Laika: Aged Through Blood

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Anybody else played the indie game Laika: Aged Through Blood? I finished it lately and it broke me in about five different ways.

You are Laika, a coyote warrior thundering through the post-apocalyptic wastelands on your motorcycle, killing soldiers of the Imperial Bird Army, and you're a mommy. The game opens with child murder, and you go on a mission to find your brother Jakob, who's gone to avenge the horrific death of his son Poochie at the hands of Bird soldiers. Typical motorbike sim rules apply, you have to land on your wheels or you die (despite wearing a helmet). You're also one-shot killed by enemies (although you have a parry shield, meaning if you turn your bike at the right time you can reflect bullets back at the sender). Your bike can be used to block bullets and you reload weapons and parry shields by doing back or front flips respectively.

You will die a lot playing this game, especially first time out. The player deaths are diegetic. Laika has Kenny McCormick powers which pass from mother to daughter when the daughter has her first period. This informs the rest of the story - Laika's relationship with her daughter Puppy, her fraught relationship with her mother Maya - and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who does want to play the game.

I really enjoyed the gameplay, I love flipping around on my little bike murdering the shit out of enemies. There's a cooking mechanic that grants powerups that give you more loot, extra bullets, extra shields and even an "extra" life (meaning it takes two hits instead of one to kill you). However, there is one quest about 75% of the way through that takes most of the gameplay out of the player's hands. Essentially, you drive to a place, then there's a cutscene, then you walk to another cutscene, and then walk to a third cutscene. It's done this way to serve the story, and I get it, but I feel it weakens the game. I would have preferred to have more agency and even the possibility of failure.

The story is heartbreaking and very dark in places, don't let the cutesy graphics fool you. Several times I just stopped and went "oh, fuck," before continuing with the next bit of dialogue. But it stayed with me. I'm sad the game isn't longer.

Also the soundtrack is great, performed by the musician Beícoli, who appears as a character in the game:

[C_Larence]

Started this last night! So far I'm enjoying it but, as you say, dying an awful lot. I'm not finding traversal particularly enjoyable which is a bit of an issue for a metroidvania, although it's early days. Too early to make a judgment on the story, I've only beaten two bosses, but the dialogue that there's been hasn't exactly blown me away.