In 2012, a programmer/artist named Joar Jakobsson showed off a prototype called Maze Runner, a Pac-Man-like game about eating things while avoiding being eaten. Years later, this arcade-style ecosystem evolved into an entire odyssey and released as Rain World on March 28, 2017. So many excellent games were made available the same year—heck, the same month is when Breath of the Wild released—but Rain World is more than excellent. Although its unforgiving essence certainly lacks broad appeal, there isn't any other game like Rain World.

You are a slugcat. Slugcats eat fruit and bats. Sadly, the world gets frequently thrashed by horrific, bone-crushing rain, as if the abundance of creatures that think slugcats are delicious aren't bad enough. You also just got separated from your loving slugcat family and are left to search for food and shelter all on your own during the brief dry periods between each volley of lethal precipitation. There's a lot more to the narrative which I won't dare spoil, but that's all you get at the start. While the game provides light guidance in the form of a little yellow worm that will occasionally point toward a key destination, there's otherwise no handholding. It's up to the player to navigate the open world in search of the slugcat's family, and perhaps even find some answers along the way.

Each "cycle" has the player character hunt enough food to avoid starvation, evade or fight ferocious predators, and reach the next shelter before the rain crushes or drowns everything it can reach. When you rest in a shelter, alive and nourished, your level of "karma" goes up. When you die (or exit the game 30 seconds after a cycle begins), your karma level goes down. Regions are segmented by gates that will only open if you meet or exceed the required karma level, so while a single death will cost around 10 minutes at most, dying too frequently can sharply halt progress. As a result, caution is not just ideal, it's crucial. Curiosity is also important, but as long as you're careful, you never need to die to learn something. The slugcat is frail, and though it's possible for skilled players to kill virtually any creature, stealth and wits are almost always better than brawn. Even without the karma mechanic, the difficulty of Rain World is mercilessly high, matching its harsh setting. An easy mode (The Monk) and optional gameplay adjustments were added in later versions, but I strongly recommend resorting to them only as a final act of desperation; the original experience (The Survivor) is far more satisfying.

The Steam store page for Rain World claims it was "inspired by the simplicity and aesthetics of 16-bit classics". However, unlike a lot of other indie games that were influenced by the classics of yore, Rain World's pixel art looks more like a pixel filter. Hard-edged shading and distinct, focused color palettes are utilized brilliantly, sans the blockiness seen in almost every other deliberately pixelated game. The application of modern technologies also doesn't produce dissonance since the way everything moves meshes well with those technologies. Instead of sprites, Rain World uses physics-driven procedural animations, which are remarkably fluid and grant creatures a vast range of behaviors and expressions that would require an impractical amount of work to implement with traditional animations.

Speaking of, the creature AI of Rain World is perhaps its most impressive feature, especially considering it was programmed by a single person. In nearly every other video game, enemies exist solely as obstacles to overcome, with the objective of stopping the player. In Rain World, "enemy" and "obstacle" are hardly apt monikers for any of the various critters that inhabit each region, as they each share the same goal of survival provided to the player, and will continue to pursue said goal regardless of whether the player is present. This can lead to scenarios where you stumble upon a pair of lizards fighting over a meal, or a corpse produced by an offscreen battle, lending the world a great sense of realism. A whole ecosystem of predators and prey is simulated, and seeing it all in motion is fascinating even when the player isn't an active participant. If only there was a mode where you can safely observe a region like you're watching a nature documentary...

As for the creatures themselves, detailing their complex behaviors and outstandingly creative designs would be a great disservice to those who haven't played the game. That said, it's important to note that the locations of creatures (and some items) are randomized at the start of a cycle. While this unpredictability means every playthrough presents unique experiences, it also opens up the possibility that the player could be placed in a nearly insurmountable situation. It's a risky design choice that reinforces Rain World's unromanticized depiction of nature, though calling it "unfair"—as many critics have—would be mostly erroneous. To put it accurately, whereas other games treat computer-controlled opponents unfairly, Rain World favors both the computer and the player equally. If that doesn't immediately sound unappealing, you just might find Rain World to be an unthinkably exceptional experience.

