Well, I went ahead and finished, and I suppose it was worth the time spent, although I think the ending erased any hints of a slightly complex message in my mind. It's a pretty standard anti-consumerist screed, complete with exhortations to tear yourself away from your screen and go follow your dreams. Yawn.

Yeah, this one gets kind of tiresome pretty quick. I played a bit of it a while back, and I thought I remembered its message being darkly satirical, but playing it now, it doesn't seem especially biting, especially since it gets to be a slog after a while. I do think there's a germ of something there, probably best realized in that instructional video in which we learn that the world is freezing, and people are encouraged to burn everything they have as "entertainment" in order to survive. That goes a bit beyond a simple anti-consumerist message and hints toward a completely despairing look at humanity's future, in which we gleefully watch the world burn around us as we hurtle toward extinction. If the game had focused more on this type of darkness, I might have found it more interesting.

Instead, you just basically keep burning stuff and trying to come up with interesting combinations of what you can burn, which gets tedious. The regular letters from Sugar Plumps don't really add much, other than the idea that as we're gleefully destroying everything we possibly can, we're also refusing to make any sort of human connection. After the nihilistic message that's already been hinted at, the attempt to evoke sadness over human loneliness doesn't make much of an impact.

The later bit, in which Sugar Plumps seems to be punished for daring to look away from the fire and wondering what else is out there does make a little bit of an impact., but at that point it's too little too late, and even after that, there's nothing left to do but just keep on burning things. Maybe that's all part of the game's attempt at a message: We're all stuck in a cycle of pointless pursuits that are slowly killing us all, and trying to deviate from that path will only lead to worse misery. Fun times!

I ended up playing until I unlocked the last catalogue, but I don't know if I want to bother trying to buy and burn all its items; is there much point to trying to play through to the end? Does anybody want to go ahead and spoil whatever's left, since I don't think I'm going to attempt to complete this rote repetition, much less try to obtain all the combos?

Well, I also played throught the Foxtales DLC, so it looks like I'm pretty much finished with this game. If you get the chace to play it, it's like a decent extra level or two that introduces a few new mechanics and contains some platforming puzzles and boss fights. It's kind of more of the same, but it works, adding another folk tale to the game alongside the main story. Not essential, but worth checking out if you like the main game.

All right, I've finished the main game (I also have the Foxtales DLC, so I'll be playing that too), and here are some additional thoughts:

I did really enjoy a lot of the atmosphere of the game, both in the quieter moments that involve either making your way through the environment and solving platforming puzzles, and in the more intense chase sequences that are generally exciting, if occasionally frustrating when you have to replay a certain part over and over while you try to get the timing of certain jumps just right.

For stuff that happens in the later parts of the game, I'll use spoiler tags:

I definitely prefer the initial, animal version of the fox, rather than his humanoid form, but there are some decent platforming bits after he makes his transformation, mostly involving the way he can move the various spirits around. There were definitely some annoying bits though, especially when trying to keep the girl alive when she was riding on the walking trees.

I was glad to be able to defeat the "terrible man", but the fight against him was incredibly frustrating, and it took me way too long to finally finish it. Even after I finally figured out that you just had to drop burning tree branches on to the ice (rather than on his head), I spent continue after continue watching fireballs disappear into nothing or having the girl get blasted by them when I had knocked down two out of three branches.

The final big platforming bit reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus, although much shorter, less inventive, and much less tight in terms of controls. It mostly worked well enough, and I liked the sense of scale, but there were occasionally bits when the fox would get stuck inside a piece of ice or I would die due to touchy controls rather than what seemed like a legitimate reason for failure.

Quibbles aside, I thought this was a pretty damn good game overall, and I loved the approach to turning folk tales into a playable narrative that, along with the documentary footage, provided some interesting looks into a culture that I previously knew nothing about. I'm glad I got the chance to play it.

Has anybody tried playing this with a controller? I recently got a Steam controller, but when I tried to use it with this game, it didn't work. They keyboard controls seem to work fine, although it's kind of a pain to have to reach for the mouse whenever I want to use the bola. I'm curious as to whether it's possible to make my controller work, but it seems like a short enough game that I won't be too annoyed if I can't do so.

I also only just started playing, and I think the game is lovely. I really like the character animations, the way the girl runs through the snow and slides on the ice, occasionally having to trudge through deeper snow or hunker down against the winds. I was also kind of horrified how she got really upset when the fox died; that's a good reason to try to never let that happen.

So far, it seems like a really neat introduction to the Iñupiat culture. The videos are slightly tedious when I want to get back to the gameplay, but I commend their inclusion, which really cements the meaning behind the stuff you see in the game.

I think I'm also about a third of the way through, but we'll see how long it takes me to finish. So far I've only gotten stuck in one place: the bit when the polar bear chases you and you have to collapse an ice bridge and then ride on the back of some ghost fish. That took me way too long to figure out. It was the only frustrating thing I've encountered so far though, and everything else is good enough that I'll be sure to try to finish.

1. Never Alone
2. Divekick

I'll vote for Divekick. No second choice.

I didn't make it, but maybe next week!

Ooh, I need to try to get in on this. Not sure if I'll make it tonight, but if we plan to do it weekly, I'll definitely try to do it next week.