Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Not The Robots’ and ‘Autumn’
These games have absolutely nothing in common.
Not the Robots is a ‘roguelike’ puzzle game created by 2DArray, an indie developer in the USA, and published by tinyBuild. Players are a strange thin robot finding themselves in an office building, when they suddenly get hungry. For what? Furniture.
Each level, the robot will spawn in through a strange tube and begin their rampage against common office furniture. Getting close enough will cause green lines to highlight what can be consumed, and pressing SPACE will consume the furniture. This is counted as ‘food’ to the robot, and will decrease the number on the bottom right while filling that same bar. Only once this bar is full can the player leave the floor to go on another appliance-eating rampage, but it is unfortunately not always that simple.
Each floor has different hazards that can slow the player down, such as lasers that injure the robot or sentries that will spot the robot and shift furniture around or send in others. This is where the first bit of ‘strategy’ kicks in, as the robot can crouch to hide under tables and avoid being seen/hit, but they can also not eat certain furniture to use as a barricade. Furniture is solid after all, so players can decide what to avoid eating so that they can box in enemies or lasers and come back to it only when they have cleared out the rest of the floor.
This core gameplay would be perfectly satisfactory on its own, but 2DArray has made it much more ‘spicy’ by adding a lot more variability than one might expect.
For starters, upgrades and powers are scattered in the level to give different ‘edges’. Powers are blocks that can be acquired immediately, giving the player the ability to perform a single action on a cooldown, such as invisibility or spawning a massive block. Upgrades are in similar blocks, but can only be acquired when the player has fulfilled the completion requirement to leave the game — these contain scanners and other permanent assistant tools to help with each run.
And yes, I do mean run; that earlier ‘roguelike’ quotations was not just for fun. Each level is completely randomized at spawn to ensure that no matter what, players cannot just keep restarting a level and hope for the best. This means that even side objectives could be included where they had been absent before.
To assist in giving a sense of progression outside of the game, players are given a level that is increased by how many floors were completed in a run, as well as if they ate the maximum amount of food on a floor, or if no damage was taken. Each level unlocks something new for the player to do, such as different modes, like Challenge.
It’s hard to think about the fact that Not the Robots came out in 2013 when I could easily trick someone in to thinking this game came out within the past few years. It plays as a stealth puzzle, but also includes a strange storyline to help immerse you in the story with voice acting and subtle clues to guide your path. There’s even an unlockable game in the game. It’s almost too big for how tight it feels, and I don’t know how I hadn’t heard of before today.
If you are a fan of stealth games that stay true to the idea of strategy and problem solving while also getting a progression system out of it, then you are in for a treat.
Autumn is a relaxing nature simulation created by ‘Bit Outside the Box’, an indie developer that we’ve seen twice before in the bundle with ‘A Game of Changes’ and ‘Satellite Repairman’. Unlike the previous titles, Autumn gives the player no true objective and instead wants us to simply relax and watch the trees grow.
Autumn centres around a ‘Spirit’, which the player chooses between three variants, and their need for the natural world’s progression to live. It feeds on ‘Prana’ which is an energy that some may have heard of in teachings from India (commonly discussed in yoga, medicine and martial arts).
In this game, Prana takes the form of orbs that are released during specific seasons, such as autumn, that are attracted to the player. What players can do with Prana is plant more trees around them, giving life to the surrounding area as they continue to generate more energy and continue a cycle.
At first players will only have a single tree type to work with, but progression will give unknown trees sprouting from the ground for players to identify. This is done by giving Prana to this tree until it has become ‘Found’ and added to the logbook. This book is where players can choose which trees they want to plant, as well as information on the trees themselves and their Prana ‘cost’. Prana can also be used to purchase quotes and stories to read while players wait for their trees to continue the seasonal cycle.
It’s not a game that we may be accustomed to in this bundle, as it is more of a relaxation experience focused on our growth rather than the growth of the game itself. It’s all about meditating on the things in life while you wait, and enjoying the colours of the world as they cycle through. It won’t be for everyone, but if you need something to tone down the energy with, this might be perfect.
