Last year me, Brandi and Graham were terrified of worrying about crimeA bountiful free-to-play 1v1 first-person shooter with map designs capable of bringing nostalgia to anyone who's ever played Earthquake over a local network or using shareware CDs. Our fever ran even higher when we learned that Straftat was the work of those who made it. Bubbdyawesome brutalist exploration game of 2022.
Unfortunately, Brandy and Graham have already left the Tree House, so no one is here to join me in enjoying VHOLUME, a first-person parkour game from one of the developers of Straftat. I sit alone in my room, sadly punching the air with my fists, tears streaming down my ankles and threatening to short out the computer. I think it's also a solitary experience.
VHOLUME is the work of Leonard Lemaître, the aforementioned developer of Straftat, as well as Nathan Grange and Niels Thierselin, whom I am not familiar with. It is published by IronEqual. In the game, you play as Robert, a man galloping through the “abandoned capital of Afro-Eurasia” run by a tyrannical ministry. His mission is to restore his family's revoked food stamps. What this has to do with parkour remains to be seen. It doesn't look like there are other people in this setting.
It's another brutalist dystopian world, with tilted slabs, gaping concrete turbines and cracked windows stacked in such a way as to induce mass trypophobia. Some of the screens appear to depict livable urban architecture. At other times, it looks like a continuation of the spirit of Straftat's abstract mashup with blocks protruding from the fog.
The technology is less '90s than Straftat or Babbdi, with softer, diffused lighting and shadows. I'm not sure which aesthetic I prefer. VHOLUME is a beautiful beast, but it’s as if Straftat was rubbed with aromatic oils.
Expect “motion-oriented gameplay in which the player can jump, run, climb and slide with great freedom.” The true princes of parkour “can harness dynamics, find shortcuts and disrupt the maze's structure, turning each run into a test of skill and efficiency in the pursuit of a given time.”
There is no release date yet, nor a trailer, but several GIFs can be found on Steam Page. I represent Edge of the mirror fans who can live without the glow of the City of Glass from this game may like this. Just like those who enjoyed last year Lorna's Decoy.
