So sometimes it turns out that when you scroll through Steam, you see another cheap hack with bad graphics, weak gameplay, a cat girl to get an extra point and other cliches for completely unknown indie titles. Yes, and this game has all this, but only at first glance.
I spent a little over a week on two playthroughs, recording, analyzing, scripting and editing the game, which is presented just below. Please be patient immediately, because the video lasts about half an hour and at first it may not seem so dynamic. But if you are the one who gets into it, then my work was not done in vain.
Below is a text version https://horseshoecasino.co.uk/games/ (or just a script), which is slightly shortened compared to the video, which is more recommended for viewing!
[CHAPTER 1. AMBIGUOUS GRAPHICS AND NOSTALGIA: ]
It’s happened to you that you seem to be in some new place, but you have the feeling that you’ve already seen it. No, not even like that… You feel nostalgic for a place that, in principle, you have never been to. This is a subtype of nostalgia called anemoya, which explains people’s love for cyberpunk, retrowave, Sovietwave, and so on. But okay, why did I even start this?? Many people probably played various MMO RPGs in the distant past? Do you remember? World of Warcraft or some Archage? Do you remember the graphics from there?? And suddenly, oops – this game has the same graphics. It’s probably bad that such a modern game has Paleozoic graphics, which also borders on crooked anime models. But it seems somehow close and… dear, despite the fact that I’ve never really played MMOs and I can’t say that I have nostalgia for such a game shell.
[CHAPTER 2. LACK OF GAMEPLAY ALSO GAMEPLAY: ]
Okay, we seem to have sorted out the first most ambiguous thing. Let’s say your eyes are ready for the graphics and the gameplay itself will draw you in. Do you know what I’ll say?? HE IS NOT HERE! Okay, before the gameplay, I want to jump ahead a little to discuss the characters, because just look at Annika, and her 3D model, like all the characters, looks very budget-friendly, but just look at the art in the dialogues and cutscenes. As if yes, even from the screenshots in the store Anechka was, perhaps, the only reason to pay attention to this game. Therefore… Anya Forger, forgive me, you, of course, are also a cutie, but my new loli waifu, in addition to the same malicious smile, also has ears and a tail. Unfortunately, you’re in trouble. So, I explained for Anya, let’s get back to the gameplay. Once control is in your hands, all you can do is walk around and look around. By the way, the side keys here are quite crooked, so you only need the forward button and the mouse. In this situation, you can even bind the game entirely to the mouse and play only on it. But let’s start looking at the game’s possibilities. Here we have an apple tree that you can shake on the interaction button. The first feature of our lola is that she can eat, no, not like that – EAT. And not only apples, this is literally a bottomless pit or not, this is the same teammate from Pubg who vacuums up all the loot even if he doesn’t need it. In principle, edible items are only needed here to restore health, although a little further there will be a more effective method. The game also has a dynamic time of day, which will naturally affect the actions of some characters and quests, and of course it can be skipped using the bed. The game, by the way, also reminds me of some Sonic Adventure, because between the locations to complete, the so-called dungeons, there is an open world in the form of the entire island. By the way, at the end of the dungeons there will be bosses in the game and a boss fight with them looks very unusual, because you can’t fight in the game, because I’ll remind you that we only have WASD and the mouse. And you know what the developers came up with?? Suddenly – a rhythm game, and a very high-quality one, depending on the reviews of other people. True, it’s not entirely clear why the boss needs health, because even if you perfectly complete any of the boss fights and the boss’s health reaches zero, the battle will not end until the music and, accordingly, the rhythm game itself ends. By the way, if you want to try again, the game will kindly offer you a guide to rhythm games and you will be able to beat the game with the best result. After completing the dungeons, Anya will receive new abilities and, for example, she also initially does not know how to swim and drowns. But in general, I would like to praise the local water for the element of realism, because a couple of times I fell into it from a great height, but as it turned out, the water here, like in any other game, saves you from death. So… what else is there… In the game you can stand still and randomly get a rare afk animation, which I paid for 2.I didn’t get 5 passages, but Anya had enough time to warm up. It’s also unclear why they made toilet stalls in the game, just like in the well-known cartoon (Shrek), but if you go to them about 5 times, you can get an achievement. In a similar way, there are reels like these placed around the game, which you can play and also get an achievement. Don’t worry, there are only 5 of them per game and it will be difficult to miss them, like most of the collectibles in the game, unless of course you carefully study the signs and interact with everything you can. But what will be easy to miss are plot items, when let’s say I needed to collect 6 shells for one person and the only clues were: “well… they are somewhere near the beach”. I swear, I ran for an hour and looked for these shells, and they turned out to be on another beach, and there were several such moments here, but even without YouTube, I basically figured them out after some time.
