This is a genre. If nobody else has made it into one, I hereby do. I just played some hours of Babbdi. I've had nightmares pretty much exactly like this: Brutalist architecture, hostile to humans within. Deep shadows. You got to find a way out but there may be none. The game populates the place with depressed potatohead-people you can talk to but won't get much out of.
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| This makes the city look prettier than it is from the inside. |
It doesn't look like it but mechanically this is a parcours-game with a bit of metroidvania sprinkled into it. There are well hidden places you can only reach with specific items. Some of them make you feel like you're on the cusp of getting something about the mystery of this place but never quite get there. It's like a book by Jeff Vandermeer. It teases you. It will not reveal its secrets to you.
If you've ever dreamt of exploring brutalist architecture and post-soviet decay, this (free!) game is awesome. The dreary atmosphere has the greyness of the city, its sickly-looking people (even the sewer-rave looks desperate) and the inscrutable world that you can only leave with a train ticket that is no longer being sold. It's all a bit Kafka. I love it.
To prove that this is actually a bit of a niche genre, I will show at least one more game like this soon.
