https://youtu.be/_2V4RWdaxzc
A few weeks ago I stumbled over one of these iceberg graphs with videogames that had a lot of very weird, obscure stuff on it that sounded very interesting. I decided to give a bunch of them a try and the first I looked at was CLASSIC GAME. A lot of these obscure games have really strange titles, sometimes just consisting of random strings of symbols, which I assume is at least in some cases specifically done so they are harder to find and keep that "underground" feeling. Either way, it definitely requires some effort to find a lot of these. Thankfully despite the incredibly bland name it's pretty easy to find CLASSIC GAME because it's blatantly available on Itch.io (https://iamqqqqqqq.itch.io/classicgame) and the creator, mostly known as iamqqqqqqq, is an artist who has a certain following these days. And it seems like that's for good reason.
He has very unique ideas and all of his projects have this very authentic and mysterious vibe to them that things have that you find hidden deep on the world wide web. With the added bonus of him actually being a passionate and skilled game maker apparently. Because CLASSIC GAME has an actually good game underneath the strange visuals.
This game is an RPG Maker product and puts the player in a fairly big, open world to explore freely. There is no immediate plot to follow or tasks to fulfill. The player is encouraged to just explore the world however they want and make sense of its rules by themselves. There are a bunch of interesting game mechanics that keep it from being just another RPG Maker thing. The fighting system is custom made, there is something like a good and evil meter that triggers different events, and one of the two game modes has the character literally lose one "reason to live" with each passing day until you hit that game over screen.
I also especially love that creatures and characters are only represented by single letters of the alphabet. You might find a lower case r moving around the fields and when you attack you figure out it's a harmless rabbit. Or you descend down a ladder into a dark basement and see a giant S sitting in the corner, wondering what the letter might stand for. It's a really clever idea that I find very inventive.
The world is pretty rich with places to explore and because the game does not hold your hand at all there is a lot of surprises coming your way as you make your way through locations. It gives a lot of room for experimentation and the game thrives on that. It's one of those games that encourage working together with other players, exchanging theories and experiences in online communities to solve the enigmas of this game. There is, for example, a whole Subreddit just for people playing this game. But you don't have to do that sort of stuff if that's not your thing. I sure as hell had a lot of fun just exploring and experimenting with it myself.
One very fun moment for example that was pretty satisfying for me was when I found a very strange character in a cave that was pretending to sell items in his shop but seemed too suspicious to trust. There is a hole with a ladder leading to a basement in his "home" and in dialog the character mentions that's where he sleeps, but you're not allowed to go down there. I wanted to know what dark secrets he was hiding though. Luckily for me I found a magic scroll earlier that I was able to identify as a spell to essentially suck the soul out of people, so I figure I might as well try that here to see if I can kill the suspicious character that way and, lo and behold, it worked. The character dies without a fight and I was able to explore the basement. Which turned out to be a trippy nightmare in itself.
Doing that didn't particularly get me anything in this case but it's a satisfying experience to be able to experiment with certain elements without them being explained to you beforehand and it working out exactly as you hoped. Moments like that feel a little bit like playing and actual pen and paper RPG where you have all the freedom in the world.
As far as I could gather there isn't a specific end goal to beat the game. Instead you're supposed to activate as many events as possible so once you die your gravestone has a long list of achievements engraved on it.
Certainly some events are closer to being story-driven than others and how much you get out of the game is completely based on how much you want to try things out.
I played the game for a few hours now and I know I still haven't seen all it has to offer. I keep finding new things and I have yet to find most of what's shown in the screenshots on the itch.io page.
It's refreshing to find a weird, obscure game like this that was actually worked on for years and properly finished instead of ending up unfinished and dormant on some server on the internet. In fact there are two sequels to this game called HOME GAME and HOME GAME 2, the latter one even being released just earlier this year. So, if you like strange RPG Maker games or obscure indie stuff in general then you got some quality stuff right here.
This was one of the best indie game finds in a while for me.
