Everhood

The best way I can describe this game is that it is Undertale meets Yume Nikki with a rhythm section.

You wake up in a world you have no clue about and no idea what the deal is or why, but maybe you also gave up your humanity to be here but I don’t know, thats all besides the point anyway. You are a puppet, a wooden doll, named Red, who has lost an arm. Why this matters? who knows. But also that is still a part of your body, so it’s time to go on an adventure to find your arm.

The gameplay is broken into two sections. The adventure/exploration segments, and the battles. This world is incredibly surreal. Black voids filled with various locales. Dark forests, castles, deserts, all connected by doors in a nexus, once you reach it. You’ve gotta follow Blue to find your arm after all, the rest of the exploring is just to come with that. Also oh hi there W.D. Gaster, what are you doing here, “28 Souls Left”? what does that mean…

Of course, not every person you meet is friendly. There are a lot of characters who don’t have the best intentions towards you, and every single one of them has an associated song. This is important because the battle system is this game’s rhythm section. You and the opponent are in an elegant dance around the 5 lane stage. Dodging around and gracefully bouncing over attacks in the form of waves that flow down the lanes. Imagine those games/videos about being a stickman avoiding the falling blocks in someone else’s game of Tetris, and now imagine you’re doing that on a Guitar Hero fret board, and you’ll get the gist of things.

Eventually the bosses run out of music and you can finish up the fight and move on.

Everhood is a game about questions. A lot of questions, and rarely any answers. You’ll be going through the whole game not entirely sure what’s going on, and even the characters and events that claim to provide answers just create more questions too. This entire world is falling apart at the seams, and you don’t know why, and you still don’t have your arm back. All you can do is explore and fight, and solve some light puzzles, until you figure out what’s going on, why things are the way they are, and who is the puppeteer.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1229380 £9.99
Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/everhood £9.99
Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Everhood-1921124.html £13.49

Demo builds on Itch.io: https://everhood.itch.io/everhood