Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Anomalies’ and ‘Nigel’
An abstract “experience” and a bird-centric puzzle game.
Anomalies is an experimental…game…by Schmidt Workshops, a solo indie dev and artist from the United States. Players will be…well, generating anomalies. Strange, oddly terrifying, anomalies.
Upon entering the game, players will be given a massive list of features that can shape their anomaly. It’s hard to articulate what exactly all of these scales and numbers do without going in to obscene detail. In general, they will shape how the small entities of the anomaly will shape, how they will interconnect with each other, and how the background aesthetic will reflect upon them. If one feels that there are too many variables, there is a convenient random button to press so that the game will do it automatically and give a strange new creation. There is even music to accompany the anomalies, to further add to the strange aura that each will give off.
Once completed, players can then fly around their anomaly and view it up-close as it exists in a space that they cannot fathom. It sits there, pulsing or blooming, as if to taunt you. There is nothing else for it to do but that, and the player will have to come to grips with how uncomfortably terrifying this whole ordeal has been. There is no goal, only the sinister feeling that this creation is watching you. That, or it is a psychedelic trip of colours that you can vibe with. Regardless of how it makes you feel, Anomaly is worth messing around with to find either a sweet background image or a new night terror.
Nigel is an educational puzzle game created by Nolski, a solo developer based out of the United States, featuring the work of Jon Mendez and Julia Singh. Players will follow the tale of Nigel the Gannet, based on the real life bird of the same name, as he plays matchmaker on Mana Island.
Let’s give some context here, before we continue. Nigel was a New Zealand gannet dubbed ‘the loneliest seabird’ after living alone on Mana Island (north of New Zealand) for years. Scientists had been attempting to bring the birds back to the island to establish a reserve, with little to no luck. After setting up concrete gannets in the hopes of enticing the real deal to return, Nigel became the first gannet to arrive on the island in 40 years. For roughly five years, he lived alone with his concrete colony, courting them and hoping to integrate. In 2018 a few others returned to the island, but unfortunately Nigel was unsuccessful in befriending these new living kin. He died with his concrete companions weeks later.
Grim story, no? Yet without this game of puzzles and matchmaking, I would have forgotten all about this story that I only vaguely recalled — and even then it was overshadowed in my brain by Grape-kun. Instead of finding companionship, Nigel helps out the other animals on the island by bringing them together through courtship rituals, while a narrator gives insightful information about their species and mating habits. Bringing rocks to penguins, teaching a kiwi to sing for their mate, and rescuing a sheep are just a few of the tasks that Nigel will perform to help out the island. The puzzles are not difficult, but they are not the main focus of the game; the story and environment are.
It’s a sad tale to read up and learn, but Nigel wants you to realize the stories that occur in our world all the time. Animals struggle to survive in a world that changes without their understanding, and Nigel’s story is just one of many. However, while his story ends tragically, the gannets of New Zealand’s Mana Island are no longer just concrete, so we have his bravery to thank for that. If you love sad tales of animals — for some reason — this is a perfect game for you.
