Thy Creature by developer MazM and publisher Growing Seed Corporation—PC (Steam) preview written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Thy Creature is an interesting combination of a sort of adventure Visual Novel and sort of bullet hell style combat. Set in a tower full of monsters that eat memories, will you be able to find a meaning to your existence as a patchwork monster?
Thy Creature is the tale of an unnamed creature, worn from running from humans scared of his appearance, he heads towards a tower that is the place of his birth. Upon arrival he is stuck within the tower, and discovers others within the tower, who have had their memories stolen by creatures called the Nepe. So the Creature searches for a meaning to his existence in the tower full of monsters.
In a bit of an interesting twist, Thy Creature is a split between roaming around the tower floors, solving puzzles and conversing with the residents, and fighting against the Nepe in an arena where you dodge mostly shots from the Nepe while collecting these obsidian shards that deal damage to the Nepe when you pick them up.
Now that we've laid out a brief overview, let's take a deeper look at what makes up Thy Creature, and what had me furious it isn't in a full release state yet. Upon starting up the game, you're greeted with a cutscene detailing the current situation of the creature. After waking up and discovering he looks like a monster, being chased out of village after village, he makes his way to a tower. Now in-game, you take control of the creature to explore the tower.
Exploration is pretty basic, where you can only really examine things, run, or open your menu. Soon you will encounter your first resident. At this point you start investigating the tower for real. You will be tasked with solving puzzles, which vary in nature by floor, and defeating the Nepe to recover fragments of memories. As an example, on the first floor you will have these stuffed rabbits you need to seat at tables to open paths.
The Nepe fights are really unique, as they have you transported to a sort of checkerboard field with parts cut out. The Nepe will fire projectiles at you that you need to avoid, and you go around collecting these obsidian fragments that cause damage to the Nepe. The larger the shard, the more damage caused. You move around the board in the same fashion you explore the tower, so it's a really unique take on a battle situation. These fights evolve over time, and will start to include the puzzles you encounter in the tower. Once you've vanquished your foe, you get a little cutscene describing a memory, and a rock that houses said memory.
During your exploration of the tower, there are collectibles for you to find, which give little bits of insight into the world, or just add some flavor text. I did notice that one of these items is glitched out and you can't actually examine it. There are a few other glitches and issues as well at the moment, such as your character clipping through some of the objects in the environment, while most you do get stopped on.
There are also some English translation issues, although most are fairly easy to discern. Definitely the most aggravating was the text boxes though. There's a sort of weird disconnect between what the game allows you to click through and what it doesn't. The text can linger, and despite hitting the interact button a few times, you need to wait a few seconds before you can actually interact with it.
I would also like to draw attention to the art style, that had me reminiscent of a Don't Starve sort of style. The music direction is also really good, and is always reflective of the tone of the scene. At the time of writing this, there were only two floors available in the tower to explore, which is awful because not only does it leave off on a cliffhanger, but I kept wanting more out of the game. More explanation, more exploration, more puzzles, more characters to learn about. .
Summary
Currently, Thy Creature is looking really great. Sure, there are a few kinks here and there to iron out, but what I experienced, I really loved. I'm super excited for the full release of Thy Creature, and you should be as well
Score: N/A
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