I really love a lot of Antonio Freyre’s work but my praise is almost always laden with caveats. More often than not, I find his aesthetic stylings, atmosphere, and world design to be top-notch. Evocative dystopias that are, unfortunately, often accompanied by so-so gameplay or mechanical design. It Comes in Waves sidesteps that criticism by being mechanically light – a walking sim with small hiccups of action and blaster-fire. These bouts are largely there to provoke engagement in the systems: avoid taking damage to avoid water depletion to avoid dying of thirst to avoid losing the game. The ever-looming threat of perma-death gives the whole affair just enough teeth to keep you on your toes, even though the actual trials you face never really give you a run for your money. In my playthrough, I was never particularly close to being in danger, but the theoretical threat was enough to keep my eyes peeled for discarded reserves of H2O.
I’ve seen criticism levied at the game as being boring - the aforementioned dances with combat being too brief and too widely interspersed. I understand the sentiment, but I don’t think the systems could bear the load of the combat if left open and exposed. As-is, you don’t typically get enough time in each fight to dwell on the AI’s shortcomings, the lack of impact, the weirdly inconsequential stats assigned to the various guns you come across. The game is, fundamentally, a walking sim with some third-person-shooter elements, which leaves it a lot stronger than as a third-person-shooter with walking sim elements.
These gaps between combat also help accentuate the emptiness of the desert, an emptiness that feels utterly meditative. This emptiness ends up allowing your focus to wonder to the massive surreal monoliths dotted around your journey. These towering statues, giant skeletal remains, and rivers of blood (?) are further emphasized by a map which doesn’t track the player’s position, forcing you to orient yourself based on cryptic markers and their accompanying landmarks. The end result is a world which embeds itself in the mind, with features that feel like abstract representations of sick-as-hell concept art.
Best of all, your meditative wanderings through the wastes are capped off with a brief, delicate ending – one that recontextualizes and warms everything you’ve done for the last 30 minutes. It’s not over-poetic, it’s not saccharine. It’s just nice, and perfectly serves the game.
I’ve seen criticism levied at the game as being boring - the aforementioned dances with combat being too brief and too widely interspersed. I understand the sentiment, but I don’t think the systems could bear the load of the combat if left open and exposed. As-is, you don’t typically get enough time in each fight to dwell on the AI’s shortcomings, the lack of impact, the weirdly inconsequential stats assigned to the various guns you come across. The game is, fundamentally, a walking sim with some third-person-shooter elements, which leaves it a lot stronger than as a third-person-shooter with walking sim elements.
These gaps between combat also help accentuate the emptiness of the desert, an emptiness that feels utterly meditative. This emptiness ends up allowing your focus to wonder to the massive surreal monoliths dotted around your journey. These towering statues, giant skeletal remains, and rivers of blood (?) are further emphasized by a map which doesn’t track the player’s position, forcing you to orient yourself based on cryptic markers and their accompanying landmarks. The end result is a world which embeds itself in the mind, with features that feel like abstract representations of sick-as-hell concept art.
Best of all, your meditative wanderings through the wastes are capped off with a brief, delicate ending – one that recontextualizes and warms everything you’ve done for the last 30 minutes. It’s not over-poetic, it’s not saccharine. It’s just nice, and perfectly serves the game.
It was okay I guess? I like the style and gameplay for the most part, but I dislike the structure and how you're pretty much time limited. You need water to survive. It's reduced gradually while you're running in the desert trying to find the next water source. This can be through water tanks you find or killing others to steal their water. You'll need to do this long enough until the gate opens. Said gate opens after the specimen you're carrying is at least 100% grown. You can find tanks that increase this growth rate to 10% each time.
I died the first time after 20 minutes because I went all the way to the west (junkyard) and it turns out there was little to get there except for 10% growth. I died the second time after 32 minutes. I was in front of the gate and ready to finish things but I didn't have enough water. I didn't feel like playing a third time especially since walking around is so slow and that's a lot of what you'll be doing. I saw the ending on Youtube and it's pretty much a couple of seconds after entering the gate. So you can say I pretty much completed the game.
