Vertical Horizon at BB King’s

We didn’t even know that Vertical Horizon was still together, much less touring, until we saw an advertisement at the Weird Al concert a couple of months ago. So I bought a copy of their new album and tickets to see them at B. B. King’s in Manhattan.

It was delightful.

It’s a small venue, so the full house was probably a few hundred people, but it was a very appreciative crowd and we had decent seats that had a nice view but weren’t blasted by the speakers. Vertical Horizon is clearly still doing this because they love it—they were having such a good time. They obviously love what they do and appreciate their fans, which makes for an awesome show. There was a lot of encouragement to sing along, which I have never in my life objected to.

Jeff LeBlanc, the opening act, was decent and reminiscent of the earlier acoustic albums VH did. I wasn’t impressed enough to buy his stuff, but I appreciated his set.

It was interesting the songs they chose for the set: They played the big radio hits from Everything You Want, obviously, and four songs from the new album Echoes from the Underground. They specifically called out clamor for some of the older stuff, and played two songs from their first two albums back-to-back. But then everything else was from Go, and I think Burning the Days was ignored entirely. Which was fine with me, as I think it’s kinda weak, but it was interesting to note.

Scannell told the story of how he wrote the bridge of “I’m Still Here” while he had a 104 degree fever. So the line, “Maybe tonight it’ll be all right / I will get better” is not, in fact, some deep musing on life or self-improvement. It’s about Advil.

He also noted his amusement that a country singer covered one of his songs and he, having no experience with country music at all, realized retroactively that he’d written a country song. (It’s “Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning),” by the way.)

Also, as a note to myself, when you ask the bartender for “something fruity with rum in it”, you’re likely to get something delicious but strong. I enjoyed my hurricane but felt it the next morning.

If I have one complaint/regret, I wish I had some way to communicate to the band that “Famous” was our wedding song. (I didn’t think they were going to play it, but I was okay with that.) They seem like folks who would appreciate that.

Humble Sales Are Very Dangerous – Part Three

Lume - A very short puzzle game about fixing grandpa’s electricity with maybe a dozen puzzles to the entire thing. The noteworthy aspect is that the artwork is all papercraft animation, which is really cool looking. (This feels a bit more like a promo/demo version of what they want to be a much larger Professor Layton-style game with this art. The actual gameplay isn’t quite there yet, though.)

To The Moon - Eve and Neil work for a company that offers end-of-life memory alteration, so that dying people can experience their fondest wishes via false memories. But they run into a snag when trying to grant a dying Johnny’s wish to go to the moon, and must delve deeply into his memories to fulfill it. An adventure/puzzle game made in RPGMaker (but with no levels, battles or the like), I thought this was a lot of fun, with a mix of poignancy and humor and some interesting philosophical questions it raises. I’m looking forward to playing other games by the same developer.

The Mirror Lied - By the creator of To The Moon, this is a free and very short RPGMaker game with some minor puzzle gameplay. The point of it is clearly to leave you wondering what the hell just happened.

The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures - I suspect that actually being an AVGN fan would make the story of this (and many of the jokes) make more sense. As it stands, it’s a really hard classic-style platformer full of video game references that likes to swear a lot. (On easy mode, where you get unlimited continues, it’s a little frustrating but fair—the checkpoints are common and you’ve got plenty of health.) I tried most of the stages, and the platforming gets frustrating (and repetitive) and the jokes clearly aren't for me.

Don't Move - The only instructions the game gives are the title, and you need to ignore them to proceed. Of course, moving makes you explode, but it also slowly unlocks increasingly ridiculous goal conditions that are practically a parody of the “click-to-play” genre. And there’s an ending! (Which only takes about an hour to get to.)

Cthulhu Saves the World - Classic RPG that doesn't take itself at all seriously--this is the "Snakes on a Plane" of rpgs. There's a decent amount of strategy and a nice variety of attacks, and the dungeons are actually mazes rather than straight paths. The latter is made more pleasant by the limited number of random encounters in any area--once you hit the magic number, you only get into encounters if you initiate them yourself. In Easy mode, you regenerate full HP and some MP after every battle. I blazed through it in 4 hours, which felt about right for what it was.

Continue 9876543210 - This game starts with “Game Over”. A defeated player character flees from the computer memory dump through randomized levels, searching for keys and lightning that will help him escape and prayers to shield him from the memory garbage collection. This feels a bit like someone binge-watched Reboot while stoned, then drank some NyQuil and decided to make the resulting dreams into a game. It’s freaky. The actual gameplay isn’t that tough and it’s hard to die, but the puzzle aspect (finding enough lightning to exit and enough prayers to shield you from the data wipe) can be tough. In three play sessions, I never managed to come up with enough shelters to get through the first garbage collection, which makes me wonder if I missed something or just wasn’t competent enough.

Vertical Drop Heroes Classic - A flash game that involves falling down a shaft, stepping on treasure chests to open them and cages to free the trapped heroes, trying to recover keys and rescue princesses. Simple and straightforward until they expanded it out into…

Vertical Drop Heroes HD - The downward motion and general gameplay remain, but now it’s a kind-roguelike gameplay style where you’re expected to die, but any gold you collect or skills you unlock remain for the next character who goes spelunking. Also you have actual weapons and far more special abilities, rather than just stomping on monsters; and there are mini-quests and more variety of monsters and hazards. The fact that each run strengthens you for further runs makes this something I can enjoy, because even when you die, your next character has the potential to get farther. (There are warps you can unlock to later levels, too, making it possible to beat the game without having to go through every area on that run.)