“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”: one of the more common phrases to utilize when something more complex and convoluted in design pops up. Not least when that which it’s intending to replace (or succeed over) was fine to begin with. A facet of desperation for innovation’s sake that can plague any medium: films, TV shows, music and of course, video games. In a number of forms on top – characters, mechanics or more worryingly, the tone/story baked in. And while reasons for their inclusion could very well be a means to absolve the player of seeing some static loading screen or two, when it comes to the act of climbing in games, you’re likely going to be stretched to find many (if any at all) who would love for the act of climbing some vertical surface to be more involved. To be more than simply holding some analog stick in a specific direction. Not least if its presence serves only to help the back-end load in the next part of the game.
That’s not to say you can’t make climbing a risky venture on its own, as it so evidently is in real-life. But in a setting such as video games, there’s little else to justify dedicating even more focus and mechanics. Let alone centering an entire game around the prospect of climbing up and up to near-limitless heights and possibilities. So of course Jusant winds up being one of the most surprising creations to step from out the crevices of the more towering releases of this year. In a year where there’s already been a wonderful array of vertical slices and tasters for games I so eagerly want to play the full versions of. But it takes something special for a game to outmaneuver that aforementioned complaint around changing things that needn’t be changed. With what initially sounds like a rather simplistic premise: a game all about climbing one’s way through a world. Secondary tidbits of lore and world-building to discover aside. A hint come the demo’s end that you and the world around you have some manner of a supernatural connection of sorts.
Well, it may be that my nature ends up rather simple as a result, but Jusant’s early taster is start-to-finish wonderful. A teaser trailer whose pitch I initially clung to, given its puzzle-centric nature. On figuring out the correct route upward and even across vast stretches – managing one’s stamina and gear in tracing a path amid the rocks and the structures one can interact with. But having played it, proves that with the right attitude, you can indeed making something like climbing a fun but interesting challenge to deduce. Not least at parts in the demo that require you making circular-shaped sprints in combining trajectory and momentum in targeting out-of-reach spots.
Though Jusant’s demo might not have been its most grueling of offerings, what keeps one’s interest fixated is the way developer Don’t Nod decide against making the ideal route forward, not as obvious or as visible as one might expect. A relief it will be to hear that for anyone who, like me, dislikes modern gaming’s fascination with conveniently-placed strokes of paint or markers denoting ledges or parts of the wall you can interact with. And while specific rocks jutting out of the cliff-face are still visible, Jusant still requires more deduction with one’s controls in reaching the top. Even if that does resort to some fiddly trial-and-error that at its worst, results in a few comical instances of collision detection – your player-character’s model not quite reverting to the right animation trigger or cue.
Minor technical follies aside, Jusant’s mystery is as much about its world and setting, as it is the very mechanics of climbing on its own. What staves off the concern that climbing requires an all-too-steady and careful enabling/disabling of both triggers – corresponding to either one of your character’s hands, making sure at least one is held down when reaching for the next pivotal area – is in its visual storytelling. Navigating as you do in and out of mountains not only natural in shape, but at points littered with man-made constructions. Living quarters and the like that also serve as apparatus with which to carefully ascend and at point, pique one’s interest in taking some optional route over. Be it in the pursuit of an optional text log, or better still, the simplest of pleasures in seeing just how far this more vertically-aligned form of level design is structured.
Indeed, it’s perhaps the ways Don’t Nod go about that marriage of level and environment design that raises one’s level of curiosity beyond just the necessity to progress up the “main path” if you will. And while vertigo is not a personal issue to contend with, the subtle ways the game reminds you of such elevation and risk can’t go ignored. How the rattle of stones making their descent or the creakiness of these man-made settlements persists – as if they’re one human-sized weight away from collapsing. The fear of the almighty drop, or simply just a raised altitude, is one that has populated many a platformer and that’s likely the reason why Jusant’s mix of puzzle-solving, adventure and this more vertical “platformer” philosophy – now flipped on its axis – is as fun to challenge as it is.
Because where platformers could at least grant you the safety net of some horizontal surface to protect you from so fatal a descent, with Jusant once you’re committed to such a traversal, that perilous possibility is much more apparent. Even with the tools at hand – the use of pitons to stick into the cliff-face, one which also serves as the means by which one swings to and fro. That risk of making the wrong move or running out of resources is elegantly matched by the need to work out the ideal route. The demo capping off with having to reach a building’s roof. The route there not as obvious as one might expect – only a handful of platforms, grapple points and opportune sequence of left-right-left-right trigger controls your only reference points.
So then, if this is just a taster of what Jusant has planned. In terms of both routes to navigate, as much a world ripe with secrets to uncover. Impressive on its own that Don’t Nod have already put out a release thatmanaged to challenge genre conventionsthrough some novel twist, juxtaposed with a fleshed-out backdrop. To think they could achieve a similar success again in the same year no less? That climbing becomes this melting pot wherein puzzle-solving, platforming and even level design compliment each other so splendidly. As odd it might’ve sounded at the beginning to base an entire game primarily around mountain climbing, Jusant may just have enough visual and mechanical joy to make the journey there as rewarding as the end destination. Don’t Nod have already delivered a studio-best highlight this year and Jusant looks more than capable on making it two-for-two.