The ending is not worth it and I don't feel like you need to play this game since it's unsatisfying with its structure and it feels like it could have done with more depth and content. I would have paid more to get a more satisfying game since I understand the current price is too cheap to offer more.
I died the first time after 20 minutes because I went all the way to the west (junkyard) and it turns out there was little to get there except for 10% growth. I died the second time after 32 minutes. I was in front of the gate and ready to finish things but I didn't have enough water. I didn't feel like playing a third time especially since walking around is so slow and that's a lot of what you'll be doing. I saw the ending on Youtube and it's pretty much a couple of seconds after entering the gate. So you can say I pretty much completed the game.
The ending is not worth it and I don't feel like you need to play this game since it's unsatisfying with its structure and it feels like it could have done with more depth and content. I would have paid more to get a more satisfying game since I understand the current price is too cheap to offer more.
Short and fun.
Short and Star Wars vibes with a grim mood with heavy metal names for places. Good blaster guns. Died twice and still finished in under an hour. Great value with poignant ending.
Very short, moderately enjoyable science fiction experience. It Comes In Waves nails its atmosphere, making the most of its lo-fi graphics to give a feeling of isolation out in the desert as your lone traveler struggles to survive while picking up pieces of a plant for reasons unknown until the end of the game. You're given a gun and can find better ones but enemies put up little resistance as you just blast them away. The real focus is exploring but staying on the move and thinking a little bit about when to use the water caches you find as your water levels are always depleting.
This game has no saves but it also short so that isn't a huge issue. The first time I played I was just getting my bearings so I ran out of water, and the second time I was testing out the geometry and died from fall damage (which can be really finnicky, by the way). On my third run, I beat the game with almost full water and health and never felt in any real peril. My total playtime clocked in at under an hour, but at just a couple of bucks and with some moderate enjoyment I figure I won't refund the game and support the indie developer on this one.
It Comes in Waves is an alright short experience and really gets the atmosphere down. The pretty straightforward narrative seems to be really resonating with other players, and while I liked the ending, it was a little too barebones for me to really get into. Still, I'm glad I played this one and enjoyed exploring the limited amount it has to offer.
This game has no saves but it also short so that isn't a huge issue. The first time I played I was just getting my bearings so I ran out of water, and the second time I was testing out the geometry and died from fall damage (which can be really finnicky, by the way). On my third run, I beat the game with almost full water and health and never felt in any real peril. My total playtime clocked in at under an hour, but at just a couple of bucks and with some moderate enjoyment I figure I won't refund the game and support the indie developer on this one.
It Comes in Waves is an alright short experience and really gets the atmosphere down. The pretty straightforward narrative seems to be really resonating with other players, and while I liked the ending, it was a little too barebones for me to really get into. Still, I'm glad I played this one and enjoyed exploring the limited amount it has to offer.
The moment you press Start Journey on the title screen, you are thrown into a decrepit town of orange buildings in the middle of an endless desert. A few of the inhabitants speak of a tongue you cannot understand, others seem to express a kind of pity for you and tell you it’s best to ‘’move on’’, most of them simply dismiss you or express a deep hatred towards you; you clearly have committed a heinous deed, but nobody is interested in revealing what. There’s nothing to buy, no one to talk to, no mission to receive, there’s nothing in this place for you, and once you get on your speeder and embark to the middle of nowhere, you can never return. There’s nothing to go back to.
It all starts when you leave…
I discovered It Comes in Waves thanks to @LordDarias fantastic review of it, and since then I just knew I had to try it. If anything, it seemed quite interesting, I do like me some introspective Sci-Fi, and I think it says a lot about the game that despite knowing the themes and general ideas it was going to tackle (it’s not like it tries to hide itself anyway, in the steam page already describes itself as a ‘’experimental open-world adventure about guilt and grief’’) it still surprised me and captivated me in ways that I didn’t expect it would do.
