The eighth episode of a short series on games I discovered at EGX Rezzed 2017.
Look, anyone who watched a great deal of Monty Python’s Flying Circus will definitely see the spirit of Terry Gilliam’s animated sequences in Four Last Things (Joe Richardson, 2017). From what I can tell, the whole game is a point-and-click affair based on renaissance paintings – cut up and animated with the very best of comedic intentions.
However, Gilliam’s animations drew from many sources and generated humour in their unexpected surreality. I love the ridiculous arc of the Killing Cars skit which is about cars that jump out from behind houses and crush their victims (to ease congestion, it seems). The whole sketch is wonderfully bizarre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0o6OT9ZCko
Four Last Things doesn’t have this. Of what I saw, Four Last Things offers largely static screens and the humour is far less visual than Gilliam’s work. This isn’t to say Four Last Things is some sort of disaster, a dead joke walking.
The humour is all in the text. In the short time I spent with it, I smiled many times. From the opening sequence which chides the player for believing they have agency to the bit where the protagonist begs the church to forgive their sins. There’s definitely a Monty Python flavour to it.
I was sold. And it’s already been released on Steam.
Interested in other games I’ve dabbled with? Check out the series index!
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