Anodyne, a top-down action-adventure by indie devs Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka, is one that I doubt I would have touched if not for the all-new, shiny, and glittering Steam Trading Cards. (Valve are very, very shrewd.) That Anodyne’s in-game progression is also tied to gathering collectible cards in-game has quite the poignancy to it. Above all, it makes the two a perfect match, and Anodyne was unsurprisingly among the titles that received trading cards during the Trading Cards beta.
Cards or no cards, however, Anodyne does warrant a fair bit of attention on its own merits: It is an infectious, solid action game on the one hand, and a strange, befuddling and rambling one on the other. It is above all a game with the face of Janus, looking to the future and past at once, a hodgepodge of influences permeating from top to bottom, starting with the game’s uncommon visual aspect ratio of 8:9.
Its two-faced nature is surprisingly not off-putting in the least. Instead, I found it nigh-impossible to put the game aside while it remained unbeaten. Anodyne’s cleverly organized, free-form model of progression, and beautiful audiovisual aesthetic beckon the player to continue onwards and upwards until the game is decidedly done. What greater compliment, really, for a video game: Just one more level, one more card, one more bar of health, one more boss! And then: Bang! The game is done, phew, in five to seven hours of gaming (though it can be ran through in three). (more…)