There has always been this kind of repetitive and at this point dumb discussion around if videogames need to be fun to be worth or engaging, if enjoying the gameplay is synonym of enjoying the experience as a whole; I call it ‘’dumb’’ because I truly believe that we’ve gone WAY past the point where it has proven that no, a videogame doesn’t have to fun to be worth it, and in fact it can have value in precisely being the total opposite. Now, I’m not saying that everyone can and should enjoy games that center their mechanics around frustration and repetition, but I’m saying that there’s an undeniable value in that, and It Comes in Waves it’s the perfect showing of how despite not being quote on quote ‘’fun’’, it’s engaging as few other works manage to be.
It all started when you left…
Despite never being properly named in-game, a look to the steam page reveals that you’ve just arrives to ‘’Eremar Prime’’, which, aside of sounding oddly like a Zone out of a Sonic game, makes it immediately apparent that mercy is not going to be a granted thing around these parts, even if the welcome is surprising warming; a couple of sings shed a bit of light on how the game controls and finally give a bit of context: you carry a ‘’specimen’’, but it’s not fully grown yet, and entrance to the sanctuary remains closed until you change that. Your quest is clear, make the specimen grow, arrive at sanctuary, and not die of thirst and the dangers and scarcity that ‘’Eremar Prime’’ holds in store. Good luck.
People have said that the gameplay loop of the game it’s only secondary to what it aspires to say and show, that this is a more contemplative game than anything else, and I only half agree with that notion. ‘’Emerar Prime’’ is nothing short of striking despite its empty nature; an empty sadness of what this land once was plagues its every corner; a dead forest that ends on a titanic tree that seemingly reached for the stars and was punished by the sun to eternally burn, giant remaining and skulls of deceased titans of old fill the landscape, their blood pouring from a few and infecting the rivers they touch; the only alive beings that walk this land are the scavengers , the robots, and whatever are the things the grunts that plague the fields come from. It’s not a particularly big setting, but it feels as such, each that you walk without being close to death is a victory in its own right, and locating and orienting yourself on the map makes the lands feel a bit less daunting… a bit. The excellent music and sounds helps ‘’Emerar Prime’’ feel more alien than it already is; each piece evokes a deep sense of dread and fear to an unknown that isn’t really there, but fear is. Fear is communicated as well by the ambience as it is by the gameplay, and that’s when what I said earlier with only ‘’half agreeing’’ comes in.
It Comes in Waves’s gameplay might not be the most profound or entertaining thing in the world, but it is central to making you feel the horrors of the desert, and I’m not talking about the threat of Permadeath. As you scavenge the lands for guns and upgrades to your equipment, not so different from the enemy scavengers you mercilessly kill as you encounter them and their scattered bases, you also seek to make the specimen grow faster and, most of all, find water for yourself. Water and the lack of it is exactly what poses the difference between life and death; it’s a constant fight for survival that it’s never truly won. There might be some moments of peace after finding a tank of water in the middle of nowhere, but just as the desperation is gone, it comes back fast: water is always depleting, and it does it fast. You may encounter upgrades that slow the depleting process, but it’s never too much help to make you ever feel comfortable, and the only moment it does slow down considerably is when the night falls, moment when the sight, one of the two things you have to aid in your survival alongside your weapons, is almost gone. The only calm is fleeting, and the stress has moments where it goes quiet. It comes in waves.
While I think that the randomness of where certain scavengers may spawn (or rather not to) and the water tanks just being in random places are things that go a bit against what It Comes in Waves goes for and make it feel more ‘’videogamie’’, they are still far from huge detractors (and there is a deeper meaning to search in the fact it makes you feel sad at the prospect of not being able to find people to kill and steal their resources) and what is done right delivers in spades. It’s an experimental work, and the experiment was a success, at first I believed that its themes may have been a little tacked on, but once the personal quest starts is more than apparent that’s far from the case. Everything comes back to guilt, everything returns to that overarching feeling of desperation and loss, of a past impossible to go back to and a present seemingly impossible to fix… but there’s a reason to go on to. A result that might not result on eternal peace or forgiveness, but it might calm the grief if just for but a fleeting moment. And that alone might be worth deifying the hollowness and thirst.
