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TFI Friday: three indie puzzle games with slightly melancholy vibeFeel happy sad with A Juggler’s Tale, The Sundew and Night Reveries
Feel happy sad with A Juggler’s Tale, The Sundew and Night Reveries
The year has finally turned, reader. I am having discussions at home about putting the heating on. When I leave the office it isn’tdark, but it’s fuzzy around the edges. My knuckles are cold. It’s the time of year, before the Skeleton War memes begin in earnest, to luxuriate in feeling a bit melancholy. It’s healthy to feel sad sometimes, you know. Didn’t you watchInsideOut? I did, and in my screening at the cinema a child called out “Where’s Bing Bong?” whenthe heroic Bing Bong disappeared…
This week, I have collected three different puzzle games with very different vibes. I know I’m biased in favour of puzzle games more than the usual reader, but these ones are very good and worth a punt, and at least one should pique the old interest. And they all gave me that happy-sad feeling. Like, I want to wrap up in a blanket and play these games and maybe think about my granny a bit. That sort of feeling.
The Sundew
The Sundew | Launch Trailer | Out Now on PC & Nintendo Switch!Watch on YouTube
The Sundew | Launch Trailer | Out Now on PC & Nintendo Switch!
If I was a cyborg I would 100% look down on robots, and that’s what Anna Isobe does quite a lot in The Sundew, a cyberpunk point and click puzzle adventure set in (naturally) a future dystopia. There’s a classic vibe to the clicking and pointing that you do, although there’s no nine verb menu to contend with. Items you collect go into a nice drop-down inventory at the top and you can move around whatever you want to make it interact with something else. There are other nice bits as well, like how your phone is, err, your eye, combined with a head implant, so the button icon for it on the screen is an eye. Whenever you get a new item on your to-do list, it wiggles and makes a noise you can’t miss.
But most importantly, The Sundew looks fantastic. It’s dark, wet, and a bit of a downer but in a beautiful way. You want to stand in Anna’s apartment and stick your hand out of the window to catch the falling raindrops.
A Juggler’s Tale
A Juggler’s Tale - Announcement TrailerWatch on YouTube
A Juggler’s Tale - Announcement Trailer
Night Reverie
Night Reverie - Launch Trailer | SteamWatch on YouTube
Night Reverie - Launch Trailer | Steam
It’s maybe unfair to say that I found Night Reverie as melancholic as the other two games. In fact, it’s actual very playful and bright. You play as a little boy who wakes up in what seems like a dream version of his own home - but the sort of dream that is almost-but-not-quite a nightmare. Many rooms are locked. The basement is full of boxes. There is a sad rabbit hanging around the living room.
Like The Sundew, Night Reverie uses an inventory system. At any time you can open your bag to equip an item (so when you interact with something in the world, it will be with that item) or combine them with others. For example, combining a cooked carrot with sliced bread will make a carrot sandwich. Then you can equip the sandwich to give it to the rabbit, who will be slightly less sad. But he will still have a chat with you about how he’s scared of the house, and how he misses his best mate.
You have a little living flame companion, who is proably a metaphor for something. It made me think a lot about how things change as you grow up, and how scary your own house can be if it feels a bit wrong or strange. Who put this cauldron in the kitchen? Why is my cat so huge, and why can’t he remember my name?