[CHAPTER 3. PLOT, CHARACTERS, ENT: ]
So, my description of the gameplay a couple of times has already bordered on the passage of the plot, mentioning the characters, and also touched upon the game lore, so I’m thinking of starting the next thread of the story, delving directly into the meaning and why we’re here in the first place. The plot here has the same progression as the gameplay, because initially nothing is clear at all, but the further the player moves, the more everything around him begins to become clearer. The narrative style here is the loss of memory of the main character and a consistent understanding of what is happening. Anya sees a fragment from the past, as a certain woman in purple leaves, leaving her alone. And what a coincidence, the beginning of the game shows us the house of a certain Lisa, next to which exactly the same purple clothes are drying. Through notes, Lisa kindly shows Anya where the key to the house is and… the interiors honestly scare me when I need to get inside the house. Anya feels at home there, literally, grabbing everything she sees, stealing food, turning on a fan, reading diaries, sleeping in someone else’s bed, and also finding a fanny pack, which is a local inventory. Anya also learns from the diary that Lisa writes down her daily chores in it and mentions that she is lonely. By the way, the title of the game features not only Annika, but also the Giraffe. Who is Giraffe? Depardieu? No, this is just a guy who is allegedly much older than Annika and in general he is the main driver of the plot, because he tells where to go and for what purpose. True, he often speaks in some kind of riddles, but the player simply accepts it, justifying it with Anechka’s memory loss and expecting these incomprehensible words to be revealed in the future. A very strange young man and we will talk about him later. Actually, it is he who sends Anya to the dungeon for the chaos emerald… oh, sorry… a magic stone that will give her strength, before which he calls her a one-of-a-kind felican. There Anya meets the first opponents, who, although sluggishly, prevent Anya from passing, and if the player still receives damage, then there are crystals everywhere that serve as medical stations from Half Life. Also, as she progresses through the dungeons, Anyuta collects drawings that can be used later, we’ll get to that later. At the end of each dungeon, Eggma will be waiting for us… ahem… Lily, who also needs these same stones, but of course, in the end they go to the main character and the dungeon ends. After each dungeon, Annika sees a fragment of memories and in this one she sees Lisa with a cat on her lap. By the way, did anyone notice that Lily and Lisa sound the same?? No? How about they both dress in purple?? This is where it gets more interesting, yes? By the way, I didn’t mention two interesting characters. The first one is… no, not the Sculpture from SCP, although… in general, it’s better not to check, but her name is Sohra and her name is consonant with her function, namely, to save the game. There are about a dozen of these Saves throughout the game and according to the lore they are all sisters and also an unsuccessful manifestation of the creativity of a local artist. And the second character is a scarecrow who reminds me of Turnip from Howl’s Moving Castle, but not the essence. This miracle yudo is a local fortune cookie that works once a day. In addition to very interesting predictions, you can knock out a lucky number and get an achievement for it. Let’s return to the plot – after the end of the first bossfight, Anya gains the ability to jump, which helps to overcome the river, and in order to shorten the text of the script, I will not mention some unimportant things, such as this ghost builder who will fix the bridge if Anya brings him three stacks of logs. In search of the next stone, Anya and Giraffe learn that they need to go to the island, and I remind you that Anya was taught to swim by Tommy Vercetti. Therefore, the heroes return a little back and ask for help from a local hot mom two kilometers away… oh, not that scenario… in general, without having time to ask the question, the rabbit asks Anya and Giraffe to find her rabbits, after all, she is a mother and she has no time to look after the children, she has… scrambled eggs in a frying pan and doesn’t care that she runs around with her on the street and in general these scrambled eggs will always be with her. But you have to look for them yourself, the Giraffe will stand still and be stupid, almost as always. We find one microchelik behind the house, the second on the beach, the third on the tower and the last one at the gazebo. Wait… there should have been five of them. How lucky it was that the fifth one was so bored that he decided to swim to that very island and now, in order to save his son, the rabbit gives us a carrot and says that this is the turtle’s favorite treat, which will take us there. By the way, I didn’t say that Giraffe knows how to unlock dungeons, but refuses to go into them with Anya, because she’s literally the only demigoddess and all