This comes from the person who composed or arranged some of classic gaming’s most musically immersive titles: Loom, Ultima Underworld, and Wing Commander II, to name three. They don’t know how the music would have to act in order to seem as though it was intentional and to feel as helpful to the game as a good film score is to the film…. Nobody can really imagine, yet, what truly successful interactive music sounds like.
Playing Sworcery, I remembered this passage from George Sanger’s 2004 memoir, The Fat Man on Game Audio: The first time I experienced the game’s initial chase sequence-you’ll know it when you see it-the aggregate effect of low light, forboding statuary, and ever-intensifying low-range audio cues had me primed to flee well before there was any pressing reason to do so. Sword & Sworcery brims with such synesthetic concordances, engaging the reptile brain as fully as the waking mind. It happens when you first guide Guybrush from the game’s introductory area: You see the entire VGA glory of Melee Island for the first time, this lush, fully realized place and something in the swell of the calypso music whispers, “never mind that you only wear sweatsuits, this is yours to explore.” There’s a relevant moment in the original Secret of Monkey Island, or at least the spruced-up CD-ROM edition that was original to me as an eleven-year-old. Like a well-executed joke, the pleasure is in the experience more than it is in the retelling. And it all feels natural, largely thanks to Sword & Sworcery’s talent for rewarding even the smallest interaction. Inspired by this direct connection, the game’s stellar puzzles elide familar tropes by compelling players to bend and fold the land, manipulate the cosmos, and play waterfalls like harp strings. Its gameplay feels a bit like playing a traditional LucasArts adventure, but by swimming in a pool-fluid, with every touch generating a response from the environment. Its story is a vividly strange stew of myth, pop psychology, and prog rock that merits immediate entry into the High Concept Hall of Fame, right between Laser Floyd and The Silmarillion. A landmark achievement, it raises the bar for independent game design much as the Washington Monument did for independent obelisk design.įor all that, it’s not an easy game to pin down. It manages, with reverent deftness, to evoke and honor the influences of its creators, while simultaneously providing a multisensory experience that feels novel and groundbreaking today. Superbrothers : Sword & Sworcery EP is a transportive, cunningly woven adventure game that oozes confident work from every pixelated crenellation. So, let’s get to it before you dismiss this review as fundamentally unserious and click over to a technical white paper on pathfinding algorithms. I want to hug everyone who had anything to do with this game, but I have to do that with words first.