We love a good diegetic interface here in the treehouse, whether it’s the analog radar bends of HighFleet or the countless bulky flickables of PVKK (Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant. Duh.) fifth moss jam is currently happening on Itch.io and for me the one that stands out the most so far is Armored Nightjar. It’s a first-person pilot-em-up game that puts you in the cockpit of a Locust, a rusty bucket on an essential mission on an industrial desert planet. The more the introductory text emphasizes the importance of this mission, the more I feel guilty about being useless because I can’t get this beautifully battered mech to do anything noteworthy, unless you count violently jumping up walls as noteworthy.
Take a look at the interface above. The pull-a-magig in the top right lets you hover for a few seconds. The massive shiny button makes you jump, and as far as I can tell, the knob on the right adjusts the speed and height of those jumps, but also sometimes makes you rewind? The screen on the left lets you adjust your hover, but maybe also your jump? The second-last widget from the left, which looks like a coffee grinder, shifts your horizontal view, and the arrows on the right side of the screen adjust your vertical view. Unless my useless brain is deceiving me, there are no shortcut keys, so you do all of this manually, by twisting and clicking.
I am simultaneously utterly enchanted and deeply uncertain as to how to make any progress up the winding staircase that seems to be my only means of progress. Oh, clumsy boy. Please reveal your inner workings to me.
I should clarify that none of this is meant as a criticism. I love how esoteric it all is, the place where medieval obtuseness meets futuristic technology that is the mecha experience. Also, if my application to join King Of Games is granted, every video game will be legally required to utilize cutscenes that look like this. I think I would most willingly classify Armored Shell Nightjar as a puzzle game. There’s very little plot, but even beyond the diegetic interface, there’s a bold mechanical poetry to the way this mecha works, clearly not designed for frontline combat. It feels like a relic even in its day. Cobbled together by some desperate resistance from parts of much sleeker and more powerful mechs from a distant era?
Or maybe the mech actually houses an incredibly advanced autopilot that makes all this UI fiddling unnecessary, and it’s having a great time trolling me. Either way, I’m a fan. It’s a one-sided relationship, sure, but I’ll bear with it.
The armored Lelek is manufactured by Warkus AND Interactive modeI’m eager to delve into both catalogs. Warkus has a particularly tasty selection of dynamic, retro oddities, such as this creature collects An RPG game inspired by Dragon Quest and Monster Rancher, my favorite.