My first death was drowning in the river of blood; driven fearful by the night and thirst I fell down to a demise that was in front of me.
My second one was to thirst; I was defeated by the wasteland.
In my last attempt, scared of not finding more water and with the specimen 90% grown, I decided to try to finish my pilgrimage. I arrived to the doors of sanctuary without water, and then and there I stopped, and it was a matter of what would happen first, I would be given death, or the specimen would fully grow, and for a moment, despite the circumstances that should be anything by calm, I felt at peace. I had arrives and came this far, it was a victory on its own right, but I also felt hopeful. This was gonna be it.
The specimen reached 100% growth. The gates opened. I entered, only with 13% of my health remaining. I had done it and the fear was over, and I watched the finale, for I moment I questioned if the character would even make it out of there or after screen went black it would be its finale nonetheless.
A pessimistic thought to be sure… and one that didn’t take too long to go away. This was not moment for theories or negative thoughts. It was a moment of peace.
It all ends when you arrive…
It all starts when you leave…
I discovered It Comes in Waves thanks to @LordDarias fantastic review of it, and since then I just knew I had to try it. If anything, it seemed quite interesting, I do like me some introspective Sci-Fi, and I think it says a lot about the game that despite knowing the themes and general ideas it was going to tackle (it’s not like it tries to hide itself anyway, in the steam page already describes itself as a ‘’experimental open-world adventure about guilt and grief’’) it still surprised me and captivated me in ways that I didn’t expect it would do.
There has always been this kind of repetitive and at this point dumb discussion around if videogames need to be fun to be worth or engaging, if enjoying the gameplay is synonym of enjoying the experience as a whole; I call it ‘’dumb’’ because I truly believe that we’ve gone WAY past the point where it has proven that no, a videogame doesn’t have to fun to be worth it, and in fact it can have value in precisely being the total opposite. Now, I’m not saying that everyone can and should enjoy games that center their mechanics around frustration and repetition, but I’m saying that there’s an undeniable value in that, and It Comes in Waves it’s the perfect showing of how despite not being quote on quote ‘’fun’’, it’s engaging as few other works manage to be.
It all started when you left…
Despite never being properly named in-game, a look to the steam page reveals that you’ve just arrives to ‘’Eremar Prime’’, which, aside of sounding oddly like a Zone out of a Sonic game, makes it immediately apparent that mercy is not going to be a granted thing around these parts, even if the welcome is surprising warming; a couple of sings shed a bit of light on how the game controls and finally give a bit of context: you carry a ‘’specimen’’, but it’s not fully grown yet, and entrance to the sanctuary remains closed until you change that. Your quest is clear, make the specimen grow, arrive at sanctuary, and not die of thirst and the dangers and scarcity that ‘’Eremar Prime’’ holds in store. Good luck.
People have said that the gameplay loop of the game it’s only secondary to what it aspires to say and show, that this is a more contemplative game than anything else, and I only half agree with that notion. ‘’Emerar Prime’’ is nothing short of striking despite its empty nature; an empty sadness of what this land once was plagues its every corner; a dead forest that ends on a titanic tree that seemingly reached for the stars and was punished by the sun to eternally burn, giant remaining and skulls of deceased titans of old fill the landscape, their blood pouring from a few and infecting the rivers they touch; the only alive beings that walk this land are the scavengers , the robots, and whatever are the things the grunts that plague the fields come from. It’s not a particularly big setting, but it feels as such, each that you walk without being close to death is a victory in its own right, and locating and orienting yourself on the map makes the lands feel a bit less daunting… a bit. The excellent music and sounds helps ‘’Emerar Prime’’ feel more alien than it already is; each piece evokes a deep sense of dread and fear to an unknown that isn’t really there, but fear is. Fear is communicated as well by the ambience as it is by the gameplay, and that’s when what I said earlier with only ‘’half agreeing’’ comes in.
