Rovio Entertainement - Wolf Moon (2006)
Developer: Rovio Mobile
Console: J2ME
Game Release Date: 2006-XX-XX
I like going up north and spending some of summer up there camping. I could go on about how good nature is but I am sure it's all stuff that everyone's heard already.
So long story short, every time I go up I bring a bunch of games with me and play them in the down time I get up there. Now before you go on about technology and how you should divorce when you go up, I assure you, I also bring up books to read.
Now, speel out of the way, from the end of June to the start of July I went camping. One of the games I brought up, and the game I enjoyed the most was Wolf Moon for J2ME systems.
Since about last year I have been on a J2ME/Symbian/DoJa/etc kick. I had a flip phone back in the day but didn't have the money to waste on those kinds of games. Plus, I had emulation and consoles and real handhelds to play. I barely had any time for J2ME. During that era I played like 3-4 games.
With me finding out about J2ME-Loader and projects like Kahvibreak I now have access to entire catalogues of old J2ME games, ripe for the playing.
J2ME horror games in particular I find interesting. How do you go about making a full horror game for a flip phone? (also if you have information about the lost game Alone: The Horror Begins, get in contact with me ASAP).
That brings us to Wolf Moon, today's game.
Wolf Moon is a grid-turned based horror game where you play as Janet Cain, a detective sent to the quiet town of Wade Creek to investigate a possible serial killer. It was developed by Rovio Mobile, one of the more respected J2ME companies. While investigating she uncovers that the killings are from a werewolf that has been let loose on the town. To make matters worse, the sheriff of the town has been killing tourists and random people to appease the werewolf.
Cain discovers all of this but before she can make a move she is attacked by the werewolf. The sheriff, terrified at the prospect of them now being able to procreate tries to kill Janet. She flees and now much stop the werewolf curse, expose the sheriff and prevent herself from turning into a werewolf.
Upon getting to safety she meets Spotted Owl, a mystic and expert on werewolves who explains that she has a month to complete all this before she turns.
It's a pretty neat plot.
From there on it's survival with you running around the park, collecting totems to break the curse, fending off wildlife and obtaining evidence of the sheriff's own killings. There are bears, wolves, other werewolves, the sheriff's men and more after you.
Fortunately the park has plenty of cabins, wildlife (for food), hiding places and scattered weaponry around. I played the game on normal but it should be possible on hard.
I beat the entire game in about a hour. You just gotta be okay with dieing a lot because large parts of the game for me were pure luck. There's essentially 3 goals to do. You need to grab all 3 totems and hide them in the centre of the map, collect evidence of the sheriff's wrongdoing and get a way out. You need to do the totems within the 30 day time limit otherwise it's game over. I managed to beat it with about 11 days left so it's not super difficult.
The totems are all over the map. You just go to it, grab the totem and run to safety. It's usually surrounded by werewolves so when you grab it there's a very high chance that you will get attacked. I found going into the river and just walking it out worked well. Despite it dropping your health the water doesn't kill you so you could just avoid most enemies via this way.
Because only a silver bullet kills werewolves that's your only option to deal with them. So if you run out you either have to give them a totem or just reload. I usually just chose to reload.
Being a survival game once you get enough equipment it becomes much easier. After you've discovered most of the map, are decked out with bullets and have access to the car it becomes much easier.
The game reminds me a bit of Survival Kids, it also being slightly turned based too. I'd say Survival Kids is on a whole 'nother calibre but that if you enjoy those you will likely enjoy Wolf Moon too.
Of my last trip up north this was the best game played up there. Even though it's short (to be expected from a J2ME game) I did enjoy every minute of it. The only annoying part was that I would have preferred if the resolution fit better on my Phone + Controller set up and that there was no other way to deal with the werewolves.
I've been meaning to find more games like this but I haven't had much luck. I still gotta play Lost in Blue (Survival Kids 3) but that's not grid based. Recently I started playing Escape From Hell on the MS-DOS which features similar gameplay. Unfortunately it follows the MS-DOS game trend of being obtuse as fuck so we'll see if I continue that run.
So how about the music?
If you haven't played J2ME games then you probably aren't aware of the state of J2ME music. Because of space limitations most J2ME games never had full soundtracks. This game in particular has like 2 songs in it and they're both seconds-long loops. Because of programming limitations most games could only either play music or sound effects. So yeah, music is not their strong suite.
But I still want to write about some music so here's 3 records I have listened to a lot while camping and the memories associated with them.
James Rushford & Joe Talia - Manhunter
I don't really remember how I found out about this one. Iirc I saw it in a thread of shared music. Listened to a bit of it's hazy, unmoving ambience and loved it. The cover also reminds me of the cabin I stay at. It's droning atmosphere fits perfectly with nights spent in remote areas.
Black Mountain Transmitter - Black Goat of the Woods
I've seen this album thrown about in discussions of 'creepy' and 'haunted' albums. Curiosity got the better of me and I gave this one a shot. Plus, it fits with the whole 'dark forest' aesthetic too. I get how people find this 'spooky' but it doesn't really bother me. It's just some nice dark ambience with some additional sounds thrown in. I absolutely adored the piano solo at the end of the album though. It was glorious and unexpected.
Jak Tripper - Supercoven: Decomposition Compilation
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Late April 2019, I was going up north for a quick trip. There was some highway trouble (or one of the roads in was shutdown, I can't remember exactly) but we had to take a different path in. As we drove in I threw this compilation on. It's from the days when Jakprogresso was part of Supercoven Records. It was late at night and we went through a tough area in the town. Just driving around through empty lots and dimly lit parks to "I Am Martian" and "Woodford" was a trip. It was surreal and haunting, all at the same time. (the password for the archive is woodford).
It's a shame Jak deleted this tape but I can't blame him. Most of the songs from it were later made available on his 2014 comp, Underneath a Blak Church.
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