Middens

« Middensis a VERY odd game. Continuing the binge of wild / surreal games I came across this one, another RPG maker game alike Hylics and OFF.Playing the game majority of the time I was really really confused, things were happening and I had no ounce of an idea where the story was going, if it even had one. Though the game had some difficulty, it wasn’t a long game just passing the 2 hour mark. You play as a character called Time Nomad, a guy who died and “whose culture died”. At the start of the game you’re greeted to a sentient gun who you use to just… kill **** ig, he warns you three times if you’re sure you wana continue with her (genie / the gun). The game is set in an afterlife / scrapyard of collective universes, where the remains of dead and forgotten are left to rot; a description that kinda makes sense once you play the game as the enemy designs are soooo wild, so detailed and very artsy. Out of all of the RPG maker games I’ve played, this had the most intense art direction as the amalgamations of character designs felt collage ish and were really detailed, so credit is due for that 100%. The game is just surreal af so all the characters are wacky, artsy, biblical, mechanical, humanoid, mutated, mythological etc… it’s such a strange art direction and I **** with the mood it presents. The combat system is okay, you unlock abilities as you kill stuff / unique enemies, though you start early on with your three companions, they’re spirit-like, cyclops phantom ish blobs of matter; (om, yam and… fig I forgot the other name idfk-). You, a knight, and three matter blobs are a strange combo for characters indeed, and the enemies you go against are stranger, all that plus a sentient gun makes for such an odd game, nothing makes sense and it’s all out of **** game confused me for ages until you encounter / kill enough enemies, then you unlock the ability to kill yourself, which sends you to the final realm and then you beat the final boss after going through a bunch of really difficult enemies. Won’t spoil the end cus why tf- The confusion of just grinding random **** and talking to wacky characters, all of which say weird one liners (some of which apparently being the final words of serial killers), and all of which you can just decide to murder using Z. Some trigger a battle and some just perish, most enemies die with a meowing noise which is… odd. A lot of decisions here *seem* random but I cannot be sure, it definitely all seems really random for the sake of being a surreal game, but that’s what I came for in the end. My main gripe is there not being much sense of direction, gameplay wise and story wise. The main parts of the story come from what the gun has to say, which isn’t a lot until the last sequence. Even then once you find the love train you can travel to any area in the game. It’s basically a big map to explore and stumble upon random stuff, it’s designed well though despite just being a killing spree. It leaves a lot to ponder about and left me wondering what the **** was actually gonna happen. But as short as the experience was I can’t complain. The music choices were ominous and weird, very liminal and not a lot going on, a lot of loops and not a lot of variety in battle themes. I swear you hear the same looping battle theme majority of the game and it only changes three times in the final area and at the final boss, just think it could’ve been adapted further. The victory toot kinda irritated me too, was just awkward but… I guess that’s nomad’s cultureWeird **** game with a surreal as **** art style. Cool though and I’m glad I played because that surreal wonder was hypnotic and kept me interested »

« A brilliant, surreal, inventive earthboundlike. Middens and Gingive are free on Game Jolt, you should definitely try them, especially if you like the genre. »