I got this game from the recent Switch EShop sale (90% off!).
It's... really weird. I haven't quite beaten it (I'm around 85-90% done with the story though).
It's essentially a fairly story-heavy platformer, with lot of splashes of other genres in it (mostly due to different minigames inserted into it). There's also some elements of Metroidvanias into it.
The gameplay is very hit-and miss. It's sometimes very fun to play, with lots of interesting platforming challanges and cool mechanics. You get to manipulate and play with gravitation a lot, because of abilities that let you effortlessly climb on walls and ceilings. However, the game also has a lot of big and somewhat random difficulty spikes in it. I ended up meat grinding through some of the more difficult sections. Some of the non-platforming minigames like vehicle sections don't feel polished enough.
The game also definitely feels like a passion project of it's lead developer, Paul Helman. It's pretty clear that lot of heart and ambition has gone into the game. It's not always a good thing though - some of the levels put in the game feel very disjointed, and feel like something that could have been cut to make for a more consistent vision. (There's levels that feel almost like acid trips, and they also feel very much out of place).
So the gameplay is bit all over the place. But really two things I want to talk a little about the game are atmosphere and the story.
First, the atmosphere. The game has a very strange and surreal tone to it all. It's a very British game, with lots of references to more obscure british (and I guess american) television series, films and the like. I couldn't get all of it. Lot of the soundtrack are covers and remixes of either classical music or outright pop-culture tracks. It goes so deep to the point that it just feels strange. Like, lot of it feels almost copyright-infringement level. But it also creates this strange world that feels almost like the real world, but through this very strange lens.
Secondly, the story.
The game is about Horace the Robot. He is created and raised by an old man and his family in a big mansion. First hours of the game is mostly just you chilling with the other characters, doing some fairly simple platforming and getting to learn most of the characters. Everything is narrated by Horaces A.I robot-speech, which could be alienating, but it really works in this case. The writing isn't that special by itself but.. for some reason I really got to care about these characters quickly. I'm not really even sure why, but the game really got its hooks on me. Even when the gameplay gets sometimes really frustrating, I've been pushing through because I keep wanting to see how it all unfolds, and how Horace narrates everything.
So uh, this is a bit rambly OP. I guess I want to say that you should give this little game a chance. It's a very quirky and flawed game, but I'm glad I've been playing it.
Finally, I do think the story should be experienced mostly blindly, but I'll spoiler tag some later plot impressions for the later game.
After the opening hour or so, the game goes for a timeskip. After it, the world has gone through apocalyptic robot uprising, which Horace has slept though. Most of his family has scattered around the country, and he tries to reunite them all.
The plot becomes very surreal and dark at the same time. These people live through war and lot of pretty dark stuff, but it's all narrated through Horace's naive and innocent POV. At the same time, we meet more characters that also feel surprisingly relatable and fun. When the plot in the later sections becomes dark and people start to actually die, I felt more sad about it that I was expecting.
It's not very sophisticated story, but everything about the darkness when contrasted with the somewhat cheerful visual style, yet also dark and surreal and weird nature of the rest of the game, it really is a strange beast.
The plot becomes very surreal and dark at the same time. These people live through war and lot of pretty dark stuff, but it's all narrated through Horace's naive and innocent POV. At the same time, we meet more characters that also feel surprisingly relatable and fun. When the plot in the later sections becomes dark and people start to actually die, I felt more sad about it that I was expecting.
It's not very sophisticated story, but everything about the darkness when contrasted with the somewhat cheerful visual style, yet also dark and surreal and weird nature of the rest of the game, it really is a strange beast.
