RBG Colors

What is it that makes a game surreal?

In a nutshell, disorientation, and a dream-like quality of disparity in the juxtaposition of both gameplay and story elements, evoking a feeling of being in reality while also feeling like you're not.

RGB Colors does well in this area, succesfully planting a seed of doubt in the player while you go along, pondering the implications of the game's events while also trying not to be too abstract for the message to not get through.

As advertised on the gamepage, the game takes around 10 minutes to complete if you go through all of it's three endings. Taken as an experiment in storytelling rather than a fully explored project might be a good way of digesting the game, as it does not come without a few but rather critical shortcomings that made me think about whether I was in the right mindset to comprehend the message the game was trying hard to convey.

Namely, the english in this game is a bit bad. It's not impossible to read, and you can more or less get the gist of the story if you assume what the message was, but I believe the game puts a bit too much faith in the player when it comes down to it, and I left this experience with more questions than answers in my head.

The author expressed that the player should draw their own conclusion from having watched all three endings, and my conclusion was that the game could have done a lot better to explain the situation of the player character and the whys and hows of what happened in the game, because the story aspect suffers from a lack of proper setup. I understood that a certain abstraction was necessary for the game to not be too obvious, but i felt the endings were difficult to be tied together in a way that could give you a feeling of true satisfaction. In short, there are many things that go unexplained, and the game suffers a bit for it.

The aesthetic value of the game is it's strongest point. If you had not figured it out by now, RGB refers to Red, Green and Blue; The game's graphics change to one of three pallettes depending on the ending you're pursuing, and the three of them are named after the color you ended the story with. This is good because you know this way if you're repeating the same path or if you're progressing on a different route. One thing i should mention (because i believe it's important) is that it would have been nice if the system textbox and character sprite changed their hue along with the scene you're in, because no matter what path you take, the character and the textbox remain green. Whether this was intentional or an oversight is up for you to decide.

The audio is okay for the most part, although i reccomend to the author to avoid mixing midis with mp3's since it creates an unpleasant dissonance. The use of ambience tracks helped set the surreal tone of the game a bit further and were very nice to listen to, at one point even evoking a sense of insecurity and doubt for what was to come, and that felt really good.

All in all it was a nice little experience that I would have loved had it been longer, better spellchecked and a bit more explored, however it doesn't overstay its welcome and it kept my interest at a reasonable level for me to appreciate the effort the author put into this little project.

I hope in the future the author moves on to produce a longer game with a similar level of mistery and surrealism. They just need a bit more practice. And an editor.