Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
I load into the world, immediately greeted by some of the absolute silkiest beats I've heard in a while. I'm a redheaded bartender of Irish origin by the name of Boyle, though my middle name might be "Stereotype" (mum was very postmodern like that.)
I'm briefed on my missions, both personal and professional, before I step out on deck to greet the other guests. My first conversation is polite but probing. I know that there are spies on board -- I'm one of them, and I have a strong interest in finding the others. I offer a passenger a tumbler of whiskey as she tells me about her career in Hollywood. She offers me her autograph but I politely decline before asking her if she'd heard anything about the local oil concerns who have been in fierce competition lately. Instead of exchanging autographs, we then exchange identification devices.
I overhear another conversation nearby. My coworker aboard this yacht, a smartly dressed and thin-lipped woman named Mary, has approached a wealthy European playboy and demanded...
"Ass, gas or grass."
Welcome to Velvet Sundown.
Velvet Sundown is a free to play online Dramagame, and that term is the key to understanding what the hell is actually going on when you play. Dramagame is a technology designed to support social simulations and interactions in isolated, tailor-made virtual worlds. "Dramagaming" is a lot like roleplaying, but supported by the game's own roles, environments, mechanics, and objectives. It's the structural core of Velvet Sundown, as well as the very best way to describe how it's played.
In each round of Velvet Sundown, a handful of players (and absolutely no A.I.) are each assigned a character from a pool, as well as several goals. Some of these goals are character specific (like Boyle's drink dispensing) while others are shuffled around regularly to keep an element of surprise. The rest is up to the players, who must interact with each other and use the resources at their disposal to achieve as many of their character's goals as possible before time runs out.
It sounds straightforward, but it rarely is. Everyone has their own priorities, and jerking everyone else around may be at the top of their list. To be honest, it was usually at the top of mine.
Unfortunately, the free version of the game has lost some of its charm since it debuted several weeks ago. Hardcore Dramagamers can subscribe for access to premium areas and characters, as well as the text-to-speech functionality that was recently removed from the free side of the game. The TTS system, which gives each character their own impressively distinct voices and accents (and occasionally breaks in the very best ways,) really makes the game. If there was a flat fee to regain that alone I'd pay it in a heartbeat. I'm far less enthusiastic about a subscription model, however, so I may learn to live without it for future voyages. [Update: In a tweet made in response to this post, the developers have implied that this may not be the permanent state of the game's TTS function.]
Then again, that's not a wholly bad thing. The fact that it's both free to play and has received a lot of attention for its unconventionality and text-to-speech hilarity means that there are boatloads of absolute assholes floating around, and there's a good chance that you'll come across some of the most heinous, ignorant garbage the internet has to offer before you've even left the lobby. Not having to hear that voiced as well is something I can probably live with.
That said, it can be fun to (respectfully) mess with others, and to be (respectfully) messed with, and Velvet Sundown is at its best when both happen parallel to the game's original objectives. The answer to this would be to play with friends, but unfortunately the game's current multiplayer system makes this difficult (but not impossible) to pull off.
Suffice it to say that there's a lot of room to improve, but there's certainly something here. Velvet Sundown is available for both Mac and Windows on Steam or on their website.
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Posted by: mmm | Saturday, December 03, 2016 at 12:12 AM