Repressed Reviews

good

It isn't worth playing. Boring gameplay, cliche history, annoying controls, bad level design. I would only recommend buying it if you wanna play in first hand everything you shouldn't do when developing a video game. The only part I enjoyed on this experience was finally seeing the credits rolling.

I'm not sure whether I recommend this or not, but as I had to choose, I said yes. There is some true creativity on show here, but also a lot of filler and uninspired design going on. I don't regret buying it on sale, but if I had bought it full price I would not have been happy. Slow to start, it gets great in terms of puzzle mechanics in chapter 2 and the start of chapter three, but goes downhill from there. I fell this could have done with a LOT more polish, and a LOT more thought, and maybe a map system or other way to have a better view of how your manipulation of buttons changes the world. There is a LOT of running back and forth because the area you are meant to be affecting isn't currently visible or even loaded in. Overall though, I did have fun streaming this game for my little Twitch community, and we had a load of fun joking about it's rather poor story and conception of theraphy.

Beautiful. Haunting. Surreal… And runs on Linux! Repressed is a wonderful little gem with a really cool hook: you play as a shadow! Okay no, this isn’t the first game to play with shadows, but I hope the trailer video shows how this comes from a bit of a different perspective. Speaking of perspective, it’s a bit of a struggle to get your head around at first. My brain wanted to see the character when looking at the shadow, but that’s just not how light works. I think the thing that tripped me up the most was realizing that I have momentum, and calculating the momentum of a character that you can only see the shadow of is.. well it took some practice. However, I’m happy to say that after just a short while of messing around in the very opening area, my brain sort of ‘clicked’ and all the wonky movement made sense. If you immediately drop into the game and feel disoriented and out of control, set aside 5 or 10 minutes to just meander around the first few meters of the opening and get to grips with the way movement works before diving into the story. Once I got into the story I was hooked, as I have a bit of a soft spot for narratively driven linear experiences. The voice acting is lovely, a very fitting voice for the tale being told. Equally impressive is the fluidity of the dialogue as it’s my understanding that the game was developed in Poland, and I would have never guessed it was not made by native English speakers until I saw the names in the credits. Mechanically, I think my expectations got the better of me in the early game. Because of the surreal visuals and the shadow themes, I immediately saw this game as a hybrid of Antechamber and Contrast. In that spirit I tried to throw my shadow against a surface in the distance to ‘warp’ there.. this very quickly led me into the abyss below. Chapter 3 saw the introduction of some proper puzzle mechanics to do with shadow manipulation and they are super cool. Nothing ever felt too obtuse or overly complicated, but seeing the results of manipulating the shadows was really intriguing. I would love to see this principal explored in a more freeform environment. As this plot is self contained, it would not make sense to have a sequel, but a future title building off this tech would be really interesting. A last thought – no spoilers I promise – but if you struggle with mental illness or have had experience with domestic problems, be aware that this title may hit a bit close to home. I still think it’s a beautiful game, but maybe would be best played with breaks between chapters if you’re sensitive to these kinds of themes. A bit quirky to control, a bit tough on the ol’ feels, and a great gem that has gotten swallowed up in the sea of indie on steam!