The Underground Explorer

A prevalent rumor about the elusive Kanoguti is that they're schizophrenic, or at least suffering from mild schizophrenia. While it sounds a bit far-fetched, it's not hard to see why people think Kanoguti may have a mental illness.

Kanoguti's trademarks include an unhealthy obsession with disturbing themes such as suicide, murder and child abuse as well as copious amounts of trippy graphics. This is most well exemplified in The Underground Explorer, a compilation of Kanoguti's works made between 2009 to 2011. The objective of The Underground Explorer is to basically just click on random portals(?) to transport you from one Kanoguti skit to another.

Unlike I.R.P. Intelligent-Rackety-Paradise, Explorer suffers from major gameplay problems. Half-baked ideas, game-breaking bugs, plenty of "weird for the sake of being weird" moments, and tons of bad Engrish thanks to language barrier. Most of the time you're just looking at psychedelic animated patterns or shapes, game physics demonstrations or edgy stories about suicidal people hanging themselves. The interactive game skits aren't all that much fun either, with minimal interactivity and some ridiculously convoluted easter eggs such as waiting a full two minutes before the not-so-creepy secret reveals itself. All of this while 2-second MIDI pieces that lack the catchiness or structure of I.R.P. loops endlessly in the background, leaving you with few options but click on a portal and hope that it doesn't lead you to a broken skit that forces you to reset the game. I know these games are delibaretely left for interpretation, but this is Kanoguti at their most pretentious - and I use that term very sparingly, mind you.

In the end, Explorer isn't so much a game as it is an interactive art piece like the ones you see in modern art exhibitions. Once your curiosity is depleted, Explorer has no replay value whatsoever and will most likely be deleted.

It's a shame, really. Kanoguti is a talented artist. But the fact that they're schizophrenic and has no intention of improving their accessibility means that Kanoguti Soft will forever be doomed as an obscure novelty.