by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Overhelm
• Developer: Ruari O'Sullivan (@randomnine)
• Publisher: Alliance
• Switch, PC

Overwhelm’s pitch nearly convinced me that it would be for me. An action-horror platformer where enemies get new abilities each time you beat a boss. It flips the usual action game dynamic and pushes back harder each time you take a step towards beating it. On top of that you’re only given three lives to complete a boss before you start all over. And you can only take a single hit.

It should be excruciating, near intolerable, but some smart decisions and a suite of accessibility options not only keep it from feeling spiteful, but allowed me to appreciate the ways it powerful atmosphere and the ways its friction contributed to it.

From the go there’s some familiar inspirations at play–the influence of Alien, and by extension, Metroid, are near impossible to escape. Its near monochrome color palette and low resolution art suggests the familiarity of the Game Boy, or maybe more appropriately, the harshness of the Virtual Boy.

Overwhelm doesn’t seek to play to this familiarity, but to disarm you with it. It uses the lack of information to suggest greater horror and intentionally obscure threats in the visual noise.

One memorable area has enemies hiding in tall grass, obscured by the shape of their stingers mimics the linework that makes up the grass. The area boss expands on this, using colors that intentionally blend with the foliage of the arena, only detectable through the uncanny smooth animations of its legs reaching out towards you.

A mix of high and low resolution aesthetics helps bring that uncanny feeling through, mixing what almost feel like 3D objects into the juddering, limited animations of the regular enemies, with a similar mix of aural landscapes interrupted by the sharp noise of the sound effects. Used haphazardly these techniques could easily come across as lacking cohesion, but here the dissonance feels intentional, tied together by the grit and distortion brought about by the general lack of detail.

Other small details tear at the seams of Overwhelm–the vignetting on the screens borders close in with each death, bosses begin to glitch out of sight and the pause screen shows enemies that might not be there.

These touches bring to mind the oppressive moods of early indie scene horror titles, particularly  Amon26’s horror shooters All Of Our Friends Are Dead and Au Sable, which use atmosphere, imagery and structural wrinkles to support otherwise straightforward shooting mechanics.

None of these details would be something I could appreciate if it wasn’t for a smart set of assists built into Overwhelm. The harsh penalty of restarting after three deaths wouldn’t have been manageable if the game didn’t reset the counter after each victory, and completing a boss also let me begin at that boss location, cutting down travel time and letting me knock out bosses that I knew I could take on right away, without having to carefully trek back to them from the start.

Better yet is its assist mode, which clearly states “Overwhelm is never Easy. It’s hard for some, impossible for others. If you find it impossible, try this:” Choosing assist mode gives access to several options, including changing the game speed to match my reflexes, and most helpful for me, the ability to add aim assist and unlimited lives as well as unlimited ammo, and pause the game while using the map.

By letting me try bosses as many times as I wanted, Overwhelm alleviated a lot of frustration and gave me a chance to take on a game I’d otherwise find near impossible. Aim assist gave me a chance with the difficult, twitchy controls, particularly on the Switch where the less than ideal Joycons made it difficult to aim a second stick with precision. With aim assist at the max setting, Overwhelm essentially took away the need to aim up and down, letting me focus on maneuvering and playing the game closer to a traditional side scrolling action game.

Crucially, all of these can be toggle on and off at any time, and never penalize or shame you for using them. Overwhelm aims for an oppressive vision that rarely lets up, but allowed me to decide where the line for an “overwhelming” experience was myself. As it notes, one person’s difficult is another person’s impossible, and by allowing a more lenient experience Overwhelm is able to achieve its unrelenting vision while being compassionate to those whose definition of impossible is different.

Overwhelm is a deceptive game, but in ways that prove positive. There’s more nuance to its familiar aesthetics and seemingly simple mechanics, and there’s compassion in its relentless approach. It’s an admirable approach, one that I hope is noticed, and replicated at a wider scale. There’s a version of this that banks on its surface appeal, or is slightly more unrelenting, and it’s a version of the game that I’d never have been able to appreciate.