PixlBit

Video games are art. Many people, including myself, stand by this philosophy and when asked for an example, many of us will point to recently made indie titles like Flower, Braid, and Bastion. All of these titles are part of a renaissance of old school design that are making a comeback on the downloadable front. These highly stylized yet minimalistic games are supposed to represent video games in their purest form. At first glance, ScaryGirl looks like another great title in this tradition, but instead you get something more akin to Tim Burton presents Earthworm Jim watching Invader Zim.

ScaryGirl follows the titular character sent by her parental figure, an octopus named Blister, to the tree of knowledge to find out why giant dead leaves are around. ScaryGirl herself has been having mysterious dreams about a bearded man that a Rabbit guru says can become clear by going on this journey. I don’t really know what to say about the story other than it sure is an odd collection of ideas that merely serves to give the game purpose.

ScaryGirl herself is a little girl who resembles a ragdoll, is missing an arm (only a clean white bone remains) and has a tentacle for the other arm with a hook attached. This is the main mechanic of the game. As ScaryGirl makes her way through the 21 levels, you’ll use this hooked tentacle to whip, grab, slam, squeeze and pogo off of enemies as well as swing from tree branches, pull out weeds and hover by spinning it like a helicopter. Although you can change the hook to other items (such as a fan) as the game progresses, I don’t know why you’d want to as these are basically cosmetic changes.

Whatever you have attached to that tentacle though won’t matter, as the combat is rather robust. You make use of a weak and a strong attack as well as a grab button, evade button, and a block button that resembles the Super Smash Bros. bubble. You will also have the opportunity to buy new attacks from a traveling merchant that appears in the middle of certain levels. All of this gives a lot of ways to deal with enemies both offensively and defensively. You can button mash until your opponents are all gone or launch one up in the air, beat up on a little squishy Cyclops until you can grab them, then whip them into a snake and then grab that Snake and squeeze some health out of him. Sure, it’s reminiscent of other titles but it works well, even if it doesn’t really evolve over the course of the game.

The controls are this title’s Achilles' heel. Although the combat itself works well, movement is not precise. Moving the analog stick just slightly will make ScaryGirl run in that direction and it may not seem like that much of a problem, but I can’t tell you how many times I accidentally just ran into an enemy. Oh and God help you if you have an Xbox 360 controller that is slightly off center due to use. It’ll drive you insane. Also, the hover mechanic can be problematic as holding the jump button activates the hover but you move forward faster as a result. So you’ll start over-shooting jumps until you learn to just tap the jump button when you just want to only jump since the jump isn’t pressure sensitive.

As I mentioned before, ScaryGirl is pretty artsy. Graphics are well done, with layered backgrounds and a macabre animated style.  ScaryGirl resembles Sally from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. The soundtrack is based around a minimalistic guitar and other instruments, resembling that of the Sadcore genre of music. All of this is presented well in the game, but it lacks the charm of other titles. ScaryGirl fails to use its low key setting to its advantage. The levels, though rendered well, fall short in leaving a lasting impression and they start to meld together in tone, even though they don’t all necessarily look the same.

That in itself is the problem with ScaryGirl. The game appears to be in the same vein as Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet and Limbo, but it does little to differentiate itself. Coupled with less than precise controls and you’ll find that the game becomes frustrating because you accidentally died doing something you didn’t mean to. ScaryGirl isn’t a bad game, and as far as imitators go, it’s fair, but why would you play a game like this that lacks distinction when others have done it so much better?