Little Orpheus a cheeky homage
Little Orpheus
Sumo Digital Ltd. Available on Apple Arcade
Little Orpheus is quite a departure for The Chinese Room, the small British development team known for its brooding narrative-focused games Dear Esther (2008) and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (2015). Rather than tackling weighty themes like remorse and death, the game channels the spirit of mid-20th century sci-fi and matinee adventures to spin an outlandish tale, full of vim, about a cosmonaut who travels to the centre of the Earth. Divided into eight episodes, roughly a half-hour each, Little Orpheus is suited for gaming-on-the-go.
At the start we meet Comrade Ivan Ivanovich, seated at a small table in an interrogation room before the intimidating General Yurkovoi. The General is there to debrief Ivan about his mission to the centre of the Earth to assess its suitability for colonization. After descending into the Earth via a defunct volcano, Ivan becomes separated from Little Orpheus, the atomic powered rocket drill entrusted to him by the Soviet state, in a crash.
Under threat of execution, Ivan must give an account of his whereabouts for the past three years and explain to the skeptical general how he managed to return to the Earth’s surface without the atomic bomb that powered his ship. (Ergo, the parallel with the Orpheus myth.)
The story Ivan tells is utterly fantastical. After parachuting from the vehicle, he finds himself in a lush, sun-dappled jungle patrolled by dinosaurs. From there he discovers a city filled with giant blue creatures, many of which are either caged or enslaved by mind-controlling helmets that mysteriously resemble the Soviet-issued helmets with which Ivan is acquainted.
Ivan sets off on a wide-ranging adventure that sees him get swallowed by a whale, travel through a musical city full of large bells and crumbling masonry, visit a moon, meet a famous dog and square off against a czarist general who has gone mad.
Anchoring these wild adventures is the sharp banter between the incredulous general and the questionably credible Ivan, who has a habit of tripping over his words. In gameplay terms, Little Orpheus hews to the familiar tropes of platforming games. Running is accomplished by sliding your finger across the screen of your iphone or ipad. To climb, you slide your finger up or down. Although I did not find the platforming sequences especially tricky, I did mutter in frustration over the controls when the game failed to register a jump or a quick change of direction.
Besides the sprightly dialogue between the General and Ivan, what I enjoyed most about Little Orpheus were the game’s crisp visuals which made me feel like I was watching an animated serial on my phone. (The art style pays homage to the covers of Amazing Stories and other art from the Golden Age of science fiction.)
The Chinese Room’s latest caters to a longing for humour and light escapism.