‘Kairo’ Review – Playing With The Mood Space
Indie games have become a great space for designers to try different things within a game space. Increasingly in recent years video games are challenging what exactly it is that constitutes a game. Do games need scores and game-like elements to be games? If not, then what are they? Richard Perrin‘s Kairo stands boldly as an interactive experience that hinges on the player’s desire to explore.
In similar ways to games like Proteus, Fract and The Witness, Kairo is focused on contemplative exploration and puzzle solving. Structured by multiple hubs, each hub contains some sort of symbol or icon. As each puzzle connected to the hub is completed, a fraction of the icon is illuminated and once all puzzles are complete, an opening to t the next hub is revealed. Each section is very abstract and connected by doorways, with each doorway transporting the player to another equally abstract and alien landscape.
The visuals in Kairo as I said before are very abstract. Built mostly out of simple geometric shapes, the environments derive most of their intrigue from their size. “Rooms” are usually very open and seem to stretch on into nothingness. To keep the same shapes visually unique, the lighting and coloring of each environment has been crafted with care. Dividing the action between puzzle rooms and “mood rooms”, Perrin delivers on what makes Kairo so compelling: tone.
While being centered on the experience and awe of discovery, Kairo is a puzzle game. These are usually comprised of walking on or pressing buttons moving yourself to the correct position in front of strangely shifting objects and occasionally pushing around crates. They aren’t as much difficult as they are simply another way for the player to discover through trial and error. This allows the player to have that sense of discovery but not have to stop and work out a puzzle that breaks the action of discovery. Every puzzle has three hints that can be unlocked individually through the pause menu, although most players should get through without ever needing to use it.
The gameplay in Kairo is a bit lackluster. When walking up stairs the camera will jump each one as if the player had the hiccups and I had to continually toggle the mouse smoothing on and off because it impaired me during timed sequences. The controls are limited to simply moving around the environment, jumping, and the ability to sprint with shift. While the rougher edges could have been polished a bit the simplicity in the gameplay helps to drive the environment as the focus.
Darker undertones are carried by Bartosz Szturgiewicz‘s (aka Wounds) fantastic ambiance in the games soundtrack. The empty landscape and possible evil that you could be awakening by turning on the ancient machinery seems to be apparent through the sounds of each room. It’s a shame that the audio was not handled more carefully because the illusion of each environment being a part of a whole is broken a bit by the jarring changes in sound. When you step through a doorway the soundtrack immediately cuts and starts up the song in the next environment. This is not as noticeable when you are solving a puzzle or take a longer time in a single area, but if you are sprinting from one doorway to another as you would when retracing your steps the sound changes pull you out of the experience rather than pulling you in.
Visually, Kairo‘s aesthetics are mostly acceptable. I do find the raw, rugged and often harsh edges and colors of the world to be quite beautiful in many instances, but there are also some glaringly ugly pieces there as well. In one particular chamber there is a strange, sickly yellow and chunky bridge connecting two outcroppings with buttons on them, and once the player starts up the fan the it runs straight through, the piece vanishes.
The ending was also a bit at odds with the rest of the game because it had such an extreme shift in the tone that the rest of Kairo built up. I fell in love with the minimalism Perrin presented through most of the game, so to see it marred by some strange color or visual choices seemed at odds with the rest of the experience.
Even with all of its objective flaws and bits of missing polish here and there, I still find myself drawn to Kairo and the abstract nature of it. Perrin strongly portrayed a mood in the stone confines of the strange machines and I really liked it. It is hard for me to say whether or not to recommend it because it is a very different kind of game than most gamers are used to. If you are looking to try something different, it’s not expensive and is worth a dive into for $8. By the end of the year, Perrin has planned to release Kairo on Linux as well as iOS.
Review summary Pros:
Moody environments, Fantastic soundtrack
Cons:
Missing some needed polish
Rating: 75%
You can check out Kairo‘s official website and the official soundtrack on Wounds‘ bandcamp. If you would like to see Kairo on Steam, then upvote it on Steam Greenlight.
