Play it on: Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Peace out or soldier on
Ever know a piece of art is good, possibly even great, but it’s really not for you? It sucks, because you see how excited its advocates are, how deeply it moved them, and you’re left wondering, “why is this not hitting for me?” Are you the problem? Is perhaps the game/movie/album not as great as people say? Is it just a taste thing? I think it is mostly a taste thing—and current mood, and openness to experience—but part of me also blames myself when everyone else is having a blast and I’m not, and I yearn to share in their joy.
That’s how I felt about Undertale, the indie RPG sensation that became a genre landmark and permanently rewired many fans’ brains in the process. I felt left out, because as exciting as all the fan talk sounded, to get to what seemed like the good stuff—the weird plot beats, the genre deconstruction, the queer feels—you had to slog through very basic Japanese-style RPGing, a gameplay format I was tired of decades ago. (I tried the game, and bounced right off.)
That’s where I find myself after an initial hour with Void Stranger, a recent adventure-puzzle game from System Erasure, developer of the terrific indie shmup ZeroRanger. Every spoiler-free thing I’ve heard about its storytelling, its meta elements, and the sheer inventiveness of this unassuming game had me hyped for a very special experience. Yet I was wary as well, and sure enough all I’ve experienced so far is uninteresting Sokoban (crate-pushing) gameplay and a mildly annoying save system interspersed with the occasional treat of wonderful art or dialogue.
Sokoban was already a hard sell for me on 1990s Game Boys. Should I keep pushing through to get to stuff that might interest me? Maybe, but apparently if I do I’ll be trudging (and re-trudging!) through floor after floor of these grid-based puzzles, and that hasn’t been feeling great so far. So arises the now-familiar tension: Is it worth forcing myself to eat the vegetables to get to the actual dessert I might enjoy?
Perhaps the Germans have a word for this feeling of ennui mixed with yearning.
Dunno how much more time I’ll give this game, but I can say this. A lot of people are just over the moon about Void Stranger, so I encourage you to look at its Steam / Itch pages, browse some reviews (or impassioned social media postings), and see if you like the vibes it’s transmitting. If you do, this might be one for the ages. For you, at least. — Alexandra Hall
