Cope Island: Adrift

im coping

It doesn't take very long to finish this game, but that's also what makes it fun. It may seem like a simple short game with a distinctive mood (music and visuals complement each other well) but you'll keep discovering layers and layers that will make you want to go back and look for secrets. You get different weapons and skills during each playthrough, which adds a lot to the replay value. Certain key items remain in your inventory forever after you get them once, so going through a few times in a row is actually the key to getting more secrets. Of course, none of this would be worth it if the game itself weren't enjoyable to play. The combat starts like a basic RPG but as you progress you'll gain the ability to attack two and even three times in a row. This allows for very strategic thinking as you can heal yourself and use multiple skills in one turn. The endgame enemies are challenging and will force you to give careful thought to each turn. All in all, it's very immersive and fun, well worth playing.

First off, my playtime is not reflective of an actual playthrough. I was a tester for an earlier version, so I logged a bunch of hours before it got onto steam. Second, I received this copy for free. Again, see previous. I was a tester. Now, with that out of the way, let's dig in. Cope Island is a turn-based philosophical rpg with tight design, crunchy-but-simple combat, and a gameboy color retro aesthetic. It's an rpgmaker game, but it does not suffer from stock assets syndrome---it looks and plays like something that would have been an instant cult classic had it debuted on handheld console 20 years ago. The core gameplay loop is simple (get weapon, do battles, unlock areas, do more battles), but the core gameplay loop is the foundation for something that's closer to a puzzle/adventure game, where clearing the game unlocks new and different clear conditions for each following run in an evolving narrative about what the island is and why you're there. If you've played either Mownt: For Peace or Three Ghostly Roses, you already know the gameplay loop, worldfeel, and narrative elements that Cope plays with. If you haven't heard of either of those games, they're both free and highly worth checking out. Just google and they'll pop up. Where Cope differs from its predecessors, though, is in the addition of randomized elements. Your attacks (and therefore your build) in combat is determined by the weapons you carry. On each run, you'll get different weapons, which means that you're always adapting a strategy to the moveset that the game has given you. This is more fun than it sounds, but I did sometimes have issues with drawing similar weapons multiple times in a row and getting an uninteresting moveset for a run. Probably the strongest feature of Cope Island is the setting itself, which you piece together from snippets of dialog related by NPCs. In sort of a Dark Souls-y fashion, Cope Island doesn't tell its story to you directly. You piece together an idea of what *might* be going on from what other people think, and then you ultimately have to make your own decision about whether that's the case or not. This ambiguity is a hallmark of the creator's games, and if you want a title that will clearly spell out its plot and tell you what the right thing to do and believe is, Cope Island isn't that. What it *is*, however, is a well-designed indie game. If you like retro graphics, you like philosophy, you like deep-but-simple combat, and you enjoy the craft of game design, this is probably a full-price buy. If you like indie rpgs, this is worth picking up on sale, but may not be an impulse buy unless you like the things above. If you're on the fence and think you might like Cope but don't want to wager any money on finding out, check out Three Ghostly Roses or Mownt first. That way the only thing you're spending is time, and I *highly* recommend spending time on Ghostly Roses and Mownt. They're some of my favorite indie rpgs by a wide margin, and the free part is just a bonus.

This might be a little game at first sight but it offers great "replayability," which is a crucial part of the design. It's an RPG Maker game but far from your standard fare and in my opinion a better piece than To The Moon. The story is an abstract fantasy, which is trying to touch important philosophical and ethical questions. Whether it succeeds or not is questionable as is the nature of such topics. It certainly cares them well and while the themes might feel little forced sometimes, it's never without a taste. Besides that I would recommend the game for swift gameplay centered around weapons and skills tied to them. This makes each playthrough different. Graphics are really nice and some of my favourite pixel art i have seen this year. Especially the colours are very well selected. And man, I love the soundtrack. It's where the game really shines. Somewhere among classic rock, Carpenter's synths and 16-bit fantasy games, it hits the sweet spot and just rocks.

This game is a masterclass of mood, non-linear gameplay and storytelling. I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. This game has a lot of post-game content available too. I have been aware of zDS's work for a long time, and their games, while they not seem super flashy on the surface, they exhibit a level of depth underneath that is very engaging. I highly recommend this game A+++