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Giraffe and Annika (PC) Review

Developer: atelier mimina | Publisher: PLAYISM || Overall: 8/10

Overview:

Giraffe and Annika is a quick adventure game set on Spica Island. As Annika, you’ll explore the island and discover secrets, run through dungeons, and do some other interesting things. While waiting for “the shoe to drop,” I was expecting a heel turn from Giraffe, since despite being a titular character, he is suspiciously powerful and doesn’t do much. I wasn’t exactly correct in my assumption, but the mystery of what is going on in the big picture is hinted at but not spelled out until the end. What ends up happening is that we get a nice little adventure game with a heartfelt story, similar to the movie Spirited Away, in a sense.

Graphics:

So, it is a mixed bag here. The graphics aren’t terrible, but they certainly don’t look modern. A lot of the assets feel like stock assets included in whatever engine the game is using. At the same time, there’s a lot of customized graphical work that has some charm, so it isn’t for a lack of effort the way the game looks — probably just resources. The team seems pretty small and a lot of the effort went into music.

There are a number of characters you are introduced to on the island, probably around 12 in total, half being rabbits. There are also some non-hostile ghosts who do some of the “manual labor” of the island such as operating boats/trams/etc, but they don’t have any real personality outside of the hat they are wearing. Lily, the main antagonist in the story, actually has motion-captured animations and dances around during the boss fights, which is nice. Additionally, you could probably jerk off to her since she’s kinda hot, so there’s that.

Sound:

The music is an integral part, though not emphasized enough to call this a “musical game.” While most of the game is actually a series of light puzzles where you run through stages, the “boss” of each stage is a song/rhythm mini-game. The rhythm game is actually pretty simple; you either move Annika left or right and press a button at the right time for each orb that is lobbed towards you. Some orbs are dangerous and have to be avoided, but generally there isn’t much trouble getting through it.

However, to get 100% on the boss stages is a different story, and you’ll likely have to memorize at least a portion of the boss stages to get through with a high rank. There are also 3 difficulty levels for each boss stage and you can play at any time (once you beat them), so there’s certainly “enough” of a point to the boss mini-game to have it exist. There are only 5 boss stages, however, which goes to the brevity of the overall experience.

Gameplay:

Most people should be able to get through in less than 8 hours. I fell asleep a couple of times while playing, so there’s definitely some time that could have shaved off my total. Generally, the game is a very light puzzle/platforming/running game with sprawling levels. One level actually has well-designed puzzles that require you to time things correctly — but it’s still pretty easy.

In general, I’d suggest the game could be playable by young kids, maybe around 8 years old, though they may not understand anything that’s really going on. The story isn’t particularly “for adults,” but does deal lightly with death and puts the story in that context once you complete it. It’s probably a game for “everyone” at the end of the day, especially since there is no combat.

There is also a collection of “Meowsterpieces” to find across the island, which are pieces of art. When you find them, they get added to a collection, and at certain points you can turn them in for prizes, such as clothing for Annika. There is a minimum requirement to gather around 16 of them to get a ticket to advance to the last stage, so you do need to collect some, but not all, of the art.

Crappiest Part:

I guess the crappiest part is the running animations. It all looks like everyone is gliding across the ground instead of actually walking on it. It makes the game look cheap and more low-effort than it actually is, which isn’t a great impression when you first load up the game.

I would probably have enjoyed it more if there were more difficult platforming puzzles in the dungeons. However, I wasn’t particularly inclined to put that much effort into it if I got stuck, so it would have been a fine line to walk. I took a long break after not being able to find the rabbit kids in enough time, and that is about two hours into the game.

Conclusion:

I enjoyed the game enough to beat it, which isn’t something I usually do. The game held my interest enough at a certain point to continue with it and try to beat it. The story is pretty thin, but interesting. I’m glad I played this, though I suppose I was hoping for something a little more weird/off the rails.

Essay on the Iceman

I wrote this in 6th grade for class.

The Iceman is the best preserved human ever found. He was found in Italy. Nobody knew where he came from or who he was.

The Iceman’s clothing was a cape, shoes with grass on the inside (found only in the Alps), a leather sole in each of his shoes, and ibex shoelaces. He also had a coat made of animal skins and a leather pouch. The Iceman is about 5,300 years old. He was said to have lived in the New Stone Age or “Neolithic Epoch.”

The Iceman had some tools. His tools were: a flint knife and a metal blade ax made of copper with a wooden handle. He also had a quiver of arrows, and a wooden bow.

His copper blade ax had a wooden handle but strangely enough the Neolithic Epoch was before the Copper Age when Copper was first found, so what was a Neolithic man doing with a copper blade for an ax? That’s something that we might never know.

