"The company of myself" - the life motto of the target audience

The company of myself is an online flash game by Eli Piilonen, a puzzle platformer that

explores the life of a hermit via a deep metaphor about how he helps himself through the difficulties in his life.

The games main mechanic is an interesting introspection into loneliness, allowing the player to literally "help themselves" by pressing space at any point in the level to restart with a ghost version of themselves that will follow their previous course of action, allowing for an interesting puzzle solving system whereby the player can use themselves as a makeshift platform or use other versions of themselves to open doors for them.

While interesting this mechanic tends to become tedious fast, especially in the longer levels where the player must use themseles as a platform over and over, meaning that they have

To run through sections of the level again and again with no reprise and very little feeling of accomplishment, as each run through only means that the player has progressed one platform further.

In some ways the game feels as though it wasn't thought through fully, for example in one of the earlier sections the game gave me a limited number of lives, meaning I could only revive the character once, on the final life I fell down into a hole that was meant for the ghost version of myself and couldn't revive to get out. The game does have a restart level button 'R' but the game never told me this. And yes I know I should check the controls for a game before I start playing but I feel like the game should be able to teach me its controls, especially give the long contrived pieces of text constantly on the screen, really? How hard is it to include a "press 'r' to restart" somewhere?

Overall the game is fun and interesting, the analogy of loneliness portrayed through the game is definitely interesting and feels fluid and like it works well with the games mechanics, as well as contrasting nicely with the bright fluffy aesthetic of the game.

Finally I would recommend this game, if not for the slightly tedious gameplay then at least for the deep and interesting story / introspection.

#blogpost #platformer #puzzle #2d #flash #browser