It Comes in Waves’s gameplay might not be the most profound or entertaining thing in the world, but it is central to making you feel the horrors of the desert, and I’m not talking about the threat of Permadeath. As you scavenge the lands for guns and upgrades to your equipment, not so different from the enemy scavengers you mercilessly kill as you encounter them and their scattered bases, you also seek to make the specimen grow faster and, most of all, find water for yourself. Water and the lack of it is exactly what poses the difference between life and death; it’s a constant fight for survival that it’s never truly won. There might be some moments of peace after finding a tank of water in the middle of nowhere, but just as the desperation is gone, it comes back fast: water is always depleting, and it does it fast. You may encounter upgrades that slow the depleting process, but it’s never too much help to make you ever feel comfortable, and the only moment it does slow down considerably is when the night falls, moment when the sight, one of the two things you have to aid in your survival alongside your weapons, is almost gone. The only calm is fleeting, and the stress has moments where it goes quiet. It comes in waves.
While I think that the randomness of where certain scavengers may spawn (or rather not to) and the water tanks just being in random places are things that go a bit against what It Comes in Waves goes for and make it feel more ‘’videogamie’’, they are still far from huge detractors (and there is a deeper meaning to search in the fact it makes you feel sad at the prospect of not being able to find people to kill and steal their resources) and what is done right delivers in spades. It’s an experimental work, and the experiment was a success, at first I believed that its themes may have been a little tacked on, but once the personal quest starts is more than apparent that’s far from the case. Everything comes back to guilt, everything returns to that overarching feeling of desperation and loss, of a past impossible to go back to and a present seemingly impossible to fix… but there’s a reason to go on to. A result that might not result on eternal peace or forgiveness, but it might calm the grief if just for but a fleeting moment. And that alone might be worth deifying the hollowness and thirst.
My first death was drowning in the river of blood; driven fearful by the night and thirst I fell down to a demise that was in front of me.
My second one was to thirst; I was defeated by the wasteland.
In my last attempt, scared of not finding more water and with the specimen 90% grown, I decided to try to finish my pilgrimage. I arrived to the doors of sanctuary without water, and then and there I stopped, and it was a matter of what would happen first, I would be given death, or the specimen would fully grow, and for a moment, despite the circumstances that should be anything by calm, I felt at peace. I had arrives and came this far, it was a victory on its own right, but I also felt hopeful. This was gonna be it.
The specimen reached 100% growth. The gates opened. I entered, only with 13% of my health remaining. I had done it and the fear was over, and I watched the finale, for I moment I questioned if the character would even make it out of there or after screen went black it would be its finale nonetheless.
A pessimistic thought to be sure… and one that didn’t take too long to go away. This was not moment for theories or negative thoughts. It was a moment of peace.
It all ends when you arrive…
I wouldn't dare assign a numbered score to this game, it's a really haunting meditation on loss and grief that has the game mechanics in all the right places to make that mean something
absolutely beautiful game
This game has a very special place in my heart.
All of Antonio games, have this kind of thing of where, each one has something unique that shines and gets stuck with you, and 'It Comes In Waves' is no different, and is probably my favorite of them all.
It's been years since I've lost the love of my life, and personally, I don't think it's getting any better, but this game touched my soul, it represented in a artistic way, what grief is, in a way that can only be done through a video game.
And the game is completely accurate. After I lost her, my world became dull, tasteless, like I had lost half of me, the entire world feels like one huge desert ever since. Unwanted, guilty, I feel like an outcast, wandering through an empty land on automatic mode, eating and drinking water just to survive. Where the only thing keeping me company are strangers and the sound of nature.
