By: Alexander Holmes

Kuentame is a surrealist horror that takes from familiar modes of gameplay to deliver on a genuinely uncanny and disturbing experience.

Translating to “For the sake of eating,” the title suggests themes of consumption, loss, and destruction. The game begins in desolation. 

In the opening scene, the player character is given a first person perspective of a gray landscape. We grab a ticket from the suggestion of a horse and buggy we call a chariot. We turn to a castle and the gates open for us. A large tower evoking the fairy tale of Rapunzel stands there, and within is a labyrinth of rooms. In the depths we find a girl, sleeping alone, in a small bed. Like sleeping beauty, we kiss her awake. Once awake, she expresses that she wanted to be left sleeping. She’s fine with being alone. She rebukes us, and we, The Prince, decide then to force the connection.

She flees, and now the real game begins. Our player character is not the Prince, but the girl. Fleeing from unwanted connections, the world of Kuentame suggests itself to be some sort of software. Personae of different shapes and appearances seek to form a connection, while a snowflake-shaped program offers us shelter and peace in exchange for eliminating the connections of its choosing.

The gameplay of Kuentame is far more active than first impressions would suggest. A kinetic visual novel, this is not. Rather you will find yourself platforming through stages while avoiding a myriad of bullet hell hazards, enemy projectiles, and strange creatures blocking your path. We are also empowered with the ability to resist. Whereas enemies shoot at us with connection bullets, we respond with bullets of disconnection. Rather than killing our enemies, we make them intangible to us, so that they cannot impede us. The game wastes little time to show you how complex and dynamic your actions will need to become to dodge the patterns of reasonably difficult boss battles. Using the strength of its 2-3rds diorama perspective to change the space in which you can safely fight. In these moments Kuentame feels like it is channeling Undertale in a way that is wholly without feeling derivative.

By narratively associating the concept of connection to the contact-damage of other platforming games or shoot’em’ups, the simple presentation is ludonarratively changed into a constant character motivation. A reminder of the clear assault the character faced at the beginning of the game.

The artistry of the game delivers on the surreal in ways that both are fascinating and unnerving. Pre-rendered backgrounds sometimes suggest darkened cityscapes. Sometimes they are the whimsical drawings of a child’s picture book. At other times the inner construction of computer hardware. At still others, the imagery is organic. Bones and organs or things unknown to be alive or dead. The sounds suggesting movement that cannot be seen.

From my initial impressions of the game's demo, I would say that the action of the game created excitement, a desire to overcome a challenge, much more so than an affect of fear or panic. But the setting of the world dangled me between the disturbing and the whimsical. The feeling of lovecraft without lovecraftian aesthetics or tropes.

The character models are hand-made, original 3D designs give the setting a nostalgia of exploring the experimental art-pieces of 90s and early 2000s CD-ROMs. Characters seem either to be these cold, geometric shapes, or grotesque biological fractals of repeating faces or twisting filaments.

It is apparent within the imagery that themes of sexual or relationship trauma are guiding the narrative. However, as a person on the Autism spectrum, I related to the story being told from a slightly different angle as well. The interplay between social connection and social expectation running up against a barrier of understanding. An inability to conform and a lack of desire to conform to social expectation being met with even greater anger, demands, and even violence from good-intentioned people around you. In the dialogue, I felt an empathy for Rapunzel.

A strange young woman willing to speak up against the expectations placed upon her, and not being swayed to become something she’s not simply to meet the demands of social conformity. It made me want to see our little Rapunzel through whatever hardships the rest of the game has in store. And yet still worried that, in a world which communicates in esoteric syntax and esoteric jargon, I may not have the understanding to help navigate these social expectations alongside her.

That little anxiety of navigating the demands of whoever happens to cross our paths. That is how the innocent act of simply waking up to start the day Becomes Horror!

Thank you for watching,

Take care of each other

And stay true.