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COMPLETE: The Repairing Mantis
Sep. 9th, 2021 12:21 pmOnce upon a time, there was a mantis who wanted to repair a bridge....
Full disclosure: We received an advance copy of this game from the developers in exchange for this review. At no point was the content of said review discussed (presumably we could have trashed this game if we'd wanted to) but we absolutely were given a free copy of this game in hopes that we'd say something about it, and now here we are.
The Repairing Mantis is a... I hesitate to say "horror" game because that usually implies the existence of danger, perhaps something with enemies or the ability to lose. This is an exploration-based walking sim, if anything, but it's so aesthetically and tonally unsettling that I suppose it earns that horror tag regardless.
You are a mantis. You want to repair a bridge. You befriend(?) an absolutely adorable squirrel who dreams of building a flying machine. The squirrel would rather you not use the nearby branches and driftwood and such to repair the bridge--they need those for their machine. However, you can slice off a chunk of their wing and use that, if you'd like. What are friends for, right? :) After a few iterations of using fresh squirrel parts for the meat bridge, it is repaired. This is the prologue and I'd rather not spoil what happens after that, but suffice it to say that you will end up crossing back and forth over the bridge several times to help (or betray) several other squirrels inspired by the dream of the first, resolve a series of fetch quests, and reach one of two endings depending on choices made.
Visually, this game has something of an early 90s multimedia CD-ROM adventure game feel to it, with a first-person 3D exploration of a low-res environment blown up with a pixel filter. We actually adore this style, and the appealing graphics were definitely a high point for us.
Tonally, this game is heavy. The violence and gore are one thing, but it's not just blood and guts for the sheer sake of blood and guts. The story is rich in English class litcrit-friendly symbolism, and the violence takes on an even more psychologically horrifying aspect when contemplating what it means, what the game is trying to say with all this. It's one thing to have a scene where a squirrel accomplishes their fetch quest, then immediately gets besieged by a hostile swarm of moths that rip their entire skin off and toss it aside like a discarded squirrel pelt. It's quite another when the squirrel refers to the stolen skin as "my dream" and this all becomes a message about losing one's dreams when chasing them.
(Never accomplish anything in life, kids. If you achieve your dreams, then you won't have them anymore, and if you don't have them anymore then there's no reason left to live. Apparently.)
This game has depression, is what I'm trying to say here, but I'm also trying to say that it's a very effective art piece. Please heed every content warning it lists and then some, but if you can handle its tonal bleakness, then what's left is an incredibly poignant and thought-provoking game that has stuck with all of us far longer than its couple-hour playtime would suggest. I've thought for a long time about the central thesis I would have with this game (the advance copy we were given was very advance) which speaks to how much we all needed to just... digest this. In the end, I think what we are left with is this: To say this game is great is like saying Supertramp's "The Logical Song" is great. Both statements are 100% true (they are great) and we greatly enjoyed them. However, in both cases there's a heavy sense of spiritual loss, a feeling of wide-eyed young idealism turning into dull and soulless jadedness. We are profoundly sadder for having experienced each of them. That's ultimately why each of them is such great art, though, and why they each carry our highest recommendation. I may have had to lie down for a bit after hearing what this game had to say (and I still get a sense of whoof reflecting back on it even now,) but I have nothing but respect and admiration for the fact that this game had something to say, and that it said it so well.
Full disclosure: We received an advance copy of this game from the developers in exchange for this review. At no point was the content of said review discussed (presumably we could have trashed this game if we'd wanted to) but we absolutely were given a free copy of this game in hopes that we'd say something about it, and now here we are.
The Repairing Mantis is a... I hesitate to say "horror" game because that usually implies the existence of danger, perhaps something with enemies or the ability to lose. This is an exploration-based walking sim, if anything, but it's so aesthetically and tonally unsettling that I suppose it earns that horror tag regardless.
You are a mantis. You want to repair a bridge. You befriend(?) an absolutely adorable squirrel who dreams of building a flying machine. The squirrel would rather you not use the nearby branches and driftwood and such to repair the bridge--they need those for their machine. However, you can slice off a chunk of their wing and use that, if you'd like. What are friends for, right? :) After a few iterations of using fresh squirrel parts for the meat bridge, it is repaired. This is the prologue and I'd rather not spoil what happens after that, but suffice it to say that you will end up crossing back and forth over the bridge several times to help (or betray) several other squirrels inspired by the dream of the first, resolve a series of fetch quests, and reach one of two endings depending on choices made.
Visually, this game has something of an early 90s multimedia CD-ROM adventure game feel to it, with a first-person 3D exploration of a low-res environment blown up with a pixel filter. We actually adore this style, and the appealing graphics were definitely a high point for us.
Tonally, this game is heavy. The violence and gore are one thing, but it's not just blood and guts for the sheer sake of blood and guts. The story is rich in English class litcrit-friendly symbolism, and the violence takes on an even more psychologically horrifying aspect when contemplating what it means, what the game is trying to say with all this. It's one thing to have a scene where a squirrel accomplishes their fetch quest, then immediately gets besieged by a hostile swarm of moths that rip their entire skin off and toss it aside like a discarded squirrel pelt. It's quite another when the squirrel refers to the stolen skin as "my dream" and this all becomes a message about losing one's dreams when chasing them.
(Never accomplish anything in life, kids. If you achieve your dreams, then you won't have them anymore, and if you don't have them anymore then there's no reason left to live. Apparently.)
This game has depression, is what I'm trying to say here, but I'm also trying to say that it's a very effective art piece. Please heed every content warning it lists and then some, but if you can handle its tonal bleakness, then what's left is an incredibly poignant and thought-provoking game that has stuck with all of us far longer than its couple-hour playtime would suggest. I've thought for a long time about the central thesis I would have with this game (the advance copy we were given was very advance) which speaks to how much we all needed to just... digest this. In the end, I think what we are left with is this: To say this game is great is like saying Supertramp's "The Logical Song" is great. Both statements are 100% true (they are great) and we greatly enjoyed them. However, in both cases there's a heavy sense of spiritual loss, a feeling of wide-eyed young idealism turning into dull and soulless jadedness. We are profoundly sadder for having experienced each of them. That's ultimately why each of them is such great art, though, and why they each carry our highest recommendation. I may have had to lie down for a bit after hearing what this game had to say (and I still get a sense of whoof reflecting back on it even now,) but I have nothing but respect and admiration for the fact that this game had something to say, and that it said it so well.