Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘Recording the Predestined Time’ and ‘Blaster Bunny +’
These games are not the same
Recording the Predestined Time is a visual novel by Amorphous, a solo indie dev from the USA, with assistance from UK-based musician and dev Sleepy Agents. Players will follow a nameless individual known only as ‘I’ as they reside in a peaceful town that’s existence is barely known, all to record the mysterious and massive WORLD SPINE.
Without the fear of making choices, players will read through this novel as the protagonist interacts with different people that reside in this small town. Not much context is given about the protagonist other than that their job is to record and watch the WORLD SPINE, a massive apparatus that circles the earth to replace the sun due to it failing some thousands of years prior.
While it looms overhead, the others continue their lives as best they can with the circumstances they are given, such as Erinys and Michael. Both are college students that the player meets, but while Michael has an aptitude for studying and engineering, Erinys is disillusioned by the entire process and comes to a solitary chunk of wall to paint. Over time players are introduced to the other three mainstays, teenagers Zeke, Ashley and Jamie, who are still attempting to figure things out about themselves and the world around them.
This chunk of wall is the only constant within this game, and changes as such as players slowly realize that time is not necessarily linear. The top left shows a peculiar number, and over the course of the game players will realize that this indicates the ‘year’ that the players are in, between 1 and 50. I will not go in to much detail on its significance, but know that its use is for having the player realize different elements of the story as they are needed. Time being malleable for the plot gives way for the player to uncover new mysteries and feel as if they are in a detective novel of sorts, trying to piece together what is going on.
The only other constant within Recording the Predestined Time is the relationships that the protagonist and the other characters have with the WORLD SPINE. The constant rumors running wild about its possible demise are embedded in every scene, as without the device the world would fall in to darkness. This means that many conversations deal in nihilism vs optimism, the great debate on whether anything matters if everything will end against the concepts that doing what makes a person happy should not be stifled just because a theoretical inevitability. If this all sounds familiar, that would be thanks to the environmentalism and fear of everything collapsing due to corporate greed and the inability to desire change.
While all of these themes are crammed in quite seamlessly, my favourite aspect of this game is actually the protagonist themselves, for they are the biggest mystery of them all. By interacting with the five main characters players can get a sense of who they are and their core beliefs, but the protagonist remains an enigma. We know nothing of their age, how they seem to watch everything from a distance, and that every conversation seems to have a ‘recording’ message. Nobody is certain if they age, or if nobody comments on their aging due to how little everyone knows about them. They are the ultimate wallflower, simply watching and recording, but that is what makes them so fascinating. Will we act upon the knowledge that we have, or will that knowledge even be useful? I’m not sure, but I love a good mystery.
All of this somehow compounds in to a ‘short’ visual novel, spanning only an hour or two of reading. The worldbuilding is phenomenal, combining different parallels to our own world while creating its own within the blink of an eye. Once you uncover a little, you’ll be sucked in instantly. Give it a shot if you love visual novels that are able to use everything in their arsenal to tell a story.
(Just a heads up, there can be some flickering in game at times, so do be cautious if you are overly sensitive to lighting changes.)
Bunny Blaster+ is a 2D action platforming roguelike created by Power, a solo indie dev. Players will step in to the shoes of Gunner Bunny, a weapon’s specialist and ship pilot who has crashed on to a strange planet due to an altercation with a meteor. Unfortunately, dastardly villains stole the parts of the ship that are needed to fly, so it is up to Gunner Bunny to track them down at all costs.
After learning the controls, players are greeted to a massive room full of question marks, items, and dozens of other interactable objects acting as a headquarters. From here, players can dive in to a massive series of worlds to platform through, each with multiple sections moving towards a shop and then a boss for the ultimate reward. The levels are riddled with enemies and weapon pickups, making each trek a dangerous affair due to GB only having three health units to work with.
What keeps things spicey as players jump through each world is that roguelite factor, seen most popularly in games like Dead Cells. Every time the player dies they are reset back to that starting hub, losing everything they had gained — except the board records every weapon and upgrade they had every gotten. All are put on display so that players can remember what they look like and get a reference to what they might do if they can find it again.
The worlds themselves have randomized contents, leaving the structure of the levels in tact so that players can navigate without too much worry. When I say the contents are randomized however, I do mean it; not even the bouncy pads are safe as enemies can be despawned and respawned in different regions, power ups can be suddenly missing or in abundance and navigational assistance tools may not spawn at all. The world structure remaining the same helps to give players a semblance of understanding, but with so many moving parts each level feels as if they designed a whole new level every time.
Get to the end of each region and you’ll get to spend your hard earned emeralds at the shop in the hopes of buffing up your Gunner Bunny enough to survive the boss encounter. That is if you were able to collect any emeralds since the swarms of bullets and enemies can be so thick at times that you might just want to gun it to the end of each level to keep your hearts. It’s a balancing act to figure out your playstyle, one that can take much longer than you might expect. If you can get a groove however, you’ll get your ship back in no time.
If you like roguelike sidescrollers, this might be a good game to try out, and expand on that Gunner Bunny Lore.
Also note that if you use the itch.io client, this game does not appear available for download— just download it from the itch.io page instead and you’ll be fine. The version played above was 4.1.