that. This dungeon is brighter, more summery and rich, and by the way, to enter it you need to wait for the day and how convenient it is that they put a bed right in front of it. Again we dodge ghosts, ride on boats, find a small rabbit and take the stone from under the nose of Lily, who changes outfits with each new bossfight. After Anya once again gives Lily a crab, she loses consciousness and, having received new power, ends up on the main island. As a flashback, we see how Annika’s grandmother, again in a purple robe, reads little Annika a fairy tale, in that book there is a crab, and ghosts, and those stones that give special powers. After waking up, Anya learns to swim… yes, this is again a super ability, which opens up the opportunity to pick up some collectibles away from the main island. We give the child to the mother and meet the father of the family, who reminds me… I don’t even know who. Only the bunny from Kaze comes to mind, but she’s kind of a girl. Before going further, I suggest going a little further than the rabbits’ house and showing you a gallery of drawings that Anechka finds along the way. This establishment operates on roughly the same principle as the library in Stardew Valley. You are the drawings – you are the rewards. And if the schoolgirl costume doesn’t impress you, then how about a swimsuit?? Okay, back to the plot – to find the last stone, the father of the family advises the heroes to visit the very artist who made all the local sculptures. Having met him, he first moos like Siegward from Katarina, then quacks, which incidentally infects Anyuta, and then says that he lacks inspiration to create the perfect sculpture. For this, Hillfred gives Anya a camera, and so that photographs of Spider-Man will be on my table this evening! Stop, that’s not it again… He asks to take a photo of three mysterious ruins, having restored them beforehand. And this is done in the following way: we collect local food, find out in what order the offering should be and put the food on three drawers in front of the statue. Anya holds a camera for the first time, which doesn’t stop her from taking photos. By the way, there is an achievement for taking photos in the game, you need to take 50 absolutely any photos, and I can say the same about food, because it won’t have any more functions. We bring pictures to Hillfred, he is filled with creative ideas and, instead of his usual crooked sculptures, in the shortest possible time he crafts a statue of the Felican Goddess, which very much reminds me of that recent meme with Ankha from Animal Crossing. But to complete the picture, she lacks the stone that Annika and Giraffe are looking for. This time we play a certain Indiana Jones, we dodge fiery ghosts, ride on a trolley, avoid meeting a stone, meet Father Rabbit, ride on a trolley with him, turning the game into a shooter, and in the end we find the last stone. But here Lily is hot on our heels, this time in an Ash outfit and along with Bob from Overwatch… although he reminds me more of the robots that tried to catch Crazy Frog… oh well. We win, we lose consciousness, we see memories where they show the Giraffe, but with gray hair and in one of the pictures they are even with their grandmother, Annika looks like their granddaughter, and then we wake up with new strength. This time it will be difficult to deny the obvious reference to Sonic, because Anya gets super-speed and the player gets a Shift key, which was sorely missing, because running around the island to the same places often gets boring. Although stamina, according to the canon, is already spent quickly, and is restored slowly, and also having a cooldown, so this is not super-speed, it’s apparently something wrong with the developers’ face. And the characters, without whom you can’t go further, will also walk slowly and you’ll have to wait for them. Meanwhile, Anya gives her pendant with three stones to Hillfred, only because the Giraffe allows it, because he knows everything about Anya, and about her powers and in general about everything, so this guy becomes stranger and stranger. He finishes the statue and puts it in the courtyard, it glows, shows ancient drawings with a dancing felican, and the heroes immediately understand that they need to dress Anya up and make her dance. First, let’s take a photo of this drawing to make it easier to have an understanding of the design of the dress we need. Then the player gains access to previously closed areas and thus we find the fabric needed for the dress to the left of Lisa’s House. And, by the way, the heroes will not sew themselves, but need to take a photo of the dress and the fabric to a local tailor named Mary, who receives a plus point from Anechka in advance, because Hillfred says that they are about the same age. But before that, we meet a dude who lives in an observatory and will probably tell us what time of day to dance using his telescope. Then we find out from Mary that she is sewing a scarf for this dude and we need to find out his name so that she can embroider it on the scarf. In general, we run between her house and the