I would recommend playing this game blind if possible, so before reading, know that I give it my highest recommendation, though I have tried to keep this light on spoilers.
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Experiential games seem to have a troubled relationship with their mechanics. Most games I've played that aspire to convey deep emotions or truths primarily rely on techniques established in other mediums such as cinema and literature. While these are obviously powerful and effective, it bothers me that they aren't really leveraging their key distinguishing feature: their interactivity. Either the mechanics are clumsily grafted on to a tangentially related narrative experience, they only resonate along some dimensions, or they simply aren't engaging enough to hold attention. Even when a game does mostly succeed, it's hard not to see it as an incomplete realization of its own potential.
Rain World does not struggle with this.
Slugcat is simple to control on a basic level: movement stick, jump button, grab. But the influence of momentum, some intricate Mario 64 esque techniques, and a pinch of QWOP style soft body physics makes quickly maneuvering around uneven terrain tricky, especially with the heavy gravity. There's a real physicality here: you'll feel it when you scramble to clamber Slugcat's body over a ledge, or when your frantic hopping gets stopped stone-cold by a crack in the ground. Holding objects will weigh Slugcat down, which subtly changes the arc and height of jumps, and landing a spear throw on moving targets is easier said than done.
This is paired with a dynamic creature simulation that you'll need to constantly adapt to. A Lizard's bite is deadly, but their bulky bodies have even more trouble maneuvering than you do, and they'll switch focus if threatened by something else. Creatures eat and hunt and flee based on their needs and what information is available to them, something you can work around and exploit by pitting them against each other, or taking advantage of distractions. Death is common and can be punishing, but the yellow flower, which negates this penalty if you can return to where you died with it, rewards those who show caution and savvy.
This is simply to say that the mechanics in and of themselves are intrinsically engaging; there's a good reason this game has extensive modding and speedrunning scenes. But what makes Rain World truly special is its unflinching, all-encompassing commitment to its most central idea: inducing the experience of an animal within a natural world. Developer Joar Jakobsson repeatedly mentions in this interview that the game was conceived as a simulation foremost, with no special privileging of the player character within the game's systems. Every single mechanic exists precisely to push you to behave as an animal would: eating, fleeing, seeking shelter.
Bats flitter, lizards prowl, vultures swoop. Everything needs to eat, not be eaten, and hide from the inevitable rain; they roam within and between screens to these ends. Where a Slugcat fits in is simply a function of opportunity and happenstance. Almost all other games would make some sort of concession to "fairness", but not this one. Sometimes you'll wake up and find a lizard staking out your way forward; other times a usual hunting ground will be empty and silent. That's just how this world is: that's life.
Seeing animals wrap and squish around the terrain, pushed and pulled by their own muscles or outside forces through procedural animation, conveys a certain life-like feeling. There are fundamental physics in this world, even if they are different from our own, and everything must obey them. Struggling with the controls is reflective too: we are born unfamiliar with our own body, and grow into its capabilities with time and knowledge.
It's the game's tremendous success in immersion, only possible through holistic devotion to its goal, that allows it to meaningfully ask you questions about nature, and for you to feel those questions. Why is nature so beautiful? Why is nature so cruel? How much are we animal? What does it mean to be animal? What does it mean to be part of nature, and know that you are part of it? These are thoughts etched deep into our psyche across millennia, which have only recently been allowed to slip from our minds.
In some regions of this world there are colonies of tentacles that coat surfaces and feed by pulling in anything that comes near. Touch only a few, and you can easily rip free; touch too many, and you'll be swiftly sucked in. But touch a handful, and you'll be locked in a futile struggle: you're strong enough to resist their pull, but not strong enough to escape. For the game to immerse me so much that it's able to convey even an inkling of that real situation, of a doomed animal desperately trying not to die, is a monumental achievement.
The clarity of artistic vision in Rain World makes its predecessors look almost primitive by comparison. If there is any justice, this will be looked upon in time with the analysis and praise it deserves, among the highest echelons of the canon. For my own thoughts, it's simple: there is before Rain World, and there is after.
