Tales From Off-Peak City

Tales from Off Peak is a short exploration game, in which you get tasked with making pizzas and delivering them to the strange citizens around the block. There is some grooving acid jazz always bopping in the background, that greatly accentuates the surrealistic vibe that the game offers.

There isnt much to it in terms of actual gameplay mechanics or puzzles. Its pretty linear as well, though there are a couple of secrets off the beaten path. Its game made for those that enjoy weird settings, and really some of the character designs in the game are really memorable.

First, let me preface my review by saying I thoroughly love and enjoy this game. I love the atmosphere, which is classic Cosmo D, the heart and soul of the game; I love the absurd and alien world; I love the exploration, I love the set pieces, I love the music, I love nearly everything. Seeing the looming expressionistic city in the background during the intro sequence, like something out of Metropolis, and the derailed train car dangling over me when walking up the road, were two of many moments of pure wonder I experienced while playing this game. Every time I hit the edge of the map I imagine what strange sights lay just out of reach beyond the extremely artificial barriers that confine the playspace. It's a great game!

Despite this I will focus on the parts that I do not like, because I feel some could be addressed relatively easily and have a huge impact on the game as a whole. My first grievance is with the lighting. For some reason, certain spots are severely underlit to the point of pitch blackness in a way that is completely inconsistent with the environment. Not a huge issue but it does lessen the impact of the beautiful visuals.
My second and main grievance is with the writing. Characters talk and talk and talk until they either run out of things to say, or the player chooses to stop caring about them. Their identities are all over the place, making most characters seem like only slight variations on each other instead of being their own persons with their own unique thoughts and stories; they talk about things they shouldn't know about, like the details of your secret mission (severely immersion-breaking!) and their stories are interlinked in implausible ways that make the world feel small and without nuance and realism, often through shoehorned cameos and referential dialog included seemingly to retain a feeling of narrative cohesiveness that is completely unnecessary. This took a very unintrusive form in Off-Peak but has grown to permeate every interaction, to the point of actively making me less absorbed in this strange universe.

Now, let me postface my review by restating that I thoroughly love and appreciate this game! Cosmo makes games like no other developer and I will be looking forward to anything he makes in the future