already, the game is a full talkie. It's something that's expected of a modern game -- but the workload and the quality are actually impressive."

And here is Christian performing "Proto-J", a short story set in the world of Neofeud. The story is performed in the voice of the character whom Christian voice-acts in the game.



You can find more short stories in The Neofeud Short Story Collection
Here are some of my other projects:



Terminus Machina: a Deus Ex total conversion



Dysmaton - a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk adventure (in development)

And finally, here is a hangout with a bunch of the folks who helped make Neofeud possible, including my long-time patrons Deborah Dunaway and Scott Smigiel. Deborah also voice acted several characters in the game. Chris R. Smith and Brandon C. Hovey, two great voice talents are also present. The other major voice actors and actresses who couldn't make it were Amayirot Akago and Mrs. Silver Spook / Holly The Robot.



(*I created 43 out of the 45 songs of the Neofeud soundtrack, the other two were by Scott Smigiel. he created many more, but due to changes I made later in the game, I only ended using a couple -- my bad. However, the tracks themselves were great, and you should go and check his stuff out!)

Giving Thanks To Indies :)

If you missed it, here is the Silver Spook Thanksgiving Stream! I will also be streaming again doing game dev this Saturday, so be sure to stop by! If you are a developer, I will generally give you a shoutout mid-stream just for stopping in. :)

Silver Spook and friends and family join in to rebel against unfettered corporate capitalism and neocolonialism in a cyberpunk Thanksgiving special. Special Guests include Chaos Nova, Peahead Games, Future Vintage Gaming, and Mrs. Silver Spook.

Featuring music by Scott Smigiel https://s-smigiel.bandcamp.com/releases
Plus, a Thanksgiving Poem by William S. Burroughs, and "Burn Your Village To The Ground" by A Tribe Called Red.

Neofeud is 33% Off + Thanksgiving Livestream Party!

So first off, Neofeud is 33% off this week on Steam!



And the big news is I will be streaming live on my Youtube channel on Thanksgiving at 11 AM
Pacific Time!

Come hang out! :D In addition to the above mentioned hijinx, I will also likely be doing a bit of gamedev and making some announcements on the upcoming Silver Spook Games projects.
No turkeys were harmed in the making of this poster!

https://www.youtube.com/user/twiliteminotaur/videos

Next up, I am happy to announce that I am currently in the process of porting Neofeud to Mac, and have a potential solution in the works! I can't give any specific dates on a release, but it is definitely in the pipeline. :)

In addition, here is the most recent Silver Spook Podcast where I talk to the creator of cyberpunk strategy game Spinnortality:


In this episode, Silver Spook speaks with Jamie Patton, creator of Spinnortality, a groundbreaking cyberpunk game in mid-Kickstarter. Cyberpunk strategy/management game. In Spinnortality, you, "Run a global megacorporation. Manipulate culture, destroy governments and become immortal."
Spinnortality website: https://spinnortality.com/
Spinnortality kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
Follow Jamie: https://twitter.com/james_d_patton

The Phosphorous Endarkenment - (Neofeud II Teaser)

(What follows is some teaser-material from Neofeud II)

The Phosphorus Endarkenment

Welcome to the The Phosphorus Endarkenment - A purported 'News Site'. An alleged 'Fake News Site'. A decried, 'Social Justice Cancer on the Nine Worlds.' A, "Weaponized disinformation scourge manufactured by the Sovions," according to the Ubizon-owned Coastlandia Post.

And, according to blue-screened mad-men on the outer spiral arms of Jovian prison-colonies, "A salvo of diatribes 'Against The Day' we live in, thinly Trojan Horsed into an SEO-optimized series of clickbait-ey quasi-game-reviews, run through AI internet-addictiveness algorithms into blackest cyber-heroin. Shoot that into your crooked alt-reality vein, motherflackers."

White phosphorus; after cluster bomb sub-munitions, the weapon-of-choice for immolation of hospital workers and innocent non-white, non-human children in some-country-with-resources, and other tokens in the massively multiplayer idle-game that is our un-Holy Roman Collapsar.

Phosphorus. A solid, nonmetallic element. In one of three allotropic forms, it is yellow, poisonous, flammable, and luminous in the dark.

The stricken match, the igniting flame, painful brightness. The color of nuclear flash, the color of orgasm. Ecstasy and annihilation.

The Enlightenment; also known, however correctly and erroneously, as "The Age of Reason". Aufklärung. Demise of monarchy. Came to advance ideals like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, equality, constitutional government and separation of church and state.

The Enlightenment; an age whose time and ideas have wholly passed, de facto, though infinite jesters, such as this one, continue to lob molotov phosphorus pixel-howls into the banal, painful, Neofeudal goodnight.

Non Omnis Moriar.

I shall not wholly die.

