~Absence

"~Absence" is a short puzzle game developed by M256 using RPG Maker VX Ace and is such a weird little game that if I had to pick one word to describe what it's like to play this game it would be psychedelic. It literally feels like your playing through game where the developer was on some sort of drug induced trip like Mariner and Boimler in the episode Room for Growth from "Star Trek: Lower Decks".



Though I'll admit that show definitely has a lot more color than this game does since most of the stuff you run across in this game is black and white with a few exceptions.



Though the lack of color really doesn't detract from the psychedelic nature of this project in my opinion. In a way the weird nature of the visuals is easily the most appealing aspect of this project. Though it's weird nature means it's really difficult to describe the story in any sort of meaningful way. A task made even more difficult by the characters communicating through emoticons and images.



As such we only learn what we are doing after we complete the game where were told we've just created the universe during the end credits. Though the process of creating the universe is rather underwhelming.

In order to beat this game you need to go around searching for objects you can use to complete certain tasks. These tasks can range from crushing certain enemies to trading an object with a non-playable character for another object. About the only challenge here is that navigating the world is full of elements that add to the psychedelic nature of the project by needing to access areas through objects that don't look like doors.



Seriously, unless you just happened to try and interact with that tree to shake it or something to see if an object would fall out. You'd never even know it was possible to do anything with it. Outside of the weird nature of navigating the world most of the objects you need to collect are laying out in the open in various rooms. So it's really not that hard to beat this game since if you have the correct object you can use it when you need it. You don't have to actually select the object from an item bag or be actively using it with your hand like "Blazing Dragons" for the PS1.

And unlike a lot of game's I've covered recently the soundtrack here definitely adds to the overall experience at times since some of the tracks are as unnerving as the world your exploring. Though I'll admit I really wouldn't want to listen to any of those tracks on my own time since I'd rather listen to stuff on my downtime that doesn't make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Though as an overall package I'm not sure if this game is worth experiencing or not. On one hand it's definitely unique and will leave an impression on anyone that plays it. On the other hand it's so weird that I imagine most people would have a really hard time pinning down if they like or hate this game since it's so out there it's hard to think of anything to compare it to besides "Entropy" by TEETH.