Anomie Reviews

The first thing that caught my eye about Anomie was the screenshots. Though they look simple and flat at first, their minimalist composition successfully conveys a gloomy, oppressive, and lonely atmosphere even before the game begins, and that meant I could never get the game out of my head, despite the game's clear low budget. As I started the game itself, I was glad to see this melancholic atmosphere carried over. The game takes place in an unspecified apocalyptic event, which forces the protagonist to be separated from his family and moved to an apartment complex in the middle of nowhere, where he and hundreds of other strangers will have to just...stay in until further notice. This makes for a very distinct type of apocalyptic setting as it is neither after the end of the world, which at least provides a fresh start and opportunity to heal, nor before the end of the world like in a film like Last Night, where all of humanity is doomed but at least granted time to make peace with their deaths, but a "Mid-Apocalypse", a kind of limbo in between: The world has spiraled into chaos, and everyone's just stuck how, when or if they'll make it out the other side - kind of like during Covid, if it was a kind of Cancer instead. This is where the game's minimalist visuals stand out the most; it's like the whole world these characters inhabit is one giant liminal space, with the apartment complex being both comforting in its safety and unnerving in its secludedness, allowing the game's tone to seamlessly go from cozy to tense. Despite the game being a Sound Novel, i.e. literally having no gameplay besides clicking to the next page, I found myself very absorbed. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really stick the landing. After an extremely tense climax where everything goes to hell, it all gets solved [spoiler]with this weird sci-fi twist[/spoiler] that, while tragic, still can't help feeling like a cop-out. Still, I mostly look back on my time with the game fondly, as I think that, as of this writing, we all can relate to feeling trapped in a kind of dystopic limbo, never sure of when or how the other shoe will drop and if we'll survive it