Perfect Vermin

A wonderful narrative experiment that lives in its own world, far from the rest of the hobby. It's hard to criticize a project that makes itself so worth it so quickly and then gets out of your way.

Perfect Vermin is one of those very short indie titles that manages to engage the player through strong compelling metaphorical themes and mechanics that tie it all together, all in the space of 15 minutes. You are basically given a hammer and told to prop hunt, in which "vermins" are hidden as out of place objects in an otherwise normal looking office space. As the game goes a long the levels get more distorted and the challenge rises. It all ties together to the central theme of metastatic disease, its side effects and destruction of the self, and the inevitability that comes with paliative care and dystanasia.

A memorable experience for those that enjoy these short, weird, narrative focused titles.

While the more direct cancer metaphor that runs through the game, both in the way you're essentially destroying strange growths of meat that appear in the wrong places and need to do this while also causing significant collateral damage to other parts that are orderly, is already a novel way of conveying an interactive story, it's really interesting to see just how many layers deep Perfect Vermin goes. The most striking aspect of the game to be is the inherent feeling of unease that brought forth by being told to hunt down and eliminate that which seems out of place, essentially homogenising the setting in which the game takes place, getting rid of anything that seems like it would serve no real purpose. This surreal, dystopian theming is further conveyed in how all of this violence is being broadcasted through a news service in game, with lines such as "they do not feel pain" perpetuating this level of detachment from your actions.

After all, you might be if all the media sources out there are insisting that your actions are good, then who are you to say otherwise? And this is where I think the game shines most to me personally, the idea of the propaganda fed to people through the media being used as a tool to incite further alienation against those which don't fit in quite right, the idea that so many people stop questioning actions taken because someone they deem as more important and/or knowledgeable. Like a lot of good art, I think it's important to keep in mind that Perfect Vermin is very obviously a multifaceted experience that will have so many people interpreting it in a different light, but to me, I feel like it's an especially interesting call to action for the player to make sure that they actually think about the things they're told to do rather than always accepting at face value. Definitely recommend playing this if you haven't it's like, 10 minutes long and is a really great little time.