One facet that may be a bit harder to accept is the static screens. Rather than having a camera that scrolls along with the player, the view remains fixed and only transitions to the next when you move far enough to the edge of the screen. Horizontally, the view shifts when you're close to the edge, but vertical transitions demand going all the way off the screen. This may lead to a predator that happens to be resting at the bottom or top edge of a screen grabbing you before you can react, though this is thankfully rare and mitigated by audio cues that indicate danger is nearby. Regardless, I find the stationary camera to be pretty fitting. The advantages, like the tension it builds and how the fixed perspectives allow the phenomenal visuals to breathe, make up for any potential frustration.

The unusual music of Rain World utilizes "junk audio"—sounds that are sampled from mundane, discarded objects, then tweaked and placed into a piece—that perfectly suits the game's derelict, alien environments. Much of the music is sparse and scripted only to play upon entering specific rooms, so most of what you hear will be diegetic...unless a threat is nearby. The threat themes are segmented into layers that fade in and out depending on the level of danger, which is an ingenious way of reducing repetition and communicating the presence of predators to the player. The main composer, James Therrien, is also the sole level designer and writer, resulting in his compositions being very closely linked to the gameplay and narrative. Apart from being incredibly well-integrated, the music on its own is simply fantastic and quickly became among my favorite video game soundtracks.

In conclusion, Rain World is a truly special game, nigh untainted by the expectations of a narrow-minded playerbase or an avaricious publisher. It's challenging, immensely immersive, visually stunning, boasts individualistic AI that somehow feels decades ahead of even multi-million dollar efforts, and provides strikingly high tension that puts most horror games to shame. As I'm writing this review, no game I've played before or after Rain World has reached such monumental heights.

