One of the best things about the annual Queer Games Bundle—and indie gaming, at large—is that there’s always going to be one or two games that defy genre and convention. They may not always be the most polished or finished games, but the singularity of its vision is enough to merit at least a spell through. Such is the case for Laughing Apocalypse REDUX, the free 2024 3D walking simulator from Obliviist.
Billed as a “bovine comedy,” Laughing Apocalypse REDUX is a quick sketch that combines more than a few of the ideas Obliviist has been playing with in prior releases. Namely: absurd 3D physical comedy as gameplay, and the fine line between silliness and horror of low-poly aesthetics.
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LSD Jam To Identity Threat
Laughing Apocalypse‘s first run was created as part of the LSD Jam 2023, an event marked to celebrate the creation of the obscure cult-classic PS1 game LSD Dream Emulator. Even if you haven’t played or heard of that game before, you can probably already guess the sort of reality-altering experience such a game with the name LSD Dream Emulator might give, and Laughing Apocalypse REDUX, the polished up revision of that jam project, lives on in that spirit.
Very quickly you’ll discover these cows are the most normal thing in the game.
Not that you have to be, ahem, altered to appreciate the comedy of being able to effortlessly launch cows a mile a way with your bare hands. Nor do you need any help understanding that, the longer you play this silly game, the more you notice that it has a certain obsession with being replaced. In its increasingly bleak and distressing narrative, what once was a silly little little physics game becomes concerned with identity—your’s, and those of the people that you now—and how they might change in the face of death, physical or otherwise.
Will The Apocalypse Come?
There’s no sense in telling you much more for such an easy to launch and play game. These “micro experience” games that only ask a small portion of your time always feel like they can still offer more, even when they ultimately nail what they do. In the case of Laughing Apocalypse REDUX, it would seem the developers feel the same way, as it closes on a “To Be Continued” screen. Obliviist’s website has hinted at a different project—a 3D pest control game called Exterminator Jr.—so the fate of Laughing Apocalypse REDUX’s world is perhaps something we may never see. Given how many good ideas are packed into its short runtime, though, I hope that’s not the case.
PROS
- Free (and worth more)
- Short run time for a impactful experience
- Genuinely trippy and disorienting aesthetic and narrative
- The cutest little low poly death I’ve seen this year
- A genuinely unnerving horror story lying underneath
CONS
- No one really likes to see a “to be continued” screen
- As cute as the tunnel world was, “the other side” felt far more thin than it should have
OVERALL: 70/ 100
Source: itch.io
