<
https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/may/06/another-crabs-treasure-this-indie-hit-has-clawed-its-way-into-my-subconscious>
"The Arcane Kids, a video game collective from Los Angeles, have a manifesto
that I think about all the time, but particularly when I find art that
surprises me, or approaches traditional formats in new and exciting ways. The
second line simply states: “The fastest way to the truth is a joke.”
Another
Crab’s Treasure, the second offering from Seattle indie studio Aggro Crab, is
full of truth and jokes – and something else, something rarer, too.
Another Crab’s Treasure is ostensibly a combat-oriented adventure game, in
which you play a tiny hermit crab whose shell has been stolen. You must explore
the depths of the ocean to find a way to retrieve it from the Loan Shark, so
you can return the wee crab to his peaceful life in the tide pools on the
shore. Unexpectedly for such a welcoming, colourful-looking game, it has
intense, complex,
Dark Souls-style battling – and the juxtaposition is really
refreshing. Our hero, Krill, may only be armed with a tiny fork, but with a
little concentration and practice he can face down the enormous, grotesque
crustaceans he comes up against time and time again.
In place of his missing shell, he can wear any number of objects he finds on
the ocean floor as protection: soda cans, Rubik’s cubes, Lego blocks, and
something that looks suspiciously like a Scrub Daddy sponge. If you, like me,
require a difficulty adjustment to the combat from time to time, you can select
the option “Give Krill a Gun” from the accessibility section. His shell
immediately becomes an enormous, disproportionate, but very useful handgun that
one-shot kills enemies on sight. When you are done, you can leave the weapon in
the sand and move on. There will always be another object to use as a shell.
The landscape Krill lives in is a treasure trove of human castoffs. Plastic, as
far as the eye can see.
Another Crab’s Treasure is very explicitly a game about pollution, but the
subject of environmental decay is approached cleverly and with surprising
levity. The crabs that we meet absolutely love their trash. They wear silica
packets as dresses, crisp packets as hats. Maps on the back of cereal boxes
lead them to buried treasure – but when faced with actual dollars, they have no
idea what they are. The currency in the game is microplastics. Plastic is king,
garbage rules the world. Every piece of trash we encounter is helpful to us.
This tactic – using the plastic that humans cast off as the most valuable thing
to the creatures under the ocean – is a fantastic red herring. We are complicit
– isn’t this plastic great, isn’t it hilarious? We are constantly and cleverly
distracted by smart visual jokes. The dark heart of the story truly reveals
itself in a staggering and shocking final act – while all Krill wants is to
retrieve his shell and go home, can he ever truly return after what he has
seen? This is how
Aggro Crab is delivering us the truth, hidden in a
makeshift shell in the shape of a rubber duck."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
