Rad

Double Fine’s understanding of the apocalypse oozes wit and humour

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As we watch Rad’s many protagonists sprout gigantic cobra heads, throw around their own disembodied limbs and parp out a series of spider-legged miniclones, we feel we’re starting to see a pattern to Lee Petty’s work. “I do have perhaps an unhealthy association with body horror – it appeals to us all as we get older!” he laughs. The creator of the rocket-powered-head platformer Headlander is a Cronenberg fan, and the influence can also be felt in his latest game. “For me, it’s maybe the intersection with identity. There’s this strange artifice when you’re playing videogames: you’ve got this character in front of you, and you’re sort of projecting your consciousness onto it. And when the character’s identity is changing, it makes you think about your relationship to that character. I find that fascinating. The part of body horror that’s interesting is really the body awareness part, I think.”

It makes sense, then, for Rad’s heroes to be an infinite gaggle of teenagers figuring out who they are in the context of the end of the world. Well, ends – two civilisations have collapsed on the trot, culminating in a bizarrely spliced environment as saturated with colour as it is radioactivity. The power source that makes your hometown liveable is failing: you must venture into The Fallow to find the means of keeping the town alive.

And if puberty wasn’t enough body horror for these poor put-upon kids, they’ve now got the effects of nuclear waste to deal with. With its mutation mechanic, this topdown permadeath brawler has a whiff of Rogue Legacy about it: the star of each run will develop their own kooky physical and behavioural traits, which can both help and hinder their journey.