Marbleen Hipowtohlouw: Nimin Gaviag

Note:
I chose this game with a random number generator, and I played it without even reading the project page. I got what I deserved.

Gameplay:

Well, playing this game was certainly an experience. My head is still spinning. The game is what would happen if a kaleidoscope on LSD became self aware and cranked up RPG Maker.

The actual gameplay is composed of a series of small 'mini-games' which, as far as I could tell, you can choose to play in any order. I didn't try to exhaustively explore the game, I simply played until the game showed me an 'Epilogue...' screen. These mini-games are... interesting to say the least. There are a couple of laughs, though. 'Mini-games' is in quotation marks because they could barely be called games. All of them can be played and 'beaten' in less than a minute, and require very little input. The form of each of the 'games' is difficult to describe without spoiling it, but as an example, one of the 'games' just displayed a picture of a slightly creepy looking woman overlaid with Russian text and some sort of patriotic song. Another one was titled 'Realism Fighter', and was indeed very realistic.

This is not your standard RPG. I was unable to determine whether this game is supposed to be a joke, or some form of avant-garde modern art.

I'm not even entirely sure if I 'finished' the game or not. I saw an epilogue screen...? Perhaps it has some sort of meta-narrative that is triggered by interacting with the menus in a certain order.


Presentation:

Very little RTP here. The graphics and 'maps' are right on target, although that target appears to be a strange one. The sounds were appropriate.


Story

If this game has a story, I do not know what it is. The only story that could possibly be construed, I suppose, is some kind of elaborate meta-backstory of what this game is.


Summary:

At the end of it all, I couldn't say that I disliked the game, and I will certainly remember it for a long time to come. At the very least I found this game a refreshing change. You will not have played a game like this before. I would probably have liked the game to offer a little more in terms of progression in some way, or at least for the bizarro mini-games to be tied together to some extent.

I don't think anyone could really regret playing this game, because though it is intense and bizarre, it is not very long and so does not become grating.

Score: 3 stars.