“Every year, two or three free games with amazing quality that rival those of most paid games appear. I think this year’s game might be it. I highly recommend it as it is a game that could be selected as the best free game of 2024. “
From the beginning of the year <팰월드>While various games, including , created a box office sensation, there was one that stood out in the free indie game battlefield. Released on February 6th <쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>is a platformer game that received an ‘overwhelmingly positive’ rating with 99% of 1,697 Steam reviews being positive, based on beautiful pixel graphics and directing, music that increases immersion, and clean controls. The first paragraph quoted is part of a user review of the game.
Just hearing the name “platformer game” might make you feel like you’re going through jumping hell again, but you can rest assured that this game provides an engaging play experience even though it has a mild level of difficulty. Even if you play slowly, you can see the ending in 1-2 hours, but it was impressive that the main character’s growth and the depth of the world were conveyed very clearly over 6 chapters. What happened to the lamb doll ‘Sheepy’ deep underground?
Game Name: <쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>
Genre: Pixel, 2D, Platform
Platform: Steam, Eat.io
Developer/Publisher: MrSuicideSheep
Price: Free
Korean language support:
# A life-threatening adventure that begins with curiosity
Somewhere in the basement, where all kinds of miscellaneous things have been abandoned, a ‘light’ of unknown origin begins to pulsate around an abandoned piano. The colorful, slowly generated light dwells in the body of the sheep-shaped doll ‘Sheepy’ and brings it to life. Leading Sheepy, who slowly wakes up, the player explores the surroundings.
From an ordinary, if ordinary, introduction, the game stimulates the player’s curiosity. If you take the hidden left path instead of the obvious right path, you can obtain the 0th record. It begins by hinting that many elements will be hidden here and there in the future.
When you return to the original path, you will encounter traces of humans who previously explored this world through abandoned or hidden radios, tape recorders, and text records. Their stories, often found together with corpses, emphasize that there is no choice but to go ‘down further and further down’. The journey of a cute lamb with refreshing steps presents the player with a strange tension between her curiosity about an unknown world and the hidden secrets of that world.
Travelers who have gone before, a deeper underground world, and unknown mystical powers are <메이드 인 어비스>I’m a movie animation <브레이브 스토리> I got the impression that works such as these were similar to the process of becoming persuasive about one’s own world.
Sheepy, a sheep doll that comes to life with an unknown light among abandoned junk
It starts with a somewhat typical platformer structure with cute Sheepy movements, but
All travelers who passed the same route left behind only corpses and records. The world’s secrets are not easy.
Although it is a game that does not support Korean, the English sentences are not that difficult, and you can skip it just by looking at the visual elements.
As Shippy walked along, looking at travelers’ records and maps scattered along the road, he came across a teddy bear that had been stabbed with a knife. If an unidentified light makes Sheepy alive, what makes the teddy bear ‘Patches’ move is an evil spirit in the form of a black cloud. If a matador avoids a bull by jumping and makes the teddy bear fall down on its own, Sheepy will obtain a ‘double jump’.
The joy of gaining useful mobility is short-lived, but the evil spirit follows Sheepy and continues to persistently threaten her. In this way, Sheepy falls deeper underground and moves on to the second chapter.
Sheepy confronts Patches, a teddy bear driven by an evil spirit. You have to avoid it by jumping and make the teddy bear rush into the thorns on its own.
An evil spirit that follows you persistently. Even within the dot graphics, the extremely detailed and speedy presentation stands out.
# Level design packed with content in a short play
Even after the double jump, Sheepy overcomes various difficulties and gains accelerated movement similar to running or dashing, and a leap that allows her to move forward in the air by specifying a direction. Coupled with the fact that Sheepy’s walking pace is slow and the basic jump is not very practical, the player feels a great sense of speed and freedom.
Beyond breaking through long distances that could not be covered by traditional jumps by moving laterally, there are also sections where you sprint like ‘Sonic’ by using warp jumps and consecutive dashes in an open space. The chapter structure took into account both ability utilization and player satisfaction.
The same goes for mid-air jumping. Even when the elevator comes out, the journey mainly goes down, and until the latter half of the journey, it goes deep underground, but after learning the air jump, it changes into an upward journey. The structure of the game is completely turned over. And, as if to drive a wedge into this, we enter the final 6th chapter with a directing shot of a firecracker or rocket being launched into the sky.
After learning the acceleration movement, the section where you run fast as if you are flying like a bullet of light.
After learning the air jump, you are launched into the sky by the power of light. Passing through the ground seen for the first time since the start of the game
In an instant, you move from a dark world to a land above the clouds with the Aurora.
This is the moment when the direction of the game is reversed and accelerated.
On high ground, Sheepy finds a door in the ruins of a collapsed building. The voice heard in front of the glowing door says that in order to complete the journey, you must return all the abilities you have gained so far.
The final boss battle begins like that. The teddy bear, who had previously threatened Sheepy, protects Sheepy by confronting the evil spirit that escaped from her body with a knife. Shipi also sacrifices his abilities one by one to fight against evil spirits. Just like the direction of the game that changed from downward to upward, losing the mobility that had grown explosively means going back empty-handed, leaving behind only weak steps and feeble jumps. A shining portal opens behind them, revealing the end of their journey.
The teddy bear was also a victim. Even though Sheepy has lost all her abilities, she uses her last strength to save her teddy bear, Patches.
# Indie team’s first game and music
If you look at this game from afar <오리와 눈먼 숲>It may remind you of existing platformer games such as , but the actual playing experience is very different. <쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>The difficulty of operation itself is not high, the map is simple, and the checkpoints are very dense, so there is almost no stress about death such as falling. It was complete both narratively and in terms of play structure, so it felt like I was playing a well-made game compressed into one hour.
I got the impression that all the unnecessary parts were cut out, leaving only the delicious areas. <쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>More than half of the taste shown was due to the visual production that made good use of light sources and dot graphics, and the beautiful auditory production that alternated between tension and coolness.
Among these, the quality of the music was particularly high because MrSuicideSheep, who created the game, is a music YouTube channel with 12.8 million subscribers. The channel has introduced a variety of music, including techno and EDM remixes. <쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>is their first game.
“It’s okay to charge a price, so please release it at a louder volume”, “I can’t believe a game like this is free”, “A game that best describes quality over quantity”, “Considering the history of the channel, the quality and importance of the soundtrack need to be emphasized. There were responses such as “No.” Reporters are also involved in terms of audiovisual production and composition of game play. <쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>enjoyed it satisfactorily. If you are looking for a short but cute and impressive game, I highly recommend this game.
▲ MrSuicideSheep, with 12.8 million subscribers, is a channel famous for music remixes and introductions.
With this kind of quality from the first game, I can’t help but look forward to the next game.
<쉬피: 어 숏 어드벤처>is a 1-2 hour ‘free’ game, but there is a developer sponsorship item on the menu screen.
The reporter decided to look forward to their next work.
