🚀 LIBERTY WINGS: a Short RPG about Freedom (Review)

Just the day before yesterday, a game jam ended, that is, an (online) video game development competition based on creating something using RPG Maker 95, a very old version of the series in question. game engines. ...It wasn't well publicized, it seems? Because searching on the web I can't find a shred of an announcement page or one that collects the jobs. Too bad.

Anyway, a creator I follow took part in the competition, and so I happened to play his creation. It actually took me longer to prepare to play it than to actually start and finish, because I was obsessed with wanting to play it on mobile rather than on PC. But, the important thing is that we did it (and I explained how on my microblog, in case it's useful to you). At this point, however, I also felt like doing a small review of the work... why not?

The review

So, this is LIBERTY WINGS, "a simple game about freedom, with cool airships, dictators, and... a cute goth girl!". I'll spit it out right away, and tell you that yes, it's a cute RPG, I liked it. Precisely for this reason, and also considering that it is really short - the first gameplay done completely blindly without running should last from 20 to 40 minutes - in reality I immediately refer you to the videogame web page, where you can download it and try it on your own, first to continue reading: https://yomuu.itch. io/liberty-wings-rm95-game-jam. If you really don't want to... let's move on. At the very least, if you plan to play it, perhaps consider skipping the story section now, or at least not going beyond its first few paragraphs; although I will try not to spill all the details and characters, I will still expand quite a bit.

The story

The game, as can be read from the description (which is not immediately clear when starting to play, but which can be understood as you progress through the story), is set in "a not too distant future", in which humanity is divided into states established on flying islands in the sky. With a war, a dictator took control of these states, turning them into colonies of a centralized government, the "Company".

The protagonist of the story is a normal employee, without precise characteristics or identity, who finds himself having to carry out one of his normal tasks when the game opens. In reality he, as well as all the other workers of the Company, is evidently characterized more as a slave: he has worked and lived there since he was born, and to all intents and purposes he lives to work, due to the brainwashing implemented by the regime dictatorial. Like his colleagues, he is convinced (and partly self-convinced) that life is all about duty

Returning to the protagonist's normal day, for some reason he is constantly full of thoughts, from the moment he gets ready to carry out his tasks until he goes on his lunch break. Among his ruminations, thoughts continually crop up which, from the point of view of the ethics of the company and of the model worker, are, to say the least, wrong. The boy tries to give it little weight, but he can't help but go from the ideal of being grateful for his life and his work, to the more problematic question of who he really is as a person, and if perhaps in the world there is something of a higher value than the obligations imposed on him from above. The tone of the first type of thoughts, however, comes across as slightly false, forced, almost as if they came to the surface automatically only to avoid the worker from a more serious existential crisis.

Precisely on this day, at that moment, an emergency happens in the flying airship: for the umpteenth time, the "revolutionaries" have planned an attack on the vehicle, defined as terrorist by the Company. Also called "sky pirates", these are to all intents and purposes the enemies of the system, which considers them perverse, without dignity, and even to be eliminated on sight. The event itself is nothing new for the protagonist, but this time it ends up completely turning his life upside down

A change of direction

While trying to head towards the safe area, as ordered by his superiors via the intercom, the worker comes across a revolutionary. As she is about to run away before it is too late, she notices the worker, who tries to persuade by quickly telling him her story: she too worked in the company, until one day she understood the truth of the world, and decided to abandon that banal life forever. In another moment, things would have gone differently, but this time the protagonist's soul is in total turmoil, and he therefore decides to listen to the pirate: he wants to see what's beyond the iron walls of the airship, and so he runs away with her.

At this point we will be driving the girl's small ship, the atmosphere becomes more tense, and things start to get complicated. With difficulty we navigate an enormous environment in the sky, extricating ourselves from irregular walls, bombs placed here and there to catch those who are distracted while driving, and above all the Company soldiers, who have their own spaceships and try to come towards us every time we end up among the their radar. You must find two keys hidden in the vastness of this environment to unlock the door on the other side of the map and continue your escape.

The difficulties don't end here: at a certain point, we encounter several blocks on the road, and we will have to go and look for the release button for the only emergency exit available. In the meantime, the ship has also run out of fuel, and the pirate has to stand there and fill the tank. Thus continues the protagonist's journey, now on foot, through unexplored areas of the island. However, on his way, he soon encounters some robot soldiers ready to overturn his plans at all costs, accusing him of betrayal and shouting at him in a totally cold manner

Critical point

The boy actually manages to overcome adversity here too without particular effort... or almost. Before he can defend himself in time, one of the robots stabs him near his heart, making him immediately start to worry for his life. Despite the damage, something inside him tells him that he can't leave everything like this now and, perhaps also because he knows that he would die in any case, he somehow decides to continue and reach the button to unlock the exit. Even the revolutionary, who calls him on the walkie-talkie since time is running out, she can't bring him back once she finds out what happened to him. By now he has tasted freedom, and if he has to abandon his world he at least wants to continue to hope

After some more suffering, dragging himself into even stranger areas, the worker manages to press that damned button, but it is now late, and he feels he is about to die. Somehow, however, the biggest surprise in his history happens here: a bizarre force is released in an instant right from his heart, causing a strong explosion that even blows away the roof that was there. Totally in disbelief, he jumps into the girl's spaceship, who waited for him as promised instead of saving herself, to escape to freedom, this time certain and decidedly tangible

In the end, they did it. The game ends with the boy and the pirate finally safe, and sharing some things about themselves. The future that they want to realize together seems to be that of saving all of humanity, with a next adventure. And it is precisely at this point, the very last lines of the game, that what we read is a strange final plot twist... but I'm silent.