observatory several times, which frankly is annoying and this section could be shortened if Thomas immediately said his name, after which we find out that we need to dance between 1 and 2 am, and in the meantime Mary sews us the necessary dress. And while she is doing this, Anya returns to the very beginning, finds a cave with a labyrinth under the waterfall, at the end of which there are kind ghosts who teach her to dance. Well, everything is ready, we wait for the night, Anyutka dances and at the end loses consciousness. But then she wakes up in a place that looks like some kind of paradise, and her neko-essence is separated from her in the form of a cat who will go through this location with her and to be honest, it’s just another dungeon, we’ve just already collected the stones, and the plot needs to be moved somehow. And, perhaps, this is the worst dungeon, because it pissed me off more than it was interesting. Well, here you can watch how the cat once again funny flies into the abyss. In general, we pass, we meet Lily at the end and we understand that Lily is Lisa, oh no, how is it possible, she is no longer such a sexy anime girl, but an old Baba Yaga, and everything already hints that Lily is, part-time Lisa and part-time Anya’s grandmother. In general, we defeat her, after which she hides on the triangular mountain, grabbing Anechka’s staff, and at the same time the Giraffe… who is already obviously Annika’s grandfather, and missing, as was known from the beginning of the game and from newspaper clippings that recently there was a strong storm, which will be shown in the next memory if you suddenly missed them while running around the world. By the way, Mary is also waiting for her father after this event. The giraffe, by the way, was not so captured by Lisa, but rather went to her and wanted to talk. Anya wakes up, everyone is worried about her, but realizing that she is alive they give information about where Lisa went and in general, this is literally the last push, we go to the funicular, we go to that mountain along the way, meeting Sohra, who got a gun somewhere, we go up with her, the final boss fight occurs, after which Lily dash Lisa already says in plain text that Anya is her granddaughter, after which slowly disappears just like our already native island. Which, by the way, was mentioned earlier by the Giraffe, about which, in general, everything also becomes clear. The only salvation from disappearance is the lighthouse next to Mary’s house, which is reached by Annika, her essence in the form of… ahem… neko and Giraffe. But it’s a shame that the Giraffe remains, since in reality it can no longer be said to exist, and he reveals all the cards that the whole game is just a dream of Grandma Lisa and Annika, only with the cat, rise along a beam of light into space and are saved while the Giraffe disappears along with everyone around them.
[CHAPTER 4. EPILOGUE AND REMAINING QUESTIONS: ]
If you thought that was all, then… huh… the game still has a final scene and credits, which also cannot be skipped. In them we see that Lisa was sleeping all this time, as we already knew, and literally everything that was in the game was either elements of the book that she read to Annika, or her personal experiences about the loss of her husband, whom she made Giraffe and with whom she still holds a grudge for the fact that he disappeared in that storm, or some interesting elements from their common life with Anya. For example, Thomas and Mary turn out to be Annika’s parents, who brought her to her grandmother for the summer, and grandfather’s name, of course, is not Giraffe, only Anya called him that because of his tall stature. The parents take Anya, but before that Lisa gives her the same bag that the player was running around with the whole game. After all this, the credits begin, where we see the same island, but in a more modern form, and also that Anechka finds that very magic pendant, and then notices a Giraffe behind the glass, which is walking towards the island. Children’s imagination or too many coincidences with grandmother’s stories suggest that everything that happened is not so far from reality. However, the player will have to think about this himself… But in general, I still have a lot of questions and, frankly speaking, I’m afraid to seem stupid, because the game is not really trying to be a Kojima plot with Tarantino dialogues, but I still don’t understand why, for example, the Giraffe is the same age as Annika or why Lily is Lisa and vice versa, and why only she is old and in general is a villain, and everyone around is kind, young and beautiful. Maybe that’s her way of blaming herself for everything, but I’m not sure. And even if she had stones, she herself abandoned the Giraffe and used him as bait for Anya. I will again assume that she thus gives priority to her granddaughter over her husband, whom there is no point in loving for obvious reasons and that is why Anya always wins, and Giraffe only contributes to this. However, I repeat – these are just my guesses, and what is in your head you can write in the comments (on YouTube)