Some video games are all about being weird. One of those games is not Broken Reality. Don’t get me wrong, this really, really weird, but it’s also really fun. A lot of games try to just use a gimmick as a way to drive sales despite having an unpolished product. Despite being only a demo, Broken Reality is a wonderful, weird time. And it is our next Kickass Kickstarter!
A Broken Reality indeed
Taking place in a vaporwave and LSD inspired internet, Broken Reality is a satirical love letter to the weirdness the internet has spawned. Whether it’s liking dank memes and advertisements, using your Cyber-Katana to cut through viruses, or racking up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt with your JR Gangsta Credit Card, Broken Reality has a firm grip on insanity. The whole visual aesthetic of the game is a hodgepodge of memes, super bright colors, and 1980s fashion faux pas. The game is really weird. Besides trying to get as many likes as possible, you just go around doing one random objective after the other. It’s like actual browsing of the internet! Everywhere you go most of the “humans” in this world are busy looking at their phones while mumbling to themselves. Just like in real life!
Playing the game
The game is built with a collectathon mindset. Everything is about getting more likes. Some of them are just scattered about the level. Some are gotten through taking pictures, or by clicking on advertisements or other objects. And some are kept in giant groups that you have to eliminate viruses in order to gain access to. The whole level of the demo is there from the beginning, but you need to have certain abilities in order to get to those locations. Some require removing a door. Others you need to teleports to after activating a set of stairs that is only open for a certain amount of time. All the while you’re meeting a mix of such odd characters that range from caricatures of Sonic, the sun hating Easter Island heads, to a literal troll under the bridge.
The whole goal of the game is to get to the Admin. A secretive creator of this island in the world of NATEM. The demo is about an hour long in my play through and that’s without getting all of the likes, finding all of the secrets, etc. It feels a lot like a tutorial level in how it slowly shows you each aspect of what you’re doing. That being said, I would love to just explore this game and level for hours trying to get every like and find all of the secrets. It really helps scratch that collecting and exploring itch that I got as a kid playing games like Spyro.
Music
I can’t say enough good things about this Broken Reality’s soundtrack. Each section of the level contains its own song, and all of them are extremely pleasing to my ears. The songs range from Lo-fi to Vaporwave, glitch hop, and another net-genres. All of it really helps split the level up and give them personality. You can really feel like you’re in different parts of a cohesive world with the places you explore. There were times where I just wanted to stop whatever I was doing and just listen to the music that was in the levels.
Get in on it!
Bottom line: Go and back this game. Is ridiculously fun and they have Jam packed this game with a lot of content. Really tell that a lot of love is being put into this game. During a livestream just today the developers explain how they had spent 4 months just on the demo level! This is a game that has decided to go with the Retro nostalgia train but do it in its own way. It’s not just a pixelated game for the sake of pixelation. It’s an honest-to-goodness rapper haitian of what it was like to play games back in the 90s with a modern spin on it. And it is wonderful.
If you want to check their Kickstarter click here.
You can check them out on Twitter click here.
If you want to like them on Facebook go here.
And if you want to try the game out yourself click here for a demo.