Swollen to Bursting Until I am Disappearing on Purpose is a game about many things. A UFO crashing in a small town. The isolating life of an individual who's been deeply traumatized and has lost any semblance of identity within themselves. A funny man who pops out of a box and tries to stab you. The mudanity of life despite the insanity surrounding you.
There's clear influences from games like Yume Nikki and Earthbound here, a dash of Chulip and even fictional games like Petscop. The core of the gameplay loop is more about the exploration out into the unknown in order to find portals to doors that bring the player into surreal dimensions. This then requires you to solve somewhat obtuse puzzles in order to progress. The game is very loosely an RPG with it's non-existent yet existent combat, but it's mostly used as progression markers rather than traditional RPG style combat. Swollen to Bursting is less of a game about it's gameplay and more centric on the emotional feelings it draws out of the player.
There's a mixture of comfort and surreal that's hard to balance if you're not careful, but the game separates it's two feelings quite well. You have an anchor back to reality, which puts the player at ease when they've had enough. The game really let's you soak that comfort in when you need it most. You spend only a day here in this quaint little town, yet it feels like a lifetime. The mudanity of this rainy woodland town is relaxing to explore. The faces you meet are strange, quirky and sometimes inviting, giving that sense of community so prevelant to small towns. All of this is punctuated by the somber yet pop-y tones brought about by the music. It's reminiscent of Jack Stauber's music for me, that same sort of catchy, pop-y sadness with shrilling vocals laid on top.
The game's title is indecisive in what it wishes to be called. Take Care of Yourself, Maybe I Misdirected You, I'm Not Happy Or Sad I'm Just Here All The Time, Mechanical Cows, Fish Fish Fish Soft Spot, they all fit the moniker of this game's MO, but it's so unsure of itself. I believe this is the point. Our protagonist, (at least, I think it's our protagonist, the crux of the story could also be Kick, who is leaving the town this day and disappears from the plot eventually, similarly to the UFO), is going through memories and worlds that feel like abstraction of their own life. The ending of the game seems to be an examination of our protagonist through the lense of the alien, this alien learning more about humanity and maybe itself through your dialogue and choices. I'm not sure they learned the right lesson with my playthrough. Was the UFO even real? Was it a metaphor? Was it both? My assumption is both, given the town is aware of the UFO, but I can't rightly say for certain.
This review has been rather clinical in it's dissection. It could be because of what the protagonist goes through doesn't match up neatly with my own experiences. I have a tendency to have a deep centric focus on my own emotions, something I learned out of necessity, which could be dampening the emotional resonance as well. This could also be the result of aspects of the abstractions within the story going over my head, preventing me from having that emotional connection. I'm okay with media literacy, but I wouldn't say I'm great at it. The game might just be too obtuse for my tiny little pea brain. It's hard to say. Either way, I feel like I don't relate to Swollen to Bursting as much as other have seemed to, which bothers me.
What I can say about Swollen to Bursting for certain, is that it's a piece of media that gave me comfort. It gave me unease. It lead me along on a journey that felt like it meant something to someone. Someone's heart and soul was delved into here, and I could feel it pulsating and beating.
Good art is much like learning about someone. You may never know everything there is about a person. You may never know all the exact meaning of their actions, their words, why they decided what they decided. But you still come out the other side feeling like you knew them in someway. Like you've incorporated a piece of someone else into yourself.
A piece of Swollen to Bursting will be apart of me now, even if I don't fully understand it.
There's clear influences from games like Yume Nikki and Earthbound here, a dash of Chulip and even fictional games like Petscop. The core of the gameplay loop is more about the exploration out into the unknown in order to find portals to doors that bring the player into surreal dimensions. This then requires you to solve somewhat obtuse puzzles in order to progress. The game is very loosely an RPG with it's non-existent yet existent combat, but it's mostly used as progression markers rather than traditional RPG style combat. Swollen to Bursting is less of a game about it's gameplay and more centric on the emotional feelings it draws out of the player.
There's a mixture of comfort and surreal that's hard to balance if you're not careful, but the game separates it's two feelings quite well. You have an anchor back to reality, which puts the player at ease when they've had enough. The game really let's you soak that comfort in when you need it most. You spend only a day here in this quaint little town, yet it feels like a lifetime. The mudanity of this rainy woodland town is relaxing to explore. The faces you meet are strange, quirky and sometimes inviting, giving that sense of community so prevelant to small towns. All of this is punctuated by the somber yet pop-y tones brought about by the music. It's reminiscent of Jack Stauber's music for me, that same sort of catchy, pop-y sadness with shrilling vocals laid on top.
The game's title is indecisive in what it wishes to be called. Take Care of Yourself, Maybe I Misdirected You, I'm Not Happy Or Sad I'm Just Here All The Time, Mechanical Cows, Fish Fish Fish Soft Spot, they all fit the moniker of this game's MO, but it's so unsure of itself. I believe this is the point. Our protagonist, (at least, I think it's our protagonist, the crux of the story could also be Kick, who is leaving the town this day and disappears from the plot eventually, similarly to the UFO), is going through memories and worlds that feel like abstraction of their own life. The ending of the game seems to be an examination of our protagonist through the lense of the alien, this alien learning more about humanity and maybe itself through your dialogue and choices. I'm not sure they learned the right lesson with my playthrough. Was the UFO even real? Was it a metaphor? Was it both? My assumption is both, given the town is aware of the UFO, but I can't rightly say for certain.
This review has been rather clinical in it's dissection. It could be because of what the protagonist goes through doesn't match up neatly with my own experiences. I have a tendency to have a deep centric focus on my own emotions, something I learned out of necessity, which could be dampening the emotional resonance as well. This could also be the result of aspects of the abstractions within the story going over my head, preventing me from having that emotional connection. I'm okay with media literacy, but I wouldn't say I'm great at it. The game might just be too obtuse for my tiny little pea brain. It's hard to say. Either way, I feel like I don't relate to Swollen to Bursting as much as other have seemed to, which bothers me.
What I can say about Swollen to Bursting for certain, is that it's a piece of media that gave me comfort. It gave me unease. It lead me along on a journey that felt like it meant something to someone. Someone's heart and soul was delved into here, and I could feel it pulsating and beating.
Good art is much like learning about someone. You may never know everything there is about a person. You may never know all the exact meaning of their actions, their words, why they decided what they decided. But you still come out the other side feeling like you knew them in someway. Like you've incorporated a piece of someone else into yourself.
A piece of Swollen to Bursting will be apart of me now, even if I don't fully understand it.