Originally released last August on PC, and later for mobile, Mike Bithell’s Subsurface Circular has been ported to the Switch by Ant Workshop. The game is fairly short, but priced and paced accordingly. At $6 on the eShop, and doing an excellent job of filling up about two hours of your time, Subsurface Circular is an enjoyable bite-sized gaming experience.
Players take the role of an advanced robot, simply referred to as Tek. You’re a high level robot, programmed as being a detective. You work for humans in Management, as do the other robots that come and go on the subway train car that you ride, in a circle, around the city. The entire game takes place with your character in a sitting position, doing nothing but talking to the passengers on the train who come and go as it stops. This might sound really boring, but the game’s hook is solving a mystery. The first robot passenger you speak with has had a (robot) friend disappear, and it wasn’t the only one. There is something strange going on with robots suddenly disappearing. While you can offer some verbal resistance at first, Tek inevitably takes on the case, going against Management rules.
To get to the bottom of what’s going on, you initiate private conversations with the other robot passengers. The variety of character types that these AI represent is interesting and covers a wide swath of persona, not too unlike a real public transit I suppose. Not only do the robots have differing appearances, they also know different skills and pieces to your mystery. Furthermore, they also need something from you in return typically, but it’s nothing that some clever conversation can’t handle. Dialog choices are presented on screen for you as evident in the screenshots. You can seek an in-game hint should you get stuck, and some puzzles had me punching out a few quick notes or a voice memo, so there’s a bit of depth to these that might surprise you. Random tidbit: you can also play the game with developer commentary, too.
Subsurface Circular is worth your attention. It’s well-priced, and offers a unique and compelling experience from start to finish which you can very reasonably achieve in a single sitting. The game is concise, but leaves little to be desired, making it a solid value.
###