My opinions

The game focuses almost entirely on the narrative, which however, as I have already mentioned, is not totally explicit: some details are hidden, hinted at, as well as continually retold. I even wonder if I really understood them all, or if I perhaps misrepresented or left something out!
However, I actually find it a compelling story, well condensed and harmoniously developed; It doesn't appear too condensed or stretched out to make the game seem bigger, and things come out as they should.

The main theme, freedom, is addressed in a way that seems to recall some ugliness of the real world, without however departing from the fantasy one that constitutes the game. It is not very deep, but not even superficial, and some reflection can tear it away at least for a moment. Is what we have believed all our lives really what is best, or what is right? Is it possible that the world is actually larger than what our necessarily limited knowledge allows us to imagine? It's a little game with a reason, that's what I'm trying to say.

Some details made me turn up my nose a little, but nothing major.
There are, as I mentioned in the story, tiny RPG-style combat sections in the game, but they're nothing special; they are done immediately, without any difficulty, and at times they seem to be just right. In reality, perhaps it is right that they are there, to justify what happens at the very end of that block, but I feel that in my opinion this game mechanic could have been developed a little more, if it really had to be there.

I also perceived the quality of the dialogues decreasing a bit towards the end of the game, which actually presents several linguistic expressions that are not exactly correct, or in any case that sound a little bad. Here we really get into pedantry, it's a flaw of mine and I recognize that it's a banal criticism, but I want to be honest. On the other hand, however, the less than perfect writing subconsciously reminds me of the amateur nature of the game, in a certain sense making me appreciate it more in its essence as a work truly created only out of love... therefore, not all evils have a silver lining .

I liked the exploration-puzzle section halfway through the story, which made the gameplay a little more active precisely on the part of me who was playing, even if I was stuck for more than a quarter of an hour just there and I I feared I wouldn't be able to carry on on my own anymore... Luckily, with a stroke of luck, I finally overcame the challenge, but in my opinion it would be a little more pleasant to have some kind of in-game suggestion; that part can get frustrating.

Special atmosphere

Speaking of atmosphere: from a glance, in my opinion not everyone will like it, but I found it fantastic.
Here too, the amateur flavor is not lacking, between the (almost all) original tilesets with different themes, the different sprites and full-screen drawings of the characters, and the background music . Tiles and sprites are done in pixel-art style, while those other drawings were made in a more classic style (and there are also sketches in the game's extra files!).
I actually listened to the OST before playing, and I had already thought some of the songs were nice without knowing how to give them who knows how much weight, but listening to it while playing... something completely different, it fits perfectly. Not having (if I understand correctly) experience in musical composition, the work that the the game's creator has done is very respectable, I would say. It's perhaps a little strange to think that all the music is in retro/chiptune style, except for one, but it's not something that bothered me during the game.

Just one note: it seemed to me, in some cases, that the audio was mixed badly: in some points the music changes suddenly, without fading or enough silence, and some songs when looped sound as if they they were made for the thing. I believe that at least some of these problems were the emulator's fault, also considering that the game took a long time to start responding to commands and playing new music when certain events occurred (often the change of scenery, but not always ); but others are probably either a game oversight, or, probably, an engine limitation.

The visual and auditory parts, therefore, together create a cohesive ambience, which develops hand in hand with the narrative. Very dark at first, but somehow calm and comfortable; gradually less familiar and then even chaotic as we move forward; completely upset, but peaceful, at the end of the story. Some areas are even slightly dreamy, ethereal, and I can't help but define some of the scenarios as liminal. Who knows if it was all intentional, or if it was a coincidence...

Those slightly surreal events, some even comical at times, scattered throughout the story, lift the most tense moments in more or less unpredictable ways. I also noticed something that I really wasn't expecting... in some dialogues, the sound of the vine boom... I was stunned, this is really too much even for my very memetic soul... this video game has a nice character.< /p>

Final considerations

Having almost reached the end, I probably would have liked a slightly longer gameplay, because right at the last few bars it had become decidedly exciting and I didn't feel like ending it like that... but at the same time, I reiterate that the short duration in this case has its own reason: it allowed the narrative to have its say without lapsing into banal moments. And, in any case, the entire work was created by a single person, a non-professional, in just over a month; considering this too, not only is the final result more than reasonable, but I think it has even more value.

To conclude, I can only renew the initial invitation to try the video game, which is obviously free: between the short duration, being able to make it run on mobile devices with a bit of ingenuity, and the barrier of practically zero difficulty, you have no excuses. I would like to point out that to play it on Wine on Linux desktop you need to open the game menu and set the window view, otherwise (as happened to me) the character will not seem to move; to run the program on vintage versions of Windows (as in the emulator), however, the ddraw.dll file must be deleted from the game folder.

If you get stuck, the game was also all played live by (I think) a friend of the developer, so you can watch the gameplay: https://twitch.tv/videos/2113520874. As if the intriguing story wasn't enough, there's also some more or less hidden Easter eggs, which add that extra pinch of sparkle once you've already finished playing... those I would suggest finding them yourself, it's trivial. (Unless there's also someone else that no one knows about yet...)

Yet another thank you to Yomu, the scary but cute ghoul guy who created this experience, for the good quarters of an hour spent playing the game... as well as the opportunityto distract me from my lifeeven more by writing this review! Ah, and I would also say thank you for explicitly releasing the OST into the public domain... as well as as a WAV file in the game folder, you can also find it in this YouTube video. (Nice surprise this, huh?)

Let's end the article with an insult, why not...