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Coming out five years and change from the original release, Downpour is a set of community made fan projects bundled together as paid DLC. The most notable of those is the More Slugcats Expansion, an expansion in which there are more slugcats.

Read my earlier thoughts on the original release here.

Spoilers below.


More Slugcats is just what it says on the tin: five* new story mode campaigns where you play as new slugcats. They all have considerable gameplay differences from the base game slugcats, and mostly pursue unique goals.

This expansion also makes changes to the original campaigns. The map has been expanded with new regions and new connections between regions. New critters and plant life exist, which populate areas which had been empty. Even substantial story and gameplay changes can occur depending on the outcome of the Gourmand campaign.

*: thanks, Andrew

Iterator Centered Campaigns

The iterators are the massive godlike computer/robots whose architecture dominates the map. They were left behind by their departed creators in the hopes that they would solve all problems for everybody forever. This has proven difficult, and their slow dilapidation over eons without maintenance hasn't helped their disposition. In these campaigns, the focus in on how the slugcats interact with and/or are affected by the iterators.

In chronological order:

Spearmaster

The Spearmaster journeys through the Waterfront Facility, a region new to the DLC.

The Spearmaster is a highly genetically modified slugcat, purposely altered by an iterator to transfer messages on foot (bypassing unreliable and insecure long distance broadcasts). It has no mouth, instead it feeds through biological needles it secretes through its tail. It is a very gross little animal, whom I love. It can pick up radio transmissions.

Gameplay wise... it's rough. It has a very linear campaign; as a messenger you're mostly just going from point A to point B a few times, which leaves large parts of the map inessential. Feeding through needles is very restrictive; javelin tossing one into a critter has a bad habit of killing it, and you can't feed from something after it dies. Midway through, you're given an item to carry which leaves you down one arm from that point onward. This is a very unpleasant restriction given that the Spearmaster's map has deadlier predators and its unique regions are very dangerous.

This is the most iterator focused storyline. It comes first in the game's timeline which means you get to observe them while they're in good better repair. You can listen in on their broadcasts, which is kind of clumsy. Were chat logs really something Rain World needed? I didn't dislike them, necessarily, but they're an awkward inclusion.

Be warned, this campaign also features one of the rare instances of deliberate cruelty in the game. It's also the most difficult campaign, imo.

Hunter (again)

Downpour recontextualizes much of the base game, with the Spearmaster and its success textually providing the model for the later Hunter. It's ambiguous if the Hunter likewise received genetic alteration with its shorter lifespan being a tragic side effect, or if its just a particularly tough slugcat who volunteered to help knowing that it was dying.

The Hunter has been sadly rendered the odd one out. Compared to the More Slugcat campaigns, it's quest is more rudimentary, its unique strengths (as a playable character) are less impressive, and its time limit feels punitive.

Rivulet

The Rivulet converses with a damaged iterator's "puppet."

The Rivulet takes place much farther into the timeline. The deadly rain is now more frequent leaving passage between regions much riskier. The Rivulet handles this by being very fast, very agile, and being partly amphibious — or at least able to hold its breath a long time. It can casually pull off acrobatics other slugcats would struggle with, but is under heavy pressure to collect food and move forward as quickly as possible in what little time it has between cycles. It's a very different style of play.

Unlike Spearmaster and Hunter, you don't start with much direction. Inevitably, however, you will find yourself within an iterator and given the polite request to unplug a battery and haul it to his neighbor. Disappointingly, this slows the frequent rain, removing some of the fun from the campaign. What's the point in being fast if you're not racing anything?

The finale makes up for it. You journey to a (new) underwater region which permits full use of the Rivulet's excellent swimming skills. The final stretch takes you through a gorgeous abandoned city dusted with a fresh snowfall.

Saint

The Saint stands on a length of dilapidated subway track which has been exposed to the elements.

The Saint is a fuzzy green slugcat with a long grappling-tongue, a purely vegetarian diet, and next to no ability to defend itself. It reexplores ideas loosely present in the original Monk campaign, which in the original release was implied to be set far in the future of the Survivor's campaign — accounting for certain minor changes. Here, the changes are much more drastic: everything topside is coated in frost, the tallest structures have fallen and crumbled, and biting cold air and frequent snowfall endanger open air travel.

Like the original campaigns, the goal is to pursues ascension. However, that choice is now foregrounded by nature's successful reclamation of the iterators' world. You bare witness to their final days.

This is the final campaign you unlock and serves as a worthy conclusion to the DLC. My one gripe is that this is the one place where you do unlock additional movement abilities, and while they're fun in theory they're clumsy to actually use. Its final area makes heavy use of the new movement, and is a little miserable for it.

Slugcat Centered Campaigns

The iterators may be a dominant feature in Rain World's world, but there's very little reason for any individual slugcat to care about them. These last two campaigns of the More Slugcats Expansion focus on slugcats with more personal or communal goals.

Artificer

The Artificer prepares to rest at a shelter in an elevated cityscape. The sun has nearly finished setting, a new inclusion visible in this and other regions above the cloud cover.