The Control of American Culture

The control of American culture comes from the government, and those who have influence on our everyday lives.  For example, the government imposes dress codes, bans books, etc.  So that eventually one day these things will come into normal practice without second thinking their choice, as if these bans on laws on ridiculous things were never there.  With the dress code for instance, they intend to make everyone not wear certain types of clothing.

Since students can’t wear them, demand for them goes down and eventually is erased from existence, as habits are built on the next generation to not wear these types of clothing ever again.  This goes for anything else that is trying to alter the way we think or how we want to do things so that they will have more and more control over culture, and us, according to an unknown group controlling it all.

The 20 Dollar Issue

This entry is part 26 of 26 in the series The Retail Report

A customer said that he placed 20 dollars and some change on the counter for a mug.  The total of the transaction was about 10.79 for the travel mug (which looks like it was a 9.99 mug).

When the cashier rung up the mug and began to bag it, the cashier turned away and then the money was no longer there.  The cashier turned to see that only 80 cents was there.

The customer claimed to me personally that he had “handed” her the first bill.  This did not jive with the security footage as we did not see him place any bill in her hand directly, and only saw him place things on the counter, which may or may not have included the bill in question.

The cashier said she seemed to think the customer had placed the 20 back into his pocket only to take it out again and place it on the counter, but she wasn’t entirely sure.

My take on it, is if that he had somehow put the 20 back into his pocket before he started putting change on the counter, it’s possible that ALL of his hand motions directly motioning to the counter might not be any bills at all, but only the coins after he was digging through his pockets.  I know for sure that it didn’t seem like he handed her anything directly.

As an aside, the cashier mentioned that the guy had exchanged a shirt that he had “won” earlier that day with a clothing rep for an even exchange with no money.  This all happened at about 6:20 pm.

At closing, 7:00 pm, he said he essentially wanted to take the mug without paying for it because he was “out 20 dollars.”  I told him we couldn’t let anything out of the store without it being paid for, so he eventually agreed to give me his information and his name, and then he bought the mug “again.”  I told him prior to this that we were gonna have an officer come by and help with the situation because I didn’t want to question the cashier out in the open or anything like that and make the guy mad.  He said he had to go, at which point he paid for the mug.

I had another cashier count out that register, just to make sure no conflict of interest arose.  The customer had basically agreed that the register hadn’t opened at all, plus I never saw it open on the video, so there’s that, as well.

What ended up happening after all of this, was my manager basically met the customer halfway and offered a 20 dollar gift card for the store that was to be picked up by his daughter.  I never heard anything more about it getting picked up after a couple of times of asking if it ever was, and it wasn’t.

The Sour Lemon Lady

This entry is part 25 of 26 in the series The Retail Report

A lady came and asked if there was a graduation tassel on hold for her and it was supposed to be at customer service for her. I said I didn’t have anything like that for her (asking her name and what kind it was supposed to be).  She said that she talked to the manager directly about it and she had gotten a call from “some girl with a fancy name” last week and told them to hold it, even though she had gotten it months before.  So I spent about 5 to 10 minutes trying to track down the manager (he wasn’t there), then asked if any of the gear representatives knew about any tassel on hold for this lady by the manager.  No one knew.

I eventually asked the gear department supervisor if she knew where the manager would put something like that and she said she didn’t know, so she called him, left him a message, and we waited for him to call.  In the mean time I went back and told the lady we don’t know anything about this item and I resumed to ask the lady for her number so we can call her back when we found out more info about it.

The manager calls during this time and says he didn’t know anything about it, so we ask the lady again who called her and asked her how she paid for it. She eventually says she did a phone order, which would still imply that a gear department rep would have helped her. The supervisor asked me if Web would have it, but I told her they would only have it if THEY did the web order, not if the lady had talked to the gear manager about it since they are COMPLETELY different departments with different procedures and managers. So the lady looked through her call log to see who called her, and it was the web department.

Once we found that out, I said I would call them, and then the lady accused me all of a sudden — “SEE YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED THEM, SHE WAS TELLING YOU THAT WEB HAD DONE IT OVER AND OVER BUT YOU SAID NO NO NO NO”

All I could say was “Ummm…”  I eventually called Web and they brought down her stupid tassel and she left.

LIKE ITS MY FUCKING FAULT SHE DIDN’T FUCKING KNOW WHO SHE TALKED TO AND SHE SAID THAT PETER KNEW ALL ABOUT IT BUT HE DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING.

FUCK THAT LADY FUCK HER