There Is No Game Wrong Dimension is a puzzle adventure that will confront you with difficult choices and non-trivial puzzles.
This is not a review. It is useless for you to look for a critical reading, for and against, and maybe even a vote. There is none of this: the freelancer they assigned the article couldn’t handle the stress at work, went sick, procrastinated and then apologized to his editorial manager. So it is superfluous for you to scroll until the end of this page to learn more about There is No Game: Wrong Dimension. You will not find a trace of the game published in 2020 and revived on Switch with an announcement issued during the Indie World in April. The editor in question copied a couple of pages of “lorem ipsum” and then went into hiding. Please do not complain about the gimmick with the editors and return to browse the site politely.
You may wonder if the writer is definitely mad or if it’s all a nice joke. It is actually the best way to introduce a “no game”, an independent production that shatters the fourth wall right from the start, and then crumbles the last remnants of coherence with splendid effectiveness. There is No Game: Wrong Dimension is a comic, interesting and never banal experience. A small pearl that we recommend if you are looking for peculiar adventures. But now it is good to go into details: we want to play, at that cost.
Hello user
The incipit of There is No Game is as simple as it is brilliant: we are the user who has just bought a title, and we just want to enjoy our game. Too bad that the narrator, the same one that should welcome us, solemnly declares that there is no game to use. Unfortunately the developer was not good at managing Kickstarter funds, and we are kindly asked not to ask for a refund: the creator has twelve children to support and an imaginary future wife who needs a lot of attention. Obviously we have no intention of giving up playing ed here it is, destroying the main screen, we ourselves find something playful. Too bad that these experiments end up releasing a dangerous glitch that craves the destruction of the whole world, and let’s talk about the real one, not the virtual one.
The ransomThere is No Game was originally born in 2015, from an idea of the creative Pascal Cammisotto during a Game Jam. The first demo, lasting just fifteen minutes, was expanded with a development that took years to complete. The peculiarity of the story is that the game has largely failed its crowdfunding fundraising, and as mentioned this aspect is brought up during the breakages of the fourth wall in a very hilarious way.
From this unusual pretext takes shape a production that travels between different playful genres, now recalling the graphic adventures of LucasArts, now openly parodying sacred monsters such as The Legend of Zelda (by the way, here the review of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild) . All, as already clarified, with one so large and persistent rupture of the fourth wall to make There is No Game a full-fledged metagame. Wanting to make a comparison with other brilliant productions, the work of Draw Me a Pixel vaguely recalls The Stanley Parable, with the relationship between user and narrator to build the pillar around which the main story revolves (to get an idea, here is the our review of The Stanley Parable). Compared to the cult published in 2011, the freedom of action certainly lacks, given that the progression is framed and very linear, but thanks to its peculiarities There is No Game differs proudly, offering an experience that is widely outside the box.
Chicken with pulley
Wanting to classify Draw Me’s work on Pixel, this would be perfectly attributable to graphic adventures. Although ranging between different genres, in fact, the gameplay only provides a pointer with which to collect objects to solve puzzles of various types. It would be however reductive to indicate There is No Game as a simple point and click, since it is precisely the way in which the mechanics are adapted to each situation that makes this title special. As anticipated, a section is set right inside an old graphic adventure, but the intervention of the player is always seen as an “external” factor to the narrative, as if a benevolent deity were favoring the characters of the story: for example, the stage in question is set inside an old monitor, and by removing the rear panel of the device we would have access to the “backstage” of the title.
Side thoughtsIn the genre of puzzle games, lateral thinking is often mentioned, but if you have not lived through the great era of graphic adventures you may not be accustomed to this concept: this term identifies a method of solving puzzles that provides a particular approach, based on the ‘use of less obvious and more “imaginative” logics. Just to give an example, in the recent Detective Gallo the investigator is asked for a precious black diamond, and although the jewel is mandatory to continue the adventure, we assure you that you will never have it in your inventory. To overcome the obstacle it is necessary to use a lemon popsicle (you got it right), cut it into a pentagon and “dirty” it with soot.
Goodies of this type are dispensed at a constant rate, over the course of five hours (approximately) required to complete the adventure. A well-balanced longevity, especially considering that towards the epilogue (where Full Motion Video productions are also mentioned) we begin to feel a slight qualitative decline, mainly linked to a decline in the general pace. That said, in There is No Game: Wrong Dimension there is also a comedy not to be underestimated, capable of snatching more than a smile. Precisely this lightness, combined with a system of help to solve the puzzles, makes it the work of Draw Me a Pixel excellent even for those who have never approached puzzle games.
The puzzles are divided between those that require a good deal of lateral thinking and others where attention to detail is the main key to success. Wanting to look for the famous nit, one feels one certain slowness of the pointer in the Switch version we tested. An element that makes some puzzles slightly more difficult, but disappears using the Nintendo console in portability: the support for touch controls, in fact, makes the experience much more pleasant and intuitive, which is decidedly solid also from a technical point of view. With the exception of a single bug, in fact, we did not encounter any problems in porting Draw Me to Pixel.
There Is No Game Wrong DimensionNintendo Switch Analyzed VersionThere is No Game: Wrong Dimension is a particular adventure, one of those that break the fourth wall so effectively as to compose a one-of-a-kind mood. If you’ve loved The Stanley Parable, or are looking for fiercely niche experiences, Draw Me a Pixel’s work is for you. We are talking about a puzzle game that distorts the rules in every chapter, and that launches pungent digs at certain commercial strategies of the industry that we have now made the callus for. There is also a touch of decidedly pleasant nostalgia, especially for those who feel the lack of puzzle adventures. Everything is enriched by an exquisite lightness that never fades, even when the rhythm of the adventure loses a few strokes. Ultimately, we are facing a possible cult. A rather ironic thing if we think that we are facing a “no game”. Now the choice is up to you, but please don’t ask for a refund if anything goes wrong, the developer has family members to support.
