If you've never played a Cosmo D game before, Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1 has you navigating a surreal world, interacting with strange characters, and hearing cool music like the two previous games from the developer.
What sets this game apart is its scope. Whereas Off-Peak and The Norwood Suite are each set in one location; a train station and a hotel respectively, Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1 takes place in a whole neighborhood where you discover a rich culture of weirdness that's being slowly but surely hollowed out through corporate machinations enforced by wealthy property owners, both of the intellectual and real kinds. That narrative is a through-line across all three games, but it's explored more thoroughly here with its bigger cast and more varied environments.
It echoes the deft transitions from unpredictable absurdity to warm humanity to low-key menace in its character writing and atmosphere setting that Cosmo D's older works achieve, only that it all rings a little louder this time. You can tell the yearning and the struggle of residents trying to get by amid the increasing gentrification of their home, whether it's through art, play, or good work and a bit of everything with the main pizza-making mechanic, and you'll be very much onboard with the plan to strike back at the powers-that-be.
What sets this game apart is its scope. Whereas Off-Peak and The Norwood Suite are each set in one location; a train station and a hotel respectively, Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1 takes place in a whole neighborhood where you discover a rich culture of weirdness that's being slowly but surely hollowed out through corporate machinations enforced by wealthy property owners, both of the intellectual and real kinds. That narrative is a through-line across all three games, but it's explored more thoroughly here with its bigger cast and more varied environments.
It echoes the deft transitions from unpredictable absurdity to warm humanity to low-key menace in its character writing and atmosphere setting that Cosmo D's older works achieve, only that it all rings a little louder this time. You can tell the yearning and the struggle of residents trying to get by amid the increasing gentrification of their home, whether it's through art, play, or good work and a bit of everything with the main pizza-making mechanic, and you'll be very much onboard with the plan to strike back at the powers-that-be.