“Highly stylized 2D puzzle platformer,” once a stronghold of the independent development scene and substantial pass for credibility, has lost some of its clout to time. Braid leaned hard into puzzles, Limbo cracked style wide open, and Super Meat Boy owned its devilish challenge. Subsequent entries seem to pay a subscription to one of three pillars of a late-aughts platforming renaissance. Five years after that impact, what is your game going to do to stand out? How could your game possibly do it better? Games that can’t provide a satisfying answer to those questions aren’t heading down the safest road.
Albert & Otto isn’t short on ideas, but it does have some trouble figuring out which one to hang its hat on. Its presentation—while highly reminiscent of Limbo—may actually be its strongest feature. Flat shaded surfaces alongside a (mostly) monochromatic visual exhibition doesn’t scream originality, but Albert & Otto boasts a certain care and precision uncommon among its peers. Albert is exceptionally well animated; hair barely blows around with every jump, his interactions between environment objects all feel custom fit, and his movement is deliberate and expressive. Even his pet rabbit Otto, in his weird stoicism, evokes a fond set of emotional responses. The biggest surprise actually lies with Albert & Otto’s music, a down tempo dirge of rhythm and misery that sounds like something Portishead would make had its members been conceived fifty years earlier.
All of Albert & Otto’s time and tenderness is in service to…something? Albert & Otto’s visual presentation is meant to facilitate its story, as it deals exclusively in implications.This is interesting, but not when I learn way more from the text blast that accompanied our review code. Albert is in search of his sister, who I have to assume is the ghoulish girl briefly visible in the game’s opening act. Otto is apparently her rabbit (I thought Otto was a dog , which admittedly may say more about my own stupidity than Albert & Otto’s ability to tell a story), and apparently Albert has some dark secret that may cast his heroism in a different light. The last part of this is the only thing that is interesting and, thankfully, also the only part of this story Albert & Otto feels the need to tell.
Albert is kind of a psychopath! He carries around a shotgun that’s sometimes used to defend himself from angry crows and doubles as a puzzle-solving tool. Some of these puzzles involve manipulating sheep, which Albert often drowns, sacrifices, and sets on fire. These sequences are mechanically satisfying, but run counter to the incredible pain yell these sheep produce until they expire. Albert doesn’t seem to give a shit, which is either an oversight by his creator or a considerably interesting character trait (I prefer to go by the latter and view Albert is a displaced and disoriented young man in search of his lost sister).
Albert & Otto walks on an even line between inventive puzzles and traditional platforming. The aforementioned shotgun is used to dispose of impromptu aggressors, but can also cut down ropes, and ricochet objects from higher areas. Otto eventually becomes afflicted with some sort of electricity and telekinesis powers, granting Albert the ability to pick up faraway objects and manipulate them into environmental puzzles. The ability to drop Otto off usually makes for a quick solution, but it robs Albert of telekinesis. These are the kind of puzzles Albert & Otto prefers to deal in.
Other assumed ground remains covered. There are boxes that require pushing, switches that beg to be thrown, weighted-doors that need to be simultaneously resolved, and feats of applied with unfriendly timing windows. The best puzzles in Albert & Otto make you think you’ve got it solved, only to find out that Otto is now perilously stuck on the other side of a barrier. There are maybe a dozen full-on puzzle “rooms” with a preferred order of operations that demands to be unraveled in sequence. You’ll drop a safe on a giant wolf’s head, murder a few sheep, lift in interminable about of weights and doors, and operate all kinds of lifts.
Albert & Otto’s puzzles are rarely a problem. Executing your plan is the intended challenge. This is easier (and appropriate) when the game behaves in expected ways. It’s more difficult and rage inducing when it operates without consistency. Albert is usually contending with the physics engine for supremacy over his environment, which can lead to a disappointing amount of variation in his intended actions. Sometimes this goof will rob you of a few seconds when it sends you back to a checkpoint. This feels normal.
Other times, it’s more frustrating. Two log flume sequences near the end abandon any semblance of checkpoints or fairness and demand absolute precision and perfect luck when contending with its increasingly dire circumstances. There’s a difference between a clean and fair use of mechanics and total abuse of those same mechanics. Extended sequences of intense difficulty are a common problem (Ori and the Blind Forest struggled with this as well), and when a game’s reach exceeds its grasp, it may be time to reel it back in.
While Albert & Otto’s style is often gorgeous, it’s usually not the most clear in its lessons. Sometimes I thought an object was a platform in the foreground, but it was really a piece of environmental decoration in the background. While certain important bits of Albert & Otto are colored, it expressed significant difficulty expressing everything else in black and white. It’s usually worth it, the game has this subdued authoritarian atmosphere when it moves past basic landscapes, but it leaves a majority of Albert & Otto without its own identity. It’s pretty, but any passerby could dismiss it with, “looks like Limbo.”
This brings Albert & Otto back to the questions I posed earlier. How does it stand out, and what does it do differently? Its style isn’t so much its own as it is an offshoot of a well-worn path. It’s a bit creepy and oddly sentimental, but it isn’t making any bold declarations with its implied narrative or visual presentation. Some of Albert & Otto’s puzzles are well crafted, but often beset by sequences of unreliable jumping or overly punitive checkpoints. Albert & Otto finds difficulty moving between the ultra-demanding world of mechanics-focused platformers and the wildly atmospheric dives into subtlety and tension. If one were to question Albert & Otto’s identity, I don’t think it could come up with a satisfying answer.
Some of these problems can be addressed with the notice that The Adventure Begins is the first of four intended episodes of Albert & Otto. At $5, it’s not asking especially much. Whether or not it finds the drive (or time) to craft more of an identity remains a valid concern, but it eases the pressure on the first episode. Albert & Otto is fine and it’s kind of cool, but it absolutely needs to be better on its next go around.
