Headspun

[got_quiet]

Name: Headspun
Status: Complete
Site: https://svperstring.itch.io/headspun-dazed-edition
Pairing: None
Description: A stuck up braincell suffers.
Controller score: B


 

Headspun describes itself as an FMV/Adventure hybrid. So most of the mechanisms of the game are a sidescrolling point and clicker, with some resource management, a little bit of quicktime type minigames, and then some narrative detail is layered on top of that with live action, where you, a little worker inside the brain of a guy named Theo, look out through his eyes as he interacts with people from his hospital bed. Theo has been in some sort of car accident, and has experienced major head trauma, as illustrated by the fact that your workplace is in complete disarray. Your job is to drive Theo like Ratatouille during the day, doing mini games that will get you mental points you can then spend on shaping things up, and then interact with some of the workers after he sleeps, as well as dig in a little on what happened and why.

 

There are a handful of technical issues. The UI is not particularly clear. With a controller you have to click around a bunch before figuring out here you focus of interaction is, and with a mouse it can be the same way. Forwarding the text can cause issues, by either triggering something before the game indicates it's coming, or overlapping events so they happen simultaneously and break. Trying to talk to someone if they're near a door is always a mistake, and "near" is always much more generous than it seems it should be. . One time a character was waiting at my quarters, but every time I interacted with him the wrong dialog showed up, meaning I effectively had to skip whatever discussion was supposed to be there. At one point the timer that controls when the day ends seems to have broke and started going backwards, giving me an infinite day to earn money in. Problem is, the earning money part is kind of tedious so although I abused it, I didn't for very long. In other cases the point multiplier failed to work and got stuck at either x1 or x 4. Quests fail to be properly marked as complete, and so on. In other words, although the game is ultimately playable, it's a buggy mess and will be frustrating for anyone with both problems managing bad UI or who gets annoyed if you are locked out of total completion.

The game loop is very simple and just engaging enough to not be too boring. The minigames that compose the bulk of the play are extremely simple. You need to answer math questions quickly, or click to the right beat, or spam a button as fast as you can, etc. Think elementary Warioware stuff. This gives you points which you use to repair the parts of your brain, such as the imaginarium, research and development, the memory banks, etc. Some of these are just for flavor, others create options that let you get mental points faster. If I understand what was going on correctly, I think applying a certain amount of mental points to bring down your overall stress is what forwards the story line, so you could theoretically play the game for a very long time. I think. Alternatively the story will continue no matter how much of the brain you improve, but I suspect something does trigger plot advancement.

As for choices, there are none. The story is linear, and while you can do things like not play in an efficient manner by not finishing quests or doing upgrades, or not talk to the extra workers you hire, none of that has any effect on the plot. The side material was not particularly engaging, and is mostly the sort of flavor text you stop seeking out a little bit into the game.

 

 

The plot, and here is where spoilers happen, is sort of two fold, there's what happened to Theo, the guy you're driving, and there's the relationship of your little brain sprite and his co brain sprite, Ted and Teddy. Your character, Ted, is primarily concerned with recovering as fast as possible so that Theo can get back to work and get his promotion at a law firm. Teddy generally thinks that's a shit idea and wants Theo to get back to his creative endeavors with his old friend. As you heal you get access to parts of your memory bank, which slowly gives hints about what your life was like and what happened just before the crash.


 

The twist made me sigh. I never catch on to "he was a ghooooost all all along" plots and then tend to get annoyed when they happen nowadays. It turns out Theo and his best friend had a fight about Theo abandoning their dream of making a comic, and then the friend gets injured, and Theo crashes on the way to taking him to the hospital, killing the friend instantly. The friend has of course been visiting you regularly at your hospital bed. Your sprite coworker Teddy admits to constructing this hallucination to convince you to stop being a stick in the mud, and you sort of accept this, or at least you agree that you need a break from a terrible job and to think about what to do about your life. The game leaves you here, which feels a little weird. Besides there not been too much opportunity to show Theo mourning his best friend, the game also has some police suggest to you that you might end up getting charged with manslaughter, without any followup.

 

While I liked the premise of this game and the way that live action was integrated into the whole thing, the major mechanics were nothing to write home about, there were a whole lot of bugs, and in the end the game felt unpolished. It's hard to recommend for that reason.