Disapprove: Happy Game

Well, I suppose it was inevitable that Amanita Design would make a terrible game eventually. But I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.

Happy Game is the newest point and click adventure game from the Czech based Amanita Design, known for their inventive visuals, wonderful soundtracks and playful gameplay. They’re also usually known for cute and wholesome, if weird, titles and even the odd exceptions like Pilgrims from 2 years ago have a more mischievous rather than mean darkness to them. Happy Game is meant to be their first outright mean and twisted horror focused adventure. But in reality it’s more of a trite edgy and teenage angsty one, lacking any creativity usual for their titles.

The demo for the game set the tone, as it felt like a really crappy creepypasta made by a 13 year old turned into a Newgrounds flash game, with edgy visuals, flashing and rainbow patterns that most game designers avoid as even those not seriously affected by epilepsy get nauseated or at least annoyed by those. Yet, the trailer promised more variety and I expected that the opening would just be intentionally misleading and the game would become really inventive, sinister and uncomfortable in a good horror sense. I thought we’d get CHUCHEL, but horror instead of a comedy.

No, it remains as basic, obnoxious with its visuals (and even occasional tinnitus sounds) and uninteresting throughout its mercifully short length. DVA did deliver a few nice tunes here and there, so I’m glad at least that’s a positive. But otherwise, the game is just not fun mechanically with some of the sequences taking forever to finish. And has no interesting ideas, unless you’re really into the lowest common denominator creepy things. If you want creepy and unsettling adventures with a young boy, replay LIMBO instead. Or heck, Little Nightmares has more creativity than this game, even though it’s not extremely inventive itself. And if you want a good Amanita Design game, pick any but this one.