Fearmonium is the third original game from our compatriots Glory to Gris, responsible for art, code, story and game design, and Dmitry Emelyanov, working under the pseudonym Expecte Amour (he writes music and sounds). Exactly Fearmonium turned out to be the most noticeable and bright. Of course, a metroidvania visually similar to Cuphead, the action of which takes place in the subconscious of a depressed teenager, where we act as one of his phobias, and are saved in a bathtub with a half-naked girl named Lady Depression, you see, is capable of attracting attention. But how interesting and well-developed it turned out Fearmonium?
And Max has coulrophobia
So, action Fearmonium unfolds in the subconscious of a teenager named Max, who really has a hard time – his mother lives with his stepfather, and he, to put it mildly, does not like the guy. Problems with peers at school. The only outlet – the girl he likes, immediately after a wonderful date at the amusement park, announced that she was leaving for another city. At that moment, a park employee intervened in their conversation, offering to ride in a large hot air balloon. And she only made the situation worse – it was she, like the balloons and clowns from the park, who began to appear in Max’s nightmares.
We play as this park employee, the personification of the hero’s unpleasant memory, working our way up to a real phobia. In the process, we dive deeper into Max’s subconscious, find ourselves in his nightmares, in school and in other locations where uncomfortable memories, anxieties, “objective fears”, other phobias and, conversely, bright images of a teenager are piled up.
The authors’ interest in this topic is understandable. Slava Gris Master’s degree in psychology, although he dropped out of graduate school at age 27. Believing that games are not just about “Press the A Button,” he decided to share his knowledge to “help people learn something new or get deeper into the story [he] created.”. They say it would be extremely irresponsible not to use your knowledge of psychology.
Psychology, education or game?
The plot, according to the author, touches on the nature of depression, and standard methods of protection against neuroses, and a bunch of other things that the author heard at lectures at the university. At the same time Slava Gris assures that if you wish, you can ignore Max’s story, dialogues and problems, and the educational part is optional – just look at the funny pictures and fight colorful monsters, and the game will still not let you get confused.
The problem is that the author still goes too far with this educational part and does not very successfully draw it into the gameplay and what is happening. Yes, he’s trying. When we are told that in order to weaken the bosses we need to find and release Max’s inner fears, it seems logical. Or when we find a passive ability called “Consolidation” – this is “the process of transition from short-term memory to long-term memory,” which in the game world is responsible for autosaving.
But there are many situations, objects and descriptions that are sewn to psychology (or, conversely, psychology to gameplay) with white threads. For example, we find the item "Memory of a Clown Toy", which strengthens the connection with Max’s consciousness. And we are happily informed that “broken lamps now have a chance to restore some stamina”. What, why, what connection.
“One of the features of phobias is the repression of objective fears. And “objective” does not mean “reasonable”.”. “A phobia is not always as destructive as it may seem”. “Will clowns be able to supplant all of Max’s objective fears and take the place of his main horror??» If in press releases and announcements these topics are presented in such short sentences, then in the game itself you often have to read long, abstruse explanations, which are not so easy to miss.
In my opinion, such serious topics still cannot be covered in a colorful metroidvania – the game form is not suitable for illustrating a university psychology course. As a result, such intrusive dialogues do not achieve their goal: they distract and irritate those who do not want to dive into this specific, to put it mildly, topic, and they do not really teach anything to those who do want to.
In addition, talented games like Braid, Turgor and others skillfully operate with symbols and metaphors, leaving us space for imagination and food for thought. And the author Fearmonium tries quite obsessively to chew on everything and explain it, taking on the role of a mentor. It often looks forced and strained. On the other hand, this is my personal feeling. And from an objective point of view, we have a truly original setting, a bright style and a non-trivial story for such games (but quite common in life). It just seems to me that it’s better to present all this more subtly.
A classic of the genre, but with a twist
The gameplay itself Fearmonium classic for two-dimensional hand-drawn (and other, too) metroidvanias, only adjusted for the fact that autosaving here is called “the process of transition from short-term memory to long-term memory,” and to weaken the bosses you need to release the hero’s “inner fears”. Well, you get the idea.
We run and jump left and right and up and down, fight, find useful items like rockets and passive abilities like the same “Consolidation” or “Vampirism”. And, of course, we periodically discover important skills that allow us to go where we couldn’t go before – for example, a sharp jerk or a heavy blow that can destroy stone barriers. You can also summon a flying knight, an umbrella and a wizard carrying over thorns.
There are, of course, boss fights https://nongamstop-casinos.uk/review/winit-casino/ and riddles. The latter are built to move boxes, but not everything is so banal – it happens that boxes need to be dropped cleverly and in the correct order, so you also have to think about it.
Plus, the author tried to add interesting situations. Either we, having inhaled helium, fly like a balloon, maneuvering between enemies and spikes, then we gallop on horses, then we ride on a trolley, jumping over the same spikes, knocking down kids on bicycles and balloons. The latter, by the way, are the local currency for which we buy consumables from Lady Depression. We save with her, heal and teleport to other places (namely the baths) of her stay.
