finished this game a few days ago but I don't think I actually wrote about it. well now I am, sorta, though I don't expect this to run long (pin this message to your discord to call me out later)
There Is No Game, which is a title that I realize could (not) use a fair bit of Evangelion 1.0izing, is a 2020 game in the genre of "hey I think I remember this going sorta viral or something? like this was one of those funny meta games or something?" in my head
More accurately, it's a point-and-click adventure game that is, on the surface, about the game's code (brought to life by the voice of the developer) trying to convince you not to play it through a variety of comedic clickables and gags, that slowly goes off the rails in a variety of meta and met-her ways, okay, I guess that means I am going to put spoilers in this mini-review after all
(But not heavy spoilers! just Enough)
this game
I will elide upon (EDITOR: at this moment I opened a search window for 2 minutes to check whether I was using "elide" correctly and also ponder whether blogging kicks me into pretentious mode) the exact size of There Is No Game, because I think this kind of game thrives upon not knowing its exact length.
But roughly speaking, There Is No Game, in my opinion, is divided into three acts:
- The introduction
- The parodies
- Madness
The introduction provides familiarisation with the game's general flow and mechanics of play - The Game (conveniently named Game) will go on a ramble about how you are being too persistent in trying circumvent their obstacles, you will drag objects on top of other objects until the former indicates a white "you can use me" border, something will go bang or pop or whoosh or kapow or clunk, and The Game will sigh at you and possibly make a Marvel movie "this can't be happening" quip.
Once you have your shoes tied, the game takes you on a cavern dive beyond the surface layer (for reasons which you can play the game to find out), spelunking into a fair bit of genre parodies of various forms of video game. You will contemplate how puzzles involving CRT television static and Sierra-adventure-game-style Instruction Manual DRM are probably completely foreign to the younger generation. You will chuckle, then groan about trite jabs at free-to-play games that go on for far too long. Then the ground will cave in.
deep in abyss
Madness is the only appropriate conclusion for a meta-game like There Is No Game. It is not enough to have some cute physical gags and some cringe-worthy "it's dangerous to go alone" elbowing. One must drag interactables into the digital abyss until the abyss interacts with you, demanding in an Eldritch tongue: "Attack the developer with a sentient vacuum cleaner".
Of the three arcs, madness is of course my favorite, and it certainly served as a salve to the knee-chafing tedium of the parody arc. The game's pace is less than brisk - Game's somewhat-adversarial narration and sluggish genre-parody cutscenes serving as an anchor - and the whole experience is brought nearly to the breaking point by the F2P parody which attempts to skewer the 10th circle of hell (microtransactions) by walking directly into the inferno, sitting down, and chuckling "sure is hot, isn't it?"
(that was a weird analogy. I mean that it tried too hard to make you feel pain in the same way an actual F2P game would, and also honestly a lot of puzzle gags that should have been done twice were done three times? that's a big difference?)
Madness brings relief by reminding you that you are the pebble falling in a well, and you do not know where the bottom is. The pace quickens, the plot thickens, you sit there and wonder "honestly it is kind of weird that There Is No Game's core plotline is about a lost-love story between two pieces of code that show no real chemistry on screen and I did not really want my code to be gendered but", you drag more items onto each other, Charlie Chaplin is there (I'm 100% serious).
mixed nuts
It is not really an emotionally affecting story in the way the most-impactful games are, though I wish it did. I think that it also wishes it did, given the light pass it makes at "treasure what you've got", but mostly it seems content to be a comedy Hollywood movie, reveling in absurdity, the Wilheim Scream, and letting you say "hey, I got that reference" in whatever voice you would say "hey, I got that reference" in.
Mechanically, TING WD (rolls off the tongue pretty good) is a similarly mixed bag. Support-wise, it is excellent, with a robust hint system (with brief lockouts between hints) ensuring that even in the most obtuse moments I never had to reach for an external guide.
Design-wise, there were Definitely some very obtuse moments - there are some good leading moments and ways in which it lightly builds on itself, but most puzzles are self-contained and intentionally defy rational (and sometimes even comedic) logic in a Looney Tunes sort of way. This is a very "if you get it you get it, if you don't.................. see ya" kinda way to me - the game is overall fairly mashable (there are not too many objects in play at any given time) but it still feels bad to mash, especially for the puzzles where there is a long "incorrect" animation.
uh anyway the conclusion
Anyway there is no thesis to this review (riff not intended). The main thing I thought while writing this is that, puzzlewise, I am most attuned to games that are designed like the SCRAP company's escape rooms - the best example of this being 2022's Escape Academy by Coin Crew Games.
These escape rooms place a strong emphasis on building up a language, being very clear what is "in play" and "out of play", and presenting puzzles in sets which combine to build a larger information base, with the crown jewel often involving recontextualization and re-solving of earlier puzzles. I guess this is a very "logical" approach.
In comparison, I have very little adventure game experience - I was just a bit young for the Sierra era (though maybe like the Putt Putt games counted?) and I feel that this is definitely the crowd that will enjoy TING WD the most. Anyway uhhh let's end with a fun fact
I call this game "There Is No Game" repeatedly but that is actually wrong because that is the name of the game jam game that eventually was expanded into There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. congrats to the team! I always check indie games to see if they are the kind of game that is Made By Ten People and this is one of them
(OH RIGHT I FORGOT: at some point I had a thought "I should be playing The Stanley Parable, huh")