PEGBRJE: Immure and Chook & Sosig: Walk the Plank
Story time.
Immure is a narrative semi-point and click adventure horror/thriller made by Wither Studios, a small team out of Pittsburgh. Amusingly enough, I had semi-heard of this title beforehand thanks to Markiplier as someone who used to occasionally watch his content, but had not watched his playthrough of this title. Within, players follow the bizarre story of Will, an individual trapped within a strange multidimensional mansion with no recollection of exactly how or why he is there. Voices continually push him forward until he comes to the ultimate voice conduit; The Shining Trapezohedron.
I called it a ‘semi-point and click’ as much of the game has players performing actions in a style similar to this gameplay structure. Players will roam the halls of each world they enter, clicking and interacting with objects to locate items that may give clues to or solve the puzzle they are facing. Puzzles are rarely obvious, depending mostly on the plot to unveil the problems that Will must solve in order to discover the truth. While this can be stressful on the brain as it is, this is only half of the game; the other half is survival. The first story instance that occurs outside of the bizarre mansion (which serves as a pseudo tutorial) has Will searching for clues within a burning apartment complex while avoiding a terrifying visage of a firefighter. This monster will roam the halls in a relatively set pattern, forcing players to hide when it wanders past for fear of being instantly killed by its massive axe. Escape from this location seems impossible, but little clues given by the Trapezohedron and its ability to highlight past events and hidden messages assist in discovering the tools needed.
As with many narrative-heavy titles, spoilers are challenging to avoid; thankfully psychological thrills tend to lean towards the inexplainable, which is part of the fun. Will seemingly struggles with something within his past, only hinted at thanks to the voices the Trapezohedron displays. Imagery keeps popping up for him to vaguely understand before disappearing, unable to be explained without any context. Once Will gets within the apartment complex, it shifts to his attempt to solve the story behind whatever occurred within to torment the firefighter so, piecing together pieces of drawings and news articles while solving the puzzles and avoiding said monster. It’s all dark tones and unnerving imagery from here on out to solidify that this world doesn’t entirely make sense in a physical construct, yet the possibility that it could’ve happened keeps the tension running. I will say, however, that the Safe Room entity somewhat derails this while somehow bolstering its surrealism. This entity is what saves progress for Will within a room free from harm and time, yet seems to be aware of the fact that it is a ‘save room entity’. There are numerous cheeky lines of dialogue jabbing at the audience and the conventions players may feel while Will just stares on confused and annoyed. It honestly broke the immersion for the first conversation as it felt so obtuse and jarring in comparison to the atmosphere built earlier, yet the more one interacts with the entity the more it seemingly added to the confusion. There’s no answer for why this entity exists other than to be a save state, yet hints at so much more.
This is technically only part 1 of Immure, as I couldn’t seem to find part 2 anywhere but Steam. It’s not a long experience, clocking in under an hour at my snail’s pace of a puzzle solver. However, the length itself doesn’t reveal the sheer polish and attention to detail that it brings. The footsteps to indicate where the firefighter is and the constantly changing audio were absolute treats to experience, matched only by the terrifying static sounds added when the firefighter got close. If you enjoy some good old fashioned psychological thrillers, Immure has what you want.
Chook & Sosig: Walk the Plank is a point and click story adventure made by TookiPalooki, a ‘one-woman indie game development studio’ based out of New Zealand. It was published by Armor Games Studios, a name I hadn’t heard in a long time and made me instantly nostalgic for the hours I spent on the original website playing Flash games (RIP Flash). This title, however, follows the titular Chook & Sosig, a ghost chicken and noodle cat respectably, as they attend a roleplaying game night with their friends. Players follow Sosig as a pirate in a fantastical world, one of daring adventures and treasure hunting.
In traditional point and click style, Chook & Sosig: Walk the Plank has players clicking on everything and anything that has a name to either interact with it or gain more information on it. Certain items can be gained to be used throughout the game as puzzle solving mechanics, usually brought on by certain problems that the surrounding people have that need solutions. These solutions are not obvious without contextual queues, so much of the time will be spent reading the dialogue presented by the various characters (who all look vaguely similar and have the same 3 names). Chook also makes an appearance as a cheating assistant, reading off of the guide’s notes to give hints while Sosig attempts to solve the grand mystery surrounding this Goddess’ treasure.
What makes this adventure so pure and fun is the wholesomeness and general enjoyment that the friends all have while they are playing this game together. The other three players consist of Min, Hebble and Cow, all with their own unique personality traits and interactions with each other, and hilariously reminds me of many different people and types of roleplayers that I’ve played with. Hebble is a completely chaotic player wishing to bring dinosaurs into a pirate campaign, playing wildly different characters to interact with and generally making snarky and cheeky comments. Min is the sensible one, knowing what she wants to do and sets her characters up for success as best she can while trying to keep Hebble from pulling too many pranks. My personal favourite, however, is Cow; a mounted cow-head ghost who speaks only in all caps who runs various organizations in the constant need of being their own boss. The three of them operate many of the different characters that Sosig will interact with, solving their problems while cutting back to the table itself to commence in witty dialogue during certain instances to explain decisions, such as why there are so many goblins in a pirate game. While the load times on these scenes are a little slow, they’re just so pure and fun that it’s hard to be annoyed.
It’s this good natured fun that keeps me interested even when I’m stuck in puzzles I feel I can’t solve, as all of them are just wanting to have fun together and play some roleplaying games together. It’s hard not to get sucked in to the soft aesthetic created within the art or the jovial tunes that keep the pirate themes rolling throughout the different islands visited. If you’re looking for some good natured humor and fun with some roleplaying pals, look no further.