A few weeks ago I stumbled over one of these iceberg graphs with videogames that had a lot of very weird, obscure stuff on it that sounded very interesting. I decided to give a bunch of them a try and the first I looked at was CLASSIC GAME. A lot of these obscure games have really strange titles, sometimes just consisting of random strings of symbols, which I assume is at least in some cases specifically done so they are harder to find and keep that "underground" feeling. Either way, it definitely requires some effort to find a lot of these. Thankfully despite the incredibly bland name it's pretty easy to find CLASSIC GAME because it's blatantly available on Itch.io (https://iamqqqqqqq.itch.io/classicgame) and the creator, mostly known as iamqqqqqqq, is an artist who has a certain following these days. And it seems like that's for good reason.
He has very unique ideas and all of his projects have this very authentic and mysterious vibe to them that things have that you find hidden deep on the world wide web. With the added bonus of him actually being a passionate and skilled game maker apparently. Because CLASSIC GAME has an actually good game underneath the strange visuals.
This game is an RPG Maker product and puts the player in a fairly big, open world to explore freely. There is no immediate plot to follow or tasks to fulfill. The player is encouraged to just explore the world however they want and make sense of its rules by themselves. There are a bunch of interesting game mechanics that keep it from being just another RPG Maker thing. The fighting system is custom made, there is something like a good and evil meter that triggers different events, and one of the two game modes has the character literally lose one "reason to live" with each passing day until you hit that game over screen.
I also especially love that creatures and characters are only represented by single letters of the alphabet. You might find a lower case r moving around the fields and when you attack you figure out it's a harmless rabbit. Or you descend down a ladder into a dark basement and see a giant S sitting in the corner, wondering what the letter might stand for. It's a really clever idea that I find very inventive.
The world is pretty rich with places to explore and because the game does not hold your hand at all there is a lot of surprises coming your way as you make your way through locations. It gives a lot of room for experimentation and the game thrives on that. It's one of those games that encourage working together with other players, exchanging theories and experiences in online communities to solve the enigmas of this game. There is, for example, a whole Subreddit just for people playing this game. But you don't have to do that sort of stuff if that's not your thing. I sure as hell had a lot of fun just exploring and experimenting with it myself.
One very fun moment for example that was pretty satisfying for me was when I found a very strange character in a cave that was pretending to sell items in his shop but seemed too suspicious to trust. There is a hole with a ladder leading to a basement in his "home" and in dialog the character mentions that's where he sleeps, but you're not allowed to go down there. I wanted to know what dark secrets he was hiding though. Luckily for me I found a magic scroll earlier that I was able to identify as a spell to essentially suck the soul out of people, so I figure I might as well try that here to see if I can kill the suspicious character that way and, lo and behold, it worked. The character dies without a fight and I was able to explore the basement. Which turned out to be a trippy nightmare in itself.
Doing that didn't particularly get me anything in this case but it's a satisfying experience to be able to experiment with certain elements without them being explained to you beforehand and it working out exactly as you hoped. Moments like that feel a little bit like playing and actual pen and paper RPG where you have all the freedom in the world.
As far as I could gather there isn't a specific end goal to beat the game. Instead you're supposed to activate as many events as possible so once you die your gravestone has a long list of achievements engraved on it.
Certainly some events are closer to being story-driven than others and how much you get out of the game is completely based on how much you want to try things out.
I played the game for a few hours now and I know I still haven't seen all it has to offer. I keep finding new things and I have yet to find most of what's shown in the screenshots on the itch.io page.
It's refreshing to find a weird, obscure game like this that was actually worked on for years and properly finished instead of ending up unfinished and dormant on some server on the internet. In fact there are two sequels to this game called HOME GAME and HOME GAME 2, the latter one even being released just earlier this year. So, if you like strange RPG Maker games or obscure indie stuff in general then you got some quality stuff right here.
This was one of the best indie game finds in a while for me.
Erato_Heti
1 year ago