Pen Pals

Pen Pals is another short and weird Rm2k3 game, but this is even weirder that other games I played recently. Maroonracoon released this game in 2013, and it's worth mentioning that this was the first game made the dev using this engine, with custom graphics and music.

I've read somewhere that despite being listed as a complete game this is not entirely true, since the creator stated that this game was release incomplete and many players criticized it for this reason (you can also see that the main menu shows four characters, but only the protagonist and Pal have some interesting role to play in the story, so maybe something was cut out). However it has a beginning and an ending, and a sort of simple (even if a bit confused, at least for me, but I saw that's a shared sentiment between those who played the game) short story.


Yes, very dangerous! I see a green ghost lurking... or is it a creeper from Minecraft?

The protagonist is a humanoid panda named Gag that leaves his home and dad to search for his mother. He is joined by his friend Pal while he visits different locations such as Onion Town, a forest and the city of Understanding.
Apparently this is just some sort of walking simulator, or a game of exploration (no combat and no puzzles), talking to people to find hints TO reach the protagonist's mom, but here and there you can find some hidden tasks (that in some cases if failed may even lead to a game over... it's not easy but this can happen!), but just one of them is mandatory to progress with the story.

So yes, it is linear a linear experience, but you can enter almost every house and talk with everyone. Sometimes you can collect items and consumables that have no great importance (except for the leather jacket, that's the only item needed to progress after a certain point), since the game has no combat (but you can still lose hit points and even die in some instances), and not even the "friend" Pal has any relevance to the story. The description of the game says " abusive friend", but I did not notice any kind of abuse or even commentary from him during the story and for the most part it's like walking alone.


Wait WHAT??? Uhm what a cool guy!

But let's go back to the task: during the exploration you can find some sort of fetch quests, a rescue mission (I died once because I tried to, it's quite simple to escape the pursuer but I do not know if there are other places in which you can end tragically the story), riddles and also some assorted weirdness (like the house with the ghosts and the ghost king) that has no relevance to the story but provide some interesting content: some person speak about themselves, others shout you to go away since you entered their home, and there are many bizarre and quirky characters.

The graphics are all custom and create a setting that is both cute and sad, coloured by colorful pastel tints and populated by bizarre creatures like unicorns, ghosts, catgirls, dogmen, rabbit people and other humanoids (some compared the aestetic of this game to Undertale, OFF and Space Funeral, anyway just look at the pics I took). In any case I liked the original graphic and their sketchy art style, I also liked a lot the music and the particular atmosphere of the game: it's sad, very dark (this is a game about abuse, clearly), but also highly emotional and cute. A particular experience without any doubt!


Ow, why? I did nothing wrong! That's so HARSH! Ok, ok let's finish this review and read the...

Final Verdict
Pen Pals, Penpals or Pen Palz is a nice little... experience! It's a difficult game to rate (while being very easy to finish) since there is some deep meaning, there is a lot to see and read here if you take your time exploring every corner. And yet you will feel that something is missing there... anyway it's still a very emotional game and like it or hate it, I appreciate the originality of some ideas. Unfortunately there is clearly a lot of content that wasn't included, for example Pal (the abusive friend) does nothing except one thing in the ending, and the most important characters have just a couple of lines to say and nothing more. Now you may even enjoy this little mess, because I did, or maybe not. Give it a try, if you like these kind of quirky gaming experiences you may like it!