The future will grow from something. If that something is the irradiated periplaneta laying eggs in pillars of ash left standing after the antimatter blastwaves, the post-anthro nano-computronium seeds of a paperclip-pushing Accelerando panspermia, or some semblance of those fleshy-assed hypersynaptic monkeys we're rapidly no longer being, it will be something. Life Finds A Way, even through darkest, eldritch midnight.

Phosphorus Endarkenment.

Ignite.


(End Transmission)

Silver Spook Podcast #9 - Mark Yohalem, Writer of Primordia

In this episode, Silver Spook speaks with Mark Yohalem, writer of Primordia, a legendary sci-fi point-and-click adventure game and a big inspiration behind Neofeud. Mark and yours truly discuss the State of Adventure Games which somewhat resembles that of Schrodinger's Cat (never quite alive or dead!), Primordia and the making thereof, Mark's exciting new 'mythological, mid-apocalypse RPG' in development with Wormwood Studios, some insider game-dev shop-talk, Unity vs Adventure Game Studio pros and cons, Mark's and my favorite cyberpunk, the difference between depressing and melancholy, the psychological selling-points of post-apocalypses, why appellate lawyers may be cannibal shishkebabs in said apocalypse, and much more! Wormwood Studios (Mark's indie game company): http://www.wormwoodstudios.com/ Follow Mark on Twitter: http://www.wormwoodstudios.com/ Neofeud: http://store.steampowered.com/app/673...

K'nossos - A True Work Of Art (And A Great Sci-Fi Game)

If you believe that games can and should be elevated to true works of art, if you believe that we are not doomed to a Idiocracy-esque downward spiral into a hypermodern nightmare of fascist n-word spewing online game culture or neoliberal lowest-common-denominator loot-box late-capitalism or some combination thereof, then you're in for a treat with K'nossos.

Svarun Games has just launched their K'nossos Kickstarter today, for what might be the most original-looking game I have seen in eons. In the time it takes to travel to Alpha Centauri in non-FTL cryo sleep, you might never find another game like this one.

Here's a quick synopsis:

"K’NOSSOS is a classical science fiction point-and-click adventure game which follows the story of a lone passenger aboard a huge interstellar colonization ship traveling the unknown reaches of the cosmos, and the things he uncovers on his journey."

Having recently played the demo, I can say that K'nossos is a point-and-clicker's delight, especially if you're a fan of sci-fi. While puzzle difficulty can be somewhat subjective depending on how experienced you are and your personal preference, I can say that K'nossos appears to be in that Goldilocks Zone of 'not-too-easy, not-too-hard'. The plot itself is intriguing thus far, and chock-full of Star Trek-quality technobabble if that's your thing. (I'm watching ST: Discovery right now, but "Dune" or "Stasis" (the 3D point-and-click) might be closer, style-wise.) All in all, what I gathered of the science fictional story is already intriguing—this xenomorphic, xeno-aesthetic creature definitely has claws that drag the player into its Byzantine, fascinating depths.



Most remarkable though, is the art. K'nossos' abstract expressionist art style really gives this game an other-worldy feel, almost like touring a virtual high-art museum. Like a surreal daymare as experienced by a Picasso/Kandinsky fused mind. I can say, hands down, I haven’t seen a game that even attempts to do what is being done in K’nossos.

The sound track has similar megawatt-inspiration going on here, and reminds me of my MUS 412 - Post-Modernism In Music class in university, with a lot of Eastern and atonal intervals infusing meditative electronica soundscapes. It’s definitely got a feeling all its own!

So, if like me, you believe the Blade Runner 2049 box-office numbers mean that we should encourage a less-lazy, more sophisticated audience/culture, rather than dumbing everything down with explosions every 10 seconds and pretty faces, then check out and support K'nossos.

Two (three?) thumb-like, cubist appendages up—and I look forward to the full game!

Should Games Have Social Commentary?

"Make America Nazi Free Again" is controversial to say in 2017. The reactions to Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus' recent marketing campaign are a sad bellwether of the low point we're at, generally.

But I did find it interesting that Bethesda is trying to make it abundantly clear that their latest Wolfenstein title is not social commentary, and any perception thereof is merely incidental. This is certainly true in the case of this game, but it does beg a larger question: should games have social commentary? What role do games play in culture generally?



Guilty pleasure games are fun. I'm a huge Doom fan. I like to chill out and twin-stick-shoot my stresses away from time to time, just as much as the next gamer. Junk food tastes good. But if all you eat every day is double bacon burgers and French fries, you're going to ruin your body, and one day you're going to have that massive heart attack.

We are having the cultural equivalent of a massive heart attack. Online gaming culture is hugely toxic, with Pewdie Pie's fiasco revealing the tip of that ugly iceberg. And beyond the world of gaming, we have flag-waving, Swastika-wearing Nazis marching through American streets. Half the country is in poverty, several dozen cities have poison for drinking water, and our infrastructure is collapsing.

Escapism in entertainment is great, and sometimes necessary. But if everyone just escapes to the virtual, the real will just continue to get worse.

