The Repairing Mantis

Eines der wenigen Spiele, die ich wirklich nicht "nur" als Spiel, sondern auch als KUNST bezeichnen würde. Allerding denke ich auch, dass es nicht für jeden ist. Für Menschen, die easy getriggered werden, ist es definitiv zuviel. Ich LIEBE es, wenn Games mich Dinge fühlen lassen :D Nicht immer positive Dinge, aber Dinge. 10/10

Heftig, Es gibt hier nur 2 Lager glaube ich. Die einen die zu jung sind um es zu verstehen. Und die anderen warscheinlich fast 30 jährigen die alle 2 sätze in diesem spiel "mood" sagen. Ich finde es stark 9/10. Mein Full Playthrou https://youtu.be/mXDr7m9J514

An incredibly good but also deeply sad game. I often don’t take warnings at the beginning of a game too seriously, but in this case they absolutely hit home. The game creates a heavy, oppressive atmosphere that emotionally affects you and forces you to reflect. The dialogue and overall tone consistently pull you down in a way that is hard to ignore. What stands out most is how the game deals with heavy themes such as suicide, dreams, and emotional abuse while also raising philosophical questions. One of the most interesting mechanics is that you assign thoughts to animals. This becomes especially clear with the flying squirrels, who absorb the dreams of others and question whether those dreams were ever truly their own. This reflects modern society, where many people follow predefined ideals without truly questioning their own identity. The game offers two different routes, both providing a deeply meaningful experience. One route focuses more on reflection and self healing, while the other dives into much darker territory and presents the player with difficult moral choices.

★★★★★ Wow. This game really messed with me.. in a good way. The Repairing Mantis is a strange and surprisingly deep game. On the surface it’s about a praying mantis who fixes things. But underneath it’s a quiet punch to the gut about how fragile people’s dreams can be and how easy it is to break them without even meaning to. The writing is simple but hits hard. You don’t play for long.. maybe an hour.. but it stays with you. Every choice feels small at first until you realize what you're actually doing. There's this moment where you suddenly go “Oh. Oh no no no no.” and from there it just sinks in deeper. It’s weird, it’s sad and it’s oddly beautiful. The visuals are retro and kind of unsettling but in a way that fits the story perfectly. The way you guide conversations for other characters instead of yourself is absolutely brilliant. Subtle but powerful. I didn’t expect this game to leave a mark on me. But it did. If you’re into games that are different, emotional and maybe a little uncomfortable.. in the best possible way.. give this one a go. Just be gentle. Dreams are fragile.

Ein sehr erwachsenes, emotionales Spiel dass wichtige Thematiken anspricht und zum nachdenken anregt. Die tiefgründige Geschichte fühlte sich sehr persönlich an.

I'm on the verge of not recommending the game primarily due to lack of save feature, so be advised that this is the thing and you will just waste time, if for whatever reason you can't finish the game in one go. Other than that, I don't mind recommending it. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game. As I played it, it was ok. For some, it's gonna be quite heavy and disturbing. Reasonable so. If you play it, you know. The dev puts the warning about the content, you'll encounter, so you know what you're signing up for. I do wish we had more choices but I guess, I might be asking for too much. My main grip is that there's no save feature in the game. If you can't complete it in one go or, god forbid, your game bugs out and you need to restart, you'll have to start all over again from the very beginning. And sadly, I encountered the bug that absolutely broke the game for me. I had to quit and that's how I learnt that my progress is not gonna be saved. Quite devastating, not gonna lie, because I was trying to 100% it for the other ending. But I figured... I was late in the run (spent already 40 minutes in it), maybe one loop (two tops) away from the other ending and I'm not going through all of this again. It's a shame though. But yeah, I feel like it doesn't matter how big the game is, not having a save feature is not a good thing. Power outages, bugs, anything IRL that you have to do right now, so you gotta drop what you've been doing; literally anything that forces you to restart/quit or your PC will just turn off IS going to make you waste your time. Not a fan of that. Edit: As for a bug, because I forgot to mention that, so I had to get back to the recording from my playthrough to write the rest: [spoiler] the squirrel that stands on the edge of the hill above the water got the wings from me. I was told to look away, so I did it. The moment I look again, there's more dialogue bubbles than it should have had. "I hope she succeeded" showed up out of nowhere and didn't go away on top of the current dialogue. I attachted the wings while skipping the buggy bubble. The squirel went to the ledge to look below before hopping off to test the wings. I continued the quest, but then, as it started flying and I moved my mouse up, the bugged dialogue bubble was covering 90% of my screen. Bad positioning on my end, I suppose. Pressing to continue made the current and the buggy bubbles to move forward. The squirrel was taken away as the story goes, while the bugged bubble stayed. So... I goofed around to see what will interacting with it do (probably a bad idea, but hey, I'm a curious bunny, what can I tell ya). So the dialogue continued but the squirrel was invisible xD Moths showed up, ripping the skin apart (it was invisible the entire time) but the fleshy squirrel popped into existence and was taken away. As squirrel and moths disappeared, the ground started shaking and I wanted to move to do the loop. [/spoiler] I moved my cursor to the left and... Oh boy. So the screen went bright as I was teleported to a completely different spot out of nowhere (couldn't tell, if out of boundaries but I bet at least one place was) and then next second to another place. I landed in water in a moment. I tried to get back to the land but that was futile. Even if I somehow made it to the land... Nope. Teleported again with a bright screen showing up briefly. I was yeeted into a few different spots (with bright screen intermissions) that I don't think I can access on their own. So I got stuck and after 2 minutes I decided to give up. I suppose if someone's photosensitive, that is a fair warning too, in case you get to encounter such bug and you decide to interact with it or your game breaks any other way?

Emotionales Meisterwerk

A neat little game about how dreams cause suffering but are necessary to remain hopeful.

Incredible piece of indie art. Do not take the warning at the beginning lightly, this game will mess you up.

Playing this experience (because it's more of an experience than a game) while faded felt like a really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up fever dream. I'm not sure if I would've enjoyed it otherwise but this is a sign to go buy yourself a boof gas station cart and let the dissociation take control.