THINK! BOZO! THINK!

I was waiting for this game to release ever sense the demo came out and id been following andyland even before this games demo existed. It was WELL worth the wait. and i highly HIGHLY suggest you play though it blind as i did.

But you read the spoiler warning. So ima get into it.

As surrealistic psychological horror point and click game it does its job PERFECTLY. It balanced witty humor and jokes to tell a tragic and horrific story that is ultimetly an alagory for childhood truama / abuse. (At leats thats what I got from it. others may see diffrently)

For such a serious story youd think humor and jokes would fall flat or distasteful but they dont. it feels more like a friend who you know is fucked up and hurt making jokes to hide the larger wound. it works with it perfectly.

Mellow is such a good and well portrayed protagonist for this aswell, you know hes a child yet the reveal of his age still came as a shock to me. He doesn't act like a 9 year old he acts what id expect a 13 year old to behave. a 9 year old forced to grow up as a survival instinct. forced to go with the flow, to be "mellow" in order to grow tougher skin. it is portrayed in a way that makes replaying the game Sting.

the fact that the game focuses on helping other people even when mellow seems uninterested. (a potential nod to a fawn response maybe?) The fact mellow already knows how to fight and is good at it. funny to think about first playthrough but after seeing his home and learning his story it feels darker.

Each area in the game feels whimsical at first but when you dig though them its often disgustingly dark. (In a good way of course, i love it)

Timesville a place filled with silly talking anthro animals with bright colors and a fast clock. but it Turns out its a place haunted by souls a place haunted by a serial killer who takes his victims corpses and makes them into puppets. Hearing all the deaths in detail... seeing them range from young adults to elders to children. the towns folks seem happy and silly but they are scared. of course they are. people are dying, and this is the one home they have. Just as one example.

Though not his biological parents, Henry and the surgeon are interesting... in a metaphorical sense. Henry is scary, large and just gross. nobody likes him. yet i hate to admit it... in the middle there, when you distract him and talk about his figures and he gives you his password for the computer An odd moment of "maybe... hes not so bad" washed over me.

only to be shot down in ending a and EXPECCIALLY after learning the truth in ending c.

i wanna say, i think that was done very much on purpose. Abusive figures arnt always antagonistic. they arnt always angry or neglectful, there will be those soft moments that make you wonder if tomorrow will be different, if things will get better.

only for it to start all over again.

the surgeon i have no idea where to start with... i distrusted him immediately, i learned about his bride underground very early and never trusted him sense. But after ending c he grown on me... there is something so tragic about it all, about him. I cant say i hate him but i cant say i love him deep within my heart either. Another amazing character to put of the "Amazingly, wonderfully morally grey" character list.

the endings i feel are connected by the theme... ima just talk about them and how i viewed them here: ending A: the survivors. escape is NOT impossible, you CAN make it. you can find your "family" it wont be normal but why would you want it to be? Found family and friends who become family Can and IS family.

ending B: One day at a time.. mellow returns home.. hes different but nobody notices. it like he Never left. he can be there for his sister though, as bittersweet as that is. Sweet, as she is sweet and even though they are only on screen together for a few seconds you can feel their bond. bitter... as a 9 year old should never have to be the parent.

Ending c: The truth and more questions.. Did they die? did mellow die? i dont want them to be dead, but i feel in my soul that they are. every other character we meet is alive and well... they get to live here in their homes still... but there's something so melancholic about it... learning all the answer's as dark or as hopeful as they are. to die deep within.

Finding rodger and talking to him was the last thing i did in the game before writing this. I have to draw them.

overall AMAZING AMAZING game. Worth the wait id wait even longer for it. If you haven't played it yet first off : Why are you reading this ?????????????? secondly PLAY IT! GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!