Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality (PEGBRJE?): Beginnings, and Overland
Like with all great adventures, this starts with two confusing forces of circumstance. In this case, one being a pandemic and the other being the purchase of video games for racial equality. The mission? To play every game within the itch.io ‘Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality’ which was available back in May/June. The reasoning?
Uh. Besides playing good games made by small devs?
Actually there are multiple reasons at work here, with the focal point being to carefully analyze and highlight what makes these games exciting and different from the others. The goal is not necessarily to review them, as there are many more voices on the internet that do that on the daily; instead, celebrate their achievements and give light to who would enjoy these games to their fullest. Not everyone has the time nor the energy to play all of these games. Except for, well, me. Apparently.
So where does the blog come in then? While it does give me a place to collect my thoughts and keep records of the massive number of games within the bundle (seriously 59 pages? good lord), it’s also a place to look at the innovations that these games can bring and answer the question of whether you should try them out. The short answer, if you wish to not read every blog, is yes — another person’s opinion of art cannot and should not dictate your taste. However, it can help you form the basis of whether or not you should give it a try, especially if you feel uncertain in downloading it or simply didn’t know it was a part of the bundle. Again, 59 pages of games.
With that, let us BEGIN with our first title: Overland
Overland is a game by Finji, a studio who have at least one other title in the bundle, but other than that I was not entirely aware of them before this game. Made in Unity, it’s an isometric survival game reminiscent of Oregon Trail (and it’s spin off Organ Trail) for its overall theme of ‘survivors making it from the east coast to the west coast’. Only instead of zombies and dysentery, these survivors are running from bizarre plant/tendril monsters that burrow through the ground and ruin your day.
The gameplay is quite simple, yet effective in capturing the essence of survival. Your controlled units have 2 bars worth of actions to complete from moving, interacting, and attacking all taking an action bar to complete. Once you are satisfied with your turn, ending it allows the rock plant monsters to take theirs with similar restrictions, except they’re trying to kill you and all. How this game differs, however, is the ability to undo many of the actions you perform. If you decided that your one person’s actions have put them in danger, just wind it back and try a different way. There is a catch, however, as aggressive or destructive actions cannot be undone — a small yellow ‘!’ appears by the Undo button to inform you when this occurs.
This contributes to the general atmosphere that one can expect from a game as bleak as this. The wind blows to the hum of a simple melody in the background, layered with an almost surreal buzzing tone at constant intervals. It helps that the enemies also contribute to the soundscape as they too make the sound of a growling static radio. Everything just feels so empty and wide that it gave me shivers, and really brings together the isolation that you can feel when you have to undo your turn for the n’th time because an eldritch flower spawned at your feet.
So let’s say you’ve royally screwed up the encounter, people are dying and you just want to rage quit; don’t worry, happens to the best of us. Thankfully, Finji have addressed this as well with the restart mission button, a hard reset on the entire encounter. While one could argue that this mechanic + the undo button can take away from that atmosphere I just hyped up, I feel that this is an adequate price to pay for the playstyle that usually occurs in these styles of games: save scumming. I am guilty of this, quick saving at many times throughout a strategy game and then rolling back the save if I find myself at a disadvantage, which drags the encounters to a grinding mess. These tiny additions give the player the ability to make some more risky moves without feeling like their entire run would be thrown, and give the player more ability to progress.
So, what did we learn? Contrary to the previous game iterations of this style, the ability to undo actions is not ‘bad design’ that leads to the player ‘not embracing consequences’. Every action in Overland feels impactful, more so on where the player chooses to go in between encounters and who they take with them on their journey to the west coast.
Anyone that is looking for a turn-based strategy survival game that reminds you of your sudden desire to check your car for fuel, while you struggle to keep a hold of your inventory and make subtle yet important decisions, try this game out. Gameplay doesn’t take all that long, a few hours at most, and can easily fill a good night.
FYI you can recruit dogs. And pet them.
Check out Finji’s works below.