Other people don't get it, they think that it's easy or that I should live for myself but, I can't. I can't forget, I can't hide what she meant to me, I can lie and smile and make jokes and tell that everything is alright, when deep down, I feel desolated. The only person that truly loved me, the only person that understood how I am as a person, is now gone.
And even in the end of the world, I would still walk, I would still celebrate what she did to me and I would still, grow a flower in her memory, it is the least that, I, a person still alive, can do.
Thanks Antonio Freyre, for creating this game. I will never forget it.
All of Antonio games, have this kind of thing of where, each one has something unique that shines and gets stuck with you, and 'It Comes In Waves' is no different, and is probably my favorite of them all.
It's been years since I've lost the love of my life, and personally, I don't think it's getting any better, but this game touched my soul, it represented in a artistic way, what grief is, in a way that can only be done through a video game.
And the game is completely accurate. After I lost her, my world became dull, tasteless, like I had lost half of me, the entire world feels like one huge desert ever since. Unwanted, guilty, I feel like an outcast, wandering through an empty land on automatic mode, eating and drinking water just to survive. Where the only thing keeping me company are strangers and the sound of nature.
Other people don't get it, they think that it's easy or that I should live for myself but, I can't. I can't forget, I can't hide what she meant to me, I can lie and smile and make jokes and tell that everything is alright, when deep down, I feel desolated. The only person that truly loved me, the only person that understood how I am as a person, is now gone.
And even in the end of the world, I would still walk, I would still celebrate what she did to me and I would still, grow a flower in her memory, it is the least that, I, a person still alive, can do.
Thanks Antonio Freyre, for creating this game. I will never forget it.
I enjoyed my time with It Comes In Waves. A simple exploration/survival game at heart with a very atmospheric and evocative presentation, well worth the couple of bucks to support the solo dev. Looking forward to playing the other games they've made and are making!
Gameplay is pretty enjoyable, the main appeal for me was the way the game made me feel. Definitley an all time favorite even though it's pretty short and minimalist.
death stranding but for the ds…
which is cool!! more games should go about emulating the ds/3ds and psp/vita rather than another game that looks like if u squint it could be on the n64 or ps1. love how abstract and hostile this games world is, everything wants to kill u and more importantly everyone wants to kill each other. while exploring the world you’ll find randos shooting each other, too caught up in their own drama too care about someone as small as you are unless you care enough to shoot them first. it’s smart and it makes the world feel so much more lively despite the fact that it’s past death. it’s post the post-apocalypse. gameplay v clever despite how it’s barely a thing, lots of cool and tense stuff in terms of time management, makes it actually feel like some weird obscure ds survival horror game that never was. also yas just rlly love how brutally harsh and sudden the changes from day to night and back again are and how well that kind of fits the tone the game is going for.
which is cool!! more games should go about emulating the ds/3ds and psp/vita rather than another game that looks like if u squint it could be on the n64 or ps1. love how abstract and hostile this games world is, everything wants to kill u and more importantly everyone wants to kill each other. while exploring the world you’ll find randos shooting each other, too caught up in their own drama too care about someone as small as you are unless you care enough to shoot them first. it’s smart and it makes the world feel so much more lively despite the fact that it’s past death. it’s post the post-apocalypse. gameplay v clever despite how it’s barely a thing, lots of cool and tense stuff in terms of time management, makes it actually feel like some weird obscure ds survival horror game that never was. also yas just rlly love how brutally harsh and sudden the changes from day to night and back again are and how well that kind of fits the tone the game is going for.
A thoughtful exploration roguelite. Very much worth playing, if only for the low price and short runtime.
It Comes in Waves is nothing special mechanically, but you're not here for the looting or shooting. You're here for the journey. You're here for the desert planet. You're here for the moments of quiet desperation.
Instead of telling you who you are, your character is a mirror for sparse characters to react to. Through those reactions you get placed into a headspace that doesn't necessarily tell you to feel regret, but that still presses that social force down on your head.
