The best games of 2021 you have not played: Qomp

Few video games dare to talk about great themes. Freedom, existence, death. When done, it tends to put on the accent on the most explicit aspects of them. Speeches, monologues and explicit representations of the topics that want to deal with, often with blushing clichés that are not as deep or philosophical as their creators think. Because, is not it is possible to talk about these great themes with simple, well-known mechanics, brunette in such a way that they make us feel those deep, important things, without necessarily screaming them in the ear? Sometimes it is. As comp demonstrates us.

In Comp, we personified one of the most famous characters in the history of the video game: the pong ball. Just a square that serves to annotate points, bouncing constantly between two rectangles, until one fails on its purpose. But what happens once the ball disappears by one of the two sides? That's what Comp is about. We started anchored on a vertical axis, then we went to a horizontal one, then both combine, and once we have learned to move in a 3D environment guided by an abscissa axis, they lead us to the playing field. Two rectangles make us bounce with each other in their private ping-pong game, but then we discovered that we have agency: we can bounce as if we hit something at any time, thus giving us the movement agency. And in that way, we escaped from the game of Pong and our adventure begins.

Comp has no cinematic. It does not have dialogues. It does not have anthropomorphic characters, animals or objects. Only a precious black and white with gradations, never pure, an obvious obsession with pointillism and textures, and many geometric shapes, saws and skewers. It's all you need to tell your story.

Because along between its one or two hours of play, we will have to pick up keys, press buttons, avoid predators, let ourselves be guided by rails and defeating Bosses, always with a single mechanics: bouncing where we want. Have agency, minimum, but real, about our actions. We are always moving, we can not choose the address, but we can always manipulate our impulse to go by directing our actions to get to our goal. Even when we return to the rails, as with the rectangles who want to bounce, we are no longer tied to their decisions: we can escape from their influence when we want. Because we are no longer an element of a game. We are a subject with your own will.

This brings us to a constant achievement of brilliant puzzles. While there is not a single solution, and checkpoint are generous, by not stopping moving, we will never have to resort to the essay and error to understand how we have to address each of the scenarios while its excellent soundtrack, of clear influence drum & bass with touches Ambient that makes a special emphasis on melodic textures, is modifying our mood. Something that makes the game complex, but in an always exciting and fun way. Not for nothing, we will rarely know exactly what rebounds we will have to do to successfully pass an area, sometimes it will come out by pure accident, but that is freedom. Having agency to make mistakes, to repeat things, to discover our path only after several attempts.

That's why Comp is brilliant. Because playfully it is excellent, it is a polished game at the end, an authentic example of video game design that is reinventing entirely every three or four minutes, introducing new mechanics over the oldest base in the world, always feeling deep, interesting and coherent. But also because artistically it is a prodigy of preciousness not as minimalist as it may seem, full of textures and details, and narrative exceptional, with an extremely emotional end with which it is very difficult not to feel something through the chest, grabbing the heart with force While we see our ball forward, free, as it has never been.

Because Comp is a game about great songs. Freedom, the sense of existence, death. And he transmits all that through his graphics, his music and his mechanics in a way that, even if we are not able to assimilate him while playing, makes the mere act of playing it satisfactory in a way that is almost magical.

comp left on February 4, 2021. Steam. is available