Volume

I'm pretty close to the end of 'Volume' - a cool little stealth and strategy game from Mike Bithell. That's the guy who made 'Thomas Was Alone', a super cool and funny platformer from 2012.

Thomas Was Alone is great, and you should definitely play it. It's a masterclass in efficient characteristation and storytelling. It pulls off that rare trick of merging gameplay with narrative, using brilliantly written narration to give quirky life to its characters.

Who you calling quirky?

Volume doesn't have quite the elegant simplicity of its predecessor. Thomas was a side on 2D platformer which made ingenious use of its characters - all of whom had different 'skills' - to navigate through simple but challenging mazes.

The same principle sort of applies with Volume. This time the mazes are 3 dimensional, and rather than jumping and fitting through spaces, the challenge lays in avoiding the patrolling robot guard things.

At first I felt a little let down by the game. It seemed cluttered, after the hypnotic lo-fi aesthetic of Thomas. I played through a few levels and though I was enjoying the mechanics, there seemed to be something missing.


The Sound of his Voice

After a while I realised that what I was missing was the character of the game. The narration on Thomas succeeded in making me really care about the characters, even though they were simple little blocks of colour. Robert - the protagonist in Volume - is much less engaging. He speaks in a fey, whiny voice which I find hard to love, and pontificates endlessly about his mission.

And what is his mission? I know he has one, and it seems to have something to do with stealing things. There's a definite Robin Hood vibe going on. But a lot of the story seems to be communicated through rolls of tiny text between missions. And after a while of trying to read it, I got bored and started to skip through.

Now you'd be within your rights if you now said "Well that's why you're not as engaged, then - you're not paying attention."

But I am engaged. I'm very engaged indeed.



Just Can't Stop

The thing is, the story in Volume doesn't matter at all. Once I stopped trying to follow it, and resolved to ignore the dialogue, I had an amazing time.

The level design is tremendous. Each level - and there are dozens of them - is playable in a few minutes. Or longer if, like me, you are mostly rubbish at avoiding the guards. Each level is basically a puzzle. How do you navigate this collection of rooms and corridors, avoiding guard patrols, to collect the little white diamond things that probably represent something important if I read the story?

The levels progress in complexity, teaching you as you go along. Guards increase in number and change up their behaviour patterns. Environmental features such as force-fields and keys are introduced. Cool toys appear, for use against the enemy - invisibility cloaks, sound projectors to distract the guards. One fantastic device sends a ghostly image of your character running across a room, luring the guards in pursuit.

Overall, then, a wonderful game. It has one of the most engaging sets of mechanics I've come across, and that's because everything is pointing in the same direction. The gameplay focus never changes: get the diamond things, avoid the guards, escape the level. The mechanics all facilitate interesting play along these lines, combining in ingenious and enthralling ways.

I've lost count of the number of times I've finished a level and said to myself "I'll just do one more..."

Which is the highest praise I can think of. I just don't think it needed the story. It's good enough without.