Fighting others is fairly simply and easy, but its the change in the thought process of why you fight is what is special. First you move to self-defense maybe to pre-emptive self-defense maybe to weight each digital life's water with the opportunity cost of spending the water it'll take to chase them down.
It Comes in Waves is able to place you into the world and give you the tools and affordances needed not only to help you feel like you belong to the world, but to also begin to build out how you feel about each sparse interaction and feature and meaning of the endless wash of sand.
It's also quite pretty.
Instead of telling you who you are, your character is a mirror for sparse characters to react to. Through those reactions you get placed into a headspace that doesn't necessarily tell you to feel regret, but that still presses that social force down on your head.
Fighting others is fairly simply and easy, but its the change in the thought process of why you fight is what is special. First you move to self-defense maybe to pre-emptive self-defense maybe to weight each digital life's water with the opportunity cost of spending the water it'll take to chase them down.
It Comes in Waves is able to place you into the world and give you the tools and affordances needed not only to help you feel like you belong to the world, but to also begin to build out how you feel about each sparse interaction and feature and meaning of the endless wash of sand.
It's also quite pretty.
It Comes In Waves was a lovely little surprise for me. Ive been kind of on a low poly/empty-ish world withdrawal since Automaton Lung and this looked like it might fill the void and indeed it did. Gameplay wise its a sort of openworld exploration game with survival mechanics and whilst I am not one to usually try to be reductive with comparisons, I definitely got some vibes reminding me of other games which I feel I should mention.
The minimalistic exploration of a desert environment reminds me a bit of Sable, the setting is StarWars adjacent, or at least the stuff StarWars stole from Dune. The harshness, raiders, desert and survival mechanics smack a bit of Fallout 1 but with a more consistent tone and the basic premise and mechanic of simply walking about with a speciment behind your back you are trying to grow and deliver does sort of remind one of Death Stranding.
It achieves that wonderful thing that many go to Pathologic and such games for where even the act of walking around holding the W key can be tense and engaging. You are constantly running out of water and need to refill it by either scavenging it from the wild or killing raiders for it (this second one is usually a pittance and they're not all that common that you could rely on it). You are also looking for upgrades to your water tank's efficiency so you can be more resilient, as well as other pistols if you really want to, but combat is more of an afterthought, you can reliably get through the game with the starter pistol. Now whilst I did die once (the game has permadeath, it sends you right back to the start) the game really isnt hard at all, as long as you explore everything and are mildly observant you'll not likely run out of water and should get to the end fairly comfortably, not that you know that going in of course.
"It Comes In Waves" - the title of the game is of course a reference to grief and the grieving process in general. The game manages with very little dialogue and a silly star wars esque setting to do some pretty clever things which I really dont want to spoil for anyone who's interested in the game, I would urge anyone who is to try it out, its like 2.5 euro or something and lasts like an hour or maybe more depending on playstyle and competence.
SPOILERS BELOW
The central theme of It Comes in Waves is grief of course. The character is, without much in the way of exposition established as grieving the loss of a companion for who's demise they feel guilty. A rather effective thing is done in the intro wherein you start In Media Res in a sort of Mos Eisley type place with several NPCs being either patronising or hostile. At first you are both curious but also very confused, mirroring the initial shock that accompanies loss in many cases in the player character with that of the player. After the fact you may realize that some of the villagers seemingly blame you also for the loss of your (thats never really said either, sibling/lover/friend? who can say) companion and so you move on to the desert on a ritual to take and grow a specimen to the sanctuary to redeem yourself. This is both literally a way to cope with the loss (its revealed at the end that the specimen was in fact a flower to take to the grave of your lost loved one, a pretty powerful offering given the scarcity of water in this desert world) but also can be taken to symbolise the grieving process, with its ups and downs, constant discovery and rocky start.
