On this entry, I'll be covering TESS, by GirakaCheezer, one half of the much more famous OneShot's dev team. And there's a lot of DNA that carries over to the latter game present all the way back in this. Namely, the melancholy mood, striking graphics, and general meditative aura that it gives off.
Nominally, it's an action platformer, but it's extremely easy. The focus isn't the challenge, but rather the story and atmosphere- and it has that in spades.
GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay is about as simple as it gets. You run, you jump, and you have a gun that you can autofire.
You may notice the meter below your health- if you fill it with XP drops from enemies, you can get extra hearts. Not that you'll need them, really- but it's something to keep you occupied as you walk your way to the next story beat.
There are a couple of alternate weapons, but they're not really necessary. As I said, though, the gameplay isn't really the focus here- it's everything else.
GRAPHICS:
This game has a very strong visual identity right off the bat. Everything has solid colors with barely any shading, so it's very stark and striking.
Most of the game's environments are very monochromatic, so that means that anything with different colors, like red or blue, stands out, like the moon in the opening area.
Plus, the character portraits are adorable, in a way that's just slightly unsettling. They're all wearing masks, so you never see their real faces- only cartoonish exaggerations of such. Most of them are green, like Tess... so that means the ones that are different colors stand out.
Tess' sprite in particular is a weird sort of cute, with the mismatched, slightly walleyed mask, the frumpy little hoodie... I would buy a plushie of her immediately.
Sidenote: I love this enemy, look at him he's so cute.
MUSIC:
The music, much like OneShot's, is full of relaxing yet empty tracks, that lull you into a deep sleep... but one where you might wake up at the worst possible time. Tracks like "Warm Coat" give off an icy feeling, yet an odd sort of comfort. Even the most intense track, "Forbidden Pit", doesn't feel like a combat theme so much as a slow, disturbing nightmare.
"Today was a Bad Day", though, is my personal favorite. It feels soft, cold, and yet completely empty, like something's missing. I love it.
THE STORY
(NOTE: The story is the big attraction of this game, so I would highly suggest you stop reading and play it. You can finish this game in like, twenty minutes. Otherwise, read on!)
Right from the start, something is off. It was Tess' birthday yesterday, and everyone keeps mentioning that... something happened. But you never find out what. A letter from your friend Milly is dropped off outside the door, telling you to meet her at the top of the Lookout Peak.
The letter sends you climbing up a mysterious scaffolding, covered in deadly flowers and jumping enemies. Awfully precarious for a little girl to be running around up there. Right?
Even as you keep progressing, the music never changes- it's an empty, lilting tune that sounds like it's leading you somewhere safe, but you can't be quite sure.
When you get to the end, Tess's friend Milly appears, mentioning that looking down at the valley makes her feel safe... and suggests jumping down, just to see what's there.
Uh oh.
Of course, she does, and you follow afterwards. As soon as you get down there, all the colors have been washed out, which is NEVER a good sign.
Especially when you find Milly's broken, bloodied body, sitting right there. Honestly, seeing the formerly-talkative Milly completely silent, mask broken, is a really compelling scare. It's not even a jumpscare, really, but you know something's WRONG when you see that.
The entire game just has this weird aura to it, where it feels like
you're viewing something dark and depressing through the lens of a child
that can't properly understand such things yet, especially when Tess just picks her up like nothing's wrong. The next area is snowy and blue, a far cry from the calming green of the opening screens. The music's filled with ominous bells, and yet it never loses that emptily relaxing quality. At least Milly still looks serene and peaceful while Tess is carrying her around... well, her mask does, at least.
Makes you wonder, is she still in good shape under it?
As you progress, you see THIS guy, with no face, and a blue outfit, who just runs away upon getting close. Hm.
Anyway, when you get close to the mystery man, he announces that he guides "those who are lost here". Such a simple sentence, and yet full of foreboding implications. Less is truly more, in this game's case.
I really like this guy's design, too- just the lack of eyes on his mask makes him a lot more inscrutable.
The next area, is a short vertical ascent, with the music again carrying it. It's darker and more dread-inducing, as if something unsettling is waiting for you up above.
Of course, when a screen-wrapping gimmick appears, that's when things start to get mind-bending. Keeping track of which platforms are on the bottom, and which are on the top... jumping up to reach the bottom of the screen, and back... probably the hardest challenge this game has. (Not that it's saying much.)
Once you reach the other side, the blue man says that you're ready, and you follow him into a white void room, with angelic choirs in the background. If it wasn't obvious before what's going on, it should be now. You have to deal with these completely defenseless black enemies to open the door.
But when you do, the area gets tinted red, with those enemies getting bigger and walking around. Uh-oh. They explode into showers of bullets when they die, so care should be taken when dealing with them.
As the darkness of the red area reaches its apex, the blue man appears one final time, to reveal his true purpose. He's there to guide souls to the next world, and you and Milly are his next assigned task- they died from jumping into the Valley.
But Tess isn't going to go along with this. Not with a grand "I refuse" gesture, but a childlike, innocent, "I can't." It's SO cute, in a melancholy sort of way, being in denial that Milly is, in fact, dead. Possibly.
A boss fight ensues, with him summoning enemies and tossing bullets all around. Jump on some big blocks, blast him out of the sky and wail on him while he's down, and you win. He's not hard, but the battle is more symbolic than anything.
Tess isn't ready to depart, and so the Angel lets her go. I like how it's left ambiguous whether Milly is actually dead or just resting. It's one last touch of melancholy to let the game off on.
That's not quite the end, though... if you go back and don't follow Milly off the edge when she jumps, you get a different ending, of Tess sitting sadly in her room, wondering when Milly will come back. No matter what, Milly's survival is never confirmed. It raises some interesting questions about her- was she trying to commit suicide? Or did she really just not know any better?
And what DID happen yesterday, at Tess' birthday? We'll never know.
There are a couple other extras, like Mirror Mode that layers two copies of the screen on itself, but I didn't really bother with those. The gameplay's not deep enough to need to extract more out of it, and one and a half playthroughs for both endings is more than enough to make an impression.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
This is one of those games that invests heavily into one thing and is much better for it. The story and atmosphere are top notch, and more than cover for the generally middling gameplay here. Honestly, I'd love to see an expanded version of this someday, there's just something about it that sticks in my mind even years after playing it. As it is now, it's a fun, moody way to spend ten minutes.
If you like OneShot and want to see what else one of the devs was up to, play this. If you like short, weird games, also play it.
GAME LINK: https://gamejolt.com/games/tess/34732
SOUNDTRACK LINK: https://girakacheezer.bandcamp.com/album/tess-ost