Working For The Man (For A Given Value Of "Man")

Four down, three to go. Time to double up and get this done. Well, almost done.

These are two demos I admired more than enjoyed. One of them I might possibly play, the other I definitely wouldn't but they both seem like well-made, well-designed games. Just not really my sort of thing, either of them, for quite different reasons.

Both games made me uncomfortable, one physically, the other emotionally. That was clearly intentional in one case and entirely accidentally in the other. In one I enjoyed the gameplay but not the story. In the other the story was fine but the mechanics gave me problems. 

In neither case was any of it the fault of the games themselves. They just didn't fit well with my tastes and preferences. I'm certain other people will have a much better time with one or the other although I suspect there won't be too many people who'll thoroughly enjoy both.

Kentum

Kentum is a side-scrolling survival platformer. Well, that's what I'd call it. The developers, Tiön Industries, call it a "2D craftervania adventure". I assume that means something to someone in the audience it's intended for but it's just a noise as far as I'm concerned.

I picked it because it looks good, has an art style I like and because the description mentions "a snarky AI". Being a lifelong fan of the work of Philip K Dick, I do like a snarky AI. 

On the evidence of the demo, I wouldn't say this one is all that snarky. It's more like an overbearing, insensitive boss, which isn't quite as entertaining. Maybe the balance of the relationship between the AI and the player character changes further into the game but for the demo it was strictly "go there, do that" with not many smart comments or comebacks on either side.

The set-up is pretty simple. Familiar, too. Technical fault in the cryosleep system leads to maintenance tech oversleeping by a few thousand years. Mission fails. Spaceship crashes. Happens all the time. 

When the ship eventually runs out of power and crashlands, leaving the sole crew member (That's you.) to knock up a shack to live in and figure out how to live off the land, it means standard survival game rules are in play: hit stuff to break it, pick up the bits, turn them into something useful. Also pick every flower and kill every animal so you have something to eat. It's them or you and you certainly haven't shown any signs of caring about anyone but yourself up to now, have you?

The survival gameplay loop is all but indestructible by now. It's freaky how addictive it still is, every single time. Will it ever get old? No sign of it yet.

If that's all there was to the game, I'd have wishlisted it, even though I'm very far from short of survival sandboxes. Indeed, the final demo I have left to review is another. No, I declined to add it to my list because Kentum is also a platformer. You get nothing without figuring out where and how to jump on every new screen. That's where the game lost me.

I didn't really have any trouble with the jumping. It's pretty easy as these things go, at least it is in the demo. I just didn't find it very entertaining. More irritating, really.

If I'm going to be exploring, looking for things to collect and bring back to base for a crafting session I'd far rather do it in three dimensions, in a landscape that makes at least some attempt to replicate believable geology. The combination of two artificial forms, 2D side-scrolling and platforms, only being able to travel left and right across a screen that looks more like it's showing a schematic than an environment , always having to jump up or down to get anywhere, was never going to instil a sense of immersion in me. More like a sense of "how much longer before I can stop and do something else?"

If it wasn't for that, though, I'd be quite interested to see where the plot goes. Almost the first thing that happens when you begin exploring is that the AI insists you go towards the source of some signal it's receiving. That takes you to a deserted industrial complex, where a device re-programs the AI and gives it new instructions, none of which are to your immediate advantage. 

That and the fact that the company that made the game also seems to have taken over the entire world in the ensuing ten thousand years did intrigue me. It's a heck of a conceit. I wondered if it was just a gag or if they were going somewhere with it.

I didn't wonder enough to want to buy the game and play it to find out, though. It was kinda-sorta fun for three-quarters of an hour but by the time the Demo Over sign came up I'd had enough.

Not Wishlisted. Recommended for people who find both survival games and platforming fun. 

Inhuman Resources

The next game could scarcely be more different, apart from the overbearing boss part. It has one of those, too. I enjoyed it a lot more than Kentum. Until I found I wasn't enjoying it at all, that is.

Developers, Finnegan Motors, and Publisher, Indie Asylum, make a number of bold and sweeping claims for Inhuman Resources. They call it "a literary machination" and describe it as "an expansive choose-your-own adventure novel". It also comes with a content warning for "Strong language (swearing), textual descriptions of violent acts, textual descriptions of gore, light textual allusions to sexual acts". I would say that warning isn't strong enough. Not that I read it until afterwards, by when it was much too late...

I really liked this demo a lot, right up to the point where I found out what it was really about, at which point I kind of wished I'd never picked it in the first place. You'd pretty much have to be a hard-core body-horror fan to enjoy it beyond a certain point and I am very much not that. I'm good with the ethereal, spooky end of the horror spectrum but the bit where they turn someone inside out to let everyone have a good look is where I make my excuses and skedaddle.

It's not only the gore, either. Although I don't believe they use the specific phrasing anywhere in the description, this does seem to be one of those "Choices Matter" games. At least, the choices you make are going to matter in terms of whether you get much sleep at night after you finish playing it. 

I'm not sure choices matter so much in the usual sense of where they take the storyline. As far as the demo was concerned, I thiought it felt fairly linear, despite the description on Steam saying exactly the opposite. 

In fact, as I write this, I'm starting to wonder whether the numerous options I didn't take, mostly because I thought they would run the story into a brick wall if I did, might actually have opened up alternative scenarios that could have been less gruesome. I'd go back and check if the thought of going back to that world didn't creep me out so badly.

All my issues were with the content. I had no problems with the gameplay, the mechanics or the design. The game is good to look at, providing you appreciate the art deco aesthetic and have no qualms about spending hours staring at a series of beautifully designed lobby cards. 

You also very much need to be into reading to enjoy this game. When they call it a "novel" they aren't kidding. There's a lot of text. 

At the start I thought it felt quite over-written, not say over-wrought but after a while either the prose style calmed down a little or I became inured to its excesses and by half-way through I was quite enjoying it. Then the screaming started.

The plot is pretty good. Ne-er-do-well nephew, curerently spongeing of his aunt while living the life of a depressed and desperate failure, gets the chance to interview for a much-needed paying job at the company where said aunt works. Only problem being no-one is saying what the job is or even what the company does. It's Withnail and I without Withnail, basically.

Everything rolls along nicely, giving off some great corporate mystery vibes, until suddenly the story comes out of the tunnel and the true nature of the business and the job become apparent. I won't spoil the reveal but if you'd prefer your psychological horror to come without actual trepanning, I'd suggest you might want to give it a miss. 

I will, even though I do think it looks like it will be a pretty good game.

Not wishlisted. Recommended for true horror fans only.