Round and Round

finally got around (eh? eehhh??) to playing this and um...

in the best possible way, what the HELL was that???

(SPOILERS)

this game filled me with a sense of dread and confusion i haven't felt in a long time. like, everything from the art to the writing to the story feels very specifically tuned to make you feel unsafe. walking through the carnival with this nameless character, reading the dialogue and the reactions they have, playing each game, trying to piece together what happened, trying to piece together what is happening... GOD i have so much i want to say.

first of all, the art. as per usual, it's REALLY really good and fits the vibe of everything exceedingly well. even small things like the looping parallax in the background, the booth spirals constantly moving, the almost imperceptible changes in characters' expressions as they talk... and, after finally having made a game with artwork for the places you actually walk through, i REALLY appreciate the effort put into the tileset. even the friggin' TRASH CAN looks good and well thought out. and also! i gotta highlight the character design for each booth vendor, they were so cute and i loved meeting each one!! and they're so charming i want to like, be friends and hang out with them irl haha. i feel i could gush about tons of other little details. but yeah 5/5 on presentation :D

the gameplay was also fun! i loved the masks mechanic and how each one made your character answer differently. it was SUPER unique and it was really cool to check on stuff/people and see different descriptions and dialogue with each one. i'm not sure how the questions affected the gameplay but they were also cool, and had some pretty funny moments haha (also this is a super small thing but i LOVED the question that changes your ui color while you're wearing the happy mask?? it felt like, really thematically accurate like with that mask you're really positive about everything so of course you'd see the menus as your favorite color??? ik it was a tiny detail but i really loved that). and the booth games were fun! they were a nice distraction and each had a neat gameplay loop to boot. the cute minigames in the middle of a story-heavy game kinda reminded me of the carnival part of little misfortune haha (obscure reference time!). tho i did have some issues with them; the rabbit game was kinda frustrating since you have to wait for the carrots to appear, the plants in the duck game moved really fast and it was hard to avoid them, and the controls in the shooting game probably janky on purpose but they felt a bit annoying. these are small problems tho, obviously the focus of the game is in the story and the writing.

and that writing, oh GOD that writing. i'm honestly jealous of the way you write text here, you have this way of like? making everything sound super elegant and meaningful? but wording it in an odd way that makes you rethink what you're being told means and what's its importance?? while every single character and personality you acquire has a different way of speaking but everything still feels cohesive?? idk if i'm explaining it well but seriously this is some A+ writing and it fits the story perfectly.

and the story was... um... tbh i have no clue what even happened, but in a good way!! felt super abstract while also having a clear reason for everything, even if we aren't seeing it. the gameplay loop makes you understand what's happening, but the actual plot only gives you clues as to what the story is. it's a pretty neat way of storytelling that i liked a lot!

in fact, with no prompting whatsoever, i'm gonna give my own (probably wrong) interpretation of the plot! strap in folks!! :D

i think we play as one of two beings that act as "guardians of reality" of some sort. an entity that for whatever reason feels a void inside, that doesn't know who they are anymore. they decide to go to earth and pass off as a human, trying to replicate the identities they see in order to find one that makes them feel whole again. they end up in a carnival, where they see they can win masks by playing in each booth. masks that allow them to feel safe and try a new personality. but every time they win one... something takes over their conscience and, for some reason, makes them get a taste for murder for a short while. every time this happens, the other "guardian" kills them in order to bring them back to their realm. but they keep trying. each time, breaking the thread of reality even more to make everyone forget about the person that just died. in order to keep searching for that something that will make them happy again. and, finally, when there's no more booth vendors to kill, the other guardian manages to bring you back to your realm. they're tired of chasing you, of fixing everything you're causing, and they can't keep on being in this loop anymore. so, you take their place, and looking through the mirror (which is a device that can somehow make you travel through time and different timelines, which would explain how raffle saw clemencia in there), you set aside the urge to fill the void that will now eternally be with you, and assume the role of protecting the thread of reality.

ok that's all! lmk if i got anything right or wrong! or not, if you wanna keep the mystery going haha.

honestly, despite your other games being also really weird and story-heavy, this kind of super abstract and almost cosmic horror-esque story is something i would've never expected to get from you, and i loved every second of it. well fuckin' done.

man i'm gonna be thinking about this one for a while.

Really loved the game. I love your art style