The Artificer can make bombs, is unharmed by explosions, can bomb jump across maps, and doesn't gain karma. It's a campaign purposely designed to let you freely use tools too rare and risky for other slugcats, and to force engagement with scavengers, which are otherwise very dangerous to antagonize. The simulated tinnitus that accompanies explosions is obnoxiously constant.

The Artificer seeks bloody vengeance on the scavengers after an encounter with them turns deadly and its children are killed. It's cliche, but it's a very possible outcome of its simulated ecology you can experience in play. (See the Survivor below.) This quest eventually takes the Artificer to a city above the clouds whose ruins have been occupied by the scavenger chief.

Sadly, the kind of combat this campaign exhibits is simply not what Rain World is good at. Scavengers are fun to fight to a degree, but they are tough, they fight in packs, and you die in one hit. It can quickly get obnoxious, a fact that the game cheekily seems to be aware of. An encounter with a ghost warns of "an unrewarding battle" and suggest finding "a way out." This is one campaign where choosing to ascend rather than complete the given quest is a genuine consideration.

Gourmand

The Gourmand walks through the lush landscape of the Outer Expanse, a region new to the DLC.

The Gourmand has a host of minor gimmicks (some more useful than others) but on the whole it's play experience can be summed up with three points 1) it's extremely strong in a fight and can move very quickly in bursts 2) it can easily overexert itself, requiring short rests 3) its quest is to visit everywhere and eat everything. The Gourmand rules, and is tied with the Rivulet as my favorite of the new campaigns.

Its effectively an invitation to explore the full map and to interact with things you otherwise might not. Its particular strengths and weakness rewards a sort of deliberate recklessness — it can fight most anything and win (if you take the right approach) it can rocket across a room (if you know the right movements). But if you don't win a fight quickly, it'll be too exhausted to defend itself. And if you don't know the movement tech, its otherwise rather slow. It does a lot to encourage planning and skillful play.

Completion of the Gourmand's quest involves unlocking the gate into and out from the facility grounds. It uses the knowledge it gains from its excursion to advise the local slugcat population to journey through the facility grounds to some distant habitat beyond it.

Apropos of nothing, I went into this campaign a little leery of how the game would handle the Gourmand being "the fat slugcat," but I think it mostly does well. The character feels resourceful, powerful, and fun to play.

Survivor and Monk (again)

The Survivor and a rescued orphan slugpup cuddling on top of an old communications tower. The two of them are on their way back home.

With the exit out of the facility grounds now open, the Survivor and Monk (which are now contemporaneous) can return to the family nest from the opening cutscene as an alternative ending condition. Further, while doing so its possible to encounter other lost slugcats whom you can adopt and lead back home with you... so long as you can shepherd them past threats and keep them fed. (Children are not present in the Monk campaign.)

This adds an incredible dynamic to what would otherwise be just the "normal" campaign. Playing den mother to one or two slugpups adds a delightful anxiety to the experience! My one complaint is the RNG involved. You might find no children or more than you can reasonably care for.

In an act of sadism impressive for even this game, you can also encounter slugcat children as the Hunter. Sorry, little darling, this campaign doesn't have a "go home" ending, so you get to stay in the underground labyrinth while Daddy jumps into a hole to meet a space dragon.

A Fan Created Expansion

The original Rain World had a very loose story and a very loose setting. There were clearly a lot of ideas, but like many indie projects its reach exceeded its grasp. There's a lot that doesn't connect to anything and a little that's outright contradictory. (Eg: exactly how big is the slugcat?) Downpour is the product of fans who none-the-less fell in love with its world, and seeing their interpretation of that mess writ large is incredibly fascinating.

The More Slugcat's Expansion reframes the story Rain World as the intersection between two peoples: the slugcats and the iterators.* The first iterators to take notice of the slugcats regarded them as useful tools, and the revelation of their personhood (and what that says of their treatment of them) is traumatic. The first slugcats to work with the iterators find their goodwill greatly abused, a mistake following slugcats do not repeat. The "godlike in comparison" Five Pebbles is forced to comply with the Artificer, is outwitted by the Gourmand, and is reduced to pleading with the Rivulet. But for all that, MSE is careful not to presented itself as the full story of either people. The iterators exist across the globe (flat plane?) and the local slugcat community eventually journeys away from the facility and exits the story. We're given only a small snapshot of their interactions, in one small place.

*: there's some temptation to instead say "the slugcats and their environment," but the iterators are too clearly characters, especially in MSE.

It's take on the vaguely-Buddhist alien spiritualism is much more skeptical than the original game, who's presentation of the journey to Nirvana/reunion with the Monad/the Heaviside Layer/whatever was sadly overwrought. Rather than try to fix that, MSE instead offers alternatives to ascension. The world is full of wonderful things: eat your fill, find your community, and be happy.

The Survivor and a rescued orphan slugpup perch on the top of a tall tree. The slugpup rides piggyback on the Survivor.

Finally, this is a fan project by people who have given real thought to how Rain World plays, who had opinions on what changes would be interesting or fun, and then put their money where their mouth is. I don't think every experiment was equally successful — I didn't care for Artificer, and Spearmaster was too damn hard — but (like the original) what's good is very damn good.


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