APC_Australia_Issue_442_June_2017

The worlds are bleak and barren,
but beautifully realised.
PC, PS4 | $29.95 | WWW.RAINWORLD.COM
Rain World
Help a slugcat survive in a beautiful 16-bit post-apocalypse.
Rain World is a
platformer and
a survival game,
but neither of
those categories are a neat
fit for its peculiar brand of
misery. There are traces of
other games’ DNA, such as
the original Dark Souls’
bonfire system and the
roaming, improvisational
foes of Alien: Isolation, yet
Rain World stands apart as
one of the most alienating
and difficult games in
recent memory, previously
mentioned company
included.
There’s little exposition:
you’re a slugcat, wrestled
away from its family and
plunged into a decayed urban
dreamscape plagued with
erratic, free-roaming
monstrosities that want to
eat you. As a slugcat, you’re
close to the bottom of the
food chain, but not rock
bottom: you’ll need to eat to
survive, or more accurately,
eat in order to hibernate,
which must be done in
special chambers that also
serve as checkpoints.
There’s more to learn about
how Rain World works but
I’ve already said too much.
The early hours will annoy
anyone without steely
patience: slugcat’s traversal
feels cumbersome and he
can’t jump very well, but
once you get a feel for what
this game is trying to do
(make you feel utterly
disempowered), it will feel
less like bad design and more
This image is likely to stump
most players early in the game.
Hint: symbols must correspond.
thematically appropriate.
You’re a slugcat. You’re
nothing. You should already
be dead.
Rain World will be
polarising. It requires
improvisation and smarts,
and there’s no way to trick it
into being easier. The early
hours are taxing, and in all
honesty, the game continues
to be taxing. It’s not a game
to wash away your daily
worries with. But the variety
of the world’s barren
landscapes will keep the
determined pushing on,
and the seemingly
insurmountable challenges
are will eventually buckle.
You just have to be smart.
You have to learn — and
then very vaguely know —
how to survive. You have
to accept that, sometimes,
you’ll be unlucky. Is that
too hard? For the vast
majority of players,
definitely.
Few will see the more
remote corners of Rain
World’s relentlessly dire
stretch, but those who do
are unlikely to forget
the experience.
Shaun Prescott
Verdict
A tough 2D platformer that shares
more in common with survival
horror than Mario.
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