---
Experiential games seem to have a troubled relationship with their mechanics. Most games I've played that aspire to convey deep emotions or truths primarily rely on techniques established in other mediums such as cinema and literature. While these are obviously powerful and effective, it bothers me that they aren't really leveraging their key distinguishing feature: their interactivity. Either the mechanics are clumsily grafted on to a tangentially related narrative experience, they only resonate along some dimensions, or they simply aren't engaging enough to hold attention. Even when a game does mostly succeed, it's hard not to see it as an incomplete realization of its own potential.
Rain World does not struggle with this.
Slugcat is simple to control on a basic level: movement stick, jump button, grab. But the influence of momentum, some intricate Mario 64 esque techniques, and a pinch of QWOP style soft body physics makes quickly maneuvering around uneven terrain tricky, especially with the heavy gravity. There's a real physicality here: you'll feel it when you scramble to clamber Slugcat's body over a ledge, or when your frantic hopping gets stopped stone-cold by a crack in the ground. Holding objects will weigh Slugcat down, which subtly changes the arc and height of jumps, and landing a spear throw on moving targets is easier said than done.
This is paired with a dynamic creature simulation that you'll need to constantly adapt to. A Lizard's bite is deadly, but their bulky bodies have even more trouble maneuvering than you do, and they'll switch focus if threatened by something else. Creatures eat and hunt and flee based on their needs and what information is available to them, something you can work around and exploit by pitting them against each other, or taking advantage of distractions. Death is common and can be punishing, but the yellow flower, which negates this penalty if you can return to where you died with it, rewards those who show caution and savvy.
This is simply to say that the mechanics in and of themselves are intrinsically engaging; there's a good reason this game has extensive modding and speedrunning scenes. But what makes Rain World truly special is its unflinching, all-encompassing commitment to its most central idea: inducing the experience of an animal within a natural world. Developer Joar Jakobsson repeatedly mentions in this interview that the game was conceived as a simulation foremost, with no special privileging of the player character within the game's systems. Every single mechanic exists precisely to push you to behave as an animal would: eating, fleeing, seeking shelter.
Bats flitter, lizards prowl, vultures swoop. Everything needs to eat, not be eaten, and hide from the inevitable rain; they roam within and between screens to these ends. Where a Slugcat fits in is simply a function of opportunity and happenstance. Almost all other games would make some sort of concession to "fairness", but not this one. Sometimes you'll wake up and find a lizard staking out your way forward; other times a usual hunting ground will be empty and silent. That's just how this world is: that's life.
Seeing animals wrap and squish around the terrain, pushed and pulled by their own muscles or outside forces through procedural animation, conveys a certain life-like feeling. There are fundamental physics in this world, even if they are different from our own, and everything must obey them. Struggling with the controls is reflective too: we are born unfamiliar with our own body, and grow into its capabilities with time and knowledge.
It's the game's tremendous success in immersion, only possible through holistic devotion to its goal, that allows it to meaningfully ask you questions about nature, and for you to feel those questions. Why is nature so beautiful? Why is nature so cruel? How much are we animal? What does it mean to be animal? What does it mean to be part of nature, and know that you are part of it? These are thoughts etched deep into our psyche across millennia, which have only recently been allowed to slip from our minds.
In some regions of this world there are colonies of tentacles that coat surfaces and feed by pulling in anything that comes near. Touch only a few, and you can easily rip free; touch too many, and you'll be swiftly sucked in. But touch a handful, and you'll be locked in a futile struggle: you're strong enough to resist their pull, but not strong enough to escape. For the game to immerse me so much that it's able to convey even an inkling of that real situation, of a doomed animal desperately trying not to die, is a monumental achievement.
The clarity of artistic vision in Rain World makes its predecessors look almost primitive by comparison. If there is any justice, this will be looked upon in time with the analysis and praise it deserves, among the highest echelons of the canon. For my own thoughts, it's simple: there is before Rain World, and there is after.
3 Comments
The paragraph about the tentacles perfectly captures what makes this game so special - it invokes this genuine fear and discomfort I've never felt before in a videogame.
Excellent review.
Excellent review.
wonderful review.
Pangburn
1 year ago