Analysis of Mother of Many

Mother of Many is composed through dual images, symbols that represent at the same time death and life. The first is our sickle, the tool with which we feed our family and that we used later to cut our sister's neck; The instrument with which we work, but with which we can also protect ourselves from hordes and hordes from different enemies. But the Earth itself, the seeds and the concept of family also mutate again and again before our eyes. The Earth feeds us, but it also punishes us with a curse that asks for blood. The seeds make us stronger, but we got them only in exchange for realizing an infamous act. The family is a desire, but also the source of a conviction of which we can not escape.

The brothers whom we have to "save" at the last launch of Brainwash Gang are impoverished and haunted because of a punishment that is presented as a penance for sins that we never came to glimpse. The imaginary that the study resorts to give packaging to a more than polishing Shooter Roguelike refers us both the tragedies of misery, shortage and death written by Steinbeck, as well as the dark stories of the tradition folk Anglo-Saxon. In his introduction, narrated and illustrated with great delicacy as opposed to his cruel history, we are aimed at vengeful gods, a dangerous puritanism and an evil witch that only appears in the wetlands, that place where we have to sacrifice our sister with The hope that his blood finally purge evil.

The game is structured by cycles. Before going out to realize our brutal committee we will have to plant seeds in a reminder that failure is possible and tomorrow always comes. With the product of the planted in previous days we can prepare a soup that will give us different improvements to the mission; From the possibility of throwing double projectiles to the ability to improve our ability to jump. After working and eating, some tasks that, by repetition, feel like a ritual, we will leave home in procession, guided by the sister who will act as sacrifice.

But something goes wrong.

After asking us to cut her neck, our sister will rise in the air, invoking the thousands of enemies that will lead us to perdition. Mother of Many is an incredibly solid and polished Shooter to be a brief game developed in scarce days and within the framework of a Jam. Although the sensitivity of the mouse is, perhaps, too high (something that can be modified in the options but it affects the rest of the game experience), shoot, jump and move on stage is all a pleasure that, together with your mysterious narrative Minimalist, invites us to advance day after day waiting to break the curse. It is very interesting to navigate for the different effects that we can get to the search for statistics that allow us to play more efficiently. However, everything related to soups and their effects may seem more complicated from the account, some kind of indication in-Game.

The really cruel of Mother of Many is that, as happens in The Witch - a major influences - is built through a whole range of dark and perverse resolutions. "Win" In this context, it goes by killing invocations until ending the life of our innocent sister, to return to an existence of secrets and misery. "Losing" in Brainwash Gang's proposal reboots the cycle of hunger and poverty, which is the true curse that we can not escape. Because the prison here is the earth, and this earth is not cleaned with sweat or tears.