Cyanide & High Standards: Why People Expected Too Much From Explosm
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By Daniel Sumpton | Misfit Media Columnist
(Contains graphic content)
Cyanide and Happiness - Freakpocalypse (Episode 1) is a 2021 adventure game based on the webcomic published by Explosm. The game is focused on a quirky high school student named Coop, who you will control to look, touch, and talk to everything. You can explore Coop’s school, house, convenience store, local elderly home, and more in the small town he resides in. Between a restaurant that serves a plate of penises, an uncontrollably horny grandma, and a librarian who wants to break your knees, there are tons of amusing things to do and laugh at. For almost every item in the game, Coop has something witty to say about it. There are also dozens of uniquely bizarre characters to interact with and even sometimes do jobs for.
Although the first episode in the trilogy of this indie title seems like a lot of fun for people who enjoy interactable comedy, the reaction of players and critics has been mixed. As of today, the game has a 56% approval rating from Steam reviewers (a 40% approval rating from reviewers in the last 30 days), and professional reviewers like IGN have also given similar, if not lower ratings for the game. A lot of people feel that the game is simply too short. For example, Tristan Ogilvie for IGN who gave the game a 5 out of 10 stated that Cyanide and Happiness – Freakpocalypse (Episode 1) was “short and disappointingly simple,” and described its length as a “brisk four-hour runtime.”
(Steam review for Freakpocalypse, 2021)
So, is Cyanide and Happiness – Freakpocalypse (Episode 1) only 4 hours long? It would depend on whether you are playing the game for its comedy value and exploration, or if you are a critic dashing from main quest to main quest in order to review the game in time. For an asking price of $28.95AUD, my first playthrough was over 9 hours and I hadn’t even obtained all the 55 trophies or found all the cosmetics. Hell, I hadn’t even looked at, touched, and spoken to every item yet. I bought a game that is based on a franchise known for its comedy, so I wanted to laugh at the vast interactable environments, not rush around only talking to a handful of characters in order to see the credits roll. It is the first episode in a trilogy from an indie game that was developed by a small team, why would I have expected a Witcher 3 sized game? Which brings me to another point…
People expect to much from indie developers.
Misfit Media will have more articles on this topic in the near future, but the fact that the top review for Cyanide and Happiness – Freakpocalypse (Episode 1) on Steam is someone who has given it a thumbs down with the reasoning “It is very short,” but has nearly 9 hours of play time has shown the strange standard that players have for indie developers. Life is Strange – Episode 1: Chrysalis (an episode from a game that I love by the way), published by Square Enix received critical acclaim and a 96% approval rating on Steam overall, but it has only 3 hours of runtime. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, published by Konami can be beaten in 2 hours and has an 82% approval rating on Steam, as well as receiving positive reviews from professional critics. Don’t even get me started on how short episodes from Telltale Games are. Episodic games for large videogame publishers clearly have not received the same treatment. My point is, give the little guy a break.
I want to quickly address a predictable retort from detractors of the game. No, it does not change things because of the fact that this game was backed by fans through Kickstarter. If making the game episodic meant that fans who backed the title and future buyers of the product could enjoy a large portion of it at an earlier date, that should be applauded. It is an innovative way to make sure that there is something released when a due date comes around. Episodic games exist and when they come from big publishers, they are typically received incredibly well. At the end of Minecraft Story Mode, when you decide on which member from the Order of the Stone that you have to find, the credits roll. It is obvious that you have to wait for the next episode to find them to prevent further destruction. It would have been stupid to complain that the story hadn’t concluded. So why are people complaining when an indie dev team does it? The game literally ends with “to be continued” on the screen in bold text.
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