You may have heard that mice squeak, but you’d probably be surprised to learn that they are actually very noisy critters. Has anyone ever said you’re ‘quiet as a mouse’? They were lying.
No time with an Amanita Design game is ever wasted.Home / Blog / What Noises Mice Make & What They Mean What Noises Mice Make & What They Mean While the puzzle construction at the heart of Creaks is formulaic, that should not be a disincentive to give this short, singular experience a try. It is, after all, such a treat to find a gorgeous narrative game that owes nothing to the culturally prevalent aesthetics of Disney, Marvel or Studio Ghibli. It would have been wonderful to see this team’s giant imagination expressed through the subversion of, rather than adherence to, well-worn puzzle platform conventions, but perhaps that is just plain greedy.
Cleverly, there is no dialogue in the game – it conveys its story through sound and mime, allowing players to transplant their own meanings and interpretations and giving the world a rich, imaginative dimension. Though the puzzles begin to feel samey, the world itself continues to surprise and intrigue right through to the epic conclusion. The intricate handicraft art style and weird menagerie of beasts will no doubt remind many players of Maurice Sendak, but Amanita Design also has a whole history of Czech animation and puppetry to call on – the legacy of masters such as Jiří Barta and Josef Kábrt is surely present in the game’s surreal folkloric characters and locations and in its uneasy melding of the whimsical and sinister. Alongside the enemy creatures, peaceful anthromophised birds desperately attempt to protect what’s left of their home from the claws of the behemoth that plagues them.
HOUSE CREAKS SERIES
The underworld environment is a sort of decaying stately home, its labyrinthine architecture constructed from ruined libraries, overgrown gardens and cluttered workshops on the walls are surreal puppet paintings that temporarily suck you into them to jump a fish through a series of hoops, or sneak up on two lovers in the park disguised as a tree, or control a puppet in a sword-fight. Mostly, you’re figuring out the correct sequence, trapping one enemy here in order to activate a sliding door over there, with an emphasis on planning and logistics rather than running or jumping.īut Creaks is also a beautiful and darkly imaginative visual spectacle. There are buttons and levers for you, too, all of which modify the play-space to aid your escape. Once you figure out each creatures’ behaviours, they can be manipulated into pressing floor pads or hitting switches that bring down barriers or turn on lights that freeze any foe caught in the beam. Robotic dogs run at you if you get too close, but always return to their beds weird jellyfish creatures float left and right, but always head upwards if they encounter a barrier dark, spiky-haired figures mimic your every move, unless blocked by furniture.įrom the very beginning, we’re in familiar game-design territory.
He must now work his way through a succession of cryptic escape rooms, each inhabited by strange enemies with predictable patrol patterns. I n the Kafkaesque opening to Creaks, a young man finds a mysterious door leading from his tiny cluttered bedsit to a surreal subterranean kingdom threatened by a giant monster.
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