Kickstarter is a marvellous thing for the games industry, isn’t it? It gives exciting and interesting prospects like the Octodad of recent memory a chance to be made. It produces its fair share of drama, but when it can help produce games like Monochroma, it can only be a good thing.

Monochroma is a 2D platformer with physics-based puzzles set in a bleak world of greys and blacks. You’re probably thinking ‘Limbo‘, but there’s more. It also tells the story (without dialogue) of two brothers enduring through punishing circumstances in an unfeeling world that feels vastly larger than then. Now you’re probably thinking ‘Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons‘.

It may not be original, as practically everything aspect of the game has been tried and tested in numerous others, but Monochroma offers an enticing experience, and is a welcome understated break from the bloated triple A titles arriving on the shelves week after week.

In a dystopian world dominated by a sinister corporation that produces what appears to be robot-friends for children, two brothers are skipping along rain-sodden rooftops when the younger brother falls through and injures himself. The older brother then takes it upon himself to carry his sibling to safety. I don’t know if they have a home. I don’t know if they have a family. All I know is that they have each other.

There’s a lot of about the world of Monochroma that remains a mystery to me. There’s an art to telling a story without words, and if done correctly, the player’s imagination can be coaxed and enflamed far more than in games where everything is revealed. I was constantly surprised by the grim world depicted, asking myself ‘why’ and ‘how’ with each depressing revelation.

I was also surprised by the depth of the visuals. Despite being 2D, Monochroma’s world feels vast and sprawling. The backgrounds are incredibly detailed and say more about the story and the depressing environments than words ever could.

The gameplay is something of a mixed bag. The older brother can only place his younger brother in areas that are lit by street lights, and when the older brother is without the burden of his sibling, he can run faster and jump higher. As a result, many of the puzzles revolve around placing the younger brother in the light and then solving a puzzle before returning to collect him again.

The puzzles range from somewhat interesting, to frustrating, to literally copied off the aforementioned Limbo. Fortunately, its rarely so difficult that the puzzles break the flow. Most of the time they’re satisfying to solve and intelligent enough in their design.

The game is at its best when the brothers are being pursued by a lumbering antagonist who seems to be a fattened up version of the child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It manages to instil genuine panic and fear when faced with a mysterious villain of such unquestionable menace.

Monochroma has one huge flaw in its gameplay. Like Limbo (yes, I’m going to keep mentioning Limbo), much of the puzzles involve an element of ‘trial and error’. Often, the player won’t know that something will kill them, or that they won’t make a jump, until they’ve attempted and splattered against the floor.

To implement trial and error gameplay effectively, the time between dying and returning to the game needs to be practically instant to prevent frustration. In Super Meat Boy, you die, and you die, and you die. It’s hard to get worked up though, because before you’ve spat out your first curse word, you’re back in the action. In Monochroma, you die, and then you are greeted with a loading screen. This gives you time to stew on how frustrating it gets.

Never is this problem more apparent than during the final boss. After a continual battle of wits with the lumbering child-catcher I mentioned earlier, a new antagonist who looks like Slender Man had sex with a squid is introduced and the final showdown is with him. I have a real issue with games who replace the main baddie five minutes before the end of the game and expect the player to be invested in defeating him.

The ensuing fight is frustrating and out-of-step with Monochroma’s patient puzzle-solving and occasional bursts of energy, and the inevitable loading screen that greets you with each defeat makes you want to bang your head against the wall. Or was that just me?

Despite its lack of originality and occasional misstep, Monochroma is an enjoyable puzzle-platformer that sets a very effective tone and takes place in a mysterious and intriguing world of rain and colourless misery. Residents of the United Kingdom will know what I’m talking about.

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