I believe that generally, yes, games should strive to engage with the society in which they exist, where possible.

This doesn't mean that games all need to be thirty-minute "walking simulators" which simply communicate a message, without much more "game" there. Games can, and I believe should, be *both* compelling, engaging, experiences, as well as thought provoking, challenging journeys that are relevant to the society in which they are created. At the very least, games should not promote negativity. Sort of a hippocratic oath for gamedevs: "Do no harm".



Technobabylon examines the great potentialities of technology to better society, as well as the pitfalls of techno-addiction, disconnection, and abuse. It is a great example of a game that handles diversity incredibly well, treating characters, "As characters first" with gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. being just another facet. Planescape Torment and Undertale are fun, yet challenge players to think about the nature of RPGs, among other things.

Deus Ex not only revolutionized gaming by introducing the FPS/RPG hybrid, but touched on a plethora of topics from transhumanism to mass-surveillance to the need to 'question everything', especially information sources -- something increasingly relevant in our milieu of 'fake news' of all sorts. Games like Fortnite are suggesting that a positive online gaming experience not filled with slurs and hate is indeed possible.



I spent about 2 1/2 years making a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game called Neofeud. Neofeud is a science fictional "cautionary tale" in that it suggests a pretty dark potential future, one that we'd probably like to avoid. In Neofeud, the trend of increasing inequality has continued to the point where the elite have become literal kings over the destitute commoners. There is the equivalent of the Palace of Versailles literally floating above an endless cross between an L.A. slum, a Mexican shantyland and a gargantuan Blade Runner 2049-esque landfill. It’s a world where the marginalized (robots and chimera part-humans) have to pass a ‘consciousness test’ to even be *considered* a person, and are easily discarded, disappeared, used for borderline slave-labor or to prop up a prison-industrial complex.

Neofeud is a world in which democracy is not merely in jeopardy, as it is today, but a footnote to history. There is no constitution, no civil rights, no labor rights, no human rights -- all the progress since the Enlightenment has been rolled back. It's a scary, but easily plausible world, if good people simply do nothing but continue the status quo, day in and day out.

While Neofeud is a 15+ hour game, and engaging in and of itself (at least it is meant to be), it was deeply influenced by my own experiences. I am from Hawaii, and a native Hawaiian, who grew up in the ghetto. Yes -- they do exist, even in Hawaii. Most of the folks in my neighborhood were and still are non-white, and a large percentage are immigrants. Families in my neighborhood were and still are sardined packed, with ten or twenty relatives squished into a single-family house. Pork and beans or vienna sausage over rice on a daily basis was the norm, growing up.

After college I taught an after-school STEM (science technology engineering and math) program to under-resourced youth in Honolulu. Many of the kids I worked with were in truly horrible circumstances, many with parents incarcerated or out of their minds on drugs, many homeless, living in vans, some even getting beaten in the street for sleeping on the sidewalk. These were kids who had parents in prison, or perhaps even worse, parents who were working multiple jobs and *still* they were living out of cars or tents. And right up the street, there were multi-million dollar mansions. I myself, along with my wife and kids, were just barely above homelessness, and spending over half my teaching salary to squeeze into a tiny studio or one bedroom.




You could say that Neofeud has a "message", but in another sense, Neofeud is simply me sharing (through the lens of science fiction) my story, and the stories of people whom I have worked with and loved, but whose experiences and voices are often buried. It is my sincere hope that Neofeud doesn’t merely entertain, but also makes players think about the world we’re in, and the one we're heading towards.

The reviews for Neofeud have been mostly positive, but there have been a variety of reactions to the social commentary aspects:

"Has something to tell and does this in a brilliant way, without hitting you in the face with his message."

"Different and cerebral."

"It was too real, too on-the-nose. It gave me chills and made my stomach roll." (To be fair, this reviewer, I believe, meant this in a positive light, but there were a few others who expressed something similar.)

Truth be told, I would much rather be criticized for "having a strong message" rather than making a game without much substance, or merely an entertaining product.




The pre-requisite to democracy is the existence of an informed, civil society, that is capable of governing itself. A network of communities that interact and engage in discussion -- not just insults, caricatures, and flame war. A civic community is not just a hoard of shoppers or a million fans fawning over a movie or game or tech gadget, or a comment section full of people getting their rage "fix" without actually listening to arguments from the other side, or folks angrily blasting avatars of each other and shouting the n-word over voice chat.

So how can we prevent that? One way is by creators making more intelligent, relevant, challenging, and simultaneously enjoyable experiences, along with players, journalists and readers who demand, appreciate, and discuss these games, and other content.




Ultimately, I applaud Bethesda for doubling down on their anti-Nazi stance and marketing campaign.

And I think that we all should double down on taking stands on things we believe to be right -- in our games, and society at large -- while we still have a (relativity) free society in which to do so.