Developer: Joon, Pol, Muutsch, Char & Torfi | Released: 2021 | Genre: Adventure, First Person
A first person adventure a little bit like Firewatch, placing cameras during the day and watching the footage at night, tracking the movements of squirrels. And yes, the game really use colors like that.
I didn’t play this for long until it occurred to me that this wasn’t as much a first person adventure game, as it was a “Squirrel Photography Simulator” in essence. I’m rarely all that keen on simulators and so I was close to abandoning the game right there.
But there was something alluring by the game, so I returned and completed it anyway.
Sure, figuring out where to place cameras judging by the direction a squirrel ran on the footage of last night was the prevailing game play, and by itself it could get old fast.
But the later levels really did try to branch it out.
The was a level where I had to film a squirrel at specific intervals within a minute to track its route, then send the interval photos using the fax machine. In another level, my standard cameras were destroyed and I had to place a nut and then follow a squirrel and snapshot it with my handheld camera.
My trip back to the caravan to record footage was frequently interrupted by a phone call of my female overseer. This was the only voice acting. I didn’t have a voice of my own and there were no dialogue trees. The only way I could respond was by sending photos or messages on a fax machine.
Then she would immediately call me up and comment on that.
I giggled a little when I found a squirrel nest with sticks of dynamite. A shame the game didn’t let me light a fuse and run out of there real fast.
The use of colors mostly felt like the developers really wanted to stand out and look different. It was slightly annoying to begin with but I quickly got used to it.
I can certainly understand why some players would hate it.
The end game took place after falling down a rock slide and a squirrel took off with my journal. Since it had the important evidence, I had to track it down. I found another caravan nearby a automobile graveyard with cameras to be conveniently found. The squirrel met up with other squirrels and crossed a river by going out on a branch. I tried the same thing and came crashing down on the shore. The squirrels then led me directly to a stranded ship where they had all their stashes of nuts – and even my journal.