And again questions
However, there are shortcomings here too. IN Fearmonium It’s not very convenient to fight and jump, the heroine sometimes reacts slowly to our actions, some situations are unreasonably complicated (I immediately remember nervous flights in the form of a helium balloon). And many bosses are not very interesting and are simply too tenacious.
Even with a visual style so bright and Cuphead-esque, it’s not all good. We’re talking about clumsy animation and comic inserts, which clearly and not for the better fall out of the overall picture.
The author of the game loves early Disney cartoons and platformers on this theme, but was most inspired by this clip.
Fearmonium even before the release, it was praised by many developers who were sent to watch it as part of indie competitions, for example, from Blizzard, Two Point Studios, NeocoreGames, tinyBuild Games And Creative Assembly Sofia. And we, of course, will praise it – this is an interesting, stylish and sometimes original Metroidvania for 20 hours. Moreover, it was made alone for three years by a Russian developer-enthusiast who did not sleep at night. If we have people who single-handedly produce games that get attention in Blizzard, you can only be proud of this.
But it’s obvious that Glory to Gris (To Dmitry Emelyanov no questions – the music here is great!) simply for objective reasons there was not enough game design knowledge and resources, and somewhere, perhaps, advice on how to bring the project to fruition. Therefore, I really want him to team up with equally talented developers and together they give us a real masterpiece.
Pros: non-trivial setting; an interesting story about the psychological problems of an ordinary teenager; exciting gameplay in the Metroidvania tradition; bright visual style; great soundtrack.
Cons: the educational component about phobias and neuroses seems intrusive in some places – the author chose not the best form of presentation; there are questions about controls, animation, combat system and difficulty balance.
Fearmonium
Best comments
Oh, these COOL armchair warriors and men, for whom everything descends into teenage vanilla and there should be no stories on psychology, because only notorious morons write about such things, etc.d. etc.n.
For context, I’ll include an article from the developer, where he described the work on the game. Kirill Voloshin clearly read it
My three years of night are over: the game Fearmonium has been released – a metroidvania where we try on the role of a phobia
Yes, I remember this one, it looks very interesting, I’ll have to buy it.
Reminds me of a wonderful episode from Last Action Hero. The same one with Hamlet performed by Schwarzenegger. Hamlet epically breaks into the castle on horseback, shoots traitors with an uzi, and at the end asks the question “To be, or not to be.”? [lights a cigarette, throws the lighter behind his back and firmly declares] Not to be!", after which the castle flies into the air. Cool? Yes. But, as modern teenagers say, this is some kind of cringe.
Same with this game.
You have no idea.
Game mechanics don’t fit well with the plot. Even in the article this is noted, about “psychological problems sewn with white threads to abilities”. If you’re making a metroid, make it cheerful and dynamic, otherwise it’ll go bad.
In this setting it was possible to release an excellent point-click quest (the sinister Fran Bow, for example). With elements of picking apart arch-villains from ancient game books (hello, Dungeons of Castle Black!), if you really want to. Layers of Fear, for example, has no combat – but is incredibly interesting and evokes empathy. But Observer was in vain added stealth, which only spoils the impression.
There is NO adequate fight against depression, there is “broken lamps give you stamina” and other schizophasic nonsense. Nonsense that distracts from the actual story. It turns out neither fish nor meat, but some kind of misunderstanding.
And there’s nothing to add. I completely agree.
Oh, this Russian Dostoevschina. Whatever is not a game is always about depression and soul-searching.
In general, I don’t understand this fetish of adding gameplay where it’s not needed, and most importantly! the developer doesn’t need it either. You make the game alone, you make it for three years. Well, make a normal visual novel or quest. Focus entirely on art, music and story. Hype is much more important for promoting the game, and it is more influenced by bright images. No one will look at your Metroid mechanics under a magnifying glass, everyone on the Internet will judge your project by pictures, and specifically by art.
I recently played Strangeland. Also a Dostoevshchina game. A game from the authors of the famous Primodia and Until I have you. The guys are talented, with experience, but it also took them 9 years to come up with this project due to money problems. A proven engine, vast experience, talent, and with all this they were able to produce a movie for 4 hours with problems. The first half of the game is gorgeous, the second slides into a frank film, and the story does not reveal the tragedy of one person well, as they wanted in their imitation of Silent Hill.
That is, professionals with experience, with a ready-made engine, with an English-speaking project AND then experience problems with PR and production. You just decided to make a metroidvania in Russian on one unpopular platform about a teenager’s soul-searching. You don’t need to be a marketing genius to understand that the author will experience wild disappointment from three years of effort spent on the project. And the Russian game dev already went through this in the 2000s. How many projects were bent due to Napoleonic plans. Learn history.
I hope the author will draw conclusions from all this and will not lose heart: if you are alone, then it is better to do a small but bright project.And Dostoevschina for the sake of Dostoevschina is not needed. You always need to think about how she will look in the eyes of others. I don’t want to start this project, because I can see from the screenshots that teenage vanilla problems await me. I experienced the same feelings from Inmost. Well, such Dostoevschina in the spirit of a vanilla emoto girl looks inappropriate. Melancholy, limbo, Dostoevschina and suffering can be revealed more subtly, since there are plenty of examples.