It is said sometimes that videogames can be unsuited to the Three Act Structure because the emotional journey of mastery of most videogames do not match the general narrative structure of the Hero's Journey and stuff like that : the moment before the climax our Hero will be at their darkest hour/lowest point whereas in a typical game we are the complete opposite, at our highest point in mastery ready to overcome the final obstacle. I think what this game made by Mexican Solo Dev Antonio Freyre understands, maybe unintentionally is that the structure does map more accurately to the typical process of coping with loss. Confusion and shock followed by a rocky but enlightening journey with ups and downs yes but overall getting more comfortable by the end wherein the challenge and danger still exist in the game as well as the pain and longing do too but at a much lower intensity. I cannot speak for everyone, but I found it pretty apt. A very meditative game I am very glad I found.
"It Comes In Waves but it never fully disappears"
The minimalistic exploration of a desert environment reminds me a bit of Sable, the setting is StarWars adjacent, or at least the stuff StarWars stole from Dune. The harshness, raiders, desert and survival mechanics smack a bit of Fallout 1 but with a more consistent tone and the basic premise and mechanic of simply walking about with a speciment behind your back you are trying to grow and deliver does sort of remind one of Death Stranding.
It achieves that wonderful thing that many go to Pathologic and such games for where even the act of walking around holding the W key can be tense and engaging. You are constantly running out of water and need to refill it by either scavenging it from the wild or killing raiders for it (this second one is usually a pittance and they're not all that common that you could rely on it). You are also looking for upgrades to your water tank's efficiency so you can be more resilient, as well as other pistols if you really want to, but combat is more of an afterthought, you can reliably get through the game with the starter pistol. Now whilst I did die once (the game has permadeath, it sends you right back to the start) the game really isnt hard at all, as long as you explore everything and are mildly observant you'll not likely run out of water and should get to the end fairly comfortably, not that you know that going in of course.
"It Comes In Waves" - the title of the game is of course a reference to grief and the grieving process in general. The game manages with very little dialogue and a silly star wars esque setting to do some pretty clever things which I really dont want to spoil for anyone who's interested in the game, I would urge anyone who is to try it out, its like 2.5 euro or something and lasts like an hour or maybe more depending on playstyle and competence.
SPOILERS BELOW
The central theme of It Comes in Waves is grief of course. The character is, without much in the way of exposition established as grieving the loss of a companion for who's demise they feel guilty. A rather effective thing is done in the intro wherein you start In Media Res in a sort of Mos Eisley type place with several NPCs being either patronising or hostile. At first you are both curious but also very confused, mirroring the initial shock that accompanies loss in many cases in the player character with that of the player. After the fact you may realize that some of the villagers seemingly blame you also for the loss of your (thats never really said either, sibling/lover/friend? who can say) companion and so you move on to the desert on a ritual to take and grow a specimen to the sanctuary to redeem yourself. This is both literally a way to cope with the loss (its revealed at the end that the specimen was in fact a flower to take to the grave of your lost loved one, a pretty powerful offering given the scarcity of water in this desert world) but also can be taken to symbolise the grieving process, with its ups and downs, constant discovery and rocky start.
It is said sometimes that videogames can be unsuited to the Three Act Structure because the emotional journey of mastery of most videogames do not match the general narrative structure of the Hero's Journey and stuff like that : the moment before the climax our Hero will be at their darkest hour/lowest point whereas in a typical game we are the complete opposite, at our highest point in mastery ready to overcome the final obstacle. I think what this game made by Mexican Solo Dev Antonio Freyre understands, maybe unintentionally is that the structure does map more accurately to the typical process of coping with loss. Confusion and shock followed by a rocky but enlightening journey with ups and downs yes but overall getting more comfortable by the end wherein the challenge and danger still exist in the game as well as the pain and longing do too but at a much lower intensity. I cannot speak for everyone, but I found it pretty apt. A very meditative game I am very glad I found.
"It Comes In Waves but it never fully disappears"
This is good! Super cohesive worldbuilding, uses minimal mechanics in cool economic ways to sell its setting/put you in the role of the character. really loved this