[h1]An uncompromising, unparalleled masterwork.[/h1] In 2012, a programmer/artist named Joar Jakobsson showed off a prototype called Maze Runner, a Pac-Man-like game about eating things while avoiding being eaten. Years later, this arcade-style ecosystem evolved into an entire odyssey and released as Rain World on March 28, 2017. So many excellent games were made available the same year—heck, the same month is when Breath of the Wild released—but Rain World is more than excellent. Although its unforgiving essence certainly lacks broad appeal, there isn't any other game like Rain World. You are a slugcat. Slugcats eat fruit and bats. Sadly, the [b]world[/b] gets frequently thrashed by horrific, bone-crushing [b]rain[/b], as if the abundance of creatures that think slugcats are delicious aren't bad enough. You also just got separated from your loving slugcat family and are left to search for food and shelter all on your own during the brief dry periods between each volley of lethal precipitation. There's a lot more to the narrative which I won't dare spoil, but that's all you get at the start. While the game provides light guidance in the form of a little yellow worm that will occasionally point toward a key destination, there's otherwise no handholding. It's up to the player to navigate the open world in search of the slugcat's family, and perhaps even find some answers along the way. Each "cycle" has the player character hunt enough food to avoid starvation, evade or fight ferocious predators, and reach the next shelter before the rain crushes or drowns everything it can reach. When you rest in a shelter, alive and nourished, your level of "karma" goes up. When you die (or exit the game 30 seconds after a cycle begins), your karma level goes down. Regions are segmented by gates that will only open if you meet or exceed the required karma level, so while a single death will cost around 10 minutes at most, dying too frequently can sharply halt progress. As a result, caution is not just ideal, it's crucial. Curiosity is also important, but as long as you're careful, you never need to die to learn something. The slugcat is frail, and though it's possible for skilled players to kill virtually any creature, stealth and wits are almost always better than brawn. Even without the karma mechanic, the difficulty of Rain World is mercilessly high, matching its harsh setting. An easy mode (The Monk) and optional gameplay adjustments were added in later versions, but I [i]strongly[/i] recommend resorting to them only as a final act of desperation; the original experience (The Survivor) is far more satisfying. The Steam store page for Rain World claims it was "inspired by the simplicity and aesthetics of 16-bit classics". However, unlike a lot of other indie games that were influenced by the classics of yore, Rain World's pixel art looks more like a pixel filter. Hard-edged shading and distinct, focused color palettes are utilized brilliantly, sans the blockiness seen in almost every other deliberately pixelated game. The application of modern technologies also doesn't produce dissonance since the way everything moves meshes well with those technologies. Instead of sprites, Rain World uses physics-driven procedural animations, which are remarkably fluid and grant creatures a vast range of behaviors and expressions that would require an impractical amount of work to implement with traditional animations. Speaking of, the creature AI of Rain World is perhaps its most impressive feature, especially considering it was programmed by a single person. In nearly every other video game, enemies exist solely as obstacles to overcome, with the objective of stopping the player. In Rain World, "enemy" and "obstacle" are hardly apt monikers for any of the various critters that inhabit each region, as they each share the same goal of survival provided to the player, and will continue to pursue said goal regardless of whether the player is present. This can lead to scenarios where you stumble upon a pair of lizards fighting over a meal, or a corpse produced by an offscreen battle, lending the world a great sense of realism. A whole ecosystem of predators and prey is simulated, and seeing it all in motion is fascinating even when the player isn't an active participant. If only there was a mode where you can safely observe a region like you're watching a nature documentary... As for the creatures themselves, detailing their complex behaviors and outstandingly creative designs would be a great disservice to those who haven't played the game. That said, it's important to note that the locations of creatures (and some items) are randomized at the start of a cycle. While this unpredictability means every playthrough presents unique experiences, it also opens up the possibility that the player could be placed in a nearly insurmountable situation. It's a risky design choice that reinforces Rain World's unromanticized depiction of nature, though calling it "unfair"—as many critics have—would be mostly erroneous. To put it accurately, whereas other games treat computer-controlled opponents unfairly, Rain World favors both the computer and the player equally. If that doesn't immediately sound unappealing, you just might find Rain World to be an unthinkably exceptional experience. One facet that may be a bit harder to accept is the static screens. Rather than having a camera that scrolls along with the player, the view remains fixed and only transitions to the next when you move far enough to the edge of the screen. Horizontally, the view shifts when you're close to the edge, but vertical transitions demand going all the way off the screen. This may lead to a predator that happens to be resting at the bottom or top edge of a screen grabbing you before you can react, though this is thankfully rare and mitigated by audio cues that indicate danger is nearby. Regardless, I find the stationary camera to be pretty fitting. The advantages, like the tension it builds and how the fixed perspectives allow the phenomenal visuals to breathe, make up for any potential frustration. The unusual music of Rain World utilizes "junk audio"—sounds that are sampled from mundane, discarded objects, then tweaked and placed into a piece—that perfectly suits the game's derelict, alien environments. Much of the music is sparse and scripted only to play upon entering specific rooms, so most of what you hear will be diegetic...unless a threat is nearby. The threat themes are segmented into layers that fade in and out depending on the level of danger, which is an ingenious way of reducing repetition and communicating the presence of predators to the player. The main composer, James Therrien, is also the sole level designer and writer, resulting in his compositions being very closely linked to the gameplay and narrative. Apart from being incredibly well-integrated, the music on its own is simply fantastic and quickly became among my favorite video game soundtracks. In conclusion, Rain World is a truly special game, nigh untainted by the expectations of a narrow-minded playerbase or an avaricious publisher. It's challenging, [i]immensely[/i] immersive, visually stunning, boasts individualistic AI that somehow feels decades ahead of even multi-million dollar efforts, and provides strikingly high tension that puts most horror games to shame. As I'm writing this review, no game I've played before or after Rain World has reached such monumental heights.