How did any of us end up here and what is going on? Justin got drawn into Rain World and Slugcat tries to win him over.

Previous Rain World Experience

  • First images/gifs did not impress.
  • First reviews made it worse.
  • Follow-up reviews piqued my interest.
  • People wouldn't stop talking about it.

Initial Expectations, Hopes, Dreams, Fears

  • Just another indie game to throw onto the pile.
  • Surely, it has something amazing hidden within its problems.
  • Maybe its problems aren't problems to me.
  • Hopefully this is a game I can get lost in.

What actually happened

I really wasn't prepared for that introduction. I expected to jump right in to the pixel art style that I was nervous about, but the beautiful paintings of slugcat and its family made me take a step back. Slugcat has a family?! Oh god, I have to save them all. I'm in.

After that emotional trip, I was happy to notice that I had no issues and even enjoyed the art style of the in-game animation. Slugcat's animations are super smooth and the environment is an even bigger character than the animals.

Rain World

I've been exploring in games a lot this year, but the motivations to explore in Rain World make it feel completely different from the games I've been playing recently. You have to explore to find food to survive and the world is almost oppressive with danger. I found myself stopping a lot to watch the behavior of the dangerous animals around me to try to understand how I could even hope to survive. The odds do not look good.

I couldn't decide if I was having fun while playing Rain World, but I did not want to put it down. I wanted to get slugcat out of this predicament. I wanted to get it back to its family as soon as possible, but I knew that was going to take a lot of time and effort. I'm here for you slugcat, we'll work together and find them eventually.

Will I keep playing?

I think I will go back to Rain World throughout the rest of this year in small doses. It's a pretty heavy game, so after it inevitably beats me down I will need breaks, but it's going to stand out in my mind for a long tim, so I will have to play it. Slugcat is lost and alone, after all, and I can't imagine what its family is going through. The things I do for video game families.

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